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Is it possible to imitate Radiant abilities using fabrials?
*audio picks up mid-answer* ...which ended up and followed that the failing of the Vorin church and things like that and so it's possible to recreate the other powers as well.
Does the M in M-bot actually stand for anything?
He says it stands for Mushroom-bot. Spensa thinks it stands for Massacre-bot. Let's just say they have a difference of opinion on that. It's not going to get answered. She started calling him that and he was like, "Oh Mushroom-bot! Mushroom-bot sounds right!"
One final note for this chapter. Bilg. I prefer him dead. (This is the guy Demoux fought at the end of the chapter, with Kelsier's help.)
In the original draft of the book, I had Kelsier–through Demoux–kill Bilg in the duel. I thought this was appropriate, and would be the sort of thing that Kelsier would do. In addition, I really wanted to emphasize the ruthless edge that Kelsier has. He is willing to do whatever he has to in order to see that his goals are achieved. It's that conflict–the happy, joking Kelsier mixed with the hard, ruthless rebel leader–that makes him interesting to me.
Joshua was the big complainer on this one. He felt that my books are too optimistic for something THIS harsh to be done by one of the main characters. He felt that readers wouldn't go along with it–indeed, it was one of the main points that my alpha readers brought up. Some liked it, others hated it. The scene did it's job.
Eventually, I went with Joshua's suggestion, however, and left Bilg alive. To me, this kind of castrates the scene. However, I suppose the most important elements still get across, and Kelsier gets to remain less tarnished a hero.
Still, I would have liked the death to remain, if only for the future books. I'll eventually post this scene as a deleted scene from the book.
Progress on Rithmatist 2?
I haven't been on Brandon's site for a while, but I swear that I had seen a progress bar for second Rithmatist book. Now that I take a look again, it has disappeared. Does anyone know what happened to it? Did he finish writing it, or is it on hold?
I've finished an outline I'm quite satisfied with, and have done a great deal of research into indigenous South American cultures in order to write the book--but that research was extensive enough that by the time I finished, I needed to move on to get the next Mistborn book done in time. Because deadlines are coming due, I will need to do Calamity after that.
Rithmatist, like Warbreaker and some of my other fun side projects, has to take a back seat occasionally to higher profile projects. But I do plan to write it in the near future.
Do you already have the Ideals figured out for all the other orders?
Yes, but I don't always stick to 100% the wording. I got the sentiment and a sample phrase. But for a lot of them, they vary based on the individual. So there's some flexibility. I don't tell people what they are, generally, because I need the freedom to change just in case I decide to.
You said earlier that Parshendi are primarily asexual, does that extend to all Listeners -- parshmen, and those descended from Listeners, like Horneaters and Herdazians -- or is it just the Parshendi?
Most Listener forms are asexual, but several forms are different, including slaveform. Horneaters and Herdazians are not, as a rule, though there are higher instances of asexuality among them.
I was actually wondering about how Parshmen would reproduce if they are only in slaveform? I thought one had to be in mateform in order to reproduce?
Also, could Horneaters and Herdazians change forms as well?
For the first, mateform is not the only form capable of producing--any more than warform is the only one capable of swinging a sword. The forms are specializations.
For the second, RAFO.
What is the experience of Steelrunning? ...It doesn't speed up your mind, so how do you control yourself?
Most forms of Allomancy give a small boost to any attributes you would need in order to survive and use and manipulate it, just like atium. So it's going to give you a slight ability-- might speed you up just enough to get some reactions and things, otherwise you just can't do it. What I don't have it doing is cancelling friction. I did that intentionally, so you can burn yourself up with that. But you have to use it measuredly and carefully.
How many spoilers do you generally get for unreleased things? Do you have access to the DS Wiki? Do you try to not find out things and only ask questions about things that are required for the art, or do you find out what you can?
Can you tell us a thing you knew long before it was released, which has since been released, that the fans were going crazy over wondering or were stunned to learn?
