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I know I'm not ThirdGen, but the thing is, the Potter books are flawed. There are plot and worldbuilding holes in every book; some implications are thought through to half-baked conclusions; and some implications aren't thought through at all. The underlying sense of morality is very much us-versus-them, and the treatment of Slytherin is filled to the brim with unfortunate implications. Rowling is an outliner, not a discovery writer, and there are times—especially when Harry is caught red-handed in a situation that would get any other student expelled—that her need to get her characters from Point A to Point B shows.* And yet, there's a charm to it. Maybe it's simple nostalgia for some, having grown up with their parents reading them the new book each night. Maybe it's escapism. For me, it's the fact that reading these books was my first major act of rebellion against my parents, and my first piece of evidence that they weren't right about everything. There's something about the world that made me want more, flawed as that worldbuilding is; and it's that something that compelled me to write my own fanfic, and later my own stories. So, yes, there are serious flaws with the Harry Potter books. Pretending those flaws don't exist is impossible and pointless. But those books are still enjoyable for many, despite being flawed, and I think that's a testament to the power of story—that something deeply (some would say fatally) flawed can still inspire and be enjoyed by many. *This is not to say that discovery writing is free of problems. I know that I've written stories where my complete lack of direction was obvious and glaring.

Found this on google images and couldn't help posting

google search..

When Shallan wants Stick to be fire:

Despite having word that Cultivation is still around, we haven't seen much evidence of her hand at work in a long time on Roshar, other than the Nightwatcher, which is said to be connected to her. A lot of people have theorized that its due to Honor's Shattering, that she withdrew because of that, but what if her seeming inactivity has been due to weakness rather than intent? My theory is that Connection is a two way street. It seems as though using a Shard's Investiture requires at least some kind of Connection to them. Allomancers must 'snap' in Preservation of themselves or others before they can access their power. Hemalurgy requires the conscious choice to Ruin something. The Shaod only seems to take someone who expresses great Devotion to some cause, ideal or person to become an Elantrian. The monks of Dakhor exert Dominion over their lower ranks to empower themselves. Awakening requires an Endowment of Breath to an object before you can command it. The Listeners give in to their Hatred before finding stormform. We know Surgebinding is of both Honor and Cultivation. I think that's less about some Surges like Adhesion being specifically of Honor and others like Progression are of Cultivation. It seems there's a tendency to view Cultivation as more nature-related, like you cultivate crops....but her actual Intent is a bit more broad than that if you think about it. All Surgebinding requires both Honor and Cultivation to truly master it. A Surgebinder acts with Honor and forms a bond with a spren initially...but they only grow in power when they Cultivate that bond, when they learn more oaths as their Nahel bond strengthens and deepens, the more and more honorably they act. But in my estimation, Connection is a two way street. When a connection or pathway is formed between two points, it rarely, if ever only goes one way. There's very few connections that even if normally predisposed to go in one direction, can't be reversed or cause feedback if there's enough interference or an external force or variable redirects things. I feel Connection in the cosmere is no different. In fact, we know its not, because we've seen it happen on a micro-scale. Kaladin's Nahel bond with Syl empowers him and fuels his Surgebinding....but the Connection goes both ways. When he acts dishonorably, in opposition to the source of their bond in WoR....it affects Syl. It hurts her. And if its true on a micro-scale, in just the bond between Surgebinder and spren, I think its true on a macro-scale, with Cultivation and everyone wielding her Investiture. And I think that's what happened with the Recreance. It seems likely (if not confirmed, I can't remember right now) that Honor was already Splintered when the Recreance happened. I don't think it had anything to do with weakening him (IMO, the Heralds breaking the Oathpact probably had far more of an effect on him). But if Surgebinding is equally of Cultivation....it wasn't just Honor the Knights Radiant collectively turned their backs on that day. They abandoned the Cultivation of their oaths, of their Honor, every bit as much as they abandoned the oaths themselves. And I think that such a singular act, on such a massive scale....it caused feedback in the Connection between them and the Shard that was so Invested in them. It hurt her, weakened her. All of her Investiture that was expressed in the spren and the Nahel bonds and Surgebinding...Investiture that was meant to be used in accordance with her Intent, bonds cemented and grown and strengthened, seeds of Honor that were intended to be nourished and cultivated and built into something bigger and better and more useful.....instead, ever since the Recreance, all of that Investiture has just lain fallow, untouched. No bonds being cultivated, just a lot of spren-seeds strewn all around Roshar with no one growing anything from them. However, the flip side of this theory means if I'm right, the rebirth of the Knights Radiant throughout the series, the renewal of Nahel bonds and the resurgence in Cultivating them, growing in Honor, learning new oaths, deepening the bonds and connection between Surgebinders and spren....as time (and the series) goes on, this will lead to re-empowering Cultivation as her Investiture is taken up and used again in accordance to her Intent, restoring her to whatever she was pre-Recreance and possibly leading to her showing more of an overt influence in matters.

