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Aginor ain't stupid, but him trying to sneak around a battlefield and immediately getting nuked was fantastic "He moved in what he imagined was a stealthy manner" by running from tree to tree yelling "DUN DUN DUN DUN"
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Jan 15, 2023 00:38
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:Nah that pushing regarding healing was in the black tower. Preservation of Rand would not have been in the impact calculus since he could not know hed be near rand. Forsaken are all flawed, but accounts are he just wanted to be a mad scientist/geneticist. The dark one is shown to know what opportunities are coming up in the future in the books.
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Jan 15, 2023 01:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I suspect Jordan put it in there to explain 1) why the bowl doesn't just get constantly re-used and 2) as a consequence since it was an item, drawing Saidin, all on its own without male channellers involved I think it was also a "the people of the current age don't know what they're playing with, but do surprising things because if it" thing. The shock from one of the Forsaken when they figured out what the basic regional unit had done was priceless, but having there be consequences to overstressing the artifact made things more grounded.
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Jan 15, 2023 04:42
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Aginor ain't stupid, but him trying to sneak around a battlefield and immediately getting nuked was fantastic Didn't he get nuked by a dark friend thinking he was a real asha'man, because he was sneaking around not attacking Rand and Nynaeve? I remember it was his pov then it cuts to what's her name black sister who nukes his rear end.
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Jan 15, 2023 05:21
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BigHead posted:Didn't he get nuked by a dark friend thinking he was a real asha'man, because he was sneaking around not attacking Rand and Nynaeve? I remember it was his pov then it cuts to what's her name black sister who nukes his rear end. Yup. His end is one of the funniest in the entire series. "But Dashiva was only a renegade Ashaman." *envelop the hill in fire*
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Jan 15, 2023 05:27
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Christ alone knows what would have happened if he'd balefired the largest use of the One Power, well, ever
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Jan 15, 2023 05:35
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CainFortea posted:The Ways are a thing for most of the series. Not just using them but dealing with them as a threat vector. As to the second point, it was probably a mistake. Did it actually relegate most of the world to flyover states? I assume he's referring to the Westlands specifically, rather than Shara or Seanchan, because there's very little done with them but if we are speaking of the Westlands then it's really only the Borderlands (bar Shienar) that are never a major focus. So 3 nations i.e. Arafel, Kandor and Saldaea. Beyond that there's: Altara, Amadicia, Andor, Arad Doman, Cairhien, Ghealdan, Illian, Murandy, Tarabon, and Tear and three major city-states in Far Madding, Mayene, and Tar Valon. The city states are tiny, and a huge portion of the books takes place in or at least concerns Tar Valon and we have a significant portion of one book in Far Madding. We never visit Mayene, but it's a tiny place that is largely defined by it's relationship with Tear, and we get a good feel for it from Berelain and her retainers anyway. In terms of nations there's a huge amount of time in Andor and Cairhien, with a good amount in Altara, Amadicia, Arad Doman, Ghealdan, Tarabon and Tear and some stuff in Ilian. About the only nation there wasn't a decent while spent in or explored outside the Borderlands is Murandy. I vaguely recall characters travelling through there a few times, but the story never really lets you settle with it so far as I recall. You could say the reader gets a graps for Saldaea through Faile and Davram Bashere too. I can't say as I ever felt any part of the Westlands outside Arafel, Kandor and Murandy was ever really left unexplored personally. Which is a fairly small portion of the setting relatively unexplored, while so much else is expanded on. There's also a good portion of the story set in or concerning the Aiel Wastes and we spend a good amount of time with Sea Folk to know them, even if the story never actually spends any time on one of their islands beyond the occasional page or two in a prologue. Shara and Seanchan are by far the most underexplored, especially Shara. We can at least say there's a lot of page time devoted to Seanchan characters by which we can get to know their society and culture. The Sharans basically just appear in the Last Battle with no real set up because Demandred's control of them is established almost entirey off-screen through a short story in a fantasy collection a lot of readers won't have experienced. Myself included. Jordan did hope to do more with Seanchan in a smaller series after he wrapped up the main story so far as I know, and he may have done more with them or Shara than Sanderson did since Sanderson was going mostly off notes and Jordan may just not have included those plans in his notes. We'll never know I guess. Shara is about the only place I ever felt was really underserved in the story though honestly, even if I'd