Vin& Elden vs. Wax&Wayne

[Erandeni he/him]

4 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

This discussion has become pretty wierd...

Anyway, I do like Vin and Elend more than Wax and Wayne. I find them more complex, and simply better characters. Elends fears of becoming the Lord Ruler was awesome, for example.

I also know that a bunch of readers, me included, identifies with FE Elend, and that most likely adds to his character.

I love Wax and Wayne, but Wayne does not really seem that realistic of a character at all times. Wax was pretty boring in AoL but he got better in SoS. 

Still the cant beat Vin and Elend.

You just read my mind, take an upvote!

Elend is my favourite character of cosmere, at least for now, and his arc in WoA and HoA is awesome, how he has to change to be a good king, and how he learns how to balance his idealism with the realism needed to rule the empire, his final speech and his sacrifice made me cry the fist time I read it.

I think the original trilogy has more depth in both the characters and the plot, the Wax and Wayne Era seems like a bunch of adventures slightly interconnected instead of a whole story, but it is true that Wax an Wayne are more casual books, and they are really funny.

Also the lack of mistborns, I belive that at least the physical allomantic powers are heavily interconected, as Spook says, having just one seems incomplete, but the twinborns are a really nice form to fix this, I have spent hours with a dice simulator thinking about all possibles combinations.

To sum up, I really like Wax and Wayne era but they can´t beat Vin and Elend, I love them and I love their caotic, apocalyptic enviroment.

[Spoolofwhool]

7 hours ago, goody153 said:

Afaik pewter merely delays exhaustion though. And something about them burning all their metal reserves before sleeping so that they don't get poisoned so the moment they dropped pewter the physical exhaustion takes full effect. 

My point was entirely about them using it to delay exhaustion. I made that comment in response to someone saying they would be too tired to have sex normally, meaning that they could burn pewter to not be tired, then sleep like normal.

[Matrim he/him]

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 1:53 AM, Savanorn said:

My 2 cents?

Wax and Wayne are boring. Worse, they rarely feel like people. I mean, maybe characters, but not really...original ones? Like they are the first Sanderson characters I really disliked at first, and still didn't really like by the end. I kinda feel like like Sanderson sat back and went, "I'll have two stock standard characters, one will be a tough lawman, the other will be his funny comic relief sidekick....I'll call them...Wax and Wayne, yeah." For one, I get really tired of how stupidly killy Wax is. Like, there's scenes where he just sorta ploughs through handfuls of people with no real sense of danger. The series does get better, but even Steris and Marasi feel like cutouts half the time. It's only come BoM that the characters feel alive and it starts to feel like a Mistborn book again.    

Wayne is actually good at times -funny and such- but he never really feels like a real character and his gun thing just comes across tacked on. 

The setting in general is cool, and it's really great to see the world progress and be expanded from Era 1, but the characters are undoubtedly lesser.  

Vin is amazing, putting aside the fact that she feels like a real person who almost always has tangible reasons for what she does...she's maybe one of the best characters in literature. I like that she's this dynamic mix of shrewd, vulnerable and insanely capable and unlike many characters, she steadily grows and evolves over her three books. When Sazed said she was the person most worthy of Preservation's power he is right on. 

Elend is a really solid character in his own right, especially to examine him from TFE to HoA. 

The differences, as I see it, are that Vin + Elend are young adults maturing and trying to find their identity and where they belong. Wax and Wayne are grown adults who have already formed an identity. So in a comparison of character growth and internal struggle I think Vin + Elend win. However, I disagree with your opinion about Wax and Wayne feeling like people. Wax to me seems absolutely real. Headstrong, my way or the highway, lawman. Original? Probably not, but people are not original. I guess I can see Wayne not feeling real as he may be a bit too farfetched, but Wayne is my favorite. He's got a Calvin and Hobbes vibe where he is deep and contemplative, but absolutely absurd.

