Probably unpopular opinion about WaT sample chapters

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Ewery1 said:

He’s said that since The Lost Metal the gloves are coming off. I don’t think this applies anymore.

it still applies, as long as you don't mind seeing stuff you won't understand

[Sedside she/her]

8 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

it still applies, as long as you don't mind seeing stuff you won't understand

Stuff you don't understand means chaos. If you turn a page and see some weird magic alien stuff you don't understand and could never anticipate saving the day, it ruins your experience as a reader and frustrates you. At least this is what is happening to me the more I get into WaT. If this unexpected stuff you don't understand doesn't save the day, but just exists, like Iyatil's tropheys or Wit talking to a dragon, it annoys you. Because you never know whether this stuff is relevant and you should keep it in mind, or it just takes page space and wastes your time.

Also, it feels like new mechanics are brought over and over again, and they just become a mess in my head. Azure has a Shardblade, but it's not a spren in Shadesmar? How is that? Is it some kind of another Shardblade type, or maybe it's an Honorblade, or something else? If I were a simple reader, not participating in any community like this forum, I would have only figured out that she is from another planet in RoW. And all this time I would probably be puzzling over this. And after I've discovered that this is just "some weird alien stuff" I would have been disappointed. And then in RoW I see the sand, and it came offworld. Okay, so let's not even bother to understand this sand's mechanics. Then raysium mechanics also coming out of nowhere, just accept it. Okay, I will. Then El and weird bits of metal in his body, then the box for zoom calls. Then in WaT a strange ghostly guy with spikes in his eyes or whatever. Then Wit talking to dragons, changing his body, using bones for communication, and then I almost expect something like Ktulhu appear on the next page. Also, anything I don't understand becomes just a pure banner blindness, because I have no idea, whether it is a weird alien stuff, or Rosharan mechanics, that were not presented yet. Because I believe there are no captions like "Sword-nimi is from another world, if you want to know more about him, read Warbreaker". I can't tell weird alien stuff from other things because it's not signed as weird alien stuff, it's a part of the story I'm reading.

There are certain rules that should be respected in literature. Like, if something exists in a book, it must exist there for a reason. WoK and WoR respect the rules, and they are great books. Warbreaker as well, I love it dearly, probably even more than WoK. But the more I proceed with SA, the more of the rules are violated. And, I believe, some people in this thread think the same. Well thought-out, concluded books turn into chaotic bang bang weird magic stuff pew pew explosion pfffff teleport wink God's speech and so on. It's boring, confusing and frustrating. I am highly invested in SA and want to know the ending of the first arc, but as long as you told me that the crossover was the initial plan and this is not going to end, I think I'm done with the Cosmere after it. Unless it is absolutely amazing and hits 100% of my requirements (I have the precise list of four items for what I want to see), which is not going to happen.

[Ewery1]

5 hours ago, Sedside said:

Stuff you don't understand means chaos. If you turn a page and see some weird magic alien stuff you don't understand and could never anticipate saving the day, it ruins your experience as a reader and frustrates you. At least this is what is happening to me the more I get into WaT. If this unexpected stuff you don't understand doesn't save the day, but just exists, like Iyatil's tropheys or Wit talking to a dragon, it annoys you. Because you never know whether this stuff is relevant and you should keep it in mind, or it just takes page space and wastes your time.

Also, it feels like new mechanics are brought over and over again, and they just become a mess in my head. Azure has a Shardblade, but it's not a spren in Shadesmar? How is that? Is it some kind of another Shardblade type, or maybe it's an Honorblade, or something else? If I were a simple reader, not participating in any community like this forum, I would have only figured out that she is from another planet in RoW. And all this time I would probably be puzzling over this. And after I've discovered that this is just "some weird alien stuff" I would have been disappointed. And then in RoW I see the sand, and it came offworld. Okay, so let's not even bother to understand this sand's mechanics. Then raysium mechanics also coming out of nowhere, just accept it. Okay, I will. Then El and weird bits of metal in his body, then the box for zoom calls. Then in WaT a strange ghostly guy with spikes in his eyes or whatever. Then Wit talking to dragons, changing his body, using bones for communication, and then I almost expect something like Ktulhu appear on the next page. Also, anything I don't understand becomes just a pure banner blindness, because I have no idea, whether it is a weird alien stuff, or Rosharan mechanics, that were not presented yet. Because I believe there are no captions like "Sword-nimi is from another world, if you want to know more about him, read Warbreaker". I can't tell weird alien stuff from other things because it's not signed as weird alien stuff, it's a part of the story I'm reading.

