king of nowhere

yeah, but my point is that a lot of characters display levels of skill too high to exist in many fields, and it is strange that you accepted those and not the wittiness. all the examples i have made are characters displaying levels of skills I find much more unbelievable.

Your suspension of disbelief is pretty strange. You are ready to believe that kaladin, at age 20, is the best spearman in the company, a doctor better than the ones employed by high nobles (he remarks that he could have medicated amaram's leg better), and the kind of leader capable of turning bridge 4 into an advanced fighting unit, all before he even started using radiant's powers. You can accept that vin, a girl wheighting 40 kg, captured and without metal, surrounded by 20 trained hazekillers, can indispose 4 of them before being captured. And, still without metal, can pickpocket an inquisitor who was likely burning pewter, while ruin was watching her. You can accept that Elend at age 20-something has apparently read all books of political/governing theory ever written, and knows them so much that he can recognize books by a single quote when talking to Yomen. But you cannot accept that Shallan and Lightsong are so witty. Funny thing, the suspension of disbelief. Yeah, I am fully aware that my own issues with the number seven turning out in random statistics are no less strange than that.

gaz may be a better man than he pretends, but it takes far more to become a radiant. I don't see this theory as holding much ground. However, his disappearence is suspicious, and it is unlikely, story-wise, that is due to something mundane.

but nevertheless it is something happening all the time. we use people close to ourselves as our standard of judgment, and spook was surrounded by people more powerful than him. if people were objective about that kind of things, no one would have ever complained for the economic crysis, instead being happy to still be much whealtier than people in the third worlld, or by people in the industrialized world 50 years ago.

IIs there any way a european fan can get one of those? I mean, without having to take an intercontinental flight

Something probably no one else is going to complain about, but it matters to me: the abuse of number 7. In alloy of law, most times random statistics are mentioned, the number 7 will be involved: 7 constables in 10 will miss a man at ten paces, wax was wounded 7 times, and a few other instances were something ahppened 7 times in 10, mostly quoted by marasi. This is not accidental: if asked a random number between one and then, most people will say 7. 1 and 9 are too close to the extremes and don't feel random, 5 is exactly in the middle, and 2, 4, 6, and 9 are too close to the above mentioned. So people having to choose a "random" number will generally pick 7, 3, and 8, in that order of likelyhood. If asked a 2-digit random number, they will mostly say 78 or 87 or 37. Knowing this, i tend to pay attention to random numbers. seeing that kind of pattern is a moderate blow to my suspension of disbelief, cause it keep pointing me that the story is fake. So I suggest brandon in the future use the random function of a calculator to get random numbers. Although I'm probably the only one who pay attention to that specific detail. Other than that, there are a few things I'm not really satisfied of, but they are all a matter of personal taste, nothing that could objectively be pointed as flawed.

It is no mistery that brandon spent two years in korea, so he used many bits of asian cultures to draw inspiration for his own cultures. After all, any fantasy culture is generally a mix of different real world cultures with some extra elements tied to the magic of the world.

there isn't any real analogy with the parshendi besides the carapace, but it was a fun video anyway.

even in the unlikely case it was true, i don't think there's anything mystical about the body of a dead god. when ati and leras died, their bodies had no sspecial quality that we know of. it's the body of a mortal who happened to hold a shard, not the body of the shard itself.

he changed the snapping mechanics, in aol era people no longer need to be near death to use allomancy. No idea if he also made aluminium allomantically inert, I don't think we have any proof either way, but I see no reason why he would.

THey can use aluminium foil in aol era, because they know about it. in final empire era, they didn't knew the properties of aluminium, likely. Maybe some of the nobles that used it as diningware for its value noticed it didn't give allomantic lines, but if so they kept it a secret. As for full metalminds being push/resistant, it's probably not the case. even if sazed's one weren't full, they should still have had some resistance. or it should be known in aol era. so probably the reason it's so difficult to touch metal inside a body is because cognitively they register as part of you. Ok, the actual reason is that if allomancers could push the metals in each other's stomacs allomancy wouldn't be as spectacular as it was, and all the stuff with Vin's earring could have never happened. But since it has to be justified realmantically... Anyway, I got another idea: burn atium to be the perfet pickpocket and steal atium from your rival nobles. You'll still have the same amount of atium you started with, and you'll weaken them.

