Pagerunner

The first was true even in Era 1, and I'm not seeing any element of personality there. For the second, why do you have that impression? Can you provide any passages where that is called out in Era 2?

Patji wrote an Oathbringer letter. He has definitely displayed personality. What do you mean by "the things the mist pays attention to"?

Can you elaborate on your third point? I don't see self-awareness mentioned at all in those WoBs. I see a contrast between avatars who know they are part of Autonomy and those who don't. In Patji's Oathbringer letter, he references Autonomy's many "domains" and "taking your communication to us," so he obviously is aware he's a part of Autonomy. I think the contrast is that an avatar could come about that is not aware it is a part of the larger collective, doesn't understand where it fits into the larger universe, but is self-aware and does have a personality. What would an avatar even look like, if it wasn't self-aware, as a concept distinct from the Shard itself? I think we can safely say that First of the Sun is not Obrodai. In Patji's letter, Hoid is commanded to avoid Obrodai, but he is invited to "these waters," First of the Sun.

For those who aren't aware, Brandon did plan and write a few chapters of another Aether story that's unrelated to Aether of Night. I've collected some information about the subject over in this topic: This book had an early version of Syl as an Aether of Wind, and had the potential to kick off a large series. The planet, Lor, is apparently still planned to be in the cosmere. And after that, Brandon used the magic of Aethers in Liar of Partinel, for a third attempt to do something with it. The released samples don't show a ton of it, but what we see doesn't actually have a ton of parallels to the magic of Aether of Night. There's apparently a lot more than the magic than the specific applications we saw in Aether of Night. So, the Aether Trilogy doesn't necessarily need to look all that much like Aether of Night. If we look at how Brandon repurposes his old books, there are several different elements he can lift: Characters Plot Points Magic Worldbuilding Let's look at an example. When Brandon wrote the Mistborn trilogy, he was combining two of his unpublished books, The Final Empire Prime and Mistborn Prime. He pulled characters (Vin from Final Empire Prime), plot points (kandra spy from Mistborn Prime), magic (feruchemy and allomancy from Final Empire Prime and Mistborn Prime), and worldbuilding (mists). But he also pulled in some worldbuilding elements from other unpublished books (skaa from Mythwalker, Shards from Aether of Night), and wrote a good bit of new content that I, at least, haven't seen in any of the unpublished material I've read (Kelsier's messiah arc, for example). So, what will we see from the Aether trilogy? Since it's called the "Aether" trilogy, I think the magic will definitely be a part of it, especially because the magic is already canon. As far as characters and plot points, I think most of Raeth is available (mistaken identity twin, war movie, The Bachelor), but not necessarily going to be a part of it. The worldbuilding of AoN, on the other hand, has either been largely reused (ancient cities in Stormlight, Shards in Mistborn) or is generic enough that it will need a shot in the arm. But all that to say, judging the future of of the Aether series based on Aether of Night is ignoring several years of development Brandon put into the series. Aether of Night was written around 2001 or 2002. Climb the Sky was worked on in 2004. And Liar of Partinel used Aethers in 2007. And obviously, it's been 13 years since then. So this future Aether trilogy certainly can look very different than a reimagined Aether of Night.

