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What inspired Hemalurgy?
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.
Would someone with enough knowledge be able to use Autonomy’s Investiture if Taldain’s star was seen from his world?
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…
What would Zane have been like if he hadn't been tainted.
He would've been a lot more like Kelsier.
*inaudible* also storing Stormlight. Did you decide the value of the gems first?
So I actually retrofitted it. What we looked at is how much food does it create, how much is that equivalency in our world, what factors do we need to change, and things like that. And we retrofitted how much things were worth. There's also a measurement in there of how much-- amount of Stormlight there is and how much that is worth, how much energy and work that can do.
*inaudible*
I assign other people to do a lot of that these days. I say, "Here is the situation I want, run the math on this and come back and tell me how much I may use here or there."
Was the Reod natural?
The Reod natural? *laughs*
Here’s the thing, you’ve answered this question for us already, we just need it on audio.
It wasn’t the Reod that was the question it was was the earthquake natural?
No, Eric’s [Chaos] asking if the Reod was natural.
To heck with Eric, we don’t care about him.
You’ve told us that the earthquake was not caused by natural events.
Yeah, but it’s a complicated question because the earthquake was not caused by natural, but the Reod was a natural effect of the earthquake, then... does that make sense? So the Reod is natural, a natural result of... does that make sense? That’s why it was a tricky question.
But the earthquake was not natural.
No, it was not.
So the Reod is a natural reaction to an unnatural occurrence.
Yes.
And wasn’t it because there was like magical strain on the land?
That is certainly part of what was going on.
Do you have a "drawer-full" of ideas waiting to be put to paper?
More like a brain-full, but yes. It's particularly bad now as I had to shelve a number of projects I was working on in order to do the WoT. I don't regret it at all, but those stories keep pounding on the inside of my skull, yelling and begging for me to let them out.
Does Denth have the Royal Locks, independent of his being a Returned?
Yes. (Good question.)
One fan asked about the exact locations of the Inquisitor spikes.
A Hemalurgic table with a list of spike locations, including the Inquisitor spikes, will be forthcoming.
Would Rock be able to see the Cryptics?
Would Rock be able to see a Cryptic? That is a good question, you will have to see.
Would Szeth still have been chosen to be a skybreaker if Nalan'Elin had known that Szeth was willing to kill Adolin "on his own time" unlawfully without being compelled by his oathstone? Or did Nalan'Elin know about that and still think he'd be a good fit?
Nobody is perfect, and Nale knows this--but he has worse days than others. It's not so much the law, as willingness to follow a personal code, that Nale is most interested in. He's also more harsh with people once they join the order than before.
So, he wouldn't have loved it, but it wouldn't have stopped him from offering.
Is Vax a planet? It’s clearly suggested that it is.
What’s that?
It’s heavily suggested that it is.
It is heavily suggested that it is a place.
It's a place. Okay, I'll take that.
*talking to other attendees* Vax is a place.
No no, heavily suggested that it's a place, is what I said!
Is there anything in specific that made Stick special, or was Shallan just bad at Soulcasting?
No, Stick is just a regular stick. Shallan was just bad.
Do people in The Way of Kings have Biochromatic breath and if not, how will Nightblood function?
Spoilers! No they don't, but Investitures from the various magics can power magics from other systems.
My question is can you spike to or from spren?
That's a RAFO, right now.
How does one detect a new Feruchemist?
Feruchemists, when they touch metals, have an empathy for the metal that they can use.
How do you create such a complex character as Legion? How, where did you get the aspects from and did you consult any psychiatrists?
Legion came from a conversation I had with friend of mine named Dan Wells. And he loves to write stories about... horror stories about people who are dealing with mental disability. And I told him what if there was somebody who was schizophrenic and the people they saw helped them out instead of inspiring their paranoia. And he said "that doesn't sound like a horror novel, you should write that, Brandon; it sounds like your style of novel". And it's true: if you haven't read Legion, it's about a guy who sees hallucinations of people who all help him solve crimes. And the inspiration is really all the weird voices that authors have in their heads about all these characters.
