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This might be going a bit too deep. Per the TFE annotations, silver was initially going to be the internal pulling metal, so if there's any significance, it was written in much later in the writing process. Additionally, per the HoA annotations (putting the following in spoiler tags because it's still spoilered on the annotation page):

Spoiler

The earring also presented a problem in that in the original drafts of book one, silver was an Allomantic metal. I later changed silver to tin and played with what the metals did. However, I didn’t have the specifics of Hemalurgy down. And so, when I got this book, I worried that her earring would be the wrong metal. Hence the silver plating explanation, as I worried that I’d forgotten or missed some instances in book one where I mentioned the earring being silver. (I tried to cut all references to its actual metal, so that I would be open to build Hemalurgy as I saw fit.)

So, initially, the earring was supposed to be silver rather than silver-plated.

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11 minutes ago, Salkara said:

So, initially, the earring was supposed to be silver rather than silver-plated

I forgot about this but that actually makes a lot of sense. Silver would have been the allomantic metal that tin replaced, and hemalurgy would have been built so that tin picked up what bronze now does Hemalurgically. 

So the silver plating exists in case a "silver earring" reference had been missed in the editing process. 

Nice find @Salkara. That explains it pretty well.

And as you said if there is some in world significance, it was added in after all this was worked out. 

P. S. I agree with Brandon. Silvereye would have been a much better misting name than Tineye 

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Yeah... that definitely breaks some of the fantasy for me when I dream of Brandon Sanderson's pre-planning genius... but I can't help but feel that Brandon's behind-the-scenes writing process and the finalized canon we are presented are two completely different conversations.

Silver definitely has a future role to play, I believe. Even though I'm shooting in the dark as to what that role might be.  But regardless of what we are allowed to know about his writing process, it doesn't change the fact that the finalized pieces need to fit.  And currently,  we still don't have an answer to a lot of these questions.

 

@Calderis  makes a compelling point about how silver's value on Scadrial would be equal to/greater than aluminum if I were correct about it being a nullifying metal.  So I'll have to buff that out as I polish my silver/aluminum/ralkalest theories.

If feel like silver is special... I'm just enjoying the ride trying to find out how.

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7 minutes ago, pharaoh9000 said:

@Calderis  makes a compelling point about how silver's value on Scadrial would be equal to/greater than aluminum if I were correct about it being a nullifying metal.  So I'll have to buff that out as I polish my silver/aluminum/ralkalest theories.

If feel like silver is special... I'm just enjoying the ride trying to find out how.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to disprove your silver idea. I agree that silver is significant. We know metal in general is Cosmere significant and Threnody shows that silver has special properties in relation to some kinds of investiture. 

I just don't think that has anything to do with the earring or the Metallic Arts. 

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I feel like Nightblood's sheath is at very least partially the same metal as Shardblade guards. Vasher knew about them, they seem to be at least a common enough thing to have spares on the sparring grounds. I could easily see him nicking one or two when he initially did research on Shardblades.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just wondering, but when did Vasher reveal his knowledge about Shardblade guards? He did research on Shardblades? When was this!? Why have I missed it?! Must... must read more!

If silver definitely has some sort of Cosmere significance, then why wouldn't it be significant in relation to Vin's earring? If pharaoh9000 got a RAFO on who plated it with silver, I think it could certainly mean that Vin's earring being plated in silver is important. Sanderson has a habit of seemingly inadvertent or simple things turn out to become major points of his stories.

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1 hour ago, Krypton Savant said:

Just wondering, but when did Vasher reveal his knowledge about Shardblade guards? He did research on Shardblades? When was this!? Why have I missed it?! Must... must read more!

Welcome to the Shard. Since your post count is accounted for in the posts I've seen you make so far tonight I'm assuming you're new here. 

Brandon is very forthcoming on a lot of things. We have a lot of information from the annotations of books (available on his website) and WoBs (Word of Brandon) that he's given either through answering questions at signings or on Reddit or her or Twitter, etc., etc. 

