Christie
I asked Ben McSweeney via Reddit if Taravangian's chapter icons were intentionally [rotationally] symmetrical, and he said yes, but did not say if this was foreshadowing his Ascension. Is it?
Brandon Sanderson
Hehehe. Eeehhh... RAFO.
Why is that a RAFO? I have to talk to Ben. I'm not going to canonize things for Ben that he might have been saying that I don't have the full context on.
Katie Payne
That's just design. Just the design of the icons.
Brandon Sanderson
The designs... not all of them are symmetrical though. Pointing that out. Some of them are but not all of them are.
CommonWerewolf9265
We know that Hoid has three apprentices. Are all of them human? Is Design one of those apprentices?
Brandon Sanderson
Design is not one, and they are not all human. [...] I've almost written a book about one of them multiple times. In fact, one Secret Project started off about one of them. When I was planning one of the Secret Projects to do, there was a plan to attempt to do one of them. That was the kite magic system. And I never got beyond the design stage in that. The kite magic book would have starred one of Hoid's apprentices who is not human.
TheWeirdTalesPodcast
In Oathbringer, Dalinar says the third ideal of the Bondsmiths:
"I will take responsibility for my actions, and each time I fail, I will rise again a better man."
He then opens a perpendicularity, saving the battle of Thaylen Field for our heroes. Later, Odium is ranting to Taravangian about how Dalinar wasn't supposed to Ascend, with a capital A.
The question - is Odium's use of the word "Ascend" referring to ascending to the next Ideal of the Bondsmiths, or is there something more going on there?
Brandon Sanderson
I used a capital letter there intentionally, and normal saying of oaths would not get a capital letter.
That is in a character's perspective. There's a character using that capital letter, the character uses that capital letter intentionally.
SpaceCoreIsMyDad
One of the listener chapters mentions that the human language was easier to be understood because remnants of it were preserved in the listener songs. Does this mean there was human help in writing the listener songs? If so, who were these humans helping the listeners reject the forms of power?
Brandon Sanderson
Wow! What excellent questions! I hope to be able to show this in flashbacks eventually.
Brandon Sanderson
We have a date for the final book of the Skyward series, Defiant: that is November 21, 2023. Which also indicates to you when Dragonsteel 2023 will be: November 20-21, 2023 is our next convention.
LightPhoenix7000
Are we supposed to be drawing parallels between the Unmade being placed in gems and the gems used against the Heralds?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
LewsTherinTelescope
At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?
Brandon Sanderson
They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.
I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.
The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.
For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.
Hunter of the Rain
Could Steel Inquisitors read phone screens?
Brandon Sanderson
Oh boy. Phone screens are made out of... there's like a liquid almost, liquid crystal. So could you read a phone screen... or are they just asking cause it's metal? No they're saying there's this blank screen, and it's just changing pixel's colors, so would an Inquisitor not be able to see that because it's going to be indistinguishable according to their steel sight, I think that's what they're getting at. I don't know if the question is "Is the phone going to glow too much because there is too much metal in it" or is it "Because the pixels don't really register to steel sight". I'm gonna say phones are a good way to hide things from an Inquisitor. Yeah, an Inquisitor's not gonna enjoy the move to all digital formats probably.
ParshendiOfRhuidean
It's mentioned that Stormlight in gems will flicker slightly. Is this the Rhythm of Honor?
Brandon Sanderson
Good question, RAFO.
Yayi
Do the Sleepless on non-Rosharan planets have the same goal with the ones on Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
No! They tend to divide along family lines, but not always. And some lines don't care about Roshar.
Argent
With all the new avatar lore from The Lost Metal, can and should the Stormfather be considered to be an avatar of Honor?
Brandon Sanderson
Ooooh, RAFO! What a wonderful question. There's some fertile ground for theorizing, there. I gave you the prologue of that so you could spend a few years theorizing, guys, so go ahead and go forth.
Dan Wells
That was the big final showdown. Brandon had built this thing that was supposed to be--
Brandon Sanderson
Don't tell this one because I'm actually going to use this in a book. I've been waiting for years to use this in a book so don't say anything. After I use it in a book you can tell the story. You guys are going to love this. It is involved in the ending of Stormlight 5.
Let's just say I came up with one of the best endings for a story that I have ever come up with and because it's roleplaying the PCs did not play along. Ruined it completely. And I'm like, "I'm going to use that someday." And I actually put it right in the outline of Stormlight a week or two later, and it's been waiting all this time to be used.
