Aerlion
Is it possible to create a Hemalurgic spike with several stolen attributes?
Brandon Sanderson
Not as far as anyone knows right now
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Is it possible to create a Hemalurgic spike with several stolen attributes?
Not as far as anyone knows right now
I was surprised when I learned just how much more Mistborn you're planning on writing, and was even more surprised when I heard that the Wax and Wayne quadrilogy was only a spin-off and not part of your major plans for the series. But now I've found out you've decided to include those books as a major part of the larger series and instead do 4 different stories within it. Will this mean the next part (which I understood was going to take place in the more or less present) will be further into the future so as to space out each story? And what was the reasoning behind including Wax and Wayne in the main series?
I changed my opinions on Wax and Wayne after writing the first book, then outlining books 2-4 (which are a kind of "Trilogy" with these characters, when the first book was an experiment.)
I realized that the next era (which is still 1980's level technology) would work way better with some foundations in the W&W era. I'm very pleased what this did to Era Three, as it now is (1980s), because of the foundations in Era Two.
And yes, the next series will each go further into the future.
Do any of the worldhoppers that we've met so far-- Do they all just use this sort of perpendicularity to travel?
Perpendicularity is the primary way to get between planets.
But are we going to get a conventional inter-planetary travel, like based on Allomancy maybe?
You have seen conventional inter-planetary travel in Arcanum Unbounded, in the story Sixth of the Dusk, which takes place many hundreds of years after most of the stories in the cosmere. So yes.
Ok so that's where it's--
Yeah there's actually space travel involved in that story but not from the main characters, they just reference them, but yes.
Have the Highstorms always existed on Roshar? The excerpt that talks about how one of the Bondsmiths had resigned himself to fight the Voidbringers but woke up and had a new idea, one that had to do with the nature of the Heralds themselves. Then, inside the Oathgate, we see "mythical creatures" like lions and such. It would make sense that the world might have been different when the KR were last around. So much so, that if the Highstorms "Opposite" is the Everstorm and it was made by followers of Odium, then the Highstorm would have been made by followers of Honor.
Highstorms did predate the arrival of Honor and Cultivation on Roshar, but it has evolved much during the thousands of years since that event. It was not created by followers of Honor, but there is more to this story that you'll find out as the series progresses.
After people die, in this universe, where exactly do they go? Because, at first they appear in this one world, and then they go somewhere else.
So where do people go when they die. *laughter* In the cosmere. One of the things that's very important to me as a writer, when I am writing stories, is when we get to these kind of fundamental questions about faith and religion and things like this, that the narrative is allowing multiple characters' viewpoints to be plausibly true, if this makes sense. For instance, I am not gonna come out and say, "Is there a capital-G God of the cosmere, is there an afterlife?" These are not questions I'm gonna answer, because in-world, they can't answer them. What they can say is, your Investiture will leave what we call a Cognitive Shadow, which is an imprint of your personality that can do certain things. And that most of those fade away, and you can see them, glimpse them, and then watch them go. But, are they going somewhere? Or are they not? Is that simply the Investiture being reclaimed, Is it more of a Buddhist thought, where your soul is getting recycled and used again? Is it nothing, you return to, you know, being-- yeah, is it a different type of matter? Or is there a Beyond, is there a capital-G God? Things like this. These questions are not answered. I'm never gonna answer those.
Now, the characters will try to answer them. But it's important to me that both Dalinar and Jasnah can exist in the same universe, and that the story is not saying "This one is right, and this one is wrong." The story is saying "This is how this one sees the world; this is how this one sees the world." It's very important to me from the beginning to do that, just because-- Like, I hate reading a book where someone espouses my viewpoint only to get proven wrong by the entire structure of the narrative, and in that universe, that person is wrong. But I'm like, "In our universe, I don't think that I am. Just the way you constructed everything makes it so that I have to be wrong, if I were living in your universe, even if it's a universe that's not a sci-fi/fantasy one." If that makes sense.
This is just kind of for respecting my characters and for the people who hold the viewpoints of my characters, in particular if they happen to be different from my own viewpoints. I feel there are certain lines I'm not gonna cross.
