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So one of my friends is close to finishing Hero of Ages, and I want to present her with the choice of reading Secret History after Hero, and I want to be able to tell her the reasons for each reading order. So, what are the reasons for reading secret history after Hero or after Bands? After Hero the events are fresher in your mind, and after Bands you don't get spoiled on the reveal at the end, are there any more?

No spoilers for RoW why are the shards different. Shouldn’t all the rules apply to all of them Can the Rosharian gods see metal? Can they impact the world like Ruin with the ashmounts

So ima just dig right in with my theory and yall can give your thoughts. I might be grasping a little or clinging onto vague ideas but I like the theory so I might as well post it. Base allomancy comes in a set of 16 with subsets; Push, Pull, Internal, External, physical, mental, temporal, and enhancement. pretty basic allomancy knowledge, right? but we also know that every god metal can make their OWN allomantic sets, with atium alloys as our proof. the 11th metal (gold and atium) and the atium mistborn burn (atium and electrum). now usually there wouldn't be much for me to build off after that. each god metal is another set of 16, how could we possibly figure out what each power will do without knowing something like the subject of the powers, like physical in the base set. except we DO know one of the subsets for ruin's set of allomancy. and its the same as the base set. in fact the powers are nearly identical, except for one key difference. they have switched from internal, to external. gold is an internal metal, so is electrum. but their atium alloy counterparts aren't. the 11th metal lets you see other peoples past(or potential future still not sure) selves. but gold lets you see your own past/potential futrue self. nearly identical powers, except for the fact that the subset has flipped. so here is the theory. are ALL the allomantic powers in ruin's allomancy, simply the same power with a subset flipped? how would that translate into powers like tin, or pewter? or duralumin? we already have a power that essentialy works the same as duralumin, except it is focused externally. its already a thing in base allomancy. is it simply a fluke? a coincidence? or, does this perhaps work like the power overlaps in the knight's Radiant orders? they share power types across certain orders. are we maybe just seeing something similar to that? do ruin and preservation simply share an allomantic subset, changed slightly to fit them? or is it even less than that, just sharing these two powers, used in separate ways, because i cannot fathom how you can use time bubbles internally. or is it something else yet again? does ruin have external powers, and then a different subset, that isnt internal at all? Sorry, I know thats a lot more question than theory, but Its been scratching in my head for a while.

So I was reading WoA and a thought came to mind. Vin was aware that aluminum was Allomantically viable from her time in the prison cell. A year passes and we even find that she’s been working on an alloy. But it made me wonder if she told Sazed anything about it. They were in jail together and she could identify the metal later on. If so, then Feruchemical aluminum shouldn’t have been too hard to deduce. Remember, Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same, down to the alloy mixtures If so, then it makes me wonder if they could’ve discovered unkeyed metalminds. Granted, this would be tricky since the effects of storing Identity wouldn’t be obvious. However, I imagine Sazed would’ve reported to the Keepers if a new metal existed. That’s a pretty big deal. Surely, one of them would take an interest and all Feruchemists get zinc for extra sleuthing. And once unkeyed metalminds are discovered, Vin gets a huge game breaker. She and Sazed already know about how Compounding was done. Vin could only get short bursts from the metals, but even that alone would be a massive gain. Unkeyed gold makes her basically invincible and would outclass even the duralumin-pewter trick. Unkeyed iron could give her a duralumin effect with steel pushing. Even something like a burst of unkeyed zinc or unkeyed steel might’ve been useful. And Zane couldn’t mimic any of this without a Feruchemist or stealing from Sazed. No atium? No problem. Just surprise Compound. That said, I am willing to accept that the process does have some moving parts, especially in figuring out Identity. But man, even lesser Compounding could’ve been a game changer.

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 ?

So, in short my question is - it having been a while since I read the books and not being able to access my copies for another week or so - about how long the Mistborn books took place over. I know there's about a year between the end of The Final Empire and the start of The Well of Ascension, and I think a couple months between TWoA and The Hero of Ages, but I'm not sure of the timespan within each book, or exactly what's between TWoA and THoA. Can anyone help me here?

