Questioner
Does any of the Sixteen actually like Hoid anymore?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
If a kandra were a Parshendi, would he be able to take the forms?
Brandon Sanderson
The Forms? The actual-- To an extent, yes. To an extent, yes, but part of that is the spren bond. You're not gonna get everything. You could look like one, but there'll be certain things you won't be able to do, even with the Form. You couldn't take a form of power... You could pass.
Questioner
Are there historical figures that were inspirations for Elhokar?
Brandon Sanderson
Dalinar is based very slightly on Subutai, the great Mongol general. Elhokar, no one specific. I thought of him when I was a kid, when I was, like, fourteen, I wanted to do a story about a weak king and his uncle who's a really strong figure, and that interplay, and that's where he came from.
Questioner
I know that Dalinar's story is definitely one you were looking forward to, but of the remaining Stormlight Archive books, whose story are you looking the most forward to?
Brandon Sanderson
Umm... Taln's.
Questioner
Why are [Cognitive] Shadows so much more prevalent on Threnody?
Brandon Sanderson
That's a good question. Which is a RAFO. Sorry.
Questioner
For Jasnah, it seems like maybe a couple times it's been hinted that maybe she prefers women *inaudible*
Brandon Sanderson
Let's just have you Read on And Find Out on that one. There is-- Her book isn't 'til, like-- at the earliest, Book Eight. So, we've got a long ways to go before we're digging into Jasnah some more.
Questioner
Which creature is your favorite from any of your series?
Brandon Sanderson
Which creature? Chasmfiend.
Questioner
Syl asks Kaladin if he had <problems> *inaudible*. Is that just a phrase she picked up? Or is it something connected *inaudible*?
Brandon Sanderson
Um... there is nothing special you're supposed to read into that other than Syl personality and interactions and stuff.
Questioner 1
The drawers with the infused gemstones. Is that the Stormlight Archive?
Brandon Sanderson
No. That is not the Stormlight Archive.
Questioner 2
Is there a Stormlight Archive?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. But... it means the books. The archive of books that are all named after in-world books. The Archive is a pun on archived collection of books.
Questioner
Would all the different powers, or magic. Would they all work on the other--
Brandon Sanderson
Almost all of them will. AonDor, and the ones from Sel, are very hard to get to work elsewhere, because of certain things, but others are much easier. For instance, if you can get Breaths to another world, you can just use them, you don't need to do anything special.
Questioner
How big are the beads from Shadesmar?
Brandon Sanderson
...Bean-size, not as big as spheres.
Questioner
Spheres are the size of your thumbnail, right?
Brandon Sanderson
Spheres are a little bigger than that. They're like a big marble. Not quite as big as a shooter.
Questioner
What is your favorite magic system that you made?
Brandon Sanderson
Allomancy.
Questioner
Is the Warbreaker sequel gonna have Susebron and Siri?
Brandon Sanderson
It's Vivenna and Vasher. And new characters. You'll get an update in it, if I ever do it, what's going on, but it won't be focused on them.
Brandon Sanderson
Title of the next Stormlight book? I have decided I'm not gonna answer that yet. Still working on it.
Questioner
If Nightblood was to be used by a Scadrian, would that person have to be an Investiture ferring?
Brandon Sanderson
No, you could be burning any metal, and Nightblood would co-opt it and feed off that.
Questioner
Cultivation *inaudible* Nightwatcher?
Brandon Sanderson
No, but good question, they are separate and you'll find out in [Oathbringer], kind of, in what ways.
Questioner
Glyphpairs, or glyphs, for the specific Surges. Are they supposed to be slightly different? Or are they perfectly symmetrical?
Brandon Sanderson
It depends on who paints them and how. Most of them are supposed to be symmetrical.
Questioner
Because I got the Progression tattoo, and my tattoo artist noticed that it was slightly different on both sides, where there was a curve instead of having a square. And he said, is it not supposed to be perfectly squared off? Because then it would be--
Brandon Sanderson
Some people draw them that way, depends on what they're writing, and things like that. So, I would ask Isaac. Write an email to [email protected] and ask him about it, because he designs all those. I just give him general directions, he's the one that can actually write them.
Questioner
In Herdazian, is there no personal pronoun, and that's why Lopen always refers to himself as "The Lopen"?
Brandon Sanderson
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.
Questioner
I was wondering if you were planning on doing another collaboration with your fellow podcasters, like you did with--
Brandon Sanderson
Shadows Beneath? Yes, there will be something more like that eventually.
Questioner
Hoid seems to know things that are not explained. He'll show up places, when the Herald showed up, or when Jasnah comes back. Is that something that's just not been explained yet? Or is that something that's a part of some magic system that we've heard about? Or is that something different?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, so, he has access to things that other people do not. It is explainable, but it has not been explained yet. He can be places he needs to be, but if you watch, he doesn't always know why he needs to be there. He's really good at covering that part up. But he does-- he knows he needs to be somewhere, and so he gets there.
