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Questioner

Which Cosmere character would make the best political candidate?

Brandon Sanderson

Here's the thing. Best candidate is not the same as best... Who would be best in the office? Because Taravangian could probably do a really good job of running a candidacy. Jasnah could probably do a really good job in the right circumstances.

If I had to put one completely in charge? Sazed is a good choice. And he would be my default choice. Sazed would never run for the office. But he is a good choice.

We joke the best politicians are those who don't want it; I don't know that that's actually true. I think that there are definitely people who could very much want it, and that wanting it is an advantage. I joke that I'm gonna vote for Emily's dad, who is just a good person, but he would never want to be President. And I don't know if he would actually make a good President because of that. And there is something to be said for political experience, experience being in the public eye, and being the type of person who seeks it out because you know you can deal with it, because it is not easy to be in the public eye (even as a novelist who writes stories about knights who live in space, or whatever). It can be difficult. Someone who's self-selected can be a bad thing, but it can also be a really good thing, I think. So somebody who wants it, who understands how politics works, and things like that. And in that case, Jasnah becomes a better choice, because Jasnah can navigate those political systems and can be in the public eye and make difficult decisions, but also has a moral grounding for the things that she's deciding.

But Jasnah's also a little dangerous. The scene in Book One with Jasnah and the thieves is supposed to make you a little worried about the way that Jasnah views power.

Sarene, she would be a good choice after she's had a little more experience. She's not as good as she thinks she is, is the problem with Sarene.

Elend is a good choice. Elend is a political theorist, and particularly if you get him at the right point after some world experience has forced him to see some other perspectives, he might actually be the single best choice, now that I think about it, to just make into President.

shadeslayer0930

Can we dare hope for a crossover like [Lift and Wayne] in the future?

Brandon Sanderson

You can hope for such things, but I won't do them "just because." If the timelines align, you will see things like this in the future--but it's probably not going to happen for a while. (Except in certain, specific instances.)

KingSloth

Does a Spinner Ferring have to be actively doing something to 'lose' fortune, while storing? Slightly worried that they'd end up giving themselves cancer or something if they were sat storing fortune, without doing something like playing cards to 'drain' the luck away from..

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Questioner

Where are the rest of Roshar's named gems? Like, we have the Hope diamond, we've got dozens of--

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of them are in the [Thaylen Gemstone Reserve] ...There's a lot of them around and there are places like that. One of the tricks, and I actually kind of was aware of this, particularly in book three, I was like "Yeah, I maybe should have named some of these things earlier." One of the tricks with a book like Way of Kings, there are already so many new names and terms that oftentimes I find myself finding ways to not include a new name or term because the overwhelming nature of the learning curve is so big. And I will admit, writing book three I'm like, "Ah, I should have named some of these earlier," this is what they would do.

But it's kind of this Occam's razor, well, that's the wrong term. It's this idea of "Let's try to keep it as simple as possible for that fact that it's really complex." and that's why I naturally just didn't do it. 

I would say in-world a lot of them are named. But you've also got to remember that gems are not as eternal on Roshar as they are. They are a little more ephemeral, you will often end up using them for something and they are wearing out, so to speak. So the idea that a diamond is forever is more of an Earth concept than a Roshar concept.

Questioner

Why did you choose to write Marsh as a Steel Inquisitor?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, when I was doing the outline it is the thing that matched with the story I wanted, so--

Questioner

I'm a physical chemist and I'm reading your book [The Way of Kings] right now and at some point you have someone studying flamespren and what they saw, that's one of the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So you got that from quantum mechanics?

Brandon Sanderson

I did get that from quantum mechanics.

Questioner

How did you come across that and decide to incorporate that into your epic fantasy?

Brandon Sanderson

Well The Way of Kings' magic systems are based on the fundamental forces. That was the original idea and the extrapolation from them. I'm fascinated by quantum mechanics and I have worked them into the way that-- Remember in my worlds, my books, the magics are a new branch of physics, in these worlds. And so they interact with our normal physics, it's not like they are ignoring them, so they obey the laws of thermodynamics, even when they appear to be breaking them, and they interact with quantum and all the stuff. It's just very natural that they are going to, to me if that makes sense? It would be weird if they didn't interact with them.

myserylover12

When is the next Alcatraz book coming out?