I normally get as many spoilers as I want for unreleased things. In order to work on the books and do it right, I need to know as much as I can. I still have to rely on Peter and Karen to check the details, because I often forget things, so their work is as vital to the art as it is to the continuity of the text. I do have access to the Wiki, and I use it often in looking up details, especially when sending art briefs to other artists we're working with.
As for the second question: At Nasfic in 2005, which I believe was in SeaTac, Washington, Brandon and I shared a hotel room. I remember discussing Mistborn with him, which I'd recently agreed to do the maps for. I'd already read the first book, I think, and was partway through reading the second book at this point. I don't think he had started writing The Hero of Ages yet, though. He looked up from whatever he was doing and said, "Isaac, I don't think Vin and Elend are going to survive the last the book. What do you think?" At the time, I was floored, and I remember contending for their survival. But now, almost fifteen years later, I'm struck by how right his decision was to end Book 3 that way. It's just a better, more poignant ending. And I love those books, and Vin and Elend, so much more because of the sacrifice they made to save Scadrial. True heroes, both of them.
You've previously mentioned that someone bonded to a Seon would get some benefits if they went to Roshar , basically that it would be treated sort of like a Nahel bond. This implies to me that something about Roshar likes to give powers from bonds. (Hi there, Honor...)
Should this be taken to mean that spren-bond based Surgebinding won't work off-world, as it's a benefit Roshar gives from having a bond? Or would it be more specific, and mean that some of the passive benefits Radiants get (visions, Windrunner squire strengths) would be lost, but Surgebinding retained?
Mainly I'm interested in whether or not we can reach maximum Jasnah levels and have the possibility of her appearing in non-SA books. I don't think she'd be much into worldhopping if she couldn't get back with the Travel Surge...
Surgebinding will work off-world.
I'm a bit of an aspiring author myself. How would you deal with ADHD writer's block?
Some things I know that work for some writers... Do you like hiking? Do you like walking? Because I have known professional writers who have trained themselves to write by talking into a microphone, in order so that they can be walking somewhere, and kind of being visually stimulated while they're writing. I wish I knew better how to write, like, ADHD.... How do you motivate yourself to do other things? Is it a reward mechanism? Is it a short burst sort of thing?
The issue that I have is that whenever I sit down to write, I sit down, and I'm either just sitting down and writing for five minutes, and then I get bored and move on, switch over to playing video games or surfing the web. I do a lot of thinking about what I want my world to do, stuff like that, but I don't actually have an outline.
Have you tried writing longhand, when you're away from the internet, getting a notebook, going out somewhere, writing in a notebook. That helps a lot of people who are getting distracted by the internet frequently, if there's just no internet to get on. And sometimes it works really good because you also are writing it, and can be, like, "You know, it doesn't have to be perfect while I'm writing in the notebook. I'll make it perfect when I transfer it to the computer." That gives you permission to be free. I don't know that you need to have an outline. Like, Stephen King never uses one. It's a tool that works for some authors and doesn't for others.
Will we be seeing Szeth training the Radiants in the future?
So... Szeth will be sharing some tips, but I don't know that you'll see him training. He starts the next book in jail, so... yeah...
Chapter Forty-Four
Siri and Susebron Talk about How the Next God King is Created
Siri's impulse here—that the next God King might not really be the son of the current one—is a good one. She's actually right, though there are a lot of other things in this conversation she's wrong about.
It is possible for a Returned to have a child. Vo, the First Returned, did it. The God King isn't special in that he can do it; any of the Returned could, but it requires some special knowledge that—I'm afraid—I'll have to keep secret until the sequel. Suffice it to say that the priests know how it is done.
The problem is, they aren't always able to get this to work. Sometimes, they have to do what Siri guessed—replace the God King with an infant Returned. Infant Returns happen very infrequently. It's more rare than an adult Returning, so there is something sound to the Hallandren reasoning that you have to do something heroic in order to Return. (That's not true, but it is more sound a doctrine than Siri thinks it is.)
