Wyndlerunner
Have we seen Voidbinding in action?
Brandon Sanderson
I'll RAFO that also.
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Have we seen Voidbinding in action?
I'll RAFO that also.
In Book One, Taravangian was talking to Szeth, when Szeth confronts him at the end. He talks about the Lifebrother; but we haven’t heard any other references since then.
You have not. That’s a RAFO.
I ask this in a vague manner intentionally, but can we expect to see the Shardplate spren of other Orders being able to do different things on command depending on the kind of spren? Kind of like how Kaladin commanded the windspren to form plate on others and hold back the storm?
RAFO!
In Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, they use silver to fight Shades. I'm wondering if that's actual silver or they just call it silver and it's a mysterious metal that's known to fall from the sky.
It's a good question. I have it as actual silver.
Would it be effective, at fighting...if you wanted to harm a spren or seon or other types of Cognitive Shadow?
RAFO.
In Rhythm of War, why did the anti-Voidlight not react with the raysium in the dagger?
I will RAFO that for now. Good question, but... yeah, there's some reasons here.
Is Cultivation's Shardpool on the Horneater Peaks? Is Honor's Shardpool the Origin?
I don't want to say where the Shardpools [Perpendicularities] are yet, good guesses. RAFO.
Is Mraize the leader of the Ghostbloods, or is there someone higher up in the organization? Is it Thaidakar?
Sanderson: There is someone higher up. RAFO on Thaidakar.
What it is that determines how skilled a Shard is at reading the future? For example, why is Ruin so bad at it, and why are Odium and Preservation both so good at it despite being so different?
RAFO.
When did Nazh and Khriss meet?
RAFO
Is Hoid, Handerwym?
[laughs] Handerwym is not Hoid. Handerwym is snarky on his own.
But he is a worldhopper?
Thats...hmmm [gives RAFO card]
Is he native to Scadrial?
He is native to Scadrial.
A couple years ago, someone asked the question of the creature that was pulling on Shallan as she first entered Shadesmar. Is that Ba-Ado-Mishram? Is she trapped in Shadesmar under the beads?
Ooh, RAFO. Good question.
What happens when you look at a kandra who has eaten another person while you're burning malatium?
*laughs* That's a RAFO.
Is Hoid's hair color naturally white?
Yes, now.
Now? Does he have a counterpart who has black hair somewhere?
RAFO.
The spores react to water with sudden growth, which is very similar to Dayside lichen. Is the lichen an aether, or significantly related to the aethers?
Read the book. That's a RAFO, but there are some clues in Secret Project One.
Would a larken be able to steal Investiture from Nightblood, or would it be like a planet trying to steal from a black hole?
That's a RAFO. :)
I have a question about the Sibling, actually. So, do you-- Can you say something about who or what the Sibling is?
Who or what the Sibling is? I can tell you, the Sibling will be a matter of discussion in a future novel of The Stormlight Archive. That's a RAFO. You will find out a lot more as the narrative progresses. The Sibling is very relevant, but I don't want to say too much right now.
There is a lot of rumors that there's something going on...
..Saying too much about the Sibling is gonna give big spoilers, so I'm just gonna stay quiet on it, alright?
All right, folks! Time for the fifth update. This should be the last one that I post before some redditor inevitably beats me to the "It's Done!" post by watching my twitter feed very closely.
I do hope to post another update or two during the next year, discussing how the editing and publication process is proceeding.
Part Four is done as of half an hour ago. The part is around 80k words long, and brings the book total so far to 420k words. Final book is still projected at 450k, though I do plan to try to trim it back in revision. (Tor's book binding company can't do a book longer than Words of Radiance, so if I go longer, we have to shrink the font or change binders. I won't cut important parts of the book just to meet this length requirement, but I also generally need to trim significantly in revisions to tighten language.)
Part Four turned out very well, and I'm very pleased with the book so far. I consider it as strong, or stronger than, book two. I also don't see any major structural or characterization problems that will slow editing. (So far, my editor's comments on Parts One and Two have been minor, save for the slow-down in Part Two that I was aware of--and probably don't mind existing, since Parts Three and Four are much faster, and the characterization in Part Two is strong.)
