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spandexcajun posted:I could keep ranting about the safe hand thing so I will You're arguing sure weird sexy body parts being covered exists in the real world, and left hand/right hand taboos exist in the real world, but not combined, therefore safe hands are unrealistic
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Jan 11, 2019 03:08
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I will point out that all the examples people have given in this thread (skirts, burkas, ankles, hair covers, etc) are related to women's sexuality and the all do make sense in that they have a reason to exist (not a good reason, but A reason), they are not just relics with no meaning that came from nowhere. The meaning might be poo poo or whatever but it exists. 
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Also Wayne missed a whole train robbery and attempted assassination because he was explicitly having sex with an amorphous doppelganger Kandra
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Jan 11, 2019 03:08
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M_Gargantua posted:Also Wayne missed a whole train robbery and attempted assassination because he was explicitly having sex with an amorphous doppelganger Kandra Go re-read it, there was definitely no sex haha. Let's not get crazy here.
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Jan 11, 2019 03:25
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Slanderer posted:Go re-read it, there was definitely no sex haha. Let's not get crazy here. Are you sure? I'm reasonably sure they were described as being naked
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Jan 11, 2019 03:40
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DarkHorse posted:Are you sure? I'm reasonably sure they were described as being naked 
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Jan 11, 2019 03:51
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DarkHorse posted:Are you sure? I'm reasonably sure they were described as being naked I thought MeLaan had her shirt off and Wayne was like "i needed a good snog"? I think the concept of casual sex is completely alien to Sanderson, and that getting to 2nd base on a train is risque and scandalous edit: i was wrong. he used a different cringey word  
Slanderer fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jan 11, 2019 |
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Jan 11, 2019 03:58
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mewse posted:You're arguing sure weird sexy body parts being covered exists in the real world, and left hand/right hand taboos exist in the real world, but not combined, therefore safe hands are unrealistic That's not quite it. It's not that it's unrealistic, just unexplained or not explained sufficiently for me to not be bothered by it. Unrealistic is fine, it's a book about flying dudes with magic swords that are dead spirits. People in this thread are saying it's likely some combo of covering body parts that are considered sexual and left/right hand taboos, or something like that but Sanderson never says any of this. I guess he talks about it being a way to oppress women / not allow them to have shards and I missed that or glossed it over (is it in the books or just that webpage?). Sanderson himself basically confirms it's not that well thought out: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/259-oathbringer-leeds-signing/#e8736 "I am fascinated by the fact that in Asia you don't show your, the bottom of your foot to people. " - BS So, he wants to show this culture is different / alien. Part of the world building. That's fine, it just does not work for me, it does not work because I'm sure that there is a reason that in parts of Asia it's insulting to show your foot to people and that reason makes some sort of coherent sense in it's context. The safehand does not (to me) it's just a thing that's different. I'm being told this culture is different and I guess I would prefer to be shown why it's different instead. Same with the food. It's sort of hooky, men like spicy manly food and women like dainty sweet / bland food. This is such a simple / childish way to look at differences between sexes. It's different but why? It (for me) adds nothing. I would not care one bit about it but drat near every Shallan chapter makes a point to mention her stupid safehand. I think another poster nailed it, it's a Chekhov's gun that never gets fired. Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy these books. This is a very small thing and it's sort of fun to poke fun at, like "lemoncakes" or something.
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Jan 11, 2019 04:03
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me, a genius: "it was perfectly normal and rational to be horny about someone showing an ankle, which is far more related to sexuality than a hand"
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Jan 11, 2019 04:09
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It’s not a Chekhov’s gun because it’s never even hinted at being plot relevant, nor should it. That would be stupid. It’s world building and you don’t need every detail for world building, in fact it would be silly if you did.
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Jan 11, 2019 04:09
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eke out posted:me, a genius: "it was perfectly normal and rational to be horny about someone showing an ankle, which is far more related to sexuality than a hand" Ok. CharlestheHammer posted:you don't need every detail for world building, in fact it would be silly if you did. I don't need this (safehand) detail at all.
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Jan 11, 2019 04:14
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Please these are just moderately cringe, don't make me pull out the troves of what I have read on kindle unlimited Well? We're waiting
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Jan 11, 2019 04:23
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Taffer posted:Well? We're waiting Pick anything my Morgan Rice as a starter?
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Jan 11, 2019 04:34
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I think there's space for sex scenes in fantasy and science fiction. The Mars Trilogy has a lot of slice of life scenes, which are interesting because the characters live on Mars. First in their habitats and domed cities, and later on the terraformed (but still in many respects radically different from Earth) Mars. A lot of mundane things that you don't think about in everyday life don't quite work the same way on Mars as they do on Earth. And it's only logical to include explicit sex in these slice of life scenes. I found the sex scenes natural, and not gratuitous at all. The books were also very character focused, with the Martian's personal stories being very much in the foreground, and huge things like the independence wars being much more in the background than for example the huge battles in Stormlight Archive.
