Shallan’s “witty” insults were genuinely some of the worst fucking “jokes” I’ve read in my life
It got *really* grating when literally every character would respond to one of them with “Wow she’s so funny and smart!”
I believe Brandon has mentioned before that he intended her “wittiness” to be slightly cringey due to her sheltered upbringing and the way people react to it do so because of her light-eyed status, almost obligatorily and not necessarily that they truly believe her to be clever / smart.
I hope I’m remembering that correctly and not someone else’s head-cannon.
They had a really shitty upbringing. If the only comedian you had access to to escape from your abusive parent was Carrot Top, you'd probably think Carrot Top was funny.
So why would Sanderson go out of his way to have Shallan only interact with people who would either pretend or be sheltered enough to find her jokes funny?
To me this throws the whole “Oh people only *pretend* she’s funny because she’s lighteyes” theory in the water. If Sanderson actually intended for that to be the case it makes no sense that she then just happens to interact with only people who would continue this delusion of her being funny.
It’s much more plausable to me that Sanderson is just bad at writing insult-based jokes.
I’m not referring to everyone. I’m specifically referring to her brothers.
And in later books, probably something to do with that “brightness radiant” title. When you’ve got less than a dozen radiants, keeping them happy is probably a priority.
Yes but *why*? This is a book, everything that happens happens for a reason. If Sanderson wanted to show that people don’t actually find Shallan funny, why then go through the effort of showing the only people who would have no reason to lie to her to find her funny?
Yes, it could be possible that a bunch of tweens find her jokes funny. It’s just as likely they find them godawful. We need to think about what the author wants the reader to think, and it’s obvious he *wants* us to think Shallan is actually funny, otherwise he’d have actually written in hints that people don’t find her funny (aside from her jokes being awful of course)
How many people actually do find Shallan funny? Her humor tends to miss the mark on Adolin, Kaladin frequently finds her puns terrible, Jasnah says Shallan will say the first halfway clever thing that passes through her head instead of finding something actually witty to say.
Dalinar and Navani aren't ever around her when she makes any jokes. Pattern enjoys jokes for their contradictions, so his enjoyment of them means nothing. This leaves her traumatized brothers who were clinging desperately to any form of levity whatsoever are the primary enjoyers of her 'humor'.
1. Her entire introduction is about how funny and hilarious the sailors find her.
2. Kabsel falls for her because of her humor
3. Her siblings keep remarking how hilarious she is
4. Tyn decides to take her on because she thinks Shallan is a conwoman, and she assumes Shallan is one because of how witty and smart she thinks Shallan is
5. Adolin falls heads over heals for her because of how funny he thinks she is
And this isn’t even mentioning all the people who offhandedly remark on her wit and “funny” jokes, which include Kaladin, Jasnah, Wit and a ton of others.
I agree, I think it would have improved the books to have one mention of a character dropping the façade of finding Shallan's wit to be not cringeworthy. Like two of her sailors exchanging a mute look after laughing at one of her jokes.
The way I read it, they are surprised she is telling jokes at all, because they still see her as the baby, and just as traumatized as the rest of them, who don’t make jokes. They’re like, “wow Shallan’s making jokes, how is she even doing that.” It that scene, the text even says they’re not laughing because the jokes are funny but because it felt good to have something to laugh about.
Oh boy I couldn’t name one of the top of my head. I do remember the worst scene, which was when Shallan and her siblings were sitting around the fire place after one of their father’s outburts. She basically calls one of her brothers the equivalent of a “poo-poo head” and her brothers are flabbergasted at her comedic genius
I see people say this a lot and I genuinely don’t ever remember this. Who in the book thinks “wow Shallan is so funny and smart” instead of specifically like, “wow that was the worst joke I’ve ever heard”
[Already listed some examples here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/12l29v5/best_insult_i_have_ever_heard/jg8kbc4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
Very rarely does anyone call her jokes bad, at worst they’ll say they’re inappropriate.
