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ConfusedUs posted:That aspect is easily at its most prominent in the first Mistborn trilogy. Torrannor posted:It gets less with his later books. Just ignore the RPG-handbook like first chapter of Way of Kings, should you ever want to read it. It never gets remotely as bad as that afterwards. Only found this thread a few days ago and read the whole thing - and I gotta say, the sheer number of criticisms levelled at Sanderson for the Szeth prologue in TWOK is insane. It made me go back and re-read it a few times to try and see if it was really all that bad...and guys, seriously? The part that explains the mechanics of Lashing is 3 short paragraphs - each about 3-4 sentences long - in the entire chapter. I can see why some people may find it jarring (because presumably Szeth is so used to using Stormlight by now that he wouldn't be consciously thinking about the mechanics while he's trying to complete his mission), but it is nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be. Lester Shy posted:I know rules-based magic is sort of Sanderson's "thing," but does he ever tone it down? I'm about 20% into The Final Empire, and the story and setting are interesting enough, but the constant Pushing and Pulling and burning just make my eyes glaze over, so maybe he's not for me. If this is the first time you're reading Sanderson, it can take a bit of getting used to, especially when you're not familiar with the magic system. Allomancy has a lot of metals involved and they all have different properties so there's a bit of a learning curve when you're reading to instinctively remember what kind of Allomancer can burn what metal for what effects. The earlier you are in a book/series, the more obvious he needs to be with the terminology as a reminder, so readers aren't constantly having to flip to the Ars Arcanum to figure out what is going on. Strumpy posted:Having known rules and limits really stops the 'and a wizard did it' factor. This. I now find myself annoyed when I go back to reading books where there are no well defined rules for the magic system - any time magic makes something happen just makes me go, "oh well of COURSE it did".
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Aug 5, 2016 13:21
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Subvisual Haze posted:And it's bizarrely unnecessary too. All these magic powers will be slowly revealed to us later in the narrative, there's no need to drown the audience in robotic descriptions of vector addition equations from the get go. If the point was just to preview to the audience some of possibilities of your magic system then just vaguely describe the mysterious guy doing some crazy poo poo involving gravity and mopping the floor with some mooks to show how badass he is. In TWOK, there are actually two "prologues" as such - you have the prelude from the POV of Kalak and then you have the prologue from the POV of Szeth. The prelude gives you a promise of an immense scope of the story, millenia of history, the world ending and betrayal. The prologue is not just to preview the possibilities of the magic system (though certainly that is one of the aims) - it sets up three different cultures, does a bunch of foreshadowing and establishes the character of Szeth. broken clock opsec posted:The point for Way of Kings prologue is that it really was over explained. Using Szeths point of view in it at all was a mistake, it should have been from Sadeas if anyone. If you're an experienced reader, then yes, I agree that some sections can feel "over-explained". However - as someone else has already pointed out - individual preference does come in to this quite a bit. As a reader, you learn over time how to analyse text for hidden meanings and so you can keep up with more subtle and nuanced writing - e.g. vague named references to places/people/events in history that hasn't been shown on the page yet. But if you don't normally read a lot of epic fantasy, then this can be quite confusing. In the prologue of a ten book epic, I'd argue it's probably a fair choice to "over-explain" a bit to give new readers some training wheels so that they can get onboard for the ride. Getting the prologue from Sadeas' POV would have lost quite a bit because you wouldn't get to see the excesses of Alethi culture or the apparent contradictions in Parshendi culture/thinking from the perspective of an outsider. You wouldn't get to see the tail end of the feast with a bunch of mysterious characters (Heralds) in juxtaposition with their legends. Sadeas retired from the feast with Gavilar and he's seen running away from Szeth as a decoy - I don't know how much you really would have "seen" from his perspective. Add in some other foreshadowing about how the honor blades work differently to Radiant/shard blades and the black sphere and there's no way you can achieve all of that without using Szeth's perspective. There are other considerations as well. - Szeth is confirmed a viewpoint character in the first five book arc of Stormlight Archive - the reader needs to find his internal conflict intriguing enough so that he's not just immediately dismissed as the bad guy. - Many of the other characters know too much to be POV characters (e.g. Parshendi in attendance, Gavilar, Heralds) and other characters don't know enough (Sadeas, other Alethi elite, a random bystander, etc). At this point, Szeth knows something is up but he doesn't know too much, so his POV is a good choice. - Brandon has confirmed we will eventually see Gavilar's assassination from 5 different perspectives. We've already had 2 (WOR opened with Jasnah). By the time we see the other 3 perspectives, more of the plot will have been revealed so Brandon has more freedom to choose a character who knows more. To sum it up - I just think the amount of bashing Sanderson has copped in this thread is out of proportion to the actual writing. I'm pretty sure he's thought about the pros and cons, and he has good reasons for the choices he made with the prologue. Some of these reasons we won't know about until the whole series is finished. Just like the end of Mistborn was foreshadowed from the first epigraph in the prologue, the end of the whole Stormlight Archive series has been confirmed to be contained somewhere in TWOK and WOR.