If you're following the Visual Outline from the second update, there structure of the book has undergone some revisions as I've worked through it. It now looks something more like this
Unlisted is that I nudged one flashback into Part Five. Shown is that Secondary Main character #2 had their viewpoint stretched through all five parts, but has a slightly smaller number of viewpoints in all of them. I juggled tertiary characters, making Parts Two and Four the expansive ones (with many viewpoints) and Parts One and Three the narrow ones (with a focus only on the main characters.) Yes, this is complicated, and you don't need to pay any attention to it. I posted this for those who like to dig into these things.
I'm going to power forward into Part Five starting tonight, then do a second draft of Parts Four and Five together. (I'm not sure why I'm treating those like proper nous.) After I turn that in, I will still need to write the prologue, some of the interludes, and the epigraphs. (Those little bits of text at the starts of chapters.)
And then, revisions. My favorite part. Yay.
As with previous threads, I'll try to post answers to questions where I can--but I have to balance that with the actual writing, so some questions will go unanswered or get a quick RAFO. I apologize in advance for that. Despite jokes to the contrary, I really am just one person, and I can't do ALL THE THINGS, as much as I would like to.
Also, thank you to the community for your kind words. I know that people joke about my writing speed, but this book has taken over a year of dedicated writing--and that's not counting the year before of outlining and writing out some of Kaladin's chapters. It's been two full years of work, and then some, to finish this book. With another six months of revision ahead. Together with other projects, that will make three and a half years between books two and three. So I do beg your patience with this series. The books take a lot out of me, and while I'm very proud of the result--and consider this series to be my opus--the novels aren't going to be terribly fast in their release schedule.
How much Sazed is aware to Hoid and Hoid's action and what does he think about him?
He is aware. More is RAFO. :)
I was curious, what would happen if a full Mistborn burned lerasium? What would the Allomantic powers be?
Oohh, excellent, excellent question. So, I have not revealed what lerasium does if you already have Investiture. So, the answer to that is a RAFO. We've actually had like three people ask that tonight, so there must have been a discussion on the Sh-- the forums about it and I didn't answer them, so I can't answer you.
How many different types of Aviar are there, and what do they all do?
This is a RAFO because I haven't even decided yet. What I decided is that there are dozens upon dozens of different kinds of Aviar. So what that tells me is, I don't want to nail down what all of them do, because if I do, then I might need one for a story in the future. So, this is kind of how-a-sausage-is-made sort of thing. It is on a magic system like this where I'm saving to maybe talk about more in the future, I don't nail things down. When I need to write an entire series, it's something I often will, nail everything down. But when there are as many Aviar as there potentially are, I'm not gonna do that. So, you may imagine powers that may come to exist in the future, but I'm not gonna tell you what they all are.
The Hallandren believe that the Returned are sent back in part to give up their Divine Breath at an appointed time. Was or is there such an appointed time for Vasher's Divine Breath?
RAFO. This is a Hallandren belief; it may or may not be true.
If spren are attracted by emotions, then why hasn't a Vulcan type society arisen on Roshar?
RAFO.
In May, in Germany, you told me that... or I asked whether Wisdom was a Shard, and you said it was or something like it, and that wisdom was close to an intent of a Shard, and you also told me that it has realized that survival isn't necessarily the most important thing for it. I wanted to ask whether it has realized that over time or was it from the get go?
Over time.
Okay, so then naturally, my next question: Is it the survival Shard?
RAFO.
And then somebody actually came up with another good probable name. Is Prudence close?
Prudence sounds an awful lot like a Shard name. That's some excellent theorizing there.
Is this (see sources) a valid breakdown of known Rosharan Magic? The idea here is that two Shards on Scadriel gave us 3 systems - two mono-shardic and one di-shardic. Mono-shardic systems being each shard expressing itself, and multi-shardic systems arising from an interaction between the two. So by that logic, on Roshar, 3 shards should give us 3 mono-shardic, 3 di-shardic, and 1 tri-shardic systems. It is mentioned that Odium (the Void) is bound by the powers of Honor and Cultivation. With the caveat that the Everstorm is also probably in between Honor and Odium?
