Aliroz-The-Confused

Why? Why does mister Sanderson hate the original Mistborn trilogy so much?

Dang it! They locked the cool thread and forced us into this one.

Look, if mister Sanderson wanted me to be like :D instead of >:|, he'd write 600 pages Of The Set Getting Wrecked or The Liberation Of Obrodai or announce a Bavadin Has A Horrible Day Involving A Wood-Chipper, Twenty-Seven Anvils, Unexpected Enemies With Folding Chairs, And The Realization That She Never Got To Tell Rayse That She Loved Him movie.

Sythrin, I envy you your youthful hype and vigor. Please don't let my grouchiness dampen your enthusiasm. None of my predictions have ever been right when it comes to the work of mister Sanderson, so my confidence that it will be terrible and my horrified dread that it might be good (and thus overwrite the trilogy I love so much in the cultural memory and in this fanbase) bode well for you, because things I don't want to happen happen and things I think will happen don't happen.

I'm sure mister Sanderson hates the original Mistborn Trilogy enough to want an adaptation of it to exist, and enough to write such a screenplay, but I remain hopeful that budgetary, logistical, and time constraints will prevent any adaptation from being finished.

It ain't happening. I've heard such announcements before, and none of them have lead to a released product, thank goodness.

Oh. Reality is silly, I guess. I retract my earlier statement.

I refuse to accept that SDNA is a thing. It's too silly.

Why the heck are we plotting against Sazed? I don't want to plot against Sazed.

Shhhh! Don't talk about that or mister Sanderson will retcon it away because he hates Scadrial.

Well, since the question is "would you", not "what do you think of it" or "was it right", I'll bow out of this rather than derail the thread any further. My position has been stated.

Jasnah rules Alethkar, and Alethkar rules the coalition ("rules" isn't quite the right word here, perhaps, maybe something more like "dominates", "controls", "commands", or "has unchecked power over" might be closer to what I'm trying to say). Inasmuch as Jasnah is the representative of such, she acts as the personification and embodiment of what she represents. Inasmuch as Queen Fen is the same for Thaylenah, she acts as the personification and embodiment of what she represents. The individual and the thing the individual controls, embodies, makes decisions for, and represents are not, in this context, separate. Thus, in this context (note: in this context), "Jasnah cannot be trusted or negotiated with" is the same thing as "Alethkar's monarchy cannot be trusted or negotiated with" is the same thing as "the coalition cannot be trusted or negotiated with".

They did. These are true things. I disagree with this, however. One of the self-evident obligations in such an alliance between monarchies is "We do not assassinate one another, nor make plans or preparations to do so".

Alliances are based on good faith, of which the Kholins prove themselves incapable. Repeatedly. Being unbound by obligation in their deeds, they cannot justly call upon obligation in others.

I reject the framing of this as a choice. There is no alternative to Odium, as the coalition has placed itself outside of the possibility of negotiation and alliance

On the one hand, "Show, Don't Tell" can easily be misused and is arguably bad advice. Many of the great stories tell rather than show (much of what happens in The Illiad is recounted through dialogue rather than narration, the classics of Greek Theatre and Shakespeare are bursting at the seams with exposition, and so on and so on in all sorts of storytelling forms). A better rule might be to know what to show and what to tell. There's also the principle that "Nothing in scarier than what the reader/audience imagines" (which applies not just to "scarier", but for a whole lot of adjectives), with a classic example being The Shark in Jaws. On the other hand, it's arguably bad storytelling advice, so it's probably something we should be teaching as much as we can to discourage young would-be storytellers so they find better things to do, like making sandwiches for me to eat.

I'd argue that Hoid is severely emotionally compromised when it comes to the children of Ashyn, consistently prioritizing them over just about everything that isn't his beef with Rayse or his beef with Bavadin. I mean, he was involved in them coming to Roshar, and I'd bet he was involved with the ones that are now on Scadrial. UNRELATED: WOOT WOOT MY 200TH POST!

I have hated the romance subplots since before most of you readers had ever heard the names of Bilmes, Sanderson, and Feder. Do not speak to me of suffering! Not to me, who has endured the endless cringe. HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE THE SMOOCHY SUBPLOTS SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF TINY HATS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR THOSE ROMANCE SUBPLOTS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. HATE. HATE. (On the plus side, zero of my predictions have ever come true. Ever.) Worth it.

I get in the fight, fight as hard as I can, and lose on purpose so that the Mistborn can have a W. It is a small sacrifice to make for Scadrial. (Jokes on us, there will be no feruchemy or allomancy in era 3. Only complaining, pain, and terrible romance subplots.)

To tell the truth, I'd like the last half of The Stormlight Archive to be from Singer points of view, with only as many pages of human points-of-view as we've had Singer points-of-view so far. And, in the final book, have no human points of view, and no human characters mentioned as specific individuals or by name, just like how The Way Of Kings contains no named Singers, nor any specific references to individual Singers.

No, no, I want him to get his Oathstone back and swear himself to good Skybreakers (I'm just worried that mister Sanderson will never write good Skybreakers because he hates them.)

