Elantris

Brandon Sanderson’s first published novel, Elantris, fares much better when it comes to handling the twists and turns of the story than when it’s time to develop its characters and social discussions.

The book’s main setting is the city of Elantris, a place wrapped in an aura of mysticism. Its inhabitants, once powerful, shining, and immortal, now find themselves cursed, living abandoned in muddy streets with rotten skin, always hungry and in pain. It’s not known what led to the change, but if it was celebrated in the past when someone became an Elantrian – a random event that could occur with anyone in the vicinity of Elantris – now the conversion is considered a fatal disease, with the infected becoming pariahs who are locked up inside the city. Thus, those who once were praised and revered became worthy of pity, and the city that had been the political center of the whole region became a tomb.

The story follows the point of view of three characters. The protagonist is called Raoden, the prince of the city of Arelon, in the vicinity of Elantris, who is suddenly affected by the dreaded transformation and banished from his home. In Elantris, he meets a friend in the figure of Galladon and, together, they decide to overcome pain and hunger to save the doomed city. Traveling to Arelon, we also follow Princess Sarene of Teod, whose future husband, Raoden, has been officially pronounced dead. Observing how unstable Arelon’s economy and political situation are, the princess suddenly finds herself part of a conspiracy to overthrow King Iadon, but she also has to worry about a new priest from an enemy province, a sinister man who’s trying to indoctrinate the local population. This man, Hrathen, is a Fjordell priest sent to Arelon with a crucial mission: he must convert the population to his religion within three months if he wants to prevent a military invasion from Fjorden.

Raoden’s journey is quite eventful, with the character learning about the dreary routine of the miserable inhabitants of Elantris, and how its dangerous gangs are organized while trying to unravel the mystery behind the city’s history and form a new society within its walls. The prince is an optimistic man, who sees hope for Elantris even with its curse imprisoning everyone in a terrible life full of agony. His goal is to make the Elantrians share his lofty ideals and help him revitalize the city even though that won’t stop their excruciating pain.

Sanderson creates in Raoden a character that is supposed to be a hopelessly virtuous man, but sounds only irritatingly presumptuous instead. The prince’s optimistic views, for example, often border on the absurd and offensive: the Elantrians never have their hunger satiated and, since they are immortal, they can’t even find solace in death, but Raoden, in his infinite wisdom, summons his inner Boromir to try and convince them that it’s all a gift. After all, it means that everyone can finally stop worrying about unimportant things, such as food and health, and – this is where you’ll want to slap him in the face – have more time to work.

In Brazil, there was this famous right-wing slogan crafted when their government was failing miserably: “Don’t speak of crisis; work.” Raoden basically embodies this absurd molotov-inducing concept, teaching the Elantrians that everything will be better if they just stop complaining and start working. But one of the novel’s main problems is not the clear neoliberal views ingrained in the protagonist’s actions, but how incredibly silly they appear here due to the huge contrast between the size of the problem and the simplicity of the solution these views offer (although… is that not always the case with them? Isn’t that precisely their appeal?)

Raoden’s plan to save the Elantrians, then, amounts to just giving them a job. If, on the one hand, work can definitely help instill a sense of purpose into an individual, on the other, the inhabitants of Elantris suffer too much for the solution to be so basic in nature. Every pain they feel is eternal: they never feel satiated, a cut never heals, scratches never stop stinging, and bumping into a small rock will cause an Elantrian’s toe to ache until they die, which will never happen. By accumulating all these pains and an ever-increasing hunger, the Elantrians are gradually driven to madness. And Raoden is coming to them and saying “Wouldn’t be much better if you were also construction workers?” Their situation is too absurd for only a job to save them, as if in a miracle – a miracle that indeed begins to happen, nonetheless.

