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I do not at all understand the section on strength in the one power.
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Nov 2, 2015 05:29
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I agree that it's super unimportant and the reader never needed to know it, but I also think if you're going to go to the trouble of including it, at least make it understandable. I'm going to need an advanced degree in one power studies for that to make any sense to me.
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Nov 3, 2015 10:10
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I believe you mean book 10, but that's not a problem because book 11 is right around the corner.
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Dec 14, 2015 11:46
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RembrandtQEinstein posted:Book 11 is when Jordan gives the massive domino stack that he spent 10 books setting up a nice flick. It really is a shame that he couldn't finish the series off himself completely, but I'm still very happy with what we got. Yeah, it was definitely a great opening act to the conclusion and what we got was "good enough". We'll never really know if Jordan would have done it better or not and I don't think Sanderson has gone into much detail on what he did, touched up, or left alone.
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Dec 23, 2015 07:15
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I kind of like that there's some ambiguity in the bubbles of evil and other weird poo poo that happens (man vomits beetles until he turns into a sack of empty skin) where any or all of it could be because of balefire and "bubbles of evil" might not actually be a thing.
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Dec 28, 2015 07:35
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Well the first time we see one is in book 4 and that's in the aftermath of Moiraine having just blasted the Forsaken that had set up shot there.
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Dec 28, 2015 13:05
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Books 7-9 have some of the most brilliant stuff in them. There's a bunch of cool Bashere and Rand stuff and they're basically the last stretch of the series that we get anything at all from Rand's perspective. I'm particularly a fan of how Rand set up the siege of Illian. Then there's book 8 where Rand goes total war on the Seanchan and that's where his troops come to the conclusion that they can no longer trust him to lead. Then there's the pitched battle in book 9 against all the Forsaken and if you don't think that battle is awesome I don't know what to tell you. No, they're not perfect books and everything involving the Shaido or the Prophet is awful, but hey the good outweighs the bad in my opinion. Book 10 is basically the only book in the series I think can fairly be called bad and Jordan even apologized for it not working out as he had hoped. And even then the stuff with Mat is still perfectly serviceable. But hey, it doesn't matter because book 11 is right after book 10 and now you don't have to wait for him to faff around with prequels. You can go straight into it. Knife of Dreams is easily as good as any other book in the series and still has my absolute favorite moment in a fantasy novel. The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai'don. gently caress that sequence is so good.
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Jan 15, 2016 04:55
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Arrath posted:✔ How to review an Army She knows she can't die, so what's the point of trying to stay alive? *gets dozens of her friends and colleagues and innocent bystanders killed*
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Jan 16, 2016 09:35
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It was a pretty cool death though and she was basically the only major character to die.
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Jan 17, 2016 23:48
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Siuan and Bryne, and then Bashere were the saddest for me.
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Jan 18, 2016 14:03
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The Siege of Cairhien is probably the most underrated sequence in the entire series and every time I reread book 5 I'm blown away by just how great it is. I agree with the above that Mat doesn't really reach his full potential until books 10-11. Before that he's winning battles partly on accident (Siege of Cairhien) or doing it strictly to survive. The memories in his head aren't actually coherent. They're bits and pieces filling in gaps of his own memories and making a confused jumble from which he can extract great ideas, and later develop unique strategies based on the memories. But he was still fundamentally Mat and Mat found organizing an army and marching from place to place to be pretty boring and also the kind of thing a dirty noble would do. He wasn't super interested in making sure the camp was well run. He could win a battle despite that and his good for nothing nobles could oversee the day to day while he ran off on his own personal adventures. The camp only needed to be good enough and that's basically how Elayne found it. Also, is Talmanes the greatest tertiary character in the series? How do we even define primary, secondary, and tertiary in this series? I'd go with something like: Primary - Anyone with a substantial number of POV chapters (Rand, Mat, Perrin, Super Girls, etc) Secondary - Anyone with POV chapters in multiple books or is always right there in the action (Lan, Thom) Tertiary - Has a POV chapter somewhere in the series, but most likely only in a Prologue and is present in multiple chapters across the series Minor - Never has a POV and is relevant only in a handful of chapters or less or confined to a single book Or is the series just too dense to even bother trying to label characters that way?
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Jan 23, 2016 15:07
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The Lord Bude posted:I don't recall talmanes ever having a POV section. He does and it rules.
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Jan 23, 2016 16:18
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Two Finger posted:Dunno as a horny teenager I thought a woman going after you like that would be pretty hot Pretty sure we have statutory rape laws for a reason.
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Jan 25, 2016 04:50
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broken clock opsec posted:More like, regular rape laws. I was more getting at the "young guys are horny and would love an older aggressive woman" argument being used as justification when teenage boys are raped by teachers. It's the same concept if not exactly the same dynamic and at that point Mat would be considered "of age" anyway. The fact is, she was in a position of power (literally and metaphorically) and whether or not he "wanted" it because he's a horny teen is irrelevant.
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Jan 25, 2016 06:23
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I like Galad because he has an honest to god arc. He does a really good heel to face turn, every action his decisions are internally consistent, and he has a code of ethics that he never bends or breaks. I like that he's basically the only character in the series who doesn't force his ideology on the decision, but makes decisions because of his ideology.
