Author Topic: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****  (Read 334729 times)

VegasDev

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Alendi's "Piercings of the Hero"?

The other lake in Alendi's bumps?

Spook gets repaired, does Cett get his legs?

Was there ever anything to Reen's obsidian?



Now you've got all the ones with beards on one side and all the
moustaches on the other.

Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #46 on: October 16, 2008, 08:24:13 AM »
Quote
If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...
Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like Malatium and Electrum works like Atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Seriously, Brandon, you need to ask Howard to warpgate-dupe you, so you can write these books faster. We need at least three of you, maybe four. Your speed for any one series is great, and we're blessed you can do that one better and actually write two series at a time, but three is stretching you a bit thin, and I count books from 8 different series you're writing that I want more of (Alcatraz, AMoL, Warbreaker, Dragonsteel, MistbornII+, Scribbler, Way of Kings, Dark One) plus those other books you told me about. And I do wish I had the ability to read books you haven't written yet! (Though honestly, if I did have that power, a Scribbler sequel is what I would read first. That book was exciting.)

Quote
Was there ever anything to Reen's obsidian?

Reen's obsidian wasn't even a red herring, and you guys spent so much darn time on it! Amazing!
« Last Edit: October 16, 2008, 08:37:40 AM by Ookla The Mok »
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Qarlin

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #47 on: October 16, 2008, 09:10:23 AM »
First, Mists causing Snapping, Sazed as HOA. I called it. Them. Both of them.
:P

What did happen to Cett?

Who were Ruin and Preservation? I mean, when they died, they had bodies, like Vin. And you went as far as to describe their hair color (Red and Black, respectively). Preservation even had a prominent nose. Why describe their dead bodies, if they weren't at one time mortals themselves? They created humans, but were at one time human themselves?

I'm  sad Ten Soon never got to talk to Vin again, since it was apparent they both missed each other.

Lemme guess, the "Mistborn" following Vin was actually Ruin, since Elend never actually saw him, and he disappeared every time Vin got close? Why did Ruin give off Allomantic Pulses? Because Preservation did and they're two sides of the same coin? Allomancy is of Preservation, so I figured that's why he did...

A modern world  update for a future mistborn trilogy prolly wouldn't involve as much metal, unless mistings were rare, which apparently will not be the case. I'm thinking more like plastics, ceramics, fiberglass, and silicon. I mean for cars and guns and all that.

darxbane

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Regarding Hemalurgy:

1)  In an annotation from book 1, it is mentioned that The Lord Ruler needed all 3 magic systems in order to do what he did.  I always assumed that it meant his Hemallurgy enhanced his allomancy.  Did Marsh get a double power, or is the Feruchemy-Allomancy combo enough? ( a sidebar to this question is whether or not stacking abilities is possible through hemalurgy).

2) Did Vin's mother actually have a spike, or was she so crazy that one wasn't necessary for Ruin to influence her?

3)  When the Kandra get their spikes back, do they remember who they were, or have they been "rebooted"?

I wanted to write something profound here, but I couldn't think of anything.

flinn

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I am curious if any changes were made to the story after you got AMoL or after the Name of the Wind was published? The style hasn't changed, but the story seemed to flow much better this time around.


Actually, no.  This one was finished off back before I knew anything of AMoL or before I'd read Name of the Wind.  Hopefully, the smoothing is a result of me trying to work out kinks in my storytelling ability.  I'm learning to distance out my climax chapters, for instance.  (I think I've I'd have written this book years ago, I'd have tried to overlay Spook's climactic sequence with the ending ones, for instance, which would  have been a mistake.) 

Also, of the three books, I worked the hardest on this one.  Choosing that ending--even though I'd planned it for some time--was very difficult.  I knew that it would anger some readers.  I also knew that it was the right ending for the series. 

I'm glad it worked for you.

i have to admit, i am one of those angered. i will be so glad when this cliche of killing off the heroes will finally pass. i escape to fantasy for the happy ending. if i wanted to be depressed id grab a 3 dollar bottle of mad dog 20/20 and drink it all and contemplate my mundane life. i cant spend much time reflecting on the book because of the mental picture of vin and elend dead in a field keeps popping up instead. they didnt even get a chance to reproduce.

now outside of the horrible ending (which wasnt suprising in the least because it is so common to kill the heroes) i enjoyed them. i absolutely cannot wait to read your books written 10 years from now. you can definitely pick up the improvement in transitions and character development in each book ive read from you. im quite often reminded of david eddings although im sure plenty would disagree. and while eddings isnt one of my favorite writers to be at his level (to me) so early in your career leads me to believe great things will be coming.
i would like to ask you one thing to consider when writing endings. fantasy is an escape, please dont ruin it with such depressing endings. when you have had the opportunity to look upon your dead wife in her coffin, reading about others dying isnt fun at all. it is absolutely terrible. happily ever after.

