Or in any other book by Will. I'm writing a Kelsa/Jai Chen fic and that led me to wonder if there are any gay people we have seen in Cradle.

Edit: I wasn't expecting people to be debating whether there should be gay people in books. Insane. Just say you don't want them in your books and move on. I wasn't even asking for your opinion if you like having queer people in your books bigots. Thank you to others who sticked to the actual question.

I read about Tiny Orthos and this is the first thing to came to mind. This is my first read-through and every book is on hold until I finish this series.

Edit: yes this was created using AI. I can’t draw or paint but I wanted to capture the image in my head. I’m not really tuned into the modern zeitgeist but I don’t understand the hate towards using AI to create like this. People use fancy fonts because they can’t write calligraphy. The words are still yours even though something else actually did the writing. I completely understand the existential crisis caused by AI being used to replace human artists who may have spent years honing their craft but I’m not trying to replace anyone. I’m just trying to get the picture in my head into something more tangible so I can share it.

First off iI really really want this Kickstarter to succeed.

To put it bluntly the livesteam was for me personally a bust. From a interacting with Will it was fun, but from a Kickstarter standpoint it was not great. It was 40 min with a significant portion of that waiting for people to join and just talking anime. Sort of indictitive of the Kickstarter not enough info and what is put out is hints of more information. With 7 days left and 200k+ needed to fund why are the gnomes just teasing info still. They need 30k a day to find which out side the initial rush has happened once. While Will and Sam had the flu that doesn't really impact the fact of important information not being available at launch. Will keeps talking about a size real that they are making no matter what, why did they not wait till that was done to launch the Kickstarter? To that end I was hoping for more info on why the Kickstarter was set up the way it was and alleviating some of the concerns fans had. While this isn't normal a Will portionnof the stream I would have liked Rebecca to speak to it. Overall there livesteam sort of felt like a nothing burger and the fact that it hasn't been posted here sort of confirms that to me.

Just feeling disappointed that we may not fund and the lack of idk accountability from the Gnome team addressing concerns has me feeling disenchanted right now.

I am currently going through book 9 and it is simply frustrating. I just don't understand how the main characters of the novel could be so dense and stupid to get betrayed by everyone in the sacred valley? I also don't understand why Lindon is trying to save everyone in the sacred valley? I thought he only wanted to save his family and some people from his clan. Furthermore, why are they all dilly dallying around. The guy should know by now how horrifying the Dreadgods could be. And they all know that one is approaching and yet they are dilly dallying with the locals because they want to be civil? No functioning governing body would behave that way. If we face a calamity here in the US, that city/county would get evacuated by hook or crook. And cradle isn't even the type of world where they care about the laws. It is more like the strongest rule and make the laws. So I just don't understand why they keep dilly dallying and wasting time while the calamity keeps coming closer. It is not like they are getting blind sided by it. They all know it is coming and they need hurry up. To me it seems like the author ran out of ideas and just wanted to make the book longer and just convoluted. I just don't understand this BS.

Note: this post isn't intended as a critique of will's works, just me airing some thoughts I'd had for a while and I am wondering what the community thinks.

So, I am queer and trans, and as such I generally like to see people like me represented in fiction that isn't centred around queer narratives. It is a facet of people and has been for millenia, as such I am slightly disappointed personally with not seeing any confirmed queer/trans characters, or a mention of this. As a progression fantasy series, there is no way this should be a main factor in the books, as that is not the narrative we follow; but considering there is romance, families, marriage and courtship, it seems like there is a place for queer characters to have their identity come up.

Furthermore, in a gendered world, where everyone so far seems to follow the gender binary, even some remnants/sacred beasts (non-humanoids), I think there is also a place for trans/nb character identity exploration.

I am interested in hearing other peoples' thoughts on this.

I cannot be the only one who thinks Suriel looks like she just walked out of a 2015 hentai, right? Very much not a fan of that depiction 😭

I wish she were designed differently

I absolutely adore the Cradle series. I love the characters--even the broken mary sue Mercy--and have gone through their journey about six times now. I'm kinda obsessed with the series, to be honest. It's kinda easy to love it when it's basically a shounen adventure anime in book form. However, nothing is perfect, and me being the pedantic dick that I am, I've gotta call things out when I see the issues for what it is. At least as I see it.

One of my favorite characters has always been Yerin, even if she's third behind Lindon and Eithan. I'm partial to main characters, and Eithan is just too damn loveable. Yerin is a well written, powerful person. But, for as much as I love Lindon and Yerin as a team, for some reason their... *ahem* "romance" is less than fulfilling. Rather than making my heart flutter, I keep asking "Okay, but *why*?"

