Returned

You made the definitive claim initially, with the citation. Some 15 hours and two posts later you mention that it was secondhand. It's the initial piece, the definitive claim based on a reference which you had not read and with no indication that you hadn't read it yourself, that is the issue for the reasons I described. I don't see that I'm pressing it particularly hard, but you are repeatedly saying that you presented the qualification that you had only gotten the information secondhand. This would be relevant to what I'm saying if it had taken place at least alongside the initial claim. It's admirable that you did add the qualification later, but the better time to indicate that you had not personally seen the reference would have been when you first invoked it as definitive evidence of what you were saying. I tried to make it clear with your initial comment contrasted with the second, gentler example. The example I gave did not assert that your position was definitely correct because of this reference that you were personally familiar with, but instead stated what you believed the correct conclusion to be, why you believed it, and the valuable information that you had not actually seen the reference and did not have access to it, and were therefore asking someone if they could provide it. "This seems to answer the question, but I can't check it myself, could someone help check so that we can all know if it answers the question?" is different from "I'm right, you're wrong, the proof is exactly here... [someone challenges the reference]... oh, I've never seen it and am not providing it, will someone else provide it to prove me right, which I am, see my earlier post?". Without the "I'm right, you're wrong, here's the proof" piece when you have not seen the proof there would be no issue at all. It seems like you saw the citation on Coppermind, presented it as decisive and reliable evidence because you trusted the citation, then when someone pushed back admitted that you hadn't actually read the reference and weren't sure the citation was accurate or said precisely what you claimed, and asked for someone else to check it. You then got hold of the reference yourself and posted it, which is great, and the whole forum is better off for it. But suggesting that you were upfront about not being sure of the reference, or that you did not deploy it without having actually read it, plainly misrepresents the record. It's not a huge deal, but it really seems like that's what happened and when you post about your umbrage of my "accusatory" tone and incredulity about what might be better forum practice I'll explain further. Which is exactly what's happened. 100% possible, and a very reasonable piece of context to bring in I'm glad that you have brought it up and emphasized it. As for the artillery I'll have to re-read, is that in WaT? That's the SA book I've read the least, so my casual recall is poorest for it among the others. I completely agree on both counts. I got a strong impression from your posts that you were arguing that they definitely do because they must and are capable of it, specifically rejecting that other considerations might be at play.

This is no less conjecture. Radiants and Fused certainly are analogues, but to suggest that they are similar in many (though not all) ways and so must be similar in this one, additional way isn't much of an argument. Especially when we know that they differ in other ways, such as unlimited passive benefits and no (or negligible) Voidlight loss, so they aren't 1:1 analogues. Again, I'm not ruling out the similar method, only indicating that we don't have any specific evidence in favor of it, either. I am in a state of equipoise. Every fight they've lost, then. Which is really the same list as I offered before, but perhaps especially in WaT. The Fused we're most familiar with have some options: Heavenly Ones could lash boulders as artillery, Masked Ones could sow confusion with free-ranging illusions, etc. The types we're less familiar with were almost certainly present in those WaT battles, but they either didn't use their external powers or their external powers weren't enough to win. Every tactic that makes Surges useful for Radiants in combat should also apply to the Fused with those same Surges, plus the Fused have far more experience, knowledge, and subtlety surrounding their powers. It is possible that the books simply omit instances of them using their powers externally, maybe to hold those details back until later books. There is a frustrating amount of that. Possible, and maybe even likely, as we similarly don't see a lot of the powers from Radiant orders that haven't been featured prominently. But the Fused lost those battles regardless, despite their greater skill, so their Surges may not be as devastatingly effective as suggested. But maybe that's an army composition issue more than anything else, it's not like we got a ton of information on the troop ratios. My comment was related to advancing the citation as decisive evidence without having, or having seen, the reference. "This book definitely states this, right here on these pages, therefore you must accept my conclusion" is too strong an assertion in such a case. Making that assertion while also asking someone else to provide the reference is the part that's poor form, and acknowledging that you hadn't actually seen the referenced material (quite a bit later, no less) doesn't really address that. Your original statement was "The Stormlight World Guide states it, on pages 208-209. The same guide states Deepest Ones can manipulate stone like Stonewards. The lore in it and other RPG books is considered fully canon". Compare that with something like "I saw a reference that suggests there is an entry on page 209 of the Stormlight World Guide indicating that Fused can use Surges externally, but I haven't seen it myself/don't have the book handy to get the exact text. Can anyone verify, and post the reference if possible?". The former is generally not that well received here, and the latter much more so. It's mildly similar to the earlier comment "I've seen statements that they [Singer gemhearts] are quite small, so small they are often not spotted among Singer remains.". I responded that I'd never seen such a statement and asked if you were aware of any I could take a look at, and it turns out there weren't any. The WoB we were both referencing said nothing at all about gemheart size and was specifically about something else, and that something else explained why the gemhearts were often missed. The size piece was invented from information not in the reference, the explanation the reference provided was missed, and then the reference was cited as though it specifically supported the initial comment. It's not a big deal, and I like getting into the weeds of details of the Cosmere books and tracking down information that is proven, theorized, wildly guessed at, or anything else. That's why I'm here. It's easy and common to overstate things, especially in a contentious thread. I simply find it more productive to nail down references early and reason from there, and when there is uncertainty or vagueness of evidence it's good to present that upfront, too, for the same reasons. When I'm unsure about what a reference specifically says or means, which happens often enough, I try to mention it immediately instead of assuming and committing to the assumption. It's about bringing the most reliable information to the surface as effectively as possible, not being as correct over others as possible as quickly as I can manage. For me it's about that, at least. Take umbrage with whatever you find appropriate, but you claimed definitive proof without having seen that proof, which is the opposite of text-based discussions. Coppermind references are often good, but not perfect. Of course, take any approach to posting on the forum that you like. Absence of evidence is certainly not evidence of absence, if you'll forgive a hackneyed phrase. But it's not evidence of presence either. That the Fused have some sort of limitation on their external use of Surges is conjecture is absolutely true. That the Fused often use their Surges externally and regularly carry extra gemstones to replenish their Light, but we just haven't ever seen any of that, is also conjecture. Not too parsimonious, either. That doesn't mean that it's incorrect or that you can't or shouldn't commit to it, but it maybe isn't surprising that others aren't persuaded by one conjecture in the same way that you are not persuaded by another.

