[From the SP4 live stream] What is Brandon's "hidden foreshadowing" for the Stormlight back five?

[Ixthos Midnight Essence]

Putting this in the Cosmere section rather than Stormlight as this may or may not require discussing other Cosmere stories. The following also comes from the SP4 reveal live stream, though I've removed the parts from the quote that allude to spoiler information in that live stream, so I hope this is acceptable to post here.

 

Brandon said recently that there is some hidden foreshadowing for the back five Stormlight books:

Quote

[...]

Matt Hatch

Do you have questions that you've embedded that are not answered until the end of the Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Um, yes.

Matt Hatch

There are questions there. Okay, so you still believe in that kind of like-

Brandon Sanderson

I do still believe in that, but they're more vague. In Stormlight 1, there's a set of things called Death Rattles, which are...the best, for Wheel of Time fans, the best mimic you have for them is probably Min's visions. They are little hints of what's to come. And those are embedded for things that happen all the way through the ten books. And, you know, I've done...done things like that.

Matt Hatch

There's going to be some of us going back and reading Way of Kings and going like "Oh, you know, in Book 9-there it is!"

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, right, yeah. You should be able to do that. There are other things that I don't want to highlight people's attention on, but there's another big one in the Stormlight Archive that I've been doing all through the books that people don't realize is foreshadowing for the back five books. But it is! So, that'll be very fun. I can tell you what that is after the stream. It's something that I can do in my work that's very hard for other people to do in their works.

Secret Project #4 Reveal and Livestream (March 29, 2022)

Yes Brandon, that will be fun ... yes ... 

Anyone know Matt's contact details? 

 

So, what could this foreshadowing be? By implication it isn't the Death Rattles, but then what is it? The Letters? Wit's end of book interactions? A recurring point of discussion? Brandon indicated its something he can do in his works that is hard for others. Is it actually something related to other Cosmere works? But he also said its in the Stormlight Archive.

What are your theories?

[Invocation Tarachin Superstar]

I'd be willing to bet it's something to do with a complete restructuring of Surgebinding from what Ishar and Honor tied it to initially. Potentially to incorporate the other godspren like the Unmade and Cuisicesh. And maybe the Storm Striders.

[Frustration Unmade]

I think this will be more like Tones and Rhythms. We aren't going to see this until after it happens.

[Ixthos Midnight Essence]

39 minutes ago, Invocation said:

I'd be willing to bet it's something to do with a complete restructuring of Surgebinding from what Ishar and Honor tied it to initially. Potentially to incorporate the other godspren like the Unmade and Cuisicesh. And maybe the Storm Striders.

The problem with that is it doesn't seem like something that was done across all the books so far - I don't think Ishar's involvement in the formation of the Orders was mentioned until WoR, though perhaps it was mentioned in tWoK, I'm not certain on that. This is something Brandon has apparently been doing throughout the entire first set of books, covered in each one.

 

25 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I think this will be more like Tones and Rhythms. We aren't going to see this until after it happens.

Probably, but its still fun to speculate! 

[Harrycrapper King's Wit]

Given that the back 5 are supposed to be more about the Heralds, I think maybe this could be how the Ten Fools relate back to them.

[Invocation Tarachin Superstar]

23 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

The problem with that is it doesn't seem like something that was done across all the books so far - I don't think Ishar's involvement in the formation of the Orders was mentioned until WoR, though perhaps it was mentioned in tWoK, I'm not certain on that. This is something Brandon has apparently been doing throughout the entire first set of books, covered in each one.

Cusicesh was mentioned in WOK, potentially ticking that off. Depends on what he means by doing it the entire first set.

[drunkenbotanist Awakened Object]

2 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

Given that the back 5 are supposed to be more about the Heralds, I think maybe this could be how the Ten Fools relate back to them.

I think maybe this and the detail about it being something other people have a hard time doing with their works I think it's potentially about control over things like art design. I'm speculating that it has to do with the herald portraits at the beginning of chapters. 

 

Lots of people have linked or tried to link portraits to events in chapters.