There are certain rules that should be respected in literature. Like, if something exists in a book, it must exist there for a reason. WoK and WoR respect the rules, and they are great books. Warbreaker as well, I love it dearly, probably even more than WoK. But the more I proceed with SA, the more of the rules are violated. And, I believe, some people in this thread think the same. Well thought-out, concluded books turn into chaotic bang bang weird magic stuff pew pew explosion pfffff teleport wink God's speech and so on. It's boring, confusing and frustrating. I am highly invested in SA and want to know the ending of the first arc, but as long as you told me that the crossover was the initial plan and this is not going to end, I think I'm done with the Cosmere after it. Unless it is absolutely amazing and hits 100% of my requirements (I have the precise list of four items for what I want to see), which is not going to happen.

I mean I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree here but I think Brandon has done a good job establishing all of the plot relevant mechanics of everything you’ve listed here. You don’t need to know that the sand has microbes in it that feed off of investiture and change its color in order to understand that the sand changes color when it’s near investiture. The power was well established in Navani’s experiments before it was used to kill Phrenadora. Same with Nightblood, I don’t need to know where he’s from to understand his plot-relevant ability of eating investiture. Heck, we still don’t actually know that much about how Nightblood exists at all.

There have always been plenty of questions like this in Brandon’s books (how does the Nightwatcher do its boons? Is Old Magic a surgebinding this or?? Why do people get turned into smoke when they soulcast too much?). Some get answered, some don’t. I’m curious why the introduction of aliens changes it so much for you?

[Returned he/him]

2 hours ago, Ewery1 said:

There have always been plenty of questions like this in Brandon’s books (how does the Nightwatcher do its boons? Is Old Magic a surgebinding this or?? Why do people get turned into smoke when they soulcast too much?). Some get answered, some don’t. I’m curious why the introduction of aliens changes it so much for you?

I'm not @Sedside, but I can tell you why it bothers me.

The problem is not that there are questions and mysteries about specific details of magic/individuals/organizations. The problem is not that there are no events in the books that establish rules for fantasy systems that can only exist in-world. The problem is not that there are inter-connections between Shardworlds, nor that things work differently in one location versus another.

The problem is that many of these details aren't established (and, in a narrative sense, don't exist) right up until they solve an important problem. They are, more and more often, out-of-left-field and totally unpredictable right up until they make the entire plot issue go away-- they are deus ex machina revelations that make all previous thought and efforts by characters largely irrelevant. That makes paying attention to the details that we already know about in the books unsatsifying for many, including me, because awareness of those details doesn't matter for the plot. I'll give a couple of examples:

• Some of Wayne's POV chapters in Mistborn era 2. Wayne's behavior is random and unfocused in many instances, particularly his swapping of items. When we start a sequence knowing that Wayne has some outcome he needs to accomplish, and his random swapping ends up achieving that outcome, there really isn't any point in paying attention to what he does: the first thing that he steals doesn't matter, nor does the next, nor does the next, ad infinitum. None of the middle "steps" matter in any way. The only thing that matters is that he will end up with what he needs because that is, arbitrarily, just what happens.

So paying attention is a waste of effort for the reader because the specific events are totally unimportant and the successful outcome is pre-ordained. We can still get some nice things in those chapters, like character details about Wayne, insight into the setting, etc. But the specific challenges and conflicts that are presented are pointless because no matter what Wayne does he will end up succeeding, randomly. Some people love that kind of progression. Others (like me) are fine with it in small doses. But when it reaches a certain point it can undermine plotting entirely: "and then Odium just left, with no further conflict" would not be a satisfying end to SA for me. I'm invested in the story and want the ending to have a substantial connection to the characters' efforts before it, and a never-before-seen Cosmere detail being revealed which tidily resolves it would be distressing and unsatisfying (to me).

• The Worldhoppers in Lost Metal. There were things I disliked about how they were incorporated into the story, but the relevant piece for this discussion is that they just happened to be equipped to immediately solve plot problems as soon as they arose. That makes the problems uninteresting because they are specifically fixed by an agent who has little to no other purpose in appearing in the story except to trivially fix them.

If it turns out that Cultivation's godmetal is "fixium", and when held it un-corrupts Investiture, fixes Herald-style madness, and cancels all outstanding contests of champions, and all that was needed was for someone on Roshar to go to the Pits of Cultivation to pick some up, that would be a terrible conclusion to the first SA arc. It would make all previous struggles by the characters totally pointless (in terms of the grand Rosharan conflict, at least) and mean that efforts to learn about the Surges, and the Radiants, and Shards were wasted. All of this even though the plot-relevant mechanics are, in this contrived example, completely defined. The problem would be not just the tidiness of the solution but also that these details become known to us only when they completely and exactly resolve the plot's conflict, with no setup or previous presence in any of the stories.

