The Ultimate List of Questions for Brandon

[Oudeis]

This WoB suggests that you need a gen-u-ine Endowment-approved Breath in order to Return, for what it's worth. It's still not 100%, though.

 

...hence why I said, "if he was Nalthian." I meant to imply, if he were a natural-born Nalthian with at least one Endowed Breath.

[Theorymaker]

If Hemalurgy was used on a foreign world (not Scadrial) would Harmony be able to talk to that person or would it be one of the local Shards?

[Moogle]

If Hemalurgy was used on a foreign world (not Scadrial) would Harmony be able to talk to that person or would it be one of the local Shards?

 

This is a good question! Probably any Shard with the right Intent could talk to them. Just having a Hemalurgic spikes makes you vulnerable to all sorts of things. Vin's earring made the Lord Ruler's Soothing bypass her copper, for example. It doesn't seem like The Flaw is a Ruin-centric thing, but is more of a general wound that lets anything in.

[Curiosity]

This is a good question! Probably any Shard with the right Intent could talk to them. Just having a Hemalurgic spikes makes you vulnerable to all sorts of things. Vin's earring made the Lord Ruler's Soothing bypass her copper, for example. It doesn't seem like The Flaw is a Ruin-centric thing, but is more of a general wound that lets anything in.

 

But we associate it with Ruin because we have only seen Hemalurgy on Scadrial and Preservation wouldn't do that. 

[Moogle]

But we associate it with Ruin because we have only seen Hemalurgy on Scadrial and Preservation wouldn't do that.

Minor nitpick: Preservation can't do it. WoB (emphasis mine):

Kilomtrs (June 2012)

So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.

In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.

So I guess this leads to three questions:

1. How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?

2. Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgicly charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?

3. Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?

Brandon Sanderson ()

How this all works dates back to the original design of the Magic system.

I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complimentary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.

Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.

Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.

Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault—if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)

Harmony is both, the two complimentary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.

Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)

(source)

 

Makes you wonder whether Honor, Cultivation, or Odium could hear or listen. Perhaps it's not a binary thing. The Heralds not having Honor's voice directly in their minds suggests he was more of the 'listen' type, if he even could, though.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

...hence why I said, "if he was Nalthian." I meant to imply, if he were a natural-born Nalthian with at least one Endowed Breath.

Oops. For some reason I read "is Nalthian" as "was on Nalthis". Which is odd. My apologies.

[Theorymaker]

NEPENE

I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him—Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people.

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view.

 

 

Do you guys think that the Ruin's and Cultivation's similar intent might make Cultivation more likely to be able to talk to people that practice Hemalurgy?

[entropicscholar]

This Question may have been asked previously:

 

In Elantris, why is it that Dakhor Monks would be destroyed when they used their power to teleport others?

Are they consuming their innate investiture in order to power the teleportation? or is it something else?

 

The Dakhor Monks seem very odd in comparison to other Elantris magic-users. any time they utilize a great deal of investiture it seems to harm or kill them, whereas others can utilize appearingly unlimited investiture from the Dor.

What is it that makes them so different?

[Oudeis]

What is the easiest thing you could do to a corpse on Nalthis to ensure it could not be Awakened as a Lifeless?

How would it have affected Kelsier's spiritual existence in the second and third books if his body had become a Lifeless?

[Oudeis]

Does burning lerasium while hemalurgically spiked affect you in any way other than typical? How would it affect a survivor of hemalurgic theft?

[entropicscholar]

To date, how many books has Warbreaker, The Peaceful appeared in?

[vernontwinkie]

Is the magic from Scadrial the easiest to use on other planets because the Allomancers/Feruchemists gain access to their power through having a portion of a Shard in their DNA?

 

Does Hemalurgy on other worlds in the Cosmere work with any Hemalurgic spike, or is Atium required?

 

Does each, for lack of a better term, body of a shard have 2 purposes? A common use and a true use? Like how Lerasium beads can either create Mistborn or the RAFO-true-purpose (maybe preserve a Mistborn to grant immortatily???) or Atium being able to either make you an effective killing machine or steal any allomantic/feruchemic/shardic ability (uber-parisite, much?)?

