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So, because the world is flat in Shadesmar, if there's a place where you can't cross, so if a Radiant was on a ship, they'd have trouble getting across, because their spren would be stuck behind that line of discontinuity. Is the Origin of Storms located on that line?
No, good question.
How are people with two different eye colors treated on Roshar?
RAFO - this will be explored in one of Shallan's flashback sequences in Stormlight 2, and is already written.
Another focal chapter. I like how this one turned out. The fountains were a last-minute addition. Originally, I'd planned executions, but I wasn't sure how to do it. I knew I needed something dramatic and memorable, but I didn't want to be so cheesy as to do something like a guillotine. Since I'd already established that there were fountains in the city, I think this way created a distinctive image.
One worry in this chapter is the population. There are a lot of people in Luthadel, and packing them all into one square is kind of a stretch. I hope that it would be believable that they would gather this many people together, and I changed the executions from single-people to four-at-once in order to make it seem like the Priesthood was taking the large population into account.
I envision the Bondsmiths as, like, walking catapult. Is that viable, or is it different?
You'll have to wait and see. We'll RAFO that.
Will we ever find out what Lift asked of the Nightwatcher?
Yes. It's probably gonna be her book before you find out. Book Six.
The Original (audio book) release date, and an unexpected new story!!!
The Original. Author(s): Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal. Released: Sep 14, 2020
Stephen Leeds: Death & Faxes. Author(s): Brandon Sanderson. Released: Sep 01, 2021
They are official. We're trying some new things.
The Original, which I wrote with Mary Robinette, was a true collaboration. I pitched an idea and an outline, Mary Robinette did the first draft, I did a pass myself, then she did the final touches. It turned out great.
With Legion, I' wanted to try something different. I've got a partner in Hollywood, and since I've had so much trouble getting a Stephen Leeds television show made, I figured we'd try it as an audiobook series. Basically, we got a writer's room, brainstormed some ideas, and are treating this like a pilot to a "television show" but only audiobook.
This means I'll be overseeing the project like a show runner, but won't be writing the individual "episodes." We're only doing this first one as a try-out to see what fans think of this process.
Does that mean the Legion audio is a reboot or sorts or is it still a continuation from the books?
More a continuation, not really a reboot, but not happening after the third novella. More like, "From the case files of" sort of thing.
What about the two "Dark One" titles: Dark One: Prophetic Histories and Dark One: Forgotten?
These are just in the concept stage, but we're getting closer to making them. Dark One is being made into a television show, but I don't have a lot of power over how/when that will happen--so we are doing the graphic novel. Separately from that, we're going to do a couple of audio dramas. One will take my outline and make it into a novel. The other is this wacky idea I had for a "Serial" style podcast, with a journalist tracking a killer, which ties into all of this. Forgotten is that.
You get a couple nice foreshadowing hints here. First, there's the scene that reminds us that–for some reason–Kiin's family knows an awful lot about Elantrians. We've gotten other hints, but they were back a long time ago. The one I remember best is when Sarene was with the twins on the wall. Kaise and Daorn had some things to say about Elantrians that surprised Sarene, I think.
Also, notice that Ahan is with Telrii. Though it's presented that the group decided that he should go see Telrii, the actual backstory is that Ahan manipulated himself into the position. It's just another small clue as to what he's planning to do.
I'm pretty convinced that Brandon's approach to building a magic or technology system starts with the question "how can I fly with this?"
Airships!
Now, now. Give me some credit. I started this one with "How can I have magical Power Armor."
"How can I make Airships?" was, like, question number three or four.
We've been having some hot debates on how the airship works, if you don't mind shedding some light...
Does the aluminum allow for the Urithiru-lattice and Plains-lattice to be active/conjoined at the same time?Or is the aluminum just about allowing the Plains-lattice to be reoriented to allow "forward" to be different directions?
It's interesting that they need aluminum to do the force-redirect thing because spanreeds could already do that. (their orientation being relative to the spanreed board) Is there a reason they don't work like spanreeds in this way? Or do spanreeds not work that way after all, requiring the boards to be oriented along cardinal directions (or something like that) so the reference frames match up?
