Mad_Scientist

The contest ends around the time of my birthday. Nice timing, though even if I win the book of course won't reach me till a while after it. And in case it is not already clear from this post, I want to sign up for the contest.

Yah, for example I believe that Cartoon network refuses to allow smoking (though they broke that rule for Miyazaki movies, because they had too), so Sanji's smoking in One Piece still had to be edited out even in the Funimation version. Also, it seemed like Cartoon Network didn't want a show that had previously been TV-Y7 suddenly turned into a TV-PG show, so Funimation still had to tone the violence down a lot. But at least the DVDs and web streaming of One Piece remained unedited.

Actually, Viz is doing Naruto and Bleach. Funimation is doing One Piece. That said, Funimation definitely won't edit the show, at least for dvds. If it somehow ends up broadcasted again there's a chance the tv version could have edits though (just like the tv version of One Piece continued to have some edits even after Funimation took over).

My two brother-in-laws (who are themselves brothers) were both big fans of the books. I had read and loved Tolkien, but hadn't read much other fantasy yet, and I found some of their conversations about the Wheel of Time quite interesting. I decided to borrow the first book from one of them eventually. I remember that I hesitated to do so for a while though, as the series was huge and unfinished (10 books were out when I finally started reading) and I half wondered if Robert Jordan would ever finish the series. Looking back now, some of my comments before I started reading are both sad and ironic.

Why no option for the Black Ajah? Hmm. In all seriousness, I have little idea. Maybe Brown? I do love reading.

I think darniil was trying to make two points. The first is that though Ruin and Preservation have not merged together, they are linked in a fashion. Let's use legos as an analogy. Let's say we got two legos, a blue one and a red one, named Preservation and Ruin respectively. Some guy named Sazed goes over to the the legos and picks them up. He holds the blue lego in left hand and the red lego in his right hand. Thus, the legos are completely separate from each other, and the only connection they have to each other is that they are both being held by the same person. This is the way most people seem to view Sazed's current state in relation to the Shards he holds. Not let's consider another example. Sazed goes over and picks up the blue and red legos and smashes them together somehow. Poof! Now he's just holding a single lego, and it's got a new color, purple. This is the idea that Chaos and KChan so vehemently disagree with, the idea that the Shards have merged and now have a new intent. This is also not what darniil was suggesting. Final example. Sazed goes over to the two legos, and sticks the red one onto the blue one. They are now held together in the standard lego way and can be moved about as though they were a single piece. But they are still separate. The red lego is still red, the blue lego is still blue, they are still two different legos. But they now have a connection to each other, a connection that is more than just "they are being held by the same person" like in the first example. This, I believe, is what darnill was thinking. Basically, his idea is that when two Shards come together, there are more than just two possibilities. It's not just "they become a single Shard" or "they remain totally separate with absolutely no connection to each other." It's possible for them to become linked together while remaining distinct, or so darnill is speculating. The second point I got from darniil's post was that just because Ruin and Preservation remain separate Shards now (or so most of us think) doesn't mean they will remain that way always. Perhaps, if Sazed holds them long enough, they will indeed combine into one. The red and blue lego attached to each other will become a single purple lego. As for my own views, assuming the above understanding of darniil's points is correct, I'm not sure. I do think that there is a way to merge Shards together, but I don't think it's something simple or something that will happen automatically just by Sazed holding two Shards together. I'm also not sure whether I think it's possible to merge only some of the Shards together or whether you have to merge all 16 together at once. Regardless, I don't think Ruin and Preservation will ever become a single Shard just by Sazed holding the both of them for a long period of time. As for whether Sazed is holding two legos separately or has attached them to each other, I also am unsure. It's something to think about I suppose.

Interesting. In this thread it was speculated that the doors to the Palanaeum might be the Surgebinding chart. But now I'm thinking it may actually be the "evil" symbols on the door instead, though I'm sure the colors are different than those on the book illustration.