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia is in stores October 1st (though Scholastic often ships early, so you might find it as early as September 1st.) Book four—Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens—is being written now and will come out the following October.

Chaos (paraphrased)

Can Hemalurgy be used to steal magic attributes from any Shardworld?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Hemalurgy has larger ramifications then just Scadrial. That's about all he'd say.

Questioner

As your characters have evolved and grown, as we've seen in different books-- We've also seen, like with your character Wayne, kind of the sense of humor inside of the characters changed, and with him we've kind of seen this-- I guess, uh, kind of more seedy and base sense of humor with him, which in some ways made him more lovable and more of a favorite sense of humor. But like with kids, I've kind of been like-- worried a little bit.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah Wayne is…

Questioner

--with the age level and I'm wondering if we're going to see more characters like that grow in as we're looking at Mistborn Era 2 and 3 coming out, and if so, do I need to be more concerned, or is it really gonna be, or is it… what methods, do we need some rating system.

Brandon Sanderson

*amused* Rating system… *laughter*

Questioner

*audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I would say that this is more, "I write the character that fits the situation" rather than any sort of an evolution on my part of this, so… I don't know. I will… really, I would leave that to other people. This is kind of one of those weird things where, like, I will both get on the same day, sometimes, e-mails from someone who's like "how can you be so crude in your books, I thought your books were supposed to be family-friendly" followed by "why won't you address adult topics in your books *laughter* why do they all feel so children-esque, child-esque", and I would assume that those are the types of e-mails that everyone gets, even George RR Martin. *laughter* "When are you gonna get to some real adult themes, George?" I'm sure there's someone who's sent that e-mail to him. Um, yeah, I write the books, you know, I have… I'm certainly not as interested as some authors in digging into the more... quote-unquote "explicit content", but at some points there are characters like Wayne where I'm like, "you know, I need to write this character who they would be", and I can have them dance around the worlds-- words to obstinate *laughs* that was not an intentional slip! Dance around the words to obfuscate things and stuff like that, but if I don't let Wayne say some of the things he wants to say, then I'm not being true to that character in the same way I wouldn't be being true to Dalinar if I didn't let him, you know, be the strictly "I follow the rules" type person that he's become, because both of those types of people exist in the world.

Um, your specific question on Era 3 of Mistborn, um, is… I don't anticipate a Wayne-like character, but who knows? Right, Era 3 right now is kind-of focused on two Terris people, the main character and her brother, and she's a computer programmer in the early days of computer programming, and--

Bystander

Fortran.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, like a Fortran programmer or something like that… And, you know, it's going to be-- Her story will be a little bit more geek-culture-ish and things like that. You'll have very fun with the artwork in those, let's just say that.

I can't promise you one way or the other what I'm going to do, so I think what you're-- what you should be doing is reading them yourself and then deciding for yourself with whom you will share the books.

Jesse Estabrook

When it said Spensa’s father was shot down by his own flight, was it supposed to be fleet? I suppose that since there are so many errors, that this is not an example of the actual final release. Will there be further changes so that we will need to re-read all of these preview chapters all over again, once the edited final product is released?

Brandon Sanderson

Any errors in here are only proofreading errors--I've turned the book over to these teams, and won't be making any more story changes. So don't worry. You won't miss anything, other than a little spelling here and there. Though I did mean "flight" instead of "fleet" as they tend to use small squad tactics as pilots, and call these groups "flights."

Questioner

So like as far as distance traveled in Shadesmar. So when Kelsier is in Shadesmar, he meets the Ire, who are presumably Elantrians. How far did he travel? Is that still within Scadrial's realm of the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's within-- By the time he meets them he has slipped right to the edge of the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and into, kind of, the darkness between planets. 

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

He's close enough that he can get there. But he's kind of suffused with Scadrian Investiture then, to a point that it would be harder--you saw in there--for him to get further. I would say that he's like... He has entered space between planets, but he's not out of the solar system.

Questioner

Okay, so he's still in the Scadrian system, just not--just edging a bit there.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yep. That's what I'd say if I had to actually point him in that <a map>. It gets really fuzzy though, because it wouldn't be too much longer before he enters another solar system. Like, he would pass lightyears in steps as he starts getting further, if that makes any sense.

