Timewaster's Guide Archive

I love the pictures of the Japanese uniform! Now I have a much clearer mental picture of Elend.

I think that Alcatraz is in the universe of Adonalsium. Here's why: when Alcatraz finds the Smedry talent chart presumably drawn by Alcatraz Smedry the First, it has two largely unexplained names on it: Identity and Possibility. Identity is represented by the Librarians, who want everything to stay the same. Possibility might be represented by the Smedrys, who find ways to use ridiculous talents in beautiful ways. Alcatraz the First's tomb even makes a comment about how the ancients tried to call down the power of divinity or of creation. (This is all in the second book.)

Anyway, I think that Identity and Possibility are the two shards that came to Alcatraz's planet (or ours. ), and that their battle is similar to Preservation vs. Ruin, except that Identity wants absolute, predictable sameness, and Possibility wants growth and humor. Maybe Possibility was a girl shard and Preservation was in love with her. That would definitely explain why Preservation had such insight into the possibilities of creating sentient life and eventually one person--the Hero of Ages, Sazed--with both the powers of Preservation and of Ruin.

It's also interesting that just like Allomancy draws on the power of creation, so, apparently, do the Smedry talents.

I think that the Shards we have encountered are Identity, Possibility, Preservation, Ruin, the Dor, and the opposite of the Dor (the "water" that dissolved Elantrians). I don't think we've seen the Warbreaker shards, if they exist, yet.

I also think that there are 16 shards total, structured similarly to the Allomantic table. There are a lot of hints in Hero of Ages about how the number 16 is somehow associated with the fundamental structure of the universe.

I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this. In Hero of Ages, it's discovered that the mists are Snapping people--exactly 16 out of a hundred, meaning that 1 in every 100 people is made a misting of each of the 16 metals. One in sixteen of the people who fall ill become Atium mistings and are sick much longer. Until the people discovered why the mists made people sick, the Atium mistings were called Mistfallen.

Here's my question: if Atium is a God metal, not truly one of the sixteen allomantic metals, why did anyone become an Atium misting through the mist sickness? Does that mean that one of the other metals was not included in the mist-snapping?

If Preservation just switched out, say, aluminum or duralumin snapping for Atium snapping, then that was a brilliant, brilliant move on his part. The Atium mistings were the final blow to Ruin when they burned the massive Atium stores of the Lord Ruler.

Has Brandon said anything about this? Or did I miss something in the books?

Edit: Here's another question: duralumin never really "burns" away, nor does aluminum, as far as we know. It's like a catalyst. I'm curious whether Nicrosil and Chromium burn away... Could a chromium misting affect a nicrosil misting? And vice-versa?