The God King's priests take an infant Returning as a sign that it's time to change God Kings. At that point, they choose a wife for the God King and hope that she'll be able to conceive the next God King. They'd much, much rather that the God King be the literal child of the previous God King. (Susebron wasn't, however. And his mother was indeed his mother, a poor merchant's wife from far northern Hallandren.)
Now, an infant has indeed Returned. The priests see this as a major vindication of their faith, as they made the wedding contract with Idris twenty years ago and now, just when the marriage was to happen, an infant Returned. The problem is, now they've got to push Siri to get pregnant, because they're on a deadline. They don't want to have to replace the God King with this infant; they'd rather use his own child. Hence the push for her to have a child.
But if she doesn't, they'll go with plan B. Note that there's not, in fact, any danger to her either way, no matter what Bluefingers says. She and Susebron, following the change in power, would have been taken to one of the isles in the middle of the Inner Sea and kept in a lavish lifestyle as long as they lived.
Chapter Nine
One odd thing I've heard—and noticed—about new writers as opposed to more experienced writers is that the more experienced ones tend to make their books last longer. Many first books take place in a matter of days, or perhaps weeks. Yet, books by more accomplished writers tend to span months or years.
It might just be coincidence relating to books I've read. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any reason it would be true. Yet, it certainly holds for myself. My first books happened very quickly—even Elantris, which was my sixth, happened in only the space of two months. Yet, in Mistborn, I let more time pass between sections and chapters.
I think, perhaps, newer authors are intimidated by plotting over such a longer stretch of time. Or, perhaps, it's just something unconscious.
Either way, we've jumped in time—something necessary for this book, considering the amount that needs to be done in order for the job to get pulled off. This was one of my first clues that I couldn't do a straight-up heist novel with Mistborn. The book covers too much time, and too much has to happen before the ending can occur. I just didn't feel that most of what the crew would be doing would be interesting to a reader, and I wanted to focus too much on Vin's character growth to let me focus on the "heist" of stealing the atium.
So, if a bonded human were to decide for whatever reason that he/she wanted to retire from being a Radiant, is it possible to do that or is the Nahel bond a lifetime gig?
For example, say Kaladin felt he could no longer uphold the requirements of being bonded to Syl, or eventually he just got old or worn out.
Retiring from the bond is possible under mechanics I haven't talked about yet in the series.
Is asking for an Aonic version of my name (Eugene also works) as the leatherbound Elantris personalization too much work?
I wanted to check before I put the order in. If it is, I'll do something more standard.
I can totally do that. EnE is an Aon. (Sarene's Aon, of wit.) You'd probably just be Evene.
Would the Arelish write that like in Hangul? If so, would each Aon represent a single sound, or its full name?
They would write the ENE as a single Aon, and the Ev in their equivalent of hangul, where each letter is a single sound.
But those are not available in the book? I was aiming for 100% in-world version of my name, but this looks hard now...
The Aonic Alphabet is not something I ever designed, I'm afraid. This was before I had Isaac.
Over your previous books you've developed a reputation as the 'magic system guy'. Was it therefore a deliberate move to hold back on the magic in The Way of Kings, at least compared to your earlier books?
Yes, it was. That's a very astute question. I've written a blog post that I'm not satisfied with, but that I'll probably be revising and posting very soon, that is going to talk about this. When I finished the Mistborn trilogy and Warbreaker, I felt that there were a few things that were becoming Brandon clichés that I needed to deal with. I don't mind being known as the magic system guy. But when I become known ONLY as the magic system guy, that worries me. It isn't that I sat down with this series and said, well, I'm gonna show them, I'm not going to do a magic system. But when I planned this series, it was not appropriate for me to shoehorn in a lot of the magic system in book one. Though my agent suggested that I do just that. He said, look, this is what you're known for, this is what people read you for; if you don't have this it's going to be glaringly obvious. My response was that I would hope that story and character are what carries a book, not any sort of gimmick—well, gimmick is the wrong word.
