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subx posted:Going to a book signing tonight, and I need something interesting for Sanderson to sign my book with. Help goons! Everyone always asks about powerlevels and fights. But who will win a rap battle?
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Mar 18, 2014 19:47
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treeboy posted:you're reaching really far here and are completely off base. With Odium's tendencies, and one of the Diagram chapter prologues, it sounds like the Parshendi weren't necessarily that way from the start, or created by Odium as servants. The prologue referring to the Unmade sounds a lot like it's referring to the Parshendi. Odium's thing seems to be "shattering" stuff into pieces. The Parshendi are incomplete, in that they don't innately have souls, or whatever you want to call most things' spiritual center. They have to bond a spren to be complete, and they mention that they felt betrayed by the spren for bonding with humans when the Parshendi are their original bff's. Spren are seemingly unique to the Roshar/Honor/Cultivation/Odium part of the Cosmere, and they aren't present in places like Shinovar, where the world isn't a rocky, stormswept, crustacean-ridden hellscape. What I'm speculating at, is that the Parshendi were shattered into physical, cognitive, and spiritual pieces by Odium. Roshar itself seems to be beaten up pretty badly, too. So maybe the spren (including voidspren) are the independent cognitive and spiritual pieces of the other stuff that Odium broke. It's held true for Honor, at least.
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Mar 18, 2014 19:57
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I just realized that if they made a game set in the Stormlight Archive universe, I would be the player who progresses through the plot at lightning speed until I got to the giant island/turtle spren creatures. I'd spend the rest of the time chilling there because it seems pretty sweet.
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Mar 18, 2014 20:00
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I got book 2 of Stormlight Archives and realized I don't remember much of the first book at all, is there a decently short summary floating around before I just go to wikipedia?
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Mar 18, 2014 20:08
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IRQ posted:I got book 2 of Stormlight Archives and realized I don't remember much of the first book at all, is there a decently short summary floating around before I just go to wikipedia? There's the tor.com reread which is fairly comprehensive, and there's coppermind's which is smaller
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Mar 18, 2014 20:15
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Hopeford posted:Until this is proven to be false, I'll forever be convinced that the funky stone throwing game is like Calvinball and there are no actual rules to it. The rules appear to be, he who gives the least fucks gets the most points Actually, there is a question to ask at a book signing. Are there rules for the ball game Lightsong plays in Warbreaker, and what are they?
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Mar 18, 2014 20:41
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api call girl posted:It's probably reaching for a bit when that entire selection was prefaced and postfaced by pointing out that Vorinism/etc. is full of poo poo. The section before and after both deal with Kaladin, and there is no indication they have anything to do with Vorinism: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Seld Xachariah posted:Doesn't bother me, they're a made-up race in a made-up world with very made-up magic influences. Also their skin colour is half inky black/half red so they're more of an alien race rather than black people. Media can contain symbols, and is created in a wider context. treeboy posted:you're reaching really far here and are completely off base. Feel free. My understanding is that the banning of people of African descent from participating in LDS ceremonies until 1978 had a theological basis in the Curse of Cain, which has clear parallels with a group of people bearing a mark caused by the taint of darkness (sin).
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Mar 18, 2014 20:43
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I thought the Parshendi basically look like Darth Maul, but with some white marbling in with the black and red?
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Mar 18, 2014 20:50
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Tunicate posted:Who's the best rapper in the cosmere? I'm pretty sure that Wit takes that one.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:10
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I vaguely remember a parshman or Parshendi being described as mostly white marbled with red, but I can't tell you where I saw it. In any case, considering how much of his work involves not judging by appearances and working together and diversity being a strength, I really don't see implicit racism in having some dark marbley dudes be (for the present) the "bad guys". Besides, there's the dark-skinned Makabaki, and they're just people too, though to be fair we haven't seen much of them. On the subject of authorial intent, did anyone else interpret Shallan's description of her drawing as a reference to writing realistic characters? The whole thing about contrast, using dark and light so the sketch wasn't boring and had depth, etc.?
