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Warbreaker Annotations ()
#2201 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventeen

Siri and Lightsong Interact

This chapter has our first real melding of several viewpoints. In a way, it's a focus chapter for that reason. All four viewpoint characters, who have been off doing other things, congregate here, meeting and mixing. Lightsong and Siri, whose plotlines influence one another a fair amount, sit and talk for the first time. Vivenna and Vasher, who are far more intertwined through the story, meet eyes for the first time.

Vasher shouldn't have brought Nightblood. But he's always a little afraid to leave the sword alone for too long. That can have . . . consequences.

Anyway, it was good to be able to show an interaction between two of the viewpoint characters in the form of Siri and Lightsong. This lets us see how Siri acts through the eyes of another, and I think this scene here is one of the first where we really get to see into Lightsong's soul.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Hoid references a place [in The Traveler] where, there's a presumption in the question, presumably he thinks he might be able to restore something he's lost. As of Oathbringer has he visited that place?

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* Visited the place?

Questioner

Visited the pace he thought he could restore?

Brandon Sanderson

I won't say a hundred percent if it's a place.

Questioner

Where did he hear about it from?

Brandon Sanderson

Hear about what? Give me the exact line, if you would.

Questioner

Yeah, I can look it up for you. "Besides, I've heard of a place... it doesn't matter, I don't care."

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so he has visited that place he is referencing, but the place is not what he wants to restore.

Questioner

Thanks for the clarification. Who did he hear about it from?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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potterhead42

On Scadrial, humans were created as a result of the deal between Preservation and Ruin. But what about the rest of the humans on the other worlds of the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's split. Some predate the shattering; others were created. The humans that existed before were always a model, which is why they're so similar to one another.

General Reddit 2017 ()
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ExaltedHamster

I feel like The Lord Ruler from Mistborn would be a pretty good example of black/white philosophy. ( [Brandon] feel free to chime in here if you want). Kelsier from the same book feels pretty red/white to me.

Brandon Sanderson

I always viewed Kelsier as red-black, personally. He loves his friends, and his team, but is counter-authority in a big way. He's extremely selfish and violent, but is bleeding toward believing in something more important as the books begin.

sirgog

This is interesting, I thought of Kelsier as about as mono red as you can get.

Freedom and emotions - rage and love at various times - drive him.

Never altruism, never malice. Just passionate rage.

Brandon Sanderson

I can completely see that argument. However, Kelsier has a strong megalomaniac streak. He set up a religion to worship him. He spent most of his life as a thief, seeking to get ahead--and enrich himself.

His arc is, to an extent, learning to allow the red side of him dominate the black side--but I still see him as a mixture of both. And you can see the malice on occasion (like when he dumps the body of the nobleman he's killed.)

State of the Sanderson 2017 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Updates on Minor Projects

Adamant

This space opera novella series is in same place it was last year, I'm afraid. (One novella done, no more written on the rest.) I took a little time to work on the outline, but didn't find a chance to write the second novella. It will be awesome when I do it, and I got really close to moving this to the front burner several times, but it didn't end up working.

Status: Still possible in the near future.

Firefight Atlanta signing ()
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Questioner

So Kaladin, he has a lot of Christ-like qualities being the who protects those who can't protect themselves. When you were writing the character of Kaladin did you ever make a conscious decision to make him a Christ figure or--

Brandon Sanderson

The question is... Kaladin has some Christ-figure feel to him, was that intentional when I was writing the character. Actually it wasn't, there's nothing really intentional about that allusion.  But I can definitely see it. Being Christian myself a lot of what I find heroic is related to my faith. But I very rarely do conscious things like that, mostly-- This is for English majors, "I bet he got it from here" and things like that. So it was not intentional but I can totally see where you are making that connection.

OdysseyCon 2016 ()
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Kurkistan

What exactly- When an object enters a time bubble, how exactly does it determine- how does it know how fast and which direction it's really going?

