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Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
#6102 Copy

Questioner

What was your inspiration for Steelheart's weakness...

Brandon Sanderson

Without spoiling Steelheart, the inspiration for the weakness was a direct outgrowth of who I saw him as a character before he gained powers. Kind of the bully sort of person given a little bit of power, exercises all kinds of terrible, just really mean to people with just a small amount of power. That character was really fascinating to me, the person who really doesn't have any authority, but still what little bit you give them they misuse. And I grew out of that, that idea. So, I kind of wanted to connect--slight spoilers for the series--but I kind of wanted the weaknesses to connect to the personalities of the characters in interesting ways, so it was a natural outgrowth there.

Shire Post Mint Mistborn Coin AMA ()
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Oudeis

Huh. I had always assumed the glyphs were more like the syllables in Japanese, where the symbols don't contain any of the phoneme information, directly.

Isaac Stewart

You are mostly correct. The glyphs are meant to be recognized rather than read. However, some phonemes do show up in some of the glyphs.

Oudeis

Kaladin just picked up a listener knife and noticed glyphs on it he didn't recognize.

Now, he can read glyphs, but he's not much of a scholar.

Are these glyphs even in the same linguistic family? Is Kaladin fluent enough with glyphs that he'd recognize if they were, to use an analogy, Korean symbols instead of Japanese symbols?

Isaac Stewart

The shape of the glyph matters more than the phonemes that make up the glyph. Over time, glyphs morph toward what's easier to write as people who know nothing of the internal phonemes take shortcuts, etc, so a hypothetical Kaladin who can suddenly read the phonemes inside glyphs would only be able to decipher the newer ones that haven't had a chance to morph over time. So, hypothetically speaking, Kaladin would be able to recognize glyphs no matter the symbols that make them up. The arrow-looking glyph from the forehead tattoos is also found in the Bridge 4 glyphpair. Both glyphs mean "bridge" even though the internal pieces of each are quite different. It's like us being able to recognize the letter R whether it's in Times New Roman font or in a wildly different font like Desire (https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/charlesborges/desire/). Hope this helps!

Oudeis

It does, yes! I figured it wasn't the phoneme meta-data.

Basically my question was, Kaladin looks at the glyphs on the listener daggers, whose providence we still don't really know, and seems to assume that although he doesn't know these specific ones, they are "glyphs" as he knows them. I don't speak too many European languages, but if I saw a series of words I suspect I'd have reasonable success sorting out which ones are Polish and which ones are not, just from knowing which letters tend to be common and what patterns tend to be prevalent.

So my question was simply... is Kaladin fluent enough that we can assume he's right, these symbols actually are glyphs in the manner he knows them, just ones he doesn't recognize? (Or the equivalent of very odd spellings?)

Or is he simply making an assumption; he knows what a glyph is, so if he sees something similar he just assumes it's a glyph, when it isn't anything close? We see the Alethi, even the bridgemen, do that a lot to the listeners, just being ethnocentric, judging the listeners by Alethi standards, assuming that Alethi culture is the basic standard and everyone else is a deviation from that.

Anyway, thank you for the answer!

Isaac Stewart

Sorry that I misunderstood your question. Now I see that you're referring to a specific spot in The Way of Kings. I just re-read the section you mentioned to re-familiarize myself with it. The glyphs he sees on the knife look different enough from the ones he knows to make him question their origin. It's not clear enough to me from the text to say definitively that the knife is of Alethi or Listener origin or from somewhere else altogether. (I suspect, though, that the knife is not Alethi in origin.) Kaladin is likely making an assumption--as you mention--that what he sees are glyphs. In the very least, they're symbols of some sort. Whether glyphs or letters in an unknown alphabet is up for speculation.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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mooglefrooglian

Why is it that Returned need to consume Investiture to stay alive? Most other Invested beings (like spren, Seons, and the like) don't seem to have a similar requirement.

Brandon Sanderson

There's a distinction between a being who is made of Investiture come alive and one who has been overstuffed with it. The Returned are fairly unique.

mooglefrooglian

So, would a non-Returned who received enough Breath to overstuff them also need to start feeding on Investiture to live? Or would they be destroyed like Vin before that point?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to RAFO this, as I feel I should leave the details of the nature of the Returned for discussion in future books.

