Tell us a little bit about Valor. What’s her Vessel like? Any fun anecdotes? Hoid once bought Tanavast a drink; are there fun stories with Valor’s Vessel? Just anything?
Let’s put this one off for just a little longer. Let’s RAFO Valor. How about this, I’ll give you one thing: Valor is name-dropped in Stormlight Five.
We’ve seen Shallan’s drawings appear to make people into “better versions of themselves.” But we also see her draw Yalb surviving the shipwreck, and later find out he did. Is she actually seeing the future in which she just happens to inspire people to be better? If so, this would make Wit’s warning to her in Oathbringer more concerning.
As will all sort of future sight/foretelling in the cosmere, it is not necessarily telling the future so much as seeing possibilities. And Shallan has… we’ll get into this in Book Five. Shallan’s a little extra good at this, for Spiritual mumbo jumbo. (It’s not necessarily just Spiritual mumbo jumbo, 17th Shard.) In this case, we have a very distinct reason why this is happening with Shallan that you might be able to put together. It’s pretty obvious. But you should be able to see these things with Shallan very early in the books. As early as Words of Radiance, I was sticking in little nods to this. She is able to grab glimpses of the Spiritual Realm in ways that even other Lightweavers can’t do. Lightweaving always has a bit of this, right? And this comes back to what’s going on with the Realmatic Theory and Plato’s Theory of the Forms as kind of a foundational text that helped me develop this in my mind. You’re seeing more perfect versions of who you could be. When she’s doing a sketch, she’s sometimes sketching not who you are, but who you could be.
Stormlight Six?
Stormlight Six is probably ten years away. Read the State of the Sanderson, prime yourself for that. That is my expectation, but we’ll see. Who knows? This is an art as much as it is a science, and sometimes things need to be written.
What would happen if you threw Nightblood into the Dor? Could it consume Investiture fast enough to enable you to travel through the Dor?
Oh, I see what you’re trying to do, make a pocket where you can go through. Here’s the thing: Nightblood would get full pretty quick in the Dor, like you saw with Nightblood hitting a perpendicularity in Rhythm of War. So I’m not 100% convinced this could get you through the Dor. But it’s a workable theory that you could try, and you might be able to tweak it to the point that you could make it work. You’re gonna have to deal with the fact that Nightblood fills up, when there’s that much Investiture, pretty quickly.
You mentioned that there was a scene or climax that you’ve been wanting to write since an RPG campaign in 1999, which you’ve planned for Stormlight Five.
Yes.
I think you said it was one of the best endings you’ve ever written. Now that you’re almost finished with Stormlight Five, how are you feeling about that scene in the book?
I feel really good about it. It’s there, it’s written. Is it the best ending I’ve ever written? That’s really you guys’ choice, not mine. One of the things is: there will definitely be some surprising things. There will also be (for this crowd specifically) some expected things. I feel like my job is to give proper foreshadowing so that some things can be seen. And I will tell you, I’ve seen people make the right theories about a lot of the things in this book. There’s a few things that I’m gonna kind of blindside you with, but they are the sorts of things where you sometimes have twists in stories that aren’t really the sort you can fully anticipate. But I think I’ve done a spectacular job with what I’m doing for his ending. But, again, that’s for you to decide, not for me. So, we’ll see. I do think I have one of my best action scenes, as I’ve said before, that I’m very fond of. But you’ll also have to give me space from the book. It’s hard for me to look at, when I’m in the middle of a book, and have that space that you need in order to really evaluate a work. So maybe this is a question for me in five years.
Save the ketek!
The ketek is diegetically saved. It’s perfectly fine in-world. I’m not gonna put what feels like a bad title on a book just to get the ketek to work. I spent years, and none of them feel right to me. None of the titles feel right. I just gotta go with what feels like the right title for me [for Wind and Truth].