[bdoble97]

1 hour ago, Matrim said:

The differences, as I see it, are that Vin + Elend are young adults maturing and trying to find their identity and where they belong. Wax and Wayne are grown adults who have already formed an identity. So in a comparison of character growth and internal struggle I think Vin + Elend win. However, I disagree with your opinion about Wax and Wayne feeling like people. Wax to me seems absolutely real. Headstrong, my way or the highway, lawman. Original? Probably not, but people are not original. I guess I can see Wayne not feeling real as he may be a bit too farfetched, but Wayne is my favorite. He's got a Calvin and Hobbes vibe where he is deep and contemplative, but absolutely absurd.

I love Wax and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in the Cosmere for people that say they don't seem real I can't understand that.  I agree with you saying hes a my way or the highway lawman. I love that about him it reminds me of my father who was a detective for 35 years. Wayne is excellent I can't pinpoint it but something about him seems very familiar to me and love him.

[Andy92]

I think there's a certain realism to Wayne in the way he tries so hard to be humorous because he's probably trying to avoid thinking about his past mistakes all the time. You can tell some of his past murders bear a huge weight on his shoulders, especially with the family he still gives money to because of what he did. I see him as a bit of a Robin Williams personality. Exaggerated humor, but internally might be fighting a lot of his own demons. 

[bdoble97]

8 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I think there's a certain realism to Wayne in the way he tries so hard to be humorous because he's probably trying to avoid thinking about his past mistakes all the time. You can tell some of his past murders bear a huge weight on his shoulders, especially with the family he still gives money to because of what he did. I see him as a bit of a Robin Williams personality. Exaggerated humor, but internally might be fighting a lot of his own demons. 

That is an excellent. What's the saying the funniest people have the darkest Secrets or past something to that effect. Yea I think Wayne is the way he is beacuse it makes it easier for him. 

[Savanorn he/him]

19 hours ago, Matrim said:

The differences, as I see it, are that Vin + Elend are young adults maturing and trying to find their identity and where they belong. Wax and Wayne are grown adults who have already formed an identity. So in a comparison of character growth and internal struggle I think Vin + Elend win. However, I disagree with your opinion about Wax and Wayne feeling like people. Wax to me seems absolutely real. Headstrong, my way or the highway, lawman. Original? Probably not, but people are not original. I guess I can see Wayne not feeling real as he may be a bit too farfetched, but Wayne is my favorite. He's got a Calvin and Hobbes vibe where he is deep and contemplative, but absolutely absurd.

To clarify, neither Wax nor Wayne feel like real people, but for different reasons. 

Wayne is indeed deliberately absurd, he's part troll and part loyal henchman, but in a pretty synthetic larger-than-life fashion, among other things. I believe I said that he's actually pretty good, but the problem is that I can't readily empathize with him because, well, he's just so very obviously a fictional character from the boots up. The only big scene that really hit home for me was in the Survivor's Temple, when you get to see the fear and desperation in him.   

Wax doesn't feel like a real character because he's almost the opposite; he's a tired stereotype for the most part and he feels like he's picked out of a western in the discount bin at your local bookstore, not from the same author who gave us people like Kaladin, Lightsong, Kelsier, Vivenna, Vin, Elend, Hrathen and Raoden. I feel like you've probably picked up on this to a degree, and perhaps this was even the point, but you (or rather I because it was, after all, my opinion that spurred this) can't handwave this because of all the other cool and relatively fresh spins on characters Sanderson gives us. To further elaborate 'people are not original' is not a valid defense for such a generic action hero because it doesn't go anywhere; it's neither emotive nor evident enough to counter the claim. I'll grant you this; if over the past decade and more Sanderson had done nothing but throw stock characters into cool new worlds then I'd have less of an issue because I hadn't come to expect more, but it more feels like a letdown because that isn't what I've seen.

  

17 hours ago, bdoble97 said:

I love Wax and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in the Cosmere for people that say they don't seem real I can't understand that.  I agree with you saying hes a my way or the highway lawman. I love that about him it reminds me of my father who was a detective for 35 years. Wayne is excellent I can't pinpoint it but something about him seems very familiar to me and love him.

Hey I get that, he reminds you of someone you know, say no more. Connections to a book will always, in part, depend on the readers experience. I acknowledge this. 

