Sophia and Sylphrena (from the Stormlight Archives)

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

In another thread, another poster has commented on the similarities between the Gnostic Sophia and the Donaldsonian She Who Must Not Be Named. Now we also know if kabbalistic influences on Brandon Sanderson, the author of the Mistborn books and the Stormlight Archives among others. So I wonder...

The description of the god Honor in the SA, as having broken apart or something into the honorspren who get "trapped" in a sense when binding with us, yet who awaken in us as we become more self-consciously honorable, well, it reminds me of the legend of Sophia fissioning Her light into our souls or whatever. And the named honorspren in the SA is Sylphrena, which sounds very much like "Sophia." So I wonder if Syl is a type of Sophia?

It's interesting, if you think about it, that fantasy fiction began with Mary's greater veneration as of Dante's time. For Mary in a way inspired Dante's fantasy story about the afterlife, which was the long-standing precursor to e.g. the later Catholic Tolkien's fantasy writings. For those of us who sympathize with Gnostic cosmology, might we think that Sophia "created" fantasy books, through us, as part of Her attempts to set Herself free from the prison of the material world? (For in conceiving these alternate worlds, and sending our own minds into them as we imagine them and read of them, we are in a sense setting our inner Wisdom free of the constraints of the given world.)

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

ADDENDUM: Also Sylphrena is first identified as a windspren, and wind is a well-known symbol for the Holy Spirit, Whose feminine aspects have led some to conclude that the Spirit is Sophia.

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Never read any of his books other than the WoT ones. Sounds like I should keep an eye out for some.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

This might be a stupid reason to read him, but he knows how to use the word "empirical" correctly, and in a fantasy context. In fact he goes on about things like cymatics, atheism, and so on and on, in an intelligent fashion. I don't know what kind of Mormon he is, but I'd venture to say he might be a pretty unorthodox one. I mean, he even said something about gay marriage (don't recall exactly what) that surprised me, coming as it did from an LDS.

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Haha, all I care about is whether I like the story or not. He did a good job on WoT and a few people here have mentioned his other stuff positively.

--A