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there is a recent wob that Elhokar is a narcissist too, which explains a LOT
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Mar 14, 2020 15:01
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And now going back to ASOIAF comparisons, I sometimes saw in the ASOIAF fandom a disgusting dismissal of Tyrion's suffering. Sure his father was a monster who had the love of his life raped in front of him and his sister was physically abusing him since his birth but he was rich and part of a powerful House so that made it less terrible somehow. I wonder if people do the same with Shallan? I'm at the part where she's with Kaladin in the chasms and given people tend towards dichotomous thinking, I wonder if some people think she had it "better" than Kaladin did. The problem is that even in a stratified society, those at the top aren't really better off. To be a child in a Noble house is like child abuse. Even to this day symbolic monarchs and their family are horribly mistreated by their handlers. Shallan and Tyron faced a burden equal to anyone else's and their station didn't lessen it.
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Mar 15, 2020 14:10
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Uhhh ok
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Mar 15, 2020 15:21
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Slanderer posted:Uhhh ok I'm just trying to get a feel for the fanbase. What characters people like or don't like and why.
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Mar 15, 2020 16:03
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NikkolasKing posted:I'm just trying to get a feel for the fanbase. What characters people like or don't like and why. It's a hard thing to comment on until you've finished Oathbringer. Generally it seems like most characters are universally loved except perhaps Shallan whose character and role in the story seems to change dramatically in each book.
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Mar 15, 2020 16:39
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NikkolasKing posted:I'm just trying to get a feel for the fanbase. What characters people like or don't like and why. I think you will find a lot less grey areas in Sanderson's works. He writes fantasy much more similarly to Tolkien or Jordan than to Martin or Abercrombie; the Good Guys are good, the Bad Guys are bad, and the Antiheroes are Antiheroic. Some people don't like Shallan because they think she's annoying or her humor isn't funny. Some people don't like Kaladin because he's too mopey.
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Mar 15, 2020 16:43
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Subvisual Haze posted:It's a hard thing to comment on until you've finished Oathbringer. Generally it seems like most characters are universally loved except perhaps Shallan whose character and role in the story seems to change dramatically in each book. I've read all three books already, I'm just doing a reread. Shallan's arc in Oathbringer was tedious but I am liking her role in WoR more this time around. I might change my views on her in the next book after a reread as well. New Yorp New Yorp posted:I think you will find a lot less grey areas in Sanderson's works. He writes fantasy much more similarly to Tolkien or Jordan than to Martin or Abercrombie; the Good Guys are good, the Bad Guys are bad, and the Antiheroes are Antiheroic. That makes sense. I don't know if having more clear-cut good and bad guys makes characters more or less popular, though. I guess in a series like TSA you won't find people defending Sadeas the way you occasionally find people defending Tywin in the ASOIAF fandom. Seems like everyone is in agreement that Dalinar is the best. I fully endorse that view.
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Mar 15, 2020 17:09
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New Yorp New Yorp posted:I think you will find a lot less grey areas in Sanderson's works. He writes fantasy much more similarly to Tolkien or Jordan than to Martin or Abercrombie; the Good Guys are good, the Bad Guys are bad, and the Antiheroes are Antiheroic. I'm not sure this is strictly true. While I'd agree there is less grey area in Sanderson's works, a lot of Sanderson's antagonists often have perfectly reasonable motivations when you look at them from their perspectives. So far only Odium seems to be strictly a dick. Maybe the priests in Warbreaker, too, though holding on to power for the sake of having power is a perfectly human motivation, even if they went about it in horrific ways
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Mar 15, 2020 17:25
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Regardless of shallan's personal tragic past, she still frequently treats her social lessers as objects rather than people
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Mar 15, 2020 18:24
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Moash is in a grey area for a lot of people. Szeth is in a (pretty weird) grey area. Even these grey area guys are trying to do the right thing from their perspective, though. They're not just unabashed selfish assholes.
