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Dawnshard Annotations ()
#402 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was a Dawnshard at some point in the deep past, and the reason he (even still) cannot physically harm people, or even eat meat, is related to the changes this made to his spirit. (Consider this the same fundamental principle as savanthood.) The few of you who have read Dragonsteel know that him being a Dawnshard was also the source of his immortality in that book, though the terms were different back then. (The word Dawnshard was never mentioned, for example--though the primary story of Dragonsteel (which is no longer canon) was about several people who unwittingly become Dawnshards.)

And a preemptive RAFO to all questions on this point. :)

Skyward release party ()
#403 Copy

Questioner

After Stormlight, Wit was far and away my favorite characters. One of my friends came to me and heard I really liked Wit, and he's like, "Oh yeah. His name is Hoid, he's a worldhopper, he's in a ton of cosmere books. So I went and read a bunch of the other cosmere related books. Why's he so different? Like, in Mistborn, he shows up as a beggar/informant for half a page?

Brandon Sanderson

So there's a couple reasons for this. One is, there are certain books where he is a character and other books where I'm just writing him as a cameo. Most of the books I'm just doing a cameo for him. Stormlight's where you see the most of him until he gets his own book.

The other reason was, at the beginning, I wasn't sure how much people would be interested in behind-the-scenes stuff, and so I was very sparing with it in the early books. You won't see a lot of him until Warbreaker, and even then he's only in a chapter. Even in Wax and Wayne books, you only see glimpses of him. There will be other books he'll be a bigger part in, but if you like Wit, Stormlight's your jam.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#404 Copy

mraize7

Can [Kelsier] and [Hoid] be friends or companions or allies?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, anything CAN happen--but for now, I'll let their interaction on screen speak for itself.

But feel free to imagine anything you would like, for yourself. It will be a while before I can get back to this particular interaction.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 ()
#405 Copy

Questioner

Who is Hoid's best friend?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, back in the day it was Bat'Chor. It's been various people at various different times. Who is it right now? It depends on which "right now" you're talking about. He's in a bunch of different books in a bunch of different time periods. Bat'Chor probably was the closest to a best friend for a while in the books that were relevant.

Hal-Con 2012 ()
#408 Copy

Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You mentioned in the forum QA that Liar of Partinel was scrapped - does this mean that Hoid's backstory will no longer be told?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There are still plans to do Hoid's backstory, all that the comment about the book being scrapped meant is that when it comes time to write it, the current draft will be tossed away and it will be written fresh - similar to how Way of Kings was done.

Prague Signing ()
#410 Copy

Paleo

All right, regarding the 'Wisdom Shard' again. We have one quote where Hoid... I'll just cite it: "Some men, as they age, grow wiser. I am not one of those, for wisdom and I have always been at cross-purposes." Is he referring to that Shard there... or the Vessel?

Brandon Sanderson

*thumbs up, grins* ... Yes.

Mistborn: Secret History Continuity Notes ()
#411 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Hey, all. Brandon here. With the release of this book, there have been some minor updates to continuity that I think some of you will find relevant.The big one has to do with Hoid's visit to Terris in The Well of Ascension. For those unfamiliar with the backstory, this little behind-the-scenes action has been a source of some consistent problems. The outline, and original draft, of Well had Vin and Elend traveling up to Terris, then into the mountains, to find the Well itself.

This was a huge momentum killer in the story. Having your cityscape-focused book suddenly turn into a traveling quest fantasy for a few chapters felt very out of place, and required too much strange time-jumping to make it work. In revisions, I set about finding a way to repair this, and to overlap the Well of Ascension discovery with Vin's return to Luthadel.

The end result worked much better, but I was forced to cut Hoid's cameo. (In the form of footsteps in the snow and frost leading to the Well, hinting that someone had been there just before her.) I knew where Hoid was, and added in the cameo of him with the Terris people—with the plan still being that he visited the Well sometime during the days after Vin's return to the city.