You can dig into this info on your own, or just hang around and pick it up, but there's a lot of information Brandon has given us that isn't available in the books alone. 

Take it easy, don't get overwhelmed, and enjoy yourself. 

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The way somebody said "ALU can't be seen" reminded me of something I learned when I lost my titanium wedding ring in 6" of snow. Unlike other metals, ALU  and Ti can't be "seen" by a regular metal detector because they are paramegnatic(don't hold or oppose a magnetic charge). I'm not sure what significe this has, if any, but since the iron/steel push/pull seems rooted in magnetism, I feel there could be some.

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31 minutes ago, Beast_c_a_t said:

The way somebody said "ALU can't be seen" reminded me of something I learned when I lost my titanium wedding ring in 6" of snow. Unlike other metals, ALU  and Ti can't be "seen" by a regular metal detector because they are paramegnatic(don't hold or oppose a magnetic charge). I'm not sure what significe this has, if any, but since the iron/steel push/pull seems rooted in magnetism, I feel there could be some.

Actually also if the connection between Steel/Iron Allomancy and magnetism is intuitive. The two things are not even related, Allomancy didn't use any kind of magnetic force to work

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17 hours ago, Yata said:

Actually also if the connection between Steel/Iron Allomancy and magnetism is intuitive. The two things are not even related, Allomancy didn't use any kind of magnetic force to work

"Rooted in" was the wrong expression, better to say it parallels magnetism.

There can only be two explanations for ALU's investiture blocking properties, an intrinsic elemental property or magic. I think that a purely magical explanation is unlikely and a big RAFO, so that leaves speculating on uncommon or unique properties of ALU.

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13 minutes ago, Beast_c_a_t said:

There can only be two explanations for ALU's investiture blocking properties, an intrinsic elemental property or magic. I think that a purely magical explanation is unlikely and a big RAFO, so that leaves speculating on uncommon or unique properties of ALU.

Why is a magical explaination unlikely?

Anyway, I believe you forget the Realmatic side of the topic. Everything in the Cosmere has three aspects. If the Alluminium's properties are caused by something in its Spiritual Aspect...Will you call It "natural" or "magical" ? To me, this distinction loses completely sense.

For example (but others'ideas Will be fine too) I believe the Alluminium is affected by a Spiritual Emptyness. Without going into details, It's mainly an anti magic stuff because Its Soul can't offer a target to most magics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

To me the annotation quote that @Salkara posted shows that there isn't really significance to it the silver plating, it was purely because he wanted to cover up possible mistakes in his writing, not an elegant solution but not everything Brandon does is going to be some amazingly complex secret. I feel people here have shown that aluminium being "poor man's" silver is impossible as silver is not allomantically inert and therefore definitely doesn't occupy the same role as aluminium. And my opinion is that you are placing more importance on it than it deserves, but that's just my opinion, I could be proven fantastically incorrect. 

Also I assumed that the metal shardblades are made of is honour's god metal.

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2 hours ago, Gigalemesh said:

Also I assumed that the metal shardblades are made of is honour's god metal.

Not exactly as the Spren themself aren't made of Honor's Investiture alone...Many call the Sprenblade's metal with the friendly name of Sprenium as every Spren would have a certain ratio of H&C's Investiture. Probably the Honorblade are made of Honor's godmetal or Tanavastium as they are direct result of Honor's power without other influences

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9 minutes ago, Yata said:

Not exactly as the Spren themself aren't made of Honor's Investiture alone...Many call the Sprenblade's metal with the friendly name of Sprenium as every Spren would have a certain ratio of H&C's Investiture. Probably the Honorblade are made of Honor's godmetal or Tanavastium as they are direct result of Honor's power without other influences

Dang that's a great point, I totally hadn't considered that. But yeah everything you say makes sense, thanks for pointing that out

Edited by Gigalemesh
Grammar
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Is it so hard to think that Vin's mother knew that originally it was a very cheap earring with a Bronze undercoat.

