Timewaster's Guide Archive

Can anyone answer amy's question about Blushweaver?

I assumed it was a combination of genuine jealousy/cattiness and, well, if I saw an Idrian Princess frequently chatting up one of the Returned Gods who happened to have the command words for part of the Lifeless armies, I'd certainly be worried that said Princess was trying to manipulate the Returned God into doing something not in the best interest of Hallandren.  Especially if I was the Returned Goddess who'd been quietly trying to gather control of the Lifeless armies myself to further my own plans (and indeed seemed to be one of the driving forces behind the conflict) and didn't want a chief ally to be suborned by the enemy.  But that's just speculation.

Blushweaver does get my vote as likeliest employer of Denth, though it sounds like we'll find out soon enough what's going on there.  I also have to wonder whether Siri and Vivenna's father isn't going to have some surprise role by the end of the story: he's been way too quiet.

Edit: as far as Denth and Vivenna's hands...it seemed to me that Denth was seriously panicking by then (witness Peprin) so not sure he would have noticed her hands.  I am hoping that why Denth loses his cool to the degree that he does will be explained...either in terms of what they were doing with Vivenna/what he thought happened, or just as a character trait, is he someone who freaks out when his plans go awry?

I'm also still trying to figure out why they tortured the parrot...that was just so wrong. 

MattD

That part is explained by the Dor attacks. The bursts of pain were caused by the Dor buildup due to Raoden practicing all those Aons. All those almost-spells caused a slow buildup of unspent power looking for an outlet.

I'm not sure I buy this since Galladon practiced Aons as well -- before Raoden, even -- unless there's something else I'm missing.  I do think the ultimate answer to both of our questions is, as you said, that things sometimes work a little differently for Heroes -- and that authors and editors both may let some things slide where they're concerned, at times intentionally and at times unintentionally, and hope reader imagination fills in the gap.  But yes, you're not the only person to notice such things when reading!

As far as the blow to Raoden's head...well, I imagine there were two components: the physical injury and resulting pain plus the psychological shock of the blow and his focus of attention on it.  Since we're in Raoden's POV, it's possible that he, due to the shock, was simply overstating things: he didn't think the dizziness would ever leave at the time that it happened, couldn't imagine it leaving when he was concentrating solely on it.  When other important tasks came to occupy his mind, however, he was able to master the dizziness -- and to the extent it was psychological rather than physical, it may have faded to a degree as well.  In other words, yes, we're told things, but the narrative voice may not be 100% reliable as it is grounded in a single character and their current understanding of the situation.

After all, the book begins by telling us that Raoden "had been damned for all eternity," which turned out to be not precisely true, either.

MattD

This ties in with a question I remember having when reading the book.  Raoden experiences the pain of being an Elantrian differently than all other denizens of the city: in short debilitating bursts rather than constant low-level pain.  I had considered the idea that it might just be a matter of psychology, of Raoden's activity level drowning out the pain most of the time, but too many details and bits of dialogue seemed to argue against that.  Did I miss an explanation of why Raoden was different?

MattD

This is true...  I wonder what they're going to do now that he's been used against them...

That reminds me, one small continuity thing I noticed with the last chapter: Denth seems surprised that Vivenna knows the command phrase for Clod, but he and Tonk Fah were both there when Jewels used it in front of Vivenna a few chapters previous.

MattD

As annoying as it might be to us conspiracy nuts, it's also possible that Denth was simply lying (or least least being misdirecting) about Clod.

MattD

From Chapter 19:

“Vasher,” Tonk Fah said.  “Killed a good friend of ours over in Yarn Dred a couple months back.  Denth used to have four people in his team.”
   “It shouldn’t have happened,” Jewels said.  “Arsteel was a brilliant duelist--almost as good as Denth himself.  Vasher’s never been able to beat either of them.  But, Arsteel died with a dueling blade through the chest.”

The "Lightsong as Arsteel" idea had been my initial hypothesis, too, but when I read this I knew it wouldn't work.

My next thought had been that Clod was Arsteel, that they had paid to have him made into a Lifeless after his death -- they seem to only have had Clod for a little while, there seems to be a connection between Jewels and Clod, and Clod is a better than average fighter.  But in Chapter 35, Denth says "considering what we paid for this guy, he’d better have been quite the soldier in life" -- indicating that they don't know who he is/was.  I wonder...

MattD

Wow indeed.  That was interesting -- I did not see it coming!

It is fun being thrown a curveball like that, the thrill that comes from uncertainty about where the story is going.  I'm not sure what to make of the change of tone, but will wait and see what the next few chapters bring...

MattD

It looks to me like they're trying to make the cover appeal to a younger audience -- the colors and composition are more Harry Potter-esque, the lightning says "magic" more obviously than the hardcover, and things like crows and the reaper dude are a more amorphous way of signaling threat and danger than the somewhat scary-looking face on the hardback.

The reasoning behind the change seems kind of sketchy -- surely they would have thought of this (edit: that the cloth cover wouldn't work well in paperback) when deciding on the original cover?  I wonder if instead they have demographic data that might indicate that Mistborn isn't doing as well among certain groups like younger readers as Elantris did (do you know?), or have gotten comments that the cover is scary, etc.  Or maybe it's just that paperbacks appeal to a broader  range of readers?

MattD