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Argent

I've been thinking about possession within the Cosmere - is it possible for beings (dead, alive, or inbetween) to possess other beings in the Cosmere? Allomantic control over spiked creatures, and the existence of the Lifeless are both close to the idea, but neither is quite what I've been trying to imagine. I think I am looking more into whether one being's cognitive (and/or spiritual) aspect can fully replace (temporarily or permanently) another's. I imagine the victim would natively fight this, similarly to how Rashek's spiritual aspect resisted his anti-aging trick, but... is such a thing possible?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible. (There are places where you've already seen the process either begin, or work partially.)

Oversleep

Are you talking about Ruin/Harmony controlling Hemalurgic Constructs and Odium controlling Voidbringers... or is there something else?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see soon.

Questioner

Would you ever consider releasing the grimdark version of Mistborn as a Prime novel?

Brandon Sanderson

I will release it as a Prime novel, I'll do that and Final Empire because they're both cohesive stories. The one I can't release is Mythwalker because it ends part the way through the ideas I have made. The magic system in Mythwalker is just broken beyond all my ability to fix. I plan to eventually get to you Dragonsteel Prime, Aether of Night, Final Empire, and Mistborn Prime in some incarnation. The others get harder because they just get worse and worse after that. But those ones are of interest to Cosmere fans. The first is Aether of Night, there's digital versions but there's no print version. The first showing up of a Shard, and Midnight Essence, and all sort of cool stuffs in there. Dragonsteel takes place on Yolen, which is still canonically part of the Cosmere. And you see Sho Del popping up which are a race that are in Dragonsteel Prime. Final Empire and Mistborn, there's not as much of real cool interest to you because I already took the best ideas and reused them, but I'll get it out there someday.

Questioner

With the strength of The Stormlight Archives, the strength of the Mistborn series and Alcatraz, I find that Legion often gets overlooked, and it's a-- such a fantastic collection. And they just combined the two novellas into one actual novel, which is great cause the first novella ended and it's like, "Well that's like halfway through a book. Still going." Is there gonna be any continuation--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I will write a third Legion story. The plan is to write that next year and to release a collection of all my non-cosmere stories. This year I released a collection of all my cosmere stories. So the plan is to do a collection of non and to write the third and final of the Legion stories. Chances are good I will have to rebrand them, because of the Legion TV show. Not that I couldn't release it, because they're different enough. But, like, when I first wrote Legion-- For those who don't know, Legion is about a guy who has maybe schizophrenia, except all the hallucinations help him. And they're very very helpful, useful people. And it's like-- they're like detective science fiction stories. And when I first wrote it, everybody in Hollywood wanted it. And then the project dried up like that. And it was right the moment that Marvel announced they were doing their Legion. So I'll probably rebrand them as just "The Stephen Leeds Stories", and do the third one. So that's the plan right now.

Questioner

Are the [singers] living computers, and are spren variables in a computer system?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The answer is: I would say no, I wouldn't consider this. But I have considered this idea, and there is a place in the cosmere where people are using spren-- not spren but something similar on another planet, for a little bit of computation. Which I want to be able to write that story some day, but-- It's a very fun thing that I dug down a rabbit hole in one time. You might see this somewhere in the cosmere, but it's not actually Roshar. I wouldn't call them that.

Questioner

[Did you pull] from the story of Osiris for cosmere stuff?

Brandon Sanderson

I did use some Osiris myths for cosmere.

Questioner

So, how much mythology did you pull from?

Brandon Sanderson

Quite a bit. I have a deep interest in all kinds of mythologies. And I had a really good professor of folklore in college. I ended up really liking her, so I took a ton of classes from her. So, my senior course was mythology in folklore. So, yes, you'll find all kinds things from all over the place in the books.

Questioner

Even, I guess, just within different worlds, even within the different cultures.

Brandon Sanderson

Watch the stories Hoid tells. You'll be able to be like, "Oh, that's inspired by a coyote myth, right there." You'll pick them out here and there.

Questioner

Is Skyward in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Skyward is not in the Cosmere. It started out there, and I pulled it out for continuity reasons. It is related to something else I’ve written in the past, though.

Questioner

Going back to the technology issue, in some of your books, particularly the Mistborn books, you explain why technology hadn’t developed for thousands of years. [...] What’s happened to gunpowder and combustion? Why isn’t that there?

Brandon Sanderson

In Rithmatist the reason why we don’t use gunpowder and combustion is early on, people figured out how to wind springs into the aether, and if you can wind a spring into the aether you can get energy out of it. Basically the way we’ve got it working in the Rithmatist (I would have to dig out the exact notes, so be warned) but the way we have it working right now is if you wind a spring made the right way, you can wind it into the aetherial winds. And you can wind, and then twist it, and when you unwind it catches the aetherial winds and spins with it. So you can actually get more energy out than you put in if you wind it one direction, lock it, and then lock it into the aetherial winds and unwind it. It’s like hydropower, but it is unseen hydropower.

So my explanation is they learned how to do this, and because they had access to this easier source of energy, their experiments with gunpowder and combustion weren’t as…. You could still make gunpowder. You could go build a gun on the Rithmatist world, and it would work just fine. But since they’ve been focusing on this other line of technology and they can access this energy, everything’s gone that direction instead. And I kind of built on the idea of the difference engine and things like this. People were trying to make mechanical versions of computers and whatnot. And if they had found a way to get energy out of it, they might have gone this direction.