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Jan 11, 2019 05:07
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spandexcajun posted:Ok. I mean if you didn’t you would just get fixated on some other trivial detail so I don’t think it matters
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Jan 11, 2019 05:45
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It is very weird to me that they use chunks of gemstones embedded in transparent spheres as lighting/currency. Why don’t they use plain gemstones, or transparent cubes? Cubes would probably be easier to mold and cast. This sphere thing really takes my attention out of the world and the story. Every time someone lights a lamp or buys something at a shop, it’s “sphere this” and “sphere that”. Sanderson needs to just write an explanatory interlude dedicated to the sphere-minting process or something so this Chekov’s gun can fire already.
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Jan 11, 2019 05:56
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The answer to that is making glass balls is essentially the easiest things possible you can do with glass. Also a sphere is also the most materially efficient of the normal shapes to enclose something like a gemstone. As to why it’s becasue gem stones contain storm light. So they’re intrinsically valuable in the world. Moreso than gold is in ours. Maybe you’re just picturing them trading emeralds the size of grapes? The common currency is just a sand grain sized diamond in an easily graspable sized glass ball. Broams I think are rice grain sized eneralds. E; just double checked with the wiki and each Broam is a 2ct Stone, so slightly bigger than a grain of rice. Imagine how many thousand dollar bills you would lose if you did transactions in currency that small. So you get gems in glass spheres that are slightly smaller than quarters. M_Gargantua fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 11, 2019 |
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Jan 11, 2019 06:10
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"fat pink mast" should be explanation enough why fantasy books don't need sex scenes spelled out.
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Jan 11, 2019 07:18
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M_Gargantua posted:The answer to that is making glass balls is essentially the easiest things possible you can do with glass. Also a sphere is also the most materially efficient of the normal shapes to enclose something like a gemstone. As to why it’s becasue gem stones contain storm light. So they’re intrinsically valuable in the world. Moreso than gold is in ours. Maybe you’re just picturing them trading emeralds the size of grapes? The common currency is just a sand grain sized diamond in an easily graspable sized glass ball. Broams I think are rice grain sized eneralds. Yeah they're little chunks of gems in blobs of glass so they're not easily lost or broken, they're even described as not perfectly spherical(despite their name) so they don't roll away. Though 2ct is pretty huge, that's getting to like pea-sized for a diamond. I like that their value is based on what kind of Soulcasting you can do with them, seemed a neat logical little detail.
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Jan 11, 2019 13:22
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Tahirovic posted:"fat pink mast" should be explanation enough why fantasy books don't need sex scenes spelled out. What is this from so I never read it  Is there somewhere I can get spoiler-free chapter-by-chapter recaps for WoT? Just finished the Knife of Dreams prologue and all I got out of it was Egwene's a Novice for a little bit and Galad (Gawyn? I honestly forget) killed his mentor
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Jan 11, 2019 13:38
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Sab669 posted:Is there somewhere I can get spoiler-free chapter-by-chapter recaps for WoT? Just finished the Knife of Dreams prologue and all I got out of it was Egwene's a Novice for a little bit and Galad (Gawyn? I honestly forget) killed his mentor This is the book that it gets a lot better. If you can't get through this, you should probably give up? For summaries, I recommend Encyclopaedia WoT. Here's the summary of the prologue: http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/books/kod/prologue.html Just don't read the notes under it, those can give minor indirect spoilers. I can also summarize the prologue or a few chapters for you if you want. Just the first chapter is already good, I don't want you to give up on this.
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Jan 11, 2019 14:10
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Sab669 posted:What is this from so I never read it https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Chapter_Summaries Also http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org (more gimmicky, but also with helpful nerdy notes — I found myself relying on this one at one particularly interminable point where I physically couldn't make progress through one of the rebels-trekking-through-the-woods chapters)
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Jan 11, 2019 14:10
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Oh I'm not necessarily complaining, I do feel "reinvigorated" now that I'm nearing the home stretch. But I still have a hard time focusing on both audio books and driving, even if I'm fully enjoying it. Like I had to listen to Oathbringer partly as an audio book and I retained Part 3 less well than what I actually read.
