BLUF: A few months ago, I went on a Brent Weeks kick and read both his Night Angel trilogy and the Lightbringer Saga. Overall, I thought the Lightbringer Saga was an interesting world and a neat concept with a cool magic system but was ultimately let down by a disappointing ending. Note this is going to be a review of 5 long books (roughly 800-1000 pages each) so trying to avoid spoilers is going to be nearly impossible. I will attempt to spoiler tag them but if I miss one then sorry, you were warned.

Let’s talk about the world first as it’s easily the most interesting part of these stories. In the world of the Lightbringer there exists are the haves, and the have nots. Or the magicians and the normal people. Magic in this world works off colors of light and magicians can “draft” (read use) certain color(s) of light for their magic. These colors have different physical (luxan) and metaphysical characteristics.

· Sub Red has the physical characteristics of creating heat, and some can use it to create fire. But it also has the metaphysical characteristic of making people brash, impulsive, and quick to anger.

· Red has the physical characteristic of creating a pyro-jelly which can be ignited to create fire. It also has the metaphysical characters of making people angry.

· Orange has the physical characteristics of creating a lubricating jelly for machinery but has the metaphysical characteristics of creating fear.

· Yellow is the strongest color and can create unbreakable objects. It’s also the most difficult to draft effectively. Being in the middle of the color spectrum it has the metaphysical characteristic of balance.

· Green is strong but flexible. It frequently gets used to create armor and weapons. It has the metaphysical characteristics of making someone impulsive.

· Blue is the is strong but inflexible. Most luxan weapons are made of blue because its solid enough to create weapons but not as difficult to draft as pure yellow. It has the metaphysical characteristics of making people logical and orderly.

· Ultraviolet is the invisible color. Its one of the rarer colors for drafters to have. Documents written in ultraviolet can only be seen by ultraviolet drafters which makes it a perfect color for writing spy messages. It has the metaphysical characteristic of making the user hyper logical.

In addition to these 7 core colors there are 2 “forbidden” colors. They are Qui and Peril. Qui is on the red side of the spectrum higher than and allows people to see through solid objects but also gives you cancer if you use it too much. Peril is on the Ultraviolet side of the spectrum and allows users to see through thin solid objects (clothes, fabric, etc.). It also allows the creation of clouds of Peril which can manipulate people’s nerves or turn the user invisible.

Each drafter can use one (monochrome), two (bichrome), or more than 2 color (polychrome); however, they can only use so much in their entire life. Once they use their limit, referred to as breaking the halo, they go mad and must be killed. However, there is one person in world who has no limit, the Prism. The Prism is a person chosen by God to balance the colors of the world and ensure that one color is not over drafting and causing natural disasters. The Prism is both the emperor of the world and the religious leader but is balanced by “The White” who is the head of the Government.

Years before the books begin there was a War known as the False Prism’s War which decimated the world after two brothers, Gavin and Dasin Guile, both had the power of the Prism. Gavin (the original Prism) won, killing his brother Dasin (the second Prism).

That’s the background of the world and is critical to really understanding the overall story. I’m not going to go through all the plot points of the books, but I will hit on some things as they are important to the review.

The story centers around the Character of Kip, a fat boy from a town near the final batter of the False Prism’s war. Kip is the son of a drug addict prostitute and survives by scavenging left over luxan from the nearby battlefield to sell. During one of these scavenging trips he learns that the Satrap (Governor of his country) is angry that Kip’s town rejected the Satrap as the new King and is planning on razing the town to the ground. At the same time, across the world Gavin (the Prism) learns that he has a son named Kip and heads out with his body guard (and love of his life) out to Kip’s town. Kip learns he can draft Green during his escape and Gavin takes Kip back to the capital to learn to be a drafter. All the while a secret full spectrum poly chrome (someone who can draft every color but not the forbidden one) known as the Color Prince is forming an army to try and overthrow the government and take over the world.

The overarching story follow three main tracks: Kip learning to be a drafter, the war against the Color Prince, and finally discovering Gavin’s secrets.