[Andy92]

I also think Sanderson has been trying to take some more liberties with the personalities of the characters he uses in his writing. I didn't care much for Lift when I read her interlude in WoR, but I started to grow to like the character in the Edgedancer novella. Sanderson has developed a lot of great characters with deep personalities over the years. I think characters like Lift and Wayne just allow him to experiment more with his "fun side" as an author. 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Andy92

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Steris,  I've found, is one of the best written characters on the autistic spectrum I've seen. I have a NLD, which can manifest a lot like aspergers. Steris' feelings of being out of place and not quite getting it don't just feel real; they are real. I've found her to be one of Brandon's more complex characters.

As some one who likes a good western from time to time, I agree that Wax comes across as a stock character initially. But the longer we spend with him, and the more he is forced to deal with the dichotomy of his duty as Lord Ladrian as opposed to that of the lawman, the more complex he becomes. It's actually rather similar to Vin's struggle, just from the perspective of a middle aged adult rather than that of a hormonal teen. I honestly find Wax's reactions the more relatable of the two.

Though this might come down to my inability to understand why Vin's love triangle took an entire novel to settle. I liked that Wax could acknowledge the tension while also doing the adult, responsible thing and shutting it down. He's also more honest about his feelings than she is: Wax realizes that it's Marasi's similarities to Lessie he finds attractive; Vin never really acknowledges that it's her unconscious attraction to Kell that fuels her attraction to Zane. (Though since she never admits the former, making it harder to do the latter...) I pretty much spent book two wishing she'd grow up already...

I love Vin, and I certainly understood her better the second time around, but I have never been able to relate to her struggles in book two. My identity is one of my constants. I've always known who I am. That's probably why I connected more with Kell, Marsh, Spook, Elend and Saze. They all know who they are. It took until book 3 for me to start truly connecting to Vin. It's when she finally knows who she is that I got to meet her in her entirety as opposed to disparate parts.

 In many ways the Mistborn series is about identity and challenging it.

Spook questions his place among the crew; not who he is but his identity with the group; similarly Marasi has to find a place for her identity within her society. 

Saze questions his identity when he loses his faith because the two are so intertwined for him. It's when he realizes he's still a scholar despite his confusion that, I feel, he begins to heal. He knows who he is; he just feels he can't honestly be that person anymore.

Elend has to change his identity, from scholar to king, without sacrificing what he was in its entirety. That's why it was so important for him to become a king within, while stepping down without.

Marsh actually has his identity violated and we get to watch as he tries to preserve it. We don't get to see him recover it though, though we can hope for another SH type story to give us an idea someday.

Kelsier, who has one of the strongest identities, appears (at least to me) to be being set up for the most external challenges to it. Some in FE; more in SH which I don't really want to discuss here. I'm very curious to see how his journey progresses through Eras 3&4 and how he will be forced by others to reevaluate himself.

Wax is also forced to reconcile the two parts of his life, but it really isn't about his identity. It's about realizing that identity in two different roles. Like a lot of people he's confused his job with who he is, not recognizing that it's who he is that determined the job. Perhaps my favorite thing about Wax is that he is not a lawman; he's a detective. It's not justice, but the mystery or puzzle that drives him first.

Wayne is fascinating as someone who's identity is formed on a tragedy. Take away the man he killed and he's someone entirely different. He WAS someone entirely different until that happened. That's why his gun phobia is such an integral part of him; its deeply bound up in the event that formed his current identity. It takes another (potentially) identity changing trauma to get him past it. (Potential only because spoiler gets a magical AED.)

Steris, as I mentioned above, is one of the most realistic autism spectrum characters I've come across. Although I've dealt with my NLD very differently than she manages her aspergers, her feelings are something I know intimately. What I love is that she accepts her difficulties and works with them. And I also love that Wax loves her FOR all her oddities, not despite them. And how she is coming to embrace them through seeing how he loves her in her entirety. Steris has always known who she is, but has hidden her true self to avoid being hurt. We get to see her blossom as she becomes ever more accepting of her identity.

