If Teft, Dalinar, and Zahel were to play a game of Mario Kart, how would they place?
Zahel cheats. And Zahel wins. Teft lets Dalinar win because a good sergeant knows when an officer needs an ego boost. So that’s our ranking.
Can Lift eat metal and somehow produce Stormlight?
RAFO, good question.
Memory is tied to some level or portion of Spiritual Identity, or else Feruchemists would not be able to store it. So, Hoid lost memories at the end of Rhythm of War in his exchange with Odium. Would that mean part of his soul was stolen and then absorbed into Odium, and if so, what is stopping Odium from doing that with all of his enemies?
Basically, what Odium split off is stuff that Hoid is storing in excess Investiture. (Basically, it was Breaths, in Hoid’s case.) And this sort of thing, where this extra memory… One of the reasons that Hoid is able to function better than, perhaps, some other very long-lived individuals is: he has found out how to keep some of this Identity in, shall we say, SD cards made of Investiture. Imagine that sort of thing. So what Odium was stealing from Hoid was straight out of an SD card. Which means that it’s not nearly as deeply ripping into someone’s soul, and it is also not nearly as noticeable.
But the other thing is: Hoid is directly in violation of certain agreements that have been made, which therefore exposes him to… He is lacking protections. As you’ll notice in the end of Book Three, where he’s like, “I need to be careful, because I am in violation.”
And so, there’s a couple things going on here. Number one, much more easy to access those memories. Number two, Hoid’s in direct violation and under no protections of any sorts of agreements and things like this.
My favorite god, Sazed/Harmony, in my recent reread I got a bit angry at him because he didn’t let kandra be able to reproduce, but he let the koloss be able to do it. And I’m wondering if there’s a way he could have allowed that, but he chose not to? And also if there’s a way that it could happen in the future, so that two of my favorite people could have a baby?
There are a couple things that he was facing, and let me walk you through his philosophy on this, which you are allowed to disagree with. I want, for every character I write, there to be things they do that you disagree with, because otherwise I’m writing all characters to be the same person, if that makes sense.
The kandra have immortality and are able to perpetuate their culture by being immortal for as long as the individuals live. The koloss don’t have that, meaning that if he didn’t make koloss able to breed true, the entire people vanish in one generation and all culture associated with them. And so because of that, he took the extra effort to change the koloss to allow for this sort of thing. But he did it in such a way that they would not have to have hemalurgic spikes, because the idea of making new hemalurgic spikes is extremely distasteful to Harmony. Reusing old ones is a thing he was willing to allow, but new ones he didn’t.
Could he have changed the kandra to be similar? Well, the answer is kind of a fairly... yes, but they would no longer have been the kandra, they would have been rolled back to being what they were before the Lord Ruler. And so they basically would stop being what they are that makes them unique as a culture. And he decided not to do that.
You can disagree with that, and I think there are some pretty valid arguments against the choice he made, but that is the choice he made.
Is there a way going forward? Yes, this is theoretically possible.
In the future eras, Breaths seem like a very easily transmitted form of Investiture. Will that become an inter-galactic currency?
Breath is handy in couple of ways, because it is easy to transfer, and you can take it off-world without an issue. But there’s a problem in that: yes, it’s a renewable resource, but the renewable resource comes from human beings. As long as Breath doesn’t get lost and is consistently given up, then what we’re gonna see is there will be pools of it. But it’s always going to be a fairly rare resource. Which really hampers its ability to become an intergalactic commodity on the level that people would like it to.
Stormlight is a much better (in most people’s viewpoint and opinion) of what they’re trying to do with Breath. But they can’t get it off the planet yet; they haven’t figured out how to make that happen. But that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people are really interested in Roshar, is because of that.
Now, there is one that’s really portable, but very difficult to get, and that is… I’ll leave that to you. There's another one. Go ahead and theorize. Do it fast, because there might be a note to it in Lost Metal, so you’ll get your answers soon. But let’s just say it’s fraught with danger to obtain.
Does Adolin Kholin have two different colored eyebrows?
I have never pictured him with two different colored eyebrows, but Isaac gets to canonize this, because he oversees the concept art. So really, you should pull Isaac aside and say, “Hey, is there some blonde in one of the eyebrows or not? Because I’ve seen them both.” I have not imagined him with different colored eyebrows.
We know that magical healing has a lot to do with Identity, like Lopen and Rysn. Suppose someone was tapping Identity from an unkeyed metalmind, and then you tried to heal them with any kind of magical healing. What would happen?
Most likely, that person’s perspective of themself is going to filter that unkeyed metalmind, and so what’s going to happen is what would normally happen to that person. In most instances. There are ways to get around that, but the vast majority, that’s what you’re gonna see.
And if they were storing Identity instead?
