The Mists

[Xiahida]

When Vin is ascending she draws upon the mists and they fuel her metal reserves. However, we know that the mists are the gaseous form of Lerasium and therefore would only make her Mistborn but she already is. So how does this work? Can other people draw upon the Mists and how would that work and what would it do?

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

When Vin is ascending she draws upon the mists and they fuel her metal reserves. However, we know that the mists are the gaseous form of Lerasium and therefore would only make her Mistborn but she already is. So how does this work? Can other people draw upon the Mists and how would that work and what would it do?

No, Mistborn burning Lerasium would have a different effect than making him a Mistborn. This is not a main effect of Mistborn. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009)

Mists are Preservation's pure essence, Allomancer burning metals is drawing from Preservation power, but is limited by his spirit, his Allomantic strength. What Vin is doing when drawing in Mists, is fueling her Allomancy directly by Mists, without her spirit limiting the amount of power she can get, like what is normally happening when burning metals. Therefore her power is basically not limited as long as she has Mists in her.

People don't have that kind of connection to Preservation to draw from Mists, so they can't do that. Vin was chosen by Preservation to be its next Vessel.

[Xiahida]

So if she wasn't wearing her earing, which stopped her from Ascending, before Preservation was dead could she still draw upon the Mists but NOT ascend?

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

So if she wasn't wearing her earing, which stopped her from Ascending, before Preservation was dead could she still draw upon the Mists but NOT ascend?

That's precisely what she did in TFE, when she defeated the Lord Ruler. 

[Mistchemist16]

49 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's precisely what she did in TFE, when she defeated the Lord Ruler. 

I also have a question of the sort, since I couldn’t quite figure this out from HoA. The one other time Vin uses the Mists but doesn’t Ascend is in Fadrex City against Marsh. But if I remember correctly, Leras had already died by this point. Kelsier was holding Preservation and waiting for the first chance to give it to Vin. Am I misrembering something about this scene? If not, why didn’t Vin keep the Mists and Ascend like she does in the rematch with Marsh? Was there a reason Kelsier couldn’t give her all of Preservation, even though she could use the Mists?

Edited March 8, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[alder24]

Just now, Mistchemist16 said:

I also have a question of the sort, since I couldn’t quite figure this out from HoA. The one other time Vin uses the Mists but doesn’t Ascend is in Fadrex City against Marsh. But if I remember correctly, Leras had already died by this point. Kelsier was holding Preservation and waiting for the first chance to give it to Vin. Am I misrembering something about this scene? If not, why didn’t Vin keep the Mists and Ascend like she does in the rematch with Marsh? Was there a reason Kelsier couldn’t give her all of Preservation, even though she could use the Mists?

I think it's because of Intent. During the fight with Inquisitors she had many more enemies to kill, so she kept drawing them in, and managed to draw all of them before killing Marsh. But in Fadrex she didn't have a need to draw them any more, as soon as Marsh ran away, she stopped. At this point she still didn't understand what was going on with Mists and her.

[Mistchemist16]

59 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I think it's because of Intent. During the fight with Inquisitors she had many more enemies to kill, so she kept drawing them in, and managed to draw all of them before killing Marsh. But in Fadrex she didn't have a need to draw them any more, as soon as Marsh ran away, she stopped. At this point she still didn't understand what was going on with Mists and her.

Yeah, that makes sense. It also makes Ruin’s earring play even more clever. Even if Vin did lose her earring in unexpected times like that, she could easily give up the Mists once the threat was defeated and put the earring back on, becoming a good little puppet again. A sort of safety net for Ruin. And the fact that the earring is so mundane made it easy to ensure Vin would always put it back on. In fact, the only time the earring itself is openly attacked is when Vin tries to use the Well. In every other case, there’s so much going on that Ruin could make sure she was paying attention to the mysterious Mists or even just ambient stress rather than a simple earring, which she would be inclined to do anyway. Without a reason to suspect it, she would need multiple instances of taking the Mist sans earring to connect the dots, which is effectively impossible.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Mistchemist16