Okay, let's start with standard Roshar horoscopes:
If Spensa were to join the Knights Radiant, what order would fit her best?
Most likely, she'd be a Dustbringer. With small arguments for Stoneward, Skybreaker, or Edgedancer.
Okay so, also in Oathbringer, did Wit really speak into Shallan's mind when she was confronting the Heart of the Revel--is that what happened??
Eh, RAFO.
Can't you tell me if that's what he did? If that was him?
*teasing sound* Come on. I won't even tell you. You would have gotten similar RAFOs - that does not indicate any yes or no - about stuff in Mistborn that I eventually came around to.
Is a Edgli a dragon?
Edgli, oh, from tears of Edgli, uh, RAFO.
Was the Astalsi religion somehow edited so that Sazed remembered it as [the] Dadradah religion?
These two religions are branches of a more ancient religion.
Nothing was edited in this case.
Is there a question that's asked most often?
Yeah, "When's the sequel to X" is number one. Followed by what you would think are the standards. "Who's your favorite character," "What's your favorite book." Those style questions take up easily the top 20. Not at a signing like this at BYU full of Sharders, but at Comic Con, every second question is probably "When is this coming out, are you working on a sequel to this."
Would it be possible to make Hemalurgic dental fillings? If there were a mad-scientist dentist?
I've thought about this. I think that would be possible, but for Hemalurgy to really work I need it to...it doesn't actually have to be touching the blood, despite what they think. But I think your average dental filling is not going deep enough...
Root canal!
*Continues* But yeah, you could make it work.
If Kaladin created a kid while he had not summoned Syl in a while. Then he made another kid right after he summoned Syl, would they have different colored eyes?
Wow! I'll RAFO that for now.
Given a situation where they have perfect knowledge of Hemalurgy--everything is known. Is it possible they could use a Shard-scalpel and spike to carefully...
To excise without killing somebody? The real damage is to the soul...
I'm imagining taking out toxic sort of things.
You've seen Vasher do something similar, so it's not off books that that's possible.
In Oathbringer, my one big issue with Oathbringer was Amaram's turn. I'm curious why you chose to not hint more at his turn. It felt a little bit out of nowhere. What were your thoughts on Amaram?
Which turn are you talking about?
When he turns to Odium's side and he's like, "Okay, now I'm going to consume an Unmade."
I feel like Amaram was a slow and steady descent. But you didn't get to see viewpoints from him as he was doing it. And what he did to Kaladin was worse than anything he did in Oathbringer, in my mind.
Why did you choose not to give him viewpoints.
Too many characters. To many people to give viewpoints to. It was kicked around. I kicked it around for a while. There just wasn't enough.
Is Harmony going to play a big role in Era 3 and 4?
RAFO.
Kelsier, does he like noodles?
Yes.
Are we going to get a story about what happened to Vivenna between Warbreaker and Oathbringer?
Whether I write that as a story or not, I'm not sure. But it will come out.
Has Braize always been 9-centric or did it become so because of Odium?
RAFO.
Would Stormlight healing, Progression, or Feruchemical gold healing count as some of the ways that a transgender person could change their body to match their identity?
Yes. Those would work. In fact, that's kind of the main way that you would make that happen. Injections of Investiture making the body match the Spiritual and Cognitive.
And is [a Cognitive Shadow] a copy of the Cognitive or Spiritual Aspect?
So this is a matter of some debate in the Cosmere. Philosophical questions. By definition, you have to be ripped out of the body and persist. That's part of the definition.
Does a person have to die before they can become a Cognitive Shadow?
Yes. Depending on your definition of dying?
The physical body dies.
Yes.
Can Odium sense where Honorblades are?
Let's RAFO that one, too.
Is Kaladin related to Aesudan?
Yes, but it's not a close relation. A very complex system of things, but yes.
I was just wondering why he knew her...the melody she was humming.
Oh, he did. That is not because they're related.
So it's something else?
It's something else. I thought that was a sideways question about Kaladin's mom.
It kinda was, I thought maybe she hummed that and so that's why he recognized it.
No, good question.
How is Luck used?
Luck you mean like, Fortune? That is also a RAFO, because I'm saving it for future books. There are clues in the books.
Who is Midius?
You're getting a RAFO card. There's no way for me to answer that even in the slightest without giving away spoilers.
During the storm that Kaladin was in with Shallan in book 2; those two massive walkers we saw--are those Parshendi, Unmade, or spren?
