Hey Brandon, may I ask if the red-haired woman on the Dayside map is a kind of depiction of one of Bavadin's personas?
She is not. Isaac designed that border without any explicit instructions from me, so while he might have an idea of who it is, it isn't someone specifically relevant to large-scale cosmere workings.
[joke about Birds=Chickens on Roshar]
See also: Eastern Rosharans using the word "Wine" for a variety of types of alcohol, when only rare imports from Shinovar actually come from a grape, and naming animals things like "hound" when they only vaguely resemble a creature from Shinovar. (Or the term silk, which is harvested from plants that float in the ocean. Or using the word 'cremling' for any kind of small crustacean or insect, which is a linguistic expansion of the word over the centuries, when there used to be two distinct terms for them.)
Vorin languages, in particular, lend themselves to this kind of simplification of terms.
Since you mention languages on Roshar, are there any languages that are completely unrelated to any other on the planet?
Our basic language families are:
Vorin: Alethi, Veden, Herdazian, and more distantly Thaylen. Nathan is close to dead, but shares a root, and Karbranthian is basically a dialect. Other minor languages like Bav are in here.
Makabaki: Azish is king here, and most the languages around split off this. There are around thirty of these.
Dawnate: A varied language family with distant roots in the dawnchant. Shin, parshendi, Horneater. They share grammar, but they diverged long enough ago that the vocabulary is very different.
Iri: Iriali, Reshi, Purelake dialects, Riran, and some surrounding languages.
Aimian: These two are lumped together, but are very different. Probably what you were looking for.
That isn't counting spren languages, of course. I might have missed something. Typing on my phone without my wiki handy.
"Your" wiki.
Oh dear, I can only imagine the contents, not to mention the chaos it would inspire over on the 17th Shard if it ever leaked. Once the Cosmere is complete in 30 years or so, do you have any plans for letting the fans peek at it?
When the Cosmere is complete, I will share it--or have instructions to share it when, hopefully in many years, I pass away.
I know there isn't a short story from Nalthis in the collection, but I still would have liked a Solar Map and Brief overview of the system in the Arcanum Unbounded. Maybe it could have just included the Warbreaker prologue and a link to the free download? The fact that even White Sand (an unpublished book/unfinished graphic novel) had one but Nalthis doesn't is a shame...
Truth is, part of me felt I'd find time for a Nalthis story at some point, but it never worked out. Edgedancer's length and involvement in the main Stormlight story sucked away the time for doing a Nalthis story. Maybe it would have just been better to stick one in, with no story, but it felt weird to me. Hindsight, looking at the book, I probably would do it if I had the chance over again.
Could the map and Khriss essay for Nalthis perhaps be released on your website/Tor's website sometime after Oathbringer's release or during the revision process for it.
I was thinking maybe we release it around the time of the paperback of the collection, if I can find time to get it done. But the Oathbringer release would be another good idea--maybe I'll do that instead.
[Brandon] must have had enough of chuckles every time someone referred to Bavadin as a "he" over the past few years.....
Bavadin has several male personas, and has often appeared as male for one purpose or another, so it's not that much of an issue. She has more female personas, but some of the male ones are quite popular.
This won't be relevant for a long while, but as a service to the community, let me say this: try not to get too hung up on gender, race, or even human appearance where Bavadin is concerned. There are some peoples who worship entire pantheons where every member is actually her.
There are some peoples who worship entire pantheons where every member is actually her.
I think that's hilarious.
I've been meaning to ask a similar question for a few days now, I am glad someone else did and you replied. Bavadin is now instantly super interesting to me!
Bavadin is awesome. One regret of finally moving on from White Sand (and doing the graphic novel, instead of doing an entire trilogy myself) is because I won't get to show her off as a character for a while. It should still happen, mind you, but I have enough on my plate right now that I just can't do it all.
Eh, it's alright. The more we wait to see her, the more practice writing you will have when you do write her, and the more awesome she will be to us :) Are we going to see her in White Sand first though, or elsewhere?
I've also been talking with a couple of friends about Ambition, who happens to be a Shard I love unconditionally just because of his?her? mandate. So I should ask - how tight-lipped do you intend to be with information about it? Can we prod for a little bit of trivia, or is it too early for that?
I'm going to be pretty tight-lipped for now. Let's at least let White Sand finish first--you will find her in there, though her touch on the story (directly) is light. She prefers to allow her personas to become the focus of attention.
I'd very much like a story, even a short one, from the point of view of a spren.
Specifically a spren that is bound to a surgebinder. Syl, Glys, Pattern, etc. I'd like to see how they go from Shadesmar to crossing over and losing their thought, to slowly regaining it and forming a bond in more than one way with their surgebinder.
This is a matter of when, not if--but you might have to wait a few books.
I think /u/Tellingdwar IS Tellingdwar though, which is still pretty cool. (I got the character from him.)
Wait really? I always thought it was his account that was named after the character.
