Recent entries

Mywuga

In regards to the perpendicularities in the cosmere, were you at all inspired by the pools in the Wood between the Worlds in C.S. Lewis’ “The Magicians Nephew”?

Brandon Sanderson

So it's gotta be back there in the back of my brain, but I so vaguely remember the Magician's Nephew that I didn't even remember these exist, when you're saying that. So the answer is a solid “maybe.”It might be there in the back of my head.

I wrote the pool into Elantris not even knowing what it did, because the cosmere had not been constructed at that point. And then when I was building the cosmere, I was writing Mistborn, I'm like, "All right, I know I want it to be some sort of portal." (I actually did know that, because I had put iconography in about it being a portal.) I'm like, "Where does it leave? All right, I'm going to build out the whole cosmere. I now know what these are." I had a pool like this in Aether of Night that I had as kind of a receptacle for a certain cosmereological things (or what became a certain cosmereological thing). I solidified that, but it's not like the pool that I wrote into Elantris when I put it there. Aether of Night was after Elantris; I just put it in there. "It's a portal to something" I had not built the cosmere yet. It is the first book where I started to think about that sort of stuff. Basically, you have a Hoid appearance, and that's it that was intentional; everything else was retrofitted onto Elantris.

verendus3

Which of your worlds would you most and least want to live in?

Brandon Sanderson

Whenever I get this question, I say, “Can I go write quickly a short story in a really nice world where nothing is wrong, they have the internet, and authors can make a professional living as a novelist? Can I do that? I'll go quickly write one up and go live there." Because I don't really want to live in any of the worlds. I like air conditioning. Air conditioning isn't a thing in basically any of the cosmere worlds. You can make it work with various magic systems, but in most cases, to make it work with those various magic systems, you're going to have to be pretty high up in the social structure. Because most of these worlds have not gotten equality and things down, even to the level that we have. These worlds are not necessarily great places to live. And then beyond that is, generally there is some world ending event and/or disaster coming that I wouldn't want to be around for.

If I have to pick, I usually say Scadrial because they are closest to the tech level I want. But they are also the most commonly subject to world-ending things, because there's gonna be four series, at least, in the Mistborn world. Maybe Nalthis would be better, because the fewer books I write about a place, probably the less likely the world is to end anytime soon.

It is definitely not Threnody. We'll just say that.

jofwu

You've teased that we might get movie/television news before too long...

With so much of the cosmere left to write, are you concerned about movies/shows catching up to you? Would you make them hold off on a Stormlight Archive show until you finish, or are you comfortable letting adaptations get ahead of you?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how comfortable I get with the television and movie format. When Stormlight happens as a television show, I want to be deeply involved. I want to write some of the episodes, I want to be co-creator--and I am just not ready for that yet.

If that is the place where we are (me being that deeply involved) then getting ahead of me is not that big of a deal. If it is not, if I'm not so deeply involved, I think I would resist letting people get ahead of me. This is tied up with some intricacies of how I am creating the cosmere--which lets me play with this a little. For example, we aren’t calling the first 5 Stormlight books era 1, but there is a 10 year time jump between books 5 and 6. So if I were to sell Stormlight, I could conceivably sell the first five--which will be finished fairly soon. (Knock on wood.) Then we will see how things go with the back five, afterward. (If I'm done with them, for example, or if we need to wait between the two series.)

Regardles, jofwu, I am worried about this; it is something on my radar.

StefeSoo

How much of Roshar, its history and its magic system did you have developed before even writing the first book? I’ve seen so many inconsistencies from other authors when developing worlds over multiple books, but I can’t fault yours. How do you maintain that consistency when writing?

