The Comprehensive Hemalurgy Thread

[Comatose]

You guys are forgetting: Alendi was probably a hemalurgist (hero piercings) and he could NOT push and pull metals, or see the future.  I also don't think he was powerful because of increased allomatic-like strength, because Kelsier says he never mentions anything even relating to allomancy in the logbook.  The only thing even remotely allomantic he does is hear to pulsing of the well, which Vin only does with the help of her hemalurgic earring.  If allomancy and feruchemy were THAT similar, then They would have noticed similarites, from the log book, it doesn't seem like Alendi had any special powers, except for being able to hear the well, but Kwaan still thought that Rashek, a capable feruchemist, a match for  or even more powerful than a steel inquisitor( if Sazed had morea attributes, he would have won, he was stronger than marsh, and Rashek was probably stronger than Sazed), would need a miracle to defeat Alendi.  I think we should establish that Alendi is the only cahracter so afar who uses only feruchmy (with the exception of Vin's mother possibly) and all the others use a combination of powers.

In my reread I also realized that Vin's mother used one of her OWN earings to give to Vin, which means she had the same hemalurgic powers Vin has, only twice as many because she has to, which is why she could hear ruin.

ANd I'm pretty sure I already brought up the misting per spike theory with the inquisitors, but we decided it didn't work, because you'd need so many mistings, plus a mistborn all extremely rare and noble, to create one inquisitor, also, I'm pretty sure hemalurgy and allomancy are more separate than that, I don't think you need allomancers to use hemalurgy.

And what about the keepers keepers, the inquisitors dragged off all the bodies (dead and alive) what are they planning to do with them??

[Vintage]

Yes, good question... and I have something else to pound about :

She turned to the side, numbly realizing where she knelt. The pool glowed beside her, just inches from where Elend had fallen. Some of his blood had dribbled into the pool, though it didn't mix with the liquid metal.

To be found on p.569...

Tell me this is not interesting. And don't forget about all those broken potery pieces. Elend has a whole one in his hand right now. What I see, here, might have happen with Rashek as well. Remember what the Steel Ministry taught those nobles ? That they had the gifts of Mistborn because they helped TLR at the beginning ? And why do I post this here ? Blood into the liquid metal, that's why. Let's picture this.

We are in Rashek's days. He doesn't trust any feruchemist anymore, worldbringer or not. He can hardly trust the Terris people either because they are responsible of the spreading of the "modified" Terris religion. One of the things that happen when a religion spreads, it that it makes converts. And somehow, Rashek surrounded himself with those. They were looking for a savior and here he is. He knows everything there is to know about the Hero of Ages, so he makes certain he fits the picture and those poor people (he despised them mind you) follow him blind folded. They all come to the Well but then The Mist Spirit does not want Rashek to fight against the Well's power, because he is not THE Hero. So he does what he did with Vin and Elend. He slashes open the bellies of all those followers... and their blood drips into the Well. Rashek is torn. He has to have followers, but the Well is there with its powers. If he takes it, can he not "redo" everything. So like Vin, he hesitates only a moment before entering the pool. As the liquid metal and all the blood drips of the people gets in him, he discovers the real power. Thanks to his blood bath, and to the metal he has ingested, he becomes the first Hemalurgist, maybe the only one if it is through hemalurgy that he creates the Inquisitors and the Koloss (maybe the Kandra, as long as we do not find metal in them under a form or another, I question this). He will keep the power and recreate everything. When he gets out of the Well, he sees the Mist Spirit and understand, somehow, that the use of those beads will help his dying followers. So, in a hurry, he brakes as many potery he can find and gives the beads to the people. They all become Mistborn. The power is pure. The Lord Ruler does not create Mistborn, but let's say that he acts as a wise woman. Then he may create whatever he wants or he did already.

When the Mistborns heals he makes them believe they owe their lives to him, and that he has blessed them in a way only a god can do. They believe him. He might not have told them not to mix with other people then, other people meaning those that are not Mistborn. He might have learn overtime that this dilutes the power and afterwards, he forbeeds them to reproduce with "lower borned" people.

Plausible ?

[Vambram]

Yes, indeed, Vintage. That theory sounds extremely plausible to me.

[Czanos]

Hum. Here's something I noticed on my most recent read through. When Vin is in the Well of Ascension, her earring starts causing pain.

Page 570, Well of Ascension

With a sudden flare, her earlobe began to hurt. She cried out, pulling her earring free, dropping it into the depths. She pulled off her sash, letting it--and her Allomantic vials--go as well, removing the only metals on her person.

Note that she does still hear the voice of Ruin without her earring, though that could be because of the circumstances. However, I find it very odd that the Well of Ascension reacted so strongly to Hemalurgy.  Any thoughts?

[darxbane]

I at least am of the belief that the power in the well is not of Ruin, so it would react strongly to anything that Ruin could manipulate.   The power is most likely of Preservation, or some neutral power.

[AvalonDreamer]

So not Ruin or Preservation...? What about Creation? Like a giant debug mode for the world; Preservation wouldn't want it pulled out, because it would be able to radically change everything, and Ruin would love it if someone who it was controlling got at it.

On a hemalurgy-related thing: does anyone recall if an Inqi's eye spikes are both the same, or different?

[Comatose]

I think they are different.
The creation theory has been hashed around before, I like it , but inthe annotations, brandon says that there are two major powers or something like that: Ruin and Preservation.
The blood in water theory is interesting, but it has a few holes, first of all, the Lord Ruler was going to take the power no matter what, so why would the mist spirit bother trying to convince him to TAKE the power when he was going to anyway.  The mist spirit does this to elend because Vin is goin to set the power free, and it does this in a last ditch attempt to make Vin keep the power and not set ruin free.

[Vintage]

How do we know he was there to take the power to himself ? How do we know he chose to do this ? There is absolutely nothing that tells us he did this of his own free will. Killing Alendi is one thing, believing yourself to be the savior, is something else. What convinced him to take that role ? We know nothing of his motivation (and that bugs me).

Nevertheless, the way it happened is not that important. For all we know, Kwaan could have been with him and he might have been the one giving the beads while the whole cavern was shaking to pieces. What we know, or can fairly guess, is that the future nobles were there, in that place while the future Lord Ruler was playing with his favorite metal lake. What we know is that these future nobles ingested those beads, and another thing we do know is that in order to snap, you have to nearly die, so they must have been, all of them, seriously in danger.

If stopping Vin was the only motivation the Mist had to nearly kill Elend, then why did it give her the means to heal him ? If a child disobey its parents, it has to suffer the consequences. Did Vin deserve to have Elend back ? I mean, if you were the Mist Spirit and you did not want her to liberate the power, after she did so, would you reward her ?

[Vintage]

After finding a couple of quotes regarding the Iron eyes of Inquisitors, I just rediscovered that the spike between the shoulder is steel... just like Steel Ministry... the Steel Inquisitors kept their lives as long as they had their Steel Spike. If I rediscover some more, I'll add. But could this help ?

[AvalonDreamer]

Yeah, but it leaves me with a hole in my theory. I'm fairly certain that it best describes how hemalurgy works, and it keeps it's distance from Allomancy and Feruchemy as they do from each other, but I have holes! Assuming spikes grant passive abilities, and Iron allowed you to see metal's lines, what would steel do?

[Vintage]

What we really need to do is an intelligent reread and check specific points, take notes and references. Once that is done, we can revise everybody's theory and come out with a much better collective one. I am working on this already. I confirm, the Iron eyes enables Inquisitors to see the metal line, however thin, from all around. That's in MB1... But we really do need clear quotes from the book and also the annotations since things "change" (i.e. the steel earring in MB1 became the bronze earring in MB2) and that we have to figure out the proper figures. Brandon will have to revise his books later on, though, just like Tolkien had to revise the Lord of the Ring a couple of years after it came out. He is walking in the steps of his great predecessor. 