What about something like a drill or Archimedes screw? With Shardblade material you could use a pretty aggressive angle to bore wide holes really quickly.

We don't know a ton of specifics about Singer physiology, but you could easily fit something the size of a golf ball in that area, possibly even something as large as a tennis ball without much fuss (especially accounting for the larger statures of Rosharans compared to Earthlings). Either would be massively larger than the gemstones set into spheres. We don't have very reliable scales for gemheart to creature size, it's very rough estimation. I'm not saying that the Fused have no way to get Voidlight from a gemstone into their own bodies. What I'm saying is that we have no particular reason to think that they breathe it in as Radiants do. It's definitely a possibility, maybe even likely. But by this statement from you it seems that we don't have any in-text indication that the mechanism is the same. It could be something like the transfer of Light from one gemstone to another via sound coaxing it on, as artifabrians do, for example. That's infusion of Light but not via breathing it in. If nothing else it seems like Lezian's process may take longer than just inhaling, given Kaladin's brief dialogue with Raboniel while Lezian is away recharging, but I wouldn't stake too much on that. I don't see how you can be so certain in your assertion of the mechanism, and so absolute your rejection of even the possibility that it's different. As I said previously, if you have a citation of someone describing a Fused taking in Voidlight like a Radiant takes in Stormlight, that would help. Every Desolation, with the later ones being particularly relevant (human knowledge, technology, and industry were badly degraded by the time of Aharietiam, when 9 in 10 dead was the casualty rate, while the Fused were more experienced than ever before). Multiple engagements between Heavenly Ones and Windrunners from RoW. Azir and the Shattered Plains in WaT. "Close loss" isn't very impressive if we're granting that the Fused are so much better than human soldiers, especially if they are also blasting external magic everywhere with ample Voidlight to power it. Maybe I've misunderstood what you're asking (particularly the "times they failed to do so"), if so please let me know. Of course the claim is not irrelevant just because you aren't the original source, but the lack of the cited reference makes it less useful as evidence of a claim which you are making very strongly. The issue is that the specific text is important when it is both the source and only evidence for the claim. Were I to say "I saw someone say that page 387 of Oathbringer explicitly states that Fused can't use their Surges externally", everyone would disagree-- even if assertion about Fused were true, that reference doesn't exist and so the citation cannot offer anything to anyone. Without checking the cited source myself I would not want to advance such a strong assertion based only on that citation, especially if I had not read Oathbringer at all. The RPG books as sources do seem to be harder and less common to cite, for a variety of reasons, for whatever that's worth. Asserting something without a citation is fine in discussion, especially if you think you recall something without remembering exactly where you might have seen it or what exactly it said, but it is poor form to demand that others provide citations for their own arguments as well as yours. I don't see that it's insulting to say that your assertion is based on a reference you did not provide and that you heard about secondhand when you, yourself, mention both of those things. You seem awfully certain of the what the referenced material may (or may not) provide, and as it sounds like you haven't read that material yourself (it wouldn't be secondhand if you had) your certainty that the reference is both correct and what you present it to be seems a bit strong. Not too strong to be why you have reached a conclusion, but too strong to expect others to accept it as evidence. "This book on this page definitely says this, I think" might lead to a more measured assertion than "this conclusion is indisputably correct". It doesn't even seem like it matters, as external use of Surges by Fused is conclusively proven via two other avenues mentioned in this thread. Whether or not the Masked Ones and Deepest Ones can use their powers in exactly those ways seems tangential, unless I'm misunderstanding why they were brought up. We have consistent evidence from multiple scenes that the Fused don't use the Surges externally very often, at least in the Final Desolation's various conflicts, despite obviously being able to use them that way. There is almost certainly a reason for that even though we don't know specifically what it is. We know that there are some differences between how Radiants and Fused use their Lights and Surges but that the Surges themselves are the same. We also know from observation that Radiants use their Surges very frequently, sometimes definitively in combat, while Fused do not use them as often in the same ways. We hear a lot about Radiants carrying infused spheres with them to fuel those Surges, and running out of Light is frequently a problem for them, while we don't hear about those things for the Fused. The Fused are not so skilled that they can easily win without their Surges, as evidenced by their frequent defeats, and so if they could use their Surges more often and that would help them to win there must be some reason that they don't. Maybe the Fused carry sacks of infused spheres into battle and are constantly using their Surges externally, and the books simply never describe it in any way. Maybe the reason is something else. Maybe that reason involves re-infusing themselves being more difficult or slower than it is for Radiants, or maybe there is some other limitation on their external use of Surges. The evidence you've presented on why we should reject possibilities other than the first one is not persuasive to me thus far.

