Found 1827 entries in 0.096 seconds.
How do you keep it all organized when you're doing so much at once?
A wiki. An internal wiki is where I keep all the cosmere and all the notes on that. The other things, I don't have to worry about as much. For instance, Reckoners, I've got one viewpoint character and one major plot; that I can keep in my head. I've got note files and things like that, but the Cosmere? Big old wiki full of stuff.
These all have Hoid very front and center, is this marking a turn in the Cosmere to generally focus more on Hoid's story? And will we ever get a more detailed look at what he was up to during the earlier parts of the Cosmere?
I would say yes, this does mark a bit of a turning point, where I'm like, alright, it's time for him to start being more of a character. I would say starting Stormlight Archive was the first of those turning points. Before that he was cameos. Stormlight Archive was, Hoid's now a character. He's not a main character, but he is a character, among the tertiary level character things. This is another turning point where I'm like alright, now we're gonna start actively involving the things around Hoid. None of these stories are about him, but he's telling two of them, and his apprentice is the main character of a third. And he shows up as characters in all three of the stories. It is a turning point. The next turning point will be when I write a story about him, which will happen.
My question was, you might tell people to like start reading your books, especially with Cosmere, I tell them to start with Elantris. But I just wanna know your opinion, especially with the Cosmere though now that it's growing like - the best area for people to start.
Yea, the best place to start. That's a good question. So this is a wonderful question. I know that a lot of people love Elantris and I do too, I think it's a fine book. But I do think it's significantly weaker than Mistborn. So I usually point people to either Mistborn or Warbreaker, those are now like twenty years old, but I grew a lot. Elantris was my sixth book and Mistborn was my 14th book. If it's a person I'm talking to I kinda do find out, I say alright what do you like, do you want to jump in to the deep end first. If you do here's Way of Kings you just gotta trust me, right? It's worth it. Uhm, if they.. but uh, Emperor's Soul is also a great place to start for someone who maybe doesn't want a book like that.
The Sleepless. They’re not from Roshar. Do they have a single origin point in the cosmere? And if so, have we seen it?
They do have a single origin point in the cosmere. You have not seen it.
Something I've been curious about: will Liar of Partinel be released as a Sanderson Curiosity eventually? I noticed that in the stream a while back where you listed your unpublished books, you didn't list it among them.
Also, you gave four approximate sort of "quality tiers", of
Which tier would Liar be in?
Liar would be #2, I'd think. Problem is, it's close enough to continuity (having been written after I'd outlined the cosmere) that I wouldn't want to actually release it until after I've done the actual Hoid backstory book. I've changed some dramatic things about how I want to present the story, so it would be bad to release this one.
We've reached a point where Dragonsteel, however, wouldn't be a spoiler. So I'm tempted to release that one in the next kickstarter. I've been kicking around the idea of an actual revision of White Sand, to make it publishable, and release that as an actual canon novel. It's the only one that could happen to.
Does this mean there is no chance of a canon version of Aether of Night ever being published? I really enjoyed it and think a fully polished version would be fantastic.
It is unlikely, but not impossible. Aether could be made canon with only slight changes--but it doesn't fit into the larger cosmere story any longer, so I don't know of how much interest it would be.
To clarify, you're referring to the actual Aether of Night novel, not the future rewritten Aether books that you've mentioned before, right? Or are those not likely anymore either?
Since Aether of Night could be canon with slight changes, I assume the Aethers in the book will be mostly canon as they are, at least in your current outline?
If you were to revise Aether to be canon, would you be replacing Ruin and Preservation with two other Shards, or would you be more likely to just remove Ruin convincing the Twins to imprison Preservation?
Future Aether books are very likely. And the aethers themselves are going to be very like the ones in the book.
If I did try to make it canon, I'd probably remove the whole Shard plot from the book and instead either use another Shard, or not add a new one, since the Aethers (as I have them now in the notes) function without a Shard's involvement, and even predate the shattering. (Note, that's not yet canon.)
Keeping it on Scadrial, the ranks within the Set are obviously inspired by either mathematics, or programming, or logic, or a related field. Can you talk about this motivation (either yours or the Set's) for this?
