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Yo, been reading the forums for a while now and am new to posting. Had a few crackpot ideas I wanted to shoot out there about the Aethers and Adonalsium. Could they and their planet have been Adonalsium's first experiment creating planets and magic that he left for Yolen? If the mythology about them is right and they predate Adonalsium, could they have created him or something? Could Adonalsium be an Aether? Idk, this is all in the dark wild speculation, what do y'all think?

Hello everyone. I've been working on this theory for a little while and wanted to know what other people thought of it. My theory is this: I believe that through the Cognitive perception of the people on Scadrial towards the figure of Ironeyes Marsh is manifesting more and more in the Cognitive Realm as the actual embodiment of death, all the while keeping a material aspect in the Physical realm, similar to how spren have an appearance in the the Physical realm, but are fully manifested in the Cognitive realm. I believe that as time goes on Marsh will cease just being an Inquisitor who is viewed as Death, but will actually become the Cosmere's version of the Grim Reaper: the avatar of death itself, Ironeyes. My evidence: 1. Marsh's soul is spiked over 20 times, thus making his spiritual web susceptible to manipulation from outside sources. 2. Marsh has been viewed as a personification of a force of nature(in this case death) for over 300 years by millions of people on Scariel. So the Cognitive perception people have of him is very fixed. 3. Harmony has invested Marsh a number of times in order to meet people in the Cognitive realm to act the part of Ironeyes that people perceive him as. Thus strengthening the Cognitive perception of him even further. 4. We know that a Connection between Physical realm beings and Cognitive realm entities can exist(Radiants), what I'm suggesting is that this is a Connection between Physical beings(Scadrial's people) and a singular Physical being's Cognitive aspect. 5. At the end of Lost Metal we have 3 pieces of information about Marsh that have yet to be resolved or answered: 1. He needs a new way to retain his immortality, as Atium is no longer a reliable source. 2. He can walk around in public and no one notices him. He claims it's emotional Allomancy but Wax believes it is something else. 3. Kriss is aware that other planets are acknowledging Marsh as Ironeyes, for reasons she doesn't understand. If I am correct in my theory then all these issues are resolved. As a being who is more manifested in the Cognitive realm Marsh would stop aging or at least greatly slow in growing old, as spren and seons do. As the personification of a force of nature his presence would be like air and gravity, always present but barely noticed. And if he is becoming more and more a Cognitive entity then the idea of him could be spreading in the minds of other inhabitants of the Cosmere. So that is my theory. Hope it makes sense. Feel free to tear it apart to find mistakes and weaknesses. Have a good day all.

Ok so I was confused at first but I have a theory to explain it. So trel is said to be male avatar but telsin is female? This confused me might here is how I think it works. Autonomy makes a male avatar on taldan name trell, that avatar ascends and now is also a holder of the shard Autonomy. After he ascends he begins to make a avatar of himself telsin. Dose this theory make sense lore with the lore we have on avatars?

My assumption, after bands of mourning, was that the lord ruler had nothing to do with the creation of the bands and instead it was all kelsier or at least, kelsier with some help from spook or something. He didn't have access to feruchemic powers, but we knew little enough about what his deal was now that I was willing to brush that aside until we knew more. But after The Lost Metal, this just doesn't make much sense. So what happened then? There are two questions here- one, who made them and two, why did they keep them in the temple instead of somewhere practical? - Kelsier made them. This just doesn't seem likely anymore. Kelsier doesn't even have access to allomancy anymore, let alone feruchemy. I don't see how he could have made the bands, unless he had to give up his powers to make them or made them and then later lost his powers (say, through an aluminum spike). But why? Why would he make them, why would he not use them himself to get his powers back if he knew where they were, and even if he can't use them why are they kept in a temple and not as a tool for the ghostbloods? It just doesn't make sense. - Marsh made them. Maybe. Marsh does have access to both allomancy and feruchemy, and I could see harmony instructing him to make them as a failsafe and then to put them in the temple to hide them until they're desperately needed. But even marsh, with all his spikes, doesn't have all the powers. He only has 21 spikes, which is not enough to give access to the full breadth of allomancy and feruchemy. There's only one person to ever have access to all the powers of both without the bands - The Lord Ruler made them. He was always the obvious choice. The biggest strikes against him were that 1) he did everything in his power to avoid letting anyone else and 2) that we saw him pass into the beyond in secret history so we know he's not secretly still sticking around, so someone else would have had to find and distribute them. I don't think 1) is actually an issue though. Because while yes, he wanted to make sure no one else became a fullborn, he also wanted to make sure he stayed one. The lord ruler knew about aluminum and knew about hemalurgy to know that an aluminum spike could be a serious threat to him; I think it would make sense for him to want a backup in case that happened. Someone else still would have had to distribute them though; likely kelsier or marsh. (The memory coin certainly implies kelsier, though as I mentioned earlier it makes more sense for marsh to be the one to hide them at harmony's request) What are your thoughts on this? Who made the bands? How? Why did they make them, only to abandon them?