RAFO. I'd suggest the chart is worth studying, however.
Could a drab become a Returned?
RAFO!
Why didn't Harmony heal or change *inaudible*? [from notes: Why didn't Harmony change Southerners on Scadrial?]
That is a RAFO. Good question.
Could Honor have made an Honorblade granting all the Surges at once, rather than just two? If so, why didn't he do that?
RAFO.
Good questions! The vowels don't affect the glyphs any more than the consonants do. I'm going to RAFO about the glyphs relationship with Thaylen. You're on the right track, however, on half of the word being written and then mirrored. That said, please remember that glyphs aren't meant to be read or even deciphered. They're learned in the same way that we can look at dozens of stylized pictures of cats and still be able to tell that it's a cat.
So, you've said that glyphs are not meant to be read several times, and I know that, but I think I've been misunderstanding you. I've been assuming they are just too complex and decorated - like an extravagant font. Are you saying they are not a hard writing system instead?
There are obviously some rules to how the glyphs are designed, but does your reply mean that there is always a little bit of "I'll do what looks cool"? Kind of like how the band Koяn decided to flip the "R" - it's still recognizable enough, but there's no rule that says when you can and can't do that?
Let's see if I can explain further. Glyphs are recognized rather than read. If you learn the letters in an alphabet and you come upon an unfamiliar word, you can be reasonably certain you'll know how to pronounce it if you're already fluent in the language. You can at least read it, and you might know from context what it means. Glyphs are different in that if you come upon an unfamiliar glyph you might be able to guess what it means by its shape, but until someone tells you "that glyph means 'soup'" then you're still guessing.
The calligrapher's guild has rules they follow in creating glyphs, and there's a lot of artistic license, like the flipped R in Koяn, for the very reason that the guild isn't expecting people to read the glyphs. Those in the guild--and some scholars who are interested in how glyphs morph over time--might be able to decipher some of the glyphs for academic purposes.
How's that? Any clearer?
It is clearer, yes :( I think we might still bug you every now and then, but I am coming to terms with the idea that we won't get anywhere near the level of understanding we have for the women's script, for example. It just felt so close, with the slight similarities between some glyph components and the Thaylen letters, you know?
There's definitely a relationship between the Thaylen letters and some of the glyph components (although it's not the biggest part of what makes up the glyphs). Imagine if back in the middle ages a culture decided to use some latin letters as the basis for symbols so that it would be easy to mark things for people who don't read. This hypothetical culture threw in a smattering of other alphabets in there too. So, if that sort of thing developed naturally over time with phonemes and symbols getting added as the culture encountered other cultures, then you might get a bit of an idea of what's going on with the glyphs.
I admit I'm still a little confused. The glyphs are recognized based on their shapes, but those shapes also appear to be highly mutable. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two ideas.
If an established glyph can be stylized into a crown, a skyeel, or the other shapes that highprinces use as their symbols, how does someone associate the new shape with the standard one with which they are familiar? Does the stylized version preserve some core recognizable shape (since the constituent graphemes alone wouldn't be enough to decipher the meaning)? Or does each instance of a glyph have to be learned separately?
I agree that those two ideas are hard to reconcile! Let me see if I can explain it a bit more without giving too much away.
There's a calligrapher's guild that creates (and I suspect controls to a certain extent) the official glyphs. If a new glyph needs to be made, they do it in a way they see is proper, based on canonized rules that have developed over time.
That doesn't keep amateur glyphmakers from creating things from time to time, and there's certainly a shift in shape as glyphs morph through the ages. The Guild is probably a lot like the Oxford English Dictionary folks, occasionally canonizing popular but unauthorized glyphs that get used so much that they become ubiquitous.
