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We've spoken before about how you don't usually read Cosmere fan fiction, and I was wondering, what about other things people create? Like artwork or podcasts and such.
I barely have time to get to the books written by my friends, or the ones in the industry I feel I should be reading to keep an eye on it. I look at fanart, certainly, and post a lot of it--but I don't listen to any of the podcasts.
Have we seen Dalinar at his prime yet? I mean, in terms of his Radiant powers. Have we already seen everything he can do with it or he will become more and more powerful as his Oaths progress further? (please, let it be the second!)
RAFO.
How old, in years, was Calamity during the events of the book, Calamity. Roughly.
Roughly 11 years old.
Because of Glys' corrupted nature as a spren of Sja-anat, does that mean that Renarin's swearing different Ideals than the mainstream Truthwatcher ideals?
Um... I'll RAFO that for now. But there will definitely be some differences.
Kwaan might have understood realmatic theory.
In the chapter 19 epigraph for the final empire, the author of the journal says "When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library - I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think."
I wonder if that means he was looking into trees have a cognitive aspect. It seemed weird to me the first time I read it, but knowing what I know about the Cosmere and Sanderson loving worldbuilding, I feel like that's what this was about.
Was pre-ascension scadrial cosmere aware?
The OP's theory is correct. The rest is a RAFO.
The Windrunners, they’re just one order of the Knights Radiant, aren’t they?
Yes they are, in fact they are--every order is a grouping of one of these *points to the large symbols on the Radiant tables* and two of these *points at the smaller symbols*, these are the Surges. So these are the ten, sort of forces. And so Windrunning is pressure and gravitation, which are those two. But the Skybreakers are right there, with a different combination and each of these different groupings would make one order of the Knights Radiant. And that is the symbol of the Windrunners, right there on the cover. *points at the swordgylph under the dust jacket*. So, fun little easter-egg type things there.
If a person held enough breath to attain the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?
I think they would rapidly age.
But I'm not ready to say 100%.
If you could have an Epic power in your everyday life—you know, just every once in a while, not enough to corrupt you—what would it be?
I would love to be able to fly. It's not the "right" decision, which would probably be some kind of healing/comforting power to make myself and those around me more healthy. (Even if it is to get rid of the common cold.)
But…flying!
Does anyone know anything about [A House of Ashes, a set of companion stories for the Mistborn Adventure Game]? Was it vetted by Brandon Sanderson, and thus capable of giving us some new canonical data, or is it going to be pure (albeit probably very well-written and exciting) fanfiction?
We have indeed been working with Brandon to build the game - as much as his very busy schedule allows, at any rate - and he and his team have read and signed off on all of it, including this novella. That said, it's labeled very clearly as a "Companion to the Mistborn Adventure Game" for a reason. It has the seal of approval, but it's understood that the world and full canon are his and his alone. We hope he incorporates some of this into his work, but at the end of the day it's his choice what is and isn't actually true.
I plan to treat it as second-order canon: Can be overruled by direct quote from Peter or Brandon or textual evidence from Brandon's books, but otherwise assumed to be true.
This is absolutely how you should view it.
Hope that helps!
How were the original beads of Lerasium created?
They were created for the purpose that they were originally used for.
Who created them?
They were created by Leras.
I know in Shadesmar, Syl has a physical form when they go there. Has there ever been, in the history of Shardbearers, any romance there?
...I will RAFO that for now. It is a question I have asked.
Are Returned the same person-- like is a Returned the same person they were before they were alive or-- 'Cause it says in the book that it is a Shard that Awakens the body so is it the consciousness-- Well not the Shard--
It is the same soul.
The same soul.
Yeah.
I was wondering if it was the consciousness of the Splinter.
Yeah.
What's your opinion on selfie sticks?
Opinion on selfie sticks? I think they look kind of dumb.
What did Leras do to Kel right when he died that made him stay? That prevented him from going on?
Right when he died?
Right, because he starts to go-- slip into the Beyond, and then Leras keeps him there.
Read that again closely.
He did something. He shoves him into the pool right?
Okay, yes. You just answered it.
Okay, but I wasn't sure...
Okay.
...if it was specifically what Leras did? Or if that's something only [Vessels] can do?
