Dread in Brandon's books, or lack thereof

[Honorless]

I was just doing a casual reread of OB and looking over Shallan's sketches of Urithiru while it was occupied by Re-Shephir

and realized this sequence might've been intended to evoke a sense of dread in the reader.

A lot of the Unmade would've been pretty terrifying: Re-Shephir, Moelach, Ashertmarn... but they don't really invoke any emotion in me aside from curiosity.

Is Brandon just bad at invoking a sense of looming dread, that mash of horror and mystery?

Because I feel like when there's a more human aspect to the dread, he does it well: the fountain executions in Mistborn.

What do y'all think?

[Chinkoln]

I think you didn’t feel dread… because you aren’t there. Authors can do amazing things with words, but words can never substitute for actual experiences.

[Chaos]

I would disagree; I felt Re-Shephir was quite haunting, and that sequence had a lot of dread for me. I also feel like he did a good job with this in Skyward for the most part. 

And Threnody? I still so distinctly remember the dread I felt in that setting when Brandon wrote that there were no predators in the Forests of Hell, because the shades killed them all. The atmosphere and dread there were fantastically done for me. 

Of course, totally fine if you didn't feel the same way! I think Brandon could do really well writing a horror story, though.

[Honorless]

On 6/24/2021 at 0:46 AM, Chinkoln said:

I think you didn’t feel dread… because you aren’t there. Authors can do amazing things with words, but words can never substitute for actual experiences.

I feel like you're really devaluing the horror writing genre here. If the writing is just recounting the experience instead of trying to create an atmospheric feeling of dread & danger, isn't that a report rather than a novel?

On 6/24/2021 at 5:38 AM, Chaos said:

I would disagree; I felt Re-Shephir was quite haunting, and that sequence had a lot of dread for me. I also feel like he did a good job with this in Skyward for the most part. 

And Threnody? I still so distinctly remember the dread I felt in that setting when Brandon wrote that there were no predators in the Forests of Hell, because the shades killed them all. The atmosphere and dread there were fantastically done for me. 

Of course, totally fine if you didn't feel the same way! I think Brandon could do really well writing a horror story, though.

I feel like he doesn't really want to. I mean, look at the two books where atmospheric dread and mystery would've taken central stage if they were written by any other author: Elantris and Dawnshard. He paid a courtesy nod to the idea via the settings of the books but then delved with glee into demystifying the locations, in fact it's not just tonal but also thematic in these works. I mean, the idea of demystification fits with these novels really well and is central to them but I can't help but feel that lost potential.

Shadows for Silence In The Forests of Hell did have a nice undertone of dread, though there wasn't really much focus on it, it focused more on the human elements, the characters and their actions' rising stakes rather than the environmental dread, but yeah, definitely better than the Re-Shephir sequence. Basically it had more narrative tension from the horror settings rather than feeling like a horror story.

Skyward's actual Lovecraftian monsters are pretty solid though, hope there's more of that!

Edited October 24, 2021 by Honorless
edited for clarity

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, Honorless said:

I feel like he doesn't really want to. I mean, look at the two books where atmospheric dread and mystery would've taken central stage if they were written by any other author: Elantris and Dawnshard. He paid a courtesy nod to the idea via the settings of the books but then delved with glee into demystifying the locations, in fact it's not just tonal but also thematic in these works. I mean, the idea of demystification fits with these novels really well and is central to them but I can't help but feel that lost potential.

I doubt the people of Threnody felt dread. The Shades were normal to them. Some people let them drift through their houses. I guess they treat them the way Northern Australians treat crocodiles. There are certain necessary precautions.

 

[Halyo_Alex]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I guess they treat them the way Northern Australians treat crocodiles. There are certain necessary precautions.

I want to see the equivalent of Florida on Threnody, then.

[Bejarden]

9 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I want to see the equivalent of Florida on Threnody, then.

Hot, humid, and disgusting?

I’ve always envisioned Threnody as a cooler place with lots of shade

 

 

[Halyo_Alex]

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

Hot, humid, and disgusting?

I’ve always envisioned Threnody as a cooler place

I meant in terms of treating crocodiles like a normal feature of everyday life

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

with lots of shade

*badumtshh?*

[Bejarden]

Just now, Halyo_Alex said:

I meant in terms of treating crocodiles like a normal feature of everyday life

Unless your in the Everglades Crocs are not common, and I’ve never seen someone be like “oh it’s just a vicious beast that can kill you, we see this every day” usually if you see dangerous beasts it’s go the opposite direction and call animal control

Ive been in Florida for extended periods of times and I’ve never seen a wild gator, I know people who have but it’s not common

Thats just my rant on Florida

5 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

badumtshh

Yep

[Halyo_Alex]

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

Unless your in the Everglades Crocs are not common, and I’ve never seen someone be like “oh it’s just a vicious beast that can kill you, we see this every day” usually if you see dangerous beasts it’s go the opposite direction and call animal control

Ive been in Florida for extended periods of times and I’ve never seen a wild gator, I know people who have but it’s not common

Thats just my rant on Florida

To be fair, I've never been in florida, so I mostly know about the gator memes.

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

Yep

Nice.

[Frustration]

I think the reason that it's hard to feel dread from Brandon is two-fold

1. He likes to explain things, stuff you don't understand is automatically scarrier
2. Plot armor, characters never feel in danger, because they aren't.

[Halyo_Alex]

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

Plot armor, characters never feel in danger, because they aren't.

Hmm.

I wouldn't say "never".

[Use the Falchion]

It was creepy and weird, and a little scary, but I didn't dread much. To me, dread usually comes from one of two places. The first is not truly understanding something and knowing you never will, but it's potential/power to hurt you is incredibly vast - think most Eldritch monsters. 

