Child of Hodor

Honor investiture tastes like medicine.

On Brandon's answer to the Stormfather SA5 prologue question I don't take it as confirmation of anything other than that Brandon deliberately wrote him to be different from how we've seen him act. He didn't accidently write him with a very personality on accident. Whether this is another aspect of the entity, like the Tanavast cognitive shadow, or something else I don't think we can say. 

2 hours ago, Oversleep said:

End of an arc is harder, not easier.

Tying up plot threads, interweaving them together, while still having a story going on and not just "This needs to wrap up, so this thing is happening".

Even without Hollywood - Brandon has said that he'd known it would require extra care. Just like The Lost Metal did (which also pushed Stomrlight 5 back).

True. I was just thinking he would not have to decide who was getting the flashbacks or whose book it was like he has had to in the other ones. He ended up flipping Szeth from book 3 to 5. That’s a huge change. 

7 hours ago, Mzuka said:

You're implying that it's not his work ethic that's in doubt, but his focus/interest, which ignores Chaos's point that the cosmere is Brandon's primary love. Finishing this story as a whole - which the Stormlight back 5 is essential for - is his main goal. Saying he's not eager to write more Stormlight seems pretty wild and baseless. 

He has discussed numerous times the amount of books he has left to write in his lifetime to finish and the schedule he needs to adhere to to finish it - and he's not only proven his work ethic, but his time management. If there's an author/creator in the world that's earned the benefit for the doubt from his audience, it's Sando.

This stays true even with Hollywood knocking - we've been expecting adaptations to come into play for a while now so it's not exactly a surprise. I imagine that part of the reason it's been so upsetting for his schedule this last year is cause it's early stages and he hasn't yet figured out how to incorporate this into his routine. I'm sure he will. I don't think he would risk leaving Stormlight/other parts of the cosmere unfinished simply so he could adapt stories he already finished.

Also, Stormlight 6 2031 is not bad at all (too optimistic if you ask me). Book 5 comes out 2024, and in that gap he's writing and releasing the entire Mistborn Era 3 Trilogy, and who knows what else. Doing that, and writing and releasing a Stormlight book in 7 years? That would be Herculean. Feel like we would be getting just a bit spoiled as a fandom if we complained about that.

11 hours ago, Chaos said:

I don't understand what you're getting at. You did not address the fact that I think you're taking things too far by thinking that Brandon doesn't enjoy Stormlight. I think that is patently false.

Yes, Brandon has discussed a White Sand prose for a while now actually. 

Regardless, he always has some extra projects rolling around. We will see what come to fruition. 

I don't think a 2031 release for Stormlight 6 is out of the question when you think of the timeline of writing Era 3 back to back and Stormlight production time. That seems pretty reasonable. It was always going to be at least five years of a break. 

The cosmere is tricky. It's always going to be more than just Stormlight, even if it is a big portion of the cosmere. But he has to juggle multiple things, and I think the design was always to give him space to do Era 3 in between Stormlight 5 and 6, and maybe still Elantris sequels (though who knows how important that is now in his plans). 

I apologize. I think I came across as more grumpy in text than I actually. 

In a post last year I said I'm only looking forward to W&W4 and SA5 because anything beyond that is so far out it's not worth getting too excited for. I'm at peace with never reading the entire Cosmere saga. 

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/98408-enough-with-skyward/?do=findComment&comment=1250911

I know adaptations are inevitable and I know it will split his focus. I was just hoping SA5 (the last of his work I allowed myself to be hyped for) would not be impacted by it. I had convinced myself that SA5 would be the smoothest one to write since whatever didn't happen in the first 4 and doesn't happen in 6-10 has to happen here and he outlined it while doing 4. I was really hoping it wouldn't get delayed. I was a fool . 

My point on White Sand  prose is he offloaded the story to other people in graphic novel form as a way to help him focus on other stuff while still getting a version of the story out there. But now he's going to do a full rewrite anyways. He just keeps adding stuff to his to do list even stuff he intentionally took off and gave to someone else because he "didn't have time". https://wob.coppermind.net/events/285/#e9157. 