Then you’re gonna go back to their Cognitive picture of themselves, which is going to be what’s filtering this, how they see themselves. If you knock them unconscious, they can’t see themselves, you’re blanking them of Identity, and things like that. They still, basically, will have… it’s gonna be really hard to get that all separated. The mental picture of themselves still exists on the Spiritual Realm. Remember, Realmatics is based on Plato’s theories of the forms, but your perspective is what’s shaping that. So there’s still gonna be, like, on the Spiritual Realm, there’s gonna be some version of yourself that is deeply influenced by how you view yourself that is going to be what that Investiture is trying to match, it’s trying to bring your body into alignment with that. So you’ve gotta replace that thing if you want it to do something different. Which you can do with Hemalurgy.
Sometimes, Vin and Kelsier seem to notice people burning metal when there was a coppercloud around. So I was wondering if copperclouds can change depending on how much the smoker or mistborn wants it?
It’s gonna depend on a lot of factors. How strong is the coppercloud? How strong is the person piercing it? How Invested is the individual? And these sorts of things. There are deliberate points where Vin pierces a coppercloud that I intend to be moments that you’re supposed to pay attention to in the story. And this is done intentionally; this is not, like, a binary on/off.
The Stormlight Archive deals with mental health significantly. Are you telling a story of overcoming mental health and its difficulties, or are you telling a story of ongoing...
I am telling a story about characters that I want to be as real to my lived experience as possible. So the story of The Stormlight Archive, what is it about? It is not about mental health. It is about people, but a disproportionate number of them do struggle with kind of dynamic mental health issues.
Mental health is one of these things where there’s always individual answers. If we talk about my wife Emily, there is no cure for depression. Even medication is about managing depression. For her, the right answer is cognitive behavioral therapy and learning what it is to live with depression, and then countering that proactively in her mind, at least for her. That is the answer that she has found that works very well for her. Other people might be able to… I have had a family member who had depressive episodes that lasted a number of years. And they, through therapy, were able to get to where they no longer would be considered having depression, because for them it was a different sort of thing. And these are two explorations of what we would lump as the same sort of mental health issue. But is it even? Everyone is so individual, right?
For the vast majority of people struggling with mental health issues, it is more like Emily than it is like this family member that it was about overcoming it. I consider it to the individual, that the story I’m telling about. I will use the example of the difference between (for physical handicaps) Rysn and Lopen. For Lopen, the story is: there’s going to be a cure, and I have been cured. For Rysn, there is no cure, and it’s about, instead, living with the disability. Overcoming the disability, yes, but it always being part of who she is. And those are two life experiences that we can find people in this room who have probably... Some are continuing to live with a handicap, and others have found that there is some way to just completely get over. And that’s an individual thing.
And I’m not trying to say in The Stormlight Archive, “This is the right path.” Except for the right path being: getting help is okay. Working on it’s okay. And society should maybe do a better job about understanding it.
I have a question about the singers. If one of them were to reach the Third Heightening, would they then be able to sing the pure Tones of Scadrial?
Yes. They definitely could. They might be able to before they reached that Heightening, as well.
We have some idea that Autonomy is fiddling around in Roshar and in Scadrial.
And other places.
Considering her involvement with the Ghostbloods: has she directly interacted with Kelsier/Thaidakar?
RAFO.
Whether she has or not, what is her opinion of Kelsier?
You’re asking, directly Autonomy, not one of her Avatars? Directly, Autonomy likes Kelsier and respects Kelsier. Autonomy is a fan, shall we say.
At the end of Rhythm of War, we see Shard-induced time dilation; you bring a lot of Investiture into a place, and it slows down time.
It can also speed it up.
How much Investiture would it take to dilate an area so that one area moves forward about fifteen years into the future while everything else remains? Like, they have ten minutes, everyone else goes fifteen years?
There’s a couple variables here. Number one is the length of the area, and how fast that fifteen years passes. If we want us to jump forward fifteen years, in how much time? Fifteen years compared to one year? Fifteen years compared to one minute? Fifteen years compared to one second? These are all different things. And, of course, the more you’re compressing and the larger the area, the more Investiture you’re requiring.
Could two unchained Bondsmiths in the course of a duel do it?
Fifteen years? Fifteen years is gonna be a stretch for what they can get a hold of, but it depends. Unchained Bondsmith, unchained to (for instance) a deity that there is no longer a Vessel controlling that power in the way that it needs to have the limits on it is going to be able to access more than one where there was some Vessel there saying “no.” So there’s one factor in it. A Bondsmith can access a lot of power, as evidenced by the migration. The migration from Ashyn to Roshar happened with a Bondsmith powering some Elsecalling. And that allowed for some pretty crazy things. Getting an entire population moved through a portal across that much space is a lot of work and a lot of energy.
So what you’re asking, I think that’s stretching. Depends, again, on how long. Fifteen to one, not so hard. Fifteen years in a second is really hard and probably beyond what they have capacity to do.
