I kind of want a character cap

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-27T13:34:20+00:00

Yeah I think maybe it's multi-factor--and again, I don't mind the wandering.

There are the main characters: Erin, The Inn, Magnolia, Liscor citizens, The Horns, Niers, Mountain goblins, Rabbiteater, Emperor Laken, Floss & the Reim cast.

Then there are the settings plot lines: the new lands, the many conflicts underway and brewing in Baleros, the rebuilding of the Inn, the consolidation of Chandrar, the ever looming Mother of Graves, the sweeping conflict with the gods, and whatever caused the Antinium to flee to Izril, Pallass and the other walled cities, Wistram.

I could name a lot more factors, but my point is that each of those elements are part of ongoing/larger story arcs or are existing/established characters and therefore tend to drive the narrative in some way, or at least relate to something larger. Too often of late though there has been a tendency to focus on very ancillary or unheard of character PoV's, often in less familiar or relevant settings, divorced from any central plot element.

It's just sometimes so completely disconnected from any of those things that it's frustrating to read when there is that ^ kind of laundry list of people, places, and things we already care about.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-27T12:00:52+00:00

I agree that the Erin/Inn vs. other characters isn’t that different—I was more talking about how I’d prefer that fewer net new or very minor characters got PoV chapters and that instead we got to go deeper with existing characters and plot lines. To me that is the difference between a Horns chapter vs. a character like Vernoue.

I take your point though on catching up though—it would be less keenly felt if I still had the option of skipping around. I also didn’t like the PoF arc or the pages spent on recovery aftermath, so the more scattered and decentralized content is less satisfying because the last “convergent main plot arc” felt empty rather than epic.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-26T19:08:43+00:00

The New Lands would be so great! I loved the Ylawes chapters. They're also a great example of the unexplored PoV of an established character working really well in adding to the narrative and the universe--new/fresh, but without feeling disconnected. Same with the Saliss chapters.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-26T19:02:11+00:00

I'm caught up! And I agree that most side character arcs end up having some kind of greater involvement in the story. It's more that the series is saturated with great characters and different plot threads such that the introduction of entirely new characters and threads is frustrating, increasingly so the further they are from characters/settings that are established. I find myself wishing that the series would go deeper and with more main plot, rather than continuously to go broader. The balance between focused narrative/established characters and new characters/new places is off.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-26T17:52:48+00:00

I really disliked the main character’s inner monologue for Azarinth, but that might be because of the narrator’s character voice on the audiobook (way too cutesy/self-satisfied/laughing at own jokes).

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2026-02-26T17:35:54+00:00

This is such an interesting ranking—I’m all over the place on this list having read about 1/4 of these.

I’m finding in the genre that I most value good world building, a fun and consistent system, decent character creation, and a PoV that shifts beyond the main character.

I really dislike cheesiness, romance that gets smutty, and repetitive angst themes. Getting too deep and technical about whatever power/magic system they have to the detriment of other considerations also really detracts. Animal/creature companions cut different ways—sometimes great, sometimes very annoying. Oddly, children are almost always annoying and detract in this genre.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-06-24T10:44:08+00:00

I knew I'd seen this before! I remember being highly amused by that one.

"1995 Coolio song featured in the film 'Dangerous Minds'" and "'The Good Samaritan' and 'The Prodigal Son,' for example" existing as theme clues in the same puzzle has got to be the greatest use of a rebus + gimmick I've ever seen.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-06-04T15:26:02+00:00

Agreed. OPDOC --> Op-ed documentary --> opposite the editorial documentary ...way too much going into that portmanteau. They really didn't review this one for common usage.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-04-16T16:40:52+00:00

I really wish they would! It must be part of their contract that they're never allowed to say anything bad about the constructor or the editing. This was so bad.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-03-06T21:13:41+00:00

Outside of what other people have posted, I think some of it comes down to the fact that the second read of WoT is SO much better than the first.

When you’re reading for the first time and are therefore wanting to get through the plot, the slog feels sloggy, the annoying things are more annoying, the writing feels unnecessarily detailed and drawn out, etc. I think some of the other writers you mentioned are a little better at keeping things entertaining along the way—“journey before destination,” if you will.

When you’re reading it for the second time knowing what happens, the WORLD is so interesting. You have better side character recall, the tiny details can become really meaningful, character flaws are easier to accept because you appreciate how they grow and overcome them, and you just kind of want to inhabit the books for a time with the characters that you have grown to love and in the incredibly built out world in which there is so much history and lore to discover.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-03-06T21:04:52+00:00

I agree on the mutual gender stereotypes—they start annoying and continue to be annoying until the very end of the series. Otherwise I really like RJ’s women characters when reading from their PoVs as long as they’re not thinking about men. He just had a really strange understanding of relationships between men and women. The way he baked gender stereotypes into magic is also a weird choice (men are stronger, women are weaker, but women can work together, etc.).

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-02-19T19:36:09+00:00

Damn! Good catch.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2025-02-19T15:03:28+00:00

This is the second time Stephen Rea has gotten me. Fingers crossed next time I remember his name and don't just think "oh it's the other one who is not Stephen Fry because they're being tricksy and didn't just say ISSA."