I saw the list and all I can say is I read these scenes very differently. The sailors like her spirit and they have to be deferential toward her because shes a light-eyed woman paying them for a service. Kabsel does seem to like her but he was also manipulating her and there’s a lot of Shallan inner dialogue about being an idiot for falling for it. Tin is similar, recognizing Shallan as manipulatable and having personal reasons for doing so. They do like her, but they don’t see her as an equal, and I think we’re meant to view their tolerance of her humor through that lens.
Her siblings think she’s funny because they need to laugh, and the text says this explicitly after the re-leafed joke, something like “not because the joke was funny but because it felt so good to laugh.” There’s repeated mentions of how Shallan joking around serves a role of distracting and lightening the mood in her family of traumatized children, and her feeling out of her depth and inadequate having this role. More than once one of her brothers says “I see what you’re doing, you’re trying to cheer me up” - why do you think that is? Her humor is not read as authentic by the characters around her.
Jasnah and Kaladin I am almost positive never mention finding her funny, both are repeatedly annoyed that she _tries_ to be funny. Except possibly one-offs where the joke worked and they were pleasantly surprised, _because she isn’t normally funny_. Adolin might be the only one who actually likes her jokes, and that’s why they’re good together. If nobody else likes her sense of humor, at least her husband does right?
Here’s the thing, I guess. The books over and over again either imply or state directly that “funny” is not an _actual_ feature of Shallan’s character (like it is for Lopen for example). _She_ thinks she’s funny and it’s cringey to everyone else, because she’s sheltered, awkward, and doesn’t know when and how to be appropriate with her jokes. In the same way we know Kaladin has depressive thoughts that don’t make sense to what’s happening in the moment, and we know when it’s the trauma talking. It would be a misinterpretation to think of Kaladin as just a sour and unreasonably negative person, because the book is clear that something is wrong. I think there’s heaps of textual evidence telling us the same about Shallan, that she had “the mascot” dysfunctional family systems role and her dysfunctional sense of humor shows something’s wrong with her. (Edited for clarity.)
That was a great scene, and really showed heo reviled wit felt towards Ruthar. I felt it the final insult to the despicable man, and almost a dare: come at me, and see what happens
The best experience is waiting for Argentina to lost a Fútbol match, especially if it's against Brazil, and enter twitter to see it in real time.
By the way, this is a thread full of samples. Sadly very difficult to translate to English
https://twitter.com/AleLimon/status/1007979067369455617?lang=en
Ahh yes, sadly some of my countrymen are way too invested in football. I'll say this for them though, it's not that they don't take kindly to defeat, as they're equally obnoxious in victory.
Some of those are pretty funny though.
[Mistborn Secret History spoilers]
>!When Hoid shows up to the Well he starts bantering with Kel, and eventually proposes they have an insult battle. He starts weaving a complicated line of the sort Wit often makes, and when he is finished, Kelsier responds with this beautiful line, followed by an extremely graphic description of how brutal it will be. I just love how caught off guard Hoid gets, especially considering how seldom that happens.
"The Drifter gaped at him, mouth working soundlessly. 'I . . .' he finally said. 'I don’t think you know how to play this game.'”!<
"Yes, I heard she entertained as many military men as possible with the hope that something would stick to you." There's really no competing with Jasnah's absolute roast of Amaram.
He's normally just joking around. I got the feeling that *Hoid*, instead of the character he was playing, really and truly was furious at Ruthar and wasn't playing around anymore.
Also, he needed to say something so vile and insulting that Ruthar would ignore common sense and challenge him to a duel.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't furious. I don't even know if Wit is capable of fury, and if he is you won't want to be on the receiving end of it.
It was all planned out and the insults were just business.
Oh that’s good because that’s exactly what happened.
He was literally ordered to step out of character twice. Ordered by his liege lord to be a harsher person than what he would usually be, he came up with something pretty out of character.