I have an idea that it relates to either Amaran(Brightlord who betrayed Kaladin) or Sadeas. Not sure which idea I like better.

Except Szeth is an oddity. as he definitely has the powers of a Windrunner and uses both gravity and pressure. But I suspect that Szeth's current abilities are abnormal in some way and were not gotten in the normal Radiant way, and that if he ever does develop as a Radiant, he will have slightly different powers than he does now.

If Kaladin's mother's conversation stood alone, I might think the same thing. Heck, my first time reading Way of Kings I did think that way. But when I re-read it looking for cosmere clues, I noticed some things that add credence to her words. One of those things is Syl's cryptic comment about spren being basically the same individual. Syl's words can be interpreted many ways, but they do fit nicely with Hesina's words. But the biggest reason I think Hesina is right is because of Soulcasting. When Shallan accidentally Soulcast, she turned a goblet into blood. She communicated with the goblet, or more precisely, with the spren of the goblet. Now, I suppose it's possible that Shallan is mistaken, but I got the impression that she was right, and that all Soulcasting involves spren. That would mean that everything would have to have a spren, or at the very least everything that can be Soulcast would have to have a spren. Now, going back to the goblet that Shallan turned into blood. She talked to the spren and caused it to change. But, what if she shattered the goblet first? Presumably, she'd be able to Soulcast the pieces. But that would mean that each piece of the goblet would have a spren now. One goblet, one spren. A dozen goblet pieces, one spren inside each of them, a dozen spren. Where does the spren of the goblet go when it breaks? Where do the spren of the pieces come from? The best explanation, to me at least, is that Hesina is exactly right. The spren of the goblet breaks into pieces itself, and little bits of it become new spren inside each of the goblet's pieces.

One thing to note about that Brandon quote is that it seems a bit outdated. He mentions two main magic systems there, and from the descriptions it seems clear that one is Surgebinding and one is Soulcasting. But in current Way of Kings, Soulcasting is actually a part of of Surgebinding (Brandon has confirmed this) and not a separate magic system. There are also other magic systems such as the Old Magic and Voidbinding that we don't know much about. It seems the "two main magic systems" thing is no longer entirely valid, at least as far as classification goes. It also seems to me that when he was commenting on the magic system that manipulates "fundamental forces" he was giving general examples of the type of thing it does rather than specifically outlining its powers. All things considered, while it's possible that there may be a form of Surgebinding that can manipulate atomic forces, I wouldn't be too surprised if there isn't.

The story given in the book itself was that the Lord Ruler was completely decapitated, and Brandon revealed somewhere (either an annotation or an interview, can't remember which) that this was indeed an exageration. So was being burned all the way down to a skeleton. But... he also revealed that both things were based on real life events, one being an incident where he suffered severe burns, another where he was almost decapitated but his head remained attached to his body. Don't think Brandon mentioned anything about whether the spine was severed or not though.

I guess I should clarify. At the moment, I have no kindle or other portable ebook reader, and I have no intention of getting one any time soon, as I usually prefer reading books in paper form and can't really afford one now anyways. A Night of Blacker Darkness is only available in electronic form, but I intend to just read it on my pc. Since I plan to read it on my pc, the main things I was wondering about are stuff like possible DRM hassles, the ease of use (or lack thereof) of whatever PC software I'd need, whether I can redownload the book if something happens to my computer, etc. The only ebooks I have read on my pc before have been in PDF format so I was already familiar with what I'd need to read them. EDIT: And I just now discovered that Smashwords has a whole bunch of different options available, including pdf. So I'll probably go with that, and this whole thread wouldn't have been needed if I had just done a few minutes more research myself. *Insert embarrassed emoticon, since we don't have one yet*

Three evil clones holding powerful magic! Or a server error causing a triple post. (Of people holding powerful magic). Whichever seems most likely.

