Roscoe Any Pronouns Posted February 17, 2025 Posted February 17, 2025 (edited) (Apologies if there's a rule against posting 2 things in quick succession.) I was listening to my mother finish up Wind and Truth earlier today when I wanted to find a quick recap on El, when I remembered he somehow fuses metal to his body... So then I wondered- what if this effect is being achieved by El burning either Raysium or whatever Valor's God Metal is (Leeching on the idea that Valor is on Roshar) So; in total, here's my theory on the Allomantic effect of either Raysium or Valor's Metal- The ability to repair physical damage caused to a body by using the perception of one's body to fix it using either metal or any non-organic substance. Edited February 17, 2025 by Roscoe 2
Geoscape Any Posted February 21, 2025 Posted February 21, 2025 I always imagined that he takes his carapace out and heals around the metal that he implants into himself; I don't know if that's confirmed but the copper mind theorizes it is voidlight healing and "...his own, currently unknown, abilities" the only citation for that is a chapter that I believe only indicates that the replacement is happening, but not how it happens, so I would have to reread that chapter when I got home. I personally don't think Raysium doing the restoration would make sense, but the Valor metal maybe could have some sort of effect similar to this if burned; the nature of godmetals is kind of odd and I think kind of hard to predict what it will do, for example Spoiler Lerasium grants allomancy, which is odd because it simply grants a magic system whereas Atium grants future sight which is a separate power entirely. Until we have more information on godmetals i think it's gonna remain pretty hard to predict any abilities, but I think it could have something to do with the fact that Raysium transfers Investiture. I don't know exactly how that would relate to an ability when burned, but it's the only thing I can think of. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear more on this topic 1
Treamayne Posted February 21, 2025 Posted February 21, 2025 On 2/17/2025 at 1:37 AM, Roscoe said: what if this effect is being achieved by El burning either Raysium or whatever Valor's God Metal How would El have gained access to Allomancy to burn anything, much less Raysium? Also, why would a metal whose Fabrial properties are about conducting Investiture in one direction only have an Allomantic property of healing? A Mistborn may be able to burn any (Identity-free) Godmetal, but (except Lerasium) a non-Scadrian would still have to have some tie to Allomancy to burn any metal, including Godmetals. Lerasium is an exception because the side effect is that it is giving access to Allomancy. WoB: Spoiler 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 Edited for length and relevance Chapter Thirty-Eight Preservation's Power Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy. As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else. The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009) Hope that helps 2
Entr0pic He/him Posted February 21, 2025 Posted February 21, 2025 I always just assumed that El was just one of the magnified ones and was using is regrowth with extreme skill (in addition to voidlight healing) to achieve this effect. There way be counterpoints to this, this is just what i assume. 1
Treamayne Posted February 22, 2025 Posted February 22, 2025 (edited) 4 hours ago, Entr0pic said: I always just assumed that El was just one of the magnified ones and was using is regrowth with extreme skill Based on what we know that is one of the three most likely explanations. Edited February 22, 2025 by Treamayne SPAG 1
Geoscape Any Posted February 25, 2025 Posted February 25, 2025 On 2/21/2025 at 2:53 PM, Treamayne said: How would El have gained access to Allomancy to burn anything, much less Raysium? Also, why would a metal whose Fabrial properties are about conducting Investiture in one direction only have an Allomantic property of healing? A Mistborn may be able to burn any (Identity-free) Godmetal, but (except Lerasium) a non-Scadrian would still have to have some tie to Allomancy to burn any metal, including Godmetals. Lerasium is an exception because the side effect is that it is giving access to Allomancy. WoB: Reveal hidden contents 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) Hope that helps I might be getting this wrong; I thought anyone could burn Godmetals? I believe Brandon Spoiler Retconned Atium as a pure Godmetal because he realized that, as a Godmetal, anyone could burn it and so made the Pits produce an electrum alloy? The connection bit I can believe; maybe only Scadrians could burn pure Atium, but I'm not sure it's ever been hard confirmed that *only* a mistborn could burn any Godmetal they had a Connection to.
Treamayne Posted February 25, 2025 Posted February 25, 2025 (edited) 46 minutes ago, Geoscape said: I might be getting this wrong; I thought anyone could burn Godmetals? I believe Brandon Hide contents Retconned Atium as a pure Godmetal because he realized that, as a Godmetal, anyone could burn it and so made the Pits produce an electrum alloy? The connection bit I can believe; maybe only Scadrians could burn pure Atium, but I'm not sure it's ever been hard confirmed that *only* a mistborn could burn any Godmetal they had a Connection to. The Atium Retcon* was that "anybody" could burn pure Atium - and by "Anybody" he was non-definitive: Anyone in the Cosmere? Any Scadrian (because they all have Preservation inside them)? Any Allomancer (because you have to have access to Allomancy to burn a Metal)? This is further confused because Lerasium is a special case - because it's side-effect is to Grant Allomancy (see Hoid). The result of a number of WoBs and clarifications is that the most likely interpretation is "Anybody at all can Burn Lerasium to get Allomancy. Allomancers (maybe just Mistborn) burning Lerasium get the Primary (still unknown) Effect. Allomancers trying to burn Godmetals from other Shardworlds would have to have some Connection to that Shard to access thier Godmetal." We have no indications that a non-Metal Born can "Allomantically burn" any Godmetal (but they can make use of that investiture when it is a gas or liquid if they have other MoIs and a valid connection to the Investiture - such as Stormlight fueling Surges). Whole Lotta 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) 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) Quote Brandon Sanderson Chapter Thirty-Eight Preservation's Power All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply. First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power. Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed. Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive. Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy. As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else. The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009) Quote Xais56 Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight. Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal. Peter Ahlstrom My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings. Xais56 It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do? Peter Ahlstrom That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO. Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages. General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021) Quote 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. Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008) Quote Questioner Can an Allomancer burn any god metal? Or is it specifically Preservation and Ruin? Brandon Sanderson That is actually a RAFO. There's some funkyness going on there. Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017) Quote 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) Quote Edited for length and Relevance 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) *Note: The Retcon is older than Hero of Ages - because he plotted and first-draft wrote all three books together, then edited and published TFE. And in editing WoA and HoA realized the change needed to be made. WoB: Spoiler 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. LewsTherinTelescope Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively? Peter Ahlstrom The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume. LewsTherinTelescope Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old? Peter Ahlstrom Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book. 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) Hope that helps Edited February 25, 2025 by Treamayne SPAG/Clarity 4
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