Iarwainiel I

My first thought wasn't a book, but a classic TV show: The most awesome character arcs I have ever seen are Londo Mollari and G'Kar from "Babylon 5." Several of the other main characters have great progression too, but nothing like these two. Getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it. One of the best shows that's ever been on TV, IMO, though I haven't had television for over 10 years now so I don't know recent stuff. Now as to books... The protagonist has strong character development in books 1 & 2 of the Song of Albion cycle by Steven Lawhead ("The Paradise War" and "The Silver Hand"). The second book especially is one of my favorites - lots of great gnomic passages (wise sayings) similar to what you find in Tolkien. But book 3, alas was somewhat of a disappointment for me, though YMMV. The protagonist in "Byzantium" by Steven Lawhead has a great arc. It's historical fiction, not fantasy, but you just gotta love them Vikings! You might also try the first 3 books in Lawhead's Pendragon cycle ("Taliesin," "Merlin," and "Arthur"). The stories aren't quite what you'd expect, and the Charis and Merlin characters have good development. The protagonists in the "Ex-Heroes" series by Peter Clines are interesting, and over the 4-5 (very short) books there is some good character development. These are more light-hearted books, though, not deep like SA. I wouldn't say that the protagonists in Hugh Howey's books "Wool," "Shift," and "Dust" progress so much as they gradually figure out what's happening in their world, then find the strength to meet tremendous challenges. I heartily agree with Mailliw73's recommendation of the Powder Mage books by Brian McClellan. The author has also published several e-book short stories, so you can get a feel for the worldbuilding for only 99 cents. But be careful re: spoilers in the short fiction. If you're open to a female protagonist, then perhaps the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson would interest you. IMO they're about 10% more racy than Brandon's books (i.e., romantic scenes are described a little more) but nothing too bad and I'm pretty conservative about that stuff. You can easily skip over anything you're not comfortable with and not miss anything in the plot. In D.M. Cornish's "Monster Blood Tattoo" trilogy (a tween/YA series), the secondary character Europa, Duchess-in-Waiting of Naimes, has astonishing character development. I love these books - so creative. However, the main character, the boy Rossamund Bookchild, has a more traditional story arc, so MBT might not be what you're looking for. Finally, have you tried the "Old Man's War" books by John Scalzi? Both the John and the Jane characters grow and develop over the first 4 books. (They do not appear in the most recent 2 books.) FYI - This is sci-fi, not fantasy. Great question Maxal!

Every time I read Ym's beliefs, I think of Babylon 5 (TV show from the 90s) - it's very close to Foundationism on B5, and also to some Minbari beliefs. It makes me wonder if Brandon is / was a fan of B5.

It makes me sad, but I don't think we'll see Ym again. I totally agree with the others who'd like to see more of him - there was a real sweetness to his character. The fact that Brandon could, in a short interlude, acquaint us so well with Ym is a tribute to the author's skill. I think the whole point of the interlude was to emphasize the wrongness of a Herald-gone-bad. I still wonder if the Heralds were really good, originally - that maybe they are paying off some cosmic/cosmere debt by playing the hero on Roshar, and if we really knew their full backstory, we might think they deserve the awful tortures they endure between Desolations.

@ Anamaximder #167 - I too would like to see Finn & Rey's relationship develop as friends - just saying that's not usually the Hollywood way. And several of my non-sff friends' first question about TFA was "Who's the love interest?" Disney knows what sells tickets. But to quote Captain Jack Sparrow, "One can only hope." @ Delightful #168 - Ren & Rey as "kissing cousins"? Agree - terrible idea. But to me Poe is portrayed about the same age as Han in the 1977 film, and Rey about the same age as Leia in that same film, so I think that's a possibility. (But really I still see Oscar Isaacs as Joseph every time I see the film: "Wait - he's a carpenter! What's he doing piloting an X-Wing?")

