Ars Arcanum

[Aranfan]

Yes, the styles could easily change dramatically between drafts, the amount of time passing is really less of a concern for this sort of thing. The styles are too different for all the Ars Arcanum to be from the same version of the same work, if that work isn't a compilation.

[pmj812]

A very skilled writer could vary their style to fit the needs and expectations of their audience.

[Firah]

Perhaps different styles are necessary to facilitate a full explanation of the investiture, bear in mind we only see tiny snippets of what is presumably a much larger book (presumably from a time that is the far future relative to ourselves.

If it was all written by the same person though then it is unlikely they are not from Sel considering the Alloy of Law Arcanum.

[Thor]

A very skilled writer could vary their style to fit the needs and expectations of their audience.

True, but what would be the point if one is gathering information for oneself/others? Afaik, the AA are used in-universe by the SS as a sort of encyclopedia of magic systems. (And we, as readers, merely get to look at their summaries.)

Tricky question. My thoughts on the subject are that the Ars Arcanum's tend to be incomplete. From a meta-fiction standpoint, this is to document the powers in a single place without spoilers, and with the "in-world" justification, it also allows them to match the readers beliefs without being strictly "true" (see Atium and Malatium).

The fact that Brandon has created an in-world author for all of them is very interesting. I cannot help but think, then, that the author is learning right along with us, although he (she?) probably manages to put the information in a better metaphysical context than we do. For instance, the fact that the Fering powers aren't completely documented until the end of "Alloy of Law" strongly suggests that the author didn't have this information until Feruchemy became relatively widespread on Scandrial and all the basic metals were generally available and understood.

This is my feeling also. The AA are being written around the same time as the novel in question takes place and therefore have the same limitations as the characters in the series (though they may be able to puzzle out what some effects are more easily than the characters, due to a better understanding of Realmatic Theory.) It has a lovely meta-side effect of not spoiling magic systems.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

I imagine it must be even bigger than that - if we think about Awakening like we think about Allomancy, it isn't just the Breath they'd be losing, it's also the ability to recieve it back, the ability to ever use Breath to Awaken.

What I'm saying is, the Nalthians' art of Investiture is Awakening, and its Commands - Breaths are only part of that. Take a hypothetical situation where a Nalthian and a Scadrian are together, and the Nalthian says "My life to yours, my Breath become yours," I believe one of two (EDIT: 3) things will happen:

1) nothing will happen, because the Scadrian is incapable of recieving the Breath

2) the Scadrian will recieve the Breath, but be unable to use it or give it back, because Awakening isn't part of their spiritual makeup.

(Edit: OOH! Just thought of a third one!)

3) the Scadrian will be able in some way to use the Breath to fuel a Metallic art - similar to how the Mists can fuel Allomancy on rare occasions

So getting soul-stapled would make you worse than a drab.

We know from the 11/10 signing that anyone from anyworld can gain Breaths (and presumable use them to Awaken as well, given that the other art Brandon mentioned was Allomancy and if you gained you'd be able to use it.) As to how well they'd be able to use it? well I imagine it would take years of experimentation unless you had an instructor...

As to the Ars Arcanum, I like the idea that we're learning along with the author of them and that they are a SS "encyclopedia" of sorts, though the author of the them does seem to know more about the magic systems than some of those using them. I think this for a couple of reasons, one is the Warbreaker AA that talks about levels of Breath in the multiple 10's of thousands, and the only person we ever see with that much is the God-king and he's never used them to do anything other than instinctively awaken (at the end of the novel). tWoK AA talks about 10 essences and their Soulcasting properties, maybe that is "common" enough knowledge, but the only one we ever see with knowledge of it and/or the divine attributes of the essences is Jasnah Kholin, though there is the secret society that likely has the knowledge as well as Teft's family and their sect.

In the AoL AA, the notes about the Feruchemical ability to store investiture and such seem to indicate to me that the author knows what is going on when he says that the people of Terris have no idea what they're doing when they do that...

I think they have to be written by someone in the 17th Shard as I don't think that Hoid would spend his down time writing, though who knows what he was doing all that time he spent as an information broker/story teller/Wit...

[Guest Jacob Santos]

I suspect the irony will continue. I at least hope it is irony and not simply coincidence; that you are discussing as if it is in-world and realize that Brandon was actually a single author that wrote the Ars Arcanum[1]. Reread this discussion from that viewpoint and tell me you ROFL.

I apologize for the off-topic nature of my posts. This will be the last one, I promise. I will save this topic for later, for the LOLz. I'll just assume you guys are being ironic.

[1] I believe I read on the Brandonology at some point that Brandon had someone else the write the Ars Arcanum when he was busy writing the WoT or tWoK. The accuracy of this claim, I'm going to assume is very low.

