Did book 5 affect your feelings of the whole series?

[agrabes]

On 1/10/2025 at 3:34 AM, Oltux72 said:

They are very different books. The first two are about an ancient evil threatening to destroy a wonderfully rich - though maybe decadent - world.
The next three books show the looming evil actually returning and destroying that world. Other stories would have ended with a last minute heroic saving of the world. In fact Brandon has written that story in The Lost Metal. The first half of the Stormlight archive can be read in many ways, but for the main protagonists of the first two books it is a story of them failing and the world they strove to protect being destroyed.

I am afraid I have to also say that the first two books are in a way more simplistic. Odium is evil, the budding Radiants are good, as they are trying to save something that, though very, very obviously flawed is worth saving.
From Oathbringer onwards that is challenged. Do the Parshendi deserve to win? The question is outright asked and a madman answers it.

Now I could read the first half (SA 1- 5) as a classical tragedy if I wanted to. In that case Jasnah Kholin is Cassandra and the message is that sometimes the extremist is right and you suffer the consequences if you do not listen to them.
Or I could read it as a story of liberation. The alien invaders are beaten and justice is restored, as it ought to be, even at the cost of destroying something rich and beautiful.

Thogh, yes, Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth are in my humble opinion worse books in execution than the earlier three. Hence I personally view Oathbringer as the pinnacle of the first half.

In terms of the progression of the broader story I think Wind and Truth has been a stroke of genius. It looked to me like the Cosmere was about to degenerate into a simple dichtomy of Roshar being the good guys and Kelsier being the evil overlord of the dastardly imperialist Scadrians.
This book has been the turn to the necessary correction.

A month later I thought I'd come in and say this is definitely an interesting post.  I'm very much someone who felt SA peaked at WoR, dipped a bit with Oathbringer, and fell off a cliff in RoW.  I don't think that book 3-5 are more complex than books 1-2.  In fact, I'd argue they are more simplistic especially in terms of how debates and discussions are handled. You said it yourself - the first books asked a lot of interesting questions such as "Do the Parshendi deserve to win?"  In the earlier books we had our heroes taking different sides in arguments.  Even villains like Taravangian had a kind of twisted logic that made you almost want to agree with them.  That to me is complexity.  By the time we get to the later books, those kinds of questions are no longer being asked (with a few limited exceptions) - the lines in the sand are drawn and there's no more room to question things.  Probably a reflection of the unfortunately polarized times we live in during the release window of these last two books.  But that wasn't what interested me about your post.  The idea that the last 3 books, or even maybe the series as a whole is telling the story of a losing war is what is really interesting.  It's not something I'd thought about, but does make sense.

I don't think the story of a losing war is something that's in Sanderson's DNA to tell.  Were this someone like Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, etc - they could tell the story of a losing war where everything is just getting worse and we'd really feel it.  The story where everything is so bad and ruined, our heroes have to sacrifice themselves just to make it so people can keep on living at all in the burned out husk of the world.  But with Sanderson, he can't really tell that kind of story.  He's said it himself - he's tried the grimdark thing in the past and it just doesn't work for him.  So SA doesn't come off that way - it comes off as a typical Sanderson story where the heroes come back and win despite overwhelming odds.  Which, I like.  But like you said, especially RoW and WaT are trying to tell a bit of a darker story and their problem is that we already started the series with really dark stories in Kaladin and Shallan's origins.  I think you're spot on that Sanderson has a structural issue in that early in the book we had our heroes facing really dark stuff, but coming out of it hopeful and making progress toward getting better.  In later books, how do you get dark again when they've already made a lot of progress getting better?  Especially starting in RoW what Sanderson may have meant to be a darker tone shift came across to me and I think many others as preaching about mental health.

I do also want to say, I totally agree with you in terms of broader story implications too.  The end of WaT sets us up for potentially interesting stories going forward.  The whole contest of champions thing was so contrived and lame, it felt completely pointless since there was no real way to win - so the idea of finding a way to break the cycle is awesome.  Also finally expanding the real story into including the shards as a group is a needed step, so I was glad to see it.  I honestly wouldn't have minded casting Kelsier as a villain though - seems more fun and engaging than the villain we did get in MB Era 2. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

In fact, I'd argue they are more simplistic especially in terms of how debates and discussions are handled. You said it yourself - the first books asked a lot of interesting questions such as "Do the Parshendi deserve to win?"  In the earlier books we had our heroes taking different sides in arguments.  Even villains like Taravangian had a kind of twisted logic that made you almost want to agree with them.  That to me is complexity.  By the time we get to the later books, those kinds of questions are no longer being asked (with a few limited exceptions) - the lines in the sand are drawn and there's no more room to question things.

That I have to disagree with. At the risk of repeating myself, the first two books are about an upcoming war, while the later three books are about a war that has started.

That has consequences. When you say that those questions are no longer asked, then in absolute terms I must say that you are factually wrong. Yes, they are no longer coming up in discussions among the protagonists. That is inevitable. Such is the logic of war. If you start discussing during a war whether you deserve to win, you better give up. But the questions are asked

• Kaladin asks them
• Moash asks them
• The Skybreakers ask them
• In a sense even Eshonai and Venli ask them

In fact during a war more questions arise, namely where your loyalty lies. Queen Fen Rrnamdi was asked that question and she gave an answer. In fact in hindsight her plotline was sadly underused.

It is just not true that in a war you don't ask complex question. The difference is that warfare forces you to give on a fundamental level a simple answer. Conflating that is not helpful.

If you can live with a complex process of reasoning being forced into a binary answer there is no problem. If you cannot, there is a problem. But that does not arise from the quality of the book, but from its subject.

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

The idea that the last 3 books, or even maybe the series as a whole is telling the story of a losing war is what is really interesting.  It's not something I'd thought about, but does make sense.

I don't think the story of a losing war is something that's in Sanderson's DNA to tell.  Were this someone like Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, etc - they could tell the story of a losing war where everything is just getting worse and we'd really feel it.

Exactly. However, Brandon Sanderson does not tell the story. The later three books of SA are about a war the protagonists lose, but not on it.

This must sound nonsensical, so allow me to explain. We never see the war as it plays out. We see the very start in Oathbringer and the conclusion in the later two books.
If you will SA until Oathbringer is Dune and Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth are Dune Messiah. The war takes places in the time jump.

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

The story where everything is so bad and ruined, our heroes have to sacrifice themselves just to make it so people can keep on living at all in the burned out husk of the world.  But with Sanderson, he can't really tell that kind of story.  He's said it himself - he's tried the grimdark thing in the past and it just doesn't work for him.  So SA doesn't come off that way - it comes off as a typical Sanderson story where the heroes come back and win despite overwhelming odds.

As far as Brandon Sanderson not telling stories of a losing war, well, what is Mistborn? Now, he may be unable to tell a story of hopelessness, but that is not the same thing as losing a war.