My motivation ties directly to the same reasons that we see mathematics playing out in behind-the-scenes ways on Roshar. This plays into the themes of the cosmere, the rule-based magic, and the fascination I have of the ties between art and mathematics. (See the Rithmatist, which was originally a cosmere novel.)
The Set's in-world reasonings are similar to this, though less self-aware.
Would a Shardblade be able to hurt Steelheart?
Yes, I think it would.
If the person feared him, would they still be able to hurt him?
Even if they didn't fear him, if you mashed Steelheart into the cosmere--which it's not, but if you did, the Steelheart magics would all have to work on the cosmere magics, which means that a Shardblade could hurt him. If you had a Shardblade, you could hurt someone even if you didn't know their weakness. That would be a way it would have to work. Now, if you were to mash them all into Steelheart's universe, then maybe not.
Updates on Minor Projects
Dark One
My eternal "like Harry Potter from Voldemort's viewpoint" fantasy sequence is still hanging out, buzzing at the sides of my brain. I wrote a really spectacular outline for it this summer, one I love quite a bit, and it got both television graphic novel interest—but these are deals still very much in the works, so I can't talk about them yet.
I'm pleased with what I have though, and feel this series has moved for the first time in a long while. Note that I did end up pulling it out of the cosmere, as it ended up working better as a dark secondary world fantasy than it did as a Cosmere YA series. It went both older, and more twisted, in the current outline. Hopefully, by next year's State of the Sanderson we'll have something more solid to announce.
Status: Exciting developments in the works!
Before the Shattering, the original 16 Vessels, how Cosmere-aware were they and were any of them worldhoppers?
In the current continuity, they were not worldhoppers. Well... the dragons were the most Cosmere-aware. They might have been off-world. Might have.
Would you or [Peter] consider joining the reddit Cosmere Discord for a kind of AMA or even just a visit to chat? I can certainly understand if you wanted to maintain control over dialogue than what live text (or audio) chat could provide, but I can't help thinking it would make for a great form of interaction with an audience of dedicated fans. There's non-cosmere sections available to just discuss books in general, for what it's worth.
I'm not opposed to this sort of thing.
This is about certain people from Nalthis... living on Roshar and how they are living on Roshar. Could they also do that on Scadrial?
Scadrial would be a lot harder because getting the Investiture out of things on Scadrial is tough, there are ways you could do it but it would be much more difficult.
Does that have to do with the Investiture being more directed?
Yeah, it's more the genetic component is a big part of it. The directed component-- In Roshar its just flowing around all over the place. For instance, if he could get to a Shardpool he could feed off that, but then he's at the Shardpool and that's kind of dangerous and things. Roshar is really the easiest place in the cosmere for him to consistently get this sort of stuff. Taldain would not be bad either, that's the White Sand world but it is inaccessible currently in the cosmere
When magic Invested in an object-- Does the Investiture act like electrons when it reacts with the matter?
Not quite, but I could see that metaphor working to explain it. But it's not quite there. The Investiture kind of-- If you had a piece of Invested material from the cosmere here, you would not be able to measure the Investiture in any way. It occupies a space that doesn't exist in our universe, if that makes sense. But in the cosmere you could measure it scientifically with an instrument that wouldn't do anything here, like trying to measure a dimension that we can't perceive, something like that. The electron metaphor is a decent one, but it's not exactly how I'm imagining it.
Is this going to be a softer magic system [in Dark One] than we usually see? Or do we just not have the rules yet?
You don’t have a ton of the rules. It’s a little softer than, say, a cosmere magic. It’s not as soft as the graphic novel makes it out to be. You don’t have all the answers yet. But it is definitely a few steps further toward the soft side than a cosmere magic would be.
Really, for the opening sort of things this whole novel, the idea is that Paul’s powers are scary to him. They do not make sense to him, they are not something he wants. And because of that, kind of leaning into the horror and mystery of what it is he can do, made way more sense than making it a very fiddly, classical Brandon magic system. And that’s actually kind of part of the problem with some of the original attempts, is they tried to make the magic more of a Brandon fiddly magic system. And when I leaned into the more horrifying aspect of what it was to discover this kind of dark heritage and things like that, it’s when the story started working.