So I’m on my 3rd reread of the SA and I’m doing it right after finishing mistborn era 1 and I can’t help but notice the similarities and differences between the two series. Namely how they both treat “the end of the world” narrative. In mistborn especially HoA the entire atmosphere is depressing as. People trying to survive something that is desperately trying to kill them. And when you take a step back you notice the fact that with all the deaths that they were fortunate to even have won. (this post i like, even with the confusion, it shows the true devastation that the people were dealing with. ) Stormlight handles things vastly different than mistborn. In stormlight the hero’s are able to fight back. Sure it’s a “hopeless” fight but the humans are able to push odium into a disadvantaged deal. Where as in mistborn Ruins purpose was to extinct everyone and everything. Odiums is to conquer and control. But here’s the thing we didn’t know that until book3-4 especially RoW when odium flat out says that he doesn’t want to kill off all of humankind( just use them as fodder for better soldiers (his words not mine)) for book 1,2 we are lead to believe that the desolations were catastrophes with the human race existence On the line. (Wile it was true for a few desolations it is not for the Final Desolation) So here is where the differences really are. mistborn era 1 is the death of scadrial (no more mistborns, no more keepers, vast parts of the population killed) and it’s rebirth Stormlight is the revival of Roshar. (the magic coming back, ancient enemies, cities, access to the CR) tldr: mistborn era 1 and stormlight are stories of the end of the world. One is the death of the world and the other is death of the current world.

Whenever the topic of atium mistings is brought up I see someone talk about how atium mistings only exist in Hero of Ages because Preservation changed the rules Allomancy/Snapping to make it possible so his plan would work. Why? Where is that stated? Did I miss that detail in the books, or is it from a WoB or Annotations? Besides being a god metal (which to me is not a good enough justification) I see no reason why there shouldn't be atium mistings.

So I’m new to mbti and I’m trying to work out the personality types for ppl in era one here is what I got so far vin:istp kelsier: (damn this was hard as he is so unique)estp elend: infp, as an infp myself I saw a lot in elend that matched with my type sazed:istj? let me know if u have more

Breeze was getting impatient. Being chased on a horseback by archers wasn’t enough and now he had to wait for His Majesty. Sure, Elend’s the king and all that but, c’mon! It’s just like how it was with Kel! Weren’t kings supposed to be punctual? Well, none of them actually are, so I don’t know why anyone expects them to, but it’s Elend. The boy’s usually on time! As if on cue, Elend entered his study, with Vin on his side. Everyone else was already present - Hammond was sitting on a plush chair in a corner and Clubs was teaching Spook tricks about gambling. “Sorry about that, I...got indulged in some research.” Elend said sheepishly. “Is that what kids call it these days?” Breeze smirked as he tried to ease the situation in the room. He knew he would be in trouble of course. There’s no way he'd get away with bringing an entire army to their home, but he’d talk himself out of it. Everyone would call his plans insane and yet agree to go ahead with it anyway. “So, you’ve got the Cett army to come here.” “Yes.” “And you thought it was a good idea?” “Of course.” “.....explain please?” “Oh you see, well. There’s your father’s army waiting to destroy you and I thought I’d bring him some competition!” “.....” “I think…” Ham intercepted, “that Breeze means we could get them to turn on themselves. It would prevent Straff from focusing solely on us.” Elend looked pensive and seemed to think about it for a while. “Would it work? Theoretically, it’s possible because they have each other as a distraction, but I’m not quite sure as their ultimate goal is Luthadel.” Breeze grinned and stood up. “Allow me to introduce my grand plan.” He could see them groaning but he ignored them and continued. “You see I didn’t just spread the rumors of the atium stash, I also sprinkled its location with them!” “What? Where, Breeze?” Vin glared. Geez, you’d have thought he had invited the Lord Ruler himself to Keep Venture. “Why, Kredik Shaw, of course! You see, they don’t need to take the city to take control of the atium. My plan involves them sneaking into the Kredik Shaw and searching for atium. And given that it’s atium we’re talking about, you can bet on the non-existent atium that there’d be someone important among the party sent to search for it.” “That’s ….surprisingly a very effective plan. So we trap and eliminate them? Cut off the head and wait for the body to go away? Effective indeed...” pondered Ham. Ha! See! No matter how crazy it seems, they always agree. “What about Straff? He won’t know about it.” “Well, you don’t think he had spies in the Cett camp?” “Well….” “Yes, that’s right. I buddied up to them, and now your father knows all about Kredik Shaw. So lad, you’ve got a decision to make. We’d all be there as one big happy family. And we trap them and take them all out. But we should be quick though, as they’re sending a party to Kredik Shaw probably as early as tonight.” Elend looked around the room to see everyone give their approval. He finally turned to Vin, and they nodded to each other. “You’ll be fine, Vin? “You take care of yourself, I won’t be there to protect you.” And that was it. Elend nodded and looked around once more. “Right, we should start preparing then. Take our most trusted guards, and be careful.” With that, Elend and Vin walked off, Vin would join them later. The others gathered around and began planning. This is going to be a very interesting night. Perhaps the young lass would slip her father’s attention and join too? He immediately dismissed the foolish thought, those would come later. For now, he joined the others as they began discussing strategy. Welcome to MR49: Lode of Luthadel! This is a three-faction game with limited info semi-eliminator teams. I'm excited to run it, and I hope you all have fun. Since it's a three faction game, this game would work well with a higher player count, so please consider playing if you're got a bit of free time. Thanks! For any clarifications, tag me (@TJ Shade). This game will be moderated impartially by @Elandera. Rules will be posted below, but for the formatted doc version, go over here. Sign-ups will end on Tuesday, 16th March at 23:30 IST [GMT +05:30] and the game will began as soon as I send out the PMs. Rules: Player List: Spectators/Pinch-hitters: Clarifications: Quick Links:

So when kelsier destroyed the pits of hathsin , he destroyed the perpendicularity there. Similarly did vin destroy the perpendicularity at the well by freeing ruin ?? How long were the perpendicularlites defunct ? We know hoid went back out to the cosmere pretty soon. Is the shardpool mentioned in era 2 , preservations shardpool relocated or a new one ? Why weren't khriss and nazh able to use the well like hoid did ? Could they have ? Could vin have slid into the cr and talked with kel, after freeing ruin if she knew what to do ??

Firstly, allow me to clarify the title. No, I didn't read each book in order but from back to front. No i didn't read Hero of ages first, then WoA, then TFE. I read. ALL. Of ERA 2. FIRST. Alloy of Law was my first ever BRANDON SANDERSON novel. Wax was the first Cosmere character I read about. So let me tell you about my experience with reading Mistborn backwards. It was actually cool. Make no mistake, I have no regrets about reading the books this way. It was a fun and interesting experience to treat Era 1 as a prequel trilogy (everyone loves prequel trilogies, right?) with Era 2 as the "present day". Seeing all of the references to past characters as my first time learning of their existence was fascinating, seeing Vin immortalized as the Ascendant Warrior and wondering, "WOW, what did she have to do for THAT to happen?" made reading era 1 and seeing how Vin started out all the more interesting. I guess a comparable irl thing would be like meeting a celebrity and getting to know them on a personal level instead of just being aware of their celebrity persona. When Harmony showed up through Wax's earring and spoke to him, I was like, "Damn, God himself is just a chill dude who wants to keep things safe. ....And also not omnipotent, hmmmm." That was some interesting foreshadowing (retroshadowing?) for the end of HoA. Wax's Twinborn powers were immediately a favorite out of all magical skills i've ever seen, though being a Bloodmaker sounds more practical in a real life setting. I hate the idea of getting hurt in such a way that permanently damages me, so knowing that F-Gold could restore even a lost limb given enough time, really sounds appealing to me. The speed bubbles of Bendalloy and Cadmium were fascinating to read about, time dilation is one of my favorite things in science fiction, and Cadmium would be great for being able to just sit through boring stuff in a fraction of the time. And then it being the key component to Miles' defeat, just... Chef's Kiss. Perfecto. Introduce an ability that feels useless and impractical, and then smack the reader in the face with, "sure, BUT..." And then Ironeyes. Rusting IRONEYES. As a fan of Terry Pratchett, a "personification of Death" character will always remind me of Death from Discworld, so it was a little "Ha!" moment when he showed up. And Miles' prophecy about the "Men of red and gold, bearers of the final metal" was suitably ominous for the book's main antagonist's final words. Shadows of Self, hoo... That was an emotional roller coaster, surprisingly. I won't lie, I cried at the end. And the Trellium spikes... other than Ironeyes, that was my first glimpse of Hemalurgy. and Bleeder really made it feel terrifying. The Kandra as a whole were actually quite satisfactorily explained in Era 2 that I felt like I comprehended their functionality having read just those 2 books so far. And it really made the mystery novel aspect of the book feel much more intense, when anyone you know could be a Kandra... cue The Spy: "He could be any one of us!" And yeah, when it was revealed that Bleeder/Paalm WAS the real Lessie from the intro of Alloy, I cried. I felt furious at Harmony for misleading Wax into doing that, to forcing her hand into killing herself so that Harmony