king of nowhere Posted September 18, 2012 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 I always assumed that the chances of being mistings of any metal were the same. that in the world there were, within statistical variance, an equal number of every kind of misting. When rereading alloy o law, however, I noticed a line: Wax mentions that coinshots were one of the most common types of allomancers. That implies that they are not equally likely How does it work? are some allomantic powers more likely to show up than others? Is the kind of allomancer you are also genetic, meaning if your father was coinshot you are more likely to be coinshot too? Do we have any brandon word on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminar Posted September 18, 2012 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Coinshots are useful and visible. In addition they have decent defensive abilities against guns. And Steel is cheap so almost every coinshot can afford the stuff. Maybe that's what he means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted September 18, 2012 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 I don't have my copy of AoL could you give the exact quote? He may be referring to the most common type of Allomancer which he fights, or sees, the most common type employed. I don't think that there is any disparity in the ratio of mistings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted September 18, 2012 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 The HoA mist business indicates all types are equally likely. Now, depending on how exactly snapping works in Alloy Of Law, it might be that people are more likely to know they're coinshots. If people have to ingest metals to figure out what kind of Misting they are, I imagine very few gnats are aware of their status because that stuff is expensive and the power is useless, so the only reason to test for it is scientific curiosity or eugenics programs. But steel is cheap and useful. It's also the one most likely to be noticed, being considerably flashier than pewter or tin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaderAt2046 Posted September 21, 2012 Report Share Posted September 21, 2012 I don't have my copy of AoL could you give the exact quote? He may be referring to the most common type of Allomancer which he fights, or sees, the most common type employed. I don't think that there is any disparity in the ratio of mistings. I think you'r right about it being "Coinshots are one of the most common enemies I face." Coinshots are arguably the most powerful combat Misting, or at least a close second to Thugs. There are probably just as many of the other types, they just don't get into gunfights as often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straff Venture Posted September 21, 2012 Report Share Posted September 21, 2012 I think you'r right about it being "Coinshots are one of the most common enemies I face." Coinshots are arguably the most powerful combat Misting, or at least a close second to Thugs. There are probably just as many of the other types, they just don't get into gunfights as often. As much as I would agree with that, I find it interesting how in the Alloy of Law Ranette comments on her hazekiller rounds being effective for each of their specific targets, but tineyes were very hard to find in the first place. I'm guessing in a city environment tineyes would be very useful with the right cover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought Posted September 24, 2012 Report Share Posted September 24, 2012 It could also be the Wax was talking about allomancers as a profession, rather than genetic trait. That is, a smoker misting who doesn't use their ability in their career might not be considered an Allomancer, just like talented writers who never publish aren't considered authors. The more "useful" an ability is seen, the more of a market there is for people who can use it, and thus the more common the respective Allomancers. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaderAt2046 Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 It could also be the Wax was talking about allomancers as a profession, rather than genetic trait. That is, a smoker misting who doesn't use their ability in their career might not be considered an Allomancer, just like talented writers who never publish aren't considered authors. The more "useful" an ability is seen, the more of a market there is for people who can use it, and thus the more common the respective Allomancers. Good point! +1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straff Venture Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 One thing I forgot, if ever there was going to be a disparity in the ratio of mistings there would be less seers, because they are so powerful in a fight (we see in HoA a group of a dozen or two fighting hundreds of thousands of koloss for hours). However, the stats in HoA show us that exactly a sixteenth of the people who got snapped by the mists became seers. I doubt there would be less of another type of allomancer than seers, so the ratio is probably always one sixteenth for every type on average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted September 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 seers would be useless without atium. they wouldn't even be known in the time of AoL. About the 1/16, I see a problem there. We know there are 16 metals + 2 god metals + 16 aalloys for every god metal. and we know there can be atium mistings at least. Anyway, there should have been 17 kinds of mistings. one for every metal + 1 for atium. Possibly even 1 for every atium alloy, making it 33. lerasium mistings are not taken into account, since everyone can burn lerasium or its alloys. But shouldn't the seers have been 1/17 of the total instead of 1/16? Did I just uncover a minor flaw of the book? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj26792 Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 No we have word of brandon that Preservation swapped out two metals for atium and another one to maintain the pattern, since they couldnt make them anyway I think it was cadmium and bendalloy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 The 1/16 was done intentionally so they would notice. Since it was artificially influenced, the same ratios probably would not show up in nature. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riddlesinthedark Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 The 1/16 was done intentionally so they would notice. Since it was artificially influenced, the same ratios probably would not show up in nature. Then I develop a problem with Mistborn, because Brandon Sanderson wants his shards to fit in a cohesive "natural" universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminar Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 No, the 1/16th is pretty implicitly how the magic spreads out. 1 in 16 people can be a misting if they snap. One in sixteen of those are mistings of each type. Bendalloy and Cadmium were removed for Atium and Lerasium but that isn't really necessary given nobody discovered Chromium and Nicrosil. As for a natural system. The shards are gods. They mess with nature all the time(like creating life on planets they moved into position for life) They can't be involved in an "ntirely natural system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RenegadeShroom Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 One small thing, I think it was malatium that Preservation switched in, not Lerasium. Any Scadrian can burn Lerasium, so there'd be no point to making Lerasium mistings anyway, as well as how scarce it was at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 Then I develop a problem with Mistborn, because Brandon Sanderson wants his shards to fit in a cohesive "natural" universe. What? No, seriously, you're talking about an event that happened in the very same book where it was implied Rashek had violated general relativity by moving the planet far enough to noticably expand the size of the sun and cause sunlight in the northern regions to set things on fire, in a period totaling under a minute including his desperate attempts to fix the results of doing that. In comparison, altering the behavior of a magic system powered by Preservation in a species Preservation created is pretty tame. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 Sanderson states in annotation part two for chapter 21 that the number sixteen has to do with how the Mistsickness works. The Mistsickness was something completely outside the normal genetic inheritance. In another annotation he states that some of the people snapped by the Mistsickness would not have been mistings at all without it (see chapter 49.2 annotation. We have something that is stepping outside the normal realm and making people mistings that would not normally have been coupled with the idea that the 16 was meant to be a clue that came about at the time when the Well returned to full power. The 1:16 is actually an articifially inflated number used to give clue for one thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyman Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 Sanderson states in annotation part two for chapter 21 that the number sixteen has to do with how the Mistsickness works. The Mistsickness was something completely outside the normal genetic inheritance. In another annotation he states that some of the people snapped by the Mistsickness would not have been mistings at all without it (see chapter 49.2 annotation. We have something that is stepping outside the normal realm and making people mistings that would not normally have been coupled with the idea that the 16 was meant to be a clue that came about at the time when the Well returned to full power. The 1:16 is actually an articifially inflated number used to give clue for one thing. I almost agree. I think that Preservation managed to tie the mist-snappings to something very fundamental and natural in the Cosmere, something even the other shards would have a hard time changing. Otherwise, Ruin could just have undone whatever Preservation did, and the whole hint would have been quite useless. On the other hand, we have word of Brandon that Preservation made some changes to the system from the fully "natural" state of Allomancy so that people would have an easier time recognizing it. The Atium mistings should stand out for very obvious reasons. So obviously he had some control over whatever underlying system he rigged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminar Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 One small thing, I think it was malatium that Preservation switched in, not Lerasium. Any Scadrian can burn Lerasium, so there'd be no point to making Lerasium mistings anyway, as well as how scarce it was at the time. Malatium is a side case. Any of the atium alloys wouldbhave workedbbut they only figured out Malatium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 Any Atium alloy would have worked for mistborn. I'm pretty sure Malatium mistings couldn't have burned the other Atium alloys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted October 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 I'm not even sure there can be malatium mistings. that would imply there are mistings for every alloy of atium and for every alloy of lerasium (i know everyone can burn those, but for the technicality of it there must be mistings of those - I'm also sure brandon said lerasium and its alloys would also make additional effects, so mistings that can tap those effects make sense) and that means that 2/3 of all mistings are never discovered because they are mistings of an alloy of atium or lerasium that was never discovered. Yes, it could be possible, but I don't see it happening. I'm curious if brandon has decided and written somewhere the effects of all atium and lerasium alloys, or if he just established that they exist but figured they would never be used and never decided what they did (except for malatium) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 No, Preservation swapped a pair of temporals for Atium and Malatium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts