Lost Metal Chapters 14 and 15 reactions

[hitkay]

38 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe Harmony made a new Perpendicularity with it? Not sure where he'd put it or what reason it should narratively exist but he could have.

Hold on, Lerasium is blue, Harmony's suspected Perpendicularity from a news sheet is also described as blue. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or maybe this adds weight to Harmony having 2 Perpendicularities.

Preservation's Perpendicularity was a white pool, not a blue one.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

3 minutes ago, hitkay said:

Preservation's Perpendicularity was a white pool, not a blue one.

Touche.

Either I'm wrong or Harmony decided to change the colors.

I'm just thinking that it's a strange choice for Lerasium to be blue-ish white and that it might have had some kind of link to the blue Perpendicularity that is most likely Harmony's.

[hitkay]

2 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I'm just thinking that it's a strange choice for Lerasium to be blue-ish white and that it might have had some kind of link to the blue Perpendicularity that is most likely Harmony's.

Well, Ruin's Investiture is black, but atium is silver. There's not always a relationship.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

2 hours ago, hitkay said:

Well, Ruin's Investiture is black, but atium is silver. There's not always a relationship.

Hmmm yeah. That makes sense.

Still the whole 'electro-whatchamacallit' did show that while conventional science probably won't be able to split Harmonium, it does show to people in-universe that it may be possible.

Though considering that Brandon has said you'd need to use a Magical Method to actually split them, I doubt anything in the Metallic Arts would help with the endeavor. Maybe if a Dustbringer or a Skybreaker used the Surge of Division on it while in it's near-split state?

[Isilel]

So, the offworlders recruiting Marasi from the blurb are

Spoiler

Ghostbloods

, as expected. I have been wondering why they haven’t already dealt with the Set, but at least they seem to be investigating at long last. Are they a

Spoiler

criminal organization

on Scadrial? If so, then not as overtly as elsewhere, or Wax and Marasi would have recognized their symbol. There would have been too much of the conflict of interest for Marasi as well. And, of course, there likely was no need, when

Spoiler

Kelsier could have embedded them in the fabric of wealth and power in the post-Catacendre society from the ground up.

  What does the symbol remind Wax of, though? Apparently it is a reversed marewill flower. Does it being reversed have any deeper significance? Never mind, it is not actually reversed, I am just confused .

The

Spoiler

Ghostblood

note seems uncharacteristically clumsy and not remotely circumspect.

Spoiler

I imagine that they knew about the kandra on the police force and expected them to find it, but they also don’t care about people close to Marasi learning about it? Not up to their usual standards of  secrecy.

Unless they want to recruit them all, perhaps?

It is also as good as confirmed in my eyes that trellium is

Spoiler

Autonomy’s metal. IIRC, we never saw any  investiture reacting like that to other investiture, but it would be very much along the lines of that Shard’s Intent. 

Spoiler

Another argument for trellium _not_ being anti-ettmettal is IMHO the fact that it doesn’t hurt or kill Scadrians, who are made only/mostly from Preservation and Ruin and therefore should be pretty highly invested by both and vulnerable. Nor does it explode when used for spiking them, ditto.

I imagine that we’ll find out that even if that explosion did successfully split ettmetal , it got mostly converted into energy. There may be some trace amounts of atium and lerasium, but you’d need a humongous explosion to get enough of them to be useful. Particularly the latter. Which would nicely limit the likelyhood of producing new Mistborn. I really hope that nobody becomes one in LoM. I suspect that we’ll see some atium, though, and given the WoB retcon that we didn’t actually learn what pure atium does in the first trilogy, it will be revealed here.

Will this book lead to a better integration of Harmony? I wouldn’t want them to lose ettmetal or anything, or for the Shard to change hands, but I have long thought that his excess Ruin could be aimed at the outside threats to Scadrial without upsetting the balance on the home planet.

Can’t kandra eat human food and in fact have to do so during their impersonations? They just don’t particularly like it. But then again, if they faithfully copy a human body, wouldn’t they also copy taste buds? 

