MasterGhandalf

I was just curious if anyone knew if/when these were coming, seeing as there haven't been any new annotations for several months now, and I'd be very, very interested to read them (and I highly doubt I'm alone). So, anyone have news on this front?

Hasn't Brandon confirmed that there was no Announcer/Holy Witness, and that the entire character was made up whole cloth by Ruin and shoehorned into the prophecies (long before even Alendi) to make them easier to use to manipulate people?

Mine is pretty straightforward; Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were the two franchises that really got me into sci-fi/fantasy, and I've always been fond of mentor figures. "Master" comes from "Jedi Master", "Ghandalf" is "Gandalf" with an extra h (for reasons I won't divulge); put them together, and you get my username.

About how many words was Emperor's Soul, for reference?

So, has anyone heard anything else about this one? I must confess it's grabbing my attention at the moment, at least in part because it looks like it'll be released at exactly the right time to tide me over to Words of Radiance (which Amazon currently has set for Jan 2014). I'm assuming that "novella" means it'll be roughly comparable to Emperor's Soul in length, and the name of the anthology makes me assume that the main character will be female, but has anyone heard any plot/character/magic details yet? The coppermind doesn't have much more than what's already in this thread.

Considering that two post-Hero of Ages books have had characters who are essentially villainous twists on Kelsier (Denth in Warbreaker and Miles in Alloy), bringing back the actual Kelsier to use as a villain seems kind of redundant thematically, unless Brandon had a really great twist to put on it.

^ I certainly liked Black Prism a lot, but didn't love it. Blinding Knife just felt like it added a lot more scope and depth all around to characters, story, and world.

Blinding Knife is a marked improvement over Black Prism in almost every respect, albeit very obviously a middle book of a series, so don't expect a whole lot of resolution.

Having recently been giving some thought to Way of Kings and to the release, hopefully before the end of this year, of Stormlight 2, I've been attempting to map out what we know so far of who our major, series-spanning antagonists will be based on the first book. What I've got is as follows: Obvious Villains These guys were obvious (at least to the reader), major antagonists who played an important role in the first book. Sadeas: If I considered anyone to be the main villain of Way of Kings, it would be him. Claims to be acting out of patriotism, seems just as likely to be acting out of ambition. Dalinar seems to think he was a good man at one time. I'm not seeing him as a major antagonist for the entire series- I'm thinking that at some point during the next couple of books he'll either die or become an ally. Amaram: Mostly important in the flashbacks, executed Kaladin's squad and sold Kal himself into slavery to make sure he got the shardblade and 'plate. I'm kind of ambiguous on him myself, being unsure if he's just evil or if he's been listening too long to people (Restares?) counselling him to do bad things. I imagine the truth will come out when he shows up on the Shattered Plains, and until it does I find it hard to predict his role. Szeth: The Assassin in White, basically kicked off the plot by killing Gavilar. Not really evil, but certainly antagonistic and very dangerous. I can foresee three roads for him- either he'll attempt to find redemption, lose himself completely to being a Truthless killer, or wind up a Gollum/Padan Fain/Severus Snape type wild card- which probably being based on why exactly he was made Truthless in the first place. Eagerly awaiting his book, in any case. Taravangian: Probably the biggest villain introduced directly in book one, and I anticipate that he'll be a major villain for much of the series. I'm very, very curious about how much he knows and how he knows it. I've seen speculation that he may be the same person as Restares. Hidden Masterminds These guys get namedropped a couple of times each in the first book, but never show up in person (that we know of) and are generally mysterious. Thaidakar: Seemed to have been Gavilar's numer one suspect for who would send an assassin after him and based on Amaram's conversation with the stormwarded is likely a high-up in the Ghostbloods, presumably their leader. Other than that, we know very little about him. Considering how much the Ghostbloods seem to be involved in, I'm guessing he'll be sticking around for a while. Restares: Another person Gavilar thought might want to assassinate him and apparently Amaram's backer. Seems to have something to do with Stormwardens. If anything, even more mysterious than Thaidakar, though the name sounds masculine. May be the same person as Taravangian. Cosmeric Forces Higher powers, mentioned mostly in visions, legends, etc. Odium: Apparently our Big Bad for Stormlight, maybe even for the entire Cosmere, a human named Rayse who took over a shard embodying hatred and dishonor (and was apparently a right piece of work before that). Not really a whole lot to say here, really. The Unmade: Mentioned a handful of time across the first book, appear to be the leaders of the Voidbringers and personifications of destruction. One named Yelig-nar gets particular attention. I'm guessing that they have likely been heavily mythologized over the milennia, but since Yelig-nar is mentioned directly in one of Dalinar's visions, it looks like they really did exist as discreet entities. I'm anticipating them to be evil counterparts to the Heralds and Odium's lieutenants, and I'd also guess that they won't show up directly for awhile, maybe not until the second arc. I do think that Yelig-nar will end up being important, if only because the narrative goes out of its way a couple of times to draw attention to him. Voidbringers: Ancient demons who may or may not be the same thing as the Parshendi. Until that whole issue is hammered out, it's really hard to speculate what role they'll play. So, anyone else spotted likely story-spanning villains I missed or have theories regarding the roles of any of the above?

