Throughout the Stormlight Archive, there's multiple times where we see characters... most often it's the Lopen, where he'll do, in response, a rude or obscene gesture. Will you please demonstrate it for us?
Lopen's going to be mimicking something you would do with two hands, because one hand represents men, and one hand represents women. I'll just leave it at that. It's gonna be something like that.
You people...
Does Shallan unwillingly shapeshift when she is holding Stormlight and an alter takes control? If not, why do her alters' Identities not affect her in the same that other people's Identity does?
Yes, she does shift. Sometimes it's conscious, sometimes it's unconscious, but yes, it does happen.
Assuming you have a way to siphon out a Vessel from a Shard, how much hemalurgic metal would be required to contain that Vessel?
An astronomically large amount. Oh, the Vessel? Or contain a Shard? The Vessel, just a little dude... not that much. Basically, like a decent-sized gemstone would hold an Unmade, and that's more Investiture than we're talking about.
Can hemalurgic metal hold around the same amount of an Invested creature as a pure gemstone?
No, gemstones can do more.
I have a question about the end of the The Lost Metal, where one character lives and one character dies. That character kind of explicitly talked to Harmony asked if there was a way to not die. Was Harmony lying? And if Harmony was not, *inaudible*?
I would say that Harmony was not necessarily, but... Harmony's not lying by Harmony's perspective of things. In other words, is there a way to make this not, like... Maybe there is, like... bringing together powers. Is there a theoretical path? Maybe. But not realistically, if that makes sense. I would say Harmony wasn't lying by the way Harmony was seeing things.
It seems a little bit like we've seen gold compounding recover from pretty significant things, if he blasts out of the bubble with a duralumin push, and he uses pure Dor to heal, even considering all that?
Harmony's seeing all that and being like, "None of this is gonna work in this situation."
What is the biggest editorial change you have ever made to one of your stories from your arcanists who said, "Oh you can't do this because of *inaudible* or for canon content?"
I'm not sure if I can come up with the biggest. I can list a couple of them that I did change.
They have a lot of influence over Sunlit Man and my weird little tiny planet, my Little Prince planet, that you're traveling around. Getting me to do that accurately... to the point that, at some points, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna give a magical solution to that." And they're like, "That's fine. Know that physicists will complain." And then they did. But then they got mad... not mad, but they're like, "But there is a magical reason."
I only have a full arcanist team on a couple of books so far. They've been involved in all the Secret Projects. They're working with me on Stormlight Five. This is just me finding the people who ask the questions that make me go, "Huh, I hadn't considered that," and then putting them to work to be doing that on my behalf. Really, most of what they do is not say "no," they say "we would like an explanation; you should make sure that this is included." And once in a while, it makes me pull back on an idea. But they're usually really small things that are gonna cause issues for the future, and things like that. I just met with them on Stormlight Five, for instance, and they gave me a few pointers on things. They'd say, "You probably should explain this. You probably should not use this line, because people are gonna explore that and extrapolate that direction." And I'm like, "you are right."
Most of the cases, they're like, "What is this?" And then I explain it, and they're like, "Great. You have an answer. We can move on." You'd have to ask them, but I'd say that one out of ten times, I don't have an answer. But those one out of ten times are really handy for them to be asking those questions that I don't have answers to. Because I have to go do this for all of you, and I'd better have the answers by then.
Is Vasher a dragon?
Vasher is not. Keep searchin'!
Can dragons only be born through biological means? Or can someone become dragons through another means?
The way dragons exist in the cosmere is that they are a race. Dragons have this thing where they actually... in the cosmere, dragons breed in their human form (they have both forms) and give birth in their human form. And the dragon form is separate. They raise families and have children as humans, and they consider both an equal form, to them.
What are the four Dawnshards?
They are the weapon used to Shatter Adonalsium. What they actually are, I won't tell you yet. Like, what their different... But that's what they are, in case you didn't know that much.
In Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, when Yumi is flying out into the Shroud, Hoid makes a comment. He said, "She didn't even have to burn tin." Does that mean that the mists on Scadrial is made of something similar or even the same thing as the dispersed souls on Yumi's planet?
Yeah, something similar. The idea is that being able to see through the Investiture happens when you are kind of aligning to it in certain ways, it stops disrupting as much, and you gain some sort of extrasensory perception, that it doesn't interfere with you as it might with someone else. And it's really nothing more than that; she's aligning with this, and in Mistborn, it's aligning to theirs. It doesn't mean she'd be able to see through the mists.