That said, I did not put the rigor into the science that I often do in the cosmere books. That comes in the revision stage when I give it to scientists and to my assistant Peter, who look at the actual science and raise some of the issues. So Rithmatist, I didn’t have to worry about that as much. In the cosmere I have to worry about things like redshift and breaking causality, and all of this stuff, and at least have in-world reasons why people don’t get irradiated by light when you speed up time, whereas in the Rithmatist I can say, “It’s a fun alternate history fantasy book. So we’ll just go with that and be internally consistent and not worry about the laws of thermodynamics quite as much.

Brandon Sanderson

So, one thing I think I did wrong in the books was not having more allomancer guards and soldiers who were women. I don't think our same gender norms would be the case on Scadrial.

One of the [screenplay] revisions is this: Shan is no longer Elend's fiance, but his sister. Their father has left on business to the outer domninances, and so Shan is making a play to secure the heirship, trying to prove she is more bold and strong than her brother. This is what gives the team an opening, and why they're striking now with the heist, as in this version, House Venture maintains the city policing and has access to the atium stash.

The plan is to put a few Allomancers (including Ham) into the Venture house guard, and exploit Shan's desire to prove herself by creating chaos in the city that she'll think she needs to put down with decisive action. That will involve her pulling out the atium stash, which will in turn let the team know where to go to rob them.

It streamlines the book's story in some elegant ways to do this. Shan becomes the primary "mark" of the book, in many ways. It also lets me explain a little more succinctly what various members of the crew are doing in the background while we focus on Vin, who is to get close to Shan as a confidant--which is why she's sent to the parties. And why Shan being a brat to her isn't just annoying, it means a major part of the plan isn't yet in place.

It explains way better, in my opinion, why Shan would act against Elend. It's all clicking into place as I move pieces around. That said, I understand those who want a Television show. I could see going that way, perhaps.

Trouble is, nobody in streaming needs a big fantasy property. Anywhere I go right now, I'd be in a distant second or third place to Tolkien, WoT, Witcher, or Kingkiller. The offers I've gotten have been for a fraction of the budget of those shows--since everyone has already spent big money on their big fantasy show, and isn't really interested in another.

I'm confident feature is the place I want Mistborn; but even if I weren't, I'm not thrilled by the idea of being lost on Netflix as their "other" fantasy show.

Rapharasium

I don't know if I'm being negative, but these changes really worry and disappoint me. I really like Era 1 as it is, and all this change in the dynamics of society and the plot as too drastic.

Brandon Sanderson

This isn't negative; I understand this response, and think it's valid.

At the same time, I'm of the personal philosophy that a film should generally be a different beast than a book--a book can lean into the little intricacies of a story, while a film should be a bold but unified statement.

Nothing will happen to the books; those will remain the same. But if I want this film to work as a film, I believe I need to be willing to re-imagine parts of the story.

Mycroft_canner

With Elend having a sister does that mean you don’t need the Zane plot anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

That's from the second book--so it would be in the television show, and we'd likely still do it.

DataLoreHD

prove she is more bold and strong than her brother

Which brother?It certainly could not be Elend, right? Elend had no Allomancy powers (before he ate the lerasium in WoA), so Straff despised Elend and thought him too weak.And Zane was a bastard and also mad dog.If Shan was Straff's legitimate daughter, then her succession was already 100% secure. She wouldn't need to prove anything to anybody.

Brandon Sanderson

It will be Elend, but it's more that this is the first time that Shan gets to be on her own, leading by herself, and wants to show off for the Lord Ruler. Also, there's the question of whether the male heir--though inferior in this case--might get the nod for sexism reasons. I think it's going to work just fine, but I'll admit, it's getting a little rough to discuss all these details on a thread like this--I can't answer everyone's questions, I'm afraid. I just wanted to indicate the kinds of changes I'm looking at making.

Whatever I do will go through my standard "show it to tons of beta readers and get feedback" process, so I should be able to catch problems and fix them.

meh84f

The bit about atium is a bit confusing. The Ventures are going to have the Atium stash? Not the stash that we don’t find until the end I’m assuming? So it’ll be a stash but much smaller than expected?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'm not sure I can explain it all in this, but one big change I wished I'd made from the start of Mistborn is making atium usable by all Allomancers. As I've gotten further in the cosmere, using a god metal as just for Mistborn has felt off.

So the lore change for the films will mean any Allomancer can use atium. This, in turn, lets House Venture have access to the LR's atium as a "Control the city" last resort. They keep a task force of allomancers for this purpose--which Ham can join, in anticipation of being able to steal it once Shan accesses it. (They don't know that House Venture is only given about a hundred beads of atium, not access to the full mythical cache, which will be reserved for the third movie.)

Makes the worldbuilding and storytelling more elegant, I've found, in the film. And it fits better with more "modern" cosmere fundamentals as have developed over the last decade. I think I'd make this change even if we moved to a television show and long form.

The Lord Ruler is still the "big bad" but Shan and the Inquisitors both get a little more screen time. (Actually, about the same as in the books--it's just that other parts are being trimmed, making them more front-and-center.)

Phantine

Based on that, you're also streamlining away the Sign of Sixteen if it gets a sequel? To be honest, that didn't really work for me in the novel anyway.

