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I'm probably deeply misguided for thinking this. But hear me out. This has been bugging me for YEARS. Since the first time I read and completed the mistborn trilogy as a teenager. And it seems like no one’s addressed it. At least not comprehensively. So I will attempt to now. I humbly ask that you read the whole thing through before commenting. So you can see the full picture I’m trying to paint. Then judge my argument on its full merit. I am very open to the (probable) reality that I am very wrong. Still, it can't hurt to rant a bit ya? Brandon Sanderson (A living printer & absolute gigachad of an author) has either made the biggest accidental blunder regarding one of the most important magic systems in the Cosmere. Or has been setting up one of the biggest plot twists in the Cosmere’s history. And this is why; Allomancy, which Brandon categorised as ‘Preservation’s power’ in era one. Is NOT actually Preservation’s power, but rather Harmony’s. And I will be attempting to convince you that that is the case. Argument: Allomancy, functionally, has nothing to do with preservation, but in contrast, ferruchemy absolutely does. Ferruchemy’s whole shtick is that it allows its user to preserve attributes within metals for a practically indefinite amount of time for use later on. While allomancy on the other hand, not only doesn’t give one the power to preserve anything. But instead REQUIRES that one destroys metals by burning them in order to gain investiture and abilities. Yes, you get more out than you put in. But the same could be said about splitting an atom in a nuclear fission reaction. You destroy something in order to gain the power to do something. Ruin’s influence within this magic system is quite obvious. And yet we can’t say that it is purely his power, because even though mistborn are walking killing machines. Their power can be used to create and preserve just as well. (Ferruchemy being Preservation’s power also acts as a perfect contrast to hemallurgy. The two are exact mirrors of each other, just as the shards are.) Ferruchemy preserves. Pure and simple. Hemallurgy kills, steals, twists, and decays. Allomancy on the other hand just doesn’t quite fit either shard completely. It’s the odd one out. It always has been. Allomancy is an end-positive power precisely because it is not Preservation, or Ruins’ power singularly. And we can deduce this by looking at the natures of the two shards themselves. On their own, neither shard is capable of creating. Only preserving or destroying. Neither one is capable of producing an end-positive system. It was only when the two shards came together, agreeing to work in harmony. That they had the power to create an entire planet, biosphere, and human race entirely from scratch. Harmony did that. Not Preservation. Not Ruin. But the harmonious efforts of the two shards. And later on at the end of era one. It was only through the unification of the shards into Harmony that all the mistakes and errors made by either shard could be mended, and the world restored to its original state. The entire story is about Harmony. Harmony created the world. But once the world was created, and the agreement between the two shards fulfilled, discord followed. The two shards warred, each motivated by opposing intents. Leading to the gradual destruction of their world. And in the end, it was only the rebirth and re-establishment of Harmony that put it all back together. This thematic truth can also be observed within the characters themselves. One could argue that Vin’s entire story was about finding harmony within herself. Learning to accept the fact that she can’t cling to everything and everyone hoping that they don’t change. That they don’t leave her alone(Preservation.) While simultaneously accepting the darker parts of herself. Her capacity for violence is foremost among them(Ruin.) And through the marriage of these two sides of her, the part that seeks to protect, and the part that causes destruction. She finds harmony within herself. Learning to use that destructive force for the sake of preservation. The ruin within her yields to the preservation within her. And it is that resultant internal harmony that not only makes her so potent a mistborn, but gives her the strength to sacrifice herself to destroy Ati once and for all. Mistborn are children of Harmony. And this truth can also be seen by simply thinking about what separates them from all other allomancers. As well as what separates the normal mistborn from the great ones. Their ability to use all of their abilities in conjunction with each other to accomplish incredible acts. Vin’s creativity, her willingness to experiment, to see how two metals no matter how unrelated their powers may first seem, could work in unison with each other to produce unexpected and fantastic results. That is what made her a force of nature. Vin is the greatest mistborn we’ve ever seen precisely because she, more than any other character, mastered the art of using ALL her abilities in harmony. Viewing them as complementary pieces within a greater harmonious whole, rather than entirely distinct and separate elements. The way others, such as mistings, typically would. Counter: Platitudes! That’s all a stretch. We know that allomancy is preservation’s power because it comes from consuming beads of lerasium! Rebuttal: Does it though? This wouldn’t be the first time that the characters in the story said one thing about the nature of a metal, only for Brandon to come out later stating the opposite. I.e Atium’s true nature in era 1. So the same thing could be said about ‘Lerasium.’ I think that what we’ve been led to believe is ‘Lerasium’ is actually ‘Harmonium.’ And the fact that the beads are only found around the well of ascension is evidence of this. Why? Because the well of ascension is the location of the final clash between Ruin and Preservation. It is where Preservation died, sacrificing himself to trap ruin. I believe that when the two shards clashed here, the two clashing investitures produced beads of Harmonium as a side effect, scattering them around the well. And that it is the consumption of Harmonium that actually makes one a mistborn, not Lerasium. Counter: But in Era 2 we see what ‘Harmonium’ is actually like. It doesn’t make people mistborn. It stores allomantic charges and is extremely reactive and combustible. It can’t even be consumed! Rebuttal: Aha, exactly! Because what we see in era 2 isn’t actually ‘Harmonium.’ It’s DISCORDIUM! Somewhere in between the end of era one and the start of era two, something went wrong with either Sazed, his shard, or both. And this is what led to the shift in his shard’s capabilities and attributes in era 2. It is why he’s incapable of wielding the same degree of power he did at the end of era one. Because he’s not in harmony any more, he’s discordant. And that subtle shift has been reflected in his god-metal, twisting it from an inert metal, something that creates mistborn, to a hyper reactive metal capable of nuking cities if agitated enough. It also fits with the hero of ages prophecy. “They shall call him discord(not harmony!), and they will love him for it.” Counter: Okay then but if the beads that create mistborn are actually shards of ‘Harmonium’ created when Preservation and Ruin last battled at the well of ascension. Then what does true Lerasium actually do? Where do mistings come from? Why is it that Vin could burn Preservation’s mist to fuel her allomancy? Argument: Simple. Lerasium’s true property is that it creates ferruchemists. And in order to better support that, I need only ask. Why is it that only Sazed’s people have ferruchemy. What distinguishes them from other people on Scadrial? Simple, they are the only group of people that have been living around Preservation’s perpendicularity for centuries. They are the closest to preservation’s influence than any other group of people on the planet. I believe that either through continued exposure to high levels of preservation’s investiture over countless generations. Or the consumption of trace amounts of lerasium forming within the environment around the perpendicularity. Or even just being descended from the initial group of people who discovered the perpendicularity, who perhaps interacted with it and consumed the invesiture there somehow. And then passed on the power genetically. Mistings emerge naturally because all humans on scadrial have souls formed from both preservation and ruin. And I believe that a misting could snap from both the white or the black mist. Vin was able to use preservation’s mists to fuel her allomancy because 1) she aligned with the shard’s intent very strongly, hence why only she had the power to do this. And 2) She could absolutely have done the same thing with Ruin’s black mist if her personality aligned with his shard’s intent instead. Because allomancy arises from the union of both shards’ powers. Whichever one you can use to fuel it is entirely dependant on how strongly you align with the intent and not with the nature of your allomantic abilities. Counter: But in era 2 we see that when Wax splits ettmetal it produces atium and trace amounts of lerasium, which then go on to turn him and Wayne into mistborn! Rebuttal: No, we think that’s what happened, because that’s what the characters think happened. But the truth is, none of the characters actually know what true Lerasium is. Or what it’s supposed to behave like. Heck, they don’t even know what true Atium is like, because we’ve still never seen it! What we’re actually seeing here is the correction of an imbalance within the Ettmetal. The excess influence of ruin’s investiture in the metal is being removed, resulting in a metal that’s perfectly balanced between ruin and preservation. I.e, true ‘Harmonium.’ Ettmetal is actually ‘Discordium.’ It is innately imbalanced, carrying within it a bit more ruin than preservation, making it extremely volatile. But once split in this explosive reaction. The excess ruin investiture becomes malatium(not pure Atium, which we’ve never seen, because of whatever Leras did to ruin’s power in era 1), while the rest which is perfectly balanced with preservation’s investiture becomes true ‘Harmonium.’ And THAT is what turned Wax and Wayne into mistborn. If one wanted to produce actual Lerasium, they’d have to repeat the splitting procedure once more in order to fully split ruin’s investiture from Preservation’s. Producing pure Atium, and pure Lerasium. Whether or not that’s actually possible though is up for debate. Brandon seems to have eluded in past interviews that this should not be possible. The truth is that in era 1, Preservation did something spiritually to ruin’s power that made it so that it spawned into the world not as pure Atium, but rather as a twisted or dirty version/alloy. Malatium. Perhaps because he feared what true, pure Atium could do if people tried to burn it. And Somewhat similarly, there is a spiritual defect within Sazed and his shard that is reflected in his metal. Preventing it from manifesting as pure ‘Harmonium.’ But rather as a hyper reactive alloy, ‘Discordium.’ Which the characters refer to as Ettmetal. The truth is, we have never actually seen pure Atium, or Lerasium in ANY of the books. Only their alloys. I think that this may actually be intentional. And these intricate layers and webs of contradictions, and misconceptions will serve as the catalyst for the conflicts in the upcoming stories. And perfectly explain why Sazed has never been quite the same as the Sazed we saw at the end of Era one. Something insidious is going on. And he might not even be aware. It’s entirely possible that the main reason Sazed struggles to use his shard is because he mistakenly still thinks of the shard as Harmony, when in actuality it is Discord. The shard and the vessel are not in sync, and this is slowly destroying Sazed from within. Perhaps leading to the development of something… other. I personally think that this spiritual defect is a leftover consequence of the conflict between Ati and Leras in the past. We already know thanks to stormlight 4 that new shard holders inherit changes made to their shards by past holders. The shard’s investiture retains those spiritual bonds and quirks from the previous holder. My theory is that Sazed’s problems emerge from a confluence of 1) Whatever Leras did to Ruin’s power when he split it from him. 2) A weakening of preservation’s power, or rather output/influence/capacity, when he put more of himself within humanity than ruin did. 3) His own lack of awareness on the true nature of his shard’s nature and intent, gradually leading to him becoming an unfit vessel for the power, and thus incapable of using his powers as easily as he otherwise should. Setting up massive implications for future stories and conflicts. Conclusion: Perhaps I’m deeply misguided. Perhaps Brandon made a little mistake and I’ve been reading far to deeply into it for all these years. And in actuality none of this means anything. Perhaps Brandon is entirely unaware that this one little categorization choice he made ages ago could potentially yield all these implications. Or, maybe, just maybe. He did all this on purpose. Maybe Sazed was fated to walk the path of Discord from the start. Maybe we’ve all been duped for years and he’s been gradually working towards this grand reveal. If the latter is true my soul would quite literally ascend into the beyond. And I’ll feel like an absolute legend for having seen the whole thing coming from day one. But if not… Frankly speaking I’ll be so mad XD. Lots of love though Brandon! Thanks for the headache *End Note: The implications of all this kind of answers another question that's been bugging me as I’ve watched the grander narrative of the Cosmere slowly unfold. And that's the fact that Scadrians, without a singular doubt, seem like absolute A-holes in every story when viewed from an other-outworlder's POV. They seem exploitative, apathetic, and in many cases, they sow discord wherever they go. E.g. Sunlit Man, most interactions between ghostbloods and other-worlders, & the new secret project prologue. I noticed this because (in case you couldn’t tell by now) Scadrial and it’s people are the closest to my heart in the Cosmere. So their consistent douchebagery in other Cosmere stories has been very glaring to me. If my theory is true, and Sazed is actually Discord. And the traits of a shard can be seen reflected in the people of their world. This would all make perfect sense. Modern day Scadrians are children of Discord and that naturally makes them more prone to A-holery than most.*

