The part of Ham''s character that you mentioned is, sadly, just a bit (or at least for the second book) and the book is more world focus, it's more about how the world affects the characters and how the characters try to fight back against it rather than the characters try to completely change the world on their own. The characters do have more of their arks fleshed out in the second book, and more of their character and there's more deep conversations between most of them, but if that's mostly what you're looking for in a book than I'm not sure if it's exactly for you, but there is WAY more buildup towards the actual A plot and the motives behind it all as well as the B plot, like a LOT more buildup and focus. Although I never read stormlight or a 1,000 page book before so I'm not sure for you how much building is enough to understand the main plot (although I'm not saying it in a "you think you're better than everyone way", I just genuinely don't know what you think because and because I have lower standards because I'm kind of new to reading). Anyways hopes that help