Why is MBE4 the end of the Cosmere story?

[Ripheus23]

This puzzles me a little [a lot]. For example, why not on Yolen? Maybe Yolen has been destroyed, or something like that. Why not Roshar, since the SA is going to be Sanderson's most complex work? Why not Sel, since Elantris was his first published novel? Why not nowhere especially?

I presume the reason has to do with MBE4 FTL technology. Spaceships. But what good are spaceships in a story like that of the Cosmere unless (a) they're for going between worlds, in which event it's not really going to be MBE4 unless all the major characters are from Scadrial or whatever, or (b) the final problem situation is not on a Shardworld but in outer space per se? And as for (a), Worldhoppers don't need spaceships, as far as we can tell. Or "ships" in such a sense at all, more or less. So a pan-Cosmere setting is possible without the FTL mechanism of MBE4. This seems to indicate that the final problem situation will be in outer space as such. But space and time are less relevant, from the perspective of the Spiritual Realm, where the Shards do a lot of their "thing," so in a story about the Shards it might be odd for the problem to have to be defined/determined in terms of a kind of region of space.

TINFOIL-HAT: I've heard concerns about CERN causing the end of the world in some form or another. In the Cosmere, would MBE4 particle accelerators endanger the world all the more, due to the role of Investiture in the nature of matter and energy and all that? Then it might not be so much the FTL spaceships that would be the reason why MBE4 is able to "house" the finale scenario, as the other FTL-level tech.

TINFOIL-FEDORA [why did I not choose that as my username?!]:

 

TINFOIL-CROWN: In theory, Autonomy and Harmony will still be around by MBE4---Autonomy if the Aviar and "the Ones Above" stuff is chronologically parallel [and if the Ones Above are Scadrians]; Harmony if Trell hasn't zapped Scadrial too badly by then or whatever; actually I just had an extra tinfoil-theory that the Ones Above pursue the issue of interplanetary travel as part of some counter-Autonomy revenge/defense plan. However, a revenge plan might begin even in just MBE2 or MBE3 and so even if Harmony and Autonomy both still exist by MBE4, it could be that some other situation develops simultaneously so that even if the Ones Above are pursuing Autonomy, they also encounter/have to deal with a more serious danger, and anyway that MBE3/4 have a different Shardic antagonist than Bavadin [imagine the Scadrians searching for Bavadin's avatars and finding that s/he's already dead and someone else now holds the Shard of Autonomy!].

TINFOIL-DO-RAG: But this is the end of the Cosmere we're talking about. Hoid, Rosharans, Silverlight, Khriss, it's all gotta come together. I feel like it could be a disservice to the concept of the overarching story, to resolve it all in a series that revolves around Scadrians or the Metallic Arts, as such. But maybe by then Sanderson won't be calling it "Mistborn Era 4"...

Edited September 1, 2018 by Ripheus23

[imriel452]

Mistborn Era 4 is the furthest we will go in the Cosmere timeline. Currently the furthest we are at is Sixth of the Dusk.

It is generally accepted that Scadrians are the Ones Above, although there is a possibility that the group are a mix of different peoples (Rosharans, Selish etc)

Yolen, as it exists currently, won’t be seen until the very end, and we finally get to see the origins of our Cosmeric Carmen Sandiego that is Hoid

[Calderis]

Mistborn does not mean Scadrial. 

Era 4 is the end because it's the true, cyou should probably have read everything else before this" crossover. 

The primary characters may be Scadrian, but it's also going to have Hoid as a PoV, and there's a role in it for a Dysian Aimian. 

It's the end of the Cosmere, and also happens to be a Mistborn book. The time frame frees it from the planetary restriction. 

[Furamirionind]

51 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Mistborn does not mean Scadrial. 

Era 4 is the end because it's the true, cyou should probably have read everything else before this" crossover. 

The primary characters may be Scadrian, but it's also going to have Hoid as a PoV, and there's a role in it for a Dysian Aimian. 

It's the end of the Cosmere, and also happens to be a Mistborn book. The time frame frees it from the planetary restriction. 

we know Hoid is going to have a major role in era 4, but do we know if we are going to get a POV from him in it?

[Calderis]

6 minutes ago, Furamirionind said:

we know Hoid is going to have a major role in era 4, but do we know if we are going to get a POV from him in it?

