mistborn Mistborn Criticisms

TheFrugalWizard · August 13, 2023

This topic is simply to talk about criticisms or thing you think Brandon Sanderson could have done better in the Mistborn saga. This includes Era 1, Era 2, and Secret History. No Cosmere spoilers if you can help it, but if it helps your point then go ahead.

TheFrugalWizard · August 13, 2023

Here is a letter I sent to Brandon Sanderson a few weeks ago, getting no answer: I recently finished reading The Lost Metal, and I have decided that you have seriously messed allomancy up. First of all, in The Hero of Ages, 16 percent of the population got snapped by the mists. This suggests that one percent of the population is a misting in a given basic metal (meaning not a god metal). However, there turned out to be Atium mistings, regardless. This makes no sense; there would have to be 48 percent of the population that became mistings, assuming each shard has a metal and an alloy of that metal. Also, someone messed up the math on that. the 16 percent mistfallen that were sick an extra week is NOT the same as one in 16. BIG difference there. Anyways, Bendalloy and Cadmium make no sense. They don't fit as temporal metals. Atium and Malatium, however, fit well into that place; see the past or the future of yourself or others. As for Ruin and Preservation's god metals, it should be something more reflective of the god itself, like preservation's metal renders the lives of those surrounding you as unkillable, and ruin's kills them or otherwise attacks them. Also, snapping is messed up. If preservation can't destroy, then why does manifesting a metallic art that is of him require an experience that often kills? Finally, you overlooked Nicrobursts in the era 2. For example, Wax notes in his fight against the Duralamin-Steel-Bronze-Chromium psychopath that he's never had to fight a duralumin-level allomancy before. However, is it too difficult to believe that one of the outlaws Wax faced percaps had a nicroburst ally?"

Also, I have some problems with Feruchemy. Feruchemy is not symmetrical, like Allomancy is. This really messes with me. I've designed an alternate feruchemical chart, with explanations. Let me know whet you think!

Physical					Cognitive
	Iron Constitution	Steel Dexterity	Zinc Intelligence	Brass Charisma
	Tin Speed	Pewter Strength	Copper Wisdom	Bronze Wakefulness
	Chromium Happiness	Nicrosil Purpose	Cadmium Senses	Bendalloy Energy
	Aluminum Connection	Duralumin Determination	Gold Health	Electrum Identity
Spiritual					Bodily

NEW FERUCHEMICAL CHART

PHYSICAL METALS

The three physical traits are generally viewed as Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. Speed was a natural fourth choice.

COGNITIVE METALS

Again, the three mental traits are typically defined as Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Perhaps a better choice than Wakefulness could be made, however.

SPIRITUAL METALS

These metals reflect mental health. Happiness, Purpose, Connection, and Determination gave good abilities, as well as a new home for Connection and Determination.

BODILY METALS

These metals reflect the criteria for life. The ability to take in energy and use in a body (Energy), the ability to sense and respond to change (Senses), the ability to reproduce (Health; cellular reproduction), and the presence of DNA (Identity; DNA contains our identity).

Firesong · August 13, 2023

48 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Here is a letter I sent to Brandon Sanderson a few weeks ago, getting no answer: I recently finished reading The Lost Metal, and I have decided that you have seriously messed allomancy up. First of all, in The Hero of Ages, 16 percent of the population got snapped by the mists. This suggests that one percent of the population is a misting in a given basic metal (meaning not a god metal). However, there turned out to be Atium mistings, regardless. This makes no sense; there would have to be 48 percent of the population that became mistings, assuming each shard has a metal and an alloy of that metal. Also, someone messed up the math on that. the 16 percent mistfallen that were sick an extra week is NOT the same as one in 16. BIG difference there. Anyways, Bendalloy and Cadmium make no sense. They don't fit as temporal metals. Atium and Malatium, however, fit well into that place; see the past or the future of yourself or others. As for Ruin and Preservation's god metals, it should be something more reflective of the god itself, like preservation's metal renders the lives of those surrounding you as unkillable, and ruin's kills them or otherwise attacks them. Also, snapping is messed up. If preservation can't destroy, then why does manifesting a metallic art that is of him require an experience that often kills? Finally, you overlooked Nicrobursts in the era 2. For example, Wax notes in his fight against the Duralamin-Steel-Bronze-Chromium psychopath that he's never had to fight a duralumin-level allomancy before. However, is it too difficult to believe that one of the outlaws Wax faced percaps had a nicroburst ally?"

Also, I have some problems with Feruchemy. Feruchemy is not symmetrical, like Allomancy is. This really messes with me. I've designed an alternate feruchemical chart, with explanations. Let me know whet you think!

Physical

Cognitive

Iron

Constitution

Steel

Dexterity

Zinc

Intelligence

Brass

Charisma

Tin

Speed

Pewter

Strength

Copper

Wisdom

Bronze

Wakefulness

Chromium

Happiness

Nicrosil

Purpose

Cadmium

Senses

Bendalloy

Energy

Aluminum

Connection

Duralumin

Determination

Gold

Health

Electrum

Identity

Spiritual

Bodily

NEW FERUCHEMICAL CHART

PHYSICAL METALS

The three physical traits are generally viewed as Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. Speed was a natural fourth choice.

COGNITIVE METALS

Again, the three mental traits are typically defined as Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Perhaps a better choice than Wakefulness could be made, however.

SPIRITUAL METALS

These metals reflect mental health. Happiness, Purpose, Connection, and Determination gave good abilities, as well as a new home for Connection and Determination.

BODILY METALS

These metals reflect the criteria for life. The ability to take in energy and use in a body (Energy), the ability to sense and respond to change (Senses), the ability to reproduce (Health; cellular reproduction), and the presence of DNA (Identity; DNA contains our identity).

I feel a lot of these are based on not really understanding the text.

I do not get what you are even trying to say in the mathematics portion, it is worded quite poorly and it is hard to decipher. Can you try to word it more clearly?

Bendalloy and Cadmium do fit as Allomantic metals. And the reason why Atium has traits of Electrum is due to the fact it is an Atium-Electrum alloy, and Atium mistings are actually electrum mistings. Furthermore, Malatium has such traits as it is an alloy of Atium-Electrum and Gold, so it is all just about those traits. They were basing everything off of a limited understanding.

Gold and Electrum are Internal Temporal, thus they just effect ones own perception of time. Whilst Cadmium and Bendalloy are external, and thus warp time around oneself. I see no hole in this. It follows the Internal-External dichotomy, Atium and Malatium were actually intentionally made to raise alarm bells as it so completely does not fit into the set, it breaks the pattern, and we were supposed to observe that and notice something was off about them.

Also, I don't get your interpretation of Feruchemy in the slightest, and it makes far less sense than what we got in the finished product. Like why Happiness? I don't see any actually explanation for that, like, cosmerologically, how would happiness function? It is also way too specific, to the extent it has literally 0 use beyond like, feeling good for a little bit. I think you are making the mistake of Feruchemy being all about health, it isn't, it is about the storing and retrieval of attributes of oneself. I am not entirely clear where you came to a misconception about it being ideas of health and wellbeing.

Wisdom is too abstract and undefinable to be stored, it literally just comes down to personal opinions. Furthermore, how does one store purpose? That is also way to abstract, undefinable, and down to personal opinion. It also doesn't really have any effects by storing or retrieving it as, by its very nature, it is unchanging (this is why the idea of having a set purpose is kind of ridiculous)

On changing around which metals in physical went to which trait, I do not fully understand. Tin went with Senses as those correspond in Allomancy as well. Speed going to steel matches thematically with how Steel Mistings are fast via being able to push themselves around. Iron is about mass as you pull things towards you, which has a thematic connection with gravity.

Constitution is redundant as it is about health and strength, which you already included. Therefore, it is just filling up a space covered by other metals.

Determination doesn't make sense to be placed in Spiritual as it is an emotion, it is Cognitive.

Lerasium has another effect when burned that we don't know about, becoming a Mistborn is just a side-effect. So we don't know the actual main effect of it, and it would likely be a plot point in Era 3.

Identity is not connected to DNA, Identity is far more metaphysical in the cosmere, it is a trait stored in the Spiritual Realm. Again, I feel you do not fully understand the text, and are basing your theories and criticisms upon a limited understanding.

Note: Also, don't double post or spam posting the same topic, it is against the rules.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Firesong

alder24 · August 14, 2023

Spoiler boxes contain only WoB - Words of Brandon form Q&A and are only about Mistborn series. You can safely read them as they contain massive amounts of informations, especially from Era 1 annotations. They will clear lots of things up for you.

