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Pat's Fantasy Hotlist Interview ()
#104 Copy

Patrick

The settings of your novels often seem to be something quite different. It seems the majority of fantasy are basically earth with magic and maybe some cool animals to go along. The Way of Kings just feels different (and the Mistborn books for that matter)—harsher, darker, almost like what we would like call a wasteland. How and why did you create the world The Way of Kings in this way? The landscape of the Shattered Plains is especially unusual and evocative. Was it inspired by the landscape of the American Midwest?

Brandon Sanderson

The Southwest, particularly. My visits to places like Arches National Park, relatively close to where I live right now, certainly influenced me. More than that—and I've said this in numerous interviews before—I'm a fantasy reader foremost. Before I was a writer I was a reader, and I'm still a reader. As a reader, I grew a little bit annoyed with the generic setting that seemed to recur a lot in fantasy. I won't speak poorly of writers who used it very well—there are certain writers who used it extremely well—and yet a lot of other writers seemed to just take for granted that that's what you did. Which is not the way that I feel it should be done. I think that the genre could go many places it hasn't been before.

When I approached writing the Stormlight Archive—when I approached creating Roshar—I very consciously said, "I want to create something that feels new to me." I'm not the only one who does this, and I'm certainly not the one who does it best, but I wanted a world that was not medieval Europe. At all. I wanted a world that was its own thing. I started with the highstorms and went from there. To a person of our world, Roshar probably does look barren like a wasteland. But to the people living there, it's not a barren wasteland. This is a lush world full of life. It's just that what we equate with lush and full of life is not how that world defines it. In Roshar, a rock wall can be a lush, vibrant, and fertile place. It may look like a wasteland to us, but we're seeing through the eyes of someone who's used to Earth's flora and fauna. I've also said before in interviews that science fiction is very good at giving us new things. I don't see why fantasy shouldn't be as good at doing the same. Perhaps even better. So that's what was driving me to do what I did.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

Why do female*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Well, there are several answers to this. The Alethi would say it is because it is the only way to be modest. But that's not the real answer. The writerly answer, which is also not the real answer, is that I grew fascinated by interesting social taboos by traveling to other countries where, for instance in many countries showing the bottom of your feet to people is insulting, and stuff like that. But the actual answer is that, you saw the events after the Recreance when the Knights Radiant abandoned their shards and, at that point, some people in power realized that if they could eliminate women from picking up the shards then it was twice as likely that they would get one. And so they started popularizing a work, an essay by a woman who had talked about feminine arts were one-handed, painting and things like this, and masculine arts were two-handed, breaking rocks and fighting and stuff like this, and they popularized that and some of the women who were involved in this seized writing, in this division, as a feminine thing. So there were both men and women involved in this sort of split that was kind of a conscious attempt to struggle power, or struggle the power in different ways, and that became not just a thing that people talked about, but an actual feature in the society moving forward.

General Reddit 2016 ()
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trevorade

I read Perfect State when it came out. Reading your annotations and the deleted scene has jogged my memory. Honestly, I never made the connection that Sophie was Melhi for all intents and purposes. I believed Melhi's facade and thought he was simply a crazed do-no-gooder (I totally forgot that the Wode mentioned Melhi's gender).

Reading the deleted scene makes things alot clearer though. I was chatting with a friend about the deleted scene and we agreed that we're glad it was omitted. It smelled too much of the Matrix and, worse, it cheapened Kai's betrayal. That is, "Sophie" didn't really die. The person that Kai found attractive due to her outlook and personality was in fact not a creation on Melhi's part to simply hurt Kai but was Melhi being her honest self (I imagine it's much easier to just be yourself then construct a person as realistic as Sophie). Melhi being Sophie undoes the reversal of Sophie being a robot. Shadows of Self spoiler: It'd be like if at the end, after the Lessie/Paalm reveal, we find out it's really a different Kandra after all.

Regardless, the deleted scene interests me and leaves me wanting a sequel.

Edit: More thoughts. I appreciate understanding Melhi's motivation for how and why she does what she does. I don't think I picked up on that. Again, I took Melhi at face-value. I would say that Melhi is pretty selfish though. She feels she knows best for everyone else. That it's better for others to feel the same way about being a brain in a jar as she does. This is obviously an opinion though as any revolutionary can be viewed as a traitor.

Brandon Sanderson

I think your analysis is spot on, both about what the scene does to the story, and Melhi's character. I would call her selfish, but in an approaching self-aware way.

Either way, I'm glad to have this out there, but--though I go back and forth on it--I'm mostly glad that I left it out of the official release of the story.

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

I had a question about how the Alethi women exhibit their wealth through their dresses. So I know there’s embroidery in the fabric and the fact that you're kind of disabling one arm? But besides that?

Brandon Sanderson

So gemstones, like well cut gemstones and then fill them with Stormlight. 

Questioner

Oh ok, but they're round, so...

Brandon Sanderson

No no, not the spheres, the actual stones. Gemstone rocks will still hold-- The sphere is just the way to make sure you don't lose them, you can make any sort of jewellery or gemstone, in your hair or anything like that, glowing would be how they would show off their wealth.

Shadows of Self London UK signing ()
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Neuxue

Does Roshar have a magnetic field?  

Brandon Sanderson

Um, Roshar, magnetic field, yes, it does. Yes. Yeah it does  

Neuxue

You said at one point that it is all one plate--  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Neuxue

--that there's no tectonic activity. What is the interior of the planet like?  

Brandon Sanderson

That’s a good question... You're not going to get an answer on that one. It's a weird planet, let's just say that. It's a pretty weird planet

Neuxue

Are the diamonds naturally occurring?  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but most are going to be-- They aren't-- all gemstones are naturally occurring, but most of, many or most of, the gems they are getting they are getting from creatures that grow them, not from the rock. Though there are mines on Roshar, you just have to-- most of them are on the leeward side of mountains, where the crem isn't being deposited.

Neuxue

So, diamond mines are about tectonics--

Brandon Sanderson

It was a created planet, keep that in mind.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
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Questioner

In Stormlight, with Kaladin and his brother Tien, is there a connection or a reason why, whenever his brother finds a rock, that keeps coming up several times?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So, there's a couple themes going on here. One is just the subtle theme that Tien tends to find beauty in things that Kaladin finds dull. That's, of course, kind of the metaphor. But Tien also was a budding Lightweaver, and he saw color and light a little bit differently than other people did. And he has the same general effect that you'll see Shallan having on people, which is how the Lightweaver views you influences a little bit more how your mood is, and things like that... And there is a magical element to that, as well. There's both a metaphoric reason and an in-world reason.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

Do you know how you're going to write how Hoid travels between worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes I do. Yes. Yes there's a big clue in [Words of Radiance]. There is a very big clue in the very first book I published.

Footnote: We know now that the trick is to jump into shardpools, or "perpendicularities". We see one in Elantris and Rock tells a story of Hoid coming out of one in WoR
General Reddit 2013 ()
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Slug_Laton_Rocking

Are you tempted to write some content for an RPG like Patrick Rothfuss is doing for Torment? Love the books by the way.

Brandon Sanderson

The thing that would most tempt me would be doing Magic: The Gathering content, as that is my nerd obsession. I could foresee doing some kind of RPG content, however. Depends on the project and how behind on things I'm feeling.