Why so many characters from Warbreaker [in Stormlight]?
'Cause Warbreaker is a prequel to Stormlight. I wrote Stormlight first, and then I actually went and wrote Warbreaker about Kaladin's swordmaster, but then that version of Stormlight didn't get published, and this one did, but they're very interconnected to me.
Can you confirm the identity of Azure.
Yes, I can.
Is it Vivenna?
Yeah.
Nalthians seem to do a really good job of passing as Rosharan. Are they just better as disguising themselves, or do they naturally look like residents of Roshar?
...Nalthians have some innate abilities that allow that.
The hair, of course.
Not just the hair.
Did Adonalsium (or its Vessel) leave a Cognitive Shadow behind? If so, where is it?
RAFO.
In this world, assuming that [Roshar] is as old as it appears to be, wouldn't it be that the creatures that have gemhearts in them, as they die their body would rot away but leaving the gemstone? So wouldn't fossil beds exist with layers of gemstones in them from the passing of the ages?
Yeah, that's why-- yes.
That's how they mine them?
They do mine them. What you've got to remember is, in my opinion these things are going to collect in certain ways in certain places.
Densities and stuff.
Yeah. But yeah. Because there's no tectonic activity on Roshar, so.
Just the buildup of crem over time slowly covers things.
Mmhmm.
Do you think we'll get to see Shallan worldhop onto Nalthis?
RAFO. RAFO. Such a big RAFO. Enormous RAFOs!
So I have a question about surges. So in this book they use this very Spiritual Adhesion. Do all of the surges have applications in each of the different realms?
To an extent yes, but some of them are more focused on it than others, on different levels.
I want to know if we're ever gonna get to see Hoid and Jasnah and the journey back at the ends of Words of Radiance, 'cause I was so hyped to read that and then they didn't interact at all.
I will promise you some interaction in book four but I won't promise you a flashback...
The singer forms of power: Do they utilize fabrial magic?
Um, no. Similar—they're based on the same kind of foundation—but no.
Are we gonna see Hoid on any other planet with his new little friend?
Oh that's a RAFO.
The last Unmade, the one that's hypothesized to Dai-Gonarthis. It looks suspiciously to me like Cusicesh, because of the feeling of being drained, because it's a large spren-- Is there something to that or is the feeling just because Cusicesh is a large spren?
I'm gonna RAFO.
There is an expensive steel chain in the shops in Celebrant. Is there anything significant about that.
*Hands over a RAFO card* That is such a big RAFO. Super-big RAFO.
I actually wanted to get a tattoo of the Truthwatcher symbol. Are there any-- are there narrative reasons you would go against that?
Uhh, no.
Are they-- would they be an order that's about using knowledge to help people?
Yes.
Could I get an Ideal if possible?
Of them? I can't do 'em because I don't want to canonize them yet, I have to do that when I actually write the books.
But it is broadly speaking knowledge and help?
Yes.
So Honorblades: Can they actually be bound? ...Can you bind to an Honorblade or not?
Yeees you can, but it's not exactly the same thing.
It's not exactly the same thing as a regular Shardblade?
Yeah... In some ways they're more powerful in some ways they're a prototype, if that makes sense.
Hoid gets his tooth knocked out while in Kholinar. He prompts somebody else to help him with that. Is that because he has issues hurting not only other people but himself?
Yep.
And then he considers healing that at a later point in time. Which magic system does he consider using to heal that?
A magic system that predates-- predates any of the others.
Is it common knowledge in the cosmere—and on Scadrial—that Ironeyes and the Survivor are brothers?
*Pause* Kind of yes. Yes. I would say yes that is common knowledge.
The Tranquiline Halls: are they real?
They are—well they're a real place... They are actually the planet that's referenced [in Oathbringer]. But whether mythologically they're real or not that's more a debate for scholars.
So my dog's name is Vin. I was wondering if there was any sort of story behind that name and how you thought of it.
Wine in French. Because building the whole region off of French-sounding names—Kelsier and Demoux and things like that. And I just really like... the sound of it. I know it's kind of like a guy's name, but I just really like the sound of it.
What comes first chronologically in the Cosmere series: Mistborn or Stormlight Archive?
Mistborn, for trilogy one.
Will we have to wait until the end of Stormlight Archive to learn about Hoid.
Uh yeeees.
So like a dozen years.
Yes. You'll get little bits and pieces, but you won't get the whole thing until I do his trilogy, which is the next thing after Stormlight.
