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Oathbringer Glasgow signing ()
#11451 Copy

Questioner

Yes, or no. With all of the cosmere books that have been put out, do we have enough information to deduce the Ghostbloods' motives?

Brandon Sanderson

Ummm... *laugher* I would say yes, but it's not like you are a fool if you haven't gotten it.

Robert Jordan once answered a question like this saying, "Well, the answer should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer." Which I never thought was fair. Like, no, it was not. Szeth, some people guessed it. And some people will guess this. A lot of the foreshadowing in my books, it's this weird thing where, when you do proper foreshadowing, and then people have three years between books, they're gonna figure some things out. Which presents a really interesting challenge to me as a writer, because, like, there are big things that get revealed in Oathbringer, that people who have been steeped in the world for the last seven years... they kinda knew this would happen. We get the beta readers, and they're like, "So? Doesn't everyone know that?" But at the same time, the casual reader, beta readers were like "Holy cow! This is a huge revelation!" And books need to work both for the person who has been really steeped in it, and the person who's reading along that maybe doesn't want to go get all the spoilers from all the fan guessing. So it is this weird balancing act that, as a writer, you have to perform, particularly with the longer books in the longer series, where you want to make sure they're engaging to the hardcore fan, but not overwhelming to the person who maybe hasn't reread the books since the last one came out. And I don't know that I have that balance figured out, but it is something I think about a lot...

Skyward Houston signing ()
#11452 Copy

Questioner

Sadeas' murder. Do you consider that arc pretty much wrapped?

Brandon Sanderson

That is not wrapped, but there are lots of--

Questioner

Okay. Because I was writing-- I want more of that.

Brandon Sanderson

There is a-- Let's just say that there is a convergence of moral philosophies happening in the Kholin household and that it is not done by far.

ConQuest 46 ()
#11453 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

So the question is: I use a lot of religion in my books how do I balance that with my own personal beliefs?

So, I'm a religious person and what this has done to me in specific is make me really interested in how religion affects people or how the lack of religion affects people. I find that the real fun of reading and writing, raising interesting questions, and approaching a topic from lots of different directions, is a thing that is really fascinating to me. I ascribe to a school of thought that I kind of-- this is a little unfair to these gentlemen but I kind of divide it among the Tolkien and C.S. Lewis line of those two were famously in a writing group together, and if you don't know Tolkien actually converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity, which is very interesting, and they were both deeply religious people, and they approached it very differently in their fiction. C.S. Lewis felt that fiction should be didactic and teach you a lesson and Tolkien repeatedly refused to tell people what he thought the themes in his books were. When they would come up to him and say "It's a metaphor for World War II, isn't it?" he would say "No, it's a story." And I am more a Tolkien than a C.S. Lewis.  I like with fiction-- I consider myself a storyteller primarily, and I hope that a good story is going to raise interesting questions but that has to be focused around what the characters are passionate about and what they are thinking about. And so I try to populate my books with people who are asking interesting questions from a variety of different perspectives.

I said on a panel I was on yesterday "Nothing bothers me more than when reading a book where someone has my perspective, there's only one person, and they're the idiot. Whatever it is that they are an idiot about that I agree with."  And I'm like ahh can't you at least present my side-- I want everyone who reads my books, regardless of their religious affiliation, if they see something like their own belief system in there I want them to say "Yes, he's presenting it correctly." And part of that means that I have to approach my fiction in certain ways, for instance, I like fiction that is ambiguous to the nature of deity, if there is one. I want-- If you can create a book with really cool atheist characters and then go "By the way here's this all powerful, all knowing benevolent god that he's just refusing to acknowledge" that undermines that character completely. And so I create my fiction so that the different people on the sides of the argument, just like in our world, have good arguments on both sides. And I think that if you present characters with interesting choices, making interesting decisions you will-- truth will rise to the top. That's kind of one of the purposes of fiction, is to discuss these issues. So that's kind of a roundabout answer to your question, that as a person of faith how I approach writing my books. I'm not sure if it's the right answer, but it's the answer I've been giving lately.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
#11454 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Returns to a Ransacked Home

I'm a little annoyed at myself that it took so long to introduce Jewels. Here we are in chapter seventeen and she still hasn't shown up. She barely gets a mention here. Unfortunately, I knew that her arrival would present problems for Vivenna, so I felt the need to put it off until Viv was attached enough to the mercenaries that she'd be able to overlook a certain "pet" that Tonk Fah talked about earlier.

