Do people still have to snap to awaken their Allomancy.

[ruler of the mists He/His/the survivor of the pit]

In the first trilogy you had to snap to become an allomancer ,do you still have to snap to become one in past catecendre time. Are Wax and Steris's children not allomancer then?

[Treamayne]

5 minutes ago, ruler of the mists said:

In the first trilogy you had to snap to become an allomancer ,do you still have to snap to become one in past catecendre time. Are Wax and Steris's children not allomancer then?

You do still have to Snap, but Harmony changed how that works, and made it easier to accomplish to reduce teh Brutality from Rashek's Final Empire.

WoB:

Spoiler

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Fyodor32768

In Alloy of Law, are people still Snapping?

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed chose to alter the way Snapping works. It bothered him. It does happen, but differently.

General Twitter 2011 (Nov. 14, 2011)

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Questioner

How does Snapping work now? You said that Sazed changed it.

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, RAFO. That is a good question though.

Questioner

Not even a little hint?

Brandon Sanderson

Nah. I don't think so. 

West Jordan signing (Dec. 15, 2011)

 

Also, Snapping is not only a Scadrial Mechanic. But the mechanics differ by world and Shard. WoB:

Spoiler

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Questioner

The change in how the magic (on Scadrial) interact with each other, was that done by Sazed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it was. You will find a theme. The snapping in Mistborn is actually a repeated theme through a lot of the different magics. Um, but what I felt at the end of the day Sazed would do something about it. So, even though that is part of the magic system, he changed that. The change to Feruchemy is more a matter of other factors such as the large amount of interbreeding that happened following...and things like that. And so a lot of people with Feruchemy sDNA mixing with people with people with Allomantic sDNA has affected the way the magics blend, so to speak. That's not done by Sazed. That's just kind of an effect.

Steelheart Seattle signing (Oct. 14, 2013)

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<Edited for length and Relevance>

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.

Rhandric

Actually wait, is there an active magic system on Threnody?

Brandon Sanderson

Threnody has a non Shard-based...it depends on what you call magic. Do spirits coming back to life count as magic? It's science to them, but it's goofy science.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

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Jeremy (paraphrased)

We know that Mistborn needed to Snap, and Surgebinders needed have the cracks in their souls filled. But what about the people in Warbreaker or Elantris? Is cracking and snapping only required on certain worlds?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is universal to the cosmere; however, in certain magic systems / on certain worlds, this is easier than others.

When Worlds Collide 2014 (Aug. 9, 2014)

 

If Max does have Allomantic or Feruchemical potential, he would still need to Snap to awaken that potential - there is no evidence he has snapped prior to TLM.

Hope that helps

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

3 hours ago, ruler of the mists said:

In the first trilogy you had to snap to become an allomancer ,do you still have to snap to become one in past catecendre time. Are Wax and Steris's children not allomancer then?

This is purely speculative, but I would wager that the mists are Snapping people selectively in adolescence in era2+.

My justification? Wax's Most traumatic events as a child seem to all be shown on page and he's already an Allomancer during them. He lived a life of luxury as a child and, if he had been ritualistically beaten as a pre-teen, even just a little, it probably would have been brought up during his flashback scenes because of the narrative relevance.

This could be one reason that the mists have become rarer and less dense in general: their power is being focused on Snapping and infusing children to protect them rather than being allowed to remain diffused and pervasive.

That said, Snapping early due to trauma should absolutely still be a perfectly valid option. Individuals in precarious and violent environments as children to a similar degree as Vin and Spook would still be likely to snap before they could even speak properly...

[Dofurion]

A recurring thought I have when thinking about this topic is that Harmony is probably putting pressure on the system to make Snap easier, just as Ruin did by increasing the amount of spikes that bodies could withstand. I hypothesize that this is the reason for her gradual conversion to "Discord."

[Light In the Darkness]

This does make me wonder if perhaps there are more, maybe weaker, allomancers, or if perhaps Harmony has been hiding certain lines with allomantic talent to leave them in reserve for when necessary... that could make for some powerful reserves, and potentially give him a control for some of the violence and power levels in the population.

[scientificmotif]

On 11/25/2024 at 9:58 PM, Light In the Darkness said:

This does make me wonder if perhaps there are more, maybe weaker, allomancers, or if perhaps Harmony has been hiding certain lines with allomantic talent to leave them in reserve for when necessary... that could make for some powerful reserves, and potentially give him a control for some of the violence and power levels in the population.

I think you mistake how Allomancy works... Harmony doesn't have "lines" that he Connects to people during Allomancy. (Also, we know for a fact that there's more and weaker Allomancers.)

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Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

So when someone uses Allomancy, they aren't using Preservation the Shard's power. Therefore, normal Allomancers shouldn't have a direct Connection to Preservation the Shard that fuels their Allomancy. It's more like they draw on Investiture with Preservation's Intent. So when they "tap into the powers of creation", they tap into the ability to manipulate Investiture. Besides, Preservation shouldn't have a set number of Connections it can make, or a set amount of Connection "units" it can use. Yes, there's a difference between a Shard and Investiture aligned with a Shard. Here's an excerpt from a WoB:

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Brandon Sanderson

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal Investiture from Adonalsium?"

