Bloody Tan

[CrazyRioter]

this just in, I asked Brandon point blank on the twitter Q&A if Tan was an atium misting and he said no.

[Aldric]

It's possible that something other than Atium allowed him to do so, or he may have just been good enough at reading Wax to anticipate when he would fire, but let's not pretend that it was completely ordinary.

Possibilities:

Atium. (Deficiency: there shouldn't be any)

Speed bubble. (Deficiency: should have been noticed, should have deflected bullet)

Iron ferring/stored speed (Deficiency: the text does say that he moved "in the same instant," and ferrings are rare)

Zinc allomancy(or just psychology) - Tan rioted Wax, manipulating him into shooting, so he knew when he would shoot. (Deficiency: the timing is still extraordinary)

I totally thought the bullet deflection only happened on its way out of the bubble. Otherwise the entire idea of dodging bullets via the field kind of goes out the window. You dodge away from where the bullet would go, and suddenly it goes random upon entering the field. That isn't what happened as far as I recall in the book.

It only deflects when leaving the field that I recall. So since the bullet hit her in the head, and she would have been in the field, there would have been no deflection, the bullet never left the field.

I just wanted to make that point, though. Because I don't at all think Bloody Tan was that type of allomancer.

[Glory]

Hi all! I feel silly, because I registered just to reply to this, but here's a theory.

...what if Bloody Tan was a Tineye? That would (theoretically) give him the sight needed to see when Wax pulled the trigger, moving at the same instant as him (and not at the sound of the gunshot).

What do you think?

[CrazyRioter]

I doubt it, at that close range, the gap between Wax pulling the trigger and the gunshot wouldn't be big enough to make a difference, Tan still wouldn't have had the time to react.

[DariusJenai]

It's not within normal human abilities, though. He reacted to a gunshot before it would be humanly possible to do so. Doing some quick research, the slowest bullet speed I could find was 180 m/s, and the average human reaction time was .2s. That means a slow bullet travels more than 100 feet before the average person could even begin to respond, never mind the additional time to actually turn that reaction into a full body movement. Wax and Tan were on opposite sides of a "small chapel." Call it 30 feet. That gives Tan 0.056 seconds to react and move - almost 4 times faster than a normal person could.

Depends on how carefully Tan was watching. If we assume he reacted to the firing itself, it seems fast. However, if he noticed a 'tell' on Wax, or even just noticed his finger tightening on the trigger, then the needed reaction time is much less, and possibly into the range of normal human. Getting her into the correct spot be should be simple, since he knows Wax has made this shot before, and could anticipate where the bullet would be heading with remarkable accuracy.

I totally thought the bullet deflection only happened on its way out of the bubble. Otherwise the entire idea of dodging bullets via the field kind of goes out the window. You dodge away from where the bullet would go, and suddenly it goes random upon entering the field. That isn't what happened as far as I recall in the book.

Wayne dodges bullets in a somewhat similar manner during the big fight. Put up a bubble, see where the bullets are heading, move somewhere else, drop bubble. Repeat. The bullets never actually hit the bubble from either side, so there's no deflection, just someone who suddenly isn't where they were when you fired.

However, I'm going to quote Tan himself, and agree that Marsh/Harmony probably had something to do with it. It's a collection of his talking while Wax is searching for him in the chapel.

I have seen God, lawkeeper. I have seen Death himself, with the nails in his eyes. I have seen the Survivor, who is life. Other men wonder, but I know. I know I'm a puppet. We all are. Someone else moves us.

Possibly just the ramblings of a crazy man, but since we know that Marsh at least actually is out there with nails in his eyes, it makes me wonder if this was all part of the setup.

[pmj812]

I guess I'm starting to like the Rioter idea more and more. An experienced manipulator of other people's emotions might be more inclined to think of people as "just puppets." He'd also be fairly confident in his ability to manipulate. If he flared zinc and started moving at the same time, he could have provoked the shot.