I just saw the movie for the 3rd time & caught a couple more things: I think Han & Leia both know who Rey is, and they both decided not to tell her. In the film, Rey is 19 years old. The young Rey in the flashback looks to be maybe 8 or 9 (?) years old, so she's been on Jakku - and Luke has been in hiding - about 10 years. I wonder if he hasn't been aware of everything that's been going on, through the Force. But what if he also knows, through the Force, what will happen - not what needs to happen, but what will happen, like prophecy. Looking at Luke's face at the end, I could pretty clearly see tears in his eyes. To me, his expression is someone who is facing a tragedy he always knew would happen but wished with all his heart that it could be avoided - a dread, like "Oh no ... the day has come at last. There is such pain ahead of us." (To any CSL fans, it's like when Ransom is telling the Green Lady on Perelandra about the fall of his human ancestors: "There may be such a thing that you would cut off both your arms and legs to prevent it happening - and yet it it happens...") I also think that Luke can somehow control R2, even from a great distance. Whether he modified him somehow or what-not, I think R2 woke up because Luke told him to, when his Jedi-sense told him Rey had "awakened." When Finn wakes up, he'll face a re-education about everything he was taught - that was foreshadowed when Rey called Han Solo "the war hero" and Finn said he was "the smuggler." I expect he'll gladly learn better ways, but tearing down one's presuppositions is never easy. I hope they show this - it's a great concept to explore. [edit: added this paragraph that I forgot earlier] Finally, to me it seems obvious that they are setting up Rey-Finn-Poe as a love triangle. I suspect they wanted to do that with Leia-Luke-Han in the original trilogy but then needed a different dynamic between Luke and Leia when they chose to have him be Vader's son. Rey and Poe are both pilots and will have a workplace/colleague relationship that Finn will misinterpret ... pretty much standard movie plotline. I know some folks are shipping Finn & Poe - VIII & IX might well have that dynamic, but I don't think it'll be between the principle 3 characters.

I totally agree - too much "generations" stuff in a lot of SFF. I'd like to see someone new. Also, the "female armor" thing has been done to death. Don't even bother googling it - some arguments have been pretty intense, enough so that I usually just back away. Hmmm... so is that where new suits of armor come from: a "male" suit of armor gets together with a "female" one in the clost while no one is looking? Just imagine, rows and rows of "child" armor growing up and going off to battle. Here's a better idea: take a moment or three to view this classic Danny Kaye video - it's a clip from "The Court Jester" where guys in chainmail armor do a routine like a marching band but in double-time. "Yea, verily, yea!"

RIP, David Bowie. A true genius - left us too soon.

Good questions ... I'm looking it up. According to the online dictionaries I just checked (M-W, Cambridge, Webster's, MacMillan, American Heritage, and OED) and also several sites re: conjugating verbs in English, the past tense and past participle of "to lead" are still the word "led." It has not changed as of January 2016. However, since English is still a living language, it might happen someday. My prof in graduate school for History of the English Language thought that the word "went" would vanish within 100 years, replaced by some other form of "go/gone." I really do blame spellcheck re: "led." I never saw this problem until the past 10 years or so when we've all become so reliant on software and, as my moniker implies, I've been reading for quite a while. So maybe that's what bothers me: Language should evolve, but I feel like it should be changed by people, not computers...

Wow, I had totally forgotten that Anakin's mother's name was "Shmi." And the new big bad is "Snoke?" I keep thinking of him as "Snookie." And when I read "Shmi," my brain immediately thought "Shmuck." It's a really good thing that I'm not responsible for naming characters in movies...

For me, it would be an easy choice: Stormlight Archives (or really any book by Brandon) would definitely come before Kingkiller 3 (since I'll have to re-read KKC #s 1 & 2 beforehand), and I'm not really into GoT/GRRM at all. What would I put at a higher reading priority than SA#x? Maybe one of the mystery series I follow (Chet & Bernie, Bryant & May), because they're shorter books and I could polish them off quickly before getting back to Roshar. And the next Jon & Lobo book for sure (been waiting years for that already!) since it'll be a more moderate length, same as the mysteries. But for fiction, not much comes before the Sanderverse.

What an awesome topic! 10 pages in a month and a half! Since I'm a writer (for business, not creative), mine relate to words: "different than" - A thing cannot be different than something else; it can only be different from the other thing. It can be more different than the other thing is from a third thing, but it cannot just be different than. Think about it - the wording doesn't make sense. But you see this all the time. "lead" as the past tense of the verb "to lead" - This one is just everywhere. I have even seen it a couple times in Brandon's books and waaaaay a lot of other professionally published stuff. I blame it on spellcheck. The past tense of to lead is led, not lead. If lead is pronounced with the short "e" (the same as read / read), that word lead is the metal that's in paint that can poison young children. Please, I beg of you my fellow Sharders, join me and be a part of the led revival !!