I see what you’re doing there. You saw me talk around it.
When I asked about the Set and cards, would the names of some of the Set members (like Suit) be a codename? Or would it be a hierarchy name?
It’s a hierarchy name.
What would happen if a Pure Tone or anti-Tone interacted with Shard metal?
Different things can happen, but generally, if it’s the right Shard metal, you’re going to get a resonance or a destructive resonance to that Tone.
In Book One, Taravangian was talking to Szeth, when Szeth confronts him at the end. He talks about the Lifebrother; but we haven’t heard any other references since then.
You have not. That’s a RAFO.
When a Shard Splinters, does it have any effect on the cosmere that we aren’t seeing yet?
No.
What would be the effect if all the Shards Splintered?
It does have, but see, there is Splintering, and there’s Splintering. Traumatic Splintering is a different event than a Shard Splintering themselves, or things like this. There’s a whole continuum going on there.
All the Shards being Splintered would, of course, have an effect. But it could have all kinds of different effects based on how, and why, and what’s going on, and what happened to the different pieces of Investiture. You can have a full Splintering, where the Shard is just completely blasted into pieces. Or you can have a Shard taking off pieces of their soul and Splintering it out and sending it off to be self-aware, and things like that. These are two different things.
Also, there’s a whole bunch of nuance in that question. But the answer is: it will inevitably have an effect, and there are effects that have happened in the cosmere that you don’t recognize yet as being the effects of Splintering, and things like that.
Is Tarah, Kaladin’s flame, still currently in Urithiru? Because there’s a chapter where it kind of seems like she’s there.
I will answer that in Book Five, so I’m gonna RAFO you. That is at least my plan; one of the interludes should be from her viewpoint. That is my plan right now.
Did Hoid join the Worldsingers just to learn about Roshar’s stories? Or is there something more going on there?
Hoid never joined the Worldsingers. (Can one join a group that one created, is the question there.)
I have a sort of delicate question. If a bendalloy Ferring filled an unsealed mind and then gave it to someone else who tapped it, which one would go to the bathroom?
I don’t think this is working the way you think it’s working. The Ferring who is creating it is going to be the one who goes to the bathroom.
Would Kelsier be able to Return to the Physical Realm in the same way that Vasher did?
No. Mmmm… which time? Let me parse this question. Could a Shard with a great deal of Investiture take his Cognitive Shadow and staple it to a body, or indeed recreate (which is usually what happens) an entirely new body for him? Yes, that could happen. It would need, really, the will of a Shard and the desire to do so, but that could happen.
He couldn’t do it himself, though; because you could also have been asking: “return to the Physical Realm,” pop through; ‘cause Vasher popped through a perpendicualrity to get onto Roshar, which is another way he returned to the Physical Realm. I didn’t think that’s what you were asking, but sometimes, once in a while, you’re asking multiple things at once to be tricksy.
With all the bad things that we’ve seen the Ghostbloods do so far (like imprisoning Lift) is Kelsier no longer a good or mostly-good person?
Kelsier would say he’s a good person.
I would say: Kelsier’s a complicated individual whose moral compass does not align to my same moral compass. But he never was. He would say that he hasn’t changed; I would say that he has changed slightly over the centuries.
Are the glyphs on Scadrial which happen to look like bands, spikes, and beads a breadcrumb from the Lord Ruler in case his plans failed?
No, they are more that we decided (if you go look at the old ones) that modern people were interpreting them differently. This is not an active thing done by the Lord Ruler. Isaac can contradict me on this, because he designed them. But my understanding that it’s a natural outgrowth of people said “that looks like a spike” and so they started doing it more spike-like. And it just kind of became a thing for them as they were standardizing, and as typography started to exist, and things like that. Not necessarily meant to be a clue from the Lord Ruler.
Is there, or has there ever been, a Dawnshard hidden in a book?
I will RAFO that.
Kelsier was very clear in Secret History that his ties to the Physical Realm had been severed. Are we then to assume that the current Thaidakar/Lord of Scars is him teamed up with Spook? Or have they used their knowledge of Hemalurgy to find different human hosts? What’s going on there?
Excellent question. This is partially a RAFO. But you should assume that things have happened to allow for what’s going on. There are answers coming very soon. I’m going to warn you: not a lot of answers. But some answers are coming very soon. Maybe very, very soon.
Can a Shard hold on to the Cognitive Shadow of a person for later use?
Yes, that can indeed happen.
Without it being fully Invested?
You don’t have to fully Invest it, no. They would have to do some Investing shenanigans, but what you’re asking is quite possible, very possible.
So, for instance, let me give you a corner case. You might be asking: could Endowment send somebody back later than immediately after they have passed away? The answer would be “yes.”
I’m gonna tell you, I have no immediate plans to do that, but it is possible within the framework of the cosmere.