Something that I pondered and wrote about a lot—just to myself—is that Mistborn was postmodern fantasy. If you look at the trilogy, in each of those books I intentionally took one aspect of the hero's journey and played with it, turned it on its head, and tried very hard to look at it postmodernly, in which I as a writer was aware of the tropes of the genre while writing and expected readers to be aware of them, to be able to grasp the full fun of what I was doing. And that worried me—that was fun with Mistborn, but I didn't want to become known as the postmodern fantasy guy, because inherently you have to rely on the genre conventions in order to tell your story—even if you're not exploiting them in the same way, you're still exploiting them.
For that reason, I didn't want to write The Way of Kings as a postmodern fantasy. Or in other words, I didn't want to change it into one. And I also didn't want to change it into a book that became only about the magic, or at least not to the extent that Warbreaker was. I like Warbreaker; I think it turned out wonderfully. But I wanted to use the magic in this book as an accent. Personally, I think it's still as full of magic as the others, but the magic is happening much more behind the scenes, such as with the spren I've talked about in other interviews, which are all about the magic. We haven't mentioned Shardplate and Shardblades, but those are a very powerful and important part of the magic system, and a more important part of the world. I did intentionally include Szeth's scenes doing what he does with the Lashings to show that there was this magic in the world, but it just wasn't right for this book for that to be the focus. I do wonder what people will say about that. I wonder if that will annoy people who read the book. But again, this is its own book, its own series, and in the end I decided that the book would be as the story demanded, not be what whatever a Brandon Sanderson book should be. As a writer, that's the sort of trap that I don't want to fall into.
How many magic systems did you go through before deciding on the one in the book?
Building the magic for a world is not something I’ve simply been able to drop in, usually. I generally am working on lots of different themes and ideas in my head *laughter* When I’m planning a novel and the magic will fit a certain story and influence how it goes and I will do a lot of building and practice to see if that’s working and do a lot of, I’ll do a lot of pre-writing and see how the magic influences the plot, influences the setting. If these things are also intertwined then it’s not a drag and drop so to speak and usually even if I pull out a magic, I’ll really be pulling out parts of it and replacing it with other parts.
For instance with the Mistborn books Allomancy was in one form there from the beginning and yet what the powers that Allomancy could do often I was ripping out and adding new ones in, in order to better fit the novel and the narrative I’m shooting for. So for Way of Kings I’ve kind of taken a—the series I’ve been working on for quite a while, people have read the online interviews and things like that. I generally took a ‘more is awesome' approach to the magic systems and yet because of that I didn’t want the first book to be overrun by them, it would be very easy for my books to simply become interesting gimmicks about a magic rather than a story about characters and the story that happens to them, and so I was actually very careful to not overwhelm with the magic in this book. Which is actually somewhat ironic because this book, I built into it somewhere around thirty magic systems and yet I didn’t want to overwhelm and so the first book, there are only hints of any of them but generally when I was world building this I came up with a great idea, I worked it into the magic system rather than saying "Oh, let’s do this instead."
Do the Heralds need to consume Investiture in order to stay in their body?
No. Good question. Excellent question. They're asking if they're like Returned and they need to consume a Breath each week.
How did Lopen suck Stormlight in WoK? I assumed that as a squire he needed Kaladin to be around in order to practice his abilities.
We're playing a little loose and free w/timeline there. Peter asked me about this, and we determined Kaladin was close enough by the point this happened--though I can't remember if that was because Kaladin was on his way back, or if the distance was just naturally close enough.
Chapter Nineteen
Clod Arrives with Jewels
Early on in the development process, I knew that I wanted to have a Lifeless as a side character. They're such an interesting part of the world—in fact, they're a big part of the foundation of the setting, or at least what made me want to write it.