17 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

I recently finished reading The Lost Metal, and I have decided that you have seriously messed allomancy up. First of all, in The Hero of Ages, 16 percent of the population got snapped by the mists. This suggests that one percent of the population is a misting in a given basic metal (meaning not a god metal). However, there turned out to be Atium mistings, regardless. This makes no sense;

Atium Mistings are electrum Mistings - because Atium in era 1 isn't a pure Atium, but an alloy of Atium and electrum, electrum Mistings can burn it and those were the 1% being sick longer. Malatium is an alloy of Atium and gold - gold Mistings can burn it too. Basically every Misting of any given base metal can burn this metal and every alloy of it with god metals.

Spoiler

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.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

20 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

there would have to be 48 percent of the population that became mistings, assuming each shard has a metal and an alloy of that metal.

No. Mist snapping doesn't care about other metals, as alloys of other god metals can be burnt by Mistings of base metals - all alloys of iron can be burnt by Iron Mistings. Preservation rigged the system, he only cared for Atium Mistings as they were vital to his plan.

23 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Also, someone messed up the math on that. the 16 percent mistfallen that were sick an extra week is NOT the same as one in 16. BIG difference there.

You misunderstood - 16% of all exposed to mist fell sick, 1/16 of those sick (1% of all) were sick the longest - electrum Mistings. So for 100 people exposed to Mists, 16 will fall ill, 1 becomes electrum Misting. That is how it was described in books. 16% isn't equal to 1/16, but 1/16 out of 16% is equal to 1%.

Quote

"The calculation came out to be exact—precisely sixteen percent of the soldiers fell sick. To the man." - HoA ch 21

"That's exactly one-sixteenth of those who fell to the sickness, my lord," Demoux said. "And we stayed sick exactly sixteen days. To the hour." - HoA ch 36

32 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Anyways, Bendalloy and Cadmium make no sense. They don't fit as temporal metals.

Temporal metals are time metals - how do metals that literally slow down or speed up time around you don't fit to temporal metals?

34 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Atium and Malatium, however, fit well into that place; see the past or the future of yourself or others.

They are alloys of god metals. They aren't base metals. They are made purely out of investiture and powers Allomancy with their essence, not drawing power from Preservation like burning base metals does. God metals and their alloys are outside classification - they have their own table, unknown to us yet. We know it's important that Atium and Malatium are in the opposite places compared to gold and electrum.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Atium's Mechanism

Atium is, indeed, different from the other metals. When you burn most Allomantic metals, it opens a conduit through which you can draw upon Preservation's power and use it in very specific ways.

Atium doesn't do that. Atium is, itself, a fuel. When you burn it, the metal itself provides the power. A subtle distinction, I know, but it has to do with where the power is coming from. Most Allomancy is fueled by Preservation, but atium and malatium are fueled by Ruin.

This metal doesn't quite belong on the table where it has been placed.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (April 1, 2010)

Spoiler

[...]

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like malatium and electrum works like atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

38 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

As for Ruin and Preservation's god metals, it should be something more reflective of the god itself, like preservation's metal renders the lives of those surrounding you as unkillable, and ruin's kills them or otherwise attacks them.

Atium turns you into a perfect killing machine - that's quite Ruinous. Atium in Hemalurgy steals any power - that's quite Ruinous. Lerasium and Preservation's connection to Allomancy isn't that clearly visible - Lerasium forms a direct connection to Preservation, turning you into a Mistborn - it Preserves your soul, makes you stronger. That's how it reflects Preservation's intent. Allomancy comes for the Preservation's fragment, that little bit of soul that has more Preservation than Ruin.

Also to point out, Lerasium burnt by a Mistborn has another, different effect. Lerasium making a person into a Mistborn is just a side effect.

Spoiler

Chaos

Allomancy provides many very dramatic effects, which some have noted is not very much like Preservation. Could you walk me through how Allomancy is of Preservation, though it does dramatic, dynamic things?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.

The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift--allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Aug. 31, 2011)

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009)

44 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Also, snapping is messed up. If preservation can't destroy, then why does manifesting a metallic art that is of him require an experience that often kills?

It's messed up. Unfortunately, to form Connection with Preservation, you need cracks in the soul - that's what snapping does, makes cracks in the soul that are filled with Connection to Preservation, making a person into Misting/Mistborn. However snapping being deadly is the effect of Ruin's influence - Preservation wasn't in control at this time - he set up the system to work autonomously, as his mind was almost used up. Ruin however was able to slightly mess up the system, causing it to become more violent than it needed to be. HoA ch 81:

Quote

Snapping has always been the dark side of Allomancy. A person's genetic endowment may make them a potential Allomancer, but in order for the power to manifest, the body must be put through extraordinary trauma. Though Elend spoke of how terrible his beating was, during our day, unlocking Allomancy in a person was easier than it had once been, for we had the infusion of Preservation's power into the human bloodlines via the nuggets granted to nobility by the Lord Ruler.
When Preservation set up the mists, he was afraid of Ruin escaping his prison. In those early days, before the Ascension, the mists began to Snap people as they did during our time—but this action of the mists was one of the only ways to awaken Allomancy in a person, for the genetic attributes were buried too deeply to be brought out by a simple beating. The mists of that day created Mistings only, of course—there were no Mistborn until the Lord Ruler made use of the nuggets.

The people misinterpreted the mists' intent, as the process of Snapping Allomancers caused some—particularly the young and the old—to die. This hadn't been Preservation's desire, but he'd given up most of his consciousness to form Ruin's prison, and the mists had to be left to work as best they could without specific direction.

Ruin, subtle as ever, knew that he couldn't stop the mists from doing their work. However, he could do the unexpected and encourage them. And so, he helped make them stronger. That brought death to the plants of the world, and created the threat that became known as the Deepness.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010)

51 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Finally, you overlooked Nicrobursts in the era 2. For example, Wax notes in his fight against the Duralamin-Steel-Bronze-Chromium psychopath that he's never had to fight a duralumin-level allomancy before. However, is it too difficult to believe that one of the outlaws Wax faced percaps had a nicroburst ally?"

Yup, that was overlooked. They should exist (I think it was said that they often become part of the military I think). Era 2 does a poor job of showing every Misting and Ferring, but to be fair something had to be left for later books - Era 3 main character will be a Nicroburster in Allomancer SWAT team.

53 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Also, I have some problems with Feruchemy. Feruchemy is not symmetrical, like Allomancy is. This really messes with me. I've designed an alternate feruchemical chart, with explanations. Let me know whet you think!

How is the Feruchemical table not symmetrical? It is. The 4th quadrant is the second physical quadrant (named hybrid).

RAFO.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 9, 2015)

To your credit, F-brass and F-electrum effects should be switched, Brandon made a mistake and realized too late to fix it.

Spoiler

Satsuoni

How is heat a mental attribute in Feruchemy?

Brandon Sanderson

Because I messed up. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but that power was supposed to be swapped with another one. (You might be able to guess which one.) However, by the time I realized my mistake, it had already been canonized in print in the trilogy, so I was stuck with it. I've been tempted to go back and correct the error, but it reaches pretty far back. People drawing upon warmth is mentioned in the first book. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that in general the 'physical, mental, etc' things are applied by people--they are boxes that people investigating the magic have used to describe it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

Firesong · August 14, 2023

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Spoiler boxes contain only WoB - Words of Brandon form Q&A and are only about Mistborn series. You can safely read them as they contain massive amounts of informations, especially from Era 1 annotations. They will clear lots of things up for you.

...

I can second everything said here, this is a very accurate summary and description of everything. Thanks.

And yes, Brass and Electrum are swapped, that was indeed a mistake. Brandon kept it as he felt it would take a lot of work to fix, and due to the fact he felt it did well to communicate that the tables are an artificial classification of natural phenomena, and not necessarily something completely real. I am indeed rather annoyed by this decision, as it is the one break in symmetry. But what can you do?

Duxredux · August 14, 2023

@TheFrugalWizard, Alder24 and Firesong both gave good information on the magic systems themselves, I'll address why I wouldn't expect Brandon to adopt any changes you or I would suggest without futher work on our part to integrate into his process. I don't think he even reads his own mail directly, I suspect he has too much of it. I'm mostly talking from what I've heard him say on Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank.