Hi, I finally caught up to everything but the Lost Metal. Since I have all cosmere books in the old UK cover - with no blue border around any of the mistborn books especially - I have been trying to find out if Lost Metal will have a non-border versions aswell. Would be kind of sad if all except the last are the same 'series' of covers, and I am biased toward the old version. So if anyone has news on non-bordered UK covers for Lost Metal i would like to know, good or bad. Thanks!

What it says on the title. Also, sorry if this has been asked before but I am trying to avoid stumbling into major spoilers by accident. So, speaking for myself, I have read all the Mistborn books and short stories/novellas so far aside from the recently released Lost Metal, along with Warbreaker, the Emperor's Soul, Elantris, and White Sand. It is with the Stormlight Archives that I suspect I may have a problem with, reference-wise. I have only finished the Way of Kings so far, although I finished part 1 of Words of Radiance the other day so I am trying to catch up. Thing is, I still have still several thousand of pages to cover between the point I am at and the remaining Stormlight volumes that have been released, not to mention the in-between novellas like Edgedancer so I am not sure if I will be missing Scadrial-related connections that would be worth spending a year or so reading through (the amount of time I expect it will take me to fully catch up with Stormlight at his rate) before I actually start Lost Metal. And since Mistborn is my favorite series of the Cosmere and the anticipation i killing me, I wanted to ask if it would be safe for me to read or if in your more informed opinion as fellow Cosmere fans, I should wait however long it takes for me to catch up with Stormlight before finishing Mistborn Era 2. Oh, and I have also not yet read the novella set on Therondy or Sixth of the Dusk either, should that also be relevant to this discussion. Thanks in advance for the replies.

So after rhythm of war, I saw theories floating around that godmetals were kind of like a supercharged versions of the normal metals. Atium, for example, was compared to Super-Electrum (this was before the atium retcon which throws a bit of a wrench into the info we know for comparison) and raysium with its investure-conductive properties might have been super-nicrosil or super-duralumin. After a certain fact in sp1 caught my attention with Lost Metal fresh in my mind, I want to revisit these theories. In sp1, tress uses an iron tool and a steel tool to manipulate aethergrowths- iron to attract it and steel to repel it. This of course is very similar to what we know of their effects in fabrials, as well as of course their allomantic effect. (And I'm just now realizing that iron feruchemy affects gravity, you're storing and tapping the physical pull of the world on you, though I think it does so through tapping/storing *mass* not gravitational force). This use of steel to repel investiture reminded me of something else- Trellium aka bavadinium. This particular comparison holds up nicely for the purposes of this theory, and I'm interested in the differences between how steel and trellium repel investiture. So of the known godmetals, do you think they're comparable to the allomantic metals?

So, finished the lost metal awhile ago and one thing has been rattling around in my brain to no end. Kelsier has seemingly lost all his powers and even with hemallurgy can't seem to do anything other than use steel sight. I am sure I am not the only one who wonders how he got to and helped the southern scadrians. Not to mention how he has managed to keep this so secret from his new crew. Most of all, I wonder why this is the case for him and not other fused as he seems unable to use unkeyed metal minds as well? The heralds have their shardblades and use external energy (stormlight). In addition returned utilize breath which could arguably be seen as an external investiture. Which to me would imply that cognitive shadows cannot use investiture innately. However, the fact that kelsier cannot to the best of my knowledge use unkeyed metal minds seems to imply there is something more going on. Would love to discuss with anyone, and thanks for chatting in advance.

I was adding Chapters to the Lost Metal summary, but my library loan ran out so that is why I stopped in the low 60's. I was planning to get my own copy but after reading the State of the Sanderson, I'm rethinking relying on Kindle/Audible. I listen on audiobook a lot when I'm falling asleep, and summaries really help me figure out what I was awake for last.

