The Cold Commands - Richard K Morgan

I guess I don't mind all the cursing after all, and Steel Remains did get interesting eventually, if alittle predictable plot-wise...

the main problem with Nakomi beeing the Creator/ Patern Avatar is her meeting with Avienda

 

why the world (creator/pattern / cosmos..) will care about 1 speicific tribe ???

 

do u play favorites with the scale in your hair/ or the ants in your backyard ... ???

 

the meeting with Avi had NO EFFECT on the great battle !!!

her vision show the great battle was WON even if she do nothing after the meeting .

 

and if u claim the creator do care in such details... please explain the existenc of any bad thing /evil empire... that exist in Rand univerce.

It's because RJ made Randland similar to our universe where the creator does not take an active role in the day to day.  Where-as the DO does.

For your final question involving an evil empire to exist: If the Creator is anything like Judeo/Christian-God, then 1. A perfect God created the heavens and earth and therefore would not interfere because it would go against his omniscience (ie, if there were a problem with the universe, He would have solved it at the creation point).  and 2. God gave man free-will, and it is man's right to do as he wills, even if it means making Aes Sedai into Damane.  Using His power to interfere with free-will would go against everything.  Even the DO had to get people to choose to be evil (except for circle 13)

But this is all assuming the Randland creator is similar or based on the Judeo/Christian-God (which it probably is anyway.)

That being said, all Nakomi did was give some good advice.  It's up to Avi to effect a change.

Is the third and final book to A Name of the Wind coming out yet?

 

 

 

In fan-fiction, a writer will often include a character not already present in canon who will have an important role in the story, perhaps far more important than you would reasonably expect, either from the character's ascribed abilities and personality, or from the character's "late" entrance into the (canon) story. Androl was this character for Sanderson. Many of his actions should have been undertaken by a character already present in the canon, it didn't make sense for Androl to do them, e.g: stealing the seals from Taim; almost single-handedly saving Elayne's army with the gateway-into-Dragonmount trick.

The Dragonmount trick was the bit that jarred most for me...it just made Androl seem a bit like a 'Gary Stu' character to use the fanfiction terminology.  It stood out a lot when we have major characters like Moiraine, Nynaeve, and Min, not really having much in the way of 'awesome moments' to have Androl have so many and such prominent ones.  I also felt it was a shame that he was used so much as there were several interesting Asha'man characters of varying prominence (e.g. Narishma, Logain, Grady, Neald, etc.) who we hardly saw at all.  It would have been nice for them to have more screen time given this was our last chance to see them.  

 

Furthermore, I think Androl is one of the elements from the final book that we know would have been different if RJ had written the story; he would have used existing characters rather than developed Androl who had previously been nothing more than a name.  

 

I find Androl frustrating because he was one of the best written characters in the last three books, and I found his arc genuinely interesting to read.  The relationship with Pevara was well developed as well.  But at the same time, Androl took the story in directions that broke my immersion in the story because I felt like they were not things that would happen in the WoT world as RJ had created it.

What about Androl/Pevera bonding each other, thus reading each other's minds/emotions and thus solving the problem of mis-interpreting male and female characters. Since male/female characters feuding is one of the major themes of the whole series, I bet it was RJ's intention to have double bonding occur as a means of overcoming gender stereotypes and bring saidor/sadin, male/female, characters closer together. (And even workng together in ways not possible otherwise). Unless there is a quote refuting this idea?

I think I'm going to bookmark the start of The Last Battle, and re-read it every few months.

 

I know this will be a dead horse, but it sounds like a Sanderson-ism. 

Do you mean, as in Sanderson didn't bother to check the details for power wrought weapons, or as in Sanderson thought it would be cool for Perrin to have an extra-special power-wrought weapon?

 

Honestly, both.  With some extra not only can Perrin do badass things in Tel'aran'rhiod, but hold onto your hats: he is also a badass in the waking world.  Omg I luv Perrin he is l33tsauce just for good measure.

While it would be awesome if Perrin's hammer were a Ter'angreal, we have no indication of this at all before hand, or after the fact.  It just happens randomly. 

I know this will be a dead horse, but it sounds like a Sanderson-ism. 

 

I thought there was a quote from one of the other Forsaken that Graendal was exceptionally heavy handed with the compulsion?  I may be thinking of something Rand said though, which might not be too reliable. 

 

 

 

I don't think its completely right for Egwene to say those Aes Sedai are better off dead.  After all, she survived her captivity, and I don't think she wanted to be 'put out of her misery' while she was captive.  Alivia is another example of an ex-damane who was leashed for hundreds of year, and I think (could be wrong) that in WH/CoT some of the captured damane are beginning to adapt to freedom.  There is also the former Aes Sedai who has adapted completely to being a damane.  I don't think she wants to die.  Regardless, I don't think its Egwene's choice to make for them, just as it isn't Rand's choice not to give Nynaeve (or Sumeko, Flin, etc.) a chance to Heal the compulsion. 

