How it Feels Trying to Explain the Plot of the Stormlight Archive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2023
- Do you ever look at someone and wonder: what is going on inside their head?
(Also, if any neuroscientists are watching, sorry for probably butchering this.)
#brandonsanderson #cosmere #stormlightarchive #booktube
"A guy carries around a bridge for like 1000 pages. It's the best thing I've ever read in my entire life."
This is unironically a really intriguing pitch, as well as accurate.
It's a really good and simple way to get ppl interested
Honestly that sounds like some super artsy contemplation on life
Seriously though, why is Kaladin's plot in the first book the most interesting to follow when he is literally a slave for 99% of it?
@@laughsingay the getting through hardship and coming out in top is very entertaining
Here's the best I got: "It's about a war sparked by the assassination of a king by a user of ancient magic. We follow a slave being used as cannon fodder who tries to escape the army, a noble lord who is either having mystical visions or going mad, and a girl who is trying to rob the dead king's daughter to save her family. The world is ravaged by massive storms which rip boulders out of the earth, and the only wildlife which can survive this are crabs things. Also, by the end of the first book, you still won't know where the story is going. Have fun!"
This is honestly a pretty fantastic summary!
Ok now memorise it and say it when they ask u
Screenshot ting for future use
"A fitness trainer with depression, a thief with multiple personality syndrome, and a war torn vet with ptsd all have their lives upended when a bunch of crab people inconsiderably start the apocalypse, causing everyone to scramble and try to find a way to kill God with their therapy fairies and giant anime swords."
I'm sold. I know what I'm asking for for Christmas
Best one I ever heard was:
A med-school dropout feels bad and decides to start a fitness club.
A trust fund artist really needs to get an internship.
And an illiterate AA member decides to start keeping a dream journal.
This is so fucking funny.
You forgot - a crab researcher discovers how to turn into Thor, and a bald cop feels bad for when he was tricked into being the greatest assassin who ever lived for a while.
Why is he confused "Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king" perfectly sums everything up.
Such an awesome openning line
@@Trisjack20 Right? I read that opening sentence then thought: Ok, you have my attention!
I mean that's *basically* the intro for every book so...
Szeth is an awful nonsensical character, just like most characters in those books. It'll never cease to amaze me that Americans treat SLA as if it's some pinnacle of literature, when it's mediocre at best.
@@n0vitski L bozo
The best description I heard was ‘people with mental illnesses control the weather to fight crab people.’
Not exactly accurate but it made me chuckle.
Also this is so how I am when trying to convince my brother to read the cosmere.
I like to go with this:
The main message of the series is about how our weaknesses and failings drive us to find the meaning in life that we need to thrive and take our place in the world, saving everything we care about.
The first book follows the storylines of two characters. One is basically a pre-med Spartacus that fights depression and class prejudice to save his squad of scrappy slaves with the help of a cheerful fairy that only he can see. The other storyline feels like reading Pride and Prejudice with lightsabers, except they only use the lightsaber to slice toast and gesticulate during exposition about an apocalyptic conspiracy. I welcome any and every Shallan fan to help me find a better description. I know it's very imperfect, but I don't know enough sappy, classic drama literature to find a good comparison.
The world this magical fantasy takes place on is basically a gigantic tidal pool where most creatures evolved from crabs to live on land. The most striking feature is the ballistic-grade, continent-spanning storms that blow regularly from East to West and force people to hide in bunkers.
You know how in cartoon there all these lines indicating speed or anger, and such... What if those lines were real, and one of them sapient...
Knights radiant be like... Weaponized depression yeahh
The Stormlight Archive makes me feel like I'm on a cloud, floating in the middle of a giant crab conspiracy.
Pretty much real life then
Huh. You know, maybe Stormlight Archive is actually a long-winded explanation as to why everything evolves into crabs.
The skies belong to you
(Not original but)
Mentally unstable people use weather magic from sky daddy (I firmly regret the use of this term) to fight crab people in a world where everything eventually evolves into crabs.
Yea, that checks out.