Brandon Sanderson

I actually did make some problems with timeline issues. That is a problem when you have multiple flashbacks, it’s like Tetris, a very complicated game of Tetris. Getting all these events in people’s pasts to line up with the time needed to get them where they are today is a big issue when telling this kind of story. For me, Stormlight is a different beast from my other books, my friends and I have an inside joke we call worldbuilder’s disease. It’s where an author spends so much time building their world that they don’t write the story. If you don’t sit down and write you won’t learn what the needs of the book are. Generally, your worldbuilding should be done in service of the story* (*: if that is fun to you). Generally you want to ask, what are the themes of my book and how is the worldbuilding going to help me. I tell you all this to say that I made an exception to Stormlight, I sat down for 6 months and wrote an extensive lore book which is now an internal wiki which we use. The only reason that this worked the way it did was that I brought on a great team quickly. Karen and Peter are the unsung heroes of this, they are able to spot these mistakes before they reach print. You’ll see in the next book that I have brought on people whom I am calling Arcanists. These are fans who I have asked to check over specifically world building. This is very important to me because epic fantasy is about making you believe that it is real while you are reading. I don’t want to be one of those people where this is an inconsistency and breaks like William Shatner on SNL.

AonEne

Do the Lenses at the start of each chapter [of the Alcatraz books] correlate to the contents of the chapter in any way? Or just whatever's fun? 

Hayley Lazo

I always tried to pick ones that loosely have something to do with things, whether it's a chapter where they are used or introduced, or something thematically that happens in the chapter. Sometimes there's no correlation, we just needed to pick one. 

Puzzled-Barnacle-200

If you were to write Mistborn now, as an experienced author rather than as your first published series, what differences would you have made to the story/world/characters?

Brandon Sanderson

A couple things. There are 3 regrets, well maybe 4. I really wanted to write the first book about Vin and have a female protagonist and do a good job with that. It's something I'd done poorly in the past (during my unpublished years) and I really wanted to do a good job on this one. But then, I made her the only woman on the cast, really. So I would fill out the cast with more women.

I got tunnel vision and because all the stories I was using as blueprints (Ocean’s 11, Sneakers, the Sting, etc) had overwhelming male casts, I defaulted to that. This is the problem with bias--you end up perpetuating problems, just kind of going along with them because that's what you've always seen done.

That is not to say that having an all male cast is bad. In some cases, chosen deliberately, it makes sense. I would not change Bridge 4; as bridgemen, it makes sense to have an all male group. (At least at the start.) But with Mistborn, I was actively using Vin as a way to show that with the metallic arts evening out things, the difference between male and female strength was minuscule. By having no other women on the team, I undermined my own message.

Another one is that I think that I broke Sanderson’s first law. I used un-foreshadowed power in the ending and it led to a less satisfying conclusion than I would have liked. This is actually what taught me I needed to better with this, and if you watch my lectures on Sanderson's Laws, I lay it out more clearly.

Third, in the first half of Hero of Ages, I don't like quite how much traveling there is. I don’t think it gets across the feel that I want. I would have set more in Luthadel. It feels out of place in retrospect because that story (the story of Mistborn) is sort of the story of that city. I could had the same book, but set it in a fortress within Luthadel. That would make the city's "character" remain in the third book, and let you see the progress (or in this case, the opposite) of the world through the way the city looks.

When I make a film of Mistborn 3, I think I would move much of the action to the city. 

Victor-Romeo

Some very successful authors have difficulty in delivering books to wrap up the series. Why do you think this happens, and what is the best attitude and healthy behaviours die hard fans should use to encourage authors to deliver the books they are hanging out for?

Brandon Sanderson

Anytime you get into “should”, that is dangerous ground. I am a creator and I do not think I should be dictating fan behavior. That’s your world as a community to decide upon; I prefer to let the community do it's thing.

I do not think there is one good answer to this. (IE, why other authors are sometimes slow.) One common answer is that it has been a hard decade for a lot of people. Man, there are often difficult things about this last decade that have been draining to people. Then add on to that personal issues, and it is very hard for some of my colleagues to be creative in the way they have to be to write a novel.

