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I had a thought about some very end-of-the-series spoilers, and how they might've been foreshadowed. AMoL: Rand has been told that only his blood on the rocks at Shayul Ghul will end things, of course, and asked the Aelfinn some question which got an answer that to live he must die. But it's also said that the Aelfinn speak the Old Tongue, and were communicating with him through a translator, and that the translator was even speaking a bit roughly. The Old Tongue is a high context language, and every term permits of several meanings. So what did the Aelfinn actually say? How was the sentence structured, what verb was when saying he "must die"? Here's a sample of the Old Tongue given earlier in the series: Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin. The grave is no bar to my call. The grave. Moridin. Death. To live you must become Moridin.  (fake edit: people in WoT fandom probably spotted this years ago, once the relevantly-named character was introduced, but today it's my showerthought and I feel very proud of it.)
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Jun 16, 2020 13:45
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Vavrek posted:(fake edit: people in WoT fandom probably spotted this years ago, once the relevantly-named character was introduced, but today it's my showerthought and I feel very proud of it.) The Moridin and Rand merge/switcharoo theory is nearly as old as ACoS, but I think noticing the Horn of Valere inscription and the 'finn prophecy is pretty solid and novel.
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Jun 16, 2020 15:20
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I never noticed that Moridin is capitalized like a proper name, all the way back in book 2. Or even book one?
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Jun 16, 2020 15:36
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I never noticed that Moridin is capitalized like a proper name, all the way back in book 2. Or even book one? Book one.
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Jun 16, 2020 15:43
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I'm re-reading the series for the first time in a looong as while, and man, it REALLY sticks out just how far ahead RJ planned everything when you see, like, literally every dream sequence. With the hindsight of having finished the series, you run in to all the dream stuff that was so easy to gloss over the first time, but then you see it a second time and go "WTF he's laying out stuff that happens 3+ books away, god drat."
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Jun 16, 2020 18:04
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Gwaihir posted:I'm re-reading the series for the first time in a looong as while, and man, it REALLY sticks out just how far ahead RJ planned everything when you see, like, literally every dream sequence. With the hindsight of having finished the series, you run in to all the dream stuff that was so easy to gloss over the first time, but then you see it a second time and go "WTF he's laying out stuff that happens 3+ books away, god drat." Yeah, I've mad a post a while back how the first book repeatedly spoiles that the Aiel have Avendesora. Somebody pointed out that male Aiel channelers going north to seek their death in the Blight is mentioned first in The Shadow Rising, but only becomes relevant at the very end of the series. Then there's Min's viewing in book 5 of Sheriam "Rays of silver and blue flashed about her fiery hair, and a soft golden light; Min could not say what it meant." The payoff? 7 books later in The Gathering Storm. "The scene would always be vivid in Egwene's mind - her former Keeper, lying with her head pressed against the stump, blue dress and fiery red hair suddenly bathed in warm golden light as a thinner section of clouds moved in front of the sun. Then the silvery axe, falling to claim her head." There is just a ton of good foreshadowing in the series, it's definitely one of the series' biggest strengths for me.
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Jun 16, 2020 18:38
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My favorite was re-reading after finishing the series for the first time and hitting the dream where Rand and Ba'alzamon's reflections merge into one and going
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Jun 16, 2020 18:41
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Gwaihir posted:I'm re-reading the series for the first time in a looong as while, and man, it REALLY sticks out just how far ahead RJ planned everything when you see, like, literally every dream sequence. With the hindsight of having finished the series, you run in to all the dream stuff that was so easy to gloss over the first time, but then you see it a second time and go "WTF he's laying out stuff that happens 3+ books away, god drat." Its a mix of planning and him also adding a bunch of little tidbits that he kept filed away so he could go back and connect them to something new without it being a suddenly introduction. Basically the opposite of stuff like harry potter where every book introduces new spells that completely makes the events of the previous book look stupid.
