Will we see more of the Elder Empire?
Probably not. One of the things I want to do after Cradle is I want to tell different stories. I like telling different stories, I like going to different places, and so we're probably not going back to Elder Empire. If we go back to anything of course it would be Traveler's Gate.
Do you have a backup writer or a way to finish the series if something happened to you?
No. So you better make sure nothing happens to me, Justin. I hold you personally responsible for my well-being.
Brandon Sanderson?
Brandon Sanderson would never finish this series. That is way beyond my pay grade.
Do sacred artists work out?
Yes they do.
If Lindon had consumed part of Eithan would the Dreadgod arm have broken?
That was honestly one of the scenes I really liked because that was a moment I didn't think of until I was writing it. Like I wanted Lindon to have one goodbye gesture and I realized oh man he can shake his hand and tried to drain power from him. But it doesn't work because it's blocked by Ozriel's armor. So that does not work. That is not a way that Eithan sneakily left Lindon power. I've seen people speculating that maybe he did get something and that Eithan allowed it. No, the armor blocked it and he couldn't allow Lindon that power now without violating the Eledari Pact which he is now bound by once again. The only reason he was out of it is the same reason why, well this is an interesting thing, let me go into this for a second while I'm sitting here at the bottom of the ocean.
My initial mechanism, my initial plan, for having Eithan hide was that I was going to have Suriel do research into how Abidan retire and what retired Abidan do, how that mechanism works because that's clearly a mechanism by which he could have been hiding, right? When Judges retire, or when powerful Abidan are allowed to retire they can get out of Eledari Pact by reintroducing themselves into the Iteration in which they were born or certain other Iterations that will allow them like Sanctum, you can just live there if you want. So they give up their extra powers that are beyond the world but are still very powerful and knowledgeable and have a lot of Authority and so on and so forth. So they don't give up their full power, they are still extremely powerful. Usually what they do is they go into hiding and just kind of live like normal people.
But they know Ozriel couldn't have done that on Cradle because he would be immediately found out because their Presence would have found him, they would have scanned him, and found out who he was. However, the Presences have a sort of a shared memory and a way that they check facts against the Way. Like against pure order and truth. And that is fundamentally incorruptible except for the fact that Ozriel found a way to do it. So the idea was that he broke into the records, the metaphysical record storage system, and changed his origin so nobody recognizes it and just retires normally to Cradle.
So one of the reasons she's sure he can't be on Cradle in book one is that he can't be because we would see him and notice him and, as soon as I saw, would recognize him. Except that he just basically persuaded reality that he was a different person than he was. So I really wanted to do that because it would have first of all allowed for her to explore some interesting mechanisms of the system and the way it works. But that was a casualty of me not knowing how many books were going to be in the series. So I didn't know how to pace out the Abidan story line correctly because I didn't know how many parcels I was going to be allowed. And when I finally got there I was like okay so do I need, do I want Suriel doing research into background information on the world and the metaphysics of this system that we're not even really involved in yet or do I want her doing cool things like fighting? And, I eventually decided that it was more fun to have her intervene in worlds and fight Vroshir and all that kind of stuff than do researching behind the scenes.
I liked that better because it wasn't a single artifact that a bunch of transcendent craftsmen created together. It was a scheme that Ozriel cooked up and one that only he could have executed because the reason why other people can't do that is because you would have to be skilled in almost every other discipline and he is. So he can do things other people can't do. So, anyway, that would have been fun.
Is Eithan always tugging his braid?
Yes. Actually this is a fun fact. Eithan is a descendant of Nynaeve in the last Turning of the Wheel. So he ends up being Nynaeve and Lan's descendent and therefore he is tugging his braid all the time.
Can Ozriel kill all seven Abidan?
No. So one of the things that I did not demonstrate but have mentioned but I didn't show is that actually Raziel and Makiel are combatants on a similar level to Ozriel. Now Ozriel has a greater scope of powers that he can do things that they can't do because they're not full seven star ranks in every single thing except the Phoenix. So he can do pretty much anything except heal. And they can't. Makiel's powers are very diverse as well but he's not quite as good. But they are still very powerful combatants. The reason why they couldn't match up against the Mad King is because he had the Scythe, he had the replica Scythe. So that was what allowed him to outfight Makiel and Suriel together. Without that he would not have been able to do that and they would have beaten him. Which is why he's never done this before. So Makiel is a combatant on the level of Ozriel or Raziel or the Mad King. And the reason why Eithan was able to turn the tables on the Mad King there was because he was able to take over the Scythe.