Brandon Sanderson

It gets deflected a little bit when it enters, but then it adapts to the momentum that it would have going in.

Kurkistan

Like Spiritual bonds to something or other?

Brandon Sanderson

Riiight *sounds hesitant* it's- so... I can't explain that because it has relevance in the future. But in that moment when it passes [into the bubble], something is happening with conservation of momentum. The trick we have to do with it in order to keep from irradiating people.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A ()
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Kedatrecal

I was wondering if you could clarify how The Sleepless communicate between all the members of their horde and each other? They are described as buzzing, so are they relaying messages from hordeling to hordeling across huge distances or do they have so kind of more specialized telepathy?

Brandon Sanderson

It's mostly telepathic; hordeling buzzings are more like emotional punctuation, like body language in humans.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 ()
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Phillip

Did true spren prior to the Recreance have many mannerisms and societies based on the singers?

Brandon Sanderson

This gets into tricky sorts of things, because there's a long history to Roshar. So when you ask a question like this, the question becomes: when? There is a time when the spren were mostly focused on the singers. And there's a time before the humans arrived when they were fully focused on the singers. And so, the answer to that question is "yes", but I don't think that's what you're asking. I think you're asking: "During the years of the various Returns and things like that," and the answer then would be: "No, not in large quantities." What is happening here, with Rlain and Venli and the crowd, is all kind of new ground for both them and the singers. Both the spren and the singers.

General Signed Books 2018 ()
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17thCharge (written)

If a spren’s Spiritual and Cognitive aspects were pushed into the Physical Realm, similar to how the Spiritual aspects of Dominion and Devotion were pushed into the Cognitive Realm, would the spren manifest as an Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson (written)

Answer 1 (book had to be exchanged): Not usually.

Answer 2: It could. (But probably not.)

The Alloy of Law Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eleven

First Miles Viewpoint

Dan, from my writing group, thinks that this Miles scene is misplaced, and thinks I should have held off from putting one in for a few more chapters. (He thinks the second one is better placed.) Dan usually has a good eye for these sorts of things, so I'll admit I'm not a hundred percent sure that I like this scene being here.

However, that said, in the draft that Dan read, Wax wasn't sure it was Miles until he saw the cigar box. Even then, there was a question. I decided, because of feedback, that wasn't terribly realistic. Wax would have recognized the voice well enough from the start to begin suspecting Miles, so keeping that suspicion from the reader lacked authenticity. For that reason, in a later draft I revised so that Miles' name is mentioned in the first chapter where Wax starts suspecting him.

Miles is the most erratic character in this book, personality-wise. He's an interesting guy on several fronts, but I worry he's got too much going on in that head of his to present a compelling bad guy. He's got a lot of different motives, and he's not certain about many of them. We will see how the reaction to him is; I acknowledge that he's no Zane, however. That's probably a good thing . . .

It may sound like I'm dissatisfied with Miles, but I'm not. I just happen to like what he does to Wax more than I think Miles himself is compelling as a villain. I'm pleased with his role in the book.

Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
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Questioner

How do the timelines line up? So they're all in the same universe. But how does Stormlight and--

Brandon Sanderson

They are mostly been chronological, yet Alloy-era is after Stormlight book 5.

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Otherwise, mostly chronological. White Sand is before most of this happens. So if you ever read that one, it’s a pretty early book.

Holiday signing ()
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Questioner

So are any characters, like Vasher, going to be in any of your other books?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Vasher is in Words of Radiance.

Questioner

Yeah, I knew he was in Words of Radiance. Is he going to show up more in that? Have more importance?

Brandon Sanderson

He is not going to have a huge role, he'll have a little one. Normally I try to confine people who are interfering in other series to their own series, if that makes sense?

General Reddit 2014 ()
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sectoidfodder

I've wondered whether the portraits in chapter headings have some deeper significance.

Some of them correspond well to the contents of the chapters...