Worldbuilders AMA ()
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sheesania

You've said before that Kelsier hung around in the Cognitive Realm after dying and continued to interfere with events going on in Scadrial - talking to Spook, using Preservation's power, etc. You've even implied that Kelsier is STILL hanging around and meddling in the Wax & Wayne era. So my question is - did he CHOOSE to stay in the Cognitive Realm instead of passing on? Or is something forcing him to stay there? 

Brandon Sanderson

This will be revealed before too much longer. I've been keeping it under my hat for a long time.

Oathbringer London signing ()
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Questioner

For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed?

Brandon Sanderson

The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that.

Questioner

What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity...

Brandon Sanderson

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Tor Instagram Livestream ()
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Questioner

Is Wax a Cognitive Shadow, or did he really heal and come back?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax is not a Cognitive Shadow, good question. Wax did not every fully leave... the soul didn't leave the body. He didn't die, in other words. I should say that he didn't die and leave behind an imprint as a Cognitive Shadow. He could have been Invested in that moment enough to make one, so it's a good question; but he did not.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Sylos

I was happy when Elend finally burned duralumin with atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a duralumin-enhanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future? If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife? Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike?

On a similar note if someone burned electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into their own future?

Brandon Sanderson

There is much here that I can't say, but I'll give as much as I can. Elend saw Preservation's ultimate plan, and Elend's own part in it. What he saw made him realize he didn't want to kill Marsh, and that his own death would actually help save the world. Like a master chess player, he suddenly saw and understand every possible move his enemy could make. He saw that Ruin was check-mated, because there was one thing that Ruin was not willing to do. Something that both Elend and Vin could do, if needed. And it's what they did.

So, in answer to your question, Elend stayed his hand. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind and decided that Marsh had to live through the end of the book. Elend spared him; I needed to too.

Skyward Houston signing ()
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Questioner

Lopen's arm. In Stormlight, you cannot regrow if your brain-- your soul has accepted the change?

Brandon Sanderson

Perception is very important to this, yes.

Questioner

So is he just crazy enough to believe that he still had an arm?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's more like, he never saw himself as being-- he saw himself as the person *inaudible* and not being disabled by what happened to him. It's not craziness, it's just a matter of perception. What you're running into Kaladin with his brands in particular is that he thinks he deserves them.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A ()
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Wrong_Shoe

Do the Sleepless name themselves? Seems like they would since they spawn from "lost" swarms. Would they think of themselves as the original swarm at first? Would this would bring in all the scifi clone identity problems where the clone doesn't own it's identity?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO for now. I'll get into their society some other time.

General Reddit 2021 ()
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Mojonero

In Era 1 there was an imbalance between Ruin and Preservation because humans had a bit more Preservation than Ruin in them. After Harmony became a thing did this imbalance become [ir]relevant because both powers turned into one, or is it something Sazed had (or has) to deal with?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a RAFO for now--should come up in Era 3.

Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
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Kritika

I'm blown away by all the different types of people you portray in The Stormlight Archive (different cultures, social classes, genders, varying levels of...morality). What kinds of things help you create such diverse casts of characters? I'm imagining that you have a secret encyclopedia somewhere that helps you keep all your cultures and customs straight!

Brandon Sanderson

I do, actually, have a secret encyclopedia. It's a wiki on my computer, filled with information. That helps me keep things straight. However, specific inspirations are often in the people I meet. I do spend a fair amount of time looking through the internet for blogs/forums populated by people who think very differently from myself. This helps me create realistic portrayals.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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SydneySedai

Say an awakener wanted to cheat in a card game and strolled in with an awakened hat, which is promply placed on a hat rack behind their opponent.

Assuming the awakener knows the rules of the game, would a command like "be as my eyes and signal when I should fold" let the hat tip someone off, or would they need a more general command like "be as my eyes and signal a flush"?

Brandon Sanderson

This is hard because the skill of the Awakener is a factor, as are other elements that aren't entirely understood. For sake of discussion, I'd say the second one is a whole lot more reasonable.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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WeiryWriter

What are your current plans with regards to the Jasnah novella you wrote last summer?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah Novella is for my eyes only, unfortunately. It was needed so I could work out mechanics of what was happening, but I don't like releasing it for various reasons.

