Why didn't Zane's atium covered lead poison Vin?

[Creation he/him]

In WoA, Zane gives a large piece of atium covered lead to Vin, and Vin eventually swallows it. If she cannot burn lead, and lead is poisonious to the human body, why wasn't she poisoned by it?

[Treamayne]

51 minutes ago, Creation said:

In WoA, Zane gives a large piece of atium covered lead to Vin, and Vin eventually swallows it. If she cannot burn lead, and lead is poisonious to the human body, why wasn't she poisoned by it?

Vin, presumably, either coughed up the lead, like she did the first time she swallowed those beads for the attack on Keep Hasting, or burned them away with Aluminum. Metal poisoning is a very slow process. 

That said, it should no longer be a factor. This was eventually altered a bit. Unreliable narrator is always in play and people in-story can (and often are) wrong. WoB:

Spoiler

rederel

Now i'm morbidly curious whether u/mistborn has considered it [cadmium poisoning] while writing his books.

Brandon Sanderson

I have, actually. Though I had to consider it for other metals first. I decided that allomancers are immune to these kinds of effects--they're just physiologically different in that regard.

General Reddit 2021 (June 11, 2021)

What we do not know is if this was a change that was part of Sazed restoring Nobles and Skaa to the normal Scadrian human template and undoing Rashek's chenges. So, it is possible that Metal poisoning was a factor in the Final Empire, but not after the Catacendre. Here's the chain of WoBs  that led to the tweak (I do not say RetCon because we have no evidence this changes anything in Era 1).  

Spoiler

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Metal vials. People may wonder why Allomancers use them. Why ingest only small bits of metal, which could run out on you? There are a couple of reasons for this.

First off, you don't want to eat too much metal because, simply put, it's poisonous. Kelsier talks a little bit about this in book one, and it's given token nods from characters throughout the series. I don't do a whole lot with it–dying from metal poisoning isn't the type of extended disease you tend to deal with in a novel that only covers a few months time, like this one.

The second reason for metal vials is more simple. Allomancers with the right powers can Push or Pull on sources of metal–the larger the metal source, the harder the Allomancer can Push on it. So, little flakes of metal make a terrible Anchor, and so if you're caught wearing your vials, you aren't giving much of an advantage to your enemies.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Sept. 12, 2007)

Quote

controlled_slide

Aluminum, when you burn aluminum, does it actually destroy the metals or just take away their power?

Brandon Sanderson

It destroys the metals.

controlled_slide

Same with chromium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

controlled_slide

So it actually gets rid of the metals?

Brandon Sanderson

It actually trans--  It does a--  matter, energy, investiture are the same things in the cosmere.  You have some sort of transfer happening relating to those things.

controlled_slide

The question sort of relates to metal poisoning--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you would not get metal poisoning after that.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

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Yata

Can a Misting hurt himself burning the wrong metals or a bad alloy ?

Brandon Sanderson

Not really, but they can swallow something they can't burn and end up with metal poisoning. Kind of similar.

Yata

So we may tell that a Misting's Allomancy is "safer" than a Mistborn's one.

Maybe because it's the original/natural way how Allomancy manifest itself (without godlike interferences)

Brandon Sanderson

Sure, you could potentially say that. You can still make yourself sick, though, so I'm not sure. I guess it comes down to your definition of "hurt." But I'd call it safer, yes.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 19, 2016)

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Questioner 1

Does aluminum actually make the metals disappear, like, be metabolized? Or does it just cut the Spiritual connection?

Brandon Sanderson

So... I haven't actually canonized that... I've gone back and forth. For a while, I said it got rid of them. And there may even be... But the more I thought about that, the more it doesn't make much sense.

Questioner 1

It doesn't. Especially the way that duralumin works, it doesn't really make sense.

Brandon Sanderson

And so, I've been kind of pushing the other way. Since I haven't said it in-world, it's not truly canon, but I believe I've answered other fans saying that it burns them all away in a flash, and we might need it to do that, for future things. So, I'm undecided.

Questioner 2

It needs to get rid of them, but a path to sever the connection at the same time.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the big problems is, if it only severs the connection and leaves the metals, than you have heavy metal poisoning from some of the metals.

Questioner 1

But if it makes them burn away, that doesn't work the same way as duralumin. Duralumin only burns the ones you're burning.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I kinda have to err back on the side of "it gets rid of them," just we don't have to deal with metal poisoning, but I've kind of been wavering a little bit, thinking, "Is there a better way to explain this."

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

 

Hope that helps

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, Creation said:

In WoA, Zane gives a large piece of atium covered lead to Vin, and Vin eventually swallows it. If she cannot burn lead, and lead is poisonious to the human body, why wasn't she poisoned by it?

lead is poisonous, but a nugget of lead is mostly harmless. 

the thing is, the lead must be absorbed by the body to be poisonous, and a metal nugget will just pass through the stomach and intestine without being digested. lead has pretty good corrosion resistance.

lead is more dangerous when it's in some finely divided forms that can be absorbed readily. like lead dust in the air, that can get into the lungs, that's very dangerous. or some lead compounds.

besides, lead is more of a long term poisoning. being exposed to lead daily will cause all kind of issues. but a large ball swallowed once? you'll be fine.

[Creation he/him]

9 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Vin, presumably, either coughed up the lead, like she did the first time she swallowed those beads for the attack on Keep Hasting, or burned them away with Aluminum. Metal poisoning is a very slow process. 

That said, it should no longer be a factor. This was eventually altered a bit. Unreliable narrator is always in play and people in-story can (and often are) wrong. WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

rederel

Now i'm morbidly curious whether u/mistborn has considered it [cadmium poisoning] while writing his books.

Brandon Sanderson

I have, actually. Though I had to consider it for other metals first. I decided that allomancers are immune to these kinds of effects--they're just physiologically different in that regard.

General Reddit 2021 (June 11, 2021)

What we do not know is if this was a change that was part of Sazed restoring Nobles and Skaa to the normal Scadrian human template and undoing Rashek's chenges. So, it is possible that Metal poisoning was a factor in the Final Empire, but not after the Catacendre. Here's the chain of WoBs  that led to the tweak (I do not say RetCon because we have no evidence this changes anything in Era 1).  

  Hide contents

 

Hope that helps

 

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

lead is poisonous, but a nugget of lead is mostly harmless. 

the thing is, the lead must be absorbed by the body to be poisonous, and a metal nugget will just pass through the stomach and intestine without being digested. lead has pretty good corrosion resistance.

lead is more dangerous when it's in some finely divided forms that can be absorbed readily. like lead dust in the air, that can get into the lungs, that's very dangerous. or some lead compounds.

besides, lead is more of a long term poisoning. being exposed to lead daily will cause all kind of issues. but a large ball swallowed once? you'll be fine.

Okay, thanks

 

[Ink and Embers Any pronouns]

Also, Vin likely would have burned away anything that might poison her using pewter - she certainly tried to do so with the wine sedative in HoA

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

She’s built different.