Right, we do see some manifestation of the Unmade in the Cognitive Realm. I'm suggesting, if they are Avatars, we always have to have a manifestation of them in the Physical Realm, as well. As opposed to, say, Cryptics, who are chilling out entirely in Shadesmar unless they're actively transferred over. I don't think the mists have displayed any semblence of intelligence; they were guided by a Shard, but I can't recall any indication they had an active personality of their own, much less a personality that changed in the second era. And we also saw Vin in Secret History for the entire duration between her death and her going Beyond, and I don't see anything in there that would indicate the creation of an avatar. Brandon said the "terminology gets kind of sticky" when distinguishing between avatars and Splinters, and I view this as a function of realmatic theory being the softest magic system Brandon has in his books. The Shards are gods, and the things Brandon writes them to do and to be are reflections, exaggerations, and explorations of various real-life views and doctrines, mixed in with a hearty dose of other fantasy and mythology tropes. So, we start with the goal: Shards are able to do things like create subservient personal manifestations of their power (avatars), they're able to create autonomous magical beings (spren), they're able to give their power to mortals to accomplish magic (Honorblades), they're able to give their power to mortals to create ghosts (Cognitive Shadows), they're able to break another Shard's power so it cannot be picked back up (Splintering). And, with those goals in mind, Brandon is able to create terms like "Splinter" to reflect similarities. But the term "Splinter" itself is descriptive, not proscriptive. It's not, "Here's what a Splinter is and isn't; how does that play out in different scenarios?" It's, "Here are some different scenarios Shards can use their power. Some of them look pretty similar; let's describe them as Splinters." This is in contrast with the harder magics like Allomancy and Surgebinding. I'll take steelpushing and gravitation together as an example. They each provide a specific way to move things, and nothing beyond that. The applications are made more interesting by limitations, taking the finite proscribed power and using it in unique ways; shields that attract arrows, flying using a series of horseshoes, those sorts of things. Those strict definitions let you use them as a narrative device, problem solving and resolving plots and those sorts of things. But softer magic, the other way around, isn't used as a plot device, it's more used for the setting. Splinters enable you to have spren or to have people with magic. Avatars enable you to have additional deity figures. Fundamental terminologies about soft magic will have a tendency to fall apart when you push to find their limitations. This gets reflected in-world with things like Cognitive Shadows, where some people think the soul is preserved, and others think a copy is made of the soul, and there are good cases to be made either way because various types of Cognitive Shadows match up with better with one description or another. And the concept of a Sliver is tied in there somehow, since the only visible impact we've seen from the concept of an "expanded mind" from holding a Shard or a large portion of the Shard's power is that the individual can persist as a Cognitive Shadow. And the Splinters we've seen, similarly, seem to cover a lot of different scenarios. Divine Breath is referred to as a Splinter, like Honorblades. But regular Breath is referred to as Innate Investiture. But Breath can be transferred, passed around, collected like some Splinters we've seen, and it does grant magical abilities. Where's the line between a Shard's Investure being given as a Splinter and a Shard's Investiture being given as Innate Investiture? I think that question itself is flawed; you'll often be able to make an argument either way, but the Shards can do these things because Brandon designed them accomplish these goals, first and foremost. That's why I think trying to understand the difference between a Splinter and an avatar is a bit reductive. Splinters are ways that Shards give their power to others. Avatars are ways for a Shard to grant personality to their power. But not every Splinter is identical, and not every Avatar is identical, and there will definitely be a place in the middle where you're like, "It's got stuff in common with both, and it diverges from both."

In Brandon's recent YouTube Q&A livestream, he talked about his plans for the Stormlight Four tour; specifically, where he may be going, and what changes will be coming to the format. You can find the segment just before the 2 hour mark in this video: https://youtu.be/MbwmDMwCKrs?t=7183 And even though he says to not quote him several times, I choose to believe he's saying that as an expression to mean the plans are subject to change, so I am going to quote him with impunity below. This statement does not mention the release party, but in this year's State of the Sanderson, when discussing possible tour changes, Brandon said, "Note that none of these apply to release parties, which will continue to be the insane and enormous extravaganzas you've come to expect."

Oh boy, there was a second livestream on Monday. Both it and the first session are available on Brandon's YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/brandsanderson And, at the end, Brandon said he's planning another livestream for either Friday or Saturday. If anyone's looking to get questions in, it looks like there's typically a Facebook post, a Twitter post, and an Instagram post, and sometimes questions are taken from the live chat, as well, so those are all potential avenues to get your question in. I'd recommend picking your favorite social media platform and check every half an hour or so, to try to get one of the first responses. There is an Arcanum event for this livestream, as well: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/410-youtube-livestream-2/. The audio is still being processed, but there is still a good bit from the first livestream to transcribe, for those who are looking to do some work over the weekend. I did manage to get a question in this time, one that's been on my mind for a while: "Let's use a time machine and change the past. Let's say you aren't asked to finish WoT, and instead fix and publish Liar of Partinel. How do you think the Cosmere fan experience would have been different if mysteries like Hoid and the Shattering had been explored earlier?" Brandon gave a nice thorough answer that addressed a couple of fronts. Even in that scenario, he may have not written all the way up to the Shattering, but taken a break from Dragonsteel to do another series. He may have shrunk Stormlight to be more Taln-focused, with much of the Bridge Four and Kaladin-like plotlines falling to Dragonsteel's main non-Hoid character. And, even if he wrote the whole of Dragonsteel, it may not have affected our experience of Stormlight much beyond us knowing the personalities and motivations of Hoid and the three Shards a little bit better. So, all in all, a fascinating look into some of the early Cosmere plans, which is always something I always find interesting. EDIT: 1:00 MST on Saturday.

