Interesting tidbits from signing in San Jose

[The Anamnesor]

I went to the signing last night in San Jose, CA, and a couple of interesting things came up as part of Q&A and signing:

• The recipient of The Letter is someone he's written about in an unpublished work, which "some of you (may) have read".  I'm not sure what he's talking about.  [edit: nevermind, there was a closed thread on this already]
• The various Expanses of Shadesmar correspond to Shardworlds.
• "Spren would say they have a soul" (in response to a question about if it's possible to create a soulstamp of a spren)
• "Spren are created by the perceptions of men." (a bit more pontification about spren and souls. He talked about how we are created by our parents, then said this)

Edited May 22, 2013 by The Anamnesor

[Kurkistan he/him]

Thanks. When you say "Expanses", do you mean the ones on the map in WoK, or some other Expanses we may not know about?

 

Also, do you recall anything more specific about spren? Did these "perceptions" take on a kind of independence after awhile, or did Brandon say that they were constantly dependent upon an aggregate of all men's perceptions at each moment, or was he just vague?

Edited May 22, 2013 by Kurkistan

[The Anamnesor]

Thanks. When you say "Expanses", do you mean the ones on the map in WoK, or some other Expanses we may not know about?

 

So, I confirmed that Shadesmar exists "on" all shard worlds (yep, but you shouldn't travel to it on some of them), but if that's the case, then why does it look like the inverse of Roshar?  Answer: because that's the portion that corresponds to Roshar.  There's more to it than just that portion, and the other portions are hinted at in the corners of the map.  It's through the other portions that you access other shardworlds.

 

Also, do you recall anything more specific about spren? Did these "perceptions" take on a kind of independence after awhile, or did Brandon say that they were constantly dependent upon an aggregate of all men's perceptions at each moment, or was he just vague?

 

He didn't say anything more; just that "spren are created by the perceptions of men."

[Phantom Monstrosity]

So, I confirmed that Shadesmar exists "on" all shard worlds (yep, but you shouldn't travel to it on some of them), but if that's the case, then why does it look like the inverse of Roshar?  Answer: because that's the portion that corresponds to Roshar.  There's more to it than just that portion, and the other portions are hinted at in the corners of the map.  It's through the other portions that you access other shardworlds.

 

Ah, that makes sense.

 

The Expanse of Densities is 'a world we know' apparently

Edited May 22, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Meg]

Ahha, I'm musing about the Expanses for nearly half an hour now. And nobody wants to begin ... so, I do: 

Expanse of the Broken Sky -> Sel 

Expanse of the Vapors -> Scadrial

Expanse of the Densities -> Nalthis 

That's my first, intuitive ideas about it, I can't provide any reasons for them. 

As "we" are on Roshar when we see this (only one known to us) map of Roshar, logically there is no Expanse correlating with Roshar. 

[Kurkistan he/him]

Thanks for clarifying. That's very interesting.

Also, the bottom-left is the Expanse of Vibrance. If I had to go around assigning worlds to all the Expanses for fun (even though we might not know any but Density), I'd say:

Densities: Scadrial (because I had to pick one of the three)

Broken Sky: Sel ("broken", Skai~Sky )

Vibrance: Nalthis (colors and whatnot)

EDIT: Curse you Meg for preempting my baseless musings!!!!

-Also, you're right about Scadrial most likely being Vapors, what with the mist. That leaves either Sel or Nalthis as Densities, so Nalthis by process of elimination if we take "broken" and "sky" as hints for Sel.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Leuthie]

I'd swap Nalthis and Scadrial.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Vapors has to be scandrial, I mean it's MISTborn for crying out loud.  They've got ferucheMISTs, skaa live in constant fear of MISTwraiths, and when the Lord Ruler aimed the planet towards the right orbit he TOTALLY MIST.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Meg]

Thanks for clarifying. That's very interesting.

 

Also, the bottom-left is the Expanse of Vibrance. If I had to go around assigning worlds to all the Expanses for fun (even though we might not know any but Density), I'd say:

 

Thanks for that information, I wondered about this. 

 

 

EDIT: Curse you Meg for preempting my baseless musings!!!! 

 

 

@PM: Vapors -> Mists -> Scadrial is really the most obvious possibility. That nearly made me not to chose it, as for obvious vs. BS ...  

[Leuthie]

Vapors -> Breaths -> Nalthis

Density -> Metals -> Scadrial

Leaving Broken Sky as Sel

[Senor Feesh]

He said Densities was a world we knew. Perhaps Broken Sky and Vapours are Yolen and Taldain? Though I like Leuthie'a interpretation

[skaa he/him]

Uh, guys, the link said "destinies", not "densities". Unless I'm getting seriously dyslexic.

 

I think the Expanse of Destinies sounds like Nalthis. But I'm just saying that so I could fit Vapors (Mist) with Scadrial.

 

Edit: Whoops, I guess the theoryland link had a typo. >_< Sorry, my mistake.

Edited May 23, 2013 by skaa

[Observer]

I imagine an expanse of densities would be known as such because it has a strange amount of solid land or something. Any planets we know of that are covered in mostly water? Probably not Scadrial...

