VeryNiceName16
Frost seems particularly worried about Hoid getting the lerasium. Is this because he knows something about Allomancy that it would be dangerous for Hoid specifically to have, or because he's worried about lerasium Allomancy in general, or something else?
Brandon Sanderson
He's worried about– it's a combination of both. He's worried about what his old friend is capable of doing, because his old friend... kill God once, and y'know, people start to get worried. (Or be involved in the assassination of God.) One time, and that reputation sticks with you for a while. But also, he is worried about a bunch of different things, I'll just say that. You mentioned two of them that are pretty good worries. He has others as well.
Fantastic-Eggplant-9
It's stated that the Fused can hold Voidlight nearly indefinitely. Does this mean their gemhearts are perfect gems?
Brandon Sanderson
So, kind of. It does not necessarily mean that, how about that. But a similar mechanic is happening.
Fantastic-Eggplant-9
Is this why they are so strict with how they handle their dead?
Brandon Sanderson
It is part of why. You are picking up on the right foreshadowing that I have seeded into the books.
Ok-Row1050
If a kandra with a crystal True Body made their way to Roshar, could they use their crystal bones like a gemheart?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, they could. That is an excellent question.
Schaaschaa
If Dalinar were to deadeye the Stormfather, would highstorms stop or change? Related, were there highstorms on Roshar before the Splintering of Honor?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO, I'll have to think about that.
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.
ncmagic97
In Oathbringer, before the Battle of Thaylen City, Venli is able to see some of the Cognitive Shadows of the Fused waiting in the Cognitive Realm and mentions some are as large as buildings. Are thunderclasts actually a type of the Fused?
Brandon Sanderson
She doesn't know. Thunderclasts are something different, and that is what she is seeing. She is not correctly identifying them. Good question.
LeFlshe
How did Autonomy isolate Taldain from the rest of the cosmere?
Brandon Sanderson
All of the Shards... "How"? "How" may be the wrong term.
Adam Horne
There's a followup question, maybe it's related. "Did Bavadin remove the perpendicularity on Taldain?"
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO on the second one. First one, natural processes.
KingOCarrotFlowers
Does "Thaidakar" translate to "Survivor"? If so, in what language?
Brandon Sanderson
No, it does not.
Sapphire_Bombay
You've mentioned in the past that Jasnah has some interesting brain psychology going on. I suspect if I ask you to elaborate too much, I'll get RAFO'd, but can you share if it is more due to nature or nurture?
Brandon Sanderson
Little of both. I would go nurture on this one, but let's wait till I write her book to really dig into it.
icanbanter
We know aluminium blocks Investiture. Does silver block anti-Investiture?
Brandon Sanderson
So, silver has its own weird mechanics that I'm slowly exploring in the cosmere. That's not an answer to your question, I'm sorry.
Questioner
How precise can iron and steel Allomancy be? For example, could a Mistborn unscrew a light bulb just by Pushing and Pulling on the edges?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. You see Kelsier do something like this when he spins metal poles and things like that. What you're asking for is an order of magnitude more difficult, but it is within the realm of possibility. I want to be careful not to get to Magneto-ish with it, but the more you... yeah. It is possible to do things like they just said.
Schaaschaa
How significant of an event or time period, on a cosmere scale, was the Reod actually? 10 years seems like a blip. Do most worldhoppers even know about it?
Brandon Sanderson
It was a big enough event that by now, yes they do. Most worldhoppers, actually no. Because most worldhoppers are going to be common tradespeople, things like this. Running caravans from Roshar to Nalthis or things like that. The majority of them are not paying attention to things that are happening, so I'm gonna say the majority wouldn't. But the arcanists, the people who are watching the various magic systems, who know about the Shards and are paying attention to this, what happened on Sel was a big deal.
Questioner
Would the Stormfather have called Kaladin "Child of Tanavast" before he bonded Syl?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
Rangsk
Is the difficulty of moving Investiture offworld specific to Cognitive Realm travel, or does it affect travel in the Physical Realm (for example space travel)? For example, if Kaladin summons Syl as a Shardblade, could he take her on a spaceship and travel to another system?
Brandon Sanderson
They would have the same difficulty.
NeedsToShutUp
Did Vasher or any of the Five Scholars visit the Nightwatcher prior to the Manywar, or have any of them visited since?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
WilfredTruthwatcher
Will mistclothing (like mistcloak and mistcoat) still exist in Mistborn Eras 3 and 4?