Skyward Seattle signing ()
#11457 Copy

Questioner

Silence Divine, are you allowed to talk about when it's going to happen in the timeline?

Brandon Sanderson

...It is late Stormlight Archive era. I image it being around book 8 or something like that.

Questioner

So it was after the Dawnchant was written.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. But since it hasn't been written yet, the timeline is not canon for that yet.

Skyward Chicago signing ()
#11460 Copy

Questioner

With Shards, are there any... limits? What can't they do? Besides being opposed by another Shard and their own intent?

Brandon Sanderson

It varies a lot. It varies based on experience and situation. They are not omnipotent, though the power is infinite. So that is the weird part that you get into. So, they are limited partially by their own limitations, and also the limitations imposed upon them by the situations they're in.

Questioner

Is there anything universal about all of them?

Brandon Sanderson

They all have bits of them in all of the cosmere, so that's universal. They all are bounded more by themselves than by the power itself.

Firefight Atlanta signing ()
#11461 Copy

Questioner

<audio obscured> in the Firefight-- The Reckoners series, was there a particular character you gave the <audio obscured>

Brandon Sanderson

So the question is: In The Reckoners, was there a particular power that I gave to someone because I just thought that power was cool. And yeah, the tensors. They can turn things to dust. For years I'd been walking around looking at our society where we have all this metal and this wood around, and things like that. I just loved the idea of just being able to turn it to dust. Maybe it's like a "reducing things to their more primal state" or whatever-- but anyway it was one of those magics that was in my head for a while. And really superheros are magic. I don't pretend that they're science fiction, they're magic. So I just designed these magics that feel cool to me.

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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virgineyes09

Writing question. When writing a fantasy novel in which the setting and the plot are so tightly linked (i.e. the plot of Stormlight is linked inextricably and specifically to the world of Roshar) which area do you focus on first, world or story, or both simultaneously? Can you talk about Stormlight specifically and how you built the world and the story to work so tightly together? Do you ever make small changes in the worldbuilding that end up forcing you to make big changes to the plot and vice versa?

Brandon Sanderson

The way I design stories, I'm usually always thinking about items in three areas that catch my attention: Character conflicts, setting themes, and plot archetypes. I keep a notebook where I'm writing down in these three general areas, looking for ideas that strike me as feeling new or interesting in some way.

Books begin to form when several of these ideas start to grow together, and influence one another in interesting ways. Roshar, as a planet, was interesting--but the story wasn't working t until the idea of the spren, the characters who interact with them, and the world all together started to play off each other.

When I feel like something is really coming together, I sit down and build an outline from all of these idea. This back-and-forth experience leads to the story being interconnected as I jump back and forth between outlining plot, setting, and character. Often, these things will change one another greatly as I work through it, trying to see it all as a whole, rather than parts.

Alloy of Law release party ()
#11463 Copy

Questioner

Do you have particular Inspirations from classics that you brought in your books? I felt like Dalinar was heavily influenced by Constantine.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I did have a degree in English, and so I read lots of stuff, but my favorite classics are Moby Dick, Les Miserables, and depending on the day one of the Jane Austen books, it changes. And so those are definite influences. You can probably see some Les Mis influence, a lot of it, in the Mistborn books. There were several places where I kind of consciously let myself be influenced there. I wouldn’t say that Dalinar though. The thing is, I started writing Dalinar when I was 15. He was my first character. In fact, I posted at Tor.com when Way of Kings came out a page from my very first novel that I tried to write when I was 14, and it was really really bad, and it has Dalinar in it. He is one of the few characters that survived through all these years from maturing, growing, and things like this. The story of the brother of the king who dies, and the brother must decide: does he take control, or does he let his nephew take control. So a lot of things have influenced Dalinar, but I can’t point to one specific thing.