[Yados]

I imagine an expanse of densities would be known as such because it has a strange amount of solid land or something. Any planets we know of that are covered in mostly water? Probably not Scadrial...

 

Could also have something to do with population densities. All the inhabitants of Scadrial are concentrated into two relatively small areas. 

[Kurkistan he/him]

Could also have something to do with population densities. All the inhabitants of Scadrial are concentrated into two relatively small areas. 

 

Ooh, I like that. Especially since Shadesmar is all about Cognitive activity, and the area between the polse is kind of a fiery desert of death pre-AoL. That means there wouldn't even really be plant life anywhere but the poles.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Pechvarry]

Is it odd to anyone else that the Expanses are in the oceans of Roshar?  And that's the direction to go to link to other planets?  

 

[baseless]If the power of Stormlight is actually the power of the oceans, which gets washed across the land in Highstorms, then perhaps the Expanses are where this Cognitive aspect of power kinda... homogenizes with their equivalents before being redefined by the destination planets' identities. So a map of The Expanses on Scadrial would perhaps align with all the very large metal deposits.[/baseless]

[Senor Feesh]

Is it odd to anyone else that the Expanses are in the oceans of Roshar?  And that's the direction to go to link to other planets?

 

Look at the Shadesmar map again; it's an inversion of Roshar. So the land on Roshar is sea in Shadesmar (I guess made of beads, given Shallan's visits there?) whereas the oceans of Roshar are land in Shadesmar. Given that distance in Shadesmar is more of a function of Cognition in some respect (rather, that areas of low cognitive activity such as the void of space have little presence in Shadesmar) it's very likely that these barren areas in Shadesmar represent the reaches of space between Shardworlds - which would require only a (relatively) short walk to get to.

 

I very much like the notion of Densities being Scadrial, even more with Yados' interpretation. So if we're looking at it that way, what would Vapours (yes, I'm British!) relate to? Wispy, smoky cognitive presence would be... what, very spread out populations? Not sure what that would fit with. And Broken Sky... well, Sel is the obvious choice simply because of the word 'broken', but I'm still kind of thinking along the lines of Yolen and Taldain, because why throw out that Densities relates to a world we've seen and then not mention the others? So in my own head I'm going to table those two for now.

 

Edit: Actually, another consideration is the location of the mountain ranges in Shadesmar - they correlate with the Purelake, the Reshi Sea (which seems to be behind a reef made by the Reshi Isles) and an area in the ocean known as the Southern Depths. I don't know what relevance this has, but I'm sure it won't be a coincidence - perhaps these are places on Roshar where the water is unusually deep? I don't know that what would have an impact Cognitively. I will ponder this.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Senor Feesh

[ADIMORTIS he/him]

Which Nexus/expanse does Shallan enter in Shadesmar. Nexus of truth or the shadesmar location of Kharbranth???

Edited May 23, 2013 by ADIMORTIS

[Observer]

Probably a location relative to her own, though I could be wrong.

 

 

Here's a new and even more crackpot theory:

 

Density: Scadrial. It has two combined shards

Vapors (Oh yeah!? I'm AMERICAN!): Yolen. There's probably not much left there after the shattering

Broken Sky: Sel, with splintered shards

Vibrance: Most likely Nalthis, for obvious reasons.

[Senor Feesh]

Vibrance: Most likely Nalthis, for obvious reasons.

 

Where is the Expanse of the Vibrance on the map?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Where is the Expanse of the Vibrance on the map?

Under the 'shadesmar'.

[Windrunner he/him]

Vapors (Oh yeah!? I'm AMERICAN!): Yolen. There's probably not much left there after the shattering

There's a planned five book series set there post-Shattering, so I think there's definitely still stuff there.

[Observer]

I meant nothing in a Shardic sense. Maybe population was devastated too, but I don't know that.

[ROSHtafARian]

To be fair, we only know that the Shards aren't on Yolen NOW.  There's nothing to say they weren't still on Yolen after the Shattering, and only moved on to other worlds later.

 

(For that matter, I don't believe we have word one way or another on whether any Shards remain on Yolen.  Yolen was named by Brandon as one of the ten core Shardworlds, and though 'shardworld' could just be his catch-all term to worlds related to the ongoing saga of the Shards, there could very well still be one or two Shards remaining on Yolen).

Edited May 24, 2013 by ROSHtafARian

[Windrunner he/him]

The quote itself sure seems to imply that there are Shards there still.

FIRE ARCADIA
Can you tell me something about the Cosmere that you haven't told anyone before?

BRANDON SANDERSON
There are inhabited planets in the cosmere that don't have any Shards there. There may be inhabited planets that only have a Splinter of a Shard. There are 10 core cosmere planets, which tell the overarching story of the cosmere.

FIRE ARCADIA
Are all the Cosmere books so far set on these 10 core worlds?

BRANDON SANDERSON
Yes.

FIRE ARCADIA
Are there any of the 10 core worlds without a Shard?

BRANDON SANDERSON
All 10 core worlds have significant Shardic influence.
Source