Serity Posted July 4, 2014 Report Share Posted July 4, 2014 So we've seen the awesome effects of compounding in the Lord Ruler's ability to survive 1000 years and Miles "Wolverine" Dagouter's ability to be unkillable. But my question is this: if the Lord Ruler was able to compound zinc (which stores mental speed), why wasn't he smarter than he was? We've already seen in Words of Radiance that once you surpass a certain level of intelligence, you are able to basically predict the future. So why wasn't the Lord Ruler perpetually at this level? His ultimate plan for saving the world seems like a pretty poor one--he oppresses everyone and then complains that the "idiot skaa" don't appreciate him. Why wasn't he able to come up with a better situation to defuse Kelsier's rebellion than making a martyr of him? Basically, if the Lord Ruler was a zinc compounder, how come Kelsier outsmarted him? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted July 4, 2014 Report Share Posted July 4, 2014 I think zinc gives you mental speed, not mental acuity. you can think faster, and you can control your body at superspeed when using steel, but you don't become smarter. plus, he was influenced by ruin the whole time 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver he/him Posted July 4, 2014 Report Share Posted July 4, 2014 I also have a theory that what happened Taravangian on that day wasn't an intelligence booster, or at least not 'just' one. His interlude indicates it was a fairly freakish, one time event, unlikely to ever be repeated... I have a theory he might have been influenced by Odium or Cultivation augmenting whatever his intellect was at the time. It would explain his prescience, at least a little beyond just being that smart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted July 4, 2014 Report Share Posted July 4, 2014 Tapping Zinc probably doesn't make you more logical and intelligent, it just makes you think faster. If you're racist/stupid already (like TLR), then you're just going to arrive at wrong conclusions faster. But then, we've never really seen it used all that effectively on screen. Maybe we'll see a Zinc Twinborn in some future Mistborn novels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly he/him Posted July 5, 2014 Report Share Posted July 5, 2014 There's also the fact that he was getting immortality fatigue. Besides, I think Mr. T's intelligence wasn't just a brainspeed boost. His mental capacity and ability to make connections was vastly expanded while his ability to feel compassion and empathy was dampened to nothing - he essentially became the most extreme sociopathic savant in the world, replacing the instinctive understanding of human emotion with a cold, analytical one. Zinc compounding would just let you have ideas quicker, not make those ideas any better. If you apply it to a problem, you use it like a tool - I doubt it makes you any more introspective, careful, or ethical than normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serity Posted July 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2014 Good points. I suppose I was confusing "mental speed" with intelligence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly he/him Posted July 5, 2014 Report Share Posted July 5, 2014 It is intelligence, of a sort. I think a zinc compounder would be more of a powered-up Sherlock Holmes than anything - immediate deduction and all of that. It might be like giving yourself fifteen minutes to think about every detail, but your perception of time doesn't actually change. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted July 5, 2014 Report Share Posted July 5, 2014 It is intelligence, of a sort. I think a zinc compounder would be more of a powered-up Sherlock Holmes than anything - immediate deduction and all of that. It might be like giving yourself fifteen minutes to think about every detail, but your perception of time doesn't actually change. Yeah, I think that's a good analogy. tapping zinc would give you the time to think more, so you could have that kind of analytical mind and notice all the details and think what they mean. However, it don't help you with phylosophical questions or big projects, stuff where the time you have to think about them is not the limiting factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Coppercloud Posted July 8, 2014 Report Share Posted July 8, 2014 With immortality the Lord Ruler had plenty of thinking time on his hands already. Double zinc would have just made forever seem even longer. He is just as likely to have been storing mental speed, to help pass the time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirce Luckwielder he/him Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 If there is a Mistborn series with a 1940's era this might come into play big time. I was thinking recently about different influential people in history and what they would be in the Mistborn world. I came to the conclusion that Hitler would be a Zinc Compounder; incredibly smart and amazing with crowds. Becoming a savant in this fashion would also explain his eventual insanity. He becomes such an amazing thinker that he doesn't accept that he can possibly be wrong, even in the face of evidence. The Wax and Wayne Old West Mistborn novels seem to be incredibly attuned to Gilded Age America to me. There is a lot of industry with a poor working class and a fabulously rich upper class. If Brandon did write a 1940's Mistborn series, I would think he would include world war into it, rather than just technology from the era. If there was a Hitler-like dictator to spark the war, I can see him using Zinc Compounding to accomplish it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 The second trilogy would be the closest to the 1940's setting but that's about a Nicroburst pursuing a Mistborn serial killer I believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrath Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 TLR was never very smart. He wasn't the hero, after all, just the jealous guy who couldn't stand to let the hero succeed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blaze1616 he/him Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 TLR was never very smart. He wasn't the hero, after all, just the jealous guy who couldn't stand to let the hero succeed. More like the prejudiced guy who was told to stop the hero at all costs due to world ending reasons. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 TLR was never very smart. He wasn't the hero, after all, just the jealous guy who couldn't stand to let the hero succeed. Why I disagree with your implication that one must be the "hero" to be smart, I happen to agree that Rashek himself likely didn't start off as the sharpest marble in the cookie jar. I'm not sure how much that should matter, however. A thousand years of experience probably makes one about as smart as one needs to be. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrath Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 The point is that Rashek didn't start off as anybody particularly special. And a thousand years of life wouldn't necessarily make you any smarter. All TLR did was maintain a status quo and when you do that you don't gain new experiences or learn new things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 The point is that Rashek didn't start off as anybody particularly special. And a thousand years of life wouldn't necessarily make you any smarter. All TLR did was maintain a status quo and when you do that you don't gain new experiences or learn new things. You imply figuring out how to get a whole continent of people to shut up and maintain the status quote isn't an experience in and of itself. Clearly everyone was taught that in Terris packman school. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrath Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 You imply figuring out how to get a whole continent of people to shut up and maintain the status quote isn't an experience in and of itself. Clearly everyone was taught that in Terris packman school. No, I'm implying that he did that once and then maintained it for a thousand years. Doing the same thing over and over doesn't broaden your horizons. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 A society that barely shifts (and is completely different from the previous one really) will still produce very different people.There's really no such thing as people who are the same as someone else, and he has about a thousand years to work with whatever idiot nobles and priests happen to be in his court in any given generation, skaa executions notwithstanding. Ruling a massive group of random variables (even with some normal tendency) is something that really leaves Rashek with his work cut out for him. He can't really just mass execute every single time, or you end up with Kelsier 0.5 on your hands. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Joe in the Bush Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 TLR Invented canned food. He mapped out the Canals, invented the plantation system, outsmarted a malevolent god, prepared a plan for everyone to survive said God's wrath. All while Ruin was putting thoughts in his head, forcing him to think even harder to figure out which thoughts were really his. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cstryon he/him Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 TLR Invented canned food. He mapped out the Canals, invented the plantation system, outsmarted a malevolent god, prepared a plan for everyone to survive said God's wrath. All while Ruin was putting thoughts in his head, forcing him to think even harder to figure out which thoughts were really his.This might be off topic on Zinc compounding, but could compounding identity have helped TLR resist Ruins influence? I could imagine him taping that massive amount identity and be able to tell exactly which thoughts are really his. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 No, I'm implying that he did that once and then maintained it for a thousand years. Doing the same thing over and over doesn't broaden your horizons. Not to belabor a point others are making, but "maintaining the status quo" is only easy if no one is trying to change the status quo. It's like saying surfing is the easiest sport ever, because all you have to do is keep standing in one position on a plank. Compared to the politican factions and armed uprisings and secret societies like the Synod of the final empire, simply having to counteract all the chaos the ocean throws at you is prolly a walk in the park. He's literally running an entire civilization. Being in charge of that is never going to be easy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Well, his whole government system was pretty much founded on the idea that he was there and he was able to squash any rebellion if needed. The lord ruler acknowledged that kelsier's rebellion is nothing new, there was one of them every century. and coonstant unrest in the periphereal areas. So, saying that kelsier outsmarted him is a big overstatement. tlr was never in any danger from kelsier, nor was he inconvenienced by it. he even said it si good to change the nobles with a house war every once in a while. In the end the only real mistake tlr made was to not use iron to grab his atium metalmind back. he had no way of knowing that vin could burn the mist and push his bracers. he could have recovered them (or, if vin pushed harder than him, his be flung to them) but, when that happened, he already lost all his other metalminds, stripped away by vin's push. so he couldn't zinc compound then. In fact, that was probably partial to his undoing. He was used to be functionally immortal and to have all the time in the world to think about stuff, now suddenly he was going to die in minutes, probably in pain, and he could not slow down time anymore. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phattemer Posted March 23, 2015 Report Share Posted March 23, 2015 also, he didn't know about all of the feruchemical possibilities. he was a full one, but later in an ars arcanum it says "the terris are looking into this" so obvy they knew even less when he was one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 24, 2015 Report Share Posted March 24, 2015 also, he didn't know about all of the feruchemical possibilities. he was a full one, but later in an ars arcanum it says "the terris are looking into this" so obvy they knew even less when he was one He was a Sliver so he likely knew significantly more about them than anyone else we know of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted March 24, 2015 Report Share Posted March 24, 2015 also, he didn't know about all of the feruchemical possibilities. he was a full one, but later in an ars arcanum it says "the terris are looking into this" so obvy they knew even less when he was one He's trying to suppress feruchemist blood. Of course he won't tell them any of the things he knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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