 

Is Hoid able to worldhop, lightweave, time dilate/slow age, etc. so effectively/easily because had access to a pre-Shard magic system? Kind of a grandfathered-in setup in that he had access to it as the whole, so he retains at least partial access to the parts and just has to figure out what changed in the division in order to use it?

[Moogle]

1. Is the magic from Scadrial the easiest to use on other planets because the Allomancers/Feruchemists gain access to their power through having a portion of a Shard in their DNA?

 

2. Does Hemalurgy on other worlds in the Cosmere work with any Hemalurgic spike, or is Atium required?

 

3. Does each, for lack of a better term, body of a shard have 2 purposes? A common use and a true use? Like how Lerasium beads can either create Mistborn or the RAFO-true-purpose (maybe preserve a Mistborn to grant immortatily???) or Atium being able to either make you an effective killing machine or steal any allomantic/feruchemic/shardic ability (uber-parisite, much?)?

 

4. Is Hoid able to worldhop, lightweave, time dilate/slow age, etc. so effectively/easily because had access to a pre-Shard magic system? Kind of a grandfathered-in setup in that he had access to it as the whole, so he retains at least partial access to the parts and just has to figure out what changed in the division in order to use it?

 

We've got a few of these "answered" already!

 

1. All humans have Innate Investiture that we know of, except for Drabs in Warbreaker. The reason why Allomancy is so easy to use is because it's a very rigid system, and the powers are "hardcoded" in the Allomancer's Spiritweb according to the AoL Ars Arcanum.

 

2. We've had it asked if you could use non-metal materials for spikes, like gemstones on Roshar. The answer is, of course, "RAFO".

 

3. We don't know what happens if non-Allomancers eat Atium, but the inquisitors in the Final Empire regularly spiked nobles' drinks with atium to look for Atium Mistings, so the effect probably isn't all that pronounced if there even is one.

 

4. We know he's used Shardpools, and it's hinted very heavily that Shardpools let anyone enter the Cognitive. He may have originally started by using those, and then worked his way up into using Shadesmar without a Shardpool as he gained more and more magic systems.

 

As to his immortality, he's got a bunch of Breath. If his other magic systems don't explain that, then the Breath does.

[vernontwinkie]

We've got a few of these "answered" already!

 

1. All humans have Innate Investiture that we know of, except for Drabs in Warbreaker. The reason why Allomancy is so easy to use is because it's a very rigid system, and the powers are "hardcoded" in the Allomancer's Spiritweb according to the AoL Ars Arcanum.

 

2. We've had it asked if you could use non-metal materials for spikes, like gemstones on Roshar. The answer is, of course, "RAFO".

 

3. We don't know what happens if non-Allomancers eat Atium, but the inquisitors in the Final Empire regularly spiked nobles' drinks with atium to look for Atium Mistings, so the effect probably isn't all that pronounced if there even is one.

 

4. We know he's used Shardpools, and it's hinted very heavily that Shardpools let anyone enter the Cognitive. He may have originally started by using those, and then worked his way up into using Shadesmar without a Shardpool as he gained more and more magic systems.

 

As to his immortality, he's got a bunch of Breath. If his other magic systems don't explain that, then the Breath does.

 

#3 was less toward burning metals and more toward whether it was intentional for Lerasium & Atium (as well as other Shard "bodies") to have dual uses - as Atium's less-known, but seemingly core, use is to be able to hemalurgically steal any shard ability and Lerasium has the RAFO ability if burned by a Mistborn.

 

New question - We know that Returned can't get headaches. But can they get brainfreeze? Lightsong chugging the slushie drink seems to point toward a "no" but it's possible the increased body mass would increase the required amount of drink to induce one.

Edited June 25, 2014 by vernontwinkie

[Curiosity]

OK, I believe that it has been confirmed that there are Spiritual Ideals in the Spiritual realm. We know almost nothing about these (there's a WoB, but I can't find it). Are certain Spiritual Ideals are strongly associated with certain Shardworlds (i.e., metal on Scadrial)?

Do Shards have to filter everything they do through a Spiritual Ideal? Is that what makes up a Shard's Intent?

[WeiryWriter]

Why are aurorae never mentioned in the Mistborn trilogy? Luthadel is situated at the Magnetic North pole so they should be appearing in the center of the Empire, and yet there is not one mention.