Rough estimates of the scale from other Rosharan creatures and the estimates of chip/mark/broam sizes from the Coppermind, and descriptions of spheres in the books. My understanding of the Singer gemhearts is that they are cloudy and colored similarly to bone (Oathbringer, I-7, page 833) and grow in the sternum (see WoB, below)-- they specifically look like bone and are incorporated into bone. This is more than sufficient to explain why they aren't spotted, without any assertions about their size being tiny. They're also mostly useless (except to the living Singer for whom it's a body part), so there wouldn't be much cause for anyone to bother extracting or even looking for them. I don't recall seeing any statement on Singer gemheart size being particularly small, perhaps you could share your citations on this? WoB citation on Singer gemheart appearance: I reviewed (quickly) the section of RoW that I thought most likely to show Lezian drawing the Light from gems, but if there is an on-screen case of Lezian drawing Light I missed it (or I could be looking at totally the wrong section). The best I found was a description, from Raboniel, that Lezian was recharging from spheres he'd hidden in the tower (RoW, page 710). Interestingly, Raboniel describes this process as infusion, similar to what we see with charging spheres and fabrials. If there is another reference to Lezian drawing Light, especially seeing him do it in a Radiant-like fashion, could you share the citation? Apologies if you already did so upthread and I missed that, too. I read this as disagreeing with Frustration's hazekiller coefficient scale and not an argument that Fused carry infused gemstones with them (just confirming, as in my previous post I suggested this as a reason Fused were less likely to carry gemstones). They don't necessarily have the Light a 3rd-Ideal Radiant has, an amount which varies as they draw and use it. They have Investiture on par with such a Radiant, which is more about how much Light they can hold and use, as well as the efficiency with which they use it. If a Fused really does store their Voidlight in their gemheart, then the amount of Light they carry with them will be capped at the amount the gemheart can hold whereas a Radiant can draw the Light of lots of gems at once, including very large ones, and store it (poorly) in their body. We already know that Fused can use Light externally (from a WoB and a handful of examples), but we don't see them do so very often. They can't be so good that they don't need it, as the Fused have lost every Desolation ever. So if they aren't using their Surges externally that seems unlikely to be the reason. When we see them fail so much on screen, the idea that they are declining to use their Surges externally suggests that they: 1. would not be effective enough to tip the balance; and/or 2. have some other limitation on their use which causes them to hold back. Lack of replacement Light, whatever the specific reason, would explain 2. If it's 1, then that seems detrimental to your position. Another argument against the need to carry infused gems with them, though I maintain that high throughput of Light has serious, battle-relevant costs which might argue against frequent magic use. If you're going to demand citations (which is certainly fair here), it would be a good idea not to simply pass on secondhand things you've heard from wherever as argumentation. The Cosmere RPG books are a source which is worth referencing, but if that's the only citation for a conclusion that is otherwise not in evidence and fits poorly with more canonically clear information (book appearance, explanation, or WoB) it's a conditional and tenuous conclusion at best, even with a citation.

