So, during my reread of The Hero of Ages, I came across some interesting tidbits.
I am going to do my best to present this as a reasoned and rational theory, though I know that anyone who makes it to my thesis statement will burst out laughing.
Now, on page 189, we see Vin having an interesting conversation with a man named Slowswift, who I now suspect to be Hoid. Vin was supposed to meet a man named Hoid later on, but backed out of it for reasons unexplained. She never saw him.
Slowswift asks,
Do you enjoy stories, young lady?
From there the conversation goes as follows:
What kind of stories?
"The bst kind, of course," slowswift said, tapping his book. "The kind about monsters and myths. Longtales, some call them-..."
We are talking about a specific genre of book here-fantasy.
"I don't have much time for stories," Vin said.
"Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days." A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. "It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it..."
Then the conversation turns to Cett, and his poetry.
To him, everything had to be gritty and 'real,' even his poetry. Seems like an attitude with which you'd agree."
Vin shrugged, sitting in the indicated chair. "I suppose."
"I find that ironic in a way you shall never understand," the old man said, smiling.
Now, why is this ironic? To me, the answer is obvious: Vin prefers real life, but she is living
in a fantasy. We'll leave this train of thought for now.
So, theoretically all of Brandon's books, minus Alcatraz, exist in the same world. What are recurring themes of these worlds? Shards of Adonalsium, for one. Magic. Hoid has been appearing all over the place.
The answer I am looking for is far more simple: the recurring theme is that
Brandon wrote them. Now, who is Hoid? A mysterious traveler recurring throughout all of these books. What is he? An informant. A storyteller.
A wordsmith?
That's right. I think Brandon wrote himself into his books as a character.
As a man named Hoid.