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I've already amended my theory earlier today to explicitly state the role of the Cognitive aspect in Gold Feruchemy (and maybe even in Aluminum Allomancy). Check it out! There's a similar idea that I came up with just a few minutes ago. I think that when a Shardblade "cuts" someone's hand, for example, it tricks the Cognitive aspect into believing that the hand has been damaged, so the Cognitive aspect mistakenly severs/retracts the part of the soul in that hand. This would mean that when a Shardblade "slices" a vital body part (say, the spine), the Cognitive aspect is basically fooled into committing suicide. Perhaps that's why death by Shardblade is so freaky-looking: what if that's what a soul suicide looks like? If my idea about Shardblades is correct, that would make Gold Feruchemy's job so much easier. Instead of having to fix the soul, it will just have to do its normal routine, then let the Cognitive aspect do the rest: Request status report from Cognitive aspect. Cognitive aspect reports body part sliced by mysterious magic sword. Search for any changes in the body part. No changes found. Report successful restoration. Cognitive aspect returns soul's connection to body part. Body part becomes usable again.

The Brandon quote only mentioned change in personality, so that implies mental change. A Pewter savant might become more obsessed with physical strength, so he might try to exercise more whenever he's out of pewter just so he'll feel less weak. In that case, Pewter would be an indirect cause of muscle gain. Other than that, I don't think any amount of Pewter Allomancy will directly increase someone's muscle mass without enough exercise. I think that's the point of Pewter Feruchemy's different behavior: When a Brute taps Strength, he's regaining his own muscle mass that he stored previously, so his muscles grow (as we've seen in the books). When a Thug burns Pewter, he's getting strength from Preservation, so his muscle mass stays the same. I wonder what happens when a Brute-Thug Twinborn Compounds Strength. Maybe Brandon has answered this before. Does anyone know?

All great descriptions, everyone! I guess that was my problem. For most people, it's the plot that's exciting, but I focused too much on describing the magic systems, so the things I said didn't interest them at all.

Sounds like a good idea. It's small enough that even the busier ones might find time for it. I was thinking that maybe TES was more for fans who are already aware of Hoid and Realmatics terminology, but I guess knowledge of those things isn't really needed, strictly speaking. I'll try this next time! Indeed. The second guy I mentioned (the one that found burning metals weird) was into MTG, so I figured he'd like the complex rules of Mistborn's magic systems. I wonder, how would you describe Mistborn's story to a friend?

I've been trying to introduce my friends to the wonderful Cosmere of Brandon Sanderson. So far, I've convinced one to read the Mistborn trilogy, but he doesn't seem interested in reading the other stories. Another friend was weirded out by the "swallowing metals" thing, so I guess mentioning that was a bad idea. Anyway, I'm sure lots of you guys have fared way better at this than I, so I'd like to hear your stories and advice. How did you spread the word about Brandon's books? How did you Endow your friends with the Warbreaker Breath, or grant them the Mistborn Investiture, so to speak?

Cool. I've apparently underestimated Gold Feruchemy. May I ask for a link to that info? It's possible that the spiritual healing was just a side effect of having to make the Physical body part function again, so it's still mainly Physical. The Shardblade victim would see his disabled body part as a physical defect, so the Cognitive aspect that dictates the effects of Gold Feruchemy would make it carry out the necessary fix, even if it involves fixing the person's soul. I wonder how much Health you'll need to store in order to fix a severed part of the soul...

Aluminum spikes can be used to steal Allomantic Enhancement powers, apparently (stupid Ruin, messing up the balance again...). Did it say if Hemalurgists could actually Allomantically burn Aluminum? If so, my minor speculation on that part would be wrong. Oh well... Haha! Yeah, that part of my post can be safely ignored (I'll edit it out later). I have this thing that when I write too much (especially in the middle of the night), at some point I start being very... imaginative (or maybe the word is delusional)... with my prose. Thanks for pointing that out!

