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deacon

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Everything posted by deacon

  1. Many jobs seem to require either or, as we see many Vorin businesses being run by a husband and wife pair. That implies there are definitely jobs out there. The ardentia is also there to provide job training for anyone, so I don't see why a darkeyed lesbian would be particularly less able to work than a darkeyed gay man.
  2. If the in-world Oathbringer is published between SA3 and SA4, then they will definitely know. Even if they don't read it/have it read to them themselves, other people they know will read it and know it - I just don't see how it could remain a secret. I would hope that Dalinar would be honest with them before his book is published, otherwise that'd be pretty cruel.
  3. I'm going to be honest, I'm not really sure how to respond... Do you want to talk in PMs?
  4. @insert_anagram_here I'm not upset or bothered by your presence at all. I was actually surprised that you spoke to me, because I wasn't part of the conversation earlier in this thread that I was commenting on. Perhaps me sticking my nose in that conversation gets the same in return! I know you didn't demand anything, but you did respond to me on that subject, so I answered. The forum culture that I have noticed is a lot of snippiness and hostility suddenly boiling up. It's like walking through a mine field, and I have no idea what it is that sets it off. So I've decided to just be clear as possible, and deal with everything else as it happens. Evidently you have a lot of history here, but with new users every day, I'd suspect it's a shrinking proportion of users who are able to navigate said mine field.
  5. Umm... Okay, there's a lot to respond to here. So the first thing, when you ask about a double standard, it's like... I - and many other people here - were not involved in that. I wasn't there, I have no idea what situation you're talking about. This forum is not a closed room where it's divided between our friends and our enemies, this is a public place. I am not aware of the perception of a double standard because to you, I'm a stranger, and there is no reason you should expect me, or anyone else, to be aware of all the ways other members here might have slighted you. Not everyone here is here reading every thread and paying attention to the nuances of every interaction. There are a lot of people here and I only get the chance to come on here a little bit after work and some weekends. I don't know what happened between you and other members. Which leads me to number two, which is the concept that if someone did something to you in one time and place, that means you can do the same to other members? Members who weren't there and might not even agree with what was said to you? That's not what fair is. That's not fair to other people here who were and are uninvolved in this other event. If it didn't feel good when they said to you, why is it okay to make other people feel that way? As to the use of the word combative - Alderant was the one who used the word first, and also, discussions can become heated and hostile. That's what we mean when we talk about being combative. When you're in combat, you're looking for reasons that other people are trying to dismiss you even if that's not what they meant, reacting strongly to perceived criticism. Those are things that happen in these kinds of discussions. so tl;dr If people have the drive to persuade and convince others, when met with doubt, they can decide they want to give their evidence and dive into the explanations and etc etc. If someone just wanted to explain what they think without getting into an argument about it, they get to decide they don't want to get into a whole big thing about it. Nobody is ever required to give more than they want, no matter what.
  6. Requiring people to back up their opinion with quotes and quotes every single time an opinion is expressed comes off as combative, especially when the person already said they weren't interested in debating to change minds. If people don't want to do that every time, they don't. Recognizing that the burden of proof lies on people who make claims and want to be believed, but sometimes we have to leave it in a "frustrating" place when we're trying to avoid fights.
  7. @Sedside I'm really tired and heading to bed soon, but all I can say is the more we dig in, the more I really think we're reading different books. The best to you. Have a good night.
