Savanorn

It's worth noting that if Dalinar was only pulling in small amounts of Stormlight, it's possible it'd heal the worst of the damage but still leave visible or prominent scars on the outside. Then we'd have exactly the observed phenomenon. 

Depending, of course, how Stormlight healing works...like if it's worst-first, least-first or a sort of general boost. But I was kinda of thinking about how Sazed heals in WoA where he's alive but not entirely whole. 

The biggest issue with this is timing, even being generous and assuming that Dalinar gained the ability to draw in some quantity of Stormlight on the day Gaviliar died (which seems a stretch) there's still decades of warmongerin' and injuries to account for. It's possible some amount of the injuries were on the shattered plain, but I don't think they all were. 

It's also worth noting that the Diagram mentions that it is very likely that indeed, there were no desolations because Taln hasn't broken. I think it's from an epigraph but it is ...and now, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but it's something like "The Ancient of Stones, upon whose will the peace and prosperity of four thousand years has depended, must finally crack"

Presuming Taln is the Ancient of Stones...yeah. 

19 hours ago, Matrim said:

The differences, as I see it, are that Vin + Elend are young adults maturing and trying to find their identity and where they belong. Wax and Wayne are grown adults who have already formed an identity. So in a comparison of character growth and internal struggle I think Vin + Elend win. However, I disagree with your opinion about Wax and Wayne feeling like people. Wax to me seems absolutely real. Headstrong, my way or the highway, lawman. Original? Probably not, but people are not original. I guess I can see Wayne not feeling real as he may be a bit too farfetched, but Wayne is my favorite. He's got a Calvin and Hobbes vibe where he is deep and contemplative, but absolutely absurd.

To clarify, neither Wax nor Wayne feel like real people, but for different reasons. 

Wayne is indeed deliberately absurd, he's part troll and part loyal henchman, but in a pretty synthetic larger-than-life fashion, among other things. I believe I said that he's actually pretty good, but the problem is that I can't readily empathize with him because, well, he's just so very obviously a fictional character from the boots up. The only big scene that really hit home for me was in the Survivor's Temple, when you get to see the fear and desperation in him.   

Wax doesn't feel like a real character because he's almost the opposite; he's a tired stereotype for the most part and he feels like he's picked out of a western in the discount bin at your local bookstore, not from the same author who gave us people like Kaladin, Lightsong, Kelsier, Vivenna, Vin, Elend, Hrathen and Raoden. I feel like you've probably picked up on this to a degree, and perhaps this was even the point, but you (or rather I because it was, after all, my opinion that spurred this) can't handwave this because of all the other cool and relatively fresh spins on characters Sanderson gives us. To further elaborate 'people are not original' is not a valid defense for such a generic action hero because it doesn't go anywhere; it's neither emotive nor evident enough to counter the claim. I'll grant you this; if over the past decade and more Sanderson had done nothing but throw stock characters into cool new worlds then I'd have less of an issue because I hadn't come to expect more, but it more feels like a letdown because that isn't what I've seen.

17 hours ago, bdoble97 said:

I love Wax and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in the Cosmere for people that say they don't seem real I can't understand that.  I agree with you saying hes a my way or the highway lawman. I love that about him it reminds me of my father who was a detective for 35 years. Wayne is excellent I can't pinpoint it but something about him seems very familiar to me and love him.

Hey I get that, he reminds you of someone you know, say no more. Connections to a book will always, in part, depend on the readers experience. I acknowledge this. 

13 hours ago, bdoble97 said:

Man i cant disagree with you more. I love Wax and Wayne I finished book Alloy of Law in two days and it's only 300 something pages but I couldn't  put that book down. With Vin it took my 3 separate time to even finsh The Final Empire and took a long brake and read most of the other cosmere book before I started The Final Empire for the 3rd time.  I guess Wax and Wayne  just speak to me having a father that was a detective for 35 years and myself being in law enforcement for the past 10 years the character arw familiar to me with a cool epic fantasy twist to it. I was not a fan of Eldelin at all until halfway through Wells of Ascension but loved him in Hero of Ages.  It is so cool to see the world progress in the 300 years. I believe Brandon has said that the next series he wants to be in the eighties I hope the world as a Gotham City of the Tim Burton Batman movies to it. 