Questioner
Could a Threnody Shade survive on another world?
Brandon Sanderson
Theoretically, yes. But they are highly Invested, and leaving a world where you're highly Invested behind when you have that Investiture is difficult, as Kelsier discovered, and as most spren discover.
Questioner
Yes or no: will the Stick ever come back?
Brandon Sanderson
The Stick? The Stick is omnipresent in all books, but I think the Stick has had so much screentime already that it would be distracting from other characters.
Questioner
How exactly do you make kandra blessings using Hemalurgy?
Brandon Sanderson
I'll RAFO that for now. Even they don't quite know, right? They were provided by the Lord Ruler for them, and they didn't create them themselves. So, we'll RAFO that.
Questioner
Why pancakes?
Brandon Sanderson
My kids love pancakes, I thought Lift would really like pancakes. And pancakes are pretty universal, like, most cultures come up with a pancake-type thing. Now they aren't always the sweet pancakes, fluffy ones that we imagine. But, like, almost every culture, pancakes are a thing. Some weird batter with stuff in it you pour onto a hot skillet.
Questioner
I just have been noticing this, and it's not exclusive to any author, it's just this kind of theme that simply tires me. Main characters, they die, and then they come back to life. or they just don't die. And it makes it so much less exciting for me. So, I wanted to ask you what you think about that?
Brandon Sanderson
So, here's the thing. Because fiction isn't real, death is meaningless in fiction. The only real things in fiction are the emotions we make you feel, and different stories try to do that in different ways with different themes. For instance, I don't think Lord of the Rings is ruined by the fact that Gandalf has a resurrection, because of the emotions you feel, and then the other emotions you feel, and things like this-- and there's something universal about it. And so, I don't think I'm as big on it as that, because deaths-- maybe it's because I'm a writer, everything feels arbitrary in books, except the emotion that I put upon it, if that makes sense? And I always find that what the characters are going through is the more interesting than an abrupt end, but I guess that's just kinda me.
If you say that, then books can't have resurrection as a theme, or rebirth, which is, like, one of the most interesting themes in existence. But everyone has different tastes, there's no wrong. Not liking it is not wrong. I mean, plot armor also has this thing where we tend to not kill characters arbitrarily, we tend to do it at dramatic moments, and things like this, because the story is better that way, right? And there are some people, like George Martin, who just try to throw this out the window, to tell a different story by doing that. But, of course, resurrection is a huge theme in those books.
Questioner
I want to ask you a question about Pattern. Could you speak to anything about where your idea for...
Brandon Sanderson
I wanted different spren to look drastically different. And, as I was building-- Like, I wanted a lot of the spren of a lot of the Orders of Knights Radiant to kind of have an internal, natural conflict. Like, that's one of the division lines between a spren that's not sapient, and spren that is. For instance, Windrunner, honorspren, right? Honor is about rigidity in a lot of ways, and Syl is the embodiment of a lot of the opposite of that. And Pattern, who is so interested in lies, is a mathematical fractal-- a mathematical equation. This sort of thing, like naming the inkspren Ivory is just-- I want that internal, natural contrast to be part of them. And Pattern, I really wanted a spren that wasn't just another ball of light. 'Cause Syl is basically a ball of light. And a lot of the others are basically balls of light. And I'm like, I need something that's different, I want something that looks different, that feels different. That's where I went.
Questioner
Are we gonna see more of Alcatraz?
Brandon Sanderson
Probably not until after Stormlight Five.
Questioner
How did you design the mistcloak cloaks?
Brandon Sanderson
Because it looks cool, obviously!
Questioner
It is highly impractical!
Brandon Sanderson
Not if you're Mistborn! The only trouble we really had is stepping on the tassels.
Questioner
And getting tangled up in them.
Brandon Sanderson
Well, a lot of the tassels, a lot of the ones for mistcloaks we've made, use thicker material in them, and they lie straighter, and they don't tangle nearly as much. As long as you don't make them too long, 'cause if you do, you step on them, particularly on stairs... We've got some costume persons that work-- you'll find, if you use a thicker, stronger material-- yeah.
Questioner
A friend of mine wanted me to ask: Was the cataclysm that rocked Ashyn and forced its inhabitants into the flying cities Investiture-based, and if it was was it Shardic in nature?
Brandon Sanderson
The same cataclysm that the-- did you finish [Oathbringer]?
Questioner
Yes.
Brandon Sanderson
The same cataclysm that they were fleeing, that they caused, is the one that forced people into the skies...
Questioner
Do lemons exist on Scadrial?
Brandon Sanderson
Probably, yeah.
Questioner
Can Lopen's children inherit Alethkar, because he was king for just a brief minute?
Brandon Sanderson
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.
Questioner
How do states of matter affect how things look in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms?
Brandon Sanderson
So, generally, how people perceive something is very important to the reflection in the Cognitive Realm, and so the physical state of matter is going to be involved in that, but generally, it flows the other direction from the Spiritual Realm.