Heh, I hid that post because I felt it might look too angry. Oh well. Reading Sazed's lines in AoL, I don't think his human way of thinking has been changed much by the Shards yet. I don't know what will happen in a thousand years, though. I'm not sure I want to see Sazed losing his humanity completely and becoming in favor of "brute force Harmony", but I fear something like that might happen.

Ah. I suppose you also don't see Gold Feruchemy as end-neutral, since it has the ability to cleanse the physical aspect and that power is coming from somewhere. Would you say that, either way, Aluminum Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy restore lost balance/harmony? Edit: Sorry about that little bit of idiocy I just showed, Windrunner. Obviously, Aluminum Allomancy gets its power from Preservation. It's something I didn't realize while writing the post. Still, the final effect feels end-neutral to the user since he didn't gain anything out of having his metal stores just vanish.

Yes, it very well might have a Cognitive aspect to it. I said that Gold Feruchemy removes physical changes. I didn't say what it would consider as a baseline. It is possible that once the Cognitive aspect dictates that an old scar is part of the balance, Gold Feruchemy will no longer remove it.

I think we'd all agree that Atium and Lerasium are both awesome metals. Having enormous powers (Atium spikes can steal any attribute; Lerasium-burning grants Mistborn Investiture), both obviously deserve their reputation as God Metals. But when it comes to pure mystery, I don't think anything can beat the metals aluminum and gold. The Allomantic effects of these two metals have been called "weird" and "strange" by many people, and even their Feruchemical traits are treated with wonder. I have already theorized about the relationship between Gold Allomancy and Aluminum Feruchemy before. To summarize, I linked Gold Allomancy and Aluminum Feruchemy by associating the Temporal shadows of Gold with the concept of Spiritual Identity. I would like theorize further about these two metals, and perhaps figure out what makes them so special. Part I: Aluminum Allomancy - Epilogue, The Alloy of Law So, what's up with this frustrating, seemingly diabolical metal, aluminum? If you look at all the other Enhancement metals (duralumin, chromium, and nicrosil), aluminum is the only Enhancement metal that seems detrimental to the user burning it. Aluminum Allomancy prevents end-positive power by erasing the user's metal stores so that they cannot be burned, while leaving the user himself unchanged. If you think about it, even chromium has some use to the person burning it, since he can use it to disable enemies. But I think there's another way to look at Aluminum Allomancy. If you think about it, burning aluminum removes something foreign from a user (his metal stores) from his body, returning him to his "normal" state, the state in which his Identity views itself. Aluminum Allomancy creates Spiritual harmony by removing outside Investiture. Talking about harmony reminds one of Harmony the god (a.k.a. Sazed), doesn't it? We'll talk about Harmony in the last part of this post, but it's important to note that the restorative aspect of Aluminum Allomancy makes it the Allomantic power nearest to the intent of balance and harmony. The intent of Aluminum Allomancy is balance. It is not an anti-Preservation power, though that's what it looks like on the surface. In fact, I bet there are other beneficial uses for it. For example, burning Aluminum might render a Hemalurgist's spikes inert. (Edit: Apparently burning Aluminum would be "good" for a Hemalurgist. Perhaps it heals the spiritual wounds caused by Hemalurgy without removing the charge itself, allowing the Hemalurgist to use spikes on himself safely. Nonetheless, this actually proves my point that Aluminum Allomancy isn't anti-Preservation.) Part II: Gold Feruchemy -Chapter 15, The Alloy of Law Most Feruchemical abilities follow a straightforward rule: The user can only tap what he stored. This is what makes Feruchemy end-neutral, a power based on balance and harmony. I believe Gold Feruchemy takes this one step further. Health is a complex attribute that has many forms: lack of wounds, protection from disease, normality of bodily functions, etc. But instead of storing each type of health separately (like how Feruchemy of other complex attributes like Memory or Senses work), Gold Feruchemy stores a general and abstract concept of Health based on the Feruchemist's conception of his ideal self. Gold Feruchemy treats the tapping of its attribute as a restoration of this ideal, rather than a mere retrieval of what was stored in the metalmind. After all, healing is only healing if it returns the person to what he believes is his "correct" state of being. When a person believes he is not well, an imbalance occurs between his body and his conception of himself. This is the imbalance that Gold Feruchemy fixes. Gold Feruchemy restores balance by aligning one's Physical aspect with his Cognitive Identity. Because of this, I speculate that any physical change, whether negative or positive, even those brought about by Physical Feruchemy can be reverted by Gold Feruchemy. (Lesson: don't tap Pewter and Gold at the same time!) Part III: Harmony -Chapter 18, The Alloy of Law And so we have two metals that fix imbalances in a person's body, mind, and spirit. In other words, they restore harmony in the person. Ever since I learned that Sazed obtained the Shards of Preservation and Ruin, I've always wondered when the God Metal Sazedium will appear. But now I doubt it will ever happen, simply because he has chosen Harmony as his Intent. We've been told that while most matter contain both Ruin and Preservation, atium is fully Ruin. I suppose we could assume that lerasium is fully Preservation. I think this symbolizes the conflict between Ati and Leras. There is no harmony between those Shard holders, and so the existence of separate god metals are necessary. I believe Sazed is perfectly content with metals that have both Preservation and Ruin in them, especially the two that symbolize harmony so very well: one in Preservation's Enhancement quadrant, the other in Ruin's Temporal quadrant. Aluminum and gold are not Harmony's god metals. They are just the harmonious metals, bringing balance to Scadrial's metalborn from the very beginning, long before Sazed was born, from the time when Preservation and Ruin still worked in harmony with each other. Edit: Just to be sure I cover all the bases, the spiritual and physical changes done by Aluminum Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy are still subject to the power of the Cognitive Realm. The way a person sees himself affects the way those powers work. This shows how Aluminum Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy can be linked to Aluminum Feruchemy and Gold Allomancy: A person's concept of his Identity also affects the way his physical and spiritual aspects can be balanced. Edit: Re-worded stuff to make them sound less crazy or idiotic. Edit: We have WoB that "harmonium" is a thing. I believe my thoughts on aluminum and gold's relation to Harmony can still be salvaged, though. I shall create a separate thread about it.

