Stormlightning
Is a Edgli a dragon?
Brandon Sanderson
Edgli, oh, from tears of Edgli, uh, RAFO.
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Is a Edgli a dragon?
Edgli, oh, from tears of Edgli, uh, RAFO.
I'm very fond of this last scene for two reasons. First is the fact that I get to show Hrathen being charitable. He really does care. When characterizing him in my mind, this scene always jumps out as showing something very important about him.
Contrasted with that moment, however, is Omin's lucid presentation of Hrathen a hypocrite. All this time, Hrathen has worked against Shu-Korath, trying to stamp it out. Yet, in one brief moment, Omin scores a personal hit that is more painful than anything Hrathen could do in return.
Notice how Hrathen keeps trying to pull the discussion away from discussing truth in this scene. He knows that he can dominate if he can get the conversation to center around logic. However, truth is something that is hard to define, and something even harder to argue against. Despite his priestly mantle, he finds truth outside of his authority and experience.
When Hoid Awakens, does he speak his native tongue (Yolish)?
RAFO.
Is there any [books] that were really hard to write?
Yes. Mistborn Two and A Memory of Light were the two hardest to write.
Do you have-- Or have you determined an equivalency between how much Breath it takes to make a certain gem's worth of Stormlight?
I have recently assigned Peter to this task, and he is feeling overwhelmed by it. It was actually during the writing of Oathbringer where I finally said, "Yeah we need to standardize this, so start working on it." So it was like, "Oh great". Which means he has to read through all the books for references and start figuring it all out. And we're going to need like an equivalent of a jewel or something like this, right? *gestures to a sphere that a fan made* And we've been putting it off because it sounds like an awful lot of work.
So the answer is no, we don't have it yet. It's something I've known for years we're going to need. And on this book, I just started saying, "All right. I'm going to have them do all the stuff they need to do. And then you're going to tell me how many spheres they need to start with." Right? Like, I write the book, and then we retrofit how many spheres they needed to have how much Stormlight, so that we could be consistent with that.
But we haven't done across magic systems calculations, yet.
Is there a reason that the last few unknown Shards were kept for the last? Or have they just not come up until now?
More that they haven't come up. If I had started a book on those planets, then I would have canonized them earlier.
I've also heard rumor that there's a chronology? <On the cosmere?>
On my computer, yes.
No, that was going to be in [Arcanum Unbounded] or *inaudible*.
No, not a chronology. Not a timeline. I've been preparing one that eventually I'm going to release. But I don't think I'm *inaudible*. I did consider it, but...
I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength.
There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy.
Skyward question! The light line is mentioned as using two fingers to shoot it out. Are they the middle two fingers, and was this inspired by any jovial community arachnid folk?
First draft didn't have specific controls to shoot it out, and during revisions, I thought, "Oh, what the heck. It's not a big part of the story anyway." So yes. :)
Are there one or two Shardpools [Perpendicularities] on Scadrial?
RAFO.
In the second Stormlight Archive book... Wit... the Shattered Plains party, where he's introducing all the guests, and just the sheer list of insults. Was that an easy thing to do, and you've got books and books of--
Man it is so hard to come up with good insults because it's so hard to use one that Winston Churchill hasn't used already. *laughter* But I try to channel the best insult comics and people like that. Being witty in writing is actually the hardest part, but the fortunate thing is that I can take two hours to come up with a line that he's supposed to snap off in a few minutes or a few seconds, and that's how we can imitate being smarter than we are. I totally have to do that in my books.
It's interesting, I got an insight into really smart people. I was roommates with a person who won a ton of money on Jeopardy. Ken Jennings for any of you guys that watch Jeopardy. He won like 80 times in a row, right? I'm serious. He won 80 times in a row, or something like 78-- and before he did that, he was my roommate, and I knew him, and he-- the big difference between him and other people is that speed, that speed of making the connection and snapping it off. You say something and he comes with a comeback, just like that, and then you think about it and you're like "oh, that was really clever". That's what a lot of these people are, it's not the only type of intelligence by far, but it's one of the ones that this sort of discussion with Wit-- it's what we look for. So it's kind of a marker for somebody that's a little bit too smart for their own good.