Not just a major role, he's one of the main characters. So I'd assume so. 

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

I know Dragonsteel is going to have, like, [Hoid] as a main character in the series, or at least a more prominent character. Is there any other book series that are planned that are gonna have him as a more prominent figure?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

And are those gonna come before or after?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

After.

source

Trying to find others that aren't mile long WoBs. 

This one is when era 4 was still era 3 and Wax and Wayne were "Era 1.5" 

Quote

Questioner

When will we see a Hoid book?

Brandon Sanderson

It’ll be a little while. He’s playing around with things in the Stormlight Archive if you couldn’t tell, he’s decided to—Hoid is fiddling with things, more than he usually does. But Hoid as a major part of things doesn’t really show up till the third Mistborn trilogy, which is the outer space Mistborn, the sci-fi Mistborn.

So Hoid is very involved in the third Mistborn trilogy, he’s also very involved in Dragonsteel, which is actually the first book in the sequence, long before Elantris happened. So eventually I will tell that story. You can read a draft of it at the BYU library. It’s the only copy that I know of in existence. It’s almost always checked out. It’s my Honors thesis, and it’s not very good. It really is not very good, but basically it’s involving the ideas that eventually will become Dragonsteel once I write it again. But I stole the Shattered Plains and put them in Roshar instead because the fit better there.

source

 

[Draginon]

I think it's going to be considered a Mistborn story because of the majority of the main characters in book 1. I take the view that a series in the Cosmere is dictated by the main players, not the planet since it would seem SA would have to include Braize at some point, since we're getting more and more into having crossover POV's, so a Mistborn book has to be majority Scadrian (and if The Ones Above refers to a Scadrian Empire then if multiple planets are part of it like Roshar and Sel then technically everyone would be 'Scadrian'), an Elantris book has to be majority Sel, a Stormlight book is majority Rosharan, etc...

[Spoolofwhool]

This is pretty relevant and kind of explains why MBE4 will be significant towards the end of the Cosmere.

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Brandon Sanderson

As I was developing the Cosmere, I knew I wanted a few threads to span the entire mega-sequence, which was going to cover thousands of years. For this reason, I built into the outline a couple of "core" series.

One of these is the Stormlight Archive, where we have the Heralds who span ages, and which I eventually decided to break into two distinct arcs. Other series touch on the idea of long-standing characters. Dragonsteel, for example, will be kind of a bookend series. We'll get novels on Hoid's origins, then jump all the way to the end and get novels from his viewpoint late in the entire Cosmere sequence.

With Mistborn, I wanted to do something different. For aesthetic reasons, I wanted a fantasy world that changed, that grew updated and modernized. One of my personal mandates as a lover of the epic fantasy genre is to try to take what has been done before and push the stories in directions I think the genre hasn't looked at often enough.

I pitched Mistorn as a series of trilogies, which many of you probably already know. Each series was to cover a different era in the world (Scadrial), and each was to be about different characters—starting with an epic fantasy trilogy, expanding eventually into a space opera science fiction series. The magic would be the common thread here, rather than specific characters.

There was a greater purpose to this, more than just wanting a fantasy world that modernized. The point was to actually show the passage of time in the universe, and to make you, the reader, feel the weight of that passage.

Some of the Cosmere characters, like Hoid, are functionally immortal—in that, at least, they don't age and are rather difficult to kill. I felt that when readers approached a grand epic where none of the characters changed, the experience would be lacking something. I could tell you things were changing, but if there were always the same characters, it wouldn't feel like the universe was aging.

I think you get this problem already in some big epic series. (More on that below.) Here, I wanted the Cosmere to evoke a sense of moving through eras. There will be some continuing threads. (A few characters from Mistborn will be weaved through the entire thing.) However, to make this all work, I decided I needed to do something daring—I needed to reboot the Mistborn world periodically with new characters and new settings.

So how does Shadows of Self fit into this entire framework? Well, The Alloy of Law was (kind of) an accident. It wasn't planned to be part of the original sequence of Mistborn sub-series, but it's also an excellent example of why you shouldn't feel too married to an outline.

As I was working on Stormlight, I realized that it was going to be a long time (perhaps ten years) between The Hero of Ages and my ability to get back to the Mistborn world to do the first of the "second" series. I sat down to write a short story as a means of offering a stop-gap, but was disappointed with it.