Good point, but to try that you must be a mistborn yourself. and once you pull that atium vial, the other guy will have the choice between facing a mistborn who has atium without atium, or letting himself be robbed. Although I agree it's on the rude side and can only be done in times of house wars. @thorderknigh: being inside a body and being immersed into an organic solvent are two completely different things, especially from a realmantic perspective. Otherwise they could just keep any kind of metal coated with oil. or into a woolen sheat.

In the final empire, a mistborn always kept some atium on him in case of need. the atium had to be somewhere easy to access, for fast use in combat. a mistborn also kept no metal on him except for vials. Now, since regular vials contain shavings, and atium comes in beads, a skilled iron or steel burner should be able to distiguish an atium vial from a regular one, at least from close. So just using an allomancer that way at a party (+ eventual smoker if not mistborn) should reveal which of the other nobles were allomancer, and who were the mistborn. Also, since atium vials couldn't be fixed tightly in place, someone burning iron may be able to steal the vial from the target. To counter that, nobles may have started to carry decoy vials on them, with beads of other metals disguised as atium, as well as giving metal vials to people who were not allomancers. Do you think those kind of things happened often in the final empire?

Sorry, I hadn't checked this thread in a while and missed that question. However, I can still answer now. Premising that my area of expertise is organic chemistry, so I may not be very accurate on metal, I think all those would be pretty difficult to find. You'd have to contact a factory and have them made specifically for you. I think tin is used where some cheap stuff is needed, but I'm not sure if it is pure or not. iron is very rarely used as it is, generally some version of steel is preferred. even most steels would hardly be allomantic, since we tend to put a bit of everything in them for extra performance (I have a friend working in a steel manufactory, and he said thagt they make over 500 different types of steel, alloying it with almost every other transition metal). chromium and cadmium are extensively used in alloys, but I don't know of a single application of them as pure metals. So, overall, I agree with you that it would be difficult to find the right allomantic metals in everyday objects. It would just be reasonably cheap to order them in the right compposition

About the burning pithc idea, I don't know why everyone is assuming shardplate gives perfect heat isolation. Is that some spoiler from WoR that I missed? (I want to read the book all at once, not one chapter at a time). Do we have anything to support this idea? I would discard anyway the concept that plate is a perfect termal insulator. If it were, the slit in the helmet would be WAY too small to guarantee enough cooling from the body's heat (ever worn a coat suitable for -20 degrees? One that will make you sweat already at zero degrees? Well, that one has a bigger hole for the face, and is still not perfectly insulant over the rest of the body. Now think wearing one of those in summer and fighting in it). So for plate to protect against fire it should be able to transfer heat only in one direction. If brandon says that plate conducts heat only from in to out I will believe him, but I'm not ready to make that assumption for anything less. So yes, throwing a buketful of burning pitch on a shardbearer should put him out eventually. or at least force him to leave the front line quickly and remove his plate before getting burned too much. About the shield, as others pointed out it would shatter quickly. It's probably not worth the loss in agility. one could make a small shield to strap to the vanbrace, which would result basically in a thicker shardplate. Again iincreased endurance and loss of agility for swordplay shall be evaluated to see if it's worth it. It will probably have only limited applications to shardbearers duels. I can see it however being used against regular troops. the shardbearer uses the shield to bear the brunt of the attacks, and when it's shattered he makes a quick trip behind the front and get a new one form his attendants.

regardless of the technicalities, I don't think a tin compounder would ever have to worry about not getting enough sensorial acuity

brandon uses a lot of his friends for minor roles in his books. I remember demoux, that survived when he should have been dead because the guy he was based on put the condition that his character had to survive the books. Other roles are given at charity auctions to those who pledge the most. So brandon's books are literally crammed with cameos. Would be nice to have an additional page to list those.

