Oudeis

This theory would explain all of the penguins, however. I was wondering about them....

It is strongly suspected, if not proven, that most of the raw energy for Investiture comes from the spiritual realm. Atium happens because of a leak from the spiritual. I'm sure I've heard that highstorms have something to do with the spiritual realm. I could be mistaken. However, if "the raw power of Investiture" is spiritual in nature, then why not store your spiritweb? It, being your spiritual aspect, might be made up of the same stuff as Investiture, anyway.

?? I'm not sure I understand your question. Vin's intent wasn't, "I'm going to go to the Well now, where Preservation has trapped Ruin, and perform whatever action is necessary in order to release Ruin." Ruin's limited ability to affect the world allowed him to modify the Terris prophecies. Vin, believing the validity of the prophecies, received the following instructions: "Go to the Well, access the power, and release it." She did those actions. She had no idea doing so would release anyone, let alone Ruin himself. At this point she still didn't know what Ruin is, and did not suspect the existence of such a being. Does that answer your question?

Okay, you want to get back on topic. You've had your last say, now I'll say one last thing, and then let's be done with it. You asked what I meant by "the general nerfing of Ruin as a villain," and this is it. I realize it's part of the book, because the author has decreed it so. I like the book as a whole, but one part I don't like is the idea of making Ruin "not that bad." I can see how villains need to be relatable and have multiple dimensions and how sometimes someone like Taravagin (not even gonna pretend I know how to spell that) makes for a good villain who believes his evil to be necessary. I don't know what's so wrong about the occasional bad guy being just plain evil. Unabashed, unashamed, full-on "I take what I want because I can" evil. From the book Ruin seems to be this refreshingly honest villain, but instead we now know he's just another wishy-washy, emo, "misunderstood" brat. It lessens him from a literary perspective, in my opinion. For an example of exactly what I'm talking about, a villain who has no illusions, who accepts her own evil nature and embraces it without reservation, please listen to this clip from the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid. She doesn't need to justify anything to herself. She doesn't need to find a way to pretend that she's doing something "good." She is what she is, and she owns it. We've got plenty of villains throughout the cosmere who are misunderstood, or conflicted, or doing the best they can, or who consider their actions despicable but necessary, and they are done quite well in very interesting, relatable ways. Ruin makes a terrible example of that kind of bad guy. What we see of him via Vin and Marsh makes him seem so much more visceral, so emotional, so much a part of his own wanton destruction. It brings him joy and he finds it beautiful. He would have been an absolutely perfect unapologetic villain, and instead he's been watered down, in the apparent cause of not admitting that anyone can really be just plain evil. As a character, Ruin would have been far more interesting and enjoyable as a true villain, rather than just another conflicted soul.

What "discussion"? Your argument is clearly, "there is no absolute moral scale, and literally everyone feels that what they do is justified. From the point of view of the murderer, the murder was right,". Since I obviously can't convince you that a moral scale does exist, there's nothing to discuss. You can tell me I'm wrong and I can tell you you're wrong from can to can't, and nothing will change. You said it yourself; unopposed ruin is bad. Ati wanted unopposed ruin. He's bad. A predator can't be called "bad" because it doesn't have the capacity to make decisions; it's a beast. Shards do have the ability to make decisions. Leras risked ultimate ruin in the cause of progress, both of which were in direct defiance of his own Intent. Obviously, defying your Intent is difficult, but possible. Ati couldn't, or didn't. Shards aren't mindless beasts.

Yes, exactly this. Weiry, Ruin, on his own, is unopposed Ruin. At no point does he express, "My job is to destroy some things to allow for greater growth." What he wants, what he tries to bring about and almost succeeds, is unopposed Ruin. Yes, he failed, but that doesn't make him good, just incompetent. His desire, his Intent, his plan, was to be unopposed Ruin. Not a part of the whole. He wanted "the whole" destroyed. The Ruin-that-is-a-part-of-Harmony is fundamentally different, because Sazed does use it as an agent of change. This is an example of balanced Ruin. When Ati wielded Ruin, it wasn't balanced, it didn't want to be balanced. Whether you can justify the fact that Ati himself was once nice and has been perverted by the Intent is irrelevant; the perversion did happen, and however it happened, we found ourselves at a place where Ati was an evil, evil man who wanted to destroy unopposed. You just expressly said yourself: Unopposed Ruin is bad. With Ati guiding it, Ruin became all-but-unopposed and was actively working to squash the very last opposition. If a man tries to shoot a woman in the head, but the gun jams and he only hits her in the arm, and after some surgery and months of rehab she's almost fully recovered, does that mean the man's not a criminal? Is he not a bad guy because his attempted murder failed? Would he be a worse man if his plan had worked? Is he not considered bad because he's opposed by the cops who stop men like him, making him just one part of the system that keeps people safe?