He wore a terrisman costume to gencon one year, then was my faithful steward during a RPG session for the Mistborn game. After that, he ended up in the books.
[WoB compilation about spren]
Hmm. With a casual glance, I see at least one here that I might have been fixated on a question that wasn't actually being asked. I do this occasionally, particularly at signings, where we're going so fast and I think someone is asking something that they're not.
In regards to there being spren bonds before the Last Desolation--there obviously were. (We see Knights Radiant in Dalinar flashbacks that are before the Last Desolation.) I think I was trying to talk my way around a different question, without giving RAFO answers, that I'm not going to get into now.
Another sketchy one on this list is regarding whether the spren call the nightwatcher Mother or if they're calling cultivation Mother. I don't think the text of the books actually implies either way, despite what I said. (Unless I'm forgetting something.) For those in the know, with the Nightwatcher being an analogue of the Stormfather, that implication is there--but I don't want to confirm it either way. You'll get more on the Nightwatcher and Cultivation, and their relationship, in the books.
Was anyone else completely surprised in Bands of Mourning when Wax offhandedly mentions that he and Lessie had been married?
I don't remember any mention of Wax and Lessie being married before that point in the series. Together, yes. But married, not at all.
Did I just miss it? Or did /u/mistborn forget to mention it in earlier books? (Or did he slip in some hand wavy retconning and hope no one noticed)?
This is one of those things that editors kept trying to change back, but which I insisted stay as it's not a contradiction to the earlier book. Wax's thinking of her in this way is a kind of unconscious defense against what his mind perceives as an attempt by society to wipe her out of existence and force him to move on.
I appreciate that the intention here was for Wax's state of mind to feel a little off.
Still, with the concrete way he thinks of the relationship as a marriage, with how he remembers the specifics of a ceremony, it's hard for me to resolve your statement that "Wax and Lessie never had a real ceremony" with the conflicting statements in the text (emphasis mine)—
At the very beginning of chapter 1, Wax and Wayne are talking, Wax casually mentions that it's his second marriage and Wayne doesn't bat an eye:
“You gonna be all right?” Wayne asked.
“Of course I am,” Wax said. “This is my second marriage. I’m an old hand at the practice by now.”
Then, after Wax gets to the church and is getting dressed, he muses further on his previous wedding:
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he strapped on his gunbelt and slid Vindication into her holster. He’d worn a gun to his last wedding, so why not this one?
And finally, Wax contemplates the actual ceremony as he and Steris are walking "down the aisle":
Wax found himself smiling. This was what Lessie had wanted. They’d joked time and time again about their simple Pathian ceremony, finalized on horseback to escape a mob. She said that someday, she’d make him do it proper.
With all three of these in short succession, Wax clearly establishes that 1. he was married before to Lessie (at least in his head), and 2. there was some kind of wedding ceremony (was this in his head, too?).
So, the following is how I explained it to Peter, I believe, back when he raised these objections during the editing stage. Wax and Lessie had no official marriage, though they did exchange some vows (as Wax notes, on horseback, fleeing a mob.)
Lessie gave him grief, claiming that it didn't count--that she wanted more. She wanted an actual wedding, and a piece of paper to say they were married. Wax figured this was good enough, and resisted wanting to do something more formal. It was his whole, "I am the law" thing he had out in the Roughs. Focus on what matters, not what paper-pushers might claim he should do.
Over the years, they talked about getting married for real, and he started to think of the day they would. (Shifting his focus away from thinking of "my wife" but instead of kind of a long-term betrothed/common law wife.) When he lost her, and moved to Elendel, his viewpoint shifted. He wanted more and more to treat what they'd had as a legitimate marriage, for fear that what he and Lessie had would be wiped awaystamped out, by something more grand that society was demanding of him.
So while the event never changed, his perception of it certainly did. I intended for it to be contradictory, but only subtly so, and this is one of those things that I didn't feel like it was right to do in the text. (Much like Wayne's dislike of Steris for stealing Wax away from him and from the memory of Lessie--but this sentiment slowly shifting into a protectiveness of her as she reached the "inside" circle and gained legitimacy by making Wax happy.)
These are things that the characters themselves don't realize, and while I'll occasionally hang a lantern on them, sometimes I just leave it unspoken and subject to interpretation. If every little thing gets spelled out in the text, then I am left feeling that we're being too on the nose.
That said, once in a while, things like this DO annoy Peter. He'd prefer I pin the text down on things that seem to contradict one another.
What would happen if a Feruchemist fills, for example, a tin metalmind then mixes it to make a pewter metalmind? Does the stored attribute change? Is the Investiture gone when you melt the metal? What if he just makes it into a tin metalmind again?
If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted down.)
This holds for basic uses of the metallurgic arts. Once you start playing with some of the more advanced parts of the magic, you can achieve different results, which are currently RAFO.
Similarly, if you were to soulcast a metal would it have similar effects of corrupting the investiture and making it inaccessible? Like if you turned a steel metalmind into pewter.