Brandon Sanderson

It's one of my least favorite parts of the trilogy. It (along with Vin drawing upon the mists in book one) are big changes I'm hoping to make to fix weaker sections of the continuity.

PallonianFire

If a Shard were to heal the cracks in someone's spiritweb, like Sazed did with Spook, and that person who was getting healed has a Nahel bond, would that break the bond?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because the Nahel bond is already filling in those cracks, so you would have to rip it off to put something else in there.

PallonianFire

So it wouldn't really be-- the Shard wouldn't be able to heal--

Brandon Sanderson

Well, the Shard-- Like, here's the thing we have to get at with this, what we're getting at, which is the question of, for instance, is Kaladin's depression a flaw in him that needs to be healed? And that is a question for philosophers. There are certainly people, cosmere and outside the cosmere, that say "Yes, this needs to be healed" and things like this. But what about somebody who's-- say, someone who is autistic, and their mind just works in a different way, and this way allows a certain bond to happen that couldn't otherwise happen? Is that a flaw, or is that-- is it a bug or a feature, to speak in coding terms? Is what's up with Kaladin a bug or a feature? I know that my wife would probably get rid of her depression if she could, but it's also been fundamental in how she sees the world and who she is, would that change her into a different person? And things like this. So, I want you when you discuss this, to be very careful about treating mental illness as a flaw as opposed to an aspect of a human personality that allows certain different things to happen. Does that make sense? *applause*

PallonianFire

The way I was sort of thinking, was, could Odium say, "Oh, I'm just going to fix this" and then you can't Surgebind anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, right, yeah. If he-- if there w-- that is possible, but it would be hard to do without the consent of the person, but that is possible… You can fix somebody in a way that they didn't want to be fixed, and it would ruin things.

Questioner

The Ars Arcanum, is there an in-cosmere author of that?

Brandon Sanderson

Those are in-cosmere, yes.

Questioner

It sort of seems like they would be written by someone like Hoid or someone.

Brandon Sanderson

It is not. I don't know if I've released who it is. It's probably not who peole are thinking, but it is in-world.

Questioner

Zellion, is that name taken from the unpublished novel, The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that name is taken from that book. Zellion's appearance in the Cosmere is related to, not that book, but it's kind of the same character, reincarnated now into the Cosmere, if that makes sense.

Questioner

 Why can Stormlight heal Lopen's arm, but can't heal Kaladin's scars?

Brandon Sanderson

Because *photo pause* a lot of the healing in the Cosmere works on principles of expectation and how you envision yourself. 

Questioner

So Kaladin has accepted the scars.

Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin has accepted the scars, and Lopen never accepted the one arm. It's a good question, it's one I am hoping people will ask. [...] It's one of these ties when I built the magic systems that I wanted certain threads to run through them, so when I eventually have them being used in the same books, that there will be consistency among them, that so they won't feel like everything's just thrown together. So, for instance, the intention and expectation, for instance, in Warbreaker-- What you want to have happened influences what does happen, the expectation, the way you are thinking about things. Very important for most of the Cosmere magics.

Questioner

So the scene at the end of Oathbringer, when Odium is confronting Taravangian and he uses futuresight to expand upon the Diagram, we have this blacked out section with Renarin's name linked to it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Is that because Renarin's abilities interfere with Odium's futuresight similar to how electrum interferes with atium?

Brandon Sanderson

Any time that someone else is seeing the future in the cosmere, it's going to have ripples against your ability. Like they are-- you can't-- It's the same sort of thing that if-- someone who has access to atium is going to mess up anyone else's futuresight in any way, because once you use that it's going to cause you to act differently, which then-- And remember futuresight is not very good in the cosmere anyway. But yeah, it's just gonna mess things up.

Adam Horne

When he [Isaac] and I were talking, and he told me that it [the planet name] was Lumar, I was like, "Oh, that's like 'lunar,' just with an 'm.'" Is that something that crossed your mind? Was that intentional? Were you okay with that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's part of why I liked it. But he has some very good rationale for the name, and I'll maybe let him tell that story at some point. But he kind of gave me the explanation.

He looks out for you guys, because I don't always name the worlds when I write stories like this, because I'm like, "They just call it the world. They don't name their world." Our world is named Earth because earth is dirt, right? Isaac always pushes me and says "all right, let's name this world. Let's name this one." I come up with them sometimes; sometimes, he comes up with them.

Questioner

Is there like a Cosmere-significant reason why, on Scadrial, the Investiture is hereditary, but that that doesn't really seem to be the case on any of the other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes there is, but it has to do more with the fact that on Scadrial, human beings were directly created by Ruin and Preservation. And most of the Cosmere worlds you've seen don't have that same sort of aspect. It is the case on Nalthis, but it's not the case on Roshar, it's not the case on Taldain, it's not the case on Sel. And so because of that instance, that's how I'm kind of working, that changed the way people interact with magic directly. But there is some wiggle room there for me. But that's your answer, that's the actual... there's.. I'm not hiding anything there, there is wiggle room. What I'm saying is don't extrapolate that that has to happen every time that the Shards were directly involved in the creation...

Questioner

Are you thinking of making a card game? I kind of searched your--

Brandon Sanderson

Am I thinking of making a card game? So Crafty Games who has the rights to the Mistborn stuff, they want to do a card game. I like what they've done with the RPG, if you play pen and RPG's we do have one, it's pretty decent, but first I think they're going to do a board game, and then that. So I have no plans to do one other than the standup cards, the one that are in the cosmere, may eventually have some sort of weird game that goes with them that I've come up with, but I can't promise when that'll actually happen. These ones don't have stats on them because they're not in the cosmere. But they're still cool.

