Oudeis

So, Wayne doesn't heal when Bleeder grabs him because she pulls off his goldminds. Then later he's hobbling around on crutches because there's no point in storing up health just to use it to heal his leg. ... Where did his goldminds go? Did Bleeder actually destroy them? Were they hidden somewhere so far away, and so well, that even Wax (or Ranette, or one of the conner Coinshots) couldn't find it? I really feel like the fact that he never gets his goldminds back is odd. Obviously not pivotal to the plot anymore at that point, but still really weird.

The mists pulled away from Vin... did that mean she stopped being Mistborn? Mistborn was never a 'scientific' term, it was always colloquial. There weren't very many natural philosophers in those days, certainly not enough to have codified a system of nomenclature. Your assumption that 'Mistborn' means 'not an Inquisitor' is unfounded. Even if true, it's certainly never confirmed in the books, and is therefore speculation. Beyond which, you're still circling the central point. If the 'average scadrian' would call someone mistborn, wouldn't that same person call Tan an atium misting? So, like I said in the first place, it all depends. If, when he answered the question, Mr. Sanderson considered people with hemalurgically granted allomantic atium to be "atium mistings", then no. If he did not, then maybe.

I know the legend at the start is one point of data, and if I had nothing else from the text I would believe it, even though it's been written by people who, we learn, have no idea how Elantrians even work and don't interact with them in a meaningful capacity. However, there are clues in the text, though not as flagrant as in that prelude. There's the fact that if the Elantrian population is growing but they don't die, the city should have been packed to the gills, which doesn't seem to be the case. Gallodan's dad did not die of heartbreak; he died of a heart condition. He could have gotten it healed, but it didn't heal on its own. Elantrians heal quickly and suffer the ravages of time better... but not perfectly, clearly. Given the concrete facts provided in other parts of the book, and the apocryphal nature of the prelude, I'm tempted to believe the hard data.

I think he's saying that "mistborn" is just a word people use, not a scientific term. If it means, "a person who can burn all the metal allomantically," then an Inquisitor fits the description. My point was, we now he's not an atium misting. You seemed to be asking, well what if he got the power to burn atium allomantically via hemalurgy? If by 'atium Misting' Mr. Sanderson simply meant "a person who can allomantically burn atium," then no, Bloody Tan did not have a spike to get allomantic atium. If he meant "a person naturally Snapped as a Seer," then it's still an option. I am pointing out that he has said that someone with a lot of spikes could be considered Mistborn, so while it's only a point of data, it does seem to indicate that he thinks of 'misting' as someone who can burn the metal, regardless of how they got the power.

I concur that if it wasn't meant to be a mystery, this is the obvious reading. Since it's what people flat-out say frequently. Maybe it's an alloy? Trellim-pewter to steal Idashwy's power, trellium-steel to make her a coinshot? The way lerasium-bronze would make you a misting of bronze, maybe these alloys take a trait in a way that allows it to be granted to a kandra.

It all depends on whether or not you consider someone a Misting whether they Snapped their powers normally or got it via spike. Recent WoB suggests that Mr. Sanderson at least (in this instance) considered someone a Mistborn if they got all their allomantic power from hemalurgy.

It's been considered, and confirmed not. However, as the man says, good question.

Dunno if this is fully on topic... She claims to know everyone in the city with "feruchemical blood." Interesting phrasing; not simply actual feruchemy, but the blood. So, if Wayne has kids, whether or not they inherit feruchemy, will she watch their children? It was said in the Final Empire that you could only have allomancy if a Noble ancestor was in the past five generations. Is there a point at which it's assume the recessive trait has been bred out of your line if you don't have a feruchemist for a certain length of time? Are your chances worse if your partner lacks Terris blood at all? Or am I reading too much into this, and she only makes note of the children with actual feruchemy? Also, keeping an entire people's lineage in her head? Coppermind, anyone? Though truthfully I guess she could just be using a book.

