Fatling

On the subject of Thrawn, I thought I hated the Thrawn audiobooks narrated by Marc Thompson for the first chapter or so but then he really grew on me and now I love the Thrawn audiobooks Also, Jar Jar Binks is one of my favorites. That scene in TLJ when they’re all standing in that cave and Luke shows up at first you can only see the silhouette of his long skinny legs and I got really excited and thought it was Jar Jar Also, I just saw Avengers endgame and I was kind of disappointed because

I’ve always thought of Shallan as Shawl-un and Jasnah as Jass-naw, but neither of those seem like very popular pronunciations. Btw, why is this in the OB spoilers?

My belief has always been that people usually don’t actually know why they don’t like something, they usually just dislike it and then come up with reasons for why they don’t like it. Or they like it and then they come up with reasons why they like it. Like for me, I would actually agree with a couple of these: Tells more than shows - it’s true that sometimes things that happen in the story seem to only be happening to serve as an explanation of what is going on rather than being a meaningful part of the story Unoriginal - lots of the stuff Brandon writes is really original, but there are some elements that seem like they were borrowed from Lord of the Rings or WoT (don’t ask because I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but I remember a few times that I’ve been reading a Sanderson book and thought “hey that seems just like something in WoT”). Certainly not entire plots or anything, but little elements in some of the stories. But even though I agree with some of the criticism of Brandon’s books, that hasn’t ever turned me off to them. I think really some of the reasons people don’t like his books is for more subconcious reasons they wouldn’t be able to explain (like one of the characters reminds them of their ex, or they are afraid of heights and Vin soaring around all the time makes them nervous, etc.) All they know is that they don’t really like the book, so they come up with some plausible reasons for not liking it and write a review.

Two questions after I finished rereading Oathbringer. I’m too lazy to read through all the questions before this so sorry if they are repeats

I haven’t seen any WOB on the matter, except the one where he says there will be a year time skip between 3 and 4. This does bring up the point that there was a year long gap between each of the Mistborn books, which I didn’t know, so it’s not like a totally novel thing Brandon has never done before Edit: found another semi-relevant WOB. It’s longish, so I only pasted the relevant part

I agree that that’s definitely the most likely explanation, I just wanted to raise this as another possiblity, ‘cause, you know, there’s always another secret

He shows up a couple pages before before too where Khriss says she’s been waiting for Kenton. And in the panel above the one in your picture. I looked fairly specifically for him throught the book, but those three and the one @ShatteringEchoes posted are the only ones I could find. On an unrelated note, the faces in the clouds pretty much disappear altogether in volume 2, I only found one where Aarik is talking to himself in the mirror (middle of chapter 5)

So here’s a quote from Warbreaker (beginning of ch. 21) that might be semi-relevant to this discussion: So I agree that being near-dead does weird stuff to investiture. Not sure of much beyond that. There’s also that part at the end of AoL Not sure, but that might be another relevant example.

Well, my general impression is that this one was slightly better than the first volume... I just read through it once, but at least in my first reading it seemed to flow a little more smoothly than the first one and it was easier to follow what was going on. So at the very least I didn’t feel disappointed after reading this one, though I will admit my expectations weren’t very high to begin with. The thing that weirded me out the most was that the artwork totally changed in the last chapter. It’s much less sketchy, which I like, but in a few places the faces look pretty weird, so I don’t know how much of an improvement it will be. I’m hoping the new artist is here to stay, though - on the back page it says that Julius Gopez, who has been the artist up until now, “lives and works in the Phillippines.” So that might explain why it took like forever for this volume to come out. Hopefully if this new artist (Julius Otha) does volume 3 it will come out faster. One last thing, I’m not exactly sure how Drile made it onto the cover (I’m pretty sure that’s Drile, right?). After all, he only appeared on like one page. If it were up to me I would have put someone else there, like maybe the Lord Admiral or Nilto.

So hopefully this isn’t too off topic, but this talk of fabrials imitating surges reminds me of unkeyed metalminds, and actually now that I think about it, so do shardblades and shardplate. That’s kind of an interesting parallel, like a spren bond on Roshar plays a similar role to Identity on Scadrial

Finished OB a few days ago. Mixed feelings. Dalinar’s flashback scenes were good. Never really loved Shallan to begin with, and she didn’t really grow on me at all in this book, it was mostly like she just became less and less relatable. Wish there was more Szeth in this book, I liked his parts, and also Venli. I was amused that Renarin turned out to be a bad guy. Shadesmar was kind of boring. I was also greatly pleased that Adolin didn’t gain any powers. Seemed like everyone was making a huge deal about the everstorm in WoR, but it was rather underwhelming. Was hoping for more interesting interludes. None of them really stuck out to me except Rysn. I guess the one with Mem was good too. Sorry if the thoughts seem kind of scattered. If I were to rate it I would say 6.5/10

Agreed - I realize now that it’s ironic that I was more surprised about Eshonai dying than I would have been about her reviving (which would be the more typical plot twist). The reason I felt like it was more of a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist is because it seemed like Venli had a lot of the same feel as Eshonai (reluctantly questioning the justice of the Parshendi cause), so it was almost like Brandon was just taking Eshonai out and swapping Venli in. I really liked Eshonai as a character so I’m excited about her flashbacks too, and to see how things will play out with Venli. I think one of the things that makes Brandon a great writer is how he writes characters from opposing sides and then shows how the “us and them” viewpoint is often an oversimplification

So long ago before Oathbringer had come out (in August, to be exact) and we were all speculating about what would happen in the book there was a lengthy discussion about killing off characters and I was wondering what peoples’ thoughts were on Eshonai’s death. Personally, I thought it was a little weird, and the shift to Venli was unexpected, almost like it being a plot twist just for the sake of being a plot twist. Considering that Eshonai is one of the characters that has a prologue viewpoint and flashbacks (actually now I can’t remember if that’s true or not), it seems like her arc was pretty weak. Here’s that discussion about disappearing characters/premature death (on most of pages 11 and 12):

Well, I was planning on buying it back when it was supposed to come out around the same time as Oathbringer. Now it’s been pushed back all the way to mid-February, so I’ll probably forget about it altogether between now and then

Sometimes when I first pick up a book at the library or something I’ll read the first chapter or so there to check it out, then add a bookmark when I get home. Or if I’m reading one chapter at a time I’ll skip the bookmark