That's kind of the answer to my second question, which was: does that mean that any highly Invested individual could see through Scadrian mist, whether they be using Breath or Stormlight...?
Not necessarily. There are ways you could do it, but not necessarily.
Given that kandra can replicate human organs, is it possible for a human and a kandra to have a child? And if so, would that child be purely human, or some kind of combination?
That's a yes, and it would be some kind of combination.
Say a Shard is splintered beyond recognition. Would some rather industrious people with something, perhaps like a Dawnshard, be able to change that Shard?
Yes, this is theoretically possible.
I wanted to ask about how we were just told you could use a Dawnshard to reshape a shattered Shard, perhaps into something different.
I didn't actually confirm that. They just said "maybe using a Dawnshard." They were looking "is there a way to do this?" And I'm saying, "There is theoretically a way to do this." Would a Dawnshard have to be involved? That is not something that I'm canonizing.
Is this the main reason that the Night Brigade is pursuing Zellion in pursuit of the Dawnshard?
The main reason that the Night Brigade is chasing Zellion is that the Dawnshards represent one of the most valuable things in the entire cosmere. Why are they that valuable? It's because they are one of the things that... I mean, the Dawnshards Shattered Adonalsium. That's what they did. And the Vessels are all very rightly scared of them. That would be the second main reason. There are other reasons.
You've spoken before about if the Shattering took place at a different time or in different circumstances, the Shards would have been different.
Could have been. Could have been different, yes.
Does that mean, someone 100%s the cosmere and gets all sixteen, does that make them (or does that produce) Adonalsium? Or would that be different?
That is a RAFO.
Why or how are the Heralds the only ones we've seen so far that are affected by magical maladies due to either their high Investiture or long lives?
I would argue the Fused are having the same situation, so they're not the only ones. The why and how... there's a whole host of things going on here. Like a lot of physical and mental illness, it's not one thing or the other. But it is a compound of other things.
One is going so long without certain protections that you kind of need to take. The human being's soul might be immortal, depending on your argument in the cosmere. (That's really up to you.) But they certainly aren't meant for thousands of years of existence, the same way that our bodies aren't. There's some of that.
There's some of the things they've been through. Like, legit trauma; this is not all simply a magical ailment. You've got people with PTSD, layers of PTSD on top of layers of PTSD, for thousands of years, bearing things that no human being without their level of Investiture would even be able to bear. You've got that manifestation, you've got their own sense of guilt.
And these things are all just kind of overlapping together with the fact they've been alive for so, so very long. And a lot of the people that you've seen otherwise have not been alive nearly... orders of magnitude more for the Heralds. The only people you've seen that are that old are: some of the dragons, Hoid, and Vessels of various Shards. And you're basically at that group. And this is a group who knows what they're doing. Either they were built like the dragons, this is part of their innate nature, that they are functionally immortal. Or you are getting the Shards. Or you're getting people that are 300 years old, which is a very different thing, cosmere-wise, than having lived for thousands and thousands of years, part of it being torture.
If a Leecher who also could burn duralumin touched a normal person and then burned both metals at the same time, how bad is that gonna be for you?
Let me ask you this. What do you think's gonna happen?
There is a very short-term, like, "where is my soul" effect? It may or may not be permanent?
I'm gonna RAFO this one for now, because I'm planning to do some of this in the future. But I'll RAFO it for now. I think you're theorizing in the right direction. Duralumin lets some weird things happen, as you will see in the books.
My question is about Vin's earring. We see later on in the books that hemalurgic spikes lose their charge very rapidly. But Vin leaves her earring in a box. So how does it contain enough charge to still have enough of an effect for her to...?
I have this on a logarithmic scale. At the beginning, you lose some power pretty quick. And then it evens out. And my answer there is just there was enough left, and it could have, at that point, gone decades without getting to the point that it's a hemalurgic spike in name only. The reason they want to keep... they want to maintain as much power in those as they can. Which is why they talk about this thing. The first day you leave that spike without a host, or without taking certain precautions, you lose the most power that you're ever gonna lose. So those who were aware of this tried very hard not to let that happen. But once it does happen, you end up with something like Vin's earring, which still has a hemalurgic charge, a significant one, enough of one to have a change on the person wearing it. If we didn't do this then, like, koloss spikes, would be meaningless very quickly. I built it into this. It's one of those, like, steep drop off, and then not bad.
