Why couldn’t Vin sense it wasn’t Atium

[Munazir]

“A lump of
lead," Zane said, walking forward. "Plated with a thin
layer of atium around it”

Vin ate the Atium the day before when she attacked Cett’s men and then vomited the bead out. Should see have sensed the reserve of Atium to have smaller since it was only plated.

Also what did Zane think would have happened to Vin if she tried to fight a mistborn

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Munazir said:

“A lump of
lead," Zane said, walking forward. "Plated with a thin
layer of atium around it”

Vin ate the Atium the day before when she attacked Cett’s men and then vomited the bead out. Should see have sensed the reserve of Atium to have smaller since it was only plated.

There are two possibilities I see - one is that metal reserves manifest themselves in the same shape they're in your stomach (which is what I believe is happening), the other is that it is just about the amount of metal they have. If the first one is how it works, then Vin would be fooled, as she sensed a "sphere of Atium" as a reserve, not knowing it's empty inside. If the second one is true, she should have realized that it's smaller than it should be, but maybe she was distracted.

I believe it's the first option, because there is a WoB (which I can't find now), that if Mistborn swallows a metal ball encased in a sphere made out of another metal, Mistborn won't feel the metal inside of the sphere as a reserve and won't be able to burn that inside metal.

But I've found the real explanation instead - she wasn't experienced enough with Atium to see the difference:

Spoiler

pfchristopher

Why didn't Vin know the Atium bead Zane gave her wasn't real? Cant she sense how big reserves are?

Brandon Sanderson

Atium reserves always look bigger than they are to an allomancer. It burns so quickly.

She just didn’t have enough experience with atium to realize she’d been duped.

#tweettheauthor 2009 (July 8, 2009)

 

31 minutes ago, Munazir said:

Also what did Zane think would have happened to Vin if she tried to fight a mistborn

What Mistborn? Zane likely knew there were no Mistborn left besides them and that Cett certainly has no Mistborn at all - he knew he was safe.

 

[Munazir]

10 minutes ago, alder24 said:

There are two possibilities I see - one is that metal reserves manifest themselves in the same shape they're in your stomach (which is what I believe is happening), the other is that it is just about the amount of metal they have. If the first one is how it works, then Vin would be fooled, as she sensed a "sphere of Atium" as a reserve, not knowing it's empty inside. If the second one is true, she should have realized that it's smaller than it should be, but maybe she was distracted.

I believe it's the first option, because there is a WoB (which I can't find now), that if Mistborn swallows a metal ball encased in a sphere made out of another metal, Mistborn won't feel the metal inside of the sphere as a reserve and won't be able to burn that inside metal.

But I've found the real explanation instead - she wasn't experienced enough with Atium to see the difference:

  Hide contents

pfchristopher

Why didn't Vin know the Atium bead Zane gave her wasn't real? Cant she sense how big reserves are?

Brandon Sanderson

Atium reserves always look bigger than they are to an allomancer. It burns so quickly.

She just didn’t have enough experience with atium to realize she’d been duped.

#tweettheauthor 2009 (July 8, 2009)

 

What Mistborn? Zane likely knew there were no Mistborn left besides them and that Cett certainly has no Mistborn at all - he knew he was safe.

 

But what if Vin needed to burn Atium during the fight against the soldiers. Wouldn’t she then know Zane didn’t trust her 

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, Munazir said:

But what if Vin needed to burn Atium during the fight against the soldiers. Wouldn’t she then know Zane didn’t trust her 

WHY? Atium is burned only against other Mistborn who have Atium. Vin was above Hazekillers and regular soldiers. That's just wouldn't happen at all. Atium was too precious, especially during WoA. Just read that chapter again, there was no fight, that was a massacre.

And Zane knew it would happen, Zane believed that Mistborn are above normal humans, he knew Vin would never burn Atium when fighting against normal people. 

Vin only started to burn Atium as a reaction to others burning it, with one exception during the first raid on Kredik Shaw. Since then she only burned Atium when others were already burning it.

[cometaryorbit]

Zane learned at some point Vin had duralumin; I'm not sure when exactly. If he already knew when he gave her the bead, then yeah, he'd have no reason to expect her to use atium against a force of non-Allomancers. In that case, his apparent surprise that she wasn't burning atium in that fight could be a deception to cover up that he knew about duralumin.

Zane was a Mistborn with double ability with steel, and knew duralumin himself - and he still felt he needed unfair advantages against Vin (fake atium + TenSoon).

I kind of wonder about the Misting assassins sent earlier in WoA (and it sounds like there were several groups between books). How exactly do you get a bunch of Mistings to go fight the person who just killed the Lord Ruler?