Sazed has been intentionally weakening the metallic arts

[Frustration]

So I found a few WoBs

Spoiler

Questioner

So, did Sazed change that no more Mistborn are born? Because I noticed that--I know he made Spook one-- in Alloy they talk about Mistborn...

Brandon Sanderson

The idea is-- I won't say absolutely no to Sazed's manipulation. But, there weren't any Mistborn other than him that survived. The Allomantic lines were very diluted. So, his direct descendants-- you might be able to even find one potentially now. Someone might be born, or one might have been born that didn't tell people about it. But in the general public and population, it's just, there's not as much Allomancy around... He did also change Snapping, which had an effect on it.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/46/#e9712

Questioner

One thing when I was reading The Alloy of Law, in Mistborn, all the [Feruchemists] were the Mistborn version of [Feruchemy], and then it changed to the Misting version of [Feruchemy]. Is there...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, there's a reason for that, and I'll delve into it a bunch more later, but basically, there's two things going on. Number one, the bloodlines have thinned, and that's the reason they're talking about [here]. Also, full-blooded Feruchemists mixing, like the populations mixed, is really dangerous, and Sazed knew this. So, I'll just leave it at that.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/61/#e1313

Questioner (paraphrased)

Someone asked how much Sazed "cheated" when it came to the Metalborn distribution.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That was met by more mysterious smiles and even a bit of chuckling.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

And together they tell a story. Sazed has been intentionally preventing full feruchemists and Mistborn from being born.

Now the question becomes why, and I have two possible theories.

1. He's scared of another Lord Ruler. With both powers occuring it was incredibly unlikely, but given enough time a statistical certainty that another Fullborn would be born, and Sazed knows the problems that caused and wants to avoid them.

2. Sazed wants people to develop medallion technology, and believes that without limiting their powers they never would.

Now I believe that number 1 is the much likelier option, but I felt like I'd list both.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Frustration

[Mistchemist16]

There’s also a third option here: he simply chose to do nothing. Harmony is not a good Shard for doing stuff and Sazed already doesn’t have many real reasons to weaken the Metallic Arts besides the worry of a Fullborn (which he might be able to stop anyway) Even Sazed knowing isn’t necessarily that big a deal. Perhaps he just chose not to artificially preserve the magic systems instead of actively weakening them.

Also, I thought Sazed had regretted making life so easy in the Elendel Basin precisely BECAUSE the Southern Scadrians are only made cool stuff trying to survive. If he wanted people to have medallions and could intervene, why not give the Basin one to reverse engineer like Kelsier did or even outright tell the people how to make them?

Edited February 1, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[alder24]

Don't forget Sazed was the only full Feruchemist that survived Era 1, and he was eunuch and ascended. There was no other full Feruchemist that could pass his genes further. And most Terris men were also eunuchs (do we know if Sazed restored them?). In fact Sazed didn't have to do anything to suppress Feruchemy, it already was suppressed.

Medallions were introduced in Southern Scadrial by Kelsier, who Sazed didn't want to return. So I don't think Sazed wanted or helped to develop them.

I think Sazed simply did nothing special. Feruchemy was already very diluted, without any living Ferring or Feruchemist, there was only one Mistborn alive and few Mistings, so Allomancy was weakened too. I'm only surprised that as far as we know, none of Spook's descendants was a Mistborn, because with genes that strong it should have happened within those 300 years, so maybe this is the only moment Sazed suppressed it. Maybe he made him a Mistborn without changing his original Misting genes, and these Misting genes were later passed on, if that’s even possible.

Edited February 1, 2023 by alder24

[Frustration]

42 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Don't forget Sazed was the only full Feruchemist that survived Era 1, and he was eunuch and ascended. There was no other full Feruchemist that could pass his genes further. And most Terris men were also eunuchs (do we know if Sazed restored them). In fact Sazed didn't have to do anything to suppress Feruchemy, it already was suppressed.

That's basically the same thing the Lord Ruler did when he made every living feruchemist into a mistwraith, and as we saw then that isn't enough to cause the power to split into ferrings.

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That's basically the same thing the Lord Ruler did when he made every living feruchemist into a mistwraith, and as we saw then that isn't enough to cause the power to split into ferrings.

