Hey, Brandon as a big fan of the Stormlight books. I'm wondering what is the ratio between dark eyes and light eyes in the country where Kaladin is from. Sorry if this was mentioned in the books and I just forgot.
Weighted toward darkeyes, though the lighteye/darkeye disparity is not nearly as great as the noble/peasant disparity was in our world.
Dalinar insists that honorable men would not fight their allies, when Adolin wishes to spar. Would the knights radiant spar one another, or would they generally agree with dalinars point of view?
Some would agree but many would disagree. Do note there is a difference between sparring and prize fighting or dueling.
Do all the honorblades have the same power? How are they different? Do they all share an appearance?
No. They each grant a different set of powers and vary in appearance.
can spren go thru walls like ghosts too?
Depends on the spren, and how strongly they've been pulled into the physical realm.
so the ones that cant are the ones people can trap in gems for fabriels?
do they catch them with big butterfly nets and thrwo a gem into the netting? or is it like pokemon where they just throw gems and hope they hit??
Ha. No, neither one. This is a RAFO, I'm afraid.
Have you included (or do you potentially intend to include) any asexual characters in your published works? Asexual characters don't seem to be very common in fiction, and I'm sure it would be fantastic for people that identify as such to feel in any way represented by one of your characters!
I originally conceived the asexual nature of most Parshendi (from the Stormlight Archive) forms after reading a very thought-provoking article written by someone asexual. The idea of a primarily asexual race was a fascinating idea to me, and you will see this more in future books.
can somene be born half-parshnedi or maybe even half-spren??
The Horneaters and the Herdazians are both descendants of Parshendi/human interbreeding.
Spren do not reproduce biologically. As such, the term "half-spren" is basically meaningless. You could argue that the Parshendi, when bonded to spren, are part spren--as are many creatures on Roshar, if they have a spren symbiosis.
Can Feruchemists store more than the five ‘traditional’ senses, and does Allomantic tin enhance more than the traditional five senses?
More is possible.
Are there ways you could use other Magic systems (excepting hemalurgy) to create a returned or something similar?
Yes.
If you made a Lifeless with enough Breaths to get to the 5th heightening, would it be similar to a Returned at all? Or is a Divine Breath the only way to create a Returned with Awakening?
Divine Breath is very much its own thing.
What is Cosmere sentience? By this I mean what does it require and what does it entail?
In the cosmere, most things are sentient on some level. Basically, anything with even the smallest amount of investiture. (Which is all matter, and most cognitive creations.) Sapience is something different, of course.
Is there a specific reason as to why Lift can synthesize food into stormlight? Or is she just special?
Have we met/Will we meet anyone else that can take in stormlight in a different way?
She is unique, and was not born with the ability.
What's with the Stormlight Chapter symbols, and their similarity to other Cosmere symbols? I guess this is specifically talking about Kaladin and Shallan's symbols, and their resemblance to an Allomantic symbol and an Aon, respectively.
Is this just showing Roshar's place as significant in the Cosmere? Is there a reason those specific symbols were chosen for those characters? Anything you'd want to share, I'll take.
The meaning of Kaladin's symbol will be made manifest eventually. The connection to an Allomantic symbol, however, is mostly coincidental. (Both were drawn by Isaac.)
Hi Brandon! I wanted to talk about the revised ending of Words of Radiance.
So, it looks like Kaladin won't be actually delivering the killing blow to Szeth any more. I think that Kaladin was entirely justified in doing this, since it was a fight to the death, and Kaladin was protecting not only Dalinar but his entire squad below. Kaladin even seems surprised when he lands the blow, expecting Szeth to block it like he had been doing the entire fight. The killing was not done in vengeance or with malice, unlike what Adolin does later. Having the storm kill Szeth seems like an anti-climatic way to end the scene, since it takes away Szeth's decision to die by the sword, and means we no longer have an example of why the spren Shardblades don't immediately kill people.
I woud be fine having him do it, though I think killing a foe who has given up was against this thematic plot. But what pushed me over the edge to change was the sense that I was pulling too many fast ones on the reader with people coming back to life. I wanted it clear to readers that Szeth was not dead, so this scene wasn't a fake out, which would weaken Jasnah's arrival later.