Usually it's just guild members who are morphing glyphs into poems and such. If a nobleperson wants a glyph for their house, they go to someone authorized by the guild, and they'll stylize things into a crown, a hammer, etc. A good example of this will be seen in one of the pieces of art in the new book. We've seen Dalinar's Tower and Crown. Watch for the Sword and Crown and compare the shapes inside the Sword with the shapes inside the Tower. Maybe that will help with some understanding.
Any other cameos we didn't know?
There are minor cameos to future important people in the cosmere that will eventually be made known. Those are all RAFOs.
If you're talking about friend cameos, I do write a lot of people who are friends, or people in the company, in. I think we've talked about most of those on the streams, so I don't think there are any that you can't find out about very easily. My favorite one is still Dan Wells, who I periodically write into the Stormlight books as a guy who miraculously survives really dangerous encounters. Since his books are all about killing off his friends, I figured I'd let my friends survive, that that would be somehow thematically appropriate for Dan.
I've watched this conversation with interest, and wasn't planning to step in, as it's exactly the sort of thread that's generally better without me. Author intervention can derail a good discussion.
But after considering, I decided I did want to talk about this topic a little. There are two things going on here. One is the mistake I made with Jasnah in Words, which I've mentioned before. One is a larger discussion, relevant to the cosmere.
Warning, WALL OF TEXT. This is me we're talking about.
You see, Jasnah wasn't originally meant to be a fake-out. Jasnah originally was going to go with Shallan to the Shattered Plains--but she was really messing up the outline, diverting attention from Shallan's character arc and pointing it toward Shallan/Jasnah conflicts instead.
My biggest breakthrough when outlining the book in detail was the realization that the book would work so much better if things I'd planned to do with Jasnah in it were diverted to later books. When that came together, WORDS really started working. Hence her jaunt into Shadesmar. I initially wrote the scenes with it being pretty clear to the reader that she was forced to escape--and it was super suspicious that there was no body.
In drafting, however, early readers didn't like how obvious it was that Jasnah would be coming back. I made a crucial mistake by over-reacting to early feedback. I thought, "Well, I can make that more dramatic!" I employed some tools I've learned quite well, and turned that into a scene where the emotion is higher and the death is more powerful.
HOWEVER, I did this without realizing how it mixed with other plotlines--specifically Szeth's resurrection.
We get into sticky RAFO areas here, but one of the biggest themes of the Cosmere is Rebirth. The very first book (Elantris) starts with a character coming back from the dead. (As I've mentioned before, a big part of the inspiration for Elantris was a zombie story, from the viewpoint of the zombie.) Mistborn begins with Kelsier's rebirth following the Pits, and Warbreaker is about people literally called the Returned. (People who die, then come back as gods.) The Stormlight Archive kicks off with Kaladin's rebirth above the Honor Chasm, and Warbreaker is meant as a little foreshadowing toward the greater arc of the cosmere--that of the Shards of Adonalsium, who are held by ordinary people.
Szeth's rebirth, with his soul incorrectly affixed to his body, is one of the things I've been very excited to explore in The Stormlight Archive--and the mistake with Jasnah was letting her return distract from that.
That said, you're not wrong for disliking this theme--there's no "wrong" when it comes to artistic tastes. And I certainly wish I'd looked at the larger context of what happened when I shifted Jasnah's plot in book two. (Doubling down on "Jasnah is dead" for short term gain was far worse than realizing I should have gone with "Jasnah was forced to jump into Shadesmar, leaving Shallan alone." I consider not seeing that to be the biggest mistake I've made in The Stormlight Archive so far.)
However, the story of the cosmere isn't really about who lives or dies. We established early on that there is an afterlife (or, at least, one of the most powerful beings in the cosmere believes there is--and he tends to be a trustworthy sort.) And multiple books are about people being resurrected. What I'm really interested in is what this does to people. Getting given a second try at life, being reborn as something new. (Or, in some cases, as something worse.) The story of the cosmere is about what you do with the time you have, and the implications of the power of deity being in the hands of ordinary people.