I disagree. As MeLaan says at the end, he's God. Even inaction would be a decision on his part. If you're standing on an observation deck and someone falls over, and is holding on but can't pull himself up, and you just stand there and watch until his arms grow tired and he falls to his death... was that right of you? Isn't your inaction a decision in its own right at that point? He is God. He sees much, he knows much. Also, his very first act as God was to prevent the physical destruction of the entire planet. Without his 'interference' everyone was dead already. It's not right to show up individually to every human being and say, "Nobility is bad, and I, God, will punish you if you act like you're better than others by virtue of birth." Because you might change how they act but you'll never change how they feel. By the same token, is it "right" to inflict suffering on the peasant class for generations, when you could subtly encourage the people who will stand up and change the world themselves? Isn't a decision not to help that person, to let him die in obscurity and let the suffering continue for more generations, isn't that an action itself? When you're God, actual inaction is impossible. That was the point of MeLaan's comment at the end. You can't not be involved; a parent isn't 'manipulating' their child when they insist he eat his vegetables. Not to mention, in the epigraphs of Hero of Ages (and per WoB) Harmony is well aware of the fact that something bigger is going on in the cosmere, and that he's not the only person. If he does simply turn his back and let suffering happen, let the people live or die as they wish, not every other God will do the same thing. (I mean... look at what's happening already.) Beyond which, Paalm clearly believes Harmony is tugging on every single person like a puppet on strings. He's self-evidently not. Who do we know that he manipulated? Marasi and Wax. He basically granted both of their wishes. Wax wants to be a lawman. He wants to save and protect people; he wants to be a hero. Marasi loves patterns. She has access to REAMS of data now, and she can be of actual use, something she's got kind of a complex about. If there were evidence that Harmony is actually controlling anyone who doesn't have a contract with him, making them do what they didn't want anyway... I mean, he even lets the Set act unopposed. At worst, he sends Wax to stymy them. And you can hardly blame Harmony for "manipulating" them if a lawman tries to prevent a criminal from committing a crime. Basically, if any sane person gave me reason to believe Harmony actually manipulated people, instead of giving them the opportunity to do what they wanted anyway if it will benefit mankind, I might agree. But I don't see that there's any evidence that he does. Now, the kandra do seem to be a bit different. Obviously, he can directly control them, and he does seem to be directing their efforts. However, they largely seem okay with this. Harmony does speak of the fact that they have a contract; I don't know if it's a fair contract, but it's a contract, and I see no reason to assume it's asymmetrical. According to TenSoon, he doesn't even ever take full control of her body; he simply persuades her strongly. Now, he himself admits he's frustrated with his own lack of skill. In an attempt to prevent early humans from starving to death, he accidentally gave them a cradle that stifled innovation. He has the powers of God but only three centuries experience. He is, bluntly, not perfect. I agree that he could be doing a better job, so on that one basic fundamental Paalm has a point. But on... literally nothing else. Her perspective on the problem and mine are as diametrically opposed as possible; she is acting as though Harmony manipulates with malicious intent, which I see as exactly the opposite of what is true.

Yes; I was on my phone last night and my thumbs were not up to writing out my complete thoughts; If this is silver with red, perhaps it has an alloy that is gold with red?

Food is applied to you from external sources, yet you can store that in a bendalloymind. How is allomancy any different? Steel itself isn't pushing on metal. Steel changes something within you, so you have the trait "I push on metal now". This trait is what is stored.

Are Elantrians actually immortal? The one reference we get to this is rather apocryphal. Do any credible sources assure us that they do not age? I mean, Elantrians would almost certainly outlive their human children, but not necessarily by much. If you wait to have a child until you're 50 or so you might reach old age at the same time. I mean, we know they succumb to heart conditions. They can live longer with their heightened regenerative capabilities, but how many decades does it extend your life by? If they never died, wouldn't Elantris suffer horrible overpopulation? For that matter, with a pair of Elantrian parents, I suspect any kid would get pretty much all the healing he requires to live nearly as long as his parents. Oh, you've developed a heart condition? Not anymore! Bad cholesterol? Gone! Fell and broke your leg? Fixed!

Mind blown. The men of red and gold, bearers of the final metal. A metal of two colors... I sorta wondered though. Can a single homogenous metal be two colors? Or is that just a God metal thing?

The crux comes from, the phrasing sorta implies that he jumps straight up, then starts whirling, which is like a diver doing one flip and then halfway through reversing direction. If you accept that the phrasing was loose, then yes, it's literally exactly like a player spinning as he dunks.

MeLaan touches on this at the end of SoS. When you can do everything, when you know all, even your inaction is a decision. If you watch a man falling off a cliff and don't save him when you could, isn't that a decision?

What Moogle said, also, she talks about how Wax has more-pure Terris blood than her Brute guards. I suspect she's full-blooded Terris, with no diluting allomantic genes, and a full feruchemist. I wish I'd made note of it (lemme check and see if I highlit it...) but I feel like there was a sentence someone said that made it sound like full feruchemists were still sometimes a thing. Nope, did not highlight it. Argent: I have to suspect most feruchemists are, these days. She's sorta the feruchemical Eve, now. Yay, population bottlenecks...

One will hopefully be along shortly. The title doesn't spoil anything, really, but if you can throw the spoiler tags around the text of your first post, that'd be great. And mark it by first saying "Shadows of Self spoiler". When it gets moved, you can remove the tags.

