FlashWrogan

My introduction was relatively random. I do childcare at my church and one of the moms often stayed in the nursery to either help out, or take care of one of her daughters. Turned out we had fairly similar tastes in books and she told me about Mistborn and insisted I try it. I remember the "burning metals in your stomach" being very odd when I heard about it, but the idea of the prophesied hero choosing to take over the world instead of saving it sounded amazing. I was blown away by the first book, immediately went and read the second, and waited with bated breath for the third to come out. It took me a while to get around to reading Elantris, but I bought and read all of his Cosmere related books as soon as they came out (didn't know there were cosmere). Eventually got tired of waiting for his next book and read the entire wheel of time series to be able to read a couple more of his books

I spent 30 or 45 minutes last night researching and writing a reply, only make one wrong click and lose it all. Here is my second attempt... #1-4 Scadrial Geography The magnetic pole is issentially irrelevant for this discussion, as it doesn't have much bearing on where the axial pole has to be, or anything relating seasons and day/night cycles. As far as Vin turning it, I'm pretty sure if she had turned the planet differently than it normally does, then that would have had more severe consequences than we see (the normal day/night cycle would have gone all wonky from then on, but we see from Elend's viewpoint that the sun rises somewhat predictably at the end). I also think it is reasonable to assume that her expanding mind would have been able to take in the current rotation of Scadrial. Your take on #4 seems logical, but I will get to that in a minute. I don't buy this. Brandon has always seemed a very thorough and organized writer, and I can't see him at least creating a relatively complete picture of the geography and planetary movements of Scadrial in his head. I would think this would be important since in the next trilogy we will see the population from the other pole, and the third trilogy will have space technology. I'm liking these ideas, and I am forming a more concrete theory here. I also found this post from 2008 on TWG by GoryCat that helped me cement my theory. It goes into axial tilts and eccentric orbits (which he uses to account for the seasons). I didn't understand all of the math concerning eccentric orbits, but I got enough to formulate this theory: Scadrial Orbit Theory The north axial pole of Scadrial is centered on the Terris mountains (#8 on this map) or somewhere above the northern dominance. Luthadel is at a very high latitude on the planet, something equivalent to the northmost part of Alaska. This would normally be within the arctic circle, however Scadrials axial tilt is very small (maybe 5 or 10 degrees as opposed to the 23 degrees on earth). This might mean incredibly mild seasons, except that Scadrial has an eccentric orbit (probably because Rashek wasn't able to change orbit correctly) around the sun. This means that the planet would sweep closer to the sun for one section of the orbit and sweep farther away from the sun for the opposite section of the orbit (GoryCat's post above has more details on that). This means that summer on Scadrial is significantly shorter than winter, but I don't see a problem with that. Someone in Luthadel would see the sun trace a path relatively close to the southern horizon each day (similar to what one would see just south of the arctic circle on Earth, except with less variation) and would have seasons that are relatively mild (with a short summer and long winter). If we look at the same latitude as Luthadel, but rotate 180 degrees in longitude, we would see a climate that is a bit cooler than the the Final Empire was right after Vin got rid of the ash (since we would still see some ash in the atmosphere farther away from the ashmounts, ash has a tendency to spread over the whole planet), but still uninhabitable. The equatorial region would be even hotter. What would this look like in comparison to Earth? The arctic and temporate region of Scadrial would descend only a little farther than the arctic circle of earth (The southern part of the empire would end around the same latitude of the south coast of Alaska). The uninhabitable equatorial region of Scadrial would be nearly equivalent to both the temporate and equatorial regions of Earth (the border again being near Alaska's south coast). Whew! On to #5 I agree with Chaos here. I hadn't really made an assumption, but it seemed unrealistic to me that she could have burned up all the power of the mists at once. #6 I can see this as being plausible, but am not yet convinced (it seems my scenario is equally plausible and I don't see one or the other having the upper hand). If two men, both 200 lbs with equal footing, one being athletic and muscular, the other being flabby, push palm to palm with one hand each, what happens? By your assumption, their hands would be pushed toward the weaker of the two first, then that difference in distance/leverage would cause the weaker one to be pushed farther. By my assumption the the two would be pushed back from each other before the