So Truthless are kind of pretty rare, right, in the Shin society?
Yes.
So how did they come by the [Honorblades] that Szeth's got?
They, historically, kept all of them.
Oh, ok. I wondered if that was the case. Interesting. Does that have anything to do with why they think stone is sacred?
You will find out more about that as time progresses.
Is the Allow of Law actually a part of the next trilogy?
It is not. It is a book I wrote because I didn't want to be leaving Mistborn for too long untouched.
Will we be seeing any more of stick?
Everybody loves stick, everybody is very fond of stick. I have no current plans for stick.
Spook?
You will find out more about Spook.
It is not impossible that you will see some sort of story involving Spook. After all I did a little short story about Kelsier for the role playing game. It's now on my website.
Can you compound like a, can you compund metalminds to the point where you become like a savant?
A savant happens because persistent use of the power has an effect on your soul, warping it. Compounding is a very different thing, so while you could draw some very powerful effects, I would not call them the same thing, even if they are imitating one another at certain points.
Does Bavadin hold a Shard?
Yes (and that’s about all he would say. He did however confirm that Rayse is Odium)
How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal?
He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels.
Why do Shards refer to themselves by their Shard name, rather than their original name? Do they still remember their original name?
Yes they do, they do remember their original selves
How many Shardworlds are there? Only seven? (Sel, Nalthis, Scadrial, Roshar, Yolen, Taldain, and whatever planet The Silence Divine is on [Ashyn]?)
He said he has a set number in his head but that he didn’t want to say it because he might change his mind. Essentially he doesn’t want to make the number of worlds canon yet.
Who names the planets? You've said once that "Scadrial" was the name of the planet as Ruin and Preservation knew it, but where'd they get that name? Do the Shardholders all get together and vote on it or something?
He said thay already had their names and that the all the planets existed before the shardholders got there.
Is the Dor the same as the power of creation that powers Allomancy?
He said that the Dor is similar to that which powers allomancy but not 100% the same.
Are Seons Splinters of Aona?
He said that that line of theorising is very close and that we are figuring it out.
Who is Hoid?
Brandon answered that we would have to wait and read it later. When asked in what book the answer would be, Brandon was vague. It would probably not even be revealed in Stormlight Archive book 10.
The Mistborn series was sold as three trilogies. The first trilogy (the one we know) is set in medieval/16th century technology and is fantasy. The second trilogy will be set in the current day, or at least with the same kind of technology. This makes it urban fantasy. The last trilogy will be science fiction set somewhere in the future. Of course, all of them have the Allomancy magic system to get things interesting. The short novel The Alloy of Lawthat will be released in the fall this year is set between the first two trilogies so the tech level is around 18th/19th century with steam power. Brandon said it was about some Wild West-like character getting involved in a murder investigation in a city. So Clint Eastwood meets Sherlock Holmes in London.
Objects with almost sentient behavior like Nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the spren from The Way of Kings. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.
He talked about the link between his magic systems. One of the core principles is 'investing'. In a lot of his systems people are through some mechanism invested with magic powers. In Elantris through the Shaod, In Mistborn it's genetic, in The Way of Kings it depends on what someone has done.
About the scheduling. He plans to start writing the next Stormlight Archive book right after he turns in A Memory of Light. He hopes to write two books for the Stormlight Archive in a row. The first of those might (very early estimates) be released at the end of 2012, or early 2013.
Is Liss a Surgebinder then?
Ha, RAFO.
So would any of the orders be okay with <one> being an assassin?
"Would any of the orders be okay with one being an assassin?" Yes.
Have we seen another Lightweaver, as of Words of Radiance?
Um... Yes. Depending on your definition. Straight-up Lightweaver? Like you could make the argument... the Order of Knights Radiant? That... that, no. But you have seen people Lightweaving. The skill.
Who or what is Hoid? Or Wit?
Wit? He is a person who has shown up in all the books. What else do you want to know?
All of the books?
He has shown up in all of my epic fantasies, yes.