So, the answer is: who do you believe? Which of the philosophies in the books do you look at and say "Yeah!" Or, even better: listen to lots of different ones, and maybe these different viewpoints are all gonna have interesting points that'll give you things to think upon.
The one thing I’m a little confused about is how the [UrDail] managed to evolve either separately on different trees or get from tree to tree with the miasma.
The assumption I can come up with is that the trees float and would occasionally bump into each other, letting flora and fauna spread.
Yes, this.
[For Mistborn Era 2-3, with taking technology forward]. Were there specific concerns you had, or concerns you have going forward, about how they will integrate?
No, I think I’m going to be fine on that. I mean there are things that will pop up, and I’m just used to the fact that I’m just going to have to say, “This is how this works, because we didn’t think of this ahead of time.” I’ll just deal with that. That’s the biggest thing that will probably happen. But, you know, I’m very confident that I can make it work. I’ve done it enough, and I’ve been working on Mistborn long enough. My biggest concern is not that, my biggest concern is that there are a certain segment of fantasy readers who just don’t like guns in their fantasy, and will never get to experience the later era Mistborn books because of that. And that’s just, well, you just have to deal with that.
PROJECT FIVE: THE LIAR OF PARTINEL (A.K.A Dragonsteel)
This was the book I was working on for a 2010 release. Epic fantasy. I wrote it in 2007, then put it aside when the WoT was offered to me.
Frankly, I was never pleased with how this book turned out. It was a rough, rough draft—and though I finished it, it wasn’t really ever ‘finished.’ I’ve tossed it back into the wood chipper of my brain. I can do better, and I just can’t ask you to buy this book, as I don’t feel satisfied with it. I could revise it, but that would take about six months of work—delaying the second WoT book for six months. That’s unacceptable, particularly for a book I feel so unsatisfied with. You’ll get a revision of this someday, perhaps.
Do you read non-fiction at all? I'm a history grad student. I'm reading some of your stuff. I was kind of wondering if you ever did get inspiration from history or things like that?
Yes I do like them. I really like pop history books. So if you've got any good suggestions, just like you know, history of war, history of. . . Honestly, I end up at the Barnes and Noble browsing their discount things for pop history and pop science books, and you find really interesting ones there a lot of the time.
How long has the highstorm been on Roshar?
Brandon's never told me anything that would suggest the fauna hasn't evolved naturally. We certainly try to design it that way.
So, Shadows for Silence... Threnody, or Hell at least, is based off of Judaism, right? And Shade sounds a lot like the Hebrew word for demon, Shedim. Is there a relation?
Yes... yes. But it's not an in-world reason, it's just in my brain, right?
Okay, so I was going to ask like... do they have chicken legs, which is how [Jewish demons are depicted]
No, they don't. But, you know, things like She’ol [Hebrew word, the Jewish interpetation of the afterlife in certain texts] and things like that, they're in the back of my head - mostly because of Stormlight. I would say, I hadn't thought about it before, but that's definitely an unconscious influence on me. But they do not have chicken legs.
In the White Sand graphic novel, quite a few of the elements of the environment (e.g. rocks, clouds) look like faces (link). I find it hard to believe this is just a quirk of the artist, so can you tell us anything about why Taldain seems positively riddled with faces?
The faces are intentional. (Though they turned out more blatant in places than I'd have liked.)
What would happen if a Feruchemist got a metal tattoo? If he burned gold, would it pop off, or something?
Tattoos do not do well when you're being healed, so yeah. Tattoos are not... but there are ways to make sure that they stay.
How?
It has to do with how you view yourself.
When a kandra loses its spikes temporarily and its memories degrade, is that happening because of the spikes decaying, or is something biological actually happening to where it has stored its memories?
It's biological. Good question!
When a Returned who has lots of extra Breath gives them away without suppressing his Divine Breath, does the Divine Breath stick to the regular Breath as they are transferred to the receiver? Will the receiver find himself suddenly possessing a Divine Breath? Or does it still vanish after healing the receiver?
Divine Breaths don't work quite like others. However, losing one is kind of a "Last resort." You'll give away all the others first, and then, if you push you can give it away as well. It never sticks around and makes the person you choose returned.
