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Wubdor (Part 1/Part 2)

Early in [The Well of Ascension], Vin calls duralumin the 14th metal. But at the end of [The Final Empire] only 12 are known to them, aluminum being the 12th.

Did they find out about electrum as the 13th (since it's in the Ars Arcanum), but didn't tell the reader? Is it intentional that duralumin is the 14th to them or was there a specific reason that electrum was never mentioned?

Peter Ahlstrom

Electrum was found between book 2 and 3. But they said 14th because of pairing.

Brandon Giles

Did we see the Fourth Ideal of the Windrunners anywhere in Oathbringer?

(I.E. did Teft speak the Fourth Ideal before he went through the Oathgate?)

Brandon Sanderson

No.

TheRealKuni

Throughout TWoK, Kaladin complains that he is cursed. When others call him lucky, he thinks about all the times he has failed to protect people and considers himself unlucky. Everyone around him dies.

His Journey in that book takes him to Bridge 4, the bridge team that has the most losses, that everyone knows is a death sentence. Death being the end of every journey, this is appropriate.

But what I've never really noticed before is the importance of the bridge number. 4 is, in East Asian cultures, considered unlucky or cursed. In Chinese 4 is nearly a homophone to the word death. Buildings will skip the 4th floor, companies will skip from version 3 to version 5 of their products (Palm, OnePlus, I'm sure there are other examples but I can't think of them right now).

We already know that The Stormlight Archive finds some of its inspiration in anime/manga. We know that the Alethi are what we would consider ethnically East Asian. Dark hair, tan skin, and they don't have the large, round eyes of the Shin. It seems very fitting that the least lucky bridge, the one responsible for the most death, is Bridge 4.

Of course, Kaladin comes to believe he isn't cursed as he uses his powers to defend his bridgemen. 4 becomes the most envied bridge as they suffer the fewest deaths, have camaraderie, and eventually become squires to a radiant.

They are numbered unlucky and cursed, but turn out to be the most "lucky" of the bridge crews.

This all struck me today because at the end of Oathbringer, Dalinar casually mentions that his personal guard from Bridge 13 isn't there because that bridge crew became Teft's squires. 13 is the number in Western culture that we consider "unlucky" or "cursed," so fitting that it would be the second bridge crew to become squires of a Radiant! With that realization, everything about Bridge 4 clicked in my head.

Did anyone else catch this, or notice anything else cool with these numbers?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of things fans find are coincidence...but neither of these are, actually. Those are both intentional, as are a few other little numbers things.

Numerology has not become a big thing in Stormlight during the development of it, but original (2002 version) The Way of Kings leaned a lot more heavily on numerology (gematria style word/number interactions) and that's still around in the world.

Questioner

What were your inspiration when you wrote the [Mistborn] series, or for particular characters--

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Mistborn-- I passed, honestly, through a fog bank at 70 mph driving from my mom's house, and I'm like, "This looks cool, I've got to use this." That's the first thought I can think of. Feruchemy goes back to being in high school and being an insomniac, being really tired and wishing I could store up my sleep, so I'd be sleepy when I wanted to be sleepy. Kelsier's inspiration was a guy who had been only out for himself, who realized the greater import of doing something.

Questioner

I do have a question about the Fourth Ideal of the Windrunners--

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm?

Questioner

Does it have something to do with either killing or allowing people to die in order to protect others?

Brandon Sanderson

*RAFO card*

Bystander

Aw, RAFO. *laughs*

Questioner

What metal is Nightblood made out of

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, RAFO.

Questioner

Does the sword with *inaudible* Azure...

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm?

Questioner

Is it a lot like Nightblood, maybe?

Brandon Sanderson

It shares some features, but is different.

Questioner

How many books are going to be in The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Two five book arcs. Five will be an ending, and then six through ten will kind of be another story.

Questioner

Why did you choose to write Marsh as a Steel Inquisitor?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, when I was doing the outline it is the thing that matched with the story I wanted, so--

Questioner

If I'm a Mistborn and I change planet-- if I go over to Roshar, do I have to bring metal from Scadrial with me?

