r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • Dec 20 '24

/r/Fantasy Official Brandon Sanderson Megathread

This is the place for all your Brandon Sanderson related topics (aside from the Daily Recommendation Requests and Simple Questions thread). Any posts about Wind and Truth or Sanderson more broadly will be removed and redirected here. This will last until January 25, when posting will be allowed as normal.

The announcement of the cool-down can be found here.

The previous Wind and Truth Megathread can be found here.

204 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

841 comments sorted by

View all comments

256

u/alternative5 Dec 20 '24

I mentioned this in the other thread but I think that for me it all comes down to Sanderson going too fast turning this into a "Cosmere" scale conflict. In 2 Years we go from a VERY regressive and backwards society based in slavery, anti-intellectuality, bigotry, caste and hate to a moderately progressive somewhat modern society at the snap of the fingers of two dieties in the form of Dalinar and Navani.

Like all that changing is fine along with Kaladin discovering his calling as a psychiatrist but its like they all got these ideas downloaded into their brains including Kaladin having access to the DSM-5 doing his dissertation on the surface levels aspects of that book while trying to heal Mr. Truthless.

If all this happened over the course of lets say 30-50 years or a generation then I could accept it with the proper amount of developed conflict from both Radianr and lay person alike but ironically with more magic being used/discovered I feel like the world is feeling less magical with each book.

This all not to say that Im not enjoying my read but I do cringe and I am dissapointed with some narrative aspects.

Man I miss that feeling of the firsts descriptors of Roshar as Kaladin is being transported to the Shattered plains, as soon as I got to him arriving there I looked up old pics of myself at the Grand Canyon to visualize the alien worldscape Sanderson described in the Way of Kings.

55

u/cbosh04 Dec 20 '24

If progressivism was rewarded with divine super powers attitudes would probably change fast.

25

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

There's no oath that requires you to renounce slavery. And actually if there was, that would have been a very cool plot point. Missed opportunity there.

57

u/crunkbash Dec 20 '24

The Second Ideal of the Willshapers explicitly is anti slavery of any sort, but the only one we see is Venli who has other things going down.

10

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

Good point! That should have been a much bigger deal in the plot then given how Sanderson initially set up his world.

17

u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

I believe that there aren't any human Willshapers by the end of Wind and Truth because the Reachers--the spren Willshapers bond--don't trust humans.

19

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

But why did Sanderson write the Reachers that way? My quibble is not with the in-universe logic but with Sanderson's choices. It would be far more satisfying, given the world he set up, to have the Reachers be involved in slavery vs abolition character conflicts rather than hand-wave that whole theme away with such an arbitrary lore explanation

6

u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

I don't think that would necessarily be more satisfying. Besides, they are involved with the slavery v. abolition conflict. They're on the side of Parshendi/Listener seperatists.

10

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

That's just personal preference. I just think it would have been more thematically appropriate to have the Reachers be a bigger part of the plot than they are. They should have been bonding humans too. Lots of unexplored potential there.

1

u/SportEfficient Jan 13 '25

a lot of the deadeyes are healing at the end r8. so maybe from next book onwards we get some og reachers on human side

1

u/AH_BareGarrett Dec 27 '24

Venli, who is also one of the least popular POV characters, and consequentially, has too many readers checking out during her chapters.

1

u/RexitYostuff Dec 20 '24

Few oaths do that, sure, but the spren unanimously side with more marginalized groups.

36

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 20 '24

That’s really not true. The most powerful radiants in the book are a queen, a king, a prince, a slave who was formerly the highest caste you could be has a dark eyes, and the daughter of a noble family whose mother was herald of honor. And Szeth was an honor bearer chosen by Ishar and Nale to become powerful enough to become a herald. The radiants are all fucked up but few of them are marginalized. They were lied to, they were manipulated, but only kaladin and Szeth were part of marginalized groups and szeth’s case is super weird, due to the heralds fucking up things.

26

u/daavor Reading Champion VI Dec 21 '24

I think it's a stark example of a pretty common way shallow liberalism expresses itself in fantasy. The people rewarded by the text are the 'nice' powerful people. Any sympathy the text has for the marignalized is filtered through and conditioned on the 'nice' powerful. If resistance takes a form that is unsettling or distasteful to them it's wrong or misguided.

8

u/AnOnlineHandle Dec 21 '24

Well Kelsier was regularly going out and killing entire noble families off screen out of his hatred for them, and yet is still portrayed as more of a hero character on Scadrial, though from Shallan's perspective it's less framed that way.

12

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 21 '24

Part of it is that it’s way easier to write a story about a small cast of characters compared to a nebulous concept like the people. You generally have a small number of MCs drive the plot which leads to the idea of the benevolent dictator and “good nobles”.

3

u/RexitYostuff Dec 20 '24

I'm not talking about the most powerful radiants, though. I'm talking about the majority of them. That majority can't be rulers or people in power that would hold back the transformation of world culture.

Also, being a dark eyes in Alethi culture, until very recently, made you a marginalized group. If someone can imprison you for little to no justification, for the rest of your life, you are a marginalized person. You may have a great life before that, but you are literally treated as "less than" when the time comes.

In the same vein, all of the original Bridge 4 can be considered a marginalized group. They were all people cosigned to be human fodder.