When the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact, why did they believe they needed to leave their Honorblades behind as they disbanded? Did they know what would happen to their blades after they left them?
There's a couple things going on here. If you've read Way of Kings Prime, there is built, originally into the Honorblades, the ability to find other Honorblades by using them. This has not been canonized into the cosmere as it exists yet, but it is still a power that's in the back of my mind, it is most likely something you can access with the Honorblades: let you find the others. This is calling back to the old Fred Saberhagen Swords books, which were part of the inspiration for these. So one reason they would leave them behind, the lesser reason, is: they're supposed to go split up, and they don't want to see each other. They want to leave them behind, because it's like: "The others might be able to find me. We're going our separate ways. We are done."
But the greater reason, the canon reason, that you can cite is that idea of: "I am walking away from being a Herald. This was the gift I was given, and a representation of that gift I was given, that represents me standing up for humankind. And I am no longer willing to do that, so I have to give this thing up." And they all knew it. They didn't have to be told it, because they knew what they were doing meant they didn't deserve those anymore. Not in a magical sense, but in a sort of philosophical and moral sense.
Is there a relationship between cinderhearts and what happened to Amaram? And if so, what is it?
Yes, there is a relationship. It just kind of built on some basic, fundamental cosmere principles. This power feeding a little bit on even your own sense of Identity and Connection and things like this, as the power consumes it, and kind of starts to turn you into a spren a little bit, is what's happening there. Drawing it in. They're very similar mechanisms; it's not that they're related magically, like a lineage of magic sort of way. But on the same fundamental principle. And this is what lets the Unmade kind of just take over a person, quickly consume them, and then move on.
In a battle versus a Feruchemist and a Windrunner, if the Feruchemist were lashed directly upward, would increasing his weight cancel that lashing out?
The way that lashings work are by rewriting your body's interaction with gravity. That's very weird. It's very, very weird. The way that Feruchemy works, it is kind of the same way. I play loose and free with this one (this is the one that drives everybody else mad). It is actually changing, so would it... what would it do?
So, part of me wants to say you would fall upward faster. But that's not how gravity works, so that wouldn't happen. But would it counteract the lashing? I think that the lashing would incorporate it, and nothing would change. That is my best guess, but your lashing, then, probably runs out faster. That's my off-the-cuff answer; I'd have to really look at the mechanics of that. But you can take that for now. I'll have to consult with the arcanists to make sure I'm not going crazy on that.
My question is about Reckoners. Are there any heroes, villains, or other characters that you came up with that did not make it to the final draft of the books?
Yeah, there were a bunch of powers and things like that, names and things, but it's now been long enough that I'd have to go consult my notes. Most of them that I came up with, I abandoned for one of a couple reasons.
Number one, I went and did my research, and there's a Marvel or DC character that does that exact thing that exact way. That didn't stop me completely, because they've done everything. But with some of the side characters, because I like to try to throw out something that seemed a little odd.
Number two, there just wasn't a place for it. I'm writing the book, and I didn't need another one to use here.
Those are the main two. You do this a lot in books, so I'd have to go look at my notes, I don't have one off the top of my head.
Does Spensa's mom have a name?
All right, I'll canonize that for you. It's in my notes. I'll make sure that I canonize that for you. We'll send out a tweet. I'll ask Karen before I do it, though.
When somebody takes up a Shard, do they inherently get knowledge when they get that Shard? For example, does Taravangian know about hemalurgy, now, just because he took up a Shard? Or was that just Ruin's...?
Excellent question. Taking up a Shard is going to impart a large amount of knowledge, more than even a Shard can process immediately, and it will take some time. And it's going to give you the ability to access a lot of other kinds of knowledge. Shards aren't omnipresent, but they kind of are; they are able to do many things at once, they are able to focus on places and be aware of that location in a lot of instances. But at the same time, they are limited in their ability to... they don't know everything. They might be able to get access to most things, but it takes conscious... like, "I need to know this. I need to find it out. It happens it's written in a book that I can just... it's on this other planet, and I absorb it and immediately know." Assuming it's not written in a way that you can't access, which certain formats make it hard to do.
So, Taravangian, if he cared to think about what hemalurgy is, it's well enough known that he could be like, "I wonder if there's a way to steal... Oh, it's this. This is how it works on this planet." That would be an almost instantaneous thing for him to be able to learn, if he wanted to. But does he hold it in his head right now? That remains to be seen.
