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Your search for the tag 'Brandon on magic systems' yielded 23 results

  • 1

    Interview: Jan 21st, 2015

    Question

    Rothfuss and Butcher call him the 'magic systems guy'.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Sabriel was his inspiration for unique rule based magic systems. Magic and settings are only as good as the characters. If you don't have good characters, you’re writing a video game.

    Tags

  • 2

    Interview: Jan 21st, 2015

    the_archduke

    He said in the lecture that he took a programming course in college. He was asked if we will ever see a programming language as a magic system?

    Brandon Sanderson

    We already have. Reread Elantris.

    Tags

  • 3

    Interview: Jan 7th, 2015

    WeiryWriter

    What’s your favorite magic system?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If I could pick anything I’d probably be an Allomancer, just because there is so much metal around us in our daily lives that I think it would be a lot of fun. That may not be the smart choice but it is the choice I would make.

    Tags

  • 4

    Interview: Jan 19th, 2015

    Question

    If you, Brandon Sanderson, as a person were able to be gifted just one set of powers from any of your book series what would you have and why? How would you use them? Save the world? Become a tyrant?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would probably pick [slight pause] Channeling from the Wheel of Time. No, I’d just be Doctor Manhattan. Sorry, he’s like all powerful, right? How would I use them? I would hope that I would save the world, and not become a tyrant.

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  • 5

    Interview: Jan 24th, 2015

    Question

    If you had the choice of being an Epic and being evil or not, would you take that choice--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Would I make the choice to become an Epic? Well they /ALL GO EVIL/ so //NO//. No no no no. I’d be a Mistborn, yes yes yes yes yes. *laughter* Epic? no no no no.

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  • 6

    Interview: Jan 24th, 2015

    Question

    Would you rather be a misting or a Twinborn, and then which power would you choose?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What powers would I have? ...I would probably pick Twinborn because “Hey extra power” right? I would probably have Wax’s powers from /Alloy of Law/, those are the ones I find the most interesting. Which is why I started with them there. I think I will be able to do cool things with them. Others are cool as well but-- With all this metal around, jumping on it would be so much fun.

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  • 7

    Interview: Jan 24th, 2015

    Question

    If you were a misting, which power would you have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Coinshot. Coinshot for sure.

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  • 8

    Interview: Jan 24th, 2015

    Question

    As a physicist I appreciate you being so consistent with your magic systems.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is something I try very hard to do, though I do recognize that we do bend a lot of rules. When we were doing the time-based one in this [The Alloy of Law], I'm like, "Oh, boy, redshifts. Oh, no, conservation of energy." We had to do some bending to make it so that the radiation from the light passing out of the time bubble wasn't deadly.

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  • 9

    Interview: Jan 24th, 2015

    Question

    What’s the hardest power you’ve created to find a balance for?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hardest power to find a balance for? I’d say first is Wheel of Time, but I didn’t create that... Hardest to balance… They’ve all been fairly easy so far. My guess is that it will end up being Stormlight just because I am doing so many books in that world, and I'm not resetting characters as much as I am in Mistborn, that I'm going to have to be careful about power creep... That's an excellent question.

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  • 10

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Question

    How do you consistently create compelling magic systems?

    Brandon Sanderson

    How do I consistently create compelling magic systems? Well you will maybe want to read Sanderson’s Three Laws of Magic, which are basically each essay on this. The short answer is I look for something awesome and what that means is I look for something no one else is doing, or a ramification of a magic system that no one else is using and I extrapolate from it. As a reader of fantasy, who loved fantasy, and still does, for many years I got very tired of seeing the same two or three magic systems in every book that I read. It was really frustrating to me as a writer because I felt fantasy should be the most imaginative genre, it should be the most distinctive and different. And so it was bothersome to me that there weren’t enough people doing interesting things with magic and so I just started doing it myself.

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  • 11

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Question

    I’m a physical chemist and I’m reading your book [TWoK] right now and at some point you have someone studying flamespren and what they saw, that’s one of the fundaments [sic] of quantum mechanics--So you got that from quantum mechanics?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did get that from quantum mechanics.

    Question

    How did you come across that and decide to incorporate that into your epic fantasy?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well the Way of Kings magic systems are based on the fundamental forces. That was the original idea and the extrapolation from them. 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.

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  • 12

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Question

    Where did you come up with the idea for Allomancy?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It’s a combination of several things. One is I started with wanting a group of powers that would complement a gang of thieves. So I designed the powers to work within the roles of a thieving crew. The burning metals came from reading about biology and metabolism and it felt very natural to me because that’s how we get our energy as human beings. The whole connection of the metals and the visualization stuff came from mixing the periodic table of the elements with alchemy. All of those things kind of spun together to make it.

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  • 13

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Question

    I really like your idea with the whole Mistborn series, taking it further in history and we are both PhD physicists.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh sweet.

    Question

    I always think about that and I was wondering if you were worried about going that sci-fi fantasy route? Like for instance--

    Brandon Sanderson

    I’m not worried about it, I’m just excited… In my mind all of my books are sci-fi as well as fantasy because I’m making weird new branches of physics and trying to adhere to as many of the laws as I can.

    Question

    Yeah that’s one of things I love about how well thought out the magic systems are.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Like I-- You are actually not the first physicists to come through another one came through earlier tonight and talking about the quantum mechanics that are in The Way of Kings.

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  • 14

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Question

    I noticed in a lot of your cosmere books, like for example Elantris or Mistborn, they have something to do with some sort of subject matter or school or something. For example the Steelpush and Ironpulling in Mistborn is based on physics.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    Question

    If you push too hard it’s based on...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Vector physics, yes.

    Question

    And then like Warbreaker is just like math, adding Breaths together. Did you intend that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not necessarily. I read a lot and I like science and I like philosophy and I like and things like this. And those spark most of my ideas. So yes in a term but I’m not like “Let’s do this subject”. I would say Warbreaker, the big part of Warbreaker is the idea of sympathetic magic. Which is the idea that like affects like, which is a very common type of magic throughout all cultures on the planet, on our planet. When people believe in magic they believe in sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is sympathetic magic. And that’s where the idea came from.

    Question

    So in Elantris, which is different and then--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah that’s basically fantasy programming, is where that one came from.

    Question

    And then there is the Stormlight Archive, which basically violates all the laws of physics by just saying everything comes from spren.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well no they still have arguments on that, are spren attracted to these things or do they cause them.

    Question

    Yeah that’s kind of weird…

    Brandon Sanderson

    Stormlight Archive was based on the fundamental forces, if you want go read on physics google fundamental forces.

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  • 15

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2015

    Kurkistan

    Okay, so I'm contractually obligated to ask about time bubbles one more time.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    Kurkistan

    So what's up with frame of reference for time bubbles; in that obviously if you make a bubble and it's still it's not really still, like time moves differently but-

    Brandon Sanderson

    We deal with that a little bit in Era 2 Book 2 [Shadows of Self], where we talk about the fact that you know- obviously the bubble is moving with the planet. So they're not-- the frame of reference is not absolute.

    Kurkistan

    Yeah.

    Brandon Sanderson

    And so we talk about sorta' the idea of mass and momentum and time bubbles and things like that.

    Kurkistan

    Okay

    Brandon Sanderson

    For instance you can make a time bubble on a train.

    Kurkistan

    Oh and it stays on the train?!

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, but when you start catching stuff off of the train, it's gonna' jar each time, and it's probably going to ruin your time bubble, right?

    Kurkistan

    So does it get it's "anchor" from-- it's asking all the things that are within it what they think "still" is?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. That's a good way of looking at it. Frame of reference for the cognitive things around. Make sense?

    Kurkistan

    Okay; the things around or the things within it, specifically?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The things that it's cutting into, specifically, but yeah.

    Tags

  • 16

    Interview: Oct 9th, 2015

    Question

    Metalminds: if you store weight, how does that work, do you decrease your mass?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Storing weight actually plays with your mass, because if you look at how we do the physics of it… This one is really screwy. Because we are changing mass and playing with it… [Wax example] There is conservation of momentum and stuff like that, but how can you store your mass… Well, in the magic system it works, but it’s one of the weirdest things we do. We kind of play loose and free with the physics sometimes. Like the example that I often cite is Wayne doing a speed bubble, I choose to make light from inside not get a redshift. We kind of look at what is good storytelling first, and then work the physics around it.

    Tags

  • 17

    Interview: Oct 9th, 2015

    Question

    Sazed is saying that his density also increases when he increases his weight, but Wax says it doesn’t; which is it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Sazed is making a mistake. His muscular structure changes to accomodate the weight, that’s what he was talking about. Strength and muscle tone and things like that. I might have gotten it wrong in that scene, I don’t really remember, but that’s what we decided to do in the end. The weight thing is really tricky.

    Tags

  • 18

    Interview: Feb 17th, 2016

    Question

    How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them [have been seen?]

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would see the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

    Tags

  • 19

    Interview: Feb 17th, 2016

    Question

    With Nightblood coming in [to Words of Radiance] does that produce a magic system from a different book or does that stay separate?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It will stay separate.

    Tags

  • 20

    Interview: Feb 25th, 2016

    Question

    When Wax changes his weight, is that weight or mass?

    Brandon Sanderson

    He is...he is changing...so he is actually changing his mass, in a weird...It's kind of halfway in between, is really what it is. But it follows the laws of conservation of momentum, so it's not just weight. It's timidly half-stepping in between.

    Tags

  • 21

    Interview: Feb 25th, 2016

    Question

    How do you decide that a magic system you're working on is done?

    Brandon Sanderson

    When I feel like the stories I'm telling are working, I go with it. That doesn't mean I have every little thing worked out - I'm a planner, so I have a lot of them, if I don't have something worked out I like to sort of let people know in the book - here's a hole that the characters have noticed, if that makes sense. But at some point you just have to write. So it's a more by instinct thing.

    Question

    I've created a couple magic systems and done worldbuilding, but whenever I think it's done, I come up with another facet that I think would be interesting.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I say, if you want to tell stories, write the story and write down all the facets in a separate file. Then in a revision, go foreshadow that these things could exist, but don't deal with them until you get to a future book. If you look at Mistborn, there's hints about how Feruchemy works, but we don't really deal with it in Mistborn since there's so much already piled onto you.

    Tags

  • 22

    Interview: Oct 14th, 2015

    zandi

    Are the scholars influencing the behavior of the spren with their beliefs?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. Belief and expectations influence all the magic systems...

    Tags

  • 23

    Interview: Feb 20th, 2016

    Question

    How did you come up with the powers of allomancy?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I made a crew and thought, what powers would make them better?

    Tags