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Is the magic used in the Kingdom of Light also based on binding souls? Or does their magic work differently?
A lot of their magic is going to be Narrative-based magic, rather than binding of souls. But they do have… let’s just say, not everyone in the Kingdoms of Light knows the stuff that Illarion is up to. And he may have access to some things that they would not be as happy, that he is using.
So, the end of Bands of Mourning. When Harmony is showing Wax, kind of, what's going on outside the world. Is that Odium?
That's a RAFO. Here's your card.
I recently read Patrick Rothfuss’ the Name of the Wind; there’s Sympathy <inaudible> Awakening. Is there a link <inaudible> to the Awakening <inaudible>
We actually were writing at the same time. We both were interested in the same things… No, no, he wrote his first, but I haven’t read it until I’ve written Warbreaker, but his was first. We were both interested in the same concepts… I think it’s a really great magic system. <inaudible> I wrote Warbreaker in 2006.
Oh, because I checked the release date, and yours was 2009 and his was 2007.
Yup, but I wrote in 2006 on my honeymoon, actually. But yeah, it was after I read that, his magic is really cool, I like it, it is a good job, I like how it’s hard magic and a soft magic.
So, Vorinism and the safehand, it's obviously a modesty type thing kind of like the hijab. Where does the modesty stop? Or does it go up the whole arm?
It doesn't go up the whole arm, it actually ends at about the wrist.
Okay, so if they had, like, a slitted sleeve?
That would be fine.
With The Reckoners you had to make the decision not to put it into your cosmere cosmology, was that a difficult one?
It was not difficult once I realized I did not want Earth to be part of everything else.
If it had been would Calamity have been a Shard of Adonalsium?
That’s an interesting question.  Maybe.
We know that Mistborn needed to Snap, and Surgebinders needed have the cracks in their souls filled. But what about the people in Warbreaker or Elantris? Is cracking and snapping only required on certain worlds?
This is universal to the cosmere; however, in certain magic systems / on certain worlds, this is easier than others.
So, do you have a name, like an in-world name for a large magical construction, like the things that picks Elantrians?
That was why I invented the term "fabrial." It will become widespread eventually, as the term for meaning, kind of, magic-type devices in the cosmere. That's not what you call it right now, but you can start calling them all fabrials.
But what about something that isn't, like-- I always imagined that Aona left, like, a device, a magical device running--
I will have to RAFO that.
Fun fact: Hoid, the character who has shown up in each of my cosmere books, had a brief stint as one of my high school D&D characters. He didn't start life there, but I did try to build a character for him. So I've done the same thing. (Koloss made their first appearance in a game I ran, though they were far more demonic in nature.)
Is the Moon Scepter an object of Investiture?
The Moon Scepter is an item that is important to Hoid, but I won't say why yet.
Will there be more Cosmere stories set on Threnody?
Yeah, Threnody is the setting of Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, which is my longest title ever. Yeah, one of the outlines I've noodled with is a Threnody novel. We'll see. I'm in a stage where I feel like I can start very few novel-length projects, until I've wrapped up Rithmatist, specifically Rithmatist. Once I've wrapped up Rithmatist, I'll feel pretty good-- Rithmatist and Alcatraz. We'll see, but I do have a pretty decent outline that I'm quite pleased with for a Threnody novel.
Do you think that Silence might reappear?
Silence will not reappear. I'm sorry. Maybe a cameo, I don't know. The Threnody novel I'm planning, though, is going back to reclaim the continent from the Evil. And the opening scene is ships arriving. There's not a lot of room for a Silence cameo in that.
In fact, in the origin of The Stormlight Archive, the first Surgebinding things I did, every order of the Knights Radiant was going to be able to Soulcast. Be able to change things from one to another. It was just, you would be locked into the element that was associated with your order of Knight Radiant, you could turn that into anything else you wanted to. That was one of my original pitches. I eventually moved away from that, a lot of the Orders were just feeling too similar in what they did, but that core concept is still there in Stormlight, and Soulcasting as a concept is there because the series is about change.
