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Are you having any cameos in the movies?
If they let me, I will do a cameo in each movie.
Speaking part, or not?
Probably not, but who knows. What I've suggested to them is that they kill me in an imaginative way in each book as recompense for killing off characters.
In the Mad Prince drafts of the book, I was still holding off on revealing him to the readers. His army was out there in this chapter–visible because of its fires in the night. I revealed that Hrathen considered the newcomer an ally, but I hadn't yet given away who the newcomer was.
The Mad Prince's disappearance was probably the most time-consuming cut I made, not to mention the one most difficult for me personally. I'm happy to know he lives on in his web presence–he's practically the star of the "Deleted Scenes" section. The cut came at the suggestion of Joshua "Axe Man" Bilmes. The stark truth is, the story didn't need another random diversion here. We're getting very close to the climax, and introducing another whole character–with his own plot, problems, and tangents–just wasn't good for the pacing. Eton was, in my opinion, a brilliant character. However, he just didn't belong in the book.
So is this [interludes] your way of kind of introducing more world details, worldbuilding--
Yeah. This is a way of me introducing more worldbuilding. Because-- See, one of the differences between myself and the previous generation of epic fantasy writers is I tend to be very-- I tend to stick with one location, alright? The generation before me-- and I love these books, but the generation before me-- the Tad Williams, the Robert Jordan, and things like this-- tended to be quest epic fantasy. You'd go one place-- It's kind of following the grand Tolkien tradition. "We gotta get over there. We're either chasing somebody or being chased by somebody." Right? And you then travel across a varied landscape, meet lots of interesting people on your way to the place. Well I don't like to do that. I think it's partially because I grew up reading those. I'm like-- Those authors covered that really well. Or maybe it's just my natural inclinations. I write a little more Anne McCaffrey style, right? She would pick a really interesting location and spend a lot of time on it. And that's what I like to do as well. So you don't get to travel as much in my books. A lot of times in my books it's like, "We're traveling!" Chapter 1: "We're going to go on this trip!" Chapter 2: "Hey, we're there!" We cut out the, you know, the boring stuff in the middle, and we go to an interesting location. And I really like to dig into this interesting location. It let's me as an author really explore various parts of the setting. But what that does is it means you don't get as much of the breadth. Like when you have to traipse with Frodo and Sam all the way across Middle-earth, you feel how big Middle-earth is. And you don't get that in Mistborn, where it's like, "We're going to stay in the city!" and things like this. And so, in Roshar, being able to say, "Here's what's happening across the world in a different culture," is really valuable to me in the interludes. But I also know that some people just don't want to read that, and I wanted to give them a clue that this is the scene that you can skip and read later if you just want to get back to the main character.
Hi, I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that you're writing an Urban Fantasy? Just double checking that :P
I wrote one as a 'for fun' deviation during a break about a year and a half ago. I do this often, experimenting. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time, it was fun, but it wasn't high enough quality to release. Perhaps I will re-visit it, but more likely, I will leave it alone. Any artist creates 'b-sides' so to speak as they practice different styles and experiment. This was one of mine, and I don't like the idea of releasing something that didn't turn out well enough.
Have we seen another Lightweaver, as of Words of Radiance?
Um... Yes. Depending on your definition. Straight-up Lightweaver? Like you could make the argument... the Order of Knights Radiant? That... that, no. But you have seen people Lightweaving. The skill.
Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? If so, what would happen?
Yes, a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium can give up their power if they wish.
As for what would happen...well, there are some variables in there. Kind of like the variables in what happens to a bucket of water if you dump it out. Depends on where it falls, how strong the wind is, what the air is like.
Power dropped like this, if left alone, could end up Splintering and turning into something like spren/seons. It could become something more like the Stormfather--a large, self-aware entity. It could become something like the Dor or many of the Unmade--something proto-aware, but not truly an individual. There are other possibilities as well, depending on lots of factors. (Are sapient beings involved? what is being done with the power--is it concentrated in the Spiritual Realm as normal, or is it being pushed somewhere else?)