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Jun 16, 2020 21:35
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Decided to start relistening again. Goddamn "We have been waiting for you" is read so, so well.
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Jun 17, 2020 00:03
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Started listening to the audiobook version (which tends to make me notice things I would have glazed over), and it is funny how Jordan's habit of shoving little details everywhere gets to you. There's a mention just before Rand meets Moirane and Lan that the last stranger to visit, apart from wool and tabac merchants, was somebody from Baerlon who was in some kind of trouble. So I immediately started trying to figure out who this "last stranger" was.
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Jun 17, 2020 00:25
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Torrannor posted:Then there's Min's viewing in book 5 of Sheriam "Rays of silver and blue flashed about her fiery hair, and a soft golden light; Min could not say what it meant." The payoff? 7 books later in The Gathering Storm. "The scene would always be vivid in Egwene's mind - her former Keeper, lying with her head pressed against the stump, blue dress and fiery red hair suddenly bathed in warm golden light as a thinner section of clouds moved in front of the sun. Then the silvery axe, falling to claim her head."[/spoiler] i'm surprised you feel that way, i remember thinking to myself that one in particular seemed like sanderson trying to pay off that viewing somehow, it felt really squeezed in.
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Jun 17, 2020 01:17
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the nucas posted:i'm surprised you feel that way, i remember thinking to myself that one in particular seemed like sanderson trying to pay off that viewing somehow, it felt really squeezed in. Some of that is definitely a matter of perspective, while I agree with you on that specific example, I know that where I'm concerned I've been back and forth over and over again on prophecies and viewings and dreaming and foreshadowing that a lot of the fulfillments to me turned out "exactly" how we "predicted" them. I've been trying to look at some stuff simulating a "fresh eye" as much as possible during my current re-read and boy it's hard.
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Jun 17, 2020 03:14
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It’s kind of jarring when Sanderson goes at mach speed to tie as many loose ends as possible in the last book or two. The last battle seemed to take forever and is pretty tense but should not have been 900 pages of tense.
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Jun 17, 2020 06:55
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i know it was a few pages back but i really find it odd that people don't like how sanderson uses the rules of channelling. compared to how pragmatic most of the combat is, channelling was incredibly straightforward until sanderson took over
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Jun 17, 2020 07:24
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Sanderson's entire trademark is magic systems with extremely detailed rules, and a protagonist that exploits and abuses those rules to the max. Jordan didn't work that way. He was satisfied with a vague sense of what's possible, and basically just set things up to work the way he wanted them to work. So there were few hard defined limits of the sort Sanderson would have included. So Sanderson's contribution looks very much like "well, this isn't established as impossible, so it is just a case of "nobody thought of it in-universe for some reason". This means that even stuff that would have fit right in had Jordan added is going to look a bit suspect, because of the way Sanderson writes.
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Jun 17, 2020 07:35
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jordan gave channeling more of a 'mythical' quality where it always sounded like things out of an age of legends being told in a story to people, where sanderson tended to be more hands-on from what i remember. gave it more of like a uh. high level tabletop party feel. and given the kind of series wheel of time is, the former honestly comes off a lot better to me. it's a bit more loose and vague.
