Recent entries

    Orem signing ()
    #7255 Copy

    Mason Wheeler

    Kelsier said to Vin, "Always make sure to burn off your metals before you go to sleep," because of toxicity issues. And when we get to Second Era, that just makes me think, because cadmium is truly nasty stuff. And most metals to burn them off, that'll be just fine. But with its effect, it would mean that trying to burn it off would shorten the night and you don't end up with any time to sleep. How does Marasi deal with this?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You measure very carefully and you deal with the side effects of being an Allomancer.

    Orem signing ()
    #7257 Copy

    Questioner

    Was it moral for Adolin to kill Sadeas?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Which morality scheme are you looking for?

    Questioner

    Yours. Your personal morality.

    Brandon Sanderson

    My personal morality. It depends on the day. That one's on a line. I would say yes. There's a little bit of-- there's enough chaotic good in me. I would generally put myself in neutral good. But there's enough chaotic good in me to say, "Yeah, that guy asked for it. He betrayed you, he was threatening your family." I would side on Adolin's side, I think.

    Orem signing ()
    #7258 Copy

    Questioner

    Sah-zed, that's how you pronounce it, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, it depends on who you are. You can say it however you want. It's said all different ways in the books. Because he is Terris, and everybody's just kind of saying his name, right?

    So Kelsier says Say-zed. But in world, he would say something more like Sahz-d, not Say-zed, himself. But I say Say-zed. You can say Sah-zed.  Some people would say that.

    Orem signing ()
    #7260 Copy

    Questioner

    How do you pronounce Szeth's name?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Zeth. 

    Questioner

    Just the Z?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. There's a little bit of s...

    Questioner

    And Sazed?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, he says something more close to Saze-d. But Kelsier says Say-zed. And people just kind of go with what Kelsier does. I say Say-zed also.

    Orem signing ()
    #7262 Copy

    Questioner

    Hypothetically speaking, if some of the main Radiants were to die at the end of book 5, go to Braize and then spend the time in between 5 and 6 there, would they age?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There are lots of problems with that question. If a Radiant dies, they don't go to Braize. A Herald would, but a Herald is a Cognitive Shadow, so there's inherent problems in there. When you're a Cognitive Shadow, aging is different there, because you're basically a ghost. Even if you've been stapled to a body, it happens weirdly. So there's all kinds of flaws in that question.

    Orem signing ()
    #7265 Copy

    AllomancerSam

    ...When a Shard vessel dies and they've held the Shard for a thousand years, how much do they remember about what they've done?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Depends on the shard. Usually, everything or most everything. It is not implausible that there are Shards that don't want to remember certain things. They have a large and vast mental capacity for remembering things.

    AllomancerSam

    Would Ruin be one that would be more likely to want to forget?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I think all of them would have things they might want to forget. It depends on whose personality would be more likely to make that actually happen.

    Orem signing ()
    #7266 Copy

    Questioner

    Would you be willing to admit the name of the Vessel of the Shard on Obrodai.

    Brandon Sanderson

    *gives RAFO card*

    Footnote: The questioner is likely referring to the newly formed "avatar" of Autonomy referenced in the letters in Oathbringer.
    #obrodai #rafo
    Orem signing ()
    #7268 Copy

    Questioner

    So is there a connection with K's? Where the characters...

    Brandon Sanderson

    You mean names with K's?

    Questioner

    Yes...

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm going to say it's more coincidence. It has to do with what I like to name people. Kaladin's original name was Merin and it was just bad. So I eventually settled on something I liked. I just like the sound of it.  If you dig down into it, most of the names in the cosmere do not have similar linguistic roots. Some do. I'm just going to chalk it up to coincidence.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7269 Copy

    Chaos

    If you could take a Shard, what would be the one that you would want? If you were forced to take a Shard, you couldn't refuse?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *Mmmmms for a time*

    Chaos

    Feel free to name another one if you want to...

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've only got a few left that you guys don't know about.

