Ruro272

Very late notice and I haven’t posted here in years, but an abundance of vacation days led to me pulling the trigger to travel to this con as well.  Cytonic release is all the rage of course, but as usual I feel that the opportunity for juicy Cosmere-related WoBs is a real draw.

No idea how many total will be at the con but I’m happy to ask good questions if people want to keep posting them here.  

In case you guys don't know, I am almost positive that Brandon has stated that Renarin will be a main POV in the back 5 books.  

So yes, I think it is very likely that over the course of time he will grow to be quite the powerful warrior, tactician, leader, and gangster.  

 

Wasn't he supposed to be Kalak? I've heard a lot of people saying it was Kalak.

I lot of us have been assuming it's Kalak, but it's not a very good assumption. It's largely based on him calling Shalash by her real name - Ash - which suggests familiarity, and then excluding the other male Heralds. I don't remember the exact reasons Kalak was decided to be the most likely candidate anymore.

 

 

Most people do believe him to be a Herald, but I had some pet theories about that.  First of all, the fellow doesn't seem very... Herald-y... in my opinion.  He's sort of whiny, rambling in his statements, and "lets out a squeak" and hurries away when he sees Jasnah.  Just didn't sound like what I imagined a mighty Herald well over 4500 years old might act, but more specifically there was this line he says: "I don't like this.  What we've done is wrong.  That creature carries my lord's own Blade."  I realize that Jezrien was considered King of all Heralds, but I suspected that this guy so familiar with Nale and Ash might actually have been a Squire, possibly even an ancient one, under Jezrien that was currently with Nale since Jezrien seems to be off doing his own thing.

Obviously Brandon's answer poos all over that theory, which is totally fine by me.  The secondary reason to ask him this was a failed attempt to get him to confirm that the guy is indeed a Herald to support the popular theory.  Alas, Brandon seems quite sure that he will never let that detail slip.

All right, double-posting but for a good reason:  I was able to record nearly two hours of the book signing and gleaned some good Cosmere tidbits.  I've transcribed as closely worded as possible the questions and answers below.  

I'll tell you, the most frustrating thing about listening to this are all the times Brandon asks "Do you have any questions for me?" and the person responds "Hmmm... nope!"  I just want to hand out little cards with questions to all these people

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_kNPxqRnJfDUjhkbEhJOTVRUWs

Jordancon Brandon Sanderson Book Signing

That question came from someone in the back who was in a previous panel. Like you, I would never have worded it the way it was worded. I had eye contact with him the entire time he was answering this question and he was definitely not about to answer it on the merits.

 

When I asked him for clarification, I knew based on his tone that he was going to RAFO a direct, pinpointed question. There's no doubt -zero- in my mind he knows we know he wriggled out of this one. It's something else. 

I agree, but let's look at it this way... he knows that you know he wriggled out of it, and may suspect that very very few of us know.  As far as I'm aware the only time he's ever explicitly stated anything about "fake" Heralds was at a small con in Minnesota, and Brandon has no way of knowing that I shared that info just one session prior.  So in his eyes he wriggled out of that question since it was asked so openly and very few people know about the "fake Herald" WoB.  The general populace would glean absolutely nothing from his answer, even though I'm sure he strongly suspected what the questioner was trying to get at.  So in a very real sense he wriggled out of a very juicy answer for 99% of the people there, not knowing that probably 75% of the room just heard me share that info a couple hours prior.  

I would not take this to the bank and I'm not heavily invested in it (pun semi-intended), but its the one question that I know he wriggled out of even though (in his view) the vast majority of the room would not know.  In any case I openly admit it could have been any other question, but I have less than zero idea of what it could have been lol.

My money is on this question:

 

 

 

He avoided discussing whether or not Nale or Taln is actually who they claim to be, but still gave an answer.

Nah, that one was pretty obvious that he was dodging around it.  Hence us all laughing as he did it.

 

The one I'm referring to is where he told us that he wriggled out of something and we didn't know it.

Actually, my bet is also on this question.  Let me explain why.

Even though it was somebody else (Billy the moderator I think) that asked this question, it was spawned based on something that I specifically said in a previous panel.  We were all discussing Stormlight and the Heralds and I mentioned that according to WoB the Heralds are a big part of the "back 5" books and some of the viewpoints are from Heralds.  In addition, two of them "claim to be Heralds".   I brought this up and there was some skepticism about the legitimacy of the statement, but I was quite sure.  Why was I so sure?  Because Brandon specifically told that WoB to me last year at Minicon during his signing.  See here:  http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/23992-minicon-minneapolis-040215/?hl=minicon   We all had a good laugh about the idea of fake Heralds being in the books and shook our fists at Brandon in mock anger like "How could you confuse us even further?!" but I am pretty sure that my statement here was what prompted the question to be asked.

