Oudeis

We know there are no more atium Mistings being Snapped. Are there atium ferrings who simply never know it because they don't have access to their metal, the way there were duralumin gnats in the World of Ash who spent their lives unaware?

Do you have WoB for either of these things? I don't think it's the "atomic shape" of metal that is the key to allomancy; I think it is a signature in the spiritual aspect. I was just giving you the example of one scenario. Let's say that "red" means allomantic power and "yellow" means no powers. Most people are shades of orange. The reason mixing paint is a poor analogy is because when you take out half of a can of orange paint, it will be as orange as the original paint. In genetics, it will have an almost random proportion of red or yellow. Two orange parents might donate nothing but yellow to their children, and have kids with no powers. They might donate nothing but red and have children stronger than they are. This is all just a terrible, terrible way to describe genetics. Lot to work with here... where to start... Um, first, something realmatic. Not to get all Bill Clinton here, but I think I define "metal" differently than you do, which might be part of the problem. It seems like when you hear "metal," you assume it means, this physical thing I can touch, which also happens to be associated with a spiritual aspect and a cognitive aspect. (My apologies if I'm putting words in your mouth. I know we're not quite on the same page and I'm trying to figure out where, so this is a guess. I always hesitate to ascribe intent to someone when it wasn't expressed, so please don't think I assume I know what's going on in your head.) When I hear, or say, "metal", all three aspects are the same to me. So when I hear, "the metal acts as a key," I don't think of it as, "the atomic structure of the metal," I think of it as, some part of one of the three aspects that, collectively, form this metal. Since a lot of the raw power of Investiture seems to come from the spiritual, I'm guessing it's there. I don't think that filling a metalmind changes it atomically, I think it adds to the spiritual aspect. I think this charge is what overwhelms the allomantic "signature" in compounding. So... yes. I think that when Ruin and Presevation Invested in the planet, that it wasn't wholly equal. I think that rocks and trees got investiture, equal parts, but that the metals got something more. Still equal, hence why they work in the two arts and the compromise that is feruchemy, just more specific than the general power pushed to all things on the planet. I think this is why Scadrian metal blinds Shards. I think metal from Nalthis would have generic Endowment investiture the way rocks from Scadrial have generic Ruin and Preservation investiture, and I don't think you could burn steel from Nalthis any more than you can burn a potato on Scadrial. To clarify: I don't think it's the atomic structure of the metal at all, and I don't think the WoB you quoted proves that it is. When he says "metal", I think he's talking about the entire metal, not simply the physical aspect of the metal. Is there a WoB anywhere that would tell us how he talks about these things? The last line of what I quoted above is basically exactly what I've been trying to say, and it's what gave me the clue that might explain why we haven't been communicating very well. I actually assume it would take direct shardic intervention. Short of that, I think our in-text cross-cosmere knowledge is as paltry as a clam's knowledge of mountaineering, and any guesses would be purest speculation.

I'm told I'm too aggressive, so please pretend I'm saying something here that's nice and will soften the blow of the fact that I'm about to dispute your premise. Genetics are nothing like mixing paint, because you only get half the DNA from each parent. In your analogy, you aren't mixing two browns to get red. You've got an orange and a purple, you somehow separate "orange" into "red and yellow" and "purple" into "red and blue", and then just mix the reds together, and end up with a color that is more "red" than either of the two "parents." Technically this is also nothing like how actual genetics work, but it's close enough in the specific metric that affects your question. Not to mention, "allomantic power" is a result not of genetics but of spiritual genetics, and Mr. Sanderson has said those are far more complicated. Genetics might be a starting basis, but I suspect we'll learn that there's more going on. I have a strong opinion on this, personally. We know that Shards have to Invest in the planet itself to have a strong impact. There's a WoB out there somewhere I will try to find that talks about how Preservation and Ruin couldn't see metal, and how on different planets this "blindness" works differently. I think this supports my theory that Preservation and Ruin Invested in the sixteen metals of this planet, I think that atomically they're the same as iron on any other world but that their spiritual aspects are different, and this difference is what lets them be used in the Metallic Arts. I would suspect that iron mined on Nalthis, or from a meteor that hits Scadrial, would not be allomantically active.