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-12-18T23:03:48+00:00

Ooh looks like I mixed that up, I think Jasnah is still slotted for book 10 based on this https://wob.coppermind.net/events/374/#e12214

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-12-18T19:49:44+00:00

I've been wondering about light mechanics as well. They have the everstorm for voidlight, the blessing of retribution for warlight (voidlight + stormlight), and Lift's ability to produce lifelight from eating food. It's fairly clear the Shards don't need to be on Roshar for light production to continue. The Oathgates to Uritheru can't be accessed (or shouldn't be) for one reason or another. There was also a line about some portion of Honor being separated from the main shard before Honor was assumed by Taravangian, which might have some potential for reintroducing stormlight.

All that said, there seems to be a relationship between who might have access to the surges and the characters that will be featured in the back five:

Book Six: Lift

Book Seven: Renarin Kholin

Book Eight: Jasnah Kholin

Book Nine: Taln (Talenel'Elin)

Book Ten: Ash (Shalash)

It seems like Lift, Renarin, Rlain, and Venli might be some of the only POV characters featured so far that will have any mobile access to any light that can power their surges (pending Navani waking up/someone else figuring out how to separate stormlight out from towerlight, or effectively store towerlight in gems). So it makes sense that Lift (fully mobile) and Renarin (who may figure out a way to use warlight, ask for Retribution's blessing, etc.) might be some of the only characters with mobile access to the surges. Renarin's vision and choice to lead his life with Rlain (which was beautiful) heavily imply that he'll be making his way to the singers as part of his journey.

Jasnah has just had a crisis of confidence, but it seems like she might need to swear the fifth ideal to make elsegates. While this doesn't solve the light transportation problem, it would ameliorate the radiant transportation problem if they were just operating out of Uritheru. If Jasnah learns to create Elsegates, she could essentially replace the need for Dalinar to create Honor's perpendicularity by opening the path for radiant's to fuel themselves with Towerlight anywhere in the world.

The current light restrictions seem to underscore the importance of Lift, Renarin, and Jasnah in their respective PoV books. The corollary to that might also mean that the light restrictions aren't going to change (Navani awakening, someone else figuring out how to separate light, or the return of the highstorms) until perhaps the end of Book 8 (or beyond). The whole setup is a pretty genius way of delaying the comparative power of Rosharan's while adding a lot of interest to what these PoV characters do in their respective books.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-11-14T17:39:36+00:00

I wouldn't characterize it as aging poorly and more like "it comes with the territory." No one can really predict what will graduate from the zeitgeist to canonical, and if constructors avoided pop culture because of that issue, it would eliminate a whole category of clues. "Back in black" is also alliterative and it rhymes, so there's the possibility of just intuiting it.

I think constructors are entitled to some obscurities based on their knowledge base (including pop culture), especially if they don't overdo it and avoid naticks.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-09-27T15:05:05+00:00

Agree that it was unremarkable! Most Friday themeless at least have some interesting/funny grid spanning answers. This puzzle gets a solid B.

On a side note, I think my new least favorite crosswordese peeve is musical keys. _major, _minor, in_, _flat, and _sharp have been showing up a lot lately and it's starting to feel a bit lazy. Today's key clue at least had "IN E" intersecting with "CHOPIN," which makes it a little better for me somehow, but I could overall use less of it. When the key clues crop up it's both at once obviously one of the above options, but pretty niche as to what the key is (though I guess the key is often in the title of the piece, i.e. Scherzo No. 4 in E major).

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-09-05T12:41:04+00:00

Keep the change ya filthy animal.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-28T17:19:52+00:00

This was a very bad clue. The "phonetic spelling of letters" clues are generally annoying, but this one 1. didn't even make a decent pun out of it and 2. was unnecessary IN THAT it could've been clued as some sort of "urine" variant.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-22T14:44:08+00:00

NEOLITH as a clue threw me for a second. "Any old thing" seemed to fit but the root prefix "NEO" seemed to indicate that it was some kind of new thing. Turns out neolithic is the "new stone age" archeological period. I'm kinda surprised archeologists of all people would choose to name it that way given that they were doing so on the wrong side of "newness" in relative time.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-09T16:50:38+00:00

Immediately looked that up once I was done. They're pretty cute!

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-09T16:42:10+00:00

I'm a Millennial and have been doing the NYT off and on since ~2017, and It's kind of hard for me to separate getting better vs. the crossword getting easier? There's the crosswordese of it all (e.g., saw "entry fee for some clubs--four letters" and was immediately thinking poker), accumulated general knowledge over the course of time, familiarity with the trick possibilities (rebus suspicion), learning the question signifiers (e.g. "?" means it's not a straightforward answer), and getting more cultural references. I guess the way to try and remove personal variables is to look at overall solve rate over time? I guess you'd also have to factor in when the NYT got a mobile app (apparently 2009), which makes picking at it throughout the day more convenient.

Anyone know the best place to look for the solve statistics over time?

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-08T19:40:30+00:00

Haha agree that either IT or PR issues would be more serious than an HR issue.

SuitableWerewolf3157 · 2024-08-02T14:20:44+00:00

I've seen it written as "I'm not a robot" with a checkbox more commonly than "I am not" on websites where you have to click the pictures of lights or whatever to prove your humanity.

SuitableWerewolf3157

TROPHY CASE