Reasons for metals?

[Azure]

I'm wondering if Brandon has ever talked about why he decided on what metals would have what powers. Is there an interview where he talks about this?

[Nepene]

He does talk about it a bit.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/146/mistborn-Chapter-Twenty-Three

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=690

The metals just worked out right. [later] I see I misunderstood. The assignment of metals to powers was done mostly randomly. I started by trying to mix and match colors and hues, but that ended up not working. I also originally wanted the physical to be more common, and then move toward less common with mental and others. Hence, iron is physical, Gold is mental, [sic] Atium is temporal. The mentals don’t quite fit this, though.

He meant tin, I guess. Either way, that's stayed with me for quite a long time. I soundly resisted changing silver to tin during the first drafts of the book, even when I found out the truth. The problem is, I really liked the name "Silvereye" for those who burn silver/tin. It sounds far slicker than "Tineye."

So he had ideas from his past, some sort of thoughts on which metals were more or less common or significant, stuff like that.

Importantly, aluminum, cadmium, gold, and chromium were rare metals and so it was quite feasible for most people to have not heard of them. This meant he could use them as story elements.

Aluminium and Duralumin were important hidden metals that only inquisitors knew about them and so they could surprise Vin, and later Vin could surprise people with Duralumin pushes, Gold and Electrum were rare enough that Skaa and most nobles weren't aware of Electrum, allowing Vin to use Electrum as a atium counter.

Cadmium is rare enough to not appear until the alloy of law series. Chromium is rare enough to be a magical metal with super awesome properties for the second series.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Nepene

[Phantom Monstrosity]

There's also this blog post Sanderson made.

"(and I hope he eventually tells or shows us exactly what happens when someone tries to use lead or silver, since those two are obviously missing)."

I'll get to those two eventually, though I left them out for a reason. Lead and Mercury were just too problematic to use--I tried some bits of writing with them, and readers were bothered by people eating obviously poisonous metals. So, I decided to leave them out, for now. Mercury shares a problem with silver in that I couldn't find good, often-used alloys of the metals that would work in the system. There's always a base metal and a paired alloy. Iron/Steel, Tin/pewter, that sort of thing. The only one I could find for silver was electrum, which I was already using for another purpose.

You're right about me and magic systems, by the way. They--actually, the entire setting of a book--are my favorite parts about designing a novel. When I write, I hope that the characters take over. Books, even books with great magic, lack power if they aren't about good characters. However, many of the concepts that make me want to write books start with interesting setting elements.

Thanks for reading.