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What Order of Knights Radiant would you want to be in?
I would probably place myself in the Bondsmiths, would be my guess. But Bondsmiths are very hard to get into. There's a limited number of people who can be Bondsmiths, so yeah.
Hey, I've been trying to figure out how Elhokar was 'broken', and I'd like to check if I'm on the right track. Obviously he isn't paranoid (since his fears of assassination and the people he sees in the shadows are very real), so i looked a little closer at his behavior and I noticed he never feels bad about how his decisions impact other people, and doesn't react to his sister's death/resurrection but does constantly worry about how people talk about him.
Combined, that really seems like he's somewhere on the spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder, what with "an excessive need for admiration, and disregard for others' feelings,"
Am I in the right ballpark?
Yup, you are right on target.
Do note that the idea that a person needs to be somehow 'broken' is an in-world theory that isn't 100% validated by the people chosen as Radiants. People have, however, noticed a trend in-world, which is valid.
And, how were the Radiants able to summon their Shardblades at the Recreance if they'd already decided to break their oaths?
Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to—part of the Oathpact—but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades.
Szeth mentions that Lashings don't work with shardplate (on?). Is there any way to get around this (As in, lashing with Shardplate on, or lashing people with Shardplate on), and, if so, does it have anything to do with the Knights Radiant and/or their Ideals?
This has to do with the nature of the magics in the cosmere. They interfere with one another. Something that contains a lot of power--we call it Investiture--resists the efforts of magic to influence it. A strong spirit can interfere as well.
Awakening and Surgebinding, Stormlight and Breath seem really similar in some aspects--
Yes.
--except Breaths seem to stick to things better--
They do.
--than Stormlight. So when you are holding the Breath it doesn't expire when you put it in something it doesn't go away. Can you tell me something about why that's happening?
Part of this is kind of inherent to the Shard and the power it's coming from. I mean the power of Endowment is just going to stick, that's part of the nature of its magic. Does that make sense? But it also kind of has to do with how the ecosystems are working. For instance the Stormlight is essential to the ecosystem of Roshar, it needs to be expended, it needs to get out and-- It's like evaporation, does that make sense?
Recycling? Not the recycling but the cycle of--
Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?
And when you lash things it's temporary--
Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.
Can they just hold it better?
They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--
Like the black sphere for example?
Well we are not going to... The black sphere is something different. You guys have guessed what the black sphere is, right?
Well we have some ideas. I support that it holds an Unmade. Am I wrong?
I'm not going to answer that.
But you said--
I'm just curious what the theories are. Book 3 the black sphere is-- Everyone who reads the books will know what the black sphere is by the end of Book 3.
The Heralds, back before Honor died, were they directly powered by Honor?
Yes. You’ll find out more about that, but the Shardblades [pretty sure he means Honorblades here] were pieces of Honor’s soul that he gave them and direct access to his essence.
Like Vin and Elend?
Yeah, a little like that. That’s why Honorblades don’t work like Shardblades do, like Radiants do.
The second part of the question is, what would happen if they were directly powered by Honor and they were holding Nightblood?
RAFO
Its interesting that his most popular female characters all seem to have mental health issues.
Hmm, I’m not aware of Jasnah being on the spectrum. Her trauma is something different, though we may not find out until we get her flashbacks.
All of the Knights Radiant (basically, all of the Cosmere’s Investiture users) have some kind of trauma.
Now that Kaladin has Radiant Shardplate, could he trap others, particularly other Surgebinders in the Plate and neutralize their powers like the end of Iron Man 3?
RAFO, but with a "I don't think this works the way you think it works."
Will Adolin ever become a Knight Radiant?
That's a RAFO!
Is the reason that the Fused have access to unlimited Voidlight because Odium is alive, and did the Radiants have that sort of access [to Stormlight] when Honor was alive?
Not exactly... They do not have access to unlimited Voidlight, how about that.
From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?
The latter.
Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?
Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.
But RAFO to specifics.
Who bonded with their spren first, out of the new Radiants?
Chronologically, and of the ones we know, Jasnah.
So Nightblood is sentient, he can make choices, and now he is in Roshar. Could Nightblood bond a spren and become a Radiant?