So it's the pool and not Leras that is important there.
Before we jump in on the third installment [of Legion], can you tell me a little about where this idea came from and how it developed into this novella series?
I was talking with my friend Dan Wells, who was writing a story about a schizophrenic. I started brainstorming this idea about a person whose hallucinations helped them, kind of turning it into a super power. Dan laughed and said, "That’s much more a Brandon story than a Dan story," and he was right—so eventually, I decided to write it myself.
Where there any specific fantasy books that you read as a child that inspired you to write fantasy?
Yes, excellent question. I was not a reader until I had a teacher, eighth grade teacher--this is true--Ms. Reeder. *laughter* Yes, it's really true, R-E-E-D-E-R, was my teacher in eighth grade and she gave me a fantasy novel for the first time and convinced me to read it. It took a little work on her part because I was not a reader. It was Dragonsbane by Barbara Hamley, a kind of classic standalone epic fantasy-- And it's standalone because the sequels she wrote twenty years later when she was really depressed are very different. They're worth reading but they don't feel like sequels. Dragonsbane's a fantastic book. All of Anne McCaffrey's books were next to that in the school library, like in the card catalogue, under the title so I went to them next and they had a huge influence on me. I would say those two were the biggest. And then Melanie Rawn's books were next to those, so I read all of those.
And then the first book series I discovered on my own, when it wasn't already finished, was The Wheel of Time. Wheel of Time, the first book came out about a year after I got into reading fantasy novels and I found the big one on the shelf and was like "Oooh that's a big book. *laughter* I'm going to read that big book." And I had no idea what I was getting myself into. *laughter* Now lots of Wheel of Time fans can say that, they didn't know what they were getting into. I trump them, okay? I really didn't know what I was getting myself into in picking up that first Wheel of Time book and reading it.
Is Yaalani a character in any other stories?
Right now, no. Good question.
Does not seem like a Eelakin name. And there are people in Stormlight who seem to have aviar.
Yeah. People in Stormlight do have aviar. That has happened. But let's just say, during Stormlight era, getting things on or off of First of the Sun is really hard.
When the Fused die, do they return directly to the Everstorm, or back to Braize, and then they need to make their way back?
RAFO.
Will all shardholders from all the worlds/realms eventually meet in one "place"?
They have been in the same place before. Many are dead now, though.
What is happening from the point of view of an observer in the physical realm when an object is soulcast? Are the constituent electrons, protons, and neutrons being rearranged into new forms? And from a 3 realms stand point, is the history of the material being rewritten? Instead of when that star went nova to create heavy metals, was it silicon instead of iron (for instance)?
I'll go ahead and RAFO this, but with a promise that answers will actually come some day.
If you met [Kelsier] as he was trying to save the world, and you're like "Hey, I'm your creator."
I would say, "I will try to treat you right. Try not to kill too many people."
So Hoid has a Cryptic.
It is heavily implied that Hoid is trying to get this Cryptic to--
And Soulcasting in some sense or another transports someone into Shadesmar. So does he no longer need a perpendicularity?
So, Hoid has been breaking certain rules along those lines for a long while. I guess he's not breaking any actual rules... He has found, by Stormlight, to do things in ways that others are not using. How about that?
That is excellent.
He is looking forward to having a spren bond that will make things like this easier...
And, audio recorder, that one is not quite canon yet. The one about Hoid.
Could a Full Lashing bend the path of bullets? Or do they have too much momentum?
It could.
See *inaudible* and other signings that Hoid had both long life and lived through time when we was worldhopping, how about other members-- or not "other," just members of the Seventeenth Shard? Like are they time travelling or they have long life--
It is a mixture of both. Either, or, and.
And the RAFO question: where did they get it from?
RAFO! There are many methods and there is no one method, and you know some of them already.
In the cosmere, sixteen is obviously a very important number, or very significant, but on Roshar everything comes in groups of ten. Is that a cultural construction or is that really how things are being grouped on that planet?
