Wax Never put Investiture back into The Bands of Mourning.

[Myst He/Him]

So, I first need to premise with some WoB 

Spoiler

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

So. We know that in Book 7, Wax had the Bands of Mourning, and he took the abilities of a Mistborn and a Full feruchemist out, as he demonstrates using different metals.

Now, later, when Wax threw the bands of mourning out of the airship. There was no mention of him returning the investiture, meaning he was still a fullborn during that encounter, albeit without metalminds for most of the metals.

later, when wax finally takes off the bands of mourning for good, it is never said that he returned the investiture, meaning he would’ve been a full-strength fullborn from that moment on.

also, this works just like memories with copperminds, if I take a memory out of a coppermind, I don’t lose access to that memory if I chuck the coppermind out a window.

This also happens to explain some crucial plot holes. For one, why are the bands drained? Wax never put the investiture back, so the bands don’t preform their key function, allowing one to store and retrieve unkeyed investiture. A water bottle is kinda useless if it’s empty.

it also explains why Wax got lerasium from the explosion. The justification for him burning pewter after the explosion is basically, “during the original experiment with trellium and harmonium, it created lerasium and wax then inhaled it and burned it.”

I find that incredibly stupid. For one, if wax inhaled lerasium, so would’ve everyone else, meaning Wayne, Marasi, and Steris would also already be mistborn. Second, why would he burn it? If a metal composition is off, it can make the allomancer very sick, and is potentially fatal. And yet, when a new reserve appears out of nowhere, Wax burns it. Am I the only person who finds that weird?

now, if Wax was a fullborn from the moment he used the bands of mourning, this would just be Harmony trying to make him not realize it. The best way to keep the bands of mourning from being used is to make the person who has the power, not know they have it. 

As for why Wax never put the investiture back, I doubt he knew, information about nicrosil ferrings is very scarce, and wax was accustomed to iron feruchemy. 

Edit: I just realized I never put my point in here. Basically, I think it’s possible that this is what happened, what are yalls thoughts/what implications does this have on future eras of mistborn?

Edited December 28, 2025 by Ookla the Broken

[Schizoposting]

If this is the case, then how did Wayne become a mistborn?

[Myst He/Him]

16 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

If this is the case, then how did Wayne become a mistborn?

Harmony was able to make Spook a Mistborn, he can make Wayne one as well. 

[Schizoposting]

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Broken said:

Harmony was able to make Spook a Mistborn, he can make Wayne one as well. 

I'm sorry, but this is like hearing people who deny the moon landing coming up with ad hoc excuses to explain away inconsistencies. If Sazed was willing to directly intervene enough to make Wayne a mistborn, then he could have trivially stopped the ship. From a Doylist perspective, I don't think that Brandon would lie to the reader in this way.  

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Broken said:

So, I first need to premise with some WoB 

  Reveal hidden contents

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

So. We know that in Book 7, Wax had the Bands of Mourning, and he took the abilities of a Mistborn and a Full feruchemist out, as he demonstrates using different metals.

Now, later, when Wax threw the bands of mourning out of the airship. There was no mention of him returning the investiture, meaning he was still a fullborn during that encounter, albeit without metalminds for most of the metals.

later, when wax finally takes off the bands of mourning for good, it is never said that he returned the investiture, meaning he would’ve been a full-strength fullborn from that moment on.

also, this works just like memories with copperminds, if I take a memory out of a coppermind, I don’t lose access to that memory if I chuck the coppermind out a window.

This also happens to explain some crucial plot holes. For one, why are the bands drained? Wax never put the investiture back, so the bands don’t preform their key function, allowing one to store and retrieve unkeyed investiture. A water bottle is kinda useless if it’s empty.

it also explains why Wax got lerasium from the explosion. The justification for him burning pewter after the explosion is basically, “during the original experiment with trellium and harmonium, it created lerasium and wax then inhaled it and burned it.”

I find that incredibly stupid. For one, if wax inhaled lerasium, so would’ve everyone else, meaning Wayne, Marasi, and Steris would also already be mistborn. Second, why would he burn it? If a metal composition is off, it can make the allomancer very sick, and is potentially fatal. And yet, when a new reserve appears out of nowhere, Wax burns it. Am I the only person who finds that weird?

now, if Wax was a fullborn from the moment he used the bands of mourning, this would just be Harmony trying to make him not realize it. The best way to keep the bands of mourning from being used is to make the person who has the power, not know they have it. 

