Elantris 36: Hrathen

Hrathen nearly dies of thirst but then the poison wears off. Miraculously he is rescued from Elantris by one of the few remaining guards (the rest being off with Telrii). The people are pretty impressed. Dilaf is pretty impressed (but not impressed enough). Even Hrathen is pretty impressed that the plan worked, and is putting it down to the work of his god, Jaddeth.

In Hrathen's absence, Dilaf had been trying to get into his secret box containing his seon and the poison. The seon says no-one had successfully opened the box, though.

The next day Hrathen hires an assassin, giving him the last of the poison. What will he ask the assassin to do? Poison Dilaf?

Elantris 35: Sarene

Sarene's dad is quite proud of her for dethroning the king. Who is now dead, by the way, having hanged himself despite being in prison. I'm gonna come out and say it: Iadon did not commit suicide!

Now there is the problem of the succession. Sarene does not want Telrii taking over. However he is both the richest man in the land and has bought off the city guard.

Shuden has the excellent idea of Sarene marrying Roial and combining their wealth and convincing the people that this is the continuity option, since Sarene is already a princess. This is possible because her marriage contract is now void. Yay! So she can marry someone she likes. Yay! But to save the country she is going to have to marry some random old guy. Boo!

It could be worse, he's quite a nice old chap and she gets on okay with him. And there is to be absolutely no hanky panky, since no heirs are required (she can get those from her next husband after Roial is dead). This is purely a marriage of political convenience. How much more civilised than Westeros is Araluen!

So that's all sorted then. Except Sarene then finds out that Hrathen has been healed. Which means all the people are going to think he's awesome and it's a sign from god. And he is going to support Telrii.

Elantris 34: Raoden

Shaor is missing and presumed dead, since only her wig remains. Her followers are now following Raoden, treating him as their new god, since he has power over food. They're not terribly bright, but somewhat obedient and useful.

Meanwhile Raoden has solved the mystery of the slime. It's just dead fungus. Apparently Elantris has always been covered with it but it wasn't unpleasant or bothersome when it was alive. That at least means that new slime is not being made and once cleaned off it should stay gone. Raoden is hoping that figuring all this stuff out will lead him to the ultimate mystery (the only mystery left?) of why Elantris fell. But he's running out of time since his pain is increasing.

Presumably he is going to solve enough of the mystery to stop himself becoming Hoed just in the nick of time. Or someone else, probably Galladon, will save him just before he gets dissolved in the acid lake.

 

In the meantime he's trying to organise a successor to his work. Galladon is a bit scathing about this, pointing out that Raoden has still got plenty of time. Even apart from Raoden's mystery accelerating pain which Galladon does not know about, it seems a bit optimistic, given a trip on the stairs could be enough to finish someone off in Elantris.

There's some discussion about what happens to Seons if their owner dies without leaving a will. Maybe they float around aimlessly acting mad, just as all the Elantrian seons are. My guess is they've lost their connection to the cloud: Alexa is similiarly useless when this happens.

Raoden gets news that Hrathen is healed. It's a miracle!

Elantris 33: Hrathen

On the night of the lunar eclipse Hrathen stops praying and meditating and eats his food. He somehow needs to avoid being seen to be dependent on food before he gets better and miraculously emerges from Elantris.

Elantris 32: Sarene

Iadon has been ignoring Sarene since she shouted at him. Other people in the court have become wary of her, too. Nonetheless, she gets Roial to host a lunar eclipse party. Telrii is there having his own sub-party next to the king's sub-party, indicating that he's building power ready to take the place of the king.

This might happen sooner rather than later because Sarene follows the king into a sewer and discovers him naked and covered in the blood of a virgin. So that's what he's been up to, and it explains the mystery of the disappearing servants. Dilaf has also followed and soon the whole city knows and that's the end of the king. He's been arrested. I'm not sure what that means for "princess" Sarene.

Elantris 31: Raoden

Raoden takes Shaolin to the acid lake. Over the next few days, absent Sarene's food handouts, his followers start to return, and he gets new followers too. They want purpose in their lives.

Raoden and Galladon are intrigued by Hrathen's appearance in Elantris. Fjordell's don't become Elantrians. Hrathen gets attacked by some of Shaor's men and beats them easily.

Elantris 30: Hrathen

Hrathen appears to have been taken by the Shaod, but it's probably just that poison he drank. He stays by the gates and prays to his god, Jaddeth. Perhaps the idea is that the poison will wear off and people will see that Jaddeth has performed a miracle.

