Bands of Mourning

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

Were they really the Lord Ruler's or is it just a myth? after all, the Lord ruler had lots of bands, and They weren't shaped like a spearhead. Also, the Bands had all 16 metals, but did TLR actually know of all 16?

 

(Unless maybe Kelsier got his hands on them and messed with them, partly by reshaping them and partly by combining them all into one hunk of metal?)

Edited August 6, 2020 by Hoid the Drifter

[Honorless]

No, Wax & co mistook the Sovereign's identity

[PleatherDuster]

I think the Bands origin is supposed to be a bit of a mystery at this point, though I've read speculation the Kelsier was involved in the making and hiding of the bands. 

Do we know for sure the the Bands (in spearhead form) had all 16 metals? I don't remember that being explicitly stated, but I could be wrong. Wax and Marasi only demonstrated a few ablities when holding it.  

[Karger]

11 minutes ago, PleatherDuster said:

Do we know for sure the the Bands (in spearhead form) had all 16 metals? I don't remember that being explicitly stated, but I could be wrong. Wax and Marasi only demonstrated a few ablities when holding it.  

They have a verity of both feuchemical and allomantic abilities.  I see no reason it could not be all of them.

[PleatherDuster]

4 minutes ago, Karger said:

They have a verity of both feuchemical and allomantic abilities.  I see no reason it could not be all of them.

Yes, it makes sense for it to be all 16--but the characters might not necessarily know this? Though I suppose they know you would need nicrosil to make them, and I don't think that was around in TLR's days. 

How/why does it grant allomantic abilites?

[Karger]

4 minutes ago, PleatherDuster said:

How/why does it grant allomantic abilites?

Nicrosil.  Kelseir new about it or maybe the southerners did.  We know it does because Marasi pushed.

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, PleatherDuster said:

Yes, it makes sense for it to be all 16--but the characters might not necessarily know this? Though I suppose they know you would need nicrosil to make them, and I don't think that was around in TLR's days.

Technically Rashek knew about the other metals for the same reason that Kelsier did and civilization was more technologically advanced when he began the process of conquering the world (roughly where things are in Era 2, they had steam power but not railroads) but all indications are that the Bands were created only after his death, with Kelsier starting the story about their origin because he could. Or thought it would be funny. He's a god (sort of), he gets to work in Mysterious Ways if he rusting well wants to.

Once you realize that the Sovereign was always meant to be Kelsier and the characters simply assumed incorrectly that it was Rashek (and continued to make that mistake throughout the book) then all the little inconsistencies in the story fall neatly into place.

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

8 hours ago, Honorless said:

No, Wax & co mistook the Sovereign's identity

And Kelsier had feruchemy. Not buying it.

[Darkfinder]

At the end of Bands of Mourning when Wax sees the vision of Kelsier with a spike in his eyes like the statue. 

It has been confirmed that Kelsier is the Sovereign If I recall correctly.

He could be using Ferurchemy due to the spike but we don't actually know how the Bands were made and what Kesier has been doing and how he knows and is doing what he is doing if that makes sense. 

I hope this makes sense

Edited August 7, 2020 by Darkfinder

[Honorless]

41 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

And Kelsier had feruchemy. Not buying it.

He was looking into Hemalurgy with Spook and there's also Southern Scadrian tech, which was apparently taught to them by him. A lot happened after the end of the ash.

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

but he wasn't controlled by harmony... right?

[Raphaborn]

3 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

but he wasn't controlled by harmony... right?

Harmony does not control anyone who has not allowed it, or has breached their contracts with it.

[Koloss17]

11 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

but he wasn't controlled by harmony... right?

Basically Kelsier doesn’t trust harmony enough to have more than one spike in him at all times, and that spike would be the one tethering him to the physical realm.

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

so, no feruchemy, as was my point.

[StanLemon]

To create the Bands he would need some kind of way to use Feruchemy. 

On a separate note, I think the spike in his eye is Duralumin

[Koloss17]

I read it through and thought it was Kelsier that was the sovereign all along (for the southern scaldrians, at least). I assume he got some help and probably used stuff like medallions to fill the metalminds.

[+Bzhydack]

8 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

 

I read it through and thought it was Kelsier that was the sovereign all along (for the southern scaldrians, at least). I assume he got some help and probably used stuff like medallions to fill the metalminds.

 

But medalions werent invented at this time yet. According to memory Wax saw, it was Kelsier the one who teach Southerners usage of Metalic Arts. So they couldnt help him - he helped them. So he was Feruchemist allready - I thing he was connected to the Feruchemist body and merged into one entity. It is my crazy theory that that body was Lord Ruler's.

[Frustration]

13 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

so, no feruchemy, as was my point.

He had to have Feruchemy to make the bands.

[Koloss17]

14 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

But medalions werent invented at this time yet. According to memory Wax saw, it was Kelsier the one who teach Southerners usage of Metalic Arts. So they couldnt help him - he helped them. So he was Feruchemist allready - I thing he was connected to the Feruchemist body and merged into one entity. It is my crazy theory that that body was Lord Ruler's.

Ooh that’s smart. Would that work? We don’t know too much about cognitive shadows. 

[+robardin]

Well it's kind of two separate legends rolled into one, with Kelsier in the middle of it (the whole question of "where did the Feruchemical abilities requires to make the Bands come from?" being set aside for now).

