Unhinged

I find dark fantasy incredibly boring and predictable. By extension I loathed both A Song of Ice and fire and the Dresden files.

Nale and Amaram will meet, and initially Amaram bows down before the herald and rambles on at great length to describe how hard he worked to bring the heralds back. Finally Nale tells him to shut up, rattles of the long list of crimes Amaram has committed in the name of returning the heralds. And then says something like "congratulations on your success... now come on you're going to jail". The irony would just be brilliant.

Amaram's sorry he sold Kaladin into slavery because it came back to bite him, he wishes that mercy hadn't stayed his hand and that he'd killed Kaladin instead.

One thing that I think needs to be asked is was the initial enslavement right after a desolation? because if it was then I think the humans had a very good reason for enslaving the Voidbringers. If the vision of Nohadon shows us is what is normal for a desolation (90% casualties and humanity having undergone almost total societal collapse often to the point of being knocked back to the stone age) is true, then the humans weren't enslaving an innocent race they were stopping genocidal monsters who would probably try to kill all of humanity again if they were left unchecked. That said this does not justify keeping them enslaved. Once it became clear that there was no next desolation coming any time soon (the heralds lied and said they won) the humans initial justification starts to wear off. By this point there is no justification other than that they no longer knew that the Parshmen were ever sentient.

After reading the Kaladin chapter this is how I now think of the Voidbringers. Also It's been years since I saw this movie so I'm quoting it from memory. OK I guess they are thieves but dang it those people owed them.

I think that Kaladin is going to tell the Parshmen that they have a choice, they can take their freedom and walk away, if that happens Kaladin will not only let them go but point them in the direction of some potential allies (he deduces that there must be some listener spies left in the war camps, or between him and Rlain they could have figured out that not every Listener was present during the climax of WOR) but he'll tell them that if they choose to continue down the path to becoming voidbringers and fighting humanity they will be his enemies and he will destroy them.

One thing that I think we should ask ourselves is are the listeners the only native race of Roshar or are the Amian's also locals. cause I can imagine the Amians seeing themselves as very different from our own gender Ideas basicly here's how I see it Gender 1 Male from the Listeners Gender 2 Female also from the Listeners Gender 3 hermaphrodite from the Siah Amians (I admit I don't really have any basis for this one but given how Axies can change his form I wonder if he/she/it can change their reproductive organs as well) Gender 4 all of the above Dysian Amians who are simultaneously multiple genders. I admit that I'm not really sure about gender 3 like I said i don't have any basis for it however I do feel pretty confident about 4.

You mean Ambition right?

Possible but highly unlikely according to Handerwym's notes in Arcanium unbound children of the tribe are given the choice in their twelfth year whether they accept the spikes and become full Koloss or leave to join human civilization.

If Allomancer Jak is to be believed then Koloss do seem to age/grow slower in era two. During the final empire I believe the average life span for a Koloss was around 13 years at most. however when Jak shot Elizandra's mother in a challenge there was no mention of her being an ancient one and latter when he met the tribes ancients he acted like he'd never seen their kind before(then again this wouldn't be the first time he forgot about an important detail that he'd just talked about) and even if we assume that she got pregnant with Elizandra as soon as she transformed Elizandra seems to be in her twenties which means that her mother had been a Koloss for at least that long meaning she lived around twice as long as the oldest final Empire Koloss.

I don't know shooting lightning seems like a pretty darn useful ability to me.

In honor of something that we've been waiting a long time to see spoilers for Oathbringer preview chapter 6.

