What makes the Cosmere different from other series? [Discusss]

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Many people would say that the Cosmere is different from other works of fiction by having very hard magic systems. Yet, this is true to a lot of LitRPG and the Cosmere feels quite different. Though if I think about it more,  I see another characteristic that applies at least to the early Cosmere:

There are almost no magical objects. The Cosmere has no enchanted swords or chalices of immortality. Where it has those tropes it very much tries to subvert them. Shardblades are technically not objects. Nightblood is borderline. Even Honorblades are debatable.

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Many people would say that the Cosmere is different from other works of fiction by having very hard magic systems.

I feel like this might have been a thing when Sanderson first got published. Hard magic systems were rare (but not unheard-of) 20 years ago. So, I'm not sure who is "saying" Cosmere is different now-a-days, or why they would say such. Also, shared universe also may be rare, but is not unique. Cosmere itself was inspired by Asimov's Galactic Empire which started as two (and-a-half*) disconnected series (and a tonne of short stories - metric "ne" required because there are soooo many), that asimov connected in the 90s with Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, and Robots and Empire.

However, there are plenty of "Hard Magic" Fantasy and SciFan books and series now (Butcher, Weeks, etc.).

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

There are almost no magical objects

Well, depends on how you classify and identify the term - Cosmere has Fabrials (Gemstone Fabrials, True-Spren Fabrials, Medallions, AonDor Fabrials, etc.) filling this niche. The main difference I can think of is that the mechanics are better understood - unlike something like Ceur’caelestos (Night Angel Trilogy) where how it came to have the powers it displays is more mysterious (even in a "hard" or "semi-hard" magic system).

*Note:

Spoiler

I say "and-a-half" because the Robot and Foundation series are "true" series, but the Empire "series" is three (or four) disconnected stories that each take place at a different time in the history of the Galactic Empire - The Stars, like Dust; Currents of Space; Pebble in the Sky (and some people include Nemesis).

 

[Duxredux he/him]

Excessively pedantic paragraph warning. Asking why the Cosmere is different from other series settings can boil down to asking why Brandon is one of the top fantasy authors with book sales beating out other authors. It's hard to isolate or quantify. We can help you try to come up with different reasons, but if you want a shot at a statistically significant answer we would need a survey with a sample set taken that isn't just 17th Shard. From a statistics standpoint, you won't arrive at a conclusive answer by asking the question on 17th Shard because we are a self-selected subset of the population of readers and will introduce significant bias into the sample. Beyond that I can tell what I've heard, my guesses at the underpinnings along with my own opinions, but I'm a single data point.

Moving on from statistics, I'll list of a variety of reasons that may have an impact on why people like the Cosmere as much as they do:

• The absolute biggest factor that I can think of is how the Cosmere is a hugely collaborative work engineered and piloted by Brandon that would be impossible for a single person to create. There's a degree of authenticity that Brandon can capture that someone without his resources or name-recognition would have a much harder time acquiring. Not every author can commission the artworks and maps that Brandon does. Most authors can't pay someone to painstakingly sift through enormous manuscripts to add in something like every instance of spren popping up in the Stormlight Archive. Not every author has B-Money forking out commissions for incredibly rigorous worldbuilding stress testing with expert opinions on everything from field surgery, psychology, warfare, linguistics, astronomy, physics, aerospace fighter craft, and probably more. For example, listening to Skar tell war stories on Intentionally Blank increases the credibility of Brandon's combat scenes. Brandon went and had Mark Rober discuss and demonstrate the Aether seas on YouTube for crying out loud. Again, the Cosmere is a hugely collaborative effort, it stopped being just a guy with a computer working graveyard as a hotel desk clerk long ago.
  • Warning of confirmation bias, but how many magic systems does anyone know of where people have spent pages and pages trying to come up a with a quantum physics model of the magic system? We trust Brandon and his experts enough to think that this is even possible, where I wouldn't even bother with most series.
• Taken from the Elantris 10th Anniversary edition forward by Dan Wells, we love the Cosmere because Brandon uses grandly imaginative worlds as the stage for the lives of his characters who provide the emotional core to his books. We care about Stormlight because we care about Kaladin overcoming his depression while fighting for Bridge Four. We care about Mistborn because we care about Vin trying to find love and learning to trust in a dangerous empire. Dan's point is that without the characters providing the emotional core, the books wouldn't have been anywhere close to as successful. So... one answer is that it's not exactly the Cosmere, it's the people of the Cosmere.
• I read a lot less non-Sanderson fantasy in the last 10-15 years, but one thing that I've found fascinating is how thoroughly the magic system shapes and defines the world. It's not Earth or Middle-Earth with a new magic and name slapped on, it's Scadrial, Roshar, and Threnody. I loved Alloy of Law because I got to see what happens when you have the magic from a more Victorian era applied to a developing Western frontier with the promise that the magic would enable space age FTL. I know other people have done it, but watching the magic infuse the development of an entire culture is really cool. I assume this is possible for Brandon because he gets experts to collaborate so he can spend his time writing new books, not extensively researching and mapping it out over the course of 30 years like Tolkien.
• Another option is that the Cosmere has had Hoid from the beginning trying to hack the magic systems together. Not sure how many magic systems have had someone trying to collect and break them from the very first book. Brandon has always been promising at least implicitly from the very beginning that we will see these various magics come together. This foresight is something that not every author has, or has made known. Brandon is willing to keep secrets about the worlds and how the magic works for decades if it means he gets a really cool payoff, and that's significant.