Footnote: The following scene is from the novella in question: https://www.tor.com/2014/08/06/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/
#jasnah
Sources: Reddit
Steelheart Chicago signing ()
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Argent (paraphrased)

Do the Spiritual and Physical Realms have names, like Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Kind of, but not really. Shadesmar is just a rough translation of "Cognitive Realm" in the language of whoever first found out about it. Other people, planets, and worlds wouldn't call it Shadesmar - they would call it whatever their words for "Cognitive Realm" are. This applies to the Physical and Spiritual as well.

The Dusty Wheel Show ()
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Matt

You'd talked in your last spoiler chat about this, which was that you had kind of gone back and forth with this idea to have [Taravangian] become Odium and basically this idea of Odium was no longer the threat that he should be or was at the time. Is this something that once you made that decision did you have to go redraw the future plotlines and such?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because the future was drawn both ways in my head and it was which path am I going down, if that makes sense. And yeah that'll have implications when I do the detailed outlines for future books, like the detailed outline for book 5. But this has already been in the works right, and so every outline is in bad shape by the time I get to it, every outline from the beginning, right? Because things just need to change, every book big things need to change. And every book you have dividing points, where you're like, am I going to do this, am I going to do this? I talked about in the last stream also, am I going to bring Kelsier back or not? That's a branching point that changes a lot about the future of the narrative. Which of the two paths am I going to walk? So this is something that I'm just very used to in storytelling.

There were some of those in The Wheel of Time. They weren't necessarily the same way. I won't give specifics because we're not spoiling, but there were things where I'm like, I think we'll do this, and then I got to the third one and I'm like, no we can't do that, we gotta rebuild this part from scratch because it just no longer works.

Oathbringer London signing ()
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SPOILER_unknown.png

yurisses

Can you tell us a little bit about what Hoid was up to in Terris in The Well of Ascension?

Brandon Sanderson

He was hunting for the Well of Ascension.

yurisses

In the new continuity, he already knew where the Well was, because he used it to come back to--

Brandon Sanderson

Right, we changed the continuity, didn't we. Yeah. Oh boy. We came up with an explanation of this, because when we wrote the book-- Yeah, why don't you send me an email on that one. Now that I have the conversation with Peter, he brought that one up when I finally got around to Secret History. That was one of our big casualties. What did I come up with? I think he was just really, really-- I will have to-- because I canonzied it to Peter. We're gonna have to go to Peter and say "What's in the wiki now?" Yeah, that was one of the big casualties, and the fact that I couldn't get Kelsier to one of the places where I had left foreshadowing for him to speak in someone's head, and I can't remember what that one was, either.

yurisses

Oh, that one was Sazed, you said it was his imagination.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I had to make that his imagination. Because I just couldn't get people where they needed to go. This is the problem with writing an outline, then writing a book, and then writing another book so many years later. Certain things, we just can't work into the continuity. Write us an email, we'll get you the official continuity for that one. Because Peter did nail me down when we were working on the book.

Peter Ahlstrom

After Hoid got the bead during the scene in Secret History, he went north to Terris to do research on possibly acquiring Feruchemy. While he’s there, all hell breaks loose, and he ends up embroiled in helping the Terris people.

Ben McSweeney AMA ()
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Phantine

Have you seen the Deep Forger?

https://twitter.com/DeepForger

It seems like once the processing time comes down a bit, it'll be a pretty powerful tool for doing concept art and rough outlines, but I'm not really into the illustrating business. What are your thoughts on it?

Ben McSweeney

It's pretty neat, but it's worth noting that what Deep Forger does is create an approximation based on certain distinct styles of painting, and then applies that effect to a photograph. It's not doing anything particularly creative, it can't produce a Monet or a Picasso from scratch, without input. And from looking at the samples, it seems that most of the time the photographic source origins are still pretty clear. Sorta the same way rotoscoping rarely fools anyone into thinking it's hand-keyed animation.

That being said, I'm often impressed by what I see people doing with Zbrush and other 3D sculpting software and then applying the right lighting and render techniques to create some very illustrated results. The trick is that it often takes as long (or longer) to produce content that way as opposed to illustrating it traditionally. The advantage is that you can often do a LOT more with a well-sculpted 3D model, even when it's a static object.

I don't feel that traditional illustration as a craft is particularly at threat, because the real value in an illustrator isn't in the skills their hands produce but in the brains that come up with ideas and new applications and twists, and that's some next-level AI stuff.

