Mason Wheeler

That would make for a very interesting power: Shard-dowsing!

If you look at Shardbearer combat, you'll notice that Shardplate doesn't actually behave much like a metal at all. It doesn't dent under stress; it cracks, then eventually shatters, more like glass or ceramic than metal.

In Dalinar's vision of the Day of Recreance, he saw hundreds of Shardbearers abandoning their Plate and Blades, and that was only a fraction of the sum total of the Knights Radiant. He estimates that there are probably not even 100 known shard sets on Roshar. That means that the rest of them are either hidden, lost... or destroyed. Has anyone asked this before? Is it possible to destroy or "break" a Shardblade or suit of Shardplate so that it no longer functions as such and can't be repaired/restored/regenerated/etc?

In The Way of Kings, in one of the Shallan POV chapters, we're told that it's impossible to use Soulcasters to transmute something into any of the ten types of magically-active gemstones. Also, in one of the interludes, we see a trader trading material that's been Soulcast into metal to the Shin. And in Words of Radiance, in one of the Shallan flashbacks, we (appear to) see Hoid using Soothing on Shallan's father, on Roshar. This makes me wonder: is it possible to use Soulcasters to create allomantic metals?

We know per WoB that Nightblood was an attempt by Worldhoppers familiar with Roshar to create something like a Shardblade with the Awakening magic system of Nalthis. What I wonder is, was it pre- or post-Recreance Roshar that they ware familiar with? (Anyone who's read Warbreaker and Words of Radiance will understand why this is significant, given the way Nightblood turned out.) Has anyone asked this question before and gotten an answer?

Yes, it just came out today. You don't have it in your email?

So I just got the new newsletter, and it's got an unpublished snippet featuring Lift. And I was about 1/3 of the way in when I realized I was reading Wyndle, with his incessant worrying, in the voice of C3PO. Can't unhear it!

Wow, that's interesting stuff!

Several of the humans on Roshar display slightly inhuman physical traits, such as Thaylen eyebrows or Herdazian fingernails, but possibly the most bizarre thing of all is the hair. It's said that a full-blooded Alethi will have pure black hair, but one who has mixed with other races of humanity will have other hair colors mixed in, in exact proportion to their racial lineage. That's so incredibly weird I don't even know where to start. Suffice it to say, Mendelian inheritance does not work like that! (When's the last time you saw a biracial person with two natural hair colors?) Do we have any official explanation of what in the world is going on with genetic inheritance on Roshar? Because it obviously doesn't work in the same way as it does on Earth, and yet the humans there are supposed to be... well.. human.

I was rereading Elantris, and at the end, when Dilaf expresses shock at Hrathen's armor being more than just ceremonial, he says "you should know by now that nothing I do is just for show." And I couldn't help but wonder, what exactly do you call the fraudulent miracles he staged, pretending to first cause and then cure the Shaod in himself and Sarene? There was no actual Shaod, and no actual healing, and his loud prayers to Jaddeth to "heal" something he knew wasn't real were therefore not real prayers. The entire thing was literally just for show, set up according to a rehearsed script for the benefit of the audience, with no actual substance to it. If I knew enough about him to know he had done this, I'd certainly never think that nothing he does is just for show!

He would turn into Barry Allen.

...but we do see Hoid using it in Words of Radiance, presumably Soothing Shallan's father.

Does anyone know if any of these questions have an official answer (including a RAFO) yet? Are the Listeners human, in the same sense as kandra and koloss are human? Have we ever seen a kandra on another world besides Scadrial? Is it possible for a Shardholder to voluntarily relinquish their Shard and hand it over to someone else, without dying? How many of the original 16 Shardholders are still alive as of the most recent book? On Scadrial, would a bird like Kokerlii be able to perform the same function as a Smoker? We know that Soulcasters can't create Stormlight-capable gemstones, which are potential sources of power. We know that Soulcasters can create metal. Can Soulcasters create Allomantic metals, which are potential sources of power? In Words of Radiance we see that Ardents who use Soulcasting too much begin to change somewhat, their bodies starting to slowly become stonelike.Is this essentially the same thing as the "savant" phenomenon known to occur among Allomancers? Will this also happen to Radiants, such as Shallan, who use Soulcasting too much? As of Words of Radiance, do fabrials exist to duplicate any other Radiant abilities? With the restoration of Elantris, what happened to the Hoed and the Kayana? (Taking hundreds of people who had been insane for the last few years and suddenly granting them godlike powers seems like a recipe for disaster.) What would an atium savant be like? Do any non-living Invested objects exist that weren't Invested by an act of a conscious being? With land and sea being inverted on Shadesmar, did any Radiants with the ability to visit Shadesmar ever think to use it to try to reach the Origin of Storms?Related: since Highstorms are highly Invested as per Vasher, what's it like in Shadesmar in the location corresponding to a location in the Physical Realm that is currently being swept over by a highstorm? Did they have Highstorms on Roshar before the first Desolation began? Were the Heralds and their Honorblades around before the first Desolation began? Radiants absorb Stormlight from infused gems by breathing it in. Would a Nalthian who got ahold of an infused Rosharan sphere be intrinsically able to do the same thing, and use the Stormlight inside for Breath?If so, would they have trouble holding it in, as Szeth does?Would it make a difference whether they were on Roshar or Nalthis? Why does Elantrian magic become less potent as the Elantrian gets farther away from home, but Dakhor magic does not? We've seen that Aons can be carved into physical objects and used to produce magical effects, such as Elantrian light-plates. In light of this are Dakhor bone-runes another aspect of the same magic system, or is it a completely distinct magic system from AonDor? If Atium is Ruin's body, what's with the non-metallic corpse that dropped when Vin killed him?

