On all video games and stuff, I usually just do "Zellion" [as a username]. I've always liked that word. Now I'll never be able to get that in any game again, because I have released that there will be a mysterious Zellion figure in the future of the Cosmere. Any time I use a name, suddenly everyone jumps on it.
In Lost Metal, you had Marasi ultimately reject Kelsier’s offer of joining the Ghostbloods, and I think that's a decision we've seen some division on with the fans. So I'm curious, what’s your analysis and thoughts on that? Because it was an interesting and fun character choice.
Yeah, I'm not surprised there's some division of fans; there was division among the beta readers on this. And there is even—like, I, as I was writing the book, left myself the option to have her join if I wanted her to. I didn't lock myself in in that part of the outline.
My instinct was this isn't a good place for her. And so why…? And then when I got to the end am like, no, this isn't a good place for her. So, you know, Marasi’s journey through the books has been, "how do I change the world?", "how much am I interested in changing the world?", and "how much do I change the world?". Kind of in conversation with the dreams that she had as a younger person and the reality that she's now living?
And one of the things I wanted to deal with in this book was this idea that she is kind of worried that she's just— she's becoming a cop, with all that that entails, right? That there's a culture to that and whatnot. And should she be doing more? And all of that. And so that did lead a lot toward the whole Ghostbloods thing, right? And I expected a lot of people to be like, "Oh, yeah, well, here's the easy answer."
The problem is Kelsier is just such a terrible match to Marasi, right? Like personality-wise, you know, Kelsier is about the shadows. He honestly believes that if all the information were known that it would be worse for the world. He can share it in a small group. And he's got this sort of "I need to take care of people and I need to do it my way" sort of philosophy, which is really antithetical to somebody like Marasi, who, you know, her whole thing is "we need to be better as a society, not as individuals, and we need to be—". And so I at the end decided this is just a really bad place for her, right?
But she needed a place. Actually, the first draft of the book, I didn't have her make the decision to go into politics. She had rejected politics in the first book, right? She’s like, "I'm not going that way, that’s not that's not for me." And I went double back on that. I'm like, no, this is probably the right route for her, which is nice because like, it it kind of snapped together for me at that point when I did the revision to be like, no, she does need something. If she's going to turn down Kelsier, she needs something.
You know, you will have some fun in Era 3. Era 3, I don't know…? I warned you I might spoil unwritten books… Have I said this? I might have said this—you guys will know—Era 3’s working title for the series is Ghostbloods, right? And so like you know Mistborn: Ghostbloods is what Era 3 is going to be called, most likely. So if you were sad, well, just remember if Marasi joined the Ghostbloods we're still skipping decades. You would not have been able to see her as a member of the Ghostbloods. But that's what the name of the next series is going to be.
I guess this kind of answers this question a bit, that you have more planned for the Ghostbloods in the future, but in followup to that, we were wondering... you also have Shallan reject the Ghostbloods in Rhythm of War, which was published right before. So did that play into the decision at all. Were you trying to approach the same arc from a different angle or was it more just the characters?
No, this was just the individual characters and what they need, so no. In my head, Marasi walking away from an offer is very different from Shallan declaring war. There will be lots of fun with that in upcoming books, lets just say that.
We only know the people of Komashi as having Investiture from Virtuosity, why does their Investiture seem to be split into the two streams of power known as hion? Is this something unique to Virtuosity as a Shard, or just how it happens to manifest on Komashi?
Yes. This will be a theme you will see wherever Virtuosity is involved. So yeah. hmmmmm interesting. This will be a theme. There is a sub theme to this in the Cosmere. The Push and Pull. The opposites should be echoing through the magic systems. It is more expressed in Virtuosity than the others but do keep in mind that the Yin Yang sort of thing is there in the Cosmere as well in the general magic system, but more pronounced with Virtuosity, shall we say.
Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.
Yes.
There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.
Yes.
There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?
It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.
Interesting! Very interesting! That's what I was hoping you would answer. Because Awakening is such a cool term for Awakening an object, right!
One notable difference between the father machine and Nightblood other than them using different magic systems to be Awakened is that the Machine was able to somehow draw people's souls at a distance, which seems EXTREMELY broken to me.
Yeah. I had to let... This is going to be a pretty special circumstance for this book. But yes. It is pretty broken. You wouldn't want this to be... this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Don't expect this to be very commonly used in the Cosmere.
Was that a side effect of the magic system that was used to Awaken the machine, or was there something else going on?
This is a side effect of what Virtuosity did and the bit of Virtuosity in all the people allowing the Machine to have enough of a plausible Connection to them to draw upon them.
Ok. Interesting. I will think about this while I pass the ball back to Matt.