Disciples of Torak would definitely be the kind of villains I'm talking about (I think Daeva's chosen minions from Eddings' Redemption of Althalus fit even better, though I'd consider that book inferior to the Belgariad in most other respects). The Color Prince's followers from the Lightbringer books aren't really what I'm looking for, though, since their boss hasn't really been around that long and the individual members don't have the same kind of mystique.

After finishing up the Wheel of Time, I've been reflecting a bit on its villain cast, particularly the Forsaken, and been wondering if anyone else knows stories that feature similar groups? By this I mean a group of powerful minions of the main villain who have attained a certain epic stature in their own right and have distinct personalities (as opposed to say, the Nazgul or Thomas Covenant's Ravers, legendary evil elites where each member is pretty much identical to the others) which may or may not lead to general infighting and backstabbery. The Kingkiller Chronicle's Chandrian, the Black Company's Ten Who Were Taken, and the DragonCrown War saga's sullanciri would be other examples of the type of groups I'm thinking of (I'm hoping that the Unmade will turn out to be in this general vein, though we'll have to wait until more Stormlight books are out on that one). So, can anyone think of elite villain groups like these?

Alendi or Kwaan would be my guess, or else someone from his past we never heard of.

I'm thinking it may be more about racial/ethnic groups than nations per se (though perhaps those groups are based on nations that existed when Aona and Skai were still around). The Arelons and Teoish are both described as Aonic peoples, so both can become Elantrians if within the city's area-of-effect. Same goes for Dulas, who are supposed to be part-Aonic, part-Jindo (presumably they can also use ChayShan with proper training). The Jindos have ChayShan and the Fjordell the Dakhor magic, of course. The Mysteries I'm not counting as a magic system, since Elantris treats it as a bastardized version of the Duladen Jesker religion than a genuine form of magic. The Bloodsealers are referred to as their own race, and Forging seems to have originated with the MaiPon. Of course, that doesn't explain how Forging spread beyond the MaiPon or why the Grands or Strikers don't seem to have their own magic systems. I'm thinking therefore that even if this is right (which admittedly is just a hope) I'm still missing something. Also, with the exception of ChayShan, all of these systems utilize written symbols to produce their effects, though in the case of the Dakhor those symbols are written onto the practitioner's bones. I'll go out on a limb and say that ChayShan is not an exception, but that its symbols are traced in the air by the user's body via the tai chi-esque forms.

