why do people only ever carry a few bottles of metals with them

[Zape]

i swear to god i dont remember a single time that anyone mentioned drinking more then 3 bottles before running out 

[king of nowhere]

because three have been enough for every situation we've seen (at least before duraluminium bursts), because the more metal you have the more anchors you give your opponents, and because fighting with glass objects on you carries the risk of greater injury. Overall, there are more problems than benefits at having more than 3, and even then only those expecting a protracted fight carry more than three.

[Zape]

3 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

because three have been enough for every situation we've seen

the death of aland and maybe by extension vin was caused by not enough metal if vin carried more bottlers she would be able to save more lives at the battle of lothadel there are countless examples in the books where horrible things happen because they dont have enough metal; i swear that half the plot wouldn't happen if they brought more 

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because the more metal you have the more anchors you give your opponents

there is literally one case in the first three books that i can remember where someone used allomency on a bottle and it was to fling it out of vins hand manipulating the bottle in the middle of battle especially considering mistborn also carry coins with them is just unlikely 

Quote

because fighting with glass objects on you carries the risk of greater injury

a mistborn's preferred weapon is a glass dagger 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Zape

[king of nowhere]

4 minutes ago, Zape said:

the death of aland and maybe by extension vin was caused by not enough metal if vin carried more bottlers she would be able to save more lives at the battle of lothadel there are countless examples in the books where horrible things happen because they dont have enough metal; i swear that half the plot wouldn't happen if they brought more 

I did specify "before duraluminium bursts". three vials will give you some half hour of burning for pewter, hours for the slower metals. that's enough. only after vin discovers that she can use a whiole vial in a second there is the need for more vials.

[Zape]

aland docent burn duraluminum in the battle at the kandra caves 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Zape

[Zape]

also i edited my comment to address your other arguments 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Elend chose to die, as it was the best of the possible options. It was the only thing that would free Vin to kill Ruin. 

As a general rule people don’t run out of metal.

[Zape]

except they do multiple times further more there was no reason for aland to die as soon as the atium was depleted vin and ruin were on equal footing infact maybe if vin hadent given aland the mist power she might actually have had a leg up maybe even surviving the ordeal 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Zape

[Podman]

aland? You mean Elend?

[king of nowhere]

Just now, Zape said:

except they do multiple times further more there was no reason for aland to die as soon as the atium was depleted vin and ruin were equal in power infact maybe if vin hadent given aland the mist power she might actually have had a leg up maybe even surviving the ordeal 

first thing, it's elend, not aland. and luthadel, not lothadel. And your whole grammar could use some upgrading, you write like a flux of conscience and you are difficult to understand.

Second thing, you keep saying that "multiple times" characters get in troubles because they run out of metal, buut you always bring out elend's death as an example of it. Care to add more examples? Because as far as I can tell that's the only time when having more metals may have made a difference. Except that it didn't, because elend realized he had to die anyway.

Third thing, elend actually had more metals that time, it's just that the whole army have been fighting for hours, he had been fighting for hours, and at some point he run out because his stores weren't limitless. May I also point out that they were facing the end of the world, their home city was overthrown, and they were retunring from an extended campaign; that kind of thing tend to dwindle one's stockpiles of everything.

fourth thing, vin would have never survived the clash with ruin. It's not like the little trickle she gave elend made any difference. She was a shard, she had the power to make and collapse planets. saying she died because she had given some allomantic power to elend shortly before is like saying a runner lost the run because a teeny tiny particle of dust deposited on his clothing and weighted him down.

[Zape]

sorry i didn't read the book in english which is my third language 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Zape

[Zape]

okay so first of all just comb through the books in almost every long battle vin is complaining about running out of metals alto i will admit i cannot remember a specific example 

second of all no he didn't they were fighting for barely a day and elend was only relaying on atium now obviously some of his supplies had been consumed getting their however as vin demonstrated it does not take that much metal to get from fadrex to luthadel using the horseshoe method i dont believe he wasted more then two bottles getting there 

third of all if ruin and vin were in perfect balance then even the tiniest advantage might have made a difference   

[The One Who Connects]

2 hours ago, Zape said:

a mistborn's preferred weapon is a glass dagger 

You can't push a glass dagger. You can push on metal inside a glass vial. Flinging metal at glass generally breaks it, so the risk exists for the vials, but not the daggers.

Additionally, the vial is around your waist(I believe), while a dagger would be in your hand. Pushing glass against someone's midsection is gonna be worse than pushing glass against your hand.

2 hours ago, Zape said:

There is literally one case in the first three books that i can remember where someone used Allomancy on a bottle.

Manipulating the bottle in the middle of battle especially considering Mistborn also carry coins with them is just unlikely 

Only one case in three books does not mean it never happened in the past 1,024 years. Someone could easily have pushed on a coin pouch or a metal vial by mistaking it for the other of the two. In a nighttime fight, that blue line isn't gonna tell you what's what.

I wouldn't call it "unlikely" so much as less likely. Only Mistborn and Coinshots would be carrying coins by the way. Any of the other Mistings wouldn't have coin pouches to divide your attention.