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Aug 8, 2016 00:10
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Khizan posted:It is easily the single worst bit of writing he has ever done, and that's saying a lot. Hyperbole aside, I agree this chapter is definitely not one of his better chapters by a long shot. Subvisual Haze posted:"An objective thesis on why a chapter from a pulp fantasy novel is actually good and shouldn't be criticized as much as it is" The fact that this (and a few other things) is what we're debating speaks a lot to the quality of the writing itself. There are a lot of other books where you could make a fair argument for a laundry list of criticisms instead of just a couple. I know other people have accused him of lacking depth in his characterisations, his prose and the way he writes internal monologue (e.g. Vin/Elend/Sazed in Well of Ascension). But until you've read some truly awful writing, like say Elspeth in "The Red Queen" (final instalment in Isobelle Carmody's 7 book Obernewtyn series), I think we're operating with very different baseline benchmarks for terrible info dumping and a tremendously awkward cringeworthy whinge-fest of an excuse for internal monologue. Tahirovic posted:Maybe it would better if he set his magic system in stone in his own notes and then worked from there, gradually exposing the readers to it. I am not sure why he did it so heavy handed with that first chapter, didn't he comment on it in some interview as well? I seem to recall this as well, but couldn't find the source. At any rate, he does already do this - the best example is how the Metallic Arts have evolved over the course of the 7 published Mistborn books, and where he's headed for future books:
But yeah, Sanderson made a choice to approach writing magic as a science rather than some vague "Will and the Word" art form - so hard sci-fi is probably a better comparison in that sense than other fantasy. One of the cons that comes with doing this is he has to define the science of the entire magic system over the series to say, the depth of knowledge that you'd expect a high school graduate to generally know about physics. Then, he has to bring the reader up to speed on that amount of material over the course of the series. Like if you don't already understand Newton's laws of motion (e.g. Mistborn 1 Era), you're probably not going to be able to understand the conservation laws (Mistborn 2 Wax & Wayne Era) and the basic principles of relativity (somewhere in Mistborn 4 Era). There's not a lot of ways to do this and none of them are perfect, so you end up with trade-offs. I could go on and on because I find thinking about this from a writer's perspective fascinating but I get the feeling that this topic is played out. So.... Subvisual Haze posted:Reading back, does anyone else find Ruin's personality a bit off? He keeps giving speeches to protagonists about how the concept of destruction isn't inherently evil, just a natural part of life, but then drives people around the world to be crazy murderers and rants and raves when things don't go his way. He isn't really a dispassionate force of entropy as much as a crazy person. He clearly couldn't have been that way when he helped create the world. The books seem to suggest Ati lost himself to the shard's nature over time, but he doesn't really seem to match that nature either though. I wonder if Ruin only went crazy because of what Preservation proactively did? It could be that Ruin was just making whatever easy arguments there were to make in the moment to try and win them over, rather than seeing those things as truth. He's just following the Intent to bring the entire world to ruin, by whatever means possible. However, I think I'm inclined to agree with you that Ati was not in his right mind by the end. There's a piece of Realmatic Theory floating around that talks about whether a Vessel (person who holds the power of a Shard) is well matched with the Intent of the Shard they hold. Like you've said, over time the Vessels take on the Intent of their Shard and can't act against it. So if you have a basically "good man" like Ati getting stuck with a Shard like Ruin where the Intent runs counter to his beliefs, you end up with massive internal conflict. Hence when Vin (and Secret History: Kelsier) interact with the cognitive aspect of Ruin, they basically get to see Ati who has been all twisted up to suit the Intent of his Shard. I'm not actually sure whether Ati was already like that when Scadrial was created. The creation myth that we get through the first trilogy is that Preservation and Ruin were in conflict until they made their pact - I don't think it specifically says how long. But given what we've seen through Vin and Sazed POVs when they hold the power, this could have been a long time - long enough that the man once known as Ati was completely overtaken by the Intent of Ruin and it was this cognitive aspect that made the bargain with Preservation. (and somehow I've now written  again...it wasn't my intention to write a mini-thesis in each post, but I just find this stuff so drat interesting to discuss that it's hard to shut up about it and I'm just going to shut up now before this gets any longer)
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Aug 8, 2016 13:56
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Subvisual Haze posted:It's my theory that this is how Odium does his mysterious splintering of other shards. He somehow injects part of his shards odious nature into the planet that the other shard is invested into. The existing shard is now tainted by odium and at cross purposes with itself, causing it to kill its current user and shatter into smaller pieces like an autoimmune disorder in human pathology. WOR epigraph letter/Cosmere discussion: Isn't Odium confined to the Rosharan system, as either a direct result or consequence of Honor's actions (which I'm currently assuming to be the Oathpact)?  If so, then according to the chronology there would be a pretty tight timeframe for Rayse to go from killing Aona and Skai and splintering Devotion and Dominion, then hop on over to Scadrial to do whatever - BEFORE Ruin and Preservation made their pact? - and then moving to Roshar and being confined to Braize by the Oathpact and then millenia passing before the first five books in Stormlight Archive...Cosmere/White Sand/Shadows of Self spoilers: I'm personally inclined to think that Trellium is not of Odium - although it is possible with the timeline - but rather Autonomy, particularly when you take in the nature of Bleeder/Paalm's ranting and raving about "freeing" people from Harmony's influence and cutting strings, etc. Though the question then becomes why Bavadin would leave Taldain. I haven't read the unpublished White Sands yet, only Vol 1 of the graphic novel. Hopefully the graphic novel series gets finished faster than Stormlight 3 or The Lost Metal so we can have canon to continue our theorycrafting before things get confirmed... Torrannor posted:Sanderson could have explained how surgebinding works in detail in one of the Szeth interludes, and it would have worked much better, without scaring off potential readers of his (imho) best series. It absolutely was a mistake to do it this way. NeruVolpi posted:My experience is quite the other way around. Can't please 'em all!  I think the other thing that was about as polarising is probably the Lift chapters. The first time I read it I just eye rolled at all the awesome because my immersion, but I know there are people who absolutely adore Lift and thought it was completely appropriate. Now that I know it's there, it doesn't bother me as much as it did at first and there's not actually as many uses of awesome as I initially thought.
