Author Topic: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused  (Read 11052 times)

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #15 on: August 10, 2010, 11:53:12 PM »
Leeching is a superior ability, but hand to hand combat between Allomancers is rather rare when Thugs aren't involved, especially between Mistborn.
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #16 on: August 11, 2010, 02:39:22 AM »
I think in the case of Mistborn fighting each other, leeching would be useless, actually.  If you're touching someone, THEY'RE TOUCHING YOU TOO!  "Oh crap, we just burned each other out!"
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #17 on: August 11, 2010, 01:42:12 PM »
How often did Vin, or Kelsier get into hand-to-hand combat with anyone NOT a Thug?  For that matter, how many times did they really get into hand-to-hand with a Thug?  As someone mentioned, touching an opponent in a fight is NOT easy to do (especially if it had the added weakness of needing to touch their skin).  Think of how often Mistborn shoot away into the night on something metal, and realize that if the "game" were Don't Let Him Touch Me, it would be fairly simple to put dozens of feet between you in mere seconds.

However, a Leacher with good sneaking skills would be able to take out just about any Allomancer at just about any time.

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #18 on: August 11, 2010, 05:59:52 PM »
When it comes to the logic behind the mistfallen, atium replaces cadmium for the purposes of the mistsickness.

I'm not sure I follow.  Elaborate.
Preservation operates by using the number 16 to show what is his influence.  So when the mists started snapping people in HoA, an equal portion of those people became a misting of each metal.  This left Preservation with a problem, he needed there to be atium mistings, but adding that into the mix would make 17 types of mistings instead of his preferred number of 16 to let Elend know what was going on.  So he, for the purposes of the mistsickness, replaced cadmium with atium because nobody knew about cadmium.  That let there be 1/16th of those taken by the mistsickness be atium mistings, or the mistfallen, so that Elend would clue into the pattern and have his super awesome army at the end.  This didn't alter the structure of allomancy at all, just the perception of it.

But how do atium-mistings exist in the first place? That messes up Preservation's magic number of 16 anyway, making it so there are 17 different types of mistings. And there are no specific Larasium-mistings, everyone and anyone can burn Larasium.

I get that Atium and Larasium are God metals, so the normal rules don't necessarily apply. I also understand that the God metals are powerful enough that they can be used in their opponent's magic system. The possibility of a Larasium spike being used to steal a certain power (or, IMO, all powers) from a victim doesn't bother me. And since Feruchemy can use Atium to store and tap age, I'd assume Larasium-minds are possible, which again, is completely fine.

But how can there be Allomancers who can use nothing but atium? These are people who were born with the correct genetic coding to allow them to burn metals to gain access to a small part of the power of Preservation. And yet, they use their Preservation power to burn Ruin, and nothing else?

No, to me, it doesn't seem to fit that there is a small subset of people in Preservation's magic system who don't use Preservation's power at all. If it was just mistborn, fine. They are so Allomantically gifted they can use the other God metal. If it was said that all mistings can burn their one basic metal, and atium too, I'd accept that. That would just mean that burning atium Allomantically requires some small bit of Allomantic potential. Even if it was set up so that anyone in the world, regardless of their Allomantic ability or lack of it, could burn atium, I'd accept that. It would fit in with Larasium just fine there. But to make it so that a small group exists that can exclusively burn atium confuses me.


And, why did Preservation not reveal any full-out Mistborn in Elend's army? Why not make all the Mistborn sick for 16 days instead of the Seers? They could have gotten rid off all the atium stockpile just as well, and killed more Koloss in the process.


And everyone here keeps referring to Cadmium as the metal replaced by atium for the purposes of Preservation's mistsickness. Is this just an example, or are we told anywhere that Cadmium specifically was replaced? How do we know it wasn't Nicrosil or Bendalloy that was substituted. Or the aluminum or duralumin gnats? Is there a quote that shows Preservation substituted atium mistings into the mistfallen? Or is that just speculation?

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #19 on: August 11, 2010, 06:24:56 PM »
When it comes to the logic behind the mistfallen, atium replaces cadmium for the purposes of the mistsickness.