Do we know for sure that Paalm chose to remove one of her spikes to begin with? Couldn’t she have been ambushed and had it removed against her will?

I don’t know how I feel about Wayne continuing to stalk and harass the daughter of a man he had murdered for 6 more years, and being only told to stop now. IMHO, it would have been better handled as a flashback and involving Allriandre herself as an active participant. Didn’t she want to study law? Maybe she should have sued him to stay away from them or something. I’d very much like to learn what she is doing as an adult. It would make her feel like a character with agency and not just a prop for Wayne’s characterization.

P.S. Ouch, I accidentally posted a lot of cosmere spoilers - I hope that I have hid them all.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Isilel

[king of nowhere]

the kandra being strictly carnivorous is really strange. in the final empire meat was very rare and very expensive; even the food described in noble meals was mostly vegetable. how would they maintain cover if they needed to eat meat regularly or starve?

wait, they can rearrange their digestive system. it means that they can eat human food. they could copy a cow's digestive system and eat grass if they wanted. i'lll put it down to vendell being a snob.

wayne banter was even better than usual for him. absolutely fantastic. i wonder, though, it was mentioned he was hit by a cannon and ripped in two. How much healing would it have taken to recover from that? also, I wonder if the days he spends sick charging his metalmind are considered working days and paid accordingly. Considering that he uses that healing as part of his job, it would make a lot of sense

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by king of nowhere

[hitkay]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

It is also as good as confirmed in my eyes that trellium is Autonomy’s metal. IIRC, we never saw any  investiture reacting like that to other investiture, but it would be very much along the lines of that Shard’s Intent.

I'm wary of using God Metals to deduce the Shard's Intent. Lerasium isn't indestructible and doesn't really have any traits that would align it with Preservation. The same is true for atium and Ruin: atium doesn't decay, or cause whatever it comes into contact with to decay. And raysium naturally conducts Investiture and actually draws it in (the opposite of trellium, actually, which is why I'm speculating that trellium is a raysium alloy), which seems entirely unrelated to Odium's Intent. While it would make sense for bavadinium to repel other metals or sources of Investiture, or be repelled from them, I wouldn't read into that too much.

Have we ever seen two God Metals collide? An Honorblade and a raysium dagger, maybe? I know Shardblades and Shardplates are made from alloys of Honor and Cultivation's God Metals, but I'm not sure that's the same situation.

[Johnny Silverlight]

19 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

OMG these cliffhangers! Does anyone know if we will get another preview Monday? Assuming not since the book release is the next day.

The book will be released on the 15th of this month. They said these posts would continue until the release. Therefore, I would imagine there will be two more posts (on the 7th and the 14th).

[Frustration he/him]

11 hours ago, Wolf Brother said:

What if Trell is an avatar of Harmony. We know he has to siphon off his excess Ruin. Maybe it gained sentience and became Trell. (Trell was an old religion that Sazed taught) The antithesis of Harmony.

Then Trellium would be Atium which we know is not the case.

 

I wonder why Atium looks the same as it did in era 1 after the reveal that it was an alloy. I suppose it could just have an overpowering color.

[Ashbringer he/him]

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Then Trellium would be Atium which we know is not the case.

 

I wonder why Atium looks the same as it did in era 1 after the reveal that it was an alloy. I suppose it could just have an overpowering color.

Not pure atium, but if it's an avatar of Harmony being aided by one of the other theories (Odium/Autonomy) it could be corrupted atium. Although corrupted atium could also be one of those shards directly.

Also malatium - Atium+Gold - looks significantly different than the "atium" - Atium+Electrum - that we know... it could be that the Era 1 atium was designed so no one would figure out it was an alloy, though.

[Honorless he/him]

Quote

This was a seriously fancy place; you could tell by their contempt for their customers.

Hahaha, so true

Quote

Making you look a little silly when you were together, so that you didn’t look really stupid when you were apart.

