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Interview #612: Fantasy Faction Interview, Entry #8

Marc Aplin

Okay, another question that’s kind of similar to that one. Why are so many Alethi point of views used as opposed to others?

Brandon Sanderson

Why are so many Alethi point of views used as opposed to others? This was basically one of the changes I made as I was working on the series. I originally had planned to show all of these viewpoints, from all across the world, and I found that, when…the original time I tried this book, that since people’s plots weren’t interwoven together, the book was very difficult to read. Because people weren’t connected to one another, emotionally and spiritually. And so because of that, when I rewrote the book, when I started again, I made sure to put Dalinar and Kaladin and Adolin in proximity of one another. So that this story…their stories would play off of each other. And so you would have a consistent storyline.

That said, we do have…you know, those three are all Alethi. But Shallan is not, and Szeth is not. And those two have fairly significant parts in this book. Most of the characters will be Alethi for that reason, that their stories are tied together. But you will….see, this is one of the reasons why, with this book, once I pulled everything back and was telling Alethi stories, I felt I needed to show the breadth of the world, and that’s where the interludes came from, was me wanting to jump around the world and show all these different other characters and cultures, but shown in bite-sized portions so you didn’t get overwhelmed with all of these different characters, that you knew when you go to an interlude, you can read this person and then you can kind of forget about them. You don’t have to follow who they are, because they’re there to show you the breadth of the world and what’s going on, but not necessarily to show you…to go on a big distracting tangent.

Marc Aplin

I see. Excellent.

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