Timewaster's Guide Archive

Actually, Biology is a subset of Chemistry which is a subset of Electromagnetics which is a subset of physics.  It's just that doing chemistry or biology from first physical principles would require so many calculations that even our greatest supercomputers would have trouble with even the most basic problems.

Judging from Sanderson's commends, and Sazed's talk about the star religion in The Final Empire, Luthadel is actually at Scadrial's magnetic North Pole and not the geographical North Pole.  TLR actually locked the Magnetic North Pole's location for a 1000 years.

While all of Sanderson's books that I have read have been awesome (I've not read the Alcatrz books), it comes down to HoA and Warbreaker for me.

Warbreaker has some of the best banter and dialogue I have ever seen put onto a page, and through that, excellent characters. 

While Warbreaker has the character angle nailed, Hero of Ages has the the EPIC SCALE!!! angle nailed.  You really got the sense that Ruin and Preservation were Gods, and much more deserving of the title than the Elantrians or Returned were.

This isn't to say that Warbreaker wasn't appropriately epic or that HoA had bad characters, it's just that Brandon had more experience with characterization when he was writing Warbreaker than when he was writing HoA, and by the same token the world wasn't ending in Warbreaker so it didn't require the same sense of enormity and scale to get the essential nature of the conflict across.

Upon consideration, I have to give the title of favorite to Hero of Ages.

IIRC, Vin only asked herself those questions after she had tired Gold.  And Viv had just been through a very traumatic experience.

Quote from: ErikHolmes on August 02, 2009, 10:53:11 PM

I don't know if its that much of a stretch to say that Raoden could make himself faster, stronger, tougher, then TLR.

Ah, don't some of the baddies in Elantris use tattoos to enhance themselves this way? It seems that an Aon drawn in the air only lasts for a few seconds, so having to constantly draw buffs would hamper combat quite a bit.

Aran, the Mistborn don't get spare vials at all? Most of them do carry quite a few spare pewter vials, mixes, and at least one atium or electrum.

Well, I thought that went without saying.  So yes.

so i pulled out WoA and found that Sazed uses zinc twice during his fight with Marsh. the first time he uses it he plots out the trajectory of the flying lamp and is able to use it against Marsh. but i'd like to point out the second time along with words that accompany each usage, "Sazed's thoughts sped up" and then it says that he became more aware of his situation. this points me toward believing he was thinking things through at a faster speed than normal and not simply plotting trajectories faster, which the brain does in a split second anyway.

The brain doesn't calculate trajectories that exactly in a split second.  I really don't think Mental Speed works the way you think it works.

Quote from: Aranfan on August 02, 2009, 11:11:38 PM

I'm taking Raoden as of the end of Elantris, because if we don't we either do him a disservice or are dealing with a speculative possible Raoden instead of the actual Raoden.

Even still. The fight starts. Shields come up. Raoden then blasts TLR to powder. Also, we know that an Elantrian can turn garbage into corn. Why not turn metal into garbage. When his armbands are turned into stale donuts, TLR is screwed  

Thank you for the citation.  However, I'm not convinced that the silvery blood is an actual change in what the blood is as opposed to it just being infused with the Dor's power.  In such a case, TLR would still be perfectly able to push an Elantrian around.

Your scenario depends on TLR not being able to push Raoden around at all, and that TLR's immense Soothing doesn't slow down Raoden's reaction times, and that there isn't any metal behind Raoden that TLR can use to take Raoden by surprise, and that TLR isn't fast enough to stop Raoden's drawing or simply dodge (Not likely with how much speed he must have stored up), and and and...  There's a reason The Lord Ruler was considered a god.  This leaves aside the unlikelyness of Raoden specifically changing the bracers.

Thank you Erik.  I will concede that Vin would probably lose against Raoden if he opened with Edo.  If he started with Daa or the fire one then Vin has a chance.

Also, TLR can push on the metal in people's bodies, but only to the point of pushing the body around.  Which would still be extremely useful against the Elantrians.

I'm thus seeing Vin, TLR, and Raoden as the main contenders, with who wins dependent on who fights who in what order. Nightblood gives Vasher a chance to win, so he'd be a forth contender.

With Erik's citation, I feel confident in giving the win to TLR as I now feel he will deal with Vasher before claiming Nightblood as a trophy.





@Plasman, the mental speed used to calculate trajectories and the mental speed you are talking about are very different (you're talking about decision making speed).  I don't think that it would work quite the way you think it would work.

I think I'm going to have to throw in my vote with an Aon Dor Master.

And lets keep in mind, Raoden was far from a master. He'd studied Aon Dor for what, a year? There were probably Elantrians that had studied and practiced it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And look at what he could do with it after just a little study, without a real teacher.

Teleportation, Fireballs, Force shields, flight, those are probably all possible with Aon Dor.

And this is all assuming that an Elantrian can even die. A sword through the chest wouldn't do it. And they can turn garbage into corn, I'm betting they can make some nice armor if they need it.

I really don't think any of the others would have much of a chance.

Beheading would probably do it.  Or something foreign taking up space inside their skull.

And where were Force Shields or flight in Elantris (the book)?





Re: Koloss vs Lifeless, I'm not sure I agree.

I thought it was an incorrectly drawn healing Aon that messed up Dilaf's wife?  And Aon Shao is useless for protection, as proved when Serene takes a sword to Raoden's face (If you have correctly identified what Shao is used for).

We haven't seen any protection Aons in action yet, so we can't really say how useful they would be against an Allomancer of Vin's caliber.