Do not regret it that is a perfect term
I shall start using Sky daddy now
Cant wait for sky mommy
@@danisob3633*Earth* mommy.
Doesn't everything in our world also evolve into crabs?
ACCURATE, but for me it usually goes something like "so uhh there's some crab people...."
CRAB PEOPLE! CRAB PEOPLE!!
OMG, same. I always start with the crab people. I don't think it's à good idea though.
And some eyebrow ppl😂
@@realsteal0003 and don't forget about The Lopin, Goncho.
@@thomasfevre9515 you don’t understand how good of a pitch crab people are
My friend and I attempting to create a word document so that we can be prepared for this exact situation:
That's an admirable level of dedication.
@@genericallyentertaining note the key word "attempting" lol
How far did that go?
@@hmmmooops we got through a couple paragraphs of what was basically a TED Talk before realizing that no one would ever have the patience for it and giving up
trying to explain what literally any book is about is impossible for me
Yeah it's so hard XD Even relatively short ones I sometimes struggle with, if pushed to givr an explanation I'll either spout nonsense or go on a several hour tangent.
That's not an exaggeration, I was rereading one of my favorite series (the Slated trilogy by Teri Terry) and my friend asked what it was about as we were on our way home from school. The whole trilogy is at most 700 pages, (technically 1400 but its double spaced so Im calling it 700, its YA) Anyway, I got to talking, and he sat there listening to me explain the _entire_ plot for almost _four hours._ I had no idea so much time passed and honestly I've rarely respected a person's patience more or been more embarrassed
I have learned that is impossible to explain the book in a way that makes sense and sounds interesting without completely spoiling it, so I've just resorted to saying, "It's a really good fantasy series with a lot of worldbuilding and some amazing characters, I honestly can't summarize the plot, so you're just going to have to take my word for it."
"It's about a world where people with mental illness get magic powers." This is the important bit. Now I've mentioned there's magic, there's people, and there's mental illness, all in one swift sentence.
The story follows several characters who are all dealing with major issues in their life. The main point of view tho is that of a slave as he is forced to serve in his kingdoms' war.
You will learn the intricacies of a strange world with probably the most unique ecosystem put to paper.
It has assassinations, redemptions, political maneuverings, betrayals, monsters, glory, and epic magic.
@@snowman9631 Why does this not have more upvotes? This is the best description I've read. Well done. I recently did a horrible job trying to describe the series to some coworkers. They tried to help me by asking "Is the book closest to Harry Potter, Star Wars, LotR, or Game of Thrones." I just laughed and said none. Despite our best efforts, they left without understanding what the series was about. . .
@@clever_trevor_forever thank you. I've had to try and get my own friends into it
"What about spren, should we mention spren?"
*pause as everyone considers, and then panicked screaming*
This is so scrudding true I can’t haha
I have been in that situation at least once and I explained it terribly making SLA sound like the worst thing ever writen even though it's the greatest.
Same!
For me explaining magic system helped a lot with interesting people, then I just did follow up to the cosmere as a whole
Bro... Me too lol
Yeah, me too
Oh My god I literally tried this two days ago, I realized how much information it contains, it's too much to explain
A friend once saw me reading this book and she was like: “oh that’s the crab monster book, right?” I busted out laughing since her take was an obvious result of someone doing exactly what’s shown in this video 😂
“Uhh…have you watched game of thrones? Well it’s kind of like that except nothing like that, and basically it’s a big epic fantasy series where I think the apocalypse is returning.”-me somewhere near the end of my first read of Words of Radiance.
You are in such a good place! Loved reading it for the first time! Enjoy the ride!
@@Trisjack20 This anecdote was from a bit over a year ago. I’m caught up on Stormlight. You are right though, it was a really good place and I did enjoy the ride.
It's a Fantasy book set in the world of Roshar. Roshar is very particular: there is a huge storm (like hurrican big) that goes around the planet every few weeks. Most life has developed to withstand it and looks mostly like crabs. Human society has also adapted to it.
We follow mainly two characters, one a slave who used to be a soldier, a great spear fighter and leader; another a rich sheltered girl who leaves her endebted family to be schooled by one of the most intelligent women on the planet.