That's pretty cool. I'm starting to wish Brandon would just release the complete tables for Atium alloy Allomancy and Lerasium alloy Hemalurgy. Why is the second trilogy so far away?!!! *sobs*

LOL! That'd certainly be more awesome than what I think will happen. I think a Lerasium-Atium alloy will only Invest Atium Allomancy (creating an Atium Misting). But since this is an alloy of two God Metals, the Inversion principle cancels out, leading to three scenarios: If the alloy contains more Lerasium, then its direction will be the same as Nicrosil's. Meaning the person who burns Lerasium-Atium won't get the Atium Misting power. Rather, it will be stolen from him by the person who touches him while he's burning it. This also means that if nobody touches him, the Atium Misting power vanishes and is wasted. If there is more Atium in it, the user will probably become an Atium Misting (because it will follow Electrum's direction). If there are exactly the same amount of Lerasium and Atium in the alloy... I don't know. Perhaps that nuclear-grade explosion is possible after all, Phantom!

Indeed. I was under the impression that when the souls didn't return after Harmony fixed the bodies, he just gave up and let the bodies die again.

I agree. In fact, you can change the effect without changing the molecular structure simply by removing the influence of one of the Shards. For example, remove Preservation from Electrum and it will produce a Self-Others inversion. But the structure still dictates a part of the effect. For example, Steel is mostly Iron, so it still applies some kind of force on metal objects just like Iron; it's just the direction that changed. Also, sorry for the "Atium is bunnies!" comment I made yesterday. It was pretty rude of me. I think our disagreement is definitional. That is, we disagree about the definition of Investiture. My understanding of Investiture is that it is the Realmatic term for transferring something (energy, trait, power etc.) from one thing to another via Realmatic powers. Hence, a Feruchemist Invests his metalminds with Feruchemical charges, Preservation Invests an Allomancer with power, and a Hemalurgist Invests himself with other people's attributes. In Allomancy, the highest form of Investiture is the Investiture to a person with the power to burn all Allomantic metals (which Preservation grants when a person burns the God Metal Lerasium). The reason why I no longer see aluminum as Preservation's metal is because Aluminum Allomancy doesn't Invest anything to the Allomancer. In fact, it prevents any Allomantic Investiture from happening by erasing metal stores. Of course, if my definition of Investiture is incorrect, then perhaps Nicrosil isn't Preservation's metal. By the way, I'm developing a theory on Aluminum, inspired in part by the discussion in this thread, which I might post tomorrow.

