The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings by: Brandon Sanderson

 

The Way of Kings was published twelve years ago at the time of writing this review and thus began Brandon Sanderson’s magnum opus, The Stormlight Archive.  Projected to be ten full length novels, four released at the time of writing with the fifth currently being written all clocking in at over 1,000 pages per installment plus two supplemental novellas.  As such, when reviewing these books it’s going to be impossible to say everything I can about each installment unless these reviews become the length of a novel.  The Way of Kings as a novel has three main plotlines told from four main perspectives, the others coming from the interlude chapters, the prologue, and the epilogue.  Kaladin, a slave on the Shattered Planes where the human Alethi fight the Rosharan Parshendi; Shallan, a would be ward from a lesser house attempting to steal a fabrial (a device some can use to transmute objects into one of ten essences through Soulcasting) from Brightlady Jasnah Kholin; and Dalinar and Adolin Kholin, one of the Alethi Brightlords and his oldest son high in the court of the Alethi king Elokhar investigating an attempt on the king’s life plus navigating the complex court politics are the three prongs of the plot plus chapters dedicated to Kaladin’s past during the six years leading up to the main time period of the novel.  The flashback chapters are something that are used for each installment of The Stormlight Archive adding an extra focus on a particular character or characters for that novel.  As such, his plotline will be discussed last in this review in tandem with the fact that it is also the one with the most focus for The Way of Kings essentially making him the main character.

 

Before diving into the three plotlines, time must be taken to discuss the prologue and its point of view character, Szeth son-son-Vallano Truthless of Shinovar, an assassin who is essentially cursed into killing people despite being a pacifist.  The prologue is the first perspective of the assassination of Gavilar Kholin, the previous king, on the night he was signing a treaty with the Parshendi which could have ended the war.  This sequence will be revisited in subsequent novels from different perspectives but the perspective of Szeth is an interesting one as it is caked in regret and a reluctance to actually kill the king.  Gavilar’s death and final words to Szeth are also integral to what The Way of Kings is about, an attempt to restore the honor to a people who have been waging a horrific war against and enslaving an innocent group of people.  Sanderson’s exploration of a colonial society and how colonialism can replace and degrade other cultures.  While not groundbreaking or anything, there is clearly an attempt to explore it throughout this novel and The Stormlight Archive as a whole.  The prologue is also one of the few times during The Way of Kings where the magic system is used, Szeth is technically one of the Knights Radiant, an ancient order who use Shardplate as armor, Shardblades as weapons, and swear a series of five oaths to gain abilities based on an order they are fit to be an ideal of.  The Way of Kings establishes them in the minds of the reader as unreliable, abandoning the people of Roshar long before the book began and Szeth being introduced as a Radiant (though not revealed to be one until much later in the novel) Sanderson seeds the idea of distrust of the magic system.  This isn’t to say there isn’t magic, there are magic objects and the currency is infused with a magic energy which keeps the book at the level of a high magic system though the true complexities aren’t revealed in this novel, keeping to a basic introduction.

 

The plotline split between Dalinar and Adolin Kholin is perhaps the least involving the magic system and fantasy elements, instead being more focused on the political elements of Elokhar’s court.  Much of the plot is one that Sanderson uses for worldbuilding, exploring the relationships between the brightlords and highprinces to show how much of an outlier Dalinar acts on Roshar.  Sanderson sets up Dalinar as someone who at one point was a warmonger and is clearly holding onto previous trauma, trauma which will be revealed in a later book, but through his experience and the loss of his brother Gavilar is clearly weighing on him.  His two sons, Renarin and Adolin, are clearly the world to him and he is training the both of them to act with genuine honor and care for their men.  Dalinar also, and perhaps most importantly, doesn’t use bridge crews as a genuine act of humanity towards his soldiers.  While he is set up as the one moral highprince, he is still part of a system built on discrimination, the Alethi nobility and upper class all having light eyes while the middle, lower, and slave classes have dark eyes and as such are treated in many cases as subhuman.  He also has been having several visions and believes he may be going insane as they appear often when a storm is coming and much of his discussions with Adolin are about eventually abdicating his position so his son can secure it.  This means that Adolin’s point of view chapters are often exploring the quiet uncertainty of a noble character.  Adolin and Renarin are a perfect pair of siblings in construction of their characters, working as foils of one another with Renarin being less developed since we don’t get anything from his point of view.  Adolin’s uncertainty and paranoia is especially important as he continually points to Sadeas, the highprince Elokhar trusts equally to Dalinar.  Sadeas is cruel and clearly antagonistic, but not an unintelligent man as he makes all of the right choices to further his aims and grabs for power.  Taking power is what this plotline has at its center and it builds to one of the most memorable scenes in The Stormlight Archive thus far when the mystery of who attempted to kill Elokhar by cutting his saddle is revealed which will not be spoiled here.

