Shadowing Practice: Examining The Downfall | The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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You know, I'm old enough to remember when a Brandon Sanderson new release day, it almost felt like a holiday.
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Now it almost feels like there's some kind of dread that follows it.
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So how did we get here?
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Hey, what's up, bookworms and Nights Radio.
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Mike, back today to talk a little Brandon Sanderson in the Cosmere, but more specifically, guys, the Stormlight Archive and the downfall.
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How did we get here? has happened.
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with the once highly acclaimed Stormlight Archive.
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And you know what?
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Maybe still highly acclaimed.
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We're going to talk about that today.
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When I say examining downfall, I'm going to kind of talk about both sides of it here and kind of where I fall on it.
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But just so you know, this is a matter of opinion.
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I'm not stating anything as a fact here.
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But I know that everything will be completely fine in the comments.
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I mean, completely rational down there.
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So a big reason that the Stormlight Archive was something that I just so hailed when I started this channel,
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was because I felt like it was a connective tissue of what made his universe work.
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Seven years ago, I made a video on this channel talking about how I thought that Brandon Sanderson
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was the next Tolkien because he was writing this story
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that I felt like people would be examining for a long, long time.
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And at that time, there were three books out in the series.
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I really felt like it had made those headways.
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I made the comparison to Dark Tower, where The Dark Tower by Stephen King, many considered that his magnum opus.
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And I felt like this was it for him because, like I said...
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you could find something connecting to the rest of his universe within
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that story so it was really brilliant and now just seven years later I'm not sure if I'm going to continue.
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with the Cosmere.
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So what happened?
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That is kind of the crux of today's discussion.
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We're going to kind of go through these topics one by one here and kind of discuss how exactly this did happen.
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Let's begin with don't believe the hype, the first topic here.
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I think this would be the hype problem, obviously.
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Look, books one through three in this series were phenomenal.
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Most people didn't have a lot to complain about, but they were very, very happy.
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Most people, if they made it through book one and his writing style, which can be kind of slow, it took a little while to get going, They were like, this is amazing.
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And then they read book two, and they're like, holy crap, this is incredible.
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Three, it gave them a lot of answers they were looking for.
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It gave them the big, epic third act that they'd just been dying for.
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Really, it was just...
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Excellent.
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You couldn't get enough of this universe.
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And then the wait started.
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A lot of people didn't start until around Oathbringer, when this series started getting more and more word of mouth.
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At least that's my experience with it.
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A lot of you might have been there before me.
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Like I said, I didn't discover Brandon Sanders until like 2014 or so when I read Mistborn.
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So maybe I just knew the community and that's the way that it felt.
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But it just meant that the expectations kind of grew faster than he could write it.
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This series just started gaining so much popularity, so much momentum, and he was writing other things.
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And aside, this is like the Star Wars prequels here.
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We're waiting three years in between these movies.
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After it was so much waiting and so much expectations, readers were just expecting
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there to be a words of Radiant style kind of emotional payoff to every single book in this series.
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And it's been unable to kind of replicate that, at least in most of the feedback that you can find out here.
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So I think it was a combination of the hype and the waiting between books.
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When you're waiting for like that next big album by your favorite band, is there any way it can live up to Thriller?
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You know, what comes after Thriller could still be really good.
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Bad was still really good.
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You know, Tusk was really good, but it wasn't rumors, right?
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So that was kind of like that fans had for it.
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It was like the weight, combined with how awesome previous books were, there was no way you could kind of fill those expectations through hype.
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You cannot have my pain.
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Now, this is going to be my thoughts on the tone and the structure shift.
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after Oathbringer.
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Now look.
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After Oathbringer, I don't think there's very many people out there that will argue with you that the series drastically changed.
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It really did.
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It felt like the third act of Oathbringer was kind of that Avengers in -game moment.
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Avengers Assemble, you kind of had that huge, huge moment.