That.... as it happens is an interesting question. I can't find an instance of Vin Soothing anyone and "feeling" the wall without using duralumin, but one of the last times she does it is when she tries it on Marsh. At that time, she reflects back on feeling it the first time she used it on TenSoon... but I read the first time she used it on TenSoon, and it's not mentioned. So you've got a very good point. It's possible that without a burst to aid your emotional allomancy, you'll never feel the wall. Thank you all for your excellent insights! I think we've rather neatly put this theory to bed. Soothing a kandra, a koloss, a person, a mannequin, or a rock all "feels" exactly the same to every allomancer (who isn't as powerful as Elend). You need a burst or something similar to experience the "wall" that comes from an attempt to exploit the Flaw.

There's quite a difference between "not Cultivation's Shardpool" and "really isn't anything special." In a land obsessed with palindromes, the continent of Roshar is, itself, point-symmetrical. And the origin is roughly the location of the purelake which, in the Silver Kingdoms, is at the border where the five Western kingdoms meet the five Eastern kingdoms. Perhaps Honor and Cultivation's Shardpools are both nearby, and some influence between them has created the phenomenon of the Purelake? Or it could be something entirely unrelated to Shardpools. To be frank, despite knowing that it's obviously something important, we know remarkably little about the Purelake. Anything we guess will be Purespeculation.

I think you have an inflated opinion of how hard it is. There only are ten major shardworlds, and he might not go to ones like Braize. (Is that spelled correctly? Odium's world.) A few languages per world, all traceable back to the same roots, and he only has to learn one at a time? And it's like Wayne said; once you get over the idea that accents are something that OTHER guy has and learn to recognize your own, it's not actually all that hard to mimic. In Japanese, I studied the grace u, the sound they make that's a mix of l and r, the general lack of intonation... accents can be broken down, codified, and once they are they're not actually all that hard to copy. You have a point, Taln's speech has all the earmarks of something Invested, meaning it is possible to be magical. I just think that given what we've seen of Hoid's mundane skills, his story-telling and his cleverness, languages would come easily to him. And that's another thing; as the King's Wit, he tells jokes. Humor in a foreign language is notoriously difficult; I considered it a milestone in any language the first time I was able to tell a joke that made a native speaker laugh. I'm not certain that a preternatural Gift of Gab would also carry with it the instinctive knowledge of riddles and puns; even if it did, would Hoid himself understand the jokes he was making? Also, there's so much about Rosharan culture tied into their language. Would Invested Speech convey that? The importance placed on palindromes? Hoid has expressed an interest in studying cultures, and a very good way to do that is to learn the language. Having the knowledge handed to him might not provide the same context that actually learning it would.

Seeing as the shardpools we've seen so far have all been something measured in "feet" across, I'd be surprised if there were Shardpools that stretched for miles, but it's possible, I suppose.

It's a talent, but it does fit with Hoid's general skillset. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been told I have a better Japanese accent than the woman thought an American could ever have... over the phone, I was sometimes confused for native Japanese. For an in-universe example, look at Wayne. His example is extreme, but non-mystical. If Hoid simply has a talent for mimicry, it's not impossible that he'd be able to copy an accent like a native. Again, there's every reason to guess he's got all the time in the world to perfect it.

You're right, in that the biggest flaw in the opposing viewpoint is Breeze. He spent a lot of time with Clubs and was literally a compulsive Soother. The only defense of the alternate theory, which I agree is weak, is that Breeze wasn't a primary viewpoint character, and as this wasn't terribly germane to the story, it's plausible (if not necessarily likely) that it was simply not a thing he thought about while we were riding in his viewpoint. So, on balance, I agree with you. The "wall" of hemalurgists is the one single type of sensory feedback Soothing ever gives you. It's possible that this isn't the case, but not likely.

