lil_literalist

I'm still not convinced that the force is dependent upon the mass of the allomancer. When burning pewter, at least, it's not. Vin showed that she could jump insanely high by just using pewter. The explanation for that was that all of the power that pewter gave her was packed into her tiny body. I see no reason why steel or iron should be different.

If they do rediscover Hemalurgy, it would definitely change the world, but perhaps not as much as you might think. Allomancers would probably start putting normal, non-Hemalurgic spikes in themselves so that they can't easily be distinguished from people who actually practice Hemalurgy. Laws would be passed that would require a strict sentence (possibly death) for anyone practicing Hemalurgy without the authority of the government. And criminal Allomancers slated for execution would possibly be harvested by the law, and their spikes given to law enforcement officials. ...Perhaps hemalurgy really would flip the world upside down. It's bound to be rediscovered eventually, though. I have a suspicion that Wax's uncle might be trying something like this, and there's still 2 more trilogies in the Mistborn series even apart from the current plotline. And with the Ars Arcanum in the back of AoL, someone is bound to use Hemalurgy when we get to books dealing with the cosmere.

Hm, you seem to enjoy warning people about the admins... Personal experience? Anyway, I'd probably have to say that TWoK is my favorite so far, with Mistborn a close second. My posting on these forums will probably reflect that pretty closely. I only read Elantris one time, and that was several years ago, so I don't remember much of that. As a side note, my sister almost named my niece Siri after the princess in Warbreaker, but then Apple came out with their own Siri, so she changed the name.

I'm inclined to believe that the comment about protecting it as if it were his own skin is more literal than you guys give it credit for. It might be that Hoid is somehow wearing it as an outer coating, although that may be too literal. However, I believe that if the element is indeed Lerasium, that Hoid ate it. "I have found a good home for it. I protect its safety like I protect my own skin, you might say." In fact, I might be inclined to say that Hoid somehow incorporated the element into himself anyway--whatever the element may be.

Well in that case, I would be willing to bet that he doesn't have atium-compounding abilities, and that he maintains his age because of the same world-hopping activities that Hoid does. After all, Hoid probably wouldn't be able to compound atium or use lightweaving to keep himself young. And yet he still is. Why should we assume that Demoux is any different?

This is an awesome theory, although I've seen enough evidence to persuade me that it isn't true. But way to connect the dots! In Elantris, Dilaf somehow dispels Raoden's illusion. It's possible that they may know of ways of doing this to any illusion. This. The text says something like, "it's possible that nothing might have happened." Vin just sensed that something was out of the ordinary, and she didn't bother figuring out what. Sanderson's statement that she's "too observant for her own good" leads me to believe that this is simply Vin noting Hoid's irregularity (because he is pretty odd). If this was Ruin's influence, Vin wouldn't have to notice anything about Hoid. I think he would have had enough influence to make her leave anyway. Though now I'm curious what he might have said. Considering how religious Demoux is, with him knowing that the Inquisitors used spikes? It might not be as likely as you might think. But uh, apparently I missed something. Demoux is working for the 17th shard?

One thing that you need to remember is that many stories share similar elements not because they are influenced by one another, but because those things make the story interesting. For instance, most stories have some sort of villain to provide conflict. You don't need a villain, but it makes good sense to have one. Likewise, having a battle with two characters standing still and trying to best each other in willpower simply just doesn't make for an entertaining scene (unless there's something more going on than just that, such as an ideological conflict).

Personally, I agree with number 2. Sanderson has well-thought-out rules for all of his magic. However, those don't necessarily have to line up with the laws of nature as we know them in this world. What we need to do is figure out how the system works inside Sanderson's mind. I'm liking this, and I think it needs to be emphasized that when something is soulcast, the resulting material occupies the same volume. Now, what happens when you soulcast something (just focusing on the 10 elements)? Whatever you just soulcast is changed into a completely pure form of that element. Purer, in fact, than you might find naturally occurring in the world. Smoke is quickly dissipated in air, but is it not possible that a pure form of smoke is far thicker than what you would find coming off of a wood fire? So much thicker, in fact, that it would actually explode outward? Does the density of the material that you began with actually matter for the end product? Probably. I just can't picture smoke being soulcast out of a volume of air and exploding outward in the same way that the smoke from the stone did. However, we do know that buildings can be soulcast out of air (although this might just be rumor) and that grain is easiest or best to soulcast from small boulders. Any thoughts on this?