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And then I felt like maybe it peaked too soon because it's never really hit those highs ever again.
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He's tried to have the Sanderlange, the big third act in books four and five.
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They just never really felt as epic, obviously, as
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that big moment in the end where everybody just kind of just showed up at the right moment
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and just had that huge climax.
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It just almost felt like the end of the series in many regards.
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You know, there's some things obviously that obviously not.
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There's still plenty of room, but I'm saying it felt like it could have been a setup for the end.
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And that's the problem here, setup.
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Thank you.
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The subsequent two books after it have kind of felt like a lot of setup for that second arc in the series, books six through ten, that he's planning.
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And I think that's kind of happened
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because the shift from character -driven arcs to plot -driven logistics is kind of how I explain it.
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That's kind of slowed things down.
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He's given us the back history of one character not too many cared about, and then giving us the back history of another character
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that everybody really was really interested in and maybe just not exactly how they were hoping it would go.
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But a big shift in tone has been the increasing complexity of this magic system.
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I'm personally one of those who are like, I understand why Gandalf can do magic.
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He's a fucking wizard.
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I don't need to know more than that.
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He can use magic.
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Great.
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Brandon feels like he needs to explain to us how the sausage has gotten made.
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And honestly, that hasn't been the most exhilarating thing for me to read.
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A lot of people love it.
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A lot of people are here for the magic system.
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I am fine with that.
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That's something you're here for.
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I mean, I kind of did that with Mistborn.
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I love that magic system.
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I like studying it.
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With this, it kind of felt like I was sitting in a classroom.
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And I don't want to do that when I'm reading my fantasy books.
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Again, I don't need magic to be a character.
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You can have a great complex magic system.
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You don't have to tell me how it works.
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I feel like that's just, it just kind of demystifies it for me.
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And that's been a problem for more people than just myself, I do believe.
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Next, we're going to talk about the Cosmere Overload.
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Yes, this is a very, very real thing.
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This is what began as connective tissue.
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and has now kind of evolved into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is the comparison that I've made.
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It used to be like Easter eggs, Fun Things, and if you'd read some of his other series...
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You'd see a character or a mention or just a word pop up.
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You'd say, hey, that's from your Warbreaker.
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Hey, that's from Mistborn.
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Hey, I mean, that's from the Emperor's Soul.
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Wow, what a pull, what a deep cut.
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And it was fun.
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It was like the Dark Tower that you didn't have to read everything in Stephen King's multiverse to understand it.
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But it was fun if you knew him.
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You never really felt like you had to read everything to get what was going on.
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But cross -series lore, it's changed the reading experience.
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Because now it feels like the books can no longer stand on their own.
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series is it felt like with the last, especially the last book in the series, it's felt like Brandon's telling me,
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yes, you have to watch all those Disney Plus shows now to understand the Marvel movies.
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You know, Marvel tried to do that.
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It didn't go over very well.
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And before it always kind of felt like this could stand on its own.
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You didn't have to read anything else.
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Now it really does feel like, okay, well, hey, you want to keep reading Mistborn?
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You have to read all the Stormlight Archive.
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You want to keep reading Stormlight Archive?
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You got to read all of Mistborn.
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Hell, you might even have to read the sequel to Elantra's that he plans to write.
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It just, it feels like a ask for your readers.
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Now, he's earned it, obviously.
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He has an incredible fan base, and they love it.
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He could write his grocery list on a napkin, and fans are going to read it.
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So I get it.
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I get why he feels like he's safe enough to do that now.
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But for people who maybe just like just this series, yeah, you don't want to go through all those little side things, those little side quests to understand everything that's going on in the main story.
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I feel like that can hurt a little bit.
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Like if Stephen King had said, hey, if you haven't read Dark Tower, my books aren't going to make sense anymore, I felt like that's a comparison I make at the time.
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It felt like his Dark Tower, which is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.
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So it's a compliment.
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Very much is.
