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Kalobi

Should the fact that the Aons in the Hoid/Riina painting are missing the chasm line be taken as canonical? If so, is this because of whatever method they are using to perform AonDor outside Sel? Or because of post-Elantris changes to Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

We let Howard pick what he wanted to illustrate, and then send illustrations in. And originally, he just did a whole bunch of weird, arcane symbols. And I’m like, “No, you need to actually use Aons in this art.” But we let him just kind of pick the Aons. You should not consider that art to necessarily be… Imagine that art to be somebody on Silverlight painting a picture of a story they heard. That art can be in-universe. (In fact, I believe that I would consider it in-universe.) But somebody painted it, and they just used whatever pictures of Aons they had sitting around, like Howard did. In other words, don’t be looking at those Aons as actual representations of how you would program in AonDor, how about that. And don’t read too much into that.

By the time of Tress, stories from things happening around the cosmere, and stories that Hoid tells, have become of interest to some people, and because of that it’s plausible that there could even end up being some sort of book written where it’s like, “Hey, he told me this story. I’m writing it down for the rest of you guys to read.” I’m not saying that’s what Tress actually is; obviously, we have the audience for Tress. I’m just saying, you can imagine world of people doing Hoid fanart.

Cosmere Considered

Does Hoid have fans?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, by that point in history Hoid does. He has far more detractors, but…

Cheekerdoodles

Is there an in-universe Hoid fan club?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on what you call people who are fully aware of who he is and what he is. I would say yes. I mean, the royals in our world have fans. There’s fans of the royals, there’s fans of equivalent, just people who are known throughout. And he is a figure in a lot of peoples’ mythology and religion. Would you call the Horneaters Hoid fans? Because they have legends stretching back thousands of years to him as a trickster god, to the point that Rock is fully able to recognize him (not when he’s in his Wit persona, at least not at first).

Questioner

The Words of Founding. What does it contain besides the religions, technological advancements, and layout for Elendel? Is there anything special in there?

Brandon Sanderson

There's some other cool stuff in there that eventually I'll talk about.

Questioner

But nothing specific?

Brandon Sanderson

Nothing I'm going to be able to...

Questioner

I was going to say general outlines. Does that cover the basics of it?

Brandon Sanderson

That definitely covers the basics of it, yeah. There was stuff from Sazed's metalminds. A lot of that stuff that was in there. Basically everything that was in there, he tried to get in the books. And then some other additions. Such as Elendel, which he created as a basin for life and things. And stuff like that. They are very interesting. These guys are here recording everything I have to say. So I have to watch myself.

Brandon Sanderson

Parting Thoughts

What are my parting thoughts on this series? Well, honestly, they're "Damn, that turned out well."

It was my first series. I began the first book the year I sold Elantris, back before I'd met my wife. I'm writing these annotations in December of 2007, with my first child being about a month old. Mistborn has dominated my life for some four years.

I love these characters. I am thrilled with how the world turned out. And the plot . . . well, it just all worked out even better than I'd hoped. I worry about being able to top this—but then, I always worry about that.

A book is a window into the author's soul, and there was a lot of soul-searching in these books. My thoughts and fears about leadership, religion, relationships, and the nature of truth all show up in the interactions of the characters.

These books are part of me. But now they're part of you too. Thank you so much for reading.

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn Project

May 2003-December 2007(For now.)

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Ten

Sazed's Struggle

Here I can see how giving Sazed something to do—letting him study his religions one by one—makes his viewpoints far more interesting. The previous version of this chapter, which perhaps I'll post, had him simply riding along, listening to Breeze, despairing. That was boring.

Yet, making one small tweak—giving him something to do—changed that dramatically, at least for me as I read the chapter. It allows Sazed to struggle, and a struggle can be even more tragic than a loss. Either way, it's more interesting to read because conflict is interesting. Here, he's trying—even though he's failing—to find meaning in the world. He can try to shove aside his depression and read his pages instead.

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Atanas

What would you say is the best approach to battle the growing apathy, greed, violence, corruption, pollution and misery in the world today―using Sazed's wisdom, education, research on religions and unity through equal- mindedness or Kelsier's way of personal example, sacrifice, and unity through action?

Brandon Sanderson

I am more a Sazed than a Kelsier. Sazed is focused on patience, careful change, and thoughtfulness. But we need Kelsiers too—people who are willing to act decisively, to become the type of person that others follow, and to make things happen, even if sometimes there are terrible consequences.

Bisa Bink

Why did Brandon name a world Threnody?

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted a planet where I was making use of religious terminology (sometimes pseudo-religious terminology; things that are religion-adjacent also), and things that had to do with poetry and music. Lots of names like Elegy as a name. And Threnody, I believe Isaac suggested it. He'll have to correct me if I'm wrong; he might have named some other things in that system, but I think he recommended Threnody. And it felt appropriate, being a song for the dead, a dirge. Just kind of clicked.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Eight

Vin and Elend's Marriage

A very simple wedding, all things considered. I found that appropriate, as I though that Sazed would approach such things in the most elegant–but simple–way possible.

