I would also like to point out that both Shallan and Adolin wondering what kind of places could have such names, after being told by Azure last book that she came from a far land other than Roshar, is mildly amusing to me. They do have a lot on their minds.
That is true. They MIGHT start putting some things together in relation to Azure later on in the book, fortunately.
Is it possible to know which characters will be getting viewpoints after Part 1?
All the main characters get viewpoints, though there aren't a lot of them for Szeth or Jasnah. (Technically, she isn't a main character of this sequence--but she has a couple viewpoints here and there regardless.) The structure is a little more like Book One, with one "A" plot that runs the entire book (in book one, it was Kaladin in Bridge Four) and two "B" plots that each are in half of the book.
In this book, parts 2 and 4 are one of those B plots and parts 3 and 5 are the other one. (In book one, the first B plot was Shallan and the second was Dalinar/Adolin.) Like the previous books there are two "C" plots. One being a flashback sequence for one of the characters (in this case two) and one being a sequence of interludes.
Venli's flashbacks are weighted toward the back half of the book, as it felt better to have them in quicker succession, since she's sharing them with Eshonai.
The A/B/C breakdown doesn't start happening until after Part One in this book, though. So I'd say wait until you get the book. Anyone you don't see in Part Two will be in Part Three (and a group of people in Part Two won't be in Part Three.)
I do this deliberately to keep the number of viewpoints down per section, as it helps with the complexity a little. Epic fantasy tends to have a problem of viewpoint sprawl, which has made problems with the pacing. This kind of structure is how I combat that in the Stormlight Archive.
That doesn't mean characters don't have a part in the story, even if they aren't getting viewpoints. For example, Dalinar is in multiple chapters in Part One, though he doesn't get viewpoints in this part.
Since this is a front half book, can I assume that this doesn't include Ash and Taln?
That is correct. No Ash/Taln viewpoints in this book, though they do appear in the text briefly.
Do we have any view points from moash as well? I really enjoy the character.
There is at least one Moash Viewpoint in the book.
With RoW did you know immediately that you wanted a time jump? From how rigorous you seem to be I presume you've plotted out the whole year, but how did you decide on the point to open the book at; did you always envision using Kaladin returning home?
I knew I wanted a time jump in the first five at some point, but I wasn't certain exactly which book it would go between until I was further along. Again, it was more of an instinct thing.
How do you approach breaking a story? Is it still scary / daunting? How did you know that the first version of Dragonsteel wasn't right, and how many iterations did it take to get to the published Way of Kings? Is it something you can do alone, or do you rely on your network of collaborators? Your pace makes it seem like there's not much time for reinvention - is that simply because you don't need it now?
The best thing I can tell you to try, is to write something else, something you haven't been planning for years--something more off the cuff (even if you outline it first) that you're not worried as much about "breaking" by doing wrong. Get some more experience as a writer, then tackle the big more messy problems like the books you've been working on for many years. That is what worked for me, at least.
Here Sanderson says that the flashback chapters will be quite heavy in Cosmere content, and yet we get this before even that happens. I am so very hyped.
Let me point out that is NOT what I said. I said there were a few things in Venli's viewpoints that would be of interest to those watching the larger Cosmere. The flashbacks are not cosmere focused.
If people want huge cosmere revelations in Venli, they're probably going to be disappointed. I don't want to predispose them wrong. However, there ARE some interesting tidbits.
In this moment: "Oh! a perky voice said in Shallan’s mind. We were almost here anyway, Veil! What are we doing?" Shallan is Veil (or was just a paragraph earlier with no hint it's changed) and Pattern calls her Veil but the phrasing is "in Shallan's mind". Is it a typo (or significant... mismatch)?
I'm a little tight for time now, so I can't look specifically, but I BELIEVE what is happening here is that Pattern is guessing which alter she is, and getting it wrong. It happens in this book several times, where Shallan is not giving external cues at which one she is at the moment.