Kip is an incredibly overpowered main character. Not only is he a full spectrum polychrome but he’s also a superchromat (someone who can see minute differences between colors in the same band, which is only possible for 1/10 men and 1/2 Women), and he can draft the forbidden colors. Normally I would have a problem with the main character being so incredibly overpowered but I think Brent Weeks does a good job balancing Kip here (at least for a while). Kip demonstrated moments of incredible power in each book but he never really masters his powers until about the middle of book 4. This give Kip a long time to grow as a character as he struggles to learn to control his powers. However, by the end of the series the pendulum swings to far in the opposite direction and now Kip has no challenges at all. Any time a new challenge comes up suddenly Kip has a new power to solve that exact problem, to the point where Brent Weeks retcons his own work. A perfect example of this is Peril drafting. In one book it’s discussed that Peril drafters have misshapen eyes and that’s what allows them to see Peril. There’s only a few characters in the story with this ability, until assassins using invisibility cloaks try to kill Kip; then suddenly he can also use peril and can see through the cloaks. Kip is trying to fight the Color Prince’s army and suddenly a massive army surrounds them in the woods and goes against their Satrap to side with Kip. Kip tries to get two opposing factions with centuries of hate and conflict to work together? One short speech and suddenly they’re allies. Kip as a character starts of really interesting because we get to grow and learn about the world through him, but by the end he’s become so powerful that he’s not interesting anymore.

Another story beat that starts off well but ends with a whimper is Gavin’s. The books make it clear that Gavin could wipe the floor with the Color Prince, so Brent Weeks removes Gavin from the story (symbolically). >!Gavin gets stabbed by a magic knife and loses his ability to draft!<. Narratively this is a good idea as it builds up threat in the world because their savior is not able to just swoop in and save them and it forces Gavin through a journey of self-discovery. The issue here comes again at the end. Gavin’s journey takes all of books 3-5 and finally concludes in the last few chapters of book 5 >!with him Deus Ex Machining into the final battle and saving everyone assisted by literal God!< His journey of self-discovery just takes too long to conclude and honestly felt more like Brent Weeks just wanted him to suffer (and suffer he does). Every book just has him suffering more and more to the point where it becomes emotionally draining to read his chapters.

The final story beat which starts off well but ends poorly is the Color Prince’s war. The Color Prince raises an army and starts a grand crusade of brutality. He easily overpowers the government at every turn. The books build up to a climatic final battle between Kip and the Color Price (later called the White King), but it never happens. When >!Gavin returns, and Kip dies the Color Prince throws himself off a cliff demanding his gods give him the power to fly. They don’t and he goes splat on the ground!<. This leads into another narrative that takes place in the book, a war between God and Demons. Which unfortunately ends the way the rest of the stories do. Kip and the Prince of Demons have a one-page fight in which Kip defeats the demon and banishes him from Earth forever. Thousands of pages of build up for both main villains to go down in the span of one page.

This is a major problem with the last book. 3/4ths of the book nothing happens. It’s all just posturing and talking about what they might do. It’s not until the last fourth of the book that anyone starts to do anything. This would be ok if it was a singular book as you don’t want to make the entire book one long fight but when it’s the last book in your 5 book saga you need stuff to happen. You’ve had 4 other books to build up and posture.

From a character perspective I liked almost all the characters even if I didn’t agree with the path Brent took them on. I disagree with where some of the characters ended up because I didn’t feel like there was enough justification to have them in that position. How does a career soldier and straight forward bruiser suddenly become the Government’s Spy Master and then The White? I didn’t feel like there was enough build up to that, we never really see this character demonstrate any aspects of spy craft or even have an interest in it until Brent decides they’re just going to one day. And then that character is suddenly super good at it.

The final complaint I’m going to hit on is “The Spider”. There’s one character known as the Spider who is somewhat of a shadow government. He has a massive network of informants, blackmail, and money. He’s a central part of the story as both an adversary to some of the main characters and an ally to them at the same time. While I enjoyed the role, he played I didn’t enjoy how it was played. He simply knew everything and planned everything. Brent brushes all of it off as basically just “he has a massive information network.” It’s the same excuse JK Rowling used in Harry Potter when she made Dumbledore practically omniscient. It didn’t work in Harry Potter, it doesn’t work in Fantastic Beasts, and it didn’t work here either.

Overall, I liked this saga and enjoyed my time reading it. The books got progressively worse unfortunately where the last book was a crushing disappointment but I would still give the books a read just because of the magic system, character interactions, politics, and overall story. There’s a lot more I could say about the politics of the world, individual character story arcs, and other neat ideas I liked but I’m reaching Reddit’s character limit so I’m going to stop. The books are worth a read, but be prepared to be let down by the anticlimactic ending.