An oath could be broken, but a promise? A promise stood as long as you were still trying. A promise understood that sometimes your best wasn’t enough. A promise cried with you when all went to Damnation. A promise came to help when you could barely stand. Because a promise knew that sometimes, being there was all you could offer.

And so ends the first half of The Stormlight Archive. I first read The Way of Kings in 2014, around when Words of Radiance came out. Since then, I’ve re-read the series again each time (for Oathbringer and Rhythm of War) and each time there are new details that I’d missed or that didn’t make sense until some future reveal in a later book put things together.

It’s quite the series all told, each book at over a 1000 words. Wind and Truth is over 1300. There is just so much worldbuilding–thousands of years of history–magicbuilding–probably the one thing Sanderson is best known for–and characterbuilding–you get a mental illness and you get a mental illness, and you get a mental illness.

Wind and Truth takes that all up to yet another level.

On the worldbuilding scale, we finally get a chance to visit the Spiritual Realm. I’ll admit, I think it’s perhaps the least interesting realm to me–the Cognitive Realm is so much cooler–but it was a piece I think we needed. And a vehicle to actually make use of flashbacks and fill in a lot of the backstory of how Roshar ended up in the mess it is in now. I think we spent a bit more time here than I would have liked, but I won’t argue it wasn’t interesting.

Magicwise (and characterwise), we get Kaladin and Szeth off to collect all the MacGuffins Honorblades and save Sinovar. A lot of people have commented on Kaladin’s “I’m his therapist” character journey, but I think it actually works. He’s a soldier and a healer–and this is a chance for him to grow into something more. They’re just such a weird pairing to see though. Especially once you add in a talking sword and a law obsessed immortal…

“What are you? … are you his spren? His god?”
“No,” Kaladin said. “I’m his therapist.”
“… What is that?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Kaladin admitted.

Otherwise characterwise, I think that my favorite couple this time around were Shallan and Adolin, despite getting quite a bit less–but also more (heh)–together time than one might hope. Shallan is–quite honestly–a mess, but her learning to deal with that and quite literally come to find herself is a fascinating story and I’m glad to see that moving forward. And seeing her grow into a more confident version of herself.

“Murder?” Pattern said, placing another soldier. He’d built a surprisingly tall pyramid. “Oh, you mean murder! Shallan is good at murder. Yes, mmmmm…”
“Pattern,” she said, “please don’t say it that way.”
“She is good,” Pattern corrected himself, “at making people who were once alive and threatening, unalive and unthreatening. Mmmm. Very good at it.”

And Adolin–to be one of the finest swordsmen in a world where gods and immortals have come to battle–well, he’s just such a fun character. His interactions in particular with Yanagawn was great.

And that’s not all! I won’t go into everything–after all, if you’ve already read 4000 pages of this series, you’re going to read it (or not) regardless of what I have to say–but there is just so much to this story.

And oh… the ending.

She didn’t know what terrified her more. The idea of some powerful, all-knowing deity that controlled everything—destroying her free will, yet for some reason still leaving the entire world in so much pain. Or the knowledge that there were beings who ruled the cosmere with immense power—but they had all the foibles, flaws, and limited morality of anyone else.

That… is going to shake things up methinks.

It’s kind of a bummer to realize that we won’t get another Stormlight Archive until (currently) ~2031. But on the other hand, another era of Mistborn! And hey, if I’m feeling Stormlight deficient, there’s always time for another reread.

“I’m a storyteller,” Wit said, with a flip of his fingers. “I have the right to redefine words.”
“That’s stupid.”
“That’s literature.”
“It’s confusing.”
“The more confusing, the better the literature.”
“That might be the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Aha!” Wit said, pointing. “Now you’re getting it.”

Onward!