The story of a hero sacrificing everything for the people living in a world of ash and blood is a good synopsis of The Final Empire, while that also featured a very pyrrhic victory.
Hence I have to disagree. Sanderson has a talent for making a loss not feel like a loss. The man's signature is somewhere between a pyrrhic victory and a less than absolute defeat. He just writes in a way that you don't really dwell on the death of 98% or so of a planet's population.

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

Especially starting in RoW what Sanderson may have meant to be a darker tone shift came across to me and I think many others as preaching about mental health.

A necessary consequence of the time jump. If he had written a chapter featuring a sequence of beloved characters of Bridge Four dieing in clash after clash and the survivors slowly succumbing to drugs and orgies you would have made it extremely convincing. I would have liked such a chapter. But I think I am in the minority. Just imagine how the corpse of a Radiant must look after losing a battle given their healing. A good description of that would have made people reproduce their lunch.
There is no ideal choice in telling a story. There may be a best choice, but that is not the same.

3 hours ago, agrabes said:

Also finally expanding the real story into including the shards as a group is a needed step, so I was glad to see it.  I honestly wouldn't have minded casting Kelsier as a villain though - seems more fun and engaging than the villain we did get in MB Era 2. 

Again I must disagree, as Kelsier is no villain. Neither is he a saint. But fundamentally he was willing to die for his people. He is a hero.

Making him mindlessly evil would have led to a weaker story line.

[Arceoxys he/him]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Again I must disagree, as Kelsier is no villain. Neither is he a saint. But fundamentally he was willing to die for his people. He is a hero.

Making him mindlessly evil would have led to a weaker story line.

A minor quibble here: making him a villain does not necessitate making him mindlessly evil. Kelsier has been heroic, and may well be again (or currently) but I think what they're referring to is the WoB that I'm too lazy to find, where BS himself reflected on Kelsier's nature and his ability to be villainous depending on your perspective, and he half explored that with Miles Hundredlives. 

Although I view Kelsier in a positive light I don't think it would be too far a stretch to see him become a villain, at the very least, to characters off Scadrial, and since we have *heroes* off Scadrial it's merely a matter of perspective. Even then I could see him be willing to go too far and do too much in the name of protecting Scadrial. 

[Treamayne]

48 minutes ago, Arceoxys said:

I think what they're referring to is the WoB that I'm too lazy to find, where BS himself reflected on Kelsier's nature and his ability to be villainous depending on your perspective,

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

If Kelsier had been born on Roshar, would he have become a Knight Radiant and if so...?

Brandon Sanderson

I think there’s a possibility that some of the orders might want him, but it really depends on what period he was born in, and what he’s up to, because Kelsier's got this dark edge to him where he could go villain very easily, depending on what’s going on with him. *pause* That’s kind of how I view Kelsier’s defining attribute, if channeled correctly he’s a great force for good, but he’s like right on the line.

Shadows of Self San Jose signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

Quote

Questioner

Is there any specific relation between Kelsier and Kaladin, and the fact that Kelsier was killed with a spear and Kaladin used a spear. They seem like almost exact opposites.

Brandon Sanderson

Not really an intentional one, though I do intend their personalities to be opposed. I like how they are opposing philosophies as protagonists, but the spear thing is completely coincidental. They are very opposite styles of hero, the big pitch for myself was "Kelsier would [be] the villain if he were in the wrong story." This is a guy where you could easily imagine that this guy could be the antagonist. He gets channeled towards good things and becomes the protagonist. There is no way Kaladin would ever be the antagonist, or if he did it would rip him apart, right. It's not in his nature.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

At one point, you mentioned that Kelsier scared you. Could you talk a little more about why?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Kelsier is one of my favorite characters. I like them all, whoever I'm writing, right? But one of the things that makes Kelsier tick is (and this was my original pitch for him to myself) in another story, he'd be the villain. Kelsier has this hard edge to him. He's one of those people that, when channeled wrong, he becomes the best and most interesting villain. But he happened to be in a situation that pushed him the other direction, and he became a hero. But he still has that edge to him. And there is a darkness to Kelseir that doesn't exist in most of the heroes in my books. Someone like Kaladin has a darkness to him, too, but a darkness that they're fighting against. Whereas Kelsier has embraced this darkness. It is part of what makes him him. So, Kelsier is a little frightening to me as a writer, just because he's a character that I can't guarantee will make good decisions.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

Quote

Questioner

We've had great topics and discussions about this. If all of your characters were in a death match, who would win?

Brandon Sanderson

Honest truth is Kelsier. This is because of most of the characters, Kelsier is the one that is ruthless enough to get what he wants. Others would not be as ruthless. Kelsier as a character is very interesting to me. My kind of pitch on him to myself was he would be the villain in most stories. Kelsier in a lot of stories being told, in a lot of books that I would write, he's the villain but in this world, at this time, it is what the world needs and he is the hero. That's why I say Kelsier.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing (Dec. 1, 2016)

Quote

Caelum_au_Cylus

Why is Kelsier so awesome?

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier is different from other protagonists of my books in his harshness. It's what the world needed, but I believe in many other stories of mine, he'd have been the villain.

/r/fantasy AMA 2017 (Feb. 13, 2017)

 

Hope that helps

[Returned he/him]

3 hours ago, Arceoxys said:

A minor quibble here: making him a villain does not necessitate making him mindlessly evil. Kelsier has been heroic, and may well be again (or currently) but I think what they're referring to is the WoB that I'm too lazy to find, where BS himself reflected on Kelsier's nature and his ability to be villainous depending on your perspective, and he half explored that with Miles Hundredlives. 

Although I view Kelsier in a positive light I don't think it would be too far a stretch to see him become a villain, at the very least, to characters off Scadrial, and since we have *heroes* off Scadrial it's merely a matter of perspective. Even then I could see him be willing to go too far and do too much in the name of protecting Scadrial. 

I agree with this and wanted to add an additional consideration. It's hard to come up with a single description like "good" or "bad" of someone complex, which I feel Kelsier certainly is. It's common for people to deal with that complexity by picking and choosing which details matter and then disregarding the rest. Kelsier's most heroic act (dying at the Lord Ruler's hand to enact his ultimate contingency plan) was indeed heroic. But I'll push back against the idea that he can only ever be (or ever have been) a hero-- his self-sacrifice doesn't give him unlimited moral credit to do terrible things but never ever become a bad guy. And it's very notable that his story is ongoing, meaning that it's too early to say the book is closed on his character.

The seeds of him becoming something different from the hero we see on-screen during the brief periods of his existence we observe are already pretty well-laid, in my opinion. His egocentric nature has been a consistent throughline for him, dominating his behavior prior to his disastrous attempt to rob the Lord Ruler the first time, and even the plan involving his heroic martyring had a huge element of him becoming a revered, beloved religious legend forever. One of the most consistent plot elements in the Cosmere has been that people are flawed, those flaws don't go away with enormous power or influence, and they can have material impacts on what people try to do and how they go about their efforts.