In Kelsier's epilogue, he and Sazed discuss whether or not Sazed should lead the people of Scadrial to a technological revolution. Sazed states that it's better for the people to discover things on their own. Kelsier counters the conflict wouldn't have happened if the people of Scadrial had been more advanced. Sazed has admitted previously that he thinks he's made things to easy for the people of the Basin, and that's why they haven't advanced as much as he'd expected. But if he'd given them the technology, they wouldn't need to discover it. Who's beliefs are more valid? Personally, I think Sazed's opinion is more valid. This resonates with several other fictional sources I'm fond of, and I think it's true. In Stormlight Archives, Dalinar discusses with one of his ardents the value of growing stronger through adversity, both as an individual and as a people. And the two discussions resonate, I think. Beyond that, the concept of people valuing things they've earned over what they've been given is something that's often explored in literature and other media. And that appreciation affects how they treat whatever it is. Be it technology, peace, or even financial wealth. Right now, Sazed says he puts people where they need to be, but allows them to make their own decisions. That's not a bad approach, all things considered. Perhaps Sazed could help nudge people in the right direction a little, but just giving the secrets away seems unwise. Hand outs are dangerous, because people can start to rely on them very easily, and because once it happens a first time, it's much harder to argue against doing it a second time. Teach a man to fish, and all that.

I posted in the "problems with Lost Metal" thread, but I don't want my only posts on the forums to be criticisms of it! So I thought this thread would be a good complement, to talk about things we especially liked about the book that might not need a whole thread. I thought the character work was really good. I thought that everyone's motivations were consistent with previous books, Lost Metal gave great contexts for them to do and show what they needed, and their narrative arcs were very satisfying to me. Steris is a particular favorite of mine, and I really appreciated her rising to her challenges and finding acceptance through embracing her compulsions and responses to them. Her superlative abilities just needed to be in the right place to obviously show their worth, just like Wax needed to be in the Roughs for a while. I loved what we saw of Autonomy. Any time a Shard is on screen is significant, but seeing Autonomy in action sharpened a lot of previous thinking and suggested tons of new details. Especially exciting to me is that, just like Odium's nature means that it can't help but promote conflict even against itself, Autonomy can't help promoting self-determination even from Autonomy itself. And as her campaign of domination continues she's going to increasingly become the main force to oppose. Her greatest champion is also going to be her most dedicated opponent. Awesome. I cannot wait to read those stories as they develop. And her preference for avatars seems like more than just the Shard's nature (more self-determining instances of the power) but also a way to deal with conflict like that, which I find fascinating. The new details about the Cosmere were incredibly intriguing. The implications of a general Stamp are stunning, given how Forgery was previously shown as so limited to specific objects in specific places at specific times. Shai being able to Forge an Elantrian identity is similarly huge. It closes the loop on a lot of previous theorycrafting, and along with the reveal of raw Investiture to drive it we have a lot of new details to use when thinking about crossing magic systems. As there is more travel around the Cosmere and more power-mixing, Forgery is going to become easier to do, much more expansive in what it can do, and much more powerful. I'm also fascinated by the Aethers and their home system. I thought that the dual-conflict narrative was well done. Autonomy was going to invade and conquer, unless the Set conquered it in her name first. They had to save Scadrial, which required them to conquer Scadrial now, which meant blowing up a big part of it. It was a great motivation for a group with a doomsday device not just to have developed one in the first place, but also a compelling reason to actually try to use it. It was also a great way to separate out two antagonists at once, where they were on the same side but not quite the same side, and not really working together. The arc for Sazed, as Harmony, as increasingly unable to act (even indirectly) is moving to me, even if I haven't totally loved the pacing. He has virtually infinite divine power, strong moral beliefs, and worthy goals. But he can't bring all of those together. He must be tortured to be so helpless, even as a god, like reliving his struggle in Hero of Ages again but worse and on a larger scale. I don't know how becoming Discord will interact with that but I really want to see more. There was a lot more to like about the book but I'd rather hear what positive things especially stood out for other people.

Ok according to the northerners Kelsier was able to make the bands because of his full born powers yet in his POV he doesn't have any powers?

