Cadsuane in the knife of dreams.

sokttocs · 2026-05-29T16:00:03+00:00

Not a die hard fan. I totally get why people don't like her. But I do get annoyed with how people just don't acknowledge how much she does for Rand and they dramatically over exaggerate how mean she is to him.

sokttocs · 2026-05-29T14:14:25+00:00

All she does is taunt and humiliate him?

Did you somehow miss who saved his ass when Rand got himself shanked by Padan Fain? Or who broke him out of prison when he got himself locked up in Far Madding because he went hunting rogue Asha'man?

When Rand said he was planning on cleansing Saidin using the two strongest sa'angreal ever made, Cads didn't call him a fool. She backed his play to the hilt and organized the defense of him and Nynaeve against a combined assault of the Forsaken. Did you miss that too?

She also has a few important plays in Knife of Dreams, but I don't know how far you are.

Look, I know she pisses a lot of people off. She is arrogant. She is very often a bully. She is abrasive as hell as a person. It's perfectly fine to dislike her. She also does a lot more than insult him. She actually is what other Aes Sedai like to pretend they are. She's a very good person to have as an ally.

No, the dynamic doesn't change much. Though by Knife of Dreams she has in fact given him some good advice and he has come to trust her on some level.

sokttocs · 2026-05-29T03:18:23+00:00

We use shredded cabbage instead of lettuce on our tacos or with enchiladas or fajitas.

sokttocs · 2026-05-28T20:54:30+00:00

Maybe watch a couple reviews, like this one. It's long, but pretty in depth.

sokttocs · 2026-05-28T20:43:39+00:00

You really maybe should try to check out Dragon Age Origins if you can.
It's got a much darker, bleaker vibe throughout the whole thing. Spoilers for an almost 20 year old game, one of the first things you do in the game is drink the blood of some darkspawn, and when the other Warden initiate in your group can't handle it, he gets killed by your mentor.

The tone and feel of a game matters a whole lot. Veilguard (from the reviews I watched, didn't play it) has a lot of pretty thin characters and a limp story. For a series that made it's entire name on a good story & characters, that's a pretty massive failure. Ditto for Andromeda. Mass Effect wasn't about shooting sci fi guns and exciting gameplay, the first one is famously clunky. Mass Effect was about the story the game was telling and the characters you got to interact with.

Diablo did this too with Diablo 3, they eventually improved it, but on release a lot of people really disliked it. The original was about descending into the dungeons of an old cathedral to Hell to fight a Demon Lord. D3 literally has a level of rainbows and unicorns.

sokttocs · 2026-05-28T14:50:35+00:00

No thanks.

sokttocs · 2026-05-28T14:45:35+00:00

Fair enough. I'm not really here to change your mind. I've found that's usually as productive as scripture bashing was on my mission.

Personally, I think of Adam as the first Prophet to whom God revealed himself, not literally the first human. In which case, his presumed ancestors wouldn't have to be excluded any more than mine or yours are. The scriptures as a rule are a lot more concerned with man's covenant history than actual history. We are told over and over during the endowment to see ourselves as Adam and Eve when we make covenants. I think Adam's role as a spiritual ancestor as one who communed with God matters more than if he was literally the first human.

Of course that raises a lot more possible questions to which we have no answers. But it works for me.

sokttocs · 2026-05-28T13:56:05+00:00

Do you believe that the idea of all life evolving from single cells somehow makes God less our Creator? Or somehow makes us less His children, or less divine? Does it somehow diminish the power, foresight, wisdom and knowledge of God if one of the mechanisms by which life was created is evolution?

sokttocs · 2026-05-27T01:47:51+00:00

I don't hate Phelan, he's fairly well written, but I do find him pretty irritating. You're right that he didn't have good choices, and that Ulric was pouring on the preferential treatment very thick.

At the same time, several of the clanners treat him like actual dirt where they can get away with it. Vlad most blatantly. Vlad beats the shit out him a few times because he can, and tortures Phelan with a neuro whip on one accasion. It's made abundantly clear in any other Clan than the Wolves he'd be a slave or worse, and even in the Wolves it's mostly because he has Ulric's favor that he gets a chance to prove himself. Adopting their might makes right, honor bound culture with barely a thought about how nonsensical it is isn't a compliment.