Elantris 29: Sarene

Sarene is crying because she thinks her boyfriend is a baddie. She thinks Shaor's men were only attacking because they were so desperately hungry. She doesn't know they were like that anyway.

The king massively overreacts about the attack in which no-one was hurt and sends men to kill all the Elantrians. Sarene has to yell at him to stop it, and he does. And he starts crying.

Sarene goes to the walls of Elantris to have a look. She notices the corpses are still alive. She realises that they don't need food to survive and wonders why the still want to eat. I suppose she'll figure it out eventually. She watches Raoden grieving and cradling Shaolin, supposes a tyrant can still love his followers, and wonders if he can really be a good man. I'm not entirely sure why she assumes he is a tyrant at all.

 

She goes to visit her uncle and learns that the whole court heard her chastising the king. That could cause rather a lot of political instability, I would think. There is news that someone unexpected was taken by the Shaod. Probably Hrathen.

Elantris 28: Raoden, Sarene

Raoden is reading the books in the secret underground bunker. He's keeping the acid lake a secret for now because he doesn't want the whole city to commit suicide. He learns about the Dor, the magical energy that can only fit through Aon shaped Aons and whose effects are controlled by the shape. Makes sense. I still think they're in the Matrix and the computer program that controls the magic just needs restarting.

Ien the Seon is floating about being weird.

It's becoming clear that they can't hold Shaor's men back much longer. Sure enough, on Sarene's next visit, they attack. Luckily nobody gets hurt.

In the middle of all this Raoden admits he's been holding back food from Shaor's men. This is one of those annoying plot devices where the plot is driven by people just not explaining themselves properly. If he just said, look, they're madmen and they can't be helped and I was actually just protecting you and your feed-the-hungry scheme. Oh, and I'm only taking extra food to help the suffering. Then she would be like, ok , cool. Instead she thinks he's a thieving tyrant. Oh well, I'm sure they'll sort it all out in the end.

Elantris 27: Hrathen

Hrathen mopes about a lot because all his plans are failing and he is losing his religion. Then his delivery of poison turns up. He was going to give the poison to Dilaf but drinks it himself. Presumably it is not fatal. There is a lot of talk about the poison having very specific effects. My guess is it makes you look like an Elantrian.

Elantris 26: Sarene

The plot to keep King Ioden from going bankrupt seems to have worked. The conspirator Edan, who was at risk of losing his title for being too poor, has done a runner. Aunt Daora seems to think Sarene is in love with Shuden but actually she's in love with Spirit/Raoden. Just wait until she finds out he's her husband!

Elantris 25: Raoden

Raoden is keeping his identity a secret because he thinks if people knew what happened to him it would cause instability in Arelon, owing to his popularity exceeding the king's.

His pain is increasing faster than he expected. I do think it odd that people are able to overcome pain so effectively with mental attitude. Perhaps more is going on, involving magic.

Raoden is taking extra food from Sarene's handouts and giving it to the Hoed. I don't know why this has to be such a secret.

Meanwhile, as he predicted, his followers are leaving him for the free food. Although it wasn't just food they got from him, it was a sense of purpose that helped them overcome their pain. So I don't know what they are doing all day after they've eaten.

Raoden's remaining soldiers are struggling to keep Shaor's men away from the food carts. Again, why keep this a secret? Just tell Sarene's guards about the threat so they can help defend and hand out food in an orderly way. Raoden explains it's to stop the guards from killing the Elantrians. Also he suspects Sarene has another motive for feeding the Elantrians (he doesn't know about Hrathen).

Raoden continues to study Aons. He finds out that AonDor is the energy that drives the magic and speculates that something is blocking it. Galladon admits that his father was an Elantrian. Then he realises that one of the Hoed men was an Elantrian before the Shaod. This man directs them to a secret underground chamber filled with books. There are lanterns to provide light, which presumably are not lit, so I don't know how they can see where they are going. There is a passage leading to a lake outside the city. The Hoed man is placed into the lake and he dissolves in the...water? Acid? Anyway it seems like a way out. Presumably it is better than being burned.

Undoubtedly the secret chamber of books contains the secret to getting Elantris back to normal.

Elantris 24: Hrathen

Telrii is not pleased about Sarene making the Elantrians look harmless. Hrathen convinces him not to worry because she has countered the wrong scheme and the king losing all his money will be enough. He appears not to know that she is working on solving that problem, too.

