Oudeis

1. I suspect that an active Ruin/Preservation/Harmony has the power to thwart this, so it's unlikely to be a good way to usurp a Shard. 2. Lerasium's specific purpose is to re-write your spiritweb, so I suspect it is unique in the "savanthood means ascension" thing. I could be wrong, however. It has been stated that, unlike the typical allomantic metals, atium provides its own power source, so your spiritweb is being constantly blasted with the power of Ruin. So some odd effect is possible, perhaps even likely. Though keep in mind, 281 men went through 1024 years worth of hoarded atium in a matter of hours. The amount of atium you'd need to achieve savanthood is, likely, all of it. Also, by the time Spook is a tin savant, he burns it literally 24/7, even in his sleep. Atium burns so fast, there's no possible way you could eat enough of it to last you through the night. If the breaks don't invalidate the process of becoming a savant, they surely make it harder. Though now I'm fascinated to see what someone might dream of while burning atium...

1. I think the Well of Ascension WAS located near the Pits. We know for sure that it was located near Ruin's Shardpool, and we know the Pits are currently located above Ruin's Shardpool. It's admittedly far from WoB that they were right there, but unless you know something I don't, you can't possibly claim with any certainty that it "was located nowhere near the Pits". ((From the text, "The lake that Fedik discovered is below us now - I can see it from the ledge. It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy - almost metallic - sheen. I almost wish had let him take a sample of its waters." There's a WoB floating around that this is Ruin's Shardpool, and another one saying that Ruin's Shardpool is at the bottom of the Pits post-First Ascension. When I'm back at my home computer I will find them, though upvote to anyone who has them to hand)) 2. "His power would likely have been enough to overwhelm Preservation's trap" It was never a question of power. Both Ruin's and Preservation's powers were, in the main, free. Preservation sacrificed the majority of his mind, in order to trap the majority of Ruin's mind. The amount of actual power lost to Ruin by the atium was always negligible compared to his total amount of power; the point of it was to balance the amount Preservation placed into humankind. When the trap was formed, Ruin was significantly stronger than Preservation; if sheer power could have won the day for him, Scadrial would have fallen 2000 years earlier. Ruin's mindless power was held in check by Preservation's mindless power, and vice versa. The atium just gave him an extra boost to do just a little bit more than he could without it; my suspicion is, this "little bit more" meant to create a mist spirit to directly interact with non-crazy, non-hemalurgic humans on their scale. 3. Vin predominantly saw Preservation's shadow of self at night, and distinctly saw it as white. And yes, I agree that he's surrounded by people, but not necessarily within feet of him at all times. There might be an honor guard at a respectful distance, courtiers and sycophants ready to obey his whims. But Vin senses the spirit first with bronzepulses, then tries to see it with her own eyes. It's only visible when she gets within a few feet of it, and knows right where to look, and it disperses immediately when it wishes to. Please consider the following scenario. Alendi, who himself doesn't understand his own abilities as a Seeker, suddenly senses "that thing" again. Guys, come quickly! It's over there, that thing I keep seeing that you don't believe! This way, try to keep up! Over ... there! Yes! There! I see it! No, no there. No, to the left. No, don't bring torches! That reduces visibility in the Deepness! Look, wait, it's right... oh, it's gone now. Vin's Mist Spirit, the one of Preservation, was formed of the mists themselves. If being far from civilization could make it turn black, then normal fog seen in the woods far from civilizatin would look black. A far more likely scenario is that this being is related to the black smoke we see at the Well which is confirmed to be of Ruin.

I don't think he could. I think that for Ruin to affect the real world, he needed the atium. In Alendi's day, it was being drained out of him via the Pits, but he still knew where it was. By the time of the novels, Rashek had hidden the atium, so Ruin didn't have access to his Mist form. Just speculation.

I dont believe electrum defaults to a shadow cloud. I think it only clouds in the presence of an atium-burner. Otherwise i think it is the still not very helpful single electrum shadow, or maybe a few divisions when your choices might split. I could be mistaken.

Would a steel blade in an aluminum sheath be pushable?

Babysittng my 1.5-year-old niece, and i woke up somehow certain i had somehow used the Mists to test her Allomantic potential, and she was a Slider. I ran to her crib freaking out she was going to freeze time, but told myself, it's cool, her speed bubble will only be five feet across.

Yes, but you would have narrowed it down. Did blue lines appear? Was time distorted? Also, remember, the traces were not enough to harm Vin or any of the other people who eat with the same utensils, but it was still enough for twenty seconds or so of Brass. Prolly enough for any halfway decent Seeker to get a read.

Ooooo.... fascinating.

Oooo thank you. I went to IsaacStewart.com and looked at his various alphabets, but I checked the first three books, I didn't notice the one for Alloy of Law (and my copy of the book is an eBook, I didn't get it with the book). Cool!

I'm not 100% sure that "the same" means it's only on the receiving end... it makes sense, sure, but neither science nor magic necessarily do everything that "makes sense". Maybe the pulses exist in such a way to deal with the time change, since they're pulses originating from the metal that's manipulating the time dilation. Although... it might make cadmium an interestingly "stealth" metal, if it's affected by the bubble. In the time it takes a single pulse to actually leave the bubble and accelerate to actually reach the Seeker, at least minutes would have passed.

Yes, I think we as Sanderson fans are used to "wait a few years for that sequel we're just dying for." Giving them another couple of years is worth it, if it means the game gets done right.

I suspect it's simply a symbol that means something numerical, like "this is the end", the way the symbol for tin appears to mean "3", despite chapter 3 not specifically seeming to have anything to do with tin. But who knows?

It's very similar. Is it just a stylized difference? I can only find one picture of the symbol for lerasium, and it's not quite the same thing. Maybe it's like the difference betweeen "a" and "A"?

Erm... visiting my parents, on their 13-year-old CPU. And Christmas is big in our house, so time is limited between all the traditions, activities, responsibilities and children to play with. I will post it as soon as I can, but if anyone else can that'd be swell. Also can anyone link me to that numbers discussion people were using? Though I can prolly just search for "big-endian"... Edit: did that work?

First, what is the metallic symbol at the top of the epilogue? I can't find it anywhere. From Miles's execution: And earlier, upon finding a box of Miles's favorite cigars: Clearly, he was going mad and was just asking for one last cigar, in a crazy and convoluted way. =D

Interesting... I had hypothesized that there was just one highstorm, which simply kept circling the globe, but at a best guess it would've had to travel something like eight times as fast as storms do on Earth for that to make any sense. Your version sounds better, so basically there are three or four Highstorms on the planet at any one time, it's just that most of them are currently over the sea on the other half of the world.

Not sure a bullet can really spread out in a barbed web.... and I'm pretty sure gold heals away things like drugs and poisons.

Well... during that hour he also prevented the literal end of the world. So... yeah, prolly his best. I mean if you take them all together. Like, if you add up all the good of "saved the physical planet from cracking and disintergrating" and subtracted the amount of "hey I never asked for these testicles," and even "spook's a mistborn now, maybe not the best idea" (though I put the blame for that one on Kelsier), I still think on balance he's never had an hour with so much net "good" before or since. The time he married Vin and Elend came close, in my mind, but largely cuz I totally ship that. OTP FTW.

The entire vision is a potential future, as both Dalinar and Tanavast clearly state. People have speculated endlessly that the winking stars and specific numbers all mean something concrete and definite. Maybe, I suppose, but Tanavast basically flat-out says, "this is what I fear will happen." So it's not an exact "this is how many worlds/Shards have died", it's just "this is our destiny if Odium isn't stopped, including other worlds." Just one man's opinion.

Marsh isn't technically a Mistborn, however... for a number of reasons I don't think he counts. The main one is, once he starts being an Inquisitor, I don't think we see him burn Copper or Bronze again. ALSO Do bendalloy and cadmium put off pulses? Do they feel the same, or different, depending on whether you're inside the bubble or outside?

And yet Demoux still has that scar on his head...

Actually that's what made me think of it; I just read that passage and in addition to the four types she made for the physical allomancers, she expressly said she was working on one for a bloodmaker.

Well, we've got the precedent of, Rashek asked his buddies before Mistwraithing them, so he might've. Yet he de-savanted Spook and Mistbirthed him and only mentioned it after the fact. So who knows? In principle, I agree with you that changing someone that much without their permission is at best questionable. Still, to ensure the survival of mankind, and of the Terris race in particular (who, recall, wanted him to be their king anywho, also as Mr. Sanderson pointed out once he was also technically their Emperor following the deaths of Vin and Elend), I for one am willing to give him a mulligan on this invasion. On that note, if I do ever lose my manhood and any of you are ever in a position to magically restore my boys to me, you've got my blanket permission to do so.

How would you go about making a bullet to fight a Slider? An Oracle? Steelrunner? Sparker? Would you need one for a Skimmer? Spinner?

Meh. I took it as, Rayse was a jerk on his own. Rayse-with-power would have been bad enough. He won't even try to resist the all-corrupting power of Odium. I disagree with the general nerfing of how bad Ruin was. Sure, life needs a measure of destruction to change and grow. But Ruin wasn't a dose of negative energy that understood its place in the grand scheme of life. He wanted there to be nothing but Ruin. He rejoiced in terror and lusted after pain. Saying the Shard Ruin isn't bad just because entropy is a part of life is like saying that eight glasses of water a day is good for you, thus so is drowning. Ruin was taken to psychotic extremes, and that made him bad. Yes, I understand the point some people are making, which is that in a wholly theoretical way, when viewed as an abstract, as an intellectual exercise, you could see instances of destruction being useful. In the concrete instance of the book, Ruin wasn't an abstract concept, he was a sadistic personality who exulted in suffering. He was bad.