Issue with Era 2

[CtrlAltDepressed]

Hi All. 

 

This is an issue Ive had in the back of my mind since I read era 2 and I'm hoping you all can reason me through it. 

 

We see in Era 2 that spikes made from Trellium are able to shield Kandra from Harmony's sight. This is a huge revelation that leaves the Kandra and Set investigating further into the Metallic Arts as clearly there are things they haven't figured out (what secrets of Rashek will we never know?).  

 

My issue is this - why, in all of these scientific experiments did no one try burning Trellium or using it as a metalmind?

 

The Set would know the history of Lerasium and Atium and were given Trellium by Autonomy. It seems like a plot hole that they would only use this new metal in one of their three Metallic arts. If it has no function in the other two, why not mention that quickly either in text or ars arcanum or in person? 

 

There were no mistborn, did they just not try because of this? The Atium retcon was put in because God Metals should be burnable by anyone. This seems like a plot hole to me.

 

Sorry if this has been discussed before. 

[Treamayne]

28 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

The Set would know the history of Lerasium and Atium and were given Trellium by Autonomy.

Why would they know this? It's not in the Words of Founding and while Sazed mentions the bead and how it changed Elend, he never calls it Lerasium or montions that any Shard Metal should work for anybody (in fact, it reads to me like he's implying only this one type of bead works for normal people - by granting Allomancy). 

28 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

why, in all of these scientific experiments did no one try burning Trellium or using it as a metalmind?

We don't know if they did or did not try those things, we only know that the Protagonists never discovered such records. However, it felt (to me) like they were laser focused on Hemalurgy, because (as Edwarn says) they felt powers should be held by those that deserve them (BoM Ch 27):

Spoiler

“The old world is dying, Waxillium!” Edwarn said. “I told you that a new one will soon be born, a world where men like you don’t belong.”

“I can find my place in a world of airships.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Suit said. “I’m talking about the secrets, Waxillium. The world where constables exist only to make people feel secure. It will be a world of shadows, of hidden government. The shift is already happening. Those who rule these days are not the men who smile at crowds and make speeches.”

Edwarn moved around a corpse, then followed Wax’s blood trail with his eyes. Only a few more steps.

“The day of kings has passed,” Edwarn said. “The day of mighty men to be worshiped has gone, and with its passing goes the right of Allomancers to power. No more will their gifts hinge on the whims of fate. Instead, the powers will come to those who deserve them. Who can use them.”

 

28 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

There were no mistborn, did they just not try because of this? The Atium retcon was put in because God Metals should be burnable by anyone. This seems like a plot hole to me.

But I'm not sure they even know about Era 1 Atium not being real Atium, since Harmony is possibly hiding that information even from Marsh. WoB:

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)

Other WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

Would there be a new effect if an Allomancer burned the metal of Paalm's spike?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Excellent question

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

Quote

Argent

Was Harmony unable to find [Bleeder] because the spike was made of this metal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. The spike was what prevented him from being able to find her.

Argent

It wasn't an ability granted by the spike.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Argent

It was just the material.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

 

 

Hope that helps

Edited April 25 by Treamayne
SPAG

[The Stormfather]

I sort of thought that the set had been experimenting with Trellium or Harmonium from a line Telsin says in Lost Metal.

Spoiler

"Actually, it won't. Did you know that a feruchemist can store their pain in a metalmind?" 

This lead me to believe that you could store pain in either Trellium or Harmonium.

[Koloss17]

25 minutes ago, The Stormfather said:

I sort of thought that the set had been experimenting with Trellium or Harmonium from a line Telsin says in Lost Metal.

  Hide contents

"Actually, it won't. Did you know that a feruchemist can store their pain in a metalmind?" 

This lead me to believe that you could store pain in either Trellium or Harmonium.

Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. They were using the almighty Tinmind. Pain is, at least for Mistborn purposes, a sense!

[The Stormfather]

Oh, it is...

Oops.

[Aetherbound]

2 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. They were using the almighty Tinmind. Pain is, at least for Mistborn purposes, a sense!

Or a Coppermind to store memories of that pain.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

We don't know if they did or did not try those things, we only know that the Protagonists never discovered such records. However, it felt (to me) like they were laser focused on Hemalurgy, because (as Edwarn says) they felt powers should be held by those that deserve them (BoM Ch 27):

I don't see how this prevents them from trying it. Their goal from Autonomy was to demonstrate their power in such a way to convince her that Scadrians can take care of themselves. If that is the goal, why wouldn't they try everything? 

 

Most of my issue is on the Brandon side of things. I think the story works and I like the story, I don't think its current state needed someone burning Trellium to be a good story or anything like that. But Im just confused / slightly frustrated that Brandon made that retcon for Atium specifically because he wanted god metals to be burnable by anyone, includes another god metal in the burning metals books, and doesnt even mention someone trying to burn it.  