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Jun 17, 2020 07:45
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My only problem with the traveling stuff was that the dude knew where enormous pools of lava were. I haven't finished my reread yet so maybe there's some explanation of that but my understanding of the skill is that you have to intimately know your actual surroundings and then kind of mentally weave them into the place you want a gateway to. But if you don't have a pretty specific knowledge of where you're trying to gate to then how do you get to the lava pool? Otherwise you just end up somewhere random like a snowy frozen spot half the world away. Even if he was kind of a savant these basic rules always seemed to apply earlier in the series.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:00
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The other reason I find it jarring is that it lines up with the other main difference between the two - Jordon writes fights like someone who knows what a fight feels like and Sanderson writes them like someone who knows what a D&D have feels like. It's noticeable in the normal fights but it's a huge neon sign saying "I'm so smart, look at me!" which is just distracting. He may have improved on that since then but i read the opening to one of his books at the time and it was painfully more of that (some assassin with magical powers described very specifically so we can understand how they'll be exploited) so I just think he's not for me.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:52
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Inspector 34 posted:My only problem with the traveling stuff was that the dude knew where enormous pools of lava were. I haven't finished my reread yet so maybe there's some explanation of that but my understanding of the skill is that you have to intimately know your actual surroundings and then kind of mentally weave them into the place you want a gateway to. But if you don't have a pretty specific knowledge of where you're trying to gate to then how do you get to the lava pool? Otherwise you just end up somewhere random like a snowy frozen spot half the world away. Even if he was kind of a savant these basic rules always seemed to apply earlier in the series. That was something only Androl could do -- he couldn't do anything else really, but he could really Travel well. The most jarring thing about that scene for me is finding out that Kinslayer's Dagger was a volcano all along.
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Jun 17, 2020 09:40
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Yeah I get that, which is why I mentioned him being a savant. But people talk about Sanderson kind of rules-lawyering things and he kind of broke them there. In my opinion at least.
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Jun 17, 2020 10:10
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bell jar posted:That was something only Androl could do -- he couldn't do anything else really, but he could really Travel well. The most jarring thing about that scene for me is finding out that Kinslayer's Dagger was a volcano all along. ...you mean dragonmount? Kinslayers dagger is the mountain range. Anyway, of course Androl knew where to find lava, he had gone basically everywhere and done a little of basically everything.
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Jun 17, 2020 11:48
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it's not too big of a jump to assume that a constantly smoking mountain has lava in it tbh
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Jun 17, 2020 12:05
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silvergoose posted:...you mean dragonmount? Kinslayers dagger is the mountain range. I thought those two were the same thing  Comrade Blyatlov posted:it's not too big of a jump to assume that a constantly smoking mountain has lava in it tbh Maybe it's just an audiobook thing but I don't think this is mentioned often
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Jun 17, 2020 12:35
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Was Androl in the last battle? I just read it recently and don’t remember him really being there. The whole Black Tower has a nice excuse to not really do anything for most of the battle. Like lava the whole loving field, that would stop an army.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:08
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bell jar posted:I thought those two were the same thing -------| .......| .......| .......| .......| .....^.| .......| .......| Dashes are the mountains in the blight. Pipes are kinslayers dagger. Caret is dragonmount.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:09
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Invalid Validation posted:Was Androl in the last battle? I just read it recently and don’t remember him really being there. The whole Black Tower has a nice excuse to not really do anything for most of the battle. Like lava the whole loving field, that would stop an army. Yes. He stole back the seals.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:11
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Inspector 34 posted:My only problem with the traveling stuff was that the dude knew where enormous pools of lava were. I haven't finished my reread yet so maybe there's some explanation of that but my understanding of the skill is that you have to intimately know your actual surroundings and then kind of mentally weave them into the place you want a gateway to. But if you don't have a pretty specific knowledge of where you're trying to gate to then how do you get to the lava pool? Otherwise you just end up somewhere random like a snowy frozen spot half the world away. Even if he was kind of a savant these basic rules always seemed to apply earlier in the series. You have to know your origin point really well, knowing your destination apparently doesn't matter that much. It's even commented on a few times how weird it is, that it seems like the opposite should be the case.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:39
