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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2850 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.

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.

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