I've stayed away from soulcasting and forging in these types of discussions, as I feel my answers will dig too deeply and prompt more questions that, eventually, will lead to lots of RAFO type questions. I don't really want to go there--but I will say this. Changing invested objects with other magics is hard, and often requires such a force of investiture yourself, that it becomes very power-inefficient. Just like we can technically turn lead into gold right now--by spending way more money than the gold is worth.
So you could, for example, use electrolysis to dissolve a metalmind in water, then reverse the reaction later to get the investiture?
OR, better question, if you store investiture in one allotrope of iron, can your retrieve it off you change to a different allotrope?
I see no reason why these wouldn't work.
So would forging with the blood of a radiant(kaladin, dalinar,etc) work on a shard blade from a fallen radiant to say change who they had bonded, or how the bond was broken (to say death instead of giving up on the oath)?
RAFO.
Kwaan might have understood realmatic theory.
In the chapter 19 epigraph for the final empire, the author of the journal says "When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library - I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think."
I wonder if that means he was looking into trees have a cognitive aspect. It seemed weird to me the first time I read it, but knowing what I know about the Cosmere and Sanderson loving worldbuilding, I feel like that's what this was about.
Was pre-ascension scadrial cosmere aware?
The OP's theory is correct. The rest is a RAFO.
Ben's interpretation posted in this thread is the canon one. I wish I'd gotten a picture into the books. One of my regrets for Book One is not thinking to put a diagram.
One thing I worked with when writing the first book were heavy counterweights that you locked into place on one side of the bridge (at the sides) then pulled off and carted across to lock on the other side of the bridge, to change the center of gravity for maneuvering the bridge. They broke the flow too much, so I think I cut all references, but you can head-canon them if you want. I think you'd realistically need something like that to get across some of the wider chasms.
The math on bridges is a bit tricky, regardless. Even with Roshar's gravity, we had to use a Soulcast wood (one that doesn't exist on earth) for huge sections of the bridges to get a strength/weight ratio that would actually work. (Meaning, it could be carried by the numbers of bridgemen we needed after some were killed, but was still be strong enough to ride across.)
Feeling pretty dumb for not seeing the "wax and wayne" pun earlier...
I don't know what you're talking about. Scadrial doesn't have a moon.
How tall would the average chasmfiend be, and how much would they weigh? On a scale from ant to Godzilla.
So, they're big. Not godzilla big, but larger than elephant big. On average, they're going to loom over you at about twenty feet high, which is deceptive to their size, as they're longer than tall. And some do get even bigger.
Weight, though, is a tricky matter with greatshells on Roshar. The symbiosis with spren is how they get around crushing themselves. (Even on a lower gravity planet like Roshar.)
One last question though, symbiosis is a two way relationship. The chasmfiends get a huge benefit, the ability to not immediately die. So what do the spren get out of it?
Yes, the symbiosis is a two-way relationship. You'll find out more in future books, but suffice it to say, the spren DO get something out of the deal. (At least, when it happens naturally.)
Just wondering, I read the old version and it was great, but will I miss out on continuity if I skip the graphic novel release? Also was Hoid in this novel? I dont remember finding him.
Hoid is referenced in the novel, but it's like Emperor's Soul or a few of the others, where he's only mentioned. We beefed up his presence for the graphic novel, though he'll equate to still just a cameo, because of certain cosmere timeline issues.
I don't plan to change continuity dramatically from the novel to graphic novel--just tell the same story, better. I hope that people will still read and enjoy it, but I also don't want you feeling left out if you don't get around to it.
I have a question about White Sand Vol 1, although this comment thread is probably not the best place to ask it.
Just wondering how you view the final product, in the range of "learning experience, next one will be different" to "amazing book, won't change a thing"? I've never published a graphic novel, and I'd love to know how you feel about it now that you're past the first volume and have the second one upcoming.
Hmm...
I'd say halfway between those two. I am very pleased with a lot of things about it. The thing that I don't think came out right is the worldbuilding, particularly the cultural worldbuilding.
That is one difference I noticed. When you describe clothing and buildings and whatnot, it sort of brings them into focus in a different way than a graphic novel (or movie) does. With the graphic novel, my brain just went "ah, they're all wearing this kind of clothing, sure. Oh, she has a Victorian style dress, that's neat." and that was kind of the end of it.
I think it might have something to do with lingering on it? Like spending a lot of time describing something can show how important a thing is to a character (or the plot), but I kind of skipped over the descriptions by glancing at the picture then returning to dialogue.
On the plus side, it helps me reinforce the fact that I need to spend more time describing things in my book.
Yes, that's part of it. Though I don't think we got in the graphic novel some of the important worldbuilding elements, such as the armor that melts when sprayed with water, the unique forms of fighting, and the fact that the people you assume are the advanced ones (because they live in buildings instead of tents) are actually far less technologically developed than the ones who live out in the desert. (Because on this planet, that's the "good" land while the low sands are the less fertile parts.)
