Lyn: Hello, Cosmere Chickens, and welcome to a brand-spankin’ new reread featuring your resident Sanderson rereaders! This time around we’re diving into Brandon’s very first (published) novel, Elantris. It’s going to be quite interesting going back to his earliest work since we just finished up with the latest Stormlight release, but there’s a lot of really cool stuff going on in Elantris that deserves digging into.
Paige: This is the first book of Brandon’s that I read after he was named to complete The Wheel of Time. Elantris and Mistborn: The Final Empire were his only published works at that point, and, of course, I chose Elantris because it had been published first. And it was unlike any fantasy I had ever read before. Brandon definitely changed the fantasy game for me! For these reasons, Elantris will always hold a special place in my heart.
L: Before we begin, some introductions may be in order for those new to the Tor.com reread chicken coop. (If you’re new and scratching your head over the chicken references, it’s a little affectionate term/joke I started a while ago. All birds in the Stormlight Archive are referred to as chickens, so at one point I started referring to the frequent readers here as chickens. It stuck… well, it did for me, anyway. So chickens ye be!) ::ahem:: Anyway. Hi! My name’s Lyn. I’ve been one of Brandon’s beta readers since Words of Radiance and was the inspiration for the character of Lyn, though I’d like it to be known that I would NEVER dump Kaladin. Poor little gingersnap’s been through so much as it is…
My real life is even weirder, if possible, than my fictional one. I’m a mom, a writer of fantasy novels myself (though a bit saucier than Brandon’s, and I wish I could be as quick to release them as he is), I make magic wands as a day job, and on the weekends I moonlight as the costumer for two New England Renaissance Faires and bring my story-telling & sword-fighting act to many more in the NE area (this year we’ll be at the New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut faires). If you’re wondering how I have free time for all of this… join the club. I don’t know how I do it either.
P: Hey chickens! (Just go with it!) I’m Paige from New Mexico (and if you don’t know why and want to, check out my blog post on the matter) and I’ve been a beta reader since Edgedancer, which was released between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer. I’m also a writer, though I haven’t done much more than some anthology work and a self-published novel that isn’t currently available, unfortunately. (It needs a heavy edit, I’m afraid.) I’m working on the third novel of a trilogy that I hope to publish one day, as it’s so dear to me.
I also do a bit of writing for Tor.com aside from re-read articles. Most of them are about The Stormlight Archive, but a couple of them have been about my own struggles with mental illness and how I relate so strongly to Brandon’s characters. In fact, one such article I wrote with a dear friend features material from Elantris, and it was one of Tor’s top articles of 2019. ::buffs nails:: Nah, I’m not the least bit proud. But I’m so excited to dive into this book with Lyndsey, so let’s get to it, shall we?
L: We’ll be running this reread a little differently from some of the others you may be accustomed to. In the bigger series, we would separate out each article into sections, grouping the things we wanted to talk about by subject. For this one, we’re going to try just going through chronologically, putting in the quotes as we read and discussing as we go. We might wind up switching back if we find this isn’t ideal, but for now… let’s see how it goes, shall we?
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Spoiler warning: Sometimes we may be referencing other Cosmere works. When we do so, we’ll note it here so you can refrain from reading if you don’t want to be spoiled. For this first article, we do talk a bit about Stormlight, Mistborn, and make passing references to other Cosmere works as they relate to the shattering of Adonalsium. No huge plot spoilers for any of these, though. Mostly a lot of Words of Brandon (i.e., direct quotes from interviews that Brandon’s given over the years).
Essentials
POV Character(s): Raoden, Sarene
Just a note here that most of this book takes place in Kae and Elantris itself:
Raoden sat up, blinking in the soft morning light. Just outside his open balcony windows he could see the enormous city of Elantris in the distance, its stark walls looming over the smaller city of Kae, where Raoden lived.
Prologue
L: Well, it looks like we’re starting this one off with a bang, right out the gate…
Visitors say that the very stones glowed with an inner light, and that the city contained wondrous arcane marvels. At night, Elantris shone like a silvery fire, visible even from a great distance. …
Legends claim that [Elantrians] were immortal, or at least nearly so. Their bodies healed quickly, and they were blessed with great strength, insight, and speed. They could perform magics with a bare wave of the hand;…
Things like this (and other instances in which we see the powers of Sel being used, as in The Lost Metal and The Emperor’s Soul) makes it seem in some ways that this is the most Invested world in the Cosmere. The level of change over the physical world that they can attain seems pretty extreme, rivaled only by some the Surgebinding in Stormlight (specifically the Surges of Transformation and Cohesion). But there’s a good reason for this.