I see a lot of people who seem to simply take it on faith that Rashek dropped some people on the south pole and said "best of luck." Since he intended it as a genetic lockbox and since we've seen what a control freak he is, I would guess that he did something to ensure they couldn't spend 1024 either dying or even just simply changing things. With the power of Preservation at his fingertips he could likely have just crafted some form of stasis through direct shardic intervention, but I personally suspect he set up some mechanical allomancy to trap them all in a super cadmium time-bubble for an external thousand years, which neatly explains 1) how they could have survived all that time/the end of the world, and 2) how they learned about mechallomancy.

There are other options. It's been suggested that Feruchemical nicrosil stores not investiture-fuel, but ones capacity to perform Investiture; thus, it would store Szeth's ability to perform lashings, not the stormlight. Which is just one theory out there. I'm just saying, there are more than the two options you suggest, prolly other options I haven't heard of, and we have no real way to know which is right.

...If Teod were the south pole, surely literally every direction would be north?

I suspect there haven't been a ton of Rithmatist questions because it is non-cosmere. That said, interesting questions.

No idea; Feruchemical nicrosil is one of the least understood things on Scadrial.

...which was immediately followed-up with an explanation that she herself finds the drawing to be suspect, a fabrication of the author's mind, not a citable source. Which doesn't mean it's wrong, Jasnah could easily be wrong herself, it just means to take it with a pinch of copper. YES I'M GOING TO KEEP USING SCADRIAN PHRASES, EVEN ON OTHER FORA.

BATTLE CHULLS! FORWARD, MY CRUSTACEAN MINIONS!

How would one become a Chromium savant? Is it enough to flare it, even when you're not touching allomancers to actually use the power?

Or, it's possible that the bronzepulses are related to but separate from the actual emotional allomancy. Anyone here see the Matrix? When they show you things in slowed down time, the bullet travels, and it sets off waves of distorted air. It's possible the bullet is basically the emotional allomancy: a direct effect from one person to another. The bronzepulses are the air distortions. So if you have a device that can't see bullets but can detect distortions in the air, you could gather information about who shot the bullet, maybe depending on the sensitivity more information about the type of gun et ceterra, and from the path of distortion you could know who was affected by the bullet; but even if the distortion do have some properties (like whether or not they are waves) that doesn't mean the bullet shares them. Merely speculation. I don't know if I buy into either of these theories, I'm just saying there are other possibilities.

There's WoB somewhere that Hoid does what he has to do, and then jumps forward in time (or something very much like that) in order to get to the next event without dying of old age. One quote says something like, "Hoid hasn't lived through all the time there's been since he was born." If he was at the 5th heightening and were therefore ageless, the color distortion around him would be enormously obvious.

It doesn't have to be formal or literary. Wayne claims (and of course take it with a pinch of copper) to know the nicknames for every possible combination of twinborn. Wayne doesn't exactly fit the definition of formal or literary, but he's got ordinary and familiar down to a science. This is clear support for the theory that the common populace is interested in the phenomenon. It would be somewhat esoteric, I grant you, much in the way that knowing what a chromium/gold twinborn is called isn't likely to come up often, but still something people in-world would discuss, much more frequently, I should think, than we IRL discuss comic books (or even chromium/gold twinborn) as they are things that are very real and present in their world.

It would be theoretical, but still something someone could think of in-world. It is fairly well-known what atium does, feruchemically, and it's known that there are atium Mistings. I don't see why there'd be a rule that "we aren't allowed to name this until it is documented." They surely know in-world what we do; that technically there are atium ferrings around, it's just that no one realizes.

What is the colloquial term for an atium ferring? Like how an iron ferring is known as a Skimmer or a brass misting is known as a Soother. Human the koloss found the Trust empty. If he'd found it full, what would he have done? What spiritual, cognitive, or physical acts would be required for Ruin to access the power?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, and I'm not certain you understood what I was saying. My apologies in advance if I'm misrepresenting your position as I attempt to reply, and I stand ready to retract it upon correction. The atium was never at the Well of Ascension, I believe it was always at Ruin's Shardpool, which we know was the metal lake near the Well in Alendi's day, and we know shares a location with the Pits of Hathsin by the time of the books. The annotations for the books are clear; Rashek moved the Well from the Mountains to the place that became Luthadel, and dragged magnetic north with it. I see what you're saying, about how metal blinds Ruin. However, the atium is metal. Clearly Ruin knew of a way to access its power, even if he couldn't see it, if he knew where it was. I don't know what process Ruin could have used. If Human had reached the Trust and found it full of atium, what, specifically, would he have done? What step was required to allow Ruin access? Until we know the answer to that question, we may not be able to address your concerns.

Except that the fact remains that they're still faster than the person aiming/pulling the trigger. You might have better success, considering how often he throws up the bubble when a bullet is already in the air at him. The fact that bullets deflect as they pass through isn't something that Sliders use defensively very often, it's a handicap to their offense; it means they can't fire out of their bubbles. I think, in fact, that a laser is actually a very good weapon for a Slider, rather than against one.