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Feb 5, 2016 07:25
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subpage posted:Elayne's story is consistent with her character imo. She's a nice person, but at her core she's a noble raised to be the next Queen. Sharks be acting like sharks yo, she's not any different than half the Kings and nobles we see in the other Kingdoms. The only problem with this is that every other king, queen, or noble gets humbled, thoroughly embarrassed, or outright murdered. Faile, a character most people seem to dislike for her lovely attitude and manipulativeness, does in fairness spend months as a slave and has to seriously consider selling her body for protection. Morgase, her own mother, has a pretty lovely run of things. The Tairen nobles had to get in line or get hanged. Even Tuon, who actually stands up to Rand, is still the last remaining living member of her House because everyone else in the Imperial Family gets brutally murdered, must live as a peasant in hiding for months, is in real constant danger of being murdered, and eventually has to make an alliance with a man she has very mixed feelings about because he's the most logical path back to her throne. Nothing bad ever happens to Elayne. She thinks her mom is dead, but no she's just absconded and is eventually reunited with her daughter. She loses a single brother, but it's in the Last Battle and he was always the brother whose job it was to die, like it was literally his job description. You could make an argument that she's selling her body to Rand for protection, but it's "~true love~" and Elayne makes a point of keeping Rand's identity a secret so that people don't realize she has the Dragon's protection and she can secure a throne or two on her own. People die around her all the time and she's like, "Eh, whatever, pieces on the board, my babies will be fine." It's infuriating and she never learns a goddamn lesson.
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Feb 7, 2016 03:17
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She was also kidnapped and dumped into the situation as opposed to constantly thinking herself the best and only one capable of accomplishing a mission she chose to go on. Plus, and this is key, Tuon learns and grows as a person as opposed to reaffirming in her own head that she is indeed the best.
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Feb 7, 2016 08:02
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Yes, thank you for making my point. Tuon has barely any development, which is still more than Elayne. Tuon: I'm the best to I'm the best, but I'm going to need to trust and rely on others. Elayne: I'm the best to I'm the best.
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Feb 7, 2016 08:23
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Where she learned to be a tightrope walker without even using the power because she is the goddamn best. Yes, it actually makes sense that if she did it enough times she'd start to learn to do it on her own, but again she's on a critical mission and she's loving around on the wire without any precautions because whatever she's just that good.
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Feb 9, 2016 00:20
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Torrannor posted:Sheriam and the rest of the Black Ajah are pretty interesting in that regard. She muses to herself that she never really was into the whole apocalypse thing, she joined the Black for power, to advance her career (i.e. becoming Mistress of the Novices for example). I think this is true for most of the low level and mid tier Darkfriends. The Bors points of view show how ill at ease he was around the constructs and when pressure got too high he immediately turned to drink. It's been discussed before, but I think Ishmael was the only one who was a Darkfriend for the right reasons. He believed in the inevitability oblivion.
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Mar 2, 2016 04:51
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DarkHorse posted:Sanderson is known for his "Avalanche" where all the plot threads come crashing together right at the end and there's no rest or respite until you're through it. It's something he's aware of and has been working to improve his pacing, and I think his more recent books show progress in that regard. After he got announced to finish the series, I went and bought just about everything he had published up until that point and while it was a good enough diversion, I quickly grew tired of his worlds and gimmicks. I tried reading his sequels to Mistborn and they were just so bad I had to put them down. He seems to be treating the Stormlight Archive with a bit more care so I'm willing to give book 3 a read when that comes out, but I think I'm done with him aside from those. There's just so many better authors to be reading.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:37
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He is absolutely fantastic at putting a book together and he was totally the right person to finish the series, but his technical abilities are lacking. It's cool that he is open about that and always trying to improve though.
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Mar 12, 2016 12:47
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The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gaidon is still up there for me. It signifies the beginning of the end, is Nynaeve finally becoming what Aes Sedai should have been for the whole series, and Lan finally accepting his destiny.
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Mar 15, 2016 05:33
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I really like that sequence where Elayne watches a play and doesn't like it.
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Mar 15, 2016 15:09
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Elayne is a Queen and must show proper respect for new forms of art, even if she herself doesn't understand the appeal.
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Mar 16, 2016 02:25
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Every great queen is controversial.
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Mar 16, 2016 03:04
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Sex from Elayne's head.
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Mar 16, 2016 09:59
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Maybe he was pregnant.
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Mar 17, 2016 01:26
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:"101 ways to turn gateways into weapons" which, not coincidentally, also showed up in the only books written by a former fan. To be fair, Death Gates appear in Knife of Dreams.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:56
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The Death Gates are in Knife of Dreams when he's chilling in a cabin in the woods. The raining death onto the Seanchan is in Path of Daggers I believe. He's fairly rational still in Crown of Swords and spends most of that book plotting how to use gateways to sneak an army into Illian.
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Mar 17, 2016 05:58
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I like that Elaida's behavior is justified, but I kind of wish she had been just a pragmatic leader who was convinced Siuan needed to go. She was a straight up comic book super villain by the end which just further dog piled how the Reds were the bad ones.
