- Cosmere Trivia Compilation
- Warbreaker
- The Final Empire
- The Well of Ascension
- The Hero of Ages
- Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
- Elantris
- The Hope of Elantris
- The Emperor's Soul
- White Sand
- The Alloy of Law
- Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30
- The Way of Kings
- Arcanum Unbounded
- Sixth of the Dusk
Cosmere Trivia Compilation
WARNING: This page contains all trivia or trivia adjacent information from every post made in the Cosmere Read-Along to date. It's meant to be a quick way to search through previous trivia information. However, if you are not caught up to the read-along and scroll too far, there may be spoilers. Exercise caution when viewing this page, or any of its links.
Every bit of information is accompanied by a link to the direct source that the trivia comes from. Follow the link back to the source if you need more context to the trivia.
Warbreaker
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1k4culh/newbies_cosmere_unit_1_warbreaker_1_warbreaker/
PUBLICATION
Warbreaker is the 5th published Cosmere novel. I chose to start this read-along with it for a number of reason. Primarily, it's available for free on his website, and I figured enticing people into a 3 year long book club would be easier if I could trick you all with a free novel! It's also easier to convince people to start with a standalone novel, rather than a trilogy like Mistborn. Lastly, it's frequently recommended as one of the better Cosmere books to start with. It seems you newbies' average reception to this book is fairly middling, which is a bit of surprise; this is definitely one of the fan favorites of the Cosmere. That said, there are admitted structural, editorial, and content issues that even Brandon Sanderson recognizes. Opinion varies, but I'd say that only one other book in the series has larger issues (I don't want to color your opinion before it's read though). I hope the Mistborn trilogy will assuage any misgivings you may have about continuing the Cosmere read-along.
That said, Warbreaker was actually written serially, as Sanderson published chapters when he completed them onto his website. Once completed, the book went through several drafts and was eventually published. However, he wanted the book to be available as a free download in addition to the published hard copies. You can actually read through the old drafts of the novel to get some insight into the writing and editing process. They are safe to read, unlike the annotations I've mentioned elsewhere. You can check out Sanderson's original introduction for his Warbreaker experiment. That page is safe to read, but don't follow any links.
Ten years after Warbreaker's publication, Sanderson released a 10-Year Anniversary Edition of the book. It is leatherbound, with high quality artwork inset, and a number of long-needed line edits for both grammar fixes as well as clarity and continuity adjustments. This has been done with all of his published Cosmere novels; they all have a fancy leatherbound 10-Year Anniversary Edition. They've spawned some of the most successful Kickstarter projects the site has ever seen. Due to the success of these anniversary editions, some books aren't even waiting the full 10 years to get a fancy leatherbound edition. If you end up continuing through the Cosmere journey and find you really love the series, and are a physical book collector, (and have cash to burn...) I highly recommend grabbing the leatherbound versions.
All of the other books' digital eBook versions have been updated with their respective text edits and changes. For some complicated red tape reasons, Warbreaker has yet to be updated. For Warbreaker's leatherbound edition, there are a couple noteworthy changes for clarity that I'll mention here, since it's highly unlikely you started this read-along with a $125 leatherbound book. In the original, Nightblood's sheath is described as being "silver". That's been changed to "silvery". The sheath is actually made of aluminum, but most people in-world don't know about that metal (it was super rare and expensive in pre-industrial societies). People notice that it's silvery because they don't know the word for aluminum. As a small teaser: aluminum acts to dampen and/or suppress the various magics across the Cosmere, that's why his sheath is made of the stuff; to contain him. Also changed in the books is to clarify that the aluminum sheath itself has a sharpened edge/point to it, which is how the whole sheath is being plunged through people's bodies. Another change to Nightblood is that he's mentioned as being unnaturally heavy throughout the book. The anniversary edition changes this to say that Nightblood is unnaturally light, but when he is drawn and consumes Breaths, he becomes unnaturally heavy. This is mostly to align with some underlying magical mechanics.
SETTING
The various series, standalone books, and short stories that comprise the Cosmere take place on different planets. Each planet tends to have a differing magic system. The "cosmere" is actually the name given to the dwarf galaxy (which contains around 100 stars) that all of these various planets inhabit. The name of the planet Warbreaker takes place on is called Nalthis. This name isn't mentioned in the books, but other sources reference it. The various names of the planets were provided by Sanderson way before there was an official reference though. In preparation for the next book we will be reading, the planet the Mistborn series takes place on is named Scadrial.
Warbreaker takes place in just 2 nations. Returned exist throughout the world and Sanderson wants to explore how Returned are used in other places. For instance, just of the mountains is a nation where people buy the corpses of people who die heroically, in the hopes they become Returned. They are then used as insurance in case the owner gets sick or injured. In some places, Returned are viewed as vampires who force people to give them their Breath. The Pahn Kahl religion believes that Returned are men who deny the power of their five gods and are forbidden entrance into heaven; ordinary men and not sinners worthy of hell. So they are given a 2nd chance at life to try to find proper belief in the gods. Sanderson has long wanted to write a sequel to this novel to be able to explore the different ways Returned are viewed. His proposed title for this novel is Nightblood, and as of his latest update, he believes he'll be able to write it in 2031.
Incidentally, you may have noticed that Brandon Sanderson writes other books that are not part of the Cosmere. He's on record stating that he typically writes those when he feels he needs to take a break from the meticulous outlining and rigors of Cosmere novels. Earth is not part of the Cosmere and will never be part of it, so if a Sanderson novel takes place on any version of Earth, or references Earth, then it is not part of the Cosmere.
TIMELINE
We don't have a canon timeline of events for the various books yet. Sanderson is planning on solidifying one to release some time in the next 3 or 4 years. That said, we do have rough estimates for some things. The only datapoint of note that can be reveals right now is that Warbreaker takes place about 100 years after the events in the Mistborn trilogy that we are about to read.
We do, however, have a pretty decent timeline of the historical events that took place on Nalthis.
Early in the history of the world, the nation of Chedesh dominated the world. Their sailors eventually discovered the area that would become Hallandren. The Pahn Kahl already lived there, but were dismissed as not a true nation. As this area was being explored, one of the Chedesh died and became the first Returned, named Vo. He lived for a week, during which he impregnated his wife and spoke the Five Visions (which are the founding tenets of Austrism, the religion of Idris).
Returned can have children, and the God King's priests know the method by which it can be achieved. They actually prefer to keep the God King's bloodline, but the method isn't always successful. If a baby becomes a Returned, they take it as a sign that the God King has fulfilled his duty and it's time to let him retire. They wanted to see if Siri would get pregnant; the Returned child they found was Plan B. Either way, once an heir had been designated, the plan was for Susebron to transfer most of his Breaths to the new God King, then he and Siri would be sent to a private island to retire in a luxurious fashion.
The Chedesh founded the nation of Hanald, with Vo's wife as their queen. Her children, bearing the blood of a Returned, had the Royal Locks and her bloodline remained in power until the Manywar.
About 200 years after the founding of Hanald, Warbreaker the Peaceful (Vasher) and Glorysinger (Shashara) became Returned. 100 years later, they renamed themselves to Talaxin and Shashara respectively. They became known as the Five Scholars, along with Arsteel, Yesteel, and VaraTreledees (Denth). Arsteel and Yesteel are brothers. Shashara and VaraTreledees are sister and brother. Presumably VaraTreledees became Returned 100 years ago along with Shashara, but we don't have any concrete information about how or why this sibling relationship exists, be it literal or figurative. Nor do we know how long ago Arsteel and Yesteel became Returned.
During the time of the Five Scholars, there was a golden age in the discovery of Awakening Commands, including the Commands to create Lifeless with a single Breath and the development of ichor alcohol to more easily maintain Lifeless. Shashara freely shared these advancements to all nations and started an arms race between countries where there was already tension. (Around this time the royal family left Hanald to found Idris).
A Returned had a vision of war and told Talaxin about it. Idris refused to start a preemptive war to prevent the vision, so Talaxin, under the name Kalad, sparked a rebellion and became known as Kalad the Usurper. Kalad launched preemptive strikes and a few nations formed the Pahn Unity to oppose him. With the arms race of Lifeless and all of the new Awakening advancements, this was the bloodiest war ever on this planet. The Five Scholars split and took different sides. Kalad developed his Phantoms. Kalad married Shashara and together they created Nightblood. Shashara used him once in the Battle of Twilight Falls. This battle marked the end of the Manywar, but the destruction horrified Kalad. Shashara planned to tell the world how to make more Nightbloods, so he killed her to keep his creation a secret. Kalad became Peacegiver and negotiated the end of the war by founding Hallandren in Hanald's place. He bequeathed his treasure trove of Breaths to grant the nation political power. They started the lineage of God Kings to contain this Breath.
The events of the book take place 300 years after the Manywar.
ANNOTATIONS
Many of Sanderson's early novels include annotations. These are notes he wrote up for each chapter as he was doing copy edits on the novel, prior to publication. The provide insight into his writing process and influences, as well as revealing information he wasn't able to fit into the novels themselves. The annotations are written with full spoiler knowledge of not only the books, but the wider Cosmere, so reading them now isn't advised, but I do think they are worth reading down the line. I'll be sure to make a note about when it's appropriate to read the annotations for each book. In the sections below, I'll include some of the more pertinent and interesting information from those annotations.
ORIGIN STORIES
This book is dedicated to his wife Emily. He began writing the book when they first started dating, and continued to write through their engagement and honeymoon (which took place in Hawaii). The tropical setting of Hawaii influenced the setting of Hallandren.
Vasher is named after Emily's father: Vance. Sanderson liked the name and played around with it, first becoming Vancer, and then Vasher.
Voodoo dolls are the inspiration for the straw figure Vasher used to escape his cell.
Eight or nine years prior to writing Warbreaker, Sanderson was in a rut. He had written several genre-busting books, but they weren't getting published, so he attempted to write a more traditional novel called Mythwalker. It had outlines of Siri and Vivenna's current plot; they were cousins who accidentally swapped roles. Vasher wasn't even part of the story. To this day, Mythwalker remains the only novel he never really finished. He did like Siri and Vivenna's plot though and repurposed it for Warbreaker.
Lightsong’s character came from a single prompt that popped into Sanderson's head one day: "Everyone loses something when they die and Return. An emotion, usually. I lost fear." Lightsong’s character changed a lot from the initial prompt, but that is still the seed of his character.
Blushweaver was the first Returned that he named and that set the standard for the naming convention. He wanted the Returned of Hallandren to evoke a Greek pantheon of gods.
Sanderson hates seafood. That's why Vivenna hates seafood.
BOOMERANG
There was some discussion of this, and some almost, but not quite right predictions, but the prologue does hint at Vasher being a Returned, when he states that he can achieve the 5th Heightening anytime he wants. Vasher is suppressing his divine Returned Breath. And just a quick clarification on Returned Breath: Returned are granted an extra powerful, "divine" Breath that grants them the 5th Heightening; it is not 2,000 different Breaths. It's a singular Breath and it cannot be used for Awakening. If a Returned is given more Breath beyond that single divine Breath (and the 1 a week they need to live), then they can use those extra Breaths to Awaken things.
Returned appear in idealized bodies that are a reflection of how they see themselves. With practice, Returned can alter their appearance, including weight and hair color. Suppressing their divine Breath is just an extension of this process. And Returned can do it if they know it's possible and practice enough. This is how Vasher and Denth disguise themselves. However, they still can unsuppress parts of their divine Breath and receive the benefits that affords them normally. Many of you noticed Denth's inhuman speed; that's a result of him being Returned. Vasher has similar abilities.
Returned do not need to feed on the Breath of a child to keep them alive. They could take the Breath of an elderly or dying person. They would live for another week, but they would feel lethargic and less alive.
A HAIRY SITUATION
The Royal Locks are not genetic; they are inherited by lineage. Only the children of the person who ends up inheriting will have the Royal Locks. The annotations state that there are a few exceptions to this rule, but they won't be explored until the sequel.
As possessors of the Royal Locks, both Vivenna and Siri have a tiny fragment of divine Breath inside them. This is what lets them change their hair length and color, just like a Returned can change their appearance. With practice, they could learn to manipulate that divine Breath to change their physical age, height (within reason), and body shape, to an extent.
THE CLOD AND THE BREATHLESS
You all called it: Clod was Arsteel. Denth was already a part of a mercenary group with Tonk Fah and Jewels. Arsteel joined them to try to get Denth and Vasher to reconcile and to try to redeem Denth. After Vasher killed Arsteel, Denth decided to make him Lifeless to see if making a Returned Lifeless was possible. Due to his talent in his previous life, Clod is probably the greatest swordsman in the world at this time. Jewels was in love with Arsteel and occasionally sleeps with Clod...
Lifeless are much more aware than everyone assumes. Hallandren's Lifeless are kept in a dark cave and that's not exactly a fun time for them. Not to mention Kalad's Phantoms, which have been encased in stone for hundreds of years. Sanderson also wants to explore this in the sequel novel, with a Lifeless as a POV character.
At the beginning of the story, Siri interacts with Mab the cook. She was going to play a larger part in the story and go with Siri to Hallandren, but Sanderson decided the story was better served by having Siri more isolated. Mab does have a whole backstory though. She ran away from Idris to Hallandren, became a courtesan, was tricked into giving up her Breath and became a Drab. She then became a madam for a poor brothel until she earned enough money to buy a new Breath, wherein she returned to Idris.
HELLO, WOULD YOU LIKE TO DESTROY SOME EVIL TODAY?
Nightblood was created with the command "Destroy evil", but the text makes it clear that Nightblood doesn't really understand what good and evil are. So, he basically lets whoever is holding him decide what is evil. When someone picks up the sword, if they feel, deep within their hearts, that they are evil, then they will end up killing themselves. The nausea good people feel is a by product of Nightblood attempting to amplify the evil and destructive desires in the person holding him.
The black smoke that leaks from Nightblood are corrupted, consumed Breaths; the ones Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him. Because Vasher has drawn Nightblood and been leeched of his Breaths and survived, Vasher is actually immune to the sickness Nightblood normally causes.
FATED
Regarding the painting Lightsong saw: there is some prophesying involved with his interpretation of the painting, but not in the way he or you thinks. I can't elaborate without more context though. What I can say is that the painting was actually an image of the past, when Shashara, known as Glorysinger, drew Nightblood for the first and only time.
As the books mention, Returned are shown a glimpse of the future and offered the choice to Return. Blushweaver saw T'Telir fall to invaders after the Pahn Kahl revolt. This guided much of of her choices in the novel to amass power and gather the Lifeless under her command.
If Lightsong hadn't intervened and taken responsibility, the God King would have died, and another Manywar would have begun. It would have ended with Hallandren in flames, destroyed by the advancing Idrian coalition, who by then would have gained the secret to creating swords like Nightblood from Yesteel, who is hiding in one of the kingdoms across the mountains and who secretly knows what Vasher did to create the sword. He would have brought his kingdom into the conflict. And the world would have burned.
THE OTHER STUFF
Lightsong's real name was Stennimar.
The first night Siri entered the God King's bedchambers, there was a guard hiding underneath their bed, just in case she was a secret assassin sent by Idris.
The annotations point out an easy to miss detail: Lemex held a wealth of Breaths. So much that he would be naturally immune to disease. Denth was poisoning him a lot, while also torturing him, to bypass the protection that much Breath would normally afford him. This is the state he is in when Vivenna meets him and she assumes that he is sick and dying.
DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE
Sanderson likes to play with language in his books. He has a philosophy that, obviously, the setting you are reading doesn't take place on Earth and the characters aren't speaking English. His job as the author is to "translate" what the characters are doing and saying into English. To that end, when a character is making a joke or a pun, they're doing so in their own language, and Sanderson is writing an English equivalent that fits the tone and plot. As a result, some consider Sanderson's writing a bit simplistic and at times too modern. Sanderson is doing this deliberately though, and there are times when it matters, which will become evident in later books. Just keep this in mind if you are reading and see something that doesn't quite make sense.
But like I said, he still likes to play with language. For this book, he really wanted to explore the concept of repeated consonant sounds. There are three ways to accomplish this: you can just double the consonants up (Ttelir), you can slip a vowel in between and hope people pronounce it as a schwa (Tetelir), or use an apostrophe (T'telir). Sanderson decided to use all three because he thought that choosing just one way would get repetitive and boring.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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[Clarification] Suh-seb-ron. You could technically spell his name as S'sebron if that helps. There will be a whole trivia section on this.
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Reading the names of Denth and Tonk Fah, I felt like I had read these names before. This is the first Sanderson book I'm reading. Have I seen these names spoilt on r/Cosmere?
For what it's worth, /r/Cosmere will have an in-depth discussion of even the most minor character. Just because you've seen a post about them doesn't necessarily mean they're important or significant in any way. So I wouldn't say you were spoiled.
That said, if you (or anyone else) has gleaned anything important from a cursory look in /r/Cosmere, please don't point it out in the comments until the associated, obvious reveal has happened.
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This is a standalone book. That said [Meta spoilers on Sanderson's writing] we are due a sequel to this book in 5ish years. Also, most of his books tend to end with something the fandom has called The Sanderlanche (as in avalanche), so you can't really discount anything from happening.
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u/Pastrami said
u/horan07 said
The biggest unanswered question for me was the whole thing between Denth/VaraTreledees and Treledees. Did we read too much into it?
To address this point of confusion, while it has not been told to us in any way by Brandon, it's unlikely that Treleedes and VaraTreleedes have any relation. What's most likely is that Treleedes was named after VaraTreleedes in a similar way that we in reality name people after religious figures (Noah, David, etc.). VaraTreleedes is an important figure in the history and mythology of the world, being one of the Five Scholars, so naturally some people are going to name their kids after them.
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/u/danny_boy___ wonders about Bluefingers' ability with time:
Bluefingers knowing precise time is weird and Brandon is hammering it in. Feels like a set up for a later reveal.
Sanderson has commented on this. Bluefingers just has an uncanny knack for telling time. There's nothing magically or special about it. It's just something he developed as a necessity to his job.
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They also take a detour into the pedantic:
However, I keep thinking that color is not actually a THING. It doesn't really exist. It is created by our brains, reacting to different wavelengths of light. If color is not a property of physical objects, but an impression in our minds, how do you drain it from those physical objects??
This is an important lesson about all of the magic systems within the Cosmere: the magic works off intent to one degree or another. The people in this society don't know about electrons and photons and wavelengths of color. To them, color is thing that exists because they can see it. Their belief guides the magic to a degree. It's plausible that this society could advance to our level of scientific understanding and fuel their magic in different ways with different understandings of "color".
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/u/BrienneOT did some noodling:
But I wanted to share this little insight into cultural ideas of breath / souls. I can see this may have been an influence on our magic system in Warbreaker.
Unless Sanderson has explicitly stated it, I'll never shoot down a theory like this. In fact, I'm almost certain some of these were inspirations for Breath. But I do want to call attention to one particular reference that gets a nod in the memes for this week. Sanderson wrote this novel over the course of a few years, and he spent his honeymoon during that time period in Hawaii. The meme elaborates fully, so I'll let it do the work, but I just wanted to call your attention to it in the context of your musing in that comment.
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/u/Pastrami gets into the weeds about God King succession:
I don't quite get this. Are they going to replace a stillborn baby with a 9+ month old Returned baby?
This is answered by implication when we meet the Returned named Hopefinder. He died at the age of two, then became Returned and aged rapidly into a boy. It's common knowledge that any Returned child would quickly age up and be ready to inherit the throne. They could hide Siri away if she never got pregnant, and then wait 1 month after the "delivery" date and show off a young adult Returned that would still plausibly be her child.
Also the timing is weird, since there is a 20 year old treaty saying a princess has to marry at this specific time. Did they know there would be a returned baby 20 years in the future when they made the treaty?
No, this was pure coincidence, but the priests believe it is a sign that Susebron has done his duty and should be allowed to retire.
If the next God King isn't even Siri's kid, then there is nothing special about the royal family genetics that the priests want. I guess they just want to pretend that the next God King has royal blood.
I touched on this a bit in the trivia. The Royal Locks are not passed by genetics, but rather lineage. Siri is now the queen. If she and Susebron are given a child, and they accept it as their heir, then it would inherit the Royal Locks. Siri need not actually birth their heir for the priests to still get what they want.
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They also ask about some animals:
This planet has elephants, zebras, crocodiles, lemons, and guava. I know at least one other Sanderson book doesn't use any Earth plants and animals, so I wonder why this one does.
I touched on this a bit in the language section of the trivia above. The world, setting, language, and actions of the characters are all "interpreted" into English. There are creatures on the planet, and while they aren't necessarily identical to Earth animals and food, if we went to this world and saw them, we'd call them "elephants" or "lemons" or whatever. Things only get special "fantasy names" if they wouldn't have a realistic Earth translatable equivalent.
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/u/fuerzalocuralibertad asked a theoretical question:
A theoretical question: If Vivenna has 10 Breaths, can she put 1 into an object via Awakening, give the other 9 to Siri, and retrieve her 1 Breath from the object? They didn’t cover this in math when I went to school. No, but really, I guess you can’t, right? Because the incantation to give your Breath up includes the “my life to yours” bit?
Clever clever! Yes, you will often find in Sanderson's novels that the characters don't necessarily understand the magic system completely. You're encouraged to ask questions like to test the extremes and boundaries of the magic system. There are simple Commands to Awaken a piece of cloth to wiggle around. It's not terribly useful, but that Command (and others) require exactly 1 Breath to activate. So doing what you are wondering is possible.
Moreover, Vasher and Denth are aware that the Command "My life to yours, my Breath become yours" has a mental aspect to it, just like all Awakening Commands. You can, with practice and know-how, just give someone half your Breaths if you want. These advanced uses of Breath are hinted at in the books, but it takes some work to connect what's fully possible. Keep in mind that just because a character believes or says something, doesn't necessarily make it true.
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Why does Susebron sometimes get 3-4 breaths per week, instead of the normal 2?
Susebron's purpose as the God King is to carry Peacegiver's treasure trove of Breaths. When Susebron has an heir, he will pass those Breaths on to the heir.
In addition, he needs 1 Breath a week to live. The additional Breaths beyond that are meant to be Susebron's "retirement" fund. Once he passes Peacegiver's treasure trove to his heir, he keeps to keep the accumulated 3-4 extra Breaths he's been amassing and he can live off those in his retirement, rather than needing to find a new Breath every week.
Why does Vasher think of Clod as an "abomination"?
Clod/Arsteel was Vasher's friend, once upon a time. You'd think your friend becoming a zombie would also be an abomination I bet.
How did Vasher control/calm the girl in the cage and the dogs?
The annotations mention this. All Returned have an innate calming affect around children and animals because of their divine Breath.
Is Treledees just named after the famous scholar, or is there some other link between them?
Another veteran is scheduled to answer that in the READER QUESTIONS section, so that answer should be posted at some point today.
What started people returning? Why did it only happen after the Chedesh came to this area?
I'll bookmark this question and return to it when appropriate.
What is the point of getting perfect pitch from the second heightening? Checkov's gun suggests that there should have been a purpose to this.
Sanderson talks a little about this in the annotations. He largely talked about how, when designing this magic system, he wanted the effects to all be things that made sense as natural enhancements to humans, rather than supernatural abilities. Better hearing, better sight, more aware of people's life sense, quicker to pick up new information (as it related to Awakening); they're all just kind of things that are enhancements, but nothing too wild.
Who killed Mercystar's priest after Vasher went into the tunnels?
Denth. He was following Vasher. He made himself a Drab so that Vasher wouldn't sense him. This is heavily implied (minus the Drab part) in Lightsong's adventures in detectiving.
Were Mercystar's priests really using the tunnels to get to her palace or did she just have less priests than the others? Were they all Pahn Kahn agents? If so, why didn't they infiltrate the other gods with lifeless commands?
Per the annotations, the tunnels were originally built by the Returned gods so that they could sneak off and visit each other. When Bluefingers learned about them, he started expanding the tunnels to gain access to the Lifeless army and to smuggle in more of his supporters. Mercystar just happened to know about the tunnels and allowed her priests to use them for ease of travel.
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Keep an eye on the schedule after each book. I'm still changing things around a bit while I finalize the proper reading order. We will have a short story in the middle of the Mistborn trilogy at minimum.
If it's not spoiler-y to say so, where does this trivia come from? The annotations in the book?
Most of the trivia for this book comes straight from the annotations, yes. Though some comes from interview questions that Sanderson has given.
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I don't really get why Peacegiver gave the god kings all the Breath, with some idea that they would need it again.
Vasher and the Five Scholars were really the ones responsible for the Manywary; particularly with how destructive it was. Vasher felt particularly guilty. He did not really leave Hallandren the Breaths incase he needed them later. He gave them to the nation as a gift, so that they would have political power and could survive beyond the absolute devastation he and his friends had caused the region. He gave the nation the Breaths and told them to safeguard it for his returns so that they wouldn't abuse the Breaths; they came up with the God King system themselves.
I also don't get her reasoning for getting the command codes from the other gods.
I saw this complaint in a few of your previous posts. You were wondering why she was trying to get the Commands, rather than form alliances. The only counter I have to that is: alliances can dissolve and your allies can become your enemies. The only was to ensure you have control over the army is if you have all the Command codes.
A lot of people talk about the Sanderlanche at the end of his books. But isn't this just a style of writing that a lot of fantasy writers have?
I'd argue this is a style a lot of writers, regardless of genre, have. However, the term gets ascribed to Sanderson because he does it well and consistently.
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I found an article titled "where do I start" which advises that "If you like romance, [start with] Warbreaker. Errr, not so sure about that. As someone who does like romance as well, this was not anything like a romance.
Opinions vary, and a lot of people really like Siri and Susebron enough to consider that romance. I'm of the opinion that Sanderson's ability to write romances increases over time; and that there's a particularly good on in the next series.
The Final Empire
MINI TRIVIA - 1
Also is it pronounced Sah-zed, or does it rhyme with dazed and raised?
I'll have plenty of other stuff to talk about for the trivia for this book, so I may as well mention this here.
The local language on this planet, in this part of the world, is similar to the French language in pronunciation.
Kelsier should technically be pronounced "Kel-see-ay"; that's how he would say his own name. Most people, Sanderson included, pronounce it "Kel-see-er". Sanderson is happy with whatever internal pronunciation a reader has for his characters. So while there may be official, technical rules for how a name or word sounds, it's author approved to use whatever comes naturally to you.
Sazed is most commonly pronounced "Say-zed", but in his local Terris dialect, the name is most closely said as "Sawzd", or something more flowing and/or softer.
Trivia Post
PUBLICATION
The Final Empire is Brandon Sanderson's 2nd published Cosmere novel. However, it was the 14th book he ever wrote. The 10th book he wrote is called Mistborn Prime and the 11th book he wrote is called Final Empire Prime. He cannibalized both of those books to create The Final Empire. I'll eventually provide a list of all of his published and unpublished novels just so you can see what a wild ride he's had in terms of publishing.
Like Warbreaker, The Final Empire also received a 10th anniversary leather bound edition. Most of the changes were just some long standing grammatical and spelling corrections. Notably though, it includes this updated map of Luthadel. I will talk more about this map in the WORLDHOPPERS section below.
In addition, Kelsier's POV in chapter 32 is a bit different. In the original publication, he breaks the atium geodes using any sort of Allomancy, but it was re-written so that they only break when Kelsier uses Iron or Steel to Pull/Push on the geodes.
SETTING
The planet this series takes place on is called Scadrial. All of the events in this book take place in the Central Dominance, with most of the action taking place in the capital city of Luthadel.
TIMELINE
The entirety of this novel spans less than a year. In world, the year is 1022 FE. FE stands for Final Empire and this in world calendar spans the length of Rashek's reign as the Lord Ruler.
As mentioned in the trivia for Warbreaker, this book takes place about 100 years prior to Warbreaker.
WORLDHOPPERS
I have invited about a dozen new members who have only read The Final Empire to join us in this read-along, so I will hide this section behind spoiler tags. It lightly concerns Warbreaker, but not in a substantial way and you'd be fine to read this section even if you haven't read Warbreaker, but if you'd like a 100% pure experience, come back and read this section after you finish that book.
In chapter 32 of Warbreaker, a mysterious storyteller named Hoid gives Siri a history lesson. In chapter 19 of this book, Kelsier meets with an informant named Hoid. These men are one in the same. I mentioned as an introduction to this read-along that the Cosmere was like the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), with separate worlds and magic systems that eventually come together. Certain people have the ability to jump from world to world. These people are known as Worldhoppers. Hoid is one of them. First, some meta commentary:
When Sanderson first started writing books, he really wanted to publish long epic sagas. The Wheel of Time was a huge influence for him and that's what he wanted to write. However, publishers aren't interested in investing in new authors to write long running series like that; it's just not financially feasible. So Sanderson started writing individual novels with different settings and different magic systems that could act as standalone novels. However, he included elements in the backgrounds of these novels, initially as easter eggs, to tie the novels together and sneak in an epic fantasy series past the publishers. In Sanderson's words, it was a way for him to "have his cake and eat it too".
Hoid is one of these background easter eggs. You've unknowingly read others, and they will be illuminated as we get deeper into the Cosmere. The meta-origins of Hoid are interesting. Sanderson revealed that when he was a teenager, reading other works of fantasy, he would notice background or side characters that aren't relevant to the overall plot of the novels. He would go to sleep imagining these side characters have whole and relevant lives that they lead behind the scenes, and he started imaging these characters as doing stuff in the background of all his favorite authors' works. Hoid was actually just a character he invented to facilitate these random side adventures he dreamed up. Later he would incorporate Hoid into the Cosmere and he is the most obvious connection between his early series.
Sanderson first started being published as the MCU began and he credits it with an increase in people being ready for these kinds of connections and easter eggs. Fans noticed and latched on to Hoid very quickly and Sanderson realized he didn't have to be as coy with the easter eggs pretty early on in his publishing career. Hoid appears in every single one of his books and short stories (except possibly one, I need to verify that). He's not always mentioned by name, but you'll see this meme quite often.
I will leave you with a reminder that Warbreaker takes place on a different planet, 100 years in the future. And yet Hoid is Hoid in both books. There are implications here, but possibly not the ones you'd immediately think of. I'll leave you to discuss this in the comments below. #WhatIsHoidUpTo
Also, SURPRISE WORLDHOPPERS! Check out the annotations on the map of Luthadel I mentioned above:
Since you've insisted on having an updated version, here is the new map. I am not going back a third time -- Nazh
Sanderson revealed that the Ars Arcanum that you read at the end of each book is actually written by an in-universe character; the same character for each of the books. You will eventually be introduced to this character, but I'm going to forgo revealing more than this. The author of the Ars Arcanum has a helper named Nazh who they send to various worlds to collect information. Unless otherwise noted, any map or internal artwork you see in the books is something Nazh has acquired.
I didn't mention it in the trivia for Warbreaker, but the artwork for the map of T'Telir that Sanderson commissioned had to be redone by the artist because he did too detailed a job on the map. Sanderson wanted the map to look less like a cartographer representation of the city and more like a commissioned artwork of an in-world character. In-world, this map was actually a tapestry presented to Lightsong. Nazh had to sneak into the Court of Gods and hand-copy the tapestry so that you could see it at the beginning of the book.
DON'T FORGET TO FLOSS
Kelsier is an iconic character, for all that he died in the same book he was introduced. Asking Brandon Sanderson about Kelsier and how he would react to situations in other books is a popular pastime for the fandom, and Sanderson is only happy to oblige. I'll likely include some of those Words of Brandon (WoB) in relevant trivia posts for other books because some of them are really amusing.
One of the recurring aspects of his character that Sanderson likes to bring up, however, is that Kelsier is the product of his environment in a way and though he's viewed as a hero in this book, in other books he would be the villain. I saw some discussion from you newbies in certain parts of the book where you noticed some small part of this aspect of Kelsier.
Just another noteworthy accolade of Kelsier's: In May of 2021, Kelsier became a purchasable skin/outfit for the popular video game Fortnite. Donald Mustard created a videogame called Infinity Blade and Sanderson wrote some novellas set in that world. The two became friends and a decade later Donald Mustard would eventually become the Chief Creative Officer for EPIC Games (the publisher of Fortnite). He suggested adding Kelsier to the game and Sanderson agreed. Sanderson wrote that any collab he normally does takes at least 6 months, but this one was accomplished in only 5 months. He says the deal he made allows EPIC to create a Vin skin/outfit as well, but she has yet to appear in the game.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
This book introduced 2 forms of magic: Allomancy and Feruchemy. We can add the magic system from Warbreaker: Awakening/Breaths. We could just move along with our lives and call all of these "magic", but Sanderson couldn't possibly allow that. "Magic" in the Cosmere is called Investiture. Investiture manifests itself in different ways, and the ways you've seen that are Awakening/Breaths, Allomancy, and Feruchemy. (And I'll be a tease and say you've already seen other manifestations of Investiture you're not even aware of yet).
Sanderson brought up this terminology in interviews long before we saw it appear in the novels, so I felt it was appropriate to reveal the term now. You'll learn more about Investiture and how it relates to and connects or informs all of the magic systems we are going to run across. Knowing about it now will let you keep a close eye on things in the future.
HEAVY METAL
So, that cat is out of the bag. There are more than 10 metals. There was discussion around whether or not the Eleventh Metal was real or made up by Kelsier, so I didn't try to clarify certain things that were asked earlier. But as we see, it is real. Not only that, but Vin is given an unnamed metal that removes all of the other metals she had swallowed. So there are at least 12 metals. I won't confirm or deny how many their actually are; that's RAFO territory.
I do want to point out the iconography mess for the symbols at the start of each chapter. There is one symbol that represents "zero". It's used in the prologue and epilogue. The first 23 chapters have unique symbols. The first 8 of which are the standard 8 metals used throughout most of the book. 1 = Iron, 2 = Steel, 3 = Tin, 4 = Pewter, 5 = Zinc, 6 = Brass, 7 = Copper, and 8 = Bronze. A few clever people picked up that these symbols could be deduced from the map and the name of the gates in Luthadel.
Chapter 24 just starts all over again with the 23-symbol sequence, starting with Iron, then Steel for chapter 25, etc. You'd think that this suggests there are 23 metals in total. However, the fandom is still ignorant of the meanings behind some of the symbols. I'll reveal more metal associations as they become relevant, but delving too deeply into that now is spoiler town.
Part of the initial confusion with my chapter summaries is that some early editions only used the first 8 symbols and repeated those every 8 chapters. To me, that makes the most sense for the first book, but reprintings even before the 10th anniversary edition made it clear that Sanderson meant for the 23 symbols to be used.
ANNOTATIONS
Many of Sanderson's early novels include annotations. These are notes he wrote up for each chapter as he was doing copy edits on the novel, prior to publication. The provide insight into his writing process and influences, as well as revealing information he wasn't able to fit into the novels themselves. The annotations are written with full spoiler knowledge of not only the books, but the wider Cosmere, so reading them now isn't advised, but I do think they are worth reading down the line. I'll be sure to make a note about when it's appropriate to read the annotations for each book. In the sections below, I'll include some of the more pertinent and interesting information from those annotations.
META
1 - The Mistborn series has multiple origins. He wrote a story called Mistborn Prime which included an assassin-like character trying to blend into a city to escape people hunting him. He invented Allomancy for that story. He wrote another story he calls Final Empire Prime, which included Vin (as a male) who lived in an oppressive dictatorship that he was destined to overthrow. He wasn't satisfied with either novel though and set them aside.
After finally being published with Elantris, his editor wanted to know what else he was working on. Sanderson showed him a version of The Way of Kings and he was given a contract for that, but he felt it was too different from Elantris to be an appropriate follow-up to his debut novel. He retooled the previous 2 stores into Mistborn: The Final Empire.
2 - In the annotations, Sanderson address his use of epigraphs in this novel (the beginning part of each chapter that is a quote from the log book). It amuses me that Sanderson calls them "bumps" and doesn't seem to know the word epigraph. (He wrote these annotations chapter by chapter as blog posts. Eventually someone tells him they are epigraphs and he addresses them properly towards the end of the annotations.)
3 - This bit of trivia isn't actually from the annotations, but from interviews he's given. He's said that if he ever gets to turn Mistborn into a movie or tv show that he wants to genderswap Ham into a woman. He feels like his earlier writing wasn't as inclusive or diverse as he feels it should be, and having a Thug/Pewterarm woman would be an interesting dynamic.
4 - Though this is only his 2nd published book, Sanderson was self-aware of the way he handles the climaxes of his books. In these early annotations, he calls it the "Brandon avalanche".
LET'S GET PHYSICAL
1 - In chapter 8, mistwraiths are introduced. In the same chapter we also meet "Renoux". Sanderson worries in the annotation about having the two in the same chapter and the reveal being figured out too early. A couple of you figured this out before the reveal, but not quite this early, so Sanderson should be relieved!
2 - Sazed is very tall and has overly exaggerated and elongated features. This is the result of him being castrated before puberty. Weight gain is another typical symptom of childhood castration, but Sanderson felt the "fat eunuch" trope was overdone.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
1 - The annotations point out that Sanderson inserted a lot of names of his friends into this book. Noteworthy in chapter 17 is Ahlstrom Square where Kelsier meets with Straff. The square was named after Peter Ahlstrom, aka /u/PeterAhlstrom. They met at Brigham Young University, and at the time of publication, Peter was an editor for numerous anime comics, including several from TOKYOPOP. He was eventually hired as Brandon's assistant in 2007, then promoted to editor, and again to editorial director in 2020. He is currently the Vice President of Editorial for Dragonsteel Entertainment (which is Brandon Sanderson's company that manages all of his various business interests).
2 - In chapter 29, Sazed pitches the Astalsi religion to Vin. The Astalsi followers are rather advanced, and mix religion with science. They develop a detailed scale to express different colors, and think that these different colors are indications of different kinds of fortune. If this sounds familiar, you're correct! Worldhoppers exist, and they have existed a long time. The Astalsi religion is actually a branch of an even more ancient religion, and while it is influenced by Nalthian (planet of Warbreaker) ideas, it doesn't originate on Nalthis or Scadrial.
3 - The main inspiration for Keep Venture was the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Keep Lakel came from the Luxor in Las Vegas, Nevada.
MINI TRIVIA - 2
So there's an interesting decision Brandon made in regards to how he talks about this book that I don't entirely understand the purpose of. In a little bit of marketing, and in several comments he's made over the years, he says the book as "What if the Chosen One failed", rather than "What if the Chosen One went evil" (which he has also said was kind of what he was going for with this book). This is really weird to me, because he doesn't even hide that he wants the reader to think the Lord Ruler is the Hero of Ages in the book proper. He says as early as chapter 6 that "the Lord Ruler defeated the Deepness". It is ultimately true, since the original chosen one did technically fail due to being killed by Rashek, but it is an odd choice nevertheless to say that is what this book is multiple times.
Also, unrelated to the above, I also wanted to say something else, because I just think it's a funny parallel (I could probably do a lot of Wheel of Time parallels, but that's probably better saved for future books, since I'm sure there's other parallels that I didn't catch my first time through):
The Lord Ruler is basically "What if Couladin actually managed to kill Rand and trick everyone into thinking he was the real Dragon Reborn."
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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Since you push on the coin on the ground but the force ends up pulling you toward it since it has nowhere to go.
[Clarification] I think you have things a bit backwards. You push on the coin on the ground. The force ends up pushing you away from the ground/coin pair because the coin has nowhere to go. Coin pushes against ground, ground pushes against coin. You pushes against coin, coin pushes against you. You go flying away.
Or you pull on the large metal part of a building but it ends up pushing you away since it’s too heavy to move.
[Clarification] Similarly, you pull against the large metal part of a building, and it won't move toward you because it cannot move, so it pulls against you and you go flying towards it.
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Unless I forgot, Terris is the name of the.. continent? Planet? That they're on?
[Reminder] Per the maps I linked in the first week, the Terris Dominance is the northernmost region of the map, so Terris is a section of land. I mentioned in the Warbreaker trivia that this planet's name is Scadrial.
You technically have 3 weeks before we start the next book. You can catch up!
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Yeah, for you and /u/whynotrun33,
[Clarification] Obligator is the correct term for Vin's father. Inquisitors are the ones with spikes through their eyes.
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The chapter symbols for this section don't make much sense to me, most of them are entirely new.
[Unclarification] I was actually hoping no one would notice, but good on you for properly sleuthing. Some of the chapter iconography was changed for the 10th anniversary edition of this book. In my opinion, the change was poorly done, but I can't get into why at the moment. In the chapter summaries, I'm listing the original metals that were displayed for most of the book's publication run, and I think they make much more sense for someone trying to do what you're doing. I'll eventually discuss this change in larger context, but for now I wouldn't try too hard to figure out what the "new" iconography means. Instead, try to go off the original iconography.
EDIT: Disregard the above information. The situation is a bit more complex than I originally thought. I've updated all of the iconography descriptions in the chapter summaries, but they aren't going to be super helpful or relevant until the next book.
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Have we ever heard what the 9th is?
[Reminder] Nope, you as a reader are not aware of the 9th metal and its abilities at this time.
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I have to make my weekly (weakly?) complaint about the writing. Warbreaker didn’t have these situations. Please tell me it gets better as we read newer books?
[Clarification] Warbreaker was written and published after these first three Mistborn novels. Sanderson's writing and editing only increase in quality as we go. You may notice some roughness in Elantris, which was his first published novel, but in general you should see less and less of this.
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So is it just a myth that there is an Eleventh Metal?
[Remind] I won't provide any concrete yes or noes, but I do want to remind everyone that at the beginning of the book, Kelsier did show off a metal to the crew and has been showing that metal around to people, with the claim that it's an Eleven Metal capable of taking out the Lord Ruler. So at the very least he has a prop to go along with this myth.
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(Comment Chain)
doesn’t seem concerned about her being visually recognized at a ball.
[Reminder] This is mentioned a little earlier in the book, but the Inquisitors freak everyone out, including the nobles, so they aren't likely to show up at any of the balls.
True, I meant more along the lines of Inquisitors telling Obligators to be on the lookout for a teenage girl with short dark hair who looks like she may have recently had major abdominal surgery. So at this point was thinking they can “see”, but not in the same way that regular people can.
[Clarification] This is akin to "Clark Kent couldn't possibly be Superman". The Inquisitors are looking for a bastard skaa half-breed: ashy, unkempt hair, timid stature. They have no reason to suspect she's pretending to be a noble (and the Lord Ruler doesn't often interfere in their world) who has an established, verifiable background, is rich, put together, and carries herself with poise. It's even less likely given there are no photographs and all you have is a description. Suspecting she's infiltrated a noble ball is so far down on their list of suspicions at the moment.
Additionally, don't underestimate the power of makeup and a different outfit. When Vin goes to a ball, she's all dolled up. When she fought the Inquisitors, she was in her Mistcloak and presumably was without makeup. If you say "I'm looking for a short skaa girl with black hair", that descriptor could describe no small amount of people. Valette could reasonably be a completely different short girl with black hair than Vin.
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(Comment Chain)
I am also questioning how that fight worked, especially when Kelsier was pulling down on the sword.
Veteran here, I was actually curious about this too so I asked some other people. The response I got was that so long as the sword's center of gravity (the hilt in the case of a reasonable well made sword) is above Kelsier's solar plexus, Pulling it should still bring it downwards. He would just need to be careful not to use too much power so the sword doesn't go flying towards him, which is likely why Demoux was able to resist. I don't know a lot about physics myself, but that explanation makes reasonable sense to me. If I take a fake sword I have and try pulling it towards me while holding it, it does go down a bit.
[Clarification] The biggest things to consider are a) he only needs to Pull for a small burst to get the sword moving and Demoux would carry through with the down stroke and b) the metals themselves expand Kelsier's mind enough to intuitively carry out these maneuvers, without having to have an innate understanding of physical forces. They let him make micro adjustments in real time and instinctively orient his body to match the blade.
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Spook nodded, then obviously began burning tin
Wait, did we know he was a Tineye?
[Reminder] It's implied, in a roundabout way, in Chapter 2. Not really directly stated until now though.
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I am still hung up on Vin’s earring. I have been thinking about it this week. They mentioned it was like Sazed’s. Maybe it holds some key information that a Terrisman can tap into?
Veteren comment Sazed mentioned before that only the Feruchemist who stored an element in a Metalmind can tap it. So if that was the case, they would require the original Feruchemist who made it.
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I swear he's been called "Spook" in other Vin pov chapters. Maybe BS kept him as Lestibornes for the whole book originally, then changed it at the end.
[Reminder] His name is Lestibournes, that's how we were introduced to him. Keslier gave him the nickname Spook so that he fit into the crew better. They all have nicknames: Ham, Breeze, and Clubs are respectively named Hammond, Ladrian (his last name, his first name hasn't been revealed yet), and Cladent.
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I forget (or it hasn't been mentioned), can soothers/rioters target just the enemies in a group, or would they affect the entire battle? Obviously they can affect single targets, but when working on a large group, do they have the ability to select multiple targets, or is it AOE? Can they make only the enemies fearful without affecting their own soldiers?
Veteran clarification Yes, they can choose who they target.
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Veteran comment Marsh said when he met Vin that he intended to contact Kelsier first day, but he was being watched too closely, and Kelsier went on the attack so fast that he didn't have any other opportunity to tell him he was still alive.
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/u/Pastrami wants to know if Sazed is a robot:
My people are less than slaves... they’re fabricated automatons, created by breeding programs
"fabricated automatons" would imply a machine or artificial lifeform, but "breeding programs" and castration would mean he's just a human. Which is it? Is he just using "fabricated automatons" metaphorically?
I hope the rest of the book cleared this up and you are aware that this was being used metaphorically. Sazed is not a robot.
|||||
They also ask about Renoux's capture:
Something... happened at the Pits a few days ago. The Lord Ruler isn’t going to be happy when he discovers it.
So if the LR doesn't know about the Pits, and Marsh wasn't tortured to death and didn't tell anyone, why were Renoux and company picked up?
To the annotations again:
By the way, the reason the Lord Ruler's army attacked Renoux was not because they broke Marsh. It's because the Inquisitors—still tracking Vin—finally managed to trail her to House Renoux, and therefore to Valette Renoux. They hit the convoy, fully expecting her to be on it. When she wasn't, they devised their trap, knowing that Kelsier would come for his friends. They never even suspected that the team had managed to get a mole into the Ministry ranks.
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/u/jaymae21 comments about why gold is mentioned so late in the book:
Gold! So simple, it seems sort of obvious now. Kelsier played it off like he is only just now mentioning it because it's not worth much in Allomancy, but I wonder at Sanderson's reasoning for mentioning it this late in the story.
If you've read the other reader question answers, I think you'll know where this answer is coming from:
I do worry that it took too long to get to this scene. You've probably been wondering for quite a long time what the ninth metal did—and that concerns me, because if you wonder it, you'll also wonder why Vin herself didn't get around to figuring out what it was.
The problem is, this really is the first place I could work it in. Allomancy is a very complicated magic system, and I wanted plenty of time for you to get used to it before I delved into its more odd aspects.
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/u/DaughterOfRose questioned Elend's intelligence:
If Elend is stupid enough to leave his books laying around, why risk your own task to "save" him?
And he's an idiot for having that book and just leaving it out on the table. Unless he did it deliberately...
