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How Brandon Sanderson Builds Religions For His Fantasy Stories | Writing & Worldbuilding

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If you’ve ever read much of Brandon Sanderson’s works, you’ve probably picked up a very prominent theme that appears in almost every one of his books. Almost without fail, each one of his stories features a prominent religion within the narrative - at least within the Cosmere. Given his devout Mormon upbringing, this is probably not very surprising. But what does pique my interest, however, is that none of these religions feel contrived or forced.
You can tell that every religion in one of his stories was given proper thought and attention when he crafted them. He made sure that they made sense within the logic of the world and that they were more than just a surface-level thing for the characters to believe in. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
In this short video, I’d like to go over how Sanderson uses religion in his fantasy stories, how easy it is to do religion wrong in your stories, and why it’s important to get religion right in your own fiction. Before we get to his methods or the pitfalls, let’s briefly look at why religion is such an important part of worldbuilding when it comes to fantasy stories.
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Опубликовано:

25 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 20

@diogogoncalves2899 Год назад

Hello my friend. I am a viewer from Mozambique and I want you to know how encouraging it is to see such a bustling fantasy community (somewhat) locally. Continue to inspire!!

@RavensRants Год назад

Happy you're enjoying the content ☺

@joshhoehne8281 Год назад

I don't know exactly why, but hearing you use "diddly squat" in the video just made my day!

@RavensRants Год назад

😂

@Bobbalou Год назад

Great video dude! I also am a devout mormon like Brandon is, so it's really cool to see how our religion affects his writing and his characters. Loved the analysis

@RavensRants Год назад

Thanks man! Also, I appreciate all your interaction on the channel. It hasn't gone unnoticed ♥

@Bobbalou Год назад

@@RavensRants Haha just glad to see you again. I think you deserve more attention than you get!

@dinocollins720 Год назад

love it!

@Jon-Rimmer 2 месяца назад

A lot of religions where not just made in isolation; the Greeks took gods from Egypt and vice versa. And a second is that if a kingdom conquers another, they’re religion could merge together, this is called ‘synergism’, that’s also how Zeus has many kids, because he used to be many. My fantasy book I’m writing has a lot to do with religion and how we can use it to control others, or as an excuse to commit genocide and/or colonialism.

@oliverbuchanan1049 Год назад

I can't remember which video of yours it was, but it was on Rashek and how when he had the power from the well of ascension he used it to change all those things like moving the planet creating ashmounts etcs. In the video you said he was worried about undoing the changes he's done incase he messes it up but i've always interpreted it that as soon as he makes a change it becomes something he needs to preserve. And so the reason he keeps changing things and not undoing some bad changes is because the moment he makes a change he feels the need to preserve things. Was interested to know your thoughts on that interpretation?

@RavensRants Год назад

I think that's a very valid interpretation. In the book it's implied he was unfamiliar with the power and thus didn't undo the changes, but it could very well be that his subconscious could not allow him to change what he'd done because of Preservation's influence. He might not have realized it in that way since he held the power for such a short time, but it's totally viable in my opinion.

@orangeishjuice8374 Год назад

Whats the song?

@carlsmith4568 Год назад

Do you write?

@RavensRants Год назад

Yup!

@jeffmiller6025 Год назад

Your premise definition of religion is flawed and it undermines your analysis. Academically: Religion has *nothing* to do with “faith,” however defined. On the whole the only functional definition of religion is: What one believes about the nature of reality, and what one do about that belief. That’s it. In the study of religion, this is the only definition that fits the full panoply of religious expression in the world, while also leaving open how new religions develop, as well as opening all possible “religions,” so understood, to critiques (in the philosophical sense) of religion. Sanderson seems to be well aware of this definition of religion, and so is able to build his religions organically as expressions of a character’s or characters’ understandings of reality, and how they act on that understanding.

@RavensRants Год назад

Good point! Thanks for adding to the conversation ☺

@dovahfruit9503 Год назад

in order to believe in anything you must have faith, even in science

@jeffmiller6025 Год назад

@@dovahfruit9503 Faith in the sense of “trust” or “confidence,” sure. Which can, of course, be a thoughtful and well reasoned, empirically-rooted, etc. But, again, I don’t think religion per se has anything to do with faith. Or perhaps better put, faith is not a necessary condition of religion. It might be ancillary to the processes of religion, but not necessary. Instead, again, religion is always about what one *believes*-which can include faith / trust elements, but they are not required-and what one *does* about what one believes.

@maximumoverdrive7554 9 месяцев назад

Trying to say faith isnt necessary in religion seems like a huge bias on your part.

@jeffmiller6025 9 месяцев назад

@@maximumoverdrive7554 Not a bias, just a logical deduction from a thorough empirical study of religions by thousands of scholars in various fields, from various backgrounds, over the last 100+ years. And note: I’m not saying faith isn’t part of some, or even most, people’s *conception* of religion, it just isn’t a necessary aspect of it when you actually look at religion(s) from the perspectives of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc. with any kind of practical basis. And this is one of the major flaws in the arguments of the New Atheists from way back, and why they’re generally mocked in academic settings. E.g. I once did a class on atheism in university, taught by an atheist. The first think we did was read Dawkins’ The God Delusion in which we assigned a different color highlighter for each major logical fallacy and then highlighted the logical fallacies in the book. Nearly all pages turned into rainbows. It was a powerful lesson. And a pertinent one, given that one of Dawkins’ basic claims was being logical in the face of religion; he was not. It woulda been hilarious if it wasn’t actually incredibly sad. We then did the same with Harris’ The End of Faith; it did not fair any better. With Dennett, we found that his logic was sound, but that he either used data that had been completely discredited or actually outright falsified data. And so on. Depressing stuff, really.