Child of Hodor

3 hours ago, Maze said:

TFE was guilty of this and in a really bad way. The ending was an absolute deus ex machina where Vin used a new power that came out of nowhere and was only explained in the sequels. At least in the other examples you gave, there was foreshadowing (not counting Warbreaker as I haven't read it yet).

Makes me happy that I didn't start out reading Mistborn as it is something that would absolutely make me put a book down and not bother picking up the sequels. Granted, as his popularity grew, I would have probably picked up another title, especially once I found out that TFE was only his second published novel. Besides that, I almost always give an author a second (sometimes third) chance if I didn't like one of their books.

Oh that's right she hulks out to tear the things out with magic. And yes that one was not really built to. 

Now that this podcast pointed it out “main character unlocks their powers in the last few pages and saves the day” really is most of his cosmere books. 
 

Elantris, all of SA (Kaladin, Kaladin, Dalinar, Navani) Bands of Mourning, Warbreaker
 

Not necessarily a criticism but it does happen a lot. I feel like MB era 1 didn’t do it as much. More like they just figured out a secret involving magic. Or completely screwed up depending. 

100% agree with Eric I don’t want question prompting shirts.

Alyx: For those of you unaware of Mistborn: Birthright

David: Who's unaware?!?

I remember 16! I love in MB:SH when Leras is so pleased with himself that he hid the number 16 in the snapping when absolutely no one born on Scadrial would know the significance thus completely defeating the purpose he was using it for.

I think you are on the right track with what the one weird trick to compounding is (Arcanists hate him!). Essentially vampiric compounding. Drain someone else's health and burn it to compound it then store it. Somehow it needs to be unkeyed or whatever the word is for removing the identity lock. Is it as simple as order of operations, you drain it with Hemalurgy and compound it with allomancy then you can store it as your own with Feruchemy?

I remember the sailors on the infinite sea! The infinite sea sounds a lot like outer space to me. 

My favorite Shardcast "What IS a ..." to date. What IS an arsonist?

@Chaos Interesting you happen to mention Elantris was found fully built but unoccupied in this episode.  It's almost like the previous inhabitants of Elantris just up and left.

Obviously they could have all been killed but there were no skeletons or other remains found as far as we know.

Wind and Truth is better than Knights of Wind and Truth.  Barely.

Diceborn is a good name. Gets the idea across pretty clearly at least to me. 

I really appreciate all the work everyone does!! Happy Holidays!!

Good job laying out how ridiculous the series of decisions that led to living on this planet were.

OG Zellion was like Jigsaw. This whole thing is a lethal teambuilding retreat. Reminds me of the Envisagers that Teft's parents were members of. Salvation through deathtraps. 

On 10/23/2023 at 11:40 AM, The Sibling said:

Even if she does though, that still doesn't give us the perspective of someone actively suffering from or being hurt by the caste system. That's why it was kind of weird when she abolished slavery because she had no previous emotional connection to this issue and we never even saw a darkeyes or slave's opinion or experience after this change. 

This episode was really good by the way. That dragon lore was crazy. 

I see your point that looking at the back half all but Lift are royalty (Jasnah, Renarin) demi-gods that were part of an ancient invading force (Taln) or both (Shallash). Lift is now among the elite by virtue of her magical abilities and she is extra special because of how Cultivation altered her. Compared to the front half where Kaladin & Bridge 4 were all slaves, Szeth was a different type of slave, Venli is from an offshoot of a displaced and then enslaved people. 

It is a potential negative of Brandon's books that the primary purpose is to explore and explain the magical worlds and magic systems he creates. By volume these books spend a lot of pages explaining and demonstrating magic. The plot usually hinges on characters mastering the magic or solving a physics or math problem within the magic. Meaning most of the major characters that  drive the plot are going to be magic users which automatically makes them more powerful than most and not all that marginalized regardless of background.  

That's not to excuse him if he does social/political considerations poorly, but that's never struck me as a primary reason he writes these books. 

I would be more moved by the need for more diverse POV If this were a story involving real world peoples whether in fiction or nonfiction. 

To me there is a big difference between the importance of centering Osage voices and accurately depicting the Osage people in Killers of the Flower Moon and the need to center Listener voices.  Same goes for a fictional story involving any real world groups. Hearing more from more dark-eyes is hearing more from Brandon. Versus Brandon depicting indigenous people in Rithmatist 2 which has never been completed because he doesn't feel he knows enough about these actual people and cultures to responsibly write fictional people of that group.  

Again, not to excuse him if he writes a work where it feels like oppressed people don't matter or implies they shouldn't be so angry about it. And I do respect your objection to his approach and lack of POV from relatively powerless people. 