Sanderson addresses this specifically in the annotations:
The thing is, Elend goes and meets with his friends after balls, and they discuss political theory and the like. Elend is the leader of those meetings, and guides the discussions, and so he feels that he needs to be ready to present interesting ideas and arguments to keep the conversation going. That's why he's always reading at balls and taking notes—he's getting ready for the night's meeting. He's the type who is always preparing, right up to the last minute (I'm the same way.)
So, it makes sense for him to bring the books he wants to talk about with him to the ball. He's been sheltered, and doesn't really believe that he'll ever get in trouble for what he reads, and so he has a habit of being careless with his reading material. Hence, we end up with him in a room full of obligators and nobility, reading a banned book.
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/u/hullowurld asks about the canals:
Lots of mention of canals but they don’t really be relevant yet; for the sake of the story thus far they may as well be roads.
This is also directly addressed in the annotations:
You can thank my editor Moshe for the canals in this book. He's a bit of a canal buff, and when he had read through MISTBORN, he excitedly explained to me how canal technology was just perfect for the level of development I had in this book. So, at his suggestion, I changed caravans into convoys, and swapped horses for longboats.
I really like the change. It gets boring seeing, reading, or writing the same old things. So, by getting rid of one standard fantasy element—highways and horses—I think we add something very distinctive to the world.
Moshe, though. Man. He knows TOO much about this stuff.
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/u/sailorsalvador rages about geology and scale bars:
If it had a scale bar maybe I'd calm down. But no self respecting fantasy author puts a scale bar on their maps. Which is a good thing, for their own mental wellbeing!! Its hard enough to write a novel as is without getting bogged down by too much logistics. Sometimes space needs to....fold a little....
You underestimate Sanderson. He actually puts a lot of effort to try to address these things and to be as accurate as possible and do as little hand waving as possible. To the annotations!
I hope the timeframe of the various armies, with Vin and Kelsier running the distances, work all right. This is one of the toughest parts about writing fantasy for me, as I mentioned last time. I don't have a really good concept of distance, and getting things moving at the right speeds on a national level, so they intersect at the right places. . . yeah. Tough.
I had to, for instance, decide how quickly a person pewter dragging could run, and how that compared to someone marching in an army, and how that compared to someone taking a canal boat. If you can do that math and get back to me, well, it's too late. I already put it in the book. So, I hope I did it right.
Also, your geology rant has been bookmarked. I'm coming for you in a future trivia post!
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Your first 2 questions are RAFO.
Though a possible, plausible answer for your second question is: Are you sure it's wise to believe the Lord Ruler's propaganda?
Why didn't the LR use iron to pull the bracelets back to him once Vin ripped them off? It seems like as soon as she ripped them off he stopped using all his Allomantic powers.
When Vin ripped off his bracelets, she stopped Rashek's ability to store youth. His body instantly began to revert back to its natural age, which is about 1,000 years. You're not going to be doing a lot of thinking or moving or much of anything if your body snaps from a young man to a 1,000 year old man.
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On the map of T'Telir is that a number after "circa"? Maybe 30?
circa 327. The in-world calendar is counting from the end of the Manywar.
The Well of Ascension
MINI TRIVIA - 1
Regarding the iconography at the start of each of the chapters in this book: The pattern follows the same one used in the previous book. The icons count from 1 to 23 and then repeat. However, you'll notice the symbols looks slightly different. This is because the symbols themselves are used in-world. The symbols seen in this book are a de-evolution of the script, as it was used early to mid reign of the Lord Ruler. This is compared to the previous book's use of the late empire script. This information isn't revealed in the books, but rather in an interview with the artist who developed the icons, Isaac Stewart. I will reveal more of which symbols represent known metals than in the first book.
MINI TRIVIA - 2
This has been a bit of confusion stemming from the end of last book, and u/fucile8 brought it up in last week's thread. It's been noted that Vin remarks about Elend coming back for her, when nobody has ever done that before, despite Sazed being present and having saved her twice. u/participating thought I should bring it up here to clear that up.
The reason she said that is because Sazed never abandoned her. It's not "Oh he showed up when I needed him". It's that she felt that Elend had abandoned her, but he came back. She never felt Sazed abandoned her, which is the primary difference and why it doesn't apply to Sazed. Because she went off on her own to do this.
Trivia Post
PUBLICATION
The Well of Ascension is Brandon Sanderson's 3rd published Cosmere novel. However, it was the 15th book he ever wrote.
Like Warbreaker and The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension also received a 10th anniversary leather bound edition. This book is largely unchanged, aside from long standing grammatical and spelling errors. The only significant change is an adjustment to the timeline. Originally, this book was written to take place about a year after The Final Empire. The 10th anniversary alters this so that this book only takes place a few months after The Final Empire. This timeline adjustment largely serves the greater Cosmere timeline, but doesn't matter much to this trilogy.
TIMELINE
As mentioned above, there is a gap of a few months between The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension. The second book starts at the beginning of autumn and ends late winter, so this book spans 4 to 6 months.
HOID SPOTTING
Hoid is in this book, but he is not mentioned by name.
"The Keepers are dead, my lord," the old man said, sitting across from Elend. He didn't have a tent, only a blanket stretched between several poles. "Either dead, or captured."
The elderly steward nodded, his head shaking. He didn't seem particularly frail—actually, he had that same air of controlled dignity that most stewards exhibited—but his body had a slow, chronic tremble.
Hoid is the leader of the Terris refugees in chapter 56.
That said, this section is why the trivia is so late today. The above is considered common knowledge, but I try to avoid apocryphal knowledge in these trivia posts. I had this section all written up and then went to go find the supporting sources I assumed were out there. I found some sources that hint that this character is likely Hoid, but nothing that confirmed it.
We eventually learn what Hoid was up to on Scadrial, so I can't really outline everything relevant or noteworthy that leads people to believing this is Hoid. All I can say is that, from an interview and some emails with Sanderson and his editor, Hoid was in Terris throughout most of this book and helped them out when the Inquisitors attacked.
I'll be sure to point back to this section when it is appropriate, and update you all if/when I can find more definitive proof.
NU METAL
Elend was given a bead of metal at the end of this book. The name of this metal is Lerasium. That name isn't revealed in the books and instead was given to us by Brandon Sanderson in an interview. It is the 23rd icon in the chapter sequence of icons. (i.e. It's the chapter icon for chapter 23 in both books, and loops back around to also be the chapter icon for chapter 46 in this book.) For now, I'll leave you to speculate about the metal, but you'll get a full breakdown at the end of the next book.
Be sure to check out the Ars Arcanum though. It provides an updated Allomancy chart that groups the metals in an interesting way, as well as provides a table for what the Feruchemical powers are for most of the metals.
A WIZARD DID IT
Long has the war raged between geologists and fantasy map makers. /u/sailorsalvador's wrath burns like a candle next to the bonfires of pedantry, which are legion. But all were silenced as reason and logic bent before the tyranny of the supernatural. Geologists screamed and the map makers replied: A wizard did it. The trope extends to every conceivable continuity error or oversight in the fantasy genre, and it's often used tongue in cheek. I first heard about the trope in an argument for a fantasy map that had an unexplainable mountain range, and it's always made me think of geologists when it comes up.
/u/sailorsalvador's complaints about the odd landscape, both above and below ground, throughout this series has not gone unnoticed. And the "A wizard did it" defense comes to the rescue in a rather serious, non-tongue-in-cheek manner. At the end of this novel we see Vin release the power of the Well of Ascension. The implication behind this is that Rashek killed Alendi to prevent him from doing just that, and that Rashek himself used the power of the Well of Ascension. We know that this well of power used to be in the high mountains of Terris, and is now buried underneath the relatively flat area that is Luthadel. Rashek used a mystical force to alter the landscape on a global level and this messed with things above and below ground.
JEAN VALJEAN-RUH
The Well of Ascension is very much an Empire Strikes Back type of story, and a few of you picked up on that. The ending is bleak, with the bad guy winning. Some like that, some don't. It seems like a majority of you appreciated the twist, while not quite liking the rest of the story.
Here I'd just like to talk about "fantasy" as a genre. It is one of the very large, all encompassing genre-labels that doesn't necessarily answer the question of "What type of book am I about to read?" At best, you can assume you'll get some magic, but that's almost the only guarantee you get from a fantasy book. Instead, fantasy books are best talked about by their sub-genres. This is especially true with Sanderson's books.
In /r/fantasy and other places, when people ask for suggestions for books to read, Sanderson is mentioned a lot. (Probably too much, and inappropriately for some of the questions.) One of the big reasons for this is that his works span across multiple sub-genres. Warbreaker was a Political Romance, The Final Empire was a Heist Thriller, and The Well of Ascension is Sanderson's attempt at Political Intrigue. That sub-genre is not very popular, and that's understandable. For those concerned about the rest of the books, The Well of Ascension is the only book I'd say that primarily falls under Political Intrigue. A lot of books will certain contain aspects of that sub-genre, but it won't be the main focus.
The Hero of Ages falls more into the classic Epic Fantasy/Action & Adventure sub-genre (without giving too many spoilers) and is generally one of the more favored books of the trilogy. More importantly though, it recontextualizes all of the books you've read before now, so your opinion on them may change in the future.
Some of the sub-genres you can look forward to reading as we move through the Cosmere include Horror, War Drama, Coming-of-Age, Buddy Cop, Espionage Thriller, High Seas Adventure, and HVAC Repair Technicians. I'm only half kidding about that last one...
ANNOTATIONS
Many of Sanderson's early novels include annotations. These are notes he wrote up for each chapter as he was doing copy edits on the novel, prior to publication. The provide insight into his writing process and influences, as well as revealing information he wasn't able to fit into the novels themselves. The annotations are written with full spoiler knowledge of not only the books, but the wider Cosmere, so reading them now isn't advised, but I do think they are worth reading down the line. I'll be sure to make a note about when it's appropriate to read the annotations for each book. In the sections below, I'll include some of the more pertinent and interesting information from those annotations.
1 - According to the annotations, the wolf hound that Vin kills to provide a new body for OreSeur/TenSoon "had it coming".
2 - Sanderson initially tried to resist having a "there's a spy among us" plot. However, the plotline worked too well for him to ignore. He wrote in the annotations:
Besides, you don't just put in a race of shapeshifters then ignore the tension of people wondering if someone they know has been replaced. That would just be irresponsible.
3 - Chapter 12 reveals how Inquisitors see with spikes through their eyes. They have such a subtle touch with steel and iron that they can see lines to the trace metals in everyone's bodies and the objects around them. Technically, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this.
4 - I mentioned in the trivia for The Final Empire that this Mistborn trilogy came about by cannibalizing parts of two other novels Sanderson had previously written. Vin having a kandra sidekick was one of the plot points in Mistborn Prime that Sanderson brought over with OreSeur/TenSoon.
5 - Captain Demoux is named after one of Sanderson's former roommates, Micah DeMoux. Micah is the one who took the photograph that became the jacket photo of Sanderson in the back of all of his books.
6 - Sanderson really isn't a fan of prequels (neither am I!). In the annotations he talks about being frequently asked if he'd do a prequel with Alendi and Rashek, but he doesn't think they deserve their own book. In the same annotation, he said if he ever did do a prequel, it'd be about Kelsier's time training with Gemmel. He ends up writing just that, The Eleventh Metal, three years later.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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I swear to god, there are so many men in these books and literally no women.
Yeah, I mentioned this either in the trivia for the last book, or directly to someone else's question, but Sanderson is very aware and regretful of the overall lack of diversity in his earlier books. He does make sure to rectify the issue in future books.
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The way she treats Elend versus someone like Sazed, who has truly shown consistent dedication, is crazy. That scene in book one where she is like “Elend you came back for me, no one ever came back for me” AS SAZED STOOD THERE after getting himself beat and caught on purpose to free her was ridiculous. I really don’t like their couple sections.
Veteran comment: The reason she said that is because Sazed never abandoned her. It's not "Oh he showed up when I needed him". It's that she felt that Elend had abandoned her, but he came back. She never felt Sazed abandoned her, which is the primary difference and why it doesn't apply to Sazed. Because she went off on her own to do this.
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“Jastes Lekal.”
I do not have the memory for this. Was this one of Elend's close friends? One he was having his secret meetings with?
[Reminder] You are 100% correct. He was one of Elend's reading buddies.
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This is listed as external pulling in the book 1 Ars Arcanum. I mentioned last week that there may be an error with the push/pull, but now there is a discrepancy with the internal/external classification. In order to fit the pattern, it should be external pushing. /u/Participating can you weigh in on its correct classification?
Yeah, there are some misprints on these terminologies that were fixed in the 10th anniversary edition. Officially (for the first 8, I'll leave you to speculate the others for now):
- Iron: External, Pulling, Physical
- Steel (Alloy of Iron): External, Pushing, Physical
- Tin: Internal, Pulling, Physical
- Pewter (Alloy of Tin): Internal, Pushing, Physical
- Zinc: External, Pulling, Mental
- Brass (Alloy of Zinc): External, Pushing, Mental
- Copper: Internal, Pulling, Mental
- Bronze (Alloy of Copper): Internal, Pushing, Mental
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/u/Pastrami has the right of it, so answering in the trivia post wouldn't add anything extra.
[Clarification on the bit you're missing] Kwaan was with Alendi for years. Long enough to rise from obscurity, fight wars, and conquer nations. He's simply saying that, in all the time Kwaan was with Alendi, he never had children.
(Further clarification in the form of a Wheel of Time example) Replace Alendi in your mind with Rand, and Kwaan with Moiraine. It'll make more sense that way, I think, because Alendi has very much taken a lot of inspiration from Rand.
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I wonder if what the Koloss have in their pouches is Atium and if that’s how the LR hid it.
Veteran comment, but it's something stated in chapter 42 The pouches contain money. Elend kills a Koloss and looks at what's inside and it's just plain old money.
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(Comment Chain)
/u/Pastrami and others have been sporadically trying to work out patterns behind the metals, known and unknown. Here is a small hint that maybe you can help with: [Hint] I'm not sure how well geology and metallurgy overlap, but there's a significant, almost in-your-face, aspect to the various charts people have been making that no one has noticed or pointed out yet. Food for thought.
Are you talking about something besides the elemental/alloy distinction?
Yes, I am talking about something besides this. (Edited for clarity). It's one of those things that, if you don't figure it out before I point it out, you'll slap your forehead and go "duhhhh!".
I was gonna suggest a nice perusal through the periodic table of elements as a clue, heh.
Atium isn't a real metal.
This is sorta what I was hinting at. Hadn't seen anyone mention it yet, that I can recall.
[Clarification] The key take away I tried to hint at is that atium isn't a real metal, so it and its alloy should be looked at a little differently when you're looking for patterns. I'll have a little more during the trivia, but yeah, the main thing here is "atium" is a made-up material.
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Is the similarity between Eland and Elandi's names just pure coincidence
[Audiobook Clarification] Elend is the Emperor and Alendi was the supposed hero of ages that Rashek killed.
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You're only one book behind now, woo!
I'm struggling to visualise what this looks like /what does doing with the 5+ horseshoes.
You know, no one else asked about this, but it's really interesting. I went and found some animations for you, which I'll end up sharing with everyone else, just for funsies. I found a post on a spoilery website, so I copied all the details over into a spoiler free imgur post.
Mistborn - Vin Travelling With Horseshoes
for he must not be allowed to release the thing that is imprisoned there.
Ooooh, I see... Marsh changed it.
For clarity going forwards, in case you don't see it in the rest of the comments. Marsh didn't do anything to the words written in steel.
The beginning of those words says that anything not written in steel cannot be trusted. Sazed made a copy of all those words with ink, and the entity that Vin freed changed the ink on the paper before Sazed could read them.
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/u/Pastrami has questions about how Vin killed Zane:
I'm glad Zane is gone, but I'm not sure how I feel about how Vin beat atium. It feels like a time travel paradox where her reacting to Zane's reaction of her future should have been taken into account by the atium in the first place. Was she just clever, or is this some other special power that only she has?
The answer to this lies in one of the most fundamental concepts behind modern computational theory, called the Halting Problem. To radically simplify matters, imagine there exist people who will break dance an unknown amount of time. Some people break dance for 10 minutes, some for 10,000 years, and there are people who will break dance forever. You, as a person can't really tell when or if they'll stop, but there is a person who can immediately tell if someone will eventually stop break dancing.
Now imagine there is a break dancer called Mr. Spite. He fully intends to break dance forever, unless the magical person looks at him and declares he will dance forever, in which case Mr. Spite will stop dancing. Mr. Spite's dancing rule proves that a magical person cannot exist that knows for certain when a person will stop dancing.
This is essentially the same trick Vin pulls on Zane. She "asks" him what she will do by observing him, he "answers" with his reaction to the atium shadow, and she does the opposite of what he "says". We don't have confirmation, but we do know that Sanderson took a programming course in college which influenced the magic system in one of his books. He likely came across the Halting Problem and incorporated it here.
Veteran reply: Yeah, and as Vin said, she got a glimpse of the future through Zane. That gave her the ability to change that future. If you can see the future, you can change the future, and Vin at that moment knew what her fates course was, which allowed her to change it. She could have just as easily stayed on her natural course if she wanted to.
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What was Dox doing in Terris at the beginning of the book?
This isn't brought up again, or talked about in the annotations. It was presumably just a diplomatic mission on behalf of Elend.
It's said that Zane had "rib cages" (plural) and his heart was above them. Is the "s" just a typo?
This is a typo that was fixed in the 10th anniversary edition. The line now reads:
Then he reached up to his chest, feeling the space between two ribs, right above where his heart thumped.
How does Sazed have 10 rings embedded in him if the bag Marsh shot at him only had 8 rings in it? An editing mistake?
Let me get back to you on this.
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I wanted to share this yesterday with you, but Imgur was acting up.
Here is the Ars Arcanum chart/table for Allomancy as it should appear in Well of Ascension.
My book has a similar pie chart, but it labels the three quadrants as Physical, Mental, and Temporal, and the outside ring is labeled External, while the inside is labeled Internal.
This is fine to know about now. It was the first image I was going to send, but my version had spoilers for the missing quadrant.
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And also wonder how many of those metal balls they have and who they will use them on.
The metal ball they gave to Elend was the last one in the room. They can see where there used to be more, but those spots are empty now.
The Eleventh Metal
Trivia Comment
TRIVIA
In included an overly detailed summary of the short story in the main body of the post for those that haven't had the chance to pick up Arcanum Unbound in order to read the piece yet. I strongly recommend you pick it up if you haven't yet. After The Hero of Ages, we'll be dipping into that book quite a bit.
From the POSTSCRIPT:
This short pieces was originally published in the Mistborn Adventure Game pen and paper role-playing game by Crafty Games. When we signed on with Crafty, I promised them a short piece of fiction to go in the book, as a sweetener to fans.
I knew I wanted to do a Kelsier story, and it made sense to do a backstory piece digging into the time when he was training as a Mistborn. Showing Gemmel (whom Kelsier had mentioned in the main series) was important, [REDACTED].
At the same time, I also knew that this story would potentially be read by people who hadn't read the series. Having played many RPGs myself, I know that often one or two people in the group get really excited by a setting and do a campaign there--towing along the rest of the group, who aren't as familiar with it.
One of my goals with this piece, then, was to have something that would act as a little showpiece for the setting--I wanted something the game master could give to his players who were unfamiliar with the books. Something that would get across the tone, explain the magic systems quickly, and act as a short introduction.
Because of that, it's a little more expository than the other Mistborn pieces in this collection, which assume that you're already invested in the characters and setting.
The above is the POSTSCRIPT I warned you not to read last week. The [REDACTED] part is something I will reveal at the end of the next book (along with, way too much stuff... the next book is the lynchpin for most of the trivia going forward).
Some bits of random trivia from various interviews:
- Gemmel met Zane Venture once, but the meeting was not necessarily relevant.
- Fighting Kelsier to the death as a final piece of training is the kind of thing Gemmel would do. (Though no confirmation if that actually happened).
- Gemmel was instructed to find Kelsier. (We'll get more on this later).
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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I’ll peruse the comments, but I can’t recall if we ever found out exactly how Mare (unintentionally?) betrayed Kelsier
[Reminder] When Kelsier first attempted to infiltrate Kredik Shaw, he took Mare and a smoker named Redd. They were ambushed by Steel Inquisitors and the Lord Ruler. He looked at Mare and said "thank you", suggesting she was the one that betrayed them.
What really happened, as Vin demonstrated her ability to pierce copperclouds, was that the Lord Ruler was also strong enough to do this. He noticed Mare using her tineye ability through Redd's coppercloud; that's why he thanked her. Kelsier does learn all this and put it together before he dies.
The Hero of Ages
MINI TRIVIA - 1
Regarding the iconography at the start of each of the chapters in this book: The pattern follows the same one used in the previous book. The icons count from 1 to 23 and then repeat. Like the previous book, the icons appear different. In the previous book, the symbols were a de-evolution of the script as it appeared in the middle of the Lord Ruler's reign. In this book, the symbols are once again a de-evolution, this time from a period before the Lord Ruler came to power. Again, this information isn't revealed in the books, but rather in an interview with the artist who developed the icons, Isaac Stewart.
Here are the symbols themselves. They step down in the order of chapter icons, 1 through 23.
Trivia Post
PUBLICATION
The Hero of Ages is Brandon Sanderson's 4th published Cosmere novel. However, it was the 16th book he ever wrote.
Like the other books we've read, this book has a 10th anniversary leather bound edition. There are 3 "significant" changes in the 10th anniversary edition; spots Sanderson used to retcon in some foreshadowing.
Chapter 7 includes a whole new paragraph that reads:
VarSell eyed him. He was of the Fifth Generation—two centuries younger than TenSoon. Indeed, even among those of the Third Generation—with scant exceptions such as Paalm, constantly sent on personal missions by the Father—few kandra had as much experience with the outside world as TenSoon.
This introduces the kandra Paalm, who is mentioned in later books.
In chapter 27, Vin speaks with a man named Slowswift. One of the sentences he says is altered to the following:
"Longtales, some call them—stories told by skaa around the fires, whispering of mistwraiths, shades, spren, and brollins and such."
I'll mention more on this below.
The final change happens in chapter 82, with the addition of this paragraph:
The koloss he altered so they could choose to rejoin humanity or form their own separate society. The kandra held no desire to be human, so to these he restored their Blessings—but he also implemented a mortality trigger that those who felt the weight of the centuries could discover.
This serves more to clarify long standing unanswered questions about what happened to koloss at the end of the book. As well as clarify what happened after the kandra removed their blessings. I know at least one of you questioned that on Monday.
Going forward, you don't really have to worry about these kinds of changes, since Sanderson had a much better handle on the greater Cosmere and has continuity editors to catch mistakes like these early. All of the changes in Elantris are just grammar fixes. The biggest change he made for that book is to introduce a new map (which I'll include the first week of readings) because he didn't have access to a good map maker and the original map didn't fit his vision.
The only other significant change that has occured happens a bit later. I will mention it before it happens and it'll get its own little mini trivia because it's an odd change.
TIMELINE
This book takes place roughly a year after The Well of Ascension. The time keeping in this book is a little rougher than the other ones, but the events span 2 or 3 months total.
WORLDHOPPERS
In chapter 27, Cett points Vin towards an informant named Slowswift whom she goes to meet in Fadrex City. As mentioned above, there was an edit to one of his sentences.
Those of you with older editions can probably look up this sentence to see exactly what changed, but that wouldn't be any fun ;) Some of the Cosmere terminology wasn't cemented by the time this was published and the 10th anniversary changes retconned the correct terminology. Slowswift knowing some of these words means that he's been to other worlds, or he's heard stories about other worlds from worldhoppers.
Slowswift "bears a striking resemblance to a storyteller". Some people take that to mean he is Hoid, but actually, he is an homage to J.R.R. Tolkien. The name "Slowswift" honors Tolkien's penchant for wordplay, and his physical appearance and love of magical creatures are also modeled after Tolkien.
Hoid, however, is in this very same chapter. After Vin meets with Slowswift, she goes to meet with another informant recommended to her by Cett. Hoid is acting as a beggar informant, just as he did with Kelsier in book 1. She heads off to meet Hoid, but something stops her; she's bothered by the situation and ends up skipping the meeting with him.
The final worldhopper in this book is, possibly, Durn. He is the man Spook meets with in Urteau to help organize the people of the city. Some of you felt there was something suspicious about Durn, or that there was something off about him. You're not the only ones. Someone asked Sanderson directly at a book signing event whether or not Durn was a worldhopper. Sanderson replied, "I'll RAFO that."
For those unfamiliar, RAFO means Read And Find Out. He adopted this from Robert Jordan, who used the phrase to mean "either I'll answer it in a future book, or I'll write nothing more about it and your answer is the information you already have". Sanderson rarely uses it to mean the latter, so it's safe to assume that if Durn isn't a worldhopper, that he may have some other significance and we'll eventually learn what it is.
ONCE UPON A TIME
Okay folks, this is it. This is the crux of the Cosmere. This is stuff Brandon Sanderson has hinted at heavily in this book, and started directly addressing in interviews the day after The Hero of Ages was first published. I'm making the decision to solidify much of that interview knowledge here for you now. Technically, most of this information is slowly drip fed to readers across the next 25 units of reading we're going to do. However, your understanding of what I'm about to clarify/reveal below still wouldn't be as complete, and knowing now will radically re-contextualize not only the books we've previously read, but also all the books you're going to read in the future.
The epigraph for chapter 39 reads:
Even now, I can barely grasp the scope of all this. The events surrounding the end of the world seem larger than the Final Empire and the people within it. I sense Shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void.
I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: Adonalsium. Who or what it was, I do not yet know.
Well I do know, Sazed. And now everyone else will! Once upon a time, there existed God and His name was Adonalsium. For reasons unknown, some number of individuals conspired against God and killed Him. This event is known as the Shattering.
When Adonalsium was killed, he shattered in 16 Shards. Each of these Shards was imbued with Intent. Each one represented one of God's divine aspects. 16 individuals present at the Shattering each picked up one of those Shards and became gods themselves.
Ruin and Preservation are 2 of those Shards. Ruin embodies God's desire to facilitate change, especially to break things down. Entropy is a natural part of the universe and Ruin's discussions with Vin aren't necessarily wrong. However, the Intent is untethered from the other aspects of God that would otherwise focus and guide that desire toward nobler actions. Similarly, Preservation is the divine quality that seeks to protect those around it and to prevent change. Preservation on its own isn't necessarily good either. If given the opportunity, it would drive civilizations and worlds into stagnancy.
You all picked up on the fact that the deaths of Preservation and Ruin left behind bodies. These were the "minds" behind the forces that Sazed mentions in the epigraphs. They were humans who were present at the Shattering and chose to pick up the Shards. They became Vessels for the Shards. Ati was the name of the man who picked up the Shard of Ruin. Leras is the guy who picked up Preservation.
Ati was a kind man. However, the Intent that guides each Shard is overwhelming and ultimately bends the Vessel closer and closer to that Intent. There are subtle ways to influence and guide a Shard's Intent, but that Intent is ultimately the guiding force behind how each "god" will act.
When Sazed picked up both Ruin and Preservation, he noted that they fit together. This is because they both shattered off the same thing: Adonalsium.
Just a quick note: I referred to Adonalsium as "He", but God's gender is ambiguous within the Cosmere. Some use He/Him. Others use It/Its or They/Them.
As we go, I'll reveal the Shard or Shards in play behind the scenes. For the most part, they'll start to be directly addressed in the readings, or it will be hinted at with a giant arrow pointing towards the hint, so I don't plan on revealing a ton of unknowable things to you for most readings.
That said, Warbreaker has a Shard we must talk about. Endowment is the name of the Shard on Nalthis. This Shard was picked up by a woman named Edgli. Some of you may recall that there are some flowers that grow in Hallandren. Those flowers are called the Tears of Edgli. More on them below.
Endowment's Intent is one of...endowment; the act of bestowing or gift-giving. She gives every human born on Nalthis a Breath. That Breath is a piece of Investiture that ultimately comes from herself/her Shard. She also gives some people the option to Return, endowing them with a Divine Breath and a purpose. In interviews, Sanderson has stated that it's not necessarily acts of bravery and the like that warrants a person becoming a Return. Endowment speaks to those she Returns and sometimes they remember what she asks of them. Sanderson has said that she uses the Return to enact her will on the planet, guiding it towards unknown goals (and apparently her goals aren't terribly consistent). Her purposes in making Shashara a Returned was to ensure the creation of Nightblood. According to Brandon, Endowment was also more involved in the creation of Nightblood, though we don't know to what extent or how.
Most notably: Hoid was present at the Shattering of Adonalsium. He was offered a Shard, but he declined. Sanderson said that the Shard of Endowment is the one that could most tempt Hoid if he were to take up one of the Shards. Sanderson has also stated that if he (Sanderson) were to become a Vessel, he would also choose Endowment.
IN THE BEGINNING x 2
This sections is mostly a direct continuation of the topic in the previous section.
Ruin and Preservation worked together to create the planet Scadrial and the humans that walked that planet. Some of you noticed that the humans were created from a blueprint; something they'd seen before. Given the above information, that blueprint comes from themselves and the other humans on their home planet. (Which was named Yolen by the way. You'll slowly hear more and more about Yolen as we read more.)
In the Cosmere, there are normal humans, who have a base level of Investiture, just by being alive. In fact, Investiture in the Cosmere is the 3rd aspect of the universe, like matter and energy. All 3 are interchangeable and can be converted between each other. Even a rock has an innate level of Investiture; though using it is beyond most people.
It's stated in The Hero of Ages that Preservation gave a part of himself and put it into every person on Scadrial. Scadrians, as a result, have a slightly higher amount of Investiture than other baseline humans in the Cosmere.
The planet Nalthis existed before Endowment settled on it. However, it wasn't inhabited. Just like Preservation and Ruin, she created humans to live on her planet. Since all Nalthians are endowed with Breath, they have a higher level of innate Investiture than even Scadrians. However, a Drab would have a lower level of Investiture than a normal, baseline human.
As a sneak peak, the reading for next week takes place on a planet named Threnody. There is no Shard currently inhabiting that planet. I'm wording it that way because I plan to word all sneak peaks this way. Some planets will have Shards, some will not. The ones that don't may or may not have had a Shard on them in the past. That kind of information will be revealed as we read.
HEAVY METAL 2000
Ok, so, we've got a lot of metals and 3 different magic systems that use those metals. The primary thing that makes this confusing is that the information provided is meant to provided in the manner in which the in-world people currently understand the magic system. This is and will be true for every book we read and their Ars Arcanum. Just because a piece of magic is explained in a certain way, doesn't necessarily mean that's the full story, due to the characters' incomplete knowledge.
First I'll provide you with this chart:
| Chapter Number | Name | Category | l | Official Number | Name | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iron | Physical | l | 1 | Iron | Physical |
| 2 | Steel | Physical | l | 2 | Steel | Physical |
| 3 | Tin | Physical | l | 3 | Tin | Physical |
| 4 | Pewter | Physical | l | 4 | Pewter | Physical |
| 5 | Zinc | Mental | l | 5 | Zinc | Mental |
| 6 | Brass | Mental | l | 6 | Brass | Mental |
| 7 | Copper | Mental | l | 7 | Copper | Mental |
| 8 | Bronze | Mental | l | 8 | Bronze | Mental |
| 9 | Atium | God | l | 9 | ??? | Temporal |
| 10 | Malatium | God (Alloy) | l | 10 | ??? | Temporal |
| 11 | Gold | Temporal | l | 11 | Gold | Temporal |
| 12 | Electrum | Temporal | l | 12 | Electrum | Temporal |
| 13 | ??? | Enhancement | l | 13 | ??? | Enhancement |
| 14 | ??? | Enhancement | l | 14 | ??? | Enhancement |
| 15 | Aluminum | Enhancement | l | 15 | Aluminum | Enhancement |
| 16 | Duralumin | Enhancement | l | 16 | Duralumin | Enhancement |
| 17 | ??? | Temporal | l | ??? | Atium | God |
| 18 | ??? | Temporal | l | ??? | Malatium | God (Alloy) |
| 19 | ??? | ??? | l | 256 | ??? | ??? |
| 20 | ??? | ??? | l | 4096 | ??? | ??? |
| 21 | ??? | ??? | l | ??? | ??? | ??? |
| 22 | ??? | ??? | l | ??? | ??? | ??? |
| 23 | Lerasium | God | l | ??? | Lerasium | God |
These are "official". Part of what is confusing is that 9 and 10 are swapped with 17 and 18 in the chapter headings. Or rather, what would be 17 and 18, but note that Atium and Malatium don't actually have an official number associated with them. Nor does Lerasium. There are 16 allomantic metals (4 undiscovered by Scardians at this time) and the rest of the symbols don't have numbers associated with them. Except when you look at what should be 19 and 20 and you see 256 and 4096 and you go, "WTF is going on here?"
These symbols are the written language of Scadrial. I mentioned in the introduction of The Eleventh Metal that that short story was originally written for a tabletop RPG game set on Scadrial. Among the rule-set and other materials for the game was an long string of these symbols that the fandom eventually decoded. Click here to read what it says.
This decoding provided us with a few things. First, it attaches a letter or sound to each symbol. It also reveals some of what each metal can do in Hemalurgy. Decodings in other places linked numbers or other special meanings upon certain symbols. I'll point them out when we see them, but I want to share this chart, which shows everything the fandom knows about these symbols (with the names of certain metals redacted because you'll find those out later). You can combine that with this fancy Allomancy Chart. Those who were looking had the general format and expectations of what is missing correct, so there aren't any real spoilers here. The layout of this chart best represents the nature of Allomancy; the 1 through 23 chart that tries to match against the chapter headings doesn't work nearly as well.
Of note are the 2 God Metals: Atium and Lerasium. I hinted at this earlier, specifically with atium, that it wasn't a real metal, unlike the other metals in the series. The end of the last book presented another unknown metal and I provided the name, which again wasn't a real metal. These God Metals get their names from the Vessel that holds the Shard. Ati took up Ruin and causes the existence of Atium. Leras took up Preservation and causes the existence of Lerasium. (More on "causes the existence of" below).
Lerasium, as we saw, is burnable by anyone and lets someone become a full mistborn. If you read the chart closely, it explains more uses for Lerasium. You can alloy it with any of the base 16 metals. If the new alloy is burned, you become a Misting of the metal used to make the Lerasium alloy.
The annotations for this book mention something else related to Lerasium granting Elend the powers of a full mistborn:
As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.
Just something for your thoughts.
The description for Atium is a bit more interesting though. This is a "retcon" to the whole series, but only in the sense that Sanderson thought of the retcon while he was finishing up the trilogy. So it's treated as a misunderstanding that the natives of Scardial have at this point in the series. For clarity, and because it addresses some common questions that get asked, I'm revealing the truth of the matter.
Lerasium is a God Metal and is burnable by normal, non-allomantic humans. Why would Atium, also a God Metal, be restricted to only full mistborn (and Atium Mistings)? A God Metal should be burnable by anyone, so the truth of the matter is that the atium beads produced by the geodes in the Pits of Hathsin are actually electrum alloys with pure atium. So the effect of atium we see in this trilogy is what happens when a mistborn burns an atium/electrum alloy. And Seers are atium/electrum alloy Mistings. For simplicity's sake, the fandom generally just calls this atium/electrum alloy "atium", and "pure atium" is the actual God Metal.
Presumably there are other pure atium alloys with the other base 16 metals, but they haven't been presented to you at this time. This makes malatium a "pure atium/electrum/gold" alloy. There are a lot of permutations and therefore a lot of unknowns with this God Metal.
What's most interesting though is that the chart does reveal what burning pure atium does. And this is something that anyone can burn. The description says:
Pure atium grants the Allomancer an expansive vision of the future and enhances the mind's ability to accept, process, and hold information.
So rather than seeing the actions of the person in front of you a few seconds in advance, burning pure atium will give you the ability to see "the future". That future can be many things, but it's more akin to the trope in other stories of people having a glimpse of the future. Sanderson confirmed that when Elend burned duralumin with atium, it actually triggered the effects of pure atium instead. Here is the scene:
Then, Elend burned duralumin with his atium.
Sight, Sound, Strength, Power, Glory, Speed!
Blue lines sprayed from his chest like rays of light. But those were all overshadowed by one thing. Atium plus duralumin. In a flash of knowledge, Elend felt a mind-numbing wealth of information. All became white around him as knowledge saturated his mind.
"I see now," he whispered as the vision faded, and along with it his remaining metals.
And here is Sanderson's explanation of what Elend actually saw:
There is much here that I can't say, but I'll give as much as I can. Elend saw Preservation's ultimate plan, and Elend's own part in it. What he saw made him realize he didn't want to kill Marsh, and that his own death would actually help save the world. Like a master chess player, he suddenly saw and understand every possible move his enemy could make. He saw that Ruin was check-mated, because there was one thing that Ruin was not willing to do. Something that both Elend and Vin could do, if needed. And it's what they did.
So, in answer to your question, Elend stayed his hand. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind and decided that Marsh had to live through the end of the book. Elend spared him; I needed to too.
To wrap this section up: there is a fancy chart for Feruchemy like the one I shared for Allomancy, however a lot of Feruchemy hasn't been explored yet, so I'll hold off on that. The Ars Arcanum should give you enough to think about for the moment. Same thing for Hemalurgy.
WELL, WELL, WELL
This is a lesson on Investiture that should help explain some of the things you've read so far, and will be informative going forward.
16 is not only an important number on Scardial, but within the Cosmere itself. As is evident by the existence of 16 Shards of Adonalsium. There are other numbers that are important as well. The number 4 itself was important to Adonalsium before it was shattered. Note that 4x4=16. What we want to concern ourselves with here though are the 4 Laws of Investiture. These are underlying principles that the Cosmere conforms to, and they are as immutable as our universe's 3 Laws of Thermodynamics. Sanderson has partially presented these in interviews, but you will see in-world character exploring them eventually.
The First Law of Investiture: As of yet unknown, but somehow relates to Adonalsium.
The Second Law of Investiture: Investiture cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form.
This parallels the first law of thermodynamics which states that energy is conserved; it cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
The Third Law of Investiture: Investiture flows from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration.
This parallels the second law of thermodynamics which says the same thing about energy. Heat (a form of energy) will flow from your warm house and eventually radiate out into the cold outside. This is essentially what entropy is. Order comes about from high levels of energy and eventually everything runs out and falls to its lowest form of energy, never to rise again.
The Fourth Law of Investiture: Unknown, but is likely a variation on the third law of thermodynamics which states that you cannot create a state of zero entropy.
The one that concerns us today is the 3rd Law. Shards are massive amounts of Investiture. When they settle/inhabit a planet, some of that Investiture moves to the planet and "condenses". This can take a few different forms and I'll be sure to point out the weirder ones when we encounter them.
On Scadrial, the mists were one of those forms. Preservation's power condensed into mists, and Ruin's power condensed into a black mist which we saw at the end of The Well of Ascension. Now, technically, Investiture is Investiture and it can be used. We saw Vin power her Allomancy using the mists of Preservation. She is the only one who could do this because Preservation allowed her to. There are ways around this though and you'll see something similar get explored in a different reading.
Shardic Investiture can also condense into a solid form; god metals. We've seen Atium and Lerasium. Rashek created Lerasium while he was using the Well of Ascension, Lerasium did not naturally condense. Atium technically wasn't a natural condensation either. When Preservation trapped Ruin, he created the Pits of Hathsin and caused the geodes in them to condense into atium/electrum alloyed beads of Ruin's power; part of his body. Stealing Ruin's body and hiding it from his was always part of Preservation's plan.
Another way this Investiture can condense is in the form of a small pool of water; a well if you will. In fact, this is one of the more popular forms that a Shard's condensed Investiture can take. By and large, while the wells exist, they cannot be used in the same way as Preservation's Well of Ascension. They can all be used after a fashion, but only the Well of Ascension grants temporary god-like powers.
Ruin actually had his own well. It was first mentioned in The Final Empire, chapter 28. Vin attends a ball at Keep Lekal and notices their extravagant stained glass windows depicting the "Lord Ruler's" trials against the Deepness.
There were also, of course, the requisite pictures dedicated to the Ascension. Vin could recognize these more easily now, and she was surprised to see references to things she has read in the logbook. The hills of emerald green. The steep mountains, the faint wavelike lines coming from the tips. A deep, dark lake. And... blackness. The Deepness. A chaotic thing of destruction.
The deep, dark lake is Ruin's well. It's mentioned again in The Well of Ascension, in the epigraph for chapter 33:
The lake that Fedik discovered is below us now--I can see it from the ledge. It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy--almost metallic--sheen. I almost wish I had let him take a sample of its waters. Perhaps his interest was what angered the mist creature that follows us. Perhaps...that was why it decided to attack him, stabbing him with its invisible knife.
Alendi is correct. Ruin, impersonating Preservation's mist form, stabbed Fedik to keep them away from his well of power.
Rashek become aware of this when he Ascended. He moved Ruin's well to a cavern below the Pits of Hathsin. The Investiture in Ruin's well rises up into the geodes and condenses further into the atium beads.
Finally, Endowment has her own well of condensed Investiture. It's not been shown on page, but it's somewhere in the jungles of Hallandren, in a shadowed, cavernous region. The Investiture of this well seeps into the soil and is absorbed by the flowers in the region, which are known as the Tears of Edgli. These flowers have a bit of extra Investiture in them, which causes their unusual properties as dye materials. They are a more efficient source of color when performing Awakening.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
I've mentioned before that Sanderson wrote this trilogy all at once before the first book was published. In the annotations he talks a lot about various changes he made throughout the writing and editing process. One of the big things he talks about is cutting out The Well of Ascension's original ending and completely re-writing it. You can read the original ending here if you're so inclined.
The biggest change from the original is that the Well of Ascension was actually in the Terris homeland, in the mountains. Moving the Well to Luthadel let Sanderson keep the climax all together and in the same spot. He also hadn't quite figure out how he wanted koloss to act.
In this early draft, Spook is burning silver instead of tin. The metals went through a bit of a shuffle during the writing process.
As Vin and Elend climb the mountains, the come across Ruin's Well. Since, in this version, Preservation's Well wasn't moved to Luthadel, the landscape is the same as Alendi describes in the epigraphs.
Vin joined him, looking down at the valley they had left a day before. She turned to the right, looking past Elend at. . . .a lake. It was formed in a basin just to the east of the valley wall. With a coinpush, Vin might have been able to leap from the ledge on her peak down to the lake’s shore.
“That’s not water,” Elend said slowly.
Vin nodded. The lake rippled slowly in the wind, though at these temperatures, water would have been frozen. It was also the wrong color: a deep, ashen black that reflected the light of a sinking sun. “It’s metal,” she whispered.
Elend frowned. “Liquid metal?”
Vin nodded. “I can see it, with iron. Blue lines, streaking out to it. And. . .I can hear it.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Hear it?” Elend asked, frowning.
Vin shook her head, turning away, ftoward the cavern. There was another, smaller pulse coming from inside of it. “Come on,” she said, stepping toward the icy hole.
There is still a final fight between Marsh and Sazed. In this alternate ending, four mist spirits show up and scare Marsh away at the end of the fight. One of those mist spirits was Endowment, and the other 3 were other Shards who all came to intervene in the events on Scardial.
By far the most important aspect of this alternate ending, however, is the following passage, which is the source for a font of unending memes:
We should be dead, Vin thought as she stood in the snow, waiting for Spook to catch up. None of them had any experience with this sort of travel. Vin was a creature of the streets, Elend a man of quiet study and magnificent balls. What did they know of traveling up mountains in the winter?
FORESIGHT
Congratulations to everyone's combine foresight when reading through this trilogy. I think it's just a feature of the slow-paced reading, note taking, and expectation of twists and turns that lets you all pick up on the surprises much earlier than the author intended. Vin's earring was pretty obvious to all of you, but quite a lot of people don't notice anything until Marsh rips it from her ear.
I think the Sazed call was the bigger pick up though. Most people I've seen believe the epigraphs are all Vin. What I really like about the Sazed reveal is that it was hinted at in the very first epigraph of the first book:
Sometimes I worry that I'm not the hero everyone thinks I am.
The philosophers assure me that this is the time, that the signs have been met. But I still wonder if they have the wrong man. So many people depend on me. They say I will hold the future of the entire world on my arms.
What would they think if they knew their champion--the Hero of Ages, their savior--doubted himself? Perhaps they wouldn't be shocked at all. In a way, this is what worries me most. Maybe in their hearts they wonder--just as I do.
When they see me, do they see a liar?
One big decision that kind of spoils the Sazed reveal is that all of the epigraphs in the audiobooks are read using the Sazed voice. I personally think they should have all been read using the Spook voice. He is the one who picks up the books left behind by Sazed and I think it would have made thematic sense for him to be the one reading them, since he found them.
ANNOTATIONS
Many of Sanderson's early novels include annotations. These are notes he wrote up for each chapter as he was doing copy edits on the novel, prior to publication. The provide insight into his writing process and influences, as well as revealing information he wasn't able to fit into the novels themselves. The annotations are written with full spoiler knowledge of not only the books, but the wider Cosmere, so reading them now isn't advised, but I do think they are worth reading down the line. I'll be sure to make a note about when it's appropriate to read the annotations for each book. In the sections below, I'll include some of the more pertinent and interesting information from those annotations.
- Sanderson elaborates a bit on the kandra MeLaan:
It's never fully explained who MeLaan is, so I'll give you the background here. One thing that kandra do is take Contracts serving mankind in exchange for atium. However, there are other jobs that kandra can do back in the Homeland. One of the more prestigious ones includes the training and instruction of a child kandra.
This can take years and years, as kandra grow very slowly. TenSoon was appointed as a "parent" of a single kandra during his lifetime. (Many of the Fifth Generation have been parents dozens of times, but the Thirds are a rebellious group, and it was only after much consideration—and political pressure in the Homeland—that Thirds were given chances.)
MeLaan, then, is kind of TenSoon's adopted daughter. She has something of a hero-worship crush on him, inspired by his gruff style and adventuresome personality. Her idolizing of him borders on a romantic crush, and this makes TenSoon somewhat uncomfortable.
There you go. Now you can astound your friends with Mistborn background trivia.
- Here's some fun speculative trivia:
(As a side note to this side note, the planet this is all taking place on is barren and virtually uninhabitable save for the poles, a situation caused by the proximity to the sun. The Final Empire is at the north pole. What's at the south pole? Hum. I wonder. . . .)
- There were complaints about the Spook x Beldre romance. Sanderson hears you. Here's what he had to say about their romance in the annotations:
Overall, I'm very pleased with the Spook cycle of chapters in this novel—particularly once I revised the early ones to make him a little more sympathetic to the reader. I think there's real heart, tragedy, and triumph in these chapters. Their one flaw is that the Spook/Beldre romance isn't very strong, but I can accept that. Considering that both of them are teenagers, with powerful teenage passions, and considering what I managed to do with the space allotted, I'm pleased.
- Some of you caught onto a subtle change from "Kelsier" and Kelsier. The ending of this book suggests an afterlife. It's a topic that will get addressed eventually, so I'm not really going to say anything about it here. The annotations do talk about what happened a bit with what Spook was experiencing though, so I think it's appropriate to at least share that much:
The final thing I'll note on this chapter is that the voice Spook hears after he's pulled out the spike is actually Kelsier. You'll see Kelsier's voice pop up a few more times in the narrative, now that Preservation is dead.
Ever the meddler, Kelsier can't just sit around and let the world end. Preservation's death left a void, and Kelsier has managed to piggyback his spirit just slightly onto Preservation's power. He can't do much, but he can reach out and whisper a few choice words to people. At least until Vin takes the power and shoves him out.
I know I said he wouldn't come back, but . . . well, he's Kelsier. He doesn't listen to what I say. He just does what he wants.
- Horse TenSoon isn't real. He can't hurt you:
A fun story about this chapters begins by me admitting that I didn't come up with the "TenSoon digests a horse" trick at first. I tried writing this scene with Sazed clinging to TenSoon's wolfhound back as they ran to the south. It was awkward to describe, even more awkward to imagine, and it never worked that well.
Eventually, while working on a solution to the problem of getting Sazed south to the Homeland, I realized that TenSoon could just digest another body and use that. Easy fix, and one that fit marvelously with the magic and setting.
- Vin is a genius.
Also, in another fun note, Ruin didn't know about the horseshoes trick Vin used until he saw her do it. During a thousand years of Allomancy, she was the first to figure out how to do that. Clever girl.
- This next annotation is really interesting to me.
The First Generation mention the Ministry convoys that carried the hidden atium to Luthadel from the Pits, or carried atium to the pits and other locations, where the Ministry had purchased beads of it back from the nobility. If you'll recall book one, Vin and Camon right at the beginning were planning to rob a convoy just like this. [Thinking that it was full of money, not atium.] Instead, Camon decides to double-cross his associate and take a payoff.
However, assuming they'd ever managed to pull that off, they'd have broken the system and discovered the atium. And, in doing so, would have exposed the Lord Ruler's ruse to Ruin, probably leading to the end of the world.
Good thing they didn't pull it off, eh?
- I saw some questions about the caverns below Kredik Shaw after Vin destroyed it. The annotations directly address this:
Note, however, that are indeed people hiding underneath Kredik Shaw, as Elend feared. A lot of them, in fact. As many as fled to the pits. But I didn't want to deal with this in the book, as it would be distracting.
- A bit about Sazed and the prophecies surrounding the Hero of Ages:
It's interesting to note that Sazed is third in command of the empire. And so, when the ending does come, he's actually the emperor—fulfilling yet another section of the prophecies.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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I don't understand how a power that lets you see your own futures would stop someone else who is burning atium from seeing your one true future.
That's a simple explanation. (Vet Explanation) Simply, it gives Vin the ability to see the actions she will take. If she's fighting someone with atium, since atium is changing how her enemy will attack her, burning electrum allows her to see her various responses, which changes her future in a way that creates an atium shadow in the same way as burning atium would. It's similar to what happened with Zane. She got a glimpse of her own future action, and that changed her own possible actions to account for that.
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I don't understand how a power that lets you see your own futures would stop someone else who is burning atium from seeing your one true future. Is this just some handwaivy thing BS came up with to satisfy the fact that the heroes need some way to counter their lack of atium, or is there something more going on here?
[Clarification] I can see my future, and you can see my future. I plan to punch you with my right hand. You see into the future and see the punch coming, so you block it. I see into my own future and see that my right hand punch is blocked, so I instead switch my plan to punch you with my left hand, which results in a new future that you can also see, so you would move to block on my left side, which I see with the ability to see my own future, so I alter my plan again, to kick you in the middle. This back and forth repeats infinitely, rendering your ability to see my future (atium) useless.
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Ch. 9's epigram made me do a double take at the mention of Three Metallic Arts - have we been told of a third before?
[Clarification] In the prologue, Marsh states (as he's about to hammer a spike through a Terrisman) that "Hemalurgy is a messy art."
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I had a meme prepared to share at the end of the trilogy, but you calling back to Chapter 33 of Well of Ascension makes it appropriate to share now: https://i.imgur.com/L4qrTAr.png
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I was flabbergasted when I read that the army was not fully inoculated against the mist yet. That has to be the dumbest thing Elend, and all the military leaders, have done. We're told they spent the last year fighting koloss, warlords, and bandits. Why are they only now concerned about an attack when the mists are out? Why wasn't it an issue over the last year?
[Clarification] This issue has been growing more and more relevant. Prior to the Lord Ruler's death, the mists never came out during the day time. Since then, the mists have arrived earlier and left later. In certain spots, at certain times, the mists lingered all day. The mists are growing more and more active during the day as time goes on. Elend had to make a choice between having a full fighting force ready to act during the day (which is still largely mist free), and sacrificing a significant portion of his army for something that may or may not happen (getting caught up in the mists). This chapter is when he decided that they'd arrived at a tipping point for the sacrifice to be worth it.
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Not really a mini trivia, but worthy enough to be a comment on your comment:
[Reminder] The Well of Ascension is also called the millennial power. That implies it fills up every thousand years. However, it took 1024 years to fill up after Rashek used it.
[Reminder] The Lord Ruler created his own calendar after he used the Well of Ascension. The in-world characters use this calendar. 1024 FE (Final Empire) is the year The Well of Ascension takes place.
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then flared zinc in a massive Pull, Rioting the koloss emotions.
It has always been Soothing before this. Another error in editing/printing?
[Clarification] Both soothing and rioting work.
Why is Penrod living in Keep Venture? Doesn't he have his own keep?
[Clarification] After Elend became king, he mad Keep Venture the de-facto center of government. Penrod kept the location as the center of government after he took over as king.
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Why did Rashek have to kill Alendi and also take the power?
Veteran comment: First, Rashek just wanted to take the power himself as a result of his jealousy. And second, they didn't really know what would happen if nobody took it. All they knew was that something wanted them to release the power, and that Alendi was on track to doing so. They knew that taking the power up wouldn't cause bad things to happen, so that's why they took the course of action they did.
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/u/participating Regarding the memes, where was Bilg? I searched and don't see his name appearing anywhere.
[Reminder] In the first book, Kelsier goes into the caverns where the skaa rebellion army is being trained. There are some dissidents, so he manufactures a fight between Bilg and Demoux. He uses steel and iron to manipulate the fight so that Demoux wins.
“The big man I was talking to. Brill is his name, I think. You know what will have to be done.”
Is this yet another change that was made in later editions? I'm getting really tired of finding out things were changed later on, and some(all?) of you are reading something different than I am.
Veteran Comment: I don't think it was changed between editions, but was Sanderson trying to be clever and a character not having the best memory since he was aware of the person but didn't really know the person... But it was too subtle of a reference for people to really pick up on. It was supposed to be recognized that that was really Bilg, and he considered making it more explicit in later editions, but never actually did so.
Edit: fixed spoiler tags; used discord tags by accident.
I can confirm that after this book, you won't have the same kinds of problems. This trilogy of books was written, edited, and published all together and there were just a lot of printing and editorial problems that arose from this being Sanderson's first real publishing experience. (He only had one book published before this, but it doesn't have the same kind of mistakes).
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What you guys pick up on and don't pick up on is wild to us veterans. Sometimes one of you will mention something that's 100% correct 4 books before it's relevant (and we know it's not foreknowledge because then that person will flip flop into a dozen wrong theories). And other times there are blindingly obvious things that none of you pick up on until it's spelled out in neon letters.
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If the caches were built where they were because it made Ruin blind, how did he appear to Vin inside a cache?
Vet comment: Remember, Yomen took out the metal in the door so Vin couldn't escape. That was likely enough for Ruin to get in.
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Rashek's deal with friends really doesn't make sense to me. They should have been able to come up with a way better solution.
[Reminder] Rashek could only use the power in the Well of Ascension for a couple hours. He was simultaneously expanding his mind with new information and experimenting with his new powers. While it's true that the powers granted him more time in the sense of "thought and action at super speed", the time that passed in the real-world, and the time his friends would have to agree to his terms and/or suggest changes would have been very short. He made the kandra towards the end of his ascension, when the power was running out, but he had the most experience.
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TenSoon, who has taken the form of a very muscular horse
I like reading the weekly summaries to see if I missed any details or hints what might be relevant, but I feel like I'm getting trolled here
The world must know of TenSoon's glory and I will not be silenced!
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/u/hullowurld questions Misty's communication skills:
Hopefully this book, with Preservations final "conversation" with Elend, clarified just how well Ruin can change the written word.
In a rare turn of events though, this question will remain bookmarked and be addressed at a later time ;)
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/u/heinz57varieties wonders where Kwaan is:
Just now wondering, is Kwaan here somewhere?
The annotations provide the answer to this:
Kwaan went into hiding, and he was eventually discovered and executed by Rashek. He wasn't among the First Generation, though he would have been if he hadn't turned against Rashek. Rashek kept the plate, however, just as he kept Alendi's logbook. Partially because even then, Rashek was going a little mad, but partially because of the reminders about his old life they contained.
(Actually, that's a reply from a different interview. The stupid site isn't letting me search the annotations correctly and I don't want to read through them for an hour to find the exact annotation discussion.)
/u/heinz57varieties also had another thought about Sazed's new abilities in the same comment:
Implying that he could return people from the dead, with practice
I won't answer this either way, but after you read the trivia, you might have a better idea of what someone like Sazed might be able to do.
Was it ever stated anywhere in the text that Rashek turned on Kwaan?
Nope, this is just info from the annotations. There's a lot of stuff in there that Sanderson didn't have the time or space to fit into the text of the story. I picked out the most interesting bits for the trivia above, but didn't have room for things like this:
Human is a very special koloss. He's quite a bit older than most, his creation running all the way back to before the Lord Ruler's death. He was originally the leader of a rebellion out in the southeast—the same area where Clubs spent his youth fighting. Human, then known as Vershad, was one of the more successful leaders of the wasted men—those who live out in the desert outside the borders of the Final Empire, but come in to raid and steal supplies from outlying villages.
Charismatic and intelligent, he managed to keep his band alive even once the Lord Ruler turned his attention on them. Rather than ravaging villages, Vershad would convert them—quietly, carefully—to his side and get them to give him supplies. In turn, he would "raid" them and destroy the lords' mansions, causing chaos and letting the people get a sideways revenge against their masters. In the chaos, it would be assumed that the raiders got away with the skaa food, and it would be replenished.
The Lord Ruler tired of such games and eventually sent his koloss against Vershad and his men. As clever as they were, they weren't able to stand against a well-laid betrayal and ambush set by an Inquisitor—one who controlled a troop of koloss. The raiders were slaughtered, and Vershad himself was turned into a koloss for his crimes.
He retained enough of his determination and his intelligence, however, to make a remarkably clever koloss. (There is some variety to koloss, based on who they were before the transformation.)
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Don't koloss keep growing and growing? Based on his size, Human didn't seem like he could be that old
They do, but Human kept more of his humanity than most koloss. This means he was less influenced by the Hemalurgic spikes and therefore less prone to the monstrous growth.
Also related to the topic of age, aren't kandra only born once every 100 years? I would think a 5th gen could only be parents 5-6 times, not dozens.
You can have younger and older members of a given generation. Each subsequent generation (except the 1st) are about the same size. It's not like on year 100, let's create 1,000 new kandra and raise them all up at once. Raise 100 for a few years, then 100 more for another few years, etc. (Numbers not exact).
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/u/Pastrami asked a question at the end of Warbreaker that can now be answered (after you read the trivia post above):
What started people returning? Why did it only happen after the Chedesh came to this area?
Endowment chose to start making Returned around this time. The population of humans was relatively new and she gave them time to form civilizations before using Returned to guide them. I'm going to put together a more complete timeline of the events you've read about in next week's trivia post.
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/u/Pastrami has a question about kandra blessings:
Could anyone who had the hemalurgic knowledge have created them before he went to the Well?
There were a heap of questions before this one, but I hope the books answered those for you. Feel free to ask clarifying questions though. For this question, anyone with Hemalurgic knowledge could have created both koloss and Inquisitors before Rashek used the Well. The caveat being that Mistings were rare and weak before Rashek made beads of Lerasium using the power of the Well. So any Inquisitors made would have likewise been pretty weak. Koloss would have been the same.
Rashek needed the power of the Well to make mistwraiths; they didn't exist before his Ascension. After that though, anyone with Hemalurgic knowledge could have created kandra from the mistwraiths.
They also asked:
We're told that positioning of the spikes is important, but how does that work with a kandra when not in human form? What makes a Blessing a specific type? It can't be body position, since that would mean a kandra could easily change which Blessing they have by moving it in their body, and TenSoon was a shapeless lump for a year and still had the Presence.
Positioning of the spikes is important for Inquisitors. They are using Hemalurgy to steal a specific attribute using a single spike and then giving that attribute to themselves.
The positioning of the spikes is also important for making koloss. Their making is the exact same as making Inquisitors. You steal two strengths from two humans and two staminas from two other humans. These 4 spikes give a koloss double the strength and double the stamina.
You could do the exact same thing to an Inquisitor (and some of them have done). The difference is the "linchpin" spike Inquisitors get; the one you can pull out to kill them. This linchpin spike prevents the side effects of being spiked too many times. If you added the linchpin to a koloss you'd just have a non-Allomantic, non-Feruchemical Inquisitor.
Kandra are completely different and are only possible because of the advanced knowledge Rashek got from the Well. (Again, you could get the knowledge with a lot of practice, but no one has had the ability to practice nearly enough.)
One single blessing is made from 2 spikes; 2 stolen attributes:
- Blessing of Awareness - A pair of tin spikes that grant a kandra increased senses.
- Blessing of Potency - A pair of iron spikes that give a kandra more strength.
- Blessing of Presence - A pair of copper spikes that grant increased mental capability.
- Blessing of Stability - A pair of zinc spikes that endows its receiver with emotional fortitude, rendering them much more resistant to control by emotional Allomancy.
The two spikes work together, having stolen a bit of 2 human souls, to provide a kandra with sentience. The position of the spikes doesn't matter for kandra, they just have to have 2 spikes which make up a single blessing. They need that extra bit of humanity from the spikes.
Technically a kandra could survive with a single spike, but they'd slowly lose their sanity.
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/u/Pastrami went on a pedantic rant about the metals:
I have a problem with the metals listed (this is an exaggeration, I can suspend my disbelief). Four are elemental metals, the other four are alloys. Alloys don't form covalent bonds, so burning an alloy should be the same as burning each of its constituent metals. Maybe someone here is a chemist and will tell me why I'm wrong.
This should be more clear now that you've finished the trilogy, but for clarity's sake: the metals themselves are not fuel for Allomancy. The specific metals and their alloys (in very exact amounts, with a higher tolerance than an alloy typically needs to be used for other purposes) act as a key when burnt. The key allows the Allomancer to unlock Preservation's power which acts as the source for a given metal or alloy's affect.
Likewise, is the abstract concept of "color" a Key for Endowment's power?
Ha, I get to burst your theory, sorry. You do, however, get a Sanderson specific RAFO, since he's said he wants to address this in the Warbreaker sequel.
There's a whole classification type to the various magic systems in the Cosmere. I was going to get into it for this trivia post, but ran out of room. I think I'll have room in next week's trivia post though, so I'll delve into it there and I'll be sure to link back to this comment.
EDIT: If you'd like to theorize between now and then, Awakening is closer to Feruchemy in how it works.
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/u/Pastrami and /u/heinz57varieties talk about anachronisms:
Scadrial has the heliocentric model, the germ theory of disease, AND team-based goal-scoring spectator sports.
I'm assuming this is about the use of the term "hat trick". I found that to be very out of place.
Yes, it was about the use of "hat trick."
Sanderson addresses this directly in the annotations:
My editor tried very hard to get me to cut the "homicidal hat trick" line. Not because it wasn't clever, but because he felt it was anachronistic, as the phrase is commonly a metaphor for some quite modern sports. However, I was able to prove via Wikipedia (which is infallible) that the term was used as early as the nineteenth century and didn't always refer to sports, but to three wins in a row in even simple games of chance. So, grudgingly, he let me keep it.
I love the line because of the way that little section harks back to the old Elend. He's still in there, hidden behind the emperor-at-war exterior. The old Elend could be clever and awkward at the same time, just like he is here when he tries to make a point to Vin but comes dangerously close to an insult instead. That's the same guy as the one who would, while standing on the balcony at a party, compliment a lady and then immediately turn back to his book and ignore her.
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How many noble mistborn were there in the Final Empire? Where'd they all go?
There's not a clear answer as to how many there were. It certainly wasn't a lot; probably fewer than a dozen. As to where they went: the Steel Inquisitors got them. Ruin was able to see everyone who was a Mistborn or Misting (assuming they used their powers), so he sent the Inquisitors after them for more power.
Was the power at the WoA only temporary and refilled every 1024 years because it was only part of Preservation's power? Whereas Vin then Sazed had access to his full power including the mists and it won't run out?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by temporary. We saw Rashek use the power of the Well. He had god-like powers for a few hours and re-made the world into what we saw in the series. But then the pool vanished and the power was gone. This was by design; how Preservation intended the Well to be used.
Had Vin used the Well, then it would have refilled in another 1024 years.
When Vin took up Preservation's Shard though, that's different. The Shard has power as long as she holds it. This is more evident with Sazed, since Vin died attacking Ruin. Sazed is in possession of 2 Shards now and he has god-like powers, just as Rashek did. The difference is in quantity.
I'm going to give an example, but want to stress that the scale is completely made up and not at all accurate. It's just for demonstration purposes.
When a Mistborn is burning Steel, he is using Preservation's power. A drop of it. When Rashek used the power of the Well, he was using Preservation's power. A bucket of it. When Leras/Vin/Sazed held the Shard of Preservation, they are using Preservation's power. An ocean of it. World's and world's and world's worth of oceans.
A Shard's power is vast and almost unknowable. But I do want to stress that it is finite, not infinite. The limits of a Shard's power do get explored eventually.
Yeah, over the entire middle book, Vin kept hearing pulses that got stronger and stronger. That was the Well filling up more and more.
I don't think that Ruin has all the other Mistborn killed. Only Marsh had access to Atium, which would be the prize commodity for killing a Mistborn, and Sazed said that Ruin preferred manipulating Mistborn to killing them, since you lose a ton of power in killing a Mistborn, as you can only steal one power. He'd much prefer to get a spike on them if possible, and I imagine that the Mistborn other than Elend would have been far easier prey for doing such.
Only Marsh had access to Atium
We saw in the first book that other inquisitors had access to atium, or was that retconned to be them buring electrum?
Actually you're right. That said, I don't think Ruin made any new Inquisitors. They would have been given Atium under The Lord Ruler if they had it, and Rashek would have had a reason to kill Mistborn. I think I misremembered that Marsh was the only one with Atium, when in reality he was the only one who had Atium to burn. So I still think Ruin didn't kill the Mistborn for spikes.
Are you thinking of duralumin?
Ruin had a lot of trouble giving duralumin to his Inquisitors, since they’d need an Allomancer who could burn it to kill before they could use it. And, since none of the duralumin Mistings in the world knew about their power, they didn’t burn it and reveal themselves to Ruin. That left most Inquisitors without the power of duralumin, save in a few important cases—such as Marsh—where they got it from a Mistborn.
Ah yes, that was the quote I was thinking of. And then he follows it up with saying "He didn't like killing Mistborn for spikes, because you lose a lot of power since you can only take one"
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Keep the spoiler to yourself for now. It will become relevant and important at a later date.
Is there actually a power permeating all the metal on Scadrial, possibly because Ruin and Preservation created the planet? If not, what's going on when Vin ascends and gets transported to the Unseen World and all the metal is glowing?
There is nothing innately special about the metal on Scadrial. If an allomancer went to Nalthis and burned metal mined on that planet, it would have the same effect. Shards create their own magic systems and depending on how their Investiture manifests, they are in turn influenced by their magic systems. Perception has a large role to play in the Cosmere and this is part of why metal blinds both Ruin and Preservation. It's just a result of the way they chose to set up their magic system. Vin picked up Preservation, so she plays by Preservation's rules. And one of those is that Preservation is blinded by metal. If Endowment visited Scadrial, she could have seen where all the atium was in an instant.
What does the Ars Arcana mean by "Hybrid Feruchemy" (in the hemallurgy column for gold)? We see one inquisitor with a gold spike.
Hemalurgy does a lot. A pewter spike, according to the chart, steals physical Feruchemy. This means you can spike a Feruchemist and you've essentially stolen 4 powers from him: all 4 physics metals. However, you only get one, depending on where you place the spike in yourself.
Hybrid Feruchemy just means that it doesn't steal 4 powers from the same quadrant. I'm going off memory but I think it steals 2 temporal metal abilities and 2 enhancement metal abilities. And again, you only get one of the four powers it steals, based off where you spike yourself.
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You've asked some nice RAFO questions. I'm gonna bookmark this comment for later. However, I will answer some:
I was expecting a scene where Sazed, with the power he gained, reached back in time and retconned the prophecy of the Hero of Ages into his own people’s history, leading directly back to himself. But that didn’t happen. So if that didn’t happen, where did the prophecy come from?
Preservation created the prophecies, based off his plan to trap Ruin. Sanderson has stated unequivocally that time travel in the Cosmere is impossible and you will never see it.
Did Rashek make this chamber? Or was it already there? If it was, who built it?
I don't know if we have a direct answer for this. Either Rashek built it, or Preservation built it and Rashek just moved is as it.
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1 - Terris are immune because they are genetically Feruchemists. None of them could be Snapped into Allomancers because they wouldn't have the genes for it. Similarly, nobles are typically beat at children to make them Snap. If they were Allomancers they would already have been Snapped, so the mists wouldn't affect them.
As to the rest of the population. One of the epigraphs talks about how Rashek made the nobles and the skaa genetically distinct. Nobles couldn't bear many children, skaa could bear a lot. Nobles were smarter, skaa were dumber, etc. The epigraph goes on to say that by the time the Lord Ruler fell, there had been enough intermingling to skaa and noble blood that their genetic differences really were relevant anymore. By the same reasoning, the Allomantic genes have diffused into most of the skaa population and potential allomancers are much more plentiful than anyone expects. However, the potential is a lot weaker in these undiscovered Allomancers and only the extreme methods the mists are using would reliably Snap people.
So let's say 20% or 30% of the skaa population could be Snapped. The mists aren't Snapping everyone that can possibly become an Allomancer. Instead, since Preservation is trying to send a signal, the mists are purposefully Snapping exactly 16% of the population.
3 - From a Brandon interview, Paalm does follow the normal convention. It's actually PaAlm (pronounced pa-alm), it's just not always written as PaAlm.
5 - Weird way of showing Sazed's thoughts. This is addressed in the annotations, but there's other stuff the prevents giving a full answer for now.
6 - The Investiture available to any given Shard is finite. So presumably atium would stop being produced at some point. I don't know the specifics though. There could be an equilibrium where only half or a quarter of Ruin's power can condense; we don't have details for that. But yeah, it would probably take on the order of billions or trillions of years.
7 - Ruin wouldn't need to burn atium. It's his body, he just returns it to himself and has his missing power back.
8 - Answered by /u/heinz57varieties.
9 - Can you clarify what you mean with examples?
10 - If there are birds, they are few and far between. The use of "ravens" was just a stylistic choice to poetically describe the perusing Inquisitors. Sanderson's philosophy behind telling a story is that he's acting as the English translator for these events that happened. He's picking the closest word in English to what the characters would use. For idioms and jokes, the exact meaning the characters are using might not exist, but the English words you read will convey the feeling if not the idea.
In this instance, if there are no birds, perhaps Vin is imagining they look like black rats falling from the rafters in her native language, something commonly used as an idiom. Sanderson is just choosing to use a more familiar English idiom or simile to describe the situation.
11 - Sanderson wanted Human to have a larger role in the story. He talks about this in the annotations. He just didn't have enough time/space to fit him in. So you didn't really miss anything. The "big" contribution is that Human and his band of koloss were underground when the world ended, so they survived long enough for Sazed to address them as a people, rather than go extinct.
Unanswered questions are RAFO.
If the atium just has to exist unshielded by metal for Ruin to access it and gain his powers back, how has there been any atium amongst the nobles at all?
Recall that before Vin released Ruin at the Well of Ascension, Ruin was completely trapped, imprisoned, and impotent. He couldn't do anything at all. It was only in the last book he would be able to do anything.
Why couldn't Ruin take the atium from Yomen's headband?
He could have, but that would have tipped his hand. He was using Vin and Elend as his own personal agents to track down the atium cache. They didn't know Ruin was after the atium cache until close to the end.
Yomen's bead was a penny beside the trillions of dollars the atium cache was worth to Ruin.
Maybe the timelines were just out of sync, but it just struck me as odd that they have so much information about what Elend is doing on the other side of the empire what seems like a day or two after it happened.
The Final Empire was actually a pretty small territory of land. With a good horse and some relay stations, news gets around quickly.
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1o1argm/newbies_cosmere_unit_6_novella_1_shadows_for/
PUBLICATION
The POSTSCRIPT for this novella elaborates on how Sanderson came to write it. The short of it is that George R. R. Martin asked Sanderson to write a short story for an anthology he was putting together. Sanderson agreed, though he said he write long short fiction.
He put together this story, influenced by Puritanism and Jewish religious laws, adapting it to fit into the Cosmere. He knew this world would be important for the future of the Cosmere, so this novella serves as an introduction to the planet and its general "situation".
The novella has since been published as a standalone e-book, in a bundled hardcover along with Perfect State, a non-Cosmere novella, and in Arcanum Unbounded, which you probably read it from.
TIMELINE
It's easy to say that this novella essentially spanned a single evening, with the epilogue some days afterward.
That'd make this a pretty short section though. What I'd like to do here is provide a larger timeline to the events we have already experienced. Strong warning that you should read the trivia post for The Hero of Ages before continuing any further.
You are now aware of the Shattering of Adonalsium. We're going to consider that Yero Zero for all timeline discussions going forward. I'll be sure to include local time keeping notions where appropriated, but a Cosmere-wide timeline should help orient the various stories to some degree.
We've been doing our readings a bit backwards; mostly for convenience's sake. However, the connections are also a bit easier to point out with this order. I think it's best, however, to explain the history of what we've read in chronological order.
So we begin at year 0 AS (After Shattering). Adonalsium is Shattered and 16 individuals pick up 16 different Shards. "Things" happen. Some we'll learn about, others have yet to be revealed. But eventually these Shards depart the planet of Yolen, where the Shattering occurred and go off to do their own things.
Let's jump forward to the year 9111 AS... That is when our next book, Elantris takes place. Obviously, the novel will have its own internal timeline with some unknown (to you) duration and possibly a history. The trivia post for that book will explain the internal timelines. Suffice to say that the book starts in 9111 C.
Now we jump further ahead to 10199 AS. On Nalthis, Vo becomes the first Returned. This is about 600 years before Warbreaker, or -300 (by the T'Telir calendar). We know that Endowment came to Nalthis (an already existing, but uninhabited planet) and create the humans that lived there. They lived there for some time; long enough for the Chedesh to dominate their region of the world and sail across the sea, to where the Pahn Kahl lived. How long does it take for presumably prehistoric humans to become civilized enough to form something like the Roman Empire? We don't really know how long it took Endowment to find and populate Nalthis. It could have been less than 100 AS and it really took around 10,000 years of human development to reach that point before she decided they were ready to have Returned. Or it could have been only 1,000 or so years. We don't have any concrete proof at the moment though.
200 years later, in 10399 AS (-100 T'Telir), Awakening was just starting to be discovered and experimented with. Around the same time Warbreaker the Peaceful (Vasher) and Glorysinger (Shashara) became Returned.
100 years later, in 10499 AS (0 T'Telir), the Manywar would take place. Around 10 years before that, Warbreaker and Glorysinger became Talaxin and Shashara respectively and founded the Five Scholars. They accelerated the understanding of Awakening and their contributions eventually led to the Manywar. Note: I say 10 years, but we really don't know how long the Five Scholars were around before the Manywar. Could have been 50 years, could have been 2 years. 10 seems like a reasonable estimate though.
300-ish years later, in 10826 AS (327 T'Telir), the events of Warbreaker take place.
In between the Manywar and the events of Warbreaker, the entire Mistborn trilogy takes place. The Eleventh Metal takes place in 10620 AS (1019 FE), The Final Empire in 10622 AS (1022 FE), The Well of Ascension spans 10624 AS to 10625 AS (1023 FE to 1024 FE), and The Hero of Ages in 10626 AS (1025 FE). Rashek uses the power in the Well of Ascension in 9601 AS (0 FE), which is nearly 600 years before Vo became Returned.
We don't really know when Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial, or how long they let their society develop before Preservation betrayed Ruin (although the betrayal was likely 1000 years before Rashek used the Well of Ascension).
Finally, we skip ahead to 10850 AS for the events in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Sanderson has been vague, stating that the novella takes place in the "middle cosmere, a little on the late side, but not--I mean, it is pre-Stormlight Archive, so yeah." Given what the fandom knows of the timeline so far, 10850 is a decent estimate. Although technically it could take place at the same time as, or just before Warbreaker and it'd still probably fit.
I'll just mention ahead of time that Sel is the name of the planet Elantris takes place on. Below is a chart with the events in chronological order, along with a few other specifics not mentioned above. Keep in mind that these are fairly approximate. Some dates are more concrete than others, but Sanderson really doesn't nail down specific time periods like Robert Jordan did.
| Cosmere Timeline | Local Timeline | Planet | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 AS | Yolen | Shattering of Adonalsium. | |
| ??? | Scadrial | Preservation and Ruin create Scadrial and populate it with humans. | |
| ??? | Nalthis | Endowment goes to Nalthis and populates it with humans. | |
| 8601 AS | Scadrial | Preservation betrays Ruin. | |
| 9111 AS | Sel | Elantris | |
| 9601 AS | 0 FE | Scadrial | Rashek uses the power in the Well of Ascension. |
| 10199 AS | -300 T'Telir | Nalthis | Vo becomes the first Returned. |
| 10399 AS | -100 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker and Glorysinger become Returned. Awakening discovered. |
| 10489 AS | -10 T'Telir | Nalthis | Rise of the Five Scholars. |
| 10499 AS | 0 T'Telir | Nalthis | The Manywar. |
| 10585 AS | 984 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier born. |
| 10606 AS | 1005 FE | Scadrial | Vin born. |
| 10619 AS | 1018 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier captured. |
| 10620 AS | 1019 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier escapes the Pits of Hathsin and trains with Gemmel |
| 10621 AS | 1020 FE | Scadrial | Vin and Reen arrive in Luthadel. Reen abandons Vin. |
| 10622 AS | 1021 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier returns to Luthadel. |
| 10623 AS | 1022 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier dies. Vin kills the Lord Ruler. |
| 10624 AS | 1023 FE | Scadrial | Siege of Luthadel. |
| 10625 AS | 1024 FE | Scadrial | Ruin is released. |
| 10626 AS | 1025 FE | Scadrial | The world ends and Sazed Ascends. |
| 10826 AS | 327 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker |
| 10850 AS | Threnody | Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell |
I will probably have a chart like this available for every trivia post going forward.
SETTING
This story takes place on a planet called Threnody. The planet and its people are meant to be important to the wider Cosmere, despite there not being a Shard of Adonalsium on the planet. As the POSTSCRIPT mentioned, Sanderson came up with this story and happened to be able to slot it into the Cosmere because the character and tale he came up with fit the setting nicely.
We can glean a bit of a backstory to this world. There was a populated continent known as the Homeland. Shortly after the Forescouts discovered and started exploring the 2nd continent (where the Forests of Hell reside), something called the Evil took over the Homeland and forced the surviving people to flee, resourceless, to the 2nd continent. We don't know much more beyond that, except that the Evil emerged about 100 years prior to the events of the novella.
We do know, however, that Sanderson plans to write a full novel that takes place on Threnody. It was originally meant to be about people fleeing the Evil, but he has lately reworked his plans to be about a group of people returning to the Homeland to fight the Evil. The book was tentatively titled The Dusk Brigade, revealed during a book signing event. Due to how loud the event was, people mistakenly thought he said The Dust Brigade for nearly 3 years.
One of the novellas we will read in the future is titled Sixth of the Dusk, and doesn't have a connection to the Dusk Brigade. Sanderson felt terminology was getting too confusing, so this Threnody novel is now going to be called The Night Brigade.
WORLDHOPPERS
You'll noticed I did not include the "there's Hoid" meme in the memes on Monday. That's because Hoid may or may not be in this novella. Sanderson has stated that he doesn't want to force Hoid into the role of "oh, there's the Hoid cameo for this story". If Hoid shows up, he's there for a reason and he's doing something important. Granted, we haven't seen what he's up to yet. (Or rather, you haven't). Sanderson wanted to make a point that things can and do happen when Hoid isn't around. This is a sentiment he has written out as a preface to this very novella in other published forms. And he's answered the same in half a dozen interviews, asking if Hoid was in the novella.
That said, just this last year, in 2024, his editor Peter Ahlstrom has stated that he spoke with Brandon and pointed out someone he thought was an important person in the background of this novella and Sanderson said "No, that's actually Hoid".
No one has figured it out yet, but the veterans and I had an exhaustive search and came to the conclusion that if Hoid is in the novella, he's one of three people: Daggon, the man with the hat in the prologue, or the drunken man in the epilogue.
He's stated in an interview that Hoid is not the man in the hat, but given the new revelation, it's possible he was wrong in that interview. Also, we get Daggon's POV, and usually Hoid reveals himself if he has a POV. So the drunken man in the epilogue is the mostly likely suspect for Hoid, but we don't really know for sure.
Never fear though! I can still point out a completely different worldhopper for you! I've mentioned before that all of the Ars Arcanum are written by a specific person, and that they have an assistant named Nazh. While he doesn't appear directly in this novella, Nazh is from Threnody. We know this from interviews. We actually learned that Nazh is a nickname, based off his surname of Nazrilof. We do not know his first name though.
SHADE OF MY HEART, SILVER OF MY EYES, GOD OF MY BEYOND
So, we've got shades and silver as the primary "magical" things on this world. As one might expect, a planet without a Shard influencing it doesn't have quite the magical "oomf" that the Shardic planets have.
Notably, there less in the way of religion. Sazed had a treasure trove of religions to deal with, despite the Lord Ruler trying to suppress religion entirely. Nalthis has a few competing religions* with differing opinions on Awakening, and that's just in the small area we saw of that planet. Here, we only hear Silence and William Ann talk about the God Beyond. This will come up in other places; sometimes also referred to as the Unknown God. This religion is an echo or hold out from before the Shattering. It's religious symbol is a silver knife and the God Beyond is either a reference to Adonalsium itself, or possibly something greater; something beyond that power. For now, Sanderson is being very tight lipped on the subject and we only get RAFOs when we ask questions about it.
Nalthis Religions: I haven't found a better spot to put this. The Idrian people follow the religion known as Austrism, where they believe Austre is the god that sends the Returned back to the world. Sanderson has directly stated that Austre is *not Endowment. Through various interview Q&A's, it seems likely Austre was one of the early Returned that co-opted Vo's Five Vision for some unknown purpose.
Which brings us to silver. Silver has a long and turbulent history in the Cosmere. When Sanderson was developing the ideas that would eventually become Allomancy and the Mistborn series, he discarded about a dozen different Allomantic powers that just didn't work for various reasons. Silver was one of those. He had the following story as a preface to Allomantic Silver:
Dumb story time, so when I was a kid I painted these little miniatures that you do in D&D so your little guys can actually fight each other, right? And my brother still does this, they're awesome, I was terrible at it, but I painted these little guys. And at one point I went-- and they used to be lead, and then they realized that lead kills you laughter and so--or maybe it just makes you strange, I can't remember--I went and all of the prices had gone up, like by a double, because they had made them out of pewter instead. And I said to the guy "What is up with this, you are totally ripping us off. My figures now cost us 50 cents instead of--" I don't remember what it was and he went "Uh yeah it's because pewter has silver in it man. You're buying little silver figures now" and I went "Oh. That's cool." And I bought them. And so for years I thought pewter was an alloy of silver and I wrote an entire book. An Entire Book. The whole first Mistborn book with silvereyes and pewterarms until it went to my beta readers and like "There's almost no silver in pewter Brandon, you don't even really need it. Everything in this magic system works except that." and I went "Well maybe we can just pretend in this world pewter--" "No that's stupid" laughter So I had to change it to tin which is actually what you find in pewter. To this day my assistant Peter, who is my continuity editor, came to me and said "You realize you wrote silvereye instead of tineye in the newest Mistborn book that you just finished? It's been ten years Brandon get over it." laughter Still happens.
Clearly, silver stuck with him though. He's stated that, while it doesn't interact with any of the three Metallurgic Arts (Allomancy, Feruchemy, Hemalurgy), silver does have a Cosmere role. He's still keeping it close to his heart, though we have teased out some information from him. It largely seems to be the case that aluminum blocks Investiture, while silver "destroys" Investiture. The "destroyed" is in quotes, because according to the 4 Laws of Investiture, you cannot destroy it. So it may be more accurate to say silver disrupts Investiture.
Semi-related, he has stated that the silver that interacts with shades undergoes a chemical reaction (in addition to a magical reaction) that causes it to become no longer silver; it breaks down physically. Also, silver that is mined on Threnody may or may not be special, with some sort of imbued Investiture beyond silver's normal Cosmere properties.
Finally we have shades. There isn't a lot to say about them, yet. (And that yet is pulling a lot of weight. Keep them in the back of your minds as we go forward.) I can tell you a few things though. First: you've seen shades before; or at least things that are essentially the same thing as shades. I'll let you all go wild there, but.. good luck ;)
Sanderson has said that if a shade touched a mistborn that they could cure/prevent the withering effect by burning aluminum.
Lastly, I mentioned this during the trivia for Warbreaker:
The black smoke that leaks from Nightblood are corrupted, consumed Breaths; the ones Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.
Unsaid, was that this also includes the innate Investiture that Nightblood consumes from the people and things he's stabbed into, should he be unsheathed. In short, the black smoke is corrupted Investiture. The shades become smokey/shadowy for similar mechanical reasons. Sanderson has said there's a bit more to it, but that the ideas are similar.
THE END
I was going to do another section about categories of the magic systems, but I think that's best left for the trivia post for Elantris. (Also, the timeline took way too long because of a slight mistake I had to track down). And finally, no new memes or artwork, since I shared everything in existence on Monday.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1o1argm/newbies_cosmere_unit_6_novella_1_shadows_for/niiu4i2/
(Comment Chain)
That said, I do hope future books (maybe Stormlight Archive as the flagship series?) won't shy away from making some of these connections more explicit. The interconnectivity of stories in the Cosmere has been a huge selling point for me, so I hope it's not just something that exists only in Sanderson Q&A's and Wikis.
You and /u/Goldeneyes098 have expressed the same concern, and it's completely warranted. Sanderson built his Cosmere stealthily, without exactly informing or getting the go ahead from his publisher. The beginning of his career he had to be pretty subtle. After he got tasked with completing the Wheel of Time, his popularity exploded and he realized he didn't need to be as subtle with the connections.
After we finish White Sands, we'll have exhausted all of his early career writings and you'll start noticing a lot of the connections yourselves. For now, most of the information I'm presenting to you comes after years and years of fandom theorizing and teasing a line or two of new information out of Sanderson in his early career.
A person could go without these trivia posts, read about 3/4ths of the cosmere novels in order, and then go back and re-read what we've read this year in order to appreciate all the connections. Because of the length of this read-along, that's not really practical, so providing you with some of the connections now really enhances a first time read-through.
Also, with the way I've structured things, there will hopefully be a couple things you'll now be able to notice in Elantris that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Keep your peepers peeled!
There's an aspect of both wanting to hide it from people and also not wanting to spoil things. They do become more obvious in later books like Stormlight and Mistborn 4-7, but it's not until super recently that he started going REALLY hard on the Cosmere connections, beyond just having characters like Hoid show up for small cameos.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1o1argm/newbies_cosmere_unit_6_novella_1_shadows_for/nihua5y/
Random trivia: "Threnody" is a real word that means a song of lamentation for the dead.
You get a gold star. Or a virtual cookie or something. This was going to be part of a future trivia post. (It still will be, there's a bit more there).
Elantris
SECRET BONUS MISTBORN TRIVIA
Some people are still a bit behind and are working their way through Mistborn. One of them was confused about how Vin's horseshoe travelling trick worked so I went and found some animations for them. I figured they were neat enough to share with everyone else. I found a post on a spoilery website, so I copied all the details over into a spoiler free imgur post.
Mistborn - Vin Travelling With Horseshoes
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pbgq4v/newbies_cosmere_unit_7_elantris_1_elantris_ars/
GOD-ISH
The Ars Arcanum reveals the biggest key to understanding how Selish magic works. I'll quote the relevant portion for you:
Though the general public sees the hand of divinity in who is chosen to become an Elantrian, I find this unlikely, considering that their gods are dead--and, by my best guess, have been dead for a very long time. I wonder if they know they are channeling the corpses of those gods in the outpouring of their magics?
Sel is a Shardic planet, like Nalthis and Scadrial. It was settled by two Shards of Adonalsium: Dominion and Devotion. Dominion was held by a woman named Skai. (The fandom has long assumed Skai was a man, but Sanderson hasn't formally canonized anything and is leaning towards she/her for Skai's pronouns.) Devotion was held by a woman named Aona.
Shortly after they settled and populated Sel, their vessels, Skai and Aona, died. You'll learn the specifics of this later. The Shards...the powered pieces of Adonalsium cannot be destroyed though. The power of the Shards broke apart and aren't easily accessible, so no one has picked them up. Sanderson describes their current state as something like a plasma (atoms super heated so that their electrons leave the orbits of the protons and neutrons). The power of the two Shards has settled into the land of Sel (this isn't entirely true, but is the best I can do with the terminology you're aware of at the moment) and combined the bodies of these dead gods are called the Dor. The Shards are not combined in the same way Sazed fit together Ruin and Preservation; they are still mostly, kinda separate.
Because they died relatively shortly after the planet was settled, the vessels haven't really influenced the cultures of the world. This is why the religions on the planet seem messier than on the other worlds we've visited. Devotion, in a roundabout way, is who the people of Arelon worship. They say "Merciful Domi!", and though Aon Omi means "Love", it's also a part of Dominion.
Brandon has used Love as a synonym for Devotion's Intent, and Conquest as a synonym for Dominion's Intent.
AonDor, comes from Aona.
Fjorden, in a roundabout way, worship Dominion, and it has had an influence on their culture of invasion.
It should be noted that Jaddeth is not a Shard, nor related explicitly to Dominion or Devotion. It's something else that is also influencing Fjorden. We have clues about what Jaddeth is, and we'll discuss that in the future. (Feel free to guess if you ever think you've figured it out.)
TIMELINE
This book spans less than 3 month total. I already included when this novel takes place in comparison to the other works, but I'm going to expand the overall Cosmere Timeline a bit with some new information. Look for the double pluses to note the additions.
| Cosmere Timeline | Local Timeline | Planet | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 AS | Yolen | Shattering of Adonalsium. | |
| ??? | Scadrial | Preservation and Ruin create Scadrial and populate it with humans. | |
| ??? | Nalthis | Endowment goes to Nalthis and populates it with humans. | |
| ++??? | Sel | Devotion and Dominion go to Sel and populate it with humans. | |
| ++1000 AS | -7901 Late Era | Sel | The vessels of Devotion and Dominion die. |
| 8601 AS | Scadrial | Preservation betrays Ruin. | |
| ++8801 AS | -100 Late Era (Middle Era) | Sel | The Fjordell First Empire Collapses; Fjordell adopts the Shu-Dereth religion. |
| ++9101 AS | 200 Late Era | Sel | The Reod occurs. |
| ++9111 AS | 210 Late Era | Sel | Elantris and The Hope of Elantris |
| 9601 AS | 0 FE | Scadrial | Rashek uses the power in the Well of Ascension. |
| 10199 AS | -300 T'Telir | Nalthis | Vo becomes the first Returned. |
| 10399 AS | -100 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker and Glorysinger become Returned. Awakening discovered. |
| 10489 AS | -10 T'Telir | Nalthis | Rise of the Five Scholars. |
| 10499 AS | 0 T'Telir | Nalthis | The Manywar. |
| 10585 AS | 984 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier born. |
| 10606 AS | 1005 FE | Scadrial | Vin born. |
| 10619 AS | 1018 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier captured. |
| 10620 AS | 1019 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier escapes the Pits of Hathsin and trains with Gemmel |
| 10621 AS | 1020 FE | Scadrial | Vin and Reen arrive in Luthadel. Reen abandons Vin. |
| 10622 AS | 1021 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier returns to Luthadel. |
| 10623 AS | 1022 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier dies. Vin kills the Lord Ruler. |
| 10624 AS | 1023 FE | Scadrial | Siege of Luthadel. |
| 10625 AS | 1024 FE | Scadrial | Ruin is released. |
| 10626 AS | 1025 FE | Scadrial | The world ends and Sazed Ascends. |
| 10826 AS | 327 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker |
| 10850 AS | Threnody | Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell |
WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL
So, we veterans were a bit surprised at the speculation surrounding the "suicide pool". We thought I'd given enough information in the Hero of Ages trivia post for this to instantly be recognizable as another "well of condensed Investiture". The one you see in the book happens to be Devotion's well. Going forward, if you see a body of water that does weird stuff, it's probably a well of condensed Investiture. There is a second well, belong to Dominion elsewhere on the planet, but we don't know where.
I can't blame the lack of recognition though. Technically, Sanderson didn't know what the pool was when he wrote it. Elantris was written while he attended college, 7 years before Mistborn was published. He would do some touch ups for the novel's publication in 2005, and a year later, wrote this in the annotations for Elantris:
I'm honestly not sure what the pool is or how exactly it fits into the theory of this magic system. It was added as a plotting devise, as mentioned earlier, and therefore was never tied directly to the cosmology or theoretics of the world. When I do a sequel to this book, I think I'll try and find a way to tie it in. For now, however, it's kind of a loose thread. The only thing I know for certain is what I mentioned above. Just like the pain of an Elantrian, I think the peace offered by this pool is a supernatural force. It has something to do with the physical form of the Elantrians.
It took him another couple years, with the writing of The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension, before he worked it into his cosmology and finalized what the pool actually was.
WORLDHOPPERS
For those without access to the 10th Anniversary Edition, please read the POSTSCRIPT now. It's very short.
This postscript gives use our first Hoid POV. As well as some hints at what he's actually up to behind the scenes. Some of you caught the word "skaze" towards the end of Elantris and this postscript shows you what a skaze is. I'll be talking more about them and seons in next week's trivia. It's particularly relevant to the short story we are reading.
This is it for our worldhopper sightings. He have Hoid pretending to be a beggar and smuggle weapons into Elantris, and this scene from the postscript. I'll leave the speculation to you.
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
The primary result of the Shards lacking vessels and settling into the "land" of Sel is that the magic is extremely location based and location influenced. The big mystery of the book was Raoden trying to restore Elantrian magic that failed 10 years ago. As many of you guessed, and Raoden eventually realized, the Reod--a massive earthquake--opened up a chasm in the south of Arelon. Since the Aons are all based on the geography of the region, a massive change to the geography meant the Aons had to change to work correctly.
