Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.

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ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Wolpertinger posted:

Another thing I forgot about, one that's briefly mentioned in Way of Kings - the Elantrians are apparently part of some sort of worldhopping organization called the 'seventeenth shard' that is looking for Hoid but isn't working with him, (but not necessarily against him?).

Small point, but only one of the three Seventeenth Shard members that are in Purelake looking for Hoid is an Elantrian. One of them is Galladon, from Elantris. One of the others is Demoux, the Atium Misting who survives the final battle against Ruin in the Mistborn Trilogy. The third member is from an as-yet-unpublished Sanderson work, so we don't know anything about him.

Locker Room Zubaz posted:

The one thing GRRM does well is keeping the reader somewhat on their toes with regards to people dying, in Mistborn and Stormlight I never thought Vin, Kaladin, Shallan, etc would ever die despite being in danger almost all the time. I think sometimes it is necessary to kill characters and I think that Sanderson is unwilling to do it until the climax of books. I really feel like loss can make a story stronger especially when someone the reader really relates to kicks the bucket and it isn't just a noble sacrifice that ends up beating the big bad.

I dunno, the way he killed Kelsier off in Mistborn kinda came way out of left field, but I guess you're kind of right.

Then again, I despise GRRM's works and think his habit of killing off major characters left, right, and center is utterly terrible, so I find Sanderson's generally more optimistic work to be much more enjoyable. In A Song Of Ice And Fire (the three books I read of it, anyway), everything is miserable and poo poo and people die and it's awful. Brandon Sanderson's stories somehow manage to be more hopeful and optimistic even when the world is literally ending. I like that, but I can understand why others wouldn't.

I loved Words Of Radiance, and I've already started rereading it to pick up on things I missed the first time through. During the Prologue, when Jasnah overhears a conversation between Nalan and another Herald (probably Ishar, based on the description), the second Herald is concerned about Ash (Shallash?) starting to go crazy, and proposes maybe they all are. Also complains about Szeth being in possession of Jezrien's Honorblade. I find small little bits like this that you don't pick up on - or at least don't know the significance of - on the first read-through a really great detail.

A couple of my friends are waiting to pick up copies of Words Of Radiance, and I've told them both to read Warbreaker first for REASONS, because the Nightblood's reveal in Words is way more of an 'oh holy poo poo' moment if you've read Warbreaker first. I actually yelled out loud. It was great.

Edit: Also, it seems like Sunraiser, Elhokar's Shardblade, has the Glyphs for all 10 Orders of the Knights Radiant engraved on its blade. Probably an unimportant detail, but still something I find interesting. (And in [url=]the same picture[/url] Shallan has writen 'sigh' underneath what I can only assume is a picture of Adolin, and that's hilarious.)

ArchetypeBlue fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Mar 12, 2014

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 12:58

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:28

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Shakugan posted:

I agree. I thought it was pretty weak that both Szeth and Jasnah were revived, particularly the former. Kaladin shouldn't have been able to succesfully kill him if he was going to be revived 10 pages later. I also though it was super lame that everyone and their dog are suddenly radiants. Now, the bridgemen becoming radiants is cool. But Dalinar and Renarin? Ughh

If you didn't see Dalinar becoming a Radiant coming from a mile away, then I dunno what to say to you. I'll admit, Renarin becoming one came way out of left field, though, and probably should have waited for a later book rather than dropping him in without any significant buildup towards it.

As to Szeth's death, I thought it was fitting. Him literally dying - soul and all, according to Nalan/Nin/Herald Dredd - losing his Honorblade, and then being revived to do Nalan's biding, and given Nightblood no less, is a great way to lead into the third book, where I believe he's going to be the main viewpoint character? Did anyone honestly believe Jasnah was really dead, anyway? I will agree that three death fake-outs in one book is a bit much, but hopefully future books won't have that issue.

ArchetypeBlue fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Mar 12, 2014

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 13:47

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Wolpertinger posted:

Well, we have no idea how teleportation works - it's probably not as mundane/useless as 'enter shadesmar, and then walk to equivalent destination, leave' - it probably instantaneously transported her somewhere else, even if that place was in Shadesmar. I like Jasnah, though, so I'm of the opinion we should wait to see what really happened with her before we judge how ridiculous her 'resurrection' was - we really know almost nothing about her abilities, and neither did Shallan. Perhaps escaping or surviving the situation she was in was no big deal. Szeth would have irritated me more if he wasn't given Nightblood and recruited by a Herald. It would have been annoying if he had simply continued as the Assassin in White.