Yes, the rules are there. Yes, they are softer. But no, you don’t have all of them yet. And I’m not sure how much we will lean into that as we move forward in adapting seasons two and three. I outlined a three season television show, of which this is season one, what you have.
Based on what we know currently about ten heartbeats, why does Szeth require ten heartbeats to bring forth his Honorblade?
Perception is a very important part of how these things all work, and remember the Honorblades work differently from everything else. Everything was based upon them. Why don't you read and find out what's going on there, but remember that the characters's perception is very important.
So then that's why at one point Shallan requires ten heartbeats and now she doesn't?
Right, it's the exact same reason that Kaladin's forehead wounds don't heal. Because he views himself as having those somewhere deep inside of him and he can't heal until that gets away. And it works for the same reason why in Warbreaker when you bring something to life, your intention rather than really what you say is what matters. It's all about perception.
Are there any MtG planes that have had an influence on you and share some characteristics with any of the planets in the cosmere?
It's hard to say how much influence MTG has had on me, since I started playing in high school--right around the time when I started writing. I don't ever remember seeing the connected shared worlds thing, and connecting it to the cosmere. (I see that as more directly influenced by Asimov and Stephen King connecting their books together) but it's totally possible that MTG was an unconscious influence.
Reading the BoM Ch. 2 preview, would "welch on a promise" be an idiom in a universe without Wales? Is Earth in the Cosmere?
All cosmere books are to be read as if translated to our language. The translation often uses our idioms to convey ideas.
Usually, you should assume if we didn't translate it directly, it's something that wouldn't work too well in English.
For instance, using the name of a city in the Roughs where people are thought to be like that.
Very clever, solves a lot of problems. BTW, what would the Scadrial version be? Roughsmen are less trustworthy, roughed?
I often consider using something in-world, but you have to be careful about how much jargon you use. It can be off-putting.
I'm getting "Taln's scar" tattooed on my right shin to cover a scar. Any input on the size/shape of the galaxy? (more than just the star map in the front of arcanum)
That's pretty cool! Well, Taln's scar is going to look different from different vantage points in the Cosmere. From the vantage point used on the Arcanum star map, it looks like a curved string of red stars. Elsewhere it's straighter. From some vantages, it will be horizontal, and others it will be vertical. There will be the sides of some planets that won't see it at all, kind of like how the North star isn't visible from the southern hemisphere of earth.
Are just the stars red? Is there cosmic space dust around them that's also red? Like a Nebula, but also red?
I honestly don't know if the stars are red or if there is space dust around them making them appear to be red. This is a question better asked of Brandon. However, I don't think you can go wrong making the stars red themselves as they appear on the chart, especially since most of the Cosmere views them as red, too.
Do you think you'll ever go outside of the established raunchiness of your books? I don't mean a murder sex party, but you know, straying a bit into the dark and gritty. It's just my opinion but I feel like you play it a little safe. Not necessarily a bad thing though!
I don't think I've crossed the line where I'm personally comfortable doing, but I think I'm close. Usually, I give a few characters (like Wayne) the ability to go further than others, as an acknowledgement that there are good people out there who don't happen to have my same prudish nature.
I think the thing you'll see that is the closest is when (and if) I write the Threnody novel.
For everything else, you'll have to settle for knowing that one of my quirks as a writer is that I do indeed play it a little safe--and probably will always do so. I'm very aware that my children, nieces, and nephews read my books. Beyond that, I feel that I'm an intentional and specific contrast to other writers in the genre--I consider it my duty to prove that (like many of the classic movies) you can write something that is for adults, and has depth, without delving into grittiness.
This is not a disparagement of people like Joe Abercrombie, who I think is an excellent writer, or others like him--and I'm glad we have them in the field. However, my own path goes a different direction, and I think it's important that I also publish, proving to those who perhaps wish to be more circumspect in these areas that there is a place for them in the genre too.
Does that mean that you recognize that the stories that take place on Threnody, a world of your creation, are stories that you are uncomfortable exploring because they are too harsh or intense? If that's the case I find that absolutely fascinating and very impressive- it's almost as if the cosmere is a real place with real people and you're just communicating their stories to us. I personally would rather you never told those stories instead of forcing them to be something that is untrue to what you created them to be.
