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How many times have humans been created and/or evolved in the cosmere? We know it's at least two, but could it be more?
It could be more. And I won't put a definite number on it, because that would lock me into not being able to change my mind if I come up with a world where it makes sense.
It seems there is a special interaction between silver and Investiture, in at least certain places in the Cosmere. We've seen how silver interacts with aethers, and we've seen over on Threnody. So that makes silver the second really really special metal to interact with investiture. Is the plan now to have aluminum block investiture, and silver destroy investiture?
Yeah, that's the way I'm going with it. To make a distinction between them, that's where we're going.
But silver is still non-Allomantic. No silvereyes.
No, non-Allomantic, yup. No silvereyes. This is my nod towards silvereye-ness, and yeah, there we go.
So would [silver] be effective against spren, just like [anti-Investiture]?
Well, you'll have to find out. RAFO!
Updates on Minor Projects
Potential Cosmere Stories
Keep the following on your radar, as they may happen someday. However, as I'll be knee-deep in Stormlight in 2019, don't expect anything to happen on any of them until it is done. The list includes: Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, Silverlight novella, Threnody novel, Aether of Night, Silence Divine.
Can Hemalurgy steal a Nahel bond? And if so, would that bond be unbreakable for as long as the spike was implanted.
This is a very dangerous and frightening thing in the cosmere, but it is possible--and the implications of it are something I intend to cover eventually in the books.
Would it be possible for an inanimate object that was invested to the point of sentience Ascend to Shardhood?
To become a Vessel of Adonalsium, or become a Shard through...? This is a tricky question because the power left alone will become sapient. And at that point, the distinction between being a Shard and a Vessel is fine but still extant. And I would say the power could not become a Vessel in the same way because it's defined as something different. But it is possible for the power to be left alone and to gain sapience on its own.
The example we were thinking of was Sel. It was stated in Arcanum that the landscape itself was invested to the point of.. Could the planet of Sel be the Vessel of Devotion?
At this point, it's playing semantics, and I would say no. But there are people in-Cosmere that would argue that the semantic distinction is irrelevant and that it is the same.
Is the world of Alcatraz part of this whole system [cosmere] or is that completely different since targeted to different readers?
Alcatraz is NOT part of this system. The Alcatraz books (indeed, most of the Young Adult books I've planned or written) need to be off on their own.
It's one of the few strict mandates for all interior illustrations, across most of the Cosmere main books (with a very few exceptions).
We work to make sure they all appear diagetic in nature, representative of some in-world document or imagery. You don't just look at a map, you look at Dalinar's map. That's not just a picture of the tech or the wildlife, you look at Navani's notes, Shallan's drawings. We did something similar with the Era 2 broadsheets, using mockup in-world documents as a means of adding details, secrets and general flavor to the book.
What are the exceptions?
Arcanum Unbounded had much more traditional chapter illustrations that just depict a scene (or the feel of a scene) from the following story. Chapter icons in Stormlight are not meant to be diagetic (though I think the archway Herald sculptures might be). And we don't follow the rule when it comes to covers (also worth noting that we don't do the covers, that's the publisher's privilege).
For some of the future Mistborn books, are you going to have them traveling between the worlds? Will they use shuttles, like we do now?
There will be a science fiction/space opera Mistborn series, that'll be like Star Wars type stuff, but with the cosmere.
How does that work with the magic, then?
The magic will become the means by which faster-than-light travel is possible. Which is built into Allomancy somewhere.
So if a Mistborn goes to another planet, he'll still be a Mistborn there?
Yes. The magics almost all work on other planets.
I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell in the Dangerous Women anthology. Having the knowledge that this is a story set in the Cosmere is anyone aware if Hoid (aka Wit) is in this story? I'd imagine that he isn't as its not a novel worthy plot but I was just curious.
Yep. Hoid is in there. Brandon just forgot, but we talked about it and he remembered. Hoid had to have a reason for being there. And there is a reason.
Do you ever need a reminder of what your own magic systems can do, or is it all laid out pretty perfectly in your mind?