A lot of the magical methods you create in your novels carry with it the birth of nobility.
Yes.
And that reminds me a lot of the magic martial arts *audio unclear* Aside from the big influence of Dragonsbane and other novels on your fantasy novels have you drawn any other inspirations--
Oh yeah.
--spiritually from Asian, Korean or Chinese *audio obscured*
Yes. The question is, have I drawn any inspirations from Eastern literature. Specifically he asked for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. *speaks Korean* I lived in Korea for two years and I speak Korean. Mormon missionary, right? So I speak Korean, I actually do have a Korean minor. And even before that, Hong Kong kung-fu movies. OH YEAH. *laughter* I love Hong Kong movies particularly-- You know the modern stuff is really beautiful, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero or House of Flying Daggers and stuff like that, but even the old stuff, it's a little bit silly. Yeah, I just ate that stuff up. Jackie Chan. You can't go wrong with Jackie Chan, right? But even the stuff that's just a little ridiculous I love. It's just-- It's cool. There's something about it. So there's that. You're also going to find echoes of RPGs I've played, obviously. I mean I've worked hard because I don't want my books to feel like a video game. But I grew up playing video games, right? That's one of my major influences. Steelheart's going to feel like a comic book, right? And some of my books are going to feel like that. It's a part of who I am, it's part of my geek upbringing, right? So yeah, definitely. There's a lot of-- now that I have become a writer through my twenties there's a lot of different influences. The Alethi are based slightly on the Mongolians specifically-- But there's no horses, which let's me divorce it a little bit. People always expect Mongolians to be a nomadic horse people but you just don't have enough horses. If you guys have studied Subutai, if you know him, a Mongolian general, I based Dalinar a little bit on Subutai. But then you are mixing in Hebrew influences and Arab influences. That's kind of my mash-up that's creating the Alethi. And so yeah,you are going to find all kinds of weird things. Art of War is of course a big influence on how I approach warfare and things. So yes, yes, it's there.
Vasher Tortured
Moshe wanted Vasher naked here, but I felt that keeping him in the white shorts was good enough. We've had a lot of nudity in this book, both male and female, and I didn't want to push it any farther and distract from the discussion here.
How many orders have we seen so far? I know there're the four identified at the end.
You've seen Jasnah's, so that's the fifth one. You've seen Lift which gets you to six. You've seen Ym.
So, AonDor is super versatile and powerful.
Yes, but region-locked!
Yes, it is region locked, exactly. If a full Feruchemist using nicrosil were to create an unlocked medallion that allowed an Elantrian to store Connection to Elantris' location, would it let them use AonDor at full power as long as they were tapping that Connection?
Yes. That should work just fine.
...
Just understand that the medallion's going to have to be usable by everyone in order to work. You're going to have to jump through some hoops, but I think what you want there would work. And for those of you listening, that would be the harder way to unlock AonDor. There are easier methods.
Will we ever get complete world maps of the other Shard worlds?
Yes, you will.
If you could change one thing in a book that already happened, what it would be?
So, I would probably... So one of the... There's a couple things I feel like I've done wrong. One thing is, in Mistborn, I wanted to tell a story about a really strong female character. But I was so focused -- and this happens to a lot of writers -- on making Vin really great, that there's no other women in the whole book. This happens a ton. You notice that you overcompensate in one area, so I wish more of the crew had been women.
In Words of Radiance, I didn't get the ending right, it's still not quite right. I tried to change it for the paperback, and then that just didn't work out. So, I didn't do any more changes, but the Kaladin-Szeth conflict is just something a little bit off about it, even still, that I'd like to take sort of another pass on that and get it right. I'm not sure what it would be.
At one point, we were going to do little sketches in Mistborn, and then we decided on just symbols. But there were going to be little sketches in front of the parts.
So how did you move away from sketches into the current symbology that we have?
I honestly think that I just wasn't good enough an artist at the time (maybe not even now) to pull off this sort of illustrative thing that we wanted to do, so it kind of morphed into symbols instead.
If a wrench is constantly used to hit things, would it consider itself a hammer?