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Mar 15, 2020 19:34
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I kinda wish Moash had been written as more lefty guillotine-the-nobles guy rather than simply "gently caress this guy who killed my parents" because I think that would have been a more interesting influence on Kaladin. There's a lot of interesting world building with the caste system but no characters that seem to think it's very bad anymore. Dalinar and Kaladin's earlier wokeness about it is pretty much gone in Oathbringer and everyone is down for an authoritarian government as long as it's to fight the voidbringers. Sanderson had the same take on the final empire, so it's not really that surprising.
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Mar 15, 2020 19:44
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aparmenideanmonad posted:I kinda wish Moash had been written as more lefty guillotine-the-nobles guy rather than simply "gently caress this guy who killed my parents" because I think that would have been a more interesting influence on Kaladin. There's a lot of interesting world building with the caste system but no characters that seem to think it's very bad anymore. Dalinar and Kaladin's earlier wokeness about it is pretty much gone in Oathbringer and everyone is down for an authoritarian government as long as it's to fight the voidbringers. Sanderson had the same take on the final empire, so it's not really that surprising. Yeah.. from what I remember moash was purely written to be "what if Kaladin followed through on his hatred of the nobles" and not much else
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Mar 15, 2020 20:20
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Cicero posted:Moash is in a grey area for a lot of people. Szeth is in a (pretty weird) grey area. My impression has been that the overwhelming majority of readers absolutely despise Moash and wish horrible things on him. I personally think he's an obvious redemption arc in process, just because Sanderson has such an extremely optimistic view of human nature that unless you're psychotic or a sadist you can be redeemed back to the good guys.
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Mar 16, 2020 00:47
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And here's update 8: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/fmovga/stormlight_book_four_update_8/
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Mar 23, 2020 14:24
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Leng posted:And here's update 8: he's gonna end up accidentally writing an unanticipated entire new book due to having no public appearances to go to
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Mar 23, 2020 14:47
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eke out posted:he's gonna end up accidentally writing an unanticipated entire new book due to having no public appearances to go to Ha, right? Didn't have anything else to do these few weeks, so thought I'd churn out a novella while my beta readers did their thing.
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Mar 24, 2020 17:45
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eke out posted:he's gonna end up accidentally writing an unanticipated entire new book due to having no public appearances to go to He wrote at least one novella traveling to and from those events, so it's not like he needs more time or excuse.
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Mar 25, 2020 15:19
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Why didn't Ruin or Preservation make their own Spren on Scadrial? Also, if I'm remembering the revelations from Well of Ascension right, even an imprisoned Ruin could alter text and the like. Odium never makes use of this ability that I know of. Why not? I finished my reread of TSA. Oathbringer was still fuckin' awesome but it made me want to reread Mistborn now as well so I'm doing my third read of TFE but I intend to also follow through with a second read of WOA and HOA.
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Mar 28, 2020 07:05
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NikkolasKing posted:Why didn't Ruin or Preservation make their own Spren on Scadrial? Altering text was an ability unique to Ruin. Just like how Ruin was able to directly speak to a pierced person's mind. Conversely, Ruin couldn't hear their thoughts, but Preservation could. Which is what allows Harmony to have a two-way conversation, since he has both abilities. I'm reasonably certain that Odium can't alter text. As for creating their own Spren, they likely couldn't. Spren predate the appearance of Honor and Cultivation on Roshar. And every shard that stays long on a world invests the world with some of their power, which manifests in different ways. You could just as well ask why Honor or Cultivation didn't create mists on Roshar. They likely can't, it's the result of the interaction between Scadrial and Preservation. When Cultivation and Honor took root on Roshar, some of their investiture fused with some of the Spren, creating Honorspren, Cryptics, etc. And the spren-like Seons (and like Skaze) on Sel come from their respective shards being killed and splintered. There are no Spren on Nalthis or Taldain that we could see, either. So I think Ruin or Preservation could only have created their own Spren if they had settled on Roshar.
