Timewaster's Guide Archive

If that's the case, then where's the shadow of the Inquisitor?

I'm pretty sure the shadow is of the Inquisitor. The exact passage is . . .

Vin turned to the side. There was another unfamiliar man
beside her, a young nobleman. He was a merchant, from the
looks of his suit—and a very wealthy one at that.

From what we know, Inquisitors are recruited from the nobility, and particularly the upper nobility. On top of that, the malatium shadow is standing next to her and the Inquisitor, instead of right next to The Lord Ruler, with the other shadow. To seal the deal, when Vin burns malatium during her fight with The Lord Ruler, he only has one shadow, the one she saw standing next to him in this scene.

I believe that Hemalurgy was the first magic system to exist in the land for the following reasons.

1 - What we get from the books makes it seem that there was no such thing as Allomancy until TLR took control.
    -It says in many places that Allomancy was given to the nobility by TLR after his rise to power.

Either that or Allomancy "arose with the mists" as Kelsier's legends support. (And we saw what happened with his other legends.) If this is the case, the mists came about either when The Lord Ruler Ascended, meaning he did not actually create Allomancy, just that it was there and he used it, or that Allomancy has been around since the Deepness was created.

2 - We saw that there were hints of Hemalurgy before TLR took control.
    -Alendi's many piercings.

There was also full-blown Feruchemy before The Lord Ruler Ascended. It was quite well known to it's people, as well.

3 - It is plausible that a previous HoA created Feruchemy.
    -The Worldbringers wanted to keep memories and prophecies of the HoA, therefore they would have wanted a way to keep things in tact, therefore they could have created Feruchemy to preserve things.

It's also possible that a previous Hero of Ages could have made Hemalurgy after Feruchemy. The Worldbringers could have come about as a combination between them having Feruchemy and the Well of Ascension being right in the middle of their homeland.

4 - The mists seem to react most dramatically to Hemalurgy.
    -The first time and the most often mists react are described when talking of Hemalurgists.
    -Vin, using Hemalurgy presumably, burns the mists.

Actually, the first time we see mist reacting to someone is when Kelsier first burns steel before he goes to rob house Venture, and if that one's too vague for you, he burns tin shortly after that and leaves no room for doubt. (pg. 91-92 The Final Empire.pdf)
If Vin uses Hemalurgy to burn the mists, why then does she have her earring out? We see by removing the metals on a Steel Inquisitor they lose their ability to use them when the linchpin spike is removed and they lose the Hemalurgic ability to stay alive.

5 - Other
    -EUOL said that the magics are connected through the mists.
    -Mists react most to Hemalurgy, so it would make sense for it to be the oldest.[/color]

Mists react about equally to Allomancy and Hemalurgy, from what I can  tell, but the strength of the Allomancy and/or Hemalurgy determines how much the mist is attracted/repelled. Being connected to the mists has little sway on which system came first, because they're all connected.

Chaos, the only problem I've got with that theory is if the mists are so essential to all the magic systems, why does the magic still work when the mists aren't out? Even if the mists are still there, and just invisible during the daylight, during pre-Ascension times Rashek and co.'s Feruchemy worked fine when Alendi said that they were above the Deepness/mists. (And welcome back by the way. I haven't seen you posting in a little while.)



--- Discussion continued from page 30 of the Comprehensive Hemalurgy Thread ---

In response to Chaos' very long late-night post. . .

I agree with almost all of what you've got there, Chaos, but there are a few points I'd like to make. Let's see . . .

. . . (Side note: We also don't see any mist spirits in MB1. The Lord Ruler could have a similar hold on Preservation to prevent the manifestation of such a mist spirit.). . .

Another possibility is that Preservation was just reluctant to do any more changing than it had to in order to keep Ruin at bay, and The Lord Ruler was just doing a good enough job of preserving the world that Preservation felt no need to manifest itself if it didn't have to.

The Lord Ruler, both knowing about Hemalurgy and of Ruin's existence [. . .], would not create an army of super-Mistborn like the Steel Inquisitors if he knew that Ruin could so easily get a hold on them. I think the logical explanation is either: 1. He was not aware of Ruin's power to influence metals, merely that it was killing mists or 2. The Lord Ruler was aware of that ability of Ruin, but, he never anticipated on actually dying.  . . .

I'm pretty sure that the second option here is a lot more plausible. The Lord Ruler was nothing if not arrogant, and Kwaan knew of the abilities of which you speak, and I think he would have told Rashek as much as he could, especially after he ascended.

Now that I think about it, Ruin must have some way to sense what people are thinking. He couldn't manipulate them, but merely be aware of them. . . .

Doesn't it say on the jacket flap of Hero of Ages that Elend and Vin must struggle to fight Ruin without even speaking of their plans to each other? If that's the case, I highly doubt Ruin could read minds, otherwise what's the point of not speaking? Perhaps Ruin could read minds while inside of the Well of Ascension, but not now that he's free. (Maybe because of the whole omnipotence factor the Well of Ascension seems to have.)

Other than that, I wholeheartedly agree with your post, it makes a lot of sense that Ruin couldn't affect the world while The Lord Ruler reigned.

Except for the mists. He said that had something to do with the foundation of the whole world and the magic systems.

As for the rest, I realize it could have been for simplicity's sake, but I was wondering if there was a deeper reasoning behind it. Guess I'll have to wait until the last annotation of Hero of Ages to know for sure.

But there are plenty of other metals on the Periodic Table of the Elements.  For example, we know why silver wasn't used in Allomancy, (Brandon couldn't find a good alloy of it, among other things.) but why isn't it used in Feruchemy? (Or Hemalurgy?)

Aha. Kelsier says that the gold shadows are just hallucinations, as are atium and malatium shadows. So I guess it'd just be a hallucination, and killing it would just be a very unpleasant experience for you.

Good points. Well, that makes this theory (mostly) useless, so it's time to venture back to the drawing board.

I still want to know what's up with The Lord Ruler and all the magic systems using the same metals though . . .

Touching back on one of the quotes VegasDev made . . .

So, anyway, the Eleventh Metal (malatium) matches with atium--both of which create images from other people. And, just like atium shadows are incorporeal, so are malatium shadows. That's why Vin couldn't touch the one she saw of the Lord Ruler.

Does that mean that electrum, gold's compliment, will have corporeal shadows? If so, what would happen if you touched/killed/maimed it?