I got a real emotional allomancy vibe from Moash here. It felt like he was rioting Kal's depression and exhaustion. Is there something more going on than must Moash having a past and being able to cut Kal to the soul?
I can see how it would be read that way, but you have it a little reversed. This depression and exhaustion is how Kal has been feeling lately, and he's been painting over it with other emotions. He's been forcing himself to keep moving, and at this moment, he was just too tired to keep lying to himself.
The type of fabrial mentioned in the epigraph: Is that the same type of device used in Sixth of the Dusk to locate Aviars?
It is not the same device, but there are similarities.
Are we to take Moash literally here [in Rhythm of War Chapter Eight] or metaphorically? Like is he literally telling Kaladin to kill himself or is he talking about some meta physical death/rebirth?
I'm going to have to RAFO this for now. I don't want to interfere with the text doing its job. Suffice it to say I knew this would be a subject of discussion, and the unfolding of the story should fuel the debate.
Nale’s nuts sounds like something a world hopper would say...... I mean there aren’t any nut producing plants on Roshar so how would. (Someone’s) nuts be a saying?
In these cases, you should assume one of two things.
It's a linguistic holdover. I like using a lot of these in Stormlight. Human languages still have a lot of terms in them that reference the world they used to live on. (See Hoid's discussion of the word "hound" in one of the books.)
We're doing our best to translate into English a phrase that doesn't really work in our language.
Basically, whichever is easier for your suspension of disbelief. With this, I'd say it's likely they said "Nale's Rockbuds" but it's just awkward in English, so when the book was changed from Alethi to English, the translator (me) picked something that conveyed the same meaning.
I’ve never seen that antagonist issue [Skelletor Syndrome] described before, but it’s really interesting to learn about and it seems like the opposite of what I call Dragon Ball Z syndrome - something Red Rising also had a heavy problem with. It’s the endless cycle of main character beats somebody in a fight, someone stronger comes along and almost kills them, main character is defeated, then trains and gets stronger in order to ultimately win in a re-match, then rinse and repeat into oblivion. Someone stronger comes along, almost kills them, they heal and train, win in a rematch, yadda yadda yadda. It was literally the entire story structure of Dragon Ball Z, and is my least favorite part of Red Rising. Makes the story feel too predictable.
Thankfully it’s not something you have any sort of issue with! Your post just reminded me of it. IMO it seems like those protagonist/antagonist issues only truly show themselves as a problem when the creator doesn’t have an ending in mind or a story outlined before publishing the first of a series (cough Disney Star Wars cough)
Yes, you hit on something real with DBZ syndrome too. It can make it feel like achievements the characters make are weak, and basically worthless, since they're immediately back into the same state as before--too weak to fight a new villain who makes their old "power level" look the same as their current one.
I think there is an important line to walk here that doesn't stray too far either direction--but it's not so hard as that, so long as new characters and situations present different kinds of challenges. Done right, you have something like the original series of star wars, where at first you think that simply being a better duelist will let Luke defeat Vader--but then the scope expands, and he realizes that it's not about how good he is with his weapon. The challenge is deeper, more interesting, and the person Luke could conceivably beat in a duel gives way before the more nefarious villain who requires a different type of strength entirely to defeat.
> I could easily have had an entire book with a major thread about toppling her [Ialai's] little empire on the Shattered Plains, but that would have been too backward looking.
I dunno. I think that could be fun. I'm somewhat imagining a John-Wick-alike character whose job is to take Ialai down and it turning into a surreal action/adventure/spy story.
I absolutely think this could have worked in a different narrative. But in this book, with so much of the focus moving to the greater war and the invasion, I feel that spending a lot of pages on recovering the Shattered Plains (and dealing with a group in the Sons of Honor that have been repeatedly defeated already) would just feel anticlimactic.
A different style of narrative could have pivoted to political intrigue instead of war epic after the first book or so, and then this sort of plot would have been exciting and dynamic. It's all about scope and the subgenre of your narrative.