Arcanum Unbounded leatherbound, we don’t have specific plans for when that one fits in the schedule, yet. I think we’re probably going to do one. The big question is: when do we do Steelheart or Skyward leatherbounds? Do we do them? Where does Arcanum Unbounded fit in there? The only ones that are really sure are Bands, and then we’re gonna do Lost Metal after that, even though it’s not ten year anniversary We just want people to be able to complete their sets. And then, of course, the Stormlight books, we will continue to do at about the rate… Those take a lot more work. Those’ll be three to four years apart, like we’ve been doing.
As Dragonsteel expands and you have other writers like Janci and Dan telling stories in your worlds, how do you manage the difference in approaches to writing?
Yeah, so this is something we're kind of finding our way through. You'll notice that I experimented with this a bunch with side projects before I decided to do some mainline projects. And I picked two of the writers that I'm very closest with and know the best. I don't anticipate going a lot further than that, right? I do like the idea of seeing what a few other writers can add to things like the Cosmere, but I don't want to turn into Forgotten Realms, where there's always a new book coming out by a new author. I do think that some places have done a better job of this though. Like, Black Library tends to have a very good reputation with the authors that they invite in and cultivate a stable of authors rather than just, you never know who's going to be writing one. I know that I didn't necessarily like this in comics, when I read more comics, not knowing when an author on a book was gonna be fired or when you were not gonna start seeing the original creator anymore. You will never not be seeing me writing books.
How do I approach it differently? When I hand it to someone, like with Skyward, I do envision it as being Janci's now. That I am overseeing. These are now her stories. It's kind of like how I felt... Harriet told me when I took over the Wheel of Time, Harriet came to me and said, "You are the author now, Brandon. You need to follow your instances as a writer and do your best job. You do want to look at what Robert Jorden was going to do and you want to try and fulfill his vision too." But she was very clear with me, it's like, "You are the writer now." And that gave me a certain level of ownership that I feel I needed. And despite some things about what I did definitely being... You know, I'm not without criticism, and deserved criticism. I think that me taking over that series went better than the vast majority of this happening in the past. You can just look at that both in aggregate reviews, you can also look at that at sales, you can just kind of look at... Really trying not to blow my own horn, but I think Wheel of Time is the gold standard in sci-fi/fantasy for an author passing away and someone else taking over the series. And part of the reason, in fact, I would say one of the biggest reasons for that, was Harriet coming to me and saying, "You need to be the author. You need the freedom and flexibility to treat this like your own series. You're not writing this for someone as just a work-for-hire; get this, chop wood, be done. We are handing you the keys to the house." And then, of course, the fact that she was also the editor to keep me a little reigned in in the right places was a big key.
But I bring that same sort of feeling to the authors I'm working with, with: "I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna help you outline. I'm gonna help you worldbuild. I'm gonna give feedback on the drafts. I'm gonna do everything I can to make this really excellent." But when you read Dan's Cosmere book, it's Dan's Cosmere book; it's not Dan writing Brandon's Cosmere book. It's Dan writing Dan's Cosmere book with Brandon deeply involved and trying to help out. And I think this is gonna lead to just better books. I think it's gonna lead to much better books.
I remember when I went to Blizzard once. They had me in (they had Pat Rothfuss in a separate time), and one of the reasons they had me in is they're like, "We would like you to write this story for us." They wanted to investigate having me write books for them. And it was a wonderful experience, everyone there was great, but I very quickly could tell I was the wrong person for the project. Because they already knew the exact book they wanted. They had every bit of lore that they wanted in that nailed down. The level of flexibility that I could have in telling a story in the Warcraft world was just almost nil. (They were actually investigating people for Overwatch back when it was Overwatch, but they also talked about Warcraft stuff.) It was like, "You could tell this story. This is what happens in it: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." And it's all just completely already done, they just need someone to put the words on the page. And that is not me. That's not a project I was the least bit interested in.
Seems like a lot of movie experiences are built like that.