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Aug 9, 2016 01:07
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Naerasa, did you like the Wax and Wayne follow ups to Mistborn? You get a few standard characters here and there, but you also get Wayne, MeLaan and Steris who, in combination, are just hilarious. Bands of Mourning spoilers: When Wayne and MeLaan were discovered in the aftermath of the train attack, I snickered. When I got to the part where the entire party arrives at the hotel in New Seran, I burst out laughing. A couple of chapters later, when they make a hurried escape, I completely lost it.
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Aug 11, 2016 12:38
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To be fair, Secret History was really the Easter Egg of all Easter Eggs for hardcore Mistborn Era 1 fans who've been pestering him for more behind the scenes information. One thing Sanderson has said is top of his mind for the future books (especially when Cosmere threads start converging) is that he wants to make sure that you don't have to have read books other than that series (e.g. Stormlight books will stand on their own as a series) to still enjoy the story. I have absolutely no idea how he's going to pull it off because I think it's gonna be an immense challenge, but seeing as how that's like 30 years in the future, I'm sure he'll have plenty of time (and practice) to get there.
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Aug 12, 2016 16:54
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I struggled with it too - I'm not sure how much of it is because I'm not used to reading graphic novels as opposed to prose, the fact I read it on Kindle (iPad/PC for the most part) instead of hard copy or whether it's because it's not well executed.socialsecurity posted:Warbreaker would of made a better graphic novel, its whole thing about colors and them standing out more etc would work well. Wouldn't Warbreaker be a bit too long? Granted, I didn't read the unpublished White Sands, so it could be of comparable length. Though I guess it doesn't matter since the graphic novel version's been split up into three instalments anyway... Edit: Except for the fact that Nightblood is a planned sequel (however tentative), and I would rather get that in prose than graphic novel.
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Aug 22, 2016 08:25
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Don't forget The Emperor's Soul, where Shai gives us an in-world explanation of Realmatic Theory!
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Aug 28, 2016 14:12
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Modest Mouse cover band posted:Sanderson mentioned on reddit that he thinks book 3 of SA will be 450,000 words. To put that into perspective WoR was 400,000 words. For those who don't follow Sanderson on Twitter or elsewhere, here's the Reddit thread referred to by Modest Mouse: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/51u8qu/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_4/ Stormwatch update: Sanderson has updated the progress meter on SA3 by 2% and 3% the past two Tuesdays since he's been back from touring - which didn't include the Szeth flashbacks. Since his goal is to finish the book by late October when he is due to go on his next tour, here's hoping for a massive meter bump this Tuesday! Only a month to go until Arcanum Unbounded...unfortunately since I already have everything except for Edgedancer, I may hold off until I can buy the novella separately...
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Oct 17, 2016 13:16
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Modest Mouse cover band posted:While we're talking about different book series - is the Malazan series a good read? I false started book 1 and I'm debating picking it up again. How hard do you want your brain to work? Malazan is the kind of series that you pick up when you want to give your brain a good workout. It is not a "curl up on the couch with a drink to relax" type of book. The structure of the books are completely atypical as well - there's no gradual introduction to the world, explanation of who characters are, motives behind the different factions, etc. Even when characters are doing inner monologuing, Erikson is careful to represent their thoughts as they really would be - i.e. there's no exposition or reminders of who other characters are, just the character's actual reactions and thoughts to the situation. Basically, you open the book and you're starting in the middle of a story - or in the case of Book I, at the END of a story, which then segues into the next story. He forces you to piece everything together yourself, by picking up hints from dialogue and action. It is the most mentally exhausting fantasy series that I have ever read, and the sheer head hurt I suffered during the process basically made me never want to go back and re-read it. Oh, and just like in history, main characters/factions drop in and drop out of the books all the time and the publication order of the books is not consistent with the actual chronology of the world (see Malazan thread for a diagram - yes, a diagram - of the chronology). The switching around between different groups, geographies and storylines can be quite disorientating because it takes so long to get into the story (since you have to work so hard to piece it together) that when you finally get your head around it, you suddenly get bounced to a different story and it's just like "...who on earth are THESE guys?!?!" The magic system - as already mentioned - is kind of insane and linked to a gigantic pantheon of competing "gods" (who aren't really gods, or at least, not really in that sense, because normal characters can do things to "ascend" and gain powers in weird and non-specific and unpredictable ways). The rules are never described anywhere, though from reading, you can infer that there IS a set of rules, somewhere, but the rules are crazy and contradictory (I could never really work out a cohesive theory). If you like super tragic epic stories where protagonists/anti-heroes get awfulness beyond description dumped on them endlessly (and I mean endlessly) for the sake of staying true to their values/principles, then you will probably enjoy this a lot. I thought after the first few books Erikson was going to run out of horrors but nope, they just keep coming. For example, here is a speech from one of the anti-heroes in the book to the army she commands which is just thoroughly depressing - and the worst part of all is, you don't realise exactly HOW depressing until about 4 books later when all the foreshadowing starts to hit (I've spoilered the parts that give away big plot points, but I've left the parts which are just references to events but don't give away what happens since those won't make sense unless you've read the books): Tavore Paran posted:Malazan wiki: http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Tavore%27s_Speech Eventually the plot threads all kind of converge in the final book which is beyond epic but it's a super long wait for the pay-off. There are some very interesting characters, but for the most part, Erikson is dealing with a cast of tens of thousands and after a while, all of the minor characters just kind of all blur together as 2D cardboard cutouts and I struggled to care about them/tell them apart without their gimmick.