 

Didn't Nynaeve, when curing the courier boy's compulsion, find that it had so many layers and layers and layers that nothing was left of the boy himself.  Then he died anyway from the shock of it.  And if Graendal had that many layers of compulsion just for her courier, imagine what she has for her favorites. 

I agree that it is due to Rand being so dark and nihilistic that caused him to bail-nuke the whole palace.  But there weren't a lot of options to begin with when dealing with Graendal.

No, most of the Demandred stuff is NOT in that Novella.  In fact, just forget that novella, its 13 pages of fanfiction!

Am I the only one who read her as a plot device and simply moved on afterwards.  (Especially considering what happens next for Avi).

On Dance of Dragons now!  What a breath of fresh air after that last one... yeesh.

It's a really nice dress...

Currently reading A Feast of Crows.  (Never thought I'd get into a GRRM book, but thanks to the show I now care about a lot of the characters.)

Also re-reading TSR. 

Just finished Storm of Swords.

I picked Cadsuane!  I can't help it, her chapters/POV's were a guilty pleasure of mine. 

 

Did anyone read EotW, TGH, TDR in quick succession and notice that TDR seemed to be written slightly different.  Like the sentence structure, and characters were all slightly off.  Everything about it seemed different from the first 2 books!  I can't put my finger on it tho, it just put a bad taste in my mouth going into TSR. 

This is possibly because there is so little Rand in TDR?  80% of tEotW and 55% of tGH are from Rand's POV compared to only 2% of tDR.  Not only does the plot shift from very Rand-centric to more focus on the WT and Perrrin, but we start seeing people and events from their own perspectives or perspectives other than Rand's which may be why some characters seem off - e.g. Perrin sees Moiraine very differently from how Rand saw her.

 

Additionally, this is the part of the series where we have exponential growth in the complexity of the story and the world.  TEoTW is a very traditional, linear fantasy novel; tGH begins to extend from this with two major plots and greater information on a selection of cultures and organisations.  But in tDR we start having POVs from very minor characters and multiple plots develop in different directions, many of which are not concluded within the novel.

thanks, that might explain it.  Because by the end of TDR I was fine, and TSR was of course breath taking.  It was just very jolting to me at the start of TDR.

Did anyone read EotW, TGH, TDR in quick succession and notice that TDR seemed to be written slightly different.  Like the sentence structure, and characters were all slightly off.  Everything about it seemed different from the first 2 books!  I can't put my finger on it tho, it just put a bad taste in my mouth going into TSR. 

@Suttree

Woah!  I loved the story within a story (and story within a story within a story at times).  Really let the author explain details and reasoning well. 

Starting What Wise Men Fear now.

EDIT: Am thinking of picking up The Steel Remains, since I'll probably be done with What Wise Men Fear soon (Name of Wind only took me a week to read)

Am reading The Name of the Wind, what a pleasent read!

The Native American collapse was a result of diseases introduced by the very first European explorers. It's actually a decent analog of the devastation caused by the Breaking, in that the cocktail of European and Asian diseases introduced into the Americas is estimated to have killed off more than 90% of the population over the course of about 200 years. By the time Spanish Conquistadors started conquering Mexico and Middle and South America, a large part of the damage of the diseases had been done. The Inca were defeated relatively easily because they'd just lost their Emperor and all his heirs to the Plague, and they were in the midst of a succession crisis. The Aztecs were similarly devastated by the time Cortez showed up. And when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they chose the site because it was the location of an already extant Native American village, one which happened to have been recently abandoned because nearly everybody that lived there had died to European diseases. Squanto, the Indian famous for showing the English how to plant corn with fish and survive the New England winters, was a native of that village who had been kidnapped by Spanish raiders, sold into slavery, escaped, and made his way back home on a Dutch trading ship, and found his home abandoned. He was pretty much the only native survivor of the village the Pilgrims moved into. Luckily for those refugees from the horrors of politically imposed religious tolerance, he was apparently a pretty forgiving individual.

Thrasy, Avernite was referring to the Mayan Decline which occurred around the 10th century which scholars are still debating the cause. Even to the Spanish, whole Mayan cities were already abandoned and taken back by the jungles. Some say it was disease, some say social revolution. Of note is that not all Mayan cities were abandoned, some were still thriving when the Spanish arrived.

@Avernite on the English/European discussion. Interesting, it's been some years since I've read the book where I got that information from. But what would you say to the English innovation of taxing and leasing land directly to the serfs to get around the barons, and thus opening up the can of worms already mentioned.

Here I will prove that because of the non-existance of a UK equivilant in Randland, it would never have developed like Europe did.

I argue that the European case is not comparable to Randland, because Europe's arable land is significantly limited compared Randland's. Also Randland doesn't have any close island neighbors like Europe does with the UK. The existance and success of the UK I would argue is the reason Europe as a whole prospered where Asia and Africa and the America's stagnated.