For Brandon the magic system will always be developed to tell the story he wants to tell, if the magic ruins his story, then he will change it, but the goal is to tell a good story. If despite reading the entire Mistborn series, it didn't work for you, that's okay, not every part of every book will work for everyone. That said, changes of the nature that you suggest for books some of which were released over a decade ago would require a tremendous amount of work in rewriting plot structure, foreshadowing, and other revisions for a series that has passed 1 million words. Then there's re-educating the readers on the way they have remembered the magic for years, and more. That's not even covering the cost to republish. What alder24 said about Feruchemical brass and electrum, is a relatively small thing to change that would still take a huge amount of work and money - to the extent that Brandon knows about the mistake and hasn't blown the time or money to rectify it. Realistically, it would be better to publish a new series with new branding than try to replace the ten million books sold in the Mistborn series. As it is Brandon already has alpha, beta, and gamma readers who read the various drafts of each new book and give him feedback to help him craft the stories he wants to create. Brandon will almost certainly work with those early readers who know his writing process and are already part of the structure of his organization than with someone who hasn't been integrated in. If you want to try to become one of his early readers and give suggestions in the format that he can use, then go for it, but Brandon says it's not as cool as most people think.

Treamayne · August 14, 2023

2 hours ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Also, snapping is messed up.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

It's messed up. Unfortunately, to form Connection with Preservation, you need cracks in the soul - that's what snapping does, makes cracks in the soul that are filled with Connection to Preservation, making a person into Misting/Mistborn.

It's worth noting that Allomancy, and Scadrial are not the only magics that require "snapping" (but not necessarily the same term). SA Spoilers:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

So there’s Snapping on Scadrial, where an event happens and then you can use the magic. Is there something like Snapping on Roshar, where...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. They’re working under the same sort of assumption, the spren are just looking for a specific thing that is similar to what Snapping does.

Quote

Rhandric

That's one thing that stood out to me in your magic systems, because in all your other magic systems that we've seen so far there has to be some form of snapping to occur, and that's unique...

Brandon Sanderson

Not all of them because, um, let's see...

Questioner 3

BioChroma doesn't.

Brandon Sanderson

BioChroma does not requires snapping

Quote

Oversleep

Is it possible to Soothe/Riot so hard that the person Snaps due to extreme emotions caused by emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

I hadn't considered, but yes, that should work.

WoR Ch 68:

Quote

“You want too much of me,” he snapped at her as he reached the other side of the chasm. “I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken.”

She zipped up to him and whispered, “That’s what they all were, silly.” She streaked away.

Firesong · August 14, 2023

20 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

@TheFrugalWizard, Alder24 and Firesong both gave good information on the magic systems themselves, I'll address why I wouldn't expect Brandon to adopt any changes you or I would suggest without futher work on our part to integrate into his process. I don't think he even reads his own mail directly, I suspect he has too much of it. I'm mostly talking from what I've heard him say on Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank.

For Brandon the magic system will always be developed to tell the story he wants to tell, if the magic ruins his story, then he will change it, but the goal is to tell a good story. If despite reading the entire Mistborn series, it didn't work for you, that's okay, not every part of every book will work for everyone. That said, changes of the nature that you suggest for books some of which were released over a decade ago would require a tremendous amount of work in rewriting plot structure, foreshadowing, and other revisions for a series that has passed 1 million words. Then there's re-educating the readers on the way they have remembered the magic for years, and more. That's not even covering the cost to republish. What alder24 said about Feruchemical brass and electrum, is a relatively small thing to change that would still take a huge amount of work and money - to the extent that Brandon knows about the mistake and hasn't blown the time or money to rectify it. Realistically, it would be better to publish a new series with new branding than try to replace the ten million books sold in the Mistborn series. As it is Brandon already has alpha, beta, and gamma readers who read the various drafts of each new book and give him feedback to help him craft the stories he wants to create. Brandon will almost certainly work with those early readers who know his writing process and are already part of the structure of his organization than with someone who hasn't been integrated in. If you want to try to become one of his early readers and give suggestions in the format that he can use, then go for it, but Brandon says it's not as cool as most people think.

Yeah, even if it would improve it, it would take way to much money and work and be really bad for the audience as well.

But it would also require a lot of fundamental changes to cosmere cosmology and mechanics, that would increase the amount of changes hundredfold

Also, what Alder and @Treamayne have said, many systems require snapping, and the danger of snapping in Scadrial mostly has to do with Ruin interfering. Era 2 has much safer snapping as Ruin is now controlled by Harmony alongside Preservation. Also, the effect of metals goes far beyond just the Metallic Arts, it also manifests in other ways

Tress and Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

Iron and Steel have pushing and pulling effects on nearby Aethers

Several metals have been shown to be able to be used in Fabrials, and they have very, very close effects to the way that they function in Allomancy

So it all runs rather deep in overall cosmere mechanics.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Firesong

TheFrugalWizard · August 14, 2023

Okay, it's possible I haven't done enough research to make these claims and I will temporarily renounce my Feruchemical claims. However--and maybe there is something I haven't read this that can contradict me--but how, exactly, would the Atium in Era 1 be not pure? Would it not have to be pure atium to be Ruin's body? And then, that raises the question, can a god metal have an alloy of each basic metal?

In Other matters, thanks for all your input, I've learned a lot--and not just about Sanderson's magic system. I'm new to this whole social media chat kind of stuff so excuse me for anything I've said or done that's out of place.

alder24 · August 14, 2023

23 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

Okay, it's possible I haven't done enough research to make these claims and I will temporarily renounce my Feruchemical claims.

Yech, there is a lot of Cosmere stuff going on with those metals, certain attributes aren't unique only to Feruchemy but appear elsewhere too. If you plan to read more books from Brandon, you might spot some similarities.

5 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

However--and maybe there is something I haven't read this that can contradict me--but how, exactly, would the Atium in Era 1 be not pure? Would it not have to be pure atium to be Ruin's body?

People in the Mistborn series don't quite understand what Atium is, they call it Atium but don't know it came from Ruin and it is an alloy. As you can see from the flawed understanding of Allomantic metals in Era 1, they base their classification on what they currently know, and they were totally unaware what Atium truly was. Even in Era 2 people still don't know that Atium they've heard about isn't pure god metal.

It still is a Ruin's body. This was done by Preservation; he had stolen part of Ruin's essence, and bound it in an Atium cycle in a way that the Pits of Hathsin produced Atium-electrum alloy, not pure Atium. As long as it contains pure Atium, which is pure physical investiture, it will remain Ruin's body even when alloyed. You're mixing pure Atium with some electrum and get Atium-electrum alloy - Atium is binded in this new form and still remains Ruin's body, as investiture is still trapped in physical form. Atium-electrum alloy still works in the same way as you see in books and still fuels future visions by itself, because it's physical investiture, a body of a god. Alloying a base metal with pure Atium changes the effects of this metal in the same way as a tiny drop of carbon changes the effect of iron as it’s now steel. But investiture remains in that metal, it can't go anywhere and thus remains as a body of Ruin.

Pure Atium is invested, Atium-electrum alloy is still invested, but electrum or any other base metal isn't invested. It's just a piece of metal. That's the difference.

Spoiler

/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.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

Spoiler

LewsTherinTelescope

At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?

Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.

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.

The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.

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.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Spoiler

Chaos

Is atium Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it--

Chaos

Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle.

Brandon Sanderson

Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness.

The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. [edited]

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

5 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

And then, that raises the question, can a god metal have an alloy of each basic metal?

Yes. It can be even alloyed with other god metals.

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

What will an Atium-Lerasium Alloy do ?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Ah, I've been asked this before. There are a number of theories, but nobody's really sure, since there haven't really been any opportunities to alloy lerasium with atium. You can choose which one to believe. Most require an understanding of realmatic theory to comprehend, which you need to be a Shard or Splinter to even begin to understand.What Lerasium is, is essentially a hack for something like your spiritual DNA. It rewrites what your spiritual self is capable of. So, combined with atium, which allows you a glimpse into the vision of everything - past, present, future - the theories say it could do one of two things. It could either create a substance so volatile that it would have world-ending repercussions, or rewrite your "spiritual DNA" (his phrase, not mine) with atium's power. Is that a vague enough answer?

TWG Posts (March 23, 2010)

17 minutes ago, TheFrugalWizard said:

In Other matters, thanks for all your input, I've learned a lot--and not just about Sanderson's magic system. I'm new to this whole social media chat kind of stuff so excuse me for anything I've said or done that's out of place.