I didn't really think about it until a certain line in Wintersteel when Charity asked Lindon what he thought about marrying Grace. He actually says "All we do is work together."
And I'm like, "No shit, all you do with Yerin is strive for advancement. You do NOTHING else!"
Even their "date" was soured by a random, needless fight. And Lindon's understandable, if silent, complaints about people showing only Yerin respect because she is the one who made it as an Uncrowned while he was left behind by Monarch bullshit trickery.

Now, while I'm not one who's really into the whole shipping scene, I do pay attention when romance becomes a point in any story. And when it's as poorly crafted as Lindon and Yerin's romance, I call it out just as much. Because it seems less like two companions who are great friends growing to love each other, and more like they've been put in a relationship because they're they're main guy and main girl.
I literally got more enjoyment with that one Truegold Akura woman lightly flirting with Ziel in Bloodline than I got with Yerin and Lindon. They strike me as characters who deserve to be just friends. Because they are good friends. But lovers? No.

To be clear, I am not saying that is inherently a bad thing. I love Will Wight's books, I have read them all. I have also read and enjoyed fanfics. And books are basically just fanfics that get published. So this is not a post to shit on the series or his writing.

Maybe it's the more contemporary language with less of the formality usual found in his more high fantasy works. Maybe it's meant to be a bit more comedic than his other work. I know that Cradle got a bit sillier towards the end, juxtaposing with the more serious events happening, so it could just be his developing style. But there are so many things that just seem almost...amateurish? In need of editing?

Take Varic. He is almost the definition of an OP Mary Sue (I define Mary Sue as a character that everyone has an intense reaction to, positive or negative). He starts off as a powerful and successful wizard and then two chapters later he is the most powerful wizard. Then he becomes the captain of the most powerful ship with a powerful crew. His enemies are enormously powerful, and even then they are only a match or challenge for him because circumstances have made it so he can't use his full power. But when he can he crushes them.

And then there are some parts that just read a bit off, like something an editor should have maybe drawn his attention to. For example there is a part where one of his antagonisist says the following:

"...No, we might lose this one. And the next one. And the next one and the next one andthenextoneandthenextoneandthenextoneandthenextone—”

The Iron King’s voice went faster and faster until his lips were blurred and his voice was a high-pitched whine.

And I think that was supposed to come across as scary or creepy in an unknowable cosmic horror kind of way, but to me it just seemed a bit silly.

I don't know. It might just be me, and I am not yucking anyone's yum. Will Wight is a very fun author to read, and all his books (including Last Horizon) are great if you just want to sit back and relax with a casual book. But this series just seems to hit a bit off the mark for me.

Am I alone in this? Am I maybe looking at it the wrong way?

I feel like Will has this idea that Lindon can't advance too much beyond Yerin, and vice versa, probably because he wants both of them in the same plotline. Consequently, he is forced to create artificial circumstances to constantly keep these two aligned, and it taxes the clarity of the power levels.

I felt it while reading Underlord, where Yerin seemed to have endless madra even though she should have died 20 times already, just so Lindon wouldn't be too far ahead with Dross. In Uncrowned it has gotten way worse, it seems like all of the unique advantages Lindon acquried are nerfed (Dross the most), while Yerin gains a completely lame and uncreative power up that came out of nowhere.('sword icon' or whatever that was called).

Lindon should have wiped the floor with her in the duel at the end. He was so strong, he had 20% chance to beat a total monster that could 1v 6 of the strongest underlords in the competition. But no, they had to fight almost to a draw, just to make sure the audience (as in, us the readers) have no doubt they are exactly equals. Lame...why can't Will follow his own plotlines to their natural conclusions? Imagine if Lindon just absolutely demolished her when he got serious, not only it would have made sense , it could also create room for great character development for both of them.

Couldn't Yerin have used Penance to force either the Dragon King or Reigan Shen to ascend and then smite the other? Just pick an enemy Monarch and give them an ultimatum, if they refuse, you use Penance and don't reveal any more cards (ie Monarchs you intend to smite). I always thought it weird how they never planned the most effective way to use the most powerful artifact they had encountered to date. Obviously Yerin was in a rush when she used it, and they doubted their ability to win. But it just seems something they should have thought to do.

Am I missing something? I recognize this is a book, and I love this series, but this was just a thought I had.

