"Pure" Stormlight Archive vs Cosmere

[Dru]

One have to understand (in my opinnion) that easter eggs are a way for the author to reward the fans that have read a lot of said author and alternative give snippets for a larger story. This is also a very delicate line to walk, when is it to much or to little or to significant? And these question are up to each reader to decide what they think, ultimately the author writes what the author wants and we as readers can only have an opinion and there is no right or wrong here.  

 

When it comes to WoR (and tWoK) I am also having a feeling that Brandon have put to much easter eggs or cosmere related things in the book(s).

 

Way of Kings was fine on its own but staring to add in WoR its getting to much.

 

Here is some things that I find to be to much when looking at the complete picture, each point on its own is fine but al of them together is just to much.

 

-World Hoppers (first the therm) is never in the books but totally cosmere related. 

Wit/Hoid is fine as a character and his quirks and antiques is nice easter eggs, mostly when he talks. I did not like the swallowing metals since that is based on a different "magic system" not in the books.

-17th shard characters, these are fine on there own .... but again add all world hopper together and its to much

-Zahel/Vasher, funny character with strange metaphors which is fun but this is actually the world hopper I'm most disappointed in, instead of using this character for some KR foreshadowing or something stormlight related he is cosmere related which makes me as a Stormlight Archive reader loose out on prospective story.

-Ghostbloods (Marize ?, Ilyat..? how ever they where spelled) suspected of being world hoppers ......

-The ardent drawing bridge four glyphs, this character have no relevance to the story

 

On top of this we have Hoids letter. Not part of the stormlight story. This is a nice addition in general

 

And finally we have Nightblood, I was actually doing a big NOOOO! when I read that part of the book ( I was firstly annoyed with dead characters not staying dead and then get Nightblood dropped on me).  Yes i also lowed Nighblood but in my opinion that sword have nothing to do in this series, would have been better if it was a lost honorblade instead or what ever......

 

Again I want to stress that hese points on there own is very much fine but when adding them al up they become to much. I find Wit/Hoid + his letter to be well enough to supply easter eggs for cosmere related things. The rest just put it over the top and almost makes me feel like i lose out on stormlight archive story (story in a sens of trying to connect al oddities to Roshar and the magic system in affect on this world just to relice they actually connect to something entirely different.)

Edited March 10, 2014 by Dru

[Guest Shash]

To me, Zahel/Vasher is an easter egg. Same with the perfect pitch reference. Szeth wielding Nightblood is very different as Szeth is going to be the main viewpoint of book 3 so it will be interesting to see how that is handled. Until then I am reserving judgement. Same with Hoid/Wit and the epigraphs. People not Cosmere aware are going to have tons of questions about this guy which hopefully will be somewhat answered in future books without having to read everything else.

As someone else who wasn't a huge fan of Elantris either it's very impressive how much BS has grown as a writer over the last 9 years. He has a WoK excerpt of a very early draft (from early 2000's I think) on his website and it's amazing how much better the writing and story is now.

Here's how I figure it will be handled. Szeth has been depicted as losing his sanity. The Cosmere Unaware will attribute Nightblood's voice in Szeth's head as a symptom of his insanity and attribute the destructive nature of Nightblood to magic that hasn't been fully explained yet; of which there is plenty. Eventually, Zahel/Vasher will become aware of the problem and either explain what's happening to someone (and thus explain to the reader) or he'll find a way to deal with Szeth himself. Edited March 10, 2014 by Shash

[TomR]

Speaking for myself, Nightblood took me a second, and Zahel I missed completely. At first I thought Nightblood was just a new type of Shardblade. Zahel's described as looking too young for his eyes, and he's an impious ardent who is reluctant to give instruction, so my first thought was Ishar with corrupted attributes. I did manage to figure out Nightblood on my own, but I didn't realize who Zahel was until I came to the forums. Given my first reaction, I don't think the cosmere-unaware will necessarily be confused.

 

Hoid I can maybe see the objection. He's a mysterious person who keeps on showing up to influence a good portion of the main cast, and he's doing so more obviously than in other Cosmere novels, so questions might come up regarding who he is. I have seen a post on another forum where someone was trying to figure out who Hoid is before someone else informed them that he's a recurring character. However, I think "Horneater trickster god" may suffice for those people if we get a couple more hints in the future, which may be what Brandon's planning by dropping in the Rock references earlier.

