Jump to content

[All Spoilers] Brandon Can't Save Roshar as an Author


teknopathetic

Recommended Posts

I was thinking about the stories Brandon Sanderson has written, and I think the existance of other Cosmere works box in the potential of the Roshar arc.

 

1) Elantris -  A book depicting a shard world after it has been defeated.

2) Mistborn Series 1 - A book depicting a shardworld barely surviving destruction.

3) Mistborn Series 2 - A book depicting a shardworld beginning to see the influence of a new shard. 

 

  What is the most obvious option missing from his corpus of work? There is no book showing what happens WHEN a shard is splintered.

 

4. The Way of Kings Series  - A set of books showing what happens when a Shard is splintered and a world is defeated. 

-------------------

It seems like this is the only clear literary option left to Sanderson with this world lest he repeat himself.

--------------

WoBs

Brandon has stated that we have seen the ending of the series already somewhere in the book. Well, we certainly have seen a vision of the planet being utterly destroyed. We want to believe that the people will overcome this, but can they? Seeing how behind they are - should they win? 

So far we've seen in Stormlight that "RUN" is the best tactical option against Odium. My gut says we will see the people of this planet run and take shelter elsewhere in the Cosmere. We will get to see the exodus that perhaps happened in Sel (Elantris was empty) or perhaps we will see something like from Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (the great exodus). A dying world arc is something I can see him trying to pull-off as an author. 

 

Can Brandon really copy the "Nearly insurmountable odds but a last second victory" arc of the Mistborn series? I don't think he can and that worries me. 

 

Edited by teknopathetic
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get what you are saying but I really don't think you can just distill it down like that. It isn't repeating himself if the journey to that ending is different. While I do think it is possible that Odium could win and that at some point we need to see the splintering process, I do think there are more options than what you are giving.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am unsure if your logic may apply to this early stage of the Cosmere but I want to add something to the list. We have also see a planet when a Shard lives his infinite live without godly problems (nalthis and Endowment).

 

20 minutes ago, Argent said:

Eh. The Shardworlds we've seen are only a little more than half of what Brandon has planned for us in the long run. I don't think you can apply this kind of induction with any measure of certainty, not yet at least.

We have actually some quote about "you will see all the major Shardworlds" ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is nothing thematically wrong from an authorial perspective with Brandon either saving or failing to save Roshar, it really just comes down to his vision for it. Brandon tends towards heroic fantasy, so it's likely that there's some degree of victory for the protagonists, but that's absolutely possible even if Cultivation is splintered during the Stormlight Archive.

It's also worth noting that it's absolutely possible to write a few different fresh stories that all follow a pattern like "a shardworld barely survives destruction," because varying the specifics can have a huge effect, you just have to hit on different themes for each one as an author.

In short, I wouldn't go assuming you know that Brandon won't decide to pull off a cool new variation on a type of story he has, broadly speaking, "done before" just because he likes to try new things. That would also be too predictable.

Edited by Ari
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brandon DOES have a tendency towards happy endings, and he's put it in his own words that he wants to write about the kind of stories he wants to read, about characters being heroic despite the circumstances. That's not to say that his stories have all had happy endings, of the original crew in Mistborn, only Breeze and Spook lived to see their world flourish, not counting Sazed and Kelsier, who are in a bit of a different category. Hell, in Secret History we even know that Dockson died cursing Kelsier, and from the state Fuzz was in at that point, and Kel being trapped, I doubt Fuzz took the time to tell Dockson anything comforting about the Survivor before he was pulled to the Beyond.

Of course, Brandon does love to push himself in new directions as a writer, and to confound and surprise us. He's written stories with more struggles and darkness and challenges for the protagonist than he did in Elantris, characters with more problems and who are more broken and have more to overcome, and as of Alcatraz and the Dark Talent (with the exception of the TRUE ending there, which I won't spoil), departed completely from his typical resolution/cliffhangers to write one of the bleakest, darkest, most unexpected turns I've seen in a while, one that legitimately surprised me and made me think "Wait, wut. B.... Brandon, you.... you can't do this! This isn't what you write!" and I absolutely love that he did it.