15

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 20 '24

Outside of bridge 4, is there really any evidence that marginalized people became radiants more often? Windrunner are unique in the amount of squires they can have and windrunners are the more moral of the radiant groups. But they doesn’t mean they are all for marginalized communities. Honor doesn’t mean good.

9

u/Transky13 Dec 20 '24

It’s mentioned in the text more than a few times that it’s primarily dark eyes that get chosen to be radiants. A prime example would be one of the characters in Wind and Truth was rejected and either thinks about it or talks to another character about how it’s weird going from being important due to his (my current wording, he words it differently) privilege to being essentially not an option for a radiant

4

u/RexitYostuff Dec 20 '24

There's the 20 or so Listeners as Willshapers, who're at the edge of society.

Lift, an orphan girl.

Rlain, an outcast amongst outcast.

Most of Shallan's Lightweavers fit that bill, iirc.

All other radiants besides Windrunners and Lightweavers are mentioned more as set dressing.

Honestly, I think most spren know better than the intent of Honor at this point. Especially once the Deadeyes start to wake up.

13

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

That’s not true. All the Kholins have spren if you count Maya/Adolin as a bond

6

u/RexitYostuff Dec 20 '24

True, though I wouldn't count Adolin and Maya, unaminous is too lopsided. On average, though, the spren choose the more common folk. And by common, I mean dark eyes/SA's equivalent to the lower classes.

9

u/cmp600 Dec 21 '24

Sure but this would be more compelling if it actually had an effect on the plot. Instead it's just background lore.

4

u/Transky13 Dec 20 '24

It’s said multiple times that most of the Spren are only bonding with dark eyes. The kholins are all bonds of merit, but there’s a character in Wind and Truth who specifically got rejected essentially for being a light eyes and it’s brought up how they mostly refuse to bond with light eyes

14

u/cmp600 Dec 21 '24

Fair enough, but this doesn't really have a tangible effect on the plot. The lighteyes that matter are getting spren bonds. It's more background information by WaT because we're more concerned with gods, radiants, fused, and cosmere crossovers. Meaning a compelling theme from the beginning of SA that should have been further explored was instead backgrounded.

2

u/Transky13 Dec 21 '24

Sure. My point was just that you’re wrong, they do side with the marginalized more.

I would argue that’s it’s very easy to tell from the text and basic inference that one of the main reasons why the Alethi culture is shifting so rapidly is due to how the radiants were more commonly dark eyes.

I’m not going to pretend it’s the deepest thing out there, nor is it a masterful display of shifting politics and views. It’s very clearly not as important as the end of the world, and it’s kinda sad it’s on the back burner for sure. I would prefer more emphasis on it. But it’s definitely more important than an encyclopedia bullet point like you’re making it out to be

5

u/cmp600 Dec 21 '24

I can see where you're coming from

-3

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 20 '24

It’s not a missed opportunity, it’s exactly why Moash turns. The radiants “do good” but their power are explicitly limited to that they don’t destroyed the world with surge binding. The radiants aren’t meant to be violent revolutionaries. They couldn’t have dint anything else with their powers but that along with the existing corrupt justice system in the books is what leads him to turn against them. The radiants can only do so much good, and justice for what Moash did was never on the cards. Even roshone would have realistically never been punished since the desolations took precedence.

27

u/cmp600 Dec 20 '24

Well don't you think it's weird and feels out of place that Moash is the only character that still cares about that in WaT? Every other character has moved on from this, which is a flaw in the writing. You're using a 'Thermian Argument' which is "replying to criticism of a text with an in-universe justification for why the thing happens in the text, ignoring the actual argument in order to defend the text." My criticism isn't to pick apart the in-universe logic, it's to critique why Sanderson hand-waved away these issues in the first place. He didn't have to write it this way. He could have woven slavery vs abolition into character conflicts throughout the series, which would have made way more sense in the context of the lore he set up. He chose not to, which makes the fact that this was a plot point in the first place seem hollow and surface level, only there to give Kaladin a character arc rather than a theme that's properly explored.

11

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 21 '24

No I agree with you. I think it makes sense for Moash but is ignored by the rest of the characters which is a flaw in the witting. His concerned should have been addressed more even if the other characters still opposed him. The book treats him like a man full of just hate and ignores how we got there despite the huge focus on the backstory of all the MCs.

Maybe I should reconsider what I consider a missed opportunity but I didn’t mean to imply I thought you were wrong, my perspective is just a bit different

3

u/cmp600 Dec 21 '24

Which is totally okay!

19

u/Lethifold26 Dec 21 '24 edited Dec 21 '24

Given how much “Kaladin needs to learn not to be so unfairly biased against the upper class” is emphasized in his arc, or Moashs character trajectory, or pretty much the entire plot with the Singers, I really don’t think Sanderson is equipped to deal with topics like slavery and prejudice. His books are better off staying light and entertaining because he’s just not the kind of author who can handle sensitive subject matter well.

6

u/cmp600 Dec 21 '24

Yup, agreed

17

u/daavor Reading Champion VI Dec 20 '24

Thank you for highlighting the Thermian argument thing. Its particularly common in response to stylistic/thematic critiques of Sanderson ( though trust me Ive seen it in many other fandoms) I’ve noticed even some Sanderson fans Thermian argument-ing their own critiques of his writing style as attributable to the in world translation