No, I need reminders on the kind of subtle things. Mostly terminology and what decisions I made, because in a book sometimes you'll make decisions on the fly where you're like, "I think this isn't working, I'm gonna change it to this," or things like that. Like, I still forget that I swapped tin for silver. And I still forget exactly what terminology I came up for Szeth using the Lashings, and some stuff like that. And sometimes I need a, "Hey, does this feel like it works for the magic system?" Because the further we get in the Cosmere, the less simple the rules are, and the more complicated and - like real world physics, where you're building things that work like complicated engineering devices, right? Like, building some of the ways that magic is working on Scadrial with the mechanical elements, and the medallions, and stuff like that is getting really complicated, and I had to write it out and I had to go back and reference that. Because yes, I can remember what metal does what and what the rules are here, but the actual how-they-all-interact-and-come-together gets kinda complicated! So yeah, definitely need reminders on my own magic systems.
Ben's interpretation posted in this thread is the canon one. I wish I'd gotten a picture into the books. One of my regrets for Book One is not thinking to put a diagram.
One thing I worked with when writing the first book were heavy counterweights that you locked into place on one side of the bridge (at the sides) then pulled off and carted across to lock on the other side of the bridge, to change the center of gravity for maneuvering the bridge. They broke the flow too much, so I think I cut all references, but you can head-canon them if you want. I think you'd realistically need something like that to get across some of the wider chasms.
The math on bridges is a bit tricky, regardless. Even with Roshar's gravity, we had to use a Soulcast wood (one that doesn't exist on earth) for huge sections of the bridges to get a strength/weight ratio that would actually work. (Meaning, it could be carried by the numbers of bridgemen we needed after some were killed, but was still be strong enough to ride across.)
We've seen in the multiple worlds of the cosmere the different ways they measure Investiture. And with it slowly starting to converge more and more, and also the seemingly imminent tabletop game in the works...
"Seemingly imminent" meaning "we have decided we are going to do it, but have no idea what we're doing yet."
Do you have an internal, universal system of measurement for Investiture? And will we get any of that anytime soon?
We are working on it right now. I actually called up some physicists I know (and this is about five years ago, now) and said, "All right, we're gonna need some units of measurement so we can take a Breath and determine how much is in it," and things like that. And it just about broke their brains, because they're like, "There's just so much here." But we've been working on it.
My goal will be to deliver this to you eventually. But we don't really need it until space age, which is post-Era-Three-Mistborn. But by then, I hope that we will have it. I hope we'll have it before then, but yes, it is something we are working on. It's not something I worldbuild, saying "how much Investiture's in a Breath versus a sphere." It's something we're gonna have to look at what I've done with all of them and come up with something.
And it's not, like, intentionally secret?
It's not intentionally secret. It is something I've known for a while I would need. But that's why you hire very smart people and make it their problem.
Are there plans for another thing like Arcanum Unbounded?
Yes. But it's gonna be a ways off.
Where Arcanum came from is the fact that, early in my career, I would have an idea, I would sit down, I would write a novel. That is how I trained myself to be a writer. That's where I came up with thirteen novels before I sold one. That turned into my greatest advantage, and one of my greatest liabilities as I have progressed as a writer. The reason it was an advantage is, having spent all those years learning to write and learning my process, I knew what to do when a book wasn't working. I knew what to do with a book when it worked, but I wanted to make it better. I knew how to build an outline that would really make me excited about a story. But I also was really, really good at telling a new story and opening things up, and I had not practiced closing things off. All thirteen of those novels were basically all standalones with series potential, where I was hinting at something larger. And so early in my career, I was very good at, "Let's write a book. And of course, because I know what came before and what'll come after, I will make those things open for me."
And then I ended up-- The Wheel of Time came along, and kind of slammed into me like a freight train, and left me with all these first books that I had started. The Rithmatist. I had started, at that point, working on Legion. I had been doing Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. And I found that what I needed to learn how to do was write a self-contained novella to get some of these ideas out of my head, rather than writing a novel that promised sequels. Because I also had promised sequels to Elantris, and sequels to Warbreaker.
