Yata
To make a spike, do you need to provide some external Investiture?
Brandon Sanderson
To make a spike? There needs to be some, but a person's soul can be enough. You don't need to have outside Investiture.
#51
Recent entries
#51
#52
Brandon Sanderson
Started working on Stormlight Archive 2001; eventually had Way of Kings Prime. And Book Five here has the ending of what I had imagined when I started working on Stormlight Archive. This was the end of the series in the very, very early outlines. Which is why I talk about this being two five-book arcs. As I came back to it later, it was not the actual ending, and as I've plotted the ten books... You'll see why. This is a midpoint.
#53
Brandon Sanderson
For Wind and Truth, I've spent some 20 years working on the ending of this book. And I did something kind of unusual. I have a lot of early readers--test audiences--with my books. Alpha readers, beta readers, gamma readers. This time, we had multiple beta reader groups, as well as alpha reader groups. And I had three different endings to one of the storylines that I gave to different groups to gauge reactions. And I didn't end up using any of them.
#54
Peter Ahlstrom
In the alpha draft of Words of Radiance, at the end Eshonai survived—there was a scene much like the one in Oathbringer where Venli goes to find her body, except it was Thude and Bila who found her, and she was alive. Brandon deleted that scene before it went to the beta read. (One reason was that the end of Words of Radiance already had a character who the audience thought was dead and who turned up alive, in Jasnah. In fact, that scene immediately followed Eshonai's.)
(Rereading the scene just now, it had a great line at the end: “This is what they planned all along, Thude. Our gods. We thought ourselves so brave, so bold. We thought ourselves hidden.“We never were. We were just...just yeast...boxed away to someday leaven the next batch of horrors...”)
In Wind and Truth, nothing like that happened in the drafting. Brandon rewrote scenes in the revisions, but the fate of every character was essentially the same.
#55
Peter Ahlstrom
Molly Weiss [winner of a contest] was tuckerized as Weiss, one of Sigzil's squires. Molli the sheep is not related.
#56
FriendlyNeighborhoodOrca
Did anyone notice we didn't get a Tarah Interlude? I remember Brandon saying he intended to have one of her. Maybe it got cut.
Peter Ahlstrom
Brandon did plan one but never started writing it. There wasn't room.
#57
Worldhopper1990
Hm… I don’t understand why Lift’s Aviar is missing and she suspects it’s been taken when she was put in a cage and it was hurt and scared and needed help, when in RoW in chapter 116, Dalinar tells Kaladin that Lift has started carrying a red chicken around.
So.. either Dalinar was wrong? Lift… forgot magically? The Ghostbloods could have found it later, but then Lift is wrong about the timing, somehow. It could be hiding like Kokerlii can (except it shouldn’t be the same way) and evade detection by the Sibling, but Lift would still be wrong about the timing. Or there’s a continuity error here? Any obvious or potential explanation I’m missing?
Peter Ahlstrom
Yeah, we try to avoid retcons whenever possible, but this one was unavoidable. It's the only line we had to go back to Rhythm of War and change after Wind and Truth was written.
#58
Brandon Sanderson
Re: Cyberpunk Mistborn for /u/GalvusGalvoid. I think this is more likely than not, but I don't want to absolutely promise it until we get further along.
Re: White sand for /u/Wubdor, /u/snoogle20, and others. Also very likely in the next few years, as I'm confident after my review that I can make it work as a solid cosmere book of current quality. However, I did have trouble forcing myself to revise it at speed after such a long, demanding revision process on Stormlight. So I'm not committing to a date yet. I perhaps should have said that.
Re: Brandon needs to be edited more. (/u/mattykingkillah92 mentioned this with a very helpfully constructive tone, and it's an idea I see popping up elsewhere.) I assure you, I'm edited more now than I ever have been--so I don't believe editing isn't the issue some people are having. Tress and Sunlit, for example, were written not long ago, and are both quite tight as a narrative. Both were edited less than Stormlight 5. Writing speed isn't the problem either, as the fastest I've ever been required to write was during the Gathering Storm / Way of Kings era, and those are books that are generally (by comparison) not talked about the same way as (say) Rhythm of War.
