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Meaning of "Shadows Of Self" - HOA Clue?


Haradion Drogon

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Now this seems so blatantly obvious, but I can't remember hearing it written anywhere on this forum. The Next Mistborn book is Called "Shadows of Self", however, when rereading HOA, I found this:

 

In the UK Edition of HOA, Pg 660:

 

"The mists are the Body of Preservation?"

The others nodded.

"And... it has disappeared?"

Again, a nod.

"Does this mean, then, that Preservation has Returned?"

"That is Impossible," Haddek said. "Preservation's power remains, for power cannot be destroyed. HIs mind however was all but destroyed-for this was the sacrifice made to imprison Ruin."

"The Sliver remains," another reminded. "The Shadow of Self."

"Yes," Haddek said, "But that is not preservation, just an image, a Remnant. Now that Ruin has escaped, I think we can assume even it has been destroyed." 

 

Anyone have any thoughts? I imagine this has been brought up before somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere. Does "Shadows of Self" refer to a splinter of Harmony forming in the next Mistborn Adventures?

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well... I kinda thought that since there's Harmony-thing which is both Preservation and Ruin. There must be pure Preservation and Ruin. I'd imagine that since kandra serve Preservation, so there must be somehow atium growing again. Since 300 years have passed and I thought that in Prologue that Bloody Tan sort of behaved like he was burning atium.

 

And Shadow of Self... Hmm... Marsh again?

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Well, I'd like to dwell on the possibility of another Mistborn to power up W&W. Not that they aren't desructive enough...

 

and besides he blabered something about seeing inquisitors and Kelsier. So I guess Ruin is in a run :) But hemalurgy? I don't know

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Wouldn't be electrum.  Electrum shows multiple atium shadows from the burner which is useful to countering an atium burner without having atium yourself.  To me it seems more like increased mental speed or atium.

Electrum lets you see your own "Atium" shadow. Which would let you see yourself being shot in the head. Which would let you move yourself so you aren't shot in the head, and someone else is. Electrum has functions outside of being just a hard counter to Atium.

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Hard to see much of your own shadows though.  you would only be able to see the one's within your field of vision.  Also, I don't think you get the mental processing that comes with atium.  So, while you may be able to see these shadows, it would be hard to react based on them since it would be challenging for your mind to process the info.  The greatest benefit is going to be to confuse or at least hinder your opponent.

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Using electrum effectively like that would be hard. But definately achievable to some degree with a lot of practice, and if you had Feruchemical zinc.......I still consider that almost on par with atium, not *quite* as powerful but much much cheaper.

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Hard to see much of your own shadows though.  you would only be able to see the one's within your field of vision.

 

Would you? It's been established that even though steellines are a visual effect, you're still aware of the ones behind you, or if you close your eyes. Perhaps even though there IS a visible electrum shadow, you always know where it is and what it's doing, even if it's behind you. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm hypothesizing.

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Also, I don't think you get the mental processing that comes with atium.  So, while you may be able to see these shadows, it would be hard to react based on them since it would be challenging for your mind to process the info.  The greatest benefit is going to be to confuse or at least hinder your opponent.

My understanding is that Atium isn't special in that regard; all metals increase your mental processing power in accordance with what you need to manage the ability. Source

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My understanding is that Atium isn't special in that regard; all metals increase your mental processing power in accordance with what you need to manage the ability. Source

 

I agree with the all metals give you what you need.  But, I would think they would have discussed electrum differently if they found it useful as a predictive metal.  I have a hard time imagining that, after learning what she did in the Zane fight, Vin did not try to work out how to do something like that with electrum.  The fact that it went unmentioned seems to suggest that electrum is rather feeble as a predictive metal.  It seems to show only the possible choices you could make, rather than predicting what happens to you when you make those choices.

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As brilliant as Vin was, she didn't explore the potential of all metals... in fact, in my view she seemed more concerned with the metals with a more immediate payoff (which is perfectly understandable given that she lived in a time of pretty much constant strife). For example, she barely touched Allomantic gold. How many of the 'feeble' metals merely required a greater exploration to unlock their potential?

 

(The MAG of course has a lot to say about Electrum, but the obvious counter would be to question the MAG's canonicity, so I've gone with more of a "we don't know the full potential of metals which haven't been touched on screen" approach. By the way, the link to your Lerasium and Atium theory in your sig seems to be broken, it just leads to this topic.)

Edited by Kadrok
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/>/>Sounds like Electrum is going to be explored a little more to me. Which is great, since the metal got really overlooked in the main trilogy.

All of my hopes, thoughts, and expectations wrapped up in a post smaller than this sentence.

Re: mental expansion - while many powers come with necessary secondary superpowers, I'm coming to think it's not as perfect as we make it out to be on these forums.

Tin lacks a feedback filter, there's no mental sense that a steelpush is so heavily dictated by your weight, and no indication at all that tugging on that iron line is very likely to kill you -remember that Vin could've died very easily, if not for Kelsier.

Frankly, I hope this limitation exists for Feruchemical steel. Many seem to assume it comes with some sort of automatic super brain to keep up, and I just don't see why it should.

This is all counterpoint to my normal stance: perhaps Atium expansion isn't so secondary afterall.

Edited by Pechvarry
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As brilliant as Vin was, she didn't explore the potential of all metals... in fact, in my view she seemed more concerned with the metals with a more immediate payoff (which is perfectly understandable given that she lived in a time of pretty much constant strife). For example, she barely touched Allomantic gold. How many of the 'feeble' metals merely required a greater exploration to unlock their potential?

Agreed. There is a theory/question I have for Brandon, but I do not know how to contact him or ask him in a way that will not distort my wording. If someone accidentally changes a word or two when asking him, the whole question would read entirely differently.
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It should be noted that the book itself doesn't use the capitalization shown in the first post. "The Shadow of Self" sounds much more... concrete, definite, special even than "The shadow of self," which is how it appears in HoA. The former adds additional significance.

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It should be noted that the book itself doesn't use the capitalization shown in the first post. "The Shadow of Self" sounds much more... concrete, definite, special even than "The shadow of self," which is how it appears in HoA. The former adds additional significance.

 

Really? I just saw it as a distinction between normal text and book's name capitalization.

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