I do think that he's seen Marsh, but I don't think Marsh or Harmony intentionally set him on a psychotic rampage. It's just possible they goofed, though.

Also he says "God," not "Harmony." And Miles believed in Trell, so we can't be absolutely certain we know which god Tan meant.

Tineye would require him to be either deaf or wearing earplugs, as a gunshot would probably hit a tineye's sensitive ears hard enough to knock him down.

any sort of speed enhancement -whether of time or of his own body - would have been noticeable to Wax (although in the shock of it all, he might not have remembered it).

[Glory]

Depends on how carefully Tan was watching. If we assume he reacted to the firing itself, it seems fast. However, if he noticed a 'tell' on Wax, or even just noticed his finger tightening on the trigger, then the needed reaction time is much less, and possibly into the range of normal human. Getting her into the correct spot be should be simple, since he knows Wax has made this shot before, and could anticipate where the bullet would be heading with remarkable accuracy.

Okay... what if Bloody Tan was Twinborn - Tineye & Iron Ferring. He can see the slightest movement of Wax's trigger finger and then move quickly enough to get Lessie into place?

Tineye would require him to be either deaf or wearing earplugs, as a gunshot would probably hit a tineye's sensitive ears hard enough to knock him down.

It's possible he was wearing ear plugs and could still hear well enough to carry on a conversation. Especially if he flared his tin a lot (ala Spook).

This is kind of fun!

Edited November 14, 2011 by Glory

[CrazyRioter]

Reading the scene, I don't see any evidence of emotional Allomancy, there's no surge of emotion as he pulls the trigger.

[darniil]

this just in, I asked Brandon point blank on the twitter Q&A if Tan was an atium misting and he said no.

Awesome. Thanks for that. That's one theory we don't have to worry about now.

I know I'm a puppet. We all are. Someone else moves us.

Possibly just the ramblings of a crazy man, but since we know that Marsh at least actually is out there with nails in his eyes, it makes me wonder if this was all part of the setup.

Either that, or Tan broke the fourth wall and saw Brandon.

[Wispsy]

i like the idea of tineye, he coulda just got lucky tho!

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Depends on how carefully Tan was watching. If we assume he reacted to the firing itself, it seems fast. However, if he noticed a 'tell' on Wax, or even just noticed his finger tightening on the trigger, then the needed reaction time is much less, and possibly into the range of normal human. Getting her into the correct spot be should be simple, since he knows Wax has made this shot before, and could anticipate where the bullet would be heading with remarkable accuracy.

Wayne dodges bullets in a somewhat similar manner during the big fight. Put up a bubble, see where the bullets are heading, move somewhere else, drop bubble. Repeat. The bullets never actually hit the bubble from either side, so there's no deflection, just someone who suddenly isn't where they were when you fired.

However, I'm going to quote Tan himself, and agree that Marsh/Harmony probably had something to do with it. It's a collection of his talking while Wax is searching for him in the chapel.

Possibly just the ramblings of a crazy man, but since we know that Marsh at least actually is out there with nails in his eyes, it makes me wonder if this was all part of the setup.

That could also mean that he had one of the Kandra that don't follow harmony visiting him, since he saw both "Marsh" and the "Survivor", though really they could have been anything, even delusions/hallucinations.

As to how he was able to move Lessie in front of the bullet? Maybe he was a Steelrunner (Steel Ferring) and his garrote that he had around Lessie's throat was made of steel wire that he was tapping?

It says that Bloody Tan moved "in the same instant" that Wax fired his gun. So to me that says some sort of fore-knowledge, but Brandon today confirmed in the Tor Q&A that Tan wasn't an Atium Misting. Either he's a really good guesser and just acted, or he was really fast....

[DariusJenai]

I guess I'm starting to like the Rioter idea more and more. An experienced manipulator of other people's emotions might be more inclined to think of people as "just puppets." He'd also be fairly confident in his ability to manipulate. If he flared zinc and started moving at the same time, he could have provoked the shot.

