Recent entries

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #601 Copy

    spectria.limina (paraphrased)

    In the Voidbinding chart, do the vertical lines [between the Windrunner/Edgedancer and Stoneward/Lightweaver-equivalent glyphs] mean anything special?

    Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

    Hm, I don't know... it's been 15 years since I did that so I'll have to remember... I just see things I'd do differently. Like should there only be nine...?

    Brandon had me do a bunch of stuff, so there probably is a reason. But it might be the kind of secret where he doesn't tell anybody and then way later explains it. So there might be a reason but I don't know what it is.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #604 Copy

    LuckyJim (paraphrased)

    In Oathbringer Kaladin travels with a group of freed parshmen. One of them, Sah, dies, but what about his daughter Vai? Is she okay? Is anyone looking after her?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    She is okay, well, as okay as she can be considering the circumstances (dead father and living under the oppression of the Fused). She is being looked after.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #606 Copy

    Fluffy (paraphrased)

    When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #608 Copy

    Kaisle (paraphrased)

    Are there any penguins in the Cosmere? If so what worlds would they be on?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    There are penguins in the south of Scadrial that were restored by Harmony during the Catacendre.

    Kaisle (paraphrased)

    What about the Horneater Peaks?  Would there be shelled or armored penguins there?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    *laughs* I don't think so.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #615 Copy

    Brotherwise Games (paraphrased)

    There were four of the miniatures that are candidates to get turned into painted figurines: Shardplate Kaladin, Syl, Navani, and Leshwi. Brotherwise plans to make two of those four into figurines, and they polled the crowd as to which two they wanted the most. The crowd began to chant "All Four!" 

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #616 Copy

    Questioner

    In Rhythm of War, parts two and four, the part starts with an image of the symbol of Stonewards. I was wondering if that’s because Adolin is a viewpoint character for those parts?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #617 Copy

    Questioner

    Preservation gave up some of his power to create people. So Ruin had more power.

    Brandon Sanderson

    An edge, you might say.

    Questioner

    Sazed took both. And I’m curious if Ruin still has power over Preservation?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is currently theorized on-planet that Ruin does.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #618 Copy

    R'Shara

    Does anti-Investiture react to a different Shard’s Investiture in any significant way?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The answer is kind of a no, kind of a yes. Mostly a no. Anti-Investiture is going to have an explosive reaction. But the thing is, if it’s anti-Investiture of a specific Shard, that explosion is much grander. But you can make that explosion happen in a just antimatter-and-matter same sort of thing. But you can make the explosion bigger.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #619 Copy

    Questioner

    Odium has a history of breaking Shards. In order to do that, it feels like he must have something that gives him an edge over the other Shards. I’m curious if Odium (Taravangian) possesses anything further than the Shard of Adonalsium?

    Brandon Sanderson

    He does not have anything more than Odium. But he does have an edge.

    Questioner

    Like a Dawnshard?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not a Dawnshard. No, if he had a Dawnshard, that would be very, very bad.

    Footnote: Later in this Q&A, Brandon emphasized that Ruin had an "edge" over Preservation due to their power imbalance.
    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #620 Copy

    Questioner

    The monks of Dakhor are known to follow the Order of Bone. And we have Teft leading down the new bridge crews down into the chasms, where there are skeletons of bones. And he said, “Look around you; this is why we’re also known as the Order of Bone.” Is there any sort of connection there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not a big one. That’s more of a reference there for people who eventually read Dragonsteel Prime, where that was a big thing I called Bridge Four. But I decided to not use that title for Bridge Four very much. It’s partially an in-joke for my team. It is not meant to be a reference to Dakhor monks.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #622 Copy

    Questioner

    For one of the Unmade to be classified as Odium’s Unmade, must it have been made by another Shard or Investiture first before it became Unmade?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Excellent question. RAFO. We’re gonna delve into the Unmade quite a bit in coming books, so I’m RAFOing right now.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #623 Copy

    Questioner

    If you were transported in the cosmere in any contemporary period of the books (with the exception of Sixth of the Dusk) with the goal of reuniting Adonalsium, how long would it take you? Days? Weeks? Years?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Centuries. If it’s even possible, which I won’t even confirm anyways.