Could Nightblood bond a spren-- *drowned out by laughter* That one's just a bit farfetched. *laughter* I rarely say anything is impossible but let's just say that one's pretty farfetched.
So I've noticed a pattern in the way that the Radiants learn their surges. They seem to learn their anti-clockwise surge before their clockwise surge?
They do.
Excellent, everyone thought I was a crazy person!
They do tend to-- Now, I'm gonna give you some behind the sausage stuff on that. That is partially for writing expediency reasons.
How do you mean?
I designed that partially because I didn't want to overwhelm people with too many magic systems at once so I came up with a little bit of a pattern so that I could have a little bit of an in-world reason why we were slowing that down. It's not a hard fast rule, it's something that I've kept to in order to not overwhelm readers so it's more of form following function than the other way around.
I'm sorry, but I cannot help but wonder if throughout the book [Rhythm of War] we will get more answers about this in-between year.
I want to know how or where all these Edgedancers come from, for example, because it's a huge jump between "there are only 7 Radiants we know about, and Kaladin and Shallan are training more" to "a whole Order coming out the ship and being advanced in their Ideals and forming like a healer batallion."
I do give a little context, but at the same time, I think the previous books have set this up well. We've followed in close detail how a Windrunner initiated his oaths, found a group of squires, and then started an order. We got the same for a Lightweaver. In the story chronology, that all happened in a span not so different from the year between.
Because we don't have any major viewpoint Edgedancers or Stonewards in these five books, I have to leave most of this to the imagination--as you can take the model of Kaladin and Shallan, then extrapolate from comments mentioning that this sort of thing was happening all across the world, not just at the Shattered Plains.
I think the narrative leads you to the answers that connect this all. I do try to give some additional mentions of what was happening through the story, though I don't know if I'll explain enough for what you're asking here.
Is there a difference between the way that Shallan 'broke' her bond with Testament and the way that the rest of the Radiants broke their bonds in the Recreance that allowed Shallan to use Surgebinding between her bonds with Testament and Pattern?
Kind of and kind of not. I mean the thing about it is, some of the things that are happening with Shallan could've happened in the past and probably did, but it's been so long ago that it's not really relevant. So it's less like she's done something super unique and more like things that are happening with Shallan also probably happened—not with everybody but with some—but there's just not record of it and it's not as relevant to the conversation. So, less that she's special and more that this is a possibility. Not giving any confirmations to any specific items, just saying what is happening with Shallan could theoretically have happened in the past and probably did.
If Hoid could have picked to join any order of the Knights Radiant, regardless of the Oaths he had to swear, just the powers, would he have picked Lightweaver?
He would have.
Tell me more!
Lightweaving matches him very well, he's quite familiar with it and experienced with it. He's very good at using it and he likes it.
It's the fulfillment of a long, long quest of his to finally get full access to Lightweaving.
Even though he had some sort of Lightweaving?
He did have some sort of, yes. He's a very very happy Hoid.
Could you create a fabrial capable of showing past events using a Radiant spren and a gold cage?
RAFO. Theorize further along those lines, but RAFO.
Okay, A larkin and an aviar. Could you tell us how they're related - are they a bit similar? Other than that they both fly.
I would not call them terribly similar. A larkin is a specific type of creature that feeds off of Investiture. And there are some other things like that in the Cosmere. But aviar don't do that. Aviar have a symbiosis with an Invested entity. Aviar are more like, they're kind of weird because they fulfill both the role of a spren, but also the person that's bonding the spren. They're an intermediary.
Okay. And larkins don't have feathers, right?
Larkins do not have feathers. They look like little... They look like wasps.
Like wasps? That little?
No, not that size, but that's the look of them. They're in the picture in the front of Way of Kings, the magic map. If we have Way of Kings here... We can grab it for you. If you go to my website for the art for Way of Kings, look up "Way of Kings art archive" on my website. It's not the cover, it's on the magic, the double eye symbol of the Knights Radiant in the inside cover flap. There's a pair of larkin there.
A question related to that. There's an idea going around that all the spren that can Nahel Bond, all Knight Radiant spren are called honorspren, and then Nohadon talks specifically about honorspren. Is that the case? You know, is it just the Windrunner spren, or is it all the spren?