 

I would be totally ok with a single line from a Set scientist 'We tried burning it and it did nothing' (that they can tell) or 'We tried burning it and the guy exploded' but we dont get any mention of even people being interested in exploring the other metallic art implementations of Trellium.

 

Even if they don't know about Lerasium and Atium, this is the burning metals planet. Even unaware Scadrians will know that a metal like steel has (at least) three magical uses. Why, when given a metal they KNOW is from a shard, would they only experiment with Hemalurgy?

 

The Words of Founding go into a lot of depth with Feruchemy, and the only written 'instructions' for Hemalurgy are from Spook, which the Set did not have. It seems like a plot hole to me that they would exclusively try experiments with the least known of the metallic arts when given a new metal. 

 

Why make all the god metals burnable if the series that could have used it / mentioned it, doesnt bring it up at all? Why is this a mechanic at all? 

 

Does Brandon have one specific scene in mind that he wants to write that involves burning a not Pres/Ruin god metal so hes made this mechanic? 

 

It just doesnt make sense to me that he would do the retcon AND make trellium an integral part of the story and not mention 2/3 metallic arts. 

[Treamayne]

30 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I don't see how this prevents them from trying it.

I did not say it prevents them from trying. I merely indicated that I think their priorities were elsewhere and that I doubt the "logical leap" is as easy in-world as you seem to think it would be. Not a Scadrial WoB - but related tangentially:

Spoiler

Oversleep

I got a question about this and last week's epigraph.

The metals Fused use. How come nobody knows, guesses or even suspects that aluminium and its alloys are Investiture resistant? They know you can Soulcast something into aluminium, so they should also know it's impossible to Soulcast aluminium into something else.

And once they know about metal that cannot be Soulcast, they start experimenting with fabrials - they used that in construction of Fourth Bridge - and then the logical step is to test it against Shardblades.Probably experimenting with alloys of aluminium, too.

Yet the metal Fused use to make weapons resistant to Shardweapons is a mystery to them?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Brandon Sanderson

They're getting to answers here. Problem is, metallurgy just isn't a big science on Roshar. I feel it's one of those things that is more easy to see externally than internally--and do remember that there are things like god metals (Shardblades, for example) that also behave strangely around investiture. They have far more experience with those than aluminum, which is more of a little historical oddity to them than a big revolutionary part of science. Add to that the fact that some of the metals the fused are using aren't aluminum, and...well, I don't think it's as obvious a leap as you're making it out to be.

Rhythm of War Preview Q&As (Nov. 4, 2020)

Look at the history of Science IRL - humans knew lightning was conducted by metal for centuries (or longer) before somebody thought "hey can I make this flow through a copper wire to make that filament glow." It's about challenging assumptions and really exploring possibilities. Ironically, had the Set shared some of their studies, the chances these would have been found increase exponentially - but, like an "corporate/government" funded science you end up with executive meddling. . . 
. . . And, in this case, I took that to be "The Set wants Hemalurgy, we are paying you to study Hemalurgy and make <this> work. Now do what you are told."

From an assumption stand-point - it seemed like the Set "knew"

• There is only metal that can be allomantically burned by a non-allomancer, and those beads no longer exist
• There is no such thing as a Metalmind that can be tapped or stored by a non-ferring 
  • (at least until they meet the SoScads in BoM - which still implied limited to known metals but using tech tricks)
• Hemalurgy is all about giving power to a Non-MetalBorn - that's the art we want!

Why would they challenge those assumptions? It takes a certain mindset to challenge millenia old "knowledge" (of course the world is flat - just look in any direction) and even when a subset does know something (The Vikings discovered North America centuries before Columbus, who didn't even find the continent - just the Caribbean Islands) that knowledge has to be shared before a society as a whole begins to advance their understanding. 

I'm not saying you are wrong to think as you do, I'm just trying to help explain why I do not think as you do (on this topic). 

From a narrative perspective, it's likely because much of this was always intended for the next trilogy. Another tangential WoB (Resonances rather than GodMetals):

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The "perks" ("secondary effect born with interaction between powers") also has not a 100% sure name, but the main one at the moment is resonances....We will discovered a lot of the in the third trilogy where the Scientific Method would be applied to the magic.

Lucca Comics and Games Festival (Oct. 28, 2016)

Scadrial is barely starting their Scientific Revolution and actually exploring and learning about what is and what can be. I would guess Brandon is saving GodMetal stuff for Era 3 and 4. 