Quick grammar question for /u/peterahlstrom: In the sentence 'Instead, the Three dismissed her Blade", shouldn’t that probably be "their Blade" ? Or is it a deliberate decision to refer to the Three in the singular?
It's deliberate.
Just had a random idea regarding the Dragonsteel character [with DID], could it be Bavadin? (the avatar forming seems in line with this)
RAFO! :)
That's interesting that you had this DID direction planned for Shallan since the beginning (pre-Way of Kings I presume). I had just assumed it was something that you developed in between WoR and Oathbringer. I know you've commented on subjects related to this before - but in light of what you're saying about leaning away from the fantastical, I'm curious to know if you think that if Shallan had become, say, an Edgedancer instead (or just never continued in her truths), that she would have developed DID and those aspects regardless? Or would she just have had her trauma manifest in other ways (such as other dissociative disorders like depersonalization/derealization/amnesia)?
I would say that she would have gone the same way she has, but the manifestations of her disassociation would have been different. But this is something I could perhaps waver on.
I've seen quotes from you before that you didn't intend her to actually have DID, is that just about it originally being more fantastical, and now you're trying to make it actually be realistic more?
Yes, that's what is happening here. I originally shied away from it, as I didn't want to open that can of worms--but then, I realized I was opening it anyway, and the only way to be honest was to admit what I was doing and get some people who have DID themselves to advise me.
I think, in hindsight, I was trying to take too much of an easy path--and the path that didn't require me to do the work like I needed to
Aha! So that's what you did. I immediately noted in the first chapters that Shallan's illness seemed to have gotten worse. I thought that it was you alludIng to a downward spiral of the characters in conjunction with the world of Roshar - which made sense because, if you place a mentally ill person in a world with no access to mental healthcare and then make their situation worse, what would happen? Their mental illness would get worse.
I'm surprised that it was just a change in the way you write her.
If you had the option to go back and revise all of her chapters that way, would you?
Because as it is, the real-ness and definition of her other egos reads like a downward spiral.
What you're noticing is not just me changing the way I'm writing her. More, I realized that her downward spiral was going to require me to actively deal with her mental illness in a responsible way, if that makes sense.
I wouldn't change much about the past books. It was more that I realized that the place she was going in this one required a more delicate touch than I could manage without some expert help.
What does CP4 stand for? A bunch of people on 17th Shard are wondering about it.
There's nothing really exciting here, I'm afraid. It's a rank, like E6 or the like in the American military. Only the Windrunners use these, as they decided on ranks that one could earn while advancing as a squire. The old stories say that some squires never advanced to full Windrunners, and it felt it would be good to continue to promote these individuals to different ranks within squirehood. It stands for Commission Placement.
I was itching for a long time to know how much more will we get to know about Heralds in comparison to the previous books.
You're not going to get a ton about the Heralds until the back five books, but this one (book four) has more about them than any previous novel so far.
It's surprising me to me that we haven't heard from Venli yet. Considering this is her book, I would have expected her to take more of a center stage. But we haven't even seen or heard from her yet, let alone had a flashback. I wonder why /u/mistborn decided to start elsewhere.
I suppose it's important to establish the time skip early on, but I wonder why that couldn't have been done from the perspective of Odium's forces so that Venli could take the lead.
Basically, this part you're reading is the "end" of the in-between book, and Venli's book hasn't started yet. Her first chapter is what you might consider the "true" beginning of the novel.
As a note, though, I decided her flashbacks worked better when spread across a shorter reading space--so I don't introduce them until later in the book than the others started.
I'm sorry, but I cannot help but wonder if throughout the book [Rhythm of War] we will get more answers about this in-between year.
I want to know how or where all these Edgedancers come from, for example, because it's a huge jump between "there are only 7 Radiants we know about, and Kaladin and Shallan are training more" to "a whole Order coming out the ship and being advanced in their Ideals and forming like a healer batallion."
