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Welcome to the forums! Interesting. Just the other day I was thinking of how to adapt the Mistborn trilogy onto film, and I came to the conclusion that Book 2 doesn't need its own movie. (I'll post my thoughts in the Mistborn forum later.) Anyway, since you've finished Words of Radiance (multiple times)...

What cool features are you adding to the forums in the next version? (Yes. I like spoilers.)

It's a long story, involving a Rosharan ham sandwich, a bag full of ash, a Hemalurgic kunai, and a disturbingly powerful Awakened scarecrow. I still have nightmares about razorsharp hay fingers. I don't really like talking about it.

I second the Warbreaker suggestion. You can even read it online for free directly from Brandon's website. The Rithmatist is my favorite non-Cosmere book by Brandon. I can't wait for Brandon to get back to working on the Aztlanian (after Stormlight 3, of course).

Strange, I could've sworn I saw someone else theorize that Edwarn was a Spinner, I think last year, but I can't seem to find it now. I even remember being quite impressed by it. Anyway, I still like this theory. It would be interesting to see an actual Spinner in action, if only so we could have a more concrete understanding of Feruchemical Fortune.

According to this, the plan is to write flashback sequences for Dalinar, Szeth, and Eshonai before choosing which to use, so it's possible it still won't be Dalinar in the end. Of course, Brandon has had months to think about this since that interview. Maybe he's already made his decision.

I always find it difficult to analyze my own behavior, but let me take a stab at this question anyway. I think there are several factors: I like solving puzzles. I may not be as great at it as I'd like, but the feeling that perhaps a difficult problem might be solvable after all is still one of my favorite feelings in the world. This is basically the reason I gave in my profile page's About Me section. I love worldbuilding. I'm honestly too lazy for most aspects of storytelling (which is why I haven't written anything longer than a short story), but I am never too lazy to construct underlying frameworks for the myriad of fantasy worlds I've concocted in my head over the years. To be very honest, the theories I make about ongoing fantasy series is (in part) my way of answering the question "What kind of worldbuilding would I have done in his shoes?" Yes, obviously Brandon and I do not think alike, but this is a fun thought experiment for me nonetheless. "There is always another secret." Some people might think that it's worthless to speculate when a lot of the important clues have yet to be revealed, but I see it as a challenge worth accepting. Knowing that what we have now is just the tip of the iceberg pushes me towards more interesting possibilities and makes me strive for truly unique theories. Because after all, Brandon's ultimate Cosmere secrets are sure to blow our minds, so I might as well aim high.

Are you of Chinese descent?

Which pre-Colombian American civilization is your favorite?

Era 1 Scadrians may have a broad culinary definition of "fruit", maybe something like "any sweet part of a plant", or possibly "any sweet and/or juicy part of a plant that could be eaten raw". Right now I could only think of the jicama root as an example of something that's not a fruit in the botanical sense but is sometimes considered a culinary fruit.

I became fascinated by the history of languages around fourteen years ago, when an art teacher made a passing remark in class about the Romance and the Germanic language families, and how English was Germanic but had plenty of Romance influences. Later on I started reading more about the development of other languages just for fun. I was surprised to learn that my own native tongue (Tagalog) is part of a huge language family (Austronesian) that probably originated from the island of Taiwan thousands of years ago and spread throughout the islands of Southeast Asia, Oceania (including Hawaii), and even as far west as Madagascar. I thought that was pretty cool. You could say historical linguistics is my favorite, particularly the topic of language families (i.e. comparative linguistics). I also like to read the etymology of interesting words on occasion, though I tend to forget most of it anyway. Other linguistic topics that I find interesting include conlangs and featural alphabets, but you only asked for one.

My question for them is this: Do you like "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam"? Or are you more of a "Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce, garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and a fried egg on top, and Spam" kind of person? And would you mind eating your meal outside, and I mean way outside, like, in the vacuum of outer space? Or perhaps in the planet Venus, named after the goddess of L0v3? I hear it has the perfect weather for a nice picnic. I'm sure you'll love it there.