Um, Mr. Sanderson, I don't mean to be disrespectful as you probably have the scene better in your head than I do but how is a man without Stormlight falling from a very large hight, while in the middle of two Highstorms coliding and throwing entire platoos in the air expected to survive? Maybe I don't have the right persective on this given that I saw both Jasnah (the body disapearing is just as much a give away as it never being shown in my book) and Syl (Pattern outright said Sprens can be revived) coming but unless you severly change the fight scene I don't see how being stabbed actually matters for Szeth survival chances.
The idea is that the reader didn't see him die, so there's a psychological trigger--one that says "Ah, I didn't see a body. He's probably not dead."
Yes, Szeth totally died from that fall--just as the young man that Lift revived had died from what he suffered. We know that Stormlight can fix the body and bring back the dead, so long as very little time has passed.
The import of the tweak to me is allowing some question in the reader's mind, so that the return is not a betrayal.
That is a lot more understandable. Having too many reveals at the end could be problematic. I agree that Jasnah coming back felt like pulling a fast one right at the end. However, I think the suprise of Szeth coming back was really well done, especially with the reveal of Nin (Nale, Nalan? This dude is so old he has three names!) at the very end with his special sword friend. I feel like that was the real zinger that should have closed the book.
I was a little underwhelmed with Jasnah coming back, not because I dislike her, but because I thought she was well and truly dead. She died so early in the book that I was completely accepting of her death by the end, and her coming back in a 'gotcha' moment felt a little hollow. Perhaps this could have happened about a hundred pages into the next book? I don't know the entire story like you do, of course, but as a reader it felt like Szeth and his rebirth should have been the final closing image.
This all came about, if you're curious, during the detailed plotting of the second book. Originally, the outline did not call for Jasnah to leave, but I was having real trouble getting Shallan into a place--emotionally and experience-wise--where she could do the things she needed to do while Jasnah was around. I determined that Jasnah needed to pull a Gandalf, and let her ward alone for a while, and I'm glad I did it--the book is much, much stronger for it. However, the side effects of the last-minute change in the plot required Jasnah's reappearance, which sent a few waves through the book. (Szeth's death and survival being the main one.)
RAFOed I'm sure, but you said you are planing 2 arcs of 5 books each in Stormlight Archive. Having read all of your published works (and some unpublished:)) I know your storytelling pace is astronomicaly quick. I'm positive you will end current desolation story in the first 5 books, since as I understod, other 5 books will be set in near future in SA universe. So I guess my question is; can you drop any hint will Odium survive to see 6th SA book:)?
Oh, Odium will survive. Now, whether the one HOLDING that power will survive...that's a different question. :) (Not quite a RAFO.)
In Warbreaker, Vasher makes the claim that Nightblood's personality is essentially static, that he'll never change. How true is that? Assuming Nightblood managed to stick around for thousands, or millions of years, could he grow in even the smallest of ways; develop a legitimate sense of right and wrong and figure out what's really going on around him?
Vasher believes it's true. Vasher has been wrong on occasion, but he is a fairly authoritative source.
Do you keep a timeline for your Cosmere books? I'm assuming the events from books such as Elantris and Warbreaker happen before the Stormlight Archives but I'm curious about how much time has passed whether it is months/years/centuries.
Centuries have passed. I think we're closer to a thousand years covering events you could place on the line, with closer to ten thousand years since inciting incidents.
This is just a stab based on perceived hints, but is Yolen the most "Earth-like" planet in the Cosmere?
Scadrial is, actually. Sel isn't too far off either. Yolen has some strangeness to it. Two competing ecologies, and some strange geography. But I have wavered on how to convey all of this, so none of it is set in stone yet.
Can two different people invest an item with Breath (either to use the sum of the investiture or just theirs, or as a way to tell that something contains Breath if it doesn't work)?
The question is tricky to answer, because it's partially a yes, and partially a no. So I'll RAFO for now.
Hello Mr. Sanderson. This is probably too late but I just wanted to ask what ends a desolation? Is it mainly about winning the battles or is the fighting just about holding out and buying time for something else?
It involves the departure of the Heralds.
You’ve been known to say that the fantasy genre is the best genre because you can do anything another genre can do and you can have dragons. And yet, we haven’t had a dragon from you yet. Well we see a Sanderson Dragon anytime before Dragonsteel? I’m assuming Dragonsteel has dragons?