    Chaos

    There's six.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah okay. So I haven't said-- yhm. *laughter* I would take one that I haven't talked about, probably. But, of the ones I've talked about--

    I don't know-- What one would be the most fun? Endowment would be pretty fun. Autonomy? No, probably not that much fun. A lot of them aren't very fun. Let's go with--

    Chaos

    You mean Autonomy isn't fun? Splitting into different aspects?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, that is fun, I suppose. Yeah. *unenthusiastic* Yeah...

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7270 Copy

    Chaos

    Is Uli Da a Sho Del?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.

    Chaos

    Can we post that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah you can go ahead and post that. That's fine.

    Chaos

    I figured that from the...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Right, the naming convention makes it really obvious. 

    Chaos

    But that's not posted on the Dragonsteel sample so...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Right. But that's canon. It's pretty obvious to me... And so it's fine with me canonizing it. I mean, I've been coy with it for years. But when I say there are Shards that aren't human. There are three races on Yolen... Adding the math together is going to get you a pretty obvious answer.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7271 Copy

    Questioner

    I was wondering if Sleepless-- the Dysian Aimians-- if they could hold a Shard?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Could the Sleepless hold a Shard? Could they be a Vessel? Is what you're asking?

    *hems and haws* There is nothing innate about the Shards that prevents any one with a-- I have to phrase this very carefully...

    Non-humans can be Vessels. Non-humans have been vessels. Certain sapient creatures in the cosmere, could not be. But that's an asterisk, not the rule.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7272 Copy

    Questioner

    When Marsh and Sazed go to the Conventical of Seran, Marsh kind of tells Sazed, "You go do whatever you want, I gotta go do something, I'll be back." What was Marsh's purpose there? Why was he there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I intend to do some Marsh stuff, from his viewpoint, eventually. I don't know if I'll ever get to it. There is actually something there. There is something that I intended to leave a place for me to play later on with. So the answer is a RAFO, but a legitimate RAFO. Not a "I'm trying to lead you on," or a "I don't feel like answering this right now."

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7273 Copy

    Chaos

    Is atium Invested?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it--

    Chaos

    Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness.

    The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. Nightblood will too, and some of these things that were built even after the cosmere was coming together.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7274 Copy

    Questioner

    Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no.

    Questioner

    So Adolin is 27, true?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.

    Questioner

    So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7276 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you have, like on-- Like the actual gem inside a Stormlight sphere, do you have an idea of how large it actually is and--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, we do have an idea of that, and how much it can hold, and things like this. And that's all known so that's going to start with the basis. But it's going to take math, it's going to take real math.

    Chaos

    Math is hard!

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, math is hard! And we're going to have to look at things like-- Yeah just make stuff up then make Peter shake his head.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7277 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you have-- Or have you determined an equivalency between how much Breath it takes to make a certain gem's worth of Stormlight?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have recently assigned Peter to this task, and he is feeling overwhelmed by it. It was actually during the writing of Oathbringer where I finally said, "Yeah we need to standardize this, so start working on it." So it was like, "Oh great". Which means he has to read through all the books for references and start figuring it all out. And we're going to need like an equivalent of a jewel or something like this, right? *gestures to a sphere that a fan made* And we've been putting it off because it sounds like an awful lot of work. 

    So the answer is no, we don't have it yet. It's something I've known for years we're going to need. And on this book, I just started saying, "All right.  I'm going to have them do all the stuff they need to do. And then you're going to tell me how many spheres they need to start with." Right? Like, I write the book, and then we retrofit how many spheres they needed to have how much Stormlight, so that we could be consistent with that.

    But we haven't done across magic systems calculations, yet.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7282 Copy

    Questioner

    In our universe, mass and energy curve space. I was wondering if Investiture does the same or something similar.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It does something similar. It draws the three Realms together. So it's got like-- Imagine a gravitational pull piercing Realms. Right? Of kind of--

    Questioner

    And that's how a perpendicularity works?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's not the only way a perpendicularity works, but one surefire way to create a perpendicularity is a massive collection of Investiture in the Cognitive or mostly Physical realm. But Cognitive's weird, doesn't always work the right way. But there are ways to do it that way too.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7284 Copy

    Questioner

    So Roshar is pretty small on the map. Are there other species on the planet that we don't know about?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Roshar is primarily the one continent. There are no other continents.