Like I said it's subtle and I'm not completely sure it was intentional but just as an example in Game of thrones Ned Stark always tries to do the honorable thing no matter how stupid this is. In Stormlight Archive Dalinar after narrowly escaping death wises up and starts balancing being honorable with being realistic He is willing to risk his son's life in the dueling arena and if the oathbringer preview chapters are anything to go by he is willing to use force to unite Roshar (although probably not to the extent Taravangian was). But he also still tries to be a good person when he can, like when he stands up for Kaladin and outright tells Elhokar that if he tries to execute Kaladin, Dalinar will fight to save him. Perhaps the best way to compare the series is in their morality systems ASoIaF starts out with some of the characters thinking that it's a world of black and white morality. this gets them into a lot of trouble and it is shown that this idea is not only naive but downright stupid. In fact the world runs on grey and black morality at best and evil vs evil at worst. Stormlight archive runs on light grey and dark grey morality the heroes are not perfect white knights (although Kaladin comes close but even he was willing to get dragged into a plot to kill the king) but they're all good people who are likable despite their flaws. A lot of the of the human villains have noble goals although their methods do keep them firmly at the darker end of the grey area. Even the voidbringers apparently have a very good reason for wanting to destroy humanity if the text from the Amazon description of Oathbringer is any indication Basically ASoIaF is a Deconstruction Stormlight archive is a Reconstruction yes before anyone ask I've given a lot of thought to this

One thing that I see cropping up in Sanderson books is the lesson that religious fanaticism is bad. He generally depicts religion positively, but doesn't shy away from showing what can happen when people use it to justify their actions characters like Amaram, Dilaf, the entire Hierocracy and to a lesser extent Aradan all show the dangers of what can happen when people justify their actions under god/the priests said it was okay. Considering things that are going on today especially in places like the U.S. and the middle east I think this is an important message.

From Oathbringer chapter 1-2

Definitely Stormlight for me I still see the series as Brandon's answer to ASoIaF. It's subtle and it might be unintentional but I swear Sanderson has found solutions to quite a few of the criticisms that Martin has leveled against the High fantasy genre. I loved wheel of time but it went downhill after book five although Brandon did an Solid job of recovering it. Also I seem to be the only person here who loathed the Dresden files don't get me wrong it had great moments especially around the middle of the series, but it just crossed the line from dark and edgy to bleak and hopeless for me and i really lost interest in finishing the series after cold days.

I actually read some of the one star reviews on Amazon for WOR and I have to say that I found them kind of funny, literally over half of the reviews I read said the same thing that the series was young adult fantasy and no adult would possibly enjoy the book even funnier quite a few of these people said that the lack of any sex in the book meant it was obviously meant for teens not adults. I found this hilarious because if these people had actually read the book (which I doubt) they might have noticed Pattern talking about some "interesting noises" between Dalinar and Navani. the other one star reviews were of similar nature and really just boiled down to people either having problems with the delivery company or basically complaining that it wasn't a clone of a song of Ice and fire.

I don't think it will be that big of a deal but I do hope Sanderson can avoid doing this sort of thing in the future. At least this change seems like something he can easily write around. Instead of Kaladin saying "I killed you" to Szeth he'll say something along the lines of "I watched you die". Still I think it's a bad idea to make changes since eventually he's going to write himself into a corner and make a change he can't explain which leaves any fan who bought the original book wondering what happened.

Man that sucks I was really looking forward to the original modern trilogy idea at least I'm sure Brandon will probably give us a good replacement.

Lift will be awesome... OK that ones not really a theory more of a given Kaladin will punch Roshon in the face shove him into a corner and lead the defense of Hearthstone one of the radients will get a suit of plate. at the climax of the book Kaladin and Adolin or maybe Taln (assuming the man in the asylum isn't really him) will make an epic last stand for the city of Kholinar stalling for as long as they can while Shallan frantically evacuates the population through the oathgate. one that i'm almost sure won't happen but i'd love to see it anyway. Jasnah and Lift run into each other while traveling, which I picture as being something like an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Going to go out on a limb here and say that the character I can most relate to is Elhokar, I find myself repeating his "how does everyone else know what to do" bit to myself fairly often. I just don't get how every one else seem to be able to handle themselves (or at least fake it) no matter the situation. Where as I seem to screw up everything I try no matter how much experience I have, it all seems to leave me when I get put on the spot.

One possibility based on the rough truthless idea is that Shubreth was given an honorblae and thrown out into the world like Szeth. However unlike Szeth he decided screw it i'll cease to exist when I die and defied the stone shamans. Using his honorblade he carved out a massive kingdom thereby securing his legacy and ensuring that even if his soul disappeared upon death his legacy would endure.