kaellok

She could very easily still be a source of information about all of that. Even if we assume that she was born, say, a hundred years after the exodus to Roshar, knowledge of such an event would still be culturally relevant (and thus maintained). People that she knew would have made the journey. And, since she was one of the 'intended' Heralds, I find it doubtful that she would be ignorant about the Dawnshards, even if her knowledge was only second-hand or theoretical. At worst, she would be unable to provide first-hand, primary knowledge about these events, but she should still be able to help with second-hand reports. I just can't imagine fighting side by side with your father for a thousand years and never learning about the planet that he fled from, ya know?

While this is true, YA / New Adult / Comedy can get away with a lot more use of exclamation marks and interrobangs (question mark + exclamation point, and perhaps my favorite piece of punctuation). I find myself having to write them all in as I want them in the first draft, and then have to edit them out later as I use them to an EXCESSIVE degree. Also, following more explicitly about conflict, every scene should have both emotional and plot-related conflict in general. Every scene MUST have one of the two; if it has neither, then you know it's filler that is not needed. Lisa Cron has talked a lot about 'the third rail', and using it to drive story and plot and characters, in various blogs and also Story Genius (a great resource to use when creating a novel). Essentially, every character but especially the main character of the story should have some major goal--what they think would bring them perfect happiness--as well as a misbelief about the world which prevents them from achieving this goal. This misbelief will have been established and reinforced throughout their life. The story, however, is the world knocking on their door and forcing them to see how and why they're wrong. Every scene with the character needs to touch on that rail in addition to the normal plot and story stuff. Looking at Way of Kings, Kaladin wants his friends and family to be safe--that's his goal. His misbelief is that all lighteyes are inherently evil. His story, then, becomes one of challenging or reinforcing that belief. The other major thing to take away from Lisa Cron's book is that every character, no matter how major or minor, has their own motivations and desires. While the reader may (and many times shouldn't) ever know what they all are, as the author you need to have much more clarity. The more major the character is, the more you need to know about them. Even the most minor characters in the most minor scenes requires you to know why they are there, what they hope to achieve, and what the results of the scene will cause them to do (maid enters to clean the room, sees the hero violently dialoguing with the villain, and then flees--to summon the guards that arrive a few minutes later).

Even more than this, the reason why Odium has not picked up the Shards that he has Splintered (Dominion, Devotion, Honor, and Ambition) is because he doesn't want to change.

You are technically correct that Odium is not the actual embodiment of evil or destruction in the greater scheme of things, and it's probably a bit reductionist for us to argue that he is--but that was also the smallest point that has been made in this thread. I also think that you are conflating 'actual supernatural force of evil' "Dark Lords" such as the Dark One from WoT and The Despiser from Thomas Covenant with the Evil/Dark Lord trope that exists; that's really just an option, rather than a requirement. As to whether he is the Epic Fantasy Dark Lord or not, Odium really, really does fit the trope in more than superficial ways (and the Lord Ruler is the deconstructed Dark Lord trope, like it or not). Let's compare Sauron, the archetypal epic fantasy Dark Lord, with Rayse/Odium (even though Morgoth v. Odium is probably a far better comparison in terms of power and personality). Both have great power, and both use that great power for death/destruction and subordination of others, and both have specific goals that are not compatible with the typical understand of 'good'. Neither are inherently evil, but are instead evil through the choices they have made and the actions they take. Sauron started the Second Age with positive intentions, taking those who had been bereft and left alone as his own people, to offer them succor and guidance; Odium aided the Singers after humans were invading their lands and breaking treaties. Sauron has powerful and corrupted men that serve him (the Nazgul) while Odium has the Unmade. Both make seem to make their stronghold a Hellscape: Sauron has Mordor, and its choking desert waste with the fortress of Barad-dur, and Odium has Braize, considered by the major religions of Roshar to be literally Hell. Sauron has hordes of orcs and other fell and twisted creatures, and Odium has the Fused. Do they both use methods that would be considered evil by most to work their will? You know, torture, fear, murder, mind control, etc.? Yep, they both do all of those things (see: orcs, see: Singers). Are they evil personified? Yes, but because of the choices and actions they make, not because they are inherently required to be evil. There is one major difference between the two of them, other than their scale of power: Sauron starts as a builder, and is obsessed with order and coordination, hating disorder and confusion. We don't really know what's up with Rayse, except that he was probably a hateful person at the time he picked up the Shard. So while Sauron is determined to remake Middle Earth in his own image, Rayse wants to be free to go around murdering people who could be a threat to him (see: Ambition, Dominion, Devotion, Honor).