Marasi, as I noted above, is still struggling to find her place.

MeLaan is all about identity. As opposed to humans, her body does not play a role in defining her. She remains herself no matter which form she takes, whether it's a willowy true body, a buxom woman, a muscular male, or even a horse, she is always herself. Which is awesome.

We don't know enough about Alik yet, but his culture does wear masks with all the symbolism it represents. He gives his mask away to Marasi at the end; to me it reads as symbolically revealing his inner self to her. Rather notably, he doesn't seem to bothered about revealing his face anyway... It's also worth noticing that a people who wear masks appear in a book about identity and connection, two things which are deeply intertwined.

Vin is the only one actively trying to piece together her identity, which makes sense considering her origins. She's let people and situations define her, and slowly finds the person she is amidst it all. It just wasn't something I found that relatable. I loved her most when she was most herself - when she sparred with Kell and in HoA.

I think they are all very real, in different ways. People don't come in one size or flavor. Wax and Wayne never read as stock characters for me; they just seemed like people who keep their inner selves buried deep, so we don't see the truth as often. They're also not teenagers; adults typically do not experience the personality changes teens undergo except in extreme circumstances. So their is less development in terms of character change - these are middle aged adults - but they read as fully fleshed out individuals to me. (One of the reasons I think Kelsier reads as younger than he actually is, at least to me, is that he has recently undergone a major personality shift and it shows.)

I tend to try not to compare the two series because they are so different. I love them both, but I'm more likely to reread W&W. On the other hand, I've no intention of buying leather bound versions of W&W, as opposed to the OT, which I do. W&W is a more enjoyable ride but Mistborn OT is a far more epic one. Probably why my favorite is SH which has the scope of the OT, the sheer fun of W&W, and -best of all - is short enough that I can find time to read it properly! (Infant and toddler take up most of my reading time... I have 0 hopes of reading Oathbringer in peace - I'll have a four year old AND a one year old by then... Worth it though!)

(For those who are wondering NLD is a non-verbal learning disability. It can present similarly to aspergers. Mine does, to the point that it was misdiagnosed at one point.)

 

[Spoolofwhool]

@Kingsdaughter613 Excellent thoughts. I really feel the same way with a number of them.

[Kered he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

@Kingsdaughter613 Excellent thoughts. I really feel the same way with a number of them.

Same.

 

As an aside, after I finished BoM the first thought to pop in my head is that Era 1 was just more epic in every aspect. Bigger stakes, more invested emotions, more discoveries, better character development, everything really. That's just my view. Era 2 are great books, and I've throughly enjoyed reading them, but I enjoyed reading Era 1 better. 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Thanks. I'm glad you liked it; it ended up considerably longer than I initially intended...

[Spoolofwhool]

Yes.  Era 1 always had the feel of higher stakes. You can feel that Era 2 is more of a placeholder that was inserted then expanded to be a part of Cosmere. 

[SetStndbySmn he/him]

Wax/Wayne all the way for me.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but I find Vin/Elend emotionally exhausting.  Wax's relationship with Steris is more my speed haha.

[Andy92]

6 hours ago, SetStndbySmn said:

Wax/Wayne all the way for me.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but I find Vin/Elend emotionally exhausting.  Wax's relationship with Steris is more my speed haha.

I always thought the whole deal with Vin and Zane was a bit far fetched in the second book. Tried to put some drama in the Vin/Elend relationship, but exhausting is a pretty good word for it lol. 

[KnightGradient]

I guess its kind of dependent on your personality who you like more. Wax and Wayne are generally happier, and they have a lot more direction in their lives. "Find bad guys. Shoot em."

Vin and Elend are much more complex and muddied. The first book is "How are we going to overthrow a god???" and you already know its extreme. By book two, you expect things to be lighter, but instead, the crew is juggling around all of their problems like madmen, Vin is emotionally confused because of grief and whatnot(only explanation for Zane), and Elend can't handle being hard on his people due to his morals. And if that wasn't an emotional marathon, HoA hits. 