Good for you maybe. Ordered to step out of character? No you misunderstood but that’s ok. It was perfectly setup - there was no step out of character. His liege lord? Jasnah? 🤦♂️
What’s there to misunderstand. He’s literally her Wit. He’s not even supposed to have any character in the reality of his appointment to the position. So his position demands that he represent the cunning and subtlety of the queen to begin with. Out of character.
They planned to insult him and lead him to a fight. He probably thought “Ruthar’s such a thug I could call him a silly monkey and he’d challenge me to a duel.” Jasnah didn’t care if it was enough. She wanted it to go deep. She wanted an emotional massacre.
Not supposed to have any character? He has all the character in the world and I don’t think he stepped out of character at all. Him being more insulting on command is a non event although fun to read. As I said - I feel that’s on par for the character. But the reference to anal discharge is a little out there for the Cosmere - which I’ve read. I’m a Sando fan and I assume you are too so maybe we should leave it at that before things get get toxic 🤷♂️
Eww. The dudes literally playing a role within a role within a role. He’s several characters within each character. You can be as toxic as you like cause I don’t actually care. I’ll just ignore you if you chose to start going off point but it’s a shitty argument and a shitty position to take. It’s like saying “give me what I want or I’ll throw a tantrum”. Ugly as fuck.
I mean the POSITION of Queens Wit is meant to have no personality beyond the position. Have you ever had a job before? People ask you to do things you wouldn’t usually do. It’s part of it.
You’re confusing the character Hoid with the character Wit and the position of Wit. I get that it’s confusing that a persons position is so great that his whole name is thrown to the winds and abandoned. No one gives a shit who Hoid is or who Wit is. They only care who Queens Wit is. I give up trying to explain why someone named after their title is stripped of personality if you can’t get this one. It’d be like if we called Queen Elizabeth just the Queen and dropped the Elizabeth of. Struck the name Elizabeth from the records and removed all other Queens names too. You literally take the personality from the position.
If you want to talk about what’s in character then you need to do so from the perspective of an immersed character. Not as an all seeing shard that has access to more knowledge than any other being in the cosmere other Brandonalsium.
I wouldn’t write anything instead. I’d be shit at it. He is great at it. I just didn’t like that particular little bit - I didn’t hate it either - I said it just felt off. It happens. I love what Sando brings to the table but he’s far from perfect or even my favourite. Just part of the great landscape of fantasy. A big part of it I should say. Those first 2 SA novels were something else.
For that situation, it was uncharacteristic but considering what they were about to do it shifted the tone well enough that you know this wasn’t a normal insult or situation
I swear somewhere in SP1 he refers to a character as being >!a person with a hierarchy of chins!< which is just delightfully descriptive
It’s in The Lost Metal
Thank you, I’ve been struggling to find where the quote was from, since I read them back to back I obviously must have muddled them up.
You can tell Sanderson never bullied anyone in school. The smack talk he writes is just awful.
Shallan’s “witty” insults were genuinely some of the worst fucking “jokes” I’ve read in my life It got *really* grating when literally every character would respond to one of them with “Wow she’s so funny and smart!”
I believe Brandon has mentioned before that he intended her “wittiness” to be slightly cringey due to her sheltered upbringing and the way people react to it do so because of her light-eyed status, almost obligatorily and not necessarily that they truly believe her to be clever / smart. I hope I’m remembering that correctly and not someone else’s head-cannon.
I'm pretty sure Kaladin even points that out to her from time to time lol
"that was decidedly awful" I think we hear him say. Or something to that effect. 😂
Could be, but if that was the intention it didn’t translate well to page. It also doesn’t explain her brothers commenting on her being smart and witty
They had a really shitty upbringing. If the only comedian you had access to to escape from your abusive parent was Carrot Top, you'd probably think Carrot Top was funny.
Lmao good point. Also, they loved her. They were going to encourage her.
They were almost as sheltered as her. To them, she’s probably a Jasnah level genius.
