Schizoposting

I am not (solely) talking about this forum, but about the fandom as a whole.

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original? For example, in this hypothetical, if someone new to the Cosmere asks whether or not they should read TFE, people will just tell them to watch the film instead, because it's just the better version. Even if the film isn't substantially better than the novel, as long as it's good adaptation, it'll probably replace the original in public consciousness, simply because films are a lot more popular (and accessible) than books. I like watching films and reading books, so this doesn't particularly bother me; but I suspect that a lot of the purists here are going to be very annoyed by all the "normie" fans who will only watch the films/television but will refuse to read the books.

It depends on how much I like the series: I read Wheel of Time straight through in ~2 weeks, because the books where enjoyable enough* that I wanted to see what would happen next; on the other hand, I'm taking a break from reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, because the books are a bit of a slog (IMO). *With the exception of New Spring and the Andoran civil war plotline—which I found to be excruciatingly boring—I did not have any particularly big issues with the infamous slog, although at around Lord of Chaos it became one big mush for me until The Gathering Storm.

Honestly, I think that the film ought to be R rated, even though it's probably going to be PG-13 to get a wider audience—the violence should be disturbing, and not just cheap entertainment. Otherwise, you really undermine the gravitas of the setting (which is already over the top violent and brutal as others have already pointed out).

I think that this adaptation deal is literally the best possible deal that Brandon could've conceivably gotten—he gets a major studio that has a good track record of producing high quality television, while at the same time maintaining a crazy amount of creative control. The only issue is, given how much control Brandon has, the success or failure of the film will pretty much depend on him. And he doesn't necessarily have a ton of experience with adaptation. But hopefully, he's willing to listen to those with the relevant experience when necessary.

To be fair, Brandon has a very cinematic style, and Mistborn would probably work better as a film than as a book, especially since Brandon's biggest weakness (prose) won't matter. Also, it was his second published book, and he's improved a lot since then as a writer.

I finished the Shadowmarch tetralogy by Tad Williams two days ago. I actually had relatively low expectations for this series, based on some online comments/reviews that I saw, but I was pleasantly surprised—it was a solid epic fantasy that provided everything I love about the genre: enormous scope, with an ensemble cast, and world-defining stakes. It's one of those books/series that actually make you kind of sad when you finish, because there's nothing more left to read. (That being said, I feel that this series is still inferior to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, which I think is a genuine masterpiece.) Despite this, I do still have some gripes with some of the plotting, and the way the multiple POV's were handled. For instance, having the Qar just sit outside of Southmarch for two whole books, felt like somewhat underwhelming in my opinion; also, the series suffered from some of the challenges of balancing a huge number (~10) of major POV character's, with many different plotlines, which resulted in a rather slow pacing, and the mildly frustrating phenomenon of having to read like 50 pages of unrelated plotlines to get to one that you find to be most interesting or that is otherwise in a cliffhanger. Whilst most of the series was pretty slow paced, the final book was like A Memory of Light, in that it was essentially just one huge climax (or Sanderlanche), that made the whole "slog" preceding it, totally worth it. In addition, I thought that Williams did a good job with characterization—particularly, I thought that the Autarch made for a very entertaining villain, and I also liked the dynamic between Barrick and Briony, although I would have liked to see more of it at the end. So, while not Tad Williams' best work, or particularly groundbreaking, Shadowmarch makes for a well written epic fantasy that will probably appeal to most fans of the genre.

It probably depends on whether or not Fused are considered Spren, and are thus protected by the new Oathpact. If they aren't, then Retribution could just destroy them; if they are, then they don't even need to go to Cultivation, since they can already disobey Retribution without consequences. The only problem is that if they die, they won't get any new hosts, and will thus be stuck on Braize, where they can be tortured. Cultivation might be able to fix this, but it would require her to substantially invest in said Fused.