We evidently have rather different tastes, but hey, it takes all sorts of fruit to make a salad.

On 1/4/2017 at 3:09 AM, ThirdGen said:

Here's where the formula really stuck out.  As soon as a character was no longer needed to get the plans in Leia's hands, they died.  In a couple places in the finale, this was glaringly obvious.

As for the Tarkin CG, it's extremely clear they got motion capture of an actor's body, but didn't mocap the face.  What they went for here was animated like a game character.  It wasn't even an imitation of Peter Cushing's performance from '77.  Cushing's face in that is remarkably direct.  He looks right at what he's doing.  He has a military and slightly aristocratic air about him.  But for some reason they gave the CG Tarkin constant head bobs and eye moves during his lines.  It was like an Andy Serkis character.  Andy Serkis is great and all, but his mocap acting style always made sure his head movements were broad enough for the tracking of the time to pick up.  It's good for certain types of characters, but not all.  His appearance was also balder and more skull-like than the original.  They went overboard on what they thought was right for the modern style.

Just like Vader's pun.  He, uhh... doesn't speak that way.

I could chalk up the different, more limber movements to Vader having just been rejuvenated by the tank he floated in.  We never saw him do that in the original trilogy.

Overall, I liked this movie a lot.  It was surprisingly realistic in portraying power dynamics within a rebellion.  The old movies presented them as a smaller good-guy military, but here we have hardliners, defeatists, infighting, and wildcat actions done without approval.

That was the one thing I would change about the storyline.  I'd have Mon Mothma take Jin aside and tell her she can't authorize a big show of force, but she can send in a small, stealthy team without letting the council know.

 

Exactly, and right on with the Vader thing.

Thanks for your input
 

On 1/15/2017 at 6:09 AM, bdoble97 said:

I am only one book into the 2nd Mistborn set of books but I am loving Wax, Wayne and  Marasi. I have always been a bigger fan of epic swords and orcs typ of fantasy like Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time and SA. I much prefer the close combat of the massive armys fighting on a battle feild then lone gunslinger. But the idea of seeing the world 300 years after Vin and Elend is so cool. To me I picture Elendel as a 1930s Russian/ steampunk Gothic city type. I may be completely wrong but love of the the idea of this city. Also I love how Wax and Wayne are lawmen. Marasi reminds me of myself during my 1st semester of college takeing criminalnalige.  So i guess I want to know what set of books do you guys like more. I know Wax and Wayne still have one more book before thier story is over. But what you guys think.

My 2 cents?

Wax and Wayne are boring. Worse, they rarely feel like people. I mean, maybe characters, but not really...original ones? Like they are the first Sanderson characters I really disliked at first, and still didn't really like by the end. I kinda feel like like Sanderson sat back and went, "I'll have two stock standard characters, one will be a tough lawman, the other will be his funny comic relief sidekick....I'll call them...Wax and Wayne, yeah." For one, I get really tired of how stupidly killy Wax is. Like, there's scenes where he just sorta ploughs through handfuls of people with no real sense of danger. The series does get better, but even Steris and Marasi feel like cutouts half the time. It's only come BoM that the characters feel alive and it starts to feel like a Mistborn book again.    

Wayne is actually good at times -funny and such- but he never really feels like a real character and his gun thing just comes across tacked on. 

The setting in general is cool, and it's really great to see the world progress and be expanded from Era 1, but the characters are undoubtedly lesser.  

Vin is amazing, putting aside the fact that she feels like a real person who almost always has tangible reasons for what she does...she's maybe one of the best characters in literature. I like that she's this dynamic mix of shrewd, vulnerable and insanely capable and unlike many characters, she steadily grows and evolves over her three books. When Sazed said she was the person most worthy of Preservation's power he is right on. 

Elend is a really solid character in his own right, especially to examine him from TFE to HoA. 

Hold on, presuming Spook to be noble, and presuming nobles prefer to breed amongst themselves (as was historical) it's also possible his blood could be effecting two different populations differently; the greater Elendel/basin and the noble houses. Do we know if nobles as of Era 2 are notably more likely to be Allomancers? Or was this lost post catacendre due to crossbreeding?  