Everytime I read HoA, I manage to convince myself quite thoroughly that this time, Vin and Elend don't die, and save the day. Instead, I get hit by what I describe as literary vodka. First time around, I didn't even expect anyone to die. But then Elend has an axe in his storming neck, and Vin is Preservation, and I made myself sad thinking about it...

Vin and Elend are more popular because we got to know them at their worst and best. We got to see them grow up, and they died in an extremely painful way. Naturally, we like them more. I do believe that if we'd gotten to see Wax and Wayne as they learnt who they were, and became the Lawmen we know now, I believe they'd be much more popular. Not to say they're unpopular, just that when compared the the Imperial Pair, they can't hold a candle yet.

[Jondesu he/him]

11 minutes ago, KnightGradient said:

Everytime I read HoA, I manage to convince myself quite thoroughly that this time, Vin and Elend don't die, and save the day. Instead, I get hit by what I describe as literary vodka.

I love that!  I guess I still have a bit of a hangover, then.  I forget all the time that they're actually dead (and confirmed to have gone Beyond, and therefore aren't coming back), and then I remember that and it hits again.

I do think Wax and Wayne have powerful stories too, and the parts we've seen go way beyond the seeming stereotypes people are saying they feel they're seeing, but the conflict is simply nowhere close to the same level, understandably.  It's a very different type of story and struggle.

[Djarskublar he/him]

I personally loved era 1 more. I of course love both. I didn't feel the stock character aspects of W/W. They are more farfetched, for sure, but they aren't impossible people by any means. Wayne in particular is... out there. I could still see someone like him being a real person. His compulsive thievery made me think of Kender the whole time (not to be confused with Kandra). Having read Dragonlance made it much easier to understand him. He is a kleptomaniac who totally rejects standard societal ideas of monetary value. That alone makes him interesting. His scenes with Ranette, particularly in Bands, showed his hidden depth indirectly. He appears to do stuff randomly, but he is actually a good planner. His gun phobia is totally realistic. Not exactly highly probable, but still possible. The only reason for saying he is unrealistic is how many unlikely traits have been crammed together in him. There isn't really anything wrong with that though. He honestly reminds me quite a bit of Mat in WoT.

Era one were simply more fleshed out because of the nature of the stories, so I like them more. I am also the cold calculating type, so the end of HoA was... pleasing. I like it when authors have the guts to kill important people, or just depict and discuss death in general. It bothers me when TV shows or movies cut away from people dying, or the whole 'bullets hit the dust around their feet for no good reason.' The take away is that HoA is one of the best books of all time. Didn't see that end coming, and it still blows me away to think of how well it was pulled off.

[bdoble97]

3 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

I personally loved era 1 more. I of course love both. I didn't feel the stock character aspects of W/W. They are more farfetched, for sure, but they aren't impossible people by any means. Wayne in particular is... out there. I could still see someone like him being a real person. His compulsive thievery made me think of Kender the whole time (not to be confused with Kandra). Having read Dragonlance made it much easier to understand him. He is a kleptomaniac who totally rejects standard societal ideas of monetary value. That alone makes him interesting. His scenes with Ranette, particularly in Bands, showed his hidden depth indirectly. He appears to do stuff randomly, but he is actually a good planner. His gun phobia is totally realistic. Not exactly highly probable, but still possible. The only reason for saying he is unrealistic is how many unlikely traits have been crammed together in him. There isn't really anything wrong with that though. He honestly reminds me quite a bit of Mat in WoT.

Era one were simply more fleshed out because of the nature of the stories, so I like them more. I am also the cold calculating type, so the end of HoA was... pleasing. I like it when authors have the guts to kill important people, or just depict and discuss death in general. It bothers me when TV shows or movies cut away from people dying, or the whole 'bullets hit the dust around their feet for no good reason.' The take away is that HoA is one of the best books of all time. Didn't see that end coming, and it still blows me away to think of how well it was pulled off.

Excellent points.  I also didn't fell that the characters didn't feel faxe. Wax has definitely become my 2nd favorite character in all of the cosmere next to Dalinar Kholin. Wayne is just great as well I have just finshed Shadow of self yesterday and have started Bands of Mourning tonight. 

