- Miles' eyes glow gold and red in Wax and Wayne, as well. However, while gold is Odium's color, but Word of Brandon says that red is the color of corrupted investiture from any shard, rather than Odium specifically.
- Jossed. Trell is the name Autonomy took on pre-lord-ruler Scadrial.
- Miles' eyes glow gold and red in Wax and Wayne, as well. However, while gold is Odium's color, but Word of Brandon says that red is the color of corrupted investiture from any shard, rather than Odium specifically.
- Bleeder's spiker is from a Shard we already knew as of 2015.
- "Trell has been many things over the eons..."
- Bavadin has a lot of personas, of both sexes."This won't be relevant for a long while, but as a service to the community, let me say this: try not to get too hung up on gender, race, or even human appearance where Bavadin is concerned. There are some peoples who worship entire pantheons where every member is actually her."
- We have seen her influence in other worlds.
- Brandon was cagey about whether Trell was Autonomy when asked directly.
- Trell is seen on Taldain in White Sand Volume 2, which is where Autonomy has set up.
- And finally, in Arcanum Unbound, the essay on Taldain says that Autonomy interferes with other planets.
- Confirmed.
- This seems to go against Odium's M.O. He's Splintered every Shard he's come across (save for Cultivation, and not for lack of trying, I'd wager), and he does so specifically to avoid contaminating the Intent of his Shard. Taking on bits of Honor, assuming it's possible in the first place, doesn't seem like the natural place to start with such a deviation.
- Partly, Honor is right there for him to grab. And it's actually less of a change to his nature than many other already shattered shards would be. You can hate your enemy and still be honorable about how you confront them, for example. But if he picked up Dominion, he'd have to rule what he hates. That leaves him as trapped as he is now, since he'd be compelled to create an oppressive regime as close to hell on earth as possible and stick around to administer it. Sure it'd make him the Devil, but that's not actually useful to his goals. And picking up Devotion would just make his head explode. Cultivation is possible, but we don't know if she is actually dead or will die before the end of the series.
- But any change to Odium's nature would be abhorrent to him. There's no room for lesser evils here, not when we're speaking of Shardic Intent. Look at Ruin's behavior, back in the original trilogy - do you think he would pick up any Shard because "it's less of a change to his nature than it could be?"
- Ruin's goal wasn't evil, it was destruction. Ruin's bearer was a kind and generous man, and since his Shard made him see destruction as beautiful he wanted to share it with everyone. He could have taken on any number of shards without conflicting that nature: Devotion springs most readily to mind, or Cultivation. Similarly the goal of Odium's shard isn't evil, it's Hatred. The shard just wants to hate, and it makes it's bearer hate everything. It's up to them what they do with that. And Odium hates and fears Harmony, so he'll need an edge. Even if Harmony is inexperienced after only 300 years, he still has a huge amount of raw power that Odium can't match.
- That's not my point. I'm saying that Odium taking on any mind-altering powers would be out of character. 2013 Reddit AMA, question 8: "Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else." And if there's one power in the Cosmere that changes your persona, it's taking up a Shard.
- More to the point, Wax and Wayne takes place shortly before TSA.
- Actually, Wax And Wayne takes place between Stormlights 5 and 6 (there's a nice 15-year In-Universe time skip planned between the two), so suspecting Odium is not entirely out of the question.
- What's more, all the information is stuff that wouldn't be normally available to an in-universe perspective. The reference to Hemalurgic creation of koloss is knowledge that Harmony actively detests - a rare descriptor nowadays, when Harmony is juggling two diametrically opposed Intents which combined push him toward inaction. The Connecter ferring ability a) requires an expensive metal and b) is rather difficult to identify if one wasn't specifically looking for it. Even the reference to Ranette falls under this - if someone knows she exists, they also know how she feels about visitors, so it comes off as something thrown in to make Jak look good (especially if the spring-loaded boots were tossed in to get Jak out of a bind and then not mentioned before or since). If they don't know she exists, then she comes off as a plot device.
- It gets better after reading Bands of Mourning. Connection (as seen in the first Allomancer Jak story) is described as working in a surprisingly similar way to how it works with the Southern coin-metalminds in Bands of Mourning (and speculated on by VenDell). This means the writer of Jak, whom was writing a few years before these closely guarded secrets were revealed to Wax and co., somehow got this from the the secretive Terris, VenDell, or the Southerners. This all seems quite odd...
- Except: If the writer is Kelsier. Why? At the very least, he would know how Connection works. It's also probable that he would also understand how Koloss are made (and, as hinted at by the end of Secret History, he has an in depth understanding of Hemalurgy by Era 2). One can imagine him at least learning about Ranette, too, considering how good he is at finding secrets. Finally, Kelsier has enough of an elevated ego that one could see him creating a pulp fiction series about his exploits in his free time and just for the hell of it...because it's Kelsier.
