Timewaster's Guide Archive

And I have a question, for I can't really find it on TWG, and everybody's talking about it... What is exactly "the Shard"?

"Shard" is a generic term for Ruin, Preservation, and a number of other similarly powerful beings/forces that exist on the various planets most of Brandon's books are set on.  It is mentioned in at least one of the chapter headings in Hero of Ages, along with the being that all the Shards originally came from (Adonalsium*).  Adonalsium, as much as we can figure out so far, appears to be the equivalent of God.  He was broken into a bunch of Shards a long time ago, and the settings of Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, the upcoming Stormlight Archives, and a few more planned for the future all feature one or more Shards of Adonalsium, each of which has a major impact on the nature of the setting and that setting's magic system.

* Hero of Ages has a typo in the name, calling it Adonasium.  Brandon has repeatedly stated this is a mistake, and the correction somehow got missed before the printing, and it's supposed to be Adonalsium.

We know that power stacking works with Mistings or Mistborn (e.g. Hemalurgy increases already present powers.)  It seems to me like stacking with multiple spikes should work as well, if you can find multiple bind points (whatever those are) which will give you the same powers.

Stacking multiples of the same spike is how Koloss were created, so that definitely does work.  Granted, that was with a type of spike that didn't steal any allomantic power, but it was the same spike stealing the same attribute.

I've been trying to get an answer on a few bizarre Allomantic Savants for a while and I still haven't gotten anything definite.  I might just have to wait and see if I can ask at JordanCon myself, but if you want to spend time on some rather less serious questions:

Assume a mad scientist has access to modern medical technology, an unlimited supply of all allomantic metals, and as many willing mistborn test subjects as he needs, and is absolutely determined that this chart titled "Benefits of Being an Allomantic Savant" must be completed.  What would he determine for the metals listed below?  Alternatively, if Sazed were writing such a table down honestly with his full knowledge granted by possession of two Shards, what would he write?

In approximate order by increasing absurdity:
pewter
gold
electrum
duralumin
chromium
nicrosil
atium
malatium
aluminum
lerasium

For aluminum, the mad scientist pokes a feeding tube down the mistborn's throat and pumps in a constant influx of the metal so that the test subject is able to continuously burn it despite constantly using it up.  If necessary a second tube is used to pump out excess water to prevent damage from an overfilled stomach.

Make sure you get to the last four, and especially the last two, even if you have to skip some of the others to fit them in, and present the solution for how an aluminum savant might be created in the first place.

I wasn't talking about the fantasy elements when I called the fight scenes ridiculous. I'm talking about the posturing. Anime would be far more entertaining if the characters would just shut the fetch up and fight.

Yes, a lot of anime does do that, and it is ridiculous.  On the other hand that's usually a combination of adapting from a manga (where dialog is cheap because it takes up space rather than time, and a lot less of it than a detailed fight scene) and trying to not catch up to the manga too quickly.  There are anime shows out there that have sensible amounts of dialog in their fight scenes, and neither of those two factors would apply to an anime based on Mistborn.  I don't watch all that many anime shows myself, but I personally know of two that don't have that problem: Code Geass, and Avatar: The Last Airbender (ok, this one may not technically be an anime because it's really American-made, but it's in the anime style).

It's a common problem for anime, but it's far from universal and is due in large part to the nature of the usual source material.  I will note that both of the examples I just gave were not based on any manga; they were, in fact, both original to the TV medium.  Mistborn, as a purely text novel that is already completed, is different enough from manga as a source that I think it would also not suffer from this problem if converted to anime.

What do you think I am, a mathematician? Not even close. I'm a computer science major.

Little known fact: Computers run on magic, not numbers like people think.

You obviously haven't gotten very far in your course work.  If you'd graduated, you would know that computers run on special smoke.

Mistborn, along with Elantris and Warbreaker (and the upcoming Stormlight Archive series), is set in Brandon's fictional universe that he calls the Cosmere.  The major common element to these books is the Shards of Adonalsium.  The evidence so far seems to indicate that Adonalsium was roughly equivalent to God, though whether he actually created the universe is unknown.  Adonalsium is now broken into a bunch of Shards, which are scattered over various planets.  Ruin is one Shard, Preservation is another.  There is at least one Shard in the world of Elantris, and it is responsible for the Dor's power.  There is a Shard called Endowment (Brandon revealed this name in a Q&A) on the Warbreaker world that is responsible for the Returned and probably the whole Awakening magic system.

There are some common characteristics of the Shards that a smart and attentive reader might notice.  There is also one character, who has so far always been minor and has not had any point of view scenes, who is able to travel between the various worlds that have Shards and has appeared in all three of Elantris, Warbreaker, and the Mistborn trilogy.  Brandon has confirmed that this is actually the same person, not just reusing the name.

Brandon has stated that he has plans for potentially two trilogies of new Mistborn books, but it will be quite a while before he gets to them.  The first would be several centuries after Hero of Ages and would feature an industrialized somewhat modern world - with Allomancy and Feruchemy.  The genetic heritage of Allomancy would be extremely widespread but diluted, resulting in Mistings being very common but weak and full Mistborn almost entirely relegated to historical legend.  Feruchemy would be similarly diluted due to the efforts of The Lord Ruler and Ruin before and during the current trilogy, with the result of Feruchemical "Mistings" appearing (people with just one Feruchemical power) and full Feruchemists with all 16 powers being about as rare as Mistborn.  The other trilogy would be set after an additional time gap, going into a more futuristic spacefaring society.

You haven't gone back to the Miles Vorkosigan series to actually read about the title character?

Not that Hobb is bad, but I personally think Bujold is better.