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Comments
Dude, don't stress it. It's all good-natured discussion and it's nothing compared to the spats Alex and I get into.
Also, Blackbeard might have been an inhuman monster but the dude went out like a champ.
This is sort of why I more often than not stay away from debates around here (or post an opinion that's blatantly unpopular with someone with no build-up for humor's sake); (Whiny Warning) I've learned over the last year that apparently my deepest-dwelling emotional response to disagreement is distress at the idea that I'm just missing something crucial because I'm dumb, whether or not the matter at hand is actually important, and sometimes to the point where my body actually reacts to criticism of me. But I guess that's why I started seeing a counselor. And I feel like I should probably just stay out of certain parts of SA until I get my shit together, but I know that that won't happen. And I'm rambling at 1:30 in the morning. Awesome.
I should feel chillaxed again after some sleep, though. Ciao!
Crime and Punishment sucks because the protagonist spends all his time agonizing instead of doing something. All romantic comedies must have a happy ending. Superman isn't relatable because he doesn't have flaws. Shooters should be about running around, finding medpacs instead of taking cover. K-On sucks because of moeshit. Bleach sucks because it doesn't look deeply into the ramifications of the afterlife. Pop music is trash and you should feel bad for listening to it. Shakespeare is terrible because nobody understands the language. And so on, and so on.
I'm not saying that everyone is open-minded; I don't know if there's anyone who didn't have some prejudice or another.
I'm saying that when people choose to only think in one way, they'll continue to only live in one way.
^Yeah, I guess that's my point.
My feeling is really that rules exist for a reason.
However they can and should be broken.
However don't break them just to break them.
But to still address you, I think that's reading a little too far into his post; I kinda figured he just didn't want to read about someone who's really good at everything.
Anyway, I just wanted to address this.
So, over the course of the books, Kvothe has been in three actual fights, where the consequences of winning or losing means death.
Each fight:
In Name of the Wind, Kvothe gets in a fight with two assassins. He wins the fight by... doing something, which is not mentioned as being particularly difficult, but results in both of the assassins being temporarily blinded. The assassins, who do not deal regularly with arcanists, attribute this to the storybook abilities of the great mage, Taborlin; calling down lightning.
Funnily enough, when the unconscious one stirs, Kvothe makes a point of mentioning how he ran like a scared little rabbit.
In The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe spent a lot of chapters tracking down a group of bandits who stole the King's Gold. When he eventually finds them, he uses several pre-established rules of the universe to... well, gruesomely murder the bandits, using malfeasance, malicious magic against humans. He then actually does call down lightning. The consequences of this- Kvothe nearly dies because he was powering the spells with his own body heat and it was raining, and he entered hypothermia.
And lastly, in The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe murdered a bunch of bandits. Now, keep in mind this is after he spent a lot of chapters learning to be a super-sword master and poisoned the bandits. Kvothe murders all of the bandits, but one of them catches him across the stomach with his sword. Kvothe is afraid he's going to die, and it's only the fact that his cloak was in the way that actually spared him from dying.
And... even all that is just his fights. I mean, it misses some of Kvothe's key flaws; like, the fact that Kvothe has a very messed-up sense of right and wrong.
(Also, Kvothe sucks at maths, is only average at chemistry, and has no idea how to do alchemy at all. :P )
It's especially worth noting that in the latter two fights, his enemies didn't really have much of a chance to fight back. And those are the ones he almost dies in.
And in general is kind of a douche bag.
He is kind of a douche bag, although I don't find him especially unlikeable for one.
That's true, but for all the other criticisms, I do see the idea of reading him in the voice of Zapp Brannigan an understandable one.
For what it's worth, I also like to think that some of what he's saying, or rather how he's saying it, is exaggerated, because he's not the most reliable of narrators.
I mean, the entire story is literally an older Kvothe telling it to Chronicler. I can't help but think that he's embellishing it, just a bit.
Doesn't that just make the Zapp Brannigan comparison more appropriate though? =P
^^Given my general impression of present!Kvothe, I doubt he's outright said anything that isn't true, but I'm almost certain that he's been misleading at points, highlighting the parts where he's awesome, downplaying parts where he's not (unless it's important), stuff like that.
Probably, but I don't know who that is.
^ That's what I meant, yes.
Ah, okay, I missed the "or rather how he's saying it."
Hilarious though.
^^^^Zap Brannigan is a character in Futurama that is a parody of Captain Kirk. A good deal of his jokes involve having an over-inflated ego.
Oh.
So I started I Am Legend today (in the hopes of finishing it by midnight), having finished my school reading, and I'm a little surprised at how many amateurisms I'm noticing, even in just the first two chapters.
To add to that: The only way of breaking a rule with non-horrible results is through understanding why the rule is there in the first place and what does it contribute to the stories in which it's used.
So I'm reading more of I Am Legend, and I think it's the first time I've read such a lengthy, detailed angry episode.
Okay, so. I've been rereading The Way of Kings lately, the first book of The Stormlight Archives, by Brandon Sanderson.
It's pretty great, honestly. Unfortunately, most people are turned off by the sheer length of the book- at 1001 pages long, there are not a lot of books out there that rival this book in terms of sheer length, and he's planning to write another nine books in the series, which will be of similar length.
However, if the sheer length of the book doesn't turn you off (or you think you'd actually be able to carry the book home), then the book is consistently pretty great.
The book is set in Sanderson's cosmere, which you might be familiar with if you've read his Mistborn trilogy. It doesn't borrow a lot from the Mistborn series itself, though.