Brandon Sanderson

No, you do not.

Questioner

Could I use Stormlight, and just have the same power?

Brandon Sanderson

Not-- not-- It would take some work.

Questioner

Yeah, okay. Okay, but I could use steel from Roshar, and you can-- Okay, thank you sir.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter 11

And now comes the redemption chapter.

This is the sort of thing that I write books to do. It's the sort of chapter that I really hope to be able to pull off. That may seem strange to some of you, as it's not the climatic ending or the like—but it's the turning point of the story. Probably the most important one in the book.

I've said before that I feel Epic Fantasy is about return on investment. We often demand a lot of readers in terms of worldbuilding. There's a lot to catch up on and follow in a book like this. The goal, then, is to be able to deliver powerful scenes that make use of the investment.

The reward for the early chapters is this chapter. It lays a foundation for the entire book. I've brought Kaladin as low as I could bring him, and now we get to experience the scramble upward.

Perhaps I think about these things too much. However, this was exactly what was missing from Prime when I wrote it. I was baffled, at the time, as to why the book just didn't work. It had all of the elements of a good epicw, and yet the book felt hollow somehow. There were fun adventures to be had, but no real impact. What it needed was this sequence, which has a lot of motion (and hopefully heart) to it.

This chapter makes the book for me.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter 10

Kal helps his father work on a young girl's hand

For years I had been wanting to do a full-blown flashback-sequence book. Flashbacks (or non-linear storytelling) can be a powerful narrative device, but they're also dangerous. They can make a book harder to get into (nothing new for this book) and can create frustration in readers who want to be progressing the story and not dwelling in the past.

The payoff, in my estimation, is a stronger piece of art. For example, as Kaladin is slowly being destroyed in the bridges we can show a flashback for contrast. The juxtaposition between the naive Kal wanting to go to war and the harsh realities of the Kaladin from years later suffering in war might be a little heavy-handed, but I feel that if the reader is on board with the character, this will be powerful instead of boring.

I often talk about how books grow out of separate ideas that buzz around in my head. One of those ideas was to create a character who was a surgeon in a fantasy world. A person who believed in science during an era where it was slowly seeping through the educated, but who had to fight against the ignorance around him.

Back when Kaladin was called Merin, he didn't work well as a character. He was too much the standard "farmboy who becomes a nobleman" from fantasy genre cliché. I struggled for years with different concepts for him, and it was when I combined him with the idea for this surgeon that things really started rolling. It's interesting, then, that he didn't actually become that surgeon character. In the final draft of the book, that character became his father—not a main character as I'd always intended—and Kaladin became the son of the character I'd developed in my head to take a lead role.

Oudeis

Huh. I had always assumed the glyphs were more like the syllables in Japanese, where the symbols don't contain any of the phoneme information, directly.

Isaac Stewart

You are mostly correct. The glyphs are meant to be recognized rather than read. However, some phonemes do show up in some of the glyphs.

Oudeis

Kaladin just picked up a listener knife and noticed glyphs on it he didn't recognize.

Now, he can read glyphs, but he's not much of a scholar.

Are these glyphs even in the same linguistic family? Is Kaladin fluent enough with glyphs that he'd recognize if they were, to use an analogy, Korean symbols instead of Japanese symbols?

Isaac Stewart

The shape of the glyph matters more than the phonemes that make up the glyph. Over time, glyphs morph toward what's easier to write as people who know nothing of the internal phonemes take shortcuts, etc, so a hypothetical Kaladin who can suddenly read the phonemes inside glyphs would only be able to decipher the newer ones that haven't had a chance to morph over time. So, hypothetically speaking, Kaladin would be able to recognize glyphs no matter the symbols that make them up. The arrow-looking glyph from the forehead tattoos is also found in the Bridge 4 glyphpair. Both glyphs mean "bridge" even though the internal pieces of each are quite different. It's like us being able to recognize the letter R whether it's in Times New Roman font or in a wildly different font like Desire (https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/charlesborges/desire/). Hope this helps!

Oudeis

It does, yes! I figured it wasn't the phoneme meta-data.