In Oathbringer, we learned about a new Realmatic concept called “avatars.” We don’t have a lot to go on, but I think there is a little we can piece together about them. I’ll begin with laying out all the sources we have on the subject, and follow with in-depth analyses of confirmed and speculated avatars to see what we can figure out. Unfortunately, won’t be able to skim the section headings and skip ahead; I’m going to be building concepts throughout the entire treatise. Stuff I casually assert in later headings, I spend a lot of time defining and defending in earlier ones. So you’ll need to read the whole thing top-down without skipping. Sources The first we learned about them was in Oathbringer, published on November 14, 2017, in a selection of the epigraphs forming a letter written to Hoid. And here’s a list of WoBs, numbered for easy reference. WoB 1. November 28th, 2017. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256/#e8606 WoB 2. December 16, 2017. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/314/#e9082 WoB 3. Relevant excerpts from a much larger conversation. March 18, 2018. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/315/#e9385 WoB 4. October 26, 2019. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13220 WoB 5. November 26, 2019 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13323 WoB 6. Nov 26, 2019 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13339 Lastly, before I get started on my conclusions, I want to present some Wikipedia quotations about the religious doctrine of avatars. Between things like forum avatars, the Last Airbender TV show, and the James Cameron movie, the word itself is fairly common, but our usage has drifted away from the theological definition, the original Hindu concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar The big takeaway for me here is that the avatar is the opposite of something like the cosmere’s Ascension. It’s not a mortal attaining to something greater; it’s something greater manifesting in a limited, relatable fashion. Patji Let’s dive into specifics. We have two confirmed avatars; Patji on First of the Sun, and an unnamed female on Obrodai. We obviously don’t know much about the latter, but we’ve been given a few additional tantalizing clues about Patji in the WoBs I’ve shared above. But before discussing WoBs, I’ve got a few novel interpretations of the Oathbringer letter. You may have noticed that I split it into two sections. There’s no indication in the epigraphs themselves of this, but something has seemed off about this response ever since the first time I read it, and this split into an initial response and a later response was the only way I could finally get everything to click. There’s the question of authorship. There’s a presumption of “past relationship,” which, in my mind, immediately indicated a Vessel from Yolen. There’s also the line about Hoid having written to “one who cannot respond,” on the “insignificant” world of First of the Sun, as if Hoid wrote a letter addressed to Patji, but another, the Vessel Bavadin herself, is writing the response. But that never sat quite right with me. In Way of Kings, Hoid admits to having a grudge against Bavadin, one that guides his actions. “You have accused me of arrogance in my quest. You have accused me of perpetuating my grudge against Rayse and Bavadin. Both accusations are true.” So why is he relying on past relationship with Bavadin to convince her to help? Seems the past relationship would hurt his chances. And why are there oceanic metaphors throughout the epigraphs if the letter isn’t actually from Patji, the avatar on the ocean planet? And though we don’t have Hoid’s letter, I also couldn’t help but wonder, who had he actually addressed it to? Was it Bavadin (the past relationship), or Patji (the one who couldn’t respond)? These questions led me to develop an alternate interpretation: Hoid wrote the letter to Patji, with no intention of Bavadin receiving it at all. The “past relationship” indicates that Hoid knew Patji. The “one who cannot respond” epigraph isn’t saying that Patji is literally incapable of communicating; it’s Patji saying “I gotta ask my manager.” He does so, and then Bavadin says “box that fool out,” and then he writes the second portion of the letter with the denial. Approaching another one of Autonomy’s avatars may have been more successful, one more willing to say “Thumbs up, let’s do this!” without checking in with Bavadin. So, Patji was someone that Hoid knew before he became the avatar on First of the Sun. (Hoid couldn’t have met him on FotS; otherwise, Patji wouldn’t have been surprised he’d been found.” This meshes with one of Brandon’s phrases from WoB 3: “I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.” There was a man named Patji, and something happened to him (something intentionally done by Autonomy, as we know per WoB 4, so something that occurred after the Shattering), and then we wound up with the island of Patji (which is the avatar). This leads me to believe that an avatar is a combination of two things. There is a Physicalmanifestation of Shardic power (something specific, like an island or an individual) using Cognitive residue from a deceased individual. A Mind Golem, of sorts. There are plenty of concepts, both in-Cosmere and otherwise, of something inhabiting a dead person’s body. Like a Lifeless. I think an avatar uses a dead person’s mind to guide its personality as it is created. This is somewhat discussed in WoB 5, about how it’s difficult to Ascend to an