I don't think he doesn't like Stormlight. I think he lowkey dreads the process because it takes more out of him than anything else. I believe he really wants to write all these Cosmere books AND do a million other things. Now that he's so successful he has more opportunity to do the million other things. Even for him I think there is only so much extra stuff he can add to his to do list without having to drop things off. Like I said, not my problem, after SA5 I'm good. I'll read what he writes after whenever that will be. I was just really looking forward to 5 *shrug* 

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

 

I am worried the amount of time he devotes to doing adaptations and potential showrunning. That will take a long time. But Brandon has an entire story to tell in the cosmere, and he is going to make it work. 

Brandon has proven his work ethic. He comes back to every Stormlight book energized and ready to go. I guarantee you, if he wasn't into it, he wouldn't bother pushing the boulder up the mountain at all. He does it because he does love it.

His work ethic isn't in doubt. He's going to continue to do stuff, no question about that. Will he be writing books, scripts for tv shows, story bibles for videogames? He posted a video where he does an in-depth analysis of that's wrong with the the Bumblebee movie script recently. If he's script doctoring the Bumblebee movie I don't think he'll be hands off on his own adaptations and as the post makes clear he doesn't need the money so he has leverage to get final say.

I've been calling him Brandon "I accidently wrote a book" Sanderson long before the 4 extra books jumped ahead of Stormlight 5 in publication.

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/98408-enough-with-skyward/?do=findComment&comment=1250911

He's going to keep thinking of other things he'd rather be doing and now it isn't limited to writing other books. But on the subject of books did you catch that he's recently been thinking of doing a big revision of White Sand prose so he can publish it? After doing those graphic novels and an omnibus revision of the graphic novels which were done specifically to free him up from doing a massive revision of the prose? https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15642

Stormlight 6 release: 2031

The beginning of the end.
He won’t become Martin, but he’s not super eager to write more stormlight. 

Stormlight is exhausting work that burns him out, per him and Adam, while 4 unplanned books and scripts, a new challenge for him, are much more fun. The break he takes between 5 and 6 is gonna be double whatever he’s said it will be. 

That’s OK, he doesn’t owe me anything. 

6 hours ago, Kings_way said:

Mare's flower=Ghostbloods?

Absolutely! Good call.

15 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Could strong human souls go to the Barrier Storm? Could there be more truth to the Vorin afterlife than just the memory of the Heralds vs the Fused? 

There is truth to the Vorin afterlife, but it seems more inline with Odium's plans for Roshar that he outlines in RoW Ch. 112

Quote

I need soldiers. For the true battle that is coming, not for one people or one miserable windswept continent. A battle of the gods. A battle for everything. Roshar is a training ground. 

Later in the chapter he says if he wins the contest he'll make Dalinar a Fused who will lead Odium's forces to other worlds. 

I think the Barrier Storm was part of what keeps Odium in and Honor let the Heralds piggyback on it to trap the Fused.

It was probably always called the Everstorm since it was meant to keep things in forEver.  Tanavast knew it's name when he made the visions ~2,000 before present day and he's not very good at seeing the future. He knows it's name because he made it (he likes storms a lot).

It's possible that the Everstorm was created to enforce the deal that keeps Odium bound. We know it's a deal between Shards because Dalinar has enough connection to Honor's remnants to let Odium out of it (OB Ch. 57 Passion). Odium doesn't show up and talk to people on Roshar until after the Everstorm is brought over and at first he can only talk to people when the Everstorm is near them. A year later he has more freedom via Connection. 

By moving a piece of the Storm to Roshar's physical realm it forms the "bridge" that the Diagram mentioned (WoR Epigraph Ch. 89). The Fused are still confined to where the Everstorm is, but now it is also in the Physical Realm on Roshar where they can bodysnatch Singers. 

On the voice in Sazed's head telling him about the rings. Brandon said it was intended to be Kelsier, but later he realized the timeline doesn't work. 

