Titan Arum

Blaze, I don't quite agree with your argument. Humanity on Earlth didn't advance for a long time. For the vast majority of our history we were rather backwards...then the Industrial Revolution happened and our growth in technology was exponential. Further proof of this is that even in today's age on Earth, we have societies that are very primitive: the the San of the Kalahari desert, various "untouched" tribes in the Amazon, tribes in the north polar region, and tribes in Papua New Guinea. These are people who have very little technology in a world awash in high technology. If they haven't figured out how to build higher tech with their given resources, why should we assume that the Eelkin are able to as well? If I had to wager, I'd say First of the Sun simply hasn't had their own version of the Industrial Revolution, and the One's Above are simply trying to ignite this to begin trading ethically. Heck, even Scadrial, which many believe to be the home world of the One's Above, didn't really revolutionize technologically until the fall of TLR. It seems to me that worlds with a Shard present are more likely to have had their version of an Industrial Revolution. The magic system is invested in the humans, which could lead to this advancement, whereas on First of the Sun the magic system simply prevails in nature in general. [Edited for grammatical clarity]

I agree that there is room in the WoB for the ability to Awaken with Stormlight, but what if it's as simple as going to the Nightwatcher and asking for the boon of "Awakening with Stormlight"? If he did that...I wonder what his curse would be, since that'd be a rather powerful boon.

We don't really know the history of the Eelkin or First of the Sun, so we have no idea how long the Aviar have been around...but we do know that they are invested (sans a Shard, and we have WoB that investiture effects planets like this by interacting with nature [see question 21]), which implies that this wasn't a new phenomena shortly before or during the setting of Sixth of the Dusk. If I had to guess, the Aviar, in their present state, have probably been around since shortly after the Shattering. (Maybe I'll ask this question at the Philly signing...) Thus, with this, I'd argue it is possible that First of the Sun Worldhoppers could have been around earlier in the timeline, but probably weren't in any earlier works prior to 2013 because he didn't come up with the idea of the Aviar until Writing Excuses 8.16 in April, 2013. (Or so I assume...if anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.)

That doesn't mean that characters from First of the Sun haven't Worldhopped previous to Sixth of the Dusk. If Patji's Eye is indeed a splinter pool then it is probably pretty easy to travel to other worlds via the Cognitive Realm (Oh, and Wiery, thanks for the heads-up on the nomenclature. You're right, Shadesmar is the region of the realm for SA). Warbreaker spoiler (and obviously insane speculation just to make a point):

While Straff is pretty much a bad dude, I voted other. I believe that Tonk Fah is pretty evil, only because he likes to kill all of his pets. For no good reason. To me this is just despicable because they didn't do anything to him. Yes, Balat liked to kill animals too, but his reason was to maintain his sanity in his horrible home environment (which isn't justifiable either, but at least he has a reason).

Did we know before that Awakening is used so infrequently in the Cosmere now? Do we have any idea why that might be? It's really investiture expensive, that's for sure, but if you can go to Roshar and just use Stormlight instead, wouldn't it be fairly useful there? Couldn't, for example, Zahel Awaken a new Shardblade for relatively cheap? And with a better Command? It seems to me that there's an incentive for Awakening to be used...just off world where it's cheaper (investiture-wise) to use.

Welcome! I'm a proponent of the "Adolin will be a Dustbringer" faction because the defining attributes of such a Radiant are "Bravery and Obedience". Other than Rysn, who else fulfills this? Adolin. Just as Nisana states, he may be broken already.

Thanks for the insight Andrew! This is similar to one of the questions that I had planned to ask Brandon at the Philly signing. Now I will ask him if First of the Sun is accessible via Shadesmar. If yes, then I will ask if someone can Worldhop via Patji's Eye. I also have a ton of questions I want to ask about the Aviar and their powers on other planets.

I've been following xkcd since Randall Munroe starting writing it back in 2005. Such a brilliant webcomic. I also really love Dinosaur Comics and The Oatmeal. Good stuff!