Another big reason is that many authors tend to be “discovery writers.” Their biggest strength tends to lie in character interaction and believability in those characters. They give their characters so much volition. A discovery writer does not know their ending, they just start writing and let the characters interact. While those interactions often shine, the authors often have weaker endings. That is not to say that all discovery writers have bad endings, it just takes much more revision. It tends to be very daunting and slows them down towards the end. It is simply an outgrowth of their writing style.

Add on top of that expectations, and maybe never having finished something on this level before, and suddenly your stress is through the roof. These authors, I should remind, just started out like the rest of us. Unknown and just trying to tell a good story. To suddenly have the world watching can be extremely daunting, and there's really no way to practice for this. It can honestly be debilitating.

I think all the various fan reactions are understandable and in some ways they are necessary to the fandom’s psychology. I do not visit the places that exist to complain about me, to complain about my style and tropes. But those places existing is healthy. It is healthy to have a place to talk to people with similar opinions to you or to just post some memes and have some lols.

It can be unhealthy when it becomes harassing behavior. One thing I do not like is how our society treats people who like things. If you speak about liking something online, people will try to rip that away from you. This rubs me absolutely the wrong way. This isn't to say all criticism and disagreement should be done away with. I like is interesting conversations between people who disagree. I disagree wildly with Peter (this is Peter Ahlstrom, my VP of editorial at my company) about Into the Spiderverse. He could not stand it, while it is one of my favorite movies. (He didn't like the framerate of the animation; it drove him crazy.)

Fan criticism also becomes toxic when it becomes harassment to the creator. I do not know where these lines are, though. It's a tough one, because simply posting your opinion online shouldn't constitute harassment.

If you want my opinion, if an author says they are working on a book, they are. I know these people; they want to be done as much as you want them to be done. But there are mental, emotional, and sometimes physical difficulties preventing it. At this point, there really isn't much you can do. And I bet that the harassment of these creators has slowed the release of these books.

Longshot_97

This question concerns Mistborn Era 2. Aluminum at this time is supremely rare and quite expensive, and Wax is seen lamenting his profound lack of aluminum guns and bullets fairly often. However, couldn't he fashion a "Poor Man's Aluminum" of sorts by coating his guns (and potentially bullets) in a thin veneer of iron, then Feruchemically charging it? You've noted that metalminds can still be pushed, but much less than un-Invested metal. This could help him, in the absence of aluminum. So, is there a reason he has not done that?

Brandon Sanderson

The layer you would get by just that little coat would be so small that it'd have very little effect. Now, there's a pretty good argument for putting it into bullets. The problem there is: are the alloys that make good bullets going to work very well? Now, granted, aluminum doesn’t make for great bullets either. But any aluminum alloy kind of gets the property of aluminum. Where any iron alloy does not necessarily get the property of being able to allomantically or feruchemically interact with it in the right way. Can you get there? It's an excellent question that I perhaps should explore. I like this idea. But it's harder than you make it out to be. It is a good idea, though; it's a pretty good idea.

VeryNiceName16

With everything else you guys are doing next year, what is the plan for the Stormlight 4.5 novella?

Brandon Sanderson

Still on my list to do when I finish Stormlight 5. I think it needs to be written; I am excited by it. We will see what happens, because Stormlight 5 is almost assuredly 2024 now. And that's partially the Secret Projects, but not as much as you guys probably would assume.

The main reason has been movie and television stuff. As jofwu anticipated in the first question, I still can't say anything. This is the year the Hollywood came calling, and came calling in a very big way, even before the Kickstarter. They saw that, basically - all of Hollywood was watching and seeing that fantasy can work that is not Game of Thrones. The Witcher, and Shadow and Bone, and plenty of other excellent properties. I mean, Arcane is fantastic; another fantastic example. They're like "Oh, people like these and it can be done if it's not George R.R. Martin". And every one of those studio execs has had someone say "Well, get us one of these," or "get us more of these."

