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    Windrunner17

    We now know all nine types of true spren that make up Radiants, but Wyndle has mentioned making a garden for keenspren. Are these an intelligent spren that does not form Radiant bonds, and are there others?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Keenspren is a nickname.

    Adam Horne

    I was wondering if that was a slang term.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, it's a slang term.

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    Raddatatta

    In Rhythm of War, Lift came up to the body of Gereh, who had been killed with a messy wound to the chest. Did Mraize kill him with a spike?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO!

    Raddatatta

    And a followup to that, Gereh's rings were gone. Would it be possible to spike someone to take their Feruchemical power and then use a metalmind keyed to their Identity?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is theoretically possible.

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    graciemoo

    You've said fainlife has spread beyond Yolen in significant ways. Have we seen this in the books, excluding Mraize's fain branch?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, you have not. Watch out for Sho Del, they'll be showing up, dragons will be showing up, but actual fainlife, when I'm talking about that I'm kind of talking about the entire ecosystem. You'll know when you see it.

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    Dr Bonko 360

    Is there a difference between the way that Shallan 'broke' her bond with Testament and the way that the rest of the Radiants broke their bonds in the Recreance that allowed Shallan to use Surgebinding between her bonds with Testament and Pattern?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Kind of and kind of not. I mean the thing about it is, some of the things that are happening with Shallan could've happened in the past and probably did, but it's been so long ago that it's not really relevant. So it's less like she's done something super unique and more like things that are happening with Shallan also probably happened—not with everybody but with some—but there's just not record of it and it's not as relevant to the conversation. So, less that she's special and more that this is a possibility. Not giving any confirmations to any specific items, just saying what is happening with Shallan could theoretically have happened in the past and probably did.

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    GrandAdmiralThrawn10

    As a Truthwatcher I am curious, are we going to learn the standard ideals that Stump would give, or will we just learn the ones that Renarin and Rlain speak, since they are bonded to Enlightened spren? Need to know what my ideals are.

    Brandon Sanderson

    You will learn those both. You will learn the differences between them. I'm kind of being dodgy until I get to Renarin's book for some of this stuff, but my goal will be to give you both sets of ideals.

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    Kisaoda

    If Kelsier managed to get his hands on a spren to bond with, which Order would he naturally gravitate toward in terms of personality and morals?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is a really good question. I have trouble answering these cause I feel like I need to take the quiz as Kelsier and check all the boxes. Where is Kelsier gonna be? Maybe I need to start eliminating Orders. So Skybreaker, probably not. Windrunner, close but no. Edgedancer, maybe. The whole "I will listen," and the whole recover the past, it's really more a Mare thing that Kelsier kind of picked up on, but it's where he found his center, so I would give him a partial hit on Edgedancer. Dustbringer is a good hit also, this whole idea of self mastery and pushing himself and things like this, is gonna be a good Kelsier fit. Bondsmith is gonna be an okay Kelsier fit, with the kind of bringing together the crew and pulling off some big thing. Lightweaver, not as much as you would think. I don't think Kelsier is there on the Lightweaver thing. What have I missed? Stoneward, no. Willshaper, he'd be a good Willshaper. Willshaper's high on the list, but I think Edgedancer might win, maybe. But he's kind of borrowing that. It's a tie between Edgedancer and Dustbringer, probably. Willshaper's up there too, three way tie. I'd have to answer the questions from the thing and see where we go.

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    ArgentSun

    Are there any genetic restrictions, Spiritual or otherwise, to using an unsealed metalmind? For example, if Vivenna got her hands on one of Allik's translation medallions, could she use it? Could Iyatil?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, there are not. People from off planet could use one of these metalminds. Good question. I think that's what you're asking. Barring Elantris, most of these things don't have this kind of region lock on the magics, and the unkeyed Investiture is not going to have a problem with that. That's kind of the whole point. It extends to people from off planet.

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    Questioner

    How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

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    Raddatatta

    You've said in previous WoBs that that there have been champions of other Shards, like what Dalinar and Odium are doing in their deal. Would the battle between Elend and Marsh or Vin and Marsh count as a similar type of contest of champions, or would that have to be more formalized to have them be considered champions?

    Brandon Sanderson

    To be considered, I would've said that had to be more formalized. I wouldn't consider what happened there... It's definitely an echo, but I don't think it would fit. There's been legit, actual, contractual sorts of things that have happened.

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    Striker_EZ

    Was the prostitute from the Way of Kings that Adolin protected Beryl?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, it was not, good question.