    Questioner

    With all of your knowledge?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, probably. Even if it were possible, if you’re going to go into Stormlight era, there are planets you’re going to have to get to with no perpendicularities. How are you gonna do that? Depends. It’s possible, but…

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #624 Copy

    Questioner

    Are hungerspren highspren?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hungerspren are not highspren. Good question. Highspren are their own spren; they are the highspren.

    You want to know if hungerspren are the armor of the Order that applies to highspren, is that the question? That is a RAFO.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #625 Copy

    Questioner

    I’m a bit of a music nerd. I would love to know if Alethi music is based on any real-world music theory? And if so, which culture?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, I was going basically into Middle Eastern music, because that’s one of the basic touchpoints, particularly, for their writing system and their language and things like this. But I tried playing around with different music theory and scales (and I never had a music theory class, despite playing trumpet for years), and I talked to my writing group about my ideas, and they’re like, “That doesn’t work, Brandon. Just don’t do that.” So I didn’t end up putting it into the book, I ended up tweaking it quite a bit. But that is where the roots would be.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #626 Copy

    Questioner

    In Mistborn, there’s kind of a buildup where Vin is going to use the eleventh metal to fight the Lord Ruler. It’s kind of a fizzle-out moment. Was there actually a way that Vin could have used the eleventh metal to defeat…?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. I devised the eleventh metal as a counterpoint to atium (which shows the future) with the eleventh metal showing the past. I wanted a push and a pull. In my original designing of it, it was always this idea of “you get to see the past and that is the secret.” It was an information-based clue, not a power-based clue, if that makes sense. You weren't gonna get strong enough to beat the Lord Ruler; you will get smart enough to beat the Lord Ruler.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #627 Copy

    Questioner

    In The Way of Kings, in Kaladin’s post-Shardbearer-kill scene, he’s in Amaram’s tent. And he muses on the fact that he had killed a Shardbearer. He says, “I joined the likes of Evod Markmaker and Lanacin the Surefooted.” I imagine, like, a Zombieland style Shardbearer-killed weak [kill of the week] thing where they’re dropping pianos on him, and stuff. Would you happen to know how either of them killed their Shardbearers?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Both of those are held up as examples because they happened on the battlefield.

    Now, at least one of those didn’t happen the way it’s actually recorded to have happened. They are held up kind of more in mythology because it’s very useful for the Shardbearers for non-Shardbearers to imagine the best way to kill a Shardbearer and get their Shards is to attack them on the battlefield. At least one of those was a poisoning. But that’s not how it’s mythologized.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #628 Copy

    Questioner

    If Hoid were to leave the Rosharan system, would that kill his spren? And would he still be able to use his Radiant powers?

    Brandon Sanderson

    As currently understood by the mechanics of the cosmere, he would just not be able to leave without breaking the bond to that spren. Breaking that bond wouldn’t necessarily kill the spren, but he would not be able to leave with the spren. You have seen him off-world post-Stormlight Five. So I’ll leave that to you. But he is trying to figure out how that would not necessarily have to be that way.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #629 Copy

    Questioner

    Ostensibly, all of the magic that we’ve seen in the cosmere ultimately originated from Adonalsium. Ostensibly.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ostensibly.

    Questioner

    Does Adonalsium have a counterpart with equal or comparable power? And if so, have we seen that counterpart’s influence in the cosmere?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is a matter of personal philosophy. The aethers are said (by themselves) to co-date Adonalsium and to not be derived from Adonalsium’s power. So there is at least one that is theorized to be that way, but it’s going to depend on who you trust and who you talk to.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #630 Copy