Every single one of them?
Yeah, he's been...
Wit or Hoid?
Hoid-- is the same, Wit.
But how do you know it's him?
Because he says his name in all of them.
As Hoid?
As Hoid.
Really?
Yep.
I-- now I need to be more careful.
How does he know so much information about what's going on, and how is he always in the right place at the right time?
Those are two excellent questions.
That you won't tell me.
That I won't tell you. You get a [RAFO] card. But he has a sp-- surprising ability to be in the right place at the right time very consistently in the cosmere. That's the name of the shared universe of all the books.
I didn't realize it was a shared universe.
Yes, it is. There are characters in Way of Kings from Elantris, and... yeah. But it's all Easter eggs. It doesn't-- it isn't something you have to.
So it's not, like, crossovers.
There are crossovers, but it's all Easter egg-ish right now. Some day there'll be one where I do full-blown crossover. For now the story is about this. And so the crossover is all just in the background.
How many Breaths would be fair to turn a mistwraith into kandra-ish?
Turning a mistwraith to a kandra would be hard with Breath. It doesn't give sentience.
Who is Kelsier's noble dad?
Kelsier's dad is a secret.
Could you steal any trait Hemalurgically that can be stored Feruchemically?
Yes, you could steal any trait that can be stored.
How do Vorin Alethi get married?
How do what?
Vorin Alethi get married?
How do they get married? I will show you a wedding ceremony eventually.
What are Oldbloods?
Oldbloods? Oldbloods are the, um... Lon-- Years ago, Alethkar was ruled by a different group of people. A different, like, dynasty. And it's been overturned, and it's been a long enough time that they're not really a threat. But to acknowledge them, and Oldblood-- they wear the tattoo. It means, "We are-- We used to rule this place." And so, it's just-- It's a lineage of people and a dynasty that used to be the kings of Alethkar.
Alloy of Law. We've got koloss-born guys. What's their origin?
So... Currently in Mistborn-- And I delve into this a lot more in the later books, but, you know, it's not a big spoiler so I can tell you. Um... Koloss have become... They can breed, but when some-- when a child is born to them it is born as a koloss-blood. It is not born the full thing, right? Grows up normally, and at maturity, at their right of passing, they can choose to ma-- take the step, gain-- get the spikes, and turn into actual, true koloss. Or if they don't, they have to leave the tribe and go... You know.
But they're more, like, human size? Like, human looking?
They're human size, human-- I mean, they've got some residual effects. They're a little bit tougher. But yeah. General, they can be human. And so what you're seeing in Tarson is some-- one of those who actually came and-- He's the son of a full koloss-blood and a human Allomancer, which makes an Allomancer koloss-blood.
Okay. So that's what I thought. A little human interbreeding. *unintelligible* weird.
Yeah, um, and a human could, if they wanted to, go convince the koloss to accept them, join the tribe, and get spiked. So yeah...
It makes their skin saggy, and they start growing...?
Yeah. It makes their skin saggy, and start growing, and start ripping, and all that sort of stuff.
Is that theory correct where, like, the Heralds are basically, like, reversed now. Kind of going against their thing or...
*laughs* He won't tell us.
I know, I know. That was my question, which I knew you wouldn't *inaudible*.
I just wanna know more what Szeth and the stone is?
You get-- you get a RAFO card. There you go.
Any plans to do another short like Mitosis?
Um, yes, I will probably do another short like that.
Rock is taller than the other bridgemen. When he gets under the bridge, will that make it more difficult for him? Wouldn't he have more load on his shoulders than the guys next to him?
Um, yes, though you will notice that I equalized for height with the pads on the shoulders. And a bridge that will run-- yeah, they will use pads and things like this. And you can customize your bridge over time. The fact that most bridgemen die before that's necessary... um, yes. But it would mean he would end up having to stoop for part of it unless you wanted to carry a lot more of the weight. Being next to Rock would probably be a fun thing. But then there are the pads, and things like that, so. *brief pause* And once they really got it going, they could re-- they could really customize that bridge. Like, you know, take off pieces underneath and things like that so that it fit everyone really well. But in Sadeas's army you don't really get to that point.