I hope you don't mind me cutting in, but a few things I believe are true about the Fused and Voidlight might be useful (and if I'm mistaken, correction would be welcome): Fused all have large gems inside of their bodies at all times: their gemhearts These gemhearts seem to have some role in the use of their powers (I think in WaT Adolin damages Abidi by nicking or cracking his gemheart, preventing him from flying... I might be misremembering details though) Resupplying Voidlight is much easier than Stormlight. Just perform the Song of Prayer and then you're all set-- no need to wait for another Highstorm or Dalinar-created perpendicularity. I'm not sure what's involved in the song, and it seems like you can't just hum it while fighting (else Lezian would never need to run off), but Fused will never find themselves low on power during something like the Weeping Singer gemhearts do not appear to leak Investiture as Radiants' bodies and regular gemstones do, though that conclusion seems implausible to me. It seems more likely that it depletes very slowly and is so easy to refill that they effectively don't run out. But maybe that's not the answer and Voidlight is simply different from Stormlight in this way (I think I remember reading that Voidlight inherently leaks more slowly) 1 and 2, together, suggest that the gemheart can and does hold Voidlight, and Singer gemhearts are larger than what we see in spheres so they can probably hold a lot. That always-available store, along with 3 and 4, seriously cuts down on the need to carry backup gems. Healing is nice, but they're immortal anyways, and outside of that I'm not sure we've ever seen a Fused suffer from lack of Light or fail to have enough to do anything they want to do. I agree that it's not definitive, but it is suggestive that we've literally never seen a Fused draw Voidlight from a gemstone or even hold or carry such a gem. Despite striking down many Fused and Singer soldiers, I don't believe any of the Radiants had ever seen Voidlight until it happened on-screen in... I forget the first appearance (Kholinar, in Oathbringer?). There is also an endurance angle. Radiants get worn out from channeling too much Light, though the amount they can wield increases as they progress through the Oaths. If we accept that Fused have access to about as much Investiture as a 3rd-Oath Radiant they can probably do a lot with it, but blasting magic around may not be the best use of their capacities. Even the Heralds didn't rely only on their ability to project magic back when they were fueled directly by Honor. Fused are physically more powerful than humans, much older and far more experienced, and get passive Investiture benefits constantly and with no particular cost. Trying to fight like a Radiant might be playing to their limitations rather than their advantages, especially if it tires them. Finally, Stormlight is easy to accumulate, or at least it used to be. Anyone with gems, even uncut ones, just exposes them to a Highstorm and they fill up. Voidlight is only granted from Odium, and he seems like he likes having his Fused dependent on him and obedient. He may not permit large-scale storage of Voidlight. That, or some other orthogonal reason, might explain why we don't see Fused carrying Voidlight, whether or not they could use it in this way.

I wonder if you could create some kind of swarm of plates with Aons inscribed on them and rearrange them at will to accomplish different things. Maybe suspended in some fluid, maybe in some sort of frame with panels. Even better if combined with Awakened components to rearrange the plates dynamically in response to changes in the environment.

