Kaymyth

The other theory I've seen bandied about regarding Hemalurgic decay is that it's only a problem right after the spike has been created, and once it's bonded to a person, the decay ceases, even if it's removed from them for a period of time. This would explain both why Vin's spike maintained its power level and how Wax could get a measurable boost from such an old one.

Agreed. It takes practice. A lot of what you're doing is training your subconscious to ignore the laws of physics. We're so used to all of these basic natural laws that it can be very, very difficult to convince yourself that gravity doesn't exist here. By the same token, you can absolutely feel pain in your dreams, because you get injured and you expect it to hurt. After all, pain is an impulse in your brain. Though I've noticed that it's not usually nearly as intense in dreamland as it is in real life.

There is a sizing scale, but outside the MAG (which is completely unreliable for Investiture mechanics) we have no concrete description of the details of that scale. It would be interesting to know, but right now, all we can do is speculate.

Certainly low enough that the large-scale beatings just don't happen anymore. And probably to the point that the vast majority of people with Allomantic potential come into it at some point during their lives.

Kansas City, right here. We exist! Not this year, but definitely next year. I'm pretty excited about it being in KC in 2016. Not just for the 'squee! it's at home!' factor, but the fact that it's smack in the middle of the US means that it's a good, central location for a lot of folks who can't normally get out to the big coastal cons.

Metalminds also have a maximum capacity. If a Compounder is playing it safe, they'll likely not let their standard metalminds get too empty before making a refill burn.

I definitely got the point, but I also admit that my psyche has kind of an odd structure to it. I had the horrible bullies (and worse); some of what you've described could very easily come up in a malatium reading on me. I had some traumatic stuff happen to me as a kid, and there are a number of nexus points in my past where things could indeed have gone horribly, horribly wrong. But part of the way that I put myself back together after all of that wound up putting me in balance with my inner dark side. Also bear in mind that Vin is very young in the books. Yes, she's been through a lot, but all of that pain is still very fresh for her. I can see myself of 10, 15 years ago being a lot more affected by that sort of thing. But....well, I'm on the downslide towards 40 now, and I've shaken a lot of those fears and insecurities out of my system over the years. I'm not saying that the way I look at it is at all typical. Everyone's brains operate a little differently. I'm just saying that I'd take someone manipulating my emotions a lot more personally than them taking a look at my paths not taken.

Conveniently, this particular plotline is far enough in the arc that's coming together that it's likely to be a couple of stories in before this piece actually gets written. The concept is to have the Leecher be part of a team that was put together specifically to neutralize her, so Eva's got a lot of work to do before she gets powerful enough to warrant getting this madness thrown at her. There's plenty of time to squeeze out some more information on the more esoteric metals before I reach this stage. I was originally planning on waiting a while before I even brought the question up, but someone else was touched on the subject in another thread, and I figured, eh, now's as good a time as any.

I think this idea depends a lot on one's point of view and philosophical stance. For me, I believe that a lot of who I am is the sum of my choices. Sure, I could have done some stupid, stupid things, maybe was even tempted. But I didn't, and that's part of what makes me me. So, if a malatium burner were to look at me and sneer and say, "Haha! You almost did X, Y, & Z!" I don't think it would bother me that much. Great. So now you know who I'm not. A could have been does not the quality of my character make. By the same token, I'm pretty happy with the way my life has turned out so far. Are there choices I could have made better? Sure, but I learned from those mistakes. So again, whatevs, dude. Burn away. And if you spot a version of me that cured cancer or solved the secret of the universe, I will totally ghost-high-five Alternate Universe Me.

Pretty much this, yes. I saw some steel balls for slingshots for sale and thought, huh, those are kind of perfect for a Compounder. And I like the way the word 'marblemind' rolls off the tongue, so it stuck. It's quite possible I'm mixing up MAG information with other things that I've read. That's the problem with storing information in my brain; there's no card catalog!

WoB is that a Feruchemical charge "overwrites" the Allomantic effect of the metal. He went on to say, though, that a different Allomancer burning a metalmind would get the normal Allomantic effect of that metal. Nicrosil actually does a force-burn of metal reserves, so it's not exactly like duralumin. Of course, duralumin is usually used by a Mistborn, who can target the effect of their metals. But a Nicroburst is just touching someone and going, "BOOM!" It does indeed act against the target's will, though the nature of the power can be used for both beneficial and detrimental effects. And technically, in this case, for Eva it would do both. She has both ordinary and charged steel in her system.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the marbleminds would definitely go. More up for debate is how quickly. As for the earrings, bear in mind that these are not hemalurgical earrings, just normal(ish) feruchemical ones. The difference may be minor, or it may be fairly significant.

