Starting the Journey: Welcome to the Words of Radiance Part 1

 Starting the Journey: Welcome to the Words of Radiance Part 1



Greetings Dear Readers, 

 

Welcome back to the blog where I rant to you all about my love-hate relationship with the one and only Brandon Sanderson, otherwise known as the author of the Cosmere series. If you are new here the Cosmere is a collection of books spanning four series bringing it to a grand total of twenty one books.  Today my tirade of words will be based on The Words of Radiance, the second book in the Stormlight Archives. 

 

For context: The Way of Kings, book one, was mainly set out to introduce the characters, the world, the magic system and the original main plotline. In a nutshell, a country known as Alethkar is warring against the Parshendi, a tribe of mythical human-like creatures, in order to avenge the assassination of Alethi king. The area of warfare is known as the Shattered Plains, and a group of mythical heroes, known as the Knights Radiants, are destined to return to aid in times of distress. 

 

The Words of Radiance takes place shortly after The Way of Kings, however the prelude opens with Jasnah’s experiencing the assassination of her dad the king, seven years previous to the current time. As we know not much of Jasnah and her character feels as if she only exists to describe Shallan’s, her ward, transition and character development. For this reason I hope that her fate will remain what it is as we later find out, death. Bringing her back to life somehow seems anticlimactic and not necessary to the plot so far or any developmental issues. 

 

Other than Jasnah’s murder, not much has happened in Part One. If I had to estimate, the book so far is building up to and establishing future events, therefore I’m categorizing part one as the “semi-rising-climax”. The only unsolved questions being where Urithiru, the lost city, is and its significance as well as the cliffhanger from book one being that the protagonists are the Parshmen and Parshendi. My only hope is that Shallan will not spend the majority of the book traveling from her place of maroon to the Shattered Plains, although the journey may allow her to explore her new powers.

 

On that note, goodbye and I’ll let you, dear reader, know more in the near future.


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