Hrathen figures out that Dilaf is a lot more old, clever and devious than he had thought. He is also having a religous crisis.

Elantris 23: Sarene, Raoden

Raoden introduces himself to his wife as Spirit. She doesn't recognise him. He takes her somewhere and does a deal whereby he will "allow" her to distribute food in return for supplies. She gets the notion that rule of Elantris depends on controlling bare necessities rather than wealth or power. I think Sarene, and possibly Sanderson, are confused, though: wealth is not money, it is control of stuff: and bare necessities are just the first "stuff" that you need when you haven't got anything else. The question for Sarene is what Raoden is going to do with the stuff: is he using it for good or evil?

Raoden is trying to keep his attempt at civilisation a secret because he thinks it will scare people into attacking Elantris. This seems like a mistake: it will not help Sarene think he is good, and who wouldn't want civilised neighbours?

Sarene seems to have forgotten everything she knew and is thinking that the gang leaders are keeping the people in a state of near starvation. Why does she suddenly think there is a supply of food to keep from people?| They are starving because there is no food, not because there is food that people are keeping from them. She also notices that people are afraid and assumes they are afraid of the gang leaders. They are afraid of suffering an eternity in agony due to their condition. How hard could it be for Sarene to find this out? How hard would it be for Raoden to just show her?

By the end of the chapter she at least realises that Raoden is the leader and is also hungry. There is some hope that she will figure it out. She also seems to like him, proving their inevitable compatibility.

Elantris 22: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon go on some crazy mission to confront the leader of the rival gang, Shaor. I'm constantly amazed how much danger Elantrians put themselves into. It turns out that Shaor is none other than Telrii's daughter. I'm surprised Telrii is going along with the whole Elantrians-are-devils thing given his daughter is one.

There is the mystery of why everything is so crumbly. Not to mention the sludge. I hope we get to the bottom of where the sludge is coming from.

Raoden spots Sarene coming into Elantris, handing out food. He is worried that free food will demotivate the people he's got helping him plant food. I've heard that international food aid can sometimes cause local farmers to go out of business. On the other hand, free food is free food. It will be interesting to see how Sanderson models the economics of this situation.

Elantris 21: Hrathen

Hrathen continues to be useless. He tries to offer the position of head arteth to someone who just refuses. What's the point of a tyrannical hierarchy if people can refuse things? He tries to send Dilaf away on a mission where he will be less annoying, but Dilaf threatens to take half of Hrathen's supporters with him, since it turns out they're Dilaf's supporters, not Hrathen's. There are some fundamentally flawed limitations to this tyrannical hierarchy, it would seem.

Hrathen gives some money to a suspicious looking beggar, possibly to sow seeds of support. He goes to the walls of Elantris, where Omin, the leader of the rival religion, points out that Hrathen appears to be losing his faith.

Elantris 20: Sarene

Sarene cooks up a plan to help Iadon by arranging some sort of trade deal with her father so that he does not get too poor to be king, leaving Telrii the richest man to become king and help Hrathen.

When she makes this offer to Iadon she gets him to give her permission to enter Elantris to give food to the Elantrians for her Widow's trial. This will also frustrate Hrathen by demonstrating that the Elantrians aren't demons.

Because of all this Iadon figures out that Sarene is not the total airhead she made out she was.

Sarene is worried that the kingdom is on the verge of collapse now that Raoden is gone, since everyone hoped life would be better after he took over.

There is a mystery of disappearing servants. And also there is a mystery of strange noises in the night. Sarene figures out there is a secret passage near her room leading to Iadon's chambers (presumably the one Raoden and Karata used) and the king is making secret excursions in the night.

Elantris 19: Raoden

Raoden has a dream in which he remembers the time his broken leg was healed by Elantrians. Except in the dream it does not work. There's something funny going on with Raoden's sensation of pain: it keeps coming and going. Maybe some residual magic is helping or else the pain varies with his mood.

He gets attacked by some ruffians from a rival gang. There is a fight in which one of them is beheaded. Luckily it turns out beheading results in death. The injured ruffians are taken to a building where Raoden has been putting all the other Elantrians he can find who are injured beyond being able to function. They are given some comfort and it seems to help.

Raoden's guard, Saolin, has become injured and says he is not worried about the pain since it just reminds him that he earned his wounds honourably. Normally I would say that mind over pain only gets you so far, but it's possible residual Elantrian magic is at work here, too.

