Frustration

This is kind of off topic, but I think it's the best place to do this. I'm writing a book right now and I came across a problem that I'm working on solving. What I'd like to do is describe my problem here, with my solution in a spoiler box. I'd like to get some responses from people from various religious backgrounds, both their own attempts to solve the problem(if desired), along with their thoughts on my solution.

Problem: In the story I'm wanting something that has a decidedly religious feel to it, holy symbols, blessings, and so on. However I don't want to confirm to the reader that there is a deity behind it. I want it to be something that is up to interpretation, but also being respectful of various faiths.

My solution(so far):

Any thoughts?

1 hour ago, Returned said:

I acknowledge that English doesn't have grammar to do that, and so it can't be expressed as it can in Japanese (which was clearly the inspiration; I wonder how a Japanese translation expresses it),

Korean actually, as Brandon lived in Korea for two years and learned the language.

48 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

For me, least favorite of the Cosmere Secret Projects (but still better than Frugal Wizard). 

Not bad, per se (on the scope of books in general), but the ending ruined it for me. Granted, I have not yet done a re-read. 

My Reactions Post

This post explains better than I could, why the ending did not work for me. Excerpt:

I agree the ending was probably the worst part of the book.

And honestly I agree with @Elegy. If Brandon had committed and killed Yumi this sub-forum would be a lot more lively. The fact that I can count on one hand the number of threads made more recently than two years ago is quite telling. That's white sand levels of irrelevance.

It was probably my second favorite secret project.

Despite a couple of flaws it was really solid.

I'd probably rank it above WaT but below TSM.

24 minutes ago, PanLin said:

First up, I believe Emberdark is still recent enough that you should try to use spoiler tags when talking about it.

Spoiler period for Cosmere books is only 9 months, it's fine now.

19 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

The great irony of postmodernism is that saying truth is relative is in itself an objective truth—your assertion that art is subjective is just as exclusionary of other perspectives, as saying that it's not. 

I despise postmodernism with all of my heart. Truth is an absolute. However, value is subjective, that's not philosophical. It's observable reality. People make different decisions based on the same circumstance because they value different things. This is why two people can read the same book and come to two completely different conclusions about it. Not because the book is relative to them, but because they have different values that the book either did or did not appeal to.

19 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Because it's the only criterion that can objectively determine the quality of art—conversely, if we judge a given work by how aesthetically pleasing it is, then it degenerates into subjectivism, since different people may find different things to be aesthetically pleasing. Quality can only be determined by literary analysis, because said analysis is defined as understanding how a given work relates to the human condition.  

I'm afraid that isn't any clearer. You haven't explained any benefit of judging a book exclusively on how it appeals to the human condition other than stating that it's objective. However all definitions I've found for the human condition are themselves not objective. And even if there is an objective definition out there that I have been unable to find that still doesn't explain why it is the only measure of quality for a book.

As stated above value is subjective, while you might hold relation to the human condition as the most valuable thing a book can do that is not universal.

19 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Saying that refusing to accept people's self-perception to be unconditionally true, makes you contemptuous and denigrating, is a bizarre claim to make. By that reasoning, every great philosopher and thinker of the last 200 years "radiated contempt and denigration", by doing the former.

You didn't respond at all to what @Returned was saying.

PR space is in three directions. Scadrial for instance could be dozens of lightyears closer to the place where the image was taken than Roshar is, and First of the Sun would be in the middle.

18 hours ago, Sand Mastre said:

 I am not going to say anything, but don’t assume it’s anyone. That might ruin it.

I have a few friends who know about this place, none of them know about Sand Mastery however.

I remembered that there is one other high level foot soldier that we have seen in the cosmere, Kalad's phantoms.

Being made of stone they're probably the most durable of them all, while also having superior strength and speed to a human, but likely less than Koloss or Direforms.

I'd still probably go with direforms for a foot soldier, but I think phantoms may win a 1v1, depending on what weapon the other was using, and how much the bone needs to deform before the phantom stops working.

19 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Which way should it be viewed then? 

As an opinion, thus with each individual allowed to value whichever part they so desire

20 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I never said that "anyone who dislikes WaT is incapable of articulating their own feelings and opinions"; nor do I find the question of why this or that person liked or disliked something to be particularly interesting—I am considering individuals in the aggregate. 

That doesn't change the fact that you still claim that those with an opinion different from yours don't understand the reasons for their own feelings. Whether a particular individual or in the aggregate, that's what you claimed.