I do give a little context, but at the same time, I think the previous books have set this up well. We've followed in close detail how a Windrunner initiated his oaths, found a group of squires, and then started an order. We got the same for a Lightweaver. In the story chronology, that all happened in a span not so different from the year between.
Because we don't have any major viewpoint Edgedancers or Stonewards in these five books, I have to leave most of this to the imagination--as you can take the model of Kaladin and Shallan, then extrapolate from comments mentioning that this sort of thing was happening all across the world, not just at the Shattered Plains.
I think the narrative leads you to the answers that connect this all. I do try to give some additional mentions of what was happening through the story, though I don't know if I'll explain enough for what you're asking here.
I seem to remember that you said a while ago that this book contained a very important moment in your first vision of the story. Is that still the case?
It is, though that moment happens near the end.
I'm curious to know when someone is Lashed to a "point in the sky", is there a place where they'll reach and stop, hanging in mid-air? Or do they keep going until the Stormlight runs out?
They keep going. Lashings are in a direction.
Hey Brandon while you’re here and we’re talking about Kal’s relationship with Lyn, we know he’s had at least one romantic relationships in the past being Tarah I was wondering if he was still a Virgin. Were these relationships just romantic? Also how negatively is sex before marriage viewed on roshar and namely vorin culture? I know these topics sometimes can make you uncomfortable but I’m really curious about this part of their culture.
In these cases, I generally allow it to be vague enough that people can think/assume what they want. However, some of Kal's relationships in the past (including the one with Tarah) progressed to the point that in our world, most people would have been sleeping together.
In Vorin culture, I'd say that they're not as relaxed about such things as most modern cultures are, but aren't as strict as the more religious cultures on Earth are. Alethi are concerned about oaths in specific--what have you promised, and do you keep those promises. So, for example, cheating is a far, far worse offense in their eyes. And opinions and strictness in areas of moral chastity would vary depending on upbringing and personal beliefs. To some, a promise of, "We'll be together until we split" that is kept would be considered honorable--while to others, that would be too lax a treatment of oaths.
Also, lighteyes are expected to be circumspect and maintain an image of certain decorum. But that's something else entirely...
The fight between Kal and this new Fused is already one of my favorites and had my heart pounding. I always find the detail in your fight choreography so well defined and visceral. Have you trained any martial arts or done in depth research on fight techniques?
I use a lot of research--but also rely upon the help of people who know more than I do to tell me when I'm going wrong. My personal martial arts abilities are too laughable to be call the result of "training."
When you mentioned the Fused grabbed Kaladin in an "arm triangle", were you referring to the Jiu-Jitsu move? Because that is a specific Jiu-Jitsu hold, but it’s usually done from on top of someone rather than behind. Like this: https://www.studentofbjj.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/arm-triangle-1024x724.pngBut then the Fused was behind him and stabbing him, so that made me think perhaps you didn’t intend it to be the Jiu-Jitsu position.
I didn't intend this to be the official position.
So the whole book [Rhythm of war] is a Sanderlanche?
No, don't get me wrong. Imagine previous Stormlight books starting with a build-up, then ending with a mini-climax at the end of Part One. (For example, in book three, we are building toward the reveal of the Unmade at Urithiru, and the confrontation, which happens at the end of Part One.)
In this book, Part One starts with the climax--a kind of indication of what the missing months were building toward. What follows is more introspective and quiet through the second half, as we react to events and get our bearings.
You'll probably get some books in the cosmere that, like A Memory of Light, where the Sanderlanche takes up an unusually large chunk of the story--but it isn't time for that quite yet. We still have slow, building parts of the story that need to be in place for both contrast and grounding of characters. Like a symphony works better with softer and louder sections.
I really enjoy this action-packed intro (though just a little sad that Dalinar doesn't have viewpoints)
Dalinar does have viewpoints in the book, but they are reserved for later on, for reasons I can explain better once the novel is out.