Raoden finally gets back to his study of the mystery of Elantris and the Shaod. With Galladon's help he figures out that there is some force called Dor that surrounds us, binds us... no wait. Anyway it's the source of the magic and is probably just weakened, hence the Aons have lost their power but the Elantrians are still being kept alive. The magic machine is booted in safe mode, or whatever.

We also have clues that the magic is tied to the specific location of Elantris. Probably they just have to find a secret cave containing the magic machine.

Raoden is now openly suspicious that Galladon is not just a simple farmer.

Elantris 18: Hrathen

Hrathen interrogates an Elantrian and still doesn't manage to figure out that he's hungry because he doesn't have access to any food. How hard is this leap of logic? The Shaod affects appetite by affecting the metabolism? Really?

Dilaf then manages to screw up by nearly burning the Elantrian alive in front of the congregation. Hrathen is pissed off but Dilaf gives him a load of backchat and storms off in a huff. Hrathen really is taking far too much shit from this guy. What's the point of a rigid hierarchical chain of command if you can't get your subordinates to do as they're told without question?

Hrathen preaches about how the other religion shows the Elantrian devils too much mercy. Throwing them in a prison city with no food is supposed to be merciful?

Hrathen phones up his drug dealer for a fix but there's a two week lead time. That's gotta hurt.

Elantris 17: Sarene

Sarene is teaching the women of the court to fence. Apparently the Elantrians used to frown on combat, even consensual combat for sport. They sound like a right bundle of fun, then.

In an impromptu sparring session with Eondel, who lets her win so that she can save face, Sarene figures out that her political games are a matter of life and death.

She does to visit the local priest (the good kind, not Hrathen), and finds out she is supposed to do something for charity for her widow's trial. She also finds out that she did indeed get all Raoden's stuff, which I have been asking about since the beginning. How is this not the first thing she figured out?

She has a chat with her dad, who is considering surrendering to the Fjordells. Which makes the alliance forged by the marriage seem less worthwhile. Then again, it turns out Sarene was considered a hopeless spinster back home and needed to marry a foreigner anyway.

Sarene's dad is worried about a secret monastery that he hasn't been able to get his spies into. It's Dakhor. We happen to know, from seeing inside Hrathen's head, that there are ninja monks in training in there.

We finally find out the king's bad news: Wryn has been sinking his ship to make him poor, so he will look silly and lose power.

Sarene hears a funny noise inside her room. Or maybe inside one of her walls. Except it's an outside wall. Must be a secret passage then, and someone is spying on her. Naturally she dismisses it and goes to sleep.

Elantris 16: Raoden

Raoden has found his floating Amazon Echo Ien, and reminisces about attempting to free him as a kid, but finding out that seons live only to serve and don't want freedom. Like house elves, I suppose. There's something wrong with his Aon, the magic letter inside him. I'm pretty sure everything will be fixed after the Great Reboot.

He also reminisces about his wife who he never met, and gives away to Galladon that Duladel has fallen, which comes as a big surprise thereby adding to the evidence that Galladon has been in Elantris a lot longer than he says. I wonder if he has even been there since before the fall.

One of Raoden's men has cleaned away the sludge, revealing intricate carvings. I do wonder where the sludge comes from. Is it grey goo? Will it come back?

There's a big showdown with one of the other gang leaders, who turns out to be Taan the sculptor. Raoden saves the day by showing him some intricate sculptures thereby converting him to the cause.

Elantris 15: Hrathen

Telrii is getting cold feet and meets up with Hrathen during his nightly stroll on top of the walls of Elantris. He's worried about how Duladel fell, with all the nobility being killed. Hrathen says there won't be a revolution, instead Fjorden can send in enough military might to just take over (and, presumably, spare friendly nobles). To support this he points out how weak Araluen's military is (I think we've all figured that out by now) and mentions that Fjorden has the armies of various conquered countries at its disposal.

What Hrathen doesn't tell Telrii is that they also have a secret order of combat monks and assassin monks being trained in the Dakhor Monastery.

There's also more talk of the news the king received tonight, whatever that is. Also Hrathen agrees to fund Telrii to pay his soldiers more, so that the city guard will hear about it and will be more likely to defect.

Hrathen hears the gates close: that'll be Raoden and friends coming back from their trip to the palace. He arranges to borrow an Elantrian for study.

Elantris 14: Sarene

Sarene starts work on networking in the court. She attends embroidery sessions with the queen and the other women, and suggests they all take up fencing. We learn that the men don't fight because King Iaden has something against swords. Between that and the weak military this country has no hope against an invader.