Of course I do! It is the Answer to the Question: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" At least, that's what I think. Now, why are there talking mice in my room? They seem to be shouting "The Vogons are coming!" over and over again. Funny little creatures.

Would you eat any of the Asian-European fusion stuff mentioned in the Rithmatist? If so, which do you think would be your favorite?

Would you like fries with your bamboo burger, Mr. Panda?

But we are not in Urteau. Hello, inquisitive Steel Inquisitors. Inquire away in a steely manner. Seriously, feel free to ask me about my views on speculative fiction, Computer Science, math, cosmology, Pokemon, linguistics, food, religion, the Philippines, music, and general geek culture. Or better yet, just ask me anything. I'll try to answer serious questions as honestly and as completely as I can. Oh, and joke questions may or may not get bizarre/surreal answers, depending on my mood and your Hindu horoscope for the day.

You're right. Knowing the Breath transfer Command is necessary, not just for a Returned to obtain Breaths needed to survive, but also for the Returned to heal people. I see two possibilities: A Returned had a vision where the words "My life to yours; my Breath become yours" were revealed to him as a way for him to heal another person (perhaps a friend who was grievously ill or injured). He uttered the words, healed the guy, and died. Then someone who heard of this event (or perhaps he was a witness to it) tried to use the same trick on another sick or wounded guy. Being a normal person, he only became the first ever drab, and the person he gave his Breath to became slightly healthier (though obviously not fully healed). Thus the knowledge of Breath and Breath transfer was discovered. Another possibility: While the Returned don't have the general instinctive Awakening of the Sixth Heightening, their Fifth Heightening allows them at least some minor level of instinctive awareness regarding Endowment's Investiture (sort of like how people of the First Heightening have better color recognition than normal people even though they have not yet reached perfect color recognition). This minor instinct allowed one of the early Returned to figure out on his own how other people could give him part of their Investiture, allowing him to live beyond his first week as Returned. Then that knowledge spread. The first possibility makes for a more dramatic story. On the other hand, the second possibility doesn't rely as much on deux ex machina as the first. I personally like the first one better because Returned visions are a cool way for Endowment to reveal stuff to the Nalthians.

Well, yeah, the Sixth Heightening does grant you that. So, we could assume that 400 years ago some Returned managed to convince ~1500 people to give up their Breaths, thus propelling him from the Fifth Heightening to the Sixth Heightening. Assuming he had no idea of Awakening prior to that, I wonder why he wanted more than a thousand Breaths. Was it simply to ensure he'll live for at least a couple of decades ? Anyway, we can assume that Hallandren (and maybe other countries) is currently uncomfortable with having people with higher than Fifth Heightening running around who could also Awaken, given the fact that they only give most of their gods one Breath a week and they cut their God King's tongue off. This suggests a fear of advanced Awakening, possibly due to memories of the Manywar. I think they're afraid that too much progress in Awakening research would mean more Awakening WMDs (like Kalad's Phantoms) would be created, leading to a potentially worse second Manywar. I think Vasher has a similar fear, because he's obviously been doing his own Awakening research (e.g. memory-manipulation) but he seems to prefer keeping the results to himself. Also, remember that he murdered his own wife, the most talented of the Five Scholars, just to prevent knowledge of Type IV BioChromatic entities from spreading. Yesteel, on the other hand, has apparently been sharing his research. To a tyrant, of all people. Hopefully we'll see in the sequel if he found anything that's useful outside the context of war and oppression.

What am I? I'm... sorry.