It is both. It is a cultural construction that came from slight cosmere events that are not super, super, super important. Like, there's a reason we think in base ten, right? Is it important to the universe? Meh? Right... And it's maybe a little more on Roshar, but at the same time it's like--
There are ten orders of Surgebinders. Did they order them that way? Or are there actually sixteen different--
Well, it kind of goes back to there were ten [Heralds] with ten sets of power given by Honor, and Honor is an individual, right, so does that make sense? You cannot separate, in a lot of places in the cosmere, the perspectives of the sapient beings who are interfering with what's going on. Even going back to the number sixteen.
I noticed in a lot of your cosmere books, like for example Elantris or Mistborn, they have something to do with some sort of subject matter or school or something. For example the Steelpush and Ironpulling in Mistborn is based on physics.
Yes.
If you push too hard it's based on...
Vector physics, yes.
And then like Warbreaker is just like math, adding Breaths together. Did you intend that?
Not necessarily. I read a lot and I like science and I like philosophy and I like and things like this. And those spark most of my ideas. So yes in a term but I'm not like "Let's do this subject".
I would say Warbreaker, the big part of Warbreaker is the idea of sympathetic magic. Which is the idea that like affects like, which is a very common type of magic throughout all cultures on the planet, on our planet. When people believe in magic they believe in sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is sympathetic magic. And that's where the idea came from.
So in Elantris, which is different and then--
Yeah that's basically fantasy programming, is where that one came from.
And then there is The Stormlight Archive, which basically violates all the laws of physics by just saying everything comes from spren.
Well no they still have arguments on that, are spren attracted to these things or do they cause them.
Yeah that's kind of weird...
Stormlight Archive was based on the fundamental forces, if you want go read on physics google fundamental forces.
Will you be making an origin series for Bastille?
I will be writing a book from her viewpoint next to kind of wrap some things up. We will see how it is received, if it is I can do more Bastille books, that is not outside of reason.
In the past, you've said that kandra have size limitations. They can't just lop off a chunk and make a squirrel or anything like that. If a kandra was in full human form, somehow consumed and absorbed an aviar, kept it fully attached to their shoulder, it wouldn't be able to fly off but it was still attached to them, they're one contiguous body, could they get the abilities of that aviar?
No, good question. They would have to-- They're just replicating the body, they're not replicating the soul.
Has Wax seen the influence of a Shard other than Preservation, Ruin, Harmony--
Yes.
--i.e., like Autonomy?
He has seen the influence of another Shard.
Might that Shard be Autonomy?
It might!
*giggles*
Is the Ghostblood symbol a stylized marewill flower?
RAFO! No, actually that’s WAFO - wait and find out.
So, I don't know how much I've talked about this, but there are two things going on with Wayne in regard to Steris.
The first is that Wayne is a highly instinctive person. He DOES think, and more than people give him credit for, but he judges a lot of what he does by what his gut says. I've known people like this and they can be extremely charming, but have more trouble articulating why they might make a certain decision--or why they don't like a particular person.
Wayne doesn't like Steris. She feels off to him, and his instincts say she's hiding something. Trouble is, his gut is misleading him in this case. Steris doesn't think and react like Wayne does, but it's not because she's hiding something--it's because she doesn't pick up on the same social cues that someone highly sociable like Wayne sees.
There's a second issue here, and that's Wayne's over-protectiveness. Wayne tends to lump people in his head into "my mates" and "those other folks." Once you're "in" with him, he'll do basically anything for you. You'll never find a more loyal friend. At the same time, it's hard to get "in" with him--and if he perceives someone as "stealing" someone from him, he gets very defensive, even mean.
He doesn't realize it, but his subconscious sees Steris as taking Wax away from him and--even more importantly--away from Lessie. He'd be belligerent toward anyone Wax started dating, but the fact that he gets lots of false positives off of Steris doesn't help one bit. If Wax/Marasi had worked out, he'd probably have been okay with it, for example.
Will steelminds be used in some way for the FTL travel you plan to have in the third trilogy?
RAFO.
In universe, all the intents and charts and names, who names them? Do they name themselves?
I have kind of imagined this is one of those things that they certainly have influence over. But obviously Odium thinks that he's named something other than what he is, and I feel like these are intrinsic things that the sixteen all knew. Like, "I am missing this part of me, it is this." And it was less "we went around and named them" more like "this is just what it is". And various Shards are resisting that, but the others are all like "No, this is what you represent".
