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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.*

So I was scrolling through the forums yesterday when I saw a topic discussing what the most useful twinborn combination would be in the modern day. After thinking about it I decided that F-Zinc would be my preferred Feruchemical power, and I realized that F-Zinc has been heavily underutilized. Mental speed is an amazing power for basically any situation, whether it be scholarship, combat, politics, sports, basically anything that takes a brain, which is most things. I imagine compounded zinc would have a similar effect of atium, not seeing the future, but being able to take in and calculate everything around you so fast that you can anticipate everything that's about to happen. Combined with rioting I think it could make for someone particularly threatening. I really want to see F-Zinc be utilized more in the future because it really is just an awesome power, and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities of compouned zinc.

I’ve been thinking lately about nicrosil in Allomancy/Feruchemy and I was wondering why Brandon wanted to make the protagonist of Era 3 a Nicroburst. I think I figured out the answer: medallions make Allomantic nicrosil insanely overpowered. There will always be the standard effects of Allomantic nicrosil: duralumin-flaring your allies’ misting powers (or opponents in some cases). Which is a decent ability. But if Era 2 medallions become available to our Nicroburst protagonist, they will be able to use compounding to create their own Keyed medallions permanently. Theoretically they would only need a shaving of any medallion. Say we have a Connection medallion. The medallion would appear to have two components: a full Nicrosilmind which grants the user Feruchemical nicrosil and fConnection and an empty Duraluminmind that the user can then use (we’ve seen it used to a blank one’s Locational Connection thus far). Our Nicroburst could instead swallow the medallion and burn the nicrosil. This would grant tenfold the Feruchemical nicrosil and Feruchemical duralumin which the Nicroburst can then store inside their own Nicrosilminds which would be Keyed to their Identity. (Sidenote on tapping medallions. It seems to me that tapping a Nicrosilmind can be done by anyone as long as it is either Unkeyed or Keyed to them. This may be turn out to be a false axiom). Since our Nicroburst has natural Allomantic nicrosil, they can always compound their existing feruchemical abilities stored in their Nicrosilminds and thus have that power in perpetuity. A small shaving of any medallion would be enough because of the power of compounding. I don’t see any reason why medallions couldn’t grant Allomancy, so theoretically a Nicroburst could have Fullborn abilities given the right resources. Or any other ability that can be stored in a Nicrosilmind. All of this makes a resourceful Nicroburst an immensely powerful individual in the cosmere. I hope to see these mechanics play out in Era 3; I guess we’ll see in 5 years!

Okay, so here’s my crazy theory about the basic plot structure and possible storylines: Book 1, our new SWAT protagonists track the mystery mistborn serial killer (mmsk). As they track him they discover a mysterious conspiracy that’s manipulating events on all levels. Around the time they defeat MMSK they learn that Kelsier is behind the conspiracy and he’s working with another Shard against Harmony. Book 2: Kelsier is the villain of this book, but there are hints all along that he’s playing this other Shard (revealed through his PoVs to be Autonomy.) Our heroes work to defeat him, pitting them against the entire planet. Along the way they (and we) become increasingly Cosmere aware. This ends up leading to them exposing (some of) Kell’s machinations to Autonomy prematurely. In typical Brandon penultimate fashion, they actually do manage to stop Kelsier’s plans, only for it to be revealed that what he was doing was intended to stop Autonomy who, it turns out, had been active on Scadrial since before Rashek’s Ascension. Of course, in typical Kelsier fashion, he didn’t tell anyone his plans and Autonomy - forewarned - now takes many of them over to turn against Scadrial. At this point Kelsier joins/is recruited by the heroes, who realize that he was, in his own way, trying to protect Scadrial. Total theory: The heroes discover that Kelsier is trying to steal HARMONY. They intervene, preventing this, but this leaves a hole that allows Autonomy to shatter Harmony. Kelsier then risks himself to save Sazed, to the shock of the SWAT crew. After this they learn that Kelsier knew Saze couldn’t directly act against Autonomy. He intended to take Harmony and, wielding it as Discord, use it to kill Bavadin allowing him to take her Shard. Then he would return the triple Shard to Sazed. Saze, upon learning all this, blankly asks why Kelsier didn’t just ASK him for the Shard, as he would have given it to him. The realization that this could all have been avoided if he hadn’t been so intent on one upping everyone is what finally breaks through Kell’s arrogance and forces him to acknowledge that he messed up - very, very badly. Book 3, then, is Kelsier’s parallel to Sazed’s journey in HoA. His confidence is deeply shaken by how badly he messed up, especially as Autonomy continues to use his own tools against him. This book becomes his redemption arc, as he rebuilds himself and finally learns that, for all his power, he isn’t invincible and he can’t be completely autonomous. This allows him to create a new plan from the dregs of the old, and work with the SWAT crew to defeat Autonomy and give her Shard to Saze. (Harmony being reconstructed as part of this.) At the end Kelsier and Sazed talk, as they did at the end of Secret History. Kelsier reveals that he told himself he was staying to protect Scadrial, but not only had he not done that, he now acknowledged that he just wasn’t ready to die. He then tells Sazed that he can’t willingly go Beyond now because Preservation’s Command won’t let him. Saze points out that Kelsier still doesn’t want to die - which he notes as very human - and removes/alters Preservation’s Command instead of forcing Kell Beyond. Saze then restores Kelsier, orders him to ‘do better’, and tells him he should go Beyond when he’s actually ready to do so. The book ends with Kell looking over Scadrial with two eyes and realizing that his hands are smooth and unmarred. His scars are gone. So, while some (most) of this is going to be completely wrong, and a whole lot is pure fancy and sap, I do think Kelsier is going to mess up very, very badly and that this will force the character to grow in ways he hasn’t yet. That’s the only part of this that I really think has any chance of being remotely accurate (aside from the ‘SWAT team chases MMSK’, which is from WoB.) Either way, with Mistborn Era 3 starting within the next 5 years, I wanted to get this out there on the off chance I’m even REMOTELY right. Mostly so I can claim bragging rights on the off chance any of the above occurs.

In era two there are no mistborn and full feruchemists and much less powerful mistings/ferrings. I am guessing in era 3 and 4 even mistings/ferrings will be rare and twinborn might even be nonexistent. Does anyone have any ideas about how Brandon Sanderson will be able to keep the powers going?