More importantly (at least to me) I've always felt character deaths are actually somewhat narratively limp in stories. Perhaps it's our conditioning from things like Gandalf, Obi-Wan, and even Sherlock Holmes. But readers are always going to keep asking, "are they really dead?" And even if they stay dead, I can always jump back and tell more stories about them. The long cycle of comic books over-using resurrection has, I think, also jaded some of us to the idea of character death--but even without things like that, the reader knows they can always re-read the book. And that fan-fiction of the character living will exist. And that the author could always bring them back at any time. A death should still be a good death, mind you--and an author really shouldn't jerk people around, like I feel I did with Jasnah.
But early on, I realized I'd either have to go one of two directions with the cosmere. Either I had to go with no resurrections ever, stay hard line, and build up death as something really, really important. Or I had to shift the conversation of the books to greater dangers, greater stakes, and (if possible) focus a little more on the journey, not the sudden stop at the end.
I went with the latter. This isn't going to work for everyone. I'm fully aware of, and prepared for, the fact that things like Szeth coming back will ruin the stories for some readers. And I do admit, I've screwed it up in places. Hopefully, that will teach me better so that I can handle the theme delicately, and with strong narrative purpose behind the choices I make. But do warn you, there WILL be other resurrections in my books. (Though there are none planned for the near future. I took some extra care with the next few books, after feeling that things happening in Words and the Mistborn series in the last few years have hit the theme too hard.) This is a thing that I do, and a thing that I will continue to do. I consider it integral to the story I'm telling. Hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to achieve these acts with the weight and narrative complexity they deserve.
If it helps, I have several built-in rules for this. The first is that actual cosmere resurrections (rather than just fake-outs, like I did with Jasnah) can happen only under certain circumstances, and have a pretty big cost to them. Both will become increasingly obvious through the course of the stories. The other rule is more meta. I generally tell myself that I only get one major fake-out, or one actual resurrection, per character. (And I obviously won't use either one for most characters.) This is more to keep myself from leaning on this narrative device too much, which I worry I'll naturally do, considering that I see this as a major theme of the books.
...
(Sharders, please don't start asking me at signings who has had their "one death" so far. This is me drawing the curtain back a little on the process, I really don't want it to become an official thing that people focus on. Do feel free to talk about the mechanics of resurrection though--it should be pretty obvious now with Elantris, Warbreaker, Szeth, and a certain someone from Mistborn to use as guides.)
In Wax & Wayne we see the Sovereign who saved the Southern Scadrians was Kelsier, but in modern day people confused him for the Lord Ruler. Is Kelsier responsible for this misdirection or is it just a natural misunderstanding?
RAFO!
*reading a personalization request* Could a Rosharan be--
Hemalurgically spiked with a gem or fabrial?
*presumably writes RAFO in book*
*exasperated "ugh" sound*
Haha.
[Kaladin] better outlive Moash tho.
RAFO.
Does Frost make any incognito appearences in any other books other than Dragonsteel? If so Book/chapter?
He does not appear on screen in any published books, though he is referenced. He has a non-Interference policy.
Is this reference you are referring to in TWoK in form of a letter or does it show up elsewhere?
RAFO. :)
Did the Lord Ruler have any hobbies / anything he just enjoyed doing not related to being a tyrant?
He did. Actually, across a thousand years he tried pretty much everything. He was most fond of music.
Composing, playing, or listening to?
Playing and listening to. Not composing.
Did he perhaps play the flute?
Yes, he did.
Is that the flute Hoid gave to Kaladin?
RAFO.
In the past we have seen that shards that break oaths are made vulnerable by that. And in Mistborn Era 1, we see that the reason that Preservation was able to be killed was that he tried to shelter humanity against Ruin even though his agreement said that Ruin would be allowed to destroy them eventually. Did Honor have an agreement with Odium or the singers about a potential ceasefire between Desolations that was broken by the binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram or other actions taken by humans between Desolations?
RAFO, but I will say that there was not much of a continuatuion to the fighting after a Desolation. It is similar to if you look at stone age and even modern stone age people. Most of them didn't truly understand war and if they did then they almost never thought to exterminate everyone on the other side. So I don't think that it's likely given how far towards societal destruction they were pushed by each desolation.