Dan Wells
Wow, a week or two later, and that would have been like [1999]. So it's been waiting a long time in the wings.
Brandon Sanderson
*In YouTube comments*
Book five's ending has had literally 20 years to brew in my head, and I've been pushing toward it from book one. When you read it, I think it will recontextualize a ton of important other moments in the series. So I really, really hope it lands right with people. I've been holding this one in reserve for a long while, as I feel it's one of the legitimately best ending ides I've ever come up with for a story. Not to over-hype it. The execution is everything for a story like this, and it's still possible what works in my head will not work as well on the page. I just really hope it will.
Aranfan
I thought we had reached a consensus that the atium we see the characters use was the electrum alloy form?
Peter Ahlstrom
I thought myself so clever for coming up with this theory.
At this point I am in a position where I could confirm it or deny it.
However, my position also means that I must do no such thing.
Mwa ha ha ha ha.
/u/ph4mp573r
[Hoid] was beheaded in Dragonsteel Prime and the Dawnshard is what regrew his head. He makes a crack about always thinking his head would have grown a new body, not vice versa, as he stares at his own severed head.
/u/sambadaemon
Slightly related: If the Dawnshard let Hoid regrow his entire head, will it eventually give Rysn back the use of her legs?
Peter Ahlstrom
The different dawnshards have different powers.
Information subject to change when it appears in canon.
R'Shara
Can Shards lie anytime they want to other than when bound by oaths and such?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. Anytime they want to might be a little... But that caveat you put on there: there are instances where they can't. But you should assume they are able to more often than not. I'm sure we've seen instances of it in multiple places in the books. Their duty to randos, as we might say, is much less than interacting with one another.
Rangsk
Will we ever learn of Ishikk's fate? Did he finally marry Maib? Can you tell us anything about his experiences during the events of the last four books?
Brandon Sanderson
Man, there's so many people... I will try to get you Ishikk's fate. I will try to get Ishikk's fate in. He was so much fun to write. I will do my best.
Brandon Sanderson
I think what we're gonna do... this is your first warning. It's probably gonna be officially in the State of the Sanderson. I think we're going to push back the Words of Radiance leatherbound Kickstarter. Main reason for this being that I'm just- we've been talking about it in March, planning for March for a long time, but we're all- I called my team together and we're all just a little uncomfortable with the idea of doing another Kickstarter when we haven't fulfilled on, you know, enough of our previous ones.
...
Expect us to be pushing back that Kickstarter. The Words of Radiance one. I would feel a lot more comfortable with it if we have had six months of the Year of Sanderson shipping and if we've had the first of the minis start to go out and we know that the things we're doing people are appreciating and are liking and that we're doing a good job before we ask you to do another one. Expect that announcement in the State of the Sanderson officially, but you get a preview here, on the spoiler stream. Spoiler! For the State of the Sanderson.
WhiteKyu
Will Wax find out that he is a Mistborn during his lifetime? This is assuming we won't see him again.
Brandon Sanderson
Wax suspects it already. There's a piece of him that knows by the end of this book. He will know pretty soon. He's a detective, right?
Wax is used to getting a little extra help from the mists, which is clouding his ability to put his finger exactly on what's happening, but there's a piece of him that expects [suspects]. And you can anticipate that even in the year between, in the prologue [epilogue], soon after his recovery, he went and tested and found out what's going on, and is keeping his lips sealed about what that implies.
Ten Fern
In Demoux's Worldhopping as part of the 17th Shard, has he interacted with the Ghostbloods, and if so, does he know Thaidakar is Kelsier?
Brandon Sanderson
He has interacted with the Ghostbloods. I don't know if he's made that connection or not, I would have to write some stuff in his viewpoint and see where it falls in the timeline. He knows Iyatil and her brother and where they came from, that's a group from where Demoux currently makes his base of operations.
AAKS
My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are Mistings/Mistborn) but atium can't.
His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an atium/electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure atium looks like or does when used in any magic.
Peter Ahlstrom
We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.
LewsTherinTelescope
Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?
Peter Ahlstrom
The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.
LewsTherinTelescope
Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?
Peter Ahlstrom
Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.
And see this thread reply from 2009.
Jofwu
Why did Shay-I have to draw a map of the Elendel basin, if the jar of Dor was her source of Investiture? Did the map connect her to another source of Investiture?
