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Interviews: Writing for Charity Signing

Summary:

Entries

11

Date

Mar 17th, 2012

Type

Verbatim

Location

Provo, UT

Reporter

Zas

Links

17th Shard

  • 1

    Zas

    So I (semi) recently went to the Writing for Charity conference to see Brandon Sanderson. I arrived at the tail end of his presentation, and I really enjoyed it. There was a signing afterwords, and I sat next to him as questions were asked (including a question asking if I was Brandon's son!) After the line ran out, I was able to ask him some questions:

    So if you want, I went through the Ultimate List of Questions Thread

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh no.

    QUESTION

    And I pulled out a couple, pulled out quite a few.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    All right, all right. I’ll give you your top 5.

  • 2

    Zas

    This one is from Terez, about WoT. It says "Does Moridin have anything to do with the Knife of Dreams?"

    Peter

    She thinks that his name "Tedronai" translates into Knife of Dreams in WoT.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    (slightly surprised) Oh. If that is the case Terez,which it very well may be, I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s mostly because I don’t do anything with the Old Tongue- I let Alan handle it, because he’s so good at it, I pretty much just refer to him. The only thing I tried to name on my own was Perrin’s hammer. And even that, he had to fix a few little things to make it work right.

    So I won’t kill that theory, but I can’t confirm it either.

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  • 3

    Zas

    In Well of Ascension, there are two strange "voice in the head" experiences. One of them is with Sazed and Marsh are fighting, and Sazed realizes that he can burn the metal rings that are now in his stomach. But the other one is with Elend, when a voice comes, and he’s not sure where it comes from. It says something like "If you have a dagger, the only way to win is to go in for the kill"

    Brandon Sanderson

    That one, where it came from, is – I know what you are searching for, but it’s actually just an old (something) from weapons training. He’s just dredging- he’s not sure where it came from because he never thought he would need any of it, he thought he was just going to be a scholar. But his father did have him trained in weapons, so it’s just instinct that he got from one of his old mentors in fighting.

    So there’s nothing to see there, so no, he’s not (something).

    ZAS

    Okay. We were just wondering if it was Preservation, or Kelsier.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    Nope. Unfortunately, no. I do that on occasion, but this time...

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  • 4

    Zas

    There is a debate on what to call Shallan's Symbols, so we don't have such an ambiguous term for it .

    Brandon Sanderson

    The Symbolhead?

    ZAS

    Yeah, the Symbolhead, Shallanspren,

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    (laughter)

    ZAS

    We don't really know what to call them.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    Do I want to canonize this yet?

    ZAS

    You don't have to canonize it yet.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    I don't know if I want to canonize it yet. But I will say this. They are spren, that should be pretty obvious. They are the spren connected to what Shallan is capable of doing. But I don’t know if I want to canonize it yet. Truthspren is as good a name as any, and I would suggest you use that until further notice.

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  • 5

    Question

    A question related to that. There’s an idea going around that all the spren that can Nahel Bond, all Knight Radiant spren are called honorspren, and then Nohadon talks specifically about honorspren. Is that the case? You know, is it just the Windrunner spren, or is it all the spren?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I’m going to deal with this in the next book. So I’ll just go ahead and let it be a literal RAFO. It is coming.

    (interruption, leading Brandon to lose his train of thought)

    So what we are dealing with here is that all Spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone, so those spren are all- except the Windrunner spren, the spren like Syl, have certain umm.

    ZAS

    Nohadon mentioned that "All the spren aren’t as discerning as honorspren."

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really, you know "This is what defines an honorspren".

    But the spren you are running into are all (something) of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. That should be able to be (something).

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  • 6

    Zas

    Here’s an interesting one. Why do some Breaths flare when people die? Vasher mentions it in the book.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I will answer that in the next book, if I ever get to it.

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  • 7

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, give me another one. We’re way over five now.

    ZAS

    True. (Although it’s not! Haha!) Why did OreSeur signup for Kelsier’s plan. Was he forced to because of his contract? Or did he actually want to do it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    All kandra want to be back in the Homeland. That said, OreSeur, he as a kandra, likes challenges, and was a real method kandra, a lot of them are, but he truly was. And you can see that in him. So for him, the contract and the role he plays.

    ZAS

    Are more important than what he actually wants.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    Yeah. Even though he had spent all this time doing this stuff. So he was part of it, but for him, his role was being this person. If I may.

    ZAS

    That’s interesting.

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  • 8

    Zas

    Is there some reason why both Vin and Kelsier are half-skaa, half-noble, both natural Allomancers, both end up overthrowing the Lord Ruler, and have siblings that are seekers.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Both were heavily influenced by Ruin in doing what they were doing. So there is a connection there, maybe not the one you’re looking for, but Ruin was looking for talented Mistborn that were easy to manipulate and talented Mistborn tend to come from talented Mistborn lines, and so Ruin is looking for that, and they both end up fitting that role. And the thing is, is that the half breeds ended up being easier for him to manipulate and easier lost in the shuffle of things, so they weren't paid attention to as much by the ministry, because the ministry didn't know about them.

    So it's mostly coincidental for what Ruin's trying to achieve.

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  • 9

    Zas

    A question that has it’s roots in Dragonsteel. When Ruin changes words, is he actually changing words,or is he changing what people see?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Did we canonize this question Peter? I’m pretty sure we did. I thought we answered this one already.(It’s not in our records if he did)

    Let’s just say that most of the time, Ruin was searching for a place to transition, where he could change what was being trans-transcribed. Or what was being heard, or what was being said.

    ZAS

    That’s pretty interesting.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    So the easiest time for him is when a scribe is writing in a new book, he’s copying a new book down, and he just pops in and changes the words.

    ZAS

    Okay. That makes sense.

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  • 10

    Zas

    Oh! Did Ati- We see Elend and Vin in that kind of holding pattern with Sazed at the end, did Ati perish? Or did he also stay in the holding pattern?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ati perished. He is gone.

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  • 11

    Question

    How about a confirmation one? We have a secondhand report from Miyabi actually, that says that Hoid was at the Shattering of Adonalsium. Was he there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes he was.

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