There's been a lot of discussion in the fandom on the exact name of Cultivation, due to the sentence construction where it is alluded.
Is her name Koravari, or Koravellium Avast? Or is it neither, and both are shifted versions of her original name?
RAFO for now.
Is Obrodai going to be the setting of Dark One?
Excellent question. That is also a RAFO. Sorry, sorry! This is partially because Dark One pops in and out of the cosmere a lot, depending on which version I'm doing. It's been the hardest book. For those who don't know anything about, this is a book I talk about in my blog once in a while... It's like the Harry Potter story, except you get told "By the way, you're the Dark One who's gonna destroy the world, so we're gonna assassinate you while you're a teenager, so that never happens." It's a really cool story that I have never been able to get to work.
*inaudible* one of the starts of one of the chapters...
Yeah, and Obrodai is one of the Shardworlds, but I keep hopping Dark One in and out of the cosmere. Sometimes it feels too self-referential to the fantasy genre to actually be in the cosmere. Because I don't want the cosmere to be self-referential, right? Whenever something gets even a little too silly, I'm like, "Nah, this can't be in the cosmere anymore." So, we'll see what happens.
Does Hoid have any descendants?
RAFO.
How did Autonomy isolate Taldain from the rest of the cosmere?
All of the Shards... "How"? "How" may be the wrong term.
There's a followup question, maybe it's related. "Did Bavadin remove the perpendicularity on Taldain?"
RAFO on the second one. First one, natural processes.
In the past, with Alendi, when the mist spirit stabbed Fedik, was that Hemalurgic theft?
*evil laughter* ...interesting question! RAFO!
Can Lift eat metal and somehow produce Stormlight?
RAFO, good question.
Why does Szeth's spren not help him as a [Shardblade] even though he has said the Third Ideal?
Yeah, RAFO.
Let's just say that the highspren are perhaps a little bit different from other spren.
The silver-nickel alloy that is used in Raboniel's dagger where the... Is that going to do the opposite effect (like a Pushing vs. Pulling) of what silver does to shades on Threnody?
RAFO, good question. Good question!
Investiture in the Cosmere when used goes to the Spiritual Realm, except in one place. What determines which Realm Investiture returns to when it's being used?
Too many factors for me to actually say right here, Evgeni, so I'm gonna RAFO this one. There are lots of reasons that it could go in different ways and different places.
How many of those reasons are rule of cool?
Rule of Cool is definitely a reason. I think he's trying to get at why on Sel things are weird, and I have not explained why things are weird on Sel yet.
So I've got a question about the Selians in Secret History.
Okay.
It seems... It seems pretty clear that they're Selians. Or people from...
Yes.
...the planet Sel. Is that the right term? Selian? I don't know...
Um... *sigh* I get this one mixed up. Peter knows. I know I've called them Selish before, but I think we went with Selian because it sounded too much like "selfish". But we did canonize it, and it probably is in the essays, I think. But Peter knows the canon term.
Okay. What era are they from? Are they from like the... are they from the... the original...
They are old! [very drawn out "old"]
Were they part of the society that built Elantris?
So, someone asked me this coming through the line, and I RAFO'd them. But they are old.
They are old.
They are old, old people. Here's the thing. You give me the opportunity to wiggle around, because I could say, "No," if anyone has joined them since then.
It's true.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Not canonizing anything right now, but that question is so wiggle-aroundable. And I took the opportunity not to wiggle around it and just tell you they are old.
They are old. Got it.
The organization is old. And some of the people that you meet there are very old.
What do kandra look like in the Cognitive Realm?
RAFO. But it will be answered eventually.
How do the Shin get Stomlight, if the storms are broken up by the mountains before reaching Shinovar?
An excellent question that you should be asking. (So…RAFO.) Note that they don’t use it as extensively as outlanders do.
Also note that though the storms aren’t as strong there, they do still reach Shin lands, to an extent.
Is one of the reasons Hoid is more open to this piece due to the fact that he is speaking Lightweaver ideals and truths?
RAFO