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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Warbreaker: Free Ebook
« on: March 01, 2007, 07:30:59 AM »
Tjaeden,
You seem to be implicitly assuming that art and science are mutually exclusive, and that beauty and understanding are inversely related. Just saying, is all.
Matt,
This doesn't really address your point, but--
I think the word "iridescence" technically refers to a surface creating a diffraction or rainbow effect, like the rainbow pattern you see on the shiny side of a compact disk, by reflecting different colors most strongly at different angles. (There doesn't have to be any "changing" or "shimmering" at all.) So the God King's rainbow effect might actually be iridescence, and it's vaguely possible that iridescence plays a role in an awakener's ability to more accurately distinguish different colors, since some light sensors use diffraction to do exactly that.
I like your idea of replacing both "biochroma" and "breath" with a single term. It's tricky, though, because it kind of makes sense to say that each person has one indivisible biochromatic breath, but if you changed the term to, say, mana or energy, then it would be much more difficult. The word "soul" would work nicely, except for the pesky connotation of housing a person's self-ness.
Heh. I just looked up "soul" in a thesaurus. Esprit, vim, zest...maybe we should just call it "soap".
Vadia,
There are some good points in your post, but I have to disagree with you about having a different font or style for Nightblade. I think in general that books which have different fonts for different characters, or set off certain characters' text ~(~like this~)~ tend to look a little gimmicky. Also, I think it's important to explain the way Vasher's awakened rope works; maybe it would work better for you if that paragraph were simply a little shorter?
You seem to be implicitly assuming that art and science are mutually exclusive, and that beauty and understanding are inversely related. Just saying, is all.
Matt,
Quote
Another possibility is that if Iridescence is the word of choice, then adjust the magic to play down the saturation aspect and instead make those people with many Breaths appear more iridescent and/or make them experience the colors of what they see as changing and shimmering rather than static-but-saturated.
This doesn't really address your point, but--
I think the word "iridescence" technically refers to a surface creating a diffraction or rainbow effect, like the rainbow pattern you see on the shiny side of a compact disk, by reflecting different colors most strongly at different angles. (There doesn't have to be any "changing" or "shimmering" at all.) So the God King's rainbow effect might actually be iridescence, and it's vaguely possible that iridescence plays a role in an awakener's ability to more accurately distinguish different colors, since some light sensors use diffraction to do exactly that.
I like your idea of replacing both "biochroma" and "breath" with a single term. It's tricky, though, because it kind of makes sense to say that each person has one indivisible biochromatic breath, but if you changed the term to, say, mana or energy, then it would be much more difficult. The word "soul" would work nicely, except for the pesky connotation of housing a person's self-ness.
Heh. I just looked up "soul" in a thesaurus. Esprit, vim, zest...maybe we should just call it "soap".
Vadia,
There are some good points in your post, but I have to disagree with you about having a different font or style for Nightblade. I think in general that books which have different fonts for different characters, or set off certain characters' text ~(~like this~)~ tend to look a little gimmicky. Also, I think it's important to explain the way Vasher's awakened rope works; maybe it would work better for you if that paragraph were simply a little shorter?