It is great, but it is very slow and long. Also it often feels a little overwhelming because of how new everything is. If you push through, until the halfaway mark, you will hardly be able to put it down.
I gotta Learn this by-heart fucking hell!!
@@atharvadeshpande4749 Glad you liked it :)
when I was first reading WoK I was really struggling and my roommate kept telling me "give it half way. if after half way you're still on the fence its ok to put it down." and I'm like "But half way is over 600 pages!" "Give it half way." he says.
He was not wrong. By half way I could not separate myself from it. Sylphrenna and Pattern are the two best characters in this series! Pattern cracks me up all the time. "*buzz buzz...* "NO MATING!""
halfway? isn’t that something like 700 pages? that’s a lot of time for a book that doesn’t make you wanna read it, i will never understand why writers do this to their readers, are they getting paid more to write hundreds of pages of pure nonsense?
@@Archonsx On re-read those pages don't feel like a drag. There is A LOT of worldbuilding which can feel overwhelming, but is definitively important to understand many of the characters decisions layer on. Also, without those slow pages, the payoff at the end doesn't feel that great.
I can always trim down a book. I could write the fellowship of the ring (also a slow book) in 2 pages (maybe I try it when I have a computer), but it would be a worse book and would make the ending of the return of the king less impactful.
"Let me explain... No. There is too much. Let me sum up."
Inconceivable!
"Ok, so there's these people called the Heralds- er wait ok so there's these three gods- actually we'll start with Adonalsium-"
Yeah, I've been asked a few times what the book was about, and I just tell them, "I don't know. I've been trying to figure that out for 3 books. I'm just following the characters around at this point."
What's worse is that I burst at the seams to talk about it with someone! Anyone! But then when I actually convince someone to read it, and I finally sit down with them, I just sort of stare at them and go, "yeah. Pretty good, right?"
It's like the scene from the beginning of the Christmas Story where Ralphie accidentally tells his parents he wants tinker toys for Christmas
The back blurb is actually very good: The book is about a surgeon who struggles with the terrors of war, a thief pretending to be a scholar, an assasin who weeps as he kills, and a warlord who looks to the past as his thirst for battle wanes. And magic is seeping back into the world of men.
I just say "It's about a slave sent to die on the front lines of an endless war" and call it a day.
I don't think I would have read it with a summary like that lol
I have had this exact conversation several times. Eventually I decided to always start with talking about Kaladin, people connect with him pretty well. Also, you have my compliments on the cleanliness of your brain, I doubt mine is that tidy 🤣
(deep breath) Alright so there's this depressed guy and he makes promises to blue tinker bell and now he can fly and is sticky, meanwhile a bald dude who's also depressed kills a king, also there's this one scholar woman, yup also depressed, and she tries to steal a magic bracelet and makes promises to some swirly math, the sky gives another depressed guy weird dreams, um uh crabs and there's hurricanes, god's dead, a slippery girl likes pancakes and an old guy is dumb sometimes
This. Dont forget about the depressed guy who's a drug addict. Or the depressed crab person with a blue light instead of a red one. Or that the slippery girl is "so storming pure I practically belch rainbows."
I love this ^_^
As someone who has never read the series….. WHAT? 😂
This, this is my brain right now after finishing Words of Radiance
I tried explaining who the Fused were to my husband last night. He doesn't read the books but asks what's going on in my audiobooks sometimes when he hears them. It already took him so long to keep Dalinar and Gavilar straight and now the Ancient Ones? lol. I gave him a long-winded explanation that was confusing and still didn't really cover everything and left it at that. He really should just read them, but he's Vorin I guess.
he can be a vorin like Daddynar though
Well a good Vorin man can listen to audiobooks just fine!
I started with the fast-moving grass. True story
My dogs are named Shallan and Adolin. Folks at the dog park are friendly and like to make small talk.
I’m starting to regret their names. :p
"You know this character Neo from The Matrix?"
-"Yeah"
"Alright, now imagine that.. but with giant lobsters."
