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Are the Ashynite magic system, in which micro organisms cause diseases and bestow powers, and the Old Magic related? You could sort of see the powers and the disease as a boon and a curse. If so, does the "Old" part come from that?
Yes, they are related, but the name comes from the magic actually predating spren bonds.
How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them haven't been seen?
I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.
So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?
So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.
That would have been a great thing to know before we did the cosmere magic panel. *laughter*
I look at it as, is an Investiture externally powering the magic, and if you look at Allomancy, yes it is. You are drawing that power out. Feruchemy, you are putting Investiture in from your own body, it's your energy transferring to Investiture, which is being stored, which you are then drawing out, and things like that. But that changing forms is facilitated by the magic. Whereas you're stealing stuff with-- So you could look, for instance at the magic on Nalthis, you could look at that one as being-- as kind of working as end-negative, meaning "I am taking it away from someone else", or end-positive depending on if you're the one receiving it or not. So again, it's a phrasing that can be useful as a tool but doesn't scale well to the other magics.
I kind of envision the Old Magic working a little bit like Hemalurgy, where some-- takes a part of the Physical DNA of the person and transmutes it onto the Cognitive DNA because everything seems to be a Cognitive shift for the person, am I thinking along the right lines?
You are thinking along very-- Yes you are thinking along the right lines. I won’t tell you exactly but you are thinking along the right lines.
So, in Oathbringer, when Dalinar goes to the Nightwatcher, we see Cultivation intervene directly. How closely does she supervise other Nightwatcher visits? ...Could the Nightwatcher give a boon that Cultivation wouldn't want her to?
Well, yes. "Wouldn't want her to" is a strong phrase. Like, Cultivation is always aware of what's going on. Cultivation rarely intervenes, even if she thinks it would be a bad boon, because she wants the Nightwatcher to learn. And she also is very interested in seeing what happens. So, rarely intervenes, but is aware.
Would she intervene if she thought the boon would help Odium?
Not necessarily.
Is the Old Magic a Shard?
Is the Old Magic a Shard? That's a Read And Find Out.
We saw that, in one case that she felt it was very important, Cultivation intervened when Dalinar was asking for his boon from the Nightwatcher. You said that for the most part she just sort of lets her work, but has she intervened in other cases that she feels are important, specifically with Taravangian?
She has intervened before.
I was wondering if the Nightwatcher can offer a boon or curse to other sentient species or non-native to Roshar.
Yes, the Nightwatcher could offer boons and curses to non-natives of Roshar. I mean, humans are not native. So there's a pretty good--
They were born there, but--
Yeah, yeah, someone who's not born there, yeah.
I have a follow-up question, would those boons and curses still apply when they left Roshar?
Yes, the boons and curses should still apply when they leave Roshar.
Using Hemalurgy, could you steal the boon from the Old Magic?
Oh, from the Nightwatcher? This is theoretically possible.
Would that take the [curse] with it as well?
*Hesitantly* Yes. Though it's also theoretically possible to split them apart, that would be a lot harder. Getting the boon, if you knew what you were doing, would not be that difficult.
Now, what Cultivation would do to you when she found out that had happened is another thing entirely. Because those are willful grants of Investiture.
Similar to Endowment's with the Returned?
Yeah, things like that. When you get a Shard involved and the Shard has...power to... Same thing like...it's on a much grander scale what's happening with the spren bond, right?
When Hemalurgy does spread, most Shards will not be happy about this, right?
Yes, that is correct.
One of your characters wishes for and is given capacity... That is one of my favorite concepts of all the books that I read of yours. Can you talk about the inspiration for that gift of limited and maximum capacity?
To not give spoilers, there is a character in The Stormlight Archive who has asked the Old Magic, which is a force that kind of has references in things like The Monkey's Paw and what-not, a force that doesn't always give you things exactly the way you want them. And I built, by the way, the Old Magic into The Stormlight Archive because I felt that at a certain point, while I love to do these rule-based magic systems, I wanted there to be a contrast to it... It's kinda like this idea that, yes, modern science and things have explained a lot of stuff, but there's something primal, perhaps, in the past, I don't actually know. But that idea that there's a primal magic that doesn't really adhere to the rules, we can't anticipate it, was really, I felt, vital for me to include so that I didn't overexplain everything in the books.
So, there's a person who asked for capacity. It wanted to be, let's say, strong enough to lift (it's not actually strength, but it's more of an emotional thing) what was coming. That, I feel like, is a very real thing to wish for, right? I have frequently, like... people say "What would you wish for," and I say "The ability to fly," because I would love to be able to fly. But really, if I sit and think about it, capacity, ability, the capacity to hold all of this stuff in my head, would probably be the sort of thing that I would wish for. So this character, in some ways, is giving wish fulfillment for me, because that's what I would maybe ask for if given the opportunity, but even that kind of turns on its head because the Old Magic just doesn't get people in the way that people think they should be gotten.
Can Parshendi receive a Boon and a Curse?
Yes they can.
Is the Old Magic in Shinovar, and is this a result of something to do with Cultivation?
The Old Magic is at The Valley, which is not in Shinovar, which is… If you've got a book, I'll show you where it is.... Let's see where Issac's wonderful map is, the first big one… Right here. So the Valley's right there. So that's where you go in order to visit the Old Magic.
Can the Nightwatcher turn you into a different species, or like a spren or a seon?
It is possible for the Nightwatcher to change your species, yes.
