I made a chart a while ago from the stats that Leder gives for each faction, so I updated it with the stuff from the new expansion.
Before I get yelled at a million more times, I know the low/moderate/high stuff is off. This is what Leder prints on their boards.
Each of the first five protagonists — those being Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Venli, and Szeth, excluding characters like Adolin and Navani who didn’t get flashback books — have some pretty obvious character foils, or dark inversions, in their villains.
Kaladin has Amaram (the dishonorable Brightlord) and Moash (Odium’s Herald).
Shallan has the other Shallans and Mraize.
Dalinar has Sadeas and Taravangian
Venli has Eshonai and Raboniel, although hers are the biggest stretch
Szeth has Nale, the mad herald who proclaims justice while enacting brutality.
That being said, here are my theories for who the foils for the new main characters will be.
Lift: I could see Zahel being an interesting ideological opposite to Lift. We know the two will be training together, and Lift has experience with (Warbreaker) >!Nightblood!< so I could see Brando doing something with that.
Renarin: I don’t think we’ve been introduced to Renarin’s main foil yet. I say this because I have a feeling it’ll be another Enlightened Radiant, and there just aren’t enough of those in the series yet.
Ash: Lowkey Chana and Ash would be good foils. Chana is the Dustbringer Herald currently, but hers daughter is a Lightweaver. Ash is the patron of Lightweavers, but is slated to become the Dustbringer flashback character. I don’t know if this would be Chana turning fully evil, but if she does it’d probably be something about Kaladin (her new therapist) literally going out of his way to murder Helaran.
Taln: This one’s a bit of a long shot, but hear me out: The Blackthorn. Both it and Taln are masters in combat and cognitive beings (Taln is a cognitive shadow and the Blackthorn is a spren), and both are warped by their interactions with Shards. Taln’s soul is warped from trying to kill Cultivation, and the Blackthorn basically got a highlight reel of Dalinar’s greatest war crime hits in WaT, only to end up in service of Retribution.
Jasnah: This is the one I’m most confident about, and it’s honestly the reason I made this post. I think that Battar is turning evil, and will be Jasnah’s Moash. Both of them are incredibly powerful Elsecallers who work for the greater good, only Jasnah works for the “greater good“ of everyone and Battar works for the “greater good“ of her bank account, as highlighted in her conversation with Odium in one of the interludes.
I love this series. It contains my favorite book of all time (Oathbringer) and is probably my favorite ongoing saga. However, I also like to try to keep my love for things less black and white, and look at some not-so-great parts of these books we all love.
The Way of Kings: a very solid entry point to SLA, but my least favorite part about TWoK is the way the book is structured. This isn’t a problem for Kaladin’s plot line since he has chapters in all five parts, but Shallan and Dalinar/Adolin both felt like their stories would get some good momentum and then suddenly we would skip away from them for 200 pages. This is also felt a bit with Szeth, but I think his chapters are more well spaced, there’s just much fewer of them. This problem is especially glaring on a reread.
Words of Radiance: easily my least favorite part of this book was Syl’s “death”. It completely killed the momentum of Kaladin’s plot line for me. I really, really, really hate sad boi Kaladin without a light at the end of the tunnel. Even in RoW where his powers are mostly taken away and he’s doing magic Diehard in Urithiru, it felt like there was some feasible way to beat Raboniel and the Pursuer. Idk what it was about Syl almost dying but really gave me the wrong vibes. It felt more ASOIAF coded where Kaladin made a morally grey choice and was going to be suffering the consequences for the rest of the series.
Oathbringer: this is my favorite entry in the series, but the main problem I had was pacing. The journey through Shademar after the fall of Kholinar was unbearably slow, and Dalinar’s flashbacks were also pretty boring for me until he starts torching Evi. The ending is obviously worth it, but the middle third was a drag. Also the stuff with Renarin at the end was really confusing, but I’m pretty sure that was intentional.
Rhythm of War: I didn’t hate the techy science stuff as much as some people do, but I really didn’t love the Shadesmar plot line. It felt too obvious that Adolin was just right the entire time, and the Honorspren were pulling a Nale. I did like the Pattern spy plot though.
Wind and Truth: I didn’t hate the prose in WaT (I have yet to reread it though so this is subject to heavy change). My biggest complaint was how the book was marketed, and the stretch in between WaT and book 6. Going into WaT, I expected Odium to be locked away following arc 1, where arc 2 would introduce new villains (I thought it would be the Ghostbloods. Little did I know they’re getting a trilogy about them soon). I knew Odium wasn’t going to be fully defeated by nature of the contract, but I thought he would break free in the final MB trilogy or something.
Novellas/short stories: not much to say but I didn’t really like the whole “cursed island” thing in Dawnshard. Like, you’re in an epic fantasy novel, of course you should send the main characters to the island that no one has come back from, idc what Rysn’s crew says.
Is there any good porn with trans women that’s not obviously targeted at men? I use Reddit for most of my fun time needs and all the posts are just like “be honest would you date a trans woman” like OF COURSE I FUCKING WOULD I AM ONE
I don’t want to go searching for fear of phone viruses n shit so actual websites would be helpful
Idc if it’s tfem/tfem or tfem/cisfem
Edit: bro why is my top post e v e r just me being horny and wanting naked tgirls 😭🙏💀
So a while back, Brando was asked what Teft’s fourth Ideal would’ve been, since he won’t be swearing it any time soon. He ended up RAFOing it, but said to give him some more time to think about it. I have a theory, although the real version is obviously whatever Brando decides is best for the story for any character swearing an Ideal.
Kaladin’s fourth Ideal is all about forgiving himself for his failures, and Teft‘s third Ideal is about protecting himself even when he doesn’t want to (we don’t see his second Ideal afaik). Given all of this, I think Teft’s fourth Ideal would’ve been something along the lines of “I will forgive myself for my mistakes in order to protect those who I can”
Teft’s 3rd & Kaladin’s 4th for reference
Teft’s 3rd Ideal: “I will protect those I hate. Even...even if the one I hate most is... myself”
Kaladin‘s 4th Ideal: “I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!”