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cantabile21

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  1. Another one here who saw Szeth as Oriental... it's the name for the ethnicity that threw me. And i know Adolin is supposed to have messy blond hair like a mop, but i've always imagined it as shoulder-length at least and neatly swept back. Like Legolas. In fact, i suddenly realised that my mental picture of Adolin has always looked like a blockier version of Legolas, complete with the fair skin. i rationalise it with my mental image with Evi, whom i've always seen as blonde and fair-skinned as well. If he could inherit his mother's hair, he could surely inherit her skin tone too. Dalinar i've always seen as Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Yes with the beard. i know he likes to shave in the morning, but i just can't see him as clean-shaven. Nope. Elend, on the other hand, i could never picture with a proper beard. Stubbly, maybe, but not with a full brown beard. And in my mind, Kelsier has brown hair too. Still on the subject of hair, i see Susebron as blond, though i know he's supposed to have black hair. i guess the blond hair came with the innocent wide eyes i gave him.
  2. Just wanted to note that after all this time, the argument has finally shifted from "Is Adolin good enough / broken enough to be a Radiant?" to "What Order of Radiant should Adolin be?" And when Brandon first agreed that Maya would have wanted to bond with Adolin anyway, that made my day... Jaelin, your theory is intriguing, and i do like the idea of it. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities not just for Adolin and Maya's character development, but for the general worldbuilding of Stormlight Archive. i agree that with the world in such turmoil, who's to say that such changes couldn't happen? We have a long time before we'll get canon confirmation of any of our theories, so we might as well pass the time with... more theories. Some will be proven true, some won't, and Brandon could still blow us away with something none of us ever expected. Anyway, it's fiction, and it's fun! i personally see Adolin as an Edgedancer, and would love to see how he might come to lead the Edgedancer Order eventually. He's a natural leader and people look up to him, and yet he has this personal touch and connection with the individual that a big picture leader like Dalinar may not have. Lift has the personal connection with the individual in spades, but she is not a leader.
  3. i can think of any number of things i want to say to - or rather, shake into - our dear Shallan, but it's not like she'll listen. So to Adolin, while giving him a big hug - "You are worthy. Just as you are."
  4. Dalinar. Because part of being honourable is facing up to your own failures and taking responsibility for them, which is what Dalinar did by rejecting Odium and the temptation to just run away from the truth. And being picked to be Honor's champion, after having rejected Odium's seduction, would be poetic indeed.
  5. There isn't a reading culture where i live, and English isn't even the main language. i know there are translations, but still... So it was one day, after i had finished Oathbringer and was bursting with the need to talk about it, that i finally made my way here. And here i've stayed ever since.
  6. i hope you're right, Vissy! Hopefully the huge ripple effect that Brandon has talked about is actually huge enough that he has no choice but to expand his original framework with new plot lines and worldbuilding possibilities, anchored by Adolin's increased role in the story, without messing up his grand plan for the series. Because Brandon has consistently referred to Adolin as more of a support character, i try to manage my expectations, but as Brandon has also admitted to the current Adolin being a pleasurable surprise, he might continue to surprise us - and himself - with what Adolin may have to offer to the story. i hope...
  7. Brandon has mentioned a few times that writing Adolin has been a happy surprise, and i think that if that continues, we would end up with some rather interesting Adolin story lines that were never planned, which would lead to some other character story lines that were never planned, and that we would end up with a book or two that are slightly different from what Brandon originally conceptualised, but are also much better for it. Brandon is a meticulous planner, but he hasn't been afraid to change things during the actual writing and subsequent editing either. Adolin in his current form is a result of that. So i believe that whatever we get with Adolin in the future books, it would not change the grand story line, but it would add so much more colour. With three books down, some of us have come to care about this character who wasn't planned to be a major player but has somehow managed to demand much more attention from his writer and more or less inserted himself into the equation. And yes, Adolin is my favourite character, somewhat surprisingly as i didn't get such a good impression of him early in The Way of Kings, but he grew on me as the book went on. By the time i got into Words of Radiance, he was firmly my favourite. Now with the potential offered by the Maya arc, and with Brandon RAFO-ing every question on that subject, i am eagerly awaiting that branch of the story and have already imagined a few scenarios as to how Adolin would eventually awaken Maya. i also dream of a reprisal of that four vs one duel, with Kaladin and Adolin somehow combining their powers together - like Shallan and Dalinar with that VR map - to defeat a whole host of Fused. i even end that scene with Kaladin's Stormlight running out just as the last Fused is defeated, sending Adolin crashing in a heap in the sand and laughing his head off. Kaladin would then help him up and the bros would take a moment to reminisce about the first time they fought together, and marvel at how far they have come along. Ahh... my imagination is running away with me again.
  8. Actually i don't think that part of the conflict is resolved yet. i believe that Shallan's personas and her struggle to control them will continue to present problems for both her and Adolin, and how they overcome these problems will be a factor in Shallan's character development. For one, i don't take at face value Shallan's line about Veil being the one who's crushing on Kaladin, as Veil is part of Shallan, whether she acknowledges it or not. i believe Shallan's eyes will continue to wander, but as she has made her choice and married Adolin, the struggle will shift from choosing between Kaladin and Adolin, to choosing to honour her marriage vows and to honour her husband's love for her. Now that is something i would actually like to read about, as for the rest of us real married people in real life, the story does not end at "I do".