Except the timing of the shot was actually chosen by Lessie's triple blink. If there was some way he could see her eyes, maybe through a reflection or something, he would know exactly when Wax was going to fire without needing any allomantic aid.

That could also mean that he had one of the Kandra that don't follow harmony visiting him, since he saw both "Marsh" and the "Survivor", though really they could have been anything, even delusions/hallucinations.

That was my thinking as well. The kandra wouldn't even have to necessarily look anything like Kelsier, since if a guy shows up with Death calling himself the Survivor, you're probably going to believe him.

Edited November 14, 2011 by DariusJenai

[pmj812]

hmmm... I wonder, could an Oracle, burning Electrum, have "seen" the bullet entering his head in his future-shadows, and thus known when to act? Or is that too dependent on Wax's actions, and therefore outside of Electrum's abilities?

[Glory]

I guess I'm starting to like the Rioter idea more and more. An experienced manipulator of other people's emotions might be more inclined to think of people as "just puppets." He'd also be fairly confident in his ability to manipulate. If he flared zinc and started moving at the same time, he could have provoked the shot.

Okay, so I just re-read the passage and Wax clears anxiety from his mind so that he doesn't shake. What if Bloody Tan wasn't a Rioter, he was a Soother? He dampened everything but Wax's confidence and then used that against him? Wax only thoughtthat he could make the shot, so in reality it wasn't as impressive a move by Tan as we're led to believe (since Wax is the narrator of the chapter).

[DariusJenai]

I always thought of Electrum being more like gold, showing you drastically different versions of yourself. So an Electrum burning Tan would see himself as a killer, or a happy mortician, but probably not with the immediacy to prevent a bullet to the head.

Okay, so I just re-read the passage and Wax clears anxiety from his mind so that he doesn't shake. What if Bloody Tan wasn't a Rioter, he was a Soother? He dampened everything but Wax's confidence and then used that against him? Wax only thoughtthat he could make the shot, so in reality it wasn't as impressive a move by Tan as we're led to believe (since Wax is the narrator of the chapter).

Iffy. We're told that Wax actually has made similar shots, so his confidence would be rightly placed. And doesn't cover the fact that Wax fired when Lessie gave him the signal. I think the options are either going to come down to: A) Stored Speed, or 2) A normal who was manipulated to get Wax to be where he needed to be to stop Miles.

Edited November 14, 2011 by DariusJenai

[lauren.e135]

I always thought of Electrum being more like gold, showing you drastically different versions of yourself. So an Electrum burning Tan would see himself as a killer, or a happy mortician, but probably not with the immediacy to prevent a bullet to the head.

Electrum is like atium but instead of showing you a bunch of shadows of what the other guy is going to do, it shows you a bunch of shadows of what you are going to do. From my understanding it's main usage is simply counteracting atium. If I remember correctly Vin used it only when she thought her enemy was burning atium.

In reference to the rioting/soothing ideas typically we see their emotions being pulled/pushed even if the character doesn't realize what is happening to them (think Marasi in the epilogue).

My thought is that it was either some sort of twisted divine intervention or the usage of some unknown metal.

Brandon said that Tan wasn't an atium misting, but perhaps he was a misting of one of atium's alloys.

[DariusJenai]

I've always been somewhat iffy on Electrum. It's paired with gold, so I picture its effect as Gold-like seeing of an alternate self, rather than an Atium-like next few second glimpse. I need to go grab my copy of HoA and find the section where Elend is thinking about its effects again.

[FeatherWriter]

Lauren's right. It acts more like an atium pair than a gold pair. It works like atium with immediate shadows. Hmm, I wonder if there is an Atium alloy that allows you to see far into your own future. Electrum-Atium perhaps?

[DariusJenai]

Ok, in that case I withdraw my objection to Tan being an Electrum Misting and will inflate it to the 'most likely' scenario that would give us the results we got.