59 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Interesting that the implication (though it's hard to infer much from some WoBs) is that Bavadin's religions are not tolerant towards self-determination given she holds the Autonomy Shard. I'm more and more curious about Bavadin's religions. And how many of them we've seen.

I presumed he meant the opposite, or rather that there's a lot to talk about. 

3 hours ago, Yata said:

I was on Reddit and I found a specific post on the matter:

 

This makes sense, given that Survivorism is the most stereotypical rigid church. I'm kind of surprised about Roshar in general though. 

Honestly? I think we already know of at least two decent possibilities. Raoden and Wulfden. 

Raoden is obviously devoted but he's also well capable of ruling and seeking dominion, as demonstrated by his takeover of Elantris. 

The only real question of these is how devoted Wulfden really is, as he clearly seeks dominion. 

I thought Devotion and Dominion weren't polarised at all, but synchronised, thus why there's only one magic in all of Sel. 

Plus I thought the Dor was so volatile because of all the power being in the cognitive, not the spiritual.

Hrm. 

I'm with spool, I don't think Nahel spren have any odium in them. 

Odiumspren do exist, but I don't think they're one or part of them. Part of this is because, unless I am mistaken, Surgebinding is the art that is Honour/Cultivation. I don't think there's 'room' for Odium in there. 

I presume that for the Storm Arts Voidbinding would be Odium/Honour and a third (old magic? Maybe?) Is Cultivation/Odium.

On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Mestiv said:

I have to disagree that books are  focused on Ciri. She has a lot of "screentime", but throughout most of the books Geralt has more. 

Geralt has more time on the page, but a lot of those are focused on Ciri. 

Ciri has a lot of time on the page, and a lot those are focused on Ciri. 

11 hours ago, Assassin in Burgundy said:

This was pretty good. I just wish that literally everyone didn't die at the end. 

Ironic given your username, but pretty cool. 

On 12/23/2016 at 4:01 AM, Kaymyth said:

Except that I don't think this entirely tracks.  I mean, you had Saw (yeah, I finally found the correct spelling of that guy's name) died pretty early on, and he was arguably someone who could have been a main character.  Except that he died early in the movie, so he didn't become one.  A couple of the other mains became main characters specifically by surviving long enough to connect up with the two leads.  Plus, at least one of those characters was Force-sensitive; that does tend to stack the deck in favor of you when you're facing overwhelming odds.

And some minor characters did survive.  Did you notice that the Red and Gold Leader cameos were footage straight out of A New Hope?  So definitely some of the X-Wing and Y-Wing pilots made it out.  I think a bunch of the capital ships did, too, or else there wouldn't have been a fleet to take on the Death Star in Episode IV, whose showdown battle takes place literally days after this one.  Vader swooped in and targeted the Rebel flagship because it was the one that had the plans; Leia squeaked out of there by the skin of her teeth only because she had a secondary ship.  But with Vader focused on the flagship, many of the others should have been able to implement a hyperspace jump.

 

Hey Kay,

That's not a terribly good argument. A point that all the characters dying was lazy end tying, since pretty much everyone dies who doesn't appear in ANH, can't be refuted by pointing out cameos by people like the Gold and Red Leaders who aren't characters (for any practical purposes) and who are in a New Hope, so can't have died...yet (RIP Red Leader, circa ANH).  Don't get me wrong,  they were cute cameos and I appreciated them, but it acts against your point.

-as a subpoint, none of the characters really became main characters. They're more or less given to us and introduced in bitesized chunks. It's not like it starts with twenty people who steadily die off like in some disaster movie.

But perhaps I wasn't making myself completely clear when I was saying it didn't feel authentic.  A major element in this is that, not only does everyone die, but they die in a tremendously formulaic way. It basically goes, CHARACTER must to do THING, CHARACTER does THING, CHARACTER dies. Usually with the last two separated by mere moments. Character seem to last just long enough to do their THING and then plot shields fail and they die.  

Putting aside the fact that I'd barely count Saw as a character. Saw was perhaps the worst offender with this (or Chirrut) where he appears just long enough to wave the cast to the next plotpoint before dying pointlessly. You see the same with Chirrut with the switch, the same with with K2SO and the archive, the same with Bodhi and the transmission and the same with Jyn and the message. I think Baze is the only outlier here, since he managed to die doing nothing at all. 