 

I think this is probably the best hint of something other people can't do that he can, and it appeared in the same thought as the death rattles that are most frequently seen as epigraphs

[zebobes Babsk]

I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!! How about the cover copy written by the sleepless? What if there's a big sleepless plot that only comes to light in the last half of the Stormlight Archive, and the text on the back of each book is foreshadowing something. This is a big thing that could be overlooked, and there's a new set of text in each book. 

I'm too lazy to reread and analyze it at the moment, but this would be Brandon literally hiding something right in plain sight. Very Brandon, right? 

[Zapata Cobalt Guard]

3 hours ago, zebobes said:

I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!! How about the cover copy written by the sleepless? What if there's a big sleepless plot that only comes to light in the last half of the Stormlight Archive, and the text on the back of each book is foreshadowing something. This is a big thing that could be overlooked, and there's a new set of text in each book. 

I'm too lazy to reread and analyze it at the moment, but this would be Brandon literally hiding something right in plain sight. Very Brandon, right? 

From memory, the Way of Kings cover blurb ends with something like "one of them may save us. and one will destroy us" (them being Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, and Szeth) or something like that. That seems pretty relevant, right? Do we know what time relative to the story the Sleepless blurbs are produced?

[RedBlue Bloodsealer]

20 hours ago, Ixthos said:

So, what could this foreshadowing be? By implication it isn't the Death Rattles, but then what is it? The Letters? Wit's end of book interactions? A recurring point of discussion?

Off the top of my head, I can think of two running mysteries that have been in the background since WoK.

What’s up with the Dawncities? Why do cities have those weird rock formations? Why do they look like resonant frequency patterns? Does this have to do with the formation of the Shattered Plains?

Where do spren come from? It has been noted several times that there are no baby spren. But the spren are different ages, and they need to have started somehow. So how exactly do you get a ‘new’ spren, and what are ‘new’ spren like? How do their personalities form?

Both of these seem like an opportunity for a big reveal in the back half.

[Child of Hodor Savant]

The voidbinding chart is one. It’s been sorta related to Renarin, but not in a clear sense. It foreshadowed the King’s Drop, but aside from that it’s not been relevant yet. I expect it to matter a lot more in the back 5
 

Edited April 6 by Child of Hodor

[honorblades Bloodsealer]

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

I do still believe in that, but they're more vague. In Stormlight 1, there's a set of things called Death Rattles, which are...the best, for Wheel of Time fans, the best mimic you have for them is probably Min's visions. They are little hints of what's to come. And those are embedded for things that happen all the way through the ten books. And, you know, I've done...done things like that.

On the contrary, I do think this is explicitly about the Death Rattles. And there are a few that to my eyes seem related, and none of which that we can satisfactory tie an event to ... Yet. 

I actually have a theory related to this called the Lighthouse, which you can find linked. I will paste Death Rattles here. 

 

• The day was ours, but they took it. Stormfather! You cannot have it. The day is ours. They come, rasping, and the lights fail. Oh, Stormfather!
• Above silence, the illuminating storms—dying storms—illuminate the silence above.
• So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life…
• Light grows so distant. The storm never stops. I am broken, and all around me have died. I weep for the end of all things. He has won. Oh, he has beaten us.
• I'm cold. Mother, I'm cold. Mother? Why can I still hear the rain? Will it stop?

Again, these all seem to be referring to a single event. A storm without end, that does not renew spheres with Stormlight. 

[Child of Hodor Savant]

3 hours ago, honorblades said:

On the contrary, I do think this is explicitly about the Death Rattles. And there are a few that to my eyes seem related, and none of which that we can satisfactory tie an event to ... Yet. 

I actually have a theory related to this called the Lighthouse, which you can find linked. I will paste Death Rattles here. 

 

• The day was ours, but they took it. Stormfather! You cannot have it. The day is ours. They come, rasping, and the lights fail. Oh, Stormfather!
• Above silence, the illuminating storms—dying storms—illuminate the silence above.
• So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life…
• Light grows so distant. The storm never stops. I am broken, and all around me have died. I weep for the end of all things. He has won. Oh, he has beaten us.
• I'm cold. Mother, I'm cold. Mother? Why can I still hear the rain? Will it stop?