So, this is a question that I've been pondering on for a while. There comes a time in the plotting of character arcs when you realize you're going to get to a point where your main has leveled up so much that you need to throw something new at her (like ya do). And it got me thinking. So, let's take Eva, a steel compounder. In this scenario, Eva is ready for a fight. She's wearing her standard metalmind bracers and has steel shavings that she's downed for her Pushes, as well as a handful of charged steel marbleminds that she's swallowed for her Compounding. Not one to ever consider that overkill is even a thing, she's also got a few charged steel earrings that she wears as backup. Unfortunately for Eva, she runs into Jerkface (we'll call him JF for short), who is a Leecher. He manages to get ahold of her hand, and burns his chromium. What happens next can be broken down into several pieces: 1) Obviously her steel shavings disappear. Poof. Gone. No Steelpushes for you, Eva. 2) Does JF get the marbleminds as well? Just how different is a charged piece of steel from ordinary steel? (Personally, I think it's not going to be different enough to save the marbleminds; I believe that the metals that disappear would be dependent on the target's ability to burn them. However, there is another factor here that I will get to in #4.) 3) What about the earrings? We know that all that is required to burn a metal is that it be within a person somehow, but I don't think I've ever seen a WoB that's specified whether certain levels of "inside" come with different difficulty levels. Is it harder for Eva to burn her earrings than it is to burn the metal in her stomach? Does it take more focus? And if so, does this make a difference in how JF's chromium burn hits her? Do they disappear or just get badly pockmarked? (And, on a tangent, how weird would it be to see someone's earrings evaporate like that?) 4) Is there an upper limit to how much a Leecher or Nicroburst can burn at once? So far, the only effects we've seen have been with Allomantic amounts of metals, which are pretty miniscule. But how big of a metalmind do you need for a Compounder to get a decent effect? (The MAG supplements aren't even a little bit of ballpark help here, as the game mechanics have been vastly simplified for playability's sake.) There's an upper limit to how much charge a given amount of metal can hold; larger pieces of metal can hold more Investiture. So are we talking BB-sized metalminds as a practical measure? Or closer to slingshot marbles? There's a big difference physics-wise between burning out a few grams of shavings and actually vaporizing what could add up to a half-pound of steel, and this is something that just hasn't been addressed in the books. So would JF actually manage to clear Eva's entire reserves in one burst? Or does he hit that hypothetical upper limit and only manage to burn off part of the marbleminds? So, there you have my questions. Commence discussion!

This brings up a question I've been harboring in my thoughts for a while, but I think it deserves its own thread. Probably will be posting it up in a little while.

This actually feeds into my point - Sazed's morality is still a guiding factor. His preference for good over evil does not necessarily conflict with the balance between Preservation and Ruin. Thus, as yet I see no evidence that he would act with evil intent solely for the balance of Harmony.

This is the theory that was put forth in the book. But Marsh giving them the book on Hemalurgy at the end opens up a lot more questions that this doesn't cover. Thus all the speculation.

That doesn't necessarily preclude him being an electrum Misting, though. I've heard some theories about how he might be a Slider, but mostly that gets debunked by the idea that Wax would have recognized a speed bubble. Electrum, though - that's a real possibility.

That depends on how you define balance. Remember, neither Ruin nor Preservation are inherently "good" or "evil", so a balance between the two doesn't necessarily mean a balance between moral points of view. Perhaps proper equlibrium between Preservation and Ruin is the natural decay of things, dying of old age, etc. By that definition, murdering someone in their prime, stealing food from growing children, etc. would be the sorts of acts that would defy the balance. While we would view those acts of evil, it's not their inherent evilness that creates the problem.

Yes, this. Metal pierced into someone's body does not hemalurgy make; it has to be used to kill someone/take their Investiture/steal a piece of their soul before it can gain a hemalurgic charge. Miles pierced his skin with his metalminds to A ) make them difficult/impossible to Steelpush/Ironpull them, and B ) to make them accessible for compound burning.

Or was being influenced by the same force that was messing with Miles.

It's a logical conclusion, but not necessarily the case. The timing *could* just be coincidence. Or it could be that with Wax actively getting involved with the Set, that was a cue to Marsh that indicated that he'd be open to investigating. But yeah, I'm not big on the coincidence angle, either. The Universe (i.e. Brandon) is not that lazy. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find out that the Bloody Tan stuff and the Set stuff is related.

I think, of all people, that Marsh would be the last one to want Hemalurgy brought back. He is sort of the epitome of personal experience with how much it sucks. I think there's sufficient evidence in how completely bonkers Tan was to suggest that someone's been messing with his head. So, even with Tan gone, we still have the question of what rolled his marbles all over the floor. And thanks. I've seen a lot of back-and-forth about which way the Set is going, but it's always seemed to me that they're the kind of powerful group who is going to explore multiple options to get what they want.

Marsh gave Marasi the book (to give to Wax) specifically because he "wanted him to be informed". Whether that traces back to the Set or some of the stuff that Bloody Tan was up to (or both) is up for debate. Personally, my theories about the Set involve them taking a two-pronged approach. They might be trying to breed a Mistborn AND experimenting with Hemalurgy independently of each other. If you have a goal in mind, and more than one way to explore achieving it, it makes sense that you'd explore both routes and divide your eggs up amongst different baskets.

I wouldn't object to cadmium. You can do some really stupid-entertaining things with cadmium from a narrative standpoint. But the bendalloy symbol looks cooler.

I usually have some level of lucid control; often, when something happens that I don't like, I'll go, "Oh, hey-all, no," and actually rewind the dream to fix it. It's so casual now that sometimes when I'm awake and I screw something up, I'll think momentarily, "Rewind? No? Dangit, this is real life, so no." I have had the rare fully lucid dream, but they usually only kick in after I've hit my minimum sleep threshold. I find that the closer I am to wakefulness, the easier it is to lucidify things. There was one time that I had a flying lucid dream and I thought, "Eh, I'm already flying, why not have wings?" And so I shapeshifted myself into a dragon. That was cool.