Could you use it to heal Preservation's mind? (potentially with the Well)
Depends on what you mean by "Preservation's Mind." Do you mean Leras? During the events of Well/HoA he's WELL beyond the help of such a small bit of investiture, as available in a single Divine Breath. With the help of the Well itself? That's more realistic, but the real reason that he was suffering from such degradation was due to persistent attacks by Ruin.
Did Ironsides mean to refer Spensa's pin as the pin of a traitor so early in the book?
Yes? I feel like she did. I'm not sure why she wouldn't have, because by that point everyone knows that Spensa's… Unless they're asking maybe if Ironsides didn't... shouldn't have known that that pin was Spensa's father's pin, she could've thought it was given to her by somebody else, but yeah.
Vivenna Escapes
One of my big worries about the Vivenna sections is that she'll come off as too weak as a character. That's a particular danger once we reach these late middle sections, where it's revealed how much she's been manipulated. Remember that when you're reading the Vivenna sections, if she comes off weak compared to Siri, consider their relative circumstances.
Vivenna is put through a lot more in this book than Siri is. Why? Well, I felt that as a character, she had a lot more room to grow. In order to do that, however, she needed to have everything knocked out from underneath her. That happens primarily in this chapter and the next few.
But she is not helpless. Even while she's numbed by the capture and betrayals, she manages to effect not one, but two escapes. She handles herself very well, finally overcoming her problems with Awakening and managing to get her Breath to work for her. (And remember that the more Breath one has, the easier it is to learn to get Commands to work right. That will be important later in the book. . . .)
Let's say we have a Twinborn aluminium/nicrosil and he tapped a lot of nicrosil, so much he started to emit mist and then burned aluminum. Would he destroy his own Investiture?
No.
Can you tell us something about the magic on the Darkside?
Not nearly as explosive and obvious as the magic on Dayside. Most of the Investiture you’ll find is on Dayside, but there is some stuff going on over there.
If you took a Parshendi... And they were born outside Roshar and never visited Roshar in their lives, would they hear the Rhythms beyond Roshar?
Would they hear the Rhythms beyond Roshar... If you took one that was not born on Roshar, would they feel the Rhythms off-Roshar or just Rhythms in general?
Rhythms in general.
Yes, they would sense them.
Even beyond Roshar?
What they are sensing... it's something that pervades the Cosmere but on Roshar has specific way of manifesting.
Is it the same thing that Soothers and Rioters are using?
Now you're straying into RAFO territory with your question/good question...
Broadsheets of Bands of Mourning: How canon should we take the arcana in the Ghastly Gondola?
As far as taking it as canon, it's about as canonical as the Allomancer Jak pieces. They're in-world fiction, so the characters are the narrators and are going to write things in a way that is entertaining but not necessarily how the magic actually works in certain instances.
Will we ever see Vin come back out?
No, we will not, I'm sorry.
I've always wanted - it's like, we got to the good part it's like - we just don't know what happened in there so...
If you read Mistborn: Secret History, which is a sort of parallel novel to these *gestures to Mistborn books* you will see a brief glimpse of Vin in that, because it's at the same time as these, and it may give you a little bit more closure.
What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know?
Ha, that IS a little silly of a method. However, on the extreme end of aluminum, I have in the notes the possibility of cleansing the spirit of unwanted effects of other Investitures. You'd get really good at this, and maybe even be able to cleanse the body of other impurities.
Leras mentioned something like Cephandrius had the choice/chance to take up a Shard but declined. So was the Shattering an event that was predicted to happen so that people like Leras, Ati, Rayse, etc to be present at that time to pick up the Shards after the Shattering.
There's more to it than that, but some of what you say is close.
There's a character in Bands of Mourning named Cob and there's also a character named Cob in the Oathbringer Epilogue. Are those two characters the same person?
Nope. Good question.
Is the bird that talked to Allomancer Jak a kandra?
Haha, RAFO. Allomancer Jak thinks that it probably must be.
Are you gonna say if it's an Aviar?
I'm going to say Allomancer Jak has a strange blend of trustworthiness and not. He doesn't think that he's lying when he says things.
