Fifth of Daybreak

I didn't quite make the point I was trying to clear. My problem isn't that ALL Aes Sedai are the same (though that's what my original phrasing seems to point to, sorry about that,) but rather that all the Aes Sedai of the same Ajah might as well have the same name for how different they are portrayed. I felt like the Wise Ones were much better characters. They are definitely all under the same allegiance, and share traits as they should, being so close in authority and experience, but they also all have individual distinct personalities that govern the way they interact and think. Her rationale was more than just that. It seemed to be more of a PR cover up than an attempt to actually catch the Blacks. It reminded me of 'Wizard of Oz.' An outsider who is expendable gets sent on a suicide mission on the off chance they might succeed. I mean, they were sent without even being given the knowledge that should they get captured they can be turned to the shadow against their will. Two women (I don't count Elayne, she was more or less dragged into it, another incident I fault Suan for, she shouldn't allow the Daughter Heir of Andor to go hunting Black Ajah, for the sake of the alliance alone,) who aren't trained, one of which has a block on her ability to channel, against 13 experienced Aes Sedai. Oh, that's the exact number of women who can link their power together unaided. It just seems more like a suicide run. There's not even an external thermal exhaust port that they can shoot a proton torpedo into to bring down the whole Death Star...(ok so it's not a perfect metaphor.) I definitely don't want to imply that their distrust of each other is not realistic, I just feel like it's played up way to much and gets in the way of the story telling. I feel like the in-fighting betwen the forsaken has been much better constructed, and really adds into the experience of the story. One of the things I loved about the book was the way the Aviendha situation backfired. They didn't learn a single scrap of information, but Rand certainly learned a lot from her about the Wise Ones' plans. Aviendha herself is a fantastic character, and her interactions with Rand were probably the Highlight of the book for me. Also, I just want to add that I had really expected Geofram Bornhold to have survived, but after his absence from this book, I have to conclude that's not likely. His son has really disappointed me as a character, while Geofram had been one of my favorite side characters.

If I had to guess, I'd say it would more affect their gemstone supply than anything. They lose gemstones to soulcasting pretty regularly, and also for regrowing Shardplate. If they keep hunting the Chasmfiends to near extinction as Shallan has suggested they are doing in the winehouse, then the supply of fresh gemstones which makes life possibly will dry up. That could cause huge problems trying to feed the mass of people inside Urithiru, and it could also eventually limit the amount of shardplate they can use, if they can't spare any gemstones to regrow it, not to mention the limited availability of stormlight for the Surgebinders.

That's not the whole story, that's the description from Kaladin's perpective. Shallan doesn't think so: I think if the initial chapter had been in Shallan's viewpoint instead, the description would be less biased, at the very least. As for the spren, I think it would be relevant to consult Shallan on this one: I think it's unlikely that the spren are evil, as with the chasmfiend. They just seem like the apex predator of Roshar, which already has a pretty nasty predator in the form of the Whitespine. And with the spren being connected to the Skyeels, and most likely linked to their ability to fly, and even the spren around the Reshi Island Greatshells, I have to conclude they are just there as part of the creatures ability to survive. I don't see much in the way of evidence that they are evil. Anything used to describe the chasmfiend are tainted by Kaladin's bias at the very least.

Yup, this is my first time through. Here's my other threads so you don't have to go searching for them: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/8820-my-reactions-to-eye-of-the-world/ http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/9810-the-great-hunt/ http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12551-reactions-to-the-dragon-reborn/

Good motives-stop the desolations, which is a main goal of the Sons of Honor. As for having a crime to blame it on, they wouldn't need it in this case. Killing on the battlefield isn't a crime, and there's no trial. I believe that's why they tried to kill Amaram in that way. It was a loophole in their legality rules. And we honestly don't really know that much about the skybreakers, other than they uphold the law. This doesn't go against that, so I can't say that I agree it isn't in line with their goals.

It's also possible that Helaran was just doing as he was ordered. If I wanted to undermine an enemy, not only would I want to take him out as the leader, but also take out as many of his soldiers as possible while doing it. All it would take is the difference between "kill Meridas Amaram" and "Attack Amaram during a border dispute, and kill as many of his soldiers as you can while accomplishing that goal." If the Skybreakers do have serious motive to kill him, I doubt that their problems would stop at his death. There's also his stormwarder who is most likely in on the Sons of Honor, and dwindling their resources isn't a bad strategic plan.