In a conversation with Sarene's seon, Ashe, we find out more about how people don't trust seons so much since the fall of Elantris. Ashe claims that seons had nothing to do with it.

Ashe failed to find out much about Elantris. The Elantrians he met just begged for food. From this he concludes that they are simply feral and weak. But nobody feeds them. So isn't it obvious that they are just hungry? How hard can this stuff be to figure out? The guards aren't any help either, having come to the same wrong conclusions. Ashe at least figures out that they are useless as a military force.

Sarene goes to a ball at Duke Telrii's mansion. He has had unspecified good fortune that is probably something to do with his deal with Hrathen. She goes with Shuden who introduces her to people. The king is there. She has to keep up a pretence of stupidity with the king. Maintaining multiple personalities proves awkward.

Lord Waren is there. He's the devout one from court. The sewing ladies were talking about how he had converted. Now he's at the party with Hrathen. Sarene is worried that Hrathen has a head start on her when it comes to influencing people.

The king gets some bad news during the party. When Sarene gets back to the palace she learns that someone broke into the King's chamber (Raoden and Karata, we know). That might be the bad news. I wonder if the king will take some sort of action against Elantris in response.

Elantris 13: Raoden

Raoden finds a book written completely in Aons and starts to translate it. Sounds like it might be a user manual for the Elantrian operating system. He just needs to find the reboot command.

Then the gang leader Karata turns up. She's pissed off that Raoden seems to be starting his own gang and stealing her potential recruits. He offers to help her get into the palace, because she's be caught trying to do that a few times.

Karata agrees and they escape by going down the well and floating along the underground river, which they can do because they don't need to breathe. It still seems pretty risky, though. If I knew every minor bump and scrape would result in an eternity of agony I wouldn't get out of my chair without serious consideration, never mind ten foot jumps into water and potentially being dashed on rocks.

Anyway they break into the palace because Raoden knows where the secret entrance is (why does the escape tunnel open from the *outside*?). And why does Raoden only ask her what she wants to do in the palace once they've got this far? It turns out Karata just wants to see her daughter.

Karata has figured out who Raoden is. He tells her his plan to grow corn. He's been keeping the corn seeds from the new arrivals the whole time. Sanderson has this well planned out because I remember Raoden pocketing some mysterious food item in a previous chapter.

Anyway, Karata is now a powerful ally, so that's good. They get back into Elantris by just asking the guards to let them in, which is awesome.

I'm wondering if Raoden is a bit overpowered. He seems to be good at everything. Or maybe it's just the power of optimism.

Nobility is in one's bearing as much as it is in one's breeding. If we *act* like living here is a blessing, then maybe we'll start to forget how pathetic we think we are.

I think this is Sanderson's advice to new authors. When he wrote this he hadn't had his big break yet. He's saying that if you act like a published author you'll end up being one. Or something.

---

We find out that Karata and her gang are taking care of the children. The children seem happier and less affected by the Shaod that the adults. I wonder if this will turn out to be a clue. Raoden and Karata are now openly in allegiance.

Elantris 12: Hrathen

Hrathen delivers a sermon. We learn a bit about the religion and how hierarchical it is. Sounds like a recipe for absolute tyranny. I wonder how Fjordell is doing so well. Perhaps the current tyrannical leader at least knows how to keep food on the table by not seizing the means of production.

Fanatical sidekick Dilaf delivers an even better sermon. Hrathen decides he is useful if annoying. I suspect he is going to end up being a pain in the ass.

Hrathen is doing some deal with Duke Telrii, seen in an earlier Sarene chapter at court.

We learn that Hrathen uses a seon that he keeps locked in a box to communicate with Wyrn (the tyrannical dictator). This is a big secret because seons are heathen.

People keep referring to them as "creatures" but it seems obvious to me they're Amazon Alexas. I'm pretty sure the whole magic of Elantris thing is just some ancient forgotten tech. It just needs turning off and on again.

Elantris 11: Sarene

Sarene attends the top secret meeting of traitors. Kiin serves nice food. The other attendees are suspicious of Sarene but she wins them around. It helps that she is Raoden's wife.

This Eondel character is acting suspicious, or at least thinks Kiin might poison him. Perhaps he is a mole. He has been openly opposing the king and getting away with it. That would fit. He has a small, well-trained army, so could be either very dangerous or very useful.

---

After a lot of eating, Sarene announces her plan. The problem is that by threatening the titles of those who do not make enough money, landowners are forced into beating their workers to work harder. I'm not sure I completely buy this, since a more kind approach does not seem like an impossible to discover innovation, but then again this world order has only been in place for a decade.

