I kind of figured that had to be the case. There are the bones of a great trilogy with Mistborn, but the writing style and explicit simplicity of the characterizations wasn’t hitting for me. I’ve stuck with it, and so far The Hero of Ages is already hugely improved on Ascension.

For sure. There’s definitely a place for challenging, or even unlikable, texts. But when your high school reading curriculum was solely stuff like ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ Shakespeare, ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ ‘The Great Gatsby,’ or ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ damn, that was extremely brutal for many kids.

Many books that were assigned to us in high school were books that most students were not developmentally or academically ready for (or were just not enjoyable). The premise “students need to be challenged” has helped create generations of people who can’t or hate to read.

This is why I stopped following mainstream superhero comics decades ago. Same shit, different medium.

A lot of the literature we had to read in school is actually amazing. The problem is that schools, in an attempt to improve reading by challenging students with difficult literature, assign too many books that kids just aren’t developmentally ready for.

Or sometimes they’re just miserable books. 😂

Yes, as a punishment for convicted criminals, but we’re talking about Christianity and the Bible.

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not someone who is all-out anti-Christian or anti-religion. It just doesn’t help us to be disingenuous about Christianity being an inherently effective blueprint for life.

I mean, the Bible promotes slavery. 🤷‍♂️

I’m with you, at least in the spirit of what you’re saying. “Try to be like Christ” would make for stronger communities if everyone truly took that message to heart.

But the Bible is too varied and contradictory. It can easily be used to support evil without breaking true faith.

Trump certainly isn’t a Christian. For him, Christianity is just a tool to help him wield power.

But a crap ton of them are actually true-believers. Christianity has never been proof of goodness or an inoculation against evil.

“JesUS wOuLDn’T say to LoVE ILegALs!”

Unfortunately, it’s an America that many have been taught to believe in and desire. What we’re seeing is just the natural consequences of the poison that’s been with us since our founding.

Right? It was actually kind of a shocking experience when it clicked for me what the show was doing and that it was doing it so well.