Now, if I had been asking this question to Brandon I would have said something like "It is true that some of the Heralds we've seen or will see in the books are not true Heralds but instead claiming to be Heralds?"  Frankly I'm not sure if Brandon would even answer this question--I was completely surprised when he offered as much unprompted information at Minicon--but I doubt that he'd remember even telling me that last year.

Due to the way the question was worded this time it was easy for Brandon to wiggle out of it, and if somebody did not know about the previous WoB they would not get any valuable information from this answer and not think much of it.  If we had an actual recording of Brandon saying "You will see many more Heralds in the upcoming books but not all of them are really Heralds" that would have been a pretty big deal, so I think the question was intended to get this on recording instead of just my notes from prior signings.  Since the question was asked so loosely and the matter not pressed further I feel like Brandon wormed his way around it and, based on the audience reaction, there was no indication that he did so.

Compare this to my question in this recording about if Hemalurgy required intent to work or if it could be "accidental", and he tried to say that we've seen it but I pressed the matter to remove Spook and Vin's mom from the discussion since I consider Ruin's intent to be fueling those, and he actually buckled and ended up RAFOing the question, saying that I got him "to admit that [he] was trying to wiggle around it."

He asked that the reading not be posted online.

That is true, but I think we can at least say the following:

It was a brand new reading (first time in public).

They were Kaladin chapters.  No more detail than that should be shared I think.

And they were awesome.

It isn't. What we said is that Mistborn doesn't give anyone's eye color and only says Vin's eyes are dark. (Shan Elariel's eyes are also dark.) Kelsier's eyes will now be considered canonized as hazel, which is not dark.

I could have sworn you said that Vin refers to Kelsier's eyes as dark, not that HERs were dark, but admittedly it was getting loud in there and your comment was directed at Brandon not us so I fully believe I misheard that. Thank you for the clarification, I did not mean to mislead!

So that means they ARE hazel as previously stated, and specifically a not-dark hazel.

Don't worry, I'll be posting a bunch of stuff from the rafolympics, plus Kaymyth has her recording. I was also able to take a recording of the 2.5 hours that Brandon was doing his book signing, so after I painstakingly dig through that I'll have even more WoBs to share.

I'll get to the rafolympics stuff within a couple days, but the book signing recording will take longer to parse out.

THIS JUST IN: KELSIER'S EYES ARE HAZEL.

I have a lot more tidbits and all of them more juicy than this, but this may be the single thing all weekend that actually added to the cannon. As far as Peter and Brandon know, they never explicitly stated Kelsiers eye color, only that they were "dark", and Brandon thought about it and went with hazel.

Does it matter? Probably not lol. But the moment he said it Peter contacted the wiki writer to add it officially. Pretty cool to ask a simple question that Brandon graciously chose to answer and then add to the cannon story

Maaaaaaan, at least you get signings to visit.

 

Here I am, in backwoods nowhere Florida, where nobody in their right mind ever approaches anywhere even remotely near. ;_;

Atlanta is about as close as you might get

@#$%, that's a lot of questions. Like, "I am legitimately upset" lot of question. I am going to have to start traveling to cons, Chicago signings are no longer cutting it. Mark my words, you keep making me envious, you'll end up forcing me to following Brandon, from city to city, as he travels the US. Then I'll get served a restraining order, and we'll all be sad.

I hear you man!  When I was at Minicon last year, the dude who I now know as Blightsong was cranking through some questions on his iPad like a machine, and mine felt so few and inadequate in comparison.  Fortunately I am WAY more prepared for JordanCon in Atlanta in two weeks  You should come--there's an entire hour devoted SPECIFICALLY to asking Brandon Cosmere-related questions!

I have a ton of respect for the older members of this community (whose knowledge I have benefited from for years despite only joining the forum last year) so if you guys have any specific questions you'd like me to ask just PM me and I'll strongly consider adding them to my personal list.  

Awesome, that means I can finally give credit to you for the questions you asked!  Check out my post in this thread:  http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/23992-minicon-minneapolis-040215/ 

Was that you?  

