LewsTherinTelescope

Yay, it is indeed working again! Thanks.

The TWG archive doesn't seem to work anymore, after the site maintenance. (Or at least, I think that's when it stopped working.)

(Sorry, know I'm a bit late) I believe it's because they're much more easily accessible now. In the past, the only way to get them was emailing Sanderson and waiting weeks to months for a response, but now you can get White Sand from the mailing list and Aether from the request thread, so anybody who wants to can read them. At least, I think I remember reading a post in the Aether forum explaining that.

Honestly, I kinda liked the mixup part, although it definitely could use some improvement (for example, him actually acting more like Hern, and I kinda like the idea of most of the Senate figuring it out and holding it over his head if he disregards their goals too much, to add some more stakes to the political maneuvering). But you're right that he could probably cut it out.

DeCryptic

Hmm, would be interesting. Almost like a second, smaller Shattering, as opposed to the Splintering we've seen of Shards so far? Yeah, that would be cool.

After seeing all the ones you said, I wouldn't be surprised lol. Battar and/or Pailiah are apparently ardents in Kharbranth (Taravangian suspects one of his ardents, Dova, of being Battar), so we should probably keep an eye out for elderly ardents in the next couple prologues... (although Sanderson's later couple answers about Pailiah have been kinda vague and avoiding-the-answer, and my guess is that he may have meant Battar in the original WoB, rather than Pailiah, because two of the Heralds being ardents in Kharbranth seems kinda odd, especially with Sanderson's emphasis on only one being there - that, or Taravangian is wrong about Dova being Battar).

Ahhhhh ok, thanks. I knew Nale and the person assumed to be Kalak, and knew Jezrien was probably there as the beggar, but I hadn't seen that about Shalash (but rereading the tWoK prologue, I do see the mention of Shalash's statue being destroyed), and hadn't heard the theories about Liss (from what I can find on the Shard and Reddit, it looks like this does have some evidence but not conclusive?).

Wait, 5?! I've apparently missed some things, which 5?

Saw this post, and the Intent "Anguish" makes me think of the Fell Twins, specifically "Despair" (which one is that, by the way? my thought is Agaris = Despair and Makkal = Slaughter, but I don't remember a confirmation). We also know that it is possible for Vessels of Shards to have children, and that Vessels having children "would have an effect" on the child. The latter two WoBs to me imply that the Twins could exist still in a similar form to how they do in Aether of Night, and a Shard with a similar intent to one of their names does make me curious. Now, I'm not definitively claiming that "Anguish" (for lack of a confirmed name) is actually related to the Twins, it's just something that caught my eye as either a possible connection or evolution of one of them.