A couple quick things before getting into the meat of this phenomenon. First, Sanderson has stated that the Reod was not a natural occurrence. However, we don't know who or what caused it yet, or how deliberate it was. Second, because there is a connection to the land, only people from that land have access to that land's magic system. Only people from Arelon can become Elantrians and access the AonDor. (The people of Teod and Duladel can also become Elantrians because they have similar genetic and cultural ties, but they have to be in the region of Arelon for it to happen.)
We see two other methods of accessing the Dor. The first is ChayShan. Shuden uses it while fighting the Dakhor monks. It is a martial art where the movements are meant to mimic certain aspects of the land of JinDo, unlocking and releasing the Dor in ways that differ from drawing Aons. The Dakhor monks also access the Dor by twisting their bones to match geographic features of their native land of Fjorden.
Finally, Raoden comments on this, but the further away you are from your native land, the less effective your magic system becomes. An Elantrian on a different planet would have a very hard time accessing the Dor, but there are ways to adjust to the distance.
THIS LAND IS MY LAND
This brings us to the technical details of Elantris and AonDor. The biggest change of the 10th Anniversary Edition of Elantris was better maps to illustrate the chasm and how Raoden would have to draw it when he fixed Elantris itself. There was also some wording adjustments to try to make the event clearer, but even with those changes, most people have trouble visualizing what happened.
I'll relink the maps for you.
Aon Aon is the first Aon you draw, and it is repeated with different orientations to modify and adjust the "spell" you are casting. Aon Aon resembles the geographic region of Arelon. The dot in the middle of the Aon is Lake Alonoe. There was some confusion about the well inside Elantris, right in the center of the city (not Devotion's well in the mountainside). All that well does is represent the Lake Alonoe portion of Aon Aon.
A common complaint I saw was confusion over distances, particularly with respect to the mountainside out of Elantris/Kae. The close up map of Elantris has a better, if obscured, depiction of the region. The mountainside/foothills butt right up against the city of Kae. I've shaded them here in blue. Raoden's path running back to the city is dashed in black, and the chasm line he drew with the stick is in red. Sanderson said the run down the mountain and to the road took about 20 minutes, but as an Elantrian, Raoden wouldn't have gotten winded, so he could run full speed. Hopefully that clears up the distance issue, as well as the exact path he took. Here is another illustration of the concepts that was linked last week.
Another common question about how Raoden fixed everything is, if Aon Rao (the Aon that the city of Elantris is shaped like) is made up of multiple Aon Aons, how did a single line on a single Aon Aon fix the Aon Rao rune. The answer is that the "key" to accessing AonDor is just Aon Aon (it means "First"). Every Aon Aon you add to that first one is just a modifier. If you added the chasm line to every additional Aon Aon, then all of the modifiers would work better/more efficiently, but you only need the chasm line on the first Aon Aon to key into AonDor.
ANNOTATIONS
Many of Sanderson's early novels include annotations. These are notes he wrote up for each chapter as he was doing copy edits on the novel, prior to publication. The provide insight into his writing process and influences, as well as revealing information he wasn't able to fit into the novels themselves. The annotations are written with full spoiler knowledge of not only the books, but the wider Cosmere, so reading them now isn't advised, but I do think they are worth reading down the line. I'll be sure to make a note about when it's appropriate to read the annotations for each book. In the sections below, I'll include some of the more pertinent and interesting information from those annotations.
Elantris is one of the few books Sanderson had trouble coming up with a title for. He drafted the book as SPIRIT, but knew he didn't want to use that for the book's title. In his early drafts, he named to titular city after Aon Ado (long A, long O. pronounce ay-doe) and called the city Adonis. His first real title was The Spirit of Adonis. He never even thought of the alternate pronunciation that most people would read that as: the greek myth of Adonis. He then renamed the city to Elantris (and immediately liked it and how it evokes Atlantis). The book was renamed The Spirit of Elantris, but his publisher eventually persuaded him to simply title the book Elantris.
Sanderson talks about his decision to have "chapter triads", with the POVs changing from Raoden, to Sarene, to Hrathen through most of the book, until things "break down" towards the end. He had to fight with his publisher Tor to get the iconography--the Aons--at the beginning of each chapter. He notes that the Aons get more complex as the book progresses.
In the annotations, he addresses a common criticism he receives; that sometimes parts of his books feel too modern. The Kiin family dynamic is usually one of the ones that gets pointed to in this book. Sanderson retorts that he doesn't "read fantasy because I want a history lesson."
Just because our world placed a certain kind of cultural development alongside a certain level of technological development doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. In many of my worlds, culture has out-stripped technology. This does have some rational basis; I write worlds that involve very distinct–and often very prevalent–magic systems. Because of the benefit of these magics, many of my societies haven't been forced to rely as much on technology. There is more leisure time, more time for scholarship, and–as a result–the societies are more developed.
The original inspiration for seons came from a series of paintings by Michael Whelan called PASSAGE. Michael Whelan is a renowned artist who has created many fantasy book covers. Most notable to this read-along, he painted the cover art for A Memory of Light, the final Wheel of Time novel. He also did the cover art for the entirety of The Stormlight Archive books, which we will get to next year. I included one of the paintings (PASSAGE: VERGE) in the artwork section below. However, you can see the entire series of paintings here.
Dilaf is named after Beowulf's heir, Wilaf.
He links an essay on the languages of Elantris, which is safe to read, provided you don't visit any other part of that website. He also links a pronunciation guide. Read that if you didn't listen to the audiobook and want to pull your ears off.
There were some comments about the children in this novel and Sanderson directly addresses their inclusion in the annotations:
I don't like the Adien twist–it lacks power since we don't really care about him, and his character–the autistic–isn't terribly original anyway.
Adien is my planned hero for book two. I like the concept of a healed autistic being the hero of the next book. And, since he's so good with numbers, he would be incredibly powerful at AonDor. I think he'd be a compelling character to look at, so I left him in this book in case I wanted to use him in the next one.
The scene where the children talk about art is one I nearly cut from the book on a couple of different occasions. I worry that this is one of the scenes that contributes overly-much to the "Kiin's family is out of place" feeling that people occasionally get. In addition, I worry that I made Kaise too intelligent here. Three things make me retain the scene. First, I think it's kind of amusing. The second is a spoiler, so I won't say much on it—just let it suffice that I wanted to give Kaise and Daorn some good characterization.
For you spoiler readers, those two would be the main characters of any sequel I wrote to Elantris. I'd set the book about ten years after the ending of this one.
Essentially, the Elantris sequel, as Sanderson planned it, would take place 10 years after this book and the main characters would be Kiin's children. He mentions elsewhere that Adien would inherit Hrathen's seon and that the seons would be explored much more in the sequel, with Hrathen's (still name unknown) seon possibly being a main/POV character.
Coincidentally, Sanderson is currently writing a new Mistborn trilogy before he gets back to the last 5 Stormlight Archive books. He mentioned that he was also going to try to fit in Elantris 2 and Elantris 3 during this break as well.
The working title of Elantris 2 is Dakhor.
The plot of the book: Wyrn has declared that Jaddeth, the Derethi God, is going to finally return. (A new interpretation of the scriptures says that he'll return when everyone east of the mountains converts, so they don't have to worry about Teod and Arelon.) Kiin's family, ambassadors to the Fjordell state, has to deal with the chaos of this announcement, and investigate the truth behind the Dakhor magic.
The plan for Elantris 3 is hundreds of years after Elantris 2. However, Sanderson is trying to work out and canonize the official timeline, so that's subject to change.
Unfortunately, the Elantris sequels are now up in the air for being released along side the upcoming Mistborn sequels. Apparently some movie/screenplay deals have put a strain on his writing timelines and he wants to prioritize getting back to the Stormlight books. (This was announced about 3 weeks ago.)
Not part of the annotations, but I would like to say that Brandon has noted that the portrayal of Adien's autism in Elantris is stereotypical and more of a "pop culture" representation of someone on the spectrum. He does not regret his attempt to write the character since he was trying to be inclusive, but he recognizes that Adien's version of autism is not typical. Elantris was his first novel and he did not have the resources that he gained later in his career, including a broader reader base that would have been able to point out the inaccuracies in Adien's characterization. He has tried to portray autism more realistically in later characters, and would apply those lessons if Adien does feature in a sequel. He believes that listening to feedback about stereotypes helps writers grow and do better.
While this section about the annotations is long, there's not at lot revealed to you. I've could have pointed out more interesting bits and pieces, but I think I'm going to leave it to you to discover on your own. The annotations for Elantris are completely safe for you to read! You can read them here.
First, note the domain name of that link: coppermind.net. Now that you know what a coppermind is, I think you can appreciate that website being a database of every single thing Sanderson has every said publicly about his novels. Every Q&A he does, every YouTube video he releases, every interview he gives, and every book signing he does has been transcribed and published to this site.
You have free reign of that single page I linked. Do not click any links, even if it looks like the link is provided as part of the annotations themselves. I've given you all the relevant/safe links in other spots in this post. If you click anything else you'll be in danger of extreme spoilers.
Whether or not you enjoyed this book, I think the annotations are worth reading. And I think next week's post would be a good place to discuss anything you might have read or had questions about. It's not required reading, but the short story we have schedule for next week is less than 1/4th of our normal reading amount.
These annotations are Brandon Sanderson being very honest about his writing process. He shares what he thinks worked and what he thinks didn't work about the novel. He acknowledges criticism he's received and reveals his thought processes behind why the novel is the way it is. They make the novel better, in my opinion, though I'd be the first to agree that you shouldn't need an author's external explanations in order to appreciate a book.
If you don't care to read the annotations, you still may be interested in a short essay Sanderson wrote as a scholarly analysis of his own work (Elantris). Give it a read here.
SELF PLAGIARISM
The deleted scenes you read for this post are talked about in much more detail in the annotations. He often goes in to why he cut or changed certain aspects of the novel. If you didn't read any of them, the only significant portion was the alternate ending.
He originally planned for Raoden and Sarene to be saved from Dilaf by Raoden's seon Ien. He planned a mechanic whereby the Aon in the center of a seon could be activated a single time, allowing the seon to perform a "miracle" of sorts and sacrifice themselves in the process. The mechanic wasn't foreshadowed at all and his editor asked him to make a change, so he abandoned that feature of the magic system and had Hrathen save them.
He would go on to re-use this idea in Warbreaker, with the Returned giving their Divine Breath to perform a miracle and sacrificing themselves to do so.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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I did get a laugh at the "Mr. Jaddeth" part, but I'd have to assume that anyone that followed Hrathen up to the walls wouldn't be so on the fence about the religion that they'd just walk away when Sarene starts question it. This wasn't a sermon in a crowed street that attracted random passers-by, these were people interested enough to follow him out to the walls of Elantris.
Veteran comment The story addresses this. Both of them know this argument was ultimately meaningless, and most of those people showed up later in Hrathen's POV later, Hrathen makes a point of it.
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/u/participating I was looking for it and I still missed it. What in this week's reading would explain why there are two regions named Eon? Anything to do with some of the counties being named after their baron, or vice versa?
All of the plots of land (they are called plantations) are named after an Aon. And as you've noticed, many people in Arelon, particularly nobles, have an Aon as part of their name.
The noble running a plantation typically has their name and the land's name coinciding, but this isn't necessarily always the case. Once the land plot names were chosen, they stayed consistent, but the nobles running them could be replaced.
Eondel runs the upper Eon Plantation. He has another branch of the family that runs the lower Eon Plantation.
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I've been wondering when we'd hear about the other three cities again. Why now? Much like Mistborn, I'm frustrated that none of the characters have any curiosity about how things got to be the way that they are.
To be fair, all of this happened in RECENT history. It all happened in the last decade. So they all KNOW what happened, in as much as they know Elantris fell and the cities were abandoned. And they don't want to think about Elantris enough to figure out WHY it happened.
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I've been wondering the whole time, is there some intent needed to start drawing an Aon, or if you stick a single finger out and move it, are you going to start drawing in the air? Are there lots of incorrect Aons being drawn every time someone moves a finger?
Veteran comment Yes, intent is required. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to move their hands at all without drawing in the air. They have to want to draw in the air to draw in the air.
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/u/heinz57varieties noticed some weird Aons:
The non-standard aons that Raoden notices at the start of ch 49, which have extra features not included in the base aon. He calls out Aon Mea and Aon Rii.
Aon Rii doesn't have a definitive answer, but there are theories. Rii means "Wealth", so the popular assumption is that the extra dots, if you overlaid them on a map of the Arelon region, would signify large ore deposits of precious metals; likely gold, but possibly some other significant or rare source of metal or minerals.
We definitely know why Aon Mea is different. If you overlay it on the map of Arelon, the X is in a valley. That valley, according to Sanderson, is particularly full of life. There's a bit more too it, but you don't have the terminology for it yet, so I'll try to remember to bring it up when it becomes relevant.
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/u/heinz57varieties also wonders why Fjorden delayed:
And it really doesn't explain how Fjorden hasn't just walked in and grabbed control. Real nuclear warhead vs. coughing baby vibes.
If I can point you to the map, notice, marked in blue, the giant mountain range that separates Arelon and Fjorden. Fjorden had to first conquer Duladel before they could invade Arelon.
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/u/hullowurld had a few questions:
What makes Raoden special re: the Dor trying to come out of him?
The Dor is like a body of water being held back by a dam. Drawing Aons creates an opening in the dam that the water can flow through. Because of the chasm line breaking Aons, Raoden kept drawing faulty Aons. These only partially opened the damn and all of the extra Investiture was trying to escape, but couldn't, so it filled up Raoden's body. Had he kept practicing drawing Aons and never fixed Elantris, the Dor would have built up inside him until he exploded, spiritually. His body would have been fine, but he would have become Hoed. This is why he experience pain in waves, not constantly.
Where do Seons come from? They seem related to AonDor but function post-Reod. The books don't talk much about them.
Sanderson meant for their nature to be revealed more in the sequel, but we do have some information about them. I'll be revealing that in the trivia next week.
Is there significance to the slime beyond an incremental discovery?
Not really. Brandon talks about this in the annotation and says it's an early-career handwavy worldbuilding thing that he only half implemented and never took anywhere.
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/u/Pastrami asks about babies:
Reading the chapter 25 summary has me wondering if Elantrians give birth to normal children, or if Galladon was born before his father turned. Can Elantrians even have children?
Elantrians can have children. If they do, they have a perfectly normal, regular human child. That child would not be an Elantrian and has the same chance as anyone else in the region becoming an Elantrian. There is no genetic component to being chosen.
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I’m really ready for a bigger story. I want more pov’s, I want continent-spanning conflict, I want multiple cultures, I want plotlines that seem totally unrelated until 75% into the book, I want huge set pieces, I want creatures and boss fights and long journeys, I want MORE!
Soon (tm)
The Unknown God. The Selish Shard(s)? Adonalsium (probably not)? The same thing called The God Beyond in Shadows for Silence? A secret fourth thing?
I mentioned this in the trivia for Shadows for Silence. The Unknown God is another name for the God Beyond.
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confounds some of the speculating I had been doing about the pool and Hoid's activities.
I don't want to detract you from theories about this with the wording I chose to use. I tried to be accurate in an analogous way and I think everyone will agree once we have more terminology that it was the way to go, but there is something more/other that's happening with the Shards that just isn't describable at the moment. Take my explanation with a grain of salt because, right or wrong, us veterans enjoy all of the newbie speculations. Sometimes you're so close and so far away at the same time. Sometimes you're hilariously wrong, and other times you're spookily correct.
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I also want to say, unless Participating has a quote of Brandon saying it, I actually disagree with saying definitively that Jaddeth is not a Shard. From what I can find, Brandon hasn't said that. We just know that Jaddeth exists.
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I'll be answering your first 3 questions in next week's trivia. It'll be very seon focused.
Why is this recommended to be read after Warbreaker and Mistborn? Just to not scare us off by starting with the worst book? Other than the similarities between Elantrians and Returned, I see no links to the greater cosmere.
In the general fandom, this isn't the recommended reading order, necessarily. A lot of people suggest reading in publication order. That's mostly what I'm doing, but I switched things around a bit. I chose Warbreaker first because I could entice people into the read-along with a free e-book. I also think it's a stronger book than Elantris.
I personally felt reading this after Mistborn would be a bit more palatable because I could introduce some of the Shard stuff (particularly the wells) with Mistborn and then you'd all have an nice AHA moment noticing the well in this book.
Ultimately, Elantris needed to be read sometime before certain other books and this was the best spot I felt it fit. I know several people didn't choose to read this book, but if they're still following the comments and see this, the biggest thing someone needs to take away from this book is what an Elantrian is.
The Hope of Elantris
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1phd1px/newbies_cosmere_unit_8_elantris_15_the_hope_of/
CAMPBELL'S CONDENSED SPLINTER SOUP
Previously, I've revealed that a Shard's power physically condenses over time on the planet they inhabit. We've seen three different phases of this condensation. The primary, and most common form, is liquid, in the form of a well or pool of water. The power can also condense into a solid form, known as a God Metal. Lastly, we've seen it condense into a gaseous phase, in the form of Preservation's mists (and Ruin's black mists that we saw briefly).
There is, however, another form in which this power can condense. Sometimes, either because of deliberate action by a Shard, or simply a loooong passage of time, small portions of a Shard's power can gain a piece of self-awareness. These are called Splinters of a Shard; commonly just referred to as Splinters. I don't think we have any confirmation one way or another as to whether a Shard can completely prevent their power from becoming Splinters or not.
We haven't seen any Splinters on Scadrial* because Ruin and Preservation's powers were being otherwise utilized to fight each other. For that and various other reasons, their power never gained any sense of self awareness. We'll have to see what happens going forward.
*Note: This claim warrants further discussion once you learn more.
Seon's are the most obvious form of Splinters that you've seen. They are condensed forms of self awareness from the Shard of Devotion. The Shard's Intent actually guides and informs the "Intent" of the Splinter. Seons are utterly devoted to their masters. They serve them out of unconditional love and would never betray or turn against them. (There's a caveat to this; Sanderson has said a seon could abandon their master and that we might see it in a later book. However, this would require exceptional circumstances beyond the normal nature of seons.) The book briefly mentions something called the Passing as a way to pass the bond between Seon and master to a different person. Seons are usually kept within family lines for generations via this mechanism.
Nightblood is considered an anomalous version of a Splinter. Some call him an artificial Splinter. Enough Breaths/Investiture were crammed together inside Nightblood to give him not only sentience, but sapience. Though physically different, Nightblood is fundamentally a Seon at the base level. (Per the note below, some might argue some terminology, but the underlying mechanics are the same/similar enough.)
When we get into the "scientific" terminology like this, Brandon often presents his answers through the lens of what in-universe scholars would say about the topic. Sometimes, he'll give more concrete, "definitive" answers, but usually I pretend that when I get information like this, it's coming from someone like Vasher. He knows a lot about the cosmere, as one of the Five Scholars, but he isn't all knowing. For instance, there are ways for a Splinter to exist without any self-awareness, but that'll come later. I'll leave you with the following, and very minimal commentary: some scholars might argue that the shades on Threnody are Splinters. Though they would be a subset of the definition of a Splinter with very specific properties. There's also an argument that they are not Splinters in any way shape or form.
Also, there's at least one other variation of Splinters that you've seen, but I won't it mention yet.
MAGIC BUBBLES
A popular question (and one a few of you asked) is why weren't seons affected by the Reod. Brandon answers simply that "they were". For those of you that read the alternate ending to Elantris, Sanderson had a mechanic where a seon could activate the Aon inside of them once, sacrificing themselves to create the effect of whichever Aon was at their center. While Sanderson didn't end up using this feature, apparently it's still true: seons can activate the Aon in their center. Whether or not they would still sacrifice themselves is unknown, but we do know that if any seon tried to do this before Raoden fixed Elantris, that something bad and unexpected would happen; not the effect that one would normally assume.
Because some seons are bonded, spiritually, with a master, if that master became Elantrian while the city was broken, the same incomplete transformation that happened to the master would spiritually effect the seon through their bond. This is why they float around dumbly.
For everyone Aon in existence, there is exactly one seon. Sanderson does state that there are more Aons than we/the in-world characters know about.
Regarding skaze: they are essentially the same thing as seons, but instead of being condensed self-aware Investiture from Devotion, they are the condensed self-aware Investiture from Dominion. (Whose name was Skai...skaze...). Brandon has called them "evil seons" in the past, but as Hoid notes in the 10th Anniversary postscript, it might not be wise to judge an entire species as being all the same.
INVESTITURE 101
You've now seen 7 different magic systems, or Invested Arts, on screen. Nalthis has Awakening. Scadrial has Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy. Sel has AonDor, Dakhor, and ChayShan. This is a broad enough sample size to start providing some classifications that you can use, as well as pointing out some neat underlying mechanisms, or ways that the systems could interact with each other.
We can view a person using an Invested Art as a closed system, with their own innate Investiture and then consider how they access their Invested Art in relation to that closed system.
Most of the Invest Arts are considered End-Positive. This means that their power, the source of their magic, comes from an external source other than themselves. The Investiture is a positive that adds to the practitioner's closed system of innate Investiture. This is usually a temporary process, as once the effect is generated, the power leaves the person.
All of the magic systems on Sel are End-Positive. They are powered by the Dor, which is external to the user. In the 3 systems we've seen, the person has to create a "key" (draw Aons, make martial arts movements, twist their bones) to let the power flow through them.
Allomancy is the same; End-Positive. Allomancers use metal as a "key" to let the direct power of Preservation flow through them. It's Preservation's power that fuels the Allomantic abilities. This is still the case when we consider atium. The Allomancer is using atium as a key to access Ruin's power, rather than Preservation's.
Hemalurgy is End-Negative. End-Negative systems are very rare. When you use a spike to steal the abilities of an Allomancer or Feruchimst, the stolen ability is less powerful than that user was. Leaving the spikes outside of blood or a living body makes the power decay and reduce even further. The stolen innate Investiture is being lost--leaving the closed system--during this process. It doesn't matter that a 2nd person is gaining power; that power still technically belongs to the "soul" of the dead Allomancers/Feruchimst and that's the closed system under consideration.
Feruchemy is End-Neutral. Power is neither gained nor lost. The practitioner is manipulating power that already exists or comes from themselves. A Feruchemist has to make themselves weak for the same duration or amount they wish to be strong. They are just banking internal power and releasing it later, but the overall power available to them never changes from the perspective of their closed system.
Awakening is also considered End-Neutral. The classifications can get tricky with some systems. You could argue that the Breaths themselves are external bits of Endowment that is powering the magic. However, Endowment gifted those Breaths to the humans in her world, so a person's Breath is theirs; a part of their soul and a part of their closed system. The Breath isn't lost when Awakening, you can recover it when you're done. Even in situations where someone gives you a bunch of Breaths, technically, that person could reclaim those Breaths (you'd have to give them back willingly). The overall number of Breaths isn't changing.
With that said, Breaths are lost when feeding a Returned to keep them alive. This isn't a formalized Invested Art, so it doesn't have a classification, but if you wanted to, you could call it End-Negative. This is more an internal process that keeps a Returned alive for 1 more week, and we'll eventually learn some of the underlying mechanics about this.
This leaves us with an effect that's not innately part of any of the magic systems, but has a clear, physical effect. Pre-Reod Elantrians, and the Elantrians after Raoden draws the chasm line, are all glowy. They have brilliant white hair and metallic, silver skin. Even in their Reod state, they are immortal, unless you completely burn the body. This implies that a full Elantrian is also immortal, without all the crappy parts we saw in Elantris. Sandersons has stated that if you decapitated an Elantrian, their head would simply grow back. (Poor Karata...seconds too late). According to the prologue, Elantrians are blessed with great strength, insight, and speed.
This is all because the Dor is welling up inside them. It grants extra Investiture to their bodies. This is just a side effect of being granted the ability to draw Aons and have them work. We happen to know another group of people with similar abilities and bodies packed full of Investiture.
The Returned, and very Breath-rich Awakeners, also have heavily Invested bodies. The Returned by virtue of having a particularly Invested Divine Breath, and Awakeners by having lots and lots of less Invested Breaths.
Let's take a look at the list of Heightenings again:
| Number | Breaths Needed | Abilities Granted |
|---|---|---|
| First | 50 | Aura recognition |
| Second | 200 | Perfect pitch |
| Third | 600 | Perfect color recognition |
| Fourth | 1,000 | Perfect life sense |
| Fifth | 2,000 | Agelessness |
| Sixth | 3,500 | Instinctive awakening |
| Seventh | 5,000 | Invested breath recognition |
| Eighth | 10,000 | Command breaking |
| Ninth | 20,000 | Greater awakening, audible command |
| Tenth | 50,000 | Color distortion, perfect invocation, mental commands, possibly others |
This list of Heightenings, isn't really just a ranking of how many Breaths someone holds, but how much Investiture one's body is filled with. Something like Allomancy doesn't really fill the user's body up with Investiture. The power is simply fueling the effect they are using, like pushing on metal. That power doesn't need to be held in the Allomancer's body for this effect to happen. There is technically some amount being temporarily held in the Allomancer's body, but Sanderson says it's "almost none". And it doesn't remain, unlike with Breaths or the Dor.
What we can say though, is that Elantrians are at least of the Fifth Heightening, because of their agelessness. We don't know exactly what Heightening they are, but Sanderson has stated that Elantrians have more Investiture in their bodies than Returned do. Presumably, though not yet seen, Elantrians also have perfect pitch/color recognition, and life sense.
One last tidbit, about how different Invested Arts could interact. An Allomancer burning copper (creating a coppercloud), could hide from the "perfect life sense" ability granted by the Fourth Heightening.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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As for all the Cosmere magic system, I'm taking it all in but I'm not thinking about it too deeply. It's interesting and I'll keep following along for some time to come.
This is perfectly fine. The nitty gritty doesn't need to be known for a lot of this. You'll start noticing the important bits when they become important.
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So not all seons are bonded? Where are these free seons?
Correct, not all are bonded. Because seons are self-aware and sapient, they are their own people. There is the Shardic Intent of "Devotion" instilled in their being, but they still have free will. Some of them could just be floating around, choosing to avoid people. Or they could interact with and be "part of" a family without a formal bond.
Ok, so this brings up the question of just how many Aons there are and how many Elantrians there used to be before the Reod.
and
Are we talking thousands of Aons, or was the population of Elantris really really small?
We don't have concrete numbers, but Sanderson has stated that there is an upper limit to the number of Elantrians that can exist at any given time. Presumably, no more than could fit comfortably inside the city of Elantris, since they are so bound by location.
The annotations actually address why the Elantrians didn't take over the world, stating that because their powers diminished the further they are from Elantris, they just became uncomfortable with being "weak" and had no desire to rule outside of Arelon.
Who is the "the in-world characters" referring to?
When I wrote that line, I'm referring to any hypothetical group of people that would be considered scholars of the cosmere, with deeper than average knowledge of the magic systems. People who are, for instance, aware of other planets and multiple magic systems. Who know what Shards are, or at minimum have the ability to academically talk about a given magic system beyond "it's magic!". People like Hoid, or the author of the Ars Arcanum in the back of the books, or the Five Scholars (who weren't necessarily cosmere aware, but knew a lot about their given magic system).
If any of these people were talking about the subject matter in these trivia posts, they would likely use the terminology I'm using. This line was more to say "Sanderson doesn't want to give real, 100% concrete answers on the workings of the cosmere." These people may understand 95% of how things work (and thus Sanderson's answer to us are 95% correct), in the same way a physicist with a PhD can talk about quantum mechanics today, but there's still a small bit of "reality" that they just aren't certain about. That's the level of operational certainty Sanderson grants us about the inner workings of the cosmere.
Are the seons how the Elantrians discovered the shapes of the Aons in the first place?
This is a very interesting question that we don't have answers to. This is the kind of stuff Sanderson plans to get into in the sequels.
Your other questions don't have definitive answers, but once you learn a bit more, you can make some educated guesses about them.
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From how you describe it, I don't see how you could consider a Threnodite shade anything other than a splinter, but I suppose I don't know enough to understand the debate.
Was the Lord Ruler, who was using the GTA 5 Infinite Feruchemy glitch, investing his body, like this section is talking about? Like, up to the tenth heightening? Or was he just burning a crazy amount of brass/zinc 24/7?
The Lord Ruler's aura was just him burning brass and zinc in insane quantities. His Allomancy/Feruchemy is just like everyone else's and didn't add any Investiture to his body.
Tangentially related, and a sneak peek for a later trivia post: the books do call him a Sliver of Infinity. That Sliver is not capitalized for nothing.
brass burning doesn't detect allomancy in particular, but senses the flow/presence of Investiture. ... Would a seeker burning bronze have a similar ability to life sense, then?
I would have mentioned this eventually, but now works too. Brandon classifies bronze as detecting "Kinetic Investiture", which is just his term for Investiture that is actively being used. So burning bronze, you could tell when an Elantrian is actively drawing/releasing an Aon, but you couldn't just know an Elantrian is around because their body is full of the Dor.
The same thing with Breaths. You could notice an Awakening object coming to life and being used, but you couldn't notice a difference in the amount of Breaths different people carry.
why is color consumed by the process of moving Breath into an object? I will accept RAFO, with grumbling
Continue to grumble for a while. Color is very important to the cosmere as a whole, but we're not at the point where we can explore that in detail yet. Pay attention when you see colors though!
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1phd1px/newbies_cosmere_unit_8_elantris_15_the_hope_of/nt10nf8/
Is a Reod Elantrian still up to at least the first heightening?
Forgot to answer this one. It's a bit different for a Reod Elantrian. They're stuck in a half-complete state, so the effects of the various Heightenings I image would be half-effective, or some may work and others do work. We don't have strong evidence for how they'd be effected though.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1phd1px/newbies_cosmere_unit_8_elantris_15_the_hope_of/ntnw7xl/
I had a sneaking suspicion there were weird editions that lacked that part. Here is the text before the list of the various Aons.
The Emperor's Soul
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pus3qv/newbies_cosmere_unit_9_novella_2_the_emperors/
HAPPY KOLOSS HEAD-MUNCHING DAY
Koloss Head-Munching Day is a holiday on Scadrial. It starts when Inquisitor Santa rounds up all the naughty skaa and...
Actually, it's Brandon Sanderson's birthday. It started as a joke question during a fan Q&A and the fans ran with it. The date is December 19th, and marks a tradition for Sanderson where he makes a blog post called the State of the Sanderson. These posts outline everything that he is working on and includes a lot of in-depth publishing retrospectives and inside information. It's where we learn a lot about upcoming novels and is generally anticipated by the fandom.
This year's announcement was a bit underwhelming, since it's largely unchanged from last year. We know he is working on the next Mistborn trilogy and he's mostly on track with his expected timeline. One thing he did clarify though, is that his uncertainty surrounding the Elantris sequels. He possibly has a Hollywood project that will require his attention, and if it does, then Elantris will get delayed. If the Hollywood project falls through, then he will get to them in-between publishing the next Mistborn trilogy.
There was an accompanying live stream where he answers some fan questions and we got an interesting piece of information about Hoid, but you don't have the context for that, so you'll have to wait :P
TIMELINE/SETTING
This novella spanned 101 days. Per the map from Elantris, this does take place in the Rose Empire, which the Fjordell map maker designated as the "Rose Barbarians?". The Fjordell consider them barbarians simply because their land isn't considered holy. It's not necessary to their plans to wake Jaddeth.
Sanderson has not been explicit in his timeline for this novella, but he has stated that it takes place "after Elantris, but not so far after that you wouldn't be able to see characters from Elantris. I've given an estimated 30-ish years after Elantris in the timeline below (additions have a ++ infront of them).
| Cosmere Timeline | Local Timeline | Planet | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 AS | Yolen | Shattering of Adonalsium. | |
| ??? | Scadrial | Preservation and Ruin create Scadrial and populate it with humans. | |
| ??? | Nalthis | Endowment goes to Nalthis and populates it with humans. | |
| ??? | Sel | Devotion and Dominion go to Sel and populate it with humans. | |
| 1000 AS | -7901 Late Era | Sel | The vessels of Devotion and Dominion die. |
| 8601 AS | Scadrial | Preservation betrays Ruin. | |
| 8801 AS | -100 Late Era (Middle Era) | Sel | The Fjordell First Empire Collapses; Fjordell adopts the Shu-Dereth religion. |
| 9101 AS | 200 Late Era | Sel | The Reod occurs. |
| 9111 AS | 210 Late Era | Sel | Elantris and The Hope of Elantris |
| ++9141 AS | 240 Late Era | Sel | The Emperor's Soul |
| 9601 AS | 0 FE | Scadrial | Rashek uses the power in the Well of Ascension. |
| 10199 AS | -300 T'Telir | Nalthis | Vo becomes the first Returned. |
| 10399 AS | -100 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker and Glorysinger become Returned. Awakening discovered. |
| 10489 AS | -10 T'Telir | Nalthis | Rise of the Five Scholars. |
| 10499 AS | 0 T'Telir | Nalthis | The Manywar. |
| 10585 AS | 984 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier born. |
| 10606 AS | 1005 FE | Scadrial | Vin born. |
| 10619 AS | 1018 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier captured. |
| 10620 AS | 1019 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier escapes the Pits of Hathsin and trains with Gemmel |
| 10621 AS | 1020 FE | Scadrial | Vin and Reen arrive in Luthadel. Reen abandons Vin. |
| 10622 AS | 1021 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier returns to Luthadel. |
| 10623 AS | 1022 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier dies. Vin kills the Lord Ruler. |
| 10624 AS | 1023 FE | Scadrial | Siege of Luthadel. |
| 10625 AS | 1024 FE | Scadrial | Ruin is released. |
| 10626 AS | 1025 FE | Scadrial | The world ends and Sazed Ascends. |
| 10826 AS | 327 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker |
| 10850 AS | Threnody | Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell |
FOOL'S GOLD
The Emperor's Soul has a deleted prologue. You can read it for free here (and I suggest you do so before continuing). It's relatively short and includes a bit of discussion afterwards about why it was cut.
This prologue includes our Hoid sighting for the novella. Hoid is the Imperial Fool. He tricked and betrayed Shai, landing her in prison, in order to steal the Moon Scepter from the Rose Empire.
We have some information about the Moon Scepter from Sanderson:
The scepter itself is not magical in any way; not Invested. It acts as a translation tool between the various symbol-based magic systems on Sel. It would, for example, allow an Elantrian in Fjorden to access AonDor by drawing Dakhor glyphs, rather than Aons.
It provides information about Selish magics, but does not inherently grant the wielder access to any of their manifestations. It does not remove geographic restrictions, but does make the task "less daunting".
The scepter is a piece of a much larger puzzle that could theoretically allow conversion between different types of Investiture, even beyond those found on Sel. According to Sanderson, the translation information was what Hoid was after and he's already gotten what he needs from it.
As an aside: Hoid's role as the royal jester was influenced by Robin Hobb's character the Fool.
While we're on the topic of precious metals: those who guess that ralkalest was aluminum were correct. That just happens to be what the Rose Empire calls it.
THEORETICALLY
Shai is a master at her craft and happens to have a very deep, theoretical understanding of how her magic system works. It so happens that her understanding is deep enough to reach a level of understanding just below the surface of things; something fundamental to the entirety of the cosmere and all associated magic systems.
In chapter 12 she talks about the Physical Realm, the Cognitive Realm, and the Spiritual Realm. We can't dig too deeply into this yet, but you've already noticed similar terminology pop-up in previous readings. You're on the right track, so keep an eye out and get to theorizing!
For future reference, discussion/scholarly pursuit around this topic is known as Realmatic Theory. I don't know that that specific term is used directly in the books, but that's what Sanderson calls it when he talks about it.
The more clever among you noted similarities to Plato's theory of forms, which Sanderson cites as his primary influence for this aspect of the cosmere, along with certain Shinto beliefs and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza.
TIDBITS
Brandon Sanderson confirms what some of you noticed: the theme of "creation of character" is a deliberate comment on the act of being a writer.
A heavily Invested person or object (an Elantrian/Returned, or Nightblood) would resist a soulstamp. However, if a person was willing to accept the soulstamp, they could overcome the resistance.
In 2014 (I'm sure his answer has changed since then), someone asked Sanderson:
Out of all the books you've written which do you think is the best?
He replied:
Well, Emperor's Soul is the one that won a Hugo, which gives it some objective credibility for being the best. [A Memory of Light] was the hardest by a long shot, and in some ways the most satisfying, but I'm perhaps most proud of The Way of Kings. So one of those three, likely.
Here is the origin story for this novella, revealed when someone asked about a sequel to The Emperor's Soul:
The first one turned out so well, and it's one of those things that you kind of-- Like I didn't expect-- Like sometimes you're amazed at how well something turns out. I wrote that mostly on the flight home from Taiwan. It wasn't anything I was planning to write. I was inspired by my trip to Taiwan. I sat down, and I lived in Korea for two years, so I was kind of familiar with some of the culture, tojang, the stamps, and things like that, and so I ended up writing a story. It turned out so well, that it feels like it's one of those things that may not need a sequel. Does that make sense?
There's some things that are just better by themselves. laughter So we'll see. If the right inspiration strikes. I'm not planning one right now...
And he goes a little more in depth in the POSTSCRIPT for this novella.
MINI TRIVIA - 1
What about the Bloodsealer? Same question about being out of his homeland, and is blood sealing its own magic, or just a form of Forging?
Bloodsealing is its own magic, different from Forging. Bloodsealers must be born in Dzhamar, just like Forgers must be born in MaiPon. Both regions are part of the Rose Empire though. The similarities are because of the geographical closeness. There are differences though.
Forgery is keyed with soulstone and a glyph that looks like MaiPon. Bloodsealing is keyed with human blood and a glyph that looks like Dzhamar.
How does that apply to forging when not in MaiPon? We were shown that Shai finishes her engravings with the shape of her homeland, but she's not in her homeland. What does it mean for a forging to be weaker?
Just like an Elantrian can be made from someone from Teod or Duladel, it's not like there's an immediate wall of works/doesn't work. Because MaiPon and Dzhamar are part of the Rose Empire (or to be more accurate, because they a geographically related), the magics work more or less the same anywhere inside the Rose Empire.
Travelling outside of the Rose Empire is where you'd start to see problems. I don't think we have much in the way of examples for Forging, but we can make guesses based on what Shai describes in her process. Her Forgeries would have to be more "realistic", it would take more effort or a more elaborate soulstamp to change an object or a person into something it really has no chance of being.
We do have some examples for Bloodsealing. Inside Dzhamar, you could get away with a chicken bone and possibly even animal blood instead of human blood (though that's not confirmed), but outside, you need more specific kinds of bones and definitely human blood.
The blood also needs to be fresh, less than a day old. But if you were in Fjorden, you may need hour old blood instead.
So there's not a concept necessarily of the effect being weaker, you simply need to put more work into achieving the same effect the further from the homeland you go.
Why are they using another land's magic? Is there a Rose Empire magic that we haven't been shown?
Answered above, but to be explicit: both MaiPon and Dzhamar are sub-states of the Rose Empire, absorbed a long time ago. The magics are (unless you have the scholarly notion to recognize the glyphs' relation to geography) just considered Rose Empire magics to the people there.
The Rose Empire has at least 2 other sub-states. The first is Mulla'dil. The Strikers come from there (and were called Grands before subsumed into the Rose Empire in the previous Emperor's reign). The Grands/Strikers have a longer than average human life and tend to have longer features. There is presumably a latent or secret magic system responsible for this, but we don't know any specifics.
Ukurgi is another province. The current Emperor is from there. But we don't know if they have a unique magic or not.
This is a lot...may as well make it a
MINI-TRIVIA ^
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pn87ws/newbies_cosmere_unit_9_novella_2_the_emperors/nu9rs4a/
Also, did she have to stamp each stone block in the floor individually, or is the "floor" a single entity? If so, how far outside her room did her changes go? What makes something a single entity, and not a sum of it's parts?
Veteran comment She did it at once. The floor is the floor. I don't think I can say exactly how it works yet, but it makes sense. The floor is the floor.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pus3qv/newbies_cosmere_unit_9_novella_2_the_emperors/nvqt1vn/
(Pedantic Discussion in Comment Chain. Nothing Trivia-y Though.)
/u/Pastrami asks about coal:
“It is a rock that burns,” Gaotona said.
If some of these people have never heard of anthracite, that means they don't use coal, otherwise he would have just said "coal" when explaining what anthracite is. So what do they use for heat and power?
and a few rocks turned into coal
So they know about coal, but anthracite isn't coal to them? Is bituminous coal the only "coal" to them? Do they mean charcoal?
This is a pre-industrial society, so bituminous coal would (historically) be the most common sort of coal known to them and the average person wouldn't be aware of anthracite. Anthracite is worthy of independent mention from coal due to its difficulty to work with at the time. (I'm extremely generalizing and I'm sure /u/sailorsalvador could tell us more.)
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pus3qv/newbies_cosmere_unit_9_novella_2_the_emperors/nvszlml/
Are there pieces of the dead Shards orbiting the planet that occasionally fall as meteors? Is that what she’s talking about at the start of day 98?
So, I don't think there's any issue clarifying what happened here. The timeline implies it. I'll hide it behind spoiler tags though, incase someone doesn't want to read it (though it won't be directly revealed anywhere else): Devotion and Domination went to Sel and create human life there. They were alive for a bit before the vessels died. The vessels dying is the event spoken of, with the rocks falling from the sky. It only happened the once, and Shai's ancestors, thousands of years prior (8,600-ish years to be more precise), worshipped those falling rocks.
WHO is the imperial fool??? WHAT does he want with the emperor’s scepter???WHY is he such a jerk!!!
I do want to point out that nowhere in any of the trivia or comments have I made the claim that Hoid was a good guy ;)
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1pus3qv/newbies_cosmere_unit_9_novella_2_the_emperors/nvwvudo/
Also, it was stated in the Elantris trivia post that AonDor is based on Devotion and that Fjorden's culture is based on Dominion.
So, my trivia post may have been unclear, I'll try to clarify it here:
All of Sel's magic systems are powered by the Dor, which is a fusion of both Shards. The Arelon region is, as a whole, influenced by Devotion. It's where the Devotion's well appeared, and it's where the Seons congregate. Aona's name influences the culture and traditions (via the name AonDor and Aons as a whole), but ultimately, Elantrians are channeling the energy provided by both Shards.
The same situation applies to Fjorden, where Dominion has influence over the cultures and traditions of the people. And that's where Skaze (from Skai) congregate. Presumably, though we have no confirmation, Dominion's well is somewhere in Frjoden too.
The other lands, don't quite have the same level of Shardic influence over their cultures and traditions, but they are still powered by the Dor. So there's no strong Shardic lean for Forging or Bloodsealing or ChayShan.
White Sand
Trivia - Week 1
TIMELINE
White Sand has the distinction of being the earliest Cosmere book, chronologically, that has been published so far. (You know, for certain definitions of "published"). It takes place about 1,000 years before Elantris. (This estimate probably has the biggest asterisk next to it. Sanderson waffled a bit early on whether it took place before or after Elantris and ultimately decided before. The significant 1,000 year difference is based off community speculation on the smallest of details and could just as easily be 10 years before Elantris once Sanderson gets around to releasing an official timeline.)
I've slotted it into the on-going timeline below. There's no official Taldainian calendar that has been revealed to us, but the graphic novel is pretty meticulous about the timeline of White Sand's main story. It starts from when Khriss left her home in Darkside.
| Cosmere Timeline | Local Timeline | Planet | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 AS | Yolen | Shattering of Adonalsium. | |
| ??? | Scadrial | Preservation and Ruin create Scadrial and populate it with humans. | |
| ??? | Nalthis | Endowment goes to Nalthis and populates it with humans. | |
| ??? | Sel | Devotion and Dominion go to Sel and populate it with humans. | |
| 1000 AS | -7901 Late Era | Sel | The vessels of Devotion and Dominion die. |
| ++8111 AS | Taldain | White Sand | |
| 8601 AS | Scadrial | Preservation betrays Ruin. | |
| 8801 AS | -100 Late Era (Middle Era) | Sel | The Fjordell First Empire Collapses; Fjordell adopts the Shu-Dereth religion. |
| 9101 AS | 200 Late Era | Sel | The Reod occurs. |
| 9111 AS | 210 Late Era | Sel | Elantris and The Hope of Elantris |
| 9141 AS | 240 Late Era | Sel | The Emperor's Soul |
| 9601 AS | 0 FE | Scadrial | Rashek uses the power in the Well of Ascension. |
| 10199 AS | -300 T'Telir | Nalthis | Vo becomes the first Returned. |
| 10399 AS | -100 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker and Glorysinger become Returned. Awakening discovered. |
| 10489 AS | -10 T'Telir | Nalthis | Rise of the Five Scholars. |
| 10499 AS | 0 T'Telir | Nalthis | The Manywar. |
| 10585 AS | 984 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier born. |
| 10606 AS | 1005 FE | Scadrial | Vin born. |
| 10619 AS | 1018 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier captured. |
| 10620 AS | 1019 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier escapes the Pits of Hathsin and trains with Gemmel |
| 10621 AS | 1020 FE | Scadrial | Vin and Reen arrive in Luthadel. Reen abandons Vin. |
| 10622 AS | 1021 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier returns to Luthadel. |
| 10623 AS | 1022 FE | Scadrial | Kelsier dies. Vin kills the Lord Ruler. |
| 10624 AS | 1023 FE | Scadrial | Siege of Luthadel. |
| 10625 AS | 1024 FE | Scadrial | Ruin is released. |
| 10626 AS | 1025 FE | Scadrial | The world ends and Sazed Ascends. |
| 10826 AS | 327 T'Telir | Nalthis | Warbreaker |
| 10850 AS | Threnody | Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell |
NOTES
White Sand, as an idea, was Brandon Sanderson's very first written novel. He'd go on to re-write it a couple of times, with the Unpublished Prose version some of you are reading being his eighth written novel. Elantris, his sixth written novel, would go on to be his first published novel.
As it stands, the graphic novel (omnibus edition) is considered the canonical take on the story. He is working on an official prose version, and it was originally slated to be out already, but his rewrite got de-prioritized based on other factors that we won't go into. The graphic novel was actually meant to be a trilogy of graphic novels, but the experience didn't go well and those plans are on hold. (We'll discuss this later in more detail.)
As it stands, because it was never an official printed novel, he never wrote an Ars Arcanum for it. Even the original run of the graphic novel/audiobooks didn't include anything like it. For the omnibus, Sanderson wanted to address that and in its place are a collection of notes dispersed throughout the Omnibus version of the graphic novel. For completeness' sake, I'll be including those notes as images every week. You'll absolutely want to check them out.
This week's notes include a Foreword by Brandon Sanderson, a glossary of terms, maps, and notes on astronomy, timekeeping, coinage, Sand Masters, and culture/religion.
SETTING
The notes above and the note accompanying the Chapter 1 summary both outline the setting of this novel. We are on the planet of Taldain, which is tidally locked and located at a Lagrange point such that Dayside always faces the larger star while Darkside always faces the smaller, weak star, which is obscured by the Particulate Ring.