Her mother was being led by ruin, "Crazy lady". He could have told her to scrape off some of the silver to expose the bronze before Spiking Vin's sister. After years of being worn, taken in and out, stored in a lock box, "We don't know at what point in her youth she took it back out to store it in the box.", It would have looked both looked to have been naturally losing more silver coating from wear, and have had an original bear spot from where her mother scraped it off.. The more the bronze was exposed perhaps the more the Hemalurgic spike became potent? It kept it's original potency because she was spiked with it immediately. These are things I can see as being Viable.

Her mom scraped some silver plating off a bronze earing "As was available for a woman of vin's mother's station". just a cheap bauble. Spiked vin, and through years of wear, it slowly exposed more and more. Because it was Hemalurgical shouldn't she have been able to sense allomantic pulses without burning metals. The Seeker Spike should have given her the ability interly without metals right?

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3 hours ago, Knghtstlker said:

Because it was Hemalurgical shouldn't she have been able to sense allomantic pulses without burning metals. The Seeker Spike should have given her the ability interly without metals right?

No. Hemalurgy steals abilities, but doesn't create new ones. It granted her allomantic bronze. As a Mistborn it added strength to her existing ability. 

So when she burned bronze, her abilities as a seeker were strengthened. Without burning metals there was no effect. 

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18 hours ago, Calderis said:

No. Hemalurgy steals abilities, but doesn't create new ones. It granted her allomantic bronze. As a Mistborn it added strength to her existing ability. 

So when she burned bronze, her abilities as a seeker were strengthened. Without burning metals there was no effect. 

I realized after I sent it what I was saying. I knew what I was thinking, Ha. Just didn't come out right. But what does everyone think about Ruin driving Vin's mother to scrape some silver off to expose the bronze. That gives at least 15'ish years for the scraped silver to fleck off and look like it had been losing it's coating the whole time. They never really describe where the silver is flaking off.

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1 hour ago, Knghtstlker said:

But what does everyone think about Ruin driving Vin's mother to scrape some silver off to expose the bronze. That gives at least 15'ish years for the scraped silver to fleck off and look like it had been losing it's coating the whole time. They never really describe where the silver is flaking off.

Hypothetically, the more silver that was plating the earring at the time it went through Vin's baby sister would have meant the less chance the bronze would've had to accept a Hemalurgic charge... or perhaps it might've even been, at most, a super weak charge (which I doubt Ruin would've been aiming for).

Also, if the earring started out with very little silver plating... enough to still accept a "good enough" Hemalurgic charge, then it's reasonable to assume that the earring would've been almost entirely bronze by the time we see it onscreen. Since Vin noticed the silver had "worn away in most places" over her lifetime, it's likely that Vin herself noticed more silver on it in her youth than what she sees on it by the time she meets Kelsier.  At least that's my takeaway.

It's more reasonable to assume that there was no silver on the earring when it was used Hemalurgically, and it was put there at a later date.  For me, this fits better canonically... considering how silver functions on Scadrial.

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1 hour ago, pharaoh9000 said:

Hypothetically, the more silver that was plating the earring at the time it went through Vin's baby sister would have meant the less chance the bronze would've had to accept a Hemalurgic charge... or perhaps it might've even been, at most, a super weak charge (which I doubt Ruin would've been aiming for).

Also, if the earring started out with very little silver plating... enough to still accept a "good enough" Hemalurgic charge, then it's reasonable to assume that the earring would've been almost entirely bronze by the time we see it onscreen. Since Vin noticed the silver had "worn away in most places" over her lifetime, it's likely that Vin herself noticed more silver on it in her youth than what she sees on it by the time she meets Kelsier.  At least that's my takeaway.

It's more reasonable to assume that there was no silver on the earring when it was used Hemalurgically, and it was put there at a later date.  For me, this fits better canonically... considering how silver functions on Scadrial.