Well, in working on Secret History, I found that this had a problem with it. Hoid had to already know where the Well is, because after the destruction of the Pits, he'd need to use the Well to return to Scadrial after leaving in the middle of book one to attend to certain other events.

If you've read the story, you know this is how I proceeded. Official continuity is that Hoid went up to Terris after visiting the Well, as he had things to do there. He did not go looking for the Well. This doesn't change continuity for any of the books, though it does render one of the annotations for Well obsolete.

Otherwise, I'm quite pleased about this novella. I wasn't certain how it would go, writing something using threads I'd left dangling ten years ago. (You should thank the beta readers, who are all Sharders I believe, for their continuity help. They made me aware of several things I needed to make much more clear from the original draft, so that canon would be more crisp.)

I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding which times when someone appears to hear Kelsier's voice were actually Kelsier. The story offers the official canon for this as well.

It's nice to finally be able to give the answers to some longtime fan questions, such as what spooked Vin during her inspection of Hoid and what was up with Preservation and the Mist Spirit. It's entirely possible that, despite our efforts, we slipped up and made some continuity error here or there. If so, I'm terribly sorry! This one has been particularly challenging to do.

White Sand vol.1 release party ()
#412 Copy

Questioner

Do we see Hoid in this [White Sand Volume 1]?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. *inaudible*

Questioner

Aw! Is he Hoid though or is he hidden?

Brandon Sanderson

He's hidden, but the further the book progresses the more obvious it will be that it's him.

Questioner

Cool.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know if he's done the obvious things yet. I can't remember where this one cut off. I'll have to go back and look because you won't be the only one who asks that.

JordanCon 2014 ()
#416 Copy

Questioner

When will we see a Hoid book?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see a Hoid book-- You will not see a Hoid book until I finish the first five books of Stormlight and the next Mistborn trilogy at the earliest. More likely it's after Stormlight is done.

Oathbringer Chicago signing ()
#419 Copy

Questioner

Will we have to wait until the end of Stormlight Archive to learn about Hoid.

Brandon Sanderson

Uh yeeees.

Questioner

So like a dozen years.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You'll get little bits and pieces, but you won't get the whole thing until I do his trilogy, which is the next thing after Stormlight.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#420 Copy

Yourigath

We have seen some Hoid-related groups on the diferent worlds of the Cosmere...

Worldbringers on Scadrial, Worldsingers on Roshar, Enefel on Sel (this one is a wild guess)

Is there a Hoid-related group on Nalthis? Maybe the Five Scholars are part of it? (That would explain the Shardblade/Nightblood thing you've been talking lately)

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid did not found the Five Scholars.

BookCon 2018 ()
#423 Copy

Questioner

Are we ever going to get Hoid's story?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Does... <Roial?> make it to one of the other books?

Brandon Sanderson

I-- That-- I have to RAFO that... Hoid's backstory is coming. It's going to be a while, but you're going to get it.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
#427 Copy

little_wilson

So, Brandon. Hoid. I remember you saying at the Idaho Falls signing last year that he was in Well of Ascension. We, your dedicated fans who like scouring books searching for obscure characters who have any possibility of being the mysterious Hoid, have yet to find him. Peter sent us on a hunt for him (Hoid, not Peter...) in the deleted scenes, and we found his boot-print.

Now, I think he broke the pottery there too—the one holding the lerasium—and since there's broken pottery in the actual version, I think he may have snuck into the cavern and broken it as well. If so, is this Hoid's part in Well of Ascension? This trace of him? I commend you if it is. It is clever, making us think it was a person, when in fact it's just something he did.

Brandon Sanderson

You are on the right track, but wrong on one point. Hoid does appear in the book.

I had originally toyed with making his touch on the novel more obscure, but decided that I wanted to be consistent with the other novels by actually having him appear. Once I realized I'd probably cut the scene with the footprint, I decided I needed this actual appearance even more badly.

Fortunately, I knew what Hoid had been up to all this time, and had placed him in a position where several characters could run into him. In Well of Ascension, Hoid believed (as Vin did) that the Well was in the North, even though it was not. He spent much of the book pursuing this idea.