I agree with this, but rethinking this book (for which I really appreciate this thread!) I'm curious to see how other people feel about this: the liberalization of the yoki-hijo, the artists by whose efforts then-modern life was possible, is thematically mirrored by the low-wage, low-respect profession of painting in Nikaro's time. Yoki-hijo managed the spirits and technology, and once the Father Machine obviated that but produced the shroud then painters managed the shroud. Up until the book's climax, Nikaro exemplified the ultimate extreme of this trend-- he didn't even bother to bring any artistry to his work, simply painting the same bamboo over and over again. Mechanically, if you will. The yoki-hijo were highly respected and, supposedly, inimitable, which was expressed by their removal from society and highly formalized rituals of veneration. Allowing them to be people rather than just holders of their station breaks most of that formalized respect down, making them less mystical more ordinary. People were certainly open enough to the machine-produced results, suggesting they weren't all that attached to the cultural role of the yoki-hijo. Painters are minimally respected, poorly compensated and far from revered. Had the Father Machine never been activated, I can imagine yoki-hijo becoming a similarly rote job when the pomp and ceremony are removed. Considered this way, the cultural attitude towards art and artists' functional roles is a pretty straight line. This is offset, I think, by art as something to experience, like the televised dramas. In fairness I think that this was hinted at by people's (especially Yumi's) captivation with the drama programs. I still don't think it was developed well enough to completely and costlessly fix the central tensions of the book, but there was something there to establish it in advance. I think that the difference is in scale and craftsmanship/form, whatever the specific causes are. With only sixteen yoki-hijo at a time and the laborious process of stacking stones there is a serious limit to how many spirits can be bound into material goods and so the efficiency of attracting the spirits was impossible to ignore. The stacking machines can make far more with far less human effort, and the results are lower quality but good enough to be useful, but that output requires efficiency because the stacks are poor. The dramas can be produced by vastly more than what just sixteen people could make and be shown to spirits all over the world at the same time, so the efficiency loss isn't that severe of a problem-- it's made up for by volume and on a scale vastly outstripping the stacking machines. Plus, the hion are very versatile and hion quality doesn't seem to be an issue, so the dramas don't even have to be that good. Just appealing enough to enough spirits that they'll take a shift as a hion line for a while.

The way this is phrased makes me wonder: did they learn anything? The Yumi-style Yoki-hijo were as controlled and mechanized as their society could manage, and everything about their upbringing and training was meant to strip away their individuality. They did nothing but their work, not even maintain themselves by eating, dressing, or bathing. The maximum standard of living in their society was limited largely by how quickly they could move from settlement to settlement and how reliably they could attract spirits. Not long after the Yoki-hijo started moving away from that lifestyle (with the implication that people would have to get by with fewer spirit-bound goods), the scholars came along with their machine and promised a more productive and efficient method of getting good-enough goods. If I remember correctly, there was some kind of minor hiccup when it was activated but the survivors eventually experienced a much, much higher standard of living than anyone before. Now they have the hion lines for as long as they can impress spirits with television, and as long as they can impress enough they'll have functionally unlimited energy. Since they were making the shows anyways it might as well be free energy, too. But if they start losing the spirits' interest, will people accept their standard of living dropping? Will their television shows focus on artistry, getting the viewers they can, or are they headed for a future of formulaic, template-driven, mechanically produced Love Island clones? I think that the implication is the former, since Virtuosity's influence reigns there, but might their people not be attracted to another machine that maximizes what they can have? Maybe we'll see the planet again, in the future, dominated by the Father Machine, Jr.

I hadn't thought about it that way before, but I can see that angle. I'll have to re-read the ending with it in mind. I still dislike that type of ending as a structure (meaningful death, especially as a sacrifice chosen by that character, then immediate, free resurrection) but that's different thing. And it is a romance story, where that sort of thing is more expected (and it's certainly a romantic ending).

My issue with the ending is less that Yumi survived and more that death-and-resurrection-via-wanting-it-enough-at-the-last-minute is an arbitrary device which really damages the weight of the death in the first place. You can have your cake and eat it, too. The thematic mismatch is more broad (for me), and I agree that what was written suits Yumi' character arc, as you outlined very well. Nikaro really can just spin up a wish that the world will rearrange itself to accommodate. Yumi's sacrifices really were unimportant, just as the more liberally raised yoki-hijo demonstrated in her proper time. I don't like those things as much. The alternative ending I would prefer isn't necessarily one in which Yumi simply dies. It's one in which the last-minute magic Nikaro works was set up in some way, or the happy ending was achieved through less sudden, arbitrary means to immediately undo Yumi's self-sacrifice. Choices and sacrifices characters make should impact the ending more, and tidy, happy endings are overdone enough that I tend not to get any particular satisfaction from them.

Thanks, it was the Japanese names (Yumi, Akane, etc.) that threw me. Nice primer! I understand the concept well enough. But whatever the specifics, they aren't properly expressible in English which can make it awkward to directly "translate", especially without the actual antecedents. I like the highly/lowly approach taken in Yumi for a bit of exoticism and worldbuilding (it really emphasizes the different social context) but dislike it as prose style. I don't like the approach much as a literary device either, and Hoid's "this is the best I can translate it to your language" puts it firmly in that territory. Mostly a personal taste and preference thing for me, not much of a critique beyond that.