  9. Me too. For some reason i really enjoy the extra work i have to do to understand and fully appreciate much of the stuff in the books. To pick out the nuances and see the additional layers behind. It makes me feel like i'm in English Literature class again. Okay i know that sounds... not fun, but for some strange reason it's fun for me. Especially since it's been a looooong time since i've had the chance to attend one.
  10. Now that i think about it, Shallan reminds me of one of those cousins any of us might have. You know, the smart one, the popular one, the pretty one, who should have a bright future ahead of her. But she would insist on sabotaging her life with poor decisions that nobody else understands, and as she is already an adult, you can't really do anything to stop her. You wish you could just grab her and give her a good shake, but you can't. So you sigh and let her carry on, praying that she doesn't get hurt too badly, and that hopefully someday down the road she will eventually learn from life's lessons and learn some sense. i like Shallan. She is a wonderfully complex character and i have always rooted for her, even if i didn't agree with how she did what she did. There is much to admire in her. Her brilliance, her tenacity, her compassion. Her creative approach to all the crem that life has thrown at her, and how she has survived it all. The thing that has bugged me about her, right from the beginning, is how she always chooses the deceitful approach, to pretend and hide and fool people to accomplish her tasks. It's ironic that when she was for once open and honest about what she was trying to achieve, she succeeded spectacularly and found the way to Urithiru and saved everybody. She actually understands, deep down, that for her to achieve any kind of breakthrough, she has to come clean with herself and accept and love herself, broken as she is. Then the next step is to tell Adolin who he really married, and to see how the both of them can work it out together as a married couple. That's probably her character development in a nutshell - to come to accept who she is, and to let the people around her see her for who she really is, with all the brilliance and the failures and the pain that has shaped her. Then, with the acceptance and love of the people around her, to grow into the woman she could and should be. i guess in the end, even if the things Shallan has done has made me want to grab her and shake some sense into her, she is still the brilliant and resilient and i dare say likable and admirable Shallan, and i want happiness for her. (Much like how we would want happiness for those cousins of ours.)
  11. Wow... thanks for your encouraging words, Veiled! i'm really surprised and rather gratified that my fangirling piece actually touched your heart. But i guess that's why words hold more power than we would think, and this reminds me that we gotta be careful with what we say, online or offline. A few casual words could profoundly impact someone's life. Yep, i also noticed that he actually thinks about the murder a lot, even as he puts on a happy face for everyone else. He does feel guilty, not so much for actually killing Sadeas, but for the dishonourable way he did it. He would much rather have killed Sadeas in the duelling arena, in front of witnesses and with his father's blessing. And like you said, living with this kind of hidden guilt can destroy a person within. Shallan is proof of that. i think that of all our characters, Adolin seems to attract much more argument in this area because (a) he's a prince and has lived a more comfortable life than the others, and (b) his POV passages are meant to show us his thought processes and therefore reflect how he chooses not to dwell on the things that are actually eating him up inside. (b) has been discussed here before, so let's talk about (a). The very word 'prince' brings to mind certain images, whether of a Disney Prince Charming type or of modern day royalty and the privileges they enjoy just because they are royalty. It's easy to just focus on the public image and forget that behind that princely persona lies a real person just like any of us, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, though admittedly the struggles are different and of a different level than that of a working class person struggling to make ends meet. So sometimes, it's easy to focus on how Adolin grew up in luxury, surrounded by rich and powerful people and given the very best that his father's wealth could afford, and forget that he also spent his teenage years missing his mother while dealing with his alcoholic father who could not look at him without pain in his eyes, on top of all the expectations put upon him as the firstborn son and heir of the storming Blackthorn. Even before the events of Oathbringer, nothing he did was good enough, for his father had done it all and more. Even his duelling prowess was seen as something he inherited from his father, to be compared with his father's achievements. And even if his father no longer publicly criticises him for his shortcomings, Adolin still does it to himself in his head. These are the sort of wounds that people carry for life. Maybe not the sort of wounds that Kaladin and Shallan carry, but wounds nevertheless. They still hurt. And this is before all the feelings of unworthiness come into play.
  12. Edgedancer!!! Yup, i think it fits. (And it sure helps that my favourite character is gonna be one too.)
  13. Actually... do we have anyone else's word that Nale is indeed a Skybreaker of the Fifth Oath? i mean, the Skybreakers may adhere to the law to the letter, but if the law doesn't say anything about lying...?? Just a crazy thought!
  14. Welcome, Levi Sorenson! You'll have lots of fun here! This thread is a little old and behind, so if you have read Oathbringer, you might be interested in this... Updated Adolin Discussion If you haven't read Oathbringer, please WAIT until you have finished the book and thoroughly digested it before wading into that gigantic discussion! (By the way, i agree with you.)
  15. Hey it's okay, Fanghur Rahl, you're not an idiot! Happens to all of us sometime. When we're reading a story as engaging as this the first time round, we get so excited to find out what happens next that we tend to miss things or even misunderstand things. It's only when we get to the end and then read the second time through, more slowly, that we start to see some of what we missed in our hurry, especially if we were rushing the book in the wee hours. It also helps tremendously to have Brandon's annotations along with the text. Goes a long way towards clearing up any confusing parts and any subtext or foreshadowing that we may have missed the first time.
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