Sarex

No just to bring it outside to the ground. I am high up and didn't want to risk killing it. The female occupants of the house didn't want to share the balcony, said female occupant didn't want the shoe box back.

Saw a praying mantis in person for the first time. It was on my balcony hanging upside down. When I got close with a shoe box and it turned its head towards me, I took a step back.

https://www.guru3d.com/story/intel-arrow-lakes-new-lga1851-socket-and-more-technical-details/

It's the more important movie of the two, that is for sure. Saying that I prefer Nolan's rendition.

Nah, there are quite a few bangers that have come out. Maybe there is more manga in general so there are more bad manga.

Be warned that the manga takes a dip too. I'm pretty mild on the latest chapters.

Back when he was actually funny.

The Croats were competing with all they had.

To be fair, the books had cliffhangers before POV shifts all the time.

People don't understand that Jews were not tolerated in the western world before WW2.

They wouldn't dress like that if they weren't terrorist.

Mu tongue would not survive it. After about 5 of them it start to sting.

I forgot where I left the Stormlight Archive. Book 3 I think. Will probably need to reread that at some point. No, are they good?

Depends on the books. LotR was a soft magic system, much closer to miracles and the like, while on the other end you have Sanderson's magic system with hard rules. Wot is somewhere in the middle pulling towards hard.

How does that work?

You just need to get to end of book one, then everything starts making sense (kind of) and it's not a problem with the following books. I think this is the only fantasy series I read that gets closest to what you are asking.

That got a laugh out of me! Fair enough I see where you are coming from. I do not agree completely (I agree with the fact that women are becoming obsessed with it and that is not good) and think you are taking it to the extreme in this particular case, but I can respect your opinion. All that I will say is to never ever read the Kate Daniels series, well maybe only if your life depended on it, but even then I'm fairly sure you would get a brain aneurysm. Tbh, I don't know how I even got to book 4 in that series. @uuuhhii Did you ever try Malazan Book of the Fallen?

Hey we got lore dumps, we can't have it all. Yeah, I just read the extended interview. I don't really know how BG3 ended the RTwP vs TB debate... By selling more? I have not played it yet, but apart from the camera that seems to be the weakest part of the game for me.

What difference does it make if they flying carpets or airplanes? Why would that make them behave differently? They did min/max int he previous age and brought about misery.

I think he could too, he just needs to stop fighting windmills. Comedy in moderation never made things worse.

Oh, I'm not trying to convince you to like it or give it another shot. I was just sharing my opinion on the matter. You like what you like, who am I to tell you differently. None taken. Good characters should be relatable and some of those things make said characters relatable (most of the readers are not going to relate to wielding magic and sword fighting, but they will relate to dressing up and trying to look pretty). Maybe you missed this part, but the current age in the story of WoT is our distant future, ie. our world today is the distant past in the books. But let's ignore that aspect of it. Why should it change? I'm not saying there isn't a reality where that could be or is the case, but what makes you think that matriarchal aspect of society would somehow force that change? I mean an example from the top of my head would be Cleopatra who was at the top of the food chain and power scale and she was still famous for her makeup and style and the use of it to get what she wanted, it didn't somehow make her not care about her appearance or how she was perceived by the men around her. Yeah I think genetics/evolution plays a part in it. Sure society amplifies it, but at the end of day there needs to be fertile ground for such ideas to take effect. I find it strange and a little bit funny that particular point was the deal breaker for you. @uuuhhii and you seem to think that humans would somehow change or behave differently in a world with magic. Magic is just a form of power, I don't see why exactly humans should be different or behave differently than they do in the real world. In the real world some people have power and can do whatever they want and some people are powerless, magic is just a flavor. If we invented a way for people to shoot fireballs out of their arms today, do you think that would change anything? To people who are born in a world with magic, that is just another aspect of life another form of power. They are still human and will behave like humans do. What difference does it make if you make fireworks with the one power or with gunpowder, the end results is the same. So what is the first thought you have when you see or engage with a new person? I can tell you that women in fact look at each other and measure advantages and flaws especially young ones. The older ones usually gauge how young their counterpart looks for their age and try to guess said age. And young girls can be very mean and tribal. As for the horse, I do not understand what bearing on the matter it has. If I saw a women in a car maybe I would first have a thought about her car and then her, or more likely I would have a thought about how she was driving said car. I think you are giving it too much weight, these are passing thoughts that happen quickly, but they do happen first usually (at least for me). I think this whole thing is probably exacerbated for you because Robert Jordan famously describes everything ad nauseam, so a lot of the word count goes there. Fair enough. A question. Do you think it's bad for someone's first thought about some else is to be about their physical appearance? Not a trap or a bait, I am genuinely curios about you opinion, because that is the feeling I am getting from what you wrote.

Why would they not? They are still human. Been a while since I read the books last. I'm buying the localized special edition books and will probably give it a reread once they all come out.

I wouldn't mind seeing him take another crack at it, if for nothing else but to see how or if he would change the formula.

As far as I remember most of the negatives you mention have been from the POV of the opposite gender, ie. the male/female view on things. I don't remember exactly, but I don't think he ever used the third person to do that. A lot of the examples you mention are always diametrically opposite depending on who's POV you are reading. A good example would be Mat trying to save the girls in book 3 and his view on it as opposed to the girls view on it. Some things are not even due to gender but simply the age of the character, most of them are barely out of their teens and as such are inherently naive and dumb in their thinking. There is also the fact that the world has been destroyed by men and there is a lot of distrust there that is essentially inborn at that point. Women, girls especially, are obsessed with how they present themselves and their perceived flaws, the success of the cosmetic industry can attest to that (have you ever met a women who doesn't own makeup?). I have not met a women who is happy with every aspect of their body and who would, given a magic body morph wand, not change something about it. I do not see a big disconnect there between the WoT and real world women. Also, I would say the world today is fairly obsessed with bosom and behinds. On the topic of everything being described in terms of beauty, although I would define it more as outwards appearance, I don't see an issue there. When you see a person do you not first think about how they look and how they are dressed. I doubt your first impression is going to be about how smart they are or on their opinion on political situation in South Africa. This seems perfectly human to me. I googled with a fairly neutral query and the results I'm seeing is that there are just as much if not more women who were able to identify with the female character/s in the books. Don't take this the wrong way, but we tend to surround ourselves with like minded individuals, so I am not surprised that the women, who's opinion you value enough to ask, share and confirm your beliefs. I laugh thinking about how the readers would have reacted if he wrote the female characters through a lens of a male dominant society. That's what I heard too. Which makes it doubly funny.

I mean he was no Ivo Andric but his writing was ok for the genre. (Who would you say is a good fantasy writer? I'm curious.) The characters were a feminist's fever dream, but I still found them enjoyable.