Basically my question was, Kaladin looks at the glyphs on the listener daggers, whose providence we still don't really know, and seems to assume that although he doesn't know these specific ones, they are "glyphs" as he knows them. I don't speak too many European languages, but if I saw a series of words I suspect I'd have reasonable success sorting out which ones are Polish and which ones are not, just from knowing which letters tend to be common and what patterns tend to be prevalent.

So my question was simply... is Kaladin fluent enough that we can assume he's right, these symbols actually are glyphs in the manner he knows them, just ones he doesn't recognize? (Or the equivalent of very odd spellings?)

Or is he simply making an assumption; he knows what a glyph is, so if he sees something similar he just assumes it's a glyph, when it isn't anything close? We see the Alethi, even the bridgemen, do that a lot to the listeners, just being ethnocentric, judging the listeners by Alethi standards, assuming that Alethi culture is the basic standard and everyone else is a deviation from that.

Anyway, thank you for the answer!

Isaac Stewart

Sorry that I misunderstood your question. Now I see that you're referring to a specific spot in The Way of Kings. I just re-read the section you mentioned to re-familiarize myself with it. The glyphs he sees on the knife look different enough from the ones he knows to make him question their origin. It's not clear enough to me from the text to say definitively that the knife is of Alethi or Listener origin or from somewhere else altogether. (I suspect, though, that the knife is not Alethi in origin.) Kaladin is likely making an assumption--as you mention--that what he sees are glyphs. In the very least, they're symbols of some sort. Whether glyphs or letters in an unknown alphabet is up for speculation.

Pagerunner

I developed a lexicon of shapes to use in the creation of glyphs.

How do you determine which shapes to use when creating a glyph? Is that phonetic? Are there shapes that only appear in proper nouns, or for abstract concepts?

Isaac Stewart

I don't get to say this very often, but RAFO. :)

Jazzy-Kandra

I've noticed that the glyphs seemed to take inspiration from Arabic word art and calligraphy... Do you think you could talk a little more about how it inspired the making of glyphs and the art behind them? Did you draw from any other written languages (like Chinese calligraphy) when creating this system?

Isaac Stewart

Good question! The biggest influence was definitely Arabic word art and calligraphy. That's something Brandon and I wanted to do from the start with the glyphs, and I realized that in order to make both glyphs and word art work, I'd have to take things a step farther and figure out the building blocks of the glyphs. I can't think of any other systems off the top of my head that I drew direct inspiration from.

The second biggest influence was the need for the glyphs to be symmetrical to reflect the holiness of symmetry within Vorin culture. I had an old iPod touch (it was new back then) and a simple symmetry app. When I found myself with a few minutes, I'd spend time sketching interesting shapes. I saved the best of these for use in The Way of Kings. Using those as a base, I started coming up with calligraphic shapes that would allow me the look I wanted, and over a bit of time, I developed a lexicon of shapes to use in the creation of glyphs. This helped keep the style mostly consistent from one glyph to another. Though there are levels of complexity in glyphs, I believe--everything from creating a glyphward for religious purposes to scrawling the shorthand version of a glyph on a map to indicate whose army is where.

Argent

How long did it take you to come up with this writing system? :)

Isaac Stewart

It took several weeks if not months at the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 to nail down the basics of the glyph system. There was a lot of back and forth with Brandon at first as we both felt out what we wanted to do with it. In some ways, I feel like we're still filling in some of the blanks as we go, so it's an ongoing process.

Argent

• In analyzing the glyphs we've seen in the books, we've noticed that some of their "components" resemble the Thaylen symbols for consonants. The Thaylen don't have letters for vowels though - does that mean that glyphs also disregard vowels 100% of the time, or do vowels affect the way a glyph is written? For example, would "viv" and "vev" look exactly the same, or would there be some differences?
  • If vowels do affect the glyphs, do they affect them by somehow changing the consonant lines?
• Our best theory for deciphering new glyphs is that the glyph "letters" actually correspond to two English letters - so writing "vev" is more akin to writing <ve> followed by <v_> (or perhaps <_v> followed by <ev>). How much of this is in the right direction?