  8. I guess I just disagree that it's common and that every young man has to react that way. I mean, I found Adolin's reaction really understandable. If I was with this amazing, cool woman, like I just couldn't believe that she was with ME, but I keep seeing her make eyes at one of my best friends, a friend I respect the hell out of... Yeah, tbh, I think I'd react the same way as Adolin did. Being completely crushed but trying to be good about it... Anyway, that's just my point - it's not universally accepted that Adolin did it believably or not believably. Some readers thought it was unbelievable, but other readers thought it was believable. I'm sure Brandon heard feedback of all kinds and is aware of the readers' majority thoughts. The purpose of it not being clear, I completely agree with you. I still think it's over and that Mr. Checkov's gun was disarmed and thrown away, but I don't know why it had to come up at all... I mean, literature is different from theater, and Checkov's Gun is only for stage direction, not novels. I see your point, though. The reason I'm thinking of right now is that it was important for them to connect in WoR, and then in OB, Shallan needed another option so that she had an out with Adolin if she wanted it and Kaladin needed to realize that he wanted a relationship. But maybe I'll change my mind when we see where their characters go in SA4. Ahh, I'll be more clear, my bad: I meant in terms of interacting beyond surface level conversation/banter. I think every part of their relationship - how they talked, how often they talked, how they thought about each other - was done completely intentionally. It doesn't read like how a great romance should go... It reads as "despite a great moment at the beginning, when we get into it, there's not a lot there". Will that continue in SA4? Maybe, but the only one who could convince me now is Brandon, and I know he's not going to ignore the characterization he gave us in OB. The way they acted isn't just a pause before something great - there's a problem in their relationship and it wasn't overcome in OB. The problem they have, that Brandon communicated in OB, is that they haven't actually made it to a point of really understanding each other. I don't think they really understand each other right now as it stands, and I would feel really robbed if SA4 goes there and pretends that what happened in OB was just a little stumble. And actually, I think I have to disagree with you about Shallan's lesson, now that this is coming up. Because her entire problem for like all the books is that she needs help but is refusing to ask for it. Like, that scene with Jasnah in Part Two? Where Shallan almost confesses what she's up to and asks for her help? But then she refuses to? Shallan's whole character is about her being in such a bad mental/emotional place that she's isolated and won't un-isolate herself. This is presented as a problem. In fact, her two problems set up at the beginning of OB are that she wants to be independent even though she knows she's not ready, and she's not being emotionally honest. By the end of OB and her emotional arc, she's admitted it's okay to be dependent (resuming her wardship with Jasnah) and was emotionally honest (telling Adolin the truth about... well, tons of stuff). The last thing she needs is to try and solve her problems all by herself, and I really think Brandon's setting up the completely opposite idea. Like you mentioned Kaladin's thing with deciding to try and kill Elhokar? That was explicitly written as bad in the text: he explicitly felt weird and guilty, and Syl was being damaged, and the readers always knew it was about him agreeing to help kill Elhokar. I felt sort of sick to my stomach when I read those bits. Maybe you get the same feeling when you think about the Shallan/Adolin marriage, but I don't think that's nearly as explicit as Kaladin's bad decision was. For Shallan, I feel sick to my stomach every time she decides to hide what she's doing and try and solve it by herself. (Can you tell I'm anxious about the Ghostbloods plotline??? God) So that's my emotional reasoning as to why I don't think the marriage thing is a mistake, or at least, definitely not that level of mistake. Okay! I'll have to sit down and choose carefully now that my taste is on the line, ha ha! Oh, nice. Yes, the Warbreaker romance was quite cute, but if you look at the sensibilities of the pairing, it's closer to Adolin/Shallan than Kaladin/Shallan. Seeing as most people I talk to think Adolin/Shallan was just as cute and believable and nice as his other main romances, I really can't believe he's going to change it. Like I said before, Brandon frequently goes for the nice, cute romance, and so far, this is no exception from his other works. Brandon also doesn't do triangles like ever, so I think that's why I have ambivalent feelings about the ships in Stormlight here, but when I actually compare the character types and how the romance progressed, you start to see the pattern.
  9. Uhh… No, I was thinking you were saying it was all guesswork, yours and mine, because that's what theorizing is, and both of us are just disagreeing with each other, which isn't inherently impolite. This is getting kinda weirdly hostile, though, so I think that'll be it from me on this. Have a good one.
