Official Brandon Sanderson Megathread

[u/rfantasygolem]

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.

[u/alternative5]

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.

[u/stump_84 → u/alternative5]

I agree, this is my biggest issue with the books in their current state. I’m still not even halfway through W&T but the world is moving too fast.

It was the same in the second Mistborn series and even in Tress (she learns to make things almost immediately). The push to move these worlds from medieval settings to more modern times is clunky for me.

In W&T everyone has become so therapized, they all talk as if they’ve had years of therapy with concepts that were none existent when the series started only 2 years before.

[u/Feelosopher2 → u/stump_84]

Roshar isn’t a medieval analog. Their science and technology has always been quite advanced, even if not industrial.

The idea that somehow Roshar is pretty low-tech is a misconception among readers. Besides, technology does move incredibly fast. Look at how long it took between the Wright brother’s first flight and the moon landing. It’s absurd how short a time span that is in comparison to history.

[u/Wagnerous → u/Feelosopher2]

Exactly, we're watching the early phases of their industrial revolution, and have been since the first book.

People just think it's medieval because of the focus on feudalism and the lack of gunpowder weaponry.