That's when I took a step back and asked myself how I really wanted to approach all of this. What I decided upon was that I wanted a new Mistborn series that acted as a counterpoint to Stormlight. Something for Mistborn fans that pulled out some of the core concepts of the series (Allomantic action, heist stories) and mashed them with another genre—as opposed to epic fantasy—to produce something that would be faster-paced than Stormlight, and also tighter in focus.

That way, I could alternate big epics and tight, action character stories. I could keep Mistborn alive in people's minds while I labored on Stormlight.

The Alloy of Law was the result, an experiment in a second-era Mistborn series between the first two planned trilogies. The first book wasn't truly accidental, then, nor did it come from a short story. (I've seen both reported, and have tacitly perpetuated the idea, as it's easier than explaining the entire process.) I chose early 20th century because it's a time period I find fascinating, and was intrigued by the idea of the little-city lawman pulled into big-city politics.

Alloy wasn't an accident, but it was an experiment. I wasn't certain how readers would respond to not only a soft reboot like this, but also one that changed tone (from epic to focused). Was it too much?

The results have been fantastic, I'm happy to report. The Alloy of Law is consistently the bestselling book in my backlists, barring the original trilogy or Stormlight books. Fan reaction in person was enthusiastic.

So I sat down and plotted a proper trilogy with Wax and Wayne. That trilogy starts with Shadows of Self. It connects to The Alloy of Law directly, but is more intentional in where it is taking the characters, pointed toward a three-book arc.

You can see why this is sometimes hard to explain. What is Shadows of Self? It's the start of a trilogy within a series that comes after a one-off with the same characters that was in turn a sequel to an original trilogy with different characters.

source

 

[Calderis]

Thank you @Spoolofwhool, that's also the one that says we get novels from his PoV at the end.

Quote

Dragonsteel, for example, will be kind of a bookend series. We'll get novels on Hoid's origins, then jump all the way to the end and get novels from his viewpoint late in the entire Cosmere sequence.

 

[Ripheus23]

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Quote

I pitched Mistborn as a series of trilogies, which many of you probably already know. Each series was to cover a different era in the world (Scadrial), and each was to be about different characters—starting with an epic fantasy trilogy, expanding eventually into a space opera science fiction series. The magic would be the common thread here, rather than specific characters.

There was a greater purpose to this, more than just wanting a fantasy world that modernized. The point was to actually show the passage of time in the universe, and to make you, the reader, feel the weight of that passage.

That makes sense as far as an external reason to write several trilogies in one context. However, I feel like this isn't enough to make that final step to "and by the way the whole Cosmere endgame is finally grounded in this progression." I feel like MBE4, as such, would make a better, "And this is the second-to-last part of the Cosmere saga," with at least one ultimate finale book that isn't tied, even externally, to only a specific planet/magic system/w/e. Or, at "worst," have another Arcanum Unbounded with novellas that tell the story of the end of the Cosmere from the POVs of multiple Shardworlds, or whatever. Or, an AU with one super-novella included that is the final story, or whatever.

On 9/1/2018 at 1:31 PM, Calderis said:

It's the end of the Cosmere, and also happens to be a Mistborn book. The time frame frees it from the planetary restriction. 

So does this indicate that the problem will not be on a Shardworld but in outer space? I think it does. Spaceships are needed for the scenario in question, whatever it will be, and the normal external reason for spaceships---to go from one planet to another---is already solved for due to Worldhopping. That leaves pure outer space. Now of course my earlier counter to this, that Shardic plotting would not require localization/locality due to Spiritual Realmatics, can be waived on the ground that the story has to take place somewhere, after all.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Ripheus23

[Calderis]

29 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

Spaceships are needed for the scenario in question, whatever it will be, and the normal external reason for spaceships---to go from one planet to another---is already solved for due to Worldhopping.

Not many people agree with me, but I think Worldhopping is going to become less doable as knowledge of space and the Cosmere grows, making FTL necessary. 

Spoilered for link. Bolded and underlined the relevant portion. 

Spoiler

Questioner

So like as far as distance traveled in Shadesmar. 

