NewbSombrero he/him Posted September 27, 2016 Report Share Posted September 27, 2016 I was recently rereading Alloy of Law when I noticed something unexpected on page 260 when Wax is showing Ranette the aluminum gun. Quote She was a Lurcher, and could recognize most metals by simply burning iron. I see two possibilities here. Either this was a mistake that made it through to the final draft and was supposed to say that she could distinguish aluminum because it wouldn't create Allomantic lines, or else, there are subtle differences between the lines seen by Lurchers, if not also by Coinshots. Maybe this is savant material, or maybe it's just something you really need to pay attention about to notice. Does anyone know if we have any WoB about this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savanorn he/him Posted September 27, 2016 Report Share Posted September 27, 2016 Hmmm, my copy of AoL doesn't have this scene at page 260. Probably different format. Not knowing the specific context, I'd say maybe the lack of iron lines would let her know it was aluminium? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted September 28, 2016 Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 My interpretation when I read it was: "She was a Lurcher, and could be aware of most surrounding metals by simply burning iron." I never actually thought it to be that she was actually typing the metals as well. It's possible that she can recognize metal types, but since Wax can't do it, it would have to be a property lurchers only have, which I don't see as being the case considering how close iron and steel allomancy are. Interesting thought overall, I'll need to mull it over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted September 28, 2016 Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 Potentially she has some currently unknown or unrevealed feruchemical ability and it's her twinborn power. Other than that I'd say it'd have to be a savant thing, Inquisitors could do weird things with Iron and Steel lines but I've always chalked that up as a hemalurgic trait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewbSombrero he/him Posted September 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 Yeah, savantism is sort of what I'm leaning towards. I guess I've got a new signing question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goody153 Posted September 28, 2016 Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 Maybe it's kinda like how Inquisitors could see through burning iron/steel. Like they could determine which are metals and which are not. So if Rannete doesn't have see any lines to the material of metal or gun then it's either a heavily-charged metalmind or a aluminum. Since she can see it's metal and it should have lines but it doesn't so she just figured it's not aluminum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewbSombrero he/him Posted September 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 41 minutes ago, goody153 said: Maybe it's kinda like how Inquisitors could see through burning iron/steel. Like they could determine which are metals and which are not. So if Rannete doesn't have see any lines to the material of metal or gun then it's either a heavily-charged metalmind or a aluminum. Since she can see it's metal and it should have lines but it doesn't so she just figured it's not aluminum. Yeah, that's what I was expecting to see from what I remembered, but there's a definite qualitative difference between "recognize" and "detect," and the text specifically mentions that she could "recognize most metals," not just aluminum or heavily invested metalminds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonshadowbob Posted September 28, 2016 Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 I was kind of under the impression that Inquisitors could do that because they don't have eyes. This makes it so that they rely on the Iron/steel lines to see. Normal Lurchers/Coinshots have eyes, so they never develop this ability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goody153 Posted September 28, 2016 Report Share Posted September 28, 2016 I mean she doesn't to do what inquisitors do just maybe it's simpler explanation that if rannette sees a metal and it doesn't have ironlines towards it that just means it's either aluminum or metalmind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted September 29, 2016 Report Share Posted September 29, 2016 10 hours ago, goody153 said: I mean she doesn't to do what inquisitors do just maybe it's simpler explanation that if rannette sees a metal and it doesn't have ironlines towards it that just means it's either aluminum or metalmind. But the point is that that's not recognizing metals as the quote says, that's recognizing aluminium. Given how deliberately Brandon usually writes I'd say it's unlikely he'd say she can recognize metals if he just meant she could recognize whether or not it's aluminium. (Which would also be a somewhat redundant point to make, why mention it about Ranette specifically if he was just talking about determining whether or not something was aluminium, we already know that any Coinshot or Lurcher could do that.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nervousnerd he/him Posted September 29, 2016 Report Share Posted September 29, 2016 (edited) Most of us know that but since this was in AoL (a first book in a new group of stories), it may also have been Brandon explaining certain allomantic powers to new readers or people who had forgotten what a Lurcher was. Edited September 29, 2016 by nervousnerd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cometaryorbit Posted September 30, 2016 Report Share Posted September 30, 2016 On 9/28/2016 at 10:20 AM, dragonshadowbob said: I was kind of under the impression that Inquisitors could do that because they don't have eyes. This makes it so that they rely on the Iron/steel lines to see. Normal Lurchers/Coinshots have eyes, so they never develop this ability. There's an annotation for WOA that says that a regular Lurcher/Coinshot/Mistborn could learn how to do inquisitor iron/steelsight, and maybe somebody has, but nobody the main characters know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonshadowbob Posted October 2, 2016 Report Share Posted October 2, 2016 What I meant to say is that normal Lurchers/Coinshots have eyes, so they don't need to develop the ability like Inquisitors do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cometaryorbit Posted October 2, 2016 Report Share Posted October 2, 2016 Ah, yes, then I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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