Yeah. This is me pushing just a little bit hard on the boundaries of what is possible. It is possible, but it it is pushing further than I normally would on the bounds of what that can do.
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.
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.
So it's more of a autonomous-- a Lightweaving that's become autonomous and has kind of broken down a bit?
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.
Stacking and other forms of art, like the TV dramas at the end, attract the spirits, but for some reason, painting doesn't. Could you elaborate on why, and the mechanical reasons behind that?
The painting would. The problem is that the way the painters are doing it, is a little too by-the-numbers. Painter isn't the only one who's just kind of doing it by rote. They have a little bit of... "commodification of art"-commentary going on in this, and things like that. I think the painting could draw the spirits; the painting does at the end. He draws Yumi, right? Which is working under the same mechanics. I think that part of it is proximity, part of it is the mechanical nature of it.
It is kind of in some ways, I think--kind of off the record--drawing the nightmares, as well as painting the nightmares. Because people are doing this, this is part of why the nightmares are finding their way. And it's one of these things that happen so often in life, that the thing that you're doing in order to stop the thing from happening actually causes it to happen more. It's the American football thing, right? We put helmets on people to protect them, which makes them feel more comfortable hitting each other harder, which causes, actually, more injuries than in sports where people are unpadded. And it's one of those kinds of, "And they're painting the nightmares to stop the nightmares but that's also kinda drawing the nightmares."
I do think you could draw the spirits with painting. I just think there's kind of a collection of things--remember, what it took from Yumi to actually, legitimately draw spirits away from the machinery. It took how many centuries of practice on her part? I think it's a combination of all those factors why the paintings aren't quite drawing the spirits. And it did, right? Painter drew the spirits. Now, it's telling that he drew the spirits on the job that he wasn't required to do, because his shift was over, and he could've gone home, and he didn't. He went anyway. And that's the time the spirits noticed him. But they'd been watching him already, anyway. I think, in the chronology, if you actually go and break it down, they talk to Yumi before he actually even saves that child and say, "We've been watching someone, we got somebody for you." But that was kind of the straw that turned the camel into a superhero. I dunno, there's a mixed metaphor for you.
It looks like all my questions this time are going to be about parallels between different things. This one between white sand and sand mastery and some aether stuff. I noticed that are are parallels, the water requirement, there's a bond--the omnibus really stresses that the sand master is forging a bond there--there is the legendary thirteenth aether spore which may be white, may be black, that's a little weird. What's going on here? Has Autonomy corrupted an aether?
RAFO! You are theorizing along the correct lines, Argent, well done.
Also talking about aether, a lot of the aether spores—or all of them that we've seen—map fairly neatly to a primal essence or element. And so we're wondering, if that's a continued pattern, what’s the essence for the crimson aether? Or to put it another way, what's with the red spikes? The world wants to know.
What’s with the red spikes? So, red spikes are the aether version of coral, which is… I did not, let’s just say, want to do a flesh aether. So we're going in a coral direction as our kind of organicish, fleshy sort of thing. Do understand they're not going to be a one-to-one, right? We might have some wiggle room there, but so far I've done them as a one-to-one.
But that is kind of fun, though, if it is kind of mapping to flesh that it's still got kind of a horror or like a scary element to it.
Imagine it more like carapace and things like that as what we might call our "flesh" for mapping the aethers there. I'm not going to go with some aether that creates giant tumors. I did toy with it. It just, you know, certain things don't work as well as other things.
So the the verdant aether is— verdant and roseite have been the two that have always been the most interesting to me. Though of course, zephyr is really important for the for the space age cosmere, right? Being able to have portable air and some some propellant that breaks the laws of our universe by providing propellant that is small, very compact, and very easy to use as a propellant helps a bit with space age stuff.
What research about the aethers is Xisis hoarding?
His biggest interest is how aethers break down, and he's really researching the water cycle, and trying to figure out how the seethe happens, because he's very interested in the decomposition of aethers, which is what's causing the seethe. That's what he is hoarding there. He's got quite the establishment in Silverlight as well. Silverlight was once upon a time a bunch of dragon palaces, they all still have their skyscrapers there, basically. He's taking a little detour for some decades on Lumar, but his home base would be in Silverlight.
That kind of answers my follow up question, that was, is his scholarly seclusion typical of dragons, or just something unique to him?