That was a dynamic that was very hard to get across in the book, though, and I don't know that my skill at the time was up to it. I was disappointed in the graphic novel once the colors and final art came back to discover a number of pages that looked like brave Europeans fighting savage desert people--which was the reverse of what I'd been trying to accomplish. (But is part of our cultural biases, so I'm not surprised it was how the artists ended up interpreting it. And I'm to blame for not reinforcing the idea stronger back when it could have been changed.)
Are there any languages with clicks anywhere in the cosmere?
Yes, though I'm loathe to use them in text because of how people roll their eyes at fantasy novels that try to be too cute with non-standard (meaning non western Earth) symbols in naming.
Mr Sanderson, I'm really interested in the languages of SA, especially Unkalaki (Polysynthetic?). Have you actually created full conlangs for these or are they just for naming. You obviously know what you're doing.
I'm not done yet, but for a few of them, I'm fairly far along. Yes, Unkalaki is polysynthetic, and is the same language family as Parshendi.
how do you create your languages, do you find a language from the real world and base the structure off of that? or do you create it from scratch?
A little of both. It's hard to create something that doesn't have some roots in something you've seen before, however. (Even if you think that you are.)
Scadrial question: When coming up with twinborns, do you actively avoid the incredibly overpowered combinations? Something like pure steel twinborns seem extremely overpowered.
Also, can we get an idea for how many twinborns exist? Is it dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
I'm going to have to talk about them eventually, but yes, I made some deliberate choices for the Alloy era heroes.
My intent is that they're very rare, but there's this problem in fiction. You can say something is very rare, but if your two main characters are that thing, readers won't FEEL it. So I avoid making too big a deal out of it either way. Either way, I don't have the numbers handy right now.
There is something that recently was debated by some fans and I hope you may give some clue about the "side effect of interaction between magic" as was pointed in the Twinborn and Surgebinder cases: Are those "perks" stackable? To say if I am a Fullborn like Rashek, wil I have all the possible Twinborn's perks or a specific "Fullborn's perk"? And about the same topic, a Mistborn or Full Feruchemist has his own perk/perks?
I've worked under the premise that if you hold too many of the powers, like a Mistborn, the result is a loss of these little quirks. The mechanics of it are interesting, but I'll leave you to theorize on that sort of thing.
You have stated that each Knights Radiant Order gets their own unique ability, for lack of a better word, due to the combination of their Surges. For instance, you have stated this ability for the Windrunners is strength of squires. My question - is this due to the Nahel bond, or just inherent in the Surges combining. Would a non-Radiant get these abilities from the Honorblades, or would they be out of luck due to no Nahel bond?
Good question! The unique abilities have more to do with the powers interacting, same as how Twinborn will often manifest some odd side effects of the powers interacting. But there are limitations. For example, Jezrien didn't actually have any squires, as none of the Heralds did.
Could a hypothetical shard of double power split itself into two different single power shards at will?
RAFO I'm afraid.
Mare is actually no-ghost fully dead, right?
Just wondering, since she's the only allomancer to ever be sentenced to the pits, so she's presumably the only person with a powerful soul to die right next to Ruin's Well.
Or is Ruin Energy inherently the type of thing that won't (can't) extend the life of a ghost?
There is no cognitive shadow of Mare hanging around.
Will we ever get complete world maps of the other Shard worlds?
Yes, you will.
Have we seen Trell under another name before?
RAFO, in part because the question makes some assumptions.
Does this [map of Roshar] look like a storm to anyone else?
I was searching for something that at once felt organic, but would hint at a pattern. (Much like cymatic patterns, as referenced in the first book.) Fractals and mathematical functions became my go-to place to hunt, as I like the blend of structure and spontaneity they can sometimes exhibit. The slice of the Julia Set was the one that stuck with me as feeling perfect for Roshar. As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium, you now know the seed that was used in-world to create it.
The fact that it looked like a swirling cloud is part of this all--but also part of the connection between natural patterns and the underlying math, which is a primary theme of the Stormlight books. So yes, it SHOULD look like a storm--but for deeper reasons than you might assume.
I asked Isaac recently, but he suggested you might be the right person for this - do you have a specific equation for the Julia set you used to generate Roshar? I know it resembles a few easily Google-able images of (shadows of slices of) Julia sets, but I was curious if had specific numbers here.
I don't have any numbers I could give you. Sorry. I might be able to find them, if I looked, but it would take more time than I'd like.
As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium
WHAT????!!!
Roshar predates the Shattering. I've spoken of this before, haven't I?
Maybe somewhere before, and obviously most planets existed before the shattering (Planets are pretty old) but I don't think you've ever mentioned Roshar (the continent) being specifically grown by Adonalsium.
Is this a normal thing that Adonalsium did or was Roshar special to him in some way?