[Espella]

For the Set, we don't know if they did or not, but looking from their perspective any Trellium spike they get is another potential hemalurgist they can shield from Harmony, which was probably more immediately appealing than using their limited amounts of it to work out its allomantic and feruchemical attributes. As far as I remember they never covered how exactly the Set gets the Trellium, but I assume Autonomy had to give it to them directly, and I would assume that Autonomy only gave it to members who had proven themselves with a specific use in mind. Admittedly their multiple test runs of the explosives and the fact that they worked that reaction out in the first place makes this theory a bit weaker, but you could say that they were experimenting with spikes they had recovered from fallen members (which wouldn't be able to be used for feruchemy or allomancy but could still be used to split harmonium just fine) or one of the scientists really impressed Autonomy and got a small amount to work with, then once they found it out and the whole bomb plan Telsin took charge and was rewarded with the resources they needed to execute the plan. Any efforts to do large scale research on the allomantic or feruchemical abilities of Trellium would likely be shut down by the Set as just not being a practical use of resources, given that they know how to use it for hemalurgy to access a set of powers that are already well understood. Consequently, if the power is something more esoteric than the normal allomantic abilities, getting a few one-off experiments approved probably wouldn't be enough to figure out how it works and not worth a mention, especially how feruchemists have had ~300 years to work on the spiritual metals and still don't know much about how those work.

For the kandra and our protagonists, the simple answer is that nobody wanted to risk getting Trell's attention or doing something damaging to themselves by burning the metal. I'd be hesitant to burn it myself in their situation, given that they have no idea what the power would be (and they didn't even know what shard Trell was until Lost Metal, so no guessing based on intent). Also any Trellium they did have would be spikes they took from the Set and you can't burn those anyway.

Edited April 25 by Espella

[Heilven]

57 minutes ago, Espella said:

As far as I remember they never covered how exactly the Set gets the Trellium, but I assume Autonomy had to give it to them directly, and I would assume that Autonomy only gave it to members who had proven themselves with a specific use in mind. Admittedly their multiple test runs of the explosives and the fact that they worked that reaction out in the first place makes this theory a bit weaker, but you could say that they were experimenting with spikes they had recovered from fallen members (which wouldn't be able to be used for feruchemy or allomancy but could still be used to split harmonium just fine) or one of the scientists really impressed Autonomy and got a small amount to work with, then once they found it out and the whole bomb plan Telsin took charge and was rewarded with the resources they needed to execute the plan. Any efforts to do large scale research on the allomantic or feruchemical abilities of Trellium would likely be shut down by the Set as just not being a practical use of resources

This was certainly my first thought. Trellium would have been fat too rare for them to waste it on attempting to burn it. Any small piece would have been valuable. 

This compounds with them not knowing that anyone could burn any godmetal, or even what a godmetal even is.

I wanted to add, however, that as far as I know, if they did try to burn trellium it really shouldn't have done anything. From my understanding, the ability to burn godmetals requires a connection to the shard in question. So anyone born on scadrial could have burned lerasium or atium, but a random rosharan couldn't. I couldn't say how connected the members of the set were to Autonomy, but I wouldn't be shocked if they just wouldn't have been able to. 

[alder24]

23 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Hi All. 

This is an issue Ive had in the back of my mind since I read era 2 and I'm hoping you all can reason me through it. 

We see in Era 2 that spikes made from Trellium are able to shield Kandra from Harmony's sight. This is a huge revelation that leaves the Kandra and Set investigating further into the Metallic Arts as clearly there are things they haven't figured out (what secrets of Rashek will we never know?).  

My issue is this - why, in all of these scientific experiments did no one try burning Trellium or using it as a metalmind?

The Set would know the history of Lerasium and Atium and were given Trellium by Autonomy. It seems like a plot hole that they would only use this new metal in one of their three Metallic arts. If it has no function in the other two, why not mention that quickly either in text or ars arcanum or in person? 

There were no mistborn, did they just not try because of this? The Atium retcon was put in because God Metals should be burnable by anyone. This seems like a plot hole to me.

Sorry if this has been discussed before. 

Firstly, I'm gonna start by saying that when Brandon says "anyone can burn god metals" he means any Allomancer, not every person in Cosmere. Only Lerasium is different, as Lerasium granting Allomancy is just a side effect and an Allomancer burning it would do something else. This is my opinion, I think some WoB points towards that conclusion, but that's debatable.

As it was said by others before me, the knowledge about god metals on Scadrial is very basic, they don't even know that Era 1 Atium was just an alloy and not a pure god metal as they think it was. And what do they know about this supposedly pure god metal - it can be burned only by either a full Mistborn, or a specific kind of a Misting created by Preservation to specifically burn this god metal (they didn't know they were just electrum Mistings). So Scadrians know that it takes a special person to burn god metals, but those are absent from their society for at least 200 years now, as Spook was the last full Mistborn alive. Why even try this when you know you have no hopes of succeeding?

Another factor is the intent. It's not as easy as swallowing a metal and burning it (while it mostly seems like that's it from Vin's experiences in Era 1), it's a bit more complicated than that - that complexity prevented Inquisitors from gaining the ability of compounding, despite the fact that they'd started to mix Feruchemy and Allomancy after Rashek's death. Compounding is just Allomancy with a new type of metal, but to actually burn those metals you need to have an understanding of what's happening and what it might do to you. A kind of understanding that would take some time to develop when trying to burn a new type of a god metal. Set might have concluded that Trellium does nothing (or that it can't be burnt) because they've failed to develop this proper intent - if they even tried burning it at all, which I think is doubtful.

