Brandon vs. Consequences

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

6 minutes ago, Returned said:

If he'd been a more realistically-portrayed addict I don't think I would have cared more about his murder just because of that. If he'd been a more rounded character, with more of his own goals, ambitions, experiences, and relationships shown on screen, that probably would have done it.

I want to interject on this to make a point about what being a real drug user is like. Real functional drug addicts often are able to function better while on their preferred substance. The addiction displaces their issues into a different part of life, which allows them to do the things they want/need to do in the mean time. It is a crutch, but if you tell someone missing a foot they should just learn to hop around then you are being cruel.

Imagine if Teft swore the 4th ideal before Kaladin BECAUSE of his firemoss letting him understand his own issues without flinching from the pain, but he died anyway because he was so apathetic to the world while he was trying to get clean that Moash coming to kill him just felt like some kind of phantasm to both Teft and his spren. That would have felt authentic to me, and it would still be tragic. Obviously, Teft is better if he can get by without the firemoss, but he might not be able to do that because of his traumas.

Again, crutches are a pain, but so is a broken foot.

[Schizoposting]

1 hour ago, ParaTulip said:

I think death needs to sometimes feel senseless to be authentic to the real experience though. Imagine if Kaladin was out of Light and some random Singer stabbed him with a rusty knife. He ends up winning the fight after, but then he spends the next three chapters dying while trying to make sense of his life to Syl, but he fails because the rotspren have gotten into the cut. His last words before the death rattle are "I am sorry I didn't think about how to help that singer before he picked up that knife. This is all my fault." and then Syl goes to Shallan to try to get someone to at least stonecast Kaladin's body, but she forgets where it is due to the rebonding process.

it would be tragic, it would feel senseless, but it would be that wonderful stuff of tears.

This is fine: the problem is when it's overused. And further, in art, one must deviate from reality in order to express a deeper truth; even "realist" fiction is not actually realistic. Thus, even if it's not "authentic" for someone to have a grand climactic death, it does not make it inherently bad thing.

Edited July 1 by Schizoposting

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

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

This is fine: the problem is when it's overused. And further, in art, one must deviate from reality in order to express a deeper truth; even "realist" fiction is not actually realistic. Thus, even if it's not "authentic" for someone to have a grand climactic death, it does not make it inherently bad thing.

Oh I do not care for realism either. If you look for this name on Ao3, you will see that I am much of a surrealist or an experimental author. I love my poetry too.

But ya, the theistic world view where there is such a thing as heaven is one where death cannot be truly without sense or purpose. This bleeds into the writings of such people imo. Even Tolkien refuses to make named characters die senselessly against unimportant enemies.

[Schizoposting]

23 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

But ya, the theistic world view where there is such a thing as heaven is one where death cannot be truly without sense or purpose. This bleeds into the writings of such people imo. Even Tolkien refuses to make named characters die senselessly against unimportant enemies.

I don't think it has so much to do with "theism" as with the rejection of post-modern nihilism (which is why Grimdark is the ultimate form of post-modern fantasy). Even in the real world there are a great many heroic deaths that really do mean something. 

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

Okay, so I might need to show you something.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61830196

What is this? Is it grimdark? Is it "post modern" in the way that you think other fantasy is? Is it nihilistic? Does it make the death upon the cross senseless in some way?

These words, they are themselves empty and meaningless because they come to simply mean "bad thing". And yes, truly senseless death and suffering feels really bad. But how to deal with the terribleness of this is as old as the Illiad and echoes in the Aenid. The deaths of the common spear bearer are given no significance because they were just common people. Only the deaths of the demigods and their ilk are given a place in song. Those are the literal heroic deaths as you are still hearing them echo down the ages.

But there must be other kinds of deaths which are given tears. The opening of All Quiet on the Western Front is nothing of post-modernity but instead a classic story of the utter loss of innocence in the process of coming to bear experience. The story does nihilate the notion of a warrior-spirit, and such a spirit in particular among the German people, but this is not a post-modern exercise. It is instead the simple modernism of using art to intentionally craft a meaning contrary to the social norm.

