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Messages - happyman

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16
Brandon Sanderson / Re: I'm very keen to see the Mistborn video game.
« on: July 08, 2011, 04:39:26 PM »
You don't need to be a main character at all . . . we have a world that's basically been the same for about 1000 years so the game could easily take place hundreds of years before the fall of the Lord Ruler.

edit: Hell, one of the previous House Wars could be pretty cool as well. There's a lot of story to work with that doesn't have to be in the book time frame  :)

One of the Mistborn RPG's I know of (I haven't played myself; I'm an awful roleplayer) used this very idea (house war) as its framing device.  I think it would also be a very good idea for any mass-produced game.  Mistborn and Mistings would be used often enough to make the missions interesting, and the trouble with the main characters and the books would be completely sidestepped.

17
Brandon Sanderson / Re: **SPOILERS** Shards: Power and Character
« on: July 07, 2011, 11:26:29 PM »
I haven't read about anyone trying to explain N.K. Jemisin's religious beliefs based on how she writes about gods in the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. But people try it with Brandon all the time, although it really doesn't work very well.

Yeah, my guess is that it's the novelty (or at least, perceived novelty) factor.  Also, Mormons have a reputation for being unusually devoted to their religion, so people expect it to show up.  On top of that, a lot of the Cosmere stuff does have connections to religions that seem pretty obvious, especially with Sazed in Mistborn.  But for the most part, I see a bunch of nothing when you try to get down to brass tacks.  As usual, the religion comes through most strongly in the characters and values they espouse, not the deliberately constructed cosmology.  But that's true with absolutely every author in every genre.

18
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Dalinar as a possible radiant? *Spoilers*
« on: July 06, 2011, 04:12:43 PM »
There's Wild Mass Guessing, and then there's theorizing.  They are two very different things.  Theorizing generally uses quotes from the actual books, along with standard logic and Occam's razor, to make some stabs at what is likely, usually with estimates as to just how likely each idea is.  Wild Mass Guessing tends to use such thrilling statements as "If you can't prove it false, it's likely" or some other such rubbish, or attempts to use symbolism (often symbolism that the author never intended) to make their case.

The Harry Potter fandom had some pretty amateur people making guesses.  Not their fault, I suppose, but they didn't impress me most of the time.  I've also seen some literary criticism, and I couldn't agree more about how full of crap many of those folks are.  Making a bawdy, sexist comedy into a pro-feminist creed ("Taming of the Shrew" for those who don't get the reference) is par for the course for those folks.

On the other hand, I have a hard time comparing most of what we do on these boards with that kind of thinking.  Chaos' post wasn't correct on every point, but he was making an honest attempt to ferret out the best theories based on evidence.

In fact, one of these days, I'll finally get my copy of Way of Kings and actually include the quotes, with the evidence bolded, just to point out what we're actually using to make this case.  It's actually quite solid.

19
Brandon Sanderson / Re: **SPOILERS** Shards: Power and Character
« on: July 05, 2011, 04:41:52 PM »
That quote came from this thread:

http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7878.0


Now this is just from what I can tell with a quick search on LDS and Satan. It could be accurate, it could be a misrepresentation.

Quote
The Mormon church views Jesus and Satan as spirit brothers and sons of God. God put forth His plan of salvation for the world, and Satan proposed his own plan. Jesus accepted the Father's plan and offered to implement it as the Savior. The Father chose Jesus

I can visualize that the devil/satan entity is a spirit that had good intentions. In the end those intentions became twisted and self serving. That sounds a lot like TLR to me.

I'm not trying to debate the religion but only learn more about the opposite point that was brought up. Brandon's books seem to point to pairings in the world.

I just signed up for the 17th shard while trying to learn more about the cosmos. The site and information is amazing and daunting.

The Jesus/Satan as brothers thing is misleading.  To say the least.  It needs a bit of context.