Which, by the way, he was able to do, I had a longer scene there but it wasn't punchy so I had to cut it because it made the scene a lot more explanatory and a lot less cool. But it goes into the mechanisms of him gaining control and Authority over the Scythe so the idea was that I would have had to jump into the Mad King's perspective and that was just really clunky. So the Mad King immediately upon seeing Ozriel is there is like crap and wants to banish the Scythe but he can't so now he's stuck. So when he sees Ozriel, so then he tries to negotiate to stop Ozriel taking the Scythe and killing him. And then, Ozriel goes no. So, he just like oh crap, maybe I can catch him off guard before he's at full power and then that doesn't work. And then, yep, we all saw how that played out. So, it was one of those where there's a lot at the end of that book where I'm in a balance between explaining every little thing that goes on and making it snappy. And I think you all noticed where I tend to fall on that scale. I would greatly prefer having it have excruciating detail. *Laughs* I am not an excruciating detail guy. When I'm reading I much more often complain about people giving me too many answers than too few. So I hate having everything just explicitly laid out because it's boring and I don't like it. So not because I don't want to know but because it's boring.
How many current Monarchs could Eithan have taken before he ascended as a Monarch the first time?
I don't fully understand that question so let me backpedal. Let me see if I understand this. So when Eithan was a Monarch on Cradle how many of the current, if he was matched up against the current Monarchs, how many could he have taken? Any one for sure. Could he have taken them all? Probably not without ascending. There was a power cap on the amount you could... so no matter how good you are there is a power cap on the amount you can have. So if they all joined forces they could have beat him out of sheer weight of numbers. But could he stack up against any of the Monarchs in sheer skill and ability? One hundred percent, yeah. Couldn't beat him.
Where does the planet of Cradle rank in the broader multiverse when it comes to powerful combatants?
Oh that's a good question. So, as you know the Cradle is known for producing more Abidan candidates. That doesn't necessarily mean the most ascendants, so the most people who ascend from their world. That is, it might mean that, but it doesn't necessarily. It means the means the people who ascend that are compatible with the Way and able to join the Abidan and fill their criteria. There are quite a few people and quite a few methods throughout the multiverse of ascending without meeting their criteria. So, either they're not super compatible with the powers of the Way or they're just not good enough. Like if you, for instance, created a machine that allowed you to ascend beyond or dimension or if you slipped out of the cracks of a poorly established fragment that was attached to your world, for instance. Then you would not qualify to be one of the Abidan but you would still have technically ascended past your world so that is what Cradle is really good at.
In terms of powerful combatants, they are still high. That is, especially, there are, as we will go into potentially later, there are different ranks of worlds and they can handle different amounts of, for lack of a better term, I'm not sold on the terminology yet, so forgive me if this is kind of rough around the edges, but there are worlds that have a higher capacity for energy than other worlds do. And Cradle is not the highest of that which is why it's called Cradle. So they are not at the highest level of that even among the mortal worlds, it is not at the highest level. However, it is entirely focused around combat so the people who ascend from Cradle, especially those who were Monarchs, they are known for being very strong especially at the lowest level. As soon as they ascend, like the lesser, the lower ranks of Abidan kind of have to walk carefully around them. And they tend to join the Wolf division so they tend to be the fighters. That's kind of the answer. So where does it rank around power levels? Relatively high but not the highest.
What is the saddest death you've written?
So that's a spoiler for other books. It is not in Cradle. It's in Traveler's Gate. That's the one I think is the saddest. So I don't want to give that away because it's not a [Reaper] spoiler. But I will say that there is somebody I killed in one of the first books of Elder Empire that I think may be pretty bad. That's a rough death. A lot of people give me crap for that to this day about that one. But I did that one in Elder Empire for a reason. There's another thing that I think... I don't think killing characters inherently makes a series better. So I don't think killing characters makes a book or series better.
Like, for instance, I don't think Harry Potter needed to kill very many characters. You can kill Cedric Diggory in book four, you can kill Sirius in book five, and then obviously Dumbledore in book six. [Gets yelled at for spoiling book six.] If you haven't read Harry Potter, what are you doing here? Then in book seven she kills a lot of characters that I don't think are necessary. So, I just think that series didn't need that. It makes a more serious tone. Don't think it needed that. So, I'm not always about killing characters but in Sea and Shadow, I killed some characters in the first installment to, first of all because I thought it was tonally appropriate to the series and second of all because they are going to stick around for the next two books in flashbacks. So because I had a major flashback story line and could still use the killed characters I decided to be liberal with the people I killed.
How many books do you plan to write in the Cradle series?
Two more. So I plan there to be two more. I was thinking, writing Reaper as I was planning Reaper, I was considering there to be two more, sorry, three more after this just because right now the twelfth book's looking pretty thick so I don't know how much... I've talked about this a little bit but my philosophy on final books in a series is that the final book is not just wrapping up the book but wrapping up the series. I prefer there to be a lot of falling action and resolution in that so I prefer there to be a lot of tied up loose ends.
So, one of the series that of course everybody knows is the Wheel of Time and the Wheel of Time is complete now and, of course, Brandon Sanderson wrote the last few volumes because Robert Jordan died so there's a lot of unique constraints that it's working under. But one of the things I wished it had more of was more epilogue for the characters. I wanted to know what happened to everybody. There's like forty point of view characters in that series which is just so many and I wanted to happened to a lot of them. So I was really hoping that they would wrap up the main conflict halfway through that book and for the rest of the half of the book to be wrapping stuff up.
