Advanced Search

zotsandcrambles

In a way I felt that The Emperor's Soul was a bit post-singularity - in the sense that humans were capable of downloading new identities and histories. I know you've planned on doing FTL cosmere work, but have you any interest in doing post-singularity cosmere work? I'd be fascinated to see 'multiple-consciousness beings' using breath or soul stamps. Seeing human development push the boundaries of the shards would be quite intense, and I'm tickled pink at the notion of humans bamboozling the rules of [Shardic] Investiture - how far can Spiritual or Cognitive Identity stretch?

tl;dr - do you have any plans to bring post-singularity stories to the cosmere

Brandon Sanderson

I have plans for some of this, but the main-line cosmere stories I'm planning seem to adapt better to grand space opera than true post-singularity stories. That said, I've certainly got some short story ideas that will play with this. (And you'll see more hints like this even in the mainline books that I think you'll like.)

Questioner

How do the Heralds come back? As Cognitive Shadows, how do they a physical body?

Brandon Sanderson

That system will be explained in the coming books, so that is a RAFO. I'm gonna dig into it pretty deeply. It's relevant for multiple reasons...

In the original version, Taln ended up in someone else, like they would get a body from someone else, which was part of fueling the "Is he crazy, is he not," because people were like, "I recognize this guy!" I don't use that system anymore.

Questioner

That's what I was wondering, because the Fused--

Brandon Sanderson

They use something kind of more like the Fused in the original draft, it's not that process anymore.

Questioner

Is that gonna give us lead-ins to how it worked with Kelsier?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe. Maybe. You shall see.

Skrimyt

Can Transportation-based fabrials be used to achieve Physical Realm FTL, faster-than-light?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible, yes. Basically, I am pushing toward competing methods of FTL in the space age, and Roshar is one of the ones that has access to being potentially able to do that.

Lauren (PallonianFire's wife) (paraphrased)

Does Damnation exist in all three Realms?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, all three.

Rebecca Lovatt

How much time do you spend during the initial planning stages of writing your novel, developing your magic systems and going through the laws and such?

Brandon Sanderson

It really depends on the book. For Steelheart, I didn't need very much. On that I'm using a superhero-themed story, and all I really needed to know was: How did people start getting their powers? How are their weaknesses developed? How are these things interrelated? From there I can just look at each power set and say, "Okay, this person has this power set."

You don't have to extrapolate quite as far with superheroes. At the same time, they are very limited magics that only work within a certain small realm, so the reason you don't have to do as much extrapolation is because there isn't as much to do. In that case, it was the matter of a week.

With something like The Stormlight Archive, it was a matter of months or years of working on the magic systems. It really varies.

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid the Storyteller Tells Us the History of Hallandren

This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded infodump.

And so, I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn't use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using another of his favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or at least even more confused) if I didn't use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about . . . well, let's just say that there's a lot more to this random appearance than you might think.

Anyway, I love this storytelling method, and I worry that Hoid here steals the show. However, he's very good at what he does, and I think it makes for a very engaging scene that gets us the information we need without boring us out of our skulls.

Is everything he says here true? No. There are some approximations and some guesses. However, all things considered, it's pretty accurate. All of the large bits are true.

Questioner

Close to the end of Rhythm of War, Dalinar Connects Kaladin to something, which gives him the vision of Tien. Did he Connect him to Tien's dead soul, and if so, does Dalinar know what he did?

Brandon Sanderson

There are two prevailing theories on what happened here among cosmerenauts, in-world Arcanists. You would get two different answers. The most common answer is, Dalinar attached himself to the Spiritual Realm, pulled out possibilities, and showed one of those to Kaladin.

Questioner

If so, where did the horse come from?