Through events, however, he discovered he was wrong. He made the realization after Vin did, but only because of a chance meeting. (This is recorded in the books. Let's just say he was listening in when someone implied that the Well was in Luthadel.)

He hurried to Luthadel, and was in the town, skulking about in the last parts of the novel. He isn't seen here, though he does still infiltrate the Well. (Hoid is quite proficient at manipulating Shadesmar for his own ends.)

Firefight Chicago signing ()
#434 Copy

Questioner

Now the Wit, does he have a spren, is he a Herald, is he one of the older people?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Wit is an immortal who travels between worlds. Who-- His magic is not from Roshar. He is in all the other books, if you look for him. So he's in Warbreaker, he's in all three Mistborn books, he's in-- yeah...

*points to Argent and Kurkistan* These guys can point you to everything, they're from the fansite and they've found out about all kinds of things about him. But he is popping up everywhere.

JordanCon 2021 ()
#435 Copy

Jofwu

The Seventeenth Shard was looking for a certain individual on Roshar. Have they found him yet? Or, what are they doing?

Brandon Sanderson

They never managed to find him. He is tricksy, as you might imagine, he is a tricksy hobbit. And so they have never managed to find him. They think they got close a couple times, but they actually didn't. And by the point of Rhythm of War, they have given up and left planet, because he kind of went behind their backs and was talking to people and things like that.

We will catch up to those three at some point, I hope, and find out what they've been up to. They kept looking in the wrong countries.

Oathbringer Portland signing ()
#438 Copy

Questioner

Hoid seems to know things that are not explained. He'll show up places, when the Herald showed up, or when Jasnah comes back. Is that something that's just not been explained yet? Or is that something that's a part of some magic system that we've heard about? Or is that something different?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, so, he has access to things that other people do not. It is explainable, but it has not been explained yet. He can be places he needs to be, but if you watch, he doesn't always know why he needs to be there. He's really good at covering that part up. But he does-- he knows he needs to be somewhere, and so he gets there.

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
#439 Copy

Questioner

My brother and I have been debating about Hoid and how he got his abilities. We have a couple theories. One of them is Hemalurgy. The other has to do with the portals into the worlds themselves, because the birds in Sixth of Dusk--

Brandon Sanderson

Ok, he doesn't have Hemalurgy right now. He has powers that predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. Not all of his powers predate, but he does have powers that predate.

Questioner

Ok, so I was wrong on both counts then. Am I wrong on both counts?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that he does have powers that predate but he has also gained powers since.

General Reddit 2013 ()
#440 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Fun fact: Hoid, the character who has shown up in each of my cosmere books, had a brief stint as one of my high school D&D characters. He didn't start life there, but I did try to build a character for him. So I've done the same thing. (Koloss made their first appearance in a game I ran, though they were far more demonic in nature.)

Shadows of Self Chicago signing ()
#441 Copy

Questioner

Is there going to be a Hoid book? Just Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

There will be several Hoid books eventually. [...] It will be about his backstory, the main one, and then we'll have some in the present as well.

Questioner

Will it show up in scenes where he interacts with these characters?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not planning those right now. I know they would be interesting, but I'm not sure if they'd make good enough books.

Footnote: The last question likely refers to whether we'll see Hoid's viewpoint in scenes we have already seen him in.
#hoid
Skyward release party ()
#442 Copy

the.fulgid

During his conversation with Shallan, Wit said that, "Failure is the mark of a life well lived," and I'm glad that you shared that because this question has been on my mind a lot, and he says, "And in turn the the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone." Is there anything Hoid has failed at that we haven't seen on screen that you would be willing to share?

Brandon Sanderson

There are certain people he thought he was going to be able to help who ended up not surviving.

