Ruro272

Hi all, this is only my fourth post on the 17th Shard but I've been a frequent reader here for over a year. I'm a huge fan of Sanderson's works, specifically the Cosmere-related ones, and I love that he drops little hints and tidbits to his fans. Theorizing about an epic series like this is like a guilty pleasure of mine. I just made my account this week because I finally have something unique to contribute. Brandon came to Minneapolis MN this last weekend for MiniCon, which was basically in my backyard, so I had several opportunities to meet and ask him questions. I'm going to throw them all down here, and then whoever is in charge of the overall WoB collection can add them there if they'd like (there are definitely some worthwhile ones here).

So to set the stage, there I am at Minicon feeling like an outcast since I'm not quite as nerdy or into sci-fi as pretty much everyone else there, but I am completely into Brandon's work and came specifically to see him. I asked him a question when he went to sign my WoR copy, and I had another question inside the book that he graciously answered as well. He also had a social hour from 10-11pm Saturday night, but not a single person asked a single question that I would consider "Cosmere related". I was totally bummed out, but I stuck around until after the social hour to see if anybody else would have the guts to come forward. And sure enough there comes a dude with an iPad and a list of great questions. This bolsters my confidence as well so I start asking them too. There's a not a lot of info here because Brandon needed to leave quickly, but I think we got some good tidbits.

These questions are a mix between mine and the kid's. We did not have a recorder so these are based on handwritten notes and memory, sorry. Comments in red are my personal comments.


Q: (At the book signing) Will we see all of the Heralds doing things in the upcoming books?
A: The back five books are all about the Heralds. Two of them claim to be Heralds..... Two of the point-of-views will be Heralds
This fits well with what I've read from this site; specifically Taln and Ash are the Herald POVs in the back five according to other WoB. The interesting tidbit here is that "two of them claim to be Heralds" with the implied "but...." in his tone.

Q: (Written in my WoR cover) Any hint on how Nin got a hold of Nightblood, or how Vasher lost Nightblood?
A: "Vasher and Nightblood had something of a falling out..."
This is a direct quote since it is written in my book. Not all that interesting, but I think the important implication here is that Nightblood was not "stolen" without Vasher's knowledge, they had a "falling out". Obviously this doesn't answer a lot but I think it does put to rest the possibility that somebody came up and stole Nightblood out of nowhere. From other WoB we know that Vasher "misses and feels responsible for Nightblood" so obviously he's gotten over it since then.

(After social hour)
Q: Does Harmony have any Splinters
A: Do you mean like in his fingers? (Brandon has a coy smile. Kid looks at him like "you know what I mean you fool". Brandon laughs.) No, he does not have Splinters right now. Good question.

Q: Is there a reason why shadows go toward the light in Shadesmar, or is it just worldbuilding flavor?
A: There is a reason, but its not super important. It's like a cultural thing, things have reasons but they aren't always super relevant to the story. It's like safehands--do you know how safehands came to be? It's a cultural thing but it came from somewhere. This is something you probably won't read in the books but I can tell you. The idea of the safehand has to do with one-handed arts being feminine but two handed are masculine, and it all started after the Knights Radiant cast down their Shardblades. There was a huge power grab for these weapons and people quickly realized that the differences between men and women didn't matter when they had power armor, so the idea of one-handed arts being feminine and the safehand arose from that over many years of cultural evolution.
Obviously this is very much paraphrased since it was a long answer and my notes and memory are not perfect, but I think I captured the important points without adding any of my own thoughts. Interesting that the safehands arose from the power grab after the Recreance as a way to maintain the division between men and women.

Q: Is there a separate "Shadesmar" (cognitive realm) for each planet or is it one big place that are all connected with different regions for each planet.
A: It's one big place with different sections.
Q: So since its one big place, could spren travel to a different section that correlates with a different planet, such as the cognitive segment for Scadrial?
A: They could do there, but they wouldn't usually...
Q: Is that because Honor's influence is only on Roshar?
A: (Brandon gave sort of a noncommittal half nod, but looked doubtful himself. Maybe best to interpret this last answer as a RAFO rather than reading into it too much.)
Brandon didn't say a lot about this, and unfortunately I don't remember his exact wording, but it was clear that spren could technically go to different regions within Shadesmar that correlate to different worlds, but for some reason they don't or won't. My guess would be simply because only on Roshar to the ideas of men give them power, and if they deviate away too far they lose that connection that makes them exist. Just a thought tho.

Q: On a similar note, since Elsecallers can physically go to Shadesmar and have access to Transportation surge, can all Elsecallers worldhop?
A: Yes, that is one of the Elsecaller powers.
The most interesting thing about this is that, depending on the number of people in the Elsecaller order, there may have been quite a few Worldhoppers from Roshar throughout history. i'm surprised they weren't more Cosmere-aware if that was the case, but maybe they always just stuck around Roshar? I wonder how many Elsecallers are on other planets....
Q: In hindsight this seems like a really obvious question now (laugh), but I think it's really interesting that Elsecallers can travel to other planets too--we didn't know that before.
A: There are hints in the names on the map of Shadesmar.
Since getting this answer I found out a few more things about this on the 17th Shard. It looks like previous WoB confirmed that there are hints in the names of things on Shadesmar somewhat related to Worldhopping, and we also know that the Expanse of the Densities is a planet that we already know. He could be alluding to those tidbits with this answer, who knows.

Q: Does Hoid have a Hemalurgically charged Nicrosil spike?
A: It's... unlikely. Hoid would not want to open himself to the influence of Shards so using Hemalurgy on himself is unlikely. Although Hemalurgy is the easiest way to get other powers, he'd more likely do things the hard way.
Q: Alright, but would Nicrosil be the right metal to make a Hemalurgic spike if you did want to steal powers from another world?
A: It's a good theory, you're theorizing well.

Q: Is Roshar, or has Roshar always been the only large landmass on the planet?
A: Roshar is.... (Brandon then pauses and looks up, thinking very hard) Roshar has always been the largest landmass--as long as there has been land. (This statement was met with a LOT of OOOOHS, and Brandon had a definite grin on his face)

Now this one is extremely interesting. If any of you guys have followed the discussions regarding the "Hints on the Roshar map" that Brandon's alluded to many times, the 17th Shard finally cracked the code that the landmass is a 2d cross section of a 3d shadow of a 4d Juliet transformation something or other blah blah, some crazy math thing. There is a whole thread about this topic somewhere on this forum, and the similarities are striking--plus Peter himself commented on that thread "About time you guys figured this out". So what does it mean that the shape comes from some complex mathematical methodology and not just random? Well, because somebody in that thread commented that they thought Roshar was created from leftover crem from highstorms over the course of thousands of years. Based on what we know about Roshar's shape, the fact that Brandon has commented on needing a system in which "earth" is deposited from the air, and the strong implication that there was a time when Roshar had no landmass at all, I think I'm definitely on board with the "Roshar = crem" theory.

Q: Was Adolin's murder of Sadeas him falling under the influence of Odium, or was that all him?
A: That was all Adolin.