Weird inconsistency in HoA?

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

In chapter 40 of the Hero of Ages, the Noorden talks about the mists killing people and the patterns and about the sixteen metals and such and so forth. It's revealed at the end that the 16 people that were affected most were atium mistings, like Yomen. Is this a plothole? because in the ars arcanum at the end of the lost metal, Brandon says that there are 16 base metals and 16 additional ones for each god metal. Does this mean that the whole 16 thing was just preservation looking for attention? if anyone has any suggestions that'd be GREAT, this has been bugging me for YEARS.

[Trusk'our he/him]

16 minutes ago, Clarkmon22 said:

In chapter 40 of the Hero of Ages, the Noorden talks about the mists killing people and the patterns and about the sixteen metals and such and so forth. It's revealed at the end that the 16 people that were affected most were atium mistings, like Yomen. Is this a plothole? because in the ars arcanum at the end of the lost metal, Brandon says that there are 16 base metals and 16 additional ones for each god metal. Does this mean that the whole 16 thing was just preservation looking for attention? if anyone has any suggestions that'd be GREAT, this has been bugging me for YEARS.

Welcome to the Shard!

This is an excellent observation. Preservation actually swapped out a difficult to obtain power from Allomancy (like chromium) temporarily in exchange for Atium Mistings, as he wanted a notable sign for his followers, but to still be able to make use of Atium. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/202-barnes-and-noble-book-club-qa/#e5971

Chaos2651

Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching cadmium and bendalloy for atium and malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.

Brandon Sanderson

Preservation wanted atium and malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool—and that using it up could help defeat Ruin. But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers. So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers. But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.

Remember that the tables—and the ars Arcanum—are 'in world' creations. (Or, at least, in-universe.) The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws. That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.

Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.

Hope this answers your question!

Edited January 16, 2025 by Trusk'our

[Treamayne]

24 minutes ago, Clarkmon22 said:

In chapter 40 of the Hero of Ages, the Noorden talks about the mists killing people and the patterns and about the sixteen metals and such and so forth. It's revealed at the end that the 16 people that were affected most were atium mistings, like Yomen. Is this a plothole? because in the ars arcanum at the end of the lost metal, Brandon says that there are 16 base metals and 16 additional ones for each god metal. Does this mean that the whole 16 thing was just preservation looking for attention? if anyone has any suggestions that'd be GREAT, this has been bugging me for YEARS.

Godmetals and their alloys are something very different from base allomancy. See the Ultimate Metal Count thread for how this spins out of control (from the perspective of Preservation's Sign). 

Annotations to HoA:

Spoiler

Ch 21:

Quote

The Number Sixteen

I worry that having Vin make this connection is one of the more forced events in the book. She’d just finished telling everyone that she wasn’t a scholar, and now she discovers a pattern of numbers hidden in the statistics of how people fall sick? My original intention for this was to have her be in a mind-set where she was looking for natural rules—because of her earlier discussion of Ruin and his rules—which then allowed her to see this pattern.

Rereading it, I’m not 100% pleased with it, but it’s too late to make a change. I’d probably rewrite it so that Noorden or Elend make the connection, then let Vin connect that to what she’s been thinking about. That would have been a much more natural progression.

Spoilers

Note that here, Vin misunderstands what these numbers mean. She’s looking for rules that bind Ruin. What she finds is not that, but instead a clue left by Preservation. Numbers are understandable to people regardless of language, and so Preservation decided to leave some clues for people to discover that would hopefully lead them to follow the plans he’d set in motion. In my prewriting, I’d intended there to be more hard facts to be discovered in the workings of the universe—numbers hidden in mathematical statistics that said rational things, like the boiling point of water or the like. All as a means of Preservation hinting to humankind that there was a plan for them.

In the end, this didn’t work out. I decided it would be overly complicated and that it would just be too technical to work in this particular novel. The only remnant of that plot arc became the number sixteen that Preservation embedded into the way the mistsickness works, intending it to give a clue about what the mists are doing to people. “You now are Allomancers!” is what this was supposed to scream. Unfortunately, the Lord Ruler’s obfuscation of Allomancy—and the number of metals in it—left this clue to fall flat.

Ch 49:

Quote

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won’t stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there’s a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you’re an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation’s power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

Ch 70:

Quote

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn’t much of a revelation. Hopefully I’ll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don’t know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That’s a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It’s very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it’s not a perfect system. It’s like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won’t be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists’ intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It’s in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That’s because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin’s control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer’s control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don’t have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn’t happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

 

@Trusk'our already posted the WoB on how the temporal metals were swapped to trap part of Ruin's essence in the physical realm and enable to Sign to work despite Atium not being a true base 16 metal. 

Hope that helps

Edited January 16, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Koloss17 She/They]

This also connects to the whole atium retcon thing, right? That og atium was actually a magically augmented electrum-atium alloy, and that pure atium would both be usable by anyone (like lerasium) and that we don't know anything about how pure atium works?