13 minutes ago, Zape said:

There was no reason for Eland to die as soon as the Atium was depleted. Vin and Ruin were on equal footing. In fact, maybe if Vin hadn't given Eland the mist power she might have had a leg up, maybe even surviving the ordeal.

You forget that Ruin was fueling Marsh with Mist power too. He's leaking black smoke just as Elend was leaking white mist. Her using some of her power didn't put her at a disadvantage against Ruin because they were both lowered. But as King of Nowhere stated, that amount of power was inconsequential.

Just now, Zape said:

third of all if ruin and vin were in perfect balance then even the tiniest advantage might have made a difference   

Preservation was hesitant to do it before because it'd put Ruin further ahead in the long run, and Ruin wouldn't do it because he wanted to keep his advantage. However, you're forgetting that Preservation put more of his power into the whole of creation when they created Scadrial. It took millennia for that slight disadvantage to add up in Ruin's favor. In that singular moment, fueling one person's Allomancy for.. 10 minutes or so is less than nothing.

Consider it like this. Each Shard has.. say 10,000 "power." Killing a Shard takes 5,000. When they attack, all that power is thrown at the other all at once. At that point, it wouldn't matter if you had 5,005 or if you had 8,000. As long as you had more than 5,000, they die. If Vin or Ruin had dropped below 5,000 beforehand, then the other would have lived.

As demonstrated by what happened between Vin and Ruin, neither of them had crossed that threshold. Yes, Ruin had more power, but it didn't matter. Vin still had enough to kill him, so they died.

[Zape]

Quote

You forget that Ruin was fueling Marsh with Mist power too. He's leaking black smoke just as Elend was leaking white mist. Her using some of her power didn't put her at a disadvantage against Ruin because they were both lowered. But as King of Nowhere stated, that amount of power was inconsequential

ok fair enough

but i would like to focus on the glass bottles you have a point however you unintentionally brought up a second question why do people use glass and wood instead of stone ? 

why glass instead of obsidian and wood instead of rock

Edited November 19, 2017 by Zape

[kenod]

5 minutes ago, Zape said:

ok fair enough

but i would like to focus on the glass bottles you have a point however you unintentionally brought up a second question why do people use glass and wood instead of stone ? 

why glass instead of obsidian and wood instead of rock

If you are talking about using obsidian and stone for bottles, first of all, glass bottles are easier to produce, and a lot lighter than stone. I'm not sure if you can actually create bottles out of stone, at least not without using clay, and clay can break too. Obsidian is actually a type of glass, naturally occurring volcanic glass. And while hard, it is also quite brittle. This is actually why certain civilizations (and Inquisitors) used obsidian for their weapons. Hit it right and you can fairly easily break it, and get extremely sharp fragments (Macuahuitl, old aztec weapon). All this means that for using them as bottles, glass is superior to the other materials you listed for ease of working with them, and for using them as weapons, Inquisitors did see how good obsidian was, and used it for their axes.

[The One Who Connects]

5 minutes ago, Zape said:

You have a point however you unintentionally brought up a second question why do people use glass and wood instead of stone ? 

why glass instead of obsidian and wood instead of rock

For the bottles, it's hygiene. You can probably wash a stone/wooden cup out so it'd be safe to drink from, but when you already have glass, you'd just keep with what works. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" in action.

As for the weapons, Inquisitor Axes have Wooden handles and Obsidian Axeheads. Elend carries an Obsidian dagger or two in HoA. People do use them, but they just got used less. The Scadrian Tech Tree is.. a little wonky, so it might just be easier to make glass than to mine obsidian.

Additionally(if memory serves), Obsidian blades are really brittle. A solid chunk of glass will still break if you drop it, but it's less likely to break doing other actions(like stabbing). It's a trade-off.

For the purpose of stone/wood weaponry, glass is sharper.

[king of nowhere]

55 minutes ago, Zape said:

okay so first of all just comb through the books in almost every long battle vin is complaining about running out of metals alto i will admit i cannot remember a specific example 

second of all no he didn't they were fighting for barely a day and elend was only relaying on atium now obviously some of his supplies had been consumed getting their however as vin demonstrated it does not take that much metal to get from fadrex to luthadel using the horseshoe method i dont believe he wasted more then two bottles getting there

elend couldn't replicate the horseshoe trick. he lacked the finesse of control needed to pull it off. it is stated in the book.

and they've been fighting koloss for hours and hours, until they consumed all the atium. it would be really strange if elend, a strong mistborn, would not help himself with pewter. and since he run (well, steeljumped) to the pits leaving tthe rest of the army behind, he left his alllomantic supplies behind. and he spent a lot during the trip. so no, he had good supplies, he still run out. anyway, there was no winning against the army they were facing.

And I really can't remember a single fight when somebody lost for running out of metals (except atium, but that's because it's so rare). The only potentially relevant scene is when vin is captured in fadrex. she drinks the sleeping concoction and burns pewter to fight it; if she had more pewter, maybe it would have worked. then again, maybe not. After all, poison is absorbed slowly from the stomach, and a duraluminium burst would only, at best, remove what she had absorbed - leaving what remained in the stomach to finish the job. And she was wearing a ball gown, so she could not carry too many vials without them becoming too visible underneat.

which bring us to the reason why many mistborn favored glass knives: probably simply because they are light and easy to conceal, unlike the axes favored by the inquisitors.