I got it (messaged Eerongal earlier to confirm), SOM1else got it, Emeralis00 broke down and googled it, and Eerongal started it... so everyone's got it except for possibly you, as I'm not sure if you've sent a guess to Eerongal yet. EDIT: Oops, too slow, KChan has started it now.

Welcome! Nice, hehe. I'd ask if you ever saw any aliens, but I suppose if you told me you'd have to kill me. Hope you enjoy your time here.

So, I don't have a kindle, so that's out. According to Brandon's recent blogpost, this book can also be gotten via Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords. The thing is, I've never gotten an ebook from anywhere so I have no idea which of those is the best, or if it even makes much of a difference. Any suggestions? EDIT: To clarify, I don't have an eReader and have no intention of getting one at the moment. I would like to read this book on my pc, and am curious as to what people would recommend for that.

Ah. Killer but not thriller.

Got it! (I think) That's the advantage of joining the game after a whole bunch of guesses I suppose. Let's test my theory. Funny but not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Light Yagami's cooler cousin from an alternate reality.

Hello to all who happen to read this, and welcome to my blog. Who am I, what is this blog about, and why should you care? Well, I am Matthew Hollingsworth, known as Mad_Scientist on this site. This blog is about storytelling, both my own attempts at creative writing, and my thoughts on the various storytelling mediums that exist. And you should care because I think some of you might find my thoughts interesting, and those of you who are also aspiring writers might find it encouraging to read about someone who shares the same struggles. With that out of the way, onto my first post, the topic of which is what I consider to definitely be the greatest video game plot twist of all time. That is a bold claim to make, and I give the caveat that of course I have not played all video games, so it's possible there is a twist I don't know about that is better. But I find that unlikely, for I am talking about the "greatest video game plot twist" not "the greatest plot twist in a video game." There is a difference in my mind. What is that difference? For me, a really good "video game plot twist" or "video game story" is something that takes advantage of the unique merits of the video game medium. There are many games with good stories that could have been easily told in a movie or a book without losing any impact. These are fine stories, but by not taking advantage of the strengths of a video game as a storytelling vehicle, they miss an opportunity for greatness. A truly great video game story is one that cannot be told somewhere else properly, one that loses something if you try to strip it out of the game and put it into another medium. So what are the strengths of a video game when it comes to telling stories? Some would argue there are none, but that is not true at all. One of the main great strengths of a video game story is the ability to incorperate player choice into the story. When characters in a book or a movie face tough choices, they make the choices regardless of what the viewer thinks should be done. There is a strength in that, in seeing a character you've grown to love make what you feel is the wrong choice and being unable to do anything about it. But there is a different advantage in a video game where you must make the choice yourself. Faced with two or more tough options, none of which are clearly the right one, all of which could permanently alter the fate of the character, and it's up to you to decide what to do, how do you respond? There is a strength in that which gives video games a completely different dynamic. Technically, choose-your-own-adventure books had an element of choice in them long before video games existed, but I'd argue that video games are pretty much the successors of choose-your-own-adventure books, and can handle the element of choice even better. Another big strength of video game stories is how they can draw you into the main character's situation, because you are the one controlling the character. In some RPGs, it's beyond just controlling, you pretty much are the main character. And even in games with a character that is less defined by the player, it is easy to get sucked in and identify with him strongly. Thus, if done properly, story events and plot twists that affect the main character drastically can have an even greater impact in a video game than elsewhere. When you combine that with the above element of choice, you have something magical. For example, when a main character who you have spent hours guiding through various trials and struggles suffers some horrible calamity as a direct result of a tough choice that you yourself made earlier, the impact will be incredibly strong if done right. The stories that are great video game stories, and not just