Random thing I learned, I read way faster on ebook than regular. I can't contribute it all to that, since this past month was crazy busy for me, but considering there was about a week between the other books and about a month between this one, I have to conclude that ebooks are a faster read for me. Now that the random fun fact is out of the way, on to the book! The first thing I want to say is I noticed the pacing problems in this book more than the other three. And by noticed, I mean I flat out wanted to throw the book at a wall in random placed because I was so tired of waiting for things to happen. Then, when the plot did finally decide to show up, it was only around for a few pages or so. It didn't ruin the read for me, but this was probably my least favorite of the books so far, as it felt more like a chore to read at points than it did recreation. One of my big problems up to this point has to be the female characters. We touched on this in my previous thread, but I want to expand on it here. Most to all of the female characters in the books so far do not seem believable to me. They seem more like caricatures of women rather than fully developed characters. I had extremely high hopes for Elaida, but that was quickly squashed during her rebellion. She spent her whole life attaching herself to Andor in order to help with the final battle, then, when it falls apart, she just walks away to completely undermine the Aes Sedai, in order to grab power for herself? What? So because you know that the final battle is coming, you decide to destroy half of your number because you didn't like the leadership? Maybe, just maybe, if she didn't know that Rand was the dragon but figured out he could channel I could understand this, but it seems too egregious a mistake when you know the biggest threat to the world is just around the corner. Especially considering how many greens they take out, who are supposed to be prepared for battle (that confuses me because they should have put up more of a fight, and they seem to be a more important Ajah for when the end comes.) I guess if you're going to make Elaida into a villain that outright and vanilla, at least have the decency to give her the Snidely Whiplash mustache. Along those lines, are all the Aes Sedai just carbon copies of each other? This frustrated me a great deal as well. Sure, they might have similar personality types that are drawn to those Ajahs, but they all can't be clones of each other. I'd like to meet a Red I can relate with, or at least have a Red whose reason for hating men is shown through character development. And where are the Grey Ajah at? I didn't even know that was their color until I got frustrated and looked it up online. Suane actually is much more interesting to me now that she's been stilled, and I'm hoping to see some great character development from her in the next few books. I was also highly satisfied to see I was right about her being stilled, and I still expect her to rally the Aes Sedai to her. But while I'm on the subject of Suan, what in Kelek's tongue was she thinking?!?! After reading through the book and learning about the different societies of channeling women, and thinking about her sending Egwene, Elayne, and Nyneave off to hunt the Black Ajah, I can't help but feel like she did deserve to lose the stole. Sending those three off could very well endanger everything the tower has worked for, and the little amount of trust that they have in the world. Especially considering their little display in front of Bornhold, and Verin's reaction, why would you send them off into the world to cause trouble, whatever results they bring? Min was one of the few exceptions to my frustration with female characters, but the fact that she's mostly impotent and driven along still leaves me dissatisfied. Egwene. The most satisfying moment in the book for me was her having to braid her hair. Everything she thinks about Rand's head being too big and all her frustrations with him all seem to be her projecting her own actions onto him. Having the luxury of getting both their points of view shows Egwene to be the immature little girl that the braids paint her to be. This disappoints me because she seemed to be such a promising character while reading Eye of the World. I still like Elayne. She seems to at least try to be a force for good and decency, and fairly well developed. She also seems to drive the story forward the least though. I won't say that Nyneave isn't well developed. All I will say on her is that she reminds me of my older sister, if my older sister didn't listen to reason, was crazy with rage most of the time, and if my sister wasn't right about just about everything. If anyone needed to be taught how much of a child she is, it's Nynaeve. Faile seemed to me that she was an entirely different person than she was last book. I was very excited for her, but she just frustrated me throughout most of the book. Not that I don't understand where she was coming from, not even that I don't like her, or think she's underdeveloped. I guess I'm just getting a little tired of all the internal squabbling and politics withing the protagonists. Can anybody even try to just get along? Egeanin really excites me. The inner turmoil she's having about her cultural upbringing is fascinating, and she's definitely humanized the Seanchan for me, at least a little. Perrin's story was very interesting, but I felt like it was very much lacking after the Whitecloaks came into the defenses. That seemed extraneous, and there's no real point to having that happen. They didn't contribute to the defenses much, and at the end of the conflict, absolutely nothing had changed. For all I care, the Whitecloaks could have never come to the Two Rivers, and it could've just been Ordeith, or Fain, or Mordeth, whatever you want to call him (I still like MorFain, but I'm a fan of puns) without any of the Whitecloaks. Call me crazy, but between Verin and Alanna, I trust Alanna. There's still something about Verin that just makes me very suspicious. Though I'm curious to see where Verin's talens lie after her comment about healing and being skilled in another area. That was an offhand comment that seemed very important to me. Rand has finally come around, and is now my favorite character. Although I still think he's an idiot for the way he's treating Moiraine. Ok, maybe not an idiot. I finally understand where they are coming from not trusting Aes Sedai, but Moiraine is the exception to that rule. She's more than proven herself, and he could at least listen to her advice, even if he doesn't take it. LAN KEEPS CRACKING JOKES! STOP PROVING ME WRONG! Mat makes me smile. Nuf said. I loved everything about the Aiel, and was glad to learn more about them and their culture. I was also fascinated by their origin. That revelation leads me to believe that the Tinkers are the "remnant of a remnant" that Rand is going to not destroy of the Aiel. Geeze, now that I'm finally writing this, I've forgotten all of the predictions I had while reading through. I certainly didn't see the ending coming. I was dead wrong about the 'lines' coming out of the forsaken. I had thought that was their connection to the true source. It will be interesting to see how Rand interacts with his new teacher. If I think of anything I've left out I'll post it on the comments. I think I lost a lot of my thoughts because I went on vacation last week, and was having so much fun I just plain forgot!