Weather is a major force in The Way of Kings since that is where they derive their magic powers from. Also, the mythology of the series most people believe they are descended from others who lived in another world similar to heaven, but were thrown out of because of the Voidbringers. Reincarnation seems to be a theme as well. All these ideas follow along with Norse mythology to a degree. Was that intentional or just a byproduct of the evolution to this world?
Half and half. I am steeped in mythology, and I enjoy reading about it. I’m absolutely in love with the idea of Valhalla and Ragnarok. But this was not me saying I’m going to copy Norse mythology. Whatever I’ve read can pop into my head. You’ll probably see a bunch of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism too if you look for it. But it was me drawing on various sources, and also just trying to make my own thing. Yes, there’s certainly a Norse aspect to a lot of the weather magic and things like that, but it’s more that I wanted to tell a story about a world that got hit by these magical hurricanes every few days. Weather being such a force is going to therefore be an aspect of the religion, the belief systems, and the day-to-day workings of the people who live in that world. So it was partially natural outgrowth and partially my love and fondness for things that I’ve read.
What defines the early, middle, and late eras on Sel?
My instinct is (and I could be wrong) that... If you were to ask me that right now, what I mean by the early, middle, and late eras... It probably has to do with ancient being pre-Splintering. Not Pre-Shattering. And then the middle era is during Elantris' sort of reign, and then the late era is after the fall. Is probably what I meant. But that's off the top of my head, because I wrote [the Aon pendant descriptions] a long time ago.
Can someone use their native world's magic system on a different planet? (Ex. Would Galladon be able to use Aons on Roshar?)
Plausible. Certain things would need to be done.
Chapter Twenty-One
Vasher Awakens His Clothing, Then Leaps off the Palace
One of the subtle, yet drastic, changes to Awakening that happened in this story came during the middle drafts. Originally, the Command was part of the process of Awakening—but wasn't as important as I eventually made it. I had intended for very difficult things to be accomplished through the use of very long and intricate Commands. However, as I wrote the first draft, I felt this was bulky. What it meant that was if you wanted to use a powerful Awakening in battle, you'd have to stop and spout several paragraphs of instructions. It really cut down on the tension of the battle sequences. (And Awakening was already slower than I preferred, with the need for all of the steps—Breathing, finding color, then Commanding.)
So during revisions, I changed this. Instead of requiring a lengthy Command to create a powerful Awakening, the strength and skill of the Awakener is instead determined by their ability to visualize what they want the Command to do. The Command is a focus, the spoken words an important part of the process, but the real trick is getting the right mental picture.
This way, someone can practice a lot, and still use simple Commands—like "grab things"—yet have them do very powerful things. It also allows me to have Commands be easier to learn and use, yet still require skill to master.
When Kaladin jumps in to help Adolin, and he's fighting and he says he feels like he can fight with his eyes shut. Is that just Kaladin being cocky? Or is that Investiture related? ...It reminded me of atium.
There's a little more going on there, but it's not as far as you think.
How do you feel about being labelled "inferior" to vitriolic readers on Reddit? How do you feel about internet reactions to your books?
I would say that, when you encounter responses like that, you just gotta let it bounce off you. I usually go read one-star reviews of books I love. I'll go and see what the one-star reviews of Terry Prachett novels are (which I think are brilliant). I'm like, "If people are disliking Terry Prachett novels, there's no way I can please everybody, right?" But it's weird that we get so passionate about it, people on the internet do. It's like that xkcd, "Someone's wrong on the internet!" But the thing about it is, when it comes to a case like this, we get very passionate about it. Where in some ways, we aren't. And art is a taste. You are not gonna like a piece of art. No one likes every piece of art. And there are some things that just don't speak to you. A lot of poetry doesn't speak to me. It's a form that just doesn't work. Some does.
For Feruchemy, can you only inherit that? Or is there another way to get it?
Yeah, you could obviously get it through a Hemalurgic spike.
Yeah, but that’s kind of a different thing.
