Author Topic: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****  (Read 335684 times)

PoBabylon

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fair enough i suppose, though it was flat out said that Leras was losing more and more stability/sentience/power(idk what the right word is here) as he kept appearing for Elend and Vin, where at first he was able to effect and even stab elend, and at the end he was capable of no more than forming a figure in the mists, and even that became too much...


when reading HoA, Human always gave me the chills when he spoke about being human and taking their place. I know that was used in the story to get vin to eventually realize that the Koloss are made from humans, but through the whole last book i had hoped there was some further foreshadowing going on there. but it's been said that the Koloss inside the Homeland when Sazed remade the world survived right? so maybe there is still some distant future foreshadowing going on there

Link von Kelsier Harvey XXIV

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Brandon said somewhere, I can't even remember where or under what circumstances, maybe even this very thread, that Sazed gave the Koloss true sentience.  So eventually I guess they wind up side by side rather than one taking the other's place.  But who knows what the future might hold. ;)
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PoBabylon

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ahh, ok thank you. I'd not seen that comment. I've only seen it said that they survived and were transformed so as to be able to reproduce as a real species.

zas678

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From earlier in this thread, from EUOL:

Quote
The Kandra.

Yes, they live.  The people were smart enough, eventually, to replace their spikes.  (And there were a couple who were on assignment who made it to storage caches.)

However, there will likely never be any more of them, since Hemalurgy is required to make them.  They are now some of the few people who can communicate directly with Sazed, who--like Ruin--can whisper to people most easily when they are connected to him via spikes.  With some speculation, you can probably guess what kind of roles the Kandra will end up playing in future books.

And for Koloss:
Quote
There ARE still koloss around, though many of them were vaporized.  Human is alive.  Sazed took pity on them, however, and they have been transformed.  They are now a race that breeds true, like the Kandra, and have different thought processes from what they once had.  You'll see more of them in the sequel series.
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Link von Kelsier Harvey XXIV

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Ok, so "different thought processes" doesn't exactly equal "true sentience." :P Oh well.
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happyman

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Ok, so "different thought processes" doesn't exactly equal "true sentience." :P Oh well.

I actually interpret this as meaning "Not just bored or enraged killing machines."  I suspect they actually act more human now, or are at least less dangerous.
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daniels220

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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...  :)

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #922 on: January 16, 2010, 11:37:17 PM »
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.

daniels220

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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.

1. Right.

2. Kelsier was Ruin...most of the time. The actual Kelsier says 3 things, though, and I'm wondering how exactly he did it.
Quote
For those of you protesting Kell having been part of a shard, Brandon stated in the Q&A that between Leras' death and Vin's ascension, Kelsier took some degree of control over Preservation's power.  Not as much as Vin, I would guess, but enough that he was able to get through to Spook a couple of times.
I can't remember what the 3 things are. They're somewhere in this thread but I couldn't find them with search. Any way to search by formatting? I remember they were in italics, and that combined with keywords would find them...

So that is the problem—why couldn't Ati/Ruin do the same with his own power (gaining limited control over it)—and for that matter Vin, to match him—or did Sazed simply take the power before Ruin could gather his mind, which was presumably quite shocked by what Vin did?

And why wasn't it mentioned that Ruin is still around, just powerless? Or was he, perhaps, so mentally broken by his defeat that he found himself in the Beyond and can't get back without his power? Just speculating, now...

melbatoast

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I think that you have to have a physical body to take possession of either ruin/preservation. All the examples we have seen of people gaining control of the power have had bodies. Also, the fact that Ruin was searching for his body (atium) supports the importance of the physical realm.
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Patriotic Kaz

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Kel's ghost seized Preservation for a brief period of time before Vin.
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Nice.

Brandon, I had never read anything by your until last year when Gathering Storm came out.  I really liked it, and was glad to realize that he was a good choice to finish RJ's work.  Later, I grabbed the Mistborn trilogy off of Amazon.  It had a good rating, and I was interested in reading more of your work.

That was a good two weeks of reading.  Wow.  I've pretty much been spending the last couple of weeks recommending you to my friends, heh.  I'm impressed by how fast-paced your writing is.  The magic system is well thought-out and consistent, and is used in creative ways by the characters.   What I love, though, is that there are secrets and mysteries in the books that the reader can figure out ahead of time, if they're careful enough.  Those little hinting nuggets of information caused several "Wow!" moments throughout.   

So yeah, nice. 

Overall, I think I liked the first Mistborn the best.  The other two were great, as well.  (I certainly crammed them down my read-hole fast enough.)  That first book, though, was just one big wow.  Definitely one of the best fantasy novels I've read in the past few years. 

