Ok. Um… did Taravangian arrange for his granddaughter to be trapped, so he could see Jasnah soulcasting?
Um he used an opportunity, that he could've gotten to through… in a multitude of ways, in order to… check on some things. But it is his granddaughter and she really was in danger.
Yep, he really did seem concerned.
Yes.
Will we learn more about the corrupt lighteyes in Kaladin's past? Katarotam? *silence* Will we learn more, just yes or no is fine.
Ehh... Yes. In general, yeah.
Chapter 4 Kaladin noted a legger with a deep purple carapace near Tvlakv's wagon. Would that be a suspicious legger?
That's a suspicious legger! (Later definitely confirmed it to be Aimian)
When you say that the Returned are Cognitive Shadows, are they shadows of the people they were pre-death? In other words, is Lightsong Llarimar's Cognitive Shadow stapled to his body with a Divine Breath?
Yes, they are. (The evidence in the books is Lightsong obtaining some of the memories his pre-death soul had.)
In Shadows of Self, I was wondering if there was a reason that Wayne wanted to ride with Hoid on the exterior of the carriage.
He just thought it would be fun, and he likes Hoid, but he doesn't know who he is.
Soulburner
Random space opera thing I worked on for a while.
Status: No movement.
Death by Pizza
Pizza delivery man becomes a necromancer. On my perpetual list of things to do—but no movement.
Status: No movement.
I'm curious about the sun because it's described as white, and our sun is typically yellow. I assume it's a different type of star?
The yellowing of our sun is not actually caused...so our sun being yellow is not based on the star's actual color.
So is it bigger than our sun? Smaller? If there's anything you want to throw out there I'll take it.
Okay...I'm having to reach into my memory. This is not canon. Younger and larger, I believe it is both. Younger and larger.
The star's age, at Roshar...Earth astronomers would say that is a star which could not have planets with life on them.
There are games, comic books and films had been made or are being made based on your novels. How do you coordinate work so there are no, lets say, errors in it and tell something about <that experience>
Coordinating to make sure there are no errors: I wish that Hollywood would let us do that! Mostly they kinda do what they want to do and then send us what they've come up with. I am working with one company right now that seems like that they are willing to listen a little bit better.
<Throughout> other things that hasn't been particularly difficult. <For> the RPG, I am a gamer, I love RPG and so it's very easy to work with them. In fact where it came from is they came to one of my signings and said "Do you want to make an RPG?" and I'm like "Yeah, I want to make an RPG!". So we had some brainstorming sessions where I told them my favorite styles of game and they built rules that they've thought to match Mistborn and kinds of things I wanted.
We'll see what happens with the movies. They are in development and they're very early in the process.
1)Flashback characters for books 4 and 5 are Eshonai and Szeth.In previous books "main" character got a role in all five parts of the book.Will it be the same for these two?Szeth and Eshonai are important, but had very little "screen time" so far.So, in their books will they get a huge role in main narrative?Or will they have flashback sequence only, but main narrative will still focus on our three main heroes(Kaladin,Dalinar,Shallan)?
2)How you deal with multiple POV's?Their amount increase with each book, which means less "screen time" for each character.I know, in series with such big cast, it's very hard to keep balance.What is your possible solution for this problem?Just don't say, you will kill some characters to free space for new ones :D George Martin style.
3)
4)Is it possible, that main characters from first five will show up in last five books?
1) Having not read those books, I can't say 100%--but the original plan was to do it this way, and Book Three continues the trend. Shallan/Dalinar/Kaladin will continue to be very important, but I might pull back on side characters. We'll see.
2) This is the biggest challenge in writing epic fantasy. For me, I divided the series into two halfs (books 1-5 and books 6-10) with a focus on some characters for the first half, some for the second. But also, I do plan for certain characters to step back a little in other books. It's a balance I'm still juggling.
3)
4) Yes, many of them will--and will still be important.
Interesting.So you consider Szeth and Eshonai as supporting characters now?And characters like Rysn, Zahel(I heard, he's a character from your other book, but I haven't read it yet), and Taravangian...can they be considered side characters too, with supposed bigger role in the future? Have you chosen a flashback character for Book 4 yet?(Eshonai or Szeth?)
I hope, you plan a distinct ending for first part of SA(books 1-5) with conclusions of the story arcs of all main heroes, instead of cliffhanger ending:)Did you have an ounline for all five books(major plot turn, destinies for all characters) when you started the series, or you deciding in the process?
"I do plan for certain characters to step back a little in other books." You mean situations like Shallan being absent from two parts in Way of Kings?And Dalinar in WoR.
