Mason Wheeler

Please finish reading Tress of the Emerald Sea before reading this. Unmarked spoilers ahead! Brandon didn't mention it in the author's note at the end, but this story in many ways felt eerily similar to Brandon's incomplete story I Hate Dragons. World geometry: IHD is set on a cubical world, where each of the six faces has its own different style of magic. Tress's world has twelve regions, each pentagonal in shape, implying that it is a dodecahedron (d12, for all the D&D players out there) where each pentagonal face has its own distinct type of magical spores. Moon worship is common to both worlds. A main antagonist in both stories, the first one encountered, is a dragon. Intelligent and capable of speech, the dragon engages in verbal sparring with our protagonist. Skip was presented to the dragon as bait by dragon hunters; Tress was presented to the dragon as a gift by someone "hunting" for a boon from the dragon. The second main antagonist is a sorceress, known in both stories simply as "the sorceress." She comes from a different face from the protagonist and has quite unusual magical powers. Both sorceress's homes are named after a time of day: the IHD sorceress is from "Dawnface" whereas Tress's sorceress is from the Midnight region. A defining character quirk of both protagonists is their love of collecting an unusual thing: cups for Tress and words for Skip. We only have 3 IHD chapters, so the fact that there are so many close parallels is rather suggestive. Anyone else think Brandon must have drawn from IHD in writing Tress of the Emerald Sea?

That's not really a theory; it's explicitly stated in the text. One of the Unmade (Re-Shephir?) tells Shallan that they were "made" and then Odium unmade them.

There's plenty of wiggle room between "not having big holes in the armor" and "airtight seal."

In one of the Adolin POVs in Words of Radiance, we see that the visor of his Shardplate helmet turns translucent, making him able to easily see out of it. It even auto-compensates for Stormform lightning, even in the dead-plate version. So why in the world is there a need for the potentially-lethal vulnerability that is an eye-slit? In the same vein, when Adolin is training with Shallan in Oathbringer (I think,) he offers to get her a blade-edge strip. These were created by the Radiants, to dull the edge of a Shardblade so that it can't actually cut people. Shallan says no, she doesn't need one of those, and proceeds to use her Blade's intrinsic reshaping ability to simply dull itself. If the Radiants had this power, why was there any need to invent blade-edge strips? Do we have any WOBs addressing either of these questions?

I just had a look at the Dragonsteel 2022 schedule, and noticed something rather disturbing. At the bottom of the first day, 10 PM timeslot, it says "THE LOST METAL BOOK DISTRIBUTION". I really, really hope that that doesn't mean what it appears to say, that no one's getting their book until 10 at night. While that may make some degree of sense for people who fly in and get a hotel room a block away, Brandon also has a pretty strong local fanbase, but local doesn't necessarily mean "Salt Lake City." Heck, Brandon himself is based out of the Provo general area, nearly an hour's drive away. So am I, and no one wants to make a drive home like that after 10 PM! And while you could theoretically take the train, a glance at the schedule says you're almost guaranteed to need to wait another hour and won't make it home before midnight. Will there be any provisions for people who have difficulty staying around until unreasonably late at night?

As far as I'm aware, the Church still isn't allowed to operate inside of China, so building a temple there is extremely unlikely.

Guacamole. From the Spanish moler (to grind or smash up) and guàcala (slang: eww! Gross!)

As am I.

I'm amused by that because I once heard someone ask Brandon about other series he might be willing to finish up in case of the author's unfortunate passing, and he mentioned that one as something he specifically would not do because he just wouldn't be able to match the author's style at all.

I'm laughing way too hard at this...

There probably are. OrangeJedi is the one I know because he and his mom @JoyBlu are friends of mine who live near me.

Our very own @OrangeJedi has been serving in Florida for the past two years. He's less than a month away from returning home now.

I wasn't referring to any specific change; only to Brandon saying that changes had happened. Personally, I'm completely neutral on the Taimandred theory. I can see that happening, but I could also see that rumor being a bunch of embarrassed Taimandred theorists who saw that they were wrong and said "well we weren't really wrong; we were just too clever for the author and he changed it out from under us." Hard to say what really happened without any solid confirmation.

In the most recent Intentionally Blank episode, Brandon said that, from his access to Robert Jordan's notes, he's about 95% confident that Jordan changed the plot of The Wheel of Time based on feedback he received from fans. Brandon's always been fairly tight-lipped about Robert Jordan's side of writing WoT. Has he ever mentioned this before? Because I was pretty surprised to hear it! (Not surprised to learn it; it makes sense. But I'm surprised to hear Brandon actually say it.)

Does anyone else look at the blue/gray radiating pattern in the 17th Shard background image and see Moai heads in profile?

WRT the "Brandon is trolling people about the Stormfather" bit, I think it will likely be explained somewhere in the book itself. When Words of Radiance came out, I got the book in the morning and went to a signing event that evening. I spent the whole day reading through it and got a fair ways in, but didn't finish it. When I was there, I asked Brandon, "there's a guy in here, I don't remember what he's called but I'll just call him Inspector Javert. Goes around killing people using their crimes as an excuse." "OK, that guy. I know who you mean." "Well, in the first book, you've confirmed that the woman destroying artwork -- perverting beauty -- is the Herald of Beauty, Shallash. This guy perverting justice, is that Nalan, the Herald of Justice?" He just smiled and said that's an interesting theory.

Hello! We welcome you today!

[Insert inspiring speech about being like the Ascendant Warrior here.]

Get to know that one guy then.

Even if you didn't know, it would be pretty obvious by the end of Hero of Ages. No one who's not a member could have written that book.

Disagree. It definitely had some interesting parts, and a much better Jasnah, but the overall plot was far too "90s dark" and I'm quite glad Brandon outgrew that! Plus, there were no spren. Spren definitely improved the story!

Q: What does Stormlight Mario use to power up? A: Ba-Ado Mushrooms.