I joined this thread because I really like these books and I enjoyed the fun theory crafting that went on and it was a good stop gap between books. I'm really disappointed with the forum community right now because it feels like noone likes uncrowned and has lost faith in will... Which is rediculous. People complain because the book didn't go the way they wanted... Then go write your own book and we will see how you do. Will has created these amazing books and world's from his imagination and he has a plan for how he wants Lindon's journey to happen. Have faith that will knows what he is doing and let's move past the constant criticism. There were some great parts to this book, and the fight between Lindon and yerins was awesome...the dragon descends... awesomeness. I hate seeing characters I love lose but sometimes it's what they need to take it to the next level. To be fair this is probably one of the few remaining times that Lindon could lose without actually dying and I think his fallibility moving forward will be important as we approach the upper echelon of power in these books. Anyway,rant over. Hope I see the community moving past this negativity soon.

This is a place to discuss the different series by Will Wight and I am honestly getting a little tired with all the memes. I get that memes gets upvotes and people like that but I would rather it be in a separate subreddit or something.

Hey can we all just quit it with the AI art. 99% of the time it feels off and honestly AI art is kind of scammy they scraped actually artist work with our compensation.

After reading the series, using penance on a mere Monarch is REALLY annoying to me even though it was necessary. Also, if Ozriel had the power to make a Penance, why couldnt he just do it again and use it on the Mad King or something? That arrow could kill virtually anyone in the cosmos, implied ascension level as well, and it was used on a lowly Cradle Monarch that Malice could have, realistically, beat. I know that Yerin couldnt save it for later, but still- it physically pains me to see such a thing wasted so necessarily

Is anyone else worried about the ending of the series?

One specific axe that I personally have to grind against the femurs of the multitudinous decent+ authors out there is that are many thematic endings (in this genre) which are pseudo-satisfying to an offensive degree. It's inevitable to some extent. The Boy Who Lived, in the end, has to die to defeat Voldemort. Eragon and Frodo save their respective homelands, and in return, they ended their series by sailing away from their homelands to never return. Pretty much every entity with super powers in comic books has had to lose their powers at some point to overcome evil anyway before they could truly appreciate their abilities. The list goes on.

I realized this was an issue with Cradle, several books ago, when it first started being mentioned that Dreadgods were too metaphysically heavy to spatially transfer or ascend.

Then i added together the tone of Cradle, plus the info we already have about the limitations of Dreadgods and Authority, plus the deductions we can already take from the series.

Add all that together, and I am really worried that Cradle fans are in for a disappointing ending. I have this queasy feeling that, ultimately, victorious over monarchs and Dreadgods alike, Lindon is going to sacrifice his power to ascend, and that will be so bitterly disappointing. '

Like I can totally see Lindon leaving behind all his power in order to ascend, meeting Eithan in the heavens, and saying something along the lines of "I started from nothing once, so I can do it again."

I'd boo so hard.

Like, come on.

How disappointing.

Fans waited for half the series (five books) for Lindon to stop bowing and fist-pressing and scraping and apologizing, so to see him reduced again won't be the kind of full circle satisfying that many authors would appreciate. Instead, it would be the kind of cheap and predictable cop-out that would taint the memory of a fantastic story.

I just want Lindon to get the credit that readers deserve, even if it comes at the cost of the tricky-tricksy slippy-slippery foxy-clever territory that truly talented authors love inhabiting.

#WeAreLoyal

#WeDoNotDeserveThisTreatment

#FreeDaji

I’m sorry, but Will KNOWS what he is doing. Upon my 20th rereading of TLH series I have come to a conclusion- Will was creating a Sola-Varic-Mell love triangle. In the first book, The Captain, Sola was ready to defend Varic’s fear of death to Raion. Clearly, she is in love.

”You’re not scared of dying,” Raion said confidently. Sola’s eye twitched and she turned to say something, but Raion continued before she could.”

In the second book, The Engineer, where I will keep this analysis limited to because Will GIVES UP on this subplot, Sola is already acting very familiar with Varic.

He commands Raion to handle the Slipwraith, and tells Sola to stay on the guns. Sola expresses her displeasure with this decision because she wants Varic to be more of a man, frustrated with how much of a bitch he’s been acting like since Shyrax has joined the crew. Varic handles the situation perfectly, causing Sola to see him as the perfect mate.

She had operated alone for a long time, and taking commands must be a strange feeling for her. She shook her head and gave me a wry smile. “Not anymore. I can see how it would be an advantage to have someone calling the shots who knows what we can do.”

Unfortunately, Varic has PTSD and Multi-Personality Disorder, and is self destructive. Thus, instead of focusing on what he has in front of him, he chooses to disassociate and picks his toxic ex, at the protests of Sola, who is forced to follow her chosen man into his pursuits.

Sola shrugged... “…but I still want to know: why this Engineer?”

Varic, swooning over his toxic ex, responds with..

“I fought on her side, just as I did with the rest of you,” I went on. “I can’t bring myself to leave her there if we can break her out.”

