There are a lot of things I would like to do to make it more visually pleasing, and make it the definite wiki on Lightbringer
What's on your mind?
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To be honest, I remember rereading the first three books numerous times. This series offered a truly unique story, well paced narratives, with curve balls around every corner. It wasn’t the typical Eragon-level simplicity of obvious Good versus obvious Evil, Good winning all the way to the bank. There were complete & utter setbacks throughout, such as Garriston falling, the cards being found & then lost, Dazen losing his eye.
Yet despite that the story continued, Kip always managed the victories where they counted, they moved forward. But you never _knew_ what was going to happen, so much was uncertain, in the air, so many curve balls past left you entranced trying to figure out what happened next, what secrets had been obscured from you.
The Blood Mirror? Answers all your questions & more within the first few chapters of the book. Just gives it all the Hell away, & then starts pulling new concepts out of thin air with no basis in lore or buildup. Kip can draft Chi AND Paryl? Freaking WHAT?! We didn’t even know what Chi _was_ beyond a name, we have no idea how it works, what you need to be able to use it, why it kills drafters so quickly. And we know that you have to have very special, mutated eyes to draft Paryl, yet Kip can just _do_ it? WHAT?
There was absolutely no buildup, & there’s a fine line between a masterfully executed curve ball & a horribly forced deus ex machina. One moment you’re agonizing through needlessly awkward marital troubles with Tissis, the next everything you know about drafting has been yanked out from under you.
It all really started at the end of Broken Eye, with the crazy fallen angel appearance. I understand Weeks has to make a god analogy, he _always_ has to make a massive reference to Christianity in all of his works, but at least with the Night Angel trilogy there was subtlety. It was present of course, with a religious count & “Night ANGEL,” but the theme of the story itself was not obviously a theological metaphor. Religion was present, but religion wasn’t shoved down your throat.
The angels in the Lightbringer series however, with Orholam & the crazy fallen-angel insect-thing, they came out of no where. There was no subtle buildup to a great reveal, a moral lesson that even a non-religious reader can appreciate for its depth, like with Night Angel. No, this came out of thin air. The cards, I sort of understood them. It was enough, but transporting Kip to another freaking dimension out of no where?! There was nothing to suggest such a thing could be remotely possible, & after that the analogy to angels & Satan became hamfisted & painfully obvious, leading to the travesty that was the Blood Mirror.
The first three books were so complex, so masterfully paced & deep, I thought they would leave Night Angel completely in the dust. Night Angel was a great trilogy by Weeks, but even it did not have the truly awe-inspiring amounts of political intrigue & fleshed out lore. Oh sure, Night Angel had intrigue, but it was always conjured out of nothing. With Lightbringer, you come to understand _why_ the intrigue is the way it is, you understand the political landscape that gave birth to these events, you understand how the magic functions, how it makes the battles result in the way they do, & despite all that there’s still something just out of reach that has you constantly coming back for more. I thought Lightbringer would be the ultimate successor to the Night Angel trilogy, eclipsing all of Weeks’ previous work with a truly awesome slam dunk.
The Blood Mirror threw all of that potential away.
Just Updated
He was training with the black guards and was not allowed to eat much.
I know it's supposed to be released this year according to the most reliable of sources, Google search engine.
But seriously, does anybody have an actual release date? I finished "The Blood Mirror" recently, and it was phenomenal, and I don't know how long I can wait for book 5.
So, I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I think it's at least plausible. Maybe the reason drafters have shorter lifespans is they run too much energy through their bodies?
We know drafting luxin is roughly the opposite of burning a candle to get light. However, converting energy into mass requires a LOT of energy. Getting 1 gram of a substance from energy requires 9 × 10^16 Joules, or 90 quadrillion Joules (that's 90,000,000,000,000,000 Joules, or 9 followed by 16 zeroes). Assuming the luxin spectrum is the same as the electromagnetic spectrum, with the colored luxin corresponding with the colors, sub-red with infrared, superviolet with ultraviolet, paryl with radio waves, and chi with x-rays, chi would have the highest frequency and energy, and paryl the lowest.
Drafters live to about their 40s or 50s, with women living longer than men. We know chi users have the shortest lifespan; once they start drafting, they have about 10 to 15 years to live. Drafting requires releasing the luxin through the body, almost like the body is either generating or conducting the vast amounts of energy needed to convert that energy into mass. However, as the frequency and energy of the light increases, a drafter would need fewer photons (light particles) to get the same amount of energy. So you would need less light to get 1 gram of chi luxin but more light to get 1 gram of blue luxin.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think the human body was made to withstand quadrillions of Joules running through it. Electromagnetic radiation, more specifically ionizing radiation, changes the human body on a molecular level, i.e. a sunburn caused by ultraviolet light or radiation sickness from gamma radiation. Imagine instead of that damage being done on the exterior of the body, the damage is on the inside.
Conducting thousands of thousands of billions of Joules inside a body that can barely withstand that same energy in smaller amounts on its exterior, it's no wonder drafters have a shorter lifespan than nondrafters.
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If anyone hasn’t gotten the new Blood Mirror Book....holy crap I suggest you buy it now. Seven chapters in & things are already fucked, especially if you’ve read the previous books & have the background info. I won’t spoil anything but...god damn you need to get this book lol.
Obviously excluding epic luxins like Paryl, Black, & White, which of the base seven do you like the most?
Personally I like Yellow, because to me it is the most versatile. It’s good for combat, construction, & its metaphysical effect is calming, giving equilibrium instead of extreme rage or emotionlessness.
So what’s your favorite? Leave comments below :)