Unknowingly Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 I am not familiar with what the writing tropes in literature actually are and i was wondering to what extent does Brandon, and other authors, use them? What are common Fantasy writing tropes? Does Brandon ever make a mockery of the use of them? I felt like that is what he was doing in The Stormlight Archive with Rosharan society having such strict Gender specific roles. To me it made me look at the whole idea of Gender specific roles as ridiculous. Did he ever do something like that with other writing tropes that i never noticed? Finally, is there a trope that Brandon consistently uses across most of his books? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post kaellok Posted May 30, 2015 Popular Post Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 I present to you this website, but be warned, billions of hours of time have been lost by people across the globe as they wander into and around TV Tropes. 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiLyghtSansSparkles Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 (edited) I haven't seen any consistent tropes used across Brandon's work, though what I have noticed is that he's more likely to play with a trope than he is to play it straight. A few examples I've noticed…. Gender roles in the Stormlight Archive: Inverted in that women read while men are illiterate; played straight in that war is a "man's game;" deconstructed in that it's mostly one society that observes all of this strict segregation, the segregation even permeates things like what kinds of food are served to the different genders, and that things were more egalitarian in the past. The Heroic Quest™ in Mistborn: Inverted and deconstructed in that the world is already dying and will continue to decay if things are not put to rights immediately. What Measure Is A Mook? in the Reckoners books: Horrifyingly deconstructed in that all Epics see non-Epics as essentially cannon fodder and some even come to enjoy murder. There are many, many more than what I listed here, but I can't recall a single trope I found in his works that wasn't played with to some degree. Edited May 30, 2015 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 As Twi said, Brandon tends to invert tropes quite a bit in his writing, the entire premise of Mistborn revolves around the inverted hero's journey, the hero went on his journey and the world was nearly destroyed, 1000 years later a bunch of thieves try to fix it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknowingly Posted May 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 I present to you this website, but be warned, billions of hours of time have been lost by people across the globe as they wander into and around TV Tropes. Wow, that is actually super helpful, thanks! I can see how it would be very easy to get lost in there though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiLyghtSansSparkles Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Wow, that is actually super helpful, thanks! I can see how it would be very easy to get lost in there though... Sooooo easy….. I've read hundreds of trope pages, plus the works listed there, and I still haven't made it through the entire site—and that's not even counting DarthWiki and SugarWiki and the YMMV page…. To save time, I avoid trope pages for media I don't frequent, like the video game tropes. But Great Noodly One, if you're interested in history at all, do not—I repeat—do not visit the Forgotten Tropes page unless you have a lot of time on your hands, because you won't be leaving anytime soon. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknowingly Posted May 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 do not visit the Forgotten Tropes page unless you have a lot of time on your hands, because you won't be leaving anytime soon. thanks for the Advice, Because i really do not have the time to nurture a new obsession Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kipper Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 I haven't noticed any particular recurring tropes, per se, but throughout all of his books, he overuses the word “yet." It just grates on me a lil' bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiLyghtSansSparkles Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 I haven't noticed any particular recurring tropes, per se, but throughout all of his books, he overuses the word “yet." It just grates on me a lil' bit. Small words like that don't really bother me. I'm of the opinion that connector words—words like "yet" and "so"—are kind of like the word "said:" they're invisible words that do their job without calling much attention to themselves. Words like "chagrin," on the other hand, call attention to themselves and can easily be overused. /opinion 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citadel16 Posted November 18, 2015 Report Share Posted November 18, 2015 in almost every single book, an attempt is made to overthrow the government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus52980 Posted November 18, 2015 Report Share Posted November 18, 2015 Maybe Brandon is really an anarchist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Left Posted November 18, 2015 Report Share Posted November 18, 2015 Brandon loves to turn the arranged marriage stereotype on its head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted November 19, 2015 Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 Maybe Brandon is really an anarchist? Though it's the villains doing the overthrowing a lot as well as the protagonists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted November 19, 2015 Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 The main recurring trope I've noticed is that Brandon does this thing where he has a magic system or a character and just makes them really well developed. Anyone else notice that? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted November 19, 2015 Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 He also tends to pretty much throw every established fact about a system out the window partway through. The initial knowledge about the fundamentals of things is often wrong, if known at all. Number of metals, shape of the functional aons (to be fair it was a little known connection), breath transfer mechanics . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaellok Posted November 19, 2015 Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 Maybe Brandon is really an anarchist? Quite the opposite, I think. As I understand it, anarchists would prefer there to be no government. Sanderson usually has some alternative government that's trying to supplant the other one (for good or ill). Rather, Sanderson seems to be an advocate for government that is responsive to the will and desire of the people. A government that is incapable of change and protecting the people rather than feeding off of them are the ones that tend to fall. Also, I'm trying to avoid any details, because otherwise every other sentence would be spoilered. So while there are exceptions to what I just said that may seem glaring on the surface, dig a little deeper and I would disagree with you whole-heartedly, and leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curiosity Posted November 19, 2015 Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 He also tends to pretty much throw every established fact about a system out the window partway through. The initial knowledge about the fundamentals of things is often wrong, if known at all. Number of metals, shape of the functional aons (to be fair it was a little known connection), breath transfer mechanics . . . This is the "magic is science is magic" thing. The magic can be understood, but this necessitates reevaluating what we think of the magic every so often. We more often see scholars of a magic than we see people extremely and mysteriously proficient at it, knowing all the mysteries of the universe. Everybody's limited, even Shards. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hula Posted November 20, 2015 Report Share Posted November 20, 2015 I think some of the things that I pay attention to whenever reading a new BS book, is how the cultures beliefs shape the curse words used by those that believe what they do. Oftentimes I've wondered what sort of expletives and sayings we in our world would use if the curses we used were based on our worlds major religions using Brandonized style of cursing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxal Posted November 20, 2015 Report Share Posted November 20, 2015 I think some of the things that I pay attention to whenever reading a new BS book, is how the cultures beliefs shape the curse words used by those that believe what they do. Oftentimes I've wondered what sort of expletives and sayings we in our world would use if the curses we used were based on our worlds major religions using Brandonized style of cursing. I can say that, in Quebec, all of our major curse words are 100% derived from religion. Brandon did not invent anything... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted November 21, 2015 Report Share Posted November 21, 2015 (edited) I'm pretty sure the very act of cursing something would require some sort of higher power to actually make the curse work, so yes that's normal. If you refer to it as swearing then it's even more normal to have something religious to swear by. Between "damnation" and exclamations in the name of Christ it's extremely normal. Everyone has been using the term "curse" incorrectly, for Pete's sake . . . Edited November 21, 2015 by natc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThirdGen Posted November 21, 2015 Report Share Posted November 21, 2015 Yeah, it's more that we're historically past the era where curses were primarily religious. "Gadzooks," anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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