Topomouse

Apparently the Forgotten perceive reality differently from us. They immediately sense Rithmatists, or more probably the Shadowblaze bound to them, but normal persons appear generic and dull and he has to focus on his human senses in order to distinguish them. I pictured it as the Forgotten perceiving a 4-dimensional reality where normal people appear as just "flat" 3D objects. They can distinguish humans but it's harder and he thought he had no reason to do so. At the end of the book he finally accepts that Joel is relevant and decides to pay more attention.

My thought exactly.

I read book 1 to 11 one after the other so I didn't spend much time theorizing (also, I didn't have anyone to share them with), but I wasn't particularly obsessed with Asmodean's killer and Taim's role. I guess I'm the exception to the rule. I know how you feel. When I was reading I was waiting anxiously to know what Perrin was doing in the two rivers only to discover that he doesn't appear in the book at all.

I don't know, I can usually keep track of things while I read books, so I don't find these very useful. I remember that the first time i read The Way of Kings I was confused by many of the terms used, but they eventually got explained and looking them up on these fictionaries beforehand wouldn't have been very good I think.

I like the Nalthis idea. When you said Okami(fantastic game btw) I just pictured a beautifully drawn world whose colours change as you gain or lose Breaths. You would probably need a very good artistic department but I think there is potential.

I don't know, how much luck do you have to compound in order to overcome the Rand's Ta'veren effect? By that point reality will probably just crash.

Nope, it's not Aludra either.

Nope . She does stand out among the other women of the series, but I wasn't talking about her. While she has appeared a couple of times till now, I think you will need at least book 5 to understand who I'm talking about, so don't lose sleep about it. Btw, half the reason for my comment was to give you something to think about without giving much away. I think it's more fun this way, so I'll do so again with this answer. I have yet to try any audiobook (I prefer to go at my own pace, sometimes I get a bit annoyed even when watching videos) but I'm happy that you re-evalueted the book, it's probably my favourite in the series. I don't remember any interection between shielding and genders, but I could be wrong. It certainly would fit with other things. I'm not sure what you are asking, so I will not risk answering it. On the other hand you got it right: Mat is his own worst enemy. I think Siuan described him bet in the third book: "You remind me of my uncle Huan. No one could ever pin him down. He liked to gamble, too, and he'd rather have fun then work. He died pulling children out of a burning house. He wouldn't stop going back as long as there was one left inside. Are you like him, Mat? Will you be there when the flames are high?" Ah, Rand and women. You have yet to see the best trust me. You have gotten some things kinda right, at least at a macroscopic level, but you wrong about the details. I know it's veeery soon to say this, but if after you having read the whole thing you'll decide to re-read it you will notice tons and tons of very early foreshadowing. Edit: I kind of disagree with the Moraine thing. In the beginning, let's say book 1, it would have been good, but afterwards she was a bit too keen on manipulating him. It was with the best intentions, but it still wasn't the best course of action. For exemple: had Rand followed her advice in the beginning of book 4 and marched against Illian things would have gotten bad very quickly.

Are you sure? I thought that was just the extreme consequence of his bond with Moridin and that Alivia just helped him fake his own death.

Well, I guess that counts as a RAFO. At least now I know for sure their names are not similar by chance. Thank for answering!

I was leafing through Warbreaker and I remembered something i meant to ask many times but always forgot to: Do we know anything about the relationship between Denth (also know as VaraTreledees) and Treledees (the high priest of the God-King)? Their name are practically the same, I find it very hard to believe that it's a mere coincidence. But I don't remember any Word of Brandon about this, not even a RAFO. Can someone give me some info?

Meanwhile, the Rith-moderators should hold the line with some chalk circles.

That's so true. Though, there is another character who actually shared information, at least some of it. And, most important, was the only one who didn't think that the opposite gender is composed of incomprehensible aliens. Unfortunately to talk about her now would be spoiler for EMTrevor, even though she has already appeared a couple of times.

Gandalf all the way. Dumbledore is a cheap knock off.

I'm not really fond of the idea of parallel universes, but if you go for it then having one that is more important then the others would seem really strange to me. Because of that I always preferred to see the worlds of the portal stones(and the worlds seen in the test for Accepted) as possibilities that didn't realize themselves. Anyway, all those possible realities still have to have some core values that are all the same, I mean they all have to have the same physical and magical laws regardless of the people in them. If the Dark One won in any world/possibility then that world would not be coherent with the others, the dark one being imprisoned is kind of a physical constant, change that and everything change. Alternatively, you could say that if the DO freed himself in one world he could destroy all worlds and recreate them in one stroke, making the continued victory of the ight even more unlikely! Apart from these wild speculations, a more simple theory of mine is that in order for the DO to win killing the Dragon isn't enough, he actually has to make him chose the Shadow(or bring him to annihilate reality with Balefire as Rand was close to do). my best evidence is the prophecy of the Borderlands that ordered them to kill Rand if he was still in "emo mode". Also, think about it, if the Dragon manages to seal the DO but the Shadow's army massacre all of humanity, it would still count as a victory for the Light, the Wheel keeps turning. So another reason for the inefficiency of the Forseken and Darkfriends, is that they want to spread pain and despair, not complete death. There was a WoB about her IIRC. I don't remember exactly but I think he said that he didn't know much about her either but she was somehow linked to the Creator in some way.