You'll get a big long explanation in the book. I just didn't want to front load it.
I've been dodgy on spanreeds, even in the books, because the locals don't actually quite understand how things are working with them. But suffice it to say that as they enter a kind of early industrial age in relation to their scientific understanding, they're realizing things they took for granted have principles behind them that can be tweaked.
Since it seems like the sibling is more "dead" than sleeping, is the event that caused this to occur from a certain Bondsmith breaking Odium's surges from the Parsh?
RAFO!
Is it more of a 4/5 RAFO, or a 6-10 RAFO?
4/5 RAFO, I'd say.
Yeah a shared vision with Navani would be pretty helpful. I assume the mechanism messing with the Radiants in the Tower would also mess with bringing someone into the vision. But then again, the pure Honor Surge Adhesion still works for Kaladin and aren't the vision tied directly with Honor?
It would have messed with such a vision, yes.
Are there any characters that were particularly difficult for you to work with?
Cadsuane from the WoT was the one that comes to mind.
Would it be safe to assume that Kaladin is also carrying the Honorblade? Because that makes the most sense to me.
Which Honorblade?
The one from Szeth.
That is... He's not.
That surprises me, because to me that would be the best-- That would make the most sense.
That would be sneaky of me. But that's not the case.
So he actually has an Honorblade, since you asked which one.
He took Szeth's. So he has that one. Oh! I thought you meant Taln's, I thought. He does not have Taln's. He has Szeth's.. Yes he has that.
I'm assuming he found that one, because that made the most sense to keep it safe
He’s got Szeth’s, that is true. ... Sorry, I assumed you meant Taln's. Taln's is gone.
Yeah. Taln's vanished off the face of the planet! I'm assuming Hoid grabbed that one, actually.
That is one of the prevailing theories and not one that is unreasonable.
Well, considering. That was the one, because you had mentioned last time you were here that you could have both, and I was like, "okay, so that means he’s got Szeth's sword."
Is the lake where the Aviar get their powers from Survival's perpendicularity?
RAFO. Sorry.
My other question was, has Hoid ever or would Hoid ever dress in drag?
Yeah, and he has... Multiple times!
Brandon assumes that eventually they'll make a collective art book of all of the Stormlight art.
When Skybreakers are about to decide to follow Dawnsingers. Why now? Why not before?
So this is a little complicated... Until they came back, by Nale's interpretation, then the law of the land was human. When they returned, the law of the land, in his opinion, became Dawnsinger. And at that point, it was his job to switch to them. It is his logic, but you don't have to agree with that logic. Because Nale's logic is maybe not the best.
What is Stormlight?
I don't want to answer this, but I'll just say "Investiture."
Could Hemalurgy be performed anywhere in the Cosmere
Yes.
So Hemalurgy is unique because not only can the power of Ruin be accessed anywhere (not just on Scadrial), but also by anyone (not just someone who's invested)?
It is weird that way.
Why are [Cognitive] Shadows so much more prevalent on Threnody?
That's a good question. Which is a RAFO. Sorry.
Would you be able to write the... Second Ideal of the Truthwatchers?
...It's a RAFO. There's a lot of stuff about the Truthwatchers in [Oathbringer], that's gonna make it complicated to do that, okay? ...Yeah, it's really complicated, and those are things I'm not gonna probably canonize for another couple of books, for reasons that will be very clear by the end of this book.
Are the graphic novels of Dark One still supposed to be prequels to the eventual television series? Or will the television series be an adaptation of the graphic novel?
If I get my way, television series is an adaptation of the graphic novel. Let me talk you all through the long history of Dark One. I, as you might know, I really like to take sort of modernist, deconstructionist looks at the epic fantasy core idea, the Hero’s Journey you might call it, the epic fantasy of it. And in a lot of ways, you might call this my foundational myth. The idea of the young man born to a peasant family who has a noble heritage, who goes on a question, becomes a king, gets magic objects, saves the world. Like, this is the story of the David Eddings, The Wheel of Time, Memory Sorrow and Thorn, Sword of Shannara. I read a ton of these works when I was a young man, and it is kind of the core fantasy myth of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Fantasy really doesn’t do as much of that anymore, ‘cause it was done quite a bit and quite well. But I really like looking at that and deconstructing it. It’s not religious, but it’s very similar to that for me, the thing that kind of is my origin as a writer.