It reminds me of those Bond/Lucasfilms blockbusters (well, and everything that came after) that would open with an in medias res action setpiece.
Yes, I'm a big fan of the cold open. (As one might be able to note from the Wax and Wayne books.) It's not the right tool for every story, but it felt appropriate here.
Navani's fabrial ship is amazing. When you think about it, they're moving at ridiculous speeds technology wise, though I suppose you can attribute it to war. I want to see where this technology race is going to go.
A knot on Roshar may just be shorthand for one mile per hour.
For what it's worth, I also agree with the poster above. Kaladin just isn't ready for this kind of [romantic] relationship yet.
Oh "yet" that means i can still hope?
There is always room for hope. :)
I'm pretty convinced that Brandon's approach to building a magic or technology system starts with the question "how can I fly with this?"
Airships!
Now, now. Give me some credit. I started this one with "How can I have magical Power Armor."
"How can I make Airships?" was, like, question number three or four.
We've been having some hot debates on how the airship works, if you don't mind shedding some light...
Does the aluminum allow for the Urithiru-lattice and Plains-lattice to be active/conjoined at the same time?Or is the aluminum just about allowing the Plains-lattice to be reoriented to allow "forward" to be different directions?
It's interesting that they need aluminum to do the force-redirect thing because spanreeds could already do that. (their orientation being relative to the spanreed board) Is there a reason they don't work like spanreeds in this way? Or do spanreeds not work that way after all, requiring the boards to be oriented along cardinal directions (or something like that) so the reference frames match up?
You'll get a big long explanation in the book. I just didn't want to front load it.
I've been dodgy on spanreeds, even in the books, because the locals don't actually quite understand how things are working with them. But suffice it to say that as they enter a kind of early industrial age in relation to their scientific understanding, they're realizing things they took for granted have principles behind them that can be tweaked.
Could a Windrunner fly into space?
Yeah, it actually wouldn’t be that hard, because Windrunners can control pressure, also. And as long as you have Stormlight, you don’t have to breathe. It’s harder for a Skybreaker. Windrunner… As long as you don’t run out of Stormlight, you could travel between planets as a Windrunner if you have enough Stormlight. Wouldn’t be too difficult. Kaladin could probably do it.
Could a Radiant ever belong to multiple Orders?
This is theoretically possible, but it was not done in the past. It’s just not a thing that you did. It was not kosher. But it is theoretically possible.
You’d have to find spren that had volition, and you would have to convince multiple demigods to be okay with this.
The fact that you can be a Knight Radiant and you could pick up one of the Honorblades and have access to those Surges… I mean, there’s an easier way to do it, in that case. (If you consider getting a hold of one of the Honorblades to be easy.)
But it is theoretically possible to have something like that happen.
Like how Bondsmiths have stronger versions of their Surges, is it possible to have stronger versions of the other Surges, as well?
Yes. This is what happened to Ashyn. You can have some very dangerous manipulation of Surges.
Have you ever considered the energy density of Stormlight compared to real world substances? Example: nuclear fuels. Is it kind of on that level?
I have a little group of cosmerenauts, fans of the books that I’ve known for the long time who are themselves physicists. And I have asked them to start helping me quantify these things. Right now, I don’t have them exactly quantified. The place we’re starting with is: which forms of Investiture in the cosmere, how much fantastical-unit-of-energy do they have, and how does that relate to a real-world joule, or something like that. And that’s something we’re in the process of doing, because we’ll need it by space age cosmere. But I’ve told them they have years to figure it out.
The nice thing is, in our world, we have conservation of energy. I’ve talked about this in the cosmere: because we can go from energy to matter to Investiture (and any of the three can transfer between), we can pop energy out in interesting ways to fuel things if we need to. We can draw directly from the Spiritual Realm, or you can have some of this matter transferred into energy through becoming Investiture first, in a way that’s a little less explosive than normally getting energy out of matter is, in our world.