Yes but during TLR time Terris men were still fertile, and could have kids, while during Sazed times most of them weren't. Terris people were bred to exclude Feruchemy genes for 1000 years. There are two conflicting WoBs on this matter, but both provide explanation:

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

Since the dawn of Scadrial, why was Feruchemy isolated in a single distinct population in the world, namely the Terrismen? Allomancy, while rare within the population of Scadrial, at least was not isolated to one population, it was spread evenly, it seems. What is special about the Terrismen that only they get the power of Feruchemy? Does it have something to do with the previous Ascensions before Rashek, with the guardian keeping the power for a time?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's all in the spiritual DNA, which is passed on like normal DNA. However, they are a separate people. They've kept themselves isolated, similar to the Jews in our world. When I asked he said there have been some Feruchemical-mistings [Ferrings] in the past, but they are very rare.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

Spoiler

Travyl (paraphrased)

Why do the Twinborn in Alloy of Law have only one Feruchemical power, when all previous Feruchemists, in spite of breeding programs, could use all the metals? 

WetlanderNW (paraphrased)

Or were Ferrings always part of the system and we just didn't meet them in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Ferrings are a new development since Mistborn, as the Feruchemists have been interbreeding with the Allomancers. Basically, the Allomancy genes interfere with the Feruchemy genes, breaking it down and creating the limitations we see in Alloy of Law.

Footnote: Brandon's response was very enthusiastic. He noted how perceptive the question was, and obviously enjoyed the discussion. The reporter has expressed their regret at lack of an audio recording to share his enthusiasm.
Alloy of Law Seattle Signing (Nov. 11, 2011)

 

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Yes but during TLR time Terris men were still fertile, and could have kids, while during Sazed times most of them weren't. Terris people were bred to exclude Feruchemy genes for 1000 years. There are two conflicting WoBs on this matter, but both provide explanation:

  Reveal hidden contents

Chaos (paraphrased)

Since the dawn of Scadrial, why was Feruchemy isolated in a single distinct population in the world, namely the Terrismen? Allomancy, while rare within the population of Scadrial, at least was not isolated to one population, it was spread evenly, it seems. What is special about the Terrismen that only they get the power of Feruchemy? Does it have something to do with the previous Ascensions before Rashek, with the guardian keeping the power for a time?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's all in the spiritual DNA, which is passed on like normal DNA. However, they are a separate people. They've kept themselves isolated, similar to the Jews in our world. When I asked he said there have been some Feruchemical-mistings [Ferrings] in the past, but they are very rare.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

  Reveal hidden contents

Travyl (paraphrased)

Why do the Twinborn in Alloy of Law have only one Feruchemical power, when all previous Feruchemists, in spite of breeding programs, could use all the metals? 

WetlanderNW (paraphrased)

Or were Ferrings always part of the system and we just didn't meet them in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Ferrings are a new development since Mistborn, as the Feruchemists have been interbreeding with the Allomancers. Basically, the Allomancy genes interfere with the Feruchemy genes, breaking it down and creating the limitations we see in Alloy of Law.

Footnote: Brandon's response was very enthusiastic. He noted how perceptive the question was, and obviously enjoyed the discussion. The reporter has expressed their regret at lack of an audio recording to share his enthusiasm.
Alloy of Law Seattle Signing (Nov. 11, 2011)

 

Yes, but then why is Sazed knowing that full feruchemists breading with the population is dangerous listed as a reason that full feruchemists aren't born anymore?

Spoiler

Questioner

 

One thing when I was reading The Alloy of Law, in Mistborn, all the [Feruchemists] were the Mistborn version of [Feruchemy], and then it changed to the Misting version of [Feruchemy]. Is there...

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

Yeah, there's a reason for that, and I'll delve into it a bunch more later, but basically, there's two things going on. Number one, the bloodlines have thinned, and that's the reason they're talking about [here]. Also, full-blooded Feruchemists mixing, like the populations mixed, is really dangerous, and Sazed knew this. So, I'll just leave it at that.

 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/61/#e1313

 

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Yes, but then why is Sazed knowing that full feruchemists breading with the population is dangerous listed as a reason that full feruchemists aren't born anymore?