Yes, a lot of movie experiences are built like that, too. And because of that, I politely declined that opportunity. And I have learned (particularly in these kind of collaborations) that the best things that we came up with were things where I said, "Here is my world. Here's what makes it exciting. Here's what I love about the characters. What do you want to do in this world?" And together, developing something that really matches them. Particularly when I can kind of hand off characters that I have not spent a lot of time on or have them invent all new characters.
That's what you should expect with the collaborations I'm doing. Quality control, hopefully by Brandon, hopefully really great stories, but stories I could not have written, because just handing people my outlines hasn't really worked. The best example of that being White Sand the Graphic novel. Isaac has made that book great, by kind of taking some real ownership over it. The first stuff that we did (even before he did this latest revision that you guys can now get), it felt like my outline got really stiff when someone else played with it, and some of the stuff that makes reading a Brandon Sanderson book really fun and enjoyable didn't end up in there.
There's a long rambling answer to you; I hope that's relevant and helpful. But, that's the way I am approaching this.
Lux ever gonna get a hardcover edition?
Currently there are no plans. One reason is that there are continuity errors in Lux that we don’t have the resources to fix currently while we’re focused on Stormlight 5.
Are there any plans for further entries?
Nothing to announce, and may never be.
How's computer stuff going to work in the 80s version of Mistborn? Very rudimentarily. It'll work like you expect it to from our world in that era.
Without Aux, can [Zellion] keep doing it? Can he still sync with future worlds?
RAFO.
Has Zellion been to Nalthis? Or did he learn about the Breaths from somewhere else?
RAFO.
If Zellion/Sigzil gets rid of the Torment, could Hoid get rid of...?
Theoretically, it's possible that Hoid could get rid of the distortions to his soul. He held the Dawnshard a lot longer, and his distortions are more... how shall we say... pervasive.
If [Canticle] is spending years, if not centuries or millennia, just sucking in all that Investiture, is that gonna be the most heavily Invested thing in the cosmere?
RAFO.
It is theoretically possible to be part of two Orders at once and to have bonded two spren at once.
What I'm unsure about is the timing of when [Sigzil] gets the Dawnshard versus when he became a different Radiant.
You'll find this out eventually. RAFO.
When did Hoid give [Sigzil] the Dawnshard?
This is a RAFO.
Do the deceased that die on Canticle, do they return into this Reliquary? Was the brother really there? Or do they just die? Do they still become Shades?
They don't get to go to the Reliquary. They actually die, and their Investiture that would become a shade is instead turned into one of the sunhearts.
How old is Sigzil [in The Sunlit Man]?
RAFO.
When does [The Sunlit Man] happen?
Pretty late in the Cosmere, but not the latest you've seen.
There's this scene where there was a nightmare, and Painter didn't have a paintbrush, and he just reached out to the side and a paintbrush appeared, and there was a flash of light. I need details, 'cause that seems so much like a Shardblade!
This is also working under the exact same mechanics, so yes, Investiture that he is Connected to is indeed being manifest as something physical.
What Awakened the father machine? Was it the same system that we've seen with Breaths? Or was it something else? If it is Breaths, how did some one who can use that magic system, how did they get here?
These all work on the same fundamental mechanics. You should not be looking for someone from outside to have done this.
There's a drama, and it has a hion sword in it. Is it just for the drama? Or can hion sword be real, please?
Uh... we'll make you one.
We learn [Yumi]'s repeated this day for 1700 years, and her memory is patched over by the father machine. If memory and Investiture are so closely tied together, is the father machine also taking her Investiture? How does that work, because she's such a highly Invested individual, it seems like if it could take any Investiture from her, it would take all of it, like the nightmares did.
When I play with this, with tweaking memory and things like that, my go-to in the cosmere, in the three cases where you've seen it happen, is that those excising memories have to be really, really careful, or the body will reject what you're doing. So, all three times you've seen it happen, it's been one little sliver of memory is getting changed. The father machine might even just be overwriting it each day, basically blanking that Investiture, but not stealing any of it. Vasher does pull a little bit out when he takes the memory, and the same thing happens with Wit when it happened to him. But I think the father machine's doing it in a slightly different way, and it has to be really careful, or it'll be too obvious, and the whole illusion, the facade, will collapse.
