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Welll, well, well


Oudeis

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Adds more suspense. 

I hate to break it to you spencer, but Brandon usually writes things for a reason. "Adds more suspense" seems like a cop out for him. 

 

Oudeis:

 

This is merely speculation...but it seems to work with an inverse relationship relative to the strength of the previous exposure to investiture.

 

The outer edges of the Empire are less influenced directly by investiture because they're so far away from the Well...what if it means that small additional amounts of investiture will influence the people on these edges first because they have never been truly acclimated to the effects of the investiture? As the Well begins to fill, the initial "reach" of the investiture expands greatly, but since these outer areas never were touched by it that much in the first place, they'll snap quicker because they don't have an "immunity" from the influence. As the outer areas snap, the investiture can begin to pool closer to the actual Well and thus will now snap these people because a relatively larger influx of investiture is now influencing these inner communities. 

 

Again...pure speculation with nothing to back this. But we see inverse relationships quite frequently in math and science. So why not with the science of snapping? I feel like I could write a mathematical proof for this, using these assumptions. Maybe it's time to ask Prof. Chaos for help in that endeavor?

Edited by Titan Arum
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In the Mistborn Annotations (I think), Brandon mentions that the planets Pole moves with the Well. So either the Mists came from the South Pole (area of lowest Investiture) and expanded North, or it began at the equator and expanded to both Poles at once.

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Titan: Interesting... but recall that in Hero of Ages, the daymists also start at the edges and creep their way inward. Luthadel, the site of the Well, is the last place free of daymist.

 

natc: But then where's it coming from? Say I put a cup in the middle of a piece of paper and slowly fill the cup with water. When the cup overflows, it'll start wetting the paper. Why would the edges start getting wet before the cup was even full? Where would that water come from?

 

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Ha. I don't actually believe what I wrote, but wanted to just throw some idea out there as I thought about the welll well well.

 

Nonetheless, the daymists are a manifestation of Preservation, no? And the Well of Ascension is Preservation's shardpool. Thus, the daymists starting on the edges and creeping inwards actually fits my "theory" with the inverse relationship. As the well begins to fill, the daymists start showing up, but on the edges of the realm. It's a direct manifestation/correlation of the filling well and causes the snapping. 

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The mists going as wild as they did (appearing in the day) was Ruin's doing, wasn't it?

 

Perhaps he had a harder and harder time affecting the world where Preservation was stronger, ie. near the Shardpool. He had to slowly work his way inward.

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The mists going as wild as they did (appearing in the day) was Ruin's doing, wasn't it?

Perhaps he had a harder and harder time affecting the world where Preservation was stronger, ie. near the Shardpool. He had to slowly work his way inward.

Ruin chose to encourage the Mist rather than hold it back. We know that this caused the daymist to be sunlight-blocking, and IMO it was the reason the Snapping was as lethal as it was, but I don't think he had to work from the outside-in due to resistance. Remember his "Pool" was the Pits of Hathsin, which was practically beside Preservation's Pool, so any "protective" effect from the Well should have been countered by the Pits.

... though maybe BOTH Shardpools held both Shards back, so the reason Luthadel was the last place to get daymist was actually because of minor Geography errors and the ACTUAL last place was the Pits

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... though maybe BOTH Shardpools held both Shards back, so the reason Luthadel was the last place to get daymist was actually because of minor Geography errors and the ACTUAL last place was the Pits

Now this...this I like! If the Shardpools are so close together then Ruin and Preservation can easily counter each other's powers around Luthadel. Thus no daymist and no large numbers of snappings. Both then have more influence on the edges of the empire because it's more difficult for them to counter each other's power but probably rather easy to leak their powers without much resistance from the other. Kind of like a game of Risk. Asia is so large it's harder to defend. Too much surface area to cover you end up spreading yourself thin.