Brandon Sanderson

Either pure coincidence, or some sort of matching of Fortune to the moment, that ended up leading Kaladin to the place he needed to be, which is the way a lot of Fortune works. Fortune would be like, "You should go here," and you don't even know why. That's what the Arcanist answer would be, it would be the most common answer. Some people would say he reached into the Beyond and connected Tien to Kaladin via Tien's actual soul. I will leave these both as equally valid theories. As I've said many times, I'm not gonna say whether there is an actual afterlife in the cosmere because it is too foundational to too many characters' beliefs, or lack of beliefs, or worldview in-world to have the author contradict them either way.

RobotAztec

can spren go thru walls like ghosts too?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the spren, and how strongly they've been pulled into the physical realm.

RobotAztec

so the ones that cant are the ones people can trap in gems for fabriels?

do they catch them with big butterfly nets and thrwo a gem into the netting? or is it like pokemon where they just throw gems and hope they hit??

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. No, neither one. This is a RAFO, I'm afraid.

Questioner

The magic in The Emperor's Soul, is that the only magic you've written that there is a Spiritual part to it in your magic trio?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm... All of them have some little dabbling in it, it is the most related to the Spiritual Realm-- Of the ones I have shown, certainly it is the most related.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eight

The economy of Arelon is one of the interesting features of this book. Even still, I'm not certain if I made things a little too odd here. The idea of nobility being tied directly to money is described so often by the characters that I worry that readers will think the system too foolish to have arisen. However, I think that by establishing the king as a former merchant—and by pointing out how the system was created quickly, to fill the void after the fall of Elantris—I manage to keep the economic and social situation in Arelon within the realm of possibility.

I think that too often fantasy writers are content with simply throwing in a slightly-original spin on magic—ignoring the fact that their cultures, governments, and religions are derivative. There is this idea of the "general" fantasy world, and writers draw upon it. However, I think an interesting cultural element can be just as fascinating—and as useful to the plot—as an interesting magic system. In the best cases, the two are inter-woven, like what one can find in brilliant genre books like Dune.

Of course, the strange economic/governmental system of the book is only a descendant of another strange economic/governmental system. Sarene and Lukel discuss a few of the problems presented by having a race of people who can create whatever they want through use of magic. I don't get to deal with that aspect of AonDor very much in this particular book, since the novel is set during a time when the magic of Elantris doesn't work. However, there are a lot of interesting ramifications AonDor would present for a book set during Elantris' heyday. What good is gold if someone can create it from nothing? In fact, what good is a monetary system at all when everyone can have as much food as they want? What need is there for invention or ingenuity in the face of a group of people who can re-create any good, no matter how complex, with a mere flick of the magical wrist?

The truth behind the Elantrian magical abilities is far more limited than Sarene or Lukel acknowledge in this chapter. If one were to go back fifteen years, one would find that the Elantrians who had the skill to fabricate complex materials "out of nothing" were actually quite rare.

As we learn later in the book, AonDor is a very complicated, difficult skill to master. As I was writing this book, I imagined the complicated Aons that Raoden eventually learns how to draw being only springboards to massive equations that could take weeks to plan out and write. Fabricating something very complex would require a great deal of detail in the AonDor recipe.

Even still, I think the tension between the Elantrians and the merchants is a natural outgrowth of this situation.

Billy

Does Allomancy have Cognitive and Spiritual manifestations as well as the Physical?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... Yes, it does, but*. A little asterisk.

Rayborne

From what we know, the Ghostbloods want a way to move investiture offworld. Could Thaidakar/Kelsier's reason for doing that be so that he can find a way to go offworld, given that he's Connected to Scadrial in (I assume) the same way investiture is Connected to a planet? Put in a more generalized way, is a cognitive shadow just investiture with a person's mind imprint, and if so would it be possible to move it (and the shadow themselves) offworld assuming the Ghostbloods find a way to do it?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow! Great question. RAFO!

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

Questioner

The missing number of Shardblades. I just want to confirm that, when the Blades were abandoned, that all of them stayed in the Physical Realm. My question is, did some just evaporate?