Nothing was out of place, this is a space to ask questions and share new ideas. I'm glad I could be of help. Feel free to ask if you're still confused about something else, there are lots of people here ready to help.

If you want to know more, I strongly encourage you to read Era 1 annotations, especially Hero of Ages - there is a lot of lore and stuff about magic explained by Brandon there. You can find it here:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/141-mistborn-the-final-empire-annotations/
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/142-the-well-of-ascension-annotations/
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/

Firesong · August 14, 2023

47 minutes ago, alder24 said:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/141-mistborn-the-final-empire-annotations/
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/142-the-well-of-ascension-annotations/
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/

@TheFrugalWizard

I can corroborate what is said here, yeah, but another note is, if you look at the Table Posters (they are what are used for the Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy images on Coppermind), they are more objective and updated, and include mentions of pure atium. It has been around for a while, even if the explicit mention of the change was more recent.

And yeah, you can alloy a God Metal with anything, and what it basically does is it creates a new effect based on a modified form of what you alloy it with, and also makes it so that it uses that Shard's Investiture to power it (as it is all directly from the metal). So, for instance, Malatium (Which is Impure Atium + Gold) is powered by Ruin's Investiture. And creates an new effect combining the traits of Impure Atium and Gold.

Pure Atium has an effect where you don't just see shadows, but you actually look straight into the Spiritual Realm and just, flat out see across time as a whole. It is far more expansive and incomprehensible (it also expands your mind to be able to understand it all, much like what Impure Atium does).

And on Nicrobursts, I don't necessarily agree it would be too weird for Wax not to have run into one. Mistings are around 1/1000, then a Nicroburst would be 1/16 of that would be 1/16000. Then you have to factor in crime rates, lets just do homicide rates for example. American homicide rates in 1900 were around 30/100000. So lets put the percent at that (so this is assuming 30 murderers per 100000 people), as Wax mostly deals with homicidal criminals. This would make a homicidal Nicroburst around 3/160000000, or 3 in 160,000,000. Lets call this n.

Wax was a Lawman for only around 20 years. So he probably only dealt with a few hundred criminals tops. Lets say around 300 as an upper bound. So that would be 1-((1-(n))^300). This comes out at a chance of finding one, after dealing with 300 criminals, to around 5.62498423245...*10^-5 or 0.0000562498%, this would be further complicated by the fact that you have to take into account them finding a criminal partner who is also a Misting, and is neither a Duralumin Gnat or Aluminum Gnat.

Lets just say the chances of having a partner are 1/2 (in reality, the odds would be much lower, just assuming solo and teamed are equal odds to give this a higher value), as I don't think I can find records of criminal conspiracy rates in 1900. So 2.812496058 × 10^-6 chance of having a partner within 300 criminals. But to also have that partner be a Misting that is not either of those 2, you would have to take the chance of them being 14 out of 16 (but in reality, this would probably be lower, more like 7/16 or 43.75%, as Tineye, Oracle, Augur, Smoker, Rioter, Soother, or Seeker, wouldn't really help in combat in the way Wax was referring to), which is an easy 87.5%, so 0.000875% when factoring in misting rarity. This should bring the chances of a Nicroburst Misting combo being run into within 300 criminals down to 2.460934481989458 × 10^-6, or 0.00000246093448199%.

To give benefit of the doubt, lets up this to 10000. This would still be 0.00008202788%.

So, I 100% believe he wouldn't run into such a combo. The chances are extraordinarily low. Even if I made some conversion mistakes in my math, the chance increase would be so miniscule that it wouldn't change my conclusion.

And on a Meta level, yeah, it is due to the fact he wants to cover it more in Era 3.

And I do recommend that you read the rules. You did nothing severe enough to warrant any Mods punishing you, especially as it was clearly not intentional. But I will note the things you broke so you can improve.

Avoid double posting, it is frowned upon unless the gap between messages is very long (as in like, its been over a week)
Avoid double forum-making, avoid making multiple forums of the exact same topic. I can tell you just did it due to a typo in the original title, but just try to avoid it next time.
Avoid post padding, this is when you add things to a post that make it much longer without adding much substance, the table you added had a lot of empty space that made it very big. If you do have something like this, a way to avoid troubles is to put it in a spoiler tag, you can create on by clicking the little eye next to a face. They are very helpful for condensing big lists or tables.

Other then that, you are all good (as far as I am aware), just wanted to point it out for next time.

TheFrugalWizard · August 15, 2023

Firesong--I agree that a nicroburst murderer would be rare, however there's something you haven't considered. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thus, the chances of any king of misting or ferring turning to a life of crime is higher than that of a normal person, as they can do things others can't. Similarly, more moral misting or ferrings are likely to turn to law enforcement or another very productive use of their power, such as an archivist (copper Ferring) becoming a bank attendant. That is to say, it should have been more likely that wax ran into a nicroburst of some sort, as their power would have been highly useful to other allomancers.

Shadeshadow227 · August 22, 2023

On 8/15/2023 at 10:55 AM, TheFrugalWizard said:

Firesong--I agree that a nicroburst murderer would be rare, however there's something you haven't considered. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thus, the chances of any king of misting or ferring turning to a life of crime is higher than that of a normal person, as they can do things others can't. Similarly, more moral misting or ferrings are likely to turn to law enforcement or another very productive use of their power, such as an archivist (copper Ferring) becoming a bank attendant. That is to say, it should have been more likely that wax ran into a nicroburst of some sort, as their power would have been highly useful to other allomancers.

There's also a difference between what a mistborn/hemalurgist could do with Duralumin on the fly, and a collaborative, purposefully set-up usage of Nicrosil Allomancy to amp up one shot of something else. You don't really fight a Nicroburst, you deal with the big mess they cause and separate them from any Allomancers in the area.

So Wax may have encountered a Nicroburst buffing a Coinshot before, but that's different from one person using Duralumin for such dramatic effects with virtually no setup involved.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Shadeshadow227

Firesong · August 22, 2023

12 minutes ago, Shadeshadow227 said:

There's also a difference between what a mistborn/hemalurgist could do with Duralumin on the fly, and a collaborative, purposefully set-up usage of Nicrosil Allomancy to amp up one shot of something else. You don't really fight a Nicroburst, you deal with the big mess they cause and separate them from any Allomancers in the area.

So Wax may have encountered a Nicroburst buffing a Coinshot before, but that's different from one person using Duralumin for such dramatic effects with virtually no setup involved.

That is a good point, actually. I still hold by it being very unlikely to find a Nicroburst criminal working with a Misting with an offensively viable power. But that would also be an explanation, as he would truly be unable to fight one using duralumin on their own powers, as it literally doesn't anymore exist unless you use Hemalurgy (technically, it does exist, but it can't be used to any actual effect, making allomantic duralumin essentially worthless) .

TheWisestBear · August 24, 2023

I'm a big fan of Mistborn, but since you asked for criticisms, here's a list off the top of my head:

- I did post in another thread about how the astronomy in Hero of Ages (as described in the text - not WoB) is problematic. Summarized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ZWDwBt4P4

Spoiler

- I didn't buy the point about gender-neutral pronouns in the prophecies referring to Sazed being a eunuch. He was referred to as masculine, and probably still considered himself to be masculine. It was a ploy to get us distracted about Vin possibly being the Hero of Ages, but it does injustice to people who have been mutilated against their will to suddenly change their gender identity.

- This more a broader criticism of a popular trope, but one of my pet peeves is the use of the "universal translator" trope in so many English works of fantasy/sci-fi. And it made an appearance in Era 2, book 3, I think. It just seems lazy to not make the characters *work* to understand each other. In the real world, it's a LOT of work to understand people from a different linguistic and cultural background. People think that Google translate solves everything. It doesn't. It's not enough to know the dictionary meanings, you need *context* and experience, and Google and feruchemical medalions just can't give you that.

- No women on Kelsier's crew, and no female friendships for Vin. (But I hear that will be fixed in the movie). The women in Era 2 also have no female friends. It seems like only men like Wax and Wayne can be good friends. (This is another broader criticism about the portrayal of women in fantasy.)

- I didn't find the formation and development of the Church of the Survivor very believable as a way a religion develops. I have a lot more to say about this, but discussions about religion can be, well, you know.

- Book 1 of Era 2 was really a low point in the series for me. Shoot 'em up isn't really my thing. But I'm glad I stuck it out and read the next books because I enjoyed them.

- I wish TenSoon had more screen time, in both eras.

