Argent

Metaphors <3

I think the problem comes from this Goodreads quote. All the references to "Tyrant" I can recall right now include it in some way.

I think I've missed something somewhere. Back in my days Kelsier & co. were fighting to overthrow the Lord Ruler, but I've seen him referred to as Lord Tyrant far more often. Was there another edition of the books before the YA ones (and on that note, what do the YA ones call him?)? Is it just a translation thing? I could see that happening. What's up with all this?

It's confirmed, I suck at remembering to update this. I finished Promise of Blood and have moved on to The Crimson Campaign. It is much better (not that PoB was bad or anything). I am actually a little irritated at how much I like it - I was hoping The Powder Mage would end up being a mediocre series, so I can finish the core novels (The Autumn Republic doesn't come out until 2015) and go read The Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan. I had planned to read The Tower Lord before I even went into The Powder Mage series, but then I got a little distracted by Shadows Beneath and just picked something without thinking.

I think half of the replies you've given me have been corrections to stuff I've said. Did I maybe steal your breakfast sometime ago?

This makes me think of the categorization of metals in Allomancy. Which would make a very weird and meta sort of sense, because if the Shards could be divided into categories, then I wouldn't be too surprised to see Preservation keep those categories when designing his/her own magic system.

Fair enough. Should've been symbiotes.

And interesting thought. It sounds likely, but I am inclined to disagree. As far as I can tell, the Aviars are a fairly recent product of Brandon's creativity, something he came up not too long before the podcast in which they brainstormed Shadows Beneath. So a couple of years tops. The Way of Kings and the Purelake fish have been around longer than that.

I feel similarly about him, so there could be that too... And the bolding was weird. I figured each bolded phrase was like a highlight, or a summary, of the paragraph (excerpt) around it.

Yeah, I felt... defensive. Protective. A little negative, apprehensive. I understand that in its core, the review was very high praise. But the way OSC delivered made it (sound) at least a little negative, if not patronizing.

Pretty sure you are overthinking it. We were told that the "hidden thing" is a small Easter egg with no actualy significance to the world, just something cool. Plus, considering that a good chunk of Brandon's worldbuilding comes from "oh, hey, this is cool, I am going to put it in the Cosmere!" moments, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he stumbled upon the Julia set randomly and thought to use it; or maybe he wanted a world whose shape was founded in geometry, and the Julia set worked nicely.

Yes, Shardblades defaulted to a sword form because they were created to imitate the Honorblades. We have a WoB on that.

You broke it! So until this gets fixed, I'll say that as a guy I love 'er. Wits count for much in my books, and Shallan has them plenty.

Oh, and there is the thing that Szeth's highly mobile fighting style might work better with a thinner Shardblade - though without the weight restrictions normal weapons must be subject to, I don't know if a bigger Blade would hinder him.

Perception, I believe, is the right answer here. I should also note that Szeth's - Jezrien's - Honorblade might be an exception. When "Taln" shows up before the gates of Kholinar, for example, his Honorblade is described as massive. At the end of the day, we just haven't seen enough of those, but I have a good feeling about the sizes of both Shard- and Honorblades depending on their current (and past few, probably) wielder; I can't imagine Lyss wielding a massive Shardblade for some reason...

"congratulations"

I think you are either missing the complexity of some of the characters or their relationships, or you are trying to make them fit into more classical character roles from the fantasy genre (which doesn't work), and that's the main reason you are missing out on the euphoria most of us shared in those final chapters.

But they are not the only predators on the islands, and considering that marmots have psychic abilities, it's very likely that all species do.

Probably not. The worms seem to only live on Patji, and species that are not birds would have a hard time getting there (and it's implied that the predators, such as nightclaws, are on all the islands).

Sad Kaladin: First, yes, he has depression, but if I recall correctly it's seasonal, tied to the Weeping. Which is when this chapter takes place, so it makes sense for him to be at least a little down, even if he hadn't just possibly failed to save his family, while suffering from withdrawal. I don't think we'll get another book of Kaladin being mopey - that was his The Way of Kings arc. We are done with it - Words of Radiance wasn't about Kaladin being mopey, or about him being in prison, or anything like that - we just remember those moments vividly because how influential they were for him; Kaladin spent less than one out of the five books that composed Words of Radiance, so it's unfair to complain about that, especially since the ending promised us a more... energetic, driven Kal. Listeners changing forms: I am going to guess they can only do it outside. Eshonai had to get out of the storm, and even the less conservative of her people could only hide from the highstorm for so long before the have to step out and embrace transformation. They have to be outside when the Stormfather, or the eye of the storm, or whatever you want to call it, passes over them; the thing that infuses spheres, the thing that brings the calm.

We should probably put a big Stones Unhallowed Spoilers sign somewhere and stop talking behind the tags...

Actually we don't know whether Dalinar is seeing exactly the same visions Gavilar did (Brandon RAFO'd me on that one). The unification theme is definitely shared, but the specifics could be different.

I... don't know, actually. I didn't feel like that at all. The climax had to be fast-paced, that's how Brandon writes them, but I felt like things were explained and made sense. P.S. This should be moved to the Words of Radiance subforum, where the "beware spoilers" won't be necessary.

Didn't he say - or think to himself - that a few people do? I seem to have a memory of something about that.