Isaac Stewart

Good questions! The vowels don't affect the glyphs any more than the consonants do. I'm going to RAFO about the glyphs relationship with Thaylen. You're on the right track, however, on half of the word being written and then mirrored. That said, please remember that glyphs aren't meant to be read or even deciphered. They're learned in the same way that we can look at dozens of stylized pictures of cats and still be able to tell that it's a cat.

Argent

So, you've said that glyphs are not meant to be read several times, and I know that, but I think I've been misunderstanding you. I've been assuming they are just too complex and decorated - like an extravagant font. Are you saying they are not a hard writing system instead?

There are obviously some rules to how the glyphs are designed, but does your reply mean that there is always a little bit of "I'll do what looks cool"? Kind of like how the band Koяn decided to flip the "R" - it's still recognizable enough, but there's no rule that says when you can and can't do that?

Isaac Stewart

Let's see if I can explain further. Glyphs are recognized rather than read. If you learn the letters in an alphabet and you come upon an unfamiliar word, you can be reasonably certain you'll know how to pronounce it if you're already fluent in the language. You can at least read it, and you might know from context what it means. Glyphs are different in that if you come upon an unfamiliar glyph you might be able to guess what it means by its shape, but until someone tells you "that glyph means 'soup'" then you're still guessing.

The calligrapher's guild has rules they follow in creating glyphs, and there's a lot of artistic license, like the flipped R in Koяn, for the very reason that the guild isn't expecting people to read the glyphs. Those in the guild--and some scholars who are interested in how glyphs morph over time--might be able to decipher some of the glyphs for academic purposes.

How's that? Any clearer?

Argent

It is clearer, yes :( I think we might still bug you every now and then, but I am coming to terms with the idea that we won't get anywhere near the level of understanding we have for the women's script, for example. It just felt so close, with the slight similarities between some glyph components and the Thaylen letters, you know?

Isaac Stewart

There's definitely a relationship between the Thaylen letters and some of the glyph components (although it's not the biggest part of what makes up the glyphs). Imagine if back in the middle ages a culture decided to use some latin letters as the basis for symbols so that it would be easy to mark things for people who don't read. This hypothetical culture threw in a smattering of other alphabets in there too. So, if that sort of thing developed naturally over time with phonemes and symbols getting added as the culture encountered other cultures, then you might get a bit of an idea of what's going on with the glyphs.

ccstat

I admit I'm still a little confused. The glyphs are recognized based on their shapes, but those shapes also appear to be highly mutable. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two ideas.

If an established glyph can be stylized into a crown, a skyeel, or the other shapes that highprinces use as their symbols, how does someone associate the new shape with the standard one with which they are familiar? Does the stylized version preserve some core recognizable shape (since the constituent graphemes alone wouldn't be enough to decipher the meaning)? Or does each instance of a glyph have to be learned separately?

Isaac Stewart

I agree that those two ideas are hard to reconcile! Let me see if I can explain it a bit more without giving too much away.

There's a calligrapher's guild that creates (and I suspect controls to a certain extent) the official glyphs. If a new glyph needs to be made, they do it in a way they see is proper, based on canonized rules that have developed over time.

That doesn't keep amateur glyphmakers from creating things from time to time, and there's certainly a shift in shape as glyphs morph through the ages. The Guild is probably a lot like the Oxford English Dictionary folks, occasionally canonizing popular but unauthorized glyphs that get used so much that they become ubiquitous.

Usually it's just guild members who are morphing glyphs into poems and such. If a nobleperson wants a glyph for their house, they go to someone authorized by the guild, and they'll stylize things into a crown, a hammer, etc. A good example of this will be seen in one of the pieces of art in the new book. We've seen Dalinar's Tower and Crown. Watch for the Sword and Crown and compare the shapes inside the Sword with the shapes inside the Tower. Maybe that will help with some understanding.

meramipopper

Could your ever imprint one of your maps onto a coin?

Did you ever think of a Mistborn map coin?