Brandon Sanderson
Plan is yes. What they'll look like is going to be, there'll be an evolution.
gk-sudo
Do we know anyone who is currently a Dawnshard other than Rysn?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, you have met people who are curre– at least one who is currently a Dawnshard other than Rysn.
RabidHumanitarian
We have seen that two Shards can merge into one. Is the opposite possible?
Brandon Sanderson
The opposite is theoretically possible.
RabidHumanitarian
If yes, have we heard of Shards created this way?
Brandon Sanderson
It has not happened yet. Unless you count Splintering into a bunch of pieces, but that's not what they're asking.
BasakaIsTheStrongest
Does Shardplate provide protection against emotional Allomancy?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. Don't dismiss your helmet when you're around an Allomancer.
gaberz24
In the Coppermind article for fabrials, under the trivia section it reads:
The term "fabrial" will eventually come to be used for all magic-based, mechanical devices in the cosmere, such as the mechanism that picks Elantrians.
Was there a mechanical device that controlled the Shaod?
Brandon Sanderson
Something's going on there, I'm not gonna dig too deeply into that. I'm gonna RAFO that. Continue your theorizing however you'd like. That is not where I expected that question to go.
Adam Horne
Do you wanna say where you were expecting it to go?
Brandon Sanderson
No, I mean... The medallions in Mistborn would be considered fabrials by most arcanists, once the era that they are aware of these things is all happening. That's an awkward way to say it. In future era cosmere, the scholars would point and say, "oh yeah, there were some early fabrials happening on Scadrial at that time." That's the terminology they would use.
gk-sudo
Would you consider breaking the palindrome format of Stormlight titles to give Stormlight 5 a better title, or are you pretty committed to the KoWT acronym, since there's already precedent?
Brandon Sanderson
If I can find a KoWT acronym that feels right, I will use it. I would say that it's 75% likely that I'm going to, but if I can't come up with one that we all like, I will break the format. The title's more important than keeping, I wasn't even planning the ketek format until I changed book 3's title and got us, you know. And then I'm like, oh, this could actually happen. But I changed book 2's title as well. This is a happy accident that we can make it happen, but I'm not going to then become slavish to it. And I also might let the T slide, right? In actual keteks, both the "of" and the "the" can be rearranged, depending on how strictly you're following the format, so it's possible that we change the O's and T's.
Questioner
What kind of spren was the Shardblade Oathbringer?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO, partially because Isaac has this somewhere written down, and I can't remember. I should be able to remember that one, but I can't.
Questioner
The makeup of Bridge Four is nearly perfect: a cook, a surgeon, a sergeant, a scholar, two Hoid-touched individuals, etc. How much effect on the composition of Bridge Four did Cultivation have?
Brandon Sanderson
Not a ton. They got lucky. Granted, understand a few things that are gonna explain some of this. The Hoid-touched is, there's certainly something going on there with Sigzil. But having a cook and a sergeant, if you actually run the numbers, a lot of military people are going to be trained in a variety of jobs. The chances that you end up with someone experienced as an armorer, some experience with cooking-- granted, Rock wasn't in the military before, but you know. That you have a person that has done leadership on an NCO level, and things like this. These are things that would have existed on other bridge crews as well. The coincidence is not as big a one, Sigzil's the big coincidence.
Adam Horne
People were asking who's the other after Sig, is that something you want to...?
Brandon Sanderson
Kaladin. If you want to count Kaladin, as someone who has drawn Hoid's attention and he is watching. The real first interaction is the Wandersail one, but Hoid had his eye on Kaladin. You pay attention when people start to form Nahel bonds around you and you're trying to figure out how they work.
Questioner
Is someone limited to how many Nahel bonds they can form, or could someone go play Pokéspren and catch them all, getting access to all Surges?
Brandon Sanderson
There are limits to what a soul can handle. These limits are soft caps, not hard caps. Pokéspren is theoretically possible, but there would be hoops, not just the normal "I want to bond two spren" hoop, which is already a pretty big one.
ArgentSun
Prior to the arrival of the Everstorm, what happened to the Heralds who died? Were they immediately sent back to Braize to wait until the rest arrived and started the Isolation, or could they return to Roshar, similarly to how the Fused can return multiple times?
