Wayne is a full feruchemist

[HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose?]

Yes you read the title. Yes I'm not kidding

This is a outgrowth of several other theories and details which i find interesting.

1. Wayne had a really unlucky childhood. (Both parents & uncle dying when he was young, being pulled unwittingly into crime, etc)

2. Wayne has been extraordinarily lucky in recent years from his investments, to picking up the bands of mourning, to giving them to exactly who would need them later. not to mention getting involved in incredibly important recent events.

3. Wayne uses hats to adopt different personas

4. In this weeks chapter, Wayne admitted his lucky hat helped him hold onto his own over the top personality.

5. Many suspect that Wayne will eventually become a Kandra/worldhopper.

Sooooo how are all these important?

A number of things.

Hats in elendel are often lined with aluminum (to shield against emotional allomancy)

So heres the theory. Wayne is born to a poor Terris family in tinweight. Full feruchemy has been unheard of since the Catecendre. He lives directly next to a mine. This is where the theory goes off the rails. the town is not called tin, but tin-weight. Guess what metal has a near identical room temperature density as tin? Chromium. This would be the only magically useful metal available to a destitute young wayne.

We see from vin, using allomancy as an orphan kid on the streets that complicated metallic arts may not require specific knowledge or intent, just a vague idea of what you want to do. Wayne says he wants to learn cards to help win the family money, and implies he knows how to cheat. Obviously he could cheat with mundane means, but something odd happens in the sample chapters so far. Wayne plays a game of cards with captured set member, but chooses to play fairly even when he knows their cards. This might suggest he dislikes the principles of normal cheating. E.G. peering over your opponents shoulder, pulling out fake cards etc. Wayne has shown a consistent, but rather bizarre set of morality so far, so this kind of hypocrisy wouldn't be too surprising.

But what if Wayne knows how he can get a leg up without doing anything so dishonorable. What if he just gets lucky? Here's the thing. With F-Chromium, he could do just that. By making most of his days unlucky, he could channel his luck into gambling, and make big returns. This could be related to a reveal of how wax's uncle did something similar with gambling and F-Chromium. But in the end it backfired. His poor luck killed his mother, and perhaps earlier his father and uncle too. He might have unconsciously funneled his luck in other aspects of his life

When he gets older, and learns more about how the metallic arts work, he realizes what happened in his youth. He had just been trying to be useful to his single mother, and had instead just gotten her killed. He goes into a deep depression, and spirals into crime, repressing his childhood trauma, and in the end, killing an innocent man. But then he gets rescued by Waxillium. He finds new purpose in the law, and ends up distracting from his traumatic past by creating over the top personas. Wierdly enough, he links these to hats of all things. Interestingly, most of his hats are fancy rich people hats. Guess what's high fashion in elendel? Aluminum lines hats. 

Guess what F-Aluminum stores? That's right. Identity. Wax has been magically storing his personas in his fancy hats this entire time. Wax has been creating personas, and stapling them to the hats in his collection.

This links interestingly with a theory that the bowler hat men after Wayne are debt collectors, but debtors, or perhaps trying to give Wayne his equity portions from his investments in the last few books. As a kid, Wayne learned that his pursuit of money only lead to his misery, and grief, explaining why he is so apathetic to his newfound wealth in recent books despite growing up dirt poor. He despises what money did to his life as a kid. He gives it away in any way possible. To the family of his first and last victim, to a promising new inventor making a better elendel etc.

And how has Wayne been so lucky despite seemingly bumbling through these last few books? Fortune, caused by F-Chromium. Theres been a lot coincidences I've seen people observe.Shout out to @Requiem17 For the idea that Wayne has access to fortune. This is the same mechanic allowing Hoid to show up exactly where he needs to be when he needs o be there. It just works out for him. 

So heres the kicker.  Wayne in the prologue is shown even early on having a fascination with switching identities through his quote on trying on all the different clothes. This, and his hats may foreshadow him eventually becoming a kandra, hopefully with a happy ending with MeLaan. But how can he become a kandra? All kandra were made from full feruchemists turning into mistwraiths, Perhaps by blanking identity, and maybe some additional steps. This could work with this theory, and would be an interesting conclusion to his character.