I'm sorry but i have to contraddict you. In the third book, when Verin gives Egwene information about the 13 Black Ajah siter that have escaped the tower, they discuss the Tel'aran'rhiod and the parallel worlds. In that expalination Verin says explicitely that there are three constants in al the world: the Creator, the Dark One, and Tel'aran'rhiod. And she says that in all possbile worlds the Dark One is imprisoned, if he managed to win in any world he would have won in all world, he would rewrite every possible world as he wants. In the world that Rand visits in the second book they found evidence that the Shadow had won a battle that it had lost in their world, not that it had won the Last Battle.

Ok, now i get it, but the answer is actually pretty much the same. Your line of thought is similar to that which brought Moridin to the Shadow: he reasoned that since Light and Shadow will fight infinite times and the DO just has to win once to win it all, then sooner or later the Shadow would win for sure. Rand's epiphany on Dragonmount at the end of The Gathering Storm and later while fighting the DO reject this view of the world. Humanity as a whole will always fight the Shadow, even if some of them fall other will still fight The Shadow will never win, no matter how many times battle is fought. At least that's how i see it. The Creator will always make sure that the Dragon and everyone else don't lose hope.

Well, you did ask this: So I tried to give a reason based on the only dragon we know. I assume a confrontation like that happen in each iteration of the cycle.

As I understood it, Rand didn't kill the Dark One because he saw what would be the result and didn't like it. When he is confronting directly the DO and they are showing each other possibile worlds, Rand shows him the world without the DO (where he meets Elayne and they have some talk about children IIRC) and he sees that even if there is no "evil" in the world everyone is kind of "empty" inside, since there are no problems, no one has any reason to do anything. The DO explicitely says that that kind of empty world would be an acceptable outcome for him Since that would be the result of killing the DO and, IMHO since he has faith that everyone in the end can and will resist his temptations, he just imprison him again. BTW: about Rand's pipe and his new ability, isn't "working with reality like it was Tel'aran'rhiod" more or less the same "directly weaving the pattern"? I mean, reality IS the pattern so there isn't much difference between the two.

I think using emotional allomancy on Rand is a bit risky. In the best case scenario you could probably reduce him to a babbling mess who recites a series of female names in his mind. But you could also push him over the edge and make him deccide to end it all so he just nukes the area away with Balefire.

Maybe Earthsea could give you some insiration. In those books magic is used differently from males to females, but the magic system itself is not much explored, it's definitely what you would call soft magic. Well, the books are good so you could try them anyway.

If I hadn't read WoR i would have probably chosen "Hate", thought that's a too strong a word. I found her pretty annoying in tWoK, and I'm one of the peaple who didn't really care for her witty comments. Then in WoR we learn of her backstory, and my opinion of her went up considerably. On the whole, i re-evalueted her character, but she still isn't one of my favourite, so in the end I chose "neither love nor hate". If I may go slightly off topic: I have to say that, as much as I love Sanderson's books, very few of his characters triggered the kind of fan-love and caring that I see others having for them, and that I often have for characthers in other books. It's not that i hate them of find them badly written, it's just that they don't "click" for me. For exemple, while I'm liking the story I find it hard to feel involved and excited when reading about Kaladin; on the other hand it was very easy with for example Rand, Perrin and Mat from the Wheel of Time or Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files. [Edit]: For some reasons it doesn't let me vote, it says "You must cast your vote in each question of the poll." but I see only one.

For some reasons I really like this idea. We know that Odium tried to avoid investing himself on the planets he visited, but while he destroyed Dominion some of his power "leaked" and attached itself to the Skaze resulting in some similarities between Voidbringers and Dakhor Monks. Yeah, this idea is prettu farfetched and ultimately non very significative, but i really like it.

The problem is that the second assumption is false. The reason Shinovar is protected from Higstorms is because they get weaker by traversing the rest of the continent. Since the Everstorm blows in the opposite direction, it will actually be full force on Shinovar, and will get very weak once it get back to the Shattered Planes. Also, when I read the book I got the impression that the Everstorm was going to hit the continent fairly soon, so some large scalde mobilization of the Parshmen is going to be hard anyway, but I think I may be wrong. Does someone who analized the book better then me know if we have some kind of ETA for the arrivarl of the storm?

It has been a while since I read the books, and i read them translated which is often a problem, but I don't think he ever implyed he would alctually solve any mystery. The books tell the story of the Baudelaire siblings, but they move in a big world where there are many more stories: if I remember correctly in the last book he expresses this many times, particularly when the "chief" of the island tells them that story about a ring. It may have been that he wrote himself in a corner and tried to escape from it as well as he could, but being an optimist I think that he more or less had that ending in mind from the start, that he set out to write not a mystery novel as you percieved it, but something different more sperimental. The end result was not that good, I say so myself, but I think that maybe you went and read the series with wrong expectations and remained more disappointed then necessary.