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Messages - Curious

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 08, 2009, 01:25:41 AM »
I've always wanted to see a magic system that isn't catastrophically powerful like the One Power or Allomancy. A magic system that relies mainly on the resourcefulness of the user.

One of the best I've read of this kind was Goblin Wood by Hillary Bell. It was based around drawing runes, and the main character is actually quite weak in that power, but her use of the magic is impressive nonetheless. Another magic system that I found wasn't particularly complex but was very interesting was The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy magic system was also very interesting, in which the magicians had no actual power themselves. Instead, they enslaved djinnis to carry out their will.

Has anyone read these? ;D

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 06, 2009, 04:25:22 AM »
Plasman, is this you? This is a featured piece of prose on deviantART. http://guiltywhiteboy.deviantart.com/art/C-O-D-49569045 It's your idea exactly... it'd be a very weird coincidence if it wasn't you.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 04, 2009, 05:02:47 AM »
So, if someone was told they would die horribly and decided to take their own life, it wouldn't work? Would fate prevent them from taking their own life, or would they be immune to dying entirely? Or, would it prevent them from wanting to take their own life?

I guess if fate took into account that people would know their deaths but it happened the way it was predetermined to, it could be very interesting. There would be some very interesting twists if people didn't die the way they thought they would, such as Macbeth's death.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 04, 2009, 12:29:07 AM »
Plasman, your idea is awesome but I'd like to know one important thing. Is someone's death set in stone, or can they change the future based on their actions? Is it like fate in The Wheel of Time where certain things happen certain ways no matter what, or is it like atium in MB?

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 03, 2009, 05:37:19 AM »
Having too many souls would cause problems with what's controlling the body, but it wouldn't cause your head to explode. ;) If you stole the soul of someone stronger than you, there would probably be danger of it taking over your body. However, the less you called on a soul's abilities and memories, the harder it would be for it to take over you, the less leverage it would have--and the opposite is true, too. Calling on any one soul too much would put you in danger of allowing it to take over you, particularly if it's a strong soul.

I'm making this up as I go along, but this is really turning out to be a fascinating magic system! :D I loved magic systems even before Sanderson. In fact, I loved them even before RJ.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: December 02, 2009, 06:30:25 AM »
Regarding my magic system, it would be really cool if absorbing someone's soul gave you all their memories, skills and experience... What if you could allow them to temporarily control you in order to do things that you couldn't do, but in return that would graft the soul you stole to yours a little bit more? If you stole enough souls, you could have the skills of an assassin, an artist, a king (that is, if you could get your hands on one)... Maybe that's powerful enough in and of itself.

It would also be interesting if people had forms of magic unique to them that you'd inherit if you stole their soul.

To answer your question Kaz, absorbing too many souls could cause you to lose control of your identity. Having too many could cause them to all collapse into each other and become one person... who knows what that would do to you. If many different sets of memories and skills mixed, it would most likely cause you to go insane and maybe act like you have dissociative identity disorder (darn, that's too much like Rand). And if you have that many souls compressed inside you, the power of your abilities would most likely multiply.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: November 30, 2009, 05:50:32 AM »
Oh, let me make myself clear. You'd only steal someone's soul if you deliberately tried to. If two people trusted each other, they could hold hands without much fear of getting their soul sucked out. Babies probably wouldn't be able to steal their parents' souls (I've decided), they wouldn't know how to use their ability.

Most likely, children would be repetitively told from a young age not to touch anyone, and to not let strangers get too close to them. People would most likely wear full-body clothing and get nervous if other people went near them. Romantic relationships would take far longer to get to intimate stages. There'd probably be a myth of a shadowman who sneaks up on people and steals their souls, and there most likely would be thieves who would harvest people's souls.

What really needs defining is how the souls could be used to perform magic. It wouldn't be very useful to steal people's souls if all it did was work like Breaths in Warbreaker. In fact, it wouldn't even be that effective if it taught you everything the person who used to own the soul knew. Now, if souls granted magical power that couldn't be used up, each soul increased this power, and the power was something ridiculously powerful like being able to throw large fire-balls or mind-control people or... anyway, that really needs defining. Another question is, if gaining someone else's soul gave you those powers, would each person's own soul give them these powers?

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: November 29, 2009, 11:32:52 PM »
Still, the main thing that makes my suggestion so interesting is how extreme it is. Would babies accidentally steal their parents' souls? Would people avoid touching each other, or would people just wear full-body clothing all the time? What kind of magic would people be able to perform by having other people's souls?

I figure if that stealing someone soul left them as a mindless vegetable, the magic you'd be able to do with souls would be much more powerful than Mr. S's use of Breaths because taking someone's Breath only leaves them as a drab.