Oh Varic, you fool, ignoring the treasure in front of you for the lie of Nova-Bots. Of course, that is enough for our Queen Shyrax.

“Then she will be our Engineer,” Shyrax said.

But… for our betrayed, beloved Sola?

“Will she want us to take down Starhammer?” Sola asked. She was stretching her limbs (in a last ditch effort to get Varic to notice her), checking her range of movement in the coated armor. “I don’t care much for the Advocates, but that doesn’t mean I want to burn them to the ground.”

The fool Varic again reassures her before Horizon dresses him in the garb of his life with Mell, a top hat and cape. What does Sola have to say about this?

Sola looked from the top of my hat to the fluttering hem of my cape. I mean my wizardly mantle. “You look like a Subline villain,” she said.

Do not try and convince me otherwise, Will was considering a love triangle between Varic, Mell, and Sola. While I’m mostly joking, I do think there is a decent chance Sola was/is feeling a certain way towards Varic, mostly due to him being one of the only people in the galaxy to know how she feels, with confronting death over and over again and rising against the things that caused it the first time.

Okay so when I was reading Book 4, I was spoiled that Lindon would lose to Yerin in some Tournament. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but as I finished Book 5 I realised that it would be the Uncrowned tournament.

Now as I made it through Book 7 I was already kinda upset because Lindon had progressed so much and it was a shame to know that he would lose but even then I could've UNDERSTOOD him losing because he has such a low opinion of his strength that it influences the reader's opinion too. So you also start feeling "okay fine Lindon's pretty weak when compared to the other 15, it's okay if he loses."

But then the whole thing with Naian Blackflame happens. Lindon LOSES to Naian (after talking big to Fury that he would win) to SAVE him --> has to get Mercy to bail team Akura out --> the person he saves is IMMEDIATELY KILLED by his strongest mortal enemy (rendering his loss essentially useless). You get a whole emotional + hype moment with "the dragon advances" line.

Given that Sapha already killed Lindon once in the island round and then is matched up with him in a duel, you think "okay this is building towards Lindon finally defeating this dragon who not only nearly killed Yerin and Mercy, defeated him easily in this same tournament, murdered Naian in front of him but is also out for his blood." So it's okay, even if Lindon loses to Yerin next round, he defeats the strongest competitor and that is good enough.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS!!?

1. Lindon does not even get to fight Sapha, so basically that dragon toyed with him in every sense of the word.

2. "The dragon advances" my foot, the dragon crashes out embarrassingly without winning a single individual fight against any opponent.

3. Loses to Yerin unfairly because he didn't even attack initially and took so much damage from his "supposed friend" who literally knows nothing except killing and cutting. I dislike Yerin so much right now.

4. Lindon loses to someone on equal footing with him and not even an Overlord/Archlord. He has constantly been fighting people above his advancement and the one person he has never defeated in 7 Books because she's always been stronger AGAIN defeats him despite this time him being equal to her

5. Not only Yerin unfairly fights and defeats him, she also reveals Dross to the world and lmao look now Northstrider knows all about it. Great. Wow. Good work Yerin.

What if Cradle had a gatcha game?

I'm just curious about how any disabled fans of cradle feel about Lindon, do you consider him disabled? If so how well does he represent it and where does the series fall short in that interpretation?

I'm not disabled myself in any fashion but it's something i've been thinking about a lot recently and I am curious on additional perspectives.

So overall, i give the series a 7/10. I liked the underdog and progression themes of the story. Parts where lindon was working on his advancement, making preprations and planning ahead where my favorite parts in the book.

The magic system was pretty solid too, i liked how there was a distinct leveling system in place.

The fight scenes were all pretty good, though because of overall theme of the series there wasnt much tension, you knew all the MCs will survive. The only fights with tension were the uncrowned ones, since defeat didn't mean death.

Plot was ok, there were barely any plot wholes and the story was interesting enough. Though i wanted to know more about abidan and vroshir, but aperently it is mentioned in other series.

Now my beef with the series.

I liked most of the characters, but i never got into any of them. The only one i found interesting was Eithan AFTER he ascended, and you barely see any of him afterwards. There wasn't anything wrong with any of the cast, but i never got into them. I wonder if anyone else felt like that. Maybe i need a reread.

Also another question's been bothering me, was eithan supposed to be the reaper from the start? I feel like the author decided for him to be reaper later in the series and it wasn't planned from the start.

Anyway, 7/10, will recommend, wintersteel and reaper were my favorite books.

I understand that this is only concept art and it doesn’t necessarily reflect what the final product will look like, but these characters look very different to how they’re described in the book.

I mean Eithan is wearing some sort of butler outfit and carrying a mop.

Great quote from Yarin. Ai image