A writer must be willing to do uncomfortable things; I fully believe that. Stories like Snapshot (my most recent novella) have done this before, and if I write the Threnody novel, I intend to do it well. (But also be very clear to audiences that it's darker than other cosmere books.)
It's not about intensity--I feel other books are intense. Or even about violence or darkness. It's about how far the narrative needs to delve into these things, or the relationship of light and hope to the darkness.
Dalinar's backstory in Stormlight is uncomfortably dark, and I won't pull punches from it. But it's balanced by the man he has become. In Threnody, some of the stories don't have that balance.
Is atium Invested?
Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it--
Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle.
Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness.
The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. Nightblood will too, and some of these things that were built even after the cosmere was coming together.
We have to wrap up, I think, so everyone here is going to kill me if I don't ask you about DMG which acquired the rights to your Cosmere. I wanted to ask how are you feeling about this, do you know at this stage how involved are you going to be? I heard you mentioned that the best adaptations are those that are done by people, just by leaving them do their thing, but I was also asking myself, in regards to this, if you're planning on any other cross-media stories? We have White Sand, we have whatever happened to Mistborn: Birthright. I wanted to ask about that too, because...
So, we'll start with Mistborn: Birthright. Unfortunately, it is dead, sorry. This was a video game we worked on for many years, and it just is not going to happen. As for other cross-media stories, I am very open to doing more. It will depend on how White Sand is received, and whether I can do other video game projects that look like they will work. As for the film, I spent a long time interviewing a lot of different people before we decided to go with DMG. I chose them primarily because I feel they understand the Cosmere, and are willing to approach it as a whole, as opposed to little pieces of something not connected. How much I'll be involved really remains to be seen. They've promised to let me be involved, they gave me a fancy title, we will see once the film's actually in production. I have every reason to believe that they will involve me, and so far they have done so, but I don't want to be the one directing or writing these films, because I am not a director or a screenwriter.
If some of the cosmere books are set in different times in the cosmere, can Hoid time travel?
Not go backwards.
If Investiture can’t be moved beyond a certain point away from its world/solar system, how in the Cosmere did three Awakeners end up on Roshar?
Investiture from different systems acts in different ways. Certain people have managed, for example, to get some kinds of Investiture to leave their home world through the use of a kind of magical pipeline. Breaths attach to the identity of the individual, and are fully given away--freely, which removes some of this Connection. It's a nature of Endowment that the gift is given without strings attached, so to speak. But while it's a renewable resource, it's a difficult one.
Roshar is extra "sticky" so to speak with Investiture. It's part of the nature of Honor, Cultivation, and oaths. So getting it off is a problem, though collecting it is not.
Wouldn't consuming it also be a problem? You need a direct or secondary Bond to take in Stormlight Investiture. It's not like metals or Breaths that anyone could absorb. Although a certain grouchy ardent might have found a way...
You are right in that Stormlight is more being seen as a power source, since certain systems in the cosmere can work on a variety of different kinds. Not just anyone could make use of it, at least not unless it is refined.
Are the Unmade and the spheres that contain them only on Roshar or are they in other planets in the cosmere?
You need to rephrase that question a little bit. Ask me again, remembering there's a big difference between the Rosharan system and the rest of the cosmere. There's three planets in the Rosharan system.
*Gestures* Particularly in these ones.
It's possible that Unmade influence and existence would extend beyond Roshar.
I know that Perfect State is not part of the Cosmere, but if the Wode were to construct a 'Perfect State' for someone like Hoid, would that look like the cosmere?
So a universe with him as the most important character... yes.
Steelheart and The Rithmatist, are they a part of the Cosmere as well?
They are not, yup.
Just someone in line said that Steelheart was Hoid's planet, but I thought that they were not part of it.
They are not part of it. Anything that mentions Earth is something that I didn't want to be in the Cosmere.
As of last week, I am officially the new Vice President of Narrative at Dragonsteel Entertainment, which is Brandon Sanderson's company. Brandon is one of the biggest and most successful fantasy authors in the world, with a vast universe of interconnected worlds and series called the Cosmere; I will be helping to guide the Cosmere, coordinate tie-in projects, write short stories, and co-write novels. This is, in part, a response to our collaboration on DARK ONE, and my first project as VP will be a large revision of that book.