Brandon has also stated that he's worried that the Stormlight Archive runs the risk of turning into the Avengers, with everyone from all the other series popping up and influencing the plot too much. He wants the main Shardworlds to all have their own self-contained stories while tying into the plot of the Cosmere, and his first priority is to make sure that SA is an epic in and of itself. So I might guess that if Roshar DOES survive, it'll be down to the struggles of everyone to fight Odium, which ends up with them banishing him from Roshar, saving themselves.... but inadvertantly releasing him to plague the rest of the Cosmere, which would be dealt with in future books in other settings and times.

So while I can see the worry that Roshar WILL survive Odium somehow, and I wouldn't say it's completely unfounded, I'm not going to place my bets on anything at this point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Yata said:

We have actually some quote about "you will see all the major Shardworlds" ?

Right, that's what I am saying. The major Shardworlds are ten (last we heard, at least) and we have seen Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel, and Roshar. Maybe First of the Sun (depending on how you count it), and maybe Threnody. Ashyn and Yolen are still in the future, as is (maybe) Braize. So with so much unknown, it's not safe to make assumptions about the grand story just yet (or ever, but that's a different topic). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Argent said:

Right, that's what I am saying. The major Shardworlds are ten (last we heard, at least) and we have seen Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel, and Roshar. Maybe First of the Sun (depending on how you count it), and maybe Threnody. Ashyn and Yolen are still in the future, as is (maybe) Braize. So with so much unknown, it's not safe to make assumptions about the grand story just yet (or ever, but that's a different topic). 

Don't forget Brandon has said the backbone of the Cosmere overal plot is gonna be Mistborn, Stormlight Archive and eventually Dragonsteel. So technically we CAN speculate on the grand story with what we know about those series.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Rawrbert said:

of the original crew in Mistborn, only Breeze and Spook lived to see their world flourish, not counting Sazed and Kelsier, who are in a bit of a different category.

I thought Ham also survived?

Edited by user613
Link to comment
Share on other sites

He did. He was seen with his wife, I believe.

Also, Yata, Edgli is female, not male.

We have seen Taldain as well now. So that's five out of ten. The Aether world and the 'Dark One' world are two others I believe. Odium is on Braize, so should count. So that leaves 2 unaccounted for. First of the Sun, Threnody and Ashyn are Shard worlds, but not part of the ten Major ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Yata said:

Maybe Roshar would be safe and Cultivation will splinter Odium (to remain in the spectrum of "it's splintering time" that @teknopathetic proposed)

I don't think I've seen a single person speculate that Odium would be splintered.  Upvote for originality.  I like the concept, though if that happens we'll need another big bad for the Cosmere (which has already been speculated).  I would love to see Cultivation spring a trap at the end of SA that brings Odium down once and for all, but has catastrophic effects for Roshar. Or perhaps that would be what happens at the end of the first half, and then the second half they have to deal with the effects of that decision.  That would line up with the ideas in Mistborn (where killing TLR just made things worse) without actually repeating the theme.  I can definitely see him doing that potentially.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also don't think we will see Odium Splintered.  Odium has been too vague, too indirect a threat to our main protagonists to be splintered just yet.  Especially seeing as what ever counter-stroke Honor launched at his death seems to have successfully trapped Odium on Braize.  

 

We saw Ruin die by the hands of the story's heroes because he was a direct and present threat to them.  Roshar's heroes have only heard his name in passing as a concept, and are only just learning that their God is dead.  While the last three books of the first half present more than enough time for Odium to become the main threat that is destroyed, I feel that is unlikely.

 

Far more likely, to my mind, is that he will manage to get free by the end of book four, at the earliest.  In book five, a minor (In the grand scale of the Cosmere at large) victory from the Heroes will force Odium to reconsider Roshar, and Cultivation as his next target, leading him to decide to choose another target whose Shardworld is unaware of the Shards, and unready for his intervention.  This will give the Rosharans the time to forget about him, like they did in the 4000+ years after the Last Desolation, while they clean up the mess left by his escape, and whatever counterstroke he delivers when he exits.  Maybe severely wounding, but not managing to kill, Cultivation - leaving her in a similar state to Preservation at the debut of Mistborn.  