[Swimmingly]

Actually, I believe they are mentioned - by Sazed, recounting the tales of some long-dead religion, though I may be wrong. I think Rashek managed to screw up the magnetic fields somehow when he moved the planet

[Oudeis]

Also, remember that between the mists and ash, no one can ever even see stars. I guess with as many tineyes as we've seen at night, someone sometime should have noticed an aurora, but it was still a comparatively rare occurrence in the book for someone, at night, able to see the sky.

[A Joe in the Bush]

Brandon didn't have Luthadel be the North Pole until the End of WoA. Originally, the Well was in the North, and the Sazed/Marsh battle took place at the Coventical of Seran. He changed it though. I read this in the Annotations.

[Moogle]

 

A second form of Surgebinding involves the manipulation of light and sound in illusory tactics common throughout the cosmere . Unlike the variations present on Sel , however, this method has a powerful Spiritual element , requiring not just a full mental picture of the intended creation, but some level of connection to it as well.

 

Given that the AonDor's illusion tactics apparently includes a "full mental picture", it seems likely that Forgery similarly requires you to have a full mental picture of what you're trying to do when you carve a soulstamp.

 

With this in mind, how can one decode a stamp like Frava's Forger was apparently planning on spending a few years doing? The Cognitive element would be hidden and impossible to figure out. You use the a similar Aon no matter what illusion you're trying to manifest (though there's modifiers like crazy), so Forgery likely has the same symbol no matter what memory/part of history you're trying to change for some parts. Decoding a Forgery should be near-impossible, except in general terms.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

I doubt that conclusion, Moogle. Forgery gives every sign of being more thoroughly described by the stamp than illusions are in AonDor. So Frava's Forger being able to decode the stamp is (theoretically) quite possible: this belief on her part, as well as Gaotona's ability to read the basics of stamps, indicates that Forgry uses more complex symbology than AonDor.

[Oudeis]

I doubt that conclusion, Moogle. Forgery gives every sign of being more thoroughly described by the stamp than illusions are in AonDor. So Frava's Forger being able to decode the stamp is (theoretically) quite possible: this belief on her part, as well as Gaotona's ability to read the basics of stamps, indicates that Forgry uses more complex symbology than AonDor.

 

Not to mention Raoden's description, saying that he had to expressly tie the illusion to the muscles on his face. From a point-of-view practitioner, we see that a TON about the illusion is expressly spelled out. Contrast that with your point, where someone who thinks he understands AonDor makes a reference in passing to it while talking on a completely different subject. I'm sure the author of the Ars Arcana is knowledgable, but he admits in this and in other books that he's not an expert. It's far more likely his impression is inaccurate than that Raoden's is.

 

Also, the fact that literally every other instance we see of AonDor doesn't work like that, indicating that AonDor illusions are an anomaly among AonDor. If you could somehow make Forgery produce an illusion, well then I suppose your points might pertain to that, but I'm not sure Forgery can be used to do that (without jury-rigging, which for all we know might require direct Shardic intervention). Aon Ehe, for example, produces a column of fire, no matter what. If you want it to do something else, all the wishing in the world will not make it do another thing, you have to write out, in code that anyone conversant with Aons could decipher, what expressly you want it to do. Raoden wanted Aon Ien to heal that one guy, he even knew at the time it would have to heal each organ, seal the skin, and strengthen the body to produce more blood, but all of his knowledge and focused desire meant nothing. He needed to draw the Aon the proper way, and if he had drawn it, it would have been in a way totally understandable to what he wanted the Aon to do.

[Moogle]

I doubt that conclusion, Moogle. Forgery gives every sign of being more thoroughly described by the stamp than illusions are in AonDor. So Frava's Forger being able to decode the stamp is (theoretically) quite possible: this belief on her part, as well as Gaotona's ability to read the basics of stamps, indicates that Forgry uses more complex symbology than AonDor.

 

An entire person's life was written on a plate smaller than a regular piece of paper. This implies each stamp either carries an incredible amount of information, since a stamp implanting a memory could implant literally any memory. If Shai's Cognitive/Spiritual beliefs are passed into her stamps, that explains it easily. Stamps could have very "general" forms and allows for vague decoding/explanations if this were the case.