    Questioner

    You said that there’s gonna be a time jump between [Stormlight] Book Five and Book Six, the two arcs. And also going into Era Three of Mistborn. Era Three and Era Four, are they gonna go way past what’s going on in the second arc?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, Era One of Stormlight. Break for ten years-ish in-world. (I have to write Book Six to know exactly how long it’s going to be, but somewhere around that.) Wax and Wayne happens during that break, chronologically. And Era Three of Mistborn; I would say seventy years, might be closer to fifty. But either way, it’s going to be post-Stormlight [Ten]. We’re getting a little disjointed in our timelines, just as the writing balances out, but I think it’s gonna work out. I don’t think they should be giving too many spoilers to each other. I do have to kind of talk around things now and then.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #631 Copy

    Questioner

    A couple years ago, someone asked the question of the creature that was pulling on Shallan as she first entered Shadesmar. Is that Ba-Ado-Mishram? Is she trapped in Shadesmar under the beads?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ooh, RAFO. Good question.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #633 Copy

    Questioner

    If someone was to burn atium while playing a video game, how much would they be able to see?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I’m gonna say that it’s gonna be somewhat confusing to them, but atium enhances your ability to react to what is being inputted, as well. Like, you see all these things, but you also gain supernatural ability to react. So they would see kind of a big blur on the screen, but they would be able to interpret that, and they would be fine.

    You would be the ultimate Smash player.

    Questioner

    Would they be able to see their own character’s movements?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What their own character would be doing in the future? So, usually, when I’m doing the atium shadows, it doesn’t include you. So it’s not going to include your own character’s movements.

    Questioner

    If it were a game where the entire screen moves with you as you move around? Or would that also not show up?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, you’d get a big blur. You’d get a huge blur of stuff on the screen, but your brain would be able to interpret it, and you’d be, like, 360 no scoping right and left.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #636 Copy

    Questioner

    Hoid is collecting Investiture abilities like Pokemon cards. I was wonder if he could… and maybe not necessarily him, but if somebody could collect all forms of Investiture and be able to use all of them.

    Brandon Sanderson

    He certainly would like to try. What will happen? He’s not even sure. But he would like to try. Is it possible? It is theoretically possible. We’ll see if he is able to accomplish it.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #637 Copy

    Questioner

    Will we ever see the Origin of Storms be explored?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO. It’s a RAFO with an “I intend to.” But whether I get to it or not is a question.

    I do intend to. We will see. Ask me this question again in a couple years.

    Questioner

    Would it be possible for the Fourth Bridge to do the exploring if Windrunners and maybe Dalinar used Adhesion and Dalinar’s Bondsmith powers to hold the ship together to brave the highstorms?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That’s real dangerous. Way smarter to just use Windrunner pressure manipulation to go up over the highstorms. But yes, that would be a better way to use the Fourth Bridge to accomplish that.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #638 Copy

    Questioner

    It’s really heavily implied in the first Oathbringer letter that the Shards made a pact not to settle near each other. Given that a full half of the Shards ended up doing that, what is the cost for them breaking that oath? You implied earlier that there’s always a cost for Hoid, for taking his protections.

    Brandon Sanderson

    The wording of those things allows them to agree together, but it also gives them a little bit of power over one another, and you’ve seen the side effects of that on the planets where it’s happened. It has not gone well for any of them, if you kind of run the numbers on that. But the wording of it allows two, later on, to say, "Okay, we both agree." (If one said no and one said yes, then they were in trouble.) This should imply to you that Odium did get permission, as well.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #639 Copy

    Questioner

    How do Ferrings know how much of an attribute is in their metalminds?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They have a natural sense for it when they’re touching it. It’s not like they have a number pop into their head, but it is a similar feeling to you knowing how much energy you have left, how tired you are. They can feel in their metalmind.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #640 Copy

    Questioner

    Having read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, that world has got a lot of problems, and I have to ask. When you get to the end of it, what hope is there for those poor people?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You know, despite everything that’s going on, they still manage to survive. That’s pretty impressive. I would say that there is a way out for them, a way toward more stability. Because the danger is a spiral of lowering population numbers because of things that are happening. When you’re dying and becoming undead, there’s certain curves, a multiplicative curve that is very dangerous to population numbers that happens whenever you are dealing with some sort of undead thing like that. But there are ways out.

    Questioner

    They depend on silver, which is a limited resource.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is. But do know that, in the cosmere (it’s like when you’re burning metals), there are injection points of new metals into things that are possible to figure out.