Yes, I smile inwardly as I say that, because I know that--indeed--I don't use a lot of dragons. I do like reading about them, but I haven't found myself eager to put them into my works. I think it's because I've read so many excellent dragon books, I figure, that area of fantasy is being covered by others--and I should try different things.
That said, Dragonsteel has dragons, and so you will eventually see them there. I don't know that I'll do them before.
What are your thoughts on Kramer's depiction of a Herdazian accent? Is it what you were trying to go for or no? When I read WoK I thought they had more of a Mexican accent but Kramer has brought me over to his, what I believe is, Australian accent.
It makes me laugh, and I like that there are other interpretations out there--since it's a fantasy world, and their accent doesn't have a 1-to-1 correlation with our world. That said, the were originally Hispanic inspired, so you were on the right track.
What is Nightblood's opinions on gender, and who decided on him having he/him pronouns?
Nightblood is fascinated by gender, and trying to figure it out. Unlike spren like Syl, Nightblood has not self gender assigned as an influence of interacting with humans. That said, Vasher was probably the one who just started calling him He, so if you want to take the issue up with anyone, go to him.
First of all, it seems that when Returned give their blessing that requires their life, to do so is to give up all of their BioChroma. Well, there was a time where Vivenna can't sense Vasher because he was a drab. Since that would mean he put all of his BioChroma somewhere and is SPOILER one of the Returned, why isn't he dead?
Also, it seems as if only the royal family has the ability to change their hair color. However, when Vasher kills Denth, his hair flashes through a ton of colors before he dies. What are his ties to the family? Is there something I missed? Will there be another book explaining this?
I did mention these things in the annotations, as has been pointed out, but boy--it's been a while. I don't remember what I wrote in the annotations and what I didn't.
All Returned are, in a way, "related" to the royal family in their Investiture. (The magic they hold.) Vasher has some specific and powerful control over his own powers, which I didn't go into much in the book. But if you delve into the annotations, you'll get more.
The screams that Dalinar thought he heard/felt when the Windrunners/Stonewards abandoned their shard, what are they?
In that scene, oaths were being broken, and bonds were being severed. This wasn't pleasant for the spren.
Any other cosmere short stories in the pipeline?
I do have a couple more in the works! One perpetual one is the Silence Divine (which I'll probably rename, since I've used Silence in a title recently) about the planet where magic is tied to disease. But there are others!
1)Would it be possible to invest a metal such as bendalloy so that it's "active" and create a time bubble? 2)Would an invested object creating a bubble move about the bubble like Wayne does inside his? Or would the bubble move with the invested object? 3)Wayne implies that it takes a couple seconds between dropping a time bubble and creating a new one. Is this a biologically related limit, or magically related limit? 4)Would more powerful allomancy/investment increase the size of the bubble, or change the time differential?
My theory is that if someone created a large bubble that sped up time inside of it (so time outside seems slower) You would cross the bubble faster than light would cross the same difference outside of it. Of course the journey would take the same time inside as it would without the bubble which would mean the need for a generation ship. To compensate someone could then create a smaller pocket of slowed down time (cadmium) which would cancel the sped up time and create a normal time flow. This would allow living humans to experience the same flow of time as someone on scardial itself while the ship still travels are FTL speeds. If the bubbles traveled with the ship then there wouldn't be any additional strain the structure. If the bubbles couldn't travel with the ship but if the time it takes to create a new bubble could be overcome you could theoretically turn on/off the bubble maker at a very high frequency to allow the bubble to be re centered with the traveling ship.
So I'm curious if my theory is feasible?
You've got some serious RAFOS in there, I'm afraid, but let's see what I can answer.
First, I'd love to have your contact info through my website for running calculations. We've got some people, like Eric, who know their stuff--but having more physicists to help out is important when I start figuring things like red shift and what not.
As for the other questions, I'm digging out answers for you, where i can. Might take me a little longer, though.
Have you planned out the interludes for Book #3, and if so - any returning characters? Share one?
Yes, I have. Taravangian will be one, unless I move it to an actual chapter. We'll have to see how things play out.
Can any two Shards be joined together, like "Preservation and Ruin", or does it depend on their Intents?
Any can be joined, theoretically, but boy, some of the pairings would have an odd resulting pressure on the one holding them. And similar intents make for an easier time melding.