Quote

Phantine

Did you pre-write the Kelsier stuff for Secret History, or did you just outline the events ahead of time?

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier was notes, though detailed ones. They might mostly worked out. I believe there was one "thought" a character has in HERO that I had written to be influenced by Kelsier, but turned out to be logistically impossible. I worked on Secret History itself on and off for years before finishing it last fall.

Phantine

Was that thought the one Sazed has in his fight with Marsh?

Those weren't coins, a voice seemed to whisper.

The bag Marsh shot at you. Those weren't coins.

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, that's it.

Moving the well, playing with where Kelsier was, and the physics of moving through perpendicularities between Realms all kind of combined to make what I had planned originally there not work. I tried fudging things so Kelsier could be there, and felt it was dishonest to the rules. So I didn't let him stray far enough from the Well to talk to Sazed there. Peter had thought for years that was Kelsier, I recall, and was sad we couldn't connect them.

Herowannabe

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share with us who the new, canonical voice in Sazed's head is?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I probably won't ever go into this. At some point, you risk twisting and turning too much. I have a canon answer in my head, but for readers, it will probably need to remain ambiguous--with "it was simply him coming up with it on his own" being a valid option.

General Reddit 2016 (Aug. 22, 2016)

On 5/29/2022 at 2:58 PM, teknopathetic said:

 

Also, doesn't the whole "priests died frozen in supplication" and "we heard to from the lips of a dying priest" all sound little staged? The whole thing is just so staged. Would Kelsier let his people freeze to death? Seems more likely someone dragged those bodies there and placed them in a prayer position, and then someone had orders to leak the information about the temple at a certain point.

I also like Argent's Iri idea. Seems like if Kelsier wanted to make a fortress, he might go ask the people who's fortress he was just in.  

I came here to say this. I think those bodies around where the fake bands were supposed to be were staged. I don't think anyone sat there and died of thirst or froze to death staring at the fake bands. Simplest explanation is the whole scene was staged including the bodies. 

17th Shard agents when they catch up to Hoid on Roshar:

1 hour ago, Philomath said:

My joke theory for the 4th one after listening to you guys discuss. It will be epistolary with Nazh writing letters to Khriss. She has sent him to check out some things on Ashyn and he gets sick. Is the plan for Ashyn supposed to be magic you get when you get sick still? I hope so because I think it would be funny if that is the case. So Nazh is complaining to her about being sick, but also gets roped into doing things because he has magic now. And some of the “letters” can also be medical charts. “Patient presented with ‘x’ symptoms. Diagnosed with ‘y.’ Oh and now patient can fly.”

 

Nazh is also my best guess for the 4th one. He's bald, he's a scholar who works with Khriss and is probably long-lived like Khriss. This could be set a new Cosmere world in the future (relative to when SA 1-5 and MB Era 2). Or just set on another planet that is more technologically advanced. 

It could be Galladon. He's bald and in a worldhopper organization he could be anywhere assuming he didn't decide to retire to the Purelake. 

I agree with the podcast in that I don't think it can be Hoid. He's slated to be the main character of MB era 4 that wraps up the entire Cosmere and Dragonsteel should serve as an origin story for him and the 16 Vessels. Giving him a full book here would undercut some of that. 

Though it would be hilarious if it was a full book of Hoid's letters and responses a la the Stormlight epigraphs. Just page after page of insults back and forth.

I still think the We in “We Killed You” is Rayse & Odium given what we learned in RoW. We see the power trying to break free from Rayse with the light moving inside him, Harmony says the shard isn’t controlled well and has developed its own mind. The Power talks to Taravangian after Rayse died. There two minds at work. 
 

With the Small Emerald that said they foresaw this I think Truthwatchers could occasionally see the future and that’s why they were so secretive about what they can do. Seeing the future is of the enemy according to lore and cultural superstition so they had to hide what they could occasionally do.

I'm dying at the Hoboken WOB. 

Brandon: (inaudible) but there's an asterisk to that.

Questioner: OK (inaudible), but ...

