vineyarddawg

I don't really know, but my original point was really that it wasn't about burning the metals, per se. It's about their ability to draw on the stream of power that Preservation provides. Hence, the bigger pipe. In this analogy, they don't have to burn metals faster or more efficiently, because burning the metals at the same rate is "opening the gate" exactly the same amount. It's just that there's more power coming through. If Elend burned duralumin (opened the gate all the way), he'd get a huge amount more power using tin, for example, than Vin would, even if had exactly the same amount of tin in their bodies. It's not that he's burning tin more efficiently, because the tin is still completely consumed. There's just more power coming down the pipe. (Also, I grant that it's probably a bad analogy. That's just the mental image that I got, for better or worse.)

Hey, I live near there! Unfortunately, in the world of the Reckoners, I probably died a long time ago. Spoilered because of a little bit of discussion from Firefight: MILD FIREFIGHT SPOILERS EDIT: Good lord, if it's called (name)lanta, my head is going to explode. Everybody I know that lives near Atlanta hates the ___lanta thing.

(The kids love this one.)

Varvax spaceships!

Your reaction tells me that I probably need to go back and look more closely at my assumptions (which is what they were). I was just basing all of that on what I read in WoK and WoR. But here's what I have: - Szeth clearly had an honorblade, and he dismissed it and re-summoned it regularly. (He summoned in the Prologue to WoK, in fact, during the Gavilar assassination, which means that it had to have been dismissed at some point previously. And we see Kalak summoning his honorblade in the Prelude.) - I assumed that dropping an honorblade or being disarmed from the blade wouldn't break the bond. Otherwise, what would be the point of bonding with an honorblade at all? - We've seen that regular shardblades can be re-summoned at will if they, for example, are purposefully left in physical form but are not physically in contact with the holder (for example, when Adolin is practicing with throwing his blade in WoR). So, I assumed that honorblades would also behave the same way.

I know Sanderson is very scientific when creating his magic systems, but I think we're really doing in that first part of your argument is disagreeing over the exact definition of "catalyst." I probably used the term incorrectly, and I'd even go so far as to say Sanderson probably used the term incorrectly, as well. I can't speak for him, obviously, but the point was I was trying to really make is the idea of having a "gate" and a "pipe," where the actual allomancy is fueled by the "pipe" and the metal is the "gate," and the allomantic powers that you actually see can be affected by the size of the pipe and the size of the opening in the gate. How it relates to your point is that I was saying that Elend might not have needed to burn metal at a higher rate than Vin. He might just be connecting to a bigger pipe, so he can open the gate the same amount (by burning the same amount of metal) and more power flows through the (allomantic) pipe. (As soon as I type that, though, I realize that in the real world, the laws of physics don't work that way, but I'm presuming that the laws of Cosmere physics don't apply to allomantic powers in the same way they apply to water flowing through a pipe.) I do agree on the savantism angle, that to become a savant you have to burn more metal longer than anyone else, but that doesn't apply to Elend, since he's connecting to a bigger pipe than anyone else. I'd never heard the WoB about allomancy never actually draining Preservation's power, so that's good to know. Guess Sazed just really doesn't want any TLR's.

I wouldn't take that cookie...

Welcome!

Yes, you can certainly dismiss an Honorblade. If you're disarmed, that doesn't break your bond, and if someone else picked it up, it wouldn't be automatically bonded with them... it would still be bonded to you. If somebody were to disarm you, you just re-summon the Honorblade and it would come back to you. I guess you'd just have to avoid getting hit with it during the summoning time, though. (That brings up an interesting question, too. If someone picked up an Honorblade that was bonded to another person, would they be able to use it at all? Or would the blade fight back against them somehow?)

I wouldn't eat that cookie...

Welcome! Don't accept cookies from anyone (unless they're made of bamboo)!