    So, I like connections between characters. I liked it in Wheel of Time when Bayle Domon shows up again and things like that, but it would have gone too far in another series without the explanation of the Pattern weaving them together. It sometimes strains plausibility. The Wheel of Time has a built-in mechanism, it's ta'veren, they're getting woven back in, and people are showing up time and time again. I feel like that was enough of a selling point in the Wheel of Time, and the Wheel of Time did it really well. When I built the cosmere, I wanted to be careful, because I knew I was gonna be bringing back a lot of worldhoppers and having people show up in other people's stories. And if I went too far on this, and every random person that you run into ends up being someone later on, it just is too much. So whenever I've considered one of these things, I sit down and say, would they really be there? What are the statistical chances? If I make this happen, what does it do to the lore in the fandom, where now they're theorizing about the connections between these characters, and things like this. I try to be very careful on that. I brought Yalb back for a quick scene in Dawnshard, he's in the prologue of Dawnshard. Partially to be like, hey, this guy did survive! But I intentionally didn't bring him and put him on the crew that is the main story of Dawnshard, because that was one step too far for me. And maybe fans would like more of this, but it's something I want to be careful about. We already have things like Gaz showing up and joining this crew, and we have Felt jumping between worlds, and these are all kind of planned things that I wanted to do. I gotta be careful, I want to be careful, and maybe I'm overly careful on this. But in other words, a lot of times I'm gonna tell you the random person who shows up does not have any connection to the greater story that I'm telling, and that's by design.

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    LewsTherinTelescope

    Why does Hoid in his letter to Frost say, "as you are now essentially immortal"? To our understanding, as a dragon Frost would have always been ageless. Is this understanding incorrect, or is there something else going on with him?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There is something else going on with him. That is a good question.

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    Questioner

    Considering that Mistborn Era 2 is four books, and Secret History is canonically in Era 1, have you considered adding either a novel or a Secret History to each Era to total sixteen books?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I get this on occasion. The other option is doing the cyberpunk series in between Eras 3 and 4, basically turning it into 5 Eras, which also would get us to sixteen books. It seems like a pretty good idea to go to sixteen books, but I don't know if we should count Secret History as one of those or not. But I would like to get to sixteen books, but I have a lot on my plate.

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    Questioner

    Did Evi have a miscarriage or stillbirth before Adolin? She is visibly pregnant in one of the flashback chapters set almost a year before Adolin was born.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I think that she did... or that's just a continuity error, I don't know whichone  it is. That's a question for Karen. If it's a continuity error, then maybe you found a continuity error and a solution to the same continuity error for us. I'll be completely frank with you guys, the timelines of the flashbacks are really tricky, particularly because I'm writing books like Way of Kings and Words of Radiance without a full continuity team. I just kind of have to keep it in my head. And so when we sat down to run the continuity, particularly starting in Oathbringer, there are a lot of things where it makes Karen's brain break. This is not where a lot of my mental effort went to, planning out each month. I generally knew which things happened in what order and what happened where. The timeline is pretty good and tight now, but there are all sorts of things that I worked into it that I said had to happen. For instance, the dates of births and things like that, that's locked in. I say how old people are. It's totally possible that you caught us on a continuity error.

    Adam Horne

    But with a solution, so that's a double win.

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    Questioner

    Does Nightblood have a favorite flavor or type of Investiture? In addition, does different Investiture taste different?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes it would, but the thing is, when Nightblood is eating Investiture, he is generally not in a mental state to really pay attention to that. He's not what you would call a connoisseur, he is a glutton. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but kind of making a distinction there. Because of that, if you asked him, he wouldn't even really be able to remember. Because that time when he's really drinking it in, he is not himself, so to speak. But it would taste different to him, if he were able to pay attention and to eloquently speak about those experiences.

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    Questioner

    If a planet has no sentient life, does it have a Cognitive representation? If not, would the Cognitive area generate in Shadesmar whenever sentience appeared there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    People have started to talk about this, because it is a legit thing. So, if there is no sapient life, or even sentient life, if it's a dead rock out in space and nobody knows it's there, its manifestation in Shadesmar will be basically nothing. I say basically because the Shards are aware of it, so there's probably going to be some bit of something that manifests, but until the attention of sapient beings starts focusing on it, it's not going to manifest very much in Shadesmar. It might be like a patch of ground that is a couple feet wide. It is going to start growing as soon as they do, which distorts space in Shadesmar, and makes routes between planets change and more distance come between them. Which is very very odd, and very very interesting, and it's one of my favorite parts about the whole thing. It should kind of break your brain, and it shouldn't really make sense with our physics.