These are all things that will be clear as I write further. If I say too much, it will give spoilers.
What’s your favourite kind of music?
I would say… at the end of the day… epic orchestra. But I will listen to basically anything. If you look on Spotify I have this playlist that I used when I wrote the third Stormlight book and you can listen to that, it'll show you a lot of my favorites.
*Inaudible*
Yeah, I'm "mistborn1", I think? If you google, if you search for Stormlight 3 soundtrack, you'll find it.
On all the cosmere worlds, it seem as if-- do all the humans have what you call innate Investiture?
Let's see...
*thinks*
I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.
Because when they don't have Breath anymore, they would get Drabs, and those don't have innate Investiture?
They don't have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them. And they do have it on Roshar.
Which Shard is that?
You'll have to read and find out. *gives card*
So yes, I don't think you've seen any worlds where they don't.
If Wax bonded with an Honorspren and got to the Second Oath, would he be able to use his Twinborn powers in conjunction with Windrunner powers? Or would they draw from the same "pool of Investiture"?
He could use them, but I do warn that I don't want to dive far into questions about mixing the magics. That sort of thing is years off in the Cosmere.
It says that it's dangerous to travel to Shadesmar on Sel. Why?
It has to do with the Dor and the lack of an entity controlling much of the power Odium left in his wake on Sel.
Woah, that's interesting. I had no idea Odium left little bits of his power on Sel... I guess it kinda makes sense for evil monks to be powered by pure hate, though.
Odium did not leave his power behind, one should note. He left several other powers which are now, to a large extent, mindless...
If you wouldn't mind answering, does Roshar have a similar problem, with Honor being Splintered?
No, Roshar does not have the same problem. There are some differences going on. One reason being that the spren are far more extensive on Roshar, and provide something of a "release valve." The seons and the skaze on Sel are not numerous enough to fulfill a similar function. Though, of course, that's only one part of the puzzle. Raw power is dangerous.
It's one reason everyone should be thankful Kelsier was around on Scadrial.
I've been listening to the Graphic Audio The Hero of Ages and just got to the point where Vin meets with Slowswift. While the meeting itself revealed nothing knew, the events after it made me wonder about something. When Vin leaves Slowswift, she burns her bronze to check whether the informant is an Allomancer, and then heads off to meet with Hoid - where, of course, something makes her turn away. Was she still burning bronze at that time? Was Hoid maybe manipulating Investiture in a way unfamiliar to Vin, so her bronze alerted her of something, but because it was such a foreign experience to her, she didn't recognize it for what it was?
I have to RAFO this one. It's been hard not to spill the beans here, as it's such a small thing, but it has important ramifications. You will have an answer eventually, I promise.
I've always wondered, how do you determine where the line between "Word of Brandon" and "Read and Find Out" is? Has it ever caused issues where you've said something, but later that thing changed when it went into a book making your first statement now false?
Thanks so much for writing as much as you do, I'm looking forward to all your upcoming books, keep up the great work!
Boy, this one is an art, not a science.
I've several times said something that I later decided to change in a book. I've always got this idea in the back of my head that the books are canon, and things I say at signing aren't 100% canon. This is part because of a habit I have of falling back on things I decided years ago, then revised in notes after I realized they didn't work. My off-the-cuff instinct is still to go with what I had in my head for years, even when it's no longer canon.
An example of this are Shardblades. In the first draft of TWoK in 2002, I had the mechanics of the weapons work in a specific way. (If you wanted to steal one from someone, you knock off the bonding gemstone, and it breaks the bond.) I later decided it was more dramatic if you couldn't steal a Shardblade that way--you had to kill the person or force them to relinquish the bond. It worked far better.
But in Oathbringer, Peter had to remind me of that change, as I just kind of nonchalantly wrote into a scene a comment about knocking off a gemstone to steal a Shardblade. These things leak back in, as you might expect for a series I've been working on for some twenty years now--with lore being revised all along.
So...short answer...yes, I've contradicted myself a number of times. I try very, very hard to let the books be the canon however. So you can default to them.
As for what I answer and what I RAFO...it depends on how much I want to reveal at the moment, if I'm trying to preserve specific surprises, or if I just want people to focus on other things at the moment. Like I said, art and not science.
In WoR, Navani muses to Dalinar about how the gemstones in the Blades could be the focus that allows the bond with the Blade to exist. If this theory is correct, it would follow that someone could damage that gemstone and thus be able to steal the Blade with it then having no intact bonding mechanism, right?
I guess I'm having trouble seeing how the example you describe isn't possible.