As you've stated that the magic of First of the Sun is natural and independent of any particular Shard, what is the nature of the pool on Patji? Is it also a natural manifestation of magic, a perpendicularity, or simply a pool like any other?
It's a natural manifestation, but on a much smaller scale than you might find on other worlds.
Did Ashyn ever have a Shard, or is its magic a natural manifestation akin to Threnody or First of the Sun?
RAFO on Ashyn, as--being in the same system as Roshar--there are going to be some spoilers relating to Stormlight in anything I say here.
Threnody and Scadrial are both noted as having unusally bright patches of stars in their skies. Are these two planets near to one another?
They are both seeing the same thing, yes.
Does this mean that Threnody and Scadrial are part of the same system, or are these bright patches visible from other worlds as well?
Visible from other worlds as well. The cosmere is a relatively small place (on a galactic scale, that is.) We'll publish the star map when that becomes relevant in a decade or so.
I've heard somewhere that you already have a backstory for Hoid written, but you're waiting to release it as it would reveal too much about the Cosmere universe... is this true?
Yes, this is true.
Do you ever plan on bringing different realms together?
Yes I do.
Will Lift get a Shardfork?
You know, she's likely to do something like that...
Was the guy Dalinar met in his flashback really Nohadon?
So far as he knows.
I'm pretty interested in the integration of magic and sport, like in Harry Potter and The Legend of Korra. Will we be seeing any allomantic sports in the second Mistborn trilogy?
Probably the third. Scadrial is behind on a couple of things, technologically, and they've been very practically minded lately. I have some hints of professional sports in the Era Two books, but they're slight.
In The Hero of Ages, Demoux gets together with a woman named Aslydin. He's then seen on Roshar in The Way of Kings. Knowing how loyal Demoux is, he wouldn't just leave Aslydin behind like that. Is she connected to his reasons for becoming a member of the Seventeenth Shard?
Aslydin is in the Seventeeth Shard, and had her own work to be about. I've given subtle clues about her before, but the ethnicity of the name should strike you.
I'm fairly invested in the pairings of The Stormlight Archive, with my favourite being Jasnah/Szeth. Do either of these two have any romance planned in their future?
I am purposefully vague about upcoming romantic pairings in my books, because most of the characters would not want to be defined by their romantic inclinations--and at the top of that list is Jasnah. So I'll remain quiet on this one for now. Sorry.
On Scadrial, humans were created as a result of the deal between Preservation and Ruin. But what about the rest of the humans on the other worlds of the Cosmere?
It's split. Some predate the shattering; others were created. The humans that existed before were always a model, which is why they're so similar to one another.
You recently changed up the text of Elantris and Words of Radiance. Do you feel like you need to change something about the Mistborn trilogy? I think it's perfect
I've expressed that my one regret with Mistborn is the climax of Book One, where I think I bring in drawing upon the mists too early in the series without enough foreshadowing. That said, I'm not planning to revise it, even if we do a 10th anniversary edition like with Elantris. The problems with Elantris created continuity issues; the problem with Mistborn is more of an artistic choice, making it similar to the problem in WoR. The difference here is that I'm still working on Stormlight, so it is considered to be an open book in my head--while Mistborn is done, and it's time to leave it alone.
You've said previously that the molecular structure of metals serve to act sort of like the Aons in AonDor. Why, then, can mists power Allomancy? Shouldn't the metals themselves be the things causing the powers? And if metals don't cause the effect, how can a non-Feruchemist burn a metalmind that has been 'unlocked' through identity tricks and get a boost of an attribute without Feruchemist sDNA?
I was trying to figure out how to answer this, and then I realized while driving to get a hair cut that you were regarding this wrong in a fundamental way. Remember, the source of power for Allomancy is EXTERNAL while the source for Feruchemy is INTERNAL. This is a fundamental difference discussed in the series.
When you burn metals, you're drawing power from another place. When you tap a metalmind, you are drawing power that the person has created--a battery developed by themselves, so to speak.
So I think that's going to answer the source of your confusion.
Does hair that is still attached to a person's head get cut if a Shardblade passes through it? If not, if that person had the Royal Locks could they change the color of the hair "below" the cut?
Yes, hair gets cut. It counts as dead in my mind--but not to someone who has the Royal Locks. They could only change below, as you state, and wouldn't get their hair chopped off. (I'm not 100% sure on this, but I Think I've mentioned in Stormlight before that you can cut things like shells on living animals with a Shardblade, but then it doesn't cut the flesh.)