It was exciting for me when Shallan had to make use of her limited Lightweaving powers to figure out how to accomplish tasks, and the details of what she could and could not do were important and intriguing. She had to find some way to succeed and the books spent time detailing her efforts. As Cosmere magics reach higher levels of power and Worldhoppers just show up more often we're starting to get less of that. What's replacing it is more like "this is a Green Lock, which we can't affect in any way" being suddenly addressed by "all Nalthians inherently have Green Keys", so more conflicts seem to be dealt with by waiting for the right solution to just... arrive and then fix it, which is often totally disconnected from anything the characters on-screen do. That makes me less invested in plot conflicts, which makes me less invested in the books, which makes them less interesting to read.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Returned

[king of nowhere]

Or, we can say more concisely that sanderson is running afoul of his own second law of magic: limitations are more interesting than powers.

When the characters have too much stuff available, they have very few limitations.

It also runs somewhat afoul of the third law: go deep before you go wide. Sanderson has done an excellent job of establishing the cosmere as a whole, but when radiants have access to 10 powers, each giving 3 surges, plus a unique boon, and the fused have those power differently... That's 50 more or less unique powers. Add in how they interact with offworld stuff, there's just no way to go deep and properly establish that. Not in a way as satisfying as the first books

[Ewery1]

6 hours ago, Returned said:

I'm not @Sedside, but I can tell you why it bothers me.

The problem is not that there are questions and mysteries about specific details of magic/individuals/organizations. The problem is not that there are no events in the books that establish rules for fantasy systems that can only exist in-world. The problem is not that there are inter-connections between Shardworlds, nor that things work differently in one location versus another.

The problem is that many of these details aren't established (and, in a narrative sense, don't exist) right up until they solve an important problem. They are, more and more often, out-of-left-field and totally unpredictable right up until they make the entire plot issue go away-- they are deus ex machina revelations that make all previous thought and efforts by characters largely irrelevant. That makes paying attention to the details that we already know about in the books unsatsifying for many, including me, because awareness of those details doesn't matter for the plot. I'll give a couple of examples:

• Some of Wayne's POV chapters in Mistborn era 2. Wayne's behavior is random and unfocused in many instances, particularly his swapping of items. When we start a sequence knowing that Wayne has some outcome he needs to accomplish, and his random swapping ends up achieving that outcome, there really isn't any point in paying attention to what he does: the first thing that he steals doesn't matter, nor does the next, nor does the next, ad infinitum. None of the middle "steps" matter in any way. The only thing that matters is that he will end up with what he needs because that is, arbitrarily, just what happens.

So paying attention is a waste of effort for the reader because the specific events are totally unimportant and the successful outcome is pre-ordained. We can still get some nice things in those chapters, like character details about Wayne, insight into the setting, etc. But the specific challenges and conflicts that are presented are pointless because no matter what Wayne does he will end up succeeding, randomly. Some people love that kind of progression. Others (like me) are fine with it in small doses. But when it reaches a certain point it can undermine plotting entirely: "and then Odium just left, with no further conflict" would not be a satisfying end to SA for me. I'm invested in the story and want the ending to have a substantial connection to the characters' efforts before it, and a never-before-seen Cosmere detail being revealed which tidily resolves it would be distressing and unsatisfying (to me).

• The Worldhoppers in Lost Metal. There were things I disliked about how they were incorporated into the story, but the relevant piece for this discussion is that they just happened to be equipped to immediately solve plot problems as soon as they arose. That makes the problems uninteresting because they are specifically fixed by an agent who has little to no other purpose in appearing in the story except to trivially fix them.

If it turns out that Cultivation's godmetal is "fixium", and when held it un-corrupts Investiture, fixes Herald-style madness, and cancels all outstanding contests of champions, and all that was needed was for someone on Roshar to go to the Pits of Cultivation to pick some up, that would be a terrible conclusion to the first SA arc. It would make all previous struggles by the characters totally pointless (in terms of the grand Rosharan conflict, at least) and mean that efforts to learn about the Surges, and the Radiants, and Shards were wasted. All of this even though the plot-relevant mechanics are, in this contrived example, completely defined. The problem would be not just the tidiness of the solution but also that these details become known to us only when they completely and exactly resolve the plot's conflict, with no setup or previous presence in any of the stories.