The issue is story scope expansion--Stormlight in particular has a LOT going on. I can see some people wishing for the tighter narratives of the first two books, but there are things I can do with this kind of story I couldn't do with those. I like a variety, and this IS the story I want to tell here, despite being capable of doing it other ways. Every scene was one I wanted in the book, and sometimes I like to do different things, for different readers. I got the same complaints about the way I did the Bridge Four individual viewpoints in Oathbringer, for example. There were lots of suggestions I cut them during editorial and early reads, and I refused not because there is no validity to these ideas, but because this was the story I legitimately wanted to tell.
That said, we DID lose Moshe as an editor, largely, and he WAS excellent at line editing in particular. I see a complaint about Wind and Truth having more than average "Show then Tell" moments (which is my term for when you repeat the idea too many times, not for reinforcement, but to write your way into a concept--and do it weakly as you're discovering it, so your subconscious has you do it again a few paragraphs or pages later and do it well, then you forget to cut the first one) and this is something I'll have to look at. Plus, I feel that we have been rushed as a team ever SINCE Gathering Storm. That's a long time to be in semi-crisis mode in getting books ready the last few months before publication. We largely, as a company, do a good job of avoiding crunch time for everyone except a little during the year, depending on the department. (The convention, for example, is going to be stressful for the events time, while Christmas for the shipping team, and I don't know that Peter or I could ever not stress and overwork a little at the lead-up to a book turn in.) However, part of the reason I wanted to slow things down a little is to give everyone a little more time--and hopefully less stress--so I can't completely discount all of these comments out-of-hand, and I do appreciate the conversation.
Re: Someone else buying Mistborn film rights and all materials, as /u/TalnOnBraize suggested, then putting it back into production. This is not impossible, and is one thing I do intend to explore, but it's a long shot. One of the issues with Hollywood tends to be that whenever someone takes over on a project, they throw away everything that came before, because they want to do it their way. This is understandable, to an extent, but it causes HUGE budget inflation. So for this to work, you'd need an executive team AND director who both want to keep the material AS IS and not start over. Tough to find in Hollywood, though it is something I would like to do, if the right partner were willing. I think a lot of the work we did was excellent...though our Vin (still not telling you) is now in her mid 20's, not her late teens, as we spent five years in development. So...yeah, tough, but not impossible, to make work.
Re: Isles of the Emberdark shipping next fall by /u/Regula96. While this was explained during the campaign, let me explain a little further. Normally, from finishing editing to a book being out on shelves, publishing likes to have two years. That's what they did during the early parts of my career for me, but as soon as publishing a Sanderson book made the bottom line go BING, they took every project of mine in the line and pushed it out as soon as they could.
This moved us from two years+ to prepare, to often the final draft being turned in mere months before publication. (Reference earlier in this reply, where I talked about this.) Shadows of Self and Bands were an example of this mentality--I wrote one by surprise, and turned them both in, thinking my team would get a break by me getting ahead for them. Then, Tor published them three months apart, instead of waiting a year between.
Peter, Isaac, and I (who mostly work on this kind of production) have been all together trying to resist this the last...well, decade or so, and are finally making headway. Isles of the Emberdark, for example, has given the editorial team a non-stressful deadline. Still challenging, but workable without a single bit of overtime. That meant that me turning it in this July has it ready early next year sometime to be sent out for printing, which these days can take as long as eight months.
So...we'll see how long it takes to get back to us, and ship as soon as we have them. There could be an argument for an earlier ebook release, but I'd personally rather wait until we have print books soon, so that people who prefer to read in print aren't in danger of being spoiled--and also, so we can manage release schedules better.
Re: Horneater. I didn't mention a publication date in my list at the end of the article, but I'm tentatively guessing summer 2027. My schedule has third draft late 2026, and six months should be plenty to get it ready after that. With that, as a novella, we'd be more likely to push out an ebook and audiobook first, with a print version to follow for those who want it. But it could also end up in one of our crowdfunding campaigns.
fishy512
I’m going to write the rest of my question knowing you understandably can’t directly respond (if at all) given NDA’s (and you have way more experience and inside baseball knowledge than me and most of us on here about the greenlight process)—but given the current state of the movie side of the entertainment industry and how new unadapted IP is actively being stalled and slashed, would an episodic television adaptation of Mistborn be more favorable/realistic to you (and producers) at this point? The large ensemble cast, scope of world building, multiple important story set pieces, etc I just cannot shake the feeling that a 3 hour movie run time would be rushing from point to point trying to cover as much ground as possible while trimming away important story and character moments/development that made Mistborn—well, Mistborn.