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Mar 18, 2014 21:18
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Augster posted:I thought the Parshendi basically look like Darth Maul, but with some white marbling in with the black and red? quote:The Parshendi as observed by Alethi warriors have black or white skin[2] marbled with red and very muscular builds
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Mar 18, 2014 21:38
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Cicero posted:
From there: quote:The Parshendi appear to have a strongly developed sense of honor in battle, ignoring the wounded and vulnerable to attack the most dangerous foes.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:49
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It's probably a question of personal combat when you're directly pitting your strength against an opponent vs long-range combat where you would attack the first or the easiest target you see.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:02
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That's also just the wiki writers interpreting the Parshendi's tendency to go against shardbearers. Maybe it's not a sense of honor at all, they're just fearless and trying to take the biggest threat out as early as possible.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:08
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Lobsterpillar posted:From there: The parshendi are a species that only sends people to war after they've grown their skin into a suit of armour. it's not really surprising that they'd see everyone in combat as an equal target.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:19
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subx posted:Completely different characters in different genres of media can have similar speech patterns?!?!? The hell you say! And here I thought everything was always completely original. I can't enjoy something that might have elements that reference other things! Lift is Sette is Scappy Doo is why does this upset you? Dalinar is Velma. Jinkies! Sadeas is Iago (Gilbert Gottfried). Literature is about influences, and identifying possible shared influences is fun. Best example: my crossover fanfic about exactly this. I'm changing it, though, so that they tear off Wit's mask and it turns out to be an internet guy named subx and he's totally fat as hell. He would have succeeded in stealing all the shardblades if it weren't for those meddling kids. I just read The Emperor's Soul and it was awesome.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:57
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Khizan posted:I'm pretty sure that Wit takes that one. Mm, point. I guess he could also get one of the Ideals we haven't seen yet. That could be cool-looking as a personalization.
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Mar 19, 2014 01:47
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Tunicate posted:Who's the best rapper in the cosmere? Come on, it's Lift. How is this even a question?
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Mar 19, 2014 03:47
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404GoonNotFound posted:Come on, it's Lift. How is this even a question? Lift vs Wit rap battle. Word. Someone was looking for questions to ask at a signing. Maybe we need a ruling on the rap controversy.
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Mar 19, 2014 04:34
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So I got a pretty sweet little Szeth card thingy (with some code on it), and bought a copy of steelheart to get signed (I read it on my Kindle, like I do every book nowadays). He read an excerpt from a short story he is writing/wrote (probably on the car ride from the airport) about a world where whenever you get a disease/sickness, you also get some sort of power from it (like flying or whatever). Neat idea, and I like that he read from a unpublished book and not the book that we just bought. 3rd signing I've been to of his, though the first two were WoT signings. He seemed a lot more comfortable at this one. I still think it's great that he writes because he enjoys it, and genuinely seems to want to interact with fans.
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Mar 19, 2014 04:37
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subx posted:So I got a pretty sweet little Szeth card thingy (with some code on it), and bought a copy of steelheart to get signed (I read it on my Kindle, like I do every book nowadays). Did you settle the rap dispute while you were there?
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Mar 19, 2014 04:42
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subx posted:
That's a cosmere world, actually. I think it's even in the same solar system as Roshar (stormlight).
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Mar 19, 2014 05:11
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ConfusedUs posted:That's a cosmere world, actually. I think it's even in the same solar system as Roshar (stormlight). Yeah. It's called Ashyn. The third planet in the system is Braize, where Odium hangs out.
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Mar 19, 2014 05:29
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Tunicate posted:Yeah. It's called Ashyn. The third planet in the system is Braize, where Odium hangs out. So when the heralds come back from there (aka Hell) for the next desolation, you could say that they've been... braised.
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Mar 19, 2014 06:35
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subx posted:Completely different characters in different genres of media can have similar speech patterns?!?!? The hell you say! And here I thought everything was always completely original. I can't enjoy something that might have elements that reference other things! I'm an artist I get influences and inspirations. When it comes to the action set pieces I think comparing them to cartoons is pretty spot on (also  ) I just think in this particular instance the criticism of comparing the way Sanderson writes dialogue as being "anime" is completely baseless (unless there's some japanese cartoons out there with *way* better writing than I am aware of. In my experience they typically stare at each other awkwardly while saying 2-3 words at a time)Ranma posted:Feel free. My understanding is that the banning of people of African descent from participating in LDS ceremonies until 1978 had a theological basis in the Curse of Cain, which has clear parallels with a group of people bearing a mark caused by the taint of darkness (sin). Without derailing the thread (if you've got more questions or somethings unclear feel free to PM me). Also keep in mind that in the LDS church all worthy male members of the religion are ordained to the priesthood. Unfortunately there aren't many satisfying answers when it comes to this subject, but this is the history in a