LOOK! A SQUIRREL!

You make a semi-valid point... which is that books don't always translate well, scene-for-scene and word-for-word into movies (or TV shows). I realize no fan ever wants to hear this, and nerdrage will ensue, but I loved the first Percy Jackson movie because it broke so much from the book. Because that's the truth. I might be alone in this on this forum, but a very small yet vocal minority of people watches Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter and thinks, "Wow, that thing from the books sure totally just happened there!" Most people are like, "...What on earth? Why is that person doing that? Do those two people know each other? What did that spell just do? Wait, it's christmas? Two minutes ago the semester had just started!" The few who've already memorized the books understand what's going on. Everyone else is just there to see Orlando Bloom with fabulous hair. The plain fact is, books do not transliterate well into movies. Especially Mr. Sanderson's books, which as he mentions constantly in his own annotations, take place largely inside the heads of his characters. Unless we want a movie that is three hours of exposition with an hour of action, they'll have to make changes, and I say more power to them. Keep true to the underlying spirit of the books, change it significantly from "a story best told via book" to "a story best told via motion picture," and put it on the big screen. I will spend the criminal $10.50 that my local movie theatre charges to see that movie. Will it be "exactly what happened in the books"? No. Is it possible for something to be different from the novels, yet still very good? Yes. Yes it is.

Aaaaaand someone went there.

Especially in a world where people know about emotional allomancy, the ability to have people spend several seconds in love with you would be of... limited efficacy.

I see what you're saying, and it totally makes sense... but we. as the readers, know less about "what the nobles knew" than we did about either the skaa -or- the Steel Ministry. Our only look into that world, really, was Elend, who wasn't an allomancer while nobility was still a thing, and while he was a scholar of political theory, knew next to nothing about allomancy itself. I agree with you, if this were a thing, the nobility would be aware of it; I think we know a fraction of the nobility's knowledge base. There was a point when Vin said, or it might have been Kelsier, that many secrets of allomancy had been discovered, but kept secret until the person who learned it died. By Alloy of Law, people are starting to actually codify and disseminate (am I using that word correctly?) knowledge of allomancy in an academic way, but anything prior to that is basically the dark ages (which, I know, technically didn't exist on Earth, but on Scadrial they pretty much did).

Not sure if this is exactly the right thread, but I'd like to have a girlfriend who is a Soother. I think I would enjoy the occasional "emotional massage", and I sometimes need to be kept in check.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I simply asked the question, and I have no idea what the answer might be. When someone gives me an answer, I try to challenge it a little, see if it's solid. If my challenge gives offense, please know it was unintentional, and I will withdraw and apologize. Why, exactly, doesn't it sound right that Soothers might have a trick up their sleeves that not a lot of people know about? Frankly, not a ton is known about allomancy in the Final Empire, and the people who do know are the Steel Ministry, whose secrets we the readers never gained access to. Your point is very good. Although, considering the relative scarcity of both illicit Smokers and Ministry Soothers, I'm not certain I agree this is quite the only answer to my question. The Ministry uses a lot of Soothers in their Soothing stations, which by design would be placed in incredibly densely populated areas. "One of the thousand or so skaa who just walked past was burning copper." Doesn't actually help much, but might help some... might also explain one reason whey skaa thieving crews do get captured sometimes, even when they use Smokers. It's not a smoking gun or a golden arrow, but it's one more clue that the Canton of Inquisition can use to locate a thieving crew which is using allomancy. And remember, they've already got a secret weapon against smokers; Seekers-cum-Inquisitors can pierce copperclouds. Why employ Soothers to do a job that's already being handled? Finally... are you agreeing with the statement that there's a definite difference that a Soother can feel between "Soothing a kandra" and "soothing a hemalurgic creation"? So, in theory, any Soother has an automatic Kandra detector. If not, why not?