I'm not sure if it could phrase, "Hammer." But yes.
There's a little linguistic hoop-jumping here. When Shallan talks to the stick and it says, "I am a stick," what is it doing? It's conveying the idea, "I am this thing." It would convey, "I am a thing that looks like this used to hits things." You could argue a brain might interpret that as hammer. I think you would get, "I'm a wrench that hits things!"
How do you handle names, because it's like the hardest thing to do properly
So, easy mode is to pick a culture, a real world analog to your-- to one of your-- each culture in your book. Go get a list of baby names from that culture in our world. Play with those names. Don't steal them; play with them until you-- try to find something that works for you. That sounds right, and things like that. Hard mode is to come up with kind of some-- learn some linguistics, and build the names based on--
From the ground up, kind of thing?
Yeah, don't build the whole language, but kind of build sounds, the morphemes, this sort of stuff. And then build names around that.
If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?
We actually worked this out. *laughter*
Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?
So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--
Denth Finds Vasher and Forces Him to Duel
Note that Denth, way back many chapters ago, mentioned that he felt the only way to defeat Vasher was to get him to draw Nightblood. Denth knew that would leak away all of Vasher's Breath and thereby leave him unable to use Nightblood any further. (This exchange with Denth and Tonk Fah happened in the D'Denir garden after meeting with the forgers.)
Denth has been planning to find a way to force Vasher to draw the sword and use it. He was hoping that the sword would consume him, which he felt would be a fitting end for Vasher, considering that Vasher killed Denth's sister with Nightblood. When he didn't die from pulling the blade, Denth decided that killing him with a dueling blade—as Arsteel should have—would be a fitting end instead.
What is behind Spensa there *points to book cover poster*?
That was done by the artists. I would say that's probably Detritus, but that's just their interpretation of it. I wouldn't take the covers of these books as canonical.
Do you have a list of the adjectives you use for Peter in the acknowledgments?
I do have a list, so I don’t repeat myself.
The bit with the bandits out there, and the deserters, and she [Shallan] convinces them to all go... Was she doing Lightweaving? Was she doing Transformation? Was she doing some combination?
She was... You have seen what she was doing before, done by another character.
Do you ever find you own stories, your own characters, coming back and influencing you?
Yeah. More, it's like I have these things I'm really interested in. And so I find myself rounding those things again and again. And I've actually started a list of 'You've covered this thing, Brandon. You can't do this one anymore'. Just because I work in the cosmere where everything is connected, so the underlying physics of the books are sometimes very similar. And so I just have to be very careful not to repeat myself too much.
I started working on THE WAY OF KINGS fifteen years ago. I wrote the first version of the book in full back in 2003. It was always planned to be big. You don’t grow up reading Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, and Melanie Rawn without wanting to do your own big epic. When I showed it to my editor back in ’03, he thought it was too ambitious to be published, at least as my second novel.
There are thirty magic systems in this world, depending on how you count them, and around six thousand years of history I’ve mapped out. There are dozens of cultures, a continent of enormous scope, and a deep, rich mythology. However, when I say things like that, you have to realize that very little of it will end up in the first book. The best fantasy epics I’ve read begin with a personal look at the characters in the early books, then have a steady expansion into epic scope.
I’ve spent many years thinking about the epic fantasy genre, what makes it work, what I love about it, and how to deal with its inherent weaknesses. And so I’m trying to make use of the form of the novel (meaning how I place chapters and which viewpoints I put where) in order to convey the scope without distracting from the main stories I wish to tell.
Anyway, I don’t jump between dozens of characters in this novel. There are three central viewpoints, with two or so primary supporting viewpoints. I intend the first book to be its own story, focused and personal. I don’t want this to be the “Wow! Thirty Magic Systems!” series. I want it to be a series about a group of characters you care about, with a lush and real world that has solid and expansive depth.
In other words, I promise you a variety of magics, mythology, history, and cultures . . . but not all in the first book.
Do you want to build up Hoid to be a character like Randall Flagg?
