Can Preservation change anyone into a Mistborn?

[Ninth of the Night]

At the end of the first era, Harmony changes Spook into a Mistborn on a whim. Kelsier's whim to be exact. He doesn't even ask Sazed if it's possible, presumably since he held the power for a while and knew it could be done...?

If that's true, why didn't Kelsier try to change others into Mistborn to help against Ruin? Why didn't Vin? Why doesn't Harmony make more Mistborn? Is it just because he doesn't want to intervene too much? Maybe more Mistborn would be dangerous, but then why is he searching for the method of creating more Lerasium?

This has always kinda bothered me. I assume there's a logical answer that we either haven't learned about yet or maybe it's in a WoB I haven't seen.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

17 minutes ago, Ninth of the Night said:

At the end of the first era, Harmony changes Spook into a Mistborn on a whim. Kelsier's whim to be exact. He doesn't even ask Sazed if it's possible, presumably since he held the power for a while and knew it could be done...?

If that's true, why didn't Kelsier try to change others into Mistborn to help against Ruin? Why didn't Vin? Why doesn't Harmony make more Mistborn? Is it just because he doesn't want to intervene too much? Maybe more Mistborn would be dangerous, but then why is he searching for the method of creating more Lerasium?

This has always kinda bothered me. I assume there's a logical answer that we either haven't learned about yet or maybe it's in a WoB I haven't seen.

Excellent question. 

Preservation could have done this, but there would have been two issues. 

Firstly, the Mist sickness was done partially to convey a message, something that adding Mistborn in would have screwed up. 

Secondly, it would have been much more costly to Preservation in terms of raw power than Snapping a Misting, something that couldn't be spared while still in direct confrontation with Ruin.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/41-firefight-release-party/#e7136

Herowannabe

So Elend, at the end of Mistborn [Era 1], is going around finding Allomancers the mist had Snapped. How come he didn't find any other Mistborn? Or did he and we just didn't know about it?

Brandon Sanderson

What you have to remember is the mists were looking for a way specifically to deliver information to him, that "I am alive and doing something" but they were also kind of crazy. And so the idea was to make him notice the number 16 so that he would know that there was a plan and that something was prepared for him. Does that make sense?

Herowannabe

Why didn't the mist throw in some Mistborn in that sixteen too?

Brandon Sanderson

Then you would have 17. Or you would have like--  It was the number that was important to what the mists were doing. Plus it is much harder to make someone who wasn't originally-- Like remember what's going on is these are people it is Snapping intentionally who did not-- Like it's Investing them so-- It's either awakening a very little remnant in them or taking people who had-- They wouldn't have been able to be Mistings, if the mists hadn't intervened. Making someone a Mistborn takes way more power.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/298-orem-signing/#e9928

Zas

So what's up with the regeneration issue? With Shards? Because they only have so much power they can access at a certain time, but yet they still have more energy. So how does that work? Is it just they have so much power they can use at any given time?

Brandon Sanderson

What are you talking about? Like which shards?

Zas

Ruin and Preservation. Since we know the most about them.

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin and Preservation were a specific instance, because almost all their energy was thrown into resisting each other. Keep that in mind. Even after Preservation was only a shadow, basically all of it was "Let's keep Ruin from destroying the world." So they were polar opposites. Set in balance. But slightly unbalanced in a couple of ways, that eventually, that slight imbalance... They are a special case, because of that.

Zas

So then why are they hesitant to directly fuel Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Why are they hesitant to? What do you mean by directly fuel Allomancy?

Zas

You mention in the Hero of Ages Q&A that they can directly fuel Allomancy, like Vin does with Elend, but it requires expending their energy in a way they are hesitant to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Because it imbalances them more. Does that make sense? Like, if you are putting your energy here, rather than fighting the other force, you give them an edge somewhere else by trying to gain an edge here. And you have to make sure that's really worth it. Imagine a chess game. Is it worth sacrificing my pawn here to expose myself over here?

 

Edited November 14, 2024 by Trusk'our

[Sophrosyne He/any]

11 hours ago, Ninth of the Night said:

Why doesn't Harmony make more Mistborn?

I don't recall the exact words, but harmony tells Kell that by interfering as much as he has and did with Elendal. he's held them back. "Species evolve quicker when it's difficult to thrive". that coupled with the fear of a compounder, Imagine that's all Harmony needs to justify to himself not making more.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 11/14/2024 at 4:17 PM, Ninth of the Night said:

...

If that's true, why didn't Kelsier try to change others into Mistborn to help against Ruin? Why didn't Vin? Why doesn't Harmony make more Mistborn? Is it just because he doesn't want to intervene too much? Maybe more Mistborn would be dangerous, but then why is he searching for the method of creating more Lerasium?

This has always kinda bothered me. I assume there's a logical answer that we either haven't learned about yet or maybe it's in a WoB I haven't seen.