...don't forget a "stop" Command, or else once it does one of those things, it'll have to do one or the other forever.

No one's saying it's right, but it upsets me that this is how it is. Magic is all upside, with no downside. Power with no trade-off. The worst power on Scadrial is allomantic aluminum... which simply means you're otherwise normal. Yes, people with advantages in our world tend to rise to positions of power... but no one is simply born better. They might have been born to the right parents, or in the right country, but they're not genetically inferior. Yes, there are a small group of people who have the misfortune to be born with a regrettable disability, but that's not the same as an equal percentage of people born with inherent super ability. It bothers me that across the Cosmere, "magic" is universally a plus with no minus. Even on the Splinterworlds, Investiture is always something trying to kill humans... but that's because the "bad guys" have all the magic, and humans have zero. Hunters of First of the Sun are able to survive the islands, mostly due to the fact that they have found a way to work with the Invested Aviar. I mean, it's too late now, but it would have been nice if there were something universal in the cosmere that meant anyone with magic had some kind of exploitable disadvantage, some weakness, and that the masses without powers had this one way that they would always be superior. Some way to balance it out. "Ability to be a warm body in a huge organization" is not the same thing as, "I can kill dozens of men without breaking a sweat." And "the bad guy/destiny won't single me out/target me because I don't have powers" is cancelled out by "an Inquisitor might randomly behead me to motivate the hero" or "if I love a powered person, I am now his weakness." Even Vivenna and Marasi; kidnapped/held hostage. Vivenna frees herself with her first ever use of her powers, and Marasi it turns out getting taken was part of the plan so she could use her power on Miles. It's the way the cosmere works. I foresee a future where non-powered people grow more and more resentful. In the Final Empire, it was against the Nobles, who had the lion's share of powers anyway. One day, the common man is going to be fed up with allomantic privilege. EDIT: Rithmatist and Steelheart: Joel beats the Scribbler with the help of two Rithmatists, and the fact that he figures out his kryptonite. And a bucket of acid, I guess. Also, who knows what's up with the stick figure he saw; I'm not positive he doesn't have powers. In Steelheart, there are already two Epics on the team killing Epics, and the rest of them use donated powers. When they're not using donated powers, they're using crazy super tech derived from the corpses of Epics. They're not ordinary people beating Epics, they're Epics (sometimes using Epic-tech) to beat Epics.

...So apparently I'm the only one who just figured he jumped off the ground like he was gonna spin in place, and supplemented that with a steelpush.

Oh, I definitely never thought the passcodes were worth noticing. I thought of a half dozen ways around it, not the least of which was, the person already having been replaced. I actually figured at some point Wayne was gonna forget his passcodes.

"In the old days, Inquisitors had driven the spike right through the body of the one to be killed into the body of the person to gain the powers. That prevented any power from being lost. Apparently, coating the newly made spike in blood could achieve a similar effect." It does not suggest that this is what Bleeder is doing. It's merely commenting that this is a possibility. Maybe Bleeder is doing it, but it's not suggested by this line, any more than "burgers exist" suggests I'm having a burger for lunch today. If Bleeder were coating spikes in bloody, I would have expected the crime scene to be messier. The body exsanguinated, maybe. I mean, if you want to just decide that she did it, you can justify the lack of clues however you want. But there aren't really any clues to suggest that she did.

This belongs in the Shadows of Self thread. Until a mod moves it there, please put it behind a spoiler tag. You can do so by putting [ spoiler ][ /spoiler ] around it. (eliminate the spaces)

I briefly suspected MeLaan, but figured he wouldn't pull the same trick twice. I found myself in the habit of suspecting everyone; I did suspect Innate, but only because, again, I was just in the habit of assuming it was everyone we didn't have as POV. The first time I suspected him was when he gave the first inciteful speech, and I wish I'd stuck to those particular guns. I had actually settled on Aradel, going into the last stretch. I thought I had it clinched when Wayne came back from one of his last POVs and heard someone talking at the manor, and suddenly knew who Bleeder was. This scene was right after Marasi and Aradel arrived at the manor. I totally thought I had it. I can't recall who else I thought... no one really remarkable. I briefly wondered about Steris but dismissed her.

That isn't actually how alloying works. Bronze isn't copper with patches of tin; it's a new metal formed by the two metals "baked" together. That's sorta like saying you should be able to see splotches of egg in your finished cake. Is this confirmed somewhere? The only reference I recall is Spook saying that coating the spikes in blood would work. Does it say anywhere that this is what Bleeder does?