Dude, Blightsong, I'm pretty sure I know exactly who you are!  You gave yourself away by saying "Last year I asked you if shadows turn the wrong way in the cognitive realm for a reason, you said to basicly think of it like important flavor text. Is this happening because people are being drawn towards the Beyond?", and the fact that you said you road-tripped to this con... did you go to Minicon last year??  If you are who I think you are, then you and I were the only two people at Minicon last year asking any sort of Cosmere questions.

I got the same top result as the other one, though my following two were quite different

59% Bondsmith

47% Elsecaller

41% Lightweaver

33% Skybreaker

Bought my tickets and booked the last set of rooms at the discounted price today! Looking forward to meeting some of you guys there.

Shallans brother was a skybreaker?

Suspected of searching them out at least. I can't remember the exact passages and am not at home to look it up, but the wiki mentions this and provides the appropriate chapters as citations: http://stormlightarchive.wikia.com/wiki/Helaran_Davar

Cool, thanks for all the feedback!  I really wish I was just "in the area", then I'd be going for sure.  But it would be quite the trip for me so I'm glad to hear some positive feedback from you folks.

And to those of you who are on the fence but in the Atlanta area... if I can make it from Minnesota, YOU can make it too!  lol

Anybody else have thoughts or experience regarding JordanCon?

I'm wondering if any of you Sanderson nuts (of which I include myself) ever go to the annual JordanCon convention?  This year's schedule looks pretty cool, with a different Sanderson-related program almost every single time slot.  Though Brandon isn't presenting at those, there is a book signing and even a "RAFOlympics" hour that's an "open Q&A to grill Brandon".  

http://jordancon.org/program/session-schedule

So yeah, this sounds pretty cool but I live in Minnesota so it would be quite the trip (aka expensive).  I'm just wondering if anyone who's gone before has any insight into this convention before I make any sort of decision on going.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!!!  

Kurkistan, in your Google doc the links to the audio of both the Lightning Round and Signing Line are the same.  

It's quite likely that he is actually off Scadrial entirely, doing things in the Cosmere to benefit Scadrial.  He's not a Hoid-like character that has a grand agenda, and he's not like Khriss who just wants to discover the truth to everything, but he does truly care for his planet and people.  He's clearly found a way to give himself a physical form and went to help the Southern folk (though I still don't understand why Harmony wouldn't have done this himself...), but he doesn't really need to stick around the planet because Harmony is quite involved.  I honestly can't see him going back to the Cognitive realm long-term and being under Harmony's thumb.    

Given his very unique circumstances in Secret History he is actually the only person on all of Scadrial aware of the fact that some otherworldly beings literally tried to steal his planet's God.  I doubt he is worried for Harmony's direct safety, but the fact that some aliens tried to screw up his planet has got to be a serious thorn in his side, and its something that Harmony could not investigate himself.  

If I was Kelsier I would not be sticking around Scadrial to protect the people--he already did that in the South and it's in good hands with Saze--I would be on other planets trying to learn more about the Cosmere as a whole and especially figuring out what those old-chull Elantrians have up their sleeves next.  

It's possible, but I suspect that it's something else. That seems a little too obvious for Brandon. It's probably something else, something unique to Hoid. After all, Brandon said he started out as a human, but had changed enough for him to say "It's complicated," when pressed further on the subject.

See, the funny thing is that I think saying "It's something unique to Hoid" is the more obvious answer.  I mean if we go with that logic then there's really no point in theorizing about Hoid whatsoever, since we can always hand wave it as a "Hoid thing" at least until Dragonsteel comes out.

For the record, I'm not hanging my hat on the fact that this is the answer.  I just like that for the first time ever Brandon has introduced a valid method (beyond Hemalurgy which we know he isn't using) that can explain Hoid's powers.  

Keep in mind your Feruchemist or Trueself/Soulbearer double-Ferring needs to give your Knight Radiant (or other investiture user) both a Feruchemical Nicrosil-nicrosilmind and a Feruchemical Aluminium-nicrosilmind, and they need Aluminium and Nicrosil to make into metalminds of their own. (Aluminium just to dump their identity into, so unless their Aluminiumind is useful for something, it can be melted down and forged into a gun or something. Or it can be an aluminium gun. Whatever.) You can't just hand them a Nicrosilmind and have them store their Investiture without storing Aluminium otherwise they'll create a medallion only they can use.