Ok, After I read this I saw that one of my colleagues was wearing a red and white horizontally stripped sweater...which made me think that ANYBODY who asks Brandon a question about WalDo, should do so in a Waldo costume...because then maybe he'll think it's funny and actually answer?

Hey traceria, I started one over in the SA forum but made sure to reference you and Oudeis both. I'm not taking credit for the idea, just posted my first stab at what a deck may look like similar to what I posted here! Cheers.

WoB can sometimes be misleading and confusing...which leads me to a possibly controversial question: when do we begin to question/doubt if we can actually take WoB as canon without having answers from the books? Also, what happens if a lot of the time Brandon simply misinterprets a question and the questioner doesn't rephrase their question because they don't realize he didn't understand them? I've seen many times where Brandon has been confused by the question and people then clarify, which leads me to believe this could happen pretty frequently without the questioner even realizing it...

Ask him what happened in Oregon since Megan hinted in Steelheart that it is now a wasteland. Seeing that the signing will be in Portland and we have no back story on what happened in Oregon (other than the one created by our lovely forum-mates), I'd like to see if he could expand on that.

Wait, wait, wait...Szeth's blade is a scimitar? That is not how I envisioned it! I don't know if I like these covers very much. I much prefer the covers in America. These just seem sort of...simple. Also, the mountains in the background would not be that sharp. With the highstorms raging regularly for millennia, they'd be eroded down to rather round and short stumps.

I think it would be a bad idea to make the Bridgemen 3, because Bride Four would be insulted if they were 3. Also, I initially used reputational rankings to dictate position: Bridgeman is higher rated (10-15) than Darkeyes (2-4). Your idea of including spren made me think a little bit more about the cards and their positioning. Now, instead of just one set of 2-A, I've decided that it could be a good idea to get rid of the classical suites: goodbye Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts and Spades. Welcome to the new suites of Spren, Rosharian Fauna, Radiants/Proto-Radiants/Squires, and People from Secret Societies. Here's my new list: Spren Fauna Radiants/Proto-Radiants/Squire Secret Society People 2: Rainspren 2: Cremling 2: Squire/Rock 2: Teft 3: Flamespren 3: Songling 3: Squire/Lopen 3: Luesh 4: Rotspren 4: Sarpenthyn 4: Helaran... 4: Kabsal 5: Starspren 5: Chull 5: Dustbringer/...? 5: Moash 6: Bindspren 6: Axehound 6: Stoneward/Talatin 6: Adrotagia 7: Windspren 7: Skyeel 7: Willshaper/...Eshonai? 7: Demoux 8: Gloryspren 8: Ryshadium 8: Truthwatcher/Renarin 8: Galladon 9: Voidspren 9: Whitespine 9: Skybreaker/Szeth 9: Restares 10: Cryptic 10: Larkin 10: Edgedancer/Lift 10: Amaram J: Honorspren J: Yu-nerig J: Lightweaver/Shallan J: Mraize Q: Cusicesh Q: Tai-na Q: Eslecaller/Jasnah Q: Iyatil K: Nightwatcher K: Santhid K: Windrunner/Kaladin K: Taravangian A: Stormfather A: Chasmfiend A: Bondsmith/Dalinar A: Hoid Thoughts? (Edited because pasting the information from Word in a table format doesn't keep the formatting once you hit "Post")