Well, Sanderson has said multiple times that Allomancy isn't derived from the metals, but directly from Preservation's power. The metals are just the "catalyst," if you will. So duralumin burns up all the catalyst, but the power is still there. From the way Sanderson describes it, I have a picture in my head of a "pipe" between the Allomancer and Preservation, and the metal is the gate on that pipe, determining when (and which) power can be released. How much power is released is determined by partially by how far you open the gate (i.e. how fast you burn the metal) and also by the width of the pipe. Burning Lerasium the first time creates a pipe. Burning Lerasium again makes the pipe wider. But if you burn Lerasium once and then go make, say, 10 or 20 generations of children, the pipe will naturally get a little smaller in each succeeding generation. As each succeeding generation is born, the pipe will get a little smaller and a little smaller until, eventually, to get the same amount of power an original misborn would get out of a "regular" metal burn, the current generation of mistborn would practically have to use duralumin. (This is where we picked up in the first Mistborn book, I believe.) I think this maps well to the Harmony era, as well, since Sazed would have two reasons for nerfing allomancers. First, he didn't want anyone to be able to become a new Lord Ruler. Second, I think he also didn't want people to be able to tap into Preservation's power in nearly as significant a way, since his very nature is now to keep Preservation and Ruin balanced.

Shiny!

This is true. Remember, Steelheart had the power to turn an entire city the size of Chicago into pure steel. That ain't nothin'. And I don't think Regalia is actually all that powerful. She can manipulate water. That's it. (She doesn't even have a "prime invincibility," as David would call it.) So she sets up shop in a city that's on the water, does some water manipulation, and bingo, she's in power. The range of her powers is impressive, but I certainly don't think she's on the same level as Prof or Steelheart. Still, though, Prof's forcefields are incredibly powerful, that's for sure, as is his regeneration ability.

In my headcanon, at least, Sazed's slowness to action is also because his idea of "Harmony" actually means what we would call "balance"... and that means that you need some evil in the world. That "balance" doesn't mean that everything is good and fine and hunky-dory. "Balance" means that the power struggle between Ruin and Preservation is in balance, and if Preservation is dominating, then things are not in balance. It's because of this, I think, that Sazed is perfectly happy to keep Rayse bottled up on Roshar, in spite of the fact that Rayse might very well kill most of the humans on the planet. As the second letter says, he might kill many people on Roshar, but at least he won't spread to other systems and kill the shards on other planets. In Sazed's mind, that's "balance." I don't think Sazed would be pressed to action unless Odium escaped Roshar and targeted other shardholders on other worlds. That would throw the Cosmere out of his concept of "balance," and that would push him towards action. Just my opinion, though.

I appreciate the sentiment of being bored by the "remedial review" in some books, but I agree with others in the thread already who have said that it's basically unavoidable. If you don't explain the magic system at least somewhat in every book, then your editor will kill you, then add an explanation in about the magic system post-mortem. (Sorry if that's a little too morbid for morbid humor.)

Actually, a WoB from one of the recent signings said that Lerasium is, indeed, additive/cumulative in terms of Mistborn power!

Welcome!

I think that's pretty much correct. She was intentionally leading them to the "fake base" at which they ended up. As far as the plot angle, her intent all along was not for Prof to kill her (as Prof assumed), but it was for Prof to be led to the Oblito-bomb, be consumed by corruption when dispensing of the Oblito-bomb, and then come to her side where he would succeed her when she inevitably died from cancer.

Unless I'm mistaken, Regalia's base turned out to be in New Jersey, so all of their theories were useless because their circles (if they were using them like in your example) were too small. The range of her powers was much larger than 5 miles.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dalinar thinks of it as his curse.

Also, is it just me, or does anybody else have a picture in their mind of the "S" pendant of the faithful looking a lot like the Superman "S" from Man of Steel?

I noticed that, too, but that's just because transposing "-ant" and "-ate" words bothers me so much that it would probably be my Epic weakness. You could say it's my "dominate" flaw. (Ugh, it almost physically hurts me just to type that!)

Yeah, I actually went back and found every specific mention of ichor-alcohol in Warbreaker, and the way to which it's repeatedly referred does give the impression that it's just a normal substance of some sort that Yesteel discovered/invented. So maybe my theory is bunk.

See, the best of these are the ones that are true.