If Wayne, The Lopen, and Vasher were all in the same room, who would Vasher punch first?
Lopen. No filter. The difference between Wayne and Lopen is: Wayne can read a room. Lopen’s not so good at that.
If people started viewing their worlds as doughnut-shaped, would the Cognitive Realm change as well?
Yes, the Cognitive Realm would shape to that if the general group on the planet all were viewing anything, but particularly something like that. It would influence the how the Cognitive Realm manifests.
As technology develops and people start seeing the world as spheres, will that change…?
It will have an effect.
Have we been introduced to any chromium ferrings?
RAFO.
Would Nightblood consider Investiture to be evil?
No, Nightblood would not.
Is Whimsy the most dangerous Shard? Is he essentially, like, a Shard cat?
Whimsy is the most dangerous Shard to your sense of decorum and self-worth.
We've seen Stormlight act like a wave in Rhythm of War. Does it also have particle-like properties like real light, and if so will we get to see an experiment that proves that?
Yes, it does act like a particle too. No, I don't have plans to show an experiment like that.
Gereh, the Feruchemist in Rhythm of War, did his Aviar grant him physical abilities?
No, that Aviar has mind abilities.
Over the course of Rhythm of War, we see Cohesion applied in three different ways as applied by different Tones, and I can see internal/external and pushing/pulling contradictions in those. Is that a pattern that will be accurate for all of the Surges?
Yes, but a loose pattern. Accurate under the loosest definition of the word. You will find connections there, as you are looking for them, and most of them will be intentional. But it will be hard to fit every Surge into exactly that framework.
If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?
She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.
Stormlight?
If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.
What is the Sixth Incarnation of Pandora? You may think Pandora the planet, because of the movie. That's not... I was actually going for the myth. That in this society, we had opened up various Pandora's Boxes, and this was... In philosophy in the far future, the sixth one they'd opened was making people who were immortal. And this was a Pandora's Box that they had philosophically opened.
I often describe it as a cyberpunk. It's not actually a cyberpunk. It's not a true cyberpunk. It deals with some of those same themes. It has the kind of corporations-in-charge, and kind of a dystopian future, and things like this. But it is far future, and not near-future, as most cyberpunk is.
The story is about an immortal soldier who has been made immortal with this new process, which is still very rare and very expensive to do. And he is basically a one-person army, with all of these modifications and things, and is capable of destroying entire armies on his own, and is completely indestructible.
And I'm gonna read to you from Chapter One, which is not a good chapter for introducing that concept.
It has a little epigraph at the beginning, which I thought you guys would find fun, because I use those quite a bit now, and I didn't earlier in my career.
This book is unpublished. This is book number five: The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora.
From the moment the first primeval Neanderthal picked up a sharp rock and used it to eviscerate his prey, man has sought ways to use his surroundings to augment his own abilities. Not that much has changed over the millennia. Peg legs had become prosthetic limbs, and spectacles had been replaced with cyborg optronics. But the main ideas remained constant: displeased with what fate allots us, we bend nature before our will, becoming more than we were intended. Among all of God's creations, only man takes offense at his lowly state.
Along with our drive to change ourselves, there comes with true human paradoxical form the uncomfortable fear that we have gone too far. Through the ages, we have fabricated horrors to match our increasing supremacy over nature. Monsters, golems, mad robots, and horrors haunt our collective technological unconsciousness. Twisted mixes of flesh and metal, obscene misuses of nature and her creations. We push ourselves to be better and better, more in control and dominant. But at the same time, we sweat and worry that this time, we've gone too far.
We finally have. I'm the final step, the ultimate synthesis of what is natural and what is profane. One last grand adulteration. I'm the culmination of our feats, a Frankenstein's monster for the modern 23rd century. I am without parallel in life or imagination. I am Zellion.
Chapter One
The forest's silence was abnormal, almost uncomfortable. Zellion could feel the dew in the air. It hung as an unseen mist around him. The humidity was an unfamiliar companion, and he had to fight the impulse to wipe his brow. A damp, sweat-stained hand would do little good in drying a damp, sweat-stained forehead. He could feel the soft film of water on his skin, coating his entire body, making his fingers both slip and stick as he rubbed them together.
Also unfamiliar was the forest's shadowy illumination. Light, he knew. Darkness, he knew. The forest's unchanging twilight, however, was neither bright nor dark. It seemed to flow, rather than shift; live, rather than just illuminate. It was neither day, nor night. It was light, undead.
Zellion followed no marked trail. He had left that behind long ago. It was not difficult to move through the brush; tall trunks stood like jealous merchants, catching the golden light long before it hit the ground. What little light did pass through was formless and impotent. Few plants could squeeze enough life out of such meager helpings to survive. There were ferns, weeds, and the occasional sapling. Nothing so thick he couldn't walk through it without trouble.