It's important to understand that the Cosmere is not a parallel universe adjacent to our own—it's nothing more than words on a page written by guy named Brandon Sanderson. Therefore, the events that transpire in it happen, not because they unfolded via their own logical necessity, but because Brandon willed it to happen. That's to say, the reason why Wayne died is not because of this or that in-world reason; he died because Brandon wanted him to die. That's what I mean by "plot armor". Also, (and I don't mean to be aggressive here) the idea that everything that every minor or otherwise contingent detail must exist by some hidden necessity, is the perfect encapsulation of the logic of conspiratorialism; to the conspiracy theorist it's inconceivable that, for instance, a U.S. president would be assassinated by a random madman—it can only be explained as the machination of some shadowy all-powerful group. Now, it's certainly possible that every single detail in the Cosmere is the result of a Shardic conspiracy going all the way back to Adonalsium. But this contradicts the available textual evidence, and it seems very unlikely that this is the route that Brandon will go down. So, I think that's perfectly acceptable to believe in coincidences, or otherwise random events, in the Cosmere, without having to attribute it to divine intervention. I find that Preservations plan to defeat Ruin is woefully misunderstood by the fandom: his plan was not "in exactly 7000 years a guy named Sazed will take up Ruin and Preservation to become Harmony"; it was to create the general conditions by which someone like Sazed could take up Harmony. In other words, Preservation made Ruin's defeat a possibility—not an inevitability. I last read TLM ~1 year ago, so my recollection may be faulty, but I was very much unimpressed by his performance—from what I remember, he didn't even discover that the set was preparing to nuke Elendel—that was Wax and Wayne, which quite frankly embarrassing for a god. I honestly think that, with the possible exception of Honor/Tanavast , he's the dumbest shard that we've seen in the Cosmere so far.

Mistborn are really not that powerful without Atium—Kelsier struggled against a couple of Hazekillers in TFE, when he was forced to fight without it. In era 3, a random guy with aluminum expanding bullets can probably take down a Mistborn in single combat (although this depends on the environment). Now, if they can get their hands on some Atium, then it's a different story. But given that requires Trellium (which itself is nigh unobtainable for Scadrians), and a very dangerous process, it's unlikely that we'll see it in any substantial quantity.

I am not going to respond to every post in this thread, but I have to say that I find these sorts of discussions to be very inane, because instead of doing a serious analysis about the work in question, people just complain about random details not meeting some arbitrary standard. I think that "December" is a great name in the context of the story and changing it just to appeal to the 1% of readers who take issue with it, because it doesn't fit the lore or whatever, would be a terrible decision on Brandon's part. I don't mean to be abrasive here, but do you even know what it means to break the fourth wall? Because—whatever you may think of the decision—naming a character "December" is very much not a breaking of the fourth wall. It honestly seems like you heard this phrase somewhere and are just repeating it, without actually knowing what it means.

I legitimately don't understand this sentiment—absolutely nobody complained about the name Charlie, despite it also existing IRL, or the fact that the word Hemalurgy is derived from ancient Greek roots. That's to say, the Cosmere already has many references to Earth, so why are you (and others) so worked up about this particular one? Besides, lore isn't the end all be all of things, and the name December is much better than something like Chachanan or Vinuarch.

What do you mean by "idealism" and "pragmatism", and how are you defining "absolutism" as it relates to "nuance"? I find that the average philosophically uneducated person tends to have very incoherent beliefs and values. So, it would be very helpful for you to clarify your philosophy, since the words that you used have very specific meanings in a philosophical context.

So, I'd like to discuss the preliminary cover art (which can be found here). From a purely aesthetic perspective, I think that the cover looks excellent—it's perhaps one of the best book covers that I've ever seen—and it's clearly very reminiscent of Celestial Eyes: the cover for The Great Gatsby. My only possible concern is that the cover may not be a very good match for the style of the book, although it's far too early to tell, given that we've only seen the first two chapters. Now, there's also an interesting detail here—in the cover December is surrounded by a multicolored river of animals, which seems to signify that the blood rivers are the literal lifeblood of Mountaincrest; this is further corroborated by the description, which states that the story takes place in "a forgotten land sustained by colorful rivers of demon blood". So, it seems like the demon is not all bad, and that the kingdom depends on them, for its survival. Overall, I'm very excited for this book, and I genuinely think that it has the potential to be Brandon's best book that's he's written so far; at the very least, it's his first book to have good prose.

I suppose that you could do that, but one, Autonomy might not be interested in helping, and two, being controlled by Autonomy might turn out to be a pretty bad deal. We had a whole discussion about that but suffice it to say, it's not so simple, especially without shardic powers. Rashek only held the power of Preservation for literally five minutes, so I don't think that you could do that.

Yeah, but as I said, that's kind of the point. The whole series is basically a deconstruction of the hero's journey/chosen one trope, that was popular in fantasy at the time, like in Shannara. But you're right that it can make for a pretty frustrating read.

Yes, if you don't have a shard backing you in the Cosmere, then you're cooked.