Brandon Sanderson
I can tell you that it would be much easier to get a Mistborn television show off the ground than a film. But here's my problem: what television properties, especially on premium cable, have made lasting impact on popular culture? Take a popular and well made show like Shadow and Bone, and compare it to an okay film series like, say, Maze Runner. Do a google trends search on that right now, if you want.
The audience of streamers is so fragmented, and people double-screen so often, that things just don't get traction very often. You can even take something fantastic like arcane, and ask if your grandparents/parents would watch it. My mother would never be interested--but she went to the Lord of the Rings films because they were EVENTS.
Beyond that, budgets there are getting slashed in streaming too. Do we really want to make a Mistborn series on a budget, to just be held up beside other shows getting five times the budget?
It's a tough position. Plus, I think Mistborn is the only one of my my mainline books that could be adapted to a feature.
But this could change for me at any moment. I've given serious thought to it over the years. I will say our plan for what we were doing was hybrid: a giant, big budget, first film followed by a season of television covering the year between books one and two which would include all the cut content from film one that is in the books. Movie two would follow book two, then a season between.
Key actors were signed for both film and television season. But alas, we just could not get the greenlight. We picked the absolutely wrong time to be pitching a big, new, expensive IP to Hollywood. Hopefully, with things looking up this year, it will go better moving forward.
#59
Jofwu
When this came out 2 years ago you noted that you had found a continuity error in the Rhythm of War prologue while working on this one. Any chance you remember what that was, or whether it was retroactively fixed?
Someone did a really cool job stitching all of the prologues together in order and that came to mind...
Brandon Sanderson
It has to do with the very detailed timing of things. Nale, Gavilar, Eshonai, and making certain all the meetings happen in the order that they need to--with time to get between them and to do the things happening off-screen. Karen worked her magic, and did manage to make it all fit without changing any previous books, but it required some additional lines and tweaks to the prologue here in order to give the right indications to the readers who like to track such movements. You SHOULD be able to piece it all together now, if you really want to, but it didn't work in my first stab.
#60
Brandon Sanderson
Wind and Truth Prologue
Some cool comments here, and some great theories. It's fun that, in this case, you can compare an early draft to a finished one--which has come following many rounds of beta reader interaction, along with general shaping of the book.
Here's some thoughts for you, partially in response to what some of you have said in the thread. I decided to mention Vasher by name because of the "Gorilla in a Phone Booth" principle. (Named such by a friend of mine from grad school.) You can hear me talk about it more in my lectures, but here's the idea. Mentioning a phantom, unknown scholar helping Gavilar raises questions that can be distracting. Wait. Who is this? What's going on?
Saying who it is raises questions too, of course, maybe more of them. However, because you have a little context, it helps a lot of readers file the information away to think about later and move on. Sometimes, too much of a mystery can interrupt a scene, and distract from the words on the page--where the right explanations can both leave a mystery, but also leave the reader comfortable moving on for now. I feel this scene benefits from this reveal, rather than leaving it hanging, as there's really no reason to do so--and it both reads better, is more interesting, AND will help readers to have the context to file it away for later consideration.
As for Gavilar himself, one of the things I came across again and again while researching for this book all those years ago was how many of the "Great Men" from history (the conquerors, like Genghis Khan, and Caesar--and even more respected figures like Kamehameha the First and Alexander the Great) had a great deal of blood on their hands. This is obvious, of course, but we often talk about them in such revered terms during history classes--we quote them, and admire them for their accomplishments. But the more you learn about a lot of them, the less you like them, even if your awareness of their prowess increases.
I wanted to simulate this experience in the books. You began, in book one, with a more Kamehameha or Alexander view on Gavilar, but the more you learned about him and the conquest he initiated the more Caesar, then Genghis, then Ivan the Terrible I wanted him to become in your mind. Until, here, that giant reputation had shrunken and withered, and feels wrongly attached to the petty, mistaken man you find here.