17th Shard Forum Q&A ()
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Thoughtful Spurts

If there's really no upper limit to Feruchemy for practical reasons* , why didn't Sazed just fill steel at ridiculous levels for a few minutes in [Well of Ascension], and then go back to running instead of leaving his steelminds there? Say, being some 100,000 times slower than he would normally be for about a minute. Meaning that a Feruchemist should be able to fill a given metalmind in very short periods of time if you fill at a high enough rate.

*(yes, you have the limit of how much you can store in a given metalmind and for how many metalminds you can carry on your person, but those are probably too high to really be taken into account in more "normal" circumstances)

Brandon Sanderson

The low end is bounded. You can pull out tons--but in filling, you can only go so far. I didn't ever explicitly talk about this in the series, but the implications are there. Not all have the same bounds, but in your example, the body just can't slow beyond a certain point. Think of it this way--you can only fill a weight metalmind with as much weight as you have to give. So you can become very, very light--but you only add to a time for doubling your weight. You can't make yourself 100,000 times slower and gain 100,000 times multiplication. You can give up all of your normal speed, and so when you tap that speed out you are at 200% for an equal period. (And that's a theoretical maximum; realistically, you can only go to down around 75% slower or the like.)

Idaho Falls signing ()
#11475 Copy

Questioner

So, who's your favorite Planeswalker or like-- color of mana to play?

Brandon Sanderson

Can I say my own Planeswalker? 

Questioner

That's because you did write--

Brandon Sanderson

I did! If you throw my Davriel out, because obviously I'm gonna pick my own, let's see, who is my favorite? Ashiok is probably my favorite, just because they have such an interesting look to them and I like the powerset, that's the way I like to play, and there's so much mystery about Ashiok, so Ashiok. If we're talking about one that's actually had a story written about them, I really love how they handled Urza, just because you'd expect Urza to be very Gandalf-y and wise, and he was kind of, you know, that black side to Urza was really cool to me. And so-- yeah, there you go.

Shadows of Self Portland signing ()
#11476 Copy

Questioner

How do you keep motivation for writing in general, because i always have a lot of trouble with that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well that depends on what part of my career you are talking about. Early on I envisioned this cubicle chasing me and if it caught me i'd have to get a normal, boring desk job. That was actually a big motivation to me, because it was like I only had a certain amount of time to do this thing that I loved and if I didnt actually sit down and do it I was gonna have to be a real boy. After i got published and it got a bit hard I started using the carrot philosophy; i would let myself open up a new pack of magic cards if I hit a certain word limit every day.

Questioner

Oh, thats really cool!

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, and that worked really well during the hard years when I was trying to get through the Wheel of Time. They were great books but they were so hard to write cause they were way harder than writing my own fiction. Now I don't really need that anymore, now its kinda become this thing where I have all these fans who are waiting for things and I have to make good on the promises I've made to them. Now its more like a "i need to do this", so yeah.

Chatzy Q&A ()
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MysticFyre

Brandon.....just how much sleep per night ARE you getting?

Brandon Sanderson

I do usually get 8 hours. My day goes like this: Get up, take my sons and play with them for an hour so Pemberly can nap. Work until 6 or 7. Eat dinner, hang with wife and kids. Back to work at 8 or 9, work until four. Sleep until noon.

Phoenix Comicon 2013 ()
#11478 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

For those of you who don’t know, when I was writing these thirteen books.  I started working on them and I loved the big epics but when I sat down to write Elantris a lot of the advice I had heard from editors said “Don’t write a big series in the beginning.  You want to write a standalone book with sequel potential. So when you sell that you can then write the sequels to it, but if you don’t sell it you’re not locked into spending all of your time writing these.”  The idea was if you’re going to write five novels, write five first novels as opposed to one book and four more so if you can’t sell the first one the others you can sell somewhere. And that’s decent advice, it’s not the only advice. Naomi Novik who writes the Temeraire books, if you’ve read them they’re quite good, she wrote the whole trilogy right off.  She ignored that advice and when she sold the first one she had the other two ready and they bought those too and they released her books one at a time one month after another. I think the Iron Druid guy did that too. It can allow for a really explosive start where you’ve already got shelf space, you’ve got three books there. Instead of being a nobody with one book, you’re a nobody with three and suddenly you look more important.  