Brandon: (cuts him off) However (inaudible). You're making assumptions (inaudible)

(20 minutes later)

Brandon: Wait! (inaudible)

Glad you hit on the connection between the Set and The Village. They are both too obsessed with magic genealogy for there to be a relationship. 

My question is are there any other members of the Set/Trellism that are relatives of Wax we thought were dead? At the start of the series we thought Wax's uncle, sister and wife were all dead. None of them were, 2 were working for the Set and 1 was working for Trell.  I hope not, but that seems like a trend. I don't think the grandma is even though she ran what seems to be ground zero for the Set. Wax's mom or dad? 

Is there some kind of weird publishing rights issue going on with the Kickstarter audiobooks?  Way of Kings Prime audiobook ended up being released on Youtube for free, but not available any other way and they still don't have the Dawnshard audiobook release figured out.

We've got Tor and the company they use to make audiobooks, Macmillan audio. Brandon set up his own audiobook company, Mainframe.  Neither of which were used for Way of Kings Prime audiobook. 

I wonder if the contract between Dragonsteel LLC and Tor clearly allows him to publish books and ebooks of things in the Stormlight world that Tor hasn't explicitly bought. They get the 10 novels but Dragonsteel LLC is allowed to publish novellas and earlier versions of novels they never purchased. But the contract between Tor - Dragonsteel - Macmillan (however that arrangement is set up) muddies the water on audiobooks. 

My head canon for her "lunacy" is that she heard or saw things that other people could not (radiant spren, shadesmar, unmade etc.) and told people about it. This led to her parents locking her in a dark room for an extended period of time, presumably under the care of ardents. 

This taught her at an early age she has to be extremely careful with what she says, even to her family, or she'll get locked in the dark room again. That's where a lot of her guarded, fiercely independent personality traits come from or at least they were reinforced to an extreme by this experience. 

16 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

My eternal beef: Amaram was done dirty in Oathbringer and in general Brandon has a habit of taking complicated, conflicted, morally gray villains and turning them into mustache twirling villains so he can have his heroes guiltlessly kill them and move on to other villains. Amaram’s conversion to Odium should not have happened entirely off-screen and having him turn into a blob monster who could be killed without guilt was a bad decision by the author. 

Also, Brandon has had too many arranged marriages work-out and killed too many wives and mothers in people’s backstories. 

Yeah, Brandon chose the surprise twist over the character development in the case of Amaram. 

I feel like the "Pure Tones" or music magic was foreshadowed by "The Rhythms" of the Singers, also the name Singers implies it.  In The Way of Kings Kabsul shows how the Dawncities made by the Dawnsingers are shaped in accordance with sound (Cymatics). https://coppermind.net/wiki/Kabsal

That said eyes did glaze reading the experiments being conducted with the Tones. I didn't find it interesting. 

1 hour ago, VirtuousTraveller said:

You mean..."Dying is easy, young man, living is harder?" 

(That's a Hamilton reference, for those of you who don't already view Dalinar as hip-hop George Washington in your minds)

Nice!

I don't know exactly what book it's in or if he just said it but I like this by Stephen King:

Love this Shardcast!

Slyadin

No thank you! I never got a romantic vibe. She is very positive and innocent like Tien. That's their dynamic to me.

Unfortunately, I think there is a way this can happen that is the inspiration for what Ishar is attempting. My theory is Siah Aimians, like Axies, were spren who found a way to convert themselves into physical realm beings. 

Kaladin's Suicidal Ideation

I would say it is there at a low level in Way of Kings besides the Honor Chasm. In WoK his constant complaint is that he continues to live while everyone else dies. A big part of that is him trying to redeem himself (in his eyes) for Tien's death by saving others. But he presents it as "everyone else dies, but I keep living" in other words "Why don't I get to die? I hate continuing to live." 

Kaladin's Fate

Since so much of his struggle has been depression, suicidal ideation and struggling not to give up I think a death would be too easy. The more challenging ending of book 5 for him is to have to continue to live and deal with life. Life Before Death, baby!