Ahhh... Ruin continuing to influence the southern Scadrians is plausible, and fills almost every weak spot I noticed in Weiry's original theory. I can't say I buy it, but it's very plausible. I still say, however, that it's unrealistic to assume that Rashek just let the southerns roam and assumed they'd spend a thousand years surviving in a planet they physically could not survive in anymore.

It might be Investiture... or, he's really, really old and we know all of the languages are related, so he could just have learned them. We've seen him speak, what, five languages total? (Scadrian, Arelish, whatever The Fool spoke in the Rose Empire, Alethi, the language of the Inner Sea). I've lost it through disuse, but a few years out of college I was conversant or fluent in English, American Sign, French, and Japanese, and I devoted all of nine years to the entire pursuit. Hoid could easily have had a decade before each "event" to perfect one language/accent at a time. If I had spent that time studying nothing but romance languages... I would have become fluent and run out of languages to learn. It's entirely possible it's a magic system, but I try not to assume the fantastic when simple cleverness explains it.

Hrm... an interesting theory, and plausible. I have a few concerns thought, if I may voice them... First, Classic Scadrians didn't seem to understand what the "piercings" were (Alendi didn't understand he was a Seeker, and he was at double-strength), and they were seen as a religious sacrament, not as an object of scientific curiousity. Rashek, meantime, had some of the secrets of hemalurgy spoken directly to him by a God. Second, while Rashek may have kept it secret from the laymen, his ministry spent literally a millennium taking what knowledge he had and trying to learn more. As near as we can tell, he didn't get all that much. Since we can't see the Southerners or know what they were doing, it's possible that they had some alternate source of information that would give them an edge on Rashek, but this would be required for your theory to hold water. Lastly, and this is a bit off on a tangent... I don't buy the assumption that the southern Scadrians have just been free-range for a thousand years. They're The Lord Ruler's Plan B, they aren't adapted to life on this harsh new planet, and they didn't have The Lord Ruler watching over them constantly; he had the power of Preservation at the time, and possibly knowledge of things like cadmium, which can dilate time. I just think it's a no-brainer that he would have done something to keep the southern Scadrians in stasis all this time, which means they might not have had a thousand years to commit to scientific advancement. If they did, wouldn't they have airplanes and atomic bombs by Alloy of Law era?

@Delightful: I'm giving you an upvote for that story, but please know that in my mind, I'm downvoting your friend.

Heh. There's also a WoB floating around somewhere saying that Ruin could speak to people but not read minds, but Preservation could read minds but not speak to people, which is why Sazed can do both. So I'm not sure it's preservation. I also question if it's Kelsier. True, it does really, really sound like him in both cases. They are things Kelsier would know; he was an excellent knife-fighter, and one of the few people to know about feruchemy and how it works. And it's just the sort of mentoring he'd do, to the two most important people in Vin's life, and as his surrogate daughter she's the most important person in his lif- er, you know what I mean. Existence? However... in the annotations (I think) it's mentioned that Kelsier can only talk to Spook because Spook truly believed in Kelsier's divinity. Sazed's faith, if it was ever focused enough to be useful in this regard, had been pretty badly shaken at this point; Elend expressly did not believe in the Church of the Survivor. On balance, however, I think I'm going with Kelsier. We know it's possible for him to talk to people, it sounds like his voice, and it really couldn't be anyone else. The fact that it's easier for him to give clearer messages to "devout followers" doesn't mean it's impossible to give to a man with a history of believing all faiths, or another who at least ostensibly has joined the church. It doesn't feel like a perfect answer, but it's the best I think we can do with what we've got.

You're right, my theory that it's specifically sentience is weak. Without more information, it's hard to be sure, but there could well be a different aspect that Types I and IV share that I haven't considered yet. Any thoughts? And that's a fascinating idea about the Returned re-Awakening themselves... I will have to think on this matter and get back to you.

