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One of the things that bothered me about The Hero of Ages was Elend’s duralumin-atium burst. It’s iconic but it always annoyed me why Elend could do what Ruin couldn’t - foresee Preservation’s plan and Ruin’s death. However, now that Secret History has given insight into precognition I finally understand Elend’s sacrifice. Elend never knew for certain if his sacrifice would be guaranteed to drive Vin to murder-suicide Ruin. But he aimed to protect the world and trusted Vin, so he sacrificed himself to help her. This is something Ruin - an unaware Vessel filled with the contextless embodiment of decay - was unwilling to do. Before heading west to the Ire’s fortress, Preservation showed Kelsier a future vision that starts from him heading west. The future vision held Connections between Kelsier and his soul to Preservation, Kelsier to everything and everyone on Scadrial, Preservation to the ground and air and metals. And in the vision, it held a path of future possibilities - many, thousands upon thousands, infinite, tangled with each other. Kelsier could only glean vague, general impressions because his mind isn’t expanded to sort through or understand the sensation, the information, or the individual possibilities. Elend saw into the future the same way Kelsier did - through glimpsing Connections. But he could understand all the possibilities because Atium expands the mind. When burning duralumin+atium, Elend became temporarily Connected to Kelsier, Vin, Ruin’s essence, the future, the past, everything and everyone in the battlefield. Those Connections are the blue lines pointing from his chest in the Physical Realm and the white lines in the Cognitive Realm. Seeing the future possibilities within those Connections, but understanding them all because of Atium’s mind expansion. Judging from regular Atium and Kelsier’s vision, he probably saw the ”thousands upon thousands” of possibilities that could result from his current action - the fight against Marsh. “I see now” is when Elend liked the general implication of the future vision - that he could drive Vin to sacrifice her life if it meant defeating Ruin. So he let Marsh kill him and hoped it would come true. But even the Shards of Adonalsium - those who foresee infinite possibilities and infinite actions - can be wrong about the possibilities they see as unlikely, likely, or thread towards. All he could do was trust Vin and hope for the best outcome. But where does this fit into the futures seen by the Shards surrounding these events - Ruin and Preservation? Ruin, the essence which fuels Elend’s future vision and the God whom foresaw what Elend saw. Preservation, the God Sanderson implies incorporated Elend’s death into his plan. I believe for Ruin, his inability to acknowledge Elend’s future vision was not a matter of seeing the possibilities. But rather, it was a matter of seeing them as likely possibilities. Ati the Vessel basically didn’t exist anymore. Ati didn't even remember what planet he was working on, virtually a shell filled with Ruin's Investiture. Ruin the God foresaw the possibilities within Elend's future vision, but either saw them as unlikely or dismissed them entirely. You could even say he was a god that no longer understood or acknowledged the loving sacrifice that existed within his foreseen future possibilities. Ruin the God didn’t embrace life or acknowledge that life needs to persist. Ruin didn’t sacrifice. He said he was life, and yet Leras/Fuzz comforted life when Ruin did not. And for this, he dismissed Elend’s futures and paid the price. Preservation protects. Preservation listens to the hearts of men, for it hears all thoughts of all Scadrians. Leras understands sacrifice, for the divinity sacrificed his mind and equal pedestal to Ruin. This was for the sake of protecting in the long run. This is why he wanted Elend to have the lerasium bead. Leras chose a successor who could live a life highly Connected to Preservation’s attributes, and might sacrifice her life for the greater good. He foresaw someone might use one lerasium bead for the pieces of the plan to fall together. And when the time came, He saw Vin’s lover as someone who might sacrifice his life for the greater good. Someone who could use the bead. Leras bet those possibilities would come into play at the last moment, did whatever he could to thread towards them, and hoped it paid off.

So like the sun was just rising over the pits of hathsin . That means that the half the Western Dominance and all of the southern and farmost Dominances as well as the southern isles were still in the night . Millions of PPL must have lived there . Did sazed accidentally kill them all while remaking the world. I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere, may e in a wob that only the PPL in the caverns survived.