Ha! That explains it! It's really weird! It can overrule any and all pre-existing rules! You can't theorize about it at all! Personally, I became a fan of Brandon Sanderson because of his well-thought-out magic systems. Sure, they break the laws of physics lots of times, but at least they do it consistently and in a rule-based way. So I thought, perhaps, I could join in the theorizing, allowing you guys to correct and enlighten me when I'm missing something. But saying "personally I'm inclined to disagree with you" without pointing out any mistake in the theory? Jeez! *sigh* Sorry for the rant. I already had a theoretical explanation in my first post for how Atium, as a God Metal, "works differently": it inverts the nature of the metal it is alloyed to and makes it Ruin-based. I've also mentioned lots of things in the theory that you could analyze and comment about. To be sure, all this is purely theoretical. Who knows? Maybe Ruin just exclaimed thousands of years ago "Henceforth, all bunnies in this land are to be covered in my Spiritual overlay and become little beads of metal that, when Allomantically-burned, shall produce the effects similar to Electrum! Shazzam!" Or maybe not. Edit: The above reply showcases the hotheadedness of mundane skaa slaves, and thus it should remain here to serve as an example and to be laughed at by all. Anyway, I take the insults back. Atium doesn't have to be electrum. I'm just speculating that it is. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Okay, so I got off my lazy chull and decided to check the book. Vin couldn't have been wearing the earring, because shortly after her escape, she got it out of her trousers. So, Pechvarry, that means we don't really know yet if aluminum affects Hemalurgical spikes. Too bad it'd be quite difficult to force an Inquisitor to burn one.

So you'd basically just ignore this WoB, then? I'm not sure why you won't even consider the theory. Even if Feruchemical charge overrides Allomantic charge, Feruchemy still relies upon the molecular structure of the metal. You can't store Health in an Ironmind, for example.

Exactly. Atium is just normal electrum with (paraphrasing Sazed) an sDNA directed to Ruin. Um, I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not, actually. Sorry.

Interesting! Do we know for sure if Vin was wearing her earring when she was forced to burn Aluminum? She wasn't always wearing it, right?

But Atium works nothing like Aluminum. If molecular structure really is important, Atium should at least work similarly to the metal it "corrupted".

Nicrosil is an alloy of Chromium, which turns green when oxidized. Perhaps the removal of Ruin from Nicrosil produces a physical side effect of oxidation. Phantom, do you have any other comment regarding my theory? I mentioned a lot of things, after all.

