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Skyward release party ()
#51 Copy

Questioner

If you write down a measurement of a firespren, it locks into that. If you write down a measurement that's not true, will that still work? Can you just write down the measurements of a firespren and quadruple its size?

Brandon Sanderson

Let me just say this. Human perception of spren has an intrinsic effect on how they act, react, and interface with the world.

Questioner

So if I were to take a picture of a firespren, increase the brightness on my phone by 5000, and then write down that recording, the firespren would multiply brightness by 5000?

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't say that. I said, "Human perception of spren influences their behavior and their form."

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#52 Copy

UppityDarkeyes

Would you be willing to confirm that the use of 'they' pronouns for the Sibling is because the Sibling is non-binary? Since apparently some people are confused on this point.

Brandon Sanderson

The sibling did not view themselves as male or female. (And considered it odd that so many spren would adopt human genders.)

Miscellaneous 2018 ()
#54 Copy

OrangeJedi (paraphrased)

Are there a significant number of Shardblades that have made it off Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Define significant.

OrangeJedi (paraphrased)

More than 1 / A number of them are that could come up later.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There is a connection between spren and Roshar that normally prevents spren, even dead ones, from leaving the planet. Note I said normally; do not imagine a large trade of Shardblades going off world.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
#55 Copy

Questioner

Kaladin kind of went back on his Oaths in the second book, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He started down that path.

Questioner

How could Shallan or Lightweavers go back on the truths they make? And did Shallan do any of that in Oathbringer?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the Cryptics-- remember, how the spren is viewing this is very important. The Cryptics have an interesting relationship with truth. Harder to break your Oaths in that direction with a Cryptic. Harder to move forward, also, if you're not facing some of these things and interacting with them in the right way. But, while I can conceive a world that it could happen, it'd be really hard to for a Lightweaver to do some of the stuff. Particularly the ones close to Honor, you're gonna end up with more trouble along those lines, let's say.

Questioner

So then, what happened with the Lightweavers during the Recreance? Did they break their Oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

They did break their Oaths. I mean, breaking your Oaths as in "walking away from the first Oath" will still do it, regardless of what Order you are. You can actively say, "I am breaking my Oaths and walking away." Anyone has that option. But you also are holding the life of a spren in your hand.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#56 Copy

MS-07B-3

We know Scadrial is speeding on its way to modern, Earth-like technology, including computers. So what is the internet like in the Cognitive Realm? Is it connected to Scadrial's Cognitive aspect? Does it form into its own standalone location? Do memes become spren?

Brandon Sanderson

This is going to be really fun to write some day. But RAFO until then.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
#57 Copy

Snipexe

Is there one true Shardblade form for a spren?

Brandon Sanderson

"True" in this sense is mutable and it can change, based on perception. I would say yes, but it is not a kind of platonic truth, it is a momentary truth.

Snipexe

Will dead Shardblades change, when an owner has them for a long time will they slowly change or will they stay the same?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardblades have changed before that were considered dead.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#61 Copy

MoriWillow

I've noticed a sort-of pattern in some of your work of human/non-human partnerships (spren, Aviar, Seons, etc, and now spaceships). Is this a concept you're consciously interested in? (It's actually probably one of my favorite parts of the relevant works.)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it's something I'm very interested in. It happens to be a theme of the cosmere, so you'll see it a lot. One reason for this is that I think a purpose of SF/F is to explore things that don't exist to our current knowledge (things that are intelligent, but not human) but which it's very plausible humanity will some day deal with. Another reason is that I like the idea of looking at the things we do from the outside--and the perspective of something like a spren or a machine is very interesting for me to try to wrap my head around.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#62 Copy

Miss_Silver

First on Nahel bonds and a bit of a darker question. We know from Syl that if their bonded person is killed in some way, the spren does not die like they do when one breaks their Oaths. However, would Oaths count as being broken if the Radiant committed suicide? Were there any Radiants during the Recreance who did in an effort to spare their spren?