jnktoburen

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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.
What? You were expecting greatness?

darxbane

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I also thought the ending was excellent.  Vin and Elend may have physically died, but Sazed writes in his note to Spook that he has spoken to them both, and they are happy where they are.  This does two things.  First, it proves that at least in the Mistborn universe, there is an afterlife.  That makes death a lot more bearable.  More importantly, Sazed talks about learning how to put souls back into bodies.  If Brandon chooses to, he could have any of the characters in this series be reborn in later books.  He probably won't, but the option is there.

On an unrelated note, I wonder if Ruin appeared to Rashek, or just spoke in his mind?  I must admit I was a big detractor of the misunderstood Lord Ruler theory, but now that I know I was wrong, I wonder how long it took for Ruin to corrupt him, and how he did it.  I bet he regretted having to kill Alendi, so wouldn't it be sadistic for Ruin to take that form when speaking to Rashek?
I wanted to write something profound here, but I couldn't think of anything.

Chaos

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I was also a big fan of the ending. The world gets reborn, so I find that a wonderfully happy ending for the original depressing setting we got in Final Empire. In the grand scale of depressing endings, this was pretty light (at least in the way that we don't see a lot of death immediately, just focusing on Vin, Elend, and Sazed). It made sense for them to die. Elend's duralumin + atium was an excellently spectacular method for getting rid of the atium. While I loved Elend--he was my favorite character--his death was just so perfect and essential, the ending could not be anything different. And the only thing Vin could do to defeat Ruin was to sacrifice herself, but that is pretty obvious, really. Opposite forces "annihilating"? Yup, it's awesome.

Really, I would've liked to see more death at the end, like showing more of the kandra dying and stuff. Maybe I'm heartless that way. I think Brandon was not going for a surprise where Vin and Elend die. That's not the surprise, in my opinion; the surprise is what is meant by "Hero of Ages". It's very similar to where Kelsier died in MB1--the death was not the narrative surprise in that one, but his Plan was.

I'm just a huge fan of massive, epic conflict. It's the end of the world, and I loved every minute of it.

I also thought the ending was excellent.  Vin and Elend may have physically died, but Sazed writes in his note to Spook that he has spoken to them both, and they are happy where they are.  This does two things.  First, it proves that at least in the Mistborn universe, there is an afterlife.  That makes death a lot more bearable.  More importantly, Sazed talks about learning how to put souls back into bodies.  If Brandon chooses to, he could have any of the characters in this series be reborn in later books.  He probably won't, but the option is there.

Actually, what I got from that is Sazed can't put the souls back into the bodies.
First, Mists causing Snapping, Sazed as HOA. I called it. Them. Both of them.
:P

Who were Ruin and Preservation? I mean, when they died, they had bodies, like Vin. And you went as far as to describe their hair color (Red and Black, respectively). Preservation even had a prominent nose. Why describe their dead bodies, if they weren't at one time mortals themselves? They created humans, but were at one time human themselves?

Yes, yes you did Qarlin. Good job :P *bows*

I think there is another story to be told here. From some of Brandon's responses, he references a "greater cosmology" and Shards of Adonasium. There's more going on here than we know. I expect this greater cosmology is something that will be prevalent in most of Brandon's works, creating a mythology of his own which spans between series. I love it.

Seriously, Brandon, you need to ask Howard to warpgate-dupe you, so you can write these books faster. We need at least three of you, maybe four. Your speed for any one series is great, and we're blessed you can do that one better and actually write two series at a time, but three is stretching you a bit thin, and I count books from 8 different series you're writing that I want more of (Alcatraz, AMoL, Warbreaker, Dragonsteel, MistbornII+, Scribbler, Way of Kings, Dark One) plus those other books you told me about. And I do wish I had the ability to read books you haven't written yet! (Though honestly, if I did have that power, a Scribbler sequel is what I would read first. That book was exciting.)

Quote
Was there ever anything to Reen's obsidian?

Reen's obsidian wasn't even a red herring, and you guys spent so much darn time on it! Amazing!

"Dark One"? Sounds interesting, yet I don't think that one has been mentioned on the boards until now.

To be fair, I was right in saying that Reen's obsidian meant absolutely nothing. Of course, I had my own gaffes like my way too extensive Hemalurgy and mist-causes-Allomancy thing, but at least I knew that Reen's obsidian wasn't important. Ha! In your face!
www.17thshard.com - The Official Brandon Sanderson Fansite.

Oh SNAP, I'm an Allomancer.

Peter Ahlstrom

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I also left out the Elantris sequel from that list. Dark One is a YA that Brandon is over halfway through writing. I haven't read any of it, but he did put it up on his progress bar section for several months.

Yeah. My thought when Brandon said only two of the Shards were on the planet at the time was—which other planet of Brandon's ARE they on right now? I assume Hoid ties into this. I once asked Brandon what the heck was up with Hoid, and he said, "You don't really want to know," and I said, "You're right. I don't." (Meaning that I want to RAFO because it wouldn't be as fun any other way.)

I told you guys that I was sure some people would hate the ending. I told Brandon too, after I read it. I loved the ending (I get the most out of reading when a book moves me emotionally, which this definitely did), but knew it was dangerous. I was one of the people who suggested to Brandon that he should emphasize the afterlife thing more (which he did by adding a sentence or so, to great success, I think). Though that is also dangerous, since some readers could see it as a cop-out; it could make Vin's and Elend's sacrifices seem less meaningful. But I don't think it does, because to them at the time it was completely meaningful, and they didn't know there would be an afterlife. (At least, Elend didn't know it from duralumining atium, did he? Vin for sure did not know.)
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darxbane

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Actually Choas, I believe he said that he couldn't put the souls back in yet.  He didn't say it was impossible, just that he was as of yet unable to accomplish the feat.
I wanted to write something profound here, but I couldn't think of anything.

happyman

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #55 on: October 16, 2008, 09:40:40 PM »
Here's another question:

In one of the bumps, Sazed mentions a discussion between Vin and Ruin in which Vin asks Ruin why she was chosen to release him from the Well.  Did this discussion occur in the in-between afterlife where Vin, Elend, Kelsier, etc., were, or did it occur off-screen while Vin and Ruin were busy stopping each other from affecting the world?
Nature hates being reified.

Dalenthas

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #56 on: October 16, 2008, 10:34:19 PM »
Here's another question:

In one of the bumps, Sazed mentions a discussion between Vin and Ruin in which Vin asks Ruin why she was chosen to release him from the Well.  Did this discussion occur in the in-between afterlife where Vin, Elend, Kelsier, etc., were, or did it occur off-screen while Vin and Ruin were busy stopping each other from affecting the world?

I was fairly sure she asked it while she was a prisoner of Yomen, but I could be wrong.

Another question came to mind:
Were the epigraphs meant to be in order? If so, reading them all straight through it seems Sazed keeps going off on tangents, seems more stream of conciousness than we're used to seeing from Saze...

kaimipono

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #57 on: October 17, 2008, 02:44:36 AM »
A few more questions, mostly minor, one major:

1.  What was Vin _supposed_ to do at the end of WoA?  How exactly did not-using the power, end up releasing Ruin?  I still don't get how that all worked.  Can you explain it?

Minor q's:

2.  If Sazed is the HoA, then who is the Announcer?

3.  Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body?  How exactly does that work?  And how does that interact with Atium -- it's fueled by _both_ gods' bodies? 

4.  Why exactly do some spike removals kill (dual eye, or central spike) but most don't? 

5.  Did Zane get spiked intentionally?  Did someone else (Straff?) know about hemalurgy? 

6.  Very minor question -- was Reen a misting or mistborn, and if so, did he end up as a spike in an inquisitor somewhere? 
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.

requim

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Re: ***SPOLIERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #58 on: October 17, 2008, 04:23:06 AM »
First off, great book, great series.  I had been anxiously awaiting this last book for several years.  It didn't disappoint.

Just one question.  How was Vin able to take and release Preservation in the Well of Ascension while wearing her mother's earing which was a Hemalurgic spike?

At the start of chapter 49 it says this: "The power in the Well was of Preservation, and an Inquisitor could only have taken it by first removing his Hemalurgic spikes." 

I assume anyone who was wearing a Hemalurgic spike would be included in this group, not just an Inquisitor.  For the same reasons that the mists repelled against Vin while she wore the earring.  Or was it the fact that released it rather than used it that allowed her to do it?  I'm still not quite clear on how that whole sequence of events worked in the Well of Ascension.

Thanks!

Peter Ahlstrom

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She took the earring out. Page 570 of the WoA hardback.
All Saiyuki fans should check out Dazzle! Emotionally wrenching action-adventure and quirky humor! (At least read chapter 6 and tell me if you're not hooked.) Volume 10 out now!