Spoiler

Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 3, 2015)

 

In terms of using Trellium as a metalmind, we're going back to my first point - they really had no idea that god metals can be used Feruchemically by "anyone," truthfully we don't know that either. There was never any example of someone who was not a Feruchemist that was using a god metals, we only know that Atium-electrum alloy can be used (they believe it's pure Atium) but for that they need to be a full Feruchemist - those are gone now. There is no point in trying when they know they will fail. Moreover I believe that it's not as simple as touching a god metal and storing something - again, you need to know what it does, you need to know what attribute to store, you need to have this proper, very specific intent. You can't just randomly store something without knowing what it is. Set had no chance of actually succeeding by their understanding so why waste precious resources in vain when they can use Hemalurgy, an art that literally anybody can use and they know that.

And with that I think it's pretty reasonable why nobody ever tried to use Trellium Allomantically and Feruchemically. Scadrians believe that you need to be either a full Mistborn or a Feruchemist to make use of god metals and those are gone in Era 2. Additionally you have to have a proper intent, which encompasses understanding, which is hard enough to develop that even Inquisitors who knew of compounding, never succeeded in doing that after Rashek's death (Marsh for example).

Then there is one question left to answer - why we've never heard about any Set attempts to burn Trellium. The answer is comically simple - we had no PoV of theirs, the story was focused on Wax, Wayne and Marasi, not Set members. Our protagonists weren't members of Set to actually know about their experiments with Trellium - we've only seen their successful effects. Autonomy's god metal was always a mystery for W&W and therefore for us. 

 

But I do agree with you that this issue should be mentioned in the series somewhere. I wish Brandon addressed Atium retcon in Era 2 and what it means "anyone can burn god metals" and using Trellium to explain this would be great, even if nothing were to happen. But for me it’s more like a missed opportunity rather than a plot hole.

 

19 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

The Words of Founding go into a lot of depth with Feruchemy, and the only written 'instructions' for Hemalurgy are from Spook, which the Set did not have. It seems like a plot hole to me that they would exclusively try experiments with the least known of the metallic arts when given a new metal. 

Actually Set gained their knowledge about Hemalurgy from interrogating someone who knew a lot about it, but didn't want to cooperate (that excludes Paalm). We don't really know who that was, in my opinion there are only three people that fit this - Kelsier, Marsh and Spook if he's still alive (which is likely, he has cadmium). I doubt Kelsier, the Ghostbloods' leader would allow himself to be caught by Set, I doubt Marsh the Death with all his powers would also be caught by Set, so that really leaves Spook, or some unknown person/Kandra as the only option. Either way, they still had to spend years to get where we saw them in Era 2. It took them at most 6 years to jump from 3 spikes to 4 and to make a better Chimera with 2 spikes - and that was when they were already advanced in their knowledge of Hemalurgy.

Spoiler

BTill232

Where and how did the Set learn about Hemalurgy initially? Hemalurgy did not seem to be common knowledge, at least to Wayne and Marasi when given the book by Marsh, but the Set seems to know all about it anyway.

Brandon Sanderson

So, yes, it was not common knowledge. There was some help from Autonomy on this, but it also involved the interrogation of somebody on-world that did not want to be interrogated.

And then a whole lot of experimentation. They had years to play with this. They didn't come right out of the gate knowing exactly how to do it.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

And because it took them years to succeed in using Trellium Hemalurgically, I highly doubt that they would waste time and Trellium to figure out how to use it with Allomancy or Feruchemy, especially when they believed that only a full Mistborn/Feruchemist can utilize them in those arts. 

[Trusk'our]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Actually Set gained their knowledge about Hemalurgy from interrogating someone who knew a lot about it, but didn't want to cooperate (that excludes Paalm). We don't really know who that was, in my opinion there are only three people that fit this - Kelsier, Marsh and Spook if he's still alive (which is likely, he has cadmium). I doubt Kelsier, the Ghostbloods' leader would allow himself to be caught by Set, I doubt Marsh the Death with all his powers would also be caught by Set, so that really leaves Spook, or some unknown person/Kandra as the only option. Either way, they still had to spend years to get where we saw them in Era 2. It took them at most 6 years to jump from 3 spikes to 4 and to make a better Chimera with 2 spikes - and that was when they were already advanced in their knowledge of Hemalurgy.

  Hide contents

BTill232

Where and how did the Set learn about Hemalurgy initially? Hemalurgy did not seem to be common knowledge, at least to Wayne and Marasi when given the book by Marsh, but the Set seems to know all about it anyway.

Brandon Sanderson

So, yes, it was not common knowledge. There was some help from Autonomy on this, but it also involved the interrogation of somebody on-world that did not want to be interrogated.

And then a whole lot of experimentation. They had years to play with this. They didn't come right out of the gate knowing exactly how to do it.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

This is news to me.