 

One stamp literally describes the Emperor's romantic inclinations and love life, including memories of a woman the Emperor almost cheated on his wife with that Shai made up in addition to real ones she got from his journal. One small stamp! There is no way Shai could possibly describe that much information along with specifics in one stamp. Maybe she specifies some general thing she wants to convey, and specifics are created on the fly by the Emperor as he thinks, but she's still got hundreds of little memories she needs to write down in the stamp for Ashravan's memory. That correlates to hundreds of little lines and wiggles in one stamp, and then they'd have to be meaningfully arranged and a little 5x5 cm square is just not enough space for someone using medieval writing tools!

 

And if there was, imagine the general case of a stamp that adds a memory to a person. It lasts five seconds, and the person sees an <X>. How do you unambiguously refer to an <X> when it could refer to literally anything in the universe? A pointer could refer to something like a "red bird" or a "sudden illusion consisting of a bunch of pears spinning around their head", there's just no way to make a few wiggles of a line refer to that very easily. Is the difference in a stamp where the Emperor almost cheats on a woman with green hair and a woman with red hair a matter of one line wiggle? I find this hard to believe.

 

...

 

Aon Omi also breaks the pattern in AonDor. From the Coppermind:

In AonDor, Aon Omi would emit a pure white light. Anyone touched by this light would have their negative emotions removed, replaced with a feeling of serenity and peace, making actively maintaining a sense of hatred difficult. It is peculiar in that it requires the Elantrian drawing it to feel sincere affection for those around them, making it one of the few Aons that requires anything except the ability to draw it. When used as a modifier it will link lines of Aons together or, if used correctly, serve as a minor power enhancer.^[5]

 

So we have a previous example of Aons actually drawing from the user's mind, or requiring some sort of Cognitive/Spiritual component. All of Sel has "one magic system", at least in a general sense according to WoB, so I think that it's very likely that the written "programming" magics can use Cognitive elements.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis]

Aon Omi also breaks the pattern in AonDor. From the Coppermind:

In AonDor, Aon Omi would emit a pure white light. Anyone touched by this light would have their negative emotions removed, replaced with a feeling of serenity and peace, making actively maintaining a sense of hatred difficult. It is peculiar in that it requires the Elantrian drawing it to feel sincere affection for those around them, making it one of the few Aons that requires anything except the ability to draw it. When used as a modifier it will link lines of Aons together or, if used correctly, serve as a minor power enhancer.^[5]

 

So we have a previous example of Aons actually drawing from the user's mind, or requiring some sort of Cognitive/Spiritual component.

 

...and by changing the emphasis to the other half of the sentence, we have expressly here in the coppermind the fact that this is INCREDIBLY atypical for an Aon.

[entropicscholar]

Posted 27 June 2014 - 03:10 PM

Quote

 

A second form of Surgebinding involves the manipulation of light and sound in illusory tactics common throughout the cosmere . Unlike the variations present on Sel , however, this method has a powerful Spiritual element , requiring not just a full mental picture of the intended creation, but some level of connection to it as well.

 

Given that the AonDor's illusion tactics apparently includes a "full mental picture", it seems likely that Forgery similarly requires you to have a full mental picture of what you're trying to do when you carve a soulstamp.

 

With this in mind, how can one decode a stamp like Frava's Forger was apparently planning on spending a few years doing? The Cognitive element would be hidden and impossible to figure out. You use the a similar Aon no matter what illusion you're trying to manifest (though there's modifiers like crazy), so Forgery likely has the same symbol no matter what memory/part of history you're trying to change for some parts. Decoding a Forgery should be near-impossible, except in general terms.

There is SO much to be said on this, I think I'll start a new thread just to answer it (I'm going to have to look up WoB on the Spiritweb, so it won't be immediate).

In short, a Forger doesn't have to re-write a person or object's entire history, when they Forge them. What they have to do is understand their spiritweb well enough to change X Y and Z, without the rest of the web noticing.

Frava didn't really re-write Ashravan's memories and feelings. she had to know what they were, in order to avoid breaking and mangling them while she was changing the events involving his head injury. She needed to know how he actually would act (and think) in the following weeks, in order to write a very short history that would mesh with who he already was.

---

 

<[this is where I plan on posting the link to a fuller explanation]>

edit

here it is

Edited July 4, 2014 by entropicscholar