Follow-up question there. Would the entity that we call Odium refer to itself as Odium when it's honest with itself?
Ehhh, I don't think Odium is capable of being honest with himself. *laughter* There are times where Odium has called himself Odium. That is more out of convenience and the fact that everyone calls you by a name. But Odium is determined to change that perception.
So, does he genuinely believe in characterizing himself as Passion?
Yes. Part of him does.
Has he always ever been Odium since the Shattering?
Yes.
How do you buy a contract with a kandra in Alloy of Law time?
You don’t, good question. There’s two of them in Alloy of Law. Shadows of Self has quite a big part with a kandra.
Given that these Stormlight books are (understandably) taking longer than you originally planned, have you had to re-outline your plans for the Cosmere overall to keep it from getting too big to finish? If each Stormlight book were to take 3 years going forward, then after Oathbringer it would be 7x3=21 years before the whole series is finished, and then all the Mistborn sci-fi and Dragonsteel books would have to happen, in addition to any other projects you're planning. At least that's the plan as I understand it. I definitely admire your ambition!
No revision plans right now, but I am watching. Considering my career so far had only been about ten years, and I've made great progress on the Cosmere, my instincts say I will be okay. But it is worth considering.
I noticed Nalthis didn't get a star chart. Will you be posting a star chart?
We'll be doing one eventually, I'm sure. We should get that done and posted on the website. Hopefully, someday, I can find a place to work it in. When I publish Nightblood, maybe we'll put it into that.
Are there any eventual plans for release of things such as-- things like Way of Kings Prime or the old version of Dragonsteel after the new version is released?
Once there are no more spoilers in those books I'll do what I have done with things like White Sand and whatnot, that if people write me— Mistborn Prime is a good example. There's no real spoilers in Mistborn Prime if you've read the trilogy. It's not a very good book but you can read it and kind of understand the history of where the story came from. So I'll do the same thing with these books.
At the end of The Rithmatist that weird chalk creature he meets in the chapel, can you tell us something about that?
That weird chalk creature is deeply involved with the magic system and you will find out a lot more in the next book.
Are we going to find out if the earring gives him [Wax] any other Hemalurgic powers?
I mean, I might eventually dig into it a bit. The thing is, it's so weak that--
It's probably not--
Yeah... I assume that people are thinking this is a gun on the mantle, so I will have to deal with it.
Have you decided which future book Adolin character will be the focus of Stormlight series? Book 3-4 He is the best character
We shall see. Talking too much about which characters get which books risks spoiling who survives long enough to get a book.
Based on the current state of the Cosmere, known and unknown, could Kelsier theoretically find enough power/skill/knowledge to have a fair and equally matched fight with Hoid? Assuming they were to meet again and have a rematch?
I'd say that what you posit is indeed theoretically possible.
A little while ago, you had a little competition thing with James Dashner... I was wondering, is there some secret writer club where you guys all send each other emails saying, "Oh, in my book, my newest character does this cool thing."
The truth is, there are kind of some things like that. We have some listservs. But more, it's not on email, it's having dinners, things like that. Particularly people who broke in when I did, like [Patrick] Rothfuss, [Joe] Abercrombie, and some of these guys, we end up at cons kinda the same time, running the same rounds, and end up chatting with each other, and just-- We've become friends that way, and also slightly rivals. You see us doing things like this.