I'm going to deal with this in the next book. So I'll just go ahead and let it be a literal RAFO. It is coming.
*interruption, leading Brandon to lose his train of though*
So what we are dealing with here is that all spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone, so those spren are all- except the Windrunner spren, the spren like Syl, have certain umm.
Nohadon mentioned that "All the spren aren't as discerning as honorspren."
So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really, you know "This is what defines an honorspren".
But the spren you are running into are all *inaudible* of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. That should be able to be *inaudible*.
Is neurodiversity a requirement to become a Radiant? Like do you have to be non-neurotypical?
Read the back of Words of Radiance for your answer, the back of the cover.
Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Palahakah 5.8.5.
Elsecallers
Is it bad to say that I don't like one of the Radiant Orders? Because I don't like Elsecallers. It's not that I don't trust them, per se, it's that I don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it or what their final goals might be. So yes, fine, you're right, I don't trust them.
Elsecallers are all about potential and progress. What can you become, and how can you work to be a better version of that thing? Which sounds great and all I guess, especially if you want to be a scholar or something. Elsecaller oaths and values can help you become the best scholar you can be. But what if you want to be a king? (That's a bad example; kings can be good.) What if you specifically want to be a tyrant? A thief? A criminal mastermind? A murderer? The Elsecaller oaths and values can help you be that too.
And, no, I am not talking about anyone in particular. All of the Elsecallers I know are kind. Well, maybe "polite" is a better word. All of the Elsecallers I know are polite, and... careful. Cautious? Wise, certainly and- what's the word I'm looking for? It's not "well-adjusted," goodness no. Well-considered! All of the Elsecallers I know are careful, cautious, and well-considered. That's an endorsement. Right?
Let's put it this way: if you have an Elsecaller on your side, you're going to better off than if you didn't. They're smart, strategic, and capable. They know logistics, they know tactics, and they can travel through other cultures and mindsets and literally other worlds better than almost anyone. They're ambitious, and they have the skills and the power to back that ambition up. And if you don't have an Elsecaller on your side? If you're so unlucky that you've got an Elsecaller on the opposite side? Well... watch out.
Assuming they have the same years of practice, who would have a better understanding of objects' souls: a Radiant Soulcaster or a Forger?
It's gonna depend on the individual, I think that they both could make an argument, and I'm not sure. I think it's gonna go neck-and-neck.
It was mentioned that there are 16 gods in your Cosmere.
Depends on your definition of god.
Shards. Are the ten orders of the Knight Radiants related to specific gods? Because Honor, child of Honor-Kaladin
So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.
I was wondering how much-
But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.
The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.
That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.
Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?
Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.
It's very subtle, but at the end of Oathbringer, when Jasnah goes to find Shallan on the battlefield, she goes to grab Shallan, Shallan's over here as Radiant. She has Shards *inaudible*?
That's a Read and Find Out. I'm being very coy on Shardplate, even though you have seen characters with it in the books before. Because I want to wait until I can do some reveals in viewpoint character.
I will tell you this: You have indeed seen people with Shardplate multiple times in the books. Or at least, the soon aftermath of someone.
I kind of want to make one of Navani's fabrial bracelets but I've got some questions. 1: Are they all heliodors or are they polestones or what?
They will change, yes. They are not all heliodors.
What's the significance of the different number of prongs on each gemstone? [...] Like some of the gemstones have two prongs, some have like *inaudible*.
On the picture? The picture there is no significance, I simply gave artistic license to Isaac to do as he wished.
Here I was trying to match up the numbers because they were the double eye with the Radiant chart and..
Nope, that was simply done by him.
Originally, Kaladin and Moash were essentially the major darkeyes who were in a position to criticize the nobility and lighteyed culture. Now that Kaladin has kind of (if not emotionally) bought into the system to some extent, by outranking most lighteyes, and Moash has gone full villain, are we going to get another character playing that role of a darkeyed or lower class individual who is critiquing the system?
Yeah, I've been looking at that. One of the questions is whether Lift can justifiably fulfill that role, as someone who considers herself a bit of an outsider even among the Radiants. But let's hang a little bit of a RAFO on that, ask me after you've read book five.
