Questions after reread of Era 1

[Thunder_93]

Hi all,

I’m currently rereading the first era (or rather rerererere….reading). Everytime some more tiny details come to my attention, that confuse me or don’t seem to make sense.. Maybe they came up another time already and I forgot about them, who knows.

If they were discusses already, I’m sorry. I did not seem to find anything after a (real quick) search. Do you guys have an explanation for this points that I’m just missing?

 

Strength of Inquisitors: In book one, it’s many times stated, that they are stronger than a normal Mistborn. But when you know how they were created, that does not really make sense. When Hemalurgy is used, always a little bit of power is lost. Because of the brutal method of the Steel Ministry this loss is minimized, but you can’t get more than 100%. So why should they be stronger? It’s stated that their pushes / pulls are unnaturally strong, but as (most) Inquisitors are made from Seekers, they don’t have a “double power”. Of course, if you think all Inquisitors that were fought in a direct viewpoint from one of the characters were made from Mistborn it makes sense, but I think that’s highly unlikely.

 

Unconsciously burning metals: After Vin and Kelsier entered Kredik Shaw for the first time and Vin almost died, they gave her Pewter to survive. Sazed said, that he’s not sure if her body will unconsciously burn the metal, as she is kinda new to Allomancy, and this requires a lot of training, so not everyone could do that. But then, in book 2, at the Well of Ascension, Elend unconsciously burns Lerasium and afterwards Pewter. With Lerasium, you can maybe make an exception as it’s a Godmetal, who knows if a body seems to recognize it. But Pewter? How it was described in the first book, it sounded more like this is a matter of skill, not strength. So just because he’s a Lerasium-Mistborn does not really make sense.

[Claincy]

For the first point: I'm reasonably certain standard inquisitors have 2 spikes each for steel and iron. They have 11 spikes total so they would then be missing a power or 2. Presumably allomantic gold and perhaps one of zinc/brass/copper. (It's possible they also have double pewter in place of another of those metals, but that's pure speculation.)

For the second: I can only guess Elend was able to burn unconsciously because of the purity/strength of his allomancy, coming directly from lerasium. There are a number of mistakes and inconsistencies with the magic across the trilogy and this may be one of them. (Edit: I'm actually partway through a reread currently and I've been noticing a lot more of them. Still love the books though.)

Edited April 27, 2020 by Claincy

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Thunder_93 said:

Hi all,

I’m currently rereading the first era (or rather rerererere….reading). Everytime some more tiny details come to my attention, that confuse me or don’t seem to make sense.. Unconsciously burning metals: After Vin and Kelsier entered Kredik Shaw for the first time and Vin almost died, they gave her Pewter to survive. Sazed said, that he’s not sure if her body will unconsciously burn the metal, as she is kinda new to Allomancy, and this requires a lot of training, so not everyone could do that. But then, in book 2, at the Well of Ascension, Elend unconsciously burns Lerasium and afterwards Pewter. With Lerasium, you can maybe make an exception as it’s a Godmetal, who knows if a body seems to recognize it. But Pewter? How it was described in the first book, it sounded more like this is a matter of skill, not strength. So just because he’s a Lerasium-Mistborn does not really make sense.

Well I'd say that Lerasium adds to his spiritweb and so it could also add the ability to sub-consciously burn

[Karger]

7 hours ago, Thunder_93 said:

With Lerasium, you can maybe make an exception as it’s a Godmetal, who knows if a body seems to recognize it. But Pewter? How it was described in the first book, it sounded more like this is a matter of skill, not strength. So just because he’s a Lerasium-Mistborn does not really make sense.

7 hours ago, Thunder_93 said:

? It’s stated that their pushes / pulls are unnaturally strong, but as (most) Inquisitors are made from Seekers, they don’t have a “double power”.

They do.  They have two spikes for push and two for pull.  Think of getting two 90% charges stacked on top of each other.  In total you get 180% or 80% stronger.

7 hours ago, Thunder_93 said:

With Lerasium, you can maybe make an exception as it’s a Godmetal, who knows if a body seems to recognize it. But Pewter? How it was described in the first book, it sounded more like this is a matter of skill, not strength. So just because he’s a Lerasium-Mistborn does not really make sense.

It is a nack.  Your body and your mind need to figure out how to do it.  Once that happens you can do it forever.  Think of it like learning to catch a ball.  It may take some people practice but if you have good reflexes or just learn to get the right feel for it you can do it immediately.

Quote

Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 3, 2015)

 

[StanLemon]

On 4/27/2020 at 8:58 AM, Karger said:

They do.  They have two spikes for push and two for pull.  Think of getting two 90% charges stacked on top of each other.  In total you get 180% or 80% stronger.

Where do you get this? It isn't stated in any of the books and I don't know any WoB that say this. It's stated that they have a Spike for each of the basic 8, and 1 for Feruchemical Gold making up 9 in listed in the third book. Later supplements up that average to 11 to account for Atium and the Lynchpin Spike

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

It's stated that they have a Spike for each of the basic 8

Where is this stated?  Why would they bother with copper for example? 

[StanLemon]

The types of Spikes are listed in the book, 4 steel and 4 bronze, that lines up with the basic 8. As far as why they would bother with Copper, it would allow them to sneak up on a group of Allomancers who might have a Seeker to prevent them from running