great stories that happen to be stuck in a video game, are made by those who know the strengths of video games and take advantage of them. And the great video game plot twists also take advantage of them. So if that is what makes a great video game plot twist, what makes something "the greastest video game plot twist of all time"? Something that goes even further. Something that is not just a great plot twist in its own right, but which also is so in tune with the nature of a video game that it is literally impossible for the twist to occur in any other medium. Not just a twist that will lose impact if taken out of a video game, something that simply cannot be done outside of a video game. Does such a twist truly exist? Yes, one does, and it is in a game called 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (or 999 as I will call it from now on) is a game released for the Nintendo DS last year in the US and two years ago in Japan. It's genre would either be classified as a "visual novel" or an "adventure game," and in truth it has elements of both. Most of you are probably aware of the old classic adventure games, such as the King's Quest series, which tended to focus on story, exploration, and puzzle solving. You might not know about a visual novel though, as it is a term for a type of game not seen outside of Japan much. A visual novel is pretty much a true choose-your-own-adventure book in video game form. They usually have little to no puzzle solving and don't even have a huge amount of graphics (despite the "visual" part of their title) and instead have lots and lots of text and description and dialogue. The "novel" part of the name is just as important if not more than the visual part. They are known for long and complicated stories full of many branching paths based on player choices, with tons of different endings. (A fairly notable sub-set of them also tend to be erotic, but that's a whole other subject) 999 contains all the puzzle solving of a traditional adventure game, but also contains the limited artwork (during non-puzzle solving segments) and heavy text and description of a visual novel, as well as a visual novel's many branching story paths. The visual novel and adventure game segments are actually somewhat separated from each other, as you will have a large segment of puzzle solving as you escape from some rooms, then follow it with a big story segment full of dialogue, descriptions, and choices, and follow it with another puzzle segment, etc. Fortunately, the puzzle segments also contain plenty of story and are well designed, so the gameplay flows together nicely despite what it might sound like from above. But you're not reading this for a review, so I described the gameplay mainly so that you'd have a basic idea how the game works. Moving on to the story and the "greatest video game plot twist," I should of course warn you that spoilers are heavy from this point on. In 999, you play as Junpei, a 20-something college student who suddenly finds himself awakening in a room he doesn't recognize on what seems to be a boat. After figuring out how to escape the locked room, he meets 8 other people and learns that all of them have been kidnapped by someone who only identifies himself as "zero" and will be forced to play something called the Nonary game in order to escape the ship they are on before it sinks in 9 hours. To do that they will have to solve challenges and ultimately pass through several special numbered doors until they reach the door with a 9 on it, which will be the exit. Hence the title. It seems like a fairly standard setup: a bunch of strangers are brought to some location by a mysterious person and have to work together to escape and/or survive, while not knowing if they can all trust each other. Fortunately, there is a good reason this idea is such a popular setting, and 999 does an excellent job with it, so soon you will be drawn into the story and characters despite the somewhat cliched initial premise. What follows is a fascinating tale that also creates a background story combining intriguing real life history with myths and both real and pseudo science. You may find yourself checking google often just to see what parts of the game's story are real and what parts are made up. The game also does a good job of merging story and gameplay in a creative manner. One of the common complaints adventure games have gotten is that their puzzles are often nonsensical and/or completely arbitrary, and are just thrown in so that the player has something to solve. But the entire premise of 999 involves the fact that zero created challenges for the people trapped to overcome, so the presence of the puzzles is perfectly explained and does not detract from the story. About the only thing the game does that seems initially a little odd is how it separates Junpei's thoughts and words, which are shown in first-person on the top screen, and the descriptions of events that