RAFO
One of the developments of the [Mistborn] RPG is that we're already seeing some "B-Canon" being produced as a derivative of the game mechanics (for example, the game develops the Koloss a lot further), where Brandon has tentatively approved the content but retains the right to modify or nullify it as his interests dictate. Same idea as Lucas and the EU, and in that you can see the framework for developing creative content through third parties. Beyond that, characters like Allomancer Jak and Nicki Savage are tailor-made for "Legends" material, with their narratives being framed as "stories within the story".
Would it be reasonable to assume that Baxil's mistress is Shalash?
Hehehe. That is a reasonable assumption, that Baxil's mistress is Shalash, or just Ash as she is normally known. That is a reasonable assumption. Whether I can confirm that it's true or not-- That should be one of the top candidates for who that is.
The Reachers in the ship that leads Kaladin and the group... What kind of Order do they create?
That will be answered in the next book. You'll have pictures of all of the Radiant spren and their bonds, except the Bondsmiths, obviously.
What is the weirdest thing that you have signed?
A baby. Baby is up there. I've signed some pretty weird things lately. License plates, I sign a lot of license plates.
You ever signed someone's skin? And they turn it into a tattoo?
Yeah, at this signing, someone earlier had me sign their Life Before Death tattoo, that they were gonna get the signature tattooed. It's on Twitter.
Someone brought a really strange thing through Idaho Falls. It was something like a muffler, something like that. No, it was the bumper that ripped off their car.
I have had requests to sign inappropriate parts of bodies, and I have refused that one.
I have a question about art and stuff: for like, the star chart on Threnody. Like, the star is red. Is there a reason why it's also red in-- connected to The Scar?
Uh, RAFO. Yeah, sorry.
how old were you when you first started writing? any advice for young writers, given economy at the moment?
I started at age 15 or 16, but didn't finish a novel until in my 20s. As for new writers, don't worry about the money.
It will probably take a few years to get published, or to be making money, so focus on the craft first.
Think of becoming a writer like becoming a doctor. It can take 6-8 yrs. Who knows what the economy will be like?
If I were to start reading your books, which you would recommend I start with?
Normally, I recommend that people either start with a book called Mistborn or a book called Warbreaker. Warbreaker is a standalone. It has a little more romance to it and it's a little lighter. Mistborn is a little more action oriented and a little more plot focused. So it just depends what you're interested in.
Have you gotten to depict or seen depictions of the summoning of Shardplate? Do you think it looks different per Order of KR or is it universal?
This question is way too spoilery. :) I'm going to have to give out my equivalent of a RAFO, which is probably a Now Isaac Can't Say, or a NIX. :)
Has Denth ever been to Scadrial?
Has Denth been to Scadrial. So Scadrial is one of the planets that's easier to get to, in cosmere terms. I will say this: he did not travel the cosmere widely. But Scadrial is one of the easier-- He spent a lot of time on Roshar, and did not travel widely. That's your answer.
Who owns all your copyright for all your symbols and logos and everything else?
I own the copyright on most-- almost-- on all of those.
On everything?
Yep, yep. And that is something we did intentionally after noticing that... sometimes, like the Wheel of Time--they weren't good at keeping track who owned those, and it was really problematic when they wanted to do t-shirts and things. And so I just bought the rights when I did them.
That's awesome. Cause I've, uh, looked at licensing and royalties and other things like that with some companies, and it's...
Yeah. I don't think you want to do something like that. Now cover art you don't want to buy outright. The artist needs to be able to use that for other things. But the symbols you can... most artists will sell you those outright.
Are spren bound to Roshar or can they travel to other worlds? Could they do so if they were bound to someone that traveled to other worlds?
RAFO. Excellent question, though.
Who are the five main characters from the first of the [Stormlight Archive]?
Kaladin and Shallan obviously. Book 3 is Szeth, book 4 is Eshonai, book 5 is Dalinar.
How much does your theology, like your theological background, makes it into...?
It's rarely intentional. But you can find it all over the place kind of unintentional in there. More it's like what I find heroic influences it, right? I find faith and optimism heroic, so you'll find that sort of thing in my books, and things like that. Makes me very fascinated by religion, if you can't tell.