difference of strength was able to have any effect on the position of the hands. The second of these scenarios seems more realistic to me, as I have played a game that mimics this scenario against significantly stronger people. The second of these scenarios seems more likely to me, and I can accept this as an adequate explanation for the scene. It wasn't that the inquisitor was pushed any harder than Elend, it was that he wasn't expecting the force of the push to be so much while Elend was. I don't remember the specifics of Vin's duralamin push against the cavalry, but it always seemed to me that Vin was thrown a huge distance whenever she duralamin pushed. The force in this situation seems to be distributed evenly as close as I can tell. #7 This makes sense to me. And while I wish I had a more specific answer, I'm sure such a question would get RAFO'd #8 I hadn't thought of this before, but it makes sense to me. #9 This is the only thing that makes sense to me, unless we simply don't know yet and Brandon is leading us on until a later date. Could it be that Ruin wasn't aware that Preservation had already chosen Vin? In this scenario Ruin's choice could have been somewhat coincidental, but Preservation was able to eventually overcome this hitch. The other possibility is that Ruin was manipulated by Preservation to choose Vin, and so he was playing into Preservations master plan all along (I am reminded of the statement Vin made to Ruin that it wasn't Ruin's plan, but Preservation's all along. I don't have access to the book at the moment, so I can't quote it). #10 I can accept that the filling of the WoA and the mists starting to snap always correlated, but that doesn't mean the well directly caused the snapping. We also know that the mists started staying during the day both times the well filled, but that was caused by Ruin trying to find his own hero to give him the power at the well. So the question remains, what actually caused it? Did Preservation have enough presence of mind to begin the snapping, but wasn't able to stop the deaths related? Had Preservation rigged the mists to start snapping whenever the well filled since he knew that Ruin would be most dangerous during those times? Did Ruin start the snapping in order to increase the menace of the "deepness" despite the fact he knew it would create more allomancers? Another question that is relevant to this mist issue: What caused the mists to stop snapping after Rashek took the power? We can assume the second time around that Sazed just waved his hand to stop the snapping since he was altering the whole snapping process anyway (I think I read about that at some point in an interview). But Vin taking up and releasing the power wasn't enough to stop the snapping. It could just be because Rashek actually used the power and either that specific trigger, or an action he took while using the power stopped the snapping. I'm not sure if I am satisfied with that however, since it has implications for who started the mists snapping in the first place. Sorry for the long post! Also, on a side note, is there a way to directly quote multiple people in one post (so that it has the link, their name, and the timestamp)? I was only able to do it for the first person I quoted.

This doesn't make sense to me. The only time Ruin was ever able to speak to someone is when they had a spike piercing them. If I remember correctly, neither had a spike in them when Kelsier spoke to them. Also, Ruin's power to communicate is through Hemalurgy. I can't see Kelsier using Preservations power to communicate through Hemalurgy because of his little bit of Ruin that he has. Your assuming two things here which I don't think are correct here. One is that you assume the force of two opposite steelpushes on a coin to cancel each other out. If this were the case, Elend would have been able to cancel all 200lbs of force exherted by the inquisitor and would not have been pushed backward at all. Also, with this theory, two allomancers of equal weight and power pushing on a coin would exhert no force on each other because of canceling. However we know this is not the case, as they are both pushed backward. The second thing you assume is that the force of two steelpushes are distributed in direct proportion to who exherts it. Take this example. 200 lb Elend exherting 100 lbs of force with his steelpush on on a coin with a 200 lb inquisitor on the other side exherting 50 lbs of force on the same coin. The fact that both are 200 lbs should determine that both allomancers are pushed away from the coin (if one was, say 400 lbs, he would have stayed stationary, while the coin would have moved from the force of his steelpush and the second allomancer with have moved from the force of bother steelpushes). So we have 100 lbs of force on one side and 50 lbs on the other. Here is where I get a bit fuzzy because I don't have a mathematical understanding of physics. You assume that 100 lbs of force is transmitted to the inquisitor and 50 lbs is transmitted to Elend. I don't know if I can really explain why, but it seems to me that either 75 or 150 lbs of force would be transmitted to both (i think because they are equal weights?). The rest of your answers made sense to me though.

