Implications of Mistborn Wax and the Community

[Wandering Shade]

Wax being made into a Mini-Mistborn by inhaling Lerasium during his experiment is something that has almost no impact on the plot of TLM. All it really did was provide an avenue for Harmony to make Wayne a Mistborn to use Duralumin in the climax. Sure you could say that it made things easier for Wax before that point, but the cases where his Mistborn abilities showed up felt more like Brandon engineering minor difficulties where being a Mini-Mistborn helped and almost all of those could have been avoided.

So why do it at all? Just to inject some extra Allomantic potential into the gene-pool? Just because it's a likely result of the experiment?

I think I have an idea and it relates to the fact that Wax wasn't the only injection of extra Allomancy in TLM. The Community also existed.

The Community didn't technically add more Investiture in the way that Wax becoming a Mini-Mistborn did, but it was designed to concentrate the Allomancy from all those people. And we know, for a fact, that kids were born in the Community. If a number is given, I don't remember it. So that's two different ways to increase the Allomantic potential which both arrived during TLM, and don't forget the conversation between Sazed and Kelsier about needing stronger Allomancers in the future. I don't think all that's a coincidence.

I think that there will be a character in Era 3 who is a natural Mistborn, rather than one made via Hemalurgy like an Inquisitor. And that if we follow their family tree back, they're descended from Wax and the Community. Would this be a Mistborn with equal strength to Final Empire Mistborn? No, but the character would still be a Mistborn.

Now, could this just be to offset the lower Allomantic potential in the Southern Continent and make it so that in Era 3 or 4 we've reached an Allomantic equilibrium across all of Scadrial that is roughly the same as Era 2's equilibrium? Maybe, but Kel's epilogue seems like its setting up for Kel and maybe Saze to do something about that across the planet, rather than the more personal nature of Wax and the Community.

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

I always assumed that Brandon needed a way to create Lerasium for some future plot, and the rest of the plot points (Mistborn-Wax and Mistborn-Wayne) was engineered or modified for future use. The whole Pewternaut bomb debacle could have been solved by Wax handing Wayne the Duralumin Spike he took from Dumad, and Wayne already had a spike for A-Steel, which, when combined with his natural A-Bendalloy, already gives him all three abilities that he used to diffuse the bomb. Because of this, I always just assumed Brandon did some tinkering with the plot after an Idea for future Mistborn novels struck him.

[cometaryorbit]

I agree. TLM is meant to set up Mistborn existing again for future Eras.