Is there a question about the Stormlight Archives you’ve always wanted to answer but nobody has asked?
The answer is no, because everyone is so good at asking them. They ran out of those question 10 years ago. [Talks about the development of the Cosmere and Hoid. Talks about the development of Timewasters Guide and when people started to figure out the Cosmere stuff].
Hoid refers to himself as a “renowned interdimensional storyteller”. Does this word “interdimensional” refer to traveling between the Physical and Cognitive Realms, or does it mean something more?
Nope, that's what it means. Well, and Spiritual on occasions. He is not referencing moving through time, and there is no multiverse in the Cosmere. Good to ask that so I can reinforce it. No time travel to the past. No multiverse. These are two of my big nonos in the Cosmere
So, of course we need to ask you to start about something which is important, which is the sale to DMG of the rights for the Cosmere. Now it's not just, I mean, it's the champion's lake that we're talking about, right? You're at the same level as many very important authors, and the rights will be sold to the cinema, TV, and so on, so forth, the Cosmere books, which can be about thirty. My question is, are you excited about that? Are you scared, or both? Because you know that when dreams come true, sometimes it's not as nice as it seems. So, the question is, now that you have made your dream come true, will you think that you were better when you were writing and having that dream, or is it okay now?
A writer I once read got asked what he thought of the bad movie that got made from his book. Actually, the phrasing of the question is, "What do you think of what they did to your book?" And I have always remembered his response, which was, "My book is the same. It's right there. They did nothing to my book; they made a bad movie." My dream is not to make movies, my dream is to write books, and I am living that dream right now. Now, the chance of having a good movie come out is exciting to me. I wouldn't have sold the rights if I didn't want to take that chance, and hopefully we'll get some great movies and great television shows, but if we don't, I still am writing books, and my books are what I started this to do. I am going into this with my eyes wide open. I have had some good friends who had some terrible movies made of their films and I have talked to them about their experience, and I am willing to risk that happening. You can't get a Game of Thrones if you don't risk an Eragon.
Are there cats anywhere in the cosmere?
Yes there are cats in the cosmere. There are lions in Mistborn, and have been mentioned numerous times, so you can assume, extrapolation, that there are also cats in the worlds somewhere. Scadrial, the Mistborn world... is my Earth analogue. When I was designing I'm like, I'm gonna design this one in such a way that I can-- because I knew I was going to be doing 1900's fiction, and 1980's fiction, I wanted it to have some sort of parallel societal evolution and so I put in a lot of parallel cultural things, and things like that. So you can make an assumption that, unless I say otherwise, on Scadrial they have basic Earth ecology, particularly now after events that I can't talk about because they're spoilers.
Can dragons only be born through biological means? Or can someone become dragons through another means?
The way dragons exist in the cosmere is that they are a race. Dragons have this thing where they actually... in the cosmere, dragons breed in their human form (they have both forms) and give birth in their human form. And the dragon form is separate. They raise families and have children as humans, and they consider both an equal form, to them.
Does firemoss use have an effect on Shadesmar?
You could tell, if you were really good... This is going to be, as we move forward, a talent in the cosmere, to kind of be able to look and basically read souls from Shadesmar and tell things about them. It would not be-- what was Robert Jordan's phrase-- "intuitively obvious to the casual observer" that this is a person that has suffered the effects of firemoss from the other side. However, like a lot of things in the cosmere, the more skilled you are at your particular version of arcanum, the more likely you are able to do things like this, and you could tell.
Will we see the Frugal Wizard as a novel that can be read by characters in the Cosmere?
No. Good question, this is not an in-Cosmere novel.
Is anything magical going on with the screams Szeth hears?
Uhhh, Szeth's screams. Uhhm, I'm trying to decide how to answer this. It is not, see here's the thing. What we would call magical may not be considered magical in the Cosmere, but it depends on your definition of magic. Would Szeth if he were on our planet and have done those things would he hear those screams, probably not, but would someone else in the Cosmere who had gone through what he had gone through hear those screams, yes.
So it has to do with the spiritual realm?
Yea, mhmm, yea.
