Fires of December / SP6 (Spoilers from the reading at Nexus)

[Nitpicking]

14 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I legitimately don't understand this sentiment—absolutely nobody complained about the name Charlie, despite it also existing IRL, or the fact that the word Hemalurgy is derived from ancient Greek roots. That's to say, the Cosmere already has many references to Earth, so why are you (and others) so worked up about this particular one?

Tress wasn't as serious a story as this, so out-of-place words didn't seem as weird. At least, that's how I see it.

[Cosmer]

Again…fully think it was clunky for most people because Hoid was calling attention to the “translation” which could imply he knows English which is dumb. I am not that bothered by it but that’s my hypothesis. 
 

I think what would’ve worked better is if he just remarked that he wondered what month it translated to for us (the reader). 

[listerfeend]

17 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I legitimately don't understand this sentiment—absolutely nobody complained about the name Charlie, despite it also existing IRL, or the fact that the word Hemalurgy is derived from ancient Greek roots. That's to say, the Cosmere already has many references to Earth, so why are you (and others) so worked up about this particular one?

Besides, lore isn't the end all be all of things, and the name December is much better than something like Chachanan or Vinuarch.

You can be fine with it, that's totally cool. To me it feels both extremely lazy, and immersion breaking. December is not a generic name like Charlie, nor is it a "fantasy" version of some ancient Greek root like Hemalurgy. At least the word "Hemalurgy" sounds like a technical term, and it doesn't actually exist in any language here in the real world. December is a month on our calendar.

Furthermore, Brandon himself called out that it was likely going to be an issue for many readers, and essentially promised an actual explanation, within the reading that he did. That explanation was the most lazy, hand wavey thing I think Brandon has ever put to paper. It has nothing to do with her name, and certainly does nothing to explain why he is translating her name to a month on the Gregorian calendar—something Hoid, for all his vast knowledge, couldn't possibly be aware of. I would have been totally fine with it if he had had some kind of in world explanation for the name. Or he was able to make some kind of nod and wink that would draw some kind of comparison to the month, the season, or SOMETHING, other than just "Her name isn't that, but I'm going to translate it as such".

Hoid translating her name to a proper noun tied explicitly to an Earth calendar system that doesn't and shouldn't exist in the Cosmere makes about as much sense as him calling her Tuesday, or Christmas.

Edited January 21 by listerfeend

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

You can be fine with it, that's totally cool. To me it feels both extremely lazy, and immersion breaking. December is not a generic name like Charlie, nor is it a "fantasy" version of some ancient Greek root like Hemalurgy. At least the word "Hemalurgy" sounds like a technical term, and it doesn't actually exist in any language here in the real world. December is a month on our calendar.

Furthermore, Brandon himself called out that it was likely going to be an issue for many readers, and essentially promised an actual explanation, within the reading that he did. That explanation was the most lazy, hand wavey thing I think Brandon has ever put to paper. It has really no bearing on her name, or the reason it's a month on the Gregorian calendar, something that Hoid, even with his vast store of knowledge, should not have literally any inkling is a thing. I would have been totally fine with it if he had had some kind of in world explanation for the name. Or he was able to make some kind of nod and wink that would draw some kind of comparison to the month, the season, or SOMETHING, other than just "Her name isn't that, but I'm going to translate it as such".

Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.

He did say she was named after the coldest month of the year in her region of the world, but I highly doubt she will be called July in the Australian edition.

As for why she's called December in text, Brandon's explanation is that even Hoid isn't calling her December, but he is "translating" it as December for our understanding.

He tries to justify this by saying Tolkien did the same(i.e. in world Bilbo and Frodo's names are closer to Bilba and Froda, but Tolkien said that he "translated" them to sound more masculine in English) but for Tolkien it always flowed nicely and he never needed to explain that. None of the books need that explanation just to make sense of the main characters name.

 

It's something I've just decided to ignore, Brandon isn't very good with names and titles. At least we don't have to deal with: "The Aether's of Lor, Aether of the Wind: Climb the Sky" as a book title, despite him trying to write that one several times.

[listerfeend]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He did say she was named after the coldest month of the year in her region of the world, but I highly doubt she will be called July in the Australian edition.

You know, I honestly hadn't even put that together. That's not even the coldest month of the year every where here in America, so I think I just completely missed that entire reference. Where I'm from, January is the coldest month of the year. I can at least understand the connection, I'm not that dense, but I didn't catch that connection on my first, second, or third read-through of the pre-released chapters. 

 

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

As for why she's called December in text, Brandon's explanation is that even Hoid isn't calling her December, but he is "translating" it as December for our understanding.

This is honestly where I have the most issues. I've pretty much been under the impression that Hoid was telling these stories to someone IN the cosmere, with enough knowledge of current and historical events that references to other books would make sense to them. Or, at the very least, would be able to guess from context what they are talking about.

Maybe that's on me, maybe I missed a WoB somewhere where he tells us Hoid is telling these stories directly to us, or I just made conclusions about context that I was supposed to draw different conclusions from. 

 

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

This is honestly where I have the most issues. I've pretty much been under the impression that Hoid was telling these stories to someone IN the cosmere, with enough knowledge of current and historical events that references to other books would make sense to them. Or, at the very least, would be able to guess from context what they are talking about.

Maybe that's on me, maybe I missed a WoB somewhere where he tells us Hoid is telling these stories directly to us, or I just made conclusions about context that I was supposed to draw different conclusions from. 

No, you were right. He is telling them to a Cosmere audience

Also here's the WoB Brandon explains the whole thing

Spoiler

Questioner

The previous Hoid stories, Yumi and Tress; based on his word choice… I know they’re, like, translations. Based on his previous word choices, we kind of assumed he was telling these stories to a Rosharan.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Well, Each of those two books are told to different audiences.

Questioner

How does Hoid know the word December? Who is he talking to?

Brandon Sanderson

I use Grandpa Tolkien’s philosophy on this. Did you know that Sam’s name isn’t Sam? What is Sam’s name, Hilgo? I can’t remember. But for an English-speaking audience, Tolkien translated his name, because he said in their language, Sam’s name was something like a common name from ancient religious lore that’s been shortened into a cute nickname like Sam is. You can go read about this; that’s not his actual name.

I think there is definitely an argument for fantasy authors to try to not kick people out; but at the same time, there is madness in trying to say, “Well, I can’t use this word, because…” The one that I bring up: you usually wouldn’t use the word ottoman, because it comes from the Ottoman Empire; but at the same time, it’s been genericized to be an ottoman. There are so many words in English that, if you actually go to the history, and be like, “Well, this was named for a person. This word that we use. Does that mean we can’t use that word in fantasy?” I think in that direction lies madness.

So the way that we deal with it, that Tolkien said (and I read this essay by him years and years ago, before I even became a professional author, and I said, that’s the way I’m gonna do it), is that Brandon Sanderson is presenting this to you in translation. And I want you to understand; whenever anyone in that world hears December’s name, they don’t hear a normal name that you’re used to. They hear the name of a month. And they’re like, “Well that’s odd, that she’s named after a month.” They don’t hear that, like… When you hear Sanderson, you probably say, “Oh, that’s a name.” You don’t hear, “Oh, that came from Alexander’s Son.” Because it’s just become a name that we hear. But they stop when they hear her name. Because of that, I want to put it in translation into English in a way where you read it, you’re reminded of her heritage, and that her mother gave her this unique name, and she’s named after the day of the month, and kind of evoking that early first few paragraphs.

That’s how I approach doing this. And it’s been my philosophy since the beginning. And that’s why there’s, you know, homicidal hat trick in Mistborn 3. In all of Wit’s stories, one of the things that I’ve done is, he’s doing lots of interesting puns. Those would have to be completely different puns in their language. You just kind of have to put this filter over the top, where you’re like, “Brandon is presenting it to me so I have a certain feeling. When he names something allomancy or feruchemy, or things like this...” Greek and Latin don’t exist on Scadrial. Why do we have these Greek and Latin origin of names? Well, they have their own linguistic systems that evoke the same feeling.

To go otherwise, I think, lies madness. I know this is kind of a blanket “Brandon can do whatever he wants.” That’s why I do it! But I did know that December is name, in particular, like… There was some discussion; do I change it? And sometimes, when you’re a writer, you’re just like, my artistic intent… I love that name. That’s who she is. And I had that name from sentence one. I’m not gonna change that; it’s too intrinsic to the soul of the piece of art. I do understand that there are some that that kicks out, and I totally understand that. That’s not an invalid complaint. But do understand that this is how I approach all of the writing.

That doesn’t mean I won’t try to not kick you out when I can. I do know that switching from courting to dating bothered some people in Stormlight Five, and they’re right. If I could go back, I would change that one. Because there’s no real reason to use one or the other, except one does evoke just a little bit more of that classical feel. There definitely are valid complaints, and things I would change if it gets highlighted.

Footnote: Samwise Gamgee's in-universe name is Banazîr Galbasi.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/549/#e16992

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 21 by Frustration

[listerfeend]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

No, you were right. He is telling them to a Cosmere audience

So this basically is changing the entire frame of the narrative in a way that he (Brando) has never done before in the cosmere. He's never broken the fourth wall this hard. He's barely even knocked on it in ALL of his other books, and I honestly can't remember any specific instance of a fourth wall break, though I'm sure there are a few. Yet, this is taking a sledge hammer to it, and it starts on the cover. He could have named her "Winter" and I would have been super ok with that, or some other sufficiently descriptive name to indicate a "really really cold time of year". 

[Schizoposting]

I am not going to respond to every post in this thread, but I have to say that I find these sorts of discussions to be very inane, because instead of doing a serious analysis about the work in question, people just complain about random details not meeting some arbitrary standard.

I think that "December" is a great name in the context of the story and changing it just to appeal to the 1% of readers who take issue with it, because it doesn't fit the lore or whatever, would be a terrible decision on Brandon's part.

6 hours ago, listerfeend said:

So this basically is changing the entire frame of the narrative in a way that he (Brando) has never done before in the cosmere. He's never broken the fourth wall this hard. He's barely even knocked on it in ALL of his other books, and I honestly can't remember any specific instance of a fourth wall break, though I'm sure there are a few. Yet, this is taking a sledge hammer to it, and it starts on the cover. He could have named her "Winter" and I would have been super ok with that, or some other sufficiently descriptive name to indicate a "really really cold time of year". 

I don't mean to be abrasive here, but do you even know what it means to break the fourth wall? Because—whatever you may think of the decision—naming a character "December" is very much not a breaking of the fourth wall. It honestly seems like you heard this phrase somewhere and are just repeating it, without actually knowing what it means.

[WestwardWind]

Yeah, in writing fantasy sometimes you have to use things like really world word bases. It’s like how hemalurgy has Latin roots. 

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I am not going to respond to every post in this thread, but I have to say that I find these sorts of discussions to be very inane, because instead of doing a serious analysis about the work in question, people just complain about random details not meeting some arbitrary standard.

So are people not allowed to talk about things in the book that disappoint them?

8 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I think that "December" is a great name in the context of the story and changing it just to appeal to the 1% of readers who take issue with it, because it doesn't fit the lore or whatever, would be a terrible decision on Brandon's part.

Well it's too late now, obviously, but that doesn't mean that it was a good idea to make it a name that would throw people out of the book.

12 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I don't mean to be abrasive here, but do you even know what it means to break the fourth wall? Because—whatever you may think of the decision—naming a character "December" is very much not a breaking of the fourth wall. It honestly seems like you heard this phrase somewhere and are just repeating it, without actually knowing what it means.

You do come off as slightly abrasive, yeah. I know what that's like though, don't worry.

 

I would say that naming someone December, in a world that does not have December as a month does come pretty close to breaking the fourth wall. You might not. There really isn't a fine line.