wouldn't be capable of making her into his pawn again. Harmony started to feel like a nontagonist (neither pro- nor antagonist, a middle ground of moral grey, which in retrospect makes perfect sense given his Shards). Bands of Mourning, OH BOY, this is probably my favorite Mistborn book just because of the Southerners and Ettmetal. Now remember, I had no idea who Kelsier was other than The Survivor, and The Lord Ruler was basically a footnote in my knowledge. So the mystery of the Sovereign's temple, the false bands, that was all extra mysterious. The Ettmetal cubes were AWESOME. Mechanically-altered allomantic and feruchemical effects was SUCH a fun thing to add to the series, and making a rusting AIRSHIP using them? Dope. So dope. Translation medallions were a fascinating addition, and promptly set my brain a-theorizin' upon what they could do and how they were made... No concrete theory on it yet, but I suppose Lost Metal will tell us all what we need to know about it. And of course, crossing the two, Ettmetal cubes and Medallions, I realized you could basically turn anyone into a Leeching grenadier for rapid metal depletion. Put an A-Chromium medallion on them, give em Ettmetal cubes, and let them cause chaos by depowering people around the area. The reveal of Kelsier being the Sovereign probably hit me a lot less hard than the average mistborn reader, but it was a FASCINATING reveal that the Survivor had managed to live, you know, 300+ years and reach the southern scadrians. And of course that made the reveal that Kel dies in the midst of book 1 all the more nutty and shocking for me when I read TFE. "Wait, he WHAT?!" So yeah, that's a rough summary of my thoughts from reading Era 2 as my first-ever cosmere books.

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?

Hello folks, I had a question about when Kelsier is committing a felony break and enter at the Ire base. So it's shown to us that at first he does not understand the language being spoken and as he spends time in the base he is slowly able to understand the language (presumably a form of sellish). So my question is: why is Kelsier becoming Connected with Sel at this moment, my current understanding is that it has something to do with the "blue energy" being pumped into the wall he's scaling which I am assuming is some distilled form of the Dor. So Kelsier is absorbing some of the Dor as he climbs the wall thus building his connection enough to understand the language. This is my first time posting in the Q&A forms, sorry if this question has been answered a million times over.

I've only read the first Mistborn trilogy and the 11th metal short story so far (and Way of Kings, but I doubt that matters for this), so please no spoilers for anything I havent read yet. Atium gives it's user the ability to see briefly into the future. So in a fight, you can see the image of what the person is getting ready to do. But if you are currently using Atium and seeing images of your opponent, shouldnt the images disappear slightly before your opponent actually starts burning their own Atium, since your Atium should be giving you the knowledge that they are about to burn it as well? I just dont see a big difference between Atium's ability to tell when an opponent is going to doge left vs when they are going to start/stop burning a metal since both of those are bodily things. In the first trilogy, ther one place where this could actually have affected things is Vin's fights with Shan. Since Vin surprises Shan by turning her Atium back on, Shan should have been briefly warned that Vin was going to start burning Atium again. Am I misunderstanding something about Atium's ability here? Is the difference here that movement is something you can see whereas burning a metal isnt?