That meant having a Lifeless on Denth's team, and Clod as a character fit into place quite easily. I had worried about how to make Jewels distinctive in the team, after having Denth and Tonk Fah establish themselves for some twenty chapters before Jewels even makes an appearance. Working with that, I realized that by making her the Lifeless handler, I could add something unique to her—and to the team.
Denth knew that Vivenna wouldn't react well to there being a Lifeless on the team. That's part of why he kept Jewels away for so long. (In fact, when Jewels says, "Who's that woman?" in regards to Vivenna, it should have been slightly suspicious to you. She knew they had a new employer, and she should have made the connection. Indeed, she did. Denth had specifically ordered her to stay away until this moment, as he didn't want to scare Vivenna off.)
If the Liveborns are just brains in a jar, how... How do they procreate?
So they-- the Wode believes it's important. They will then use methods of... gene--
Biochemical?
--biochemical...
Okay. But the brain has to generate that signal in order to do it, or...?
They believe that they need the people to meet. It is a cultural thing and not a physical limitation.
You've mentioned before that all your books so far are in chronological order (Elantris, the Mistborn trilogy, Warbreaker, Stormlight Archive). Alloy of Law takes place about 200 years after The Hero of Ages. (Right?) Does this put it chronologically before or after Warbreaker?
The Alloy of Law takes place around 300 years after The Hero of Ages and several hundred years before the events in The Way of Kings. That does put it around the same time as Warbreaker.
Could any type of spren bond with a person (even if the results wouldn't be a Knight Radiant)? Or only the ones associated with a branch of the Knights?
Ooh, that's an excellent question. This is something theoretically possible for a lesser spren to achieve.
What is your favorite class of Knights Radiant.
Ooh, probably-- see, that's hard. I like them all. I would probably, if I were to choose one for myself, probably choose Bondsmith.
So, [Shadows of Self], when they were doing the PR for it, Tor put out, like, six or eight free chapters. At some point, don't you feel you're just slowly...
So, here's the story behind that. They're like, "We're gonna start our PR!" and they released three chapters in July. And I wrote to them, and I'm like, "The book comes out in October. And if you want to get people excited about the book, why did you release all the chapters in July?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah... Right." So, then they said, "I guess we'll just release three more in October leading up to the launch. I'm like, "Okay, sure." You now, I'm the one who released Warbreaker for free on my website. If you haven't read that one, it's just there for free under Creative Commons, because I figure people who enjoy my writing are going to start supporting me as a writer, either by giving my books to their friend or buying them or coming to events like this, so... Part of me wouldn't mind if Tor just gave away every one of the books, because more people would actually go buy them if the people who wanted to buy them could try them out for free. We've got this weird thing in with books entertainment where you don't know if you're gonna like it until you get to the end. But we expect you to pay for it up front. You know, that's not unusual, but at the same time that's like going to a restaurant and having a big list of things that you don't know what they are, and not telling you what they are, just saying "Oh, you'll love them." And then expect you to order a meal kind of randomly. Once an author has his track record, I think that it's a little bit more... makes sense for people to say "Oh, I trust Sanderson, I'm gonna like this book. I can buy this book and enjoy it and read it." When they came and said "We're thinking of giving The Way of Kings away free for six months on Amazon," I said, "Yes, give it away. Get people to read the book." That's kind of the opposite of stopping people from reading it. I'm for it.
I asked about The Lopen, and it was a public Q&A, so I was trying not to be spoilery. But some of the things he said at the end of Words of Radiance, where he knew a lot about background processes. I asked if I should be suspicious of it, and you said, "Yes." Was that in reference to him becoming the king, that you revealed? Or is it because of something else that he knows about?
Background processes of...?
It seemed he knew more about the squires, the process of being squires
Oh, Lopen. Lopen knowing more. No, that's not about being the king. You are supposed to be suspicious of it because Lopen has been paying a lot of attention. He didn't have foreknowledge. It was completely accidental he ended up in Bridge Four. But once he did, he decided, "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna learn about it." And he has been the one actively pursuing becoming a full Knight Radiant. He's the only one of the team who's actively been doing that. That's why you are supposed to be suspicious. There's not an ulterior motive. He is proactive.