As for continuity issues caused by them surviving, what exactly are people like Baze or Chirrut going to do that'd violate this so much? There's little reason that they'd have to be at the Death Star, and the Rebel Alliance is a galactic resistance, there's pretty much entirely legitimate groundwork they could be doing lightyears away from the action in ANH.  

Finally, for anyone who would like to point out the Everyone Dies is somehow more mature or in keeping with the "grim reality" of warfare...what war are we speaking of? From Cannae to Waterloo, from Pharsalus to Stamford Bridge to the Battle of Britain and on there's pretty much no wars, let alone battles, where everyone dies. Having every named character die, if not done appropriately, is about as bad as having every character live. It wasn't done appropriately here.

[Should be noted that I'm not bashing anyone's opinions, but if people wanna debate, I'm happy to do so]    

Experience is probably an element as well. Vin and Kelsier were both talented, but Wax has had twenty or thirty years to work his skills. 

But you're on the money, the fact Wax can manipulate his weight helps with his Pushing. It also helps that Modern Mistborn has a lot more fixed metal. 

6 hours ago, Titan Arum said:

Reviving/Necro-ing this post from the dead because I now have a direct WoB about this for both Steel and Iron lines. Yes, both can be used to identify specific metals, and it is not limited to only savants. This seems to be something any misting or mistborn could do with enough practice.

Splendid work. 1 up.

It is worth noting that Stormlight can be used to make plants grow. As per WoB. It is what the Listeners do, I think. 

It would make sense this could be done in people too and by people, I mean Lift.

However it is notable that using and running out of Stormlight exhausts the user. And Wyndle does say she's at risk of malnutrition. It is possible that even if it can be used to sustain the body, it isn't enough in the long term.

9 hours ago, Yata said:

@Savanorn actually no, A Kr's death isn't a problem for the spren (sure sadness and trauma but nothing else). Much more, Helaran's Blade had a gem in it, the sign of a Deadblade's bond.

We may also add the fact the Blade is no different now from before (The Randiant's Blades glow and become dull after the "Spren's Death".

EDIT to add a relevant WoB:

 

Ah darn. That complicates things.

At least this is rather interesting from a surgebinding point of view. So breaking an Oath is, in some cases, literally worse than death. 

But I am curious Yata, what do you think happens to a spren when the Radiant dies? Do they instantly go stupid again? Return to the cognitive? Or is it a slow slip?

I'm not sure how admissible blade glow is, though, as even normal shardblades have been referred to as shining works of perfection. To really appreciate the difference I would think you'd have to see them in contrast.

Still, given Vargo's opinion I'd think it still likely Helaran was a Radiant.

4 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

If that's the case though, then it wouldn't explain why his Shardblade was dropped. Whoever Kaladin killed wasn't a knight radiant, as they wouldn't have had any shards afterwards if he had been.

By all means, my spren-fu is lacking, but I presumed that a spren in physical form (a blade) would be trapped as such if it's wielder was adequately advance and it's wielder was killed, given certain conditions. 

Basically, I was of the mind that in breaking an Oath -such as in the Recreance, presuming that is what happened- a Radiant basically removes the 'bridge' that binds Spren and Radiant in a violent and traumatic way. This withdrawal of human-dependent sentience done so rapidly and suddenly results in the 'death' of the spren.

Likewise, I would have thought that the actual physical death of the person would result in a similar sudden violent withdrawal of investiture and result in a dead, trapped or 'stupid' spren. 

But, I also thought that dead spren were only preserved as shardblades if they were such when they died. Thus why, as I recall, the Windrunners and Stonewards jam their shardblades into the earth as they are walking away from Feverstone Keep.  

Thus why the Recreance gave Shards, but not a HUGE amount, and why Helaran left Shards when he died. 

But you know things on occasion Spool, so I'd trust you likely have either a theory or WoB to counter my point.  (I say without irony)

10 hours ago, DarkJester said:

Ok. I was listening to WoR again, and something caught my attention this time I've missed before. Was Helaran a surge binder? I was listening to the section where Taravangian had just had a run in with Szeth and learned about Dalinar's "radiant." Taravangian is contemplating the situation and he's talking about the fact that Jasnah was a surge binder and that he thought that Shalan was one. He went on to contemplate that Jasnah had trained her  already or that perhaps her brother had trained her before he died. To me, this implies that Helaran was actually a surge binder, and not just a shard bearer... Is that right, and if so, what order? I mean if he was a surge binder, it suddenly makes more sense for Hoid to be knowledgeable of him...

