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Comments
Yeah, thanks for that ^_^
Anyway, about 100 pages into Mistborn. Liking it so far.
It's amazing how all of the books I've read by him have the same basic summary, but are still very distinct.
That summary would be "our idealistic hero, armed with a magic power thought lost, mythical and/or absurdly rare, doesn't think it's very likely that he can fix the terrible world he lives in, but doesn't see that as any reason not to try."
Though in fairness, in Stormlight Archive you have to change "hero" to "heroes" and some of them are female.
I'd say our Lil' Gypsie quite well summed up Canavan, though I have to admit I read only the first two books of Black Magician trilogy. And you know what, that was a decent read, but as well, I couldn't stop being slightly annoyed by the same principle that, as was already said, makes it stand out.
Essentially, I couldn't shake the feeling that it's awfully... mhm... didactic. Modern. You know. I won't say too much, lest I spoil (the part I've read at least), but it felt like - there is no bad guy at all (TVT'd call it White And Gray Morality); the down-trodden lower class is good, but isn't randomly oppressed for no reason, just out of misguided fear of crime; the haughty upper class turns out to be not bad, merely somewhat oblivious; the gay learns to be himself and comes out of the closet at the end; so on. Even the Arab-expies, the faithful of an oppressive Islam-expy religion (now I wonder how did it happen), are nice guys in person.
It was as if somebody wanted to write a fantasy novel with the most modern, progressive, liberal message possible. I guess I should not complain. Could have been worse, could have had some actually crazy ideology behind, not merely occasionally crazy. Could have been bad. But, I guess, here's the why. I could live with the crazy in fiction, as fiction is where crazy can safely belong, then finish the book and be back in the real world, where the crazy is not. But here not the crazy is the case. I've got enough modern progressive liberal message IRL, I don't need more of it in my fiction. If I make sense.
I get where you're coming from. Fiction is a place where things that are unacceptable or improbable in reality can be observed and analysed, so having a fantasy that too powerful resembles the real world seems like a waste of the term "fantasy". While struggles against homophobia, racism, sexism and all that can often be powerful elements of fantasy literature, focusing too heavily on these modern issues begins to wear down the illusion after a while and draw the work too heavily out of fantasy, making it seem like reality wearing a wizard's hat.
It does feel rather modern, but...
I get the feeling you're talking about Sachaka here.
If so, then they are most definitely not nice guys. Some of them are charming enough, but their magicians all practice blood magic, their culture practices widespread slavery and has a habit of killing off slaves whenever they feel like it, and Sachakan women have like no rights, ever.
Similarly, here, while that is the reason that they are oppressed, at this point, it's kind of inherent to their culture.
This is more clear in the Traitor Spy trilogy, where the class conflict between lower-class people and upper-class people is growing. In fact, they even have derogatory names- 'lowie' and 'snootie' respectively.
And in the Traitor Spy trilogy, we're given a concrete reason for why the lower class was oppressed- with the introduction of a drug called roet, it's spreading like wildfire down there, and it's harmful to magicians.
So, I don't know. Your complaint is valid, but at the same time, it's not quite so simple. However, a lot of the issues with Sachaka are more apparent in the third book, and a lot of the other issues, such as classism and homophobia, are dealt with in the next trilogy.
@ClockworkUniverse:
One of Mistborn's protagonists is female too. Though I guess she doesn't really fit your description.^Yeah, there are other heroes in Elantris as well; it's just that the "mainest" hero(es), so to speak, tend to fit that archetype.
Really I always thought of Vin as the "mainest" character in Mistborn even if she's not the first one we see or the one who initially drives the plot.
Bear in mind, I'm only like 100 pages in.
Sorry, to be clear, what I meant was that even from the very beginning I thought of her as the real main character. The way the story goes later certainly strengthens that but that wasn't what I meant.
Makes sense.
Still, the superpowered optimist guy in a crappy world is present.
Vin always seemed to be the main character, to me, because her story was a coming into power story. She started the story an urchin, and ended up where she did.
The others... They were definitely very important characters, but they never seemed to fit into the main character role as easily as Vin did.
hey CU
look what i found
(t'wasn't included in my copy of the book, at least)
It was in mine.
It's not in the back of my copy. Sucks to be me, I guess.
This line intrigues me, though. Who do you think they're talking about?
It seems kind of obvious that they're talking about Kaladin and Szeth, respectively, but depending on who it actually is talking, it could be someone else.
At first, I thought it was the nine Heralds who abandoned Talenel, but:
So I don't think it's them.
So whoever it is that made that has some knowledge of the true events before the Last Desolation, but is still alive today, and is able to keep an eye on Kaladin and Dalinar, who are in the Shattered Plains, Shallan, who is... wherever Jasnah is, and Szeth, who is travelling across the entire continent.
The use of the plural term 'we' indicates that there's more than one person involved, to, which complicates things when it comes to Szeth, as the only person Szeth properly interacts with is Taravangal.
Any ideas on who it is and who they're referring to?
That was my first thought, but it's so very obvious that it has to be wrong.
I really have no idea who it could be. The only person I can think of who I know could have written it is Hoid, but that doesn't seem right.
Yeah, that was my basis for thinking it was somebody else. Sanderson never lets things be that simple.
I also find it interesting that the passage notes that 'one may redeem us' but 'one will destroy us'.
For a moment, I entertained the thought that perhaps it was honorspren who were watching, but that seems a bit silly.
I considered Hoid, too, but we haven't seen Hoid working with anyone, and the passage specifically uses plural terms- 'we'.
yessss
The text about how "we won the world, yet lost it" implies a human.
Yeah, I only brought him up because he's the only person who we know could know about all four protagonists. It's extremely unlikely that it's him.
It could imply someone who fought in the Desolations, too. The honourspren fought alongside the Knights Radiant, and they're self-aware enough to be able to do stuff like this.
Well, no. It could be, say, Taravangal, who knows a lot more than he lets on, or the Ghostbloods.
Huh. That does actually make sense.
Yeah, but I wasn't really under the impression he realized how important Kaladin was yet.
The Ghostbloods could be valid, but we really don't know very much about them yet.
We just don't have that much to go on at this point. I'd say honorspren is probably the best theory as of right now.
I make the most insane theories sound plausible.
Or Shallan, for that matter. I think that if he had, he never would have let Shallan go.
And... oh dear. I just realized something.
The reason Taravangal came to check up on Shallan after her supposed suicide attempt? It wasn't out of any concern for Shallan. It was in case the attempt succeeded, and she death-babbled. Or, to take a grimmer turn, in case Jasnah abandoned her, and Taravangal could take her into his secret room.
There's a bunch of other people it could be, too. For example, the people chasing Hoid in one of the interludes.
I like my honourspren theory, though.
Oh, hey, that makes a lot of sense. He probably does that for all the dying patients he can't just abduct. It gives him good PR and lets him hear last words.
As for the people chasing Hoid...I'm not entirely sure they're from Roshar. I'd need to know a bit more about the Cosmere as a whole to be sure either way, though.
Taravangal becomes more and more creepy the more I think about him.
For example, near the start of the book, his niece is buried under a bunch of falling rock. Remember?
What do you think he would have done to his niece if Jasnah hadn't been around?
Also, another theory I had about Taravangal: He is receiving the same visions as Dalinar. Or, alternately, he is receiving them from the opposite source: Odium.
I don't think he would kill his niece. So far, my read on him is that he isn't actually evil, or at least not trying to be evil.
I don't think that he would kill his niece, but do you think that he wouldn't sit next to her as she died and record her deathbabble?