I guess the only remaining question to ask is if Shallan is really Shallan

Because narratively, it's really cool to have happen, but if every Radiant Order had it happen, then the story would become over-saturated and dilute its awesome-factor. I remember a previous WoB that said that it was due to one of the Surges, but either my Google-fu or memory is weak, as I can't find it anymore.

Nale revives Szeth-son-Neturo using a fabrial, likely one similar to the one used by the Radiant in Dalinar's vision (the one with the inky black things in WoK, where he defends his 'wife' and 'child' with a fire poker; not at home, and I've forgotten the name of chapter). iirc, there's a WoB where Sanderson confirms this. The timing of the use of the fabrial was purposeful, and close to not being successful. Basically, Szeth died but his spirit hadn't yet left his body when Nale healed it. Edgedancer novella spoiler There is no evidence to suggest that bonding with a dead Shardblade allows someone to use Stormlight at all, for healing or otherwhise. An Honorblade, such as Szeth wielded, does allow the use of Stormlight, though. He uses it to heal from a multitude of otherwise-deadly wounds even in the first prologue of WoK, after all. What Szeth says about this is that he can't heal from damage done by Shardblades. It's possible that he was wrong, or that Honorblades don't allow full healing, because Kaladin definitely heals from such a wound in his first duel against Szeth. Edit: I'm really good at putting spoilers inside of spoilers inside of spoilers when I really didn't mean to.

Do we know that Mr. T wrote the diagram on his 'most perfect day'? It was his smartest day, without question, and Mr. T almost definitely thinks that it was his most perfect day and his most perfect self. However, the Mr. T bits make it pretty abundantly clear that intelligence =/= perfection. That's kinda the whole point of the intelligence vs. compassion debate. That's why there's been so much debate about whether the Diagram can actually save humanity, or if it was doomed to failure from the beginning as a red herring. That's the only reason why Mr. T is in any way interesting as a character. I highly doubt that Mr. T at his smartest was not supposed to be Mr. T at his 'most perfect', and that his 'perfect day' is yet to come--and it will be the day when he is the most compassionate. Unless, of course, it will be all of the days where his intelligence and compassion are perfectly balanced, thus signifying that it is the average person en masse who will save the world from hatred.

I somehow missed the short story Defending Elysium until yesterday, but read it immediately since they're in the same universe. Substantial Defending Elysium spoilers:

Are we talking Heralds that die in the front 5, or in SA as a whole? I'd bet lots of money that none of the current-Heralds are alive when SA-10 ends. If I were Odium or his forces, then I would concentrate on trying to find the Heralds who haven't been very conspicuous or obvious in order to kill them first. After they're dead, use Nale to attack Ishar, and then kill them both from surprise while they're distracted and weakened. Odium seems to be a vengeful guy, and those ten stood in his way for a LONG time; I think that he would allow himself to be imprisoned for a bit longer if it ensured that he'd be able to destroy them.

Very fair points made, @Ripheus23. I think I only read the first 2 books of Thomas Covenant, so the Despiser might have become more interesting/badass with a more detailed look. I mean, I did read several synopses over the years of the series to try and find what it was that other people enjoyed that I was missing, but even what you have said in explanation does not change my mind much (although I do appreciate it). An entity that represents all evil in the world is just inherently un-cool imo. I actually have had The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear on my shelf for a few years, but haven't got around to reading it yet. The Typhon, while ranking up significant badass points (I mean, c'mon, it's eating all of time), doesn't seem to actually be cool, though, unless the Wiki page is missing something It seems like it's a mostly impersonal force of nature, rather than an intelligent and malevolent being acting of its own volition. Based on what we saw of Preservation and Ruin on screen I would say that they are also not cool; we're essentially just seeing natural forces acting. We get a little bit of personification of them, which I maintain is required for full cool-points. Typhon seems to fit in this same category, though. A hurricane might be badass and destructive, but unless it's sapient it's not cool--even if you ramp it up to reality-ending.

You make some excellent points, @galendo, however I think that the Forsaken need to be compared to the Unmade, rather than the Fused. I think that gives a +5v3 advantage to the Dark One, simply because we don't know a lot about the Unmade at this point, but they are inherently far cooler than the Fused. I also think that Odium absolutely gets to count current Roshar as his, as he is pretty directly responsible for its current outlook and how it has been shaped. The Dark One gets a lesser credit for the 3rd Age, but some nonetheless, as he has continued to affect the world even beyond his prison. Your point 7, Recreance v. tainted saidin is one where I agree that the Dark One gets an overwhelming victory. I honestly don't think that myrdraal are cooler than thunderclasts, and put the fused as better than trollocs by far, so point 4 I also disagree with the metric you are using, and would give a 5v3 advantage to Odium. I think that I would give it a +13 v +10, advantage Odium.