PS: some holes in the theory. Full Feruchemy apparently vanished due to the entrance of Allomantic genes into terris populations post catecendre. Also while the aluminum hats with identity is really interesting it is unlikely that Wayne is subconsciously using fortune, since he probably avoids carrying random metals around just like wax and Marasi. He could have instinctually tapped the bands of mourning when he picked them up though, and thats how that worked out that he happened to give them to Marasi at the perfect time just @robardin pointed out on the forum. The idea that he's doing this subconsiously is also a bit of a stretch, but in less a month, we'll see how this theory pans out

[Requiem17]

Okay this was a fun read while wondering why I was @ -- it's definitely would be a wild change! 

Imo the Fortune is more like "instinct" like anyone in Earth would have, but everyone in the Cosmere has it as Fortune. Here's a truncated WoB that makes me believe this. 

Quote

PallonianFire

…The Spiritual Feruchemical metals, where we obviously have Invesiture, Identity, Connection and Fortune. Are all four of those cosmere-wide things?

Brandon Sanderson

So a lot of things-- The short answer is yes.

I tried to find the WoB that made me believe Fortune was also linked to the Spirit Web or Spiritual Realm but couldn't find it. It seems like a fundamental principle is what I mean though, not that he'd need to be tapping or filling Chromium. 

Then my relation to Wayne gets a bit off the rails but -- Wayne is a traumatized dude with lots of cracks in his spirit web -> spirit realm investiture leaks through those cracks -> part of his coping mechanism is living completely in the moment (or living in a fantasy in his mind) which essentially bases a lot of his actions on chance / instinct -> and it just so happens that instinct is Fortune. 

So then we get silly things like Wayne drinks the poison tea and steals the Bands-- which are both reasonable things for him to do-- but also just a tad lucky. And because he's constantly living by instinct he seems to get lucky like that more often than others. 

 

[+robardin]

It seems pretty unlikely for someone like Wayne to live to 30+ years old and never realize he had 15 more Feruchemical abilities than just F-gold. I mean, it's not like he's not constantly handling base metals like iron and steel, especially around Wax.

He even implied at one point that he innately knew he had Metalborn powers for F-gold and A-bendalloy before he could make use of either, being as both were expensive and rare, especially in the Roughs.

It was in Alloy of Law, when he spoke about meeting Wax to Marasi:

Quote

"Did you know you were an Allomancer?" she asked.

"Sure. That was kinda why I was in the Roughs in the first place, but that's another story. Anyway, bendalloy is hard to make. Bismuth and cadmium aren't the kind of metals you find in your corner store. Didn't know much about Feruchemy yet, though my father was a Feruchemist, so I had an idea. But storing health, it takes gold."

He implies (by my reading) that despite having little to no access to metals like bendalloy and gold he knew he could make use of them and how, albeit unpracticed, and Marasi doesn't question it.

At any rate, if he "had an idea" he was a Feruchemist but had no access to gold, he would at least have had relatively easy access to iron, tin, and copper in a mining town.

[StormingTexan]

This would be awesome but I think unlikely. Brandon has said that Waynes acting ability is not magically enhanced. My guess about his "fortune" is it may be his resonance a heightened level of fortune. 

[Frustration]

Feruchemists can tell whether they can store in a metal by touching it. It would be impossible for someone who knows what feruchemy is to not notice.

[Friendshipspren]

Truly amazing aluminium foil theory. Loved it but yeah i find it hard to believe that he would be around 16 metals and never realise he could use more than 1 of them unless u think he suppresses that info from his consious mind but that shouldn't stop him from unconsciously using the other metals like u think he uses aluminium or unconsciously use all the 16 attributes stored in the BoM. Also idt him storing fortune could have led to his parents and uncle dying. That's not how fortune works. But amazing Alfoil theory. Bravo 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Friendshipspren

[HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose?]

Wow i just realized this is literally an aluminum foil hat theory 

[Karger]

For starters its a fun theory.  However

On 10/25/2022 at 0:06 AM, HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose? said:

Hats in elendel are often lined with aluminum (to shield against emotional allomancy)

Not really.  That would be too expensive.  They do have aluminum hats for such uses but ordinary people don't wear them all the time.

On 10/25/2022 at 0:06 AM, HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose? said:

But what if Wayne knows how he can get a leg up without doing anything so dishonorable. What if he just gets lucky? Here's the thing. With F-Chromium, he could do just that. By making most of his days unlucky, he could channel his luck into gambling, and make big returns. This could be related to a reveal of how wax's uncle did something similar with gambling and F-Chromium. But in the end it backfired. His poor luck killed his mother, and perhaps earlier his father and uncle too. He might have unconsciously funneled his luck in other aspects of his life

Chromium isn't luck.  Fortune seems to be a bit more like destiny.  Its not well understood yet but it has more to do with how various cosmere forces pull on you.  Also impure Chromium wouldn't carry much (or any)charge feruchemically and you need a fairly complex chemical process to produce it.  Unlike brass and pewter it wouldn't be in the water or anything like that(also if he was consuming it he would have resulted in poisoning as the chromium tends to be toxic in an unrefined state).

