Questioner
When you wrote Akura Grace, did you you write her with the intentions of killing her off?
Will Wight
((Warns against Wintersteel spoilers despite this being a launch stream for next book))
No, not particularly. I wrote her in Uncrowned to be another Akura to be another notable person in this generation. Then I realized I was going to use her again in Winter Steel. And then she just kind of worked out. I sort of killed most of those people. Interesting
Questioner
What is your favorite scene in Cradle?
Will Wight
I think I answered that earlier. It's the Dross scene at the end of Ghostwater. Because it was difficult for me to write and it came out well.
Questioner
What was your backup plan if your writing never took off?
Will Wight
Writing was the backup plan. I always wanted to write, but the reason it was the backup plan is that I assumed it wasn't gonna work.
The plan was to get a job. Preferably teaching because I had taught during grad school at UCF. I was planning to get a job teaching English somewhere and I just assumed I was going to have to. I didn't consider it a backup plan. I considered it a, I'm going to make a couple hundred bucks so I can survive the summer so I can apply for another teaching position. But the books worked so I never had to do that.
Questioner
What's your opinion on adverbs and passive voice?
Will Wight
Negative? A lot of people demonize adverbs. I do not think adverbs and adjectives are necessarily wrong. When we overuse them of course they're a problem. But I think it's a tool like anything else. Passive voice is just generally worse than active voice in most cases.
Questioner
In Lindon's original timeline did his father Jaran take his own life, die in combat, or just leave the clan?
Will Wight
That is up to interpretation. Lindon doesn't know; he didn't see. So who knows. Probably a little bit of all of that. So he probably went out, found a fight he knew he was going to lose, and went out fighting.
Questioner
Did the Emperor from Elder Empire have any authority?
Will Wight
I really wanted to answer that in the literal sense in that yes, he did have authority; he was the ruler of the world. But I know what you're asking and I'd say yes. Yes he did.
Questioner
In your last stream, you compared the Valinhall Incarnation to Overlords from Cradle. Since Simon with the mask is equal-ish to an Incarnation, would that make White Light Simon somewhere within the realm of Archlords? The boost seemed like it was pretty big.
Will Wight
It's hard to make these comparisons. I think I probably said is that Lindon as an Underlord or Overlord is roughly physically compatible with Simon when he's using the mask and going full power. That's probably true, but Lindon can also shoot disintegrating fire from his hands. There's a lot that Cradle has a lot for more deadly powers than Valinhall does. I would say that Simon would be outclassed in Cradle pretty quickly. At least as he is now.
Questioner
Are the animated attacks of a Sage just will/authority giving them versatility or are their attacks actually living?
Will Wight
Read and find out.
Questioner
What is the weirdest thing you have written but cut from the series? The thing you look back on and think "what was I thinking"?
Will Wight
I think, probably, the number one thing that I regret or think is weird, is names and terms. That's the weird stuff. I shared in the blog a while back that I had a pokemon trader vibe for Ziel and I wrote out that character thing and nah; just nah. So I cut that stuff and then I look back and I go... no. But then usually it's just names. I have to come up with so many name ideas before one sticks that inevitably I have one that's really stupid.
Will Wight
One of the other things, as I was starting writing Cradle, I was coming up with these ways where I wanna make it clear that this is inspired by Chinese cultivation fantasy, but doesn't take place in China. Even mythological china. It's also inspired by a lot of Korean and Tibetan mythology and all this stuff as well. But it's primarily, especially early, these Chinese cultivation novels. So, I was like "how do I show that?" and I had a lot of bad ideas for that. Not really. I mean I was just brain-storming, so I on all these tropes I could take over, but didn't work. So I ended up striking a balance I was pretty happy with.
Questioner
There has been debate about exactly what happened when Northstrider took Dross from Lindon but ended up letting Lindon join. Did Lindon prevent the spatial opening from fully closing? Did he start re-opening it? Or did Northstrider just feel Lindon's strength of desire and decided to re-open it and bring him? What exactly happened?
Will Wight
Good Question. Siiiiiiiiiip ((looks directly at the camera and sips loudly))
Questioner
We all know your preferred spiritual elixir, the Oreo. Now we need to know despised food and spiritual food, IRL and in the books.
