Whittler

I see, well my book club is ready to move on now I think, so I will pay attention and see if there is ever mention of more hostages than just the women getting stolen. Which -- although a bit late -- would at least shore up my issue with the first book. That would be nice! I'm excited to keep reading the books, I normally would have started reading by now but I am trying to stay in sync with the rest of my people. So I had too much time to sit here and stew about things.

So are you implying that perhaps the mole that helped with the security may have been manipulating the situation so that the guards in the cars are more inclined to surrender and keep their mouths shut? I like that train of thought as I hadn't considered extra mole involvement! Or are you in the group that thinks that when Wax makes his chapter assertion about people hurt, he's just uninformed and doesn't know people have been hurt already?

So a Compounding Steel Twinborn could Steelpush and be big fast?

So, for context, I grew up in the Texas school system and when there was required reading, I just didn't. And so I went many years not reading a single book. I have officially been reading books for the past couple of years now (which is weird to say, time flies). Most of the books I have read so far have been Sanderson/Cosmere specific, though a combination of running out of Cosmere material and taking a book-club approach to the second era of Mistborn means I've had the time to branch out the last few months. Was any of that strictly relevant? Now that I've written it I think the answer is no. C'est la vie. I can't remember what metals are associated with what powers, so I took another look at the Ars Arcanum at the end of The Alloy of Law. After thinking about it, and barring the option of Mistborn, aaaand not to mention I haven't seen quite a few of the 16 metals in action yet, I would pick Steel and Iron Allomancy. If I had to pick 1 Allomantic and 1 Feruchemical, Steel Allomancy and maybe actually Steel Feruchemy (undecided). I just like Steelpushing too much to skip it. I think if I could Steelpush, I would take pretty much anything else as a secondary and be happy. I am not really quite sure how compounding works to be honest. If I am not mistaken, it is when you store Feruchemical power in a metal, then burn it, you get an amplified effect of the Allomantic magic. If that is correct, then I feel like Steel compounding might be pretty top tier for someone like me who likes the movement abilities most. Though, Duralumin Feruchemy just might be my choice. Because I am wondering if by storing Connection, and then later using said stored Connection, I could manipulate said Connection such as to become connected to other beings/plants more easily? In which case I would pick that so I could become an Elantrian and start collecting magics like Hoid does. And also being introduced to Speed Bubbles in The Alloy of Law is pretty cool. So I would be tempted to pick that as a second Allomantic power. I read The Stormlight Archive a while ago now, so I am not intimately familiar with the Ideals of the various Radiant Orders, but I did google it, and I think my favorite Oaths are going to be from the Dustbringers or the Edgedancers (though I think some of these Ideals haven't been confirmed?). And my favorite Order in terms of their Surges would be Windrunner. Can you tell I like the idea of "flight"(controlled falling)?

I am very sorry, I got my quotes mixed up! I completely lost the thread on that one haha! I got mixed up because the excerpt in chapter 12 where he talks about the guards inside the cars is referencing the same time period as the excerpts from chapter 3. Sorry about that. So now I understand what you meant earlier. Didn't spare any extra points for sanity in my character sheet, put it all in strength, ungabunga and all. You know how it is.

Well it's good to hear other people agree that something is amiss is all. What did you mean in your reply here? I am referencing the bit in chapter 12 when he says no one had been hurt. I agree with what you're saying about his emotional state in chapter 3 of course.

I will think about these questions and see if I can't get you some answers tomorrow! I do like dragons though! That one is easy enough.

The problem is not that he doesn't mention a detail in chapter 3, it's that he specifically does mention a detail that creates a problem in chapter 12, that nobody had been hurt during the first 7 robberies. Ostensibly he mentions this detail because the fact that nobody had been hurt was a big deal to him and the story progression. The comment reinforces the reasoning behind why he jumped and started acting when he did. And therefore reinforces his knowledge of the lack of "hurt" before the Peterus incident. So we see Wax mention the guards in the cars, and then we see him mention that nobody was hurt, and I can write that off as him being an unreliable narrator and just doesn't know that guards had in fact been hurt. But that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth as I feel Wax is portrayed as someone with a high regard for life and justice that just so happens to have completely missed the truth behind a statement he himself makes. So I was hoping there was a better explanation.

Howdy! I recently joined up to talk to the people about The Alloy of Law. I have read the vast majority of the works based in the Cosmere, notable exceptions being the books in the Wax & Wayne series after The Alloy of Law, and Isles of the Emberdark. My favorite of Sanderson's one-off works so far are Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and Tress of the Emerald Sea. My favorite of his longer stories is The Stormlight Archive with my favorite edition of that being Oathbringer. I don't have any plans atm to get into his sci-fi works but we'll see. And idk what else to put here... so... there we have it.