avatar because it already has a personality. It doesn’t already have a Vessel; the Investiture manifestation itself has an inherent personality, sort of like a spren. But it needs a real person for its formation; it’s not a personality that spontaneously manifests. So there was a real person named Patji who knew Hoid, and later died on First of the Sun and was made into an Avatar by Autonomy. Anything beyond that would be out of the realm of theorization and into speculation, but I’ll throw two possibilities out. First, he could have been a Yolish individual (he does use Rayse’s name) who could have died conveniently on First of the Sun or been sent there directly by Bavadin. Second, he could have been a Taldain native (like Trell, who’s next up) who was sent out by Bavadin, and Hoid met him either on Taldain or very early on in Patji’s worldhopping career. Trell Trell, from Mistborn, is widely considered to be an Avatar of Autonomy, in large part because of the presence of an individual named Trell in White Sand, the chronologically earliest post-Shattering story, and Autonomy’s “interference with other planets” mentioned in Khriss’s Taldain Essay. And these two clues could fit with the same vein as Patji: Trell was a dude on Taldain, Bavadin recruited him to go off-world and die, but in dying he lent his mind to the creation of an avatar. If he is indeed an avatar, I’m not quite sure how Trell manifests. (Remember, according to the Wikipedia quotes listed above, an avatar makes a “material appearance,” so not just chilling in the Spiritual Realm like a mini-Shard.) Patji manifests as an island. We do have the Thousand Eyes of Trell. And Harmony’s portrayal of him as a red mist. And the red stars forming The Scar in the constellation chart. So maybe Trell literally manifests in stars? But he appears to be Investing on Scadrial specifically, as evidenced by the function of his god metal in Hemalurgy, so I’d expect him to have a manifestation specific to Scadrial. I’m gonna hold off on trying to conclude anything about Trell until Wax and Wayne are finished, at least. [This comment has been removed.] Stormfather Now I’m gonna go a little deeper in the murky depths of theorization. The Stormfather has always been an odd cookie; is he a Sliver, is a Splinter, is he a Cognitive Shadow? He’s referred to himself as some variation of all three. There have been a lot of WoBs on the subject ([A], [ B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [ I], in no particular order, and maybe with an accidental repeat in there). I think an avatar, especially an avatar created from the Cognitive Shadow of a Vessel, can classify as all three, so the lines of terminology get muddled, which causes a lot of this confusion. There are two key WoBs from that list that lead me to suspect the Stormfather is an avatar. First is that the Stormfather has “absorbed” something that made him basically Honor’s Cognitive Shadow [ I]. Second, that the Stormfather was intentionally created by Honor [C]. So he’s a post-Shattering creation (even though the Highstorms themselves predate the Shattering [J]). This is what we see the Stormfather discuss in Oathbringer Chapter 113: So, we learn that Honor did something to create the modern Stormfather around the time of the Recreance; but we also know that some form of the Stormfather predated the First Desolation, at the very least, from Words of Radiance interlude 5 (appropriately called the Rider of Storms): So, we have a latter transformation, where it seems the Stormfather absorbed Honor’s Cognitive Shadow, consuming part of his mental framework (Mind Golem) into his personality. But by calling it a “latter transformation,” I’m implying that there was a former transformation, one where the highstorm absorbed a mind to become more than just a storm. I think the former transformation is told in the story of Fleet. It’s a passage I’ve tried to crack unsuccessfully before. I won’t post the entire song, but selections that seem significant. (In reverse chronological order, but that’s just what works best from a flow of thought.) The ending screams “Cognitive Shadow” to me, one tied to the Investiture of the highstorms. I’m thinking now that his mind was used to create an avatar with the physical manifestation of the Investiture that was the existing highstorm. The God of Storms is not mentioned against through the story. There’s no personification of the storm throughout the race itself. I think the God of Storms is Honor, and this is indicating he was active and aware, preparing to create an avatar during the sequence. This is Hoid singing, so the events of Fleet’s story happened during his lifetime. The timelines fit; Chan-a-rach came from Ashyn, which was destroyed after Odium’s arrival, so Hoid could definitely have been around for it. The end of the story refers to the land of “dirt and soil,” so another indication that it was after humans came from Ashyn. But, if the Stormfather betrayed the singers, then this must have been before the First Desolation. And, if that’s the case, Fleet might not even be a human; he might have been a singer! The song refers to Alethkar and Azir, nations that didn’t exist until recently (in the grand scheme of things), so of course those weren’t the literal names of the locations while the story of Fleet was occurring. But if it was before the human expansion and invasion, then maybe this was a singer who did all this through singer territory? That would add an additional note of betrayal to the Stormfather’s actions. But the