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm

Questioner

So when Kelsier...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

...in Shadesmar. He meets the Ire, who are presumably Elantrian.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Like how far did he travel? Is that still within Scadrial's realm of the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's within-- he has s-- By the time he meets them he has slipped right to the edge of the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and into kind of the darkness between planets. 

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

He's close enough that he can get there. But he's kind of suffused with Scadrian Investiture then, to a point that it would be harder--you saw in there--for him to get further. I would say that he's like... He has entered space between planets, but he's not out of the solar system.

Questioner

Okay, so he's <still there> in the Scadrian system, just...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yep.

Questioner

Okay, just edging it there.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, mhm. That's what I'd say if I had to actually point <at> him. I would get really fuzzy though, because it wouldn't be too much longer before he enters another solar system. Like he would pass lightyears in steps as he starts getting further, if that makes any sense.

Questioner

That makes sense, because, I mean, with worldhopping in general it's like... You can only... I mean it's... I don't know how the time dilation works per se, but...

Brandon Sanderson

It's not-- there's not much time dilation. What you've got going on is... Things that people aren't around to think about, things without minds or any sort of life, don't manifest on Shadesmar very much at all. And so the space between planets gets really small, unless there's another planet out there with thinking beings or at least some sort of life on it. Like even lower lifeforms, you'll get something manifesting on Shadesmar. But yeah.

Questioner

Okay. So the Cognitive Realm, in Shadesmar...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

...in the Cognitive Realm... It's kind of the... Any kind of sentient or cognitive life-- that's what is building Shadesmar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah.

Questioner

So like anything where there's blackness... is like... condensed or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. Particularly if no one's thinking about it? If people are thinking about it.. like, for instance, an island in the ocean that was scoured of all life and even bacteria would still manifest in Shadesmar on that planet because people are aware of it and things like this. But one on the other side of the planet, that no one ever knew about it, probably wouldn't.

Questioner

So that same island, if people just stopped thinking about it or like stopped being aware it's *inaudible* would it...

Brandon Sanderson

It could slowly vanish, yes. And so-- But that's more of a thought experiment. You're never gonna have a planet that that happens to, you know cause...

Questioner

Right.

Brandon Sanderson

But thought experiment wise, yes, that would eventually kind of get consumed by Shadesmar and vanish. The same thing would happen to a planet that you strip the atmosphere from--all the bacteria and life dies on it--you know, slowly going to vanish. But a moon will still manifest because people are thinking about it. It'll just not-- it won't-- it'll be hoakie, it'll be weird--the moon will be. Like you might find a little patch that represents the moon. Something like that.

Questioner

That's interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

You're not gonna find the full landscape of the moon until people start visiting it. And it's gonna grow on Shadesmar.

source

So a moon, or an uninhabited planet is still Goin to be represented because people are aware of and thinking of it. 

What happens when science and education progress to a point that the average person in the Cosmere is aware of the Cosmere itself? When the space between planets is thought of, and the world's are thought of in relation to each other? 

I don't think that any of that would be close to its actual size... But I also think it's going to prevent people from crossing "light years in a step." 

[Draginon]

@Ripheus23 I did think of that at one point why Mistborn ends the story instead of having a final Avengers story but when you think about it how many of the characters we know will be there? Hoid, Khriss and Nazh are the ones that we know for sure should be there (Hoid because of WOB, Khriss and Nazh because of the stuff from AU) but when you think about it would Vin, Kaladin, Raoden, Shai, Silence, Wax and all the other characters we follow be there? Who knows, maybe our 'Avengers' team in Era 4 will consist of one person per planet (Hoid/Yolen, Khriss/Taldain, Nazh/Threnody) while the 'main' character will be the Scadrian of the group?

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, Draginon said:

@Ripheus23 I did think of that at one point why Mistborn ends the story instead of having a final Avengers story but when you think about it how many of the characters we know will be there?

That's actually precisely what Brandon doesn't want to do. 