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Well technically the world ended about a year before the eternal mists would have reached the city in any event, so that far out it's hard to determine where specifically they would have centered. With the margin of error, it could easily have been either Luthadel, the few days journey to the Pits, or some oval that includes them both. If someone had been SUPER paying attention they might have been able to determine if they arrive even earlier and leave even later at Luthadel or the Pits, but I find it eminently plausible that no one had the time or inclination to get that pedantic.

 

What Rat said; per the WoB above, the Mists should have started Snapping allomancers on their own, unaided by Ruin. And Ruin was expressly helping them along. I don't know enough about Shards to say that it's definitely not the case that the collaboration of two Shards would work the least well (well well) near the center of their powers, but if we ever do ask Mr. Sanderson and learn this is the case, I for one will find it surprising. And it might have interesting implications for the rest of the cosmere...

 

Warbreaker

 

Why, for example, was the First Returned so near Endowment's Shardpool, then?

 

@Titan: So, in the model you describe (and yes, I acknowledge that you're just describing, not proposing), due to the Well, there's an aura of Preservation around the Central Dominance, and that as the whole world experiences the rise due to the Millenial Power, skaa who have lived their whole lives at the edges of the empire have built up no immunity to Preservation's aura and are affected by the low level of power within the air, while that same amount of power near Luthadel was unable to Snap people.

 

Snap Graph

 
This graph represents the model. As the red line rises across the board, the green point of intersection travels left, closer to Luthadel, indicating that the places where the rising Millenial Power is enough to overcome background Preservation is drawing ever nearer to Luthadel.
 
...Oh c'mon, you can hold Asia at four bottlenecks. Three, if you take Australia, too.
Edited by Oudeis
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  • 2 weeks later...

This graph represents the model. As the red line rises across the board, the green point of intersection travels left, closer to Luthadel, indicating that the places where the rising Millenial Power is enough to overcome background Preservation is drawing ever nearer to Luthadel.

This does fit with known behavior of Investiture, too. If people living closer to the Shardpool were somehow measurably more invested than those farther away, they would also have more resistance to the effects of Investiture.

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We have a (WOR SPOILERS!)recent WoB(WOR SPOILERS!) which somewhat supports the idea of Shardpools being involved. I am a little more inclined to think a Shardpool is responsible now.

 

Ruin's Shardpool being responsible for the effect (keeping the mists away) is something I think I like more than the Preservation idea. It could be something to do with both, though. I wonder if those near Ruin's Shardpool were also more resistant to the mist...

Edited by Moogle
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We have a (WOR SPOILERS!)recent WoB(WOR SPOILERS!) which somewhat supports the idea of Shardpools being involved. I wonder if those near Ruin's Shardpool were resistant to the mists?

 

WoR spoilers:

Could Brandon be pointing to the Honorblades, which are (pieces, slivers, ???) of Honor, and are located in Shinovar, instead of a shardpool?

Edited by Moogle
Please tag your spoilers.
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WoR spoilers:

Could Brandon be pointing to the Honorblades, which are (pieces, slivers, ???) of Honor, and are located in Shinovar, instead of a shardpool?

 

Seems likely to me (I doubt Honor's Shardpool is in Shinovar if they built Urithiru in the place closest to Honor, but we don't even know if that means a Shardpool either), but I think it quite likely that Shardpools would also be considered "tied" to a Shard. Impossible to say with any confidence - it's just a hypothesis for now.

 

Now I think on it more, though, Szeth certainly didn't stop the Thrill from happening to the armies around him at the end of WoR. But I also don't think he ever felt it himself...