Do Knights Radiants live longer than regular people?
You'll have to read and find out.
I don't have much time to make many more questions to you, but one of my questions--I'll try to make them short, because then we'll open the floor for the audience--one of my questions is whether you could now, seeing the evolution of The Stormlight Archive, what would you say about this evolution, if you could explain it? Since there has been an evolution, imagine you could go backwards in time and explain it to yourself, or even explain it to Robert Jordan, how would you explain it, the evolution of this?
So, the evolution of what, of my book series, in my head?
The evolution of these ten books.
Okay. Well, the somewhat cheeky answer is that I would never go back in time. I have read this book, and it always ends with you almost getting erased, or coming back to your home being communist, or to some other disaster. Unless I know I'm in the right Connie Willis book, I'm not going back in time, and even then, I might end up in the time of the Black Plague, so I wouldn't risk it.
But to answer it more seriously, if I were to go back in time and explain about The Stormlight Archive to my young self... Boy, that is a hard question, for me to consider what I would say about it, because I tried to write The Way of Kings in 2002, and I failed at writing it. I completed the book, but the book was a failure. I did not have the skill as a writer yet to juggle the number of characters and the depth of worldbuilding that book requires. It is a book that required about twenty years of writing practice before I was able to write it. And so, I think I would tell my young self to keep going, that the work will be worth it, that I will get to the point that I will be able to do it, but I still would have had to write the 2002 version in order to learn how to write the later version that worked. Working on The Wheel of Time was certainly part of that. It was like going to the gym and knowing I was going to have to be lifting these heavier weights, and I couldn't afford to be doing the light weights anymore.
I am currently submitting a story to major science fiction magazines under a pseudonym to see if I am good enough-- It's a flash fiction piece, which is the thing I'm worst at... I knew that, if I sent it as me, they would take it, because putting one pages in in order to be able to say "Brandon Sanderson" on the cover is just an enormously advantageous cost/benefit analysis for a magazine. I probably wouldn't submit a full-size story, because I I know I am good enough to get in magazines on those; but I don't know about flash fiction. So I've been submitting that under a pseudonym.
Will you let us know eventually?
Yeah, if it gets rejected from all the major places, then I'll tell you and be like, "Well. This wasn't good enough to actually sell." We still have it out at a few various magazines.
Is Spensa mechanically savvy enough to repair the starfighter alone?
Nope, she's not. That's going to prove some problems for her...
In your magic systems, they all require the character to go over a great stress before they obtain that-- Do you use the concept of the price that comes with magic in a plausible magic system when you came up with that idea, or was it more about the idea of flawed characters are awesome?
In the cosmere magics, a lot of times in order to get the magic, there needs to be-- the internal logic argument is: Souls, once they have gaps in them, those gaps can be filled with other things, which often give you access to magical powers. Great trauma or stress--this is an age old fantasy idea, goes back many many years in the genre--will let you attain some of these powers, kind of as a balancing thing and mostly this is for narrative reasons.
Flawed characters are just way more interesting to write, and I gravitated to it pretty naturally as I was building the magic of the cosmere. And I would say it was mostly narrative reasons, as opposed to, when I was building the magic, some rule that felt like it needed to be there. But it's also a little of a balancing factor. It's trying to build into--whoever asked the question about the god--having god-like powers, but their flaws making it hard for them to use it.
It's a check on giving the powers to my characters, if I make sure to establish, this character has some holes in their-- some gaps and flaws in who they are, that might make them use their powers wrong once they get them, and that is in some way a narrative check on that, if that makes sense.
Chapter Seventy-Two - Part Two
Marsh and the Earring
Also, here we get a Marsh viewpoint. It's almost our last one. (I think there is one more in the next chapter.)