Yes, I saw it. It's either Fullborn, or something else that's even more dangerous. If Allomancy genes interfere with the Feruchemy genes creating ferrings, then full-blooded Feruchemists genes might mess things up even more. Full-blooded Feruchemists genes could be strong enough to resist being broken down by Allomancy genes.

[Returned he/him]

There is definitely something going on (I think that much is clear even without the WoBs included above), but I don't think that Sazed intentionally weakening the Metallic Arts is necessary to explain what we've seen. We don't know enough about how Feruchemy works or where it came from/how people came to possess it to draw strong conclusions yet.

The dilution to Ferrings in era 2 has driven a sort of parallel to (modern) Allomancy in terms of inheritance but I don't think that that is very sound. Frustration's observation that Feruchemists didn't appear to dilute to Ferrings until era 2 is an important one; Allomancy appears to degrade through inheritance much more quickly than Feruchemy (one thousand years from ten lerasium Mistborn to assorted Mistings being the most common type of Allomancer by far).

But Feruchemy bred true for full Feruchemists, even during the Lord Ruler's suppression campaign and breeding program until the Catascendre, after which we see only Ferrings in the course of just 300 years. It's true that Sazed was the last surviving full Feruchemist, which is surely a factor, but the Keepers also made a strong effort to include Tindwyl in the breeding program to propagate Feruchemy. At the time that would have meant the potential for full Feruchemists, not just Ferrings. Terris people reproducing at all must have been a difficult undertaking if all Terris boys were castrated, but full Feruchemy was still a common enough outcome to fully stock the Synod with it. And yet by era 2 Ferrings are as powerful as Feruchemists get, ever, despite a distinct Terris population that has grown fairly large. It's a discontinuity that can't be ignored.

As for the dangers of Feruchemists mixing with the broader population, that statement strikes me as too broad to be worth a whole lot. Dangerous for whom, and to what degree, and in what ways? My current best guess is that we're talking about the (still undefined) dangers of compounding, largely based around the fact that Hemalurgy apparently no longer allows for it for unknown reasons. But I've also started to think that limiting the availability of Feruchemical powers also makes it harder to find and practice with the Cosmere-shaking powers (alone and together) we've seen hinted at: manipulating Investiture, Identity, and especially Fortune. Those are powers that can mess with Shardic plans pretty directly, particularly Fortune. And if they're rare, and knowledge of Hemalurgy is getting out, I think that increases the incentive to steal and hoard them. We know that that approach really does fundamentally weaken the powers, no divine intervention required.

[Treamayne]

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

Now the question becomes why, and I have two possible theories.

1. He's scared of another Lord Ruler. With both powers occuring it was incredibly unlikely, but given enough time a statistical certainty that another Fullborn would be born, and Sazed knows the problems that caused and wants to avoid them.

2. Sazed wants people to develop medallion technology, and believes that without limiting their powers they never would.

Have you considered an alternate version of option 2? Call it 2a (or option 3):

2a. Sazed, while remaking the world, realized through glimpses of Future-sight (like Preservation used to Batman Gambit Ati) that Metallic Art driven Fabrials would be essential to developing Scadrial. Without details (such as Medallions) he adjusted things like Snapping adn sDNA inheritnace to help start the progression to Era 4. 

I think the key here is that the changes likely had to be made while during the Catacendre and the large influx of power from taking up the Shards and before any internal conflict arose on using them*. So he may not have known/understood the details of MA Fabrials or the form(s) they would take - he just set into motion an environment that would eventaully lead that direction.

• HoA Ch 82
• Spoiler

  The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate. They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.

  • Emphasis mine

   

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Have you considered an alternate version of option 2? Call it 2a (or option 3):

2a. Sazed, while remaking the world, realized through glimpses of Future-sight (like Preservation used to Batman Gambit Ati) that Metallic Art driven Fabrials would be essential to developing Scadrial. Without details (such as Medallions) he adjusted things like Snapping adn sDNA inheritnace to help start the progression to Era 4. 

I think the key here is that the changes likely had to be made while during the Catacendre and the large influx of power from taking up the Shards and before any internal conflict arose on using them*. So he may not have known/understood the details of MA Fabrials or the form(s) they would take - he just set into motion an environment that would eventaully lead that direction.

• HoA Ch 82
•   Reveal hidden contents

  The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate. They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.

  • Emphasis mine

   

That is most certainly more likely than the initial option 2.