Occasionally, Zellion reached out to brush a patch of soft, damp earth. It was odd that something native to his home planet would feel so alien to him. But it had been a long, long time since he had seen soil.
He continued on, making good time through the realm of the enormous trees and their tiny fungal blooms. Usually, he only noticed his surroundings if something was wrong. The forest was different, somehow. It was pervasive, omnipresent. Even if he closed his eyes, he could feel it around him. When he stepped, he would sense the soft, springy loam. With each breath, he drew in the odors of wood, decaying flora, damp foliage, and bitter earth. He could hear the crackling of leaves and twigs beneath his feet. The forest was not a setting; it was an experience.
No bugs, a voice in his head pointed out.
"What?" Zellion asked, opening his eyes.
No insects, Zellion. A forest this size should be brimming with them.
"They would be to hard to control here, Wire."
I know. I just think it hurts the authenticity.
"You wouldn't say that if you could feel it," Zellion responded, continuing his hike.
Well, I doubt that's likely to happen anytime soon. Wire's voice wasn't sarcastic, or even depressed; it was simply stating a fact. Wire could never feel the forest, as he could never feel anything. The entirety of the AI's physical being consisted of a CPU embedded beneath Zellion's left shoulder blade
We're running out of forest, Wire pointed out. Zellion nodded. He could see the treeline now, where the forest ended. A few moments later, he passed through it, and the world around him transformed abruptly.
Instead of soft earth, his foot snapped against rigid metal. He stepped out of the land of half-shadows into full daylight. The humidity disappeared, abandoned in favor of a carefully controlled, deliberately comfortable climate. Zellion left behind the canopy of leaves, entering a world where dark space extended forever in all directions. He stood on the edge of a sheer dropoff. The metal pathway that ran around the forest was only a few feet thick here where he stood. It also bordered the edge of the Platform.
Zellion looked up. High in the sky, he could see another enormous Platform like the one on which he now stood. A floating continent, with people inhabiting all of its six faces. Beyond the second Platform, Zellion could make out the tiny pinpricks of stars. Looking down over the edge of the cliff, he could see the exact same thing; hundreds of kilometers below lay the bottom of the Platform, and beyond that was nothing. Cold space, eternity. Fall off this cliff, and one could literally fall forever. It's said that the Platform's builders had tried to make it seem as if one were standing on the surface of a planet, instead of a gargantuan block of metal hanging in the middle of space, a ridiculous distance from any planetary system. They hadn't done a very good job.
Zellion took one look back at the forest park. Really, it was one of the few places on <Saj> Platform that was dedicated to reminding its inhabitants of their heritage. As if they hadn't intentionally abandoned such things as forests when they moved into the sterile vacuum of space.
"Remind me to come back here when this project is finished," he asked.
Is that a request, Zellion, or are you simply waxing hypothetical?
"No, really. Remind me."
Yes, Zellion. Wire would compute a likely date and time for the reminder.
Zellion turned away from the organic wall behind him and stepped off the cliff. He could feel the fall begin; the plummet that would carry him down along the side of the platform until he entered oblivion. Gravity would drag him downward, prepared to hurl him into the void.
But then it changed. His foot got caught in an unseen force, a pull that altered his momentum. His body followed, collapsing into the arms of the same force. Instead of plunging into space, Zellion swung in an arc around the edge of the cliff, his foot planting itself on the vertical wall below him. He reoriented himself, then pulled his other foot to sit beside its mate.
He now stood on the other face of the cliff. What had once been down was now directly in front of him. And when he turned around and looked down, he saw the space he had left, and it looked like a sheer vertical drop, the forest seeming to sprout from the side of the cliff. The Platform's gravity wasn't going to relinquish its grip on Zellion quite so easily. It pulled one down against the Platform, no matter which direction down happened to be at the time. One could walk on each of the Platform's faces and feel as if it were the surface of a planet.
I don't see why you have to be so dramatic about that, Zellion, Wire chimed in. What do you find so fascinating about changing gravitational surfaces?
Zellion continued to look over the side of the ledge, then tossed a small pebble off, watching it arc normally in the air for a moment, then change vectors suddenly to fall inward, snapping against the pathway and rolling to a stop at the edge of the forest.
"Is there anything we haven't mastered, Wire?" Zellion responded. "What is left to dominate? The very laws of nature bend before us. Where is the excitement in the universe that behaves according to our convenience, warping and changing until it twists to the will of the most fickle species?"
If you want excitement, you should try piloting a ship through the center of a star, Wire suggested. As far as I know, no one has managed to conquer that realm, yet.
"Maybe I will," Zellion mused.
Just make sure you remove my CPU, first, Wire said.
That was from 1999.