Again, these all seem to be referring to a single event. A storm without end, that does not renew spheres with Stormlight. 

My take on some of these is: 

The storm without end is the Everstorm (as in a forever storm). AKA the “barrier storm” in the cognitive realm on Braize that Odium’s forces moved a piece of to Roshar and summoned to the physical realm.
 

Dying storms - illuminate the Silence Above. In WoK Dalinar gets the Visions only during Highstorms. The final Vision reveals that the god they worship has been dead a long time: the silence above. 

[honorblades Bloodsealer]

19 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

My take on some of these is: 

Just wanted to quote to tag you, love this take. Very interesting. Although the Everstorm currently coexists with the highstorms, so something there would have to change. 

 

The Silence Above would make a fantastic title for SA5, sometimes I wish we weren't beholden to the ketek naming scheme... 

[Zapata Cobalt Guard]

9 hours ago, honorblades said:

Just wanted to quote to tag you, love this take. Very interesting. Although the Everstorm currently coexists with the highstorms, so something there would have to change. 

That could be the event the Death Rattles are referring to. The Night of Sorrows, perhaps.

[Sandra Prelan]

On 6.4.2022 at 6:58 AM, honorblades said:

Just wanted to quote to tag you, love this take. Very interesting. Although the Everstorm currently coexists with the highstorms, so something there would have to change. 

 

The Silence Above would make a fantastic title for SA5, sometimes I wish we weren't beholden to the ketek naming scheme... 

The Silence Divine is a working title for Brandon's maybe-one-day-to-happen Ashyn novel. So we'll possibly get a similar title, just not for Stormlight

[Ixthos Midnight Essence]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:08 AM, honorblades said:

On the contrary, I do think this is explicitly about the Death Rattles. And there are a few that to my eyes seem related, and none of which that we can satisfactory tie an event to ... Yet. 

I'm not convinced of that mainly due to how Brandon worded it: after mentioning the Death Rattles he says, "There are other things that I don't want to highlight people's attention on," which indicates he is talking about something other than the Death Rattles. The Death Rattles are foreshadowing for the future, but there is apparently something else as well.

 

On 4/6/2022 at 6:58 AM, honorblades said:

The Silence Above would make a fantastic title for SA5, sometimes I wish we weren't beholden to the ketek naming scheme... 

Now that is something I definitely agree with you on, at least as a Stormlight title (I actually like the ketek naming system), but Silence Above as SA6, for example, would be a cool name.

Edited April 7 by Ixthos
Clarified last part of post

[alder24 Awakened Object]

On 5.04.2022 at 6:18 PM, RedBlue said:

What’s up with the Dawncities? Why do cities have those weird rock formations? Why do they look like resonant frequency patterns? Does this have to do with the formation of the Shattered Plains?

Well if every Downcity has it's own frequency then they have also anti-frequency. And that's how Shattered Plains were shattered. 

[I think I am here. Mistborn]

Do authors often have interludes like Brandon does in SA? I think not. Maybe that’s what he’s using to foreshadow future events (which is difficult for other writers who don’t have interludes). For example, the whole thing about measuring a flamespren and fixing its shape.

Edited April 14 by I think I am here.

[teknopathetic Gerontarch]

I have always thought the hidden ending was the vision of Roshar being destroyed. We know that is one possible outcome, so what if it is actually THE outcome. 

Edited April 14 by teknopathetic

[Morningtide Envisager]

On 4/5/2022 at 6:48 AM, zebobes said:

I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!! How about the cover copy written by the sleepless? What if there's a big sleepless plot that only comes to light in the last half of the Stormlight Archive, and the text on the back of each book is foreshadowing something. This is a big thing that could be overlooked, and there's a new set of text in each book. 

I'm too lazy to reread and analyze it at the moment, but this would be Brandon literally hiding something right in plain sight. Very Brandon, right? 

I like this idea! All of the covers have a few funny things that don't quite make sense.

[RedBlue Bloodsealer]

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

Well if every Downcity has it's own frequency then they have also anti-frequency. And that's how Shattered Plains were shattered. 