I'm not sure I follow.  Elaborate.
Preservation operates by using the number 16 to show what is his influence.  So when the mists started snapping people in HoA, an equal portion of those people became a misting of each metal.  This left Preservation with a problem, he needed there to be atium mistings, but adding that into the mix would make 17 types of mistings instead of his preferred number of 16 to let Elend know what was going on.  So he, for the purposes of the mistsickness, replaced cadmium with atium because nobody knew about cadmium.  That let there be 1/16th of those taken by the mistsickness be atium mistings, or the mistfallen, so that Elend would clue into the pattern and have his super awesome army at the end.  This didn't alter the structure of allomancy at all, just the perception of it.

But how do atium-mistings exist in the first place? That messes up Preservation's magic number of 16 anyway, making it so there are 17 different types of mistings. And there are no specific Larasium-mistings, everyone and anyone can burn Larasium.

I get that Atium and Larasium are God metals, so the normal rules don't necessarily apply. I also understand that the God metals are powerful enough that they can be used in their opponent's magic system. The possibility of a Larasium spike being used to steal a certain power (or, IMO, all powers) from a victim doesn't bother me. And since Feruchemy can use Atium to store and tap age, I'd assume Larasium-minds are possible, which again, is completely fine.

But how can there be Allomancers who can use nothing but atium? These are people who were born with the correct genetic coding to allow them to burn metals to gain access to a small part of the power of Preservation. And yet, they use their Preservation power to burn Ruin, and nothing else?

No, to me, it doesn't seem to fit that there is a small subset of people in Preservation's magic system who don't use Preservation's power at all. If it was just mistborn, fine. They are so Allomantically gifted they can use the other God metal. If it was said that all mistings can burn their one basic metal, and atium too, I'd accept that. That would just mean that burning atium Allomantically requires some small bit of Allomantic potential. Even if it was set up so that anyone in the world, regardless of their Allomantic ability or lack of it, could burn atium, I'd accept that. It would fit in with Larasium just fine there. But to make it so that a small group exists that can exclusively burn atium confuses me.


And, why did Preservation not reveal any full-out Mistborn in Elend's army? Why not make all the Mistborn sick for 16 days instead of the Seers? They could have gotten rid off all the atium stockpile just as well, and killed more Koloss in the process.


And everyone here keeps referring to Cadmium as the metal replaced by atium for the purposes of Preservation's mistsickness. Is this just an example, or are we told anywhere that Cadmium specifically was replaced? How do we know it wasn't Nicrosil or Bendalloy that was substituted. Or the aluminum or duralumin gnats? Is there a quote that shows Preservation substituted atium mistings into the mistfallen? Or is that just speculation?

I'm reading as:

Preservation replaced Cadmium with Atium... not just in the Allomancy table but throughout the world, meaning Cadmium isn't actually a metal in the first 3 books, but will be in future. The effect is similar, Atium shows you the future and Cadmium lets them slow down time, so it almost fits. Anyone who was an Atium misting became a Cadmium misting when Sazed remade the world, I guess...

I thought Mistborn would've been better but if you think about it, 16 metals + a chance of Mistborn would give 17 and that doesn't fit properly. I suppose potential Mistborn can't be Snapped/affected by mistsickness.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2010, 06:26:43 PM by Aaants »

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #20 on: August 11, 2010, 07:17:41 PM »
I'm reading as:

Preservation replaced Cadmium with Atium... not just in the Allomancy table but throughout the world, meaning Cadmium isn't actually a metal in the first 3 books, but will be in future. The effect is similar, Atium shows you the future and Cadmium lets them slow down time, so it almost fits. Anyone who was an Atium misting became a Cadmium misting when Sazed remade the world, I guess...

That is a major restructuring of his power. It would involve replacing a basic metal with a God Metal, and removing any power at all from Cadmium or it's alloy. I don't think that's what happened.

No, it seems people are saying that Preservation just ignored Cadmium-mistings when he sent the mistsickness (though I'm not sure what he did with Cerrobend-mistings), and Snapped the atium-mistings instead.

Fireborn even said:
Quote
This didn't alter the structure of allomancy at all, just the perception of it.