Me spending 3 hours breaking down the plot of these books to my friend... twice!
Its a fantasy series where nothing happens for a long time, and the dull bits are just as awesome as the epic bits.
I'm doing my first Way of Kings reread in years right now and I forgot how hard this book slaps. I often start my rereads at Words of Radiance so I can get to the magic already but it's been really great going back and experiencing it from the beginning.
Slaps ?? This book fucks!!
I've never done a reread of any book I've read :/ even if I liked it as much as stormlight archive or a song of ice and fire
How can you just skip over the bridge carrying? JOURNEY BEFORE DESTINATION!
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 By starting at Words of Radiance obviously
Brandon Sanderson makes me feel like I have eaten the sweetest jam in the world and then travelled to Jupiter to get more stupider, except it's opposite day, so I actually get more smarter.
and the jam is actually an antidote to that poisonous powder that's dusted onto those loaves of bread people keep offering you, and you don't even realize that if you stop eating the jam YOU WILL DIE!
"so there are these magical swords, and constant hurricanes"
Fuck this is SO TRUE. I never know where to begin! Pitching Mistborn is WAY easier.
“Imagine a typical fantasy plot in which the prophesied hero must stop the evil lord from taking power and ruling the world, except the evil lord wins, takes the power, and rules over the whole world for a THOUSAND YEARS, with an iron grip on everything in culture and society. That’s where Mistborn starts.” Just give’em that elevator pitch and you can be done with it. Explaining a SINGLE thing about Roshar to someone who’s never read it? Forget it.
This is the earliest I've ever gotten to a video. I am a God, an unstoppable being of immense power.
I am in awe of your swiftness.
Did you pick up a Shard?
sounds an awful lot like Odium 🤨
This is so relatable. This also happened to me when I was on the first book of the Licanius trilogy-The Shadow of What Was Lost, and someone asked me what I was reading. I felt like I had to explain the magic system some and it just ended up being this jumbled info dump that no doubt left the person with their eyes glazed over in confusion and a sense of regret that they ever asked the question.Also I imagine trying to explain Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker to someone would make you sound like a crazy person.
Nah, Warbreaker is much more easy, it's basically The Beauty and the Beast bur with magic rules
I’ve never seen your vids before, nor have I read Brandon Sanderson. I do however work at a library and have seen how massive those tomes are. Great humour! Colour me intrigued
It's such a good book! If you are curious maybe read the prelude and you might just find yourself drawn in. It is admittedly a bit of a slow burner, but the pay off is so worth it in the end.
His work is absolutely excellent. If you enjoy novels they will probably work for you unless you dislike anything long (They are long and require attention) or dislike fantasy specifically (as they are right there re-writing the epic fantasy genre).
You’re in for a treat.
OMG That's so like me! I literally quote the prologe's first paragraph with death rattle and its description when someone asks me a question about the book.
Everyone forgets about that death rattle, but honestly, imo it's just as good a hook as the Szeth-son-son-Vallano line. "The love of men is a frigid thing, a mountain stream only three steps from the ice." Great stuff.
@@genericallyentertaining I remember the death rattle, the date of its collection, the subject. All of it! :D I'm crazy. I told it to my roommate so many times that now he can quote the first paragraph as well.
I explained it the other day as a story about a world where the ideas and concepts of mortals take on life of their own as spirits, which then influence people in return. The plot revolves around finding out about drawing magic powers from these spirits and how that commitment to a particular concept or ideal effects your life with your interactions with others and all the way through politics, especially as some concepts become spirits of such immense power that they effect whole nations, regions, and the world itself. If some of these concept spirits are at war with each other, so how does that affect the world and the individuals in the world? Is war inevitable? Can it ever be stopped? Can a concept or idea be stopped?
This was awesome! (coming from an anatomist) Well done!
Another lovely and generically entertaining video! Thank you!
