Mist interaction with Mistborn

[Lord Magire]

I've had a pet theory for a while that the people who died to the mists were actually those who would have been full mistborn. From memory the text actually says that the reason the atium mistings were ill the longest was because atium mistings were 'the most powerful'. If so, then surely Mistborn would be worse affected and maybe die? That would also help explain why there are no full mistborn in Era 2, as everyone with the Spiritual DNA potential to be a mistborn died earlier. Does anyone know if there's any evidence for or against this idea?

[Trusk'our]

1 hour ago, Lord Magire said:

I've had a pet theory for a while that the people who died to the mists were actually those who would have been full mistborn. From memory the text actually says that the reason the atium mistings were ill the longest was because atium mistings were 'the most powerful'. If so, then surely Mistborn would be worse affected and maybe die? That would also help explain why there are no full mistborn in Era 2, as everyone with the Spiritual DNA potential to be a mistborn died earlier. Does anyone know if there's any evidence for or against this idea?

I don't think that those snapped by the Mists would have become Mistborn. The reason they were snapping at all was because the Mists needed to goad out the power within them, meaning that they were weaker to begin with. Most who died did so because they were either old or weakened in some other fashion.

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The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010)

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

It's an interesting idea, but Preservation wouldn't have wanted to "waste" extra power making Mistborn when Mistings would be more efficient.

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Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

Herowannabe

So Elend, at the end of Mistborn [Era 1], is going around finding Allomancers the mist had Snapped. How come he didn't find any other Mistborn? Or did he and we just didn't know about it?

Brandon Sanderson

What you have to remember is the mists were looking for a way specifically to deliver information to him, that "I am alive and doing something" but they were also kind of crazy. And so the idea was to make him notice the number 16 so that he would know that there was a plan and that something was prepared for him. Does that make sense?

Herowannabe

Why didn't the mist throw in some Mistborn in that sixteen too?

Brandon Sanderson

Then you would have 17. Or you would have like--  It was the number that was important to what the mists were doing. Plus it is much harder to make someone who wasn't originally-- Like remember what's going on is these are people it is Snapping intentionally who did not-- Like it's Investing them so-- It's either awakening a very little remnant in them or taking people who had-- They wouldn't have been able to be Mistings, if the mists hadn't intervened. Making someone a Mistborn takes way more power.

P.S. welcome to the 17th Shard! 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Trusk'our

[Lord Magire]

Thanks:)

That WoB really shoots it down. Ah well. Thanks for pointing it out (I didn't see it when I looked around a little. 

[Trusk'our]

7 hours ago, Lord Magire said:

Thanks:)

That WoB really shoots it down. Ah well. Thanks for pointing it out (I didn't see it when I looked around a little. 

Eh, you get used to coming up with theories and then having about 80% of them shot down. But hey, it's better to have a theory shot down by fellow 17th Sharders than to hold on to it and never see an idea you thought was cool spring up.

[Lord Magire]

Very true. Or to miss an important clue to what's actually going to happen because you can't see past your theory:)

[Trusk'our]

5 hours ago, Lord Magire said:

Very true. Or to miss an important clue to what's actually going to happen because you can't see past your theory:)

Yeah, this one time I came up with a theory about Kandra blessings actually containing the memories of the Kandra, encoded as Investiture, which would explain why their memories degraded when the spikes were removed; Hemalurgic spikes leak Investiture, which in this case would be the memories. It would also be really cool, since it would be an example of Hemalurgic spikes that actually grow in Investiture over time.

Unfortunately, there were three or four problems wrong with the theory as people pointed out, and there was a direct Wob (word of Brandon) that said that Kandra memories are actually stored in the body.

Sooooooo, Yeah. Theory busted.