Given that at the end Spin says that for whatever reason something political has changed with the Krell or other aliens which was causing the increased aggression, it's very possible that there's at least some sort of monitor on the planet itself. And yet those cadets have only a few hundred hours of training at most (4 months = 120 days, at 12 hours per day training = 1,400 hours TOPS) of flight time. And most of that is still in the simulator. Also assuming that their calendar is roughly equivalent to ours. Meanwhile, Jorgen came to the flight with more than 2,000 hours before they ever started. The most unrealistic thing is that they don't spend more time training pilots. The second most unrealistic thing is that they spend more time training pilots how to fight than to fly. There's some reasoning behind this (politics and socioeconomic factors, the rich interested in starting/perpetuating wars but not paying the cost for them) that gets a few sentences in the story, but never truly developed to the extent that it would make such factors actually reasonable. They live in a deeply flawed society that allows barely-adults to fight the enemy in vessels that are their only means of continued survival, but are utterly unwilling to give them the training required to not waste both the pilot's life, but also that of their ships. Mockpits and fighter simulation should be a substantial portion of the schooling for literally anyone who is interested past a certain age. Despite my criticism, I loved the book, and was able to forgive it many of the unrealistic things while reading it, and eagerly look forward to its sequels. (I ended up reading it in 2 sessions: the first 30 pages, then the rest of the book.) I mostly was let-down by the mysteries that were set-up or how realistic the society is, but the reason why I loved Skyward so much was the characters and their arcs through the story.

This is the greatest meme I have seen in at least a week.

I kept flip-flopping between pronouncing it Yer-gen (with a hard 'g') because that's how I think it's really supposed to be pronounced, and Jer-gen (with a Hard J and hard G) because that gives better alliteration with his callsign of Jerkface. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo this year, and ended up reading the book on Sunday. I was supposed to be rewarding myself with an hour of reading every day that I made word-count, but my brain was like, "You made work count yesterday, same day you got the book, but it was so late you only read for 30 minutes! You earned another 30 minutes of reading before you start working!" .... And then it was 10pm and the book was done.

Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are, in my opinion, really really bad. Not necessarily poorly written, but the MC does some truly awful and horrendous things early in the novels and seems to never once pay the consequences for them, nor even acknowledge that he is a despicable person; everyone just goes along with him because he's the chosen plot-lord. So for me, Lord Foul instantly loses every contest. As the source of 'all evil in the land', he is not interesting, and is in fact boring. All such 'source of all evil/good' are inherently boring. I also think that The Dark One had a lot of potential in WoT, but then when we start to learn more it's just all wasted and bad. I remain highly disappointed in the overall ending of the series, and regret having spent so much time invested in reading the books. So, again, The Dark One tends to instantly lose. He's a complete bore, in much the same way that Lord Foul is--but with so much less personality. On top of that, in the WoT series, he works exclusively through tools and catspaws that are equally boring and ineffectual. What does one of the Forsaken say? "In a time when we should be as gods, we are dropping like flies"? Yeah. Those are his strongest servants, being destroyed by people who barely know what they're doing. Maybe if the series took place in the original War of Power I'd change my mind, but he's not a badass. Odium, on the other hand, has actual character and motivations. His power is immense to the point of unimaginable, and yet there are still discrete limitations. These make him interesting. He has successfully destroyed enemies as strong and powerful as he, even when they had allies. This makes him badass. Let's evaluate each using the well-known formula of Cool = Interesting + Badass Lord Foul: Not Interesting + Badass = Not Cool The Dark One: Not Interesting + Not a Badass = Not Cool Odium: Interesting + Badass = Cool.

I'm thinking more and more that Odium's Champion is more likely to be Nale, especially if the list of candidates is opened up to the Heralds. He has abdicated his own judgment of right and wrong to the Listeners, and it's an incredibly short step from that point to doing as Odium wishes. Seeing how someone who sticks to the letter of their Oath ends up betraying everything they ever swore could be interesting to see, as well. Of course, if we just want to go with whoever has suffered the most pain, then Taln wins hands-down. And he's completely, utterly broken. If Odium decided to take all of that pain away, and to leave Roshar with minimal future destruction (even if lying), would Taln really resist? Could he? Sure, in his sane moments, but how many of those does he have in comparison to the ones where he's a broken wreck?

