 Massive spoilers for the entire series ahead. The Stormlight Archive is one of my favorite modern fantasy series, at least so far since there are seven books that still need to come out, each of which is the length of an entire trilogy. Oathbringer alone could be substituted for a cinderblock in construction projects. It's a great example of what epic fantasy is capable of in terms of plot, setting, character, scope, emotion, and a bunch of other words that sound fancy. But like most well-written stories, there are some deeper ideas here. You might even call them themes. I know that turns a lot of people off because it brings to mind English teachers who claim that authors had very specific ideas in mind that you need to find and agree with. Themes certainly can be put in on purpose. It's more a matter of how you interpret what the work is saying. Can you back it up and do you agree with it? It's much more fun that way. But before we start overthinking things, how about a word from Campfire, who have graciously agreed to sponsor this video? Hi there, I'm a... Wait, no, no, I need to shave. Hi there, I'm a paid spokesman here to tell you all about why you should check out Campfire. If you're a writer of any kind, you'll want to use Campfire's organization tools for all sorts of things. It has timelines for hammering out that multifaceted 20-dimensional storyline you want to work on, character sheets for keeping track of that massive cast, and a built-in encyclopedia for any important terms or events. Is this a subscription service? No, this is a one-time purchase of $49.99, and for only an additional $24.99, you can get the Worldbuilding Pack, where you can create whole new races, languages, and magic systems. The days of making folders on a flash drive or trying to keep track of where in your notebook you wrote down what the main character's second cousin's roommate's name is are gone. The days of Campfire are here. If you're a writer who doesn't use Campfire, then f*** you. Wait, am I allowed to swear? If you're a writer who doesn't use Campfire, then you should... You should start. Okay, guys, I need a script. Click the link in the description below to get started. The main plot of the Stormlight Archive is about trying to prevent the return of these mysterious creatures called the Voidbringers that periodically come to Roshar and try to destroy all of humanity. It seems like a simple save-the-world fantasy plot at first, albeit one which takes place in a unique setting and has main characters with severe mental illnesses. Partway through Oathbringer, things change. This isn't a simple tale of good versus evil. It's all about the damage done to conquered peoples, their economies, their cultures, their psyches, and the cycle of violence that follows. I want to reiterate that there are massive spoilers for the whole series ahead, so don't be upset if you hear some of that. Let's take a moment to try and define colonialism, because that's surprisingly difficult given that there are different types of colonialism and they often overlap. In general, colonialism is taking over a territory where other people already live for resources, but the means and manner vary. The two big types are settler colonialism and exploitation colonialism. Settler colonialism is the old standby where you take over a new territory and kill or displace those who are living there. The most famous, but far from the only, example of this is the European colonization of the Americas. This goes back to prehistory, though, with groups of people migrating when something went wrong in their homeland and it exploded in popularity with the advent of nation-states. As soon as you make a powerful enough kingdom, you can start taking more territory for yourself and soon enough you have an empire. From Persia to Athens to Rome to the Mongols, this repeated a lot in history, but in most cases the people who were conquered weren't killed off, just ruled over, which leads to the next kind of colonialism. Exploitation colonialism is when a foreign power takes over the territory but only sends a small number of settlers there, usually to administrate, an example being the European colonization of Africa. By this time, the colonial powers were more interested in markets to sell their products than they were about farmland or getting rid of excess population. Not that this was all that much better than old-school colonialism, mind you. The locals were still enslaved, abused, and forcibly relocated to say nothing of the economy and infrastructure that was built solely to extract resources and not for their benefit. Then there's stuff like technological colonialism, neocolonialism, cultural colonialism, and a bunch of other types that are all hotly debated in the academic community. The definitions are hard to pin down, and even their existence is denied by some. The point is that colonialism is when one group of people take over an area with another group of people for their own benefit. The Stormlight Archive takes place on a planet