What Are You Reading, Part 2

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

I finished the Spirit Thief, which actually got recommended to me by someone on the Shard, I don't remember who.  It was really good!  If anyone else has read it, what did you think?

[Dunkum he/him]

after about a 6 week wait, my hold on Peace Talks came through, the timing was pretty good, because I had just finished off Lord of Chaos and hadn't started Crown of Swords yet.  anyway, naturally I started and finished Peace Talks today, and am now getting ready to pick up Crown of Swords

[Bearer of all agonies he/him]

Um. . . I am reading this guy named Brandon Sanderson, do you know of him? I don’t think you do, he is a very small time author and doesn’t have any fan blogs or anything. I love his Stormlight archive series, you may not have heard of that either. 

[aneonfoxtribute]

On chapter 27 of Shadow Rising.

Spoiler

Please tell me Faile gets better. She is being absolutely ridiculous right now.

 

[Dunkum he/him]

6 minutes ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

On chapter 27 of Shadow Rising.

  Hide contents

Please tell me Faile gets better. She is being absolutely ridiculous right now.

 

honestly - no.  She has her occasional moment, but for the most part, she's just as bad the whole series through.  Heck, I'm not even sure you're seeing her at her worst.

[aneonfoxtribute]

Oh joy. If she gets even worse thats not gonna be enjoyable. On the bright side, though, it means that I sympathize more with Perrin for having to put up with her.

Edited September 2, 2020 by aneonfoxtribute

[Eluvianii he/him]

Wait, people dislike her? 

[aneonfoxtribute]

She was fine in the last book. Its in Shadow Rising that she's started being exceptionally annoying.

[Eluvianii he/him]

Huh, interesting. I honestly find her to be a perfect opposite for Perrin. They just fit so well. I really like the parallels between the two in Shadow Rising. 

[Dunkum he/him]

I find her obnoxious.  there are times when she's fine, but she has some MAJOR issues.  Maybe she mellows out a bit by the end of the series, It's been a while since i read the series and I'm not there yet in my reread, but so far up to book 7 shes still just as annoying.

[Briar King]

Faile sucks.

[aneonfoxtribute]

7 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

Huh, interesting. I honestly find her to be a perfect opposite for Perrin. They just fit so well. I really like the parallels between the two in Shadow Rising. 

That would be fine if not for her conflict with Perrin halfway through the book. Up to that point she was fine, after that she was just unlikable.

[Briar King]

Meh I ain’t very fond of Perrin either

[aneonfoxtribute]

I have been exceptionally fond of Perrin from the outset and that isnt changing anytime soon, especially with her being how she is.

[Elegy he/him]

Finished a bunch of books recently:

Stephen King - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: Great book, very minimalistic in terms of story, but extraordinarily atmospheric. Not as uneven as other works by Stephen King!

Walter Moers - A Wild Ride Through the Night: It's been ages. Just as imaginative as I remembered, and pretty funny at that. A lot of allusions that went over my head last time I read it.

Terry Pratchett - Going Postal: Another imaginative book. Took me a while to really get into it (and the start felt slow), but once it did it was a lot of fun.

[aneonfoxtribute]

Jordan is really good at writing contemptible pieces of human garbage. Not often do I feel such contemptuous hatred for characters like I do from Ordeith or the Seanchan. 

[Dunkum he/him]

3 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Jordan is really good at writing contemptible pieces of human garbage. Not often do I feel such contemptuous hatred for characters like I do from Ordeith or the Seanchan. 

the whitecloaks fall into that category too.  and to a lesser extent a lot of the nobility, with a handful of exceptions

[aneonfoxtribute]

The Whitecloaks aren't as contemptible I feel as the Seanchan. I don't like them, they're crazy and way too gung ho about accusing people of being Darkfriends for making one simple mistake, but I actually like the POV characters (other than Byar). The Bornhald's both aren't, like, the complete worst. They're at least somewhat reasonable, what with their dislike of Questioners and their methods among other things. And at least so far they don't seem too eager to jump the gun and accuse people. That might change, but most of the things they do have at least some reason for it at the moment, and they haven't killed anyone yet just because they think they're connected to someone they think is a Darkfriend. Compared to the Seanchan where every second they're on screen, I'm just hoping someone shows up out of nowhere and destroys, like, all of them. 