[Andrew the Great]

I'm about halfway through MB1 and already have 4 pages of notes. That's actually the reason I've been frequenting less here.

The iron eyes may or may not have anything to do with inquisitors seeing the lines, I lean toward not. Mainly because of the quote from Brandon''s annotations where he says that any allomancer with access to steel or iron could learn to do this. I think I posted it in the "do Steel inquisitors need to burn metals" thread. I'll look for it.

Here it is. Brandon's MB2 annotations, chapter twelve:

By the way, you probably remember form book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone's bodies and in the objects around them.

The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody--at least, nobody the heroes know--is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.

And he chose not to share it.

I seem to remember hearing it was a steel-coated bronze earring, or a bronze coated steel one, or something like that.

[Comatose]

It's definately bronze earring, that's why Vin is so powerful as a seeker
I don't think you need to be in danger to snap when using the bead, I think that's just how later generations come into their powers.

[Qarlin]

A couple of things come to mind, as I stay up waaay too late to read all of this:

Rashek probably took the power for himself because Kwaan had told him the truth - that the prophecies had been changed. Therefore, Rashek would be going on this mission to lead Alendi astray, knowing he wasn't really the Hero, and trying to dissuade the others from following him. And in the end, he could have even gone into the Well of Ascension in order to stop Alendi from doing it. And that would have been what the Mist Spirit wanted, so no resistance there. Created the things that would aid him in Preserving what he had set. He brought order. The Kandra could be spies, the Koloss troops, and the nobles the ones who actually believed him (and his uncle Kwaan), so they get Allomancy. All in the name of Preservation. Call him evil, but I think he was really just hardened by 1000 years of preserving things as he initially set them, which was influenced by the fact that he was going against pretty much everyone from his own civilization, since they all thought Alendi to be the Hero to save them all. And he was a cool guy from what we know, but possibly coming off arrogant since because he was so sure (outwardly) that he was the Hero.

If the thing trapped in the Well is Ruin, trapped by Preservation, then everything the Lord Ruler creates is for Preservation. Keep things as they are; crush rebellions, find your enemies through spies, etc.

The Ashmounts could actually be part of Ruin, since they seem to be semi dormant volcanoes, maybe even held dormant by the mists, which could be Preservation, depending on the kind of people the mists killed. Brandon does say in his annotations (Chapter 15)

Mostly, I'm showing the real danger of the mists--that there IS indeed a reason to fear them. Either way, remember one thing from this chapter. Some people were killed (and there's a connection between the two people you've heard described specifically as dying from the mists) some people got away, and some people had seizures, but then were all right later.

Which two people were "Old Jed," described as being a "hard worker" (pg 42). The other was "Old Jell" who was "Bullheaded" (pg 141). More thoughts on that?

Last thought for the moment: "Legends say" that there were no mistborns or mist before the ascension, according to Sazed, but we know that Copperminds are subject to Ruin's manipulations, so that may not even be true; a thousand years have gone by.

So, this doesn't account for the Mists coming in the daytime, and I know there's a lot I've missed, but there are my thoughts. Ideas? Discuss.

[Cosmic_AC]

If stopping Vin was the only motivation the Mist had to nearly kill Elend, then why did it give her the means to heal him ? If a child disobey its parents, it has to suffer the consequences. Did Vin deserve to have Elend back ? I mean, if you were the Mist Spirit and you did not want her to liberate the power, after she did so, would you reward her ?

Well, the Mist Spirit isn't a parent, and letting Ruin go free is not a trivial, childish mistake.  The Mist Spirit seems to be compassionate and benevolent -- and it sees no purpose in "revenge".  It probably figures there's no turning back anyway; allowing Elend to die isn't going to un-unseal Ruin.  Since nothing is made worse by giving Elend a bead, there's no reason not to save his life.