[+robardin he/him]

On 1/21/2017 at 3:54 PM, KnightGradient said:

I guess its kind of dependent on your personality who you like more. Wax and Wayne are generally happier, and they have a lot more direction in their lives. "Find bad guys. Shoot em."

Vin and Elend are much more complex and muddied. The first book is "How are we going to overthrow a god???" and you already know its extreme.

... I do believe that if we'd gotten to see Wax and Wayne as they learnt who they were, and became the Lawmen we know now, I believe they'd be much more popular. Not to say they're unpopular, just that when compared the the Imperial Pair, they can't hold a candle yet.

I sort of agree in that I enjoyed the Wax and Wayne story arc, but found it lacking in comparison to the first trilogy at first, for similar reasons as you give.

For one, it took me a while (and a few re-reads) to "buy into" the idea that the world of "Mistborn" would not, in fact, have any Mistborns in it, or even Feruchemists, "only" Mistings, Ferrings, and the occasional/rare Twinborn (who nevertheless were not one, not two, but three of the main characters in Alloy of Law). For another, it felt a lot like Alloy of Law was what it in fact was originally intended to be - a standalone writing exercise to "catch us up" on how Scadrial had developed after Harmony's Ascension, including the dilution of the Metallic Arts, and to keep a thumb on Scadrial's pulse with respect to the Cosmere's overall on-going Grand Unified Epic Saga.

It'd be very hard for a one-off novella to measure up to how each of the three books of the original Mistborn trilogy had its own "twist" with a satisfying ending, and how the biggest jolt was when it turned out there was an even larger "twist" spanning the entire trilogy all along. And so, it doesn't.

Given the "less deep sketchwork" comparison between the two, I agree that Wax and Wayne could come off as cardboard versions of The Lawman and his Comic Sidekick. Yet even in AoL, on re-reads, I can see hints of the deeper character issues that would come to the fore in Shadows of Self, and especially in Bands of Mourning.

However, I disagree that having more of Wax/Wayne's "back story into how they got to where they are now" would be the tonic. What we're seeing play out starting with Shadows of Self is doing just fine. Because where Vin and Elend go from uncertain of their place in the world to being confident in their roles to build a new one as they grow in experience and knowledge, Wax in particular experiences the reverse: the more he learns, the LESS certain he is of his faith in Harmony, of the true nature of his personal relationships (Lessie, his sister), and so on.

Vin's growth involves realizing that Reen never betrayed her, that she CAN learn to trust and to love people, and learning the true nature of Ruin. In contrast, Wax has to come to grips with "everything I thought I knew was a lie", and goes from proclaiming "I am not Harmony's hands... I'm his sword," to essentially saying, "I put my faith in Harmony all my life and He rusting set me up to get kicked in the nards, TWICE". (Until he has a literal Take A Walk With God moment.)

Meanwhile, Wayne's sometimes overtly comic shtick is being shown as a kind of defense mechanism. The Robin Williams analogy is on point.

Good stuff. And only getting better with the whole Trell thing and off-world tidbits.

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by robardin

[bdoble97]

5 hours ago, robardin said:

I sort of agree in that I enjoyed the Wax and Wayne story arc, but found it lacking in comparison to the first trilogy at first, for similar reasons as you give.

For one, it took me a while (and a few re-reads) to "buy into" the idea that the world of "Mistborn" would not, in fact, have any Mistborns in it, or even Feruchemists, "only" Mistings, Ferrings, and the occasional/rare Twinborn (who nevertheless were not one, not two, but three of the main characters in Alloy of Law). For another, it felt a lot like Alloy of Law was what it in fact was originally intended to be - a standalone writing exercise to "catch us up" on how Scadrial had developed after Harmony's Ascension, including the dilution of the Metallic Arts, and to keep a thumb on Scadrial's pulse with respect to the Cosmere's overall on-going Grand Unified Epic Saga.