It was exciting for me when Shallan had to make use of her limited Lightweaving powers to figure out how to accomplish tasks, and the details of what she could and could not do were important and intriguing. She had to find some way to succeed and the books spent time detailing her efforts. As Cosmere magics reach higher levels of power and Worldhoppers just show up more often we're starting to get less of that. What's replacing it is more like "this is a Green Lock, which we can't affect in any way" being suddenly addressed by "all Nalthians inherently have Green Keys", so more conflicts seem to be dealt with by waiting for the right solution to just... arrive and then fix it, which is often totally disconnected from anything the characters on-screen do. That makes me less invested in plot conflicts, which makes me less invested in the books, which makes them less interesting to read.

I guess I just personally haven’t felt them to be used that way - though I agree that the ending of Lost Metal was wanting. I’d chalk that up to it being formulaic myself though. None of the problems the Ghostbloods solved felt especially important to me.

[Returned he/him]

53 minutes ago, Ewery1 said:

I guess I just personally haven’t felt them to be used that way - though I agree that the ending of Lost Metal was wanting. I’d chalk that up to it being formulaic myself though. None of the problems the Ghostbloods solved felt especially important to me.

Like I said (though probably managed to hide in my very long post!), different people mind to different degrees. And, similarly, different people look for different things from stories. It's fine to feel differently about it, and no one is wrong about it either way. I just feel that there are some significant differences in how the plot details are presented and how plot obstacles are resolved in the more recent Cosmere works than in the previous ones, and this dimension has become a bit flatter than it was in the past.

[Kfish]

On 11/30/2024 at 7:22 PM, Returned said:

Like I said (though probably managed to hide in my very long post!), different people mind to different degrees. And, similarly, different people look for different things from stories. It's fine to feel differently about it, and no one is wrong about it either way. I just feel that there are some significant differences in how the plot details are presented and how plot obstacles are resolved in the more recent Cosmere works than in the previous ones, and this dimension has become a bit flatter than it was in the past.

I guess that was my main point: I don't think they're being used that way. The exceptions to the shards working the way they do make sense in my head. The magic systems seem to work consistently and are built up to in my mind, as well. I DO have an issue with the ghost bloods bringing answers too easily. He does it well by building the organization up the entire book and introducing things like the purified dor relatively before it is important but it was a large amount of information being dumped on us suddenly which made it hard.

[Sedside she/her]

On 11/30/2024 at 9:56 PM, Ewery1 said:

I’m curious why the introduction of aliens changes it so much for you?

I agree with everything @Returned wrote, but also would like to add a little bit to it. As was mentioned in Returned's post, alien mechanics are legitimate deus-ex-machina. It's like 'okay, this is alien stuff, so you don't have to think about how it works'. And as long as alien stuff is not marked as alien stuff, it wastes my attention and my efforts for nothing. In WoK Kaladin was magically surviving every bridge run and it was a puzzle, I wanted to figure out why it is happening. Then we had a reveal that he was using Stormlight all this time, and it was cool. But alien puzzles are unsolvable because the answer is not in the book. It's okay when there are just a couple of them. Like, Wit is a weird outworld dude and probably a god, fine. Zahel is also a weird outworld dude, as well as Azure. But with each next book the weird outworld stuff and dudes multiply, and I can't help but start to ignore them. The part of the book turns into blah-blah-blah for me, and I don't like reading blah-blah-blah. Like, in RoW there was an episode, when Shallan was searching for Restares, and there was a man called Sixteen. His description was so detailed and took so much page space that I thought this guy was important somehow. But then he wasn't. And now I am confused - what was this about? Just because it's fun to write a lot of words about unimportant guy? Because he will appear in the next book? Or because he is an easter egg from another book? Thats' what annoys me, besides of what Returned wrote.

[Nthaoe]

On 9/2/2024 at 6:29 PM, Vin(Diesel) said:

I love Brandon Sanderson’s writing. I’ve read everything he’s written, most of it multiple times. I am very excited for the Wind and Truth release.

But the Wind and Truth sample chapters read like Brandon is fan servicing somehow. I’m not sure that’s the right way to put it. Kaladin has a warm moment with his family, cool. Info dump from Wit. We all wanted it. Shallan says another Oath. Check another box on the list of things to make us excited. And now weird Syladin stuff. It seems more like fan fiction to me than like the start of a Stormlight novel. Like it’s just a bunch of stuff we should want all slapped together. 
 

I know, I’m kind of complaining about getting what fans want. But really, it isn’t necessarily what the fans want. We want a novel with these moments, not those moments served us on a cheap platter.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope Wind and Truth will grow on me, and by the end of the book the first chapters will look good in perspective. And I hope I’m not being too negative. Brandon has given us a lot of happiness, and I don’t want to write unfair criticism about his work.

To me, the first few chapters read almost as if they're written for young adults.  example: Kaladin referring to Lopen's comments as "silly".  It's painful to read,  and I hope it gets better.