- Possible evidence that Jak is Kelsier:
- He survives lots of things that should have left him severely injured, such as jumping into rapids on several occasions. Easy if you have pewter or a goldmind.
- Handerwym repeatedly lampshades how his claims make no sense, like how he licks tin off a cave wall when veins of pure tin are unlikely. It's possible that he's using his Mistborn abilities and covering it up with bad excuses; Jak allegedly used the tin to find a hidden river, which Kelsier could have found using his powerful Steelsight. Skeptics wouldn't think he's a Mistborn, they'd just think he's either lying, hallucinating, or an idiot.
- There's also how he lifts the Survivor's Treasure: he blows air into a balloon attached to the chest, which lifts it up to the surface. Handerwym points out that a single lungful of air shouldn't have lifted a chest full of metal spikes, but he did witness the chest surfacing. If the theory that Kelsier is using a Mistwraith's body is true, then he could have filled his body with air beforehand, which is why he needed the rock to sink. Or since he constructed the Bands of Mourning with all Feruchemical powers, that means he already has those powers without the Bands, and he could have used the one that grants extra breath. Or if he really did place the treasure there, he could have set up a different release mechanism (maybe with an already inflated balloon kept submerged by a bunch of rocks, or with an unsealed metalmind for oxygen) and lied to the broadsheets about how he did it.
- Jak is also known for being a dandy, and all his appearances show him wearing glasses and long hair; High-Class Gloves and gentleman's suits can cover his arms, sunglasses can cover his spiked eye, and the long hair can hide the point. And it wouldn't be strange if he lost an eye, going on all those adventures.
- This might not be canon yet, but in the preview to The Lost Metal, Wayne's mother tells him a story about Allomancer Jak when Wayne is eleven, treating him like a folk hero. Wayne is in his late thirties/early forties during the events of the books and Jak is still active(ly defying death). If Jak was thirty when this tale is told (starting out at twenty and ten years to become a legend like Wax), he'd be in his sixties. He'd be too old to continue his high-risk lifestyle... unless he's already immortal.
- In addition, bullets moving through a speed bubble barrier ricochet at unpredictable angles. If one can make a bubble large enough for that to happen to a spacebound vessel, and control the ricochet, well.
- Corollary: the absolute price per unit is not the sole restricting factor in testing this theory. Given the speed at which aluminum burning is shown to eat through metal supplies when Vin is forced to burn it (she notices her entire metal supply, aluminum included, metabolizes nearly instantly), it would make more sense to get the anti-Riot and anti-Soothe benefits of aluminum in a more renewable and long-term manner by simply using the aluminum foil hats shown in the series. At the near-instantaneous speed aluminum seems to burn, any shielding it might provide to an allomancer would burn out too quickly to be useful against emotional allomancy which is also applied as a steady pressure over time. Copper's useful as a shield not only because it's (relatively) cheap and affects a wider area, but because it burns slowly over a long period of time.
- He's probably crazy enough that his soul is broken (as in Stormlight Archives) so he doesn't need a spike to be controlled. It could explain his reflexes though. But he could also just be that good, or be an electrum savant: you don't need to see the future perfectly to make an educated guess.
- He also refers to himself (and everyone) as puppets, which would fit him being controlled by either means. But if a generally broken soul (as opposed to one broken by hemalurgy) lets you be controlled by emotional allomancy then there could be another reason: whoever was behind Tam wanted to break Wax's soul too, by having him kill his wife, which leaves him open to control as well.
- I've just come home from Brandon's book signing here in Vancouver, and I asked him what the earring was made of, he wouldn't tell me what metal it's made of, but he DID say it has a slight hemalurgic charge.
- My theory is that it's a re-used Koloss spike and the bind point in the ear gives only minimal effects. It seems that all of Harmony's worshipers have one, and there's no way he murders enough people to make new ones, but there's literally over a million left over, and even if only one of the four spikes is suited for this use that's still a lot of spikes.
- Actually he wrote in my book that it's part of a re-used Inquisitor spike that was melted down and reforged. You could get a lot of little earrings from those great big spikes in the Inquisitors.
- In general, being pierced with metal should let Harmony speak with his followers borrowing Ruin's old power. They might not require a hemalurgic charge for that, since metal itself is invested in this world.
- haha it was actually given to him by MeLaan (not sure of spelling) according to Word of Brandon.
- This has now been Jossed as of Brandon's Q&A on Twitter. He did say that asking if he as a Seer was a good question though, which makes me think there's definitely more going on there then is obvious.