Mmmm, yes I've put forth this theory before (as have many others) but among other points are the Hoid connection and the sense of rightness that Shallan attributes to Helaran.

But, we don't exactly know. Being a Skybreakers makes the most sense though...as...

8 hours ago, robardin said:

I agree, when I read Mraize dropping that nugget to Shallan that her brother had "sought out the Skybreakers" as something she didn't know, and especially after reading the section in Edgedancer showing that Nalan's Skybreaker followers were, indeed, Surgebinders, I suspected that Kaladin had killed someone else on that battlefield.

Whether or not Helaran actually managed to join the Skybreakers is unknown. I don't think any red-haired guys were mentioned among his followers in either WoR or Edgedancer, I'll have to go re-read those parts later, that would be a pretty big hint.

 

Our opinions differ here though, I think Helaran was a Shardbearer Radiant from in the flashback when we see him draw weapon on Lin. Further, it is Helaran who Kaladin kills. It makes sense from a number of perspectives, but a spearhead to the face and through the eye to the brain would seem to be one of the few really reliable ways to kill a Radiant with access to an abundance of Stormlight. I think there was a deleted chapter (Jasnah's) on this, that a severe head wound was one of the few ways to kill a Surgebinder. Specifically it mentioned a crushing head wound, as I recall, but realisitcally stabbing a spearhead into the skull and leaving it there would suffice for these purposes. 

But, it also makes sense from a more mundane angle. We have three Kholin's confirmed Radiant, why not two Davars? 

9 hours ago, robardin said:

Well with atium, you can see "the" future - not just your own, but what goes on around you - along with the mental ability to understand and make use of the information instantaneously. With electrum, a Misting could, with practice, pick out the best (or avoid the worst) possible outcomes in your multiple near (and uninformed) future paths, and act accordingly to "make it so". But doing crazy things like Vin grabbing an arrow in mid-flight to jam into Shan Elariel, I think that's only really possible with atium. That's because an electrum burner can "only" see their own near future, so they can do very atium-like things but only relative to what would directly affect them, or which they themselves would directly affect.

It's not clear that an Oracle burning electrum could pull off the same stunt as Vin, as that would require finding one of a huge number of your own possible futures to find the really, really tiny possibilty that you would randomly (without foreknowledge) grab at the air just as the arrow passed through it, AND have the reaction time to realize hey, I can use this arrow as a weapon, and stab with it.

Maybe a Twinborn with Allomantic electrum and Feruchemical zinc (speed of mind) who flared both?  Whoa.

 

Actually a good point Robardin.

The way I think about it, I think Electrum allows you to easily avoid the worst possible futures -the ones where you are hit, killed, maimed, etc - while Atium allows you to select for the best possible futures, the ones where you maximize your use of the environment, weapons on hand or the foe to win the fight. 

On Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 2:36 PM, Voidus said:

I feel really confused about reviews of Rogue One, I'm kind of used to defending star wars movies from criticism, I really don't think the prequels were as bad as everyones always making them out to be, yes they changed the tone quite a bit and there were a few silly things in them but why is it that the thing people always complain about is midichlorians? Explaining the science in a sci-fi saga is pretty standard for the course and is barely worth mentioning let alone going into some huge rant about.
(Someone ranty review below, spoilered for those who just want to discuss their enjoyment for others)

 

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And yet this time I find people to be giving mostly positive reviews for what I find to be probably the worst Star wars movie I've seen. CGI Tarkin was incredibly distracting and annoying, it was set up well as a small cameo where the bad cgi was obscured by the fact that we could only see him as a reflection, then he turns face to camera and becomes a main character for the whole movie. CGI leia was better and kep on screen for a sufficiently brief period of time that the cgi wasn't too noticeable or distracting, so they clearly knew how to do it right and yet they still chose to keep Tarkin in scene after scene. The constant cameos felt incredibly forced (Seriously why the heck did they include the two guys from the mos-eisley cantina on Jedha? They were just there for a half a day before immediately evacuating to tatooine to go visit a cantina in time for ep IV?) Darth Vader had both a suit-upgrade (Which makes no sense since this is immediately before ep-IV) and an incredibly stupid pun (Which is incredibly out of character), although he was at least redeemed with an awesomely bad-chull fight scene at the end.