It is hereditary, but it came from somewhere. Which is a RAFO, but it’s not a big RAFO. There’s not something you missed in the books, or anything like that. It originally came from Preservation long ago. And there are other ways to get it, but you have not missed any major plot points regarding that. Good question.
By the way–Roial's observation that people who "'turn away from a religion" being its strongest opponents actually applies to a lot of things in life, I think. You'll find no opponent more bitter than the one who used to consider himself your friend.
why does Marsh have a Feruchemical atium spike?
You'll have to figure that out! RAFO.
I was curious about the dye in Hallandren, the Tears of Edgli. So, that can be used to make a whole bunch of different colors, right? Does the flower come in different colors? Or is that something in the dye process, or-?
The flower comes in different colors.
And it dyes all fiber types the same?
It does not dye all fiber types the same.
In theory, if they had synthetic fibers would it work on them?
I would say yes.
Is it more fuel-efficient for Awakening?
Is what more-?
Like, color used in Awakening-?
Yes. Those dyes are very effective for Awakening.
What was the name of a Shard that you choose not to use? Like the Shardic intent you decided not to use?
I can't confirm those because I still might use them. Mostly, the things I've discarded are names that are too simple, or too on the nose.
Maybe I'm not not... People are like "oh they're just synonyms, hatred and odium are synonyms" but I see more nuance to Odium. So like it feels more deep.
Yeah. If it's got a different history as a word.
But I haven't 100 percent eliminated any of them. Like, some of them are similar enough that at the end of the day, I might be like "you know what, this is better as this name instead of this name" and that would change the intents.
So you have...
I have a list of all 16 but I haven't settled on the actual name for each of them.
Oh! I decided not to do the Shard Levity. I did move away from that completely.
There will be a _____ Twinborn somewhere in the novel, a Twinborn with matching metals a la how the Lord Ruler used atium.
Why on earth does Marsh have a Feruchemical atium spike? You've said that Ironeyes is in fact Marsh. Did Ruin spike someone for him? Or did Sazed grant him the power?
Dead Inquisitors Vin killed. Some were granted the spike for reasons I haven't spoken of yet.
How do Kandra decide gender? Is it just intellectual? Or are there subtle physical differences?
Kandra have a specific gender that is associated with scent- you can tell if a kandra is a boy or girl depending on how they smell. There is more to it than that. They also know who they are attracted to.
If Dalinar actually brought Honor back together to summon the perpendicularity, and Odium said he Ascended. Dalinar did he actually hold the Shard Honor and is he now considered a Sliver?
RAFO! They are really waiting on this one. Let's just say, he is not Honor currently. But of course, you knew that.
Do you have future intentions of grouping characters or descendants from across the Cosmere together against a common foe?
The future of the cosmere does involve much more crossover between the worlds, but don't think of it like the Avengers--the goal isn't to bring together a group of heroes, but to show the intersection of cultures and ideals, told through the eyes of those who live them.
Is burning atium related to Scadrian worldhopping?
Hehehe. That's a good question, the answer is no.
As a writer in the fantasy genre, but also a reader, how do you see it developing over the next twenty years?
So how do I see the fantasy market going? Boy. You know...I'm really excited over what's happening in the fantasy genre right now. It feels like we're entering something of a golden age, where we are exploring the genre in new ways. I always talk about it as it seems like the generation after Tolkien was responding to Tolkien. Which is appropriate, because Tolkien was so awesome. And Tolkien changed the face of fantasy. And there were a lot of responses and perfecting of this type of story which I feel personally culminates in the Wheel of Time, which is kind of the majestic, best version of this sort of heroic arc story that was popular in the '70s and '80s. And then 1990, Robert Jordan starts the grand sort of culmination of them all. And after that, it felt like fantasy didn't quite know where to go. Certainly we had one branch that went into George R. R. Martin, which is kind of the new grittiness, which is great. There's a lot of cool things happening there, and that genre, the heroic gritty is still going strong. David Gemmell was a precursor to that, to what George R. R. Martin did, and certainly Moorcock and some of these also were doing it in the past. But there's a new wave of this.