I was wondering in which ways has the LDS religion/theology influenced your writing? I mean, aside from trying to keep your books relatively clean and accessible. For example, it seems like the oaths of the Knights Radiant have some similarity to LDS covenants.
I don't think being LDS can help but influence my writing, though I personally follow Tolkien's philosophy: I stay away from specific allegory. I just try to write the best story I can, staying true to what the characters believe (or don't believe.)
So while I don't doubt that people can find parallels, I leave that for readers to theorize about. Most are not intentional, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.
Are there any specific ways you feel like it has shaped your writing in a more general sense? An obvious example, I expect, is the general avoidance of explicit language and sexual content. (something I, for one, appreciate) Does anything else like that come to mind?
Of course I mean that in a roundabout way. It would be rather strong to say that Mormonism directly affects the writing you produce. I'm sure you don't write explicit sex scenes because you are not comfortable with it (or whatever) rather than because the church says not to. But certainly it has shaped who you are, and you shape the stories. So I assume it's possible to trace a few lines from one end to the other.
You're right; I think these things are possible to trace--and the example you give is a good one. I've described the lack of sex scenes in my books the same way you just did.
I'd say that certainly, the sense of hope in my books is shaped by my faith. I didn't do it intentionally, but if you look at Mistborn, you find lots of quotes about faith in the face of trials--which is a very religious way of looking at the world. Some of my more secular friends might point out a fallacy in this thinking; they'd say that while determination is an important human emotion, doubling down on something just because you want to believe is the opposite of being self-reflective.
My belief in what makes someone heroic, or a good leader, is probably also very directly influenced by my upbringing and belief.
Stoneward
I will be there when I'm needed
Stoneward oaths focus on team dynamics, on learning to work with others, and on being there for those who need them. They put the interests of others before their own, and will not bend their Ideals for the sake of convenience.
Stonewards are the infantry and ground troops of the Radiants and are renowned as their finest soldiers. (A title that, on occasion, the Windrunners dispute.) They tend to attract those who are most interested in warfare, prowess with weapons, or athletics of any sort. They like a challenge, and in times of peace are seen engaging in (and running) various sporting events of both a military and non-military nature. Many enjoy the outdoors, and you’ll find exploration enthusiasts among them, as well as those who just like the fresh air. They tend to be known for their can-do attitudes and for taking on enormous projects (sometimes more than they can handle). However, most agree that the primary attribute of the Stonewards is their dependability. Though sometimes gregarious, they are never flighty. If a Stoneward is your friend, they will be there for you, and that is a core tenet of their Order—to be there when they are needed. Another key attribute is their ability to take a difficult situation with few resources and make something better of it. Though not known as inventors or creators, they are good at improvising solutions to problems in the moment.
So Hoid, was he considered a Lightweaver pre-Shattering?
Yes, that would be an appropriate term. There are lots of different terms that would also be appropriate.
But was it basically the same thing?
Well, no Stormlight. No spren. So, not a Knight Radiant. But, similar magic. But you've also seen Elantris magic do this. So there are-- there are certain things that-- I'll just stop there.
Is being a little bit crazy a prerequisite to becoming a Knight Radiant?
Well, so, for many of the cosmere magics to work, you have to... it has to get into the soul somehow. Right? Sometimes you ram it in by spiking someone else's soul and ripping off a piece and sticking it into yours. Sometimes, it just seeps in the cracks. Sometimes the bond allows it to kind of bypass some of this, but it's usually traumatic experience. So crazy is not required, but there's got to be a place for the magic to go, to get in.
In the second series of Stormlight Archive, are they going to be about the same characters?
That's an excellent question. So when I sat down to build The Stormlight Archive, there were a couple of things that I learned from The Wheel of Time. One was that the further an epic fantasy series goes, the more important it is that you have a structure to the series. It's very easy for the books to start blending into one another, and it's also very easy to let side characters take over books. This is very natural for us as writers, particularly in a big epic fantasy, and I felt that when I approached The Stormlight Archive there are a couple of things I did. One is that I said "All right, I'm going to confine all my side characters to these things called interludes, where I can just go crazy and do whatever I want, but they have to be like, isolated in their own containment unit called the interludes to prevent me from turning from the books just going in all directions at once."