I’m on my 3rd or fourth reread of the Stormlight Archive this year, and I noticed the runaway comment that certain animals are farmed in order to produce meat via using their gemhearts for Soulcasting. We know as of Oathbringer that Soulcaster’s have a tendency to become what they Soulcast when they become savants. This lead me to question, how does that work for meat Soulcasters? Do they just become more meaty than a regular human? If so what does that even look like? Just some random questions that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else.
RAFO for now, more for the fact that I'm low on time. But I'll talk about this some day.
Have you ever written something you regret because it misrepresented your personal values in books?
An example of violence being over the line actually got cut. This comes from Oathbringer, and it's during one of Dalinar's flashback sequences. And there is a sequence where, to not give too many spoilers, he ends up trapped beneath an avalanche of stone. And I wrote a scene where he comes out, he is consumed by the Thrill, and he goes to town on the people who are trying to kill him in some really graphic ways. (For me. Like, nothing maybe compared to what George [Martin] will write. But for me.) Man, there were heads being crushed, and stuff like this. I wrote this, and it was the mindset I was getting into, being Dalinar. And I got done, and I actually didn't come back to it until I was in the writing group, and the writing group was like, "Woah. We know Dalinar was brutal, but Woah! Do we have to see all this?" And I thought, "Wow, no. We don't have to see all this. I'm gonna trim that down." I can still release it online, if people want to see it. We'll try to get Adam to get a deleted scene of that put up, if you really want to see Dalinar go to town on a bunch of people. But, in this case, I'm like, "This just felt wrong" when I was going back to it. I went over a line I didn't want to cross in the level of brutality in the book. And this is not to be a commentary on anyone else's lines. You may hear this and be like, "Oh man, I wish that were in the book." But the books are a representation of what I want them to be. So, that's an example of when I went over the line.
I do think the initial painting of Ash, in the front of Oathbringer, ended up... her clothing ended up being more transparent than I had realized when we were looking at the artwork. We asked a bunch of artists to paint, for the Heralds, basically the version of Sistine Chapel that might exist on Roshar, the ten Heralds represented instead of the prophets at the sides of the Sistine Chapel. And Dan Dos Santos is an amazing artist, and he painted an amazing picture of Ash, and I saw it, and Isaac's like, "Do you think this is a little too risque to put in the front of our book?" And I thought, "No, I don't think it is," because I was looking at the slit on her dress, and I'm like "Ah, it's fine." I wasn't realizing that he was saying, "Hey, this is transparent, and you can see kind of more than perhaps you might want to be seeing." And the book came out, and people were like, "Hey, why is there a naked woman in the front cover of your book?" Now, again, some of you may be saying, "Really? Brandon, that is super tame." And this all kind of depends on your own worldview, and things like that. I remember hearing a cool story once about speeding, where a comedian said, "Isn't it funny that anyone going slower than you is someone you're like, 'That's such a slow person! How come they can't just go the right speed? That person is terrible!' But anyone who passes you? You're like, 'That person's a maniac. Look at how fast they're going!' It doesn't really matter how fast you're going. You're still going to have this inclination that anyone going slower than you is obstructing the flow of traffic, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac that is going to cause bodily harm to everyone around them." Obviously, not 100% true. But it rang true with me. And I feel like that's how this sort of thing goes. And for me, Ash's outfit was too transparent. And we talked to Dan and said, "Can you just make the dress a little less transparent." And he's like, "Oh yeah, sure, absolutely." Had no problem with it. And in the second printing, the dress was where we would like it. Which still, to some people, is probably too transparent. And to other people, you're like, "You silly Mormon. Why do you even care about this?" But it is part of my moral compass, and so I want to release the books where I feel comfortable.
"There are four individuals," VenDell said, "who, to our knowledge, have held the power of Ascension. Rashek, the Survivor, the Ascendant Warrior, and Lord Harmony Himself.
[Brandon], I noticed the list doesn't include 'Terr'. Anything interesting about how modern kandra see Terr/Leras?
Good catch. There are things to be inferred from this.
Nightblood is the most ridiculously over-invested thing in the Cosmere, second only to the Shards?
Yes.
Was this true from the moment of his creation, or did it grow in power over time.
Grew in power over time. Kind of answers a question that people have been wondering. But, yes.