[bmcclure7]

On 10/24/2022 at 11:06 PM, HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose? said:

Yes you read the title. Yes I'm not kidding

This is a outgrowth of several other theories and details which i find interesting.

1. Wayne had a really unlucky childhood. (Both parents & uncle dying when he was young, being pulled unwittingly into crime, etc)

2. Wayne has been extraordinarily lucky in recent years from his investments, to picking up the bands of mourning, to giving them to exactly who would need them later. not to mention getting involved in incredibly important recent events.

3. Wayne uses hats to adopt different personas

4. In this weeks chapter, Wayne admitted his lucky hat helped him hold onto his own over the top personality.

5. Many suspect that Wayne will eventually become a Kandra/worldhopper.

Sooooo how are all these important?

A number of things.

Hats in elendel are often lined with aluminum (to shield against emotional allomancy)

So heres the theory. Wayne is born to a poor Terris family in tinweight. Full feruchemy has been unheard of since the Catecendre. He lives directly next to a mine. This is where the theory goes off the rails. the town is not called tin, but tin-weight. Guess what metal has a near identical room temperature density as tin? Chromium. This would be the only magically useful metal available to a destitute young wayne.

We see from vin, using allomancy as an orphan kid on the streets that complicated metallic arts may not require specific knowledge or intent, just a vague idea of what you want to do. Wayne says he wants to learn cards to help win the family money, and implies he knows how to cheat. Obviously he could cheat with mundane means, but something odd happens in the sample chapters so far. Wayne plays a game of cards with captured set member, but chooses to play fairly even when he knows their cards. This might suggest he dislikes the principles of normal cheating. E.G. peering over your opponents shoulder, pulling out fake cards etc. Wayne has shown a consistent, but rather bizarre set of morality so far, so this kind of hypocrisy wouldn't be too surprising.

But what if Wayne knows how he can get a leg up without doing anything so dishonorable. What if he just gets lucky? Here's the thing. With F-Chromium, he could do just that. By making most of his days unlucky, he could channel his luck into gambling, and make big returns. This could be related to a reveal of how wax's uncle did something similar with gambling and F-Chromium. But in the end it backfired. His poor luck killed his mother, and perhaps earlier his father and uncle too. He might have unconsciously funneled his luck in other aspects of his life

When he gets older, and learns more about how the metallic arts work, he realizes what happened in his youth. He had just been trying to be useful to his single mother, and had instead just gotten her killed. He goes into a deep depression, and spirals into crime, repressing his childhood trauma, and in the end, killing an innocent man. But then he gets rescued by Waxillium. He finds new purpose in the law, and ends up distracting from his traumatic past by creating over the top personas. Wierdly enough, he links these to hats of all things. Interestingly, most of his hats are fancy rich people hats. Guess what's high fashion in elendel? Aluminum lines hats. 

Guess what F-Aluminum stores? That's right. Identity. Wax has been magically storing his personas in his fancy hats this entire time. Wax has been creating personas, and stapling them to the hats in his collection.

This links interestingly with a theory that the bowler hat men after Wayne are debt collectors, but debtors, or perhaps trying to give Wayne his equity portions from his investments in the last few books. As a kid, Wayne learned that his pursuit of money only lead to his misery, and grief, explaining why he is so apathetic to his newfound wealth in recent books despite growing up dirt poor. He despises what money did to his life as a kid. He gives it away in any way possible. To the family of his first and last victim, to a promising new inventor making a better elendel etc.

And how has Wayne been so lucky despite seemingly bumbling through these last few books? Fortune, caused by F-Chromium. Theres been a lot coincidences I've seen people observe.Shout out to @Requiem17 For the idea that Wayne has access to fortune. This is the same mechanic allowing Hoid to show up exactly where he needs to be when he needs o be there. It just works out for him. 

So heres the kicker.  Wayne in the prologue is shown even early on having a fascination with switching identities through his quote on trying on all the different clothes. This, and his hats may foreshadow him eventually becoming a kandra, hopefully with a happy ending with MeLaan. But how can he become a kandra? All kandra were made from full feruchemists turning into mistwraiths, Perhaps by blanking identity, and maybe some additional steps. This could work with this theory, and would be an interesting conclusion to his character.