My Abercrombie story. Did you guys see on my Twitter feed? ...I was in Amsterdam, I was running to catch a plane in Amsterdam. I started in London, I had a signing in Calgary. I don't know how that happened, but I needed to do a signing in Calgary. So, I'm through passing Amsterdam. This sounds a lot more glorious than it is. I'm passing through, and I found my book at an English language bookstore in the airport in Amsterdam. So, I did my normal thing, I hurriedly signed it, I stuffed some goodies in it, I took a picture, and tweeted my fans, "Anyone passing through Amsterdam airport, look what you can find!" And then I get a text from Joe Abercrombie where he's like, "Dude, my book was next to yours." I'm like, "Oh, great, nice. Great." And he's like, "No, no. Go sign that." *laughter* Pardon my French but, he might have said, "Go sign that bitch." (That's not me. I don't use language like that.) I'm like, "I'm gonna be late to my flight." He's like, "I don't care, go sign that book!" So I had to run back-- He'd done this over Twitter, so everyone knew he was doing it. So, I had to run back to the bookstore, sign Joe Abercrombie's book. You know, people ask me a lot, when I do these stealth signings, do I ever get caught? No, they never-- If someone starts signing a book, if they see me, what they say is, "Oh, are you the author?" They're used to authors coming through. I've had to show ID once, and it was my picture in the back of the book. But I was sure that this time, they were gonna be like "Oh, Mr. Abercrombie!" And then see the picture in the back of the book and be like, "What are you doing?!?" But that didn't happen, and I made my flight, though I had to-- I was so late, I had to check my bags, there wasn't enough space. That's Joe Abercrombie for you.
So, yeah, we just kind of end up in the same circles, and things.
Does Investiture seek/spawn intelligence because it used to be Adonalsium, or did Adonalsium come to exist because Investiture seeks intelligence?
That's a chicken and egg question, isn't it? You will find both theories espoused by people in the know. What are we calling them now? Cosmerenauts? That's what they said on Reddit. I would say cosmere arcanists, people like Khriss.
I'm a big fan of Harmony.
Probably will never happen but I'd love to see him put the smackdown on Odium.
Paging [Brandon]... what do you think of this theory :) ? Is this your plan? Or are we asking about something which is decade(s) away?
I find theories like this very interesting, but yes, you're right. This is talking about things very far away. I've said, however, that Odium is wary of Harmony.
It seems like Odium has been attacking shards that share a world for some reason (dom and dev hon and cult). Maybe his exploit against dual sharded worlds would work less well against a dual-wielding shardholder?
I won't say yes or no to that, but you can imagine that what happened on Scadrial is something he would have preferred never occur.
I'm surprised it didn't occur to anyone to grab two shards to begin with? Pairing Odium with Devotion seems like a good idea.
Did this not occur for a specific reason, or just an oversight on the part of the folks involved?
RAFO
Do you plan on having a true, definite ending to the Cosmere, such that no more books will be written that exist in it?
I DO have a true, definite ending. However, I can't say "no more books could exist" as there are always more stories to be told. But when I reach this ending in the years to come, I might very well decide enough has been done on this story. We shall see.
Can I ask for any more role-playing games?
There are no specific plans.
Crafty Games is good, but they're slow.
They are real slow, I think they're waiting- they're doing the board game.
On that note, the book that you were just talking about earlier I read that it was supposed to be Hoid’s origin story?
Yeah, it was Hoid’s origin story, yeah. I will re-write it eventually. One of the problems with it, about halfway through I felt this should really have been a first person book all along and it wasn’t. So that was part of the big reason it wasn’t working. It needs to be his voice telling a story as opposed to the way I was doing it and that is going to involve a major re-write.
The major mandate for the entire Rosharan environment is "coral reefs above water". We leaned into it hardest in the first book, partly 'cause we were still working out what's what and partly 'cause Brandon wanted to put that design theme up front.
So the luckspren and windspren are evocative of fish and schools. The prickletac rockbuds are actually shaped like branch coral, and the leaves of the stumpweight trees are seawead. Markel trees gots clamshell leaves. Axehounds are turtle-faced lobster-dogs, chull are giant hermit crabs, skyeels are so Moray they even got pharyngeal jaws.
This is not a design I've done for the books, but it's a question that comes up quite often. So I thought I'd nail this down in my own head, at least.
When I think about bridges, they look something like this: http://imgur.com/Q1GhwkC
What do you think? How would you handle it differently?
-EDIT- In light of some suggestions from both fans and the Dragonsteel team, I've revised the design slightly; removed the vertical posts, extended the horizontals out enough for two men, and increased the total height by half.
-EDIT 2- The side-carry! http://imgur.com/d9Ocndg MILD SPOILERS for The Way of Kings.
Are there Dawnshards that aren't swords? The Parshindi person had a unique looking sword, so will we see any that in a spear for Kaladin or any other weapon?
RAFO. :)