And every one of them went to BookScan, which is the ratings for how books sell. And every one of them sorted the BookScan and said, "Alright, what authors are there out there that have not had anything made?" And, far as I can tell, I am definitely the best selling science fiction and fantasy writer who's never had an adaptation. I might be the best selling author in the world who's never had an adaptation. That's hard for me to say, because it's harder to penetrate different subgenres and figure out where their sales factors are. And, you know, it depends what you count as adaptation.

Basically, they all arrived at the same name, and then the Kickstarter happened. They were already calling, and then they started calling more. And so this is the year where I've had to take numerous meetings with all of the streaming services and a large number of the various studios and producers and things. And that takes time. Just takes a lot of time to be on all of those meetings.

We will bear fruit from this eventually. But I'm being very careful. In fact, when I did my call with Netflix, I led off by saying to them, "I am both very fortunate and very unfortunate. Very unfortunate in that I've never actually had anything made. I've sold tons and tons of things, and nobody was able to get one off the ground. That's unfortunate because I'm an unproven quality in Hollywood, and I understand that. I am also very fortunate in that none of those things actually got made. So nothing bad got made." And all the rights have come back to me, basically. And here I'm sitting in a world where everyone wants fantasy and I have my rights and I can say yes or no. That puts me in a very good position also. Which lets... you know, then I don't need the money. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with people that don't need their money. It's very bizarre to them. So we get to be very discerning and picky with what we want to do.

Brandon Sanderson

As I ended up writing the fourth book in the series I incorporated a lot--you haven't read it yet because it's not readable yet--from the novellas. We almost got the novellas switched to book three, er, book four, and Defiant book five, almost got the publisher to switch that but they were unwilling to do that and they did feel that it was too late in their cycle of publications. But in our head, these are basically book four. 

Janci Patterson

I think you're gonna be really confused to read Defiant without it. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I mean, I'm doing my best to make up for that, I will at least in revisions, but right now my writing group is very confused about some things, half of them have read the novellas, and half of them haven't-   

Janci Patterson

Oh, jeez, ok.

Brandon Sanderson

The ones who have read the novellas are like 'No, no this makes perfect sense.' Why they have kitsen with them in cockpits and why there's lots of different types of slugs. 

Dr_JP69

I have a question about Shadesmar, is the Cognitive Realm round? How are landmasses "projected" here? Could I walk in a straight line and end where I started or would I end up in another place entirely?

Brandon Sanderson

If you walk in a straight line, you're going to MOSTLY follow the land mass on the other side. With some weird space-time deviations in places. You would not ever end up where you started, though, which is one of the things that is most disjointed about the experience. I realize that's very strange, and it's something I'll delve into in the stories eventually.

Ben McSweeney

There's bridge designs coming down the line, much like the Sadeas page I did for the WoK LBs. Dalinar's are more like a siege tower with a folding ground-level drawbridge.

Brandon Sanderson

My good friend Dan Wells and I are writing a book together. It's based on Dark One, my original outline that became a graphic novel. We wanted to do a novelization, because the graphic novel  (while I love it) has a lot of the graphic novel creator's vision to it, and we thought we would do a novel version going kind of back to my original outline.

He has finished a draft, and so I am doing a draft on that. I'm only 10% of the way through that, but I hope to breeze through that because I'm very excited by this project, and I hope that you guys will all be able to experience it before too much longer.

KerberusIV

Is there an established chart that correlates to carat size for each denomination?

Peter Ahlstrom

Broam: 2 carats.

Mark: 1/2 carat.

Chip: 1/10 carat. 

Brandon Sanderson

The problem is not that the covers [for Mistborn Era 2] are bland. The problem is that book series take a long time to write.

When we repackaged Mistborn in 2007, this was the hot style. (When we picked this same style but with a different artist for elantris in 2005, it was right at the revolutionary point where these photo-realistic covers were hugely striking on the shelf.) You might not have liked it even then, but trust me when I say it was a very trendy and original style.