And reading books where people include someone LDS who doesn't well represent what I believe, has made me hyper-conscious to make sure I don't do that to other people, if that makes sense. That's why you find Kaladin's agnostic, Jasnah's atheist, Navani's like orthodox, and Dalinar's kind of more of a reformist. You kind of find all four quadrants of religious thinking and everything in between, it's just me being fascinated by this.
I'm an aspiring writer and I really relate to one of your characters that has really smart days and really stupid days. I feel like I've had maybe a handful of really smart days and every other day, I just feel like an idiot and I don't know what I'm doing. I wonder if that's you maybe writing some of yourself into the story or into that character...
Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
...and how have you gotten over those stupid days.
I actually got it… Howard Taylor, who's a cartoonist friend of mine, one time was talking about, on our podcast, how some days he just feels dumb. And I'm like, I feel like that sometimes too. Sometimes, it's not working. It's not flowing. What I've found with writing is—now your mileage may vary—readers can't generally tell which of the two it was. It's more in your mind and more about your mood than it is about the actual quality of what you're writing. What's happening is on some days, you're just upbeat and you see what you're doing is working. And on other days, you're doing basically the same thing but you're a little bit down and your minds like "Oh, this is terrible. You are crap. No one's ever going to want to read this" and the truth is that it's actually still pretty good. The other thing that causes that a lot is… particularly if I'm reading something really good, like I go read a Terry Pratchett novel… and then I go to write and I'm like, "What am I even doing?" What you're doing there is you're comparing your first draft to published, final drafts by authors who've been doing this for 40 years and that's just not a fair comparison to you. If you want to go read my terrible first story that I wrote, the one that won the award, you can read that be like, "This is what Sanderson was writing? I'm better than this!", and you probably are. In fact, I hope you are. I would recommend trying to silence that voice as opposed to trying to reach for the smart days or not because the truth is, you're probably just as smart on both days; you're just feeling down. And instead, try to look for some of the things I talked earlier. The idea of creating good habits. Knowing the things that you can do that put you in the mood to actually do what you want to do. Listening to music will do it for me. Going on a walk, if I'm having trouble while listening to that music and if it's the right epic music. My playlists are on Spotify by the way, the stuff that I do this with. Just look for "Stormlight 3 writing soundtrack" and I have on for Skyward, too, that I think I posted. Just listen to whatever works for you. But you have to find out what tricks yourself like I talked about earlier. Every writer feels this, you are not alone, and that part of your brain is probably wrong.
Vin And Zane Fight
The mists enter the room here, which is–again–intentional. A lot of these things have to do with the deeper worldbuidling we won't get into until book three. However, suffice it to say that they were forced to enter by something.
Zane's "You were supposed to save me" is something that I really don't expect to make sense. Despite what God says at the end, Zane is a little bit insane. He's gone too long listening to the voice, thinking himself mad, and doing things like slaughtering his way to the top of Cett's keep. He's not stable anymore.
The fact that God doesn't tell him to kill Vin is what drew Zane to her in the first place. He figured it must mean something–that somehow, if they were together, he'd be able to drive the voices from his mind. For that, he risked everything–that, and the ability to have someone else to be with. He could leave Straff only if he had someone else to rely upon. Someone to save him.
When Vin turned against him–as he saw it–then he had to go back to what Straff wanted. He'd promised his father that he'd deal with Vin. And so he had to. If she wouldn't come with him, he had to kill her.
Are Shards limited to one per perpendicularity? Can a non-Splintered Shard control where and how their perpendicularity manifests?
RAFO, but yes on the second.
Okay, let's start with standard Roshar horoscopes:
If Spensa were to join the Knights Radiant, what order would fit her best?
Most likely, she'd be a Dustbringer. With small arguments for Stoneward, Skybreaker, or Edgedancer.
If you put a Line of Forbidding on a wall going up could it be stairs?
It could theoretically work but it would be like a magnet and push you off. It’d be pretty hard to use.
The Dawnshards. Have we seen any evidence of them on Roshar yet?
