Recent entries

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7902 Copy

    Questioner

    We see, in Secret History, all the people going Beyond after they die. Do all the victims go there? Or just people? Just sentients? Would a Ryshadium go the Beyond, if it died.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Um-- Yes.

    Questioner

    What about, like, a rockbud, or a chasmfiend?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Um, that, you're gonna have to ask the philosophers about. Because, if it happens, it happens really fast, so they have trouble spotting it.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7907 Copy

    Questioner

    Is Hoid somebody I should be rooting for?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Depends on-- Depends... There's a big, uh, "depends" attached to that.

    Questioner

    Is that something we're gonna see in Stormlight Archive?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You will see some of it in Stormlight. It's not the main place you're gonna see it.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7911 Copy

    Questioner

    Could you build Aons or something similar to Aons off of the natural landforms on Roshar, like the Dawncities and the other cities that are sort of symmetrical?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The Elantrian magic system, the Selish magic systems, are the ones that don't work very well-- don't interact very well with other worlds... Other ones are a lot more easy to interact between worlds.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7913 Copy

    Questioner

    [Question written down, unknown]

    Brandon Sanderson

    They can communicate with each other. So, there's at least one answer-- with the spren-- Yeah, but it's not-- you don't really communicate with spren in the same way.

    Questioner

    Can they get, like, Odium- or Cultivation- or Honor-oriented spren to kinda animate them?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, that's not quite how it works.

    Questioner

    The intelligence in the eye of the chasmfiend, I was wondering. Or on the santhid rescuing her.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's more, like, does a flower communicate with a bee. That's a similar sort of thing we're looking at here.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7914 Copy

    Questioner

    If people from Scadrial were to colonize, like, Nalthis, and not intermarry with the people there, would their children continue to have the Scadrial Investiture, or would they have the Nalthis Investiture? In the sense that, is it genetic, or is it planetary?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Scadrial is more genetic.

    Questioner

    Than Nalthis, where they have the Breaths?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    Questioner

    So, would their children continue to--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Their children would continue, for a while, to have Scadrian Investiture.

    Questioner

    For a while. Could you say, like, how many generations?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I cannot.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7916 Copy

    Questioner

    So, November is the National Writer's month. Have you ever participated in the NaNoWriMo challenge?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have!

    Questioner

    Awesome! How did that go?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It went pretty well. I'm a pretty compulsive writer, so-- I don't do it as much anymore, 'cause I'm almost always on tour during it or something. But during the early days when I was trying to break in, I did it all the time. I actually wrote a big chunk of the first draft of Way of Kings in 2002, in NaNoWriMo.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7917 Copy

    Questioner

    When people ask you who your favorite character is, you say they're all your children. And I always have the same thought: even Amaram?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, let's say, my favorites are all of the viewpoint characters who are not slimeballs... Yeah, he's definitely one of the exceptions to that.

    Questioner

    What other exceptions?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, I don't know. I'd have to think about it.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7918 Copy

    Questioner

    In Way of Kings, the Death Rattles, it say that the person who said it reported seeing strange dreams during the highstorms for the past two years. What do you have to say about that, I guess?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Highstorms. You often see strange things during the highstorms.

    Bystander

    That's not a real answer.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It totally is a real answer! That person saw some weird stuff. Weird stuff happens. Dalinar sees weird things walking along throwing rocks at people, so. Who knows.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7921 Copy

    Questioner

    If you were gonna pick a thing to be, like, an Edgedancer, or a Windrunner, what would you be?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Probably a Bondsmith is what's natural to me. If I could pick any, I'd probably be Windrunner, but I don't think I'd fit Windrunner.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7923 Copy

    Questioner

    Do koloss have hair?

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...It depends on the form. Some do, some don't. But, in general, they do. But it's not-- Here's the thing, it's not quite hair. They're not mammalian.

    Questioner

    What are they if they're not mammalian?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They are their own-- uh, yeah.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7926 Copy

    Questioner

    How does rewriting the Spiritual aspect work?

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...So, it has ramifications through the other two Realms. It can happen. You've seen it happen.

    Questioner

    That's what happens with kandra, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, to an extent, yes.

    Questioner

    With the koloss?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, both of them. Hemalurgy is, like, sticking a piece of someone's spirit to another person's spirit and creating a Frankenstein's monster of spirits.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7931 Copy

    Questioner

    Would you care if I took what we have on, like, Aonic, and sort of rolled it into a conlang?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, that'd be fine. Aonic is the one that, like, in some ways the least useful.

