Theory: Demoux is Mistborn

[Kadrok]

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before (I looked but found nothing) but I have a theory that Demoux is now a mistborn through Sazed-intervention or some other means. The reasons are as follows:

1. It gives an explanation as to why he's still alive, if not the motivation... Cadmium is an element and perfectly discoverable... duralumin is likewise also available... putting them together accounts easily for his presence in the future. Perhaps he was trying to reach the Survivor somehow, or perhaps one of the divine figures in his life moved him to mix the two.

2. Brandon has been asked if Demoux can burn Malatium, to which he coyly responded "That's an interesting theory"

15

SWEETNESS

3. Can Demoux burn malatium?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Interesting theory.

TAGS

demoux, atium, mistborn, allomancy,

A stranger response than either "RAFO" or "No". Whatever Sweetness's motivation for asking, it is illuminating. We know that, short of Hemalurgy, no one can burn just two metals, it's a one or all deal (obviously all humans can burn Lerasium as well, let's move on). Furthermore if Demoux could burn Malatium it makes Preservation distorting snapping so that Atium and Malatium mistings could snap inconsistent (uplike for whoever finds this WoB quote, it's late and I'm running out of time). If Atium mistings also had the ability to burn Malatium, Preservation needn't have shifted out two metals from the snapping system. So if Demoux CAN burn Malatium, as Brandon hints with his answer, it almost certainly means Demoux is a mistborn. (Sazed intervening and granting Demoux full powers seems far more likely than Demoux spiking himself with an Inquisitor spike that had Atium, or else working out how to steal Malatium Allomancy, finding a Malatium Misting in a World without Atium, and spiking him for it).

3. It helps explain why Demoux can Worldhop. We can be almost certain Demoux is a hopper, and though accessing Shadesmar does fit with the nature of Atium, he'd need an ongoing source in a Pitless Scadrial. Another allomantic combination, or trick could very well be the key, perhaps an alloy of Atium if you're desperate for Atium to be involved. Demoux burning all metals increases our ability to explain his worldhopping (Since we don't know how Scadrian's do it yet)

4. It fits with the story. This is more a narrative point but, we saw Spook become a Mistborn by Sazed's hand. If we had seen the same for Demoux we may have been disappointed: "Great, now everyone cool is a Mistborn". The oddity (an Atium misting in a context in which we had been led to believe there could be no such thing) becomes just another Mistborn. Fastforward in time (with Duralumin and Cadmium if you can burn them ) and we have a world in which Mistborn are the oddity... a legend lost to the ages. Mistborn-Demoux remains the oddity. Furthermore, it keeps his powers relevant in a potentially Atium-less situation: it is doubtful he could get some from Scadrial, and he almost assuredly can't from other Shardworlds. However the main Allomantic metals should be available on each world, and even if technology doesn't allow for some metals, Mistborn-Demoux has a fair chancd at atleast the basic 8. Let me be clear that I'm not proposing that is the timeframe for Demoux's power-expansion, merely the timeframe for our discovery of it: he became a mistborn before he became a sharder, but if we had found that out at the end of HoA it would have been narratively tacky.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Well... this is demoralising. I take it 5AM Australian time isn't a good time to post things?

Edited May 29, 2013 by Kadrok

[Iredomi]

I don't think I can contribute much aside from while it all does sort of add up we don't nearly know enough to really come to any decision. But something I'm wondering is why would Sazed turn Demoux into a Mistborn? I mean do you think he had foreknowledge about him becoming a Sharder and wanted to have someone on the inside of the group? Would he need someone on the inside of the group I really wish we knew what Sazed knew at the moment. I know he has to take care of Scadrial but I'm sure he's aware of Odium. I don't really know where I'm going with this. But yeah I liked your logic especially the narrative explanation. 

 

Oh and just something I wasn't certain about can Mistborn burn metal from other planets, though that does make sense I just haven't heard it before.

[Senor Feesh]

Oh and just something I wasn't certain about can Mistborn burn metal from other planets, though that does make sense I just haven't heard it before.

 

I don't know if we have 100% conf on this, but I see no reason why not, as the metals act as a key, not a power source. The composition of non-God-metals should be the same world to world, and as far as we know Scadrial magic has no regional limiters.

[Galavantes]

It's also possible that Atium being a god metal does not hold to the same restrictions as typical allomantic metals. It's possible that an atium misting can burn all atium alloys as well. We've already seen that lerasium has no restrictions on who can burn it.

 

I've actually been a little confused as to the timeline of AoL and TWoK. When exactly did Demoux begin world-hopping? He's not shown to be around in AoL. The only thing I can figure is that the hoppers from Sel came to Scadrial and enlisted him very shortly after the rebirth of the world. 