are going on, which are detailed in third-person on the bottom screen, which takes a little getting used to at first but soon becomes natural and seems the obvious choice. And then you will reach the end of the game and die horribly. Ok, that's not 100% guarranteed, but chances are it will happen your first time through. Fortunately, 999 is designed to be replayed, and after you save your data you can restart the game and this time fast-forward through the story segments you've already seen until you reach a point where you have to make a choice or something you haven't seen before occurs. This makes it quick and easy to explore different options. You will make different choices and open different doors, and learn further pieces of the story. And you'll probably still die again at the end. But eventually, you're figure out how to get the true ending. And that is where things go nuts. Final spoiler warning. In order to reach the true end of 999, you'll have to get a specific bad end first. For those who have played video games a lot this won't seem odd, for many games do not let you get the best ending on your first playthrough, and force you to unlock the true ending through various methods. What will seem odd is the way Junpei starts knowing things that he only could have learned through some of the other playthroughs, things he should not possibly be able to know on this playthrough. When another character confronts Junpei about his strange knowledge near the game's climax, Junpei will be stumped. But at that point, the descriptive text at the bottom screen, the thing that has been there the entire game, forgotten, simply a part of the visual novel's genre conventions, will change. It will switch from third-person to first-person. "The answer was simple. He knew because I knew." As the now suddenly first-person narrative goes on and reveals more details, talking about how it has watched and guided Junpei since the beginning and how it was able to view the other timelines where Junpei failed, you will realize something. The text on the bottom screen was always first-person. It's just that Junpei was never the character you were playing as. The entire game, you though you were controlling Junpei but were in fact playing as someone else. (And no, it's not you as in you the player. It's an actual character in the game) Everything that you dismissed as simply being a part of the standard conventions of a video game will suddenly make sense. The reason why getting a certain bad endings was needed before unlocking the true ending: it's not just because "video games do that a lot," it's because the character you were actually playing as was able to view the failed timelines and use the knowledge. The separation between the top and bottom screens? You will realize that throughout the entire game, the top screen has represented Junpei and the bottom screen has represented this other character. That is why you'd sometimes see Junpei's thoughts in first-person on the top screen and other times get descriptions of how he was feeling in third-person on the bottom screen. The fact that you've always solved every puzzle using the bottom screen? That's not just because the only touch screen on the DS is the bottom screen and it makes it convenient for puzzles, it's because Junpei hasn't truly been solving the puzzles himself, he's been getting help. Which also neatly fits in with why he'd always be the one to solve a puzzle, not his companions. The twist is beautiful in the way it takes things most people will have assumed were simply "the way a DS game works" or "the way a visual novel works" and actually makes them part of the story, but it is most incredible for the fact that it is a twist that relates to who you have been playing as the whole time. The concept of a player character is something unique to video games, which is why this twist is impossible to do elsewhere. Oh, someone could try something similiar. Someone could write a novel with third-person narration and have it switch to first-person. But that would be a different twist, one where you don't think the narrator is a character and suddenly realize it is. Interesting, but different. Someone could make a movie or book where it was obvious from the start that the narrator was a character, and then reveal that the narrator is not the person most people thought, but that would also be different. The narrator of a story is something completely different in concept than the character you play as in a video game. 999 has a great story, and tons of twists I have not mentioned (including just who exactly the character you are really playing as is). But above all, this one twist stands alone for completely redefining everything you thought you knew about the game, and taking advantage of the concept of a "player character" to tell a twist that is literally impossible anywhere else. And that is why I declare it the greatest video game plot twist ever.