Can Shards be spiked?
Like, a Shard of Adonalisum? This is just not gonna work really well. It's a little like saying, "can I give a piercing to a whale?" Like... okay, but it's not gonna do anything, it's gonna fall off. And the moment they notice it, it becomes irrelevant. It's the most technical of yeses, but it's just basically worthless to try it. Because, again, you're gonna have to find a physical form of a Shard to do that, so what are you doing. Is it some avatar that they've made that'll just evaporate when they're done with it? What does it even mean to spike a Shard? Are you talking about somehow getting access to their Vessel, which has been completely transformed into Investiture at this point, so how do you spike that? There's all sorts of asterisks to this answer, but a technical yes; I'm sure you could find a way to do it.
When stealing attributes with a spike, do oaths, vows, and other binding agreements come with that spike?
Some of them would, and some of them wouldn't.
What is the Grand Apparatus?
The Grand Apparatus is a reference to a planet in the cosmere you haven't seen yet that is completely... it's very obviously constructed for a certain purpose.
By the way, that's not my canon name for it. It probably will be, but I haven't Googled that to make sure someone else hasn't used it. "Did you not know that Microsoft has a thing called the Grand Apparatus?" That happened to me once; I've got Silverlight, they're like, "Like the Microsoft program?"
In Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, Design mentions being a Shardblade. So my question is, what oaths has Hoid swore?
We'll RAFO how many of them, but he is doing the Lightweaver thing, which was kind of hard for him, honestly; he had to admit some truths he didn't want to.
Is Lift entirely human?
That's a wonderful question. I would say yes; but the modifications that were made to her make her kind of a unique version of a human. If Hoid is still human, Lift is still human, if that makes sense.
And you shouldn't be reading too much into that Hoid; it's just that he's had so many things happen to him over the years, and so many changes to his spiritweb, and things like that. I would say yes, he is still human, and Lift is as well, but there have been modifications made.
Can someone who's not native to Nalthis use other forms of Investiture to Awaken objects?
Once again, you're getting into this idea of "how do you tell the Investiture what to do?" What you're asking for is possible, it's absolutely possible. But things becoming Awakened like they are on Nalthis is not a natural result. We have a few natural results. You can take a bunch of Investiture, and some things will happen to you that are gonna be shared across the cosmere. And if you put Investiture into something... Investiture getting separated and becoming self-aware, that is natural, that process takes a long time. Awakening itself is a formalized way of doing it, so you have to have a way to tell the Investiture, basically, what you're trying to do with it.
I was wondering if there was, in Yumi, an in-world reason why the paintbrushes the painters use are so long? Or is that just, like, stylistic choice?
It's a stylistic choice. There's some things in lore for painting about (this goes with chopsticks, too), the length of your brush (the length of your chopsticks) in part shows how wise you are, it's part of actual Korean mythology and lore. The very long brush is seen as, like, a mark of elegance, and even morality in some cases. (The chopsticks are a sign of morality.) You will see these paintings of Buddha, and he's got chopsticks that are just like *motions for long chopsticks* like that. And I asked them, they're like, "Long chopsticks: sign of wisdom." The long, flowing brushes, they actually do use them, you can see them; they're not used very often, but they look really cool, and I think they're awesome. So that's where I went.
We've seen Renarin do some pretty fantastical things both in Oathbringer and in Rhythm of War. Are Truthwatchers able to use aspects of the Progression and Lightweaving surge to have someone or something become a different version of itself?
They can't make that happen, but they can certainly invite.
On Chapter 36 of The Sunlit Man, the Cinder King is talking with Nomad, talks about power, talks about how someone gets power, and quotes "Do men from your world" (not man, men, from your world) "really become gods?" Is this related to the Surgebinding power that Knights Radiant can develop? Or is this because some people may have Ascended since the events that <happened> on Roshar?
This is a brilliant question; and I'm gonna have to RAFO it, because it might be spoilerific.
Following the Catacendre, how did capitalism develop in the Elendel basin?
I find that in history, large disasters cause a great outpouring of fellowship, followed by a great outpouring of mercantilism, shall we say. I think Covid's a pretty good example of this. I would say that, following the Catacendre, the fact that everyone pulled together for a little time worked. But then, there was a whole lot of opportunity, and a whole lot of people looking to seize that opportunity.