You already chose the guy who lost, so why bother?

When in doubt, go to the Sanderson Elimination Rules thread!

Okay, so I just got the Stormlight Archives Pocket Companion (instructions here thanks to @Eccentric Hero), and came across this interesting quote: While Cusicesh is certainly mysterious, I'd never considered it being a spren of something (someone?) else. We know Honor was splintered, and have assumed Cultivation is working behind the scenes, but she seems to not be doing anything specific we can determine. What if Cultivation has been injured/damaged by Odium, but he was prevented by the Oathpact or something else from splintering her? We've seen a damaged Shard before, but it was self-inflicted. A Shard damaged like that by another Shard might have significant issues, and Cusicesh might be showing the effects of that. I'm having trouble connecting Cusicesh to Cultivation by behavior or looks, but the connection is hard to ignore. jW

I had a strange awesome dream. Brandon was a teacher at my high school. Why he was on the wrong continent didn't occur to me. I had small coins I was giving to my friends to pretend we were coinshots. Brandon was giving everyone a quiz on his books, regardless of wether they'd read them or not. Questions included: 1. Name the maps that evolved (like elendel getting more detailed per book - I don't think this actually happened) 2. Draw a lighteyes. Then draw a lighteyes with an interesting material, I suggest a lemon. 3. Draw Navani as she looked after Dalinars death. Wouldn't it be strange to see Navani cry? And I was wishing I'd remembered to wear my mistcloak to school.....

Heal Surgebinding, hurt Feruchemy 2. Feruchemy- 247. Surgebinding- 3215. Rithmatics- 29 come on guys don't hurt Surgebinding. It's not nice...

I'm not battling you, I'm just being sarcastic.

Nice save

The wits-battle goes as follows: figure out if that was intentional or not.

*prays to live at least long enough to see the end of Cosmere*

The Time Turner was a mistake thrown in for essentially a cheap joke.

Thing is, you have to be a certain level for your death to really matter much. Event comics seem to have a tendancy where they'll kill off someone -usually a C, maybe a B-lister- and use that as a motivator, or as an indicator of how bad the threat is, but that death isn't really referenced much. (See, the original Civil War). On the other hand, if a major character dies, you can expect that fallout to be cited for years and years afterwards as a huge defining thing, a death that has left an indelible hole in their lives... which then makes it awkward when the character comes back. See, Captain America. Frankly, at this point, the heroes of the Marvel Universe should be emotionally burnt out. They have friends die, come back to life and die again constantly. I'm not saying they should be sociopaths or anything, but at some point, you have to assume the heroes are just going through the motions, which makes the attempts at milking the death seem all the more shallow. ...I am not even kidding. Considering what a huge Harry Potter fan you are, I'm expecting a lot of headscratchers, fridge logic edits, and for you to tear this play apart, and it will be glorious to watch. I'm adding that page to my bookmarks, just so I can watch the edits in real time.

He probably means the "wait for two voters" rule.

At the risk of reviving a dead topic, I thought any Sharders would like to know that by subscribing to the Tor newsletter, you can get a free digital copy of the Companion. This information was posted by @WeiryWriter in the latest article. Subscribe here.

I would generally agree with this theory, but for two things. Jasnah's notes mention travel to Urithiru after Heralds left ("The tariffs through Urithiru were growing quite unreasonable."), suggesting that the nine currently-locked gates were operational long after Heralds decided to quit this whole business. More of a speculation than a proof, but consider: Taln is the only Herald not to break the oathpact; Taln arrives in Kholinar after his return; Alethela was once described as warrior-land; Taln is the Herald of War. It could be considered that Alethela/Alethkar is Taln country, so if anything, it should be Kholinar oathgate that works, not Stormseat. If I were to guess, I'd say the closing of the gates has more to do with Recreance. Option one is that the Knights locked the gates behind them while leaving, and didn't do the same with Stormseat because the city was crem-covered and abandoned by then, having been destroyed during the Aharietiam. Option two is that with no Radiants to operate the gates, all those round, flat spaces turned into little more than prime real estate and, as someone speculated in another thread once, there's just too much heavy stuff built on top of the gates these days for Oathgate to be capable of transporting it all; Kholinar Palace sits squarely on the local Oathgate, after all. I kind of hate it sometimes that all of Roshar is so obsessed about number 10; it makes all number-based theories and predictions really hard to either prove or disprove. Remember that theory that the ten flashback characters are ten Heralds reborn?