Okay, allow me to be a bit like Sazed and offer you a religion, Chaos. There is a religion (let us call it Xism, after the common algebraic variable) that teaches that in the afterlife all who are saved receive (among other things) the gift of perfect knowledge, including a perfect understanding of the mathematics involved in the physics of God's creation. Will you accept that religion? (Just kidding.) A small note on religious scriptures. You guys have been discussing the theoretical possibility of a god creating a holy book containing advanced mathematical truths, in contrast to the Christian Bible's apparent lack of advanced mathematical truths. But there seems to be a point some of you are missing: the Bible did not come down from heaven fully-formed upon the hands of the first Christians. The Christian Bible is just a collection of writings by actual people that at some point in the middle of the first millennium A.D. began to be seen by Christian leaders as useful tools for preaching the Christian religion. These include the Greek Septuagint translation of Jewish scriptures (the "Old Testament") and the writings of the earliest followers of Christ. What this means is that the actual teachings of Christianity (passed down from the Apostles) were already known to the Christian bishops before they even canonized the Bible. This is very important, because there were indeed several writings that some had considered part of Scripture but others did not. There had to be a standard aside from Scripture to judge what was not part of Scripture. So, if the Bible was written by actual people and carefully chosen by actual bishops and priests several hundred years after Christ died and more than a thousand years ago, of course it would not contain knowledge that people only discovered recently, like the advanced math that geeks like Chaos and I so very much adore. God being pro- or anti-Math has nothing to do with it, because God did not personally write the Bible! The original role of the Bible in Christianity is not as a "magical book" that can be read by anyone to "magically" know religious truths (or any truth, for that matter). You don't just make your own interpretation of a certain verse and be confident of knowing what God thinks. Rather, the Bible is to be interpreted in light of what its compiler, the Christian Church, already teaches, not the other way around (as some people, unaware of history, seem to think).

Well, I know there are unfortunately some Christian denominations whose "W" (i.e. the thing that people must do in order to be saved) includes some doctrine that would immediately exclude billions of people (e.g. a doctrine requiring official entry to the church). Those denominations contradict St. Paul: There is also the problem of Abraham, Moses, and all the prophets in the Old Testament living before Christianity, so obviously a denomination that excludes all non-members are excluding those holy people as well (likely inadvertently). As for my religion, well, yeah, our "W" does include conversion (so it's quite possible not everyone will enter heaven), because conversion is necessary to receive Christ's offer of salvation, but it is more of a conversion of the heart (metanoia), a commitment to turn away from evil and live a life that conforms to God's will... which a person can do even if he is honestly and without fault of his own ignorant of the Church. The role of the Church (i.e. the reason to become a baptized Christian) is to participate in Christ's act of salvation. This is done in various ways (some of which are a bit weird for non-believers, so I won't mention them here), though one obvious way is by setting a good example of holiness, so that others will see and wish to live a similar life. This is something that I still have trouble doing, so I guess I'm not a very good Catholic.

