Thought

Actually, in the HoA ch 36 bump, Sazed implies that a spike can steal more than one power. He says that a steel spike can take any physical allomantic attribute, but where it is placed determines what it gives. However, that would generally mean that even if an atium spike stole all attributes at once, it could only grant one at a time. With the power of the Well of Ascension? He did rearrange the world: it seems like it would have been a small matter to make sure he had what he wanted near him.

He's also a skilled thief, even without being a mistborn. Pilfering the pockets of a few plump plutocrats seems well within his abilities.

Because I'm a bit odd, I'd have to go with one of their early episodes. They were talking about world-builder's disease and Sanderson mentioned that he usually spends a month on prep. That single bit of information has been ridiculously useful to me. Why? Well, before that I had no perspective. Was I writing too much prep? Too little? Did I need prep? Questions haunted me, so I had a really hard time writing. Just knowing a professional answer, even though I didn't follow it, gave me enough perspective to set the questions aside and start writing. That said,the other piece of information that I've found very useful is the general sentiment (it's been said said many times, many ways) that in order to be a writer, one has to be willing to suck.

Thanks for the explanation, though keep in mind that the only person you have to justify your writing to is yourself. But regarding "peaks," it sort of looks like I wasn't clear in what I was trying say about intransitive and transitive verbs. The verb "to peak" has numerous definitions, but those are limited by how the verb is used in the sentence. You are using the verb as a transitive one (it has a direct object), so grammatically speaking, only the transitive definitions can be used. In this case, that means that you sentence actually reads something like "the sun caused the horizon to come to a high point." It's formulated as a transitive, which means that the subject is acting upon the direct object. Or, in this case, the sun is doing something to the horizon. That isn't what you want it to mean, but the only solution is to change how the sentence is structured. It is easy to fix your sentence: just turn the direct object (the horizon) into an indirect one. You did this, essentially, with your alternate definition: "to rise over." But, of course, the verb there is "to rise" with "over" being an adverb that signals that you are specifically using the intransitive definition. Rise has its own transitive definitions, which you don't want, so that adverb is necessary. Likewise, add that adverb to your original sentence, and it goes from being odd and confusing to making perfect sense. Does that make more sense?

Yup. Sorry if that wasn't clear. My parenthetical was that Sazed implies that the deformation we see in Koloss, as opposed to the deformation we see in inquisitors, is the result of Koloss spike placement, rather than the result of Koloss spikes containing human attributes. The implication is the it may have been possible to grossly deform Inquisitors, if their allomantic spikes had been placed differently. This wasn't a suggestion that inquisitor spikes contain human attributes.

That seems to be looking at the alloy from an allomantic perspective. I'd propose that if there was a feruchemical god metal, touching it would allow anyone to store a feruchemical attribute, but it wouldn't permanently make them a feruchemist. Just as feruchemy doesn't make one permanently stronger, its godmetal doesn't seem like it should make one permanently a feruchemist. As Lantern pointed out, Allomancy's patron godmetal allows someone to burn any burnable metal, Hemalurgy's allows one to steal anything stealable attribute, so Feruchemy's should likewise influence feruchemy in a feruchemical way.

Actually, if I recall correctly, TenSoon noted that when he put the Blessing of Potency back in that he had to place them in certain spots in his body to gain the benefit. Likewise, I think, but am not sure, that it was noted that his guards had their spikes in their shoulders. In HoA, Sazed notes that human attributes distort more than allomantic or feruchemical ones, and that the placement of the spike is also important (he implies that the placement is the main difference between koloss and inquisitors, but I could just be reading too much into it). While it might be possible, Ruin was the one who influenced TLR to make the Inquisitors, Koloss, and Kandra. He had an invested interest in making as broken of tools as possible. Additionally, it might just have lost all its power. As indicated by Marsh spiking Penrod, the power in the spike seems to be irrelevant for Ruin communicating with the individual.

Exactly. No one was informed of the process. Hemalurgy was used but it was, shall we say, "unknown." Your entire stance is based on the assumption that because Alendi's piercings were hemalurgic spikes, the art of hemalurgy was "known" prior to Rashek's ascension. Yet, as you've demonstrated, use in no way necessitates knowledge.