I just don't understand how Atium-mistings exist at all. And we know they existed before the mistsickness returned, because the Lord Ruler was testing certain Obligators for a long time before the end of his reign.


Quote
I thought Mistborn would've been better but if you think about it, 16 metals + a chance of Mistborn would give 17 and that doesn't fit properly. I suppose potential Mistborn can't be Snapped/affected by mistsickness.

No, that's 16 different types of mistings, plus a much smaller group who have access to the 16 basic metals. It doesn't break the 16-rule to me, since you can just as easily consider Mistborn to be mistings, just all 16 types of mistings in one.

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #21 on: August 11, 2010, 08:07:32 PM »
No, that's 16 different types of mistings, plus a much smaller group who have access to the 16 basic metals. It doesn't break the 16-rule to me, since you can just as easily consider Mistborn to be mistings, just all 16 types of mistings in one.

What I meant there is the numbers falling to the sickness were so precise that Mistborn couldn't be involved; whether you class them as misting or not, they're not one of the 16 variations, so would make an odd result. The book continuously says how exact the numbers were, it doesn't leave scope for any Mistborn, regardless of how rare they are.

The rest of what you say could easily be true, I just don't know :) - hence the thread I guess!

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #22 on: August 11, 2010, 08:35:16 PM »
My understanding of this (and I think this comes from an annotation, but it may also just be me making stuff up) is that what all the people called "atium" was not really atium.  It was cadmium, and everyone was using the wrong name.  The actual atium, which is the body of Ati (the shard) is something else.

Therefore, there are correctly 16 sets of mistings, and in addition to that, there are the two god metals, atium and larasium.

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #23 on: August 11, 2010, 08:47:20 PM »
And there are no specific Larasium-mistings, everyone and anyone can burn Larasium.

It's important to note that people don't actually burn lerasium. Elend never burned lerasium, he ingested it, which gave him a permanent link to Preservation (ie: making him an Allomancer). This is separate from actually burning lerasium as an Allomancer. When you burn lerasium, that doubles your Allomantic power.

A subtle difference, I know, but an important one.

I get that Atium and Larasium are God metals, so the normal rules don't necessarily apply. I also understand that the God metals are powerful enough that they can be used in their opponent's magic system. The possibility of a Larasium spike being used to steal a certain power (or, IMO, all powers) from a victim doesn't bother me. And since Feruchemy can use Atium to store and tap age, I'd assume Larasium-minds are possible, which again, is completely fine.

Atium spikes actually steal any power (if used in the correct positions, of course) ;)

And everyone here keeps referring to Cadmium as the metal replaced by atium for the purposes of Preservation's mistsickness. Is this just an example, or are we told anywhere that Cadmium specifically was replaced? How do we know it wasn't Nicrosil or Bendalloy that was substituted. Or the aluminum or duralumin gnats? Is there a quote that shows Preservation substituted atium mistings into the mistfallen? Or is that just speculation?

It's cadmium because it and its alloy take the Temporal External Metals slot on the Table of Allomantic Metals. Preservation also chose cadmium because it's rarer on Scadrial.

My understanding of this (and I think this comes from an annotation, but it may also just be me making stuff up) is that what all the people called "atium" was not really atium.  It was cadmium, and everyone was using the wrong name.  The actual atium, which is the body of Ati (the shard) is something else.

Therefore, there are correctly 16 sets of mistings, and in addition to that, there are the two god metals, atium and larasium.

No, cadmium performs an effect very distinct to the atium we see in the books. Reading from my Table, "Burning cadmium subtly Pulls on time in a bubble around the Allomancer, stretching it and making it pass more slowly." This is not what ever happens when one burns atium.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2010, 08:54:07 PM by Chaos2651 »
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #24 on: August 11, 2010, 08:52:56 PM »
Mistborn with the leeching power, I think, would be very interesting.  First of all, most allomancers would most likely cover themselves from head to toe, as (I believe) the skin must be touched for it to work.   Touching another's skin and burning the metal before they can  would be a quick and easy way to end a fight, but dangerous, because they would have just as much a chance of burning it first...
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #25 on: August 11, 2010, 09:43:27 PM »
It's important to note that people don't actually burn lerasium. Elend never burned lerasium, he ingested it, which gave him a permanent link to Preservation (ie: making him an Allomancer). This is separate from actually burning lerasium as an Allomancer. When you burn lerasium, that doubles your Allomantic power.