Is The Lost Metal planned to be the actual conclusion of the Wax & Wayne story then, or more of an epilogue to it and/or transition to [Era 3]?
It is an actual conclusion.
Will we see the Moon Scepter again?
Yes, I intend for you to see it again. But I've already said what it does, I believe. It's a Rosetta Stone for the different symbols on [the world of] Elantris that mean different things.
So, it's more specific to Sel?
It's specific to Sel, it's specific to understanding the magics on Sel. It helps figure out how the different magic systems do the different things they do on Sel. So, it does have Aons along one side of it. You probably will see it again, but it will probably be in cameo. Hoid got the information he needed off of it, from that.
It's known you're a big fan of Magic the Gathering and that you like house Dimir and you wrote Davriel Cane's planeswalker. Are you ever going to work with Wizards of the Coast again? And then things about Magic. It's known you play some, where would we find information on that?
Will I every work with Magic again? I probably will. I usually can't leave well enough alone. But the thing is, I wrote that story (which you guys can read, it's called Children of the Nameless, it's free online), I wrote that instead of doing other stuff I was kind of supposed to be doing. It is what has put me behind like on Wax and Wayne, which I wanted to have done before the next Stormlight. So, it's not likely that I will do it anytime soon. I need to catch up on things. What I would really like to do is, sometime, kind of go in at the planning stage for a plane. Like, right at the beginning, and maybe even write a book and be like, "This is set on a plane, let's use this to build the mythology of a plane," or something like that, and kind of be in from the ground up on it. But I would probably have to move to Seattle for, like, 6 months for that. So that's far off in the future.
If you want to play Magic with me, once in a while, I play at local game stores. I go to Game Grid now and then. Mostly I like to draft or to cube draft. You can watch me cube drafting online. The latest newsletter has a link to a place, some people I went and drafted with. It has been harder and harder. Early in my career, when nobody knew who I was, it was great because the signings, I would get there at 7, and they'd get done at like 8:30. And then I'd be like, "Hey! Who wants to play Magic?" and there would usually be some people who went like, "Yeah! Let's go play Magic!" We'd go to like the hotel and sit in the lobby and play Magic and stuff. Nowadays, my signings get done at like 4am. So yeah, that just doesn't happen as much anymore. Sorry about that.
A Kandra Perspective
I knew I wanted a kandra viewpoint in this book. They have a unique perspective on the setting and the mythology of the world, and beyond that they're just plain fascinating to me. I like their culture, and I'm glad I finally found a place to show the Homeland, their true bodies, and so forth. (More on this in upcoming annotations, of course.)
In addition, TenSoon's viewpoint offers a contrast to the battles, sieges, and wars going on in the other viewpoints.
Do your kids read your books?
Yeah. They read my kids books. They've read Skyward, they've read Starsight, they read Rithmatist. They haven't tackled the adult books yet.
How old is your oldest?
My oldest is 12.
Can spren be affected by emotional Allomancy?
That's a RAFO.
Introduction
Hello, and welcome! I hope the holiday season is treating you all very well. Around this time each year, I write a blog post called State of the Sanderson. I usually post it on or around my birthday, which happens to be today. (So, happy Koloss Head-Munching Day to you all.)
These posts run long and are extensive essays that go over what I did during the year, updating you all on the projects I've been working on, then doing a rundown of projects that I'm planning. (Find last year's State of the Sanderson right here.)
I hope you'll find this helpful and interesting. Storytelling is not an exact science, and things don't always go as planned. At the same time, I believe it important to be up-front with you all. I know what it's like to wait for years to read the ending of a favorite series, and I appreciate your longsuffering support when I jump between projects.
In teaching my university lectures and workshop, I interact with many, many hopeful and talented newer writers. Their excitement, and worry about the future, reminds me how fortunate I am to be able to do what I love for a living. In the story of the ants and the grasshopper, I get to spend my life making music—but instead of letting me starve in the winter, you bring me in and give me something warm to eat, then you listen while I tell you a story.
It's strange to consider what might have been. How many plausible variations of life are there where I'm not a professional novelist? Did I hit on the one perfect sequence of events that brought me here, or would I have muddled my way through even if Moshe hadn't agreed to look at Elantris back at a party in Montreal in 2001?