23 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The objective quality of a given work of art is determined by how well it reflects the human condition. The only way to determine this, is through literary analysis.

You didn't answer the question.

Why is the reflection of the human condition an objective quality of a given work? Why is literary analysis the only way to determine this?

28 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

If you read for pleasure and think that Shakespeare is boring, while enjoying Red Rising, that's perfectly fine. But it does not change the fact that the former is far superior to the latter.

Superior based on what exactly?

I love how this formed an almost perfect bell curve.

My stats brain is very happy right now.

This one was interesting for me.

I both loved and hated TSM. As a standalone book I think it was terrible, as while the plot was interesting the character and emotional beats felt really flat.

As a part of the cosmere it was amazing and I loved it, as it revealed so much about how investiture works and how to look at the cosmere.

I've honestly decided to just think of it as a canonized WoB rather than a book unto itself.

58 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Why not use Rosharan humans to build your Koloss? Or transform Singers in Warform or Direform to become elite Koloss brutes?

Possibly, but Scadrian humans are good comparisons to the standard cosmere humans, so on an average they'd work there.

That also assumes that singers can be made into Koloss which we can't be sure of yet.

2 hours ago, The White Drake said:

Very late, but where do we get the indication Retribution can open or close his Perpendicularity as he wishes?

Not Retribution opening or closing the perpendicularity. He probably can't do that, but he could move it.

However I was referring to the Listeners having the ability to open and close the stone tunnel that leads to the surface, as otherwise the perpendicularity just leads you to a small room completely surrounded by rock on all sides.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Quite frankly, the popularity (or lack of thereof) of a given work has very little to do with its artistic merit—the only way to determine whether a book is good or bad is through literary critique.

And why is that?

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

The problem with the main complaints about WaT, is that they one-sidedly criticize the form (e.g. the prose), while disregarding the content; any serious critique has to consider the interrelation between the two, with the latter being the more important aspect. (Incidentally, that's why a lot of literary fiction is bad—a fetishism of form over content.)

Just because you prefer one to the other doesn't mean that your way of viewing things is correct.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Naturally, this is going to upset the people, who feel attached to ideals being deconstructed, which happens to be a substantial part of the fandom. But since these people are not truly capable of the literary analysis to articulate why WaT discomforts them, they randomly latch on to superficial details that they did not like and fetishize them as being the reason why they feel this way. Combine this with the dynamics of fandom, and internet "hyperreality", and you get the sort of backlash that WaT got.

I don't think it's a good faith argument to say that anyone who dislikes WaT is incapable of articulating their own feelings and opinions.

Doubly so to assume you know why they actually feel a certain way better than they do.

6 hours ago, Ink and Embers said:

I'm a Full Feruchemist!!! *remembers I had a question about that which I never asked which was literally the reason I joined the Shard* I ... should do something about that

What questions do you have?

In a comparison I'd say intellect is obviously on the side of the direform. As is defense as they basically wear the equivalent of steel armor at all times, while also having feet strong enough to be immune to caltrops with intense heat and cold resistance.

Strength is an interesting one as koloss start similar to humans, at least similar enough that Elend was able to kill a small one. However they get bigger and stronger. They only have four spikes but with hemalurgic construction they might end up more than five times as strong as a person.

Direforms on the other hand are Singers. We know that warforms are much stronger than a normal human, possibly 2-3 times as strong. We also know that most regals are stronger than that, with Direforms being even noticeably stronger than even some already strong regals like storm forms. I'd say they'd be around 4-6 times stronger than a human.

That would put them at about the same strength maybe slightly leaning towards the direform as Rosharan humans are larger and therefore slightly stronger than Scadrian humans.

Both can be made rather obedient, with direform psychology making them more dogmatically loyal to their leaders even than other regal forms. Koloss however can be directly controlled, however this is also a potential weakness as someone else could take control of them. Additionally as we saw in HoA if Koloss are attacked and they can't fight back they will simply start killing each other even if someone is controlling them.

One undisputable advantage Koloss have is that they can survive on literal dirt if they have to. While if warform is anything to go by Direform will need a lot of food.

I'd take direform for both, the few advantages koloss have I don't think make up for the fact that in every other way direforms strictly outclass them.

38 minutes ago, Myst said:

I just unfortunately found out that the CIA did not do an investigation into the MTC to figure out how they taught languages.

On the other hand, I also found out that returned missionaries are apparently really good candidates to become CIA, and that there have been cases of people mistaking missionaries for the CIA in countries like Peru

I find that funny and I think that makes up for it.