called Roshar, and it's got a long history of humans conquering each other. That's not the only type of colonialism referenced here though, because there's another race, unintelligent humanoids that are used as slaves known as Parshmen. Many thousands of years before the series takes place, Roshar was inhabited by an intelligent race called the Singers. Humans lived on another nearby planet called Ashen. Well, humans lived on a ton of different planets, but that's an expanded universe thing that doesn't really relate to the topic at hand. The humans on Ashen somehow destroyed their planet's ecosystem, and the majority of them were forced to flee Roshar. One of the gods that lived there, named Cultivation, strong-armed the Singers into giving a piece of land for the human refugees to live on. Well, Cultivation isn't a god so much as a piece of a dead god's power that was given form in the physical realm by a human host. It makes sense if you read the rest of the Cosmere, I promise. At some point, the humans grew dissatisfied with what they had and went to war with the Singers to expand in a war known as the First Desolation. At some point, the Singers sided with Odium, who is also a piece of power from the same dead god as Cultivation. There's 16 pieces in total, some of which have been splintered further. It's very simple, really. Odium gave the Singers a few powers and created a new type called the Fused, who are basically just souls of Singers that can move to new bodies when their old ones die. The Fused are nearly insane with their anger and have made it their entire mission to simply wipe out the humans as long as they're around, the fighting will continue. Through some more shenanigans, Odium was imprisoned and would periodically get out and incite more rebellions, which were known as the Desolations. For thousands of years, this cycle continued, preventing civilization on Roshar from progressing in any real manner. At one point, the Singers, by this point called the Parsh, for some reason, rebelled without the help of Odium in something called the False Desolation. This time they were helped by one of Odium's minions, a spren called... Ba-Ado... Ba-Ado Mishram? I'm just gonna call him Bam. Oh yeah, spren are basically tiny shards of a dead god's power that don't have a host and were granted sentience by being around humans and Singers. Again, very easy to follow. Bam formed a connection with most of the Singers to provide them with power and at the end of the war she was imprisoned and in doing so, the humans inadvertently stole the minds of the Singers, leaving them as the dumb, slow, easy to control Parshmen who were then enslaved. Just like that, their autonomy, culture, and opportunities were all gone. They were turned into slaves, entirely dependent on their human masters. It's difficult not to see the parallels between the history of Roshar and the history of real-life colonized regions, such as the Americas, Australia, and Africa. Much like Roshar, outsiders came to the Americas and began killing the natives right away. Unlike Roshar, the reasons for doing so were a bit more complex on an individual level. Some fled disasters like the Irish potato famine or religious persecution. Others had no opportunity back home and so left for greener pastures. Others were simple conquerors looking to rape and pillage. But on the macro level, it was just like the humans expanding out of their original home. Greed. Whatever the motive, the end result was the same. All indigenous Americans were either killed or brought under control of the new governments. Many were assimilated into the new societies, converted to Christianity, and forced to stop speaking their old languages. The Parshmen literally had their minds taken from them, which destroyed their culture and way of life. This might be a fantasy form of cultural genocide, but it fits the definition. And yes, despite the phrase being used by whiny dicks online to describe black people being in Star Wars, cultural genocide is a very real thing. In the preview chapters of Rhythm of War, the newly cognizant Parshmen are enraptured by any stories of what they used to be like from the Fused and try to emulate the way they dress and act. They have no identity other than not being human and they're desperate for something to define themselves. Even without mind-wiping magic, slavery has a way of stamping out cultures. How many black people in the Americas have any real connection to the culture of the region of Africa their ancestors were taken from? Almost none. There's plenty of other places like the Americas though. Human history is just a series of people taking shit over and then being taken over in turn. What changes is the manner of the takeover? Arabs took over most of the Middle East and North Africa and slowly replaced the local languages and religions with their own. The Japanese pushed the Ainu out of their territory and eventually took them over altogether. Germanic peoples took over Great Britain from the Celts, wiping out