    But yes, they’re in danger. They’re definitely the Simpsons meme. That is Threnody as a whole. And maybe someday, I’ll be able to write a book there, and we’ll dig into some of these issues.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #641 Copy

    Questioner

    If a Full Twinborn (regardless of natural or holding the Bands of Mourning) had access to unlimited Investiture, could they become the sun by infinitely increasing their gravity and heat?

    Brotherwise Games

    Infinite Investiture, you’re theorizing?

    Questioner

    Dalinar’s next to him.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Dalinar’s not gonna be able to provide enough. But in a thought experiment, sort of outside bounds of time and space… you are providing infinite Investiture, you are providing an infinite amount of healing, and you are having them create heat and weight? The problem is, you’re gonna need a whole lot of mass to turn into the sun. I mean, there is a way you can do this, but you’re gonna have to provide… Either the Investiture’s gonna have to become mass, or you’re gonna have to have them do it in the proximity of a whole bunch of mass to have to start causing that sort of fusion reaction where the different layers collapsing in toward the center, dense layers, that sort of thing. In the realm of complete hypothesis, then yes. But, of course, you an do that here with infinite energy and infinite mass, if you needed to, using mechanical means.

    I guess the weird part of that question is: the person could retain consciousness through infinite healing, and that is the weird part and that is possible. Yeah.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #643 Copy

    Questioner

    If Teft, Dalinar, and Zahel were to play a game of Mario Kart, how would they place?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Zahel cheats. And Zahel wins. Teft lets Dalinar win because a good sergeant knows when an officer needs an ego boost. So that’s our ranking.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #645 Copy

    Questioner

    Memory is tied to some level or portion of Spiritual Identity, or else Feruchemists would not be able to store it. So, Hoid lost memories at the end of Rhythm of War in his exchange with Odium. Would that mean part of his soul was stolen and then absorbed into Odium, and if so, what is stopping Odium from doing that with all of his enemies?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Basically, what Odium split off is stuff that Hoid is storing in excess Investiture. (Basically, it was Breaths, in Hoid’s case.) And this sort of thing, where this extra memory… One of the reasons that Hoid is able to function better than, perhaps, some other very long-lived individuals is: he has found out how to keep some of this Identity in, shall we say, SD cards made of Investiture. Imagine that sort of thing. So what Odium was stealing from Hoid was straight out of an SD card. Which means that it’s not nearly as deeply ripping into someone’s soul, and it is also not nearly as noticeable.

    But the other thing is: Hoid is directly in violation of certain agreements that have been made, which therefore exposes him to… He is lacking protections. As you’ll notice in the end of Book Three, where he’s like, “I need to be careful, because I am in violation.”

    And so, there’s a couple things going on here. Number one, much more easy to access those memories. Number two, Hoid’s in direct violation and under no protections of any sorts of agreements and things like this.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #646 Copy

    Questioner

    We’ve seen several groups throughout the cosmere that have the express purpose of collecting Investiture from the various systems. I have a fear that there is a group that is going to (either now or sometime in the future) go around collecting Investiture specifically through Hemalurgy.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Which is theoretically possible and horrifying to consider.

    Questioner

    So my question along those lines was: what happens when you use a Hemalurgic spike on an Aviar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You are a very mean person. Basically, an Aviar’s got a mini-bond, so it’s gonna work in a similar way to what would happen if you were trying to do it to a Knight Radiant, which I’ve talked about in the past. Which means it is a less effective way to try to steal something with Hemalurgy, because once you’ve got two individuals involved in it… The Aviar, obviously, isn’t exactly the same. But it’s going to work, but it may not last, I guess is the answer I would give you on that.

