Oversleep
Is it possible to Soothe/Riot so hard that the person Snaps due to extreme emotions caused by emotional Allomancy?
Brandon Sanderson
I hadn't considered, but yes, that should work.
Is it possible to Soothe/Riot so hard that the person Snaps due to extreme emotions caused by emotional Allomancy?
I hadn't considered, but yes, that should work.
For instance, a person's spiritual component knows how old they are.
Wow. Has this been talked about before? This kind of seems like a big tidbit. Now we have some idea of how Hoid changes his age?
I haven't said if this is a method Hoid uses or not, but it's part of the reason the Lord Ruler turned to dust when he lost his metalminds. (His body tried to match the age his spirit said he was.)
If they somehow killed the Lord Ruler in a conventional manner, would he still have turned to dust?
Yes. The metalminds would have stopped being tapped, and the spirit of the matter would probably still have had this strange effect. Not it didn't happen to the bodies of the shard vessels who died.
Would koloss spikes turn off when they die too, so dead ones shrivel up like raisins?
Hemalurgy changes the spirit. So not necessarily.
If a spike was covered in blood - stopping the Hemalurgic decay - and then split into smaller spikes, would there be power loss or not?
Let's say the splitting took place in a bathtub full of blood, so that the spikes would be covered in blood at all times.
The split should work.
In the prologue to the Hero Of Ages, Marsh is using a brass spike when spiking the Keeper.
Why brass? It would allow to steal only Feruchemical Mental powers (memories, wakefulness, mental speed... warmth or determination, that's unclear) and none of them seem particularly important to killing machines the Inquisitors are. Surely Feruchemical healing, or speed, or strength or even age would be more desirable power to steal?
You are underestimating mental speed. And, also, versatility.
If this is all but a guaranteed RAFO question, but, does the fact that the honorblades needing ten heart beats to appear have to do with Szeth's perception on shardblades needing ten heartbeats (like Shallan's case). Or does it have to do with some more innate rule of nature.
It is a RAFO.
Is duralumin easier, harder, or the same to Push on allomantically as, say, tin?
I'm going to start moving into "RAFO almost everything" mode here, unfortunately, as (with the weekend over) I need to be getting into the ending of the book itself. Some of the questions, though not yours, are getting very detailed and I need to scale back on answers for now. (Sorry.)
Is Nightblood any more Invested now than when she was created?
RAFO. (Good question.)
Could Aluminum be used to protect a Surgebinder from a larkin?
Yes.
Would a larkin be able to steal Stormlight from a surgebinder wearing Shardplate? Any comments on whether Shardplate or aluminium would be more effective protection?
Getting through both would be relatively equal--with the problem being that Shardplate is powered by investiture, which the larkin could feed on. So aluminum is better in that specific case.
if you were to chuck Nightblood into a Shard that had the intent of Evil would Nightblood splinter it?
Splintering is a completely different process from what Nightblood does. :)
I've been thinking about the Parshendi and I guess this is as good a place to ask as any - when the parshendi change, there's an obvious change in the physical realm, and there seems to be a change in the cognitive realm as well. Is there a change in the spiritual realm? I know we haven't dug much into it, but it seems like a change in the spiritual realm is very difficult or impossible - if you could change in the spiritual realm is it really the same 'thing' at the end of the process? Mostly I'm curious about the first question...the second question is more of a philosophical train of thought.
Things in the spiritual realm do change, but subtly. For instance, a person's spiritual component knows how old they are.
I would have a question about Soulcasting: is Soulcasting an Invested object harder ? And if it is a human (let's say, an Allomancer) but he is not burning any metal, would he be as easy as Soulcast as any "normal" person ?
It is harder to Soulcast an Invested object, but Soulcasters--by their nature--are used to dealing with this.
When Allomancers aren't burning metal, they are not considered highly-Invested.
You have Jasnah give such a good argument for the atheist point of view that I thought, well Brandon is probably an atheist (as I am). Then I started watching your writing class videos. Oops! In one of them you say that you feel you can successfully draw an atheist character. I certainly agree. ;-) Jasnah does seem to lack compassion to some degree, but I insist that religion is not necessary for one to be compassionate. You draw characters wonderfully!
