So why was Hoid in Terris again?

[UpLifted he/him]

So why was Hoid hanging with the Terris people? It seems like all the old theories essentially said that Hoid had been fooled by the Lord Ruler's reshaping of the world and was searching for the well of ascension in the Terris dominance for most of WoA. Now however we know that Hoid had in fact entered Scadrial through the perpendicularity that is the Well. Plus he already had the Lerasium so he certainly wasn't looking for that. 

 

My theory was that Hoid was looking for a keeper to give the Lerasium to so he could make another Lord Ruler to take the power of the well. Then he discovered that there were no more keepers because they had all been killed by the inquisitors... Ok that's a bit of a stretch but the best I've got right now. 

 

Honestly I'm not sure what he was doing in Terris but it's certainly not what we thought before.

[Observer]

I've been wondering this as well. Is it possible Hoid didn't know he'd come out of the Well (because it was in Luthadel not Terris) and just assumed it was an unstable Perpendicularity, only to feel really stupid later on?

Feels like a stretch. You'd think he would have a way to sense what was at work there. Still, it's a theory.

[natc]

SoS kind of remarked on this at the Village, but I imagine one day we will finally set out to rediscover the Terris Homeland.

Maybe then we will know. Who knows what secrets were kept by a race of people who have borne supernatural powers for centuries, possibly millenia before the Ascension?

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

We don't when hoid got his feruchemy but I think the general consensus is that it was before mistborn happens

[Voidus]

Hey, all. Brandon here. With the release of this book, there have been some minor updates to continuity that I think some of you will find relevant.

The big one has to do with Hoid's visit to Terris in The Well of Ascension. For those unfamiliar with the backstory, this little behind-the-scenes action has been a source of some consistent problems. The outline, and original draft, of Well had Vin and Elend traveling up to Terris, then into the mountains, to find the Well itself.

This was a huge momentum killer in the story. Having your cityscape-focused book suddenly turn into a traveling quest fantasy for a few chapters felt very out of place, and required too much strange time-jumping to make it work. In revisions, I set about finding a way to repair this, and to overlap the Well of Ascension discovery with Vin's return to Luthadel.

The end result worked much better, but I was forced to cut Hoid's cameo. (In the form of footsteps in the snow and frost leading to the Well, hinting that someone had been there just before her.) I knew where Hoid was, and added in the cameo of him with the Terris people—with the plan still being that he visited the Well sometime during the days after Vin's return to the city.

Well, in working on Secret History, I found that this had a problem with it. Hoid had to already know where the Well is, because after the destruction of the Pits, he'd need to use the Well to return to Scadrial after leaving in the middle of book one to attend to certain other events.

If you've read the story, you know this is how I proceeded. Official continuity is that Hoid went up to Terris after visiting the Well, as he had things to do there. He did not go looking for the Well. This doesn't change continuity for any of the books, though it does render one of the annotations for Well obsolete.

Otherwise, I'm quite pleased about this novella. I wasn't certain how it would go, writing something using threads I'd left dangling ten years ago. (You should thank the beta readers, who are all Sharders I believe, for their continuity help. They made me aware pf several things I needed to make much more clear from the original draft, so that canon would be more crisp.)

I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding which times when someone appears to hear Kelsier's voice were actually Kelsier. The story offers the official canon for this as well.

It's nice to finally be able to give the answers to some longtime fan questions, such as what spooked Vin during her inspection of Hoid and what was up with Preservation and the Mist Spirit. It's entirely possible that, despite our efforts, we slipped up and made some continuity error here or there. If so, I'm terribly sorry! This one has been particularly challenging to do.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

 

Brandons post on the matter, so to clarify:

It wasn't just a theory that Hoid was looking for the well, that was the official canon until now.
Hoid definitely wasn't looking for the well, he knew what it was.
WoB is also that Hoid originally wanted the bead so that he could become an Allomancer so I doubt his trip to Terris was to give it to someone else (Also if he really wanted TLR dead there are easier ways to go about it)

[Asperity he/him]

I figure it may be something to do involving the Worldbringers.

[Treamayne]

I figure it may be something to do involving the Worldbringers.

Or Worldsingers. Given that Mistborn is a while before current SA, could be he was developing the idea of one from the other.

[UpLifted he/him]

Thanks for the WoB Voidus. At least there's no more contradiction. Still the mystery of what he was doing in Terris though.

[Asperity he/him]

Or Worldsingers. Given that Mistborn is a while before current SA, could be he was developing the idea of one from the other.

 

Of course. They have connection with each other--and probably other like-organizations on other worlds. Figured it was a given.