I really enjoyed it. The setting was interesting, as was the split between contexts. I thought that the context-swapping concept was done well and suited the story, the contrasts of different art styles and commitment to them were interesting, and that the setups and reveals were pretty well done (I was intrigued throughout, at least). The romance plot was fine, though I thought the beginning was a little bit rushed/asserted more than shown but it came together in a satisfying way. I liked the structure of the climax, that Yumi could be contained and kept from learning enough to really challenge her containment but that her development and skill in her art could not be controlled. I thought that the villain, an established and disinterested machine, was an interesting change of pace, and the attendant scholars who were enslaved but happy to be part of their great design was also interesting. I enjoyed the nature of the nightmares, especially Liyun's personality and dedication overcoming the nature of her nightmare existence. I agree that the ending was awful: unearned, poorly set up and contrary to what was developing, undermining the story and themes of the book to give a tidy, happy ending. The ending alone drags my rating down by at least a star. I also got tired of Design and Hoid quickly, though I think a good portion of that was lingering distaste for Hoid's narration in Tress (which I had finished just before starting Yumi). I liked the pictures as a change of pace, even though I wish they had focused less often on the romance for subjects and composition. The hierarchies of politeness in speech as expressed through grammar is an interesting and real-world thing to include, and done adequately enough, but only just barely so-- 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 [EDIT: Frustration points out that the specific inspiration is Korean, though similar structures exist in Japanese]; I wonder how a Japanese [or Korean] translation expresses it in the book), but the "this novel is an in-world translation of an in-world language" device is generally one that leaves me cold. What would be subtle and artful as inflection becomes blunt and flat when dialogue is frequently modified with "he said respectfully/disrespectfully". The device wasn't quite overused, but it's fundamentally "tell rather than show" and pretending that it would be "shown rather than told" in some language in which the book is not written doesn't fix that for me.

I'm not sure the Arcanum Unbounded map is necessarily to scale or even especially accurate (like, it could be a projection to get everything into one plane for the image). So that's one possible explanation. I don't recall in detail the section you quote and can't look it up right now, but might they have been discussing the perpendicularity as important in regards to travel through the cognitive realm? Physical arrangement is far less rigid there and does not really mirror the physical realm precisely. Travel between Scadrial and Roshar through the CR might be greatly aided by having a waypoint (especially one which allows travel to the physical realm, and therefore physical supply), regardless of the physical locations of the planets.

Not at all. There are plenty of works that I think are not very good but still enjoy. There are works that I think are well done, meticulously crafted and just what the creator wished, but that I don't enjoy. The group that disliked the book has been pretty vocal about why, and the sum of their complaints (voiced or not) is what leads to the assessment of the book's quality. I have a difficult time seeing it as a sign of respect to immediately reject someone's stated reason for why they disliked something, and then assert a totally different reason they never expressed as the reason that is unquestionably correct. Rejecting a view out of hand is the opposite of taking it seriously. It doesn't seem like you're engaging in any inquiry about people's opinions (in this thread at least, which obviously isn't the only one and isn't necessarily representative), instead saying that a variety of expressed opinions can only be wrong both as descriptions of the book and also as description of their own preferences. And it's not like you're raising those points when people say they liked the book because the fight scenes were great or Kaladin is soo coooool or subverting structure necessarily produces great works or whatever. It's only the people who feel differently than you about the book that are told to justify their feelings and rationales to you, or else have them dismissed as false and irrelevant. As I read your posts in this thread I come away with the impression that you think people who disliked WaT mainly felt that way because they are addicted to the narrative structure used in the first three SA books, are incapable of appreciating or enduring that structural change, are incapable of expressing (or even knowing) that that change is what they disliked, and so blindly grasp at an arbitrary (and invalid) detail and wrongly identify it as the explanation, then utterly commit to it anyways in some sort of fumbling, belligerent ignorance. It's a description of someone foolish and shallow. Comments like "most people are very bad at understanding why like certain things over others beyond the purely superficial: if people find the plot boring, or are disappointed by the ending, the real question is why they feel these things" and "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" really radiate contempt and denigration, especially when dismissing those people's opinions (both their evaluation of the book as well as why they evaluated it that way). Maybe that's not your actual sentiment and we're dealing with forum-induced lack of clarity or poor articulation. I don't want to assert the contents of your own mind to you, but I suspect most people will read what was written as an intentional, proudly-delivered insult rather than a gambit in an open, good-faith discussion.