A subtle difference, I know, but an important one.

Wow. I didn't know that. That does change things. That actually really helps. I'd always assumed that since everyone had a greater part of Preservation than Ruin in them, they instinctively recognized Larasium enough to Allomantically burn it. Almost as if Larasium did most of the burning for them. I didn't know that ingesting it was enough.

So do we know why people don't get some power out of simply ingesting atium?

Atium spikes actually steal any power (if used in the correct positions, of course) ;)

Didn't know this either. I don't suppose you know if atium has it's own correct position do you? Or do you simply substitute it for any other spike? Can a atium spike imbued with an Allomantic physical metal power be inserted in a pewter-point?

I wouldn't be surprised if you don't know though. I don't think we know enough of about Hemalurgy to make any kind of accurate guess.

It's cadmium because it and its alloy take the Temporal External Metals slot on the Table of Allomantic Metals. Preservation also chose cadmium because it's rarer on Scadrial.

But again, has this been confirmed, or is it just assumed? I know in the books they thought Atium to be a Temporal External Metal, but is that why we think Preservation chose Cadmium to ignore in favor of Atium, or is it stated in a Q&A or annotation somewhere?

My understanding of this (and I think this comes from an annotation, but it may also just be me making stuff up) is that what all the people called "atium" was not really atium.  It was cadmium, and everyone was using the wrong name.  The actual atium, which is the body of Ati (the shard) is something else.

Therefore, there are correctly 16 sets of mistings, and in addition to that, there are the two god metals, atium and larasium.

No, cadmium performs an effect very distinct to the atium we see in the books. Reading from my Table, "Burning cadmium subtly Pulls on time in a bubble around the Allomancer, stretching it and making it pass more slowly." This is not what ever happens when one burns atium.

Yeah, I agree here. People were using atium the whole time, they just thought it to be another basic metal (and malatium it's alloy), and didn't know it was a God Metal.

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #26 on: August 11, 2010, 09:48:59 PM »
I'm reading as:

Preservation replaced Cadmium with Atium... not just in the Allomancy table but throughout the world, meaning Cadmium isn't actually a metal in the first 3 books, but will be in future. The effect is similar, Atium shows you the future and Cadmium lets them slow down time, so it almost fits. Anyone who was an Atium misting became a Cadmium misting when Sazed remade the world, I guess...

That is a major restructuring of his power. It would involve replacing a basic metal with a God Metal, and removing any power at all from Cadmium or it's alloy. I don't think that's what happened.

No, it seems people are saying that Preservation just ignored Cadmium-mistings when he sent the mistsickness (though I'm not sure what he did with Cerrobend-mistings), and Snapped the atium-mistings instead.

Fireborn even said:
Quote
This didn't alter the structure of allomancy at all, just the perception of it.



I just don't understand how Atium-mistings exist at all. And we know they existed before the mistsickness returned, because the Lord Ruler was testing certain Obligators for a long time before the end of his reign.


Quote
I thought Mistborn would've been better but if you think about it, 16 metals + a chance of Mistborn would give 17 and that doesn't fit properly. I suppose potential Mistborn can't be Snapped/affected by mistsickness.

No, that's 16 different types of mistings, plus a much smaller group who have access to the 16 basic metals. It doesn't break the 16-rule to me, since you can just as easily consider Mistborn to be mistings, just all 16 types of mistings in one.
Bolded line by me.
I like how you say that as if I'm some kind of authority on the subject.  Which I'm really not.

I actually brought up the atium burning issue in another topic.  I have the same problem with it you do.

Well, didn't some of the soldiers die from the mistsickness?  I'm assuming that those might have been the mistborn.  A shame they died, but it's not like Preservation could fine tune the mists for them.
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #27 on: August 11, 2010, 10:16:49 PM »
It's important to note that people don't actually burn lerasium. Elend never burned lerasium, he ingested it, which gave him a permanent link to Preservation (ie: making him an Allomancer). This is separate from actually burning lerasium as an Allomancer. When you burn lerasium, that doubles your Allomantic power.