The gemstone is needed to create the bond and operate the bond's functions. If you remove the gemstone, the person the sword is bonded to can't summon it or dismiss it to mist. But neither can anyone else. If they eventually pop another gemstone in and try to bond it themselves, they will fail, and the original person can then resummon their Blade. The bond is with the dead spren of the Blade, not with the gemstone. The stone facilitates the bond.
So, you can haul around a de-gemstoned Blade with you all the time and successfully steal it that way. But this makes it very easy to steal back. You'd have to kill the holder of the bond in order to rebond it. Which is no different from usual.
And in general, if you can get close enough to a Shardbearer to steal their Blade, you are also close enough to kill them anyway.
So that scene where Dalinar crushes the gemstone and hands the Shardblade over, he's also doing some sort of mystical de-bonding?
Or is it just 'if you WANT to give it up, you gave it up'?
Yes, if you want to give it up, you gave it up.
If nobody is currently bonded to it, does the attuning still take a week?
Otherwise it seems weird people would figure out putting a gemstone in hilt lets you summon it, since nothing would happen without a week of bonding time.
Not that weird. One of the books (WoK, I think) mentions that many years passed before the gemstone bonding was discovered. Shardblades were still really valuable, though, and even more vulnerable to theft, so it makes sense that people would have kept them close at hand long enough for the bonding process.
Other than that, all you need is someone to accidentally decorate the blade correctly, which is something that took a long time to happen, but was probably bound to happen eventually considering how key infused gemstones are to the world.
Well said.
Are Kaladin's parents still alive, and if so, are they actually mad at him?
Yes, they are still alive. RAFO.
Is Hoid a Herald, or a Shareholder, or something else entirely?
Hoid is something else entirely.
Was the letter posted on the top of chapters to Sazed?
It is written to a character who exists outside of Roshar. I won't yet say who.
Do dead parshmen turn into Chasmfieds?
No.
What is the dark-glowing sphere?
Major big RAFO.
What did Szeth do to become a Truthless, and is there anything else involved in being a Truthless that we haven't seen?
Szeth was perceived as betraying his people in a fundamental way, and you will learn more about that when his book comes along.
Would it be possible for a Herald to make a spren bond?
RAFO
You suggested Secret History gave the definitive explanation why Vin didn't meet Hoid but many years ago you hinted at something different (that something he does spooked her and she is too observant for her own good). Can you reveal what the original reason you had intended was? (My favorite theories were eerily skillful humming and her picking up very faint pulses from his Investiture usage.)
I went back and forth on this one, honestly. I knew Kelsier would be involved, but one thing I was really worried about with Secret History was undermining Vin's story or her agency. While I liked Ender's Shadow, the closest parallel I knew of to a story like this, I didn't like how it weakened a lot of what Ender accomplished and gave it to Bean instead. (I think I've mentioned this in conjunction with Secret History before.)
So I wanted something to have stopped Vin, regardless of whether or not I ever wrote Kelsier's behind-the-scenes story or not. The official answer in my head is not that it was anything specific, but that the whole package that Hoid was presenting was WRONG to her. Her instincts picked up a dozen subtle cues that he was more dangerous than he seemed, and that made her freeze and assess. And that gave Kelsier the chance to nudge her away.
I wasn't trying to lead people to figure out a specific answer, with those comments. I was trying to hint that something was wrong, and Vin didn't quite know what set her off--because it wasn't one thing, but many. So I don't have a smoking gun, so to speak, of things Hoid was doing to drive her off.
So, in Edgedancer, there's a spot where they're going through all the weird things going on in the city, and they're talking about some spren that only shows up if she dumps water out. Is that significant, or is that a crazy person? ...The spren that shows up every morning if she leaves water out?
Yes, that is true.
Okay, she's is not crazy?
She's not-- Okay.
Are the spren intelligent?
Sapient spren, no. But she may have the cause and effect mixed up. She may not have the cause and effect correct. She might have correlation and causation mixed up.
...On the subject of change, the Tenth Name of the Almighty, Elithanathile, He Who Transforms. Is this related to the fact that Akinah is divided into ten parts, and the things you find there?
Uh, yes... Are these things all related to the concept of change and why things are divided into ten parts in The Stormlight Archive, and the answer was "Yes, these are all very much interconnected."
Are you involved with translators?
I usually am. Peter does a lot more of it than I do. But we like to be very in touch. We try to be very involved...
Why does Marasi's memory of the voice of "Death" or Marsh, change? From Alloy of Law to Bands of Mourning chapter 15?
This is a thing that drives Peter crazy. My research tells me that people change memories based on expectations and environment.
On occasion, you'll see me having characters miss-quote themselves, or remember events clearly wrong. I do this for realism.
