Found 59 entries in 0.031 seconds.
Questioner
I was wondering, in Stormlight, what kind of gem the [singer] gemhearts were, or do they just, do they hold Stormlight well?
Brandon Sanderson
So, this is a good question. This is one that people have been asking me since the first book, if they had one, and I've finally kind of confirmed it in book three. So the reason people don't think [singers] have a gemheart is it is milky white, and looks like bone.
Questioner
But aren't their bones red?
Brandon Sanderson
Their bones, well-- Their bones are red-- not completely. If you're going to pull out the bone, what you're going to see-- I'll explain it in the next book. So what you're going to do is, if you break open the bone, you're going to find this white-- It's not marrow but it is, yeah I guess it's marrow. Anyway at the center kind of in their sternum there is a gemheart there, but it is fused to the bone and it is grown into the bone, and you have to kind of snap it open and find it inside, and it kind of just looks like marrow, but there's a gemheart in there. And it kind of relates to some stuff in Dragonsteel that I'm not gonna get into. But you'll see in the next books. But there's a good reason people just don't think that [singers] have a gemheart.
Questioner
So they must not glow much then, I'm assuming.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, well, it's surrounded by bone. So it's a different special thing. We'll bring it out in the following books. It might not be the next one.
Questioner
Why or how are the Heralds the only ones we've seen so far that are affected by magical maladies due to either their high Investiture or long lives?
Brandon Sanderson
I would argue the Fused are having the same situation, so they're not the only ones. The why and how... there's a whole host of things going on here. Like a lot of physical and mental illness, it's not one thing or the other. But it is a compound of other things.
One is going so long without certain protections that you kind of need to take. The human being's soul might be immortal, depending on your argument in the cosmere. (That's really up to you.) But they certainly aren't meant for thousands of years of existence, the same way that our bodies aren't. There's some of that.
There's some of the things they've been through. Like, legit trauma; this is not all simply a magical ailment. You've got people with PTSD, layers of PTSD on top of layers of PTSD, for thousands of years, bearing things that no human being without their level of Investiture would even be able to bear. You've got that manifestation, you've got their own sense of guilt.
And these things are all just kind of overlapping together with the fact they've been alive for so, so very long. And a lot of the people that you've seen otherwise have not been alive nearly... orders of magnitude more for the Heralds. The only people you've seen that are that old are: some of the dragons, Hoid, and Vessels of various Shards. And you're basically at that group. And this is a group who knows what they're doing. Either they were built like the dragons, this is part of their innate nature, that they are functionally immortal. Or you are getting the Shards. Or you're getting people that are 300 years old, which is a very different thing, cosmere-wise, than having lived for thousands and thousands of years, part of it being torture.
FeatherWriter
The Navani and Raboniel storyline was one of my favorites in Rhythm of War, and I'm really sad we're probably not gonna get any more Raboniel for now?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, that's an anti-Investiture death, so yeah. She's gone, I'm sorry.
FeatherWriter (paraphrased)
Fingers crossed maybe Herald's flashbacks we might see a little more [Raboniel]? Maybe my favorite new character in Stormlight that we've had introduced later on.
Brandon Sanderson
Oh yeah, right you can see her in Herald flashbacks, definitely as somebody you can see back then.
Well the other thing I wanted to do with this book, was really get some Fused to show their viewpoints on life, because it's not something I've really been able to do yet. I've had her waiting in the wings in order to - basically as Rayse/Odium became, in my mind, less of a threat because Dalinar had just completely defeated him. I also I needed a more personal antagonist for this book, that we could approach in a different way. Rayse is the unknowable evil, I wanted the knowable antagonist. Not even necessarily evil, evil-ish in Raboniel. I was really looking forward to be able to write her, and one of the decisions by being able to make Navani a main character, by saying "Brandon I'm gonna let you do this" to myself. Let me pull off that dynamic between them, that was extremely fulfilling to write.
Comatose
Can we finally confirm what type of spren is used to create half-shards? Is it Radiant spren, Shardplate spren, or something different?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO! This theoretically should be confirmed in the RPG. We should be giving you all the tools that you need for these sorts of things, including all of the armor spren, all the different brands of Fused, and things like that. The stuff we need so that you can roleplay...
Comatose
People who are making them?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah. This should all get confirmed in that.
Questioner
At the start of previous Desolations, how long would it take the Fused to get back after one of the Heralds broke?
Brandon Sanderson
I'll RAFO that for now. I'm gonna be digging into it. We will have some-- I'm just going to RAFO it.
Questioner
My question is not really a question, it's more of a theory. How Odium keeps the Fused around is more if he has them tied to his essence, so it's like he's essentially fishing them out of the Spiritual Realm and since their minds are left behind in the Cognitive Realm and their minds are *inaudible* damaged, because their spirits are separated and it just pulls them back.
I'm 100% convinced Nightblood did kill the thunderclast, because Nightblood consumes all investiture, that's something I asked you back at Barnes and Noble a couple years ago, during Christmas and you said your soul is investiture. So my thought is, that thunderclast isn't coming back any time soon.
Brandon Sanderson
You are correct on that one.
Questioner
When I saw that, my thought was, "Yep, It's dead." Other people were like, "I don't know, will it come back?" Nope.
Brandon Sanderson
I'll tell you this. They have not run into something like this before, and there will be ramifications of what happened there.
Questioner
That is fun to know.
Brandon Sanderson
If you are used to death having no consequence, and suddenly your friend vanishes forever...
Questioner
Yeah I, know I already thought of that. They're going to fight over Nightblood.
Brandon Sanderson
Mmm.
Brandon Sanderson
Chapter Fourteen
One of the themes of some of my unpublished books was the nature of immortality. I've always been fascinated by the idea, and some of its implications. I think about how shadowy in my mind events of some ten years ago are, and I wonder what would happen if we lived centuries, instead of decades, in lifespan. How would we adapt? How would our physical apparatus (like our brains) adapt to something like that? Like a car built to drive 200,000 miles instead being kept going for many times that.
As an aside, one of the more fun stories I've read dealing with this idea is the excellent 17776, which you really have to experience, since it defies explanation.
I enjoyed writing this chapter, and many in this book, as the series is finally in a place where I can start delving into the personalities and attitudes of the fused. I can't say a whole lot more about that yet, but suffice it to say that I'm excited for you to get the whole book.
Blightsong
Nightform seems to be a form capable of powers but doesnt seem like it destroys the original [singer] and replaces it with a Fused like other forms of power, at least based on what they have said in the Listener songs and its surrounding historical context. Am I right here?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
learhpa
Could the painting mechanism Painter uses to trap nightmares be used to trap other things in the cosmere? A spren, perhaps, or a seon? How about a fused?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, but he does not have any extra power to do this. So for instance, someone from another planet doing what he does would have the same effect on one of those mentioned. Someone from another planet who traveled to his planet who was as talented as him and learned the methodology of him would have the same abilities over the nightmares that he has.