As for why Wax never put the investiture back, I doubt he knew, information about nicrosil ferrings is very scarce, and wax was accustomed to iron feruchemy. 

Edit: I just realized I never put my point in here. Basically, I think it’s possible that this is what happened, what are yalls thoughts/what implications does this have on future eras of mistborn?

I do feel as if the explosion created Lerasium, but there are a few logical consistencies here, yes.

Time to call... Him.

The resident Cosmere omniscient, the only one here with shard-like (prob knows more than most shards) knowledge...

@Treamayne aka @Shard Level of Knowledge

[Myst He/Him]

9 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I'm sorry, but this is like hearing people who deny the moon landing coming up with ad hoc excuses to explain away inconsistencies. If Sazed was willing to directly intervene enough to make Wayne a mistborn, then he could have trivially stopped the ship. From a Doylist perspective, I don't think that Brandon would lie to the reader in this way.  

You are right. It is rather baseless, however, I find that Wax somehow changed something within the harmonium-trellium explosion that made lerasium that he then inhaled and burned. That only he inhaled and no one else. That also created lerasium. That no one’s was able to recreate. Is a lot less likely than Harmony exercising a power he’s been shown to have.

As for Brandon lying, it’s more Harmony lying and everyone else not knowing better. Main characters can be and are frequently wrong. They make wrong assumptions and have wrong information. I don’t consider that lying on the part of the Author. To me it would be weird if Wax suddenly knew about Nicrosil ferruchemy and how it works and what he did and everything like that. There is no reason any of them would know this information. 

[Schizoposting]

Just now, Ookla the Broken said:

You are right. It is rather baseless, however, I find that Wax somehow changed something within the harmonium-trellium explosion that made lerasium that he then inhaled and burned. That only he inhaled and no one else. That also created lerasium. That no one’s was able to recreate. Is a lot less likely than Harmony exercising a power he’s been shown to have.

As for Brandon lying, it’s more Harmony lying and everyone else not knowing better. Main characters can be and are frequently wrong. They make wrong assumptions and have wrong information. I don’t consider that lying on the part of the Author. To me it would be weird if Wax suddenly knew about Nicrosil ferruchemy and how it works and what he did and everything like that. There is no reason any of them would know this information. 

According to WOB: 

Quote

Questioner

So, by the end of Era 2, we witness the greatest explosion ever caused by a man. From Wax’s experiments, we know that ettmetal can be split into lerasium and atium. Could this mean that the sea is now filled with lerasium? If so, could that somehow lead to the emergence of more Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

First, to get the god metals when it divides, you have to do something specific that Wax did and no one else has done. Simply causing the explosion, you will not get the god metals; you will get something we call *inaudible*, which you´ll see in Era 3. Wax did something different. No one in Era 3 knows what he managed to accomplish. He did not <try it again>, he thought it was too dangerous.

Footnote: The reporter believes the inaudible word was "pikemetal".
Celsius 232 2025 (July 15, 2025)

While he doesn't directly state it, his answer makes no sense without the presupposition that Wax did get Lerasium through the explosion.

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Broken said:

As for Brandon lying, it’s more Harmony lying and everyone else not knowing better. Main characters can be and are frequently wrong. They make wrong assumptions and have wrong information. I don’t consider that lying on the part of the Author. To me it would be weird if Wax suddenly knew about Nicrosil ferruchemy and how it works and what he did and everything like that. There is no reason any of them would know this information. 

It would be lying to the reader the same way a fake out death is lying to the reader. 

I understand that you invested a lot of time and effort into this theory, and as a result you are rather attached to it, but I think that this is theory is just plain wrong and defending it just leads to ever more convoluted conspiracy theoryesque explanations. 

[therunner he/him]

If that would be the case, why is Wax so weak in TLM compared to him holding the Bands?

Even if at first perception stopped him from utilizing those powers for years between TLM and BOM, once he realized he can burn other metals, he would have been as powerful as when holding the Bands.

And his steel would have been as strong the entire time, which it clearly isn't, as he does not see trace metals.

 

[Myst He/Him]

15 minutes ago, therunner said:

If that would be the case, why is Wax so weak in TLM compared to him holding the Bands?

Even if at first perception stopped him from utilizing those powers for years between TLM and BOM, once he realized he can burn other metals, he would have been as powerful as when holding the Bands.