And so Arcanum Unbounded is my attempt to kind of do like the interludes in Stormlight in my own career. Little interludes where I take an idea and I dig into it and I explore some part, often of the cosmere, without promising sequels. And part of my goal right now as a writer is to make sure I'm closing off more things than I open, or at least at the same rate. So that's why I finished Legion this year, which is done, and why I'm trying to finish Alcatraz for next year. If you're waiting for Rithmatist--which is the one I get the most requests about--eventually. It's gonna take a little while. It's been a really hard one to figure out how to do the sequels to.
But, closing things off. What you'll see me doing are more novellas like that, as time progresses. Eventually, I will start collecting them, like I did with Arcanum. But it's gonna take me a few years to get enough of them written that then they'll be worth another collection.
So, in Allomancy, most of the metals are in pairs, they're equal and opposite, pushing and pulling, Rioting, Soothing, that kind of thing. The god metals have always-- lerasium and atium, have always struck me as kind of unbalanced in a way. Like, lerasium gives you the power to use all these metals, plus atium being one of them. Is there a reason for that?
Yes, there is, and it kinda has to do with Snapping and some of the fundamental rules of the Mistborn world and the fact that people have Preservation and Ruin inside of them and all these sorts of things. So, the answer is yes.
Partially, narratively, I built that in partially just 'cause I wanted atium to seem odd in the placement, right, when people got to it it's like "What? Why is this one-- This one doesn't match the others. This doesn't really work." When I was building Mistborn, one of the big things I wanted was this idea of a periodic table that was, kind of a flawed construct, that, as you read the books, you came to understand better and better. And that was something I executed-- I don't think I executed that 100% right, but I'm pleased with the general concept and how it plays out. And so I wanted atium to stick out like a sore thumb.
The other thing is, I knew I needed some good foreshadowing for Fortune, for people being able to kinda see the future or versions of the future, for the whole cosmere to work. And, so, I built in atium specifically to do those things. And I built in lerasium to have, kind of, the ultimate sort of benevolent endowment sort of thing. (Not Endowment the Shard, you know what I mean.) But I also wanted to show these two magics were intrinsically tied together on Scadrial because the way that humankind was created. We're getting into some deep stuff, I'll just leave it there. But that was what was going through my mind as I was building those things all out.
Given what happens at the end of the book, is Yumi immortal now? If not, does she age?
Her perception is going to influence this. She's going to need a small bit of power to persist, but she is so highly invested that it would take a very long time for that to be noticeable. Particularly because she's not even using that power. There's no out let for it. She's a Cognitive Shadow, much like the Heralds or Vasher, that is more self sustaining because of how highly she is invested. Imagine someone like Vasher with thousands of Breaths. You're just never going to notice. But her perception of herself will cause her to age. Probably not to age to the point that she dies though. Basically the answer is yes. You've got an immortal being running a noodle shop in a backwater corner of the Cosmere.
We've spoken before about how you don't usually read Cosmere fan fiction, and I was wondering, what about other things people create? Like artwork or podcasts and such.
I barely have time to get to the books written by my friends, or the ones in the industry I feel I should be reading to keep an eye on it. I look at fanart, certainly, and post a lot of it--but I don't listen to any of the podcasts.
The Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years. The Rosharan hour is a little bit shorter.
Let me guess: it's 50 minutes.
E: no, just checked on calculator, apparently it's 57.816 minutes.
But it's 50 Rosharan minutes.
Was Teft's death part of your plan from the book's inception or series's inception, or did you decide his fate while writing Rhythm of War?
Teft's fate was decided pretty early on, but these sorts of things I do leave wiggle room on. When you read Teft's first appearance—it's in Mythwalker, my ninth book that never got finished—his appearance in that book was built around this kind of character arc that eventually happened. This was baked into the original idea for Stormlight once I brought over Bridge Four and once I stuck Teft inBridge Four, from Mythwalker. But I do remain pretty flexible on these things. That is one that turned out working really well, and happening the way I'd intended for it to happen from the beginning.
