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
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.
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.
Questioner
If there were movies/tv series about cradle, who would play the characters?
Will Wight
I don't have knowledge of actors to say that... so... Danny DeVito for all roles. Every role. I can easily see him as Lindon. I could see him as Eithan, in a long blonde wig. I could easily see that. And then Yerin, you could just stick aluminum foil like arms to his back - I could see Danny DeVito doing that. And then... I would say him as the voice of Orthos, but actually I think probably he'd just sort of walk around on all fours with a black shell on his back and I think that's just... that's Orthos, so... Danny DeVito, all characters.
Mu Hentai
Would you guys consider getting some kind of Sacred Artist badges to sell on your store?
Will Wight
You know, people ask me that a lot, and like I've said before: the merchandise takes a lot of energy to run, and to develop. So it's a lot more difficult than people realize it is. And so often people are like: "No, it's not that hard, you can just 3D print a badge."
I know you can... look, 3D printing one badge is definitely doable; 3D printing a batch of badges is definitely doable. Doing something so that we have them sell-able and available on our store - it's possible, but it's not something that is necessarily worth the time and energy invested in it.
So maybe someday. I'd like to have them, they're cool... but we don't sell a lot of merch anyway. We're really just focused on selling enough merchandise to justify itself. But the reason why we started selling merch - kind of like the reason we started giving books away - is because people wanted merchandise. So... that's it, that's why it exists. So I would like to do badges - if we can justify it one day, we will.
Questioner
What is Eithan's favorite dessert, assuming he wasn't allowed to steal yours or anyone else's?
Will Wight
That's in reference to a question I was once asked, which was what's Eithan's favorite ice cream, and I said "yours".
So, hmmm... I think of him as a chocolate mousse kind of guy. Like a light dessert. [someone offscreen:"What?!?"]
That's what I think... yup, chocolate mousse. That's what I think; that's my answer.
And I mean a light dessert. By that I mean not m-o-u-s-s-e, but m-o-o-s-e. So it's a moose made of chocolate.
Curt
While we know people are only able to advance to Jade in Sacred Valley, we know that is was possible for Yerin to advance to lowgold. Is it possible for someone to advance so much in SV that when they leave they could advance straight to highgold or truegold?
Will Wight
No, not really. That's something that you just can't do. There isn't the ability to do that in Sacred Valley.
Jenny
Was Jai Chen the wife Lindon saw in Suriel's vision?
Will Wight
Yes.
Questioner
When do you think you will finish Cradle?
Will Wight
I don't know. There's three books left, so probably... it's going to be 2022 or 2023. I'm not sure when. It depends on what my release schedule is. So yeah, I would expect me to write one more book this year, and then probably get started on the next one, and then the third book finished sometime next year. So it depends on when that gets finished. So 2022 or 2023, I would say.
Questioner
Are you a DotA fan as you use the name Abidan, which is one of the heroes in it?
Will Wight
No, that's a character from... it's a demon from mythology. So that's a common name, that gets used in a lot of fantasy. That's actually not where the name of the Abidan organization came from, but that is where the name of the DotA character came from.
Questioner
Can Lindon create void keys now that he can sense The Way?
Will Wight
That is something that he can learn to do. Not all Sages can do that, but he can. So that is something that he can learn to do.
Now can he do that yet? No, he doesn't know how. But that is something that is viable with his power set. Void Icon, void keys - makes sense, right?