I've read a few people talk about how Snapping seems weird and messed up and wanted to share my take on it. If you disagree feel free to share your views. At the core, Snapping is about self-preservation. Nature in general and for the purpose of this thread humanity specifically can do amazing things when put under extreme conditions. Mental and physiological changes happen when people are in a survival scenario, where they not only learn that they can make themselves do things that they would never consider doing, but that they are physically able to do extraordinary things. Under specific conditions people can lift cars, survive in freezing water for hours, cut off their own arm, or live off of seals for months (yes I've heard stories of each of these). Narratives of these experiences not infrequently describe hidden reserves or wells of energy that the person didn't know that they had, and snapping might not be a bad term for suddenly deciding you need to cut your arm off to survive. This is much deeper than simple adrenaline. In the Cosmere however, when the soul is reaching out to survive, a Shard responds. What Scadrians have that is different is the innate spark given to them by Preservation, sometimes the power of Preservation instilled in their bloodline, and with that Connection when they reach out instinctively in desperation to survive they gain access to Preservation's power. Allomancers get an even deeper Connection to this power. Harmony who has access to both Ruin's ability to crack souls and Preservation's ability to reinforce souls likely has options available to Snap new Allomancers that Preservation alone never had. Like with many aspects of Allomancy in TFE, Snapping in of itself is not evil, but the conditions it sets on obtaining power lead to horrible things done by the likes of Straff Venture. The old mechanism of Snapping is probably still viable after the Catacendre though unnecessary for those with access to Allomancy and is likely the reason why the Set's non-lethal Hemalurgic spiking was more effective when the donor was tortured. If you think about it, Allomancy doesn't restrict you at all from killing others, but it generally makes you better at surviving. Pewter, Iron, Steel, Copper, and Tin are the more obvious exanples, but even metals like brass help you survive as can be seen with Vin's "Luck". Perhaps even the seemingly useless Allomantic abilities will prove advantageous in the context of all the ways to get killed in the Cosmere on a physical, cognitive, or spiritual level. How does this relate to Snapping in other magic systems? I'll let others discuss that as I'm nearing the end of my posting time.