We have made no structural changes to the buttons, menus, or bars since the upgrade a couple months ago. Welcome to the internet, where ads are what pays the bills. I like sites that aren't littered with ads too, but unfortunately, none of the administration is independently wealthy, and running a site costs a good amount of time and money. We need the site to be able to pay for itself, and with any luck, pay us a bit for the time that we put into it. So, unless you want memberships to have to be a paid subscription (which I consider unacceptable at this time when ads are an option), we're going to have to implement ads. Which is something we're currently working on.

Interesting idea, but all the evidence from WoBs and books say that Adonalsium is the only God. Haven't seen Hoid say anything that really points to this. The element is definitely Lerasium. The only possibility is if the God Beyond has that kind of power. But as of this moment the theories about the 16 Vessels making a plan and somehow Shattering Adonalsium with a weapon of some kind that's whereabouts are as of now unknown is a lot more supported and makes a lot more sense.

Here's the quote in question, with Brandon saying that he was intentionally interpreting "force" very broadly, giving him a lot of wiggle room to answer those questions. He says now that he isn't referring to an anti-Adonalsium-type being. Furthermore, Khriss says in Secret History that sixteen people shattered Adonalsium, and that's what it appears Brandon was referring to; the alliance of 16 individuals as a "force." If you're looking for Hoid quotes, he hasn't been too active on-screen until Stormlight. Both of those books have a good bit of dialogue from him, as does Secret History. Bands of Mourning doesn't have a ton, but he does have some lines. I don't think he says anything significant in Elantris, Warbreaker, the original Mistborn trilogy, or the first two Wax and Wayne books. (And he's not actually in any of the novellas apart from Secret History, or White Sand [as far as I can tell].) Hope that helps narrow it down.

The 9 realms shook with mirth "You know my price", said Satan Divided we stand, United we fall Through death, we live, and remember I had been manipulated all along My blade will guide my justice My soul will guide my mercy My mind will guide my repentance My heart will guide the truth (The last few were spontaneous, I might use them later so....I dibs it?)

Night 7: Fumata Bianca [Write up to be edited in] Conquestor was killed! He was the Shu-Korathi Patriarch The Secret Faction of Shu-Korath has been revealed! The Shu-Korath Faction wins when all eliminators except the Patriarch are dead, and all living players have been converted to The Korathi Religion. Patriarch - You are the Patriarch, and currently the sole member of Shu-Korath Faith. Each night, you may either convert one player to Shu-Korath, or you may protect every member of the faith from one attack. In addition, you may give an anonymous sermon to your converts each turn. You can convert yourself. You are given a Transcript of the Chapel PM each Cycle. The first time you are attacked or lynched, you will survive. Votes: Conquestor(5): Arraenae, Elenion, Alvron, Stink, Duke Aonar(2): Lopen, Conquestor Alvron(1): Aonar Bard(1): Sart Lopen(1): Bard Just a little bit later this time. I was just checking to make sure that I revealed as much as Joe did. Everyone has 24 hours from this time until the next turn. I'm actually working on a possible write up, so we'll see if I can finish it up and get it in!

The cookies I offered you are not magnetically attracted

You know that meme about passing a point where we should stop? And you just keep going to see what will happen? I think that meme describes Oregon perfectly. And it's beautiful. i love/hate you guys so much. This thing is so insane, and emotion wrenching, and it's great. (The hate comes from the feeling of inadequacy I have every time I try to post. You guys are just so much better.)

Heal Feruchemy, Hurt Rithmatics 2. Feruchemy- 22 7. Surgebinding- 40 15. Rithmatics- 23

Rule number three when dealing with Shiny Sparkle: She is never the voice of reason, no matter how much she assumes herself to be. If she appears to be anywhere near the voice of reason she's either thinking about something different from you or you are in the second circle of hell.