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Mar 28, 2020 08:11
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Torrannor posted:Spren predate the appearance of Honor and Cultivation on Roshar. ..... When Cultivation and Honor took root on Roshar, some of their investiture fused with some of the Spren, creating Honorspren, Cryptics, etc. Really? I thought that all the spren came from one of the two shards: all the "natural" ones (lifespren, etc) from Cultivation and all the "emotional" ones from Honor.
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Mar 28, 2020 10:58
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There are some that were formed from Adonalsium, pre dating the arrival of Honor and Cultivation. These are the ones with four genders, etc.
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Mar 28, 2020 11:06
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Steel inquisitors and koloss.
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Mar 28, 2020 14:56
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I actually I figured their spren equivalents were Atium and Lerasium.
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Mar 28, 2020 20:19
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NikkolasKing posted:Why didn't Ruin or Preservation make their own Spren on Scadrial? from an in-universe POV: ruin and preservation built the planet from scratch, so they're more deeply linked to random objects lying around and can do more poo poo with from an out of universe POV: it'd be a kinda dull retread of the previous plotline
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Mar 28, 2020 21:16
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NikkolasKing posted:Why didn't Ruin or Preservation make their own Spren on Scadrial? Spren are chunks of divine power that gain their own sentience either by design or if left alone for long enough. A shard can choose to purposefully make their own spren, or the spren can form on their own if chunks of the shard's power have been broken off (the little light ball things in Elantris). It's unclear if Honor's spren or Odium's spren+unmade are voluntary creations or involuntary ones resulting from their struggles and mutual wounding or maybe a mix of both. I actually have read the answer to the Ruin/text thing from a Sanderson interview. Apparently the important difference is that Ruin and Preservation literally created the planet of Scadriel, thus their divine power is bound up in everything. Ruin can modify texts because his power is somewhat constituent in the physical matter of the texts. Also if he has managed to spike someone working with the texts he can send them hallucinations or faulty mental suggestions. He can also gently caress with memories that Keepers store in their copperminds (not sure exactly how, but him doing this to Sazed's memories is an important part of the middle book). In contrast Odium didn't create Roshar (neither did Honor/Cultivation, all choose to settle in the system after it was created). In fact his shard is mostly based on a different nearby planet in the same system called Braize. Thus his ability to directly impact things on Roshar is pretty limited outside of his Everstorm and the mischief he can make via his spren and unmade influencing people.
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Mar 29, 2020 01:50
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Honestly the closest analogy to spren off Roshar are probably the Seons and Skaze on Sel (Elantris).
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Mar 29, 2020 08:18
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Subvisual Haze posted:Spren are chunks of divine power that gain their own sentience either by design or if left alone for long enough. A shard can choose to purposefully make their own spren, or the spren can form on their own if chunks of the shard's power have been broken off (the little light ball things in Elantris). It's unclear if Honor's spren or Odium's spren+unmade are voluntary creations or involuntary ones resulting from their struggles and mutual wounding or maybe a mix of both. I had no idea Braize was an actual planet. I wondered what exactly Damnation was but I just figured it was some hell dimension Odium created. This all makes sense but the earlier post talking about how different Shards having different and unique abilities also made sense to me. I can't remember but when the Lord Ruler took the god power for a minute, did it come from Ruin or Preservation? The wiki says it was Preservation and " quote:Afterward, Rashek took up the power in the Well to prevent the release of Ruin, and used it to reshape the world of Scadrial in an attempt to get rid of the mists. He was not very delicate with the power, starting with moving the world too close to the sun and having to make constant adjustments to compensate.[9] Preservation's intent can be seen here, as he could not destroy, only change This doesn't make any sense to me. The Lord-Ruler created a world constantly on the brink of destruction. I distinctly remember Ruin is very happy with the Scadrial Rashek made. That's why I thought he must have gotten his power from Ruin because he made a world of constant death and misery and, getting back to the ideas Shards have unique abilities, he couldn't have done otherwise. The Final Empire and Scadrial endures because of the Lord-Ruler himself being a font of unequaled power. Everything else is a malformed mess that is slowly collapsing. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 00:06
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He was trying to save people but hosed up at it. The power works based on your Intent, basically.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:36
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Also, I think Sazed calls it out in the Hero of Ages epigraphs, but for each change Rashek made that hosed things up, he made a new change to mitigate it, rather than just undoing everything, preserving what he built.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:15
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MildShow posted:Also, I think Sazed calls it out in the Hero of Ages epigraphs, but for each change Rashek made that hosed things up, he made a new change to mitigate it, rather than just undoing everything, preserving what he built. Yeah it was godlike power without godlike knowledge
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Mar 30, 2020 05:31
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MildShow posted:Also, I think Sazed calls it out in the Hero of Ages epigraphs, but for each change Rashek made that hosed things up, he made a new change to mitigate it, rather than just undoing everything, preserving what he built.