- It was stated that Blood Tan stole a shipment of Bendalloy, so I assumed that he was a Slider and altered time a bit to move her into the shot. What exactly did the Q & A say on the subject, exactly?
- Except that a Slider bubble would have altered the trajectory of the shot. Electrum's far more likely - he "sees" his Electrum shadow get shot it the head, and moves Lessie so that she'll be in the path between the gun and that spot instead.
- Not necessarily - Tan could have put a bubble up, moved Lessie, and dropped the bubble before the bullet hit the edge. Wax does something similar against Tarson.
- Well we know the heart is an appropriate point to drive a spike through to steal the ability to burn steel, as Ruin tried to get Spook to impale Beldre through the heart to get another spike in him, so that definitely works. And yeah, that could get messy.
- I've asked at a book signing and the verdict from Word of God is that it would not matter so much where the bullet hits so long as it does kill.
- He's flip-flopped on the question of whether non-lethal Hemalurgy is possible, but regardless, the desire to do Hemalurgy must remain. So a bullet wouldn't steal power unless the shooter wanted them to.
- Word of God says that a single bullet 'could' kill by stealing the healing ability. He said that death is normally a prerequisite of stealing a power so a blood maker who is still healing should be immune, but the bullet will still damage the soul and interrupt the healing. Basically it could work by cheating.
- That's REALLY useful to know (and would have been really useful to know when dealing with Miles too, along with the fact that aluminum stops bloodmakers from healing while it's in the wound). So it looks like what you want for this kind of thing are bullets of gold (ironic) or Atium? This definitely sounds like a lead-in too a "Man With the Golden Gun" shout out...
- For that matter, an Atium bullet (which is the kind of thing that's valuable enough to track down after you use it...) would keep on picking up various abilities from everyone it killed. Atium can steal ANY ability after all. And then someone gets shot with it but it lodges in their body and they don't die...
- There still needs to be the intent to use Hemalurgy with it though, otherwise the powers don't transfer in or out of the spike. Ruin got around that by facilitating the process personally wherever he could.
- Note that "while storing" thing. If Wax's sister was a Duralumin Ferring the kidnappers would have had to have let her keep a duraluminmind with her the whole time. Not to mention, how would she know to stop storing when her brother found out she was still alive?
- Maybe she was aware of his uncle's plans and was storing up her connection to him so that he wouldn't be drawn into the plot as well. Then, when they took away her duraluminmind, his connection came back at full force.
- First, her being able to keep her duralumin minds isn't that much of a stretch. Feruchemy lets you generate a Charm Person effect with duralumin in addition to actively making yourself forgettable. So if the inconsistency is because of her feruchemy, it could either be because she needed the connection for something else or to keep Wax out of it.
- The sudden spike of relief for finding out his sister is okay, which even Wax notes as unusual at the time, is most likely due to his uncle being an emotional allomancer and Rioting his relief. Presumably his sister, who 'died' along with his uncle, is in on the conspiracy. The goal was to make him miss his sister and then use her to help bring her into the conspiracy.
- Per Word of God, Alloy takes place somewhat before Way of Kings, so Hoid is definitely still alive. Word of God has also said that he's lived longer than a normal human lifetime. Check out 17thshard.com for a place where you can find links to a lot of this background info, mostly in interviews.
- Also, the scruffy guy in black at the wedding dinner was Hoid, he wasn't as involved in events this time as what's going on in Alloy isn't really that important to the overall story, he's basically just there for the cameo and so that the people at 17thshard didn't drive themselves nuts looking for him.
- Since Hoid is confirmed to have been present at the Shattering of Adonalsium, which according to word of Brandon happened thousands of years in the past, then he has some form of immortality (and given his presence in the Liar of Partinel, may well be the oldest living being in the universe). So no, he would not be dead even if he wasn't present in the book.
- Jossed: Hoid makes an appearance in Shadows of Self.
This, of course, makes Soulbearer Ferrings as useless as Aluminum and Duralumin Mistings. And before you give yourself a headache trying to figure out how a Feruchemist can store their ability to use Feruchemy in a metalmind using their Feruchemy, keep in mind that somewhere in the middle of The Well of Ascension, Sazed mentions that while Feruchemists can't fill most metalminds in their sleep, they can still store wakefulness in a bronzemind.
- Nicrosil's Feruchemical use is outlined in the RPG as storing "Investiture", outlined there as being straight up supernatural energy - to the point that it can be added in equal or lesser measure to the energy being tapped from any other sort of metalmind. It can also be used to convert the stores in another Feruchemist's metalmind into Investiture, but this apparently reduces the total store in that metalmind. As for how they store their ability to use Feruchemy by using Feruchemy, while filling a Nicrosilmind they can't use their other metalminds at all - so they store everything but the ability to stop storing to the Nicrosil mind. What effect this has in Twinborn, both those who are or are not Nicro-Compounders, is a very interesting question.
