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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2786 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So what are you reading?

Working on my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom and staring the Stormlight Archive.

I’m also working through the first book in Stormlight Archive! I’m alternating between that, Hegel And The Hermetic Tradition, and a book about the basics of Freemasonry.

Interested to hear your thoughts on Stormlight. I don't think I'm going to like it, but I promised my friend group I would read at least the first book.

So far I think it’s… okay. I still don’t feel like I have a strong grasp of the setting, and I especially don’t really understand how the “spren” are supposed to work. Seems like they would make it extremely difficult for anybody to ever conceal their emotions, and so far I haven’t seen any suggestion of how social relations in the setting are different from those in our world as a result. The action scenes thus far have been sufficiently exciting, and I’m intrigued enough by certain plot threads to make it worth continuing with the book.

The spren are shinto spirits, or sentient ideas and thoughts. They're part faerie, part ghost, part imagination made manifest.

Right, I understand that much, I just don’t understand what their existence is supposed to imply about social relations on this continent. Are people able to suppress the appearance of spren related to an emotion they’re currently feeling but would like to conceal? Can actors cause spren to appear which outwardly indicate the appearance of a particular emotion, even when the actor is not authentically experiencing that emotion internally? Maybe some of these things get explored later in the series, but for right now they just seem like a weird decoration or curiosity.

Are people able to suppress the appearance of spren related to an emotion they’re currently feeling but would like to conceal?

To some extent. This does get explored in the series (for example, a character going undercover who has to try to not draw fearspren). It seems to be that the main thing is how strongly you feel the emotion, so not drawing spren is a matter of trying to keep your emotions calm. I would say the books don't get as deep as you might like, but they do give some consideration to how the existence of emotionspren affect the world.

The emotion related spren (as opposed to wind etc.) are mostly gloryspren, creationspren, fearspren etc. and I think they are generally attracted to emotion when it's expressed strongly enough that it's hard to hide. In practice the questions you raise don't seem to come up. There are spren related to lying and things you might want to hide but a) they're not around much for reasons and b) they're good at hiding! The nature of spren is explored more later but not really their effects on society - they're bottom feeders reacting to currents, not integrated into those currents per se.

Can actors cause spren to appear which outwardly indicate the appearance of a particular emotion, even when the actor is not authentically experiencing that emotion internally?

No, I don't think so.

Mild spoilers (I believe it is mentioned in the first or second book, and confirmed in 3): There are locations where the spren won’t show up, even if people are feeling the emotions.

For help with the setting, Sanderson was inspired by rock pools at a beach he visited, which is why almost everywhere is rocky or sandy, most creatures have crustacean features, and 'grass' and other plants act weird.

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