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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifteen

I've been waiting for you guys to read this one, as it has some of my favorite moments in the first part. From the conversation with Rlain, and me finally being able to talk about some of the mechanics that let the Listeners survive on the Shattered Plains, to--of course--being able to write a fight using Awakening for the first time in a while. I also enjoy writing about Kaladin through the eye of someone like Zahel, as it gives me some interesting opportunities.

Obviously, I'm pushing (again) the boundaries of what a reader can be expected to remember/know about the cosmere to enjoy these books.

It's my opinion that thinking "Zahel can do weird, mysterious stuff I don't understand" is all right for those readers who don't have a larger cosmere experience. In fact, I'm confident that even if Warbreaker hadn't been released, I'd be writing scenes like this in the same way. It's a common trope in fantasy for the powerful figure, like Gandalf, to do things that seem outside the rules everyone else has to follow. One thing I like about having the cosmere to play with as a creator is that it lets me do scenes like this, which both are mysterious but also fully explained by the greater magic system, if you want to dig into it.

I will say that Zahel is making an informed guess about Szeth in this chapter. He doesn't know 100%.

This is your last relatively cosmere-aware chapter for the previews, I'm afraid. There are a few more similar to this much later in the book.

Ben

Was there any trepidation before putting a graphic novel in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. Basically, it was the trepidation of: "We want to do graphic novels, but we haven't done them before. So how's it gonna work? Can we do it?" These sorts of things. It was less worrying about the cosmere, and more just worrying if we were gonna do a great graphic novel.

And I think it was a learning experience. I don't think White Sand turned out great. I think the revisions that Isaac's doing in putting the omnibus together hopefully will get there, but that's as much our fault as it is the fault of the people who made it. Like, Rik Hoskin (who wrote it) was fantastic; we really enjoyed working with him. And all the people at Dynamite were great. It just didn't convey Sanderson-style worldbuilding in the way that the novel does. But we're hoping that the omnibus (Isaac's put a lot of work into the omnibus) will do that.

And I think that my opinion on it is kind of shared. If you go on Goodreads, the responses are: "Eh. It's okay." Which is not what we want to have. But I don't know that it was trepidation for the cosmere as much as us knowing "graphic novels are gonna take some work." Dark One is just a lot better; and hopefully the White Sand omnibus will be up to that level of quality.

I do appreciate those who supported it, because it's basically you financing us figuring out how to do this, and hopefully then eventually learning how to get you more cosmere stories in different formats. It would have been much safer to pick one of my novels that was already out and finished and do an adaptation (which is what people normally do), but it just wasn't interesting to us. We want to be telling new stories, not telling the same stories over and over again.

Questioner

As a medical student who is currently in my musculoskeletal class, how different is the internal anatomy of the "humans" of the worlds of the cosmere? Like structure and number of muscles, bones, organs, things like that.

Brandon Sanderson

In general, you wouldn't have a problem. There would be minor differences. Like, there's gonna be some slight anatomy differences for, like, Scadrians, who were changed to deal with the ash and stuff. You'd be like, "Wow, the lungs are different here." And Roshar is a lower-gravity, higher-oxygen environment, and you're gonna find longer bones, you're gonna find stuff like that on Roshar. But, in general, you would be like, "This is a human whose species is slightly evolved for a different environment." Rather than "this is not human at all."

Now, if you were to ask about an Aimian, either variety, they would be very, very, very different. You would be like Bones trying to operate on Spock. The Sleepless, you'd need a very different degree for dealing with them. I'm very excited to eventually get the Sleepless fully into the stories. They're from my second novel, Star's End, is the very first appearance of them. And they got ported over to the cosmere once I designed the cosmere. And are a really cool, in my mind, science fiction race that are not a hivemind, but an individual is made up of a group of large insects that share Cognitive load across all of them, and there's just so many fun things you can do with that. Because they can selectively breed parts of their own body to do different things and have, like, fifty generations of this group of insect that they are selectively breeding to do this specific thing, and stuff like that. Hasn't been a lot of space for them in the cosmere, yet. Just some brief appearances. They'll be very important during the space age.

17th Shard

Very careful roleplayers have counted the numbers of Inquisitors appearing in the novels and they claim there must have been 25 if Vin and Elend killed two Inquisitors between Mistborn 2 and Mistborn 3. Could you clarify the numbers of Inquisitors there were? They've literally counted.

Brandon Sanderson

They literally, yeah…No, I mean, I've got it written down somewhere. I'm now so separated from this book. I had always imagined there being around three dozen Inquisitors at any given time.

17th Shard

Oh, okay, so quite a bit more than 20.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. Well the thing you've gotta remember is that, with the powers they're given, they're pretty much immune to disease and things like that, particularly after they've gained their healing spike.

17th Shard

Right. Is that common to all Inquisitors?

Brandon Sanderson

It does not come to all. It comes to almost all. That's a pretty common one, but being an Inquisitor does not mean you get it. I think it mentions in the books that there's one spike that they all get, but I can't remember what it is.

17th Shard

I would imagine that would…well, okay, a steel spike so they could see.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. Yeah, obvious, but the thing is you've gotta have a Keeper to be able give a healing spike. The ones alive now pretty much all have healing spikes, but there were times throughout history when he needed a new Inquisitor and he didn't have a Keeper (a Feruchemist) handy. He could make an Inquisitor without that. That is not what's keeping them alive from the spikes being driven through their bodies.

17th Shard

So the linchpin spike is not always the same type of spike.

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't have to be. The linchpin spike is just, when you're putting that many spikes together into somebody it needs a spike to coordinate them all. That is part of what's holding their body together from all of this damage, and it doesn't have to be the healing spike. The nature of Feruchemy is separate from that, if that makes any sense. For instance, you could put a few spikes into an Inquisitor without a linchpin spike, and they wouldn't die.

Illuminarrator (paraphrased)

Is there an Awakening Command that could stick a Cognitive Shadow to a corpse? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but that would be a bad way to do it. You'd need something more. 

Illuminarrator (paraphrased)

More Investiture? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not necessarily. The body at that point died because something happened to it, plus it started decomposing. You'd need to do something to it to really get the Cognitive Shadow to stick.

Illuminarrator (paraphrased)

like a Hemalurgic spike?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's one way to do it. 

Illuminarrator (paraphrased)

Oh! To follow up... because Regrowth is Spiritual... if a Cognitive Shadow was Awakened into a corpse, then healed with Regrowth, would the body be healed to appear like the Cognitive Shadow's body?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, it would heal... wait, yes, Regrowth would heal based on the Identity of the Cognitive Shadow attached to it. 

mrmahoganyjimbles

If you were presented with the 3 options:

1. Adapting the whole of the Cosmere to AAA videogames.

2. Adapting the whole of the Cosmere to Blockbuster Movies.

3. Adapting the whole of the Cosmere to HBO/Netflix production level tv shows

Assuming these would each do the series the justice they deserve, which would you take? I would think that going on a series by series basis would be best (i.e. like a movie for Elantris or Warbreaker, a videogame for Mistborn or a TV show for Stormlight), but let's say whoever is offering wants the rights to the whole of the Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

You know, I've never been asked that question--and I've not given it huge amounts of thought. But I think it's a great question.

I think...perfect world...I'd go with the television series. I think that in a perfect world, 20-season of magically-somehow-all-awesome episodes would be the best way to approach doing the stories I tell.