  10. Yeah, it sure is! I just dislike the statement that it's all guesswork, when I truly believe we have enough in the books without needing to make a guessing game out of it. Everyone thinks they're right, of course...
  11. I guess even this we'll have to disagree on. I suppose you can think we're all guessing if you would like to, but it's your opinion that his thoughts and words and actions don't align and it's my opinion that they do. Maybe someone could ask Brandon on what's going on in his internal monologue - if only I lived somewhere he actually did signings, lol.
  12. Oh, haha, I don't know about "on here", I really haven't been here a lot or for very long. What I meant was, you are trying to show that something doesn't exist. That's what proving a negative means, sorry, I should've explained more. In that sense, proving a negative is almost impossible, because there is no evidence of it. From Wikipedia: "A negative claim is a colloquialism for an affirmative claim that asserts the non-existence or exclusion of something.[10] The difference with a positive claim is that it takes only a single example to demonstrate such a positive assertion ("there is a chair in this room," requires pointing to a single chair), while the inability to give examples demonstrates that the speaker has not yet found or noticed examples rather than demonstrates that no examples exist (the negative claim that a species is extinct may be disproved by a single surviving example or proven with omniscience)." Or the line: "Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." So in this specific case, you might say, there is no proof that Adolin loves Shallan, but that is actually not the same thing as Adolin not loving Shallan.
  13. I mean, you can personally find it uncompelling for whatever reason you like, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The romance between Adolin and Shallan exists, and all the text and subtext support it being a romance. This thing about who Adolin thinks of as pretty is evidently a big marker for you of whether it's a romance, but those aren't the only things that equal caring for another character. I read different markers that Brandon wrote into the scenes, but that's all it is. Two readers catching on two different things. Besides, after all the talk about surface level attractions being a negative, I'm fine with him not having that thought in the text if it would just be taken as a sign that he only has a surface-level attraction to her. I mean, that's your take. I went from liking the idea of Kaladin/Shallan - or, Shalladin, yeah - in WoR to really being disenchanted with the idea of them in OB, based on how Brandon intentionally wrote them in this third book. In fact, in OB is when I got really upset at how Shallan thought about Kaladin. In my reading, she went from learning to try and understand Kaladin in WoR to OB where she just... really objectifies him, all that "ooh, he's so passionate and dark and stormy" (and it's even more stomach-turning when it's Veil thinking about Kaladin). In her POV, it's like... it's just so different from (1) how she interacted with him in WoR and (2) how I think about Kaladin. In OB, suddenly she was so shallow about how she thought about Kaladin, and it could have become so deep, but... Like, this is a progression of time. She catches herself thinking about Kaladin in OB and remembering their past connection, and then, no matter what the reasons are, decided to stop trying actually getting to know him. The thing is that both Kaladin and Shallan do think about the chasm scene in OB - but the chasm scene happened in WoR, and is a past event. I thought it was a great moment of connection for these two, a really meaningful, intimate scene. (Though if I'm being honest, no, I don't think it was the most romantic episode I've ever read - only one of Brandon's relationships hits my top ten list and that's the aforementioned main ship in Mistborn Era 2.) Kaladin and Shallan think so, too. It wasn't dropped in two lines of thinking at the end. It was being dropped over the course of every time they thought about each other. Like, personally? I was expecting - or at least hoping for - some scenes where they kept connecting in OB. I thought they might learn to understand each other more, in order to support each other and start a real friendship, if not more. But what happened was that even thought they had that one moment, it didn't continue. It wasn't a series of moments. From what Brandon gave us in OB, it was like... they had the potential to be more. They absolutely had the potential to be more, but every time, they didn't pursue it. I don't even think the reason why matters, because at the end of the day, they moved on, and it doesn't seem to be a trick. I think their interactions in OB were definitely trying to tell us something about Kaladin and Shallan, and that is even though they have the potential to be more, that doesn't mean they have to be more. They're given multiple opportunities to grow towards each other in OB. Multiple chances to talk, really talk, and try and support each other, but it doesn't happen. This is where my nice ideas of what they could have been hits the wall of what Brandon is telling us they'd be like - and we have a situation where they both have such a good starting connection point and neither of them choose to do anything about it. Apparently that's the kind of people they are. I think Shallan was the biggest obstacle here - I think she could have chosen Kaladin if she really wanted to. But that scene at the end where Adolin gives her the opportunity to freely walk away from him with no hard feelings and go to Kaladin if she wants - even if he did it very clumsily - was the scene where I knew Brandon was shutting that door. That's the narrative way of saying given the real option, free of coercion, she still chose Adolin and like... okay, Brandon, alright, you're the boss. I'm okay with the idea of Adolin/Shallan in concept, same as Kaladin/Shallan, I just was annoyed by the whole situation, I guess. I don't have to love it to see that's what Brandon was doing. It's possible that more may come of it later in a situation where for whatever reason Shallan and Adolin aren't together, and Kaladin and Shallan get together, but it's not because Adolin/Shallan was a mistake. If a canon Kaladin/Shallan happens, it has to take into account the things we learned about them in OB. What happened between them in OB was not an accident. It wasn't an oversight that they barely spoke, and when they spoke, it went badly. Clearly they weren't ready for what could have been right now, but I don't believe that means they must be together for it to be a resolution of this arc. What happened in OB was a resolution of that idea, it just resolved as a not-relationship. Why Brandon decided to start it when this is the ending? God, I have no idea. I'd love to ask him if I thought he'd give an answer that isn't RAFO. I guess he thinks it'll be more clear to us when we have hindsight of later books. Yeah, the thing about cheesiness is... it's relative. I find almost all of Brandon's romances very cheesy. I also have a few buddies who thought Adolin/Shallan's romantic resolution in OB was the best thing in the world, absolutely starry-eyed over it. So just because you and I find it too cheesy to be real doesn't actually mean it's too fake for Brandon to do that kind of thing. Brandon seems very happy with the way he writes romances, and I don't think he sees the cheesiness as a problem to be fixed. Some people actually like cheesiness; some people see it as a feature, not a bug. To say that "Shadolin is intentionally cheesy and therefore means that it won't last" requires that Brandon think that cheesiness is for sillier, less serious romances, which based on his other works I don't believe is the case. I really get the impression that Brandon likes light, cheery relationships, as a lot of them are. Adolin/Shallan is pretty typical of what you'll see in some of his other works. I really think you ought to give his other books a read. It's all really good stuff, but maybe you'd benefit from seeing how little Brandon is focused on romances overall. They always come second to plot. Brandon has very complex overarching plots, but he's a very straightforward writer. He has fairly simple prose - which is something I like - but this also means he's more of a "what you see is what you get" type of person. Everything he's said in interviews says to me that Brandon considers the situation resolved as of the end of OB. Hmm, I'm sorry, I think there was some confusion here. I wasn't asking for proof of your argument as though we were seriously debating the topic, I asked if there was a WoB because what you said was not in the text at all. Going ahead now with the understanding that it's your interpretation of the text and not a WoB about Adolin's character that I missed: I see where you're coming from now, but I strongly disagree, and I think that's a misreading of Brandon's intentions. If you were wanting to convince people who don't already agree with you, you are in the unenviable position of trying to prove a negative. In the philosophical sense of proving a negative, it's much more difficult than the other way around, especially when in this context, it's like you're asking me to pretend I don't see something that seems very obvious. It's a much different proposition than proving a positive, because to prove a positive claim, one only needs a single instance. So the subtext of all the scenes in OB where Adolin and Shallan like each other, care about each other, are consistently there for each other, move from being scared of losing the relationship in Part One to being honest with each other and affirming they want to be together in Parts Four and Five, and then getting married - these are all things that are romance-coded. Shallan is the most unreliable narrator in the Stormlight books, but Brandon has never misled us this badly on anything in her story, and we know that he said OB is her at her worst. I just can't see how he would ever undo the Adolin/Shallan relationship because of her issues, as bad as her issues are. I'm looking back on this and I'm not sure this is even necessary. We know we disagree on this now, and aren't going to be changing any minds. You don't read Adolin as loving Shallan, I do read him as a man who loves her. At this point maybe it is better to just leave it here.