@Chaos: Interesting thoughts. You are correct that any person can form his own philosophy and ethics, which is why I tend to distrust religions that offer a philosophy (often a simplistic one) and nothing else, like Larstaism. Similarly, I distrust religions that only teach a particular cosmology and nothing else, like Trelagism, because human beings have proved capable of discovering the workings of objects on their own. Why don't I trust religions that only offer things that can be gained some other way (I mean, aside from their tendency to be very blatantly wrong)? Suppose someone received a book of 100% correct mathematical truths from a self-proclaimed omniscient god who suddenly stood before him one day. Such knowledge would certainly help humanity, so should I worship this being? My problem with that is I do not feel the need to worship sources of knowledge. If that "god" freely gives his mathematical knowledge to everyone, then I will respect and admire him, but I won't worship him. If his religion will not share his secrets unless I worship him, then so be it; I shall content myself to learning math the hard way, or gain the information some other way. Don't get me wrong. As a geek, I think it would be totally awesome if I could obtain useful Math or Science knowledge easily, if it was conveniently spoon-fed to me with minimal effort on my part. But in the end my eternal devotion is not bought by knowledge, and I would find absolutely no motivation to acknowledge that hypothetical being as my "god". Think about it. If a highly advanced alien appeared in front of you and demonstrated his absolute intellectual mastery over you, would you kneel down before him and worship? No? Neither would I. Such a being would be no different from Tanavast, Rayse and all the other powerful being in Brandon's books. The vastly intelligent alien may or may not be a fine fellow, but as Hoid would say, he is not God. I personally won't trust a religion unless it has (among other things) specific doctrines about salvation. Even doctrines about the afterlife are not necessarily useful to me unless they involve me being saved from an unpleasant afterlife (e.g. Tartarus, Hell, etc.). Specifically, I want my religion to teach me that I am in danger of having a very miserable life after death unless I do certain things that I am truly capable of doing. I'm aware of how silly, selfish, even cowardly that sounds to a lot of people both non-believers and believers (even people of my own religion, I'd bet), but I will stand by it. If I am to believe in any religion at all, it must be one that teaches at least these three things: You are in danger of eternal misery. You can escape this fate if you do certain acts X, Y, and Z. You are capable of doing X, Y, and Z; it is not yet too late to be saved. I have other personal requirements for a religion (which I won't elaborate here because they are emotional in nature and therefore not useful for rational discussion), but those three things are the absolute bare minimum. They imply various things, but most importantly, they imply that I will NOT join a religion that has any of these following tenets: That everyone (no matter what they do) will have a happy afterlife. That everyone (no matter what they do) will have a miserable afterlife, or no afterlife at all. That I, because of my nature, can never be saved no matter what I do. That I, because of something I've done in the past, can no longer be saved no matter what I do in the future. That one does not need to bother with thoughts of the afterlife. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that those things aren't valid beliefs or that they must be false. For example, it would be awesome if I could do anything and still be sure of entering Paradise when I die. But even if I truly believed that, why can't I just live with that belief without joining any particular religion? Similarly, if God did not create a good afterlife for humans, then it wouldn't matter whether or not I joined a religion that teaches that. I would still end up like everyone else, anyway. And if I am destined to go to Hell, then what's the point in joining a religion that tells me I'm destined to go to Hell? If I am certainly doomed, I'd spend my life doing what I desired, not what religious leaders tell me to. Of course, there are plenty of religions who fit my bare minimum requirements. My minor rant above is about my views on what religion in general could be good for in theory (i.e. salvation), not about which particular religion is correct (a topic that would probably endanger the relative peace in this thread!). For what it's worth, I'm Catholic. I know many devout Catholics who'd read what I wrote above and nervously cross themselves before running away, but I rather enjoy thinking of un-devout thought experiments on religion. I got that habit from reading St. Thomas Aquinas and G.K. Chesterton. I also like Science and hate pseudo-science, unlike many "devout" Catholics who've forgotten that Fides et Ratio is a thing, or that Mendel, Lemaitre, and many other notable scientists were Catholic priests. (Not that having cleric scientists makes a religion "better"; it's just that it's silly for a person to claim he's anti-Science on religious grounds when he's in church listening to the religious sermon of a world-renowned scientist!) (And before you even mention Galileo, please read this entertaining, well-referenced, but very long analysis on the development of heliocentrism by sci-fi author Michael Flynn.)

This is perfect! It's so much better and makes much more sense than the previous arrangement. Thanks, Chaos!

Brandon has revealed a lot of background information about the Cosmere over the years from the many Q&As, book signings, book annotations, social media conversations, and personal interviews he's done. A big chunk of these have been copied/transcribed in the Theoryland website, a great resource for people obsessed with knowing as much as possible about the Cosmere.Words of Brandon ("WoB") that are not yet in Theoryland will probably be mentioned somewhere here in the 17th Shard forums first, usually with citation or proof (but sometimes not, sadly). Of course, there's still tons of unconfirmed speculation spreading around (I for one enjoy making crazy theories), so you might want to look for citations before believing something outright. I believe this Question and Answer thread is watched by enough "Cosmere experts" that most of the answers will be accurate ~90% of the time. So, ask away! Edit: Multiple ninjas attacked!

I sense a bit of sarcasm there. You're a DHMO addict, aren't you?!!!