- Book 4 of Era 2 wasn't as epic and Sanderlanche-y as I hoped. But still enjoyable.

Spoiler

- I wish Kelsier's condition was explained more, like why does he have a spike? How did he return to his body? etc. There's a huge gap between Secret History and Book 4 and it was frustrating. (BTW, I don't really keep up with WoB, so it could be that he answered this. But anyway, I tend to view only the published works as canon, and not the comments from an author that could change later.)

That's all I could think of for now. But I want to re-iterate that despite these criticisms I still loved Mistborn. Era 1 is one of my all time favourite series.

Treamayne · August 24, 2023

2 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

This more a broader criticism of a popular trope, but one of my pet peeves is the use of the "universal translator" trope in so many English works of fantasy/sci-fi. And it made an appearance in Era 2, book 3, I think. It just seems lazy to not make the characters *work* to understand each other. In the real world, it's a LOT of work to understand people from a different linguistic and cultural background. People think that Google translate solves everything. It doesn't. It's not enough to know the dictionary meanings, you need *context* and experience, and Google and feruchemical medalions just can't give you that.

I understand what you mean since I have worked as a translator. However, to be fair, using Connection for local languages is kinda huge to the Cosmere, and has been in nearly every story published (all the way back to before "Hoid the Informant" used that technique to talk to Kelsier in The Final Empire). We know that it is magical, not mechanical - since you continue to think and "speak" in your native tongue and the words just come out in the Connected langauge (and you hear the Connected language, but "receive" it in your native tongue). We also know that it is not perfect, which is why we have the occasional malaproprisms show up and serve as one of the indicators of a Worldhopper.

I agree that, generally speaking, the amount of study and practice needed to be functional in a given new language* is horribly misrepresented in nearly all fiction (possibly except those stories about that task); but I don't think the Cosmere is a place to expect that kind of story. Brandon made this part of the system because without it there is no way to tell the stories he wants to tell. SA Spoilers:

Spoiler

Stormlight Archive is where it stands out the most - between Zahel's mistranslated proverbs, Hoid's random nouns-with-no-translation (soil, bunny), and Axindweth's mysterious-and-suspect "use" of Listener Language.

But even Eshonai's attempts at learning Alethi were not a well represented case of language learning

*Note: Example

Spoiler

In Advanced Korean, we were watching an interview with a French Expat (이다도시) living in Korea (and had lived there a number of years already) relating her story of the first time she went to a Korean Hospital. Korean has an idiosyncrasy that they use the verb "to see" (bo da | 보다) for a number of other things, like "meet." Well one use-case she had not yet learned or heard was that Koreans use it for defecate (literally "have you seen a bowel movement" | 대변보다). So, when the nurse asked "have you moved bowels today" she asked "Who?" thinking the nurse had asked her if she had met the doctor.

So years after becoming functionally conversant, she was still finding words/situations that were simply outside her language experience.

Note's Note: We found out later the teachers used this interview as a test to see which students laughed at that line - which was a guage on how well we-the-students were following the interview. . .

alder24 · August 24, 2023

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Spoiler

- I didn't buy the point about gender-neutral pronouns in the prophecies referring to Sazed being a eunuch. He was referred to as masculine, and probably still considered himself to be masculine. It was a ploy to get us distracted about Vin possibly being the Hero of Ages, but it does injustice to people who have been mutilated against their will to suddenly change their gender identity.

Ruin influenced and changed those prophecies. There is a chance that Ruin changed this part of prophecies to fit them with Vin and make her release him. If those prophecies would always use male pronouns, it would be much, much harder to justify Vin as the Hero of Ages. Or it was Preservation's plan all along as he knew Vin had to pick up Preservation to kill Ruin. She also was the Hero and she had to believe in it. Therefore those prophecies had to use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to both Vin and Sazed at the same time. But you're right.

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

- No women on Kelsier's crew

Vin and Mare. But rest is true.

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Hide contents

- I wish Kelsier's condition was explained more, like why does he have a spike? How did he return to his body? etc. There's a huge gap between Secret History and Book 4 and it was frustrating. (BTW, I don't really keep up with WoB, so it could be that he answered this. But anyway, I tend to view only the published works as canon, and not the comments from an author that could change later.)

I disagree. It's more fun this way. There is always another secret, and revealing everything at once would just leave nothing for the future. We got a lot from Kelsier and we know this will be explained in SH 2 - that's enough. We also know from WoBs that he most likely stamped his soul to a Mistwraith with hemalurgic spike, and gave it his bones. It's not his body.

*hesitation noises* I don't know that I would say that 100%. The certain Scadrian you reference has been able to achieve the goals that he wants. Let's see if I can circumlocute this: there's a certain set of bones floating around that already has a Connection to this individual, which was useful in achieving what he wanted to do, which is not a luxury that [blank] has.

[I've edited spoilers outside of Mistborn series]

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

Firesong · August 24, 2023

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

I disagree. It's more fun this way. There is always another secret, and revealing everything at once would just leave nothing for the future. We got a lot from Kelsier and we know this will be explained in SH 2 - that's enough. We also know from WoBs that he most likely stamped his soul to a Mistwraith with hemalurgic spike, and gave it his bones. It's not his body.

Yeah, that criticism just makes no sense. It is complaining about not having everything explained before the end of the story. It is like criticizing Citizen Cane by saying "We don't know what Rosebud is yet, why isn't it explaining it!" when only halfway through the film, the story simply isn't finished yet. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for it to not all be explained yet. It is all going to be a focus in Era 3, after all. Era 2 simply isn't about Kelsier, and it would be weird to go on a tangent from the plot to dig into him when:

it is irrelevant to the story, it would be a side-tangent that completely interrupts the narrative flow.
The person we see Kelsier through is Marasi, who would have no reason to ask him how he managed to staple his Cognitive Aspect to a Physical Aspect. She didn't really understand Realmatics and the concept of Cognitive Shadows, thus it wouldn't really cross her mind. I think she would also be too reverent of Kelsier to barrage him with questions just to sate her curiosity.
In the epilogue from his perspective, nothing comes up that would redirect his mind to thinking about that, nor would it make sense to jump to that idea given the topic of the chapter.
It would remove any potential reveal on that aspect from Era 3, which is going to have a much stronger focus on Kelsier. (Era 2 was technically very unplanned, and was meant to just be AoL until Brandon decided it would help build the world and set a few things up far better if he made it into a larger series. Era 2 is, at a fundamental level, a set-up for the world, plot, and ideas of Era 3)

And yeah, I feel it is implied he put his soul into a spike and had that spike placed into a body, stapling it back. That is pretty obvious to me even ignoring the WoBs, I actually theorized that even after that one flashback at the end of BoM, just an "ah, he stapled his soul to a body using hemalurgy!", but I guess not everyone keeps up with more foundational mechanics of the cosmere as me, and that's okay.

(We don't know if we will get SH2, Brandon just said he wants to write it, but isn't entirely sure if he would be able to. I feel it would be explained in Era 3, at least.)

TheWisestBear · August 25, 2023

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant with my last criticism:

Spoiler

The huge gap between Secret History and Era 2 books 3 and 4 didn't have to be filled in completely. It just needed a few hints here and there. With zero information about Kelsier's resurrection, it felt to me a little like a deus ex machina: Surprise! Kelsier came back to life! And it was magic! Because without further exposition, that's what it comes down to: magic. It was only a minor annoyance though, and I do anticipate that it will be revealed eventually in narrative form (which to me is preferable over WoB).

TheWisestBear · August 25, 2023

21 hours ago, Treamayne said:

I understand what you mean since I have worked as a translator. However, to be fair, using Connection for local languages is kinda huge to the Cosmere, and has been in nearly every story published (all the way back to before "Hoid the Informant" used that technique to talk to Kelsier in The Final Empire). We know that it is magical, not mechanical - since you continue to think and "speak" in your native tongue and the words just come out in the Connected langauge (and you hear the Connected language, but "receive" it in your native tongue). We also know that it is not perfect, which is why we have the occasional malaproprisms show up and serve as one of the indicators of a Worldhopper.

I grant that Connection is magical, so it would more likely pick the correct meaning in the case of multiple meanings like your Korean example (and Google Translate wouldn't). However there should still be a lot more big misunderstandings than are currently portrayed in the Cosmere, not just the occasional malapropisms. Navigating big cultural misunderstandings was most of the hard work I was referring to, not really the learning of other languages (which is also really hard work). Language influences the way people think (and vice versa), and the way people think is vastly different between cultures in our own world. But in the cosmere, even people from different planets all think and sound like Americans.