This is also kind of a strange scene, when you think about it. I write myself into some interesting situations in this series. I don't know that I before this moment, I'd ever thought I would be writing a wedding involving a half-naked eighteen year old girl who is bleeding from three wounds, one in one of her breasts.

Some people have complained that this is just too quick a marriage. One thing to remember is what Sazed explains. For a thousand years, the only way to get married was to get the witness of an Obligator. Even for skaa, an obligator was required to authorize a wedding. And that's ALL it took. If an obligator said you were married, then you were. Sometimes, the nobility or the skaa had their own ceremonies surrounding a wedding, but they were more civil than religious. In fact, it's a tiny bit of a stretch to even have Elend associate a wedding with religion.

Of all the people in the book–heck, in this entire world–Sazed is probably the closest thing to a real spiritual leader one could find. In that way, Vin and Elend were quite fortunate to have his blessing. Breeze and Allrianne, for instance, didn't bother with a wedding. Now that the Lord Ruler is gone, those sorts of things have lost a lot of meaning–if, indeed, there ever was any meaning to them in this society.

Brandon Sanderson

This is the most overt and obvious of my savior-imagery scenes for Kelsier. I hope you didn't feel like I was hitting you over the head with it. (I didn't actually realize the similarity between Survivor and Savior until I was part of the way through the book.) Either way, yes, the Christian imagery is intentional. I didn't put it in simply because I'm religious (after all, if you look at it, Kelsier isn't really all that Christian in the way he deals with people.) I put it in because I think that the images and metaphors of Christianity are deeply-seated in our culture, and drawing upon them provides for a more powerful story.

Part of this is to intentionally make people uncomfortable–for discomfort (when used right) leads to tension. The Christians who read this might be made uncomfortable by how strikingly un-divine Kelsier is. He's acting in some of the same roles as Christ did, but he's not the man that Christ was. He's kind of a pale imitation. The non-Christians, in turn, might be made uncomfortable by the fact that Kelsier is manipulating the people in the way that religions often do, giving hope in something that could very well prove to be false.

Either way, he is what he is. The truest Kelsier is the one we see near the end, where he's standing in the kitchen, smoldering in his black clothing. He is a dangerous man with powerful beliefs.

Brandon Sanderson

Religious Philosophies

There is a belief that many people hold in the world, and I like to call it the "spokes on the wheel" belief. This is the belief that as long as you struggle hard and try to live your life well, you'll make it to heaven, or nirvana, or whatever lies on the other side of death. People who believe this tend to take an "It doesn't matter what road you take; they all lead the same place" approach. Every religion is a spoke on the wheel, leading to the center.

There is a lot of nobility to this belief. It's an attempt to be inclusionary, and the people I've met who believe this way tend to be sincere—or at least very accommodating—in their personal convictions.

I don't write books to disprove any one philosophy or belief. People who believe this way are not idiots, nor are they fools. This was the belief Sazed followed through the first two books of the trilogy. However, I see a danger in this set of beliefs, and Sazed's trials in this book are a result of that danger. If you believe everything, it seems to me that it is difficult to find any hard-and-fast truth.

Monotheism has its own problems, and I explore those in other books. Don't take this as a bash against your beliefs if you follow Sazed's previous philosophy. I simply saw a potential conflict, and couldn't help but explore it.

Brandon Sanderson

Hrathen's conditioning is manifesting here. We've always seen him as the leader of the area, but he spent many years as a lesser priest beneath other leaders. In the Derethi religion, you do what you're told by your betters. As soon as it is established that Dilaf is in charge, Hrathen's training would force him to become a follower.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Someone asked about the modern mistborn trilogy's plot.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Brandon said that it would have an Allomancer SWAT Team dealing with a mistborn and having to figure out what they are fighting due to Mistborn disappearing into myth and religion.

Brandon Sanderson

I often, when I'm building languages, there are a lot of different ways that I go. I am not a philologist like Tolkien was. I'm not a linguist. Peter is, my editorial assistant, but I am not. I have had a little bit of schooling in linguistics, but not enough to be creating complete con-langs out of nowhere. So I'm usually using a few tricks to develop my language, one of which is to look for historical languages and seek inspiration from them.

And the pitch for myself on the whole thing, in Fjorden, was what if the Vikings had created a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and had instead of conquering the world as Viking, Nordic destroyers, they had become a religious group. They're really based off of the Geats, which is Beowulf's people, which are Nor--are British, they're British Vikings, basically. And so when I was developing them, I was using a bit of Nordic--old Nordic and things like that--and I'm using a bit of old English, and just trying to get that feel. In Beowulf, because in Beowulf they have some Danes and you have some people from the British isles, and there's this crossing over, and things like this, and it's this interesting sort of mix and hodge-podge of cultures and languages, from, 1000AD, and i really liked that feel, I really liked that linguistic flavor, so to speak, and so, I was really reaching towards lots of names out of Beowulf as inspiration.

Brandon Sanderson

Elend and Vin Ride out of Luthadel, Allrianne Joins Them

And Tindwyl and Elend end on a sour note. I guess that's appropriate.

Allrianne is one I'd been wanting to add a shade of depth to for a while, and I saw my chance here. We'll get a viewpoint from her in a short time–just a short one, and it won't do much except maybe give her a little rounding out.