The Lirin's Advocate (hidden for length)
 

My wacky theory for the nature of Deathrise is that he's an absorbed twin of Lifeforce with separate DNA. This happens occasionally, the surviving twin's blood will have separate DNA from their skin or hair  We know from the motivators that Epic powers rely on DNA. Deathrise is the twin DNA that got the power, but is within Lifeforce's body and therefore reliant upon him.

Lifeforce doesn't have any powers of his own which is why he is trying to take other people's powers. 

1 hour ago, RedBlue said:

The problem I have with the ‘Shallan killed her secretly-a-Herald mother and triggered the end of the world’ theory is that it undermines Venli’s arc.

Venli’s whole story is her dealing with the fact that she accidentally made the Return happen. And it is actually her fault, since she was old enough and smart enough to know better, which I find more interesting than Shallan lashing out in a moment of panic as a small child.

I agree it subtracts more than it adds. Just because her story has twists doesn't mean THIS has to be the final twist. There's a lot of "her story is complicated so my theory is correct" going on. 

The mom's friend was a Skybreaker and that person influenced her decision to kill Shallan. If the Skybreakers knew about Shallan then Nale knows. Wouldn't Nale come talk to Chana himself and not send a lackey? Wouldn't Nale be aware of his Herald friend and know she's dead? The Heralds promised not to seek each other out, but they break that all the time. 

Also, if a Herald broke wouldn't the Fused start showing up like they would in a normal desolation? They could take over some Listeners and have the Listeners summon the Everstorm. It seems like a big risk to leave it all up to Ulim to pull off if there were other options. 

2 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

The obvious problem with the Chana theory is that the Stormfather's visions have shown our heroes accurate depictions of what the Heralds look like.  If Shallan had seen her mom there, she would have mentioned it!

2 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

I don't think Chana is ever directly mentioned as being seen in any of the visions, but even if she is, Chana in full battle regalia on the battlefield would look very different than as a rural, Vorin bright-lady. Even without any magical image manipulation going on. 

Plus Shallan's memory can never really be trusted. 

Jasnah has accurate depictions of the Heralds from Wit who drew them for her. That's how she spots Taln and Shallash at the end of OB.  I don't know if Shallan has seen all those drawings or not. 

Either way I'm not on board with Shallan's mom being a Herald. They both might have red hair, but it feels like an unnecessary twist to Shallan's already very complicated backstory.

Plus, I think a Herald could dodge a child's blade if they are paying attention and want to. Taln grabbed two darts out of the air despite his stupor, Nale and Ishar displayed great ability to dodge and outmanuever adults in RoW. Jezrien just sat there drunk. Maybe a child could summon a blade and catch a Herald by surprise, but I dunno. 

On Intent - Command, I think it is more a first principle of his approach to developing his magic system (although not one of his laws  ). 

He doesn't want magic systems where people can accidently blow each other up without knowing they were even using magic They have to intend it.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/3/#e77

Looking at it this way it's easy to make every cosmere magic system fit into Intent - Command. There is a thing you intend to do and there is the means by which you attempt to do it. 

Also, every magic system doesn't really have to mirror the Dawnshard - Shard relationship in my opinion. The Dawnshards shattered Adonalsium and likely influenced the shards we got, but Adonalsium predated the Dawnshards and the Dawnshards are separate from the Shards. Magic systems arising from the Shards investiture wouldn't inherently have Dawnshard-like features. 

59 minutes ago, AllHailStick said:

@Jofwu's aside about if Kaladin bonded 2 spren just has me imagining all of these variants of him zooming around with dual shardspears, a shardspear and his traditional knife he used in the army now shardknife, a shard spear and shardshield at the same time, etc.

And now I want it to be so.

One is a spear the other is a surfboard he can lash and ride around on (I know it would likely resist lashing, but let me dream). 

On the Sharcast they talked about how Shallan is good at lightweaving and really bad at soulcasting. This suggests she is getting lightweaving from Pattern and soulcasting from the deadeye. This fits with her soulcasting in Way of Kings after talking to a voice that she later said didn't sound like Pattern.