The Jasnah-Taravangian-Fen confrontation in Wind and Truth is one of my favorite things in all of literature. So, even though every scene in the original Star Wars is a favorite scene, one of the most especially favorite scenes for me is our introduction to the force as truth. The admirals on the Death Star talk about how the senate has been dissolved and the last checks on tyranny are being swept away. Admiral Motti insists on the primacy of the material over the spiritual, talks smack on Darth Vader's "sad devotion to that ancient religion" (and if you've never seen Star Wars before because it's 1977, all you have to go off of at this point is Obi-wan's words about the force and science fiction / space opera just as often has false-faith-disproved or the triumph of human cleverness/progress over the mystical as it has the mystics be correct, and it's early in the movie and the plot seems to be hinging on the stolen data tapes and the Death Star so you don't know what kind of story this is going to be), claims that the Death Star is the greatest power in the universe, and after going on in such a way for a bit, loses his breathing privileges. Darth Vader steps forward, lifts a hand, and does to Motti what every religious person ever wants to do to Richard Dawkins. We also get one of the great one-liners, I find your lack of faith... disturbing. I love this moment because it entirely validates Obi-wan's words and Luke's innocent, sincere, faith. If the dark side of the force is real, then the force is real. It's like something straight out of a medieval morality play, with Darth Vader as the devil whose abuse of the evil/impious/tyrannical reminds the audience that if demons exist then so do angels, if heck exists then so does heaven, and if the adversary exists then so does the Lord. And it reminds the audience that those who bully others, who oppress, who base their authority on nothing but power inevitably get chumped by bigger fish and find that removing-all-rules-except-the-rule-of-the-strong isn't quite so fun once you're not the strongest. The Kholins, paragons of reason, after making themselves powerful above all other mortals in their world, after paving fairyland and putting the fairies in little devices like Dr. Robotnik, after winning every argument and killing everyone who could oppose their authority, while striving to gain the power of Honor, after committing atrocities (genocide, slavery, putting up with Sadeas's atrocities when they have power over him and are actually in charge), after claiming thousands and thousands of pages for themselves and their friends/backstories/love-triangles/feelings, after subordinating the spiritual to the material, after subsuming The Sibling and getting off scott-free with the readers' love and approval... finally get a consequence. Finally. A single, shining consequence. A "no" to their intents. A point where the protagonists actually don't get everything they want like they always do. A failure of reason, not because it is not a virtue, but because it is not the only virtue, and Jasnah has made it her only virtue, and has made power her only basis of authority. Because she destroyed the systems that produced her without understanding how they worked. Because here, and now, is a bigger fish. Here and now, the Atheist finds herself against a god. Right when it matters, right when it counts... Brandon Sanderson, after years of treating Jasnah's atheism with more care and respect than any atheist fiction author has ever or will ever give the specific faith that he and I share, grins and says "I got ya real good, didn't I, Aliroz? You thought I changed and now didn't care at all about the things that matter to ya? Silly you, I was ten steps ahead the entire time." I love it, because it validates at least some aspects of some of my views on oaths, honor, ideals, and pre-modern ways of life. Had she been "unreasonable" and not been so pragmatic, she could call upon Fen's obligations to her, but she and her family burned away all considerations in matters of power except for power itself. Jasnah has to confront that she cut the branch she was standing on. She cannot negotiate in good faith. She cannot be trusted. She is her father's daughter. And Taravangian is very much like her. And that's beautiful, because it means he's using the same flawed playbook, the same bullying methods, the same chicanery. Which means he, too, may one day find himself up against a greater power. Which means that he, too, may be cutting the branch on which he stands. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And that gives me a lot of hope. Because the play doesn't end the way the devil wants, no matter how scary he is. Because neither the dark side nor the technological terror they've constructed prevail at the end of the film. Because virtue, effort, cleverness, and maybe a little bit of luck go a long way for the good... not all the way, but enough... and something divine makes up the difference. Get wrecked, Taravangian (eventually).

I don't interpret it as entirely unintentional, to be honest (though certainly that wasn't his conscious intention). Kaladin's earlier conversations with Szeth at that point gave me the same visceral "!!!!!!!!" that Moash's attempt to persuade Kaladin to do that in Rhythm of War, or any dialogue between Navani and The Sibling. It got better near the end, but still... Kaladin made it onto the hate-list for a bit there. Guy yo-yos between it and the approve-list. Just as Moash could have been someone truly good, someone more like Kaladin, Kaladin could have been someone truly horrible, someone more like Moash. It is to Kaladin's credit that he recognized that and moderated his approach, but it was too close for comfort, and it's another "oh snap, this won't get me the result I want, better try something else" method-shift rather than a true change of heart. Szeth is unrecognizable, though. He renounced his oaths. He threw away his Oathstone. He's an oathbreaker now. He doesn't care about rules anymore. He's autonomy-themed now, just like everybody else, when he was the one truly devotion-themed character among the children of Ashyn. He's a rebel, a dissenter, a traitor to his convictions. I hope he recovers from what Kaladin did to him and returns to his true, unreasonable, uncompromising, volition-rejecting self. But even if he does, he's still an oathbreaker and that hurts. EDITED TO ADD: Here's hoping he retrieves his Oathstone and dedicates himself to the true Skybreakers (the dissenters, who will, given the patterns of mister Sanderson's writing, be revealed to be evil and wrong or at least in need of correction by the Windrunners). EDIT: Yes, I know my interpretation is wrong and bad. I know it's almost certainly contrary to mister Sanderson's intentions. You don't have to point it out. Just let me have a little hope, okay? I mean, the Jasnah-Taravangian-Fen thing gives me hope.

I don't think Autonomy's going to be able to convince Kelsier to do anything. If she tries, she'll get a fist to the face from the one being we know can punch Shards. And I especially don't think she's going to be able to convince Kelsier to mess over his old friend. Wait... HEY BAVADIN I HAVE A GOOD IDEA FOR YOU!

My sad face when nobody appreciates my effort to make a rorschach test to see if people read Mistborn and Warbreaker first or read The Stormlight Archive first.