A lot of very interesting thoughts. Well-supported, and I like it a lot. Many people who come up with theories this involved will post a link to it in their signature; you may wish to do the same here. A few thoughts: I think you're mostly right about feruchemy. Almost all the raw power comes from yourself, but I think you do need just the smallest touch of adjustment to your spiritweb to gain the ability to transfer it. As opposed to allomantic Snapping, I wouldn't be surprised if this is such a "low power" change that almost everyone experiences something as traumatic as a stubbed-toe by the time they learn to talk. As for AonDor, I'm slightly alone on this one in thinking that it once worked very, very differently. I think it used to be a lot like forging, where anyone could draw things and it would happen, but it was far weaker than it currently is, and no one could draw just by moving their finger in the air. I think the people constructed Elantris specifically to cause the Shaod to happen, to concentrate the power everyone had into a select few, a few who would get a few ancillary benefits, who would be able to access the Dor just by drawing in the air, and who would have a strength to their Aons unheard of before. I think these original people somehow left (perhaps related to Devotion and Dominion's splintering?) and when new people arrived and became "of Arelon" the Shaod started targeting them. But that's actually a bit beside my main point; the point is, I think it might take a slightly broken soul to be a candidate for Shaod, but the way the Mists would deliberately Snap people, I suspect that the Shaod is a process that does break your spiritweb in the process of turning you into an Elantrian. As for Nalthis... who knows? Perhaps part of the Heightenings comes from the fact that all that Breath does, in fact, force cracks in your Spiritweb, but enough Breath will fill those cracks with new abilities? Just one man's opinion.

Dresden Files. Lost Girl. There might be others. I agree, it would have to be a mini-series, not a full-running show that could go on for five seasons. Hulu and Netflix, even Amazon Prime are starting to do things like this. Sometime in the next few years, Netflix is gonna run separate mini-series...es, for Daredevil, Powerman, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones, ultimately culminating in a combined Defenders mini-series... or that one might just be a movie, I'm not certain. Point being, american television is starting to evolve, thanks to things like streaming television. We're getting closer to some of the BBC-style programs, longer individual episodes, fewer episodes as a whole, with one over-arching story that gets told in six or seven hours broken up, rather than trying to sit through three hours of cramped storytelling. I would actually prefer if the Mistborn "movie" were made this way, instead. I would also want a spin-off web series that explores what you can and cannot do with allomancy called "Mistbusters."

Nightblood, drawn, on his own, sucks the Breath out of whoever is bearing him, whether he's being used to destroy anything or not. The only thing that suppresses this "feeding" is when he's sheathed. I think the sheath is part of the construction, a safety measure, something that restricts his power, prevents him from feeding, and does affect his sentience. The brief glimpse we get of him when he's drawn is... a vastly different personality than his sheathed one. His sheathed one, it is constantly remarked upon, is child-like in some ways, clearly stunted. Perhaps this degradation of his mental facilities is why he doesn't constantly absorb Breath. We have heard WoB that there's a tiny bit of the original personality of the Lifeless left. Maybe something so small runs off the tiny bits of "life" left over in the corpse itself, maybe it is what feeds on the Lifeless's Breath, and that's why it has to be replaced every few years. Maybe it's simply too little to register and thus doesn't cost anything. There's a phrase used in scientific research called "ceteris parabis". It means, "all else being equal," and it's a bit of a joke, because in real life, all else is never equal. In pure theory, Types I and IV have sentience, and Types II and III do not. In real life, if this holds less than perfectly true, it doesn't necessarily invalidate the theory, it could just means there's more going on. Perhaps the Breath of a Lifeless doesn't add any sentience, as the theory states, but perhaps because of something to do with realmatics, it's difficult if not impossible to find a corpse that's actually been scrubbed entirely clean of its previous sentience. As anyone who's read alloy of law knows, things of different mass fall at the same speed (yes I know I'm simplifying). Galileo once famously demonstrated this by dropping a heavy ball and a light ball off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The heavy ball landed first. By about five inches. Does that mean his theory was wrong? Of course not. It just meant there was another factor involved.