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    Questioner

    How would Kaladin cope with constantly losing to Malenia, the Blade of Miquella?

    Brandon Sanderson

    He would find peace. He would find peace in the struggle, and eventually the journey would be, you know. I think Kaladin would be like, I deserve this, and find a certain peace in it.

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    gk-sudo

    Could primer cubes be used to store powers besides the Scadrial ones, such as Surgebinding?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is theoretically possible. So much fun to have in the space age, that I'm not gonna let you have yet. You have one more Mistborn book, one more Stormlight book, three more Mistborn books, and then five more Stormlight books before I'm gonna let you have that fun. Keep theorizing.

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    Sapphire_Bombay

    In Way of Kings, when Jasnah gifts Shallan the Book of Endless Pages, she mentions that someone dear to her once made a very attempt at converting her to Vorinism. Who was he, and how did he manage to appeal to her senses?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, wait for the Jasnah flashbacks.

    Adam Horne

    Did I miss something about it being a "he", or did they assume a gender?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They're making some assumptions, I believe.

    Footnote: Jasnah does refer to the person who attempted to convert her as "he".
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    LewsTherinTelescope

    What it is that determines how skilled a Shard is at reading the future? For example, why is Ruin so bad at it, and why are Odium and Preservation both so good at it despite being so different?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO.

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    Longshot_97

    In the Stormlight Archive, Cryptics are often humming to tunes that denote their emotional state. A Rhythm of Curiosity is cited, and Pattern often hums when he is curious. The same goes for a Rhythm of Confusion. Are Cryptics humming to the Rhythms like the singers? If not, what are they humming?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They are humming to something very akin to the singer Rhythms. I would call them the same, with an asterisk.

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    MoriWillow

    You once mentioned something called "Honor's purposes" to Argent/Evgeni. Are these purposes the same or related to the core theme of each of the Knights Radiant Orders? For example, unity, protection, justice.

    Brandon Sanderson

    That gives me a lot of wiggle room. Related to, yes, but that's a wiggly answer.

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    deku12345

    In the Stormlight 5 prologue, wouldn't Gavilar have recognized that Szeth was holding an Honorblade? He was just studying them earlier that day.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Gavilar was pretty busy being killed.

    Adam Horne

    That's a pretty good reason not to notice something.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I think it is possible that he could have noticed that, yes.

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    LettersWords

    The Fused only use nine of the Surges (they don't use Adhesion), and Raboniel describes Adhesion as "not a true Surge." Does this mean, in its original form on Ashyn, Surgebinding had no equivalent to Adhesion, and it was created by Honor later?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is a valid way of theorizing, and I would encourage you to go that direction. Raboniel is biased. So take those two sentences as separate things. Do be aware she is very, very biased, but also your theorizing could bear fruit going that direction.

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    quantumshenanigans

    Why do Cryptics have such a bad rap among other spren? The contrast between what spren think about Cryptics compared to how they come off to the reader is hilarious. They're these utterly guileless beings who never try to fight anyone or conquer anything in Shadesmar, and who literally can't lie without audibly buzzing. And yet other spren talk about them as if they're Machiavellian geniuses bent on dominating everyone else.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I love that you picked up on this. There's a couple things going on here. One is, the Cryptics are just kind of their own weird little club. I mean, all of the various different spren are, to an extent, but the Cryptics are one of those that are extra. You know, that word, extra. They're extra. I had to cut a scene that was very fun, that would explain some of this, but you get a bit of it. I reused some of the same concepts in Rhythm of War, when Shallan around a lot of them. They can get to be a bit much, and because they will start talking in numbers and in mathematical formulas, they often seem like they're planning something, when in reality they're just not quite getting what's going on in the same way. And it's kind of this, when you meet somebody that you don't quite get, sometimes you assume things about them. That said, there have been some very smart, very dangerous Cryptics in the past, and spren have long memories. So the reputation isn't entirely unearned, but it is perhaps too liberally applied as a stereotype to an entire race-- that never happens-- when a small percentage of them might have earned this reputation individually.