have liked to have at least a little focus on Seanchan itself as a direct part of the story before Semirhage killed the entire royal family and plunged it into chaos. In terms of fast travel there's 4 I can think of: Waygates, portal stones, skimming and actual travelling. They're introduced in a phased manner, with Waygates and portal stones being the slowest, skimming second slowest and travelling the fastest and most direct; and thus, last to be introduced because it has the most direct effect on travel time and how characters can interact with each other once they have it. Waygates and portal stones also have some significant problems to them that is partially used as world building, with Waygates showing how the taint hosed up even beneficial technology in perpetuity, while the portal stones are used to give some insight into the fact the world extends beyond the one planet/dimension we can see. Skimming is basically just slow travelling, to allow characters to get around the story faster without the threat of Machin Shin or just boring travel passages. hosed-up birthday posted:Been a while since I've read it, but wasn't it lightning Rand was blowing everyone up with? Massive amounts of the one power dicking around with weather in general might explain that. The one power feeling weird might have just been a ton of both sides effecting everything around at least all of randland making things feel all wacky I assumed it was partly caused by the Dark One trying to maintain his control of the weather, or at least an interaction between the One Power and the Dark One's power and control of the weather by directly touching the Pattern, which manifested through Saidin since they have more of a connection to Saidin through the taint at that point. Comrade Blyatlov posted:Aginor ain't stupid, but him trying to sneak around a battlefield and immediately getting nuked was fantastic I'm just going to assume he was doing the Naruto run now that you've said this. tsob fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jan 15, 2023 |
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Jan 15, 2023 05:55
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Riftwar Trilogy and Demonwar Trilogy - Raymond E Feist: These are the books I read as a kid instead of Harry Potter due to being born too early and they hold up better than I expected on re-reading. Surprisingly few gay love scenes for a series where almost all the major characters are men and an early plot point revolves around glory holes. Read these as a kid, I think the original 3 riftwar books hold up but the more you read of his books, the more you see him writing the same book over and over again. With the exception being the Janny Wurts Empire books which are great.
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Jan 16, 2023 02:03
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Keepers of Knowledge, can you help me find a random Mat scene that I'm hazy on? It occurred after he got his luck and the dice were tumbling in his head. I believe it was when Egwene/Elayne/Nynaeve were off adventuring together. Mat sat down in a random pub and played dice/cards against a man that was hunting the three women. Mat told the man to backoff but ended up killing him in the bar. That is my recollection of the scene, can't say how accurate it is but hopefully someone can point me to it.
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Jan 16, 2023 03:27
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Is that when he kills Gaebril's man Comar in Tear? I googled and it's TDR Chapter 49
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Jan 16, 2023 03:31
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Pleads posted:Is that when he kills Gaebril's man Comar in Tear? I googled and it's TDR Chapter 49 You are a wizard! That's the scene I was looking for. Thanks!
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Jan 16, 2023 03:42
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One more question for you Keepers of Knowledge: I'm looking for a later chapter with Mat. He was having a quiet chat with a woman who he recognized as being a former Aes Sedai that has been stilled or kicked out of the tower. She asked him if she could just hold his foxhead medallion and he allowed it. I've been trying different searches in my books but can't find it. Does that scene ring a bell for anyone?
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Jan 18, 2023 06:29
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Hughmoris posted:One more question for you Keepers of Knowledge: Yes. That was Setalle Anan. I think it was when they were with the menagerie, but that part i'm not sure on.
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Jan 18, 2023 06:36
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It's in Knife of Dreams, chapter 09 apparently. I can't check the chapter myself at the moment to verify it, but the Tar Valon library page on that chapter lists it as happening there, so I'd assume it's accurate.
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Jan 18, 2023 11:17
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CainFortea posted:Yes. That was Setalle Anan. I think it was when they were with the menagerie, but that part i'm not sure on. tsob posted:It's in Knife of Dreams, chapter 09 apparently. I can't check the chapter myself at the moment to verify it, but the Tar Valon library page on that chapter lists it as happening there, so I'd assume it's accurate. That's the one, thanks! Also, first time seeing that Tar Valon library. Looks pretty cool, will have to poke around.