If news like this gets announced every time I go on vacation, I'll come back a happy man every time.

And along those lines, it is his personal blog. If it was a professional review that was published I might agree, but he has the right to say what he wants. We have the right to complain about it, but not to force those complaints on him, at least in my opinion.I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it had he done the reviewing first, and then transitioned into the rest by saying "with that being said, I do have some concerns on the future of the series." It was the possible problem first presentation that really bugged me, and that's mostly aesthetic formatting and phrasing issues. Just like with my supervisor analogy, I might complain about it behind closed doors, but it would be just as inappropriate for me to challenge his authority in a public setting.

"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. His soulcast meat, it tasted quite odd. He served the men on the Shattered Plains, but they should have just stuck with the grains. He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd-the demon ardent of Fleet Street."

I don't think so. He's pretty blatantly rude. The review starts off great, and finishes well, but there's a lot of space in between those two spots. This part right here especially. Since Sanderson is the writer who was engaged to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series of big think fantasy novels, there is no way he is not keenly aware of the fact that it takes time to write them. And then he derails and goes on that tangent about the pace of storytelling in Wheel of Time, but he makes sure to clarify that in no way shape or form is A Song of Ice and Fire like that. But then no mention about the wonderful pace that Stormlight Archives has. After that tangent (I might add that it goes on for four paragraphs), which really had no bearing on the rest of the review, and no relevance to the Stormlight Archives, he jumps back into critiquing Brandon for his decision on the number of books in the series, based on the off chance that it might not get completed. Everything up to this point is completely extraneous! It comes down to him being surprised about the number of books, and, at least from the vibe I picked up from the tone, his desire to micromanage. I just have a problem with him assuming that Brandon is going to fail before he's even gotten a good headway into the project. I mean, Brandon has a track record for publishing books at an astonishing pace. It's the same way with a supervisor that treats me like that. I know what my job is, I know what challenges I face, I don't want to be told I'm making a mistake before it gets anywhere reasonably close where that can be established as true. When it comes down to it, this felt more like an author review than a book review, and so my feelings are all based on "time and place." Reviewing a book that you enjoyed is neither the time nor place to say you disagree with what the author is doing. Obviously, he likes what Brandon is doing. I understand if he's worried, that's fine, be worried, but don't go magnifying the problem as if the sky is falling. Everything he says that is actually reviewing the book I have no problems with. I have a problem with him opening with "I thought this was really good until I heard that...." That's not fair. You thought the books were good. End of story. Wait for a problem to arise before you illuminate it to such a degree. Don't take time to review two other books/series (one of which you didn't complete,) and certainly don't wait until you are halfway through your "review" of the series to actually start discussing the series!

Haha, well you have my theory on that.

Actually, psychologically speaking, it might have been a sort of focus for him, much in the way that Renarin's box is for his Autism. Dementia patients sometimes display similar types of focus on certain objects, especially if they had meaning to them in life. It's not entirely crazy for him to just carry it, but mostly because he is crazy in some way or other.

Good catch on the eye color change in WoR. I'm kind of confused on this. If he wasn't bonded to the blade, he would have to had carried it for hours if he had swam, as he couldn't summon it later. If he came in the same way that Shardblades do, then it's still very possible he still had his Blade out prior to that travelling. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, if it's impossible for him to carry it as you suggest, than it's also impossible for him not be bonded to the Blade, as that would also require him to carry it.

I just had a thought about that after the SA3 reading. (SA3 Spoilers) Edit: Ninja'd somewhat

My problem with the link wasn't the points he made on the possibilities of it dragging out over time or the need for him to write down plans (although that seemed to be redundant considering who he was giving that advice to,) but rather his link to the Wheel of Time and it's slow moving plot. He admits to not finishing reading it because of that, a link, even unintentional, is drawn between that sort of slow, tedious, pace and the SA, and that just isn't fair. The review is positive, once he starts actually reviewing it. My concern mostly is that he spends a good amount of time in the review complaining about that problem, when it's a non issue in the SA. It just feels like bad form to list a bunch of negative aspects about another book that isn't prevalent in the one you're reviewing, especially when you admit to not finishing the Eye of the World.