I thought it was just Auto telling them, but now an unnamed Hemalurgist was involved?

[alder24]

45 minutes ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

This is news to me.

I thought it was just Auto telling them, but now an unnamed Hemalurgist was involved?

There is always another WoB  

[CtrlAltDepressed]

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

But for me it’s more like a missed opportunity rather than a plot hole.

This is much closer to what I meant, thank you. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Actually Set gained their knowledge about Hemalurgy from interrogating someone who knew a lot about it, but didn't want to cooperate (that excludes Paalm). We don't really know who that was, in my opinion there are only three people that fit this - Kelsier, Marsh and Spook if he's still alive (which is likely, he has cadmium). I doubt Kelsier, the Ghostbloods' leader would allow himself to be caught by Set, I doubt Marsh the Death with all his powers would also be caught by Set, so that really leaves Spook, or some unknown person/Kandra as the only option.

Always another WOB, indeed. I didn't know this either.

 

ROW Spoilers

Spoiler

What are your thoughts on Spook being sixteen? I remember there was a thread about how using cadmium bubbles he could be using time dilation to still be alive in current time (era 2). 

 

[alder24]

1 minute ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

ROW Spoilers

  Hide contents

What are your thoughts on Spook being sixteen? I remember there was a thread about how using cadmium bubbles he could be using time dilation to still be alive in current time (era 2). 

RoW spoilers:

Spoiler

I think that's a quite likely possibility. But this would require quite a lot of cadmium as he would have to burn it with duralumin, otherwise he would be forced to eat, drink and produce waste from time to time. Spren remarked that he never did that so that's why duralumin burning would be needed. That or a bendalloy medallion, which he might have access to as Spook. But cadmium is expensive and rare, so I'm not 100% sold on that. 

 

[Heilven]

On 4/26/2024 at 8:53 AM, alder24 said:

Firstly, I'm gonna start by saying that when Brandon says "anyone can burn god metals" he means any Allomancer, not every person in Cosmere. Only Lerasium is different, as Lerasium granting Allomancy is just a side effect and an Allomancer burning it would do something else. This is my opinion, I think some WoB points towards that conclusion, but that's debatable

I'm interested in how you came to this decision. Obviously we don't have much in the way of evidence either way, but it makes plenty of sense to me that you don't need to be an allomancer to burn metals.

Allomancy is about burning a metal to draw investiture from the Spiritual Realm and filter it using the molecular structure. But shardmetals are investiture, you don't need to draw investiture from anywhere, the imvestiture is the metal. 

In addition, I can't think of any mechanical reason why burning lerasium should be any different. You don't have allomancy before you burn it, it would be odd for it to behave differently than others in this case. 

It's difficult to truly argue this, since it requires an understanding of shardmetals that we really don't have, and is cryptic at best. So this is me taking my best stab at it with the information we do have.

On 4/26/2024 at 8:53 AM, alder24 said:

Another factor is the intent. It's not as easy as swallowing a metal and burning it

I think there's a lot of textual evidence at this point to disprove this specific point. Elend and Wax both burned Lerasium unconsciously, with Wax not realizing at all. Elend even burned pewter completely unconsciously without knowing he was an allomancer, and I think it's likely Wax burned metals other than steel in TLM, perhaps even Atium.

Obviously intent is important in allomancy, but we've seen that it pretty much is as easy as consuming a metal and trying to burn it. I think intent is much more important in feruchemy, which certain leads to compounding being a learned skill.

On 4/26/2024 at 8:53 AM, alder24 said:

In terms of using Trellium as a metalmind, we're going back to my first point - they really had no idea that god metals can be used Feruchemically by "anyone," truthfully we don't know that either. There was never any example of someone who was not a Feruchemist that was using a god metals, we only know that Atium-electrum alloy can be used (they believe it's pure Atium)

To this point I agree with you. I think there are pretty major mechanical differences between the two magic systems, since you are the supply of investiture in feruchemy. To this end, there is no mechanical difference between shardmetals and regular metals, the investiture is coming from the same place. 

On 4/26/2024 at 8:53 AM, alder24 said:

Then there is one question left to answer - why we've never heard about any Set attempts to burn Trellium. The answer is comically simple - we had no PoV of theirs, the story was focused on Wax, Wayne and Marasi, not Set members. Our protagonists weren't members of Set to actually know about their experiments with Trellium - we've only seen their successful effects. Autonomy's god metal was always a mystery for W&W and therefore for us. 

I certainly agree with you here as well. In addition, I think it's possible that they did try to burn trellium, succeeded, but found that what it did wasn't particularly useful. There are a lot of different permutations of that idea, maybe it is useful but just not nearly as useful as it's hemalurgic properties. Or maybe it had an effect, but they couldn't tell what the full extent was and figured it wasn't useful, like Vin and duralumin. There are definitely a lot of reasons why we may not have heard about it.