Can you have multiple spren?
Can you have multiple spren at once? This is theoretically possible, to have multiple spren. They would both have to agree, which might be difficult to get them... But it is possible. Good question.
Someone may have done that already... It's pretty obvious, too. You should be able to figure out who that is from Rhythm of War. It's not two different Orders.
Does silver break Connection or bonds? If silver does have this effect, does it get used in the creation of unkeyed metalminds?
These are good questions. Silver, as I have it right now, is not capable of that. What silver's doing is is disrupting. It's more like interference. You know how, in White Sand, people can have these columns of sand. If you swiped silver through that, they would fall; but then they would be able to do it again. It's this little nullification for a short time. It's very dangerous to things like shades, and stuff like that. It's more disruptive. If you hit a spren with this, it would be like hitting them with a Shardblade. They're gonna come back together. They're not dead; they're gonna reform eventually, and probably won't take too long. So it's not severing Connection; you're gonna need anti-Investiture to do really destructive stuff. But you can disrupt with some silver. It's specifically bad for Shades for reasons maybe I'll get into someday.
If Hoid took lerasium in Mistborn: Secret History, does that mean his hemalurgic spikes are feruchemical?
What hemalurgic spikes?
Hoid and his magic systems, he had hemalurgic spikes...
He does hold some. They may not be in him. Does that make sense? Hoid has hemalurgic spikes carried with him. ('Cause the people who asked me if Hoid has hemalurgic spikes didn't say which one.) He does not necessarily have them spiking him. He actually has, like, a little bandolier type thing. Hoid's got one of those with a bunch of spikes. He was gonna use them in one of the books, but it turned out to not be necessary, so I didn't put it in.
Is there a reason that the Night Brigade is following Nomad, or can seem to follow him, but can't seem to follow Hoid?
Yes. They have a way of tracking who... once they find someone, they can find the chain to the next person. Able to go from Hoid, through the chain, to get to Nomad, and they're trying to find where it went after that.
Which type of slug is your favorite, and why?
My favorite slug is Doomslug because I came up with her first and I really like writing Doomslug. There's some fun stuff in Defiant; in fact, one of my favorite lines in the whole series involves Doomslug in this book. Doomslug's my favorite; Boomslug, invented by my son Dallin, Boomslug is his favorite. Because he knew about the series, and he knew about Doomslug. He's like, "You should have a Boomslug! And he should wear sunglasses!" Okay... well, we have mindblades, there's gonna be a slug for mindblades. "And he has to explode." Explode? "It's gotta explode, it's name is Boomslug." So Boomslug went into the books, and explodes.
Was Tanavast a dragon?
Tanavast was not, but that's an excellent question. There are some other dragons out there. If you keep asking, you might get some yeses; but this is a no.
In Yumi, Hoid hypothesizes about Cultivation giving us nightmares to help us survive trauma. Does Cultivation have influence over people on all planets? Not just Roshar?
This is basically playing to his audience and speaking in terms they would understand.
How old is Axies the Collector?
We do not have a canonized age for Axies.
How many different types of Aviar are there, and what do they all do?
This is a RAFO because I haven't even decided yet. What I decided is that there are dozens upon dozens of different kinds of Aviar. So what that tells me is, I don't want to nail down what all of them do, because if I do, then I might need one for a story in the future. So, this is kind of how-a-sausage-is-made sort of thing. It is on a magic system like this where I'm saving to maybe talk about more in the future, I don't nail things down. When I need to write an entire series, it's something I often will, nail everything down. But when there are as many Aviar as there potentially are, I'm not gonna do that. So, you may imagine powers that may come to exist in the future, but I'm not gonna tell you what they all are.
You talked about how Hoid would never want to go near Nightblood. If he were to be in proximity to Nightblood, would he be, like, Force-pushed away? Like, he wouldn't be able to get close to him?
No. He would not want to touch him. The thing about Nightblood is... Hoid's one of the few who knows exactly how dangerous this thing is. And beyond that, Hoid depends so much on the memories that he has in his Breaths, and that would be one of the first things that would get sucked out by Nightblood. So if he were to touch Nightblood, he might lose centuries. And this is a big deal to Hoid. So, yes, he could theoretically pick up Nightblood. It would just be a lot more disastrous more quickly for him than it probably would be for others.
Is there a limit to the amount of Investiture that Nightblood can hold.
Yes. Yep, there is.