[Kadrok]

I don't think I can contribute much aside from while it all does sort of add up we don't nearly know enough to really come to any decision.

Honestly I'm just glad you're here! I was getting so lonely in this topic, all on my own.

 

It's also possible that Atium being a god metal does not hold to the same restrictions as typical allomantic metals. It's possible that an atium misting can burn all atium alloys as well. We've already seen that lerasium has no restrictions on who can burn it.

I'm inclined to think that Lerasium's ability to be universally burned is because it's made from the essence of the Shard from which Allomancy is derived. My suspicion is that being able to be universally burned (which is in essence, being usable as a power-access in a specific "magic-system") is very much the exception.

 

That said, narratively speaking we arrive at the same conclusion... if Brandon is going to RAFO what the Atium alloys do (he did, right?), it implies that we will encounter in his books someone who can burn them. If, as you suppose, Demoux can burn all Atium alloys with only Seer powers there is a good chance Demoux is our guy. Likewise if, as I suppose, Demoux is a Mistborn (and there wouldn't be that many around... possibly Hoid, or someone who burns Hoid's Lerasium? Though if certain forces on Scadrial succeed, there may be more in the future...) there is a good chance Demoux is our guy (and it's poetic if he is a Seer-turned Mistborn who is used to explore Atium alloys at some point in the future).

 

So I suppose it is possible, but to me it seems to violate the one-or-all rule of Allomancy to which I think Lerasium, being in some sense a cradle of Allomancy, is the only exception.

[Goatborn]

I like the sound of this theory, but I propose a slight tweak. What if Demoux was Mistborn from his time of Snapping but he was only tested with Atium?

 

My copy of HoA is interstate at the moment, so I can't double check, but I think it would be neater if it wasn't a "Gee, now Sazed's flipping everyone's switches to 'burn everything'" situation. As I recall, there were no specific mentions of any mistborn being discovered during the mist-Snapping sprees in HoA.

 

Hence, Demoux could have been a Mistborn, but like Vin at the start of Final Empire, he was just naive to that fact?

 

(And waiting for someone to swoop in with the quote that says "Elend tested Demoux and his men with iron and got bupkiss.")

[Claincy]

(And waiting for someone to swoop in with the quote that says "Elend tested Demoux and his men with iron and got bupkiss.")

Here you go =)

"We gave those metals to my soldiers," Demoux said. "But none of them could burn them. Even if we had Allomancers, we cannot hold this location, my lord!"

Hero of Ages chapter 81, (page 698 in my paperback)

 

Anyway, interesting theory. If there wasn't something related to the question he would have just said no. So I agree that there is definitely something of interest here.

[Goatborn]

That quote allows a little wiggle room (if you stretch it...) Demoux's number one defining characteristic was his humility - it's possible that he couldn't possibly consider the idea that he could be an allomancer and skipped his turn when testing his men. As I recall, at the time that he would have tried them, he was feeling like he'd been abandoned by the Survivor so his mood at the time could back this up.

 

So the "We gave the metals to my soldiers" and "none of THEM could burn them" could indicate that he only gave them to his troops, not himself.

 

Hmmmm. I need to get the trilogy back from my friend to re-read all of them. I just remembered Elend's dying experience of flaring atium and seeing something... Maybe I should just buy another copy.

[Claincy]

True, that is a possibility. I don't think it is the case, but it is possible. A note though, it would be fairly strange if Demoux turned out to be a mistborn at that point when he experienced the exact same degree of mist-sickness as all his men, who were all seers.

 

Here's the duralumin/atium quote for you.

Then, Elend burned duralumin with his Atium.

Sight, Sound, Strength, Power, Glory, Speed!

Blue lines sprayed from his chest like rays of light. But those were all overshadowed by one thing. Atium plus duralumin. In a flash of knowledge, Elend felt a mind-numbing wealth of information. All became white around him as knowledge saturated his mind.

"I see now," he whispered as the vision faded, and along with it his remaining metals. The battlefield returned. He stood upon it, his sword piercing Marsh's neck. It had gotten caught on the spikehead jutting out Marsh's back, between the shoulder blades.

Edited November 3, 2013 by lord_Ffnord

[Swimmingly]

On the other hand, if I was Brandon, I would be tossing irrelevant words like "That's an interesting theory" like chum into a shark tank. He reads this stuff as well, and I bet he has the time of his life seeing us take the tiniest hint and running as fast as we can in the opposite direction he intended - if he even thought of it himself.

[Oudeis]

Just re-read the part of the book where Kelsier makes it look like Demoux has allomancy in his fight against Bilg. It'd amuse me if Kelsier only THOUGHT he was pulling these stunts, and Demoux really was a Mistborn, using his own metals.

