Very, very dumb question

[Verdance he/him]

I need to know what culture in the Cosmere is most similar to France. I don’t remember reading anything and thinking, “wow, this is the cultural equivalent of French heritage”, like the Roughs does with the Wild West or like Yuma’s planet does with either Chinese or Japanese culture. Would some country from Tress possibly work?

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

48 minutes ago, edgyswordname said:

I need to know what culture in the Cosmere is most similar to France. I don’t remember reading anything and thinking, “wow, this is the cultural equivalent of French heritage”, like the Roughs does with the Wild West or like Yuma’s planet does with either Chinese or Japanese culture. Would some country from Tress possibly work?

I found a WoB, and its Era 1 Mistborn that is based on France. Era 2 has a lot of Wild West and other American influences.

WoB:

Spoiler

brodyd21

What time period do you think the Mistborn series is most reminiscent of? I get a feeling of 1800s England but more brutal in their politicking.

Ben McSweeney

Industrial-era France, with some variables based on TLR's rigid control of technological development. Skaa on plantations look more pre-industrial, Nobles in the city are more post-industrial, and so forth.

That's the era Brandon instructed me to look towards for visual reference while designing for the MAG, so that's what I stick with. Mind you, the visual culture of Luthadel is different from that of the other Dominances.

Second Era is specifically equivalent to about 1910 U.S.

 

[KnightSkye Reforged They/Them]

10 minutes ago, edgyswordname said:

I need to know what culture in the Cosmere is most similar to France. I don’t remember reading anything and thinking, “wow, this is the cultural equivalent of French heritage”, like the Roughs does with the Wild West or like Yuma’s planet does with either Chinese or Japanese culture. Would some country from Tress possibly work?

Scadrial. The Elendel Basin has been said to be an analogue of france. 

[Verdance he/him]

Just now, KnightSkye Reforged said:

Scadrial. The Elendel Basin has been said to be an analogue of france. 

Really? Interesting. It always seemed American, like a mashup of the Wild West and early industrial NYC. Good to know.

[KnightSkye Reforged They/Them]

2 minutes ago, edgyswordname said:

Really? Interesting. It always seemed American, like a mashup of the Wild West and early industrial NYC. Good to know.

Yeah, there are some WoBs about it I think. I'll look for some but also tag the king of Brandon research, @Treamayne, to find some if I can't, or correct me. 

[Treamayne]

On 2/7/2026 at 3:00 PM, edgyswordname said:

I need to know what culture in the Cosmere is most similar to France. I don’t remember reading anything and thinking, “wow, this is the cultural equivalent of French heritage”, like the Roughs does with the Wild West or like Yuma’s planet does with either Chinese or Japanese culture. Would some country from Tress possibly work?

On 2/7/2026 at 3:11 PM, KnightSkye Reforged said:

Scadrial. The Elendel Basin has been said to be an analogue of france. 

As @Xiahida mentioned - Mistborn Era 1 was linguistically based on France and Germany. Culturally though, it's not really either - and most Cosmere works are not analogous of any single culture or time. Alethi are a mash-up of Mongol/Hebrew with other middle-eastern influences across Roshar. 

Komashi is a hybrid of Korea, Japan and Chinese - but with western artistic influence. Sel has different inspirational sources for every country/culture. 

Spoiler

Quote

RankWeis

The characters in Mistborn all have very French names. My girlfriend insists Vin's name is pronounced almost "Veh", as it would be in France, and I'm almost convinced. How do you pronounce it?

Brandon Sanderson

The Central Dominance is intentionally French sounding. I say Vin's name like an American would, but everyone in world would say it with a French accent. Same goes for Kelsier, (which they would say Kel-syay.) Again, I say it as an American would, but then I'm not from the Central Dominance.

unknown

One further question on pronunciation- Sazed. Is it sayzd, sayzed, or sah-zahd? I always pictured the Terris people as somewhat Arabic so Sah-zahd came more naturally to me, but I'm curious as to what the intended pronunciation is.

Brandon Sanderson

I say Sayzed, as does Kelsier. The Terris a is not as harsh as that, but it's not quite a soft "a" either.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Aug. 31, 2011)

Quote

Questioner

I think you may have answered this one before, but where do you come up with your names for all your characters?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the series. For Mistborn, I build a 'feel for certain regions and develop names using the linguistic rules of that region. The Central Dominance (and Elendel in this book) had a slightly French feel to the linguistics, and many of the names came from that paradigm.

However, unique to the Mistborn world was the need to give people simple nicknames in a thieving crew sort of way. Wax, Clubs, Breeze, Mr. Suit, all of these are along those lines.

/r/Fantasy_Bookclub Alloy of Law Q&A (Jan. 17, 2012)

 

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

How do you pick names?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It really varies based on the book. I'm often picking a linguistic paradigm. Alethi - there are two separate paradigms because I like linguistics to be messy. Usually based on symmetry being holy, so they'd pick names one letter off from symmetrical to avoid hubris.  Also suffix - like Kaladin is Kalak (Herald) + din which is a suffix, all of them mean things, like the old Hebrew names have "born of" or "comes through". Stick that on and drop the last letter. Dalinar, Elhokar, all of those have suffixes - nar, kar.  In Mistborn, I didn't want linguistics to be your focus, for in that I picked a simpler naming paradigm - I lifted linguistics from the real world. Central Dominance is French. The Germanic area, we have Elend and Straff, and then we have Spanish on the other area. I just kind of took Earth cultures and appropriated them. That's an easier way to do it, because Mistborn is kind of an earth analogue. But Roshar is very different. Mistborn I didn't want you to think of the difference, which is why I gave everyone nicknames that are easy to say.

