Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

In your gut instinct, who would win in a fight, Marsh (no atium, limited feruchemy) or Szeth? (Or maybe we could go Zane & Szeth since I see a lot of similarities in their characters. They also happen to be my favorites from their respective series)

One of the interesting things I really liked about the book was Jasnah's lack of faith. It seems like during a lot of the scenes where that is an issue, you give her the upper hand. She makes some argument or point and the other characters leave it unchallenged. For instance the line where she says something like "Religion looks for super natural explanations to natural phenomena, science looks for natural explanations to super natural phenomena." That side of her seemed incredibly well written and genuine. Was it hard to do? Where did you get her arguments/points from? I swear a lot of what she says could of been ripped from comments of /r/atheism.

Lastly, I've been rereading the Mistborn series again after reading The Way of Kings twice in a row so I could decide which I liked more. So far...it's still a tie. I'm really liking getting back into the Mistborn world though. That has me super excited for Alloy of Law. Once it get's a bit more polished would it be possible to get an early copy? :)

First question: It's always hard to answer these questions, since there are so many factors. Do the combatants start at a distance? If so, Marsh/Zane have a huge advantage; they have the ability to fling coins.

Does Szeth have metal on him? Szeth's Shardblade would be mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, as it's an Invested object. But he'd still have trouble getting to them if he had a clasp on his shoes, for example. He doesn't carry a lot of metal, but he might have some.

Overall, I'd say that a full-blown Mistborn would be tougher than Szeth in most cases.

Also, send me a PM with your Email, Phaz. I can't find your email in my address book. I remember that it's not something I expect it to be, so I'm having trouble looking it up.

Does the scene where Shallan is counting heartbeats mean what I think it means? It just kind of strange to imagine her carrying around of of those but then again she does like secrets.

It means what you think it means.

Was Syl's appearance and behavior caused by Kaladin giving up his shardblade?

It was a major fundamental factor in what happened between them.

Quick question to help me settle a debate. Could allomancy affect a shard plate/blade?

No. Investiture interferes with most magics.

Yes. A person can possess more than one Shardblade. [referring to us] They're like Oooh!

Question

That actually changes a whole lot of ideas that I had.

Brandon

So has there been debate on this topic?

Zas

No, not that I know of.

Anything infused (regardless of the world or magic that infused it) is resistant to magic. So you'd have a lot of trouble pushing or pulling on a spike, unless you had access to a boost of some sort to overcome the resistance.

theofficetroll

So, Nightblade would be resistant to steelpushing? Good to know ;-)

Herowannabe

My friend and I asked him something like this at a book signing, but for some reason it never seemed to make it onto 17th Shard. We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike (i.e.: two different investitures of magic). Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full."

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to push/pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can push/pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could push/pull Shardblades/plate

NALESEAN:

I hope everyone enjoys the question I got to ask.

Thanks,

Trae

So why is Shallan so whiny? No I’m just kidding...

Shallan is very young and has gone through a lot in her life.

QUESTION

And does she have a Shardblade?

BRANDON SANDERSON

She does have a Shardblade.

Are shardblades Splinters? If not, are they related to Shards in some other way?

RAFO. More to come.

Does a limb that has been "severed" by a Shardblade have any Hemalurgic bindpoints? If the same limb was then cut off more conventionally, would a Bloodmaker ferring be able to grow it back?

A severed Shardblade limb needs repair to the soul before it would function again. A Bloodmaker would be able to heal it without needing to grow it back.

Just realized what Shardblades remind me of...

In my head, they remind me a lot of Keyblades from Kingdom Hearts. The blade appearing out of nowhere when you hold out your hand seems rather similar. They're also both highly coveted in their universes and for both types each blade is different from the next (I think). Just wanted to see if anyone else noticed this or if I'm just crazy and have had way too much time to think waiting for Words of Radiance.

Shardblades aren't inspired by keyblades specifically, though there is a core inspiration that might be shared by both myself and the creators. While I did play the first kingdom hearts game when it came out, the first draft of The Way of Kings was well under way when the game was released.

However, I did play all of the Final Fantasy games—I had the first on original Nintendo, so get off my lawn, you kids. The origin of Shardblades relates to fantasy games and art in general, and the concept of the stylized sword which is also horribly impractical.

In a lot of my writing, I react toward or against the fantasy archetypes of my youth in the 80s and 90s. When designing the Stormlight Archive, one of the things I asked myself was, "Can I make a situation where these oversized, over-stylized blades are actually practical? Why in the world would you need a weapon like that? And how do you actually use one?"