Ah, I had forgotten about this. Of course, I think that it would still be pretty easy to plant a small seed of that emotion in conversation, and then riot it into a primary concern. Of course, it's not mind control, so you can't instantly turn love into hate, but you would probably be able to turn the neutral opinion of a person into one of those extremes. For example, mention to another person that a guy did some minor thing to tick you off. Riot sympathy and indignation. Keep talking, and follow that up with disgust, and then anger.

Aha! A topic geared just for my talents! It seems like Thor and RA2046 are on the right track, but I'd like to take a crack at this myself. First of all, I would like to gather some existing knowledge, discuss what it means, and then move on to a formula. I'm going to refer to anything that you're pushing or pulling on as an anchor, even if it's something like a coin. Observations 1. The thickness of the blue lines seems to have some relation to how strong the force is; the thicker the lines, the stronger the force could be if you pushed/pulled. 2. Lines grow thinner as anchors get farther away. 3. Lines of small anchors are thinner than large anchors. 4. An allomancer can vary the strength of his pushes/pulls (although not necessarily with much control) through flaring metals. 5. If a metal is not pure, it may be ineffective. 6. The pushes/pulls of some allomancers are stronger than others. Significance: 2. As many have suggested, I agree that this follows an inverse-square relationship. Otherwise, blue lines might be sprouting from everywhere with a large metal object, and not just the places nearby. For instance, if this were not an inverse-square relationship, you would be able to see the spires of Kredik Shaw anywhere in Luthadel. 3. The force is dependent upon the mass of the anchor. (As a side note, I suspect that it would be more rational to say that the force is the sum of all of the forces between the metal molecules and the allomancer. In other words, just as you are attracted to every single atom gravitationally, an allomancer is pushing off of every metal molecule in the object at once. So for example, if you had a square kilometer of iron plate beneath you, it wouldn't provide nearly the same force as the same amount of iron shaped into a compact object like a sphere, right next to you.) For the purpose of this post, we will assume that the anchor is a single point in space. 4. There is a variable of effort involved. Its relationship to the amount of metal being burned per unit time is unknown, but is possibly linearly-related. 5. According to Kelsier, if a metal is not absolutely pure, it can still work. However, the more unpure it is, the less safe. This suggests an exponential relationship, possibly more than a simple square. 6. An innate difference, which will just be a unique constant for each allomancer. (Though it would be interesting to try and find how this varies by diluting of allomancy from the original allomancers to the nobility of Vin's and Kelsier's time). One last notable thing is that there is nothing to suggest that the mass of the allomancer has anything to do with the force. If Zane is hovering over a coin on the ground and suddenly catches a person falling from the sky, the force of his push will not increase; he will simply descend until the coin gets closer to him and the force of his push again equals out the combined gravitational pull of both persons. If you argue that it's the body mass of the allomancer, think about this: if an overweight lurcher went on a crash diet, would the blue lines get thinner? Does this mean that fat coinshots have more force behind their pushes than skinny ones? No, it just means that because of their body mass, they are affected less by the force that pushes back on them. Definition of variables F = The Force on either anchor or allomancer (ignoring sign conventions for now) A = Innate Ability. This is a measure of how strong the allomancer is. (Higher for people like the Lord Ruler, lower for your everyday allomancer.) E = Effort. How strongly an allomancer is flaring metals. Normal pushes should be a fraction like 50%, while max flaring would be 100%. Duralumin allows percentages above 100%. M = Mass of anchor. P = Purity of metal, from 0% to 100% (although I'm not sure how you would burn a completely impure metal). r = distance between the allomancer's center of mass and the anchor. F = A*E*M*P^2/r^2 Comments on equation, and things to explore further As I noted above on 4, the exponent of the purity is likely more than 2. If a metal is only 50% pure, then I would think that it should be pretty close to 0% effective, rather than 25% effective. The variable for purity needs to be given another thought. It might even involve something like a cos, where a little impurity is fine, but it quickly falls away. It's possible that if you still argue for the body mass of the allomancer to be taken into account, that could be lumped in with innate ability A. Can allomancers increase A through training or experience? Or are allomancers just as powerful when newly-snapped as when they're at their peak? There should be a constant in there, to fix up all of the units. Since ability A is already an arbitrary variable that we don't understand or have units for, it would be fine to group it with that. I chose to use Effort rather than a variable of how much metal an allomancer is burning (as others have done), as I felt that this is easier to understand. However, it might be useful to calculate this with the rate at which you burn metals. This might be especially true for burning duralumin, which burns all of your metals in a short burst. (Maybe the more duralumin you have, the shorter the burst, thus the greater the force?) Also, it's possible that 100% for one person might be different than 100% for another person. I really should revise this equation to reflect that, then. The first equation used the velocity of the object relative to the allomancer as a variable. I feel that this is unfounded. (Though I will reexamine if supplied with evidence to the contrary.) EDIT: Removed spoilers.