Digital painting has totally changed the landscape in which we work, but it hasn't changed the heart of the illustrator... just the tools. As such, we'll always be using the most effective and efficient tools that we can, but the fundamentals that lie beyond tools and techniques haven't changed much.

Phantine

Yeah, I guess my real question is more along the lines of 'does this seem like it'll be a useful tool, and where would that fit in your normal workflow?'

Ben McSweeney

I don't think it'd fit in the workflow of what I do... I could perhaps see some potential for it to serve as a method for creating photobash assets that would more easily merge with a larger painting (like serving as a method for creating backgrounds, if you have the right location or can dress a set), but part of the weakness of something like Deep Forger is that it requires an existing image to manipulate.

A huge part of what I do is visualize and illustrate things that don't exist, and often can't exist in the physical world. I can source reference and I do, pulling ideas from here and there to flesh out the kernel of a concept, but ultimately I don't have anything more than description and design mandates to build from... and that's something a computer can't quite do yet. Someday... maybe.

DragonCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

One of the things that I really like about your writing is that, unlike a lot of fantasy writers, you know when to stop. There are a lot of writers who just keep going and going and going and don't seem to know when to stop. How much of pre-planning do you do for your writing, and when do you know when to kind of put the breaks on it? Like "You know I've got to finish this up, 'cause I don't want this to drag out", like so many authors have done in the past.

Brandon Sanderson

Um, so one advantage that I have-- And I've found that I'm more rare in this, I though I would be the normal but-- I am a heavy outliner, and usually what you find with outliners, as writers, is that they write good endings, but they have trouble with character. Usually what we call a discovery writers who just kinda find their way through the book as they go  have these really lively characters and then their endings just kind of whatever. And there are great discovery writers who have great endings, and there are plenty of outline writers who have great characters, you just have to learn to shore up what-- your weakness, learn your writing style.

And for me that is-- My early books, the ones that weren't published, where the weakness was those characters. And I was really worried about it, and so I spent five years being like "How do I make the characters work", and I can only do this kind of hybrid method where I took my friends that I knew write really great characters and I tried the methods they used, and so I kind of discovery-write characters and outline my plot and then if the characters grow into someone the plot wouldn't work for, I either take that character out and put a new one in and grow someone else in that place or I re-build the plot to match them. So right now I have this floating outline that changes as I'm going.

But I like good endings. And I feel like good endings are something that a lot of-- Hollywood skimps on them, and a lot of books just don't quite bring it together. And so it's something very important to me, that I don't start my book until I know what the ending I'm pointing toward is. And that also gives when I'm done, when I've got that ending and I'm pointed at it, when I finish it, I can then be done. I always feel that a piece of art that's continuous, like writing your getting a serialized work, it needs to finish at some point to actually be a piece of art. And that's why, you know, Mistborn trilogy, the publisher hates that I ended the Mistborn trilogy and said "I'm done". He said "Yes, but you've just hit the bestseller list, like hop on the bestsellers", and like "Yep. I'm done, though. That is a piece of art. It's finished." *applause* And it's not, you know--

One of the things I knew I was going to do this in my life and I think the publishers were okay with it because one of the things I did very early on in my career was, you know, start with convincing--Hopefully I've convinced you all--readers that what they're following is kind of Brandon Sanderson Book Brand rather than latching on to a series. A lot of authors have this trouble with people kind of latching on to the series and not the author, and then they feel tied to the series. And I never wanted to do that, cause like you said, I think there are plenty of series that have gone for a very long time and their authors always loved it. But I've also read series where it feels like the author feels chained to the series, and he only writes one of these when they actually need a paycheck or something like that, and I never wanted to be there. And so very early I'm like "I'm not writing the sequel to Elantris immediately, I may never--" I probably will, but I told people that it's a standalone book, it's just there, and if I write a sequel, it will be about different characters, cause that story's done. Mistborn trilogy, yes, I might come back to the world, but the story of these characters is done. And training people to, like, "Alright, I like what Brandon does, I'll trust him that the next thing will be good too" And hopefully that works, but even if it doesn't, I'm still gonna do what I do. I would rather be the person who writes a lot of different things even if that means I have a smaller audience, because I really like jumping projects, it keeps me fresh.

State of the Sanderson 2016 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Main Projects

The Stormlight Archive

Book Three is done! Edgedancer is out!

