Why is Vin able to absorb the mists?

[PowerElite]

So I'm re-reading the Mistborn series and this question popped into my head. I could have missed something, but I can't understand why Vin is able to absorb the mists. She's a Mistborn, yeah. A strong one too. That's rare but not unheard of. She's not even the strongest Mistborn either if we consider pure allomantic power. Elend and even Spook (at the end) are closer with their Allomancy than Vin is until she goes all 'God Mode'. So what was the deciding factor here? Did Preservation just close his eyes, point his finger, and it happened to land on Vin? Did Ruin? I know Ruin was driving Vins mother insane and all but then the question becomes: "Why Vins mother?" Could it have just been anyone as long as they were Mistborn?

[HSuperLee]

We are led to  believe that Preservation could see into the future enough to know about Vin and that Ruin would try to use her as his agent, so Preservation decided to fight back against Ruin by Connecting her to the mists so that she could succeed Preservation. So its not just that he closed his eyes and randomly selected, so much as he knew Vin would be born and said, "She will be my successor." At least as far as I understand it.

[Weltall]

Welcome to the Shard!

You need to be sufficiently Connected to a Shard to become its Vessel, whether naturally or by hacking it somehow. Access to a Shard's magic system isn't strictly necessary. Vin was sufficiently Connected to Preservation, so she could Ascend once the Shard was free to take. Preservation and Ruin were playing four-dimensional chess and both saw Vin as the perfect playing piece, but Preservation was better at it and thus saw a few moves ahead to the point that he set Vin up to kill Ati and leave both Shards free for Sazed to take.

Here are the relevant epigraphs that set this up:

Quote

Regardless, the mists—the power of Preservation—chose someone to become their host long before all of this happened. That someone, however, was immediately seized by Ruin and used as a pawn. He must have known that by giving her a disguised Hemalurgic spike, he would keep the mists from investing themselves in her as they wished.

Quote

She once asked Ruin why he had chosen her. The primary answer is simple. It had little to do with her personality, attitudes, or even skill with Allomancy.

She was simply the only child Ruin could find who was in a position to gain the right Hemalurgic spike—one that would grant her heightened power with bronze, which would then let her sense the location of the Well of Ascension. She had an insane mother, a sister who was a Seeker, and was—herself—Mistborn. That was precisely the combination Ruin needed.

There were other reasons, of course. But even Ruin didn't know them.

Quote

Vin was special.

Preservation chose her from a very young age, as I have mentioned. I believe that he was grooming her to take his power. Yet, the mind of Preservation was very weak at that point, reduced only to the fragment that we knew as the mist spirit.

What made him choose this girl? Was it because she was a Mistborn? Was it because she had Snapped so early in life, coming to her powers even as she went through the pains of the unusually difficult labor her mother went through to bear her?

Vin was unusually talented and strong with Allomancy, even from the beginning. I believe that she must have drawn some of the mist into her when she was still a child, in those brief times when she wasn't wearing the earring. Preservation had mostly gotten her to stop wearing it by the time Kelsier recruited her, though she put it back in for a moment before joining the crew. Then, she'd left it there at his suggestion.

Nobody else could draw upon the mists. I have determined this. Why were they open to Vin and not others? I suspect that she couldn't have taken them all in until after she'd touched the power at the Well of Ascension. It was always meant, I believe, to be something of an attuning force. Something that, once touched, would adjust a person's body to be able to accept the mists.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Weltall

[Frustration]

10 hours ago, PowerElite said:

Elend and even Spook (at the end)

Spook was actually closer to Kelsier in power than Vin