Kaladin is agnostic, which most people miss in these discussions, and is the series argument for a compassionate non-believer. Dalinar is a liberal theist, and Navani an orthodox theist.
So, I've been wondering for a while, which does Surgebinding classify as? Surgebinders don't use their own native investiture to power magic so I suppose that's the case for being classified end-positive, but they do have to go get some investiture and once they use it it's gone and they have to go get more, so that almost seems end-negative. Thanks in advance for any answer even if it's a quick RAFO!
The more picky scholars would argue it is end neutral, because the power must be in the system before the Magic can initiate. But others would admit that the spheres are a delaying response for an end-positive system. You're looking too much past the mark with your read. Look at the work done as part of what is in the system. Investiture is not leaving the system in surgebinding, it is doing work, creating potential energy in most cases.
If a Worldhopper were somehow able to spike themselves with god metals from each shard world e.g. Honor/Cultivation/Odium spike, would it be possible for them to make a miniaturized version of a new shard, or would they just gain powers granted to them by the spikes?
RAFO.
In Elantris did Elantris ever not exist? like before it was built did the Shaod choose people? and if it did was their power the same? I'm mostly asking that if they were to build another Elantris in Teod would Elantrians be just as powerful over there?
Yes, there is a point where Elantrians didn't exist. Excellent question. The rest is a RAFO.
Seeing that "Oathbringer" is looking like the definitive title, I got a small question. I know we all think of the sword when we hear "Oathbringer", but given that TWoK and WoR where titles of books within the books, I would like to know if Oathbringer may be a book too.
I find it unlikely, but I would really like it. I loved how I could be reading the same book that the characters (I know, not really, but you get the idea)
This will all make sense eventually.
I'd like confirmation/denial of a theory of mine. Is the reason people can recall breaths from objects but not Lifeless or sentient awakened objects because they no longer have the same Identity as the awakener?
You are on the right track.
I will have to go back to the books to find specific examples of why I thought this but does Shallan have Tetrachromacy?
An interesting theory.
In a couple of your books you put some epigraphs in the front of the chapters to serve as hints or easter eggs. Most seem as excerpts of a already written book. So here's my question, do you write all the epigraphs at one time and distribute across your chapters or do you just write it when you reach the chapter and the edit it all to make it fit?
I generally write them all at once, though once in a while I put a note on a chapter when writing it to indicate what should go there.
Out of curiosity, in the [epigraphs] will we be getting another Letter?
I intend for the first five to all have letters.
Who's your favorite character in SA?
I generally don't pick favorites, but Dalinar is the one I've been planning for the longest.
Would Szeth still have been chosen to be a skybreaker if Nalan'Elin had known that Szeth was willing to kill Adolin "on his own time" unlawfully without being compelled by his oathstone? Or did Nalan'Elin know about that and still think he'd be a good fit?
Nobody is perfect, and Nale knows this--but he has worse days than others. It's not so much the law, as willingness to follow a personal code, that Nale is most interested in. He's also more harsh with people once they join the order than before.
So, he wouldn't have loved it, but it wouldn't have stopped him from offering.
Jasnah, as I've said, grows more important in the back five.
I'd say spoilers, but I doubt you'd kill her off..
This is entirely from memory so please forgive me if I get this wrong, but I believe [Brandon] has hedged on this topic in the past, e.g. who says she has to be alive (in the usual sense) to be a POV character?
I've said that flashback characters (which are the ones I've announced as having "books" dedicated to them) can die before their book arrives.
In WoR, when Kaladin is chasing Szeth through the storm, could he have just Lashed himself to Szeth and followed automatically? I realize he was new to his abilities and may not have thought of it, but is it possible?
One thing about Lashing that is counter-intuative to people who know physics is that Lashings are usually in a direction, not toward an object. It means that physics wise, it's not actually increasing the gravitational pull of an object--but sending you a direction. I did this because of just this type of question; it made the magic too powerful.
Will the cognitive realms of shardworlds be heavily affected by a more widespread knowledge of modern science among its population?
Yes.
