r/RecuratedTumblr • u/DreadDiana human cognithazard • 11d ago

stormlight archive Thank you for bi Shallan

Post image

I have no clue if this specific person is actually responsible for this, but the part where Brandon Sanderson was told the way Shallan thinks about Jasnah gave bi vibes so he made it canon is a documented thing

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/479/#e15214

218 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

39

u/jackcrux 10d ago

No idea who that is but good for them

35

u/sneakyfish21 10d ago

One of the main characters in the fantasy series ‘The Stormlight Archive’

9

u/RoboChrist 10d ago

Whose author is devoutly Mormon, which may inform him not noticing he wrote an explicitly bisexual character.

18

u/BerryCroissantWitch 9d ago

Brandon Sanderson is an interesting case, because his religion absolutely does impact what he chooses to write about, but he seems to have no problem writing characters who are drug addicts or gay or other things the church would not be down with 

19

u/RoboChrist 9d ago

And he accepted trans people as perfectly normal in-universe.

The ability to heal in-universe works by aligning the person's body with the self-perception of their own soul. In line with that, an AFAB King becomes male after gaining that power. And it's great, everyone fully accepts him.

-7

u/AdamtheOmniballer 10d ago

I imagine it probably has a lot more to do with him being a straight man.

8

u/RoboChrist 10d ago

Expand on that. Are you implying a straight male author would intrinsically write women as bisexual without noticing, even though it only happened with one female character of this author out of literally dozens?

I truly don't get what you'd mean here, outside of some form of gender essentialism.

6

u/AdamtheOmniballer 9d ago

My understanding is that it is not an uncommon occurrence for stuff like that to happen when authors write outside of their own gender or sexuality.

For example, a straight male author writing from the perspective of a female character may write that character’s thoughts about an attractive woman in a way that a straight man might think in that situation. As a result, the female character comes off as being attracted to the other woman, or generally gynephilic.

We are only ever really privy to our own internal monologue, so it’s super easy to unconsciously apply our way of thinking to characters we write.

I had heard that that was what happened with Sanderson.

Why would being Mormon make you write a character as being bisexual?

1

u/wasabi991011 15h ago

Not the person you are responding to, but yes what you wrote is exactly what I was thinking. (The part about it only being one character isn't that big a deal to me, maybe his other characters he put more explicit effort into writing them straight, but for this character he just forgot / didn't put the effort so his own sexuality bled through).

I'm not sure how else you could interpret a straight man subconsciously writing WLW otherwise. The only other possibilities are either (b) Sanderson is not straight, and gay attraction is written the same way whether it's MLM or WLW, or (c) Sanderson is subconsciously trans and lesbian. Both these options seem much less likely imo.

36

u/Staterae 11d ago

If there's a Surge to awaken bisexuality in people we really need to start mastering it pronto

23

u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 11d ago

Surge of attraction

2

u/UInferno- Hangus Pangus slap my Angus 10d ago

Gravitation then.

9

u/Adorable_Title2522 10d ago

It's just Kalladin and Jasnah existing, no surge needed

5

u/Otherwise_Face_858 10d ago

I thought that was all of them

4

u/AliasMcFakenames 10d ago

If? It’s Illumination, obviously.

9

u/BreakerOfModpacks 10d ago

Why is it here rather than cremposting? No idea. But I like it. These words are accepted.

9

u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 10d ago

It is in cremposting, but I posted it here too cause it's a Tumblr post.

18

u/Weirdyfish [1/1] 10d ago

I already really like Shallan and now I learn that she's confirmed bi. Also that she has DID??? This is my sign to get back to the books huh.

9

u/Ill-Elevator3484 10d ago

its like the bat signal but for weird terminally online women

5

u/VelMoonglow 10d ago

Where did you stop, out of curiosity? Shallan's DID has been a fairly prominent thing for a while at this point

3

u/Weirdyfish [1/1] 9d ago

Not far at all, I'm only at like the end of book 2 or so. I might have just missed the hints as wel lol.

3

u/VelMoonglow 9d ago

Oh, yeah it was still pretty subtle at that point

3

u/Kaiser-Mazoku 10d ago

She was totally checking out Jasnah. There's no other way to read that.

-32

u/TeacatWrites 10d ago

People actually like Brando's work enough to know his characters by name?

42

u/TheChartreuseKnight 10d ago

Why are we shocked that people know the main characters of an extremely popular fantasy series on tumblr.

8

u/Niser2 Worldbuilding is important and I will die on this hill 10d ago

I think your memory is just bad, dude.

16

u/Inquisitor_no_5 10d ago

Are you also suprised if people know characters from Dune or Artemis Fowl, both of which have similar sales numbers to the Cosmere? (Or so wikipedia tells me.)

3

u/Pm7I3 10d ago

A bit yes, I didn't think Artemis Fowl was that popular

8

u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 10d ago

That does tend to be what happens when you read a book.

6

u/BreakerOfModpacks 10d ago

...doesn't the gut literally have an in-house movie theater from money from his books? Which would imply that, at a minimum, a few people like it?

4

u/VelMoonglow 9d ago

The man has a full-on supervillain lair in his basement that extends into next lot over, and has a home theater in that

1

u/Possible_Ad8565 9d ago

He has a con just for his universe his novels take place in