Powerful Meower

Not gunna lie moash would be a lot more hateable for me if the storm moash crowd wasn't so mindless in their hate. 

19 hours ago, Black_Shoshan said:

What I like about Lift is that while she acts like she doesn't take anything seriously, when it comes to doing things she actually does a lot. Saves Gawx and Stump, is influential in getting Gawx and the Azish to listen to Dalinar, works together with Szeth to steal back the ruby that imprisoned Nergaoul. That said, I totally understand people finding her annoying.

I feel like that isn't nessisaroly her taking things seriously, I more feel like those are just actions inconsistent with her character than prevent her from being a bad person (brandon realized he was writing a character that comes off as apathetic and didn't want that). She is a good person, in the way a 10 year old can be a good person but not take other important parts of their life seriously, that is the main reason I struggle to read through lift. The rest of it is the spamming of the word awesome, really if she would use a less obnoxious word I would probably not hate her so much.

19 hours ago, Black_Shoshan said:

The character I hate most is Taravangian, and it seems like I'm a minority here. I think he'll well written, but I find him loathsome. He excuses his crimes with the perfect excuse of "oh, I'm just doing all this to save the world", but meanwhile he's responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people (the hospitals, the Veden civil war and the other massacres), and he has no guarantee that his plan will actually work. 

Taravangian goes on and on about how he's sacrificing his own morality for a greater good, but his doubts of the morality of his actions never stop him or even make him hesitate. And in actual fact the sacrifices are done by other people - innocent people who have done nothing to deserve their fate, and are killed because Taravangian thinks he can profit from their death. This is basically Elhokar's or Amaram's crimes, times a hundred.

Taravangian puts his faith in the Diagram as the means of saving the world, despite two issues: the first, that the diagram (or his interpretation of it) has been wrong - but no, he has to keep his trust in the almighty diagram, and the second issue, that because his intelligence and empathy are proportioned inversely, that on his genius day his mindset was the most un-empathetic, and likely extremely cruel. In other words, the diagram is the product of a genius but malicious brain.

Honestly, I hope Taravangian lives just long enough for all of his plans to fail, and for him to die full of pain and regret.

I definitely found Taravangian frustrating to read because even when its clear he is misunderstanding what he wrote down he just moves forward with reckless abandon. It is similar to lift in that he has abstracted his goals so far from his day to day experience that it seems he no longer takes what he is doing seriously himself. Because if he did there would be room for advisement and admitting he didn't understand what the plan was anymore. At some point it feels like he is just trying to maintain his glory from when he was deifically brilliant just assuming that he is doing the right thing because he thought this was the right plan when he had the powers of premonition. 

What if his brilliance was the work of odium? And what looked like premonition was actually just Odium showing Taravangian what Odium wanted him to see so that he would go around killing honorable men.

All of that being said I am excited to read about Taravangian, I am still dreading Lift's future chapters. 

 

I have to vote for Lift. The worst person to have around in a serious situation (like the end of the world) is one who does not outwardly take the situation seriously, that is the feeling I get from Lift. She may have very useful powers and be a good person but if she doesn't work effectively with the team she is worse than useless, she is actually a liability. I found it incredibly grating when she refused to listen to wyndel on how to take better advantage of her powers.  

Lift just gives me anxiety as a character and I find her poorly written, she is literally a collection of her own tropes and the word "awesome". Her personality and writing are VERY jarring and just don't fit with the mood or theme of stormlight at all.

That being said, because she starts from such an obnoxious spot, and is literally a child, I feel like she has a lot of potential for growth and depending on how she changes, I may grow to like her. 

Kolos17, I read through most of the Sanderson novels back to back after starting stormlight I did: Stormlight, then Mistborn, then Arcanum, Warbreaker, and then finished with the oldest Elantras (this was honestly my favorite). I tried to read Edgedancer but I really cannot stand Lift right now, though I am excited for her characters potential. Read some other authors for a few months and am now circling back to stormlight. I'm so glad I am re-reading, making new connections as I re-read, currently almost done with WOR, hoping i'll be able to get through oathbringer before stormlight 4 comes out.

Mist, I am a artist and social chameleon IRL so I identify most with the lightweavers!

Shout out to honorles's (sorry wont let me tag you) thread about the community not thinking through Moash's motivations carefully enough. Got me to sign up. 

I am currently Re-reading stormlight in preparation for book 4, can't wait to favorite insightful comments and participate in engaging discussions.