With Lost Metal in particular, I brought in a whole thing that we haven't written a book on yet. One of the big worries is: I don't want people to ever pick up one of my books (even still) and feel like they have to have read the whole Cosmere to understand it. And with the gloves off, I still maintain that. I still maintain that if you're gonna read the Wax and Wayne series, you should be able to read and enjoy it without feeling like you're lost because of the Cosmere connections. And I feel like, as a writer, I am skilled enough to say: here is this cool thing that a person is doing, they're from another planet. And introduce it as if it's brand new in a way that's both not boring but also not confusing, and just let it happen in the book. And that's what's happening in Tress with some of the things.
The aethers are not from her planet; they are somewhere else. And dragon's not from her planet. Some of the stuff that's happening relating to Elantris, not from her planet. But I feel like it works in the context of the story, and it doesn't feel confusing. You don't feel like you're left out. Hopefully. My goal is that, when you read those other books, you're like "oh, that's where this came from," rather than reading this book and feeling lost.
Can people from one area of the cosmere Return to the place in the cosmere where Awakeners are from?
Meaning, can they travel to Nalthis, where Warbreaker takes place? Yes, they can.
Is there a canonical reason why Vasher and Vivenna changed their names to Zahel and Azure on Roshar?
Yes, it kind of comes into the fact that Vasher has gone through a bunch of name changes and there are a couple of answers to this. One is, in the Cosmere, like in a lot of like fantasy worlds, names and identity are just a pretty big deal, part of how the magic works is how you view yourself, and I like, in that instance, indicating that time has passed and the character has adopted a new name and things like this, it's just that's a thing.
You've also probably noticed that behind the scenes in the Cosmere there are lots of different groups vying for control and power and things like this, and so going under a pseudonym's actually a pretty good idea. I guess an alias, they're not writing books, it's not pseudonyms, you know what I mean, going under an alias's generally a pretty good idea for just if you don't want attention from the wrong people.
That said, I do have to balance this because, for instance, in Azure's case, you know, I picked something that Vivenna had, you know, blue had been associated with her in the previous book, so it's not a completely, that's partially for the reader's benefit, so it's easier for you to track who is who, just a little bit, and just a little bit easier to figure out who is who.
But if run into someone like Felt, right? Felt doesn't care. He's not hiding from anybody. Felt is, you know, he's more like "I moved from Nebraska to Texas," right? "And now I'm living in Texas." That's more how he views it a little bit. He's not a secret agent (ooh, big spoilers). Felt just, you know, he moved, so he goes by the same name. And that's, you'll see some of that as well. If someone's going by an alias, I'm doing it to indicate one of those two things, usually.
Now, you're talking about possibly (no promises being made) a revision and an actual release of White Sand. Is that something you would ever consider doing with Dragonsteel Prime or Aether of Night?
No. Main reasons being that they're too far out of continuity. I haven't been considering them in continuity. Like, Aether of Night, they fight Midnight Essence; shows up in Stormlight, shows up in Tress of the Emerald Sea. And we delve into the first appearances of a Shard of Adonalsium, but that Shard's no longer canon. And the worldbuilding of Aether of Night is totally canon; aethers have been showing up since late 2000s in my books. But Aether of Night, there's nothing about that book, of the actual plot and characters, there's nothing about that that is appealing to me or interesting to me. Hopefully, I will eventually write a book set on the aether planet, where the Aethers come from, which is where Aether of Night was. But that planet's completely different, and the story'll be completely different. Those characters aren't relevant to me.
Dragonsteel, I consider lightly canon to the Cosmere in that the events of Dragonsteel happen, mostly, but the worldbuilding's been refined so much that eventually I will write the book that will be called Dragonsteel (or maybe the series), but it'll now be Hoid's story, rather than Jerick's story. And it'll be a completely different type of story. Though little bits of it will be recognizable.
White Sand's the one that's still canon; I've been considering it canon all along. There's no events in White Sand that disrupt that. The characters are still really interesting to me. Khriss has shown up all over the Cosmere, and she's a main character in it. Baon's shown up in Stormlight twice, now (as of the little reading I did recently), so I wanna get a real good canon prose version of White Sand out there for those who don't want the graphic novel, so that it can be in the line. The big question I have, though, is: will I sit down to write it and be like, "I need to start on page one and just do this over?" Or will I be able to revise it and release it?
