Tapper, on 09 January 2012 - 03:32 PM, said:
I'm not sure that you get what we're getting at. I think both Morghy and I are fine with no sex or flushed cheeks or feelings in the pit of the stomach on the pages, both Morghy and I said so. That isn't our complaint. I referred to other ways to deal with it, cross-referenced to other books and similar situations, each more interesting to me in the way they deal with it. At no point in the narrative did I want to club Dalinar on the head and tell him to go for the woman. At no point did I hope for their romance to come full bloom. At no point did it even remotely interest me. And the reason there is because the narrative is on the whole lacking the concept of credible, emotionally involved, passionate romance.
My own complaint is that in Sanderson's work as a standard there is no tension between characters that make romance believable. Instead, his people are committed to ideals (Kelsier), family (whatsherface who went to steal the jewel, the sister of the runaway bride in Warbreaker - notice also that she marries the God-King without any passion between them other than comradeship and being stuck in the same situation together), identity (the wind-sprite in WoK, best character in the book), guilt (Kaladin), honor (the assassin).
I mean, Tolkien is hardly a romantic, but his one scene where Eowyn asks Aragorn to return (to her) had tons more emotion and passion between man and woman than the whole of WoK has, even in his clunky prose.
When it comes to Dalinar, I honestly think that upon analysis of his character and the time period over which he has repressed his feelings (decades), when he looks at Navani it ought to be with misgiving for she confronts him with what he sees as a flaw in his character and ability to stick to the Code, and he seeks to repress that. That this changes, nice, good element of any story, except that it isn't really told. Look at Gaiman's American Gods. Shadow's love for his wife is very, very obvious - despite the fact that she dies giving a blowjob to his best friend and that this is the first bit we read of her, and that throughout the book, Shadow is nearly as devoid of emotion as Dalinar tries to be. Gaiman gives her, what? three spread-out pages of introduction and you start of with a negative, too - the circumstances of her death (of course, she surfaces later on).
I'm fine with you defending Sanderson and WoK but if you think we need a thicker slice of tension to notice it, then you and I differ. I really don't need everything spoken out, omission sometimes tells more: silence is a tool that the lets the reader/ viewer fill things in. But on that subject, too, Sanderson's prose is devoid of such silence. This isn't restricted to WoK. This is a multi-book trend.
He's simply NOT (THAT) GOOD at writing romance. Few writers are, for love (desire is something else) is a very complex emotion, but I do think we are entitled to point that out. Martin for example, lacks a certain bit of quality in this respect too, or Sansa would have been a more likeable character (like she is in the series, where you can forgive her for her blind teenage crushes).
Thanks for the proper response. Much obliged. Oh, I totally see what you are saying and I think we simply disagree on our perceptions of the book.
Agree to disagree?
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“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
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