Shiny jumped Lyla again. How could she not? Lyla was literally asking for her attention and it was Shiny’s duty by all that was sparkling to bring a smile on this young cutie’s face. She wrestled Lyla in her loving embrace until she was sitting in her big sister’s lap. “Well said, Lyla,” Shiny whispered into her ear while leaning over a bit. The excitement at what was coming next send sparkles down her spine as both of them started glowing. “Now I’m going to give you all the love and attention you could possibly want.” Then Shiny’s fingers went on a joy ride under Lyla’s clothes. Skin brushed against skin as Shiny tickled her darling’s stomach. Lyla was wresting in her arms as the pleasure of the touch coursed through her and laughter filled the air, no matter how much her shyness might try to fight against it. Now was time for liberating her true feelings. Once Shiny was satisfied with their cuddling session she again leaned forward to whisper to Lyla. “You’re a good girl, you know? But as much as I love giving you attention there’s someone we’re letting out and we can’t have that. Now, this is an important step for you, and I have nothing but the highest of hopes for you, I need you to give Scribbler attention for me, alright?” Not giving Lyla any time to process what she just said she teleported the both of them in front of Scribbler and gently pushed the disheveled Lyla into her arms. Then she teleported behind Scribbler and enveloped both of them in a hug, so they were close to each other, before whispering into Scribbler’s ear. “I’m sorry that we left you out like that Scribbler but now we’re here for you again. You wouldn’t have felt good putting knives against Lyla’s throat either, right? But we do need to celebrate your friendship with a picture and seeing how she was all excited about you using your powers I came up with a better idea. I want you to sparkle. You can do that for me, right? Using your powers to make a lot of sparkles. Great, you're wonderful.” Giving the two of them a bit of privacy, Shiny teleported next to the doctor and laid an arm around his shoulder. “I think I figured out why you were worrying about Lyla just now. There’s no need to worry though, I may love her but even I wouldn’t make a move on someone that young, no matter how cute. They do need someone to look after them while I’m not here though, so I appreciate it. How about we agree on doing what’s best for these two and right now I’d say that means taking the memento picture Lyla asked you about because oh my Sparkle, aren’t they just adorable hugging each other? Take pictures. Take pictures.” This was indeed a moment worthy of history. These two darlings may be too young for her range but they were the perfect age for each other. Childhood friends would have been better but there’s still enough time for Shiny to awaken them to their inner shininess, before any of those strange and restrictive ideas about how they should feel about each other had any chance to take root in them.

Couple things: first, nothing wrong with enjoying or bring inspired by flawed things! I mean, I'm a big fan of Man-Thing and Magnus Robot Fighter comics. There's nothing challenging about them, and it's essentially the same story over and over again (Magnus goes after evil robot. After fighting for a bit, Magnus karate chops the robot to pieces. Robot emits death squeal, "Squeeeee!". Rinse, wash, repeat with different robots, dinosaurs, robot dinosaurs and evil alien warlock robots that want to harvest the psychic energy of humans as a source of their mystical powers. See? Garbage!) But I enjoy them. That said, it shouldn't be surprising that new things coming from Rowling aren't particularly imaginative or challenging because, well, look at the source! That's like if I got a new Magnus comic and complained about him fighting robots. I might say that Magnus' robot fighting is not as good as it used to be, but expecting Magnus to be the high end of comic art? That's just not what it is. And you can still keep the inspiration and even use the failings of the art to instruct/inform you on your own projects.

Does he have the Bands of Mourning secretly?

Heh, you remind me of myself when I was around your age (which, in retrospect, is a super old person type of thing to say; 26 is the new 60!). Welcome to the Shard, I expect you'll enjoy it here. Also, make sure you recruit your classmates for the Sanderson Army, we could always use more theorycrafters.

I have been among those having shed the most ink onto the relevance of the book structure and how it may end up being rigid. Of course, only two books into the series, it is hard to draw macroscopic trends, we are all going to agree with this. I must still make one statement with respect to Jasnah: "Do people think her role will be important going into book 3 because we have been told, in advance, she would eventually be one of the major players or do we expect it purely based on how the first two books were constructed?" For my part, I have to admit I never expected Jasnah to play a decisive role within the story and if the ending of WoR suggested her role may increase from silent mentor to occasional POV character, I never thought she would grow much more beyond that. Not for the next book this is. Of course, since then I have learned about her future role within the series which led me wondering: how big of a role can the back five major players have within the first arc? How is this planned structure going to play out, in the long run, considering several of the future major players currently are characters within the story? How much page time is the author authorizing them to have considering they have very large arcs waiting for them several more years down the road? Already, others have tried to break down the 400 000 words of SA3 into several characters which had for results for some to come to the conclusion supporting characters such as Szeth, Eshonai, Navani, Adolin and Jasnah would not be allowed many words. This, of course, has been purely based on how much words were previously spent on the main three characters and worked with the assumption Kaladin would not lose any word count, Dalinar would gain a lot and Shallan would perhaps dwindle a little. For my part, I now think the total words count of the main three characters will roughly remain the same, but it will be allocated differently. If it increases slightly, it will be because Dalinar's flashbacks were longer than expected and it will fail within the elongated page time the overall book has. As for Taln, I too expected he'd be a bigger deal, but in the absence of strong expectations, I didn't mind much. I am more trouble over the fact he is to play a major role later one as he is crazy. I certainly think there are several plot arcs we currently are thinking will be a much bigger deal than they will be. Here are a few: 1) Kaladin's return to Heartstone and reuniting with his family 2) Jasnah's overall arc 3) Adolin being found as the murderer of Sadeas I think those three arcs will be wrapped up more quickly than anticipated as neither strikes to me as decisive plot points. What happens afterwards will be much more important, I think. I personally do not expect Jasnah to have a large role. I expect her role will be much smaller than several people are anticipating, but just as with everything: I could be wrong. I like your thoughts and your link with the ending of the previous book though.