But epic fantasy didn't seem to know what to do with itself, for a little while. And now we're recovering and we have new authors that seem to be approaching it in new ways and expanding. Epic fantasy can have wonderful, inventive worlds to the extent that no other genre can do. Science fiction can do great worlds, but we can add added levels of magic upon it, to give us this wholly original sort of thing. And hopefully we're seeing more people take more risks in their world-building and their narrative structure, like you see in Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or the Patrick Rothfuss books. The narratives are getting very interesting and the worlds are getting very interesting. I see in fifty years from now, people looking back and saying, "That's where fantasy hit the golden age." And I hope that's the case. I hope we continue to explore and to innovate and to just have fun with this.
Is the gold blade that Odium has, his equivalent of an Honorblade?
Not quite.
Chapter Forty-Six - Part Two
As I've said before, I worried about the Sarene-Raoden plot falling too much into "romantic comedy" stereotypes, so I took measures to try and make them act more honestly. In this chapter, Raoden tries to push Sarene away–but, of course, she doesn't believe him. Honestly, I think people in a lot of such plots TRY to find ways to misunderstand each other. That's the only explanation I can give for why such ridiculous things occur.
In cutting the Mad Prince, this section in the Sarene/Raoden chapters was one of the things I was sad to change. As I mentioned in a previous annotation, in the Mad Prince version of the book, Sarene thought that Raoden had returned with an army to try and take the city. I started this chapter out with a scene of Raoden thinking about the problems Sarene's realization caused. I’ll just stick it in here:
One side effect of her mistaken supposition was that she hesitated in regards to their own relationship. He could see the conflict within he–the two of them had grown very close over the last five days, acting on the feelings they had both been forced to hold back during the weeks of Sarene's food distribution. Yet, now, Sarene thought that her husband might actually be alive and, a truly devout daughter of political necessity, she felt that getting any closer to Raoden would betray her vows. With surprise, Raoden realized that he was competing with himself–and losing.
I really hate to lose that last line. It always struck me as ironically clever. However, there was another loss that was even tougher to lose. It comes in where Raoden and Sarene are at the city gates:
Raoden fell still. He wanted her to stay–he longed for her to stay. But, at the same time, he knew he had to do whatever it took to get her out of Adonis. The city was death. As much as it pained him to think of her leaving, it pained him more to think of her staying.
"He will be there," Raoden said enticingly, his voice suddenly growing quiet. "Raoden. The man you love."
Sarene's hand grew slack, and she waved uncertain eyes towards the Elantris city gate. "No," she finally said. "That's not what I want any more."
I think the reason I hated to lose this scene is obvious. Right here, Sarene gets to choose "Spirit" over the images she has in her head of the perfect Prince Raoden. It's an opportunity for her to show that she really does love him, despite what he is, despite what the other options might be. It's love offered against logic and against wished-for dreams. In other words, it's realistic love. Of all the scenes I had to cut, these few paragraphs make me the saddest to lose, I think.
TenSoon to the Rescue
This chapter is also for all you TenSoon lovers out there. He finally gets to show up and lay some smack down. This short action sequence lets TenSoon be a hero, which he deserves, and Sazed once again shows that he's a far better soldier than he thinks. After reading his part in the siege of Luthadel, the reader should have no problem accepting that Sazed—with two metalminds—can take down four surprised kandra. He is a much better warrior than he lets on.
However, he should never have thought that last line of the chapter. The one that reads, "What harm could they possibly do?" I probably should have cut the line, as it feels like a cliché, but it really was what Sazed was thinking.
Foolish, foolish Sazed.
You mentioned previously that you regret making Vin the only woman in Kelsier's crew. Is that something you're planning to change in the Mistborn screenplay?
It is; I actually already did it. Both Dox and Ham are female in the screenplay. And actually, Ham in particular works really well as a woman, because one of the things that I wanted to do was play with Vin's conceptions of how a thieving crew works, because she worked in bad ones, and not understanding how a great team can work. So I have a great scene where she misinterprets everybody's job in the crew from glancing at them, making a quick judgement, and saying "Well this person's this, this person's this." And the only one she gets right is Spook. It works so well.