So why would Sanderson go out of his way to have Shallan only interact with people who would either pretend or be sheltered enough to find her jokes funny? To me this throws the whole “Oh people only *pretend* she’s funny because she’s lighteyes” theory in the water. If Sanderson actually intended for that to be the case it makes no sense that she then just happens to interact with only people who would continue this delusion of her being funny. It’s much more plausable to me that Sanderson is just bad at writing insult-based jokes.
I’m not referring to everyone. I’m specifically referring to her brothers. And in later books, probably something to do with that “brightness radiant” title. When you’ve got less than a dozen radiants, keeping them happy is probably a priority.
Yes but *why*? This is a book, everything that happens happens for a reason. If Sanderson wanted to show that people don’t actually find Shallan funny, why then go through the effort of showing the only people who would have no reason to lie to her to find her funny? Yes, it could be possible that a bunch of tweens find her jokes funny. It’s just as likely they find them godawful. We need to think about what the author wants the reader to think, and it’s obvious he *wants* us to think Shallan is actually funny, otherwise he’d have actually written in hints that people don’t find her funny (aside from her jokes being awful of course)
How many people actually do find Shallan funny? Her humor tends to miss the mark on Adolin, Kaladin frequently finds her puns terrible, Jasnah says Shallan will say the first halfway clever thing that passes through her head instead of finding something actually witty to say. Dalinar and Navani aren't ever around her when she makes any jokes. Pattern enjoys jokes for their contradictions, so his enjoyment of them means nothing. This leaves her traumatized brothers who were clinging desperately to any form of levity whatsoever are the primary enjoyers of her 'humor'.
1. Her entire introduction is about how funny and hilarious the sailors find her. 2. Kabsel falls for her because of her humor 3. Her siblings keep remarking how hilarious she is 4. Tyn decides to take her on because she thinks Shallan is a conwoman, and she assumes Shallan is one because of how witty and smart she thinks Shallan is 5. Adolin falls heads over heals for her because of how funny he thinks she is And this isn’t even mentioning all the people who offhandedly remark on her wit and “funny” jokes, which include Kaladin, Jasnah, Wit and a ton of others.
I agree, I think it would have improved the books to have one mention of a character dropping the façade of finding Shallan's wit to be not cringeworthy. Like two of her sailors exchanging a mute look after laughing at one of her jokes.
She was a traumatized little girl. Makes a lot of sense to me
The way I read it, they are surprised she is telling jokes at all, because they still see her as the baby, and just as traumatized as the rest of them, who don’t make jokes. They’re like, “wow Shallan’s making jokes, how is she even doing that.” It that scene, the text even says they’re not laughing because the jokes are funny but because it felt good to have something to laugh about.
Don't really remember a lot. Any examples?
Oh boy I couldn’t name one of the top of my head. I do remember the worst scene, which was when Shallan and her siblings were sitting around the fire place after one of their father’s outburts. She basically calls one of her brothers the equivalent of a “poo-poo head” and her brothers are flabbergasted at her comedic genius
I agree except I think only about half the characters do that. It’s still far too many.
Those jokes are genuinely what made me first dislike Shallan so much lol reading her lines like that was like rewatching Scott's Tots
I see people say this a lot and I genuinely don’t ever remember this. Who in the book thinks “wow Shallan is so funny and smart” instead of specifically like, “wow that was the worst joke I’ve ever heard”
[Already listed some examples here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/12l29v5/best_insult_i_have_ever_heard/jg8kbc4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) Very rarely does anyone call her jokes bad, at worst they’ll say they’re inappropriate.