Firefight Houston signing ()
#443 Copy

Questioner

The short story you wrote for Dangerous Women [Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell], the one that's in the cosmere, is Hoid actually in that story?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid does not appear in the Dangerous Women story. I made that choice consciously because I don't want Hoid showing up to be something that always has to be checked off a list. This is a story, it's not a sequence of silly cameos, it's actually a story going on behind the scenes. There was no reason for him to be there, so I didn't put him in.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#444 Copy

Argent

I've been listening to the Graphic Audio The Hero of Ages and just got to the point where Vin meets with Slowswift. While the meeting itself revealed nothing knew, the events after it made me wonder about something. When Vin leaves Slowswift, she burns her bronze to check whether the informant is an Allomancer, and then heads off to meet with Hoid - where, of course, something makes her turn away. Was she still burning bronze at that time? Was Hoid maybe manipulating Investiture in a way unfamiliar to Vin, so her bronze alerted her of something, but because it was such a foreign experience to her, she didn't recognize it for what it was?

Brandon Sanderson

I have to RAFO this one. It's been hard not to spill the beans here, as it's such a small thing, but it has important ramifications. You will have an answer eventually, I promise.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 6 ()
#445 Copy

Kalobi

Should the fact that the Aons in the Hoid/Riina painting are missing the chasm line be taken as canonical? If so, is this because of whatever method they are using to perform AonDor outside Sel? Or because of post-Elantris changes to Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

We let Howard pick what he wanted to illustrate, and then send illustrations in. And originally, he just did a whole bunch of weird, arcane symbols. And I’m like, “No, you need to actually use Aons in this art.” But we let him just kind of pick the Aons. You should not consider that art to necessarily be… Imagine that art to be somebody on Silverlight painting a picture of a story they heard. That art can be in-universe. (In fact, I believe that I would consider it in-universe.) But somebody painted it, and they just used whatever pictures of Aons they had sitting around, like Howard did. In other words, don’t be looking at those Aons as actual representations of how you would program in AonDor, how about that. And don’t read too much into that.

By the time of Tress, stories from things happening around the cosmere, and stories that Hoid tells, have become of interest to some people, and because of that it’s plausible that there could even end up being some sort of book written where it’s like, “Hey, he told me this story. I’m writing it down for the rest of you guys to read.” I’m not saying that’s what Tress actually is; obviously, we have the audience for Tress. I’m just saying, you can imagine world of people doing Hoid fanart.

Cosmere Considered

Does Hoid have fans?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, by that point in history Hoid does. He has far more detractors, but…

Cheekerdoodles

Is there an in-universe Hoid fan club?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on what you call people who are fully aware of who he is and what he is. I would say yes. I mean, the royals in our world have fans. There’s fans of the royals, there’s fans of equivalent, just people who are known throughout. And he is a figure in a lot of peoples’ mythology and religion. Would you call the Horneaters Hoid fans? Because they have legends stretching back thousands of years to him as a trickster god, to the point that Rock is fully able to recognize him (not when he’s in his Wit persona, at least not at first).

Oathbringer release party ()
#446 Copy

Questioner

I'm wondering how worldhoppers are able to understand languages on different worlds.

Brandon Sanderson

So, because I knew I was doing this whole thing, I made it fairly easy to use Connection to start speaking other languages, like you see in the Mistborn books happening. That's a pretty common thing with the various magic systems, one of the easiest things to get going. Some just learn the language. It does happen. But, for instance, Hoid isn't learning the language, which is why you see him making goofs, like when he says "coin" instead of "sphere." Because, like, that doesn't happen really, if you learn the other language. There's not really the word for coin. But the magic is trying to interpret the thing that he says, and it just comes out as a word that's not in their language, really. And you'll see worldhoppers making that mistake. You'll see them using words like "dirt" and stuff like that, and that's just a clue they're using magical means.

FanX 2021 ()
#448 Copy

Questioner

My friends and I have been endlessly debating whether Wit knew what happened to him at the end of Rhythm, when he said "that went exactly as I planned," if he knew he was gonna get duped? Or if he got hornswoggled?

Brandon Sanderson

He legitimately got hornswoggled. One of the opening chapters of the next book is going to be him realizing that. There's a little teaser for you.