Spren, with the caveat that might not mean they aren't Unmade, because that's not an either-or.
Can Feruchemists tell whose metalmind it is, based on Identity, even if they can't tap it?
Not by rule, but it is possible.
Can you Soulcast things into plastic? Like, from the oil Essence?
Yeah, you could. You could Soulcast things to plastic. You'd need to work with the magic, but you could.
What order [of Knight Radiant] did Oathbringer come from?
I'll RAFO that.
Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...
Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it.
If you had a metal plate, and you inscribed into it--with a living Shardblade--the description of a spren, so it's kind of like an Aon for a spren, in a way; if you had an Elsecaller in the Cognitive Realm force Stormlight through the bead for that plate, would it act as a fabrial for that spren? So like, if you drew a spren, like a flamespren onto a metal plate, so you'd make a heat fabrial?
So you're trying to trap the spren in the [plate]?
There's not a spren, it's just a drawing of a spren.
So you're trying to Invest a drawing of a spren, and turn that Investiture into an actual spren, and make it work...I don't think this is going to work. I can see an argument that it would; I would err on "I don't think this is gonna work." But, you know, stranger things have happened, right?
My purpose for that question was asking whether Sel is the only one that can have Cognitive Investing--er, the one that's best at doing Cognitive Investing.
Yes, it is definitely best; it is nothing to do with the Shards themselves, and everything to do with what happened to them.
So if the skaa on Scadrial had gone out in the mists more often, would they have had a longer lifespan?
*Hesitant* The skaa lifespans are more related to their status in life than genetic predisposition. Going in the mists probably would not have changed that.
I didn't think of it that way, I thought of it more from a, "Oh, people on Roshar have a longer lifespan because of Investiture." Because the mists are Invested.
*Hesitant* Technically yes, but I think it's going to be pretty miniscule. Technically yes.
Finished WoR. Great stuff! <3 Lift and Pattern. The burning question: Just WTF is crem?!
It's like hard water deposits writ large. Sediment that falls with the rain.
If there was a story in Arcanum Unbounded that you thought was most informative? What's your favorite story in Arcanum Unbounded?
My favorite is Emperor's Soul. Probably the most Cosmere aware is Sixth of the Dusk.
So the difference between the White Sand novel and the White Sand graphic novels, what was the thought behind changing Ais's gender?
There were a couple thoughts. The main one was, I just thought the character was more interesting. A lot of my early books, you'll notice I did a thing where I'm like "I want to make sure that I'm doing the female character really well." And you can see the problem in that sentence, and that is really how I approached it, I'd say "Well I want to make sure I do the female character really well." And I think I did do the female character pretty well in some of those early books. But you'll see a consistency to them, and this is just coming aware of your biases.
Now, there is nothing wrong with writing a book intentionally and saying, "You know what? Because of the way I want to write this book in this world, I'm going to make the cast almost all one gender or the other. It's when you're doing it consistently on accident, that there's a problem. And I had to kind of sit down and say, "Did I do this because I thought it was best for the character, or did I do this because I love Inspector Javert and I just wanna have to have Inspector Javert in my book?" And that's where the character came from, quite obviously.
And I sat down and said, "If I were going to build this character from the ground up to be my own character and I were trying to throw away all biases, what would be the best for the character?" And Ais being female was not a "I need more women in the book," it was more of, "If I'm throwing away these biases and building the characters, what works the best?" and I just really liked how that character came out when I was rebuilding. Yeah, anyway, we'll go with that.
If a wrench is constantly used to hit things, would it consider itself a hammer?
I'm not sure if it could phrase, "Hammer." But yes.
There's a little linguistic hoop-jumping here. When Shallan talks to the stick and it says, "I am a stick," what is it doing? It's conveying the idea, "I am this thing." It would convey, "I am a thing that looks like this used to hits things." You could argue a brain might interpret that as hammer. I think you would get, "I'm a wrench that hits things!"
Would a person holding a large amount of Breaths be less influenced by emotional Allomancy?
Yes. That's book-signing canon on that one, if you understand that phrase.
In the Cognitive Realm, would they be the Berenstein or Berenstain Bears?
Excellent question, The Mandela effect and the Cognitive Realm. Depends on if the authors are still alive, will influence it. But the way the Cosmere works, I'm going to go with the way most people say it. So Berenstain Bears, probably. That would override.
If Vin were alive, would she recognize the Sovereign's facial features?