He's both of them. He did have grand vision, and managed to do some legitimately great things--but there was more accident involved with his success than people realize, and in the end, I feel that most men who spent their lives struggling and striving only for power were more like he is. Mistaken, petty, and missing much of what they could have had--because they lost their better sight. If they ever had it in the first place.
#61
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Over-arching thing with the Shards of Adonalsium: Brandon told me tonight that he actually has a chart/list thing with all of the books that he's planned in the Shards' universe. His exact words were something about having an arch over thirty-six books involving the Shards of Adonalsium. Which makes me wonder if we're going to get some of the story about Adonalsium. He also said that there were only a few lines in each book to give us clues. Apparently there's something in the HoA, but I didn't notice anything when I read through it. Of course, I wasn't looking for it. He mentioned that there were 36, or possibly 38 (he couldn't remember which) books that would be in this universe. They included all of the mistborn books (all 3 trilogies), all of the Stormlight [Archive], all of Dragonsteel, Elantris, Warbreaker, White Sand, the Other book that I mentioned but can't remember the title of, and others.
#62
Questioner
Did breaking a bond damage a spren before the Recreance? If so, was Ba-Ado-Mishram part of the natural healing process while being, or before becoming, Unmade?
Brandon Sanderson
Breaking a bond before the Recreance was… It hurt, but it was not long-term-damaging hurt. Ba-Ado-Mishram would definitely consider that they could help, but whether they actually could or not is a matter that you can dispute.
#63
Questioner
Shallan has bonded two spren. Is it possible for a spren to bond two people?
Brandon Sanderson
This is theoretically possible.
#64
Questioner
Can you use the Surge of Gravitation to cause time dilation?
Brandon Sanderson
In the right situations, yes. But the truth is, you can get that with multiple different magic systems if you know what you’re doing.
Questioner
Can you enlighten me on those magic systems?
Brandon Sanderson
Any large collection of Investiture can warp space-time.
#65
Questioner
I've been coming since the first Dragonsteel. And there is a man that has come every year that I run into every year, and I've always mentioned - I call him “The Whimsy Guy.” Because for years he went on about how Whimsy was the most terrifying Shard, until you so rudely told him it was not. You said that Whimsy was only dangerous to your sensibility. Something along those lines.
And that got me thinking, because that sounded very Wayne. And you have a very specific trope in a lot of your characters, in every single one of your st- well, maybe not every one, but a lot of your stories. We have Lopen, we have Wayne, we have Lift; we have a lot of these. And we know that Whimsy is just off doing whatever Whimsy does. And we also know multiple Shards can touch the same person, and one Shard touching somebody could actually make them more favorable for another Shard. So, is Whimsy just kind of going off and slightly touching a bunch of different people with the only purpose of pissing off all of the main characters in your stories?
Brandon Sanderson
You think Wayne needs the help of a Shard to piss off the other main characters? So the actual answer is: this is not needed for these characters in order to act like they are. Wayne needed no help.
#66
Questioner
Does everyone have Breath, or just people on Nalthis?
Brandon Sanderson
That is an excellent question. Everyone doesn't have Breath. People on Nalthis have an extra bit of Investiture given to them that forms the Breath. When the Breath leaves, it takes a little bit extra with it also. A Drab? An average person going to Nalthis isn't quite a Drab, but they would be considered a Drab by them. A Drab has lost something a little extra.
#67
Questioner
Who is Hoid telling Tress's story to?
Brandon Sanderson
Well, who do you think Hoid is telling Tress's story to?
Questioner
I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.
Brandon Sanderson
I think fandom’s figured this out, and I'm not going to answer this one. I'm going to give you a RAFO card. Ask around. I left the clues very deliberately, and this is the sort of thing I don't like to answer, because the clues are there. It is a world you have seen before in the cosmere. Both of those books that he told are being told specifically to an audience in the cosmere.
#68
Questioner
Giant robots are cool. Is there any possibility that we might get to see proper giant robots at some point in the cosmere?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. There is definitely a possibility.
