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I was wondering if you have off the top of your head any one-armed Herdazian jokes to offer?
Only the obvious one.
That being?
How do you get the one-armed Herdazian out of a tree?
How's that?
You wave!
As Brandon has mentioned, we have some scenes from The Lopen viewpoint [in Dawnshard], and I'm going to show you The Lopen chapter icon.
I don't know if this will wind up in the actual main books, but if we have a Lopen chapter, we might.
So far, for Lopen, we've been using the generic Bridge Four icon, because usually what's happening is I have a whole section where we get a bunch of different Bridge Four viewpoints, and it makes more sense. But we needed one for The Lopen.
Does Lopen have a good story later? Because he's my favorite.
Yes, he does. Lopen has lots of good stories coming up.
Is there any chance we're ever going to get a conversation between Wayne and Lopen?
Maybe in a non-canon entry.
I do have to know, how many cousins [does Lopen have]?
It depends on what your definition of cousin is. By Lopen's definition, there are a lot of cousins. He's counting like fifth cousins.
Third cousin twice-removed?
Yeah, that's his cousin. Like [someone] dating his sister, or his mom's sister - that's a cousin.
In The Way of Kings, how did Lopen get in and out of the chasms with only one arm?
So, he had a little help. And he can do it. Getting down and up-- I've actually seen people, looking online. You can climb a ladder. It's not easy. It's better if you have some help. But you can get up and down.
In Herdazian, is there no personal pronoun, and that's why Lopen always refers to himself as "The Lopen"?
No, that is his personal thing. In Rock's language, most nouns are gendered, masculine, which is why you always see him flipping-- screwing that up. But Lopen, just his thing. Just his thing.
I asked about The Lopen, and it was a public Q&A, so I was trying not to be spoilery. But some of the things he said at the end of Words of Radiance, where he knew a lot about background processes. I asked if I should be suspicious of it, and you said, "Yes." Was that in reference to him becoming the king, that you revealed? Or is it because of something else that he knows about?
Background processes of...?
It seemed he knew more about the squires, the process of being squires
Oh, Lopen. Lopen knowing more. No, that's not about being the king. You are supposed to be suspicious of it because Lopen has been paying a lot of attention. He didn't have foreknowledge. It was completely accidental he ended up in Bridge Four. But once he did, he decided, "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna learn about it." And he has been the one actively pursuing becoming a full Knight Radiant. He's the only one of the team who's actively been doing that. That's why you are supposed to be suspicious. There's not an ulterior motive. He is proactive.
Is Lopen, is he going to be one of the secondary [main characters for the back half of the Stormlight Archive]?
He is not. Good question.
Is Lopen a squire?
Lopen is a squire. Good question! That'll probably settle some debating on the website.
To clear up some confusion, this [The Lopen chapter icon] is a picture of Rua, not The Lopen. You cannot capture the magnificence of The Lopen with drawings.
What inspired Lopen?
A couple things inspired Lopen. The first, and kind of most important thing, that inspired Lopen, was: I knew Bridge Four needed more light. Like, it needed somebody who just refused to be beaten down at all. Because things were so dark in the Bridge Four sequences, I knew I needed to add in somebody who just had a different personality. And I developed Lopen around that idea. Lopen is the guy that's going to be shoved into Hell and be like, "Hey, guys, what's going on? Wow, it's kind of hot here, huh. Well, we'll deal with that!" Just refuses to let it get him down.
The Herdazians, in general, came from me wanting to reach to other cultures that aren't often seen in fantasy novels for some of my inspirations. So a few of the Herdazian inspirations come from Hispanic culture. I think that's probably pretty obvious. But just not something that you see a lot in epic fantasy, for whatever reason. If people are writing epic fantasy, and they're reaching for cultures to base things on, they are usually going to go to Europe or to Asia. You're going to see a lot of Japan and China. You're going to see a lot of Germany. You're gonna see a lot of classical Europe, Hellenistic, things like that. You'll occasionally see the Persians because of like, the accumulated Persian inspirations and things like that. Then we have a "Cyrus the Not So Great" earlier - that was the Persians, right? Yeah ... But you don't see Mexicans, right? You don't see South Americans. And there's a lot of really interesting things to go there.
Now, it strays into dangerous areas when you're just like, "I'm going to lift this culture wholesale" and plop it in you're book, which is dangerous because you risk, really, misrepresenting that culture, appropriating it, things like that. But I think where fantasy comes from is going and actually doing deep dives into Earth's history and looking for inspirations for cultures. And with the Herdazians, I spent a lot of time in that direction. Because I was already reading on some of that for Rithmatist.
Is Lopen still going to have one-armed jokes?
Oh, he will always have one-armed jokes! He's probably going to have to come up with some two-armed jokes.
Dawnshard is about Rysn. But there's a small plot arc for multiple other characters. Lopen's got one. Even Huio's got one. Because I'm a novel writer, and even when I write in shorter form, I'm doing novel writer sort of things.
