No one talks about this. At least I couldn’t find anything after going down a very deep research rabbit hole.
But I can’t not mention it.
I just finished Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson… and at some point it stopped feeling like fantasy.
I kept rotating in my head the famous words assigned to Francesco Petrarca:
Там, где дни облачны и кратки, родится племя, которому умирать не больно.
In lands where days are dim, brief, and veiled in mist, a people is born for whom death is no great suffering.
If you ignore the magic layer (which is basically just a very elegant interface for power), what’s underneath is a system. A very structured and historically repeating one.
You have:
– a controlled elite with resources, metal, energy, and narrative power
– a suppressed majority trained to accept reality as “normal” through extensive brainwashing
– institutions that don’t just enforce rules through fear and random executions, but also shape perception
– the Lord Ruler with his obsession with eternal youth and power
– noblemen who lost any dignity and sense of reality but thrived on corruption and resources
– and… a very specific role of opposition
Not chaotic rebellion. Not random protest. Something much more precise. Symbolic. Focused. A figure that concentrates attention, carries risk, and becomes a kind of… anchor for hope. Hope for the future, hope for freedom.
And this is where it got uncomfortable for me.
Because if you’ve followed modern history even a little, it’s hard not to see parallels with figures like Alexei Navalny and the broader structure around him, and the story of the last three years of his life.
So of course I checked when the book was written. I checked so many times
2006. Let that sink in. Long before the events most people associate with him and these dynamics.
Now I’m not saying Brandon Sanderson was predicting anything (or did he?), like some kind of time traveler, but I even checked if Navalny had read his books and whether they shaped somewhat idealistic ideas in his head.
But no… good writers don’t predict events. They understand patterns. And once you understand the pattern, the rest unfolds almost… mechanically.
That’s the part that stays with you.
Because suddenly this is not just a fantasy book. It’s a model. A very well-designed, disturbingly familiar model. Applicable to many countries and historical events. But so many parallels at once—it felt kind of creepy and a bit scary.
I’ll read the next books, of course. But now with that slight feeling you get when fiction starts explaining reality a bit too well.
And I’m honestly surprised more people aren’t talking about this connection.
Or maybe they are… just not very loudly.