Yaa

Damn, Brandon is really polishing up his quoteability

Poor Wayne, there's no running from character development

Okay, that closing scene with the investors? Gold. Pure gold.

 

Aaaaaaaaa GODMETAL EXPERIMENTS

I'm not ready for this *deep breaths*

Trellium is pulling away from Investiture... hmm... All Investiture, or just Scadrian Investiture? 

What happens when you put too much Ettmetal in one place? Ah, it’s a Godmetal, so... Perpendicularity?

Aw, Allik’s adorable, and that interaction was hilarious

Hmm, he's saying the Godmetal itself cannot be divided after it's already been produced, I feel like that's been confirmed by Brandon? Or was it just him saying Godmetals that have already been produced aren't affected by anything happening to the Shard, not the same thing... I don't remember. Hmm... but this process almost worked... perhaps because Harmony is unstable? Ah, Wax thinks the same

Oh my god, I swear if the chapter ends before we get to see the results-

The Ghostbloods are impressed with Marasi!

And of course it ended there

Hmm... but the book is titled The Lost Metal

I say the division was successful (mostly because I find the consequences of that... very, very interesting)

Edited November 1, 2022 by Honorless

[hitkay]

54 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I wonder why Atium looks the same as it did in era 1 after the reveal that it was an alloy. I suppose it could just have an overpowering color.

The atium in Era 1 is only "very slightly tainted" with electrum, which may be why the appearances are so similar.

Incidentally, why did Preservation cause the atium to generate naturally as an atium-electrum alloy? Wouldn't it have benefited him if everyone could burn atium to keep Ruin's power away from him? It would make more sense to me if this change was made by Rashek when he Ascended as a way of keeping order, but apparently not.

36 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Not pure atium, but if it's an avatar of Harmony being aided by one of the other theories (Odium/Autonomy) it could be corrupted atium. Although corrupted atium could also be one of those shards directly.

This would explain the red "rusting", as this indicates corrupted Investiture or Investiture co-opted by another Shard. And as trellium is silver, the appearance fits. It may also be that trellium repels Preservation only, as we've seen it repel Allomancy and harmonium but nothing Invested only with Ruin. However, the trellium spike in Bleeder must have contained a God Metal from another Shard, as Harmony would have recognized atium. It could be an alloy of two God Metals, one of which is atium, but I find this unlikely.

36 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Also malatium - Atium+Gold - looks significantly different than the "atium" - Atium+Electrum - that we know... it could be that the Era 1 atium was designed so no one would figure out it was an alloy, though.

See above: Era 1 atium contained only trace amounts of electrum. Malatium could have contained significantly a higher ratio of gold. And the coloring of atium and malatium was similar, it's just that atium was almost reflective and malatium resembled porcelain.

23 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Okay, that closing scene with the investors? Gold. Pure gold.

This was recently retconned to not be pure gold, but rather a gold-electrum alloy.

Edited November 1, 2022 by hitkay

[offer]

1 hour ago, hitkay said:

This would explain the red "rusting", as this indicates corrupted Investiture or Investiture co-opted by another Shard. And as trellium is silver, the appearance fits. It may also be that trellium repels Preservation only, as we've seen it repel Allomancy and harmonium but nothing Invested only with Ruin.

We saw the trellium spike reppeled from the other hemulrgic spikes which are of ruin (since hemulargy is of ruin).

[hitkay]

4 minutes ago, offer said:

We saw the trellium spike reppeled from the other hemulrgic spikes which are of ruin (since hemulargy is of ruin).

Yeah, but if the spikes were stealing Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, then they would also be of Preservation, right?

[offer]

Just now, hitkay said:

Yeah, but if the spikes were stealing Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, then they would also be of Preservation, right?

I don`t think so - In era 1 we saw that someone spiked hemulargically was reppeling the mists when burning metals. I think it means they are using Ruin investiture to power the allomancy and not Preservation`s.

Or atleast the whole procces toghether is still considered "of Ruin".