Science time! Like the alchemists of old it is time for us to delve into the secrets of metals and the divine. With lost metal out its time to put on my aluminum hat and scratch my understanding of investiture into the metal sheets of the wall. Examining Wax's experiment seems to reconfirm how a metal's properties are related to the shard it originates from. Harmonium: Also called ettmetal is a highly volatile substance. It exists in a delicate balance and mere interaction with water is sufficient to cause the largest man made explosions in scadrial's history. It is quite pliable as well and has a high boiling point. This is emblematic of a shard striving for balance on a knife's edge. Although destructive it is also quite resilient and flexible. Additionally it can fuel matalic arts when combined with the correct technology. Trellium(bavadinium): Is an extremely durable substance. Its melting point is very high, beyond even ettmetal, and its hardness barely below diamond. It is emblematic of a shard promoting individuality and when used in hemalurgy it can prevent intrusion from Harmony. It also reacts much more violently to resist foreign investiture then other metals. Stormlight: It might be surprising to place this on the list but its worth noting that this is a relatively common form of physical investiture found on roshar. It seems particularly good at bridging the different realms as per its intent in joining things together. Because of this it tends to be somewhat unstable and difficult to keep in one place. It desires to connect anything to anything else per the intent Honor. Lifelight: Cultivation's light is noted for its use in creating food. This may also explain its rarity as any that exists would be rapidly absorbed by surrounding lifeforms fulfilling Cultivation's intent to grow. Voidlight: By contrast to stormlgiht remains solid for long periods. In solid form raysium conducts investiture quite well. This may be a demonstration of its emptiness per Odium's intent. The two most important for this theory our old friends lerasium and atium are not widely available in present day scadrial. Both seemed to be pliable metals but what is truly intriguing about them might not be their properties but rather their distribution. The majority of lerasium was always distributed as widely as possible across the planet in the form of mists with comparitively little in the well as liquid or solid. This can potentially be seen as a type of behavior caused by Preservation's intent, the desire to save everyone and stop all change everywhere. Meanwhile atium is found almost exclusively in solid form. This can be seen as Ruin's intent to destroy things. When breaking things down its generally smarter to gather a critical mass of oxygenated material then just spray oxygen into the atmosphere. Now for the interesting part. Sazed claims to Kelseir that the lerasium is annihilated in the explosion. I'm thinking its actually not a lie but it is a bluff. Investiture cannot be destroyed. One can convert it of course and indeed that is part of what happens during the explosion but there is no reason for more lerasium to be destroyed then atium. It seems much more likely that an equal amount of both are consumed. Is it not possible the Lerasium attempts to follow its invested nature and fix things up in the aftermath of the explosion? The result seems fairly clean all thing considered with no known toxins generated. Additionally Wax absorbed a small amount of it at the time. The reason that no lerasium sticks around is because it is consumed by the environment itself. If intervention took place at the time of the explosion it may be possible to harvest it in small amounts. Its been a long time but I hope to hear from anyone who thinks this type of theory is interesting. I'd also like to hear about everyone else's ideas concerning godmetals.

Hello, assorted sanderfans! I have just finished reading the first few chapters of The Lost Metal, and it looks like things are getting spicy. I'm pretty convinced that the Set is following Odium at this point. Odium is preparing for conquest of the Cosmere, and Scadrial looks like his first target. Here are some reasons why I think so. As Taravangian ascended and became Odium near the end of RoW, he decided that the rest of the Cosmere was ruled by ¨impostors.¨ In classic villain logic, he decides to take over the other worlds to ¨save¨ them. As Lost Metal is the first major Cosmere book to be released after RoW, narrative flow would make it a good target for invasion. At the end of Bands of Mourning, we saw someone with red eyes, working for the Set and disguised as a human. That sounds a lot like a Fused. Lord Ladrian's internal monologue indicates that it is disguised, and there's an order of the Fused who have that as their sole ability, so... yeah. From the blurb, we know that Harmoy's prescience doesn't work in a particular town, which is being influenced by the Set. That has served as an indicator that another person/shard who can see the future is in the area, and Odium is the best shard for seeing the future. Please respond if you think differently!

Hi all! The Lost Metal Chapters 5 through 8 are here: https://www.tor.com/2022/10/03/read-the-lost-metal-by-brandon-sanderson-chapters-5-8/ Lots of things I am excited about! - Hoid's first appearance in the book (he does seem to have a soft spot for drivers and beggars) - Harmony's attempt to make contact with Wax (you know that things get serious when Sazed needs help) - Trellium and red eyes! (did anyone else kind of expect an Everstorm arrive after the eyes started glowing? ) - Malwish war ship (I hope it is indeed just a statement, not a threat for now) Thoughts?