Brandon Sanderson

This would be an individual case basis, but I would say that the baseline is no--this alone wouldn't count as breaking the oaths, but getting around the issue of that specific event wouldn't work.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#63 Copy

dvoraen

Excluding Midnight Essence from Re-Shephir, have we seen at least two examples of the Unmade creating spren that people dismiss as normal, uncorrupted spren? (One type in The Way of Kings, one in Oathbringer, specifically.)

Brandon Sanderson

Humans are not terribly good at determining whether a spren has been touched by Re-Shephir. (That's a yes.)

Blightsong

Did you mean Sja-Anat or can that Unmade also affect Spren in a similar, if not the same, manner?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that was just me typing too fast.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#64 Copy

Extesian

Simple, harmless, totally non-contro one. Can a spren unilaterally sever a Nahel bond (i.e. where the Radiant doesn't agree and hasn't technically, according to spren and Radiant, broken an oath)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, no controversy here at all.

This is possible. But I'm not going to go into the mechanics.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#66 Copy

MavenSoul

I'm wondering if Shai could create a stamp that would turn someone into an Allomancer. Or, alternatively, create a stamp that would break a bond between a Radiant and their Spren?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible--but likely beyond Shai's ability. It would require large amounts of investiture. The second would be easier.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#69 Copy

Pagerunner

In [Oathbringer], when they first enter Shadesmar, they see a bunch of spren that are a few inches tall, green or orange. Are those Cognitive manifestations of one or more Dysian Aimians that were in Kholinar?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Skype Q&A ()
#70 Copy

WeiryWriter

Do the Fused still require a bond with a spren for maintaining a form/full sapience, or does the Investiture that makes them Cognitive Shadows fulfill that requirement?

Brandon Sanderson

They do not require a bond with a spren, so yes, the Investiture handles all of that.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#71 Copy

Will_Try_N_Sell_Junk

What's the biggest change you've made between drafts that would surprise readers?

Brandon Sanderson

Hm. Well, the biggest ones would probably all be Stormlight, since the first proper draft of that (in 2002) was far from the second version I did in 2009. Seven years of thinking about where the story went wrong led to some huge changes. (For example, in the 2002 version, Dalinar kills Elhokar.)

NightWillReign

in the 2002 version, Dalinar kills Elhokar

WTF WAT

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Adolin dies as well... And there are no spren. And Kaladin gets Shardplate/Blade in the prologue and trains to be a knight, though not a Knight Radiant, as that term is one I developed later...

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#73 Copy

ASIC_SP

Was it intentional to introduce Musicspren as the first spren in TWoK?

Brandon Sanderson

It was intentional in that I knew I needed some spren very early in the book, to establish the world--and that was the scene I was working with to do that. It isn't supposed to be hugely meaningful that those spren are first, though they are more relevant to later parts of the story than some of the earlier ones.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#74 Copy

RoboChrist

Would humanity be better or worse off by the end of Oathbringer if Honor ended his visions with:

"This has been a pre-recorded message from Honor. If you have any inquiries, please direct them to the Stormfather or to a local spren representative."

Brandon Sanderson

Dial 9 to refill with Stormlight. 

Legion Release Party ()
#75 Copy

Zas678

Pattern doesn't have vocal cords, and yet he makes sounds in the Physical Realm. Is this due to Realmatics of him projecting into the Cognitive Realm and connecting that way, or does he make physical sound?

Brandon Sanderson

He makes physical sound.

Questioner 2

So the vibrations that he makes?

Brandon Sanderson

You could record the vibrations that Pattern and Syl...You could record the patterns that these spren make on a recording device.

Legion Release Party ()
#76 Copy

Walin

If you had a metal plate, and you inscribed into it--with a living Shardblade--the description of a spren, so it's kind of like an Aon for a spren, in a way; if you had an Elsecaller in the Cognitive Realm force Stormlight through the bead for that plate, would it act as a fabrial for that spren? So like, if you drew a spren, like a flamespren onto a metal plate, so you'd make a heat fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're trying to trap the spren in the [plate]?

Walin

There's not spren, it's just a drawing of a spren.

Brandon Sanderson

So you're trying to Invest a drawing of a spren, and turn that Investiture into an actual spren, and make it work...I don't think this is going to work. I can see an argument that it would; I would err on "I don't think this is gonna work." But, you know, stranger things have happened, right?