There's an ardent in Way of Kings who's like described as short and he's at a party and he uses the word "soil". Do we know who he is, is he Nazh?
That is specifically a worldhopper. I don't think I've revealed who he is. But I'm still gonna RAFO just in case that is somebody.
Has stormwater tasted metallic always?
Yes.
Even pre-Shattering?
Even pre-Shattering it would get a metallic taste, that's the crem. So. That is an indication of Investiture and things. But it was there-- it was in place first, before.
Can I ask you real quick: Where Warbreaker falls in Stormlight Achive?
Warbreaker is before Stormlight Archive. Vasher, before Warbreaker, had been to Roshar.
Okay, that's what I needed to know. Nightblood.
Nightblood was patterned off of things that Vasher and the others saw on Roshar.
The meteorite metal that they talk about that blocks Shards, is that aluminum?
Uh, so-- yes.
The capital 'u' in Unity at the end of Oathbringer, is that important?
RAFO.
Can Regrowth do-- accomplish more for healing than Feruchemical gold can?
*Pause* I haven't decided yet.
Was aluminum weird before the metallic arts were created?
Yes.
What is the Command of Vivenna's sword?
Uhhhhh... RAFO.
Insert Cultivation's Vessel's name here.
RAFO
What's this sword's *points at replica of Jezrien's Honorblade* name? Do you have-- have you named Szeth's blade?
Various people have named the swords various things. I just-- I'm not going to canonize it right now, but it's had many names over the years...
Can you give me one of them?
...I mean-- just "the Assassin's Blade."
Glys. Is that a full name? Or is that a nickname like Syl?
Yeah, Glys is a full name.
So, in Allomancy, most of the metals are in pairs, they're equal and opposite, pushing and pulling, Rioting, Soothing, that kind of thing. The god metals have always-- lerasium and atium, have always struck me as kind of unbalanced in a way. Like, lerasium gives you the power to use all these metals, plus atium being one of them. Is there a reason for that?
Yes, there is, and it kinda has to do with Snapping and some of the fundamental rules of the Mistborn world and the fact that people have Preservation and Ruin inside of them and all these sorts of things. So, the answer is yes.
Partially, narratively, I built that in partially just 'cause I wanted atium to seem odd in the placement, right, when people got to it it's like "What? Why is this one-- This one doesn't match the others. This doesn't really work." When I was building Mistborn, one of the big things I wanted was this idea of a periodic table that was, kind of a flawed construct, that, as you read the books, you came to understand better and better. And that was something I executed-- I don't think I executed that 100% right, but I'm pleased with the general concept and how it plays out. And so I wanted atium to stick out like a sore thumb.
The other thing is, I knew I needed some good foreshadowing for Fortune, for people being able to kinda see the future or versions of the future, for the whole cosmere to work. And, so, I built in atium specifically to do those things. And I built in lerasium to have, kind of, the ultimate sort of benevolent endowment sort of thing. (Not Endowment the Shard, you know what I mean.) But I also wanted to show these two magics were intrinsically tied together on Scadrial because the way that humankind was created. We're getting into some deep stuff, I'll just leave it there. But that was what was going through my mind as I was building those things all out.
So, in Oathbringer, the way that Veil and others are treated as separate people themselves. Is there any similarity between that and Feruchemical Identity?
Uh… Yes, but it's pretty tenuous.
In Sixth of the Dusk, are the Ones Above Scadrians who invented faster-than-light travel?
You know, I haven't-- I danced around answering that one, just because I don't quite want to get into it yet. I like the Ones Above being somewhat mysterious. But I have said it is someone you know, right? It is part of the cosmere in the very future. So you're not going to be surprised, because there's a limited number of options. But I haven't said-- 'cause I might do more in that world, and I just want to leave them mysterious for now.
[In Secret History] there was a key scene with a character named Drifter. And, uh, that was the first time that I felt like there was a sense of malevolence with this character. And I was curious if that's something that I should state with that punch? Or was this just a particular thing?
I would say yes. Drifter is an ancient entity who has very, very many sides and that is accurately one of them. That said, in that particular scene, there are certain personalities that play off of each other poorly, in real life and in books, and you happened to catch one that-- Drifter and this character do not-- Let's just say they rub each other the wrong way. But I would definitely say that is an aspect of his personality.
With Alloy of Law, with Wayne, how do you come up with that character? *laughter* And those things that he says?
So, yeah, Wayne's one of those characters. So, there are certain standards to which I hold almost all of my characters in my books. Wayne isn't one of them. He gets away with more.
