What Elantris did Right (Spoiler-Free)
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- Опубліковано 19 вер 2022
- Elantris may be, according to many fans, the weakest Brandon Sanderson book - but there's a good reason it managed to kickstart the sprawling universe we know as the Cosmere today.
#brandonsanderson #booktube #cosmere
Music:
George Street Shuffle/Smooth Lovin/Tango de Manzana Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Twitter: / nathbeardsley
I actually read Elantris after reading Mistborn, Warbreaker, and the first two Stormlight books, and I was blown away by how complete the Sanderlanche was.
You were able to stop in the middle of the Stormlight Archives?
@@nikacomedawn maybe the others weren't out yet?
I think Elantris's best bits are the antagonists Hrathen is just a great character and his respect for Serene growing as the book goes along is very believable. I also like that he takes a major fantasy trope (two characters who look like they hate each other and are actually just friendly rivals) and turned it on its head(one of them actually hates the other). Spoilers for Warbreaker: He does it well in Warbreaker too. The jokey mercenary with the heart of gold, well turns out he doesn't have that heart of gold.
Hrathen is definitely my favorite character in Elantris; I think he's one of Sanderson's best villains period. And of course, the irony of the line about the people of Arelon eventually coming to call him savior is brilliant.
The thing with Denth made me so sad.
I love optimistic protagonists. I wish we had more of them to be honest.
That being said, I've always found that an author's debut novel tends to be their worst work. Not necessarily that it's bad, but rather that an author should only be able to go up afterwards.
(Also, I totally look up publishing tips too)
I'm always astounded by those few authors who publish a debut that also goes on to be regarded as their masterpiece. Ralph Ellison, Harper Lee, Nella Larsen, etc... It makes you wonder how many unpublished books they had lying around.
Yesssss, we need more upbeat protagonists!!!
Elantris has some amazing adaptation potential.
I think it could make a great limited series.
I've always thought an animated movie would be great
@@mcspazatron240 I just wondering what kind of animation they’d use to depict the constantly growing pain.
"Stay Generic" sounds like a good beginning for your story
Elantris was actually the book that got me into Sanderson and back into the fantasy genre. I quite enjoyed the book at the time, though I did feel that the ending was a bit too quick and a bit unsatisfying with the elements he had in there. Despite that, Elantris definitely made me curious about Sanderson which led me directly to Way of Kings. I'm also VERY glad Sanderson didn't take the advice to write like Martin - I couldn't stand the writing style in GoT and essentially DNF'd the series because of it.
I think I read Mistborn and Way of Kings before reading Elantris. . .and I actually genuinely enjoyed it. You can really see where Brandon has grown from Elantris, but you can also see where his writing style began. I really really want elantris 2.
Thank you for introducing me to the term "Sanderlanche." I didn't know how much I needed that until right now, but it's the perfect way to describe it!
As someone who started my whole Sanderson reading career with Elantris, and someone who still thinks it's a great story, it was so nice to watch such a great positive review of it. For people who maybe find the prose in Elantris a little tough to handle, I highly recommend the Graphic Audio version of it, which is pricey to buy individually but you can get for just one Audible credit if you use that service. It really brings the text to life and is an extremely fun listen!
I think your comment on the novel being standalone was a POSITIVE for the time it was published, as publishers werent as willing to invest in something that had a long term plan in case it crumbled early. Nowadays that's different due to the increased value of "franchises" and "universes" that things like the MCU and the Cosmere itself helped make more mainstream. So a book with no further plans is more dead in the water now.
Though i started with mistborn, i have a very soft spot for Elantris. I never recommend it to people when talking about Sanderson, but i really think it may be my favorite cosmere thus far. I love how the world felt so large, like there are so many threads i would love to follow. Such awesome themes on leadership that are maybe more nuanced in later books but so satisfying here. Though I did read it while on vacation so maybe i've conditioned myself to look at it this fondly😅
Glad to see some Elantris love! I very much look forward to seeing more of this world in the future.
Still haven't read Elantris, I've done Era 1 Mistborn, all of Stormlight including novellas and now secret history over the last two years. I'll try to come back to this and see if I agree once I've got round to it.
I love elantris. It’s just such a great book with awesome characters and fantastic magic systems
Elantris was pretty much the last book in the cosmere I read, but it's right below mistborn as my most favorite cosmere book :)
A very interesting video! I personally really liked Elantris and it was interesting to hear your thoughts on what made it work. You generally seem to create good content so I will be sure to stick around for more :)
Elantris was the last book from the cosmere that i read, because everyone on reddit said that it was " bad", I really liked that book, not to the level of mistborn or stormlight, but it was very good
its not that its' bad, its just not as good as mistborn or stormlight. It suffers from first book syndrome. I do believe it has it's good parts; like hrathen is his best villian period
Before watch the video) I think Elatris still one of my favorite Brandon books. Mostly because there is a lot of trigers and elements that I personaly like. Maybe a little simplier that other, but very warm story, with mistery, some kind of surviving and Hrathen)
I definitely think it's underrated. But it was my first Cosmere book, so I have a special soft spot for it.
@@genericallyentertaining Maybe it's what writing / reading about. When you truly enjoy the story some gemeral opinions does't mean so much... I read Elatris after second Stormline and stiil very like it)
Funnily enough, the only thing I disliked about Elantris (except for the poorly portrayed autistic character) is the Sanderlanche. I won't go so far to say that it was bad, but it was just too much. I would have preferred if the ending had been spaced out more. Also, there were just too many gratuitous twists. That said, I really enjoyed the build up and the ending is still coherent and satisfying. I was surprised to learn it was over 200k words - it felt much shorter to me, and I really liked all of the protagonists.