The similarities between Kelsier and the Lord Ruler have grown ever sharper while their contrasts have become blurrier as we learn more about his time as Thaidakar. I don't want to try to control anyone's interpretations or reading experience but if you think that we already know everything we need to know about Kelsier's moral status I feel that you are missing part of the Cosmere story as dramatically as if you just omitted several of the books.

One thing that @Oltux72's comments have helped me solidify in my mind is something I had trouble expressing (even to myself) previously: previous Cosmere entries (pre-RoW) had a lot of complex characters in situations that helped show a lot of their complexity. RoW and WaT were (among other reasons) underwhelming to me in that dimension not because the characters were less complex but rather because the situations they encountered were. I liked Oltux72's description of war not affecting the complexity of questions but instead enforcing simplistic answers to those questions. The battle lines were so starkly drawn in WaT that there wasn't much room for complicated characters or goals forced into contention with ambiguous weighting between them. A lot of the characters felt shallower to me because (again, among other reasons) their situation forced shallowness upon them.

That's a difficult conclusion to a story arc that was formerly about characters coming to understand themselves and their relationships with world more deeply.

Edited February 7, 2025 by Returned

[+Oltux72 he/him]

16 hours ago, Arceoxys said:

A minor quibble here: making him a villain does not necessitate making him mindlessly evil. Kelsier has been heroic, and may well be again (or currently) but I think what they're referring to is the WoB that I'm too lazy to find, where BS himself reflected on Kelsier's nature and his ability to be villainous depending on your perspective, and he half explored that with Miles Hundredlives.

Absolutely true. My point was that for Kelsier's ruthlessness to dominate his actions a convincing reason had to be created. Hence Brandon Sanderson went ahead to create and free Retribution.
In that sense I still maintain that the end of Wind and Truth was good and necessary, although to me that Roshar is no longer Roshar.

In our terms we would call Kelsier a nationalist or a patriot, depending on personal attitude. Creating an antagonist to him with a universalist approach in Retribution, who wants to rule the whole Cosmere, but is in turn forced to guard his own base of power, makes it even better.

13 hours ago, Returned said:

But I'll push back against the idea that he can only ever be (or ever have been) a hero-- his self-sacrifice doesn't give him unlimited moral credit to do terrible things but never ever become a bad guy. And it's very notable that his story is ongoing, meaning that it's too early to say the book is closed on his character.

He himself would strongly agree. It seems to me that we are too often disregarding a central piece of Kelsier's attitude:

He blames himself for the Catacendre.

To him this was not an act of renewal as it is to people in the Wax & Wayne era. He saw tens of millions die. In his typical fashion his reaction is not recrimination or shame, but resolve to do better. This will never ever happen again on his watch and if you are in the way of that, he will deal with you.

14 hours ago, Returned said:

That's a difficult conclusion to a story arc that was formerly about characters coming to understand themselves and their relationships with world more deeply.

I would argue that they do on the contrary understand themselves and, most of all, their true position in the world better. The complexity in the first two books is talk. When they need to act, their options shrink and they understand that more and more. The last two books are about people losing their delusions. That is inherently not pretty.

[agrabes]

On 2/7/2025 at 2:43 AM, Oltux72 said:

That I have to disagree with. At the risk of repeating myself, the first two books are about an upcoming war, while the later three books are about a war that has started.

That has consequences. When you say that those questions are no longer asked, then in absolute terms I must say that you are factually wrong. Yes, they are no longer coming up in discussions among the protagonists. That is inevitable. Such is the logic of war. If you start discussing during a war whether you deserve to win, you better give up. But the questions are asked

• Kaladin asks them
• Moash asks them
• The Skybreakers ask them
• In a sense even Eshonai and Venli ask them

In fact during a war more questions arise, namely where your loyalty lies. Queen Fen Rrnamdi was asked that question and she gave an answer. In fact in hindsight her plotline was sadly underused.

It is just not true that in a war you don't ask complex question. The difference is that warfare forces you to give on a fundamental level a simple answer. Conflating that is not helpful.

If you can live with a complex process of reasoning being forced into a binary answer there is no problem. If you cannot, there is a problem. But that does not arise from the quality of the book, but from its subject.

Exactly. However, Brandon Sanderson does not tell the story. The later three books of SA are about a war the protagonists lose, but not on it.

This must sound nonsensical, so allow me to explain. We never see the war as it plays out. We see the very start in Oathbringer and the conclusion in the later two books.
If you will SA until Oathbringer is Dune and Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth are Dune Messiah. The war takes places in the time jump.

As far as Brandon Sanderson not telling stories of a losing war, well, what is Mistborn? Now, he may be unable to tell a story of hopelessness, but that is not the same thing as losing a war.

The story of a hero sacrificing everything for the people living in a world of ash and blood is a good synopsis of The Final Empire, while that also featured a very pyrrhic victory.
Hence I have to disagree. Sanderson has a talent for making a loss not feel like a loss. The man's signature is somewhere between a pyrrhic victory and a less than absolute defeat. He just writes in a way that you don't really dwell on the death of 98% or so of a planet's population.

A necessary consequence of the time jump. If he had written a chapter featuring a sequence of beloved characters of Bridge Four dieing in clash after clash and the survivors slowly succumbing to drugs and orgies you would have made it extremely convincing. I would have liked such a chapter. But I think I am in the minority. Just imagine how the corpse of a Radiant must look after losing a battle given their healing. A good description of that would have made people reproduce their lunch.
There is no ideal choice in telling a story. There may be a best choice, but that is not the same.

Again I must disagree, as Kelsier is no villain. Neither is he a saint. But fundamentally he was willing to die for his people. He is a hero.

Making him mindlessly evil would have led to a weaker story line.

Here I am again replying a month later, haha.  Decided to check the site again and saw your reply.

In terms of the simple vs complex questions - I understand where you're going with that.  I do agree with what you're saying, but it wasn't really the point I was making.  We don't have to keep rehashing the question of whether the parshendi are right or wrong.  But new ethical questions do come up as the story progresses.  They are just handled with much less complexity.  The examples I'm thinking of are Jasnah's murder of her political rivals - could have been interesting and introduced complexity in the story, or could have just simply not been really addressed at all (some throwaway paragraph "Sadeas' sworn highlords wandered off into the Shattered Plains, never heard from again.").  Instead we got "It's ok for Jasnah to murder her political rivals because she's cool and smart."  I will say that the scenes with Queen Fen and the debate were finally a payoff for that, which was really satisfying.