Questioner
Do the forms of Investiture that we've seen, Stormlight, metals, Shardpools, do the fact that those happen in general the same types of states of matter, all physical, solid, is kinda going to be like metal for Investiture?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, that is generally the way it will be.
Questioner
Is the metal that Bleeder was associated with and had, is the Shard associated with that metal the same entity that's calling itself Trell?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Is the entity now calling itself Trell, was-- is Trell the real Trell that was worshiped by the Trelagists?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
Calderis
Biochromatic Breath. The reason that it avoids Snapping, is that because it's so heavily in the Physical Realm, or is there something more to that?
Brandon Sanderson
Something more.
Calderis
Fabrials. With the spren, when they're trapped in the gemstones, can each individual spren type only do one Surge, or is the way that they're bound in the gemstone, like, gem type and color, does that have an effect on how it works?
Brandon Sanderson
Mmhmm. It does.
ShadowSgt
The history of Nightblood, we know that it's created by knowledge of the Shardblades. Would you say that Vasher's first trip to Roshar coincided with a certain individual that tried to take over all of Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
You're talking about Sadees?
ShadowSgt
The Sunmaker?
Brandon Sanderson
...I'd have to look at the timeline, but it was not-- it is not something I have present in my mind. It could have overlapped. So, it might overlap, but there's not a cause-and-effect there.
ShadowSgt
So, Sunmaker and Vasher are sep--
Brandon Sanderson
Are not the same people, good question. Sunmaker is legitimately Dalinar's ancestor.
ShadowSgt
Taravangian. When he made the Diagram he said it was "his brightest day". Would you say that he was more towards the Cognitive realm or more towards the Spiritual realm?
Brandon Sanderson
Spiritual.
Questioner
How did you come up with Shardpools and travel between the worlds?
Brandon Sanderson
...So, what happened is (close as I can remember; it's been a long time now), close as I can remember, I wrote Elantris in, like, 1998 or 1999, and I, at that point, didn't really have the cosmere in place. I knew I wanted to do some sort of grand epic, I knew I wanted to do some sort of thing, but I just wrote that book-- Elantris is mostly a discovery-written book, rather than an outlined book. And I wrote this book, and that's when I started a lot of these ideas. I stepped away from it, and I started writing a book called Dragonsteel, which was Hoid's origin story. And then I kinda got into the dark age where I was trying to be George R.R. Martin for a while. And then when I came out of that, I wrote The Way of Kings [Prime]. And during those days, I was really looking for these tying agents. When I put the first Shardpool in, I had-- I'm just like "Here's a well of power. I don't know what this does." I was discovery-writing the book. By the time I sold Mistborn and Elantris, I sold those two in a deal in 2003, that's when I'm like, "All right, now I'm gonna do this for real." I've had all this trial run-- I'd written thirteen novels at this point, and I'd sold #6 and #14, Mistborn not being written yet... So, I sat down with Elantris, and I built out the cosmere, and I built out these things, like "Why do I have this pool of power? What am I gonna do with the pool of power in the next book? I want this to be a theme." And I started building out the cosmere from there. So, part of it was organic, part of it was by design.
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Could an Awakened toupee be commanded to act like real hair?
Brandon Sanderson
...Totally! Absolutely, yes!
Questioner
Would it be convincing?
Brandon Sanderson
Would it be convincing? Yeah, I think that it would be. It depends.
Questioner
It depends on the number of Breaths?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, it depends on factors, but I totally think that could be very convincing. Yes, yes, yes.
Questioner
Could it also be given enough Breath to Command "Protect me?"
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, it could. That would be really weird. But yes.
Questioner
What does chull meat taste like? Surf, turf, or both?
Brandon Sanderson
I would go both on that. Definitely both. A little bit of each.
iguacufalls
Please write something new and interesting about Nebrask?
Brandon Sanderson
It is not the only portal to the chalkling world.
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
Is Hoid the girl who looked up? Is this the story of the shattering of Adonalsium, and did the group shatter adonalsium to figure out analytically the nature of Divinity. Was this an attempt to separate the different components of god to understand the unitary whole better?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
He said that this was not quite right but thinking along the right track
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
I asked if Mraize had enough breaths to have achieved the 4th Heightening giving him perfect life sense, and if this could explain his infallible ability to kill cremlings and other hidden fauna with his blowgun during the GB meeting in the Unclaimed Hills
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
RAFO
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
If Nightblood were in the cognitive realm and was used to stab a bead that was the cognitive representation of a castle, would the castle be destroyed in the Physical Realm?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
If you could get Nightblood into the Cognitive Realm, then yes.
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
What would happen to people who were in the castle at the time?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
They wouldn't be affected (other than possibly plummeting to their death).
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
How about a carpet that had been in the castle for 50 years?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
No, 50 years most likely wouldn't be enough time.
Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)
Is this like the "Ship of Theseus?"
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes