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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1782 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 19, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Today I got schooled about Brandon Sanderson on Discord. I made confident claims about Brandon Sanderson's writing: I said that his stories always have the same characters that go through the same arc that can be summarized as "angsty teen gets superpowers". However, this attracted the ire of the Chadliest Brandon Sanderson fan on this Earth, who wrote the following:

Except that's literally not most of his stories.

Of all his Cosmere books that in fact only describes the original mistborn series. It also describes Skyward but that's not Cosmere Doesn't apply to Stormlight, Mistborn 2, Elantris, Warbreaker, Tress, Sunlit Man, Emberdark, White Sand,.Yumi, or Emperor's Soul

So if you take something that's true of only 1 story out of over a dozen you're not going to convince people you know something about how he writes generally

If you want to say you don't like his prose, I get that, he writes in a very accessible and simple way that some people find boring. If you want to say you don't like his magic systems because they're formulaic and take away the mystery, I get that, it's a matter of taste. If you want to say you don't like that he doesn't write more graphic sex or violence and so you feel like it's juvenile, I get that, again, it's preference (though I might judge you for a lack of imagination). I've heard all those criticisms and they're valid

But when you say something that is just objectively incorrect, it only reveals you don't actually know what you're claiming, and you're basing it off incorrect shit you've heard off reddit or whatever

The thought upon reading this was "oh fuck, I just got owned". It's been a while since I've been owned this hard, and it was over Brandon Sanderson, of all things. So, for your own health, please be careful before you shit talk Brandon Sanderson. Always be sure that the person you're talking to isn't actually an Undertaker that can put you through 4 different tables at Summer Slam.

I like Sanderson novels, but it does seem a pretty pedantic own, since so much of his work is about angsty young adults getting superpowers Kaladin, Shallan, some characters in Elantris

I've been enjoying the new semi-series of Hoid novellas (Tress, Yumi, and The Fires of December has a nice preview chapter), though it's a bit odd how they've been bundled with other gift items on Kickstarter instead of having normal releases. I guess they make good gifts for the teens in one's life that way? They do also sell them normally, I think, but it's a bit convoluted.

Gods, Brandon Sanderson fans.

"Angsty teen gets superpowers" may not be literally all his characters, but it's present in almost all his books (and if it's not "teen" it's "young adult").

A more accurate description of every one of his books would be "Hero who refuses to bend his/her principles figures out exploits in the magic system to p0wn opponents."

I've read about a dozen Sanderson novels, and at this point I'm pretty much done with him. He usually starts a series with a great premise and interesting characters, and by book two or three I am sick of hitting Every Single Sanderson Trope by the numbers.

I've read about a dozen Sanderson novels, and at this point I'm pretty much done with him.

That's some stamina right there. I got through four and a quarter. Real props to the guy, he sure does churn out the words, and he seems like a nice enough bloke that I don't begrudge him the truly obscene wealth that he's milked catching a ride to fame on Jordan's coattails. But that fanbase, ye gods. And not to drag culture war into the Friday Fun thread, but his fictional takes on "diverse" characters are so anti-challenging it's depressing. Sci-fi and fantasy used to raise interesting and challenging questions about stuff like race and sex and gender. The gods of the Cosmere seem to be blue-haired HR ladies, everything is so bland and inoffensive. (And Sanderson's own public "evolution" on gay marriage seems pretty embarrassing, guy had a chance to yeschad.jpg and opted instead to fold and pander.)

He got beat up pretty hard by fans for being a Mormon. He did the grovel and "I'm learning" ritual and promised to put some gay characters in his books, which he did, but he handles them about as well as he handles romance. He just can't take the Mormon out of the Cosmere.

Yeah I consider myself a Sanderson fan and by far my biggest complaint about the guy is that he seems to let Tumblr/Reddit (same thing these days) dictate his writing a ton. It's really grating.

You didn't get "owned"; you're in the right, to an extent. By the end of the second book in Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive series the characters do fall into an Avengers-type alliance, each with their own superpower. It's lame and appeals to the lowest common denominator of reader, e.g., Redditors. Now, the kid on Discord is right that not all of Sanderson's stories fall into that trope.

I don't really know why I don't like Brandon Sanderson stories anymore. If I had a checklist of boxes that needed to be filled in for me to enjoy a story, most of his stories would check all the boxes. I did enjoy quite a few of his books, I'd estimate I've read about 10 of them. Mistborn series, some of Alloy of Law, steelheart, way of kings, elantris, etc.

There is something that feels samey about the plot and arcs of all the books. And I often find my mind wandering to other topics while I read his books now. Its possible I just read too much of him.

There is something that feels samey about the plot and arcs of all the books.

He's the McDonald's of fantasy. Billions served, and you'll get the same assembly-line experience every time. And if you find it's not to your liking, that is simply an indication that your palate has matured. There's a place for McDonald's, and there's a place for Brandon Sanderson. But it has been many years since I particularly enjoyed either.

There are two ways to evolve the pallet. One is to go to nicer restaurants and eventually wind up in high cuisine where food is optimized for human consumption. The other is to go dumpster diving for unique tastes.

You can definitely find pallets near dumpsters, but I don't know that there's much evolutionary headroom for them.

That is part of the dumpster diving experience in literature, homophone words used consistently incorrectly.

The other is to go dumpster diving for unique tastes.

My flair isn't from fanfiction for nothing!

I cannot tell you how many puzzled looks I have gotten from other academics when bringing up stuff like Friendship is Optimal in the middle of conferences on AI. I think a large percentage of them just don't realize that science fiction writers have been constructing thought experiments about this stuff for decades. At most, they might reference some plausibly high-brow (by virtue of being politically en vogue) author like Margaret Atwood. It's understandable; the point of most PhD programs is to get incredibly knowledgeable about something so incredibly specific that the idea of being "well rounded" tends to go out the window completely--there are only so many hours in a day!

But sometimes it pays to be a bit eclectic, too.

Around the time Charlie Kirk was assassinated, there was a post here about actually consuming media before you make judgments about it, lest you be led astray by the memeplex (IIRC, it was a criticism of Joe Rogan that betrayed someone's ignorance, and they admitted they had never listened to a single episode).

The same thing's happening here. "Sanderson writes simple, consumable stories" combined with "'angsty teen gets superpowers' is a common consumable story" to lead you astray. You could make the argument for Mistborn (mostly the first book), Stormlight (only the first book, really), and Elantris. Warbreaker fits worse and could be excluded as an outlier without invalidating the argument. Looking at the rest? It just doesn't work.

Actually, I was set up in about the perfect way to give this opinion, if what you say is correct. I read the Mistborn trilogy, Skyward, and listened to a substantial part of the first book of The Stormlight Archive to the point where I could give some major plot spoilers about it. Also some short story about shadows or something plus an innkeeper who kills people.

That's kind of hilarious.

psychoanalysis glasses on Why does your book selection process send "angsty teen gets superpowers" Sanderson stories to the top of your to-read list?

Why does your book selection process send "angsty teen gets superpowers" Sanderson stories to the top of your to-read list?

>post about getting owned on discord on themotte

>get owned on themotte

Well, Mistborn was a recommendation from my mother, Skyward was a book she had that I was reading while bored at an event, and Stormlight Archive was an audio book that I pirated for her and then absorbed through osmosis as she listened to it. So it's all her fault, psychoanalyze her! I wonder how many moms have read all the Wheel of Time books.

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