Just finished the book an hour or two ago, my thoughts seem to be pretty similar to everyone else's: Things felt too rushed after the fake defeat of the shadow people. Almost felt like a sequel stuffed into a couple chapters. It at the very least should've been a couple chapters longer. Wish we saw more from the other Aether types. I don't think we even know what two of the Aethers physically look like when they're on a person? Illuminous felt underpowered compared to Night. Maybe we just didn't see its full potential, I don't know, but it felt kinda meh compared to the latter's power. The ending to the bride thing... was not great. Both ethical issues with some of the resolutions and just how very suddenly it was done. I like the idea of solving them over time instead of all at once (ex. one dying in an attack, Raeth's identity getting revealed and nullifying one's threat, perhaps a better-done version of the ending for the breast hoop lady could be done to remove her from the picking while having her actually choose to marry someone else rather than it being sprung upon her, etc, narrowing it down). The "we all know some of these excuses are utter chull dung, but right now we don't care too much" with things like the excuse for Nahan could still be sorta funny to keep. Wish the bride choices felt better fleshed out. Although, I'll say I DON'T actually want too much of a "which will he choose", because that sorta thing just isn't something I love. Although I trust Sanderson could possibly pull it off better than I usually see it done, so I probably wouldn't hate it too much. Besides, having one choice as a PoV character makes it kinda obvious how it'll end. I GUESS a "choose one for political reasons or the one I want" is at least an improvement over "uWu too many people want to have sexual relations with my hot self". Some other thoughts: I didn't actually mind the contrast between the serious and not-as-serious tones. With the exception of the final two chapters, I didn't really notice it too much. I kinda like the idea of a Vessel having children inherit some of the power but without the Intent limitations being as strong. Could also be interesting if they dilute the power the parent Vessel has accessible. That kissing-someone-he-thought-was-trying-to-assassinate-him-as-she-jumps-out-the-window was just...... weird. Definitely hope the start to their romance is changed away from that lol. This is honestly one of maybe three scenes I actively disliked in the book (and I didn't even necessarily dislike the rest of the scene, but for whatever reason, that moment gets on my nerves more than it should lol). The way D'Naa just freaks when he rules her out felt like a BIT of an overreaction. Juuuuust a tad. Tbh I kinda wish we saw more bonding time during the late night things. They just moved along to "spilling all the secrets" rather quickly. Granted, there are so many books where characters REFUSE to communicate that I do appreciate that they at least did so here. I maaaaaay be a bit of a sucker for pure, non-sexual love scenes, like when they pretty much accidentally fell alseep cuddling. I'm glad that that scene didn't turn sexual like it would in some books. I like the cuteness. Thoughts about whenever it gets finalized: Curious how much of the characters will be carried over. If Sanderson replaces any, I'm sure it'll be for good reason, but I'll be sad to see them go, even if it's for the betterment of the story. While I'm sure changing Shards will have to affect worldbuilding, potential sequels, etc, I feel like the two real Shards showed up so few times that swapping them for others could probably be done without affecting the book itself too much. I like the idea I saw suggested of the Senators mostly figuring out who Raeth was, and him having to be careful to not piss them off enough for any of them to reveal it. Sorry if there's typos or some things don't make sense, I stayed up wayyyyy too late finishing this book and I have not slept yet. Might edit it to neaten it up a bit in the morning (or probably afternoon) when I wake up. Edit: tweaked some of what I said to make a bit more sense. Also, had some more thoughts: Amberite might seem too similar to Blade and possibly Plate in Stormlight. Perhaps in the Aether rewrite, they can focus more on the other possibilities Amberite has, besides just plain sword and armor? For example, trapping enemies is something we see a couple times in duels but I don't think we ever see in actual battle. I've seen people say Verdant feels pretty similar to Cultivationspren. While I agree, I don't think it really needs to change. I probably just missed the explanation from tiredness, but I honestly can't figure out what Bestarin's powers are, honestly. Something about grafting animal skin? Ferrous was also sorta unclear to me. Some can turn themselves into immortal machines, and others can.... do something? And some turn themselves into fancy pillars because why not give your life to become a pillar? I'm sorta confused. Not sure if Sanderson wants to get this dark, but a reveal that a lot of them weren't completely willing could explain it. Then again, we already had "it's legal to rape as long as you kill them after" in Mistborn, so I don't know if he cares too much about the world being dark.... The Forgotten might seem too similar to the Midnight Essence, which is a shame. I kinda liked the "is it actually their ancestors or not" worry, but I'm guessing it may be tweaked a bit. We get told Night has limitless possibilities, but pretty much see nothing besides teleportation, a giant cushion, and threatening a dude in prison. Also, it seemed pretty obvious to me the moment they said "maybe it's similar to Illuminous" that it would teleport self rather than others. Illuminous really should have been more similar to Night. The Dari all just going along with not a single one complaining didn't really seem right. I wish at least a couple would rebel, it could be interesting. Or at least some being a bit more conflicted. Also, we didn't IMO really get enough connection to whatshisname that was Raeth's friend who became evil. The twist of "they were actually killing everyone they teleported at the end" was a surprise to me, honestly. I hope it gets kept. The horror as you realize "oh, he just accidentally gave them exactly what they wanted" was good to me, though I think it suffered from the ending being too fast still (but that might've just been reading-it-at-3-am syndrome). Pacing for the very ending felt even more "too fast" compared to the rest of the ending. It just *happened* out of nowhere, and not in the good Sanderlanche way. It definitely had a good partial Sanderlanche, and I've probably read worse, but for obvious reasons it's not up-to-par with his published works. There were definitely some funny typoes, at times. Also, I still have yet to EVER hear the world "maladroit" outside of a Sanderson work, if I'm being honest. With Sanderson's 6-draft system, assuming he used it back then, version 3 would be the version that had gone through alpha but NOT beta readers, correct? I may reorganize this in a bit, to put similar thoughts near each other. I'm less tired than last night, but I DID still just wake up, but wanted to get my new thoughts down before I forgot.