However, visual art tends change far faster than literary trends. So covers of a series grow outdated fast. In 2010, when we we're covering Alloy, this style was still hot enough. But then it became so hot it grew stale.

This leaves us with a problem.

Do we change mid series to newer covers, and leave fans with an unmatching set of hardcovers? Or do we continue with an outdated style, and then recover when the series is done? I'm perfectly happy to change our method if people want, but so far, we've erred on the side of staying consistent. (And yes, paperback recovers are already being designed.)

None of this is to say the artist is anything other than excellent. He is wonderful, and could give us something else if we asked. But again, then the books wouldn't match.

One of the issues here is that the U.S. market prefers visually eye popping styles that are more illustrative, but then get outdated faster. While more iconographic styles like the UK uses tend to last longer but never be as dynamic. I know a lot of you prefer those styles, but they can get very bland. (If safe and stable. See the UK wheel of time covers.)

There's a middle ground of course and all kinds of shades in the middle.

Let me know your thoughts! I'll glance back at this thread over the weekend. Would you rather we repackage mid series and give you more interesting covers but not have the series match?

EDIT: I did check back, and found what I expected. (Though it's good to have confirmation.) Keeping the books consistent across a format is how I'll still proceed, though I AM going to try to get some of our newer covers to try different things to see what you all think. And a I mentioned, if this cover style isn't for you, there's a repackage coming for the whole series (original trilogy and W&W) likely in trade paperback (the oversized paperbacks) coming sometime in the near future.

Brandon Sanderson

If the Muppets came to me and said "we actually want to make one of your things", I would not do Mistborn. What would I do? I would do a new story. I never got around to making Mulholland Homebrew's Sinister Shop of Secret Pets, which is a middle grade book about a young woman who apprentices to... In this world, everyone has to apprentice and learn a magic. And she goes to the job fair, for your apprenticeship when you're fourteen and you gotta pick a magic, and you basically have release time from school and go study your magic talent. There's like hundreds of them, and she finds one called Leekromancy that she thinks sounds cool, and she wants to rebel against the normal magic her parents want her to pick. And she picks it, but then she learns it's power over legumes. She is apprenticed to somebody whose job is taking care of magical pets and having a pet shop. And finding their favorite foods and basically being a fantasy exterminator, but a humane one, where you have some weird magical pest in your house. It's like what I thought Fantastic Beasts was going to be. You have weird magical pests, what do we do to get rid of the brownies? We can just exterminate them, or we can call this guy, it's like the beekeeper who removes the bees from your wall humanely and then sets them up. He'll take the brownies, and maybe the brownies don't make good pets, so he'll send them to a Tiffany Aching book or something like that, and has this nice little pet store. Anyway, that's a story I never got to write, and I would pick something like that of the big list of books that I will never be able to write, and come up with an outline and say, "Let's do this together, Muppets! I don't think Mistborn is a good match for you."

Striker_EZ

Why didn't Odium take the Investiture away from the Fused that rebelled against him at the end of Rhythm of War? At the end of Oathbringer, Odium tells one Fused that questioned him that he could take "that which gave [the Fused] life." So why didn't he do that to Leshwi and the others?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually an excellent question. Odium, in his previous incarnation-- we'll see how he acts now-- part of the driving force of Odium is this kind of belief, mistaken or otherwise, that Odium represents all emotion, and strength of emotion, and basically the Passions in lore. Rebelling against him in the way that they did is actually in line with Odium's personal directives. The Vessel may not like it, in fact the power may not like it, but at the same time, there's a part of both of them that acknowledges, this is what they set in motion, and this is an appropriate use of the agency of the agents they chose. And so, unilaterally destroying those who turn against him is actually not an Odium thing. It's more an Honor thing than it would be an Odium thing. It's just not in line with how Odium acts or thinks, even though it's possible and there's threats and... That's not saying Odium wouldn't do it. But acting like Honor is not something Odium would necessarily want to do.