Though I deal in the fantastic as my daily labor, the scene where I'm not a writer is one scene I have difficulty conjuring. Would I be a professor perhaps? I do enjoy teaching, though only in moderation. (When I had to teach the same class multiple times in a day, I found the experience monotonous. One course a year is just about right for me—exciting, vibrant, and involving new things to teach and talk about.)
Indeed, early in my graduate studies, I realized I'd never make it as an academic. Ironically, I discovered that doing all the things in my writing program that would prepare me for a good Ph.D. or MFA course (being on the staff of journals, assisting professors, traveling to conferences) would prevent me from actually writing—so I threw all of that up in the air and doubled down on my novels. Some of my colleagues went on to professorships, but I was never really headed that direction.
For me, it was always write or bust. I don't know what busting would look like—but I do know that, barring something truly insane, it would involve me ending up with a closet full of dozens and dozens of unpublished manuscripts.
As an aside, for those who didn't hear the story on tour this year, my second son (who is six) has started to figure out what it means that I'm an author. He came up to me a few months ago and said, "Daddy. You write books!"
I said, "Yes!"
"You sell them, so we have money for food and our house!"
"That's right."
"And when people visit, you give them books from the garage! That's how you sell them!"
I often give copies of the books to friends who visit, and in his six-year-old understanding, this was how we made our living. But hey, there are worse things to be than a garage novelist with a trunk full of demo manuscripts.
In any case, you have my sincere thanks for your support! I'm glad we're not in the alternate, dystopian Sanderson timeline where I have a goatee and have to spend my life selling people insurance.
Do you form emotional relationships with your characters?
Um-- Yeah I would say that I do. Mmhmm.
For instance, reading The Way of Kings, I really dislike Sadeas. Do you feel that way about him too?
He's a rat. He's totally a rat.
Is the time that women are pregnant in Roshar, is it different? Is it nine months, because nine is a bad number?
It is a bad number and also, the months and years on Roshar are a little different, so it wouldn't be... it wouldn't map exactly one-to-one to our world. So, usually, it's about 10% different, a year on Roshar is about 10% longer than one of our years, but the months are about 50 days, so I'd have to run the math, but it's not going to come out exactly.
How do you name your characters?
It depends on how much work I've done on the linguistics. Some planets I haven't done a lot of work on that. On Roshar I've built out the linguistics a lot, so I build names out of that.
On Scadrial, however, I went more with real world inspirations or stuff I liked, like "Wax and Wayne", which is a pun they can't really understand. Names like Elend or Straff are Germanic in origin, Vin, Demoux or Kelsier are French.
Is Wax's name pronounced French in Scadrian?
Yes, it is. I can't even pronounce it. [Various people pronounce "Waxillium" with a French accent]
Notice how he grows in size here when he isn't paying attention. That's his Returned nature beginning to manifest, much like Vivenna's hair reacts to her emotions, because of the moment of great passion from him during the fight.
In this chapter, we also get the first hints that children and animals like Vasher. That's another hint about his nature—though a very, very subtle one, since I haven't talked about how animals and children all like Returned. They can sense the divine Breath within him, and it comforts them.
Vivenna Meets with the Slumlords
When I write a scene like this, I am never quite certain how much time I want to spend distinguishing the side characters who make an appearance. (Another scene like this is the one where Lightsong plays the game with the three other gods.) Here, we're introduced to three different slumlords. They all have distinct personalities and different ways of looking at how Vivenna can help them. However, how much time do I spend explaining them and making them have an impact? It's a tough line to walk. I don't want to bog the scene down and spend a lot of time on characters you'll never see again, but I also don't want the scene to feel ambiguous or lacking precision because you can't imagine the slumlords.
I suspect that most readers won't care about telling the difference between the three, so I don't dwell on it—but I try to give hints that will help those who want to visualize the scene exactly.
Since you have basically established that spren are at least to some extent alive, how is it possible for a Shardblade to not cut right through a living weapon, like Syl for example.