He's taken a bit of seclusion, but I wouldn't say... There's a whole bunch of different things about dragons. If you've got a Tamu Kek, you can contact them, you can pray to them, and they can actually influence your emotions. They're all kind of like little mini gods. They're not immortal immortal, but they're pretty long lived and functionally immortal. They've been around for a while doing all kinds of stuff, so there's all kinds of things going on with them. Some of them will be secluded. Some of them take their duties very seriously, like Frost takes his duties very very very seriously. Other ones just don't care. You will get some themes with dragons, they do like bargains, they do tend to have their interests, they do tend to collect people and have either followers or corporations or things like that--I don't want to go too cyberpunk on us, but yeah. You'll notice some themes the more you get to know them.
I will warn you, in the cosmere, there are more Anne McCaffrey style dragons, lesser dragons if you want, that do not have a human form. The greater dragons, as well call them, they're basically like amphibians, they have to spend a part of their life cycle in a humanoid form. They give birth in humanoid form, then have a transformation in puberty to dragon form, and then can go back and forth after that. But we've got some Anne McCaffrey style dragons, we've even got some little drakelings on one planet that are not six limbed and stuff like that. We'll eventually have some more dragons, but when I was writing the early books in the cosmere, we were a little dragon flooded with Eragon and How to Train Your Dragon, so I didn't write the dragon stories. But maybe some day.
That's fascinating. And also, that means we got our Tamu Kek, which seems to be a theme with these because we always have a Tamu Kek somewhere.
One of the few ways to have an ansible in the cosmere in the early days, pre technology, if you wanted to communicate between planets, this is one of the only ways. Really handy to get a hold of one of those, or to get some seons. Before we get technological solutions, those were your two main ways to communicate across planets.
In original Dragonsteel, there is the point where Hoid gets a hold of a Tamu Kek and calls Frost just to kind of prank him. Frost thinks it's an actual devotee praying to him and it turns out it's just Hoid, he's found one, and he's... yeah. That's from 2009 - no, 1999 Dragonsteel. When Dragonsteel Prime comes out you'll be able to read Hoid pranking Frost with a Tamu Kek.
As he would, because he's Hoid.
As he would, yep. He was trying to prove that Frost was a Dragon and Frost was not letting on that he was, he was hanging out as an old dude and turns out Hoid got him.
The Lost Metal Ars Arcanum calls Hemalurgic decay a thing of the past. The term has been used to describe the loss of power in spikes outside of bodies, as well as the small amount of power that is lost at the moment a spike is created. Which one of those things no longer happens?
The first one, the decay of spikes outside of a body. They have figured out how to make that no longer a thing.
So it's still a thing that happens in the cosmere, they just know how to avoid that completely?
Yes.
Originally, Kaladin and Moash were essentially the major darkeyes who were in a position to criticize the nobility and lighteyed culture. Now that Kaladin has kind of (if not emotionally) bought into the system to some extent, by outranking most lighteyes, and Moash has gone full villain, are we going to get another character playing that role of a darkeyed or lower class individual who is critiquing the system?
Yeah, I've been looking at that. One of the questions is whether Lift can justifiably fulfill that role, as someone who considers herself a bit of an outsider even among the Radiants. But let's hang a little bit of a RAFO on that, ask me after you've read book five.
We know Vasher has visited Roshar, and we know that the Vorin people Soulcast important people's bodies into stone after they die, like what happened to Gavilar. Was Vasher aware of this when he visited, and is that the inspiration for the D'Denir statues?
You know, he would be aware of that. I wasn't consciously making that connection, though, in the books, I'll be honest with you. This is just going back to origins of what you can do with the magics in the Cosmere. I think he would definitely be aware that they did that. You can have that be retro-canon if you want, but it was not what I was thinking. But it seems like it's the sort of thing that would be very reasonable.
I want to ask you about my favorite character, Kelsier! Which is a controversial opinion but I hold to it. In Secret History, when he steals that orb from the Ire, is that orb full of purified Dor? Is that the first time we see that?
That is the first time we see that.
We were wondering if you made a conscious choice with Charlie to focus on the lighter parts of his story rather than exploring some of the more tragic elements of his past. Just because if you actually look at it, he hasn't had a great life.
He has not had a great life. So, there's a couple of reasons. Yes, I did. One is - Charlie, as a person, is somebody who is... it's not that he hasn't been touched by these things, he definitely has been. But the person he presents to the world is somebody who is actively deciding to move on as best they can. This is not always a decision, but for Charlie that's a part of his persona. That's how he handles the fact that his father replaced him so easily, sent him off to be killed, and things like this. This is his coping mechanism, is his dramatic optimism. And because of that, it's letting Charlie control his narrative a little bit.
Part of it is the nature of the kind of the story that I was telling. It is not impossible in Hoid's voice (as I do occasionally both in Tress and Yumi) to get into the deeper character stuff, but I want to play those cards wisely, because the natural mocking nature of his narrative could undermine powerful moments if I'm not careful. So I play those cards carefully.