Way was the actual effect that Preservation had on the humans of Scadrial? Preservation gave a part of their power (Invested them?) To create life that can think and feel. That was the whole point of the bargain with Ruin. But some things I've seen imply the humans were around before the Shattering, certainly before Ruin and Preservation struck their bargain and created the Scadrians. Are humans from Scadrial somehow different from humans say from Roshar or Sel? If so, how? I've been rereading Cosmere from the beginning and just finished Era 1, this has been on my mind.

In Era 1, the Mists were coded by Preservation to avoid Ruin. Hence, why Hemalurgy repels the Mists and why a certain earring became so useful. But there’s also another way to use Ruin’s power that made me think: Era 1 Atium. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe we’ve ever seen what the Mists actually do when a non spiked Allomancer burns Atium. Maybe there’s a mention in scenes with Kelsier or Shan, but I can’t remember any off the top of my head. That suggests Atium might also repel the Mists. It is powered by Ruin, just as with Hemalurgy But the ramifications that I’m most interested in are what happens if you burn Atium while actively drawing on the Mists. My best example for this thought experiment is Vin at the end of HoA, when she starts drawing in the Mists but before she fully Ascends. What would happen if she tried to burn Atium at this point? I see a few possibilites 1. Burning Atium would act like a spike, immediately dispelling the Mists as a sort of safety measure 2. The Atium is treated like any other metal and simply gives Vin a view of the Spiritual Realm, as if she was doing the Duralumin combo 3. The power of the Mists rejects the Atium and causes feedback, like when Vin tried to use the Well with a spike. It’s unclear exactly how harmful this would be, but probably can’t cause any more injuries than a spike attempt would. 4. Similar to option 3, except the Mists override Ruin’s power and perhaps hijacks it, adding it to Preservation 5. The hack provides some sort of gateway for Ruin’s influence, just like spikes do. That would be horrifically bad. However, I don’t think this one is super likely. If Ruin could do that, I imagine he would’ve plotted for Vin to have Atium as she Ascended (unless Atium also blocks the Mists). Plus, Ruin can’t directly interface with Atium. He needs to burn it before it belongs to him again Assuming that Vin could ascend with an Atium reserve, it also makes me wonder if she could keep it once she fully Ascended. Even then, it probably doesn’t have enough meaning since it’s so small. But it’d also be really cool if it were possible to somehow hijack Preservation’s Intent by burning Atium. Something like that could even be part of why Preservation blocked spiked people from getting the Mists, though the bigger issue is preventing a pawn of Ruin from acting on his behalf I don’t know exactly. I just think it’s an interesting possibility since Atium provides more potential to “disrupt” the Mists while they act. Let me know what you guys think.