In Calamity, Calamity's part of a mysterious group or civilization, really weird motives, we don't find out much about them. Was that <pointed, in any way,> part of the plot from the start?
It was.
Do you have a plan to explain that civilization?
I will someday explain that. At the very least, if I just have to sit down and write an essay on it, to give the closure. Yes, I will. And I do apologize for that. Apocalypse Guard was going to delve into this, but then the book got cancelled. By me.
How far are you into the Cosmere stuff, like how much more can we expect?
There are 10 books of Stormlight, around 12 Mistborn, 3 Elantris, 2 Warbreaker, 1 Threnody, 3 Dragonsteel.
This totally doesn't really matter and will probably change in the time it takes you to get to them but are Liar of Partinel and Lightweaver of Rens still planned as a semi-separate sub/prequel-series to Dragonsteel, or would they be included in that 3-5 book estimate?
They're included in the 3-5 book estimate. Dragonsteel's outline is kind of still in pieces, as I chopped out so much but dumped in a whole bunch more, so I'm not 100% sure on what length it will be.
Aluminum eventually is going to become more cheap to produce. Is everybody just going to have resistance to...
That is definitely something that's going to affect the future. But do also remember that as the powers become more accessible to people who weren't born with them, you have both more resistance to them and more widespread use of them, which is going to change how things act out.
You've mentioned in the last couple of afterwords that you get interesting results when you mix types of Investiture.
Yes.
Twinborn and Surgebinders on Roshar. Can you mix a form of magic with a source of Investiture? Can say Vasher use Stormlight in place of Breaths or would that require tampering via Hemalurgy or something like that?
Most of them require tampering. Some of them are a little bit easier than others. It depends on really what you mean. For instance, white sand can be charged in the presence of any Investiture right? It's just-- But that's not really using the magic, it's just charging it with other Investiture. But, you know, it would be very easy, for instance, if you can get yourself Invested-- Like, for instance, it'd be very easy to use Breaths to fuel Windrunning right? Because the oath and the bond and things like that are going to make it pretty easy. However fueling Allomancy with something else is going to be a lot harder. So it really depends on the magic. It's the sort of thing that there will be lots of science in the books dedicated to making happen in the future and you will find some of the processes these work easier than other ones.
Tertiary Projects
Dragonsteel
This story (the story of the shattering of Adonalsium, as told by Hoid) is next-to-last in my sequence of cosmere novels (though it's first chronologically). So don't expect it until Stormlight 10 is done.
Status: A long way off. Though it might still beat that one book by that other author.
In Bands of Mourning you got more into the Connection element and gave us some hints there. During a previous seminar a question came up on how that relates to your Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realm. I guess, we've talked about if people were to go different places it seems from the hints you've given in your books that there's a Physical aspect to Connection as far as where people are when they use the Connection as well as there's some ideal with… in the Secret History that we've got, when Kelsier was, when he wasn't Connected enough to Preservation. So can you give us anything more--
I just gave you a ton in Secret History! So much! I gave you a lot in Secret History to philosophize upon, this is very relevant to a lot of the things that happen in the cosmere.
I guess, specifically, does someone have to have both-- with Connection, are there more than one elements that people would have to have to have Connection to provide avenue to power from a different area.
Oh, um… there are multiple things that could help with it, yes. There are certain things that you can Connect through to make one strong Connection would be enough for a variety of magics, yeah.
I'm super psyched about the Rlainarin reveal that we've had recently. It was one of those things that reading Rhythm of War I'm like "Oh wow! There's a lot of cool chemistry here. And I don't think it's ever gonna be canon, but I'm gonna just love it quietly in my heart and tell other people that I think it's cool." And then finding out...
It goes back to Oathbringer too if you go back to Oathbringer.
It has! The scene in Rock's point of view. I'm just so glad it's actually happening. It warms my little Renarin loving heart.
Yep. I looked for a place to get it into this book, I actually wrote scenes that "should I put this in this book?" and they're like "No, if it will feel clunky just do it in book five."
