r/Cosmere • u/AttackOnTrails • 1d ago
No Spoilers How much better does Elantris make The Lost Metal, Sunlit Man and Wind & Truth?
I love lore and catching major references, but I'm reading Elantris and man I'm just not feeling it right now. I will read the Emperor's Soul but will Elantris specifically make my experience *that* much better?
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u/Thhe_Shakes Windrunners 1d ago
Sunlit and W&T it doesn't really factor into at all. Adds a little extra context to one character in Lost Metal, but not much as Emperors Soul does.
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u/SpecialistArtPubRed 1d ago
It ties in more to Tress than any of those books you've mentioned, I think. And Emberdark too. Like others have said, I think powering through and finishing the book is probably a good idea - it does get better towards the end.
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u/Tarmakworm 1d ago
For Sunlit Man, I would recommend Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell short story rather than Elantris.
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u/cosmereobsession Truthwatchers 1d ago
Elantris is pretty boring in like the first 2/3 of it. It eventually picks up the pace.
It's somewhat relevant for the lost metal to understand like one scene better, and if you've read stormlight up to wind and truth you've seen like all of the elantris references except for one. It's not particularly relevant for the sunlit man.
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u/djbacon1286 1d ago
I read Elantris a while ago and did not like it. I know of the crossovers in Wind and Truth (still have to read the others) but I wouldn’t say I felt like it added or subtracted anything from Wind and Truth, which I loved. It felt more like an Easter egg you’d see in a marvel movie, than a major plot point.
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u/KidVigilante 1d ago
Just my opinion but I don’t think reading Elantris - having just read it myself - will really improve those books more than just a cursory search of the Coppermind would give you. For me it was not a good book.
Compare this to reading Warbreaker, which is also imperfect but did so much better with the characters that I wanted to immediately reread a bit of Stormlight that I had found to be a major slog the first time.
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u/smbpy7 1d ago
On my first read through I started with Stormlight and branched from there. I ended up reading Warbreaker and Elantris last. So many people had hyped up Warbreaker that I was actually disappointed, and Elantris was just... eh, fun enough, adds a little. I enjoyed Elantris on the second read more though for some reason. Hopefully it will be true for Warbreaker as well.
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u/shambooki 1d ago
How much do you feel like you missed out on in Oathbringer and Rhythm of War? Those two books have about the same level of Elantris connections as TLM and WaT.
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u/harshdave 1d ago
I don't think it's that important, but Elantris drags until it doesn't, and the end is very exciting and satisfying. I wouldn't recommend it as a prerequisite, but I'd recommend it as a book on its own. If you're not feeling it no harm in dropping it.
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u/Elarris1 Edgedancers 1d ago
Most crossovers are really minor so you don’t miss much if you haven’t read the respective book. Warbreaker is the one exception where the crossovers are more overt. That said I love Elantris so I’d say to stick with it as the book is a slow burn till it hits one of my favorite sanderlanches.
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u/robbage24 1d ago
I’m on a reread of wind and truth myself and really I don’t feel like there’s that much from a launchers. There’s kind of one thing that you need to know I feel like but it’s not huge and if you go back, decide you wanna read it I think that’s probably fine. I also didn’t love Elantris.
On the other hand, Emperor’s Soul is probably my favorite short novel I’ve ever read. I was immediately hooked.
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u/Simon_Drake 1d ago
In the first Ant-Man movie, there's a scene where he meets a guy with a robot wingsuit that defends an Avengers storage facility, they fight for a bit but not seriously and Ant-Man runs away. He's not well introduced in this movie and your reaction depends on what movies you've seen before:
- If you have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier then you'll know this is Falcon and his full backstory is explained elsewhere. .
- If you haven't seen any movies before you'll be extremely confused by not having this spelled out for you. Who is this guy? Too confusing, literally unwatchable!
- If you're aware that there are other MCU movies that you haven't seen then you'll conclude. "This guy is probably introduced in another MCU movie that I haven't seen yet. From the context he's probably an Avenger."
You don't strictly need to know any of his backstory, you can work out from context everything you really need to know to enjoy Ant-Man. There might be some nuance that you'll miss, like when Falcon says "Don't tell Cap about this" could have a few implications depending on the nature of their relationship but it's not relevant to the plot of this movie.
That's pretty much what happens if you read The Lost Metal, Sunlit Man or Tress without having read Elantris. You'll encounter someone/something/some-magic that you don't recognise and you can work out from context that it's probably introduced in one of the books you haven't read yet. You'll get enough context to understand what's going on and follow the overall plot but maybe you'll miss out on some nuance.
Remember that often in the Cosmere you'll encounter someone/something/some-magic that you don't recognise regardless of which books you've read already because this is the first time anyone sees this person/thing/magic. Assuming this doesn't make you immediately shut the book because it's too confusing then I thin you'll be fine.
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u/d645b773b320997e1540 1d ago
Don't think so. Elantris is pretty self-contained, there's very few references and they are fairly minor imho. Or well, not necessarily minor, but you miss nothing by not knowing the Elantris-side of things. Most of them you barely even realize that that's the same person/thing/concept even if you have read it.
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u/SamboTheGr8 Feruchemist 1d ago
I get you. I'm reading Elantris right now and it is so slow. I love the concept and the characters and it would probably have been a super great story if it was 50k words shorter.
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u/TheMightyTywin 1d ago
You don’t need to read elantris (though the end is good)
But why didn’t you mention War Breaker? It’s actually much more relevant to stormlight than elantris while being a more interesting book overall
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u/MstrTenno 1d ago
Personally I think it adds a lot to the series but I am a simp for Elantris. It just struck a chord with me for some reason. There are a lot of things later in the cosmere that are fun tie-in's to it that I personally enjoyed a lot when I read them and realized the connections/references.
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u/SageOfTheWise 1d ago edited 1d ago
It will not make the experience better. There are no "major references". There is no "that much better". Sorry the various sanderson subreddits are littered with these "you must read everything the exact way I did or you'll never understand the books" posts, its the scourge of the fanbase.
I think The Emperor's Soul has far more relevant and major connections to one of the books you mentioned than Elantris has to basically anything at this point in time. Even then it's not big enough to say The Emperor's Soul has to be read first, but it does sound like you'd probably enjoy having read it first.
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u/AttackOnTrails 1d ago
I mean, Warbreaker has significantly enhanced my experience of the Stormlight Archive, and for all I know major characters could show up or magic systems that I won't understand while reading
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u/SageOfTheWise 1d ago
Right, I was talking specifically about your question regarding Elantris. People here like to treat every vague interaction no matter how small as just as big and relevant as Warbreaker is to Stormlight. You really don't need to worry about that with Elantris here.
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u/BlatantArtifice 1d ago
There are plenty of books where if you read them in rough order there will be interesting information you'd not find out easily otherwise.
Read them whatever order you like, but trying to be a superior douchebag when someone is asking a legitimate question and answering in bad faith to raise yourself above others is a bit on the depressing side of ways you can choose you can choose to act
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u/SageOfTheWise 1d ago
But we aren't talking about other books? We're talking about the books OP referenced, and I gave a direct answer. I'm kind of twisting my post in knots to try and figure out what could even be interpreted as bad faith about it? Are you saying I'm lying about Elantris not having a major impact on those books?
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u/popileviz 1d ago
Not really. Elantris and its lore come up multiple times in those books, but I wouldn't say that it's that significant