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Most unsettling thing about this book so far is its confirmation that Hoid has been unable, rather than (just) unwilling, to resort to violence this whole time

The Shinovar arc seems designed to show that there are no absolute truths and that neither Windrunners nor Skybreakers can or should claim ultimate moral authority, but what it has actually done is identify that there actually is an order of Knights Radiant who ARE the moral backbone/last bastion of integrity, and that is the Willshapers

5 books of build-up and THAT was the Recreance reveal? what are we doing here Brandon

It's actually a beautiful kind of full-circle moment that the only characters I find truly compelling in this one are Jasnah and Adolin Kholin

“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents” the mark of a truly great book is when each chapter begins with 1-2 pages of freestyle philosophizing from the author, even (especially) when it is only tangentially related to the plot

Maximizing the number of characters getting this much-needed exposition is an admirable goal, but we have got to be way past the point of diminishing returns for how many can realistically fit into one vision. At this point it's just kind of a collaborative historical reenactment project

"We've found my father. He's in a vision."
"Good," Pattern said. "Excellent, even! Let's go murder some folks!"

Many excellent explorations of the complexities of the Radiant bond and spren relationships with humanity in this one, but What if the most special least stable girl in the world had to teach a sentient QR code how to be a person? truly has never had a bad track

If Brandon isn't going to take this book seriously (no!!! long overdue Shallan/Jasnah confrontation even after Shallan's Ghostbloods bombshell) then I don't have to either. at this point we might as well just hard pivot to focusing on the sitcom hijinks of Wit and Lift impersonating Dalinar and Navani and to be honest that might even be what's happening here

The Ghostbloods are so fun because Yes they are a shadowy pan-cosmere organization operating at an unprecedented scale Yes they are objectively a force of destruction in this story that now has access to terrifying new technology Yes they are fundamentally and lethally opposed to all the main characters but ☝️ I unfortunately read THE FINAL EMPIRE at an age too formative to not be on Thaidakar's side forever Sorry

The shower scene is crazy yes but from a Branderson perspective the (by far) wilder reveal of this section is the confirmation of casual premarital!!! Jasnah/Hoid. all part of some particularly heavy-handed hinting that Hoid is the endgame big bad of the entire Cosmere I'm sure

Murderbot taking potshots at anyone weird/stupid enough to be sneaking around this allegedly abandoned space station for any purpose other than raiding ❤️ the call is coming from inside the house

"Leave, then. But we started this. You and I. Radiants before anyone else."
"Except Jasnah. And maybe Lift. And perhaps-"
"/You and I/ were there at the start. We meet at the end."

You hate to see it but this is not how a goodbye between two people who are going to be okay plays out, not even when they happen to be the most special boy and girl in the world

Dalinar has 10 days to come up with a way to kill god ✅ Shallan needs to figure out what humanity’s crimes even were before she can begin atoning for them ✅ Kaladin-Szeth-Nightblood roadtrip to get this new therapy thing up and running ✅ okay Now can we get some listeners or Fused in here?

Non-zero chance that STORMLIGHT 6 will kick off with the Gavilar assassination from Kelsier's POV 🙏 prayer circle starts now

Truly staggering amounts of TV show consumption -> spilling deepest darkest secrets -> makeover! -> they are literally just having a sleepover ❤️

90% of readers of this quit right before they launch three!!! distinct, and to date entirely unconnected, storylines hinging on completely irresponsible and deeply unethical practices of medical science

I don't say this lightly but genuinely what is going on

Not this book’s fault, but all the references to Houses and Numbers and The Dead is soo THE LOCKED TOMB and let’s just say that’s not a parallel in which PIRANESI comes out favorably. most interesting thing so far is the journey from This is Palamedes Sextus (sans Cam) in GIDEON -> This is Palamedes Sextus (ouch!) in HARROW -> This was Gideon the First (+ Pyrrha Dve) for 10 000 years

This book is kind of like if Palamedes Sextus was the narrator of Gideon the Ninth. now where is Piranesi's mad dog of a cavalier to call him out on his quite frankly irresponsible mix of chronological notation styles

"Who are all these folk?"
"My people," Edmure answered. "They were afraid."

Ned Stark this, Stannis Baratheon that, THIS is what a lord and/or king that caresTM looks like

Littlefinger stroked the neat spike of his beard. "Lysa has woes of her own. Clansmen raiding out of the Mountains of the Moon, in greater numbers than ever before...and better armed."
"Distressing," said Tyrion Lannister, who had armed them.

I forgot how much of this book is just George's 3 favorite schemers trying to out-diva each other. Who Wants To Be King's Landing's Next Top Machiavelli

"My daughter has taken an axe for a lover. I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore"

#gaydaughter or #thotson?

"Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible and red"

In three books there will be the utterly bone-chilling revelation that Melisandre is neither as ruthless nor (even more terrifying) as omnipotent as everyone, herself included, thinks she should be, but until that point there are few things I love more than the entirely one-sided beef all these honorable POVs have with her

TOURNEY AT HARRENHAL coming to the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE this summer, I never lose

Wow I should really have been taking notes on this one

Jay Ackroyd’s fakeout Jetboy self-sacrifice moment genuinely scariest 2 pages of this whole series. please don’t take the GRRM character writing & leave me here with post-Zelazny-era-cardboard-cutout Croyd, same Hartmann character beat on infinite loop, and impending Zoe/Billy Ray endgame. he can’t die yet, I still have Mark Meadows POVs to power through

Literally impossible to do an impactful reveal or plot twist in this series atp because every 10 pages or so it will be like 'Croyd's back and he's an [cue whichever writer has current custody spinning the Croyd roulette wheel] eight-legged camel now!' and the reaction of any given character is invariably just UGH he is always doing this 🙄

It wouldn't be WILD CARDS if they weren't all tied up in random B-plots, but this is the first book where it's not really clear to me how any of these characters are moving the main plot forward

Hey what the fuck

Carefully moderating how much of this I read in one sitting but I just had an epiphany about what Kostya probably is and probably has been all this time & now I doubt I'll be able to do anything until I've finished this and then also SCHOOL OF SHARDS. personhood is not the only concept that needs a broader definition when it comes to the Kozhennikovs