[hitkay]

Just now, offer said:

I don`t think so - In era 1 we saw that someone spiked hemulargically was reppeling the mists when burning metals. I think it means they are using Ruin investiture to power the allomancy and not Preservation`s.

Or atleast the whole procces toghether is still considered "of Ruin".

Sure, they were repelling the mists by using Hemalurgy. But they were also using Preservation's Investiture for the Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities the Hemalurgy gave them.

[StormingTexan he/him]

1 hour ago, hitkay said:

Incidentally, why did Preservation cause the atium to generate naturally as an atium-electrum alloy? Wouldn't it have benefited him if everyone could burn atium to keep Ruin's power away from him? It would make more sense to me if this change was made by Rashek when he Ascended as a way of keeping order, but apparently not.

Yes this is odd. The only explanation I can possible think of is had it been pure Atium that anyone can burn this could have been a contradiction of Preservations intent. So he is "preserving" a part Ruin not allowing everyone to be able to burn it. 

[hitkay]

1 minute ago, StormingTexan said:

Yes this is odd. The only explanation I can possible think of is had it been pure Atium that anyone can burn this could have been a contradiction of Preservations intent. So he is "preserving" a part Ruin not allowing everyone to be able to burn it. 

I guess it's also possible that when he trapped part of Ruin's power in the Pits, it wasn't a 'clean' process, and Preservation couldn't quite get it to manifest as pure atium.

[+Harrycrapper]

2 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Yes this is odd. The only explanation I can possible think of is had it been pure Atium that anyone can burn this could have been a contradiction of Preservations intent. So he is "preserving" a part Ruin not allowing everyone to be able to burn it. 

I think it's more likely that Preservation couldn't make a solid long term plan if people could use Atium to see further into the future than the alloy allows. Anyone who can and regularly does see the future confounds a Shard's futuresight as much as someone burning Atium clouds the ability for someone else burning Atium to see what they're going to do. 

[StormingTexan he/him]

5 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

I think it's more likely that Preservation couldn't make a solid long term plan if people could use Atium to see further into the future than the alloy allows. Anyone who can and regularly does see the future confounds a Shard's futuresight as much as someone burning Atium clouds the ability for someone else burning Atium to see what they're going to do. 

It is interesting because we do not know what raw atium does yet but yes I could see Preservation manipulating it to be limiting to an extent. Good point. 

[+Harrycrapper]

6 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

It is interesting because we do not know what raw atium does yet but yes I could see Preservation manipulating it to be limiting to an extent. Good point. 

Yea we don't have anything confirmed, but there's a few disparate facts that point in the direction of some sort of futuresight beyond what Era 1 Atium provides. The ancient Terris people had prophecies that seemed to have been fulfilled by Sazed which would have had to of been well over a thousand years old. None of the known Feruchemical abilities provide futuresight and Allomancy was extremely rare back then. The Terris Worldbringers knew the location of the Well of Ascension, which was right next to Ruin's perpendicularity, so they likely knew of it too at some point. Just seems to me that pure Atium from the anti Well of Ascension is most likely involved with the prophecies. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

4 hours ago, hitkay said:

The atium in Era 1 is only "very slightly tainted" with electrum, which may be why the appearances are so similar.

Incidentally, why did Preservation cause the atium to generate naturally as an atium-electrum alloy? Wouldn't it have benefited him if everyone could burn atium to keep Ruin's power away from him? It would make more sense to me if this change was made by Rashek when he Ascended as a way of keeping order, but apparently not.

I read that WoB as it being Scadrian's perceptions of what "atium" was as very slightly tainted, not the atium itself being very slightly tainted; although it would make sense if it was a mostly-atium alloy.

Could be that burning pure atium does things that aren't immediately noticeable, like lerasium's "real" effect. But I do have questions as to where the power of atium goes when it's burned, and I don't think we have a canon answer on that.

