I just finished The Hero of Ages and I'm actually feeling rather.. numb for the ending. My fears about Elend proved to be unfounded thankfully but I'm still struggling to decide whether certain.. events.. at the end have detracted from Vin. But I enjoyed it.

And quite frankly George R. R. Martin has absolutely nothing on Brandon Sanderson.

I take offense!

You would! Any time, anywhere, I'll take you on pretty-boy with your pre-pubescent attempt at a beard! You can have your Allomancy. I'll use my own fantasy superpower.. I know, I'll be a Super Saiyan !

Working on The Darkness That Comes Before. It's good so far, but you really have to be in the right mindset to read it.

I understand that feeling. I've only read Part 1 of TDTCB but I really do what to finish it. I'll need to decide for Bakker and Wurts after I finish the Mistborn trilogy (today hopefully). I also need to decide whether I'll read Dune Messiah before or after. And I have Gene Wolfe's Shadow and Claw on the way. Maybe Bakker might need to wait a little !

Well I started The Hero of Ages. I am already disappointed with Elend. I barely liked him in the first place to be honest but now.. it just seems.. wrong, like everything Vin did in the previous books have been cheapened. I can only hope it's still Vin's story and try to ignore anything Elend does directly with Allomancy.

I've just finished The Well of Ascension. I'm worried about finishing this trilogy. The Hero of Ages is sitting right next to me. But as I said I am worried. Specifically about Elend. I can deal with him being an Allomancer, but not if he turns out to be more powerful than Vin.

i have 3 brand new shiny books bought today. George RR Martins Song of Ice and Fire books 1 and 2 and Brandon Sandersons Mistborn book 1. have heard good things about both series, George RR Martins works are supposedly amazing, havent heard so much on Sandersons but was definitely influenced by the fact he is finishing the WoT novels. what r peoples opinions on these books.

Sanderon is very good, I quite enjoyed the first Mistborn (I haven't gotten around to 2 & 3 yet). Martin is.. well.. Martin. Personally I liked them though I wouldn't say they're amazing or the best thing since sliced bread.

However, he would be guilty of freeing a prisoner. And if it was a war situation (which this wasn't) then freeing a prisoner can be seen as treason.

He was not however in Andoran not Whitecloack land. And besides that neither of Andorans or Whitecloacks captured Gaul in the first place, that honour belongs to a pumped up Hunter who attacked an innocent man and captured him for no reason.

There's a whole religion based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time in Asia.

See, the cultural reasoning is logical, but I hate accepting it. Seems like poor world building to me. I mean, in Randland, women are in general the ones in power. There is absolutely nothing to hint at any percieved weakness. Hence the protect women/don't harm them, a la the real world is misplaced. I think it was introduced to make the three farm boys more appealing to readers, by giving them values that are not uncommon in the real world.

There can be no doubt that women in general are in power.. but they're maintained there by swords carried by men. Morgase can politic all she wants but when the swords come out she turns to Bryne. The mentality of not harming women is down to their physical weaknesses not their intellectual or moral weaknesses.

I would have been able to ignore it, what really got me hating it was when in KoD, if I am not mistaken, Tuon thinks about Mat's qualms about harming a woman trying to kill him. She finds it weird, but she says something about it being oddly charming/appealing (dont have the book on me, so I am loosely paraphrasing). I mean, a Seanchan has absolutely no cultural excuse at all to see anything even remotely positive in it. When I read this but, my initial reaction was *gag* fan-service.

I'm sorry but using an isolated princess who's lived in a tower for most of her life and been trained to the teeth to be her own last line of defence both intellectually and physically isn't a way to win an argument unless you're discussing an isolated princess who's lived in a tower for most of her life and been trained to the teeth to be her own last line of defence both intellectually and physically !

I think it's wrong to say "he was being an idiot". That is just too simple.

The Westlands are a culture in which men fight and die and women.. don't. That's a universal trait amongst them from Shienar to Tanchico. It's all well and good for the Aiel but not for farm-boys like Rand who was brought up with certain values. At the time Rand's sanity was spiralling out of control. He was loosing his identity to the Dragon Reborn. His humanity was slowing being assumed into a legend. He was becoming faceless.

His attitude towards women was clearly a defence-mechanism. He was using them to try and hold on to himself. His natural desire not to see women hurt because they're.. well women, combined with the solid values ingrained in his culture, made it the obvious choice for him to anchor his very identity. Essentially whenever Rand looked into the eyes of a dead woman and took her name he was Rand. When he stood up he was the Dragon Reborn.

It wasn't healthy but it's damn understandable.

It's possible that another reason he ditched Avi's sword was all in the attempt to harden himself.