Brandon Sanderson
No, the map didn't, but her magic is still wonky. Selish magic has some wonkiness to it and it needs to be tricked.
senjox
We've seen in both Secret History and RoW that a Shard's power has a will of its own and can "reject" a vessel if it's not adequate (like Preservation with Kelsier) and "tempt" if it is (like Odium with Taravangian). Does that mean that the first sixteen that Ascended needed to be fit for their respective shards?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. To an extent, yes. It was a little easier back then, but yes.
*Thinks for a while*
Yes. So, why am I hesitating on this? Not all of the sixteen could've taken any one of the sixteen. So not all the Vessels could take any of the sixteen. But the flexibility of which ones they could've taken, was much greater than you're perhaps anticipating right now. There were certain Shards that they had, they deliberately had a person pick up, that they thought would be a better controller of that Shard, if that makes sense. Rather than picking the person who is the best match. So, there you go.
BTill232
Where and how did the Set learn about Hemalurgy initially? Hemalurgy did not seem to be common knowledge, at least to Wayne and Marasi when given the book by Marsh, but the Set seems to know all about it anyway.
Brandon Sanderson
So, yes, it was not common knowledge. There was some help from Autonomy on this, but it also involved the interrogation of somebody on-world that did not want to be interrogated.
And then a whole lot of experimentation. They had years to play with this. They didn't come right out of the gate knowing exactly how to do it.
strican
In The Lost Metal, it mentions Autonomy having avatars in other worlds. In Shu-Dereth on Sel, Jaddeth speaks directly to Wyrn, who then propagates his will down the hierarchy-
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
strican
Within the religion, ambition is rewarded, but only if it aligns with the orders of the hierarchy. That sounds similar to the philosophy used in the Set, but replacing Jaddeth with Trell. Is Jaddeth an avatar of Autonomy?
Brandon Sanderson
*chuckles and points at screen in very satisfied way* RAFO. You're a very smart person.
It's [pronounced] "Yaddeth", by the way. That is also one of the Y-J's. ...
So, I will say this. Here's what I'll canonize. There is something happening, and the people there legitimately believe, and have reason to believe, that their god is going to return. And I have said before, many times, that Book 2 of Elantris begins with the return of their god. 'Cause they've said "God can't come back until everybody converts". But they've found a loophole. They're like "well, except those heretics in Elantris. And also that other little place, that tiny little region that's over in the mountains, where they talk about roses, they don't count either. Because they're, um, not actually part of the planet." Um, so. So that's something to look forward to, if I ever get around to writing Dakhor, is the return of Jaddeth, the god of [Shu-Dereth].
Sapphire_Bombay
I asked you about [Jasnah] being with Taln in [Way of Kings] Prime and Wit in the published version, and why she had to be with an immortal entity.
Brandon Sanderson
I believe my answer was something to the frame of: "it is hard to find people who would be on equal footing with Jasnah."
Sapphire_Bombay
Is it important that she is with someone? For someone who is so against the idea of marriage, and who is asexual to boot, it feels like there must be very good reason for not leaving her single.
Brandon Sanderson
It is more about the idea of conflict and exploration. Remember these are completely separate books, and there's kind of a reason why I didn't have a relationship for Jasnah in the first couple Stormlight books, because no, she doesn't need to be in a relationship. That's not a core need for her character or her personality. But, at the same time, I always try to let relationships arise very organically and naturally in my books, and I don't try to put too much of a thumb on the scale for those. And in this case, it just felt right. It was the right thing to explore for her character. It was the right way to reveal and talk about how she sees the world, and who she is, and when I first thought about it I thought, "Wow, that's a really great and a really terrible match all at the same time," and that's what I'm looking for, in a lot of ways.
Sapphire_Bombay
Is Wit still capable of producing children, given his situation?
Brandon Sanderson
He...*thinks for a long time* What do I wanna say? I will say RAFO. I'll say RAFO. This is one of the RAFOs where I absolutely know the answer, and I'm not going to give it to you yet.
asmodeus
In The Lost Metal, people talked about Autonomy's army as if they know of her unleashing it before. Similarly, they talk of her opening perpendicularities on worlds where she shouldn't be able to. Roughly how many times has this happened before? Once or twice? Somewhere in the tens?
Brandon Sanderson
This has happened a handful of times before.
Well, depends on which of the two things you're talking about. Opening perpendicularities where she shouldn't be able to is a consistent thing. Unleashing armies, not so consistent.
Just_A_Silvereye
Would the Stormfather call Tien or Oroden "Son of Tanavast"?