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Jan 18, 2023 14:49
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Listening to Memory of Light. Chapter 5 To Request a Boon. Its told from Egwene's perspective on the fields of Merrilor. I always dislike her, but I remembered her being less insufferable in later books. Hey point of view is just about how stupid literally every other person is and then is calling Rand a boy. She just seems so petty and jealous in everything she says and thinks. And her logic on breaking the seals is horrible. As in she's not willing to listen or even consider the point of view of the literal person who created the seals and also used the seals and also experienced 110 years of the Dark One being free to influence the world. Note he says last time the issue was he should have used men and women but she doesn't offer women to help seal either. And internally the whole time she's filled with glee about how this will all give her even more power and authority as she personally can lead the last battle as someone who is not an experienced general. Its just all so laughable. RC Cola fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 21:50
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Yea good thing she eats it in the end. She’d be a terrible leader.
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Jan 24, 2023 22:04
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She was an effective war time leader because she knew people underestimated her and that she could use that to her advantage to solidify power; which she was so effective at initially because of Suian's tutelage of the rules and protocols of the Aes Sedai, as well as all the political relationships within the Aes Sedai. She internalized it enough that she was good at it on her own after a while, and knew how to manipulate people to get them to pull together agianst a greater foe. She also wasn't as hide bound to the various rules the Aes Sedai had grown around themselves after several thousand years of power. A good war time leader is generally not going to be a good peace time leader though; especially if they came to power during a war and war is all they know how to lead during because peace time needs a lot more willingness to compromise and work with others to make everyone happy, rather than just force everyone to work together against a common enemy where their immediate concerns aren't really as important. I don't think Egwene would have been a good peace time leader, because she knew what she wanted, what she thought was necessary or best and she was going to beat everyone over the head with her political power until they accepted it.
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Jan 25, 2023 00:59
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Egwene's entire character arc is basically one long quest for personal power. Of all kinds. She'd honestly make a pretty great villain with a few tweaks.
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Jan 25, 2023 01:07
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Like I don't know if her whole power-seizing scene and her ends-justifying-the-means speech was supposed to sound like the Reichstag throwing in with Hitler but that's sure how it read to me.
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Jan 25, 2023 01:13
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Data Graham posted:Like I don't know if her whole power-seizing scene and her ends-justifying-the-means speech was supposed to sound like the Reichstag throwing in with Hitler but that's sure how it read to me. which one?
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Jan 25, 2023 01:22
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RC Cola posted:which one? Is there another Reichstag? 
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Jan 25, 2023 01:40
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Lol. But yeah, I meant the scene in the big tent where it spends about 30 pages describing where everybody is sitting and what their dresses and embroidery look like before she starts talking. Yeah that doesn't narrow it down much either, sorry
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Jan 25, 2023 02:38
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tsob posted:It's not explicit in the text, so ultimately it comes down to individual interpretation by any given reader regardless of what Sanderson says after the fact, because the text is what's important and not the intent of the author; which doesn't always translate to the page. I guess I don't really have a problem with the idea of her surviving in and of itself, but I'm still gnawing on the idea and I do find myself thinking that I don't like that in the end, she was still a self serving person who tried to kill Rand to elevate her own position and so her surviving with no punishment kind of undercuts how basically everyone else gets some fitting fate. A few other Forsaken survive, Graendal and Moghedien, but Graendal has been made hideously ugly by the Dark One since he knows how vain she is and her final spell, a compulsion, backfires on her leaving her a loyal slave to Aviendha, while Moghedien is captured as a damane after surviving the Last Battle and loses any freedom she might have had. There's nothing bad implied for Lanfear if she did actually survive, which just seems odd. She hasn't lost any power, she hasn't lost any freedom, she hasn't lost...anything, so far as I can tell. She gets to just go about her life as she pleases, and given her disposition, that'll most likely involve power over others in some fashion, even if it's relatively quiet. WoT always had a somewhat unsatisfying ending, since the huge empire that's a huge fan of slavery comes out of it in a pretty good place. Perhaps Lanfear would have been part of the Seanchan outrigger novels, to close out her story as well.