A few responses: First, as I've suggested, I don't think he can manifest a mist-spirit by the time of the books; I think he requires the atium to do so. And you're technically correct, he never did sacrifice any power; it was siphoned off of him by Preservation via the Pits in the form of atium. In Alendi's day, the atium was being siphoned off but Ruin still knew where it was, and he was able to manifest his shadow of self nearby; Rashek changed that by hiding the atium, meaning Ruin could no longer project his spirit of black smoke. There are a ton of times I wonder, "Why didn't you use Inquisitors?" Ruin was able to hunt down Goradel in the midst of the ash and slay him with Marsh; why not do the same when Sazed is riding TenSoon-the-horse across the ash to the Homeland? Why not Breeze? The only people who could possibly fight off an Inquisitor are Elend and Vin, and Ruin has over a dozen of the creatures. Why is anyone outside of their presence ever safe? The only explanation in-book is, "Ruin is convinced they are doing his work," i.e. he knows that they're all looking for the atium. We, the readers, know that they oppose him and want him dead, and we suspect they have a chance and that in fact they will win, but it's expressly stated in the book that Ruin never believed that. He is literally a god, and they are a petty group of humans. They were looking for the atium, quite effectively, and were sure to find it soon, and then he could simply take it from them. Killing them, foiling their plans, trying to confuse them or throw them off track... this would all require as a first step that Ruin think to himself, "They could potentially pose some sort of threat to me," and he literally could not wrap his mind around the concept. Personally, it's not my favorite part of the books. I've never liked the "oh if we kill him he'll just be a martyr" excuse for letting the hero live when, by rights, he should be dead. But, it is a reason expressly stated in-text (even though it's something Ruin tells Vin and is therefore suspect, it is supported by evidence of his actions, and their direct consequences bringing Vin closer to where they all suspected the atium was.) TL;DR version: Personally I agree that there's no reason Ruin shouldn't have killed Sazed any of a dozen times. He could have used an Inquisitor as easily as the Mist Spirit. The text gives us a reason that I feel is a cop-out, but the basic point is, the Mist Spirit wouldn't have done the job any better than an Inquisitor, and Ruin used neither. Finally... you have a fair point, that I can't really prove my point, and if the idea simply falls flat for you, that's something I can't argue against. My plan is to sit here quietly until we get proof one way or another (which I hope we might even get this upcoming year, since the book is tentatively titled Shadows of Self, and the First Generation refers to the mist spirit as Preservation's "shadow of self," so maybe we will learn more about mist spirits) and then tell y'all that I told you so.

All of which only says that Ruin's shardpool is far away by the time of the books. We know that Rashek moved the Well of Ascension when he Ascended. It was closer in the past.

Interesting. In theory, a good Seeker might be able to read Innate Investiture, but keep in mind that like copper a lot of people become bronze savants without even realizing it, and they can't, so it would have to be some truly extraordinary process. I suspect it would likewise take something more unique than "oh I just burn bronze really well" to notice that someone's spiritweb has the potential to become a misting... keep in mind that even with double-bronze, Vin can't even sense a Misting as powerful as Breeze if he's not actively using his power. So the process is, give him a glass of juice with sanitary shavings of all the not-really-toxic metals. If he can't burn any, give him a second glass of juice with all the dangerous ones. Whether or not he can burn any, once you're done, give him an ipecac and remove the toxic metals from his system. If further testing is required to see what kind of metalborn he is, the process can be repeated, perhaps with a few spoonfuls of oatmeal or pudding to make it a bit easier. No skittles, trust me that's not as pretty as you'd think. But I'm digressing from your initial point. Can Allomantic chromium Leech the metals from a non-Misting (or nonreactive metals from a Misting)? I've found WoB to be remarkably inconsistent on this topic. Inquisitors can burn their eye-spikes allomantically, but they never do. Vin never feels the "reserve" from her earring, and it's not affected by aluminum. I think this is one of the things he hasn't fully decided, so while I hesitate to ever say "let's ignore WoB" I think the inconsistencies are suggestions to us that we wait until the metals are introduced in-text before we set anything in canon. In short, why not? As it stands, chromium has boringly few non-anti-metalborn-in-combat applications, so let's give Leechers a chance to help the children. But, clearly, only allomantically-reactive metals. It would take a chromium savant to Leech silver or lead from someone's system. If you go this route, my suggestion would be, don't make it seem like there are that many Leechers around in the world. Have the doctor make a point of saying, "Fortunately for you, we've got a Leecher on retainer (or one who works pro bono or something). You wouldn't like the alternative..."

I think Ranette more-or-less flat-out says, the real hazekiller for thugs, brutes or bloodmakers is to simply shoot them in the brain. Anything else is just a crutch for people who are bad with guns.