most of them and forcing the others to change their way of life. Then the British did the same thing to Ireland. France nearly exterminated its minority languages like Occitan and Norman after the French Revolution. The Greeks and Anatolia and Turks in the Balkans ethnically cleanse each other as part of their nation-building after World War I. Before European contact, Native Americans took over and enslaved each other all the time and so on and so forth. Imperialism is awful and like most awful human traits, it's not relegated to one group. Roshar is similar. After the humans enslaved the Parshmen, they split into their own nations and began attacking and taking over each other. The most famous example given in the books is Sadees the Sunmaker. He went out and conquered a big empire in an attempt to unify Roshar. He conquered all the way from Alathcar to the nation of Azir who did not follow the same sort of caste system as the places he'd taken so far. As such, he viewed them as needing to be civilized and unworthy of being ruled normally. So he instituted genocidal policies that wiped out around 10% of the population before he died. And that's just one example of imperialism and genocide that have taken place over several thousand years. By the time the main series starts, Roshar has been so thoroughly humanized that it comes as a surprise to the characters that they aren't the native inhabitants. The history has been lost, maybe even deliberately scrubbed away. When the humans run into a small surviving group of singers, they notice that they're similar to the Parshmen and it still takes them years to figure out the truth. It only comes to light because the surviving singers summon a giant never-ending storm full of Odium's power that woke up all the Parshmen's minds. Again, very simple, very normal stuff happens in the series. Then the question of who is right and who is wrong in this conflict comes up. The humans were fleeing a disaster, not simply seeking wealth. Should the Parshmen have kept them out with force? With hindsight, the answer might seem obvious. Yes! But at the time it was impossible to tell what would have happened, and if they had tried to keep the humans out with force, they might have lost and been wiped out completely. The past is past, and that can't be changed, and arguing about who was worse isn't going to help anything on its own. What's important is what everyone should do in the present, and that's when the Stormlight Archive turns from a simple tale of colonialism being bad to a real piece of post-colonial literature. The Parshmen slash singers have been wronged. Now what? Give them back their land and send the humans back to Ashen? Well, that'll never work. The descendants of the original colonists have never known any other home. I'm a white American, as is Brandon Sanderson, so we both have a stake in finding a satisfactory answer to this question. The American Indians underwent a massive genocide and now only make up a tiny percentage of the US population. If they somehow got into a position to take their land back for themselves, there's a part of me that would sympathize with them, but in that scenario, where am I supposed to go? Back to Europe? Because that's a big region with a bunch of different languages, ethnicities, and cultures, even if they're often lumped together as all being white. Am I supposed to go back to the United Kingdom because the US is part of the Anglosphere? Well, I have more Irish ancestry than English, so if I'm supposed to go back to my, quote, homeland, then that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. I also have French, German, Japanese, and Scottish ancestry, so where would I go? Would the country or region matter, or would it just have to be somewhere in Europe? I wouldn't exactly blend in in Greece. That's not even counting what other immigrant groups like black people or Chinese people would do, or people with even more mixed ancestry than mine. And what about the Native Americans who have largely absorbed the culture, language, and religion of others? Do they have to give that up in the interest of returning to their roots? Ignoring cultural and ethnic differences is only going to make the problem worse. The Roshan humans have a lot of differences with each other, and have their own issues with racism, classism, and religious conflict. Humans are not one monolithic group that thinks and acts alike, just like white people and Native Americans aren't. And if oath bringer taught us anything, the singers aren't a monolith either. They've largely taken on the culture of those who had enslaved them. Singers from Alathcar violently rebelled against their old masters, since Alathcar is a war-like country. Those from Azir wrote a strongly worded letter asking for reparations and lost wages. For those who haven't read the book, no, that's not a joke. Their anger is completely understandable, to the point where some humans have sided with them, even if their actions are a little more questionable. In oath bringer, they