I enjoyed Kingkiller Chronicles (KCC) quite a bit. It's been a while, and I'm not re-reading till book 3 is published, but here are some things I remember that might help you decide whether to read: The protagonist Kvothe is narrating his life story to a chronicler, who is writing it down. This is taking place over 3 days, each of which is a book (The Name of the Wind = Day/Book 1; The Wise Man's Fear = Day/Book 2; The Stone Door ((I think that's the title)) = Day/Book 3). The pertinent thing here is that we do not know that Kvothe is a reliable narrator; in fact, we suspect that he may be an extremely unreliable one, and nothing is as it appears to him. There are a ton of mysterious magicks in Rothfuss' world-building: What are the Chandrian really, and is there a new one, and is it Kvothe? What about that tree in the Fae otherworld (can't remember the name)? What is in that locked box and why can't Kvothe open it? What is Auri's Underthing, really (it's sort of like catacombs), who built it, when, and why? etc. His apprentice Bast calls him "Reshi," which most people assume means "master" but I have posted here on the Shard that I wonder if it doesn't mean "enemy," and Bast is waiting for some trigger event to resume a fight with Kvothe. I must admit that I skimmed the Felurian bits - I'm not into erotica at all and will skim/skip parts of books to avoid it. It's pretty easy to do in this series. There are so many, many loose ends that need to be tied up in Book 3 that it's no wonder it's taking Rothfuss so long. I wonder if he really had the whole arc planned out as well beforehand as Brandon does; if he didn't, I don't know how he's going to pull off completing the story in only 1 more book though he says he can. It's a single world, not a cosmere, and the world-building and list of characters are much more limited, but there is every bit the same amount of speculation on KCC that there is on the Cosmere, taken proportionally. Though the publisher is Daw, Tor.com has a re-read of the books published so far: http://www.tor.com/series/patrick-rothfuss-reread/ hth

I partially disagree with both maxal and galendo. Kaladin did not become an expert spearman "overnight" - he learned skill with the spear in Amaram's army, and his Radiant powers just enhanced it. Teft even says so to the others in Bridge 4 at one point (can't remember if it's in WoK or WoR). Shallan's Radiant development is more difficult to understand because, as maxal said, "she practically broke her bond by burying herself into lies" in her childhood - - yet Pattern is interested in her lies and seems attracted to them, even encouraging her to lie at times. One Shallan WoR scene was really disheartening to me as a reader: At first I thought that Bluth was genuinely becoming better as a person, then we learned that it was just because Shallan was doing something like emotional allomancy on him, whether or not she realized it. That little bit made me sad and ruined the whole sequence for me, because I always hope that people can grow and change in the real world ... it just made the whole thing be based on a lie in the book, which I guess is Shallan's thing, and I guess that's why I'm not as drawn to her as to the other female characters, Jasnah or Navani. Maybe that's also why the favorite scenes I listed earlier in this thread didn't include any with Shallan's POV. So I'll add a couple of those now to balance out my post: (WoR) Shallan asking Adolin about pooping on the battlefield (WoR) Shallan asking (?) Adolin to "slay" a rock for her on the Shattered Plains (WoR) Shallan hugging Hoid who had been driving the carriage she and Adolin were in (WoR) Shallan asking Pattern why her mother had attacked her; so touching Shallan is an interesting character, but IMO difficult to relate to at this point. I look forward to seeing her grow and change in the rest of SA.

I'm hoping for a "Molly Weasley moment" from her in one of the next 2 movies. One of my favorite parts of HP:TDH...

Since FormlessFox claimed the one that came to my mind first, here are some more. Page #s are from the hardback editions. Kaladin saying the 2nd oath, WoK pg. 926 Navani writing the glyphs on the ground, WoK pg. 948 "Dalinar ran the entire way." WoR pg. 884 "Not you, son." WoR pg. 931 "Can you teach me?" WoR pg. 966 and also "When you came, the shadows went away." WoR pg. 967 Great topic!

So I'm intentionally not remembering the name of Kylo Ren's uberlord, so as to feel free to call him humorous things - - current pseudonym favorites are "Snookie" and "Skoal" (the latter because doesn't he look like he's been chewing far too much tobacco for far too many years?). I might have been tempted to call him "Snape," but K-Ren looks too much like that character from the HP films and it might get confusing...

Maybe it's because I'm older (I saw the original in 1977 right after getting out of college), but I interpreted Carrie Fisher's acting in a different way, and my purpose here is not to criticize but to express admiration. First, I give Ms. Fisher huge props for being willing to resume the Leia role after almost 40 years. I suspect that some female actors might have turned the part down, wanting fans to remember them only as their younger selves. She looks more like her mother now than I would have thought she would, which is nice because Debbie Reynolds had a face that was both kind and strong (which may or may not relate to her real-life personality - I don't follow that stuff). General Organa has the weight of the Resistance on her shoulders & she's been through several major personal heartbreaks too. She can't go to NightWatcher like Dalinar and have painful memories removed - she's facing it all the time. Plus, since she's at least a little sensitive to the Force, that will color her perceptions as well. [This paragraph redacted after reading Ms. Fisher's tweet that she finds comments on her appearance to be hurtful. I am older than her and understand all too well. Our true selves are in our hearts, more than on our faces.] For me, as a fan of the original film, no one else could have played the Leia Organa role. I am thankful and glad that Carrie Fisher had the guts and graciousness to bring this great character to life again.