A quick search reveals that you have mentioned that Roshar was named Roshar before the Shattering but nothing mentioned about it being grown by Adonalsium. It makes sense though, that shape is obviously not natural.
There are many things that are unique about Roshar, but it wasn't the only world created in this way.
While rereading HoA I decided to do a bit of research on an informant. But I also found another interesting tidbit on Theoryland.
http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#35
This WoB. It implies TenSoon is eventually going to be able to reconnect with Vin, or at least, someone with Hemalurgic spikes is going to be able to communicate with someone that's departed to "The Beyond" (or the Spiritual Realm)...
Yeah, this looks like one where I was tired from answering a lot of questions, and was thinking about Kelsier--I was really excited to write Secret History back then. I realize that it wouldn't make sense for Kelsier to want to talk to TenSoon, but you'd be surprised the things that you say sometimes when you're trying to write in someone's book, keep yourself from giving too many spoilers, but also answer questions. You can go on auto-pilot sometimes for a minute or two, answering questions that my brain THINKS someone asks, when it's not one they actually asked. Or mashing together two questions, and having a kind of crossed-wires brain moment. You can see me do this on Reddit sometimes too, if you look back through my history. I often catch it and edit to explain myself, but not always This was during the era when I was heavily laying foreshadowing to fans for Kelsier's return, so it wouldn't feel like a cheat when I eventually got to Secret History. So I was looking for opportunities to talk about people with spikes communicating with the Cognitive Realm. I can't remember. There's also a possibility that I was still contemplating Vin staying, which she could have done, as someone who'd carried one of the powers. Either way, I made the call that even bringing Kelsier back was dangerous for undermining consequences, and having Vin hang around would be counter to her character arc and the arc of the stories. So Vin and TenSoon won't be talking any time soon. Sorry to shut down conversation on this one, and sorry to lead you on.
Does emotional Allomancy work on animals?
Emotional Allomancy requires a certain level of sapience.
So dolphins, oragutans, mistwraiths and parrots might work?
I was intentionally vague. :)
Huh, so that would mean that divine Breath (or just regular Breath?) works in a completely different underlying mechanism than emotional Allomancy in providing that calming effect for animals and children. I had previously thought it was just an overlap in abilities.
There is an overlap. But it involves playing with Spiritwebs and/or the Cognitive Realm.
I'm a big fan of Harmony.
Probably will never happen but I'd love to see him put the smackdown on Odium.
Paging [Brandon]... what do you think of this theory :) ? Is this your plan? Or are we asking about something which is decade(s) away?
I find theories like this very interesting, but yes, you're right. This is talking about things very far away. I've said, however, that Odium is wary of Harmony.
It seems like Odium has been attacking shards that share a world for some reason (dom and dev hon and cult). Maybe his exploit against dual sharded worlds would work less well against a dual-wielding shardholder?
I won't say yes or no to that, but you can imagine that what happened on Scadrial is something he would have preferred never occur.
I'm surprised it didn't occur to anyone to grab two shards to begin with? Pairing Odium with Devotion seems like a good idea.
Did this not occur for a specific reason, or just an oversight on the part of the folks involved?
RAFO
Can you tell us who the main interlude character is for this book? Like Szeth for TWoK and Eshonai for WoR.
RAFO.
We know that the recurring interlude character is typically one who plays an important role in events, but is currently not interacting directly with the other characters. My guess is that it's Jasnah this time, as she slowly makes her way back to civilization, or explores Shadesmar.
You are correct in that it's someone important, but generally unconnected. It's also, generally, going to be someone who hasn't had a large number of viewpoints so far. It does give a spoiler if I say who it is for this book, though.
Because it's someone we believe to be dead / somewhere else / something along those lines? Kind of like giving away the protagonist of Secret History is a spoiler in and of itself?
It's not as big a spoiler as that; it will just set you wondering about something else that IS a spoiler. This will make sense when the book is out. (Feel free to ask my rationale when it's out.)
Is it Tezim, the god-priest of the Tukari? I'd love to see an interlude focused on him. There have been many hints that there is something really unusual happening there.
RAFO. :)
What were you dissatisfied with in WoR?
It's twofold. Spoilers follow, obviously.
In the original draft, none of the alpha readers felt that I had 'sold' Jasnah dying to them, and were all like, "Ha. Nice try. No body. She's alive.' So I kicked the assassination scene up a notch, until betas were like, "Stormfather! Jasnah just died!"
That was a mistake, I now believe. (Though this didn't get changed, and won't get changed.) Sometimes, I over-emphasize to myself the importance of surprises and twists. The book is fine if readers suspect Jasnah is still alive--actually, I think it's stronger, because it is more satisfying to be right in that situation, and doesn't detract from Szeth's miraculous survival at the end.
I knew this soon after I'd released the book, but decided it was just too extensive a change to try tweaking.