[Necronos]

It's not within normal human abilities, though. He reacted to a gunshot before it would be humanly possible to do so. Doing some quick research, the slowest bullet speed I could find was 180 m/s, and the average human reaction time was .2s. That means a slow bullet travels more than 100 feet before the average person could even begin to respond, never mind the additional time to actually turn that reaction into a full body movement. Wax and Tan were on opposite sides of a "small chapel." Call it 30 feet. That gives Tan 0.056 seconds to react and move - almost 4 times faster than a normal person could.

This is all true, except that the scene says that Tan yanked Lessie 'in the same instant' that Wax fired. It wasn't as 1) Wax fired, THEN 2) Tan yanked Lessie. They happened at the same time. So I still contend that it is all within the realm of normal human abilities.

I think the issue is how did Tan know to yank Lessie. I think it is possible that he knew of their trick, but I'm open to other theories.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Necronos

[Zas678]

So since (from the Twitter Q&A) we now know that Tan doesn't burn Atium, I think that perhaps he has another way of having an incredible response time- Zinc (Mental Speed).

It's possible that Tan was "flaring" his mental speed so that he could calculate the exact instant when Wax pulled the trigger.

[pmj812]

we've talked about whether Harmony was pulling strings to get Lessie killed so Wax would go home - it's brought up interesting points about how much of Sazed's humanity Harmony retains.

But I think we've missed something. Look at the epilogue. Uncle Ladrian had been planning his disappearance. His own son was lost to an unfortunate illness (Or is that also a lie?).

It was The Set that manipulated events to bring Wax back, because they thought there was a chance he'd go along. (edit: and because with uncle gone, someone needed to be the CEO of house ladrian.)

Think about this: Miles was motivated by his new religion, a version of Trelagism that doesn't seem very much like the verson Sazed presented at all. Tan was shattered and turned to homicidal nihilism by what he thought was a religious experience of God, Death and the Survivor.

and in the Epilogue, Uncle Ladrian takes credit for Mile's ideology.

I think there's just enough of a pattern here to suggest that religious manipulation is within the Set's M.O.

(second edit: Also, Wayne was tipped onto the Vanishers case before he was drawn into Elendel. Wax didn't need to be brought there to get into the case - it was a hindrance in fact. For all we know, Harmony intended Wayne to drag Wax into it without the need for Tan to kill Lessie)

Edited November 16, 2011 by pmj812

[happyman]

we've talked about whether Harmony was pulling strings to get Lessie killed so Wax would go home - it's brought up interesting points about how much of Sazed's humanity Harmony retains.

But I think we've missed something. Look at the epilogue. Uncle Ladrian had been planning his disappearance. His own son was lost to an unfortunate illness (Or is that also a lie?).

It was The Set that manipulated events to bring Wax back, because they thought there was a chance he'd go along. (edit: and because with uncle gone, someone needed to be the CEO of house ladrian.)

Think about this: Miles was motivated by his new religion, a version of Trelagism that doesn't seem very much like the verson Sazed presented at all. Tan was shattered and turned to homicidal nihilism by what he thought was a religious experience of God, Death and the Survivor.

and in the Epilogue, Uncle Ladrian takes credit for Mile's ideology.

I think there's just enough of a pattern here to suggest that religious manipulation is within the Set's M.O.

(second edit: Also, Wayne was tipped onto the Vanishers case before he was drawn into Elendel. Wax didn't need to be brought there to get into the case - it was a hindrance in fact. For all we know, Harmony intended Wayne to drag Wax into it without the need for Tan to kill Lessie)

I like this. I'm quite certain that Harmony could have found a more subtle way to get Wax involved. The Set, on the other hand, would have no qualms with it, and they would also have to be less subtle than Harmony can be.

[Eri]

So since (from the Twitter Q&A) we now know that Tan doesn't burn Atium,

Not exactly. We know he wasn't an Aluminium Misting.

Allomancy can be gained through Hemalurgy—and I wouldn't call such person a Misting, especially if they have gained more than one power.

[DariusJenai]

And Tan obviously knew at least a little about Hemalurgy. Didn't Brandon confirm that his corpse museum was at least partially Hemalurgical?