1 minute ago, WestwardWind said:

Yeah, in writing fantasy sometimes you have to use things like really world word bases. It’s like how hemalurgy has Latin roots. 

Yes, but if the king is named Tonald Drump, I think you'd find that off putting. Some people just have different standards and tastes.

[Ninth of the Night]

It isn't that complicated, the story is basically being translated twice. Hoid translating in-world for his audience (where he does not use the word December), and then Brandon translating for his irl audience.

It's really just that simple. No need to overthink it or let it ruin your enjoyment of the surrounding story. 

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Ninth of the Night said:

It isn't that complicated, the story is basically being translated twice. Hoid translating in-world for his audience (where he does not use the word December), and then Brandon translating for his irl audience.

It's really just that simple. No need to overthink it or let it ruin your enjoyment of the surrounding story. 

This is the 17th shard, all we do is overthink these things.

[listerfeend]

3 hours ago, Ninth of the Night said:

It isn't that complicated, the story is basically being translated twice. Hoid translating in-world for his audience (where he does not use the word December), and then Brandon translating for his irl audience.

It's really just that simple. No need to overthink it or let it ruin your enjoyment of the surrounding story. 

This doesn't quite work for me, as Brandon has chosen to put those words in Hoid's mouth. If he had said something along the lines of 

Quote

Her name was December, named after the coldest month of the year

And just left it at that, we could assume that the standard Sci-Fi/Fantasy translation convention is in play. Immersion breaking, still, but less so than having Hoid literally say "I'm translating this to December". I'm not overthinking anything here, Brandon himself specifically called out this thing, and then drew more attention to it in the text. It's not overthinking something to think about the thing that is explicitly being called out.

17 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

instead of doing a serious analysis about the work in question, people just complain about random details not meeting some arbitrary standard.

Funny, seems like doing a serious analysis about the work in question would involve analyzing important things like: World building, setting, consistency, and the deliberate choices of the author for the work in question. Thing is, this is a trend that has been happening since RoW, and I see many posts on this forum discussing this very topic. "Dating" being a word in Stormlight, or therapy/therapist, etc... have been called out by many, not just me, enough that Brandon has said he'd go back and choose different words to convey the same meaning. 

This doesn't "Ruin" (ha) the story for me, it's just a continuation of a trend that I'm concerned about.

17 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I don't mean to be abrasive here, but do you even know what it means to break the fourth wall? Because—whatever you may think of the decision—naming a character "December" is very much not a breaking of the fourth wall. It honestly seems like you heard this phrase somewhere and are just repeating it, without actually knowing what it means.

Let's see, my definition of a Fourth Wall Break would be something like: when a work acknowledges the existence of the audience, or the work's fictional nature in a way the breaks the illusion that the work is a self contained world.

I'd argue this absolutely does do that, in an explicit way that we haven't seen before in the Cosmere. Brandon likes to use Tolkein as an example of this. He's called out that Sam's name wasn't actually Sam in TLotR, but actually "Banazîr Galpsi", which is then translated to us. But that is done entirely consistently, it's never called out in the text as a translation, no one even acknowledges that this translation convention is actually taking place. It's one thing to name your characters easy to pronounce and read names that probably shouldn't exist for that world. I'm not sure if it was you or someone else that mentioned the name Charlie in Tress. Obviously an english language, common name, true. It's also true that Hoid never acknowledges the translation going on, and it's just taken at face value and the story progresses without a hitch. Naming Charlie Tuesday would be just as bad as this though, as there is no real translation from some alien language that would make any sense. Same thing here. Not to mention that Hoid specifically calls out he is translating, which, as I said above, takes away pretty much any suspension of disbelief that you could have that Hoid himself does not know the words he is using. 

[Nitpicking]

On 1/22/2026 at 10:29 AM, listerfeend said:

And just left it at that, we could assume that the standard Sci-Fi/Fantasy translation convention is in play. Immersion breaking, still, but less so than having Hoid literally say "I'm translating this to December". I'm not overthinking anything here, Brandon himself specifically called out this thing, and then drew more attention to it in the text. It's not overthinking something to think about the thing that is explicitly being called out.