Elantris was the first Sanderson book I read after his wheel of time books and I loved it. And his stuff has only gotten better
Honestly, I prefer Elantris to Warbreaker, I like most of the characters more, the mystery and world seem more interesting to me and the sanderlanche actually works (I don't really like the ending of Warbreaker, it felt way too rushed)
Fantastic Brandon impression
Elantris was my first Cosmere book as well, and I don't think it deserves all the dislike it gets. It's not the weakest Cosmere book. It's just the least strong one.
For me, elantris is one of the best Brandon Sanderson books, i loved it!
I read Elantris after the major series, it's not on my favorite list. I remember feeling the plot was progressing too slow for my taste, and that the rigid one-POV-one-chapter structure hurt its momentum at times. But oh boy the reveal that *SPOILERS*
the Aons were broken because of the changed topography of the country, and subsequent restoring of the city was one of my favorite moments from the cosmere. It had been staring us in the face on the maps all along!
Chekov's Chasm.
Weird, I think I see people state Alloy of Law (not the whole W&W series, just Alloy) as their least favourite cosmere book, way more so than Elantris
Anyway, good review!
80k-120k words...really...huh I thought I needed to be about 250,000 words. I was trying to work out how I would flesh out the plot more to fill that. Thanks for the tip.
Very interesting analysis. I love your Brandon Sanderson content
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed.
Cool vid
At 2:00 this place looks like “frozen eleum loyce” The DLC from Dark souls 2
That's it I'm reading Elantris next
You even pronounced the names right from the in-world point of view... you definitely did your research
I did my best! Aonic names are honestly really cool; I love the way the Aons are incorporated directly into the words themselves, giving every character's name a special meaning.
Funnily enough I read elantris before lost metal after finishing the rest of the cosmere. Then i re-read the entire cosmere before lost metal. (Sanderson broke me)
Have you been to Sanderson’s class at BYU?
When you need early readers (alpha, beta, etc) will you be asking here on your channel?
It honestly hadn't occurred to me to do so! I'm currently working on the second draft of something, so I'll be looking for alpha/beta readers fairly soon anyway. Perhaps I'll put up a community post at some point to see if anyone's interested.
@@genericallyentertaining count me in!
@@genericallyentertaining I'd be down
Most underrated book in the Cosmere.
Saying Elantris is your least favorite Sanderson book is like saying Cars was your least favorite Pixar movie (until a few years ago...) It's so good. But his other books are soooo good-er
I was wondering how you have so few subscribers and then I realized I’m not even subscribed myself. Egad. My apologies.
I tried reading elantris, but it was boring and i was only interested in 1 out of the 3 characters. I'm sure the end will make up for it, but it requires a lot of motivation to go through the sluggish part
See, I actually had that problem with Way of Kings. . . I actually put it down and then went back and restarted a number of months later and it really wasn't until last 300 pages or so that I actually began to enjoy it. >.> I've now read it several more times since and have much enjoyed the foreshadowing and watching the plot threads pull together.
I really don't get the hate Elantris gets. I enjoyed it... people say that Raoden and Sarene don't really get any character development but I would say they get some but it's subtle and anyway Hrathen gets enough for all three of them.
Liked it better than Warbreaker. Both of which I am glad I have read, but I will never read again. Frankly, if you take a shot every time he uses the terms "cocked an eyebrow" or "eyed" you'll be dead within the first few chapters.
You got to start making book reviews
I'm planning to start making them more regularly!
Elantris is a very good book if it's the first Sanderson's you read. After reading the whole (published until now) Stormlight Archive, the 6 (published until now) books of Mistborn and others, it's kinda lame. I feel it's because it waits too much to introduce magic. After reading so many Sanderson books, it feels unexploited.
elantris is underrated, i dont understand people, its better than a lot of the cosmere books
Hot take: Elantra’s and Warbreaker were both better that Mistborn 2&3. I don’t know why they get the hate they do. Mistborn is my least favorite Cosmere property….I think I like white sands better than it.
Elantris is my second least-favorite Sanderson book but that just means it’s a 9/10 instead of a 10/10
Is Elaine-tris the official pronunciation?
Wicked late, but Sanderson says Uh-Lon-tris
"EE-layn-tris" is the technically correct pronunciation according to Sanderson's website, because the name is based on Aon Ela (pronounced AY-own EE-lay). But almost everyone, including Sanderson himself, say uh-LAHN-tris (the "lan" rhyming with "Han" in Han Solo)
Never understood why people call her "Serin-Nee". It's just "SerEEN". Not a hard word to pronounce. Lots of people in our time have that name as well
It's because that's how the audio book pronounces it
The canonical pronunciation is sa-REE-nee, because she's named after Aon Ene, and all vowels in the names of Aons are pronounced like the English letter names (so both like the letter E). There's pronunciation notes on Sanderson's website explaining all this.
But yeah, it's needlessly confusing and a little silly.
It's read as elantris, not elantris
Elaintris
The way you pronounce elantris gives me a migraine.
Haha, I just try to use the in-universe pronunciations for Cosmere characters/settings when I can. (Although I still haven't come to accept that Kelsier should technically be Kelsi-ay.)
Stay generic