Like this?

Except that Hoid took Lerasium, and (if his appearance in one of Shallan's flashbacks is any indication) burned it himself, and he's not Scadrian.

...while in character as Wit, a court jester who snarks caustically about anything and everything. So it's difficult to say for sure if this is true, or just him saying so.

In chapter 55 of Words of Radiance, when Kaladin gets fed up enough with Wit to snark back at him, Hoid laughs and says, "so you do have some spark of wit in you." The next paragraph says it came from Kaladin's mother, that she had been the witty one in the family, but never quite as snarky as he was being right now, and he thinks that that being around Wit is corrupting him. What if this is literal? Theory: Kaladin has "some spark of Wit" in him, and it came from his mother, because she is a direct descendant of Hoid. He's certainly been around long enough to have been one of her ancestors at some point. (Heck, with the way he keeps hopping in and out of different worlds throughout the ages, he almost certainly had the opportunity to have been more than one of her ancestors!) Has this theory been suggested before?

One of the big dramatic reveals in the first book was three words by Syl: "I am honorspren." Up until this point, she had appeared to be just a somewhat weird windspren that Kaladin had attracted at some point who kept hanging around him. While this made a heck of a dramatic reveal, it seems a bit inconsistent, for two reasons. First, no one looked at Pattern and said, "oh, that's a fractalspren... oh, no, wait! It's actually a Cryptic! DUN DUN DUN!" Same for the spren bonded to Jasnah and Lift. They're all portrayed as new and unfamiliar species/classes of spren. Syl alone appears to be something known and familiar. Second, if we're going to have only one of the bond-spren appear to be something known and familiar that they actually are not, you would think the least likely candidate for such an inherently deceptive premise would be the one who has something against lies, deceptions, and Cryptics. Do we have any official explanations for why Syl, alone, appeared to be a different type of spren at first?

OK. I know about that stuff; I just wasn't sure if it meant that in this context or not. Thanks!

Hmm, looking at the transcript. I know RAFO, but what does FTL stand for?

Sorry, but I can't help you. That's the only thing I remember from him. Can you post the audio? Maybe other people can make out what was said.

My sense of it was precisely the opposite. (See my question that he RAFO'd for my personal theory on the subject.) Also of interest, and I haven't seen anyone report it on here. I overheard someone a few places ahead of me in line ask Brandon about the overall chronology, and he said that the Wax and Wayne books were occurring after the Stormlight books.

Just saw Brandon there. I had a few questions. It went like this: Brandon: Hey! I've seen you before. Me: Yeah, I've been to a few of these. Brandon: Well thanks for coming back. Me: So, we're told that anyone pierced by metal is vulnerable to the influence of Ruin, and later Harmony. But the only times we actually see someone being influenced is when it's not just any metal, but an active Hemalurgical spike. Brandon: Yeah. It's that anyone pierced can't be trusted. Me: Because it might be a spike? Brandon: Yeah. Me: So then why does the Path say everyone should wear a prayer earring? They can't all be spikes... Brandon: That's to create a tradition. Like how Christians wear crosses. Me: Got it. So... the unknown spike? Brandon: Yeah? Me: Raysium? Brandon: *grinning* That's a good question. You know I can't answer that. *hands me a RAFO card* Me: Fair enough. And I just have to ask. How do you write Wayne? The guy's obviously a little bit crazy, but the perspective stuff, when we see it from his POV, it actually makes sense. How do you get your head right for that? Brandon: I put on his hat. *I laugh, as that's just too perfect* Seriously, though, that's the one part of my writing process I really can't articulate: how I write a character. I just sort of have to figure out how they think. Sorry.

I dunno. At this point I wouldn't be surprised to learn he's where Wayne got it from.

The tall, hawk-faced man frowned slightly as the searchers confronted him. One had dark skin and a sour face, the other was a lighter tan, with a very noticeable scar on his scalp. The man ran his fingers through his white hair, thinking, then responded to their question, his accent strange and distinctive. "Woildhoppah? Hmm... a woildhoppah? Let's see..." He opened a pouch at his waist, fingers scooping out a small handful of dust, which he tossed up in the air. "Does he know Lightweaving, like this?" The dust briefly formed itself into the shape of a duck in flight. The two men nodded. "Yes!" "And does he have Allomancy, like this?" The man dropped a coin, adorned with the image of a rabbit, of all things, then Pushed off of it, floating up into the air several feet for a brief moment before coming back down. "Yes! Exactly!" The man nodded. "And does he have Breaths, like this?" Color drained from his blue coat, turning it a neutral gray as he spoke in the language of a far-off world to the sash he wore about his shoulders. The sash stood up, forming itself into the image of a pig, and began dancing around briefly before the man recalled it, and it settled back about his shoulders again and went still. "That's him! That's him!" the searchers exclaimed. The tall man shook his head. "Nope. Never hoid of him!"