  14. Like I said above, there's a lot justifying it implicitly, and that's not nothing. It doesn't need to be explicit for it to be there. But if you feel so strongly it's not present at all, then I guess there's nothing left to say. I guess we'll have to disagree. It felt clear as much as possible, and a lot of other readers felt it was clear enough without needing to be that obvious in Adolin's POV. Like I said above, if you just didn't see it there, I'm pretty sure there's nothing people who read it differently can say to convince you. Do I think it's gone forever? Nah. Do I still think it was taken into account with her decision at the end of OB? Yeah, I do. I think Brandon made it as clear as he could Sarcasm isn't a good look when other people are coming in in good faith. It comes off as condescending, and if this is going to continue, I'd rather not talk to you anymore. Anyway, I said in one of my first posts that I agreed Shallan also thought Adolin was attractive (and her to him!) - but that isn't all of how she thinks and interacts with him. Unfortunately, I don't think that's enough to justify it being a subversion. Brandon really does not write spectacular romances. Avoiding spoilers, the main one in Mistborn Era 2 was his only romance that I think surprised me - and even then, it was clear at the end of each book where everyone stood. He hasn't done the big surprise subversion of any romance that I recall. He does write cheesy romances! I rolled my eyes through pretty much all of his books in the main romance. I agree that it's not a coincidence Kaladin and Shallan only spoke three times. But I think that was Brandon saying not to expect anything else. "I was not satisfied with this" does not mean "this thing you are dissatisfied with is going to change in the next book". Especially when Brandon is pretty straightforward in how he writes romances in his other books, it just... I know what it feels like to try and be optimistic in the face of something I really disliked, and I was pretty dang underwhelmed by Shallan/Adolin in OB... But that doesn't mean I think that's proof of Brandon's intentions to break them up. I am both unenthused with the romantic plot of OB and fairly certain that he doesn't have a plan to change what he did. One of the reasons I'm reading this last paragraph of yours and being so sure is just... there were SO many other "missing" scenes in Oathbringer. It wasn't just Kaladin and Shallan's scenes. Kaladin and Shallan's relationship was evidently not special enough to make the cut, just like many others people were complaining about being absent or lackluster. Since I can't see a reason that the absence of a relationship in the text means that that relationship is more special than all the other people who were missing important scenes (like Amaram, or Jasnah, or Szeth at the end), I just can't buy into that reasoning. So I'm just bummed out that this is how the Kaladin/Shallan relationship was left in canon, and hoping that they at least get a couple of nice buddy scenes in SA4 and 5.
  15. I bolded the bit that I am very confused at, because none of that is written in the books. He's not angry, and there's no evidence that he thinks of his relationship with Shallan as a game. In fact, we have it written in Shallan's POV that she knows he's nervous about wrecking the relationship, and that was a scene just between them without Kaladin being involved at all. I'm thinking back to OB, but I don't think this reading is based in anything from the actual text that Brandon wrote. Is this from a WoB? What I found interesting was that Kaladin actually wonders what happened about their time in the chasm, because he certainly thought it was meaningful. But then he thinks of it because he's so surprised that she seems to be totally "forgetting" it and treating him so meanly. Not talking about WoR here, but just in OB, that's pretty much it. He thinks of being attracted to her, and once or twice recalls the chasms as being meaningful and sad/confused that she's like pretending it didn't happen, and then it's basically dropped. But opposed to Kaladin's POV... There is Shallan's POV. I think that in Shallan's POV, whenever she thinks of Kaladin, she does the whole entire "oh, he's so dark and stormy", which is basically... just saying that he's sexy and she's attracted to him. Which is weird to me, because the way Shallan sees him during OB is not the way I think of Kaladin at all, and kind of left a really bad taste in my mouth. This is all kinda weird to me, because I know Brandon has said something like... treating each book as its own distinct novel, and in OB as an individual thing, Kaladin and Shallan's entire thing was basically dropped. I guess that's how Brandon wanted it to come off... :/
  16. Oh, cool, yeah I guess I can see why it'd be a pretty popular topic. A couple of friends of mine are really into it as a three way ship where everybody is happy, and I think I'm basically gonna do that - just ignore the books ftm. Or at least until SA4 comes out. Who knows.
