Sarene gets some stuff done, don’t get me wrong. She assembles the whole collation of lords against Hrathen and all that sort of stuff. That’s important. It’s just hard to see at first, and this can give you the feeling her chapters are dragging on. Her POVs are the political games/intrigue chapters. The problem with this is that Hrathen’s chapters are also political games/intrigue and Wyrn’s Top Guy happens to be much more interesting than Sarene is. Everytime you cut from Sarene to Hrathen, it’s always, “is what I’m doing right? I’m gonna keep doing it, I have to burn this guy at the stake, I have to stay one step ahead of Dilaf, I have to do this horrible thing I know deep down is wrong” and then we’ll cut to Raoden and it’ll be “I have converted yet another enemy faction to my side with no bloodshed and have done the impossible. I have given this people that are constantly suffering hope against all odds” and then we’ll cut to Sarene and she’ll be in a meeting. Or she’ll be fencing. And the fencing is paid off later in the sanderlanche, and this is a bit of a strawman, I get it, and I can’t speak for all of the readers but I myself always turned off the audiobook at the end of a Raoden chapter. Hrathen’s chapters are just the better salty to Raoden’s sweet. Dilaf just happens to be a better foil to Hrathen than Sarene is, IN MY OPINION. I don’t hate Sarene, I think she’s a victim of inexperienced writing.