In Mormon cosmology, all humans, angels, and devils are children of God, all that are alive, all that ever have lived, and all that will live, and even all those who never lived because they didn't keep God's commandments before this life (e.g. Satan and his angels).  We are all brothers and sisters, differing not in potential, but in the choices we make.  Jesus and Satan simply represent extremes of where that can lead (extreme obedience, humility and love, or extreme pride and hatred), with most of the rest of us falling somewhere less extreme (although most Mormon's I know believe that Jesus' position was still more special than the rest of ours, including Satan's.)

In most interpretations of Satan in Mormon cosmology (including the authoritative ones) he does not come off as someone with good intentions, but rather as someone who put his own power and authority over anybody else' good.  For a quick overview of the way he's normally depicted in Mormonism, try reading The Book of Moses.   Not remotely flattering and not even a hint of being misguided.  Just evil.

20
<I>Even books 10-11 were decent.</i>

I think you mean 11 is decent.  10 is considered the worst in the series so much that's it's more fact than opinion.

I was prepared to disagree with you (out of hopeful optimism that a horrific book wasn't still ahead of me), but I caught wind of the Amazon.com reviews of book ten. OUCH.

The top-rated five-star review is actually a tongue-in-cheek criticism.

I'm 93% through book 9. Crud.

Amen.  I've just begun reading Book 10.  The Prologue has me bored to tears.  A couple of interesting viewpoints would have been a way better choice than that smorgasbord.  Glimmers of the Pattern is trying to tell a story of 100 different people at once, and as a result, you fail to care about any.  Book 9 was better than both 8 and what book 10 is shaping up to be, as was book 11, IIRC.

21
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Dalinar as a possible radiant? *Spoilers*
« on: June 29, 2011, 08:12:26 PM »
No, I wasn't on this forum then. I would be pretty impressed to see such predictions pan out as described. But I would also challenge how many other theories were proposed at the time? Sure, one or six start to emerge as more plausible as more people clamor to refine it.

An educated reader can make almost any theory sound plausible, even if it was not the athor's intent. Ever read the essay which demonstrates that Fight Club was about Calvin and Hobbes? Or any of the more plausible theories from the WMG (Wild Mass Guess) section of tvtropes?

Everyone invovled will remember the correct theory with vigor once it has been proven, regardless how many erroneous theories were proposed alongside. Or how many erroneous details were accidentally attached to the correct theory, though they were part of a different puzzle.

Dalinar-as-Radiant may well prove to be true (likely), this text may even point to it (I have my doubts). I'm just reserving judgment because the passage quoted doesn't prove anything conclusively to me-as-reader without something more substantial.

I'm still not remotely certain why you think the evidence is bad or weak.  Two knowledgeable characters, over the course of a few very crowded minutes, notice in passing that Dalinar is doing things that shouldn't be possible, even in the magic system they are already familiar with.  It can't be the grandeur of Shards, like you've been trying to claim, for the very simple reason that the viewpoint characters are all familiar with the normal behavior of shards, and it isn't anything they have seen before.  (Most observers, even in-world, would probably not have noticed anything out of the ordinary.)  They don't remark on them afterwards, because the minutes were so crowded, and it's easy to write things like that off as being due to a heated imagination.  They don't expect anything unusual to happen, so they write it off.

We, on the other hand, are readers.  We know, from other characters' viewpoints, that the magic is coming back.  Kaladin, Shallan, Jasnah, etc., have begun manifesting things that are the stuff of legend.  We also know that the Knights Radiant had more powers than "modern" shardbearers manifest, and we even know some of the manifestations, such as the glowing armor, manipulation of forces, and so on.  In fact, we even know that one of the orders is called Stonesinew, which strongly suggests increased stamina, speed, and so on, very much like Thugs from mistborn.  In addition, we have the further meta-knowledge that the books are about interesting characters.  Combine all those with the fact that, for a very short time, Dalinar exhibited unusual strength, speed, stamina, control over his trajectory when he shouldn't have had it, and even possibly began to glow during this unusual burst of strength (although the viewpoint character writes that off as imagination), it seems extremely likely that he is manifesting the powers of one of the orders of Knights Radiant.  Lastly, we have the fact that magic on Roshar is related to character traits, and that Dalinar has been improving his character enormously from reading Way of Kings, making him more likely than the average Schmoe to be a Radiant, and I have a hard time doubting this theory.