Now that Skyward and Reckoners are over, and it seems like Apocalypse Guard is never gonna get written, is there anything you can tell us about the connection between their multiverses?
I've kinda been playing loose and freaky. Multiverses are annoying, right? When I wrote Steelheart, I realized, "Ah, multiverses are annoying." And the more I worked on Apocalypse Guard, the more I realized I didn't want to lean into this. And I'm glad I didn't, because as certain media properties have shown us, multiverses are just real hard to juggle and keep any sense of weight or value to the actions of the characters. And so, one of the reasons I didn't want to release Apocalypse Guard is I want to rethink all of that. I do prefer things like I did in Frugal Wizard, where I'm like, "There are certain stable realities. It's not an infinite number of realities; there's an infinite number of possible realities, but some of them are solid. Some of them are real." So you can find alternate versions of yourself, just not an infinite number of them.
So that's one of the places I was going with that. And Apocalypse Guard did lean into this and start to progress that idea. I think one way you could do a multiverse (kind of have your cake and eat it, too) is just be like, "There's not four billion versions of you. There might be seven." And things like that, that are what we call stable, and "real." Which allows you to kind of play with that idea of multiple versions of yourself without everything going out the window in terms of... You know, you guys have seen Rick and Morty. It doesn't matter if we die or if we mess up the plan. There's another one over there. We can only do this an infinite number of times. So, that was one of the things I was playing with, there.
And then, multiverses are just, like, so overdone. Everything Everywhere All At Once did the best one, and we don't need to even try. But that movie is proof you can still have emotional connection and power in a story that is about alternate versions of yourself. And so it is possible.
So what's the connection? I do kind of have in my head that each of these non-Cosmere properties kind of are on the continuum with this multiverse and are shades of one another, and Apocalypse Guard was gonna kind of be jumping between them. But whether or not we'll get to that, I don't know, because I certainly don't want to have Skyward be ruined by the existence of multiverses. I like how Skyward turned out; the whole series, I'm really proud of. So that's the question mark in the back of my head.
My question is about biology and genetics. We've seen that magical systems rely on *inaudible* genetics, like allomancy, or spiritual DNA. Can we use *inaudible* CRISPR to either weaponize or take someone's magical ability or give them a magical ability?
Kind of. The in-world version of this is Hemalurgy, as you already know. There are methods that would do this, but straight genetics alone with CRISPR wouldn't do it. You need the spiritual component for these to work, almost assuredly. You might be able to use CRISPR... no, I don't think there are any of them it would work on. Is it possible you could make someone into a kandra? That may be possible, right? But I'm not 100% sure on that.
Can you use CRISPR with Ashyn viruses or bacteria?
Probably not, but that's more likely. I'd have to think on that. I'm gonna say "probably not" for now, but we'll minorly RAFO that. Good questions.
Is there a shard hiding out in Canticle's core?
That's a RAFO
Where did Hoid get the shirt? Is it widely available on Scadrial?
The really loud, colorful shirt? It's not a Scadrian shirt.
What do you mean it's not a Scadrian shirt BRANDON
It's not a Scadrian shirt in the same way that a lot of very kitschy products in our world are not a product of the culture they propose to represent...
As of Lost Metal, is Kelsier alive enough that Hoid can't hurt him anymore?
Um, yes. Hoid would have trouble hurting him in his current state.
Would Dalinar consider the Shadesmar trip to be a success?
Not as successful as he wanted, so a minor success
Rayse went after Dalinar and then Kaladin for his champion, strong fighters who would have dealt a massive emotional blow, how likely is Taravangian to use the same approach?
RAFO
If you were divesting yourself of all Identity, and then tapped a massive amount of Connection and Investiture, would you be able to instantly have access to, say, the Surges on Roshar without oaths?
So, you wanna get the Surges without oaths? What you're saying is you divest yourself of Identity, you highly Invest yourself... You're still going to need something that's gonna tell that Investiture what to be and how to manifest in yourself. And so if it's the right Intent then maybe, right? 'Cause you can have both Identity and Intent on Investiture and you can unkey it to one or the other or both. And so that might be... But the thing is, you're still gonna have to know... This is a step toward getting what you want, but there's still gotta be something that tells it... "You're holding a massive amount of Investiture, what do I do with this? Do I teleport you across the Cosmere to another planet? What do I do with it?" And you're gonna have to have something to give structure to that Investiture. You're missing a step.