 

No no, I think you're hitting on the point here exactly: there is no good reason. The shards are like scientists looking down (the opposite of "the girl who looked up") into the petridish of their world with a microscope. They could kill any section with the barest flick of their finger or a droplet of disinfectant or feed it to explosive and chaotic growth by dropping a single grain of sugar wherever they want with the edge of a knife.

They can and do play favorites, but, just like for real-life scientists, whenever they do it potentially opens them up to ridicule by their patrons, exploitation by their magic system users, loss of control over their work, and creates chaotic, unpredictable, and non-repeatable outputs.

Edited November 16, 2024 by Lewis Nethur

[Isilel]

On 11/14/2024 at 10:17 PM, Ninth of the Night said:

If that's true, why didn't Kelsier try to change others into Mistborn to help against Ruin? Why didn't Vin? Why doesn't Harmony make more Mistborn?

 

Kelsier needed all the power he had to stave off Ruin and besides, Ruin could have easily co-opted any new, inexperienced Mistborn via spiking, as he did with many other important people in the book already. Ditto Vin.

As to Harmony, he wants Scadrian civilizations to evolve, what use would Mistborn be for that purpose? We didn't hear anything about Spook's powers being helpful for the rebuilding, they just gave him authority to become a leader. Someone less benevolent could have used them to become a tyrant. Not to mention, that they could have been as easily recruited by the Set as other powerful people.

Personally, I also suspect that a very few people with Mistborn potential may have been born since Catacendre, but never manifested, since people no longer need to be beaten nearly to death (or equivalent) to snap. Mistborn always required significantly more anguish to snap than Mistings, and with life being much less awful than during FE, as well as  abandonment of the above tradition, it stands to reason that their potential would remain unfulfilled, unless a confluence of very special circumstances occurs.

It is a better question why Harmony didn't turn all surviving Terris people into Feruchemists or Ferrings, while he was removing their ash adaptations during the Catacendre. It wouldn't have affected his Preservation/Ruin balance, and, as seen with So-Scad magi-tech, it could have help society and technology develop. Hopefully, we'll get an answer at some point.

After TLM, I am now also inclined to think that Sazed may have turned some SoScads into Metalborn after Catacendre instead. Allik said that they didn't have any "at first", even after the Sovereign's arrival. I used to think that Kelsier found the missing lerasium pellets - it would be very odd if there hadn't been 16 all-told, Preservation's number, and used them in alloys to make  as many SoScad Metalborn as he could. But now it is clear that he didn't. So, the Metalborn required to produce heat medallions appeared for some other reason, and Sazed creating them,  is the most logical possibility, IMHO 

 

[+robardin he/him]

There are any number of reasons Preservation couldn't just "make more Mistborn" very easily.

For starters, it'd be the same reason Mistborn hadn't existed at all on Scadrial until after Rashek's (temporary) Ascension: while all humans on Scadrial were "slightly more" invested of Preservation than Ruin, and thus not only had sentience but also the potential for Allomancy (which occurred naturally but very rarely pre-Rashek), it was unnatural to be that Connected to Preservation's power.

Even when "mistsnapped", when the mists gave a bit of a boost of Preservation's power to people and thus enabling some theretofore non-Allomancers to become Mistings, they never created full Mistborn.

All Mistborn resulted from direct ingestion of concentrated Preservation (lerasium), or via the direct touch of Preservation, in Rashek twiddling himself while Ascended, or Harmony giving Spook a healing and a power boost. Or are people descended from such upgraded ancestors.

I think Sazed was only able to do such a thing to Spook, as well as to rearrange and to re-seat Scadrial and to create the Basin, when first Ascended to Harmony; the Shardic Intent would probably prevent him from doing quite so much so directly in a pretty short time.

Leras' Ghost could not even do that much, as by that point he was unraveling quite a bit. And by the time Kelsier held the power, Ruin was free and could completely block him if he'd tried to do something so significant as to upgrade a Misting to Mistborn via direct intervention. (Kelsier couldn't even heal Spook from his burns, despite their extra Connection allowing him to talk to him.)

As for "dropping more lerasium", I'm not sure how that works for a Shard or if it's different for different ones, but there never were that many to begin with, so maybe it's just naturally very hard/rare to do for Preservation.

Like, there's this WoB that Rashek did not "congeal" the ones he got while Ascended, they were already on Scadrial from its creation, and he learned of their existence and "had to go get them".

Quote

Questioner

Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave to the ten foreign kings? Or where they put there by Leras--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, good question… No one's asked me that before, I don't believe. Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave-- No, he found the lerasium. It was existent before his Ascension.

Questioner

Can I ask if it was placed there intentionally by Leras or did it sort of grow similar to how atium--

Brandon Sanderson

The Lord Ruler-- It was not placed for him, he had to-- he had to get it.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

If there were something like ten given to the founding "kings" of the noble houses, plus the two Rashek kept near the Well (one ended up going to Hoid and one to Elend), well that adds up to 12? Surely there should have been sixteen?