Brandon Sanderson

*reading a personalization request* In the concept of an unreliable narrator, there is a...scope of unreliability. One can be limited by perspective, another can be unreliable with intent. Could you...examine the second type in the Cosmere? Who would be a good example?

Hoid can be very intentionally misleading. The thing is, there aren't many first person viewpoints in the Cosmere stories so if its ever from someone's actual viewpoint-- Like Kelsier is a little unreliable in his viewpoint in that he doesn't go into his plan, which is technically unreliable narrator and it technically is by intent, but it's more like, he's like "I can't think about this" and stuff, but is also him lying to the reader a little bit. Does that make sense? Kelsier is probably the best example of unreliable narrator.

Questioner

Soul Forging. Emperor's Soul. If one created the stamp properly, could you, using it, say, Windrunner you stamp, rewrote past to be Lightweaver. Possible?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible and a little easier than a lot of other things. It's gonna run into problems... in that the Oaths are gonna be hard to align.

Questioner

Probably require some very fine crafting on the stamp.

Brandon Sanderson

Very fine crafting on the stamp. And there are certain people that they're just gonna have a hard time fitting into certain Orders. This is a lot easier though than just taking a random person and making them into one, because you're gonna already have Investiture that they've got.

Questioner

And have the basis of the First Oath.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So this is not as hard as it might at first sound. It's the sort of thing that people in the cosmere are looking at. Like, being able to transfer magics between-- and things like that is one of very much interest in the cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

My Year

This year was almost completely dominated by the writing of Oathbringer, Book Three of the Stormlight Archive. The first files I have for the book were Kaladin scenes, written in June 2014. But the book didn't really start in earnest until July 2015, when I wrote the Dalinar flashback sequence. (See State of the Sanderson 2015.) I had those done by October, but November was when I really dove into the novel.

I spent most of 2016 working on it, with only a few interruptions. It was an extremely productive year spent writing on something I'm very passionate about—but it was also a monochrome year, as I poured so much into Stormlight. There were far fewer side projects, and far fewer deviations, than the year before.

I've come to realize I can't do a Stormlight book every year, or even every two years. You can see that this one took around 18 months of dedicated writing time (though that does include some interruptions for edits and work on other things.) My process is such that, when I finish something like Stormlight, I need to move on for a while to refresh myself.

That said, Oathbringer is done as of last week! Here's a quick breakdown of the year.

January: Oathbringer

A lot of this month was revisions. I decided to do something unusual for me, and revise each chunk of the book as I completed it, which let me get my editor working on his notes early in the year—rather than making him wait until this month, when the whole thing finished. That means I'll soon have a second draft of the book completed, though I only completed the first draft a little bit ago.

Also squeezed into January was a trip to Bad Robot, where I had a cool meeting with J.J. Abrams. (In conjunction with a video game my friends at ChAIR Entertainment are making—the Infinity Blade guys. I just gave a few pointers on the story; I'm not officially involved.)

February: Calamity Tour

I toured for Calamity, the last book of the Reckoners. The whole series is out now, so check it out! There is a nice hardcover boxed set of all three available in most bookstores, and it makes a great gift.

While on tour, I read from Stormlight 3, and some kind person recorded the reading for you all. Also, here's another version from FanX in SLC.

March: Trip to Dubai

I was invited to, and attended, the Emirates Festival in Dubai, then traveled south to Abu Dhabi to visit some friends. This was an extended trip, and I often find it difficult to work on a main project (like Stormlight) while traveling. I have too many interruptions. I can write something self-contained, but have more trouble with something very involved.

On this trip, I wrote a novella called Snapshot: a science Fiction detective story where people solve crimes using exact recreations of certain days in the past. It's a little Philip K. Dick, a little Se7en. This one's coming out in February, and will likely be my only release in 2017 other than Oathbringer (which will be in November). More details here.

April: Oathbringer

I got back into the groove of writing, and did a big chunk of Oathbringer Part Two. If you missed the discussions on Reddit, here are my various updates there spanning about a year's time, talking about the book: One, Two, Three, Four, and Five.

May: Edgedancer

I took a short break from Stormlight 3 to write…Stormlight 2.5, an extended story about Lift, with smaller appearances by Szeth and Nale. If you want to get your Stormlight fix before the release in 2017, you can find Edgedancer in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection. (There will eventually be a solo ebook release, but that's a number of years away, as required by my contract with Tor.) I also wrote essays and annotations for each world and/or story in the collection.

When I decided I wasn't going to kill myself (and my team) trying to get Oathbringer out in 2016, I committed to writing this novella to tide people over. I think you'll enjoy this one, unless you're one of the people that Lift drives crazy. In which case you'll probably still enjoy it, but also want to punch her in the face for being too awesome.

June-August: Oathbringer

I finally got a good long chunk of time dedicated to Oathbringer.

I do love traveling, but it takes a big bite out of my writing time. So please don't get offended when I can't make it out to visit your city or country on tour. I try to do as much as I can, but I'm starting to worry that has been too much. Last year, for example, I was on the road 120 days for tours or conventions. This year was a little better, clocking in at about 90 days.

