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Burning Atium


TheSurvivorofDeath

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So we know that Brandon has said that the atium that came from the Pits was an alloy of pure atium and electrum, and that pure atium should be able to be burned by everyone ( I can’t find the WoB on this so if someone could find that it would be great). So are the atium mistings in HoA mistings of this specific alloy or mistings of electrum, who can burn the alloy because atium can be burned by anyone and they can burn the other component? Since it has been said that burning a lerasium alloy would work to make you a listing of the other component in the alloy, and a misting would be able to burn a lerasium alloy of their respective metal for a power boost, does the same logic work with this atium alloy? Can it be burned by someone who can burn the other metal, or only by an unnatural misting of that god alloy?  

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23 minutes ago, TheSurvivorofDeath said:

 pure atium should be able to be burned by everyone ( I can’t find the WoB on this so if someone could find that it would be great).

WoBs: (First Link has Lost Metal Spoilers - that information has been removed from this post)

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Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium.

I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.

For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.

 

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/u/AAKS_

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

 

 

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Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

 

 

 

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