grapebird Posted October 1, 2020 Report Share Posted October 1, 2020 (edited) Newish reader to Brandon Sanderson here! In just a month, I've sped through Mistborn Era 1 + Way of Kings (just finished an hour ago!) and what a wild ride! As I was reading, I immediately noticed a few very striking similarities between Mistborn and Stormlight, from a plot, character, and literary structure perspective. What do you all make of this? Is Brandon just a more formulaic storyteller? Does this hint at broader themes in the cosmere? In what ways do you think the plots will diverge? Here's what I've found so far: Setting + Society - Set in a "modern" time juxtaposed against an ancient history that has lost - Society likely equivalent to 15th -17th century western civilization (pre industrial) - Class system based on bloodlines (skaa vs darkeyes) - Strong religious organizations / influence (Ministries vs. Vorin) that are later de-legitimized - Scholars questioning religion and history (Sazed vs. Jasnah) -- they are the ones to discover the truth Villans + Mystery - Mysterious, pre-historical enemy that is known only as an abstraction, that is later revealed to be an unexpected twist (the Deepness vs. the Voidbringers / the Desolation) - Said mysterious enemy's return is imminent and the world is in vast danger - Lost or old texts that serve as clues to unravel the mystery (Alendi's journal vs. The Way of Kings and all the books Jasnah / Shallan read) - An almighty force for good that has disappeared (Preservation vs. Almighty) - Magic system that is related directly to physical objects and natural resources (metals vs gems) - Monsters that are revealed to be descendants or related to humans (Koloss and Kandra vs Parshendi?...making a guess on the Parshendi) Themes - Central characters struggling with what it means to be a "good leader" (Elend vs Kalladin) - "Good" characters and leaders being defined by upholding honor and maintaining trust - Hope as an empowering force to save characters Really curious to hear what everyone thinks! It did strike me a bit, reading through way of kings immediately after mistborn. It felt like I was playing the next generation of Pokemon games -- same overall template and predictable, but different enough that it's fun and entertaining. I'm curious to hear if anyone thinks it's something more -- do all these similarities have something to do with the broader Cosmere mythology? Edited October 1, 2020 by grapebird Typo 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schneeente Posted October 1, 2020 Report Share Posted October 1, 2020 (edited) Hmm... I am not sure how "expressive" your examples are. For example, take the Wheel of Time and compare it with your list: - Set in a "modern" time | check, thousands of years ago humanity was better developed in WoT than it is currently - Society | "pre industrial" is exactly the way to describe it - Class system based on bloodlines | WoT has nobles / monarchs based on bloodlines. - Strong religious organizations | I'd say religion in those 3 books has roughly the same proportion (very little) and the dragon reborn is "overthrowing" many of those faiths - Scholars questioning religion and history | considering that Rand is getting important help from the historian that gets killed and then Min takes over, also he is reading a lot of the old prophecies. I admit, it's not "questioning" history but using it as a guidance (that's what Sazed does in Mistborn as well) - Mysterious, pre-historical enemy | the dark one and the forsaken... - Said mysterious enemy's return is imminent and the world is in vast danger | the dark one and the forsaken... - Lost or old texts that serve as clues to unravel the mystery | Rand (Min) figures out how to seal the bore because of those old books - An almighty force for good that has disappeared | This element is not present in WoT! - Magic system that is related directly to physical objects and natural resources (metals vs gems) | The magic system works differently - Central characters struggling with what it means to be a "good leader" | Perrin struggles with that over the span of roughly 5 books. The other 2 themes are rather random, you'd find 5 more similar / identical themes in all 3 books. What I am trying to say is, the way you phrased it and the view you take makes it inevitable that similarities occur. If you look from far enough above, you'll always find similar structures in stories. You didn't talk about romance, but if you phrase it very broad it's similar as well: - All 3 books have a "love triangle": Elend + his brother both want Vin and Adolin + Kaladin both want Shallan and Faile + Berelain want Perrin But in all of your (and mine) points you could find 100 small differences. I'd not say that the structure is similar because of the author but because of the subject and human nature itself. /edit: If you had framed it a little bit different (more broad) you could have easily said that WoT is also similar to the other 2 books because it HAS magic. And if you had written "an almighty force exists" then it would have applied to WoT as well. So as I said, from a bird's eye view those stories are very similar. But the closer you look, the more details you allow to matter, the more those stories become different. And welcome to the forum! That was your first post after all! Edited October 1, 2020 by Schneeente 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted October 7, 2020 Report Share Posted October 7, 2020 (edited) Welcome to the Shard! On 10/1/2020 at 2:10 AM, grapebird said: - Class system based on bloodlines (skaa vs darkeyes) - Strong religious organizations / influence (Ministries vs. Vorin) that are later de-legitimized - Said mysterious enemy's return is imminent and the world is in vast danger - An almighty force for good that has disappeared (Preservation vs. Almighty) - Magic system that is related directly to physical objects and natural resources (metals vs gems) As mentioned, a lot of your similarities are due to how you phrased things but they're such broad strokes that they don't capture all of the differences between the two. There are some similarities between Brandon's various works because of Cosmere background stuff (the epigraph in Hero of Ages that mentions the name 'Adonalsium' is the first obvious hint to the big picture that you get) but you won't find the same sorts of things across all the works even if you use the same broad strokes comparisons. Without going into details on which works I'm referring to: - There's another setting which is clearly industrial. - There are multiple Cosmere works with magic(s) which don't rely on physical catalysts and/or an external source of power that needs to be stored. There are likewise works where class divides may exist but have (almost) nothing to do with genetics. - There's a work which has some 'knowledge forgotten by history' but not in nearly the same way (and the reason why knowledge has been forgotten turns out to be actually pretty funny) and the religions within the setting remain legitimate authorities at the end of the story. - Several others lack the kind of world-ending dangers MB1 and SA present and if there is a 'Big Good' they're still around. Also, I'll point out that how Mistborn and Stormlight handle the physical requirements for magic are very different: You need the appropriate metal to perform the Metallic Arts but you don't necessarily need a gemstone to Surgebind, it's just infinitely easier if you have those because they can store the stormlight you need and you don't get limited to only using magic in the middle of a highstorm. It also doesn't matter (in almost all circumstances) what type of gem you're using, merely how well it's cut. So... very vague similarities but critical differences as well On 10/1/2020 at 4:26 AM, Schneeente said: - Strong religious organizations | I'd say religion in those 3 books has roughly the same proportion (very little) and the dragon reborn is "overthrowing" many of those faiths Wheel of Time's a funny case because it seems that society is actually very religious, it just doesn't have obvious religious institutions dedicated to expressing those religious beliefs. Well, except for the Children of the Light who kind of grabbed the wrong end of the stick. But it's a setting where pretty much everyone agrees that the Creator exists and is a hands-off deity and characters regularly invoke them, they just don't make a regular show of public worship. Rand overthrows a lot of things but belief in the Creator isn't one of them. Edited October 7, 2020 by Weltall 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koloss17 Posted October 7, 2020 Report Share Posted October 7, 2020 I made a post like this! It was just about kaladin and Kelsier, though. I have no idea if this is just that many characters are similar to other characters or if there is actually a real intentional connection, but I’m glad others think like this. It’s probably like that brain teaser of which one doesn’t belong. You have things and you can always find some sort of pattern. Human brains are silly that way. We love patterns. But it is still fun to find these things. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grishnak Posted November 4, 2020 Report Share Posted November 4, 2020 Yes, they're extremely similar. Also, the 'weather anomoloy' which relates to the magic of the setting. There are probably a few score other similarities too. My hope is that these are at least somewhat intentional.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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