In Elantris, working hard is the solution for even the most fantastical of woes. It’s not a surprise, then, that donations are framed in a negative light, accused of withdrawing a man’s will to fend for himself. When Sarene tries to offer food in Elantris, for example, Raoden immediately condemns the action because he believes that the Elantrians – those cursed beings – will become too comfortable and stop working to earn the food at their table. The book endorses the fallacy of “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish, he eats for a lifetime,” failing to realize that the two actions are not mutually exclusive and, more importantly, that the people in question are not even in the condition to fish for themselves. The narrative never tries to delve deep into this issue, however, content in offering a metaphor for that common but questionable fallacy and calling it a day.

Sarene’s chapters fare a bit better because they are more focused on Arelon’s political machinations. The princess’s arc involves her struggle to create an important social position for a woman in a masculine society. However, her independence condemns her to a life of loneliness, as she believes that no man would ever agree to marry a woman superior to him. Meanwhile, her tactics to ruin Hrathen’s plans are engaging, as they basically form a battle of intelligence between the two characters, made up of traps, bluffs, and counter-attacks. This results in numerous twists and turns that move the plot forward, always modifying the political landscape.

The princess’s plotline, however, suffers from being slightly overstretched and containing several unimportant passages. There are so many unnecessary comments about her uncle Kiin’s food, for example, that the book almost seems to have been written by George R.R. Martin. A twist involving Kiin also turns out to be anticlimactic because it has no effect on the overall story and, in the same sense, the princess’ attempt to soften Arelon’s feudal system is equally irrelevant, with its results being promptly ignored by the proceeding events. Similarly, her fencing training, although prominent for a while, produces insignificant consequences at the climax.

Moreover, the level of exposition in her chapters is tedious, with the prose being full of pauses to explain things in a very didactic way, as if to ensure that the reader won’t have the slightest chance of getting lost.

Hrathen, then, thanks to his complicated and dynamic narrative function, becomes the most fascinating character of the trio, with a more urgent journey due to the time limit imposed on him. At the heart of Hrathen’s plotline is the idea that behind the good intentions of a missionary incursion there is usually the veiled objective of cultural domination, which can begin, for example, with the imposition of a new language.

Hrathen is an ambivalent character. On the one hand, he is the antagonist of Sarene and Raoden, aiming to conquer Arelon and destroy the Elantrians. On the other hand, his main goal is to save the common people from the Fjordell army, believing that conversion is the most peaceful route. And, while he strives to make the people understand the logic of his religion and accept it for the right reasons, he also gets their support by fostering hatred against a particular social group, knowing that this has always been an effective tool of manipulation. Moreover, if Hrathen is defined by his religion, he is also marked by his preference for logic over faith when crafting his speeches. Therefore, it’s a pity to see that his character arc is poorly developed: the main issue is that the distinction between religion and faith that’s so important to the character is never pondered over in detail by Hrathen himself or anyone else close to him, appearing suddenly in the narrative.

Elantris also suffers from some moments that completely lack subtlety – such as the scene in which Sarene observes a note at King Iadon’s table or the one in which the villain decides to give a didactic explanation about their motives – and from others that are pure repetition, such as continuing to hammer home the idea that Sarene is “fascinated by politics,” when we have already understood that in the girl’s first chapter. Likewise, the idea that religion is a tool of control is repeated to exhaustion, appearing again and again and again – and again – and one more time before the climax to “remind” us of the reasons for the conflict.

Sanderson also falters when he breaks the established structure for the novel at one point, inserting Raoden’s point of view into Sarene’s chapter without any explanation halfway through the story. At the climax, this narrative inconsistency becomes even more serious with the sudden appearance of the point of view of a hitherto irrelevant priest, who leaves the story shortly after.

Finally, the author ends up also building a weak climax: the mystery about Elantris’ curse is solved in an anticlimactic way – although Sanderson is skillful in preparing the logic of the solution, it fails to relate to any other element of the story, existing in isolation – while a magic system, which up to that point existed only in theory, is used in an excessive manner, almost functioning as a Deus Ex Machina.

Despite its fascinating setting, Elantris suffers too much from problematic discussions, shallow characters, inconsistent structure, and a weak climax, to fully work.

March 21, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on June 20, 2017.