As for nobility, there has been almost no serious presence of any other than Morgase and her children, all of which seem pretty cool at the moment. There are the people at Tear but they're not really major yet. I don't like any of them, mind, but they're not completely contemptible yet, and they're easily cowed. 

[Dunkum he/him]

the Seanchan are almost certainly the worst, especially their nobility and the sul'dams; the handful of commoners we meet outside of that group are generally more tolerable.  from the whitecloaks, Geofram wasn't too, too bad, but he's definitely the exception, not the rule; most of them are bullies, at best.

[aneonfoxtribute]

The Seanchan are almost as bad as One Piece's Celestial Dragon's for me. Like, they'll have to do some REALLY bad stuff for them to top the Celestial Dragons, since those are the group that I despise the most out of basically anything, but man the Seanchan will definitely be close behind. Most of the Whitecloaks are terrible but I think that part of the reason I don't see them as as bad is because out of all of the named important ones that I know of and can remember, Byar is the only one who I really hate, and he is essentially just a subject. I don't really hate the three leaders I know yet. It takes the hatred out of it when most of the people are nameless mooks, and the named ones aren't the absolute worst thing in existence. Compare that to the Seanchan, who we have way more named characters and there is not a single one so far that isn't absolutely terrible, now THAT is a recipe for some disaster. Another thing might be that I don't really recall seeing the Whitecloaks do too much. Like, sure, they're generally unpleasant and assume that basically everybody against them is a Darkfriend, but as far as I can recall we haven't really seen them do much more than occupy places. We don't see the Questioners go about their work, or see them razing a village of supposed Darkfriends to the ground, while with the Seanchan we see what they do as it happens, we see through the perspective of people victimized by them, and we see the aftermath. The only times we see the Whitecloaks actually do something we know are wrong from my recollection is just when they don't have any way of knowing otherwise. Gonna go into some spoilers up to halfway through Shadow Rising.

Spoiler

Them going after Perrin from our perspective is bad, but he did kind of kill some Whitecloaks, regardless of being self defense. Them capturing Mat's family and the Luhhans is bad, but they want information on the whereabouts of Mat and Perrin, who they think are Darkfriends (which is reasonable because they already think Perrin is one, and they got Ordeith saying that all three of them are Darkfriends, and given that they know that all three of them were at Falme when Geofram died, it's a fine assumption and as of where I am, Dain is doing his best so that they're not given to the Questioners or Ordeith). They're definitely not good but out of all the antagonists so far they're the least terrible from my perspective atm

Man I need to learn when to stop typing lmao

[Eluvianii he/him]

When I see villain characters I usually just think "Oh, how cool, I would hate this person in real life but here in fiction they're cool" but WoT defies that. I think I dislike the Whitecloaks more than the Seanchan. They're not as bad maybe, but every storming assumption they make makes me want to strangle someone. And their job is basically to make assumptions. Like not only their ability to turn literally anyone into a Darkfriend, but that firm belief that they're the lone heroes saving the day, the last ray of hope left for humanity, that everything they do is right and the mere thought that it may not be true is enough to make you a Darkfriend. That really gets on my nerves.

On a side note, there's a single Seanchan character that I like. The last book I read being precisely Shadow Rising. 

[aneonfoxtribute]

I don't really recall a time so far where they called someone a Darkfriend without reason. Granted those reasons tend to be bad, like "they did something to insult the Whitecloaks" or just saying someone is guilty by association if they know someone they've accused, but it's still a reason. Ironically, the assumptions that make me the most mad are the ones about the Aes Sedai, the assumptions that everyone agrees with. The Aes Sedai assumptions and accusations really do bug me because I don't feel that a lot of them have much basis other than Aes Sedai using Power, which is some pretty bad basis. They don't make me inherently angry yet unlike the Seanchan. Every time the Seanchan are brought up I get angry, which I don't really get with the Whitecloaks. 