The Shards “held” on Sel are Devotion and Dominion. AFAIK the only other world to hold two Shards is Scadrial (Mistborn), and even then this one is pretty unique. The Shards on Sel have been splintered (by Odium—thanks a LOT, Odium) so a person can no longer hold them; their Investiture instead permeates the very regions in which they are located. My theory is that since the power isn’t concentrated in a single person and instead is shared amongst the peoples who live there, the individual practitioners seem stronger than those on other worlds. (source, source)
P: Seriously, though… Odium is such a jerk. How would he like to be splintered?
But yes, Elantrians before the Reod seem to have been amazingly powerful. And I do like your theory on the matter. The idea that the Elantrians could access the power of the splintered shards is pretty cool.
The Shaod, it was called. The Transformation. It struck randomly—usually at night, during the mysterious hours when life slowed to rest. The Shaod could take beggar, craftsman, nobleman, or warrior. When it came, the fortunate person’s life ended and began anew; he would discard his old, mundane existence and move to Elantris.
L: So here’s another interesting Cosmere-related thing! I’m always fascinated by how people come by their Investiture (ie., their Connection). In most worlds, it’s awoken in you at a certain time, or when you do a certain thing. On Scadrial and Roshar, it often seems to be related to trauma (breaking). In this instance, people just… wake up with it? I do wonder why.
P: Bad dreams? All kidding aside, it is incredibly interesting that they just wake up one day as gods of a sort.
Eternity ended ten years ago.
L: As a writer, I just have to say how great of a hook this prologue is. It raises so many questions and really makes you want to keep reading to find out what happened! So effective.
P: Completely effective. I was already smitten with Brandon’s writing in that short prologue but had I not been, that line alone would have kept me reading.
Chapter One
The abandoned city seemed darker than usual.
L: There’s something so intrinsically fantasy about abandoned cities, isn’t there? Shadar Logoth in Wheel of Time’s another good one.
P: Fantasy, and wonderfully creepy. Especially when it’s covered in slime.
His blue eyes were the same, though they were wide with terror. His hair, however, had changed from sandy brown to limp grey. The skin was the worst. The mirrored face was covered in sickly black patches, like dark bruises. The splotches could mean only one thing.
L: Such a cool mental image… almost like a zombie. And the poor Elantrians are, as we’ll soon find out, like zombies in more ways than just appearance. Brandon himself admits this similarity in his annotations.
P: Magic zombies! As Ross said in our article (linked above). Though less magic and more zombie, really.
Ten years ago, the Shaod would have made Raoden a god. Now, instead of making people into silver-skinned deities, it changed them into sickly monstrosities.
L: There are a lot of things to be said about disabilities here. Waking up one day to find that your life has completely changed, that the very way you’re going to interact with the world has been fundamentally altered, can be a very hard pill to take.
P: Very hard, indeed. I can’t begin to imagine having a debilitating physical disability.
The Shaod was a thing that happened to other people—distant people. People who deserved to be cursed. Not the crown prince of Arelon. Not Raoden.
L: More parallels with disability and chronic illness. It’s always “no, this couldn’t happen to me!” Until it does.
P: You truly never expect it to happen to you. I know I didn’t, though my issues are mental rather than physical. And the idea that you don’t “deserve” the cards you’ve been dealt makes the situation even worse. I had a family member who thought that illnesses and the like were a punishment from God for sins committed against Him.
L: ::angry noises::
P: That always made me angry… like, I didn’t do anything bad to “deserve” Bipolar Disorder. It’s a literal physiological, feature like having green eyes or weird toes. (Yes, I do happen to have weird toes.)
A dozen or so Elantrians lay scattered across the courtyard’s fetid stone. Many sat uncaringly, or unknowingly, in pools of dark water, the remains of the night’s rainstorm. And they were moaning. Most of them were quiet about it, mumbling to themselves or whimpering with some unseen pain.
L: This whole concept is just so horrific. Living with every pain you have ever endured, for all eternity? No way to escape it? Ugh. It sounds like literal hell. No thanks.
P: Truly. And though, again, many of the pains I’ve experienced are mental and emotional rather than physical, like the Elantrians’ pains, I can empathize with the compounding of pain. Though, thankfully, I’m not immortal.