There's my answer. It's that the Cosmere has insane resources and name recognition that allows for collaboration that most authors can only dream of having and Brandon is an imaginative author that keeps his secrets.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Duxredux

[Little_Dagger she/her]

Everyone above had made excellent points, but I think what stands out about Cosmere for me is that "there is always another secret."

Every re-read you can find a detail you haven't spotted before, every new book casts different light on already known facts, every new hint gives fuel to a new theory. I love that about Cosmere and about the Shard.

It's both emotional and an intellectual adventure.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Ookla the Stormy

[Forts Board]

On 12/27/2023 at 8:20 AM, Oltux72 said:

The Cosmere has no enchanted swords

????

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I started reading Sanderson with Mistborn. The hard magic system is what grabbed my attention. I really expected more from him like that. I was always so stoked to learn more about the systems than read the books anyway.  

That said I think stormlight was a let down as far as wanting a hard system.  I know it may meet the definition of hard magic but stormlight just does too much and I think the danger of being sad is a sad limitation to a system.  

For someone who loves laws and hard magic my favorite system is possibly the softest. Awakening. It is so good and fun. 

Comparing it to other series?  I just really love the metallic arts and awakening. I have tried other series but there is something about the cosmere that keeps me coming back. And with time being a precious resource in life now it is the only non required reading I do now. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

4 hours ago, Forts Board said:

????

You cannot go into your smithy and forge a shard blade. Even fabrials contain a spren at their core.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

You cannot go into your smithy and forge a shard blade. Even fabrials contain a spren at their core.

Technically speaking, that's what they did with Nightblood - they forged the sword and then "enchanted" him 

I disagree that there are no "magical objects" in Cosmere. Cosmere is full of them. By in-world view there is no magic in Cosmere as everything is just physics, but from our point of view everything investiture-related is magic. Every fabrial, Awakened object, medallion or Shardblade is a magical object by this definition. There are no magical objects that have undescribed power or swords that glow blue when Parshendi are closeby - Brandon doesn't deal with vague magics. Cosmere doesn't have traditional magical objects, that's true, but that's because Cosmere isn't a traditional fantasy world. Cosmere is a world where magic is just science. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Technically speaking, that's what they did with Nightblood - they forged the sword and then "enchanted" him 

With a part of their intrinsic Investiture. Their soul if you will. The key resource is still people.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I disagree that there are no "magical objects" in Cosmere. Cosmere is full of them. By in-world view there is no magic in Cosmere as everything is just physics, but from our point of view everything investiture-related is magic. Every fabrial, Awakened object, medallion or Shardblade is a magical object by this definition.

A fabrial is a trapped magic life form. A awakened object is made from parts of people. Shardblades are spren.

Medallions are magic objects, that is true. The Cosmere is developing into that direction.

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

With a part of their intrinsic Investiture. Their soul if you will. The key resource is still people.

A fabrial is a trapped magic life form. A awakened object is made from parts of people. Shardblades are spren.

Medallions are magic objects, that is true. The Cosmere is developing into that direction.

Is the One Ring a magical object to you? Because it's made out of Sauron's soul too. For me it doesn't matter that they are made out of "souls" because that's a magical thing existing in this universe which doesn't exist in ours. How they were made depends only on the way magic works in that world, it's still magic even if it involves using souls as a resource. All of those things are magical to me.

[Duxredux he/him]

I'll chime in here and note that magic and fiction is somewhat subjective as by definition, most would say there isn't a real world counterpart (though I've known people who would swear by what others would consider superstitions). There may not be an objective answer, particularly if there is any sort of issue with language and cultural disconnect. Don't forget we're an international community.  

It feels like poor form to criticize another author on a fandom forum, but I'm mostly quoting from what Brandon and Dan have said on Intentionally Blank as an example. I'll try to find the episode as they said it better and were better researched than me. A while back J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series commented that she didn't read fantasy and didn't really consider that she had been writing fantasy. Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series wrote a rather pointed essay in response noting that by disparaging the genre it was doing considerable harm to authors within the fantasy genre. There have since been follow up articles where Rowling seems to clarify that she hadn't intended to write a fantasy book, she only realized that it had become one later on. Take it as you will, feel free to research the debate yourself. My point is that the debate as to what is and is not fantasy or magical can inadvertently marginalize, though no here has the same social weight as Rowling, Pratchett, or Sanderson.

Again, talking to the debaters of semantics, your opinion is your own, and how it felt to read the books is your own experience. If you want anything close to a statistically significant answer as to how people in general perceive magical objects as they relate to the Cosmere, you won't get it through debate, you'll get it through polling and statistics. While I side with alder24 here and I think there are plenty of magical objects in the Cosmere starting from the very beginning with Elantris the city, Aon Tia plates, Metalminds, and Soul Stamps, we could be the vocal minority thinking we're the majority.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Duxredux