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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3319 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.

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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