It is interesting, also, for me to look back and see which ideas I have thrown into the word chipper and recycled. If you've read Starsight, you'll recognize something very similar to those Platforms, which stretch back to a short story that I wrote called Defending Elysium. They showed up, probably first time here. And then I reused them for Defending Elysium. And then wrote the Skyward series in that same universe. So this is like a hypothetical book that could have existed in that same setting.
Would a highly invested person or object resist a soul stamp?
Yes, but soul stamps have a lot to do with volition. If the person was willing, they would be able to overcome that resistance to an extent.
Is it possible for a sentient bit of Investiture to pick up a Shard? Like a spren or Nightblood?
It would be possible yes, well, for a spren or a seon for example, it would. Nightblood could theoretically but it would be difficult for various reasons.
Right, because he has no hands.
*graciously chuckles at my dumb joke*
Would they have to be embodied to be able to actually use it effectively, or would they have the same limitations as Kelsier did when he was a cognitive shadow ?
They would have the same limitations yes, but there are ways around that.
Right, like Ishar is working on.
Right.
I remember that you said that we will have like tops two Kickstarters a year, one for books, one for products. This will cover like the product one.
Yeah. Yeah. Plan is for next year for there just to be one and then the year after for there to be two. But the goal is tops two. Like this year we technically had three because there was the White Sand preorder campaign and we feel like that could get out of hand very quickly. Everybody who works with us might want to do a Kickstarter now because they've been so successful so we're kinda making this promise to make sure that we keep ourselves in line as well and I feel very good about having done that.
So if the product for 2024 is like maybe the RPG would the book be the art book for the story?
The book is more likely to be the Hoid Storybook Collection. So The Dog and the Dragon, Wandersail, and The Girl Who Looked Up done as picture books slash kinda coffee table books. That's more likely. The art book is a challenge because you know there's just so much that goes into that sort of thing—Isaac would have to be so deeply involved and it's whether he can find the time or not because he wants to be writing stories in his free time. We'll see, I do think we'll eventually get like an art book and an encyclopedia out but I'm a little more excited by the Hoid storybook personally.
And fully illustrated—they are going to look gorgeous.
Yeah. I really would like people to have like—my goal on those is like The Dog and the Dragon to be like a traditional children's book, Wandersail to be more like a giant illustrated coffee table book right—more targeted a little bit older, and The Girl Who Looked Up to be something in between.
The other thing is, because we now have the Kickstarter and you have been working so hard within the last year with all the canonical designs for the characters and everything, and it's really exciting and pleasing to see Shallan turning into life and Kaladin and Szeth and everybody. What is the thing that—besides the statue the statue from Kaladin and Szeth but—what is the thing that you would like to see, what is the thing that will make you happy to see next as a project if not the minis, or what are you expecting?
Yeah. After the minis I would say that I am really excited to start work on an RPG—a pen and paper RPG. I really like the Mistborn one, but I have a lot more experience now and I think I know better how to mechanically come up with something like this and how to make sure all the artwork works and things like that so doing a pen and paper RPG I'm pretty excited for that idea. That would be the product I'm most excited for. But there are a few things in the Year of Sanderson that I can't talk about now that I designed that I'm also really excited about.
And it's interesting that you mentioned the RPG because I remember like many years ago we started reading the RPG from [Crafty Games] and some things that were inside—because when you are doing an RPG you are reading it to explain like the lore and things about everything that's going on and the magic system and blah blah—and we didn't know if, for example, the metals that were included in there that were not yet on the book were canonical, and now I think that most of them are going to be canonical as well.
Yeah when we were working on the Crafty game there were certain liberties we needed to take, and some of them I knew we were gonna use and some of them I knew we weren't going to. And this is just the freedom they asked for to make their game. You can't take everything as canon unfortunately in the Mistborn game, but theoretically there's a lot in there that will be.
In a similarly amusing cameo (I must have been in a cameo mood) we have Slowswift—who is based on Grandpa Tolkien. (See this picture.) The name itself comes from his love of wordplay and of names that are inherently self-contradictory.
I'm no Tolkien scholar—I don't know the man's personality or how he would have reacted to this situation. I'm just a layman and a fan—who for some reason felt like sticking in a tiny side character in imitation of the master. We authors do strange things like that occasionally.
When did Preservation decide to imprison Ruin in the Well? No need to be specific, I should think. A simple "Near Alendi's time" or "Way before Alendi's time" would suffice, or whichever time of reference you want to use.
Also, this one is not a question, but nice Hoid reference in there. I especially like it how the Ars Arcanum refers to Slowswift as "bears a striking resemblance to a well-known storyteller." I'm on to you...
Way before Alendi's time. Hence the need for the prophecies. But Ruin managed to corrupt them.
Chapter Forty-Four - Part Two
Slowswift's Young Men
One may be left wondering about the two unfortunate men whom Vin used in her ploy. Aledin and Troalin were brothers, actually—cousins to Slowswift; men whose mother was executed by the Steel Ministry for her dalliance with a skaa serving man. (Her husband and their father had passed away some years before.)