Questioner

That makes sense, because, I mean, with worldhopping in general it's like... You can only... I mean it's... I don't know how the time dilation works per se, but...

Brandon Sanderson

It's not-- there's not much time dilation. What you've got going on is... Things that people aren't around to think about, things without minds or any sort of life, don't manifest on Shadesmar very much at all. And so the space between planets gets really small, unless there's another planet out there with thinking beings or at least some sort of life on it. Like even lower lifeforms, you'll get something manifesting on Shadesmar. But yeah

Questioner

Okay. So the Cognitive Realm, in Shadesmar... It's kind of the... Any kind of sentient or cognitive life-- that's what is building Shadesmar? So like anything where there's blackness... is like... condensed or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. Particularly if no one's thinking about it. If people are thinking about it - like, for instance, an island in the ocean that was scoured of all life and even bacteria would still manifest in Shadesmar on that planet because people are aware of it and things like this. But one on the other side of the planet, that no one ever knew about it, probably wouldn't.

Questioner

So that same island, if people just stopped thinking about it or like stopped being aware of its presence, would it...

Brandon Sanderson

It could slowly vanish, yes. And so-- But that's more of a thought experiment. You're never gonna have a planet that that happens to, you know cause-- but thought experiment wise, yes, that would eventually kind of get consumed by Shadesmar and vanish. The same thing would happen to a planet that you strip the atmosphere from--all the bacteria and life dies on it--you know, slowly going to vanish. But a moon will still manifest because people are thinking about it. It'll just not-- it won't-- it'll be hokey, it'll be weird--the moon will be. Like you might find a little patch that represents the moon. Something like that.

Questioner

That's interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

You're not gonna find the full landscape of the moon until people start visiting it. And it's gonna grow on Shadesmar.

Storm Cellar

If you have a child that can't stop making up/writing stories and never wants to sleep at night, what is the best way to encourage them without letting them be nocturnal? (Child in question is about 13.)

Brandon Sanderson

Well...I'm maybe not a great person to ask, because I was nocturnal myself.  So I don't have experience at forcing the kid to go to bed--I stayed up myself, doing exactly this.  It's not a great thing, because it can have implications for school work and the like. But I never figured it out myself.  I STILL go to bed at around 4:00am. In high school, I stayed up late and took a nap every day, which I wouldn't recommend. But making sure they have time each day to write--like piano lessons, but for stories--might be a way to channel that energy and perhaps make sure they get some done each day, and are more relaxed, as they feel the story is progressing.  This helps me a lot.

Questioner

Out of Shallan, Kaladin, Adolin, who's the best dancer?

Brandon Sanderson

Adolin, yeah. Definitely.

youshallnotpass

Can stormlight be used to fuel allomancy like the mist in the mistborn trilogy? Is stormlight therefore a manifestation of honour?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible.

Yata

Is the way to unlock Feruchemy to have the same amount of ruin and preservation investiture (or at least a quite balance in them) ? If the answer is Yes, could a Scadrial Human unlock it by ingest tiny piece of Atium ?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Mac

If [Vin] burns mist-assisted gold, would she have experienced something that felt like one of Dalinar's visions?

Brandon Sanderson

Plausibly, yes.

Brandon Sanderson

That's the list of things people often ask me about. Unsurprisingly, I have other projects in the back of my mind. For example, I have two more Cosmere series that will need to be written before we can get to the third "big" Mistborn trilogy. (The sf one.) But that's the long, long-term plan.

For now, my goal is to get Calamity and Stormlight 3 finished. As always, I appreciate all of the enthusiasm you show for this crazy thing that I have somehow managed to do with my life. Thank you for sharing my books with others, and for being willing to try the more unusual projects (like Legion) that I do.

I feel humbled to have a great crowd of fans who are willing to put up with my eccentricities as a writer—particularly my desire to not work on just one project, but to have an entire body of varying stories. You guys are awesome. May you have a happy holiday season, and do go munch some heads tomorrow in my name.

Brandon

p.s. If you aren't on the newsletter mailing list, please consider signing up! In the summer, the newsletter included exclusive looks at some of the Stormlight 3 scenes I was working on. We plan to do more of this sort of thing in the future. As always, if you include your city, we'll send you notifications when I'm going to be doing signings in the area.

