Elend Venture

Mistborn: The Final Empire

     Alright, this was a kind of dumb idea I had not long ago, but I personally found it  rather amusing to select theme songs for various cosmere characters, and I think some of y'all will find it amusing to assign them songs that match them (seriously or otherwise, mine are mostly otherwise) as well.

     Here are some that I came up with yesterday (OB and Mistborn spoilers, you've been warned): 

Dalinar Kolin: Turisas - End of an Empire

Ati (Ruin): Dope - Die MF Die

Kelsier: 2WEI - Surivivor

Kaladin: Nightwish - 10th Man Down

Evi: Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire

Waxillium Ladrian: Orden Ogan - Gunman/Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down

Veil: Korpiklaani - Vodka

Paalm: Banners - Start aa Riot

Gaz: Manuel - Gas, Gas, Gas,

Tyn: The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid

Wayne: Alestorm - Drink

Vin + Elend (WoA): OMAM - King & Lionheart

Lord Ruler: Coldplay - Viva la Vida (or alternately Brandon Sanderfans W/ Ben & Sam - Old Lord Ruler)

Meridas Amaram: Nightwish - Amaranth (okay, okay, I just couldn't help myself).

These are just a few lovely possibilities. 

Fire away, mates!

Lessie: Look! Veil is a real person!

Veil: Look! It's Lessie manifesting in a schizophrenic girl's mind!

Amaram: A lot like Eragon. He "needed a sword" so he got a sword, killing a hellova lot of people along the way.

Evi: This girl's on fire.

Adolin: Chummy murderer.

Rannette: Grumpy gay master gunsmith (my heroine).

TenSoon: There is an imposter among us and it very well may be a smart puppers.

Elend: Rebellious nerd meets cute assassin and becomes Napolean.

Vin: Street urchin joins cult and makes some friends; decides the cult leader is her dad.

Kel: Thief gets superpowers and starts a cult; adopts street urchin and becomes Jesus.

On 10/19/2020 at 3:05 PM, Oltux72 said:

• optics: they have telescopic glasses
• barometric height formula: ardents can tell how high Urithiru is based on ambient pressure
• ecology: Shallan has a clear grasp of apex predators and their biology
• metallurgy: steel
• linguistics: they get how the Dawnchant was used
• architecture
• ceramics
• map making

• abundant steel
• factories
• extensives canals
• multistory buildings
• quite advanced medicine (Sazed was a good surgeon)
• limelights

A gas turbine or steam engine would work just fine provided you use an existing flame to light them.

Any place where that was not so before 1880? OK, Venice, but that is cheating.

Kharbranth? The ardentia? Azish science?

 

I hate to resurrect such an ancient thread, but I cannot help but add that for the setting, the medical field in general is quite advanced on Roshar. Surgeons such as Lirin have firm understandings of topics such as infection, bone setting, anaesthesia, sterilization of surgical equipment, etc. near all of which was not know in Europe until the mid nineteenth century.

14 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Mo-ash. It helps to remember that he was named for a man called Mo-she. Who apparently found his name being given for one of the Cosmere’s most hated characters amusing...

Good to hear that confirmed, I always wondered if Moshe was his namesake.

433. Pay attention to anyone who tells you their name, as they're probably important enough to the plot not to die immediately. Alternately, if you are not the Hero, make sure that they know your name, as it greatly reduces your chances of dying in the first conflict that comes along. 

4 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

Wasn't he literally recognized as the "Bridger of Minds" by the end of the book?

Not saying he should have been a Bondsmith, but I thought the idea for his character was that being part of both human and singer groups makes him capable of helping them come together. Acting as an emulsifier, you might say.

Brando: He is a bridger of minds.

Me: It's not like he's a bridger of minds or anything.

Just checked my notifications and lost the game for the first time today. Now @Gneorndin has as well 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

We already know that

  Reveal hidden contents

Soni

Is there a reason for why so many early Radiants were family? Including theorized ones, we have Tien and Kaladin, Jasnah and Elhokar, Dalinar and Renarin, Shallan and Helaran...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, so I can give you the "how the sausage is made," I call this the narrative reason vs the in-world reason. I can give you both.

