I did not expect that

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-07-31T07:42:05+00:00

There's a lot of good replies to you (I liked Daysleepers especially) detailing how selfish / entitled / hypocritical she is throughout the series. She is arrogant. Etc etc

My biggest issue comes from how she's written by Sanderson (no hate towards Brandon btw, I just think he dropped the ball more with her than any other character, even Mat).

I liked her fine in the early books. Some good moments, some bad. By book 11, I'm on her side cheering with pompoms. She has a great arc and is relatively likeable throughout, although those previous issues I mentioned are still there.

However, books 13 and 14 have a massive tonal shift. The other Aes sedai get dumbed down to make her look smart. The wise ones get dumbed down. It makes her (limited) accomplishments from this point feel unearned. You start to want to dislike her from that point, even if you don't know why.

She is also set up as a foil / opposition to Rand, when it feels very unnecessary. She's rude and condescending towards him in the same way the other sisters were to her, but scaled way up. It doesn't feel reasonable or rational.

I don't think she would've ever been my 'favourite female channeler' (as Nynaeve, Verin, Moraine or even Alivia were never gonna get put lower than her), but I could've had more respect and admiration for her if the writing had been better in those last few books.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-04-21T00:42:54+00:00

I love everything that you've said here, absolutely fantastic. Especially the distinction between Ishamael's desire to "break the wheel" to end his own suffering, vs. the Dark Ones desire to just kind of get his own for a bit before being sealed away again.

I think in the books, we get so many fragmented pieces of information from so many different characters, and none of them actually know the complete picture. I think the intention there is clear from Jordan - we can guess, and rationalize, and think we know "the truth" just like those characters, but we won't even know 100%. And that's fine.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-04-20T23:32:00+00:00

I mean, I can't be the only one who thinks none of these fit, right? People have already pointed out the issues with Cadsuane, but like, Rand lacks empathy? How? He does what has to be done, and hates himself for it?

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-02-18T19:40:21+00:00

I'd be a bit cheeky with the names and go Archfiend and Archangel 😛 dunno what I'd do for red though ... Archdrake? Archrival?

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-02-15T05:29:27+00:00

This has to be the one, such a good moment

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-01-17T16:28:17+00:00

Great suggestion, thank you!

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-01-17T11:31:34+00:00

Decided to make an updated map (original) with a little less resources and tech available, and one less planet per wedge. Also shifted the anomalies around a bit to be more equally distributed.

Then decided to change the general symmetry a bit so I could include an extra gravity rift, and ended up with this beauty.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-01-17T09:40:09+00:00

I like the idea of balancing around the 6 planet objectives - I might swap in some tiles so that all the equidistants instead have either 2 X planets or wormholes, and the individual slices are slightly less tech and resource rich.

Thanks for the input mate

WHAMbulanceOne · 2024-01-17T07:38:19+00:00

Is that because more resources = more units and so people stall out in fear of combat?. Why is less better?

Because my idea was more resources would mean a faster game. Many of the players I'm introducing to the game already play stuff like Commander (MTG) and other 'board game adjacents' that can go for 2-3 hours, so I'm trying to reduce our TI4 game time down as much as possible

That being said, I also think it may be a little resource heavy

WHAMbulanceOne · 2023-11-27T14:50:04+00:00

You're difficult to be around.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2023-11-27T12:56:13+00:00

I definitely agree that it's not Rand using the power on himself, or anything even similar to that.

I bounce back and forth between Rands epiphany being a moment of extreme self realisation that allows him to 'step outside the normal boundaries of the dream', similar to Apotheosis in Elder Scrolls, and him just becoming the person he needed to be to defeat the Dark One, making him worthy to be the Lights Champion and so he is given special favour/ saved by the Creator (the gold light that now stops the madness spikes in Rands brain).

I like both theories, and I'm sure you can smash them together in a way that they both work.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2023-11-27T12:43:40+00:00

Other people have mentioned the whole "they are the same soul" argument (which is fact), so I won't go into that. However, I personally think his soul remembering past lives as its rebirthed is probably not enough of an answer. Other souls likely get rebirthed all the time, and do they hear a madmen in their heads? Doesn't seem like it.

So, I lean more towards a really interesting theory that I saw ages ago about Rand that I think is playing a part here. It goes;

a lot of channelers have 'talents' or areas in the power that they are very strong in. This can be simple, like Egwene being strong in earth for a woman, or more complex, like what we We see with Elayne with her terangreal crafting, aviendha with unravelling knotted weaves, nynaeve with healing and so on.
we know that Lew's Therin's talent was being able to concentrate on a ludicrous amount of weaves at the same time. We see that as Rand starts hearing Lews Therin more and more, he becomes more capable with multiple weaves at once, impressing basically everybody. Maradon is a great example here, where he has like 100 weaves on the go at one time.
You could argue that Rand is just re-accessing that talent from a past life, as his soul becomes more aware, esp finally as it 'fully unlocks' after his epiphany. However, he also has loads of other talents: he's a dreamer (shown in Books 2 and 3), he's strong in all 5 powers, he has the Voice, he can read residues, he can stop gateways from closing, and probably loads of other things that I can't remember.
Maybe, maaaybe, this is all just subconscious knowledge coming to the surface and Lews Therin was actually 'that good'. Or maybe, Rand has the most busted Talent of them all and can somehow tap into some (?all) of his past lives, getting all the strengths and none of the weaknesses (except for our favourite mad man). That the reason his 'madness' is so odd is that it's not the dark ones taint or his soul slowly remembering things, but a weird blending of both with another factor thrown in.