Brandon Sanderson

*discussion fades in* ...I doubt they would come to regret that. It depends on your threshold for characters with depression but--

Questioner

They haven't minded that so far. That's not an issue. I think they just want to make sure he doesn't end up leading the Voidbringers or something.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I think you'll be okay.

PrincipleFriendly205

Mare's Flower.

*a tattoo of the Ghostblood symbol*

montezuma300

Can you confirm either yea or nay?

Ben McSweeney

I had not thought this was the case before, but Brandon don’t tell me everything and some of what he tells me changes over the years (we used to have a hard rule with fur on Roshar, for instance). And I was not part of the design process for this symbol, it was handed to me ready-to-go when I put it on the Shallan page.

I would not be surprised to learn what we have here is a symbol based on the picture of the flower, that whatever flower she had a picture of, it had three petals of a somewhat diamond shape.

But I don’t actually know, and I’ll have to ask around. Might be a RAFO.

montezuma300

What's the fur rule?

Ben McSweeney

Waaaay back at the start, the rule was "no fur" in designs, full stop. The idea being that any fur-bearing creatures were too rare to be used for their hides. At some point he relaxed that rule... fur is still relatively rare and expensive (I think) but it's not unheard of.

Questioner (paraphrased)

When you paint a shardplate, how do you change the paint job? Do you have to break the pieces to get it off?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You would use a paint thinner and it would come off alright. Actually, you have to reapply the paint pretty often as it would naturally wear off on its own and it would have trouble sticking to the plate.

Questioner

Is there a maximum speed a Coinshot can propel themselves or something else?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. It will vary slightly based on the strength of the Coinshot, but there are maximum velocities, just kind of-- you would burn yourself up at certain points.

Questioner

So imposed by the laws of physics.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, laws of physics are going to-- Those aren't normally going to come in play in Allomancy, because Pushing that hard will be really difficult... But, as we are getting into more mechanical uses of Allomancy, those laws of physics become more and more relevant.

LameLamas

I was surprised to find out Skyward trilogy is not a trilogy anymore, but four books. How did this happen? You have more stories in this world or book 3 is growing too big, so you decided to split it in two smaller books?

Brandon Sanderson

My normal mode for a series is to write the first book, make sure it works and that I have a good feel for the characters, then sit down and really hammer out the outline for the series.

When I did that for this book (sometime in early July) the outline that worked best was four books instead of three because of where the breaks and climactic moments were.

Ted Herman

A certain person went to a certain spren and got a boon and a curse, and later on, very recently, their fortunes have risen very high very fast. Is the boon and curse still in effect? 

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but you will get answers in the fifth book about that. Excellent question, but this is a RAFO with a "yes it's coming", not a nebulous RAFO.

harsh20483

Is there any chance of the Dragonsteel series starting before the second set of Stormlight Archive comes out?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is a chance.

Questioner

Does Rayse have a personal... or did he have a personal relationship with the other [Vessels] before the Shattering?

Brandon Sanderson

Some of them, yes.

Questioner

So he doesn't personally know them all?

Brandon Sanderson

He knows them all, but "having a relationship with" is different. They were all in the same place.

Questioner

He knows who they are but he doesn't necessarily interact with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Not necessarily. They weren't part of a homogenous group before this happened.

Brandon Sanderson

I have the last quarter of this year earmarked to write the final Mistborn (Wax and Wayne) novel, which leaves me around six or seven months to play with, and I'm hoping to finish another book in the Skyward series. However, before I dive into that, there's a certain novella I need to write. We're listing that as "Secret Project" and it's not anything you're probably guessing. I'll reveal it when the time is right, but for now, it's not cosmere, and is not something I've talked about before.

Iceblade44

So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal? :D

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Phantine

I'm not going to ask what malatium does in feruchemy, but it'd be neat to know if Sazed had a chance to experiment with the little bar of it Kelsier found. Did he get around to trying it offscreen during the first trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but he didn't get far.

Ted Bade

Why did you decide to try to create a game? Was it to satisfy a need of your own, that of your fans, or perhaps some other reason?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm a gamer, and I've been playing games since I spent my vacation money on a Nintendo instead of what I was supposed to spend it on.