Speak not of that evil! You know not what you invoke!

I think you might enjoy this thread: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7174-cinderella-is-a-lightweaver/

The gratuitous sex scenes added from HBO won't be a problem if they adopt Vorin sensibilities. There will just be a scene every episode where the women take off their gloves.

I guess my big problem with the review all comes right here: Ummm....ok? What does that have to do with SA at all? Now, I'm only up to The Shadow Rising, and I agree, the reading is very tedious at times, and in the beginning of the novels it borders on sheer drudgery, but that's the Wheel of Time, this is a different series entirely. I was actually talking to some people about Wheel of Time, and a few people said they gave up on it partway in, then picked up the books where Sanderson picked it up, and they said that it improved those problems vastly. (I can bold random phrases too!) The problem I have is he's drawing this parallel between the two series (and ASOIAF as well) after having admitted to giving up on the series he's comparing it to! Now, is he only drawing this line because Sanderson had to finish the series for Jordan, and making that point, only because he's trying to caution Sanderson about possibility running into the same problem? All these points he's making are seemingly random, and really aren't about the Stormlight Archives themselves, but seem to be more along the lines of things he wanted to complain about. There's nothing wrong with that, in itself, but on a post that you're listing as a review of a particular piece of literature, I don't want to read about problems that other books have, that don't directly relate to this one. OSC obviously has listened to both of the books, which is more than he can say for Wheel of Time, so why associate that sort of slow story telling with the Stormlight Archives? He doesn't directly state that, but the link is there, if only because of it being included in the review. It's completely extraneous and unnecessary, unless he felt that SA has that problem, which is completely ridiculous, in my opinion. The speed at which the story moves forward in SA is very compelling, and there's not nearly as much of the "let's recap the last book in the first couple hundred pages of the sequel" which is what I generally find annoying. And then the lecture about writing things down because he's ambitious. I think that Brandon probably understands that fact a whole lot better than OSC does, I mean....he was the one who had to deal with that. I guess I just don't want a preamble that drones on about problems that could arise in the future when reading a book review, I would like to know what problems that book actually has. Of course, it could be that I'm just still disgruntled over Shadows in Flight. It's been two years, and I'm still just so upset over the trite short excuse of a novel that was the conclusion to Bean's story. There is a such thing as too little show and too little tell...and too little plot...and too little characterization.

This seems very unlikely, Dalinar was the Blackthorn before meeting his wife, and if he had epilepsy during that time, it would've been widely known, and he wouldn't have been as adept as a warrior. They didn't even try to teach Renarin before, because of that. Also, I'm fairly sure that I know when Dalinar went to see the Nightwatcher: So this would put him going to see the Nightwatcher only a few years prior to Gavilar's assassination. It wouldn't make much sense for him to wait that long into his life for him to deal with his epilepsy. At the very least, he couldn't have gone prior to his wife's death. It'd be hard to fake not being able to remember what your wife's name or anything about her if she's still around. The other parts I don't really have a problem with, but, they also don't seem to dig too deep, it just seems to be what's presented in the text already.

...Are we talking about the same Renarin? We've seen Renarin run out unarmored and basically unarmed against a raging chasmfiend on the off chance that he might be able to help. We've seen Renarin consistently be Adolin's guidepost to prevent disaster (though it came later.) We've seen Renarin train tirelessly and without complaint doing whatever ridiculous task Zahel set him to. We've seen Renarin walk into a fight against four accomplished shardbearers in full plate with only his shardblade, which was screaming at him the entire time. We've seen Renarin completely debase himself for Bridge 4 in an attempt to become a better soldier, son, and Prince. If there's a reason Renarin doesn't do things to help himself, it's because he's trying to help other people, though we have seen him help himself a few times.

I pity the fool who falls for Mr. T's tricks.

Yes please share. And if someone could fix my accidental downvote on Aleksiel's post I'd appreciate it.

"Get in line or else" is the exact opposite of what Dalinar has stood for and changed himself into being since Gavilar's death. I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say the Kholin's are finally on board with the way things are done. The whole point of the duel with Sadeas was to avoid this kind of situation, and prove the Kholin's are better than that, and are a family worth uniting under. If anything, his death, and a reaction from the Kholin's like that, could turn Sadeas into a martyr, and might even give a spark of legitimacy to his otherwise completely unfounded stories he was going to spread about Urithiru. Sadeas was worth more alive, as it's hard to argue with results. Dead at the hand of Kholin makes him seem a legitimate threat that was dealt with.