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Has Wit's bonding a Cryptic bound him to Roshar tighter?
Yes, asterisk.
The reason for the asterisk on Wit is, you've seen him offworld since then. So just be aware there is an issue there, but yes, it's very similar.
So, when the group was in Shadesmar, Adolin's sword seemed to kind of take on a life of its own and attack him. Is it possible for a dead spren to come back?
They would say no, in-world. I will say RAFO.
Would Mistborn with mixed [Threnodite] blood be able to burn silver? What would happen?
No, blood line would not change which metals are allomantically viable and which were not. (Sorry.)
I will be very liberal with the RAFOs. Just because getting pinned down on things like this-- I always say, I like to answer questions. I like to give you guys the secrets you want to know. But at the same time, I'm a showman. And where I really want it to come out is in the stories. And so there are a lot of things I'm holding.
For those who don't know, RAFO could mean "This is a secret I want to hold for dramatic purposes in the stories." It could mean "I enjoy the fact that the community is discussing this even though the commonly assumed answer is the right answer. I don't want to canonize something 'cause I don't want to kill the looney theories. Because people who love their looney theories really hold on to them tightly for a long time." It could just mean, "You know what, I haven't thought of that," or "I know I wrote it down somewhere, and I don't want to say it right now because I'll contradict myself later."
Conclusion
That is about it for the languages in Elantris. There are books for which I’ve spent a lot more time on the languages, but there are also books for which I’ve spent far less. Overall, I like how the sounds in this book add to the feel of the various nationalities, though I realize that Aonic names (in particular) are difficult to pronounce at first. If you have your own way of saying them, well that’s just fine. I do the same thing with books I read.
Do Shards need to be based on the same planet to create the interactions that made Feruchemy possible?
If the Parshendi are not originally from Odium and are referred to as the Ancient Ones by spren, then would that make the original Parshendi, bonded to the Splinters that existed before Honor and Cultivation arrived, the Dawnsingers?
RAFO.
So I know your kids are probably too young to have actually read your books but are they familiar with your characters and if so do they have favorites?
They're not familiar with my characters. They-- Seven, five, and two. The seven-year-old is starting to get old enough where I could maybe read him books, but I don't want to read him my books first. *laughter* I want to read him stuff like Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen and things like this. We'll let him read my books if he wants to.
I remember I was reading an interview with Tad Williams once and he said "People ask, you're a famous author, how do you stay humble" and he said "Well the other day we all went out to dinner as a family because I finished a book. And my son said 'What's the celebration?' and he said 'Well I finished my book' and his son said 'That's a good job, finishing reading a book.'" *laughter*
If you were to try and Awaken a dead Shardblade with Awakening, like you can with a metal sword, would that be possible, or what would happen?
That would probably not work. Not probably. That would just not work.
In the... wedding, Dalinar suddenly remembers Kadash... retching... My theory is that the reason he was upchucking everything since yesterday was that he just realized that it was Evi, and he did it. Everybody's like, "No, it's just because it was such a brutal attack and it was horrible, and he's beyond it." And I'm like, no, I think it was was because he realized who's down there, and he was the one who lit the match. That's my theory...
I will not confirm or deny, but you did see me going like this *nodding*, so--
Which eye did Gaz lose?
Which eye did Gaz lose? Did I go back and forth on that?
I have no idea.
Okay, that's a Peter. I thought it was the left eye but if i did it wrong… It's entirely possible. I have no idea. It's in my notes.
How did he lose it?
Well that is a RAFO! That is definitely a RAFO.
Could there be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere?
Yes, there very much could be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere. Right now, if you become a Knight Radiant, that would be a solution. That's not a solution for everyone; that's a very narrow solution. But there would be other solutions.
Is this [Evershore] going to be released after book 3?
It may end up being the first 2 released before Cytonic, and the third one after it.