#69
Questioner
In Aether of Night, two different aethers sort of combine and powers one of them up. Is this something that could happen in canon? And if so, could any two aethers be combined in some sort of way?
Brandon Sanderson
In canon, there are ways this could happen, but I'm gonna RAFO everything else to leave it for maybe eventual exploration. But that is possible, yeah.
#70
Questioner
If a kandra ate the bones of a child, could they eat other bones and grow up as that person?
Brandon Sanderson
They could, but they wouldn't actually be the person. So, you could imagine a kandra doing that. It would probably not be psychologically good for anyone involved. But that's totally within the realm of what a kandra might do. In fact, there's probably kandra who have done that.
Questioner
Is one of them Shallan?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
#71
Questioner
When Kaladin is younger in the first book, he talks about wanting to go see two cities: the City of Storms and the City of Shadows. Those have never been mentioned after that. Do they exist?
Brandon Sanderson
Rall Elorim is the City of Shadows. Those who know your really deep cuts: Book 4 was going to take place there, and it just did not work in the outline. But the original outline... that line was there because someday he was going to go see that.
The City of Storms. I'll leave it to fandom to work out what's going on with that one.
Rall Elorim, we did take the story that I was… because most of Rhythm of War stayed the same. It was just gonna be there instead. You will find some references to it in the RPG. We repurposed my worldbuilding there, and we are going to let you have some fun there in the RPG.
#72
AAKS
Would anti-Stormlight be harmful to any of the Dawnshards?
Brandon Sanderson
Dawnshards would be more dangerous to the anti-Stormlight than the anti-Stormlight would be to the Dawnshards.
#73
Questioner
If we were to get a POV from a new character in Stormlight that we haven't seen a POV from, who would it be that would change our perspective on the series or what's going on the most?
Brandon Sanderson
I was gonna say Taln, but you have actually had a brief viewpoint from Taln. You have had... There's a lot of people that know a lot. Let's say that if you had a viewpoint from, say, Tanavast, it would probably change your perspective on things quite a bit. That would probably be a good one.
#74
Questioner
My question is relating to the color of gemstones. In your Ars Arcanum, you always need one color per gemstone for all the different magics. But different gemstones can be different colors, and they give off different wavelengths.
Brandon Sanderson
They do, and in fact rubies and sapphires are basically the same thing. On Roshar, the color is very relevant to certain applications of small permutations of the magic. And so, because of that, they will define, for instance, a blue topaz and a brown topaz as different gemstones, when we would not on Earth. So color is really - it's not going to influence some things, but it does influence others, kind of some minor applications. The answer is, the chemical property is less important than the color as it applies to that magic.
Questioner
My question actually was the wavelength of the color. Because Navani did so much magic, and the wavelength and the sound affects things.
Brandon Sanderson
Yep, wavelength is important. It's going to be a bit of a... I want to say a spectrum, but wavelength…there's gonna be a range that would be workable, if that makes sense.
Questioner
So it would also affect how fabrials are going to-
Brandon Sanderson
It’s going to affect fabrials, it’s going to affect some applications of Soulcasting, and some things like this.
#75
Questioner
If you encase a gemstone in aluminum, will that prevent, or only greatly reduce, the speed of Stormlight leakage?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, the Stormlight will still leak out of the gemstone. Assume that you’re like, creating a perfect shell for it. The Stormlight is still eventually just gonna make its way into the Spiritual Realm. The aluminum can't act as a Stormlight containment, necessarily, unless the Stormlight is persistent enough that it's not just evaporating into the Spiritual Realm. So, for instance, you could use some sort of device like this to encase a sapient spren who is already locked into the Physical Realm. But Stormlight’s just eventually gonna evaporate due to Stormlight evaporation, which is changing realms. The aluminum's not going to stop that.
#76
Questioner
Are there any naturally occurring instances of steelpushing or ironpulling fields on Scadrial?
Brandon Sanderson
Natural instances, Scadrial. Uhm… RAFO. This is a… yeah, RAFO.
#77
Questioner
Has Weatherlove, the god of storms, or any other Returned of the Court of Gods visited Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
The answer is no. Except asterisk, there is one. Very obvious one.
Questioner
But not currently serving at the time of Warbreaker?