September: Alcatraz Release & Writing Excuses Cruise

Book Five of my middle grade series, Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, came out this month. (A long-awaited book.) You should read it.

The cruise was a fun time, but very unproductive for me. There is too much going on, and too much to organize, for me to get much writing done. I did finish one chapter of a potential novella on the single day of writing time I got. (The story, called "The Eyes," is a space opera inspired by Fermi's Paradox.)

I might do something with the chapter eventually, but for now I'm sending it in to be this month's Random Hat reward for the $10 patrons of Writing Excuses on Patreon.

As a warning to those planning on attending the cruise in 2017: we'll have a ton of awesome guest instructors, and it will be well worth your time and money. I, however, won't be attending. I'll be on the cruise other years in the future, but (like JordanCon, which I love) I can't promise to go every year. Once every two or three years is more likely. It's just a matter of trying to balance touring/teaching with writing.

By the way, JordanCon, FanX, and Dragon Con had some amazing costumes this year—but I'll save those for another post.

October: Europe Tour

Though I had a few good weeks of writing between the end of the cruise and the start of the Europe trip, I quickly lost steam again as I visited France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal on tour. I had an awesome time, signed a ton of books, and met many people in excellent costumes.

November: Arcanum Unbounded Release

Finally, I released Arcanum Unbounded: the Cosmere Collection. The tour for this was short, and I apologize for that, but…well, there's this writing thing I need to do sometimes…

December: Writing Excuses and Oathbringer

I got about half the episodes for next year's writing excuses season recorded at various locations, and then finally managed to type "THE END" for Oathbringer.

There's still a lot of work left on the book, but I'm confident we'll hit our November 2017 release date.

Questioner

Could there be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there very much could be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere. Right now, if you become a Knight Radiant, that would be a solution. That's not a solution for everyone; that's a very narrow solution. But there would be other solutions.

Questioner

How long after Warbreaker do these events take place?

Brandon Sanderson

We have numbers in the wiki. We haven't canonized a lot of them in the books yet. Because my original plan for the cosmere involved more space between the series than I'm probably going to eventually do. What I've said is, that basically the books that have been released have all been chronological except for White Sand, which takes place before the other books chronologically. Wax and Wayne takes place after Stormlight Five, but before Stormlight Six. And that's all I'm saying about how far apart things are right now.

One thing you have to remember is, also, time dilation is a thing in the cosmere that comes up a lot more often than it does in our world, for various reasons, because of the way I am treating Investiture. So treat that how you will.

Chaim

I understand that although Shadesmar is a Rosharan term, Brandon sometimes uses it generically to refer to the Cognitive Realm. But I would not have expected Khriss to do the same (AU, Drominad system). Is that a mistake or deliberate?

Peter Ahlstrom

As far as I know, it is not a Rosharan term.

Chaim

My understanding came from several WoB, such as https://wob.coppermind.net/events/221-words-of-radiance-omaha-signing/#e7199 … and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/225-words-of-radiance-san-diego-signing/#e5814 … . While obviously not canon, can you clarify with Brandon?

Peter Ahlstrom

Eh, well the first quote actually answers the question. Whatever word people use throughout the cosmere, Brandon translates it as Shadesmar in the books. I still think the word is widely used though.

Chaim

I think that in the first quote when he says "these books" he is referring to Stormlight. Hence the reference to Wit, whose words are translated to Rosharan and Cognitive Realm is thus translated to Shadesmar. Have you found Shadesmar anywhere else in the cosmere?

Peter Ahlstrom

Well, clearly Khriss calls it that too. :)

Brandon Sanderson

Movie/Television Updates

The Cosmere

DMG Entertainment optioned the rights to the Cosmere, and they have been wonderful to work with. They commissioned screenplays for The Emperor's Soul, Mistborn, and The Way of Kings. They're currently in Step Three above, trying to get studio interest for the properties. Mostly, they've been pitching Mistborn as a film series and The Way of Kings as a television series.

Likely, the success of things like the new Lord of the Rings show and the Kingkiller Chronicles will influence how this goes in the future.

NOOK

How, if at all, did the Wax and Wayne books alter your Cosmere plans?

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2)

They made me accelerate some cosmere and Scadrial events forward to that era.

Brandon Sanderson

We might do Cosmere children’s books. The most likely thing that I would like to do is adapt Wit’s stories. Do Wandersail, do maybe Fleet. Fleet doesn’t work as well as The Girl Who Looked Up, which works really well. Stuff like that, I could see. Cosmere storybook.

Anthony

Sixth of the Dusk doesn't have much that directly ties it to the cosmere. Is this a world we'll see later?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not hugely important to the cosmere. We will see signs and hints of it, but don't expect a book set there.

Brandon Sanderson

The Sleepless are one of the very first fantastical races I developed, and they made an appearance in Stars' End (my second--very bad--novel, which never was published.) I migrated them to the Cosmere after I started designing it, as I wanted some truly alien species. I was interested in an entity that could have "generations" within its own swarm of beings, breeding to evolve parts of its body, and spreading consciousness across a large number of individual pieces. I'd seen a lot of hive minds, and some group minds, in science fiction--and wanted to play with something that was a hybrid between the two.

However, in order to properly integrate them into the Stormlight story, I decided to make them be able to imitate humans. (And through these efforts, they are slightly more humanoid in the way they perceive the world.) That made them able to play in the events of Roshar more directly.