Edited March 10, 2014 by TomR

[mythcantor]

I can understand the difficulty of having all of the cosmere references in the works. I don't feel the same way, even if I don't understand all the references, because I come into the books knowing that they will be enormous (ten books, a thousand pages each, plus Sanderson's stated objective of linking them all together in his "Cosmere.") There will be things that I won't understand until they are directly explained.

 

Also, I read histories as a diversion and when a history of John Milton references an event from the 30-Years-War that doesn't directly relate to John Milton, I don't flip out just because I didn't sign on to read a history of the 30-Years-War.

[Guest Edonidd]

Of all the examples you gave, the only two that are Cosmere specific are Wit poisoning himself and Vasher. The rest are still unknown or else "pure" Stormlight.

• People predicted Darkness was Nin/Nalan when the Lift interlude was released months back. No Cosmere books helped us here; it was obvious from the way he liked to follow the law.
• Vasher was an easter egg obviously, and his origins don't matter to the story.
• Wit being the god of mischief/travel to the Horneaters is actually 100% pure Stormlight. The interlude in Way of Kings where the three men are looking for someone who has an "arrow shaped face, with white hair but often dyes it" is hooked up to The Letter talking about Wit avoiding the members of the 17th Shard (Stormlight is the first series to mention the name). This is figured out in book 2 when the response to the letter in TWoK talks about someone using a name after one of their virtues, like a skunk naming itself for its stink - which is obviously Wit. It all falls into place there.
• The 'broad' defacing artwork is again pure Stormlight and was speculated to be Shallash, a Herald, for the last forever. Again, pure Stormlight, no need to read his other books.
• Wit poisoning himself is a nod to Mistborn, so here's that easter egg. Him drinking metals was a very unimportant part of the scene anyways.
• Elhokar seeing shadows seems to reference the same things that Shallan sees, marking him as a possible Radiant (or else Voidbinder?). Pure Stormlight.
• Gavilar's dark gem is something we have no idea on. Cosmere knowledge doesn't help here. This is pure Stormlight.
• The Lopen absorbing Stormlight is again explained in the epigraph's about the Radiants having squires. Pure Stormlight.

Most of Stormlight has nothing to do with Brandon's other books, so I'm a little bit confused with your position. If you don't like books where everything is not instantly explained, I don't think this is really a problem with easter eggs and it's more of a personal preference of yours. Most mysterious things in Stormlight don't involve other books. I expect more of the same with Stormlight books, so if you hated that the last two SA books had some unexplained things, it doesn't sound like you're going to enjoy the books in the future.

 

I'm pretty confident the only 'important' thing where you might have wanted to read another Brandon book is Nightblood, Szeth's new sword. The rest seem pretty unimportant to me.

You're missing my point completely.  If you had ever read Stephen Erikson, and the Malazan Books of the Fallen, you would know right away that there isn't a writer out there who holds his readers hand less, and does less spoonfeeding of information.  I love that aspect of these books.  It is in fact probably my favorite parts.  I remember realizing R+L=J for the first time when reading A Song of Ice and Fire (hopefully somebody gets that reference without spoiling anything for anyone), and I had to share with somebody.  I remeber seeing the huge discussion already about it on a website and being amazed on how much I had picked up on that many others hadn't. and just as amazed at how much I had missed that others had picked up on.

 

If I sat there and spent 100 hours or 10 minutes or whatever and came up with this amazing theory that Zahel was Nohodon or something, and I had 20 points to reinforce it, and then I casually look at the forums and find out it's just a silly easter egg I'm going to be upset.  I remember being bothered for several hundred pages, a couple hours in real life at least about the guy in dark clothing poisoning himself.  I sat there poring over it and over it wondering if all the wine was poisoned and maybe he added an antidote.  Maybe he was switching glasses.  Maybe he was actually comitting suicide and was from some secretive cult or something.  Anything.  It had to mean something, Sanderson took great care to add it in there.  Instead it was nothing but a tip of teh cap to people who liked his other books. 

 

And that's fine.  I can accept him doing stuff like that.  But everytime he does something like that takes away from his actual foreshadowing.  You spend hours trying to figure out who Wit is, if he is some kind of God, or maybe an old herald who wants to help but from behind the scenes.  Then you find out he is just a guy from other stories.  It was nothing more than an easter egg.  Then you get introduced to Zahel, and spend hours trying to figure out who this guy is.  Is he a god or maybe an old herald who wants to help but from behind the scenes.  Then you find out he is just a guy from another story.  And then you get a dark guy with a crescent scar on his face.  Instead of trying to figure anything out about him, you might as well just write him off as some guy from another story.