    Questioner

    If that Aviar is already bonded to a person, how does that spiking affect the person they are bonded to?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That bond will last, but how long? Who knows. Basically, you’re gonna fool the system into thinking you’re the Aviar if you have done that. So the system is going to assume that’s what you are.  They’re gonna see you as the bird if you put the spike into yourself. But, because there are multiple individuals, things like this, and you’ve got the whole thing with the Aviar and their symbiosis, and things like that. It is not gonna work nearly as well as stealing something from, say, a Feruchemist or an Allomancer.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #647 Copy

    Questioner

    Could you use AonDor to manipulate Connection? If so, would a real AonDor smarty be able to do something similar to a Bondsmith?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The short answer to your question is: yes. Let me give some explanation.

    Even when you are seeings some things happening in Elantris itself, you are seeing them manipulate Connection. It is mostly reinforcing Connection, but it is, in a way, manipulation. Rewriting Connection, rewriting Identity are both things that they can do. So with enough power, with enough smartiness, what a Bondsmith can do can be done.

    In fact, we have seen short-range Elsecalling done by… Obviously Elsecalling’s not Bondsmithing, but you know that a Bondsmith powered a big Elsecalling [to migrate from Ashyn], one of the big things you’ve seen a Bondsmith do is get people between planets. And you have seen people use AonDor to Elsecall. You’ve seen them Lightweave, you’ve seen them do a lot of these things. They also could do some of this same stuff.

    Basically, rule of thumb is: almost anything in the cosmere that is possible can be replicated with AonDor with the right program. But you may need an injection of Investiture in certain ways.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #648 Copy

    Questioner

    My favorite god, Sazed/Harmony, in my recent reread I got a bit angry at him because he didn’t let kandra be able to reproduce, but he let the koloss be able to do it. And I’m wondering if there’s a way he could have allowed that, but he chose not to? And also if there’s a way that it could happen in the future, so that two of my favorite people could have a baby?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There are a couple things that he was facing, and let me walk you through his philosophy on this, which you are allowed to disagree with. I want, for every character I write, there to be things they do that you disagree with, because otherwise I’m writing all characters to be the same person, if that makes sense.

    The kandra have immortality and are able to perpetuate their culture by being immortal for as long as the individuals live. The koloss don’t have that, meaning that if he didn’t make koloss able to breed true, the entire people vanish in one generation and all culture associated with them. And so because of that, he took the extra effort to change the koloss to allow for this sort of thing. But he did it in such a way that they would not have to have hemalurgic spikes, because the idea of making new hemalurgic spikes is extremely distasteful to Harmony. Reusing old ones is a thing he was willing to allow, but new ones he didn’t.

    Could he have changed the kandra to be similar? Well, the answer is kind of a fairly... yes, but they would no longer have been the kandra, they would have been rolled back to being what they were before the Lord Ruler. And so they basically would stop being what they are that makes them unique as a culture. And he decided not to do that.

    You can disagree with that, and I think there are some pretty valid arguments against the choice he made, but that is the choice he made.

    Is there a way going forward? Yes, this is theoretically possible.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #649 Copy

    Lotus

    Can we get any pronouns for Aona and Skai?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Aona is definitely a she/her. I’m gonna go she/her with both of them, so you can talk about them accurately. That’s how I picture them currently in my head. I have not written those books yet, so it’s subject to change, but I have she/her for both of them.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
    #650 Copy

    Questioner

    In the future eras, Breaths seem like a very easily transmitted form of Investiture. Will that become an inter-galactic currency?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Breath is handy in couple of ways, because it is easy to transfer, and you can take it off-world without an issue. But there’s a problem in that: yes, it’s a renewable resource, but the renewable resource comes from human beings. As long as Breath doesn’t get lost and is consistently given up, then what we’re gonna see is there will be pools of it. But it’s always going to be a fairly rare resource. Which really hampers its ability to become an intergalactic commodity on the level that people would like it to.

    Stormlight is a much better (in most people’s viewpoint and opinion) of what they’re trying to do with Breath. But they can’t get it off the planet yet; they haven’t figured out how to make that happen. But that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people are really interested in Roshar, is because of that.

    Now, there is one that’s really portable, but very difficult to get, and that is… I’ll leave that to you. There's another one. Go ahead and theorize. Do it fast, because there might be a note to it in Lost Metal, so you’ll get your answers soon. But let’s just say it’s fraught with danger to obtain.