Sarene points out that people will be more productive if they are working for themselves. She learned this in Teod, where presumably the peasants are free rather than being serfs. In this, Sanderson reveals himself to be a world-builder who understands economics. He's probably even read some Adam Smith. This is excellent news.

It takes some work but the other nobles at the meeting agree to try giving their people freedom so as to demonstrate how much more wealthy it makes them.

Sarene asks questions about Raoden's death. Perhaps the king murdered him, since he was causing so much trouble. Kiin thinks not, even though Raoden died at a convenient time for the king. That makes me wonder if the Shaod is directed to some purpose, rather than being random.

"There are too many stories about lost heirs that [sic] reappear after twenty years in the wilderness to claim their rightful throne." Aragorn springs to mind. I haven't read much but it's definitely a fantasy trope. Also Danaerys, if she ever gets around to it.

We learn that Sarene has sent her seon to Elantris. Only a matter of time before it bumps into Raoden, then.

Roial is set up as the powerful and wise man.

Elantris 10: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon catch three new recruits for their gang, at great risk, but they seem to have gotten away with it. These other gangs aren't up to much if they're allowing this to happen. A bit of organisation should cover all the alleyways Galladon could have run down. Either they don't have the numbers or they are useless, or they think the risk-benefit analysis of stopping Galladon and Raoden shows it is not worth stopping them yet.

One of the new recruits is a builder and Raoden wants him to fix the roof of their HQ. I don't envy him. How long before he hits his thumb with a hammer?

Galladon seems to know a lot about Elantris and Raoden very little. Possibly this is Sanderson lampshade hanging that he needs an excuse for expository chat. Also I think it likely that Galladon has been in Elantris for longer than he is letting on. He claims to have been a farmer and only in Elantris for a short time but he is hiding something.

Galladon finds out Raoden was the crown prince. We find out what happened to Ien: the seon has gone mad as seons do when their owners get the Shaod. I suspect there is a clue here. Whatever is malfunctioning has something to do with seons.

Elantris 9: Hrathen

Hrathen is mildly inconvenienced by Sarene's intervention but is impressed by her. Dilaf can only hate her because he is fanatical. He hates people from Teod in particular since the king does not tolerate Derethi priests.

We learn that the Derethis think their god, Jaddeth, will only return to the world when all people are united in worship of him. Hrathen at least thinks this ought to be done by conversion. Dilaf is more keen on killing people who don't agree.

Hrathen holds a meeting of nobles at which he attempts to convince them that they would become more powerful by converting. Duke Telrii attends. He's the powerful man with the birthmark from Iaden's court.

Another is Idan (have we met him before?) Hrathen is not impressed by how easily persuaded he is.

---

...

Elantris 8: Sarene

We learn that Elantris has introduced a sort of serfdom among the peasantry. This is a shame because previously people were free-ish.

Before the fall of Elantris the Elantrians could make anything you could want and give it away more or less for free. This upset the merchants, who instituted protectionism: the Elantrians agreed to only provide certain basics for free, thus ensuring that the people of Arelon were poorer than they needed to be. I would argue that even the merchants would be better off without such a policy. Given free stuff, people would have been freed up to find more innovative uses of magic, for example, improving technology.

After the fall of Elantris the head merchant (i.e. Iaden) ended up in charge. He has abolished private ownership of land, which can not be good for agricultural output. No wonder resources are dwindling. Forget the Fjordens, people are going to be starving soon.

---

Lukel tells Sarene about Raoden and his political activities. She wants in. She suspects people will not put up for long with Iaden's policy of serfdom and denying freedom to anyone but the wealthy. Probably she is right and all that is needed for a revolt is a gentle push from Hrathen.

Aiden keeps mumbling numbers. Sarene is assuming he is intellectually disabled but I would not be surprised if the numbers turn out to be the root password to the Elantrian magic generator.

---

After dinner Sarene goes to see Elantris with the twins and bumps into Hrathen. She messes up his speech by asking annoying questions calculated to make him look silly. She watches Elantrians for a time and is unconvinced by the dogma that they are dead. I am now certain that when she finds out that Raoden is in there she will want to rescue him.

She spots three Elantrians on a roof who look more alive and alert than others. Probably that is not a coincidence: she has spotted Raoden, Galladon and Mareshe.