22
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Dalinar as a possible radiant? *Spoilers*
« on: June 29, 2011, 04:13:40 PM »
1.When he is knocked in the air his shardplate seems to correct itself so he lands right side up
2. Adolin notes that he moves faster in shardplate than should be possible, making other shardbearers look like children by comparison
3. When he catches the greatshell claw, Adolin notices that his shardplate "almost glows"

I may just be dense, but I thought this was all just good description for the power and majesty of shardplates/blades, not an indication of Dalinar's personal innate ability.

For instance, it becomes clear pretty early that Kaladin has some magic "luck"...I'll grant that Dalinar's arc could simply be much longer, but I would expect hints to be more obvious than this.

None of this is to say that Dalinar won't become a radiant, I just didn't think this points to it.

The trouble with the description just being "the power and majesty of shardplates/blades" is that they are given from Adolin's and Dalinar's points of view.  Both of them have extensive experience with both plate and blade, and they have a pretty good idea what the rules are supposed to be.  They appreciate the power, but it's almost mundane to them; it's part of their life. 

I don't disagree. I'm only going to add that even if something is mundane to a character, it's part of the author's job to make it seem exciting to the reader. The mage who casts spells daily still seems full of majesty and awe the first time the reader sees him do it. The sci-fi soldier is not impressed by his combat armor and tactical visor, but the narrator nonetheless gives an impressive play-by-play of their capabilities.

Quote
In addition, we haven't really seen Dalinar's arc start in earnest yet.  Oh, we've seen some of it, but this book was focused on Kaladin and his powers.  There's another nine books in the series, after all.  This kind of foreshadowing is perfectly appropriate for this point in the longer story.

It's not proof that Dalinar is a radiant, but I consider the possibility to be fairly likely given what little we have seen.

Nothing to disagree with here. I just don't find these descriptions to be evidence, reason being I actually think Sanderson would foreshadow more obviously than these subtle theories of fans. All through Mistborn, there were puzzles to solve, but you knew what the puzzles were. Often, you even knew which pieces were missing. This is one reason I like Sanderson's work so much, his reveals don't seem like "gotcha"s. They just seem like, "Why didn't I KNOW that?"

This seems awfully subtle for that style of writing.

Dalinar may well be a Radiant regardless whether this text was intended to imply it.

You clearly weren't on this forum when we were discussing Hemalurgy.  We had successfully connected Hemalurgy to metal piercings, and even knew that Vin's earring and her sisters death were almost certainly part of Hemalurgy, just from the hints in the first two books.  The reactions of the mists to Hemalurgy were also noted.  All from hints as subtle as what we are poking at here. (Trust me; hindsight bias makes it look much more obvious after the fact.  I was frankly quite impressed with what we had worked out from what little we had.  I had even argued for Sazed as the HoA before HoA came out, and my evidence was all valid in retrospect.).  The hints were just enough to give us a flavor of what was going on, but not big enough to really tell us what was going on, although it all made sense in hindsight.

So no, I believe that these are exactly the kind of hints Brandon would drop, especially in a long storyline.  He's done it before.  He's really a fairly subtle writer when it comes to long-term planning.  He's also very detail-oriented, which means little things matter.

23
Rants and Stuff / Re: A Tragedy in the BYU Bookstore
« on: June 28, 2011, 05:11:35 PM »
Given that I've seen Brandon's works in most bookstores I frequent that include sci-fi and fantasy, the BYU Bookstore not including his stuff (or, alas, Stephanie Meyer's) is just, well, unlikely.  To say the least.  He probably gets more attention as a local, but again, that just seems like smart marketing.