This is unironically the best video I have seen today, I love it
Ha! I loved the first book. I got the hardcover and dragged that thing around in my backpack everywhere I went. So much so, that I aggravated my back and really couldn't do that anymore. Then I waited SO LONG for Book 2 that I was forgetting what happened. But I figured I'd be okay once I jumped back in. Then I remembered my back pain, so I realized I'd have to wait for the paperback. That took forever more. I think it was only after that when I learned the series would be 3748324262843 books long.
Now I am so far behind I will never catch up. Sigh.
Haha you can do it! It’s so worth it if you do! A convenient way to read em is your phone or an e-reader
Honestly I am one of the many Audio Book enjoyers of the series. I have physical copies too but the voice acting is really good and it is enjoyable to listen to when doing menial tasks or on your daily commute.
Imagine a story set in a world that is super unique and interesting, one that is ravaged by magical hurricanes. This story follows three main characters, including a doctor-turned-solider-turned-slave, a young woman who learns magic from a powerful magic user, and a former head general who is trying to turn over a new leaf. Also, the fight scenes feel like they were ripped straight out of a shonen anime. There is also like over 10 interludes and three prologues. It’s the best damn book I’ve ever read.
If I know the person will likely never read it, I’ll explain with no context spoilers
“It was a crab planet the whole time!”
Which doesn’t necessarily explain the story whatsoever, but it is still very important to me that people know.
We really should have seen it coming though.
Holy shit. I wasn't going to click on this but thank Honor I did! That ending had me Laughing out loud and shit. Good work homie! Im still trying to explain to my friend 3 months after i started.
Me explaining my dreams:
Excellent video as always.
I usually just say something along the lines of "cool characters do cool things for four books."
I can see some heavy influences from Daniel Thrasher and I'm all for it. Great work.
It’s a fantasy novel with magic power armor, big anime swords, rain, and crabs. ‘nuff said.
It’s a fantasy series where people are fighting a war and discovering a forgotten magic system - boom done
Sounds so generic when you put it like that when it’s anything but 🤣
I tried pitching the series once. When I ended up at Adonalsium I knew that I fucked up somewhere along the way.
😂
THe hippocampus hitting itself in the face with the booklet on 0:20 is a nice touch
It’s an epic fantasy that takes place on a world with a supercontinent like Pangea that’s wracked with a mega storm every couple days. The flora and fauna have evolved to deal with the mega storm, also, all birds are chickens, period. It has a cool magic system that uses the lightning from the mega storm to produce various awesome effects. And it has great characters.
the stormlight archives is a book with three main plot lines, each led by a protagonist character shalan, kaladin, and dalinar. kaladin's arc deals with the social injustices of the worlds class system and the sufferings of slavery and moving forward even in terrible situations. dalinar's story follows a man who tries his best to be honorbale in a society that has mostly abandoned the principle in exhcange for self interests. finaly shalan's story deals with a young woman trying to save herself and her family from poverty and likely slavery, by stelaing from the most dangerous woman on the planet. this plot is interupted as that dangerour woman pulls shalan into the "let's save the world from demons plot line". and thats more or less the first two books of the stormlight archives. yes there are five books.