Have we seen any Heralds in any of the other books?
In any of the other, um...?
Like Mistb-- cosmere.
You have not seen Heralds [in other cosmere books].
It seems like-- So the cosmere stuff keeps the physics in there, with the Coinshots, and things like that, it doesn't ignore mass an inertia.
No.
I love that! And I love that about Jim Butcher's books too. 'Cause they keep the physics. It seems like, with the young adult stuff, it's more based on intent...
Yeah, the young adult stuff, I do not keep physics. In Steelheart, or in Alcatraz... or in Rithmatist. I don't even worry about it.
They didn't know what the line did until they knew what it was supposed to do.
Yeah, intent is important in-- Remember the magic system for Rithmatist started as cosmere. And then I made the decision with it that I was not going to have it be in the cosmere. But the magic system started as a cosmere magic system...
*audio lost*
...you can do a lot when you can break laws of conservation of matter and energy, when you can cheat them by using the Spiritual Realm. But things that we really cheated on is redshifting and things like this on the time dilation in Mistborn. I don't know if you noticed that, but there should be redshift, there should be weird radiation things, there should be-- And so we had to work around a lot of those things. And we've got our workarounds in the back of our heads. But the other weird one is when Wax is flying, and he reduces his mass, I have to remember that he speeds up, when his mass goes down because of centripetal force.
Shardplate thus far has been powered by Stormlight in the spheres. But after-- now that we've got Radiants, is it powered by themselves?
*adds something about "spren" but is spoken over by Brandon*
Well so far we have not seen Radiants wearing Shardplate.
Yeah, I was kind of wondering that myself, 'cause-- 'cause they're not spren, because the spren were the... Shards [Shardblades]. So what <are> they?
So, that's a big ol' "what really is Shardplate?" *hands RAFO card*
Does Roshar have plate tectonics?
Roshar does not have plate tectonics, good question.
Well when I met you in Orem, I was asking about frequencies. And you said it was more the shape of the plate-- The frequency. We've got no plate tectonics, we've got people who like to sing.
Good question. Now the weird thing that we would have is with the crem, we have to do some weird geology gymnastics, because Roshar is moving...
Roshar, the continent of Roshar, it's moving, right? As it gets weathered and things like this. Making Roshar actually work requires some really interesting scientific gymnastics. But one of them is I just didn't think plate tectonics, or even volcanoes and things, is just not something that is going to work on Roshar the way that I built it. So I just stayed away from all of that. It's a pangaea.
Is the pangaea built up of crem?
It's a pangaea built up of crem.
Over a long time--
Well no, because it was created at first.
And then crem was on top of it?
...The whole idea that this is a fractal-- The whole point of that is, somebody built this. Somebody built this using mathematics that you know. They said "Oh. Boom. Bing!" and grew themselves a continent.
So, just curious about Shardplate.
Yes.
Um... In one of the books she said that it was seamless. Like there weren't any chinks in it anywhere.
There are chinks, but there's no direct line to the skin. So if there-- if you see a slit, there's another little plate behind it, or something like this.
Okay, okay. 'Cause I've seen them and out of artist renditions and it <looked> accordion. And I'm like, if I wanted to recreate it for my kids...
Yes.
...it would not be accordion, would it?
Um... It just depends on your own interpretation. The official interpretation of Shardplate is Ben McSweeny's interpretation, which we used for Shallan's sketchbook in book 2, showing her sketches of Shardplate. So that's our official-- official interpretation. But you can interpret it yourself how you would want.
If Shai were to gain a Shardblade and she gave it up, could she then create an Essence Mark that represented the history where she still had the blade? And then if she applied it could she summon the blade? Or a copy of it?
