Reading The Way of Kings: Anything Reasonable
The Stormlight Archive Read-Through
Hello and welcome to my chapter by chapter re read of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. This book begins with a prelude so I have decided to kick things off from here.
Below you will find a brief description of what happens in the chapter, followed by my own thoughts
P.S. For chapter summaries, I am going to be using the Fandom website as well as Coppermind as resources. I will be providing links. Please visit the website if you want more information and resources.
Please use this link to navigate my blog posts about this series.
Chapter Summary
Shallan is en route to the Palanaeum, hoping to convince Jasnah that she is worthy of being her ward. It is critical that she finds a way to do so. Without her father, her family can no longer Soulcast its own wealth or manipulate others into doing as they want.
She is allowed to wait for Jasnah in her reading alcove, though she is denied access to the Palanaeum itself. While she waits, she writes a letter to Jasnah containing arguments for her reconsideration, then begins to sketch several scenes from the past few hours. She is interrupted by an ardent who introduces himself as Kabsal, and who asks her to wait for Jasnah, while highly praising her sketches, insisting she allow him to lacquer the one of Jasnah Soulcasting the rescue the king of Kharbranth's granddaughter.
Shallan guesses that Kabsal is trying to convert Jasnah to Vorinism. He says it would be a shame to not at least attempt such a challenge. He leaves, asking her to let Jasnah know that he had come by to speak with her. She agrees, and begins to lacquer her remaining drawings. She realizes that she has been there for quite some time, and begins to gather her things, leaving the letter for Jasnah. However, before she can leave, Jasnah appears in the doorway.
My Thoughts
I’ve always found it interesting to try and guess what parts of the author’s own experience is laid out in their book. While it is true that a lot of writers write what they know, I can’t help but feel like a lot of fictional literature is based on self insertion from the author’s standpoint.
Now of course, that can get annoying if the protagonist or hero of a story looks and talks exactly like the author does. There’s a level of egoism and pretentiousness that comes from that. But I have noticed that in a lot of the books I read, there’s always a character who loves reading books.
Kvothe from the kingkiller chronicles is the best example I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure you might have come across this as well.
Shallan seems to be that kind of character in this book and I won’t pretend that I did not enjoy the romanticism of painting displayed in this chapter. It was almost magical and I mean that literally because I assume that there is a magic system involved in her Memory.
I noticed that she had an elaborate blink when we were first introduced to her, as she was taking in the image of Kharbranth. So now I wonder if this is just something she can do or whether other people from her country can too. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.
I’m not sure what to make of the laying out of Shallan’s motivations in this chapter. We did get large chunks of her backstory and her primary motivations all in a few paragraphs and I can’t decide whether I prefer it that way or have it laid out to me slowly over the course of multiple chapters. I don’t know.
But now that the author has laid all of it out, I am one hundred percent sure this plan of hers is never going to work out. Heist movie plot mechanics.
I love good dialogue scenes, which means I love this new character, Brother Kabsal (I think that’s how you spell it). I am sure that there is more to him than what meets the eye, but so far I think this scene was really good.
It reminds me a bit of the first Mistborn book where Vin meets the rich noble boy whose name I can’t remember at a ball. I really didn’t like that scene because I found the dialogue to be cringe and didn’t understand why Vin was acting the way she was. This scene was much better. It almost felt like a joust despite being friendly and there was some world-building conveyed here as well.
Onwards.