The other one I did tweak. In the battle at the end between Kaladin and Szeth, I'd toyed with letting the storm take Szeth--him essentially committing suicide--as opposed to him spreading his hands and letting Kaladin kill him. I felt that after the oath Kaladin had just sworn, stabbing a docile opponent unwilling to fight back just didn't jive. This I tweaked, changing the paperback from the hardcover, which has produced mixed results.
Most people agree the change is better, but they also say they'd rather not have the hardcover and paperback have different accounts in it, and would rather I just stick to what we put in the hardcover. It was interesting to try, to see what the response would be like, but it seems that the better option all around is to just wait until I'm certain I don't want to revert any of the revisions or tweak anything new.
Did you write Dalinar's storyline in the first book as a contrast to Vin's experiences with Ruin in the Mistborn series? It felt like Dalinar's skeptical reaction to his experiences with a god were very diametric to Vin's confidence.
In part, yes.
What is the biggest change you've made based on alpha/beta reader feedback? (This goes for any of your books)
Probably adding Adolin as a main viewpoint character in the first book, which was done because I had trouble striking the balance between Dalinar worrying he was mad, and being a proactive, confident character. Worried better to externalize some of the, "Am I mad" into his son worrying "My dad has gone crazy" while letting Dalinar be more confident that his visions were something important. (I still let him worry a little, of course, but in the original draft, he felt temperamental from vacillation between these two extremes.)
Bringing Adolin to the forefront in the books has had a huge ripple effect through them, as I've been very fond of how his character has been playing out.
May I ask why you choose to use Adolin as the viewpoint character to supplement Dalinar as opposed to Renarin? My understanding is Renarin has always been the "most important brother" within SA, which made me wonder why, based on the beta readers comments, you ultimately decided to use Adolin and not your established character to bring forward the dilemma.
I am, obviously, extremely fond of how Adolin has been played out so far and while I have no idea where he is going (but zillions of theories), I am curious to know what his initial purpose in the story was. Did you draft the character's personality just for WoK's needs or did you have an idea of what to do with him when you made the change?
I was well aware that I needed certain things about Renarin to remain off-screen until later books, and him being a viewpoint character early would undermine these later books.
Adolin is a happy surprise and works exactly because he doesn't need to be at the forefront, even after I boosted his role. With Adolin, what you see is really what you get, which is refreshing in the books--but it also means I don't need huge numbers of pages to characterize him, delve into his backstory, etc. He works as a side character who gives more to the story than he demands pages to fullfill that giving, if that makes sense. Renarin is more like a pandora's box. Open him up, and we're committed to a LOT of pages. (Good pages, but that was the problem with TWOK Prime--everyone was demanding so many pages, from Renarn, to Jasnah, to Kaladin, to Taln, that none of their stories could progress.)
Adolin has basically always had the same personality, from TWOK Prime, through the original draft of the published TWOK, to the revision. The changes to making him more strong a viewpoint character were very natural, and he has remained basically the same person all along--just with an increased role in the story, and more development because of it.
I do discovery write character, usually, as a method of keeping the books from becoming slaves to their outlines. This means that Adolin has gone some new directions, but it's been a growth from the person he was in TWOK Prime. (Which you'll be able to see when I release it, sometime in the hopefully not distant future.)
Once we do get to Dalinar's flashbacks
Will we get to learn his wife's name?
Is his wife's name one that astute readers would recognize?
Will we learn why he want to the Nightwatcher - and the boon and curse he received?
You had to know I'd RAFO this. :)
When I asked you during a signing about how Rayse took down the other shards, you RAFOd it. Was that because it will be explicitly covered at some point in the series, or more because the subject will affect things later (possibly vaguely answering my question) and you dont want the info to get out too early?
And can you give anything on when it might be touched on? Front five, back five, book five?
There are a ton of reasons, and you've touched on several. It will be touched on increasingly going forward, but I'm not going to say when (firmly) it will be discussed in depth.
Did you pre-write the Kelsier stuff for Secret History, or did you just outline the events ahead of time?
Kelsier was notes, though detailed ones. They might mostly worked out. I believe there was one "thought" a character has in HERO that I had written to be influenced by Kelsier, but turned out to be logistically impossible. I worked on Secret History itself on and off for years before finishing it last fall.
Was that thought the one Sazed has in his fight with Marsh?
Those weren't coins, a voice seemed to whisper.
The bag Marsh shot at you. Those weren't coins.
Yup, that's it.
Moving the well, playing with where Kelsier was, and the physics of moving through perpendicularities between Realms all kind of combined to make what I had planned originally there not work. I tried fudging things so Kelsier could be there, and felt it was dishonest to the rules. So I didn't let him stray far enough from the Well to talk to Sazed there. Peter had thought for years that was Kelsier, I recall, and was sad we couldn't connect them.
I don't suppose you'd be willing to share with us who the new, canonical voice in Sazed's head is?
I'm afraid I probably won't ever go into this. At some point, you risk twisting and turning too much. I have a canon answer in my head, but for readers, it will probably need to remain ambiguous--with "it was simply him coming up with it on his own" being a valid option.