The_realpepe_sylvia

You guys forgot anime! I have this feeling these stories could be told so much better through animation

Brandon Sanderson

I wouldn't say no if the right anime studio came to me.

RadiantJPB31

Are there any Easter eggs in any previous Cosmere works that are references to any of these secret projects that we will recognize once we’ve read them? Or were these all brand new ideas added to the Cosmere from where it stood before you started writing them?

Brandon Sanderson

You will find Easter eggs, but they've all been fairly well documented, of aethers appearing. Tress is on a world that involves the aethers tangentially. It's not the main, core aethers. So yes to that.

It's not really Easter eggs... Secret Project Four is something I've been laying groundwork for. But that's different from Easter eggs. When you read Secret Project Four you'll be like, "Oh, this is what he meant by 'he's been laying the groundwork'." It's a story that I've been preparing to tell and that you are prepped to read. That you can read if you haven't read anything else in the Cosmere, but you will enjoy more if you...

In fact, I am actually going to give you a minor spoiler on this. We are going to be putting this probably in the description so it's going to be spoiled for everyone. So even those who don't want spoilers, this is one that we're probably just going to make part of the thing on Thursday. It is Stormlight-adjacent. I warned you that it's one of the books adjacent. We're just going to go ahead and let people know it's Stormlight-adjacent. I think that will factor in to whether people are interested in digging in or not. Because those that haven't read The Stormlight Archive might not read the spoilers on that one, and those who have might read only the spoilers on that one. So it's like, Easter eggs? No. Full-on building toward? Yes.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is the one that there are no real seeds for. It's just a story that I conceived and decided to write, on a planet that is connected to another one in ways that are interesting, and that don't play into the major Cosmere in large ways.

Questioner

What made you decide to take the Dark One out of the Cosmere series? You couldn't get the magic to work?

Brandon Sanderson

It work a lot better once I pulled him into our world, and had the people coming to our world to assassinate him. And once I pulled something into our world, I boot it out of the cosmere. That did free up the magic to work in a different way from cosmere magic, which it is doing. It's kind of based on this idea of the narrative, that stories that people tell become real in the other world. Which could have worked in the cosmere with some Cognitive Realm things, but its working much better outside.

Questioner

Let's say we are twenty years in the future. You've finished the Cosmere books. What do you think you'll write next? I don't think you'll ever stop writing!

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't. Let's get me there, first. Because, for me to finish the Cosmere, I need Warbreaker 2. I need to do Elantris 2 and 3. I need to do the Threnody novel. I have two other standalones that are not planets you know yet. I need to finish six more Stormlight books. I need to finish the last Wax and Wayne book and two more eras of Mistborn. And I need to do the prequel Hoid story, the Dragonsteel books. I mean, the Cosmere, I don't know the count on there, but the Cosmere is, like, fifteen books so far. And I have more than that left to write, and it's been fifteen years. So we're averaging one book a year, so 20 years, hopefully, I'll be approaching. But let's get me there, first.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to release [Dragonsteel Prime] digitally (likely for free) eventually. The thing is, I don't think the book is very good--so I kind of don't want people reading it. And beyond that, there are a few things in it that are cosmere spoilers--AND more than a few things that are no longer relevant to the cosmere.

I realize it's a curiosity, however, to cosmere fans. I just don't feel it's equal in writing skill to my two other unpublished books from that era (White Sand and Aether of Night) despite them also having their problems.

I haven't been able to bring myself to say, "All right, here you all go. Read it" because in some ways, it's way more personal for me than the other weak stories from my unpublished days, because it represents me trying very hard (and failing) to boot up the cosmere, so it's extra cringeworthy for me in that regard.

lexarbraums

This just made my night, so thank you! That being said, I feel like you have the kind of fan devotion that would allow for a type of “podcast paywall” or “YouTube patreon” situation where those that would want to learn more could be offered some additional information (like Dragonsteel) without having to make the trip to BYU.

I know I would! And I know I would understand that I’m paying for the right to see a rough draft.

Brandon Sanderson

I understand this. I think I'm going to experiment with offering Way of Kings prime first, as that one's not quite as bad. I will say this: eventually, I'll release Dragonsteel. I think it's inevitable that I'll bend and give it to the fans, so you don't need to make the trip, so long as you're okay waiting a few years.

Phantine

Maybe also drop Mistborn Prime/Final Empire Prime the next couple times there's a gap in your publication schedule?

They're technically accessible through email, but having them on the website would make things easier to discuss, and it seems like an easy way to throw a little red meat at the fanbase without putting in too much effort (and you could stretch it out by just putting up 1 or 2 chapters a day).

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, there is enough serious fan and academic interest in my roots as a writer, that I should probably do this, as you suggest. Let me find the right way to do it.

VioletSoda

Maybe you could release a digital anthology of all the Prime/Unpublished works?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll consider the right way to do this--but either way, I will start trying to get them out to people.

ReadAndFindOut

In 2014, Brandon said First of the Sun - the planet in Sixth of the Dusk - is a minor Shardworld, in that it does not have a Shard present (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/103-salt-lake-city-comic-con-2014/#e1010). However, we've now gotten a WoB saying that Patji - the Father island - IS a Shard (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8606). Patji was a Shard, but isn't during SotD? Or did we finally get confirmation on that elusive "Survival Shard"? What do you guys think?

Brandon Sanderson

I stand by them. Though, as always, quotes and WoBs at signings aren't always as deliberately thought out as I'd like them to be. Answering questions on the fly can be challenging, and my phrasing can be bad in retrospect.

But no Shard was in residence on First of the Sun during the events of that story. The Investiture on that planet is residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium. Everything happening there could happen with or without a Shard present. Indeed, I would say that no Shard was ever "in residence" on First of the Sun.

The being called Patji still exists, and is a Shard of Adonalsium. Shards in the past have been interested in First of the Sun, and have meddled in small ways there. (Like they have on a lot of Shardworlds.)

Note that I might have been a little misleading in the first quote by bringing up Threnody, which is a real corner case in the cosmere because of uncommon events there.

That said, I'm sure that every story I write about a planet will bring up the quirks and unusual interactions of the magic there, because that's kind of what I do. (First of the Sun has its own oddities, as mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded.) Every planet is likely to end up as a corner case in some way, just like every person is distinctive in their own way, and never fully fits expectations.

I still consider one of the major dividing lines between "major" and "minor" Shardworlds (other than Shard residence) to be in strength of access to the magic, and control over it. I intend the minor Shardworlds to involve interactions with the magic as setting--coming back to spren, you could have a minor Shardworld with people who use, befriend, even bond spren. (Or the local equivalent--Seon, Aviar, etc.) But you'd never see power on the level of the city of Elantris, the actions of a Bondsmith, or even the broad power suite of a Mistborn.

But, as ever, the cosmere is a work in progress. The needs of telling a great story trump things I've said about what I'm planning. (I do try as much as I can to avoid having two texts contradict one another. And when they do, that's often a lapse on my part.)

Oversleep

Wait.

I'm confused.

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium?

Cause the question was a follow up (on this) where you revealed that all Investiture in Cosmere got assigned to a Shard even if it wasn't part of a Shard.

And then you said that the one on First of the Sun is directly associated with one of the Shards (and since later you revealed Patji to be an avatar of Autonomy (also, what are avatars and how do they work?)) we took it to mean that at one point Autonomy Invested in First of the Sun.

But now you're saying it didn't?

If there was no Shard ever on First of the Sun but Patji is a Shard/avatar of a Shard then where is Patji, actually?

Could you please clarify all that?

Brandon Sanderson

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium?"

The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three.

When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing.

I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time.

We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have.

Autonomy never "Invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a Shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists.

You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring.

Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of Investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "Invested" there? No, no more than you're Invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of matter and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time.

And...I'm already into WAY more than I want to be typing this out right now. If it's confusing, it's because it's practically impossible for me to explain these things in a short span of time.

I'm going to leave it here, understanding that no, I haven't fully explained your question. (I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.) But hopefully this kind of starts to point the right direction, though I probably should have just left this question alone because I bet this post is going to raise more questions than it answers...

Overlord Jebus

You've confused things so much now. We thought we had a pretty good grasp of this whole Patji situation (Autonomy visited the planet at some point, got themselves all Invested and created an avatar which is called Patji by the locals).

Now you're saying no Shard has ever visited there? And that the pool would have existed if no Shard had ever interfered? But that Patji still exists and is a Shard?

Does that mean Autonomy edited First of the Sun from afar without actually going there? And that the pool would have already existed without any intervention? Does this mean it was associated with Autonomy from the beginning? I'm really confused now.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't believe I said no Shard had visited. I said no Shard was there during the events of the story.

Investiture on First of the Sun predates any Shards fiddling with it.

Shards have fiddled with it by the time of the story.

I think fandom might be going down too far a rabbit hole on this one.

Chaos

Are you saying here that Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, or is it a separate Shard and not an avatar of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning Automony--but it is not quite that simple.

Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. I'm not trying to confuse the issue, though.

Questioner

So for Calamity, like about these others that you mentioned, are we ever going to figure that out? Or is just going to be...

Brandon Sanderon

Oh yeah, so the next series I’m doing deals with the greater-- kind of interdimensional travel and who are these people.

Questioner

Okay good, because I was like “You can’t leave me like this” at the very end.  I really liked how it was put together and stuff. My own theories were that David was actually, like his powers were actually figuring out Epics’ weaknesses...

Brandon Sanderson

I considered that, I really did. At the end of the day, when I brainstormed the trilogy I said you know what would be most fun for me in this series is to do a trilogy that is basically an origin story, for a character and then when I come back to The Reckoners, if I do, because the next one’s a parallel dimension, right?

Questioner

From where Firefight is, or from like other?

Brandon Sanderson

That -- we will get into why certain ones are stable and certain ones aren’t and why you can pull from and we’ll do something there with a new character. And if I come back, then Mizzy will be the main character in the sequel series.

Questioner

Awesome if you ask me, because I was always looking forward to more Mizzy.

Brandon Sanderson

Does that make sense? That’s where the plan for these is, we’ll see how the new series goes, they’re announcing it next week. And the entirety of the magic system is based on interdimensional stuff.

Questioner

Right, especially with Megan and her--

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Questioner

--multiple hundred personalities coming together and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

So it’s kind of like Megan has opened up this idea of a quantum multiverse, and now I’m going to do a quantum multiverse, which is not something I can deal with in the cosmere so it’s exciting for me to be able to do it.

Questioner

Yeah ‘cause the first one we see about the others I was like (okay cosmere fandom, but wait) this is not cosmere, don't worry about that.

Brandon Sanderson

Not cosmere.  Going straight-up quantum multiverse, in kind of a classical sense. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on string theory and things. It’s so hard, string theory breaks my brain.  Quantum mechanics break my brain.

Questioner

If you will say you're the MCU, to compare you, we're at, I think, the Winter Soldier period?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe, yeah. The comparison to the MCU doesn't quite work. It is the closest thing. The thing that I warn people is that the convergence of the Cosmere books is more about the clash of the different cultures of the Cosmere worlds, and it's less about uniting a group of heroes. The MCU works because your title character, your title character, your title character, and your title character are going to team up, which is really cool. For the Cosmere, don't imagine that that's where I'm going, though some of those characters will show up. The idea is that I am building Star Trek one planet at a time, and I'm then going to deal with the intergalactic politics of it all, and it's the clash of all these different societies and their different magics and their way of seeing the world is what I'm pushing toward, rather than a big team-up event.

Questioner

I think everybody would like to know, what is the Infinity War of the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

The equivalent would be the last Mistborn trilogy.

Aurimus

Secondly a theory of mine is around the healing factor of Stormlight. I believe that the healing was added later by Honor because it would heal away the Ashyn diseases that bring powerful Surgebinding - it's Tanavast's way of preventing the Ashyn magic system following Odium and Humanity over to Roshar. Can you confirm healing is a newer addition to Stormlight, or comment on this at all?

Brandon Sanderson

For the second, I'll RAFO for now. Interesting theory!

Jack Kimbell

Could Sja-anat heal a deadeye by changing them?

Brandon Sanderson

Heal? That's going to depend on your definition of heal. But, there are definitely some that would call what would occur healing. They would be different from the way they had been before.

Greyhive 9

In your 2019 State of the Sanderson, you talked about a 35-book plan for the Cosmere, which you acknowledged you need to focus on in order to finish by the age of 74. With your newfound writing capacity, you could: finish sooner, add more Cosmere books (or movies/TV shows), add more projects outside of the Cosmere. Have you pondered this?

Brandon Sanderson

I am unlikely to go faster. But I'm also avoiding adding too many outside-the-Cosmere projects. Let's see if I can balance getting these four [Secret Projects] done and Stormlight Five in a reasonable amount of time, and circle back to me when Stormlight Five is out. But if I'm able to do more of this in the future, I will add some more secret projects, would be what I would do with the extra time.

If I'm able to. I'm gonna be working hard on these for the next foreseeable few years. Most likely, you're not going to be seeing any secret projects from me for quite a while, now.

Questioner

When you're designing your magic systems, what is it you typically go into?

Brandon Sanderson

At that thing I said, brandonsanderson.com/writing/advice, I've got three essays on magic systems that can cover it way better than talking about it right now. That'll get you really into it. I would suggest those, they're called Sanderson's Laws, because I'm really humble. Asimov has them, and Clarke has them; so I can have them, there's not fantasy guys who have laws. So go read those, and they will talk you through how I develop a magic system.

Questioner

I was wondering about the background behind one of them. Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Background behind the magic system in Stormlight traces back to my early history as a science major. I was a biochemistry major in college, before I jumped ship to English. And I've always been interested in the sciences quite a bit, and you'll see that in writing as a theme through my magics. The magic system of Roshar is based on the idea of the fundamental forces. I love the idea of the fundamental forces. This idea that there are certain interactions between parts of matter and energy that transcend everything else and rule how our entire world works was fascinating. So I wanted to come up with this idea of ten fundamental forces that worked with the magic system of the cosmere. Because there are extra forces, because there's weird stuff in the cosmere. Some of them are one-to-one. Gravitation is just one of the fundamental forces. And the strong and weak forces, I played with and came up with some things for that too, so you'll see that. But on the other hand, we've got things like transcending between the Physical Realm and the Cognitive Realm, which is a very cosmere-type thing. So, I built ten fundamental forces. And then I was playing with the idea (which I have in the cosmere) of pieces of energy becoming sapient. You've seen it happen in Elantris, you've seen it happen in Warbreaker. Way of Kings is one of the places I really wanted to show off how this works. So, the idea of the spren connecting a bond to the force that they're related to in certain ways, that just grew out of that.