Well, if we're just talking about waking up one day knowing that we're some sort of misting, I would prefer it to be something that's not incredibly obvious (like steel or iron). And preferably useful (so bronze and copper would be out). I would think that between zinc and brass, zinc would allow you more control over someone's emotions, especially in an unsuspecting world, where people wouldn't know that those emotions aren't really theirs. If you're contemplating whether it's ethical or not, you may as well either go all in or stay away. Both pewter and tin would intrigue me, and there's definitely times when both would be handy. Of the higher metals that we've seen, I would think that Cadmium and Bendalloy (which appears to be a form of Wood's metal) would still be hard to obtain, and would be fairly noticeable in today's world as well, and not quite as useful as the base metals. Gold is just sounds depressing, although Electrum might be interesting, but not very useful. Atium and Malatium aren't available in our world, so there would be no point in finding them. So if I just woke up one day as a misting, I would want to either be zinc, pewter, or tin. I'd probably go for zinc. I would also like to contribute to the lurcher/coinshot debate. Because of the way you use the metals, the coinshot would actually be far more useful. If a building is tall enough for you to pull on it, then there should be some metal lower down on that building that you can push on. And if you're going swinging through city streets, then pushing from side to side is just as good as pulling your way. If you're worried about falling, then you should place coins on your clothing that you can push on without having to get them out, like Wax did with his steel button. It may look odd, but it's even weirder to be seen flying through the streets. Also, someone mentioned falling out of an airplane. Although there would be some parts made from steel or other metals, an airplane's skin is usually made of aluminum. Most coinshots seem to be able to instinctively use their power with practice, so even a novice coinshot shouldn't be in too much trouble even falling from great heights. Unless it's over deep water...

Hey there, 17th-sharders. You can see my username on the left side of my post (lil_literalist for the lazy people). I've been a fan of Sanderson ever since my sister got me the Mistborn box set for Christmas a few years ago. Although I've lurked around a bit, I'm finally going to start contributing. I've read most of Sanderson's work, except for Alcatraz (yeah, it's on my summer reading list), and some annotations and interviews and the like. Pleased to meet you.

The problem with this is that Nightblood's purpose is to destroy evil. And Vin is almost certainly not evil, so she wouldn't even be tempted. You have to also remember that Vasher is a decent swordsman. Not nearly as good as Denth or Arsteel, but still in a league above mortal men. So Brandon probably did mean that Vasher would be able to beat Vin with Nightblood out, using it as a normal sword. (first time poster, btw)