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My big issue with Sandersons super boy is the lack of fatigue. Making a gateway is super duper tiring and i don't see how being weak in the power mitigates that. Back in the jordan days the person who was a fantastic shield holder still couldn't do that forever.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:44
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DarkHorse posted:You have to know your origin point really well, knowing your destination apparently doesn't matter that much. It's even commented on a few times how weird it is, that it seems like the opposite should be the case. I always wished that this worked differently for men and women like everything else. Men bore a hole to their destination. Seems like they’d need to know where they’re going. Women make the two places so similar they might as well be the same. Seems they’d need to know the origin.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:52
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silvergoose posted:-------| You're mixing up Kinslayer's Dagger with the Spine of the World. A map:  The Spine of the World runs north-south; Kinslayer's Dagger runs ESE-WNW a bit north of Cairhien, and is the mountain range that Rand, Loial, and the Shienaran Sniffer Whose Name I Forget (Sorry, dude) see after they've been walking in an alternate world for a while, which lets them know that they're crossing hundreds of miles walking south from Shienar through distance distortion. So it's more like: code:
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Jun 17, 2020 13:53
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:My big issue with Sandersons super boy is the lack of fatigue. Making a gateway is super duper tiring and i don't see how being weak in the power mitigates that. Back in the jordan days the person who was a fantastic shield holder still couldn't do that forever. Jordan set that up in the beginning of A Crown of Swords. When Aviendha makes a gateway to escape the farm (before she successfully unweaves it), they talk about how it takes so much more energy for her to do than it does for Elayne (or was it Egwene). In a subsequent book there’s another throwaway line about how it’s less tiring for some women to make gateways than others. A Crown of Swords has a second theory for Aviendha’s difficulty making a gateway though. There’s a Cadsuane chapter where she thinks about how there’s multiple ways to do a weave, and if you try doing a weave in a different manner than the first time you did it, it’s particularly more draining. Aviendha was the first character to make a gateway, and maybe she used a different weave. I don’t know if Jordan ever came out and explicitly said why Aviendha had difficulty weaving gateways, but there’s enough set up to say, “actually it’s like a Talent.”
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Jun 17, 2020 14:04
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Vavrek posted:You're mixing up Kinslayer's Dagger with the Spine of the World. Oh, drat, you're right.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:08
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Prairie Bus posted:Jordan set that up in the beginning of A Crown of Swords. When Aviendha makes a gateway to escape the farm (before she successfully unweaves it), they talk about how it takes so much more energy for her to do than it does for Elayne (or was it Egwene). In a subsequent book there’s another throwaway line about how it’s less tiring for some women to make gateways than others. Yeah it's absolutely set up as a Talent - strength in the Power doesn't seem to matter so much, as even Rand had difficulty with how wide he could make some Traveling gateways.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:46
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At least until he Lews Theroned himself to Deus Ex Machina a million deathgates.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:47
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I still think the funniest arbitrary rule about Gateways is that they just instantly kill any shadowspawn who go through them. Its just so blatantly an 'oh gently caress I don't want to deal with Forsaken travelling armies of Trollocs everywhere' patch. Also in universe it seems like an insane design flaw Aginor, especially in the AoL.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:57
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Zore posted:I still think the funniest arbitrary rule about Gateways is that they just instantly kill any shadowspawn who go through them. Its just so blatantly an 'oh gently caress I don't want to deal with Forsaken travelling armies of Trollocs everywhere' patch. I'd imagine a whole lot of trollocs died testing ways around it. Sometimes it just doesn't work.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:58
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Zore posted:I still think the funniest arbitrary rule about Gateways is that they just instantly kill any shadowspawn who go through them. Its just so blatantly an 'oh gently caress I don't want to deal with Forsaken travelling armies of Trollocs everywhere' patch. I was thinking about that. It's probably justifiable in universe as True Power creations not being able to go through a One Power weave.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I was thinking about that. It's probably justifiable in universe as True Power creations not being able to go through a One Power weave. Moridin made a true power gateway though.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I was thinking about that. It's probably justifiable in universe as True Power creations not being able to go through a One Power weave. Are they a True Power creation? I thought they were genetic engineering+one power fuckery like the Nym and other things the AoL Aes Sedai were able to create.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:06
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silvergoose posted:Moridin made a true power gateway though. Yeah, but turns out the Dark One isn't really interested in giving his Chosen an actual leg up in the fight. e: reminder though that Gholam can Travel, and Myrddraal can basically teleport. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 15:12
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