Technically, yes.
Is there a the relationship between them and say, like, the perfect gems like the King's Drop?
I'll RAFO that. Good question.
Alcatraz, the Dark Talent. How far ahead did you decide that specific ending? I know you always knew it was gonna end up at the altar, but at what point did you decide Attica's fate?
That was right at the beginning. I was using some mythology, and things like this, and that was the big part. So, if you go back and look, I knew Alcatraz, when I wrote the first book, before I outlined the rest of them, something terrible happened. Something actually terrible happened, which is why he refuses to accept... 'cause he failed in some major way. It had to be a real and kind of awful thing in order to justify the way he is. Because otherwise, you're just like, "You're an idiot." And this turns him into something that had really traumatic, and so you could understand it. And I was worried about that being in a kids book, but I'm like, "It says what it has to be." I knew it was infiltrate the <library>, altar, Attica. But I didn't know all the details, just like I usually don't for the Alcatraz books. Those are supposed to be improv.
When are you going to write the other Warbreaker book? Last time I came to hear you talk, you said you were going to, and now you have 3000 other projects!
I know, and the Warbreaker fans really get on my case about that. Well, I wrote Words of Radiance, and I got Vasher into it, so that would kindle interest, and make sure that you at least got to see your characters again.
But did you hear the story about that? So, I wrote The Way of Kings in 2002, the first version, and in that version Kaladin trained with a swordmaster, and that swordmaster, a guy named Vasher, had a mysterious past. After I finished that book, later on I wrote Warbreaker as a prequel to Way of Kings, to show Vasher's backstory. But then Warbreaker came out before Way of Kings, which was a really kind of interesting thing. So in my head, Warbreaker is the prequel, but to everyone else... Yes, it is a totally different world, different planets, people get around...
So how much of Vasher's backstory do we actually have?
Well, a huge chunk of it…! If you were reading Way of Kings, you would know nothing, and then you’d read Warbreaker and you’d be like, “Oh, here’s a whole past that he had!” That doesn’t mean it’s all of his past.
(He’s not giving any hints as to whether Vasher had any connection with Roshar prior to Warbreaker – or at least not without someone asking a much more direct question.)
What exactly was Shai's Soul Forging of Ashravan comparing itself to to see how well it sticks? Like the Spiritual aspect? Cognitive aspect?
It's more Spiritual. Much more Spiritual.
In Bands of Mourning, was that Jasnah?
No it wasn’t, good question.
Are they in the same time period?
So, Alloy Era book are happening after Stormlight 5. But not nece--I haven’t said exactly how far off.
*A video of body-paint cosplay liquid depicting skin-pattern like listeners*
Stormlight Archive cosplayers gonna love this! What do you think [Brandon]?
Wow. Yeah, that would be perfect.
Chapter Fifty
Lightsong and Blushweaver Banter One Last Time
Lightsong wonders if maybe he was a prude in his former life. I can answer this—he was indeed. That's why he's always so critical of Blushweaver's clothing choices. That and the fact that he's in love with her and feels a little jealous at how flagrantly she shows her body and attracts the attention of so many men. These are little things; he wouldn't even mention them to others. But he does feel them.
So, at the end The Bands of Mourning, I kind of noticed what seemed to me like a massive implied spoiler for Stormlight 5.
Okay, what is that?
Red mist, not in the Roshar system.
Right.
So, I wanted to ask you, how do you handle interlacing stories without, like, giving spoilers on the one hand and being faithful to the logic of the world on the other?
Yeah, it's actually been a bit of a challenge and I just had to be aware that people might read your books in any order and things like this. So, when I'm doing stuff like that, I'm usually being a bit more coy than I look I'm being. That seems like a very, very big spoiler, but...
But I assumed that it could be like Autonomy or Ambition...
So, there's more going on there, but yeah, I do take care. The real trouble has been wanting to do short stories in the future, like Sixth of the Dusk, and I had to be really careful with Sixth of the Dusk, not giving away too many things about the main stories.
Yeah, like, who are these people...
So, I'm more coy than I look like I'm being, how about that?