I think the critique of societies on Roshar will continue in the back 5. Even in book 4 with an active war on multiple fronts Kaladin found time to say "Wow, we treat mentally ill people terribly. I will try to change that." 

Jasnah is queen (in every sense  ) and we know she has a dim view of Vorin society. I expect she will try to reform Alethi society in the back half when they are no longer a nation in exile.

The Singer - Human relationship will probably change from purely adversarial soon and that could be an interesting societal change. 

On the question of why are the Scadrians so terrible in future Cosmere? There is an exchange in Way of Kings ch. 40 involving Sigzil and Kaladin that I think is relevant:

Quote

"My experience is that you care only about wars and the art of killing."

"And what have you seen of us besides our army?"

"Not much," Sigzil admitted.

This ship of Scadrians are jerks, but I don't think we can apply it to the entire populace. 

I didn't mind the info dump that much, but it was inelegant.  I love the FF14 reference . The experience of this book was:

"I see exposition is in order" *Brandon leans in close to your face, stares you dead in the eyes and speaks 4 paragraphs of exposition without blinking*

3 hours ago, SingleSoul said:

I think it's not at all unlikely that the moons could be some kind of artificial megastructure. 

*Shardcast voice* What IS a moon?

I agree those moons are super weird could be artificial. 

I think the hold up with the adaptation is that all of the major streaming companies have been getting hammered financially this past year and the economy is uncertain right now. There's been a lot of belt-tightening as far as budgets and layoffs. I think whoever it is may have had to slow down the spending on new stuff and that may have delayed this project.

Most of his meetings seem to have taken place in the spring and early summer. Things have gotten a lot worse for streaming companies since then which might be the reason for the delay in going forward with a special effects heavy adaptation of a guy who has never been adapted before. 

Netflix lost subscribers for the first time ever in Q1 2022 and then lost even more in Q2. This led to a bunch of layoffs there.  Disney lost $1.5 Billion in a quarter on their streaming service which is the main reason they fired their CEO. HBOMax is now owned by Discovery who has a lot of debt they need to pay off and they have been laying people off, canceling series and shelving older series. 

sources

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/19/netflix-loses-970000-subscribers-its-largest-quarterly-loss-ever/

https://www.tvrev.com/news/with-streaming-losses-mounting-is-disney-turning-corner-upward-or-down#:~:text=Overall%2C the company's four services,help ease deficits next quarter.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/hbo-max-cuts-14percent-of-staff-mainly-in-casting-acquisitions-and-reality-tv.html#:~:text=The job cuts%2C which amount,acquisition of WarnerMedia in April.

https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/rip-hbo-blame-warner-bros-discovery-david-zaslav-budget-cuts

I think Vasher can use Stormlight as a substitute for breath to keep himself alive because he went to the Valley and was granted the ability and he had to leave Nightblood behind as the Bane. Either Cultivation or the Nightwatcher did it.

In WoR Vasher thinks he lost Noghtblood by mistake going to the Valley asking for a way to stay alive and having to give up nightblood fits with that.

The Nightwatcher offers Dalinar a blade that bleeds black smoke in OB.

My prediction for Era 3:  The clash of Intents has mostly been occurring in Sazed's mind in Era 2. He wrestles with the two urges and only acts when he can reconcile them. In Era 3 he'll be like "let's settle this on the field" instead of Ruin and Preservation butting heads in Sazed's head they'll be allowed to do it out in the world. Preserve this, Ruin that an active god. 

I think the Shards (The Power) inherently want to do stuff they don't like to sit around. Sazed is a relatively new Vessel so the Power hasn't had as much time to adapt him to their purposes. He has been able to wrestle with them and reconcile them in his mind, but that won't last much longer.

5 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I kept thinking that the doppelgängers were trying to steal connection/destiny through imitation. It would have been interesting if people could reverse engineer an identity/fortune/destiny connection. That would have made some sense. Sadly, no.....

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

That's what I kept thinking, but it was so much less interesting...

It really contributes to the Set feeling unimpressive in this book. They had 6 years to think of something. 

Whoooaaaaaa!  Incredible!

Mistborn Era 1 Netflix Movie is my guess as well. Zack was a great addition as an industry expert!

I see the concern about Mistborn seeming like YA dystopia, but most of those stories are teenage girl joins Dystopia Academy or Dystopia Olympics with other teens and this is definitely not that. I've never really linked Mistborn to Hunger Games or Divergent. I looked at it as Brandon taking "farm boy saves the world" that 90% of fantasy stories are then changing it to "urban street rat saves the world" and changing the gender of the lead.