  • "The Four" is the first chapter to have four different portraits - Jezrien, Ash, Ishar, and Pailiah, representing the Radiant orders that Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, and Renarin belong to, respectively.

  • Vedel's portrait appears before Ym's and Lift's interludes (this suggests that Ym's other power was abrasion, just like Lift).

  • Battar's portrait for Jasnah's pov prologue; Battar's and Wit's portraits for the epilogue where Jasnah and Wit are the only characters.

Most others just seem random/unrelated:

  • Kaladin's earliest chapters in WoK were headed by Taln's portrait.

  • Eshonai's and Szeth's interludes have a variety of different Herald portraits, seemingly at random.

  • Taln's own interlude features Wit and Chach, of all things.

Peter Ahlstrom

The correspondence can be from any column on the essences table in the Ars Arcanum, or a few columns that are not on the publicly revealed table.

Phantine

Is there a row for when Hoid's portrait will show up?

Peter Ahlstrom

They are not actually portraits of those characters. But there's not a row for the Masked Man.

Shadows of Self Edinburgh UK signing ()
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BlackYeti

In The Final Empire, Kelsier says that it will take 300 years before atium grows back in the Pits of Hathsin. How does he know this?

Brandon Sanderson

I think it is mentioned somewhere else how long it takes a crystal to regrow, and he's just basing it off of, in the past, when a crystal is damaged, how long it takes one to come back... I'm pretty sure that that is even mentioned somewhere, but if not, that's just how he knows.

Oathbringer San Diego signing ()
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Questioner

Which character in The Stormlight Archive do you most relate to?

Brandon Sanderson

...This is a good question, but it's a hard question. Because all of my characters are partially me, and partially not me. Every character... So, in some ways, Jasnah is the most "me" you're gonna get in one of these books, because you've got the very analytical, somewhat ambitious, gregarious person who ignores what everyone tells them is the smart thing to do and does their own thing, and then proves everyone wrong. On the other hand, a fundamental pillar of Jasnah is her atheism, where I am a theist. And so it's like, every character, I can probably go on like that about. Every character's got a chunk of me and a chunk that's deliberately not me.

West Jordan signing ()
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Questioner

Is Thinker from the Purelake scene Demoux [from the Mistborn Era 1]?

Brandon Sanderson

Demoux is indeed in that scene.

And for those who didn’t hear, about the other one, there is a scene in the Way of Kings. People have been trying to figure out… there are some members of… there are some people there that I have hinted are from other books, and they have now figured out two of the three. I don’t think you’ve figured out the third one, and you won’t because…

Mi'chelle

Has their book been written yet? Has their book been published?

Brandon Sanderson

Their book has not been published yet. I won’t say if it’s been written yet. Is anyone confused at what’s going on there? There is a connection between the books.

Footnote: The scene being discussed is the three men, Thinker, Grump, and Blunt, in the Ishikk interlude of The Way of Kings, set in the Purelake. These three men are members of the Cosmere organization, The Seventeenth Shard.
Sources: 17th Shard - Zas678's Report
Firefight Seattle UBooks signing ()
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Questioner

Why couldn't Joel be a Rithmatist? He wanted it so bad.

Brandon Sanderson

I will explain as the series progresses. That is a plot point. Every book like that, they get the power in the end, and I thought it was a much more interesting story if he has half - the knowledge - and Melody has half - the talent - and together they create a whole. It just worked, and it was much better for me as a story. I knew going into it that he wasn't going to be able to by the end of the book, but the reasons for it you'll find out as the series progresses.

Firefight Phoenix signing ()
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stormfather (paraphrased)

Does the plague on the Purelake has anything to do with the fact that the magic fish form symbiotic bonds with spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, worldhoppers brought a disease to Roshar that they didn't have before. It's the common cold. Rosharans' Investiture makes it so they're usually a healthy bunch so something like the cold is kind of frightening. "It's a plague of the sniffles."

stormfather [Alternate wording from ZenBossanova's report] (paraphrased)

Another person asked about the plague in the Purelake.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Turns out, that was a pathogen introduced by worldhoppers. People on Roshar normally have greater health than elsewhere in the cosmere because they are more Invested (Stormlight and all that). This plague was what we call… the common cold.