The other thing I said is, "Each book is going to be about an order of Knights Radiant, and it's going to have a flashback sequence directly tied to that order." So that when you say "All right, which book is book three," you're like, "Oh, that's Dalinar's book, that's the Bondsmith book." All of the characters are in all of the books, but each book has kind of its own soul and theme that helps me as a writer structure where I'm going to release information, and what it's going to be about. And so when I set down this, I said said "I'm going to pick 10 characters, 10 orders (and they are not always going to be exactly what you expect), but I'm going to build each book to have a theme based around those things."
The first five were Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, Eshonai and Szeth. So those are the five books you are going to get in the first arc. And the second arc is Lift, Renarin, Ash, Taln and Jasnah, right. Now, all the characters from the first five will be in all those books, and some of them will still be main characters. You can expect it, like it is one series. All the ones that survive *crowd groans* no spoilers. But you can expect in the back five, people that you are expecting that are main characters now will still be main characters, and you will have a lot of space dedicated to them still, but the flashback sequences, and the themes of the book, will focus on those five. And so it hopefully will help it all have a structure and a feeling.
Between book 5 and book 6, in-world, there will be a time jump of about 10 years, so just be expecting that. But I can't say anything more without getting into spoilers, so I won't. But that's what you can expect.
I saw an interview of you talking about Way of Kings before it came out/before I read it. In the interview you mentioned the ten knights and each book will focus/be about one of the knights. After reading book one I can honestly say, I have no idea which Knight was supposed to be in book one. Is this by design? Or did I miss the point?
I'm not sure what the question means. Do you mean the Heralds? Or the ten orders of the Knights Radiant? The symbol stamped into the front of the first hardcover represents the Windrunners because of Kaladin's awakening as a Windrunner. Also because of Szeth, but mostly because of Kaladin.
When Kaladin dreams about riding the highstorm, is that something only he can do, only Windrunners, all Radiants?
RAFO.
Why hasn't Hoid bonded a spren in past Desolations, like in the time of the original Knights Radiant?
He tried.
You've mentioned that other books in the Stormlight Archive will have different characters as their focus, is this linked to the 10 orders of the Knights Radiant? Or is this just coincidence?
It is linked. I may not be able to completely link it, but I'm going to try. The first book's symbol (on the front) is the symbol of the Windrunners.
In WoR and OB we hear about the Veden/Kharbranthian Half Shard shields that can resist Shardblade strikes, and which involve trapping Radiant spren according to Taravangian. In RoW they aren't mentioned, despite the book spending a long time talking about fabrial science.
Both Oathbringer and Rhythm of War raised some unanswered questions though. First, when the fabrial fails and the Shardblade starts cutting again, has something terrible happened to the spren contained inside the gemstone, similar to when Kaladin stabs a voidspren with Syl in the Kholinar palace? Second, are the honorspren OK with these fabrials, ethically, like they are with other modern fabrials?
I do want to get more into half shards when it's the right place, so I'll RAFO most of that for now. I'm not sure EXACTLY what the other questions are asking, as the wording wasn't 100% clear to me, but if you are asking if things like Soulcasters are okay with spren: yes. If it's half-shards, it's a RAFO.
In the world of Stormlight, we have the Weeping season, where there are no large storms [highstorms], we don't have any new Stormlight. How did the Knights Radiant deal in the past? Like, how did they handle this time?
Well, there's a couple of things, some are spoilery for the books. Large gemstones can keep the Stormlight, though. Some dealt without and just didn't have it. In some cases, they had the large gemstone reservoirs. It was a thing they planned for and there were a couple of other little hacks that are not obvious in the beginning of the series. So, you actually get a RAFO on that.
In the original Knights Radiant, when they had squires, were all of the squires destined for bonding spren?
No... Many stayed squires forever and that was okay.
There are different kinds of spren that bond with people and it appears they’re based on a concept. Is it possible to have a concept which would make a Nahel bond that gives two Surges that don’t align to one of the Radiant orders?
Um, uh...this is a theoretical possibility that has not happened yet.
Could Feruchemical nicrosil be used to store other Invested abilities, such as a Returned Breath or the abilities of the Knights Radiant?
Yes, that's possible.