Brandon Sanderson

Ahh, good question. They did not evaporate.

Questioner

You talked about Mistborn being the space traveler ones. I was wondering if you were going to utilize some of the speed bending into that, into the travel with it?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see what I do when I do that... The biggest problem is, for you physics majors, how we make sure that we're not breaking causality... So breaking causality is kinda my big no-no. For instance, I have right now that moving between Oathgates goes at the speed of light. But technically we still break causality, right, with Shadesmar stuff... But the issue--the way we can do it in Shadesmar is because it breaks causality, but there is so muc-- Like if you were able to go into Shadesmar, move at the speed of light, come out like, you could break causality but it's, in practice, impossible, because the difference is so slight.

We also break causality with the Spiritual Realm, but I can control that.

Questioner

Also you can just kind of like, mulligan that off.

Brandon Sanderson

...If we were having instant speed, communication and things like that... yeah if we have an ansible, that's how we're not breaking causality. How we're not doing the train thought experiment which breaks my brain...

So that's the big thing I have to worry about once we get to the Mistborn era, the space travel and stuff. Like, right now I don't break causality, or at least if I do, it is indiscernible to human ability to realize it. Once we get to actual space travel, and actual FTL, then I want to have rules in place, even if it is just like the rule for red shifts. On speed bubbles, where I say, "Yeah it just doesn't happen." Letting you know. But it would be no fun. Even if it's just that. But I at least want to have that in hand.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Could a Soother prevent a listener from attuning a given rhythm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. A coppercloud could, but I hadn't thought about emotional allomancy interacting. See, the rhythm isn't your emotion and doesn't determine your mood. It is a direct connection to the spiritual realm. So I guess soothing could make it harder just like it makes anything harder, in the same way that driving a car would be harder. [recording starts here] And so, for the same reasons that you can, um, it is possible that a coppercloud can play with it. Not a normal power of a coppercloud, but you’ve seen them do stuff similar.

Questioner

Can a Returned gain a Nahel bond?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside the realm of possibility. Much more easy than Nightblood [gaining a Nahel bond]. Invested things resist other Investiture and so it depends on amounts of Investiture and it depends on a lot of factors. But that one's a mixing that could happen.

Excelsius

What's the biological reaction of a limb cut by a Shardblade, because they don't start to rot after being cut?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they don't start to rot, so the bloodflow is still happening. The limb is still attached, it's not going to rot off, but the soul is dead. This is a thing that can happen in the cosmere that can't happen here. Because you have Spiritual, [Cognitive], and Physical DNA. Your soul's been severed in that part, and it just flops around. You can't feel it, you can't control it. It's something that, again, couldn't happen here.

Spun Lines

We’ve seen Shallan’s drawings appear to make people into “better versions of themselves.” But we also see her draw Yalb surviving the shipwreck, and later find out he did. Is she actually seeing the future in which she just happens to inspire people to be better? If so, this would make Wit’s warning to her in Oathbringer more concerning.

Brandon Sanderson

As will all sort of future sight/foretelling in the cosmere, it is not necessarily telling the future so much as seeing possibilities. And Shallan has… we’ll get into this in Book Five. Shallan’s a little extra good at this, for Spiritual mumbo jumbo. (It’s not necessarily just Spiritual mumbo jumbo, 17th Shard.) In this case, we have a very distinct reason why this is happening with Shallan that you might be able to put together. It’s pretty obvious. But you should be able to see these things with Shallan very early in the books. As early as Words of Radiance, I was sticking in little nods to this. She is able to grab glimpses of the Spiritual Realm in ways that even other Lightweavers can’t do. Lightweaving always has a bit of this, right? And this comes back to what’s going on with the Realmatic Theory and Plato’s Theory of the Forms as kind of a foundational text that helped me develop this in my mind. You’re seeing more perfect versions of who you could be. When she’s doing a sketch, she’s sometimes sketching not who you are, but who you could be.

Hoidonalsium

In that one long rejection of Odium, how many Oaths did Dalinar swear before merging the Realms? And is "I am Unity" the fifth.

Brandon Sanderson

No, that is not an Oath. He swore one ideal in that experience.

Hoidonalsium

Okay. How many Oaths is he on?

Brandon Sanderson

The number you think. So, he should have just finished three, right? Or maybe four. I'll have to go look. It's the number that you think it is. I'm not being sneaky on you. There's nothing sneaky there. He doesn't get armor, so I can't remember where he is... He should be at three. "Life before death." "I will unite instead of divide." "I will stand up each time I fall." Yeah, so he's done three.

Questioner

I notice that Stormlight seems to be a bit volatile in how well it heals or who it heals. Because it seems like Renarin's eyesight would have been a long term problem, kinda like Rysn's legs maybe and Lopen's arm. But Lopen's arm got healed, Rysn's legs didn't and Kaladin's scars didn't. So I didn't know if there was a reason for those things.

Brandon Sanderson

So Stormlight healing, there's a couple things that have to be considered. But in reference to what you're saying, the person's perception of themselves is a huge part of it.  The way healing works in the cosmere is, you've got the three versions of yourself. You've got your Physical version, your Cognitive version, and your Spiritual version, And a lot of Stormlight is taking your Physical version and matching it to the Spiritual version which is your ideal self.  But it has to be filtered through the lens of your mind, and things like this.

I almost always--probably should say always--am using it to reinforce some sort of character attribute. The fact that Lopen never saw himself, even though he only had one arm, as being disabled, as a big influence, versus whether Kaladin feels deserves his brands or not. Does that makes sense?  And those are two very different things that influence how the healing works. And you will see that as a metaphor and theme, if you watch what heals and what doesn't.

Questioner

If an advanced android was created with artificial intelligence using technology—but not Investiture like other artificial intelligences—artificial blood, organs, all that stuff, would they be able to access Invested Arts?

Brandon Sanderson

That's an excellent question. It's a really interesting question in the context of the Cosmere. So for right now, I am saying—now, maybe we will invent true AI, and I'll have to backpedal, but what I'm saying is in the Cosmere, true AI requires Investiture. And so a thinking machine is going to basically... the line between a thinking machine and a spren is going to get very blurred. And it's going to either attract [Investiture] or require it, and so the answer to you is "yes, to an extent". There are some Arts that are easier to use and some that are hard, depends on all these things, but the answer is "yes"...A thinking machine that actually is self-aware would be a person in the Cosmere for that reason, and would have the same Cognitive aspect and Spiritual aspect—so a soul, if you would—that an organic being would have.

Argent

Without spoiling Cytonic itself, there appear to be certain parallels between the Nowhere and some of what's going on in the Realms of the Cosmere. Was that a leftover from when Skyward could have been in the Cosmere? And can you talk about how the story was going to slot into your primary universe?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is a leftover; you're noticing something there that is correct. I can't say how it would slot in, because back then, before I moved it into the cytoverse (and really created the cytoverse, when I started to connect it back then), when it was in there, it was far, far from what it is now. And basically, all I had was some of the mechanics of the Nowhere and the kind of general framework of the story. I didn't even ever outline it that way.

But there are things I can't do in the Cosmere that I can do here that I think are fun, and so I am doing them.

Tellingdwar

Regarding the classification of magics as end-positive/neutral/negative, is it correct that:

End-positive Investiture requires extreme emotional, physical, or cognitive distress to manifest. For example, snapping into an Allomancer or the process of becoming a Surgebinder.

End-neutral Investiture is inherent: gained by heredity, Connection with a particular region, or through mechanical means.

End-negative Investiture requires sacrifice. For example, Hemalurgy or Dakhor teleportation.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not ready to answer this--though you should know that connection with a particular region is happening on Sel for reasons unrelated to this line of inquiry.

Lady Radagu (paraphrased)

Were there cadmium/bendalloy and possibly chromium/nicrosil mistings in the Final Empire? If yes, were the mists Snapping those too?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Um, yes, there were, but since the mists were trying to create a pattern to be a sign, and people didn't know all the metals, they (the mists) had to use substitutions. They were acting the way we've seen other cognitive shadows, who are deceased, act.

Swanson188

Would you say that the genetic investitures are the result of a specific gene only available in their system of origin, or are they a trait that CAN exist in other systems (but lack the shard's key to access it)?

The best example I can think of is could a feruchemist be born on Roshar, but not know it because preservation is not present there in the physical realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the way I have it right now, that couldn't happen. Your spiritual DNA, so to speak, has to do with your connection to certain Shards--and for a genetic component to occur, certain location-dependent things need to happen. It's a good question, though, and not impossible in the future of the cosmere as certain events proceed.

tallakahath

So, on Nalthis, in the Warbreaker universe, when the color's pulled out of something, is that a physical or chemical change or is that a perceptual change?

Brandon Sanderson

It is actually a physical change, but the spirit of the thing is changing, and it's filtering through to the Physical Realm.

tallakahath

So, if I do that on a carrot, I can break beta carotin? If I do that on a piece of metal, I can reduce it and charge my battery that way?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially, yeah! Yeah, that would work, you're changing it's Spiritual nature.

Steeldancer

When a Feruchemist stores their charge in a metal, where is that going? Is that going into molecules, is that going into the Spiritual essence of the metal, is that sort of a Cognitive - what is that?

Brandon Sanderson

It is charging it in...in cosmere terms, more on the Spiritual level, but there are connections to the Physical as well. It's not 100% on the Spiritual.

Steeldancer

It's not changing the molecular structure?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not going to change the molecular structure. If you brought that metal to Earth, somehow, and tested it, you wouldn't be able to tell any difference. Because we just don't have that element.

Steeldancer

You can't test for Investiture on Earth

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. In the cosmere, you can.

Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

Calderis

I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing?

Brandon Sanderson

I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for.

Fernican

At any point, did you contemplate the possibility that Yumi would actually die at the end of the book? Or did you know from the beginning that she would survive?

Brandon Sanderson

I contemplated it. This was a tough one for me, because the more artistic ending and more appropriate to the source material that was an inspiration to me is the ending where she dies. And Yumi’s been a Cognitive Shadow all along.

But why did I make the change? There’s a couple reasons that I decided to go that way. It’s not like I made a change; don’t take it like that. It’s not like I had an outline for one, and I went the other way. The outline always went this way, but there were times when I was building that outline. And there’s a couple reasons.

Number one: this is a gift for my wife. And as a gift for my wife, I want the ending that she will love.

Number two is: we do have this sense in our society that sadness is artistic. And I’ve rejected that notion, that artistry must be sad. You can see it very clearly in what we give awards to. Sad endings can be very artistic; but you know what has a really fantastic happy ending? Lord of the Rings. Granted, there’s some bittersweetness to it, but you know what? Frodo has been through hell. That’s the bittersweet part; he can never really be part of society again. But they all make it. Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be better if the fire just killed Sam and Frodo at the end. You know what? It’s better that they make it. And I’m okay with sometimes being like, “This is the ending that I want.”

And the last reason, one of the best comps for Yumi is obviously Your Name. I mentioned that in the epilogue. I made some very deliberate choices to make Yumi read differently from Your Name. The story I wanted to tell is: what if you had to watch someone else doing your job poorly; and you, kind of as a ghost, had to learn to coach them along. I also wanted these two to be bound together, so that the romance worked as a romance between them. Your Name is really awesome for its ending; it has one of these kind of more uncertain endings. I won’t say it’s happy; I won’t say it’s sad. More uncertain. It’s really appropriate for Your Name, because the two characters didn’t really know each other, ever. They knew each other’s lives and friends and families, but they didn’t actually have a chance to really get to know one another, and the ending to Your Name is a perfect nod to that. It’s a chef’s kiss sort of ending for that specific story, where two people didn’t actually know each other, but knew so much about each other. And I love that aspect of Your Name. I needed a different ending for this, because it is a very different style. It’s two people who actually got to know each other.