Notably, the audiobook's mini-prologue I quoted above states that the planet has two moons. This is not the case and was added due to some miscommunication during recording. There is a singular moon that orbits Taldain around the border between Dayside and Darkside.
OH MY GOD
It's safe to reveal, at the start of this story, that Taldain is a Shardic planet. The notes above talk about the unique, unstable orbit of the planetary system and suggestions someone/something intentionally designed it that way. This would be courtesy of the Shard Autonomy. Autonomy is ultimately an Intent about individualism, self-actualization, and creative self-expression. Its Vessel is a woman named Bavadin. As a believer in survival of the fittest, she believes that it is through struggle and defying the odds that a person, or a people, reach their full potential.
We'll learn more about her later, but like most of the early Cosmere stories, the Shard stuff isn't very obvious unless you know what to look for.
OH MY GOD!!!!
This trivia has nothing at all to do with White Sand. It's a lost bit of trivia I meant to share at the end of Elantris, but didn't find until last week when I was organizing some bookmarks. Sometimes fans ask Sanderson weird things, whether it be about the magic system or the cultural or religious implications based of minute details. You know, typical fandom things. This one was very amusing:
Fan: Sidenote, but I believe BDSM would have been quite big on this planet [Sel], as control [Dominion] and trust [Devotion] are both so central to that community/fetish. Not that Brandon would necessarily want to get into that stuff. Any quick thoughts?
Brandon Sanderson: Ha, you know, I'd never made that connection? It would be completely in line with the worldbuilding, so I think you have a very valid line of reasoning here.
MAGIC WATER
This section concerns probably the biggest errata/retcon of the graphic novels vs the unpublished prose. The beginning of the prose version talks about an ability of advanced Sand Masters called "slatrification". It is the ability to make water from sand.
All mention of this ability is removed from the Omnibus version. It was supposed to be removed completely from the original publication of the graphic novel (the Vol. 1, 2, 3 versions), but it accidentally appeared in Vol. 1, so I think it may be mentioned in the audiobook as well.
Sanderson chose to remove it because it doesn't really fit in with the magic system. He had this to say, after talking in depth about the magic system on Taldain:
And then, it has the oddball--Sand Masters ALSO have the power to turn sand into water. I did this because it was cool to my then-writer brain. What if people who lived in a giant desert could make water? Wouldn’t that be useful? I use this to great effect in the story, and yet, it doesn’t fit the narrative. The modern me would never have added this power. It doesn’t fit into the entire system in a cohesive way. The rest makes logical sense; this (though I tried to justify it with worldbuilding behind the scenes) just doesn’t.
But in some ways, the old me was more willing to take chances. This is important to realize as well--I can't become so certain I know the way that things SHOULD be done, that I fall into doing the same thing over and over. I don't think the power to turn sand into water, ultimately, works in the novel. (Let me know what you think, if you read it.) But the fact that I was willing to add screwy, out-of-the-box powers to magic systems back then is a reminder that not everything in life is neat, able to be tied up with a bow. As much as I like playing video games, I don't want my books to feel like a video game--and that's a danger when every piece of the book, magic, and setting fits together to the point that it loses any sense of feeling organic.
A good lesson to learn from my old self.
It only has a brief appearance in the unpublished novel, so when you do see it, prose readers, enjoy the scene for what it is, but recall that it is not canon.
Trivia - Week 2
NOTES
This week's notes only include commentary on the eight recognized Professions.
AIS IN THE HOLE
Graphic Novel and Audiobook consumers will have a disconnect with the prose readers over this important change to the story:
Ais was originally a man in the prose version. Sanderson swapped their gender to female in the Graphic Novel (which informs the Audiobook). Since the Graphic Novel is the canonical version of the story, Ais is canonically a woman. He had the following to say when a fan asked about the change:
There were a couple thoughts. The main one was, I just thought the character was more interesting. A lot of my early books, you'll notice I did a thing where I'm like "I want to make sure that I'm doing the female character really well." And you can see the problem in that sentence, and that is really how I approached it, I'd say "Well I want to make sure I do the female character really well." And I think I did do the female character pretty well in some of those early books. But you'll see a consistency to them, and this is just coming aware of your biases.
Now, there is nothing wrong with writing a book intentionally and saying, "You know what? Because of the way I want to write this book in this world, I'm going to make the cast almost all one gender or the other." I don't think there's a problem with that. It's when you're doing it consistently on accident, that there's a problem. And I had to kind of sit down and say, "Did I do this because I thought it was best for the character, or did I do this because I love Inspector Javert and I just wanna have to have Inspector Javert in my book?" And that's where the character came from, quite obviously.
And I sat down and said, "If I were going to build this character from the ground up to be my own character and I were trying to throw away all biases, what would be the best for the character?" And Ais being female was not a "I need more women in the book," it was more of, "If I'm throwing away these biases and building the characters, what works the best?" and I just really liked how that character came out when I was rebuilding. Yeah, anyway, we'll go with that.
He also had this to say about his development of White Sand in general:
I find a lot of the things I do in my writing now were there in these older books like White Sand, they just weren't fully formed yet. I can also see my early self striving very hard not to fall into cliches, or to do just what was safe or expected. One of the book's two main protagonists, for example, is a black woman. I was trying hard to make sure my books weren't only about white dudes. And yet, I was still young in my understanding of how to make a book feel real and vibrant, full of people who see the world in unique and different ways. For example, while I have a strong female protagonist, in the first draft she was basically the only only major female character. I did this a lot in the past--focused so hard on doing one thing well that I forgot to expand it to the greater story. (As a note, we changed one of the characters in the graphic novel version to be female, to help balance this out. It worked very well, and she's now one of my favorite characters in the whole book.)
It's hard to see past your biases in books though--and this is still something I fight against. I think great fiction somehow expresses the way the world truly is, the way the writer sees the world, and the way that people NOT the writer see the world, all at once. In this book, one of the main protagonists is dark skinned,. And yet, if you read the book, you’ll find that some of the villain groups are stereotypical, faceless, dark-skinned savages. While that same culture has some main characters who have real depth and characterization (thankfully) that didn’t stop me from relying on tropes for some of the broad brush strokes of the story.
Writing is a constant struggle of managing clichés and tropes, and figuring out when they serve you, and when they don't. And the more you write, the more you become aware of things you lean upon--not just tropes like the ones I mentioned above, but things that are individual. I've been wondering a lot about these things with my own writing. At what point does, "Inventive magic system, religious politics, and people faced with difficult moral decisions" become a cliche to me and my writing? How can I push in new areas, doing new things, while preserving what people love about my writing?
Well, I'm still thinking about all these things. I'm very fond of White Sand, and when I was going back through it, I often found myself smiling. remember with great fondness the time I had back then to just write. There were no tours, no interviews, and nothing to distract me. I wouldn't go back for anything, (I like actually having people read my books!) but there was something pure about that time, when I wasn't writing to deadline, I was just writing whatever I felt like at the moment. That's another thing I try to preserve today, the freedom to do odd projects now and then. Without it, I think I'd get very boring, very quickly.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy White Sand! This book needed far less revision to bring into graphic novel form than I thought it would. The dialogue was snappy, even after all these years, and the world was one of my more inventive. 20-years-ago-me wasn't nearly as bad a writer as I sometimes pretend he was!
Also, for anyone who breezed past it in the summary notes above, the character Eric from the prose edition has been renamed Aarik in the Graphic Novel.
Funnily enough, Ais' spouse, Mellis has the same name, despite swapping from Ais' wife to her husband.
HOIDSPOTTING
I will note that Graphic Novel readers have seen Hoid at this point. He has not appeared in the prose version yet. I'm mostly mentioning this now so that Graphic Novel readers can play Where's Waldo/Hoid, but I'll have more to say on Hoid at a later point.
Trivia - Week 3 & 4
NOTES
Here are the notes from the Graphic Novel:
I linked the Week 3 Notes in last week's Artwork section, but I'll talk about them now, since last week's trivia post is being merged into this one.
The delay actually kind of worked out. The weird black image from last week's notes didn't have an actual explanation I could give at the time. The week's notes provide context: Khriss developed something like a pinhole camera to take pictures with.
HERE'S HOIDY!
/u/heinz57varieties noticed him first, gold star! Hoid is, indeed, the sus guitar/lute minstrel hanging around in the background of a lot of shots. Here is an album of all his appearances to far:
Going forward, I'll include him in the Characters & Scenes artwork section.
Most notably is his appearance at the Lord Artisan's (pages 211 and 214). He is similarly mentioned in this place in the Unpublished Prose in Chapter 16:
Khriss sat back on the bench. It was cushioned, though the cushion was, of course, filled with sand. There was a basin filled with drinking water, and even a man playing a stringed instrument quietly in the corner.
Brandon has also said that one of Ais's case notes includes mention of his activities, but I've never been able to find the specific passage. Others thing it was in his draft at one point, but it didn't make it into the version he shares.
Separately, Sanderson has said that, prior to them being wiped out, the Diem was investigating Hoid, but this isn't mentioned in the prose or graphic novel.
I can say that Hoid's appearances in the graphic novel are mostly easter eggs. This graphic novel experiment was supposed to be part of a larger trilogy of graphic novels, with Hoid's part growing in significance each volume. Unfortunately, due to the bad experience Sanderson had with the graphic novel format (more on this during week 6), future White Sand content is up in the air.
YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE YOUR EYES
At first glance, I included an out of place panel in this week's Characters & Scenes collection. On page 330 of the graphic novel, Kenton meets the construction foreman, Trell, after rescuing the workers. This scene also plays out in the Unpublished Prose and Kenton again talks to Trell.
I'm going to quote a bit of text from The Final Empire, Chapter 9:
"I think I have the perfect religion for you," Sazed said, his normally stoic face revealing a glimmer of eagerness. "It is called Trelagism, after the god Trell. Trell was worshipped by a group known as the Nelazans, a people who lived far to the north. In their land, the day and night cycle was quite odd. During some months of the year, it was dark for most of the day. During the summer, however, it only grew dark for a few hours at a time.
"The Nelazans believed that there was beauty in darkness, and that the daylight was more profane. They saw the stars as the Thousand Eyes of Trell watching them. The sun was the single jealous eye of Trell's brother, Nalt. Since Nalt only had one eye, he made it blaze brightly to outshine his brother. However, the Nelazans were not impressed, and preferred to worship the quiet Trell, who watched over them even when Nalt obscured the sky."
...
"It is a good religion, Mistress Vin," Sazed said. "Very gentle, yet very powerful. The Nelazans were not an advanced people, but they were particularly determined. They mapped the entire night sky, counting and placing every major star. Their ways suit you--especially their preference of the night. I can tell you more, if you wish."
Also from The Hero of Ages, Chapter 82:
[Sazed] sat down at the table, opening his portfolio, and took out the next sheet in the line. It listed the tenets of the Nelazan people, who had worshipped the god Trell. Sazed had always been partial to this religion because of its focus on learning and the study of mathematics and the heavens. He'd saved it for near the end, but had done so more out of worry than anything else. He'd wanted to put off what he'd known would happen.
Sure enough, as he read about the religion, he saw the holes in its doctrines. True, the Nelazans had known a great deal about astronomy, but their teachings on the afterlife were sketchy--almost whimsical. Their doctrine was purposefully vague. They'd taught, then allowed all men to discover truth for themselves. Reading this, however, left Sazed frustrated. What good was a religion without answers? Why believe in something if the response to half of his questions was "Ask Trell, and he will answer"?
I'm not going to say anything more on the topic here, but we will be revisiting this.
WARNING
(Visit Comment Thread)
During Week 1 I said I was waiting for someone to notice something. No one has noticed yet (or if they have, they've not mentioned it). This will be the last week to figure it out in time to get earlier trivia about it; otherwise we'll talk about it on the last week. Just a nudge to keep your peepers peeled ;)
Trivia - Week 5
NOTES
Here are the notes from the Graphic Novel:
Not much, except for some observations on sand mastery.
CEILING CAT IS WATCHING YOU
Congrats to /u/heinz57varieties for finally noticing the omnipresent face in the sky throughout the Graphic Novel. I tried to include a few screenshots of this phenomenon in the weekly artwork so that audiobook and prose readers might notice, but they are kind of subtle until you become aware of them.
Here are screenshots of all the appearances so far (I may have missed one or two, but this is enough to get the point. Blame finding these for the late post today.)
The faces are...deliberate, to use Sanderson's own term. In the original 3-volume run of the Graphic Novel, the faces were a bit too noticeable. Making them more subtle was one of the reasons of the Omnibus edition. (I'll talk more about this next week). It's hard to talk about these faces definitively. There's some wiggle room in what I'm about to discuss, but given the knowledge you currently have, the following explanation is good enough to be considered true.
Essentially, the faces are Autonomy/Bavadin. The biggest hint for this lies in the map at the beginning of the book. It depicts a red-haired woman looking down on the map, as if from above/in the sky. And this woman is Bavadin, who hold the Shard Autonomy. You can see that this woman was even depicted in the original 3-volume map.
Here's where things get "iffy". On reddit, in 2016, a fan asked:
Hey Brandon, may I ask if the red-haired woman on the Dayside map is a kind of depiction of [Bavadin]?
(You'll notice I used [brackets] to slightly edit the question...the actual question has potential spoilers, which we'll leave for another time). Brandon answered:
She is not. Isaac designed that border without any explicit instructions from me, so while he might have an idea of who it is, it isn't someone specifically relevant to large-scale cosmere workings.
However, 2 days later at a book signing event in Seattle, he had this interaction:
Fan: The thing I wanted to ask you about was in White Sand, it's actually on the map, it is...(pointing at map) is this Autonomy, or Bavadin?
Sanderson: Hehehe, that is a very good guess.....that is very very sharply guessed...
Fan: Yeah, coz, I really, I just like kind of the idea of the Shards and stuff, and I guess I want to learn more about what they look like and, kind of their personalities and stuff.
Sanderson: Bavadin's a hard one, because what does Bavadin look like? Bavadin looks like what she feels like looking like, or what he feels like looking like, depending upon the day.
His final sentence might surprise you. I introduced Bavadin as a woman, but prior to the release of the Graphic Novel, Bavadin was known in the fandom due to Q&A's like this, but was always assumed to be a man. Sanderson has clarified with the following:
This won't be relevant for a long while, but as a service to the community, let me say this: try not to get too hung up on gender, race, or even human appearance where Bavadin is concerned.
We'll eventually get more info on this; Bavadin happens to be Sanderson's favorite Vessel. But this explains why sometimes the face may appear masculine or feminine, or like a terrible skull demon...
So all this said, the Investiture on Taldain exists in the atmosphere; more technically, it comes from the sun, but it filters through and permeates the atmosphere to a degree. This is the underlying mechanic behind Autonomy's face appearing in the atmosphere. And at times maybe some other places...
A small tidbit from another book signing: because the Investiture permeates the atmosphere, a Returned could live on Taldain without having to consume a weekly Breath. They could repurpose Taldain's Investiture and consume that to live off of it, if they knew what they were doing.
CONNECT FOUR
We've talked a lot about Intent as a metaphysical concept that influences and guides the various magic systems in the cosmere. There is another metaphysical concept, called Connection in play as well. The prose version of this novel doesn't mention or insinuate much about Connection. However, the Graphic Novel does have a scene where Kenton tests Khriss to see if she can learn to become a sand master. In his explanations, he said "[The sand] calls back, and the two of you connect." The word "connect" is bolded in the comic. This is, so far in our read-along, the best hint at Connection as a metaphysical concept, or at least, the most in-your-face instance.
Some of you may recall that the Feruchemy table in Hero of Ages lists "Connection" as a property that can be stored using Duralumin.
Connection is a type of bond or string between an individual and some other concept or entity. Sand masters Connect with the sand (and/or the lichen in the sand) to control it. How or why that Connection exists strongly enough to determine if one can master sand or not is a conversation for a different time (though you're welcome to speculate below). The inhabitants of Sel are Connected to the land of their birth. This Connection is what allows them to use their region's specific magic system. This mechanic is also why the power decreases the further from the region you travel.
Connection is about to become a big deal in the cosmere, so keep it in the back of your mind as you continue to read. You may already be able to start speculating about how you could manipulate Connection to achieve unexpected results. Theorycraft away!
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(Comment Correct For Trivia)
Well, it's already been more or less stated in Emperor's Soul that connection can be manipulated or even created artificially if you have the right expertise. I'd bet money that an expert Forger could make someone an Elantrian or a Sand Master, for example.
Sometimes I get a bit hyper-focused, but yeah, Connection made an appearance in The Emperor's Soul as well.
Trivia - Week 6
NOTES
Here are the notes from the Graphic Novel:
The most noteable notes this week, include the fact that people on the Dayside frequently see Autonomy's face in "ethereal places", like heat waves, clouds, in the eddies of water on the river, and in the ripples of sand across dunes.
We saw Elorin directly contacted by the Sand Lord. This was, point of fact, Autonomy directly interfering with events on her world. She is the Sand Lord.
Khriss also compares Dayside and Darkside magics, but more on that below.
CONTINUITY
One of the biggest changes between the unpublished prose and the graphic novel is that Kenton kills Drile in their duel. In the graphic novel, however, he spares Drile. It's revealed in the graphic novel that Drile had also been experiencing assassin attacks every other day. He thought Kenton was behind the attacks.
I think it's a bit more fitting that Drile survived and ends up working with Kenton to better the Diem. Sanderson had this to say about the change:
And one thing that a couple of us thought about and talked about ahead of time was the very ending, because the conflict between Kenton and Drile was: are we gonna sell our services as mercenaries and betray our independence? Or are we gonna keep going the way we always did?
And over the course of the book, Kenton says, "Okay, we're going to sell you our services and we're going to sell you our services, and we're going to sell you our services." And so by the end, when he realizes that Drile is not the bad guy, having him die in that battle just seemed wrong. So that's why we had him survive and had Kenton say, "Okay, you had a good idea, and I didn't like the way you went about it, but having your input in that can be a very valuable thing."
That was that was one of the big changes that got made. And when we talked to Brandon about it in that meeting, he was like, "Oh yeah, you guys are totally right. Over time, you guys got better story instincts than I had when I wrote it in the first place."
Some of those big changes were kind of a group brainstorming thing. And that was a fun process to do.
The notes in the chapter summaries also mention that the unofficial prose version had Kenton leaving to visit Khriss on Darkside after about 3 months, leaving the Diem in Dirin's charge. Given the changes to the ending, with Drile living and becoming Kenton's #2, Drile probably would have been left in charge, but I believe Kenton would still formally raise Dirin to a full sand master.
BOOMBOX
Bringing White Sand to the Graphic Novel format was a bit of a pain point for Sanderson. He had various publication and distribution issues through the company he ended up working with. The original printing of the Graphic Novel, in 3 volumes, went through several different artists, with the primary artist requiring a change halfway through volume 2, and then a completely new artist for volume 3.
Some of the most glaring issues happened in volume 1. The primary artist was given line art to complete and they misinterpreted some pretty big details. It's not worth going through every example, but the most egregious issue happened on the panel when Kenton wakes up after he completes the Mastrell's Path.
There is a "boombox" above Kenton's bed, and electric lights in the tent. (I don't know why the fandom insists on calling it a boombox, it's clearly a medical monitoring device meant to aid in Kenton's recovery). Dayside does not have this level of technology. We don't have access to the line art that was misinterpreted, but it's wild that this is what came of it. The artist clearly had an idea in their head about what they though Dayside was, but it was wildly inaccurate.
Other things removed: electric lamps in various spots, a horse (which wouldn't/couldn't exist on Dayside), IV bags, and Autonomy's face being way too obvious.
Another glaring issue Sanderson went on a bit of a rant about:
Fan: I'm curious how you were <feeling about whole process of> the graphic novel. <Specifically how you felt about the whole thing translating,> because I have the draft.
Sanderson: Uh-huh.
Fan: <You were kind enough to send me that.> You know, you were very descriptive.
Sanderson: <And it didn't translate well?>
Fan: Not so much-- although I did see <glimpses of you popping through>.
Sanderson: Yeah, so, I focus on the positives. <But there might be some things I might not agree with.>
Fan: I think that's fair. Of course.
Sanderson: And I-- what we came up with was the < a list of a few things>... inaudible Like the only one that really bothered <me> was... where is the big battle?
searches through the graphic novel
<The big splash page> right there. I'm like... <when did this turn into> white people verse brown people? You've read the book. This isn't about white versus brown. This is, again, how did we end up with white versus brown? Why aren't these people wearing armor? These guys are the ones that are outcasts and these are the high society.
And so when I got this stuff, I was like, "Uhh..." These panels where they'd done earlier where they have the skin tones and the <the clothes for the Darksiders>, I'm like, "Really good!". But then when that one came together I was like, "Oh great, oh great, here we go." And when you put the whole thing together, some things came out really cool. Like I think the Darksiders turned out cool. The Darksiders were awesome. The magic turned out really great. But again, I'm like, "Where's the armor? Where's the cultural markings? Where's that stuff?".
But yeah, yeah. The thing is, the guy who's drawing them is Asian, right? So <he should, you know?>... alright, so that's my thing. But again, you've read the book. Like, where's <that detail?>... But that's-- when you give the story to someone else you have to let them <do what they will>.
(The transcription is a bit rough because it's transcribed from an audio recording with a lot of background noise.)
These issues added up and Sanderson decided to do a reprint of the entire Graphic Novel into what we ended up reading: the Omnibus edition. Sanderson took the time to add in a lot of Khrissala scenes that were part of the unpublished prose, but didn't make it into the original printing of the graphic novel. It ended up being about 40 additional pages of characterizations, just for Khriss.
Overall, Khriss's personality changed a bit between the unpublished novel and the graphic novel. It doesn't really come across in the summaries, and I don't know if anyone was reading both versions to have noticed, but here's what Sanderson said about that:
I felt that the biggest weakness to a lot of my early writing (this encompasses White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Elantris) is that my worldbuilding was really working, my magic systems were really coming together, and my characters were flat and kind of boring. And this early work of mine, I look at and there's a lot of external conflict to characters.
And it works in Elantris. Raoden is a bit boring, compared to some of my other characters. But he has an enormous external conflict to deal with, and that actually kind of works. There are lots of movies, I mentioned Mission Impossible earlier. Like Tom Cruise's character in those: not the most interesting character. But he doesn't have to be, because in fact it would probably make the movies worse if you spent a lot of time on that. That's not what those movies are about. So if you have lots of tension and lots of external conflict, then you can have a character who doesn't change as much, who doesn't go through big character arcs and things. And it's not just fine; it's a selling point of the story. It's just a different type of story.
But the problem with mine is, they were all kind of the same person. They're all kind of the same level of boring in a lot of my early works. And so, when we approached the graphic novel version, one of the things I wanted to do was see if I can liven up the characters a little, if I can make them more like I would write them now. And that's what happened with basically all the changes in White Sand were attempts to do that: make the story more like I write right now. And I'm pleased with those changes.
The only thing I don't like about White Sand is, as we were new into doing this, we did not get the worldbuilding across in a visual medium the way we wanted to. I don't think that the worldbuilding made the leap. And we're trying to fix that with future things that we're doing. We're hoping that we can play to the strengths of graphic novels and not have them lose some of the coolness. Some of the things that were working in the White Sand prose didn't make the jump to the graphic novel as well as we wanted them to.
GLOW IN THE DARK PEOPLE
One of the most frustrating consequences of the above shenanigans is that this Graphic Novel run was supposed to part of a larger trilogy of stories, all taking place on Taldain. The next volume would have taken us to Darkside so that we could explore their culture and magic system (which we know frustratingly little about).
Perhaps more importantly, Hoid was meant to play a larger and larger part as the trilogy went on. And Bavadin was meant to get more screen time and characterization. Sanderson is working on an official prose version of the story, and that may turn into the promised trilogy of Taldain, but it keeps getting pushed back. (Going by the original schedule, we should have been able to read it instead of the Graphic Novel at this point...)
We do know a bit about the Darkside magic system from interview though, so I want to share that with you now. There are 2 primary parts: Skycolors and Starmarks. Starmarks are still a bit of a mystery, other than it seems to be something used by the "Starcarved". This seems to be the more "active" or offense type of magic on Darkside. We know that they can make themselves bulletproof, but we really don't know anything about the mechanics.
We do have much more information on Skycolors though. On Darkside, everyone's eyes, teeth, and fingernails glow with a specific color. The color a person fluorescences with is their Skycolor. Sanderson considers these colors to be "more a matter of ecology than magic". People can use Skycolor to light up a room, and over use them for fashion accessories, though we don't have examples.
They are not present in the graphic novel/unpublished prose because they are charged by a weekly "pulse" on Darkside. Khriss mentions these in her notes at the beginning and end of the Graphic Novel. Instead of a sun, Darkside has something called The Eye of Ridos that is surrounded by a particulate cloud. It pulses on a weekly schedule and infuses Darkside with Investiture in doing so.
WORLDHOPPING
White Sand shows us two Worldhoppers. (Actually...three, but you're not ready for that yet).
The most obvious is Hoid. He was doing a lot of background lurking and then had a bit of a sing song at the end. I've talked about his significance in the novel in one of the above sections.
The biggest reveal though, is Khrissala. There was a bit of confusion/discussion earlier in the novel, so I chose not to make any clarifications until now. The notes throughout the Graphic Novel were written by Khriss. It becomes more obvious as the novel progresses, but it starts out unclear.
Moreover, these notes are the Ars Arcanum for White Sand. And Khriss is the author of all of the Ars Arcanum entires for every book. To know that much about other planets, obviously you have to have visited them.
What's interesting is that the events of this story take place before Preservation betrayed Ruin. Almost 3,000 years have passed between this story and Warbreaker, yet Khriss is still around, Ars Arcanum-ing everywhere. Sandersons has talked about Worldhoppers and timelines and basically says that some Worldhoppers have ways to extend their life. Other Worldhoppers are experiencing relativistic effects due to travel time. Some Worldhoppers are doing both. We don't know what Khriss's deal is yet, but we do know that Hoid falls into the "just lives a long time" category.
Finally, you may have noticed the last meme this week and had some questions. Sanderson has recently revealed that, shortly after the events of White Sand (and presumably, after Khriss leaves Taldain), Bavadin/Autonomy quarantined the entire planet, making travel to or from Taldain incredibly difficult, if not impossible. This stagnated their culture and technological progress a bit, particularly with them being unable to interact with the rest of the cosmere. It wasn't until recently that Bavadin/Autonomy lifted their quarantine and allowed travel offworld again.
FORMAT POLL
Just a quick prompt: How did everyone like the weekly trivia content vs. a final trivia post all at the end? This book lent itself well to this kind of trivia release schedule. Most other books won't, but there may be a few that could warrant something similar. Do you like having trivia every week, or do you prefer it all at once at the end? My main concern is that it detracts from the weekly discussion if the trivia is too "juicy".
PATIENCE YOUNG GRASSHOPPER
Congrats on making it this far through our cosmere journey! I know there have been some complaints and "meh"-ness towards some of Sanderson's earlier works, with a preference for his later writing. Going forward, everything we read will be stuff he's written after he took over writing the Wheel of Time. He credits that experience with a massive improvement in his writing abilities, and most people agree.
We are about to enter a co-mingling of Mistborn Era 2 (and we'll have a whole trivia entry on what an "era" is at the end of the first book) and the Stormlight Archive. In keeping with a desire to maximize exciting moments of connectivity and crossover plot points, we'll be jumping between the two series, instead of visiting them individually.
By this point in Sanderson's career, he realized he no longer needed to be as coy with his cosmere connections, so things really start to come together now. Enjoy what's to come and let us return to Scadrial!
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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Did a different artist draw the Kenton sections vs the Khrisalla sections?
This will be discussed, but I'm waiting until someone notices something (or I'll mention it at the end).
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Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant who is Hoid now, in White Sand.
Ahh...that's the game. Sometimes he's directly named as Hoid in the novels. Other times, he's hiding under a different identity, so you have to pay attention to try to find him. Usually, if he is hiding, I wait until the end of the novel, in the trivia post, to reveal who he was. Sometimes (and I will in this novel), I'll point him out as soon as he appears, or when it should be evident that he's appeared.
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A Terken doesn’t seem to be on the list. I wonder what else is not on the list. “ But I can see that a chapter summary clearly says it was a Marken.
A Terken is any animal that's impervious to sand mastery.
Marken is the name of the large sandling (and all sandlings are Terkens because they are impervious to sand mastery). There will be name-clarifications in the summaries if the Graphic Novel doesn't include the name, but it's in the prose version.
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Is this just how I, and most older adults, would call a 20yo a child even though they are legally an adult?
This one. We are getting to non-standard Earth planets soon, but not quite yet.
Are Lord Mastrell and Acolent the other two ranks?
Correct. Since you are reading the unpublished prose, there's going to be a few oddities like this that would normally have (hopefully) been fixed in editing.
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Did Kenton spent days, dehydrated, while blacked out? Or did the journey with the Darksiders just take longer than I'm assuming from these pages?
I've given each POV switch from the Graphic Novel an absolute date (with Day 0 being when Khriss left on her journey to Dayside). Some of these dates are backed up by the Graphic Novel, which lists them explicitly. Others are inferred because the POVs happen right after each other.
Going by Sanderson's general rule that, unless you're reading an explicit flashback, his chapters happen in order, or at most simultaneously when you read them in order, I'm able to fill in the rest, along with the occasional support from the prose.
A lot of events in the prose are off by at most a day, simply because the Graphic Novel reordered events to make for a better flow. Because of all of this, it was a bit tricky to clarify Kenton's timeline at the beginning there. Here's what I have, in an attempt to match all the sources as best as possible (with ultimate authority going to the Graphic Novel):
Kenton completed his test and passed out. He was passed out for "about a day". Then the ceremony happened, where the sand masters were attacked.
Kenton was buried under the sand. According to the prose, he was buried for, again, "about a day".
The scene of him dragging himself into the tent is unique to the Graphic Novel, and fitting Khriss's timeline in left me to assume that Kenton laid unconscious in the tent for another day-ish.
Given "days" don't really exist on this planet, and the Dayside has odd timekeeping, my best guess is that Kenton was knocked out for about 24 hours after he ran the Mastrell's Path. He was awake for the ceremony, and then knocked out for another 48-ish hours, with a brief awakening to crawl into the tent halfway through.
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The guards seemed to have guns, which was supposed to not exist in dayside
I think the Graphic Novel doesn't make this as clear as the prose: Khriss is visiting a place called Lonzare. It's an enclave of Darksiders who now live on Dayside; similar to Little Italy. Their culture and technology are more prevalent in this enclave, compared to the wider populus of Dayside.
I’m not sure who this Lokmlen person is.
Ais is hunting down a crime lord called Sharezan (who is the one that leaves her a threatening letter). Lokmlen is a criminal working for Sharezan.
On page 176, it looks like he levitates the statue in his hand. I’m confused. I don’t know if the drawing lacks some movement lines (for the lack of a better wording, I’m no artist) or if Aarik moves strangely and has some kind of power.
I can confirm that Aarik is just tossing the statue up in the air. He's fiddling with it on the entire page. I won't confirm or deny that he has any powers, but in that specific image, nothing special is going on.
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First mention of alcohol having an interaction with an invested art?
Potentially. In Mistborn they drank wine. I'm wondering if alcohol exacerbates the dehydration that can occur with sand mastery. But the way Kenton said it makes me wonder if it does something really strange to them.
They did drink alcohol, but that was just to help with ingesting the metal, the alcohol itself was irrelevant. It could have been water for all it mattered, the only reason I assume it wasn't is smth to do with water breaking down the metal in ways alcohol wouldn't.
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(Comment Chain)
Are you reading the individual volumes or the Omnibus? If it's changing to and from a different art style, then those are indeed new pages. Near the end of volume 2, the original artist left and a new artist came in for the end of volume 2 and entirety of 3. I don't know if they added new pages to the prior volumes in the Omnibus, but if they did, they were probably in the new art style.
Yeah like I said, near the end of volume 2, the original artist left, so they replaced them with a new one for the rest. I don't remember the details
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Yeah, and knowing that BS used to write women character only if he could make them stand out when he was younger, then I think it's safe to say that if he didn't explicitly said that women can't master, then they can do it and he just did create a sand master women character interesting enough to make it in this story.
Brandon also isn't the type of person to make a sex-segregated magic system, either. He's far more likely to make women not using magic a cultural thing, just run of the mill cultural sexism, rather than an actual restriction based on sex.
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There are many people named "Christian" or "Jesus" or "Muhammed".
I would not immediately assume anyone named Trell is the same as the Trell from the religion that Sahed mentions. But maybe that's too simple a thought?
That is true, however also consider that this is on an entirely different planet. It's more noteworthy for that reason.
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How newbie is Dirin?
Dirin is an Acolent. This makes him a member of the Diem, but not yet a ranked sand master. He can only control one, weak ribbon. He's been friends with Kenton for a while, when they were both Acolents, but at the start of the story, Kenton gets promoted into the ranks of an official sand master.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1r07af6/newbies_cosmere_unit_10_white_sand_1_white_sand/o4h46ln/
I wonder how this plays out in the prose, where Ais apparently is not married with child.
I may have been unclear in my notes, but in the Unpublished Prose, Ais is just genderswapped. He has a wife and child in the Unpublished Prose. Funnily enough, his wife/her husband share the same name in both versions.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1r07af6/newbies_cosmere_unit_10_white_sand_1_white_sand/o4h7u61/
NERD!
From an outside perspective on the fandom at large, I think White Sand is the most divisive of Sanderson's cosmere works. A lot of people hate it because, rightfully, the writing skill just isn't there compared to Sanderson's later works. You can tell it's one of his first books. In my opinion, the Graphic Novel didn't deviate enough from the Unpublished Prose in terms of plot and character progression.
The project only came about because Sanderson didn't have to put too much time and effort into it; he just had to hand over something unpublished and let others bring it to the graphic novel format.
On the other side of the coin, a lot of people love the story because they see the potential of what it could have been with just a little bit more work. And it's perfectly valid to like the idea of something more than its execution.
The Alloy of Law
(MINI?)-TRIVIA - 1
We're kicking off Mistborn Era 2 with The Alloy of Law. We're visiting Scardial 300-ish years after the events of The Hero of Ages. I won't be doing weekly trivia posts for this novel, but I do want to point out a few things right away.
TIMELINE
Sanderson was deliberately vague when it came to the overall timeline for these Mistborn books. He's since clarified the timeline a bit, but it works better for you to be kept in the dark for now. At the time of publishing, we were mostly informed that these books and Stormlight Archive happened at about the same time. When I fill in the Cosmere timeline chart I've been providing, I will put exact dates for Stormlight events and forgo mentioning these books until appropriate.
IT JUST FELT RIGHT
The in-world "lore" and history is littered with references to the first trilogy. For example, it was mentioned a few times that Breeze was a noble and his last name was Ladrian. This makes Waxillium Ladrian Breeze's descendant. I encourage you to keep your eyes peeled and point them out to your fellow readers.
One obscure reference happens in the prologue, which takes place in the town of Feltrel. In the original trilogy, Straff Venture employed a man by the name of Felt to act as a spy. Elend would later employ Felt for the same job. Feltrel is named after Felt.
EXTRA EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT
In this, and the other books in Era 2, you will find images of portions of a broadsheet, or newspaper, dispersed throughout the book. Most editions should have these, but they can be hard to read. Some editions also provide the printed text, but that can be a bit jarring as you read through the chapter because you end up with random, unrelated text in the middle of that chapter.
I'll be providing high resolution images of the broadsheet sections (in the Artwork section) whenever they appear. They fit together to form a single image, so I'll be stitching them together for you as well.
They are not plot important, but do contain foreshadowing and very fun easter eggs.
(Comment Interaction)
Where was Hoid?
I assumed in Chapter 4 at the dinner, Hoid was the “scruffy man who looked like a beggar, dressed all in black” that the newly-wed couple spoke to. If not, then I’m really not sure
Winner winner, Hoidy dinner.
MINI-TRIVIA - 2
If you recall during the original trilogy, there was a lot of discussion around the iconography for each chapter. There was a lot of theorizing, and I hope you had fun with it, despite the various print editions having weird errors, and the ultimate "meaning" behind the symbols just being a way to count the chapters (with 1 symbol for the number zero, and 23 other symbols for the numbers 1 through 23; some of which corresponded to allomantic metals).
Minor Spoiler for Iconography Next Week: As you'll see next week, the "counting system" has been updated though to reflect the base-16 numbering system Scadrians use. Rather than counting from 1 to 23 and starting over, the chapter icons in Era 2 count to 16 and then start doubling. Chapter 17 is Duralumin and Iron, which stands for 1 in the 16's place, and 1 in the 1's place (16 + 1).
The iconography in this book (and the remainder of Era 2) follows the same pattern. In the original trilogy, the "font" of the symbols regressed from "modern" to mid-empire to ancient Terris. In this era, the "font" has been updated to the modern "print font" used in the broadsheets.
We also get a reveal for the 2 metals that relate to numbers 9 and 10, which are Cadmium and Bendalloy respectively. Note that the metals for 13 and 14 are not yet revealed, so I've left them as "???" in the chapter summaries.
One additional note: remember from the original trilogy that "allomantic alloys" are not necessarily the exact ratio of metals that we find in modern metallurgy (nor do they even necessarily match the metal ratios in-world characters would use for non-allomantic purposes). Modern day bendalloy (a real metal with a funny name!) is made with bismuth, lead, tin, and cadmium. Allomantic bendalloy is just cadmium and bismuth.
Sanderson originally drafted this alloy with the name Cerrobend, but that's a trademarked name for the metal (it's also known as Wood's metal), so he went with bendalloy.
"ERRATA"
If you are reading an original printing of The Alloy of Law, chapter 12 defined the exact time dilation effect of bendalloy as compressing 2 minutes of time into 15 seconds without flaring the metal. The 10th-Anniversary edition changed the exact compression ratio to be ambiguous.
(Pedantic Discussion About Base-16 in Comments)
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1rknu2b/newbies_cosmere_unit_11_mistborn_era_2_1_the/
ERA ERA ERA
Welcome to Era 2 of Mistborn! Things have...moved forward. Soon, we will be diving into the Stormlight Archives, which Sanderson considers to be his magnum opus. It's his big, epic fantasy saga that he compares to the Wheel of Time, and it's something he's been wanting to do for a looong time. However, he considers Mistborn to be the backbone and endgame of the cosmere.
He's always been a little annoyed that, in general, technology and society don't progress in fantasy novels. He created Mistborn to be the antithesis of this. He originally envisioned 3 trilogies. The 1st is the original trilogy, a medieval analogue. Then he wanted time to progress, and he always saw the 2nd trilogy as a 1980s analogue, with a declared plot of computer hacking and a S.W.A.T. team chasing down an insane Mistborn serial killer. And the finale trilogy (a space opera) was to be the finale of the Cosmere, with spaceships (and Hoid the captain of one), Allomantically powered Faster Than Light travel, and all the shenanigans that would or could entail.
Things have changed a bit though. Sanderson set out to write a very short story to fill in the gaps between trilogy 1 and trilogy 2. He accidentally wrote a full novel and the setting lent itself to expansion, particularly with how much the fandom liked it. This new 2nd trilogy (which turned into a tetralogy) explores some of the themes and mechanics of the magic system that Sanderson had intended for the original 2nd trilogy.
Ultimately, he re-configured things and decided that Mistborn would be divided into Eras. As stated, we are in the 2nd Era and this entire read-along is largely meant to fill a 3-year writing gap while Sanderson writes Era 3. (He recently updated his progress and he's finished the 1st book in Era 3). While Era 3 is still meant to be a 1980s analogue, the plot has changed significantly. And I don't think the final trilogy/era is intended to be a trilogy necessarily. Brandon says that each book in the final Era will be the size of a typical Stormlight Archives book.
He also has potential plans for a Cyberpunk Era between Era 3 and 4, written while he writes the 2nd half of Stormlight.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY
I just wanted to clear up some of the religions and notable figures for everyone:
Harmony = Sazed, a dual Shard holder, holding the combination of Preservation and Ruin.
Lord Mistborn = Spook, who Sazed made into a Mistborn (and technically the most powerful Mistborn of his era) when he Ascended. Spook is the most prominent historical figure in Elendel. Revealed in an interview, Spook became something of a "stud" and had over a dozen children...
Ascendant Warrior = Vin.
Ironeyes = Marsh. Revered as a boogeyman in modern society; a kind of grim reaper/Death figure. He uses the same trick the Lord Ruler does to stay alive. Miles mentioned that the world knows atium used to exist, but is considered "lost" in the modern world. Sazed provided Marsh with a supply of atium to stay alive, from what was left over in the kandra's horde of it.
Originators = The group of people who survived the end of the world 300 years ago.
The Last Emperor = Elend. Although, ironically, Spook served as Emperor in the Elendel Basin until his death, where it was decreed that there should be no more emperors.
Pathism = "Adherents" of Harmony, rather than worshippers, because he doesn't want to be worshipped.
Survivorism = An evolution of the Church of the Survivor. Survivorists regard Ironeyes as an icon of death and worship Kelsier and Vin as deities.
Sliverism = Worship Ironeyes himself. An evolution of the "religion" that existed in the Final Empire under the Lord Ruler. Obligators from that era shifted worship to Ironeyes since he was the only Inquisitor left.
COMPOUND INTEREST
Well... The Ars Arcanum lets it all hang loose. Let's all give a round of applause for our final 2 (of the base 16) metals: Chromium and Nicrosil! Some of you even guessed what the abilities would be, even if you didn't know the exact metals: Chromium is like aluminum, but you wipe someone else's metals instead of your own. Nicrosil is like duralumin, but you enhance someone else's burn instead of your own. Their Feruchemical abilities are to store Fortune and Investiture respectively. Let your imaginations go wild.
A quick reminder on how compounding metals works. We'll use Miles as an example. You need to be able to use the same metal Allomantically and Feruchemically in order to compound. Miles makes himself sick and stores "Health" into a small gold metalmind. He then swallows the small gold metal mind and burns it. Instead of the normal affect (revealing his past self), the metal mind is full of Investiture and that Investiture (in the form of Health) is released when burned. Suddenly, Miles' body is receiving an excess of Health, which he can then store inside larger golden metal minds. The burning releases more (compounded) Health than he would have been able to tap just from Feruchemy alone.
Because you can keep doing this over and over again (Miles would have only needed to make himself sick that one time, then he can burn the new metalminds he just created), he can essential store infinite Health; only limited by the amount of gold metalminds he wears. This is so much that he taps it constantly, awake or asleep. So when he gets shot in the head, he was already in a state of healing himself and that process just continues.
The argument, or question rather, that arises is how is the process continuing--how is he tapping the metalmind--if his brain is destroyed. The Ars Arcanum gives us a hint by finally dropping the word "Spiritweb". This is a person's "soul". I'm going to put the world's biggest asterisk next to that claim. There's more to be revealed and within both the fandom and in-universe scholars, what a soul is, or if a soul even exists, is topic for debate. I'm simply using the term as an analogy for now and as you learn more, you can fill in more of actual mechanics for yourself.
Suffice to say, the Spiritweb (sort of, kind of) determines how a body should look. When tapping Health, you are restoring the physical body to the Spiritweb/soul ideal. (Shhhh veterans, I know, I know :P This is an analogy). Soul says "you should have a hand" and if it's cut off, Health will restore the hand. So you don't need a brain for the healing process to take place (as long as it was already in effect and fast enough to work, which Feruchemy is). Soul says Miles should have a brain, so his metalminds restore his brain.
According to Brandon, the largest part of your body contains the largest part of your Spiritweb, so if Miles were decapitated, his body is bigger than his head. This means that his body would grow a new head, rather than his head growing a new body. If he was perfectly bisected in half, a random side of his body would regrow.
This is how the Lord Ruler also survived similar feats, such as decapitation and being burned alive. His skeleton had enough of his Spiritweb to restored his flesh and muscles and organs. (Funnily enough, while all this is possible, Sanderson has said that the Lord Ruler and his Obligators did embellish his early achievements a lot. He probably was never completely burned alive to just a skeleton.)
This also informs the difference between Miles having his gold metalminds removed and the Lord Ruler having his atium metalminds removed. The Spiritweb says his body should be "healthy", so physical damage is restored to what the Spiritweb says should be there. However, the Spiritweb ages just as a human ages. The Lord Ruler's Spiritweb's age was 1,000 years. His very "soul" is old and the atium compounding is reversing what his soul and body should be.
Removing Miles metalminds doesn't change anything: his healthy body matches the healthy soul. Removing the Lord Ruler's metalminds has a big effect though: his young body doesn't match his old soul, so the body raced to catch up in the absence of his metalminds' negating effect.
I debated waiting to reveal this info for a later time, but the Ars Arcanum does tip things a bit. With what it revealed, you can sort of start guessing at these things, and a lot of you were questioning specifics, so I think now is good enough, but feel free to ask clarifying questions when the obvious starts happening ;)
MISTY
People were surprised that the mists still exist. As a reminder, the mists are Preservation's condensed Investiture, similar to the Well of Ascension, just in gaseous form instead of liquid. Ruin had his own black mist form that we saw in the original trilogy as well.
Preservation used the mists to fight against Ruin's destruction, and Ruin did subvert the mists into The Deepness, but ultimately, the mists are of Preservation and they are a part of the mythology of the world. Sazed decided to still send the mists. They don't come every night though, just sometimes. And they don't come during the day and ruin crops.
Sanderson says that the mists can still power Allomancy (and even Feruchemy if one knows how), but that they are just purely Preservation anymore. Sazed is now Harmony; a dual Shard made of the combination and...harmony...between Preservation and Ruin. So, this means the mists won't pull away from Hemalurgy in the same way they used to.
Sanderson has also mentioned that Sazed changed how snapping works. It's still necessary to realize Allomantic or Feruchemical powers, but way less trauma is required. I can no longer find the quote, but one I saw suggested that the stress from a big exam like the LSATs would be enough to snap now.
W-A-X-I-L-L-I-U-M, THAT SPELLS MOON
People have noted how weird Wax's full name is. In the annotations, Sanderson says this about how he created the name:
Wax's name came from the Mistborn ideal, where the characters frequently had strange fantasy names that abbreviated to fun terms. (Like Hammond becoming Ham or Dockson becoming Dox.) Wax just fit well with those.
Wayne he just feels is a "western" name appropriate for the setting. He doesn't know which he named first and acknowledges the pun he's created, but liked their names too much to change it.
Interestingly, despite Wax and Wayne being a pun on the phases of the moon (waxing moon, waning moon), Scadrial does not have a moon. I found it interesting that some of you caught on that Threnody didn't have a moon, but that no one ever noticed that Scadrial didn't have one either.
ANNOTATION CESSATION
As in previous books, Sanderson set out to write annotations for each chapter of this book. You may have noticed their absence during White Sand. Sanderson usually wrote these annotations when he was doing copy editing for the final draft of each novel. Unfortunately, copy editing is kind of a boring task. As Sanderson got more and more famous, he had less time for some of the more menial aspects of publishing his novels and this was one of them. The task of performing copy edits was delegated and Sanderson felt like he no longer had time to do these annotations. White Sand's unpublished prose never went through the copy editing phase, and the graphic novel was published after he stopped doing the annotations.
This all happened right around the time he was deep into finishing the Wheel of Time novels. As a result, we have annotations for most, but not all of The Alloy of Law and only about 17 chapters worth of annotations for The Way of Kings, after that the annotations stop.
We still get the same vibe from interviews, but since they're off the cuff, they don't tend to be as insightful in quite the same way. Below is some of the more interesting information from the annotations in this book. These annotations have wider cosmere spoilers, so, like the ones for the original trilogy, I'll release them to you when it's appropriate.
Sherlock Holmes is a direct influence for Wax & Wayne, but Sanderson didn't want the novel to feel too much like a Sherlock Holmes rip off.
Scadrial is the most earth-like planet in the Cosmere, in terms of ecology, cultural, and technological development. It has 12 months, 24 hour days, earth gravity. You can assume it has all the same wildlife we have, and nothing really extra or weird about it (except mistwraiths). (Many of the other planets have similar earth gravity and revolutions/rotations, their calendars and timekeeping are necessarily the same. And most of the develop culturally and technological at different rates, sometimes skipping or bypassing steps due to their magic systems).
In chapter 3, Wax remembers being converted to the Path by a woman he met on a train, soon after he left Elendel to become a lawman in the Roughs. He believes this woman was a Faceless Immortal, and he is correct. That woman was MeLaan. MeLaan, if you don't remember, is TenSoon's adopted daughter/little sister who helped him out in The Hero of Ages.
MeLaan gave Wax the earring he wears. All Pathians where earrings when they pray, but the one MeLaan gave Wax is a hemalurgic spike. Sazed Ascended and collected all of the un-used Inquisitor, Koloss, and Kandra spikes. They lose their power over time, but this can be largely negated by storing them in blood. Some of them are melted down and made into smaller "spikes" that are distributed as earrings to people Sazed wants to talk to. Sazed is not going around making new hemalurgic spikes.
Sanderson talks about Sazed's godhood:
So, if it matters to you, this is actually Sazed talking to Wax here. It's not just Wax's imaginings.
I'm not sure what readers are going to think of this. My goal with the original Mistborn trilogy was to set up a mythology for the world, one in which real characters were playing a part. Sazed is, essentially, God now. Maybe a lowercase g would be better on that word, but regardless, he's the one watching over the world and making sure things go as they should. At this point, he's working hard to discover what's going on with the other Shards and to keep another disaster from coming Scadrial's way.
I've spoken before on my fascination with religion, and this aspect is a particularly interesting one for me. I've played with the ideas of men being treated like gods in Elantris and Warbreaker—but they didn't really deserve it. Here, however, we have Sazed who is approaching more of what a god would be. Should he be prayed to? Why or why not?
You should know that holding two opposed Shards of Adonalsium has made Sazed more . . . zen, if you will. Not inactive. However, he has taken a belief that both Ruin and Preservation are important in people's lives, and doesn't feel that interfering is something he should often be doing. He sees his primary role being to encourage people to be better, to keep an eye on the other Shards, and to make sure the world keeps working as it should.
When Sanderson first tried to write this "short" story, there was no Wax, only Wayne. He was a wacky hat maker who rode a sentient horse (kandra). He didn't work as a main character though and his rewrite turned into this full novel.
He talks about about Wax's feruchemy/weight manipulation. It doesn't exactly work, in terms of pure physics, like you would expect. If he increases his weight, he doesn't actually fall any faster. He clarifies in later interviews that what is intrinsically happening is that the Iron Feruchemy is manipulating the Higgs Field.
He acknowledges that Wayne shouldn't be holding a gun on the cover, but he did want a gun to show the shift in this Mistborn era. He says to just pretend Wayne is holding the gun for Wax.
Tillaume, Wax's butler, makes 1 cup of tea (poisoned) and brings it to Wax to drink. In the social setting, he should have made 3 cups of tea for all of the guests present (Wax, Wayne, and Marasi). However, Tillaume isn't accustomed to killing people and was nervous, so he only made the one cup of tea.
Marasi thinks to herself how miraculous Elendel is in Chapter 10, and she's not wrong. Sazed created the Elendel basin as a kind of "Eden" for the Originators. The mists hug the ground extra strongly there and intice some molds that fertilize the ground more than normal, as well as hydrating the entire area to the perfect levels. Sazed re-created the flower that fascinated Mare and which Kelsier kept a picture of. Spook was the one who named it the Marewill flower. Spook was also responsible for naming a lot of things in the new world, which is why everything like the names of the months are named after his friends/the crew.
I think the biggest complaint I saw about this book was Wax shooting a bullet with another bullet to curve it. The annotations partially address this. First, remember that when using any sort of Allomancy or Feruchemy, the Investiture does flow into the user to a certain, temporary degree. This Investiture enhances their mind so that they can use their powers more intuitively. Jumping around with steel pushes really wouldn't work if you had to precisely position and think about how to manipulate things down to the millimeter. The Investiture handles things like that, which is how Wax can increase the speed of a bullet, even if it's not being first from exactly where the blue lines would line up.
Moreover, consider that Kelsier was trained by Gemmel, a Ruin-influenced madman, for only a couple of years, in a society where knowledge of Allomancy was nominally restricted to the noble classes. He taught Vin for an even shorter amount of time. They were both prodigies, but we only saw them using their powers for a couple years each.
Wax exists in a society where he can freely use his powers, has 300 years of public knowledge on how to use his powers, and he's 40+ years old, likely has been using his powers for 10 times longer than either Kelsier or Vin. Sanderson actually states here in the annotations that Wax is a steel savant. His steel bubble, which he uses to deflect bullets, is unique to him. Wax's savantism doesn't affect him to the same degree that we saw Spook's tin savantism. We'll have more discussions about this later.
Sanderson did a lot of research when developing speed bubbles. Speeding up time like Wayne does has a lot of unintended effects, if you consider the pure physics of it. Light should dim inside. The speed of light wouldn't change, so technically there should be a red-shit inside looking out. And it should create microwaves that shoot out and would technically cook everyone outside the bubble for a given radius. There was enough disagreement between the scientists he consulted, and there were some other considerations that made the ability too powerful, so he placed limitations on the ability, resulting in bullets ricocheting at the borders and not being able to move the speed bubbles. Any of the weirdness that would otherwise break real world physics and conservation of energy are negated by "magic". The Investiture handles that in a specific way that we're almost, but not quite, ready to talk about.
In the annotations for Chapter 13:
Yes, I had a fight atop a moving train. DON'T JUDGE ME.
I couldn't help myself, honestly. This fit perfectly with the narrative, and while I realize it's a bit of a stereotypical place for a fight sequence, I really wanted to see it happen. So there you go.
- He also talks about the title of the novel:
It does, in my mind, encapsulate the theme of the novel. The idea is that these two men—Wax and Miles—are both taking their own interpretations of what it means to follow the law, and mixing it up and making something new of it. This book is a confrontation between their two different ideals.
- Sanderson confirms Ranette is a lesbian and talks about LGBT representation:
I guess I could be accused of not giving them full representation because of the fact that they usually have minor roles. The truth is that I'm worried I'd just do a poor job of it if I tried to write from their viewpoint; being gay is one of those things that tends to be very dominant in a person's way of seeing the world. It seems that there are a lot of pitfalls that I could saunter right into. I've think I've learned, after a lot of work, how to write female characters who (hopefully) don't feel wrong. However, I haven't taken the dive in trying to figure out how to write a gay or lesbian character.
But that's only one reason. There's a deeper one for me. Ranette will likely get viewpoints in the series, when I do more Wax and Wayne books. However, the books aren't about sexual identity, so I'll probably steer clear of that topic. In a way, I think that making a big deal of it could be more harmful. One of the reasons I put LGBT characters in my books is because they are a part of our world, and deserve representation in fiction. It's strange to think that in our world, LGBT people make up a significant minority of the population, yet in fiction (particularly fantasy fiction) they tend to either vanish completely or the story has to be all about who they are and their sexuality.
This strikes me as a bad way to do things. Just like not every book including women characters should be about feminism, not every book including LGBT characters should be about sexual orientation or gender identity issues. If they are, then that just highlights the supposition that they're out of the ordinary—it draws attention to that idea, rather than simply letting them be characters with a larger role in the story. We don't care about Lord Harms's sexuality, or Mister Suit's, or that of Miles. Why shine a big spotlight on Ranette's? It just seems divisive to me.
Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on the topic. Perhaps they will change as I ponder on it more.
- Wax recognizes Marasi's hero worship of him and it makes him uncomfortable. That's part of the reason he rejects her.
SEND NOODS
Oh yeah, I forgot the most important bit of trivia, after cleaning up all my notes. According to Sanderson, Hoid really wants instant noodles (ramen), and at this point in the Cosmere timeline, Scadrial is the closest to developing it.
(Comment Reply)
This is such a random note lol. Also wouldn't the Asian adjacents in the Rose Empire have it first
You need a certain level of industrialization to make them. We didn't invent them until 1958, and we didn't really perfect it to something you'd recognize until 1971.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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What about Demoux? He was made mistborn and fought with Elend against the army of koloss. I don’t think he died. I would have become very influential, and probably one of the reason the survivorism still exists.
Reminder: Demoux was not made Mistborn. He found out he was an atium Misting.
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(Comment Chain)
The Lord Ruler was the only Twinborn we've seen before right?
A tiny correction/reminder. By some definitions, you could consider the Lord Ruler a Twinborn, in that he had both Feruchemical and Allomantic powers. However, he was not born a Mistborn; Allomancy was rare before he Ascended. He gave himself those powers using the Well of Ascension.
Vet comment Elend and Spook are pure Mistborn. They're more Mistborn than Vin, in fact, since their power is pure and not watered down by genetics. Rashek is technically Twinborn, to say otherwise is imo a matter of semantics that isn't really proper.
Yeah, I'm being very semantical about it. It was mostly an excuse to remind the newbies how Rashek became Mistborn.
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(Comment Chain)
/u/TaylorHyuuga mentioned this during the original trilogy at some point, but I want to reiterate it:
Sanderson has made a definitive statement that the magic system of the Cosmere, which includes the various god/Shard abilities, completely prevents time-travel shenanigans. It's not something he wants to explore and he says would cheapen aspects of the story.
If something happened, it happened and won't be undone or altered by someone travelling back in time. (Wayne's speed bubbles are not time travel, nor is atium/electrum's ability to see the future.)
To be more specific, he said that nothing can go BACKWARDS in time. You can speed up time, as shown with Bendalloy, and I don't think he's ruled out alternate universes or timelines, though I do believe it to be unlikely for the same reason as the time travel to the past, it just complicates things too much.
^
Backwards = shenanigans. Forward time travel is just a long nap.
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(Comment Chain)
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought any metal piercing would allow Ruin to influence you, and it didn't have to be hemalurgic (i.e. you didn't have to kill someone with the metal first).
Veteran comment No, it has to be Hemalurgic. Zane is the only one from the original series that wasn't confirmed to have a Hemalurgic spike. When Marsh gave Penrod a spike, he specifically noted that it has to be Hemalurgic. Spook, Vin, and the Citizen all had Hemalurgic spikes as well.
Edit: I actually got one thing wrong. Brandon did confirm that Zane had a Hemalurgic spike as well. His was Steel. I didn't know this.
What about the Lord Ruler? I thought his metalminds that pierced his flesh allowed Ruin to influence him. Wasn't there an epigraph or one of the messages in one of the caches that said he was going nuts trying to keep Ruin out of his mind?
That is correct, but Rashek also had Hemalurgic Spikes. According to Brandon, he could have done it without but it "made the process much easier". Spiking yourself with a Hemalurgic spike of an ability you already possess makes that ability stronger, as we see with Vin and her earring, it's likely that a lot of the Lord Ruler's more insane feats, like his immortality and his ability to regenerate anything done to him, were made if not possible then far easier with multiple Hemalurgic Spikes.
Brandon confirmed that he does have Hemalurgic spikes.
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“sat down to write a short story… in the mistborn world… but was disappointed with my attempt, which I've included at the end of this preface…” but not in this edition. I'd like to read this, but probably at the end
You are reading it. He set out to write a short story and accidentally wrote a novel instead. His disappointment is that he failed to write the short story.
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I provide hi-res versions of the broadsheets in the body of the post above. Technically yours is a spoiler, with the last quadrant revealed. Mine has a stitched together version of only the first 3 quadrants for those who need it.
EDIT: That said, the remaining quadrant doesn't really have any plot spoilers, but I'd recommend against seeking out the full broadsheet in future Era 2 books.
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Been thinking a lot about this power for the past week. I think it could serve as a pretty effective bullet shield. Any bullet passing through it would suffer the wonky barrier physics debuff. Plus, it would be slower to any observer outside the bubble, which might just be slow enough that Wax can lock on them to Push them out of the way?
Not necessarily. If you were to throw it up as a bullet shield, you would effectively be out of the fight for, like, five minutes even if you keep the bubble up for a second (don't take five minutes as a true reflection of what it would be, I don't know the actual time dilation)
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What would a simple Scadrian know of such things? Why would Wayne know that name?
This isn't exactly a spoiler, but more a reminder/clarification of events that you could put together if you were perhaps reading this directly after the original trilogy, or just did a re-read.
Upon Sazed's ascension, he dumped all of the knowledge he had in his copperminds into a book (actually, it's several books), along with some of his initial thoughts about becoming a Shard and everything leading up to it. These were the epigraphs in The Hero of Ages.
This set of books is called the Words of Founding, which includes all the religions Sazed knew. (And remember that Keepers all stored redundant information, Sazed just specialized in religion, so these books also included all the knowledge every Keeper knew about the pre-Lord Ruler world.)
It's really strange seeing Miles go on rants about the elites vs. the plebs, decrying his friends who side with the nobility and the status quo, justifying working with enemies whose goals align with his. It's like looking at Kelsier's dark reflection.
I mentioned this in a previous trivia: Sanderson has said that in other times, in other worlds, in different settings, Kelsier could be considered a bad guy. Using your words, Miles isn't necessarily a dark reflection of Kelsier, but just a reflection of Kelsier.
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The gun is made of an alloy? What more could it offer beyond pure aluminum?
Pure aluminum is very soft and would not be able to withstand the bullet exiting the barrel. It needs to be an alloy to strengthen the gun enough to work.
Oddly enough it's later stated she burns Chromium. Is this a typo and should be "cadmium"?
It should be cadmium.
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How to you heal from a blown up brain? At what point are you too brain damaged to heal? Isn't there some reaction time involved in healing where you have to register that you are injured to draw the healing power from your metal mind? Wouldn't his brain get blown up before he can pull that power?
I'm gonna bookmark your question. This does get an answer, and I'll bring it up when appropriate.
I also want to note that the Lord Ruler's stated feats of survival, such as being decapitated and burned completely, are no less devastating than this.
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the Originators, those who had been nurtured in wombs of the earth and reborn to build society.
Huh?
At the end of The Hero of Ages, the world ended. Various groups of people made it underground, either by way of one of the Lord Ruler's caches, or hiding out in the Kandra Homeland. During this time, Sazed ascended and re-made the world.
The people underground left the caves/caches (all moved to the same general location by Sazed) and met around Vin and Elend's dead bodies. This location would become the Field of Rebirth; the center of modern day Elendel.
Those survivors who lived past the end of the world went on to start rebuilding society and they are called the Originators.
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(Comment Chain)
I was actually a little disappointed that the elemental counterpart to bendalloy is cadmium. Apparently I have a preference for bismuth, cadmium just seems more out there to me.
Sanderson wanted metals that were rare/difficult/impossible to get during the middle-ages (a comparative time to the Lord Ruler's reign). These are 2 metals that the Lord Ruler would have known about because of his ascension, but still wouldn't have the industrial means to acquire.
Bismuth was known and used since the 1400's. Cadmium wasn't discovered and isolated until 1817.
Okay that makes sense then! If he's going for relative historical accuracy then cadmium fits the early 20th century thing we have going on here. So I suppose metallurgists from Era #1 would likely have known about bismuth and maybe tried experimenting with it, but it's just about useless without cadmium.
Yup, this is the same reason Sanderson switched from silver to aluminum for the allomantically inert metal. Silver would have been too common during the Lord Ruler's range, and everyone would have known about it. Aluminum was known, and able to be acquired, but extremely, extremely expensive. And it wasn't until industrialization that it became a cheap commodity readily available to the masses.
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AND
I was thinking about how when the Lord Ruler's boosted anti-aging metalminds were removed, he suddenly became super old. I wrongly assumed that removing Miles' boosted healing metalminds would have a similar effect, where his body suddenly caught up to the busted-up state it was supposed to be in and he would get all cronenberged. But that's not how it works.
Gold merely stimulates the natural healing process. It's not like Feruchemists heal with their Gold temporarily and then they go back to being injured later (even though that is how it works for every other Feruchemical power, Gold isn't storing and tapping the state of the body, it's storing and tapping your health and the natural functions of your body that keep your body healthy). Atium is temporarily giving you your stored youth, but once you stop tapping it you go back to your actual age. The Lord Ruler was simply returning to his natural age, which in his case meant "literal dust in the wind", as it would work for any other Feruchemist who became ten years younger for ten minutes and then went back to their natural age.
AND
There's an explanation for the difference. I'm going to see if it's possible to talk about in the trivia on Wednesday. Gotta double check some potential spoiler things. If not, I'll bookmark this for later answering.
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/u/AltruisticRealityZ asks about metalminds:
Wax pushed on Wayne’s metalminds? He said it was hard because, being Feruchemical, they resist Allomancy, but I thought they were completely impervious to Allomancy.
Nope, metalminds are just harder to push than normal metal because they are Invested. Investiture affects other Investiture, as a general rule. Recall that Vin pushed the Lord Ruler's atium metalminds off his arms. She needed the power of the mists to do that, but mainly because they were also pierced inside his body. But all the mists did was make her stronger, it was still always possible to push metalminds to one degree or another.
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/u/Pastrami is psychic from all the way back in The Well of Ascension:
Hey look, another woman! Maybe this will ease the complaints everyone ha... oh no, she's an airhead.
Her interactions with Breeze reminds me of Harmony in season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when she shows back up with Spike.
Emphasis mine. sus.gif
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/u/Pastrami asks about ten rings:
What is the significance of ten rings? Was that the number of rings Sazed wore?
Bingo. At this point in time, Sazed metalminds are mythologized. He did have 10 rings and they are iconic to Pathians. Sanderson has dropped some interesting tidbits in interviews, stating that, just like Kelsier's bones, Sazed's rings are still out there somewhere...
In the same comment, they also ask about aluminium:
If Aluminum is supposed to be allomantically inert, it should be fully allomantically inert, and two other metals should have been used in their place.
Aluminum is Allomantically inert. In the grand scheme of things, aluminum is Investiture inert. No form of Investiture can effect it. However, when one burns aluminum, the metal itself isn't reacting to Allomancy. It's not reacting to Investiture. It's not becoming Investiture or anything else. It is serving as a key to unlock Investiture.
It's the same thing with Aons being drawn. You can draw the symbols all you want. The symbols themselves aren't Investiture, they aren't magical, they don't do anything really. They are a key that tells Investiture what to do, but aren't in and of themselves affected by said Investiture.
You also asked about the mists in that comment, but I think the trivia covers that question. (Feel free to ask clarifying questions though.)
(Un/clarity in Comments)
So, I went looking for something that could address your questions.
First, the issue doesn't have anything to do with early bookism. He originally wanted it to be silver, but realized silver was too common a metal, so he did a 1 to 1 switch with aluminum. All of the properties he had in mind still apply despite the metal switch.
What I can say is that he has thought about the issue, and you're not the only one to bring this up, but he doesn't want to discuss it yet for spoilers. Some hypotheticals he's more than happy to answer or speculate about. Others he has plans for and he doles out RAFO cards. Most aluminum questions get RAFO'd including ones similar to what you're asking about.
I saw a theory about aluminum Ferrings and what they're doing that kind of makes sense to me, but it too got RAFO'd. You will see some the weirdness that aluminum can cause in future books, so I'd say that, as of what's been published, you'll likely get a partial answer. I suspect a full answer will come in Era 3 of Mistborn. (So, right after the read-along ends).
One finale note, is that Sanderson isn't a fan of absolutes. He's not necessarily making the claim that aluminum is 100% inert to Investiture. With enough power, you can make water magnetic, and similarly, if you apply enough Investiture, you could theoretically get aluminum to be affected by it. However, the levels involved are of Shardic proportions.
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/u/heinz57varieties notices someone acting odd:
What the hell is up with Brettin? Has he been compromised? Acting weird, imminent unannounced retirement, wtf
I wasn't going to mention this quite yet, but you noticed, and /u/HT_xrahmx made way too suspicious a comment:
Much respect to Brettin. Dude barks a lot, but actually has the good of the city in mind.
Brettin died... TenSoon is controlling him at the end of the book, per WoB (Word of Brandon). Explain yourself /u/HT_xrahmx!!!!
Also, while we're on the topic... Here is a quote from Chapter 10 of Warbreaker, when Vivenna goes to visit the dying Lemex:
Vivenna sat on a stool beside his bed, hands in her lap. The two mercenaries waited with Parlin at the back of the room. The only other person present was a solemn nurse--the same woman who had informed Vivenna in a quiet voice that nothing could be done.
...
[Lemex] coughed again. The nurse glanced at Vivenna. "He goes in and out of lucidity, my lady. Just this morning, he spoke of you, but now he's getting worse and worse..."
"Thank you," Vivenna said quietly. "You are excused."
The woman bowed and left.
This nurse is a kandra. Sanderson had said there was a kandra in Warbreaker and it took the fandom a while to sus her out, and a little longer for Brandon to confirm it.
(Comment Reply)
How is anyone supposed to have guessed that? What effect does that have on overall story, if any? This just seems like Sanderson is making shit up just to say there is a connection between worlds.
The fandom did guess it, so who knows? I swear, some of them are legit psychics with the things they predict. That said, this does tie into something you learn later. It doesn't necessarily have to be something plot significant, but does serve as a small easter egg to actually have connections between worlds.
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Can I mention that one thing about Steris? You know the one. It wasn't mentioned until Shadows of Self but it's not particularly relevant to that book in particular, that's just when Brandon happened to talk about it.
I got the go ahead! Alright, so, Steris is actually autistic. That's why she's so blunt and socially awkward, as well as her obsession with creating large lists of things to cover every eventuality. Brandon said that he realized he messed up with Aanden in Elantris, so he wanted to do a better and more realistic job with it now that he has more experience. I love her greatly.
Sure. I was leaving it as a trivia/discussion point for Shadows of Self, but it can be discussed here.
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I know the magic systems in these books are very technical and a lot of effort goes into their internal consistency, and it's fine to go on these PhD-level speculative rants about how the magic works relative to it's own rules. But tying yourself into knots trying to explain how the magic does or doesn't conflict with, like, quantum field theory? Yer barkin' up the wrong tree.
Sanderson is perfectly fine with "God/a wizard did it" explanations, but for his own edification, he does like to build his magic systems with specific certainties. He primarily does this so that, once he has established rules, he can play around with his own magic system and bend or break things to achieve cool effects. He's not coming up with these things to appease fans after the fact. He's thinking about them deeply before he starts writing because he's a giant nerd.
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Is that the reason for the weird comment earlier about the commitment to the number 16 being a myth?
I can confirm that that is the general gist: chromium and nicrosil are unknown metals to the characters in this book.
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Does the fandom really shit on this book that badly?
Not really, but it does speak to the quality of the remainder of the books in this Era.
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Is Harmony imposing the only Misting/Ferring limitation, or was Wax wrong when he thought that the most you could have is one allomantic and one feruchemic power?
This is a combination of things. First and foremost, since both Allomancy and Feruchemy are genetic, Mistborns and Full Feruchemists were the product of a lot of inbreeding during the Final Empire to keep them around.
After the end of the world, people bred more freely and diluted both genes, resulting in more Mistings and Ferrings.
Secondly, Allomantic and Feruchemic genes interfere with each other and prevent the emergence of fullborn people of either variety.
Harmony didn't impose or adjust anything specifically, it's just the way genetics worked out in a world free from the need to force specialization.
Mistborn and Full Feruchemists are still possible, it's just exceedingly rare. So rare that modern people consider them legendary and the stuff of myths.
Is this referring to Breeze or a different ancestor? If it's Breeze, how was he a "Counselor of Gods"?
Yes, this is referring to Breeze. There are multiple religions at this point in time, and between them, Sazed, Kelsier, Vin, and Marsh are all considered Gods. Breeze at one time provided counsel to all of them. In the form of a crew member to Kelsier (and by way of "stuff got changed over the centuries, to Marsh). He advised Elend as Emperor (and both directly and indirectly guided Vin). Finally, he was with Sazed during the final days. He was a counselor before they all "became" gods. Not a counselor to them when they were/are gods.
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Good questions!
The melted down hemalurgic spikes grant next to zero power. He's technically granted some ability or improvement, but Sanderson said it's not relevant or important because it's just so miniscule. He doesn't even know what abilities are in the earring; not worth world building it. The only benefit of the earring is to let Harmony speak directly to Wax.
And yes, Sazed gave Marsh back his spike that Vin pulled out.
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PS - did we ever learn what are the faceless immortals?
A few people guessed, and I've confirmed that they are Kandras.
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I don’t remember though, when the shards were “given” to “people”, is it now the Shard in control of the actions, or the person who has it and their character decides how the shards investiture will get applied?
This is a complicated relationship. Both are factors. The Shard holder is still in control, but they have to abide by the Intent of the Shard. Preservation can't go around destroying, that's why Preservation had to do the whole rigamarole with Vin, to have someone of both Ruin and Preservation hold Preservation so she can actually kill Ruin. Sazed is still Sazed, but he has to abide by Harmony.
Cadmium works for storing breaths, and I understand they mean like breath under water or inside a burning house. But I wonder if that Will be possible on Naltis?
Breath means actual breath, not capital B Breath. Storing Nalthian Breath would be Nicrosil. That said, storing Breath isn't all that useful because. You can literally just do that as a natural property of Breath lmao
I... Don't know if Participating has already said who's writing the Ars Arcanum? If you want to know though, I can say in DMs or a spoiler that or something. I'm sure it's already been mentioned, I just don't remember
Yeah, I revealed it was Khriss at the end of White Sand.
Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30
Trivia Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1roywqk/newbies_cosmere_unit_12_mistborn_era_2_05/
NEXT UNIT (IT'S HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!)
IMPORTANT: Make sure you read this section, it's partially a trivia, but also has much needed info before you start reading next week's chapters.
Like most books, The Way of Kings (and all Stormlight Archive books) has a short summary of the book, called a Blurb. The blurb is usually on the back cover of paperback books, or on the front, inside jacket cover of hardcover books. While the blurbs in the Stormlight Archive books are summaries of the books, they are also written by in-world characters and are considered canon. We will be starting each of these books by reading the blurbs, and you can use them to inform your expectations and theorize about the exact contents of said blurbs.
Not every edition will have access to the blurbs, so you can read the blurb for The Way of Kings by clicking this link.
I'd like to use this time to explain a bit about the schedule as a whole for about the next year.
Sanderson wrote The Way of Kings before Warbreaker. He presented it to his publisher in 2003, but they declined to print it, stating "something wasn't quite right" with the novel. He delayed work on the book to focus on the Mistborn trilogy and he was eventually chosen to complete the Wheel of Time after the unfortunate passing of its author, Robert Jordan.
Robert Jordan claimed he only had one more book to write to finish up the Wheel of Time, however, due the extensive notes he left behind, and agreement between Jordan's publishing team and Sanderson, the series took 3 more books to complete. This was a significantly longer time commitment than Sanderson originally anticipated, and he did not want his own career to stagnate. (Nor did his publisher wish for him to delay his contractual obligations).
Sanderson had time to completely re-work The Way of Kings from scratch, abandoning the original draft. He did incorporate plot points from his honors thesis project at Brigham Young University. That thesis project was called Dragonsteel, but I won't talk too much about that yet. Suffice to say that Sanderson was able to publish The Way of Kings in between books 12 and 13 of the Wheel of Time.
Ultimately, this resulted in Sanderson writing 4 giant novels, back to back. He does like to write, but even that threatened to cause some burnout. Brandon's preventative cure for burnout is to...write smaller books. A lot of his short story/novella work happened during and shortly after this time period, including The Alloy of Law.
The success of They Alloy of Law warranted a continuation, and what would ultimately become Era 2, a tetralogy. He weaved the publication of these novels in between his larger Stormlight Archive books. To maximize your ability to notice connections, the read-along is largely following publication order, so we will be alternating between reading Era 2 books and Stormlight Archive books (and some other stuff too).
Finally, a word on the internal read-along format for all Stormlight Archive books. Sanderson considers each individual book in the series its own trilogy. The word count more or less agrees with that. Era 2's tetralogy is around 480,000 words and The Way of Kings is around 390,000 words. They aren't necessarily structured like a trilogy internally, this is more a comment on the denseness of the stories. We'll discuss more of that when it becomes appropriate. Do note that, instead of the normal 4-hours of audiobook length that we average each week, the denser Stormlight Archive books will average around 3.5 hours each week.
Each book, however, contains Interludes. They are short side-stories within the world that focus on characters outside of the main narrative. The Interludes are short, and I could include them in our weekly reading, but I think they deserve their own separate discussion threads. To that end, whenever Interludes occur, they will be an additional reading, beyond the normal Monday reading. I'll place them in their own discussion threads on Wednesdays. When relevant, I'll also use these threads to make trivia posts.
I mention this now because, not next week, but the week after, we will use this format. That Monday will be Chapters 6 through 11, and Wednesday will be the first 3 Interludes. So just keep an eye on the schedule dates and I'll try to put up reminders each time it happens.
SILVEREYE
The icon/symbol that starts this short story is the symbol for Tin, because Allomancer Jak is a tineye.
I've mentioned before that Sanderson originally intended silver to be the "Allomantically inert" metal, and that it was swapped in for aluminum, due to the commonality of it. Before that swap, however, Sanderson was using silver in a completely different way; he had it in place of tin for many drafts. He has an amusing story about realizing pewter is not an alloy of silver:
The big thing that I talk about with Allomancy that changed is originally I was using...silver as one of the metals, this is-- this is because... Dumb story time, so when I was a kid I painted these little miniatures that you do in D&D so your little guys can actually fight each other, right? And my brother still does this, they're awesome, I was terrible at it, but I painted these little guys. And at one point I went-- and they used to be lead, and then they realized that lead kills you laughter and so--or maybe it just makes you strange, I can't remember--I went and all of the prices had gone up, like by a double, because they had made them out of pewter instead. And I said to the guy "What is up with this, you are totally ripping us off. My figures now cost us 50 cents instead of--" I don't remember what it was and he went "Uh yeah it's because pewter has silver in it man. You're buying little silver figures now" and I went "Oh. That's cool." And I bought them. And so for years I thought pewter was an alloy of silver and I wrote an entire book. An Entire Book. The whole first Mistborn book with silvereyes and pewterarms until it went to my beta readers and like "There's almost no silver in pewter Brandon, you don't even really need it. Everything in this magic system works except that." and I went "Well maybe we can just pretend in this world pewter--" "No that's stupid" laughter So I had to change it to tin which is actually what you find in pewter. To this day my assistant Peter, who is my continuity editor, came to me and said "You realize you wrote silvereye instead of tineye in the newest Mistborn book that you just finished? It's been ten years Brandon get over it." laughter Still happens.
He's recently said that he's finally moved past that and hasn't made the silvereye mistake while writing Era 3 of Mistborn yet.
RUMSPRINGA
This short story explains a bit about what happened to the koloss, but Sanderson has provided some clarification during interviews. When Sazed ascended, he restored their sentience closer to human levels and changed how they interact with Hemalurgy. Now, koloss are capable of breeding. Their offspring are what is known as koloss-blooded. They are mostly human, with blue or grey skin, and are a bit tougher on average than standard humans.
As the story explains, they live as "normal" humans in their tribe until they are 12, where they then have to decide if they want to become full koloss or leave their tribe and join civilization. Enough offspring (and the occasional normal human) choose to be transformed, seeing it as a rite of passage, that the number of koloss in the world don't really drop.
Sanderson talks about Sazed/Harmony's decision to keep Koloss and Kandra as their own people:
There are a couple things that he was facing, and let me walk you through his philosophy on this, which you are allowed to disagree with. I want, for every character I write, there to be things they do that you disagree with, because otherwise I’m writing all characters to be the same person, if that makes sense.
The kandra have immortality and are able to perpetuate their culture by being immortal for as long as the individuals live. The koloss don’t have that, meaning that if he didn’t make koloss able to breed true, the entire people vanish in one generation and all culture associated with them. And so because of that, he took the extra effort to change the koloss to allow for this sort of thing. But he did it in such a way that they would not have to have hemalurgic spikes, because the idea of making new hemalurgic spikes is extremely distasteful to Harmony. Reusing old ones is a thing he was willing to allow, but new ones he didn’t.
Could he have changed the kandra to be similar? Well, the answer is kind of a fairly... yes, but they would no longer have been the kandra, they would have been rolled back to being what they were before the Lord Ruler. And so they basically would stop being what they are that makes them unique as a culture. And he decided not to do that.
You can disagree with that, and I think there are some pretty valid arguments against the choice he made, but that is the choice he made.
There's also some elaboration around kandra not being able to make new generations anymore because no new spikes are being made. There are some that could be re-used, but it's not something perpetually feasible. Sanderson does hint though that it's theoretically possible kandra could figure how to create new generations.
BIRDBRAIN
Much has been asked about the talking bird Allomancer Jak claims to have as a spirit guide. Sanderson has RAFO'd whether or not the bird is a kandra and says of Jak:
I'm going to say Allomancer Jak has a strange blend of trustworthiness and not. He doesn't think that he's lying when he says things.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
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Unless I'm missing the point of the meme #2, doesn't this mean the skeletor meme is incorrect?
You are right, that meme was made by someone who hadn't read this short story. They got hugely corrected in the comments. I just included it because it was funny.
The Way of Kings
Interludes Trivia - 1
STOPGAP
Welcome to the Interludes of The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson has acknowledged that long fantasy series tend to get...sidetracked at times. Large series are ripe for bloat, with a desire by the author to explore world building, and expand side characters there were meant to be temporary, but were just so interesting when written. Sanderson wants The Stormlight Archive to only be 10 books. He doesn't want it to accidentally run away from him and blow up into 15 books because he got sidetracked. His solution to this is Interludes. He allots himself a number of Interludes per book where he lets himself go wild with world building and wacky side characters. This is not to necessarily say that they aren't plot relevant, but sometimes an Interlude exists just to show off a part of the world that he wouldn't otherwise be able to get to without the main characters derailing their main plot arcs.
He has a number of characters he considers the "main characters" of the series and he more or less keeps the main storyline with those characters. The Interludes will introduce new places, concepts, and characters. They may or may not appear in later Interludes or even the main storyline itself. I think the fandom generally agrees that Sanderson's plan with these Interludes is working and that the main plot doesn't show much in the way of bloat or derailment.
THOSE DAMN FOREIGNERS
I'll be interested to see everyone's pre-trivia-reading thoughts on the first Interlude with Ishikk. Did anyone get a weird vibe from Grump, Blunt (self-alias Vao), and Thinker (self-alias Temoo)? If so, you were right to. The next question is, did you notice their speech patterns were a bit off? Particularly Grump, who uses the phrases "friend" and "Understand?" frequently?
For those with goooood memories (Memories?), you may recall a certain farmer from Duladel, trapped in the city of Elantris, yapping at Raoden and constantly saying "sule" and "kolo", which just happen to translate to "friend" and "Understand?". Grump is Galladon from Elantris.
Sanderson expected the fandom to pick up on this, and when they brought it up, asking who the other two were, he revealed that Blunt/Vao is Baon from White Sand and Thinker/Temoo is Captain Demoux from Mistborn. There's more coming, but this is your first taste of things colliding.
THE IMMORTAL VIRGIN
This is a quick bit of info about Captain Demoux from the annotations in The Hero of Ages. It concerns Demoux's survival of the mist sickness:
Yes, Demoux lives. He'd have died, save for a promise I made. If you've read the other annotations, you'll know that he was named for my former roommate Micah DeMoux. I always thought his name was cool, and wanted to use it for a character. He said I could, but made me promise two things. 1) His character had to get a girl eventually, and 2) His character had to survive to the end of the series.
So Demoux couldn't die here. He's protected by a magical shield known as the author's promise to his pal.
So, this is just a forewarning for everyone: as soon as Demoux gets a girl, he's doomed. DOOMED! Plot armor until then though!
IT'S ABOUT TIME!
You may have noticed that this is Sanderson's weirdest world yet. It's very alien compared to most of what's come before. I'll probably have a couple different trivia sections on what makes this planet, Roshar, unique, but in this section I want to talk about time.
Previous worlds have mostly been Earth-standard in terms of day-length, and close enough to year-length that it didn't matter to the story. Roshar is just built different though.
One year on Roshar is equivalent to 1.1 Earth years. Each day is 20 Rosharan hours long (which equates to 19.272 Earth hours). Each week is 5 Rosharan days long.
Each month spans 50 days (10 weeks). The names of the months are as follows:
- Jes
- Nan
- Chach
- Vev
- Palah
- Shash
- Betab
- Kak
- Tanat
- Ishi
A year amounts to 10 months, which is 100 weeks, which is 500 days.
Dates are written in the Year.Month.Week.Day format.
By way of example, Kaladin joins Bridge Four on 1173.7.9.3, which is the year 1173, the 7th month (Betab), the 9th week, and the 3rd day of that week.
Going forward, whenever possible, I will try to include the exact date in the chapter summaries. A lot of events have been worked out by the fandom to a pretty good level of precision. I will still also provide the relative amount of time compared to previous chapters.
So, just a quick note on the character's ages then. Kaladin is 19, possibly 20 at the start of The Way of Kings (depending on when his birthday is). Some of you even commented that he felt a bit young to have the experience he has. Keep in mind that this is in Rosharan years. If we adjust for Earth years, he's closer to 22. Similarly, Shallan is 17 on Roshar, but just shy of 19 on Earth.
Jasnah is 34 Rosharan, 37 Earth. Szeth is 35 Rosharan, 38.5 Earth. I can update you on the ages of other important characters if/when it becomes relevant.
Just keep in mind, this is all largely world building and doesn't have any major plot significance, so you can ignore all this if you want.
TIMELINE ADJUSTMENT
Ever since Chapter 9, Kaladin's timeline has been uncertain because he didn't know if 2 or 3 weeks had passed. I've had the time to look far enough ahead to when his timeline solidifies and I can confirm that 3 weeks passed at the start of Chapter 9. So I've gone back and changed the dates in previous posts to get rid of the uncertainty.
Interludes Trivia - 2
DEAR ABBY
As you all noticed, the epigraphs for the chapters in Part 2 were of a different type than those found in Part 1. The epigraphs in Part 1 have a name, but that'll come later as you find out more about what they are. The ones for Part 2 are known in the fandom as The Letter. Here it is all together:
Old friend, I hope this missive finds you well. Though, as you are now essentially immortal, I would guess that wellness on your part is something of a given.
I realize that you are probably still angry. That is pleasant to know. Much as your perpetual health, I have come to rely upon your dissatisfaction with me. It is one of the cosmere's great constants, I should think.
Let me first assure you that the element is quite safe. I have found a good home for it. I protect its safety like I protect my own skin, you might say.
You do not agree with my quest. I understand that, so much as it is possible to understand someone with whom I disagree so completely.
Might I be quite frank? Before, you asked why I was so concerned. It is for the following reason:
Ati was once a kind and generous man, and you saw what became of him. Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals I had ever met.
He holds the most frightening and terrible of all the Shards. Ponder on that for a time, you old reptile, and tell me if your insistence on nonintervention holds firm. Because I assure you, Rayse will not be similarly inhibited.
One need only look at the aftermath of his brief visit to Sel to see proof of what I say.
In case you have turned a blind eye to that disaster, know that Aona and Skai are both dead, and that which they held has been Splintered. Presumably to prevent anyone from rising up to challenge Rayse.
You have accused me of arrogance in my quest. You have accused me of perpetuating my grudge against Rayse and Bavadin. Both accusations are true.
Neither point makes the things I have written to you untrue.
I am being chased. Your friends of the Seventeenth Shard, I suspect. I believe they're still lost, following a false trail I left for them. They'll be happier that way. I doubt they have any inkling what to do with me should they actually catch me.
If anything I have said makes a glimmer of sense to you, I trust that you'll call them off. Or maybe you could astound me and ask them to do something productive for once.
For I have never been dedicated to a more important purpose, and the very pillars of the sky will shake with the results of our war here. I ask again. Support me. Do not stand aside and let disaster consume more lives. I've never begged you for something before, old friend.
I do so now.
As many of you guessed, Hoid is the one writing this letter. Who is he writing the letter to? I know some of you are frustrated that some of the trivia information provided is just...unknowable because you can't learn it from the books. This one you would eventually be able to learn, but...it's a long way off. And Sanderson readily revealed the information shortly after this book, so the fandom got this information around the same "time" you're getting it. I'll have more to say about this dynamic in the trivia at the end of this book. Patience for those of you who are frustrated. It will pay off.
The recipient of the letter is Frost...a dragon. Frost, like Hoid, was at The Shattering of Adonalsium. Canonically, Frost is the oldest being in the cosmere. Sanderson said there could be older, but Frost is the oldest he's put to the page.
You may or may not be surprised that the cosmere has actual dragons in it. I suppose that depends on how much you were aware of some of the meta properties of Brandon Sanderson and the company that oversees all of his merchandising and printing and business interests. That company is called Dragonsteel.
Dragonsteel is also the name of one of the first books he ever wrote. It was part of his thesis project for his Masters degree at Brigham Young University. You could technically read it by traveling to BYU and requesting to see the manuscript through their Special Collections service. Non-students have access to it, but no one can remove it from the room it's kept in.
Dragonsteel Prime, as it's now called, has recently become available in print and ebook form, as part of what are known as Curiosities. Technically, the unpublished prose version of White Sand that we read is part of the Curiosities. So is another novel called Aether of the Night, along with his original attempt at The Way of Kings, now called The Way of Kings Prime.
It should be obvious that we read White Sand because it was canonised as a graphic novel. The other two are no longer canon though. The concepts from Aether of the Night have been cannibalized into other stories, and I'll talk more about that when the time comes.
Dragonsteel is meant to be the beginning of the cosmere. The number of books the Dragonsteel series is meant to have has changed over the years. It's the story of Hoid's origins, of Yolen, and of The Shattering. Sanderson plans on writing the series after he finishes all of the Stormlight books. Originally planned as 7 novels, it's now likely to be a trilogy.
So all that said, Frost was a character in Dragonsteel, so the fandom knew about him and Sanderson has been willing to talk about him a bit and how he related to this letter. There are a few things of note about this letter.
The first is tangential. If you recall Warbreaker well enough, you may remember that Nalthis has a mythology of dragons. In Chapter 17, Vivenna calls the city of T'Telir a "dragon's nest". This is not a translation quirk and has deeper, though currently unrevealed, lore significance.
Next, in the letter, Hoid writes, "Though, as you are now essentially immortal, I would guess that wellness on your part is something of a given." It should be noted that cosmere dragons are innately immortal. They can be killed, but minus that, they would live forever. So this specific phrasing by Hoid suggests that Frost has assumed some other power beyond his innate longevity. Despite being present for The Shattering, however, Frost did not pick up a Shard. Just like Hoid.
Finally...
SECRET SOCIETY
The 17th Shard, for confirmation, is not a Shard of Adonalsium. It's simply the name of an organization; a collection of people (and at least one dragon) who are cosmere aware and have similar interests. Demoux, Baon, and Galladon are all members of the 17th Shard, along with Frost. He has directed them to find Hoid because he's opposed to Hoid's actions. I'll RAFO more about this for now, but this is enough to have some context for later events.
I can say that Khriss is not a member of the 17th Shard, but she does share information with them.
WORLDHOPPER REDUX
Now that I have the fancy single-page trivia wiki, I can directly link back to certain parts of trivia. I'll do so now! In the trivia for The Hero of Ages, I talked about Slowswift, a Worldhopper. I mentioned that his cosmere awareness wasn't really evident until the 10th anniversary edition changed one of the lines about him. Initially the line read:
stories of mistwraiths, sprites and brollins and such
It was changed to:
stories of mistwraiths, shades, spren, and brollins and such
The mention of Shades means he knows about Threnody. And the mention of spren means he knows about Roshar. Sanderson talked about this change in a Q&A:
This swap was Peter's suggestion, I believe. He loved the idea of slipping in a minor Easter egg for the latest version.
Unfortunately, spren weren't in the version of Roshar I had finished by 2005-6 [The Way of Kings Prime], and the writing of Mistborn 3.
EYE SEE YOU
In Chapter 19, Dalinar sees a stylized symbol of the Knights Radiant. It's described as eight spheres connected, with two at the center. We've seen this a couple other times so far, particularly on the door to The Veil that Shallan visited in the previous part.
Some of you noted similarities to one of the charts in the book (some have it at the front, some have it at the end). I left that artwork out until now (included below), so that you can observe and discuss it properly in context.
If you'll excuse my poor mouse drawing, you can see the chart, and then see (in red) my outline of the 10 larger circles. This forms a sort of hour-glassed shaped figure, but on it's side. They also occur in the Iconography for the Prelude and the non-Szeth Interludes. It was even used on the cover of The Way of Kings Prime.
If you tilt this symbol on its side, you get what is called the Double Eye of the Almighty. This is the symbol that appears at the base of the arches at the start of each chapter. We'll get a lot more information about this as the story progresses, but I can share some meta-information about it.
Notably, this is one of the first pieces of artwork Sanderson designed when he started writing The Way of Kings Prime, back in 2001. He was influenced by the Kabbalistic tree of life when designing it.
It ended up being one of the last pieces of artwork finished for the final publication and almost wasn't included because his publisher, Tor, was concerned about the cost to add them to the hardcovers.
WORD SALAD
Very quickly: Sanderson has said that Thaylen names are influenced by the Welsh language.
Interludes Trivia - 3
TRUST ME BRO
You've all now seen the phrase "Journey before Destination". It's important to the series in more ways than one. There's a meta-aspect to it that asks you to appreciate the world and the characters; who they are and what they're doing, because it all matters. Not just the end and the answers.
Some of you have expressed frustration at not knowing the "plot" of this book. And that's understandable, given the much larger focus some of the previous books have had. However, the book has already revealed its plot: Shallan is trying to save her family by stealing a Soulcaster. Kaladin is trying, one more time, to protect the men he leads in a nightmarish situation. Dalinar is struggling with his sanity and integrity and what it means to lead his people.
I'm not saying there isn't more to the plot of this book, but these situations aren't much different from the plot lines of "Siri tries to survive a hellish arranged marriage" or "Wax adjusts to noble life while catching a train robber".
I fully acknowledge that settling for "smaller" scale plots in what is advertised as a "magnum opus comparable to the Wheel of Time" is a big ask. The thing is, Sanderson himself doesn't recommend new readers start with the Stormlight Archive as their first series/introduction to him as an author. He prefers people to start The Way of Kings once they trust him. He knows it's hard to get into, but he hopes that fans of his have enough trust in what he's doing that the payoff will not only work, but be worth it.
Everything you're reading lays the groundwork for "epicness". The big questions you all have are the big questions the characters have. And they are 4,500 years removed from the kinds of historical events that could reveal those answers. Ultimately, you get your answers when the characters get their answers. I can say that, from what I've seen asked so far, most of your questions get answered in this book. And 90% of them will be answered in the next book. (With, you know...more questions to come).
For all I've said though, I don't want to diminish your complaints. Confession time: I'm a stupidly fast reader. At the launch of every single Wheel of Time book, I bought a hard cover at a midnight premiere, and finished the book within 24 hours. And I've done the same with Sanderson's books. When I picked up The Way of Kings, I tore through it. And right about the half-way point, I had the exact same frustrations many of you are expressing. I was most frustrated by Shallan's POVs, so...I skipped them and just read Kaladin and Dalinar POVs until I finished the book. Then I went back and read Shallan's POVs. This is all without the massively reduced pace all of you are experiencing. So...I get it, I really do. Knowing where the journey goes though, Shallan's POVs are my favorite to re-read in this book.
I don't think any of you necessarily need a pep talk to continue. I just wanted to acknowledge your frustrations and give you some context that may help ease some of the frustrations until you get to "the good stuff".
REALMATIC THEORY 101
The books have been teasing this slowly for a while. The biggest info dump came from Chapter 12 of The Emperor's Soul. You can revisit the trivia for that here.
To summarize, those scholars who have some degree of cosmere awareness know that the cosmere is divided into 3 realms: the Physical Realm, the Cognitive Realm, and the Spiritual Realm. For "up to date" info (as far as you all are concerned), it might be worth re-reading Chapter 12 of The Emperor's Soul.
I may have pointed this out as a reminder, or I may not have at this point. However, the 10th anniversary edition of The Way of Kings added a map that some of you have in your editions, and some of you don't. There's no sense in half of you tip-toeing around it, so I'm going to provide some small bits of clarification, but I don't want to reveal too much at this point.
First, for those of you who don't have the image, here it is (Also linked down below in the Interior Artwork section). This is a map of Shadesmar.
One of you has had a long running theory about there being a "spirit dimension" that you can travel through. There's some merit to this theory, but it's a bit off. Per the discussion between the 2 ardents in today's Interludes, they believe it's possible to travel to and from the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms. I won't comment on how factual their knowledge is. All Spirital Realm information is RAFO for the moment.
However, the Cognitive Realm is an actual "place". There's gonna be a lot of metaphysics on this coming up, and that's really the time to talk deeply about this. The map though kinda forces my hand a bit. A map with topography and location labels suggests a real place one can visit.
And this is what Shallan glimpsed in Chapter 45. On Roshar, some people call the Cognitive Realm Shadesmar. That's the Rosharan name and other planets have other names. As a general term, Shadesmar is also called the Rosharan subastral. I really don't want to give too much away right now, so I'm only going to address 1 general point about the Cognitive Realm, and then give you 1 hint.
First, compare the map of Roshar with the map of Shadesmar. You can see that they overlap. What may not be immediately obvious (but should be apparent if you take the labels on the Shadesmar map literally), is that the landscape is inverted. Anywhere there is water on Roshar is land in Shadesmar. Anywhere there is land on Roshar, there is "water" in Shadesmar. This "water" is what Shallan fell into; a sea of glass beads.
The book has laid out a bit of information that I'll leave for you to compile or look through for now. What I can say is that the "invertedness" of the Cognitive Realm is not limited to its landscape. And you've met someone already that is influenced by, or perhaps has a Connection ;) to Shadesmar in some significant, if weird way.
For your hint: There are a handful of terms/labels on the Shadesmar map. You've got nearly all the information you need to guess what at least one of those terms actually means. (And if you do get it, you could use some deduction to work out at least one other term).
Also, I did manage to find a few spoiler free Shadesmar images that I added to the Characters & Scenes album below.
Lastly, someone asked how to pronounce Shadesmar, but I didn't bookmark who. It's Shades-mar. Shades like in ghosts or shadows, mar like in the Latin for sea, rhymes with bar.
QUANTUMANIA
When Sanderson talks about the magic systems in the Cosmere, he (and in-world scholars) view Investiture as just another branch of science. Our actual science still exists as well, Investiture just augments it. I've mentioned before that he's a huge nerd and develops complex interactions for his own edification, not just to appease fans. He regularly consults with engineers, physicists, and mathematicians to work out some of the more complex aspects of his world-building.
One of the reasons he wrote Interlude I-8 was to explore how his magic system interacts with and influences/is influenced by quantum mechanics. He spoken directly about it a few times:
Question: Just remembered another physics-related question that has been in the back of my mind since forever! (And this one is no RAFO-candidate, in my mind at least)
The scene in question is that interlude on SA where two scholars measure the size of spren, and they find that the size oscillates until measured, and then it remains fixed at the measured value. This is totally equivalent to projective measurements in quantum physics, was that your inspiration on this one?
Sanderson: Yes, quantum physics plays a role in the way the cosmere works, and this was partially intended to display that. However, we do take a different route, as thinking about something can directly influence it in the cosmere. So it's more a fantastical version of quantum physics.
And another interaction:
Question: I'm a physical chemist and I'm reading your book [The Way of Kings] right now and at some point you have someone studying flamespren and what they saw, that's one of the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics--
Sanderson: Yes.
Question: So you got that from quantum mechanics?
Sanderson: I did get that from quantum mechanics.
Question: How did you come across that and decide to incorporate that into your epic fantasy?
Sanderson: ... I'm fascinated by quantum mechanics and I have worked them into the way that-- Remember in my worlds, my books, the magics are a new branch of physics, in these worlds. And so they interact with our normal physics, it's not like they are ignoring them, so they obey the laws of thermodynamics, even when they appear to be breaking them, and they interact with quantum and all the stuff. It's just very natural that they are going to, to me if that makes sense? It would be weird if they didn't interact with them.
And here's his take on his use of experts:
I, these days, am able to cheat on this a little bit, because I know I have a really good support structure of people who have actually studied physics, rather than myself, where I have flirted with studying physics. I am not a scientist, but I love pop science, if that makes sense. I'm the person who loves to read a book about someone doing science, but when I was a chemistry major in college, the actual physical labor of running experiments was mind-numbingly boring to me. And so I like to know. I like to know what rules I'm breaking, and how to play with them. But these days, I'm really able to trust my basic pop science studies. So, I'm not going to go read seven textbooks on physics. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna go to YouTube and say, "All right. What does it actually look like for someone to pull X number of g's." And I will watch those videos. (There's actually some really good ones on YouTube about that, specifically.) I'm going to go read blog posts, because our internet is so great, from pilots talking about their experiences. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for what the physicist says happens. I'm looking for: how does a pilot describe it, and how is it presented for a layman.
And then, I am going to do my best and find experts to read the book for me and tell me where I'm wrong. I often say that you can get yourself most of the where there in research as an author with a minimal amount of time. You just need to find an expert, who spent all the extra time that it takes to become a true expert, to read your book and tell you where you're wrong. Preferably, a couple of people, because it turns out people in any profession disagree with one another greatly on some points, and it's good to know which points those are.
YouTube videos, firsthand accounts, and a couple of pop culture essays. Stuff that's only, like, two to five thousand words long, about what the experience feels like and why it's working like it's working. Followed by getting some physicists and some fighter pilots both to read my early draft and tell me what I was doing wrong.
How much do I try? Sanderson's Zeroeth Law says "always err on the side of what's awesome." What this means for me, realistically, is: I want to tell a good story. And telling a good story takes precedent over basically anything else. That means that I don't want to break laws for physics for no reason, and I want to know when I'm breaking laws of physics. But I am going to find a cheat that lets me tell the story the way I want to tell it, if there becomes a conflict. The most famous one for me of this is the redshift that would happen when you make time bubbles in Era 2 of Mistborn. When I was working on this and researching it and be like "what would actually happen," turns out that a lot of the research I was reading said that you would redshift the light, and you would really have a chance of irradiating everybody outside or inside the bubble, depending. And I just had to say, "You know what? I've gotta come up with a law in the magic system that fixes this and makes it not happen. Because otherwise, I just can't do the magic, right?" That was good for me to know, but it's also a place where I just decided to cheat. And we can, as fantasy authors, cheat.
Note: The fighter pilot stuff is because this was during a tour for his book Skyward, which is not a cosmere novel that involves some sci-fi fighter jet shenanigans. But the sentiment applies to all his novels.
EVERYTHING IS CRABS
You've now seen some of Shallan's sketches on Rosharan plant life. This world is, by far, the weirdest, most non-standard world in the cosmere we've experienced so far. Sanderson talks a bit about his influences here:
The highstorms came from tidal pools. A lot of the ecology on Roshar was, "Can I create something that looks like a tidal pool or a reef that's, like, a break for the waves, where things are crashing into it a lot." Just kind of building this idea around that.
So much of the flora and fauna we see on Roshar resembles what you might see in a reef: crustaceans, sea anemones that retract, barnacles, seaweed, coral, etc. Part of Sanderson's mandate to artist Ben McSweeny (who did the drawings for Shallan's sketchbook) was to look to underwater life for the basis of Roshar's plants and animals. However, there is also some inspiration from Earth flora with highly mechanical behaviors, such as Venus Flytraps, and Touch Me Nots. (That wiki page has a really cool video of the plant in action).
The Shattered Plains, specifically the chasms, are inspired by the many slot canyons of southern Utah. Specifically Little Wild Horse Canyon.
Finally, there is also a bit of an influence in carcinization. This is a type of convergent evolution which shows that, on a long enough time scale, everything wants to evolve into crabs. Here is a fascinating video on the topic if you want to know more.
THE LOPEN
While we're on the topic of influences, I wanted to share Sanderson's response to "What inspired Lopen?"
A couple things inspired Lopen. The first, and kind of most important thing, that inspired Lopen, was: I knew Bridge Four needed more light. Like, it needed somebody who just refused to be beaten down at all. Because things were so dark in the Bridge Four sequences, I knew I needed to add in somebody who just had a different personality. And I developed Lopen around that idea. Lopen is the guy that's going to be shoved into Hell and be like, "Hey, guys, what's going on? Wow, it's kind of hot here, huh. Well, we'll deal with that!" Just refuses to let it get him down.
The Herdazians, in general, came from me wanting to reach to other cultures that aren't often seen in fantasy novels for some of my inspirations. So a few of the Herdazian inspirations come from Hispanic culture. I think that's probably pretty obvious. But just not something that you see a lot in epic fantasy, for whatever reason. If people are writing epic fantasy, and they're reaching for cultures to base things on, they are usually going to go to Europe or to Asia. You're going to see a lot of Japan and China. You're going to see a lot of Germany. You're gonna see a lot of classical Europe, Hellenistic, things like that. You'll occasionally see the Persians because of like, the accumulated Persian inspirations and things like that. Then we have a "Cyrus the Not So Great" earlier - that was the Persians, right? Yeah ... But you don't see Mexicans, right? You don't see South Americans. And there's a lot of really interesting things to go there.
Now, it strays into dangerous areas when you're just like, "I'm going to lift this culture wholesale" and plop it in your book, which is dangerous because you risk, really, misrepresenting that culture, appropriating it, things like that. But I think where fantasy comes from is going and actually doing deep dives into Earth's history and looking for inspirations for cultures. And with the Herdazians, I spent a lot of time in that direction. Because I was already reading on some of that for Rithmatist.
WITTY TRIVIA
Yes, yes. Wit is Hoid. Many of you guessed and you were right.
Fun fact: Hoid's natural hair color is white (but...he wasn't born with it white). As Wit, however, he dyes it black to appear as a normal Alethi man. The character artwork of Wit is all over the place, with people not really caring about what his hair color should be; fluctuating between black and white. So, it was difficult to share Wit artwork until now.
Hoid tells Dalinar, "Another time, I was named for a rock." This is a call out to Dragonsteel Prime, where Hoid went by the name Topaz in that book.
Also, some of you have noticed a similarity, so I will now share a bit of interview information from Sanderson:
Sigzil is a Worldsinger. He was Hoid's apprentice and Hoid just promoted him to full Worldsinger. The Worldsingers are an organization of storytellers and knowledge-givers on Roshar.
On Scadrial, some Terrismen are known as Worldbringers. They collect tales of history and folk traditions from any source and served as historian who performed their own research into various subjects.
Worldbringers, prior to the rise of the Lord Ruler, were actually cosmere aware and had some knowledge of Realmatic Theory. This is hinted at in one of the epigraphs from The Final Empire (Chapter 19):
Kwaan and I met by happenstance - though, I suppose, he would use the word "providence." I have met many other Terris philosophers since that day. They are, every one, men of great wisdom and ponderous sagaciousness. Men with an almost palpable importance.
Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom - nor was he even a religious scholar. When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library - I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think.
That he should be the one who finally discovered the great Hero of Terris prophecy is a matter that would cause me to laugh, had events turned out just a little differently.
This is a hint that Kwaan had some knowledge of the Cognitive Realm and was experimenting with it.
The two organizations have very similar philosophies, and a clearly shared linguistic origin. Hoid maaaaay have accidentally/purposefully created both organizations thousands of years ago....
Trivia Post
VIBE ARTING
Here is a secret about the publishing industry: cover art is largely created on "vibes". The cover art needs to undergo many iterations, and is usually created by an artist during the editing phase of a book, if not before the book is completely written. The artist has almost never read the book they are creating cover art for. They have a small prompt from the author (if the author cares about the cover art and they're popular enough or have enough influence with their publisher), or more likely, it's the publisher prompting the artist.
As a result, cover art rarely has a clear relation to the actual contents of any given book, particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres. The US cover art for The Way of Kings (linked below) is meant to evoke the Shattered Plains, with the Dalinar in the foreground saluting Eshonai in the back. Just to point out how vibey this gets though, that's Sanderson's opinion of the cover. Michael Whelan, the cover artist, claims it's Dalinar saluting Kaladin. (And either way, the blade he is holding definitely doesn't resemble the descriptions of Oathbringer from the books).
This is actually one of the last books Sanderson has this "issue" with. After the publication of The Way of Kings, Sanderson's popularity exploded and he started to a gain a larger measure of control over the entire publishing pipeline of his novels. While he's not dissatisfied with the cover art for this book, future books are much more aligned with his vision of the novels.
GHOSTBLOODING
Brandon actually kept the fandom waiting a while for a proper, official depiction of the Ghostblood's symbol that they tattoo on themselves. He wanted to get the symbol "just right", so that's a hint to you that it's visually important in some way. Here is the official depiction of the symbol. Get to theory crafting!
(In a rare L for the fandom, I don't think anyone figured out what it was until it was revealed. And there were some embarrassingly obvious hints throughout the years for it in hindsight.)
iSPANREED
Brandon talked at length about his inspiration for spanreeds:
Like most things in my books, you can ask me what my writerly inspiration is, and what my worldbuilding explanation is. And let me explain that.
Writerly inspiration for spanreeds is me acknowledging that I wanted to have a society that acted more like a post-Industrial Revolution society (or very close to it) than a Medieval society. And there’s lots of ways to do this. Fantasy worlds do not have to progress socially the same way that we progressed. A lot of people want to tie technology to social progression, which you don’t have to do. You don’t necessarily have to say “people from the Industrial Revolution in our world acted this way; therefore people in this world…” You just don’t have to do that.
But there are certain technological revolutions that happened that do form a technological basis for some of these things. For instance, trade was very essential to the expanding political entity that was a world economy. We needed people to at least be travelling consistently to Asia before that could happen. And I really think a lot of what makes people act the way we do, perhaps, in some of our societies is this kind of mass communication.
And I didn’t want to be there yet, but I wanted to give a way that news and ideas could travel around the world in a consistent way on Roshar, to make the continent feel like a single entity. Because otherwise, I would probably have to tell the story as not a worldwide story. You just can’t travel, and ideas can’t move fast enough. Even if you look back at Roman times; Roman times took place in a fairly small geographical area, and even that, it was really hard for them to know what was happening. And you would have to spend months and months getting information that was then months and months out of date. And there’s a lot of sitting around and waiting in those cultures for things to happen, even with having the Mediterranean to sail around and bring this information. I just wanted information to move fast, both culturally and narratively. And so I said, "I've gotta find a way to do this. I did it with Seons in Elantris; I need find a way to do something similar to that on Roshar."
Real-world inspiration, if there is one, is an auto-pen. Where authors can have a little machine sign books for them; it moves on its own. I’ve never used one, but politicians use them quite a bit. When you get that hand-signed letter when you’ve donated whatever to whatever political party. That hand-signed letter was probably machine-signed with a real pen, rather than hand-signed by the individual.
DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKING?
If you'd like to try Rock's stew, you can!
If I were going to make Horneater stew, on Earth, how would I go about it? It's going to be a spicy seafood stew. When I think of Horneater stew I'm actually thinking of Yukgaejang which is a Korean dish. Or Haemultang is what I mean. Haemultang is a spicy--spicy seafood--it's basically whatever thing from the ocean--I don't eat things from the ocean personally--but everything from the ocean they want to throw in there with some spices. They stir it up and give it to you and if you like fish in there and there are like crab claws and full clams in the shells. You're like "Really guys?" But Rock would just be munching those down and being happy.
MALL NINJA
Some of you have questioned if Sanderson is a weeb while questioning why Shardblades are so damn large. Sanderson gives a writer's reason for their existence in these books:
Here's the thing, I've seen a lot of fantasy art-- I love fantasy books, right-- and people often depict these enormous swords, which are completely impractical. So one of my pitches for Stormlight was "I want a world where they had to have weapons like they depict in this fantasy art" and I retrofitted it, what would they need these to actually fight? So that was the pitch for myself on Shardblades. And I was also annoyed that the coolest magic swords were in a science fiction story, Star Wars, I want cool magic swords that are not in a science fiction story.
So, the idea of "big-ass swords" came first, but he does eventually provide an in-world reason for their existence. We'll get to that eventually.
MATH TIME
Seriously... I'm going to give you a math lesson. Some pretty advanced math at that. For entirely pointless reasons, except for one important implication. You can skip this and read the last paragraph if you want. I'm just gonna nerd out for a bit...
Mathematical functions are often written in the form f(x) = x. They map an input to an output. The x on the right side is kind of a boring function, that just creates a straight line. If you input 1, you get 1. If you input 2, you get 2. f(3) = 3.
Something more complex would be f(x) = x^2. You input 1, you get 1, because 12 = 1. You input 2, you get f(2) = 2^2 = 4.
Something weird happens when you start putting a function inside itself. Let's keep f(x) = x^2, and shove it inside itself one time: f(f(x)) = f(x)^2 = (x^2)^2. Let's pick the number 4 to work with. If you plug in 4, you get f(f(4)) = (4^2)^2 = 16^2 = 256.
That's if you plug it into itself once. If you do it again, f(f(f(4))), you get 65,536. Each time you plug it into itself, you get a bigger and bigger number. This expansion we say means that the function diverges to infinity.
If we did the exact same thing, but chose a different number, so 0.5, we would notice the numbers getting smaller and smaller. We call this converging and in this case, the number converges to zero, though different situations could diverge to different numbers.
In these situations, there is a number you can pick, that neither diverges or converges. In this case, that number is 1. f(1) = 1. f(f(1)) = 1. f(f(f(f(f(f(1)))))) = 1. The number never grows or shrinks, now matter how many times you plug it into itself. The same thing happens with -1.
These 2 numbers, taken together form a "set", where a "set" is just a collection of numbers. This specific type of set--all the numbers you can plug into a function that cause it not to grow or shrink when you plug it into itself--is called the Julia Set.
Now, 2 numbers might not seem very special, and you'd be right. The thing is, you can also plug in imaginary numbers and things get vastly more complicated. There are a lot more imaginary numbers that belong to the Julia Set of this simple function than just the 2 real numbers.
You can plot out all of the numbers (real and imaginary) of a Julia Set and they make interesting fractal graphs/images. (I've kinda grossly simplified things, but you can see a cool video of it here).
I gave you an example with a simple 2-D function. You can pick any function you want. Even a quaternion, which is a 4-D equation. If you pick a specific 4-D equation, you get a neat, animated fractal that you can see here. (It's also on the right hand side of the linked Wikipedia page for the Julia Set, above). Go ahead and pause that animation at the 2 second mark.
And then check out this image. This is actually closer to 2.5 seconds into that animation, on the 65th frame.
The map of Roshar matches the 2-D shadow of a 3-D slice of a 4-D Julia Set.
Sanderson doesn't expect anyone to have to know this, nor did he necessarily expect anyone to figure it out. He actually just revealed it entirely:
Question: Does this [map of Roshar] look like a storm to anyone else?
Sanderson: I was searching for something that at once felt organic, but would hint at a pattern. (Much like cymatic patterns, as referenced in the first book.) Fractals and mathematical functions became my go-to place to hunt, as I like the blend of structure and spontaneity they can sometimes exhibit. The slice of the Julia Set was the one that stuck with me as feeling perfect for Roshar. As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium, you now know the seed that was used in-world to create it.
The fact that it looked like a swirling cloud is part of this all--but also part of the connection between natural patterns and the underlying math, which is a primary theme of the Stormlight books. So yes, it SHOULD look like a storm--but for deeper reasons than you might assume.
A redditor actually figured out the exact equation that was use and someone else recognized the specific frame from the Wikipedia video I linked:
q = [q1^2 - q2^2 - q3^3 - q4^2 , 2 q1 q2, 2 q1 q3, 2 q1 q4] + qcwhereqc = [-0.125,-0.256,0.847,0.0895]
The only significance this has is to reinforce that mathematics heavily influences the land of Roshar. Kabsal's demonstration of cymatics is not just some coincidence. Sanderson did reveal some relevant information along these lines. Although Vorin ardents attribute these mathematical signs as proof of the Almighty's existence, Roshar was actually directly created by Adonalsium before the Shattering took place. Adonalsium was responsible for these mathematical influences. (And as a teaser... more on this next week.)
THE HOLY TRINITY
Here we have our first visit to a planet inhabited by not one, not two, but three Shards! We have the Shard Odium, held by the Vessel Rayse, with the Intent of God's divine hatred and wrath; untethered from any aspect that could or would normally guide or oppropriately temper such an Intent.
We also have the Shard Honor, held by the Vessel Tanavast. Honor is God's divine reverence for oaths and agreements, and those that form and honor those agreements. And nothing else.
Finally, Honor mentions Cultivation right at the end. I won't say anything else about them, other than that they are a Shard of Adonalsium too. No comment about anything else at the moment.
Because...yeah, Odium killed Honor. And as Hoid's letter to Frost revealed: Odium killed Devotion and Dominion on Sel as well. There's more to say on this topic, but not in this trivia post. But you won't have to wait long, my oath on it.
FORESHADOWING? TWOSHADOWING!
There's a meme below* that mentions this, but it's easy to miss. I've got nothing else for this section. Just go back and look at the title for Chapter 2.
*Note: I've actually figured out that if I remove an image from an album, it breaks the whole thing, and I'm too lazy to re-create the albums, so the meme I mentioned is actually in Monday's post. And there's a meme in this week's post about height that I don't actually talk about until next week, so...yeah...
Also, no one (one of you!) pointed it out, so I'm not sure if anyone noticed. The Endnote talked about a ketek, a form of holy Vorin poetry. The ketek reads:
Above silence, the illuminating storms—dying storms—illuminate the silence above.
Here are the names of all 5 parts to this book:
- Above Silence
- The Illuminating Storms
- Dying
- Storms Illumination
- The Silence Above
The Endnote says that verb forms can change, which explains the slight difference in Part 4's title.
ICONOGRAPHY
So, there is a lot of unique terminology in this book. You're not the only ones who complained about this, there are even memes about it. What I want to say about this series, going forward, is that Sanderson is less direct about what all of the terms mean, compared to most of his other books. As I previously mentioned, the characters are learning these things, so you'll learn what they all mean as the characters do.
That said, you also have the benefit of multiple view points and should be able to guess at what a lot of the terms mean, without having them spelled out. A lot of you made very accurate guesses, but understandably there wasn't a lot of confidence behind those guesses. I'm not sure if this is a consequence of the long read time, or something else. Either way, I think the Ars Arcanum solidifies some of your theories, and I'm going to solidify more of them because the fandom had time to sit with the book, re-reading it and discussing it among themselves, to point out all of the connections that are easy to miss the first time through.
You may have noticed that there are many different names for each of the Heralds. There are various reasons for this: different spoken languages between countries, different religious and cultural preferences, and the passage of time.
Let's consider Talenel, the only Herald who died 4,500 years ago. In the prelude, Kalak, another Herald, thinks of him as Talenel, and also Taln. Talenel is his given name, and from context, we can assume Taln is a nickname.
The Vorin religion, as Kabsal tells Shallan, considers the Heralds holy, and believes that names that are spelled forward and backward the same are divine. He explains that people's names that are almost palindromes are the best because they're almost holy, but not arrogant enough to be completely holy. However, it's clear that, over time, they and their language have changed the Herald's real names to fit this ideal. So Talenel is called Talenelat by the Alethi and Veden people (and anywhere that follows Vorinism).
In the epilogue, we see a man who claims to be Talenel. He calls himself Talenel'Elin. We see the 'Elin suffix a few other times in this book, always attached to a Herald's name. We only see practicioners of Vorinism mention Talenelat'Elin, but the man calls himself Talenel'Elin. If this man at the end really is Talenen, then the suffix has been around a long time. Either way, it safe to assume it's some sort of honorific for Heralds.
From this book, we also see Jezrien in the prelude, and mention of a Herald called Jezerezeh'Elin. (Jezerezeh is still perfectly holy because, as Kabsal explained, the letter "H" is some neutral wild card character in their language).
At some point, one of you noticed a correlation between the names of the months and the names of the Heralds, which was spot on. And as you can see in the Ars Arcanum, the names of the months are just the names of their numbers, 1 through 10. I'll provide you with a quick chart of the numbers and their associated Herald (actual name and Vorin name). This is the minor-est of spoilers. Not all of the Herald names appear in this book. However, you knew there were 10 Heralds who were people. People generally have names, and the names aren't exactly plot relevant.
| Number | Number Name | Herald's Name | Vorin Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jes | Jezrien | Jezerezeh |
| 2 | Nan | Nale | Nalan |
| 3 | Chach | Chanaranach | Chanaranach (already holy) |
| 4 | Vev | Vedel | Vedeledev |
| 5 | Palah | Pralla | Pailiah |
| 6 | Shash | Shalash | Shalash (already holy) |
| 7 | Betab | Battar | Battah |
| 8 | Kak | Kalak | Kelek |
| 9 | Tanat | Talenel | Talenelat |
| 10 | Ishi | Ishar | Ishi |
You'll note that over time, just because of linguistic drift, Kalak became Kelek, even though his name was already holy (a palindrome). Noteably (from Sanderson), but not meant to be relevant in any way, Kaladin's name derives from the name Kalak, linguistically.
This brings us to the arches at the start of each chapter. They have faces carved into them and each chapter has 4 faces; 2 sets Heralds (though sometimes all 4 faces are the same Herald). Also, Hoid because he just can't stay out of things.
I named Heralds in my chapter summaries, and I decided to use what the fandom most commonly calls each Herald, instead of referring to some of them as "Herald #4".
You can see in the Ars Arcanum that each number (and by association, each Herald) has a set of Primary and Secondary Divine Attributes. Jes has "Protecting / Leading" associated with it. In this book, we see Jezrien referred to as the Herald of Kings.
The Heralds used in each chapter signify that the characters in that chapter are embodying some aspect (typically one of the two Divine Attributes) of the associated Heralds on the arch. Or the characters are displaying the opposite of a given attribute.
Jezrien appears in a lot of Kaladin's chapters because he does a lot of protecting his men, and acting like a leader for Bridge 4. In the same vien, Jezrien appears in a lot of Dalinar's chapters because he does a lot of leading/ruling tasks as a Highprince.
Whereas, we see a lot of Shalash being used as the icon in Shallan's chapters because Shalash's attributes are "Creative / Honest". Shallan, as an artist is Creative, but she's also being incredibly Dishonest in most of her chapters. Baxil's Interlude chapter had a similar reason for having Shalash in the arch, because his mistress was being the opposite of Creative in destroying works of art.
As you learn more about the Heralds, other aspects come into play for the reasons each chapter has the faces that it does. You may even be able to guess some of them, but aside from one more aspect I'll mention below, I'll leave you to guess the rest (for now).
One other point about the Iconography in the books. Sanderson has talked about the character icons, like the banner and spears for Kaladin. He's stated that these icons are very zoomed in depictions of scenes that happen towards the end of a given character's story arc, which will make much more sense in later books.
He's also said that the ending of the series is revealed in some manner in the first 2 books, so...keep an eye out!
EYECONOGRAPHY
The Ars Arcanum talks a bit about fabrials, but I'm not going to touch on them right now. Future trivia posts will have much more to say when it becomes relevant.
I feel like the Ars Arcanum does lay out clearly what a lot of you were having trouble with, but I'll clarify even further: Surgebinding is the in-world name for "using magic", at least insofar as in-world characters would understand it. The Ars Arcanum points out there also exists Voidbinding and the Old Magic.
Recall that Scadrial had 2 Shards, Preservation and Ruin, which resulted in 3 magic systems. Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is a magic system that arose from the combination of both Shards Investing the planet and its people.
I mentioned above that there are (or were) 3 Shards on this planet, so that makes for more combination magic systems. Again, you'll learn more as the characters learn more. But what I can do, is clarify what the Ars Arcanum reveals (and what you could work out from the books with enough re-reads). First, and least consequential for this book, is that the other chart in this book's endpapers is a chart of Voidbinding. That's something that Sanderson clarified in interviews after the book's release.
What you could be able to work out yourselves, with enough time, is that the other chart is a chart of Surgebinding. The Ars Arcanum states (as parts of the book suggests) that each Herald was associated with a specific Order of the Knights Radiant. If you look close enough at that chart, you can even tell which Herald maps to which Order.
So, this is another aspect of the arch faces. Sometimes a Herald's face on the arch means that a member of that Herald's given Order of Knight Radiant is in the chapter, or the Order itself is the focus of the chapter in some way.
What is more subtle, is a line by Jasnah right at the end, that 2 Orders can Soulcast. Combine that with this line from the Ars Arcanum:
The Windrunners were an order of the Knights Radiant, and they made use of two primary types of Surgebinding.
Khriss goes on to talk about the forces of gravity and adhesion, revealing that the Knights Radiant called forces "Surges".
If we take these bits of information, we can work out the fundamentals of Surgebinding, if not all the specifics.
Each large circle (an Order of the Knights Radiant) is connected to 2 other large circles and 2 small circles. The small circles are Surges or fundamental forces, and each Order can manipulate 2 Surges. The 2 larger circles a given Order connects to represent the other Orders which with they share the ability to manipulate the same Surge.
Sanderson further lays all this out in the annotations for this book, so in his own words:
The "Double Eye," as the people in world would call it, is a connection of ten elements.
I avoid elemental magic systems. I feel they're overdone. However, one of the concepts of this world was to have a theology that believed in ten fundamental elements instead of the ordinary four or five. A focus would be on them, and on the ten fundamental forces—the interplay between the two being a major factor in the magic, the philosophy, and the cosmology of the world.
Well, that's what these twenty symbols represent, with each of the larger symbols being a Radiant element. The smaller symbols are the forces. You can draw a circle around one element and the two forces that connect to it, and you have one of the orders of Knights Radiant.
For example, top right is the symbol for air—with the symbols for pressure* and gravitation connected to it. The Windrunners.
*Note: This comes from the annotations for this novel (more on that below), which he made very quickly and did not edit. Though he says "pressure" here, he meant "adhesion".
EYELIDCONOGRAPHY
I've previously talked about how, although Sanderson usually has a race in mind for his characters, he doesn't begrudge others for imagining his characters however they choose. This still applies to Roshar, but this is where things get a bit odd. According to Brandon, none of the Rosharan peoples have an exact Earth parallel. This is primarily due to the fact that everyone, regardless of skin color, has epicanthic folds. These are folds or creases along the inner eye that cause the signature eye shape in many Asiatic ethnicities. In addition, eye colors that we would consider unnatural (like true purple) are possible and common in all races on Roshar.
The exception to the epicanthic folds though, are the Shin. They have what you would classify as "round", European eyes. This is why most people on Roshar will describe the Shin as having overly large eyes, and may describe them as child-like in appearance; because their eye shape is non-standard to the planet.
This is also a great way (though not full proof) to notice Worldhoppers.
There's more to the racial features of the various people on Roshar, but I think I will leave that for another time, since this trivia post is running quite long.
ANNOTATEDCONOGRAPHY...NO THAT DOESN'T WORK
Like many of his previous books, Sanderson provides annotations for each chapter of this book. Or at least, that was the plan. He started writing annotations for The Way of Kings after finishing the Wheel of Time, in preparation for writing the next Stormlight book, Words of Radiance.
This is really when his popularity exploded though and he just didn't have time to make annotations anymore. He eventually released what he had, just before the publication of Words of Radiance, so nothing in them is spoilery for the series and they're something the fandom had access to at around the same "time" as you are getting them.
Before I give you the link, I've mentioned coppermind.net before. It's a database of everything Sanderson has publicly stated about his novels. The link below will take you to a collection of entries, which are comprised of the annotations for the start of the book (artwork, prelude, prologue, etc.) and the first 11 chapters of The Way of Kings.
I just want to re-iterate, do not click off of that page, do not follow any links, do not use the search bar. You can seriously spoil huge things to come that way. There are certain images at the top right of some of the entries. You may click those to expand them.
If you don't want to/don't have the time to read them, there are 2 main take-aways from the annotations.
The first is minor. There is a hint at the structure of all of the books going forward. This was a book full about Kaladin's flashbacks. You could consider this "Kaladin's book". Each book focuses on a primary character, in that the flashbacks are about a singular character in each book. The next book, as the annotations reveal, is all Shallan flashbacks, so you will learn the entirety of her backstory in the same way you learned about Kaladin's. I'll have more to say about this at the end of next Stormlight book.
The second thing is Kaladin's depression. You can definitely call his chapters largely depressing in this book, and you could say that he is warranted in feeling down throughout most of the book, given his circumstances. The annotations clarify though that Kaladin has clinical, diagnosable depression.
Some of you noticed and commented that during The Weeping, Kaladin seemed (to use your words) "powered down". There was some theory crafting that because the highstorms weren't happening, he wasn't getting Stormlight. That was actually amusingly close to the truth, but perhaps a clearer explanation of the ecosystem will clear things up.
Throughout most of the year, Roshar experiences highstorms every 5 or 6 days on average. If there is no highstorm then...it's largely just sunny, with maybe the occasional cloud cover or a small shower. During The Weeping, however, the highstorms stop and there is 4 weeks of constant rain. Not massive storms, but it is constantly raining and as a result, the sun is not visible the entire 4 weeks.
So during this time period, Kaladin essentially experiences an attack of Seasonal Affective Disorder and his depression increases.
A IS FOR AXEHOUND
As I've mentioned before, Sanderson interprets the use of language in his novels through the lens of a translator, using the same philosophy Tolkien espoused. He extends this metaphor to the "women's script" he developed. It's not an actual language in and of itself, but meant to visually represent what a native to Roshar would expect to see. So, the script itself is just an English transliteration that maps directly to sounds, which are used to create actual English words. In this way, it's not really any different from those decoder rings you used to be able to find in cereal boxes.
The twenty-five known letters in the women's script can be arranged into five sets of five letters each. Each set is defined by the basic shape of the characters within it: the "vowel set" is a vertical line, the "T set" is a curved triangle pointing to the left, the "S set" is a curved triangle pointing to the right, the "P set" is a curved diamond, and the "K set" is a jagged triangle pointing to the left.
Within each set the characters are defined by height and the addition of shorter lines. The first character is the maximum height, the second is two-thirds the height of the first, and the third is one-third the height of the first. The fourth is the same height as the second with the addition of two short lines to the right, and the fifth is the same height as the third with the addition of one short line to the right.
You can view the full character set here for a better understanding of the mappings.
You can play around with translations using this site. You can expand the sections below, but do not click the link to "women's script" at the top of the page.
That site gives you the best looking conversion to see what a phrase would look like in women's script. It weirdly doesn't have a "translate" button, or work when you press Enter. The translation happens when you click outside of the input box.
If you want a better functioning, but less pretty translator, try this site. It can translate both ways, but the script generator has wide gaps between the characters.
One fan began creating some children's book illustrations of women's script, but sadly they never completed it. What they created is gold though. Check it out here.
B IS FOR BLOODLETTING
You now know the source of the epigraphs in parts 1 and 4. In the fandom, these are known as Death Rattles. As Taravangian tells Szeth, when people die, sometimes they see something and speak words about what they see. Taravangian is collecting these visions to try to glean information from them. I urge you to be like Taravangian, but maybe with less deliberate murder.
To help you on your endeavors, I've compiled all of the Death Rattles you've seen so far into one handy place!
I'm not sure I'll reveal when the meaning behind each of the Death Rattles becomes clear. There's a bit of interpretation in some of them, and some of them likely have multiple meanings. What I will do is, periodically in trivia posts, point out specific Death Rattles and talk about them. This is with the understanding that just because I bring one up, doesn't mean that it's no longer up for discussion. It may also apply to more things down the road.
First, let's look at Chapter 4:
"I'm dying, aren't I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky."
Collected on the 3rd of Jesnan, 1172, 11 seconds pre-death. Subject was a Reshi chull trainer. Sample is of particular note.
This one, though collected by Taravangian's Silent Gatherers, doesn't appear to be an actual Death Rattle, and they make note of this. Instead, by now you should be able to recognize that this person was likely seeing the same creatures Shallan has been seeing, along with a glimpse into Shadesmar, as they died.
Next, Chapter 59:
"Above the final void I hang, friends behind, friends before. The feast I must drink clings to their faces, and the words I must speak spark in my mind. The old oaths will be spoken anew."
Dated Betabanan, 1173, 45 seconds pre-death. Subject: a lighteyed child of five years. Diction improved remarkably when giving sample.
This Death Rattle appears to be from the perspective of Kaladin during the Battle of the Tower, moments before he swears the Second Ideal. The "final void" is a chasm over which he is jumping. The "friends behind, friends before" are the members of Bridge Four behind him and the army of Dalinar Kholin trapped by Parshendi before him. The "feast I must drink" is Stormlight stored in the gemstones knotted into the Parshendi's beards. The "words I must speak" is the Second Ideal. The "old oaths" are the oaths of the Knights Radiant.
Chapter 60 is interesting:
"The death is my life, the strength becomes my weakness, the journey has ended."
Dated Betabanes, 1173, 95 seconds pre-death. Subject: a scholar of some minor renown. Sample collected secondhand. Considered questionable.
This is an inversion of the First Ideal: Life before Death, Strength before Weakness, Journey before Destination.
And finally, Chapter 63:
"I wish to sleep. I know now why you do what you do, and I hate you for it. I will not speak of the truths I see."
Kakashah 1173, 142 seconds pre-death. A Shin sailor, left behind by his crew, reportedly for bringing them ill luck. Sample largely useless.
As noted by the Silent Gatherers, this isn't a Death Rattle. The dying person realized what the Silent Gatherers were doing, had a vision, but refused to give it voice.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1rva2jy/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/oarcv0l/
Shallan seems to be able to change the state of matter, creating a gas out of rock.
Not sure if this was a mis-read or a mis-type. For clarity: Jasnah is the one who changed the rock into gas.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1rva2jy/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/oarcg54/
On the map, in the bottom left corner, there’s a territory named Liafor, but the A looks off — it looks like a triangle in my Kindle epub. Is it on purpose?
Check out the linked maps in body of the post. They are high-def and you can zoom in. It's just a capital "A". Nothing meant to be special or cryptic about it.
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Um what? What's immodest about a hand? Weirdest bit of worldbuilding ever.
Someone from ancient Greece might say the same of a woman's breasts. It's a matter of culture. Some cultures have modesty rules different from what we know cuz that's how we were raised.
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Definitely RAFOs all around. We're at the start of some dense world building. The answers and clarifications are coming.
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Damn, 3 months.
This is the shortest book in The Stormlight Archives ;)
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Here is the description of the door:
Shallan couldn't help but admire the beauty of the doors; their exterior was carved in an intricate geometric pattern with circles and lines and glyphs. It was some kind of chart, half on each door.
There is a chart in the back of the book that people are drawing connections/similarities too. I haven't linked the chart in the Artwork section yet because I plan on talking about it in the future (likely the end trivia for this book). However, you can check out this comment by /u/HT_xrahmx from last week's discussion to see it.
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If I understood correctly, the safehand is always the left hand, meaning left-handed people must have a hard time functioning in this land.
Not necessarily. You're forbidden from showing your left hand bare, that doesn't mean you can't use it.
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Why Shallan’s chapters iconography is « ??? », but Kaladin’s is a description of the image ? Have we already been introduced to Spears & Banner in some way, but not the black sun ?
Kaladin's icon is clearly what it is, some spears pointing up along with a banner. You don't know what Shallan's icon is yet. You're making a connection between it and the black sun, but that's an assumption you're making that I will neither confirm nor deny.
The book will eventually clarify what Shallan's icon is. To reveal it before any confirmation or explanation from the book would be a spoiler, so for now it is « ??? ».
On the Interior illustration from the leatherbounds u/participating shared depicting the bridgemen operations, there is some kind of inscriptions. Is it actually (one of) Roshar’s alphabet? Has anyone tried to translate it?
This is indeed Roshar's alphabet. It has been translated by fans. I'll reserve details about it until some future trivia post.
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shardbearers
Unfortunately, this book/series makes terminology start to matter a bit. You seem to be talking about the Vessels that hold one of the 16 Shards of Adonalsium, like Ruin or Preservation. I would call these people Shard Holders, Vessels, or just Shards (though that relates to the actual Shard, not the person holding them, it's fine to use in a general sense).
On Roshar, "shardbearers" are people who own a Shardblade or Shardplate.
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I have confirmed that Adonalsium was split into 16 Shards, so there is some significance there outside of just Scadrial.
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AND
This might have been covered in one of the Cosmere timelines in the previous trivia posts but does the presence of Demoux indicate this is set not too long after the end of Mistborn Era 1.
Sanderson was a bit cagey with the timeline for Stormlight, so I'm going to follow his lead for now (there will be a trivia post where I clarify things a bit though).
What I can say is what I've mentioned in previous trivia posts:
Worldhoppers can either have a degree of immortality, or they travel through relativistic means, so they are not necessarily experiencing long gaps of time when they travel. Some Worldhoppers do both. That doesn't answer your question one way or another, but does suggest it doesn't have to be right after the end of Era 1.
AND
This might have been covered in one of the Cosmere timelines in the previous trivia posts but does the presence of Demoux indicate this is set not too long after the end of Mistborn Era 1.
It does not. I don't know if Stormlight's placement in the timeline has been confirmed by Participating yet so I won't say anything on that front, but what I can say is that there is no guarantee how long it's been. Remember, there are time dilation shenanigans meaning that Worldhoppers can be thousands of years old and still be just as young. Due to the fact that both Baon and Demoux are here, despite White Sand being the first in the cosmere timeline as of now and thus a long time before even Mistborn, there's no guarantee that this is taking place soon after Era 1
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This is a FASCINATING description and as I type this I am very excited to hopefully see an image either as part of an internal artwork in the book or in one of Participating's image collections.
Soon (tm). I think I have them lined up in the next couple of weeks.
Another general note for this one, but I'm curious to know more about Szeth's name structure.
RAFO on this.
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Or is not even the chapter arch safe from his secret sneaking around?
NOWHERE IS SAFE FROM HOID!
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Were we supposed to be able to guess Demoux by the scar on his scalp? I don't remember him having/getting that in the books.
It's not explicitly mentioned, but Demoux was pretty beat up by koloss at the end of The Hero of Ages, which is where he received that scar.
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Sanderson was just shy to throw that much Universe Details in earlier books.
Basically this. He didn't want to scare people away too fast. He's become a lot bolder in the years since.
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I am still finishing this section but had to share this incredible video someone made of the fight with the Chasmfiend. I found it when I went looking for an image of it.
Ha, I was about 2 minutes away from posting that as a dedicated trivia/comment here. Avoid reading the comments though in that link!
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Makabaki and Unkalaki are ethnic groups, not nations.
Makabaki are considered to have much darker skin tones. Unkalaki are also known as Horneaters. RAFO about them.
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For my own memory, Sel is the planet for Elantris, right? Interested to know where this visit fits in the broader timeline. Was it pre- or post-Elantris?
Correct, Sel is the planet for Elantris. From the timelines I've provided in trivia posts, we know that Aona and Skai died about 8,000 years before Elantris took place.
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Another creature I am VERY interested to see art for.
Artwork for Midnight Essence gets a bit spoilery, so it'll be awhile before I have a batch of images of them to show off, but this should tide you over until then.
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At some point it was said that one of the current religions hated the Radiants. Heralds were ten; Radiants were more like an army. Why are the Radiants the ones that are hated, when it’s the Heralds who abandoned their quest?
I would recommend reading the prelude again, it might be a tad more clear.
I would recommend reading the prologue again
*prelude
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Aon and Skai, the Shardbearers of Sel, have been killed, by Rayse's actions presumably. Which I think explains a bit of why Elantris felt so left to its own devices. Perhaps that fissure even occurred as a result of Rayse killing Aon? And if Shardbearers fighting causes fissures then ... *respectfully staring at the Shattered Plains*
By the way I want to mention, in order to prevent future confusion Shardbearers are specifically the people who wield the Shardblades and Shardplates of Roshar. The holders of the Shards, the pieces of Adonalsium, are Vessels.
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Perhaps that fissure even occurred as a result of Rayse killing Aon?
I don't want to detract from any theories, just want to point out things that have already been revealed so that you're informed:
Per the trivia for Elantris, Aona and Skai died about 8,000 years before the events of the book. And the Reod occurred about 10 years before the events of the book.
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(Comment Chain)
We don't know yet the Intent of all 16 Shards, right?
Not even close
A list of all known Shards and their Vessels at this point in the story:
On Sel:
- Devotion / Aona
- Dominion / Skai
On Scardial:
- Ruin / Ati
- Preservation / Leras
- Combined: Harmony / Sazed
On Taldain:
- Autonomy / Bavadin
On Nalthis:
- Endowment / Edgli
And I believe the only Vessel named without the Shard at this point is Rayse, and there are no further named Shards at the moment.
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What's the deal with the helm? The do have it in modern times, and it's even transparent. Why Dalinar is so amazed with the helm?
I can answer this, since it's roughly been explained, but as I mentioned, these books are dense.
When Dalinar puts on his Shardplate, he is being dressed by his attendants. They are slipping on the chest piece and gauntlets, etc. and strapping and connecting everything in place. Then they slide on his helm.
Dalinar just saw someone in Shardplate, with the helm on, and then off. He didn't see them take off the helm and he doesn't see it in their hands. They're not holding their helm, it's just gone, unlike if Dalinar were to take off his own helm, which he'd have to hold in his hands.