So that's I want to kind of want to do in the final series because that's what I want out of a final book out of a twelve book series. I want that to be everything as wrapped up as it could be. So because of that, wrapping that up in twelve is possible, I have a plan for it, that's the intention, but that means that twelve is going to be a lot of where are they now? And so I was thinking about maybe I can move it to thirteen and maybe that structure would work better but I'm planning for it to be twelve right now.
Why would you say that? Why would you say that? That's official canon now.
What's canon now? What did I say?
I'm thinking about making thirteen.
I said I was thinking about making it! It's, oh no, I don't, I thought that was a fine thing to say dang it.
We all heard thirteen books.
What is your favorite power set you have created for your characters in the books?
Favorite power set? Hm. I don't know what do you guys think? Have a thought?
Power set? For any of the characters?
Yeah.
I don't know. I really enjoy watching Northstrider fight but I'm all about that shit.
That's fair. That's fair. I think it's probably got to be Lindon. I think he's got a very flexible power set.
First time Simon puts on the mask! BOY~!
That's true. That is a good point. I do like the Valenhall power set that one's fun. And I think it's got a lot of inherent limitations that I like that work with the system.
I love Ziel's power set.
I loved Ziel's power set. Like I had a couple of ideas that I really wanted because they were just power sets that I liked. It wasn't something that, ugh, now his power sets fun, it's kind of neat. You get to work some scripting a little bit, you get to work some forge manipulation a little bit. I still like it but it's not the thing that popped into my head first when you asked me for my favorite.
What would have happened if Penance was used to kill a Dreadgod?
One of the Dreadgods would have died. So, what would have happened is that that would have severed one of the Dreadgods existences and there now have been only three Dreadgods. So, that is why some of the Monarchs were encouraging them to do it. Because, it would have permanently killed a Dreadgod. We are working on incredible levels here. However, that would also have made the other three permanently more powerful. So, that's why the other Monarchs did not want it to happen because that is what would have happened.
How did Eithan show up? Wasn't Tiberian ever curious where Eithan came from?
Yeah, Eithan came with a back story. He's got an artifact that can deceive inter-dimensional gods. He's good at disguising himself.
Is Ozriel's madra still pure?
No. No, its not pure madra anymore. Although, right now he could pretty much mimic any Cradle power system he wanted. He could kind of do the effects of whatever he wanted, but its not still pure, no.
Would you ever consider putting the Cradle-verse in a D&D style campaign?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think a setting book is one of the things that I took a lot of inspiration from.
Will there be more Lindon books after the Cradle series?
I really want to tell you about this, but I can't. I have ideas for stories after Cradle and one of them feels like fun. I was gonna say its one I'm particularly proud of, but that's not even necessarily true because I haven't written it yet. So, it doesn't exist, but its an idea I like. But, that would give away book 12 which I can't do.
Why is Reigan Shen seemingly breaking soul oaths left and right?
I do assure you there is a mechanism for that. He has a way to do it. It's something that I'm sure I'll get into if not in the next book, then the book after that. I'm certain that I'll get into that. It's not a huge thing. It's not a big universe defying...it's not another twist, right? He's not double Ozriel. It's just a mechanism he has that I'm sure will come into play.
If Cradle unified and managed to raise a group of 100,000 heralds, each of whom managed to advance to monarch at the same time, could they kill the Dreadgods?
Yes. The current monarchs could kill the dreadgods. They could find a way to do it. It's not an impossible problem. It is something they are reluctant to do because it would cause a lot of other problems.
At the beginning of the book [Reaper], is that memory from when Eithan was with Tiberian?
Yes it was, at the beginning of Reaper that's kind of the Easter egg, is that number is higher and therefore a more recent memory than the others. So what Eithan is doing through the course of the series, is unlike the marble that Suriel left Lindon, his isn't impenetrable to him, because he's the one who created it, so he's using it to actively store and access memories. So the memory he shows Lindon and Yerin in Skysworn is the original one or one of the original ones he left his descendants before. Other Arelius people have ascended, but they never did it the way he wanted them to, they never had the values he wanted them to have, so what they really had done over the centuries is enshrined that in a big shrine at the main Arelius mainland to the first patriarch, and he came back and was very disappointed in them for that. He got access to it by virtue of passing the first patriarch's tests. He'd left these for a descendant, and he passes them as an Underlord and that's how he gets everybody's attention and goes "oh he's such a wise Underlord" and he's like "yeah....I'm great".
When is Traveler's Blade gonna be made?
I don't know because I like to do new stories as I've mentioned before. I just really enjoy coming up with new ideas. That's the most fun part and that is the part that I would like to focus on in the future. Cradle by the end is going to be a six or seven year journey and that is a lot of time and I have a lot of other ideas that I would like to explore and I love making up new ones. So, I don't know, I do want to do more Traveler's Gate. I have a lot of new ideas for Traveler's Gate. I would love to come back to Traveler's Blade. I expected to have done that by now but I also didn't expect Cradle to blow up the way it has. So, I don't know. I don't know. I suspect within the next couple of years would be my guess, but again I don't know.