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Nov 4, 2016 05:31
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Going to start reading right now! Fake edit: I had such high hopes and the first sentence is: Edgedancer posted:Lift prepared to be awesome.  Lift annoyed me a lot when I first met her. I hope I change my mind when I finish - if not the preview chapters, then at least the novella...On the other hand, the progress bar on Sanderson's website now reads 93% for Stormlight 3!
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Nov 22, 2016 12:52
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Jorenko posted:Lift is a delight, and her different voice was such a welcome change of pace after so many chapters of the Kakadin self pity train that I can only assume her detractors are joyless sticks-in-the-mud from the era when "awesome" was the latest slang The drat Kids Today were annoying them with. NeruVolpi posted:Lift's tone...reads like fan fiction, trying to impress instead of bringing immersion. You might point to Spook's street slang as something similar, but that felt more organic to the story and it was expressed solely as dialogue, even when we were in Spook's head. It was like we had suddenly shifted narrative styles as well as character viewpoints. I felt like a chapter of The Reckoners somehow landed in the middle of my Stormlight Archive - it was that incongruous.
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Nov 23, 2016 10:11
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That's really what I love about Sanderson - his incredible work ethic. He's got a craftsman's passion for writing and it shows in his consistency to write pretty much every day, as well as all the other things he does to promote his craft (the Writing Excuses podcast, the BYU lectures). Sanderson is also just really good about listening to criticism. Put all those things together, and it's not surprising that Sanderson gotten as good as he has in such a short space of time. Some authors are positively diva-like in their writing habits ("I have to be in MY PRIVATE LIBRARY writing on my ancient DOS machine that's not connected to the internet because PEOPLE WILL TRY TO HACK IN AND STEAL MY UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS and only on certain days when I feel like it and it's not football season and..."), churning out a couple of hundred words every few days or so. Even when Sanderson goes on tour or on holiday, HE WRITES, simply for the joy of it. If the man's got a 12 hour flight scheduled, you could basically toss a coin to see if he ends up writing a novella.
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Dec 9, 2016 23:45
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mossyfisk posted:I'm intrigued to see which order makes Shardplate, and how you deploy the helmet properly. There is a theory that each order is associated with an intelligent emotion spren (e.g. Syl/Pattern) and a nature spren (e.g. windspren/creationspren, whereby the emotion spren provides the Nahel bond and eventually the Shardblade, and when the Radiant is far along enough in their ideals, the nature spren combine to form their Shardplate. Basis of this theory is from all the scenes where we see windspren and creationspren gathering around Kaladin/Shallan in massive numbers when they're doing their thing. It's quite a neat theory to be honest, and makes plenty of fun at guessing what orders other than Windrunners/Lightweavers might have. Though, as we saw at the end of Words of Radiance, Bondsmiths might be completely different since Dalinar was told that the Stormfather wasn't going to be some stupid blade at his beck and call like other spren which means...maybe Bondsmiths get something different since their spren are specific?
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Jan 5, 2017 22:51
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Tunicate posted:Dalinar probably gets Szeth's honorblade. Not too sure on this one since Syl tells Kaladin that it is dangerous which we know from WoB is because the honorblades don't have the safeguards of the Nahel bond so they pretty much let dangerous levels of Investiture rip through the wielder which eventually does Bad Things to your soul. Besides, Dalinar made a pretty big point of giving away his Blade and Plate to signify his transition from warrior to diplomat so for him to get another seems like it would undermine that character growth. Torrannor posted:I'm not even sure that Bondsmiths ever had Shards to begin with. They might have been the leaders of the Knights Radiants during the times the Heralds were in Damnation. I suspect this is closer to the function of the Bondsmiths. Remember Jasnah tells Shallan that for every Radiant (or was it order?) dedicated to combat, there were ~3 others dedicated to scholarship, diplomacy, etc. That might mean you only have 2-3 orders who are more combat focused (e.g. Windrunners/Releasers (a.k.a. Dustbringers) with the rest doing other things.
