MB1 ? about Lord Ruler **** Major Spoiler****

[Arabas]

First time post so be gentle

Just finished Mistborn The Final Empire and loved it.  I can't wait to read Well of Ascension now.

I do have one nagging question and please remember that I have not read Well of Ascension, so no spoilers please.

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.

Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)

If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

If this question is answered in some fashion in the other books in the series please ignore the question.

Thanks in advance.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

[MsFish]

That's always been my assumption--that he wanted people to think that he couldn't be killed in any of those ways, when the reality is that it's just very difficult to get him into one of those positions to begin with, because of his allomantic and feruchemical powers.

[Seradan]

I haven't read any of the others yet either (waiting til 3 is out before picking up 2)... But I have to say that one thing that writers are prone to do in order to create an unexpected twist is to feed you information through a character... It is convenient if you do it often, because you can feed stuff that is true, but slip in the occasional red herring as well...

We never actually see (to my recollection) a non-POV scene where there is a description of this.. Just that everyone believes it is true.

[Kelsier]

That was nagging at me as well. More so, however, were the bracelets themselves. Sazed said the Lord Ruler's power of everlasting life came from his ability to burn a metal in which Feruchemical powers were stored. If this is the case, why would removing the bracelets kill him? Wouldn't he be burning these bracelets, rather than wearing them? And if he is wearing them, how is he able to store up so much age? Is it simply because they were made of atium?

[darxbane]

That's an excellent point, Kelsier.  It doesn't make sense.  Unless of course those bracelets also had Hemallurgy powers.   What you wrote actually convinces me that the Lord Ruler was using all three magic systems.  If Feruchemy and Allomancy together can give him enhanced abilities, then mixing Hemallurgy in should do the same thing.

[Seradan]

My understanding was that he was basically taking the age, putting it into metal with Feru (probably explaining why the vast stores of atium that everyone was expecting didn't exist, again, I haven't read book 2-3, so don't correct me if I'm wrong ) and then burning that with Allo in order to get put it into the bracers via Feru in more measured doses... At least that was my guess... Though, it might have been a good idea to have a bit of Atium on hand to pop like a diabetic pops candy, 'just in case'...

Realistically though, when you're a God King and basically control the history of the world for the last 1000 years, you probably don't expect to be assaulted in your own castle...

[Comfortable Madness]

And if he is wearing them, how is he able to store up so much age? Is it simply because they were made of atium?

I think that whenever he was not out in public he stored away health/age. Back when Kelsier and Vin stormed Kredik Shaw to get into that room, the one where Kelsier was once captured trying get into, all they find is an old man in a room. This old man is the Lord Ruler and he is being protected by the inquisitors as he stores his health/age into the bracelets...

As for the beheading and dismembering thing I agree with a couple of the others here that it's just a ploy,added to all of his real abilities, to make him seem invincible.

[darxbane]

My understanding was that he was basically taking the age, putting it into metal with Feru (probably explaining why the vast stores of atium that everyone was expecting didn't exist, again, I haven't read book 2-3, so don't correct me if I'm wrong ) and then burning that with Allo in order to get put it into the bracers via Feru in more measured doses

That is a very good theory, actually.  If the age stored is more potent when burned with Allomancy, then he could store the enhanced power and use it to stay young indefinitely.  He could even possibly decrease his age, if he wanted to.  I still think that Hemallurgy played some part, but it may not have been as significant as I believe.

[Kelsier]

That's my point, though. If the Lord Ruler was burning age-enhancing atium, why did he die when Vin pulled his bracelets off? You can't burn metals externally—at least, that's not how it's explained in the books. If he was using the bracelets to stay alive, how could they have given him the magnified power of age, as Sazed has theorized? Wouldn't he have had to be burning them for the extra power? That's what I don't get.

[Chaos]

Huh. That's an excellent point: how could he "burn" things that just touched his body? It's possible that the Lord Ruler has extra powers we don't know about yet. Brandon has sort of inferred that there are things we don't know yet from annotations.

[Iahawki99]

I was under the impression that The Lord Ruler had his age defying bracelets pierced directly through his skin, which would allow him to draw the powers that were stored in them whenever he wanted.

It could also be that I have no idea what I am talking about, as my wife likes to remind me of. 

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I'm pretty sure that he draws upon the bracelets feruchemically. It's only when he's recharging them that he swallows some feruchemically-charged atium and burns it allomantically--a rapid recharge process he doesn't need to do very often.

[Comatose]

It's all explained at the end of book one.  The lord ruler stores up a certain amount of age, burns the metal with the age, gains 10X as much youth as he stored, if he used it all at once, he would be a baby, so, he stores the excess in the bracelets.  Those times when he is in his room are theo nly times he's burning feruchemical age storages, or at the end of these room visits, all the other times, he's just drawing on his reserves, which is why he was unable to stop himself from aging when Vin pulled off the bracelets, it's all explained at the end.

I have a question, did the lord ruler ever burn atium in the fight against Vin and Marsh?  If so, why didn't he see Vin's attack on his bracelets coming and if not, why not?

[darxbane]

It doesn't say whether or not he was burning atium.  Even if he was, I don't think it would have helped.  He would have seen his bracelets coming off, but I don't think he would have had time to do anything about it.  He was probably quiet certain that Vin was not strong enough to affect the metals pierced in his skin.  A big question I have, though, is if two results are obtained by burning a metal with stored Feruchemical attributes.  We are assuming that burning the age stored in the atium greatly increases the yield, but the Lord Ruler's Allomantic power suggests that the power of the metals he is burning also increases dramatically.