PS: some holes in the theory. Full Feruchemy apparently vanished due to the entrance of Allomantic genes into terris populations post catecendre. Also while the aluminum hats with identity is really interesting it is unlikely that Wayne is subconsciously using fortune, since he probably avoids carrying random metals around just like wax and Marasi. He could have instinctually tapped the bands of mourning when he picked them up though, and thats how that worked out that he happened to give them to Marasi at the perfect time just @robardin pointed out on the forum. The idea that he's doing this subconsiously is also a bit of a stretch, but in less a month, we'll see how this theory pans out

After read 16-18 I'm convinced your right.  Wayne  has to become a account but the role is so unlike the real him that it hurts and is described as kind of death.  He literal can't do till he puts on a hat. Brandon makes a point of telling us that the hat has aluminum. With the hat on he is able to come with all kinds of good ideas for investments, but when he takes it off he suddenly thinks that all his ideas were crazy and accounts are weird. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by bmcclure7

[CognitiveShadow]

3 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

After read 16-18 I'm convinced your right.  

I’m close. And getting closer. To agreeing. Hahah like I think it’s crazy for this to be true and for Wayne to somehow not know that he has these other abilities and to still use some without realizing it…. Alternatively it’s crazy for him to know he has these abilities and only use some of them sparingly…. But this is Wayne we are talking about and he is straight up off his rocker crazy. He even called out the aluminum lines hat… and the way he completely changes personality until he removes the hat… I could see there being something to this. And I’m all for it haha

[bmcclure7]

4 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

I’m close. And getting closer. To agreeing. Hahah like I think it’s crazy for this to be true and for Wayne to somehow not know that he has these other abilities and to still use some without realizing it…. Alternatively it’s crazy for him to know he has these abilities and only use some of them sparingly…. But this is Wayne we are talking about and he is straight up off his rocker crazy. He even called out the aluminum lines hat… and the way he completely changes personality until he removes the hat… I could see there being something to this. And I’m all for it haha

Perhaps gold was just the first one he tried. Everbody knows that you can only have one so maybe he just never tried another. 

[Firesong]

I personally interpreted it as just, getting into the role as he always does. Given we have seen that Identity Feruchemy doesn't exactly change how one identifies or their personality. But, maybe it can be done in a different way to do that. But not entirely convinced. 

[bmcclure7]

On 10/25/2022 at 5:11 PM, Frustration said:

Feruchemists can tell whether they can store in a metal by touching it. It would be impossible for someone who knows what feruchemy is to not notice.

Wayne isn't exactly most Feruchemest.  

[CognitiveShadow]

Just now, Firesong said:

I personally interpreted it as just, getting into the role as he always does. Given we have seen that Identity Feruchemy doesn't exactly change how one identifies or their personality. But, maybe it can be done in a different way to do that. But not entirely convinced. 

I think that’s fair. Totally could be the case

2 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Perhaps gold was just the first one he tried. Everbody knows that you can only have one so maybe he just never tried another. 

My only major concern with this is the fact that you have to know you are holding the bands of mourning to be able to actually use them, makes it seem like you would be hard pressed to accidentally use feruchemy. That intent factor. Which implies Wayne would have to know he’s been doing this all along and only doing so much of it. Of course he does hate himself enough that maybe he doesn’t think he’s worthy of accessing all of the powers?

[bmcclure7]

13 minutes ago, Firesong said:

I personally interpreted it as just, getting into the role as he always does. Given we have seen that Identity Feruchemy doesn't exactly change how one identifies or their personality. But, maybe it can be done in a different way to do that. But not entirely convinced. 

We have never seen some store identity before so I'm not clear what your referring to.

  I would agree with you on him being real good at get into a role but he seem to take it to another level.  He produced really good ideas not just some well sound nonsense jargon. And then there was the bit about aluminum. Brandon wouldn't have point it out for no reason he doesn't usually give irrelevant details like that.  The scene would have gone just fine without pointing out the aluminum so why did he?

Edited November 8, 2022 by bmcclure7

[Firesong]

12 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

We have never seen some store identity before so I'm not clear what your referring to.

  I would agree with you on him being real good at get into a role but he seem to take it to another level.  He produced really good ideas not just some well sound nonsense jargon. And then there was the bit about aluminum. Brandon wouldn't have point it out for no reason he doesn't usually give irrelevant details like that.  The scene would have gone just fine without pointing out the aluminum so why did he?