4 hours ago, hitkay said:

This would explain the red "rusting", as this indicates corrupted Investiture or Investiture co-opted by another Shard. And as trellium is silver, the appearance fits. It may also be that trellium repels Preservation only, as we've seen it repel Allomancy and harmonium but nothing Invested only with Ruin. However, the trellium spike in Bleeder must have contained a God Metal from another Shard, as Harmony would have recognized atium. It could be an alloy of two God Metals, one of which is atium, but I find this unlikely.

It repelled the Hemalurgic Spikes - those are still tied to Ruin's Investiture, even if the power within is of Preservation. Hemalurgy used to repel Preservation's mists too, which indicates those are different enough.

Harmony recognizing a corrupted atium is an idea... but I'd assume Harmony still has the issues of seeing metal that the other shards have, and it depends how complete the corruption is.

[handleinthedark]

I wonder if the electrification and separation is due to Ruin and preservation being such opposites. Basically a polarization of the two. I don't think anything here can be anti-investiture because, though we have some oddities to the way investiture can be pooled in gems, everything is in effect made from investiture so exposing anti-investiture to matter directly should annihilate at least the relevant shard's investiture(Brandon's likes to use his handwavy all things have some of all types of investiture). 

Things certainly can be corrupted

Spoiler

or enlightened/unmade

where one shard's investiture replaces or reprograms another's, but that is distinct from anti-investiture.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

I read that WoB as it being Scadrian's perceptions of what "atium" was as very slightly tainted, not the atium itself being very slightly tainted; although it would make sense if it was a mostly-atium alloy.

Could be that burning pure atium does things that aren't immediately noticeable, like lerasium's "real" effect. But I do have questions as to where the power of atium goes when it's burned, and I don't think we have a canon answer on that.

It repelled the Hemalurgic Spikes - those are still tied to Ruin's Investiture, even if the power within is of Preservation. Hemalurgy used to repel Preservation's mists too, which indicates those are different enough.

Harmony recognizing a corrupted atium is an idea... but I'd assume Harmony still has the issues of seeing metal that the other shards have, and it depends how complete the corruption is.

The other thing here is that burning atium would create a direct link between ruin and the individual who burns it. That is what Lerasium does, it creates alters the spirit-web to include more connection to preservation. Likewise true atium would connect someone more strongly to Ruin which outside of whatever magical powers it might grant would also likely be bad for preservation's plan as having a larger aspect of ruin would mean that person would be more inclined to ruinous behavior.

[Ashbringer he/him]

51 minutes ago, handleinthedark said:

The other thing here is that burning atium would create a direct link between ruin and the individual who burns it. That is what Lerasium does, it creates alters the spirit-web to include more connection to preservation. Likewise true atium would connect someone more strongly to Ruin which outside of whatever magical powers it might grant would also likely be bad for preservation's plan as having a larger aspect of ruin would mean that person would be more inclined to ruinous behavior.

Honestly this is more an Era 1 issue for me than Era 2. Lerasium has the “extra” effect, but from my understanding what makes someone an Allomancer is an extra bit of Preservation in their Spiritweb, and a Lerasium Mistborn is from the bit of Preservation from the metal sticking to the person’s soul.

But then what happens with atium? Where does that power go, and more importantly, why couldn’t Ati get it back? It can’t go back to Ruin directly, otherwise the Atium Misting plan would have doomed the world. It can’t go back to the Pits, as those are still destroyed in Era 2 - there could be atium crystals elsewhere, which we may find out in this book, but Ruin seemed much more panicked than a relatively minor setback than that. Does it stick to the Atium Mistings’ souls like lerasuim theoretically does? But they all - or at least most of them - died before Ati did, so where did the power go from there?

I guess this is more a massive cosmere question, of “what happens to the Investiture of someone’s soul when they die?”. Which is… probably not going to be revealed any time soon.

[Honorless he/him]

7 hours ago, hitkay said:

This was recently retconned to not be pure gold, but rather a gold-electrum alloy.

https://tenor.com/view/simpsons-homer-bart-why-you-little-gif-17376912