singers should have known better than to approach him by relying upon presumption of past relationship. The avatar still needed guiding and shaping by Honor, and who knows what else may have occurred during the events of the First Desolation. I get the sense there are more secrets incoming in the next few books that informed a lot of actions throughout Roshar’s history. Oh, one last thought before I go, on the sense of physical manifestations. The Stormfather didn’t appear in the Cognitive Realm when a highstorm passed by in Oathbringer when the gang was in Shadesmar. He appears to be limited to the Physical Realm, although he is pretty omnipresent in a Spiritual Realm sense. That fits the definition of avatar I’ve been using, as a physical manifestation. Nightwatcher The Nightwatcher is referred to as an avatar by Evi. Is it the same technical cosmere term that’s applied to Patji and the being on Obrodai? Sure, why not! But in all seriousness, I think the Nightwatcher would fit the definition of an avatar, as well. She is also a physical manifestation, the creeping mist that lives in one spot. She’s still learning; Cultivation lets her hold court to “understand” humans. This fits with the Stormfather ‘growing up’ so to speak, and also with the avatar on Obrodai who is beginning to manifest and had her personality guided. That’s always struck me as odd, why the Nightwatcher has been around so long (it’s called the Old Magic, after all), but is still working on understanding people. Maybe she wasn’t guided as an avatar until recently, and she was just a less mindless manifestation. (More on that in the next section.) The Unmade Truth be told, the Unmade weren’t even on my mind as a candidate when I sat down to write this theory. But as I’ve been putting words to the page and pulling together sources, I have no choice but to consider them, and they do fit with a lot of the concepts I’ve been attributing to avatars. We know there’s a parallel between Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Unmade [ B]. If the first two are avatars, then so are the rest. Which is what, specifically, was Unmade – nine individuals whose minds were taken and used to create the Unmade, but were never properly developed to make them all fully sentient. Or maybe they had been developed as personalities, and then they were undone at some point. They also fit the physical manifestation element of an avatar – we haven’t seen them lurking in the Cognitive Realm (although we did see their presence there in Kholinar and Thaylen city), they’ve always been in the Physical Realm as well. Even Yelig-nar had a gemstone, which I think is his physical manifestation. This ties the Unmade to Roshar specifically, which is why I think they stayed behind on Roshar after the Last Desolation when the Fused and the Voidspren all returned to Braize. They are a different phenomenon that is tied to Odium’s Investiture on Roshar, not a Splinter tied to Braize like the rest. The Sibling And logic follows that the third Bondsmith spren would also be an avatar. But if an avatar is a manifestation of a Shard… then which Shard? Honor and Cultivation already have their big avatars, Odium has his smaller avatars. I don’t think that we can have an avatar of multiple Shards simultaneously – these are manifestations of the Shard, not an external Splinter like the spren. Maybe Honor or Cultivation has two? Maybe Re-shephir isn’t the first Unmade to switch sides (the mysterious Tenth Unmade that got hinted at in epigraphs)? Maybe there’s an off-world Shard that was like, “Sure, I’ll drop an avatar,” and we’ll get a Letter from that Shard in one of the next two books saying “I already gave you an avatar to help, how’d that turn out for you?” For the physical manifestation, I’m leaning towards the gemstone pillar as being the Sibling’s manifestation. It’s slumbering, so the gemstones are off. This also kind of fits the three kinds of gods in the Horneater myths (trees = Nightwatcher, waters = Stormfather, mountains = Sibling) and the three gods in the Elia Stele (spren = Nightwatcher, stone = Sibling, wind = Stormfather). The Sibling is physically manifested in the rocks, perhaps specifically in gemstones. Perpendicularities I’ll take a break from specific avatars because I need to introduce another concept before I get to the next one. Avatars have perpendicularities; we know there’s one on First of the Sun, and there must be one on Obrodai as well (since Hoid was told not to go back there, and as far as we’ve seen, he still needs to use perpendicularities to transition between realms). I’m wondering if Trell has a perpendicularity on Scadrial, which is how he gets his agents on-world. Trell is Invested enough on Scadrial for his metal to function in Hemalurgy, so maybe he’s Invested enough to have a perpendicularity, as well. The perpendicularity situation on Scadrial is a little puzzling, in and of itself; ettmetal manifests in the South, and god metals have been shown to manifest near perpendicularities (lerasium by the Well of Ascension and atium by the Pits of Hathsin). But the Shadows of Self broadsheets include a Southerner using a perpendicularity in the Northern mountains. Does Harmony have two perpendicularities? Is there no useable perp near the ettmetal source, so they have to use the one in the North? Is the mountain pool actually Trell’s perp, and the Masked Figure is one of Trell’s agents (ooh, one of Trell’s kandra) sneaking in so he can make his way to the South? Lots of possibilities. [This comment has been