Are you still planning to write a book with a magic system based on disease and sickness?
If I'd really been on the ball, it would have been one of the Secret Projects I wrote during Covid. But I haven't found the right story for that magic system yet. So it's still in the back of my brain, and someday perhaps I will write it, but we'll see. Yes, I still am planning it, but we'll see.
I know what was in the first four storage caverns; but what was in the fifth storage cavern? I always wonder.
RAFO.
Do any of the civilizations in the cosmere celebrate a holiday like Halloween?
Yes.
What's Hoid's favorite regional curse word from the planets he's visited?
He's gonna like something pretty weird. He's gonna like the outlandish ones. I'll have to think about it for a while. It's probably not one that I've used yet, would be my guess. Something that might sound a little ridiculous to our ears. I think he would really like the Wheel of Time one, "mother's milk in a cup," just because it's one of those things that sounds vulgar, but isn't.
I've always wondered how the Threnodites are so well known. Beyond shades, we don't see powers there. How are they so well-traveled?
There's a couple of things going on here. One is: there are ways on and off Threnody, and any of the planets that you can get on and off without needing FTL do spread through the cosmere pretty well.
The other thing is: the event that created Threnody as it's known in the cosmere (which is the death of Ambition) has wide-reaching ramifications. It's a very famous place in the same way that most people know the Bikini Islands when they might not otherwise know it, if that makes any sense. It's the source of something that has had great implications for the entirety of the cosmere.
Why did Brandon name a world Threnody?
I wanted a planet where I was making use of religious terminology (sometimes pseudo-religious terminology; things that are religion-adjacent also), and things that had to do with poetry and music. Lots of names like Elegy as a name. And Threnody, I believe Isaac suggested it. He'll have to correct me if I'm wrong; he might have named some other things in that system, but I think he recommended Threnody. And it felt appropriate, being a song for the dead, a dirge. Just kind of clicked.
What would Halloween look like on Threnody? Or would such a holiday hit far too close to home for them?
They are not celebrating Halloween on Threnody. They would not understand at all. They live lives of constant terror, so why you would want to do that to yourself...
Would a compass needle point towards a perpendicularity?
No, a compass needle wouldn't, good question. You might be able to make some other device that could do that, but a compass needle would not naturally point toward one.
On a scale of one to ten, how much terror would a Scadrian feel upon seeing one of Roshar's moons?
It's gonna depend on the individual. I think some will get a sense of immediate dread by having that thing looming over them. That would probably be the consistent feeling. But there's probably people who are just like, "Oh, look at the thing in the sky. That's cool." So, depends on the individual.
Would you consider working with a professional linguist to translate a Cosmere novel into that planet's native equivalent?
Seems like a lot of work for a very few number of people. I can imagine getting, like, a short story. Like one of Hoid's stories, maybe, translated into local. But creating the full conlang is not a thing that most of us do unless there's, like, a strict need for a film. (Dothraki didn't exist as a full conlang until the television show and they started needing to be able to speak it in full sentences.) I imagine that most of my conlangs won't get fully developed until that.
Maybe... I know people love their Klingon Christmas Carol. It is a thing. It's a possibility; it's a thing I could consider. But I think a short story is way more likely.
If koloss are made using five people, spikes, and recycled blue skin as opposed to the traditional breeding method, how can someone be part koloss?
In Era Two, koloss breed true, and are the kind of bluish-purplish-skinned people. (They'll call them koloss-blooded at that point.) And they can interbreed with humans. A full-grown koloss undergrows a ritual that adds the spikes and turns them into Era One style koloss. Allomancer Jak's story kind of gets into this a little bit.
Are mandras gravityspren?
*Very hesitantly* Nooooo? Kind of-- So the actual gravityspren, you're talking about the things Kaladin saw stuck to the wall? Those are not mandras.