VeryNiceName16

Frost seems particularly worried about Hoid getting the lerasium. Is this because he knows something about Allomancy that it would be dangerous for Hoid specifically to have, or because he's worried about lerasium Allomancy in general, or something else?

Brandon Sanderson

He's worried about– it's a combination of both. He's worried about what his old friend is capable of doing, because his old friend... kill God once, and y'know, people start to get worried. (Or be involved in the assassination of God.) One time, and that reputation sticks with you for a while. But also, he is worried about a bunch of different things, I'll just say that. You mentioned two of them that are pretty good worries. He has others as well.

Fantastic-Eggplant-9

It's stated that the Fused can hold Voidlight nearly indefinitely. Does this mean their gemhearts are perfect gems?

Brandon Sanderson

So, kind of. It does not necessarily mean that, how about that. But a similar mechanic is happening.

Fantastic-Eggplant-9

Is this why they are so strict with how they handle their dead?

Brandon Sanderson

It is part of why. You are picking up on the right foreshadowing that I have seeded into the books.

Ok-Row1050

If a kandra with a crystal True Body made their way to Roshar, could they use their crystal bones like a gemheart?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they could. That is an excellent question.

Schaaschaa

If Dalinar were to deadeye the Stormfather, would highstorms stop or change? Related, were there highstorms on Roshar before the Splintering of Honor?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, I'll have to think about that.

Questioner

Who is Hoid's best friend?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, back in the day it was Bat'Chor. It's been various people at various different times. Who is it right now? It depends on which "right now" you're talking about. He's in a bunch of different books in a bunch of different time periods. Bat'Chor probably was the closest to a best friend for a while in the books that were relevant.

ncmagic97

In Oathbringer, before the Battle of Thaylen City, Venli is able to see some of the Cognitive Shadows of the Fused waiting in the Cognitive Realm and mentions some are as large as buildings. Are thunderclasts actually a type of the Fused?

Brandon Sanderson

She doesn't know. Thunderclasts are something different, and that is what she is seeing. She is not correctly identifying them. Good question.

LeFlshe

How did Autonomy isolate Taldain from the rest of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the Shards... "How"? "How" may be the wrong term.

Adam Horne

There's a followup question, maybe it's related. "Did Bavadin remove the perpendicularity on Taldain?"

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on the second one. First one, natural processes.

KingOCarrotFlowers

Does "Thaidakar" translate to "Survivor"? If so, in what language?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it does not.

Sapphire_Bombay

You've mentioned in the past that Jasnah has some interesting brain psychology going on. I suspect if I ask you to elaborate too much, I'll get RAFO'd, but can you share if it is more due to nature or nurture?

Brandon Sanderson

Little of both. I would go nurture on this one, but let's wait till I write her book to really dig into it.

icanbanter

We know aluminium blocks Investiture. Does silver block anti-Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

So, silver has its own weird mechanics that I'm slowly exploring in the cosmere. That's not an answer to your question, I'm sorry.

Questioner

How precise can iron and steel Allomancy be? For example, could a Mistborn unscrew a light bulb just by Pushing and Pulling on the edges?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You see Kelsier do something like this when he spins metal poles and things like that. What you're asking for is an order of magnitude more difficult, but it is within the realm of possibility. I want to be careful not to get to Magneto-ish with it, but the more you... yeah. It is possible to do things like they just said.

Schaaschaa

How significant of an event or time period, on a cosmere scale, was the Reod actually? 10 years seems like a blip. Do most worldhoppers even know about it?

Brandon Sanderson

It was a big enough event that by now, yes they do. Most worldhoppers, actually no. Because most worldhoppers are going to be common tradespeople, things like this. Running caravans from Roshar to Nalthis or things like that. The majority of them are not paying attention to things that are happening, so I'm gonna say the majority wouldn't. But the arcanists, the people who are watching the various magic systems, who know about the Shards and are paying attention to this, what happened on Sel was a big deal.

