Topomouse

Jaichim Carradin?

If I remeber correctly we have Word of Brandon that Legion WAS meant to be a bait for a television series. Anyway I also liked it a lot and I look forward for the next book. Also, can you share the title for the next one or is it still classified information?

If you can, I suggest you try to give Dresden Files a second chance. In the beginning the author was still deciding what to do with the story, the first 2 are almost standalone books, the third things start getting real but it's from the fourth(starting with the consequences of the ending of the third) that you really see the overall plot. I would really recommend trying to get to end of book 4 and then decide. As for me, I was really disappointed with the Maze Runners series. I discoverd the author on Sanderson's blog and i treid the first book and was really hooked. Then the second was kinda meh, and when I was less then halfway through the third I wanted to strangle all the protagonists and the ending was really crem dung imho...

I guess that Shard is what power the world of Brutal Legend.

Must have been hard with all the Wild Chalkilings. Sorry for the bad joke, I couldn't resist...

Can't help but quote you, you expressed perfectly what I think. If you read everything in one go I don't think you can really find it boring. Though I guess that at the time, with a year or more between one book and the other, getting transition books like Path of Daggers and Crossroads of Twilight could have been heavy to bear. P.S. How can anyone not love Winter's heart? There is the best harem romance ever(one of the funniest scene in the books imho) and the whole MAt gets eway from Ebou Dar!

Genova, Italy. Unsurprisingly most people seems to be american. A bit off topic, if english isn't your first language did you read the books in english or in your native language? Were the translations good? Here the translation for fantasy books are almost always abismal, so I'm happy to have read the in english but i'm curious about the other countries.

I like it. It's simple and coincise, and yet it's coherent with everything we know. I just thought something though, what if the weakness is born together with the power? For exemple Fortuity: he was anxious about asking out a woman he was attracted to, he got his power seeing that he would be rejected or something, and that became his weak spot. Or Mitosis, he says that he was a good musician while his band was holding him back, but maybe it was the other way around. So when he got the power to have a band made of himself he actually saw that his music was bad and his clones died. It would fit the theme of Epics powers making people flawed, and also the good old "be careful what you wish for, it may become true".

I just read your post and found myself agreing with point 1 and 3 while musing abount number 2. I was personally under the impression that M'hael was able to use only a part of Sakarnen power since he was only borrowing it from Demandred, that would make it al least more powerful that Vora's Sa'angreal, but i could be wrong. Anyway your post inspired me to search the internet and i actually found out that the Nine Rods of Dominion were actually people: http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Nine_Rods_of_Dominion

I don't know who Richard Rahl is, but I think that was an obviously bad decision. Yeah there was little he could do at the moment but you can't just abandon a country like that. The point is that Rand was already close to the breaking point, he was making bad decisions. And for the fact that love being what rescue Rand from the abyss is not very original: yeah it isn't, that doesn't make it less true.

That's a cool idea! There is a problem though, if said power has some intrinsic exploitable weakness you can be sure someone is going to figure it out too.

But the Forsaken were incompetent. I thought it was actually a deliberate message expressed in particular when Cadsuane interrogated Semihrage. Everyone had been brought up to consider the Forseken some sort of all-powerful booogiemen, and they considered themselves absolutely above the people of the new age, but they were actually just simple humans, and petty ones at that. They all had big character flaws that drove them to the shadow, in partular they were all ambitious and unwilling to cooperate, which was what the Dark One actually wanted. That said, I have to agree with your general idea. A bit of creative use of the magic by anyone could have drastically changed the story. Some instances may actually be justified, if only by using the omnipresent "will of the Pattern", but many were not.

I didn't have any problem with it. I actually found the "retroactive death" thing interesting. But as much as I would have liked for it to be studied more (like many other interesting things that the White Tower ignored because of tradition...), I'm really thankful that Jordan didn't introduce a freacking undo button. That would have been a sure way to cheapen the story.

Indeed. The little we can gleam from River of Souls makes me think that his story would have been a nice contrast to Rand's given that the Sharans accepted him as their own saviour. Also, I got the idea that he was somehow redeeming himself. That in the beginning he just wanted a country and an army and the sa'angreal, but after a while he started to actually care for his people. Really, it could probably have filled a whole book by itself setting up a more personal confrontation.