Anyways I heard this, and I really do like jumping to a lot of different projects so this is what I tried but in the back of my mind I did love the idea of the big epic.  It is what got me into this, I love the Wheel of Time and things like this. So I started writing a hidden epic so I embedded into Elantris hints of a character I had been developing for years which was a guy who went from world to world in a fantasy universe investigating the different magic systems.  I started embedding this story behind the story using an outline I had used for my very first book that I had never actually finished as a background for all of this. So I was basically writing a sequel to that book but on a different planet, with different characters. I started writing my next book each had these same hints and allusions hidden behind with different characters crossing between the worlds and sharing.

I eventually published Elantris and decided this is something that I thought was cool and wanted to do and I’ve seen people do it.  Stephen King connected all of his worlds. And other authors, Terry Brooks eventually combined a bunch of his worlds together and I thought that what they did was really interesting and I had never seen anyone do it from the get go though right?  Like when Asimov linked the Robot books and the Foundation books it was something he did later in his life where he’s like “I’m going to blend these two together and make one universe out of them.” I hadn’t seen anyone do it from the start, and again I have an advantage on Isaac Asimov and Terry Brooks and people because I’ve read them.  I’ve been able to see what they did and say “Well I’m going to do this from the get go, to see if I can tell this cool hidden epic behind the stories.” So that’s called-- I called that the cosmere, it was my name for it when I was sixteen. It now seems almost a little silly to me but I’ve kept with it because, you know, it is one of those old remnants that I have from my teenage days.  There are characters-- There is a character that has shown up in all of my epic fantasies, things like the Rithmatist are not part of the cosmere, Earth isn’t so if it references Earth you know it’s not. But they show up, and there’s like an underlying, fundamental laws of magic. And there’s a story that happened long in the past and a lot of these people are reacting to this and things like that.  The thing that I want you to know though is I do it in such a way that you don’t feel like you have to have read my whole body of work to read one. Like you don’t have to have read Elantris to read Mistborn. You don’t have to read Mistborn to read Way of Kings even though there is a character from Mistborn in Way of Kings. You don’t have to do that, it’s all behind the scenes and it will never take over a series.  You will never get to like book 8 of the Stormlight Archive and be like “Wow, now its all about the cosmere, its not about--” It’s not going to happen happen like that. I will write books about the cosmere but I will be upfront from the beginning about this is going to be the cosmere series. If you don’t know the different magic systems you’re going to kind of be confused because they are going to interact with each other and things like that.  Eventually that will happen but for right now, you don’t need to worry about it. They are all easter eggs, you can read them in any order and you can piece them together and stuff like that.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Natalie Perkins

I'm one of those readers that gets swept in the stories and fails to come up with any theories whatsover.

However I did notice one... 2 years ago.

Hoid

I can't believe this is being talked about. I remember making a thread about it shortly after I joined the forums (I can't even find it anymore) About how I thought it was odd to see Hoid in Mistborn as an informant, Elantris as a beggar, Warbreaker as a storyteller, and I had a strong feeling it was in the first chapter as Liar as well but was too lazy to investigate.

It was before these forums got so crazy crowded and I'm pretty sure my questions on whether the use of the name was intentional were brushed off. Weird right? Ever since then I considered my speculations unimportant (much like my speculation's on Reen's obsidian, the nobility really being Terris, and Vin being a feruchemist, by the way, don't ask about the second two, I'm crazy)

Anyway, just wanted to add this. I sure wish I could find my original Hoid post but I'm pretty sure it was so old, it's been deleted.

Brandon Sanderson

I remember when you pointed Hoid out, notxaxlie. I was curious to see if others would start talking about it then, but it just kind of faded. You were certainly one of the first to spot that point.

Skyward release party ()
#11486 Copy

Questioner

I'm an illustrator. I know a couple illustrators in the area have worked with you on some illustrations. So how does that work? I know usually the art director is the only one who has a say in the art.