Good job.  Thank you for the books.   :)

happyman

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #927 on: January 17, 2010, 11:07:52 PM »
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.

1. Right.

2. Kelsier was Ruin...most of the time. The actual Kelsier says 3 things, though, and I'm wondering how exactly he did it.
Quote
For those of you protesting Kell having been part of a shard, Brandon stated in the Q&A that between Leras' death and Vin's ascension, Kelsier took some degree of control over Preservation's power.  Not as much as Vin, I would guess, but enough that he was able to get through to Spook a couple of times.
I can't remember what the 3 things are. They're somewhere in this thread but I couldn't find them with search. Any way to search by formatting? I remember they were in italics, and that combined with keywords would find them...

So that is the problem—why couldn't Ati/Ruin do the same with his own power (gaining limited control over it)—and for that matter Vin, to match him—or did Sazed simply take the power before Ruin could gather his mind, which was presumably quite shocked by what Vin did?

And why wasn't it mentioned that Ruin is still around, just powerless? Or was he, perhaps, so mentally broken by his defeat that he found himself in the Beyond and can't get back without his power? Just speculating, now...

My guess is that even if Ati was capable of seizing his power again as a ghost, his influence on the world would be small, much like Kelsier's power via Preservation was fairly limited.  In addition, I doubt either Kelsier or Ati could have stopped Vin or Sazed from seizing the power when they came in direct contact with it; their grip on it would presumably have been far too weak.
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Fireborn

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I know it's kind of redundant by this point, but DANG.  HOA is officially my new favorite book!

I can proudly proclaim I read the entire thread!  (except for some parts relating to Elantris, but only to avoid spoilers)

Even though Brandon's been gone for more than 40 pages I'm still going to post my questions here.  You guys might be able to help me out for a couple of them.

1. What are the other Feruchemical and Hemalurgic applications for metals, the ones we haven't seen yet? (powers that is, not metals)
2. The Hemalurgic applications for the different metals seem to be grouped in fours, Human, Allomantic, Feruchemical (okay we only have two of those, but we've only got ten Feruchemical uses and six missing Hemalurgic uses), but what is the fourth set?
3. Since filling it makes you old, wouldn't the more accurate term for the Feruchemical use of Atium be storing youth?
4. We haven't seen Atium be used in Hemalurgy to steal anything other than the use of Atium.  Does it REALLY take Allomantic Temporal powers or just the use of Atium?
5. In the future, would the genetic blending of the different magics create misting of more than one Allomantic metal?  Like a duralumin and pewter misting?  (I'm expecting an RAFO on this, but that's okay)
6. Is it possible to have a Larasium misting?
7. Does Gold let you seen alternate timelines or just communicate with your past self?  Or can you not talk to the past?  Is it actually the past or simply a representation of it?
8. Do Hemalurgic spikes actually create sentience?  Since that's what happened to the kandra.  But aren't humans intelligent because they are more of Preservation than Ruin?  But wouldn't spiking a mistwraith make it more like Ruin?  Seems to contradict itself a bit.
9. Did Sazed make anyone else besides Spook into Mistborn?
10. If Hemalurgy is of Ruin and Larasium is of Preservation, would someone who's been spiked be able to burn Larasium at all?
11. Are Chromium and Nicrosil blocked by Copper in a form similar to Zinc and Brass?
12. If a mistborn capable of piercing copperclouds used bronze on a smoker, would he be able to use zinc or brass at the same time to affect them?  What I'm trying to say, does puncturing a Coppercloud get through their emotional immunity as well?
13. Do Iron and Steel function through a magnetic or gravitational attraction/repulsion?
14. Will we ever see posters of tables of Feruchemical and Hemalurgic elements?  Or posters for all of the Atium/Larasium abilities?
15.  Do Feruchemists have to Snap like Allomancers?
17. Which Feruchemical abilities did TLR give the original Inquisitors?  Since they obviously had at least healing, but he wouldn't want to risk having them be strong enough to compete with them if they ever got loose.

Yes, there's a lot of 'em.  I was writing them down when I was reading through the topic.

I also wanted to respond to a couple of people's comments and bring in my own.


(Quote by Akkarin)
Quote
I suppose when it's put like that, Elend choosing not to fight - choosing to have the woman he loves kill herself - doesn't seem so bad if they just get an eternity of happiness. Maybe I've just been looking at it from the wrong angle, but to me I'd rather think that the events of the final book  mattered , and the two shouldn't have just killed themselves when Ruin got free. And if I think the book matters, then I think life matters, and then I'm back to being annoyed with their suicides to a plan millenia old....
Just because they had something to go to doesn't make their deaths any less of a sacrifice.  They had friends, people thy loved and cared about, and it's that very love that made it so they had to do what they did.