I'll RAFO that. Do you mean the statue or the actual...Did you mean the statue?
I think we mean the actual Sovereign.
You mean if they met the person that the statue...I'll RAFO both of them. But someone making a statue...like if you met Homer, would he look like his statue? Is a different question also. But I'll RAFO that. But there will be answers forthcoming.
What can you tell us about food in Arelon? Is there a specific Earth culture that it resembles? Because in Elantris, we only really see cooking an eating when it's Kiin's cooking. And he kind of has a mishmash.
I was looking at Renaissance Europe, maybe Spanish...with the coastline...Let's go with Spanish-esque. So some olives, something close to a paella. I would imagine it being somewhere along those likes, probably. The problem is I don't really know what they ate in Renaissance Spain. I only know what they eat in Spain right now. But I was looking at it like a Renaissance Mediterranean for Arelon when I was building it.
Can Feruchemists tell whose metal-mind it is, when it's not their own, based on the Identity?
This is theoretically possible, but they can't tell just as a rule. Like, just automatically.
Does Nightblood contain any atium?
No.
Pattern doesn't have vocal cords, and yet he makes sounds in the Physical Realm. Is this due to Realmatics of him projecting into the Cognitive Realm and connecting that way, or does he make physical sound?
He makes physical sound.
So the vibrations that he makes?
You could record the vibrations that Pattern and Syl...You could record the patterns that these spren make on a recording device.
If Nightblood was in the Cognitive Realm, what damage would he do to...
If he were actually there? I thought you were going to go with the obvious one of, "What does he look like?" But I'll RAFO both of them.
Can a person compounding Luck defeat a Mistborn burning atium?
*Hesitantly* Yes. That is theoretically possible. I would say the emphasis on, "Could there?" But it is plausible that that could get around it.
If you attempted to use Hemalurgy on a gold compounder, would they survive?
I'll RAFO that. There are certain things...follow the lead of the books as they explain this more and more. It's an excellent question that you should be asking, but I'm not going to answer right now.
In one of the prologues to the first book, the assassination of Gavilar, mentions--I don't have the characters name--mentions his bodyguard or the head of his bodyguard being one of the greatest swordsmen in the realm, right? And then we get into Words of Radiance, which has such emphasis on duels. I kept waiting for this guy to come in again. I don't know if Szeth killed him in the assassination?
A conscious decision on my part. I'm going to RAFO it, but not for any good reason. Just a little reason, I might make reference to it, I might not.
Was the black sphere that Gavilar gave to Eshonai, did it contain the same thing that he gave to Szeth?
Yes! A question I can answer about the black sphere.
So same contents?
Yes.
Kelsier went and touched Hoid, and then he [Kelsier] got hurt. Can you tell us anything about that?
Could I tell you? Yes. Will I tell you? RAAFFOO card!
I was wondering if you had a favorite religion that you created on Scadrial?
The cheeky answer is Trell's, but that's not actually true. I don't think I do. I'd have to go look at them all and say, "This is my favorite." So I'll give you the non-cheeky answer, which is that I don't think I do. If I had a list in front of me and thought about it, I could probably pick a favorite.
Can a Returned be made from Stormlight?
How would you count the Heralds?
I haven't read much, so I don't really know what you're talking about.
In the Stormlight books, there is a set of people who are constantly reborn, into full sized grown bodies that are being created for them. Would you count that as being Returned?
Or do you count Returned...What's your definition, right? You can create something that is Returned-like. But your definition of what is Returned and what is not, is going to be involved in that.
Can every Cognitive Shadow be affected by silver?
RAFO! Good question!
Is Kaladin going to get a romance?
RAFO! Kaladin isn't the best with romance. I will take the implicit question, "Will he have a successful romance?" and that's your RAFO.
I was wondering what your thought process was when you were deciding to make the powers less powerful as the Mistborn Eras...
I was looking for ways to tell different stories and not repeat myself. So I like it when there's change in the magic, either our understanding of it, or the way it's working. To force me as a writer to approach it from different directions.
But won't it die out?
It won't die out. Well, it could if...There's a maximum amount of dissolution it can have, based on the progenitors of Era 2. And we're getting close to that. It's once they start intermingling with Southern Scadrial or off-planet that you have to worry about that. But you won't have to worry about that for Era 3. Maybe by Era 4 you might have to worry about it.
Has [Tarah's] dad been onscreen in the books?
RAFO.
Do we know his name?
RAFO.
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