The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three.

When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing.

I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time.

 

On 11/25/2024 at 6:54 AM, Dofurion said:

A recurring thought I have when thinking about this topic is that Harmony is probably putting pressure on the system to make Snap easier, just as Ruin did by increasing the amount of spikes that bodies could withstand. I hypothesize that this is the reason for her gradual conversion to "Discord."

1. More pressure feels like it would make Snapping harder on someone, not better. Harmony just changed how it works in some way. Maybe it happens over a long time period, or something.

2. Harmony has never been referred to has "her" as far as I remember. Harmony is referred to as "they", because Sazed doesn't really have a gender, and Harmony can be referred to as "he/him" because Sazed mostly identifies as a male.

2. Here's my hypothesis:

Harmony is becoming Discord because the entity composed of two Shards Sazed holds is by default not Harmony, but Discord. Yes, it's an entity composed of two Shards, not one Shard. 

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http://Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016

Questioner

So I've got sort of a Shard-related question. So, the entity that Harmony is, all the other Shards that we've had named so far, are any of them combinations, or are they all--

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, good question. The only one I would count as a combination is the Dor, right? But it isn't even a full Shard. So everything else, single holder only when we talk about it okay? That's an excellent question. Or they've been Splintered completely.

 

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/96-holiday-signing/#e3184

little wilson

Are Ruin and Preservation separate in Sazed or are they fully combined together like can he give one of them, or does he have to give both.

Brandon Sanderson

They are not fully combined. I mean that's not the way this works. He could pull off a piece of one even and make-- stuff like that. That's totally, totally viable. I mean it's basically what happened with the spren. The spren existed before even Honor was destroyed and things like that.

And it's an "entity composed of two shards", and not just "two shards", because they've been intermingled to some extent:

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/190-rfantasy-ama-2013/#e4115

Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

Harmony is what people call the combination of Sazed, the Vessel, and the two shards, Ruin and Preservation. So Sazed kind of forces Ruin and Preservation to cooperate and is sort of "in harmony". But the Shard all along was really Discord. If you want some evidence, look at Harmonium: it is so in conflict with itself it explodes really easily. It's not in Harmony; it's in Discord.

Hmm? Oh yes, of course. The reason why Harmony is trending towards Discord must be because Sazed is changing, because if anything the Shards should be trending to be in balance as they combine further. Why would Sazed be changing?

Quote

Shards and Shard intents: Holding a Shard is a contest of willpower against the Shard that, over time, is very hard to resist.

Shards affect you over time, but your mind will not leave a permanent effect on the Shard. A holder's [Vessel's] personality, however, does get to filter the Shard's intent, so to speak. However, if that holder [Vessel] no longer held that Shard, the Shard will not continue to be filtered by that person.

By holding Discord, Sazed trends towards Discord's Intent. Therefore, the entity as a whole currently known as Harmony trends towards Discord because Sazed trends towards Discord. (MY HYPOTHESIS ENDS HERE)

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[Light In the Darkness]

8 hours ago, scientificmotif said:

Hmm? Oh yes, of course. The reason why Harmony is trending towards Discord must be because Sazed is changing, because if anything the Shards should be trending to be in balance as they combine further. Why would Sazed be changing?

So, I would counter this with the imbalance of the shards. As they mingle, it will become easier for them to stay in harmony, but Preservation's power is currently measurably weaker than Ruin's, because Preservation's life spark is what allows human sapience on Scarial. A balance of the two doesn't allow free thought, only one being measurably stronger in the soul does. Leras, when he trapped Ruin, forced the imbalanced piece of him to begin solidifying into Atium, which he planned ahead to be burned away before Ruin could get to it and incorporate it. It's now been hundreds of years since that process stopped and the pits were destroyed, and since the essence was burned away, we know it will eventually make its way back to being under direct control of the shard - it's a bit of a cycle.  By the end of Era 2, enough time has passed that the pits could restart producing, if they are still a valid perpendicularity-place (they would have if the catacendre and the merging of Harmony hadn't happened, but we don't have clarification on how that's been affected now) which means the excess Ruin burned out of usability just before Sazed Ascended is probably beginning to reinforce the portion of him that is Ruin, unbalancing the power available to each side and tainting Harmony (the shard that was slowly being created by the mingling and cooperation of the powers) towards Ruin, hence Discord - a state of destructive opposition. So I don't think the trend towards Discord is because the shard was trending that way all the time; a Vessel's Intent for the power can change its "spin," so to speak, slightly. Ruin, with a different vessel, might have been temperable towards "Entropy" from where it was, instead of "Ruin." I think the trend towards discord is more likely caused by the excess of Ruin.

8 hours ago, scientificmotif said:

I think you mistake how Allomancy works... Harmony doesn't have "lines" that he Connects to people during Allomancy. (Also, we know for a fact that there's more and weaker Allomancers.)