You can thank Isaac (aka Nethermore, the guy who did the internal art for the Mistborn books) for naming the gates in the city. He was the one who, when doing the city map, realized that it would be cool if the eight gates were named after the eight basic metals. It made so much sense; I'm surprised I didn't think of it.

Vin and Elend do manage to escape the city, as they had hoped. My big worry here is that readers will be frustrated that I'm sending the two main characters away for the big battle. My big hope, however, is that readers will take this as a sign that nasty things are coming for the city. I think this chapter here leads to some real potential for tension in the siege itself.

Atop the wall, as the team watches Vin and Elend leave, we get another exchange talking about Sazed and his belief in a lot of different religions. I hope I didn't lay it on too thick; I just wanted to show some character dynamics as he talks to other characters. You can also note here that Ham is back to calling Elend "El." (Against Elend's request earlier in the book.) Ham started that up a while ago, actually. He's not the best at following orders.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fourteen - Part One

Lightsong and Blushweaver

This is another of the scenes I revised heavily to make the conversation between Lightsong and Blushweaver more snappy. I work very hard in the beginning of the book to establish their personalities and their dialogue, and so the first few chapters were revised more heavily than the later ones. Also, my editor thought that the later ones were already amusing enough; it was the beginning ones that he wanted to have a little more zip.

Their conversation about the weather (playing off the one between Lightsong and Scoot) is one of my favorites from the book. I like how it's able to show some worldbuilding through the theology of the religion, give a strong dose of character through the different ways that Lightsong and Blushweaver talk about the weather and their desires for how it should go, and all the while be snappy and amusing. The line about serving followers as food is a little cheap, though. Sorry.

Kirrin

Just wanted to say, great work on the book. It kept me completely occupied from around 11 am to 8 pm and I have got to say that it had the most well thought out ending ever put into a book.

Also, do you have any plans for more Mistborn books? Or is this the end?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, I was expecting these. Let's get to them first.

More Mistborn Books

My plans right now are to do a second trilogy of Mistborn books set several hundred years after the events of the first series. That means that technology would have progressed, and there's a good chance I'll decide to do the books as kind of an urban fantasy. (But set in a completely different world from our own, so not quite like other urban fantasies.) Guns, skyscrapers, cars—and Allomancy.

Now, I'm not 100% decided on that. I know that adding modern technology ruins the fantasy flavor of a book for many people, so I'll have to think about it. But I think the imagery would be compelling, and I would love to deal with a 'modern' world where the events of this trilogy form the foundation for the religions, history, and society of the book. It would be a really challenge, since I'd have to decide how technology and society developed following this book.

Questioner

In Alcatraz series, he talks about a lot of things. Religion, fame, particularly fame, stuff like that. I was wondering if that is his voice entirely, or if it's also partially you?

Brandon Sanderson

There is a lot of me in Alcatraz. My mother says Alcatraz is her favorite character because he sounds the most like me.

little wilson

Are Trellism and Trelagism the same religion?

Brandon Sanderson

Uuhheha, that's a RAFO too.

little wilson

Is it the same god in both?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that… who Trell is and what happened is a matter of some interest in the cosmere and amusement to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Also, Sazed gives us our first real discussion of belief and religion. I think this is a very important aspect of this novel, since the Lord Ruler is–essentially–God. I'll get more into this later, but I wanted it known that some members of the group are worried about religious concerns.

Nesh

So some of us happened across a line in [Mistborn: The Final Empire] that gave us pause. It's in the chapter 19 epigraph:

"Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom - nor was he even a religious scholar. When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library--I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think."

This sounded to us like Kwaan the Terrisman might have been looking into or might have known something about Realmatics, like for instance knowing of the Realms and that things have aspects in all three. Is this the case? If so, was such knowledge common among his people or Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Realmatic theory was part of the ancient Terris religion.

Brandon Sanderson

Vin Gives up the Power

Writing toward this scene where Vin would have to take the power, then give it up, was one of my focuses in this novel. I had to get her, as a character, to a point where she'd be able to do something this gut-wrenching.

It was extremely cruel of me. And yet, there's a beauty to being cruel like this to characters. (It's why George R. R. Martin is a genius.) I plotted out this particular plot element from the beginning of the first book, as I wanted to not only upend some fantasy tropes in the series, but approach them from a post-modern perspective. If people are so powerfully motivated by the concept of prophesy and religion, then what better way would there be for a force like Ruin to manipulate them than to use that sensibility against them? In many ways, Book One was my look at the concept of the Dark Lord in fantasy fiction while Book Two is my look at the concept of prophesy as used by fantasy. (Book three is my look at the concept of the hero.)

Brandon Sanderson

By the way–Roial's observation that people who "'turn away from a religion" being its strongest opponents actually applies to a lot of things in life, I think. You'll find no opponent more bitter than the one who used to consider himself your friend.

Shauna Mahana

If you had to pick any one of your characters to be your new best friend (besides your wife) for the rest of your life, who would would it be and what do you imagine would be your weekend "Let's hang out, but I don't want to plan anything, so let's do the 'usual'" ritual?