But... I mean, if you've read Way of Kings Prime, you'll know that there was a point in the outlining process, and even in writing that book, where Dalinar killed Elhokar, rather than him being killed by Moash. So, you can see that these things do change, these things bounce around, but yes, the Moash betrayal and the him killing Teft was an original <incarnation> of Way of Kings. So the original 2010 version of Way of Kings, it was part of that outline.
There are things that have changed though, over the years. A big one's, of course, a lot of Adolin's arc is not in that. I go back to that one because Adolin was involved, but he was a much smaller character than he ended up being. And Adolin changing has caused all kinds of ripples through everything in large measure. For instance, all of the stuff with Maya was not in the original outline. This is stuff that I developed over time because I was not planning Adolin to have as big a role in the series as he ended up having. That's a good example of things I've changed over time. A lot of the Cosmere-aware stuff, I didn't know how much I would push on that, and it turns out I've pushed further than in the outlines I originally thought I would. Because when I was starting this, I still didn't know if people would jump onboard with this as much as they have.
[...]
Reading Way of Kings Prime is a great way to see how things have changed since. The big changes you will see there between 2002 and 2010... I guess I wrote the book in 2009, so... in those seven years, you can see a lot of the transformations that the book and the world and the series went through. It's kind of nice. Those of you who've read it recently can probably remember more about what's changed than I do. I come back to the big ones, like that book had Unmade spiked with crystalline spikes, in the basement of the version of Urithiru before I changed it to what it is now, and that is just no longer in the books, right. Unmade getting spiked and being freed by spikes to the wall is not a thing. I'm sticking them in gemstones now, right, instead of spiking them to walls. I felt like the whole Hemalurgy thing we've covered well enough. But that was in the 2002 version.
*Adam goes on a diatribe about how he'd like to see fanart of this*
It was ten spikes too.
I noticed in a lot of your cosmere books, like for example Elantris or Mistborn, they have something to do with some sort of subject matter or school or something. For example the Steelpush and Ironpulling in Mistborn is based on physics.
Yes.
If you push too hard it's based on...
Vector physics, yes.
And then like Warbreaker is just like math, adding Breaths together. Did you intend that?
Not necessarily. I read a lot and I like science and I like philosophy and I like and things like this. And those spark most of my ideas. So yes in a term but I'm not like "Let's do this subject".
I would say Warbreaker, the big part of Warbreaker is the idea of sympathetic magic. Which is the idea that like affects like, which is a very common type of magic throughout all cultures on the planet, on our planet. When people believe in magic they believe in sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is sympathetic magic. And that's where the idea came from.
So in Elantris, which is different and then--
Yeah that's basically fantasy programming, is where that one came from.
And then there is The Stormlight Archive, which basically violates all the laws of physics by just saying everything comes from spren.
Well no they still have arguments on that, are spren attracted to these things or do they cause them.
Yeah that's kind of weird...
Stormlight Archive was based on the fundamental forces, if you want go read on physics google fundamental forces.
Who gave the Lord Ruler the name "Sliver of Infinity?" Because he's kind of secretive about his past, and that seems like a very descriptive nickname.
"Sliver" is a cosmere term used by Arcanists, and it would've come from there. They knew what he was, even if a lot of people on the world did not.
So they sort of spread the...?
Yes, it just entered the... people talking about it and it eventually spread, and things like that.
So if I'm a Surgebinder, I have my own Cognitive entity with me. Can I go off-world with that and will everything continue to work in exactly the same way? Because we've seen Cognitive entities that don't--
So taking a Cognitive entity off-world is hard. So, Surgebinding, if you can find out how to make it happen, remember, the Investiture is keyed to Connection. This is why Kelsier is-- Oh, sorry, spoilers! When a certain somebody *laughter* had trouble getting off Scadrial, because he basically was a spren by that point so--*laughter* ...So, yeah Surgebinding would work off planet, but you'd have to get the spren off-planet first. That's hard to do. Cosmere-wide it's not hard hard but it is-- You'd have to know some stuff. You could learn how.