That said, the magic system of Dragonsteel (which I wrote long ago, which is not released), one of the primary magic systems of that was actual nuclear physics. And nuclear fission was part of the magic system, being able to see the atoms and manipulate them. I don’t know if I’ll ever do that in actual cosmere, but it was one of the cosmere magics originally. So when you read Dragonsteel (we’ll probably release it sometime around the Words of Radiance leatherbound Kickstarter, would be my guess), you can read about people seeing… in cosmere terms, they’re called “axi.” Or “an axon,” rather than atoms. You can see people playing with that. And I even think there are rumors in the books of people playing with those to the point that they make enormous explosions that cause wastelands. Because you do something a little wrong, and suddenly you’re splitting some atoms, and that can be very bad. That can have ramifications.
Has there been something [with worldbuilding] you decided to put in that inadvertently has pigeonholed you in a way? Where it’s like, “Oh, that element shouldn’t…” Basically, any regrets, in terms of worldbuilding, that now, in hindsight, that was a little too solid; something you wish you had left a little looser?
I think one of my big worries for a long time was in the White Sand books. I made a bunch of mistakes there, because it was the first world I ever built. So the magic system in that, there are some very cool things about it; there’s some very non-cohesive things. I had people have the ability to turn sand into water for no good reason, that does not fit the cosmere magic system as it developed. That one, I’m like, “Why did I even put that in?” I think I tried… I can’t remember if we got that cut out, or not. It was in the early drafts of the White Sand graphic novel scripts. I remember trying to cut that out, and I can’t now remember if we got it cut out. It might have been too integral to the story. But regardless, there’s things like that that I’m like “eh…”
I wish I, at the end of the Mistborn trilogy, had been more clear about how many metals there were left to discover. That’s definitely a mistake. But I just went ahead and was like, “You know what? I made the mistake, I’m just gonna explain it after the fact. I made a mistake, and we’re doing it the way I intended it to be, rather than the way it came across.” And I’m okay copping to mistakes and letting people know.
One of the things I keep wanting to do is have Peter, every time a book comes out, release a notes file that’s kind of like… you know how, when a video game gets an update, you have the bug fixes and power rebalances? I want to release a bug fixes and power rebalances thing for this. Where we’re like, “This little aspect of the world just never made sense. We’ve retconned this out. Now you can understand.” Stuff like that, I feel like we should be doing that.
Way of Kings is a great example. Way of Kings ended up using more Earth metaphors than the rest of the Stormlight Archive. If you read Way of Kings, there’s more references to grapes, there’s more references to ravens, because I just was not into the world as well (even after doing all this worldbuilding) as I eventually got into it. I’m like, “They wouldn’t use a raven metaphor here. They wouldn’t say something looks like a flock of ravens. They don’t see ravens.” And finally I said to Peter, “Go ahead and bug-patch these out of Way of Kings, for the newest version.”
I see in the chat, “flock of chickens.” Well, really, it should be “debris flying in front of a storm.” Something that they have seen a lot that becomes a natural metaphor for their language. Not even a flock of chickens, because they don’t see a flock of chickens.
Do you have any specific inspirations for spanreeds?
Like most things in my books, you can ask me what my writerly inspiration is, and what my worldbuilding explanation is. And let me explain that.
Writerly inspiration for spanreeds is me acknowledging that I wanted to have a society that acted more like a post-Industrial Revolution society (or very close to it) than a Medieval society. And there’s lots of ways to do this. Fantasy worlds do not have to progress socially the same way that we progressed. A lot of people want to tie technology to social progression, which you don’t have to do. You don’t necessarily have to say “people from the Industrial Revolution in our world acted this way; therefore people in this world…” You just don’t have to do that.
