Mason Wheeler

Not sure. In the context of my other question, perhaps the answer is "no, there's no reason it no longer grows, and this is why some of the Shards are afraid of Nightblood." Maybe.

There was one question (not mine) that provoked a reaction of "OH WOW! What a great question!" from Brandon. Q: If you fed a Lerasium bead to an Aviar, would it become an Allomancer? A: RAFO.

Questions I asked: Q: You've said before that every rational being in the Cosmere who knows about Nightblood is terrified of it. A: Yeah... Q: Does this include Vessels? A: There are definitely some who are [scared / nervous / worried / I forget the exact word he used] about Nightblood. 'Terrified' might be too strong a word, but yes. Q: You've said that Nightblood is the most ridiculously over-invested thing in the Cosmere, second only to the Shards. A: Yes. Q: Was that true from the moment of its creation, or did it grow more powerful over time? A: It grew more powerful over time. So yeah, that'll answer a question I know a lot of people have been wondering about it. Q: What would happen if someone carried Nightblood unsheathed into a Perpendicularity? A: RAFO. Q: One of the Letters in Oathbringer suggests that the original Shards had a pact to go their separate ways, and some of them held to it while many didn't. A: Yeah. Q: How is it possible that, among those who broke the pact was the one whose nature is to obsessively keep your word on everything no matter what? A: He would say that he did keep his word. Q: So he found a loophole? A: He wouldn't even classify it as a loophole. He would say that he kept his word on that one. (Note: Just for the record, I heard the Shardcast guys wondering about this one at one point, but by the time that episode came out I had already thought of this question and resolved to ask Brandon about it the next time I saw him. So @Chaos, here's an answer to one of the questions you guys had! Albeit one that mostly just raises further questions...) (And then at the end, once the recording devices were turned off and we were getting ready to go) Q: I was re-reading the original Mistborn trilogy, and I was struck by how devoutly Demoux believes in the divine nature of Kelsier. And I just had to wonder, what must it have been like for him when he later became a Worldhopper and got a peek behind the curtain? A: Yeah, that's a very interesting aspect of his character, for specifically that reason, and I am going to write about it and explore it more deeply at a later point. Working on the audio I recorded. There was at least one thing that Brandon requested be redacted, and unlike @RShara, apparently, I needed to sleep once I got home. But I should have this up later today.

I got book #31. I'll be there, as usual, with equipment to record any interesting WOBs for the Shard.

Putting each chapter into a Spoiler section so this post doesn't take up too much space. Captain Kaladin: The Weeping Soldier by Joe and Anthony Russo Chapter 1 Chapter 7 Chapter 9 Chapter 11 Chapter 14 Chapter 16 Chapter 20 Chapter 23 I could do more, but this has already taken the better part of a day to write up. Hope you enjoyed it!

Not strictly Brandon-related, but a lot of people here are also fans of Brandon's old mentor, David Farland, best known for his Runelords books, which Brandon has described as containing the best magic system he's ever seen. I attended a panel with Brandon on magic systems, and David Farland was there. Along the way he mentioned that he's going to be coming out with a Runelords prequel series. This seemed a bit strange to me, as the final book of the main series isn't out yet; it's been MIA for something like 6 years now. So I caught up to him after the panel and asked about that, and he said that he's had a heck of a time writing it, because of a case of writer's block that went on for years. But he finally got past that and is finishing it up now, and expects to have it finished within a couple weeks. His best guess at a publication time is approximately a year from now. So... yay! We're finally going to get the conclusion!

All the talk of the dead spren, mentioning the word "deadeye" over and over, made my mind go off in interesting directions. "The Knights Radiant?" Lukaren asked. "An ancient order," Master Khonobi said in a solemn tone. "They once kept peace throughout the Cosmere, wielding mighty Shardblades and the power of the Investiture." "The Investiture? What's that?" "A force that permeates all things, and binds the Cosmere together." Lukaren blinked, slowly digesting this new information. "And you say my father was one of these... Knights Radiant?" "Anekal was one of the greatest of their number," Master Khonobi nodded, "until he was destroyed by the evil Darth Sader, a fallen Radiant who was seduced by the Voidish side of the Investiture, to become what is known as a Deadeye Knight..."

The Horneaters' affinity with spren is because they've got a bit of Parsh blood in them. (So do Herdazians, which is where they get the stone fingernails from.)

Gah! I was facepalming so hard when the completely random first guess managed to be correct on my question.