Questioner

Would the Stormfather have called Kaladin "Child of Tanavast" before he bonded Syl?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Rangsk

Is the difficulty of moving Investiture offworld specific to Cognitive Realm travel, or does it affect travel in the Physical Realm (for example space travel)? For example, if Kaladin summons Syl as a Shardblade, could he take her on a spaceship and travel to another system?

Brandon Sanderson

They would have the same difficulty.

NeedsToShutUp

Did Vasher or any of the Five Scholars visit the Nightwatcher prior to the Manywar, or have any of them visited since?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

WilfredTruthwatcher

Will mistclothing (like mistcloak and mistcoat) still exist in Mistborn Eras 3 and 4?

Brandon Sanderson

Plan is yes. What they'll look like is going to be, there'll be an evolution.

gk-sudo

Do we know anyone who is currently a Dawnshard other than Rysn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you have met people who are curre– at least one who is currently a Dawnshard other than Rysn.

RabidHumanitarian

We have seen that two Shards can merge into one. Is the opposite possible?

Brandon Sanderson

The opposite is theoretically possible.

RabidHumanitarian

If yes, have we heard of Shards created this way?

Brandon Sanderson

It has not happened yet. Unless you count Splintering into a bunch of pieces, but that's not what they're asking.

BasakaIsTheStrongest

Does Shardplate provide protection against emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Don't dismiss your helmet when you're around an Allomancer.

gaberz24

In the Coppermind article for fabrials, under the trivia section it reads:

The term "fabrial" will eventually come to be used for all magic-based, mechanical devices in the cosmere, such as the mechanism that picks Elantrians.

Was there a mechanical device that controlled the Shaod?

Brandon Sanderson

Something's going on there, I'm not gonna dig too deeply into that. I'm gonna RAFO that. Continue your theorizing however you'd like. That is not where I expected that question to go.

Adam Horne

Do you wanna say where you were expecting it to go?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I mean... The medallions in Mistborn would be considered fabrials by most arcanists, once the era that they are aware of these things is all happening. That's an awkward way to say it. In future era cosmere, the scholars would point and say, "oh yeah, there were some early fabrials happening on Scadrial at that time." That's the terminology they would use.

gk-sudo

Would you consider breaking the palindrome format of Stormlight titles to give Stormlight 5 a better title, or are you pretty committed to the KoWT acronym, since there's already precedent?

Brandon Sanderson

If I can find a KoWT acronym that feels right, I will use it. I would say that it's 75% likely that I'm going to, but if I can't come up with one that we all like, I will break the format. The title's more important than keeping, I wasn't even planning the ketek format until I changed book 3's title and got us, you know. And then I'm like, oh, this could actually happen. But I changed book 2's title as well. This is a happy accident that we can make it happen, but I'm not going to then become slavish to it. And I also might let the T slide, right? In actual keteks, both the "of" and the "the" can be rearranged, depending on how strictly you're following the format, so it's possible that we change the O's and T's.

Questioner

What kind of spren was the Shardblade Oathbringer?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, partially because Isaac has this somewhere written down, and I can't remember. I should be able to remember that one, but I can't.

Questioner

The makeup of Bridge Four is nearly perfect: a cook, a surgeon, a sergeant, a scholar, two Hoid-touched individuals, etc. How much effect on the composition of Bridge Four did Cultivation have?

Brandon Sanderson

Not a ton. They got lucky. Granted, understand a few things that are gonna explain some of this. The Hoid-touched is, there's certainly something going on there with Sigzil. But having a cook and a sergeant, if you actually run the numbers, a lot of military people are going to be trained in a variety of jobs. The chances that you end up with someone experienced as an armorer, some experience with cooking-- granted, Rock wasn't in the military before, but you know. That you have a person that has done leadership on an NCO level, and things like this. These are things that would have existed on other bridge crews as well. The coincidence is not as big a one, Sigzil's the big coincidence.