Walin

My purpose for that question was asking whether Sel is the only one that can have Cognitive Investing--er, the one that's best at doing Cognitive Investing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is definitely best; it is nothing to do with the Shards themselves, and everything to do with what happened to them.

FanX 2018 ()
#79 Copy

Questioner

What Order of Knights Radiant would you be?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know. I've thought this before. Probably Bondsmith would be definitely my personality. But it depends. It depends on, if I were living in Roshar, what would my life be like, and things like that. A lot of people could be in multiple Orders, depending on the spren they meet, and where they go from there.

FanX 2018 ()
#80 Copy

Questioner

In Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, they use silver to fight Shades. I'm wondering if that's actual silver or they just call it silver and it's a mysterious metal that's known to fall from the sky.

Brandon Sanderson

It's a good question. I have it as actual silver.

Questioner

Would it be effective, at fighting...if you wanted to harm a spren or seon or other types of Cognitive Shadow?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

General Reddit 2018 ()
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Aurora_Fatalis

You were the illustrator for Shallan's sketches of Shardblades, right? If so, huge props for Sunraiser - it's so interesting that you chose such an iconic and historically accurate design, yet still managed to ornament it in a believable Shardblade style. I'd definitely buy one for HEMA if replicas existed, which is something I wouldn't say for most fantasy swords.

For those of us who know what that style was used for, it has some odd implications - like the fact that someone at some point was halfswording with a Shardblade, and seeing fantasy authors acknowledge halfswording always makes me geek out! Was this design a specific order from Brandon or were you just tasked with making a more knightly sword for the king and did your own research?

Ben McSweeney

So, there's a few different things going on here.

One is that, way early into the project, I did a bunch of silhouette studies for Brandon so that we could zero in on just how nutty he wanted Blades to be. From those studies he's picked out a few that we referred to when drawing the Blades in Oathbringer, and one of those in particular became Sunraiser.

He did specify that he wanted Sunraiser to be simple and traditional and purposefully in contrast with other Blades. The long ricasso wasn't a call for half-swording in particular, but that doesn't preclude the use of that technique, and it's likely that the original spren that became Sunraiser was probably used by a Radiant with some experience in wielding oversized two-handed blades.

From a Watsonian perspective, it's worth remembering that Shardblades are impractical interpretations of practical tools. Spren made themselves into what they thought swords were, but because of their nature the result became more about the spirit or the concept of a sword than about the requirements of forgery or physics or the practical needs of sticking pointy bits into other people.

FanX 2018 ()
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Questioner

What kind of Radiant do you think Shai would be?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a good question. I would go with Edgedancer. Listening is one of the things, but also the ability to get places where you're not supposed to be would be very up her alley. There is a argument for one with Lightweaving power. Shai a Lightweaver... does she lie to herself? No. She's very good at not lying to herself, which is part of it. I would go Edgedancer, followed by Lightweaver. We could make an argument that she, depending on situations, could end up in either order.

Which is not that uncommon, depending on the spren that you need.

Questioner

What would Kaladin's second Order be if he weren't a Windrunner?

Brandon Sanderson

I would have to think about that. I haven't considered it.

FanX 2018 ()
#83 Copy

Questioner

Has Hoid just collected--<like he does>--the spren, or...?

Brandon Sanderson

He has legitimately bonded the spren. Let's just say, he has given up on trying to cheat some of the systems and has decided to try to play by the rules.

FanX 2018 ()
#85 Copy

Questioner

I want to know if Nightblood can be killed in the same way as a spren.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, that's a RAFO. Nightblood does not have the same spren bond, and so the renouncing of Oaths is not going to affect him, but there are certain things that could.

FanX 2018 ()
#86 Copy

Questioner

So how big are spren, like when Kaladin sees a spren, how...

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the spren. lifespren are real tiny, little dots. windspren *presumably gestures*, like that. Some spren are as large as buildings. There is no strict size increment, but you can guess the size if I don't say otherwise. It really depends.

FanX 2018 ()
#87 Copy

Questioner

In Stormlight Archive, of all the Oaths that you know, which Orders would be the hardest to keep?

