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Slatrification Retcon?


ReadAndFindOut

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I've had multiple people mention that Brandon has retconned slatrification out of the Cosmere, but I can't find anything solid that says that. I know he doesn't like it, and would change it if he published a new novel version of White Sand, making slatrification an in-world "legend" about Sand Mastery. But it's explicitly mentioned at the beginning of White Sand 1. In this WoB Brandon says they fixed slatrification in WS3, but I didn't find anything in the last installment that had anything to do with slatrification. Does anyone know if it's been officially retconned?

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I have not seen any definitive statement that it has been retconned out. It was a possibility Brandon discussed, but like you said, there's nothing in the third graphic novel to address it. The WoB you link and one other one seem to indicate that it still is a thing in the cosmere, just that it functions differently:

Quote

Questioner

If you could make one change to the cosmere that is impossible to change now, what would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

Hmmm.... I gave this some thought all week, and had trouble deciding because the things I would change are more about individual books, and less about the cosmere as a whole. I don't know if I'd change anything about the big story--mostly because the things I would want to change would all take place in the Dragonsteel era, and that book isn't canonical anyway. Once I write it for real, I can change any of the things that I don't think are working.

As for the core of the cosmere...I might make some small tweaks to Allomancy. I have hever liked how the signal of sixteen worked in Hero of Ages. (for those not in the know, I talk about this in the annotations--I was looking for a sign that Preservation could send that Ruin wouldn't notice, along with help for mankind.) In the end, i think this ended up being a little clunky. Other things (like slatrification in sand mastery) are small enough I can change moving forward, but not Allomancy. So I might take another stap at that.

On the whole, though, I'm very pleased with how the larger cosmere story is playing out.

FAQFriday 2017 (April 21, 2017)

Since there is explicitly a "fix" in White Sand 3, it's worth asking what specific deviations there are in this volume from the original novel. The battle with Drile has a new lines, Kenton's thoughts about feeling the sand on a deeper level than ever before (four pages before the end of Part 5). It's not present in the original draft (pages 1006 through 1007), so it makes me think that Kenton was just about to figure out how to slatrify. On the other hand, the original draft did have a portion (page 1014) where Drile attempted to slatrify, which has been removed.

All in all, I don't see anything definitive either way. I suspect, now that it's out, someone will ask Brandon about it later this year, either on the fall tour to Europe/Israel or at the Starsight release party.

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