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But I also feel like the series, it kind of, we're sticking with the Disney Plus or the Marvel comparison here.
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It feels like it did kind of devolve to Disney Plus and Marvel shows.
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The kind of quality of the content, the dialogue and the humor have really, really fell off a cliff to where it's like,
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it doesn't feel world appropriate.
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It feels like there's a different writer in the writer's room now, right?
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In the dialogue and stuff, it doesn't feel like it's fitting.
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It kind of feels like that one PlayStation game, Forspoken, where it was like, "Why is the character talking like this?" That's definitely,
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in Win the Truth, that was kind of the attitude I had while reading it.
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Like, "Why are our characters talking like this now?
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This doesn't make sense." It feels like someone from Portal Fantasy or something kind of hopped into this world.
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And that's kind of brought it down a little bit for me.
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But really, it's just expecting us to read everything in a universe to understand this main series, that's a tough, tough sell for me.
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How about we already did this?
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We already did this.
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Now it's going to be character arc fatigue.
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And that's a big one for me because I am a character reader first.
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Look, I feel like some arcs, they kind of feel stretched or stalled or maybe repetitive at this point.
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That's been a real, real drag for me because the first three books, those arcs were brilliant.
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Getting the Dalinar one, getting the Shallan one, getting the Kaladin one, they were all really, really good.
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He set up the pieces early.
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He paid them off exactly the way that you want.
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Then he decided he was just going to tear those down and do them over again.
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Kaladin's trauma cycles, Shallan's identity fracturing, Dalinar's slow political grind.
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It's like, we've done this already.
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this again, it kind of made those arcs in books 1 through 3 almost seem kind of pointless in hindsight.
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Like Terminator 3, it was like, so you're telling me Judgment Day didn't matter?
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We're still going to get the Riser Machines anyway.
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It's kind of how it felt like.
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Because it was like, we're doing this with Kaladin again.
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We're doing this with Shallan again.
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It's like, we already did these.
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You did them perfectly in those first two books.
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And I think the problem is, is he overpowered some of his characters too soon.
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So he feels like he's got to keep breaking them.
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that makes things feel repetitive.
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That makes things feel like, well, we already did this, and it feels like a remake of something that didn't need to be remade, and it's not as good as the original.
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That's the kind of feeling that I've had with it.
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But it just feels like the pacing, the arcs kind of outgrew the pacing of the plot.
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in his series.
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Because again, the series has just exploded to so much popularity, and he's taking so long working on so many other things while he's writing it, that it kind of feels like, okay, well, you almost feel distracted now,
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and you're not really hitting on the same beat.
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I'm sorry, nobody cared about Ventley enough to have a backstory for her. Did anybody?
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I mean, I could be speaking for the wrong people here, but for me, it was just like, what does this have to do with anything?
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I would have much rather had a Yasna, you know, flashbacks or even Zeth a book early.
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That would have been fine by me.
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But of course, that's going to kind of depend on you.
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That's just kind of where I stand on it.
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How about your side, my side?
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Now, this is a big one.
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Always when you have a fandom split, seems like it's going to happen in just about a.. everything there is these days.
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You're either on this side or you're on that side and both sides think the other side is evil.
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That's just kind of how it works.
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I think a big one with this is you have the early fans and you have the late arriving fans.
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That's a big one.
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I mean, you think about the people who are like, oh, I liked Metallica before they started getting played on the radio and stuff like that.
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There is a little bit of that.
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There's always going to be a little bit of that, whether people want to admit it or not.
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It does feel like you're going to be kind of protective over it.
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Like, oh, they haven't been good since their first album.
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That's going to happen quite a bit for the people who showed up late and and think they know everything.
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Like, you know, the people who started watching Game of Thrones, when people like myself had been reading those books for years, and people really, really liked the show, and then they would tell you, oh, yeah, you should read the books.
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Like, really?