The whole plot kind of annoys me too, it makes no sense that the imperials would be so confident in the death star when they know specifically that there was a traitor who was the chief engineer, that the secret plans were obtained and sent to the rebels immediately after the daughter of said traitor found out about them, and that the rebels knew specifically that there was some kind of weakness in those designs. But no, they drive the death star right into the rebels so that it can be blown up along with a ton of important imperial officers and very nearly Vader himself.

Also, if they were just going to blow the entire base up with the death star, was there really a need to give each of the characters their own, separate, depressingly heroic death scenes

 

Finally, I saw the film in 3D so this last point may have been an issue with the cinema I went to or something but the quality was pretty terrible, the focus seemed to randomly shift from background to foreground mid conversation, and characters faces went out of focus while they were still talking as the focal point of the scene. Now again this might have been the cinema and I'm usually forgiving of cinematography faults like that since they don't really impact your enjoyment of the story but this was a freaking star wars moving funded by Disney, how could they not have the money to make sure it looked decent?

Now again this is a rather awkward position for me, I love star wars, I love it even with its faults and I am very excited for all the new star wars movies but this was just terrible, maybe it will be better the second watch through but I am not sure I could even do that, I certainly wouldn't pay admission to see it again at the cinemas and even when its available through some streaming service or another I'm still not sure I'll ever rewatch it. I'm also just really confused at how positive a reaction its gotten, I feel like maybe I'm missing something so I hope I can find out what it was by reading the reviews of others but until then I am very disappointed in this installment.

 

 

Throwing a few other things out here Void. 

I totally agree with your feelings as to cameos.

As for character deaths. . .

I felt like the issue was, more for me, that it reached a point where the production staff were like "okay, main team characters start dying now" I don't mind them all dying after a deathstar shot. Adequately directed they could make it work. I don't mind them all dying across a movie. It is just that at five minutes to midnight the plot armour stops working. 

The 3D was awful in my cinema as well. But is was a small and dodgy one.

On Monday, December 19, 2016 at 4:06 PM, Kaymyth said:

Just got back home from seeing this.  My thoughts/replies/caveats:

4)  Which brings us to Everyone Dies.  I disagree strongly with the idea that this was lazy storytelling.  I think we're so used to seeing the heroes beat the odds and win the day that a choice like this hits us hard in the feels, but I think the ending is far more authentic than "the heroes magically escape in the nick of time!"  And it gives the ending of A New Hope weight that it never had before, putting faces and (in some cases, heh) names to the people who sacrificed their lives to make that victory possible.  Heroes don't always survive.  That's the nature of war.

At the very least the way they handled it was lazy. As I said above, it feels like at some point the plot armour fails. It doesn't feel genuine. It doesn't feel grim. It feels forced.

Especially because pretty much everyone dies in the movie. Not just the mainline heroes. Pretty much everyone who isn't in ANH bites the dust. Everyone dies can be a bold choice, a fitting choice, especially if paced right. It wasn't here. It felt more like...tying up loose ends. 

Basically it felt like theywanted to explain why none of these guys were in ANH in the quickest and easiest way: they were dead.

It would haved worked better if some few, minor characters, had survived. 

On Monday, December 19, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Erunion (The Incorrigible) said:

So I just finished the Witcher 3 (Wild Hunt, Heart of Stone, and Blood and Wine). 

 

It was fantastic. 

Yes, it was pretty, the gameplay was fun/etc., but what made it so good was the characters (and story, and plot, but mostly the people). They are absolutely brilliant. 

The story just gave me so many feels for these brilliantly real characters (spoiler alert)

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When Yennefer comes to my vineyard and she and Geralt chat, I was just grinning from ear to ear. Not because what they were saying was particularly funny, but because these two people who had been through so much together could finally relax and be happy. 

The fact that I cared so much to see them so happy is just fantastic storytelling.

(Also, obviously, Yennefer and Geralt are meant to be together. Triss is nice and all, but Yen and Geralt are just right for each other in a way that Geralt and Triss aren't. That and Ciri is happy with them together.) 

