Timewaster's Guide Archive

Its the way he keeps track of the males, some of which may only have joined him to escape the madness.

All of the male Forsaken were sealed with the DO (sans Ishmael) prior to the counterstroke that tainted Saidin, so they wouldn't have joined him to escape the madness.

I've thought about the Eye a bit as I've been rereading the entire series. The Eye was distilled, pure Saidin, somehow created after the breaking. Remember, an already hurt Someshta was sent to guard the Horn and the Dragon Banner in the vision that Rand has through his ancestors eyes while in Ruidean. Present-day people assumed the Eye was probably meant to be used in the last battle - but as Moiraine says - "But, the Horn is supposed to be used at the last battle, and the Eye was concealing it." Thus the Eye had to be used prior to the last battle. The world faced some extremely dire circumstances in that first book. The trollocs coming out of the Blight were about to overrun the borderlands. Had Rand not used the Eye to destroy that army, the light might not have had a chance. And based on what Rand did, I'd say the Eye functioned as a massive Sa'angreal. So in some way, we might argue that the last battle has begun (and that it actually is a war), and that the first move of the shadow was countered by Rand. The subsequent events are simply more skirmishes leading up to the final battle.

The sad part is, we may never know exactly the purpose and point behind the Eye of the World.

Got to meet Brandon last night in Pittsburg. Not many people there (about 20) so I was excited. Brandon was extremely gracious and as always very transparent. I was bummed that so many people obviously hadn't read his blog or his forum posts, because many of the questions were variations of those he's already answered here and there. Regardless, it was an excellent time.

He read a section from Way of Kings. He prefaced it by saying this exact scene may not make it into any final cut of the books, but something akin to it probably would. There were many names and references to which I was unfamiliar (obviously), but the scene is a dance, and an assassin wearing white (much to-do about the fact he was wearing white), is on his way to "visit" the king who has retired for the evening. The interesting thing that came out of the reading was a cultural moray followed by the people who have sent the assassin - that an assassin should wear white, because you should give the person you are about to assassinate the chance to see you coming. Seems a tad counterproductive, but I liked the principle.

When asked a question about the formations of his magic systems, Brandon answered much the way he has on his posts - but added some detail about the magic in Way of Kings. He has said that he likes linking science, specifically physics, to something arcane or magical and thus creates a very realistic, visceral system. Way of Kings uses the 4 known forces - gravity, magnetism, the strong atomic force, and the weak atomic force, as the "science" behind the system. He marries that to an arcane power derived from oath making (and I'm assuming  breaking), to form his magic system. I have absolutely no idea how that works - that why he's writing it and I'm reading it - but it sounds much more intriguing than the "additive and subtractive" magic system found in Goodkind's series.

The two hours flew by, and I found at the end I hadn't said half the things I'd wanted to say, but couldn't help walking away from the experience feeling like I'd just sat down and had coffee with a friend who happens to be a best-selling author.

Well done, Brandon.

flinn,

I understand your pain. I really do. However, Vin and Elend's fates fit the end of the story. Preservation sacrifices itself to stop Ruin. We see this concept throughout the story.

Now if they just died at the end in a dagger-in-the-reader's-heart kind of way, then yes, we'd all have problems with the ending, but that is not what happened.

Another thing we have to understand is that HOA is a different story from FE and WOA. BS does a masterful job of crafting 3 completely separate stories within his trilogy. (MAD PROPS, DUDE!) Most fantasy/SF writers write one long (sometimes painfully long, sometimes ridiculously long to the point I don't care any more) story and divide into as many books as it takes to tell the story.

Vin was the main character in FE (a very well-done archtypal hero story). Elend and Vin (or is it Sazed and Vin.... maybe we should just say Vin, Elend and Sazed) are the main characters of WOA. Certainly the POV is more scattered than in FE. WOA deals with Idealism and the nature of belief as well as the way they can both be so easily manipulated - too clever! Finally we have HOA. By this time we cannot say that the story is about Vin anymore (there are several main characters - I can't say who had the most screen time). If we read the story trying to force it to be about Vin, then we are doing the story a disservice. When we get to the end we'll be disappointed. But, when we read the story for what it is, then the ending makes perfect sense.

Excellent story, Brandon. You dealt with prime metaphysical forces, you quantified them to an extent that your readers could understand how they worked, and then you crafted a story around how these forces collide and eventually marry - because, in the end, they need each other to survive. Seriously. Wow.

Really outstanding discussion.

It comes down to preferrence. There will always be ending readers. There will always be those who'd never want to know the ending first.

Happily, we all get to enjoy the book in our way. We all get to "win".

Well, I'm 150 pages in... back to it!

You ending-readers is why I put the endings in the Alcatraz books that I did.

Hint: It makes fun of you.

That's hilarious. I haven't read the Alcatraz books yet. I probably wouldn't read the end of those anyway - but now I definitely won't. 

And I would kill myself if I read the end of the book first. You miss out on all that buildup.

I understand how most people feel about reading the end first. And I certainly don't tell everyone else to do what I do. I read the end of books first simply because of a preference I developed while earning my BA in English.

I really get into stories. I love the flow and function of stories. Frequently, the ends of books won't jive with the flow of a story (at least in my opinion they don't), and then I feel jilted at the end. (The Matrix Revolutions is a great example of an end which did not fit the form of the story. They had the epic Hero thing going and then they took a hard right at Christianity before doing the Dune ending. It was bizarre.) Also, because of my schooling I really can't read without a critical eye anymore. Believe me it sucks in many ways, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't go back, but I can't just dig in and enjoy - I have to understand why I'm enjoying. Make sense?

Therefore, I read the end of books so I can "see" where the story's headed. If the ending doesn't fit or it's forced, then I'm not surprised. Plus, when I say "I read the end." I mean I read a couple of paragraphs to get the gist of the end. I don't get all the hard details. I think I got the gist of HoA. That's why I say BA has really tackled a monster. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

I might be nuts, but I have the tools... I work for an ad agency.

I printed the chart using a high resolution color laser printer. The image is still a bit fuzzy, but I was able to tell a couple of things once I used a magnifer on the image.

The first of the unknown Allomantic metals, the pure metal appears to begin with a "Ch" or a "Cl". It does not have any letters that extend below the plane of the text (Like a "p" or "g"). Based on that I would say everyone else is correct, the unknown pure metal is Chromium.

Upon examining its alloy, I found the letters to be too fuzzy to make much out. Except - the last letter may be a capital "E". It may also be an "l". It's name is also shorter than the pure metal.

Now, most of the metals on the sheet in the smaller boxes are are all letted differently. They're all placed a few points further down in the box. Atium and Malatium are printed similarly to the unknown metals. Because the letters are pressed up against the top of the box, they appear even more fuzzy, and actually could be capitalized. But, that would be inconsistent with the rest of the text within the boxes.

Conclusion: I have to agree with the previous post. Either the metal/alloy combination is Chromium/Chromel or there is gibberish printed on those lines and we're simply misinterpreting.