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Hal-Con


Lance Alvein

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Hal-Con (in Halifax, Nova Scotia) is coming up at the end of the month (Oct 26-28).

Any other Sharders planning on attending, or am I likely the only one to bring up Cosmere questions directly to Brandon at this one?

Edited by Lance Alvein
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I have a friend who is doing her masters at Dalhousie who plans to go to HalCon. I told her she has to read some Brandon before she does, but I'm not sure if she has yet. Regardless, I could possibly send her some questions to ask.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hal-Con was a great time, and Brandon was very polite and available to answer a multitude of questions outside his Q&A session as well. I will probably have the report with my questions & answers up tomorrow, but I did manage to record the entire Q&A session audio. The audio is 52 minutes, and should probably be transcribed. Currently, the audio can be found here, but I will try to get a version of it up on youtube tomorrow along with the answers to my questions.

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The majority of these questions and answers are paraphrased, as I wasn't able to record them, and I wasn't able to write everything down exactly as it was said. If the answer was a partial evasion, I did make sure to make special note of it, so those answers should be as said.

Mistborn:

Does the rate of feruchemical storage of an attribute affect the total amount stored in a metalmind?

It was not intended to be.

Does the loss during the withdrawal of large amounts of attribute depend on the rate of original storage?

No

"You've said that 'The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away'. How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?"

It has to do with clash between the two shards power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Stormlight Archive:

How are people with two different eye colours treated on Roshar?

RAFO - this will be explored in one of Shallan's flashback sequences in Stormlight 2, and is already written.

The creatures on the inside cover of Way of Kings - we've had various discussion about what they actually are, and some people are calling them Crabwasps and other Dragonwasps. Can you tell me anything else about them, and can you pick one of the two for us to use?

The decision for that image was made near the last minute to have Isaac make the image. It is an important symbol, and will be mentioned in detail in later books. While neither name is correct, they both could work until the official name is revealed (Brandon wouldn't pick one over the other).

Can you confirm if the scene with Taln at the end of Way of Kings is entirely in Hoid's perspective? There was some discussion that it might not be, since Taln's honourblade was called a shardblade.

That entire scene is in Hoid's POV, and the reason for it being called a shardblade is because honourblades are shardblades.

Something that's been a bit of a thing on the chatroom for a while - Since there are Spren of everything on Roshar, is it possible that there is such a thing as a "squeespren"?

They do exist, however, they would be called by a different name on Roshar.

Emperor's Soul:

The deleted prologue with Hoid in it - is there any chance of that being put online?

It will be online, and it will probably be bundled with the ebook version as well.

Can you tell us the timeline of TES in comparison to Elantris?

It happens shortly after Elantris (I believe that this meant shortly in comparison to the other novels, but not a specific # of years)

Is Sel realmatically knowledgeable by this point, or is it specific to forgery?

Sel is the most realmatically knowledgeable of any of the shardworlds, but much of the knowledge demonstrated in the book is directly related to forgery - it's tied to the theological aspects of forgery more than anything else.

Meteorites are mentioned as "souls of dead gods". Do they have any relation to the Splinters of Devotion and Dominion and their physical aspects (like lerasium)?

"literally no". When asked if there is a connection to the splinters at all, I got another RAFO.

How was the Fjordell Empire not aware of the existence of the Rose Empire during the time of Elantris?

The connection between the two will be explained in future Elantris books, but a quick answer is this:

Fjordell was aware of the Rose Empire, but doesn't consider the location to be holy, so they didn't really care that much about it. There is also no easy natural way to travel between the two. If you remember, Shai did run into the Fjordell ambassador.

Do Ralkalest and Soulstone have any connection to the two shards?

RAFO

How were the MaiPon and Jindoeese people separated?

This is something that will be discussed in future Elantris books eventually.

Everything else

Is a person's Breath the entirety of that person's Spiritual Aspect?

No

You said to not travel to Shadesmar on Sel. Is this a consequence of Odium Splintering Aona and Skai?

It is indirectly related to the splintering. There is a clue to why it is dangerous in Way of Kings.

Is Demoux Atium compounding to achieve his long life?

RAFO

Is Shadows of Silence a cosmere story?

