Journey to the Left: A Wind and Truth Review
SPOILERS FOR WIND AND TRUTH
I was born in the Bay Area. While a lot of terrible things happened to me between birth and departure, many good things happened as well. Among these positive experiences, one that I have only recently begun to truly appreciate is the fact that I was raised by very leftist people.
I'm pretty far left. I didn't really learn this until I left California—I actually thought I was more of a centrist. I went through undergrad thinking this, and then I went to Purdue University in Indiana, where realized that I was borderline communist. Live and learn I guess?
Being very far left is a whole lot less difficult, and arguably less fun, when your dad is also far left. Hell, my dad's stepdad is fairly liberal. Leftist ideas never felt very "edgy" to me as a kid, because things lose their cool factor when your grandfather does them.
This particular privilege of mine comes due, in part, to some incredible people in my family. My mom's grandmother left her alcoholic, abusive, Mormon fundamentalist husband in Salt Lake City, moved to San Francisco, where she got a BA in English Literature, a PhD in Education, a JD, and two master's degrees (I made some calls and it looks like people forget what the 2 master's degrees are in). She also had 5 kids before while doing all this, which is why I will never complain about my professor being too hard on me (just kidding, I do that constantly). She may have been dating another Morman woman, but that is just speculation on the part of some of the older people on my mom's side of the family. They never said they were dating, but they did live together for a time and would go to pretty intense parties with each other.
Due to this journey out of Utah, my parents were somewhat alarmed when I told them that Brandon Sanderson, my favorite author in childhood (and remains top 10 in my 20s), was a fairly religious Mormon, though I would not call him a fundamentalist. I'm not going to fault somebody for being religious—I'm reasonably religious myself, although obviously not Mormon (I'm Jewish if you haven't figured this out already). That being said, his ideological background certainly comes through in his writing.
Sanderson used to be really homophobic. In 2008, he wrote this essay in regards to the Dumbledore sexuality retcon. If you don't want to read it (which is valid as it's a pretty tough read), he basically says that he is in favor of queer people in media, but feels that romantic and sexual attraction that is not heterosexual is an urge you should resist, similar to feeling an attraction to somebody other than the person you are in a relationship with.
What's funny is that he actually says that the majority of angry responses to this essay came from other Mormons who thought he wasn't being homophobic enough. In any event, he has come quite a long way since then. This is mostly speculation, but I feel as though part of that is because he has a very queer fandom, to the point where the Shardcast, his official podcast, did an episode on queerness in the cosmere. I suspect that this comes at least in part from the fact that when you create dictionary-sized doorstoppers full of complex worlds that are easy to disassociate with, you are going to get a lot of depressed teenagers reading them. Depressed teenagers hoping to disassociate often become queer adults. However, I will not say that this makes up the majority of his fandom. Sanderson teaches at BYU, and his books are very clean, so he has a sizable religious conservative following. This makes his fan Discords very interesting places to lurk!
In any event, he more recently wrote this as a follow-up to his past essay. He apologizes for his old opinions, and I think it a reasonably good follow-up. He actually links to his old post, which I think was the right thing to do. It seemed as though he was slowly unlearning some of the religious conservatism that he was raised within.
And then the fucker wrote Wind and Truth. The man has certainly come a long way, and this should be celebrated. I'm genuinely happy for him, and I hope that he is a happier person as a result of his new understanding. I just wish that he hadn't had a personal revelation right in the middle of writing the fifth book of my favorite series of all time.
I have been lucky enough to be friends with people who are going through the process of unlearning some of the shitty stuff they were taught as a kid, and it is always wonderful to watch. For the record, this absolutely includes me. I was raised fairly leftist but I also had to unlearn things, becuase so does everybody, that is just growing up.
However, sometimes my friends who came from especially conservative backgrounds would get overly excited with these new ideas, because they are new to them, if not necessarily new to everybody else. And this is fantastic! It is worth getting excited over! Just... please keep it out of my book.