However, I would like to know, how many of yall got told the same thing about the CIA investigating the MTC? What parts did you hear that I haven’t? Because no I’m kinda interested in it(debating on writing a short story about it cause it’d be funny)

edit: maybe I should clarify, there’s no public records of any investigation(that I could find) so unless there’s a classified document about it somewhere, it probably didn’t happen 

There are classrooms set aside for external agencies to do observations, I've been to some of them, they have the one way glass and everything. One of my language instructors brought it up, but I suppose that's still hearsay.

27 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The page space is used a lot more efficiently compared to the other Stomlight books: in WaT there are ten different plotlines going on simultaneously, while in something like RoW or OB literally nothing happens for the first half of the book. 

I'd argue that literally nothing happened until the last 20 something pages of WaT. If I had to say what changed from the start to the end of OB I'd have to talk about a lot, RoW would have less, but it would still have some. On the other hand, with the exception of Moash, Kharbranth, the Listeners and Theylenah, each of which occurred in a single chapter or Interlude and were relatively minor, I honestly can't think of anything in WaT until the contest of Champions.

32 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Some of these criticisms are fair, but most of them are not particularly unique to WaT—the Stormlight archive has always been bloated, and dialogue has never been Brandon's strong suite. While some of the backlash has undoubtedly been amplified by the dynamics of fandom, for many people there's something fundamental that didn't work in WaT. And the reason, I think, is quite simply that Brandon abandoned the classic Stormlight formula used in the first three books of the series. Which is why he (correctly) anticipated that the book would be very controversial. 

You've said this a lot and I have to disagree. While dialogue has never been Brandon's strong suite("Stretch forth thine hand" and Kaladin and Shallan arguing in WoR come to mind), WaT was particularly bad. I honestly don't think bloat became an issue until OB, and it has gotten worse since then. The change in formula might have had a part to play but other than yourself I've never seen anyone complain about it.

I don't think so. I think it's just a power Brandon didn't think out very well and he's tried to make it only do the things he wants but that results in a patchwork that doesn't fit together.

23 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

lack of bloat compared to previous books,

While two people can disagree as to what is bloat and what isn't I have to ask how WaT is low on bloat compared to the other entries?

52 minutes ago, Deception said:

Yes, probably, but the question is how they will do this without instantly getting killed my Retribution.

Well BAM did something with the Well that shields her from Odium's touch

17 minutes ago, Jult said:

Rysn is floating around with a Dawnshard right within Retribution's reach. She went into hiding with the Sleepless but I doubt we've seen the last of her.

Crap I was going to put that in but forgot, to put that in.

Just now, NameIess said:

I had the impression that she was going offworld, possibly to start a Shadesmar trading company.

That's what I thought when I first read it, but when I did a second look it never said one way or the other. I personally still think she left, but she could still be on Roshar.

There's also the people of the Origin that Puuli mentions, they could do something assuming they exist

Wat leaves off with a deadlock: Odium's forces staying in his lands, Urithiru locked down with a massive crystal sphere keeping everyone inside, the Azish and Listeners in their lands, and no reason to leave, the Heralds locked on Braize with their minds in the SR. That leaves everyone locked in their current location.

So, what ends the deadlock at the start of SA 6?

I can see a few options

1. The Heralds break, this would seem to be the easiest solution, but at the same time it would also cause problems as that would leave the spren vulnerable.
2. The Well of Control, the Listeners take up the Well of Control, which was foreshadowed quite interestingly in WaT. This would be the most interesting but I doubt Brandon will go this route
3. Hoid comes back, I don't doubt that he will, my only question is how he breaks the deadlock.
4. BAM or Sja-anat does something, I think this is the most likely. And honestly I'm quite excited to see what happens.

So on another thread I was talking about direforms being perhaps the single greatest foot soldiers in the Cosmere, when @Trusk'our brought up Koloss. So I have a two questions to pose to the community.

1. Which one would you choose as a foot soldier in your army?
2. Who would win in a fight?

19 hours ago, Keteᛕ said:

This is a thread where we will post about the best moments of any Sharder who decides to/ has to leave the Shard, most likely permanently.

List of fallen soldiers:

@Verdance

@NerdSandwich

@Through The Living Glass

@Rynturning_Light

@I Am A Fish

@Kansas Stormcursed

@Bird Furious

@Thaidakar the ghostblood

@The Great Wyver

You put @I Am A Fish, which I 100% agree with absolute legend that one, but you missed @Mist, @Vapor, @Condensation, and @Channelknight Fadran