Imagine if leaders met to make a pact or an agreement, and it ended with them chasing each other with knives trying to cut through each other's full-body clothes to steal their souls?

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Magic Systems
« on: November 28, 2009, 09:30:51 AM »
Here's one. If you touch someone, you can steal their soul. Everyone would have this ability since birth, and would be able to use it without having to learn how. (For the sake of this magic system, if you lose your soul you are more or less a vegetable--it's much worse than Mr. S's Drab idea.)

What kind of bizarre society would that make?

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Favourite book
« on: September 07, 2009, 05:57:20 AM »
I personally think Elend was too much of a fool when it came to his mistakes in book 2, but he was quite interesting in book 1 when he'd sit with Vin and read. I loved his development of leadership skills, but Tindwyl dying sucked. I liked Sazed but I couldn't completely relate to him. Vin was so special because she was good at everything and she was like a cat: independent, solitary, quick on her feet, wary, smart... Out of all the Mr S books, I'd have to be unoriginal and say that Lightsong was my favorite, but I really, really liked Sarene too, and if I'm not mistaken, she's supposedly the least favorite of the three main characters in Elantris.

I'm not normally a romance person--it's always good as a side-plot but never as the main plot--but the epitome of good character development is when you can trick the reader into falling in love with both characters who fall in love with each other, and Mr S has frustratingly done this to me with every book and it just melts me. Siri coming to realize that Susebron wasn't as evil as the priests had painted him to be and her befriending of him, and eventually her falling for him, was one of the most magical stories I've ever bought into. Mr S said he wrote Warbreaker during a very happy time in his life (when he got married to Ms S) and I really think that feeling sank heavily into that one work.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Favourite book
« on: September 05, 2009, 05:41:03 AM »
Wow, Zimra, I loved your post! The first part was entirely true and the second part was hilarious. What I really liked about Elantris was that all the characters really clicked for me. I felt them. The same was mostly true for Warbreaker (although the first time I read it I got as confused as Vivena about the whole Denth/Vasher "who's the good guy" kind of thing) but for Elantris, everything fit.

In Mistborn, a friend of mine spoiled the ending by telling me Kelsier dies before I had even read any Sanderson or about the time I was reading Warbreaker on my computer, so I didn't think much of it but when I read FE it kind of ruined the tension and the revelation for me. I guess it's parallel to the surprising developments in Elantris where Hrathen is cursed by the "Shaod" (drinks that potion there) and then later does the same thing to Sarene, but on a much bigger scale with much more impact? Damn, I'll forever wonder what it would've been like to experience that... Maybe I should ruin TGS for that person to get back at them. xD Just kidding, that would be a sin.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Favourite book
« on: September 03, 2009, 03:50:50 AM »
I always found that there was something weird about the Mistborn trilogy. I've finally decided that it was because I didn't complete buy into the theme of faith because it felt like it was there for the sake of being there, and the arguments didn't win me over. It also made a lot more sense to me when I found out later that it's set in a period of technology similar to our early-1800s (Victorian?) England, but I think the main problem for me was with the theme.

Warbreaker is not only my favorite book by Brandon Sanderson, but my favorite book in the entire world above anything else I've ever read (which isn't a small number of books). Everything was perfect, and it was my first Sanderson book. (I read it online and bought hardcover the week it was out and reread it.) I hope his books continue getting better and better, and that his Stormlight Archive series follows on the footsteps of the other great epics.

Elantris was a close second for me. After finishing HoA (which, despite my small discomfort with some of the theme, was epic) I couldn't read anything because I kept thinking of how it couldn't compare to a Sanderson book, so I went out and got the one non-children's Sanderson book I hadn't read, Elantris. I really liked all three characters and found Hrathen developing feelings for Sarene heartbreakingly awesome and sad. I loved all the political machinations in this one, but the romance in Warbreaker really won me over because it was so organic and enveloping.

I'm disappointed at how few people voted for Elantris, but I'm thinking that maybe it was a close second on many people's lists like it was for me.

PS: This isn't necroing, is it? This is a pretty recent post, sorry if it is necro.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Brandon Stereotype Character Relationships
« on: August 11, 2009, 02:09:05 AM »
Something else I noticed was that when characters undergo major character development, Brandon always has them thinking, "Am I that old person I used to be?" like how Vin used to be a street urchin, or how Vivenna used to be a princess. Then they think, "Or am I the person I've become?" the way Vin became a noblelady, and the way Vivenna became a street urchin. They finally decide that they're someone else, a mix of the two.