I'll be spending about four months of 2017 doing revisions on Oathbringer, then will have a tour in the fall. (Might manage to get to the UK on that one too.) Things are looking good for Stormlight and Roshar, and not just because we are working on a film. I'm excited for you to read the next installment.

I'm officially adding "Oathbringer (Stormlight 3) third draft" to the progress bar, now that I'm almost done with the second draft. (Most of which was completed during writing the first draft, as I explained above.)

Book Four will probably not be released until 2020—I'll start managing those expectations now, rather than trying to promise 2019 like I thought I might be able to do, once upon a time.

As I always promise, I'll see if I can speed that up. But if you take the year it took to outline Book Three and add eighteen months to actually write it, we're already at 2.5 years—not counting other projects I want to do.

Status: Book Three in revisions, out in 2017.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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lightylantern

I'm fairly invested in the pairings of The Stormlight Archive, with my favourite being Jasnah/Szeth. Do either of these two have any romance planned in their future?

Brandon Sanderson

I am purposefully vague about upcoming romantic pairings in my books, because most of the characters would not want to be defined by their romantic inclinations--and at the top of that list is Jasnah. So I'll remain quiet on this one for now. Sorry.

General Reddit 2017 ()
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namer98

I just finished the audiobook this morning, and in the setting are rules about how to not provoke shades of the dead. The rules are in order of least to most severe:

  • Don't run
  • Don't kindle a flame
  • Don't draw blood

The post script talks about how these rules were based on shabbos as presented in the Torah. It was just interesting to see a non-Jewish author (In this case, Mormon) base something off of Judaism.

Brandon Sanderson

:) Thanks for the thread.

The Double Eye from the Stormlight books (inside front cover illustration of the magic in the hardcover of book one) has some roots in the Tree of Life also, and if you look at Alethi, you'll find some Hebrew poking through now and then.

namer98

I read all of your books as audio books because they are all so well narrated, especially the Wax and Wayne series.

I will have to keep a better ear out for the Alethi.

Brandon Sanderson

It can be easy to miss, as I play with it a little first, fitting it to Alethi. But Moash came from Moshe, for example.

MuslinBagger

Is that a hint of things to come? Is Moash like Moses or something? He is, isn't he?

Brandon Sanderson

Sorry. It doesn't mean anything other than "My editor is named Moshe, and I've always liked how the name sounds."

PM_ME_LEGAL_PAPERS

Speaking of which, there's a Lighteyes named Yonatan (a very Jewish name) that Wit insults in...I think it was Way of Kings. Is that based off of someone you know as well?

Brandon Sanderson

That is indeed. (Look again at what he's wearing.)

That's based off of my editor's nephew, who was included as a wedding gift.

State of the Sanderson 2017 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

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!

Shardcast Interview ()
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Weiry Writer

Kelsier and Thaidakar. At what point did you decide Kelsier would be part of The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Thaidakar isn't; his minions are! Pretty early on, there's a whole lot of Kelsier in Era 3 and as soon as I decided that when I outlined the original nine books as I was working on the original Mistborn trilogy I knew that there needed to be some more of him influencing the world/universe at large. He is a really fun character to write because he does not fit in boxes very well. He does like meddling. There are a lot of things I want to do with Era 3. 

One of my big concerns when I was building the outline with Kelsier, when I was building the outline for all 9 books before I added the Wax and Wayne books, back in 2004 when I was doing a lot of the big outlining for the cosmere - Emily's got to dig out that paper I once wrote out for her - I guess that would have been 2004 to 2006, because I got married in 2006, and it was 2007 where I drew that thing out for her. No actually it was summer 2006, because I didn't have my laptop with me which I wasn't allowed at the family reunion, so I instead had a notebook, because if I'm not allowed my laptop, I will have a notebook, and that's why we have a physical copy of this thing.

But when I was doing all that one of my big concerns was how to make sure people kept interested in Mistborn while I was potentially spending years and years away from it, at that point in the outline I was going to write Dragonsteel before Stormlight. And I started trying to do that in 2007, either way we're talking 5 to 10 years away from Mistborn at that point. How can I make sure that this stuff-? So I outlined Secret History that I could release in the meantime, and a potential Secret History follow-up. That I've mentioned before that I don't know if I'll ever write. It wasn't until 2010-2011, that I was like "why don't I write some short stories in this world to keep people focused on it?" And I tried one and it was bad, and I'm like "what if I just wrote a little novel?" I can do a little novel, right? And that's where Alloy of Law came from.