Lightsong Sees the Painting of the Red Battle
This is our first major clue (though a subtle one at the same time) that there might be something to the religion of the Iridescent Tones. Lightsong does see something in this painting that an ordinary person wouldn't be able to. A well-crafted piece of art, made by a person channeling the Tones and connected to them via Breath, can speak to a Returned. Now, in this case, it doesn't work quite like Llarimar says it does—Lightsong doesn't actually prophesy about the black sword in the way the priest thinks. In other words, Lightsong isn't prophesying that he'll see the Black Sword (Nightblood) in the day's activities.
Instead, Lightsong is seeing an image of a previous war, which is prophetic in that another Manywar is brewing—and in both cases, Nightblood will be important to the outcome of the battle.
The person Lightsong sees in the abstract painting is Shashara, Denth's sister, one of the Five Scholars and a Returned also known as Glorysinger by the Cult of the Returned. She is seen here in Lightsong's vision as she's drawing Nightblood at the battle of Twilight Falls. It's the only time the sword was drawn in battle, and Vasher was horrified by the result.
It's because of her insistence on using the sword in battle, and on giving away the secret to creating more, that Vasher and she fought. He ended up killing her with Nightblood, which they'd created together during the days they were in love—he married her a short time before their falling out. That marriage ended with him slaying his own wife to keep her from creating more abominations like Nightblood and loosing them upon the world.
Nightblood is part of a much larger story in this world. He's dropped casually into this particular book, more as a side note than a real focus of what's going on, but his own role in the world is much, much larger than his supporting part here would indicate.
We know that Hoid is able to do some kind of travel forward in time. Is this ability something to do with Connection with time?
No, not in so many words.
Is there a magic system that best allows people to worldhop between worlds?
Yes, but it isn't needed. Some do help more with understanding how to traverse the Cognitive Realm.
Who would win in a fight between a Full Shardbearer and a Space Marine?
I don't know 40k well enough to say. But you will see Shardbearers in space some day.
...that's amazing. You've got high sci-fi fantasy coming? That'll be amazing.
Uh... Now I've got this image of Kaladin in modified shardplate(hell, can shardplate just serve as a spacesuit?) floating about in space and Syl appearing with a little bubble helmet.
The cosmere (the shared universe of my epic fantasy books) is interconnected, and eventually there will be space travel between them. Those books are quite a ways down the road, though.
I've known a long time of your cosmere! But I figured you'd take a "stargate" approach eventually -y'know, magical gates?
But actual Space travel?
I can imagine the various magical systems lending themselves well to that kind of stuff! I mean, gravity fabrials for artificial gravity, using some sort of cross-world steel pushing fabrial/biomechanical steel pushing device for a gauss rifle..
I mean, the last one is if you make this like space ship battles.
Windrunners and Skybreakers could just function as fighters themselves!
here's a question: how are cross world magics gonna work? Let's say a space freighter powered by fabrials enters Scadrial space. What happens to those fabrials?
Most of the magics are unaffected by being taken off world, though still subject to their own inherent flaws. Stormlight seeps out. Sand loses its glow. Metal can only be used by one with the right genetic code. Note that the magic from Sel is different, and is location dependent for reasons I don't think fandom has quite teased out.
Isn't Sel the original planet where Adonalsium happened?
Yolen is the original.
I’ve got a question kind of based off of the train fight. If you have a time bubble, and you were to make it while you are on the train, would the time bubble move with the train, or would it stay at the same spot relative to the planet?
Time bubbles don’t move, so it would pull you out of it, then it would vanish.
If you were to pop up a time bubble and someone were to be stuck halfway in and halfway out, would they go splooch?
No, they would be in the time bubble. The time bubbles will move with the planet but not with the train.
Yeah, I always thought it was relative to the person creating the time bubble.
No, you’ll see Wayne create one, then he’ll walk up to the perimeter, but if he leaves it, it ruins the time bubble.
So is that because it’s linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet?
Yes, and you’re digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer. Time bubbles have some weirdness to them that I don’t want to dig in too deeply, but yes.
Why does Hoid seem to like the Kholins so much?