What makes the UK special is that it has serverely limited arable land compared to Europe, and a tiny fraction compared to Randland. This has drastic consequences for Briton in the Middle ages when it comes to the question of taxable farm land for the crown. In the European feudal system, the crown taxed his lords for income (as well as started wars for income) and when you wanted more sustainable income, you went out and expanded into your neighbor's land, or converted forests to farms. In places like Germany/France/Austria/Russia, this system of expansion could work for an extremely long time due to large swathes of land. In England, they used up their forests, and had every inch of the island that could be used for farming as a farm very quickly. However, the crown still wanted more income to compete with the Continental kings. England's need to be competative or be destroyed by France/other invaders will be a key feature to its success. One could even argue that the constant war with its neighbors only made it more competative.

Another feature of the feudal system were lords cheating on their taxes, in some cases paying tiny fractions of what they owed to the crown. In England, the kings (and the lords in turn) found that instead of having the surfs farm the land as perpetual slaves (extremely in-efficiently I might add), it was more economical to lease the land directly to the surfs, and have the surfs work the land themselves as part owners. This leads to collecting taxes directly from the surfs, skipping the cheating lords altogether, and increasing wealth for the crown without expansion. It also leads to the surfs motivation to work the land more efficiently in order to increase his own wealth (because he partly owns the land). This in turn increases output for the nation as a whole, as well as taxes for the crown even more.

The surfs, their own wealth and livelihood in hand, started demanding fair representation in the judicial system and at court. To better achieve this, reading and writing became a necessity for the common people. As the common people became more educated, they demanded even more rights, taking more and more power away from the crown. Combined with the invention of the printing press, the surf's need to be educated was easier and easier to achieve. This all happened while in France/Germany/Spain, the surfs were still completely dependant to the crown for everything. There was no need to give the surfs some land directly to increase wealth as long as your nieghbor always had land to invade. This sort of social reform in England happened in smaller places like the Netherlands, but only in England did such wide-spread economic and social change take place. Thus England was at the forefront of representation by the people as early as 1215, (with the Magna Carta and the establishment of parliement), education (at Oxford), and invention (Industrial revolution)... all due to limited land and the need to generate wealth through limited means. ie innovation.

Seeing and hearing of what was happening in England only galvanized the rest of Europe to catch up socially, and eventually economically. (The Catholic church initially condemning the social reforms that took place in England in the 13, 14, and 1500s.) You can even see, in the European example, the more land a particular nation had (like Russia) the more socially and scientifically behind that nation was.

In Randland, there is no England counter part. The expansion-to-increase-wealth feudal system in place could go on for another 1000 years. Thus kings don't need to rely on surfs to increase their wealth, but just goto war with your neighbor... If any social reform happened in Randland, it was short lived. Invention is by accident, instead of due to economic need. War is the food of the day to increase wealth. The Aes Sedai (being the equivilant of the Catholic Church) could at best keep the old traditions in place, ie reading/math, and at worse be the cause of wars and mismanagement of nations.

Yellow Ajah: 7

Green Ajah: 5

Gray Ajah: 5

White Ajah: 3

Blue Ajah: 2

Brown Ajah: 2

Red Ajah: 1

Yellow?! I was going for green or gray! Oh well, time to roll up the sleeves and grab my braid, or argue with the blues forever and ever, and heal the always getting into danger main characters... I know I'm right...

When you think someone is being woolheaded

You find yourself thinking "The wheel weaves as the Wheel wills" but since no one gets that, you say "whatever happens, happens"

The Black Ajah. (I mean sure we want them to lose, but omg!)

How can a group of people who weave the one power be so idiotic in trying to control other people? Just assassinate a few leaders, then watch the madness ensue! It's not that hard! Or kill the king and Panarch of Tarabon, burn down a few key buildings and areas of the city, and it would be in more chaos than Almath Plain!

The Forsaken, holy crap! Just give your minions compulsion to use on your enemies for you! If you had done this, your minions in the black ajah could have done their tasks much more efficiently. Quit worrying about being betrayed every 5 seconds! If you guys didn't have this constant worry you could have taken over the world ten times over. Don't any of them realize that giving your minions some power makes them MORE loyal to you in the long run, and showing that you trust them makes them loyal as well. Did they not have basic leadership classes in the Age of Legends? Half of them are just begging to be killed by Rand, or Moiraine, or Egwyne. I mean, killing your enemies and manipulating their replacement, and maybe killing them too, is much more effective than sitting their scheming for 5 books...

Graendal is forgiven only because her political skills are genius...

The part where Gawyn is talking to Egwene after saving her life from the bloodknives. After he says some dialogue, it reads "said Galad" which totally made me stop reading for a minute in annoyance...

The other typo's I read over, but completely changing the name of someone in dialogue just urked me...