There are plenty of swarms in the cosmere who are not connected to those on Roshar, however.

Questioner

Why or how are the Heralds the only ones we've seen so far that are affected by magical maladies due to either their high Investiture or long lives?

Brandon Sanderson

I would argue the Fused are having the same situation, so they're not the only ones. The why and how... there's a whole host of things going on here. Like a lot of physical and mental illness, it's not one thing or the other. But it is a compound of other things.

One is going so long without certain protections that you kind of need to take. The human being's soul might be immortal, depending on your argument in the cosmere. (That's really up to you.) But they certainly aren't meant for thousands of years of existence, the same way that our bodies aren't. There's some of that.

There's some of the things they've been through. Like, legit trauma; this is not all simply a magical ailment. You've got people with PTSD, layers of PTSD on top of layers of PTSD, for thousands of years, bearing things that no human being without their level of Investiture would even be able to bear. You've got that manifestation, you've got their own sense of guilt.

And these things are all just kind of overlapping together with the fact they've been alive for so, so very long. And a lot of the people that you've seen otherwise have not been alive nearly... orders of magnitude more for the Heralds. The only people you've seen that are that old are: some of the dragons, Hoid, and Vessels of various Shards. And you're basically at that group. And this is a group who knows what they're doing. Either they were built like the dragons, this is part of their innate nature, that they are functionally immortal. Or you are getting the Shards. Or you're getting people that are 300 years old, which is a very different thing, cosmere-wise, than having lived for thousands and thousands of years, part of it being torture.

MoriWillow

In the Spiritual Realm, does there exist an ideal of tables that is a separate entity from the spiritwebs of all extant tables? If so, did that ideal always exist, even before the invention of tables? Or was it born out of the people inventing tables?

Brandon Sanderson

The answer is no. This is where we diverge from Plato’s Theory of the Forms. Again, Theory of the Forms was a conceptual benchmark for me. I thought the Theory of the Forms was awesome, and it stuck in my head for many years and eventually gave birth to Cognitive, Spiritual, and Physical. (The first book really delving into that being Dragonsteel Prime, and it’s in the opening chapters of Dragonsteel Prime.)

But where it differs is: there is not a Platonic idea of a table in the cosmere. All ideals in the cosmere are filtered through the perception of sapient beings.

Questioner

Is Hoid your cameo character in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. No, he is not. I'm actually not very much like Hoid. The thing I share with him is a love of stories. So the closest he will be to me is when he's talking about storytelling; that's the part of me that is in him. But personality-wise, we are very different. He is a main character in the cosmere; I don't consider him... he's done cameos in other books, but I don't consider him to be an author insert character.

The closest I've come to an author insert is probably when I put my sword into the Wheel of Time, the one that was given to me by Wilson, Robert Jordan's very, very close cousin of his who was taking care of the armory that Robert Jordan had. I wrote my sword into it, like Robert Jordan wrote himself in as a ter'angreal in one of the books. And I could see myself doing a cameo for myself in that sort of manner. I probably wouldn't do a human cameo. Though I do that for a lot of my friends, is I write them into the books as cameos. So who knows.

Questioner

Spren. The phenomenon that creates spren. Is that Roshar-specific or is that a general effect?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, yes and no. So the question is, the effect that creates spren, is that Roshar-specific or is it general. The general fundamental rules that create spren are cosmere-wide. Spren are pieces of Investiture, usually pieces of Investiture that come straight from one of the Shards of Adonalsium, split off in some way, that because of human or other sapient creatures thinking about it or interacting with the power, the power starts to take on a life of its own. Develops personalities and comes alive, so to speak. And this can happen on any pla-- in any place where there is Investiture. So it could happen on any planet in the cosmere with significant amounts of free Investiture. The places you've seen this happen most commonly are on Sel and Scadri-- err Roshar. You haven't seen it on Scadrial, and you've seen little kind of hints at it on Nalthis, but not quite. And so-- But it's possible for it to happen anywhere. Seons and spren are basically the same thing with different powers-- powers kind of pushing them in different-- growth out of them-- That said, the non-sapient spren, so the spren that are not quite as-- They're not going to stand up and talk to you. Those all existed-- not all, but most of them existed on Roshar before the Shattering of Adonalsium.

Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

Is Shadows of Silence a cosmere story?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It is cosmere, but takes place on an unimportant side planet that doesn't have anything interesting going on there. Hoid is not in the story.

TheBurningDusk

Mistborn era 3 is chronologically after the back half of Stormlight, but will be written first. With the ever-increasing cosmere connections, how will you keep era 3 from spoiling Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a challenge. I mean, technically era 2 is post-Stormlight 5, so I have been juggling that so far, it's not long after Stormlight 5 but it is post-Stormlight 5. Karen has to, when I force her to lock down certain parts of the timeline various places but there's certain things we haven't locked down, for instance, I still haven't decided how long the time jumps are going to be until I write the various series. Let's just say, I've managed to write Sixth of the Dusk I hope without spoiling too much, and it's not the only future era Cosmere thing that is perhaps coming through the pipeline eventually, before we get through with Stormlight 5, so I will just juggle this and balance this very well, I hope. I will try. I will do my best to keep this all balanced without spoiling too much. 

simonthekillerewok

In the 2019 and 2020 State of the Sandersons, you talked about a Secret Standalone Cosmere Book. Is this that? Or is that something different?

