krispymusicflower

[shouldprobablybereading]

Finished the way of kings prime in full, overall it's actually really good. It's much darker than actual stormlight, and especially the last big section is just really tragic. I joke about the kholins dropping like flies and they really do, this is the version of the story where instead of being rescued by skar and drehy gavinor would have been killed in kholinar.

Overall I'd say real twok is better. But there are some things that I think this one did better. It definetly feels like a more cohesive book despite having so many characters in different directions. It really helps that the shallan equivalent has been jasnahs ward for years and lived with the kholins for years as they fought the prime equivalent of the war at the shattered plains. So most of the main important characters know each other some way or another. Compared to real twok which is basically 2-3 separate books in a trenchcoat pretending to be one story.

The political focus is also nice and having jasnah as a main character was delightful, tho he made some improvements in the later version. I really look forward to having her as a main pov in the back 5, should I ever get to read them. "Evil" elhokar was also surprisingly fun to read, really tragic and interesting.

The midsection is imo what really drags it down as you realize pretty quickly that the main sanderlanche event is going to be the battle between the invading forces from jah keved and dalenars forces. Which when you have both jasnah and merin in separate plotlines of trying to warn dalenar and elhokar about the invasion, makes it very annoying every time they take a detour. Jasnah and taln did not need that many chapters to walk across the country and fall in love. I've read the way of kings I already know kaladin is gonna run in with and army and save the day.

Also merin, who is supposedly "kaladin if he had diffrent life experiences". Is just so incredibly boring, I haven't posted about him because I have nothing to say. He and aredor, I was falling asleep during the chapters of them hanging out. Renarin was the saving part of that entire plotline.

The last 10 chapters where easily the best of the entire book, as hopeless and drawn out as that battle was it got so emotional. You know a situation is bad when both jasnah and dalenar have cried out of greif and hopelessness. Very entertaining.