One quick question- will there ever be any development with bridge 4 in the future? People like Moash (as far as his future), Sigzil, Teft, and most of all Rock. I'm not even going to mention Lopen as I have enough faith in you there.
I think you'll be pleased with what you find in future books.
Can tapping enough Feruchemical zinc allow one to match Taravangian's intellect on the day he created the Diagram? Or are the effects different somehow?
The effects are similar, but not exactly the same. Zinc is speed of thought specifically--while what happens to Taravangian increases multiple types of intelligence, not just raw 'processing power' so to speak.
I'm dying to know who gets Szeth's Honorblade!!! I can keep a secret.
RAFO. (Sorry.)
Is there anything interesting about the etymology of the Drominad system?
Whenever I think of it I immediately think 'Dromedary'.
I'll get into it someday, but it's nothing that should be immediately obvious.
What is the event showed in the books, that are earlier in the Cosmere's Timeline ? (just to understand if WoK's prologue is before or after Elantris's event)
I believe WoK prologue is before everything else you've seen. Some of the Dalinar flashbacks show scenes pretty early as well.
Once someone refuses the call of the Beyond, may it change idea later ? (and reach the Beyond) Or is a one shot possibility ?
It may change later.
When someone Ascended with the Well, if He don't use the power and neither release it...Would He keep his status for long time ?
No, unfortunately.
Can a Misting hurt himself burning the wrong metals or a bad alloy ?
Not really, but they can swallow something they can't burn and end up with metal poisoning. Kind of similar.
So we may tell that a Misting's Allomancy is "safer" than a Mistborn's one.
Maybe because it's the original/natural way how Allomancy manifest itself (without godlike interferences)
Sure, you could potentially say that. You can still make yourself sick, though, so I'm not sure. I guess it comes down to your definition of "hurt." But I'd call it safer, yes.
I wonder if king Galivar is a back 5 main character.
I believe I've announced them all, and he wasn't on the list. (Sorry.)
Do we learn more about Gavilar's motives in [Oathbringer]?
Some, yes. But not the entirety.
Could you soulcast atium from god-metal into god-wood?
Soulcasting atium would take a heap-ton of Investiture. You'd need a huge source to power that.
In book one, a main character was absent from several parts. (Dalinar and Shallan alternated.) Same with Words of Radiance, where Dalinar skipped two parts, I believe.
Note that this is an absence of viewpoints from the character, not necessarily an absence of the character entirely.
The main characters of the first part of the Stormlight are Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar. Two more flashback character (Eshonai and Szeth) can be considered important characters without as many viewpoints, though in the above outline, I'd have listed them as tertiary characters in terms of number of viewpoints.
The actual tertiary characters are Jasnah, Adolin, Navani, and a few that I can't mention as it will be spoilers. These get significant screen time, but only have viewpoints here and there in the first five books. Jasnah, as I've said, grows more important in the back five. Others do as well.
All right, folks! Time for the fifth update. This should be the last one that I post before some redditor inevitably beats me to the "It's Done!" post by watching my twitter feed very closely.
I do hope to post another update or two during the next year, discussing how the editing and publication process is proceeding.
Part Four is done as of half an hour ago. The part is around 80k words long, and brings the book total so far to 420k words. Final book is still projected at 450k, though I do plan to try to trim it back in revision. (Tor's book binding company can't do a book longer than Words of Radiance, so if I go longer, we have to shrink the font or change binders. I won't cut important parts of the book just to meet this length requirement, but I also generally need to trim significantly in revisions to tighten language.)
Part Four turned out very well, and I'm very pleased with the book so far. I consider it as strong, or stronger than, book two. I also don't see any major structural or characterization problems that will slow editing. (So far, my editor's comments on Parts One and Two have been minor, save for the slow-down in Part Two that I was aware of--and probably don't mind existing, since Parts Three and Four are much faster, and the characterization in Part Two is strong.)
If you're following the Visual Outline from the second update, there structure of the book has undergone some revisions as I've worked through it. It now looks something more like this
Unlisted is that I nudged one flashback into Part Five. Shown is that Secondary Main character #2 had their viewpoint stretched through all five parts, but has a slightly smaller number of viewpoints in all of them. I juggled tertiary characters, making Parts Two and Four the expansive ones (with many viewpoints) and Parts One and Three the narrow ones (with a focus only on the main characters.) Yes, this is complicated, and you don't need to pay any attention to it. I posted this for those who like to dig into these things.