Brandon Sanderson

Isaac is my art director. We have enough influence with the publisher that we hire out everything except the cover, and we say, "You're just putting this in." I pay for it. I started that on my second book, after they didn't pay my illustrator on the first book, because they forgot and lost the check. And it took them, like, eight months to get another check. I'm like, "I'm just gonna pay for this. So I make sure my illustrator gets paid." And from then on, I've just done that. When you're paying for it, the publisher lets you do a whole bunch of stuff.

Manchester signing ()
#11489 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

White Sand, being my first book, even though I re-wrote it... doesn't sometimes follow as much rigor with the worldbuilding scientifically as things like Roshar. When we-- If I were to ever write books in it, I would beef that up. But for right now, since the actual y'know-- I haven't actually released any of the books, I don't feel bad that some of it is a little more vague.

West Jordan signing ()
#11490 Copy

Questioner

In (?) someone told me about the switching over from Scholastic to Tor. I know you've mentioned before with Alcatraz you were unhappy how Scholastic portrayed the covers. So is changing the covers what you wanted it to be, or just to differ the Tor versions?

Brandon Sanderson

We're going to try and get them to something more like I envisioned originally. I originally wrote the Alcatraz books with Alcatraz at fifteen, and Scholastic pushed for him to be thirteen, and I'm not completely convinced that that was the right thing for his personality. So I may actually move him up a little bit in age. It would probably be Peter doing it: go find all references to 'thirteen'!

Questioner

Would Bastille's age go up too?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. They were both fifteen in the original draft. In the book they bought, they pushed it down to thirteen.

Questioner

With changing the covers, will Alcatraz have different comments on the cover of book two?

Brandon Sanderson

Boy, I don't know. I’ll have to watch that one. Maybe we'll have to put the original one in there, the original cover of book two. Oh boy, that cover... it was like: this in space! This is a fantasy book. Why are they in space? O...kay.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#11491 Copy

Questioner

Could you tell us the name of one of the Shards we have not yet seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I cannot. I'm sorry. I get asked that enough that they'd all be done. If I gave you one, I get asked at the next con, and all of them would be gone. Plus, I sometimes tweak them before I canonize them. The actual word I'm going to use. The intent usually stays the same but I tweak which word I'm going to use.

Questioner

I meant the actual name. Like, how Honor was Tanavast.

Brandon Sanderson

No...I won't do that either. But I will give you a RAFO card!

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing ()
#11492 Copy

Questioner

Aradel doesn’t sound like he is from Scadrial, seems out of place with his dark - well, tanned, - skin.

Brandon Sanderson

Aradel is actually based off Goradel, he is a descendant of his. So he is local. The skin, there are streaks of dark skin in Scadrial, they don’t associate them 100% with ethnicities because of the small [gene] pool they were building from, and they are stronger in the Terris bloodlines. So if they see someone with darker skin they will likely think they are from Terris, but there’s so much intermixing so that you can’t really say. Wax would have a darker complexion, maybe like a tanned caucasian.

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist Interview ()
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Patrick

Your solo adult novels have these recurring elements such as the character of Hoid and references to the Shards. In Mistborn, Elantris and Warbreaker these elements are minor and more along the lines of easter eggs, but they seem to be more prominent in The Way of Kings. Can we expect these elements to be expanded on further in future Stormlight books? Will we find out Hoid's full story in this series or are you holding off on that for now?

Brandon Sanderson

I will mostly RAFO that. Yes, it will continue. No, you won't get a lot of it. The Stormlight Archive will not be about the story behind the story, though someday I will write a book series about that. There are basically two large epics in the greater sequence of books I'm writing, and the Stormlight Archive is one of them. There is another one, and both of the large epics will have certain amounts of influence from Hoid. Other books will be written that will not have nearly as much influence. But I'll go ahead and say that Hoid's origin story is not in the Stormlight Archive. That's not what this series is about.

Steelheart release party ()
#11494 Copy

Questioner

Are TenSoon and MeLaan gonna be in the Wax and Wayne series at all?