OK, since this is a spoiler thread, I'm not spoiler tagging either - as has been said, if you're here, you know what to expect. I loved some of the little things, like when K-Ren found out that Rey had escaped, and he began laying about with his light saber, and those 2 stormtroopers started coming down the hall, and they just did a 180 pivot and went back the other way - priceless. (Please forgive me for the "K-Ren" - I have difficulties when people/characters have names that start with the same letter due to my grapheme synesthesia. Messed me up on my college professors' names loads of times...) Rey might be a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn, but I thought all along that she might be Luke's daughter because of that quote in the trailer. My theory was that Luke's mother hid her children, but maybe Luke would choose to hide himself instead - to absent himself from his child's life in order to protect her - but that doesn't fit great with Rey's flashback in TFA. Then again, that quote from the trailer might be a flashback of Luke talking to a younger K-Ren when he was trying to train him, so we just don't know. Maybe a director's cut on a DVD will show us more. Does anyone know where they filmed the island scene with Luke? I'm guessing somewhere off Ireland or Scotland, because of the beehive stone huts. So beautiful! Oscar Isaac, who played Poe, is sure getting a wide range of acting roles: He's the big-bad in the next X-Men film, and I remember first seeing him as Joseph in "The Nativity Story" (great movie!). And General Hux was Bill Weasley from HP7 ?!? Speaking of which, and I am totally being sarcastic here, did anyone else wonder if K-Ren created a horcrux when he killed his dad?

Heh-heh. I caught that "Farscape" reference, Kaymuth. Such a useful term, is it not?

Sphinx, you are my hero! And Delightful, I love your holiday avatar!!! The history behind the Feast of Lights has been an inspiration to me in several times of difficulty, but adding the light saber takes it to a whole new level! Very creative. :-)

Must add more confessions here. I have tried 2 of Charles Stross's books and couldn't get very far. Someone told me that his books aren't very character-driven, and I'm guessing that's where I had trouble. But I have good friends that Stross is their favorite author, so I know it's me. Also - and this is very bad - I have now attempted to read "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie - the one that won the Hugo last year!! - 3 times and consistently failed. I pushed myself to the 3rd or 4th chapter but could not figure out what an "Esk" is, had no sense of the characters' personalities or even who was a main character and who wasn't except for the narrator and I wasn't 100% sure that the whole thing even has the same narrator. Seriously, I needed cliff's notes or an appendix or something to explain all the terminology, cultural designations, etc. It was just too much work, with all that on top of constantly reminding myself that "she" didn't mean "she" over and over. I didn't find that offensive - just that it required effort. My job is mentally taxing all day, and I read for relaxation. Brandon's worlds and cultures are foreign too but way easier to understand. If anyone here can tell me what an "Esk" is, I'll try "Ancillary Justice" again next year. How about it, 17th Shard? Any Leckie fans? She even drinks the same brand of tea I do! I just need an on-ramp...

They were making us read confusing depressing stuff back when I was in middle/high school too, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth... I now theorize that the teachers were making us read things they liked, thinking that they were treating us like "grown ups," when all they were doing was forcing their tastes on us - sort of like being forced to watch movies that the critics like instead of "Guardians of the Galaxy" or "Iron Man." This is one of the best parts of graduating from school: nobody makes you read all that stuff anymore. BTW, the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy (used in my avatar & signature) is by an Aussie author. It's tween lit, but really really excellent - sort of like a LotR for a younger audience. His use of language is so creative... to me, MBT would never be on this list, but YMMV. Thanks for these recommendations! And for graciously recognizing that it wasn't me who initially took Lem's name in vain. Seems like Sword & Laser picked the wrong book to read; they'd have done better with the "Fables" one.

Am I the only one who looked at the (excellent!) cover artwork and was reminded of the Ways from WoT? CaNOT wait for this book!!!!

Monday morning & 1012 is up. Looks like some of your guesses were spot-on! I'm thinking, though - Durkon was Thor's cleric, but Durkula is actually there representing Hel. So Thor still could send a representative, right? ... and break the tie? He'd probably want to do it just to thward Hel. Better yet, our own Durkon is [1] not alive, [2] already inside the antilife shell, and [3] would surely be happy to cast Thor's No vote. I'm thinking it's time for the real dwarf to come forth. :-) [* Edited to get rid of auto-symbols when I wanted ordinals...]

Ooooh - what about Crystal? Is there a way for her to show up? She's not alive, though her focus is pretty much just Haley. Also, IIRC, whatever is inhabiting Durkon is/was a shaman, but since he's there as Thor's representative, maybe there will be some kind of technicality that will get him booted out? Or maybe Thor himself can solve the problem. Wasn't he chatting with Hel when Durkon died still praying to him? - so this whole thing is knid of his fault. Really hoping for a new strip this week. :-)