He thinks highly of several members of the family. And he also likes to stick near people who are able to cause change in the world in which they are involved. He is very, very interested in a specific member of the Kholin family.
Any timeframe of when we'll find out why Vin avoided Hoid in Hero of Ages?
Next year, after the release of Bands of Mourning, is the earliest.
Was Ivory watching when Shallan was in Jasnah's bathing chamber and that whole swap thing kind of went down… what did he relay to Jasnah…?
Umm… he would've been there… but I don't have an answer for that, mostly because I haven't considered it.
Projects in Development
Silence Divine
This story (which is the one about a world where catching a disease grants you magical talents) is another perennial State of the Sanderson participant.
I did some work on a short story in this world a while back, and liked it, but didn't have time to finish. (This is the thing I did readings from during the Words of Radiance tour, I believe.) It's set in the cosmere, and I have plans to someday write this—but I'm not sure when I'll do it. Could be a long way off still.
Status: On Hiatus
In Oathbringer, Kaladin sees a painting from the Court of Gods which, it is claimed, shows something different to every person who sees it. However, as I understand it, the Returned only see things in the paintings because of their Divine Breath, there isn't anything intrinsically magical about the paintings themselves; what then is going on with this painting?
He was very evasive here, ultimately he only said that not everything that you see is in the painting.
Last question, are thunderclasts just voidspren animating dead greatshells that have bee turned to stone by crem, kind of like Kalad's army? And could light eyes who have been turned to stone by soul casters be reanimated, either by Vasher or by voidspren?
Thunderclasts are animating stone itself. Reanimating someone turned to stone would be more easy than simply animating the stone, but animating stone is tough, so that's not saying much.
Someone asked a really good question about inspiration of Sazed's crisis of faith and religion.
Brandon really opened up nicely here saying that he does a lot of research so that he can tap into how people really feel about their religions, and therefore not just argue his characters' religions from a token perspective, but hold something that feels a little more real. He said he often hits up forums for different religious beliefs and surfs there, because people tend to be very honest and passionate on forums, which gives him a nice basis to write from.
Jasnah and Khriss seem like they would be super good friends or girlfriends, and I was wondering if there was any possibility of that?
Yes, I think that they would get along.
The book [Skyward Three] is not going to be called Nowhere, I'm pretty sure. I've tried to push my publisher, and they're just like, "We don't like that title." And it's okay. I let them in the YA space really talk about titles and choose titles. So, who knows what it'll be.
Fourth book is probably gonna be called Defiant; that's where we're kind of moving for the fourth book. Third book, no idea yet. I will keep you updated on that.
Do you ever plan to continue "I Hate Dragons"? I have a theory that Skip does not have a separate knack to make him smell delicious to dragons, but rather that he is high in levels of human magical potential, which the dragons need in their diet.
Perhaps. I've got a few more chapters than I've posted. Including some viewpoints from the most powerful magical sword ever created. Most powerful...in that he has the most powers. Thousands of them. All useless.
When can we expect Elantris 2?
So, Elantris 2... Elantris 2 has to be done by the time I do Era 3 of Mistborn, which is the contemporary era. There are certain things that have to be in there before I can finish that series. So, right now - what it's looking like - I will finish Stormlight 4, I will do Wax and Wayne [4] and Skyward and then I'll do Stormlight 5. *applause* And then, what I'll probably do is, I'll try to - this is not a promise - but this is what my goal will be because Mistborn and Elantris books are about each half the size of a Stormlight book, I can probably do one a year, where Stormlight takes me about one every three years. So the goal will be to go, Mistborn Era 3 book 1, then Elantris 2, then book 2 of Era 3, then Elantris 3, then book 3 of Era 3.
So it will be a trilogy, right?
Elantris? Yeah. But the trilogy of Elantris is not the same. It's the story of the world more than just the story of characters, so you'll find about the characters and things, but don't expect... Sarene and Raoden will not be the main characters of Elantris 2. There will be a time jump. Elantris 2 is probably Kiin's children who I've seeded to be main characters for the sequel and book 3 will probably be somebody else, right? So, keep in mind that that's how the Elantris books are intended to go.