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So there is some of that, but I think there's the readers who want character work, like myself, And there's a character breeders who want lore.
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They want to know more about the magic system.
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They want to know more about the history.
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They want to know more about the world.
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Much so more than they do the main plot or character arcs.
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That's going to happen sometimes.
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That's kind of what it comes down to do for me.
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I am character first every time.
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In those first three books, I felt like his focus.
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The last two books have felt very much like, let's build this world out.
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Let's fill some things out.
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Let's explain how the magic works
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while I wait to get to this arc I really want to write about in six through 10.
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But I think also the rise of, let's call it stormlight discourse on TikTok and Reddit and BookTube.
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Look, one side will accept zero criticism of Brandon Sanderson, like zero.
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It's a religion at this point you are not allowed to speak ill of the Lord Ruler.
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It is not something you're going to accept.
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However, On the opposite side, there are others who will hear zero praise for Brandon Sanderson.
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Not just fancy snobs, either.
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There are just a lot of people who are just like, I don't get it.
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And if the second you tell me that Nickelback is your favorite band, I'm taking your music opinion seriously anymore.
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That's how they feel about it.
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They feel like if Brandon Sanderson is your favorite author, I'm not going to take your opinion seriously.
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There are both sides of this argument.
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Anytime you have a fandom split, especially like this one, it's going to seem like a bigger deal than it probably is, but it is really a big deal.
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How about the Sanderlanch?
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Now, with the Sanderlanch, my focus here is just the Brandon Sanders in effect overall.
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When you are the most popular of anything in a to attract haters.
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It's going to happen.
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When you are the big thing, there's going to be, even if it's just being contrarians, you're going to have people talking about why it's not actually any good.
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When you say you like an Andy Weir book, people are like, oh, that is an actual sci -fi.
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That's Walmart sci -fi.
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I get that with Blake Crouch a lot too.
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There's other things about this.
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You see people that were actually really angry, literally angry that Brandon Sanderson has so much success on Kickstarter.
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Look, he has curated this fandom for years.
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He deserves forward.
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He's built up his fan base and good for him.
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I'm never gonna get mad about someone going out there and getting their money.
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No problems with that.
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But it's also the explosion of side projects.
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You know, is he spreading himself too thin?
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That's something I feel like is a real, real problem here.
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Because there's people like me who are selfish and greedy and say, can you just focus on writing Stormlight Archive?
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I don't want to be 80 when you finish it.
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You know, because he's talking about taking like, a really long break before he writes book six and then three years wait between each one of those as well.
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So yeah, we're talking what 20, 25 years in the future before he finishes this series.
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A lot of people don't want to wait that long.
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And it's like, okay, really, you're writing more Skyward stories.
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Okay, you're writing Mistborn, era nine, you know, can you focus on the task at hand, you get a lot of that.
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But this is also kind of birth the expectation that he should write at superhuman speed, that he should go to sleep like the Tommyknockers and let the typewriter write for him.
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People expect these books to come out faster because he does have two or three books that comes every year.
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He'll drop a secret project.
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Hey, here's four new books that you guys didn't even know I was writing.
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That's the kind of stuff that generates that kind of expectation, that I need a new book in my hand every three months.
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And that can be a problem.
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It's unrealistic, obviously, but then you can't complain about the quality when all you want is quantity.
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It's going the face of modern fantasy, which he clearly is.
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That's something I think is going to become a lot of pressure for him.
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And I think even he has said he felt like, you know, in a normal world, he probably would have delayed winning truth.
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But he felt like he needed to get it out because his fans expected it.
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And that was always something I never felt like there was a problem with him.
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I always admired that he would keep his fans updated on his website and stuff.
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There was a time when we were pissed off at George for not finishing a song of Ice and Fire.
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It was nice to have an author who would communicate with you.
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It was nice to have an author
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that wouldn't tell you to go fuck yourself like Patrick Rothfuss would whenever you asked about when the next book was coming.