Dont know if this is the correct place to post, if not I apologize, first time. So it has been stated that harmony is losing control (at least how I understood) and there is a alternate version of him (aka Discord), was wondering what people think of it and if Saied were somehow able to obtain another shard how it could impact him as a holder of two shards. Specifically if he gained the shard autonomy somehow, could the shard and it's essence or rules allow Harmony to have more control over ruin and preservation rather that be trapped and stretched between them trying to maintain balance?

We know two lerasium beads have been used in Era 1 itself. One went to Elend and the other to Hoid. In addition, the epigraph for HoA made reference to the original nine Allomancers having lerasium level power. Rashek makes things more complicated because we don’t know if he counts as one of the nine. If he does, then that’s one less lerasium bead, since he used the Well to become Mistborn I personally suspect Rashek did take a bead for himself. He may have used it to become stronger than a lerasium Mistborn, hence his absurd power level. But the more likely reason he would take one was to use as a metalmind. We don’t know exactly what F-lerasium does but it is a God Metal, so I imagine it’s not useless. That means we can account for a minimum of ten beads and a maximum of twelve. This could’ve been all the beads Leras created because he knew that was needed. But we do still have reason to believe there were 16. SageOfTheWise Is there a reason why Rashek left a nugget of Lerasium at the Well of Ascension? Brandon Sanderson He left several. It was, in his opinion, one of the best kept secrets and best protected locations in his empire. Phantine Were there originally 16 of them? Brandon Sanderson An excellent guess. /r/books AMA 2015 (Aug. 11, 2015) Let’s assume there were 16 beads, created by Leras and some found by Rashek. There must be 4-6 beads unaccounted for. Here are the possibilites I can see 1. They were burned up by past Allomancers. Perhaps Rashek had experimented on them or tried Compounding. Perhaps he gave himself an extra power boost, though this is unlikely since the Well could give him basically anything 2. Rashek used them as metalminds. Very unlikely. If there was an unknown metal on his body, someone should’ve noticed. 3. They were used as Hemalurgic spikes, most likely on a Kandra. However, we haven’t heard of any special kandra in the First Generation. If such a Blessing did exist, it should’ve been fairly obvious 4. More worldhoppers took the beads. Secret History suggests most worldhoppers used Ruin’s perpendicularity, so only a select few could’ve taken the beads. If they had Fortune too, then they may not have taken every bead for the same reason that Hoid only took one 5. Rashek hid the beads somewhere else. The most interesting possibility is that he had four beads and put one each in the storage chambers. The problem is that someone should’ve noticed it during or immediately after the Catacendre, especially Harmony. It is also more likely that if such beads did exist, they were alloyed. That way, they would only create a Misting, which doesn’t contradict Era 2 having basically no Mistborn except Spook. 6. Rashek didn’t find all of the beads. Leras was the one who originally placed the beads. So if he put them in seperate places for any reason, Rashek may not have been able to find them all, especially if they were hidden in an area with regular metal Questioner Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave to the ten foreign kings? Or where they put there by Leras-- Brandon Sanderson Oh, good question… No one's asked me that before, I don't believe. Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave-- No, he found the lerasium. It was existent before his Ascension. Questioner Can I ask if it was placed there intentionally by Leras or did it sort of grow similar to how atium-- Brandon Sanderson The Lord Ruler-- It was not placed for him, he had to-- he had to get it. JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016) If there were 16 beads at all, then some combo of those six should be true. It is also possible that some or all of them are alloyed with other metals. But those six possibilities are the most plausible explanations for how there could be more lerasium that we haven’t seen yet. Let me know if there are any other possibilities I missed. Thanks for reading!