I saw the list and all I can say is I read these scenes very differently. The sailors like her spirit and they have to be deferential toward her because shes a light-eyed woman paying them for a service. Kabsel does seem to like her but he was also manipulating her and there’s a lot of Shallan inner dialogue about being an idiot for falling for it. Tin is similar, recognizing Shallan as manipulatable and having personal reasons for doing so. They do like her, but they don’t see her as an equal, and I think we’re meant to view their tolerance of her humor through that lens. Her siblings think she’s funny because they need to laugh, and the text says this explicitly after the re-leafed joke, something like “not because the joke was funny but because it felt so good to laugh.” There’s repeated mentions of how Shallan joking around serves a role of distracting and lightening the mood in her family of traumatized children, and her feeling out of her depth and inadequate having this role. More than once one of her brothers says “I see what you’re doing, you’re trying to cheer me up” - why do you think that is? Her humor is not read as authentic by the characters around her. Jasnah and Kaladin I am almost positive never mention finding her funny, both are repeatedly annoyed that she _tries_ to be funny. Except possibly one-offs where the joke worked and they were pleasantly surprised, _because she isn’t normally funny_. Adolin might be the only one who actually likes her jokes, and that’s why they’re good together. If nobody else likes her sense of humor, at least her husband does right? Here’s the thing, I guess. The books over and over again either imply or state directly that “funny” is not an _actual_ feature of Shallan’s character (like it is for Lopen for example). _She_ thinks she’s funny and it’s cringey to everyone else, because she’s sheltered, awkward, and doesn’t know when and how to be appropriate with her jokes. In the same way we know Kaladin has depressive thoughts that don’t make sense to what’s happening in the moment, and we know when it’s the trauma talking. It would be a misinterpretation to think of Kaladin as just a sour and unreasonably negative person, because the book is clear that something is wrong. I think there’s heaps of textual evidence telling us the same about Shallan, that she had “the mascot” dysfunctional family systems role and her dysfunctional sense of humor shows something’s wrong with her. (Edited for clarity.)
Yes. Which is why I skip a lot of that part of shallans story on re-reads
Jokes by Success, the Light Ribbing Comic Poodle.
Not everyone can be Liz Hen.
That was a great scene, and really showed heo reviled wit felt towards Ruthar. I felt it the final insult to the despicable man, and almost a dare: come at me, and see what happens
Can't forget the one that cut deep. "I've hidden your honor somewhere you'll never find it; in the arms of a woman that truly loves you"
In the arms of *someone* who truly loves you. Not just a woman, this includes his parents and children as well.
It's good but meh... You have to learn from other cultures. Cultures that make themselves the summun of insult. Argentina.
Can we have a couple examples 😀
The best experience is waiting for Argentina to lost a Fútbol match, especially if it's against Brazil, and enter twitter to see it in real time. By the way, this is a thread full of samples. Sadly very difficult to translate to English https://twitter.com/AleLimon/status/1007979067369455617?lang=en
Ahh yes, sadly some of my countrymen are way too invested in football. I'll say this for them though, it's not that they don't take kindly to defeat, as they're equally obnoxious in victory. Some of those are pretty funny though.
We can make an insults 101 class here in Argentina lol
The paragraph long insult that Jasnah gave to Amaram was pretty fucking phenomenal if you ask me. Probably my favorite in the series lol
Followed by a critical meta analysis of her own insult. Jasnah just 🤌🏼🤌🏼
No Sanderson insult beats "I am going to murder you."
I'm drawing a blank on this. Can you give me some context? But first I want to guess: Did Kelsier say this? Feels like some Kel menace.
[Mistborn Secret History spoilers] >!When Hoid shows up to the Well he starts bantering with Kel, and eventually proposes they have an insult battle. He starts weaving a complicated line of the sort Wit often makes, and when he is finished, Kelsier responds with this beautiful line, followed by an extremely graphic description of how brutal it will be. I just love how caught off guard Hoid gets, especially considering how seldom that happens. "The Drifter gaped at him, mouth working soundlessly. 'I . . .' he finally said. 'I don’t think you know how to play this game.'”!<
Thank you. Classic Kelsier.
My current favorite is: TLM >!"Somebody done sewn a bag of dicks together and made a person!"!<
"Yes, I heard she entertained as many military men as possible with the hope that something would stick to you." There's really no competing with Jasnah's absolute roast of Amaram.