wreck large parts of the countryside, then besiege and sack the capital of Alathcar, killing tons of civilians and throwing the country into chaos. During these sorts of civil wars, the destruction of infrastructure and farmland lead to food shortages, if not outright famine. People will die, a lot of them. Not all of whom will deserve it. Even if we set aside the morality of the Parshman's actions, Odium is clearly using them as a tool for his own ends. Their anger is justified, as is their desire for change, and he's fanning the flames to get them to act out and help him escape his magical prison. His name is literally Odium, guys. It's not subtle. Oh, I forgot to mention, Odium is bound to a planet called Brace by another god called Honor, who is now dead. Honor formed this thing called the Oath Pact, which would help Odium and the fused imprisoned, as long as the humans tasked with maintaining the pact kept their end of it. The problem is that they keep breaking it, but not completely, which leads to the desolations, and if it ever breaks completely, then Odium will be able to go off and destroy all the other shards, which are, oh, those are the names for the pieces of a dead god's power that were given human hosts, you know, Odium wants to be the most powerful one. Really, it's a mystery more people aren't into the Cosmere. So basically, the Parshman are only tools for Odium to reach his own ends, and in many revolutions over the years, whether they're anti-colonial or not, this has been the case. Leaders took very real grievances and used them to further their own power. The fact of the matter is that there is no easy answer to the question of how to let everyone on Roshar live together without conflict. All sides are going to have to learn how to coexist, or else one of them is going to be wiped out. Maybe it's not fair to force the Parshman, who, let's remember, were enslaved to let go of everything that was done to them and not seek any sort of revenge or justice. That's like having a fly buzz in your ear that you aren't allowed to slap. Forever. But slapping that fly will result in too much death, so it's not worth it. The humans are going to have to give some things up, too. Land, wealth, resources, in other words, reparations. If they want peace, the Parshman can't be slaves forever, and simply shoving them into poverty won't help much. Should they assimilate into the various human nations? Should they get their own country? Both of these options come with their own host of problems. Anti-Semitism didn't disappear with the creation of Israel, and without getting into the details, there's been more than enough conflict around that place to spare. Those who lived there and those who felt they were owed the land, many of whom were fleeing a disaster in their old homeland, don't always get along super well. The world's been trying to solve that little problem for 70 years with very little luck. On Roshar, things will be much the same. The ultimate enemy in this series is, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, hatred. Not illogical hatred, that's easy to condemn. Hatred that makes perfect sense for people on all sides to hold. It needs to be set aside if any progress is to be made, otherwise people are just going to keep killing each other forever. Reparations are going to have to be made, and both races will have to learn to live together. And that's a lot harder than beating up minions of an evil god who wants to destroy the world, just because. I know that's a vague line to end on, but that's about all I can say, at least so far. Maybe the next... Oh, holy shit, there are seven more books planned? Well, I'm sure things will change somewhat throughout the approximately 3 million words left to go. That's the nature of things, though. They change. Not always for good, and not always the same way for everyone. The Stormlight Archive understands this, and rather than giving us a simple tale of good versus evil, or even a complicated tale of morally grey actors murdering one another, it's a tale of how to address problems caused by your ancestors. Not in a way where you feel kind of bad, but do nothing about it, in a way that leaves everyone better off, if not completely satisfied. Special thanks to all of my Patreons, including, but not limited to, Appo Savillianin, Alex Humva, Ashley Watson, Ava Tumor, Bee Quinn, Brother Santotes, Christopher Quinten, Elizabeth Violet, Emily Miller, Joel, Johnny St. Clair, Madison Lewis Bennett, Ronnie, Taylor Briggs, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, Topher Wheeler, Vacuous Silas, including the people who watch this far, you're all pretty great. And I should probably actually promote some other stuff now and again, so please remember to check out Campfire, check out my new subreddit and my new Twitter as well, they're all linked in the description down below, so you know you can follow that, and never fall behind, always know what I'm doing, all that fun stuff. And anyways, I will see you next time. Bye.