We know Slivers can choose to stay Cognitive Shadows for however long they want instead of going to the Beyond. But would this apply to Vin and Ati after they collided Shards? Before Secret History, I thought that their minds had automatically gone to the Beyond after the collision. But Secret History shows this didn’t happen and based on what we know of Slivers, they should retain their powers post collision This also creates another question. Let’s say no one besides Vin and Ati were around Preservation and Ruin post collision. Could they just run over to their Shards and get back in the driver’s seat? If they did, would they be able to replace their missing bodies? Would they be even weaker than other Shards by being bodiless Vessels? And for that matter, if two Shards are of perfectly equal power, can a Vessel with more mass or whatever equivalent in spirt and mind gain an advantage over the other? Kinda like how two people burning pewter cancel out? I’d think that even if you could convert mass, Shards require more to shift their relative power levels. Like having two lakes and saying that adding a cup of water to one makes it bigger.

Ok, so I've been listening/reading the mist born books in preparation of the lost metal, and something occurred to me. According to TSH, the reason that Sazed was able to take up both Preservation and Ruin at the same time was because he was balanced between both. Tindwyl's death instilled a sense of acceptance of death within him, which allowed him to take up Ruin, while still wanting to maintain life, allowing him to take up Preservation. The balance he represents between both is what makes him Harmony. I remember reading a WoB that stated that if Kelsier had managed to take up both Preservation and Ruin, he wouldn't have been Harmony; he would have been Discord. Sazed represents the balance between the two Shards, while Kelsier would represent the conflict between them. Based on their respective personalities, I think this makes a great deal of sense. But what if Vin had somehow managed to take up both Shards? She was both a destroyer and a preserver, something THOA makes perfectly clear, which seems to me to be another type of balance that could allow someone to take up both shards. Does anyone know if there is a WoB on this? It seems like the kind of question someone would have come up with a while ago. I don't think Vin would have been Harmony or Discord, although Harmony seems much more likely than Discord. The way she talked about life and growth just before she killed Ruin makes me think Vin would have been something like that. Maybe Life. What do you guys think?

Even Telsin mentions about Harmony becoming Discord like capital in one of her lines. Ohhh boy Scadrial is gonna in fun times. Also the epigraph saying so much irony of Discord is gonna helluvah interesting this is how you end an era with a big question Thoughts ? Theories ?

Harmony is currently having trouble acting, because he is limited by the conflicting intentions of Ruin and Preservation. Consider Ruin and Preservation as two parties in a negotiation with each other. Since they are equally strong, they are at an impasse. Imagine a third, much weaker party joins the negotiation. Say, a pinch of Devotion's Investiture. As was mentioned in Mistborn Era 1, in a negotiation involving three parties, the weakest party is actually the most powerful, because each of the stronger parties needs the weakest party on its side to defeat the other strong party. So if Sazed had a splinter of Devotion, then whenever Ruin and Preservation were deadlocked, Devotion's splinter would break the tie. Obviously, Sazed would want to choose Investiture carefully for this purpose, since his Intent would probably become a watered-down version of the third Shard. Devotion would probably be fine. Odium would not. The original Vessels would probably be opposed to such a plan, because it is moving toward a re-unified Adonalsium. They should see, however, that it only slightly enhances Sazed's Investiture power, and might greatly increase his freedom, since the Intent of whatever Investiture he eats a pinch of might be so diluted by the neutral Intent of Harmony that Sazed's will might be able to steer the new Intent quite a lot. As far as I know, the Vessels have no problem with freedom, though they may object on the grounds that it gives Sazed too much power in practice. What do you think?

I recently had a brain wave, Preservation was unable to destroy anything due to his Shards Intent, could the same be for Cultivation? Could the reason for Cultivation to take such indirect actions for vengeance against Odium and also not simply having his Shard Splintered once Rayse died be because she is only able to Cultivate? Could she be only able to prune, not kill?

The Cognitive Realm of Scadrial is, like it's physical counterpart during nighttime, absolutely covered in Mists, which shapes itself to reflect the Physical Realm. My question is, are the MIsts in the Cognitive Realm the same as the ones from the Physical Realm? Are they the gaseous form of Preservation's Investiture or is this just a quirk of the Cognitive Realm?