Still not sure what the multiple mist spirits were that warded off Marsh in the deleted version of the ending - I've heard speculation they were somehow kandra (justifying the mistwraith name). Do you remember what was going on there?
By the way, the knife leras is carrying around. Would people call that a shard blade ;)?
What a nice, heaping pile of RAFOs you have there, Phantine.
Was Hoid a Feruchemist before he ever got to Scadrial?
I remember reading this somewhere but I can't find it. Not sure if it is a theory or a WoB.
I don't believe I ever said anything like that.
If I remember correctly, Allomancy is from Preservation, Hemalurgy is from Ruin and Feruchemy is from both Preservation and Ruin.
This is correct. It isn't caused by a shard, but the interaction of two opposing shards
Would something like that happen between honor and odium?
I just read WoK the other day, I have yet to start in on WoR. That said, my speculation is possibly, but I don't think so. It sounds kind of like Odium isn't from Roshar. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I got that impression. That would mean his form of investiture is somewhere else.
Also, I think that the reason Preservation and Ruin have Feruchemy is also that they worked together to create. There has to be some reason that they interacted while others didn't, and I would guess it is probably their working together
Edit: We could summon [Brandon] but I am almost positive this would get RAFO'd
...RAFO.
Dalinar's visions: at the end they are revealed to be a "journal", where his interactions are superfluous. How does this explain the vision where he fought the smoke creatures with a fire poker? There his actions were having an impact.
We get into this in the next book with some vivid examples. So it's a RAFO--but with a promise that an explanation is coming.
As another note, I think it's cool that the Cognitive Realm on different planets have similarities, but different styles, like the beads on Roshar vs the Mist on Scadrial. I assume all worlds have something related to this. (?)
I'm reading (listening to) Warbreaker currently, and I'm curious as to what the Cognitive Realm on Nalthis looks like. I imagine a neutral gray wasteland to represent nonliving matter (metal/rocks) and glowing clouds of color to represent people--glowing more powerfully if they have more breaths, no color if they are a drab--and less colorful more solid structures for once-living-matter. Similar situation with the whole "water is land, land is whatever the fuck the planet wants".
You'll eventually figure out what Shadesmar looks like on Nalthis.
Are there any big plans for the world of Warbreaker beyond the sequel? Or would that be a RAFO (equally exciting)?
That's a RAFO.
Can Cadmium bubbles be nested if you have multiple Pulsers?
Bonus Question: add in duralumin/nicrosil to the equation.
Yes.
The effects multiply.
I guess hiring 3-4 Pulsers before something you have to prepare for might be worth it. They create their bubbles one after the other at the same place, and boom, you have days instead of minutes.
Ok, lets calculate. We don't have exact figures for cadmium, but we have for bendalloy: 2 minutes into 15 seconds, that's a ratio of 8. 4 Pulsers mean 84 = 4096 ratio. So 21 second for every day goes by for every day you spend in there.
The outer Pulser burns this 168.75 second's worth of cadmium, the first inner one needs 22.5 minutes, the second inner one needs 3 hours and the innermost needs the 24 hours.
So basically for every day spent in these bubbles you need ~27.5 hours worth of cadmium, depending on how routinely they set up the bubbles one after the other.
Wait, are you mixing up sliding and pulsing? I also think you are nesting your bubbles but not your pulsers, so you are losing a lot of efficiency not to mention practicality.
Tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you're describing, but this is how I'm visualizing it:
http://i.imgur.com/Hujpz8c.png
I'm saying that you get 4 pulsers huddled together and the one that can open the biggest bubble goes first. Then the next largest one pops his. Then the next. And finally the smallest bubble fires.
In that scenario (unless there is something that prevents this) I picture it like this:
http://i.imgur.com/9qjB0lJ.png
This method, 170 days pass only burning 4 hours worth of cadmium.
Well. I'm gonna do it. Gonna page /u/mistborn and ask: is this possible? Can time bubbles be nested like so and if they can do you truly get this kind of efficiency?
crosses fingers
This one is a RAFO. :)
In the first book the group is focused on getting control of the palace and is not worried about the return of the army because they think that if they get the palace they'll have the atium and, thus, the ability to pay for the loyalty of the army, since they're mercenaries. Well they didn't find the atium, right? So no ability to pay the old army for their loyalty. I'm just saying that it seems to me that the absence of the Lord Ruler's army supporting the city should be a huge indication to all the other warlords that the atium isn't in Elend's possession.
People have been saying that he wouldn't have anyone to trade with so the atium would be worthless but he would have had a year to work out trade with someone if he wanted to monetize it (with as valuable as atium is made out to be in the first book he would have found someone wanting to buy some even if he couldn't get the price the Lord Ruler charged for it).
Ah! Well, that makes sense. I certainly think some people in world might have come to this conclusion. But they'd still think the atium must be somewhere in the city, even if Elend doesn't have/isn't spending it.