And his steel would have been as strong the entire time, which it clearly isn't, as he does not see trace metals.

 

I hadn’t thought of that. The only thing I can think of is perception, that because he didn’t think he had the powers of the bands of mourning, he subconsciously chose to not see those specific lines. One can flare metals, I don’t see why a person couldn’t do the opposite, make their power weaker in return for a longer burn time.

However, this is probably stretching things, since as far as I know, perception hasn’t influenced Allomancy in this way before. So idk

[Treamayne]

8 hours ago, Ookla the Broken said:

So. We know that in Book 7, Wax had the Bands of Mourning, and he took the abilities of a Mistborn and a Full feruchemist out, as he demonstrates using different metals.

Now, later, when Wax threw the bands of mourning out of the airship. There was no mention of him returning the investiture, meaning he was still a fullborn during that encounter, albeit without metalminds for most of the metals.

later, when wax finally takes off the bands of mourning for good, it is never said that he returned the investiture, meaning he would’ve been a full-strength fullborn from that moment on.

BLUF: He does not need to conciously return the investiture - medallions (unsealed metalminds) are a Fabrial (mechanical use of Investiture) and Intent "when I no longer have skin contact, I lose this power" is enough to take care of the process on its own. 

Note:

Spoiler

Fabrial, in this post, is using the "modern" generic term of the word - WoB:

Quote

Quote

FirstSelector

So, do you have a name, like an in-world name for a large magical construction, like the things that picks Elantrians?

Brandon Sanderson

That was why I invented the term "fabrial." It will become widespread eventually, as the term for meaning, kind of, magic-type devices in the cosmere. That's not what you call it right now, but you can start calling them all fabrials.

FirstSelector

But what about something that isn't, like-- I always imagined that Aona left, like, a device, a magical device running--

Brandon Sanderson

I will have to RAFO that.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

gaberz24

In the Coppermind article for fabrials, under the trivia section it reads:

The term "fabrial" will eventually come to be used for all magic-based, mechanical devices in the cosmere, such as the mechanism that picks Elantrians.

Was there a mechanical device that controlled the Shaod?

Brandon Sanderson

Something's going on there, I'm not gonna dig too deeply into that. I'm gonna RAFO that. Continue your theorizing however you'd like. That is not where I expected that question to go.

Adam Horne

Do you wanna say where you were expecting it to go?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I mean... The medallions in Mistborn would be considered fabrials by most arcanists, once the era that they are aware of these things is all happening. That's an awkward way to say it. In future era cosmere, the scholars would point and say, "oh yeah, there were some early fabrials happening on Scadrial at that time." That's the terminology they would use.

Footnote: The Coppermind excerpt referenced in this question is based on a 2017 WoB
YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

So, there is a lot to unpack here - but the premise is a false assumption that somebody without native F-Nicrosil would need to understand how the process works and conciously direct that process to make it work. However, that is not what we see in the text. No viewpoint characters ever conciously returns F-Iron or F-Brass for weight or heating when removing their medallions - but those obviously continue to work as intended. Ditto with Allik and the Connection medallion.

A (normal) Coppermind is tied to the feruchemist and retaining those memories when no longer in skin contact with the Coppermind is part of their own investiture remaining with them. They put the memory there, they removed the memory, they re-store the memory (or not). Medallions have their own Identity - so tapping a medallion is using a foreign investiture.

Is it possible that using Intent somebody could retain the borrowed ability? That's unclear and we expect more info in Era 3.

What is more clear is that removing the medallion also removes the ability because the Medallion has it's own Identity and the power is part of the Medallion, which is simply Connecting the power to the medallion-bearer temporarily while that Connection remains. The Medallion, based on current known information, is not puting the power on the person's Spiritweb - which is where it would have to be for them to keep the power after contact with the medallion is lost. Just like Rashek's death, he was tapping Investiture inside the AtiumMinds and could not longer tap that once the AtiumMinds were removed - a Medallion (and therefore the Bands) Bearer is tapping the Nicrosil that is in the Medallion to access the powers the medallion has - but tapping it does not remove that from the Medallion and attach it to their Spiritweb (that's why Hemalurgy requires body penetration and contact with blood* - to Connect the power directly to the Spiritweb) - it's just access while they have contact with the Fabrial. Stormlight Archive Spoilers:

Spoiler

The process has been compared-to and confirmed related-to the Honorblades. While you hold the Honorblade you have access to those two surges. Lose the Honorblade, lose the Surges - because the ability to Surgebind is in the honorblade, not the Bearer. The Bearer is just Connecting to the ability while in possession of the Fabrial.