That's kind of what I think, though I believe the spren that are capable of bonding with humans are unique from the very start, even if they sometimes lose their minds and appear to be "normal" spren. Regarding spren being essentially one person, Kaladin's mother Hesina had some interesting things to say. I bolded the especially relevant parts. I find it interesting the way she talks about spren splitting into pieces that become their own spren, and that fits right into Syl's words. Imagine you have some huge giant stone slab. That has one spren. Break off a bunch of pieces of the stone, and you also break off pieces of the spren. Now each of those rocks has their own spren, but all those spren were originally just a part of the bigger spren. If you think about it that way, perhaps at one time there was just ONE giant stonespren, and every single stonespren that exists now is just a part of that one giant spren. So in a sense, all spren, all normal spren, are the same individual, or pieces of the same individual. Separated by type of spren, of course.

When Dalinar saw his final vision, Honor said something like "some of what I have shown you is things I witnessed directly, but this is something I fear." Not the exact words, but close. That means that Honor was still alive during the time of at least some of Dalinar's visions, and every single vision Dalinar saw took place after the Heralds had started fighting. Given Honor's comments on how he has trouble seeing the future and given how clear most of Dalinar's visions were, I'd suspect that Honor didn't even die until sometime after the Knight's Radiant abandoning mankind in the Recreance. I don't think that the hell the Heralds experience was just a form of madness. When Kalak was talking about how he "can't go back there," Jezrien seemed to know what he was talking about. I still don't understand the oathpact and why it was the way it was. But there are a lot of VERY strange things happening in Roshar. A part of me almost wonders if Honor and Odium were working together to fight a common foe: the "enemy" mentioned in the prelude is never named, and we've all just been assuming it was Odium. Of course, if Honor and Odium were working together, it raises the question of who the heck they were fighting. A part of me almost wonders if they were fighting a Cultivation gone mad and causing the desolations in order to stop Cultivation from destroying the world through... over-cultivation? Ok that sounds weird, but we know that pretty much any Shard intent taken to extremes can be dangerous. An issue with this theory though is that "the enemy" was referred to as a he and Cultivation was referred to as a she. And if they aren't fighting Cultivation, than who? Honestly, I think there may be something other than a Shard on Roshar, something that is somehow so dangerous it required more than one Shard to work together to fight it. There are some oddities I have noticed. In one of Dalinar's visions of the past, a woman uses the oath "three gods." This seems to be an obvious reference to the three Shards on Roshar. But this vision took place during the cycle of desolations. If mankind had been fighting Odium for centuries, perhaps millenia, why would a woman include Odium alongside Cultivation and Honor in an oath like that? Even if she did aknowledge Odium as a god of sorts, would she refer to him in such a casual manner that implies no difference between him and the other gods? I suppose maybe the "three gods" thing is a red hering, and was actually not referring to the Shards on Roshar. In one of the chapter epigraphs, we learn that "3 of 16 ruled, but now the broken one reigns." The 3 of 16 is obviously talking about the three Shards on Roshar. But... the way that is phrased almost implies that they are ruled together. Also, the way that is phrased strongly implies (though does not outright state) that the "broken one" is NOT one of the 3 of 16. This seems to conflict slightly with Kaladin's vision which mentioned that Odium reigns, and creates another oddity. Maybe the broken one is referring to Odium, but why would he be called that? He's not broken in any way that we know of. In Honor's final vision to Dalanir, he says that he should have known Odium would come for him. Ok, that means that Honor apparantly didn't expect Odium to come for him. But wait a second. If Odium is the enemy being fought by the Heralds, than that means that Honor has been fighting Odium for millenia, and then was surprised when Odium tried to kill him?! That makes no sense. Yes, Honor did say he should have known Odium would come for him, but I doubt Honor is so stupid as to not realize someone that has been battling him for years would try to kill him. I could easily see Honor not expecting Odium to betray him if they had been working together though (being blinded by his own nature as Honor). All in all, there are just so many oddities I can't explain to my satisfaction. I'm not sure what could possibly be a threat to Shards yet not be a Shard itself, but I have a strong hunch that something like that does exist on Roshar.

For disabling emoticons, do you mean seeing them or posting them? If you mean seeing them, there is an option that does that I believe, but it disables all images in posts, not just emoticons. If you click the little down arrow to the right of your name in the box in the upper right corner and select "My Settings," you can then select "Forums" underneath "Your Options" and choose "Board Preferences." There will be a box that states "View images in posts, such as smilies and posted images?" which by default is checked. Testing something out. EDIT: Yep, with that box checked, no emoticons, including your own, will show up as pictures. Your emoticons will still appear as graphical ones to others who have that checked I think, but you yourself will never see any.