What percentage of the underlying Cosmere have we uncovered? Like five percent, fifteen percent?
The number of planets? Or…
No, not even that. Like how much do we know about the underlying metaphysics? Of the rules? You said that there's a lot more that we don't know.
There is a lot you don't know.
I was wondering if you could put a number on it?
I don't know if I can put a number on it. If you've read Dragonsteel you have a lot more, because there's talk of philosophy in that book about it. But I can't give a percentage because I know it all. And I can't remember at times. I often have to go back and research and say, okay, what did I put in, what haven't I included and so on. I would say that you know enough to be dangerous, but not the majority by far. There is an underlying theorem of magic for all of these worlds, which I don't think has been mentioned before. But yeah, it's kinda one of the things that may amaze. People keep trying to look for a unifying theory of physics. You know, the great, unifying... I have a little science background and I wanted there to be a unifying theory of magic, which there is, in these books at least. It's not simple, it's not like one sentence, but you can map out how the magic all fits together in this kind of super theorem.
I actually had like a really-- theory I was developing the past couple of weeks about Regrowth, and healing, and the Cognitive Realm. Let's take a look at this...
*Written/Paraphrased:* In the cosmere, you have matter, mind, and soul. Obviously, the physical world is most well understood (same as ours) and the spiritual is most mysterious. When anybody dies (going off from info in Secret History) their soul, which was tied to their body, the Connection is broken and the soul/Cognitive Shadow appears in the Cognitive Realm then goes on to the Spiritual. If healing is applied at any moment while the soul/Cognitive Shadow is in the Cognitive Realm, the Connection can be reestablished and that is why Regrowth can heal recently dead. Type of wound Shardblade versus not may determine how fast the Shadow is sucked into the Spiritual Realm. Also amount of Investiture a soul contains. Souls = Investiture, or at least all of them contain some?
So that's a RAFO. We'll dig into that a little later.
Oh, *inaudible*. Am I close?
Yeah, you're on the right track.
Why, in your books, are your characters so often, per se -- before they get the powers they become broken first.
There is a narrative reason and there's an in-world reason. The narrative reason is characters in pain are more interesting to write about. This is just a rule of thumb for writing. Find the person who's in the most trouble, things are going the worst for and that's gonna be generally your easiest character. In the stories, the actual cosmere, the mechanics of the magic finds, this is one way to describe it -- it's not the only way -- may not even be one hundred percent accurate but it's an easy metaphor -- cracks in the soul allow the magic to seep in and that's how you end up with a lot of the different magic systems.
What book would come first in this timeline?
I've written them roughly chronologically so far, though Dragonsteel will take place first, which I haven't released yet. White Sand is chronologically (the graphic novel) before the other Cosmere books.
If there was a story in Arcanum Unbounded that you thought was most informative? What's your favorite story in Arcanum Unbounded?
My favorite is Emperor's Soul. Probably the most Cosmere aware is Sixth of the Dusk.
Hi guys, this might bore some (most) of you but this is my take on why the plants on Scadrial were turned brown after the Lord Ruler's Ascension.
So basically, heres a bit of plant biology:
Plants absorb light during the first phase of photosynthesis , converting specific waves lengths into high energy electrons, which are then used to create NADPH, ATP and Oxygen. Some of these molecules are then used in the second phase to make carbon molecules, which we break down into energy.
However, only specific light waves are used by plants, namely the red, blue, purple and to a lesser degree yellow waves. The green light waves are not absorbed and are actually reflected - the reason why chloroplasts and plant cells containing chloroplasts are in our eyes, green.
Because of the ash in the sky, plants were not able to get enough light, and thus were unable to survive. To combat this, the Lord Ruler altered many plants to have a new pigment (say chlorophyll-C) which allowed them to absorb green light waves and therefore get more energy - stopping them from dying.
Thus, green light was no longer reflected by plants and they were brown instead (probably because light absorption isn't 100% effective and so the small resulting meld of colours looked brown to the people of Scadrial - like how paint eventually just turns brown when you mix too many different colours).