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Mar 18, 2016 00:20
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Two Finger posted:yeah but i thought that was the doing of fain's wee touch on her, that it changed her a little at first and continued to fester until you have her, well, as she was Yeah, that's what I meant by saying her behavior was "justified". She was corrupted by Fain and it made her insane so it's not like she was just naturally an evil Red, though she ended up becoming one. But it didn't really make it a difficult choice to reunify behind Egwene when given the chance and it meant that Elaida was basically doomed. When she gets captured at the end, you don't feel bad for her at all. If she hadn't been corrupted, then there would have been some difficult, actually ideological decisions for the Tower to make. You may have ended up with two separate female channeler groups who were unable to reconcile. Or had Elaida still been captured, you would have at least felt bad for the fate that befell her. Instead, it's just a big, "Haha gently caress you," mixed with, "Oh, that's going to really mess with the Seanchan down the line since I bet Fain's taint will spread to her Sul'dam who will spread it to other Damane."
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Mar 18, 2016 02:24
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The whole Fain-taint thing has had me thinking lately. Fain is dead. Shadar Logoth is gone. As it stands, the source of the taint is destroyed, but does that mean the taint is gone with it? Obviously it has to come back. Mordeth is tainted in the middle of the Third Age when he brings doom to Aridhol, but is he the origin?
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Mar 18, 2016 03:39
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The thing to remember with the War of Power though is that these people were incredibly arrogant even in their own time and had much greater access to both actual technology and magic assisted technology. Basically if they hadn't thought of it, they assumed it couldn't be done. And the one major discovery they had at the end of the Age of Legends ripped a hole in reality and released literal evil, so they were probably pretty conservative on the side of thee Light (which we see in the female Aes Sedai refusing to seal the Bore). The Forsaken do play around with the One Power a bit, but only specifically in fields of their own interests: weaves for torturing and creating biological monstrosities. One of the marks of the Third Age is that people have a great deal more hope and refuse to accept things for how they are. This might actually be because they have a more legendary backstory than the Age of Legends itself did. Who knows how many of their tales are accurate or completely fabricated or a distortion of the truth; all the people of the Third Age know is that things used to be better and they've forgotten a ton, so there are discoveries to be made. This leads to discovering entirely new things. Probably another significant factor is that there were multiple groups of channellers keeping their own traditions. I think it's in book 5 where the Aes Sedai see the Aiel Wise Ones channel fireballs without literally throwing them. At that moment everyone realizes that there are multiple ways to do things and the One Power is a great deal more flexible than previously thought. This again undermines the notion that there are a set of number of things that can be done. Plus, there's less of a pressing need for them to get creative with gateways when they had literal orbital bombardments to utilize.
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Mar 20, 2016 12:27
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:Death to the author. I was going to bring this up earlier when someone mentioned Moiraine said Mat would spread the taint if he kept the dagger but Jordan said this was wrong and an example of the Aes Sedai knowing less than they thought. I mean, maybe, but text as written it seems pretty plausible that he could given that Fain himself taints everyone he comes into contact with.
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Mar 22, 2016 07:21
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Like she literally started building herself a castle that was supposed to be larger than the Tower. That's not just normal leader stuff.
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Mar 23, 2016 05:25
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Elaida became obsessed with Rand al Thor, followed the trail from him to Suian Sanche, organized a secret cabal within the dark tower to depose a sitting Amyrlin, started a civil war, and ordered an entire Ajah be dissolved when they didn't do what she wanted. Elaida discovered that the Dragon had been reborn, learned that not only was this known to Sisters in the Tower who had so far failed to either bring him into the Tower, get him under control, or alert the Tower in any form, but that this conspiracy ran up all the way to Amyrlin herself. Elaida, a true Foreteller who had previously Foretold how the Last Battle was to be won, was in a unique position to guide the Tower and the world through the literal End of Days. Seeing that potentially an entire Ajah and the leadership of the Tower itself had been compromised, she did the only thing she could. Relying on what allies she had in the Tower, she removed a conspirator from power and immediately tried to consolidate her own to deal with the looming Last Battle and a dangerous male channeller on the loose. It was only after the Blue Ajah fled and organized a rebellion against the Tower that she declared the Blues be disbanded. She was head strong and willful, but pragmatic from her world view and her choices actually make sense in that context. She didn't do stuff just because.
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Mar 24, 2016 02:51
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I'm playing devil's advocate. I do think she at least thought she was acting in good faith. Remember, she knows she's not a dark friend and she has literally been given a strategy for winning the Last Battle from the creator himself. Where does Siuan stand? She has no idea, just that she's utterly failed to get the situation under control. Not only that, she's failed to include the ajah that exists specifically for this purpose.
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Mar 24, 2016 03:21
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rchandra posted:It's a pity Elaida never learned of Rand's birth mother. Assuming you know what prophecies mean is always tricky, it's worked out better for some than others. This is also huge.
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Mar 24, 2016 03:22
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That's probably the only competent thing the Black Ajah ever did.
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Mar 25, 2016 05:40
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