He didn't get much screen time, but I hope that what he did get led you to this climax for him. Spook's letter wasn't in vain, though I take delight in knowing that some of my alpha readers were convinced it had been.
I've been told my endings are a little too neat sometimes. Well, that might be valid criticism. However, I prefer it for this particular book. After three novels of building and foreshadowing, I can finally make good on promises and threads I began way back in book one. There's a reason I included that scene with Marsh and Vin on the balcony of Mansion Renoux. Marsh had to know how she'd gotten her earring.
You can probably see it now. Vin's mother, who was schizophrenic, was corrupted by Ruin, who spoke in her mind. He got her to love her first daughter, but hate her second—to see the second as a repulsive monster. In her insanity, she killed the second daughter by cutting open her chest and ramming a pin through her heart. Then, she stuck that same pin into Vin's ear, turning it into an earring.
Reen, the older brother—not even a teenager at that point—stumbled in upon this scene, and it nearly snapped his mind. That night he took Vin and ran.
Vin's mother was tracked down by the Inquisitors a short time after that. Fortunately for Vin, her father had realized he was in trouble and ordered his own lover executed. His assassins got to her just before the Inquisitors, and all they found was a corpse.
I'm working on a story slowly about a world where diseases grant powers while you have the disease. The pitch is you catch the common cold, you can fly until you get it over. This is the idea that bacterial and viruses have evolved to grant these powers in order to spread themselves, and so I need some help with my immunology stuff. Even if it's just...
No one ever needs immunologists.
Here. Give a list of good diseases that have a certain like how long it takes the average person to get over them, and I have to really work out the viruses that you don't ever really get over. Right?
The chronic ones, like yeah.
Like how does that work with the magic, and cuz I actually want one plot point of the story for someone to invent penicillin. And its basically like a weapon, right? To knock out people's powers, and so, I have to make sure I can only use those for bacteria and I have to know how that's going to work and stuff.
You have a tendency to write books with theocracies that are legitimately ruled by the gods, and this seems to be missing. Is that a direction that the Knights Radiant might be heading, or is something else going to happen?
I'm gonna RAFO that one. There was a theocracy on Roshar at one point. There was also a mage-ocracy, whatever you want to call it.
Priestocracy?
No, mage, magic-user...A lot of things have existed on Roshar.
I’m very curious about pewter. How much Feruchemical pewter, steel, and gold would you have to take in in order to be equal to burning pewter and flaring.
Oh…um, okay. So you wanna...ok, let’s back this up. So you wanna know feruchemically what would it take to match burning?
Yes.
Okay. So burning pewter, I kind of imagine...roughly doubling. Roughly.
Double your strength?
Yeah. But without the muscle mass change, it’s a magical boost. So because of that it has some pretty dramatic effects, like when Vin jumps and things like that.
So it’s only a double, so would flaring it bring it any higher?
Yeah. Flaring would go higher.
Would it be like triple?
Maybe like triple.
Maybe like tripling...that’s fascinating. So I always thought normal burning would triple it and flaring would quadruple.
Yeah I always felt kind of double. You won’t see people burning pewter and lifting a car.
Right, exactly.
You see people burning pewter and delivering a really solid punch.
Gotcha, thank you. That is fascinating…and would it be about doubling speed and healing ability?
I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.
I asked about Radiant Surgebinder who would tap his Connection to the spren and would he be able to summon Shardblade even at First Ideal?
He said it's possible but spren wouldn't like it. IIRC he said something about increasing flow of power (???)
I think Tindwyl has a lot of good points in her training. Some people rebel against the things she says, but I think that she has a good idea of what makes a leader. Or, at least, one kind of leader.
The problem is, that isn't the only kind of leader that works. Still, in my mind, she knows that she HAS to be like that in order to react against Elend's frivolousness.
If a Radiant brought some infused gems into Shadesmar, could they transfer that Stormlight into the black glass substance that seems to compose Shadesmar?
I'll RAFO that one.
Does being filled with Stormlight make your skin glow, or are they just leaking mist which is glowing and not glowing themselves?
