Quazar87 Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Is there an official explanation for the discrepancy? If you include the god metals, Larascium and Atium, then the number of metals is 18, not 16. Yet one of the key plotpoints of the final book is that 1/16th of the Snapped were Atium Mistings. It doesn't add up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claincy he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Brandon talks about it in the hero of ages annotations. I can't remember the details but from memory he chose the mists to only snap certain types of mistings and he chose that 1/16 of the mistings the mists did snap would be seers. He did this intentionally as a sign to the people that the mists and the mist-sickness were more than they appeared, which, in the end, was successful. Due to a need for sleep I don't have time to find the specific chapter annotation where he talks about it, but here is a link to the hero of ages annotations if you didn't know where to find them. http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-mistborn-3-dedication/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecatinthehat Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Isn't it that Sazed/Harmony retconned the metal system, so Atium and Malatium would be no more in the original sixteen (exchanged by Cadmium and Bendalloy, for example)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 When Preservation was setting up the mist-snapping mechanic he "replaced" the External Temporal metals (cadmium and bendalloy) with atium and malatium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Also, it's worth noting that there's either no such thing as a lerasium misting, or literally everyone on the planet is a lerasium misting. Depending on how you consider it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartbug he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Well, we're missing 3 of lerasium's powers, you know. If it is anything like atium, then it will have 2 allomantic property, one feruchemical, and one hemalurgic (atium had 1 allomantic, one feruchemical, and 2 hemalurgic). My reasoning is as follows: Each of the God Metals has an extra power in it's native magic system. Atium, because it is of ruin, has double hemalurgy, in that it can be a spike for atium as well as literally anything else, as a super spike. Also, the extra power has universal application, in that you can use the atium spike on anyone for anything. If we extend this to lerasium, then we would see that the turn into super mistborn thing is it's universal use. It would work for anyone. That means that we're missing it's misting and feruchemical use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loganmathewjohnson Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Also, it's worth noting that there's either no such thing as a lerasium misting, or literally everyone on the planet is a lerasium misting. Depending on how you consider it. That's very true. Since ANYONE, not just... umm, Scadrians? is that right? Anyway, since anyone from any Shardworld can burn Lerasium, I would say that there is no such thing as a Lerasium Misting. That would make all the Selish and Rosharans Lerasium Mistings... And that just doesnt make sense. But yeah, I agree, there are no Lerasium Mistings. Well, we're missing 3 of lerasium's powers, you know. If it is anything like atium, then it will have 2 allomantic property, one feruchemical, and one hemalurgic (atium had 1 allomantic, one feruchemical, and 2 hemalurgic). My reasoning is as follows: Each of the God Metals has an extra power in it's native magic system. Atium, because it is of ruin, has double hemalurgy, in that it can be a spike for atium as well as literally anything else, as a super spike. Also, the extra power has universal application, in that you can use the atium spike on anyone for anything. If we extend this to lerasium, then we would see that the turn into super mistborn thing is it's universal use. It would work for anyone. That means that we're missing it's misting and feruchemical use. So... Atium can steal anything? Like, Biochromatic Breath? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 So... Atium can steal anything? Like, Biochromatic Breath? Hemalurgy is capable of stealing Shardblades, so it probably could steal Breath as well (with some loss of Breath thanks to Hemalurgic decay, of course). I doubt atium is necessary for this. Atium's benefit in Hemalurgy is less Hemalurgic decay, and the fact that it acts as a wildcard for the other 51 (?) metals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 (edited) Hemalurgy can steal anything encoded on a person's soul. And since you can steal a shardblade with hemalurgy I would find it very strange if you could not steal breath with it as well. Atium acts as a wildcard in hemalurgy, and can be used to steal any trait that can be stolen. But it stealing Breath wouldn't necessary require an atium spike every time, you might be able to do it with an unknown god-metal alloy spike as well. Edited January 20, 2014 by WeiryWriter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 It really just sounds so much super-easier to just buy or coerce the Breath out of someone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 It really just sounds so much super-easier to just buy or coerce the Breath out of someone... I think it has great potential for Vasher. He can use his Breath-stunning trick and kill the person with a Hemalurgic spike to get his Breath (mostly) back. It's more efficient! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuoni he/him Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 Hemalurgy can steal anything encoded on a person's soul. And since you can steal a shardblade with hemalurgy I would find it very strange if you could not steal breath with it as well. Atium acts as a wildcard in hemalurgy, and can be used to steal any trait that can be stolen. But it stealing Breath wouldn't necessary require an atium spike every time, you might be able to do it with an unknown god-metal alloy spike as well. Of course, the problem is that the Breath can be spent, and then you might end up with a simple metal spike in your guts. Or maybe the stolen Breath is stapled to your soul and you *can't* spend it on Awakening. We really don't know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 Essentially, under the inherent mechanics, no one would be a Misting of a metal outside of the base sixteen, but the gambit absolutely required having Seers, so Preservation fiddled with the system, making it so people could become Atium and Malatium Mistings. He swapped them for the two external temporals because having 1/16th of the Mistings snap as Seers was a critical part of the plan. In order to draw attention to the effect, Preservation really pushed the numerological significance of sixteen. It didn't just tend to crop up a lot because it's Scadrial's special number; it was blatantly artificial. In any group that entered the mists, exactly sixteen percent of people who had not already entered the mists or snapped in the normal manner would be affected. Everyone who survived would recover in sixteen hours, unless they were in the 1/16th of cases that recovered in sixteen days. This lead to the Seers getting sent to the Pits, in close proximity to the Atium stockpiles, and because Elend knew about Seers he could then figure out that all of them had snapped as Seers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 @name_here: Well compiled. It's also worth noting that, unless my math is wrong, "percentages" (particularly the ones expressly given in the books; I believe they discuss a scouting party of 100 and exactly 16 of them fell ill) require a base-ten numerical system, and yet the chapter headings of Alloy of Law strongly imply a base-16 system; this makes a degree of sense, actually, since in the Final Empire they believed there to be 10 metals, so they might have based their math on those symbols, yet they realize by the new world that there are 16 non-God metals. It boggles my mind to consider that someone literally revamped mathematics, but consider the circumstances: Something between 150,000 and 200,000 people survived the apocalypse, and the vast majority of them were illiterate, innumerate skaa. It would be a much smaller deal than I probably consider to change all of mathematics, considering how few people could even count. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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