So, what's up with Canticle? You've got the sunlight, it appears to be Invested and then the planet's core is trying to suck it up. And you know, where does it go after it does that, and...
Yeah, Canticle was built for a very specific purpose by a very powerful being in the Cosmere, that I will someday get to. You're going to see some more stuff like this. Basically, megastructures that imitate planets or other sort of heavenly bodies.
So it's not like some avatar of Autonomy or something like that?
It's not an avatar of anything, it was built for a specific purpose, yes.
Just wait til I get to the Grand Apparatus, you're gonna love that. What was that voice that talked about a future Cosmere planet? Hmm!
In the Arcanum Unbounded, it says that a Rosharan foot is longer than cosmere standard. How does that compare to an Earth foot?
Longer. Kaladin is almost seven feet tall, by our measurements. We've got a height comparison, Shallan is about six feet tall. She thinks she's short. Compared to us, she'd be on the taller end. That's why if you notice people from around the cosmere that show up, they're often mentioned as short. Not Hoid, who's able to use magical means to change how he's perceived, but someone like Felt, and stuff like that.
In reading about Adonalsium and Odium, I get the sense that it's more related to lerasium and atium than it is to, like, Preservation or Ruin. Because, sometimes it seems like we're identifying... Odium and Adonalsium as beings instead of, like, the body of--
Yeah, it is a little confusing by design. The question is, like, telling the difference between the Vessel who is holding the power, the intent of that power, and the physical manifestations of that power as Investiture or as whatever, these things are confusing. And I did this on purpose. I like that blurring between them. One of the things I did when I was designing the magic for the cosmere, was-- you guys know this very easily from looking at the books, I love the ideas of quantum theory, string theory, all this stuff. And even, just looking at quantum mechanics as we understand them right now. And the further you get into the details, the more the rules that you built, everything you understand upon, become blurry. And we live in this world where certain scientific principles, like-- I was sitting at a writing group, talking to my friend who's a mathematician, and I'm like, "I really like math 'cause it is objective. One plus one equals two." And he's like, "Well, the further you get in math, the less that actually is true, and the more 'One plus one equals two' is a philosophical statement, not an actual objective truth." And we talked about the nature of, the further you dig into things--
So, I tried to build the cosmere magic-- For instance, how the Bands of Mourning work. We are getting away from Step 1, which is, "Metals push or pull." We can get that. Into Step 2, where we are building complex machines out of the interactions between the magic. And we will then get to Step 3, where it's like, we can explain the principles, but you need to be a computer engineer to understand exactly how the computer is working. And I wanted to be able to build to get to that point. With the philosophy of, "What is the power, what is the individual, what is the intent," and things like that, we're kind of going that direction, in a philosophical direction. What does it mean? What are the answers?
Humans like things to be divided and put in boxes, but in nature, these boxes are usually arbitrary, of our distinction. So, I like that aspect of our interaction with the real world. So, the answer to your question is, this is not a question for me, this is a question for philosophers. Where does the intent stop, and the being begin? And what does it mean to have a body? Is the body of the original person that has taken up the Shard, the Vessel, when that drops out when they die, is that their real body? Or is that just the power pushing out something that it absorbed and recreating it, and dropping a copy of it? What is that? What's going on there? What's it mean? How much can a Vessel influence their intent? This is all a question for philosophers, that I'm going to explore in the books, but it's not the sort of thing that you're like--
Does one plus one equal two? The answer is, one plus one equals two according to this proof that we believe explains the universe, but is a little fuzzier than you think it is.
I am space nerd with a love of fantasy, so; Why is Scadrial prime example planet to invent space travel. Is its allomancy/ferruchemy/hemalurgy combination more suitable for that kind of technology or do they have other incentives to invent space travel other than regular technology development? Is it related to the intervention of unknown metal/shard/beings we saw?
There are a bunch of reasons.
The most technologically advanced of the planets (Taldain) is extremely isolationist because of its Shard, while Harmony is very interested in the progress of his people.
Scadrial has an advanced understanding of metallurgy, and for many years was quietly open to visitors from across the cosmere. In the modern era, that has enhanced. It's a much safer place to visit than, say, Sel, Threnody, or First of the Sun.