Elantris 7: Raoden

Raoden practices drawing Aons in the air. The letter drawing works but the letters just flash in what seems like an "error" response and disappear.

It seems quite obvious that the Elantrian magic works using some sort of command line interface, presumably controlling some sort of machine that generates the magical effects. The same effects presumably also kept the Elantrians alive. Since they all suffered from the disease no-one coherent is around to explain how it worked. If only Raoden can find the machine and turn it off and on again, it will probably start working and everything will be as before. That's my theory, anyway.

Raoden and Galladon also hope so: they are reading books in hope of answers.

We learn that some people think there never was any magic and it was a hoax. This is something Hrathen may be planning to use.

We learn that Arelon is hard to attack because mountains act as a natural defence. This may be why king Iaden is dismissive of Fjorden threats, but it does seem as if Hrathen has something in mind other than direct military assault.

We also learn that Elantris doesn't have and candles or lamps because they previously relied on magic for light. Yikes. Imagine if all the electricity failed tomorrow: things would get quite uncivilised very quickly!

Raoden rescues a newcomer named Mareshe who says he can make shoes, which will be useful once they find a way down from the roof they are stuck on.

Elantris 6: Hrathen

Since he will not convert, Hrathen's plan is to incite a revolt to overthrow the king. He visits the top of the wall of Elantris and sees some Elantrians. He assumes, helped along with what seems to be misinformation from the fanatical Dilaf, that the Elantrians are unintelligent animals. He gets the idea of convincing people that they are demons to get people to hate them.

He notices the weakness of Kae's city walls and that the guards are mainly for show. He keeps saying that the Elantrians will be useful. Perhaps he is planning to release them and cause some sort of panic. He may be surprised to find how much agency they have.

We get a bit of insight into Arelon politics. High taxes and dwindling resources are problems.

Elantris 5: Sarene

Sarene watches as Hrathen marches into court, demands that the king convert to his religion, then marches out again when he is refused. The king does not think Fjorden has enough power to worry about. Sarene thinks that Hrathen could cause a lot of trouble just by converting people and presumably getting them all riled up at the king.

She meets her uncle Kiin, who we know from the previous chapter was involved in some conspiracy with Raoden. He will probably be a useful ally when Sarene figures out what is going on. Similarly Lukel, who is Kiin's step-son.

We have to endure several pages of happy families and annoying children. This household is not medieval enough. Children should be seen and not heard!

It seems as if Kiin has been exiled from Sarene's home country and that is why she hasn't seen him for years, but he hasn't told her the story, yet.

We learn how, when Elantris fell, the servants used it as an opportunity to rise up against their masters. But they mostly destroyed things and no apparent good came of it (at least as Kiin tells it).

Elantris 4: Raoden

Galladon is giving Raoden the tour of Elantris. There are three rival gangs who steal food from new arrivals. It's a fairly soft rivalry though, because any violence leading to so much as a scratch is a big problem.

Galladon talks about spending "the next few years" with a broken arm. It turns out he means that after no more than a couple of years the average Elantrian can expect to stop being an active member of the community and spend the rest of eternity curled helplessly in a corner moaning in agony. Nice. At least there is no cannibalism because meat from a person struck with the Shaod tastes bad. At least Sanderson has sidestepped that logical consequence of his worldbuilding. People have eaten all the ancient documents of wisdom and knowledge that were written on velum, however. I bet this causes some problems down the road.

We learn a bit about Raoden's life before ending up here. His best friends are Kiin, Roial and Lukel. They were involved in some sort of conspiracy. He wishes he'd got to meet his betrothed, since he found her witty and interesting on the phone. He assumes she won't find out what happened to him.

I suspect she will find out, and will get in touch with his friends and join their conspiracy. She may even be able to send a floating seon to communicate with him. Perhaps they will all be able to find some solution to the predicament of the Elantrians.

One mystery is the rapid decay of the city. Rocks crumbling too fast; slime and grime building up too fast. No doubt there are well-thought-out reasons for this.

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We learn that one of the gang leaders, Karata, has been caught having escaped Elantris, having made it as far as the vicinity of the king's palace, presumably in an attempt to assassinate the king. So escape is possible. I still wonder why people have to be exiled.

Another gang leader, Aanden, may be attempting to "free Elantris". Perhaps I am not the first person to wonder this.

Elantris has indoor plumbing, thanks to magic. Heh.

Raoden sees a seon. It could be a mad seon whose owner has been struck with the Shaod. But it suggests that my plan of Serene sending her seon to find Raoden is plausible. We learn that the missing Ien from chapter one is a seon. Where is Ien?