Brandon Sanderson

That's something different.

simonthekillerewok

Also, in Livestream #22 in November 2020, you were looking through the cloud archive on your phone and you mentioned there was a Secret Project manuscript there. Was this the book you were referring to? Or is this also something else?

Brandon Sanderson

Something else. That one was Kingmaker, which I did a reading of, that didn't work. That's the one I was referencing there. Not one of these, but a different one entirely.

And the other one is still, yet, an unannounced different one that someday I will announce. I will tell you a little bit about this thing. You'll know when it comes. It is projected at 200K-300K words. It is set in the future of the Cosmere. And it's more beastly and epic than, perhaps, a lot of my other side projects are.

Questioner

Are we gonna get more Cosmere or are you done with that? 

Brandon Sanderson

You'll get a lot more Cosmere. A lot more.

manugutito

Just remembered another physics-related question that has been in the back of my mind since forever! (And this one is no RAFO-candidate, in my mind at least)

The scene in question is that interlude on SA where two scholars measure the size of spren, and they find that the size oscillates until measured, and then it remains fixed at the measured value. This is totally equivalent to projective measurements in quantum physics, was that your inspiration on this one?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, quantum physics plays a role in the way the cosmere works, and this was partially intended to display that. However, we do take a different route, as thinking about something can directly influence it in the cosmere. So it's more a fantastical version of quantum physics.

Questioner

Shallan's Lightweaving. How does she make those physical? Is it light becoming matter?

Brandon Sanderson

So I'm not going to answer this one either, so you get another RAFO card. But I'll tell you which way to think. Here, energy and matter are basically the same thing. Investiture, energy, and matter are the same thing in the Cosmere.

In our world, when we touch, we are touching energy, right? We are not actually touching. The atoms are repelling each other or whatever. I'm not a physicist. I'm sorry, physicists!

Contact is a weird, weird thing. Keep in mind, investiture is another state of matter and energy in the Cosmere. It's not really that hard to extrapolate along.

CoffeeArchives

Starting with the Cosmere, and now with Apocalypse Guard, it's clear that you love shared universes. If all of your works were in the same universe, what would be the most fun crossover to write?

Brandon Sanderson

Hmmm... It's probably the cosmere all-world mashup I'm actually planning to do in the future.

Questioner

Do Splinters require proximity to their Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Do they require it for what?

Questioner

Function--

Brandon Sanderson

Function. It's very hard for most Splinters to leave the realm where they were Splintered, but this gets into tricky stuff because the Shard mostly occupies the Spiritual Realm, but what do you mean by the Shard? Because the essence of the Shard is in the Physical Realm, it's all across the cosmere, and things like this. Usually once something is Splintered it is difficult for them to leave that area, so yes.

Questioner

And in the system--

Brandon Sanderson

You see it with the-- I would call most Cognitive Shadows a Splinter in some ways. And you see it when Kelsier tries to leave, right. And spren would have the same trouble, and seons would have the same trouble. But at the same time is that a proximity to the Shard? Kind of. Things get very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey when you start dealing with the nature of the Spiritual Realm in the cosmere. 

zuriel45

Could Firefight theoretically access the Cosmere using her dimensional powers? Do magic parallel realities exist in the greater Reckoners multiverse?

Brandon Sanderson

I built the Reckoners so that certain possibilities were "stable" and others were not--limiting how weird things go. (And how far she can reach.) I'm trying to keep it within the bounds of the Reckoners universe that things don't go all Rick and Morty on us. So the chance of reaching a shadow of the Cosmere is very slim.

Questioner

At the end of the trilogy, Sazed communicates with Kelsier, so they exist in the afterlife, of some sort. You've got some concept of an afterlife. Is it uniform across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

What is happening there is not actually technically an afterlife, though it kind of is. It's what we call a cognitive shadow. It's when your spirit is not moving on yet. So there is a Beyond, but there is a -- basically that's what we would call in our world a ghost, and there are actually magic systems based around that. In fact, the story I have coming out in George R.R. Martin’s next anthology is a ghost story involving this same -- it is cosmere based. Yes, that would be consistent. They don’t all have the same mythology regarding it, but it would be consistent. What happened to Kelsier could have happened on any of the planets.

Steeldancer

When can we expect to see anything new cosmere-wise?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll start working on Stormlight 4 in January, and hopefully can get a novella (a la Edgedancer) written during the process, so you don't have to wait all the way to 2020 for more Cosmere.

Seifersythe

So Stormlight 4 will come before Mistborn 2-4?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially--it depends. A Stormlight book takes a LONG time to write, and often I sneak other books in the middle, because I need a break.

Questioner

Was there any one character that-- I know you said all of your characters are your favorite, but was there ever one you were really excited to kill?

Brandon Sanderson

Any character that I was really excited to kill. Masema, from The Wheel of Time. Spoiler. I was so happy to kill that dude. He was hanging on forever, annoying me.

Questioner

Anyone from the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Anyone from the cosmere? I'm never eager to kill anyone specifically. I don't even really regard it as killing characters off. I build the outline, I let the character grow into who they are and let them kind of guide-- take the chances that I feel that character would take, and then deal with consequences of it. Does that make sense? So in a lot of ways, it's interesting to me-- Like I already generally know what's going to happen in my books before I write them. I'm an outliner. And so I'm very comfortable, if not happy, with the idea that certain characters aren't going to make it. Meaning, I'm usually sad that they aren't, but I know that they aren't from the beginning so I'm very well prepared for it. Unlike you guys.

