I’d give Wind and Truth a 2 or a 3, probably, and I’m not thrilled about that. This is the one I really didn’t like in comparison to the others. It’s the book that closes out the first five-book arc of the Stormlight Archive, and I went in wanting it to be the payoff for everything since Rhythm of War. Instead I spent a lot of it frustrated, mainly with what it does to the character I cared about most. There are things I liked, and I’ll get to those, but they’re outweighed for me. Fair warning: this post has spoilers in the second half.
The book covers the ten days before the contest of champions against Odium, whose Shard Taravangian now holds. It’s nearly half a million words, which is bigger than the book before it, and the pressure on it to land was enormous because it’s the end of the first half of the whole Stormlight plan. Dalinar goes into the Spiritual Realm to find out about Honor’s past and the truth about the Recreance. Adolin leads the defence of Azimir. Kaladin travels to Shinovar with Szeth. That’s a big spread of storylines for one book, and it was clear from the start that it was going to be long.
Szeth takes the spotlight
Szeth basically supplants Kaladin, and it feels like Kaladin isn’t really anything anymore. That’s the part I couldn’t get past. Kaladin was my favourite character, and Szeth was the villain, and I don’t know that I really like the new direction. Szeth’s pilgrimage takes centre stage, and while I can see what the book is doing with him, it took the spotlight away from the man I’d been following since the first book. The Szeth we meet here isn’t the Assassin in White of the first book, and the change in him is big.
The storyline takes them to Shinovar, looking for the Herald Ishar and the Honorblades that would put the Oathpact back together. Szeth collects Honorblades from monasteries on the way, and the trip turns into something of a pilgrimage for him. Kaladin goes through the Skybreaker monastery and ends up dueling the Herald Nale, using one of Wit’s stories to get through to him. By the end of it, Szeth speaks his Fifth Ideal and walks away from his Skybreaker oath, choosing to act for himself. Kaladin becomes a Herald, taking Jezrien’s place. That’s the way the book ends his arc, and it isn’t the way I’d have chosen.
Adolin holds Azimir
Adolin gets a good chunk of the book, defending the city of Azimir against Odium’s forces over ten days of escalating battles, and I did like his part of it, since he’s one of the characters who has grown on me the most across the series. He works with the Azish military and ends up becoming friends with the emperor, Yanagawn. At one point he loses his Shardplate to a Thunderclast, and Maya, the spren of his Shardblade, rallies the Deadeyes to help him hold the line. He fights the Fused leader Abidi in a duel on the last day and gets his armour back. It’s ordinary courage, and I think it’s one of the most effective storylines in the book.
It also shows what I wish the rest of the book had done more of. His thread is about holding a line, one day at a time, with people he’s come to care about. It’s specific, and it moves forward on every page. Compared to the long stretches in the Spiritual Realm, it felt a lot more alive. I’d have happily read more of it.
Odium, Jasnah and the wider war
The contest of champions is only part of the war, and the rest of the world keeps fighting while Dalinar and Odium wait. Odium has taken over Taravangian’s body, and he’s good at the politics of it, finding ways around the wording of the contest to take cities from the people defending them. Jasnah sets up the defences in Thaylenah and watches his movements, and she’s the one who spots how he’s working around the rules. Navani goes with Dalinar into the Spiritual Realm, where she acts as an anchor for him. I found the strategic side of it interesting, and there’s a real sense of a global war that’s closing in from all sides.
It’s also where the book felt most like a set of separate stories that I was being asked to keep in my head at once. Jasnah’s war, Adolin’s defence, Shallan’s search, Dalinar’s visions and Kaladin’s trip all run at the same time, and every one of them stops to explain things. I understand why that’s the structure, given that this is meant to close out the arc, but it adds to why the book dragged for me. There’s too much going on at once, and none of it has room to breathe. I kept wanting the book to pick a thread and run with it.
The Recreance, Dalinar and the drag
I did enjoy finding out about the Recreance. It’s been an arc that opened the whole story, and the extra detail helped clear up a lot of questions I’d had for a long time. Shallan and Renarin, along with Rlain, go searching through the Spiritual Realm for Ba-Ado-Mishram, and the Knights’ betrayal turns out to have a more complicated cause than it first appeared. Dalinar and Navani see visions from across the ages too, and the truth about Honor gets uncomfortable. It’s the best part of the book for me, and it does a good job of tying the series’ beginning to where it is now. Answers like that are exactly what I’d been waiting five books for, and I’m glad they finally arrived.
Dalinar’s ending, on the other hand, was simply sad. Spoilers: he gives up what he’s holding rather than win the contest, and it costs him his life as he saves his grandnephew Gavinor. I understand the choice, and it reshapes the series going into the planned time jump, but it wasn’t what I wanted for him. And the book as a whole, while it does answer lots of questions, dragged too much, and there was simply too much fluff overall. Some of those sections in the Spiritual Realm felt undirected to me, and I’d rather it had told me all of this in fewer pages.
Rating: 2 to 3 out of 5. Answering the questions about the Recreance was a good thing, but Szeth taking over from Kaladin, Dalinar’s ending and the amount of padding all worked against it. It’s the one I liked least of the five. I’m still curious where the story goes next, but this wasn’t the ending to the first arc that I was hoping for.