Overlord Jebus

So you've previously described gemhearts as Investiture leaking into the Physical Realm in a similar kind of process to atium. Now atium had a way of-- the Investiture used in the creation of it-- of returning back to the kind of background pool of Investiture on Scadrial. Is there a way of the Investiture used in the creation of gemhearts to return to the Roshar Investiture pool?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Overlord Jebus

There is? Have we had any hints of it at all?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Viper (paraphrased)

So in cosmere, does physics work the same way in the Physical Realm as it does in our world? Specifically, particle physics; and are atoms made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and is light photons, etc?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Viper (paraphrased)

So what's at the core of an atom of atium? Ate-teum? Also how do you pronounce it? At-teum?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. And the matter is just normal matter, but it's wrapped in the Spiritual. The Spiritual DNA [or something] is what makes it magical.

Maxwell Goode

Before he betrayed Bridge Four, had Moash attracted the attention of any Honorspren, like the other members of Bridge Four?

Brandon Sanderson

So this was pretty early, so I would say probably not. But that's a RAFO. I can see opportunities in the future where I would want to retcon that. I don't think he did, I don't think most of them were attracting spren until middle of Oathbringer or early in Oathbringer, when we actually had kind of a mass influx of Honorspren who decided not to follow the rules and kind of, as a group, came looking for Knights Radiant. But it's not outside the realm of possiblity that Moash had attracted a rogue Honorspren like Syl. I don't have it right now as happening.

Questioner

In the Lighthouse, it seems that it's almost like a fabrial, but not quite, because obviously, it's not a spren, obviously. So, is it like the Cognitive equivalent of what that would be?

Brandon Sanderson

So, what specifically are you talking about? Not the light itself, but the thing that Kaladin sees and stuff like that?

Questioner

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

No, I wouldn't say that it is. So, I would go a different direction on that.

Clowdtail12

I was just wondering if Sando [Brandon] has ever said what was behind the very ornate door under The First Capital [in The Way of Kings Prime]?

Brandon Sanderson

An Unmade was behind that door, spiked with crystal spikes to the wall, holding it and preventing it from going anywhere. I believe I talked about it on a stream somewhere.

This was very, very early Hemalurgy--and some of the things I was planning there are no longer canon. You probably could still spike an Unmade to bind it to the Physical Realm, though, so that part remains viable.

Questioner

Are there any Cognitive Shades of Mistborn Llamas?

Brandon Sanderson

Hehe-- In the Alcatraz universe, there sure are. 'Cause, I mean, in the Alcatraz universe it is canon, for instance, that Asmodean existed, and it's canon that Spook existed and High Imperial exists. So in the Alcatraz universe all bets are off.

Kalinque

Wait, Hoid can't eat meat, despite the fact that he loves bacon? That poor, poor man.

Makes me wonder if this extends to Soulcast meat, though.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's usually part of the joke when I mention his love for it.

There's a cognitive aspect to it, though--but whenever he's around food, you'll often note him acting a little oddly.

kaggzz

So does that mean he was extra mean to the Alethi because he had to show up to all their feasts as Wit?

Brandon Sanderson

No, taking on the Wit persona was his choice.

neonmarkov

Is that inability to eat meat and harm people related to the Intent of the Dawnshard he took up? Is he like a Sliver in a way?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, I'm afraid. But these are the right questions to be asking.

VindicationKnight

If you cloned someone using real life technology (so not magic) would they have a normal Cognitive and Spiritual make up or be something like a Drab?