I happened to notice that Aon Ene in AonDor, which is said to represent debate, is used to control timing in Aon sequences. Is this an intentional connection with logicspren, which are drawn to debates, being used for timing in fabrials?
Yes, it is. There are a few more connections like this in some of the other magics I hope to be able to get to before too long.
When a person dies who is then Returned, do they come back essentially immediately? According to Llarimar it sounds like a quick process...
"When we found you dead, I lost hope. I was going to resign my position. I knelt above your body, weeping. And then, the Colors started to glow. You lifted your head, body changing, getting larger, muscles growing stronger."
When they do come back, are they unconscious? I only ask because as Llarimar was holding him when he changed, if he came back right then, Lightsong's first memory would be of this man who was to be his priest holding him. I assume this would be something Lightsong would have asked about numerous times, why he was with Llarimar when he died, so it seems to me a Returned must be unconscious for a while in order to give them a chance to be brought to the Court of the Gods without being exposed to their family, whom they were probably around when they died.
It's usually a quick process, but not standardized. It could take hours, or longer, but generally does not.
It's something between what you're saying, and instantaneous waking up. More like they start to glow, and the transformation begins, then they wake up and stand. But they're confused and disoriented, and Lightsong was told his priests were gathered as soon as he started glowing, so that they could greet him as he came to himself. He never had reason to question, and that moment is fuzzy anyway. (As evidenced by him not remembering the event, and needing to be told about it.)
At least, that's my rationale as I remember it. It's been ten years at this point, so I could be fuzzy on the details. :)
How did you come up with the idea of evil librarians?
Because I thought it was so funny. I picked the thing I thought was the most ridicilous. They are super crazy. That's the goal. Just do something very different.
Besides the confirmed Knights Radiant at the end of Words of Radiance have we seen any characters that share the same orders with the current knights?
Oh boy, you’re putting me on the spot. N-n-n-n-n-n-n-yes you have. Yes. You’ve seen, I think you’ve seen several actually, but, yeah.
Why is The Rithmatist in our world but not in our world?
I wanted to do something a little more whimsical when I wrote it. I just wanted something purely imaginative. And I said, if I weren’t bound by anything, where would I go? I designed this really strange alternate version of our world, without forcing myself to have explanations and rationale. That’s just a different process sometimes than other books I write.
I was actually going to ask where you came up with the idea of Hoid?
Hoid is inspired by my desire to tell a story that spans other stories. I would say the origins of that are probably Asimov, when he made the Robots books and the Foundation books tie together. Something like that. Maybe Michael Moorcock, he had a similar sort of cross-world thing. I was reading both of them a lot right when I started coming up with that. So I would say, that's the origin of it. Stephen King has done it, but I didn't know he'd done it. I hadn't been reading him as much.
Chapter Eighteen
As I said before, the Zane chapters originally started earlier in the book. I pushed them back in order to keep the mystery a little longer and to streamline the beginning.
Now I can finally get into his story. Zane is important for several reasons, many of which I can't really explain without spoiling not only this book, but the next one. One of his most basic functions is to provide a foil for Elend. An opposite. Elend is safety, and Zane is danger. They share many similar features, but in Zane, most of those features are twisted.
He also represents a throwback to Kelsier. He is more like the Survivor than he'll probably ever understand.
Making him insane like this was a gamble on my part. I worry that, at first, it seems cliche. There's a whole lot more going on with Zane than you might assume, but your introduction to him is that of a schizophrenic villain who likes to cut himself. This might just seem like a grab-bag of psychosis, but I ask you to stick with me on this one. Zane has been many of my alpha-readers favorite character.
How well would Jasnah and Khriss get along?
Uhhhm, I would say that they would get along well, like scholars from different disciplines, meaning with respect for the other's discipline.
It seems like the Diagram Cult derives their entire moral authority for the atrocities they commit from the notion that "this is a very, very smart plan."
Basically, yeah.
And they're filling in the gaps with information gleaned from Death Rattles, despite knowing full well that they're coming from one of Odium's Unmade spren. This seams very, very dumb. Have they ever considered the possibility that they could be being fed disinformation?
Yes, but they figure that the benefits of having access to someone who can see the future outweigh that risk. And even if they are being deliberately given bad information, knowing what subjects they're being misinformed about tells them something useful.