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Questioner

Can we expect a Cosmere Avengers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. You can expect crossovers between the planets. My goal is not an Avengers-style, one character that you... like, if it were a true Cosmere Avengers it would be like, "Oh, we're going to have this character from this series, this character from this series," that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for more of a clash between the cultures and worlds. There will definitely be characters that you know that end up involved in that. But it's not, I'm not shooting for an Avengers-style thing, I'm shooting for more... It's more like imagine Star Trek, and retrograde back to all of the stories you're telling on the separate planets before they meet each other. Less Avengers, more "We're going to have an intergalactic... thing, going on." These are all of the origins of the cultures and peoples that are going to be involved in that. And since there are some immortals around, you will see people.

source

 

[Draginon]

4 minutes ago, Calderis said:

That's actually precisely what Brandon doesn't want to do. 

And that's why I followed up with a "how can we have a crossover with so few characters still alive by then?" line of thinking. I mean Hoid is still a bit of a wild card so we can't say for sure what his role at that time will be but with others like Khriss and Nazh what roles would they realistically have? Nazh I guess could be some kind of navigator and Khriss being a 'commander' by figuring out how to counter the investiture being used by the enemy but would those two involve themselves in the conflict of the story? I doubt they'd involve themselves outside of if they happened to get caught up in the whole mess.

[Angsos]

My guess is Dalinar in some form will still be around and Kelsier most likely. Vasher and Vivenna can be, Susebron will probably pass on his breaths when Siri dies, same for Raoden and Serine. Sazed probably will be but that doesn't mean they actually will be.

[Spoolofwhool]

7 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

That makes sense as far as an external reason to write several trilogies in one context. However, I feel like this isn't enough to make that final step to "and by the way the whole Cosmere endgame is finally grounded in this progression." I feel like MBE4, as such, would make a better, "And this is the second-to-last part of the Cosmere saga," with at least one ultimate finale book that isn't tied, even externally, to only a specific planet/magic system/w/e. Or, at "worst," have another Arcanum Unbounded with novellas that tell the story of the end of the Cosmere from the POVs of multiple Shardworlds, or whatever. Or, an AU with one super-novella included that is the final story, or whatever.

True, but I think that at the end, Era 4 won't be tied that much to Scadrial and the Metallic Arts, and there will still be significant influences from other series, so it won't just feel like a Mistborn story. Brandon has talked about this, and has said that approaching the end, there may be books which require significant background reading from multiple series to understand. 

[Draginon]

14 hours ago, Angsos said:

My guess is Dalinar in some form will still be around and Kelsier most likely. Vasher and Vivenna can be, Susebron will probably pass on his breaths when Siri dies, same for Raoden and Serine. Sazed probably will be but that doesn't mean they actually will be.

It's almost interesting trying to figure out which characters could realistically be around for the events of Era 4.

[Ripheus23]

On 9/2/2018 at 2:14 PM, Calderis said:

What happens when science and education progress to a point that the average person in the Cosmere is aware of the Cosmere itself? When the space between planets is thought of, and the world's are thought of in relation to each other? 

I don't think that any of that would be close to its actual size... But I also think it's going to prevent people from crossing "light years in a step."

I wonder why the Shards' knowledge of the scale of the Cosmere doesn't affect the Cognitive Realm more, then? There must be something more, like, the number of people with the cognition/belief, that intensifies/expands the system. (Reminiscent of the Outer Planes in D&D, I would say.)

EDIT:

I also came up with a storytelling/theme-based reason for Scadrial to be the focal planet at the end of the Cosmere saga. Yolen was there at the start. Scadrial was created in the image of Yolen (to some extent), and is keyed to the number 16. The AU essay about Scadrial seems to have it as Khriss' favorite world to study. So... for whatever reason, it seems that Sanderson has as such settled on this particular Shardworld for the sake of the Cosmere endgame...

Edited September 4, 2018 by Ripheus23

[tmnsquirtle]

On 9/4/2018 at 0:49 PM, Ripheus23 said:

I wonder why the Shards' knowledge of the scale of the Cosmere doesn't affect the Cognitive Realm more, then? There must be something more, like, the number of people with the cognition/belief, that intensifies/expands the system. (Reminiscent of the Outer Planes in D&D, I would say.)

This needs more thought and discussion, I think.

Edited September 5, 2018 by tmnsquirtle

[Spoolofwhool]

On 9/4/2018 at 1:49 PM, Ripheus23 said:

I wonder why the Shards' knowledge of the scale of the Cosmere doesn't affect the Cognitive Realm more, then? There must be something more, like, the number of people with the cognition/belief, that intensifies/expands the system. (Reminiscent of the Outer Planes in D&D, I would say.)