I mean, I figured that each Dawncity is associated with a frequency, but this begs the question. Why do specific physical locations have their own frequency? Is this a natural feature, or did someone make them like this? Why is the resonant frequency expressed by the rock?

It’s as though the rock was much more fluid (molten?) at some point, and a tone was played really really loudly, and then the rock froze in place. That’s what I would be thinking, if I were a scholar living on Roshar. But ... why? When? How? By whom? 

As for the Shattered Plains, it is implied (by one of the Listeners’ songs, if I recall correctly) that somebody did it. Who, why, and how? That’s unclear. It can’t be that somebody played two really loud tones that clashed, because that wouldn’t make the rock shatter. I guess somebody could have lobbed a lot of anti-light at the Plains, and the explosion shattered them, but then why would they have shattered in a perfectly symmetrical pattern?

I don’t expect anyone to have answers yet, since there’s not much to go on. That’s why I’m expecting this to come up in future books (probably the second sequence).

[Wandering Shade Forescout]

12 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

I mean, I figured that each Dawncity is associated with a frequency, but this begs the question. Why do specific physical locations have their own frequency? Is this a natural feature, or did someone make them like this? Why is the resonant frequency expressed by the rock?

It’s as though the rock was much more fluid (molten?) at some point, and a tone was played really really loudly, and then the rock froze in place. That’s what I would be thinking, if I were a scholar living on Roshar. But ... why? When? How? By whom? 

As for the Shattered Plains, it is implied (by one of the Listeners’ songs, if I recall correctly) that somebody did it. Who, why, and how? That’s unclear. It can’t be that somebody played two really loud tones that clashed, because that wouldn’t make the rock shatter. I guess somebody could have lobbed a lot of anti-light at the Plains, and the explosion shattered them, but then why would they have shattered in a perfectly symmetrical pattern?

I don’t expect anyone to have answers yet, since there’s not much to go on. That’s why I’m expecting this to come up in future books (probably the second sequence).

I've always assumed it was a clash of Division users. One of the Division Brand Fused and Dustbringers who went nova and ended up wrecking the Shattered Plains as a result. As for how it got to that big of a scale, Dawnshards are supposed to be big Investiture Amplifiers...

[alder24 Awakened Object]

On 15.04.2022 at 0:38 AM, RedBlue said:

I mean, I figured that each Dawncity is associated with a frequency, but this begs the question. Why do specific physical locations have their own frequency? Is this a natural feature, or did someone make them like this? Why is the resonant frequency expressed by the rock?

It’s as though the rock was much more fluid (molten?) at some point, and a tone was played really really loudly, and then the rock froze in place. That’s what I would be thinking, if I were a scholar living on Roshar. But ... why? When? How? By whom? 

As for the Shattered Plains, it is implied (by one of the Listeners’ songs, if I recall correctly) that somebody did it. Who, why, and how? That’s unclear. It can’t be that somebody played two really loud tones that clashed, because that wouldn’t make the rock shatter. I guess somebody could have lobbed a lot of anti-light at the Plains, and the explosion shattered them, but then why would they have shattered in a perfectly symmetrical pattern?

I don’t expect anyone to have answers yet, since there’s not much to go on. That’s why I’m expecting this to come up in future books (probably the second sequence).

Venli use cohesion on rocks and it shaped into shapes, Singers that use songs to create stone tools, shape rock with voice. All of Roshar has it's own frequency, rocks as well. Downcities too, and when you play it's anti-frequency at the center of one od them loud enough, it would cancel out with city's frequency and shatterd along lines made by that frequency, or it would created "anti-downcity" like with creation od anti-light. Normal frequency and anti-frequency have opposite ups and downs. That would created the same pattern that the Downcity had and all of Downcities have symmetrical pattern. That's why Shatterd Plains are symmetrical. Few times it was said that "Shatterd Plains looks like something heavy was droped on the center of it" so the source of the shattering was probably in the center. 

Edited April 16 by alder24

[Fezzik Soulcaster]

On 4/15/2022 at 4:16 AM, alder24 said:

Downcitys

These are actually spelled "dawncities", which emphasises the fact they might be related to dawnshards, dawnchant, and are part of roshar's prehistory.