Brandon Sanderson

I think I'd dig hanging out with Sazed. The usual would be, "tell me about a religion you've studied."

Brandon Sanderson

The Symbol of the Spear

I'm not trying to overtly duplicate Christianity with the spear becoming the symbol of the Church of the Survivor much like the cross became for Christians. It just seemed a very natural symbol, and I do very much like playing with the idea of how a religion grows and changes from a loose set of beliefs into an organized theology.

Argent

We know a bit about the Pathians and the Survivorists in Era 2, but almost nothing about the other major religion of the Basin, Sliverism. Can you share a bit about it and about Marsh's role in it.

Brandon Sanderson

I'd rather not right now. So we'll RAFO that.

Herald (paraphrased)

Have we see [Bavadin's] influence on other worlds till now – like Austre in Nalthis or other religions which Sazed studied on Scadrial for example.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes you have seen her influence in other worlds other than Taldain. He wouldn't confirm if it is Nalthis or Scadrial or any other planet.

Questioner

How do you decide what concepts become Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It took a little bit of work. I basically brainstormed a bunch of attributes of deity that most people had in their religions and see which ones will adapt well to being these concepts.

Brandon Sanderson

Lightsong Sneaks into Mercystar's Palace

Here's the other big place where I cheated just a tad and added Lightsong's dreams of the tunnels and the moon as a reason to get him into the right place at the right time. I added this in a later draft; originally, this was one of my big personal problems with the book: the fact that Lightsong got into just the right place at just the right time. It was just too coincidental, and it always bugged me.

I wasn't paying attention to the tools I'd given myself (as I think I mentioned earlier). If I'm going to go to all this trouble to build a magic system that uses prophecy as a major component of its religion, then I might as well use a few of those prophecies as small plot points. I didn't want them to solve any major problems, but letting Lightsong dream of where he has to be brings nice closure to the entire "What's in those tunnels?" plot while at the same time playing into his quest to determine if he really is a god or not.

Questioner

..One of things I had difficulty with was coming up with names for the characters and seeing how your names are more than just random collections of letters, a lot of them actually have meanings behind them. I was wondering how you were able to do that.

Brandon Sanderson

That's actually a very good question and number one you should keep writing, even if you feel like what you are writing is a rip-off, it is better to finish that first book and be acknowledging your influences because you want to be practicing. And sometimes it is very useful to lean on something else while you do it. In fact this is how Great Masters did artwork, you can find-- I don't know if you guys know this-- various different versions of the Mona Lisa, we saw one in Spain, my wife and I, that was done by DaVinci's student while DaVinci was painting the Mona Lisa. "Here's what I painted now you do it too"  That was the means by which the Great Masters would train their students, so leaning on someone is just fine. You just can't publish it like that, but it can teach you a whole lot. Don't feel bad about that.

Names, I use two general methods, and this is not going to give it the justice it deserves, I'm giving you the five minute version. One version is I look for the linguistic attribute that is interesting to me that will visually distinguish these people on the page. So when you are coming across them and you see that name, I want you to say "I bet that they're from this country". That is really tough because that means they all have to feel similar but you can't let everyone get confused over who's who and that's the real challenge, it's the getting confused. For instance in Warbreaker I tried using some different things like we don't in our world. In Warbreaker I used repeated consonant sounds, so you get someone like Vivenna, when you see that double v, you are like she must be-- Llarimar, there's a double L, you pronounce them both out. T'telir. And when you get double repeated consonants you are like "Oh they are from this region, that makes sense to me even though they start with different letter there is something to them" The same sort of thing is supposed to happen in The Way of Kings, you see names that are mostly symmetrical. When you see something like Shallan and her name is a derivation of Shalash, who was one of the Heralds and its a symmetrical name. When you see something that reads almost, or does read, forward and backward the same way you are like "They must be either Alethi or they must be-- They've got to be Vorin because that is the Vorin religion influencing this". And hopefully it will give you some subconscious cue when you run across those names and you'll get it.

Now a way to do this that is easier is than doing all of that is going to take a lot of work linguistically is to go get yourself a nice atlas and say everyone from this country is going to have names that are analogous to this region in our world and I am then going to take this atlas and look for these names and use baby names from that culture... I did this in Emperor's Soul, I just picked ancient Persia, I picked people who lived there in this era and what they named their cities there and I'm going to take those words and I'm going to screw with them until it is not actually a word but it feels like it might be one. That way everyone from this region is going to feel like they've got a similar name. Or I can just-- For that book it was much easier because the linguistics were not as big a deal.  I could basically just crib off the bat. And that works very well also.

Sometimes I do it intentionally, Mistborn was supposed to evoke a sense of 1820's Paris, or London, that was what I was shooting for with the grime and the dirt, the ash falling. So I used French names and Germanic names and Spanish names and things like this, so when you run into Vin, Vin is just wine in French and Kelsier [Kelsi-ay] is how they would say-- you can say Kelsier [Kelsi-er] if you want-- and they have Kelsier and Demoux so you can go "Oh this is a French sounding region" so when you get some like Elend and Straff you are like "They are from a different region. They sound like the eat meat and potatoes and they try to conquer Europe periodically, those guys" *laughter* That helps you distinguish the regions very easily.