What you are seeing is: when they are pulling through into the Physical Realm they are creating something that is not 100% physical, not 100% metal, it's like an amalgamation of the two. And that is doing something very special that then prevents other things from cutting through it. It's specifically the way that it's happening. You could make this happen with other things too.
Another big part of it is the amount of Investiture. If something is highly Invested it's going to stop a Shardblade too, because the Investiture is gonna kinda bounce off of each other. It's theoretical, for instance, you could make a Hemalurgic spike that would stop a Shardblade...
So, Invest something highly and it will stop a Shardblade almost always. But, you can cut souls; they are highly Invested also. So you need something in the Physical Realm that is pulling power through from the other Realms.
How about the Iriali and Alethi mix we have going on with Adolin and Renarin? Where would this put them within the chibi figures? I have always had a hard time trying to figure out how they would look like due to their mix ethnicity. I have ideas... of course, but I'd be great to have confirmation.
They're gong to have lighter skin, but skin tone isn't something Alethi pay much attention to. Hair and eye color is what draws their attention. Dalinar and Kaladin will be darker than Adolin and Renarin, though none of them would look Caucasian to us. Of course, Caucasians have varied skin tone as well, so it's hard to say specifically what they'd look like. (As a note, Renarin/Adolin are a Riran/Alethi mix--not exactly Iriali/Alethi, as there's some slightly different genetics going on there.)
Oh I thought Riran and Iriali were the same... Where did I go wrong?
I can't say much without giving spoilers, but there are small differences.
Would be cool if you ever got the chance to sit down with a sketch artist to put out images of your visualization of how some of these characters look.
It would be fun, though I've done this (in a small way) with Ben McSweeny, who does a lot of art for my books. I have semi-official character sketches I use for my own descriptive purposes, but I don't consider them close enough in some ways to be canon, so we don't release them or put them in the books. That said, some of them might be floating around on the internet--I'm not sure.
One thing I wish I'd done was nudge Michael Whalen to push his Kaladin on the cover of Words of Radiance a little further to be a little more ethnically Alethi--as I think it would help people's visualizations of him. But the one we ended up with is already the third version of Kaladin he did for that painting, and each one was increasingly better--I felt bad pushing him further.
As a side note, I've always loved this fanart for Rock. I don't know if there's a more on-target picture of one of my characters out there:
I worry, just a bit, that people will read this book and think that I'm anti-religion. Those of you who know me will realize how opposite this is of the truth–I'm actually rather devout in my own beliefs. However, because of this devotion, that I understand religion and the power it can have over people. I think that something so potentially good also provides great potential for evil. And, as a firm believer in religion–and religious freedom–I can think of few things quite as frightening or as evil as a religion gone bad.
I am not anti-religion. In fact, I'm not even really anti Shu-Dereth. I tried to construct a religion in Shu-Dereth that had some very interesting, and valid, teachings. However, like some very good religions in our own world, an evil–or even misguided–leadership can transform good teachings into a force for destruction and evil.
My own religion teaches that contrast is a good thing. Because of pain, we can appreciate joy. Because we understand evil (though we don't necessarily have to partake in it) we can understand and appreciate good. Because we have choices, we have the opportunity to take responsibility for our actions. In this way, I believe that a religion should have no qualms about teaching that it has the truth–and like the fact that we have many options in religions in our own world. When we get into trouble, however, is when we begin to enforce our religious opinions with sword or legislation.
I guess this belief is the main basis for my painting of Hrathen as an antagonist in this book. Yes, his logic is good–Arelon probably is going to fall. However, that doesn't give him the right to speed that collapse, or even manipulate it to his own good. It doesn't give him the right to overthrow or suppress the beliefs of others. Resisting him as he tries to destroy the belief system of an entire people is a good far greater, in my mind, than the good of self-preservation.
(Man. That last bit seems a little melodramatic, now that I look back at it. Forgive me a bit of that on occasion, if you please. Occupational hazard.)
Are there specific reasons why opposite Shards seem to end up in the same system?
Yeah.
So why do opposite Shards...
RAFO! *laughter*
Would Cognitive Shadows that travel to Threnody automatically turn into Shades?
Uhh… No. Good question.