Brandon Sanderson
So, the mechanics of this I've been dodgy on on purpose because I know I'm gonna want some wiggle room in the books when I write them. Right now they can't return. They go, they're done. I have to make sure that works with the magic and with the narrative as I write them, so you can take this as one of those Words of Brandon that the books might contradict, but the original outline has, you die, you're there, you can't go back. But there are various incarnations of this where they were holding the Fused back by doing that, from being reborn, if that makes sense. And that's one of the parts that I'm not 100% sure where I'm going to go with, because when I came up with all this stuff, I wasn't working with the realities of the books, where I was writing the Fused, and things like this. And now that I have, this is very natural to be like, alright, let me do a reset, and make sure that the lore and worldbuilding all is consistent now that I've done five books-- I haven't done the fifth one yet, but you know what I mean. It's one of the reasons I have the break in between, is to give myself a chance to go to my outlines and make sure. Originally they were holding back... you could kill Fused and they wouldn't return, because Heralds were holding them back, the Oathpact was. But that meant when the Heralds died, they couldn't return either, and so the war could actually happen. But the Everstorm and things like that have changed that. Anyway, that's the answer until I write it in the books and get you some canon in the flashbacks of the Heralds we will be writing eventually.
PhoenixKnight777
Each Order of Radiant has some resonance between their Surges, correct? Can you give us some examples of what would happen in a Surgebinder somehow achieved an impossible pairing, such as Division and Illumination or Transformation and Gravitation?
Brandon Sanderson
I haven't really thought about it. You go ahead and theorize on that, I'm sure you can come up with interesting ones. Totally possible in the cosmere. The structure that is on Roshar prevents it from currently happening, but totally possible. I mean, very plausible. I haven't theorized on those yet, so I'm not going to right now.
BrenAldricErmendrud
Can you give us a hint what Spook has been up to recently, or promise one in The Lost Metal?
Brandon Sanderson
No comment, I am not confirming that Spook is around. You're making assumptions.
graciemoo
Did Mercy originally settle on Threnody?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO!
quantumshenanigans
We know that Returned generally can't be inebriated, but Vasher has learned to suppress some of his outwardly Returned-ish aspects. When we see Zahel with a bottle of wine in Stormlight, is it actually having an effect on him, or is he just doing it for the vibes?
Brandon Sanderson
He can get a little drunk. Maybe not as much as he would want to.
Kael_the_Adventurer
Did Nightblood's Awakening transform it into a God Metal?
Brandon Sanderson
*hesitant* Yes, you could say that.
Adam Horne
Was that a permanent change, or was that just while...
Brandon Sanderson
You can argue that Nightblood is a God Metal. Is he? You could argue otherwise as well. How about that?
mistradiant
The Diagram didn't anticipate Nightblood, so Taravangian had to send "agents" to interview one of its former bearers. Did the agents talk to either Vasher or Vivenna?
Brandon Sanderson
No.
Greywatch
Is a Radiant spren more attracted to someone who is less emotionally mature but with the potential to reach all five Ideals, or someone who's emotionally ready to swear all five on the spot?
Brandon Sanderson
Depends on the spren.
asmodeus
You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?
Brandon Sanderson
Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.
I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.
Questioner
Would it be an advantage to have dandruff as an Awakener?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Adam Horne
Is that a regretful yes?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, I mean, it's not a very big advantage, but I suppose. Being able to easily, yeah, sure? I don't think it's an appreciable advantage.
Questioner
Hey Brandon, did TenSoon become more loyal to Vin because he was in a dog's body and started to adopt the loyalty of a dog?
Brandon Sanderson
Nope, I did not work that into it. There are certain things that the body, like getting scratches and things like that, he did start to adopt some of that sort of thing. I kind of explain this to myself as, the way everyone's treating you does affect your self image, but also getting into another body and realizing, "Hey, it kind of feels okay to get scratched on the head." That's not something that's as socially acceptable among humans. In some situations it is, but when you're in the dog's body, it's like "I can just enjoy this," and enjoy the perks. He ended up really liking a lot of things about being in a dog's body, and they were just a good fit for him. But I wouldn't say there's any sort of Spiritual, "dogs are loyal, therefore TenSoon is loyal" thing.
Aradanftw
Kaladin and Vin both have used magic subconsciously. Kaladin while training with the bridge plank and drawing in Stormlight, and Vin burning pewter while being beaten. Does that mean that Intent is not always required, or is a simple Intent like "I will be strong" enough to activate the magic system?