Hi everyone, I'm new here and so I apologize if his has already been discussed to death (I didn't find threads in a search, but there are a lot so I could easily have missed some). But I've long wondered if Harmony is right when he describes the connections of Metallic Arts to Ruin, Preservation, and an interaction between them. His connection of Hemalurgy to Ruin seems clear enough: you have to kill a person to use it, and the amount of power in the resulting spike is less than the victim had. Ruinous. But Feruchemy always seemed more like Preservation to me than an interaction between Preservation and Ruin both. Nothing is gained or lost when an attribute is stored or withdrawn, it is just maintained almost perfectly until some time in the future. Where is the Ruin in that? (The only example I can think of with imperfect storage is Ruin's manipulation of copperminds). Conversely, Allomancy requires serious physical damage to awaken, destroys the metals used to catalyze its effects, and is described as producing a net gain by Harmony. None of those are very Preservation-like. In a similar vein, Preservation couldn't create dynamic individuals by itself and required cooperation from Ruin to create the humans on Scadrial-- the ability to choose to Preserve at some times and Ruin at others was more than was present in the other animals implied to be within Preservation's ability to create. That sounds more like the Allomantic net gain to me. My mind reaches for explanations and finds unsatisfying scraps. Allomancy existed before anyone swallowed lerasium, albeit in a weaker form, and Preservation was already a critical component of Scadrial's people, so maybe their Allomancy came from that and the huge dose of Connection from lerasium beads creates the otherwise impossibly rare Mistborn. But then the Connection to Preservation from burning lerasium doesn't grant them anything like Feruchemy, so that idea starts falling apart... All of this is pretty pointless speculation since we have so much information suggesting that Allomancy goes with Preservation: the mists swirl around people using Allomancy but not Feruchemy, swallowing a bead of lerasium is what grants super-Allomancy (in the form of Mistborn) in the first place, and Harmony (who holds both relevant Shards and would presumably know everything on the topic) explicitly says so. But outside of those, is there any discussion, here, in-text, or in a WoS that addresses my confusion?

Okay so I’ve been really digging into the whole creation of Nightblood. Could a splinter of Ambition be involved someone how? Thus amplifying it’s “destroy evil” intent? I also believe the theories that this was apart of Ruins involvement as well.

Ok so this will have spoilers all the way up to (you guessed it) Shadows of Self and secret history So I'm reading mistborn for the second time and HoA this exchange happens between sazed and the first gen kandra: “Preservation’s power remains, for power cannot be destroyed. His mind however, was all but destroyed-for this was the sacrifice he made to imprison Ruin.” “The sliver remains,” another reminded. “The shadow of self.” I found a post from like 6 years ago discussing it but nobody touched on one point I thought about (sorry if this is the wrong place for this I'm new here ><) So it seems to me in the context of HoA the "Shadow of self" refers to what was left of Leris after he created ruins prison. Slowly fading eventually leaving the power up for grabs. Reading Shadows of Self the first time I figured the title more leaned towards being about Wax as in this book we learn the bulk of his past (or at least the key moments like his childhood with his uncle, meeting Lessi etc) and where his identiy is in question. But what I wonder this time around is that maybe it's a hint about Trell too. Trell atm is not confirmed to be a shard however it must be shard like at least. This book is where we get confirmation that Trell is actually real. It has it's own form of hemalurgy, a more refined version maybe given what Lessi/Paalm was able to do with it which implies investiture in some capacity in my eyes. Trell must be something big being an object of worship pre-dating the lord ruler and being able to control/influence others. Even Miles was a follower and seem to have been influenced in some way by it? Anyways where I'm going with this is what if something similar is happening to Trell where only a sliver remains of them and they are trying to act with whatever time they have left. At the very least they have a plot in motion and if my previous thought is true they have a power that cannot be destroyed. Whether Trell is a shard or not that could have interesting implications in the cosmere especially if Trell isn't a shard. What do you guys think though? I'm mostly just eagerly awaiting The Lost Metal to come out so my brain is spinning trying to figure out whats gonna happen.

The last thing Leras does before dying is appear to Elend and point to the Northeast. He also did that the first time he met Elend. If you trace the two lines from their approximate locations, you end up in the far right corner of the Terris mountains. Hence the question: what was in the Terris Dominance that Preservation was pointing to? And why was it so important that Leras used the last of his strength to try and tell Elend about it?