Yomen—who was in charge in the city by then—allowed her legitimate sons to keep their titles and not suffer disgrace in exchange for their silence about their mother's dalliance, which would have been an embarrassment to all. They remained in Fadrex, but never got over what had been done to their mother and were known by Slowswift as dissidents against the obligator's reign.
Both were implicated in Vin's infiltration of the cache, as Yomen had other spies watching her that she never noticed—spies whose job was to stay out of the way and make sure the door shut behind her when she sneaked in. The brothers were tossed in a dungeon, only to be released after the beginning of the alliance between Elend and Yomen. They made it into the cache before the end, and later became distinguished leaders under Spook's reign.
Is there a link between Trell and Nalt from Mistborn and Nu Ralik and Vun Makak from Stormlight?
"No, there isn't, maybe just tenuously." He said something like that. He seemed confused that I asked that.
Loose Threads
You'll notice, therefore, that I pile on the lose threads here. The most important one, of course, is the concept that Fjorden has gained access to the Dor (presumably recently.) The Dakhor are a newer development–Wyrn was just getting ready to use them against Elantris when the city fell on its own. (Dilaf wasn't the only Dakhor plant inside Arelon. But, those are stories for another time.) Anyway, I think I gave myself plenty of sequel room here. There are the questions about the Dor, about Fjorden, and about the seons.
That said, I can't honestly promise that I'll do an Elantris sequel. When I was writing during this period of my life (some seven years ago now), I was trying to create as many first books as possible. I was sending them all off to publishers, trying to get someone to bite on one of them so I could start a series. However, since I was a nobody, I had to write each book as a stand-alone as well. Publishers, I was told, like to get books from new authors that could stand alone or launch into a series. That way, they’re not committing to anything drastic, but can monopolize on popularity if it comes.
Elantris turned out to be one of the best stand-alones I did. I kind of like how it doesn't really need anything more to make it feel complete. And, I've got so many stories that I want to tell, I don't know that I'll be able to get back to this one. I guess it will depend upon how well Elantris sells, and whether or not Tor pushes me toward writing more books in this world.
Anyway, I've got plenty of things I could talk about if I do come back.
Chapter Sixty - Part Four
Raoden Viewpoints
It was essential to this chapter that I establish that Raoden can catch glimpses of what's happening around him. I went to a lot of work to get him into place above the city where he could make the connection, looking down on Elantris and the outer cities. The pool, actually, simply grew out of my need to find a way to put Raoden on the slopes of the mountains near the ending of the book. I like how it turned out in the final story–it added a dimension of mysticism to the Elantrian belief system, and it worked very well into the plotting I had developed. My only worry about it is that it was too far away from the Elantris, but we'll talk about that later.
Adien's Secret
I almost cut this entire twist from the book. I've never been happy with how it worked out, and I think there are–as I've mentioned–still a few too many surprises and twists at the end of the book. (Though, I have fixed it somewhat. It used to be that virtually EVERYONE had a secret past or personality trait that came out in these last four chapters.) Anyway, I don't like the Adien twist–it lacks power since we don't really care about him, and his character–the autistic–isn't terribly original anyway.
I've left the Adien twist in for a single reason. However, it's a bit of a spoiler, so I'll put it invisible for those of you who haven't read the ending yet. You can come back and read this later.
Anyway, Adien is my planned hero for book two. I like the concept of a healed autistic being the hero of the next book. And, since he's so good with numbers, he would be incredibly powerful at AonDor. I think he'd be a compelling character to look at, so I left him in this book in case I wanted to use him in the next one.
Adien has been an Elantrian for some time. That's why Kiin's family knows so much about Elantrians. Read back to the earlier chapters, and you'll see a scene or two where Sarene wonders why they know so much about Elantris and its occupants. They hid Adien's transformation with makeup, and his autism kept him out of social circles anyway, so no one really paid much attention to the fact that he was never around.
Book Wrap-up
Well, there you have it, the complete annotations for The Final Empire, Book One of Mistborn. The paperback of this comes out in just about three weeks, so my goal of getting all the Annotations posted before the paperback release has been achieved.
This was a very fun book to write. In a couple of months, Book Two will come out—which was, in turn, the most challenging book I think I've ever written. (But we'll talk about that during the annotations.)
Every book has things that turn out just like you imagined, things that surprise you, and things that never quite work out. In this book, the "heist" feel for the book is the one that never quite worked out. I sit and look back through the pages, and can still imagine the book as it was in my head before I wrote it. It's kind of an odd feeling to then have this book, which shares some attributes with the imagined novel, yet deviates in some important ways.