the remianing two books are all about those three characters and many many others working together to fight a race war. yes we itnerupted the awsome plots from the first two books to do a race a war instead. cause its so much more interesting. dont worry the alternate dimension that was creepy as all hell, thats mostly a joke dimension filled with slapstick or out of place humor. nothing intriguing about it truly after we finaly get there. the characters will constantly remind you of how dangerous and amazing it is despite it being just a large ocean of glass beads. and no before you ask no one is ever really put in any significant danger there that u would actualy think theyd die or get seriously hurt. yeah get used to that in this series cause every supposed serious injusry is going to disapear in seconds even after they get their soul cut apart by a magic sword. which they told yhou couldn't be healed by the exact powers that later guess what heal that injusry. also dont expect half the plots to be progressed in any logical sense of time both irl and in universe cause there characters despite being mostly soldiers who've been fighting for years have no sense of urgency at all. "oh the city's being besieged, lets have tea and try to do somehting about it in a week or three. its fine we have crumpets" that more or less the characters reaction to every situaiton lets wait a week. lastly the books will constantly drop subplots as though board of them and move without giving any emotional pay off to various setups. sadious dalinar's primary villain for the first two books. oh he gets murdered in back alley by dalinar's son. if you thought that would be an interesting subplot to deal with then yoiur wrong. because dalinar puts his own son in charge of the murder case, yeah the one that murdered the guy. and of course no one else tries to solve the murder. not the mans wife or any of his officers. if you thought that the murderer would deal with some interesting issues as a result of this then guess again. he leaves the investigaiton to his fiance and barely mentions it for the rest of the book in which it matters. his fiance oh yeah thats shalan and becuase we dont know what to do with her at this point she'd going to deal with multipersonality disorder instead of actualy olving the murder. then shes going to find a totlay dangerous spirit in an ancient tower that instead of being a threat runs away form her out of fear when she touches a rock. but dont worry cuase this lets us segway into the drug abuse side plot following another character. who will later get magic that curs poison form his system but will still somehow how issues with this. even though those healing powers can literaly regrow limbs and heal wounds from soul cutting blades. guess they tap out at addiction though. oh and scars. oh and old wounds. except when they dont. yeah the guy who wrote this did an entire lecture on magic in fantasy stories and how it should be consistent. lol you thought he'd follow that here. no sorry if you want to read a book with a comrehensibel magic system then i suggest any of his other books or perhaps "shadow fo the conquerer" by shad M Brookes. but in the stormlight archives we laugh at coinsistency. so yes thats the later two books.
oh the fifth book. yeah that hasnt come out yet because the author Branden Sanderson has decided it would be a better use of his time writing like thirty different shorter books before finishing the series he promised. well he had to write those miny novels to fill in some plot wholes for this book silly. yes its very much like having to watch every disney+ show in order to understand the next marvel movie why. oh you thought book authors were better than hollywood? oh you sweat summer child book authors were some of the first casaulties of the culture war. just look at rick rioradan and the backlash his heroes of olympus series got. guy didnt even give the legacy protagonist a narrative view in the last book.
so thats the stormlight archives by Branden Sanderson. for real though the first two books were great love those. unfortunately, the story fell apart by after that and there realy is no saving it by this point. you can really sea the decline in plot in his other works too such as the wax and waine series. that fourth book was something else. posisbly the worst book he ever wrote. its sad that sanderson's plots are falling apart though because his skill in prose has greatly increased since elantris. makes me wish the man would jsut take a break and reconsider some of this. not like he'll ever read this but thought id wirte some critiques down in sarcastic format. if you care to challenge any of my statements have a go. but remember i thrive on the argument.
This is amazing! And also, I don't know why I wasn't already subscribed, but I fixed that!
Oh hey, glad you're here! Thanks for the sub!
@@genericallyentertaining My absolute pleasure!
The Stanley Kubrick bit at the end was great, should've had the guy who said what taking a sip of a glass of milk for some reason then be like, "what?"
Shards and the weather of Roshar are what led me to the series. I stayed for the characters and the world building. All the mystical stuff was just the cherry on top!
Very relatable! Great sketch.
I had to do a 4-minute presentation on The Way of Kings for school once and this is pretty much how it felt.
A short time ago I finished "The Way of Kings". I was so overwhelmed by the plots and characters. So I read reviews that said spoiler alerts. It helped me to better understand the story line. Getting ready to read the second book "Words of Radiance". Will probably view spoiler alerts first.
"Competative lifting gets really intense"
This is gold. I've had to explain the story to a few people now. I just open the Ars Arcanum and let them judge
I was once reading Oathbringer and someone asked me what's it about. The best only description I could come up with at the time was 'It's about these people and some have powers and they're trying to unite all the kingdoms in this world because they are under attack'
The fact is, anything that Brandon writes is good, but the stormlight archives is so good it cannot be expressed in words
Haha I ran into this situation a couple years back and leant the book to 2 of my friends. They both stopped reading before the end of the third prologue. Greatest failure of my adult life.
love the “brain” background
This is like Daniel Thrasher meets the stormlight archives and im all for it
I usually start off with how mysterious shard blades are (burned eyes, uncut flesh but cut clothes) and the the assassin in whites powers. That’s what got me hooked.