Brandon Sanderson

The thing about it is the spren self-select. So if you're going to give them to a random person then in that case, I'd say the Windrunners, but it could be the Skybreakers. One of those guys that are closer up on the dial to Honor and things like that are probably gonna be the harder to take for a random person but that whole self-selection thing ends up making it...

General Reddit 2018 ()
#88 Copy

DTF_20170515

Why refrigerate food when you can just stamp spoiled food so that it was stored properly before?

Aurora_Fatalis

You'll have to ask Brandon how that'd interact with gastric acid breaking down the stamp. Or how porous/loose material interacts with stamps in the first place.

Come to think of it... There's a WoB saying the Nightwatcher could change your species, but have a hard time making a spren bond to you. So... could the Nightwatcher turn you Scadrian and make you eligible for Allomantic powers? Or does the Nightwatcher's boons operate on soulstamp principles?

Hell, let's say you bought a vial of the wrong metal on your field trip to Sel. Could you pay a Forger to stamp the vial into being a vial of the right metal (it's believable that you would check before such an important trip) and then drink the metal contained in the vial to fuel your Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

All right, all right. Let's see... /u/Aurora_Fatalis, changing metals around with other forms of Investiture is generally going to work, according to how I view the magic right now. The power is there, you just need to align the matter the right way. So forging new metals: not too difficult. This is because Allomancy isn't actually using Investiture in the metals, but using it as a key to get power from somewhere else.

Forging a sword to be a Shardblade, however, would be very, very difficult for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the Investiture required would be enormous. A Shardblade is a highly-Invested object, with its own self-aware soul.

If you could overcome the initial resistance invested objects have to being influenced by other magics (something that Forgery is particularly good at doing anyway) you'd theoretically be able to change Shardblade/spren's personality like you could a person's.

Fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard, under the right circumstances, so making a Forger into an Elantrian (or an Allomancer) for a short time is plausible. Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Aurora_Fatalis

How about regular food? If I stamp a pineapple pizza into a pepperoni pizza and eat it, what nutrients do I end up with?

Brandon Sanderson

The way I have it working now, I believe (though I'd have to do some double-checking, as it's been a while since I've been working on Sel) soulstamps are more fragile than things like Aons, and it would be very hard to eat something with one without breaking it. But assuming you could, you'd get nutrients from what it had become--but those would change back once the stamp broke or ran out.

It is possible to go so far down this rabbit hole, however, that the chemistry of Forging (like the physics of Allomancy) it just can't make sense any more. So be aware.

Oversleep

With things like Stamping metals for Allomancy, you have said that it'd be possible for short time, but then burning it would break the Seal and metal would revert back.

I guess it would be similar with food, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's the big problem with Forging. Getting the stamp to stay in place once you start to change the object that has been stamped.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#90 Copy

coltonx9

If the Nightwatcher was asked to bond a person with a spren, would you just kidnap a spren and force a bond, would she create a spren...?

Brandon Sanderson

The Nightwatcher is unlikely to force a spren to bond.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#91 Copy

Questioner

With the gemstones, we know that the hue seems to matter more than the rarity. Is that somehow tying in to the colors for Warbreaker, and how that stuff works?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is tying in. Color will be a recurring theme, much as metal will be a recurring theme, as you see different magic systems work. In this case, the color has an affect on the spren and getting a spren trapped in it.

Questioner

So just the color itself?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah the color is the important part. When I was researching Stormlight, I determined that color had to be the point. Because a lot of the gemstones I'm using are molecularly identical.

Questioner

So that was the best way to differentiate?

Brandon Sanderson

So this was the best way to differentiate. But I had already had this as part of the cosmere, that color and the way people perceive color and things like, that were part of it. But getting ten different gemstones that were molecularly different proved to be very difficult and not worth it. If you look, so many of them are just basically the same gemstone with a few impurities. Their crystalline structure is the same.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#93 Copy

Questioner

I'm really curious about Ryshadium. Is there something bigger about them?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not super-huge. They are non-native species who have started to form spren bonds like native species do. So, a symbiotic bond with a spren has started happening. Ryshadium are horses that have done that, basically. You could say that humans have done the same thing. Non-native species that have started to form spren bonds. The Ryshadium are the only other non-native species that that has started happening. Like the chasmfiends have a symbiotic relationship with the spren that they have, the Ryshadium have a spren.