 

[Kingsdaughter613]

And Zape, you are forgetting that Elend saw all the possible immediate future paths. He COULD have killed Marsh; he chose to die instead, because that would have led to the best outcome. And Vin didn’t actually have to die fully; that was her choice.

[Zape]

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

elend couldn't replicate the horseshoe trick. he lacked the finesse of control needed to pull it off. it is stated in the book

actually it states he managed to pull it off right at the end 

 

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

and they've been fighting koloss for hours and hours, until they consumed all the atium. it would be really strange if elend, a strong mistborn, would not help himself with pewter. and since he run (well, steeljumped) to the pits leaving tthe rest of the army behind, he left his alllomantic supplies behind. and he spent a lot during the trip

this point relies on elend not being to replicate the horseshoe trick if he did use it it shouldn't have taken him more then two or three bottles to get to luthadel 

 

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

And I really can't remember a single fight when somebody lost for running out of metals

i didn't say lost i said that in the longer battles vin was saying she was starting to run out usually of steel iron or pewter

 

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

which bring us to the reason why many mistborn favored glass knives: probably simply because they are light and easy to conceal, unlike the axes favored by the inquisitors.

but why glass ? why not copy the inquisitors obsidian is a lot better for knives or why not stone ? sure its a bit heavier but its a lot sturdier stone can allow you to carry actual weapons for self defense like swords or spears instead of battle staff i mean you'd think at least the people traind to fight mistbron (not sure what they are called in english) whould use stone

 

3 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

And Zape, you are forgetting that Elend saw all the possible immediate future paths. He COULD have killed Marsh; he chose to die instead, because that would have led to the best outcome. And Vin didn’t actually have to die fully; that was her choice.

im pretty sure he ran out of atium by that point 

Edited November 20, 2017 by Zape

[Agent34]

3 hours ago, Zape said:

actually it states he managed to pull it off right at the end 

 

this point relies on elend not being to replicate the horseshoe trick if he did use it it shouldn't have taken him more then two or three bottles to get to luthadel 

 

i didn't say lost i said that in the longer battles vin was saying she was starting to run out usually of steel iron or pewter

 

but why glass ? why not copy the inquisitors obsidian is a lot better for knives or why not stone ? sure its a bit heavier but its a lot sturdier stone can allow you to carry actual weapons for self defense like swords or spears instead of battle staff i mean you'd think at least the people traind to fight mistbron (not sure what they are called in english) whould use stone

 

im pretty sure he ran out of atium by that point 

Running out of metals is something any allomancer has to face, it's like running out of ammo.

Why glass? It's easy to get, obsidian is less easy. Mistborn are assassins more than warriors on the battlefield, something heavier and larger would probably work against them.

[Zape]

Just now, Agent34 said:

Running out of metals is something any allomancer has to face, it's like running out of ammo.

well them it might be wise to bring more then a few hours worth of ammo wouldn't it ? 

Just now, Agent34 said:

Why glass? It's easy to get, obsidian is less easy Mistborn are assassins more than warriors on the battlefield, something heavier and larger would probably work against them.

mistborn are also people who come from wealthy families or are rich by themselves obsidian isn't that hard to get further more mistborn are warriors there are countless times where a mission goes wrong and a mistborn has to be able to fight his way out just carrying a sword will not hinder them 

[Agent34]

22 minutes ago, Zape said:

well them it might be wise to bring more then a few hours worth of ammo wouldn't it ? 

mistborn are also people who come from wealthy families or are rich by themselves obsidian isn't that hard to get further more mistborn are warriors there are countless times where a mission goes wrong and a mistborn has to be able to fight his way out just carrying a sword will not hinder them 

I didn't say they didn't fight I said they're not front line warriors. A sword is less suitable for stealth and assassination than knives.

[Zape]

Just now, Agent34 said:

I didn't say they didn't fight I said they're not front line warriors. A sword is less suitable for stealth and assassination than knives.

i know the point i was trying to make is the mission can often end in a fight so it might be a smart idea to bring a weapon 

[Agent34]

1 hour ago, Zape said:

i know the point i was trying to make is the mission can often end in a fight so it might be a smart idea to bring a weapon 

Knives are weapons. Quite effective ones.

[Kingsdaughter613]

The whole point was that Elend Duralumin burnt Atium allowing him to see into the spiritual realm. SH makes that pretty obvious...

Elend was likely flaring his metals the whole time in that fight, which would use them quickly.

According to Wikipedia historical Glass knives were forged of obsidian glass. Only in the 1920s were ones of clear glass made. Some surgical scalpels are made of obsidian and it is perfectly fine to call them ‘glass’. The MAG has no ‘glass dagger’ option, only obsidian. Since this seems likely to have been something they asked it is quite possible that all references to ‘glass daggers’ actually refer to obsidian.