It has been suggested devotion+dominion would be Nationalism. preservation+cultivation may be Utopia. odium+ruin would be Evil, just the only shard with a moral label to it. odium+preservation, tricky one. it hates you, but can't destroy you. maybe Imprisonment, or Stalking?

kelsier was a prophet, so normal rules do not apply to him. the citizen would have just replied that kelsier could do what he wished, and that he was no mere mortal. or that he used halfbreed skaa mistings, because he had to work with what he had, but now now more allowances. regardless, it could have convinced a few other people, so it would have been worth a shot.

that was a small charge and only destroied his hand. was thinking of soemthing bigger, something that will tear his body apart in pieces suitable to be collected with a spoon. THAT should be enough.

nothing so complicated. simply, some scraps of metal would be eroded by the mechanical action of water, and they would stay in water as metallic metals (oxidation state 0). with time they would be oxidized, but most metals oxidize very slowly in neutral water.

the lord ruler, with compounding, had basically limitless amount of feruchemical storage. limitles youth, limitless healt, limitles strenght, limitless speed... as long as he has metals, i can't really think of any way to kill him that would be available to a preindustrial society. ok, removing his metalminds would work, and also beheading him in a single blow, but good luck doing that to him. in the modern world it should be easier, just hit him with a cannon and it should be enough to stop him regenerating.

HE made a system where nobles had the right to rape women and the duty to kill them afterwards. Where it was normal in a plantation that half a dozen skaa would die every month for the beatings. where millions were sacrificed to keep the koloss garrisons (those things grow fast, die after a while, and it takes 5 people to make one of them). Now, I can accept he had to make some drastic decisions. I accept that in the new world there was less food available, and it made sense to make a slave calss and a noble class that would preserve culture. In a more egalitarian world there just would have been too little for everyone. I can even accept that he would conquest most of the world - although I would have let the nations far from luthadel survive. they just could pose no treath whatsoever to me. But there wass absolutely no reason to allow the rape andd murder of women, and the constant killing of people. he could have just put into law that skaa could be beaten only for rebellion, and encouraged them to make less children to keep the population under control. He could have legiferated that skaa women raped by nobles were forced to abort, but otherwise left alone. There was much unneeded brutality in the final empire. Aww, that's nice. welcome to the club!

the paradox is, in your criticism you're actually embracing her point of view. Rejecting what she is according to some arbitrary idea of what she should be, thinking there's something wrong with her despite her saving luthadel from three armies practically single-handed. Yet you hate her. and if you hate her, how could elend love her? maybe she really is not good enough for him. Anyway, When I read mistborn 1 the first time, vin jumped to the top of my "fictional character I'd want to hug" ranking (alas, now she's only third). I have a very strong protective instinct for traumatized, frail girls. I didn't like elend, feeling he was a useless character and the story could have gotten well without him. until near the end, when his place in the plot became clear. I really loved the scene where kelsier says "elend is a noble" and vin answers "so are you!". One of my favourite ones. and the subsequent scene of kell mending hurt feelings is a great scene for heartwarming. In mistborn 2 my appreciation for elend increased, but I disliked vin when she went emo. If I had also a "fictional character (non-villain) I'd want to bash with a baseball bat" she would have taken first place there now. while i feel protective towards genuinely traumatized girls, i ddefinitely loathe emo ones. And I definitely didn't like that she was considering zane over elend. especially since zane was clearly unhinged in the head. But then she came to her senses, and i had no more problems with her. I liked the confident, mature woman she became in 3. So i understand disliking her in 2, but in 3 not at all.

depends on the book. most books are read once and then discarded. only a few special books I like enough that I reread them. So, a book I didn't like, I wouldn't gift, because I only recommend good stuff. A book I liked enough to reread, I wouldn't gift, because I may want to read it again. I would happily lend it to spread the knowledge. A book I liked, but wouldn't reread, that's the kind of book I would gift.