Timewaster's Guide Archive

Tam, along with other Two Rivers men, joined Perrin when they attacked the Aiel camp to get Faile.

You burned down an orphanage?!?!  That discredits you even more!

Good story, kept my interest.

In line with what everyone else has been saying about character flaw, one specific place where Gab didn't seem right was in his reaction to Ashley throwing a pipe at him. His easy going acceptance of Nate's ordering him around and his, in his mind, violent reaction seemed to clash.  It's not just that his personality seemed to change, it's also that he and Nate or whoever else was there thought his violent pipe-throwing actions were inappropriate. It's seems to me that enemy sides would have no problem throwing metal at each other. They are trying to defeat the other side, right? But even Ashley seemed to think the violence was too strong with her comment that she hadn't really expected the pipe to hit him.

I also think you need to be more clear about the levels of power. It wasn't very clear why they knew that Ashley's brother's power would reveal itself when he was 16. One of your comments on this thread explained it a little bit, but it needs more explanation in the story. You don't need to write paragraphs about it. Just make comments about people's ages when they gained their power and what level they are. I'm assuming that people gaining their powers at 18 are level 1, 16 are level 2, 14 are level 3, and 12 are level 4 or something like that. But think this because of the thread, not the content in the story. The knowledge of level ages isn't essential in the story, but I want to know why the good guys know that Adam would gain his powers at age 16.

I know this doesn't answer your question, but I just assumed that for some as of yet unknown reason, the normal Returned rules do not apply to the Five Scholars.

I don't know about anyone else, but when he saw that it was Zael, I was like, "Who's Zael?" After awhile I figured out that it was the guy who took his heartcrystal (unless that is wrong, too) but the name Zael didn't spark any memory in me. That might also be because I read ch. 2, two months ago, but you might want to consider putting in a flashback or something or that nature to Zael tearing out A's heartcrystal.

And I'm really glad that Tristan isn't this all-powerful god who can kill anyone he wants to. Zael being an eve match for him was very nice.

Definitely the weakest part of this chapter is the characters. Ameryst seemed way more trusting of Tristan this chapter than he had in previous ones. He goes from being surprised that Tristan had been in the caravan for two days without him noticing and being very suspicious of him, to trying to grab this random rock that Tristan brought out of his pocket. He also followed Tristan (and the rock) much too trustingly for someone who doesn't trust Tristan very much.

When someone is attracted to someone else, that attraction is inevitably sexual in nature. One cannot say that one finds someone "attractive but not sexually attractive" in the context discussed here. Merely noting that someone is pretty is sexually motivated.

Can't you think that members of your family are attractive? That doesn't mean you want to have sex with them. What if you think friends of your same sex are attractive? That doesn't mean you're homosexual. Don't you distinguish between cute kids and not so cute kids? Let's start calling everyone pedophiliacs.

Saying that someone is pretty isn't always sexually motivated.


That being said, I think the reason for Vin and Elend's lack of sexual thoughts are affected by their past experiences. When Elend's father tried to make him have sex with a skaa, that made sexual thoughts disgusting to him. Vin was beaten by her brother and probably many other male members of the thieving crews. When looking at a man, she is more likely to look at him as potential hurt than as a sex object.

That doesn't mean Elend and Vin won't have sexual feelings. It just means they only have them towards people that they love and they know loves them back. (Yes, loving someone can come before thinking of them sexually.)

We aren't in Elend and Vin's heads 24/7 so we aren't going to know every sexual thought they have. Most of the times we are in their heads, they are focused on the heist, the war, the mist spirit, and all the other problems of the world. Thinking about sex wasn't something they had time to do every day. They had the weight of the world on their shoulders and I'm sure that can take away some of the natural drives pretty quickly.

I liked the chapter, but this post will only be filled with negatives. Not that there aren't positives. I'm just going to let other people point them out.

There were a lot of messy mistakes in this (typos, added words, wrong tense, etc.) so you need to read through it for those.

I didn't understand why it was so dangerous for a smart twelve year old boy to be in town. (you said something to that effect early in the chapter.)

I was also confused by the whole pear cider thing. Was it the father's idea or not? I was under the impression that he was the one who suggested making pear cider and mixing pear and apple, but he commented that the kidnapper was smart for thinking of pear cider. And if he was referring to using the pear cider to trick the boy, that didn't seem amazingly smart to me.

Dahael said the kidnapper got away, but then he said that he hit the kidnapper, grabbed the boy, and ran. Seems to me that a)he knocked the guy unconscious when he hit him, so why would he run? b) if the kidnapper wasn't unconscious, he would have chased Dahael and the boy, c)if the kidnapper was injured enough that he couldn't run after them, then he would still be immobile enough to be chased down by the master's servants.

The master said hot water had been put into his sink. That might make sense, but modern day sinks have holes in the bottom... If you're saying they have faucets, but only cold water then that makes sense. If not, then I think hot water in a bowl would have been placed on a table or something of that nature.


I liked the Prologue more than the 1st chapter, but it was good enough to keep me interested in the story (though there isn't any major conflict yet).

edit: and sorry for repeating some of Reaves points. I did type those before I read his, so that means that it wasn't just I that was confused by the smartness of the boy, pear cider, etc.