nutshell. From the Church's inception in 1830 until sometime after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844, the Church actually did ordain male members of African descent to the priesthood. At some point either during or shortly after the westward migration to Utah, this practice ceased. Officially it was announced in 1852 by B. Young. Heres where things get really unsatisfying. There's no official reason or recorded revelation as to why this occurred (it could be as simple as bigotry or have some pseudo religious reasoning). What is clear is that by the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was well-ingrained into the practices (as opposed to doctrines of which is has little or no support) of the church that anything short of the revelatory process would leave some members of the church disaffected. As late as the 1960's and 70's you can find statements by Church leaders however that flat out deny the "mark of cain" reasoning, which was only ever a "popular theory" to explain the otherwise inexplicable. Since 1830 all congregations have met regardless of ethnicity, and before 1852 and since 1978 all men were and are ordained based on their personal worthiness to hold the offices. treeboy fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 12:52
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nucleicmaxid posted:They totally did, and it totally was epic as hell. However, I could see a similar scene easily coming out of a comic book. Comic books and anime are super similar, but anime has a really bad connotation the way that people have been using it. For me Anime is and always was Ghibli and Satoshi Kon movies (and Makoto Shinkai's), Cowboy Bebop, Moribito (coincidentally with a spear fighter as main character too) and the old stuff I saw as kid, like Heidi, Captain Future, Saber Rider and the one that is a retelling of Odysseus on a space ship. Which leaves me baffled at DBZ/Pokemon references or Super Sayan and similar stuff. Because that's not what Anime is (for me), and calling something Anime as insult seems odd considering there is really, really good Anime. Different generations of Anime watchers I guess. The only dialogue thing that bugged me was his use of "Idiot" as go-to insult and "Wow" for surprise/awe. Which would be fine if they were 1-2 characters, giving them a distinct voice, but it was used for several different people over the course of the book, making them sound a bit similar. Decius fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 15:05
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treeboy posted:I'm an artist I get influences and inspirations. When it comes to the action set pieces I think comparing them to cartoons is pretty spot on (also :kickinrad:) I just think in this particular instance the criticism of comparing the way Sanderson writes dialogue as being "anime" is completely baseless (unless there's some japanese cartoons out there with *way* better writing than I am aware of. In my experience they typically stare at each other awkwardly while saying 2-3 words at a time) It's like 5-6 words but otherwise yup. Sometimes even as many as 9! Habibi fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 15:46
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I'll admit that I don't really have any basis to call Sanderson's dialog "anime". Other people were making the connection and I ran with it. I guess three main things especially bother me about Sanderson's dialog. The first is his unique sense of humor that is apparently shared by all of the characters in Roshar. I could not for the life of me distinguish between Shallan's "good" jokes and her "bad" ones, though I think her bad ones relied on puns more as opposed to just being outright insults. And that's weird because puns to me are more creative than saying, "Women run away from your face!" Haha, good one! This is also one of the reasons I don't like Wit as a character. His taking people down a peg just feels super juvenile. A good comparison is the actual "witty" dialog in "The Baroque Cycle". It may not be funny by our standards of comedy, but you can see how it was actually well thought out. The second is his overuse of ellipses, hesitations, and pauses in speech. I guess I prefer to read, "His mouth hung open," or, "He was left speechless," to, "Uh...," or, "Um." Sanderson does the latter two a lot. Last, I really do not like phonetic approximations of accents, especially when they parallel a real world accent. For as much as Sanderson does a great job of creating unique cultures and ethnicities that are not directly lifted from the real world, he is awful at speech patterns. Rock sounds like the worst most stereotypical Russian. More than a few characters talked with absurd cockney accents. It could just be me reading too much into the accents, but they immediately take me out of the story. I guess I like the way GRRM does it better with a smattering of colloquialisms to indicate someone has an accent. "It is known." "Just so." It's weird because Zahel does just that with his references to colors and it works perfectly, though his consternation does get overplayed. The other thing that bothers me to a lesser degree is that everyone shares the same sense of propriety and shies away from overt references to sexuality. I don't mind that Sanderson keeps his books a clean PG-13, but it doesn't jibe with the characters constantly bickering and hurling insults at one another. It makes everything feel really plastic and also gets an eye roll because once again it's totally acceptable to have over the top violence but heaven forbid someone make a joke about male anatomy. It's baffling that the only character who came right out and said "breasts" was Lift, but it was also refreshing that at least someone acknowledged that sex was real and happened regularly. He tries to get around this by having curses unique to Roshar, but no one seems to react to them at all. Of course the opposite end of this spectrum is GRRM and I think we all agree he takes way too far the other way.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:52
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Atlas Hugged posted:He tries to get around this by having curses unique to Roshar, but no one seems to react to them at all. To be fair here, how often does someone actually "react" to someone using a curse in the real world? Unless it's your kid or something (A Christmas Story springs to mind), you don't really pay attention to them.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:58