If a story is going to be as hideously long, and it is hideous to take up so many pages in my eyes, then it should be able to include both valorous and sensible deaths (Kelsier) and then something that feels utterly senseless and wrong (the hypotheticals where Teft dies because he tried to get sober or Kaladin dying while blaming everything on himself to the end). There are good deaths and there are bad deaths, this is obvious. But failing to tell the story of a bad death, a death which seems like it ought to be fake but is all too real, that is the failure to capture the consequences of the reality of death amid the fantastic.

For contrast to what I opened with, this https://archiveofourown.org/works/21547057 is a story about a very sensible thing that is a fate like unto but not death.

[Hexagonal He/Him]

On 6/30/2026 at 7:35 PM, Frustration said:

All fake out deaths

1. Marsh
2. Kelsier
3. Jasnah
4. Syl
5. Szeth
6. Wax
7. Yumi

I am not certain all of these should be considered fake out deaths.

Wax is only really "dead" for 2 chapters, and then we see him talk with Harmony.

As with Syl, there are a number of references throughout SA that spren can't really die, so I always felt as though the tension came from it seeming as though Kaladin's sort of betrayal of his oaths forced Syl to leave.

Yumi's "death" is part of the climax for her character, and comes at the end of the story(which others have pointed out as a critique for wayne's death not having much punch). I think this "death" works within the story, as it shows Yumi choosing things for herself after fulfilling her duty, something that she has been working on for the whole book essentially. It is not great that it is a fake out, and I would have liked a little more foreshadowing that she could come back through the painting than the few chapters of the final battle. I think that with proper showcasing of the ability for the shroud to form back into people really easily it could have worked a little better

As others have said, Marsh's "death" is quite well done. It makes sense within the story, builds tension and stakes, and has lasting consequences.

The critiques of Jasnah and Szeth's deaths make a lot of sense to me. Brandon himself has said that he wishes he did Jasnah's differently, and I think Szeth's would work better if we got either his "death" from his POV or saw Nale go to get him. Jasnah's is the worst of these, I think, as it really just is for Shallan. Jasnah was too competent for her own good, and so (similar to Kelsier) she needed to get out of the way for other characters to grow. Shallan has her own problems as a character(the critiques I have seen here resonate with me, though I also just find many of her chapters much more boring than basically everyone else), but for Brandon to allow her to develop into a competent character she could not have such a skilled guardian doing most things for her(much like vin and kelsier).

I am torn on Kelsier's "death" personally. I saw a post somewhere which said that it seems as though Kelsier is going to both die the hero and live long enough to see himself become the villian. I think one of the major themes of Mistborn Era 1 is that rebellions have a lot of work to do , and the idealistic beliefs that led to rebellion need to be tempered with realistic outlooks on governance and economics. This is shown a lot with Elend, but most of the characters have changes. Most of them come from their environment changing, with really only Vin, Elend, Spook, and Sazed really have large scale arcs. TenSoon, Ham, Breeze, and others instead show other sides of themselves in the new environment after the death of the LR. They do have small developments, though as secondary characters we do not get much of them through POVs. I think Kelsier fits into this second group(Brandon himself agrees, claiming that in basically any other book he would be the villian). He does not have much of an arc besides "maybe not all nobles deserve to die". I think seeing Kelsier shift into the role of an antagonist is a solid payoff, as I think he could have many parallels to the LR (Imortal, of a dying race[ska]), and also he lost his allomancy. This is the "death" that I am least certain on if I find it to be a fake out that hinders the story, or a reveal that enhances it.

[Cosmer]

This is the norm for this genre...not sure what else you could expect. GRRM overdid the killing-off-main-characters thing IMO, and then he began bringing folks back too! Almost every fantasy book has the good guys (gals) survive and overcome "near" death. Kind of the main trope! 

 

Maybe this is part of your point, but I really think the issue is he needs to lay off of the fake out a bit. Not kill more characters for real. Just less fake outs. Find another way to show stakes. Main characters won't be dying much - it just won't happen, and that's good with me!

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

Ya, @Cosmer, I think this is why long as decades series are just a problem. The Final Empire trilogy loses more and more of its place as The misborn books with each new release.

The productivitst-novelist is just such a self-sabotaging artist in my view.