Argent

I am going to go ask about that Aon Ela.

Yeah, I saw that too. The cover makes much more sense though - it's a stylistic choice. Given that it's established that giant Aons - e.g. Rao - may have interesting effects, I would be really surprised of that Ela doesn't either produce an effect, or help Rao work somehow.

Harmonium actually looks kind of like atium and lerasium combined.

I feel I am doing other books - and myself - a disservice if I start them too soon after a Brandon one. I would rather engage in some other activities than risk disliking a book I could potentially like had I read it another time.

I've grown to accept this as a fact of life. These days I give myself 2-3 weeks after I finish a Brandon book, to cleanse my palette, so to speak. Otherwise other books just look dull.

The magnificent human being that is Patrick Rothfuss (who, as you might know, is running the glorious fundraiser Worldbuilders right now) is organizing AMAs on Reddit with a plethora of authors. You can find them all under the AMA Worldbuilders flair in /r/fantasy, and they are all worth reading, but the (most) important takeaway here is that Brandon will be joining a few other authors (Dana Cameron, Megan O'Keefe, Wes Chu, Peter Orullian, and Joe Ducie) tomorrow, December 3. I am going to try to sneak in a Cosmere questions if I can do so in a graceful way that doesn't insult the other authors - technically, the AMA only recommends that we ask broad questions addressed to all of the authors, it doesn't prohibit us from bugging Brandon about stuff. But I would feel better if we could do the best of both worlds. For your (other) reference, here's the full list of authors and the dates they are answering questions.

It's really just a way for you to ask Brandon to personalize your book. You can ask for pretty much anything (reasonable) - a dedication, a quote, something silly for hit to write, a question about any one of his books, maaaybe a question about himself, a picture. You name it. When I bought my copy of Shadows of Self I asked him to write a dedication (to me) as if he were from Scadrial and got something like "May your metals be always full" or "May your metals never run out" or something to that effect. I have decided that I like getting my books personalized in such fashion - something personal, but also fitting the world the book takes place in. So I am trying to come up with something Aonic for the leatherbound Elantris.

Maybe Peter is now interested enough to ask for us and share the answer? Pretty please, Peter?

I play Tavern Brawls almost exclusively these days. Only so many hours in a day, and Hearthstone is a fairly low priority for me. But the Brawls are usually fun.

Headphones and loud music will show up a little later.

Team Sanderson has been consistently crushing my theories for years now. At this point I almost feel like my theories are as valuable as WoBs, only they come with a negative value - if I predict something, it's not going to be true...

Interesting. I thought the streets formed an interesting shape, but didn't recognize it as an Aon. Do you have a Reddit account? I feel like Brandon might comment on something like this if it were a Reddit discussion.

Sel is the Elantris world.

Neil Gaiman makes everything better, confirmed. One of the most memorable lines of the entire reboot came from The Doctor's Wife: Fear me, I've killed hundreds of Time Lords. Fear me, I've killed all of them. It's how I want to remember Matt Smith - not the goofball he was in 90% of the episodes. It's right up there with Eccleston's "Just this once everybody lives!" and David Tennant's "The laws of time are mine!" / Time Lord victorious!

I find this difficult to believe, we know that a Shard's Intent overwrites the holder's personality over time. This contradicts what you are saying, I think.

I think Brandon confirmed that the sheaths are not made of aluminum. Not 100% sure though.

Finished Pyramids. I am technically on track with my 52-book 2015 challenge, but I am starting to suspect that unless I up my speed a little, I'll finish December a couple of books short... Onto Small Gods now.