I think it was there enough, that a lot of us readers, got that the chemistry was there, and it could work very well.
I think you can really do it justice, doing a same-sex relationship and do it really well.
Well having two viewpoint characters - that's kinda one of my go-tos, right? To avoid tokenism, try to make multiple characters who think differently. One of the worries was: with Renarin being autistic, I don't want to conflate these two aspects of his personality. But having Rlain there lets me have diversity among a given representation in a single book. Just way more comfortable for me to write, because it lets me make sure that I'm making people their personalities, and not their defining attributes. Kaladin has depression; Kaladin is not depression. And that's a really important thing.
If its something that I'm less familiar with personally, it's more important that I have a variety of viewpoints. Even if its something like making sure that Jasnah is atheist and Kaladin is agnostic. And that I'm approaching their different worldviews from their personalities rather than as a cliché of some sort.
I've noticed that in both Elantris and Roshar there are specific shapes to the cities and in both instances there are chasms. Is there a connection between the two worlds?
Oooo:) Yes there is definitely a connection there. As you know all of these worlds are part of a universe and my magic systems share basic rules. So you'll see similarities.
And the chasms?
*smiles mischievously*
Conclusion: Birthday!
Last year, I tried out something where—in response to people asking me if they could send me birthday gifts—I suggested sending me a magic card from a specific set, with a signature and note on the back.
This was a little experiment that people had a lot of fun with, and this year I want to post the results! That means a lot of photos, as I wanted to show the notes people wrote on the cards. Many of you included touching letters to me as well, which I read and appreciate—though those tended to be a little more personal in nature, so I'm not going to post them.
Some of you will be completely uninterested in this, so we've collected the images in a gallery rather than posting them all here. Have fun browsing through them! And thank you so much to everyone. It was a lot of fun to see the little notes that you'd all sent in.
I'm forty-two today, which is an auspicious number in science fiction fandom. It's going to be tough to top these last few months and the reception to Oathbringer.
The fact that I get to do this crazy thing for a living continues to be the best gift of them all.
When are you going to tell us about your Secret Project?
Well, I have an NDA that I have signed, which says I will not tell people what it is. So, because of that, I'm staying just far away from it. I have said before, I'm letting them announce it when they want to announce it. It will be announced probably, and released, before the end of the year, is my expectation. I can't say anything else. Even if you guessed right what it was, I would have to say, "I don't know." Or "That sounds like it would be fun." But I will have to imply that I don't have any idea what you're talking about, even if you guess right.
You've mentioned that Rhythm of War has a sequence that you've had in your head for a long time. Any other scenes (without spoilers) from Stormlight Archive that you are excited to have in the story?
There is a scene in Book Two that is one of these other foundational scenes, but I can't say it without giving spoilers about Book Two. Happens near the end of Book Two. There's a lot of them. So, the thing is, most of these are gonna be in Stormlight because Stormlight Archive is the book I started planning and then had in my head, the series, for ten years without being able to write it. Mistborn, I designed, outlined, and then wrote. And I'm really excited by how Mistborn turned out. But the original Mistborn, they don't have any scenes that I was planning for a decade, because I basically came up with the story and executed it. (Though I had done the magic system in a previous book, Mistborn Prime, which we'll someday release.)
So, a lot of these are in Stormlight. They're sprinkled all across Stormlight. There's one in Book Five, there's one in Book Ten, there's one in Book Eight. And these are just things when I originally conceived the Stormlight Archive that I was really excited to get to, and now have had to wait twenty years to write these scenes. So it's very fulfilling to finally be able to write some of these things. Because I wrote Way of Kings Prime, and then had to stop and not write Stormlight for seven years. So it built in my head with all of these things that I wanted to do.
There are some really cool scenes for Era Three of Mistborn that I've been waiting now probably for over a decade at this point to be able to share with you. So once I'll be able to get to that, then that'll be really exciting. But there aren't any from Wax and Wayne, because I conceived and executed Wax and Wayne. I thought of it and then wrote it, rather than having these decade-long waits to finally get the story written.