I'm going to power forward into Part Five starting tonight, then do a second draft of Parts Four and Five together. (I'm not sure why I'm treating those like proper nous.) After I turn that in, I will still need to write the prologue, some of the interludes, and the epigraphs. (Those little bits of text at the starts of chapters.)
And then, revisions. My favorite part. Yay.
As with previous threads, I'll try to post answers to questions where I can--but I have to balance that with the actual writing, so some questions will go unanswered or get a quick RAFO. I apologize in advance for that. Despite jokes to the contrary, I really am just one person, and I can't do ALL THE THINGS, as much as I would like to.
Also, thank you to the community for your kind words. I know that people joke about my writing speed, but this book has taken over a year of dedicated writing--and that's not counting the year before of outlining and writing out some of Kaladin's chapters. It's been two full years of work, and then some, to finish this book. With another six months of revision ahead. Together with other projects, that will make three and a half years between books two and three. So I do beg your patience with this series. The books take a lot out of me, and while I'm very proud of the result--and consider this series to be my opus--the novels aren't going to be terribly fast in their release schedule.
Also what would happen if I had a LOT of Breath and tried to Awaken something that was still alive...?
RAFO on the second question. You could say that Investing someone with your Breath, however, IS Awakening them.
Are Commands unique to Endowment and those with Breath, or do other Shards have an equivalent or similar power / ability? The girl Vasher rescues, his statements to Denth, and your quote above seem to point that Commands can be used on living entities for some purposes... I've always wondered if there was more to Dalinar referring to "unite them" as a 'phantom command'. If other Shards use commands or something similar it could also explain the mechanism of the Nightwatcher's boon/curse related to Dalinar's memory loss.
Intent is one of the components of the Magic, as you'll see frequently. These things are related.
How can Szeth apply multiple Basic Lashings to an object - wouldn't the first one send the object immediately beyond his grasp?
Hold something in your hand. There is a "basic lashing" pulling it downward. How hard is it to keep holding on to?
Often, though, then I have him Lash multiple times, he either does it all at once or in very quick succession.
I was mostly interested in cases where Szeth lashes really heavy objects - stone blocks or tables - to the side. They are not things he can hold (usually), and my understanding of physics suggests that a second after the first Lashing the object would be 9.81 (well, less for Roshar) meters away.
Maybe I can find an example where it feels weird.
Yes, please. It's entirely likely I've made a mistake somewhere.
With the blocks, the ones I remember are where he has to overcome friction.
When, in Stormlight, Shardblade victims are described as having burned out eyes, do the eyes physically burn out leaving empty eyesockets, or is it closer to a surface burn, maybe just looking like they had burned?
Eyes actually burn. It is an oddity that I might some day explain.
The name Bleeder - does it come from (the incorrect) idea that bleeding a patient can make them feel better? And so Paalm sees herself as the one who needs to bleed Elendel to make it healthy?
The idea of "bleeding" as we had on earth as a custom of medicine did not exist on scadrial. But the idea in your post isn't too far off.
What do you think about translating 'Bleeder' as 'barber surgeon'? It's the Polish translation (and the term is one-word and sounds really well). I think the translators went with the same train of thought as Argent did and since Bleeder has already described herself as a kind of surgeon - her comments about cleaning the wounds being more painful than the cut itself and so on. Is this a "on spot" translation or is it far off?
Yes, that's not a bad translation at all. I like it.
We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right?
There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.
Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases. Sticking more power into something like a Feruchemical storage or a hyper-invested object like Plate is increasingly hard. The other part is that Investiture tends to interfere with other Investiture, unless there's a familiar resonance. (This is part of what philosophers call Identity.) Slapping your hand through a sand master's stream of sand will cause interference, and make them start to drop. It's not that the sand is supporting them, it's that the investiture holding them up gets scrambled for a moment because of your own investiture.
Investiture pushed toward someone inside a hyper-invested (supersaturated) system like a person in Shardplate is going to get hard push-back.