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It was really nice.
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Now it feels like he's got a schedule and he's got to keep to it.
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results be damned.
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And that can be very frustrating.
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I'm sure the pressure's got to be just enormous on something like that.
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How about the reports of my death are greatly...
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exaggerated.
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Now let's hear the real crux of did this series really fall off.
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Or did the conversation just change?
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Because I kind of think that's where it's at.
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Look, this series is still massively popular.
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It's the most discussed epic fantasy series out there.
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Look, just go into BookTube right now and type in Stormlight Archive.
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I'll bet you get Six digits, maybe seven in the results.
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How many how many videos are there are out there talking about this series?
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It is still the most talked about modern fantasy series.
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Seriously.
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I think it really really is.
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It has me asking the question of did he change or did his readers change?
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Because even I have said yes, I read Missborn back in my 2014 2015 or so and I loved it.
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I I've read a lot of stuff since then, since I started this channel.
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Explosion of different types of subgenres within fantasy that I never knew that I needed, that I loved.
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Would I feel the same about Mistborn if I went back and read it now?
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I have no idea.
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I loved Mistborn when I read it.
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I have no idea if I feel the same now.
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So yeah, I think readers can change.
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The more we read, you find a certain little niche within the genre that you love.
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Maybe Standerson isn't the style you're looking for anymore.
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Maybe you found something that kind of replaced that for you.
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So I think that can happen.
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I definitely think he changed a bit too, because there's no way you can read Way of Kings and then read Way of Truth and be like, this is the same author?
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He's definitely changed.
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it's been a long time was
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that like 12 years difference of course things are going to change just a little bit
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but his early books i felt like they felt fresh, they felt original, they felt explosive, they felt emotional.
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And now the later books, they kind of feel heavier, a little more political, a little more fragmented, I think is how I would put it.
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And, you know, I think the fandom is just matured, but also splintered because of it.
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You know, certain people want that.
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Others do not.
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However, the expectations skyrocketed to something that no one series, I think, can sustain.
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It's just that the fandom got so big, there's no way he could please everyone.
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And when he tries to please everyone, he ends up pleasing no one.
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That's a tale as old as time.
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It's going to happen for some time, but I don't necessarily know that the series is really fell off.
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That's like saying that something is overrated because you don't like it anymore.
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It doesn't necessarily mean it's overrated just because you don't like it.
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That's not actually what that term means.
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And I don't think that this series is necessarily overrated.
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I I think just the fandom has divided quite a bit and it makes it sound very Very loud.
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How about Ars Arcanum, or as I like to call it, my final thoughts.
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When a series grows in scope and the audience just kind of grows in disagreements, you're gonna get the kind of results that we have when you talk about Stormlight Archive.
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Now, the divisor or the actions that you get one way or the other, you know, the super positive or the super negative.
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Like I talked about my Win and Truth review.
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Actually, what I talked about with my Rhythm of War review is you can
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for creators you understand what i'm talking about you can go into your analytics
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and you click on a certain video and you can see how many new subscribers or unsubscribers you had during that video.
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My review for Rhythm of War, where I said it was kind of a mid -book, four digits in the number of subscribers I lost after being critical of that book.
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On Win and Truth, which I felt like I was more positive than negative on, I had everybody pushing back and telling me I was too positive.
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I need to be more negative on it.
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So it's just like it shows how fast the audience for the series has really, really changed.
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I feel like this happens with only every, every single long running fantasy series.
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As the series goes longer.
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you will find more and more detractors of it.
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Like, you look at those first three books of A Song of Bison Fire, could do no wrong.
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Absolutely.
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You look at books four and five, nothing but complaints.
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And it's not just about the weight with those books.
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They're very different.
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They're very different, those first three.
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I see a lot of similarities between the two, except Brandon actually puts out new books, really.
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So, I mean, some readers, they really enjoyed the raw emotional punch of Way of Kings, and, you know, some love the political depth.