removed.] The Stormfather manfiests “Honor’s perpendicularity.” Cultivation’s is in the Horneater Peaks (which kind of throws off my assigning the Sibling to the mountains and Nightwatcher to the trees, especially when the perpendicularities lie in the waters that I’ve assigned to the Stormfather), which is pretty far from the Nightwatcher, but it’s possible the two are still associated. And I’ve long thought we had one in the Purelake, as well, and that Hoid’s “false trail” he laid out for the Seventeenth Shard was that he had managed to use the Purelake perp. There only appear to be two functioning perpendicularities during the events of Oathbringer (since they had to rely on either Honor’s perp or Cultivation’s perp), so… maybe the Sibling’s slumber has deactivated the perp? And Hoid tricked the Sharders into thinking he’d managed to use it somehow anyways? We’re getting pretty far afield here, especially since I don’t think an avatar needs a perpendicularity (or else Odium would have nine perpendicularities, one for each Unmade.) But that Purelake bit still sticks in my craw, so I’ll dig it back up every once in a while. Sand Lord Back to potential avatars. This is quite obviously a manifestation of Autonomy on Taldain; I think it may be an avatar, not the Shard herself. I’m tying this in to the perpendicularity logic above (which is why I had to throw it there awkwardly in the middle), and maybe the way she closed her perpendicularity on Taldain was by destroying, disabling, or doing something else nasty to this avatar. Austre Austre, the God of Colors, is who the Idrians believe created Nalthis and sends the Returned. It’s interesting that Brandon has confirmed that Austre is not Endowment [K]. One option is that Austre is Adonalsium, and they have enough holdover belief from that time. I don’t think that gels with the Idrian doctrine and Awakening being heresy, and also it has nothing to do with avatars, so I’m not gonna devote a ton of time here, even though it may very well be the more plausible of the options. I’m gonna instead make Sand Lord parallels; both of them wish to stop the use of magic. That’s making me think of Autonomy, and maybe Austre is another one of Bavadin’s avatars. Or maybe Austre is one of Endowment’s avatars? A specific agent who Returns? (But Brandon volunteers that Endowment is the one behind who Returns [L], so where would Austre even fit in?) I don’t have any clue of a physical manifestation for Austre. Warbreaker 2 is going to be even farther off than Wax and Wayne 4, and I’ve already made my thoughts clear on that. But Austre is one of the last candidates I can think of for being an avatar. Skathan Another kick-the-tires idea, the Emperor on Darkside. Autonomy could have another avatar working on Darkside. Working off the prose, he’s said to have powers to “speak and force people to obey him,” and he doesn’t age. Maybe he’s just a Lord Ruler-like individual who gained power. I don’t think we’ve seen him make a claim to deity. So, I’m not even convincing myself that he’s an avatar, but there’s no harm in mentioning him in the list of potentials. The Fell Twins Aether of Night spoilers below: Magic Systems I don’t have a ton of conclusions to make about how avatars interact with magic systems. Some, like Patji, manifest their own. Others, like the Rosharan avatars, interact with an existing Shard’s magic system. Which makes sense with an avatar as an extension of the Shard, and not a distinct being. Honor has already Invested in Roshar, so creating an avatar that’s also Invested in Roshar doesn’t change anything. I assume Obrodai has some new magic. (Kite magic, perhaps [M]? Although Brandon was developing that in 2019, so that may not have existed when Oathbringer was published.) Maybe the Sand Lord is responsible for sand mastery. We’ve seen the sand on Roshar, but have we actually seen anyone using sand mastery off of Taldain in the modern era? (Since there’s no real magic on Darkside, maybe that’s a sign there’s no avatar there). But if a world already has magic systems, perhaps a new avatar just fits into them, regardless of what Shard it’s of. So Trell joins the Metallic Arts (Brandon hasn’t even considered adding a fourth [N]). Austre, if he is an avatar of an off-world Shard, fits in with Breath somehow. And the Unmade can be bonded to form a Bondsmith, which is why going beyond three was seen as “seditious,” since it required one of Odium’s avatars. This makes sense more from a narrative sense than a realmatic sense; you only need new magic if there’s no old magic there to piggyback off of. But that’s how a lot of these things seem to go, and we’ll have a small enough sample size that I’m sure someone will be able to fit it into some sort of a framework in the end. In Conclusion. I’m pushing 5000 words, so I’ll summarize my main points: An avatar is a physical manifestation of a Shard that derives its personality from the mind of a deceased individual. Avatars can create new magic systems and new perpendicularities on the planets they are Invested on, but they do not have to if they Shard or another Shard has already Invested on that world. Patji was a being Hoid knew before he (Patji) became an avatar. Trell is an avatar of Autonomy who will be made from the individual appearing in White Sand. The three Bondsmith spren and the Unmade are avatars on Roshar. There are a couple other beings through the cosmere who may be avatars, but I don't have much confidence at all in that list, and am more presenting it for the sake of thoroughness.