It's not as visible, but it is there.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#94 Copy

kurvyyn

Sja-anat tries to convince Shallan she is not her enemy and tells her, "Ask my son." Is the son that she's referring to, is that Pattern?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Sja-anat is referring to--I'll try not to give too many spoilers on this--if you look through the books for a spren that does not seem to belong to Honor or Cultivation, but is bonding a Radiant, that is where you want to look for Sja-anat's influence.

kurvyyn

Is it Glys?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO!

Idaho Falls signing ()
#96 Copy

Questioner

Using Hemalurgy, could you steal the boon from the Old Magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, from the Nightwatcher? This is theoretically possible.

Questioner

Would that take the [curse] with it as well?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitantly* Yes. Though it's also theoretically possible to split them apart, that would be a lot harder. Getting the boon, if you knew what you were doing, would not be that difficult.

Now, what Cultivation would do to you when she found out that had happened is another thing entirely. Because those are willful grants of Investiture.

Questioner

Similar to Endowment's with the Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, things like that. When you get a Shard involved and the Shard has..  power to... Same thing like...it's on a much grander scale what's happening with the spren bond, right?

Questioner

When Hemalurgy does spread, most Shards will not be happy about this, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is correct.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Adolin and his sword that wants to kind of wake up a little bit. Most of the Knights Radiant have some sort of break in their mind, mental <a little> problem. Where Adolin appears to be the person in Stormlight that's most comfortable with himself. Is that going to cause a problem, or is maybe the fact that he, at least in his mind, murdered Sadeas, going to help bring that to fruition or give us a way towards something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's, first off, say I'm not going to repeat this one because it's super spoilery. So let's try to talk around the spoilers.

In the Stormlight Archive, there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant that certain traumas and/or psychological handicaps are effective in drawing the attention of a spren. I haven't actually said if that is true or if that's [just] a tradition of theirs. But there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant. that they have noticed something consistent.

Does it mean that you have to in order to be a Knight Radiant? Well, there is somebody that I would call extremely psychologically well-adjusted, that by the end of the third book is well on the way to Knighthood.

There is something going on there, they are noticing something true. But it might not be as exclusionary as they think it is.

BookCon 2018 ()
#98 Copy

WeiryWriter

The Nightwatcher is described as having an amorphous, vague, humanoid form of dark green mist with a smooth, defined face. This is similar to how the mistpren are described (faces like porcelain masks and bodies of swirling fog). Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor, and later the Stormfather, were progenitors of honorspren like Syl.

Brandon Sanderson

One more time.

WeiryWriter

...Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor, and later the Stormfather, were the progenitors of the honorspren like Syl.

Brandon Sanderson

...Are you talking about author inspirations or in-world sort of things?

WeiryWriter

Either.

Brandon Sanderson

No, not in-world. And out of world, it's the reverse. Mist spirits came before. I ended up doing--

WeiryWriter

No, mistspren.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, mistspren. So you're saying the ones in Shadesmar... You're using terms for things, because I haven't given you other terms.

WeiryWriter

They are named mistpren in the books.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So ask me one more time.

WeiryWriter

Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor and later the Stormfather were the progenitors of the honorspren like Syl.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, I see what you're asking now. I was thinking mist spirit the whole time. We'll RAFO that. More because-- yeah we're just going to RAFO it.

BookCon 2018 ()
#99 Copy

WindRunner88 (paraphrased)

So far during The Stormlight Archive we've seen that the spren bond appears to have some distinct advantages (i.e. armor, more efficient Stormlight consumption, access to a variety of weapons) over what Tanavast via the Oathpact provided the Heralds. With the exception of Nale, and the fact that the Heralds had no need for Stormlight, can you please tell me one way in which a Herald had a distinct advantage over a level 5 Radiant of their corresponding  order?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Rebirth. *pause* The Heralds had access to raw levels of power that no Radiant could obtain.