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Mar 30, 2020 13:45
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Cicero posted:I thought the explanation was that he was steadily running out of God juice as he was making changes and thus couldn't undo things and fix them the right way. That’s part of it as well - found the relevant passage: Hero of Ages posted:The subtlety displayed in the ash-eating microbes and enhanced plants shows that Rashek got better and better at using the power. It burned out in a matter of minutes—but to a god, minutes can pass like hours. During that time, Rashek began as an ignorant child who shoved a planet too close to the sun, grew into an adult who could create ashmounts to cool the air, then finally became a mature artisan who could develop plants and creatures for specific purposes.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:07
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Rashek held Preservation's power. In the distant past, Preservation and Ruin co-created the planet and lived in relative peace with the understanding that one day Ruin would get to destroy the place. Preservation changed their mind though, and essentially lobotomized themselves to create a magic prison to trap the mind of Ruin. As a result Ruin could exert only very subtle influence, and Preservation's power was running on a lovely autopilot. The Well was both Ruin's prison and a magic device that let a human briefly wield the power of Preservation (with the intent that said human would renew the seals on Ruin's prison for another 1000 years). The mists themselves were likely created to do exactly what they do to Vin, but because Preservation was running on autopilot they did stupid things like block plant growth and "attack" humans to bring out their latent magic powers. Ruin and Preservation's power were also near perfectly balanced, they could largely counter the more dramatic moves of each other if they chose. I think it makes sense that Ruin was happy to not interfere when Rashek was unintentionally loving something up with Preservation's power (like moving the planet closer to the sun to burn away the mists that were blocking crop growth). (a lot of this info is from the Mistborn chapter annotations found buried on Brandon Sanderson's website, others are from the extremely spoiler heavy short story "A Secret History". The bit about Ruin and Preservation's powers almost automatically cancelling each other out is a frequent plot point in "A Secret History".)
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Mar 30, 2020 23:54
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there's a fun little WoT deleted scene and story in this podcast thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl3SxTPZauQ
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Apr 2, 2020 07:56
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I just finished my third read of The Final Empire. I had no idea there is a not-insubstantilal amount of the fandom that seemsto view Kelsier as some sort of sociopath who is just doing all this because he hates the Lord-Ruler. Apparently some of this is due to Secret History where he won't answer Vin asking him about how much of this was for him or the Skaa. To me, that in itself can be a mark of his humility. What, do you think if he said "I did it all for the people!!!" that would be taken as the unbiased truth instead of egotistical boasting and "virtue signaling"? We see time and time again how the suffering he witnesses gets to him deeply. The others were ready to pack it up and go home after the army was destroyed but Kelsier was the one who made them stay and keep fighting as they watched all the random executions. His last words to Vin were about how she needed to understand friendship demanded a certain level of reckless loyalty where you are willing to rush into impossible situations for your friends. (This bugged me a lot since I love their relationship and it made me feel weird that his last line to her was a reprimand.) No doubt the novel makes it clear he isn't Jesus. He has a paternalistic view of the Skaa but why not? He's smarter and stronger than any of them and he is indeed taking a fatherly role in leading them to freedom. He isn't among equals, he's among the people who he needs to follow him to freedom. But being a natural born leader doesn't make you a bad person. His core motivation is on display all throughout The Final Empire and it's seeing how much innocent people are being victimized. I would say his changing attitude on the nobility also speaks well of his more virtuous character as opposed to blind revenge. He saved Elend when he had no reason to other than the fact Vin loses him. He also amended his plan to have Vin murder the Noble Houses.