The problem is, if you get too technologically advanced (and Scadrial was already light-years ahead of everybody else), then Autonomy will just destroy you, and you'll have absolutely no defense, since you won't have the power of a shard at your disposal. This means that you have pretty much no choice but to do what Raskek did, and retard all technological progress, which requires setting up a Final Empire-esque system. Now, it can certainly be far less brutal, but ultimately it would still be pretty bad. I would also like to point out, that Rashek only lost because of his own stupidity, so if you do the exact same things as he did, but just don't underestimate the rebellion, then you will be able to take up the well again, and kick the can down the road for another thousand years.

I finally finished The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. I didn't particularly like the first book (Lord Foul's Bane), but I think that the second and third book were markedly better. The main issue with the series, is how unlikable Thomas Covenant is as a character; it's not that he's an anti-hero who does morally reprehensible things—there're plenty of immoral or otherwise villainous characters that I still find to be entertaining to follow—it's his endless self-pitying and loathing that makes him tedious. It's like Kaladin's depression sequences, but a thousand times worse. It's for this reason that the second book (The Illearth War) is my favorite of the three; it introduced a secondary POV character (Hile Troy) who was much more likable and interesting than Thomas Covenant. In addition, Donaldson toned down some of Covenants most aggravating qualities. This is also the case for the third and final book (The Power that Preserves), but I liked it slightly less than The Illearth War, mainly for plot reasons. Overall, I appreciate what Donaldson was trying to do with the series with his character study of Thomas Covenant—especially considering the state of the fantasy genre at the time—but I feel like the enjoyability of the series suffers because of Covenant's character. Certainly, the point of art isn't to be necessarily enjoyable, but I still think that the series could have been potentially better written to avoid this whilst still conveying the same themes and ideas. I know that I'm repeating myself here, but I think that a lot of genre-defining "classics" lose their luster when read in the present, because what was revolutionary when it was written, has long since become trite. This, in my opinion, is the case with The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever which was arguably the first true epic fantasy to go beyond The Lord of the Rings.

Personally, I found the portrayal of the Ghostbloods in TLM as being a bunch of goodhearted people doing their best to protect Scadrial* to be pretty goofy. A ruthless space mafia is a lot more interesting, IMO, than what we got. So, hopefully, Brandon will show their more ruthless side in era 3, by perhaps doing what the OP suggests, and have the Ghostbloods do some less than ethical experiments. *This also begs the question of why any non-Scadrian would care enough about protecting another planet to join them

I'm sorry, but it seems like you fundamentally don't understand what war is, or why it's fought—war is the continuation of politics by other means. In other words, you cannot abstract politics from war, because war is politics. It's certainly true that the U.S. only lost in Vietnam or Afghanistan because it lost the will to fight on, but political will is a vital resource in war, no different from manpower or armament. The Taliban may have lost every battle until the end, but they managed to accomplish their political objectives, so they still won. That's why only considering the relative strengths of the U.S. and Rosharan militaries is missing the point; certainly, if the U.S. were to commit all of its resources to conquering and pacifying Roshar, it would win, but this would be a complete political disaster, that would lead large scale domestic instability, a worldwide loss of influence and military power, for little to no benefit. So actually, in the grand scheme of things, the U.S. would lose.

You seem to be working on presumption that prescience is perfect, and that its failure can only be attributed to Cultivation's influence. The far simpler explanation is that both Ishar and Tanvast have imperfect future sight that's liable to failure. There's absolutely no reason to invoke her influence, other than for the sake of having a cheap twist.

Oaths are determined by the perception of the sadiant and spren, although there're limits to how far this can go. So, it depends on the person and spren making the oath; the regular Skybreakers would probably focus on following the letter of their code (note, they don't necessarily have to swear to follow the law), whilst the dissidents would probably care more about the following the spirit. Also, the dissident Skybreakers have their own ideals—so this may affect things—although we don't know what they are.

We see that it provides a minimum baseline of strength, but I don't think that we've seen any indication that this is the maximum strength that one can have whilst wearing shardplate.

IIRC, radiant armor is both stronger and enhances strength more than dead plate. This may be because it has a greater access to investiture, or it may be because it's simply a superior design. Even if adding additional investiture can increase the strength enhancement, there ought to be some fundamental limit; an engine can provide only a finite amount of thrust, regardless to how much fuel it has access to. I don't think that's how it works; if someone like Steelheart, were to don shardplate, I think that their strength would be enhanced by the plate, not decreased to some baseline. Also, if it were purely mechanical, then you'd expect that it wouldn't feel very natural, e.g., when running at an enhanced speed. But you're right that ultimately, we don't know, and that the answer is whatever Brandon wants it to be.