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Jan 6, 2017 02:01
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Surely it's a way out of the cycle of Desolations or some way of defeating Odium/booting him out of the Rosharan system, rather than just a reprieve? Also, guys, this happened today: https://twitter.com/_StormWatch/status/818978273048797185
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Jan 11, 2017 09:06
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mewse posted:Sorry are we still spoilering Words of Radiance? I'm an idiot Torrannor posted:^^e: I don't know. I usually don't, but some others do. The book is out for more than two years, I thought that meant we could use unmarked spoilers? Or do we still spoiler things for people new to the series who might stumble into the thread? I have been spoilering major plot points from any Sanderson books and Cosmere stuff, only because there are people new to Sanderson joining the thread all the time and this is a general Sanderson thread, not a Stormlight thread... Torrannor posted:Of course it could turn out that he Roshar doesn't have to "crumble and burn" to get what Hoid wants, but that's in no way guaranteed. Although I tend to agree with your sentiment that Hoid won't ultimately turn into a villain, considering the hints that he will be involved in most or all of the Cosmere storylines. But I won't rule out that his efforts will work against Dalinar, Kaladin and co. at some point in Stormlight Archive. The few tidbits we know about Hoid are just tantalising. It is know that Hoid is Sanderson's favorite character and that we won't actually get Hoid's backstory until Dragonsteel or as a main character until Mistborn 4. All we know is that he's been accumulating stockpiles of Investiture and skipping around the Cosmere using Feruchemy to figure out where/when he needs to be. And we will still never, never know what would have happened if Vin had chosen to talk to him... Torrannor posted:I think we are still missing something here. It's not just us, it's everyone. WoB has confirmed that the Heralds don't have a complete understanding of the Oathpact either. They think that what they did in the Prologue of A Way of Kings was enough to break it but it was not.
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Jan 12, 2017 10:12
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But he didn't give us a rundown of that conversation!  Would it have changed what Vin decided to do? I am still blown away after Edgedancer to realise that there was significance to the ugly lizard crab thing because I honestly thought that was just in there for irony/laughs.
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Jan 12, 2017 13:44
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Evil Fluffy posted:That's the implication, though sometimes a cremling is just a cremling. In this specific instance, confirmed by WoB as reported on the 17th Shard.
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Jan 15, 2017 10:43
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Subvisual Haze posted:The way Adolin talks to and personally thanks his dead shardblade before fights can't be an accident. Just like a redemption arc helped Kaladin reform his bond with Sylphrena, I think Adolin will somehow reawaken the dead spren in his shardblade after a long rough patch of his own followed by an act of penance/sacrifice/redemption. I am personally hoping for this, though am not confident since Adolin's blade is supposed to be an Edgedancer blade and since Lift is already our resident Edgedancer POV, that might make it a little difficult. Other factor is that I think we're supposed to get a POV from every Radiant chapter and there is a WoB that there are some other Radiant orders that would accept what Adolin did (Dustbringers/Releasers was one). Evil Fluffy posted:Odium's "champion" Is no one in the camp of Eshonai being forced into that role against her will thanks to Stormform? I mean, that internal screaming...and her poor comet spren...
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Aug 27, 2017 15:20
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Evil Fluffy posted:They can't all be squires to Kaladin mossyfisk posted:Kaladin's Bridge Team are all squires, but I think Lopen is an actual Radiant. I would be interested to know your reasoning on this. Given Kaladin's utter dedication to saving Bridge Four, and what we know about Windrunners Words of Radiance posted:There came also sixteen of the order of Windrunners, and with them a considerable number of squires, and finding in that place the Skybreakers dividing the innocent from the guilty, there ensued a great debate. I came quite easily to the conclusion that ALL of Bridge Four are Kaladin's squires. Especially when you consider the fact that in The Way of Kings, Syl is quite specific in saying she is the only honorspren who has come, in defiance of the ruling honorspren.
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Aug 28, 2017 07:04
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I love the character of Adolin and I hope he gets a really good arc through the whole series! What makes me nervous is that Adolin was never planned to be as big of a character as he has become in Sanderson's original outline (I think I read somewhere Adolin was supposed to get killed off quite early?) except the character worked out much better than planned. Here's a 17th Shard discussion on Adolin that's quite interesting: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/59355-typo-or-new-role-for-adolin/
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Aug 29, 2017 08:28
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Ahhhhh!!! Normally I'd want to binge read but babies are sure demanding. The slow dribble of chapters is actually quite satisfying as I don't have the taunt of unread chapters hanging over my head. Even just the first 3 chapters answers so many questions!seaborgium posted:I might have misinterpreted it then, I thought maybe they were just learning and hadn't gotten to the point of swearing the first ideal yet. It just seemed more likely to me that the spren chooses a person, and they can then become a radiant with training, , not that you're born with the ability. You didn't misinterpret with regards to how it is supposed to work, as that actually is the case...however you are forgetting the fact that Syl has specifically said she is the only honorspren who has come - in defiance of the ruling honorspren AND the Stormfather (remember: "A DAUGHTER DISOBEYS.") Also: Avalerion posted:One other thing is that it's been said that one requirement to be come a radiant is to be "broken", which somehow lets the bond get through and "patch" the hole. So becoming a radiant seems to be a combination of (at least) three factors - living according to the ideals, a spren to bond with being avaliable, and whatever exactly being "broken" means in this context - reminds me of snapping in mistborn though. WoB has confirmed this is intentional for the magic systems on Scadrial and Roshar - there needs to be a "crack" for the Investiture to get in. Leng fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 13:08