Edit: There are spoilers here for HoA Edit 2: I have added a spoiler tag at the end of each section or question summing up the conclusions I have come to for each question. I have also included follow-up questions or holes in my conclusions. Please disagree, discuss etc! I just finished reading through the MIstborn Trilogy for the first time since learning about the Cosmere, and other theories that are being thrown around in the forum and have found some things that took place on Scadrial that don't add up. These are questions I was unable to answer through research on the site. I apologize if some of these things have been hashed out before. I apologize in advance for the long post. I decided it would be better to put my questions in one topic rather than posting multiple topics. Once we've hashed these out, I'll post any unanswered qs to the Brandon question list thread. Before each question I will write my assumptions that lead me to the problem that I discovered. If I'm incorrect about any of these it may be an easy solution to the problems I've encountered. Scadrial Geography, Day/Night Cycles, and Axial Tilt Assumptions: The final empire is centered, more or less, on the north pole. The map of the final empire emplies that the north pole is centered in the middle of the Terris Dominance, however the Northern Dominance points in a more easterly direction by the look of the map. The map isn't real clear on where north is or the shape of the pole. I have always pictured Luthadel being centered on the north pole (therefore a different orientation of the compass) and the other group of humans being centered on the south pole due to the equatorial regions being too hot. There is clearly an axial tilt of some sort since we see a regular cycle of seasons, so this means there is some sort of arctic circle. This creates a problem: 1. Why do we see normal day/night cycles in the final empire when most or all of it is in the arctic circle? 2. How severe is the axial tilt? (I remember hearing from Sanderson somewhere that the winters were not as severe, so that might mean a smaller tilt and a smaller arctic circle) 3. When vin turned the planet to turn it to night, wouldn't the night have only covered half of the empire? Alternatively, it could be that the north pole is centered in the Terris Dominance, with a small arctic circle. This could present a more earth-normal setup for the the empire but this still presents a problem: 4. In this scenario the habitable region outside the Terris Dominance would look like a ring, being below the arctic circle and above the scorched equatorial region. The events of misborn then would have had to taken place on only half of the ring. What, then, is on the other half of that ring since it should be just as habitable? Answers: Allomancy mechanics Duralamin and the Mists Assumptions: Duralamin always burns away whatever stores of a metal you are burning, expending all that power in a matter of moments. 5. What would have happened if vin had burned duralamin and some other metal (such as pewter or steel) while burning the mists? Answer: Interaction between weight and Steelpush/Ironpull power Assumptions: This scene has never made sense to me. This may be because of some physics illiteracy on my part, but I have always assumed that the weight of two allomancers is independent of their power to push or pull. Let me explain. Two mistborn, both 200lbs push on the same coin suspended directly between the two. Mistborn #1 has twice the push power as #2. The power is transmitted through the coin and would be equalized between the two mistborn, pushing them both the same distance. The increased power of mistborn #1 simply meant they both flew further. 6. Is weight independent of pulling or pushing power, making this scene inconsistent with physics? (If I am wrong about this can someone explain what I am missing?) Preservation, Ruin, and the use of shards Kelsier taking up Preservation Assumptions: As far as we know of, Kelsier is the only person to take up a shard after death, and release it by some mechanic other than dying (My prime example is Vin, but both Leras and Ati didn't give up a shard till they died). So . . .: 7. How did Kelsier take up and release preservations power from beyond death? Answer: Kelsier speaking to Spook and Vin Assumptions: We see ruin speak in peoples minds only through a spike piercing them. When Vin's earing is ripped out by marsh, Ruin's voice is cut off. Preservation's ability to directly communicate seemed to be limited to the mist figure appearing and using body language. So then: 8. How did Kelsier speak in Spook and Vin's head while holding Preservation, when Preservation could never do that before? (I recognize this could have been because Leras' mind was reduced, however shouldn't there be some sort of medium for Pres to communicate similar to the spikes?) Answer: Ruin Choosing Vin 9. What reasons for choosing vin did ruin not know? (I'm sure someone has hashed this out somewhere, but I couldn't find it) Mist Snapping Assumptions: The mist was a part of Preservation, and it was he who designed the snapping setup. It was because the mist had no direction that it caused deaths in the young and old. Ruin encouraged the mists, causing the mists during the day and the Deepness. So: 10. Why did the mists start snapping people only at two points in history? Was it related to the Well of Ascension being filled? Thanks for humoring me on my first post!