Over in the [Firefight Tour] Philly, 1/27 topic, Oudeis brought up a game of Szeth vs. Szeth using the Szeth cutouts and a roll of the dice as a way to pass time until the signing starts. traceria then suggested that a deck of cards and a game of War should decide the outcome, which ultimately led traceria to ask the following question once Oudeis said a deck shouldn't have Kings since, you know, Szeth has killed so many: With that, I submitted my first cut at a deck of Stormlight Archive cards using either SA reputation names or character names that are similar to the corresponding reputation level: 2: Cremling/nothing is lower than a Cremling 3: Darkeyes/Cenn 4: Bridgemen/Skar 5: Ardent/Kabsal 6: Parshendi/Rlain 7: Lighteyes/Amaram 8: Honor Spren/Syl 9: Radiant Squire/Lopen 10: Voidbringer/Eshonai J: Bridgeleader/Kaladin Q: Surgebinder/Jasnah K: Knight Radiant/Bondsmith/Dalinar A: Herald/Jezrien Joker: Wit Obviously these can be replaced with better options, as this was just a quick stab. I also thought that the Kings shouldn't be excluded since Szeth hasn't killed them all yet. Maybe the King should actually be Taravangian? I like the idea of it being a Knight Radiant, maybe even a Bondsmith, with Dalinar at the head. Anyways, have at it everyone! Let's see what great ideas you all can come up with.

Where else would the Bridgeman be? We could try to reshuffle things to be better suited (hehe) with the numbers. But Bridgeman has to be 4. No. Matter. What.

Ohh, maybe we can start a Kickstarter for this?! We can use some of the reputation markers to dictate the suite characters or just use real characters?. Maybe something like this: 2: Cremling/nothing is lower than a Cremling 3: Darkeyes/Cenn 4: Bridgeman/Skar 5: Ardent/Kabsal 6: Parshendi/Rlain 7: Lighteyes/Amaram 8: Honor Spren/Syl 9: Radiant Squire/Lopen 10: Voidbringer/Eshonai J: Bridgeleader/Kaladin Q: Surgebinder/Jasnah K: Knight Radiant/Dalinar A: Herald/Jezrien Joker: Wit Obviously this can be changed with better options, as this was just a quick stab.

Your second book, The Network, reminds me of a book by David Eggers that I read called The Circle. It's about how a Facebook-like company has more or less become so influential in all things that they have begun to shape the world that we live in...for better or worse. The main character drinks the kool-aid and find herself down a crazy, conspiratorial rabbit hole. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, seeing that I couldn't put it down on my last work TDY trip. (Oh, that and White Sand, get a copy of that from Brandon if you haven't already).

The most interesting take-away for me was that we can look for Sixth of the Dusk elsewhere. It doesn't necessarily mean he's a Worldhopper, but he could be. I agree with Argent, that he could be taken off-world by the Ones Above; however, whether they are Scadrian or not is irrelevant. The good thing about this revelation is that we know what he looks like. Maybe we'll see him the same way we discovered Vasher. My guess is it'll be because he has Aviars with him. At least he probably won't be like WalDo or the Terriswoman Worldhopper. Those two we have no idea who they may be.

Thanks for the update, Chaos! Interesting about Shai and the classification for Mistborn. The classification really makes sense. I'm excited that we could potentially have five sets of Mistborn books! If Shai needs more investiture to forge herself to have a Shardblade, could she do so by accessing the Dor through other magic systems on Sel? [Edit, to spell your name correctly ]

I'm going to patiently wait to buy Firefight at the Children's Bookstore in Philly. I like the idea of buying locally for book signings, since they're offering up their space for it. Especially if it's not a big chain store like B&N. As a result, I will wait 21 more days before I can begin reading Firefight. The pain....

Thanks Kurk and OneKEA! I wonder what the "really weird" would actually be? If he hadn't really considered it before, maybe he was just giving an answer? Would it turn a person into something like a Tineye savant, where the colors of the world are overbearing? What implications would that have for an Awakener? How would the Tears of Edgli, or the investiture in general, effect synesthetes? Hmmm...plenty of questions to ask Brandon about this.

Does your brother's bar have any Russian River brews on tap? If so, maybe I'll be tempted to stop by. Then again...I'll be driving back to DC afterwards. Leave work early! Take a few hours of PTO! Maybe you can tell your boss that you have an afternoon dentist appointment?

Because of this post, I just downloaded Mitosis on my Kindle. Hopefully I can read it tonight before Firefight comes out. I just finished reading Steelheart for the first time yesterday. Can't wait for Firefight! Spoiler: Cosmere