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Oh boy, a Cosmere theory discussion. Not too long ago while waiting for the Oathbringer teaser chapters, I binge-read through the compiled WoBs from reddit and there were loads of info there. Here we go. I tried to link to WoBs where I could but I cannot figure out how to link to individual entries in Theoryland instead of the whole interview (sorry! Just search for shardplate on the page)Evil Fluffy posted:is there any indication as to what keeps them from drawing it out of Shardplate Yes, it has to do with how Investiture and Realmatic Theory works in the Cosmere. Basically, Shardplate itself is invested and that makes it more difficult. Sanderson has an explainer of the theory here. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Shardplate: WoB has confirmed there is something going on there. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:I think he's actually exhibiting "Division" surgebinding powers, which are the domain of Skybreakers or Dustbringers. Not sure why Cryptics would be showing themselves to him, though. I'm not convinced. A Shardbearer can do some pretty serious damage all on their own, I don't think they need Division to help that along. The presence of the Cryptics makes me inclined to think he's another potential Lightweaver. Habibi posted:In line when my previous post, it stands to reason that shardplate's insulating effect protects against all types of stormlight leakage, including having it sucked out by another surgebinder. seaborgium posted:But it's also been pointed out that using surgebinding against someone in shardplate is either extremely difficult or impossible. Some sort of shielding to keep stormlight in and prevent others from taking it seems very reasonable. Kalas posted:I think that is because Szeth is powered from his sword, being not a radiant. The armor may interfere with it. It's less a property of Shardplate itself and more of how Investiture works in the Cosmere. The Gardenator posted:We know almost nothing about the powers of the radiants and voidbinders, so it is not beyond reason that shardplate can be drained. There is also that bat thing that stole the stormlight from Lift, so the ability to remove stormlight against the will of another is already in the series. The Gardenator posted:There is also that bat thing that stole the stormlight from Lift, so the ability to remove stormlight against the will of another is already in the series. Habibi posted:Didn't Adolin describe shard plate as having a very close fit? Brandon has confirmed that Shardplate adapts to fit the wearer. Subvisual Haze posted:Sort of like shardblades I'm guessing current shardplate is missing some of its original radiant functionality. Also confirmed by Brandon. There are hints in Dalinar's visions as to how it used to function. Interestingly, the gemstones on Shardplate apparently got added roughly around the same time as gemstones to Shardblades.
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Sep 8, 2017 15:35
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ekeog posted:It'd also explain why it's not the red that I think is always associated with Odium. But in Dalinar's vision of Odium's champion, there was a terrible golden light? Wouldn't rule it out just on that...
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Oct 13, 2017 00:54
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Well if you're looking for something to fill the time before release date, 17th Shard just announced the launch of Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net/ Otherwise...continue on nail biting after how that last set of preview chapters ended!
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Nov 10, 2017 11:56
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M_Gargantua posted:Well now for realzies i have to avoid this thread for a week. Too much risk of mousing over the wrong spoilers. Yep, me too, checking out until I'm done!
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Nov 11, 2017 13:45
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Done! And oh my goodness, I just love how with every book Sanderson just goes further than I expected in answering questions from the previous books. For me, Sanderson has officially ousted GRRM on the epicness scale. I guess this now confirms Eshonai as the flashbacks from a dead character. I also did not expect Elhokar's death just as he was about to finish swearing the First Ideal - that really gutted me good. Now that the urgent frenzy to binge read this has been satisfied, I am really looking forward to going back and doing a re-read of all the Stormlight Archive books again to see what I can pick up from the foreshadowing. Especially since WoB says the end to the whole series is contained in the first two books. Lawlicaust posted:While I'm 90% sure Azure is Vivenna as well, I think there's a small possibility that she is Vivenna or Siri's kid. She had the royal locks so she has to be of that bloodline. However, there are some comments that Azure makes in Shadesmar that don't quite mesh with her being Vivenna. She references learning about ruling from her father and uncle (Susebrone and Vasher?), she references turning down a kingdom, she would need to be several hundred years old to be on Roshar during Stormlight (possible if she has thousands of breaths), and some others I can't remember off the top of my head. On ruling/turning down a kingdom - Vivenna WAS trained to rule - remember all her studies in preparation to be wedded to the God King? Until her father decided to send Siri instead and decided Vivenna would make an amazing queen after him. Then Vivenna freaks out about being useless and displacing her brother who was supposed to be heir and then runs off after Siri. And remember, Sanderson hasn't written Nightblood. At the end of Warbreaker, Vivenna decides to follow Vasher to figure out what Yesteel has been up to and acknowledges her identity as an Awakener. I'm pretty confident she's figured out how to get to the Fifth Heightening. (there's also a WoB somewhere confirming it is Vivenna for sure which I can't find at the moment) Edit - list of other reactions I had: Humans are the REAL Voidbringers - pretty satisfying, typical Sanderson twist on things ARGH, Wit stole Elhokar's spren! Moash, how COULD YOU! Are you going to be Odium's new champion at some point, now that Dalinar has rejected the role? Sja-anat's potential defection - I sure hope Shallan finds some way to double cross the Ghostbloods, binding Sja-anat for them seems like a Very Bad Idea, especially when "morality is an axis that does not concern us" Related to the above - does this mean that there could be some way of uncorrupting Glys? Jasnah as queen - cannot wait to see how this plays out Gavinor - wonder if he's going to be a main character for the back five? He's 3-4 now, so after a 15 year gap, he'll be the same age as Adolin Adolin and Mayalaran - I am so glad!!! I hope they find a way to save all those dead spren So Dalinar can now SUMMON HONOR'S PERPENDICULARITY?! Now Azure/Vivenna's passed on the word about these being ways to travel between worlds, no wonder Stormlight Archive is so important to the overall Cosmere. Also, Dalinar's not a Vessel because Honor's splintered, but...this is kind of unprecedented. He's like...a pseudo Vessel, I guess? Taravangian - you idiot of no faith. Or maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic instead of a pragmatist at heart. But seriously?! On that note, Cultivation, what is your game? She is supposed to be better at seeing the future than Honor, and her bet on Dalinar played out. So WHY did she give Taravangian the boon/curse that she did? I'm inclined to agree with Mrall; the Diagram is deeply flawed...just what is Odium thinking now? I am sad that Kaladin held back from swearing the Fourth Ideal. I wanted to see Sprenplate this book!!! Confirmation by Nale that you can bond both Honorblade and spren! I found the Skybreaker Ideals interesting and I'm guessing Szeth's book is going to be all about his Fourth Ideal. Venli taking up the Willshaper mantle from Eshonai was definitely not what I expected! Leng fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 07:17
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team overhead smash posted:That presumably wasn't Cultivation's doing. I believe it mentions how her appearance to Dalinar is the first in hundreds of years with the Nightwatcher usually doing the actual work You are right...but presumably she left Nightwatcher with some instructions, like how Honor told the Stormfather to take over on creating honorspren, choose a Bondsmith and pass on the visions?