As for teachers including their own textbooks as required reading:  Happens all the time in all kinds of fields.  How it turns out depends mostly on the teacher and why they did it.  For advanced classes (at least in the sciences) it's often the only or most up-to-date work of its kind, and you're taking the class from that teacher for the same reason you would buy their textbook.  Other times, it's competing against much better works, and it's mostly a form of ego-stroking for the teacher (as well as a boost to their bottom line, but if they're teaching college, that's probably not why they went into the field), in which case you should be very afraid.  I've even seen an experiment where the textbook written by the teacher is available online for free (Google BYU optics book.  It's even being kept up to date.  And includes biographies about major researchers gleaned from Wikipedia.  Um, I don't even know what to say to that.)

24
Brandon Sanderson / Re: **SPOILERS** Shards: Power and Character
« on: June 28, 2011, 02:47:54 PM »
Of course, all that being said, there's really only one place you can go with something like Odium. ^^;

Not entirely.  Sometimes Odium for something is entirely deserved.

On the other hand, imagining something that is just Odium running around is much more scary than imagining something that is just Honor.  I'll definitely give you that.

25
Rants and Stuff / Re: TOO MUCH NEGATIVE FEEDBACK!
« on: June 28, 2011, 02:44:38 PM »
Um, I was actually OK with the tone of conversation until I saw this thread.  I mean, I don't think I would have argued much further; my real points weren't being addressed very well.  But this just takes the cake.

Apology?  I don't care one way or the other.  I think what would really need to happen is a show of good faith.  Proof that fardawg actually cares about something besides proving himself right, or has an interest in the subjects for their own sake.  Not because I need to be proved right, but because I'd much rather have an honest debate.

26
Fardawg,

I would appreciate it if you would respond to my last post.  I feel like I addressed your concerns more directly than Peter did (which is why Peter cited me in his post rather than rewriting my answer).  It is thus disconcerting to to see you respond to Peter's post without considering the context, which is in terms of the points I made.

27
On the contrary, in most ways I really like Elayne as a character. I do not find her fit to rule based on her actions. I actually thought my post was extremely specific in that regard, and not merely amorphous disapproval on general principle.

In that case, back to your critique.  No harm, no foul.

28
I should probably clarify my position:

Most threads I have seen on subjects like this (usually on other message boards) tend to have the following properties:

(1)  Accentuating the negative.  They exaggerate the vices of the character of interest, the virtues of the main characters competition and fail to take into account human frailty or the issue of whether anybody else would have done better or if there were any mitigating circumstances.

(2) The opposition tends to flip it around, defending their favorite character from every possible attack.

(3) These two positions continue to grow in strength as people commit themselves to their respective "sides" until the whole thing is a tedious, emotional mess, all to no purpose whatsoever.

Most of the fan threads of this sort become useless quite quickly.  On Theoryland, they have an entire thread whose purpose is to absorb any other threads which turn into Egwene-bashing, just so you know what you're getting into when you click on it.  It starts going in circles in short order.  Occasionally, you'll get somebody hating on Gawyn (more reasonable, IMO, but the threads are quite useless and devoid of information) or some other random character.

If you have an actual purpose for this criticism beyond "I don't like her!", well, I'll withhold judgement.  But you can see why I'm dismayed to see this kind of thing popping up here.

29
I think Peter summed this up succinctly when he said that if a writer emulates Tolkien for the sake of world-building, he doesn't have "world-builders' disease" as it is currently understood (and described by Brandon) as a problem for novelists.

I even hesitate to use the word "writer" in the above sentence, because when I am world-building for dungeon mastering, I don't consider myself a writer. I consider myself a world-builder, similar (but far less skilled) to Tolkien.

If a would-be novelist emulates Tolkien out of a misguided belief that he must have complete mythology, background, history, or even character history in place before putting pen to paper, he has world-builder's disease.

Tolkien may not have had the "disease" in that it was a problem for Tolkien -- I believe that is Fardawg's primary point here -- but Tolkien did have worldbuilders' disease as understood by the modern novelist -- which is Brandon's and Peter's point.

It's also worth noting, with all due respect to the man, that Tolkien's own opinion of his "true" work was not a realistic assessment of the marketplace. How true of most new authors this is. Yet it's equally true today that a novel within a customized fantasy setting is far more marketable than a rulebook for a customized fantasy setting.

I know, I know, how dare the editors and Fan Dumb define true art. Right?

