Identity & Literature: Brandon Sanderson & The Gratuitousness of God

Playing Pokemon on Gameboy. That was the first time I remember falling down the rabbit hole of world creation. I lost track of time and even space in the sheer immersiveness of the game. When I went to sleep, I was training Pikachu in my dreams. There were 150 pokemon to catch, hundreds of people to talk to, tall grass, caves, and forests where you could fight and capture new pokemon. There were cities, gyms, trainers, shops, and always more levelling you could do for your squad. In short, it was a world—stunningly expansive, beckoning you into beautifully unhurried exploration.

An immersive video game acts like an interactive version of an epic fantasy novel. Both lean on world creation. And no one has done world creation like Brandon Sanderson. No one that is, but God, who makes Sanderson’s creative breadth look like different levels of Pacman.

Like every other card-carrying Reformed Christian, I fell in love with the fantasy genre through Lewis and Tolkien, then kept searching—back to one of its godfathers, George MacDonald, and forward along the same vein to the magic of Harry Potter. After hearing and seeing Brandon Sanderson’s name on repeat for the past ten years, I took the plunge on Way of Kings.

There’s one scene in the book where one of the main characters’ friends recounts to him a story of some farflung tribe who, as punishment for an extreme crime, hangs a criminal over the edge of a cliff for this monstrous “greatshell” creature to come eat.

 It’s vintage Sanderson. For one, it’s a touch barbaric. But this is trademark Sanderson for another reason—one that sets him apart. It’s entirely gratuitous. I only read one book, but as far as I can tell, we never hear of this tribe again. No one ever comes from this tribe. This practice never comes up again. No part of the plot or any character is affected by this anecdote.¹ For writers who are not churning out thousand page books, that would be a clear indicator to cut that story. But not Sanderson.

 One of the biggest draws of Sanderson’s work, at least for me (and I would guess for his dedicated following), is precisely this gratuitousness of world creation. Reader fascination comes from the sheer depth, the three-dimensionality and scope of the world you explore as you read. You enter into a universe with more history, geography, weather, religion, flora and fauna, culture, literature, fashion, and rules and laws of magic than anything George Lucas ever dreamt up in the whole Star Wars universe.

 This appeal does not hook everyone. Sanderson is like the anti-Hemingway. If you’re looking for something tight, punchy, and existential, Sanderson is not your guy. But there are moments when fans of fantasy will be stopped dead, marveling at his creative energy and wondering what else fills this world, of which you only see a corner?

This world-creating magic of fantasy appeals to writer and reader because it taps into a fraction of one of the best attributes of our own world—there’s always so much more. There’s good reason why “the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). We’re aware, even as we see many of the same sights every day, that there is a richness, a fullness, a complexity of history, science, interpretations, and microscopic activity, of which we perceive only a sliver.

One time I went snorkeling along an unblemished tropical reef. I cannot describe the color, beauty, and variety I saw. To this day, it is one of the strongest sensations of gratuitousness I have ever had. What was all of this doing here, underwater, entirely hidden from human sight? I understand the food chain-ecosystem-balance of life aspect, but from a human visual perspective, it is entirely gratuitous. No person is directly using it; hardly anyone observes it. It adds nothing to the story. It’s there because God is gratuitous. It points to his bursting creative energy, beauty, and God’s delight in his own works.

If you really think about it, it boggles the mind that “every beast of the forest” is God’s (Psalm 50:10); he watches the calving of every doe (Job 39:1). He knows when every single bird falls, and the number of hairs on your head (Matthew 10:29-30).

 He gives and gives and gives, and lavishes glory, and beauty, wisdom and wonder, and He does so because that’s who He is. There are other galaxies out there that we will never see, never know anything about, that are there because that’s just who God is. There’s mercies and grace and kindness in your and my life we’ll never know happened to us on this side of eternity. And God’s okay with that. It’s the gratuitousness of God. He’s infinitely amazing, powerful, wise, and gracious whether you see and acknowledge it or not.

God has created a world and continues to write a story so big and wide and wonderful, we never have to worry about getting bored or running out of new material.

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1. An intrepid reader informed me this story does come back into play in the Stormlight Archive series. Sanderson’s worldbuilding continues! ↩︎