Hmmm... Brandon is basically the king of "hard" magic systems, I would say, but there are several writers working right now who are doing somewhat similar things. Seconding Weeks and Rothfuss, and Erikson's warrens are definitely cool (though I wish, as with so much about his books, that he wasn't so apparently allergic to explaining things rather than having the reader figure everything out). Jim Butcher has some cool ones, particularly Furycrafting from his Codex Alera books, and if I can bring in a YA author, Garth Nix is very good at this too (love his interpretation of necromancy in his Old Kingdom series).

I confess to finding White Sand extremely intriguing, for essentially the reasons you outline (and Silence Divine too, for similar reasons). However, it looks like a looong time before we'll be seeing either of them (based on what Brandon and co. have said, I'm not expecting WS or TSD in the next ten years at least, though if anyone's heard differently I'd love to be corrected), so I'm not letting myself get too excited.

Let's see- at the moment, I'm actually probably looking forward to Emperor's Soul the most, but that has less to do with the book itself and more the fact that it's about to come out . In terms of the actual content of the books, probably Stormlight 2- can't wait to see where the plots and characters WoK established go- but the second (and ultimately, third) Mistborn trilogy and Dragonsteel are definitely up there too. For purposes of the poll, I voted Stormlight 2.

Least favorite character? I despise Straff and think he's about the most detestable villain in the entire Cosmere (even Dilaf has insanity as excuse, and Zane I always found rather pitiable, in a repellant, Gollum-y sort of way), but since he's pretty clearly supposed to be a detestable villain, I'm not sure if he really counts for this purpose. In terms of "good guys", I find Raoden the least engaging, but it's less that I dislike him and more that I just think he's boring compared to Sanderson's other protagonists.

Hmmm- Vin is probably my overall favorite, with Elend, Sazed, and Lightsong also up there. Hrathen and Vivenna both have development I really enjoyed, even though as people I don't care much for either of them, and I do look forward to where Vivenna's arc ends up going when Warbreaker 2 eventually comes out. I'm rather fond of most of the principle cast of Way of Kings as well, but since we're going to be spending approx. nine more books with these people, I'm currently withholding judgment in terms of placing them with my favorites. That about covers it

^I believe that Brandon has said that while Atium can be used to steal any trait, the Steel Ministry believes that it steals temporal allomancy. Whether this is a legitimate mistake or deliberate misinformation from TLR I don't know. Anyone know the direct source for this info off the top of their head?

Assuming that the Broken One is Odium (which seems fairly safe, given what we know) I'd imagine it has something to do with his history or personality that we don't know yet. It might also be a poetic way of referring to how horrible he is (ie, he's "broken" spiritually) but that doesn't seem quite right to me- surely a Shard named Odium running around causing misery and destruction is perfectly fulfilling the purpose (or Intent, to borrow Chaos' terminology) of his existence, and therefore wouldn't qualify as "Broken".

Fascinating about investiture! Does the RPG go into any detail about the previously-unknown Hemalurgic properties of certain metals (like electrum, chromium, bendalloy, etc)?

If you start with book 12, expect to be utterly, hopelessly confused. You could, I suppose, read in-depth summaries of books 1-11 (I'm sure you could find them online) but even then you'd miss a great deal of the nuance. I wouldn't recommend doing anything but starting with book 1 and reading straight through. Essentially, keep in mind that Brandon is writing the concluding act of a very long, detailed ongoing story- it doesn't stand on its own, and was never meant to.

I though that Bavadin was on White Sands' planet, not Silence Divine's?

Hmmm... Final Empire: Kelsier vs. Bendal the Inquisitor. Well of Ascension: Vin figures out how to beat Zane, even though he has atium and she doesn't. Hero of Ages: Vin vs. the Inquisitors at Kredik Shaw, culminating in her smashing the palace and then ascending to become the new Preservation. Alloy of Law: Undecided; I'm particularly torn between Sazed speaking to Wax and the aftermath, or Marasi showing Miles how she can beat one of the most dangerous people alive with her "useless" power.

Makes sense. Thanks for the interview quote!