So. Mistborn is ruining my life. I've been a fan of sifi and fantasy since I knew what it was. Books, video games, movies everything from lord or the rings and star wars to the Dresden Files. But nothing has ever been as good, fulfilling or as well done as the end of the hero of ages. The first sentence of the first book was already setting up the ending of the last and it was still so well done my first read-through I got teary eyed. The mold that was broken In this series can never be recreated but now when picking up a new book or TV series Im never as impressed as I know I should be because of how amazing Mistborn is. The sense of closure it too much for words. Has ANYONE else had this problem or am I just a nutcase

Vin pulls out one of Marsh' s eye spikes at the end of hero of ages, but he has 2 when he appears to Marasi at the end of the alloy of law. Does anyone know how it gets replaced? Harmony confirms it was Marsh in the conversation he has with wax in the carriage in Shadows of self

In the first book I was having a tough time getting engrossed in the story. Many aspects didn't make sense, it was slow and hard to follow at time. I forced my way through and 3/4 in I was hooked, the second book was an instant grab for me and the end was amazing and I didn't think the hero of ages could be better but I was so wrong. I had posted a bit back about not being able to get into the series but was encouraged to keep going and I'm so glad I did. The last few chapters of THOA for some reason almost brought me to tears it was so good. Never again will I dismiss a Cosmere book...Ever. my point is I know I'm not the only one who had this problem and I encourage everyone who might have put it down to give it another shot, not only is it one of the best endings to a series I've ever seen, to me the end is also a very profound and powerful message. Knowledge is power, Knowledge is divine

I'm reading Alloy of Law and I just thought of something. We know that Preservation tried to help Vin several times, but couldn't because of her earring, right? But why didn't the mists reach out to Elend like they did to Vin at the end of THoA? I mean.... Vin was using Hemalurgy, so I get why the mists couldn't help her. But they could have helped Elend in THoA, right?

Okay, final numbers are in. Sorry for the confusion(s)... Originally I was going to post this as a reply to Joe ST's comment in the Brandon Sanderson AMA thread, but my reply started getting just a bit long and technical, so I figured I'd post it separately. Not necessarily because it merits discussion (though it might merit a reaction), but because I wanted to keep it independent of the AMA. So. Turns out, as far as our viewpoint characters know, the population of the Final Empire was about 100 million people before the events at the end of The Hero of Ages, so we are talking Era 1. By the time The Alloy of Law rolls in, Era 2, we are down to about 15 million (again, as far as our protagonists know). This is enough information for us to make some educated guesses about how impactful Ruin's release, as well as Vin's and Harmony's tinkering with the planet was. Let's look at our Earth as a baseline. According to World of Meters' page on World Population, we entered the Industrial Age with about 770 million people (a number we don't actually care about here) and exhibited a population growth rate of about 1% (1.0059% for the period between 1760 and 1804). The Final Empire takes place during a kind of pre-Industrial era, skaa were created (or modified) to be more fertile, but I find it likely that more of them were dying when compared to our history, so I think establishing a 1% population growth rate for the Final Empire is, if not accurate, then at least a good starting point. Given that about 300 years have passed between The Hero of Ages and The Alloy of Law, knowing that we reach about 15 million people, and assuming the 1% (1.00596%, actually) population growth, we can calculate that all of (known) Scadrial had about 750 thousand people when it began repopulating. From 100,000,000 to 750,000. That's 99.25% of the population gone. Over. Ninety. Nine. Percent. And you know what the worst part is? I don't know if 1% is not too low. People tend to, um... get active after surviving disasters, something about the human spirit likes to celebrate the death of others and its own survival with procreation. Harmony had just remade the entire world, I would be surprised if he didn't try to make things just a little better for his people. You know, kill and infectious disease here and there, boost people's immune systems, maybe even tinker with the fertility rates so that people have an easier time repopulating the planet. If we raise that 1% to 1.20% we end up with 420,000 people surviving the apocalypse (99.6% extinction)! You know what the population growth rate was in 1965? 2.19%. If Scadrial had the same annual growth rate during the 300 years between Era 1 and Era 2, Harmony would've had only 22,500 people to work with! Twenty-two-fraking-thousand! Want this as a percentage of the Final Empire's population before that? 99.98. How crazy is that?! So, two edits later, we are back where we started - if my estimates are anywhere near correct, we are talking about 99% extinction rate. You know, no big deal. For comparison, the Permian-Triassic extinction, Earth's worst extinction, wiped out only 95% of all land-based animal life on the planet.

Hola, internet folks! I have never partaken in a forum before, but I have just finished reading The Well of Ascension, and I am torn in many directions by the plot, the writing, the editing, the intrigue and the contradiction of it all. I read The Final Empire when it first came out, as a youth; I had read Elantris and happened upon a book signing Sanderson was having at my local bookshop, so acquired his then-new Mistborn novel. I remember absolutely loving TFE, and I eventually acquired the rest of the series, but hadn't had a chance to read them all until now. I immediately delved into TWOA after finishing TFE last week, and having finished the two, I am both loathe and compelled to get to The Hero of Ages. So, am I in the right place to air my grievances and hash out my queries?