 

So anyway, I fully intend to dive into the books the games are based off of; because even if the translated prose doesn't work for me, I suspect the characters will still click. 

Am I right to think so? Are they as good as I hope they'll be? 

Hmmmmm. 

Maybe. 

One thing you might want to note is the literature doesn't really support the idea that Yen and Geralt are right for each other. They can work, but there's a lot of baggage and they've tried and failed many times. 

This said, read the anthologies first. I'd recommend going The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny then the main sequence beginning with Blood of Elves. 

It should be noted that the main sequence is very heavily focused on Ciri as opposed to Geralt. 

All this said, I liked the books. They are quite bleak but also clever and can hit some really strong notes of genuine emotion. 

3 hours ago, Sarevok said:

During Lift's visit to Yeddaw, among all the other people she sees, she descibes an Alethi man in the city, towering over the people around him. For some reason this seemed to me like Brandon screaming "Look, there's something interesting to find here!" However, I can't think of an Alethi man we're aware of who might currently be hanging around in western kingdoms. Anyone have an idea?

I don't think it is anyone special. 

If he'd described more details I might buy it. Like, if he'd been branded or was wearing special colours or whatnot. That's a scream or a notice. 

I think it's just to show there's a flow of people around the world.

9 hours ago, VirtuousTraveller said:

Did anyone else LOL when they read this in Words of Radiance, knowing Mraize said it as Iyatil JUST sat down right next to Shallan? 

No. Why would I?

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't understand the joke. Tyn was the hunter Mraize thought was best suited for the job, Iyatil is his master.

Nor I...

Maybe because Iyatil is a Hunter? Of the caste?

On Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 1:35 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

Ah, agh. Found where I had read it. It was in MAG so I guess it's not as good as I thought. There is a WoB saying that storing heat would help with high temperatures. I can see it working in a general sense, though the question is how quickly and finely can they change temperatures. I think though, is that once your body starts to heat up from the fire, you can store that heat as well. 

That is indeed not as good as I'd hoped. 

The issue here is I can imagine that it would indeed help, for say...general radiant heat, but even a small housefire is likely to release orders of magnitude more heat than a human body. Plus ...human flesh needs only to be exposed to that sort of heat for a moment to be damaged.

So yeah. Like could a firesoul put their hand in a candle flame and not get burned? Is their skill that fine? I'd think not. 

The big issue is I feel like the Firesoul basically can control their internal body tenperature. They can't do anything about embers or hot metal or anything that changes temperature quickly enough (going from external to internal) and I don't think they could...say...store heat in their hands and not in the rest of their body. In the same vein as a Skimmer seems to only be able store the weight of their whole body, or not as all (in the sense that they don't make a single limb much lighter or heavier).

So if they were..say...in a hot bath or a cold winter sea they'd be fine as neither of those act quickly enough to damage tissue. But if they were thrown into an open fire or dropped in liquid nitrogen vats it'd be another story. 

Don't get me wrong. It'd be useful. But in a limited sense as I see it.

Also this.

On Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 5:21 AM, robardin said:

But isn't this limited to how much brass you have got? Eventually the brassmind will fill up. Sazed mentioned that his little rings couldn't hold very much.

On the other hand it seems brassmind storage is very efficient, meaning even a small brassmind (like the medallions we see in BoM) can store enough body heat to last a person for quite some time.

Or maybe "firefighter" Firesoul Ferrings just walk around with their big brass... plates.

I actually didn't think about this, but so much extra heat being stored might fill them up. 

Then again, do we know the investiture/mass ratio of metals? 

Like Wax was able to store years worth of weight in ...what...iron arm bands?

Then again. Building fires might well constitute about the same amount of energy. 

On Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 11:44 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

The hot metal wouldn't be a problem, they would just be storing off the heat as quickly as the metal would be conducting it in, just like they do for the heat in the air.

This actually raises a rather novel point. 

I don't think they could store heat at different rates. So they can either store it as way to ward off the hot air and be burned by metalminds, or store it at the rate the metalminds conduct and potentially store too much. 

Then again. Hypothermia takes far longer to kill you so this would likely be the far more practical route. 

Thanks for listening to me ramble, it is actually quite interesting to roll it aroubd in my head.