For the record I've never read a Sanderson novel, but I've heard they were rather socially conservative for the most part. No sex, no modern politics, no R-rated scenes. Moderate T for Teen level content.
Sanderson has also been pushing for Hollywood deals for a long time, but had no luck.
The most recent book suddenly had homos and non-binary and all that stuff. Then boom, TV deal signed.
Thoughts?
The gay and trans characters weren't even the worst part. This was:
I didn't bother reading the fifth book. Never will. Sold the previous four and I'm simply going to forget I've ever read them. Also never going to buy another Sanderson book again.
The whole "schtick" of Stormlight is that almost all of the main characters are broken in some way. That's integral to how the magic system works.
The last 2 books have had more "cringe" moments than any other pieces of Sanderson's writing.
I think the real reason is that his longtime editor, Moshe Feder, left. Moshe had edited I believe every single Mistborn and most of the other Tor books. Oathbringer (Stormlight book 3) was the last book Moshe worked on.
I don't think it's a coincidence that books 4 and 5 were far weaker. Sanderson does this whole "alpha readers" and "beta readers" feedback groups, and with a strong and good editor in place, that's manageable. Without a strong guiding hand, it's easy to get bullied around by shitty superfans.
Oh wow, that's bad. Might well be the gayest line imaginable. Woulda been less gay to just kingdom-cum-in-my-ass the character.
It's not just gay. It's a bit very modern day millennial gay for a medieval semi-apocalyptic fantasy world.
Spoken by what was formerly the most awesome character in the series. A character who is essentially sidelined in the last book in the series so we can get gay inter-species romance bullshit.
Thank the Lord I decided to stop reading them before this. I might have actually had a stroke. Tumblr bullshit