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Atlas Hugged posted:The second is his overuse of ellipses, hesitations, and pauses in speech. I guess I prefer to read, "His mouth hung open," or, "He was left speechless," to, "Uh...," or, "Um." Sanderson does the latter two a lot. One thing you might notice with the ellipses and some other pauses in Shallan's POVs is that they are actually special in her case. She'll blank out and ignore anybody who tries to talk to her about the poo poo she went through in her home in Jah Keved, then continue on as if nothing happened. Imagine if you were talking to her and she just shuts down for an undetermined amount of time. It's fairly creepy. I also kind of was annoyed by Rock's speech pattern, but it was all worth it for Shallan's trick Tyn made her pull on Kaladin.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:59
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Ranma posted:
Perhaps not that specific quote if it's being used as an epigraph, but it certainly comes out of the discussions Jasnah and Shallan had through their time together, and Jasnah makes no effort to hide her disdain for Vorin/Hierocracy revisionism, pervasive and omnipresent in all material that have passed down through that time. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 16:01
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api call girl posted:One thing you might notice with the ellipses and some other pauses in Shallan's POVs is that they are actually special in her case. She'll blank out and ignore anybody who tries to talk to her about the poo poo she went through in her home in Jah Keved, then continue on as if nothing happened. Imagine if you were talking to her and she just shuts down for an undetermined amount of time. It's fairly creepy.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:11
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subx posted:To be fair here, how often does someone actually "react" to someone using a curse in the real world? Unless it's your kid or something (A Christmas Story springs to mind), you don't really pay attention to them. I think it depends heavily on context. People do react in the book, but only to really tame innuendo. No one cares at all if someone is dropping the equivalent of an f-bomb. It could be that everyone is so used to being around soldiers all the time that no one cares anymore. api call girl posted:One thing you might notice with the ellipses and some other pauses in Shallan's POVs is that they are actually special in her case. She'll blank out and ignore anybody who tries to talk to her about the poo poo she went through in her home in Jah Keved, then continue on as if nothing happened. Imagine if you were talking to her and she just shuts down for an undetermined amount of time. It's fairly creepy. I'll give you Shallan, but Kaladin is as guilty of it as anyone. It happened with enough frequency across POVs to annoy me.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:14
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Atlas Hugged posted:
I agree with you about the bad jokes (even though I love puns) and the accent thing. The innuendo thing is a little less bothersome to me because we are generally seeing the story from an Alethi frame of reference, and it is mentioned repeatedly that the Alethi are seen as prudes by a lot of other cultures. It's almost certainly handwaving by Sanderson to justify not having racier content, but it wasn't enough to break my suspension of disbelief.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:22
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Atlas Hugged posted:I'll admit that I don't really have any basis to call Sanderson's dialog "anime". Other people were making the connection and I ran with it. In general, I think dialog is probably Sanderson's biggest weakness (second being sometimes using, IMO, pretty convoluted and contrived plot points, most guiltily to achieve the interconnectedness of story elements he is known for/ likes to have). Shallan...oh god. Habibi fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 16:28
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:I agree with you about the bad jokes (even though I love puns) and the accent thing.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:11
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I wouldn't necessarily call the dialog anime, but the action definitely is. We have glowing auras surrounding the characters who have super powers, we have actual power up scenes. We even had a scene with Kaladin and Szeth flying around having a sword fight. It doesn't get more anime than that. But it's not said as an insult, the action scenes are generally awesome and I always enjoy "character has secret superpowers and reveals them to an audience" scenes. But it's definitely true than Sanderson's sense of humour just... isn't very good. It's a key reason why I've never liked Shallan and still don't even after WoR (the other key reason being that Sanderson has trouble writing women with distinct narrative voices; Shallan is too similar to Vivenna, Siri, Sarene etc). You can't define a key character trait as "Shallan is really witty" and then have her "humour" be incredibly grating. It's why the inevitable Hoid/Wit book/s will be awful. Sanderson just.. isn't funny. The sooner he accepts that, the better we, he and his works will be. Regarding phonetically written dialog, it's much less of an issue when listening to the audiobooks of Sandersons works (the only books of Sandersons I've ever actually "read" are the WoT books). He usually gets pretty good narrators, whose performance adds to the experience and eliminates a lot of the annoying writing quirks you're talking about.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:17
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Shakugan posted:Shallan is too similar to Vivenna, Siri, Sarene I think this extends beyond women. All of Kelsier, Raoden, and Kaladin (when he's not being clinically depressed and mopey) shared remarkably similar voices and personality traits, to me. e: and, I mean, in any work of fiction that features so many characters and perspectives, it's no surprise to find some that sound and act alike. But as those are all central figures in their respective novels, it tends to stand out more. Habibi fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 18:46
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Really? Kelsier and Raoden (I couldn't remember who he was at first) sounded very similar to me, but Kaladin doesn't sound anything like them, mopey or not! He's much more... serious I guess.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:21
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syphon posted:Really? Kelsier and Raoden (I couldn't remember who he was at first) sounded very similar to me, but Kaladin doesn't sound anything like them, mopey or not! He's much more... serious I guess. I can't speak to Raoden, but Kelsier and Kaladin are similar to me because of their unflinching hatred of the "upper" class (noblemen and lighteyes). They also have the same torture backstory, Kelsier's time in the Pits and Kaladin's slave-and-bridgeman time, and that seems to have an effect on their personality (shocker!)
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Mar 19, 2014 20:27
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