In-world reasoning is that, when these bonds are forming, these human beings have bonds to other people, and that naturally leads the spren along those bonds. When Kaladin is forming a bond with a windspren [honorspren], and windspren [honorspren] start looking, or even other sapient spren start looking for people, they're going to notice. Remember, they're coming into the Physical Realm, it's very hard for them. They're doing this partially from the Cognitive Realm, searching and trying to get pulled through by the attention and the bond that is forming. They're naturally led to other people who are related. You could even say that, because of Tien, Syl found Kaladin.

I built this in for a narrative reason, and the narrative reason is: we generally are going to want to have a larger than average number of people among the core characters, who are involved in the magic system, and involved in the narrative. Because the magic system is so important in my books, I knew that I was gonna have a lot of friends and family of main characters end up with spren bonds.

But I don't think this is unusual. In fact, I think this is more true to life. It's not one of those coincidences we make up for a book; it's one of those coincidences that happens in life that seems unusual. It seems unusual if you look at it and say, "There are five people who became full-time in the publishing industry during the year Brandon was a senior at BYU. And they are all friends; in fact, they were all friends before they got published." This seems unusual; like, why didn't anyone else? There is nobody else that I know that broke in into the industry from that year. Maybe it happened, but nobody I knew who wasn't in our immediate friend group. Well, this is not that surprising if you actually look at it, because when one person breaks in, it becomes so much easier for everyone else that knew that person. Not just for networking reasons. (Networking reasons: obvious). The other obvious one is: the people are gonna know each other because they're all gonna be moving in the same circles, looking for each other without knowing it. They're gonna be looking for other good writers, and they're gonna be making connections with them. They're gonna notice when people ask questions in a class that are the right kinds of questions to be asking about getting published.

But even beyond those two things, once I broke in, Dan Wells has said before he realized, "Brandon did this; this is real. He actually did this. I can do this." And indeed, he went and broke in. Once this thing that seems impossible, whether it's becoming a full time novelist, or forming a spren bond and becoming a Knight Radiant; once you've seen somebody do it, it becomes way easier for you to conceive of yourself doing it. This is why C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were in the same writing group. This is why you see this sort of thing happening all around the world and in all sorts of professions, that people who were friends together... Every time that people are like, "Wow, these three major Hollywood stars knew each other in high school." Well, yes, that is actually more likely to happen than not, because of all these reasons I've talked about.

YouTube Livestream 23 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

That's quite interesting, I really ought to read more WOBs.

1. Alright, from seeing other posts here, I have decided that this really is a rather unpopular opinion: Rlain could not have bonded the Sibling, even if Navani had never existed or had not been chosen. I have come to this deduction by examining all evidence presented in the novel which pertains to this subject. Rlain is an embittered outcast of both the Listeners/Singers and Humans. He lacks the correct personality and manor of emotional damage to bond a bondsmith type spren, as he does not  bridge, or unify; he separates; It would require that he be chosen purely because he wasn't human and that he was in the right place, which would oppose his character arc completely and entirely.

 Outside of selection based upon what species he is, there is certainly no reason at all that Rlain would be better as a bondsmith than any of the other characters in the 'societal outcast' crowd, all of whom would make significantly inferior bondsmiths to Navani. And finally, Rlain being chosen is exactly what we would have expected to happen (hence some people's disappointment), the general trend in the fantasy genre presently being ridiculously contrasting hero's journeys. The only reason that Rlain would become a bondsmith is because we want him to do so in order to appease our sense of justice, which has nothing to do with the plot or his actual character. And thus, the trick is on all of us, Branderson actually pulled a massive plot twist by not writing one at all.

I also have a personal hunch that at some point we shall learn why all of the Kholins are slowly becoming radiant I'm subsequent novels, but this hardly need be included in what is already a blurb of opinion stretched far too long.

2. Like many others have noted, the nodes are a terrifyingly foolish plot device, highly reminiscent of the 'conquest' mode in the first person shooter franchise 'Battlefield'. At this point is this really still considered an unpopular opinion?

3. Kaladin's depression was not handled with the same finesse that it was in WoK and WoR. It builds to an immeasurable front at which point Kaladin attempts to end it, but then, suddenly, he gets his powers back + shardplate and suddenly forgets that he was just in the frickin' process of killing himself. (Though that Tien seen was touching, I'll admit.) On the bright side, now he may be worshipping Dalinar as God, and I mean, really, why not?