Yes, I agree with this.  But I believe that you would only need to give the KR an (Identity-less) Nicrosil metalmind which has been stored with a Ferring's ability to use both Aluminum and Nicrosil, which makes sense considering that whoever made the Nicrosil metalmind would obviously be able to do both.  It's sort of circular logic--whoever can make an Identity-less Nicrosil metalmind would be storing their personal Investiture ability to store into both Aluminum and Nicrosil into the Nicrosil metalmind.  They would of course have to give the KR chunks of aluminum and nicrosil so they can make their own two metalminds.

I'm pretty sure you can't store Connection to a specific planet in a way that unlocks the metalmind for other people to use- BoM makes it clear when Marasi tries to use the Connection medallion that storing Identity and Connection at the same time results in blank connection that grips onto the specific area you're currently in. (Presumably because the specific place you're Connected to is part of your Identity, so the process of unlocking a metalmind makes the Connection generic, or "blank", and it simply defaults to the area the tapper is in) So if you need Connection to hack investiture this way, unlocked Feruchemy can only do it when you're on the appropriate planet to use the magic anyway. So if Hoid's hacking his identity, he's not doing it using unlocked metalminds. It's entirely possible there's another way to hack your Connection that we haven't run into yet, or that there's a way around the Catch 22 that needing to store Identity to make the metalmind, and that Identity-storing maing the Connection generic that you want to be specific.

Yeah, this is spot on.  It would be very tricky to create a duralumin metalmind to store your Connection that anybody could use, because you would have already stored your Identity.  My only comment is that I wouldn't necessarily take what the Malwish people have as the gospel truth and only way to store Identity-less Connection.  The Sovereign/Kelsier taught them the specific abilities they'd need to stay warm, make advanced technology, and explore other lands, but he would not have taught them abilities that would help them use the magics of another world.  At the same time, the whole idea of a Connection metalmind means that anybody could store their personal Connection into one and use their magic off-world.  Brandon has always said that its possible to use magic from one planet on another, it would just take some very specific things.  Hemalurgy is one, and I bet this is the other.

I agree that with the info we have now we can't say for sure that this is how Hoid has a bunch of magics, but we can for sure say how people could use their own magic on other planets.

^ Pretty much agree 100% with Ari above.  He's got a good handle on the whole aluminum, nicrosil and other metal process that must be required to create a metalmind that anybody can tap.  Aluminum doesn't have to be a part of the metalmind; it simply needs to be used by the Feruchemist to store their personal Identity before filling the Nicrosil with their particular Investiture--that of Feruchemy itself.  

The obvious implications is that Nicrosil could be used to store any Investiture, not just Feruchemy.  Note that its storing Investiture itself, not a specific type of it.  

A Nicrosil+Aluminum Feruchemist like they must have in Southern Scadrial (whether due to full Feruchimists, Hemalurgy, or the clever mixing of coins) would store their personal Investiture--the ability to do Feruchemy--into a Identity-less Nicrosil metalmind, thus allowing anybody to use Feruchemy and use whatever metal.  But what if they gave a coin to Kaladin from Stormlight that enabled him to store his Identity into Aluminum and his Investiture into Nicrosil?  When he's storing his Investiture he's storing the ability to use Stormlight, actually it's likely that he would even transfer his Nahel bond to the Nicrosil itself, and then whoever had the coin that tapped the Nicrosil would get that bond transferred to them.  I theorize that a Duralumin metalmind--one that stores Connection--would also be critical to allow somebody to use the magic from a different planet though.  

It's a very interesting combination, this Aluminum+Nicrosil+Duralumin, because previously we all knew that Hemalurgy could be used to steal magics from any planet, but now we're getting a potentially less "messy" way of doing things.  It's not straightforward in the slightest, but less abhorrent than murder.  

This may very well be the largest hint yet as to how Hoid has powers from multiple planets.  We all know that Hoid  is not using Hemalurgy, but he does have a Lerasium bead, and we know that he uses Feruchemy to "know where to be" in the Cosmere at critical times.  These are all various WoB.  That means he is probably a full Allomancer and full Feruchemist, so any and all combinations of the above are possible to him.  He would just need a "willing" subject from another planet to store their Connection and Investiture (powers that he would grant them by use of a Nicrosil metalmind) into other Nicrosil and Duralumin metalminds and boom--magic from another planet that can be used anywhere since the "Spiritual Connection" exists within the Duralumin itself, and with no outward influence by Ruin/Harmony.  

We do know from WoB that "Vasher and Nightblood has sort of a falling out..."  This suggests that it wasn't simply stolen, or he lost it by throwing it at someone.  They had a falling out, a disagreement of some sort, so I think they parted ways intentionally, but Vasher regrets that decision now.