u/Fanghur1123

I recently started another read-through of the series, and I was confused when the narrator referred to Tenjin as female, because I was almost certain I remembered them as male the last time I read the series, as well as Katashi referring to them as his brother at some point. Did Andrew Rowe retroactively change it at some point and the e-books got updated? Or am I just misremembering? I did a similar double-take the last time I listened to the Stormlight Archive, because Sanderson apparently DID revise some things (eg. He changed ‘quicksand’ to ‘crem mud), so I’m just wondering if the same thing happened with Sufficiently Advanced Magic.

An interesting idea came to me the last time I finished the series. We know that the Menoa Tree is a sapient being, created when the elf Linea essentially downloaded her mind into the tree. So would the Menoa Tree still be capable of using magic and casting spells if need be? I don't really see any reason why she wouldn't, and she kind of seems to imply as much in Brisingr when she tells Eragon that she doesn't consider Galbatorix to be a threat to her, as she "speaks for the forest" and "no one can hope to defeat the forest".

And, yeah, if the Menoa Tree is still capable of using magic, and she essentially has access to all the energy of Du Weldenvarden, then I think her confidence would be entirely justified. Countless millions of giant trees worth of energy vs a few hundred to a thousand Eldunari? I can't see that math ever working out in Galbatorix's favour.

I apologize if this is Tolkien lore 101 type stuff, but one thing I’ve always been a bit unclear on was whether the orcs as a species were truly evil by nature, or whether their malice and corruption was taught rather than innate? I think I remember reading somewhere that Tolkien said at one point that there’s no reason in principle that an orc couldn’t ’return to the light’, so to speak. But I’m not sure if he changed his mind on that.

Is the Dark Presence a being wholly independent of Alan Wake? Or is it essentially his own inner demons manifested by the power of the Dark Place into something external to himself, like the 'Id Monster' from the film 'Forbidden Planet'? There seems to be evidence that could point in either direction.

So I recently read Project Hail Mary and watched the film, and first of all, if you haven't at least watched the movie yet, what the heck are you waiting for?! lol. But anyway, one of the plot points of the story is that because Rocky's species was apparently completely unaware of Relativity, they ended up bringing far more fuel than they actually needed to reach Tau Ceti, because they were assuming that Newtonian physics was the way the universe operated. As a result, Rocky explains that he was baffled both that the trip seemed to be a lot shorter than he expected, and required far less fuel.

But shouldn't that have resulted in them having LESS fuel than they needed rather than more? Since the closer you get to the speed of light, the exponentially more energy it requires to go faster/keep accelerating, whereas under Newtonian physics it would be linear? Normally Andy Weir does his homework regarding stuff like this, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don't understand how this could be possible given my admittedly layman's understanding of Relativistic physics.

I’ve wondered this for a while. If we were to hold a contest of riddles and insults between Hoid, Angela the Herbalist from the Inheritance Cycle, and the Doctor from Doctor Who (pick whichever incarnation you prefer, though for me it’ll always be Matt Smith!), how do we think the contest would play out and who do we think would win? Feel free to throw in any other equivalent trickster-like characters into the fray that you want. Gabriel from Supernatural might be interesting too. lol. 🙂

Can someone who actually knows how to speak French beyond asking where the bathroom is opine on how Avi's proficiency at speaking French stacks up? Honestly, the few times I've heard him speaking it, he actually came across as more confident at it than Carney did during the very early stages of his entry into politics, though I don't know enough to really comment on their respective proficiencies.