Wayne's Pickle

Awesome, Thanks for the info! The comparison to Percy Jackson is perfect cause I know my 9 year old liked that book.

Hi All, I was hoping someone here can give me some direction on the target age audience for The Rithmatist (I've never read it). For context, I'm contemplating reading the book to 3 of my kids, the youngest of which is 9. The piece I'm worried is about is any sort of romantic subplot. If there is any romantic subplot more than something like Alcatraz the 9 year old is going to groan and run away. I already shelved the Skyward series for that reason.

One 'criticism' that I could level (though it could be considered a strength as well), is that most of Sanderson's work has to do with some sort of political, or social revolution. He certainly does that aspect of his writing very well. However, I would be interested in seeing more stories that didn't have this aspect. For example TotES does a really good job of telling a brilliant story and keeps any sort of political/social upheaval in the background.

I wasn't terribly surprised Sanderson was religious based on his books. Especially when I read Mistborn I could see some LDS influence (At least to my surface level understanding of LDS doctrine). To explain Sanderson's variety of perspectives that he examines religion through: I believe I heard him say on a live stream that he uses writing and stories to explore how different people think and interact with the world. In an effort to understand people better he tries to immerse himself in a character that thinks differently from himself. Related to this, Sanderson has always said he doesn't take the CS Lewis approach of making his stories a metaphor/parable.

I think I'd have to go with either 1) Oogway or 2) Squirtle (Not sure if Pokemon would really work inworld though) Pickle might work as a good backup though

There are many (unpopular) reasons I believe this is true. Firstly, Moash is mainly hated for killing Teft, it seems that is the unforgivable thing. Yes he did the wrong thing in killing Teft, no he should not have done that. Moash killed several other people, too, such as Jezrien and Elhokar. Kelsier on the other hand, killed so many people in his lifetime, much more than Moash. I'm not sure I agree with you in this assement of why Moash is disliked. I agree with you that Kelsier probably killed more people than Moash. But I don't think the reason most readers hate Moash has to do with how many people he killed (They might say that's the reason, but I think the strong gut reaction most people have to Moash runs deeper). Kelsier and Moash were both fighting against injust goverments/systems and I would say pre-Oathbringer, a lot of people probably felt Moash was pretty justified in what he was doing. The reason why Moash is so universally hated now, is because he started out trying to fight a tyrannical system, failed, then decided to join a different tyrannical system that was oppressing the same people he was ostensibly fighting for even more. Moash didn't just betray Kaladin and the Alethi. He betrayed his own ideals as well. You could argue that he was manipulated into it by Odium. But a lot of his decisions happened before he became 'Vyre', and intuitively it's hard to absolve Moash of responsibility because of all the poor decisions he made then. For all that Kelsier was a pretty brutal person, he stayed remarkably consistent with his goals and motivations, and even grew in his moral understandings throughout the books, as opposed to Moash who kept making morally worse decisions as time progressed.

Awesome, I had totally forgotten about those instances. Thanks for pointing those out

I agree that it wasn't the sole reason. I guess a better way of asking my question would be if another person/ pre-Radiant who hadn't yet sworn the first ideal were to pick up (or almost pick up) a dead blade. Would they feel the same sense of wrongness due to their connection with their spren?

Awesome, Thanks for the reply, This was exactly the sort of info I was looking for!

I was reading through the awesome thread 'I'm reading The Stormlight Archive for the first time' and one thing that was mentioned was how Kaladin's decision to not pick up the shardblade after he had killed the shardbearer (while he was in Amaram's army) felt a little heavy handed (i.e. It felt like Brandon was forcing Kaladin to do something his character wouldn't do). That point is completely up for debate. However when I read through the passage I had a particular thought. Obviously Kaladin has his own rationalizations for why he didn't want the blade. But what I'm wondering is if the feeling of wrongness might in part have been due to his growing bond with Syl. We know that at least after the first ideal (I think), a Radiant picking up a shardblade would hear the screams of the spren. But I'm wondering if there might still some sense or intuition that someone who hasn't yet sworn the first ideal would feel when holding or being near a dead blade? Has this ever been addressed anywhere before or is there a WoB on the subject?

Thanks for the warm welcome, I'm glad to be here! I'm especially glad to look through the forums for the esoteric pieces of the cosmere. I'm far too busy these days to go looking for all of that on my own.

I thought about it a bit and here are some more potential ideas. I might come up with some more later: Mistborn: Mistborn as an ability also upset the general Patriarchal bent to pre-catacendre society. In this way the magic was both an enabler and a subverter. Elantris: When a particular Hierarchy collapses, commerce is the fall back (barring war). I believe in Elantris the king was said to be in charge largely because of the economic power he had as a merchant. Roshar: Religion's role in enforcing hierarchy as a separate entity from government. I find it interesting how Alethkar arrived at a separation of Church and State, but how there is a partnership to produce a unified culture. It reminds me a lot of 19th and 20th century USA (and more broadly the West as a whole). Secret Project 1: One of the main ways hierarchy was enforced that we observed was controlling movement of people. By restricting travel in such a dangerous area people were unable to change their place in the general hierarchy.

Sorry about the double post. I wasn't sure what was going on. I will plan to read the rithmatist eventually. As for my least favorite character? I remember really hating KanParr in Hero of ages, though he is a pretty minor character. I think of the major characters it might be either Sadeas or Gavilar.

Hi, Now that I've (almost) caught up with Brandon's published works (I'm on Secret Project #2), I figured I'd join. (Been lurking a few months). I originally started reading Brandon in an effort to quit social media (primarily Reddit) and Fanfiction. I used to be a voracious reader as a kid, but got hooked on Social Media and Fanfiction for about 10 years, and didn't read almost any books during that time. It's been about 3 years now, and I can say that the idea was mostly successful. I now moved on to works outside of Brandon's as well. I even spread some of Brandon's work around my family! Got my wife to read SA with me, and I'm reading Alcatraz to some of my kids as a bedtime story. I figured I'd list what I haven't read of Brandon's as that's a bit easier: Alcatraz #5 & 6 The Rithmatist Lux + Mitosis Most unpublished works. Secret Project #3 As for my favorites of his work I'd probably list them in this rough order: Legion # 1 Secret Project #1 Lost Metal Sixth of the Dusk Words of Radiance With a Honorable mention to Edgedancer Another fun fact is that I once gave a short minute long presentation at a work brown bag lunch on why people should read Brandon Sanderson