*written* What Aviar power does Mraize's green chicken grant?
*written* RAFO!
*spoken* But it is an Aviar, so it does have one.
Something that I’ve been interested in while reading TWoK Prime is the different names and the different spelling for names (like Dalenar) compared to the canon-TWoK. What made you want to change names and spelling when rewriting TWoK?
For a lot of them, the names just evolved in my mind the longer I used them. For others, I never quite liked them, and tried to find new names to evoke the proper feel.
In Dalinar's case, it was more that I just have had the name in my head for years, and wrote it out differently when I started typing again.
I bet Brandon changed Dalenar to Dalinar so it wouldn’t be pronounced as two syllables. Maybe his brother Jordo kept pronouncing it wrong on purpose. After all, that’s how in White Sand we got Kerztian instead of Kershtian.
From my journal, written the day I finished this chapter (I sometimes keep a chapter journal for purposes of doing annotations later on.)
MBFE Twenty-Six: pewter draggingFinished 5-11-04
The first half of this chapter came quickly, especially after I switched it to Vin's viewpoint. She's come to dominate the story far more than Kelsier, which is good–that's what I'd hoped would happen. Now, it's much easier to write in her viewpoint than Kelsier's, since she has more internal struggles and, I think, more depth.
Things got tough once I got back to the caves. I knew I wanted Kelsier to have a kind of soul-searching period of thought, followed by the return of Mennis. The problem is, I wasn't exactly sure how much I wanted him to self-doubt. He isn't really the type to second-guess himself, so I didn't want him to brood for too long. Also, I didn't want his discussion of Mennis to go into the things I need to discuss in the next chapter–namely, the reasons the plan hasn't failed just because the army is dead.
The second half didn't start to work until I made Mennis more of a conversation-antagonist, having him advise that Kelsier just give up. This was kind of his function in chapter one as well, so I'm not certain why I didn't figure out his place in this chapter more quickly. In a rewrite, I think I'll strengthen this idea little more. It's good to pile on the "you can't succeed" sections of the book, so that when the rebellion finally does happen, it's all the more sweet because of the overwhelming sense of the odds.
What’s the upper limit of Lashing, is it Stormlight?
Yeah, it’s--  Well define for me what you mean by upper limit?
Like, um, a mountain?
That would take a lot of Stormlight.
So it’s something about the Stormlight?
Yeah. Definitely.
As you look at the Double Eye, is there a pattern for Honor and Cultivation's disparate influences on each Surge or Order?
There are philosophers who think that there are, but-- it is more straightforward than those philosophers think it is.
Stormfather once said that "Three of sixteen ruled but now the Broken One reigns" and that "Odium reigns", is not crazy to think that Odium is the Broken One. My question is, could be possible to fuse Odium's shard (without Rayse) with the remanents of Honor (his Cognitive Shadow) in order to create a new whole Shard? Could Dalinar do something like that? He would be uniting them (two Shards, one of them supposed to be the Broken One and the other that we actually now is a bit broken).
[That] is possible
Wait, Hoid can't eat meat, despite the fact that he loves bacon? That poor, poor man.
Makes me wonder if this extends to Soulcast meat, though.
Yeah, that's usually part of the joke when I mention his love for it.
There's a cognitive aspect to it, though--but whenever he's around food, you'll often note him acting a little oddly.
So does that mean he was extra mean to the Alethi because he had to show up to all their feasts as Wit?
No, taking on the Wit persona was his choice.
Is that inability to eat meat and harm people related to the Intent of the Dawnshard he took up? Is he like a Sliver in a way?
RAFO, I'm afraid. But these are the right questions to be asking.
We know now Kaladin's plate is made of windspren. Is Jasnah's made of logicspren?
Yes.
Does Silverlight have any reflection in the Physical Realm?
RAFO.
Was all of your work on Firefight, is that based on the Butterfly effect?
It is a little bit, definitely.
We were talking about Kelsier, and how he was much more powerful than most Mistborn, and how Vin was slightly more than most Mistborn...
Why were Vin and Kelsier more powerful?
I know why Kelsier, but why Vin?
