Date: 2014-03-22
Type: Verbatim
Location: Chicago
Reporter: Argent
Can you talk about the technical details of the glyphs writing system in The Stormlight Archive?
The glyphs were designed by Isaac Stewart. He is my scribe, artist, and cartographer. He is also the art director at my company. We sat down and I wanted something symmetrical, so actually half of the glyph is repeated. When you read into it, it’s symmetrical, and you can read them by the points where they slant, but you will have to go talk to him about exactly how to do it, because I say “I want a glyph for this” and he designs it. So they are readable and based on Arabic word art.
What spren types are Glys, Ivory, and Wyndle?
RAFO, because I haven’t decided yet. I know generally what they are, but I don’t know how I am going to call them in the books. It happens with other things in my writing, Shards for example - Odium was originally Hatred; the idea was the same, but I decided to change the actual word.
Is the number of the Unmade fixed?
Yes.
Is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten?
Is it ten? No, it’s not ten.
Is Hoid human?
Hoid was human a long time ago. Now… It’s complicated. We would call him human, and so will pretty much everyone else, but he is not exactly that.
Brandon talked about something he called “Honor’s purposes” or maybe “Honor’s Purposes,” and how they are the reason 10 is such a holy and dominant number - I assumed it meant Honor has (had) 10 of those Purposes. It was heavily implied in the conversation that Odium, if he has similar Purposes, does not have 10 of them.
Brandon spoke about how he planned all of The Stormlight Archive books to be named after in-world books - that’s where the “archive” part comes from. Book #3 will be pretty… unique. He said we’ll know what he is talking about when we see it (so I guess it won’t be a normal book format or something. Maybe the Shin write their books on stone tablets or something…).
Are the people from Dalinar’s visions, the ones he has the vision through, related to one another?
No. It’s not a Wheel of Time thing where you are going through generations.
If Nightblood is on Roshar, what happened to Vasher?
Well, look really closely at this book.
In the last part of the book, Hoid is talking to [a cremling], and says “If you think hard, this sentence is really clever.” Are there any implications beyond this, or was that him just talking?
Go compare to another sentence he used earlier in the book. He is making a pun off of the sentence he used before. It’s not as clever as he thinks he is, it’s kind of a bad pun.
Any progress on the Mistborn game?
Not that I can see, but they are telling me they are making progress, so we’ll see.
Has Hoid been on Roshar before The Way of Kings ?
Yes.
Who would win in a fight, Kaladin or Kelsier.
Kelsier would probably find him in his sleep and kill him there. I would say Kelsier because he would not fight fairly.
Favorite Order of the Knights Radiant?
I’d probably be a Bondsmith. Though becoming a Bondsmith is hard, I don’t know if I’d make it.
What’s up with the Parshendi just admitting that they killed Gavilar?
There are definitely questions to be asked.
In regards to the one-armed Lopen - which arm is missing?
I have always imagined it as his left, but I don’t know if I ever said or canonized it.
Have we seen all four of the genders for the Parshendi?
Yes. Malen, femalen, male, and female. Basically there is a male neuter and a female neuter, and then a male and a female. And if you can’t tell, the malen and femalen are both asexual, completely.
Is Jasnah still alive at the end of the book, since the whole scene where she kind of appears…
Yes, she is.
Why does she take so long to come back?
Because Elsecalling is not precise even if you know what you are doing, which she doesn’t.
Are gemhearts, the gems in those chemically identical to mined gemstones?
They are very similar. Not 100% chemically identical, they are far more pure for one thing. You would call them the same thing, but you would say “wow, this gem has no impurities.” They may have flaws, but no impurities.
That spren that are in the Everstorm - will there be more of those and will they pair directly…
There are more of them. There is not an exact one-to-one correlation?
I assume there will be ten opposite orders to the Knights Radiant?
RAFO. That’s a big ol’ RAFO.
Is it possible for a Parshendi to become a Knight Radiant?
