Vissy

Umm, so is it cheating if I picked all of them? 

Due to multiple individual complaints about noise and, quote, "disgraceful behaviour", we regret to inform you that using child Edgedancers as bowling balls is no longer allowed.

Five minutes later...

That applies to adult Edgedancers too!

I'm probably massively in the minority on this, but I found that entire scene incredibly boring the first time I read it and mostly just skipped through. I thought it was very slow-paced and didn't end up accomplishing anything in Shallan's character arc in this book. I'll probably revise my opinion once I've read Book 4, when we get to see the full ramifications of that chapter... but with the information I currently have, it's one of the worst offenders of slow pacing for me during OB.

That's not strictly true, @RShara - Kelsier can keep a low profile when it suits him. What he's incapable of resisting is building some kind of a cult phenomenon around himself. Inspiring a Devotary might have been something he did, directly or indirectly. My guess isn't on Kelsier having personally been on Roshar (certainly not for any significant length of time), but rather his acolytes or affiliates having been / being there, working for him.

I love the resurgence of Kelsier threads here... and likewise that blew my mind as well. I can't wait for the next Mistborn stuff.

EDIT - more evidence that Kelsier might have been on Roshar?

Quote

Glamdring804 [PENDING REVIEW]

In Way of Kings, Jasnah recommends to Shallan the Devotary of Sincerity. Their motto is "There is always something more to discover." That sounds very similar to our favorite Mistborn psychopath's saying; is Kelsier connected to that at all?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

RAFO.

source

What if maybe, just maybe Trell is Autonomy and Kelsier has somehow managed to become Autonomy's avatar on Scadrial and is planning to take that power for himself? It's super far-fetched... but hey, at least it's one way for Kelsier to be Trell

Pretty sure if Kelsier is cosmere-aware then Marsh is as well, considering Marsh likely knows that Kelsier is still "alive" through Sazed. Who knows, maybe Kelsier even told him all about it himself.

What we think OB is as a whole wasn't discussed here, though. Specifically, I was always focused on the last sections of Oathbringer. I've made my opinions on the book as a whole clear elsewhere before - it's a good book, but a good book that smacks of writers' block and that could've used a few more months of alpha phase.

Just now, Steeldancer said:

OK, if you refuse to accept that OB is very much not targeted at young adults, then whatever. I am not going to continue this argument, because I feel like this is just going to get more toxic. Brandon Sanderson demonstrates in Oathbringer a truly fantastic understanding of humanity. I wonder what he went through in his life to be able to truly understand those emotions. Those kinds of experiences are the very thing that made me more mature and have a more adult viewpoint of the world. This book spoke to me, through that. All you seem content to do is belittle it. There ARE weaknesses, but that seems to be all that is consistently being pointed out, instead of the fact that Brandon has captured a piece of what it is to be human in the SA. Even more than Taln, or realmatics, that is why I love this book. And you defining it as YA is unfair to just how crucial that kind of understanding of people and responsibility and of choice is, to every single person living on this planet. It is not the fact that Dalinar burns down a city that makes it not YA. It is the struggle he goes through afterward, the struggles that each of the main characters have, the ones that, unlike any other author I have ever read, actually makes the characters feel real. The time it takes to explore things that don't particularly matter, helps make the world feel real and not just a flat plotline. Obviously, none of this argument is going to make a difference to you, so I will no longer be commenting on this thread. Just... stop putting your own expectations on these books. While there were bits that didn't fit, like Szeth or Amaram, Dalinar's story demonstrates that Sanderson knows what he is doing. You can continue to have your opinion, just realize it is narrow-minded and feels to me like you are trying to shove the story into a box so you can ridicule it more. 

I'm not trying to be toxic or to belittle anything or anyone here. Why do you feel that way? A piece of fiction being YA does not preclude it from having depth and from depicting human experiences with insight. Maybe you're attributing some kind of hidden meanings to when I call Stormlight Archives YA fiction. There are no hidden meanings - for me this is a simple mechanical argument about what literary genres tend to contain, and of course there's a lot of flexibility here as well. Clearly enough flexibility for two people to think that a book is YA and for another to reject that notion.