On 4/26/2024 at 8:53 AM, alder24 said:

But I do agree with you that this issue should be mentioned in the series somewhere. I wish Brandon addressed Atium retcon in Era 2 and what it means "anyone can burn god metals" and using Trellium to explain this would be great, even if nothing were to happen. But for me it’s more like a missed opportunity rather than a plot hole

My hope is that Sandy intended for a lot of the exploration to be in Era 3, considering that Era 2 was never meant to be a proper Era to begin with. It would be very disappointing if Nalatium was never truly brought up in the text.

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Heilven said:

I'm interested in how you came to this decision.

It's not a decision, it is based on WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

word_thief

What would happen if a Mistborn ingested the metal of a Shardblade/Plate?

Brandon Sanderson

A Shardblade is Invested. A Mistborn isn't likely to have a tie to that type of Investiture. So probably nothing would happen…

General Twitter 2013 (Oct. 24, 2013)

Quote

Dave Smith

Can a Mistborn burn any god metal such as tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they could.

Footnote: Previously Brandon indicated they would need a tie to that type of Investiture.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

Quote

NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

So, based on the current understanding (which, of course may be incomplete or change): Any Scadrian can burn Lerasium and Pure Atium because every Scadrian has ties to both Shards based on how that world and it's population was made. Not any Rosharan could "burn" Tanavastium because they do not have any Allomancy in their Spiritweb allowing them to "burn a metal for an effect." Hoid could burn Tanavastium because he does have connections to that inverstiture through his Radiant bond as well as being a Lerasium Mistborn. Lerasium may be burnable by non-Scadrians - but it's unclear because of Hoid - since the effect of Lerasium is making a Connection to Preservation. Otherwise, an Allomancer would have to have a tie to the investiture from which the Godmetal is formed, in order to burn that Godmetal. 

Hope that helps

3 hours ago, Heilven said:

Wax burned metals other than steel in TLM, perhaps even Atium.

He is shown as burning Iron in Ch 25. That was the point of Harmony's prepared vials - to have wax unconsciously test if he was a weak Mistborn due to his experiments:

Spoiler

 Then he looked up and saw one of his vials tumbling downward, and he momentarily increased his weight once again to slow his fall and draw even with the vial. He stretched out his arm, reaching for it, but it was inches away, just beyond his fingertips …

Snap. The vial fell into his palm.

3 hours ago, Heilven said:

Obviously intent is important in allomancy, but we've seen that it pretty much is as easy as consuming a metal and trying to burn it.

Well, it seems that easy with the 16 Allomantic Metals (Vin did not know the effects of Aluminum when Kar made her burn it, either) - but I think it is a stretch to say that would pply to Godmetals of Investiture entirely unrelated to Allomancy.

Edited April 28 by Treamayne
SPAG, Clarity, examples

[therunner]

8 hours ago, Treamayne said:

It's not a decision, it is based on WoBs:

  Hide contents

 

So, based on the current understanding (which, of course may be incomplete or change): Any Scadrian can burn Lerasium and Pure Atium because every Scadrian has ties to both Shards based on how that world and it's population was made. Not any Rosharan could "burn" Tanavastium because they do not have any Allomancy in their Spiritweb allowing them to "burn a metal for an effect."

Nothing in the WoBs you quote supports that Godmetals are not burnable by anyone, they solely talk about Mistborn and Hoid.

This WoB is rather clear that there are other Godmetals anyone could burn (and it might be all of them, since Atium should be burnable by anyone as well)

Quote

mail-mi

We know that any person can burn lerasium. Are there other God Metals that any person can burn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

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

 

Spoiler

It is possible that Scadrian could not burn Shardblade because it is living entity, so Identity would interfere. But Tanavastium that is not part of living entity could be fair game.

 

Edited April 28 by therunner

[alder24]

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

I'm interested in how you came to this decision. Obviously we don't have much in the way of evidence either way, but it makes plenty of sense to me that you don't need to be an allomancer to burn metals.

Lerasium is burnable by anyone - Eland proved it - Lerasium alloys are as well, we know this from WoBs, they make you into Mistings. But why Atium alloys aren't burnable by anyone? You have to already be a Misting of the specific alloy part to burn it, in the case of Atium-electrum alloy, you need to be able to burn electrum to burn that alloy. This is one thing that suggests to me that god metals in general aren't burnable by literally anyone in Cosmere, but only to all kinds of Allomancers. And while in many WoBs Brandon just says "Atium should be burnable by anyone, it's a god metal," in this one (which is the main reason why I think this way), he talks about how he wishes he made Atium burnable specifically by all Allomancers and that it will work like this in movies. In my opinion this just makes more sense and it's more elegant. Plus all WoBs ask what would happen if a Mistborn were to burn a different god metals and it's always about Allomancers, not a normal person - but that's also how the questions were phrased, it's not an obvious clue. I really wish Brandon would clarify who are those "anyone" that can burn god metals. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

So, one thing I think I did wrong in the books was not having more allomancer guards and soldiers who were women. I don't think our same gender norms would be the case on Scadrial.