See, an episode like Face the Raven illustrates everything I think works for the show - it is at its strongest when they allow it to be a story about characters, not one about low-budget aliens. I've been reading some reviews that explain why the Doctor should really be angry at himself for Clara's fate (because it's his personality that changes the people around him, making them more reckless, which is what ultimately led his companion to risk her life so readily). Maybe. It was a damnation good speech though, the whole "good man goes to war" (or, as I like to think about it, the anger of a gentle man) thing various Doctors have pulled off always gets me; it's one of the few things that consistently work for me in this show. Clara's plea for the Doctor to not turn to vengeance was also well done. All in all, those last 10 minutes were really solid. And there are episodes like Sleep no More, which... just... what the duck? Stupid, inconsistent, poorly acted, lacking character development, boring set, dumb monsters, unforeshadowed insights, literally, and I meant literally, the only good things about it were the very last scene and the beautiful acapella bit of Mr. Sandman they so readily played everywhere.

Since all kandra refer to him as Father, I very much doubt there is anything biological going on.

With risk of derailing the thread a little (more), I find that it's best to be a little thick when reading books. Makes it easier for foreshadowing to kick in at the last possible moment, for maximum punch. It's also a compliment to the author, you immersing yourself in their world so much, you overlook details because characters overlooked them.

I don't know if this could work. The way I imagine it, when the Lord Ruler ripped the Feruchemy out of every Feruchemist he could detect, the damaged caused by the massive holes in their Spiritwebs is what caused the physical transformation. Maybe he tweaked them a little to make sure they could still survive, but I see the removal of their magic as the primary driver for change. This is supported, I believe, by the knowledge that giving them Hemalurgic spikes, any spikes as far as I know, reverts a lot of the damage. A Hemalurgic spikes are really just patches of Spiritweb.

It is, but it's also orders of magnitude smaller. You have to admit, spawning an entire new magic system is a tad more significant than spawning a new Allomantic effect - and a very expensive one (in terms of metal consumption rate) at that.

Yeah. I don't know if we have an explicit confirmation of this, but I think most of us have been assuming it has something to do with the common roots of most of the Shardworlds' languages. Either that, or at some point Roshar did have dogs, and while it has lost them, the language artifacts remain.

I think this is a theory that could work, I actually like it, but I've always been skeptical of arguments that involve applying Sazed's physical traits to modern Terrismen.

So, this is actually the first show I legitimately binge watch on Netflix. Bit of a trivia. It's also one of the few shows I haven't seen any reviews, recaps, or commentaries for, so my reactions are... pure. Spoiler-free: Krysten Ritter did an amazing job at portraying a traumatized, a broken Jessica Jones. Seriously. Pretty much every time she interacted with, well, anyone else, one of the dominant thoughts in my head was "Wow, that's one broken person." Her fight scenes, on the other hand... I guess they were alright? A few of them were gloriously filled with destruction, and I often enjoy watching sets get demolished, but outside of those I rarely got the impression that Jessica was supernaturally - or, perhaps, extranaturally - strong. Luke Cage was... underwhelming, I think. I realize it's not his show, and he did a solid job being... well, solid, but I would've liked to see more character development from him. Trish deserved more. They gave her a lot, but she deserved even more. I loved virtually every scene with her (except for the ones with her boyfriend - those were horrid). Her relationship with Jessica was just great. I would've liked if they had shown a bit more of how they got to be such good friends, but I'll take it as is. On the other hand, Malcolm didn't work out for me. I think they gave him a role bigger than what his character could fulfil. And this, of course, leaves us with the wonderful human being that is David Tennant. I don't even know if my thoughts on Kilgrave are even remotely objective, that's how biased I am towards Tennant. But he did great. Not a raving lunatic, not obviously insane - just someone who commands and is obeyed, unquestionably. The reveal about how his powers work was also a nice touch, I like this kind of stuff in my shows. All in all, I would definitely rate Jessica Jones at least a "fun to watch." I don't know if it can go much higher than that, too many of its secondary characters didn't fully work out for me (the entire Hogarth, for example). It was also definitely dark - which doesn't usually bother me, but there was one scene in the AKA 1,000 Cuts episode (and another couple of scenes in the episodes after that) that made me a little uncomfortable. Which doesn't diminish the show's value, but it surprised me. All this being said, 7/10 or 8/10 is probably where I'd put it. More likely 7.