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of rhythm of war.
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I think he just has two very different type of readers now.
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Some want more Cosmere, some want less.
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Some want the early magic.
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Some want, you know, less series philosophy like he's really leaning into.
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I don't feel like that's a doubtful.
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I feel like that's a mature fandom wrestling.
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with a living, changing story.
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And really, honestly, guys, I think that's the sign of a series that matters.
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And regardless of where you stand on it, yeah, the series does still matter.
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Like when the next book comes out, it will be appointment reading for many, many people.
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Some, like myself, I never say never.
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Right now, I'm like, no, I don't think that I have any interest in continuing because at first, I don't think it'll be done before I give a shit anymore.
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And second, I just feel like this series is kind of passing by, kind of like the new Star Wars.
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Like, it's just like, it just doesn't, doesn't, I guess I grew up loving Star Wars.
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It was a religion to me for 40 years, you know?
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Now I look at it, I'm like, that's clearly I'm not the target demographic anymore.
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I feel like that's kind of the way that the Stormlight Archivist went, where I'm not the target demographic anymore.
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He has a new audience that he really wants to cater to, and that's fine.
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Again, he has earned his chops.
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He can do whatever he wants.
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He became the top of the food chain for a reason.
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He's got a devoted fan base who eats up everything he does.
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And yes, he has dedicated haters who are going to take a shit on everything he does.
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That's just a sign of being on top.
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And that's why Stormlight Archive, guys, I don't know necessarily that I can call it a downfall as much as a fracturing, a splintering of the fan base.
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And that is kind of where I stand up.
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But what do you think, guys?
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Are you still on board?
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Are you still ready for the next book?
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When the next book comes out, will you make it a point to absolutely read it?
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Are you like me?
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You're like, hey, think like I've kind of been pushed away.
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I don't think there's any wrong answers here.
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Except saying that the Stormlight Archive, it's crashed and burned, it's dead.
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I think that's the wrong answer.
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I don't think so.
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what you think.
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Am I far off base on this one?
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Or is this series just too far gone to get you back?
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Hit me in the comments, guys, and I will talk to you there.
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Chapter 01 - A Very Delicate Time (Main Titles)
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice your English listening and speaking skills by examining a YouTube video discussing the popular book series, "The Stormlight Archive" by Brandon Sanderson. Focusing on the themes of expectation and critical reception, you will learn how to articulate your opinions on literature and discuss the evolution of a series over time. This lesson will also enhance your vocabulary related to literature and criticism, preparing you for real-life conversations and examinations, such as IELTS speaking practice.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Acclaimed - Highly praised; recognized for a high standard.
- Hype - Excitement or publicity around something, often exaggerated.
- Phenomenal - Extraordinary; remarkable.
- Expectations - Anticipations or beliefs about what will happen.
- Magnum opus - The most important work created by an artist or writer.
- Epic - Large in scale or scope; often used to describe grand stories.
- Momentum - The driving force gained by the development of a process or course of events.
Practice Tips
To effectively improve your speaking skills, consider using a shadowing technique by selecting segments from the video to repeat after hearing them. The video's pacing is conversational yet informative, providing an excellent opportunity to practice speaking fluently. Try to mimic not only the words but also the tone and emotion expressed by the speaker. This will aid in enhancing your pronunciation and intonation.
When using a shadowing app or site, focus on short phrases first. Repeat each segment aloud, listening carefully for nuances in pronunciation. As the speaker describes their shift in perception regarding "The Stormlight Archive," pay special attention to how they convey their feelings of excitement and disappointment. This process will benefit your IELTS speaking practice, as it requires articulating personal opinions in a clear, coherent manner. Remember to practice consistently, and don't hesitate to explore various segments of the transcript.Happy shadowing!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has happened · it's been · has been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | style, which can · those who are · people who maybe |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are not allowed · were pissed · be damned |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.