In defense of Wayne, I actually like him. I like his humor, I like the scenes from inside his head, and I think that the going-to-the-university scene was unfairly maligned in this podcast. It's a very important look at what makes him the person he is, and there's a ton of depth in that scene if you look below the surface of zany Wayne-y-ness. Also, he was quite right to hate on Steris, at least at first. Autistic or no, she was awful in the first book and only slightly better in the second. Yes, she really hit her stride in Bands of Mourning and started becoming somebody interesting and likable, but I can't blame Wayne for not wanting her around before that point. BTW someone (I don't remember who, and a lot of the male voices sound very similar on this one) said they were afraid Wayne's going to end up becoming a Worldhopper. I don't think so; what I'm foreseeing as the end of his character arc, based on the way his character is developing, is him becoming the first Kandra created by Harmony. As for my biggest Cosmere beef, I'm a bit surprised no one mentioned it or even came close: Dalinar's blind spot WRT Sadeas is just cringe-inducingly painful. The first thing he should have done when he got back from the tower, with the possible exception of greeting Navani, is arresting Sadeas for treason and having him executed, and storm the political consequences! Just think about how much better the next two books would have been if he'd had the good sense to do so and Adolin hadn't had to clean up the mess for him.

Just have to chime in on a little technical point. One of you (sorry, can't remember who) talked about progressing from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age where they had superior metal technology. This is actually a (very common) misconception; from a metallurgical perspective, bronze is better than iron in almost every way. It's harder and stronger, it's easier for a smith to work, it doesn't corrode as easily, etc. The reason the Iron Age came after the Bronze Age on our world wasn't technological progress, but resource exhaustion: when tin became too scarce--at least in a form that could be easily extracted from its ores by Bronze Age technology--it was difficult to produce lots of bronze, and so they had to fall back to iron, which was much more common.

I was in an office building, going down the hallway, looking for Brandon Sanderson's office. Eventually I found him, and asked him if I could interview him. He said sure, but not right now because he's really busy; could I come back in a couple hours? I was fine with that, but as I left, I remembered thinking, "that's strange, that didn't sound like his voice at all." But I didn't really follow up on that, because dream. A few hours later, it was time to go back for the interview, but just as I was heading out, the world got invaded by aliens. And then I woke up. Anyone else have weird dreams involving Brandon, the Cosmere or other fictitious settings of his, or the 17th Shard?

I'm very amused by the discussion of Ingenuity and possible synonyms, because I've been claiming for a long time (long enough for this to have been valid terminology) that Brandon is the Shardholder of Creativity. Awesome to hear it more-or-less officially confirmed!

I can see all the episodes; I just can't actually play them. I hit Play and it says "connecting to feeds.soundcloud.com" (or whatever the server name is) forever until I hit cancel.

Using Podcast Addict on a Blackberry KeyOne phone running Android 7.1.1.

Not sure what's up with my podcast player, but i was able to listen to it in the browser, so... *shrug*

As in the podcast player app on my phone.

So many fascinating lies!

Is anyone else having trouble listening to the podcast? I can't pull up any episodes in my player, for something like 4 days now. (Other podcasts play just fine.)

@Argent Yeah, and to be completely fair, the only reason I remembered the thing from Harmony on Ruin's nature is because I just recently re-read Hero of Ages so it was fresh in my mind. Not thinking of the Stormfather's quote, though... that's just unforgivable.

@Jess I'm glad to see someone remembered the Stormfather straight-up saying that Odium was lying about being Passion, because the podcasters sure didn't! I kept waiting for one of them, any of them, to bring it up, but... nope. Also conspicuously not mentioned, during the discussions of Ruin as a Shard of entropy, was Harmony in the Words of Founding explaining that Ruin was explicitly not just a force of entropy, but an intelligent, maliciously rational presence that was fully capable of building up one thing to use it to destroy several other things. I usually like these discussions, but this one left me disappointed by how many times the podcasters ignored relevant in-world sources in favor of vague, esoteric WOBs.

Wow, the con sounds like it was all sorts of fun! I'd have loved to have gone, but it was right in the middle of my honeymoon, so...

OK, doesn't look like it, so... enjoy!

OK, as I feared, my recording's sound quality turned out pretty terrible once the place got noisy. It looks like @firstRainbowRose posted her audio already, and it's a lot cleaner than mine. Has anyone posted the Legion reading yet? If not, I'll poke at it a little and put it on YouTube.

That quote says exactly the opposite of what you're saying: the rhythms *can* be blocked by a coppercloud, but a Soother would not be able to screw up a Listener's ability to attune the rhythms.