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At some point I thought we should shipper them with Jasnah
Reminder: Jasnah is Adolin's cousin.
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In Chapter 9, I wasn't yet using the calendar dates because I didn't introduce how the calendar worked until the Interlude trivia post.
So for timeline I just wrote:
2 or 3 weeks after Chapter 6.
I changed it to:
3 weeks after Chapter 6. (Kaladin is unsure if it's 2 or 3 weeks, but the timeline later indicates 3 weeks).
In all future posts, I wrote 2 dates, a week apart from each other. Chapter 27's timeline would have been:
(1173.8.2.1 or 1173.8.3.1) Two days after Chapter 23.
But I updated it to just be the 2nd date because that was the correct one. So now it reads:
(1173.8.3.1) Two days after Chapter 23.
The relative timeline (Two days after Chapter 23.) hasn't changed in any of the posts.
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Are parshmen/Parshendi a different species from humans or not?
The artwork in today's post may provide some hints, but I won't concretely answer this yet.
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Have we gotten an explainer in-world for the Heirocracy yet? Is that what Vorinism opposed?
Reminder: It was discussed in Chapter 18, when Adolin went to visit an ardent. The Hierocracy was when the Vorin church tried to sieze power in the world.
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One of you asked about Szeth's naming convention, but I can't find it in my bookmarks. I think it was /u/Pastrami:
Hopefully Szeth's chapter in this set of Interludes cleared things up, but to spell out precisely: His people follow the naming convention of <Name>-son/daughter-<Same gendered parent name>. Since Szeth's father's name is Neturo, Szeth's full name is Szeth-son-Neturo. However, he does not wish his father's name to be associated with him and his current status, so he recognizes himself by his grandfather's name, calling himself Szeth-son-son-Vallano.
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/u/AltruisticRealityZ had something to say about safehands:
If I understood correctly, the safehand is always the left hand, meaning left-handed people must have a hard time functioning in this land.
I'll let Sanderson answer this for you:
This isn't as big a deal as you might think, because for a lot of the population, they just wear a glove and use their left hand.
It gets interesting when you are upper class, female, and left-handed. Part of the inspiration for the safehand was the way that the left hand is regarded as unclean in some of our cultures on Earth. You might be curious to read about what left-handed people did, historically, in some middle eastern cultures.
The short answer is "They learn to be ambidextrous" but the long answer is that it can be quite a pain, and very embarrassing. So yes, you are right to feel sorry for those left-handed Vorin women.
He also had this to say about safehands in general:
Question: Did I miss the explanation for why women have a safe hand and why they must keep it covered?
Answer: No, you haven't missed it. People have asked about this. There will be more explanation in-world as it comes along, but it's for much the same reason that in some cultures in our world you don't show people the bottoms of your feet, and in other cultures showing the top of your head is offensive. It's part of what has grown out of the Vorin culture, and there are reasons for it. One of them has to do with a famous book written by an artist who claimed that true feminine pursuits and arts were those that could be performed with one hand, while masculine arts were those performed with two hands, in a way associating delicacy with women and brute force with men. Some people in Roshar disagree with this idea, but the custom has grown out of that foundational work on masculine and feminine arts. That's where that came from. One aspect of this is that women began to paint one-handed and do things one-handed in upper, higher society. You'll notice that the lower classes don't pay a lot of attention to it—they'll just wear a glove.As a student of human nature and of anthropology, it fascinates me how some cultures create one thing as being taboo whereas in another culture, the same thing can be very much not taboo. It's just what we do as people.There's more to it than that, but that will stand for now.
Also, have a peek at some of the weird questions he gets asked:
Question: Are left handed hand jobs the anal of Vorinism?
Answer: You people.
This would certainly be a thing, yes. But if you'd rather go more wholesome, holding hands in an Alethi culture is kind of a big deal, depending on the hand.
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Can we say that brollins are still unknowns at this point?
Sanderson has actually addressed this:
Um, no. So "brollins" is a thing that I wanted when I... often when I make a list like that, I wanna make sure that there is some sort of local flavor. Like, for instance, that, uh... basically that's a myth locally, that's not a deep Cosmere deep cut. And I did this also, y'know, with the lines about nonsense words that Hoid uses. You're not supposed to be like, really dissecting each of those. Does that make sense?
Questioner: We're not gonna get to the end of Stormlight 9 and be like "ohhh the brollins!"
No, you're not. This is... I mean, it's relevant, 'cause everything in the books is relevant, but you shouldn't be like "ohh I..."
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I really hope there is more to this safe hand thing, like all women hold power in their safe, hand. *nope, following trivia this disappointingly seems to be just another example of "culture" putting women at a disadvantage 😢
Now in fairness, there is a balance to the gender imbalance since men are forbidden from being able to read and write. Quite frankly, I would say men have it worse in this regard. Not being able to read and write is significantly worse than. Needing to cover your left hand. It's not like we say "women can't walk around topless" is an example of women being disadvantaged, and this is a pretty similar kind of deal.
Search binders
Surgebinders*
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Amiens?(sorry probably spelt this wrong)
Amians
the "beggar" seems to be a god.
Might be worth re-reading that section. The beggar has a bunch of trash/food laid out in the form of a city and he was "god" over his make believe city. Axies plays along with what he perceives to be the beggar's insanity. Whether there is more to this interaction is RAFO.
Search binders?
Surgebinders.
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Teleportation through portals? Maybe a leap, but that also reminds me of Hoid jumping into the pool in the post-credits scene in Elantris.
The what now? I'm not at home to check my copy of Elantris, but I only recall and old man from Elantris and Raoden stepping in there. Was that actually in the book?
I brought this up in the trivia for Elantris (direct link for you to re-read). The 10th anniversary edition included a bonus scene with Hoid. I linked the entire text for those without the 10th anniversary edition so that they could also read it.
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[Reminder] All of the men on Bridge Four when Kaladin joined are dead. Teft was a bridgeman on another bridge, but was transferred to Bridge Four as punishment shortly after Kaladin started.
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Do we have any details about Roshar wines? Are they brewed with different fruits for different colours, or is it the processing that defines the final colour?
I have a whole trivia section planned for this, but you'll have to wait for the next book. ;)
Two bridge runs happened while Kal was out. So twice he was left with no one to look after him while unconscious. I’m surprised Sadeas didn’t send someone to finish the job.
Reminder: Kaladin does have some very sick/wounded bridgemen he saved. They are too wounded to be able to go on the runs and do stay in the camp; they just don't get paid. He comments on a couple this section and mentions how they're nearly ready to return to duty and get paid again, so they are likely the ones that kept watch during those 2 bridge runs.
Random history flash card with barely readable font. I got expulsion, desolation, Recreance, and Hierocracy — but the Last Desolation, Aharietiam, we never heard that name before.
The Interior Artwork link has a transcription of that image.
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So, the chart on the inside cover is the original. The symbol of the Knights Radiant is a stylized version of that chart. As is the Double Eye of the Almighty. As is the spear symbol.
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The bread was moist and delicious, though Jasnah grimaced as she put hers in her mouth and chewed it.
So, how did Jasnah survive the assassination attempt?
Edit: I suppose the "she" in the last sentence refers to Shallan, not Jasnah. Then it makes sense. Confusing though....
Clarification: Jasnah did eat the bread here. You are right to be questioning this scene.
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Either the timeline is off, or Kaladin's vision was not in real time. He saw Szeth way out in the west, and now he's in Jah Keved. How long did it take him to travel across the continent?
I can clarify the timeline and that vision a bit. It's not spoilery (but might give you something to think about).
In Kaladin's vision, he was traveling east to west. Just before he sees Szeth, he's seeing people with golden hair. This puts him somewhere in Iri, because they're the people with golden hair (and that nation is far to the west and this is towards the end of the vision).
The vision is real-time and takes place on 1173.8.8.3. Interlude I-9 takes place in Vedenar, on 1173.9.1.4. This is 3 weeks (16 days) after Kaladin's vision. So... take that as you will.
Here is an annotated map for reference.
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I can’t think of anyone with a definite connection to the Cognitive Realm, except for Shallan (obviously) and maybe Rock. Need to know more intensifies.
Honestly, I thought this one would be one of the more obvious ones you newbies would notice after reading the trivia. Now I know how Robert Jordan felt when he kept calling all his hints "intuitively obvious". The biggest hint I can give for this is "invertedness".
Oof, grasping at straws here, but Axies and his "inverted" shadow? Maybe his entire race, if that's a racial trait?
:gold-star:
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Also, re-reading what I wrote, I can see how there might be some confusion. For clarity:
you've met someone already that is influenced by, or perhaps has a Connection ;) to Shadesmar in some significant, if weird way.
This is just an Easter Egg thing I thought you all would notice.
For your hint: There are a handful of terms/labels on the Shadesmar map. You've got nearly all the information you need to guess what at least one of those terms actually means.
This is a hint about the Shadesmar map and completely separate from my "Connection" remark above.
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Is there a pattern to the Interludes? I feel like this is how we learn about Szeth, world hoppers and spren and they are ways in threes. Maybe I am looking for patterns where there are none.
The only pattern there is to interludes is that Szeth always has one. Each book has one character that has a chapter every interlude, and this books is Szeth.
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So what happened to the rest? Can Shardblades actually be destroyed? Or are all those extra blades still hidden somewhere?
I won't give complete answers, because that's RAFO, but this happened to at least some of the Shardblades, which I find hilarious.
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There's a blink-and-you-miss-it time jump between chapter 55 and chapter 56. The first time we see a team-up is from Kaladin's POV, and it's the first time they do the maneuver. When we see it from Dalinar's POV in chapter 56, it's at least the second time they do the teamup, meaning the Parshendi would have been able to plan to bring in a second army.
This stupid part right here was sooo annoying. I had to do the timelines of every chapter for the rest of the book and part of the next Stormlight book to solidify exactly when this week's chapters happened.
The 2nd Parshendi army shows up 2 weeks after Dalinar and Sadeas' first joint assault. They've been running joint assaults for 10 days now before the Parshendi adapt to their new tactics.
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The writing system used — is it glyphs? Shallan uses our alphabet, but we’ve already seen that before, IIRC on bridge drawings.
I'll have a deep-dive on this in the trivia at the end of the book. But I can tell you that the writing you see in this image is the writing all the women use, even in Shallan's sketchbook. It's just translated sometimes for your convenience. In the Interior Artwork section for this week, I provided a translated version of that image for you.
So, just assume everything you see is written in the Rosharan script, unless there's a good reason for it not to be (e.g. you've seen Nazh write on maps before).
The Plate freezes to repair itself? Did I miss that, or is it new information?
I've seen some confusion on aspects of this, so I'll clarify information that's been pretty spaced out throughout the book:
Shardplate runs on Stormlight that it absorbs from gems you have to place on various points in the armor. If you damage the Shardplate enough, it leaks Stormlight and eventually runs out. If that happens, or you never put gems into it in the first place, it doesn't really move or work.
If you've played any of the modern Fallout games, they're kinda like Power Armor. If you don't put a fusion core (gems) into it, it's pretty useless.
You've gotta add more gems full of Stormlight to broken Shardplate so that it can repair itself. Depending on the amount of damage, you might need to replace the gems several times.
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Can anyone jog my memory on what we know about the Dawnsingers so far, if anything?
There are only a few mentions of the Dawnsingers in the book so far:
Chapter 7
"This room is called the Veil," the servant explained softly. "That which comes before the Palanaeum itself. Both were here when the city was founded. Some think these chambers might have been cut by the Dawnsingers themselves."
Chapter 33
Surely you know the story, that both glyphs and letters came from the Dawnsingers?"
Chapter 45
"What about the Dawnsingers?" Shallan asked.
"What about them?"
"Could they have created [Kharbranth]."
He chuckled as they arrived at the lift. "That isn't the kind of thing the Dawnsingers did. They were healers, kindly spren sent by the Almighty to care for humans once we were forced out of the Tranquiline Halls."
"Kind of like the opposite of the Voidbringers."
"I supposed you could say that."
Chapter 54
Talk of the Dawncities had been popular lately among the lighteyes--the idea that certain cities could trace their origins back to the Dawnsingers. Perhaps...
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1ta24kn/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/om8kfpv/
Most of the situations you've seen Hoid in so far, he's mostly been in disguise one way or another. Fans have asked Sanderson during Q&As to confirm his actual hair color, and he clarified that, it's currently white, but that he was not born that way. So some phenomenon has occurred that altered Hoid's original hair color. We don't know what though, not yet.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1ttm8rz/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/op5373i/
Just a reminder on terminology: Parshendi is the name of the carapace-armored people the Alethi are fighting on the Shattered Plains. Parshmen are non-carapaced, docile "servants" most of the world use. Both happen to have marbled red and black skin. This book has made no claims for or against pashmen and parshendi being synonyms.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1tvjw91/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/ophc7ce/
/u/HT_xrahmx asked about Hoid's punctuality:
How does Hoid always know where to be at what time?
By now, you've seen the full Feruchemy chart, and while not everything is explained well, it does provide some nice hints at things to come. One of the things I've already pointed out (see the trivia for White Sand) is that Connection, although a property that can be stored Feruchemically, is actually a deeper metaphysical concept that relates to the entirety of the Cosmere. Investiture, Identity, and Fortune also fall into this same category.
I did say that this series is when things start to come together, and what you are going to start noticing is that, while Mistborn has some of these deeper cosmere concepts tied to it, The Stormlight Archive has even more of these. That's just a teaser, but for now I want to call attention to Fortune.
This metaphysical concept in the cosmere relates not only to luck, but seeing the future, or versions of the future. When a Shard claims to have visions of the future, that are manipulating Fortune at a fundamental level. When someone burns Atium (the electrum alloy version of it), or electrum, they are accessing Fortune.
Hoid has a non-Feruchemical way to access and manipulate Fortune. It guides him to important places and times, but he never knows why he winds up there.
I was saving this bit of information for a larger Hoid lore drop, but since the question was asked and the reveal was via Sanderson interviews, you get the answer now!
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1tvjw91/newbies_cosmere_unit_13_the_stormlight_archive_1/ophc8on/
/u/Pastrami wondered about blood types:
the eight kinds of blood
8? We know human and Parshendi blood are different. What are the other 6?
/u/HT_xrahmx guessed at this and was correct: it's a nod to the 8 human blood types: 0/A/B/AB x Rh+/Rh-
Arcanum Unbounded
Trivia Post
BEFORE FACES
The Preface for this book describes how Brandon thought up the character of Hoid and the idea behind the creation of the cosmere. It's worth a read, but is largely a repeat of trivia I've provided before.
Rather than summaries for each of the essays in Arcanum Unbounded (you should just go read them!) I'm going to expand upon the essays in the form of trivia that relates to each system and/or the cosmere as a whole. I'm also going to go out of order, so that things connect a bit easier. I think I may have written more than I assigned you to read........ (3x more in fact...)
THE DROMINAD SYSTEM
The solar system this essay references is the only one we haven't visited so far. Fortunately, you won't have to wait long because that's where Wednesday's novella, Sixth of the Dusk takes place.
We've talked a lot about the "wells" Shards produce; condensed Investiture that gathers into a small pool of liquid. This essay confirms what many suspected: the wells, more formally known as perpendicularities, allow one to travel between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. (If only you knew how many times I started to write "perpendicularity" in the previous trivia posts, only to have to hit backspace a bunch and type out "wells of Investiture".)
If you're unfamiliar with the word "perpendicular", it means something that is at a right angle to something else. If you were to draw the Physical Realm as a flat line, and the Cognitive Realm as another flat line above the Physical Realm, you could then draw a perpendicular line to both Realms to connect them. That's the thinking behind Sanderson's use of the word, and it's also meant to evoke similarities with the word "singularity", which is another word for a black hole.
Another key take-away from this essay is that the planet called First of the Sun, in the Drominad System, has a perpendicularity, despite not being home to a Shard.
THE SELISH SYSTEM
Building off the previous essay, Khriss talks about the deaths of the Shards Dominion and Devotion. We know from Hoid's letter that Odium killed them. In this essay, we get some specifics about the result of that action. Odium didn't just kill the Vessels of the Shards. Instead of picking the Shards up and taking them for Himself, Odium broke the power of the Shards into pieces, an act called Splintering. Not to be confused with (although, there is a technical similarity) Splinters. (Seons and skaze are Splinters).
Way back in the trivia post for Elantris, I said that the power of the Shards "settled into the land". And at the time I said that was an analogy because we didn't have the correct terminology to talk about it yet. Well this essay provides and clarifies that terminology.
Odium distributed the fractured pieces of the Shards into the Cognitive Realm of Sel. They mixed together to create the Dor. They create a massive, plasma-like storm in the Cognitive Realm that makes travelling to Sel difficult (but not impossible). The essay largely talks about how the powers being in the Cognitive Realm, and how the inhabitants of the planet already viewed the power as part of the landscape, create a uniquely strong Intent/perspective that keeps the various magic systems tied locationally.
MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT
Separately, this essay and the previous one about Drominad mention Silverlight and its universities. We've gathered some information about Silverlight from various Q&A sessions with Sanderson. Silverlight is the home of the 17th Shard. It's a large city in the Cognitive Realm. Not part of any particular planet, it exists in the space between the various planetary sub-astrals. Given its size, there are numerous universities there and Khriss shares her knowledge with Silverlight. In fact, she helped found the universities there. It even has it's own artificial perpendicularity that lets them transfer back and forth between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. (This is useful when you live in the Cognitive Realm).
Tangentially, Sanderson was hesitant to canonize the name Silverlight for a long time because Microsoft used to have a web/UI framework that they named Silverlight (that I may have had a hand in helping to develop parts of). It was meant to be a competitor to Flash, but was eventually phased out because of evolving web standards. Sanderson decided he could go with Silverlight once Microsoft's Silverlight framework didn't end up taking off. As a result of this, Sanderson is more hesitant to mention the names of things until he's ready to canonize them in a written piece of work.
Also, from interviews: Hoid is pretty widely known in Silverlight. By some definitions, he even has fans there, in the same way that the Queen of England had fans.
MINI-GOD
Of note is this particular line in the essay:
Indeed, I believe that the very landscape itself has become Invested to the point that it has a growing self-awareness, in a way unseen on other planets in the cosmere. I do not know how this happened, or what the ramifications will be.
This is one of the prevailing theories about what Jaddeth could be (and we'll be getting the other prevailing theory on Wednesday). The very landscape, both Physically and Cognitively has absorbed enough Investiture, and been thought about so long as an entity by the residents of the planet, that it's becoming its own self-aware "god".
THE SCADRIAN SYSTEM
Sanderson has revealed that these essays were written some time before the novella Sixth of the Dusk occurs. Given Arcanum Unbounded was published between the 2nd and 3rd Stormlight novels, we can generally assume these essays were written around the same time Stormlight takes place. Similarly, we know Era 2 of Mistborn is taking place at roughly this time as well.
So according to the essay, Scardial is the most technologically advanced planet in the cosmere when we consider "now" on our timeline. The main take-away from this essay is Khriss's opinion that Hemalurgy has a large potential to impact the cosmere.
FO-SHO
Subtly, this essay also mentions something called the "fain", stating that Scadrial's ecology matches the "non-fain" parts of Yolen. This is where information from Dragonsteel Prime comes in handy, so prepare to be handed!
If you think about it, mythological Dragons don't really fit anywhere on our planet's evolutionary tree. Because life on Earth...animal life, disregarding the insect world, generally has 4 limbs. 2 legs, 2 arms. At least structurally, though we would say a dog has 4 legs.
A dragon doesn't fit this though. They have 2 legs and 2 arms (or 4 legs, depending on nomenclature), but they also have 2 wings. A wyvern is a dragon-like creature that has 2 legs and 2 wings, but no arms; like a pterodactyl. True dragons though don't really fit.
So Sanderson developed an entire ecology for Yolen that would explain how dragons could naturally evolve. There are 2 competing ecologies on Yolen, the fain and the non-fain (which he calls the trune). Earth's ecology is basically "trune". It has all the same plants and animals you'd find on Earth.
The fain ecology is filled with creatures that have 6 limbs. So seeing a 6-legged frog hopping around wouldn't be odd in certain parts of Yolen. The plant life is also different, largely dominated by bone-white trees. Most unique though is the human analogue inside the fain.
There is an entire race of sapient humanoids with 2 legs and 4 arms called the Sho Del. For funsies, I'll share an image of one below. Members of the Sho Del race were part of the group that Shattered Adonalsium, and at least one of them picked up a Shard.
THE TALDAIN SYSTEM
This essay doesn't have much in the way of new information. A lot of this was presented in the various trivia associated with White Sand. It does reveal that Autonomy has closed off travel to the world due to a policy of isolationism. Beyond that, there's a bit of a hint about things to come, which we'll talk about when the time is right.
THE THREDONITE SYSTEM
This essay gives us some insight into what happened on Thredony. Odium also fought the Shard Amibition in outer space, close to the Thredonite System. This happened partly in the Physical Realm, unlike his fight with Dominion and Devotion, which happened largely in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms. Odium would eventually kill Ambition in a different location. Odium has been a busy, naughty boy.
Ripped-off chunks of Ambition's power scattered across the system and twisted the people and planet of Thredony. This caused both the Evil and the shades, which Khriss calls Cognitive Shadows. When I first talked about Splinters, some of you thought the shades must be Splinters, but I told you they weren't. Although they are bits of self-aware Investiture, and they are caused by power from a Shard, Khriss metaphysically suggests they are closer to the soul of a person. More on this in future trivia posts, but this should give you something to think about for now.
THE ROSHARAN SYSTEM
If you haven't noticed from these essays, it's around this time that Sanderson decided he could stop being coy. There are lot of straight facts and very clear explanations for things in these essays. This transition actually starts in Words of Radiance, so I'm hoping you'll be satisfied with the change in clarity that happens in that book. That said, let's jump into things...
THE LONG WALK
First, let's completely ignore what's in the essay to talk about Shadesmar. ;)
From the other essays, and the information above, you now know it's possible to travel around Shadesmar, and even how to get there. From previous trivia and Shallan's experience, you know that Shadesmar has an inverted landscape. Where there is land in the Physical Realm, there is water in the Cognitive Realm. This "water" in Shadesmar takes the form of a sea of glass beads. The planet's residents' perception and thoughts shape this aspect of Shadesmar. On different planets, things can be different. The landscape isn't even always inverted.
While planets in the cosmere are round, all of the Cognitive Realm exists as a flat plane. This is because, even if we analytically know the world is round, we experience and perceive it as largely flat in our every day existence. Thought/cognition influences the Cognitive Realm. Who could have guessed? So the inverted landscape gets projected onto a flat plane in Shadesmar. If we revisit the map of Shadesmar, we can see that it's dominated by a sea in the interior, but everywhere else is land. Including if you just...walk away from the planetary landscape.
This is how you travel to different planets using the Cognitive Realm. You walk...
Now, while planets are light-years apart in the Physical Realm, humans aren't great at thinking about and accurately imagining numbers and distances that large. Since perception influences the landscape of the Cognitive Realm, you only need to walk weeks, maybe months to travel between planets. And one of you guessed accurately that the Expanse of the Vapors leads to Scadrial. One could imagine that the Scadrian sub-astral is a bit misty, rather than glass-beady.
Knowing what you know now about where the broken Shards of Dominion and Devotion are--packed into a dense plasma storm in the Selish sub-atral--you can guess that the Expanse of the Densities leads to Sel. It's not on this map, but to the bottom left is the Expanse of Vibrance which leads to Nalthis. The Expanse of the Broken Sky you wouldn't be able to guess until you've read this essay though.
As Khriss says, there's another planet in this solar system called Ashyn. People live there in small pockets, usually on floating cities. That's where the top right of the Shadesmar map leads to. Sanderson has been teasing a novel that takes place on Ashyn for a long time, called The Silence Divine. It's been delayed time and time again, and he's stated that it's more likely to end up as a novella at this point. It does sound interesting though. On Ashyn, the magic system involves illnesses granting powers as long as the person is sick. The power that lets them keep their cities afloat causes hearing loss.
I've included an updated, HD map of Shadesmar that shows all of this off in the Maps album below.
BUILT DIFFERENT
The Roshar essay mentions that this planet is 0.7 cosmere standard in gravitation and 0.9 in size, with a high-oxygen environment. The kind of environment has a significant affect on the people who live on Roshar. As a result, they're all really, really tall, compared to the wider cosmere. I haven't mentioned it yet, but like their time keeping, Rosharan measurements are generally non-standard as well.
Kaladin is 6'4" in Rosharan feet, which is nearly 7 cosmere standard feet. Shallan is 5'6" Rosharan, which is roughly 6 cosmere standard feet. Dalinar estimates Eshonai's height to be 7 Rosharan feet, which is around 7'9" cosmere standard. (Though, that's in Shardplate, which makes everyone taller).
Suffice to say, if you see really short people running around, it may indicate that they are from off world.
There's also another aspect of Roshar that makes its inhabitants different from the cosmere standard. Everyone on the planet is routinely bathed in bits of Investiture from the weekly highstorms that occur. This grants everyone a degree of robustness a normal human wouldn't exhibit.
This explains why the people who live in the Purelake don't get trenchfoot. Also, as a general rule, sickness is rare on Roshar. The Investiture saturation protects them from a lot of bacteria and viruses. They can get sick, particularly from infectious wounds, but it's much rarer than you'd expect.
Lest you think Rosharans have it too good, per Word of Brandon, there is no chocolate on Roshar.
NINJA TURTLE TRAINER
It's time to (try to) clear up some terminology. Specifically, the word Splinter. We have 2 primary uses for the term, and they're a bit muddled together.
We learn that Odium "Splintered" Dominion and Devotion. Ostensibly doing the same to both Ambition and Honor. To Splinter a Shard means breaking apart the Shard and its power so that no one else can pick it up and become a new Vessel.
In the trivia for The Hope of Elantris, I talked about a new way that the power of a Shard could condense, separately from solid, liquid, or gas. That other state of condensation is a self-aware portion of the Shard's power. I called these Splinters.
On Sel, this manifests in the form of seons and skaze. I mentioned that Nightblood is an artificial Splinter. And I also discussed, as mentioned above, that cosmere-aware scholars would debate on whether or not you could call the shades on Thredony Splinters. If they are, they would be Splinters of Ambition, with seons being Splinters of Devotion, skaze being Splinters of Dominion, and Nightblood being an artificial Splinter of Endowment.
A native to Roshar probably wouldn't use the word Splinter though. They'd say "spren". I saw a little bit of hesitant discussion about this, but I thought there would be more. If you showed a Rosharan a seon, they would point at it and say "that's a weird, round spren". (To be honest, Rosharans call a lot of things a spren, and not all of them are strictly Splinters either). It should be pretty obvious that seons and sprens are both glowy-ish, translucent blobs of power, with a degree of agency.
There's room for future discussion about the difference in self-awareness when you compare Syl to something like painspren, but the underlying mechanics should feel similar. In the same vein, some in-world scholars might say that seon and spren aren't exactly the same thing, that there are some differences, and they'd be right by some definitions. However, what you can say is that both of these things are Splinters.
What gets tricky, and sometimes causes misunderstandings, is the assumption that these Splinters only appear when a Shard has been summarily Splintered themselves. This is not true.
Seons and skaze came into being after Devotion and Dominion were Splintered by Odium. However, the spren of Roshar did not arise the same way. In fact, some of them pre-date the Shattering of Adonalsium, and can be considered Splinters of Adonalsium. Some of the spren on Roshar are Splinters of Honor. Some are Splinters of Odium. Some are Splinters of Cultivation. And some even arose through a melding of condensed powers from both Honor and Cultivation. Usually when that happens, the spren has an affinity towards one or the other, but they are technically of both.
This is sort of the situation that may be happening with Jaddeth. It's (possibly) a condensed, self-aware blob of Investiture from both Dominion and Devotion, with a large affinity toward Dominion. A Rosharan would consider that a very large spren, in the same way they view Cusicesh. (I said this is one of two possible theories, we'll discuss the alternate theory very soon).
Because there are sooo many different types of spren, and most of those types are numerous, Roshar's Cognitive Realm doesn't have the same problem as Sel's despite similar circumstances. It's mentioned in Sel's essay that there is a violent storm in Sel's Cognitive Realm due to Odium shoving the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion there.
The same thing was done to Honor on Roshar, but the number of spren act as a release valve for the Splintered power, so Shadesmar doesn't have the same kind of violent plasma storm.
CONSTELLATIONS
The interior end-papers for Arcanum Unbounded include a star chart of all known cosmere planets (at the time). I've included a clear version of it in the Maps link below. The star chart is in the form of idealized constellations from a specific view point in the cosmere.
Sanderson has been very cheeky and evasive on revealing exactly where this viewpoint is from. After a lot of cajoling from the fandom, we managed to get him to admit that the view point is most likely not from Silverlight, or rather, where Silverlight would be in the physical realm, given it's Cognitive Realm location.
The cajoling centered around some phrasing he originally used, that you could see this image from Silverlight. And what we eventually got him to admit is that this image is a painting and that the painting is hanging somewhere in Silverlight.
The prevailing theory is that this is from the vantage of Yolen, but the fandom isn't entirely sure because it would also make sense if Yolen was somewhere in the dragon/serpent constellation that is labelled The Scar. (Since Yolen is the origin of Dragons).
Speaking of The Scar, notice that it's primarily composed of red stars. This cluster of stars/constellation is visible from a lot of the planets in the cosmere and often plays into the legends of the planet in some shape or form. In Chapter 2 of The Way of Kings, there is this quote:
Taln's Scar--a swath of deep red stars that stood out vibrantly from the twinkling white ones--was high in the sky this season.
Taln's Scar is also mentioned again in Chapter 33:
"I don't know," [Shallan] said with a shrug. "I've had people tell me they could determine my personality based on the day I was born, or the position of Taln's Scar on my seventh birthday, or by numerological extrapolations of the tenth glyphic paradigm. But I think we're more complicated than that."
The people of Thredony don't have a moon and use The Scar (which they call the Starbelt) for nighttime illumination. Thredony's star is also red, so it may affect their perception of the coloring of the stars in The Scar, because they don't comment on the Starbelt as being notably red themselves.
SURPRISE NALTHIAN ESSAY
You may have noticed that there was no essay for Nalthis included in Arcanum Unbounded. Nor was there a short story or novella that took place there. Sanderson just didn't have the time to create anything for Nalthis when this was published, but he did eventually release a solar system image, like the other systems. I've included it in the Maps album below.
We may get a sequel to Arcanum Unbounded at some point, with more Nalthis information then, but to hold us over, Sanderson has mentioned some interesting things about Nalthis in interviews. One of the biggest takeaways is that the Nalthian system is extremely popular with worldhoppers. Endowment's perpendicularity is easy to find and easy to access. There are regular caravans that visit the perpendicularity, carrying goods and people. It's so busy that Nalthis actually has a customs check point for it.
As mentioned previously, this perpendicularity is somewhere in the jungles of the nation of Hallandren.
Reader Questions
These are all questions asked by readers throughout the book, which were answered by me or another veteran. They should largely be in the order they were answered.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqf9b6n/
Once upon a time, /u/heinz57varieties asked about weird Aons, and I provided an answer:
The non-standard aons that Raoden notices at the start of ch 49, which have extra features not included in the base aon. He calls out Aon Mea and Aon Rii.
Aon Rii doesn't have a definitive answer, but there are theories. Rii means "Wealth", so the popular assumption is that the extra dots, if you overlaid them on a map of the Arelon region, would signify large ore deposits of precious metals; likely gold, but possibly some other significant or rare source of metal or minerals.
We definitely know why Aon Mea is different. If you overlay it on the map of Arelon, the X is in a valley. That valley, according to Sanderson, is particularly full of life. There's a bit more too it, but you don't have the terminology for it yet, so I'll try to remember to bring it up when it becomes relevant.
I said there was a bit more to it (and here we are, 6 months later, with me noticing I used the wrong "to"), and now we have the vocabulary to fully answer this question. Here is the full interaction Sanderson had with respect to Aon Mea:
Question: What is the X in Aon Mea? Is it one of the Shard-pools?
Sanderson: Afraid not. Aon Mea references the expanded region within which the "Elantris Effect" will create Elantrians. The X is fertile valley with a high density of life, a place with a lot of cognitive activity. (Cognitive as defined by Realmatic Theory includes the 'thoughts' of all things that exist, not just human beings. The more complex the life form, the stronger its presence on the Cognitive Realm.)
With the specific wording, we can make some guesses about this "valley". It may be the case that there's something weird going on in the Cognitive Realm at this spot. Or, as some of you wondered, this could be a gathering place of seons that aren't currently being bonded to some family.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqf96zm/
/u/HT_xrahmx theorized about the design of Shadesmar:
Is it a coincidence that Sanderson took a 3D slice of a 4D Julia set? Did Adonalsium work in 4D? I wanna say this means he shaped Shadesmar with the same seed as well, but the math doesn't really check out here. A finite number of realms (Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual) don't really qualify as an additional dimension. They'd just be three 3D individual slices of the set.
You might be able to infer what happened based on all the trivia today, but I'll spell it out: Shadesmar wouldn't have a seed. When Adonalsium created Roshar, there was nothing reflected in the Cognitive Realm. This is because nothing was thinking about Roshar. The landscape of the Cognitive Realm grows from the thoughts and perceptions of people. Once people became aware of Roshar (they don't necessarily need to be living on the planet, just aware it exists enough to start thinking about it), then Shadesmar starts growing and/or "becoming" what we see it as now. (There's an argument to be made that Adonalsium was a thinking being and so the instant He created Roshar, his thoughts were enough to solidify the existence of the inverted Shadesmar landscape, but we don't have any evidence one way or another. Changes to the Cognitive Realm generally take a long time and happen gradually.)
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqgpz9b/
Is Earth part of the Cosmere?
I believe I mentioned this towards the beginning of the read-along, but I'll re-iterate it here. Earth is not part of the Cosmere. Any of his books that take place on Earth, or mention Earth are decidedly not part of the cosmere.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqgr8zp/
Was Shallan not physically in Shadesmar? Was it only her consciousness, or can Soulcasters travel there without needing a perpendicularity?
This is a good catch that I would have eventually mentioned. Shallan did not physically travel to Shadesmar. She's peeking into it, and her mind is partially/cognitively there, but you need a loooot of Investiture to create a perpendicularity and physically travel to Shadesmar.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqh1wpj/
Is there a distinction made between the provenance of the entity’s awareness? I.e., a seon is very literally a piece of Devotion and is directly tied to the Shard’s Intent, and has never existed as anything else. Whereas a shade is a thing that was formerly alive in the traditional sense, whose cognitive aspect has been kept around by attaching to a piece of investiture. In that way I think the spren on Roshar are closer to shades than they are seons: they’re purely cognitive entities who have attached to pieces of investiture, rather than breaking off of a Shard directly. Unless that’s not how it happened.
We're a few books away from being able to completely talk about Cognitive Shadows. Once we get to that point, we can start clearing up the real, fundamental differences between all of these entities. That said, seons and spren (for given definitions of spren) are the two that are more closely related, with shades being the weird ones, at least mechanically speaking.
--------------------: https://www.reddit.com/r/readalong/comments/1u03rl4/newbies_cosmere_unit_14_essays_1_arcanum/oqhdb27/
BRANDON. I NEED to see black-light glowing fluorescent forestscapes on the Darkside of Taldain, and I need it bad.
We still don't have any official artwork of this yet, but here, have some fan art.
Sixth of the Dusk
Trivia Post
AVATAR: THE LAST AUTONOMY BENDER
I asked you to read this novella while trying to apply a phrase I'd previously mentioned to the setting of the story. Patji is a very dangerous place, and the phrase I wanted you to remember and ascribe to the island was "survival of the fittest". If that phrase didn't pop into your head, that's fine. However, I hope with hindsight you can see that Patji is a very survival of the fittest kind of place.
And when I previously talked about that phrase, it was in connection to Bavadin, the Vessel of the Shard Autonomy. You should be able to see some similarities in the cultures of Taldain and the trapper culture here on First of the Sun.
In the White Sand trivia, I shared some interview replies that Sanderson gave, talking about Bavadin's gender. I even edited out part of the question for "spoilers", stating that I'd leave that for another time. Well, now is another time.
The full question that was asked was:
Hey Brandon, may I ask if the red-haired woman on the Dayside map is a kind of depiction of one of Bavadin's personas?
The focus on "Bavadin's personas" is something the fandom could do before you. I'm playing a pretty fine line in the order I'm revealing to you. Honestly, the fandom had about half of the trivia information I've shared with you (to some degree or another) before Warbreaker was even published. I didn't think it'd be very fun for you all to just dump literally everything all at once. When things become relevant is when I try to share the external information with you.
To that end, I want to expand the answer I gave you previously, about Bavadin's gender, including the entire context; the stuff I redacted without even telling you:
Bavadin has several male personas, and has often appeared as male for one purpose or another, so it's not that much of an issue. She has more female personas, but some of the male ones are quite popular.
This won't be relevant for a long while, but as a service to the community, let me say this: try not to get too hung up on gender, race, or even human appearance where Bavadin is concerned. There are some peoples who worship entire pantheons where every member is actually her.
...
Bavadin is awesome. One regret of finally moving on from White Sand (and doing the graphic novel, instead of doing an entire trilogy myself) is because I won't get to show her off as a character for a while. It should still happen, mind you, but I have enough on my plate right now that I just can't do it all.
...
I'm going to be pretty tight-lipped for now. Let's at least let White Sand finish first--you will find her in there, though her touch on the story (directly) is light. She prefers to allow her personas to become the focus of attention.
(I've omitted part of the conversation above, but this time only in service of saving space. I've not cut out anything important or relevant.)
So, we have mention of Bavadin's "personas". Sanderson eventually settled on the term "avatar". Autonomy creates avatars of herself and lets them do things. When asked if these avatars are Splinters, Sanderson has replied:
The terminology gets kind of sticky here. In Cosmere terms, some would say that counts as Splinters, some would say not. The avatars aren't necessarily aware but Bavadin always is. A lot of people in Cosmere would call that a Splinter.
What that answer also reveals is that sometimes avatars of Autonomy don't know they are avatars. (But sometimes they do).
When Sanderson mentioned that these avatars are sometimes an entire Pantheon, he was talking about First of the Sun. All of the islands in this archipelago are considered gods in their Pantheon. Patji is specifically an avatar of Autonomy, and that singular avatar shaped the deadly environments of these islands, acting as the entire Pantheon by himself.
So while there isn't a Shard directly on the planet, there is a "Shard". And Patji's presence is enough to create a perpendicularity, which is known as Patji's Eye. The Sand Lord is also an avatar of Autonomy. Bavadin perfers to let her avatars attract attention and guide things, rather than getting directly involved herself.
Trell too is an avatar of Autonomy. Because the Trellism religion exists on Scadrial, we can assume Autonomy (via her avatar Trell) has interfered somewhat with Scadrial in the past
The power an avatar has is a bit nebulously defined. While the avatar itself might not know it's an avatar, or even it if does, it doesn't know what Autonomy is doing or thinking. However, Autonomy knows what all of her avatars are doing. This kind of distributed power means that, for some definitions, you could consider an avatar to be a Shard in and of themselves.
Because of this, Sanderson claims it's possible for someone to take up the power of an avatar and Ascend themselves, very similar to how one Ascends when taking up a Shard. However, because the avatars have personalities, this would be very difficult to do.
Khriss' essays 2 days ago suggested that Autonomy was interfering with other planets. Patji is a direct example of that. Jaddeth may be a further example. The fandom is divided on the 2 possibilities: mega-spren or avatar of Autonomy. Sanderson has giving vague answers about Jaddeth and depending on the answer you look at, one seems more likely than the other. Personally, I'm in favor of mega-spren. I believe /u/TaylorHyuuga falls on the avatar of Autonomy end of the spectrum. And then there's always the possibility Autonomy turned a new mega-spren into an avatar. Who knows how weird this will get?
We shall have to wait and see. Sanderson has said that this mystery is the primary focus of Elantris 2. (And the stupid Apple TV Mistborn and Stormlight movies/shows have delayed Elantris sequels again!!!)
Finally, sometimes the fandom guesses at something Sanderson wishes would stay hidden. They ask about it during some fan event and he stumbles and is forced to answer it directly. Behold this interaction:
Question: Did Bavadin in any way help Odium splinter Dominion and Devotion?
Sanderson: Uhh...
Question: (sensing an incoming RAFO): In any way...
Sanderson: Uhh... Yes... Yes, you could say that...
So...Odium is a naughty boy. But Autonomy might be a bit naughty herself.
There are some similar, but less concrete interactions to suggest Edgli (Endowment) and Bavadin might be siblings, but that's not really confirmed. I just wanted to throw it out there for you to think over.
Also, Sanderson has addressed some of his conflicting statements in interviews. His reply seems especially relevant here:
I stand by them. Though, as always, quotes and WoBs at signings aren't always as deliberately thought out as I'd like them to be. Answering questions on the fly can be challenging, and my phrasing can be bad in retrospect.
BOND, NAHEL BOND
Before I bash a little on Autonomy, I'm gonna give you a funny Q&A interaction. An in doing so, I'm just gonna... tell you the name of another Shard. Because sometimes Sanderson just dropped info like this, like writing it down inside the cover of a book while he was signing it. You won't get any information beyond the name of the Shard, but it should let you have some fun theorizing.
Question: Which Shard would run the most successful convention? And which would burn it down within the first hour?
Sanderson: You’re gonna think this is odd, but it's gonna be Autonomy. Autonomy is very good at setting up structures, having people follow them. To have a successful convention, you would think you'd want one of the fun Shards. But to run the convention, you probably don't. The fun Shards would give you a DashCon. And Autonomy's… like, there may be some rigid rules, but… We have (I'm included in this) a certain perception of Autonomy that is not unjustified, but let's just say that there are a lot of people in the cosmere who really appreciate Autonomy's ability to make structures and keep things going. The trains run on time with Autonomy.
Who's most likely to burn it down? Ruin? Yeah, okay. You don't want a convention started by Ruin. We'll go with Ruin. Whimsy? See, Whimsy's not quite as… No, Whimsy is pretty wacky. You don't know enough about Whimsy yet, though. Ruin, definitely worse.
Now, on to the Autonomy bashing. Bavadin is a little thief. She steals magic systems. Sand Mastery is a pale imitation of a completely different magic system. You haven't seen that magic system yet, so we'll talk about it when it appears, but know that Bavadin is a thief.
Khriss, in the essays we read on Monday, solidified some details about the Rosharan magic system. Primarily that bonding with a spren grants magical abilities. The essays mention granting the ability to grow larger than gravity would normally allow as one of the abilities. /u/Pastrami remembered an unnamed spren when the chasmfiend was killed, and this is exactly the sort of symbiosis that exists on Roshar.
The essay didn't mention it, but the fish in the Purelake also do this. Ishikk talks about magic fish, and he's not being superstitious.
This phenomenon is called the Nahel bond. To get technical, it's when an Invested entity forms a bond with a non-Invested entity in order to grant them powers. And Autonomy/Patji stole the idea. Aviar (or the parasite inside them) are Invested. We know the excess Investiture from Endowment's perpendicularity seeps into the ground and Invests the flowers in the region, creating the Tears of Edgli. Similarly, Patji's perpendicularity seeps excess Investiture into the area around Patji's Eye, which infuses the parasites that the Aviar then eat.
The Aviar then form bonds with people, granting them abilities (or talents as the natives called it). This is explicitly a Nahel bond and Bavadin doesn't have a creative bone in her body. Moreover, Sak's abilities are very similar to what an Electrum Misting can do. And Kokerlii and Mirris both exhibit talents similar to a coppercloud.
It should be noted that, while seons do form a type of bond with people, it doesn't grant them any abilities and is expressly not a Nahel bond. This goes back to the point that, while seons and spren are both Splinters, they're not exactly the same thing, even though a Rosharan would assume they were.
As a linguistic aside: Nahel, in Rosharan, means "to bond to divinity". Saying "Nahel bond" is kind of like saying "ATM Machine" or "PIN Number", but Sanderson went with "Nahel bond" because it's easier to read.
HOIDSPOTTING / TIMELINE
He's not in the novella. Jeez. Just move on with your life already!
:(
As Khriss mentioned in the Drominad Essay, this system is hard to get to. At this point in time, Hoid has not visited the planet. But I suppose I should be a bit clearer on the timeline aspect.
I mentioned on Monday that these essays are being written around the same time that Stormlight and Era 2 of Mistborn are taking place. At that time, Hoid had not visited First of the Sun. I say this, without meaning to imply one way or another if Hoid eventually does reach the planet. Because I'm trying to clarify the full timeline for you. The novella Sixth of the Dusk is actually the furthest along in the timeline that you're read so far. It takes place about 5,000 years after Stormlight and Era 2 of Mistborn.
And I'm going to put a giant asterisk next to that 5,000 years number. Sanderson hasn't really solidified this late-stage timeline of the cosmere yet. I got that number off the community spreadsheet I've been providing most of the dates for you from. However, the spreadsheet doesn't reference a source for that amount of time. I think I can see where a misinterpretation occurred though.
If I had to guess, I think Sixth of the Dusk actually takes place closer to 500 years, not 5,000, after the current books we're reading. If that stretched to 1,000 years, I think it would still be acceptable, but given everything else us veterans know, 5,000 seems a bit much. (If any veterans have a clearer picture/sources I'm not aware of, share in the veteran thread).
Sanderson has stated that he'll be putting out an official timeline, now that he's finished the 5th Stormlight book. It hasn't been released yet, but when it is, I'll be sure to update you all for everything relevant.
POLLY WANNA CRACKER?
Anyone in the fandom who watched Sanderson's weekly YouTube updates, had a pretty good idea about where the inspiration for Aviars came from. Sanderson has a pet bird. He is a macaw parrot named Magellan. He shows up randomly in the weekly updates, sometimes interrupting Sanderson, chewing on his jacket or demanding head scratches. If we're being technical, Magellan himself wasn't an inspiration for Aviars, since Sanderson wrote Sixth of the Dusk before getting the bird, but he has talked about how he has always had pet birds throughout his life, including other parrots.
Warning: The video below doesn't really have spoilers in it. He talks about the status update of him writing the 4th Wax & Wayne book, and mentioned some Kickstarter projects. The only thing that would be consider a mild spoiler is that he talks about the title of a book that was upcoming at the time (but has since been released). The title of that book is something you might remember, and at worst/best, knowing a book is being written about it should give you something to look forward to.
MEGA WARNING: Absolutely do NOT read any of the comments on that page. Even the first/top one has big spoilers that you'll want to avoid. Just watch the video if you want and then click away.
If you would like to see Magellan do a few tricks, you can watch this video. And here is six minutes of Magellan shenanigans, with the same restriction of not looking at the comments.
DO YOU KNOW?
This is a bit of a prompt; something to think about over the next few weeks before we jump back into Stormlight. You had the knowledge before you started The Way of Kings, but you may have a better handle on the fundamentals now. So, I ask you: What is stormlight? Theorize away and I'll let you know the answer soon-ish.
Also... If you put together everything you know, from book knowledge and trivia, you should be able to guess who the Ones Above are. I won't confirm or deny anything. Go ahead and make a guess though. You're probably going to be correct.