Okay, so doing that sort of thing, like re-writing herself to be an Allomancer or something like this -- This is possible but in order to gain the Investiture she wants to have she will have to input that much in Investiture which her current magic system is not capable of doing. Okay? Alright, so "re-write so that I have a Shardblade" would require some sort of hacking of her magic system, which is currently impossible to her in her current situation.
So if she had had a Shardblade and gave it up she could not rewrite herself to have that back without more input --
She could-- Yes, exactly. Now rewriting-- That would be a lot easier than just rewriting herself so that she had a Shardblade--
That's what I was asking--
Yeah, but what you're asking about would be much easier and that is probably within her power. But what that would do is-- Yeah that's totally within her power. It would create some weird implications where she's summoning it and someone summons it back from her because the Shardblade thinks it's owned by two people.
So it wouldn't be a copy it would be the same Blade?
Yes.
Have you studied Latin?
I have studied enough to know about it, but I have not studied enough that I could read or even figure out most origins. Yeah.
Okay. 'Cause I did-- I took a semester of Latin, and I'm like, "Oh, that's where all these words came from in Brandon's writing." And...
I do often say, "Alright, I need the right feel for this." And I will go delve into Latin, and Greek, and things like this trying to-- The big question is, I'll need to create a word that imitates an ancient word from the world that we're in, but it's going to be in translation. And so often I will use a Latin root to be like-- to indicate "this is an ancient word from their world, from their scholarly language. To make a parallel to that, I'll use one from ours."
What exactly was Shai's Soul Forging of Ashravan comparing itself to to see how well it sticks? Like the Spiritual aspect? Cognitive aspect?
It's more Spiritual. Much more Spiritual.
Does being the donor of a Hemalurgic spike have any implications for your afterlife? Or how about the recipient?
That is actually going to depend on-- Okay. Yes it has implications for the afterlife. Yes.
Okay so are there a bunch of Scadrian souls wandering the afterlife with holes in their personalities or memory or identity? Or some with extra parts tacked on?
So it has implications, but they are not exactly ones that you are assuming. So in the cosmere there is "dead" and "mostly dead". Okay? And this has been shown several times so once someone dies there is a period before they transition. Sazed talks about this in Mistborn 3. And so most of the implications are for before transition. Does that make sense? Post-transition you are going to have to ask the philosophers and the theologians who are the ones that talk about that. So there is an afterlife and an after-afterlife. Not as many implications for after-afterlife. Middle? Yes. Okay?
Do you form emotional relationships with your characters?
Um-- Yeah I would say that I do. Mmhmm.
For instance, reading The Way of Kings, I really dislike Sadeas. Do you feel that way about him too?
He's a rat. He's totally a rat.
Who is your favorite character, character development-wise?
Oooh, favorite character for character development. Who develops the best? That is really hard for me to say... From any book? Who has the most development-- I would say Shallan has undergone the biggest transformation in the major books. No, Vin. Vin goes through the biggest change, so we'll go with Vin. Vin's the best character development across the course of the books.
Does Vasher have a favorite animal? *laughter* I warned you, it was random.
Does Vasher have a favorite animal.
You've thought of just about everything else for your books--
Yeah, I know... Would Vasher have a favorite animal? I'm sure that he had a pet or something growing up. Vasher hates just about everyone and everything these days.
What about squirrels?
It's a weasel!
He does like squirrels! Undead squirrels.
Where did the idea to use chalk come from?
Y'know, I have trouble pinpointing that one. I remember the idea of chalk circles, and things like that, and just seeing those in the lore of our world's sort of magical mythology and thinking about chalk circles. I remember thinking about how I want to do a book some day about people who play a game with magic, and things like that. At the end it is just one of things that I'm like "Hey, magical Starcraft with chalk. Go!" and I just started working on it, and it happened.
As of the end of Words of Radiance, how much do the Heralds know about events on the Shattered Plains?
Depends on the Herald.
Where did you get your inspiration for Kaladin?