Raoden raised an arm to shade his eyes, and only then did he remember the small thatch basket in his hands. It held the ritual Korathi sacrifice sent to accompany the dead into the next life—or, in this case, into Elantris. The basket contained a loaf of bread, a few thin vegetables, a handful of grain, and a tiny flask of wine. Normal death sacrifices were far more extensive, but even a victim of the Shaod had to be given something.
P: It’s worth mentioning the ritual of sending Elantrians into the city with a small basket of food, meager as it is. It will come into play later. And it’s also why the lurking Elantrians attack the boy, because Raoden gives him the loaf of bread.
Eventually, one of the newcomers—obviously annoyed—brought a makeshift club down on the boy’s neck with a crunch that resounded through the small alley.
L: ::shudder:: This is just… yikes. Brutality, indeed.
P: So much brutality. And the fact that the brutes know what it’s like to feel never-ending pain, but they have no qualms about injuring others.
L: They’ve just ceased caring about anyone other than themselves… which is what makes Raoden such an anomaly in his actions. In a lot of ways, he’s similar to Kaladin. We’ll get into that later, though.
The awkward motion threw him off balance, and an unseen schism in the paving stones sent him into a maladroit stumble
L: Maladroit count: 1! (This is a bit of a joke in the fan community, that Brandon overuses this word.)
P: A gif for the occasion.
Raoden felt his stomach churn as one of the men slid his finger down a crack, scraped up a dark handful that was more sludge than corn, then rammed the entire mass between eager lips.
L: Well, I was hungry…
P: Yeah, having a vivid imagination is not fun when reading stuff like this, because you see it in your head. Ugh..
“I’m Galladon, from the sovereign realm of Duladel.”
L: It’s worth nothing that Galladon shows up on Roshar in The Way of Kings, looking for Hoid near the Purelake. Though how he got there, no one’s quite sure.
P: But it sure is nice for Raoden to run into him so early into his tenure in Elantris.
“You’re dead—your body won’t repair itself like it should.”
L: Something to do with this world’s equivalent to the Surge of Progression…? Maybe when the earthquake damaged the AonDor, the inherent Progression ceased to function along with all the rest of the Elantrians’ powers?
P: Makes sense.
“Every pain, sule,” Galladon whispered. “Every cut, every nick, every bruise, and every ache—they will stay with you until you go mad from the suffering.
L: Those of us with chronic health issues have an inkling of how terrifying and frustrating this would be…
P: This aspect of the story has stayed with me since my first read…despite what other details may fade between rereads, this horrific detail sticks. And this is primarily what I wanted to reference when writing that article about depression: the way the pain is compounded until it’s unbearable
He found the beggar boy in the same location, near the mouth of the alley. He was still alive … in a way.
L: Hooboy. I’d forgotten how brutal this part of the story is…
P: “In a way.” …oh my, the horrified shuddering.
Elantrian bodies seem to burn better than those of normal people…
L: Huh. Well, that’s an interesting little tidbit. I can’t find anything on the Arcanum about it, aside from the fact that the Elantrians’ bodies are fundamentally changed when they undergo the Shaod. I wonder what makes them more flammable…
P: Yeah, it’s kind of an odd piece of information that never gets explained.
L: Knowing Brandon, I’m sure there’s a reason and we’ll find out about it years down the line, and all have a collective “oooooh” moment.
“Some say that if you burn us, or cut off our head, or do anything that completely destroys the body, we’ll just stop existing. Others, they say the pain goes on—that we become pain. They think we’d float thoughtlessly, unable to feel anything but agony.”
L: Thankfully, Brandon has confirmed that the latter is not the case. (Thank goodness.)
P: I can’t help but wonder who says these things. Did Galladon hear them before he underwent the Shaod? Because he doesn’t exactly interact with people in Elantris. Not until Raoden.
Chapter Two
A large part of that curiosity was an attempt to take her mind off her feelings of inferiority and awkwardness—anything to keep from acknowledging what she was: a lanky, brusque woman who was almost past her prime. She was twenty-five years old; she should have been married years ago.
L: ::sarcasm filter on:: My god, she’s ANCIENT!
P: So very old. It’s a wonder Raoden would have had her at all.
The people of this country might be starving, but Kae—seat of Arelon’s aristocracy—didn’t appear to have noticed.
L: Sounds about right (unfortunately).
P: As an aristocracy does. Or doesn’t do, in the case of noticing the starving subjects.
She had yet to see a seon in the streets of Kae, though the creatures—said to be the ancient creations of Elantris magic—were supposed to be even more common in Arelon than in her homeland.