It'd be very hard for a one-off novella to measure up to how each of the three books of the original Mistborn trilogy had its own "twist" with a satisfying ending, and how the biggest jolt was when it turned out there was an even larger "twist" spanning the entire trilogy all along. And so, it doesn't.

Given the "less deep sketchwork" comparison between the two, I agree that Wax and Wayne could come off as cardboard versions of The Lawman and his Comic Sidekick. Yet even in AoL, on re-reads, I can see hints of the deeper character issues that would come to the fore in Shadows of Self, and especially in Bands of Mourning.

However, I disagree that having more of Wax/Wayne's "back story into how they got to where they are now" would be the tonic. What we're seeing play out starting with Shadows of Self is doing just fine. Because where Vin and Elend go from uncertain of their place in the world to being confident in their roles to build a new one as they grow in experience and knowledge, Wax in particular experiences the reverse: the more he learns, the LESS certain he is of his faith in Harmony, of the true nature of his personal relationships (Lessie, his sister), and so on.

Vin's growth involves realizing that Reen never betrayed her, that she CAN learn to trust and to love people, and learning the true nature of Ruin. In contrast, Wax has to come to grips with "everything I thought I knew was a lie", and goes from proclaiming "I am not Harmony's hands... I'm his sword," to essentially saying, "I put my faith in Harmony all my life and He rusting set me up to get kicked in the nards, TWICE". (Until he has a literal Take A Walk With God moment.)

Meanwhile, Wayne's sometimes overtly comic shtick is being shown as a kind of defense mechanism. The Robin Williams analogy is on point.

Good stuff. And only getting better with the whole Trell thing and off-world tidbits.

 

Excellent point I love all of them.  I am about 400 pages into Bands of mourning and love the twist that are happening in it. I cant wait to finsh this book but also don't want to bc ill have to wait about what 2 years untill the 4th one comes out. I briefly remember reading something a while back saying that AOL was going to be a one and done book. So happy it was expanded on. Wax and Wayne are just so good to me. Luring about the evolution of the other races and people of the world is very interesting as well. 

[Vissy]

Steris is cool, though I find her somewhat unrealistic. I don't buy it that someone with a genuine mental disorder of the scale of Aspergers (unless it was very mild and non-debilitating on the spectrum) would be able to behave like she does. She reads more like an extremely OCD person to me.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Rob Lucci

[bdoble97]

3 hours ago, Rob Lucci said:

Steris is cool, though I find her somewhat unrealistic. I don't buy it that someone with a genuine mental disorder of the scale of Aspergers (unless it was very mild and non-debilitating on the spectrum) would be able to behave like she does. She reads more like an extremely OCD person to me.

I dont know I have two identical twin cousins that both have Asperger's one is getting his Doctorate in astrophysics the other one is a high school math teacher. They both are extremely awkward in public gatherings. But if they both achieve in the field that they have chosen with a disability. I feel like a fictitious character could do this if my two cousins can. 

[Vissy]

It's not about intellectual pursuits. It's about how the character interacts and feels like. Steris, overall, doesn't feel like anyone with a mental disability I've ever known. A common thread there is reclusivity and withdrawal, resulting in extreme levels of self-centeredness. Steris, on the other hand, is incredibly aware of what she does. She says she's learned to do these social things by rote, but it doesn't feel like that. In how Brandon writes her, she doesn't have a problem showing emotions. She doesn't have a problem expressing her thoughts. She just has a thing with lists.

[bdoble97]

1 hour ago, Rob Lucci said:

It's not about intellectual pursuits. It's about how the character interacts and feels like. Steris, overall, doesn't feel like anyone with a mental disability I've ever known. A common thread there is reclusivity and withdrawal, resulting in extreme levels of self-centeredness. Steris, on the other hand, is incredibly aware of what she does. She says she's learned to do these social things by rote, but it doesn't feel like that. In how Brandon writes her, she doesn't have a problem showing emotions. She doesn't have a problem expressing her thoughts. She just has a thing with lists.

Ok good points. I will say i have not been her bigest fan. I was hoping I would like her the more I read Bands of Mourning but have not. The list thing is more like OCD.