A subtle difference, I know, but an important one.

Wow. I didn't know that. That does change things. That actually really helps. I'd always assumed that since everyone had a greater part of Preservation than Ruin in them, they instinctively recognized Larasium enough to Allomantically burn it. Almost as if Larasium did most of the burning for them. I didn't know that ingesting it was enough.

So do we know why people don't get some power out of simply ingesting atium?

Brandon's RAFO'd it, but I'm sure there is some sort of other effect.

Atium spikes actually steal any power (if used in the correct positions, of course) ;)

Didn't know this either. I don't suppose you know if atium has it's own correct position do you? Or do you simply substitute it for any other spike? Can a atium spike imbued with an Allomantic physical metal power be inserted in a pewter-point?

I wouldn't be surprised if you don't know though. I don't think we know enough of about Hemalurgy to make any kind of accurate guess.

Atium can act like Hemalurgic wild card and can be substituted for any spike, I'm fairly certain.

It's cadmium because it and its alloy take the Temporal External Metals slot on the Table of Allomantic Metals. Preservation also chose cadmium because it's rarer on Scadrial.

But again, has this been confirmed, or is it just assumed? I know in the books they thought Atium to be a Temporal External Metal, but is that why we think Preservation chose Cadmium to ignore in favor of Atium, or is it stated in a Q&A or annotation somewhere?

I do believe that it is confirmed. I don't have a link for you, so feel free to say [citation needed] ;) But I do believe that Preservation did it for those reasons.
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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #28 on: August 11, 2010, 11:26:27 PM »
Brandon's RAFO'd it, but I'm sure there is some sort of other effect.

Interesting. Now I'm trying to think what it could do.  ???

And this begs the question: Are there Larasium-mistings? We've obviously seen mistings for the other God Metal (that's what spawned this whole discussion ;D). And we've seen mistings that get no benefit whatsoever from their metals (Aluminum and Duralumin Gnats), so it should be possible. Although I suppose they could just eat a bead, wait for it to kick in and make them a full Mistborn, then burn any others. And it is all hypothetical, since I doubt anyone will ever get their hands on that much Larasium anyway.

Atium can act like Hemalurgic wild card and can be substituted for any spike, I'm fairly certain.

I believe you, but do you know where this is said? I'd like to see what else was said on the subject. If you can't remember where, that's fine.

I do believe that it is confirmed. I don't have a link for you, so feel free to say [citation needed] ;) But I do believe that Preservation did it for those reasons.

All right. I wanted to see what else was confirmed or discussed along with the Cadmium replacement, but I'll live.

As far as I can remember, the "Larasium Alloys make Mistings" theory was being treated as fact, but then discovered to not have been directly confirmed anywhere. It's an extremely likely theory, but still a theory, last I checked.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like how you say that as if I'm some kind of authority on the subject.  Which I'm really not.

;D Well, your explanation sounded plausible enough to me, mainly since it didn't involve Preservation making any overhauls on his magic system, just him changing the way the mistsickness worked to try to send a message to Elend.

And since I just copy+pasted your text, I wanted to give you credit and let other people see where I grabbed it from, but I didn't bother to get the Quote-link that the site can provide.

I actually brought up the atium burning issue in another topic.  I have the same problem with it you do.

Oh really? Did you get any satisfactory answers?

Well, didn't some of the soldiers die from the mistsickness?  I'm assuming that those might have been the mistborn.  A shame they died, but it's not like Preservation could fine tune the mists for them.

I guess they could have been Mistborn, but I don't think so, personally. More likely people who were unable to bear the attempted Snapping for some other reason. Things like heart or lung defects, the old and the young, people who were already sick with some other normal disease, or whatever else. They just couldn't handle the stress of the mistsickness.

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Re: [Spoilers] Just finished Mistborn... confused
« Reply #29 on: August 12, 2010, 01:29:03 AM »
Quote
I believe you, but do you know where this is said? I'd like to see what else was said on the subject. If you can't remember where, that's fine.

It could have been mentioned in the Mistborn 3 Spoiler Thread. I'd look there. Though, that is essentially all he said on the subject.
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