L: It’s been a long time since I read this one… was it ever explained why the seons who weren’t bonded to Elantrians weren’t affected by the earthquake? Shouldn’t they all need the extra line drawn into their Aons too, in order to function…? (It’s explained that the ones bonded to Elantrians went mad, this I remember, but why are these ones okay?)
P: As far as I can remember, it’s not explained. But the extra line is only needed on the initial aon the Elantrians draw, right? Not on all Aons. To my recollection, anyway.
“I’m not sure, my lady,” Ashe confessed. “I left Arelon long ago, and I lived here for such a short time that I can’t remember many specifics.”
L: I find the Aons so fascinating. They’re like spren, but with less personality… In a way they remind me of a cross between stereotypical butlers and AI servants that have encyclopedic knowledge (and now I kind of want to link a floating, glowing ball to Alexa…).
P: I’d happily take a seon! Even if it didn’t change to the face of the person I was speaking with. It would be a better conversationalist than Alexa.
Iadon did not look like a man mourning the passing of his son and heir. There was no sign of grief in his eyes, none of the haggard fatigue that generally accompanied the death of a loved one. In fact, the air of the court itself seemed remarkably free of mourning signs.
L: This does seem odd, doesn’t it?
P: Quite different from the obvious pain of the townspeople mourning Raoden earlier.
He interrupted her halfway through her curtsy.
“No one told me you would be so tall,” he declared.
L: Well.
P: Rude, indeed.
No one could possibly talk as much as the queen did; she never let a silent moment pass. It was almost like the woman was uncomfortable around Sarene. Then, in a moment of realization, Sarene understood what it was. Eshen spoke on every imaginable topic except for the one most important: the departed prince.
L: Awww. The poor thing. I can’t imagine how upset she must be at losing Raoden this way.
P: If she even thinks him dead. She might know that he’s an Elantrian and feel very uncomfortable with the idea, hence her prattling. Unless she just always prattles.
L: But he is dead. In every way that matters, anyway, as far as these people are concerned.
P: Point. I suppose it’s the same thing to them.
“This doesn’t seem like a court that is in mourning. Take the queen, for instance. She didn’t appear distraught when she spoke to me—you’d think she would be at least a little bothered by the fact that her son died yesterday.”
L: I mean… she’s right, sort of, but how does she know that this isn’t how the Queen mourns? Everyone’s different.
P: Everyone is different. But again, I wonder if the Queen knows Raoden is an Elantrian and didn’t die of the disease that they said killed him. Of course, that would still be a cause for mourning.
She felt more than alone; she felt rejected—again. Unwanted.
L: Poor Sarene! I think we can all understand this feeling to one degree or another; most of us have experienced it at some point in our lives.
P: Oh, absolutely. I’ve waxed poetic about this very thing before. Okay, maybe not poetic.
“Go easy on them, Leky Stick. I don’t want to get a note from Minister Naolen in a month telling me that King Iadon has run off to join a Korathi monastery and the Arelenes have named you monarch instead.”
“All right,” Sarene said with a wan smile. “I’ll wait at least two months then.”
L: I adore their relationship. It’s relatively rare to see a loving parent/child relationship in fantasy fiction!
P: Yes! So often there’s animosity, or at least differences of opinion between parents and their children. See Dalinar and Adolin.
L: Or just no relationship at all, given the prevalence of the orphaned farm boy trope. This has improved quite a lot in the last twenty or so years, but even so, it’s not exactly common to see affectionate parenting in fantasy.
End Notes
L: You know, I always forget how much I really love the characters in this one. A lot of Cosmere readers list this as one of their least favorite of the books, but Raoden in particular is just such a fantastic character. And the whole concept of the Elantrians’ curse is captivating (if horrific).
P: I love these characters, too, I wish I was as snarky as Sarene! And we have yet to meet our third POV character. We’ll see him next week!
L: Him I’m NOT a fan of, but we’ll get there when we get there…
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, and hope to join you there! We’re going to be trying to stick to about 25 pages’ worth of narrative per article, so next week we’ll be back with chapters three and four.
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. She has been to numerous baseball games so far this season. In fact, she just returned from a trip to Los Angeles to see the Yankees beat the Dodgers twice, and is looking forward to a family trip to see the Yankees play in Colorado in July. Links to her other writing are available in her profile.
Lyndsey lives in Connecticut and makes magic wands for a living, as well as working as the costumer for two of her local Renaissance Faires. If you enjoy queer protagonists, snarky humor, and don’t mind some salty language, check out book 1 of her fantasy series. Follow her on Facebook or TikTok!