But there are certain technological revolutions that happened that do form a technological basis for some of these things. For instance, trade was very essential to the expanding political entity that was a world economy. We needed people to at least be travelling consistently to Asia before that could happen. And I really think a lot of what makes people act the way we do, perhaps, in some of our societies is this kind of mass communication.
And I didn’t want to be there yet, but I wanted to give a way that news and ideas could travel around the world in a consistent way on Roshar, to make the continent feel like a single entity. Because otherwise, I would probably have to tell the story as not a worldwide story. You just can’t travel, and ideas can’t move fast enough. Even if you look back at Roman times; Roman times took place in a fairly small geographical area, and even that, it was really hard for them to know what was happening. And you would have to spend months and months getting information that was then months and months out of date. And there’s a lot of sitting around and waiting in those cultures for things to happen, even with having the Mediterranean to sail around and bring this information. I just wanted information to move fast, both culturally and narratively. And so I said, “I’ve gotta find a way to do this. I did it with Seons in Elantris; I need find a way to do something similar to that on Roshar.”
Real-world inspiration, if there is one, is an auto-pen. Where authors can have a little machine sign books for them; it moves on its own. I’ve never used one, but politicians use them quite a bit. When you get that hand-signed letter when you’ve donated whatever to whatever political party. That hand-signed letter was probably machine-signed with a real pen, rather than hand-signed by the individual.
Are there thousands of more spren that you have planned out and know what they look like? Or are those just, as you’re writing them in the moment, “This is what the spren’s gonna look like.”
At this point, we’ve gotten through all the ones that I’ve preplanned, and at this point, I toss new ones in now and then. Usually, I only do that in large measure if we’ve gone to a new location. Because you have seen the spren that inhabit the area of the Shattered Plains in Shadesmar, but there can be emotion spren… like, I’m doing awespren more often in this book, and there’s a new one in this book, but everyone’s in Urithiru. Different place, you can attract different types of emotionspren. Different Shadesmar ecology.
Are there still six different types of Aethers in current canon? Or has that changed?
They have expanded. I’m using the Aethers behind the scenes for a lot of space age things. And because I’m doing that, I am adding in a few more Aethers. There’s going to be some limits on this. I’m tweaking which Aethers I’m actually making, ‘cause some of them didn’t work as well as other ones.
There will end up being more, but I won’t canonize the number until I have the Aether book ready to release.
You have ten books for the Stormlight Archive. Was that a limit you put on yourself because you knew it could go to twenty? Or it just happened, after you structured out the story, ten was what fit.
Ten was the number. Various worlds in the cosmere have this little number motif going on with them. And I was building ten in as a number motif, as well as nine. Nine and ten and the contrast between these two very similar but very, very different numbers.
And in the original outline, numerology was a much bigger deal, actually, in Stormlight. I was working a lot on the idea that I was using a language (Hebrew is a good example) where every word can also be a number, so you can have all sorts of funky numerology things. It comes up now and then in the published books, with… Various sketchy individuals will be into numerology.
But I knew I wanted a big series. And I knew I had ten characters. And I thought ten books, ten Orders of Knights Radiant, ten characters, it just fit really well. Ten felt like the right number after I did my real outline for it, back in 2009. I felt like I had the material for that, and it was too poetically appropriate for the series to not do it as ten.
Can Shardblades, dead or alive, be used as Hemalurgic spikes? And if attempted, what would the result be?
Technically yes, but in practicality no.
To use something as a Hemalurgic spike, it basically just needs to be able to already have a charge of Investiture, or be able to adopt one. Technically, Shardblades are made from a god metal. You could do this. But the Blade is gonna be big and unwieldy, and the form it’s in right now, it’s going to slice the soul rather than rip pieces off. You would have to jump through a bunch of hoops that wouldn’t be worth it in order to use one.
It would basically mean that you’d have to separate the metal of the Shardblade from the concept of a Shardblade itself, is what’s going on there.
I know Syl *obscured*
Some do.