    Questioner

    No other continents?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No other continents... There are no other major landmasses on the planet.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7286 Copy

    Questioner

    I was wondering, with resonance. Is that a sort of constructive interference?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Constructed? No. Resonance is more about the way-- It's more of a natural interference.

    Questioner

    So what I mean like, you have two waves, right? And if their troughs, you know--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, is that the formal term? For the constructed.-- Oh constructive? I thought you had said-- yeah. So yes, I would say that that is an accurate phrase. I mean obviously it's not exactly the same thing. But yeah, that's what I was looking at when I was building it, was kinda things like this with waveform patterns and whatnot. So yes. At least, it was inspired by this kind of idea.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7288 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    I once--don't do this--I once lit a book on fire. Because I was reading at night, and my mom kept turning my light off so I got out a candle and I was reading by candlelight. And the book started on fire. Yeah, so don't do that.

    Orem signing ()
    #7291 Copy

    Questioner

    What was your inspiration for Jasnah?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I had done several times, when I was designing characters in the cosmere, someone who kind of thought they were an awesome scholar but really wasn't. That's the kind of thing with Sarene and a little bit of the thing with Shallan. They're young people who haven't quite made it there yet, whose opinion of themselves is kind of beyond their actual skill level. Who would be, like, the scholar? Like, the ideal Rosharan societal scholar? And I built Jasnah out of that, and then took her in a way that would allow her to also be in conflict with that at the same time. Always a good source of writing a character.

    Orem signing ()
    #7293 Copy

    Questioner

    So Hoid, was he considered a Lightweaver pre-Shattering?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, that would be an appropriate term. There are lots of different terms that would also be appropriate.

    Questioner

    But was it basically the same thing?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, no Stormlight. No spren. So, not a Knight Radiant. But, similar magic. But you've also seen Elantris magic do this. So there are-- there are certain things that-- I'll just stop there.

    Orem signing ()
    #7294 Copy

    Questioner

    My question is, if you had two nicrosil Mistings, who, feeling like breaking the universe, and they got together and they touched each other and advanced each other's magic power at the same time by flaring nicrosil, what would happen? Would it cause a feedback loop?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *hands RAFO card* Well I'll go ahead and give you one right there! You got one!

    Orem signing ()
    #7296 Copy

    JoyBlu

    The Patji lake, theoretically, could an Aviar fly into the lake on its own and enter the Cognitive Realm? Like, have a bird catcher on the other side waiting for the bird to fly in and catch it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Theoretically... I'm going to RAFO that, but it's not a big RAFO. It's more along the lines of, I'm going to get into the mechanics of how things go through Shardpools in future books. Um, what you just described is not outside of reason.

    JoyBlue

    And could also, one of the grubs or one of the parasites or the rotten fruit, whatever, could that have fallen through the lake?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is plausible. The question is, once it gets to be a non-sentient thing, how does going through the--- to the Realms work, and that's where it starts to get-- that's where you get your asterisk. Like, just a piece of fruit falling. I'm going to asterisk that one.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7298 Copy

    Questioner

    So Voidbinding is-- one part of Voidbinding is seeing the future. And atium is also seeing the future. And I notice annotations for Elantris, you said something about seeing the future could go weird-- sends assassins. Is that a running--

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is a running theme in the cosmere. And it's-- Whatever path you take to do it is dangerous in the cosmere. It's kind of a sign of-- You are in dangerous territory, and drawing upon a Shard that is--

    Questioner

    Potentially...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Potentially-- Yes. I mean to say-- Dangerous territory.

    Salt Lake City signing ()
    #7299 Copy

    Chaos

    So, at the Forbidden Planet signing you said that when Adonalsium was Shattered, all Investiture in the cosmere was associated to one of the Shards... So, what happened with Adonalsium's spren on Roshar? Were those associated to Honor and Cultivation? What happened with them?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So they were very-- They were already associated to certain parts of Adonalsium and they went with those associations. There's a lot of Cultivation in all of the spren, particularly the natural spren.