Considering she's been missing for what, months by the end of the book, when she encounters Hoid, it certainly seems like whatever method of transport she used was hilariously uncontrolled and caused her some difficulties of its own.

It's also worth noting that in the scene after seeing Jasnah get 'killed', and then using her Lightweaving to lure the murderers away, Shallan is surprised that she doesn't trip over or otherwise see any sign of Jasnah's body when she's stumbling around in the dark. Jasnah's survival was definitely foreshadowed.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 07:43

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

ShadowGlass posted:

This. I seriously don't even understand how anyone could have thought that Jasnah was really dead. Her body disappeared after her "death"! To me, it was obvious she wasn't dead. I mean what else could that mean? The only suspense was to see if she shows up in the last part to save the day, or only in the Epilogue. I'm glad it was the latter. It'd have ruined Shallan's arc if Jasnah had just appeared at the end with the solution.

Yeah, taking Jasnah out of the picture and making it so Shallan believed her to be dead gave Shallan room to grow and develop as a character and accomplish poo poo on her own, which was definitely a good thing. Actually killing Jasnah would be a pointless waste of a character who we have hardly spent any time getting to know first-hand, though. She's been the viewpoint character on a single occasion. We've gotten to know her from other peoples perspectives, but we haven't had much of a chance to view things from her perspective or see her doing things on her own, something I hope we'll get to see a bit of in the next book.

She's stranded with only Wit for company, still far away from anywhere, and at this point she knows even less about what's going on than the readers do, so she'll be great as a viewpoint character in Stones Unhallowed.

alr posted:

I'm really hoping the following books flesh out the world some more, both locations and customs. Couldn't tell you much about the customs beyond the safehand thing and Shin people finding stone to be hallowed ground, and I know Shinovar is way out west while the Shattered Plains are east, near the ~Origin~. The descriptions of flora and fauna and stuff all throughout Roshar are good, though.

Really? I think a lot of the customs have been really quite clearly fleshed out. From the nahn/dhan ranks of Lighteyes and Darkeyes and how that effects their social standings, to how thanks to Vorinism so many things about society have been strictly gender-regulated. Doing certain things is man-work which only men do (mostly fighting, let's be honest), while only women can read and write, do accounting, large amounts of scholarship. Even foods are gender-segregated, with men's food being savoury and spicy while women's food is light and sweet-tasting. And it seems, generally speaking, only Ardents can freely ignore all this gender segregation without being viewed as outright blasphemous.

I find it all quite interesting. And strange. But I'm definitely looking forward to learning even more about it, as well as Shin culture, and maybe learning more about Horneater customs as well, beyond what we've learned from Rock. It seems that they have some similarities, in that they both see being a person who creates and grows things to be more important than warriors.

E: From the last page, but

Jorenko posted:

It was so freaking anime. There were multiple moments when someone was getting a beatdown, but then stood back up with a burst of energy, and my brain just belts out, "DON'T LOSE YOUR WAY!"

I am glad I wasn't the only one. After binge-watching every episode of KLK after a friend kept pestering me to do so, I had this song playing in my head at more than a few points while reading. Don't lose your way, Kaladin!

ArchetypeBlue fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Mar 13, 2014

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 12:40

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Habibi posted:

If Elhokar was defenseless, the second ideal should have applied, regardless of how he feels about him. The oath he ends up speaking actually doesn't have anything to do with ability to defend oneself. What makes it strange is specifically that it applies to people he hates, and only if it's right. Soo... what about people he doesn't hate? Isn't it a little odd that he spoke oaths that explicitly denote that he would protect people he hates on a wider spectrum (by eschewing reliance on their ability to defend themselves) than people he doesn't .

The whole point of it was that if someone needs his protection, and protecting them is the right thing to do, then he will protect them even if he hates them. It adds a further restriction to the Second Ideal, or rather clarifies that hating someone is not reason enough to avoid doing the right thing. I feel it stands pretty well as the Third Ideal. It makes sense to me that the Third Ideal would expand upon the Second and clarify it.