Sazed Watches Vin Defeat Straff's Army
Sazed's scene here was one that I rewrote a couple of times. He watches the battle and doesn't participate. He was particularly hard to write here. He's got so much going on inside of him–he just lost Tindwyl, and with her went his faith. But, at the same time, he is expected to be a part of things–and his natural curiosity still makes him wonder if Vin is the Hero of Ages.
The thing is, Sazed doesn't really believe in the Hero of Ages any more. So, the trick I had was how to make him perceive the scene here? Lacking faith, yet still curious? It was a difficult line to walk.
Elend becomes emperor despite all of his attempts to set up a democracy. He has the throne given to him by force. In a way, this isn't exactly betraying his wishes to let the people do what they want. Elend deserves this throne. Cett came looking for someone to follow, Elend is actually the rightful Venture heir to Straff's army, and Penrod. . .well, he was made a subject king beneath Elend, so he didn't really lose his throne.
It's a stretch, I know, and the Elend at the beginning of this book never would have accepted it. The Elend at the end, however, will take it and do his best for the people as emperor. Even if it hurts him to do so.
Zane confronts Vin about her desires and not meeting him atop Keep Hasting
If you didn't pick up on it, one of the things I was trying to do in this chapter–mixed with the last chapter–was forge a link between Zane and Vin. He speaks of things in the very same way that Vin did in the last scene. For instance, Zane here admits to himself that he can't leave Straff because his father is all that he knows. Vin used to think the very same thing about her abusive crewleader Camon.
It goes deeper than that. These two characters share a lot. Even their names are meant to feel a little similar. In fact, the one big difference between them is Kelsier. He injected himself into Vin's life and changed her course drastically. She would have eventually discovered that she was Mistborn, and she would still have become quite powerful. However, she wouldn't have known the people of Kelsier's crew, and wouldn't have learned to trust.
It's interesting to think, sometimes, what she would have done in Luthadel without the Survivor's guidance.
And for a friend of mine and her sanity... The Shalladin thing will be something or is all in her head? Stop her pain please :D.
Shallan has made her choice. I wouldn't expect that to change.
And thanks for the answer in 11. My friend is crying but now she can go ahead with her life :)
Yeah...I do feel bad about that. If it's any comfort, tell her I think she'll eventually be very pleased it went this way. It might take a few more books, though.
In the Midnight Essence vision Dalinar has in The Way of Kings, the female Radiant was wondering "who released it". Shouldn't the Radiants have known then that it was Re-Shephir that was the general source of Midnight Essence?
Yes, but Midnight Essence can be extracted and used independently.
What's the relationship between the Knights Radiant and their opposite gender spren? Is that important or not?
Ah it is slightly important.
I have to RAFO it though?
It's more important narratively than it is in the world. It happens more often but it doesn't mean anything when it doesn't happen, does that makes sense? So it's slightly important, partialy it's a narrative trick. I want to keep some gender balance and it's a lot easier to play off someone different than yourself, and things like that so I naturally do that. It doesn't necessarily mean anything when I don't. It depends on the personality of the spren.
We do have my cameos. They're not contractually written in, but it's understood, that in each movie, I get killed. *laughter* If these things ever get made, my cameo is they have to put me in a crowd scene or have me die on-screen in an interesting way in every film... I don't necessarily have to have lines, but they have to work me in somewhere... Yeah, Wilhelm Scream, they've gotta Wilhelm Scream me. Maybe I'll work up to getting, like, how Peter Jackson died in Lord of the Rings. If you guys know, Peter Jackson gets killed in the third movie. He's one of the people from the north, or whatever. They're on the boats, and there's a bunch of arrows, and he's like *yelling sounds* and *dying sounds*. It's really cool; he's got a great death scene.
Has Vasher met Hoid, and are they BFFs?
Not BFFs by a long shot.
Has Hoid seriously offended someone on EVERY planet he's been to? Kelsier, Shai, the Alethi nobility, who knows how many shards from Yolen, AND Vasher are all out for his blood..? :o
That's only a small fraction of the total list.