Shadows of Self release party ()
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KalynaAnne

Chalklings, we know, can catch rides off of Nebrask. If Melody had chalklings on a slate and carried them around, could she give them verbal commands later, after she had made them?

Brandon Sanderson

You will have to find out how her magic works as we progress. Everyone would say "No, that's not possible" but she had done things that are supposedly-- that seem impossible. So what you are proposing is probably likely, probably possible, but it depends on her magic.

Skyward San Diego signing ()
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Questioner

I'm actually a big YA reader, and I became a fan of yours through your YA books; I read The Reckoners first. And I actually found-- to put it in a nice way, some resistance from some of your fans because I like your YA stuff better. But I guess my question would be, what would you say to your readers that are really stuck on Stormlight or your older books that are reluctant to read either yours or other teen books?

Brandon Sanderson

It's really weird to say "adult fantasy" in this context. I once had a panel where they introduced me as the "adult fantasy guy," and I'm like, "Well, yes?"

...I would say, number one kind of most important thing in this is, "Don't feel bad for liking something and not liking something else." This is a big thing to me. It is okay that I hate fish sticks, and some people in this room love fish sticks. And if we acknowledge that writing is an art, and stories are an art, then I think we have to acknowledge that like or dislike of them must kind of have an inherent subjectiveness to it. Because if we all liked the same sort of art, that would not really be a world I want to live in. So it is okay to try things out and say, "This isn't for me." Whether it's written by me or anyone else, that is perfectly all right.

Though I would also say, if you haven't given a try to a genre just because of-- there's a lot of snobbishness to art, at the same time. Like, I was reading an essay recently about how fiction has existed in this state of feeling snubbed by nonfiction, which was the "true" writing, ever since the novel was invented. But of course, once the novel was invented, we started subsetting into different genres where you could be snobbish against other people in that. And then in the subgenres, you're like, "Science fiction is better than furry fanfic," or whatever. So suddenly, all we do is, we spend time being snobbish about somebody else's art that they love. And you see this a lot in science fiction with-- Someone enters reading Eragon, and they love Eragon, and they go somewhere and say, "Eragon's my favorite book ever." And they're like, "Oh, that's just a bad ripoff of Star Wars and Anne McCaffrey." Instead of being like, "Wow, I'm glad you loved something. Welcome to our community." They're like, "Oh, you don't like the right thing." So, if you kind of let this get to you, and you haven't tried any genre, whether it be one of the YA, or a lot of people in Sci Fi/Fantasy (I won't state the specific genres) like to point and say, "Well, at least we're not as tropey as them." I think you will find, in a lot of variety of places, things that you love and you can learn from. And YA in particular, particularly when I was trying to break in, YA had started doing all the really exciting things in Sci Fi/Fantasy. So if you haven't read some Garth Nix from that era, or if you haven't been reading some of the really cool YA. (I just read the Star Touched Queen, which is amazing.) If you haven't been reading some of this stuff, YA has been doing a lot of really cool explorations of setting and genre and stuff like that, then you are doing yourself a disservice not trying it out. You don't have to like it, but I would suggest that you try it out. So that's what I would say.

Orem Signing ()
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Wyndlerunner

Hoid, he already has his Cryptic by Era 2, if I'm correct on the timeline. So have we seen him using his new fancy Lightweaving in action? Has he spoken his fifth Truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that for now. I'll RAFO both of those. Those are two separate things, but I will RAFO them. You have seen Hoid Lightweaving, but whether you have seen him use his fancy new Lightweaving... we'll leave that off for now. Let's just say that he knows that certain uses of Investiture are easier to detect than others, and if you don't want to be seen, there are certain things you don't do.