This is similar to the reason that it's harder to Push on invested coins. Depends on how invested they are, in that case. It's generally not as hard as doing something like Lashing a person in plate. (This is more about the interference than the saturation of investiture.) But the two principles are what I use to guide the physics in these areas.
Can we take that as a hint that the Investiture in the Plates and the Investiture that the Surge of [Adhesion] uses come from different Shards? Or do they interfere because they "belong" to different spren?
You know, I should have realized this one would bring out the follow up questions. Let's leave it at what I posted for now. This is a deep, deep rabbit hole, and I do need to try to get some more writing done tonight. So...RAFO. (Sorry.)
I was wondering whether any of the Vessels are blood related?
Aside from the romantic relationship between Honor and Cultivation I'm not sure that we know anything about the relationships that others have with each other within the group of 16, and it would be interesting to know.
I'm saving most of this for Dragonsteel, I'm afraid. So RAFO.
I was going through the compiled WoB and came across two interesting pieces of information. So I guess a lead in question, you said that Hoid isn't quite human, so I was wondering if he wasn't quite human in the same way that inquisitors aren't quite human (i.e. alterations to spiritual DNA etc.)? And if so does he get his many investiture based powers in a similar way?
You are asking the right questions, and are thinking along correct lines.
I have a couple of questions regarding Dalinar. We know that he visited the Nightwatcher and it doesn't look like anybody else knows about it.
Have we seen anything in the first two books, which shows the boon he got from the Nightwatcher?
As we see from the preview chapter of Oathbringer, Dalinar was extremely brash and maybe a bit cruel in his youth. Does his change of character has something to do with the Nightwatcher?
These are both questions that, presumably, the Dalinar flashbacks in book three will answer. So RAFO. :)
How does the Moon Scepter actually look like? In what shape is it?
Now we have two understandings of the word "scepter" based on different ways of translation:
1) 杖: It shapes like a common wand/staff/rod/cane/stick, usually seen in Western countries. [Mainland translation]
2) 笏: It's kind of a flat scepter of Chinese origin, shaped like a tablet, usually held before the breast by officials when received in audience by the emperor. (Very rarely, the emperor himself holds it.) The officials can take notes on it. [Taiwan translation (I believe the translator once showed you around the Taipei Palace Museum.)] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaku_(ritual_baton)
Could you tell us which one is closer to the original design? Thanks!
It's not a Shaku, it's a Ruyi, actually. That's an excellent question, though. It does actually come from my visit to the museam, and while I'm aware of shakus, I hadn't heard them called scepters. But I guess they are!
Either way, I imagined it as the wavy shape of a Ruyi. (如意)
Whoa what an amazing answer! Thanks so much for the explanation! I once thought of Ruyi when flipping through some reference materials and now it becomes canon! Hooray! Another question if you don't mind: (Someone just asked this a moment ago.) Why is it called Moon Scepter? Does (perhaps) one side/end of it resemble moon? [Full moon or crescent?] Or is it colored like moon? Or does it contain some moon pattern? (Also a fan art question, sorry ;P)
It has to do with the differences in religion between Shai's people and the Rose Empire. It is colored like the moon, but there's a little more to it than that.
Ah, I see. Thank you! So what color is Selish moon when we look at it? (I suppose there's only one moon?) Didn't find any specific descriptions about its color in books. Can we assume it is similar to our moon?
I didn't say it was the color of Sel's moon...
Just kidding. It is, and there is only one. It's a pale white blue, a little more blue than ours, but similar.
Ah, so Azir has a larger population density, at least. Cosmere-wise, is Elendel the largest, or could say, T'Telir match it?
Azir has a large population density. Cosmere-wise, though, Eldendel is by far the largest. Though I don't have strict population numbers on places like Silverlight. (Which, for years, I assumed I'd have to rename--but I think the program Silverlight is dead, so I can go back to calling the city that.)
And of course, what exactly is Silverlight? I don't think I've ever heard of it before. A Threnodian city?
Silverlight is mentioned in the Cosmere collection, I believe, in one of the essays. It's a city somewhere in the cosmere, with some relevance you will discover eventually.