In the past, no. Let’s say this, in-world everybody would tell you no.
For Words of Radiance , could you put a comment about something in the upcoming books, something not too specific, just something I can think about? Something like “Renarin has a spren” you wrote for somebody else in The Way of Kings ?
Brandon wrote “Stormlight makes plants grow” in the guy’s book.
Will the main characters from books 1-5 be as prevalent in 6-10 as the secondary characters now are?
Yes, the main characters will be as prevalent in 6-10 as the secondary ones are in 1-5, maybe even more so.
Will Nightblood drain Stormlight?
Nightblood will drain any Investiture, so yes.
I noticed Nazh’s name at the bottom of the illustrations - is that a character that’s going to make an appearance in the future books?
He’s already appeared in the books. Very very cameo-ish tangential thing, you have to be really looking to spot him.
Books, plural?
He wasn’t in The Way of Kings, no. Not on screen, I don’t think.
The gemstone Gavilar gives to Szeth, is that the gemstone that’s spoke of in the epigraphs?
RAFO.
If Adonalsium shattered with intent, will he always shatter to the same shards?
It is plausible that he could shattered in a different way.
So it could’ve been different Shards?
Yes, that’s plausible.
The prologues, will we ever see one from Gavilar’s point of view?
That’s a big ol’ RAFO. Because I want it to be surprising to see who you get each book.
Have we seen a character who is a part of multiple organizations, for example the Ghostbloods and the Sons of Honor?
Yes you have. [Pause for a photo] I’ve a big gap out there, because of you-know-who is in the Ghostbloods and the Lightweavers. You give me opportunities, and I will answer truthfully
[Comments about how awesome Lopen is.]
Lopen is a very special dude. I planned, and I don’t know if I’ll get to it, but I planned an in-between books short story called King Lopen the First, King of Alethkar . And I am hoping I’ll get a chance to write that and stick it somewhere for you guys. Because if you see in the end, he is claiming he was king for a while. You will find out why.
Elhokar’s assassination attempt, the drained spheres from his Plate - was that him draining them, Surgebinding?
That’s a RAFO. Good question. Let me say this. Drawing the Stormlight from an active set of Shardplate is very difficult.
Why can Stormlight heal Lopen’s arm, but can’t heal Kaladin’s scars?
Because a lot of the healing in the cosmere works on principles of expectation and how you envision yourself.
So Kaladin has accepted the scars.
And Lopen never accepted the one arm. It’s one of these ties when I built the magic systems that I wanted certain threads to run through them, so when I eventually have them being used in the same books, there will be consistency among them, so they won’t feel like everything’s just thrown together. So, the intention and expectation, for instance, in Warbreaker . What you want to have happen, the expectation, the way you are thinking about things, all that influences what actually happens. Very important for most of the cosmere magics.
In the future Mistborn series, will there be any spectator sports around the magic system?
That is very likely. In fact, one of the reasons I wrote The Rithmatist was to play around with a magic system that’s used as a sport, as a game.
Also, did you always plan for the cosmere to be a dwarf galaxy?
“Always” is hard to say with the cosmere. Once I sat down and decided “okay, I need to build this universe,” that’s when a lot of this happened. And that was all during the later stages of the cosmere development.
In Shadesmar you describe the beads, are they like little beads, this big, BB size…
They are bigger than BB size.
Okay, and everything melts into beads. But when people touch them, do they form into the thing they are supposed to be, or just one bead represents the stick, and…
One bead represents the item that is seen and views itself as a cohesive item.
Is there a picture inside it, or…?
We will get more into this as time progresses.
The prevailing theory on the 17th Shard is that Hoid worldhops using Shadesmar. Could you confirm or deny that?
Hoid has indeed gotten between worlds before through Shadesmar.
And would you be willing to give us a hint as to how he does that?
There are hints in the books. There is a hint in the very first cosmere book I released [ Elantris ]. Which I thought was a huge hint, but so far I haven’t seen anyone talking about it.