Weiry Writer

Kelsier and Thaidakar. At what point did you decide Kelsier would be part of The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Thaidakar isn't; his minions are! Pretty early on, there's a whole lot of Kelsier in Era 3 and as soon as I decided that when I outlined the original nine books as I was working on the original Mistborn trilogy I knew that there needed to be some more of him influencing the world/universe at large. He is a really fun character to write because he does not fit in boxes very well. He does like meddling. There are a lot of things I want to do with Era 3. 

One of my big concerns when I was building the outline with Kelsier, when I was building the outline for all 9 books before I added the Wax and Wayne books, back in 2004 when I was doing a lot of the big outlining for the cosmere - Emily's got to dig out that paper I once wrote out for her - I guess that would have been 2004 to 2006, because I got married in 2006, and it was 2007 where I drew that thing out for her. No actually it was summer 2006, because I didn't have my laptop with me which I wasn't allowed at the family reunion, so I instead had a notebook, because if I'm not allowed my laptop, I will have a notebook, and that's why we have a physical copy of this thing.

But when I was doing all that one of my big concerns was how to make sure people kept interested in Mistborn while I was potentially spending years and years away from it, at that point in the outline I was going to write Dragonsteel before Stormlight. And I started trying to do that in 2007, either way we're talking 5 to 10 years away from Mistborn at that point. How can I make sure that this stuff-? So I outlined Secret History that I could release in the meantime, and a potential Secret History follow-up. That I've mentioned before that I don't know if I'll ever write. It wasn't until 2010-2011, that I was like "why don't I write some short stories in this world to keep people focused on it?" And I tried one and it was bad, and I'm like "what if I just wrote a little novel?" I can do a little novel, right? And that's where Alloy of Law came from.

Technically speaking these are all solutions to the same problem, which is people can't forget about Scadrial it's really important. They can forget to an extent about Sel; it's still important, but it's not important on the level that Scadrial is gonna be. Scadrial has so many fingers in the technology of the future. So this was another method to make sure we had some Scadrian influence happening while I was in other worlds. Turns out we ended up getting ALL of them, we got Secret History, and The Alloy of Law, and the little fingers in The Stormlight Archive. But it was important to me that the fingers in The Stormlight Archive be through the frame of reference of The Stormlight Archive. 

Chaos

I definitely think Shallan learning about cosmere stuff is a good intro for Stormlight-only readers to get interested in the cosmere, kind of like Mistborn: Secret History is for Mistborn-only readers.

Brandon Sanderson

In Roshar if you learn, "Hey, there's more planets out there," and they see Roshar as something with a very valuable resource. That's enough of an intro to the cosmere to make it work in Roshar, and to make you prep for the future. That's why I did it the way I did. And also knowing people were more okay with this. But also I needed to get it in, I almost should have done it earlier. I saw people guessing that one by Words of Radiance. But by the time I was releasing Words of Radiance I was seeing fan theories that were like, "What if this."

Chaos

So like throwing darts on a dart board. "Ah, like this person's this other person."

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it might be that. The whole philosophy of the Ghostbloods was suppose to dove-tail with Survivorism. Survival of the fittest type stuff very much. I'm hoping from the things they've read in that they were able to connect the philosophies rather than throwing darts at a dart board, but it could have been the dart board thing.

FeatherWriter

It's funny because we already recorded the Kelsier podcast, but it's gonna come out after this one. You've put me in a very weird situation, because loved the Ghostbloods. I guess I still love the Ghostbloods, I have a terrible villain crush on Mraize, he's one of my favorite characters and Kelsier drives me crazy. So finding out they are intrinsically linked I'm like "Noo! Kelsier is ruining my favorite thing." But it does make sense I have to admit.

Brandon Sanderson

It's okay. Mraize does not have to do what he's told, and Iyatil who - that's the other thing once I dropped Oathbringer, and this is a southern continent Scadrian running around, this is pretty obvious connection to Scadrial. I had to eventually canonize that. Iyatil is - 

Don't consider people in the Ghostbloods flunkies. That's not a very Ghostblood-ish philosophy.

Chaos

I guess that makes sense, they're all trying to backstab each other. Well no I guess not.

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not allowed to backstab each other. [too many people talking at once] [Ghostbloods have]? specific rules, because they need them to be very strong specific rules. If you have an organization of people who are drawn to the way Kelsier works you need some really strong rules. [Hosts laugh] When he is just with his crew, his force of personality, and the people he individually picks you're not gonna have that problem. 

I always imagine-you can relate it to Tor Books, they're all assassins. When Tor really functioned well, back in the 90s, it's because Tom Doherty could keep a close eye on everything. And he liked his editors being a little bit in competition with each other. And he structured his organization so that if you picked an author who did well, you got bonuses, based on how well the authors did which is just a way of working that could really lead to an unhealthy office environment, if you think about it. But if you have Tom there making sure that that doesn't become the case, and if you have Harriet watching and making it a good incentive, not a bad incentive, then it all works really well and you have one of the strongest sci-fi publishers that's ever existed, because everybody was incentivised to find really good stuff. But they were corralled by Tom Doherty and kept it from becoming toxic. But now that Tom retired I think they're changing a lot of that, because its grown too big for one person to watch over.

And it's the same thing with Kelsier, in an immediate organization of Kelsier's you're gonna find a well bonded crew of people hand picked who are going to work together as a team, and you aren't going to have to worry about too much about backstabbing - less than average for the type of organization that they are. But if his structure is outside of his direct manipulation, the type of people who would be attracted to the organization he makes...

Chaos

...Are not gonna be nice.

Brandon Sanderson

...You're gonna have some problems. Mraize would not say that he's not nice. [hosts laughs] Mraize would just say that his niceness is an analogous threshold that does not intersect with the threshold of competence and capability of things he's trying to achieve, those things don't need to overlap in his life.

He'd say he's a very nice person. He was very nice to Shallan by his definition. [hosts laugh] He was very nice to Lift by his definition of things. Think of all the things he could have done with Lift, and what did he do? He gave her as a present to an ancient being who ruled the tower, who could properly take care of one such as Lift.

Chaos

Mraize is very nice.

FeatherWriter

You heard it here, it's canon. Mraize is nice.

Brandon Sanderson

Mraize is nice, and he also wanted to keep his fingers and he felt that was a better way to keep his fingers, was to make sure Lift was someone else's problem. He got what he wanted, which was being able to capture her, which was not that easy, he would say. So he deserves to have whatever reward, because it was quite a difficult enterprise on his part. She is not easy to capture.

You know those Scadrians gotta keep an eye on things, they like to meddle.