Brandon Sanderson
I see what you're hunting here. I'm gonna say RAFO. Don't read too much into that RAFO. Because the answer is actually "it depends." And that's why I'm RAFOing it.
MiaUwU
Was any of the original Vessels of the Shards transgender? Can we expect to have a transgender main character in the future?
Brandon Sanderson
You can expect to have a transgender main character in the future. I want to be careful where I place this, and let's say that I'm much... my focus right now is on doing Renarin and Rlain right. But you can expect this in the future.
ParshendiOfRhuidean
Is there a connection between the roles of a certain order of Knight Radiant and the singer form associated with their Platespren, such as artistic Lightweavers and artform both having creation spren?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, there is a connection, a deliberate connection on my part there. It's hard to keep all of these things one-to-one because there are way more forms than there are orders of Knights Radiant and things like that, so don't read too far into it, but I do make those connections deliberately where I can.
ladrac1
What, if anything, would happen if you swing a Shardblade through a seon?
Brandon Sanderson
So, seon would not like being- a Shardblade swung through them, how about that. A seon would not enjoy that. Spren don't enjoy it either. That isn't necessarily going to kill either of them, but they're not going to like it.
priscellie
What kind of work did Rlain do during his time as a spy? Did he commit active sabotage against the war effort, or was he merely gathering information?
Brandon Sanderson
Very few. There are a couple of key things that he did—I would like to write a Rlain story at some point—but he mostly understood that feeding information back and not being caught—because he felt he was in a pretty tenuous position, and rightly so. There's two big things going on. Number one: he is not in possession of his full mental faculties, which makes it dangerous to try anything, because he's like "can I trust that this is a good idea?" Right? And then number two: how hard would it be for someone to be like "hey, wait, maybe some of these slaves we got are spies for these guys." It's not too hard a leap to make, that one of them might be, and that put him in really dangerous positions.
priscellie
How did he get information back to his people? Was there a contact?
Brandon Sanderson
If you go into the book, you'll find that there are times that they talk about bands of listeners roving in and things like this, and how far they think they got. Some of that was to cover getting people in to talk to spies. They got spotted, so they pretend to burn a bridge, which they still would want to do, but there's this whole cover operation of doing raids as close to the warcamps as they get, and sending people in to—
Adam Horne
And I think I remember a line saying something that a Parshendi would never not do anything that he wasn't ordered to do, so he could just walk around? I'm not sure if I'm remembering—
Brandon Sanderson
He was much more free. But he wasn't going all the way out into the Plains, like he can't cross in that form—the bridgeless chasms, right—and things like that.
Kitchen_Abrocoma_297
Can you tell us something about Dalinar's parents?
Their names? Why didn't they show up in Oathbringer flashbacks? What happened to them?
Brandon Sanderson
Dalinar gets along better with his grandparents—or got along with his grandparents than he did with his parents—let's say that. What else can I canonize? I mean, by that time they're not around. You've probably figured that out. Dalinar wasn't too sad about that. Particularly past Dalinar not being the kind of person who—yeah, let's just say that there is stuff in the Alethi family history that has caused part of Jasnah's consternation on the way she regards how families act towards one another—you know, lighteyed families—and her concerns about it.
Questioner
How often do Kelsier and Marsh talk? Are the conversations more friendly or more confrontational?
Brandon Sanderson
Depends on the moment. But speaking should be seen as regular if not frequent.
graciemoo8
Approximately how many years before the Evil on Threnody was Nazh born?
Brandon Sanderson
I do not have that written down. It's more of an Isaac question. Nazh is an Isaac character, and Nazh's backstory will be explored in Isaac's stories, and I would not even canonize it if I had the answer here because we need to let him have the freedom to talk about all of that.
Sapphire_Bombay
When Hoid looks in a mirror, does he see what other people see when they look at him?
Brandon Sanderson
Generally, yes. Good question, you're trying to pin down what he's doing, but yes.
Sapphire_Bombay
Follow-up to that, could Hoid appear physically different to two different people at the same time, if he wanted to?
Brandon Sanderson
Depends on what angles they're seeing him from. And which version of "looking different" he's using. Could he do what you're asking? Yes, he could. He doesn't normally do things that would do that.
senjox
Why is Roshar the only planet with spren?
Brandon Sanderson
It's not. Seons are spren.
There are plenty of planets with things like spren.
learhpa
If someone (with the appropriate knowledge of where to place the spikes to be successful) were to spike Rysn and try to steal the power of the Dawnshard, what would happen?