So, like you see authors deconstructing, in the Middle Ages or even the Renaissance and later, the Adam and Eve story, you see me deconstructing the heroic journey in fantasy. Mistborn was doing this to an extent. And after doing Mistborn, I found that I really wanted to explore another version of this, and it started to take shape in my mind as just being called Dark One. Obviously a nod to The Wheel of Time, but also a nod to a lot of these stories that have the Dark Lord who is the antagonist of this sort of monomyth. And I really wanted to do a story about, “What if you found out that instead of being prophesied to be Harry Potter, there was a prophecy that you would become Voldemort. And how did you deal with that? And what did that do to your life?”
Well, I tried this story multiple times until I cracked it. The first version I can remember writing was in its own complete fantasy world, and was a Young Adult/Middle Grade attempt at it. This is because Harry Potter was one of the inspirations for it, so it had a very Harry Potter-esque sort of… I was kind of using some of J.K. Rowling’s prose constructions. Not, hopefully, plagiarizing them, but looking at how she wrote and trying to do something a little more light-hearted and whimsical, like hers. And it just did not work. Just completely flopped on its face. Though, it’s the first place that Pattern, that eventually ended up in Stormlight Archive, showed up. Something like Pattern. And I set that aside and left it for a few years.
A few years, I came back to it and said, “What if I did this as a portal fantasy?” Fantasy where you start on Earth, and then transition to the fantasy world. And I tried it again, and I got, like, two or three chapters in, and it still was not working. It felt better. I felt like it made a step forward, but I had not cracked it. It was still a Middle Grade story; young YA, old Middle Grade, kind of like where Alcatraz sits.
I left it alone again. Years later, this would be, like, 2014 maybe, I thought, “What if I tried setting this in the cosmere?” I moved it to the cosmere. Go three or four chapters in. And it still didn’t work. This is not unusual. I mean, this is the most unusual one for me in that it’s gone on the longest. But a lot of times, you try something and it just doesn’t feel right, doesn’t work. So I set it aside yet again.
And when I came back to it, the big change I made in my brain is that I’m like, “I think that the problem is that this is a book for someone who grew up reading these stories, but who is not still themselves a young person who hasn’t experienced these stories.” This story works way better if you share, kind of, in this foundational myth that I love so much. So that you can understand how it’s kind of trying to deconstruct it. And I realized I needed to write this as an adult property, not a Middle Grade. Or, if YA, it had to be old YA.
And that’s when I sat down and I wrote this treatment that really, finally, worked. When I say “treatment,” it is the plot outline, pretty detailed plot outline. And at that point, I decided it would probably work best as a television show. And I outlined it episode-by-episode. I went really into detail on all the characters and things, and it just sang to me. It worked; it really clicked. And that’s when I said, “Let’s try to get this made.”
So I took it to Hollywood, and there was a lot of excitement immediately surrounding it. Didn’t go anywhere, didn’t go anywhere… then, some things happened with Random House, my publisher, and one of the people that worked in their film department got ahold of the treatment and was like, “Wow, this is amazing. Let’s do something with this.” And then it just started to go “Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.” That is when I decided to do the graphic novel.
So, the graphic novel is taking my original outline for the TV show, which does include chunks of dialogue and things like that, and doing it as a graphic novel format. Meanwhile, the television show started to take on a different life. This was when Joe Michael Straczynski was brought on, and he had some things to add that are very cool. But the television show really started to drift away from the original property. So we’re still kind of in talks about how much this will look like the graphic novel. But the graphic novel kind of turned into the way to express my vision for what this would be.