Like, in the book, I can take pages and pages to show you, "This is how this crew is different from ones you might have read and ones that Vin has been part of." And in this, the movie, you need to have scenes do a lot of heavy duty lifting, multiple things at the same time. So in this scene, Vin can do that, and then we understand her judgement of why she said all these things, and then Kelsier can be like, "No. That right there is our Thug," pointing at Dockson [Ham], who is now a shorter woman. And with the powers of Allomancy, doesn't matter. And it becomes kind of a big moment, both for the audience and for Vin to understand "things are different here."
I do have to warn you, there isn't a lot of time in the screenplay for the crew. If I'm gonna do this as a film... Which it's not set in stone; it's possible that I'll move to a show. But right now, what I'm planning is: film, television show for Well of Ascension, film. Which means that mostly in the first film, it is focused on Vin, Kelsier, Sazed, and Elend. That's gotta be the core of our film. With Shan as an antagonist. And that's the movie. And I can't spend as much time with each of the crew members, like I did. But what we can do is, we can then move into Well of Ascension as a show, and with that being a show really show the crew and the things they're doing. And kind of write a heist with the crew where the crew is trying to heist keeping the kingdom from collapsing. A thieving crew has been put in charge of a city; let's see if they can keep this empire going. And I think that will work really well in television show format. And that's where we can get into some the things with OreSeur and TenSoon and character arcs for some of the crew members, really get to know Ham and Breeze and everybody.
That's the big cost by doing it in a film. That's the thing you're gonna have to understand, as it becomes really Vin and Kelsier's story. And I think it's gonna work. I think it is great. But if it doesn't, we do have the option of just doing a television show. Which I know a lot of you would rather see; I just see Mistborn as a film. I've always seen it as a feature film. So I'm hoping I can make it work.
Chapter One - Part One
The "bumps" or "trailers" or whatever you want to call them–those things at the beginnings of the chapters–are a very interesting part of the book for me. If you're reading the novel for the first time as you go through these Annotations, I'd recommend paying good attention to what happens in the bumps. This isn't like Dune, or even Ender's Game, where the bumps give interesting–but tangential–information. These little paragraphs are vital if you want to figure out the climax of the story before it happens.
Is there some relation between Investiture and magnetism? It seems like aluminum is always screwing things up, and that's the first thing that came to mind.
There are slight relationships between them, yes.
Are the Wax and Wayne stories going to always be in stand-alone, or are they ever going to tie in to the main Mistborn and stuff?
They will tie in, in fact I intended the first one to foreshadow stuff for the next trilogy, so you will find things tying in with what's going on, but I kind of wanted them to also just be more independent, so we'll see. It'll be a little of both.
As you all can guess from this [Stormlight Four release date], I finally decided that I've made enough progress (and am likely enough to finish the final book in time) that I let Tor pick a date and start the marketing Machine.
As we stand right now, I have 10 chapters plus the climax (which can be quite large) and epilogue to finish before the end of the year, and I'm thinking I'll make it.
Climax? Haven't you said this book doesn't have one big epic climax like previous books but three different climatic scenes for three different characters in three different places? Did you change it?
No, that is the way it is--but the other two climactic sequences are done already. And I saved the one with the most characters, and therefore the one that will take the most time, to write last. You're right, though, in that Arc 2 and Arc 3 already have their climactic scenes finished. One will happen in the middle of Part Four, and one will happen around the Epilogue, with the Arc One climax taking the traditional "Big chunk of the ending" slot.
How long is Arc 3 (Arc 1 is 200+K words and Arc 2 is 80K words)? Which character does it follow?
The arcs are now completely interwoven, as I've been layering them in the full document as I finish them. So it's really hard to say how long each arc is at this point. (Sorry.) I also haven't revealed which characters are in which arcs, as I think the groupings would give away too much.
Don't be sorry :) You dropped some info about the length of Arc 1 and Arc 2, and I thought Arc 3 is also known, but you forgot to mention it in the last update.