Brandon Sanderson
Not currently serving. No one that is serving in the Court of Gods has made their way to Roshar.
We’ll say “as of the timeline on Stormlight Archive.” I can't promise for the future era, because there’s a bunch I haven’t written there yet.
#78
Questioner
In Lost Metal, when they're testing the trellium. And they notice that the spectral response is flat-lined, with some really weird effects in the red. And they also note that Harmonium had the same spectral output. Is that because when you have an impulse in the time domain, that's a flat line in the frequency domain? And if so, is there also a phase shift between them to know which Shard you're looking at?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, that should all - yeah, I believe you're correct in all of that.
#79
Questioner
On Canticle, the rings around the planet are blue and gold and they're non-equatorial, which are both noted in the text. Is there something about the rings (the color or non-equatorialness) that points to either who made it or the purpose of it?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, but it's a pretty tenuous and vague one. But there's a yes in there.
#80
Questioner
I love larkins, and I want to understand more about how they work. And so I was wondering, can they consume all types of Investiture? And what do they do with the Investiture that they consume?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, they can consume all kinds of Investiture. And they use this for growth. Basically, they store it away, and they are waiting for a time where they will go pupate, and they will come out bigger. And then bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger. Their growth is not linear, and this is one of the ways that we're justifying - that I'm justifying for myself - how we're getting to some of the size of the various greatshells that exist on Roshar. So you'll find that getting to that state either requires long periods of time (which some of them just take a long, long, long, like, centuries), and some of the species, they use Investiture. Chasmfiends use Investiture in order to get to the size that they get to. And larkins do the same.
Before you ask, chasmfiends cannot eat Investiture the way larkins do. They get it a different way.
#81
Questioner
You’ve mentioned in Scadrial, the future, there’s gonna be Sleepless. Have we seen any Sleepless so far? And if so, is Sir Squeekins, the rat that Wayne traded to Hoid, a Sleepless?
Brandon Sanderson
I'm going to RAFO that for you. (It's mostly a for-fun RAFO, don't read too much into that one.) But you have seen Sleepless around, yes.
#82
Questioner
I have a question about chasmfiends. Are they the kind of animal that mates for life and has really strong social structures? Or are they very territorial, and they hate each other?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO, but with a promise there's a little bit in Wind and Truth for you. Ask me later - Wind and Truth’s not gonna answer everything, but there's some in there that'll lead you to theorizing in the right way.
#83
Questioner
What would happen if a Herald fell into a black hole?
Brandon Sanderson
Investiture is going to respond to a black hole, maybe not in exactly the same way as light and matter, but in a similar way. It's going to crush them, pull them in, hold them. Their soul will probably still be… there’ll be some cognitive remnant in the Cognitive Realm, depending on how the black hole is manifesting there, which we haven't gotten into yet. So, what would happen? Let's quote Halle Berry from X-Men: “What happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? Same as everything else.” Basically, the same thing that happens to everything else. The question is, would their immortality remain? Yes, asterisk.
#84
Questioner
I was wondering if Shallan has any familial connection to Chanarach?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
#85
Questioner
Could someone burning bronze detect a non-Metalborn’s Investiture? Like how much Breath someone has, or that someone is a Surgebinder?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, but you need that Investiture to be kinetic. This is the term that I use for “it's actually being used.” Really hard for somebody who can sense Investiture to just tell it's sitting in an object. And I did this quite intentionally, because there are too many plot points where something is Invested and you don't know. It's just too overstepping of a power. So when you use Investiture, it creates these pulses; and these pulses are what's being sent. Basically, in the same way that, you know, we can only see light with the photons are bouncing around against our retinas and things. Those who can sense Investiture need to have something hitting them to be able to tell where it is. And usually that means it has to be in active use. You'll see in Stormlight, in Oathbringer you see spren who can do the same thing; but it only works for certain magics at certain points. And that should lead you to some understanding of how this works.
#86
Questioner
Is there any relationship between the Lift’s ability to eat food and create Stormlight [Lifelight] and Scadrians’ ability to eat metal and burn it?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
#87
Questioner
We know that Taln has amazing willpower. So it’s kind of a two-parter. What Herald had the weakest willpower that allowed the Desolations to become so short? And what is the difference between that Herald and Taln that allowed them to have…?