Although this makes sense to me, I'm sure I've overlooked something, and I'm not sure why this would result in plants that were less nutritious to man kind. Maybe because of the ash? I'm pretty sure that at some point Sazed mentions that the plants help breakdown the ash so maybe this made them less nutritious?
But yeah, there you go, the science behind the brown plants on Scadrial!
This is actually pretty close to correct. The plats are not actually "sickly" or unhealthy. I basically looked at plants like red sea weed and some ornamental plants and asked about how they got energy--and came to many of the same conclusions that /u/neverbeenspotted has come to.
Seems like a smart worldhopper could hybridize pre-final empire plants, final-empire plants, and post-final empire plants in various ratios, and be able to market crops adapted to a very wide range of environments. Anything like that going on?
Things like this are more "Space era cosmere" than it is current era.
How many future Cosmere books have you already decided the title for? Are you planning on having another title for Era Three and Four like Wax and Wayne?
This is a great question. I've decided a bunch of titles, but I don't really decide titles. Like, Dragonsteel will be called Dragonsteel, the series. I don't know if the first book is still going to be called Liar of Partinel or not; I have to write the book and figure it out. I'm less pleased with that title the more time I get from it. And what are various series gonna be called, and things like that. With Mistborn, it's really interesting because the publisher would like to just kind of do, not a full rebranding, but they don't want to go out big with Mistborn Eight and be like "The Eighth Book in a Series!" because they don't want to be intimidating to new readers. And they still worry that Wax and Wayne was a little too intimidating to readers of the original series. They want to find some way to market it in which it says, "This is just a cool new series from Brandon. By the way, it is in the Mistborn world." That's how they would like it to be marketed. So I don't know what we'll end up calling the series of it, if it'll have Mistborn in the series title, if it's not gonna have... No idea yet. That's all marketing stuff. If you're on this stream, it won't really matter to you, because you know what it is. But it's to the people that may not know what it is. If all things go well and we have a Mistborn film coming out in three years or whatever, and Tor has a brand-new Mistborn series in hand, what do they want to do with marketing that?
Based on the current state of the Cosmere, known and unknown, could Kelsier theoretically find enough power/skill/knowledge to have a fair and equally matched fight with Hoid? Assuming they were to meet again and have a rematch?
I'd say that what you posit is indeed theoretically possible.
Does Investiture seek/spawn intelligence because it used to be Adonalsium, or did Adonalsium come to exist because Investiture seeks intelligence?
That's a chicken and egg question, isn't it? You will find both theories espoused by people in the know. What are we calling them now? Cosmerenauts? That's what they said on Reddit. I would say cosmere arcanists, people like Khriss.
Do you plan on having a true, definite ending to the Cosmere, such that no more books will be written that exist in it?
I DO have a true, definite ending. However, I can't say "no more books could exist" as there are always more stories to be told. But when I reach this ending in the years to come, I might very well decide enough has been done on this story. We shall see.
I've seen you comment on other Cosmere-based conceptual discussions and fan art around reddit. How much does fandom influence your ideas of how things should look?
When a fan really nails it, I think it can most certainly have an influence.
That being said, I firmly believe that the text comes first and foremost... I can't illustrate something that conflicts with Brandon's descriptions and expect it to be taken as canon, and a fan can render the most beautiful art imaginable but it won't stick in my head if they contradict the text.
Do you ever write cosmere stories NOT intended for publication, i.e. just for fun, sans meticulous planning?
I have written a few.
My crazy theory is that Nazh was Isasik Shulin...
Yeah, he is not. Good question. Nazh is Isaac’s character, he designed him and came up with him. I said "I need somebody to be getting these" and the character is all him, doesn’t necessarily look like him. He doesn't actually look like him. But Nazh, he owns. He just credited that, and I knew people would look at that be like "What's going on here?" But it wasn't meant to be anything, just this is Isaac's character and if he ever-- He wants to write some stories in the cosmere, he might write about Nazh.
If you were a Leecher, could you destroy a Shardblade?
