ALAKA

If that was true, you'd get talking bananas! And it seems like the company picks them at random and doesn't take a million years to find each relevant one...

In SP2, all the Anglo-Saxon characters speak in Modern 21st Century English, with a few Old English words thrown in. As highlighted in the book itself, this is really weird, and is handwaved away by the Guide as being an absurd coincidence (FAQ after chapter 19). I'm wondering if actually there's a different reason for this and that the Guide is wrong. I'm thinking that it's a function of all the dimensions being downstream from ours, so they end up talking mostly like us by some kind of "magic" - any ideas?

Also, like Arthur, fought/beat the Saxons at the battle of Badon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Badon)

Keeping score - responses to claims in purple : Points in favour of Taln Breaking: 1) That's how it always happened. 2) Taln shows up so he presumably broke. Why else would he return - even before the Everstorm got summoned? To warn them, or out of despair. Points in favour of the Everstorm approach: 1) If Taln was going to break, why bother with Ulim's whole backdoor strategy? Whilst the Everstorm might still be needed to restore the Parshmen and give the Fused an army, why not just wait till he broke and do it then? RoW Chap. 73 is clear that it would have been easier to get the Voidspren had "That stupid Herald not been standing strong all these years later... You have no idea how much of a pain it all is." A quick summoning was needed otherwise Taln might have warned the world? 2) There's no indication in Chap. 73 that Ulim anticipates or needs Taln to break. 3) It's a weird coincidence for Taln to break at the same time - give or take a year out of 4000 - as the Everstorm gets summoned. Odium foresaw it.

I originally posted this here before RoW came out, but I think there's some extra information in RoW that's worth integrating and discussing. The timeline of the new Desolation that comes out from RoW looks like this to me: Odium's agents (not SoH) bring through Ulim the Voidspren -> Everstorm summoned by Listeners trained by Ulim/Venli -> Everstorm de-lobotomises the Parshmen, bringing the Fused and giving them an army and bodies to inhabit. I'm wondering if Taln breaking was actually necessary (a point made by @ftl in the original thread) - Ulim is aware that Taln has not broken (Chap. 73), and never mentions the need for him to break, just for the Everstorm to be summoned. Maybe Taln didn't break at all - he just Returned because of the Everstorm. Also would like to know whether the SoH actually accomplished anything in the end or was it all Odium's agents?

In fact (SH Spoiler

Is that the one about the boy from the tribe who meets the ship from numenor? In unfinished tales? I liked that one and it was a cool perspective flip. Are you sure they were Faithful though? And isn't it called the Akallabeth? But the analogy to here would be writing the SA from the POV of the Parshendi - some sort of war where everyone is sympathetic. Or a policeman trying to arrest the aforementioned dashing international jewel thieves. This with the GBs is like having Elendil, or some junior numenorean casually behead a puppy, - it's evil evil, not excusable-in-a-story evil (human morality is weird...) I'm probably leaning towards it being Kelsier on the evidence- it's just an unpleasant change for him and it feels wrong. As has pointed out, it's plausible that there's little oversight in the GBs etc. But to the reader it's a bad impression (good old Kels crew are evil now!) and doesn't feel like anything Brandon would do (though other authors might very well do it, Brandon isn't edgy like that - which I like! Probably makes me unsophisticated or something. .)

Yeah - agree entirely that that is her name - was just wondering why she uses it - and that sounds reasonable. Does she explicitly look odd BTW?

Now that you mention it, why does she use a Terris name - surely she should want to stay under the radar? Obviously if she did we the readers wouldn't be able to get excited, but what's her motive? @Beltway2A Sons of Honor or just maybe a generic Odious agent? Though she is close to Gavilar so SoH?

I think Thaidakar is Iyatil's master, and if she approves of Mraize it makes sense that she's pretty evil as well, and Thaidakar employs her - so it's not far removed. Also remember, the "crew" from MB were actually nicer than Kelsier was! I suppose it's plausible, though. Also agree that a more Ocean's Eleven-y (dashing rogues who get rich but don't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it) version of the GBs would fit the Kelsier we know - and would fit better here from a plot perspective than the fairly unsuccesful attempt in MB to crowbar a heist-caper into a fantasy revolution story. But it's also plausible, like I said, that Kell is a psychopathic megalomaniac and that's what he does. I'm more bothered on a meta-level tbh - it feels un-Brandon-y and bad-tasting to turn a hero into a cruel villain, or even someone responsible for cruel villains. Anti-hero is fine, but the GBs are nasty.

More efficient farming is what's needed to avoid Malthusian collapse - but there are other ways to make.farming more efficient. But it's still a very good point - don't overlook the small stuff - big stuff is made of lots of small stuff.

The evidence is growing overwhelming. But it still sits badly with me. Kelsier, in all the Mistborn books was "broadly" a dashing rogue type character on the side of the good guys. It's odd that he's now running an organisation that kills innocent bystanders in cold blood. Remember those porters in WoR? The Ghostbloods are horrible people. Even if from a psychological point of view this can happen (he is a megalomaniac after all), it leaves a bad taste for a hero to just pop up somewhere else as a villain. Would Brandon do that?

I think the (Support) tag is unnecessary, as after RoW everyone hates Moash -there isn't anything to criticise. I much enjoyed his miserable send off at the end - it tops the one in WoR. That said, I think that he's going to have to have some kind of redemption otherwise it's bad writing. Oh well...

Might be missing something, but the Part II epigraphs which talk about holding two powers are by Sazed/Harmony (IIRC he mentions Scadrial, and the real giveaway is of course the "..., I think" in the first epigraph. Is there something in the actual book?

Seems to be that the consensus here is that Surgebinders returning are not a cause, just an effect (possibly the spren's response to the impending desolation). Nale seemed/seems (not clear if he changed his mind about that point) to think that Surgebinders caused a Desolation. Is that totally wrong then? @Quantus: Regarding the SoH experiments, it makes sense that they didn't achieve anything that couldn't have happened just with Taln breaking and the Everstorm coming - but from a meta-narrative perspective it feels wrong. Maybe that allowed the voidspren to return as you suggest. Would the Desolation have happened even if Taln hadn't broken though? On that subject - off topic but I've always been confused- in previous Desolations didn't the Fused return when a Herald broke- how else would it start? So is the only difference how long the "respawn" takes...