An example of what I mean: I just recently read The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, which was translated from Chinese to English by Ken Liu, a native speaker of both languages and intimately familiar with both cultures. The translation was of course in perfect English, and yet it sounded so foreign to English cultures. I'm sure we can all think of other translated books that are perfectly fluent and grammatically flawless in the target language, but still sound very foreign. It's not the language that makes them sound foreign, it's the culture, style and ways of thinking. I'm sorry, but adding multiple "ya's" to Southern Scadrian speech really doesn't come anywhere near the mark.

I know that Sanderson tries: there are examples that show this, such as your examples from Stormlight. And this is more than I can say about most monolingual authors I've read.

Speaking of monolinguals, consider this: lots of people are native speakers of multiple languages. Which language do they hear a Connected speaker in? Monolingual authors never think of this and it drives me up the wall.

Anyway my thing against universal translators is just a little gripe, just like scientists gripe about the inaccuracies in science fiction, or lawyers about court dramas. I still really enjoy the stories!

Edited August 25, 2023 by TheWisestBear

alder24 · August 25, 2023

5 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant with my last criticism:

Hide contents

The huge gap between Secret History and Era 2 books 3 and 4 didn't have to be filled in completely. It just needed a few hints here and there. With zero information about Kelsier's resurrection, it felt to me a little like a deus ex machina: Surprise! Kelsier came back to life! And it was magic! Because without further exposition, that's what it comes down to: magic. It was only a minor annoyance though, and I do anticipate that it will be revealed eventually in narrative form (which to me is preferable over WoB).

We had those hits. All along HoA, they were there. Kelsier was speaking to Vin and Spook, and it was hinted to us he's alive. In one of the Era 2 books it was said that Kelsier held Preservation after Leras death but before Vin Ascension - we knew he was alive and doing stuff in Cognitive Realm. It wasn't a surprise for those paying attention. And how he got his body wasn’t a surprise either - SH hinted to us that he wants his body back. TLM didn't have to explain to us anything about Kelsier's condition, because it was all already explained and it was hinted that he will get a body back. What you asked for was already in books. HoA Annotations:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier Speaks

The final thing I'll note on this chapter is that the voice Spook hears after he's pulled out the spike is actually Kelsier. You'll see Kelsier's voice pop up a few more times in the narrative, now that Preservation is dead.

Ever the meddler, Kelsier can't just sit around and let the world end. Preservation's death left a void, and Kelsier has managed to piggyback his spirit just slightly onto Preservation's power. He can't do much, but he can reach out and whisper a few choice words to people. At least until Vin takes the power and shoves him out.

I know I said he wouldn't come back, but . . . well, he's Kelsier. He doesn't listen to what I say. He just does what he wants.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Feb. 4, 2010)

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty-Four

"You did well, Spook."

Yes, that's Kelsier's voice at the beginning. As I said in a previous annotation, he can't help but meddle.

There is an afterlife in this cosmology I've built, and Kelsier's in it. He never has been able to leave well enough alone. He saw, here, that a piece of the puzzle needed to be put together, so he stepped in and tried to get through to Spook about it.

Spook was the only one in the crew he could speak to. That's because Spook truly has faith in Kelsier as a deity—which, for these few weeks between Preservation's death and the coming of the Hero of Ages, Kelsier is.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 9, 2010)

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Giving you power!

That voice at the end of the chapter is Kelsier, who can finally speak to Vin, now that her earring is gone. She's close enough to the mists and Preservation's power that he can touch Vin's mind or a brief moment and send a few words toward her.

The last words echo his famous line about the mists, the first thing he taught Vin about them on a mist-wetted street in Luthadel her first night of training.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (April 8, 2010)

Firesong · August 25, 2023

7 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

I know that Sanderson tries: there are examples that show this, such as your examples from Stormlight. And this is more than I can say about most monolingual authors I've read.

Brandon isn't monolingual, he is bilingual. He speaks English and Korean.

Anyway, it is kinda needed to do it as he does, as a lot of the mistakes you want to see would have to require him making an in-depth conlang for every single language. Which would be a lot of work, and the result ultimately wouldn't be that satisfying, as it would just be a bunch of conversations of people being constantly confused with each other, making any progress difficult. Also, your mention of translated texts feeling really weird to English ears, that is simply a terrible translation, good translations sound far more natural. I say this as somebody who has read a bunch of translated books from Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Sanskrit, French, Polish, German, Korean, Persian, and so forth.

And also, he does ultimately include more confusion with non-Connection based interlanguage communication. Look at Rock, he ultimately has a few weird ways of talking, gets some grammar wrong (missing articles or already implied pronouns, or using the wrong pronouns, like gendered pronouns for inanimate objects), and has difficulty communicating some Unkalaki concepts that don't really fit in the Vorin worldview, like nuatoma (due to how intertwined social superiority and power is with lighteyed-ness in Vorin cultures, both politically and linguistically, that they don't really understand the concept of a position of power not being tied to lighteyed-ness). Which I feel fits with the kind of thing that you want.

The way that Shin people talk also feels very differently from the way that other people as well, due to how divergent their language and culture is from everyone else (it is most closely related to Unkalaki and Listener, but is so far divergent that it mostly only shares grammar, with vocabular having diverged immensely). Like, if you look at how Shin people talk, it is different in a few ways that are hard to exactly pin down.

With Connection-based communication, Intent passes over, which is why it tends to bypass a lot of mistakes as it transfers (such as issues with synonyms on either side) what you actually mean. This is why if you think too much about what you are saying as you say it, you will often speak in your native tongue instead of the language you are Connected to.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Firesong

Treamayne · August 26, 2023

6 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant with my last criticism:

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

I grant that Connection is magical, . . .

Please do not double-post. There are tools for quoting and respondning to multiple people, in case you were not aware:

Spoiler

At the bottom left of a post you will see a "+" icon, a "Quote" link, and (your posts only) and Edit and Options tools. On the bottom right you will see an up arrow.

The Up Arrow is how you thank people or "like" a post
The "Quote" link is exactly that, when you click it the quote will be added to the reply at the bottom of the thread wherever the cursor is
- So, if you have already started to reply before you decide to quote you can then add the quote before or after your text depending on the cursor location when you click "Quote"
The + icon is multi-quote. As you read a thread, if you want to quote multiple items you click that for each post
- As you click +, you should see a toaster pop-up on the bottom right of the browser window showing how many quotes you will have
- They are added in the order you click the + icon, not in the original post order, so you can set the order of quotes for your reply
- When you are ready to reply, click on the toaster pop-up and it will take you directly to the reply section and add the quotes automatically
Finally, you can also highlight a small section of a post and, when hovering over the highlit portion, click the "Quote" button that pops up.
Also note that you can move quotes after they have been added to your reply.
- For example, you add a quote and realize there are no empty lines below it for you to type - so you can hit "enter" before the quote to make an empty line then when you hover over a quote you will see a 4-way arrow at the top-left that you can use to drag the quote up (or down) and move the quote to before the empty line. . .
Use the Edit link to make changes to a completed post or add information to your post if it is the most recent (to avoid double posting)
- Quote buttons will still send a quote to "Reply" if you have a post open for edit, but it is easy to cut/paste the quote to the Edit box
- Editing the first post in a thread allows the thread-creator to edit the thread title.
- Editing allows you to add a reason for the edit (Spelling and grammar (SPAG), formatting, clarification, new information, etc.), but it is not required.
Next to Edit you will also find an "options" dropbox, you can use this to hide your post if you want to remove it after posting
At the top of a post you will find "Report Post"
- Use this if you do accidentally double-post (sometimes it's the browser or a slow link that causes a double post) - just leave a message that it was an accidental double post and the Mods can fix it. If it was the first post of a new thread that doubled, they usually can merge the threads if they both have answers, so all of the content is retained.

In reverse order(ish)

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Anyway my thing against universal translators is just a little gripe, just like scientists gripe about the inaccuracies in science fiction, or lawyers about court dramas. I still really enjoy the stories!

No worries, you are entitled to your opinion, and if you don't like discussing it - please let me know. I enjoy (constructively) discussing these kinds of differences because I feel the conversants and readers alike all learn something through the exchange.

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

Speaking of monolinguals, consider this: lots of people are native speakers of multiple languages. Which language do they hear a Connected speaker in? Monolingual authors never think of this and it drives me up the wall.