Technically speaking these are all solutions to the same problem, which is people can't forget about Scadrial it's really important. They can forget to an extent about Sel; it's still important, but it's not important on the level that Scadrial is gonna be. Scadrial has so many fingers in the technology of the future. So this was another method to make sure we had some Scadrian influence happening while I was in other worlds. Turns out we ended up getting ALL of them, we got Secret History, and The Alloy of Law, and the little fingers in The Stormlight Archive. But it was important to me that the fingers in The Stormlight Archive be through the frame of reference of The Stormlight Archive. 

Chaos

I definitely think Shallan learning about cosmere stuff is a good intro for Stormlight-only readers to get interested in the cosmere, kind of like Mistborn: Secret History is for Mistborn-only readers.

Brandon Sanderson

In Roshar if you learn, "Hey, there's more planets out there," and they see Roshar as something with a very valuable resource. That's enough of an intro to the cosmere to make it work in Roshar, and to make you prep for the future. That's why I did it the way I did. And also knowing people were more okay with this. But also I needed to get it in, I almost should have done it earlier. I saw people guessing that one by Words of Radiance. But by the time I was releasing Words of Radiance I was seeing fan theories that were like, "What if this."

Chaos

So like throwing darts on a dart board. "Ah, like this person's this other person."

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it might be that. The whole philosophy of the Ghostbloods was suppose to dove-tail with Survivorism. Survival of the fittest type stuff very much. I'm hoping from the things they've read in that they were able to connect the philosophies rather than throwing darts at a dart board, but it could have been the dart board thing.

FeatherWriter

It's funny because we already recorded the Kelsier podcast, but it's gonna come out after this one. You've put me in a very weird situation, because loved the Ghostbloods. I guess I still love the Ghostbloods, I have a terrible villain crush on Mraize, he's one of my favorite characters and Kelsier drives me crazy. So finding out they are intrinsically linked I'm like "Noo! Kelsier is ruining my favorite thing." But it does make sense I have to admit.

Brandon Sanderson

It's okay. Mraize does not have to do what he's told, and Iyatil who - that's the other thing once I dropped Oathbringer, and this is a southern continent Scadrian running around, this is pretty obvious connection to Scadrial. I had to eventually canonize that. Iyatil is - 

Don't consider people in the Ghostbloods flunkies. That's not a very Ghostblood-ish philosophy.

Chaos

I guess that makes sense, they're all trying to backstab each other. Well no I guess not.

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not allowed to backstab each other. [too many people talking at once] [Ghostbloods have]? specific rules, because they need them to be very strong specific rules. If you have an organization of people who are drawn to the way Kelsier works you need some really strong rules. [Hosts laugh] When he is just with his crew, his force of personality, and the people he individually picks you're not gonna have that problem. 

I always imagine-you can relate it to Tor Books, they're all assassins. When Tor really functioned well, back in the 90s, it's because Tom Doherty could keep a close eye on everything. And he liked his editors being a little bit in competition with each other. And he structured his organization so that if you picked an author who did well, you got bonuses, based on how well the authors did which is just a way of working that could really lead to an unhealthy office environment, if you think about it. But if you have Tom there making sure that that doesn't become the case, and if you have Harriet watching and making it a good incentive, not a bad incentive, then it all works really well and you have one of the strongest sci-fi publishers that's ever existed, because everybody was incentivised to find really good stuff. But they were corralled by Tom Doherty and kept it from becoming toxic. But now that Tom retired I think they're changing a lot of that, because its grown too big for one person to watch over.

And it's the same thing with Kelsier, in an immediate organization of Kelsier's you're gonna find a well bonded crew of people hand picked who are going to work together as a team, and you aren't going to have to worry about too much about backstabbing - less than average for the type of organization that they are. But if his structure is outside of his direct manipulation, the type of people who would be attracted to the organization he makes...

Chaos

...Are not gonna be nice.

Brandon Sanderson

...You're gonna have some problems. Mraize would not say that he's not nice. [hosts laughs] Mraize would just say that his niceness is an analogous threshold that does not intersect with the threshold of competence and capability of things he's trying to achieve, those things don't need to overlap in his life.