You were the illustrator for Shallan's sketches of Shardblades, right? If so, huge props for Sunraiser - it's so interesting that you chose such an iconic and historically accurate design, yet still managed to ornament it in a believable Shardblade style. I'd definitely buy one for HEMA if replicas existed, which is something I wouldn't say for most fantasy swords.
For those of us who know what that style was used for, it has some odd implications - like the fact that someone at some point was halfswording with a Shardblade, and seeing fantasy authors acknowledge halfswording always makes me geek out! Was this design a specific order from Brandon or were you just tasked with making a more knightly sword for the king and did your own research?
So, there's a few different things going on here.
One is that, way early into the project, I did a bunch of silhouette studies for Brandon so that we could zero in on just how nutty he wanted Blades to be. From those studies he's picked out a few that we referred to when drawing the Blades in Oathbringer, and one of those in particular became Sunraiser.
He did specify that he wanted Sunraiser to be simple and traditional and purposefully in contrast with other Blades. The long ricasso wasn't a call for half-swording in particular, but that doesn't preclude the use of that technique, and it's likely that the original spren that became Sunraiser was probably used by a Radiant with some experience in wielding oversized two-handed blades.
From a Watsonian perspective, it's worth remembering that Shardblades are impractical interpretations of practical tools. Spren made themselves into what they thought swords were, but because of their nature the result became more about the spirit or the concept of a sword than about the requirements of forgery or physics or the practical needs of sticking pointy bits into other people.
The mistspren, who crewed the Honorspren ship. Are they Radiant spren?
No they are not.
What is writing plot twists in a world with online theory forums like? It always seemed to me like it must be incredibly hard to be clever enough that the theory forums don't figure everything out, while still dropping enough hints to keep the casual readers from being confused. As an example, while there were plenty of surprising things in Oathbringer, I had kind of forgotten that the characters didn't know that humans aren't native to Roshar.
Well, there are a lot of ways to look at this. The one you highlight was a particularly tricky one, because the books have to work on multiple layers. First, they have to keep the hardcore fans interested. Secondly, they have to work for what the characters know. But thirdly, they can't be so obtuse that they edge out the readers who don't follow every detail on the forums.
With the specific element you mentioned, I tried to layer a reveal that would act as a twist for the readers with a separate one that would shock the characters (but which the majority of the fanbase had already figured out.) But on in the long run, I've realized that trying to one-up the fanbase is a bad path to go down--I have to accept that people are going to guess what I'm going to do, because there are only so many rational things that are in-character that the characters can do. And going outside that requires either bad characterization or bad foreshadowing.
Therefore, one of the best methods is to point the tension away from certain questions toward others that depend on character strength. For example, "Will modern Knights Radiant be able to get armor?" is a weak question, and one that is pretty obviously answered in the books already. But "Will this character be able to work out their issues enough to progress in the oaths" is a stronger question, as it is in doubt--and depends on how the choices the character makes.
Given the option, though, I'd rather live in this era where I can get away with stronger demands upon readers in terms of continuity than you used to be able to reasonably do. I think it makes it easier to do the types of stories I like to tell.
Concerning the Radiants shardplates, and the glyphs on them that Dalinar had never seen before, is there any relation to these and the AonDor? could they perhaps act as an added focus.
From what i recall, he didnt really give a definitive answer on this one, but he seemed as if we were in the right direction
You have stated elsewhere that your story is about a world recovering, a world that has fallen from the height of its power. Why did you choose to set your story in such a setting, what about it makes it an appealing place to write about?
Several things. There's a real challenge in this book because I did not want to go the path of The Wheel of Time in which there had been an Age of Legends that had fallen and that the characters were recapturing. Partially because Robert Jordan did it so well, and partially because a lot of fantasy seems to approach that concept. But I did want the idea of a past golden age, and balancing those two concepts was somewhat difficult. I eventually decided I wanted a golden age like existed in our world, such as the golden of Greece and Rome, where we look back at some of the cultural developments etc. and say, "Wow, those were really cool." And yet technologically, if you look at the world back then, it was much less advanced than it is now, though it was a time of very interesting scientific and philosophical growth in some areas. What we have in Roshar is that the Knights Radiant did exist, and were in a way a high point of honor among mankind, but then for various reasons they fell. The mystery of why they did and what happened is part of what makes the book work.
