Ways to specialize in the metal arts with intention (and maybe hacking)

[Alumínio he/him]

I was thinking about commands and intention these days and how that works in the metal arts.

We know that the command is the metal you ingest and the intention is to burn it to do thing X.

but this thing X was explained by those who came before and because of that people don't understand that you can go deeper.

for example, during Wax's childhood he realized that the metal bullet he was pushing was actually 3 metal parts and that's why the lines were divided, so how he sees things influences metal arts.

Following this example, I am a pewterarm, I use my pewter, the command is to burn the pewter, but my intention is not to get faster but to heal better, if I did that I believe that part of the pewter's energy would be directed more towards healing than for strength.

equally with tin if I want to enhance one sense more than another.

I'm pushing a piece of metal but I change its center of gravity in my head so it can make curves (like Kelsier against the Inquisitor). In addition.

we also have ferruchemy.

Imagine if I'm an F-Tin and I want to store my vision, but if instead I store the color vision only and see it in black and white.

if I store only the ability to feel spicy tastes instead of the entire sense of taste. If I eat f-steel, it will only store my metabolic speed instead of all physical speed.

If you do it this way we can find several subcategories within each metal, more uses for each one and maybe some way to hack the magic, what do you think?

Edited November 13, 2024 by Alumínio

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, Alumínio said:

I was thinking about commands and intention these days and how that works in the metal arts.

We know that the command is the metal you ingest and the intention is to burn it to do thing X.

but this thing X was explained by those who came before and because of that people don't understand that you can go deeper.

To some extent Commands are left out of the Metallic Arts, as each magic system has a bit of its own thing going on.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472-jordancon-2021/#e14878

Argent

With Intent and Command, I've been thinking about how these things would apply to other worlds. On Nalthis they seem kind of folded together into the same thing, but I can't crack the metals on Scadrial and the Aons in Elantris. Because the Aons seem very Command-y, not very Intent-y, right? What about the metals?

Brandon Sanderson

The Aons, you should be able to eventually figure it out. With the metals, when I wrap this in, it's going to be very slight, and you shouldn't assume that every one of the permutations of the cosmere magics are going to require the same levels of... I need the freedom on each one. So Intent and Command can't be a major feature of every magic, otherwise it's too restrictive. You're going to end up with too many that feel the same. You can imagine, on Scadrial, that different metals would not have had to do what they do in the origin of the magic system. That is not necessarily innate, that is relating to the creation of the magic.

Argent

How it was built manually, almost, by a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Does that make sense? You can imagine an in-cosmere magic system that is very similar to Allomancy, where each of the metals do a different thing than is in Allomancy.

That said, I think you're onto something regarding Intent and the Metallic Arts.

Pewter Allomancy's already been described having extra appearance-altering potential, and Feruchemical powers like tin and duralumin require greater specificity to store certain senses and Connections.

Compounding itself is regarded as being a special skill, requiring real practice and Intent to pull off, so tweaking other powers via refined Intent seems likely. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/98-worldbuilders-ama/#e850

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.