The series does follow Sanderson's Laws of Magic- stating that a story with rigidly defined laws of magic are less likely to fall into Deus Ex Machina- or, the series has 'Hard Magic', rather than 'Soft Magic'.
The world is ravaged by highstorms, powerful hurricanes that strike seemingly randomly. The seasons change on a whim, often lasting only a few weeks before changing randomly. The only exception to this is the Weeping, which is a period of light, grey drizzle that marks the passage of a new year, notable only in that there is never a Highstorm during the Weeping.
Powerful artifacts mark the passage of power within the series. Known as Shardblades and Shardplate, these are weapons and armour left behind by the mysterious Radiants, who abandoned humanity many centuries ago. The wielders of these are often referred to as one-men army, and it's easy to see why- the Plate makes men nearly untouchable, and the Blade kills anything it touches.
(In fact, the series goes into just how people fight with Shards. As the Shardblades kill anything they touch with only a slight tug marking it, it requires a much different style of fighting than regular swords. They don't cut people, either- rather, they 'kill' limbs they cut, rendering the limb unusable forever.)
"But Nova", you ask, "what is the book even about?"
Well, that question is sort of hard to answer.
The book takes place over two distinct areas, and follows three, maybe four people. Not a lot happens, though; there are only five or six places within the book where anything happens.
The majority of the book takes place on the Shattered Plains, an area in the world where... well...
The name's kind of self-descriptive.
(Also, the book has some awesome artwork.)
For the most part, the book follows three main characters.
Kaladin, also known as Kaladin Stormblessed, used to be a surgeon, before he joined the army and became a master of the spear, before he was branded a slave. He is accompanied by a mysterious spren called Syl, who seems to delight in causing small mischief, but is a source of inspiration to Kaladin.
Dalinar Kholin is an Alethi Highprince, who has been seeing mysterious visions during Highstorms that he believes come from the Almighty. He is unsure of the purpose of these visions, but he believes that the visions are urging him to unite the Alethi. Dalinar is a man who tries to live his own ideals of honour, and is notable as one of the only truly decent people in the series, alongside Kaladin.
Shallan is an artist, and a noblewoman. She has sought tutelage under Jasnah Kholin, Dalinar's niece, a scholar, and an atheist in a land that is staunchly religious. Secretly, she is there to steal Jasnah's Soulcaster, a device capable of changing matter into other matter, but she is torn, as she truly loves learning under Jasnah.
Szeth, also known as Szeth-son-son-Vallano, is a Shin assassin. He is beholden by his honour to follow the instructions of anyone holding his Oathstone. Unfortunately, due to Szeth's awesome abilities at killing, this tends to be people who want people dead, which is tearing Szeth apart. Szeth is notable as the person who killed the Alethi King, and thus the person responsible for catalyzing the war that is the backdrop to Dalinar and Kaladin's story.
Of course, none of this truly encapsulates the characters. It speaks nothing of the philosophy in the story, of the ruminating of when it is right to kill, of what honour is, of whether honour should be followed or if it is better to not fight. It speaks nothing of the religious undertones, and how respectful the story is of both religious views and atheist views. It speaks nothing of how the story explores morality, in how it constantly tempts the characters to fall into sin, and how we see the characters as they suffer through it and remain consistently good people.
So, if you're on the lookout for an epic fantasy series, and don't mind a considerably long story, I would definitely recommend giving The Way of Kings a try.
If only so I have people to talk to about it. :<
-avoids making obvious joke-
Seriously, though, I'll check it out.
Fixed. There, you happy? >
I will never be a professional book reviewer.
Anyway, sweet. See you some time... next month.
Fixed what? The joke I wasn't making was "over 9000 pages."
Anyway, I read NOTW in a day, so if this is on par with that, I might find myself sticking to it enough to finish really fast.
Oh. I thought you were making reference to the other series he's finishing writing, which is like, 14 books long and usually has around 800 pages per book.
The comparison to NotW is apt, but the technical writing in TWoK isn't up to the same standard. The plot is really much better, though- specifically, once you reach the plot twists at the end of the book, rereading the book makes everything so much more interesting.
Seriously, those plot twists were what cemented it for me. They just came out of nowhere, but were so logical, made so much sense, that they felt natural.
If I held all books up to that standard, I wouldn't have that many reading options.
I love it when that happens. I'll definitely have to get this.
So, Amazon defaulted to showing me the mass market paperback, which is 1280 pages.
Trying to picture a book with those dimensions makes me laugh.
And, the thing is, it's the first time I've seen an epic fantasy series where the protagonists are decent people who refuse to compromise their standards, and the morality of that is actually explored.
I mean, Dalinar is a warprince, and wields a full suit of Shardblade and Shardplate. He slaughters people, and he experiences the Thrill, which is essentially a state of being most Alethi achieve that makes them exult in glory. But the story explores the moral ramifications of this- he's killing to protect his nation and his soldiers, yeah, but he's killing sentient beings, and that makes him sick, and he loses confidence that he's doing the right things, and seeks alternate ways to approach the war that won't result in so much death, even though that makes him appear weak to the other Highprinces.
I mean, it's no secret that I dislike gritty heroes, and I love noble heroes, but there's something about this series that makes me love its noble heroes so much more- it explores the consequences of it all, without dragging it down into the muck in the name of gritty realism.
Wait, 1280 pages?
But that completely ruins the joke there. It's 1001 pages- and 10 is an important number in the series!