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Jan 25, 2023 08:32
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Torrannor posted:WoT always had a somewhat unsatisfying ending, since the huge empire that's a huge fan of slavery comes out of it in a pretty good place. Perhaps Lanfear would have been part of the Seanchan outrigger novels, to close out her story as well. The odd thing about it to me is that Mat appears perfectly okay with it by the end, even thinking that he could have used a damane of his own at one point during the Last Battle. He stops trying to push back against Tuon about things, and while Tuon herself does note at one point that the Seanchan empire needs to change somewhat to control the Westlands, she also kind of appears to forget about that by the Last Battle. The whole conflict with the Seanchan is treated weirdly lightly by the narrative, with Egwene (or is it Elayne; someone anyway) trying to make sure her throne is a little higher than Tuons and Tuon elevating hers when chance presents, and just kind of ignoring the inherent conflict in "you want to make me a slave". It comes off as somewhat juvenile. It's just weird. I know it was meant to be a little humor in a stretch of tension and serioiusness, but it always stood out as just not the right situation for it. I still hate the ambiguity in Aviendha's vision of the future of the Aiel too. The future she does see in Rhuidean when using the rings for the second time is depressing as gently caress to read, with the Aiel becoming more and more desperate and less and less relevant over time while the Seanchan come into power in the Westlands and all the narrative does to avert it is have Aviendha do one thing different than what she saw. If the visions she'd experienced had been less emotive then that'd probably be enough, but they were what they were and it really felt like the writing needed to give clearer assurance that "yes, this poo poo has been avoided and things will go better" in some fashion. Doesn't have to be perfect by any stretch, but even just a few lines about another Wise One coming back and assuring Aviendha she saw something better or what have you would really have done a lot on it's own. As is, I can kind of understand why maybe Jordan made the Seanchan ascendancy and relative indifference to slavery an element of his notes on the final book, because he apparently wanted to do further stories involving Tuon, Mat and Min during which that'd almost certainly be a central conflict. That wasn't something that Sanderson was ever going to do though, so he can't end on that ambiguity and really should have made things more definitive for the Seanchan view on slavery.
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Jan 25, 2023 13:18
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I don't think the empire itself was in all that good a place as far as we knew, because the last update from the other continent was that Semirhage had slaughtered every leader and member of the royal family, and there was civil war going down. But in general yeah I agree that there wasn't a very good conclusion there to the whole "Randland is now split between being controlled by a slave state And much weaker rivals"
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Jan 25, 2023 14:25
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Time is a flat circle, or something
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Jan 25, 2023 14:44
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tsob posted:The odd thing about it to me is that Mat appears perfectly okay with it by the end, even thinking that he could have used a damane of his own at one point during the Last Battle. He stops trying to push back against Tuon about things, and while Tuon herself does note at one point that the Seanchan empire needs to change somewhat to control the Westlands, she also kind of appears to forget about that by the Last Battle. The whole conflict with the Seanchan is treated weirdly lightly by the narrative, with Egwene (or is it Elayne; someone anyway) trying to make sure her throne is a little higher than Tuons and Tuon elevating hers when chance presents, and just kind of ignoring the inherent conflict in "you want to make me a slave". It comes off as somewhat juvenile. It's just weird. I know it was meant to be a little humor in a stretch of tension and serioiusness, but it always stood out as just not the right situation for it. Isn't the whole Aiel future basically guaranteed to be avoided by making the Aiel the enforcers of the Dragon's Peace? That's what I always thought at least.
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Jan 25, 2023 15:48
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Torrannor posted:Isn't the whole Aiel future basically guaranteed to be avoided by making the Aiel the enforcers of the Dragon's Peace? That's what I always thought at least. That's presumably the intention yes, since that's "the one difference" I mentioned, but given the emotional weight of Aviendha's vision and her doubts about whether the future can be averted, I never felt like that was enough to establish that they've managed to avoid that future personally.
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Jan 25, 2023 16:02
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Torrannor posted:Isn't the whole Aiel future basically guaranteed to be avoided by making the Aiel the enforcers of the Dragon's Peace? That's what I always thought at least. That is how I interpreted AMoL. By giving the Aiel a role to play that preserved their honor, they ensured that a senseless war against the Seanchan (the root cause of Aviendha’s visions) would be averted.