Almost at the end of 4th book..
damn, soon I will try to tell something like that to my friends))
As a psychology major who loves and struggles to explain the Stormlight archive, I love this😂😂
The way I was explained was that my friends told me to read a few pages of oath bringer and said “notice how many words you don’t recognize” I’m now reading oath bringer, banger series.
Think of an animal, any animal.
It's a crab now. No no, not crab *shaped*. It's the exact same, but now it's also a crustacean.
Forget explaining it, this is how I feel just trying to remember the story while I'm rereading lolol
Me when someone asks me "hey, what's the wheel of time about?"
"An ancient disbanded order of Knights comes back to fight against the forces of a dangerous God while also learning the secrets of why the order was disbanded to begin with."
This happened to me yesterday. My dad asked me what book I was reading and I just stared at him while my brain short-circuited
"Fantasy series by Sanderson, might know him from Wheel of Time? Yeah, it had that awful amazon adaptation. but yeah, this one is about a guy carrying a bridge and a girl over complicating a heist"
It's all about the pancakes, Voidbringer.
Is this going to be a case of some asking for the short version and the guy will say “this is the short version”
🤣 another banger man. Keep it up
Just casually finds my favorite book series. Ive had so much time on my hands recently that since thanksgiving I have finished the series 3 times 😅 I have problems
Dalinar’s my favorite
I'm so glad this is a universal experience
So, imagine a stormy mediaeval crab world where everything is crab except for fairies and depressed humans, and there is a lot of war and superheroes.
I literally started The Way of kings four days ago, and I can already relate.
I feel this everytime some one asks me what it's about
Some tenthousand years ago, some guys killed god. But that doesn´t really matter. Some thousands years later 9 people laid down their weapons. And thousand years later, some depressed guys carry a bridge.
Featuring: Storms, handfetish, crabs, magic and awesome and completely broken characters with therapist-fairys.
Thank you Im not the only one that has experienced this
This definitely happened to be and it was crazy how hard it was to answer. Luckily it was Oathbringer so I was able to hold it up and say "This is the 3rd one in the series and they're all this big, so it's just an epic fantasy, kinda like Lord of the Rings (even though not really) and there's a lot going on."
"An epic fantasy series with a focus on mental-health struggles and complex world-building."
Fairiy, giant crab, shiny rocks, hurricane daddy, big armor, big swords, eat the light, don’t let ‘em sing the song, ninja in white!
Ngl, TWoKs was sooooo long and complicated and i was confused from cover to cover. But i stuck with it and am now onto RoW and couldn’t be happier for having persisted coz it’s brilliant!
Usually I just ask the person what's most important or interesting for them? Is it World Building, the characters, the conflicts being faced etc… Going from there, I talk about one of these topics to pique interest.
You can talk about so many things, which are interesting, without actually spoiling important stuff.
I tried explaining the whole thing to my uncle who's a long time DND player. When I explained Radiants to him he just cocked his head and said, well if someone had that kind of power, why wouldn't they just overthrow the king and do whatever they want?" Even when I tried to explain to him how the Ideals work, he just thought that was "lazy writing". I have since given up on trying to explain the series to people. I now just say, "oh it's high fantasy, so it would take a while to explain how it works without it sounding absurd." and that staves off most people.
Finally, the message that I have been trying to formulate properly since I was twelve has been expressed perfectly.
I've forgotten my keys! Could you remind me of where I put them?
No for real though! I just did my first Stormlight Archives review and the Way of Kings went from 6 minutes to almost 20 just because I realized how much detail even the summaries need 😭Amazing books, absolutely massive. The next one is going to be chaos
It's an anime where people harness magic from super-hurricanes using gems, most animals are a crab with very noticeable standouts, plants are really weird and ground is all stone. Oh, and big ass swords that are basically lightsabers. And Gundam armor. Miyazaki style spirits. Killing gods. Not God, he's already dead, even though he wasn't God, and he's still around.