Questioner

I was curious about how you see your writing and your job in context of your discipleship.

Brandon Sanderson

I think that making good on talents you're given is a very important thing. I think art is good for art's sake, and it is an innate and inherent good. Expressing who you are in fiction and exploring who other people are brings us together, makes us closer, makes us understand people when you read fiction written about people very different from yourself. I think pure religion will try to understand other people's viewpoints and listen. So I think that that is all very important, and I think that fiction is comfort in a lot of people's lives

I don't sit down to write a book and say, "My job is to convert anybody, or to preach." I try to present the world as it is through lots of different people's eyes, and I think that is an innate good. This is the big argument that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had, though. They were on different sides of that argument. What is the nature of allegory in fiction. I err a little more on Tolkien's side.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, now, I know you're going to laugh at me here. However, I suppose you deserve to know the whole story of this book. After all, I told you about the whole "Adonis" thing.

Well, the thing is, the first version of the book included about two pages of poetry from Wyrn the King. I think every prose writer goes through a stage where we think, for some reason, that we have a talent for poetry. It's doubly bad in fantasy, where we've all read Tolkien, and felt like adding poems, songs, and the like to our stories.

The thing is, most of us aren't very good at it. Wyrn the King was a narrative alliterative poem patterned after Beowulf, and it was TERRIBLE. I might be masochistic enough to post it in the "deleted scenes" section of the website. I'm honestly not sure yet. (Actually, I wrote the poem as a college assignment. I wiggled out of doing something research-oriented by somehow convincing my teacher that I deserved to do a creative project instead. When I finished, I felt a little bit obliged to stick it in my current book, as I'd told my teacher I would. Sorry, Dr. Thursby, but. . .uh. . .it didn't make the final cut.)

Anyway, there was a point behind sticking the poem in the text, even if I completely overshadowed it by including so many lines of poetry. This section is really all we get in the book itself about Fjorden's past. As I've explained in the annotations, Fjorden switched to Shu-Dereth to do its conquering, relying on religion rather than armies. When they did so, they went back and rewrote many of their great classics. (Orwell would be proud of them.)

This is actually based on some events in our world. Some scholars think that Beowulf underwent similar revision, the monks who copied and translated it adding Christian symbolism to the text. After all, no great artist could possibly have been a true pagan. Everyone knows that Aristotle was a Christian–and he died before Christ was even born!

Questioner

With Alloy of Law, with Wayne, how do you come up with that character? *laughter* And those things that he says? 

Brandon Sanderson

So, yeah, Wayne's one of those characters. So, there are certain standards to which I hold almost all of my characters in my books. Wayne isn't one of them. He gets away with more.

So, where'd Wayne come from? The original concept for Wayne was, when I was working on the Mistborn books-- For those who don't know, I originally pitched Mistborn to my editor, Moshe, as a trilogy of trilogies: Past, Present, Future. Epic fantasy trilogy, urban fantasy trilogy, science fiction trilogy, set in the same world, with advancing technology in which the magic becomes the foundation for space travel. And the original idea that the epic fantasy trilogy becomes the foundation of myth and religion in the modern day trilogy. So, I told him all this, and he said, "Wow. You're ambitious." This was after he had read Elantris and was trying to figure out what else to buy from me.

And so, as I was working on The Stormlight Archive, I realized I wanted something from the Mistborn world to balance Stormlight, because Stormlight books are big and involved and take, like, years of writing to get done, and I didn't want to be alternating thick, long, books in two series, I kinda wanted to have a shorter, more fast-paced series to balance out the bigger, longer series. And so, the first thing I started doing, the first idea for Wayne, was a person whose personality changed based on hats he put on. And he was actually originally a hat maker. And I wrote, like, three pages of this, and he was just too kooky. He was great, but I was pouring too much into him. I needed: number one, to kinda pull back on the concept in that original; and number two, I needed multiple characters around him. By the way, he was riding around on a talking horse at that point, because he was a kandra.

Yeah, it was a really weird scene. It was wacky. And that's when I said, "All right, I'm gonna sit down and write an actual novel, not just exploratory scenes." And that's where I built Wax and Wayne, and kind of, the play off of each other, and things like that. So, they kind of grew out of each other, and out of that first scene that I wrote. 

Brandon Sanderson

Rumors of a New Survivor

Oh, and uh . . . I should talk about the chapter, eh? Well, I needed Sazed and Breeze to start hearing the rumors about Spook, but I didn't want them to figure out that those rumors were actually about Spook quite yet. I liked the connection between Spook and the Survivor, so I extrapolated how the religion would deal with new leaders and new mystical forces. And the Survivor of the Flames was born. Ta-da!

Khyrindor (paraphrased)

Shards can talk to dead people. Are the Tranquiline Halls where everyone in the cosmere goes when they die? Or does each world have its own heaven.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There is an afterlife that is not heaven that the Shards don't know about, or can't look into. Each world has its own heaven depending on its religions. The real afterlife is different across the cosmere, and the Tranquiline Halls are different.