Words of Radiance Seattle signing (March 8, 2014)

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[unknown]

Rereading Words of Radiance... Are the Herdazians a caricature of Mexicans? Is that ok?

Brandon Sanderson

Parts of their culture are inspired by Mexican culture in the same way the Alethi are inspired by Mongolians, Lift's origins are indigenous Bolivians, and the Final Empire (Central Dominance) was 1800's France. Human beings need a launching-off point for creativity to work.

I don't consider them a caricature. Lopen is extreme to say the least, but I made sure to include Palona, Huio, and others as a balancing factor. That said, I don't get to decide if what I did works--I get to try, and explain my motivations, but the decision on whether or not I succeed is not in my hands. Many a writer has had the best intentions, but has failed anyway.

I think it's important to diversify my inspirations, and push myself. If I were going to say the true inspirations for Herdazians, it would be a Mexico mashup with Korea (where I lived for several years.) The smaller country that has long been overshadowed by a dominant neighbor is a very common thing in our world, and it really felt like Alethkar would have a similar effect on kingdoms around it.

I will take a moment to note that chouta wasn't inspired by burritos, really, but more the "street food" explosion that accompanied the industrial revolution. I took what they had in the society (flatbread and Soulcast meat) and tried to build something that would replicate the things I've seen and read about in our world during that era, because it fascinates me.

General Reddit 2017 (Dec. 18, 2017)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventeen

Of all the books I've written, I think this one hearkens most closely to our own world. Usually, when I develop cultures and languages, I try to stay away form basing them too closely on any one Earth society or race. I'm not certain what made me do things differently in Elantris. It's not just fencing–JinDo, with its obvious links to Asian cultures, is a good example too. And Fjorden's language has some obvious references to Scandinavia. (Dilaf's name comes from Beowulf, actually. I named him after Beowulf's heir, Wilaf.)

Anyway, in this chapter we find two very obvious "borrows" from our world. I've always been fascinated by fencing, though I've never participated myself. The idea of turning swordfighting into a sport intrigues me. In addition, I found the light, formalized dueling appropriate to the tone of this book, so I took the opportunity to write it in. (I do realize, by the way, that Hollywood has done some interesting things to fencing. Most real fencing bouts are much shorter, and far less showy, than what we see depicted. This is pretty much true for any kind of fighting, however. Think what you will, but combat is usually brutal, quick, and really not that exciting to watch.

This kind of fighting is very appropriate in some books. However, I allowed myself the indulgence of doing my fencing scenes a bit more flourish than one would find in real life. It felt right in the context to have the participants spar, parry, and jump about for far longer a time than is realistic. If you need justification, you can assume that in Teod, the rules for fencing are very strict–and so it's very hard to actually score a point on your opponent, forcing the battles to be prolonged.)

The other item of interest in that scene is, of course, Shuden's ChayShan dance. As mentioned above, his culture is pretty obviously borrowed from Asia. In fact, the link is so strong that some readers have trouble imagining his features as anything but Asian. (Note, once again, that this is not the case. The JinDo have dark brown skin. Though, I guess you'll imagine Shuden however you wish.) The ChayShan is a martial art I devised to feel just a bit like Tai Chi–though ChayShan focuses on speeding up the motions and gaining power from them. I've always kind of thought that Tai Chi would look more interesting if it slowly sped up.

Elantris Annotations (Aug. 1, 2005)

 

If the topic interests you ,consider checking out the Annotations on Brandons website (in the Books section, you can find an annotations link for Elantris, Warbreaker and Mistborn Era 1 - [**]) where Brandon notes for each chapter some background info, data that was cut or could not fit, why he made the decisions that he made, etc. - they were written while reviewing each book's final copy edit. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Book Wrap-up

So, that's my book. It may be about seven years old to me now (it was written in '99), but I still retain a great fondness for it. You have no idea how exciting it is to finally see it in print.

Hopefully, you enjoyed these annotations. I want to do them for all of my novels, but we'll see how things go. (Note from future Brandon, who is posting this after he wrote it some months earlier. There WILL be Mistborn Annotations starting July, 2006!)

For now, I've got about 40,000 words here—a good half of a novel for free. Keep coming back to the website for more information, and make certain you check out the other bonus materials. (Deleted scenes will be posted throughout June.)

Oh, and make sure you go by Mistborn when it comes out! If Elantris was this good and I did it seven years ago, think of what kinds of things I'm working on right now!

I did most of these annotations while doing the copy edit of Elantris—which is probably the last good read I'll give the book in the drafting process. Ten drafts. And now I turn away from the book and call it complete.

Thank you so much for reading.

The Elantris project

Begun 9-27-1999 (First Word to Page)

Finished 10-18-2004 (Final Annotation Written)

Elantris Annotations (April 21, 2005)

**Note: The links no longer take you to the first entry - they broke when the website was redesigned. Now they go to an index of chapters, but if you pick any of them and scroll to the bottom, the link to the first annotation for each book will be on top there. 

Edited February 27 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Verdance he/him]

Thanks!

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

On 2/7/2026 at 10:16 PM, Verdance said:

Thanks!

not to stir the pot, but Kelsier is technically pronounced Kel-see-ay. so yeah. france