I don’t know what will happen with the TV show. I honestly can’t say. Joe is great to work with. I really like Joe. I am hopeful that something very cool will come out of it. It might look completely different. And in fact, there’s a chance we will rename the project property Joe and I are working on into something else, and call it something else. Who knows. Hollywood is weird, as we probably all already know.
Regardless, this is my vision. Graphic novel is not the prequel. Graphic novel is the actual outline that I wrote, taken and adapted really faithfully. They did a spectacular job with this. They focus a little more on Mirandus. The actual outline has more with Lin, Paul’s mom, and Mr. Caligo. And they focused their attention a little more on Mirandus. It’s not like they added anything; it’s just that there was too much there, I think. (Because it was meant to be a full season of a television show.) And so they focused their attention there. But Lin is still in it. There’s still plenty, and the scenes that are still there are all ones I had in the outline.
If I do a novel, it would be the prequel to this. Because the prequel, not giving any spoiler stuff, would be the thing that would work in an epic fantasy novel sort of form.
There’s the short version of the long history of Dark One.
The Elariel ballroom isn't a place I've ever visited. (Unlike keeps Venture and Lekal–which are both based on real places.) I just liked the concept of a ballroom with the stained glass windows on the roof. It seemed like a good image, especially if it were lit from above. The ballrooms are the only places I really get to show off noble extravagance in this book, and so I worked hard to make each of the four distinctive and visually interesting.
So, we were having a discussion about the term Soulcaster. The term Soulcaster is either, it's a person or it's a thing, and it's not always clear what it is. So when Sigzil is theorizing that the Parshendi needed-- they had Soulcasters, that's why they needed gemhearts, was he referring to the item?
He was referring to the item. That's what he was trying to get.
What can you tell me about Rysn and her Larkin?
That larkin is kind of a stinker.
When do you expect to finish Shadows of Self?
It was on the schedule for this fall to finish, but the third Stormlight book has pushed that aside, so it'll probably be the next book after that. Tom Doherty didn't want to have a four-year gap twice in a row, and I don't want to let it go so far. It's better to establish that I'll be doing Stormlight regularly before deviating. When I pitched Mistborn to my editor, I pitched a series going to modern times to space opera in the same universe. There will be another trilogy of thick books at 1980s technology, I pitched to my editor as "Tom Clancy Allomancy" and we will eventually get to the space opera, which will be allomancers in space.
Has it been confirmed or denied if there’s any Allomantic or Feruchemical charge in Wax’s ear spike?
There is a charge.
If a [Vessel] were to hold Nightblood, who would give up first?
RAFO.
If you took somebody-- an Allomancer and them in a different one of your worlds, could they still burn metal there?
Could Allomancers burn metal on other planets in the cosmere, yes they could. Good question.
What is the most interesting or awesome thing you found in your South American research for The Aztlanian?
What is the most awesome thing I've come up with in my research for The Aztlanian. Â So the question, for those of you who read The Rithmatist, I'm working on a sequel doing a lot of research on South American and Central American cultures. The Aztecs all the way down to the Incas *audio obscured* city was just so cool reading about that. One of the big things that I discovered was that a lot of records indicate that Meso-American culture was way bigger than, way more populated than people are usually taught. It's just that they lost somewhere around 60%-- This enormous number to diseases that were brought over. Way more than I originally expected. And reading about some of this, like the early accounts of how many people there were, their civilizations. Later on when the explorers really started coming, talking about there being these ghost cities, of empty-- the people all left them because so many people died and things like this. That what happened was almost like a post-Apocalyptic-- Like when the invasion of the Aztecs, of Mexico, was happening they were basically invading a post-Apocalyptic society where everyone was already dead. They'd even lost their emperor, Montezuma the First had died from this stuff. It's very interesting, all these things reading about-- There is a ton to learn.
So Nightblood. Is it going to go into maybe in the next book how Vasher loses him, because I'm assuming that's what [Szeth] gets at the end of the book?
*Coyly*
Oh you assume that this is uh yeah...
So far as we know that's the only sentient sword...
You will find answers to these questions eventually.