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't originally intend for Hrathen to have a seon. However, as I was working on this chapter, I realized how much sense it made. It lends a bit of hypocrisy to the Derethi religion, and I found that I liked that a great deal. The seon also allowed me to move more quickly with Hrathen's plans. I couldn't have made the storyline nearly as compact if Hrathen didn't have access to a seon.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eight

The economy of Arelon is one of the interesting features of this book. Even still, I'm not certain if I made things a little too odd here. The idea of nobility being tied directly to money is described so often by the characters that I worry that readers will think the system too foolish to have arisen. However, I think that by establishing the king as a former merchant—and by pointing out how the system was created quickly, to fill the void after the fall of Elantris—I manage to keep the economic and social situation in Arelon within the realm of possibility.

I think that too often fantasy writers are content with simply throwing in a slightly-original spin on magic—ignoring the fact that their cultures, governments, and religions are derivative. There is this idea of the "general" fantasy world, and writers draw upon it. However, I think an interesting cultural element can be just as fascinating—and as useful to the plot—as an interesting magic system. In the best cases, the two are inter-woven, like what one can find in brilliant genre books like Dune.

Of course, the strange economic/governmental system of the book is only a descendant of another strange economic/governmental system. Sarene and Lukel discuss a few of the problems presented by having a race of people who can create whatever they want through use of magic. I don't get to deal with that aspect of AonDor very much in this particular book, since the novel is set during a time when the magic of Elantris doesn't work. However, there are a lot of interesting ramifications AonDor would present for a book set during Elantris' heyday. What good is gold if someone can create it from nothing? In fact, what good is a monetary system at all when everyone can have as much food as they want? What need is there for invention or ingenuity in the face of a group of people who can re-create any good, no matter how complex, with a mere flick of the magical wrist?

The truth behind the Elantrian magical abilities is far more limited than Sarene or Lukel acknowledge in this chapter. If one were to go back fifteen years, one would find that the Elantrians who had the skill to fabricate complex materials "out of nothing" were actually quite rare.

As we learn later in the book, AonDor is a very complicated, difficult skill to master. As I was writing this book, I imagined the complicated Aons that Raoden eventually learns how to draw being only springboards to massive equations that could take weeks to plan out and write. Fabricating something very complex would require a great deal of detail in the AonDor recipe.

Even still, I think the tension between the Elantrians and the merchants is a natural outgrowth of this situation.

Questioner

I was wondering if you could talk a little about expletives and blasphemy?

Brandon Sanderson

*amusedly* Expletives and blasphemy... So, It's really interesting, one of the first things that I think about when I'm coming up with a fantasy world is "How would they-- How do they curse?". And I don't know why this happens to me, but it feels like you can build out and extrapolate a lot about a culture from what they curse by, and how they curse. And it's become a thing. Like in one of my short stories I did I used *stumbles over words* saying "hell take you" to someone was a compliment because they didn't want to go to heaven because there was a god-king they hated. They were like "We don't want to go where he is so hell must be the better place". Which was a lot of fun to me in coming up with that. Or other ones I have them curse by in-world and sometimes I just use the biblical curses, the damns and hells and things like that. Why do I use those? I use those in Mistborn because I was writing about a bunch of thieves living on the streets and when I tried to use kind-of more fantasy-ish curse words it just felt fake for them. And yet it didn't feel fake when I started using "Merciful Domi" in Elantris because the religion of that world was so important to all the people that they would use the name of their own deity.So this is just something I kind of dance around and it's very interesting to me being a religious person myself. I will sometimes never-- like I don't use the curses that my characters will, but I'm not my characters and things like this. So it's something I think about, perhaps way too much, is how are the people going to curse in these books. That's a very good question.

Phillip Carroll

I think Zach designed Flagship around his beliefs. Our goal is to have stories that are uplifting, that are a positive nature. You know, there's a dark side to everything, but we want it coming out as a positive experience, or outlook on mankind. He mentions that Dave Farland says you need to make moral choices about what you write, and what you advocate in your books. Do you feel like you have that opinion as well? Do you feel like your religion flows over into your writing at all at any point?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. I don't go into books with a message. At the same time, I like to read about heroism, and I like to read about moral choices. I like to read about all spectra of moral choice, honestly. I like to approach an issue and say, you know there's going to be five or six valid points on this same issue, and everyone is going to think that their side is the moral side, and I want, in my books, each one to have a legitimate ground to stand on. I don't want to be picking a side necessarily; I want to be offering the item up for discussion. I think that true morality is making you think and consider your actions as opposed to just doing them, and I think there's a real strong morality to forcing you to see other perspectives and other sides. So I would say that I like my fiction to be moral but from that definition of moral. I don't look at my fiction as necessarily teaching people which way to act, though I do think about it a lot. I think about what my role is as someone who is writing fiction that people are reading and experiencing, and what influence I have over them, and what responsibility that affects upon me. These are all very important things that I think about quite a bit. At the end of the day I want to tell a great story about characters you care about, who sometimes think differently than you do.