One of the [screenplay] revisions is this: Shan is no longer Elend's fiance, but his sister. Their father has left on business to the outer domninances, and so Shan is making a play to secure the heirship, trying to prove she is more bold and strong than her brother. This is what gives the team an opening, and why they're striking now with the heist, as in this version, House Venture maintains the city policing and has access to the atium stash.

The plan is to put a few Allomancers (including Ham) into the Venture house guard, and exploit Shan's desire to prove herself by creating chaos in the city that she'll think she needs to put down with decisive action. That will involve her pulling out the atium stash, which will in turn let the team know where to go to rob them.

It streamlines the book's story in some elegant ways to do this. Shan becomes the primary "mark" of the book, in many ways. It also lets me explain a little more succinctly what various members of the crew are doing in the background while we focus on Vin, who is to get close to Shan as a confidant--which is why she's sent to the parties. And why Shan being a brat to her isn't just annoying, it means a major part of the plan isn't yet in place.

It explains way better, in my opinion, why Shan would act against Elend. It's all clicking into place as I move pieces around. That said, I understand those who want a Television show. I could see going that way, perhaps.

Trouble is, nobody in streaming needs a big fantasy property. Anywhere I go right now, I'd be in a distant second or third place to Tolkien, WoT, Witcher, or Kingkiller. The offers I've gotten have been for a fraction of the budget of those shows--since everyone has already spent big money on their big fantasy show, and isn't really interested in another.

I'm confident feature is the place I want Mistborn; but even if I weren't, I'm not thrilled by the idea of being lost on Netflix as their "other" fantasy show.

Rapharasium

I don't know if I'm being negative, but these changes really worry and disappoint me. I really like Era 1 as it is, and all this change in the dynamics of society and the plot as too drastic.

Brandon Sanderson

This isn't negative; I understand this response, and think it's valid.

At the same time, I'm of the personal philosophy that a film should generally be a different beast than a book--a book can lean into the little intricacies of a story, while a film should be a bold but unified statement.

Nothing will happen to the books; those will remain the same. But if I want this film to work as a film, I believe I need to be willing to re-imagine parts of the story.

Mycroft_canner

With Elend having a sister does that mean you don’t need the Zane plot anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

That's from the second book--so it would be in the television show, and we'd likely still do it.

DataLoreHD

prove she is more bold and strong than her brother

Which brother?It certainly could not be Elend, right? Elend had no Allomancy powers (before he ate the lerasium in WoA), so Straff despised Elend and thought him too weak.And Zane was a bastard and also mad dog.If Shan was Straff's legitimate daughter, then her succession was already 100% secure. She wouldn't need to prove anything to anybody.

Brandon Sanderson

It will be Elend, but it's more that this is the first time that Shan gets to be on her own, leading by herself, and wants to show off for the Lord Ruler. Also, there's the question of whether the male heir--though inferior in this case--might get the nod for sexism reasons. I think it's going to work just fine, but I'll admit, it's getting a little rough to discuss all these details on a thread like this--I can't answer everyone's questions, I'm afraid. I just wanted to indicate the kinds of changes I'm looking at making.

Whatever I do will go through my standard "show it to tons of beta readers and get feedback" process, so I should be able to catch problems and fix them.

meh84f

The bit about atium is a bit confusing. The Ventures are going to have the Atium stash? Not the stash that we don’t find until the end I’m assuming? So it’ll be a stash but much smaller than expected?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'm not sure I can explain it all in this, but one big change I wished I'd made from the start of Mistborn is making atium usable by all Allomancers. As I've gotten further in the cosmere, using a god metal as just for Mistborn has felt off.

So the lore change for the films will mean any Allomancer can use atium. This, in turn, lets House Venture have access to the LR's atium as a "Control the city" last resort. They keep a task force of allomancers for this purpose--which Ham can join, in anticipation of being able to steal it once Shan accesses it. (They don't know that House Venture is only given about a hundred beads of atium, not access to the full mythical cache, which will be reserved for the third movie.)

Makes the worldbuilding and storytelling more elegant, I've found, in the film. And it fits better with more "modern" cosmere fundamentals as have developed over the last decade. I think I'd make this change even if we moved to a television show and long form.

The Lord Ruler is still the "big bad" but Shan and the Inquisitors both get a little more screen time. (Actually, about the same as in the books--it's just that other parts are being trimmed, making them more front-and-center.)

Phantine

Based on that, you're also streamlining away the Sign of Sixteen if it gets a sequel? To be honest, that didn't really work for me in the novel anyway.

Brandon Sanderson

It's one of my least favorite parts of the trilogy. It (along with Vin drawing upon the mists in book one) are big changes I'm hoping to make to fix weaker sections of the continuity.

General Reddit 2020 (June 22, 2020)

 

Spoiler

word_thief

What would happen if a Mistborn ingested the metal of a Shardblade/Plate?