 

It takes away from the story.  It removes my involvement, and my sense of mystery and my sense of wonder.  That is my point.

 

This is like the 3rd time I have tried to post this, so hopefully it works this time, and forgive my late reply.

[Asperity he/him]

why arre you downvotin itis MEAN

 

Unrelated to the thread topic itself but to elaborate with this comment, I never understood why voting is a feature on this website. This is the only forum I visit and participate in because its purpose circumvents the fundamental flaws the large majority of all forums have but why on earth would voting ever have any relevance to theory-crafting? If its an obvious topic of misinformation or spam, moderation exists to cull that. Otherwise, I don't see the point.

 

For heaven's sake, if somebody has an opinion you don't agree with it, perhaps you should frequent a website like Reddit where unpopular opinions are quelled and frowned upon. Or better yet, not use the internet as it is the last remaining bastion for any semblance of "free speech".

 

On-topic: I can see Shash's perspective. Szeth hearing Nightblood could be treated in the same way Zane heard Ruin back in The Well of Ascension.

[Windrunner he/him]

Just dropping by to say that we're not going to be continuing the discussion on upvotes and downvotes in this thread. Robot Aztec or Kythis, if you have any further questions or concerns about voting, feel free to contact an admin. Rest assured that we have given the system plenty of thought.

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

[IllNsickly he/him]

I started reading Stephen King in 1989, after plowing through his collected works and then growing up a little, i reread the (current to 1993/4) Dark Tower works. I LOVE the connections that reward the Constant Reader.

You dont need them, either Stormlight or Dark Tower. I havent read anything in the Cosmere outside of MB and SA.. Now i am making a point of it..

There was nothing in this book that i felt i was missing out on until i hit the forums after i finished WoR.

Knowing the connections are there is a gift from Mr Sanderson. I appreciate them, because the much larger overarching story is what im looking forward to.

[nexusil]

Agree that there is too much Cosmere in WoR. The amount in tWoK was fine and adds color, with just Wit, the epigraph, and some interludes, but with more and more "world hoppers" interacting directly with the main characters and major side characters theorized/confirmed to be "world hoppers" it's getting to be very distracting to the series.

 

Edonidd's point is very valid in that the reader is starting to be forced to either read very shallowly or to be well-versed in the Cosmere. That there is a continuum of depth the reader can choose is false. As Edonidd mentions, this applies not just to new mysterious characters but to any mysterious objects as well.

 

For example, Moogle mentions that Gavilar's dark gem is unconfirmed and that Cosmere knowledge doesn't help here. But this is only from the point of view of a reader who is aware of Cosmere knowledge. What if Mistborn had a gem of the exact description with some unique magical properties? How would I know if I had not read Mistborn? How would I know that any of Marize's artifacts is from another series or something related to SA, or both?

 

The answer partly lies in boundaries. If Cosmere artifacts were only witnessed in passing, as true Easter Eggs, and is unimportant to the story, then the reader can "safely" ignore the Cosmere. e.g. The Dark Gem is given prominence, therefore it is not an Easter Egg, therefore I can speculate about it without needing Cosmere knowledge.

 

However as this boundary breaks down, such as with Nightblood, then this chain of thought no longer holds. The next time Sanderson introduces mysterious object, I will be forced to consider Cosmere influences regardless of the prominence of the object, and if I were not well-versed in Cosmere, I would probably just give up thinking entirely or catch up on Cosmere. This deprives the middle-ground of thoughtful, analytical reading without Cosmere knowledge.

 

This clearly goes beyond just rewarding the Cosmere readers (which I am), but is in fact punishing non-Cosmere readers who would like to go a little deeper without having to read all the other series.

 

The next boundary past the "significance of object/character" is capabilities and actions. If more characters (outside of Wit) start using magic from other worlds, or are implied to use magic from other worlds, then the book will start to have a arbitrariness for non-Cosmere readers. With Sanderson's magic theory, this will mean that the magic system becomes more "wonderous" and less "well-defined". This will split the readership and will be worse for non-Cosmere readers since the author will designed the book primarily around the Cosmere interpretation.

 

In any case, adding extraneous information is clearly sub-optimal for non-Cosmere readers. This distortion is very small when it's just passing Easter Eggs but becomes greater and greater as more and more Easter Eggs and important artifacts / prophecies / characters are added. I don't think it's that bad yet, but I think it's past the optimal point. Nightblade is already very troubling. And with the series being 10 books long, I think it will only get worse unless there is a deliberate correction.