What do kandra look like in the Cognitive Realm?
RAFO. But it will be answered eventually.
You mention the phases of the moon fairly often in [The Way of Kings]--is this significant or something that we should be paying attention to?
After working with the Wheel of Time community and dealing a lot with fans wanting to know when certain events happened in regards to some other event, Brandon added in [details about the moons] in order to give dedicated fans a way of determining the chronology of the events of the Stormlight Archive.
Mmm...that phase of the moon thing really doesn't sound right to me. It's true the moon was used that way in the Wheel of Time, but the way the moons are used in Words of Radiance really has nothing to do with phases.
sorry, "phase" is the wrong word, and I don't think Brandon used the word phase either in his actual answer. I guess he was more meaning which moon was up, etc. Either way, his answer just seemed to indicate that you could use the moons to determine chronology.
Chapter Thirty-Four - Part One
I realize that some people don't like fight scenes. My hope is that these scenes in the Mistborn books aren't simply fights. They're expressions of the magic system. If you have invested the effort into learning how Pushing and Pulling metals works, you should be able to get some pretty vibrant visuals out of this fight between Kelsier and the Inquisitor.
Either way, this chapter has my favorite beginning lines (not counting the bumps) of any of them. It's a good, old-fashioned showdown between good and evil! Or, at least, between Kelsier and evil!
Honestly, though, this fight played a good hundred times in my head when I was preparing, then writing, the book. I hope it worked for you. I know it isn't all that long, but coming up with interesting fights that don't feel repetitive, and instead incorporate the setting elements and the majesty of Allomancy is something of a challenge. I really liked how this one turned out.
*inaudible*
Very old. Pre-Shattering old.
Just a quick question, what colors would you think Davriel would be?
I think his first incarnation is likely to be mono-black--because I pitched him as a mono-black hero to the team.
Here’s what I was imagining while reading:
1UB, 3 starting loyalty
+1: Exile the top two cards of your opponent’s library
-1: You can play one card exiled with Davriel until end of turn, using mana of any color to cast it
-6: Exile your opponent’s hand
That's a great rendition of him. Nice work! The only problem with it that I can think of is that it feels a little like Ashiok, mechanically.
I would enjoy a Davriel who could thoughtsieze and cast those spells, as I think it aligns better--but this feels like a really dangerous ability to make repeatable on a cheap walker, but a weak ability on an expensive walker after hands are empty.
Does Lift see Wyndle a different way than another Edgedancer would see their spren?
Yes, but only slightly. She sees a longer vine, and slightly more, but it's not a big difference.
[In Secret History] there was a key scene with a character named Drifter. And, uh, that was the first time that I felt like there was a sense of malevolence with this character. And I was curious if that's something that I should state with that punch? Or was this just a particular thing?
I would say yes. Drifter is an ancient entity who has very, very many sides and that is accurately one of them. That said, in that particular scene, there are certain personalities that play off of each other poorly, in real life and in books, and you happened to catch one that-- Drifter and this character do not-- Let's just say they rub each other the wrong way. But I would definitely say that is an aspect of his personality.
Has knowing that Tor releases the first big chunk of your books when they're coming out change the way you write? For example, more cliffhangers, things like that?
Nope, it hasn't. Good question. But I am the one who picks what Tor releases. They would not be releasing nearly as much if it weren't my choice, if I hadn't suggested it and strongly encouraged it. It doesn't change how I write the chapters. That's not really a factor in it for me.
I am having a lot of fun writing a little annotation for every time Tor does a release on Tuesdays. I go on Reddit on the thread and write a little annotation about the chapter (or chapters).
If Szeth were to have drawn Nightblood immediately after he had consumed Rayse, would he still have drained Szeth's Stormlight? As it said he seemed like he had eaten as much as he could.
At that point, Nightblood had entered into essentially a food coma... Well, no, the food coma one came when he was drawing from the perpendicularity. I don't think he was in food coma mode at that point. I think that he could still have drawn more at that point, I'd have to go look at exactly what I wrote, if I'd put him into food coma mode or not. It is possible.