Brandon Sanderson
I'm gonna RAFO this because I am gonna delve into some of these things in upcoming books, so you get a RAFO card also. But the idea is: let's focus more on how awesome Taln is and less on how… right? I would say all of the Heralds really tried. And the whole way the system was set up was designed to break them. Not by intent, but I think focusing on who broke the most is maybe the wrong way to look at it, rather than holding up and saying: “Wow, why did this guy not?” And he's got a book coming up in the back half where we'll find out a lot about him.
#88
Questioner
Are the Rhythms recorded somewhere?
Brandon Sanderson
For the singers? No, they are not. They’re in my wiki as text, and as I have said before, I’m gonna let an (eventually) person who makes films figure out how to film that.
#89
Questioner
For the Dawnshard “Change.” Did that have any interaction with the Nahel Bond coming to fruition?
Brandon Sanderson
I mean, “any…” It gives me a lot of wiggle room, but the real answer to you is “no.” That's moving in the wrong direction of theorizing. So good question, but no.
#90
msyverw
So we see a lot in the cosmere about how different magic systems interact and have these resonances. Is it possible for magic systems from different planets, such as Surgebinding and Allomancy or Feruchemy, to have the same kind of resonances?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, yeah, that's totally possible. The purpose of these resonances is to, number one: give me some fun things I can do. But really, number two: it's just like if you're imagining these things, like... I don't know, something on the electromagnetic spectrum, right? When they hit they're gonna interfere and/or they're going to change one another. And I think the magic systems are doing things like that, and I like to play with that idea. So the answer is yes.
#91
Questioner
You mentioned earlier about Investiture with spren and concepts. You mentioned there's only a certain amount that there could be. Is it possible for a concept to not be popular enough, where that concept could die, those spren could die? Or would they change?
Brandon Sanderson
They would change over time. Which some of them would call death, be aware. When you are essentially an immortal piece of something that's become self-aware, it would be very traumatic. And an individual that's obtained sapience-level intelligence is going to resist that to the point that it would have to be something devastating on a catastrophic level to actually do it to them. They would call that death. Lesser spren wouldn’t call it death; they would just be changing over time. Any more than an atom becoming part of a new compound is gonna think that it died.
#92
Questioner
One of my favorite books is Warbreaker, and it’s been eating me for years what’s going on with Vivenna and Vasher. Are we going to get some kind of sequel soon, or is that going to be explained in any upcoming books?
Brandon Sanderson
When The Wheel of Time came along, there was a certain path my career, I thought, was taking. And there are certain things I began that got changed. And so, I learned very quickly to stop promising sequels to things when I can't see the future. But I promised to finish the Alcatraz series, the Legion series, The Rithmatist, Warbreaker, and Elantris. I have finished Alcatraz and Legion. And I'm doing Elantris next. Warbreaker and Rithmatist will come. But I feel like Elantris just fits better right now. It is something I am going to do. Assuming I live long enough, which shouldn't be… as long as I'm making it to the end of The Stormlight Archive, by that time you should have it. I can't promise it soon. Because I sat down, I'm like, “All right, what am I doing next?” And the Elantris sequels fit so much better into the framework of what I'm doing, that it felt like I should do those.
#93
Questioner
Regarding Sarene’s father and the rift between him and his brother Kiin. You touched on it but never really expanded on it. So I wanted to know if you could fill us in on that. And then also, kind of curious as to who you think is in the right?
Brandon Sanderson
Well, it's one of these complicated things, right? Because Kiin tried to seize the throne. He thought he was in the right; I think he was in the wrong, personally. But it is closer a decision… Like, he had more justification than Sarene’s father thinks he did. Imagine disagreements between brothers that grow to the point that kingdoms are involved, and you will get there. It's a very normal sort of thing that happens to families. Except these people had access to armies.
#94
Questioner
Could a sufficiently advanced Skybreaker or Dustbringer use the Division Surge to forcibly split the Nahel bond?