Which of the roles Hoid has played is your favorite? And will we be seeing him in Dalinar's flashbacks?
So which of the roles played by Hoid is my favorite. I would probably say Dust from Warbreaker. I just like-- That's the most true storyteller he's been, kind of based on oral storytelling tradition and things like that.
I can't tell you. You'll have to read and find out whether you'll find him in Dalinar's flashbacks or not.
Hemalurgy, does the person having the metal shoved through them have to die?
It has to rip off a piece of their soul. That normally results in death.
Because I'm thinking you're going a bit into the future, surgery, precise things like that...
It's plausible but-- I mean it would leave the person like-- it's ripping off a piece of their soul. But the same thing happens when you give up your Breath. So you're giving up a piece of your soul. There are-- It's plausible you could take off pieces of a soul without killing the person.
I sold Legion, which is a novella I wrote, to Lionsgate, for a television pilot. We will see if they will actually do it or not. That’s a modern day thriller I wrote. It’s a novella. I’ll release it next summer or something. It’s short, but it was meant for a pitch for a television show. So that’s coming out, and we’ll hope that they actually film that. We did sign deals on that, and since there’s Lionsgate, which is a big studio, behind that, there’s a production house attached to it, and it will go much faster.
Other than that, there’s the Wheel of Time, which keeps slowly moving forward. It is moving forward, but really slowly. And Alcatraz is basically dead in the water right now. The option lapsed in June, and no one else has snatched it up, so it’s now been six months, and that one’s pretty much dead in the water. Which is sad. We got really close on that one.
Will you still write the fifth book?
Yes, I will write the fifth book. Just the movie is dead in the water.
Vivenna Finds an Alley to Sleep In
One of the big stories I'm worried about channeling here is Les Misérables. It's one of my favorite stories of all time, so sometimes it's difficult not to find myself drawing upon Hugo's story and characters. That constant fight to keep myself from leaning too much on what has come before went into overdrive in these chapters.
In the end, however, I think that Vivenna's scenes belong here and accent the story. So yes, if you noticed them, there are some echoes of Fantine in these sections—Vivenna selling her hair and noticing the prostitutes most prominent among them. These two items, most of all, I considered cutting. But in the end, I decided that if there was anyone I was proud to have influencing my writing, it was Hugo, and I left the references. Partially as an homage, I guess—though that's always the excuse of someone who ends up echoing a great story of the past.
As a worldbuilder, I love digging into worlds I wouldn't experience otherwise - DnD setting guides, wikis and the like. From the chapter released on io9 already, and what I've seen on various reddits discussing your novella, it feels like MtG has a massive world behind it too (someone described MtG as very similar to the Cosmere?)
First off, will your novella be suitable for someone like me who has never actually dug into the MtG lore before? And secondly, where would you say a Cosmere fan should begin digging into the lore here? What are your favorite worldbuilding elements? Have any inspired elements in your stories? (Cosmere or otherwise)
Yes, this novella will be suitable for someone who knows nothing about the lore. I wrote it expecting most wouldn't know anything about it.
If you want to dig into MTG lore, the various MTG wikis talk a lot about the world and lore--but you could do worse than just reading the other stories on Wizard's website, as a lot of them are well done.
My favorite MTG worldbuilding elements tend to be their visual worldbuilding--they have a lot of artists, and much of what they come up with is beautiful. It's a lot of fun to just go to Gatherer (the website with all the archive of cards) and pick a Set (like Innistrad) and read the flavor text at the bottom of the cards. (They are quotes or things in-world. Not every card has them, but much do.) That, with the art style, can tell you an entire story on its own.
I've been playing MTG since I was in high school, so I'd say my writing was probably influenced by it a lot--but I don't know if I can name any specifics.
Can Forgery rewrite someone's gender (after all, it's just swapping out an X for a Y ...)?