Has Vasher accomplished what he Returned to do? If he has not, has he had the opportunity?
No, + not really.
Were starspren imagined by greatshells, such as the Tai-na, chasmfiends or lanceryn, which appear to have some level of sentience/sapience?
Nope.
If someone without Identity Awakened an object, would anyone be able to recall the Breath? Would they need to have any breath to recall it, or could it be done by anyone at all?
If you could blank Identity + Awaken, yes, anyone could get it back.
(Requires intent)
Jasnah and Shallan create objects out of ocean beads in Shadesmar that involves bringing them together like magnetic beads. Is this a form of the Surge of Transformation? Can this be done by other Radiants as well?
Other Radiants can't do this.
Do the highstorms and Everstorm orbit Roshar like rings?
Rings is the wrong term. There's not another highstorm on the other side of the world. There is one highstorm blowing around. They were sort of mini-based on the Spot of Jupiter. But they move around; it's a massive hurricane that moves around the planet.
It goes around the planet, but if what you're asking is: "Is there a ring of highstorm? And so when it's on one side, it's on the other side?" That is not the case. There is a highstorm that's going around, an Everstorm that's going the other direction around the planet; and they are very wide, enormous storms. But imagine a storm of Jupiter moving around the planet, rather than staying where it is.
Will Wax and Wayne Four come before Stormlight Five?
I'm finishing up Skyward Three right now. My goal is to have that done by January. And then Wax and Wayne Four will be my next book. If I'm really on the ball, I will do that and get Skyward Four (which is the last of the Skyward series) done before I work on Stormlight Five. Goal is for Stormlight Five to be 2023. So Skyward next year. And then Wax and Wayne. And then, hopefully, Skyward last one and Stormlight in the same year. But we'll see.
Does Zahel know what Fused are because of his BioChromatic vision? Or has he studied them in some other way?
I would say both. More the "he's studied what they are and learned about them." He has certain sensory things that definitely give him some advantages, for various reasons. But I would say he's leaning more on his previous experience than he is on those senses.
If the Lord Ruler was able to enter the Well of Ascension a second time, what would he have done with its power?
He probably would have tried to fix and tweak a few of the problems that were happening, but he had learned not to do too much. So I would say: minor tweaks, and perhaps some power solidification things, and stuff like that. He would not, probably, have been able to fix things as well as he wanted to. It probably would have gone more poorly than he implies that it would have gone.
What's the word for Lift's name in her language?
I don't know the actual word. I haven't written it down. I am translating the meaning of her name. They're not saying "Lift." It means "to elevate or raise up."
We've seen that Metalborn siblings can end up with different powers. What about Metalborn twins?
Can happen. Most likely, they will have the same power.
What culture inspired the Horneaters?
I don't usually use a single culture for any of my inspirations. I like to mix a bunch of things together, and some will be real-world cultures and others will not. You can probably pick out the Polynesian influences, as well as the Russian influences; so they're kind of like Siberian Polynesians. But really, the thing that inspired...
The Polynesian part came from the language. I'm fascinated with languages, and one of the cool things about the Hawaiian language in particular (which was the inspiration here) is that because there are so many fewer sounds, the words get extra long. And that's why a lot of the words in Hawaiian are so long compared to some other languages, because they repeat sounds more often, and just by simple math you end up needing longer words. And I like how poetic the Hawaiian language sounds, and things like that. So that's obviously one inspiration.
But a big inspiration for them was the original idea of their myths, the ones that Rock shares and talks about, and their interaction with the spren. I wanted a race, a culture, on Roshar that had both its roots in human culture and in listener culture. Horneaters are human and listener hybrids, like the Herdazians are. And whose cultural roots went back to both cultures and had built something new out of them. So that's the primary inspiration.
Nale seems to be able to sense the Stormlight, even before she uses it, after she eats the roll. Is this an ability of him as a Surgebinder, a Herald, or something external he's doing or using?
RAFO!