I will never know, but I speculate that the alpha/beta readers and/or editor(s) must have expressed doubts about "December" to the point where Brandon, in love with the idea, put in Hoid's explanation rather than just all her "Winter" or "Frostmoon" or something.

If I'm right ... I disagree with him.

[listerfeend]

17 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I will never know, but I speculate that the alpha/beta readers and/or editor(s) must have expressed doubts about "December" to the point where Brandon, in love with the idea, put in Hoid's explanation rather than just all her "Winter" or "Frostmoon" or something.

If I'm right ... I disagree with him.

I suspect something along those lines is exactly what happened. And, don't get me wrong, I'm gonna read the crap out of this book, it's gonna be fine. This has all just been me pointing out a trend that I disagree with in his work

[Schizoposting]

So, I just realized, December is likely to die at the end of the book. Why? Because she already lived her entire life in chapter 1—she was only given a second chance at life for a very specific purpose. From a thematic perspective, just like with the Returned, it would make no sense for her to continue on after fulfilling said purpose, because she has already lived her life, and living for another 60 years would feel redundant. So, having her die at the end, would make for a much tighter story, that would also have an element of tragedy to it.

(Although, this does beg the question of how Hoid discovered the details of the story—maybe he interviewed her before her death?)

[Nitpicking]

@Schizoposting, I belong to the school that says December's first life was a really long vision, Fortune or something related. 

[Schizoposting]

2 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

@Schizoposting, I belong to the school that says December's first life was a really long vision, Fortune or something related. 

I agree.

[Nitpicking]

Then ... why would you say she has lived "her entire life"? When she leaps over to save the woman with food in her throat (bad memory for names here) she is still 20 or whatever.

[Through The Living Ash he/him]

I know it has been discussed that December’s eyes, being mentioned so much and featuring on the front cover, are going to be important to the story, and I wanted to point out that in artwork released in Brandon’s latest video for the crowdfunder, she is portrayed as having red pupils and silver-flecked irises. I can’t recall anything like that elsewhere in the cosmere, but please correct me if I’m mistaken. 

[teknopathetic he/him]

I mean, December literally comes from the term 10th Month. is "tenth month" really that insane of a translation to give people? 

And yes, it is odd that the 12th month is named Tenth-Month, but Oct(8)ober and Nov(9)ember seem to have gotten over it. 

Edited March 21 by teknopathetic

[Nitpicking]

16 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I mean, December literally comes from the term 10th Month. is "tenth month" really that insane of a translation to give people? 

And yes, it is odd that the 12th month is named Tenth-Month, but Oct(8)ober and Nov(9)ember seem to have gotten over it. 

You mean like September (seventh )?

[teknopathetic he/him]

On 3/22/2026 at 6:26 AM, Nitpicking said:

You mean like September (seventh )?

A lot of the old Latin/Roman months were simply given numbers as a system for governmental use, commerce tracking, and planning festival events. Originally there were 10 months governing the usable part of the year, with the "dead time" in the coldest part of the year not being given a name because basically nothing important was really going on to worry too much about administratively.  The coldest winter months only got names later on, which messed up the number name system. 

The early Roman calendar did not have names for the winter period because it was considered a "dead" time for government, farming, and military activity. Originally attributed to Romulus, the first king of Rome, the calendar only consisted of 10 named months, starting in March (Martius) and ending in December (December)"

But yes, the actual names of most of our months are pretty dang basic simple word combination like "September". But the names of things change over time, like for example August(us) and July (Julius)  used to be  "Quintilis" and "Sextilius", but were renamed after Emperors. Some of the other months are named after gods in relation to important festivals happening in and around those months. 

And like I said before, the number-modern-usage order doesn't make sense anymore because we moved from a 10-Month system to a 12-Month system. This is probably something that should have been fixes at some point, but people are lazy and no one seems to really care. 