1 hour ago, Steeldancer said:

General level... Vissy. I have never read any YA where a main character burns an entire city to the ground, including his wife.  I don't know what kind of YA you've been reading, but these are adult themes. I'm actually kind of insulted. Kaladin's brooding is because of clinical depression, and for all my friends who you just defined as simply "brooding," I am insulted. Shallan's wit being a survival mechanism is something that I know several people- including myself- who are insecure, have that as a defense mechanism. This isn't some YA where everything will turn out fine, and the main girl and main guy get together. People go through real, actual pain in these books. And that is NOT YA. 

The entire setting of 40k is also written at a YA level, an it's full of really nasty things. The presence of gruesome things does not, in any way, preclude a piece of fiction from being YA. The only thing it means is that it's catered to people who are between 12 to 18 years old. Moreover, SA shares many tropes and themes with YA fiction - identity, coming-of-age themes, relationships to name a few. SA also almost completely lacks any explicitly shocking material. There's no description of sex, no intense description of combat and bloodshed. It's all very washed-out. In addition to this, Sanderson himself of course is a YA author through and through, the vast majority of his fiction could easily be classified as such. 

In terms of its writing style and tropes, SA is so much like YA. Shallan's witticisms, Kaladin's brooding, even the general level of writing are all hallmarks of YA. I'm not calling it categorically a YA book of course, but in practical terms I think I can make that comparison without being wrong at all. 

@Steeldancer Yes, and that's part of what I was talking about. Just mentioning it doesn't make it a prominent part of the narrative, it's more like cramming the words in there somewhere so you can say you included a plot thread into the mix, but that plot thread was still never developed. 

My problem with the "no time for Sadeas stuff" is that that's just not true. It's perfectly viable to tie the Sadeas aftermath and the characters' introspection about it (murder investigation anyone?) into the main plot without just a "whoops i didn't show any of it but apparently Sadeas murder caused EVERY SADEAS SOLDIER TO TURN" thrown into the mix at the very end, with virtually no build-up. This is a book, you could make literally anything make internal sense within the plot, so don't give me the "well it makes sense that it wasn't given any attention" excuse. The only one who decides that is the author, and Sanderson decided not to give it any attention. That was a mistake. It felt like a very cheap finale as an aftermath. Apparently the Sadeas Army were just Bad Guys that had no agency or personality, basically just orcs that were described as human. I guess I shouldn't expect that much depth from a YA book but still, it was disappointing.

I think atium would help against Syl even if she was invisible, considering it'd at least show that something was going to hit your body, no?

@SteeldancerTo be fair, I think you'd have been satisfied with the book if all it consisted of were the passages with Taln in them. 

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

Brandon regards OB as one of his best books. OB´s "weaknesses" are structural ones. Brandon is a bit famous for meticilously laying down the framework in his books. Planing everything ahead, so much so that, sometimes, his books seem to hurry along to fit into his scheme. It would be reaally weird, if one of his big, big strenghts turned over night into his biggest weaknes as a writer. No, these "faults" are intentional. I am not saying btw. that the ending (and the book) was bad, it was merely .... weird and unusual. 

 

 Good points! Again these are structural weaknesses, not one of his writing style. The feeling of getting swept away by the plot, of confusion and helplessness are purpousfully created by Brandon. 

I think attributing every problem in a book to literary genius is laying it on too thickly. The weakness of OB isn't his meticulous planning - it's how despite all that planning, it doesn't work as a standalone novel. It feels like part one and a half of a two-part series. 

I suppose we'll see, won't we? Personally I just think that "I purposefully wrote a worse book because I wanted to make the following ones feel better in comparison" is a weak post-hoc rationalization that, ultimately, just boils down to the author writing a worse book than they tend to write and people not wanting to think that he's lost his edge or something. Realistically, Book 3 was always going to be a hard one to write and it also came at a time when Sanderson has been, by his own admission, struggling with somewhat of an unprecedented writers' block. I have no doubt that he'll be back on form in Book 4, especially given that now he's got much more room to take the plot threads from WoR and straighten them out to their rightful conclusions.

I do agree about the ending of OB, though. No excuses for that - it was one of the worst sections of the book, especially the Shadesmar meandering. 

Vin wins by default because she's the Cosmere Jesus. 