[dyring]

 

 

I'm inclined to think that Lerasium's ability to be universally burned is because it's made from the essence of the Shard from which Allomancy is derived. My suspicion is that being able to be universally burned (which is in essence, being usable as a power-access in a specific "magic-system") is very much the exception.

 

 

There was a theory that everyone could burn Atium aswell. I kinda think this is what Brandon was aiming at. Its not like alot of mistings are gonna test, seeing how expensive Atium is.

 

And regarding the above quote,  both Lerasium and Atium are essence of a shard, Preservation and Ruin respectively, wich was where the "everyone can burn Atium" originated from, I think.

[Kadrok]

I think you've misunderstood me.

And regarding the above quote,  both Lerasium and Atium are essence of a shard, Preservation and Ruin respectively, wich was where the "everyone can burn Atium" originated from, I think.

 

I'm inclined to think that Lerasium's ability to be universally burned is because it's made from the essence of the Shard from which Allomancy is derived. My suspicion is that being able to be universally burned (which is in essence, being usable as a power-access in a specific "magic-system") is very much the exception.

My point is that anyone can burn Lerasium because Lerasium is made from the shard from which Allomancy is derived (not just any shard).

 

There was a theory that everyone could burn Atium aswell. I kinda think this is what Brandon was aiming at. Its not like alot of mistings are gonna test, seeing how expensive Atium is.

If everyone could burn Atium, there would be no such thing as Atium mistings. Because there are such thing as Atium mistings (as Brandon confims here) it follows that not everyone can burn Atium.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Kadrok

[bartbug]

I think that Demoux (as of The Way of Kings) probably has some hemalurgic swag going on. But I'm pretty sure that he never was a Mistborn, unless someone gave him another bead of lerasium. I doubt that Sazed made Demoux a mistborn also, just because Spook wouldn't be called the Lord Mistborn if he wasn't the only one.

[Vortaan]

A stranger response than either "RAFO" or "No". Whatever Sweetness's motivation for asking, it is illuminating. We know that, short of Hemalurgy, no one can burn just two metals, it's a one or all deal (obviously all humans can burn Lerasium as well, let's move on). Furthermore if Demoux could burn Malatium it makes Preservation distorting snapping so that Atium and Malatium mistings could snap inconsistent (uplike for whoever finds this WoB quote, it's late and I'm running out of time). If Atium mistings also had the ability to burn Malatium, Preservation needn't have shifted out two metals from the snapping system. So if Demoux CAN burn Malatium, as Brandon hints with his answer, it almost certainly means Demoux is a mistborn. (Sazed intervening and granting Demoux full powers seems far more likely than Demoux spiking himself with an Inquisitor spike that had Atium, or else working out how to steal Malatium Allomancy, finding a Malatium Misting in a World without Atium, and spiking him for it).

 

 

I don't agree with your logic here. We ASSUME that Allomancy is an all or nothing situation because we haven't seen much of the god-metal alloys. Lerasium obviously bends a few rules, it wouldn't surprise me if atium did too. There are also quotes I'm too lazy to look up that indicate to me that the future sight aspect of atium was a secondary aspect to what it actually did. If this is the case, what everyone calls a Seer might just be a person that can access that one aspect of atium burning.

[Moogle]

As a small theory, it seems that Preservation didn't muddy up the specifics of Allomancy when he put atium and malatium on the table of 16 metals, he just changed how it was acquired. Given that the magic system itself arises independent of the Shard, I suspect the most that Preservation could do was determine who could use it, and that this is what he did when he put atium and malatium on the table: he allowed people to become atium or malatium Mistings. What's more, I think that was pretty much all Preservation could change: the structure of the table did not change, as there were 4 temporal metals before and after, and atium/malatium replaced the External Temporal metals. The alloys of atium have temporal effects, so he could only replace temporal metals with atium/atium alloys.

 

There might be a few ways to change out gold/electrium/cadmium/bendalloy with atium alloys, but I theorize that's all that can be done.

 

As further evidence, all Sazed changed about Allomancy was Snapping (which is part of how you become an Allomancer) and also prevented there from being more atium/malatium Mistings, instead exchanging those types for cadmium/bendalloy. He didn't stop atium from working. If he had, Marsh wouldn't be around.

 

It would therefore not surprise me one bit to find that if you can burn atium, you'll have no problems whatsoever burning alloys of atium. Lerasium has that going for it, and it's not like anyone tried with Demoux. Malatium Mistings, unfortunately, probably can't because they're tied too specifically to that one alloy. (Maybe they can burn gold, and some Gold Mistings didn't realize they were Malatium Mistings.)

Edited November 12, 2013 by Moogle