What is your definition of a Mono/Multi/Polylingual? Do you only consider native speakers as multi-lingual? I ask because you repeated reference Sanderson as monolingual when he speaks at least two or three languages we know of (and likely knows tourist-level pleasantries in many more).

Anyway, to answer your question. The person not using connection hears whatever language is being used by the Connected Speaker. The Connected speaker will be using whatever primary language was Connected. Examples:

In Era 2, the Malwish Medallions Connect the user to the Land - so whatever the cognitive aspect of that (country/city/region) would reflect as the most predominant language is what would come out. This is also seen when Axindweth in RoW, where she connects to the Shattered Plains, and the Cognitive aspect of the Plains considers the Listener Language to be it's primary language component - so what's what she speaks with Venli (note: it probably would not have worked with Eshonai near the river wheree they first encountered Listeners - that land was not Connected to Parshandi at all - she would need version 2
In Oathbringer we see the other version, which is Connection to a person - You make brief contact and form a Connection and when you speak, other will hear it in language that the Connected Individual's Cognitive Aspect beleives to be their "primary." After all, even native Multi-linguals begin to think in one language first (even if only non-sentence - single-word structure) and "learn" the other langauge alongside. My teachers used to say "Ruminate on the nature of

3 hours ago, TheWisestBear said:

I grant that Connection is magical, so it would more likely pick the correct meaning in the case of multiple meanings like your Korean example (and Google Translate wouldn't). However there should still be a lot more big misunderstandings than are currently portrayed in the Cosmere, not just the occasional malapropisms.

To an extent, I agree. I expect we have seen, and will see more of this with Scadrial. Inter-culture misunderstandings are a big part of Stormlight Archive anyway. However, I would think most Worldhoppers we have seen are like dignitary visitors. A UN official isn't just going to visit <country> without at least having had a briefing on cultural consideration (e.g. some countries = "do not eat with your left hand", others = "do not show the bottom of your feet", etc.); worldhoppers like Vasher and Hoid will generally already know many Cultural considerations (or would go out of their way to learn when first arriving). Also, when that is not the case (like Grump, Blunt, and Thinker) it fairly rapidly spirals into the situations you describe and it is apparant they do not know the culture and social moors.

Quote

Navigating big cultural misunderstandings was most of the hard work I was referring to, not really the learning of other languages (which is also really hard work). Language influences the way people think (and vice versa), and the way people think is vastly different between cultures in our own world.

Agreed. Though I will note that some of the cultures in the Cosmere have not had nearly the same amount of developmental time as ours. In cases where the time differential is greater (like over a millenium of cultural change for the SoScadrians from the Basin) we do also see higher incidence of culture clash.

Quote

But in the cosmere, even people from different planets all think and sound like Americans.

Part of this may be the (mostly controved) precept that we-the-readers are hearing a story translated for us by Brandon (making appropriate changes that try to preserve context). Part is, of course, the way Connection changes thought into the appropriately Connected syntax based on cognitive aspects of converation.

But mostly, I'm confsed as to what you are singling out as distinctly American. I agree that the Heralds in RoW definitly had a much more modern syntax and grammar structure (which I think was very intentional) - esp. Kalak in Lasting Integrity. But I don't recall any other obvious "Americanisms" off of the top of my head.

Quote

I just recently read The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, which was translated from Chinese to English by Ken Liu, a native speaker of both languages and intimately familiar with both cultures. The translation was of course in perfect English, and yet it sounded so foreign to English cultures. I'm sure we can all think of other translated books that are perfectly fluent and grammatically flawless in the target language, but still sound very foreign. It's not the language that makes them sound foreign, it's the culture, style and ways of thinking.

It's on my list - in fact the hardcover I ordered arrived last week.

TheWisestBear · August 26, 2023

6 hours ago, Treamayne said:

There are tools for quoting and respondning to multiple people, in case you were not aware

Neat! I was not aware of these features, so thanks for this. But if I shouldn't be doing double posts, then this will be one long post as I'll have to respond to different topics in one place. Well here goes.

20 hours ago, alder24 said:

All along HoA, they were there. Kelsier was speaking to Vin and Spook, and it was hinted to us he's alive. In one of the Era 2 books it was said that Kelsier held Preservation after Leras death but before Vin Ascension - we knew he was alive and doing stuff in Cognitive Realm.

Spoiler

Actually, those lines in HoA were written ambiguously as to whether or not Vin and Spook were just remembering what Kelsier *would* have said if he were alive. Kinda of like those thoughts from Reen: the narrative suggests that some of those Reen thoughts really were just memories, and some of them were from Ruin, but not from Reen who might somehow still be alive. So what's going on with those other voices that sometimes sound like Kelsier? Was it merely memories? Was it another god? Perhaps a third god, taking on a familiar and comforting voice, just as Ruin imitated Reen? Remember HoA was published before anything about the Cognitive realm and it should not assume knowledge of its existence.

That line in Era 2 about Kelsier ascending: as I recall it was in book 2 or 3, definitely before we were supposed to read Secret History, and it was Marasi defending the tenets of her faith. That could easily be interpreted as the Church of the Survivor reimagining history to justify their veneration of Kelsier.

So no it wasn't clear that Kelsier was alive, and him staying dead would have been completely consistent with everything we knew from the story until the big surprise at the end of book 3. That surprise was a mixed bag for me: I actually enjoyed the shock on the one hand, but it also felt like deus ex machina at the same time. And that feeling didn't change for me by the end of book 4. I'm talking about the story experience which was slightly less pleasant for me because of this. I don't think the author's annotations (which I didn't read) would have changed the experience for me because they're not part of the narrative.

Secret History does do a lot to show what happened, and I appreciated it. I just wanted a little more. That's all. I felt like a lot was promised after book 3 + SH concerning Kelsier, but not enough was delivered in book 4.

I think the fact that a lot of people seek out the WoB on this topic shows that I wasn't the only one who wasn't satisfied. But my preference is to get the information in story form.

6 hours ago, Treamayne said:

What is your definition of a Mono/Multi/Polylingual? Do you only consider native speakers as multi-lingual? I ask because you repeated reference Sanderson as monolingual when he speaks at least two or three languages we know of (and likely knows tourist-level pleasantries in many more).

I knew he spent some time in Korea, but it was only 2 years and he seemed to be primarily doing church activities, so I wasn't sure of his level of fluency. I'm sure we can all think of many people who live somewhere for many years without ever getting beyond basic greetings and ordering from the menu. I don't feel that this level of ability qualifies as being able to "speak" the language. But I can give Sanderson (and his more knowledgeable fans) the benefit of doubt and assume he's perfectly fluent in Korean. In that case, he would be bilingual, but not natively since he learned as an adult.

What I was really trying to get at was that the idea of a universal translator where you hear someone else speak in "your own language" assumes that everyone is natively monolingual. However there are plenty of people who are natively bilingual who cannot tell you which language is their "primary" language, or the one they think in most. There are people in my own family like that.

7 hours ago, Treamayne said:

In Era 2, the Malwish Medallions Connect the user to the Land - so whatever the cognitive aspect of that (country/city/region) would reflect as the most predominant language is what would come out.

What about places were there's more than one language, roughly evenly split in predominance? Which language would the locals hear from a speaker Connected to the land? Or a place like Dubai where the most commonly spoken language is English (not necessarily natively), but the official language is Arabic. Which language would the locals hear from a speaker Connected to the land?

7 hours ago, Treamayne said:

But mostly, I'm confsed as to what you are singling out as distinctly American.

Off the top of my head? The banter, the snark, the type of humour, the individualism.

Even in the same language context on Earth, there's a lot of variation in how people sound. For example Harry Potter realistically depicts how you can distinguish different social classes in England from their written speech even though they're all speaking English natively. Another example: hobbits sound like they're from a different culture from the men of Gondor even though they're speaking the same native language. But the citizens of the cosmere (and Star Trek and many other worlds) sound far more uniform despite being from different planets.

16 hours ago, Firesong said:

And also, he does ultimately include more confusion with non-Connection based interlanguage communication.

You're all reminding me that were a lot more different-sounding people in Stormlight. It's been a while since I read it, but yes you're right. I could also name a few more examples from Mistborn: Sazed speaks with a higher register than Kelsier, and Marasi sounds nothing like Wayne who speaks with a drawl. But they're all from the same planet and speak the same language. Surely the aliens should sound even more different? My point is that a worldhopper sounding like a native speaker of the local language through Connection is no excuse for them to sound like they're from the same culture.