So, the Sanderson Store posted a picture of the warehouse today, and in the corner of the shot there were some foam Shardblades that are apparently going to be merchandise: Looks like the company that made them is called Forged Foam; their work has been shared on Reddit before. Here's their website; nothing Stormlight-related on it, yet. https://www.forgedfoam.com/ Looking through their current inventory, I'm guessing these will run between $100 and $150 a pop. So start saving up now!

Brandon hadn't decided on a final name for them yet while writing Oathbringer, so we do not have a name for them:

There is, unfortunately, no other official avenues for obtaining the drafts. Brandon's team is aware of it, and we will need to wait until they correct the issue. EDIT: Never mind, it has been brought to my attention that the Wayback Machine has preserved both documents. I didn't think it would grab attachments like this. http://web.archive.org/web/20170716102712/http://brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/LiarPt12.doc https://web.archive.org/web/20170716093039/http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/LiarCh1v3.doc

Audio is up for transcription: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/409-youtube-livestream/ For those who missed it, the video is up on Brandon's Facebook page; Arcanum only has the audio.

Looks like they're taking questions on Twitter for the AMA.

They haven't officially announced anywhere yet, so I assume it will be the one linked on brandonsanderson.com. https://www.youtube.com/user/BrandSanderson

Here's the full description of the event: So, not heavy lore questions. (Although, if they run out of boring life story questions, you never know...) I plan on asking what Brandon thinks the Cosmere experience would have looked like if he had successfully written Dragonsteel before starting on Stormlight.

On Saturday, 1:00 MST (3:00 EST). We'll need to wait on details; not sure if this is promoting anything in particular, yet. But start dusting off your question lists, in case good cosmere questions are legal.

We do know that force is inversely proportional to distance, and there are some other interactions that suggest the force is also related to relative velocity (like steelpushing contests between two Allomancers, as shown in the linked Impossible Physics thread). So the ZoBell tower could be another scenario explained by a relative velocity factor on steelpushes. But there are a couple of other factors to consider beforehand, which all require a closer reading of the text. You can push harder on larger anchors; what was Wax pushing on as he was going up the side of the tower, vs coming down? When you're calculating the work done, you're essentially integrating force times distance. If you're not directly adjacent to what you're pushing off of, you're not going to be able to get as much work out of a push (since the force will start off smaller, and you'll be able to accomplish work over less of a total distance). How far was Wax from what he was pushing off of on his way up? I'm not certain air resistance is negligible. According to Google, it takes a human 12 seconds/1500 feet to reach terminal velocity, about the height of the Empire State Building. ZoBell tower is about a fifth of that (20 stories, Empire State Building is 102), so I'd estimate that there's enough time for air resistance to accomplish some effect on the free fall. Air resistance operates against Wax's pushes going up (he has to put in more energy to reach the same height), and with Wax's push coming down (has to put in less energy to slow down). So, there are a lot of other factors that could potentially be responsible for Wax needing one object on the way down, and more on the way up. When exactly did this scene occur? As to the gun vs spear comparisons, remember that once a coin enters someone's body, the Allomancer can't push on it any more. (Which is why people hide coins in their mouths.) By the time the coin begins to slow down, it will already have broken the skin and be inside the body, so you won't be able to sustain that push anymore.