I'm going to RAFO that for now, let's just say that it would be incredibly difficult if it were possible, and I'm not going to even say if it is. But that kind of power...
Let's just say they were burning duralumin as well.
Let's just say that the Investiture in a Shardblade is much greater than your average Allomancer, but... This type of thing is not unheard of in the Cosmere. The larkin, the Leechers, and Nightblood all have a similar sort of thing going on. Destroying a Shardblade would be really hard. And Investiture resists other forms of Investiture, so.
Could you create a nuclear bomb using the Surge of Division?
Not Division, but there are cosmere powers that are built around splitting atoms.
You have said the fandom puts too much emphasis on the Lord Ruler's children. Is that because the Lord Ruler suppressed his ability to pass on his abilities to them?
No.
Brandon, that makes no sense. What? Now I'm even more upset. It's actually my fault, 'cause I keep telling people that the Lord Ruler's kids should be important, so you can blame me.
People can be important and not be cosmere-relevant.
Yeah, but they'd be like super-powerful Mistborn!
Yes, who died nine hundred years ago!
But he spent so much time getting Feruchemy away from Allomancy!
Yeah, that's true.
If there is only one Shard on [Taldain], are there other Shards in the solar system?
Ahhh. Now that's a clever question. The answer is "no". One for that solar system. And there's also, um-- we'll stop there.
There's also what?
There are other places with only one. It's not uncommon for there to be only one. I've gone to the planets with multiples intentionally because the conflict there is very long. And the ones on the planets without multiples: like for instance in Warbreaker the conflict is not about cosmere-centric things. And you'll see that very commonly on the planets you go to. There's the same sort of things on Elantris. And so when you see me going-- even though there are two there, they're dead. And so, when you see me--
The reason I ask is that there have been intimations that in Stormlight Archive a Shard may be on the moon just from things that people have--
[...]
There have been *inaudible* that that may be the case, so I had to ask.
You guys are awesome, thank you so much.
When one of your books gets a live-action adaptation, will you make a cameo? If so, which character would you like to be?
My goal is to cameo in all of my adaptations as a person who dies in a different way in each movie. Or something terrible happens to them. I love this idea because I kill characters in the books, so this is, like, revenge of a sort. Basically, I get to be the Kenny for all the Cosmere films. You'll have to be watching out and see. When you see Brandon, and then a wall will fall on me. Or a koloss will throw me to be feasted upon by the others. Or I'll get tossed off a wall. Or anything like that, that's what we want to do.
Peter Jackson did that to himself, right? In Return of the King. He gets shot with an arrow.
I want you to be able to spot me. And then watch me die.
The man that gives Nightblood to Szeth at the end of Words of Radiance, I don't understand who he is.
...Oh Nale, oh you mean Nale. Nale's one of the Heralds.
But I thought that those guys left? At the be-- In the prequel, at the beginning of The Way of Kings.
They abandoned their swords and went about the world, but did not return to the place where they were supposed to go, which was off-world.
So they just die?
They did not die.
So they're all still out there? Somewhere in the cosmere?
It can be assumed that they are all still out there unless some of them died since then. It was 4,000 years ago.
But the one guy that stayed, went crazy because--
The one guy they abandoned was left in their version of hell, and the rest of them were supposed to return and didn't.
Every day?
Every time they die they're supposed to go back. Or every time the war is over. You are asking good questions, they're questions that will make more sense as the book progresses.
Is Hoid the most knowledgeable about what's going on in the cosmere?
No, Khriss is the most aware by a long shot. Nazh knows a lot as well. Hoid might know more than Nazh but he is pretty in the know as well so it's close.
Since you have such extensive worldbuilding in your books, and you have that whole connected thing, I was just wondering, do you have a book that you just have all your stuff planned out in, or do you add things as they come up in your stories and build a universe that way?