In terms of Sanderson telling the story - I see where you're going there too but I think we're talking a little bit different things.  Mistborn The Final Empire isn't really grimdark, it's a story of hope.  Early Sanderson was all about telling the story of how hope and determination could overcome all odds.  It was about how even people who were at their absolute lowest and who had been terribly abused could pick themselves up and save humanity.  The Glen Cook/grimdark story would be The Lord Ruler's rise to power and how someone can learn to survive in that terrible environment.  That's the kind of story Sanderson has said himself, he just can't tell.  It doesn't work for him.  I can't explain it, but if you're right and his aim was to tell the story of a losing war (and I think you probably are right) he just totally missed on the tone.  I don't know how to describe it, but there should be a sense of impending doom and inevitable failure.  A lot of authors are good at invoking that, but Sanderson just isn't.  And maybe it's just my (and probably everyone's?) built up expectations too - we come into a Sanderson book expecting a certain kind of story so we don't feel the tension or fear that things might actually go terribly wrong.  We feel like things might be bad for a while, but it won't be that bad and our heroes will figure it out before too long.

Anyway - lastly I do want to hit on the Kelsier thing.  Kelsier isn't exactly a villain and he was definitely a hero in The Last Empire.  But, I think by Mistborn Series 2 he's portrayed as a shady, morally gray individual.  He went to the southern continent and messed around with people there, setting himself up as a god and sowing the seeds of conflict against the people that Sazed helped.  He started a shadow spy organization, which has questionable motivations and membership.  He puts himself at odds with Harmony/Sazed.  I don't see Kelsier as an unquestionably good character.  Even within The Last Empire he shows that he has major character flaws.  He is shown to be someone who is out for himself and his personal glory first and foremost.  He dies in a noble act at the end of The Last Empire, but that didn't forgive all past and future sins.  I also don't see him as a nationalist or imperialist type, I see him as someone after personal power.  He may justify it to himself with the idea that he could use the power to protect Scadrial, but that's not his true motivation and I think as soon as he gets the chance he will show that.  He won't be an evil enemy exactly, but he'll become kind of a frenemy type who sometimes helps and sometimes hurts our heroes (including those based on Scadrial).  I also think it would have been better for him to have been revealed as the enemy in Mistborn Era 2 because he's a character we know and care about.  Having the big bad be some kind of weird fragment of a shard we don't know or care about kind of sucks IMO.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

In terms of the simple vs complex questions - I understand where you're going with that.  I do agree with what you're saying, but it wasn't really the point I was making.

I am trying. I must confess that I am better at reacting to actualwords than the intent behind them.

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

 But new ethical questions do come up as the story progresses.  They are just handled with much less complexity.  The examples I'm thinking of are Jasnah's murder of her political rivals - could have been interesting and introduced complexity in the story, or could have just simply not been really addressed at all (some throwaway paragraph "Sadeas' sworn highlords wandered off into the Shattered Plains, never heard from again.").  Instead we got "It's ok for Jasnah to murder her political rivals because she's cool and smart."

I am sorry, but they do come up earlier. For example Adolin murdering Torol Sadeas but Dalinar Kholin sweeping it under a rug. He has to do it to maintain unity among the Alethi. Or indeed when Dalinar burns his wife and a city. People are horrified thereby, but nobody comes right out and says that he did wrong. A case can be made under Alethi mores that he did what was within his rights. In hindsight I think this was a case of Sanderson telling us that pure honor can be horrible.

Again he is right to do so. The books would be much worse if Taravangian and Jasnah had no points supporting their attitude. Hence those who oppose them must be shown to do what is necessary, morals be damned, on occasion and Jasnah must be shown to succeed with her methods from time to time.

Nor are simple answers limited to the last two books. In fact that is the very type of answer Kaladin gives Moash on why not to kill Elhokar.
The key difference, I think, is that before a war such answer can be seen as lapses of people who should know better or outright villainy.

Now, I suspect I may still be answering a point you think you haven't made. In that case, please state your point with extreme expliciteness.

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

 I will say that the scenes with Queen Fen and the debate were finally a payoff for that, which was really satisfying.

Yet, in the eyes of many what Fen did then was treason. Again Sanderson refuses a clear answer or at least presents both sides fairly.

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

In terms of Sanderson telling the story - I see where you're going there too but I think we're talking a little bit different things.  Mistborn The Final Empire isn't really grimdark, it's a story of hope.  Early Sanderson was all about telling the story of how hope and determination could overcome all odds.  It was about how even people who were at their absolute lowest and who had been terribly abused could pick themselves up and save humanity.

Now, at the risk of repeating myself, defeat and hopelessness are not identical. In fact you can demonstrate hope by snatching at least a small success out from the jaws of defeat. That does not mean that defeat has to be averted in the last second.

Now, in Mistborn the tone and the content are radically at odds. Yes, it is a story of hope in tone. In content it is a story of a deity conducting a genocide.
And here I must question why Jasnah getting away with a few political killings is worse than Kelsier inadvertedly killing tens of millions.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

That's the kind of story Sanderson has said himself, he just can't tell. 

He has Dan now. At least I hope he can fill that gap.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

 I can't explain it, but if you're right and his aim was to tell the story of a losing war (and I think you probably are right) he just totally missed on the tone.  I don't know how to describe it, but there should be a sense of impending doom and inevitable failure.  A lot of authors are good at invoking that, but Sanderson just isn't.

Yes. There is a reason most people's favorite book of the Stormlight Archive is among the first three. I suppose for the future of the Cosmere as a whole this ending has been necessary. We will see.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

We feel like things might be bad for a while, but it won't be that bad and our heroes will figure it out before too long.

But they won't. He was just more coy about showing it. Mistborn still ended with horrendous numbers of casualties. > 95% of the people died. We just don't see it.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

Anyway - lastly I do want to hit on the Kelsier thing.  Kelsier isn't exactly a villain and he was definitely a hero in The Last Empire.  But, I think by Mistborn Series 2 he's portrayed as a shady, morally gray individual.

Secret History is Mistborn's equivalent of the last two books of the Stormlight Archive. Kelsier killed most of Scadrial's people. He certainly did not mean to. He almost doomed his world out of ignorance.
Yet he did not despair. He diagnosed his own failure and resolved to not let it repeat. Arguably that makes him even more of a hero.

And he has understood that this cannot be had while being nice. Or honest.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

He may justify it to himself with the idea that he could use the power to protect Scadrial, but that's not his true motivation and I think as soon as he gets the chance he will show that.  He won't be an evil enemy exactly, but he'll become kind of a frenemy type who sometimes helps and sometimes hurts our heroes (including those based on Scadrial).

No. He is the same man who has to be prevented from a certain senseless death by fighting a whole army by himself and who was ready to send Vin away with a boxload of money.
And he stays the man who makes clear that Marasi is not to be harmed. The core of Kelsier is preserved.

He may be in for his ego, but not his personal wealth or power. Kelsier will kill gods to not be defeated, not for money. That is an important difference.

[teknopathetic he/him]

I think back to the joy of Books 1 and 2 then become just sad thinking about the after school special that is book 5.

Szeth's flashbacks are the worst for me. I seriously just dont believe thats what could have happened. Mix that with Final Fantasy style "beat the next temple and gain a new power" plot was very cringe. 

The Stormfather being sneaky, but also maybe literally a moron with no consistent plan, was also really a huge let down. He was behind some stuff that never worked out and led nowhere? Cool. Wow. 