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Apr 3, 2020 04:24
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Yes all that, but he is still a sociopath. He's just channeling it to save the world and maybe get some murder-vengeance on in the meantime.
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Apr 3, 2020 04:32
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NikkolasKing posted:But being a natural born leader doesn't make you a bad person. His core motivation is on display all throughout The Final Empire and it's seeing how much innocent people are being victimized. He's still a sociopath, as evidenced by the dozens or hundreds of skaa he personally killed with no remorse, and never even looking back regretfully after he grudgingly admits that maybe Elend is an okay guy. He's also a narcissist, every "selfless" thing he does is contingent on other people seeing it so they can recognize his greatness. Like, he generally used his flaws to a good end in the books which makes him mostly a "good" guy in the end, but was really hosed up. Secret history didn't lessen that view of him at all, it really amplified it by a lot. It says a lot that the most accurate religious following he got was the one that zealously killed all the noblemen, then created a fascist state that hunted down people with increasingly dubious ties to noble society to murder them, too. But none of that takes away from his as a character in the book. He's great to read, and probably my favorite character in the series. But selfless and good.... No. E: NikkolasKing posted:
Yikes. I think you're revealing your own paternalistic view of lower class people here. There is no reason to consider him smarter than anyone else in the society, and any advantage he has in strength or wealth comes from generational privilege, not himself. Kinda ironic too, considering his whole plan and everything he set in motion actually just made things worse. He was just being manipulated by ruin just like everyone else, there was nothing special or brilliant about his plans. Taffer fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 04:45
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Taffer posted:Yikes. I think you're revealing your own paternalistic view of lower class people here. There is no reason to consider him smarter than anyone else in the society, and any advantage he has in strength or wealth comes from generational privilege, not himself. You're making a distinction that doesn't refute the point. No doubt Kelsier knows more because of his privilege. That doesn't mean he isn't smarter than the Skaa, it just explains why he's smarter than them. A wealthy kid who goes to Harvard is smarter than some poor black kid who was raised in a lead paint-filled house. That is a tragedy and unjust but it's also the truth. It's why poverty is so insidious, it can literally damages your brain and empathy and thus keeps you perpetually at the bottom of society. All things being equal, most Skaa could be just as smart as Kelsier. But obviously all things are not equal and it's just patently false to say an average skaa worker is as smart as Kelsier. They've never had the opportunity to learn like he has. That was another part of Kelsier's plan. The crew were to lead the new government because they have vital skills and experience none of the other skaa do. quote:Kinda ironic too, considering his whole plan and everything he set in motion actually just made things worse. He was just being manipulated by ruin just like everyone else, there was nothing special or brilliant about his plans. I mean, it was the first skaa rebellion to ever work and that seems more due to the Mists empowering Vin than Ruin helping Kelsier. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 05:06
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Holy poo poo there is a difference between "smart" and "educated"
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Apr 3, 2020 05:51
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Sanderson himself said he thinks Kelsier would be a villain in another story: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/31/#e9702Brandon Sanderson posted:So, Kelsier is one of my favorite characters. I like them all, whoever I'm writing, right? But one of the things that makes Kelsier tick is (and this was my original pitch for him to myself) in another story, he'd be the villain. Kelsier has this hard edge to him. He's one of those people that, when channeled wrong, he becomes the best and most interesting villain. But he happened to be in a situation that pushed him the other direction, and he became a hero. But he still has that edge to him. And there is a darkness to Kelseir that doesn't exist in most of the heroes in my books. Someone like Kaladin has a darkness to him, too, but a darkness that they're fighting against. Whereas Kelsier has embraced this darkness. It is part of what makes him him. So, Kelsier is a little frightening to me as a writer, just because he's a character that I can't guarantee will make good decisions.
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Apr 3, 2020 05:56
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