Yup. It's specifically noted that Ruin would guide Marsh's hand when the time came to actually spike Penrod. Thus the take away: in none of the spiking cases that we see in the Mistborn series does a knowledgeable human stab someone, except in the creation of known constructs (Inquisitors, Koloss, and Kandra). It is either Ruin (who doesn't count when we're talking if Hemalurgy was known or not) or happenstance (which, admittedly, was probably crafted by Ruin, but not under his direct control).

Spook would like to have words with you. I must disagree: they obviously had no idea what they were doing, or what the process they needed to follow was. The Terris religion is far too devoted to Preservation and too opposed to Ruin to intentionally communicate with Ruin, or to intentionally kill and rip pieces of Preservation out of some people to implant in others. The fact that the Terris religion didn't dominate the world supports this. If their earrings always produced an effect, then that would be a reliably miracle that anyone could experience. Part of what allows for religious diversity is the fact that there isn't reliable verification of one over the other. They must not of know what they were really doing, how they were doing it, or why it worked. That really fits the definition of "unknown" rather well. Just because Ruin manipulated the world to introduce the occasionally Hemalurgic charge does not mean that it was known. Sort of. Spikes rip out a piece of a person's soul, essentially. Sanderson has said that it is possible not to kill a person, but I believe he added the addendum that the process of stealing this would dramatically change the victim. Probably not, or else piercing needles would be the most common hemalurgic spike around. Marsh didn't know where to stab Penrod, yet he succeeded. Presumably the same was true of Vin's mother. As for the guy who stabbed Spook, there's no indication that he either had a Spike himself or was crazy, so there is no indication that Ruin was behind it. But the take-away is, people rarely were informed of the process in the instances we see. What do you mean? Could you provide the quote for context?

So, there was a creepo who got hired at Target because they heard he was a good at stalking.

In HoA, Marsh notes that the spike needs to touch blood, so one couldn't resurrect Kelsier's body. But, perhaps if you spiked someone who was braindead, Kelsier (or Sazed, or anyone else in that realm) might be able to take full control.

While it is likely that the two-by-two, hands of red-and-gold are southerners, it would be fun if this hinted at a more pan-cosmeria event. Color's have been associated with the various shards. White and Black represent Ruin and Preservation (respectively, I like to believe), for example. If we look to the cosmere, we do see red being an important aspect of somewhere else which is possibly connected to a shard: the followers of Shu-Dereth, whose magic may be resulting from Dominion's presence. Red may be Dominion's color, then, and thus the Red's may be the followers of Wyrn. No idea about the gold. But, as noted, it is more likely that this refers to others already on Scadrial. I am interested in this "final metal" dealeo. It seems likely that the 16 allomantic metals are already known in AoL, so either this will break that set up (seems unlikely), or it will introduce godmetals again.

Ah, here we are. Hero of Ages, ch 34: This is, admittedly, a bit of a broad statement, since it could be construed to mean when Preservation first trapped Ruin, or it could just reference to the last year or two of the Mistborn series. However, given how allomancy is treated, I think we can safely assume that, at the very least, this period is limited to Rashek's ascension. Namely, Alendi was a misting (Seeker), but it is noted repeatedly in Vin's research that Allomancy is essentially unknown prior to Rashek giving out Lerasium. He used the new fancy power as a bit of a bait and switch to help people forget about feruchemy and thus hide his secret. Since Allomancy existed, was used, but was basically unknown, I think it is likewise reasonable to assume even if Hemalurgy existed in the world, it was still "unknown." Much as it seems to be unknown in AoL even though Wax uses a Hemalurgic earring.

Where was that mentioned? I thought that in HoA, Sazed stated that of the three arts, only Feruchemy was known before the conflict of Ruin came to a head.

What do you call someone who really likes the Mistborn series? A Brandon Sanders-fan. What about someone who is always carrying around Ender's game? An Orson Scott Cardigan. What do you call it when someone is really into Lord of the Rings? You say that they are very J.R.R. Tol-keen about it! I just recently read Ringworld. I guess you could call me a Larry Newban. If you reread the Wheel of Time series, does that make your a Robert Jordagain? What do children call small kids who are fans of the Inheritance Cycle? Christopher Paoweenies.

