"Oathbringer" Book Review

Oathbringer , Book 3 of The Stormlight Archive , by Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.
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Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together―and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past―even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

No spoilers!
(Except for Stormlight book 2)

I have to wait a whole fucking year for book four. God dammit.

If you're new to The Stormlight Archive , allow me to direct your attention to the review I did for the first book, The Way of Kings , as well as the second book Words of Radiance and the novella Edgedancer . It's a really great series, so check them out if you haven't already.

While Oathbringer stays true to the Archive's overall positive, fantasy adventure genre, it definitely has some darker moments. Permanent character deaths lie ahead. There are even some grimdark moments, which come up when we dig into Dalinar's past, and...yeesh. No wonder the guy used to drink.

One of the hallmarks of grimdark is the moral ambiguity of the characters, and that is definitely a theme in this book. Dalinar gets his magically-erased memories back and remembers the horrible things he did as a soldier that led him to drink. Humans in general and Kaladin in particular have to come to terms with the fact that they have horribly used and abused an entire race of people who are now justifiably fighting back. Venli--one of the Parshendi (Eshonai's sister and the one who helped create the Everstorm)--slowly realizes her mistake in bringing back the old gods and has to decide whether to remain complicit or fight against the evil deity Odium. By the way Odium thinks he himself is a good guy , and that he's helping the world and humanity by destroying it. Similar to King Taravangian, who's working hard to undermine Dalinar's anti-Odium coalition, "for the good of Roshar." Also we see the mess of a human Szeth--the Assassin in White--who's trying to figure out his own life and find redemption, just like his new teacher, the ancient Herald Nin, who's been murdering petty criminals and all other Knights Radiant in a futile attempt to stop the Desolation.

It's a mess. A glorious, awesome mess.

It's not just the line between good and evil that's getting blurred, either. The strict gender norms that have dominated the first two books are starting to break down as a handful of women reject traditional femininity and join Bridge Four; there is, in fact, a major character halfway through the book who is a female military commander. Sanderson throws in a mention of a couple of men in a relationship together (not enough for me to consider this series LGBT friendly, yet, but it's getting there). And Shallan's sanity starts to break down as she hides behind various personalities she's created, namely Veil and Radiant.

I mentioned this in my Edgedancer review , but it bears repeating: Sanderson is getting really good at talking about mental and emotional health with his characters. Kaladin still has his depression. Shallan is basically developing dissociative identity disorder as a way to cope with her own crippling self-worth and abusive history. Teft and Dalinar are both recovering addicts and both of them, at some point in this book, fall off the wagon as their mental health deteriorates.

On a brighter note, Jasnah and all her bitch-ass awesomeness comes back. We also get more development of the Kaladin and Adolin bromance.

That last one was put in jeopardy for a short time, which I was not happy about. It wasn't threatened because of plot development, or Kaladin's prejudice against lighteyes, or even Adolin's "accidentally a murderer" deal--although, since it was Sadeas he murdered, that probably wouldn't have been much of a threat.

No, this beautiful bromance was jeopardized by the most heinous of villains: a love triangle.

I don't like love triangles on a good day. Not only do I find them unrealistic and tropey as all hell, but it's usually a hallmark of lazy writing, and Sanderon is not a lazy writer. Triangles are a way for the writer to whip up some easy drama, a way to ensure that there's tension between certain characters.

But...I mean...there's already drama and tension. So much of it! Adolin's guilt over killing Sadeas, Shallan's deteriorating mental health, Kaladin's depression and own feelings about the parshmen, and, oh yeah, the freaking Desolation happening around them.

There's plenty of drama. Why are we resorting to cheap gimmicks for more?

Taking out the love triangle would have given Sanderson more time to focus on other aspects of the story, like Navani (Jasnah and Elhokar's mom, Dalinar's current wife). Sure, we the audience know that Jasnah is alive. But she doesn't know that. She was told her kid was killed just a few weeks ago. And what does Navani do?

Get married. Help with the politics. Mention it once while keeping the tears at bay.

Bullshit. That is Navani's dead child . And we don't see her grieve at all. Matter of fact, her grief over Dalinar's fake-out death at the end of The Way of Kings ​is way more realistic and moving than her reaction of Jasnah's fake-out death. After the denial she went through in book two when Shallan first brought her the news, I expected to see other stages of grief: sorrow, anger, and finally acceptance. In fact, Ialai--Sadeas's widow--gets to show her grief for her asshole husband far more convincingly than Navani for Jasnah. And she's the bad guy . I feel more sympathetic for that petty bitch than I ever do for Navani, and that's not good writing.

As a matter of fact, none of the good guys seem to grieve for other good guys who die. There's a part where Szeth--you remember the Assassin in White, the one who killed the previous king, Dalinar's brother --has to work together with Dalinar. And Dalinar...doesn't even mention the assassinations. At all. Even when all the fighting is over and they have a moment to address the huge elephant in the room, nobody says anything. And that's ridiculous! That has huge personal and political ramifications that even someone like Dalinar should be able to see.

This makes no sense because, as previously stated, Sanderson is not a lazy writer. Nor is he a bad one. But sometimes, he focuses on the wrong things when it comes to his characters and their narrative arcs, especially when it comes to non-main characters like Navani. Which is a shame, because she's a great character, and the way Sanderson has been writing her so far hasn't been doing her justice.

The good news is there's still plenty of time to address those issues. There are several more books planned in this series. So the next time a character close to a major character dies, they'll hopefully actually grieve instead of being a robot about it.

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