Brandon Sanderson

Cloning would most likely work like creating a twin--the body would pull Investiture for a soul, and you probably wouldn't have a drab. Though it would be possible to do it in such a way that you did create one, if you're simply working from our current cloning technology, you'd get a fully invested human being.

CephandriusTW

Stormfather once said that "Three of sixteen ruled but now the Broken One reigns" and that "Odium reigns", is not crazy to think that Odium is the Broken One. My question is, could be possible to fuse Odium's shard (without Rayse) with the remanents of Honor (his Cognitive Shadow) in order to create a new whole Shard? Could Dalinar do something like that? He would be uniting them (two Shards, one of them supposed to be the Broken One and the other that we actually now is a bit broken).

Brandon Sanderson

[That] is possible

Questioner

Does Silverlight have any reflection in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

i_am_a_watermelon1

I've heard somewhere that you already have a backstory for Hoid written, but you're waiting to release it as it would reveal too much about the Cosmere universe... is this true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is true.

i_am_a_watermelon1

Do you ever plan on bringing different realms together?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes I do.

Questioner

Is it possible to Compound your Spiritual Connection to a location on a planet while storing your Spiritual Connection to all other locations on the planet to kind of pull yourself through the Spiritual Realm to that location?

Brandon Sanderson

That's not how that would work. Parts of what you say are possible, but the teleportation aspect wouldn't actually do anything.

Questioner

Was Hoid trying to Compound his Spiritual location in the scene you added in the 10th Anniversary [Elantris]? Was he trying to Compound Connection to that location to try to become Elantrian?  

Brandon Sanderson

...So at that point chronologically he was not an Allomancer.

russki516

Hey, thanks for doing this!

My question is how developed are your ideas of what Spren look like and how they behave? I would love to see some illustrations of them in the future.

Ben McSweeney

There's some early illustrations of them in the original pitch package, where they look very Miyazaki if I say so myself, but my understanding of them has widened considerably in the time since then.

I usually envision (and illustrate) them as ghostly, glowing shapes of infinite variety, a lot like the classical interpretation of a hologram. To the best of my understanding, spren appear to be made of stormlight when they're made apparent at all. Some have more detailed features than others, but I don't think any appear solid unless they actually manifest in the Physical Realm, and the only manifestations we know of are Shardblades (living blades have freedom to reshape though, so who knows what that could mean).

As to their details, if you take the few descriptors that Brandon gives and let your imagination run, you probably can't go wrong... even among the spren, two of the same type might look very different in detail. And an awakened spren has a lot of mutability, Syl is changing shape all the time.

As with all concepts, the text rules. So angerspren is gonna look like blood-red pools boiling up from the ground, and gloryspren will look like tiny translucent globes of golden light. Brandon wrote it, so that's what it is.

But you can translate "blood-red pools [of light] boiling up from the ground" in a few creative ways, and any of them might be equally valid. As the Interlude suggests, the appearance of spren is kinda quantum... fluid until/unless observed. I have a lot of fun seeing how creative I can get with the description while making sure I'm staying true to the text.

Tahona1125

Is there any chance White Sand the novel ever gets revised and published? I'm not sure if there is a place for both the novel and graphic novel, but I really enjoyed the read.

Peter Ahlstrom

Well, Brandon said it's not outside the realm of possibility, but I hope he doesn't. The first draft of White Sand is already nearly 20 years old at this point. Nowadays, Brandon has better ideas. He has plenty of things to write that he's excited about. He has already written White Sand twice, and I think it would be hard for him to get excited about it, and his excitement translates into a good book.

Assuming the three volumes sell well enough to warrant continuing the story, then Brandon could get excited about outlining the sequel to get adapted into more volumes.

And, since it's the Cosmere, you can be assured that sand masters will show up when all the planets start interacting with each other.

fryman1701

Would burning atium and duralumin together grant view of single far future or widespread of everyone's near future?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't answered specifically what happens, but there is a hint at the end of Hero of Ages.