Timewaster's Guide Archive

The Chapter 12 annotations page for Elantris has no "previous" or "next" buttons. Anyone else getting this problem?

(I know I can just navigate to chapter 13's annotations by the main menu, but it's probably something that should be pointed out...)

As I understand it, becoming an Elantrian isn't a conscience decision

Similarly, being an allomancer or feruchemist isn't a conscience decision either

In WarBreaker, both Returned and Awakeners are what they are by their own choosing

I think this could be attributed to the particular Shards who control the respective magic systems.
Keep in mind the whole "two Shards = three magic systems" theory, in which two magic systems on a world come from the Shards themselves, and a third comes from the interaction of their power. Allomancy + Hemalurgy = Feruchemy is obvious enough. I'm inclined to believe the "base" magic systems for Elantris are AonDor and ChayShan, since the Dakhor monks' art seems to be a cross between the two, accessing the Dor through writing symbols and control of the body.

At any rate, the only world we know of that has a single Shard - Endowment - is also the only world to have a voluntary magic system, in the form of Awakening. As far as we know, anybody can Awaken if they choose to. This could just be coincidence, but it's worth pointing out...

EDIT: Actually, anybody who wanted to could become a Hemalurgist, come to think of it. Just spike a guy in the right spot. Does that count?

Contributing with The i of the Pad.

So I finished Mistborn a couple weeks ago and just now finished reading through this thread. I have a question that I don't think has been asked before. It's related to the ending. I'll try to explain concisely:

1. Ati and Leras are presumably "alive." That is, they had bodies, took the power, and their bodies went poof, like Vin. Or they always had the power, but that seems unlikely to me (not the point of this question, though).
2. Dead people hanging around in the middle world (who haven't entered the Beyond yet) can use the powers...right? Kelsier was able to talk to Spook, and if I remember right it has been said that he did so using Preservation's power. If this isn't true the whole thing falls apart.
3. So. When Vin kills Ruin, shouldn't he be able to take his power back? Clearly not. Doesn't that, then, mean that his consciousness is in some greater way destroyed? (Also that the same happened to Leras when Ruin finally smothered him.) Wouldn't that mean that Vin's was as well, and she can't be around in the afterlife? Or did the bit...oddly enough...of Ruin in her (humans have both) protect her somehow? Or something.

...This question/theory has more holes in it than I thought before I started writing it down. Still, thoughts?

Regarding the ending itself...Vin was AWESOME and I would have liked to see her live, but I'm not like totally enraged by the ending the way it is. Sazed makes sense as God, and of course that was foreshadowed from the very beginning...not that I figured it out... 

1) We're not entirely certain of the nature and history of the Shards of Adonalsium (beings like Ruin and Preservation). That said, we can't know whether Ruin or Preservation's power was always attached to Ati and Leras, or if it was passed on to them at some point.

2) "Kelsier" was actually Ruin appearing to Spook. Note that Spook only hears him after he's been "spiked" with the pewter sword, and stops hearing him after he pulls the sword's tip out. There aren't any dead people hanging around in the world of the living, as far as we know.

3) As I understand it, Vin's consciousness entirely inhabits Preservation's power, much like Leras's did. Ruin and Preservation are exact opposites, so when Vin destroys him, she gets killed as well. Since she ends up hanging around in the afterlife, this means the same is probably true of Ati. We don't really have anything to prove otherwise.

Ah, that's right, I had forgotten about the cross-system Mistings. We still need to come up with a good term for those. Mistbreed, maybe?

That would only be the case if you were using it on a Feruchemist. Use it on an Allomancer, and it steals all Allomantic powers. Conceivably, the only way to get both from one person would be to spike an Inquisitor, and Ruin wouldn't have them going around spiking each other for no reason.

More information about Way of Kings release is always cool.

This.

I can't really hold a candle to most people in this thread, but I'll go on regardless:

1) I once spent an entire bored, empty Sunday rehearsing and recording a voiceover of Kwaan's steel plate. With the original lines and Ruin-corrupted lines.
2) I also figured out that Clod is Arsteel, but meh.
3) I know far too much stuff about the expanded BS universe than a Californian high school student should. I've never even been to Utah, let alone BYU, though this will probably be remedied when I start doing college visits this summer.
4) I once sent the Warbreaker PDF to no less than eleven people I had made the recommendation to. Nine of those asked where they could buy Elantris within a week, and are now fervently awaiting ToW and WoK.
5) I convinced my sophomore English teacher that a creative writing class would be a really neat thing for the school to have - based on the sort of work creative writing can produce, like, hey, Mistborn.
6) I have most, if not every, unpublished work EUOL has put up for download saved on their own USB stick, should those download links ever stop working.
7) Out of sheer boredom, I once tried to figure out why each metal corresponded to its particular ability. I got some pretty beastly explanations written up, but they're all probably way off the mark.
I just realized an eight and a closed parenthesis make that little emoticon with the sunglasses.

You used that to make sure you got to sixteen

Of course. The number of universal power ensures his victory. : p