Edited by Moogle
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Also distance, and time. That many Honorblades, that far away from Nergaoul, for that length of time

Edit: spelling (I hope I got it right this time)

Edited by LabRat
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I always saw it like this

 

Preservations power is refilling in the pool so as the the pool becomes more full, the greater the pull and coverage of the mists. (similar to a like-calls-to-like situation/the power wants to be whole again) along with Ruin's assistance/encoaragement 

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I always saw it like this

 

Preservations power is refilling in the pool so as the the pool becomes more full, the greater the pull and coverage of the mists. (similar to a like-calls-to-like situation/the power wants to be whole again) along with Ruin's assistance/encoaragement 

 

But that's not addressing the issue. Why would the power start so far away? Why would it be drawn equally from all directions towards the well? If the Well is what is drawing the power, wouldn't the power logically start, and be strongest, near the Well? Why then is the Well the actual last place? Is the power somewhere else at the time, outside of the Final Empire somehow perfectly equidistant from the Well?

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But that's not addressing the issue. Why would the power start so far away? Why would it be drawn equally from all directions towards the well? If the Well is what is drawing the power, wouldn't the power logically start, and be strongest, near the Well? Why then is the Well the actual last place? Is the power somewhere else at the time, outside of the Final Empire somehow perfectly equidistant from the Well?

I guess it all depends on how you see it. If I was a great powerful being that could affect the surroundings like Preservation did with the mists I would start from the end. Kind of like wrapping them all up, not letting anyone run away. And I won't need so much energy when I get to the areas near the Well because the power it's already strong there.

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But that's not addressing the issue. Why would the power start so far away? Why would it be drawn equally from all directions towards the well? If the Well is what is drawing the power, wouldn't the power logically start, and be strongest, near the Well? Why then is the Well the actual last place? Is the power somewhere else at the time, outside of the Final Empire somehow perfectly equidistant from the Well?

Well, I think it was confirmed via WoB that Liquid Investiture (from Shardpools) is the strongest state of the three forms we see, I'll see if i can find it.

 

In regards to power (Mists starting far away), I'm not quite sure; could be a result of uni something similar to way the mists draw away from Ruin-Invested things (or perhaps Ruins metaphysical state, though not sure how that would work) . If we had more detailed info regarding the parameters/instructions/directives (origin point, original/actual spawn times, specific path/route etc.) of how the Mists work and their general history (pre-FE, during FE and post-FE), I could hazard a more accurate answer, or we perhaps would have already known the answer if we did. Was the in-book spawn/origin point ever mentioned or did they just materialise?  

 

Well, the Well is the most concentrated/potent portion of Preservation's Investiture on Scadrial at that current time, as well as being located at Scadrial's North Pole, so i imagine that the pull of the well maybe some what reminiscent of magnetic pull and as the Well filled up in greater quantities, the greater the pull on the mists, or perhaps is may have just been Ruin's encoaragement/guiding hand to what he would feel was poetic justice and his reward aka letting them think they have some hope and then crush it into dust. 

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Perhaps the mists condense into the Well. We know that Shardpools are "Spiritual humidity". Perhaps all the condensing Investiture is turned into mist elsewhere on the planet, but fills the Well around Luthadel. Thus, we get more mist from farther away and less mist closer in.

 

The major problem with this of course is that the Deepness only starts after the Well if filled, but I can see some possible responses to that.

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Perhaps the mists condense into the Well. We know that Shardpools are "Spiritual humidity". Perhaps all the condensing Investiture is turned into mist elsewhere on the planet, but fills the Well around Luthadel. Thus, we get more mist from farther away and less mist closer in.

 

The major problem with this of course is that the Deepness only starts after the Well if filled, but I can see some possible responses to that.

I actually forgot about that. Hmm, that derails my thought train a little. Is it possible that after the well gets used, the volume of the mists increase?

Edited by ParadoxSpren
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The Deepness was caused by Ruin without ruins inference it would not have happened. In fact most likely simply using the well for anything may have stopped the deepness. 

 

Where is it stated that the mists only snapped people after the well starts refilling. As I understood it it just increased the number and did so in a pattern of 16 after ruin was release because it new they would be needed. As far as i know it always snapped some people its just that nobles had the beating thing and Skaa were super afraid of the mist and pathologically stayed out of them. Then after Ruin was released it went on a total 16% snap of the population. 

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