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Nov 17, 2017 08:03
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CharlestheHammer posted:She doesn't have multiple person disorder, she doesn't even pretend to have it. Am I the only one who gave Sanderson a pass on this and just assumed that the Hollywood style depiction wasn't an attempt at a genuine depiction of the real life version but rather an illustration of unintended/dangerous consequences of the magic system (i.e. how Shallan's issues are being enabled by her Lightweaving powers)? Because in reading the Reddit beta AMA and 17th Shard/Sanderson blog posts on the behind the scenes stuff, you get a glimpse at what is a pretty incredible writing process that's quite focused on craft. And there are many examples of how he can write something that he has no experience with/no personal belief in very well (e.g. Jasnah's beliefs). This point was bound to have come up in the alpha, beta and gamma reader comments (just like the love triangle stuff and the "witty" comments). Anyway, Shallan/Veil/Radiant are only possible in the way they are because of Lightweaving. I'm inclined to think that maybe we're seeing Sanderson show why there's a very good reason why Lightweavers make no oaths beyond the first and instead have to speak truths in order to advance. Sounds like it might be necessary for hanging onto reality/sanity, right?
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Dec 11, 2017 12:31
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Ethiser posted:Speaking of Bondsmiths are we to assume the other two bond with some sort of spren version of Cultivation and Odium. Highly likely that the other 2 are Nightwatcher (analogous to Cultivation like how Stormfather is to Honor) and Sibling (unknown - there is a theory that Sibling is some kind of 50/50 godspren of both Honor and Cultivation since the equivalent godspren for Odium are the Unmade and there are 9 of them) . Edit: beaten! That shows me for trying to phone post. Ok well to add: another theory that one of those godspren, most likely the Sibling, is needed to power Urithiru properly, based on one of the gemstone records left behind . The 9th Unmade I think is Dai-howeveritsspelled/the Black Fisher that no one really knows what it can do. Leng fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 21:53
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Skybreakers seem different to other orders in regards to Shardblade access and there is a WoB that says there different orders receive Shardblades at different levels. Remember Helaran professed to be a Skybreaker and after OB I think he was still a hopeful, not a squire, since he didn't use any surges and apparently a dead blade (since the Skybreakers were the only order to not break their oaths) that Amaram took. I think it was a dead blade because live sprenblades survive the death of their Radiant and presumably return to Shadesmar if the Radiant kept their oaths. And so Szeth may not have a sprenblade until he completed the Fourth Ideal of Crusade. I suppose shardplate must come with the Fifth Ideal since Nale is the only one who has mastered that.
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Dec 13, 2017 05:50
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Cicero posted:Sanderson has trouble with humor because he's too drat nice. Did you not find the arrival of Wax et al at the hotel in New Serans hilarious? I had to put the Kindle down a few times because I was laughing so much.
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Dec 15, 2017 12:08
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Glys is a corrupted Truthwatcher spren, not a voidspren so Renarin isn't really a Voidbringer, he just has access to what looks like the Voidbinding version of Illumination.
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Feb 6, 2018 14:32
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The last new fantasy series I read and enjoyed was Wall of Night by Helen Lowe. It's a little GRRM in the worldbuilding with older style prose. The first one (Heir of Night) has noticeably cringeworthy things (e.g. infodump with the subtlety of brick in face, literally one character says to another "I don't understand this thing you're all talking about please tell me the story" and then follows said infodump in italics), the second one (Gathering of the Lost) is significantly better and the third one (Daughter of Blood) I really, really loved. She's apparently working on Book 4 at the moment, no publication date yet.