The WoB in question was from a paraphrased report from Phoenix ComicCon 2013, and it does not appear to be in Arcanum: It should be added to the Phoenix ComicCon event (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/297-phoenix-comicon-2013/) and linked in the footnote for the 17S Q&A entry. Would you like to make those edits? There are several other reported WoBs in that thread which need to be added, as well.

TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (107/107), Peter 100% (113/113), Isaac 100% (113/113), Ben 100% (102/102) Reddit 100%: Brandon 100% (136/136), Peter 100% (109/109), Isaac 100% (27/27), Ben 100% (90/90), Adam 100% (18/18), Store 100% (8/8) Twitter 59%: Brandon 100% (129/129), Peter 44% (57/129), Isaac 47% (64/136), Kara 59% (69/117), Karen 55% (59/107), Adam 40% (24/60) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (216/216) Social Media Total: 87% (1778/2054) Theoryland Review: 10% (121/1183) Events and Signings Review: 0% (0/397) I was not able to put Twitter away this month, between holidays and work and getting sick. I made more progress than it looks like - you'll see Kara (the store manager) and Karen (the continuity editor) are on there now. Neither have been active in years, and their early activity looks to be all personal stuff, but I'll put them on the list, anyways.

There's a user, @Mark Lindberg, who has an extensive collection and a YouTube channel called "The Sanderson Collector." I suspect he'll have a lot of the info you're looking for.

It's definitely an "S." The tail isn't as thickly drawn as the other characters, which is why it's getting blurred out in my pic, but it's the same character. Considering we didn't get a question mark at the end of the phrase on the cover, I don't think there are any punctuation symbols at all.

Double-posting because I played around with lighting and got some good pictures of the cover, and a clearer version of the blackboard, as well. There certainly appear to be errors (DEIROY, CYEATED) in each of the selections. HELLO WOULD YOU LIKE TO DEIROY SOME EVIL TODAY CYEATED BY DANDOS THE OILSWORN AND ISAAC S

I got my grubby paws on my copy today, so I can get a bit of a better look. It is really difficult to make out the purple text on the black cover, even with the book in hand, and I'm not having much success taking any better pictures. But some observations: Every letter with a dot above actually has two dots, very closely placed side-by-side. Which is why they look like a single large dot on the original pictures. I believe U will match this pattern; they just get spaced a little more widely, since that's more natural for the shape of the letter. The Y has two dots to the side, one atop the other. It is in the correct row; it shares the "A" structure. R is odd, based on the chalkboard example. The "R" in "created" appears to share the "A" structure, but in "oilsworn" it appears to follow the "L" structure. It's subtle, but quite distinctive, especially since the next two letters provide immediate contrast. And the million dollar question... the mysterious "ST" letter is, in fact, an "I." I've gone cross-eyed trying to see a difference, and I can't find one; it is the exact same "L" structure with two dots above. If the letter after it is, indeed, an "R" (and it does match the "oilsworn" style "R"), then we are asking to "deiroy" some evil. Which, according to spellcheck, is not a word. I'll keep poking around through the interior illustrations to see if there are any other examples of in-world text. I flipped to the Ars Arcanum and didn't see a key (which isn't terribly surprising).

Well, the third and final stretch goal was unlocked with a whopping $150,368, very little room to spare. But it was done, nonetheless. And with the tier I suggested ($25, get a set of acrylic dice) getting 71 backers, that's at least $1775 that wouldn't have been pledged otherwise. (Potentially more, with add-ons for additional acrylic sets.) So go Pagerunner, you were able to help push this thing across the goal line! For those who missed out and are reading this later, here's what Crafty said in the campaign about future availability outside the Kickstarter: There are 82 pledges at the Mistborn Merchant level, so between any of their various online store sand the Crafty online store, there should be some options for to get your hands on them, if you're proactive. August 2020 is the estimated fulfillment date, so August or September would be the time to start hunting.