Can a mistcloak be infused with Breath?
Yes.
For those who don't know it is Dalinar's book. Each story, each novel in The Stormlight Archive delves into one of the main characters' backstories and catches you up how they got to their first chapters in the first book. So the first book was Kaladin, second book's Shallan, third book's Dalinar. Right now, fourth book is Eshonai, fifth book is Szeth. I could end up switching those two. But that's kind of how that works. And then, for those who don't know, The Stormlight Archive-- at the end of book five there will come to a conclusion, though it's not the main conclusion, it's the end of the arc. We will leave Roshar for a while while I write a few more books, and when we come back Roshar in-world will have passed about fifteen years. And then we will do the back five characters as I call them-- their backstories. So that's Lift, Jasnah, Taln, Renarin, and Ash-- yeah, Ash. There's two Heralds among that group, so you can kind of guess what those flashbacks will deal with, in the back five. The main characters of the first five, who survive, will still be a big part of those back five. So it's not a separate series, but I do consider it two separate arcs. We need to pass some time for some various reasons.
Was there an Allomantic power that didn't make it into the book?
Was there an Allomantic power that didn't make it into the book. Oh... Yes, but I'm trying to remember. I had like two dozen of them? Oh boy I can't even remember the ones that I discarded. I was going to do a lot more stuff externally, stuff that like wasn't inside of you and it didn't end up working out. The big thing that I talk about with Allomancy that changed is originally I was using...silver as one of the metals, this is-- this is because... Dumb story time, so when I was a kid I painted these little miniatures that you do in D&D so your little guys can actually fight each other, right? And my brother still does this, they're awesome, I was terrible at it, but I painted these little guys. And at one point I went-- and they used to be lead, and then they realized that lead kills you *laughter* and so--or maybe it just makes you strange, I can't remember--I went and all of the prices had gone up, like by a double, because they had made them out of pewter instead. And I said to the guy "What is up with this, you are totally ripping us off. My figures now cost us 50 cents instead of--" I don't remember what it was and he went "Uh yeah it's because pewter has silver in it man. You're buying little silver figures now" and I went "Oh. That's cool." And I bought them. And so for years I thought pewter was an alloy of silver and I wrote an entire book. An Entire Book. The whole first Mistborn book with silvereyes and pewterarms until it went to my beta readers and like "There's almost no silver in pewter Brandon, you don't even really need it. Everything in this magic system works except that." and I went "Well maybe we can just pretend in this world pewter--" "No that's stupid" *laughter* So I had to change it to tin which is actually what you find in pewter. To this day my assistant Peter, who is my continuity editor, came to me and said "You realize you wrote silvereye instead of tineye in the newest Mistborn book that you just finished? It's been ten years Brandon get over it." *laughter* Still happens.
About Ien, Raoden's seon. I was wondering what happened to him.
*brief sidebar for translation*
So, still around, but suffered some effects of what happened in the books, but still around.
*brief sidebar for translation*
I'm trying not to give spoilers, but when I go back to the series I do intend to answer that question.
I spot a potential error [in Oathbringer]:
While she spoke of Jezrien and Kelek, she said their names strangely: Yaysi and Kellai.
This line comes from Dalinar's perspective - don't the Alethi use the name Jezrezeh and not Jezrien?
The name Jezrien isn't unknown—Sizgil knew it in Way of Kings, even though they don't say Jezrien in the Makabaki lands either. But I'll ask Brandon about this line.
EDIT: We have determined that Dalinar should have said Jezerezeh in this context. So we'll fix this in the ebook and audiobook, and in future reprints.
Do we know who built the Steel Highway in Mistborn?
Some people know, but it's not general knowledge.
So I've been told there is one character who is in each of the series.
Yes there is.
Is that Wit by chance?
It is.
Does he show up in some of the others?
Yes, in this [The Final Empire] he shows up briefly, Kelsier meets with a blind beggar at one point who is introduced by the name Hoid and that is the name Wit uses through most of the books. If you read Warbreaker he's in that one, there is a storyteller who uses dust and sand. He's in most of them Way of Kings is where you see him the most he's not in the other ones nearly as much but he's mentioned by name in most of them.