At the end of RoW, Taravangian ascends to Odium and inherits quite a few memories and information from Rayse. Well, I don't know if it's Brandon's favoritism towards TOdium, but I don't understand why Taravangian inherits so much information, but Kelsier, Vin and Sazed don't inherit any information from each other's pre-Preservation vessel (Kelsier from Leras, Vin from Kelsier and Sazed from Vin). And the same case of Sazed with Ati. Maybe Kelsier doesn't inherit any information from Leras because the latter was slowly dying, but Vin should have inherited Kelsier's short-time memories as Preservation as well as Taravangian from Odium, and Sazed should have inherited Vin's memories and Ati when ascending, but it was not like that and it gives me a feeling of unevenness between the shards, despite the fact that Odium is somewhat hurt by his battles in the Cosmere, but Preservation and Ruin are intact despite the deaths of their original vessels.

Would it be possible to use a duraluminmind to store Connection to other metalminds? That way you could have metalminds taking up entire rooms and not have to lug them around everywhere. Also, would it be possible to Compound enough Investiture with nicrosil to give yourself almost Shard-esque powers? Could you use the Spark of Life or other such Innate Investiture to fill a nicrosilmind? Could you store a Shard in a nicrosilmind? Could two Archivists use an unkeyed copper wire to communicate (i.e. one stores the memory of a sheet of paper saying “Hi. How are you today?” and the other taps that memory, writes down their response and sends it back)? And what would happen if you compounded a coppermind?

Enjoy! Note there are spoilers, so listener beware! Download links mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g7zduxqiV-CX0beQxiHKhuPMiKCP8rM2/view?usp=sharing wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W84nVcSljQVcLW8tGfX0AaAkCerQIIQN/view?usp=sharing

Okay so considering the fact that Sazed picked up two shards at his Ascension, does that make him the most powerful being in the cosmere? Or would that title depend on which shards were combined? For example, the opposite nature of Ruin and Preservation make changes hard for Sazed. If someone, say Rayse, were to have shattered Preservation and picked up Ruin, would that be a more powerful combo? Regardless, would Sazed be able to contend with Rayse given he is Harmony (Ruin AND Preservation) and Rayse is only Odium?

So, at the end of HoA, Vin Ascends to face Ruin and kills Ati (Ruin's Vessel), dying in the process. Now, when Vin "threw her power" against Ruin they "collided and repelled each other", which resulted in the death of both Vessels. Notably, we know that neither Preservation nor Ruin were Splintered during this process, as Sazed Ascended shortly thereafter. That being said, what (cosmerologically speaking) happened when Vin "threw herself" against Ati? How can you kill a Vessel without Splintering them? Are all Shards opposed in such a way that mere "physical contact" damages their Vessels?

Are all the shards pairs? We know that Ruin and Preservation are an opposing pair. Are all 16 shards this way? For example, perhaps Autonomy and Dominion are opposites, as Dominion seeks to destroy what autonomy others have, and autonomy seeks to be free of any dominion over it. In the same fashion, Devotion may have been Odium’s opposing pair, which would make his attack on her make all the more sense. If the theory is true, it would help us guess the other shards, for example, maybe a Contentment shard as Ambition’s pair, or Opposition as Cultivation’s. It would be interesting to know what dishards could be made if more pairs melded, like Harmony.

This is obviously purely philosophical, but I was just wondering, if not for her relationship with Honor, would Cultivation have been drawn to Scadrial either instead of or in addition to Preservation? People often say that Preservation and Ruin were both drawn to Scadrial because of their opposing intents, kind of like two poles of a magnet. But strictly speaking Ruin and Preservation are NOT opposites. Ruin is essentially regression and Preservation is essentially stasis. The true opposite of Ruin is actually Cultivation, at least if we assume that her overall intent is growth/progression, which appears to be the case from what little we’ve seen of her. Preservation is effectively smack in between Ruin and Cultivation in terms of intent. And indeed, I would think that if someone were to simultaneously hold the Shards of Ruin and Cultivation, the result very well might effectively be a second more powerful Shard of Preservation, since the net effect of their two intents would cancel each other out. Anyone have any thoughts?