"Of course you have to read it to find out."

[Ripheus23]

[OK, so I realize RAFO is from the WoT-era, it was also the name for the website that succeeded wotmania IIRC (I was a member of the predecessor). However, the quote that is the title of this thread is from The Neverending Story (the book).]

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Questioner

(...) like Hoid saying he got his life as words on a page.

Brandon Sanderson

It can be taken both ways, but it is actually literal. I'm not sure how much I can say about this, but... Let's say that it's referencing where he got his nickname/pseudonym.

Questioner

I thought he maybe stole a character from a book and (hid himself? indistinctive...)

Brandon Sanderson

It is something like that. People think it's like a big wink breaking the 4th wall, but at the time I was just looking back at his past and wanted something I could say that is esoteric and referenced his past.

source

Also, Hoid has twice involved himself in/founded/w/e (I don't remember the absolute details) groups devoted to storytelling, he is way into telling stories personally, he says, "I only tell stories, Your Grace. They may be truths, they may be fictions. All I know is that the stories themselves exist and that I must tell them," to Siri.

Then there's his remark about Adonalsium:

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Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn't it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time?

"I wonder if you could do that to a man. Pull him apart, emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk. Then combine them back together into something else, like a Dysian Aimian. If you do put a man together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me. Or perhaps Gibletish.

In my thread on the Terris prophecies, I asked if Preservation was known to be their author (I didn't remember and don't have the books at hand). It was said that yes, this is so, but also

On 10/10/2018 at 5:35 PM, Firerust said:

But what I continually wonder, and have ASKED MULTIPLE TIMES WITHOUT EVER GETTING ANY KIND OF ANSWER, is how exactly did Preservation create them? This has never been answered as far as I know, and I've never seen anyone ask it either. What was the exact process through which Preservation formed the Prophecies in the first place? It's not like he could have whispered it into people's minds, but that Ruin's thing. Preservation only hears. Did he use his special knife to carve the words into a surface in the Physical Realm, even though that seems like it would be against his Intent? How did he do it?

And Ruin has a special power to mess with books. Why?

Also, when Shards are bound by their agreements, how can they go back on the intent behind the words of the agreement? Or more precisely, how are physical words involved at all? Wouldn't the Spiritual Shards have nothing to go on besides Intent?

They would, unless...

... there is an Invested book, or books, or some such thing, somewhere. A remnant or incarnation or something of Adonalsium's original power, I suspect. Words written in the book can become true, more or less. The Shards have access to this book and in it they write their agreements; this is what binds them, but gives them the room to loophole their way out of the relevant Intent.

So, also:

SHATTERING THEORY: Adonalsium had a name that could be written in the Invested book, and depending on how many symbols were used to write it, then when those symbols were divided from each other, Adonalsium was divided into as many Shards.

[+Invocation]

The reason Ruin could alter things in books was because he and Preservation created Scadrial from nothing but raw Investiture, so he could manipulate the things that came from that world to an extent not seen elsewhere. 

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James Furr

If, instead of the 16, there had been 20 members at the shattering of Adonalsium (with the same level of involvedness)...could it have shattered into 20 pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

It's quite possible that a different number could have ended up working.

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imriel452 (Paraphrased)

I asked for "Info on why Adonalsium shattered".

Brandon Sanderson

Adonalsium Shattered because he was killed.

source

Cool theory, but I doubt an Invested book would have done that. There was some form of sentient life there that they had to physically kill and take the power.