Brandon Sanderson Savaged By Fans For Pushing Modernisms And LGBTQ Agenda In His New Wind and Truth Epic Fantasy Novel

Jan 01, 2025

Brandon Sanderson was what many considered to be the last, best hope for the epic fantasy genre after his Mistborn series and finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time, but in recent years, the Tor Books author has gone woke, and fans say the current The Stormlight Archive novel, Wind and Truth has gone too far.

Many fans complained about a main plotline of a gay romance between two men, promoted in the book as if it is a positive lifestyle instead of the sexual sin that it is. Moreover, it’s noted the scenes are forced and out of place in a medieval fantasy setting where it feels ham-fisted and modern.

Wind and Truth comes after a blog post updating his stance on LGBTQ as Sanderson has gone from a devout Mormon who refused to include such evils in his books, to putting them as background characters in Stormlight Archives to acknowledge they exist, to actively promoting the sinful lifestyles.

Sanderson posted, saying, “My current stance is one of unequivocable support for LGBTQ+ rights. I support gay marriage. I support trans rights, the rights of non-binary people, and I support the rights of trans people to affirm their own identity with love and support. I support anti-discrimination legislation, and have voted consistently along these lines for the last fifteen years. I am marking the posting of this FAQ item, at the encouragement of several of my LGBTQ+ fans, with a sizable donation to the Utah Pride Center and another to The OUT Foundation.”

He continued saying this new stance would influence his books like The Stormlight Archives, saying, “I put LGBTQ+ people into my books, and will continue to do so. Not because I want to fulfill a quota, but because I genuinely believe that it is right for the characters–and is a good and important thing for me to be doing.”

The plotlines in Wind and Truth push this agenda exactly like he said he was going to do on his blog, which has been criticized by fans of the series who have noticed the change.

In the book, Rlain is an outcast from bridge 4 who suddenly becomes cross-species romantically interested in a human male who’s the most powerful man in Roshar named Renarin. The two are in such different scopes within their stories it borders upon nonsensical. A reviewer called it “pandering on a page.”

In addition to a gay romance, Brandon Sanderson unveils an openly transgender character who seems to get no pushback for his lifestyle within the book.

The YouTube channel Iron Seas made a scathing 2 hour review of the book and how it failed to live up to expectations of the prior books in many ways, but most of it fails in the use of modernistic tropes in the fantasy setting.

They emphasize modern tropes like the character Kaladin becoming the world’s first therapist, where even the word is used in the text, throwing readers out of the immersion where the word didn’t exist until the last couple hundred years.

It read: “How?” Ishar repeated. “What are you?” He gestured toward Szeth. “Are
you … are you his spren? His god?” “No,” Kaladin said. “I’m his therapist.”

Another character calls Kaladin racist because of his beliefs in one segment of the book, making it read like a modern woke person’s BlueSky timeline rather than a fantasy novel. It’s pointed out that the word “literally” is used many times in the novel, and almost every major character is politically correct in acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles, with none pushing back as if they’re all in a modern corporate environment.

“The writing and overall prose and quality, there’s a lot more modern language that doesn’t fit. The way people talk, it used to sound very medieval, or at least not modern, but now everybody talks really, really modern,” The Ultimate Kahuna says on the Iron Seas review.

With the book being a 1,344-page doorstopper, fans are rightfully disappointed to see Brandon Sanderson forsake his fantasy roots and delve into modern wokeism as this leg of the epic fantasy series comes to an end. Many have invested a lot of time into these books only to get a bait and switch from Sanderson in Wind and Truth.

What do you think of Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive ending in Wind of Truth adding LGBTQ themes and modernism? Leave a comment and let us know.

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