Windrunner
One of my favorite moments in Stormlight 5 was the interlude with Cusicesh where we see the Iriali leave, which was a really kind of cool way to tie back to Way of Kings, I thought. But one of the things that we were curious about with Cusicesh: It seems like he's serving as a guide to wherever they're going next, maybe Lumar, maybe somewhere else, and is he the guide for just this leg of their journey or was he with them when they came to Roshar and he is kind of leading them on?
Brandon Sanderson
So, he is the guide for this leg of their journey, but he is not actually a spren.
Windrunner
Not actually a spren, okay. I guess Axies gets some things wrong sometimes.
Brandon Sanderson
Axies would have to categorize him correctly as a spren-adjacent entity, which is how he's categorized seons when he's met them.
Paleo
Going off you mentioning the Blackthorn, how are you thinking about balancing this idea of the Blackthorn continuing to exist or exist again with the risk of undercutting the meaning or significance of death in the cosmere? Like, we should think of Dalinar as being dead now, right?
Brandon Sanderson
The Blackthorn is not Dalinar and it'll be very quickly obvious what I'm planning to do with him. If I were you, and again I don't want to give too many spoilers; this is about a book-- if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about the Blackthorn's place in the story. The Blackthorn has some very specific things I'm planning to have done and I think when it's all said and done, you will not have had to worry about that. The Blackthorn's not Dalinar, any more than two twins are the same person, if that makes sense, and even more, in a lot of ways, divided off. The Blackthorn is an idea, this Blackthorn is a spren and not a person, and letss me do some things. But again, would have been stronger, I think, if you just saw this mysterious thing show up in book 6 and you're like "wait, what?" because then you would see the implications and what I do with it at the same time. So yeah, oh well.
Windrunner
That's totally fair.
Brandon Sanderson
Don't stress about the Blackthorn is what I'd say to the fans.
Windrunner
Kind of keeping in a similar theme with branching paths and decision making, one of my favorite things is when you talk about kind of your processes, when you hit those big decision points where you're like "okay, I could go down this path or I could go down this path." And one of those that you've talked about is whether you wanted Taravangian to become Odium or whether you wanted Rayse to stick around as the villain. And we know that Rayse always had this kind of prohibition in his mind against picking up a second Shard, because he did not want to risk kind of adulterating himself; he wanted to be just of Odium. And we see now that kind of the way that this book resolved kind of required Retribution to form. If Rayse had remained Odium, would Retribution have been the direction you had gone or would he have done something else?
Brandon Sanderson
He would have done something else.
Windrunner
Okay. Can you elaborate at all?
Brandon Sanderson
You guys theorize on that, what would have happened. Let's just say Rayse remaining Odium was always--how should I say this, it wasn't always--it very quickly became the underdog of what I would do as I wrote Taravangian more and more. Be aware that Taravangian in The Way of Kings Prime, the character I wrote, didn't work as well as new Taravangian. I felt like the old Taravangian was too gimmick--I can't remember what I called him--was too gimmick, too little actual character. And the option to keep Rayse around was really there in case Taravangian didn't develop the way I wanted him to. But he did. And the other thing that I was checking for was a mood check of "has Odium lost his bite, now that he tried to convert Dalinar and he tried to convert Kaladin?" And the answer that I came up with was yes. Dalinar effectively defeated Rayse in Oathbringer and then in Rhythm of War Kaladin put the nail in that coffin. His ideology, his way of being had been summarily rejected by the heroes, to the point that he was just not a threat. When someone who wasn't willing to take the other Shards could not be a threat on the level that I needed him to be and so that option disappeared quickly, shall we say, by the time Oathbringer was happening. But it was an option, it was an option as I was writing Rhythm of War that I could have gone with.
Kaymyth
Though the gap between Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth had been the longest gap of Stormlight books so far, the pace of writing and revision was pretty breakneck. Considering that we wanted to know some of your thoughts on what you are most proud of in the book.
Brandon Sanderson
Most proud of in the book, interesting. Yeah, the writing was breakneck, though it is similar to all the previous ones, right? It was longer cause I took the extra year to work on the, to getting the Year of Sanderson ready. And that is really what delayed us on that one. What am I most proud of in Wind and Truth? I am really in general proud of how well I can get the foreshadowing to work across fifteen years. There are stumbles when you are doing something across fifteen years. But I feel like, particularly if you compare to a lot of my contemporaries, I am pretty good at that. And maybe for the people of this podcast a little too good at it. Though there are lots of things for the back five that you haven’t picked out yet, so at least those secrets are still safe.
I am pretty proud across the entire five books of what I did with Kaladin. Kaladin’s arc across the five books is when I was building it--you know you are never quite sure when something is going to work. And I am like: is it right, like, if i am going to have Kaladin in book four be PTSD Kaladin and book five be recovery Kaladin, is that actually giving it a work in the book? You only get a couple of books of Kaladin being on his A-game before it crushes him and as a writer, the way the arc looks and comes together and having a book where he is dealing with it and recovering, was really satisfying to write. You don’t get to do that as a writer very often. You usually have to have someone go through an arc in a book and then kinda come to a catharsis by the end of the book and that is their arc. What you don’t get to do is spend fifteen years, you know, cracking a person and then having them figure out how to put themselves back together and it is something I have never really done before. I got to do it a little bit in The Wheel of Time with Rand and so I am really satisfied with that. What else am I very proud of specifically with this book? I mean I could go on for a while, it is one of my babies.
I do like how the pacing doesn’t feel like pacing of any other book I’ve done. And I know that is controversial, for some in the community. They don’t love the pacing. Again, kind of as an artist I am like: I have done all these other types. Can I do something like this? And I feel really pleased and proud of how that all came together. And you know, the themes, I am very proud of how the themes of The Stormlight Archive developed over the fifteen years and finally kind of came together and came to a head. It was quite a book to write. From kind of an artistic standpoint.
Kaymyth
Wind and Truth ends with "The Postlude to the Stormlight Archive". What prelude does Stormlight 6 begin with?
Brandon Sanderson
I'm calling it The Voidlight Archive, but I know it's not--it's technically like Warlight or something like that, but in my head all along, it's been The Stormlight Archive and The Voidlight Archive. That's not a title that will be on Book 6. Book 6 will not be "Book 1 of The Voidlight Archive". But internally, I've always viewed them as The Stormlight Archive and The Voidlight Archive.
Kaymyth, Paleo
Interesting.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, Peter hates this. Peter's like, "This is just confusing, Brandon. Why--what are you doing?" But I'm like, "I got a prelude to Stormlight, I got a postlude, and then we get one prelude to The Voidlight Archive and a postlude to The Voidlight Archive. It works!" And he's like, "But it will be book 6 of The Stormlight Archive!" Like yeah, that's the series name, y'know. So, we'll see if they let me get away with it, meaning kind of editors, beta readers, when they see that, they're just like, "this is too weird, Brandon". But that's what I named the two five-book arcs in my head. 'Cause we don't have Stormlight anymore, so...
Kaymyth
So, Kalak comments that Shallan is able to draw on Fortune because she has two Nahel bonds. Is this truly what's going on or is it instead because she is the daughter of a Herald or is it maybe a mixture of both?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, definitely some mixture going on there and some unique Resonances going on with Shallan. I would say anyone who is trying to theorize in world about what is going on with Shallan, they don't like, it's a pretty unique case and they are spitballing, maybe poorly. Whether it's Hoid or anyone else. Weird stuff is going on with Shallans spiritweb and it is causing all sorts of fun for me.