Questioner

I've been thinking about Idealism as a philosophy and how the concept of the... Cognitive Realm is sort of like a very realistic version of Idealism. Is there any influence there at all?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, definitely. I was a closet philosophy major in college. I didn't actually do that, but I attended a lot of philosophy classes. And I'll tell you this, philosophers don't know to write. That's the most annoying part. You read their essays, and they're full of brilliant ideas, with these enormous run-on sentences that make no sense. You have to like-- So I got really frustrated by that. But I really loved the classes and reading and things like that, and the touch of it is all over my books. If you look for it, you'll find a lot of the different philosophies, you'll find all those guys in different places on different philosophers and different religions and stuff like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifteen

Miles talks with Suit, gets two minders, then burns gold to see two versions of himself

One curiosity of dealing only with Mistings, rather than full Mistborn, was what to do with the less powerful metals. Certainly a Pewterarm or a Tineye can be useful. We've seen them in the series do plenty of interesting things.

But what about a person who can burn only gold? I think there's just one place in the entire first trilogy where someone does it, the time Vin burns it in the first book. (I may have put a second time in; I don't recall.) Gold, as a power, was placed into the schematics to give a clue as to what the Eleventh Metal was. Beyond that, I wanted some of the powers of Allomancy to be more metaphysical, more thoughtful, and less about combat.

I'd already decided that Miles would be a Gold Compounder, capable of the Lord Ruler's healing. That meant he had to be a gold Misting. What would one do, with this power? Ignore it? Was there a way to use it? His nature as a gold Misting is a large part of why Miles is such a thoughtful, introspective person. He is not a good man, but he is a self-reflecting one.

There's more going on here, of course. Pay attention to the name he mentions: Trell. This is one of the gods from the ancient religions Sazed talked about. You might think that the spikes in Miles will let Sazed influence him directly, and they would—except that Sazed has taken a complete "free will is needed" perspective on life. He won't let himself take control of people directly unless they've "given themselves" to him, as most of the kandra have at this point. Even then, he usually only nudges.

But there is something odd going on with Miles.

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

I asked about the importance of a lot of the religion from the "Final Empire Era" Scadrial. I pointed out that there were a lot of little nods and references to other shardworlds.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He assured me that there was something there, perhaps not anything as big as I was hoping for, but definitely more than just "Easter eggs!"

Patrick

In Elantris and Mistborn it felt more like the world was there to support the story and characters, but outside the locales the characters were in little was revealed about them. The Way of Kings feels much more expansive, with a vast continent packed with different cultures, races, religions and so on. Was this simply a natural development of needing a world that could support ten long novels, or was there some other motive in making Roshar so much more detailed?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to reverse-engineer your question. When I wrote Elantris and Mistborn, I intentionally kept the world more sparse. The goal particularly of Mistborn was, "I'm going to take an epic fantasy story and condense it into three novels." The focus for me in those novels was plot. Of course I wanted to have great characters and great magic, but there was more of a plot focus, and I didn't want the world to distract. It was a conscious decision in Mistborn.

When I sat down and wrote The Way of Kings, the plan from the start to do ten books influenced how I approached the world. But really, the world of Roshar is such a big part of the story, and of the history and the mysteries of the series, that I wanted it to be full and immersive. Immersion was one of my main driving forces. With Mistborn, one of my main driving forces was to keep it moving. I hope The Way of Kings still feels fast-paced, but it's a thousand pages long, twice as long as Mistborn. A lot of that extra space is dedicated to fleshing out the world and making it feel like a real place, because that's very important for the series. When I write a book, I look at what the book needs and what is required by the story I'm trying to achieve. Another valid element is that when I wrote Mistborn, I was a newer writer. Writing The Way of Kings, I'm more experienced. I think I'm better at making this sort of decision now, and I felt I could tackle in this book the sorts of things that I couldn't achieve in Mistborn.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty-Two - Part Two

Raoden's Teleportation

I had to work very hard to make this one work. I think it turned out, but it is a little bit of a stretch. Hopefully, readers will go with me on this one because of the climactic feeling of the near-ending.

Regardless, I do think I gave Raoden all the pieces he needed here. Adien always existed in the book for this one moment–to give Raoden the length measurement he needed to go try to save Sarene. I've established that seons have perfect senses of direction, and I've talked about how to use Aon Tia. More importantly, I think I've established that this is something that Raoden would do. He gets just a shade foolhardy when Sarene is concerned. (It's all her fault.)

There is another important element to this teleportation. I thought it important to involve deity in the climax of what has been such an overtly religious book. You may not believe in God, and it is never my intention to belittle your choices. However, the format of this book has been one that dealt with religion and the way that people interact with their faith. And so, I took this last moment of the book, and gave Raoden an opportunity to call upon the aid of providence.

Raoden arrives safely, despite the odds against his having gotten the distance, direction, and other factors right. You are free to simply think of this as luck, if you wish.

Brandon Sanderson

Breeze's Relationship with Sazed

Breeze reacts strongly upon entering the storage cache because this is the first time he's seen one of them. At the end of book two, if you'll recall, he was left psychologically shaken to the point of being unable to function. I thought about playing with that as a character trait for this book, but decided—as I've mentioned before—that I already had too many viewpoint characters.