8 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Though I will note that some of the cultures in the Cosmere have not had nearly the same amount of developmental time as ours. In cases where the time differential is greater (like over a millenium of cultural change for the SoScadrians from the Basin) we do also see higher incidence of culture clash.

I did appreciate the deference they had for Allomancers (deference is not really a thing in American culture), but then it quickly morphed into deference with snark, and then the deference disappeared entirely, and Allik became the same as the Northerners except that he spoke with lots of "ya's". I know that I'm mashing language issues together with cultural issues. But that's because they are so interrelated that I can't separate them. So for example, the "ya's" were far more convincing when Allik spoke with his earlier deference. But later, it just sounded contrived.

8 hours ago, Treamayne said:

However, I would think most Worldhoppers we have seen are like dignitary visitors. A UN official isn't just going to visit <country> without at least having had a briefing on cultural consideration (e.g. some countries = "do not eat with your left hand", others = "do not show the bottom of your feet", etc.);

I would agree that worldhoppers could easily be briefed on cultural practices and values. But there's no way that they could pass as a local without years of experience.

18 hours ago, Firesong said:

Anyway, it is kinda needed to do it as he does, as a lot of the mistakes you want to see would have to require him making an in-depth conlang for every single language. Which would be a lot of work, and the result ultimately wouldn't be that satisfying, as it would just be a bunch of conversations of people being constantly confused with each other, making any progress difficult.

I do get that it would be hard to tell the stories of the cosmere if all the world hoppers have to also learn new languages/cultures. Just like it would have been hard to tell Star Trek stories without warp drive (and aliens that only have minor variations on the human anatomy). But even if I can't think of an easy solution, I still feel the trope is problematic.

If you'll be patient with me a little longer, I think I can describe what bothers me about the trope. In fantasy it's fun to think of all the possibilities. We can't fly. We can't make speed bubbles. We can't store health in metal. What it would be like in a world where people could do these things? That's fun to think about. But what the universal translator does is to take a shortcut to what is already possible. We don't have to ask what it would be like to speak a different language in a different culture, because we already know! Lots of people do it. And our experience is nothing like what is depicted in these stories. In essence, the experience and hard work of real cross-cultural emissaries is ignored and considered unimportant.

It's a little like having a magic amulet that suddenly makes you a good leader. As soon as Elend realized he was a lousy leader, he could have picked up that amulet and we could have skipped all that character development and gone straight to the "real" story about the war with Ruin. Or we could invent a metal for Wayne that when burned grants him a sense of forgiveness. I think you get my point. We understand that it wouldn't make a good story for someone to gain character qualities through magic and zero growth. But universal translators do just that: the character development necessary for different cultures to interact peaceably is granted for free through magic (or technology in sci-fi).

Like I said, I still enjoy these stories. I just have to roll my eyes and suspend disbelief whenever I read this trope.

alder24 · August 26, 2023

54 minutes ago, TheWisestBear said:

Actually, those lines in HoA were written ambiguously as to whether or not Vin and Spook were just remembering what Kelsier *would* have said if he were alive. Kinda of like those thoughts from Reen: the narrative suggests that some of those Reen thoughts really were just memories, and some of them were from Ruin, but not from Reen who might somehow still be alive. So what's going on with those other voices that sometimes sound like Kelsier? Was it merely memories? Was it another god? Perhaps a third god, taking on a familiar and comforting voice, just as Ruin imitated Reen? Remember HoA was published before anything about the Cognitive realm and it should not assume knowledge of its existence.

You don't need to put that in a spoiler box, we're in the Mistborn forum, you put things outside of the Mistborn books in spoiler boxes, like SA.

Most of Reen's voices were said by Ruin, we already had the idea that something can talk to people and those voices were written in a way to make them different from simple thoughts, specifically to make a reader question who is talking to characters. The dream Spook had after saving the city was the biggest clue that that wasn't a simple imagination. We even had Vin talking to Elend as Preservation, so it was obvious at that point that someone other than Ruin was talking to Spook and Vin in moments when they didn't have spikes.

And just because the Secret History wasn't written yet, doesn't mean that Brandon hadn't had all of that planned already - he had, he knew what was going to happen, that Kelsier will be talking to them from CR, and that he will Ascend to Preservation. That's why those clues are there, for us to realize that Kelsier is talking to them, in the same way Reen's voice was revealed to be Ruin's voice. After reading SH, it's simply a must to go back and reread at least HoA, to see those moments from Vin and Spook's perspective.

There was no third god, the "voices" of Kelsier that weren't from Kelsier were either of Ruin or just imagination.

54 minutes ago, TheWisestBear said:

That line in Era 2 about Kelsier ascending: as I recall it was in book 2 or 3, definitely before we were supposed to read Secret History, and it was Marasi defending the tenets of her faith. That could easily be interpreted as the Church of the Survivor reimagining history to justify their veneration of Kelsier.

Marasi said that even the Words of Funding said that Kel Ascended - that was said by Sazed, that was a fact, not a religious doctrine. SoS ch 14:

Quote

“The Survivor transcended death,” Marasi said, looking back, hand on the door, but not entering. “He survived even being killed, adopting the mantle of the Ascendant during the time between Preservation’s death and Vin’s Ascension.”
Rust … was she arguing theology with a demigod?
MeLaan, however, just cocked her head. “What, really?”
“Um … yes. Harmony wrote of it himself in the Words of Founding, MeLaan.”
“Huh. I really ought to read that thing one of these days.”

54 minutes ago, TheWisestBear said:

So no it wasn't clear that Kelsier was alive, and him staying dead would have been completely consistent with everything we knew from the story until the big surprise at the end of book 3. That surprise was a mixed bag for me: I actually enjoyed the shock on the one hand, but it also felt like deus ex machina at the same time. And that feeling didn't change for me by the end of book 4. I'm talking about the story experience which was slightly less pleasant for me because of this. I don't think the author's annotations (which I didn't read) would have changed the experience for me because they're not part of the narrative.

For more nerdy readers the hints were there to realize that Kelsier is alive somehow. But it's fine if people didn't make those connections. The surprise at the end of BoM was still great and it was quickly followed by SH, which explained how he survived and what he was doing, and gave us hints on how he got his body back (because we clearly saw him in his body with a spike in his eye in BoM).

It's fine if you have a different opinion on that revelation. I disagree that more hints were needed. While reading BoM I knew Kelsier is alive, but still was totally surprised by his appearance in the book, which left me wondering how he got his body back. I'm glad we didn't get the answer in TLM, as I'm far more excited about the mystery surrounding Kelsier, which is far more engaging than simply getting the answer immediately.

Kelsier in BoM served almost no purpose other than shock value, that's why I disagree that it was like deus ex machina. But technically he is alive because of deus ex machina - a god made him survive his own death. You're not that far away from the truth.

54 minutes ago, TheWisestBear said:

Secret History does do a lot to show what happened, and I appreciated it. I just wanted a little more. That's all. I felt like a lot was promised after book 3 + SH concerning Kelsier, but not enough was delivered in book 4.

There is always another secret...

I disagree. I didn't expect Kelsier to have such a big role in TLM as he had, because Era 2 is not about him. He isn't important to characters or the plot. Having more of him would just distract us from Wax, Wayne and Marasi. I'm content with the role he played and that was a teaser about the incoming Era 3, which working title is "Ghostbloods". Era 3 is about Kelsier, and the answers will come to us then. If everything important was just revealed in TLM, there would be no anticipation for Era 3, as we would already have all the answers. Brandon has to leave something out of books to include them in future books, making them better, and I think he's doing a great job in distributing information. There was already a massive amount of new information given to us in TLM, especially the revelation about the new Hemalurgic process, bringing back both Lerasium and Atium, and Harmony turning into Discord. Ghostbloods and Kelsier were just a cherry on the cake. It served its purpose, because you want more.

55 minutes ago, TheWisestBear said:

I think the fact that a lot of people seek out the WoB on this topic shows that I wasn't the only one who wasn't satisfied. But my preference is to get the information in story form.

Nah, we're just nerds. We always want more and more.

Moreover Cosmere is getting more and more relevant in Brandon's books - WoBs and annotation are the easiest way to clear up any confusion, which doesn't require you to read all of Brandon's books or to have a Silverlight Master degree in Cosmerology. It's a simple tool. You definitely should read Mistborn annotation, there is a lot of really useful information, and great explanations that simply couldn't exist in books.

mistborn Mistborn Criticisms

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