Star Trek Voyager

I'm assuming that you're wanting a name like Allomancy or Bending or Channeling, which suggests the name of the magic system (and what it's called in-world) as well as what its practitioners would be called. Allomancer = alloy (mix of metals) + mancy (divination). Most of the allomantic powers enhance or give extra senses to the user, so the -mancy/-mancer suffix makes a lot of sense. Benders from Avatar take existing elemental stuff (fire/earth/air/water) and move it around, often times bending it to get it where they want to go. Channelers from The Wheel of Time act as literal conduits (channels) for the One Power. There are tons of other examples, too. But basically, the important thing in the naming consistently seems to be referring to how the power is used or accessed, rather than what the power is. Otherwise the Benders from Avatar might have been Elementalists instead, and we would have seen the magic used in entirely different ways. I am a little partial to calling your magic-users Fundamentalists who practice Fundamentalism (because the Four Fundamental Forces of the Universe--GET IT?!), but that is a legit terrible idea and you should not do that.

Hey, this is "explain a plot badly" not "that's an excellent way to describe the plot." The Wheel of Time

That's more than fair. I was hoping that my words hadn't offended, as I can tend to have a similar writing style to the Forthright Philosophers. (I actually can't remember their name; the ones that Shallan disliked so because they presented their own opinions as unambiguous fact in WoK.) I think that it's great that you like character of Moash so much. This would hardly be the first time that a character fell really flat for me, while others praised them as being dynamic and changing (Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy is completely filled with characters that felt that way to me, but I seem to be in the distinct minority of that opinion). I also completely agree that if there is a contest of champions, it will be Kaladin for Honor and Someone for Odium. Odium's champion will also almost definitely see development through at least a few books. So, we may not have seen them on-screen yet, but I would be very surprised if we haven't seen them by the end of Book 4. I also think it more likely than not that we have seen them, and know a bit about them, since we're past the half-way mark in the series.

I very much disagree with you about the bolded part. Moash has deliberately shut down or locked away all sides of himself except for one. I even somewhat disagree that there was anything more to him as a character to begin with (you can dig through some of my ancient WoR comments if you want); the friendship of Kaladin and Moash was a told-not-shown, and done in service of showing readers some truly amazing and epic scenes for Kaladin. That doesn't change that Moash has always been one-note, though. "Wanna kill some light-eyes, especially Elhokar?" "Hey Kaladin, I'm here to kill Elhokar." "Whatup Kaladin--just killed Elhokar. Buh-bye." "I'm a bit bored now that I did the only thing in this world that I care about, which was killing Elhokar. Oh, you want me to kill a Herald? They're kinda like a light-eyes. Cool." I agree that building up story elements can make for a more powerful story-telling moment. But Moash being a champion for Odium wouldn't be obvious, it would be a disappointment. Szeth would make so much more sense, and be so much more interesting, because Szeth actually has a personality and is an inherently interesting character. Moash exists to serve plot. Venli, too, would be a superior choice for Odium's Champion, based on what we have seen so far, while also being a rather predictable candidate. I understand that you like Moash as a candidate or story element because there is something about the character that you like or enjoy. To me, he's always been a rare complete miss from Sanderson--a character that feels like a static cardboard cutout or mannequin. I tend to mirror @goody153's thought that Kaladin and Moash will clash, but Szeth will likely be the one to kill him.

Star Wars: A New Hope

I'll be nano-ing again this year! My name there is the same as here, Kaellok. i was planning on being a rebel this year and working on my Communism vs. Cthulu cooperative dice assignment board game, but a sudden inspiration hit me and I'll be working on an actual story instead.

Removed all the parts that I'm not interested in discussing. Sorry! I always feel a bit bad when I do that. So, I fundamentally disagree with the first two sentences. Shallan hates Pattern because her bond with him is what made her mother go crazy, and caused Shallan to kill her; Shallan also hates Pattern because he made her remember; Shallan just wants to forget, and pretend everything is fine, and she can't do that while dwelling about how she killed her parents. Third statement is actually prompting me to have a thought about the Recreance. Since Pattern says that the humans will kill the spren that bonded them (presumably referencing the Recreance), it is something that has happened before. Oathbreaker already hinted that the Recreance wasn't something that happened at a specific time and place, but instead something that was gradual. It's possible that Radiants abandoning their Oaths was something that happened from time to time, and the Recreance was notable mostly how widespread the effect was, combined with Urithuru shutting down. Regardless, I don't think that this is evidence of a guilty conscience from Pattern. Fourth statement: I actually do believe, and hope, for this to be one of Shallan's truths.