 

The second place is knowing or understanding something to a degree that scares you because either 1) you yourself are capable of that same thing (aka the "the monster I could become") OR 2) you know exactly what they are capable of, which means you need to take them seriously. To me, the best example is Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. When Thanos is on-screen, viewers feel dread for every heroic character he passes, because we know this can't end well. We fear his words because Thanos doesn't lie. I felt more dread when Odium picked Dalinar to be his Champion at the end of OB than I did with the Unmade, because I understood the implications of this action. 

 

There is a third type of dread, which is more applicable to video games. That's the dread of what happens when the Unwinnable Boss appears. One of the best examples to me is in the game Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. There is an enemy called the Black Knight, who is utterly unbeatable until the final chapter. Early in the game, there's a level that players think is completely normal, and then the Black Knight comes out of nowhere. Now you have to meet the mission objective while also running away from this unbeatable foe who WILL kill any of your party within range. It's terrifying. The titular monster from Alien is also uses a mix of this and the first type of dread - you can't beat it, you can't run from it, and you can't understand it. But it hunts you all the same. (Contrast this with the titular monster in Predator, where it doesn't feel as filled with dread. Suspense, yes, but not dread.)

 

The Unmade don't really fit any of these categories. They feel like they're trying to be Eldritch monsters, but if we try hard enough, we can understand them. And one of the smaller themes in Oathbringer - as shown through the Unmade (and later explored to a degree in Starsight) - is that once something feared is understood, it is no longer to be feared. So it goes from a potential Type 1 (Eldritch) to a Type 2 (Understandable); but Sanderon's message is that turning things into Type 2s is how to defeat them...which means they aren't a Type 3. 

[Voidus]

I think the crux of it lies (In part at least) with the genre, Brandon writes Epic Fantasy not horror. So while individual scenes may evoke dread that emotion is short lived because ultimately good triumphs over evil, heroes are successful even if they have to sacrifice something along the way but the sacrifice is still worth it in the end because defeat is unthinkable.

So yes I felt some amount of dread in certain depictions of the Unmade but that really only lasts until you actually see one, talk to one. Then they become a character in an Epic fantasy and they're bound by the usual tropes and restrictions of that genre.

[Quick Ben]

On 6/28/2021 at 3:29 AM, Voidus said:

Brandon writes Epic Fantasy

No he doesn't, he writes high fantasy. 

On 6/28/2021 at 3:29 AM, Voidus said:

. Then they become a character in an Epic fantasy and they're bound by the usual tropes and restrictions of that genre.

Many authors nowadays don't follow the troupes and restrictions, so this really isn't a valid argument.

@Honorless

There isn't a feeling of dread because BS can't write it, 

[Frustration]

49 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

No he doesn't, he writes high fantasy. 

there is minimal difference, and neither term is mutually exclusive.

51 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

Many authors nowadays don't follow the troupes and restrictions, so this really isn't a valid argument.

But Brandon does, he might put a twist on it, but he does follow tropes.

52 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

 

@Honorless

There isn't a feeling of dread because BS can't write it, 

Are you saying he is incapable of writing with a tone of dread?

Or that his overall tone prevents it.

Or that he isn't allowed to?

[+Oltux72]

On 27.6.2021 at 8:40 AM, Frustration said:

I think the reason that it's hard to feel dread from Brandon is two-fold

1. He likes to explain things, stuff you don't understand is automatically scarrier

I must deny that. What can be scarier than knowing that your world is ending and a higher power you cannot change is causing it?

[Frustration]

Just now, Oltux72 said:

I must deny that. What can be scarier than knowing that your world is ending and a higher power you cannot change is causing it?

Simply put, Brandon can't pull that off, the world won't end, the hero's will save the day, yada yada so on so forth.

"World is in danger" stories never feel tense because the author doesn't have the guts to go through with it.

 

Now on the other hand, let's set the scene where our hero's are looking at something, they can't tell what it is., but something, and it is dangerous.

That's scary, there's a reason horror movies don't show the monster until the end, or at all, it's scarier that way. People could die, the stakes are real, and you don't know what you're up against

something you can't understand is far worse than something you do.

[Voidus]

10 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

No he doesn't, he writes high fantasy. 

Many authors nowadays don't follow the troupes and restrictions, so this really isn't a valid argument.

@Honorless

There isn't a feeling of dread because BS can't write it, 

Well he writes both, and the two as mentioned are not mutually exclusive. He also writes YA, Sci-fi and a number of other genres that I won't mention because they're somewhat superfluous to the point. My point is that horror is not the genre he's writing.

Some authors deliberately subvert tropes, which is just following them in a different way. I don't know of anyone who completely ignores tropes, to a degree they're almost impossible to write around. Brandon in particular does write to a number of typical fantasy tropes, most notably that the heroes will win, good triumphs over evil which is going to naturally subvert any sense of dread before it can truly settle because whatever the stakes are you still know the outcome to a degree.

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I must deny that. What can be scarier than knowing that your world is ending and a higher power you cannot change is causing it?

Knowing that your world is ending is definitely scary for a character but not necessarily so for a reader. Horror only truly arises when the user feels a personal stake in what is threatened, you have to want the world to survive and believe that it might not. Brandon is very good at the former, giving multiple viewpoints to flesh out a world as a real place with characters that we like, empathise with and want to survive. But the latter is more difficult because most readers are aware of the general structure of a fantasy novel and the heroes journey. It is usually far more effective to incite horror on a smaller scale, this character might die is a threat that readers may actually feel. Brandon has killed main characters before and will do so again, so those stakes feel more real than 'The entire world will end' because as a reader you are much less likely to believe that the world will actually end.