Brandon Sanderson
I'm going to go with the simple Intent answer that you're giving there. So, at the basic level... the more specific and the more powerful you want to be, the more you need to understand your Intent, is where this is. The body has an Intent. Kaladin uses the magic while he's unconscious, right? The Intent is survive, basically the body knowing it needs to survive. And this is possible to an extent with a lot of the magic systems, just kind of in the base, physical sense, your body knowing how to use what it's been given, is going to happen. You're going to see this with other instances in the magic as well. And even kind of not knowing or not wanting to face it, you can get some base level of power in most of the magics. Yes, it's the second one in that you can make the argument that your body just wants to survive, and things like this, but Intent really starts to play into it when you're doing distinct and increasingly powerful things with the magics. Intent is like your ability to focus, right? You can fire a sniper rifle on accident, but hitting the thing that you want to hit with it requires a lot of practice and focus. That practice and focus in the magic systems is often Intent-related.
NeedsToShutUp
If a Shardblade were to cut a Feruchemist's limb and turn it grey, could the Feruchemist still tap a metalmind below the cut?
Brandon Sanderson
What a great question, I've never thought that. I'm going to say they could not. That's a really good question. We'll see if I go back on that, if it ever happens in the series.
DoritoJH
Is what happened to the singers on Roshar when Ba-Ado-Mishram was imprisoned mechanically [comparable] to what happened to the Terrismen on Scadrial when they were turned into mistwraiths?
Brandon Sanderson
It's more like what happened on Sel with the Elantrians than it is like what happened with the Terrismen. I can see where you're going, but that's not the [analogy] I would've gone to.
Psykopathic
Can kandra benefit from Aviar bones like they do from dog bones?
Brandon Sanderson
Potentially, yes.
Unlikely_Platypus_33
Why do Radiants have two Surges compared to the Fused's one? Is this because they have two Shards instead of just one? If this is true, would a Radiant spren corrupted have three?
Brandon Sanderson
Good questions, RAFO! But that's a "smart questions" RAFO.
Questioner
Would we get Adonalsiumlight if we combined Light from all different Shards?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
StarburstWrapperTie
Why hasn't Hoid bonded a spren in past Desolations, like in the time of the original Knights Radiant?
Brandon Sanderson
He tried.
Mistborn Taylor
Did Yolen ever have a moon? Is a past version of Hoid in any of Dalinar's visions?
Brandon Sanderson
Two questions, I'll RAFO them both.
Windrunner17
We now know all nine types of true spren that make up Radiants, but Wyndle has mentioned making a garden for keenspren. Are these an intelligent spren that does not form Radiant bonds, and are there others?
Brandon Sanderson
Keenspren is a nickname.
Adam Horne
I was wondering if that was a slang term.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, it's a slang term.
VeryNiceName16
How many Invested Arts/arcana does Khriss personally have access to, including through mechanical means like medallions?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO!
MistRadiant
When Taravangian first got control of Szeth, he sent a man with a dark face and an accent Szeth didn't recognize, who was also wearing a mask. Is this masked man a worldhopper from southern Scadrial?
Brandon Sanderson
This masked man is a worldhopper.
WyndleEnjoyer
What do Kelsier and Iyatil think of Mraize kidnapping Lift?
Brandon Sanderson
Iyatil? On board with it. Kelsier? Eh, does he even know? He's on another planet.
Raddatatta
In Rhythm of War, Lift came up to the body of Gereh, who had been killed with a messy wound to the chest. Did Mraize kill him with a spike?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO!
Raddatatta
And a followup to that, Gereh's rings were gone. Would it be possible to spike someone to take their Feruchemical power and then use a metalmind keyed to their Identity?
Brandon Sanderson
This is theoretically possible.
The Cones of Dunshire
Stormlight 5 prologue: Are we supposed to be getting really weird vibes from the Stormfather, or is this just for lack of editing?
Brandon Sanderson
*extremely facetiously* Uh, I don't know what you mean weird, that totally seems like the way the Stormfather always acts and has always!
graciemoo
You've said fainlife has spread beyond Yolen in significant ways. Have we seen this in the books, excluding Mraize's fain branch?
Brandon Sanderson
No, you have not. Watch out for Sho Del, they'll be showing up, dragons will be showing up, but actual fainlife, when I'm talking about that I'm kind of talking about the entire ecosystem. You'll know when you see it.