I think you misunderstood me here. I meant that the situation with Sazed controlling Snapping makes me wonder if there are more allomancers that would take so much to snap, that Sazed judges it cruel, and prevents them from being snapped by the Mists. We don't know how much Sazed has changed Snapping, but if it's him doing it, via the mists, he's just lowered the thresholds, then he could conceivably be hiding a lot of potential allomancers by simply not snapping them - these could be the weakest, or strongest, or who knows.

As to the lines, I think you may have understood Brandon a little incorrectly. When Sazed does something with his power, he doesn't "burn up" his body very much (depending on the change). Sazed was able to adjust a lot of the problems with the world without unbalancing himself - either he was very, very good at using both powers equally, which is possible, or the imbalances there weren't sufficient to give either shard much of an edge, whereas the power being deposited as Atium or being used to make sentient life both use enough to imbalance him. I think what Brandon meant there is that when Allomancers use normal allomancy, they are accessing Preservation's power more like when Sazed moved the planet, as opposed to burning it up the way using Atium or burning the mists or Lerasium does. In that same WoB, he says that burning Lerasium establishes a connection between them and "the mists" and "the powers of creation" - Lerasium is literally part of the body of Preservation; it wouldn't forge that connection to all 16 shards - it couldn't. It forges a connection between Preservation and the new-made allomancer - a mistborn if pure, or a misting if alloyed with a particular viable metal. So Allomancers have strong, peculiar connections to preservation, and when they burn metals, they pull part of preservation's investiture through that connection for a particular effect, which is small enough that it doesn't cause an imbalance. This is why Savants exist - as the power is consistently used for a purpose, the user's body becomes more and more adapted to letting it do that, and retains some residual effects. Therefore, Allomancers must be pulling investiture from Preservation for what they do. So, Allomancy does depend on a "line" to Harmony (the preservation part of him), but Harmony can't exert much deliberate control on its use, which in turn means it doesn't meaningfully drain or burn up much of his power. 

 

Edit: Brandon has said that the Well of Ascension and the Pits of Hathsin "are no more, for now." The argument that such an amount of time would allow Ruin's part of Harmony to be regaining the imbalance in power still stands on what it did before, though.

Edited December 6, 2024 by Light In the Darkness
New info

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Light In the Darkness said:

So, I would counter this with the imbalance of the shards. As they mingle, it will become easier for them to stay in harmony, but Preservation's power is currently measurably weaker than Ruin's, because Preservation's life spark is what allows human sapience on Scarial. A balance of the two doesn't allow free thought, only one being measurably stronger in the soul does.

I think it's more a matter of having a certain level of Investiture to obtain true sapience than an imbalance. 

Even having a small amount of Investiture will lead to sentience.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e3384

PrinceofMagnets

What is Cosmere sentience? By this I mean what does it require and what does it entail?

Brandon Sanderson

In the cosmere, most things are sentient on some level. Basically, anything with even the smallest amount of investiture. (Which is all matter, and most cognitive creations.) Sapience is something different, of course.

Cosmere spoilers: 

Spoiler

And of course, there's Roshar, where Honor's, Cultivation's, and probably Odium's Investiture would find its way into the population. Seeing as how just being born on a Shardworld is enough to hold a bit of Innate Investiture from a Shard, I don't see why Rosharans would have a regularly imbalanced Investiture between their Shards.

[Light In the Darkness]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I think it's more a matter of having a certain level of Investiture to obtain true sapience than an imbalance. 

So, it seemed implied that the imbalance was necessary in making humans on Scadrial when the creation story of the Terris religion was told. Per HoA Epigraph 54:

Quote

Preservation's desire to create sentient life was what eventually broke the stalemate. In order to give mankind awareness and independent thought, Preservation knew that he would have to give up part of himself—his own soul—to dwell within mankind. This would leave him just a tiny bit weaker than his opposite, Ruin.

That tiny bit seemed inconsequential, compared with their total vast sums of power. However, over aeons, this tiny flaw would allow Ruin to overcome Preservation, thereby bringing an end to the world.

This, then, was their bargain. Preservation got mankind, the only creations that had more Preservation than Ruin in them, rather than a balance. Independent life that could think and feel. In exchange, Ruin was given a promise—and proof—that he could bring an end to all they had created together. It was the pact.

And Preservation eventually broke it.

 

Sapience in other areas of the Cosmere originated separately - much of it came about pre-shattering, or cultures from inhabited planets pre-shattering journeyed elsewhere post-shattering. So cultures elsewhere, as you mentioned in spoilered text, don't necessarily have an imbalance in their critical investiture - the investiture that lets them be aware and think independently. It's true that full sentience and sapience really only seem to require some threshold of investiture be met in the cosmere at large, but for some reason, in this case - possibly because of the nature of Ruin and Preservation - an imbalance in the composition of that critical investiture was required for it to happen.

Edited December 6, 2024 by Light In the Darkness