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Messages - MrMLK

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 11:18:15 PM »
Yes, but you missed my point.  I think that they are checked to make sure they're HEALTHY.  If they're on their deathbed they certianly aren't healthy.


Would dieing of old age be considered "unhealthy"?

Plus, I am not a grandfather, but I would imagine that if I was a healthy 70 with a young grandchild that I was fond of, I would give up my breath before I made him/her give up theirs.

Michael

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 11:15:54 PM »
Lightsong questions this himself.  Also, doesn't he say that they're always checked to make sure the children are healthy?  If so, it might be that hold people are considered too unhealthy.

I don't remember this. Do you remember where he says this?

Since people with a lot of breaths cannot get sick, if this is true, it would certainly imply that he wanted healthy kids for a different reason, but it does seem to go against everything else Brandon says about breath.

Michael

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 11:11:26 PM »
Well, it seems to me that most people would like to keep their breath if at all possible.  So they would have to be in dire circumstances before considering giving their breath away.  Just my opinion.

I agree. That's actually my whole point. People are their deathbed are in a better condition to sell then kids.

Michael

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 11:00:29 PM »
It's probably because young children/their families need the money they get from donating their breath and the old, dying people--not so much.

Well, some of the old people would have families that might need the money, and the rest - as long as they were still breathing - could probably still use the money for themselves. I know a fair number of old people, and none of them have run out of a use for money.

Or all the old, poor people have already donated their breaths.

Why just poor? I would suppose that a middle class person on their deathbed still could use some money, but doesn't have much need for their breath any more either. I imagine rich old people would give their breath to their favorite child as part of their inheritance.


Michael

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 09:41:17 PM »
Maybe they believed (or maybe it is even true) that children's breath would do a better job of keeping the Returned alive.  After all, the breath is shown to reflect the health of the individual who donated it, and different breath's are claimed to have different strengths.

I don't remember anywhere he said that different breaths have different strengths. Just the opposite, the book says things like "you need 50 breadths for the first awakening....", not "50 young breadths" or anything like that. Or it said you need one breadth to bring something to independent life.

Michael

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Brandon Sanderson / Thoughts about Warbreaker (Could be spoilers)
« on: November 23, 2009, 03:09:40 AM »
Let me start off by saying that I am a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson's writing. I have read Elantris (twice), the Mistborn Trilogy (once, but I plan to start a reread next year) and I am on my second reading of Warbreaker. So please don't think of me as a troll. I think he is one of the two best writers of fantasy working today.

But, as I was reading Warbreaker yesterday, it occurred to me that the system of feeding breaths to the returned doesn't really make much sense. Why would they go out of there way to find your children to give up their breathes? Can you really picture  Allmother turning some random child into a drab each week?

Wouldn't it make more sense to go and find old and dieing people and get their breaths. Nothing in the book says anything about breath getting stale, so you would think these breathes would be just as good. In fact, you would think a cottage industry would start up where almost no one would die without selling their breath for the benefit of their family.

And another thing, if Vivenna really wanted to get rid of all of her breath except one, she could have awakened a rope or something small, and then dumped the rest of her breath to someone or something and then retrieved the one breath from the rope.

The second point is just the math nerd in me, but I really think it would have made more sense if they were turning old people into drabs, rather the young children.

Any thoughts?

Michael

7
Start read (or lissen to audiobooks, faster) from book 1 and prepeare for a epic ride :D

I find that I read at least twice as fast as I can listen to audiobooks. Also, I can devote more hours in a row to reading. But thanks for the advice.

Regards, Michael



8
My advice is to just read Eye of the World and see what you think. Read it until you get to where the Trollocs attack at least.

Done. I will give it a try.

Regards and thanks to all, Michael

9
Thanks everyone.

I guess I will have to either read them all or skip the new ones.

My other problem with reading the whole set is the way they were described to me by a good friend (who is also a big Sanderson fan).

When I asked him what he though of the WOT series, he said something like, "1 through 6 were great, 7 was pretty good, 8 and 9 he had to push himself to get through, 10 was terrible, 11 was fair." (I may not have the exact book numbers right.). Does this match the general consensus, or is my friend just too picky? I like a long book, but slogging through 3 or 4 1000 page books just to get through them doesn't sound like fun.

I have to think it over, and to finish my current big series.

In any case, thanks to all for the help.

Regards, Michael

10
I haven't read any of the Wheel of Time books yet, but I am a big fan of Brandon Sanderson's works.

I am not sure if I want to read 11 books just to get to his. Is it worth the time to try to read some sort of web summary of the first 11 books to prepare for The Gathering Storm, or am I just not going to have enough of an idea as to what it is going on to make it worthwhile? I am currently in the middle of a different 1000-pages-per-book series (Masters of Rome) and I am not sure if I have the inclination to start another one.

I realize that this is a question that should be sent to the author directly, but I didn't want to bother him while he is working.

Thanks for the help.

Regards, Michael


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