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

This also connects to the whole atium retcon thing, right? That og atium was actually a magically augmented electrum-atium alloy, and that pure atium would both be usable by anyone (like lerasium) and that we don't know anything about how pure atium works?

Tangentially, yes. To keep the Sign of Sixteen, Preservation had to remove Cadmium and Bendalloy (temporal metals) to add E1Atium and Malatium (since they work in pairs) to that when the Mists evoked percentages in 16s, people would know "this is important." Unfortunately, because TLR ofuscated the number and use of metals, the protagonists had no idea that 16 was an indication of Allomantic Mistings for each Metal.

Though, we do know how pure atium works - Elend's Duralumin + Atium did the same thing - giving him a Spiritual Realm vision allowing access to Fortune.
(Much like Kelsier in M:SH P3 Ch 3 - except because Atium expands the mind as well, Elend was better able to understand what he saw)

It's also listed on the Allomancy Poster (bottom-right)

Spoiler

Quote

AAKS

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are Mistings/Mistborn) but atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an atium/electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

<edited for length and relevance>

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

Quote

Questioner

When will we visit the Spiritual Realm like we have done the Cognitive Realm.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you already have, briefly when Elend transcended and burned atium with duralumin.

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

Quote

Sylos

I was happy when Elend finally burned duralumin with atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a duralumin-enhanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future? If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife? Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike?

On a similar note if someone burned electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into their own future?

Brandon Sanderson

There is much here that I can't say, but I'll give as much as I can. Elend saw Preservation's ultimate plan, and Elend's own part in it. What he saw made him realize he didn't want to kill Marsh, and that his own death would actually help save the world. Like a master chess player, he suddenly saw and understand every possible move his enemy could make. He saw that Ruin was check-mated, because there was one thing that Ruin was not willing to do. Something that both Elend and Vin could do, if needed. And it's what they did.

So, in answer to your question, Elend stayed his hand. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind and decided that Marsh had to live through the end of the book. Elend spared him; I needed to too.

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

 

 

[Koloss17 She/They]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Tangentially, yes. To keep the Sign of Sixteen, Preservation had to remove Cadmium and Bendalloy (temporal metals) to add E1Atium and Malatium (since they work in pairs) to that when the Mists evoked percentages in 16s, people would know "this is important." Unfortunately, because TLR ofuscated the number and use of metals, the protagonists had no idea that 16 was an indication of Allomantic Mistings for each Metal.

Though, we do know how pure atium works - Elend's Duralumin + Atium did the same thing - giving him a Spiritual Realm vision allowing access to Fortune.
(Much like Kelsier in M:SH P3 Ch 3 - except because Atium expands the mind as well, Elend was better able to understand what he saw)

It's also listed on the Allomancy Poster (bottom-right)

  Hide contents

 

 

okay, weird. So Malatium was somehow made through refining atium (dunno how they figured that out) and then alloyed with gold. Also, did Elend burn pure atium? I assumed he just duralumin bursted El-Atium, which just produced a pure atium-like effect.

Also not to derail this post further, but are "seers" just electrum mistings? The coppermind is weird about describing it, but that seems to partially be because this retcon is entirely explained through WoBs. 

The whole retcon is infuriating to me, not because it didn't need to happen, because it kind of did, but because none of it is yet described in the books, and feels kind of important magic system-wise.

 

[Treamayne]

4 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

duralumin bursted El-Atium, which just produced a pure atium-like effect.

This is what happened. The amount of E1Atium he had, burned all-at-once with Duralumin created an effect very similar to Pure Atium.

5 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

So Malatium was somehow made through refining atium (dunno how they figured that out) and then alloyed with gold. Also, did Elend burn pure atium?

We don't have a definitive answer (because Kelsier also did not know - he found the Malatium in the short story Eleventh Metal), but Fan Theory believes Malatium is E1Atium with the Silver content removed (making the resultant alloy only Atium + Gold).

7 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

Also not to derail this post further, but are "seers" just electrum mistings? The coppermind is weird about describing it, but that seems to partially be because this retcon is entirely explained through WoBs. 

That was Peter's answer. Brandon has neither confirmed nor denied. (but since Peter is now Brandon's Continuity editor - it's a safe bet)

8 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

The whole retcon is infuriating to me, not because it didn't need to happen, because it kind of did; but because none of it is yet described in the books, and feels kind of important magic system-wise.

Understood - though as that one WoB points out, the "retcon" is far older than most realize. If you read the annotations, you realize that Brandon asctually wrote the first draft of all three books at the same time. Then he went back to edit TFE for publishing. It was at this point that he realized (the Sign of Sixteen and Preservations changes were already part of the story) that all allomancers should have been able to burn Atium. So it was before WoA had even finished edits.

However, there was no way to have it be in-story, because there's nothing about the situation that applies to the story or protagonists directly for them to discover/learn this information. Even at the end of Era 2, Marsh may not realize what what he is using to extend his life isn't actually pure atium.

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)

It's entirely possible that Era 3 will "discover" this (especially with two people from Era 1 still hanging around).

Hope that helps

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

Thank y'all so much for explaining this