Firefight Atlanta signing ()
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Questioner

Do you have kids?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I have kids? or pigs? 'Cause I have both, the kids are the pigs. I have three young boys, they are 7, 5, and 2. They are too young to read my books. We spend time reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, that's a very good book, or Supertato, one of their favorites, about a potato who is a superhero.

What do they think? I don't think they really get it. They don't understand, they're like "Daddy is working on his book" and my son will be like "I'm going to write a book too!" And it's like one picture on a page with one word "Hat" or something and he'll be "I wrote one, why does it take you months Dad? This took me an afternoon." I hope that someday they will enjoy them and be able to come on tour with me and things like that. Excellent question.

Stuttgart signing ()
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Krios (paraphrased)

If you have a form of manipulating your Identity and a form of healing, are you able to shapeshift or even evolve your body like growing wings?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You'd have to do some real work on your Spiritweb to make that work. It'd take more work than you're implying, but the [singers] for instance are doing this. It'll take a little more work, it's not just blanking your Identity. Hemalurgy would make it very easy, but also very evil. But what you want to achieve is possible.

General Reddit 2021 ()
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jmcgit

He wrote two books based on Infinity Blade (though they're currently out of print)

Brandon Sanderson

Working on getting those back in print somehow, but there is red tape that so far I haven't had the brainspace to get cut.

The problem here is that they discontinued the games--and so they, by nature, took down all related materials. They said that the novellas could go back up, but this was happening when it was "all hands on deck" to support Fortnite as a huge surprise hit--and there was a lot of trouble getting them to pay attention to anything else. (They needed to sign a document letting me put the novellas back up.)

I could probably push that through now, but it's tough, because you really need to have played the games to get the stories. I kind of want some kind of "Summary of the game stories" put into it, and to release them both as a single ebook, but we'll see if if it can happen.

West Jordan signing ()
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Questioner

Second question kind of goes to your Alloy of Law book. I was wondering: what was the inspiration for using Breeze’s relative, and just kind of the time frame of the thing.

Brandon Sanderson

There were a lot of inspirations for a lot of different things. You'll kind of have to wait until I post the annotations. I talk a lot about it in the annotations. Basically, I wanted, since we're jumping forward so far, I wanted there to be some roots in there of the series you already read and loved. And for those who have read the earlier series, there will be at least one Easter egg per chapter about things like that. If you haven't, I didn't want it to be a big deal that would keep you from reading the book, but I want a lot of that to be in there. And so, when other characters are mentioned you'll see the characters of the first three books become the mythology to the people there.

Worldbuilders AMA ()
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jmass12

Quick question on genetics and investiture on Scadrial. Is it weird that Wax would have a different Allomantic power than his predecessors, or does it only matter that you have the ability in the first place, and then it takes different forms generation to generation?

Brandon Sanderson

Great question! I don't think anyone has asked it.

It is the second of your two theories. The power manifests differently in different people; specific powers are not hereditary.

Skyward Houston signing ()
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Questioner

To get into the mind of Bleeder, was that hard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, to get into the mind of Bleeder, who is an antagonist in Shadows of Self, is probably the darkest I've gone in one of my books, and yeah. It was, but it was also somewhere I hadn't explored before, and so it was really interesting to me.

Questioner

It's my favorite character so far.

Brandon Sanderson

You will like, if I ever write the Threnody novel, you will like that one. Which is the Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, that book. I do have a book in the Cosmere sequence planned in that world, but it doesn't have that character.

Skyward Houston signing ()
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Questioner

I know you have Dragonsteel planned and Hoid will play a role in the cosmere, does it have like a behind-the-scenes Hoid story like Secret History?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible, but I don't have it on the list to do right now. 

Questioner

Just in your head maybe, someday.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. Secret History was like that too, I wasn't sure I was going to get it out. We will see.