Brandon Sanderson

A Shardblade is Invested. A Mistborn isn't likely to have a tie to that type of Investiture. So probably nothing would happen…

General Twitter 2013 (Oct. 24, 2013)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If a Mistborn were to burn a piece of a Shardblade, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

This would be hard to make happen, but it would be possible. A Shardblade is going to act as, basically, an alloy of the god metal of Honor and so  what would it do? RAFO, but it is possible and it would do something. It would not be inert. It would be Allomanticaly viable.

Footnote: This question was also addressed here.
Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

In addition, I can't think of any mechanical reason why burning lerasium should be any different. You don't have allomancy before you burn it, it would be odd for it to behave differently than others in this case. 

It's Preservation's god metal, it's a gift that grants you strength and preserves your soul - for the same reason Endowment grants Breaths with no strings attached. It's the nature of those specific Shards. I expect Edglium to work like Lerasium as well - burnable by anyone in Cosmere. giving you a side-effect, but the main effect of those god metals is reachable only by Allomancers (from WoB: "if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else").

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

It's difficult to truly argue this, since it requires an understanding of shardmetals that we really don't have, and is cryptic at best. So this is me taking my best stab at it with the information we do have.

Yes, that's just my speculation. We know too little. I just threw it out there to point out such possibility exists.

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

I think there's a lot of textual evidence at this point to disprove this specific point. Elend and Wax both burned Lerasium unconsciously, with Wax not realizing at all. Elend even burned pewter completely unconsciously without knowing he was an allomancer, and I think it's likely Wax burned metals other than steel in TLM, perhaps even Atium.

And I will reference the WoB I've posted to this point - that's your body's intent in action, that's your body burning metals very slightly, rather than you. You’re burning it subconsciously only because your body has its own intent - to survive - and it will reach any available source of investiture to keep you alive. In Vin's case it was burning pewter, in Elend it reached for Lerasium, Wax reached for other metals etc. As the WoB I've posted said, your body knows what to do and it will slowly burn those metals, providing the intent, but that's not the same as your conscious intent to burn metals. 

All of those cases happened when they were in a dire need of this additional power. Vin was burning pewter when she was being beaten up, healing, or burning brass to avoid being beaten up, Elend burned Lerasium when he was dying, Wax burned pewter to survive Wayne's explosion, maybe iron to grab vials when falling to his death, maybe tin when he was desperately trying to look for a solution on the top of the tower etc. None of them just burned metals when walking down the street, or when nothing was happening, they all needed this power to survive, or avoid something bad happening to them - that's when their body's intent kicked in and burned metals for them. 

Spoiler

Aradanftw

[...] and Vin both have used magic subconsciously. [...], and Vin burning pewter while being beaten. Does that mean that Intent is not always required, or is a simple Intent like "I will be strong" enough to activate the magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to go with the simple Intent answer that you're giving there. So, at the basic level... the more specific and the more powerful you want to be, the more you need to understand your Intent, is where this is. The body has an Intent. [...] uses the magic while he's unconscious, right? The Intent is survive, basically the body knowing it needs to survive. And this is possible to an extent with a lot of the magic systems, just kind of in the base, physical sense, your body knowing how to use what it's been given, is going to happen. You're going to see this with other instances in the magic as well. And even kind of not knowing or not wanting to face it, you can get some base level of power in most of the magics. Yes, it's the second one in that you can make the argument that your body just wants to survive, and things like this, but Intent really starts to play into it when you're doing distinct and increasingly powerful things with the magics. Intent is like your ability to focus, right? You can fire a sniper rifle on accident, but hitting the thing that you want to hit with it requires a lot of practice and focus. That practice and focus in the magic systems is often Intent-related.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

I certainly agree with you here as well. In addition, I think it's possible that they did try to burn trellium, succeeded, but found that what it did wasn't particularly useful. There are a lot of different permutations of that idea, maybe it is useful but just not nearly as useful as it's hemalurgic properties. Or maybe it had an effect, but they couldn't tell what the full extent was and figured it wasn't useful, like Vin and duralumin. There are definitely a lot of reasons why we may not have heard about it.

Yes, it's possible as well.

 

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Spoiler

It is possible that Scadrian could not burn Shardblade because it is living entity, so Identity would interfere. But Tanavastium that is not part of living entity could be fair game.

 

Yes, that's the reason why Shardblades can't be used. They're alive. New WoB on that:

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?

Questioner

Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Edited April 28 by alder24

[Rorzikel]

 

On 4/25/2024 at 9:46 AM, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If it has no function in the other two, why not mention that quickly either in text or ars arcanum or in person? 

 

The ars arcanum is written by Khriss and the text follows non-Set protagonists. That it wasn't seen on page does not mean that it has not been tried or conceived of, and the absence of it being on-screen does not make it a plot hole or invalidate making god metals burnable by anyone.

Edited Thursday at 04:18 AM by Rorzikel