It is cosmere, but takes place on an unimportant side planet that doesn't have anything interesting going on there. Hoid is not in the story.

You mentioned in the forum QA that Liar of Partinel was scrapped - does this mean that Hoid's backstory will no longer be told?

There are still plans to do Hoid's backstory, all that the comment about the book being scrapped meant is that when it comes time to write it, the current draft will be tossed away and it will be written fresh - similar to how Way of Kings was done.

Can you give us an idea when the Prelude to Stormlight Archive is with respect to Elantris?

RAFO

How about the general number of years Warbreaker is from oA and AoL/WoK?

RAFO - the reason that timeline questions are being RAFOed right now is because the final times are still not 100% solid, and Brandon said that he doesn't want to give us a time and then have it change around again (like what happened to AoL being moved to the same time as WoK instead of being a bit earlier), so he won't answer any timeline questions until after he has the final timeline correct in his own system.

I believe that these were all the questions that I asked & got responses to, but if I mentioned an answer in the chatroom that isn't on this list, remind me about it - I think I wrote down all the questions that I asked, but I feel like I might have missed something.

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Nice work Lance.

Okay, takeaway moments:

1) "Surging" efficiency being unrelated to storage intervals. I'll admit that one floored me when I first saw it, especially given how everything I've seen up to this point has seemed to indicate the opposite. This deserves some thought.

2) Shardblade vs. Honorblade. Interesting. So either all Shardblades are Honorblades or "Shardblade" is a relatively large category which contains many different types of Blade (Dawnshard, Honorblade, Odiumblade, etc.?)

3) Shadesmar-travel danger hinted at in WoK. That's new. Can anyone think of the hint off the top of their heads?

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Something grabs Shallan's leg in the sea of beads, but she's rescued by Jasnah before it can get her.

So I guess that Splinters of either Dominion or Devotion (probably Dominion) are chilling about in the Cognitive Realm near Sel trying to eat people. That's good to know.

Edited by Kurkistan
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Guessing Shardblade/honorblade is a matter of, well.

An old musket and an automatick rifle are boths guns. The automatic rifle is a damnation hellufalot more deadly, but still the same basic thing.

Gonna bet its the same with honorblade. Its an extremely powerful shardblade.

Few nice things there.

Nice to know Liar of Partinel is still on the forefront. Had gotten the impression from some that it was not going to be made at all, and that felt abit sad.

Edited by dyring
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According to a previous Q&A we've seen 3 types of Shardblade in TWoK, I'm guessing the 'standard' one, Taln's Honorblade, and whatever Szeth has.

Ah, I'd forgotten about that factoid. I suppose we already knew that "shardblade" was a general term, then.

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Ah, I'd forgotten about that factoid. I suppose we already knew that "shardblade" was a general term, then.

Not in the sense that it could be applied to Honorblade, no. That's definitely a revelation.

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If Honorblades are a subset of Shardblades, maybe all the sharblades we've seen on Roshar in the present (barring, maybe Szeth's) are of Odium.

If "three of sixteen once ruled" maybe the Delosations weren't against Odium himself and what we see in the recreance is 1/3 (or 1/2) of the Knights Radiant who relied on Odium for their power abandoning their blades and plate once they found out that their god had betrayed and killed Honor.

...just an idea.

Edited by Yados
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I had thought it pretty likely from the beginning that Honorblades were a subset of Shardblades.

I never even thought about how the Veden and Alethi treat heterochromia...

I know that some people were heavily invested on the whole Feruchemical rate of storage thing, but I'm a bit glad that it's not an actual thing, that made the whole thing more complicated than I think it needed to be.

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Hi First time poster, long time lurker

Wasn't Jasnah worried that Shallan was fully (meaning bodily, I assume) in Shadesmar, indicating that this was dangerous?

Your thinking of Wheel of Time. Here is the quote:

“Idiot girl!” Jasnah repeated. “You have no idea how dangerous that was. Visiting Shadesmar with only a single dim sphere? Idiot!”
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  • 2 weeks later...

That's right. Your quote would indicate that without sufficient stormlight to draw upon (dim sphere), would be dangerous. I would think getting stormlight in Shadesmar would be difficult.

So extending this, is it dangerous to get there from Sel because it is hard to access some sort of power? Such as the Dor?

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