Vin was not more powerful. Vin just took to it very naturally. She was highly skilled. It was very instinctive to her, but Elend was actually more powerful than she was, if you count just raw power. Vin just knew her stuff. Beyond that Vin is a rare individual that for reasons I have not explained yet, was able to draw in the mists for a little extra boost at times. And there are other characters you have seen do this.
What are the extent of Snowfall's powers and territory?
I have notes on this, but if I come back to the Reckoners world in the future, I don't want to be locked into things I say here. Part of the point of mentioning Epics like this is to foreshadow for future books, but not leave myself too locked in, so I can construct the story I need to.
If the Ire had managed to get Preservation, what would Ruin's reaction have been to that?
*chuckles* What would Ruin have thought about that? I don't think Ruin would have been a fan.
Would he have been able to deal with it?
Deal with it? I can see potentials where he both could and couldn't deal with it. I do not-- I don't think the Ire were one hundred percent prepared for what they were trying to do. How about that?
Do the Aimians predate humanity like the Parshendi do?
You're assuming that the Parshendi predate humanity.
Finally, we get to have a nice little scene with Vin and Sazed standing over the body of the Lord Ruler. This is another good metaphoric scene, where he has been cast down by the people he sought to oppress, much as the skaa cheering outside have cast down the empire that sought to oppress them. The rising sun outside, of course, is a nod to this.
And the Lord Ruler dies in the same way that Kelsier did, with a spear in the chest while he's laying on the ground, defeated.
[The arc of spears from the Way of Kings chapter headings and Allomantic symbols.] Coincidence that they look so similar?
Yes. Yep, there was no instruction to Isaac to draw those similarly.
If a Dakhor (Dilaf) could erase a symbol written by an Elantrian (Raoden), could an Elantrian erase/heal a Dhakor bone-symbol?
This is a theoretical possibility, but not a specialization of AonDor.Â
Quote from Oathbringer: "You cannot have my pain"
Could an Awakened toupee be commanded to act like real hair?
...Totally! Absolutely, yes!
Would it be convincing?
Would it be convincing? Yeah, I think that it would be. It depends.
It depends on the number of Breaths?
Yeah, it depends on factors, but I totally think that could be very convincing. Yes, yes, yes.
Could it also be given enough Breath to Command "Protect me?"
Yes, it could. That would be really weird. But yes.
So, the first [question] is whether or not a Shard can be healed after it has been [Splintered]?
That is actually a RAFO. That's been asked before.
Shallan's personas. How would they be viewed in the Spiritual Realm? Would they be an individual? Or would they be seen as being slightly separate?
They would be seen as an individual.
I still have some left over resentment about Dalinar. It's not that I don't see redemptive arcs as very powerful, it's not that I don't recognize that there is some notion of redemption there for him. But it's not like he's out there like, "I am this redeemed person, and I am so much better." I like that there's still kind of an honesty and an awareness on his part. But I still do struggle with him, and I know he's kind of a favorite of others. How often do you kind of run into this reaction to him among fandom? Is this something that a lot of people are expressing to you? Or do you just kind of generally get, like, "Dalinar is the best"?
No, everybody has characters they connect with better than others. And I would say that it's a fairly even split between Shallan, Dalinar, and Kaladin. Depends on the forum you visit. If you go to a predominantly, like... Reddit has a certain demographic. They do tend to like Dalinar more. But from fan mail I get, and things like this, I'd say it's about an even split who they like. And almost always, someone's gonna have one they just don't connect with. But they're fine reading about. But it doesn't click for them. It's just not their thing.
And it's totally legit, by the way. Dalinar burned the city down! You can have a redemption arc, right. But that's always bothered me. I love Star Wars, but Darth Vader blew up a planet. There's redemption arcs, and then there's "You blew up a planet!" And Dalinar's experience is even a little more personal, even though less catastrophic, because you see him do it in the books. And that's not the sort of thing that I want you to feel like you have to forgive him for. This guy was a warlord. And part of it is me kind of dealing with the fact that a lot of our famous people from history that we laud, a lot of our greatest moments in history, have these dark sides to them, right? We talk about America in World War II, and it's like, the Greatest Generation. And I don't want to downplay the contributions of those people. My wife's grandfather served on a ship in World War II and almost sank, his ship got torpedoed the day after he got off for sick leave. But at the same time, we did nuke two cities full of civilians. And that's the most dramatic, but not the worst atrocity that we committed. And that's something that you can't just ignore.