I really love Final Empire, but what makes Era 1 special from a narrative perspective are the reveals in books 2 and 3.  We doomed the world by killing the evil overlord. Without those the unique things are the setting which visually could turn people off before they really give it a chance and the intricate magic system which needs to be streamlined for 2 hour movie.  

Kelsier as a lifelong conman trying to do a good thing for once is the other aspect that could really pop. 

What, no Lirin mini? Lirin with his arms crossed, scowling. Like a bobble-head but his head shakes back and forth in disapproval. 

Oh Storms why do they have to look so good! When it comes to figurines and such I'm usually like "what gonna do with that, look at it?". Yes, yes I will look at these!

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think "mind of its own" might be a bit of an overstatement - at least if by "mind" one means a sapient mind - but Odium-the-power as distinct from Rayse was definitely developing a will or at least desires of its own to some degree. It might be more like an animal-level mentality, emotion without reason or language ... perhaps something like the Thrill, Nergaoul's drive to fight... but there is something there.

The Dor 'wanting to be used' (attacks on Raoden) might also be similar? Or that could just be pressure buildup...

That's a good point.  It asks Taravangian to take it up, so it clearly feels it needs a Vessel and the Vessel basically serves as the decision-making mind that directs it.  

I think it's more sapient and able to act on it's own than the other Shards we've encountered. Maybe like you say animal-level, a horse trying to buck Rayse off for all of RoW because it thinks he's a lousy rider.   

5 hours ago, Mzuka said:

Has it developed a mind of its own yet? I thought that for a Shard to do that the power has to be left alone for some time, and Rayse had it since the Shattering until Taravangian picked it up.

It is really strange that Odium takes powerful emotions away, I like your theory. I've always seen a parallel between those exchanges and the Adolin/Maya scene in ROW (Sacrifice). Adolin is feeling a lot of strong emotion, righteous anger etc. and he gives Maya strength.

It's almost like the opposite: he feels Maya's pain and gives her strength. My crack theory is that this is related to Odium becoming a true part of Roshar (through BAM etc.) and that we're seeing a kind of Radiant bond that involves that power and not just Honor/Cultivation.

I think it's heavily implied to have developed a mind of its. When Rayse appears to Sja-Anat, Moash and Dalinar they see a bright gold light  rapidly moving around beneath his skin like something trying to break out. 

After Rayse essentially loses against Dalinar in OB Rayse says  "No. No. We killed you. We Killed you!" . Talks in plural and repeats himself in a slightly different font.  The schism between the Shard and the Vessel is widening he says it twice because once is the Vessel talking and the other is the Power talking. 

What Harmony says in the epigraphs is essentially "I think this shard is poorly controlled and Shards can develop minds of their own if not controlled well for a long time."

The final thing is that after Rayse is dead the shard talks to Taravangian. That didn't happen with Ruin and Preservation. 

Quote

Take me. the power pled, speaking not in words but in emotion. You are perfect. I am yours.

Ch. 113 RoW

We could say it's just Taravangian interpreting something as the Shard talking to him, but I think it talked to him in its way. 

Taravangian and the Shard:

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

But wasn't it Taravangian's raw/extreme emotion (on his low intelligence day) that let him Connect so well to the Shard?

I agree Rayse was trying to sell (even to himself) Odium as something it isn't (all emotion) - but I do think it's broader than hatred, from Dalinar and Venli's experiences and Taravangian taking it up. I think Odium represents aggressive/conflict-driving emotions, anger and hate and probably fear too, but not "gentle" emotions like love or humor or happiness or contentment.

Yeah I think that is the theme of his emotions, conflict and aggression. From what little we got of Taravangian's POV after ascending he has the logical side that wants to plan and the emotional side that is all "burn, kill".  Frost and Hoid consider the Shard to be Hatred and Harmony thinks all the destruction is what the Shard truly wants.

It's weird that a god of powerful emotions routinely takes them away from his followers. It's his main selling point to Moash and Dalinar. My crack theory is Odium only uses those other emotions as fuel for the Hatred. 

Taravangian will be great as the book 5 villain. I kind of hope he doesn't last beyond that. I'm more curious to meet the Shard since it has a mind of it's own and can talk.  I really like idea that the divine hatred of a specific god has a mind and it's real mad that 16 people killed the god and stole that god's power. It's got a hit list it's going through. 

I don’t think Taravangian will be more Passion than Rayse was. Rayse was in denial about the nature of the Shard, it is more than hatred, but it’s mostly hatred.

Rayse pretending it’s Passion is part of why he couldn’t control the Shard very well and it developed a mind of its own.

Taravangian doesn’t have the same hang up. When Hoid senses he’s not talking to Rayse he asks Taravangian who he is. Taravangian just says “Odium”.