Why is this world appealing to write in? Well, I like writing my worlds like I write my characters, where at the beginning of the book you're not starting at the beginning or the end of the characters' lives; you're starting in the middle. Because when we meet people, their lives don't just start that day. Interesting things have happened before, and interesting things are to come. I want the world to be the same way. Interesting things have happened in the past, and interesting things are to come again. I want there to be a depth and a realism to the history. It's fascinating for me to write at this point because on the one hand, there are things to recapture in the past, but at the same time there are things that the people in the past never understood and could never do. The former heights of scientific reasoning didn't go at all as far as they could have gone. So there are new places to explore and there are things to recapture. In a lot of ways, this plays into my philosophy for storytelling. The greatest stories that I've loved are those that walk the balance between what we call the familiar and the strange. When a reader sits down and there are things that resonate with stories they've read before that they've loved, there's an experience of joy to that. At the same time, you want there to be things that are new to the story, that you're experiencing for the first time. In this world, that's what I'm looking for. There is that resonance from the past, but there's also a long way to go, a lot of interesting things to discover.
Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Shashesev 6.1.4.
Stonewards
If I tell you that a Stoneward is solid and dependable, does that surprise you? It shouldn't, because very little about the Stonewards is surprising. They are solid and dependable; they're there when you need them, and usually out of mind when you don't. I'm making them sound boring, and that's not my goal. Stonewards can be just as varied, just as kind, and just as interesting as any other order. And then, suddenly there's a problem, and everyone wonders what to do, and you realize that the Stonewards are already there, quietly and efficiently just doing it. They work together, they work hard, and they don't bend or compromise when things get difficult. All of these qualities make Stonewards into excellent soldiers. And, indeed, Stonewards make up the main bulk of Radiant armies. When they aren't fighting, they're often running drills or playing sports, or working on some enormous project that became the new background of their lives.
Stonewards love a challenge, I think because they love effort. Most people love the feel of accomplishing a task, but Stonewards are the kind of people who love simply working on a task. People who enjoy getting their hands dirty, and building or tinkering, or carving or creating. They like doing stuff and getting stuff done and making the world a better place because of it. If you have a friend who's a Stoneward, make them some food and never let them go. A Stoneward will be the most loyal and helpful friend you've ever had. They're always there when you need them, so make sure you're there for them too.
I wanted to ask about the process of creating in world symbology, specifically the Allomantic/Feruchemical/Hemalurgical symbols in Mistborn and the Radiant Orders in Stormlight.
Edit 1: I see you've answered some of these already. I know you just recently showed us the Hemalurgy. Symbols, so insight into that would be oh so cool.
Hemalurgy stole their symbols from Allomancy. But in the early books, we go back in time with the symbols. First showing Allomantic symbols, then showing in Well of Ascension the symbols as they were used maybe in Terris at some point, and then we see the proto-symbols from before the Lord Ruler, and at that point, they look a lot more organic. Over time they morphed to what we see now. From the symbols in Well of Ascension, the Feruchemical symbols developed separately, but still look related to Allomantic symbols due to their similar roots. The more angular style is due to the influence of the Terris people on their development. In my mind, their visual aesthetic is punctuated with hard angles and triangles.
Is there a relationship between cinderhearts and what happened to Amaram? And if so, what is it?
Yes, there is a relationship. It just kind of built on some basic, fundamental cosmere principles. This power feeding a little bit on even your own sense of Identity and Connection and things like this, as the power consumes it, and kind of starts to turn you into a spren a little bit, is what's happening there. Drawing it in. They're very similar mechanisms; it's not that they're related magically, like a lineage of magic sort of way. But on the same fundamental principle. And this is what lets the Unmade kind of just take over a person, quickly consume them, and then move on.
Can we finally confirm what type of spren is used to create half-shards? Is it Radiant spren, Shardplate spren, or something different?
RAFO! This theoretically should be confirmed in the RPG. We should be giving you all the tools that you need for these sorts of things, including all of the armor spren, all the different brands of Fused, and things like that. The stuff we need so that you can roleplay...
People who are making them?
Yeah. This should all get confirmed in that.
