Miscellaneous 2021

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Name Miscellaneous 2021
Date
Date Jan. 1, 2021
Entries
Entries 28
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#2 Copy

hoiditthroughthegrapevine

You've said that the Cognitive Realm is an infinite plane that expands in regions with high concentrations of thought and contracts in regions with little or no thought, and also that it would be possible to circumnavigate the Rosharan Cognitive Realm. It seems to me that the seeming inherent contradiction between the possibility of circumnavigation and the plane being infinite could be resolved if the plane of the Cognitive Realm is a topology and experience localized distortions but is continuous. Like if the Cognitive Realm for the whole Cosmere were like the the inside surface of a balloon where the high concentrations of (thought) of a planet stretch and warp the local surface, but the whole system still remains bound and continous, and therefore is infinite in its continuity. Is this how you see the Cognitive Realm working? And could you elaborate if this is close or more importantly if it's way of the mark?

Brandon Sanderson

I imagine it as an infinite plane with distortions that are planets. So kind of.

#4 Copy

Janci Patterson

On the elves--I wanted to give them a setting inspired by Valenwood, which has cities built on trees that move around. Brandon suggested I plant them in acclivity stone and set them in the atmosphere.

Footnote: Valenwood is a region in the Elder Scrolls series known for its giant, migratory trees.
Sources: Discord
#5 Copy

SilentWasteland

What was the collaboration process like? Did you each work on the same scene/chapter? Do you each take a chapter? Some other way of collaborating that I can’t think of?

Janci Patterson

So I wrote virtually everything.

We brainstormed together.

Then I submitted outlines. We tossed those back and forth. I wrote a first draft and Brandon gave me a redline edit.

Then I did a revision,  we went to beta and line edit with my editor, I did another revision, then final copyedit.

#6 Copy

Lotus

The one thing I’m a little confused about is how the [UrDail] managed to evolve either separately on different trees or get from tree to tree with the miasma.

Rasarr

The assumption I can come up with is that the trees float and would occasionally bump into each other, letting flora and fauna spread.

Janci Patterson

Yes, this.

#13 Copy

Grzegorz Stanisław Reiwer

Why was Mare sent to Hathsin if she was a Mistborn and [Inquisitors] could make from her [a] new Inquisitor or [Hemalurgic] spikes?

Brandon Sanderson

This is one of the main things that made Kelsier suspicious, so it is a plot relevant point that (perhaps) I will answer some day.

Footnote: Mare was a tin Misting, but not a Mistborn.
Sources: Facebook
#16 Copy

Questioner: (paraphrased)

In RoW was see Kaladin telling Syl that he believes that the Recreance took place not as one event such as fever stone keep, but on an individual basis. This has created many discussions in the fandom about how the spren could have been unaware that they would become deadeye's. Is this because it took people years later to discover how to summon and dismiss shards through an ornementation mishap, and deadeye's weren't seen by the other spren in shadesmar until there was no stopping anyone. 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The recreance wasn't something that happened over months, more like days. And the decision was made in the heat of the moment by the spren and their knights.

Footnote: I don't have the exact wording unfortunately, but he did say 'days not months' and explained that this was something that he hoped to be totally cleared up by the end of book 5. 
Direct submission by Hexatonix
#18 Copy

Questioner: (paraphrased)

When it is said that Honor started to go crazy towards the end of the Knights Radiant, were those Knights seeing Honor as he was slowly dying, or were they interacting with a Cognitive Shadow of Honor, like how Preservation left Fuzz behind?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

#19 Copy

Questioner: (paraphrased)

In the past we have seen that shards that break oaths are made vulnerable by that. And in Mistborn Era 1, we see that the reason that Preservation was able to be killed was that he tried to shelter humanity against Ruin even though his agreement said that Ruin would be allowed to destroy them eventually. Did Honor have an agreement with Odium or the singers about a potential ceasefire between Desolations that was broken by the binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram or other actions taken by humans between Desolations?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO, but I will say that there was not much of a continuatuion to the fighting after a Desolation. It is similar to if you look at stone age and even modern stone age people. Most of them didn't truly understand war and if they did then they almost never thought to exterminate everyone on the other side. So I don't think that it's likely given how far towards societal destruction they were pushed by each desolation.

#21 Copy

#1 Talenel Fan

So one thing I was wondering about the slug genders, do you know what gender Boomslug is? Boomslug is always described as “it” in the book as far as I can tell, while the others are referred to as “he” or “she” at one point or another.

LadyLameness

From what I can tell the characters basically guess/label the slugs as they see fit. I think FM thinks about how Spensa calls Doomslug she but it seemed to be an arbitrary call on Spensa’s part ... I don’t know how close the slugs are to real slugs, but irl slugs are actually hermaphrodites.

Janci Patterson

They are making it up.

Slug sexuality is not canon, but in my mind they are hermaphroditic, like banana slugs.

Which means they would all be both genders, technically.

Janci Patterson

Boomslug is tagged male at some point, but I don't remember when.

#22 Copy

Rasarr

Oh, Janci, if I can bother you with a question. Is a "season" on ReDawn the planetary year?

Janci Patterson

I'd need the context. I'd assume a season is a season, but I don't remember how it was used.

jemand2001

Alanik mentions seasons as a measure of age.

Rasarr

Alanik says Quilan is a few seasons older than her, I wonder if it means a few years or less than one.

Janci Patterson

Oh, yeah! Probably a planetary year then.

#23 Copy

asmodeus

I'm curious to hear more about the ending

it's a very busy, and a very impactful ending, and it is going to have a different emotional response from the characters than from the readers

we don't feel any parental love towards Jeshua Weight, and she is mostly presented as being not very likeable

but Jorgen, and even the rest of the humans on Detritus, are going to be taking this very differently 

Janci Patterson

On the ending, it went like this:

Brandon: you know what we should do? Trap the politicians in a ship and blow it up.

Me: ...my politician characters are Jorgen's parents. ...are we blowing up Jorgen's parents?

Brandon: yeah! Do that! Blow up his parents!

Me: ... ... ... okay.

In my head: right before I jump in his POV. That'll be something.

#24 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I really like that one [the mystery of Roanoke]. I actually, for a while... You guys are gonna hate me for this, but I, for a while, was gonna have the second Rithmatist novel deal with that. And then I threw that out the window; one of the reasons why the second Rithmatist novel's taken forever is I threw that whole concept. But it was gonna be Lost Colony-focused, for a little while.

Event details
Name
Name Miscellaneous 2021
Date
Date Jan. 1, 2021
Entries
Entries 28
Upload sources