Will Wight
So... My most despised food are red bell peppers. I can't eat 'em. I just can't do it. I cannot eat red bell peppers. Anything with red bell peppers in it, if I smell red bell peppers, I will die. It is the worst, I can't taste them. Anything with them in there. And one of the big problems is with a lot of this frozen foods they don't have a whole lot of flavor so they add red bell peppers to it in order to give 'em a little bit of color and flavor and I can't; I can't do it; I just can't do it. And a lot of cheap crab cakes too. They just add red peppers to it. And I love crab cakes, but I can't do it.
Will Wight
What favorite spiritual food... most despised spiritual reward. I don't know what that means. I guess maybe like if red peppers gave you a power, what would it be? It would be something related to venom aura or poisonous madra because they are toxic and the food of death.
Questioner
Is Mu Enkai dead?
Will Wight
Mu Enkai is not only dead, but he - somebody asked earlier about the afterlife in Cradle and I'm going to give a non-canon answer. Mu Enkai died and his soul went to Cradle Hell, and then it was killed again. So, he's double dead. He's the deadest man in all of history. There has never been anyone as dead as Mu Enkai is now dead. It set a record, as a matter of fact.
Questioner
Will we ever get to see the Iteration with the strongest power level?
Will Wight
I don't know. Good question.
Questioner
If Crusher's strength works on a conceptual level and Tartarus steel's durability works on a conceptual level, what would happen if Crusher tried to break Tartarus steel?
Will Wight
That depends on whether Crusher's conceptual ability to destroy it outranks the Tartarus steel's ability to be indestructible. I'll either get into that at the end of Cradle or I'll get into it in the next Traveler's Gate series, but there are ranks to that sort of thing. When the principals that outrank physical laws come into contact, it depends on which one outranks the other one.
Questioner
Can you explain the difference between Herald and a Sage?
Will Wight
Yes
DJ Johnson
Did you think of making a harem for lindon in the past? How many books till cradle ends?
Will Wight
I don't necessarily see these two things as linked, but I will try to answer this together. No, that never occurred to me. That was not something that I ever had as an idea. There was a time when there was a lot of pressure on me to have him go through a thorough romantic life, so therefore he would have multiple love interests. Some of the romantic relationships would end badly or end soon. But that would've taken up a lot of the books and I didn't want to write it, so there you go.
Three more left, and I've got my work cut out for me. There's a lot coming, as the several hundred people who have already finished Bloodline can tell you.
Adarsh
Out of curiosity, did Valin ever learn about Cradle? It seems like a few of Valinhall's powers mimic abilities from Cradle.
Will Wight
No, but both worlds are in Sector 11. They tend to have similar or overlapping powers.
bloodyraven
Hey /u/Will_Wight, did you enjoy writing Bloodline? You mentioned having to think about the book whilst in holiday. Did you improve it for the better?
Will Wight
I didn’t improve it, I just wanted to. I want that for all of my books.
And did I enjoy it...no, I’ll be honest with you, I’d say I didn’t. But I didn’t enjoy writing Wintersteel or Kings/Killers or Uncrowned either.
That’s why I needed a break.
Will
(I guess this is a spoiler, but not really, because I’m speaking hypothetically about things I haven’t written yet) Tbh it would be super cool to give Lindon the Arelius bloodline ability because of Dross, but if I did, that would rob me of the fun of giving him a new cool bloodline power.
Will.2
Will, the Sword Sage praised the chief of the Heaven Glory school(not sure the name is correct). Does this mean that he has a perfect jade body, or whatever it is called. Or did he simply mean that his foundation is better than the ones of the other elders?
Will
The Sword Sage didn't REALLY praise him, he just took it as praise.To a Sage, the Jades of Sacred Valley were like a bunch of blind monkeys swinging sticks around. He may have said "Nice swing," but he meant that in the context of a bunch of other blind monkeys.
Otarin
Also been wondering how a two person path like the sword of the endless path having only the sage and Yerin as followers of it is supposed to promote the disciple to gold other than the teachers death since you want a remnant in your core that is from your exact same path typically, right? I imagine this is a fairly common thing or at least not unheard of so I wonder how they resolve it, I can't imagine every master is willing to die for their apprentice.
Will
It is pretty common, so usually you just look for a compatible Remnant. Which means the Remnant of a different sword Path.It makes Highgold and Truegold a lot harder, because you have to work the remaining instincts of the Remnant inside you into your fighting style. Even when those instincts belong to a different Path.