So anyway, after book two closed, Sazed too was left dazed and frustrated—by the loss of Tindwyl. In order to keep from getting lost, he dedicated himself to nursing Breeze back to health, alongside writing fact sheets on all of his religions. Breeze and Sazed formed quite a bond of friendship during this period, as both reacted to the trauma of the siege of Luthadel. Allrianne was there, of course, helping with Breeze—but she's not particularly good at the whole "helping someone recover from intense trauma" thing.

Breeze never visited the storage cache in Luthadel. By the time he was feeling well enough to be mobile, that topic was blasé, and Elend needed him to go on ambassadorial trips. Breeze asked to bring Sazed along, which seemed a good fit, and the two of them have been pretty much hanging out together since then.

Mason Wheeler

We’re told that anyone pierced by metal is vulnerable to the influence of Ruin and Harmony, but in every case that we actually see it’s not just pierced by metal but an active Hemalurgical spike.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is what they mean. So “Anyone pierced by metal can’t be trusted” means “That might be a spike”.

Mason Wheeler

So why does the Path say “everyone wear an earring when you pray” if it’s not...

Brandon Sanderson

It’s tradition. Just in the same reason that you wear a cross when you’re Christian and things like this. Like this has become part of the religion.

Questioner

I teach at university, and I had to grade a paper about Way of Kings. It dealt with Colonial and post-colonial structures, religion, fashion, and language. Did you do that consciously or subconsciously, especially the colonization part?

Brandon Sanderson

It's very conscious, that part. The Alethi are in part, based on the Mongols, particularly when the Mongols invaded China, then became Chinese culture, which I find a very fascinating period in history, where the Mongols became a Chinese Dynasty, they actually also became an Arab dynasty over in the Near East. It was just this really interesting thing. So you've got colonialism before colonialism happening there. And I was very aware with the subtext of the Parshendi being a major theme of a people that didn't just enslaved a people, they enslaved them and took away their minds, that I couldn't shy away from dealing with these topics and these concepts. You see as the series progresses, it becomes-- You've got people like Kaladin who are essentially good people, but not understanding at all even their own biases, which is how we all are. These are things I want to deal with, because I find them interesting. They're important now, but it's, I think, important to how humans work and interact and see the world. Because I think this has been happening since the beginning of our history as human beings. And so it's something that is fascinating to me, and something that I think a lot of us wrestle with, and I wanted my characters to deal with that.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eleven

OreSeur

If I ever do any short stories in the Mistborn world, one I would like to write would be from OreSeur's viewpoint near the end of the events of book one.

He was a complex individual, a true kandra in many ways—but also a rebel. It was no accident that he was assigned to Kelsier's team, who were planning to overthrow the empire. OreSeur was one of the only kandra willing to take that Contract, and he came out of a long retirement in the Homeland to accept it.

His motivations were his own, and I'd like to explore them. What would a kandra think, joining a movement to overthrow the Father of his own religion? What would he think when that movement actually succeeded? How would he react to, then, being assigned to care for the woman who had held the spear that killed the Lord Ruler?

Many of the Third Generation, TenSoon and OreSeur included, weren't as devout in their dedication to the Lord Ruler as many others. OreSeur himself had seen what the Lord Ruler had done to the world and the people in it. And yet, fighting against the man who was revered by his people in such a holy light?

Anyway, it would make for a good story. I can't tell it here, unfortunately, but maybe somewhere else I will.

Eventually, I'll explain why the kandra think that they are of Preservation, when the other races are of Ruin. We'll get to that, don't worry. Just watch for it in the text of the book.

Questioner

So is there a third law of magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes there is. I don't have a pithy way to say it yet.

Questioner

Do you want to try to describe it anyways?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the best magic systems are interconnected with the world, the society, the culture, and the development of the setting as a whole. The next level you want to think about is how does your magic affect your gender roles, how does it affect your governments, your religions, all these things.

Questioner

And how those things affect the magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. But I don't have a pithy way to say it, so once I come up with a good pithy way to say it, then I can actually write it.

Mad Hatter

Weather is a major force in The Way of Kings since that is where they derive their magic powers from. Also, the mythology of the series most people believe they are descended from others who lived in another world similar to heaven, but were thrown out of because of the Voidbringers. Reincarnation seems to be a theme as well. All these ideas follow along with Norse mythology to a degree. Was that intentional or just a byproduct of the evolution to this world?

Brandon Sanderson

Half and half. I am steeped in mythology, and I enjoy reading about it. I’m absolutely in love with the idea of Valhalla and Ragnarok. But this was not me saying I’m going to copy Norse mythology. Whatever I’ve read can pop into my head. You’ll probably see a bunch of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism too if you look for it. But it was me drawing on various sources, and also just trying to make my own thing. Yes, there’s certainly a Norse aspect to a lot of the weather magic and things like that, but it’s more that I wanted to tell a story about a world that got hit by these magical hurricanes every few days. Weather being such a force is going to therefore be an aspect of the religion, the belief systems, and the day-to-day workings of the people who live in that world. So it was partially natural outgrowth and partially my love and fondness for things that I’ve read.

Questioner

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.

Brandon Sanderson

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.