There are other reasons, too, which we'll get into as the world progresses. Having some prominent cosmere-aware people pulling strings behind the scenes is a big help. If you know other worlds are out there, and are populated, then you're more likely to push toward space travel.
Your magic systems are very structured, and specific rules that dominate them. But are there any universal laws that apply to all of the magic systems in the cosmere together?
Yes, there's several of them. Basically, the most important one and relevant to people who enjoy real physics is that I consider something called Investiture to be a third state of matter and energy. So, instead of e=mc^2, we have a third thing, Investiture, in there. And you can change Investiture to matter or to energy. And so, because of that, that law that you can do this, is where we see a lot of the cosmere magics living.
We also have a kind of rule that beings all exist, everything exists on three different levels. The Physical, the Spiritual, and the Cognitive. And, like we have DNA for our Physical self, we also have Mental DNA and Spiritual DNA, and all three influence one another. For instance, you couldn't test an Allomancer's blood and find the Allomancy gene, because it is in a different set of their DNA. You just have three sets. You could compose a test that could test it on the Spiritual Realm, but you're gonna have to use a different branch of physics to do that and determine who was an Allomancer. And so they all work on this kind of fundamental rules of: your Identity, your Connection, and being part of your soul, and the magics working through those things.
So there's some fundamental rules about this, about changing forms from energy to matter, and you having this Identity, Investiture, and Connection stored in your Spiritual DNA that are really relevant to everything.
Szeth says in the first Stormlight book that he can't heal from a Shardblade--
He can't.
So when he got cut he couldn't heal that...
No. Not with his powers.
Not from an Honorblade.
Not from an Honorblade.
The new book, Skyward. Is that a Cosmere--
It is not a Cosmere. I need to reference Earth in it for it to work the way I want it to, most likely.
In The Stormlight Archive there are characters with names that are different from characters they are in the other Cosmere books, and I'm wondering if there is either a place that has a "this is this person" or if there are like clues that we could watch for.
People have different names, they're using aliases in various parts of the Cosmere and things like this. The only thing I can point you toward are the fan wikis and fan forums which you probably already know about, the 17th Shard being the biggest of those. I am not revealing who the people are, but theories are on those websites and I have confirmed a few of them.
Dragons are often depicted as much more intelligent and/or powerful than humans. Are dragons in the Cosmere better equipped to handle the power or psychological influence of becoming the Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium?
I would say that... RAFO. That's not where I thought you were going to go with that, so I was planning to answer a different question. The one that you asked I will say RAFO to.
Do you want to tell the chat what question you thought they were going to ask?
They are better suited toward long lifespans, which makes them... But I would not say that a dragon in the Cosmere is born more wise than a human.
Is this new book in the cosmere, or is it just a shoot-off?
Which one, Skyward? Skyward is not cosmere.
If you had to have another author finish your work, who would you pick?
Historically, I've said Brian McLellan. He never gave his consent to this. But Brian and I write very similarly, he's a great writer, he's a good friend. That said, if we get Dan really steeped in the Cosmere and he starts writing books that have the right feel... Like, we're not sure how much his books will be Dan books and how much will be Brandon books. We do want them to feel like Dan books, but it's possible that Dan or Isaac might be the right answer as we get further along in the Cosmere.
If you draw a line of forbiddance on a piece of on a chalkboard that’s sitting on the ground and then hit that chalkboard, will the chalkboard move?
This is the number one question I get, actually. The answer is, it depends on the size of the line and the amount of power that’s been put into it. This is actually relating back to Cosmere physics. If you look at the Cosmere physics, you can see exactly what happens with the speed bubbles, it’s the same sort of principle. It’s based on perception. So putting a movable line, oftentimes you will just have trouble engaging the magic on something that’s not stable enough to be viewed as stable. Drawing it on a chalkboard and then turning it toward somebody actually wouldn’t work, because you wouldn’t be able to engage that line very easily with the way the magic works. And if you did, it would disrupt the line, and it would be gone. Treat whatever I do with speed bubbles as the rule for Rithmatist magic, until I write the second book. If I decide to take it in it’s own direction, I will let you guys know.
