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There's just a few days until the Arcanum Unbounded release on Tuesday, but there's plenty of news to discuss! Oathbringer Update #5 This week, Oathbringer--Stormlight 3--passed 93% on the progress bar on Brandon's site. As is customary, Brandon posted another Oathbringer Update on Reddit, with this one being his fifth. He thinks there will be one or two more to discuss the editing process, but this will be the last one for the writing portion. I'll do my best to sum it up! Brandon finished Part Four of the book, which puts the book at a colossal 420,000 words. He expects the book to be 450,000 words, which is quite a bit longer than Words of Radiance. It should be cut down in revision, but it's still going to be huge. (Duh.) His current plan is to finish Part Five, then immediately revise Parts Four and Five. Next up will be to write the prologue, interludes, and the epigraphs. (I find it interesting that he writes those at the end, but I suppose the rest of the book is quite a bit more important to get down first.) His editor has already made comments on Parts One and Two, which were minor, so things are going well on that front. He doesn't expect major problems with the novels structure that will really slow the revision process down, which is really good news, in my opinion. He does intend to finish the first draft this month, which is quite exciting. Lastly, he apologized things are taking so long with the book. They take a ton out of Brandon. (So do try and be nice? At least we have a novella coming in just about a day!) Brandon Comments on the Movie Deal Late October, we talked about how DMG Entertainment had optioned the cosmere for film adaptations. It's a bit past its prime, but I thought I'd bring to your attention some comments Brandon made after our first news post went up. Some comments are extremely promising and quell some concerns I had after that initial announcement. People on the DMG team really like Stormlight, so that's why there's a lot of stuff on Stormlight. Brandon thinks it is likely that Mistborn will be done first though. One thing on their mind is that Hoid be people's entry character to the cosmere, and since there is a lot of screentime of Hoid in Way of Kings, that is a consideration as well. Brandon says he has reason to be optimistic about the writers' involvement. Now, a lot of people in the community have been worried about Stormlight being a film, preferring it to be a TV show styled like Game of Thrones. Here's what's going on. Both film and television options have been raised for Stormlight and Mistborn. DMG has started work on making a film and attached screenwriters, and a film is more likely. But, if the screenwriters say that it wouldn't work or cuts too much, then it could be proof that a film wouldn't work. If they come out with a great script, then that'd be proof a film would work. They can't know until they try. It is "very possible" for Stormlight to be made into a TV series instead of a movie. Everything is exploratory right now, and don't count anything out yet.. TV and animations are options that have been explored. One thing Brandon has been firm on is that Wax and Wayne should be TV, which I definitely agree is ideal. Many in the community have discussed the ethnicities of Rosharan characters, and Brandon has talked "a lot" with DMG to make sure to not whitewash Stormlight. (In case you did not realize, those characters are not white, despite some covers.) DMG is a Chinese company, after all, and the ease of casting Asian actors in Stormlight and Emperor's Soul drew DMG to the cosmere in the first place. They aren't sure how they want to express Alethi characters, though. They could just use Asian actors or something else. Needless to say, I'm sure many fans are relieved to hear this, myself included. There are a few other things Brandon said. A Warbreaker film is "very likely" if the others do well. To no one's surprise, they bought the whole cosmere because crossover films and connected universes are all the rage. Brandon is pushing to have the crossover stuff subtle so that it still works on their own. It's likely that Mistborn: Birthright could get a new developer if the movie takes off (RIP Birthright for now). Lastly, Brandon isn't big enough to have creative control over the films. He said people much bigger than him get that ability. He hopes to be involved, though. (On that last link, there's an interesting discussion about relative sizes of author popularity, if you are interested.) All in all, I think that this makes me relieved about this whole process. Here's to hoping this will turn out awesome. Other Cool Comments There's also been some neat Reddit comments on deep cosmere stuff. All of the first five Stormlight books will have letters like in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. People asked that because The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance were in-world books, how did the title Oathbringer make sense? Brandon said the title will make sense at some point. Seons and Skaze were created when a Shard Splintered. It's a thing we long suspected but cool to get confirmed. He continues there to discuss end positive and end neutral magics. He discusses that there's some disagreement with scholars as to whether Surgebinding is end positive or end neutral. Some picky scholars argue it is end neutral. Brandon says Investiture isn't leaving the system in Surgebinding, but it is doing work. On deep Realmatic Theory, Brandon said that things in the Spiritual Realm do change, just subtly. Someone's Spiritual aspect knows their age. Some in the Reddit thread implied that maybe Hoid is changing his Spiritual's aspects age, but Brandon demurred, instead saying (Mistborn 1 spoilers:) Neat! Lastly, and a bit older, is a comment where Brandon confirms Kwaan may have understood Realmatic Theory. It's a little vague what exactly Brandon is confirming, since he does some confirming and RAFOing all at the same time, but he said that this Reddit thread had a correct premise, so that's what I'm going with. This had been noted for a long time so good to see some confirmation (if vague confirmation at best.) Arcanum Unbounded Spoiler Policy and Events Policy A few other things! We posted our Arcanum Unbounded Spoiler Policy. Long story short, Edgedancer stuff will have its own spoiler board, but content on the essays can be talked about in Cosmere Theories as long as topics are tagged to mark that they have Arcanum Unbounded spoilers. Note: some bookstores have broken street date on Arcanum Unbounded, but we won't allow spoiler discussion on it until Tuesday. So obviously if you read Edgedancer, no spoiler discussion quite yet! Lastly, we codified some policies about events and signings. Generally if you receive some cool fact at an event that you wish to share, put it first into the signing's event topic before making a second discussion topic. If you have comments, please let us know! We want these policies to be useful and reflect what the community wants, so feedback is appreciated.