Jansah should have never agreed to the debate. She should have been smart enough to know you cant out debate a god with futuresight. Its not possible. She should have also "flipped the board" as more foreshadowing to Dalinar. I also was wondering the whole time if her depression and hiding for the rest of the book was actually her shame that she took Odium's deal. I thought that was going to be the huge twist at the end, but her very last scene makes that unlikely. 

EDIT:
And i hate being this person that has soured on the series. But my leatherbound Words of Radiance came today, and i just didn't care. I know I am likely going to stop ordering those. 

Edited March 25, 2025 by teknopathetic

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, teknopathetic said:

Jansah should have never agreed to the debate. She should have been smart enough to know you cant out debate a god with futuresight. Its not possible. She should have also "flipped the board" as more foreshadowing to Dalinar.

How would the Thaylens have reacted to that? And, if I may broaden the question, did Queen Fen do the right thing?

[the_archduke]

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

 

Jansah should have never agreed to the debate. She should have been smart enough to know you cant out debate a god with futuresight. Its not possible. She should have also "flipped the board" as more foreshadowing to Dalinar. I also was wondering the whole time if her depression and hiding for the rest of the book was actually her shame that she took Odium's deal. I thought that was going to be the huge twist at the end, but her very last scene makes that unlikely. 

 

That's the thing though, Jasnah couldn't turn down the debate.  It was being offered to Fen simultaneously.  If Jasnah had refused to participate, TOdium still shows up and still makes the offer to Fen.  If Jasnah can't even show up to support her position, why wouldn't Fen side with the great deal Odium was offering?

But more personally, Jasnah was being offered the fight she was certain she could win.  Her pride in her intellect was her undoing.  It would be like if Odium showed up to Adolin and offered to rest the fate of Azimir on a duel.  Of course he would take that contest.   Jasnah was confident in her philosophy and beliefs.  Jasnah has repeatedly stated that just having phenomenal cosmic power doesn't make a god worthy of worship.  If she backed down from a debate... I was trying to think what it would be like, but I don't need to.  Jasnah wasn't ever going to back down fro mthat challenge.

And she needed to be taken down a peg or six so she has room for a character arc in the back 5.  I saw so many people before Book 5 predicting how Jasnah would turn Roshar into a European style democracy with human rights and rainbows and unicorn farts.  That may still happen.  In book 10.  This was half way through the story.  The heroes don't win in the middle of the story.  

[Nitpicking]

We saw way back that Jasnah is not good at persuasion. Remember when Navani's letter was more important than Jasnah's brilliantly-reasoned essay (to the Thaylens!). Perhaps if Navani wasn't leashed to the Tower and could have talked to Fen directly, the whole thing would have come out differently.

[agrabes]

14 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I am trying. I must confess that I am better at reacting to actualwords than the intent behind them.

I am sorry, but they do come up earlier. For example Adolin murdering Torol Sadeas but Dalinar Kholin sweeping it under a rug. He has to do it to maintain unity among the Alethi. Or indeed when Dalinar burns his wife and a city. People are horrified thereby, but nobody comes right out and says that he did wrong. A case can be made under Alethi mores that he did what was within his rights. In hindsight I think this was a case of Sanderson telling us that pure honor can be horrible.

Again he is right to do so. The books would be much worse if Taravangian and Jasnah had no points supporting their attitude. Hence those who oppose them must be shown to do what is necessary, morals be damned, on occasion and Jasnah must be shown to succeed with her methods from time to time.

Nor are simple answers limited to the last two books. In fact that is the very type of answer Kaladin gives Moash on why not to kill Elhokar.
The key difference, I think, is that before a war such answer can be seen as lapses of people who should know better or outright villainy.

Now, I suspect I may still be answering a point you think you haven't made. In that case, please state your point with extreme expliciteness.

Yet, in the eyes of many what Fen did then was treason. Again Sanderson refuses a clear answer or at least presents both sides fairly.

Now, at the risk of repeating myself, defeat and hopelessness are not identical. In fact you can demonstrate hope by snatching at least a small success out from the jaws of defeat. That does not mean that defeat has to be averted in the last second.

Now, in Mistborn the tone and the content are radically at odds. Yes, it is a story of hope in tone. In content it is a story of a deity conducting a genocide.
And here I must question why Jasnah getting away with a few political killings is worse than Kelsier inadvertedly killing tens of millions.

He has Dan now. At least I hope he can fill that gap.

Yes. There is a reason most people's favorite book of the Stormlight Archive is among the first three. I suppose for the future of the Cosmere as a whole this ending has been necessary. We will see.

But they won't. He was just more coy about showing it. Mistborn still ended with horrendous numbers of casualties. > 95% of the people died. We just don't see it.

Secret History is Mistborn's equivalent of the last two books of the Stormlight Archive. Kelsier killed most of Scadrial's people. He certainly did not mean to. He almost doomed his world out of ignorance.
Yet he did not despair. He diagnosed his own failure and resolved to not let it repeat. Arguably that makes him even more of a hero.

And he has understood that this cannot be had while being nice. Or honest.

No. He is the same man who has to be prevented from a certain senseless death by fighting a whole army by himself and who was ready to send Vin away with a boxload of money.
And he stays the man who makes clear that Marasi is not to be harmed. The core of Kelsier is preserved.

He may be in for his ego, but not his personal wealth or power. Kelsier will kill gods to not be defeated, not for money. That is an important difference.

In terms of the complexity thing - I think we're talking on the same point now.  For me, I think it comes down to how these things were handled.  Like in your example of the reaction to Adolin murdering Sadeas - I felt it was not handled well.  It was one of the reasons I felt the series started to go downhill with Oathbringer.  I agree with you that Dalinar had to keep it a secret because revealing it would have really bad political consequences.  But, he didn't have to mostly ignore it privately.  I would have rather seen Dalinar getting really angry with Adolin, cutting him off or shutting him out of important decisions due to his recklessness.  Regardless of how readers felt, this act was strongly against Dalinar's moral values and everything he was trying to do at that point in the story.  We saw basically no reaction at all by Dalinar, we saw no real reaction by the Alethi nobility or at least not one that our heroes had to really even think about.

By contrast, Kaladin talking to Moash about killing Elhokar is one of the best portrayed decisions in the series.  The answers he gave in spoken word may have been simple, but he spent most of the book wrestling with the moral decision.  Kaladin made the wrong choice at first, paid the price, and then redeemed himself.  It's not so much about Character A said X to Character B, it's about how those characters think about and analyze their decisions.  Do they think about it and seriously consider multiple sides?  How does the writing portray the decision - does the prose imply we should believe the decision is morally indisputable (either good or bad)?  If so, is that the result of a buildup and long consideration (example: Kaladin concluding he must save Elhokar) or is it just written with the assumption we as readers must agree (Jasnah murders her political rivals).  Does it portray the decision as something done in a moment of passion (Adolin murders Sadeas, which felt like a well written expression of passion from Adolin)?  Does it portray the action as morally gray (Jasnah's belief that they must kill the parshmen to avoid the Desolation)?  I might or might not agree with the conclusion the characters or the author makes, but if it's well written that doesn't matter.  My issue is that over time, the series removes moral complexity.  That was my point in my original post - I think Sanderson's writing especially in Books 3 and 4 is kind of a mirror to the US culture of hyper partisanship: you're either for us and completely, wholeheartedly and actively support everything we believe or you must be evil. I think he actually slightly course corrects in WaT in scenes like Jasnah losing her debate with Odium and to a lesser extent giving Nale one or two good arguments.