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Jan 11, 2019 14:18
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DarkHorse posted:Yeah they're little chunks of gems in blobs of glass so they're not easily lost or broken, they're even described as not perfectly spherical(despite their name) so they don't roll away. Though 2ct is pretty huge, that's getting to like pea-sized for a diamond. That is precisely why the gems have value. Emeralds are the type that can soulcast food so they're the most valuable. Emeralds = army with no supply lines. Like it's stated a bunch of times what the spheres are and why they have value. wizzardstaff posted:It is very weird to me that they use chunks of gemstones embedded in transparent spheres as lighting/currency. Why don’t they use plain gemstones, or transparent cubes? Cubes would probably be easier to mold and cast. Dude there are like a dozen parts in the books that explain all about the spheres-as-currency and why. They hold stormlight, they're used in soulcasting, Shardplate & blades, and fabrials. I can't figure a way to say "read better" without sounding like a dick, but like... it's all there in the books. Not even the crazy wikis and interviews on the coppermind, just the books. I used to skim details super hard to get to the "action" but I had to train myself to slow down when I read Wheel of Time because it got very tangled.
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Jan 11, 2019 15:00
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One thing I missed about using the gems for lighting was apparently fire is too dangerous on Roshar due to a much higher level of oxygen in the air.
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Jan 11, 2019 15:09
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And flammable material is certainly in lower supply in the non-Shinovar parts of Roshar than it is on the more Earth-like worlds (modern Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel).
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Jan 11, 2019 15:20
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Sab669 posted:What is this from so I never read it It is from A Song of Ice and Fire. It lead to the creation of this glorious mp3: NSFW https://web.archive.org/web/20181107172859/http://tindeck.com/dl/utrz NSFW
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Jan 11, 2019 15:20
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Tahirovic posted:It is from A Song of Ice and Fire. It lead to the creation of this glorious mp3: NSFW https://web.archive.org/web/20181107172859/http://tindeck.com/dl/utrz NSFW Oh, I guess I must've blanked this line from my memory because that was the first series that kicked off my interest in reading. And wait, is this discussion about the spheres serious? I thought wizzardstaff was making fun of spandexcajun with that post
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Jan 11, 2019 15:45
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SynthesisAlpha posted:Dude there are like a dozen parts in the books that explain all about the spheres-as-currency and why. They hold stormlight, they're used in soulcasting, Shardplate & blades, and fabrials. I can't figure a way to say "read better" without sounding like a dick, but like... it's all there in the books. Not even the crazy wikis and interviews on the coppermind, just the books. This person is just being an rear end in a top hat, mocking / making fun of me. Of course it doesn't land, since, as you pointed out spheres are thoughtfully explained and fit right in with the whole world. The damned books are called "Stormlight Chronicles" and the spheres are one of the main mechanism that make Stormlight work, it is explained, in detail from the very start and has major effects on the entire plot.
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Jan 11, 2019 15:59
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The concept of Stormlight is detailed throughout the novel. The necessity of putting chips into spheres, as opposed to some other geometric shape, is not. And to focus on why the gems have to be shaped into spheres instead of cubes or prisms would be missing the point. Similarly, it is important to the worldbuilding and the overall story that Vorin society has rigidly defined gender roles. But it's not necessary to dig deep into the history of exactly how each gendered tradition was formed, nor is it a given that each tradition will have a significant payoff in the plot.
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Jan 11, 2019 16:17
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I can’t believe you all are actually explaining the sphere poo poo, you couldn’t be missing the point harder.
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Jan 11, 2019 16:20
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wizzardstaff posted:The concept of Stormlight is detailed throughout the novel. The necessity of putting chips into spheres, as opposed to some other geometric shape, is not. And to focus on why the gems have to be shaped into spheres instead of cubes or prisms would be missing the point. The gems are mostly all just regular brilliant cut.
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Jan 11, 2019 17:47
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spandexcajun posted:This person is just being an rear end in a top hat, mocking / making fun of me. Of course it doesn't land, since, as you pointed out spheres are thoughtfully explained and fit right in with the whole world. The damned books are called "Stormlight Chronicles" and the spheres are one of the main mechanism that make Stormlight work, it is explained, in detail from the very start and has major effects on the entire plot. You're nitpicking a ton about a world-building detail meant to add some flavor to a non-Earth society. You've continued to ignore any and all attempts to explain to you how it makes sense, and just keep insisting that it doesn't. Not every detail is going to be plot relevant, especially in a world-building fantasy book. The color of Shallan's dresses don't matter, but they are mentioned at times. If a character is mentioned as disliking cheese, it's not a plot important element that needs to be explored to the most intricate detail. Sometimes it's just a thing to add flavor. It's used frequently to highlight how uncomfortable some tasks are for female high society Rosharans, and its even used once or twice to scandalize the men in high society. It's realistic in that 'weird cultural taboos' exist, and are things that humans do. It's literally just a combo of 'left hand unclean' and 'cover and over-sexualize weird parts of female anatomy' two things that are very common in cultures across the world. You're getting teased a little because you're apparently denser than a neutron star.
