I don’t buy it, it appears to me he’s trying to play both sides to avoid a mass exodus, his writing has clearly declined and went woke… he’s try to please everyone, which will end up pleasing no one. Trying to please these woke activists like he’s been doing will never work, they will never be happy and will suck him dry as we are seeing now.
If he's going woke and is determined to weaken the story and characterization of his stories to please a small group of nutty globalists he's an imbecile and there's no helping him.
I've defended his right to put any characters he wants into books. If you don't like it, don't buy the book. I think people jump to the "he went woke!" label too quickly now. It is different than a game studio or movie production that owns the rights, but starts twisting the original creators vision - Sanderson IS the original creator.
BUT. BUT. The minute you cross the line into hiring "Sensitivity readers" and "Sensitivity editors" you lose all of my respect. Now it isn't about your vision or your world, it is about pandering and avoiding criticism. You don't deserve my defense of your art anymore because you're asking others to censor and change your vision for politics.
Brandon is the type of person that needs a strong editor to push back on some of his excesses. I read all the cosmere in 2023, and loved the vast majority of it but when I got Scadrial era 2 I could not stand Wayne, Wayne to me appears to be a self-insert for Brandon, really corny “I’m so clever humor” that just doesn’t really fit the story or the character and seems to be an imprint of the author. I skimmed most of Wayne’s scenes in those books, then I read Yumi & Tress and realized that Hoid was becoming a more pronounced self-insert for Brandon as well.
If that’s your type of humor that’s fine, I didn’t enjoy it, but I don’t think Brandon understands that’s part of the modernization issue and that it has gotten progressively worse with his recent books, yes it was always there to some extent but that doesn’t mean he should push it further. Putting a middle aged Mormon dad personality into a renegade killer seeking penance or a Godlike Bard is pretty disrupting to a fantasy/steampunk setting. I haven’t read wind and truth but my hype for his books was already dying with Era 2 and Tress & Yumi (both of which were much much better than Era 2 to me)
Well, if what Sanderson says about the editing is true it seems it is not the quantity of editing that is the problem but the quality.
"Sensitivity editing" is worse than worthless: it does harm to the story and makes anything it touches less enjoyable.
And that is apparently precisely the kind of "editing" that was (exclusively?) done to and inflicted upon the disappointing 'Wind and Truth'.
I don’t buy it, it appears to me he’s trying to play both sides to avoid a mass exodus, his writing has clearly declined and went woke… he’s try to please everyone, which will end up pleasing no one. Trying to please these woke activists like he’s been doing will never work, they will never be happy and will suck him dry as we are seeing now.
If he's going woke and is determined to weaken the story and characterization of his stories to please a small group of nutty globalists he's an imbecile and there's no helping him.
To a certain extent these are contradictory, at least as I see it.
Someone is ‘going woke’ if they believe the nonsense. They are ‘trying to please’ if they don’t believe it, but feel like they have to put it in.
Fair enough
I've defended his right to put any characters he wants into books. If you don't like it, don't buy the book. I think people jump to the "he went woke!" label too quickly now. It is different than a game studio or movie production that owns the rights, but starts twisting the original creators vision - Sanderson IS the original creator.
BUT. BUT. The minute you cross the line into hiring "Sensitivity readers" and "Sensitivity editors" you lose all of my respect. Now it isn't about your vision or your world, it is about pandering and avoiding criticism. You don't deserve my defense of your art anymore because you're asking others to censor and change your vision for politics.
Don't be too hard on Brandon. He is, after all, a champion for the body positivity movement.
Did he respond at all to the pandering?
Brandon is the type of person that needs a strong editor to push back on some of his excesses. I read all the cosmere in 2023, and loved the vast majority of it but when I got Scadrial era 2 I could not stand Wayne, Wayne to me appears to be a self-insert for Brandon, really corny “I’m so clever humor” that just doesn’t really fit the story or the character and seems to be an imprint of the author. I skimmed most of Wayne’s scenes in those books, then I read Yumi & Tress and realized that Hoid was becoming a more pronounced self-insert for Brandon as well.
If that’s your type of humor that’s fine, I didn’t enjoy it, but I don’t think Brandon understands that’s part of the modernization issue and that it has gotten progressively worse with his recent books, yes it was always there to some extent but that doesn’t mean he should push it further. Putting a middle aged Mormon dad personality into a renegade killer seeking penance or a Godlike Bard is pretty disrupting to a fantasy/steampunk setting. I haven’t read wind and truth but my hype for his books was already dying with Era 2 and Tress & Yumi (both of which were much much better than Era 2 to me)