The glowing is from the Stormlight, which leaks from the skin. Even any glowing you think is coming from the skin is actually from the Stormlight leaking out.
So if a kandra Radiant were to go transparent, but had little bubbles of skin under their surface, would the bubbles of skin inside them leak Stormlight and light up, or does Stormlight only leak from outside surfaces?
Honestly, while what you say is plausible, I'm not sure I want to start down this path and the directions it might end up leading...
Chapter Sixty-One - Part Four
Hrathen and Sarene There is some good, if terse, exposition here with Hrathen sorting through his feelings. I don't think he really wants to come to any answers right now. Logic has lead him astray before, and now that he's doing what he feels is right, he doesn't want to pause to give himself a chance to consider the ramifications of what he’s done.
Again, Sarene has fulfilled her purpose in the book. She's thrown chaos into Hrathen's otherwise-orderly life. However, her chaos here–just like the chaos she caused in Elantris with her food–eventually proves to be a good thing. It inspires change for the better, even though that change is painful.
And, of course, I remind the reader here that there is something odd about Hrathen's arm. I've only mentioned it in a couple of places, so I don't expect people to remember what is going on here. I actually forgot to have the sleeve in the original rewrite. I didn't even think to notice that his Dakhor arm would be exposed to Sarene in this scene. . . .I was wondering if it is possible to steal Surgebinding with a Hemalurgic spike?
Yes, but if you're stealing it from a Radiant, you're going to be stealing the bond, which the spren has an influence over. So, it's maybe not going to work as well as you might hope.
What would happen differently if a person found a Shardblade and Shardplate that belongs to the same Radiant?
That is an excellent question. It happened way more in the past than it happens now, but certain Blades and Plates are historically kind of linked together. If you were knowing to look for a difference, you would notice a slight difference, mostly if you could speak to or sense the Sword, but it wouldn’t have a very big mechanical difference, if that makes sense.
Does Hoid learn languages magically or is he just a gifted linguist?
He is learning them magically. He does-- He's decent with languages but he needs to be able speak as if he were a local in order to pass the way he does. And no matter how gifted you are, doing that, particularly for multiple tongues, is-- Yeah.
If a Returned gives away his/her Breath they die right? So why doesn't Vasher die after he gives his to Denth?
They will die the moment they run out of Breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a Breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered Breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single Breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter. And when the seventh day comes, if a Returned does not have another breath for his body to consume to keep him alive, his body will actually eat his divine Breath and kill him. So they don't die immediately after they get rid of the Breath, they're sort of put into a state of limbo where if they don't find more Breath by the time that their feast day comes, then they will die. (Vasher did not give his Returned Breath to Denth, just a number of normal Breaths.)
When do you plan on releasing the Way of Kings annotations?
I've only written about a quarter of them. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will take me a few years just because it's taken me three and a half years to get the second book out. So I feel a burden to get the books going before I do side things like this. My life got a whole lot more busy with The Wheel of Time than it used to be. Which has cut out some of my side-projects like this but I would like to do them eventually.
The Willshapers have to have Cohesion, because Cohesion is the "grab something solid and melt it and push it in any direction you want..." it's the weak atomic force.
It's, you can take this and push your hand into it and leave a hand print, or things like that, and that's a Willshaper thing, not a Bondsmith thing.
Could you tell us a chronology of the Shardworlds thus far? Like, did Warbreaker happen after Mistborn or before, things like that. Personally, I was under the impression you said Mistborn was a sequel to Elantris, but Mi'ch and Josh disagree.
He wasn't positive on where Warbreaker went, but Elantris is first and MB is after it.
Can Susebron break Nightblood's commands?
Nope.
Susebron just isn't strong enough.
I asked what's up with Warbreaker's sequel and if we'll get to see Endowment get a bigger role.
Someday.
Could Shashara have retrieved her Breath from Nightblood?
Not by means she knew.