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Jan 11, 2019 18:24
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Captain Monkey posted:You're nitpicking a ton about a world-building detail meant to add some flavor to a non-Earth society. You've continued to ignore any and all attempts to explain to you how it makes sense, and just keep insisting that it doesn't. Not every detail is going to be plot relevant, especially in a world-building fantasy book. The color of Shallan's dresses don't matter, but they are mentioned at times. If a character is mentioned as disliking cheese, it's not a plot important element that needs to be explored to the most intricate detail. it just baffles me that he's literally arguing that there's definitely good contextual reasons for every cultural hangup on a particular body part we can think of in the real world and picking a hand as a thing to sexualize is somehow uniquely nonsensical (although he won't explain why fetishizing ankles was reasonable lol) high-class vorin people think a lot about it in their chapters because it's an important marker that symbolizes gender, culture, religion, and class all wrapped up in one thing, and because it's a real hassle for our main female vorin character who is regularly defying those roles
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Jan 11, 2019 18:44
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The food differences make a lot of sense, it's like how "real" men aren't supposed to like sugary "girly" drinks IRL. Or how eating bugs is gross for some cultures but a delicacy for others. I could definitely imagine a culture where each gender has different foods and they like theirs better just because that's what they are used to. .
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Jan 11, 2019 19:04
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These ingrained Vorin taboos also flesh out the relationships between the countries. In Alekhtar and Jah Keved, the core Vorin kingdoms, those taboos are strictly adhered to. In Thaylenah, which is more peripheral, they still follow Vorin teachings and traditions, but not as stridently, and mixed with some native traditions of their own. As queen Fen said, their piety and orthodoxy is sometimes questioned by the Ardentia. So Rysn having an inner monologue complaining about some of the more obnoxious Vorin taboos (especially as a woman), and calling Alethi stuffy and prude, furthers the world building. Rysn has no problem with wearing a glove for her safehand, while Adolin is scandalized when Navani does it.
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Jan 11, 2019 19:56
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Torrannor posted:And flammable material is certainly in lower supply in the non-Shinovar parts of Roshar than it is on the more Earth-like worlds (modern Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel). This was only mentioned in the notes of Arcanum Unbounded, right? It seems like a pretty weird detail tbh--I don't think there's any mention of the dangers of fire in the books themselves (I could be wrong, though), and they all bring out lamps for the weeping. It seemed like he either had a future idea in mind when he through in that detail, or more likely, a reader mentioned a problem with chasm fiends to him. The issue is with scaling laws. You can't just take a crab and scale it up to monstrous size--it's limbs couldn't support it. I think he believed this had been solved by the mentions of the mysterious spren that are seen around chasm fiends--probably some magical stuff to make them lighter, or stronger, than they should be. However, there's a more subtle issue with the chasm fiends that also affects the smaller creatures of roshar: oxygen. Arthropods (as we know them) perform oxygen/co2 exchange through spiracles, which are just openings in their bodies to a network of trachea tubes (although some land crabs might have more complex proto-lungs, i think?). This allows passive gas exchange directly with tissues, but only works over very small distances--it absolutely doesn't scale up. The only reason why there were some huge prehistoric insects is because the atmosphere used to be a lot more oxygen rich--this allows inefficient, simple respiratory systems to reach bigger sizes. I suspect a nerd like me mentioned this to him, and he added that detail later to make his ecosystem slightly more believable
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Jan 11, 2019 22:02
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The focus on Vorin traditions also adds significance to their breaking. Like Dalinar learning to write.
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Jan 11, 2019 22:29
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Slanderer posted:This was only mentioned in the notes of Arcanum Unbounded, right? It seems like a pretty weird detail tbh--I don't think there's any mention of the dangers of fire in the books themselves (I could be wrong, though), and they all bring out lamps for the weeping. It seemed like he either had a future idea in mind when he through in that detail, or more likely, a reader mentioned a problem with chasm fiends to him. He actually has a couple nerds onstaff as part of the world building stuff. The time bubbles in mistborn were originally gonna do redshift and blueshifting, until his pocket nerd mentioned that would end up giving everyone who used them cancer
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Jan 11, 2019 22:35
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Tunicate posted:The time bubbles in mistborn were originally gonna do redshift and blueshifting, until his pocket nerd mentioned that would end up giving everyone who used them cancer
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Jan 11, 2019 23:01
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Slanderer posted:This was only mentioned in the notes of Arcanum Unbounded, right? It seems like a pretty weird detail tbh--I don't think there's any mention of the dangers of fire in the books themselves (I could be wrong, though), and they all bring out lamps for the weeping. It seemed like he either had a future idea in mind when he through in that detail, or more likely, a reader mentioned a problem with chasm fiends to him. There's also less gravity on Roshar, which helps somewhat with the size of the bigger creatures. It's not a huge difference, but Brandon has a document with the properties of each world and gravity does come into it.
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