However, I think the issue is a little less cut and dry. For one thing, Elend DOES have the loyalty of much of the local army--the garrison serves him now, which would be an indication that he has access to some of the Lord Ruler's resources. I don't think the lack of a larger army would be an indication he doesn't have the atium, however.
Let's say you were a small band, and were able to seize and control Ft Knox, and get the guards stationed there to serve you. The president is dead, and the country is fragmenting into city-states.
A senator from a nearby state might easily round up the military in his area, promise them that he's the new civil authority--then push them to go seize the gold. When they arrived, they wouldn't think, "Why is their force so small? They must not actually have the gold." They'd think, "They're ripe for the picking. We got here first."
That's basically what is happening. The "Lord Ruler's Army" doesn't exist any more--it's fragmented, taken over by various groups who ruled their own local regions. And the bulk of the most frightening part, the koloss, are their own uncertain band.
How about the Iriali and Alethi mix we have going on with Adolin and Renarin? Where would this put them within the chibi figures? I have always had a hard time trying to figure out how they would look like due to their mix ethnicity. I have ideas... of course, but I'd be great to have confirmation.
They're gong to have lighter skin, but skin tone isn't something Alethi pay much attention to. Hair and eye color is what draws their attention. Dalinar and Kaladin will be darker than Adolin and Renarin, though none of them would look Caucasian to us. Of course, Caucasians have varied skin tone as well, so it's hard to say specifically what they'd look like. (As a note, Renarin/Adolin are a Riran/Alethi mix--not exactly Iriali/Alethi, as there's some slightly different genetics going on there.)
Oh I thought Riran and Iriali were the same... Where did I go wrong?
I can't say much without giving spoilers, but there are small differences.
Would be cool if you ever got the chance to sit down with a sketch artist to put out images of your visualization of how some of these characters look.
It would be fun, though I've done this (in a small way) with Ben McSweeny, who does a lot of art for my books. I have semi-official character sketches I use for my own descriptive purposes, but I don't consider them close enough in some ways to be canon, so we don't release them or put them in the books. That said, some of them might be floating around on the internet--I'm not sure.
One thing I wish I'd done was nudge Michael Whalen to push his Kaladin on the cover of Words of Radiance a little further to be a little more ethnically Alethi--as I think it would help people's visualizations of him. But the one we ended up with is already the third version of Kaladin he did for that painting, and each one was increasingly better--I felt bad pushing him further.
As a side note, I've always loved this fanart for Rock. I don't know if there's a more on-target picture of one of my characters out there:
Taln has what we'd call black skin pigmentation. So does Ash (the woman from the Baxil interlude.) Same for Sigzil.
Fun fact: in the original draft of The Way of Kings, Taln shared equal screen time with Kaladin. In the revised version, for a multitude of reasons, I moved Taln's story further back in the series. He'll eventually get a book of his own.
In Sanderson's most recent lecture (50:25 in) to his BYU Writing Class, he mentions that Alethkar natives resemble Asians. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, especially since I always imagined the Shin as the "Asians" of that world.
It's a little more complicated than I might have made it seem. Alethkar natives other than the Shin have the epicanthic fold, but the Alethi wouldn't look strictly Asian to you--they'd look like a race that you can't define, as we don't have them on earth. I use half-Asian/half-arab or half-asian/half-Polynesian models as my guide some of the time, but Alethi are going to have a tanner skin than some of those.
Some Horneaters might look Caucasian to you--but then, most will not. They'll seem like something alien, and not all of them have light skin; they tend to walk a spectrum between pale and coppery. Reshi and Herdazians will look closest to something like an indigenous Bolivian.
Shin would look the closest to Caucasian to you, but again, they're not an Earth ethnicity. So you might not be able to place them either.
A lot of the fanart has done a good job with this, and if you search through it, it might help you get an idea.
Are the House bios etc. for the game considered canon?
Short version: no.
Long version: Crafty needs too much new material for their games for me to provide. I'd be spending hours and hours on backstory, and none on writing new books. We tried, at first, to make it all canon, but it was too time consuming. We do look it over, and try to catch any big errors, but the problem is that if I want to write more stories in Mistborn, I can't be bound by what the games have included.
That said, I'm mostly worried about extrapolations of the magic in this regard. (They need to be able to include powers and abilities that are good for gameplay, for example, and need to let people use metals in ways that the stories haven't explored yet.) I highly doubt there would be any reason at all to contradict the information about the houses and their bios, which looks solid to me, and in no need of revision.
So it's more of a "Yes, you can treat this as canon, but know that in some extreme cases it's possible I'll rewrite it in fiction."
Do rebellious Alethi teens ever mix together red wine and yellow wine so they can be all 'see parents, I'm just drinking orange, that's nonalcoholic'.
There aren't as strong a set of taboos on underage drinking in Alethi society as there are in ours. I'd imagine that what you say has happened, but wouldn't be too common.