In that same chapter, with the wedding, the Stormfather says, YOU HAVE BROKEN OATHS BEFORE to Navani. Will we ever learn more about that?
Probably.
Was Azure hunting the Herald or is she hunting Zahel?
She's out hunting Zahel.
What is the range on Jasnah's Soulcasting like, and is [there] a hard limit on how much she can Soulcast at once?
RAFO.
Are Ruin and Preservation separate in Sazed or are they fully combined together like can he give one of them, or does he have to give both.
They are not fully combined. I mean that's not the way this works. He could pull off a piece of one even and make-- stuff like that. That's totally, totally viable. I mean it's basically what happened with the spren. The spren existed before even Honor was destroyed and things like that.
So, did the-- my gosh, on Sel-- the Aons-- not the Aons-- the seons did they exist before the Splintering?
They did not. That's a good question. But they are not the majority of the power. They're just little pieces, they are like the sparks when something gets destroyed. The sparks are not the majority but they are the sparks that were thrown off, if that makes sense?
Sophie's history is very detailed. I was wondering if her history is the same as Melhi's actual history?
Yes, she was being honest.
So, if Dalinar used Spiritual Adhesion to forge a bond between Sja-anat and Honor or Cultivation or whoever, then could Sja-anat corrupt a spren, an Odiumspren back to Honor or Cultivation?
Maybe. Nyeh...
What about the Fused?
The Fused-- I mean, it's the same kind of thing, they're a Cognitive Shadow. Eh? Eh. I'm gonna give you an "Eh." on that one... *waves hands* I don't know how you write that on the forums.
So Skyward 3 is focused "mostly on Spensa", meaning there's going to be another POV character?
That's not what it means.
Oh ok I just remembered in one of his livestreams Sanderson mentioned the possibility of multiple POVs.
Yeah, the audio novellas thing is instead of that possibility.
When Hoid *inaudible* Shallan in...
In Jah Keved, when she's back in the flashback?
In the flashback.
In the flashback, yep.
In--yes--during that experience...
Mhm.
And at the end of the book, Dalinar has that vision that didn't come from the Stormfather. I was wondering if those are related?
Those are not related. Good question.
I asked if the Aimians as a race were, as I suspected, closer to the Cognitive Realm, and whether they are somehow related to the Parshendi.
Brandon started by saying there are 2 sub races of Aimians for a start, and Axies the Collector is of 1 set, we have yet to meet the other but we will!
He did say there is 'Something' going on with the Aimians and their interaction with the Cognitive Realm but wouldn't elaborate on that point.
He then went on to say that Aimians are not in fact related to Parshendi at all, but the Horneaters and Herdazians are!
What do you think about Arcanum (the website)?
Very cool! I am happy to see this sort of thing happening, and different directions going, it can be a little intimidating.
Is there a plan for there to be a print version [of Lux] at some point in the future?
That is sure to happen eventually.
Sazed and Tindwyl discuss Alendi and the Lord Ruler
I added this run-down of who everyone is in the past just to help you keep them all straight. There aren't really that many people involved, but since we only hear of them via logbooks and notes, I think they might be hard to keep straight.
I like the depth of history this story-within-a-story gives us. I realize that some of you may not find it interesting, but–well–there are parts of every book that every one of us don't find as interesting. On the other hand, I know that a lot of you DO like these parts, since you email me frequently and ask if I'll do a Mistborn prequel dealing with Alendi and Rashek.
These sections are here for those of you who want to REALLY understand what is going on in the Final Empire. The weight of history that caused the characters to end up in the situation they did. In addition, one of my main motivations in writing this series was in the idea I had for Alendi, Rashek, and Kwaan. I didn't think they deserved their own book, and to be honest, I'm not convinced that the prequel should be written. (Despite your requests.) The story works better as an accent to this main story, I think. If I ever were to do a prequel (and generally I'm not fond of them) I would rather tell Kelsier's story training with his master Gemmel and finding the Eleventh Metal.