Do you think they would sell more papers by leaving out juicy details though? I am not a media mogul so I can't say, but I assume the more dirt they can dig up the better to retain public interest. So I guess I assume if guards were missing it would be reported on. I promise I am not really that cynical, I am just filling a missing link in a chain holding a concept together however I can think to fill it, just for the sake of throwing around ideas. That is why I originally posted at least, put out feelers and see what the people say. So I would say another explanation I hadn't really considered based on what @Treamayne and @offspec were saying is just simply that the media is either uninformed or intentionally shifting the public eye. And that theory does unfortunately hit close to home in the climate we're in these days. Either way I like the idea as I think it fits neatly enough.

Yeah, I had not considered this before @Returned mentioned it. It's definitely possible that the public are just including missing guards in their mentions of "hostages". But it's not directly mentioned that guards went missing, just civilians. So if that is the case I wish there was mention of it. It is absolutely a possibility though! Perhaps the public views the guards as sub-human and therefore just don't count them as people at all, they're just fixtures to be used, like lights, or doorknobs.

This is definitely a large part of why I brought it up, the cars that reach their destinations with no contents of any kind including the aforementioned guards. Thanks for bringing attention to this! 100% agree here that the guards being bought is a crackpot theory at best. I think your explanations make much more sense, and that is what I was hoping to get out of this post, better explanations, so thank you for entertaining my nonsense! I think options 2 through 4 all hold more water than my ideas. I feel like 3 isn't particularly likely given what we know of Wax's personality and disdain for criminal violence. And I also think that he is portrayed as a good detective in terms of option 4 but that's not to say he is infallible. In the end, we may never know, or perhaps someone else can find a piece of text that explains the situation better. Nevertheless, I like your ideas and thank you for not just dismissing me as having misunderstood the text, as I am pretty confident I didn't. But at the same time I found it hard to believe that no one else has ever pointed this out, so perhaps someone can come along and set me straight.

I agree with you that it seems like a minor plot hole. The reason why I bring it up at all is specifically because the "nobody had been hurt" (Chapter 12) is mentioned before Peterus is killed. So your last point can't be the case as all 3 excerpts are talking about the state of things after the first 7 robberies but before Peterus was shot. To your fourth point, and my biggest point of contention, the guards inside: I could see the Vanishers entering and removing the guards inside assuming the rag tag group of sadistic thugs had the skills necessary to pop the locks one way or other. And in this case I think I have to assume the guards' silence would need to be bought. Because if they ever got knocked out they would report having been and that info would get released to, or uncovered by, the public eventually. To your second to last point, If I was a journalist or Wax at the time of the events of The Alloy of Law, I would not say "Nobody had been hurt" if the truth of it was that "No *civilians* had been hurt". I feel there is a very big difference between the two, given that said difference could range from 'knocked out guards' all the way up to 'dead guards'. So we are in a position where the face value of the text just don't add up, and we are left to make assumptions as to how they could've possibly pulled this off in the later of the first 7 robberies in the context of the overall reveal. And I felt the need to call attention to it as the detective work and reveal of the robbery method is a point of focus in the book. My only guess that still holds any amount of water is that the guards are being paid off. Edit: I misspoke. Peterus dies in chapter 5, to re-explain what I was trying to say here: When the characters say "Nobody had been hurt", they are referencing a time when Peterus was still alive, the first 7 robberies.

Yeah I have been thinking about various ways that it could make sense. I just can't get around the word choice of "The train cars were locked, and some of the later ones had guards inside." The best explanation I could come up with is that the guards are just bad at their jobs. So when the train stopped they unlocked the cars from the inside and went out to check it out. That solves the problem of guards inside, but it now creates the problem of prying eyes during the robbery. Prying eyes that need to be silenced one way or another in the event of their snooping taking purchase, which I feel it would given that they would open the car door to a barge floating in the canal with a huge crane on it. So maybe the simplest answer is the Vanishers just bought the guards silence? But I struggle to believe the Vanishers would want to part with their coin if they don't have to (as that is a major point of contention for them).

Howdy pardners. I recently (a week ago as of posting this) read The Alloy of Law. As I was being introduced to the various exploits of the Vanishers and their empty train cars, I developed two theories as to the how of the robberies. - The train cars were never being loaded in the first place - The entire train car was getting swapped out I quickly dismissed the second theory because of the following excerpts of text: - "With each case, the details had grown more interesting, as the cargo cars had been better secured. More sophisticated locks, guards riding along. The robberies happened incredibly, considering the weight of goods taken." (Chapter 3) - "Nobody had been hurt by the Vanishers yet. They were robbing people, but they weren't harming them." (Chapter 3) - '"This isn't a question of simple manpower," Waxillium said. "The train cars were locked, and some of the later ones had guards inside.' (Chapter 12) With increased guard numbers, the chances of pulling off a car swap *unseen* would be low, then by chapter 12 impossible as the car that would be swapped would have had guards *inside* it. When the rub turned out to be the car getting swapped, I was miffed. How are the guards inside the cars accounted for? The Vanishers haven't hurt anyone yet, but there were guards inside the cars they were swapping which would have needed to have been dealt with. To my knowledge this was not addressed in the text. My question is do we have a valid explanation for what happened to the guards in the cars in the later of the first 7 robberies? Or is this a minor or unexplained plot hole?