Doing the job that I do now gives me some opportunities that I just didn't want to pass on; making a video game is one of them. I tried a couple of times earlier in my career to launch a Mistborn video game, to get a developer interested, and it just didn't go anywhere. I wasn't a big enough name yet. I eventually had to wait until the trilogy was done and had a good reputation, and then people started approaching us about making a video game out of it.

The reason to do it is just because I love video games. It's a bit of a self-indulgent reason, but let's just say that it's one of the perks of being an author with some success.

Ted Bade

Author’s note: I have no issues with his “self indulgence”. Anyone who has read and enjoyed a great fantasy novel would most likely enjoy the chance to play in that world. As a successful author, Mr. Sanderson can bring fans into his world via a game. That is a terrific thing, especially if it is done right.

Excelsius

Has ever a Shard been forced - besides Odium in Roshar - to leave their planet after it was destroyed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Excelsius

Yes - besides Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Besides Odium? Yes. Has a Shard been forced to leave their planet after the planet was destroyed? Yes.

Questioner

Do you anticipate Dalinar having a larger page count in SA5?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

I wanted to ask-- So you--I think more than almost any other fantasy author--you create universes and then you leave them behind. Entire uni-- I almost feel like you could sit down-- you could have like pages of a physics lecture in each of your universes and you would have equations for how it works. Do you have-- Have you always had these ideas for these various universes with gods and magic systems and things like that, or are you always creating them, sort of as you go? 

Brandon Sanderson

It's yes and no. A lot of the ones you're seeing in the cosmere are things I created at the beginning to be kind of what the cosmere was. But I left some holes intentionally cause I knew I would come up with cool things that I wanted to add, and so I built in that wiggle room, and I'm always coming up with new ones. And there are way more that I want to do than I can write, like the one I keep wanting to find a chance for is--

Do you guys know how Nikola Tesla tried to create wireless energy? I think I've talked about this one. Like, he tried to create wireless energy, and I'm like "What if there were a world where that happened naturally?" Where you had a natural current going, and you could like set your lantern on the ground and it would create a current from the sky to the ground and your light bulb would just turn on. You don't need electricity. And how would-- What if we have giant toads that could shoot out their tongues that would create a current,  and they're like taser tongues? *makes zapping noises* Stuff like this. And so, I started jumping in to looking at electricity and things like this, and current and whatnot, and that's just all back there and I'm like "Aww, someday I need to be able to write this." But there are so many things that I want to write that I just don't have the time for, so it's a yes and no.

Questioner

So do you have, like, "what if" questions and then you build a universe from there?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually they're "what if" questions, but Sanderson's Zeroth Law--I've got these laws on magic you can look up,  they're named humbly after myself--so Sanderson's Zeroth Law is "Always err on the side of what's awesome". And usually it's less even a "what if?" and it's a "That's so cool, taser toads!" Like if you really want to know the truth of where The Stormlight Archive started, there's all this cool stuff, like part of it was like "What if there was a storm like the storm on Jupiter". And then I eventually changed it to a storm that goes around the planet, something like that, but the real truth was "Magical power armor. YEAH! Magical power armor is cool! Plate mail power armor! Why would you need plate mail power armor?" Y'know, and it starts with the really cool idea. Mistborn started by me drifting in a fog bank at eighty miles per hour in my car and loving how it looked as it drove past and saying "Is there a world where I can imitate this feel, where you look out and it streams by." It's those early visuals or concepts that make me say "Oh yeah, I wanna do that!". That is where my books really come from, and then I layer on top of them the "what ifs?" and trying to build a realistic ecology based around these ideas.

Questioner 1

So I've spent quite a few hours trying to work out Pattern 1, you know Ceiling of the 2nd Rotation of the Diagram. *inaudible* But I wanted to ask you-- And Peter said you wanted to make us sweat, you know of course, on the 17th Shard. But I want to ask you, and hopefully you'll be able to answer this... Is Pattern 15 used in the solution? Would you tell me that at least? Please, I beg of you.

Brandon Sanderson

The solution... Indeed, the key to the solution is somewhere in the book.

Questioner 1

No, that doesn't help me!

Brandon Sanderson

That helps you! That helps you. 

Questioner 2

*Questioner 1 moans* We've already got 15 pages. On the 17th Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

You can interact with Peter, because I ran everything through him on this. Because... And so... I actually did it all myself, but then he corrected me where I was wrong. So I'm gonna send it his way, because I don't know if he's made any tweaks to it from what my original concept was.