So, where'd Wayne come from? The original concept for Wayne was, when I was working on the Mistborn books-- For those who don't know, I originally pitched Mistborn to my editor, Moshe, as a trilogy of trilogies: Past, Present, Future. Epic fantasy trilogy, urban fantasy trilogy, science fiction trilogy, set in the same world, with advancing technology in which the magic becomes the foundation for space travel. And the original idea that the epic fantasy trilogy becomes the foundation of myth and religion in the modern day trilogy. So, I told him all this, and he said, "Wow. You're ambitious." This was after he had read Elantris and was trying to figure out what else to buy from me.
And so, as I was working on The Stormlight Archive, I realized I wanted something from the Mistborn world to balance Stormlight, because Stormlight books are big and involved and take, like, years of writing to get done, and I didn't want to be alternating thick, long, books in two series, I kinda wanted to have a shorter, more fast-paced series to balance out the bigger, longer series. And so, the first thing I started doing, the first idea for Wayne, was a person whose personality changed based on hats he put on. And he was actually originally a hat maker. And I wrote, like, three pages of this, and he was just too kooky. He was great, but I was pouring too much into him. I needed: number one, to kinda pull back on the concept in that original; and number two, I needed multiple characters around him. By the way, he was riding around on a talking horse at that point, because he was a kandra.
Yeah, it was a really weird scene. It was wacky. And that's when I said, "All right, I'm gonna sit down and write an actual novel, not just exploratory scenes." And that's where I built Wax and Wayne, and kind of, the play off of each other, and things like that. So, they kind of grew out of each other, and out of that first scene that I wrote.
From what we've seen so far, most of the Ideals of the Orders of the Knights Radiant have been in line with the Divine Attributes ascribed to them. Did the Divine Attributes come from the Ideals of the Knights Radiant?
These two are heavily interconnected. And the Divine Attributes, like the Double Eye at the front, are more philosophy than they are strict, you know part of-- Rather than capital-T Truth revealed. And so a lot of social structures were built out of the things going on. So the answer is yes. Not 100% yes, but certainly those sorts of things are extrapolations that people were making, as opposed to core concepts of the magic.
If someone on Scadrial were to get a tattoo, could they use the metal in the tattoo for the Metallic Arts?
Theoretically, yeah, that should work.
Is the Nightwatcher a Cognitive Shadow of Cultivation?
No, but good question. Excellent question.
...At some point in the novel, there is a character who gets a certain, shall we say, powerup that falls in-line with many things that he, or she, already has. Is there, from an Investiture standpoint, is there a Compounding effect?
Yes, there will be. *laughter* If we're talking about the same individual.
So, with the story that Shallan told with the girl in the red scarf? Is that relevant at all? Or is it just unimportant?
Yes. That's very relevant.
Is Kaladin shipped with anyone? *laughter*
...I think basically Kaladin's shipped with everybody.
What did Ivory mean by the Skybreakers living in death?
Ivory likes contradictions, they fascinate him. And he is saying that they live in death in that they kill a lot. It's a philosophical sort of thing. He's making an Ivory observation, it's not something you're supposed to take as a pronouncement of nature or reality.
Who's your favorite literary critic?
Oh boy.
Not even favorite, but who do you constantly find yourself turning back to--
I don't know, I read a ton of it. I don't know if I can break down a name for you on a dime like that.
So, what we see at the end, with the Unmade, and it seems like Jezrien, getting trapped in gems. Is that basically possible, because, they have been, particularly in the case of the Heralds, infused with so much Investiture that they're basically being trapped in the gems instead of Stormlight?
They're not human anymore, yeah.
So, Jasnah has the same shape appear around her as when she first appears out of Shadesmar at the end of that-- At the end of the second book, when she appears out of Shadesmar, she has the same shape appear around her as she does in the last battle, but we never see her do anything (this is about Transportation) And we saw people flying away beforehand. Can you-- Does Transportation allow you to push other people. Similar to Lashings, but kinda differently. I'm just wondering if you can use it on other people, basically?
You can, but it's not what you’re thinking.
So, in the last battle, Jasnah has some pretty interesting armor. Does she already have her Shardplate?
RAFO!
Did Adonalsium have more than one Vessel?
RAFO.
Syl's status as the Ancient Daughter. Does that make her Nahel bond with Kaladin different from other Windrunner's Nahel bonds?
No.
How are Shallan's Lightweavings related to the screams that Szeth hears?
In that they are slightly attached to the Spiritual Realm.