Every white person in America is a contributor to systematic racism. That's what it means to be a part of a racist system. While I agree that Kaladin is a good example of how to push through your issues, I wouldn't go so far as to say that every individual in oppressed groups should be superheroes in order to get taken seriously. That's not how you realistically achieve changes, you achieve them via large-scale societal movements such as the Civil Rights Movement. Also keep in mind that the Stormlight series is rather simplified when it comes to racism and societal problems in general, it's still very much YA in terms of what content Sanderson is writing into it. In the real world, cooperation is just as important as making people realize just how much they're contributing to a racist / oppressive society and getting them to think of ways to counteract that.

19 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The point of fixing things is to make a system that is truly equal. And for that both sides need to come together and only the actual people who continue to push for imbalance should be punished. 

To paint with too broad a brush just puts a different group in power and creates and different group of oppressed people. 

Smacks a bit of reverse racism to me. Just because you're willing to make concessions doesn't mean that you suddenly get to flip the situation around and call the oppressed people oppressors. Look up the term "white fragility" - that might help. 

If Adolin does become Odium's Champion, it would have to happen in the Back 5 books in all likelihood (if Odium is still around in those). Though personally, I don't see it happening. The only plot thread that could maybe sorta lead to Dark Adolin is the Sadeas murder stuff, and it's already been established that nobody cares and that Adolin himself saw it as a necessary evil. The trouble here is that Adolin has absolutely no reason to turn. Everything he loves and cherishes is with the Rosharans, and going with Odium would mean betraying all of them. 

1 hour ago, Llarimar said:

...What?  I'm honestly a little confused by this back-and-forth, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  I just want to review what's been said so far...

Yes, you were talking about guilt because you said that there are people who unkowingly and "innocently" perpetrate racism.  You did put the word in quotations, so you may have been implying that "innocent" perpetrators of racism are not really innocent at all.  But just using the word innocent does imply guilt on the other side - if you are not innocent in a situation, you are guilty.  So what it seemed like you were saying was "There are people who innocently perpetrate racism," and so it makes perfect sense for Calderis to respond by saying that "No one is innocent.  Just ignorant. ... I honestly believe that if someone truly believes that they are guilt free in this matter [a synonym for innocent, which is the word you used], then they aren't looking at themselves hard enough."  Then for you to say "I wasn't talking about guilt" is just kind of circular and contradictory because you were referring to guilt indirectly when you said that sometimes people are "innocent" (or "guilt-free") perpetrators of racism.    

I have no idea what you're talking about. I did not talk about guilt, I used the word as an euphemism (hence the ellipses). The issue here is that I'm describing systematic racism to you, and perhaps you haven't heard of that term (or what it means) before and don't recognize it. Innocence or guilt doesn't come into this. 

Well that's all well and good since I didn't talk about guilt at all.

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

I strongly disagree. When did I say anything about "pure" hatred? If anything it's rare for there not to be some level of it there. It shouldn't be, but humans are bad at regulating our emotions, and when something is done to us, the emotions we feel towards the perpetrator are expanded out onto those who remind us of them. As such, yes the hatred born in oppressed peoples is perfectly understandable, but when it expands beyond the perpetrators it is still wrong.

As I said originally, Kaladin is a fantastic example of this. His anger spilled out beyond the people who wronged him, until it reaches a point that he assumes that all lighteyes are horrible, even if they aren't aware of it. How is that any different than someone like Amaram assuming that all "Darkborn" are somehow lesser? 

What I'm saying is that hatred isn't just hatred, it's a complex emotion that is derived from one's environment. You can't detach hatred from what forms it. I'm not arguing against your whole point here, but rather just one part of it. It's also not quite right to say that hatred that expands "beyond the perpetrators" is wrong; what if you hate racism, and despite there being obviously racist people there's also an entire system full of people that unknowingly and "innocently" perpetrate its tropes, or people who "innocently" buy into state propaganda, arguably not entirely of their own fault, and end up dehumanizing some group of people or another?

Well that's all well and good, but it's all rather academic isn't it. The kind of pure hatred you describe simply doesn't exist. 

Kaladin will live IMO. I don't see him becoming a worldhopper either, so I think he'll live a natural life span and die as the head of the Windrunners. Szeth is headed for death seems to me, I think he'll redeem himself in Shinovar. And maybe... maybe he'll be sent to assassinate a high ranking Odium commander or something? Shallan, probably not gonna die. Adolin, hmm, maybe. Dalinar is oh-so-definitely going to die. And Jasnah will outlive them all.

My question is what would've happened if you diluted the water supply with powdered atium. Everyone becomes a proto-Seer?