Southern Scadrians and their metalborn

[Nightstar The Bright]

I was rereading BoM and came across a very interesting sentence.
 

BoM: Chapter 21

Quote

Marasi nodded. “And he taught you this? The Sovereign?”

‘”Sure did. Saved us, bless him. Taught us that the Metalborn were pieces of God, each one of them, though we didn’t have any of those at first.”’

I mean we know that allomancers are rare, these southerners never burned lerasium, but still, they have a piece of preservation inside them. Apparently they somehow acquired Metalborn after the Catacendre. Did Kelsier do this? What do you guys think of this? How could Metalborn suddenly come into existence?

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

I mean we know that allomancers are rare, these southerners never burned lerasium, but still, they have a piece of preservation inside them. Apparently they somehow acquired Metalborn after the Catacendre. Did Kelsier do this? What do you guys think of this? How could Metalborn suddenly come into existence?

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Don't forget that you need the genetic capacity, the Connection to Preservation (Frue), and to be Snapped. If they didn't know about Allomancy before, then even if someone Snapped they would not know that did or meant anything. The Sovereign probably just taught them about Snapping and the metal tables.

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

I was rereading BoM and came across a very interesting sentence.
 

BoM: Chapter 21

I mean we know that allomancers are rare, these southerners never burned lerasium, but still, they have a piece of preservation inside them. Apparently they somehow acquired Metalborn after the Catacendre. Did Kelsier do this? What do you guys think of this? How could Metalborn suddenly come into existence?

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Just like people Snapped by Mists during HoA had no idea that they were now Allomancers, just like Alendi and others Snapped 1000 years ago had no idea as well, it's quite possible that Southerners were simply unaware that such powers, like Allomancy or Feruchemy, existed at all. They would be very weak Metalborns, because they had no genetic connection to Lerasium, so even if some were burning trace amounts of metals from their water and food, they wouldn't produce big and obvious results of their powers. Not to mention Feruchemy, where you need to touch the metal and have the intent to store a specific attribute. 

To become an Allomancer you would need to go through extremely emotional experiences, mostly painful and traumatic. Skaa, even if their lives were miserable, rarely experienced something like that. In noble families, kids were beaten almost to death to bring out their Allomantic powers. We don't know if Snapping was needed for Feruchemy, but if you need to live through something so traumatic, most Metalborns in the South would never be Snapped.

However Snapping changed after Catacendre - Harmony made it work automatically without requiring traumatic beatings. Since the Ice Death all Southerners who had enough Metalborn potential in them would just get Snapped, which would make Metalborns far more numerous - but still people would not know that they are Metalborn.

In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that Kelsier simply taught them what Metallic Arts are and how to recognize Snapping and powers they've got. Thus they "suddenly came into existence." They were always there but they didn't know they had powers, just like Vin was not aware what she can do with her "Luck." Unlike Vin, Southern Metalborn would be very weak in power, because there were no remnants of Lerasium in their Spiritual DNA - just like people Snapped by Mists were weak Alloamncers.

Spoiler

Comatose

So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

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

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Also, as a note, Alendi was an Allomancer, as the epigraph notes here. He had to be—he heard the pulsing at the Well of Ascension when nobody else could. "Ah," you might say, "but I thought that you said Allomancy didn't exist before those beads." That isn't 100% true. The legends say that Allomancy came with the Deepness. Alendi was one of the very first Allomancers, and he gained his powers as the mists began to cover the world.

That's important.

Because, of course, he was Snapped by the mists, like is happening to people in this book.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Feb. 23, 2010)

 

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)

 

Hemalurgy isn't an option. Kelsier couldn't have given them spikes to make them into Metalborns and start Metalborn lines in their society. Powers given by Hemalurgy are not transferable to offspring. And they can't reuse their spikes for 300 years because those would practically lose all of their power and become useless - even if creating medallions with Hemalurgy is easier to do than without. They have to have natural Metalborns in their population, thus it's more likely Kelsier just made them aware of those powers. However he might have given them also the knowledge of Hemalurgy, so they can spike powers out of dying people and give them to young ones to not lose precious Metalborns (less likely due to moral issues but still possible, Kelsier by this time knew a lot about Hemalurgy). 

Spoiler

Questioner

I wondered if an Inquisitor had children, if they would inherit stronger Inquisitor abilities, or if they would just inherit the lesser lines from being a Seeker, for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. I don't think I've ever been asked this before... The way Hemalurgy works, if you're not aware, you are taking someone else's soul, and you are basically nailing it to your soul... That won't affect the children. So you will have the weaker lines.

They have tried that. Unfortunately.

Berlin signing (May 14, 2019)

 

Spoiler

Mojonero

Back before the Final Ascension, if you had a full Feruchemist and a Mistborn, both with access and knowledge of all 16 metals, could they make medallions without the use of Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

If they knew what to do maybe. Much easier with Hemalurgy - but it would be possible.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

[Nightstar The Bright]

6 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Don't forget that you need the genetic capacity, the Connection to Preservation (Frue), and to be Snapped. If they didn't know about Allomancy before, then even if someone Snapped they would not know that did or meant anything. The Sovereign probably just taught them about Snapping and the metal tables.

Ahh, that’s a good explanation, the modern southerners probably just assume the sovereign made the Metalborn but yeah, thanks.