Oh no, I was thinking about the ones that appear around dead chasmfiends.
Oh, dead chasmfiends, okay. Yyyes. The arrowheads, yeah.
But you're saying those are not gravityspren, they're--
Well--
--they're mandras?
I am not-- Yeah. I am-- So the things Kaladin saw stuck to the wall are not gravityspren, right? But I want to make sure-- So arrowhead spren, that Shallan is philosophizing, theorizing about, are mandras.
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.
Is there an Awakening Command that could stick a Cognitive Shadow to a corpse?
Yes, but that would be a bad way to do it. You'd need something more.
More Investiture?
Not necessarily. The body at that point died because something happened to it, plus it started decomposing. You'd need to do something to it to really get the Cognitive Shadow to stick.
like a Hemalurgic spike?
That's one way to do it.
Oh! To follow up... because Regrowth is Spiritual... if a Cognitive Shadow was Awakened into a corpse, then healed with Regrowth, would the body be healed to appear like the Cognitive Shadow's body?
No, it would heal... wait, yes, Regrowth would heal based on the Identity of the Cognitive Shadow attached to it.
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?"
Can a kandra eat a dragon? Either in human or just regular dragon form?
They can eat one in human form. Getting the whole thing in dragon form would be a little like that scene in Elden Ring.
Auxuiliary and Nomad, the Knight Radiant Bond is kind of flipped around a bit. Is it possible for Adolin and Maya to something similar happen to them?
There’s something that could happen there. Don’t hold your breath, but possible. I won’t RAFO that; it's possible.
Wit's dated a dragon; has Wit also dated a Shard?
Wit has dated someone who wasn't a Shard at the point, but at some point in the future became a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium.
You've said previously that the Oathgates don't obey Physical Realm speed of light. Do they obey the speed of light in Shadesmar? Or are they tapping into the Spiritual Realm shenanigans?
They're tapping into Spiritual Realm shenanigans. An Elsecaller is capable of creating something that can teleport you faster than the speed of light.
Do dragons in the cosmere have their own magic system? And if so, what can you tell us about it?
You'll get some answers to this very soon because you'll be able to read Dragonsteel Prime. (And some of you have read that. We'll be doing this as a Curiosity, like we did Way of Kings Prime). Dragons act in the cosmere as kind of this... the Primary magic system that they use is something akin to soothing and rioting, but they have followers who pray to them and ask for them to help them with their emotions during difficult times, and the dragons are able to do that across any distance. That's kind of the main thing that they're doing, other than that they can transform between a dragon and a person in shape. There's a little bit more to it, but I'll give you those nuggets.
We've seen on Roshar creatures like chasmfiends evolve to have symbiotic relationships with spren. Are similar things possible between animals and Aethers?
This could happen, yes. The Luhel bond is able to do these sorts of things.
So the Threnodites are described as having a smokey shadow something to their soul; we don't really know what that is. Is it more similar to the black smoke that comes from Awakened objects in Yumi and Nightblood? Or is it more like Midnight Essence in Tress?
It is more like Breath than it is like either one of those. More like Breath, but something's a little wrong with it
What would happen if an Awakener drew color from an emerald and then a Soulcaster tried to Soulcast with it?
That's an excellent question. The color of the gemstone is working as a sort of key to help the Soulcaster and to facilitate this. There are Soulcasters that could do it if it's been drained, but for most of them it's just not gonna work. They're gonna view that too much like a diamond or even quartz and it's just gonna fiddle with the process to the point that it won't work. There are some people who could do it anyway.
What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?
So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?
Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?
You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.
Are there any other dragons on Roshar other than Cultivation?
There have been. There might be some. How about this: you shouldn't be looking for dragons among the characters of the Stormlight Archive.
If Mraize took an atium spike and put it through Hoid's chest and then into himself, would he gain different abilities because of Hoid's altered spiritweb?
Yeah, he probably would. That's really terrifying to think about.
