42 murders

[Koloss17 She/They]

Spoilers for Dark One: Forgotten ahead! If you have not listened to Brandon Sanderson’s latest audiobook collab with Dan Wells, I highly recommend you listen to it. It’s a great 6 hour journey that I’m sure you’ll love.

 

 

 

 

with that out of the way, let’s begin.

 

 

So Dark One: Forgotten takes place a bit before the original, with a story exploring Malmahan’s misdeeds. Additionally, it gives context to the brief mention of a podcast being used as evidence for Malhaman’s murders. However, this doesn’t seem to be the same murder case. 

In Forgotten, there are 42 strictly LA-based murders done by Malmahan, with Malmahan himself saying that there were many, many more.

 

In the comic, however, there are 15 strictly New York-based murders, with Malmahan claiming that he committed 13 additional murders. 
 

To go further, Forgotten is set in 2022, whereas Dark One seems to be set in 2020. Given that Forgotten is meant to act as a prequel, that doesn’t add up.

 

So either Forgotten is non-canon, which seems unlikely, it is an intentional discontinuity in-world, which I also doubt, or Dark One’s canon will be rewritten with the writing of the Dark One novel. Personally I’m betting on the last one, but I have know confirmation. Has Brandon Sanderson said anything about this?

[StormingTexan he/him]

Sorry nothing to add because I have not read/listened to either but was curious if you feel like you can listen to the Audio book stand alone? 

[Koloss17 She/They]

1 hour ago, StormingTexan said:

Sorry nothing to add because I have not read/listened to either but was curious if you feel like you can listen to the Audio book stand alone? 

Of course! The two, I feel, are almost mutually exclusive from each other. It works fantastically as a stand-alone, and I had a blast listening to it. I’d recommend giving it a listen, even if you haven’t read and/or don’t plan on reading Dark One before Brandon Sanderson makes the novelization.

[HSuperLee he/him]

I found myself wondering about this as well. There are a few other things throughout the audio drama that seemed to indicate to me that with the Dark One novel coming out, we've entered a new cannon. Also, while this may not be a retcon, due to how little we knew about Paul's father, the graphic novel heavily implied that Zoran went to Mirandus and never returned, while he appears in the audio drama as the "ember wizard." So yeah, I agree with you that the third option is the most likely.

[StormingTexan he/him]

13 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

Of course! The two, I feel, are almost mutually exclusive from each other. It works fantastically as a stand-alone, and I had a blast listening to it. I’d recommend giving it a listen, even if you haven’t read and/or don’t plan on reading Dark One before Brandon Sanderson makes the novelization.

Perfect thanks! Yes graphic novels are really not my thing but I listen to a lot of audio books and wanted to try this out. The premise of a podcast format sounded fun.