What's the coolest trick you could use as a mistborn? A twinborn? How about with another metalborn friend helping you out? List the coolest stuff you could possibly do with your powers! Here's mine: A few crashers (Steelpushing & Weight storing) stand on the ground with a lot of steel and stored up weight, as well as a bag of coins. Their perfectly normal non-metalborn friend needs to get from one ledge to the other, and stands just above the first crasher in line. When the normal person jumps off the ledge, the steelpusher throws a coin upwards, Pushing on it and increasing their weight. The person lands on this coin, jumping off of it and to the next coin, thrown by the next crasher in line. The person continues running across this makeshift bridge of coins until they reach the other side. Difficulty: 10/10 Effectiveness: 1/10 Aesthetic: 11/10

Let's face it: typos are annoying. Take it from an author who works entirely by computer that the amount of times you have to correct "hte" or "htem" that you're almost glad for autocorrect; almost. However, some of these typos can actually be pretty cool. I was thinking running through some Mistborn name typos in my head and came up with these: Keslier - Pronounced Kez-leer. Sounds like a rogue-like supervillain. Vni - Pronounced like it's spelled. Some sort of foreign agent from another land. Niv - Also pronounced like it's spelled. Perhaps an ancient god? Hmamond - Pronounced Maa-mund. Suddenly everyone's favorite sleeveless jacketboi has gone terris. Those are just a few. Any others that y'all can think up?

Hey!!! I heard some people want parties. Therefore, I made a party. Come in, have some fun. I'm sure the DA and TUBA will bring baked goods. Have fun. I'll go ahead and start the rootbeer flowing now. @Voidus @Archer

Hi guys, I was just thinking about this upon rereading parts of Hero of Ages for a paper I'm writing, but how would Ruin have gotten the atium? Like, was it only his ignorance of where it was that kept it from just taking it into himself once he was freed, and once he found out where it was, was it just Vin's power as Preservation preventing him from doing anything active reflexively that did it? If so, what was the point of the Kolos even attacking for it. The world would have ended anyway, it would just have taken a few months for people to starve, if Vin hadn't killed ruin and Sazed had taken up both powers. Would the Kolos or Kandra under ruin's control taking control of Atium actually have done anything more as long as Vin was preservation? Were the pits protected from Ruin somehow that as long at the atium was in them, Ruin couldn't just like, absorb it into himself? What's going on here?

(Mistborn Spoilers) So we know that the prophecy of the Hero of Ages (from the original Terris religion) were corrupted by Ruin, but in their uncorrupted version they made true predictions. In HoA we find that they predict Sazed, and his taking the fate of the world "on his arms" by taking up the powers of ruin and preservation, using his copperminds to give him the knowledge he needed. The question is, if the prophecy is actually a real prediction of an event over a millenia before it happens, where did it come from? Did preservation use fortune? I doubt it was Ruin, he wouldn't make a prophecy just to corrupt it. Possibility #1: Preservation saw the future, and passed it to the Terris. But I got the impression that Preservation wasn't as good, as Shards go, at future sight. The future sight he demonstrates in Secret History seems limited, and I believe he even mentions that it isn't as useful as it should be (I don't have the text with me, so I can't provide a quote). Over 1000 years in advance, that kind of prophecy seems difficult to do for him. #2: It's possible that it was a self fulfilling prophecy: that is, preservation planned it to happen and set events in motion in order to cause it. This also seems unlikely. Too many people involved (people are unpredictable) and Leras' mind was fading during some of the crucial moments. #3: (this one is from my wife, and I think it's the most likely) Connection. Spiritual Connection transcends time, as we see with Kaladin's connection to Syl. I suspect that Leras is better at Connection (just like other Shards are better with Fortune and future sight), due to the fact that his godmetal creates connection. Sazed, the future holder of preservation, has a spiritual connection with Leras. Through this connection Leras had with the future Sazed, Leras was able to gain the knowledge that resulted in the Hero of Ages prophecy. Let me know what you guys think! Or if you have any additional theories

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So I just picked up Alloy of Law. I read era 1 a while ago. I read the wiki plot summaries but was wondering if there were any major things involving the magic and worldbuilding that I need to know.