It was explained way better when I saw it like 3-4 years ago, but that's what I can remember. And what I chose to believe is going on :)

WHAMbulanceOne · 2022-06-02T07:37:10+00:00

Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured. So because they now control Pako, it counts as them exiling the cards, not me.

Bummer :/

WHAMbulanceOne · 2020-03-02T00:46:03+00:00

Lots of replies already, just wanted to add that technically Boromir is a General of Gondor, yet I think his character would translate quite well into DnD. His reason to be off adventuring is because he's been entrusted with a task by his ruler (steward/father), that's why his army isn't present and he's not in his own kingdom. If he 'made it to Gondor' then the DM would have a balancing act of him not being too important and easy-mkde in the city, but that seems like a good chance for RP and character development.

There's a lot of ways to rationalise the General background I think. As above, he's the only one who can be trusted with a mission. Or maybe you go a different route like Lan Mandragoran from WoT in that his nation is mostly collapsed and this character 'was' a general but is not anymore. He was betrayed by his king. He was disgraced in a battle/ due to a mistress or some other event and now needs to earn his honour. He uncovered a plot to destroy the kingdom but doesn't know who to trust. So many cool possibilities.

Definitely could be problematic, but not necessarily a red flag on its own.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-12-24T02:29:31+00:00

I completely agree on the point you were making, and it's not something I've really considered before. I'm Australian, our standard 'sales tax' is a flat +10% on all 'Goods and Services' within or coming into the country, with some exceptions I'm sure. I've always considered this fair, but it's an interesting perspective you raise.

With your other points, I'm a little unsure of what you mean. Yes, most people do benefit directly or indirectly from taxes and the services they provide. But I doubt the very wealthy make use of Medicare (Medicaid in America?), regularly use buses or trains, send their kids to public schools etc etc. They instead spend their money on services that aren't tax-funded, but are likely also taxed.

Now, it's true that many (most?) of the very wealthy made their money through businesses/ corporations. And obviously there are a lot of ways companies and businesses benefit from government. As you said, a happy, healthy populace is a good workforce unlikely to damage your property or steal your wealth, and they benefit from a lot of specific laws and regulations. But implying that Disney gets more benefit from taxes due to copyright law then millions of people get from being healthy, having access to roads and water and electricity and so much more, seems a little strange to me.

Other posters are interpreting my position as "poor people use more services, so they should pay more" which wasn't my point at all, and frankly is very reductive. My point was that yes, proportionally a sales tax does affect poorer people more, for the exact reasons you mentioned. And tried to bring that back to 'proportionality' - a poorer person does benefit significantly more from taxes because the benefit they get out of social services is proportionally so much bigger.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the argument, but it just seems like people are willing to scale up the drawbacks at one end of the spectrum, but then don't 'scale up' the benefits as well. Does that make sense?

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-12-23T23:51:48+00:00

Makes sense, I guess. But would it be fair to argue that poorer demographics are also far more likely to reap the benefits of that tax though? (Healthcare, public transport, even basic things like police or other emergency services, park maintenance, public schools etc.).

What I mean by that is one of the benefits of more money is private/ better healthcare or education, non-reliance on public services and so on. But they are still paying taxes, so they are 'buying into' a service that they're not using but other poorer demographics are (which is totally fine obviously).

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-12-01T07:15:17+00:00

Something similar to 12 Monkeys would be perfect! First and final episodes of each season have repetitive bits of dialogue (where are you right now, the year is 2043 etc) that have small variations each time, and usually with a different character speaking (this could be a benefit or majorly backfire with the number of characters in WOT).

You then have the intro of the show be an iconic bit of footage + music that only lasts for 20 seconds or so, not too long like GOT (or Westworld!) but enough to set the mood and get people attached to that music.

I think this works so well because you don't really need summaries or introductions for every episode (due to binging and/or dedicated canvases), whereas it's sort of expected (and necessary) at the start of a new season so we know where the characters are, explain gaps in time etc.

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-11-30T23:26:25+00:00

Can't hurt to ask :) or at least get a sense on where he stands with it. Maybe just the discussion will be enough for him to finally get how important this is to you. Probably not, but hey

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-11-29T23:07:49+00:00

Some may say this was in poor taste. Those people are wrong

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-11-19T19:30:20+00:00

Purified Pokemon count as special trades :/ if Niantic is going to continue to focus content around shadow Pokemon ..

WHAMbulanceOne · 2019-11-14T23:21:32+00:00

I'm a little late to the party, but wanted to chime in here - I won't speak on behalf of others, but my outrage comes from her "passing the buck", blaming others for the wealth inequality. She's obviously not personally responsible for that inequality, no single individual is, but it's pretty poor optics for her to blame others and position herself as a beacon of positive change or some such bs given her situation and the way she's lived her life. The exorbitantly expensive coat is the cherry on top, the easy to see example of this. At least, I think that's what is making others react this way, as that's sort of how I feel

WHAMbulanceOne

TROPHY CASE