We have tho, we have seen Allik do it iirc, all it does that we know of is let you change your accent. 

But I guess we only got a very surface level amount on aluminum in like, a small portion of one book. So it could have left stuff out. 

[bmcclure7]

9 minutes ago, Firesong said:

We have tho, we have seen Allik do it iirc, all it does that we know of is let you change your accent. 

But I guess we only got a very surface level amount on aluminum in like, a small portion of one book. So it could have left stuff out. 

 When did that happen? I remember I'm using connection but not identity,  It's been a couple years since I read bands of morning.

Edited November 8, 2022 by bmcclure7

[Firesong]

Connection gives language, but if you mess with Identity you can do accent as well, iirc. 

[bmcclure7]

6 minutes ago, Firesong said:

Connection gives language, but if you mess with Identity you can do accent as well, iirc. 

 That doesn't sound too  Dissimilar To what we saw with Wayne in chapter 16. You became another person for a short while another identity, Maybe it was just his expert and personation skills and getting in character, Then again he was finally able to let the daughter of the man he killed go. That was something regular wayne couldn't do.

[offer]

23 minutes ago, Firesong said:

Connection gives language, but if you mess with Identity you can do accent as well, iirc. 

I am pretty sure we did not see such thing.

Allik told that with the medalions he can speak the language but still have an accent, and there is WoB that with better use of connection manipulation (such as Dalinar`s) you won`t have an accent.   I don`t remember that you need identity manipulation to do that.

[CognitiveShadow]

I think there is definitely something suspicious about how well Wayne is able to impersonate people and take on different identities. Even kandra get lessons from him… that isn’t normal. And calling out the fact that his hat is lined with aluminum is a big flag I think. Something is going on, I’m getting more and more convinced. It has to be more than just “Wayne is good at pretending and copying accents and he also happens to be obsessed with hats”

[CognitiveShadow]

Oh oh! Remember how obsessed Wayne was with his one lucky hat that was stolen in AOL?? And he kept telling Wax to get it back for him?? Maybe because there was a good amount of identity stored up in that hat, however it happens to work. And he also tends to be picky with hats, liking some and passing on others… maybe the ones he picks that are “lucky” are the aluminum lined ones. The stylish ones anyway.

 

edit: I had another thought- if Wayne had some tragedy linked to his use of fortune, he might associate that with anything good (especially money related) that happens to him. I doubt he is oblivious to his abilities, but he might be trying to avoid them because of whatever tragedy he thinks they caused. So now with the bowler hat people trying to make his investments grow, he is trying to balance it all out by flushing his wealth down a toilet. He might think this will even out the good fortune and therefore prevent a tragedy, like his death. That’s why he said he was a dead man when he heard how much money he had earned.

Edited November 9, 2022 by CognitiveShadow
New thought

[Coriniroc]

This conversation is getting super in the weeds on mechanics and that's where I struggle with the Mistborn novels specifically, my brain hurts when I think of all the technical mumbo jumbo dealing with connection, identity, etc. 

I will say that I still don't buy that he's a full feruchemist and has some innate blocked abilities to tap all the different metals, BUT, there clearly is something weird going on with identity and fortune as you all have cleverly pointed out. Since he clearly has some extraordinary abilities as it relates to impersonating people and now apparently making sound and random business decisions, could he be gaining these powers more narrowly with or without his knowledge?

Has he somehow had some form of medallion granting him some bonus luck or identity? We didn't know medallions existed until the last book, but perhaps there is some explanation in Wayne's past where he is given one and is using it wittingly or unwittingly? Or does he have a hemalurgic spike(s) helping give him these abilities and is not aware of it, a la Vin? I don't like this explanation myself, but I'm musing out loud. I do agree something is up, but a full feruchemist seems too broad a reason he could have access to these abilities and I'm searching or thinking of other explanations.

[CognitiveShadow]

24 minutes ago, Coriniroc said:

does he have a hemalurgic spike(s) helping give him these abilities

I wouldn’t put it past Wayne to have found a way to spike himself after hearing about how hemelurgy works from Wayne haha maybe Melaan got him some old inquisitor spikes and he’s kept it a secret

edit: this is more of a fun idea, not really something I would find realistic

Edited November 10, 2022 by CognitiveShadow

[notsawerd]

It's fun to guess what is going on.  Do I ever expect to be right on? Of course not.  Half the fun is seeing how I'm wrong.  Keep up the wild guesses.