 

The second set of five will have a Roshar that is far more cosmically aware, as they will not waste their respite by forgetting, but far less defended, as Honor is still splintered, and Cultivation is badly wounded - bearly able to protect the world if Odium returns, or quite possibly looking for a newer, less bound by intent vessel to take her place to defend the World from Odium's return.

 

That's my thought.  I don't think Odium will be splintered before we have a chance to see him directly assert his influence unhindered on a world, and I don't think Roshar will die, but it will not survive unscathed.

 

Edit:  I always have a last thought right after I post - Another option is that Odium will be defeated and killed in this series, but rather than splinter and leave all those slivers and splinters of Hate all over the Cosmere, Cultivation will take the shard onto herself to try to mitigate it and change the intent, like Harmony.  Only in the space between the two series, the mixture of Cultivation and Odium will corrupt her into something more dangerous than Odium, and more free to act than Harmony, a being that exists solely to cultivate and grow the Hatred of the Universe, becoming the far scarier villain for Stormlight Pentology part 2.

Edited by Stark
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Stark said:

I also don't think we will see Odium Splintered.  Odium has been too vague, too indirect a threat to our main protagonists to be splintered just yet.  Especially seeing as what ever counter-stroke Honor launched at his death seems to have successfully trapped Odium on Braize.  

It's not really relevant to the post, but Odium was trapped on Braize long before Honor's death (Honor died after the Recreance and Odium was already trapped on Braize at least for thousands of years)

Edited by Yata
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Glamdring804 said:

Maybe Odium does get killed at the end of the Front Five, and someone, like say Bavadin, takes up his shard and combines them into the awful mega-axis of evil. It might explain why it looks like Scadrial is under attack from both Autonomy and Odium at the same time. Thoughts?

Honestly, I'd prefer we didn't see another Shard combination just yet. Maybe when we get to Mistborn Era 4 or into a more Cosmere-heavy story, but it'd feel too similar to Mistborn if he did it in SA, I feel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Honestly, I'd prefer we didn't see another Shard combination just yet. Maybe when we get to Mistborn Era 4 or into a more Cosmere-heavy story, but it'd feel too similar to Mistborn if he did it in SA, I feel.

Well, I think other pairings would lead to more interesting effects. It is somewhat logical what Harmony is from his components. Autonimous Hatred is not so easy to extrapolate. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Honestly, I'd prefer we didn't see another Shard combination just yet. Maybe when we get to Mistborn Era 4 or into a more Cosmere-heavy story, but it'd feel too similar to Mistborn if he did it in SA, I feel.

Maybe. But if we have a 2-shard vessel who is actually proactive in their use of the power, then it would be different from Mistborn. It would be a pretty close line though. so it wouldn't be optimal, I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, isn't the gap between books 5 and 6 something like 10 to 15 years?  That doesn't seem long enough to forget Odium.  I wonder if the world being destroyed is in fact Braize.  Brandon is very seldom predictable and I have a hard time believing that he would leave something that obvious out there wit a WoB to point it out to us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe the 'champion' of Odium that has been hinted at or whoever actually kills him (one of the good guys) picks up the Shard? I can definitely see that happening for a bit, but then they learn about intent and pass it on to another shard, to change the intent.

By the way, a cultivation/odium cross is awesome, maybe Experimentation will be formed or something

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 19/11/2016 at 8:40 AM, Jondesu said:

I don't think I've seen a single person speculate that Odium would be splintered.  Upvote for originality.  I like the concept, though if that happens we'll need another big bad for the Cosmere (which has already been speculated).  I would love to see Cultivation spring a trap at the end of SA that brings Odium down once and for all, but has catastrophic effects for Roshar. Or perhaps that would be what happens at the end of the first half, and then the second half they have to deal with the effects of that decision.  That would line up with the ideas in Mistborn (where killing TLR just made things worse) without actually repeating the theme.  I can definitely see him doing that potentially.

I'd not be so sure that Odium is even really the "big bad" of the entire Cosmere just yet. It's entirely possible there's something more complicated going on. I generally think of him as the "big bad" of part 1 of the Stormlight Archive. (and probably part 2, as well) Stormlight Archive is one of the three major storylines going on, so Odium's certainly significant, but that doesn't mean he's going to have anything to do with Dragonsteel or Mistborn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...