I'd refer you to the phrase: wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. Or, in other words, the route from cause to effect may not be consistent. Early magic users may have been able to use magic, then they created Elantris to effect all magic users. Perhaps, like allomancers, they used to have to snap: Elantris snaps them without the pain, but as a side-effect changes their physical appearance (much like a Hemalurgic spike grants power and changes a person). The Elantris Effect may influence all magic users who come close, while there may be some magic users who are never affected but remain unknown since they also never snap.

Heh, I never expected to see someone use that acronym in everyday language. I'm curious, might you be related to the educational field yourself? In the spirit of your signature blurb, "I don't think that word means what you think it means." Generally speaking, there is no reason that a gore-filled scene can't be well-written. Indeed, we would expect such a scene in any book bought by a respected publisher (such as Scholastic) to be so. This goes double for any such book that is then selected by a trained professional to display that very trait. Those familiar with the Hunger Games should, even if they don't themselves agree that is was well written, be able to easily understand a position in which that statement is valid. Thus, there is every reason to support the teacher's decision to use the book for the statement purpose. Where I am hung up is what legitimate reason there might be to oppose that decision. The gore itself is fairly reserved, it serves a narrative purpose, and its treatment is even ethically commendable (Collins focus is on the emotional and psychological ramifications of violence: she doesn't glorify it).

That sounds like a double entendre.

You seemed to be talking about allomantic output, whereas I was talking about allomantic fuel. Eating aluminum is perfectly fine, burning it is the problem. But as we saw with Vin, sometimes you can't reasonably avoid it. But an implanted metalmind with a little allomantic fuel would be a nice fallback.

While we don't know how Feruchemy could fuel Allomancy, I suspect that it would probably manifest in one of two ways: either by storing the ability to use allomancy, or by storing the power gained from the metals. The former is basically just the old Investiture theory: store your steelpushing ability into a nicrosilmind. While you store, you are a weaker coinshot. When you tap it, you are more powerful. The latter, we've actually sort of already seen through compounding. That gives an allomantic metal a feruchemical power, than the ferring can then store for a net gain. The health that Miles Hundredlives uses is the result of storing the effect of an allomantic burn. Thus, what if instead of storing a feruchemical trait (health), one could store an allomantic trait? That is, lets say that you burn steel, but store 20% of it (just as Miles burns gold and stores it). Your metal runs out faster, but later you are able to tap your metal mind in order to steelpush without ingesting metals. Might be a way to counter aluminum/chromium.

Voidus, you are grossly underestimating the effectiveness of flamethrowers. If they were able to be taken down so easily in the circumstances you describe, they would have never seen major military use. Since they did see such use, we know that your countermeasures aren't effective. Anywho, moving on: for a lurcher, a large ramp could make an effective indirect fire weapon. Oil up the ramp, place a metal ball on the end touching the ground, have the lurcher stand on the ground opposite the ball, and pull. The ironpull will bring the ball towards the lurcher, but the ramp will translate some of that forward motion into upward motion. As long as the lurcher stops pulling before the ball leaves the ramp, it will continue on its inclined path. Pair the lurcher with a coinshot (since presumably there are roughly equal numbers of them), and the power behind this simple device could be quite impressive.

But he does count under the colloquial use of the term "bad guy." Edit: Having given it further thought, I'd actually argue that in this case both apply. Antagonist is usually defined as the individual working against the protagonist, the hero, or both. Hammer is a go for that. The villain tends to be defined as a character who does evil. Captain Hammer fits that bill as well: he pursues Penny so he can have sex with her, he mistreats her, his crime fighting activities are specifically for self-aggrandizement, he expresses the desire to psychologically harm "Billy" even when our dear Doctor isn't engaging in criminal activity, and eventually intends to kill the Doctor. To be fair, Hammer is probably a little more of an antivillain than a straight up villain, but close enough.

I might as well add my voice to the chorus regarding Hunger Games. I liked the first book, but the third? I read it out of obligation. Katniss may have well been the least interesting POV character for every single scene in that book. Yes, this goes even for those scenes in which it is just her and the cat.

Also, see: Captain Hammer.