 

Shallan Davar’s plotline is the shortest of the three plotlines, mainly because it reveals that all three plotlines of The Way of Kings are getting chess pieces on the board for the rest of the series.  While this doesn’t stop Sanderson from developing a character arc for each plotline that has a beginning, middle, and end, it does mean that Shallan’s plotline feels the most separate.  Geographically The Way of Kings primarily takes place on the Shattered Plains where the war with the Parshendi is being fought, except for Shallan’s plot which is in the city of Kharbranth where she seeks to be the ward of Jasnah Kholin to save her family which had a Soulcaster which broke shortly before her father died.  Shallan is also the character who hasn’t quite been developed yet into who she will become, mainly because her mind is so focused on stealing the Soulcaster that while you get to see her interact with others, flirt, and have a genuinely interesting clever personality, you miss a lot of her insecurities here as they are mainly pushed down when the certainty of her task is at hand.  She eventually succeeds in becoming Jasnah’s ward, has this nice relationship with an archivist, and geos to some desperate places to achieve her goal and escape unscathed.  Where she ends the novel is brilliant, especially the last few chapters from her perspective and Jasnah as a character works incredibly well as a foil, but it’s a very simple plotline and is maybe the one thing from The Way of Kings that falls in places.

 

The final plotline takes up most of The Way of Kings, Kaladin Stormblessed is a darkeyes: the son of a surgeon, his father was saving to eventually send him to become a surgeon but due to lighteyes discrimination, mistrust in his town, and a series of unfortunate events he enlists as a soldier under brightlord Meridas Amaram to protect and watch over his drafted younger brother, Tien.  While Kaladin makes a good soldier, he is eventually betrayed and his brother killed in battle, something for which he blames himself for.  Kaladin is branded as a slave and sent to the Shattered Plains where he is a runner on a bridge crew: a group of slaves ‘led’ to carry bridges which armies can fight in battles.  This is a duty that kills most and Kaladin is assigned to Bridge Four, a crew that has the most casualties and the least leadership.  Kaladin’s first instinct after a bridge run is to genuinely end it all, he is at the worst of a major depressive episode and his situation and undergoing trauma is contributing to that outcome.  On Roshar there are creatures called spren which are the essence of objects and concepts like sickness and death which can gather around things and be seen and a windspren which has gained some sort of consciousness called Syl has attached herself to Kaladin and through another genuinely brilliant scene convinces him to attempt to live, not just survive, but live.  He uses his training to slowly bring the rest of Bridge Four into an actual unit and give them a chance for survival.  At every turn his superiors and those outside of the bridge crews do anything in their power to bring him down since he inspires hope.  Sanderson is brilliant at pacing out the small victories to make the defeats feel all the more real and devastating.  Having the other members of Bridge Four slowly come around to Kaladin means that they all get time to develop.  Teft, an older slave who genuinely believe the Radiants will return, and Rock, a Horneater who believes in Kaladin due to sensing his potential as a Radiant and seeing Syl when no one else can.  They are the first two and the most developed, both being great, but the others including Lopen and even Moash deserve mention.

 

Finally, a quick note for Cosmere fans, Hoid is here as King Elokhar’s Wit and is perhaps at his most delightful though I will save discussion on his role for further novels.

 

Overall, The Way of Kings is an utterly brilliant novel.  It’s an easy read with Sanderson’s style with the pace moving throughout the 1,000 pages knowing when to switch plotlines and change characters.  It’s four main protagonists are among Sanderson’s most memorable and this is the book that got me hooked on his work long before reading any of his others giving it a special place in my heart.  All that’s left to say is life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.  9/10.