First, from the Southerner's POV, "the Sovereign" came to them after the world froze over, and saved them from freezing to death by giving them "Excisors" and beginning the Firefathers and Firemothers (who we can infer are the source of brassmind medallions for body heat that apparently, all Southerners must use at least part of every day just to leave their well-heated homes, "all five peoples" of the Southern Hemisphere).

The Sovereign had told them he came from the Northern Hemisphere, which region Allik referred to as "the land of the Sovereign", where he had been "your king and god" (speaking to Wax and co. as Northerners). He somehow engendered Metalborn among them (lerasium?), teaching them that they were "pieces of God" "though we didn't have any of those at first", as well as giving them with the Excisors, before leaving them...

...To create this Temple in the Northern mountains and a legend that, hidden there, he would leave his "Bands" that granted both Metalborn powers in all sixteen metals.

Why describe them as Bands when they were in the form a spearhead all along? How likely is it that the word "band" a pun for the Southerner's languages the way it apparently is for Wax and Marasi, such that it could be used to describe arm bracers (which TLR was known to have worn) as well as interwoven stripes of metal?

My thoughts and theories:

1) Legends or stories about The Lord Ruler's "bands" were already circulating in the Northern Hemisphere shortly after the Catacendre, or perhaps even before (shortly after TLR's fall).

2) It's strongly suggested by the ending to Mistborn: Secret History that Kelsier needed Spook's - er, The Lord Mistborn's - help to reincorporate in the physical world.

3) We have a WoB that Kelsier is not "possessing" Spook's body to become the Sovereign, though that would otherwise be the simplest way to explain how the Sovereign could describe himself as having been both "king" and "god" to the people in the North (Spook having led as King or Emperor for almost 100 years, and Kelsier a god).

Besides, The Sovereign came to the people of the Southern Hemisphere "about ten years after the Ice Death happened", so unless The Lord Mistborn was prone to disappearing for months or years at a time just ten years into the rebuilding of society, he's ruled out as a physical medium. No, as with describing his "Bands" as armbands, Kelsier was already sowing the seeds to misdirect any Northerners who/when they learned of it to associate it with The Lord Ruler when he claimed to have been "the King in the North" (or else engaging in some Game of Thrones roleplaying). For whatever reason.

4) The Bands not only contain unsealed metalminds for Feruchemical powers, but the very creation of them requires using Feruchemy as well (for nicrosil and aluminum), which Kelsier did not naturally possess.

My theory is that "The Sovereign" never achieved Feruchemy, not even with hemalurgy, but relied on the Bands himself to do all the Excisor creating stuff - then left the object at the Temple, perhaps as part of an agreement required by Harmony or whoever else assisted him in creating it in the first place. Harmony having a role in its creation would explain why the Bands grant such powerful Allomancy, and even caused mists to form and to swirl around Marasi when she tapped it.

My pet, fringe, and unsupported theory is that the First Generation of kandra (who alone among all Generations had been born as human Feruchemists) were somehow able to provide some kind of Feruchemical assistance to Ghost Kelsier in the Cognitive Realm on their way to the Beyond, inasmuch as we see that hemalurgically transformed creatures revert to their original human selves in the CR after dying (koloss). (The catch there being that technically, kandra were not hemalurgically transformed but physically transformed with the power of Preservation, with hemalurgy used to restore their original cognition.)

Think about it. A full Feruchemist, provided with all sixteen metals and taught about creating unsealed metalminds for Feruchemical abilities as well as for Feruchemical attribute stores, could create "half-Bands" that granted anyone the ability to be a full Feruchemist, all on their own. Then a Mistborn like Kelsier or Spook could pick it up and add Allomancy for all sixteen metals to the metalminds as well. Or sixteen Mistings of each metal. The only "full Metalborn" you need to make the Bands of Mourning is a Feruchemist. (And of course having one set of Bands, you could now create as many of them as you can make 16-metal-unioned metalminds... A terrifying prospect).

Edited August 10, 2020 by robardin

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 8/6/2020 at 3:59 PM, Weltall said:

Technically Rashek knew about the other metals for the same reason that Kelsier did and civilization was more technologically advanced when he began the process of conquering the world (roughly where things are in Era 2, they had steam power but not railroads) but all indications are that the Bands were created only after his death, with Kelsier starting the story about their origin because he could. Or thought it would be funny. He's a god (sort of), he gets to work in Mysterious Ways if he rusting well wants to.

Once you realize that the Sovereign was always meant to be Kelsier and the characters simply assumed incorrectly that it was Rashek (and continued to make that mistake throughout the book) then all the little inconsistencies in the story fall neatly into place.

This took me until Allik stated the Sovereign telling them NOT to do something meant he wanted them to do it. At that point I dropped my kindle (on my bed) and started screeching about Kelsier being back. I honestly thought it was pretty obvious.

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

oh, by the way, what's the "mourning" referring to?

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

On 8/19/2020 at 11:41 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

At that point I dropped my kindle (on my bed) and started screeching about Kelsier being back. I honestly thought it was pretty obvious.

yeah, but the reaction was a bit weird...

[Kingsdaughter613]

59 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

yeah, but the reaction was a bit weird...

My FIL was dying at the time. The realization hit when I REALLY needed something to be happy about.

[Koloss17]

21 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

oh, by the way, what's the "mourning" referring to?

Well, the lord ruler weeps as he kills. no. wait.  He makes people weep as he kills, or, more accurately, he makes people weep as his henchmen kill. no. His henchmen make people weep as they kill. As in the henchmen make people weep as the henchmen kill.

y’know, I have no idea.