Brandon Sanderson
A very bad time, for the person attempting it. Dawnshards self-protect.
Bennet Alterman
If Dawnshards self-protect, what's the need for larkins and Sleepless?
Brandon Sanderson
They do self-protect. The larkins and Sleepless are there! You're assuming the larkins and Sleepless aren't there because of Dawnshard influence. Which is a false assumption.
ParshendiOfRhuidean
Were Ati and Leras lovers?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
PleaseTypeUsername
In an interview, you said you thought you had canonized someone as a Sliver in Rhythm of War but then realized you didn't. Who is this character?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
Sapphire_Bombay
Will we ever see on page what Odium did to Devotion and Dominion?
Brandon Sanderson
I would like to get some references to this, whether it's on-page or it's a description. There is memory of this in the seons, right? They can express this. And so there's a decent chance of that way. If you're talking about straight up "flashback," then no, I don't think that I'm likely to do that. Not likely to write a story where that happens. Anything's possible, but I'm not likely to.
ChromatiCaos
You said that all Investiture got assigned to a Shard when Adonalsium got Shattered, which Investiture do the Dawnshards draw from? What about the aethers?
Brandon Sanderson
Dawnshards and aethers both predate the Shattering, and the rules don't apply to them.
Just_A_Silvereye
In the cosmere, if everyone on a planet believes unicorns exist, would some kind of unicorn shadow appear in the Cognitive Realm as a result?
If yes, could you create an actual, physical unicorn out of it?
Brandon Sanderson
No, it's not going to quite work this way. What's going to happen if everyone believes unicorns exist, but they don't, there's various things that could happen. You might end up with some Investiture taking on this persona and becoming this, but it's not like you can create it, but over time you might end up with the equivalent of a spren. Then it's not going to be just a physical unicorn running around. It's gonna have more spren aspects, and my guess would be that over time these things feed each other. Right? Like people see one, and then they describe, "This is what it looked like," and that changes the public perception to better match. And then over thousands of years what you end up with is, "Hey there's things in the forest over there that are a type of mysterious creature that are transparent and look a little like a horse with a horn, but maybe fly," or things like this. You would end up with something in the middle, between the two of them.
Things wouldn't naturally pop up on Shadesmar unless there's free Investiture in that same sort of way.
Freddy
If a gold Feruchemist formed a Nahel bond, could Stormlight healing fill goldminds? Could they turn into basically a hospital by storing Identity?
Brandon Sanderson
Plausible, there's a few things you're not considering.
Raddatatta
In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?
Brandon Sanderson
Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.
Hankster1024
Will we see Hoid's Lightweaver Truths?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO. Unlikely, but RAFO. Possible
VeryNiceName16
In Bands of Mourning, Khriss breaks in to a party to talk to Wax, and gives him a business card with an address. Wax suspects her of being in the Set, so did they ever check back in there, and if so what happened?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, he would have checked that number. But by the time he got around to it, after Bands of Mourning and all the things happening there, there was nobody there.
redpill_is_4_chumps
How's the search for the next Stormlight title going? Last I read, you mentioned it was still in the consideration phase.
Brandon Sanderson
It's still in the consideration phase. I'm a lot closer. I'm feeling pretty good about it, about some options I have. I should have it before too much longer, but I shouldn't make that promise because maybe I won't, maybe it'll be another six months, or longer.
We've got a minute still.
How's it going? I feel like I've made progress.
Cheyenne Sedai
The epigraph that mentions Discord in The Final Empire is the same chapter where Sazed is introduced. Was that intentional and meant as a way of foreshadowing?
Brandon Sanderson
I want to say yes, but the truth is, I did what I always do, which is I wrote the epigraphs in one long thing after I finished the book, and then I spaced them out. Now, it's been almost twenty years. Maybe I'm like, "Oh, I should make sure of this and that for things that are happening here." But the honest truth is that I can't say that I did that on purpose. That would have been really a clever thing to do! But serendipity.
Again, I write the epigraphs, almost always, as a big section, and then I slice them up and I try to make sure they look good at the start. They're written, oftentimes, as a big paragraph that I'm then slicing up and then revising to make sure it works in its own little thing. And sometimes I'm taking pieces of one and moving it forward.
So the answer to that is, pretend I'm that smart, but I don't think I actually was.
StrikerEZ
This is a very important Hoid question. He's still taking good care of Sir Squeekins, right? That little rat is going to become an immortal rat pet of Hoid's.
Brandon Sanderson
Hoid did take good care of Sir Squeekins.