Something tells me that a 3-way bond like you described could be pretty confusing, probably very fun to observe though. You know, while I remebered Alanna failing to control Rand while Loghain controls his bonded Aes Sedai, I didn't think that it was a general rule about the bond working differently for males or females. It would certainly fit the theme ot WoT though. I also assumed that two males bonding would result in something like Elayne and Birgitte, but your interpretation may be the correct one, but I'm not sure. We have to consider that the Bond used by the Asha'man has been invented for a different purpose from the warder bond. The Aes Sedai wanted to get a strong and completely loyal bodyguard, so they obviously included in the weave a way to control the warder. The Asha'man on the other hand wanted something to connect to their wives to reassure each other that they were alive and well, it was probably modified later to control the Aes Sedai.

That's an interesting idea. Being both a channeler and a Wolfbrother strikes me as something with astronomically low odds of happening (kinda like being both a mistborn and a full feruchemist ), but still possible. I wouldn't exactly call it dangerous, we have seen that the right balance of wolf and human varies from person to person (see Boundless/Noam), so even if it does push you more towards being a wolf, it's arguable if that would be a bad thing. I think the result would be something like what Androl and Pevara created. In both cases you have two link superimposed. On the other hand, we have seen wwith Elayne and Birgitte that the more similar, on a physical level, you are to your warder, the closer is the link. So a human with a wolf would create a link that's not so close. More importantly, what if a normal channeler bonded a wolf? Would he became like a wolfbrother? Or would he just acquire a very loyal animal companion? Maybe that's where the idea of mages having animal familiar came from, in some past ages the norm was bonding animal not people so that became the legend in our era! P.S. I haven't the quote, but i remember that Jordan said that Wolfsister are absolutely possible. It's just that the three characters we met happened to be males.

Yeah, that's more or less what I thought Holiday. There is also the prophecy that made the Borderland kings move. It more or less says that if the Dragon is to far gone they should just kill him "So that Light may not be consumed by he who was to have preserved it". I took that, and the the fact that the shadow try more to corrupt then kill the dragon, to mean that the Dark One wins only if the Dragon gives up by his own will. If he is killed it's still better, maybe the world goes to deep rust evil rules and everything but at least something still exists and the next Dragon can try again or something like that. Instead, as you said, if the Dark One has its way and the Dragon gives up and consign it the pattern then everything ends.

Personally, I always thought that while history in WOT does repeat itself, it does not so precisely. I mean, most large scale events always happens (like: finding the Dark One, sealing him imperfectly, fighting him, sealing him for good), but each time these events unfold differently. I think that the tainting of Saidin was something "new". I don't remenber which book it was, but there is one time when Rand meets Moridin in a dream and Moridin says they have fought one another countless time in the course of history and he thinks that this time the shadow will win. I always thought he meant that with Saidin tainted the shadow had and advantage this time. That said, I agree that the "dragon" could have been female at one time, but I don't think that the dragon "ascending to godhood" after imprisoning the Dark One and surviving through the next 7 ages fit with the themes of the books. In order to beat the Dark One rand has to embrace his humanity, lead the others but let each of them do his part. That would be kinda contraddicted by his deification. Also, personally I prefer the idea of an absolute and trascendet God.

So that was the joke. I didn't get it either. English not being my first language was alredy a good excuse, but I'm happy to see i wasn't the only one who didn't get it. The best i got after trying to say it was something like

Shard of Anime. In order to activate its magic you have to go through a long transformation sequence and loudly call your attack while striking cheesy poses. Shard of Plot-device Your power activates only when its needed in order for the plot to proceed causing maximum frustration to everyone. @king of nowhere: nice to see an other Italian!

Gallant (Dalinar's Ryshadium) would be rumored by the fans to be a Shard, only for him to die like normal horse in the last book.

The reveal of Ingtar betrayal followed by his redemption was one fo the most powerful moments in the book imho. As for Selene, I think it was kinda obvious from the start that her encounter with Rand was no mere chance, even by the standards of WoT where chance is the Pattern's little REDACTED. Don't worry about Mat and Perrin, the former spent most of the first two books being mind-raped by that dagger so he couldn't really shine, but he will more make it up to you, trust me. As for Perrin, he takes some time to get started, but he is still my favourite of the main trio.

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly do you mean with "readthrough"? Like, you guys re-read the book while posting a commentary for each chapter pointing out relevant bits?

Do we have a "Word of Brandon" about Forgotten being charcoal instead of chalk? I'm fairly sure it isn't mentioned in the book, thought I think I read a topic where someone was speculating about it.

Yeah, at the time of the 4rd last book I didn't think he were going to make it. But in the end he managed to tie up everything very nicely. Imho he had the final planned from very early on, he just got a bit sidetracked.