1 hour ago, Chinkoln said:

She stole the bond from Rlain...

This really isn't a great place to debate the topic, but because I was already hoping to share my impressions of the event anyhow, I would like it indeed to speak further of the topic on the Character Discussion Board if you wished. If not, that's fine too, of course. 

Now, in good jest (since I have to include a meme to make the post valid anyhow):

OB

Oathbringer spoilers:

On 3/22/2021 at 0:50 PM, Zanarkand said:

The word "cent" in english is used to denote the smallest unit of currency in the centesimal currency system that most societies use across the world. Not all call that unit a "cent" but many do besides the U.S. It is not inconceivable that some societies that Hoid has visited, perhaps even his native one, use the same centesimal currency system and thus their word for the smallest unit in that system would translate in english to "cent."

Yes, that was foolish and Ameri-centric of me. Indeed, the vast majority of latin based languages use 'cent' I words quite like it, (from latin ccentum, of course) to represent the numerical concept.

Sorry, I forgot to clarify. I meant Earth's Universe outside of the Cosmere. I edited my OP to prevent further confusion. Thank you all for the helpful answers though!

      In the epilogue of Rhythm of War, Hoid refers to the coins from his magic trick as cents, I deduce that this either a translation of a word from one of the languages of the Cosmere (unlikely), an error on Mr. Sanderson's part (once again, rather unlikely), or, last but not least, a hint that Hoid is aware of Earth's Unniverse, Earth, and specifically the United States (which does provide some degree of a time frame). This could imply that Hoid can hop universes. What do you all think? Any other theories upon why Sanderson chose this word beyond that it made a convenient pun?

      Statistically speaking, relatively few police officers actually get into deadly firefights with perpetrators a year, usually only about 800-1000 in the US. In a country of 330,000,000 souls, 700,000 of those being law enforcement officers, that means that any one officer's chance of getting into a deadly shoot out per year is averaged at one seventh of a percent.The result of these statistics is less of a focus on firearms training for recruits from police agencies with more of a focus upon more commonly encountered problems. This will inevitably result in a fair sized percentage of police officers not having the practice required to pull that kind of shot off. A similar outcome is apparent in Era 2 Scadarial, Marasi herself stating that 80% of shots fired by Elendel constables at ten feet miss their intended target.

     There are of course, numerous exceptions to this generalization. Many police officers are interested in marksmanship and train independently in their free time. I would categorize Waxillium with this set of officers. Wax's aim is not superhuman, it is merely well cultivated.

On 3/15/2021 at 6:55 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Skallagrim's video reviewing "enchanted swords", and then he brought up Allomancy, and Atium allomancy in particular, and then linked to both Alloy and Final Empire in the description... I just happened to click on the link to Alloy of law like a doofus maximus, and got it as an Ebook that day. Committed to reading era 2 first when I realized "hmm, there's a lot of history here that's being laid out as if the reader is familiar with the names."

Seeing a mistborn in action felt just as cool as the W&W era people make it sound, what with the mentions of the Set attempting to create new mistborn by mixing allomantically powerful bloodlines. Kelsier especially, with his proficiency in steel and iron simultaneously, made me realize just how much Wax can still improve his steel.

Also of course this (and Skallagrim's video but to a lesser extent, as he only explained the initial set of metals) ruined (ha!) the reveal of the new allomantic metals past the 10 original ones, and I knew that Atium was the god metal of ruin from the outset of the first era trilogy.

Ah, another Skallagrim fan. I first learned about Sanderson through Skallagrim's video on shardblades, and subsequently picked up The Way of Kings at my local library. After that summer when I had finished the Stormlight Archive up to the most recent book at the time, I moved onto Mistborn Era 1, and not long after Era 2 and Secret History as well.

On 3/18/2021 at 6:01 PM, Chinkoln said:

You got more reputation than I did on my original post...

I really do ship them though,

Fan ships as each new book comes out:

     I don't think that this is one that requires much consideration upon my part for obvious reasons; but for the record, yes, particularly over the course TWoA.

A fair deity of great importance. 9/10