Really?
Mmhmm. I thought that once people started figuring the cosmere, they would see the massive in-your-face hint I put in that book, but so far, as far as I know, no one has. [Some chat about Brandon’s tendency to drop sneaky hints and how he likes doing that] Now, the one [hint] about the map, that one I don’t think is obvious. I know people have been trying to figure it out. It’s something fun once you figure it out, but it’s not something huge and obvious. The Elantris once was, like, enormously “HIIINT!”
If you were to use Allomancy to fly faster than light, would it be like the Navigators in Dune , where you pick out the best possible route through the stars?
No, good question though! That’s not quite the way, I haven’t given you the tools to figure it out, because I feel that the tools you need to figure it out, I couldn’t give them to the characters. I wanted it to progress with the technological progress, so hints are only really brief in the story. You will not see a lot of this until the contemporary trilogy, when they are starting to figure out the technology for how this might plausible work out in the future.
Can you tell us which Shard is with [ The Silence Divine ]?
This is a world that does not currently have a Shard.
Is there a limit to how many Shardblades one person can have?
Theoretically, not really. There are some things that can limit bound that.. I can imagine people have many. In the original draft of The Way of Kings Prime, Amaram had two. And so, it’s definitely possible to have multiples, and I had not thought about someone trying to bond every Shardblade.
So that means you can be bonded to more than one spren?
Well, those Shardblades are…
Dead ones.
Yes. So, can you be bonded to more than one spren? The answer to that question is also yes. Potentially. But there is a much harder limit on that.
Is it possible to become a Sliver if you burn enough atium?
I don’t think so.
Is there a way to tell between different Investitures?
[Brandon misunderstood the question a little in the beginning - he thought the question was “can every Shard’s magic detect other Investitures?”] Most of the magics have built into them that ability, but I wouldn’t say that everyone does. I am trying to remember if all of them have… I lot of them have a power that would allow you to do that, but I don’t know if every one of them does.
[Clarification]
If you were really good at burning bronze, you could distinguish between different types of Investiture from different planets even. And that sort of skill does exist in other magic systems.
Is it like a wavelength kind of thing?
Yea, that’s exactly what it is.
Since Hoid is the Horneater god, are there, or at least implied, other Shards…
Hoid is not a Shard. Question
Or other Shards that are related to Hoid, since they are in the same time period. Would they also be Horneater gods?
I think that the Horneaters might interpret things very differently from their reality, as they are viewing things…
So would they originally be from Roshar, or would they have traveled from somewhere else?
That’s a RAFO, it depends on the person. Hoid is not originally from Roshar.
The Nahel bond, what determines whether you get a Cryptic or an honorspren?
The spren themselves.
So it doesn’t have anything to do with the Orders of the Knights Radiant?
Um, you have to attract the spren, the same way you attract emotionspren, you have to attract the right spren for the Order.
Why can only women write?
It has to with a lot of cultural [???], spraying out of a certain sort of essay written a long ago (Arts and Majesty) that divided masculine arts and feminine arts, and some cultural things sort of went along with that ended up gaining momentum.
After a spren has been bonded, what happens if the person it’s bonded with dies?
It is an emotional event for the spren, but not a damaging one. As long as their oaths are unbroken.
Kind of like if a close friend dies?
Maybe a little more personal than that.
I guess Helaran was not bonded to a spren then?
Why do you say that
I saw that his Blade had a gemstone at the bottom, so that was a clue.
That is a very good clue.
Vague hints for a Stormlight / Cosmere tabletop RPG, as suggested by the stats on the back of Szeth’s card. Other cards will be forthcoming.
Viewpoint characters: Szeth, Eshonai, Dalinar. Jasnah will be in the back five.
The Horneater names are very similar to Polynesian names…
That is the direct inspiration. I love how Polynesian language sound, and I’ve been wanting to use one for years.