It turns out Galladon has a hideout in a basement with lots of books. And he can do Elantrian magic. Or at least he can draw letters in the air. Perhaps the situation is not as hopeless as it at first seemed.

Elantris 3: Hrathen

Hrathen is a senior priest of a rather strict religion: a Derethi imperial high priest, no less. He supposes the fall of Elantris is the result of a punishment by the god Jaddeth for the sins of Elantrians. He's from Fjorden, the country that Sarene thinks is about to start a war.

He turns up in Kae in Arelon and sends the old priest home for being useless, but finds a use for a fanatical teacher named Dilaf. Hrathen has orders from Wryn, presumably the head of the religion. His mission is to convert everyone in Arelon to his religion in order to save them from being wiped out in the war.

For all I know all this might be literally true.

Elantris 2: Sarene

Sarene was Raoden's fiance, but now thanks to some obscure clause in a contract she is now his widow, having skipped the wedding part. She is accompanies by a talking ball of light.

The engagement is "considered equivalent to marriage in all legal and social respects". Does this mean she gets his stuff? And when she finds out what happened to Raoden, will she try to help him?

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Well, she does feel bad about Raoden's death, and she is suspicious that something is not what it seems, but Sarene does not yet know what happened to him. Her father thinks she is good at making trouble, though. Probably she will do better than Catelyn trying to find out who attacked Bran...

Sarene meets Raoden's father, who is not interested in the affairs of women, and his mother, who talks too much about nothing.

Sarene talked to her father by video conference. So that magic exists. I was a little confused at first when she claimed to have spoken to Raoden without having met him. This may not be a widespread ability, however. The floating glowing talking balls seem quite rare.

Also there is some business with Fjorden. The marriage between Sarene and Raoden secures a treaty allying Sarene's country with Arelon, which is needed to protect them from the people of Fjorden who are looking like they are about to start a war. This means Sarene needs to stay in Arelon.

Elantris 1: Raoden

Prince Raoden has a bad day when he contracts an incurable chronic disease and is quarantined in Elantris. It's a weird sort of disease that results in immortality but an inability to heal. Which is bad enough if you stub your toe and eternal torture if you suffer a major injury. It might be possible to get out of it by chopping of your head or burning yourself, but no-one is certain enough that these options don't lead to eternal agony to try it.

I'm a bit unclear on the need for the quarantine, though. Someone like Raoden could probably afford to live in a comfortable room full of soft furnishings to keep safe. It might just be social stigma (his dad the king is being pretty secretive about it) or there might be some sort of contagion or other effect as yet undescribed.

Besides the stubbed toe and feeling hungry (forever), Raoden at least manages to make a friend, Galladon, whom he pays a small piece of meat to show him the ropes of this prison-city.

We also learn that he's basically a nice guy, who gives bread to beggars. We don't learn where his servant Ien got to.

Elantris: Prologue

First up are maps. We are in a place called Sycla. North of the desert, towards the west, with a sea and some mountainous lands to the north, is Arelon. On the north coast at the mouth of a river is Elantris. Next to Elantris is the city of Kae, which has a circular wall. Elantris has a square wall and rather oddly there are stairs up the wall on the outside.

Why would anyone put stairs on the outside of a defensive wall?

The prologue explains that Elantris was once a golden city of wonder whose inhabitants, selected at random by some magical process called The Shaod, lived forever with endless wealth and power. Until it all went wrong.

Presumably we are about to find out what went wrong and why, and maybe even how to fix it.

Welcome to Discovering Cosmere

I have started to read Elantris by Brandon Sanderson.

I'm normally a science fiction fan, but I enjoy some fantasy. Obviously The Lord of the Rings. I especially like the Ankh Morpork-based Discworld books. I have recently read A Song of Ice and Fire.

I've been noticing Brandon Sanderson for a while. I like the idea that he has self-consistent magic systems, and, I gather, well thought out world building. I watch Shadiversity on Youtube, and his conversation with Shad impressed me.

So now I am starting with Elantris.

I make no promises with this blog. It is mainly for my own amusement. I might do chapter-by-chapter comments and notes, or I might just post as and when the mood takes me.

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I have decided to make *posts* chapter by chapter, but I won't be doing reading sessions chapter by chapter, and I might update the blog mid-chapter. When I do this I will put in a horizontal rule like the one above, so that when I put questions and speculations mid-chapter (so mid blog-post) it will make sense.