I think it does have to do with general perception of people, not just one or two entities, even on the scale of shards. However, I think shards could specifically apply pressure to create regions in the Cognitive Realm without the perception of many people.

[Slimy_Slider]

While I can see Cognitive Worldhopping methods getting harder, I'm not sure that it's going to be ruled out totally. Even nowadays, in a modern society, most people don't really understand how big space is, relatively. There's a point at which out brains just lose all relative sense of numbers and size and it's not particuarly high.

[Scion of the Mists]

On 9/3/2018 at 0:05 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

True, but I think that at the end, Era 4 won't be tied that much to Scadrial and the Metallic Arts, and there will still be significant influences from other series, so it won't just feel like a Mistborn story. Brandon has talked about this, and has said that approaching the end, there may be books which require significant background reading from multiple series to understand. 

I think it's similar to the Captain America movies in the MCU.  Winter Soldier and Civil War are much more widely focused than just Captain America himself.  They're almost like Averngers-lite movies.  I imagine that Era 4 will be similar in that, though it'll have elements of all the magic systems, it'll focus a little bit more on the Scadrians than the others (they'll have the tech to move in physical space).  

Plus, he kind of had to do it this way.  All the other series are self-contained and focused on a single time period/story.  Mistborn is already multiple stories taking place at different points in time, using varying tech levels.  

[Weltall]

On 9/3/2018 at 8:41 AM, Draginon said:

It's almost interesting trying to figure out which characters could realistically be around for the events of Era 4.

In theory, just about anyone who we don't see pass Beyond could remain around through to the end through one method or another, though to keep the list from becoming completely unmanageable we could probably exclude anyone who dies Physically where we don't know of a reasonable method by which they could become a Cognitive Shadow. IE, unless they're from a world where becoming a CS is known to be 'easy' (Threnody or something like Brandon's hypothetical 'Tenacity' Shard) we can probably assume that unless we're shown otherwise, everyone we see die Physically has passed Beyond and is out of the running. That still leaves us with the various methods of Cosmere immortality, which I will now exposit on because I have too much time on my hands.  Spoil-tagged for length.

Spoiler

Atium compounding has been lost by MB Era 2 and between a lack of the metal and its own nature as a prolonging rather than a permanent solution to aging, it's probably not a terribly viable method but depending on how many years lie between the 'current' Cosmere stories and MB Era 4, it's at least possible that compounding could see a character through to the latter point. More likely is someone with A-Cadmium and a large metal reserve, or a group of Pulsers working together. Brandon has confirmed this is a reasonable method of one-directional 'time travel'. Assuming she survives The Lost Metal we could put down Marasi as a character who could realistically survive to Era 3 and maybe even Era 4. The kandra are a bit more questionable since they're very long-lived but Brandon has confirmed that they're do have a limit on their lifespan. Depending on what the upper limit is and how much time is going to pass before the final era, it may or many not be possible for someone like MeLaan to live that long.

Elantrians of course can live forever so any of them could realistically stay around until the conclusion of the timeline. That said we know it's draining to be an Elantrian so whether any of them will live that long is an entirely separate question from whether they can. We know that Dakhor magic can alter apparent age but we don't know if it can actually prolong life, so we don't know much about Selish characters who aren't Elantrian being able to survive.

Nalthis is easy, anyone who has enough Breath to reach the Fifth Heightening becomes immortal and while Returned need an ongoing supply of Investiture they can remain alive so long as they have one. I personally don't see Vasher remaining through to the end (at some point he's likely to either reach 'his moment' like Lightsong did or he's just going to decide he's lived long enough and it's time to move on) though as he's been around for centuries already it's at least possible. Given that Vivenna's brother-in-law is the one guy we know can spare ~2000 Breaths without issue, she's plausible as someone who could survive to the end as well if she hits Susebron up for a transfusion. Or she could acquire them on her own.

We know there's some method of prolonging life on Taldain (Skathan is rumored to be long-lived if not immortal and Baon confirms at least the former) but we don't know how accessible it is, so we'll pass over the world for now.