Dalinar has several distinct flaws, even still. He's bad at delegating. He is set in his ways and he is a monarchist. He believes in the kind of "Great Man Theory" is what they would call it. This is what the guy who does Hardcore History, Dan Carlin, talks about, this idea that "Great Men change the world." And a lot of historians say this is kind of a fallacy. Dalinar believes in that. He believes that a strong king is required for a government to work. Which is very at odds with our modern philosophy, and I agree with our modern philosophy. I do not agree with Dalinar. I do not agree that a king is better than a ruler with more limits. I'm glad we have a president, and not a king. But Dalinar, he's all on board with this idea of "Great Men have to change the world." And he would say "men," when we would be like, "Are you sure it has to be men, Dalinar?" He is a person, is what I want to write him as being. And some of those things are gonna rub you the wrong way. And I hope that my characters learn and grow in lots of ways, but there are some things that are aspects of their personality that are just who they are.
Did Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time have any influence on your coming up with Syl?
I get this a lot. Here's my dirty secret: I never played Ocarina of Time. I really am embarrassed by that, because I have played a lot of Zelda games, and they're all great. A lot of people are shocked by that, because they list that as their favorite, and I never played that.
What would happen if you tried to soulcast a shardblade-wounded limb back to regular flesh with a heliodor? Would it regain function?
That's a partial RAFO, I'm afraid. Soulcasting to flesh is complicated, and the level you're asking for is well outside the skills of any living soulcaster. Most likely, you'd end up with a lump of nondescript meat instead of an arm.
Hey, thanks for doing this!
My question is how developed are your ideas of what Spren look like and how they behave? I would love to see some illustrations of them in the future.
There's some early illustrations of them in the original pitch package, where they look very Miyazaki if I say so myself, but my understanding of them has widened considerably in the time since then.
I usually envision (and illustrate) them as ghostly, glowing shapes of infinite variety, a lot like the classical interpretation of a hologram. To the best of my understanding, spren appear to be made of stormlight when they're made apparent at all. Some have more detailed features than others, but I don't think any appear solid unless they actually manifest in the Physical Realm, and the only manifestations we know of are Shardblades (living blades have freedom to reshape though, so who knows what that could mean).
As to their details, if you take the few descriptors that Brandon gives and let your imagination run, you probably can't go wrong... even among the spren, two of the same type might look very different in detail. And an awakened spren has a lot of mutability, Syl is changing shape all the time.
As with all concepts, the text rules. So angerspren is gonna look like blood-red pools boiling up from the ground, and gloryspren will look like tiny translucent globes of golden light. Brandon wrote it, so that's what it is.
But you can translate "blood-red pools [of light] boiling up from the ground" in a few creative ways, and any of them might be equally valid. As the Interlude suggests, the appearance of spren is kinda quantum... fluid until/unless observed. I have a lot of fun seeing how creative I can get with the description while making sure I'm staying true to the text.
Dalinar Ascends, right? Like, right then, there.
I have RAFO'd that. Whether he is Ascending or not is a RAFO.
Okay, because I know he kind of mentions from that, I don't know how to say his name but the older guy who has the Diagram--
Taravangian, yeah. Whether that deserves to be a capital "A" or not is a matter of argument. It can be disputed.
I guess my main question would just be Dalinar's now able to pull Stormlight and give it to people now.
He definitely can. That is a Bondsmith power, so.
That is a Bondsmith power, okay.
That is specifically a Bondsmith power.
Because my roommate was saying well, the Stormfather was surprised he could do that or was the Stormfather surprised that he was able to bridge--
He was surprised by what was happening to Dalinar as a whole.
Oh okay, that's what I thought because I was like, because I felt like the Stormlight, that power would be a Bondsmith power.
Let's say that the Stormfather and Odium were seeing something in Dalinar that, perhaps, the average person watching even who is knowledgeable about Surges would not completely understand... But he will be able to use that power and Bondsmiths in the past have used that same power.