Cosmere.es

So currently, the books from the cosmere are pretty different, maybe, from the things that you thought would be the cosmere, like thirty years ago when the young Brandon was starting to write, and we are curious about how, or if you expected it to be like this when you started?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I definitely didn't. Remember that when I very first started, I didn't have the cosmere, right? Back when I was writing White Sand Prime and Sixth Incarnation of Pandora, and Star's End and Knight Life, all of those early books, all I had was a desire to do a big epic. Even when I wrote Elantris, I put Hoid into it more as an Easter egg than as a thing that is going to be some big thing. It wasn't until writing Mistborn years later, not even Mistborn Prime, the actual Mistborn, that the cosmere started to take shape. And at that point, so that's 2004, at that point I outlined Era 1, what is now Era 3, and Era 4. And Era 4 was big galactic kind of space interaction between all the different worlds. So by then, I was very excited by the idea of—I had the shape of it. But even then I wasn't planning to write Sixth of the Dusk, I hadn't written Shadows for Silence, right? All I knew basically then was Sel, Scadrial, Taldain, and Roshar. And I knew those were going to be involved somehow and so I was working on the various different Shards that were on those planets, but that leaves a lot of Shards right? If you add those all up, that's what, seven or so Shards worth of people? Suddenly it's like wait, that's only seven of the sixteen, where's everybody else, right? And counting that seven of the sixteen are two dead ones. I knew that it would be more expansive but I didn't know where I would be going and what I would be doing and that sort of stuff.

Jofwu

You mentioned that three of the four stories were for your wife and one was for yourself. Was this one for Emily, and if so could you elaborate on why you picked to write this "for her"?

Brandon Sanderson

[Secret Projects] One, Two, and Three I wrote as gifts for her, but if I'm going to be perfectly honest, One and Three were written with her in mind, and Two was written because I wanted to do another Secret Project and surprise her again. I don't think that Emily specifically loves this style of story, though Three was written specifically because I was looking for a style of story that Emily really likes to read. And One was written based on a prompt that she was kind of involved in creating and was me wanting to write... Tress is basically me saying "I'm going to write a book for Emily before I met her, who is just going to able to pick up and love a book. What am I going to put on that book?|"And Secret Project Three is a book for Emily right now. That's kind of how they are. Two was "I want to surprise her again. That was really fun. I am going to write another book and I'm going to give it to her for Mother's Day," I think it is when I gave it to her, and this one she didn't know I was writing. Others she did and read along with me and things like this, and this one was just like "You get another book! Here you go!" But to be perfectly honest, this one is a little more for me because it's the deviation I wanted. Four is for me in a different sort of way. Four is written in a "This is something the Cosmere needs that I've been planning to write for a long time that I have scheduled to write, and I don't know when I'll ever get to write it, so I'm going to write it now." That's gonna make you assume it's a book I've told you about before, but it's not! Everyone is going to be like "It means that he wrote this one, he wrote that one." It's actually not. But it's covering something else I've wanted to do with the Cosmere for a long time, and when we get to Four, I'll explain to you why and how. This one is loosely, very loosely based on the first Cosmere story I ever wrote. Not Dragonsteel; because I didn't know Cosmere back then, I was just writing a story back when, Teenager Dragonsteel. But the first time I actually wrote something involving a connected universe. And this one is in direct lineage of that one.

Noxilicious (paraphrased)

In the past, you've mentioned how Skyward was originally intended to be part of the cosmere. Were cytonic abilities originally going to be an Invested Art, or were they developed after the creation of the cytoverse proper?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Slight correction, Skyward was not going to be part of the Cosmere. It was specifically Spensa who was going to be in the cosmere. The story she was going to be part of is still cosmere-relevant, and we will still see it, but we'll see the replacement for Spensa instead. The cytonic abilities were developed afterwards, as we see in Defending Elysium.

Isaac Stewart

If we ever see the Nicki Savage stories, one of the actors who played Vin shows up. On stage.

Brandon Sanderson

If you want to read some of Isaac's writing, he wrote the Nicki Savage story in the broadsheets.

Isaac Stewart

The broadsheets in Shadows of Self and the broadsheets for Bands of Mourning were probably 95% me.

Brandon Sanderson

I wrote the Allomancer Jak one in the first one. And the second one is Allomancer Jak also, but you wrote it. And then you wrote Nicki Savage, which is Allomancer Jak's protege. And we still kind of want to do a Nicki Savage novel, at some point. Isaac wants to do it. Isaac is one of the only people on the planet... like, I'm happy doing collaborations on non-Cosmere stuff with my other writer friends, but the Cosmere is so intricate that most people cannot write in it, we don't think. We even had trouble with the White Sand graphic novel. We had a fantastic novel on that, but they just weren't steeped in the cosmere in the way they needed to be. If there's ever writing to be done in the Cosmere that I can't do, it's probably going to Isaac, if he wants to.

Isaac Stewart

It'll go through all the same process to make sure that it's canonical.

Sophia

Are you going to be doing another spoilery livestream?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that we will be doing another spoilery livestream. When do you want to do another spoilery livestream? We could do one next month, or we could do one the month after. We could say they're an every-six-months thing. So the next one in July. June or July.

Let's start with that. We're gonna do spoilerific livestreams every six months. They are much harder on me, because I have to pay much better attention to what I'm saying. But they are a lot of fun. I could imagine a world where we get to them three times a year, or something like that, but let's just start with that.

Adam Horne

The spoiler stream was December 17th. So, June.

Brandon Sanderson

June. So it is. That actually works well, because the spoiler streams can be near my birthday every year. Koloss Head Munching Day. Maybe we don't do it on the first Thursday, and we move it back.

Let's just do full spoilers. What do people want? Do you want full Cosmere spoiler, but no spoilers for non-Cosmere? At some point we should do a Cytoverse (as the fans call it), the Skyward spoiler stream. But only after Book Four is out would that make a ton of sense. Maybe we'll just do full Cosmere. Because the only non-Cosmere stuff people would care about spoilers are probably Skyward and Reckoners. Let's do, like, a Skyward and Reckoners one later. Because we do have some things in the Reckoners world coming our way, the novellas that Steven Bohls is writing. And then we have the Skyward stuff. We will do, maybe, a Mistborn exclusive one after Wax and Wayne Four, with only Mistborn.

PM_ME_CAKE

Here Sanderson says that the flashback chapters will be quite heavy in Cosmere content, and yet we get this before even that happens. I am so very hyped.

Brandon Sanderson

Let me point out that is NOT what I said. I said there were a few things in Venli's viewpoints that would be of interest to those watching the larger Cosmere. The flashbacks are not cosmere focused.

If people want huge cosmere revelations in Venli, they're probably going to be disappointed. I don't want to predispose them wrong. However, there ARE some interesting tidbits.

Questioner

Kelsier talks about a myth that seems similar to ours, about the grand maze of Ishathon, which seems to parallel to the labyrnth myth.

Brandon Sanderson

There are certain things from being a student of folklore, I know about certain myths that show up multiple times in different cultures, and I know how frequently myths show up in different cultures. So, I will frequently add in cosmere versions of these myths, knowing that different cultures on our world have spawned them independently, feeling it's likely they would spawn on-world in the cosmere. So, when you see a Cinderella myth, if I ever use it, which is the single most common myth throughout all cultures. I'm not saying "Oh, someone's been to Earth and found Cinderella." I'm saying, "People have developed this myth independently." But, yes, that is coming from my folklore background.

Questioner

Is it a Scadrial-specific myth, or is it a kind of a cosmere cosmere...

Brandon Sanderson

This one, in specific, I believe is Scadrial-specific.

Oversleep

I have a philosophy question that could actually be answered in cosmere:

Ship of Theseus in cosmere. If I went and replaced every part of the ship, would it still - Cognitively - be the same thing?

What if I replaced everything and made a second ship out of the parts from the first one? What could somebody watching all of that from Shadesmar tell me?