Do I have a "world book" to keep everything, or do I add things to my stories and keep track that way? I do a little of both. We have a wiki. I say "we" 'cause I have several assistants now who help me maintain this. It is a personal wiki, you can't go get into it anywhere, and it used to be just a big file, and the file was about a thousand pages long. It used to be a big file, now it's in the wiki. And we spend time-- Every time I-- It doesn't have everything, even the thousand pages don't have everything for the cosmere, it can only barely touch on it, but any time I add something to the books, they add it to the wiki, and periodically I go to the wiki and be Wikipedia Article Guy on the pages, and add what's in my brain onto there.
It's referenced that on Roshar, a foot is longer than is cosmere standard. I can't find anywhere how long it actually is.
That's gonna come down to questions for Isaac and Karen. Not that you should go ask them right now. Mainly, what's going on is, we have to have height charts and things like that. Let me talk about the reason for this. I want to be able to say something in world like, "Kaladin's about 6'4." So that people can picture him compared to the people around him. He's probably closer to 7 foot compared to people from Scadrial. But if I say he's 7 foot, you're going to imagine him of the wrong proportions and size compared to the people around him. So I went ahead and said, we will use feet, but scale them different in order-- this is kind of just me fudging for your perception. When you see actual people from Roshar next to people from Scadrial, particularly tall Alethi, they're gonna look like giants.
Aluminum, when you burn aluminum, does it actually destroy the metals or just take away their power?
It destroys the metals.
Same with chromium?
Yeah.
So it actually gets rid of the metals?
It actually trans-- It does a-- matter, energy, investiture are the same things in the cosmere. You have some sort of transfer happening relating to those things.
The question sort of relates to metal poisoning--
Yeah, you would not get metal poisoning after that.
Anything you can tell us about santhids?
They're one of a few Rosharan animals with a degree of sentience. It's easier on Roshar for this to happen.
Because of Cultivation?
Yes.
Also, santhids aren't based on anything in particular on Earth.
Elend and Dalinar's storylines kinda remind me of the book The Prince by Machiavelli, with their struggles of being a good rulers/leaders. And generally, I think that his books are dealing with the question, what it takes to keep power vs. being a good ruler.
I read somewhere that Sanderson somewhat has a background in philosophy, so does anyone actually know if his books are indeed partially influenced by The Prince?
I have read it, and yes, you will find it sprinkled all over. (As well as contrasting and complimentary philosophies.)
Thank you for answering! Would be interesting to know what other philosophies are in your books. I'm generally very interested in philosophy but unfortunately, there was only a beginners calls at my university.
There are a lot of them that pop up here and there, some I've read about, others I've merged, some little ones here and there that didn't come from one place--but instead grew out of the worldbuilding. But one that people tend to not have read a lot about, but which I've always found interesting, is Pantheism/Panentheism (two different, but related ideas.) You'll find elements of both in the cosmere. That might be a fun one to do some reading upon, if you're looking for a place to go. And, of course, there's the phaedrus--though you're probably already familiar with that. Kant and Descartes show up...but then, basically everybody does here and there.
Has anyone, Shard or otherwise, tried to leave the cosmere and will we see that on screen?
So far... yes, and I think yes, it's likely.
I did not know about "Cosmere" or its cycle until this very moment. I have however, read just about every single one of your books and knew that HOID makes an appearance in them. I had always thought it would be a grand idea if someday, a long time from now, we found out that all these different worlds were connected and your last masterpiece would be the book that revealed that to us. But I guess you thought of this brilliant idea before I did , sigh.
I planned to do something just like that, actually. I considered sticking the clues more deeply into the text. (For example, in some early drafts of later books, I didn't use the name Hoid for his alias.)
In the end, though, I felt that readers would enjoy the journey far more if they could connect things and begin to dig at the deeper picture themselves. Besides, if I hid the clues so well nobody found them, then that would have required so much arranging of stories as to make for some awkward moments.
So do each Shard's perpendicularity-- is that, like are they their own individual color or is that sort of--
There is a small thematic connection. This is not to be taken as one of the bigger deals in the cosmere, but there is a small thematic connection.
In the universe that the cosmere takes place in, is Adonalsium god or is he a smaller entity?
That is a matter of some debate and I will not answer yes or no because I would rather not-- I would rather leave it to the characters' debate.