With the Royal Locks, the individual would be able to change the color in the bit between the cut and the scalp? (In my original question I had meant "below" to mean the bit between the cut and the end whereas your answer uses it the opposite, I think?)
Distance between scalp and cut, yes you can change that. Otherwise every time you got a haircut, you wouldn't be able to change the hair. Maybe I don't get your question.
So just for clarity's sake is the following correct:
Let's say Siri's hair is two feet long. A shardblade passes through the hair exactly in the middle ("dividing" the hair into two one-foot sections). In your previous answer you said that while usually the shardblade would just sever the hair (leaving only a foot attached to the head) with the Royal locks the entire two feet would remain attached but only the foot on the "head" side of the cut would be able to change color.
Thank you, I just want to make sure there is zero doubt in what is actually going on.
I did misinterpret your original question. As a shardblade cut is likely to be wider than a piece of hair, I doubt you could cut the royal locks lengthwise.
What if the Throne of Idris passed to someone who was not the child of the monarch? Like if they were the niece or nephew of the previous monarch. Their parent would not have passed on the Royal Locks to them, but if they gained the throne would they spontaneously manifest the Royal Locks? Would their children if they were born before?
This will be discussed in the Warbreaker sequel, most likely.
Is the Well of Ascension Preservation’s Perpendicularity? Or at least related to it (i.e. one is in the Physical Realm but the other is in the Cognitive but are still essentially different aspects of the same “thing”)?
You're on the right track.
Where is Hoids flute and does he want it back
Sadeas had it.
Yes.
If I wanted to Hemalurgically acquire a power from First of the Sun, which metal would the spike need to be?
This is going to be pretty complicated, but several metals would work.
Would it involve Connection between the person being spiked and the bird?
Well it would be even harder than on Roshar, where you need to somehow spike the spren and also the Radiant. You would need to spike the bird and steal the power, but also spike the person and steal Connection.
Are all hordelings cremlings and vise versa?
Cremling is a synonym in Roshar for both, insect and small crustation, right? And so you would see one and you would see that's a little crayfish. Cremling is not an exact term if that makes sense. It's like bug. The word "bug" people can use to mean a lot of different things.[...] So, yes, they look like cremlings, because they've been bred to look like cremlings, so they will not be noticed on Roshar, but there are hordelings that do not look like cremlings. But they would still be called a cremling by the people on Roshar. The occasional people (?) used the word insect, 'cause that word does exist on Roshar. Usually make refers to like little flying bugs that you only find in the very far west of Roshar near the mountains, but yeah.
Does creating unsealed metalmind involve Feruchemical duralumin?
(hesitating)...Yes. I will write it all out for you eventually. I want to get at least one more book done, then you find out exactly why and how.
Because I was pretty confused about the Investiture and Spiritweb...
Here is the reason I'm kind of hesitant of this, [why not you just RAFO this one right now], but it is not a RAFO, because it is like it's a secret. I want to write it out exactly how it happens, because I have it in my notes in bullet points and it's complicated, right? Cause I want some of the things in the magic system as be as complicated as for instance explaining how a computer works right now. You can do it, but you know...I want the magic to start getting that technical if that makes sense. When you say "involve", right, that's a big word. Why just don't you let me, after lost metal...if I haven't released it, you have permission to come to me and say: "Brandon, you said you would release this, you haven't yet [...]" and I will give to you the bullet point flowchart of how you build the unkeyed metalminds.
The people in the Central Dominance speak a sort of French accent. Is that still the case in the Wax&Wayne era?
It has mostly changed. I mean there are still some French regions, but there are some Germanic regions also and things. It is no longer just the same positioning, it's more kind of, well, like your family heritage and things like that.
The placement of Taldain, the solar system, was it done by someone?
So...Taldain, yes.
Has it to do with the travel in the Cognitive Realm?
Not 100%. That's a side effect
Do you think that if Ashe had seen Ien in Elantris while he was there...Do you think he would have recognized him?
Yes.
Will there be a major part in the story for the Sleepless?
Yes, but much later on.
What means later on?
Well, they have a major role in the science fiction Mistborn trilogy, but that's pretty far off. So they will be very important very much later on.