Brandon Sanderson

You have seen TenSoon in Alloy of Law, and MeLaan was mentioned by reference, though they didn't know her name.

Questioner

Was it in the broadsheet?

Brandon Sanderson

Nope. You just watch. They both are in there. TenSoon is wearing someone's body. So watch for somebody who changes personalities drastically between the beginning and the end of the book.

Questioner

Is it the police guy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Worldbuilders AMA ()
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bmanny

At what point in your writing did the ending of [Shadows of Self] become a thing in your mind? Was is there from the beginning? Did it unfold naturally? Or was it something you saw before even writing [The Alloy of Law]?

Brandon Sanderson

I wrote Alloy of Law as kind of a free write. Once I finished it, and liked it a lot, I sat down and said, "Okay, if this is going to be Mistborn, it needs to have a tighter series outline." So I outlined three sequels, so I knew where Wax and the characters were going. Then I wrote the prologue of Alloy of Law. (It originally didn't include that scene with him and Lessie meeting Bloody Tan.) That scene was the first I wrote knowing the entire three book sequence, including the ending of SofS.

From there, I did a revision of Alloy of Law to match what was to come. The biggest change was adding in the trauma to Wax, which wasn't a piece of the initial story. (It was also something the book needed. Wax didn't have an arc in the original draft; he was kind of just "stoic sheriff." Building into him this longing to escape responsibility, and an underlying worry that his failures would break him, made it possible to create for him a four book arc.)

Teen Author Boot Camp ()
#11496 Copy

Skaiiwalker (paraphrased)

What does Investiture look like in the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Er, I haven't said anything about that yet.

Skaiiwalker (paraphrased)

But is it important?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, it's important.

Skaiiwalker (paraphrased)

Could you say that it looks anything like mist?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well you could say that it looks anything like mist. *smiles teasingly*

Ben McSweeney AMA ()
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Kisaoda

I got my wife hooked on Sanderson's works recently, especially the Stormlight novels. She absolutely loves Shallan as a character and fell deeper in love with her when she saw your illustration of her... which is now saved as her current desktop wallpaper. So kudos there!

My question to you is this: how much reading into the novels do you do before coming up with an idea of a setting or character to paint? What is your process when deciding the best scene to depict?

Ben McSweeney

The Shallan endpage is mostly Michael Whelan, I assisted some in the layout and design but he's responsible for the finished painting.

I read the full text of the novel while it's still in the draft stages, which is a rare privilege and part of what makes our production a little different than usual. When deciding what subjects to choose for Shallan's pages, I first look for seed that Brandon plants in the text, usually moments where Shallan specifically mentions drawing something. Or I look for subjects that are suitable for her to draw and which she's reasonably likely to see (and have time for) during her travels. Based on that and the conversations I have with Brandon and Isaac, we come up with a list of 6-8 subjects which we then develop further.

Even though Shallan does draw portraits of people, we avoid trying to reproduce those so as to not define the features of various characters too strictly. Instead we focus on plants and animals and hints of the world around her.

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
#11498 Copy

Silver

Did you ever confirm Renarin's eye color?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know if I have. Peter would have to look in the wiki and see if I've written something that contradicts or not. But I have not yet, I don't think. But if you write us an email I can, it's something I just have to be able to look up.

Skyward Houston signing ()
#11499 Copy

Questioner

What inspired Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

So Hemalurgy was probably-- It's hard for me to say, because it's been fifteen years, but I think I started with the image of the Inquisitors with spikes through their eyes. At the same time I was trying to work up a third magic system to go in the trilogy so I could have one magic, two magic, three magic, and I wanted one that was super creepy and evil. And I built it around those two ideas.

Kraków signing ()
#11500 Copy

swieczq

Would someone with enough knowledge be able to use Autonomy’s Investiture if Taldain’s star was seen from his world?

Brandon Sanderson

So I’m on a world and I see Taldain’s star, what you're asking if someone could use the Investiture? Oh, OK I see. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. That’s good! You stumped me. I haven’t gotten that question before. I would say yes, if the light particles are reaching you. I mean technically you could use the light from one of those stars to power a solar sail so…