 

As an aside, from an artistic / story telling point of view, I also feel it's distracting and beginning to subtract from the series even for a Cosmere reader. Though this is of course subjective and depending on what your tastes and what you think good story telling should be. Even Sanderson himself admits that this is an indulgence of his when he commented on the Emperor's Soul. I hope that he shows further discipline in this regard in the future of this yet-young series.

 

As a disclaimer, it's perfectly within the author's right to explore the Cosmere and reward Cosmere readers / encourage non-Cosmere readers to explore his other series. After all, this is the author's "baby" and he can choose to have it interact with its "siblings" however much or little as he wants. But to claim there are no adverse effects is disingenuous and I think the bad already outweighs the good.

[luminos]

I've read all of Brandon's published works, and yet I didn't figure out the cosmere stuff until I came to this forum and saw what other people were guessing.  Zahel was just a swordmaster with a mysterious past and nightblood was an unexplained magical item (certainly not anything we've seen in stormlight archive up to this point, but something that will be explained in probably the next book).

 

Edonidd, your distinction between easter eggs and foreshadowing is false to me.  First of all, because Hoid is not primarily a character in other novels who is making a cameo in these.  He has next to zero plot relevance in other novels, but is central to the stormlight archive story.  So he would be an Easter Egg in Mistborn, but here he is a central part of the story and hints about his nature are absolutely in the realm of foreshadowing.  Secondly, you assume that because you don't have enough information to correctly guess what something means, or whether or not it is meaningful in the first place, then it must be because there are too many "off-world" references thrown in to confuse you.  This is not true.  Brandon Sanderson is writing epic fantasy.  There is supposed to be stuff that you couldn't possibly guess beforehand, simply because he deliberately withholds information.  This is not him being a jerk, this is him being a good writer.  Withholding information about this fantasy world and the rules that it runs on are part of what lets him pull off the big reveals down the road.  The main veiwpoint characters think they have some grasp on how their world works (spren, radiants, voidbringers) but the truth is that the things they understand are just a piece of the puzzle.  And because the characters can't see the big picture, neither do the readers. 

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

I think that your mistake is to assume that because something is an easter egg, it doesn't have plot significance. Yes, Wit is a worldhopper. But the Letters in the epigraphs (and Wit's own statements) make it clear that he has a specific goal on Roshar, which is directly related to the plot of the Stormlight Archive. None of the information about that goal comes from any other books - just from the Stormlight Archive. I see that as foreshadowing.

 

 

Nightblood is a bit of a different issue, since we know more about Nightblood's history and personality, which give Cosmere familiar readers an head start in knowing how it will behave. But I'd bet money that none of that history is going to matter. The only details which will matter are Nightblood's personality and abilities, which will be defined quickly in the next book (and Nightblood's abilities on Roshar will probably be a bit different anyways), at which point the Cosmere readers will no longer have an advantage. Besides - Nightblood's personality was pretty well summed up in its quote in WoR.

 

 

I guess my point is that while the characters' identities are easter eggs, their plot importance is not dependent on their identities, and their plot importance is being legitimately foreshadowed like any other foreshadowing.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Sir Read-a-Lot

[Aryanath]

My two cents. The Way of Kings was the first Sanderson book I read, because I wanted to start a new fantasy series without particularly  thinking about the Cosmere (although I sampled The Emperor's Soul first to take a dip, to see if I liked it). So I entered the series knowing almost nothing about the Cosmere, though I had heard about it. To be honest, that fact made the book more enjoyable that if I had read Sanderson's other books before. I wasn't trying to compare it to his other books, find links to the Cosmere, and see the connections between his characters and wasn't in a position to compare his books with each other. In other words, it was pure experience in a new world and I enjoyed it. I might not have enjoyed it as much if I started with Elantris because many of the same themes appear but everything is better in the Stormlight Archives. But the main point here is that only after absorbing and enjoying Roshar and the story did I begin to think about the things going on the background, the deeper things. Mentions of Odium and Honor got me into the Cosmere because I was curious to understand the structure of the universe and the place of Roshar in it. My interest got me into Mistborn, which I enjoyed a lot both for the story and for the Cosmeric stuff. I might be in the minority for being much more into the philosophical and theoretical points of the Cosmere over the cool factor as in "cool, there's a sword from Warbreaker in WoR!" sort of thing (I have not read Warbreaker).