What I'm wondering is, would people in real life ask themselves these questions? It feels a bit clichéd and weird, but it also feels a bit realistic. I wonder if he's every going to switch up how people decide how to define what they are.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Signing in Montreal
« on: August 09, 2009, 06:35:36 AM »
I'm not sure, but I think it was a few for Scribbler.  :-\ I mainly remember The Way of Kings pictures, and those were awesome! I really hope that with the experience he takes away from finishing the WoT he's able to do a killer 10-novel series. I always found that something felt a bit weird about the Mistborn trilogy, although today when he said that if you compared the Mistborn setting to our world, it would be in early 1800s London and it made a bit more sense to me. The first half of the prologue name-dropped a lot of cultures... I'm sure we'll all get to know them very well within eight months. :)

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Signing in Montreal
« on: August 09, 2009, 12:17:59 AM »
WOW! I just went to the signing today. I was telling myself, "This is going to be fun, but I shouldn't expect to be entertained the entire time. It's mainly getting to see the author in person and getting signatures." I knew it was going to be nice but I didn't want to expect too much in case it was low-key. Boy, was I wrong.

There were fewer people there than I expected, maybe 20 or 30. I was very excited just to see him, and I have to say that he looks quite different from his picture in his books. Actually, he mentioned that and said that he had his picture taken by a friend who was practicing photography and making normal people look really awesome. Brandon said that a picture that actually looks like him is going to be used in The Gathering Storm.

At the beginning, he started off by introducing himself and talking about The Wheel of Time, because a few people were there just about that and hadn't read any of his material yet. I didn't realize that Harriet was the main editor of Tor even before she met Robert Jordan. Even in person, Brandon's a great storyteller. He might be a bit long-winded, but I was captivated the entire time. His story about his first unpublished books, his first publishing, and books after that are amazing.

And yes, he read from The Way of Kings. It was just as awesome as I thought it would be, but although I wanted to hear the entire prologue (and the rest of the book too), it was a bit short (about half the prologue). One of the magic-systems is gravity manipulation! That's awesome! I wonder if all the magic systems will run on Stormlight (which I don't know much about yet).

I really like how he makes personal signings that are very special. I had him sign my copies of paper-back Elantris and Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, and my beautiful hard-cover Warbreaker. I asked him to make a personal signing (put "to Brendan" in it—that's my name) for Warbreaker, and he also wrote "My breath to yours" in it which was a nice touch. He also drew the AonDor marking for Spirit below his signature in my copy of Elantris. Thanks Brandon!

The Q&A was interesting. He did a lot of talking about the Wheel of Time, and even after reading tons on his website and some in forums as well, I still learned new things about his adventures of writing this new series. I have to say, he's quite brilliant. He talked about how he decided to go about splitting AMoL into 3, and how for the first two parts he took neither the Robert Jordan approach or the George R. R. Martin approach. Robert Jordan split the 10th book of WoT into two, and people didn't like that the character arcs and the plot arcs  don't wrap up in book 10. GRRM split the cast in half for each book, choosing only half the characters for each book and covering their entire plots. Mr. S decided to go halfway between these, putting the bulk of two main story-lines in the first AMoL book yet giving a small mention to the other characters so we got to see what they were doing in the meantime, and then reversing the focus in the next book so that we'd get to see more of the characters we'd only seen a few chapters' worth of heads-up to in the previous book. I love how he's taking the WoT very seriously and how he's probably going to be the best choice to finish it for that reason.

Finally I asked my question. This is hilarious, and true, please believe me. I asked, "Is The Way of Kings going to be driven more by adventure, or more by politics? Is it going to be more like WoT or more like GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire?" He responded, "It's funny that you should ask that, because when I presented this idea to my writing group [ x ] years ago"—I don't remember how many he said—"I said, 'This is going to be half like WoT, and half like A Song of Ice and Fire.'" Wow! It's so cool that my favorite author's favorite authors are my other favorite authors too. That made my day for the third time.

He then showed a bit of art to the people who hung around for The Way of Kings (not stuff that's going to appear in the novel, just stuff his friend did I think) and talked about a whole bunch of stuff that I just typed up but then deleted be cause I realized that he might not want people circulating all this stuff online. He says he doesn't hold back enough on talking.

He also talked about a novel he's going to write one day, Scribbler. He showed us pictures on that too, and I have to say, this author is brilliant. He's inspirational and terrifying, encouraging and discouraging at the same time. He writes so well that it makes me think, "I'll never be able to do anything close to that," and it scares me but then he goes and explains how he does a lot of what he does and it's very educational and inspiring.

My friend missed out on so much.

PS: Are there rules against writing posts this long? :D

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