As some of you might know, I formulated a theory a few days ago about Atium. It was basically a conspiracy theory, and was destroyed quite skillfully by Phantom and Voidus, among others. I abandoned that theory and thought a bit until I came upon another idea about Atium, and it led to a general theory about the God Metals. This new theory was inspired by Isomere's theory of Shard-Metal correlation, as well as the following quote from the newly Shardified Sazed in HoA: This quote implies that almost everything on Scadrial, including the metals and the people, contain Ruin and Preservation. Atium is an exception, containing only Ruin. The quote implies that Lerasium is another exception, containing only Preservation. Before yesterday, I've always imagined Atium and Lerasium as "magic metals," not really thinking about their molecular structure, and assuming that they just work. But I realize now that I might have underestimated Brandon a bit. Brandon had said that the metals on Scadrial all have physical properties identical to those of their real life counterparts (e.g. they are also made of atoms and molecules, follow basically similar physical laws, etc.). Brandon also said that the molecular structure of the metal influences the kind of Investiture that happens from tapping, burning, or impaling with it. So, if the molecular structure of the metal is important, that means Atium and Lerasium also have a molecular structure, because they can also be used in the Metallic Arts. This means the God Metals are also made of atoms, and that these atoms also follow physical laws (at least when not being burned). We already have knowledge of the physical and molecular structures of more than 100 chemical elements. After a certain point, the heavier an atom becomes the less stable it is, so we'll have to assume that Atium and Lerasium's constituent atoms must have atomic numbers below the very unstable heavy elements in the Periodic Table. This is the first part of my theory: Atium and Lerasium are just different names for two "real life" metals or metal alloys. But how do we determine which of the many metals in the Periodic Table, or the innumerable amount of possible metal alloys, is Atium? And which is Lerasium? Isn't that an impossible task without Brandon's help? Well, Brandon did give us a clue: The molecular structure is important. This implies the following: Two Allomantic metals containing similar atoms and similar structure would have similar powers. (This explains why a base metal's power is similar to that of its alloy.) Atium only has Ruin in it, so we can assume that if we had the exact same metal as Atium but without the imbalance (i.e. if it had both Ruin and Preservation in it), it would have a power that is almost the same as Atium, except changed in a way to account for Preservation's presence. This might manifest in a change in direction (for example, Internal to External), or something like that. Same goes for Lerasium. So, think of the effects of Atium Allomancy. Is there a known Allomantic metal with the same effect, except inverted somehow? Why, yes there is a metal just like that: Electrum. Atium is electrum without Preservation. Atium is Ruin's Electrum. How about Lerasium? Well, Isomere links Preservation to aluminum, and it seems like any of the Enhancement metals could fit, but I think nicrosil fits better due to the following reasons: Nicrosil is an alloy, just like electrum. Nicrosil and Lerasium exhibits the Others/Self inversion that we are looking for. Nicrosil's Allomantic effects mirrors Lerasium in that they both grant enormous Investiture to their target. So, Lerasium is nicrosil without Ruin. Lerasium is Preservation's Nicrosil. I would also like to talk about the God Metal alloys. We know that Malatium Allomancy works just like gold, except inverted, so Malatium is gold without Preservation. From this, we can form another theory: Atium's alloys also have no Preservation in them. Or to make it more general: Alloying a God Metal with a base metal removes the other god from that metal as well. This has some very, very interesting implications: Atium-Electrum is just Atium (because electrum without Preservation is already Atium). Lerasium-Nicrosil is just Lerasium (for the same reason as above). You will not become a Nicroburst Misting by burning an alloy of Nicrosil and Lerasium. You'll become Mistborn. Nicrobust Mistings are born, not made (well, not made by Allomancy; they could still be made by Hemalurgy). A Mistborn bloodline will have to be diluted by having children with non-Allomancers before a Nicroburst could naturally appear. This makes me wonder if it's just coincidence that the next Mistborn trilogy will feature a Nicrobust Misting. Edit: Phantom kindly reminded me that Lerasium is green. This leads me to theorize that the removal of Ruin from nicrosil has a side-effect of oxidizing the metal, leading to the green color.

I'll keep that in mind. It's terribly unlikely that the materials people use for building construction are useful for the metallic arts. From what Kelsier said in The Final Empire, the elemental metals (iron, gold, etc.) will have to be quite pure, and the alloys will have to be of the exact composition and ratio. On the other hand... Yes, that would would be a valid alternative theory. I was assuming that storing in a metalmind changes it forever, which is, of course, just speculation. In hindsight, reverting to a non-metalmind upon emptying does seem to make more sense, so I'm subscribing to your model now.

Just simple deduction. Storing Speed in the I-beam makes it an Steelmind, right? Now Brandon said that Allomancy doesn't get its power from the metal being burned, but from Preservation himself (hence the "end-positive" label). So the Speed gained from burning shavings of your huge Steelmind came from Preservation, not from your stored Speed, right? So, why would the amount of Speed stored matter? Of course, you'd also have to remember that alloys like Steel need to follow an exact ratio of components to be used in the Metallic Arts. You'd have to make sure the whole I-beam is Allomantic Steel before you can use it.