The chullussy and the cheering squad
I have zero issue with the lack of sex in his books. I sometimes feel as though the romance is poorly done, but honestly that is fine. If I wanted to read a book for the romance, I would not read a Sanderson book. And lucky for me, there are plenty of books not by Sanderson! It would seem, however, that he feels differently. Early on in the book, the man includes this fucking banger:
She trailed off as Syl’s clothing fuzzed and she was immediately wearing something similar. Syl rose up a little, her skirt—which was longer than the one she had worn in the past—rippling faintly. Thin, pleated, with the fitted jacket above. She continued to wear her hair loose, though she was one of the only ones in the room to do so.
“Nice,” Kaladin said. “It suits you.”
Syl grinned.
“I’d suggest,” the woman said, “a nice pair of leggings or trousers under the ko-takama for a Windrunner—or whatever you are—so that …”
“What?” Syl said innocently.
“When you’re flying,” the woman said. “So that, you know …”
Syl cocked her head, then gasped. “Oh! Or everyone will see my chull.”
“Your … chull?” the woman asked.
Syl leaned forward conspiratorially across the counter. “I could never figure out why these humans were so shy about the spot between their legs! Strange to my uncultured spren mind. Then I figured it out! Must be something pretty ugly down there, for everyone to be so afraid to show it! The ugliest thing I know of is a chull head. So when I made this body, I put one there.”
The woman stared at Syl, and seemed to be trying very hard not to look.
“… Chull head,” the woman finally said.
“Chull head,” Syl replied.
“Down … there.”
“Down there.”
Syl held the woman’s eyes with an unblinking stare, before adding, “I feed it grass sometimes.”
The woman released a shockspren and made a sound not unlike one Kaladin had heard from men being strangled. “I’ll go and check on your supplies,” she said, and scrambled away, blushing and appearing maybe a little nauseated.
Syl glanced at him and smiled sweetly.
“Chull head?” he asked.
“You know us spren!” she said. “So flighty and strange. Can’t even be trusted with a storming book! We might, I don’t know, read it and damage one of the precious pages.”
He snorted. “You didn’t … actually … you know …”
“Kaladin, don’t be stupid,” she said, hovering a foot off the ground, her new skirt rippling. “Think how uncomfortable that would be.”
“Do you even exist?” he said, saying it before he thought through the words. “Under the clothing? I mean, are the clothes your skin, or …”
She leaned toward him. “Wanna see?”
“Oh, storms no,” he said, imagining her vanishing her clothing right there in the middle of the book-quartermaster depot-place, fully visible to everyone. Or perhaps worse, just to him—to make him blush. Storms, she could do that at any time, in the middle of a meeting with Dalinar. She’d probably find it as funny as sticking his feet to the floor. One would think, after all this time, he’d have learned to keep his storming mouth shut.
I... What the fuck Brandon. For context, a chull is a large, crustacean beast of burden. I don't know what the man is trying to do with this particularly horrific interlude other than to make us all very unhappy with our lives. There is another part of the book where two characters finish having sex, and one discovers that some of the spren that form her armor had formed a cheering squad and were cheering her name. Man, idfk.
What is particularly funny about this scene is that one of the major relationships in his past works, the one between Vin and Elend, literally did not contain any descriptions at any point of them having sex. In fact he one time mentions during an interview that his editor said he couldn't figure out whether they were having sex or not. He said they were, it just wasn't explicitly mentioned in the books. Clearly, the writing has gone quite a long way.
Shallan clapping for Rlainarin
Sanderson, in my opinion, doesn't do romance super well. As I said before, I'm fine with this. However I will say, I think the romance between Rlain and Renarin is pretty well done, although maybe I just think that because I'm in a Renarin fan and I like seeing him happy.
In chapter 84, "For the Broken," Renarin and Rlain kiss. It is, I think, a reasonably well done scene. Except for this one bit at the end.
Renarin, Glys said eventually. Shallan has arrived, and is responding oddly.
Shallan? he thought. What do you mean?
I brought her out of her vision, Glys said, because you indicated you wanted to gather us again. Your window is still standing, and she's watching.
Oh, blood of his fathers. Shallan was watching? What's she doing? he asked.