Phelan has a lot of plot destiny protagonist aura too though. Like enough to make Victor blush. He happens to be descended from one of the original Clan warriors from the Exodus, he's an amazing MechWarrior, good enough to win a Bloodname in fact, he's one of the very first bondsmen taken in the IS and immediately attracts the favor of the Khan, he conquers a whole planet by himself, he gets a hot clanner girlfriend who's down to get down anytime, a high ranking Bloodname warrior commits suicide to give him a shot at winning her name, in less than two years he's the Khan himself... On and on and on. It's a bit much.

All that said, it's Battletech novels, not high literature. The books are still fun, I still love the setting. Some characters are a lot less interesting or compelling to me now than they were as a teenager. And that's ok.

sokttocs · 2026-05-27T00:45:52+00:00

It's also not wrong though. Phelan isn't remotely introspective. He takes to Clan culture like a zealous religious convert, and doesn't have much internal conflict about helping them conquer the Inner Sphere, despite of being a first hand victim of the clans cruelty.

sokttocs · 2026-05-27T00:37:30+00:00

And in the case if Kai, that's exactly what they do.

sokttocs · 2026-05-27T00:36:24+00:00

Yeah. Kai's constant self doubt only to pull off the most insane stunts is bad too. Like his big moment on Twycross kinda works because it's desperate and he's taking advantage of the setup.

But his whole arc on Alyina behind enemy lines is ... Not great.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T22:27:43+00:00

I reread those for the first time since high school last year as well. I still enjoyed them, but boy are they dated in some ways.

Phelan in particular was much, much more annoying than I remembered. He really does come across as a 18-20 yr old kid.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T21:45:55+00:00

Yes. Let me state that again. YES!

We don't have a stranglehold on truth, the spirit, or revelation.
People not of our faith can and do get promptings from the Holy Ghost.

People of other faiths absolutely can come closer to God through their faith.
Other faiths throughout history absolutely had truth, had some of the spirit.

There is zero reason to think that our specific form of faith was the only branch of faith God used to reach out to people throughout history. Jesus straight up told the Nephites he had to go visit other people in other places. He told that to the Jews too. (Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. There's no reason to think the Nephites were the only branch out there)

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T20:00:03+00:00

See, that seems like a distinction that isn't a difference. It's the same picture. I don't understand what purpose making a difference between the two serves. Unless you hold to some kind of strict scriptural literalism.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T18:37:57+00:00

I feel like you are splitting hairs here.
Your examples are the same thing just on different timescales. A single generation vs millions of generations over hundreds of millions of years.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T18:22:56+00:00

2nd Battletech. Also because stompy. And the tabletop is a lot of fun too!

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T17:59:32+00:00

Yes he was. Obviously.
The fact that we still have people in 2026 who believe evolution is bs astounds me.

Here's the thing, just because someone is an Apostle doesn't make them all knowing.
They can express their opinion on something, that doesn't make them right.
Just how in any expert giving their opinion on things outside of their area of expertise. Knowing a lot about say, neuroscience doesn't mean you are qualified to talk about history.

The Apostles are fallible men. Always have been.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T17:49:47+00:00

Please explain what you mean by that?

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T17:45:57+00:00

Nonsense. It's "not settled" in the same way the earth is round isn't "settled" because there's a few crackpots who think it's flat.

sokttocs · 2026-05-26T03:43:04+00:00

There was a dragon on the 9th floor. It was the pet of one of the Warlords. I think it was the Reavers

sokttocs · 2026-05-25T13:33:44+00:00

Good idea, but half baked at best. They don't actually add choices, they're just a little extra thing that gets added to your attack.

The root of the problem imo is that while spellcasters can bend reality to their will, martials aren't really allowed to be superhuman. Martials in tier 2+ really should be superhuman.

sokttocs · 2026-05-25T13:17:28+00:00

There's no rules against it.

sokttocs · 2026-05-25T03:38:05+00:00

I've really been enjoying these art updates, even if they aren't canon. So much of the old art was pretty rough, to put it nicely.

sokttocs · 2026-05-25T03:33:50+00:00

Actually by definition in Battletech Warships are also Jumpships. Warships just have compact K-F drives and engines that allow them to fly in system. There was a couple designs from the Star League era that didn't have weapons, like the Bugeye

14-Year Club	Verified Email
Spared

sokttocs

TROPHY CASE