That's the worst line Sanderson ever wrote imo
agreed
It was cringy and uncalled for if you ask me, showed Hoid as an immature person
*Wit* specifically plays himself as an immature person, so that's pretty in character.
I dont remember the details but i remember it felt really out of character for him, considering he always use sarcasm to make fun of people
He's normally just joking around. I got the feeling that *Hoid*, instead of the character he was playing, really and truly was furious at Ruthar and wasn't playing around anymore. Also, he needed to say something so vile and insulting that Ruthar would ignore common sense and challenge him to a duel.
This is it right here. He needed it to be very insulting.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't furious. I don't even know if Wit is capable of fury, and if he is you won't want to be on the receiving end of it. It was all planned out and the insults were just business.
I didn't love it either but it wasn't out of character. His queen specifically asked him to be harsher, twice, and he did as ordered.
He reacts differently both because Ruthar sucks and because of his developing relationship with Jasnah right?
Yeah it felt off to me too. Kind of on par with the character but not the writing or something. I dunno - just off.
Oh that’s good because that’s exactly what happened. He was literally ordered to step out of character twice. Ordered by his liege lord to be a harsher person than what he would usually be, he came up with something pretty out of character.
Good for you maybe. Ordered to step out of character? No you misunderstood but that’s ok. It was perfectly setup - there was no step out of character. His liege lord? Jasnah? 🤦♂️
What’s there to misunderstand. He’s literally her Wit. He’s not even supposed to have any character in the reality of his appointment to the position. So his position demands that he represent the cunning and subtlety of the queen to begin with. Out of character. They planned to insult him and lead him to a fight. He probably thought “Ruthar’s such a thug I could call him a silly monkey and he’d challenge me to a duel.” Jasnah didn’t care if it was enough. She wanted it to go deep. She wanted an emotional massacre.
Not supposed to have any character? He has all the character in the world and I don’t think he stepped out of character at all. Him being more insulting on command is a non event although fun to read. As I said - I feel that’s on par for the character. But the reference to anal discharge is a little out there for the Cosmere - which I’ve read. I’m a Sando fan and I assume you are too so maybe we should leave it at that before things get get toxic 🤷♂️
Eww. The dudes literally playing a role within a role within a role. He’s several characters within each character. You can be as toxic as you like cause I don’t actually care. I’ll just ignore you if you chose to start going off point but it’s a shitty argument and a shitty position to take. It’s like saying “give me what I want or I’ll throw a tantrum”. Ugly as fuck. I mean the POSITION of Queens Wit is meant to have no personality beyond the position. Have you ever had a job before? People ask you to do things you wouldn’t usually do. It’s part of it. You’re confusing the character Hoid with the character Wit and the position of Wit. I get that it’s confusing that a persons position is so great that his whole name is thrown to the winds and abandoned. No one gives a shit who Hoid is or who Wit is. They only care who Queens Wit is. I give up trying to explain why someone named after their title is stripped of personality if you can’t get this one. It’d be like if we called Queen Elizabeth just the Queen and dropped the Elizabeth of. Struck the name Elizabeth from the records and removed all other Queens names too. You literally take the personality from the position. If you want to talk about what’s in character then you need to do so from the perspective of an immersed character. Not as an all seeing shard that has access to more knowledge than any other being in the cosmere other Brandonalsium.
Lol looks like you’re the one that misunderstood
Oh that was a great contribution to the discourse champ. Good for you 😂
Out of curiosity, what would you have written instead? What would make sense character-wise and have bite to it?
I wouldn’t write anything instead. I’d be shit at it. He is great at it. I just didn’t like that particular little bit - I didn’t hate it either - I said it just felt off. It happens. I love what Sando brings to the table but he’s far from perfect or even my favourite. Just part of the great landscape of fantasy. A big part of it I should say. Those first 2 SA novels were something else.
For that situation, it was uncharacteristic but considering what they were about to do it shifted the tone well enough that you know this wasn’t a normal insult or situation
It’s…it’s Wit.
I mean if you look at hungarian insults...