The power of the characters was what worked well—the thing that I wanted to have happen, then was pleased when it finally worked out. Kelsier's surprise at the end was a similarly nice payoff, as was the way that Allomancy worked out. Elend was a surprise, as was the amount of time I ended up spending in the ball scenes.
All in all, I'm very pleased with this book—I think it's better than Elantris, if not as "meaningful", and achieves just what I wanted. A second book to show off what I can really do.
I hope you enjoyed reading it.
The Final Empire Project: November 2001-July 2007
Brandon Sanderson
Chapter Thirty-Seven - Part Three
The following is a journal entry I wrote regarding this chapter three years ago. It's kind of fun that I finished it almost three years to the day from when I'm posting the annotation.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Finished 5-22-04
Okay, so Vin's running around in her skivvies again. There are a couple of legitimate reasons for this. First off, I figured that if I had an Allomancer captured, the first thing I would do would be to strip them completely. A little bit of metal can go a long way, and you don't want to miss any. Now, this isn't as big a deal for the Inquisitors, who can use Allomancy themselves to see sources of metal a person might be hiding on their body. However, I still think it would be standard procedure to take away the prisoner's clothing. I toyed–briefly–with having Vin be naked in this chapter. I decided I just didn't want to deal with that. Having an adult man get stripped and thrown in a cell is a bit different from doing the same thing to a young girl, I think.
So, this chapter is Vin's character climax. Here's where she finally realizes that part of trusting people is being trustworthy yourself–or, more importantly, part of not being abandoned is not abandoning your friends. Her choosing to stay with Sazed, followed by Elend's appearance, are very important events for Vin. Her decision is a fulfillment of her story-long character arc, which has transformed her form a jumpy, frightened, untrusting person into one that would stay behind with a friend she loves, even though she knows that she might be killed. Her reward, then, for this bravery is Elend's return–and the realization that there are people out there who love her enough to risk their lives for her. Her statement "You came back" to Elend is perhaps the most important line Vin gets to say in the book.
Her decision to go and fight the Lord Ruler is secondary to these things, I think–which is probably why this decision doesn't seem quite as well-founded as her decision to stay with Sazed. Still, the story has been pushing for a face-off between her and the Lord Ruler ever since Kelsier died, so I think that it works narratively.
I really want to get that final chapter written, but I have writing group in an hour, and I still haven't read one of the submissions. It looks like Vin & co. are going to have to wait until Monday to have their final climax. I don't expect it to be a long chapter–which is good, since I REALLY need to get to work on the Elantris rewrite. . . .
Chapter Thirty - Part Two
Here's my original journal entry for this chapter, written right after I finished the chapter itself:
Chapter Thirty: Vin saves Elend at the party.
Finished 5-19-04
It's wonderful when a chapter turns out just the way you envisioned it.
I worked on this chapter for a long time–from the beginning of the planning process, I imagined this as one of the major action sequences in the book. I began with the image of Vin shooting up through the air as the rose window twisted and fell beneath her in the mists, then I expanded that to her protecting Elend, giving Vin a real scene of heroism. Originally, I wasn't intending her to fight the Allomancers, just to lead them away, but I decided that I needed a pure Mistborn-on-Mistborn fight in the book. Every other Allomantic battle involves Inquisitors.
The scenes in this chapter are some of my favorite so far. Though, oddly, it took me a long time to get into them–I hedged over what the first part of the chapter should entail. Eventually, I decided that this would be a perfect place to give Vin some abandonment issues. This is a hold-over from the original Vin from the first Final Empire [Prime] write–the fear of abandonment was a large part of that Vin’s personality. It worked well in this setting, and I think I'll emphasize it just a bit more in the rewrite. The next chapter really plays off of this idea.
It feels a little bit weird to be writing about a young girl running around killing people in her skivvies, but I don't really see any reasonable way for her to fight in one of those bulky ball gowns I'm using in this book. So, underwear it is!
Kliss and Shan have both come to have much larger parts in the book than I'd intended. Kliss was intended to be a throw-away character used in one chapter, but now she's become an informant and a conspirator. In a rewrite, I think I'll have to introduce her sooner and try and give her a more distinctive personality. As for Shan. . .well, I only added her a couple of chapters ago. Obviously, she'll need more time in the rewrite as well. Vin's battle will be much better if I can have her fight a named character that's been an antagonist in a few chapters. The Vin ball scenes have become a larger part of the book than I had thought, and adding Kliss and Shan as recurring characters will help flesh out that plot-line, I think.
Like how I ditch Sazed in this chapter so that I can have Vin's "grand" entrance in the next chapter? Pretty smooth, eh? I was worried about how I was going to deal with him. . . . As for the actual fight and the scenes, I think everything flowed quite well. We'll see what readers think!
(Note, when I wrote this, Elantris wasn’t even out yet–it was still over a year away from publication–so I really had no idea if people would be responding well to my writing or not.
