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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9611346" data-attributes="member: 85870">(I appreciate you saying this. If you dig far enough back in the ratings of Wise Man's Fear on Amazon, like, ALL the way back to March 2011, I was one of the first and earliest 2-out-of-5 star ratings of WMF basically saying exactly what you're saying. I loved Name of the Wind and utterly despised Wise Man's Fear and basically will never read another written word of Rothfuss's ever again. But you'd never know what you're saying is true based on the 70,000 5-star ratings of the book on Amazon.) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />(*Edit: Which, admittedly, does somewhat undercut my argument that crowdsourced ratings are indicative of quality. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> But as I've said all along, tastes vary, and there's always exceptions. I often follow [USER=7033334]@Cordwainer Fish[/USER] 's example by reading the 1-star and 2-star reviews of media first to get an idea of what's likely to be problematic, and then decide if those things are likely to run against my sensibilities.)Yeah, I guess my basic disagreement is the notion of Vaelin Al Sorna being "ridiculously overpowered."He is shown to be extremely competent in combat, but that extraordinary competence doesn't generally spill over into some magical "get out of jail free" at every turn. Whatever power he has is generally shown to be limited to himself. The book shows over and over again that being competent isn't enough to protect his friends or brothers of the Order, it isn't enough to prevent people he cares about getting hurt, it isn't enough to stop terrible, tragic decisions being made that he can't control.Again, tastes will vary. I've just never viewed the protagonist of Blood Song in any way as being a Gary Stu. If Vaelin Al-Sorna is a Gary Stu, then so is Aragorn, as their basic "portfolio of powers" are the same (extreme fighting competence, outstanding leadership, and a "guiding light" sensibility that leads them to choose unusual paths).*Edit -- As compared to Kvothe the Deus Ex Machina we see in Wise Man's Fear, who basically tames the wild fae sex goddess for ... reasons? Like, there's literally zero reason for 17-year-old Kvothe to manage this feat, yet somehow he does because he's ... just ... that ... awesome ... no ... other ... explanation ... needed.</blockquote>

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