Brandon Sanderson

You're right, part of the design of the cosmere (which has some deep roots in classical philosophy) was an attempt to answer the Ship of Theseus question.

In the cosmere, part of the Cognitive--and even spiritual--aspect of a thing (particularly if it isn't sentient) is delineated by the way that thinking beings define it. Per the old joke about the axe, if you replace your axe head and think of the new axe as "Your Axe," then the cognitive and spiritual aspects of that thing will grow to reflect that.

If you replaced every part of your ship, and gave the sailors time to sail it, thinking of it as the same ship--it would become the same ship.

Questioner

I've read the Mistborn. What's the best way to get the full effect? My brother, I'm introduced him to the Cosmere. We both got into it through, when you finished Robert Jordan's series.

Brandon Sanderson

Full effect of the Cosmere. Do you guys have a non-spoilerific, "Things to watch for"?

coltonx9

There probably is.

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe go on the 17thShard, which is the forum, and say, do you guys have a non-spoiler "Things to watch for" to see the Cosmere connections in action.

Watch for Hoid, obviously. Watch for... people use the wrong words. Like if you ever see anyone in a Stormlight book who accidentally uses soil or coin or things that are just not Stormlight stuff. That is usually a translation error because they're using magical means to translate into the language and they are saying a word and the magic is translating it.

Like, if you just learned the language, you wouldn't make that mistake. That's a pretty big hint that the person is non-native. Watch for the myths and legends that people tell about various places and peoples. It's all just behind the scenes stuff right now. There's nothing that you're going to miss, you're going to be like "Oh no, I don't understand!" The things that are overt connections are meant to be woven into the stories well enough that you wouldn't have to have the intros, ahd the ones that are not are just Easter eggs for now.

Except for things like Arcanum Unbounded, which is presuming you are Cosmere aware.

Questioner

In a 17th Shard interview, Janci said that it would be really cool if there were a new Young Adult pre-Mistborn story to serve as a bridge for YA readers to jump into the adult Mistborn stuff. Is this something that you have thought about, YA books to introduce readers into the Cosmere?

Janci Patterson

More than any other question, I get asked this all the time: if I was gonna write something in the Cosmere, what would I wanna write? So many times. And what I always say, every time: "I'm not writing in the Cosmere. This is not happening. I have never been asked. I don't expect to be asked. Don't spread rumors."

But people get excited by things. So, what I told them (and what I'm referring to) is that I think it would be really awesome to have (because Mistborn gets shelved in YA, which is awesome) to have an actual YA Mistborn story that is actually YA that happens before The Final Empire so it serves as a bridge for your YA readers. And that's the answer I give people.

Questioner

When you started writing Cosmere novels, how much of it had you outlined? How far ahead had you thought?

Brandon Sanderson

When I started writing Cosmere novels? When I started started, I was a teenager. Totally hadn't thought very far ahead. When I was an adult and I was writing them, I wrote one when I was like 20, and I had an inkling, and I played around with things. The first one that I wrote with a real, conscious eye toward the cosmere was Elantris. So the ones that have been published, yes. But when I first started, I had a little bit of an inkling.

Questioner

Have you ever backed yourself into a corner with it?

Brandon Sanderson

Not yet! I have backed myself into corners by saying things to fans that I've already changed in my notes and hadn't realized I had, and stuff like that - I do that all the time. But usually when I do that, I just tell them. "Ah, I'm sorry, I just changed this, guys." I'm still convinced that Stayer and Stepper - that [Robert Jordan] didn't know those were two different horses. I'm utterly convinced that he made the mistake, and then just covered it. Because that's the sort of things we writers do.

One of the ones I’ve been working on a lot lately is, how much can you affect things that are Invested with other magic systems? Should it be not at all, should it be a little bit, should it be…? But then I have to go back to Mistborn, and I’ve got canon here, where people are pushing and pulling on things that are Invested, but I tried when I was even writing Mistborn to make sure that the someone was drawing on the Mist, or had extra power for some reason before they were pushing on… and so I left myself that room, but at the same time I’ve established that you can do it, so anyway.

Questioner

Will you ever consider writing a TenSoon or kandra book or series?

Brandon Sanderson

I could see doing a novella. Will there be a full series? There are way too many full-series things that need to happen already in the Cosmere. Chances that you get kandra viewpoints in upcoming books or that you get a novella, is much higher than an actual book series. That said, there's also the experiment we're planning to do; we're having Isaac write some Cosmere stuff. It's gonna start as graphic novels and things like that. Isaac has been in this from the very beginning, and he's one of the few people I would trust to do Cosmere stuff. Maybe Isaac will do this.

Isaac Stewart

You asked the question, and I wrote a note down here. Because we're playing with Mistborn stuff. Knowing what people are interested in seeing might spur something cool.

Brandon Sanderson

I got a really cool kandra character that I'm waiting to slot into a book eventually that's going to be a lot of fun when I can find a spot for him.

Brandon Sanderson

Those of you who have read to the end might wonder where the Lord Ruler got his fantastic healing powers. Well, it has to do with Feruchemy. See, the ability to heal one's body is one of the things a Feruchemist can store up. And, the Lord Ruler's power–by being both Allomancer and Feruchemist–is to draw near-infinite power from his Feruchemical storages by burning them. He can be any age he wants. He can live as long as he wants. And, he can heal as quickly and much as he wants. More on this in book two.

Daniel Greene

Almost every other fantasy franchise I can think of that's on the scope of a Cosmere (like Forgotten Realms, Warhammer) has multiple authors contributing. The Cosmere, though, is your child; is there ever gonna be a foreseeable future where you will let someone else's pen enter that space? Or this is the Sanderson sphere?

Brandon Sanderson

I have said that I will let Isaac write in this. And if you don't know who Isaac is: Isaac is my longtime art director, friend, and now creative director at my company. And he has always had a writing bug; he's written six or seven novels. And he's asked if he could write a Mistborn novel; and I said yes. And if that comes out, and it's publishable quality, I've said he can publish it. Either with my name, and I work on it with him; or if he just wanted to publish Mistborn novels just as Isaac Stewart, I told him he would be allowed to do that, too, because he's been a longtime collaborator and helped me a lot with the visual development, and things like that.

I can see a world where I let select individuals come in and kind of do their own thing. It doesn't matter as much that it has my voice if it's their story in the Cosmere, if that makes any sense. Where something more like Steelheart, I'm like, "It's continuing my series; therefore, it should try to do some of the same things that I have been doing in the main series.

Eagle206

Congrats [Brandon]

Very happy for him that [Dark One] is getting off the ground but also worries me a bit.

I've been through the waiting game with George R. R. Martin, J.K. Rowling and Robert Jordan. I started reading wot when I was like 13 and finished when I was 34 or so. I'm worried that some of the stuff that sounds awesome will never see the light of day or be 40 years in the future. The second half of the storm light or Warbreaker 2 for example

I also wish that this was in the cosmere cause it could be a great tie-in.

I'm also worried that it fails and kills any chance of his other works being adapted.

Either way hoping that my fears are unfounded and it's awesome. Sounds cool

Brandon Sanderson

I think that we want this to not be cosmere--because that should both give me a chance to dabble in Hollywood, but also not risk the continuity of the cosmere until I have more of a reputation there.