As far as I know there isn't any canon direct information about Trellium=Godmetal. But as soon as you think about it can't be something else. The Trellium is a metal who is compatible with the Metallic Arts and it's a metal outside of Harmony's portfollio. The Metallic Arts works only with the 16 right metal (8 base metals + 8 of Base Metals's alloys) and with godmetals (that in my mind are quite a little hack to the metallic arts) and their alloys. It's stated by someone with the full understanding of the Realmatic Theory and the quite godlike Knowledge therefore I immagine we may take this words as true. Therefore if Sazed said that it's not a mundane metal. This mean it have to be a supernatural metal born from another entity (this mean Shards or their offspring).

I already had the link. It was convenient. EDIT: In retrospect, this one might've been even more suitable. And it's an excellent writeup, too.

in a minefield.

Favorite attempt to fix a plot hole on the Cursed Child Headscratchers page on TV Tropes so far:

Hurt Feruchemy, heal Rithmatics. 2. Feruchemy- 24 7. Surgebinding- 31 15. Rithmatics- 30

I'm a worldhopper! swiftly approaching Brandon in rep

Hello spieles, Since I haven't read any of the previous chapters, I recognize I have a skewed perspective reading this one. But hopefully my comments will still be useful. I really enjoyed reading this. Most of my enjoyment came from finding your world very interesting, and being really curious about all the things I didn't know! Why doesn't Oz need a mask? What's up with the Rex - are they men that go "bad" or are they a different species, and why would they be disgusted by human smell? Are these women really competing to be someone's bride, or is that just a name? I'm sure lots of this was explained earlier in the story, but it was actually really fun to read and have all that be a mystery. Your prose and storytelling were solid and so I trusted you to give me interesting answers, if not in this chapter, then in the next. I thought the characters were believable and interesting. I liked the interactions between Oz and Pascal - they talk and act like good friends. I also thought you use the first person present voice really well. I've never read a story in first person present, but I didn't notice anything was different until I was a few paragraphs in. Only one in-line suggestion: on pg 5 ("You don’t know what the Rex did to their families.” “True.”) I couldn't tell who was saying what.

The "element" is indeed the bead of Lerasium Hoid stole from the Well: MIKE COCKRUM (23 JANUARY 2013) How many shards has Hoid received powers from, whether taken, stolen, given, etc.? BRANDON SANDERSON (23 JANUARY 2013) Well, he has a bead of Lerasium.

1. Yeah 2-3-4: I suspect while i do think Szeth will either use whatever magical loophole Vasher found to absorb stormlight or find another way but he won't have the surges of the Skybreakers through nightblood. Remember that nightblood is of Endowment not Honor/Cultivation/Odium. Though maybe a highspren would bond with Szeth and he would still have nightblood,

What a coincidence! That's how I play life! jW

@Amanuensis, it's almost certainly too late, but I'm in a half-asleep haze - with an horrifically early flight this morning, and so have decided to make an argument on behalf of @Straw. Regardless of his alignment this game, I think it's undeniable that his attitude to the game, and the effort put in are greater than in any other game I've seen him play. I would argue that this is behaviour we ought to be doing absolutely everything we can to encourage - rather than react by lynching him. Although I'm more suspicious of Magestar, I'm going to put my vote on Elenion.

The anticipation is killing me!! It's like waiting for a song to download in the early 2000's but SO MUCH WORSE!

I just assumed that, being a Shardvessel, Preservation's knife was part of his image, much like Harmony's impressive take on traditional Terris garb in Era 2. The shimmering would therefore be the image shifting from "knife in holster" to "knife in hand," much like a computer game player character pulling a sword out of nowhere.