Questioner 1

I know there was a change in the gamma read with some of the number.

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm... Yes.

Questioner 1

You know it's pretty cool. There seems to be a ketek in there people have discovered, or a palindrome or whatever where there's numbers, patterns matching. Mirror image. Yadda yadda. *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

You should be... Yeah, see what you do.

Questioner 1

I've just-- It would be nice to know.

Brandon Sanderson

I've alr-- I've given you the fact that there's a key to it.

Questioner 1

A key to it... *inaudible* *Questioner 2 gasps* Alright...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. In the book, there is a key to it.

FeatherWriter

I have to ask about using the word "avatar" for Thaidakar sending avatars... does Kelsier actually have anything resembling a real avatar or is he just using the word and lying through his teeth?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, he's mostly lying through his teeth. Basically — this is not canon, because I might come up with a better [idea] - but in my head, I have him with a large cloak with a Seon on top indicating his face [hosts laugh] It was something along those lines. He wants them to think that he is capable of getting to Roshar in a meaningful, physical way.

Spoiler! he can't get off Scadrial, and it's really annoying to him. At least by this point in the continuity, in fact a little past it, because the Wax & Wayne books...

*multiple people*

[Tangent where he forgets where in the timeline Wax & Wayne actually falls, and Chaos corrects him. Answer ends up being that it takes place after Stormlight 5, as he has usually said.]

Brandon Sanderson

As of the Alloy era, he is still unable to get off of Scadrial.

Chaos

Guess we'll learn about that in Era 3, if it's all Kelsier stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Era 3 will definitely involve some Kelsier stuff. Let's just say he's perturbed.

Only4DNDandCigars

Just wondering, I read the old version and it was great, but will I miss out on continuity if I skip the graphic novel release? Also was Hoid in this novel? I dont remember finding him.

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid is referenced in the novel, but it's like Emperor's Soul or a few of the others, where he's only mentioned. We beefed up his presence for the graphic novel, though he'll equate to still just a cameo, because of certain cosmere timeline issues.

I don't plan to change continuity dramatically from the novel to graphic novel--just tell the same story, better. I hope that people will still read and enjoy it, but I also don't want you feeling left out if you don't get around to it.

Questioner

What time period do [cosmere books] all fit in, do they all fit in time--at the same time?

Brandon Sanderson

No, like for instance, Way of Kings and Alloy of Law are pretty close to one another, but Elantris is fairly far before them. So far I’ve written them chronologically basically, except I’ve skipped certain stories, like there’s a series called White Sand which is in the middle there somewhere which will actually be a jump back in time when I end up doing it and some things like that. And Dragonsteel is like way at the beginning which I’ll eventually do, but I’ve done them chronologically so far.

ILikeBreadsticks

If you could design a new mechanic for Magic, what would you make? Thank you!

Brandon Sanderson

For my own Mistborn custom cube, I designed a mechanic that cared if a card was sleeved or not. It couldn't work in regular magic, of course, but in the context of a cube that is already pre-sleeved, it played very well. Basically, being sleeved equated to being protected or shrouded in the mist. You could give up your protection to become stronger, sometimes, but it made you more vulnerable. (There were many cards, for example, that could only destroy unsleeved cards.)

Undercoverwillshaper

Does/is Jasnah gay?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah prefers to keep her sexuality a subject of non-discussion. That is how Jasnah would answer. She would rather not discuss her sexuality.

LoreWard52

Has an Idrian Returned ever realized he was going to die (again) and went to Hallendren to be revered instead?

Brandon Sanderson

This sort of thing happens.

Questioner

How would - just really generally - the Ghostbloods react if they found or met Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

(laughs) They... Some people among them know of him.

Questioner

So they know he's around.

Brandon Sanderson

Some of them do, not everybody. But they are aware of his existence. At least in lore, they don't always... Not all of them have connected the King's Wit to this person's lore, does that make sense? So what would they know? They'd probably want to get him and interrogate him. They would want to know what he knows, but he is really slippery and it's hard to get out of him what he knows.

Brandon Sanderson

Basic Process

I take several approaches to constructing languages for my works. The first thing I ask myself is how much I’m going to be using this language. How many characters will speak it? Will the setting take place in a land native to that tongue? How important, overall, is language to this particular book?