(Though on occasion, it's just a mistake or lapse on my part. Those we fix. The rest drive my editors crazy.)
Hey, speaking of art. Was the mathematical inspiration behind Roshar's map your idea, or Brandon's?
Brandon's.
Ah, that might be a bummer. I was hoping to figure out the exact formula used to generate it so I can do some animation stuff.
Sorry...I'm afraid I don't know the formula....
17th Shard user Treamayne made an interesting observation re: Surge glyphs - Can you comment? :3
No comment yet on this specifically, tho I'll respond to something in that thread regarding names and "screw yous" within glyphs.
Readers are trying to pronounce glyphs by reading them. Glyphs aren't read. They're memorized. Sounds might be found in glyphs.
Glyphs have evolved from the early days. Just like the Chinese character for "tree" doesn't look like a tree anymore.
Alethi glyphs are recognized by overall shape, not by the shapes/sounds that might be found within.
For example, the Bridge 4 glyph is still recognizable even if the component shapes are changed.
Hope this helps!
So let's see if I got it. The "kholin" glyphpair could, given enough time, no longer look like "khokh" & "linil"...
... but still be recognizable as "kholin" due to its overall shape?
That is correct. More ancient glyphs will have slowly morphed away from the original sounds found inside.
Is "dragon's nest" a Nalthis to English translation or are dragons part of their culture? Is Edgli a dragon?
I don't know the answer to that.
Dragons are mythological on Nalthis, but there is a reason that the stories exist. It's not a translation quirk.
Did Shai have to Forge a soul for Ashravan's body because his actual soul had gone to the Great Beyond?
Rafo! :)
So was Adonalsium a divine being or a pure force/essence of creation?
RAFO
Is Dalanar just Seeing visions or is he visiting/interacting in the past a-la Quantum Leap?
They are essentially visions. They don't change the past or create alternate timelines or anything like that.
Excuse me, the E of Edgli is pronounced like E of Echo, or E of Egypt? Or else?
Echo
How did you come up with the cool names in Mistborn? Did they just come to you or did you twist already existing names?
A mixture of both. The thieving crew names came from getting into Kelsier's head, and letting him name people.
Good to see annotations again! Would love to see Stormlight ones, though I imagine the time sink would be a bit too much!
I tried doing them for TWOK, and yes, they were just draining too much writing time. :(
Did Korean inspire the combination of glyphs to create writing for men like in Amaram's study?
Yes, a little. Korean was a bigger inspiration for Aonic (in Elantris) though.
Re-reading Way of Kings. Thanks for the epic ride! Can you share something about my fav Renarin?
In the original draft of The Way of Kings from 2002, Renarin created the Diagram.
Is Steris intended to be on the autistic spectrum? She reminds me of my brother.
Sorry for the late reply, but yes. She is.
With your magic systems, do you plan it ahead or do you develop it with your first drafts?
A little of both. In some cases, it's more front loaded, but there is always tweaking during the drafting process.
I'm still reeling from the amount of cosmere material we got in Bands!
The Mistborn books in particular will slowly skew more and more cosmere-oriented over time.
I've read and reread Calamity looking for clues but I can't figure out what Mizzy's powers are! Why did you not reveal them?
I wanted to be vague because I need to have freedom to tweak them when I write a follow-up.
I have plans, but can't lock myself in too much until the outline for Mizzy's book is done.
Is there a relationship between the power of [iron] Ferrings and the power of Windrunners?
Like what?
Just curious. Sazed says that filling his [ironmind] affects the pull of gravity on his body and Windrunners are similar...?
An [iron] Ferring is basically changing weight. It's not the same as lashing.
Can Forgery be used to rewrite a person's Spiritweb?
That's basically what Forgery always does.
Are Mistings exposed to the "burning bad alloy or wrong metal" problem (hurting them), like Mistborn are?
Good question. I don't know if they can even sense an off alloy of their metal.
Chronology question: Coppermind says White Sand probably after Elantris. I thought considerably earlier. Anything canon yet?
Not yet, but I suspect it's after Elantris.
I thought Kaladin was dark skinned.
Most of the Alethi are darker skinned, and would not look Caucasian to us. But most cover artists (and readers) miss this fact.
It's not something I've been clear enough about to publishers when they commission art. My bad, not theirs.
Can the 16 Shards be mapped onto the chart of Allomantic metals? i.e. does each Shard have a corresponding Allomantic metal?
The Shards were first. The metals are in a way a...further division on an established pattern.
About 1/3 through [The Bands of Mourning] I see Hoid is up to his old tricks again. And how can he "technically" own Seran?
I'll hopefully get around to explaining that some day...