Ace_of_Face

Who wrote the "Ars Arcanum"? Since the writer obviously had knowledge of the cosmere I assumed that it was you making an editorial note, but then I thought that it could be Hoid (who was suspiciously absent) or Sazed or any Shardbearer... Does that make sense at all?

Brandon Sanderson

The Ars Arcanum is written in-cosmere by someone, but I don't want to [say] who yet.

Yata

If I may ask another thing, did you decide what come earlier in the Cosmere's Timeline between Elantris and White Sand ?

Brandon Sanderson

White Sand is earlier. I was pretty sure on this, but I wanted to be able to glance at the timeline and make sure I hadn't made any changes. (And I haven't.) It's pretty solidly locked into that place because of certain events around the cosmere, so you can assume it won't change.

Trex6

In the preview chapters you mention fay as self aware invested beings along with seons and spirits. Will these beings appear in an upcoming project already announced (example: Secret Project Four, Kingmaker, etc.) or instead in one of the secret stories you’re still keeping close to your chest? Or have you not decided where to put them yet?

Brandon Sanderson

It is one of those, definitely. It is not in Secret Project Four.

Like all things in the Cosmere, you should assume in this case that I am picking a word in English that best represents the concept. For instance, when I say the word "fay," I am not saying specifically creatures straight out of our mythology from Scottish and Irish lore. Anymore than if I call something an "ottoman," I am not implying the Ottoman Empire existed in the Cosmere. And if I use something that has a Latin root, I am not implying Latin exists. These are just best practice translations. I picked that word very carefully when I wrote this to kind of indicate to you that there is a place where they might just call them "fay." But that is not Hoid referencing our world. Most of you knew that already, but I just want to reiterate that concept for people.

It is not Secret Project Four but it is one of those other things you mentioned.

Jofwu

You decided to be up-front that Secret Project Four is "Stormlight-adjacent." If it's not a spoiler to clarify further: would you say it is more or less relevant to Stormlight Archive than Secret History is to Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd say it's less relevant to Stormlight Archive than Secret History is to Mistborn. By a fair margin because things that are happening in Secret History are really relevant to Era 3. What's happening here is not on the same level, but is decently relevant to the future of the Cosmere. If that makes sense. The protagonist of Sunlit Man is a major player in the future of the Cosmere, but not as much in the future of Stormlight.

DammyJerry

Does Dalinar know about Adonalsium? Stormfather dropped the term during one of their talks, so did he tell Dalinar the whole story of Shattering and Shards? Also, does he understand what exactly he did when summoned perpendicularity or not? Does he understand what’s going on with him now (that he’s connected with Honor’s remnants)? Does he even know what “Shard” means?

I guess, the question is “How cosmere-aware Dalinar is?”

Brandon Sanderson

As of Oathbringer, Dalinar isn't specifically aware of the larger cosmere story--though he would have numerous "Aha" moments if it were explained to him, as pieces of what he does know would fall into place. The Stormfather isn't particularly interested in the larger story, however, and that's one reason.

Jasnah is a different story...

Questioner

So Bavadin's avatars, right; Autonomy's avatars.

Brandon Sanderson

One of Bavadin's avatars. 

Questioner

Of those avatars, are some or all of them actual Splinters of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

The terminology gets kind of sticky here. In Cosmere terms, some would say that counts as Splinters, some would say not. The avatars aren't necessarily aware but Bavadin always is. A lot of people in Cosmere would call that a Splinter. 

Questioner

My follow up to that would be, is it possible for a person to Ascend and become a Vessel of one of those Splinters?  

Brandon Sanderson

That is plausible. Yes. It could happen. It would be tough because they will have personalities of their own and so something would need to happen... but yeah.

Questioner

At what point in making the Rithmatist magic system did the concept of the beauty of the drawings come in?

Brandon Sanderson

The beauty of the drawings is related to the idea of your perception influencing magic, which is a Cosmere rule. Giving things a mental order, the Cognitive aspect of it, it’s the same way that in Warbreaker, when you give an order to something you’ve Awakened with the magic, the way you perceive that order directly influences how it plays it out. I built this in because, number one, it’s better for philosophy if the answers aren’t, in some of these things, [internal?] answers where the author has said, “Truth is capital T Truth”, where the characters’ perceptions of truth allows for different people to believe different things and both be arguably right. Also because I wanted all the magic in the Cosmere to have some root in the Cognitive Realm. The idea of the magic there is, there’s a Spiritual thing which is kind of unknowable, kind of eternal, kind of all-places-one, there’s a Cognitive aspect, which is how you perceive it influences it, and then there’s the Physical world. The chalklings were built that way, how beautiful you perceive it as being, or the beings involved in this perceive it as being, will influence how well it works.

Second Questioner

In the books, in Rithmatist, you state that the better drawn a shape is, or a creation is, that makes it more powerful. Would that mean that if you drew a cube, would that be more powerful than a square?

Brandon Sanderson

The complexity of it, and how people perceive, you could make an argument that there’s some people who would be like, “The perfect cube is so hard to draw that that is inspiring”, but the average people, if you said, ”Who’s going to win this battle: this cool knight that I drew, or this cube?”, they’d say the cool knight. So that sort of general perception plays a lot into how it works.