Adam Horne

People were asking who's the other after Sig, is that something you want to...?

Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin. If you want to count Kaladin, as someone who has drawn Hoid's attention and he is watching. The real first interaction is the Wandersail one, but Hoid had his eye on Kaladin. You pay attention when people start to form Nahel bonds around you and you're trying to figure out how they work.

Questioner

Is someone limited to how many Nahel bonds they can form, or could someone go play Pokéspren and catch them all, getting access to all Surges?

Brandon Sanderson

There are limits to what a soul can handle. These limits are soft caps, not hard caps. Pokéspren is theoretically possible, but there would be hoops, not just the normal "I want to bond two spren" hoop, which is already a pretty big one.

ArgentSun

Prior to the arrival of the Everstorm, what happened to the Heralds who died? Were they immediately sent back to Braize to wait until the rest arrived and started the Isolation, or could they return to Roshar, similarly to how the Fused can return multiple times?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the mechanics of this I've been dodgy on on purpose because I know I'm gonna want some wiggle room in the books when I write them. Right now they can't return. They go, they're done. I have to make sure that works with the magic and with the narrative as I write them, so you can take this as one of those Words of Brandon that the books might contradict, but the original outline has, you die, you're there, you can't go back. But there are various incarnations of this where they were holding the Fused back by doing that, from being reborn, if that makes sense. And that's one of the parts that I'm not 100% sure where I'm going to go with, because when I came up with all this stuff, I wasn't working with the realities of the books, where I was writing the Fused, and things like this. And now that I have, this is very natural to be like, alright, let me do a reset, and make sure that the lore and worldbuilding all is consistent now that I've done five books-- I haven't done the fifth one yet, but you know what I mean. It's one of the reasons I have the break in between, is to give myself a chance to go to my outlines and make sure. Originally they were holding back... you could kill Fused and they wouldn't return, because Heralds were holding them back, the Oathpact was. But that meant when the Heralds died, they couldn't return either, and so the war could actually happen. But the Everstorm and things like that have changed that. Anyway, that's the answer until I write it in the books and get you some canon in the flashbacks of the Heralds we will be writing eventually.

PhoenixKnight777

Each Order of Radiant has some resonance between their Surges, correct? Can you give us some examples of what would happen in a Surgebinder somehow achieved an impossible pairing, such as Division and Illumination or Transformation and Gravitation?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't really thought about it. You go ahead and theorize on that, I'm sure you can come up with interesting ones. Totally possible in the cosmere. The structure that is on Roshar prevents it from currently happening, but totally possible. I mean, very plausible. I haven't theorized on those yet, so I'm not going to right now.

BrenAldricErmendrud

Can you give us a hint what Spook has been up to recently, or promise one in The Lost Metal?

Brandon Sanderson

No comment, I am not confirming that Spook is around. You're making assumptions.

graciemoo

Did Mercy originally settle on Threnody?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO!

quantumshenanigans

We know that Returned generally can't be inebriated, but Vasher has learned to suppress some of his outwardly Returned-ish aspects. When we see Zahel with a bottle of wine in Stormlight, is it actually having an effect on him, or is he just doing it for the vibes?

Brandon Sanderson

He can get a little drunk. Maybe not as much as he would want to.

Kael_the_Adventurer

Did Nightblood's Awakening transform it into a God Metal?

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitant* Yes, you could say that.

Adam Horne

Was that a permanent change, or was that just while...

Brandon Sanderson

You can argue that Nightblood is a God Metal. Is he? You could argue otherwise as well. How about that?

mistradiant

The Diagram didn't anticipate Nightblood, so Taravangian had to send "agents" to interview one of its former bearers. Did the agents talk to either Vasher or Vivenna?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Greywatch

Is a Radiant spren more attracted to someone who is less emotionally mature but with the potential to reach all five Ideals, or someone who's emotionally ready to swear all five on the spot?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the spren.

asmodeus

You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.

I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.