Brandon Sanderson
So what you're talking about is something in the cosmere that's called microkinesis. It is a possible manifestation of base cosmere surges, and it is about as dangerous as you imagine. A sufficiently trained and invested Skybreaker or Dustbringer probably could do it. It has been done, but not by them during...
So yes, fission and fusion are part of the magic systems. They call it “microkinesis,” but yeah. So you can read about that in Dragonsteel Prime. It’s in there. But they are the same Surge.
#95
Questioner
What adjective would you use for describing something in or of the cosmere? Would you say “cosmerian”?
Brandon Sanderson
I used “cosmereological” earlier, kind of in a scientific term. Cosmereological… it's a mouthful, though, so maybe the fandom will come up with better things, and I'll start using that. I believe you guys came up with “worldhopper,” right? I believe that was a fandom term that I just eventually started adopting. So, sometimes you come up with better terms than me. I use “cosmereological” right now.
#96
Questioner
Why is Awakening a recent development on Nalthis?
Brandon Sanderson
There's a bunch of reasons for this. It's not necessarilyas … Define "recent" by how people are using them, and things like that. There's a whole bunch of reasons for this
I think I’m gonna RAFO because I just realized I was gonna stumble over something that I plan to talk about. But anyway, I’m gonna RAFO. With a “hopefully I will get it to you later.”
#97
Questioner
Can a Scadrial Shard see what's on a computer screen?
Brandon Sanderson
It depends on the computer screen, but in general, yes. But it depends on how the computer screen is being...
Questioner
If so, can a Shard - Ruin - change the words on a screen? Or would that be impossible, because technically they're written on metal?
Brandon Sanderson
It's gonna be a lot harder to do that than what Ruin was able to do in the past. Basically, humans being involved between point A and point B is the failure point in a lot of cases with what Ruin was doing and changing and whatnot. If a human is typing it? Much easier to get that change. But between, say, RAM and screen or whatever like that; much harder. Not impossible, but way hard. Okay? I'm going to give you kind of a tacit “assume it's not happening.”
Questioner
Could an Allomancer, such as a Coinshot, somehow modify/change whatever data and programming in a computer level at a firmware level? Since Intent and Investiture does weird things.
Brandon Sanderson
So they can destroy it pretty easily. That does technically mean it changed. So yes, but by destroying it.
#98
Questioner
Quick question about the Unmade. Specifically, their names and the number of them. Is there a specific relation between that and the Heralds? Or the number of Desolations?
Brandon Sanderson
The number of Desolations and things anywhere you've seen in the text is mythologized. The number of Desolations - and a lot of these numbers from history - I'm treating kind of like the 40 years of wandering in the Bible, where 40 becomes a theme that is used to represent suffering, rather than an actual 40 years. And the number of Desolations is the same way. Any number you've seen in the text is actually wrong. They don't have the records to say how many there were, but they think that now that it has been mythologized
The number of Unmade is nine. There are only nine of them. And that is a cosmereologically relevant number.
#99
Questioner
I was curious if there was a broad reason why Sel magic systems are more location-based, or Scadrial you can move around a lot?
Brandon Sanderson
So, Sel is the big oddity; there's a few other instances like this, but Sel is highly warped by the way that the power of the two Shards that were destroyed on Sel. What happened with them distorted it a ton and messed everything up. And the system has been self-corrected in order to make certain things function. You shouldn't expect what's on Sel to be the standard, though it is not the only one like that.
#100
Questioner
Space age question for you. Generational ships. What would it take for something like that to emerge in the Cognitive Realm? And would it look like its planet of origin?
Brandon Sanderson
A generational ship just manifesting on its own? Not terribly likely. There are specific circumstances you could come up with.. And you're asking, "What would it take?"
For instance, let's say there is a planetwide catastrophe. And everybody's aware it's coming for hundreds of years and focusing on a story told about some sort of ark that might save them. And that they are all believing this is a thing that did exist or could exist. Over time, if there were the right Investiture on the Cognitive Realm, you could see something like that manifest. But I don't know if it would actually work, if it would take them off world or if it would just be echoes of that represented. You'd be much more likely to find some spren-like entity that thinks of themselves of the crew of said ancient ship than the ship itself.
You'd have to have very specific circumstances, and I don't even know if it necessarily would work.