Hopping up and down, Glys said, making a high-pitched sound like she's in pain.
She's not in pain, Renarin said back, sighing. She's squealing in excitement. That girl... Maybe it was a Lightweaver thing, or maybe it was only Shallan, but he'd always sensed a voyeuristic side to her. It took a special type to enjoy pretending to be someone else.
Well, if nothing else, he was glad to be able to provide his sister-in-law with some entertainment.
WHAT THE FUCK BRANDO. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. THIS IS NOT ENDEARING OR SWEET THIS IS CREEPY AS SHIT. ENTERTAINMENT?? WHAT?? I'M LOSING MY MIND.
I would just like to say for the record that what videos you watch and literature you read in the privacy of your own home is your buisness. However, real individuals are not yuri characters, and this type of behavior is really fucking gross. I mean what is going on? A lot of the fan theories that I saw online suggested that this is Sanderson trying to immitate how he suspected his fans would react, which is fine, but why is Shallan doing that? Shallan is a character, not an audiance insert.
I'm going to somewhat disagree with these theories. I don't think this is a fan insert, I think this is a Sanderson self-insert. I think that at least a part of this scene is Sanderson's own excitement at having two men kiss in his books, which is totally fine to have but please keep it to yourself.
On a related note, when I tried to get the above quote, I ctrl-F 'kiss' in the Wind and Truth pdf and got 796 results. What the fuck, Branderson???
Buddy cop therapists
One thing that Sanderson has always been reasonably aware and knowledgeable about is mental health issues. This is likely due, in part, to the fact that his wife has depression.
As a result, he does a fantastic job of portraying Kaladin's depression (which is canonically a clinical/chemical thing). Granted, I have only ever had situational depression and not chemical (I think? It runs in my family but after changing my situation the depression is pretty much gone). But Kaladin's brain state definitely seems like the state that I used to be in, and many folks online have agreed that this is an accurate portrayal and is handled very well. I don't have any issues with how mental health is handled in any of Sanderson's books.
I'm not actually sure if his wife is in therapy, and quite frankly it is none of my business. But either way, I feel as though he should have an okay understanding of how therapy works given his situation? In any event, what the fuck is going on with Kaladin's therapy speak?
In the start of the book, Kaladin becomes Szeth's therapist. Now to be clear, Szeth very much needs therapy, so I'm not opposed to him getting it. I don't even think therapy is anachronistic since Roshar isn't necessarily an analogue to any time on Earth. However, traveling around Shinovar as a buddy cop therapist is just not well done in my opinion.
As an example, towards the end there is a very climactic battle with the Herald Ishar. Ishar asks Kaladin if he is Szeth's god, or his spren, to which Kaladin replies that he is Szeths therapist. Ishar is confused as to what that means, and he replies "I honestly have no idea."
This is just sloppy writing. I don't really want to go into it anymore because honestly it irritates me, but it strikes me as very low effort indications that Sando is indeed in favour of people getting help for mental health issues, which we already know he is given what he has said about his wife!
I want to be clear: I am not accusing Branderson of 'virtue signaling.' I think that if you feel like being virtuous, you should go ahead and signal it as much as you like so other people know you are a chill dude. I just think that Brando is very, very excited about being somewhat exposed to a non-repressive environment, and finds it much more novel and interesting than many of his readers do.
Please make the later books better
At the end of the day, I am genuinely happy that Sanderson has, at least somewhat, come around. He is still certainly a religious Mormon, but that isn't a bad thing at all. I do, however, hope that he realizes that for many of his readers, these new ideas he is adding in his books are not particularly radical or shocking and that the 6th-10th books of the Stormlight Archive are as good as the earlier ones.
But see, I'm torn here because these realizations are ones that I want people to have. Being exposed at a young age to a culture that is somewhat less repressive than many is essentially due to luck of the draw. Sranders didn't do anything wrong by not getting exposed to these ideas until it was more or less forced upon him by his fandom, he was just unlucky, and people who gatekeep how much you are already familiar with these ideas are gigantic assholes.
But please. For the love of God. Keep the journey to the left out of my favorite series of all time.