The Cosmere Without Context

Hello followers,

It's been a very long time since I posted anything. While I still love Brandon Sanderson (and was lucky enough to get a ticket to Dragonsteel again this year) I got pretty burned out on the Cosmere around the time that the secret projects were being released.

And it's not just the proliferation of content. As someone who has to be very careful about almost every penny (I save up for Dragonsteel bit by bit every year) I feel increasingly pushed out of the Cosmere. I just cannot keep up financially. I can't afford the kickstarters. I can't afford six new books every year. The "fun" parts of being in a fandom have become very pricey lol. I am very happy for those who can afford it, but that is not my reality and I feel it every time a new kickstarter is announced. I am also firmly convinced that for the most part Dragonsteel could fund most of these projects themselves, but they rely on the free marketing and hype that a kickstarter produces and idk, it just rubs me the wrong way. Just release the products. There was no reason Fires of December needed to be crowdfunded at all.

Now before you type it, yes I know that I can access all of it for free through local libraries. I totally get that if I wanted to there are lots of ways to participate without having to spend anything. But for me it's not even so much that you CAN find it for free as I have found an increasing distaste for how many kickstarters and fan funded projects and pricey extras Dragonsteel has been pumping out. It just feels so... commercialized? Moving away from the art and becoming a bit like Marvel. Pumping stuff out at a breakneck pace because they know that people will pay out the nose for it.

I also have found that the busier he gets, the less I like his work. I did not like The Lost Metal and Wind and Truth was not my favorite either. I have hope for his future projects because he is slowing down. I'm grateful he's taking breaks to work on screenplays and not releasing the Ghostbloods books until they're all complete. It is needed. We do not quantity over quality.

I'm sure this is a controversial post and I'm sure lots of you will completely disagree with me and that's okay. Once more Mistborn movie stuff starts being posted I am sure I'll be back on here a lot more. I'm still going to Dragonsteel and still intend to have the BEST time there. I still love the Cosmere. I just don't love the commercialization of it all (which is such an old person gripe but it's true).

Anyways. I don't know what the point of all this is except to express some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head. I still haven't finished any of the secret projects or basically anything that's been released since. I just got burned out on it all. It's the same problem I had with Marvel. Too much, too fast, too expensive to keep up.

Dragonsteel is undoubtedly making millions. It has to be. Surely at this point they could just like… publish the books? Why does everything have to be in tiers? Why are they continuing to ask fans to fund them in this way for projects they could do themselves?

I have a lot of uncharitable thoughts about The Lost Metal (spoilers ahead). But this is the one that I hate the most.

Marasi deserved better. In the first two books she was used as the pining girl for Wax. Which was not taken seriously. Then in Bands of Mourning we see her struggle and begin to form her own identity separate from being in Wax’s shadow. We see her meet a new man.

I went into The Lost Metal expecting more development of that. I wanted her to finally get her own story and her own moment to shine and her own love.

AND IT HAPPENED OFF SCREEN. We get into The Lost Metal years and years later and now she has a partner (who we see once and has three lines). And the rest of the book is devoted to cosmere crossover characters and a new magic system.

I feel like The Lost Metal shafted all of the original era 2 characters but none more than Marasi. We didn’t get to see her romance. We didn’t get to see her come into her own. I don’t even remember anything else about her from that book because she was so in distinct. It’s been a while since I read it, granted, but I was so very disappointed by it that I don’t want to read it again.

I FINALLY got to go to both Dragonsteel and the Worldhopper Ball this year!!

I have never been to such a pleasant con before. Everyone was so nice and it wasn’t shoulder to shoulder crowded. The cosplays were creative and clever.

I loved that it was mostly book focused (I don’t know why that surprised me but it did). As someone who isn’t really an anime fan I get really tired of every other con being SO heavily anime focused. It was nice to go to something different and more aligned with my interests.

The Worldhopper Ball was INCREDIBLE! I cried. It was a magical experience that ended far too soon. I get why they have to keep them short but I could have stayed another three hours and been happy.

All in all I think Dragonsteel will become an annual tradition for me. It was a chill, relaxed, nerdy and book centered con with a lot of really cool things to be found.

Hey.... I am still seeing posts about how "you can see Brandon Sanderson deconstructing in his work" and "it wouldn't surprise me if he leaves the LDS church soon".

Once again, THIS IS BIZARRE BEHAVIOR.

Religious authors can write criticisms about religion in their work and still be religious.

Religious authors can create fantasy worlds that are in no way based on their own religious experiences.

Non-religious authors can write deeply religious characters and still be non-religious.

Non-religious authors can also write critiques about atheism and still be non-religious.

Authors can explore view points other than their own through their characters. In fact, I would argue that that's like.... the entire point.

This current belief I keep seeing that authors agree with everything their characters do is not just bizarre it is deeply rooted in a kind of anti-intellectualism and lack of media literacy that I find troubling. To be surprised that a religious author can write a good critique of religion is to ignore literal centuries of people doing just that. It's ahistorical and also smacks of the "religious people are stupider than me" condescension that many non-religious struggle with when that is far, far from the truth.

You do not know these authors. You do not know their deeply held beliefs. You do not get to speculate about that.

When people do this all they're doing is revealing their own misinformed biases and it's WEIRD.

I am almost done with the second book and my thoughts are mixed.

I like a lot of things about it. I think the world building is interesting and I like a lot of the characters. I think Dorian is the most interesting character in the series so far. And, apparently, I am in the minority that likes Chaol? (Watch me eat my words when he turns out to be the villain or something). Celaena isn't my favorite of protagonists but I don't hate her (and the "big twist" for her is super obvious to me so that's not going to be a surprise when I get to it). Overall I like it.