    Questioner

    It has the most words that I've found for it.

    Brandon Sanderson

    If you're interested in conlangs, go talk to Peter, and maybe we'll sic you on something. Maybe we can get you working on something officially. I've tried to get Peter to do something... Go talk to him. Talk nerd stuff with him.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7932 Copy

    Questioner

    What is the most fully-developed you've made any of the languages in the books? Or do you just come up with the sounds and just sort of stop?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It depends on which ones. Like, the further we go in the books, the more developed they become. Peter is a linguist, was a linguistics major, so I lean on him heavily for some of these things. Korean gets used all the time. Because I speak Korean and did my mission in Korea...

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7936 Copy

    Questioner

    What was your opinion of the Blackthorn?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What about it? What do you mean?

    Questioner

    Like, in general, people call him a monster, when I ask, ask around. I think he's a badass.

    Brandon Sanderson

    He totally was a badass. He was also not morally centered.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7938 Copy

    Questioner

    How do you write a good follower? Like, you have a lot of good leaders. But what are some good attributes of followers?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I think that a good follower is willing to-- perform... Knowing that we all wear different hats, and not everyone can call the shots every time, and being willing to be the person that trusts someone else to call the shots.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7939 Copy

    Questioner

    Once upon a time I asked you about the magic system as described in Elantris and The Emperor's Soul, how in The Emperor's Soul [Shai] describes it as, she talks about the Spiritual Realm as the, like, the wall wanting to be beautiful. And how in Elantris they describe the Dor as what makes a river want to flow. And I assumed that meant that they were connected. But according to that [Arcanum Unbounded] it says that the Investiture is housed in the Cognitive Realm and how unlike most of the other magic systems its magic comes from the Cognitive. And so now I am confused.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, they are related but there's an overarching theory, er, kind of philosophy of what Investiture is and it imbuing things with desires that in our world may not actually have desires. And that is connected. The fact that the Dor is the Cognitive Realm is not the way it's supposed to be. That is a prob-- well, in some ways it's a feature, but it's also very much a bug.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7940 Copy

    Questioner

    I got my ears pierced recently and it got me thinking about Vin's earring. It's a Hemalurgic spike, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Mmhmm.

    Questioner

    And the Inquisitors don't have to worry about infection or anything with their eye spikes. So when Vin got her ear pierced as a baby, she also didn't have to worry about infection?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Probably.

    Questioner

    That is an awesome gig!

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...It comes with some terrible side effects, but it is a pretty nice gig.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7941 Copy

    Questioner

    Music on Roshar... How, why is it important, I mean more a why--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Why music? Music, the Rhythms you are speaking about specifically, or what?

    Questioner

    ...There seems to be a lot that connects to music, with like the Dawnsingers, there's lots of people hearing the Rhythms--

    Brandon Sanderson

    It all comes from the Rhythms. That's all kind of interconnected.

    Questioner

    So they kind of hear where the Rhythms are originally coming from?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm not saying that.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7943 Copy

    Questioner

    Could there be a colorblind Awakener and-- would they be able to do anything or--

    Brandon Sanderson

    It would be a harder life for them. It would be a more serious disability there than it is here but it is not completely ending their opportunity.

    Questioner

    ...Once they get to the certain amount of Breaths or whatever, would that reverse the colorblindness? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not necessarily. But it might have some interesting effects.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7948 Copy

    Questioner

    So, we were having a discussion about the term Soulcaster. The term Soulcaster is either, it's a person or it's a thing, and it's not always clear what it is. So when Sigzil is theorizing that the Parshendi needed-- they had Soulcasters, that's why they needed gemhearts, was he referring to the item?

    Brandon Sanderson

    He was referring to the item. That's what he was trying to get.

    Oathbringer release party ()
    #7950 Copy

    Questioner

    I read the earlier version of The Way of Kings. When did Kaladin get depressed?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That was when I realized he was the main character and the least-- the least a character, right? And so, it was when I sat down and asked myself, what went wrong with it? And the main thing of the things I came up was that Kaladin wasn't real. And so I started looking at what would make him real. And depression doesn't make more real, but it's an outgrowth of him making the other decision, what happened with his brother, he had PTSD, and all of this stuff. It grew out of that.