Making the blades summonable seemed one of the only ways that carrying one around would be reasonable.

Some other things that I had overheard and noted:

Shardblades can be willed down. We see this with Dalinar slamming the Shardblade down into the stone at the end of the Way of Kings.

He also mentioned these awesome suits of armor and like 6 foot long swords that he called "Shard Plate" and "Shard Blades." Apparently, they are the only relics left over from the time when mankind originally did have magic. Also, in the mythology of this world, mankind originally lived in heaven. However, a race of beings called (I think) the Voidbringers conquered heaven and basically cast mankind out to the earth. They made war on them again and tried to cast them out to hell, but mankind devised These Shard Blades and Shard Plate as a method of fighting the Voidbringers and were able to push them back. He also mentioned that the world is currently basically dominated by those who have these magical items, and one person with a suit of shard plate and a shard blade is basically the equivalent of an army. When I asked him if these were related to the Shards of Andonalsium at all, he said, "Maybe." He also confirmed that the Stormlight Chronicle (Way of Kings) takes place in the Shards universe.

The reason Way of Kings is called the Stormlight Chronicle apparently has to do with the massive hurricanes that come through every few days. If you leave a gemstone out during the storm (and affix it to something so it won't blow away), it will gain magical properties. One of these is that they give off light, called stormlight. The other that he mentioned is that they can be used kind of like a battery, and are used to power the Shard Plate Suits.

That's all I remember about the Way of Kings right now, maybe I'll remember something later.

The name Stormlight Chronicle has been changed to the Stormlight Archive.

If you slash somebody with a Shardblade, kill them, and then cut them again, will the Shardblade make them bleed?

Yes. Just like a chasmfiend once it dies, they are chopping it apart with Shardblades.

2. Shard plate and shard blades can win wars, what would you have made out of shard to win the battles in your day?

These are very inventive questions. What would I want made out of this stuff? Someone once suggested a Shardpen. But no, a Shardpen isn't going to work any better than a non-Shardpen. I would say a Shardphone. If I could get a phone that never broke and everything always worked perfectly on it—or a Shardlaptop, that would be awesome.

Yes.

Question

So like if an arm got badly wounded and was bleeding out and needed to be amputated. If you went through it with a shardblade first, would that damage you in other ways?

Brandon Sanderson

No it wouldn't. What it does is sever the soul of the arm.

Question

I know like in Mistborn, if you take bits of soul out of people it messes them up.

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Question

if you do it with shardblades...

Brandon Sanderson

It leaves a wound...

Oh something I forgot to mention when I went over my Q/A session with Brandon.

Someone else's question was about the safehand and Brandon gave new information on it.

The "God Surges" you mentioned recently, are they a part of the Way of Kings frontsheet?

You've said that there are three types of Blades in the Stormlight Archive. We've seen "dead" Shardblades, Honorblades—is the third type the "living spren" Shardblades, or is there another type we haven't seen?

Do all Surgebinders breathe Stormlight in, or are there other ways? Is Lift one-of-a-kind in this regard?

All I said regarding this was to tell a fan that it was possible to make an analogy between the god metals on Scadrial and certain powers on Roshar. However, these are not a codified part of the magic system.

Lift is one of a kind.

Nightblood is a very unique kind of Shardblade, but IS a Shardblade.

Hi Brandon, so a friend and I who share a passion for sword fighting have been trying to find the real world correlates for the stances that Shardbearers use. So far we've made connections between Windstance and Haidong Gumdo, and Smokestance and the late Medieval/early Renaissance fencing. I was wondering if you could give us more information or at least hints on the other real world correlates?

I developed these with Ben McSweeny's help, and we plan to include representations of all the stances eventually. However, a few are NOT based on real-world equivalents, because of the size of Shardblades. Look at how various very-large weapons like zweihanders or Zanbatōs were used.

What is the term for a full Feruchemist who is also a Mistborn?

Can "modern"(as in: Adolin's) Shardplate be summoned similar to how "dead" Shardblades (as in: Oathbringer) can be?

They use Full Feruchemist right now. We'll see if it develops into something else.

RAFO.

What you can tell me about Investiture?

That is the word for someone or something which has gained a portion of the magic of Adonalsium, so the original whatever-it-is. Like a Shardblade is an Invested object, and people if they draw in the Stormlight, they're drawing in the magic-they're Invested.

Any chance of a Shardspear?

Shardspear? YOU are going to get RAFO'd.

Can someone bond more than one Honorblade?

Honorblade? You can't bond an Honorblade, though it can be given to you. Shardblades, however, come from a spren bond and it is possible to bond more than one.

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