So there will be three separate arcs with no interwentions, BUT...main characters, Shallan, Dalinar, Kaladin will all be together again in book 5 for "grand final", right?
Let's not talk too much about book five yet, as book four isn't even out. But I do anticipate book five having a plot structure more similar to books two and three, rather than books one and four. (IE, most main characters together for big chunks of the plot, rather than separate.)
That's subject to change as I tweak the outline following the finish of four. It will be a major finale for the series, though.
Will Dalinar punish Adolin for murdering Sadeas?
He doesn’t know. Nobody knows… If he knew, he’d probably will.
If you could cross over Mat Cauthon into any other story which one would you do?
Let's say Twilight. Yeah, Mat plus Twilight would be lots of fun.
From your experience teaching creative writing, what is some advice you give your students?
The biggest piece of advice I would give them is: You just gotta finish stuff. A lot of people want to be writers. And a lot of people have really great ideas. And get their great ideas together and say, "Wow! I think this could be a book." Then they start on it and for various reasons, they stop. One of the main reasons is they get discouraged because it's not turning out as they want it to turn out, or they get distracted by another really great idea they've just had, or they want to go back and keep revising this initial stuff that they've written. And you've got to finish. You won't understand how to be a writer until you actually finish a book. And you've got to remember that nobody starts off being perfect. And it's that process of writing books that aren't so good that teaches you how to write books that are good. No one expects to sit down and play the piano perfectly the first time. Yet a lot of people sit down and try to write the perfect book the first time. So, my biggest piece of advice to them is: Sit down, write, finish a book. And that will teach you how to write a good book.
So the Emperor's Soul takes place on Sel. Is it's magic derived from the Dor?
Yes.
Can you explain the process that you go through to come up with your magic systems. So many fantasy books today have a "black box" type of magic system — in that you don't know how things happen but the caster just suddenly shoots a fireball out of his arse. Yours are in—depth and set out a very distinct give and take that the reader can understand.
All of your systems are unique, so again, how do you get to the point where you have a complete magic system that you feel is ready to put into a book. Since this is a discussion about Warbreaker, how specifically did you come up with biochroma?
I don't know if I can answer that question in the short space afforded by a discussion forum. But in general with my magic systems I'm looking for a variety of components. Most of them start with just an "Aha, there's something there!" moment in my head—either it's a plot hook or a conflict hook or a visual hook or something like that. I'm usually looking for something that does what I find exciting about magic, which is straddling the line between mysticism and science. And I'm looking for new ways to explore that. So when an interesting scientific concept occurs to me, and I can take it in the direction of "what if," that's something that I find fascinating.
For MISTBORN, for instance, telekinesis mixed with vector science was interesting to me. In WARBREAKER it was the concept of sympathetic magic—the idea that you can create something that's like something else and it will have power over that. I wanted to try and take it in a direction I hadn't seen before and blend that with the concept of animation, bringing inanimate objects to life. Those were interesting concepts because at one point people believed in both of these things as real forms of magic. They believed they could make it work. The myth of the golem goes way back, and the idea of sympathetic magic was around not too long ago—in fact there are still plenty who believe in it, in various forms of superstition.
So I look for a blend of concepts. I usually look for an interesting visual paradigm—something that will work in a way that helps the reader visualize the magic. I don't want it to all happen nebulously in the back of someone's head. (And speaking of rear-end fireballs, I do believe I read a webcomic where someone did that. It was Thog Infinitron...I guess it wasn't a fireball.) But anyway, I'm looking for something that you can see and follow the process of what the character's doing in a way that makes sense.
I find that if there's one thing to take away from this, limitations on magic are more interesting than the powers themselves. And so I'm always looking for interesting limitations, because that forces me to be creative and forces my characters to be creative with what they have.
Time...with all the different happenings across the Cosmere, is there a cross-book timeline available?
Timeline hasn't been made official yet. I'm planning to post one eventually.
At the end of AoL, Marsh tells Marasi, that Wax is doing "his brothers work". Does this mean Kelsier is still meddling, or is this a continuation of his initial legacy.
Kelsier has never been good at doing what he's told. He's still interfering.
