[Calamity spoilers] Epic Weaknesses

[Darkness]

So, I think Prof, Calamity, and a couple others were fully fleshed out in the dialogue, but did anyone catch David and Obliteration's actual weaknesses?

 

Obliteration overcame his 5 years previous, but I don't remember if it was referenced in previous books, and David only realized that he was sharing Calamity's fears in his nightmares as far as I could tell (ps. Part of me thinks it's hilarious that at least part of Calamity was terrified of sneezing).

 

Along with this, my other question would be what powers/weakness Mizzy has... that reveal at the end took me completely by surprise.

 

Part of me was toying with the idea that David's power would be to avoid death, or perhaps convince people to change their minds, but I kind of like what actually happened instead.

[Sand Master]

I don't think they ever mentioned Obliteration's weakness. As for David, it was explained that the lights and sound he saw were just ordinary things, like ceiling lights and people talking and moving things. I can understand how that's Calamity's fear, but I don't understand how that would translate to David himself. I really, really liked the book, but like a lot of other people I thought it was rushed at the end. That being said, I would be completely fine with it if we got something, even just a little short story, to explain what the didgeridoo Calamity actually was and why he was there.

 

SPEAKING OF WHICH.

 

WHAT WAS CALAMITY?

WHY WAS HE THERE?

These are all questions that I REALLY want answered. I feel like Sanderson was trying to go for the "ambiguity is better than the clarity" thing, but in almost all cases that always feels like a cop out to me. I WANT ANSWERS!!

[Voidus]

I don't think they ever mentioned Obliteration's weakness. As for David, it was explained that the lights and sound he saw were just ordinary things, like ceiling lights and people talking and moving things. I can understand how that's Calamity's fear, but I don't understand how that would translate to David himself. I really, really liked the book, but like a lot of other people I thought it was rushed at the end. That being said, I would be completely fine with it if we got something, even just a little short story, to explain what the didgeridoo Calamity actually was and why he was there.

 

SPEAKING OF WHICH.

 

WHAT WAS CALAMITY?

WHY WAS HE THERE?

These are all questions that I REALLY want answered. I feel like Sanderson was trying to go for the "ambiguity is better than the clarity" thing, but in almost all cases that always feels like a cop out to me. I WANT ANSWERS!!

He's leaving it open for another series, IIRC it's about a group of characters who travel through the multiverse solving problems.

[calamity]

Whats iirc?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

Whats iirc?

 

If I Recall Correctly. 

[RShara]

I think that David had already faced his fear (water/drowning), but because he had refused his power (sorta) he was getting some leakage of Calamity's fears, maybe because Calamity was trying to force David to use his powers?  Or because he had connected to Calamity during that exchange in Firefight.

[Heir of the Void]

WHAT WAS CALAMITY?

WHY WAS HE THERE?

These are all questions that I REALLY want answered. I feel like Sanderson was trying to go for the "ambiguity is better than the clarity" thing, but in almost all cases that always feels like a cop out to me. I WANT ANSWERS!!

 

I don't know; I feel like at this point, any actual explanation would have less satisfying. The Epic powers aren't Allomancy; part of their thing is that they aren't truly rational. They make sense in the context of Calamity, but in such a way that preserves the inherent illogic that's part of the FUN! (In the Dorf Fort sense, naturally).

 

It's like an MIRV ICBM, but each reentry vehicle is carrying barrels of monkeys as submunitions.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

I felt like the weaknesses actually made less sense after Calamity. In Firefight, they were made out to be PTSD triggers, all relating back to each Epic's personal trauma….and now it turns out Calamity can just take a perfectly rational fear and punch it up to insane levels? Kind of robs the weaknesses of their depth, in my opinion. 

[Voidus]

I felt like the weaknesses actually made less sense after Calamity. In Firefight, they were made out to be PTSD triggers, all relating back to each Epic's personal trauma….and now it turns out Calamity can just take a perfectly rational fear and punch it up to insane levels? Kind of robs the weaknesses of their depth, in my opinion. 

Yeah I found that too, it was a good thing for Calamity's characterization that he just has these perpetual fears of absolutely everything but bad for the other Epics whose characters now sort of seem more shallow.

[natc]

On the other hand, with so many minor epics it was bound to happen that one doesn't have a tragic life story. His gifting is at least somewhat random considering that not everyone with PTSD is an Epic. Too many of those.

[frozndevl]

I took the water fear to be just that, a normal fear that Calamity tried to punch of to neuroses level... but since David beat Calamity, he didn't have to worry about it.

[Edgedancer]

I took the water fear to be just that, a normal fear that Calamity tried to punch of to neuroses level... but since David beat Calamity, he didn't have to worry about it.

Although, in retrospective the question becomes, how did David defeat Calamity? I mean from what the book reveals the whole fear and weakness bit comes from pushing Calamity out of your mind by showing him something he doesn't want to see, the good of humanity. So how does David doing something before Calamity was in his head and thus couldn't see it play into the process at all? Doubly so, because Calamity should have been able to latch on to just any number of other things as David's weakness and bypass him beating the water bit.

[natc]

He was already feeling the touch of Calamity when that happened though, IIRC. Perhaps Calamity's mind needed to be present during the granting of power, and it began latching to his hydrophobia as the process proceeded and amplified it. David faced it right at that moment and tore the power from Calamity before the darkness could really settle in.

Sounds plausible or no?

Edited February 18, 2016 by natc

[Edgedancer]

He was already feeling the touch of Calamity when that happened though, IIRC. Perhaps Calamity's mind needed to be present during the granting of power, and it began latching to his hydrophobia as the process proceeded and amplified it. David faced it right at that moment and tore the power from Calamity before the darkness could really settle in.

Sounds plausible or no?

Tecnically that does sound plausible but would mean that there should have been more people that had managed it in the past, given that Calamity can just take a mundane dislike or something similair and ramp that up, thus not guaranteeing that the Epics-to-be never had a confrontation with whatever he picked. Either that or he would have needed some kind of mechanism to detect a "safe" fear for him to latch onto.

[natc]

David is a strange case though. His moment of obtaining power and pushing through his fear happened within moments of each other, almost simultaneously.

Calamity seems like the type to pick random mundane moments to turn people to cause maximum damage in a Rending. David was at Regalia's request at a strangely convenient moment for David, with water everywhere. Already an outlier. It probably doesn't happen often, especially if there's the possibility that Calamity doesn't actually check for fears before the power is already inside a guy. Perhaps it latches onto the first and most plausible fear it can find?

(. . . it occurs to me that we are effectively discussing the mechanics of a phenomenon caused by Calamity's pathetic and immature cowardice. That's kinda sad.)