  17. damnation, that's pretty far back, a year ago! (Have gone to spread some upvotes there.) You just been digging into the forums?
  18. Hah, okay, upvote for making me laugh XD
  19. It did feel like a lot of his POV, especially since we have less of his POV than Kaladin and Shallan's. There are many small moments where his feelings of inadequacy shows itself, not just when he explicitly says something out loud. It's written into the narrative, where we can follow the implicit meaning: Adolin feels inadequate when he thinks about Kaladin and Shallan and other people in his life being Radiants while he is not, caring about the relationship enough to be nervous that Shallan might leave him, Adolin always makes note of how powerful and amazing Kaladin is especially when Shallan is there and aware of him, providing things and actions to show he cares for Shallan - bringing her meals, rubbing her shoulders, being present when he can tell she's upset. It's just reading the character in the actions, it doesn't need to be explicit. His feelings felt very clear to me. On all my rereads it felt like more than enough to show he really cares about her and wants to be with her, but until their final conversation after Thaylen Fields, is just waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is to say, his feelings of inadequacy mean that he so fears that Shallan will leave him that he's holding himself a little more reserved. I kind of disagree. Adolin doesn't do that with anyone else in his POVs either, and we know he loves his dad and Renarin a lot. So following the pattern of people that he loves, Shallan is not unusual. If we use this logic, then I think we have to say Adolin is in love with Kaladin, because like I said above, he will always notice how cool Kaladin looks and acts all the time.
  20. I kinda feel like we read different books if that's your take, but I understand not wanting to get into it. Also, oops @Karger you might want to have responded to Bookish Ocelet in your previous post, not me?
  21. This is pretty much the opposite of what we see in Oathbringer, though. Her thoughts about Adolin are admiring and enjoying the kind things he does for her as well as being attracted to him, but her thoughts about Kaladin are short, fleeting, and exclusively about how handsome and sexy she thinks he is. Um, I think saying that Adolin wouldn't care if Shallan cheats on him ignores a lot about what we see in their relationship in Oathbringer and before... He was ready to officially give her up when he thought Shallan was more interested in Kaladin than him; what he did not say or imply was that it'd be chill if Shallan went to be with him while being married to Adolin at the same time. I don't see where you are getting this reading of him?
  22. I lean positive, I guess? I hadn't thought that much about him until I came here. Turns out there's a loooot of conversation about him and I'm not sure I was prepared for that, ha ha.. So I'm not sure I'm ready for either of the split topics about him. I don't know, I guess I liked him? I'll have to do some more thinking, I guess. Any other I-didn't-feel-that-strongly people out there?
  23. I just don't get it. If it's outgrown Final Fantasy, then it's outgrown Disney, too. You know what I miss? Radiant Garden. I wanted to see the KH3 version of that place.
  24. @Draginon oh, love it. Also, what the heck was with no Final Fantasy characters whatsoever?? Where did they go! No resolution on THEM feels pretty bad!
  25. Oh, I completely agree. Just wish those worlds felt a bit more modern - like I heard someone say it's still a PS2 game and I definitely see what they meant by that.
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