This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The reliability thing is actually pretty great/important. I'm hesitant to read too far into the readership of places like Ao3 or Royal Road or what have you, but I actually think web serials are something that will only grow more popular in the future. A nice drip drip of book which suits the avid readers (who just assemble large numbers to follow at once, or dig up finished ones) just as well as the causal ones (for whom more than a chapter or two at a time might be a heavy lift, and are used to things releasing on a cadence). So for Sanderson, producing eminently readable books at a steady pace is a genuine superpower, and readers like it. Waits between books are always rough, but for Sanderson fans you can just go to his website and see nice circles that slowly but surely tick upwards with progress towards the next two books.
Or you can be a GRRM fan and be waiting a decade for a book that he basically has written three times over but then threw in the trash can only to start over again. It's a bit insulting. (At least Rothfuss just out and said he got depressed and hasn't even really bothered to even give fans false hope)
Put another way, beyond a minimum level of talent, if you can churn out books reliably you can make a good living and grow popular as quantity as a quality of its own.
All of this discussion, though, misses one big part of the appeal of Sanderson. Well, maybe two. The maybe is the worldbuilding. For some people an interesting world can forgive a large number of writing errors (and not all of his books suffer as terribly from length issues! The Mistborn sequel quartet of books are actually about half the length of the average original trilogy book on an individual basis). The bigger one is twistiness. Let's give Sanderson some credit, here: the Mistborn trilogy, for example, has some excellent little twists at the end of each book that are quite fun, especially if you don't know they are coming.
Japan has already figured out a clear [webnovel > light novel > manga > anime & beyond] pipeline and China & Korea look to be following that route. It seems like the self published web novel stuff is increasingly dominating the media landscape over there and I expect it could be similar in the West if entertainment companies can figure out a similar route to mass consumption.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link