Also, I don't think you need to worry. So far, this hasn't divided my attention too much from other projects. I've spent maybe a day ever few weeks or so on Dark One--and I don't anticipate letting it consume me too much.

Questioner

What's the most cosmere-icly-significant in Shadows of Self?  

Brandon Sanderson

In the latest book Shadows of Self? Shadows of Self is not terribly cosmere-significant, the next book has a lot more.  

Questioner

So the middle series?  

Brandon Sanderson

No, no, no, The Bands of Mourning, the actual next one has some relevant stuff. Oh, what's the most relevant in this? The fact that Hoid is eavesdropping--

Questioner

On the carriage?

Brandon Sanderson

In the carriage. That's pretty cosmere relevant, but there's not a ton in this one. I wanted this one to stay really focused on Wax. You'll see some more worldhoppers in the next one and stuff, so keep your eyes open. They're hard to miss, honestly, in the next one.

cadebengert

Do you have any plans that you can tell us about for when the events of the rest of the Cosmere will become evident in Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Roshar is an important part of the cosmere. Really, the question should be "When will events on Roshar effect the rest of the Cosmere" as opposed to the other way around.

Argent

Skyward: With Apocalypse Guard sharing a universe with Reckoners, and Snapshot (originally) being in there too, it looks like you are playing around with the idea of developing a sci-fi shared universe similar to the cosmere, if smaller in scope. Are these non-cosmere shared universes random one-offs that just happen to work together, or do we have something bigger to look forward to in the (distant) future?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not actively trying to create anything else like the cosmere. More, there are ideas I really like that I've tested out in novellas that I want to expand upon.

Argent

The Iriali Long Trail, is it related to the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

And the Fourth Land, the Seventh Land, those...

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Aurimus_

As a worldbuilder, I love digging into worlds I wouldn't experience otherwise - DnD setting guides, wikis and the like. From the chapter released on io9 already, and what I've seen on various reddits discussing your novella, it feels like MtG has a massive world behind it too (someone described MtG as very similar to the Cosmere?)

First off, will your novella be suitable for someone like me who has never actually dug into the MtG lore before? And secondly, where would you say a Cosmere fan should begin digging into the lore here? What are your favorite worldbuilding elements? Have any inspired elements in your stories? (Cosmere or otherwise)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this novella will be suitable for someone who knows nothing about the lore. I wrote it expecting most wouldn't know anything about it.

If you want to dig into MTG lore, the various MTG wikis talk a lot about the world and lore--but you could do worse than just reading the other stories on Wizard's website, as a lot of them are well done.

My favorite MTG worldbuilding elements tend to be their visual worldbuilding--they have a lot of artists, and much of what they come up with is beautiful. It's a lot of fun to just go to Gatherer (the website with all the archive of cards) and pick a Set (like Innistrad) and read the flavor text at the bottom of the cards. (They are quotes or things in-world. Not every card has them, but much do.) That, with the art style, can tell you an entire story on its own.

I've been playing MTG since I was in high school, so I'd say my writing was probably influenced by it a lot--but I don't know if I can name any specifics.

ccstat

There IS historical precedent of accidentally setting off fission reactions in the cosmere using the magic

Now this is a story I look forward to hearing :-)

Brandon Sanderson

One of the first magic systems I designed for the cosmere was based on the manipulation of sub-atomic particles, and involved the ability to look directly at atoms and interact with them. I decided to back off on this, as it was a whopper of a magic system to get right with my limited (at the time) writing experience. It was fun, though, and is still a canonical Cosmere magic.

Brandon Sanderson

The initial premise of Dragonsteel, which you guys will eventually be able to read, is: the King has a bet on whether people from a rural village can be trained to be as smart as people from the noble court. And this is part of the bet. And that’s kind of the initial place that this starts and goes.

Hoid shows up pretty overtly; he’s got viewpoints in this book. He is not hidden at all; you will see him when he comes on screen, and you will know him. I think he goes by “Cephandrius” in this one.

You will be able to read that, eventually. Like I said, it’s not bad. It’ll be easier for you to compare when you get to the Bridge Four sequence, which was originally in Dragonsteel, and compare it to the new Bridge Four sequence from Way of Kings and see how the new Bridge Four sequence is so much more strong.

It is no longer Cosmere canon. Nothing in it really spoils too much. It spoils some of the magic system that’ll eventually be part of Dragonsteel, and some of those things. But when I go back to this planet, it’ll be Hoid’s viewpoint. Jerick has basically been written out of the Cosmere; I don’t know that I will ever do a book about him. It’s possible, but there’s so much overlap between his story and Kaladin’s story, now, that I don’t know if I could do it and make it interesting and distinctive. One young and somewhat brooding man raised to be a scholar from a no-name village is probably enough for the Cosmere. Even though there are distinctive different parts, since Kaladin’s father was educated.

Brandon Sanderson

Will the Cosmere persist after I retire? I like to be deliberate about my career, and I have noticed something. Authors who hit a certain success level, once they retire, books continue coming out from them for many years. This seems an inevitable part of the way that media works today. This makes some authors uncomfortable; Robert Jordan, for instance, said to Harriet he did not want to become what he called a "legacy series." This is something like Conan the Barbarian, where not just years after the author's retirement, but decades and even potentially centuries, you see more things coming out. This is part of what influenced me in saying "I want to only do the three Wheel of Time books that I signed up to do." In fact, Harriet and I had a meeting very early in the process, somewhere in 2008, where she said "what do you think?" Granted, this wasn't my decision, but she wanted to know what I thought. And what I said is, "I think we should finish his series and be done." Because I knew how uncomfortable he was.

I am less uncomfortable, but at the same time, I don't know that I like the idea of a giant legacy series. I think it is good that these things have a shelf life, because it opens up opportunities for new authors and new concepts and new stories to happen. What I'm doing is I'm very deliberately building my company in a way that, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I want to have the people in place to finish the stories for you all so that you have endings. This is something that was a great honor for me to do for Robert Jordan, and I stand by that being something that should have been done. I do know there are some people who disagree with that, and I respect their choices. But Robert Jordan wanted it finished, Harriet wanted it finished, and the fans wanted it finished. I want to be in the same position. I also want to have a position where we are doing this deliberately and having control over it. Some of you know, I have hired Dan Wells as VP of narrative, my longterm friend and collaborator Dan Wells. This is so that I can have another brain in the Cosmere, so to speak. My goal is to create something that a lot of people love for a long, long time. But at the same time, I am not trying to create something that continues forever, if that makes sense. Hopefully the books will; hopefully the books that I've written will be read forever.

It's kind of a wiggly, wishy-washy answer. I think it's inevitable, at this point, that my books will continue past my retirement. I want to be deliberate about it and have an endpoint to them scheduled. And maybe we'll hit that before I retire, in which case none will need to be released. But maybe we won't. And who knows what the future will tell and how I'll be feeling about this in twenty years. I think it is likely the Cosmere will continue, but hopefully we do it in a deliberate way and in a way that is creating very high-quality stories and that is finishing up things so there is an actual ending.

Comatose

Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.

Brandon Sanderson

So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.

Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares.