I primarily listen to the books, so my spelling and visual imaging might be a bit off. But, the food that Lopen likes, choutta, is that kind of like a Runza?
Kinda, kinda not.
They eat flatbread in Roshar--the bread doesn't rise. So in that respect, it's more like a burrito. Only, they roll it more like a cone, and they fill it with chunks of meat covered in gravy. The flavor is going to be more runza like than burrito like, but it's kind of like a pita filled with meatballs.
Previous to the heralds giving up, could the Desolations be mathematically predicted, kind of like highstorms?
Umm… no.
Projects in Development
Aether of Night
Another of the books I wrote around the time of Elantris, and another one that's not half bad—but still in need of a solid revision.
I'll likely do something with it someday. In the meantime, if you want to read it, you can send us an email to ask for a copy. (Consider it a thank you for getting this far in this huge post.) I'd ask that you'd consider signing up for my mailing list when you do email me, as that's how I get the word out on when I'm doing signings and when I have cool new things to release. But that's not required in order to get the book.
At the end of Calamity, I was wondering if the Prof and [David] together repair their relationship. They were kind of built up as a father/son kind of--
If I do any more books in direct sequence, what's going on with Prof would be be a factor in them. So I'm going to RAFO this just because I am planning...
Apocalypse Guard will not be a straight up follow up, but a sidestep, but I might do one someday.
...Does he ever get the chance to build a relationship with Tavi in another reality, similar to how David does with his father?
I'll give you a RAFO card on all of that.
Regarding the sibling relationships of Yesteel/Arsteel and VaraTreledees/Shashara, were either pairing Returned simultaneously? If so, how did they know they were siblings? And do any of the four know their original birth names? Finally, is it coincidence that there are two pairs of siblings in the Five Scholars or is there something more at work?
I do intend to delve into questions like in your first point when I return to that world, so I'll RAFO for now.
Pat Rothfuss recently worked with the folks from Albino Dragon to create a Kickstarted Name of the Wind deck of cards in which each face card features a character from the book. All those designs were discussed with Pat, and the final result is shaping up to be pretty spectacular. Are there plans, or if not - are you open to planning, - to do something like this for one or more of your own worlds?
I know about Pat's deck, it's really awesome stuff! I can only say that I do have plans to do something similar, but you will have to wait for Words of Radiance to find out more about it.
The Patji lake, theoretically, could an Aviar fly into the lake on its own and enter the Cognitive Realm? Like, have a bird catcher on the other side waiting for the bird to fly in and catch it?
Theoretically... I'm going to RAFO that, but it's not a big RAFO. It's more along the lines of, I'm going to get into the mechanics of how things go through Shardpools in future books. Um, what you just described is not outside of reason.
And could also, one of the grubs or one of the parasites or the rotten fruit, whatever, could that have fallen through the lake?
That is plausible. The question is, once it gets to be a non-sentient thing, how does going through the--- to the Realms work, and that's where it starts to get-- that's where you get your asterisk. Like, just a piece of fruit falling. I'm going to asterisk that one.
Has Eshonai left for the Beyond?
Yes. I'll canonize this. I'm sorry.
*sounds of horror and shock* Noooo, nooooo, RAFO it!
You wanted-- That was a RAFO-bait but, so I never intended that-- If you want to leave this one out there-- But I never intended Timbre to be Eshonai's soul. When people said that in the beta, I'm like, "Oh, I guess you could see that, but I mean that's not how spren work, right?"
I was going to say, so you're saying Timbre is not Eshonai's soul.
No. I never even thought they would make that connection. Because we saw Timbre in the previous book... I mean, I don't want to kill people's fan theories. But that one kind of blindsided me in the beta. I'm like, "Well I guess we'll go ahead and let people think that but no." No.
You can leave that one off if you want to tease people and things. Some people really want to believe that.
I made a bet that Eshonai was not only still be alive after Words of Radiance, but would also become Radiant. And then the bet was if not I had to eat a shoe.
Oh no!
So I've been trying to get out of it for like--
Well you could eat a gummy shoe or something like that...
But no, I didn't intend this. No. There are-- Yeah.