Is it a coincidence that, when Michael Kramer was reading... Stormlight Archive and Wax&Wayne, Wayne sounds curiously like Lopen.
It's a cute coincidence. Lopen would have a very different accent from Wayne.
The Lopen's cousins? Is there any significance to them, or are they just--
No, they're just, like, his cousins and his distant cousins. He just is somebody who knows everyone and is related to half the Herdazians around. There's no secret, they just really are.
When they show up, ever time, I'm like, there's gotta be something with these guys.
They're a tight-knit group, those Herdazians.
In regards to the one-armed Lopen - which arm is missing?
*photo pause* I have always imagined it as his left, but I don't know if I ever said or canonized it.
How old is Lopen.
Lopen is early twenties.
So is Lopen able to regrow his arm because he didn't identify as being a one-armed Herdazian, even though he made all those jokes?
Yeah.
If Wayne, The Lopen, and Vasher were all in the same room, who would Vasher punch first?
Lopen. No filter. The difference between Wayne and Lopen is: Wayne can read a room. Lopen’s not so good at that.
What's your favorite Lopen moment?
Probably where he is on the ground talking to the sky. Probably that one.
Was Lopen ever actually a slave or did he just see a slave wagon walking by and was like, "Hey, can I join you guys?"
I'll get to his story eventually. But he did not spend a long time in a bad situation like some of the others did.
*inaudible* One of the people just would walk up and it's like, "Hey, can I join you guys?"
It didn't happen quite like that but it is a little bit goofy.
Can Lopen's children inherit Alethkar, because he was king for just a brief minute?
They'd have a claim. I don't think the Alethi would pay attention to it... But he was legitimately king for a brief moment.
What is in the future for the one armed Herdazian?
Greatness.
I mean, heck, he's already been King of Alethkar.
If Wayne and The Lopen were to meet, would they hit it off?
They would get along fantastically, absolutely fantastically. Lopen would find Wayne imitating his accent to be the funniest thing that he has ever heard... and Wayne would introduce him to all kinds of interesting modern conveniences like flushing toilets and whatnot and Lopen would find that all just delightful. So, yes they would certainly hit it off.
Lopen clearly states he doesn't consider himself a broken character, like all the other Knights. Do you consider him a broken character?
I do not. And, again, "broken" is a term with a lot of baggage, let's point that out. I would rather use the terminology that a given person is comfortable with, and let them put definitions on that themselves. Because the way I view it, I don't really view most people as "broken," even if they may use that terminology. What they might have is, they might have certain mental health issues that they haven't yet figured out how to work with that are integral to who they are. But not broken, just still practicing. And that's how I would define a lot of people, but I don't get to define it for those people, if that makes sense.
And one of the things I like to do is to have a variety of viewpoints in my stories, to make sure I'm kind of running the gamut on this, and I think some of the characters in my stories would say, "Yeah. Something in me's broken. You can talk about all the funny business you want, Brandon, about just needing to practice. Something in me's broken, and I need to learn to deal with that. Either fix it, or learn to not let it ruin me." And there are people that I've talked to, that that's how they've described it.
I've talked to other people who say, "No, I'm not broken. 'Broken' implies I'm a less valuable person, because of that phrasing." That is something that I never want to imply. And so it is a dangerous word to use. I let people in fiction use it, because people in real life use it. But just wanted you to be aware of that.
So, the idea that a person needs to be "broken" to be a Knight Radiant is a part of the world that a lot of people talk about. I actually intend Lopen to be a counterargument to that. But people in-world would disagree with me. They'd say, "No no no, he's got some of these things." But if Lopen has them, we all have them. So there are no not-broken people, which also makes the word "broken" just completely wrong phrase to use, if that makes sense.
So, that is how I view it. But I admit that some of my characters would disagree with me.
Lopen. Is he a squire, or does he actually have a spren?
He’s a squire. You’ll find out a lot more about what the squires are in the upcoming book. For most orders, squire were knights radiant potentially in training, so you can see what happens in the next book.
What did Lopen do to get on a bridge crew?
Lopen? Someone just thought he was annoying. Lopen, he's like the only person in Bridge Four who's, like, not a criminal. It's just like, "Oh, that stupid Herdazian, send him to a bridge crew, get him away." He's legitimately, like-- all of them have deep, dark, tragic pasts, but not The Lopen.
Is he one of your friends?
No...
So now that Lopen has his arm, are there any good two-armed Herdazian jokes?
He's working on them. In a scene, you will see him working on two-armed Herdazian jokes.
Did Lopen bond a spren or is he a squire?
As of right now, Lopen is a squire.
Okay, as of right now. So it's a potential RAFO.
Uh, I answered your question exactly. *questioner laughs* That's not a RAFO, that's an exact answer to the question you asked.