Comatose

So it's more of a autonomous-- a Lightweaving that's become autonomous and has kind of broken down a bit?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah...  the problem is it's also got the Cognitive Shadow, right? It's a really invested Cognitive Shadow that is borrowing this Investiture to interact with the world. Because these are their shadows; these are their Cognitive Shadows, all of these people's Cognitive Shadows. But the power is not themselves. Remember, a Cognitive Shadow is a little bit like a fossil, like Vasher describes it. You've got this pattern there, and then the power kind of makes it manifest and be able to interact, and things like that. And, when that personality asserts itself with that power in the right place, you end up with a person that is the shadow running it. But at the same time, you've got this mass of power and energy that the machine is kind of controlling, which pulls back and overrides the personality sometimes. You've got a very weird set of circumstances going on here.

But it was very fun to figure out all the backstory and the behind on it, and get it all working. This one was a little complex, to get these things all working behind the scenes. I like how they turned out. Yumi, if you dig into it, it has both pluses and minuses. The minuses is - from the beta readers and the alpha readers - the ending for non-arcanists was really overwhelming, which is why we have those Hoid scenes where he's like, "Okay, let me explain." It seems pretty obvious, I would expect that this is, like, "Alright, Brandon needs to do better explanations, Hoid's just gonna do it." But, because of all the work I did behind the scenes on Yumi, Yumi matches kind of cosmerological magic system stuff in ways that a lot of the side projects that I do just don't. Yumi is very deeply intertwined and following all of these processes in a way that works really well for me. But it also gets you into where you start to need a master's degree in the cosmere to figure it all out, which is why to make it easier, we have Hoid just spell it out for people. It is a little clunky; I prefer the clunkiness to the previous version where you needed a master's degree in the cosmere to understand even what was going on.

Questioner

Obviously the world covers different planets, but most people on all the individual planets don't know about the other planets. Is there a planet within the cosmere where worldhopping is common knowledge?

Brandon Sanderson

Is there a planet in the cosmere where worldhopping is common knowledge. Um… it's not a planet.

Bystander

It's a space station? *laughter* That's no moon!

Brandon Sanderson

That's not as far off as people laughing think that it is. *laughter* It's not a space station, it's not that futuristic, but there is a place in the cosmere where a lot of worldhoppers have settled, is where Iyatil is from, even though her ethnicity is not from there.

Moderator

Clarifying question… Is that place in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs* RAFO!

ConserveGuy

Hi Brandon I don't know if you will answer, but. Did "earth" ever exist in the cosmere? There seems to be humans on all the planets. so where did humans come from? or even the idea of humans?

Brandon Sanderson

Earth did not exist in the cosmere. Humans existed on Yolen (and other planets) before the shattering of Adonalsium, and it is assumed Adonalsium created them.

From a writing perspective, stepping back, I feel like other book series (like the Wheel of Time, Pern, Shannara) really covered the idea of, "This is Earth and/or earth people in another dimension/after an apocalypse/or far in the future." It's been a common enough theme in fantasy that I felt I wanted not to touch on it. So there are no plans to connect the cosmere to Earth in any way.

Orrin

I've always wondered how the Threnodites are so well known. Beyond shades, we don't see powers there. How are they so well-traveled?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a couple of things going on here. One is: there are ways on and off Threnody, and any of the planets that you can get on and off without needing FTL do spread through the cosmere pretty well.

The other thing is: the event that created Threnody as it's known in the cosmere (which is the death of Ambition) has wide-reaching ramifications. It's a very famous place in the same way that most people know the Bikini Islands when they might not otherwise know it, if that makes any sense. It's the source of something that has had great implications for the entirety of the cosmere.

dIvorrap

Was really Evi the voice that Dalinar heard when he opened Honor's perpendicularity?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. (You knew it was coming.)

So here's the thing--I'm never going to confirm or deny anything from Beyond the Spiritual Realm. Because it is unfair for me to do so. I believe there is an afterlife in our world, while others (quite rationally) conclude there is not.

The Cosmere has systems in place for ghosts and things to be real, yes, but I want it to always be possible for intelligent people to disagree about things like Evi's voice. Spiritual Connection creates visions in the Cosmere that are quite realistic (like all the ones Dalinar experienced.)

What Dalinar heard here could very rationally be a version of such a vision. That's what the Death Rattles are, for example.

Or, it could be his dead wife speaking to him from beyond the grave. Navani would say that's what it is; Jasnah would say it's the first. I try very hard (despite my personal biases) to not undercut the viewpoint of someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife. It is vital to me that the author not sweep in and say, "Yeah, it's cool some characters are Atheists at all who doesn't believe in an afterlife...but nudge nudge, we both know there is one."

The existence of an afterlife (not Cognitive Shadow style, but in the Beyond) in the cosmere is subject to your own personal interpretation. Everything that happens like this CAN be explained by Realmatic Theory, with very valid examples from the books.

Questioner

So if you had a character in Wheel of Time who was in the cosmere, who would that be?

Brandon Sanderson

If I had a character in The Wheel of Time who was in the cosmere who would it be? Oh boy...

Questioner

Jain Farstrider?

Brandon Sanderson

What's that?

Questioner

Jain Farstrider?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh Jain? That's a good choice! Jain makes a lot of sense. I was going to say one of the Aelfinn or Eelfinn, 'cause they cross dimensions already. That would be the most likely. But you could totally make an argument for Jain or one of the Heroes having fallen through the portal. I intentionally didn't put any cosmere references into The Wheel of Time. It felt like hubris to do that.

The cameo in The Wheel of Time for me is the sword that Robert Jordan's cousin gave to me out of Robert Jordan's collection, so I wrote my sword into it. So if you look, it's not too hard to find, you'll find Rand get's a new sword. That's my sword. *laughter* I got it hanging on my wall with a little plaque that says "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time" and then Robert Jordan's name and his lifespan underneath. It's very cool. It's a katana out of his collection, it's really cool.

Overlord Jebus

Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

Overlord Jebus

Are they aware of that Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things.

Overlord Jebus

So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm.

Maria Goulet‏

Why isn't Alcatraz part of the Cosmere?The lenses seem like they could be investiture-related.

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't want Alcatraz to have to follow Cosmere continuity and rules. Yes, the magic could work in the cosmere

Isaac Stewart

Art director Isaac here with an art reveal today. Recently Brandon, Kara, and Adam have been discussing publicity for Rhythm of War, and one thing that Tor has asked for is a simplified symbol to represent the Stormlight Archive on certain marketing materials.

Now, to be clear, we love the original Stormlight Archive symbol, and we are in no way abandoning or replacing it. Many readers have bought shirts and decals or have even gotten tattoos of it. We are using it in The Way of Kings leatherbound and will continue to use it as a chapter icon in Rhythm of War and future Stormlight books. So rest assured that we are not retiring this tried and true iconic symbol.

However, the symbol is complex, and it doesn’t read well at small sizes, so at Tor’s request, we’ve sought a simplified design. During this search, it occurred to Brandon and me that eventually we’ll need simplified symbols for all of the Cosmere worlds—symbols that will need to be easily recognizable from far distances—basically, space-era versions of our current symbols.

So, after hundreds of drawings and thumbnails, we’re unveiling to you now the space-era symbol for the Stormlight Archive.

We’ve built this on the skeleton of the original symbol, preserving the relationship between the sword, circle, and main focal point. Instead of extra swords, we have rays of light. Instead of the complex double-eye of the Almighty, we’ve chosen the burst of light from the original Cosmere symbol.

Going forward, we will actively use both this symbol and the original in promoting the Stormlight Archive, and eventually you can expect space-age versions of many of the current Cosmere planetary symbols.