Kaladin came because I was reading about the life of a surgeon in the Medieval age and how it-- how strange it was to be like this person who had one foot in science and one foot not, and that was really interesting to me. And he evolved a lot over time becoming more the hybrid warrior and things like that. But that's where it started, what it was like to live and be a surgeon in a Medieval world.
So the highstorms, they're just one storm that goes around the world or--
Well there are different philosophies in the world about that but-- The scientifically-minded believe their is only one storm that goes around the world. The lore says that there is a place the storms blow out of called the Origin. But the scientists don't believe that that is true.
Is there more to the Roshar world than what is shown on the map or is it just that?
There is only one continent. Now if you are paying attention, that's not answering your question completely.
It's just different realms and all that. I meant like more landmass.
There is only one continent on Roshar.
Just different versions of it.
That doesn't mean there aren't islands out there.
Now the Mistborn world there is a whole lot more.
We've only had that one little part so far.
Yeah, but it's basically almost all empty because... Which is actually very fun for the worldbuilding, is this idea of a mostly unpopulated world.
So I have heard that it is harder to Push a Shardblade with Allomancy than it is a normal sword.
Yes.
Is that true of both living and dead Shardblades?
Yes.
Equally?
Uh, no.
Okay, so it's even more difficult to Push one alive.
The thing-- An Invested object is more difficult with any of the magics. So, for instance, even a Feruchemical metalmind is going to be harder. Depends on how much it is Invested, and things like that. But, y'know, it can range from you barely notice it or don't even notice it to "Wow, that's hard to Push on". Same for a Hemalurgical spike, depending on how much Investiture is left over, how long has it been outside of a body, and things like that. Same thing Pushing on something inside a person's body, their Investiture is going to interfere with it.
Same thing, when you read White Sand, why a person slapping their hand through someone's stream of sand can throw off the entire creation of the sand mastery. It's just-- There's interference patterns, and things like that.
And is that true of a Drab as well? Does the body affect--
The Drab is going to have less.
So they just have less Investiture, but they still have some natural Investiture?
They do still have some. They've lost their Breath but that isn't the entirety of the Investiture inside of them.
Almost all of the times we see Vin--in fact I think every time--we see Vin, or someone in the Mistborn books, Pushing or Pulling on an Invested metal they are either drawing on the mist or they're Elend or the Lord Ruler who have the enhanced power, or something like that. Or it's a duralumin Push, or its one of the Inquisitors who's had a spike-- y'know, and things like that, that've-- And so it's not something that you see done very often in the Mistborn books.
I can actually confirm that's correct.
Oh you guys looked it up?
I checked.
I mean it can be done. And depending on Investiture it can be not even that hard to do but--
So who are the people of the sky?
From Sixth of the Dusk? The Ones Above. That I have not answered yet, but there are lots of good theories online about who it might be. But I'll give you a RAFO card.
So are you going to write a Sixth of the Dusk novel?
Probably not. A lot of the little cosmere novellas that I'm doing, they are less important to the overarching plot of the cosmere that I designed. And so I want to visit them, show different places in the cosmere and how the magic is affecting different worlds, but the goal is not to incorporate them into the mainline story. I mean the main story takes place mostly on the planets you've seen, with a couple of other ones, and I'm sticking to that.
So are you going to write a series that ties all the major ones together?
Yes.
I know that with creation you start to lose-- honestly, your confidence in it, with creation. I was wondering if you experience that loss of worth in it, and if so, what do you do to counteract it?
It happens mostly when I'm working on a book. Once it's done I'm usually proud of it, but about the three-quarter point--
I've heard that a lot. Just what do you-- How do you convince yourself it's still worth, y'know--
...When it starts to happen to me, I sit down and say "How can I make this scene awesome? This one that I'm writing right now?" because I can use my tools, my skills, and my practices as a writer to make that scene really awesome. And usually I'll shake things up a little bit, I'll write a different viewpoint or I'll do something I wasn't expecting to do according to the outline, just to make that scene really great. And that restores a lot of my confidence.