This is one of the things I wanted to answer with the book. A lot of people have been theorizing, could Nightblood eat an entire Shard? And indeed, Nightblood could not eat an entire Shard. That is not within his capability. In fact, one of the reasons that he leaks Investiture is: he's too stuffed full of it. There is more Investiture in the sword Nightblood than it can actually hold, it's supersaturated. And it leaks Investiture (that it's done some weird things to). But it is constantly hungry for more and constantly leaks it, but it definitely can get full for a time, and it could not eat an entire Shard.
I did see questions about that from people floating around, and it's something I'd been meaning to get to eventually. Nightblood is definitely relevant to things that are happening in the Cosmere, but it is not as simple as grabbing the sword, sticking it into a Shard, and defeating the Shard, unfortunately. Though, as you see in this book, there are reasons for a Shard to still be afraid of Nightblood. It didn't destroy Odium, but Rayse still really had a bad time.
Are Mistings exposed to the "burning bad alloy or wrong metal" problem (hurting them), like Mistborn are?
Good question. I don't know if they can even sense an off alloy of their metal.
The Butler
If you watch in these scenes, I'm trying very hard to set up the butler's eventual betrayal. This one must be done very carefully, however, for a couple of reasons. First off, Tillaume is actually a pretty good person. Loyal to Wax's uncle, true, but a good man. He doesn't want to kill Wax, but he sees it as important and understands what must be done.
What he is doing here in discouraging Wax is an attempt to keep him from drawing the old Lord Ladrian's attention. Tillaume knows that if it goes too far, Wax will have to be removed. But Tillaume is fond of him, and doesn't want that to happen. Hence his disapproval. He doesn't actually know he''ll be ordered to kill Wax; in fact, if he had known that he'd be responsible, he probably would have tried harder to sabotage what Wax is doing in these chapters. It takes him a little by surprise that Wax does all this, however, as Tillaume thought he'd sufficiently discouraged such behavior.
I was also wondering, with the Steel Alphabet in the Mistborn books, each of the letters aesthetically looks like it's built from a cuff, a spike, and a bead, and was that intentional to reflect the magic systems?
Yes. Do remember that that writing system was developed by the Final Empire. They actually took the ancient Terris symbols and they made them more to their own aesthetic over time.
Does Khriss write the Ars Arcanum?
RAFO.
The Iriali Long Trail, is it related to the Cosmere?
Yes.
And the Fourth Land, the Seventh Land, those...
These are definitely-- They are in the Cosmere. This is where you give me a lot of wiggling, because yes, it is related to the Cosmere.
If a Feruchemist using an aluminum metalmind stored their Identity to zero, then filled a coppermind with all of their knowledge, would another Feruchemist with an identity set to zero be able to access the first Feruchemist's coppermind?
I'm not going to tell you a definite yes or no, this is something that needs to be saved for future books, but you are thinking along the correct lines about how Identity works regarding Feruchemists.
When Vin is feeling out The Lord Ruler's final message plate, she finds a circle with a dot at the center. What does that mean?
No big reveal here. That was to mean the center of the empire, which allowed one to place the map (which was very abstract) in reference to the empire.
Any chance we are going to see some more of Silence in the Forests?
You will probably see Threnody again, but the book will not be about Silence.
*groans* Maybe about Silence?
Probably not.
Do the Dustbringers have a propensity toward evilness?
I would not call them evil, but certain members of the Knights Radiant would say they're on the edge, and did not get along with them. Let's just say Skybreakers have not gotten along with Dustbringers, even though they are very near each other in a lot of ways.
Did any countries not pass an equivalent of the Capitulation Act?
Some did, some didn't. For example, Canada didn't… and things didn't go very well for them.
Are the areas where they didn't livable?
Well, livable is a broad definition. For some people, Newcago is livable.
Fabrials. With the spren, when they're trapped in the gemstones, can each individual spren type only do one Surge, or is the way that they're bound in the gemstone, like, gem type and color, does that have an effect on how it works?
Mmhmm. It does.