He'd say he's a very nice person. He was very nice to Shallan by his definition. [hosts laugh] He was very nice to Lift by his definition of things. Think of all the things he could have done with Lift, and what did he do? He gave her as a present to an ancient being who ruled the tower, who could properly take care of one such as Lift.

Chaos

Mraize is very nice.

FeatherWriter

You heard it here, it's canon. Mraize is nice.

Brandon Sanderson

Mraize is nice, and he also wanted to keep his fingers and he felt that was a better way to keep his fingers, was to make sure Lift was someone else's problem. He got what he wanted, which was being able to capture her, which was not that easy, he would say. So he deserves to have whatever reward, because it was quite a difficult enterprise on his part. She is not easy to capture.

You know those Scadrians gotta keep an eye on things, they like to meddle.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 ()
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Ben Puffer

For the Steelheart series, do you feel like the main protagonist is on the spectrum? Because when I read it I identify the most with him, and only realizing now that I am on the spectrum, I realize that he could be too.

Brandon Sanderson

He could be. Definitely has some aspects. I didn't intentionally write him that way, but I wrote him to a personality. He's definitely got some things going on there that there's a good argument. That's David Charleston of the Reckoners.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

Do you hear the-- when you write the Parshendi have such a musical language. Do you hear it when you're writing, like what the songs sound like?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, yes, but I am not as musically inclined as some, and so if we ever do it, I would probably have somebody else come up with something more... It's more of a cadence though, like the difference between iambic and things like that.

Oslo signing, 2011 ()
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Thorondir (paraphrased)

How many Shardworlds are there? Only seven? (Sel, Nalthis, Scadrial, Roshar, Yolen, Taldain, and whatever planet The Silence Divine is on [Ashyn]?)

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said he has a set number in his head but that he didn’t want to say it because he might change his mind. Essentially he doesn’t want to make the number of worlds canon yet.

The Alloy of Law Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Marasi is an Allomancer

One of my big goals in these post-epic Mistborn books is to give a chance for more limited-power people (Mistings and their Feruchemical cousins, Ferrings) a chance to shine. In the previous trilogy, the focus really was on the Mistborn. Vin and Kelsier fit the epic fantasy mindset I wanted, powerful in an epic sort of way, broadly capable with abilities in a lot of areas.

For these books, I wanted to show people who had one or two powers, instead of sixteen, and show how specialization can achieve some incredible results. Because of that, I intentionally held back in the first trilogy in letting Vin do a few things. (Note how much better Zane was with minute steelpushes and ironpulls than she was.) Vin was incredibly skilled, but because she had so many powers to work with, she didn't home in as much on any one of them. Things like Wax's steel bubble are tricks I wanted to save for people like Wax. (He's what we’d call in the Mistborn world a steel savant, so capable with his metal—and having burned it so long, for so many years—that he's got an instinctive ability with it that lets him be very precise.)

And so we come to Marasi, who has the power opposite—but paired with—Wayne's ability. Both she and Wayne have powers I wanted to delve into. Indeed, I kind of promised that the last metals would get highlighted in these newer books. Matching that, I've given Miles the same power the Lord Ruler used to heal himself from so many incredible wounds. I wanted to explore more of what this skill was capable of when not overshadowed by so many other powers and abilities.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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Chaos

You have once said, with regard to a question about Shards being the most powerful thing in the cosmere, that some would say that other "subtle forces" are being manifest. Are these subtle forces related to Adonalsium's opposition?

Brandon Sanderson

There is belief in a God who is not one of the Shards.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
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Questioner

In Stormlight Archive before the full disadvantaged duel, there's foreshadowing of Shardblades being spren and Adolin talking to his Blade, tradition. But then also... Adolin says, "Oh I forgot my mom's lucky necklace," and I don't think there's ever a reference to that again. Do we see something come back up about that necklace?

Brandon Sanderson

The necklace is just pure superstition on his part, it's not seeding something in... I have to sometimes make certain things not relevant, otherwise everything is relevant. So the chicken and the necklace mean nothing, but obviously the talking to the sword is a tradition that has a meaning, and it comes into play in Oathbringer.

Holiday signing ()
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Questioner

Not to bring up Rithmatist, do you think it is just going to be the two books or--

Brandon Sanderson

I plotted it at three, so it is probably going to be The Rithmatist, The Aztlanian, and then I-- The Nebraskian? But I have to find some goofy thing so it's not necessarily Nebraskan...