I'm not a huge fan of Dan Wells personally.  I know he wrote that serial killer series, haven't read it but just was never a huge fan of his ideas on things like the Writing Excuses podcast.  Not any of my business of course, but I'd rather not have him involved in Stormlight.

I think you and I have totally different readings of Kelsier.  But, I'll also say I haven't read the original Mistborn trilogy in a long time and my feelings toward him are colored a lot more by what I remember of his actions in Secret History and Era 2.  Honestly, I don't really see myself rereading Mistborn.  For me, the last several cosmere books Sanderson released have just not hit for me.  Probably the last cosmere novel that really hit for me was Bands of Morning and the last novel at all that hit was Skyward.  Honorable mention to Frugal Wizard.  I just don't get that joy from reading Sanderson anymore.  I honestly wonder if I've just grown out of liking his books.  Hopefully Mistborn Era 3 will rekindle the fire but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

I agree with you that Dalinar had to keep it a secret because revealing it would have really bad political consequences.  But, he didn't have to mostly ignore it privately.  I would have rather seen Dalinar getting really angry with Adolin, cutting him off or shutting him out of important decisions due to his recklessness.  Regardless of how readers felt, this act was strongly against Dalinar's moral values and everything he was trying to do at that point in the story.  We saw basically no reaction at all by Dalinar, we saw no real reaction by the Alethi nobility or at least not one that our heroes had to really even think about.

That leads us back to the logic of war, which Dalinar, as a general officer, has internalized to the point that he does not have to think about it.

As such there is one thing that he instinctively knows: Compromise is bad and you always do the most extreme thing you can get away with.

That is a statement that may be revolting to you and most likely illogical. Hence I need to explain it. Allow me to approach it from an extremely abstract angle. A competent officer will propose a solution that allows for resources used in an undertaking to have more than linear effect. That is not the case that you do the better the more resources you use, but you do even better.
That is why, for example, you always attack with as overwhelming a nummerical superiority as you can achieve.

That has consequences. It means that - among competent officers - there is a good chance that even the third best option fully committed to will perform better than a compromise between the best and the second best option.
Why do we value compromise in civillian life? Because most problems are not that important. It is more important to preserve unity and avoid collateral damage than solve a problem.

Hence to Dalinar there were exactly two options: Either do absolutely nothing or kill Adolin.
You do not weaken your relationship with one of your officers and a high prince at any cost, if you can avoid it.

Now I am not saying that you have to like this logic. But I am saying that this is the way a good general, especially one not trained with any democratic or liberal ideas in his background, will look at things. It was handled well.
Brandon Sanderson may not have the capability to write grimdark stories, but he does understand military logic and war.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

By contrast, Kaladin talking to Moash about killing Elhokar is one of the best portrayed decisions in the series.  The answers he gave in spoken word may have been simple, but he spent most of the book wrestling with the moral decision.

Well, that is kind of the point. Do you think Kaladin could be an effective leader of an army if he takes weeks to make a decision? No, the difference you deplore is the result of handling the subject in the way different people would approach the topic.

I am afraid I have to restate my suspicion that your issue is that at the core you don't like stories about wars.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

 If so, is that the result of a buildup and long consideration (example: Kaladin concluding he must save Elhokar) or is it just written with the assumption we as readers must agree (Jasnah murders her political rivals).

No, we are shown that not everything can be seen as a moral question. Respectively that there is no universal morals. Allow me an excurse. It seems to me that the Stormlight Archive holds the stance that actions can have objective ethical content (the Shards evaluate their Intent), but are not universal. That is we see that Jasnah had no other sensible options but we still can condemn her actions.
That is really the same issue that Queen Fen faced, abstractly speaking.

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

I might or might not agree with the conclusion the characters or the author makes, but if it's well written that doesn't matter.  My issue is that over time, the series removes moral complexity.

What? Raboniel? Navani thinking about the issues with collaboration? The Mink? A whole discussion about the philosophy of government?

I am sorry, but I just cannot factually agree.

[agrabes]

On 3/26/2025 at 3:00 AM, Oltux72 said:

That leads us back to the logic of war, which Dalinar, as a general officer, has internalized to the point that he does not have to think about it.

As such there is one thing that he instinctively knows: Compromise is bad and you always do the most extreme thing you can get away with.

That is a statement that may be revolting to you and most likely illogical. Hence I need to explain it. Allow me to approach it from an extremely abstract angle. A competent officer will propose a solution that allows for resources used in an undertaking to have more than linear effect. That is not the case that you do the better the more resources you use, but you do even better.
That is why, for example, you always attack with as overwhelming a nummerical superiority as you can achieve.

That has consequences. It means that - among competent officers - there is a good chance that even the third best option fully committed to will perform better than a compromise between the best and the second best option.
Why do we value compromise in civillian life? Because most problems are not that important. It is more important to preserve unity and avoid collateral damage than solve a problem.

Hence to Dalinar there were exactly two options: Either do absolutely nothing or kill Adolin.
You do not weaken your relationship with one of your officers and a high prince at any cost, if you can avoid it.

Now I am not saying that you have to like this logic. But I am saying that this is the way a good general, especially one not trained with any democratic or liberal ideas in his background, will look at things. It was handled well.
Brandon Sanderson may not have the capability to write grimdark stories, but he does understand military logic and war.

Well, that is kind of the point. Do you think Kaladin could be an effective leader of an army if he takes weeks to make a decision? No, the difference you deplore is the result of handling the subject in the way different people would approach the topic.

I am afraid I have to restate my suspicion that your issue is that at the core you don't like stories about wars.

No, we are shown that not everything can be seen as a moral question. Respectively that there is no universal morals. Allow me an excurse. It seems to me that the Stormlight Archive holds the stance that actions can have objective ethical content (the Shards evaluate their Intent), but are not universal. That is we see that Jasnah had no other sensible options but we still can condemn her actions.
That is really the same issue that Queen Fen faced, abstractly speaking.

What? Raboniel? Navani thinking about the issues with collaboration? The Mink? A whole discussion about the philosophy of government?

I am sorry, but I just cannot factually agree.

