Elantris by Brandon Sanderson: so many plots, so many characters

Elantris 

by 

Brandon Sanderson

Elantris was the capital of Arelon and it was populated by god-like magical beings. These magical beings were actually once normal humans who woke up one morning with their skin turned silver and magical powers. But that was ten years ago. Now Elantris has fallen and so has the magic that selected new Elantrians. These days people will wake up to find their skin turned grey and all their hair fallen out. Now if this were a normal book that would be the end of the summery but this is Sanderson so no.

 *deep breath* so the new government of that replaced Elantris is super unstable so they make a deal with the neighboring country Teod which is cemented by the princess and the prince getting married but Raoden the prince gets taken by Elantris so Sarene the princess shows up and is very pissed off that she’s a widow without ever meeting her husband  but things go even more south when a giant religious-war-loving country turns it eyes on the two countries and things start burning*. Geez Louise Sanderson! I like ya and all but do you really need eighteen-million different plots going on.

Characters

Sarene: okay let’s talk about Sanderson’s female characters. He always makes them perfectly awesome but he does steer away from the over-used and terribly boring To-Strong-For-Everyone-Female characters. I appreciate that an all but sometimes he goes a bit overboard trying to prove it. I love Sarene and I love how she’s such a romantic and really wants to be loved as much as she wants to be respected. Buuut I could have done with a few less inner monologues about how she’s perfectly feminine thank you very much. Still I like Sarene, even if she is slightly less well written than some of his later characters like Vin and Marasai.   

Raoden: This little punk is so cute! I love him he’s adorable. Getting cursed with some major skin problems and promptly thrown into the rotting city of Elantris you’d expect Raoden to be a bit of a downer. Nope! He’s the most optimistic characters I’ve ever met. And the best part? He’s optimistic almost out of spite! Elantrians are essentially dead. Their hearts stop beating and their hair and bodies stop growing as if their trapped in time. Which they kind of are because if any of the Elantrians so much as bruise themselves the initial pain never stops. Most only last a year or two before their minds break under the constant pain. Raoden stubbornly refuses to allow the whole situation to get him. I love him he’s my favorite.

So many other characters oh my: And I was just getting used to Sanderson’s later brevity. So Sarene and Raoden are separated for a good bit of the book and each one gets enough side characters to fill a normal book so there’s basically dozens and dozens of characters that kick my butt with their too similar names.

Likes

As usual with Sanderson the world is awesome! It’s maybe futuristic? But also, kind of medieval and magic-y (yep that’s totally a real word). And of course, the whole place is so ridiculously detailed that it feels completely real. There are three different countries with separate government, a few different religions and a bazillion different people that may or may not be important to the plot.

This is the book that inspired me to write that last post: Because the ‘evil’ religious leaders in Sanderson’s books are much more three dimensional. There’s a religious antagonist who questions his faith, a leader of the “good religion” who’s basically just a prat and a much more regular priest. You got to appreciate his ability to make even the antagonists three dimensional.

The romance was pretty cute: admittedly they weren’t really together until halfway through the book but they were still adorable. Between Sarene being a closet hopeless romantic and Raoden’s optimistic personality even I thought they were cute. Still it is Sanderson so of course I like the romance. He’s really the only author who can consistently convince me to care about the two love interests.

Dislikes

It’s one of his early ones and you can tell: Where do I even start with this. Sanderson is good. Impressively good. But everything in this book, the plot, the characters, the setting are all like vague foreshadowing towards his later (and dare I say better) books. I think where this shows the most is his dialogue. Not that the dialogue was bad it’s just not as well thought out or quite as funny as some of his later ones. There were a few laughs and some clever plot twists but you can definitely tell that this is a debut novel.

Now that’s not to say that it isn’t worth your time! Elantris was a little rough around the edges but that didn’t make it any less unique. The magic is unique, the cities are unique and it was beautiful.