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Jan 25, 2023 16:03
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I always viewed it as Jordan was a guy that attended a military college in the south and was from the south and post last battle Westlands have something sort of analogous to early America with the slavery issue and a loose confederation of different interests and things are going to come to a head at some point.
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Jan 25, 2023 17:39
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I mean, Matt thinks to himself about how he's gonna have to do something about that whole slavery thing after the last battle. Then the last battle was the end of the story.
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Jan 25, 2023 17:44
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One thing you can sort of imagine is that since the crystal throne is some sort of compulsion ter'angreal, if Tuon comes to feeling strongly about freeing the slaves she could free the slaves. And yes, even in the Aiel dark future Aviendha foresaw, it looked somewhat like keeping damane wasn't really a piece of the Seanchan future even if things went badly for the Tuon of that future.
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Jan 25, 2023 17:47
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I always liked that things weren't tied up in a neat bow at the end - our glimpse into the timeline is over, but the timeline continues.
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Jan 25, 2023 18:01
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:One thing you can sort of imagine is that since the crystal throne is some sort of compulsion ter'angreal, if Tuon comes to feeling strongly about freeing the slaves she could free the slaves. It's more that the fourth age slowly loses the one power in favor of industry.
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Jan 25, 2023 18:48
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Grundulum posted:That is how I interpreted AMoL. By giving the Aiel a role to play that preserved their honor, they ensured that a senseless war against the Seanchan (the root cause of Aviendha’s visions) would be averted. That's not the only thing that the Aiel did to change the future. The Aiel were pretty much openly planning a war of revenge against the Seanchan over the Shaido Wise Ones that had been seized as damane. After Avihenda's vision, the Wise Ones flatly forbade this.
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Jan 25, 2023 22:11
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I don’t think we are ever told that the visions people saw were actually real or from this world. Only time the future was known was when they asked the Aelfinn. I always liked to think they were just stargating into a parallel dimension.
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Jan 25, 2023 22:29
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Invalid Validation posted:I don’t think we are ever told that the visions people saw were actually real or from this world. Only time the future was known was when they asked the Aelfinn. I always liked to think they were just stargating into a parallel dimension. And doomseer stuff. I'm also of the opinion that it's okay for not everything to be answered and resolved. Why would it be? Nothing's ever truly completely tied up, life goes on, wheel turns, etc etc.
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Jan 25, 2023 22:39
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tsob posted:That's presumably the intention yes, since that's "the one difference" I mentioned, but given the emotional weight of Aviendha's vision and her doubts about whether the future can be averted, I never felt like that was enough to establish that they've managed to avoid that future personally. I think you're misreading a bit of that whole thing. The "one difference" a Wise One told Aviendha to make was to change the name of one of her kids and tell no one, to kind of give her hope that if that keeps than it's only a possible future not a certainty. Them knowing about it let the Wise One's and Aveindha make bigger changes to things to try and stave off the bleak future she saw, which is where the Dragon's Peace and the Wise Ones saying no war with the Seanchan came in.
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Jan 25, 2023 22:53
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It should be explained right here that this is what Aviendha's purpose was all along (and that if Brandon Sanderson came up with this instead of it being in the notes, it was a really good job--I only have quibbles with the vision). The Wise Ones knew that she would be key to the preservation of the Aiel, and Robert Jordan threw multiple layers of red herrings at you throughout the series. The Dreamwalker Wise Ones direct Aviendha to stay right next to Rand. Rand thinks she is set to spy on him. This is clearly false--the Wise Ones never ask Aviendha about Rand, and only ask Moiraine and Egwene about their observations of Rand. Directly spying on a person goes against ji'e'toh, though the Dreamwalkers do occasionally look in on dreams, which they've obviously got some justification for. The Dreamwalker Wise Ones more or less openly state that Aviendha would tie Rand to the Aiel, and nearly slip up on multiple occasions in the POVs of our main characters around them. But this alone is not sufficient for a purpose for Aviendha--everyone can plainly guess that Rand is going to peace right the gently caress out after the Last Battle, even if he should survive it. Just simply tying the Aiel to him through marriage or children would not, on its face, solve any potential problems for the Aiel past the Last Battle. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jan 25, 2023 |
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Jan 25, 2023 23:09
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