Brandon Sanderson has been criticized by epic fantasy fans of The Stormlight Archives with book 5, Wind And Truth, having a heavy focus on modernism and an LGBTQ agenda that doesn’t fit within the medieval fantasy genre.
Circular reasoning from Sanderson. He's already assuming that pushing homosexual characters into everything is normal, which is the only scenario wherein not including them would be any kind of statement.
He might as well say that "not including Irish midgets with peg legs would be more of a statement"; that would only make sense if you assumed that it was normal to do it already. But just because some elitist a-holes who run major sectors of the entertainment, education, corporate, and political worlds try to force us to pretend it's normal, doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees with them. Unfortunately Sanderson's been sucked into the vortex of fame whoring and chasing clout.
First, gay people are incredibly common in real life. Even if their are none in your direct circle there are gay people in your life.
Second. Feel free to name a best seller in fantasy from the last 5 years with no lgbtq characters. If you can name any I promise I can list 3x as many with them.
Dresden Files, though "best seller" as a metric means almost nothing. That whole system is entirely corrupt. Hell, I have a friend who was on the NYT bestseller list a few years ago who still has no idea how he got there, because sales sure didn't seem to justify it. He's been on the list again since, this time more justified, but still with low sales numbers. It's all politics.
As to your main point, no, gay people aren't "incredibly common". They're about 3% of the population, not counting the high volumes of indoctrinated and brainwashed teenagers who caused the Gen Z numbers of "those who identify as LGBT" to jump to *over 30%* in their demographic alone. Gee, I wonder why *that* happened...
Your argument affirms AJs statement. "He's already assuming that pushing homosexual characters into everything is normal, which is the only scenario wherein not including them would be any kind of statement."
Most writers are including this type of thing. So it is not a risky statement. Sanderson said in the article “If I don’t do hard things, then am I actually pursuing art?” Sanderson asked the Esquire interviewer. “I hope people are like, ‘Wow, Brandon’s willing to do really interesting and exciting things with his fiction.’"
Is it actually hard? You don't get canceled for including this type of thing, you actually get canceled for not having it. Int the current state of our society it is actually harder to not do it. And in doing it he bows to external pressure to include it.
As a member of the same church as Sanderson, all I have to say is one of the worthiness questions we do every year is "Do you support or promote any teachings, practices, or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?", so either he is lying to his Bishop by saying no, or his Bishop is fine with it. either way, that is between all relevant parties and the Lord
I've always felt that Sanderson was wildly overrated as an author. I now feel free to say so. Thank you, Brandon!
"Let's Go Brandon!"
Circular reasoning from Sanderson. He's already assuming that pushing homosexual characters into everything is normal, which is the only scenario wherein not including them would be any kind of statement.
He might as well say that "not including Irish midgets with peg legs would be more of a statement"; that would only make sense if you assumed that it was normal to do it already. But just because some elitist a-holes who run major sectors of the entertainment, education, corporate, and political worlds try to force us to pretend it's normal, doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees with them. Unfortunately Sanderson's been sucked into the vortex of fame whoring and chasing clout.
Gold medal level mental gymnastics.
First, gay people are incredibly common in real life. Even if their are none in your direct circle there are gay people in your life.
Second. Feel free to name a best seller in fantasy from the last 5 years with no lgbtq characters. If you can name any I promise I can list 3x as many with them.
Dresden Files, though "best seller" as a metric means almost nothing. That whole system is entirely corrupt. Hell, I have a friend who was on the NYT bestseller list a few years ago who still has no idea how he got there, because sales sure didn't seem to justify it. He's been on the list again since, this time more justified, but still with low sales numbers. It's all politics.
As to your main point, no, gay people aren't "incredibly common". They're about 3% of the population, not counting the high volumes of indoctrinated and brainwashed teenagers who caused the Gen Z numbers of "those who identify as LGBT" to jump to *over 30%* in their demographic alone. Gee, I wonder why *that* happened...
Your argument affirms AJs statement. "He's already assuming that pushing homosexual characters into everything is normal, which is the only scenario wherein not including them would be any kind of statement."
Most writers are including this type of thing. So it is not a risky statement. Sanderson said in the article “If I don’t do hard things, then am I actually pursuing art?” Sanderson asked the Esquire interviewer. “I hope people are like, ‘Wow, Brandon’s willing to do really interesting and exciting things with his fiction.’"
Is it actually hard? You don't get canceled for including this type of thing, you actually get canceled for not having it. Int the current state of our society it is actually harder to not do it. And in doing it he bows to external pressure to include it.
And the story suffered.
This one hurts. I won't be buying his books anymore and may get rid of the ones he has already finished.
Big oof makes me glad that I'm more of a writer than a reader these days.
As a member of the same church as Sanderson, all I have to say is one of the worthiness questions we do every year is "Do you support or promote any teachings, practices, or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?", so either he is lying to his Bishop by saying no, or his Bishop is fine with it. either way, that is between all relevant parties and the Lord