Forgery could do this, but it is a tad bigger a change than you imply. Think of it this way: It's much easier for the magic to pretend that a table was cleaned up and polished than it is for the magic to pretend the wood used to make the table instead was used to make a chair.
The light-hearted banter in your recent standalone Mistborn book, The Alloy of Law, is an unexpected yet delightful change from the more serious tone of the original trilogy. Why did you decide to make such an abrupt shift? Will we get to read more about Waxillium and Wayne?
This was quite conscious on my part. One of the reasons I ended up writing The Alloy of Law as I did is because I personally wanted something to balance The Stormlight Archive, which is going to be more serious and have a tone more like the original Mistborn trilogy. I'm planning a five-book sequence to start off The Stormlight Archive, so I wanted something to go between those books that was faster paced, a little more lighthearted, and more focused.
I love The Stormlight Archive—it's what I think will be the defining work of my career, but that said, sometimes you want a bag of potato chips instead of a steak. Sometimes you want to write that, and sometimes you want to read that. I knew not all readers would want to go along with me at the start on such a big, long series; they may want to wait until it's finished. So I wanted to be releasing smaller, more focused and more simply fun books in between, both for my own interest and for my readers. And I will keep doing this; there will be more Wax and Wayne books in the future, spaced among my bigger epics.
I understand that although Shadesmar is a Rosharan term, Brandon sometimes uses it generically to refer to the Cognitive Realm. But I would not have expected Khriss to do the same (AU, Drominad system). Is that a mistake or deliberate?
As far as I know, it is not a Rosharan term.
My understanding came from several WoB, such as https://wob.coppermind.net/events/221-words-of-radiance-omaha-signing/#e7199 … and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/225-words-of-radiance-san-diego-signing/#e5814 … . While obviously not canon, can you clarify with Brandon?
Eh, well the first quote actually answers the question. Whatever word people use throughout the cosmere, Brandon translates it as Shadesmar in the books. I still think the word is widely used though.
I think that in the first quote when he says "these books" he is referring to Stormlight. Hence the reference to Wit, whose words are translated to Rosharan and Cognitive Realm is thus translated to Shadesmar. Have you found Shadesmar anywhere else in the cosmere?
Well, clearly Khriss calls it that too. :)
Will the Everstorm result in a influx of Radiants?
RAFO.
The nature of humans on different worlds, like people from Warbreaker have a Breath, people from Scadrial, do they have a Breath as well?
They do not.
That's specific to the Endowment Shard?
Yup.
I've read that Hoid does have a Breath. Was he born with a Breath or--
Hoid was not born on Taldain-- err Nalthis, on Nalthis. So no, he did not start with one. But the magic was much different when he started. He was before the Shattering of Adonalsium so things are weird regarding him.
I was gonna ask what your favorite scene form [Oathbringer] was?
It's probably where everything comes together right at the end, right in the moment before the moment with Dalinar in the breach.
What would the Surge of Transformation look like to an observer in the Cognitive Realm when someone's transitioning?
I will RAFO that, and I plan to show it someday.
Does the Shard of Ambition have anything to do with the Bondsmith?
Shard of Ambition have anything to do with the Bondsmith, no, good question. Oh! I see what you guys are getting at. Who's the third Bondsmith... So, uhh, this is a RAFO. I will eventually start talking about the third Bondsmith. I'm gonna RAFO all questions about it for a while though. So just warning you guys.
By the way, the grate that Lightsong closes on the tunnel behind them . . . well, it didn't do any good. There's a lever and pulley on the other side, in the room beneath Mercystar's palace—and the locking mechanism is there too. The grate is there to keep people out of her palace, installed by her priests to keep unsavory elements (if there are any) from sneaking in through the tunnels. Vasher had to pull this very grate up before he could sneak into the tunnels himself. Mercystar's priests don't follow because they don't care that Lightsong snuck in and down; they just want to guard their goddess. So they arrange troops up above, waiting for Lightsong to return.
Do you have an adviser for the science?