Chapters 12 and 13 are here! First off, poor Wayne! I knew that MeLaan was going to leave Scadrial but I did't expect her to ask for it! I felt as heartbroken as Wayne must have. Second, MeLaan would be the first kandra on a long-term mission in Shadesmar, which means there might have been shorter trips before. I am curious to know where and why. Also, why aluminum body? Lastly, I truly enjoyed the science experiments and hope to see Lerasium and Atium reemerge again. If that happens, the book would have to be renamed "Lost metalS"

Chapters 10 and 11 here! First off... MeLaan going to another planet?! Awesome! I think Sel is the most likely candidate because of the Ire, but I can't wait to know for sure. And the way it is set up, Marasi is almost certainly going too Speaking of Marasi - I loved that there are stories written about her in broadsheets now. It is a beautiful thing to do for her as a character, considering her youthful inspiration with the Dawnshot stories. Next, any ideas who Wayne owes money? Is it potentially related to his bendalloy (over)consumption? And, we finally got to see Allik... hot choc never spoils a book

What are your predictions for lost metal? My predictions 1. Hemalurgy would be explored it much more detail. 2. A new autonomy based magic system will be introduced. 3. We will see more of autonomies God metal. 4. Kelsier will be take about nut not see on screen but Marsh will be. What are yours?

At first I was disappointed to hear that The Lost Metal may be slipping back in Brandon's writing schedule (he'd hoped to squeeze it in end of 2018 but that doesn't look likely at this point). But I was just reminded that Era 2 takes place after Stormlight - so with that perspective it makes perfect sense for SA to take precedence. But then it begs the question, why write Era 2 at all now? Did he simply not want to wait a decade plus before writing a follow-up to the hugely successful Era 1 books?

Just finished up The Hero of Ages for an unknown number of re-reads. It's no coincidence that Mistborn's second era takes place 300 years after Kelsier destroyed the Pits of Hathsin, right. Not 200 years, or 500 years. We were told it would be 300 years before Atium could be harvested again. Ruin couldn't annihilate Scadrial because he was missing his body/power/Atium. He was incomplete. Powered but not powerful. Vin's body absorbed all the mist from the skies, so Sazed absorbed a full and complete shard. When Sazed absorbed the dark smoke from Ati's body, he only absorbed an impotent shard, a half-shard perhaps, incomplete. Powered, not even close as powerful as Vin's shard. Harmony still needs the power that Ati/Ruin never got. Harmony is currently under attack from Odium? Or some other shard wanting to remove all life from the sphere. (The Set) Perhaps it's Hoid doing his Adonalsium Round-up Tour, kidding. So, I presume that Harmony moved the Hathsin shardpool/perpendicularity to some crazy hidden underground/underwater inaccessible place waiting for the well/pool/hot tub to fill up again. Marsh is likely guarding it. Harmony likely changed the form of the power from happy lil' god candies to another form, perhaps a cozy hot tub that Harmony could dip his toes in. Thus making him complete, at last. Once he is two completely powerful shards he will toss Odium away from his system for good. Until era three and a cast of all new characters. Thoughts?

I'm not entirely sure this goes here, but do we know what the titular lost metal is? My first thought, and I think the more accepted theory, was atium. Clue is this quote: "The plaque read: ATIUM, THE LOST METAL" (Pg 161 of Shadows of Self) But recently I started thinking, what if it's lerasium? It would certainly fit the Set's goal of making Allomancy more accessible to the public, and they'd probably make a mean profit in the process. The only argument I can think of that could explain an sudden atium hunt is if the Set have heard of its future predicting ability, which might've been exaggerated to the point where they'll gain far sight into the future. Now while I would love to read the look on Sequence's face when she realises it grants a couple seconds best, surely Harmony would've explained atium in the Words of Founding, and if not, they have Trell working with em. Surely it would know. Anyways, these are just my thoughts. There's a fair chance I'm wrong, and this might've been discussed to death before I got here, but I can't remember seeing anything.

The State of the Sanderson is coming... For those who haven't seen Brandon's latest blog post, he has stated that he intends to do a State of the Sanderson post for his birthday. So far as we know, he is roughly 1/3 of the way through Stormlight 3. He has said after that that it will be either Mistborn 7 (a.k.a. The Lost Metal) or the second Rithmatist (a.k.a. the Aztlanian). We might be able to get a pin-down on that. Although, he has warned that Stormlight 3 might turn into a 2017 release. Anyway, on to shameless advertising. After his last State of the Sanderson, he made a great list of things about what he'd like to get done. I made a flow chart of the whole lot - in addition to a loose timeline - here. I will update this after the next State of the Sanderson. (I'll probably also post here, to be double sure.) So, thoughts? Anything you'd particularly like Brandon to turn around and start writing after Stormlight 3?