Yes, but that opens up a whole new can of worms. One I think has been addressed here on the thread, of who would have both known that the earring in Vin's ear was a Hemalurgical spike, and who would help cover up something like that by having it poorly silver plated to have enough of it worn away to come of use Exactly when the WoA began to gain power..

She never mentioned anything beyond using her "Luck", and being a little heartier than people would have thought, She never mentioned hearing things "Allomantic pulses" in her youth, which means the silver was coated in a way that 15 years "Ish" of mostly being locked in a box according to Vin had somehow eroded the silver plating.

Your theory sounds more mysterious and kniving, but also means that someone would have had a HUGE Impact on Vin's life in the first few years and then ignored her the rest of her life. Ruin's Lackey? Maybe she threw the earring away instead of keeping it? What if she lost the earring? I don't think the size or the amount of Bronze is at particularly as important as you may think, She had to focus very hard to pierce copper clouds it was something she had to focus harder for each time. She never "Accidentally" pierced copper clouds, When she had her bronze on she always had to "Try" to pierce them.

So maybe the bronze that was exposed just wasn't that much, enough for a Hemalurgical charge to steal the Seeking ability, It was put in fresh after it's charge. It was enough, it just wasn't much.

Edited by Knghtstlker
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1 hour ago, Knghtstlker said:

She never mentioned anything beyond using her "Luck", and being a little heartier than people would have thought, She never mentioned hearing things "Allomantic pulses" in her youth, which means the silver was coated in a way that 15 years "Ish" of mostly being locked in a box according to Vin had somehow eroded the silver plating.

The fact she didn't hear anything does not give us a proof of something as she will be able to hear allomantic pulse with and without her Spike. Notice also that Vin didn't grow up in the Nobles' circle...what are the chances an allomancer was burning a metal near her just in the little time she was casually burn Bronze ?

Edited by Yata
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8 minutes ago, Yata said:

The fact she didn't hear anything does not give us a proof of something as she will be able to hear allomantic pulse with and without her Spike. Notice also that Vin didn't grow up in the Nobles' circle...what are the chances an allomancer was burning a metal near her just in the little time she was casually burn Bronze ?

A valid point, Allomancy was a mystical trait that not many Skaa knew a whole lot about. However. There were in fact Soothing houses all over her neighborhoods, Hidden by copper clouds... She and likely all Skaa passed soothing houses multiple times daily. So she was practically always inside a Soothers Influence, if she was inherently burning metals, she would have not had much of anything at all to burn true, but these metals are all found in small enough amounts to digest in a diet. Though it is unlikely she would have "Burned", all of the Sneaking through the harsh cities alleys she would have been concentrating on being quiet and listening for passerby's. I think at one point or another she would have heard alien thumping noises unknown to her or something. Obviously, We're digging much deeper than Sanderson probably intended. We're chasing our tails here. Just mentioning the fact that Skaa were almost always surrounded by Allomancers.

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5 minutes ago, Knghtstlker said:

A valid point, Allomancy was a mystical trait that not many Skaa knew a whole lot about. However. There were in fact Soothing houses all over her neighborhoods, Hidden by copper clouds... She and likely all Skaa passed soothing houses multiple times daily. So she was practically always inside a Soothers Influence, if she was inherently burning metals, she would have not had much of anything at all to burn true, but these metals are all found in small enough amounts to digest in a diet. Though it is unlikely she would have "Burned", all of the Sneaking through the harsh cities alleys she would have been concentrating on being quiet and listening for passerby's. I think at one point or another she would have heard alien thumping noises unknown to her or something. Obviously, We're digging much deeper than Sanderson probably intended. We're chasing our tails here. Just mentioning the fact that Skaa were almost always surrounded by Allomancers.

Did you realize the amount of Bronze she would need ? To pierce a Coppercould she would need tons of Bronze and she would need to flare it....Before Kelsier gave her a vial of metal, Vin always performed Allomancy with some metallic traces she casually eated/drinked. Probably she never reached the point of her regolar burning before Kel

Edited by Yata
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