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Quote

Questioner

Does creating unsealed metalmind involve Feruchemical duralumin?

Brandon Sanderson

(hesitating)...Yes. I will write it all out for you eventually. I want to get at least one more book done, then you find out exactly why and how.

Questioner

Because I was pretty confused about the Investiture and Spiritweb...

Brandon Sanderson

Here is the reason I'm kind of hesitant of this, [why not you just RAFO this one right now], but it is not a RAFO, because it is like it's a secret. I want to write it out exactly how it happens, because I have it in my notes in bullet points and it's complicated, right? Cause I want some of the things in the magic system as be as complicated as for instance explaining how a computer works right now. You can do it, but you know...I want the magic to start getting that technical if that makes sense. When you say "involve", right, that's a big word. Why just don't you let me, after lost metal...if I haven't released it, you have permission to come to me and say: "Brandon, you said you would release this, you haven't yet [...]" and I will give to you the bullet point flowchart of how you build the unkeyed metalminds.

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

Quote

Doc_John

Hey, you've mentioned before that for the Lord Ruler to be able to be a Mistborn and a Feruchemist he had to alter his spiritweb in some way because a person can't normally hold all 32 powers. What about a Mistborn Ferring? Would it be possible for someone born with all 16 powers of Allomancy to also be born with a Ferring power? What about a Ferring Misting? Thanks

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible now, when it once wasn't, but would be very unlikely.

Doc_John

Just as getting a Mistborn nowadays is very unlikely but that hasn't stopped people from trying

Follow up, having past a certain number of medallions doesn't work currently in world. Is this because of this same issue? Or is it more of a technical hurdle with the medallion?

Brandon Sanderson

The core root is the same issue, but it's not insurmountable with technological improvements.

General Reddit 2020 (Aug. 13, 2020)

 

Quote

Master_Moridin

What is the relationship between blood and the Spiritual Realm? (Since Hemalurgy needs blood to graft the sDNA in a spike into someone else's sDNA)

Brandon Sanderson

The blood being in motion is part of it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

Quote

Questioner

Would it be possible to make Hemalurgic dental fillings? If there were a mad-scientist dentist?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about this. I think that would be possible, but for Hemalurgy to really work I need it to...it doesn't actually have to be touching the blood, despite what they think. But I think your average dental filling is not going deep enough...

<edited for length and relevance> Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

 

Quote

Questioner

Do Honorblades bestow their abilities similar to an Identity-free nicrosilmind with other Metalborn abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, these are working on similar principles. Same principle, divergent applications by the magic system, but yeah, I would say, they come back to the same principles.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Hope that helps

[alder24]

Unsealed metalminds work similarly to Honorblades - it's the Connection to them that grants you powers from Nicrosil, you don't actually tap Nicrosil to get them. Once you remove that Connection - drop them - you no longer have the access to those powers as they are part of the metalminds and their own identity. So no, Wax didn't have to store the powers of the Bands back into them, just like Marasi didn't have to do it. The Connection was severed and the powers were no longer granted to Wax. 

Spoiler

Questioner

Do Honorblades bestow their abilities similar to an Identity-free nicrosilmind with other Metalborn abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, these are working on similar principles. Same principle, divergent applications by the magic system, but yeah, I would say, they come back to the same principles.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Moreover, Wax did retrieve the Bands after dropping them, he even used them to pull the airship down to the ground. Also Wax's steelpushs in TLM were of normal strength, he didn't see the steel lines pointing towards the very Axi of everything around him, or he didn't see souls of people - something he would certainly experienced if he still had powers from the Bands. It was also noted by the end of BoM that the Bands are running out of attributes and they need to be refilled with compounding, which clearly indicates that the Bands had the powers still in them. 

BoM ch 30 

Quote

And its recovery was an interesting sight to say the least. Waxillium stood on the rocky section before the plateau, heaving with two hands and Pulling on nothing visible. Up ahead, the rogue airship slowly sank through the snow-filled sky, drawn toward Waxillium on an invisible tether.

[...]

Marasi looked up toward it. She could imagine Suit’s people aboard, trying desperately to make the engines work harder, the fans blow more powerfully. It sank anyway. Waxillium Ladrian—bearing the Bands of Mourning and supremely annoyed—was like a force of nature.