[Wispsy]

the ars arcanum are all done as if an in world person or people were writing them, just like the maps, the nature of this discussion is to figure out who brandon meant that person or people to be, in world, not the real person who actually wrote them xD

[discipleofhoid]

I suspect the irony will continue. I at least hope it is irony and not simply coincidence; that you are discussing as if it is in-world and realize that Brandon was actually a single author that wrote the Ars Arcanum[1]. Reread this discussion from that viewpoint and tell me you ROFL.

I apologize for the off-topic nature of my posts. This will be the last one, I promise. I will save this topic for later, for the LOLz. I'll just assume you guys are being ironic.

[1] I believe I read on the Brandonology at some point that Brandon had someone else the write the Ars Arcanum when he was busy writing the WoT or tWoK. The accuracy of this claim, I'm going to assume is very low.

Following up on wispy's response - Brandon is a skilled enough writer to vary his writing style intentionally. He also has a firm enough writing style that unless he was intentionally varying his writing style for these parts it would all be in Brandon's typical style. They are not. Therefore the variation of writing style is considered a clue to the nature of the in-world authorship of the Ars Arcanum.

[Thor]

Following up on wispy's response - Brandon is a skilled enough writer to vary his writing style intentionally. He also has a firm enough writing style that unless he was intentionally varying his writing style for these parts it would all be in Brandon's typical style. They are not. Therefore the variation of writing style is considered a clue to the nature of the in-world authorship of the Ars Arcanum.

Indeed, the variation in writing style was a very large clue for the identity of the Hero of Ages. This entire discussion is about the in-universe identity of the AA author, as was mentioned by the op to be one person, where we used to think that there was different in-universe authors for each AA (or close to it.)

[Guest Jacob Santos]

My vote is for Hoid. I'll stick by this until proven otherwise.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

My vote is for Hoid. I'll stick by this until proven otherwise.

that works for me too...even if I think they are a bit "scholarly", as I think about it more, he is the only world hopper that we see on all the worlds.

I actually had a dream last night that Brandon answered a Q&A at a signing that it was in fact Hoid writing them (is that weird?)

[Chaos]

My vote is that Chaos is the author - Given the Authors views on hemalurgy and Chaos' perchance for Spiking pepole it becomes rather obvious I think

I espouse this theory.

[happyman]

that works for me too...even if I think they are a bit "scholarly", as I think about it more, he is the only world hopper that we see on all the worlds.

I actually had a dream last night that Brandon answered a Q&A at a signing that it was in fact Hoid writing them (is that weird?)

Perhaps more importantly, he is actually on each world at the same time as the events of interest in each world, and thus it would be no surprise that each time, his knowledge of magic is on par with that of the protagonists, and thus the readers.

This would also explain why Hoid would make a cameo, however small, in AoL. He needed to be there to learn about Ferrings.

[Guinevere]

I have to agree that until we have further information about who belongs to the 17th Shard, Hoid is our only real option at this point. And even still, we know so little about him: he could very well be an epic scholar/storyteller. Who knows?

I, for one, hope we get some serious cosmere-heavy information in the 2nd SA. AoL was a good story, but apart from the AA, offered no new insights into the cosmere. I know we're probably the minority in his fan base, so I understand that every story can't be Hoid-central, but getting all of the information piece by confusing piece is hard.

[happyman]

I have to agree that until we have further information about who belongs to the 17th Shard, Hoid is our only real option at this point. And even still, we know so little about him: he could very well be an epic scholar/storyteller. Who knows?

I, for one, hope we get some serious cosmere-heavy information in the 2nd SA. AoL was a good story, but apart from the AA, offered no new insights into the cosmere. I know we're probably the minority in his fan base, so I understand that every story can't be Hoid-central, but getting all of the information piece by confusing piece is hard.

Also, it keeps us reading.

I dunno. Getting all the answers takes some of the magic out of it as well. No pun intended.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

I have to agree that until we have further information about who belongs to the 17th Shard, Hoid is our only real option at this point. And even still, we know so little about him: he could very well be an epic scholar/storyteller. Who knows?

I, for one, hope we get some serious cosmere-heavy information in the 2nd SA. AoL was a good story, but apart from the AA, offered no new insights into the cosmere. I know we're probably the minority in his fan base, so I understand that every story can't be Hoid-central, but getting all of the information piece by confusing piece is hard.

Well we do know he is an epic storyteller because he plays the "bard" role in both Warbreaker and tWoK.

So far the only member of the 17th Shard we know is Galladon the Elantrian from Sel. Or at least we assume that the group of 3 chasing Hoid in tWoK lines up with the Letter's talk requesting the 17th Shard to stop hunting for him...