Roshar has the Heralds who being already immortal could make it to MB4, but they're all varying degrees of insane and Team Odium is actively hunting them so I don't like most of their chances. Surgebinders don't live especially longer than normal humans but the spren are effectively immortal so we could theoretically see someone like Syl or Wyndle in MB4, bonded to another human. Another possibility is manipulating the Surges in a form of relativistic travel, which could work for any world with FTL but Stormlight Archive has gravity manipulation so it might be easier for them to figure out than most other worlds. Then we have the two Aimian species which are immortal, so Axies or Arclo could certainly be around for the long run. Actually, we know there's going to be a Dysian in the final Mistborn trilogy so...

And lastly, we come to the big elephant in the room and that's the method used by the Seventeenth Shard to slow the aging process. We know that most of the group uses the same method and it doesn't require one to already be Invested since Baon uses it and Brandon's said he wouldn't be considered Invested. Khriss and Nazh probably use this method as well. One assumes there's an upper limit on this since it only slows aging but all appearances are that you can live a very long time with this method, so anyone who can learn it could be a candidate for inclusion in MB4.

Oh, and to close we already know Hoid will be around and since Brandon has told us that Dragons are naturally immortal we can assume Frost will probably be around at the end as well.

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by Weltall

[Draginon]

@Weltall Yeah some are pretty obvious. Will put rest in spoiler:

Spoiler

Scadrial: It could be possible for Kandra like MeLaan and TenSoon to be there for the end unless something happens to them in W&W4 or Era 3. Other characters, like the Era 3 protagonists, are up in the air as far as I can tell. Marasi is a good question since she would need enough cadmium to keep the effect up that long

Sel: I would assume Elantrians are the only immortals unless the mysterious third great power has something like it. I doubt Raoden would want to stay around when Sarene dies, unless she becomes an Elantrian as well at some point. We already know Galladon is alive because of WOK though that's the middle of the timeline so something could still happen to him. I wonder if the seons would still be there.

Nalthis: That's pretty easy on the longevity side. Personally the only one I can see staying till the end is Nightblood. Vasher could still be there but like you said he could choose to stop living. Susebron I doubt would want to outlive Siri so can't count on him.

Taldain: ... Let's not get into this one until we have more info.

Roshar: I have this feeling that the Heralds will all be killed off by the end of Stormlight 10, though they could get some replacements from the rest of the cast

Other: It is pretty obvious that the method slows since Khriss is described as have some grey in her hair in BOM, I don't know if she should have grey during White Sands since the graphic novel could just be artist interpretation of her, so going by that logic she should probably look like an old lady during Era 4 or pretty close.

Hoid is so obvious it doesn't even need to be said at this point.

 

[Szmit]

On 1.09.2018 at 9:47 PM, Ripheus23 said:

This puzzles me a little [a lot]. For example, why not on Yolen? Maybe Yolen has been destroyed, or something like that. Why not Roshar, since the SA is going to be Sanderson's most complex work? Why not Sel, since Elantris was his first published novel? Why not nowhere especially?

Sanderson considers Dragonsteel-Stormlight-Mistborn as a backbone of the series. Dragonsteel as the orgin, Stormlight as the center piece (and it holds place for probably the most important conflict - Odium vs Honor), so it makes sense that Mistborn gets the ending.

The thing about Mistborn is that it grows. During the times of final empie Scadrial was just a Shardworld like any other, but at the end of cosmere it will be the center of interstellar empire. Every planet that wouldn't be forbidden to contact with them would feel either like part of Scadrial or surrounded by Scadrial.

I also don't belive it will be that much focused on Metallic Arts - technology and main character probably would be using mainly it, but Scadrian society with help of Harmony in the world full of diffrent kinds of magic would be probably more interested in the nature of investiture itself.

[Ixthos]

@Szmit Slight correction - as I recall Elantris is also part of that sequence, so those planets which either definitel have two or more shards or likely have two or more shards.

I think the main reason it is Mistborn is because in the end Mistborn will be using the metal from the other shards - shard's power condense as metal, and mistborn can burn metals for effects. If a mistborn is connected enough to another shard they can likely burn their metal, and so the full expansion of the shard based magics interacting with a focus on how the metallic arts - specifically constructed to affect metals and thus effect shards - would be a logical extension of the series - both mistborn and the whole Cosmere. Mistborn are the only magic users which potentially can use the power of every shard naturally, or as a normal extension of the magic they have.