I usually run things by my editor who's very big into science, but mostly we go find an expert and have him read. The thing about it is, I have to hand wave a lot of things. Like the laws of thermodynamics, I can't, you know.. There are quantum physics in here. I'm trying to handwave as little as possible but we are breaking fundamental laws of physics, but even in terms of things like the laws of conservation. Energy is being conserved, but there's a supernatural source.
So, Shai and forgers. She forges the emperor’s soul, then she got to track by practicing on [Gaotona], and it kind of held for a minute since he was close to the emperor, and that means it was right. So it was basically trial and error.
It was.
So even if she have a lot more time and a lot less information, she could’ve guessed?
Potentially, there’s a certain distance trial and error will take you; in a reasonable amount of time, there’s a certain distance that can take you.
And in an unreasonable amount of time?
Unreasonable, yes. You can just trial and error your way through a lot of things.
And by seeing it held on him for 24 hours of time, that means she got really close.
Yes.
And when she was forging herself, she was basically forging lies.
She was forging lies, but she knew how to make them really plausible for herself. Plausibility is a really big part of it. Can you convince the soul to not just of yourself...
The decisions that she could have made?
Yeah. That they were realistic, that they were there, that she could have made these, that everything lines up in the past. It’s a little like programming.
So that’s why she could add a little bit to the emperor’s soul because that’s also plausible?
Yes.
Could she have changed him more if she knew more about him?
Yes. She created a fake soul and put it in him, there are possibilities beyond what she did.
So she could’ve gotten a bit wrong if her trial and error made it plausible instead of what happened?
Now, at least in her perspective, what she did was create a fake soul and put it in him. What I haven’t answered is did she just take the soul that was lingering on the body and fill in the gaps? Or did she legitimately craft a new soul? That I’ll leave to the cosmere philosophers to talk about.
And finally, to speak non-canonically, would burning copper mask someone channeling the one power, and would burning bronze allow one to detect when someone was channeling?
Uh... You should ask Kelsier. He probably tried it when he hung out with Moiraine.
Which ear does Vin wear her earring in?
I don't know... Oh, man. I can't <answer> this one because I can't remember it. They know it on the 17th Shard, you can go ask them. I can't remember. Now if I told you I'd get it wrong.
Okay. What-- What's your instinct? Off the top of your head?
My instinct? I'm a robot. I work by programming.
Origin of Bluefingers as a Character
Bluefingers originated, like most ideas for my books, as a character unconnected to any story or world. I wanted to tell a story about a scribe in a palace who was looked down on by the nobility for his simple birth, but who became the hero of the story. I felt that a scribe would make a nice, different kind of viewpoint character.
And maybe I someday will tell a story like that, but the character evolved to be the one who entered this story. He's much changed from those origins, as you can see, but he's largely the same person in my mind. And I love the name Bluefingers for a scribe character.
Yes, Bluefingers was also planned as a traitor from the beginning. The whole reversals idea required me to build my shadowy villains quite carefully and deliberately.
Just above, I spoke of the original Bluefingers as a hero. Well, the thing is, that's how he still sees himself. The heroic Pahn Kahl figure with his fingers in events, ignored by the nobility (or, in this case, the priests) because of his race and position, he was able to manipulate quite a bit of what was going on in the kingdom.
He was the hero trying to free his people. He just took it too far.
If I recall rightly (it's in my notes somewhere) the height is 15' per level. Only a variance of 3', but it adds up. I feel like 17S did this same math a while back but it's probably buried by now. Could be worth digging up to compare notes though.
We do have numbers, I went to some pains to try and get the drawing to represent them correctly. Your estimates are a little high I think, and you might be discounting the amount of internal space given to non-residential function (giant elevator atrium, for instance), but I think you're in the right zone.
What was your inspiration for Kaladin?
Kaladin was inspired originally by reading about surgeons in the middle ages.
Will any of the cosmere books delve into sci-fi?
Yes, the cosmere will go VERY science fiction in the future. We aren't too far off from some of these stories getting written, actually. Introductory ones, probably shorts, but we're getting close.