Is Silverlight the city that exists in the Cognitive Realm, in an area corresponding to deep space in the Physical? And if that's the RAFO I expect it is, will we see an answer in Arcanum Unbounded?
RAFO.
I believe it's referenced in Unbounded, but I can't remember if I cut it or not. (I have been touchy about mentioning the place since Microsoft took the name in 06 or whenever it was.)
This one will remain a mystery for a while.
How would food production be like without soulcasters? Has Alethkar, for example, grown far beyond what it could (population-wise) without them?
The food question is a great one. As far as the Alethi go, it's more a matter of concentration than raw food production. Shipping is SLOW in Alethkar. It's long, which makes getting between north and south difficult, and the rivers aren't as useful as they are on (say) Earth.
The warcamps, for example, would starve themselves out short order without soulcasters. Supply lines are just not an Alethi strength. Kholinar, while not as big as Scadrian population centers, is also large enough that it depends on soulcasters for some of its food. It could survive without them, though, with northern Alethi food production.
Really, warfare is where they've learned to extend themselves, and depend on the soulcasters. Remember, gemstones in them DO break, so you do still need a ready supply of emeralds. The larger, the better.
Very interesting on the food logistics of Alethkar - I never did quite imagine Kholinar was smaller than say, Elendel, but the technological progress there explains it.
Given how slow food transportation is, I would presume fresh food is a no-go. Are spices and preserved food selling well in Roshar, then? As for population centers, is Kholinar the largest around, or are other places a lot larger?
There's a reason that Herdazian food (which makes soulcast meat taste good) is popular these days.
Azimir is larger in population than Kholinar. Kholinar is big by Rosharan standards, but far smaller than an Earth population center (like London) at a comparable time. The warcamps had it beat by a lot--depending on how you view the warcamps. (As one city, or ten small ones.)
Does that just mean Herdazian food is incredibly spice-heavy, then? Also, why is Soulcast food bland? Is it due to the nature of the object (changing food to food makes it tastier than stone to food), or just because the Soulcaster lacks practice, like Jasnah did with strawberry jam?
Flavorful, rather than spicy. Most western food is already spicy. The Herdazians offer something a little different, and are pretty good with soulcast meat. The portability is also a bit of a revolution.
Soulcasting anything other than the basic Essence requires some innate knowledge and practice. People could learn to soulcast better food, but it would have to be a Radiant with control over the process. The soulcaster fabrials are far more rigid in what they can create.
As for soulcasting - now that is... interesting. So are Surgebinding fabrials more rigid in general? And what of an Honorblade when a non-Herald uses it?
A soulcaster is built to do a certain thing, and can do that certain thing well, but without as much flexibility. It is the difference between having a computer output a picture of a circle--following some inputs such as size and some changes to shape--and having an artist who can draw what you want.
Regarding Soulcasting, I have a question - why do people continue to use it post-Recreance? Would it not have been seen as a betrayal, given that the Radiants abandoned them? Why this Surge but not others? Was it simply the only Surge available and people would have kept using the others anyway? I guess it's a matter of practicality but given how devout Vorinism can be it does seem odd.
Good question. You'll notice that Soulcasters aren't the only fabrial that access a Surge, however. They're just the one most commonly used.
There are plenty of rationalizations. But it comes down to this: they are too useful to give up.
Ah yes, now that I think of it Navani's conjoined-gem fabrials seem to utilize Gravitation and perhaps the heating one uses Abrasion(?) to produce heat. Or are there others I did miss?
I was referencing a Regrowth fabrial, actually, which I believe has appeared several times.
Isn't the Regrowth fabrial incredibly rare? I was under the impression it disappeared with the Recreance and only Nin's reappearance brought it back. AFAIK, only a Radiant in Dalinar's vision and a Herald have actually used it so far.
Their rarity depends on the time period in question. But yes, I'd list them as incredibly rare.
Based on the current state of the Cosmere, known and unknown, could Kelsier theoretically find enough power/skill/knowledge to have a fair and equally matched fight with Hoid? Assuming they were to meet again and have a rematch?
I'd say that what you posit is indeed theoretically possible.