What's really killing me now is that we'll need to wait for Book 3 to find out for sure. Not to mention all the other details we don't know about yet. Like, what's a Dawnshard? Is Cultivation still alive, and if so, is she the Nightwatcher, or is the Nightwatcher Cultivation's equivalent of the Stormfather, just a really powerful spren? What's happening to all the Parshendi that escaped? What's up with the spren that Shallan saw around Skyeels and Chasmfiends? What's that thing Rysn was given? What is that Aimian dude whose name I cannot remember up to now? So many things I want to know the answer to, but it's all going to have to wait.

Oh well. At least I have Firefight to look forward to between now and then.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2014 13:01

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Habibi posted:

I really don't think this actually addresses the point I'm making.

Well, the thing is, if someone actually 'needs his protection,' as you say, then him protecting them should fall under the second ideal, which covers people you may hate or not. So in swearing that second oath, he has already sworn to protect people he hates if 'they need his protection' (ie: they can't protect themselves). Again, making this latest oath seem redundant and more of a restatement than anything new or anything clarifying.

It's not unlike saying 'I will pick all of the apples,' and then following it up with, 'I will pick all of the green apples, as long as they are ripe.' The second statement is logically encompassed already by the first.

So I'm going to stick with 'if that was the third ideal, and not a restatement of the second, then it's a pretty dumb way to do it,' because it doesn't introduce anything new - it just clarifies for Kaladin that the oath he previously took actually requires of him.

I disagree with your perspective. The Second Ideal is "Protect those who cannot protect themselves." It has no provisos other than 'those who cannot protect themselves', and obviously it is rather subjective because, for example, any normal warrior would be utterly incapable of properly defending themselves against Kaladin himself. Relatively speaking, the Parshendi warriors attacking Dalinar and Adolin were about as incapable of protecting themselves from those two as Dalinar's army was in protecting themselves from the Parshendi. Kaladin still didn't feel any particular compulsion to protect the Parshendi from the Shardbearers. His Oaths are about protecting people and doing what is right, which is very subjective.

He even has this conversation with Syl himself. He believes that his fighting the Parshendi to save Dalinar and his army was the right thing to do, but has trouble reconciling that with the fact that, if the Parshendi had a Windrunner of their own, he too would have felt he was doing the right thing in fighting off and killing Dalinar's army. So no, the Second Ideal does not require Kaladin to protect anyone who needs protecting, and further, the Third Ideal does not have the 'cannot protect themselves' stipulation. It's "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right." And that's a big thing. It's an added restriction beyond simply protecting the weak and helpless who he feels deserve his protection. I can see it being an important, conflicting moment later if someone threatens Amaran's life in such a way that Kaladin realises that simply letting him die would not be the right thing to do. Even if Amaran can protect himself, the Third Ideal would still require Kaladin to protect him in that situation. The Second Ideal alone would allow Kaladin to stand aside and watch with a smug grin on his face.

e;fb

basically yeah, what senae said

Kruller posted:

I literally cannot believe none of you have mentioned the best conversation in the book.

"What if you have to poop?

That whole conversation was terribly awkward and I loved reading every second of it.

mod edit -- went ahead and added spoiler tags to the quoted text just to be on the safe side.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Mar 16, 2014

# ¿ Mar 16, 2014 17:00

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Speaking of dad humour, did you hear about the time Shallan gave her father a necklace for his birthday?

He was all choked up about it!

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 08:18

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

Fezz posted:

To that guy who read WoR without reading WoK, you may want to go and read most of the interludes as those are, for the most part, not reiterated in WoR. Though I would recommend you read it all.

As would I. Still, a lot of WoK will seem redundant after reading WoR.

Why on earth would you read WoR first? I can't fathom that.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2014 02:17

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:28

ArchetypeBlue: Jul 9, 2012; ASSHOLE.

treeboy posted:

Also in regards to the other questions So far there's no indication that Vasher can absorb stormlight.

Not so. Word of Sanderson also states that the whole reason Vasher is on Roshar to begin with is because something he needs is much easier to get, there. There is a finite quantity of breath, it's hard to obtain, and actually taking someone's breath is taking part of their soul and sort of morally grey at best. And he needs that stuff to live. It's not hard to see why Vasher would want to get away from that, and he can by using Stormlight to stay alive instead of using up breaths. Presumably the Stormlight doesn't as 'breaths' for him to use with Awakening or whatever, but it seems any form of Investiture is enough to keep one of the Returned alive.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2014 14:19

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.