I'm not going to dispute your military theory ideas here - I can't really intelligently say if they are right or wrong so I'll assume you're right about how Dalinar may think in his approach to war.  But - regardless of his approach to war, he is also a human.  He's a human whose son completely undermined his entire political strategy, which was to reform the Alethi government so that high princes don't consider it valid to fight each other.  Dalinar is never shown in the book to be considering how he deals with Adolin the way you describe (I can kill him, or just totally ignore what he did).  It doesn't mean he didn't - but there's no reason for us to imply he did.  I think the intended reading by the book is that Dalinar's compassion for his son meant he swept it under the rug and chose to ignore it rather than deal with his emotions.

I'm not sure how Kaladin's time to make a decision is relevant here.  There are many kinds of military decisions.  Some involve long planning and deliberation over weeks, months, and even years.  Some require split second decisions.  And regardless of that, the decision Kaladin made regarding Elhokar was not military in nature.  It was a personal moral decision.  People can (and generally should in my view) use different decision-making logic in their personal and professional lives.  The reason this works well in the story is because we see Kaladin's struggle as a human.

When you say you think I don't like stories about wars - I think what you really mean is I don't like stories where people make extreme snap decisions with little consideration outside the context of real time pressure.  I like stories about war and I enjoy genres like for example Military Sci-Fi.  In those stories, the story is about the war and everyone is in military mode all the time because that's what the story is about.  That's a totally different genre and is not what Stormlight Archive is about.  But even in military stories (if they are well written) the characters do not make major strategic decisions without any consideration.  Usually you follow a junior officer or enlisted who starts off just doing what they need to do to survive day to day.  But over time, the hero usually moves up the ranks and starts to have to consider the wider consequences of their actions and at that point they become more reflective.

In terms of moral complexity let me just respond to your scenarios with a short reply:

Raboniel - Throwaway character (Raboniel) dealing with a minor character (Navani) about abstract and contrived topics.  The idea that some of the fused want to end the fight is interesting, I'll give you that.  But it seems to basically go nowhere.  To the extent that it did go anywhere, it got way too bogged down in tropes and references to real world critique about colonialism.  

Navani/Collaboration - Not very morally complex, very boilerplate scenario that is not examined in depth.

The Mink - This one does contain some small amount of moral complexity, but is given about 2 seconds of screen time and is not at all central to the plot.  I don't give a crap about Herdaz and the Mink is way too much of a minor character to care about him personally. 

Discussion About Government Philosophy - This is actually an example of the exact opposite of moral complexity if you're talking about Jasnah vs Dalinar/Navani in RoW.  The tone of this discussion as written in the prose is "Jasnah is a super genius and her plans to rapidly and radically change Alethi government are unquestionably right".  There was one conversation in the books and it was Jasnah railroading her ideas into Dalinar and Navani.  There was no consideration of the very real problems that Jasnah's ideas would cause in Alethi society. 

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

On 3/28/2025 at 12:16 PM, agrabes said:

Discussion About Government Philosophy - This is actually an example of the exact opposite of moral complexity if you're talking about Jasnah vs Dalinar/Navani in RoW.  The tone of this discussion as written in the prose is "Jasnah is a super genius and her plans to rapidly and radically change Alethi government are unquestionably right".  There was one conversation in the books and it was Jasnah railroading her ideas into Dalinar and Navani.  There was no consideration of the very real problems that Jasnah's ideas would cause in Alethi society. 

This kind of issue has been something that I have been bothered by in the broader cosmere books for a while now too: Revolution is never given the presentation it deserves. Jasnah's reforms make sense to our modern, post-Enlightenment Revolutions, way of thinking. Everywhere in our world has been touched by the flames that were lit in the USA and France in the late 18th century (and I might say the USA only truly knew Enlightenment when the Civil War began), with my understanding being that their burning through in China happened from the fall of the Ming Dynasty through to the Cultural Revolution and in Japan with the Meiji Restoration through to the US Occupation after WWII, and with many more places being subjected to this force we recognize as modernity through the cruel implements of colonialism.

However, people, especially feudal land owners, tend to HATE this kind of revolutionary moment because it tears away their special legal privileges. We saw tiny amounts of this with how the Mistborn books played out after the death of the Lord Ruler, but then the mystical end of the world showed up and seemingly replaced the years of terror that are needed to replace plantation aristocrats with industrialists. Jasnah did, at some point, do the thing of intimidating some noble down, but the actual patterns of history that we know would have her cleaving through thousands of lesser nobles in order to get them to stop acting like they own people. She would have to become a legend as terrible as the Blackthorn, a true Napoleonic figure, in a story which wanted to tackle the hardships that come with the pursuit of liberation.

 

Also, on the moral nuance front more generally: I wish the battles of the book had all been told from the perspectives of Singers. It would have made the "Finally, the singers one! No more desolation!" note of the ending a lot more interesting.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 3/28/2025 at 5:16 PM, agrabes said:

But - regardless of his approach to war, he is also a human.  He's a human whose son completely undermined his entire political strategy, which was to reform the Alethi government so that high princes don't consider it valid to fight each other.

Now, are we looking at this from a human perspective or a political one?

If Dalinar were to tell Adolin that he was disappointed in him from a human perspective he would need to say that avenging all the soldiers that died due to Sadeas' betrayal was wrong. That is impossible to Dalinar. Adolin killed somebody who betrayed them to the people who killed his brother.

Saying that killing Sadeas was wrong from a human perspective is something that no Alethi man could say.
He could say that this is not like a high prince acts. But that would be a very rough card to play for Dalinar was letting Sadeas get away with treason. Hence it seems to me that Dalinar was considering this affair strictly politically and professionally.

On 3/28/2025 at 5:16 PM, agrabes said:

The reason this works well in the story is because we see Kaladin's struggle as a human.

My apologies. I should have been clearer. The point is that Kaladin's reasoning is in the end quite simplistic. They owe it to Dalinar. Kaladin gives no reason why Dalinar is more important than Moash's grandparents.

On 3/28/2025 at 5:16 PM, agrabes said:

When you say you think I don't like stories about wars - I think what you really mean is I don't like stories where people make extreme snap decisions with little consideration outside the context of real time pressure.  I like stories about war and I enjoy genres like for example Military Sci-Fi.  In those stories, the story is about the war and everyone is in military mode all the time because that's what the story is about.  That's a totally different genre and is not what Stormlight Archive is about.

Again my apologies for the assumption. I am afraid I have to disagree. The Stormlight Archive is a story about war. Now, I absolutely admit that the first two book create a different impression, but still it seems to me that the SA is the first part of the story about the great war between the Shards.

On 3/28/2025 at 5:16 PM, agrabes said:

 But even in military stories (if they are well written) the characters do not make major strategic decisions without any consideration.  Usually you follow a junior officer or enlisted who starts off just doing what they need to do to survive day to day.  But over time, the hero usually moves up the ranks and starts to have to consider the wider consequences of their actions and at that point they become more reflective.

I think you are raising an important point. The SA is a part of a stoty arc about a war, but it is not a military story. Many of the actors are not military people. From one angle it is about politicians during a war.

From another, frightening angle, it is about people who have no idea about war or strategy fighting an interstellar war with weapons of mass destruction while suffereing from the magical equivalent of brain damage. If we wish to equate holding a shard with some form of mental impairment.