(Quote by Akkarin)
Quote
Elend is alive -> Vin loves Elend -> Vin wants to be with Elend -> Vin values life with Elend.
Therefore Elend commits suicide (senselessness fully implied) to force Vin to comply with his ideals and do what he wants by removing any incentive for her to remain in the world of the living.
I didn't get the impression that Elend let Marsh kill him for this reason, at least, not by itself.  The Duralumin fueled Atium let him see (according to Brandon) "the whole of Preservation's plan and his place in it" or something to that effect.  I believe that releasing Vin from her previous inhibitions was one reason, but I also think that he saw that Marsh still had things to do and that killing him would mess things up more in the future than killing him then would fix.  His martyrdom will also probably have further influence on later generations, perhaps inspiring future leaders to have his dedication.  What I'm saying is that Elend's sacrifice was just that, a sacrifice, rather than suicide.  It had a meaning and purpose that we don't know of yet, and I trust that we'll get to see some of that in later books.

(Quote by Akkarin)
Quote
Also, one last point that makes the ending rather muted - the future of the Mistborn world. Elend was the best ruler for the Empire. Without Vin at his side I could've seen him still succeeding. But with neither Vin nor Elend, I find it hard to imagine anyone else being able to hold the empire together...Breeze? Cares too little. Spook? Too young and with no understanding of politics. Cett? Maybe a good man inside, but we've had his flaws pointed out enough that we should be familiar. He lost his own  kingdom.
I disagree, I think that the near future for these characters, at least within their own lifetimes, will be about reconstruction rather than politics.  Even Cett would be able to see that.  I think Spook will do an excellent job.

(Quote by Sheaman3773)
Quote
It was stated in FE that if a nobleman slept with a skaa woman, she had to be killed before she came to term. However, what happened with the reverse? What if a noblewoman took a skaa man to her bed? One could assume that such events wouldn't happen, but white women slept with black slaves during our own unfortunate period in history when the US had them, despite the illegality (and often lynching of both involved parties), though it is common knowledge that male slave owners slept with their female slaves much more. So, logically, it must have happened at least once in a thousand years. What then? Was the noblewoman killed, just as the skaa woman would be? I would think yes, but hey, it's worth an ask.
In the annotations for HOA, under one of the spoiler tags, it says that this happened to Slowswift's cousin.  She slept with a skaa man and was executed for it, generally bringing shame on their family.

Some people theorize that Brandon's going to add WoT to his overall cosmology, but I seriously doubt it.  It's not his series, so that would be rude!

I suppose a Gold misting would be extremely self-aware from seeing their life in hindsight, becoming a person of unprecedented character.  Also, being able to recall memories by asking the version of himself from the particular spot in time he'd want to remember.  I actually think the Electrum mistings are the ones who get shafted with no Atium to counter.

While I disagree with some of Shadowkiller's theories, he does have a good point about Brandon Sanderson being able to deceive us when it comes to the rules of magic.  There are a couple of blog posts that explain the concept of "Frames of Reference" which are about the difference between what the author knows, the readers know, and what each of the characters know.  Because of Atium's unique position as a god metal, it cannot (and should not) be assumed to obey the same rules as the others.  Because Atium has 16 possible alloys, it could be possible that an Atium misting could use all 17 metals derived from it, thus being a sort of Atium-born.  In fact, we've seen Brandon exploit this in-story, holding back more than a third of the metals and the third metallic art to use as plot twists later on.
(Which was brilliant, BTW)

Here's those blog posts:
http://atsiko.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/magicology-frames-of-reference-part-1/
http://atsiko.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/magicology-frames-of-reference-part-2/

P.S. How do you get the quote box to say who said it?  I just copied and pasted it.
And can you pothole a link?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 05:10:10 AM by Fireborn »
When to live is to die, and to die is to live, does either really matter?

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I know the answer to one of those questions for certain, at least!

Quote
4. We haven't seen Atium be used in Hemalurgy to steal anything other than the use of Atium.  Does it REALLY take Allomantic Temporal powers or just the use of Atium?

Actually, neither.

I asked Brandon about this, and he said that atium, given the right placement in a person, can steal any attribute. It's like a Hemalurgic wildcard. He noted that those tables in the Ars Arcanums are in-world creations. The Ministry made very expensive experiments to determine atium's Hemalurgic power. They discovered that it can, indeed, steal Allomantic Temporal powers. You can't really blame them for not discovering about the other abilities--the Ministry didn't want to waste its atium.
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