Has anyone other than Vasher and the Five Scholars Awakened Steel?
Not that Vasher knows about. And if he doesn’t know about it, then there is a decent chance [that it never happened].
Can Returned feed on Stormlight?
This is definitely possible.
The Ars Arcanum in the back of [ The Alloy of Law ] - who is it written by?
The same who’s written all of them.
What is the gem cut that holds the most Stormlight, and does it vary from gem to gem?
It does vary from gem to gem, and… I’ve got this written down somewhere… I am going RAFO, because it’s more of a “I need to go to my notes and find out.”
Where does the fiber for fabric come from on Scadrial?
Scadrial is an Earth analogue. Scadrial is the place where if we have it on Earth, you can assume it’s available there.
If I were to Soulcast pewter, the way Shallan does with the blood in The Way of Kings , would an Allomancer be able to use it?
You could create Allomantically viable metals, yes.
But is it automatic?
I would say that the pure metals are, but the alloys are not.
Can the forms of power of the listeners be treated as opposite / equivalents of the Orders of the Knights Radiant. Could we consider Stormforms to be anti-Windrunners?
You could consider it that way, but there is not a one-to-one analogue.
Because it looked like the powers of the voidforms are kind of like anti-Surges…
Yes, yes, there is definitely something there, but again I say, it’s not a one-to-one correlation. They are not going to be exactly opposite.
The person who arrived at the gates of Kholinar, the one you refuse to acknowledge as Talenel - is that person the same as the one delivered to the warcamps?
Yes.
Will a Surgebinder’s eye color change when they Surgebind or have a Blade… Is the color of their eyes corresponding to their Order? So Windrunners would do blue, and…
Yes.
So each Order does a different eye color?
Each Order does indeed get a different eye color.
Can you confirm the real names of the Heralds for me?
Jezrien, Nale, Chanarach (nickname: Chana), Vedel, Paliah (nickname: Pali), Shalash (nickname: Ash), Battar, Kalak, Talenel (nickname: Taln), Ishar.
Is Awakening and BioChroma an end-neutral system?
Yes. You don’t lose Breath in the process of Awakening.
In the different worlds, can you Hemalurgically spike people with materials other than metal? For example a wooden spike, or a gem spike?
RAFO.
Shallan has this awesome Memory thing going on, Jasnah has this geolocation thing, Kaladin is a really good fighter - are those just their traits, or is there something supernatural going on?
There is something supernatural about those. Each Order… Well, how about this. If you look at scholars’ interpretations, there are some scholars who think that these things are not supernatural, and some who think that they are. But, if you look, many Lightweavers had powerful mnemonic abilities.
So it’s definitely tied to the Orders?
It’s tied to the Orders. Now, I am not going to say that you’ve got them all 100% correct, but each Order, there are things that come with Order, things that do not add up from simple the “you get this power plus this power,” there is something else going on. And I would say that for Windrunners, watch the number of squires and the power of the squires… these are abnormal for the Windrunners.
And each Order’s squires are somehow different from the other Orders’?
Yeeeaaaa… some Orders do not have them.
But some have more?
Yea.
The Iriali Long Trail, is it related to the cosmere?
Yes.
So the Fourth Land, the Seventh Land, those…
They are in the cosmere. This is where you give me a lot of wiggling room, because yes, it is related to the cosmere.
Did Gavilar see the same visions Dalinar did?
RAFO.
The Parshmen / Parshendi / Listeners, do they give birth like humans do? Living little Parshendi?
Yea, they give lifebirth.
Do Surgebinders have gemhearts like greatshells do?
RAFO.
The ketek in the first book (Above the Silence, the illuminating storms - dying storms - illuminate the silence above), it seems like this refers to Honor’s death.
Mmhmm.
What does “Above the Silence” refer to?
Above a silent land.
And the second ketek, in Words of Radiance , similarly refers to the highstorm and the Everstorm… Is there more to it?
No, it’s by Navani about the two.
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