I agree with these points,  Jason.

I've also read fardawg's answer to these points, and I can't help but saying that, having read the Silmarion, it doesn't read like a story.  Oh, the early bits (the creation, the music, etc.) and some of the rare interludes, personal tragedies and occasional victories, are interesting, but beyond those, it reads like a history textbook.  A dull, boring, and painfully detailed history textbook.  If Tolkien was writing it as a story (or, if you prefer, mythology), then apparently his idea of "Writing a Modern Mythology" is identical in form to "Doing a Lot of Worldbuilding with a Couple of Interesting Stories placed here and there inside of it," even if that wasn't the intended purpose.

Don't you see?  The distinction between worldbuilding and storytelling is paper thin from an explicitly functional point of view.  It's all about intent.  Essentially, Worldbuilding is a form of storytelling---it's in-world documentation, in-world mythologies, background material, language information, all the rest.  If you sit down and write a history of some fantasy world, you have both written a story (the Mythology, which is often an actual story or history in-world) and done Worldbuilding.

In modern fiction, the term Worldbuilding in practice is the part of the story that doesn't end up verbatim in the published novel, but informs it heavily and maintains it's consistency in the background, usually because it doesn't make an engaging story in its own right.  In this sense, Tolkein wasn't Worldbuilding because he intended his history to be a worthy story in its own right.  On the other hand, in practice, his history ended up being Worldbuilding to The Lord of the Rings, which was much the better for having the enormous history behind it.

Thus we can have a self-consistent answer.  Did Tolkein think he was Worldbuilding?  No, he thought he was writing a comprehensive history of a fictional world which he really liked, for it's own sake.  In practice, was he Worldbuilding?  Yes; Worldbuilding and Storytelling are closely related disciplines and look similar from the outside; their main difference in modern practice really is whether the resulting work is publishable or not.  Did it improve the works that actually sold?  Emphatically yes; the sense of history behind The Lord of the Rings is one of the things that really impressed me about it.  Do authors sometimes think they need to imitate Tolkein and his (inadvertent) Worldbuilding, and thus catch Worldbuilder's disease?  Yes.  Did Tolkein have Worldbuilders disease?  I'd have to say so.  The fact that he was doing it for his own amusement or thought it might be publishable have no bearing on the fact that he kept on trying to refine the Story that represented his worldbuilding.

30
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Dalinar as a possible radiant? *Spoilers*
« on: June 24, 2011, 02:26:37 PM »
1.When he is knocked in the air his shardplate seems to correct itself so he lands right side up
2. Adolin notes that he moves faster in shardplate than should be possible, making other shardbearers look like children by comparison
3. When he catches the greatshell claw, Adolin notices that his shardplate "almost glows"

I may just be dense, but I thought this was all just good description for the power and majesty of shardplates/blades, not an indication of Dalinar's personal innate ability.

For instance, it becomes clear pretty early that Kaladin has some magic "luck"...I'll grant that Dalinar's arc could simply be much longer, but I would expect hints to be more obvious than this.

None of this is to say that Dalinar won't become a radiant, I just didn't think this points to it.

The trouble with the description just being "the power and majesty of shardplates/blades" is that they are given from Adolin's and Dalinar's points of view.  Both of them have extensive experience with both plate and blade, and they have a pretty good idea what the rules are supposed to be.  They appreciate the power, but it's almost mundane to them; it's part of their life.  Even with their knowledge of how things are supposed to be, Dalinar apparently exceeds the previous limits in many subtle ways and has experiences he's never had before, not even in plate.

Given that the Radiants were apparently able to use plate and blade more effectively than modern Shardbearers, and had more powers, this is exactly what we would expect from a proto-radiant.

In addition, we haven't really seen Dalinar's arc start in earnest yet.  Oh, we've seen some of it, but this book was focused on Kaladin and his powers.  There's another nine books in the series, after all.  This kind of foreshadowing is perfectly appropriate for this point in the longer story.

It's not proof that Dalinar is a radiant, but I consider the possibility to be fairly likely given what little we have seen.

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