Issac Stewart

A Mistborn Map coin would be cool! (But probably too detailed, not to mention canonical at this point.) I did draw inspiration from the old maps I did to try to tie the design into the world, if even a little bit. A series of coins based on maps would be really cool, and if simplified enough, they might just work. It could be quite the series, even if they wouldn't be canonical, just collectible. If that ever happens, let's look into sending you one, definitely!

meramipopper

How difficult is it to come up with a design that pops on a coin?

How do you draw something that factors in the contours that will be on a coin?

Issac Stewart

Designing for coins wasn't difficult because Brandon had already created great descriptions. The real trick was to not make it too detailed for the engraver at Shire Post! I think he did a great job bringing our intricate designs to life!

Factoring the contours was something I worried about a bit, which was one of the reasons I brought Ben onto the project. I described to him what we wanted, and he painted some grayscale depth to the coins so Shire Post would have an idea of what we were envisioning.

Oudeis

Someone told me once that there's apparently a secret hidden in Nazh's name, but I've yet to determine what it is. Recently finished Shadows again, paying attention to names, and couldn't really find any sort of conventions. The only name given any relevance was the surname Forescout, and that doesn't seem connect to Nazh.

Issac Stewart

I hadn't heard of something being hidden in Nazh's name. I'll have to look a little closer....

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

Questioner

Was Azure hunting the Herald or is she hunting Zahel?

Brandon Sanderson

She's <not?> hunting Zahel.

Questioner

Did Harmony give Ironeyes full Mistborn powers, or anything other than what he has with his spikes...

Brandon Sanderson

Just what he has with the spikes, I believe. No-- okay let's say this: Harmony did not do anything... That doesn't mean that Marsh hasn't done things himself.

Questioner

If you were to try and Awaken a dead Shardblade with Awakening, like you can with a metal sword, would that be possible, or what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

That would probably not work. Not probably. That would just not work.

Questioner

Lift can do Regrowth and Wayne can Heal. If Lift puts Regrowth on Wayne, can he store it?

Brandon Sanderson

Can he store it? That's a RAFO. But you are thinking along very appropriate lines of theory.

Questioner

Is Azure Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Azure is Vivenna. And RAFO.

Questioner

Is there any significance to Syl appearing to Kaladin in full sized human form?

Brandon Sanderson

To her? Yes. In world, I would not say a huge significance.

Mason Wheeler

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Mason Wheeler

Opening a perpendicularity. Is that a Bondsmith power or just something special Dalinar did for other reasons?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, we will RAFO that.

Questioner

Was it moral for Adolin to kill Sadeas?

Brandon Sanderson

Which morality scheme are you looking for?

Questioner

Yours. Your personal morality.

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

Questioner

First Mistborn series, second book. One of my favorite relationships was between Vin and TenSoon. And I was wondering if there was ever a version where they meet back up again.

Brandon Sanderson

...I never had an outline where they did.

Questioner

How do you pronounce Szeth's name?

Brandon Sanderson

Zeth. 

Questioner

Just the Z?

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

And Sazed?

Brandon Sanderson

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

AllomancerSam

If given the opportunity, which Shard would Kelsier want to punch next?

Brandon Sanderson

He would find it really fun to punch Honor. Really fun.

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

AllomancerSam

Does physical proximity of two planets have an effect on how easy it is to worldhop?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

AllomancerSam

Is Vivenna's sword in Oathbringer the same one that Vasher gives her in Warbreaker?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! But I'll give you a card.

AllomancerSam

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

AllomancerSam

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

*gives RAFO card*

Questioner

Has Hoid tried to get to First of the Sun?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid has tried before.

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

You mean names with K's?

Questioner

Yes...

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

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

Brandon Sanderson

*Mmmmms for a time*

Chaos

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

There's six.

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

Chaos

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

Is Uli Da a Sho Del?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Chaos

Can we post that?

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

I figured that from the...

Brandon Sanderson

Right, the naming convention makes it really obvious. 

Chaos

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

Is atium Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

So Adolin is 27, true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Brandon Sanderson

Karen's the one who runs into all the trouble now. Because she has to make the timeline work with the highstorms. She wrote that whole blog post.  You guys read that. She had lots of fun with that.

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Chaos

Math is hard!

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

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