In Elantris I realized that Aonic was going to be an integral part of the novel. The magical power of AonDor was once accessed through the form of the Aon characters. In this culture, language is a very literal power, and the practice and use of it would denote royalty, high-breeding, and even divinity.

The other languages included were of varying lesser importance. Fjordell—the language of Fjorden’s priesthood—would be second in importance, for it was to be the native tongue of the only non-Aonic point-of-view character. To Hrathen, language was to become a symbol of purity and of the chosen race. It had religious significance, and was to be a subtle model of the elitist culture from which Hrathen hailed.

The languages of Duladen, Svorden, and JinDo were of least significance. They had important characters representing them, but no major point-of-view characters. With the weight of Aonic and Fjordell already bulking up the linguistic part of the novel, I decided I wanted these three languages to provide flavor only. I wanted their representative words and names to give an instant clue to the nature of the society, and then add variety through the novel without becoming unwieldy.

Questioner

Large gemstone, Oathbringer. Not leaking Stormlight. Is shining. Is there a spren inside of it? ...Is there a spren trapped in it?

Brandon Sanderson

...There is not. Good question. I mean, at various points in the story, there are, but the one you're referencing.

Windrunner

Is it is even possible for a full Feruchemist Mistborn to be naturally born, or will the genes for the two interfere with one another too much?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible, but highly unlikely.

Questioner

The spren that Hoid picks up, is that the one meant for Elhokar?

Brandon Sanderson

It is, yep.

Mason Wheeler

Kelsier said to Vin, "Always make sure to burn off your metals before you go to sleep," because of toxicity issues. And when we get to Second Era, that just makes me think, because cadmium is truly nasty stuff. And most metals to burn them off, that'll be just fine. But with its effect, it would mean that trying to burn it off would shorten the night and you don't end up with any time to sleep. How does Marasi deal with this?

Brandon Sanderson

You measure very carefully and you deal with the side effects of being an Allomancer.

Brandon Sanderson

I always like to read something that is unpublished. So that is something new that you get only by coming to my signings or going to the internet where people will have inevitably posted it online already. *laughter* It's really exclusive for like the first signing that I do and then after that everybody on the 17th Shard, which is the fan website, are like *hilarious "oooh" sound*

Argent

So you should read something else?

Brandon Sanderson

No... I have to be very careful about what I read because the publisher has certain deals about exclusivity on new releases. Like for instance I can't read any more from the new Mistborn books because Apple has an exclusive release of new material on that and things like that. It's just part of the deals that we do and so-- I also have to make sure that it's not making big spoilers for other books. I have to make sure that it's not containing errors that are glaring continuity errors and things like that. So we are going to read from a novella called Perfect State. This is a novella that I wrote oh about two years ago now and I didn't really L-- get it done. Like I wrote it and then there was something wrong with it and I wasn't sure what it was. I actually finished it a couple months ago. I finally figured out what it was that was wrong.

Jack Milson

How many Awakening Commands are there? Is there a finite number, a finite but large number or infinite? Can you Awaken with sign language?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you can Awaken with sign language. I would say that there are an infinite number, would be my guess. It's either finite but very, very large or infinite. But they're gonna fall into groups as things tend to do in the Cosmere, I would say.

Drayonet

Will we ever see another Shai story? I really want to learn more about her.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you will see more Shai.

wilde4fitness

Are the Ghostbloods associated with Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium has his fingers in a LOT of things.

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna notices the Tears of Edgli here, the flowers that drive Hallandren wealth and trade. I added these in an early draft, as I realized that there needed to be a cheap, easy source for all of those dyes the Hallandren use. (This was pointed out to me by my friend Jeff Creer, I believe.) The Tears offer something else as well—a reason for the wealth of the people. In early times, dye trades were extremely lucrative, and being able to control a method by which unusual dyes could be created would have been a very good basis for an economy.

I also like what it does for the flavor of Hallandren as a whole. This story happens in the place that is, in most fantasy books, far away. A lot of fantasy novels like to make their setting someplace akin to rural England, and they'll talk of distant countries that have exotic spices, dyes, and trade goods.

Well, in this world, Hallandren is that place. It's at the other end of the silk road, so to speak.