6 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

We saw tiny amounts of this with how the Mistborn books played out after the death of the Lord Ruler, but then the mystical end of the world showed up and seemingly replaced the years of terror that are needed to replace plantation aristocrats with industrialists. Jasnah did, at some point, do the thing of intimidating some noble down, but the actual patterns of history that we know would have her cleaving through thousands of lesser nobles in order to get them to stop acting like they own people. She would have to become a legend as terrible as the Blackthorn, a true Napoleonic figure, in a story which wanted to tackle the hardships that come with the pursuit of liberation.

This opens a very big can of worms. Can you have enlightenment in the Cosmere? I would tentatively say: no.

1. Secularism won't work. The Shards obviously exist and they do not leave the interpretation of their will to people.
2. Mages and muggles are not equal. You do not really have the justification of democracy if some people are immortal magicians and the others are muggles.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

• Secularism won't work. The Shards obviously exist and they do not leave the interpretation of their will to people.
• Mages and muggles are not equal. You do not really have the justification of democracy if some people are immortal magicians and the others are muggles.

This simply requires the following program to be adopted:

Shatter the shards until they are in enough pieces that no sapient being is without their own Splinter of infinity.

Let not one immortal thing exist which tramples the grass.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

9 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

This simply requires the following program to be adopted:

Shatter the shards until they are in enough pieces that no sapient being is without their own Splinter of infinity.

Let not one immortal thing exist which tramples the grass.

To an extent. I do believe that the end game of the Cosmere will be a battle between the "splitters" and the "reuniters", for lack of a better wording.

However, does this solve the whole issue? I am afraid it does not. The arcane arts add a number of ugly implications

• powers can be hereditary. Aristocracy has a basis in undeniable facts. You can breed superior humans.
• wealth is far better than in a world without magic. You can literally buy immortality and it is a zero sum game.
• you can make magical slaves. Look at Nightblood.

In addition you have multiple species. Are they really going to say that a human vote and a dragon vote should be equal? How about the aetherbound?
Or Elantrians, for that matter?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 3/25/2025 at 2:13 PM, Oltux72 said:

did Queen Fen do the right thing?

Yes. She made the only correct choice for a leader of a nation in her particular predicament.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 3/25/2025 at 12:33 PM, teknopathetic said:

Jansah should have never agreed to the debate. She should have been smart enough to know you cant out debate a god with futuresight. Its not possible.

I thought that was the entire point: Jasnah preached to Shallan that your confidence (and presenation of confidence in particular) is what gives you authority. She seems to have bought into that a little too much, and her hubris is what led her to engage in a debate with Odium instead of flipping the table. And then of course he pulled the rug out from under her and just bashed her character with any and all wrongdoings or inconstencies she has had with her espoused worldview.

It's also ok for Jasnah to make a mistake. The whole thing going on here was Jasnah having her blinders pulled down and being shown her blind spots. We all have them, but the thing about blind spots is that we literally don't allow ourselves to recognize them. We actively and usually subconciously avoid them unless we are forced to confront them. When we do finally see them and we acknowledge their existence, it can shake and shatter our entire worldview. If you've ever experienced that, as I have, you'd recognize and connect with Jasnah on a very deep level. I actually found that scene to be very believable, impactful, and powerful from my perspective.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

In addition you have multiple species. Are they really going to say that a human vote and a dragon vote should be equal? How about the aetherbound?
Or Elantrians, for that matter?

Freedom is not had purely by counting votes. There is plenty of oppression that happens in even the best of democracy as we know it.

There are myriad solutions to the pains of differences, but I might ask why these categories would remain fixed? Why can't someone be a dragon in the morning, a human in the afternoon, aertherbound for tea, and end the day as one of the Elantrians? Forging is my favorite MoI because it seems to be the best promise for allowing people to exist, if only temporarily, in forms which they were not put by pure chance. If the fantasy of intrinsic difference does not allow for its overcoming, then that is a flaw of imagination.

[therunner he/him]

11 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Why can't someone be a dragon in the morning, a human in the afternoon, aertherbound for tea, and end the day as one of the Elantrians? Forging is my favorite MoI because it seems to be the best promise for allowing people to exist, if only temporarily, in forms which they were not put by pure chance.

Because changing like that is impossible. And Forgery won't help, because the change has to be plausible past. There is nothing plausible about being born as different species, so you cannot forge yourself into a dragon. Being aetherbound requires bond with another being, something you couldn't simply fake with Forgery (maybe the parasitic form). So Forgery to Elantrian is likely the only one of those that is possible, and even than only for very few (with some pre-existing Connection to Sel)

Quote

There are myriad solutions to the pains of differences, but I might ask why these categories would remain fixed?

What are some examples of those myriad solutions?
How would you address the inherent power imbalance between Invested person and those without? Or between dragon and a person? What about spren? Do Returned count as their previous identity for purpose of inheritance? 
Is Nightblood a citizen? If so, what about other Awakened constructs?

There are numerous issues to address.

Edited April 1, 2025 by therunner

[+Oltux72 he/him]

12 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Freedom is not had purely by counting votes. There is plenty of oppression that happens in even the best of democracy as we know it.

You probably can have freedom. But that is not the only part of enlightenment. Arguably not even the central part. Enlightenment rests on

• rationalism
• equality

Or to be historical, rationalism enabled people to recognise that the divine right of kings and aristocrats is based on a phantasy.

In the Cosmere rationalism is undermined by the existence of the Shards. You can hardly argue that the world should be ruled by reason alone if a deity of passion unambiguously exists.
Nor can you argue that ordinary people and immortal creatures that literally can hear your prayers are equal. It is obviously false. Hence the intellectual underpinning of enlightenment cannot exist.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

Because changing like that is impossible. And Forgery won't help, because the change has to be plausible past.

What is plausible and implausible in a world with so much magic is very loose. Hemalurgy seems able to bend forms, and there seems to be plenty of possibilities in the surges for shape shifting with enough meditation. Forgery simply lets a person go from knowing about how those techniques work to using them to create false histories in which their "natural form" is a false imposition that is to be cast off. Think of Zhaung Zi and his butterfly dream, with magic running around, it is not hard to make it seem plausible that the butterfly in fact physically became the man and might elect to return to that form.

I admit that plausibility and implausibility are always dicey topics. Let me suppose a more concrete hypothetical:

What if some forger gathered in one place a  number of dragons and the means of doing a great deal of hemalurgy. Suppose they discussed with the dragons the procedure of turning a human into a dragon via the use of hemalurgy to remove their humanity and to impose a dragon's nature in its place. This discussion could go on for a while, refining the notions of the technique, figuring how to do it without killing anyone involved, etc, but it is ultimately never done in fact. Then imagine the later making of a soul stamp which says "Ah, but what if I did?" This is a single change in event, one which the user could describe in great detail, and thus must be felt as plausible, yes?