[discipleofhoid]

I am leaning away from it being Hoid for 1 reason. Brandon told us to look at the note on the AofL map. That note makes it sound like a group is gathering the information and then 1 person is compiling the information into the AA. This does not fit Hoid's MO. From what we know of the seventeenth shard(a group with enough resources to send 3 pepole after Hoid on a planet other then their own.) It sounds more like something they would do. I would guess that we have not met the author of the AA yet. Although that would make a good question to ask Brandon.

[Guinevere]

I am leaning away from it being Hoid for 1 reason. Brandon told us to look at the note on the AofL map. That note makes it sound like a group is gathering the information and then 1 person is compiling the information into the AA. This does not fit Hoid's MO.

I don't know about that. We do know that he had an apprentice, Sigzil, and that he was on Roshar to see someone but ended up avoiding him. It could be that he does have quite a network of people set up on each planet supplying him with information. Maybe that's why he always disguises himself as a beggar or informant or story-teller; what better costumes to gather information?

[Captain.Kaulu]

Hummmmm, when Brandon told me that all the Ars Arcanum are written by the same (in-universe) character, for some reason I thought he was referring only to the four Scadrial AAs. Does anyone have a statement from him that specifically references anything in the other worlds? If not, this could explain why they have very different writing styles in their AAs.

I personally think it's Hoid. Judging by his storytelling skills, he certainly seems to be enough of a know-it-all to write such notes. I do think it's someone who, along with the reader, is clearly learning more and more about Allomancy/Feruchemy/Hemalurgy as the different Scadrial books progress.

[Ari]

Hummmmm, when Brandon told me that all the Ars Arcanum are written by the same (in-universe) character, for some reason I thought he was referring only to the four Scadrial AAs. Does anyone have a statement from him that specifically references anything in the other worlds? If not, this could explain why they have very different writing styles in their AAs.

I personally think it's Hoid. Judging by his storytelling skills, he certainly seems to be enough of a know-it-all to write such notes. I do think it's someone who, along with the reader, is clearly learning more and more about Allomancy/Feruchemy/Hemalurgy as the different Scadrial books progress.

I don't know, the Ars Arcanum doesn't seem to have as much knowledge of Adonalsium as I assume Hoid would have.

[Arcanist Lupus]

Hummmmm, when Brandon told me that all the Ars Arcanum are written by the same (in-universe) character, for some reason I thought he was referring only to the four Scadrial AAs. Does anyone have a statement from him that specifically references anything in the other worlds? If not, this could explain why they have very different writing styles in their AAs.

Well, the AoL AA mentions Sel, so that means that the AA writer is definitely a worldhopper.

I don't know, the Ars Arcanum doesn't seem to have as much knowledge of Adonalsium as I assume Hoid would have.

In my opinion, the AA writer doesn't avoid discussing Adonalsium because he/she doesn't know about it, he/she doesn't mention Adonalsium because it isn't specifically relevant to the magic system that's being discussed. The author is presumably writing the AA for himself, or other worldhoppers, and the target audience already understands Adonalsium, so there wouldn't be any need to explain it in the AAs.

[darniil]

getting all of the information piece by confusing piece is fun.

Fixed.

(No offense intended, of course.)

[Kat57]

One problem I have with Hoid being the author of the AA is that the Mistborn ones have Atium being grouped with the other metals. I imagine Hoid would have known there was something special about it (assuming he wrote the letter in WoK) since he know’s Ati’s name. Unless he wasn’t putting everything he knew into the AA and was just recording what the people who use it know about the magic.

[darniil]

I think I remember Brandon saying that the chart was written "in-world", much like the map of Middle Earth was drawn as if made by people form Middle Earth.

In a sense, Hoid isn't "in-world" when it comes to Scadrial, so we could say that, even though the chart shows up in the AA, and the AAs of all the books were written by the same author, the chart was drawn up by someone native to Scadrial. (And maybe it was, and the AA author just decided to include it rather than making one him/herself, and without commenting on the name of atium.)

[Arcanist Lupus]

I think I remember Brandon saying that the chart was written "in-world", much like the map of Middle Earth was drawn as if made by people form Middle Earth.

In a sense, Hoid isn't "in-world" when it comes to Scadrial, so we could say that, even though the chart shows up in the AA, and the AAs of all the books were written by the same author, the chart was drawn up by someone native to Scadrial. (And maybe it was, and the AA author just decided to include it rather than making one him/herself, and without commenting on the name of atium.)

I believe the quote is (and I'm pretty sure it's in the Brandonothology, so you can verify it, "The Ars Arcanum are 'in-world' (or at least 'in-universe')." So, the AA was not necessarily written by a native of Scadrial.