It's those two things kind of mixing together that gets us the lighthearted version of Charlie. That is really how he is, that's not Hoid sugar-coating it, but that is how he processes what's happened to him. Let's just say he's super happy! Where he ended up, maybe... he wants nothing to do with going back to his old life. He's quite pleased with how things played out.
Given what happens at the end of the book, is Yumi immortal now? If not, does she age?
Her perception is going to influence this. She's going to need a small bit of power to persist, but she is so highly invested that it would take a very long time for that to be noticeable. Particularly because she's not even using that power. There's no out let for it. She's a Cognitive Shadow, much like the Heralds or Vasher, that is more self sustaining because of how highly she is invested. Imagine someone like Vasher with thousands of Breaths. You're just never going to notice. But her perception of herself will cause her to age. Probably not to age to the point that she dies though. Basically the answer is yes. You've got an immortal being running a noodle shop in a backwater corner of the Cosmere.
It seems there is a special interaction between silver and investiture, in at least certain places in the Cosmere. We've seen how silver interacts with aethers, and we've seen over on Threnody. So that makes silver the second really really special metal to interact with investiture. Is the plan now to have aluminum block investiture, and silver destroy investiture?
Yeah, that's the way I'm going with it. To make a distinction between them, that's where we're going.
But silver is still non-allomantic. No silvereyes.
No, non-allomantic, yup. No silvereyes. This is my nod towards silvereye-ness, and yeah, there we go.
So would [silver] be effective against spren, just like [anti-Investiture]?
Well, you'll have to find out. RAFO!
Can we confirm that Xisis is "Foil," and do all dragons have a nickname?
Yes, all dragons have a nickname. It's very common. And you are allowed to confirm that.
Will we ever learn anything canonical about the person Luthadel was named after?
Someday, maybe.
Spores are said to eventually overwhelm a ship's silver defenses. Do aether spores ruin silver like the Shades over in Threnody do?
Yes. It'd take a lot, but yeah. Basically, this is how we have a ship that sinks not destroy the whole ocean.
Can we finally confirm what type of spren is used to create half-shards? Is it Radiant spren, Shardplate spren, or something different?
RAFO! This theoretically should be confirmed in the RPG. We should be giving you all the tools that you need for these sorts of things, including all of the armor spren, all the different brands of Fused, and things like that. The stuff we need so that you can roleplay...
People who are making them?
Yeah. This should all get confirmed in that.
Can you tell us, what is the Command the father machine got in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter?
Yes, I can.
What is it?
RAFO.
It has to be very precise; I'm not going to look it up, it is in my notes. I would say it wrong if I gave it to you right now. It's one of those RAFOs of "Brandon doesn't want to look in his notes because we're in the lightning round."
Can silver help a spore eater with their condition?
Yeah, it can stab them through the heart with a silver knife so they die. Much better ending. There is potentially an application of silver that could maybe help them, it would not be my first go to. Silver can be pretty destructive.
Why do rat skulls glow on Threnody?
*laughs gleefully* RAFO. There's a pretty good reason, but that's a RAFO. We're gonna do a book on Threnody eventually.
Could the yoki-hijo do other magical effects at some point, other than binding the spirits?
Yes, they definitely could.
If we are looking at very highly Invested beings, we have Yumi, and we are told that she is more Invested than Elantrians, more Invested than Returned. Let's compare Yumi, Elantrians, and Heralds. Who is most Invested, who is least Invested?
Of those, probably Heralds... The thing is, the Heralds varied. How in tune and aligned they are with their oaths, their promise... It wasn't Oaths, but they did promise certain things when they became Heralds. It was pre Knights Radiants, it's not as formalized as Oaths. How in line with the power of Honor, how in line with the kind of natural Investiture of Roshar--which is separate from Honor, Cultivation and Odium--are they, how can they draw upon that. I will call them the least of the three though.
So Heralds on the bottom, and Yumi on top, and Elantrians in the middle?
Yumi on top, but Yumi's very close to an Elantrian. They're within the same conversation. And most of the yoki-hijo were traditionally in the past less, they've gained Investiture over time.
I am fully in Stormlight mode, there is not a lot to tease. We will be doing the Words of Radiance Kickstarter, but like you already know, we pushed that back again. I'm not gonna do another Kickstarter when people are still waiting for their Frugal. I think they've all shipped out, but some people still won't even have received those, I'm not gonna start up a Kickstarter, it just seems a little tone deaf. So we'll be doing that in March, we're coming up with all sorts of fun things for that. You will be able to get Horneater there, you will be able to get a new Sanderson Curiosity, we'll be doing Dragonsteel Prime as part of that.
