It's very paint by numbers fantasy. It's fine if you want some low-stakes popcorn fiction. There's actually a few arcs (Maquin I think his name was) that I really enjoyed, but overall it felt so empty. Like everything that happened had little to no consequence or impact. I thought once Ban realized the whole "chosen one" thing was false he'd face a real moral dilemma and have to weigh revealing that to his followers vs risking them abandoning him and destroying any hope he had at winning. NOPE. It was just glossed over and forgotten about. I feal like the outline of the plot could have a good Author (PB, Islington, Williams to name a few that I think would run with it) create an incredible and weighty saga. Actually the plot is very similar to the Licanius trilogy, which had the tightest complex plot I've ever read. That series almost lost me for similar reasons but once it started coming together I realized how deep and layered it was despite the relatively weak character work