[Dunkum he/him]

5 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I don't really recall a time so far where they called someone a Darkfriend without reason. Granted those reasons tend to be bad, like "they did something to insult the Whitecloaks" or just saying someone is guilty by association if they know someone they've accused, but it's still a reason. Ironically, the assumptions that make me the most mad are the ones about the Aes Sedai, the assumptions that everyone agrees with. The Aes Sedai assumptions and accusations really do bug me because I don't feel that a lot of them have much basis other than Aes Sedai using Power, which is some pretty bad basis. They don't make me inherently angry yet unlike the Seanchan. Every time the Seanchan are brought up I get angry, which I don't really get with the Whitecloaks. 

the one that digs at me the most is when they assume any woman using the power = Aes Sedai.  so to the whitecloaks, Damane = Aes Sedai, which is so astonishingly wrong and, quite frankly, dumb.  I also think you're giving them too much credit.  thinking Perrin is a darkfriend because he killed 2 of them is one thing, but there is every chance that they'd have indicted him in their own minds on no evidence except his eyes or the fact that he spent time in the company of an Aes Sedai.  Yes its technically a reason, but its a reason so bad that its almost worse than if it were just random.  People attackign and killing at random generally know that behavior is frowned upon, people who can rationalize it away as being for a higher cause even on such flimsy pretenses as the whitecloaks usually give they think they are better, not just better than the average bandit or whatever, btu better than the average person.  their bullies with a sense of entitlement, and that makes them worse than just normal bullies.

the other thing about the Seanchan is that you've mostly seen them through the lens of how they treated Egwene, and by extension other women who can channel - which is horrific.  that was like 90% of the focus on them in The Great Hunt.  but if you go back and look at how they handled everyone else - it just isn't that bad, except for the nobility anyway, who require unreasonable amounts of deference.  but like if you were just living your life on Toman Head in some village then the Seanchan invasion was basically no worse than any other invasion, better than some, since their soldiers are more disciplined than many.  This is the last I'll say on this, since we are takign up a bunch of space in this thread with it but basically Seanchan are the worst, and are very very bad in the specific cases where you are a woman who can channel or where you have to intereact with, or even just be near, their nobility (the blood and the high blood), but outside of those cases, the average whitecloak is worse than the average Seanchan.

[aneonfoxtribute]

In the case of Damane=Aes Sedai, that's an understandable assumption. Anybody who didn't know about the Seanchan and their structure in regards to the Power would assume the same and they have had no opportunity to have the idea corrected. Everything that they think happened at Falme is based on a misunderstanding, but its logical assumptions because there was only one person who was able to actually talk about it and without context it looks very bad. If we never had any POV from anyone at Falme and just went off of what Byar saw, not knowing any characters or anything, then we would likely have the same assumption as the Whitecloaks. And the next interaction the girls had with the Whitecloaks did nothing to dissuade that assumption. All it did was make it stronger, again for good reason.

Its not just the eyes or traveling with Aes Sedai (though that is part of the reason, and for them the latter would be enough). Its that they know that he killed some Whitecloaks and that he was working with wolves, which they, and a number of other people, believe are creatures of the Dark One. Iirc Perrin thought they were too for.a while.

I dunno maybe I am giving them too much credit, but a part of it is just that I haven't seen them do anything that makes me think they're the worst yet. Unlike the Seanchan where we actually see them doing things that lead to why I hate them. Most of the worst stuff the Whitecloaks have done so far has been offscreen and just told to us rather than shown.

This conversation is making me wonder if I could make a reaction thread in the WoT category where I just talk freely as I read along 

[Eluvianii he/him]

12 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

This conversation is making me wonder if I could make a reaction thread in the WoT category where I just talk freely as I read along 

Not a bad idea. Definitely better than hijacking threads and it would bring some needed activity to the WoT subforum. I might do the same as soon as I get on with Fires of Heaven.