Timewaster's Guide Archive

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I don't have a good memory for actors off the top of my head; I just read through the entire thread going, "Oh, yeah, I know that guy - he played ___."

But if Mistborn was a movie, the trailer and the first film would both have to start with a narrator whispering (or just saying in a low voice), "Ash fell from the sky."  And of course you'd need all kinds of flashbacks and things showing the epic backstory.  Lord of the Rings length?  No, the backstory needs to be as long as Fellowship of the Ring was.  The whole movie would take five hours if it was done right.  As much as I'd love to see a Mistborn movie series, I have a sinking feeling that if it's done at all, it won't be done right.

Maybe I'm a little like the Elend from the first book (his character changed a lot in the second and third).  Reading a book at a party is exactly the kind of thing I do.

*Big spoilers for Mistborn and Alcatraz below*

I hadn't heard about that title.  Very interesting.  Particularly since the title theme thus far has been "Alcatraz Versus..."

Does this mean the Knights are corrupt?  Or controlled by the as-yet-unknown Fourth Sect Of Evil Librarians?  (actually the undead ones are pretty ambivalent, as evil characters go.  In some very weird ways they remind me of Kandra.)

Anyway, in the Hoid Topic I ended up drawing quite a few parallels between Alcatraz and the Mistborn trilogy, and I think I might have been on to something with all the similarities in the magic systems.  Like Preservation and Ruin, the "metaphysics" of Alcatraz's world involve two entities: "Identity" and "Possibility".  Judging by names, neither seems to be particularly good or evil in alignment*, but there may still be some sort of critical "thing" that our hero has to do with them.

Vin, the Allomancer who could reach all four planes of the magic system in Scadrial (okay, any Mistborn could do it, but she was good at it), faced a critical choice in the middle book in the series.  She essentially made a decision that determined whether Preservation or Ruin would come out ahead, even if she didn't know what she was deciding.

Perhaps Alcatraz, whose Talent somehow spans all four quadrants of the "Wheel," will be facing a similar choice in a near-future installment.  As a narrator, he even hinted in "Scrivener's Bones" that he would end up causing the problem before he solved it.

As for the mysteriously awesome lens Alcatraz found in the tomb, does this not remind you of when Vin and Kelsier were trying to figure out what malatium did?  Ditto duralumin (sans Kelsier).  It actually makes a lot of sense for this "ultimate lens" to function as a sort of amplifier for all other lenses, come to think of it.

I don't think we'll see any Sazed-like ascensions to Godhood, though.  Not only has there been zero foreshadowing of such an event in this series (while Mistborn, in retrospect, had quite a bit), it just wouldn't make a whole lot of sense anyway.

*Although "Identity" is probably concerned with keeping things identifiable -- or mathematically equal to themselves, which would make it pretty close to Preservation, though perhaps with a more neutral or even Librarian personality.  Similarly, "Possibility" speaks of the positive side of change the same way "Ruin" had a somewhat negative spin on it.  Maybe the Alcatraz series is going to try going in the other direction -- letting Yune be the good guy while Ashera causes problems.  Ike fights for his friends.  Sorry.

So, there seem to be a ton of parallels between Alcatraz and Mistborn, some of which may not be so obvious to me so maybe I missed them.

• A nonsense phrase from Final Empire (when Breeze was trying to make up something using Spook's vernacular, IIRC) was used as a "gibberish" sentence for some character in Alcatraz whose name escapes me.  This was obviously an in-joke, but might it be a clue as well?
• Time/Space/Matter/Knowledge looks a lot like Temporal/Physical/Enhancement/Mental.
• Even the format these forms of magic are presented in -- wheels -- is the same.
• Our hero just happens to have the unique and incredibly rare ability that spans all four quadrants, and then some.
• Plus there are outer circles of seemingly divine power; Identity/Possibility looks a lot like Preservation/Ruin.  Kazan even says it's "Metaphysics."
• Glass and sand are awfully important in the Alcatraz series, sort of like metal in Mistborn.
• Our hero is made aware of a semi-ambiguous "Prophecy" which he/she assumes applies to him/her.
• Bloodforged lenses.  Hemalurgy.  Similar, you think?
• Both the Incarna and Ruin are somehow able to manipulate written language.  Mortals are a little annoyed with both the Incarna and Ruin.
• Alcatraz makes an offhand comment about how epic stories should be told in trilogies.

Okay, I know some of those points are kind of a stretch, but what I'm wondering is, are these parallels the direct result of some Brandonverse-related relationship between Mistborn and Alcatraz, or is Brandon just ripping himself off?  (And if the former, then Hoid really ought to be in Alcatraz.  Could he have been the security guard on the airplane who acted confused when he found a "kid" instead of a "terrorist"?)

EDIT: Crud, I just realized I used the word "so" three times in the first sentence.   

Has anyone suggested Keanu Reeves for Kelsier?  I hope not because it's a bad idea.  Hmm, if only we could find a ten-year-old mature enough to play Vin...

I dunno, I think Feruchemy is a lot more versatile...

I wouldn't mind being weak for extended periods because that's how I usually am so it wouldn't make much difference.  Allomancers can't heal rapidly with Gold or make themselves older or younger with Atium.  And it'd be fun to store Weight and release Strength at the same time, allowing yourself to fly around like the Hulk (he jumps far, very very far).  And you can always store an attribute any time you're not using it -- I'd only release the Strength for landings and jumps and go back to storing it while in the air.

All in all, I think the known Feruchemical powers are fairly evenly matched with the known Allomantic powers, and there are a lot more Feruchemical powers we don't even know about!

Ahem.  Hemalurgy sucks because you have to go to all that nasty trouble of killing people.  Uh...I mean...Hemalurgy is bad for ETHICAL reasons!  Yeah.  Plus, like, anyone can use Hemalurgy.  At least it seems to be a universal power -- anyone with the ability to kill something with a spike can use Hemalurgy.  Boooooring.