[...]

“I was worried, honestly. The Bands are drained, mostly, but we could probably recharge them by compounding. The power they offer is something…”

Also, during the experiment in TLM, when Lerasium was created, Wax was the only one who went into the exploded vault and was the closest to the second explosion that happened basically on his hands. His mask was blown off his face while everyone else still had their masks on. That's probably when he alone inhaled Lerasium. Moreover, he didn't need to realize that he has a new Allomantic stores to burn, he could burn it subconsciously, just like Elend did in WoA. Burning Lerasium is what your body does and it's a little different than burning normal metals. Wax's body burned Lerasium automatically, without him even realizing it.

TLM ch 17 

Quote

“Wait!” Steris said, then dug in her handbag. “Masks.”

She distributed the cloth masks to everyone, even Allik, since a wooden one wouldn’t filter the air for him.

[...] 

Before Steris could say something, however, Waxillium blew himself up.

It was a much smaller detonation, fortunately, but it was forceful enough to throw him back and drop him to the ground.

[...]

“It’s all right,” he said, patting her hand. “I feel fine. I just did something stupid. I was gathering that harmonium plastered against the back of the safe box. It’s too valuable to leave, and it must have reacted to the air or some liquid left from an earlier experiment—”

He sneezed, then smiled at her reassuringly. His mask was nowhere to be seen; it must have blown free in the explosion.

 

Spoiler

17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

Not to mention that Wax is also a really smart detective and he immediately realized that after the experiment something wrong was happening with his powers. Brandon also confirmed that Wax became a weak Mistborn in TLM and already knows it by the end of TLM. If he was a full Rashek-level Mistborn after BoM, he would have realized this very very quickly during the 6 year long break. It's honestly impossible for him to miss those kind of powers for so long. 

Spoiler

WhiteKyu

Will Wax find out that he is a Mistborn during his lifetime? This is assuming we won't see him again.

Brandon Sanderson

Wax suspects it already. There's a piece of him that knows by the end of this book. He will know pretty soon. He's a detective, right? 

Wax is used to getting a little extra help from the mists, which is clouding his ability to put his finger exactly on what's happening, but there's a piece of him that expects [suspects]. And you can anticipate that even in the year between, in the prologue [epilogue], soon after his recovery, he went and tested and found out what's going on, and is keeping his lips sealed about what that implies.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Lastly, Harmony confirmed that Wax inhaled Lerasium during the experiment to Wayne and he had no reason to lie to a man who was about to die. And that was after Wayne pushed Wax off the ship. 

TLM ch 71

Quote

“Why didn’t you have Wax drink it earlier?”   

I don’t want to reveal this happened, as I don’t know why or how. I don’t know what he did. Besides … he might have already had a dose, inhaled during the explosion.

Huh. That explained a few things.

 

[WitAdjacent]

Okay, I am arriving late to the party, but has anyone considered if the Bands we see in The Bands of Mourning, and The Lost Metal are actually the Bands of Mourning? Maybe thats why everyone was surprised to find a spearhead as the "Bands", and a statue of Kelsier whom they incorrectly identify as the Lord Ruler. Could Kelsier have taken the true Bands and left behind a lesser version of the Bands as a misdirect? There are a lot of gaps that haven't been filled between the end of Era 1 and Secret History that haven't been explained, at least to my knowledge.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, WitAdjacent said:

Okay, I am arriving late to the party, but has anyone considered if the Bands we see in The Bands of Mourning, and The Lost Metal are actually the Bands of Mourning? Maybe thats why everyone was surprised to find a spearhead as the "Bands", and a statue of Kelsier whom they incorrectly identify as the Lord Ruler. Could Kelsier have taken the true Bands and left behind a lesser version of the Bands as a misdirect? There are a lot of gaps that haven't been filled between the end of Era 1 and Secret History that haven't been explained, at least to my knowledge.

The "Bands" never had anything to do with Rashek - that was part of the misdirect.  WoB:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

So I've always wondered, the Bands of Mourning, the actual spearhead that Wax uses. Was that made by the Lord Ruler or the Sovereign, or--

Brandon Sanderson

No. It was not made by the Lord Ruler. The Sovereign was involved.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

 

[WitAdjacent]

But who was the Sovereign?

[Nitpicking]

15 hours ago, WitAdjacent said:

But who was the Sovereign?

Kelsier.