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    Questioner

    Does firemoss use have an effect on Shadesmar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You could tell, if you were really good... This is going to be, as we move forward, a talent in the cosmere, to kind of be able to look and basically read souls from Shadesmar and tell things about them. It would not be-- what was Robert Jordan's phrase-- "intuitively obvious to the casual observer" that this is a person that has suffered the effects of firemoss from the other side. However, like a lot of things in the cosmere, the more skilled you are at your particular version of arcanum, the more likely you are able to do things like this, and you could tell.

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    Chaos2651

    We know Nale was the only Herald to join his Order. Based on the vision Dalinar had while touching him, it seemingly happened before the Last Desolation. Did Nale spend time on Braize while he had a Nahel bond? What happened to his highspren while he was there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Good question. So, if you end up in Braize as a Herald with a Nahel bond, your spren most likely would end up there with you. But there are circumstances where the spren could be left in Shadesmar and separated from you. Both are possible.

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    Jofwu

    It seems that deadeyes can wander Shadesmar freely, but when summoned as a Shardblade and subsequently dismissed, they end up at the location in Shadesmar corresponding to the location of the Shardbearer. How does this work for deadeyes who are cared for by a loved one, like Captain Ico?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They would vanish if their Shardblade were summoned.

    Adam Horne

    But it's been a while since that's happened, so it's not as much of a concern?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You can assume that there are more deadeyes wandering Shadesmar whose Shardblades have been lost, than there are ones that the Shardblades are kept. Probably about an equal number, I would say, 50/50. Though I would have to really crunch those numbers. I'd say that across 5000 years-ish... not quite, but you know. That a lot of those weapons, even though they are powerful and things like that, are gonna get lost. Ships are gonna get sunk; things get covered over with crem on Roshar; people go up to cross mountain passes to go attack, and they end up freezing and dying. And I think that over the years, there's been a ton of those that have been lost.

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    Pagerunner

    In the Rhythm of War Ars Arcanum, Khriss says she sent her best agent among the Stonewards. Was that Nazh?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    Pagerunner

    Has he become a Radiant?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO. But yes, she did send her best agent, and her best agent is Nazh. And he is not happy about it.

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    u/khazroar

    "Deadeyes can't make choices," Notum said. "They don't have the presence of mind for it. I know this personally; my own father is a dead eye, cared for in the fortress now."

    Third listen of the book, and I only just clocked that. I was under the impression that every single honorspren at the time of the Recreance became a deadeye, and that all currently conscious one's were descended from those the Stormfather made later (aside from the Ancient Daughter). How in the world can Notum's father be a deadeye without him being one too?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    We became aware of this error sometime in the past year. Turns out Brandon momentarily confused Notum with the Reacher ship captain, who does have a deadeye father. The line will be changed eventually.

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    LewsTherinTelescope

    In Rhythm of War, Notum tells Adolin that:

    “Deadeyes can’t make choices,” Notum said. “They don’t have the presence of mind for it. I know this personally. My own father is a deadeye, cared for in the fortress now.”

    Is this a mistake, conflating Captain Notum with Captain Ico? Notum's father would've been born centuries or millennia after the Recreance, going off what Notum says in Oathbringer:

    “The Stormfather created only a handful of children. All of these, save Sylphrena, were destroyed in the Recreance, becoming deadeyes. This loss stung the Stormfather, who didn’t create again for centuries. When he was finally moved to remake the honorspren, he created only ten more. My great-grandmother was among them; she created my grandfather, who created my father, who eventually created me.”

    So if he's become a deadeye relatively recently, it's surprising they didn't use him as an example instead of Testament.

    On the other hand, Ico's father is definitely a deadeye:

    Ico locked the door and hung the keys on his belt. “My father.”

    “Your father?” Adolin said. “You keep your father locked up?”

    “Can’t stand the thought of him wandering around somewhere,” Ico said, eyes forward. “Have to keep him locked away though. He’ll go searching for the human carrying his corpse, otherwise. Walk right off the deck.”

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Notum did not get conflated with Ico. Ico's father is not cared for in Lasting Integrity.

    But the quote from Oathbringer apparently was forgotten. We'll have to address this sometime in the future.

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    Elsecaller_17-5

    I asked Brandon if it was possible for us to get a quick sketch of the mural so we try to dig into the symbology better and he responded (paraphrasing), "that's a good idea but I would have to talk to Isaac." 

    Isaac

     I'm also quite intrigued by the mural, and I've created a folder of ideas of how we might approach it. Unfortunately, it would take a lot of time and continuity to get right, and right now we need to be working on upcoming books. I could see this, however, being something we include in the art book. (But I'm not making any promises.) Still, this is something I'd like to put together someday.