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May 23, 2018 15:53
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Mornil posted:I keep seeing people here describe Sanderson's magic systems as "videogamey," but I think a better way to describe them would be "alternate science" --- they usually follow strict rules (even if those rules are only partially understood by the characters) and behave in consistent, quantifiable ways. Things like Surgebinding or Allomancy are clearly written to feel like additional laws of physics, and generally interact in sensible ways with real physics concepts (e.g., mass, momentum, etc). This post nails it. I mentally categorize Sanderson in the genre of "hard fantasy" in the same way I think about "hard science fiction" versus general science fiction. I also wasn't bothered by the Szeth prologue or the way the mechanics of allomancy was introduced. In fact, one of the reasons I love reading Sanderson is because he actually gets deep into the mechanics of his magic systems. As a gamer, I am one of those min/maxing stats crunching players obsessed with the game mechanics...and if some NPC pulls a move that isn't consistent with the rest of the game mechanics, it really undermines the whole game because it's unfair. So taking that analogy into a book, the fact that Sanderson's magic systems have well-defined rules, it really enhances the emotional payoff for magical actions. Example from Hero of Ages: Marsh figuring out that Vin's earring is a Hermalurgic spike thanks to Spike's message (Secret History spoiler) which was Kelsier's doing Example from Oathbringer: Dalinar speaking his third Ideal and creating a Perpendicularity just absolutely floored me. It was all at once unexpected but completely in keeping with the rules of Surgebinding, what a payoff! Here's Sanderson talking about his views on creating magic systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M&t=142s (it's from his BYU lectures which if you're interesting in writing is pretty interesting to watch) SynthesisAlpha posted:That is the best part about Sanderson Magic. When Gandalf pulls some wizard poo poo it's meaningless to the reader. He's a wizard, his power is undefined, magic is undefined, so he just sometimes does what he wants. Personally, I thought the Wheel of Time got much much better magic system wise when Sanderson introduced Androl and started messing around with Gateways. And one of the things I really wanted to find out as a post Memory of Light thing was whether anyone was around to remember how Egwene wove the Flame of Tar Valon (the counter weave to balefire).
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Jul 22, 2018 07:58
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Evil Fluffy posted:Would we have access to all of the necessary stuff to make full use of those powers? Because Breath and Feruchemy don't have limits on their power and both also provide access to immortality if so. With enough speed and strength stored up it's possible a Feruchemist could take down a Mistborn that's burning all metals, including atium, because they'd be able to burst everything in a second, if that, to move like The Flash hitting with Superman-level strength with their target just kind of going to pieces or a fine pink mist. Though doing a burst of power that extreme might cause problems for the feruchemist's body too. I hate to be that nerd, but actually there is a limit on Feruchemy, you can't tap everything and get a massive burst in the same way that you can Duraluminium enhance a steelpush (Vin) or atium (Elend): https://wob.coppermind.net/events/9-calamity-philadelphia-signing/#e7602 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1096 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8380 I pick Elsecalling (can I do that? I mean technically it's two powers, Transformation and Transportation, and a resonance between the two). Free food and free travel to wherever, what more could a girl want? Lightweaver would be fun as well.
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Jul 26, 2018 16:04
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Evil Fluffy posted:Could've sworn that a Feruchemist could store time in Atium as well for agelessness but that the Lord Ruler was able to combine Allomancy in to the mix which also gave him his near invincibility since he could also potentially burn away the stored time safely. The attribute you actually store is age, not time, so the Lord Ruler had to spend massive amounts of time as an old dude in order to appear super young in public which is what he was doing in his little Terris room. But even with compounding, there's limits to how long you can use this hack for.
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Jul 28, 2018 14:01
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CharlestheHammer posted:I’m not sure any of y’all have seen DBZ because the fights are nothing alike really. From a choreograph level or a power level. I grew up watching DBZ and I would say Sanderson fight scenes are not DBZ-like, simply because there is actually action happening, instead of two characters talking at each other for like 10 episodes before someone so much as makes a move to attack. insider posted:I'll break down his cosmere books for you: Accurate! Now, if you get into his unpublished stuff, how would you describe Aether of Night? insider posted:I don't think any of the antagonists are mustachioed supervillians as you describe though. Miles Hundredlives in Wax and Wayne is probably the closest you get to this. Sab669 posted:As far as Elhokhar goes, when he started saying the words I was like, "gently caress YEA" and then Moash did Moash things and I was like, "Oh gently caress" but I was over it quickly. It was more of Kaladin's reaction to it all that bothered me Was I the only one who had a big emotional reaction to this? I actually sniffled and had to put the book down for fear of tears. BananaNutkins posted:I think Stormlight has problems that have grown with each book. I'm actually kind of glad that they weren't in inherent peril - there was an awful lot of that in Words of Radiance and I liked that Oathbringer was exploring the aftermath of that. It's book 3 of the first 5 which make a complete arc, so I'm fully expecting a lot of inherent peril in books 4 and 5. Sab669 posted:Shallan's love triangle was 100% the worst part of Oathbringer. I would suggest not lurking the 17th shard discussion board. I honestly thought the whole thing was resolved by the end of Oathbringer but diehard Shalladin fans have a pet theory it's not over. At least the discussion is now quarantined in a single thread that I can avoid.
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Aug 8, 2018 04:54
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Also in BoM Wax has a moment with Harmony where he's see that men, metals, investiture, it's all the same.Jimmy Noskill posted:Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm much more into stories about the heroism of ordinary men and women than stories of demigods kicking rear end. Book 1 Kaladin desperately trying to keep his bridge crew alive from day to day while stuck in a system that's intentionally trying to get them killed was much more compelling to me than Super Saiyan Kaladin and his sidekicks flying around churning through mooks. I think that Sanderson just isn't my cup of tea. I don't think it's Sanderson specific. It's a common trope of the fantasy genre that you have protagonists who start out pretty much as an "ordinary" person and then by the end of the series ends up super powerful as a result of powers/artefacts/other things they gain along their journey. Not every fantasy story is like this but there are a lot that fall into this category.
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Aug 12, 2018 02:02
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