But in terms of a raw, universally translatable word that Hoid could impart cross-culturally, i think saying "Her Name was Tenth-Month" is pretty much the most basic universally understandable and basic bit of word invention I can think of. 

Edited March 23 by teknopathetic

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

First off, I think people should cut Brandon a little slack. 
 

When you’re writing anything like Cosmere-style fantasy (i.e. based of a wholly unfamiliar planet with a culture and language unconnected to ours) it’s inevitable that things like this will happen. There will always be language humor that only makes sense in Rosharan. There will always be Scadrians proverbs with no good parallel in any real language. I think we just have to accept that this tale is twice-translated (once from December’s language to The language of wherever the tale is being told, and again to English), and that the only way to represent an invented culture correctly would be to go even farther than Tolkien and not just invent but write in the language of that culture. Which would require all readers to read in that language. Which, frankly, is stupid.

 

Now to try to turn this bickering about Latin roots back to an arcanum discussion!

First off, I trust Design that time travel is impossible. Especially because a solid list of unproblematic rules for how time travel affects the plot is impossible.

Therefore, the first viewing probably happened within the spiritual realm and/or due to use of Fortune. Basically, she didn’t go back in time after her first life, but lived it as a vision that lasted sixty years to her, but a night’s sleep to everyone else.

It’s important to ask here whether Hoid has access to long-term fortune. If he does, then any Fortune viewings may be unreliable, especially over longer spans of time.

BIG QUESTIONS:

Where did she get all that fortune? Is she secretly very highly invested? Or (this is my preferred theory) did something external (like the demon, or another highly invested being) give it to her? It feels a bit like the start of Yumi, when

Spoiler

The spirit freed from the machine invests Yumi so that she and painter Han help it. This might also explain why December is the age she is when she wakes up; maybe that age is when whatever needs help needed it.

Alternatively, if the fortune was internal, how does she have it?

Is December connected to different important invested things than everyone else? It seems like the dominant investiture on demonworld is… well, the demon, along with its rivers of blood. Are there others we don’t know of? What is that demon guy, anyway?

December is clearly unusually invested and/or connected; she has the vision, and interacts specially with the river of blood, suggesting her connections and investiture are at least related to the demon.

I’ve noticed Brandon doesn’t love writing “Chosen Ones” who were born with the  power they use to resolve the book’s conflict (the only one I can think of is Vin, and she still uses ingenuity and arcana to win where pure skill isn’t enough), which is why I’m willing to bet that December was externally invested/connected. And because of the special interactions with the blood river, I’m willing to bet that whatever invested her is at least connected to the demon.

It’s a flimsy theory, and I’m fully open to criticisms. I just want more people here theorizing.

Edited April 10 by BigBadBagsworth

[We_need_more_sel]

Wrote this on wrong thread before

I think FoD will take place on either; Ashyn

On 12/12/2025 at 7:41 PM, WestwardWind said:

 it’s Ashyn. I know this isn’t very strong, but certain things seem to interlock in ways I can’t ignore. The fire in the sky, the war, and the king betrayed. This sounds similar to the story we hear in Stormlight about Ashyn. The plague is also suspect, because what we have of Above the Silence Prime, it sounds similar. 

Ashyn was described as a disease Investiture planet by Sanderson. Opening chapters have two major diseases December's and the plague.

Or Sel because the demon river Investiture is part of the land or something. Also the Dor is the only source of Investiture we know of with enough power to use Fourtune visions on accident I think.

Or ancient Dhatri because the river seems like aethers. It is described as dark and oil like so maybe the "prophet" contained the demon keeping it from gifting the aethers to create aetherbound because they saw Midnight Essence as too dangerous in the future. The sword could also prevent anyone else from using that demon's aether.

Random thought is yumi and the nightmare painter maybe set on a plant created by Whimsy? The ridiculousness of stacking stones for Investiture and spirits liking TV romances or whatever it was seems like a Whimsy planet.