- It probably lets you store up your power and then really push it later if you're twinborn. But I'd say it's unlikely they're completely useless. In another story we have Biochroma, where investiture is intrinsic to humans on that planet. If they have more they become healthier (physically and mentally), stronger, and eventually immortal.
- Similarly, being infused with investiture on Roshar leads to heightened physical and mental perfection. On that world a Soulbearer ferring who also happened to be a Radiant could hold Stormlight perfectly in arbitrary quantities, unlike others who leak. But since it probably takes truly absurd quantities of investiture to start having physical effects (thousands of Breaths from Warbreaker for example) it's not surprising we haven't seen this discovered this yet.
Koloss are made when the souls of five ordinary people are combined together through Hemalurgy. This is also what warps their body and turns them into Axe-Crazy killing machines that will die of natural causes within a decade. But that's with four spikes- what happens when you only use one? Koloss aren't invincible, and a group of well-armed men could hunt one down and harvest the spikes. Using one spike would only attach one soul to your own, which limit your strength increase, but also limit the physical and mental deterioration.
There is also a chance that Tarson is simply the first of many. We know that the Organization is trying to breed Mistings. They may also try to "breed" an army of Tarsons, which are a step up from an army of Koloss. They wouldn't be as strong as full-blooded Koloss, but they wouldn't require powerful Soothers or Rioters to control them, either.
- Though we know for a fact that Harmony/Sazed altered the koloss so they could procreate, who is to say he also didn't make it possible for them to procreate with humans? No one seems disbelieving of the idea of a person being "koloss-blooded", so it could very well be fairly common.
- Complicating this is the serial adventure story published in the newspaper (Allomancer Jack) which, which clearly exaggerated, also have hints that the author actually knows important things. For example, that humans can be transformed into Koloss through hemalurgy (references to koloss claiming to have been human, though Jack doesn't believe them) and that Connector ferrings exist (referred too as an obscure and sacred form of feruchemy which would be an outright ass pull in universe if we didn't know it actually exists). It could be that, as Harmony, Sazed IMPROVED on the orginal Koloss design so the alterations caused by hemalurgy are heritable and they aren't as insane.
- Wo B Cleared much of this up: Koloss can breed viable children, with grey skin and prodigious strength, but these children must make a decision to take up the spikes when they come of age. If they don't, they allowed to leave the Pits of Eltania for greener pastures. If they do, they become fully-grown koloss, and gain the strength and mass that are characteristic of such.
While I doubt Sazed approves of people shoving spikes into other people, at least two surviving races- the Kandra and the Koloss- require Hemalurgy for procreation. In order to let the Kandra survive without having to murder people, Harmony altered the requirements for for Hemalurgy- you no longer have to drive a spike through the heart to take some of their power. This way, the Kandra can find sympathetic Mistings and make a few more of each other every hundred years.
In a future book, the protagonists will figure this out, and split their powers- they will be much less powerful, but more versatile.
- According to Word of God, Harmony changed the koloss so they would be self-propagating. Chances are, he did the same thing to the kandra.
- Though, if we take the Allomancer Jack stories as reliable with a grain of salt (and there are hints the author actually knows more than the pulp nature of the story suggests), it's still possible for humans to become Koloss. Presumably this is through more hemalurgy, either the original that requires four deaths or an improved transformation of Sazed's own design.
- Jossed: In Bands Of Mourning, it's mentioned that the kandra can't make new Blessings, making the ones they have all the more precious.
- This is confirmed by Word of God
We know that the Pits survived the rebirth of Scadrial, and that Kelsier mentions their ability to produce atium was destroyed for three hundred years. Presumably, they need a Mistborn to get whoever's living there- probably kandra- out.
- The problem with this (and most other theories here dealing with atium) being, of course, the fact that Sazed/Harmony should have reabsorbed the part of Ruin's power that atium was the solid form of since the only thing preventing Ruin from doing so was Preservation hiding it (and Sazed/Harmony knows exactly where).
- Actually, Sazed won't do that. Remember, the atium was the counterbalance to the power Preservation invested in humans. If Sazed were to reclaim it, his powers would become unbalanced, and he needs the balance to stay sane.
- If they're trying to control the pits of hathsin, they'll run into competition from worldhopper societies: it's the best dimensional access point on Roshar, albeit one that's been shut down for centuries.
- This is not my theory; somebody else brought it up at a signing and Sanderson got extremely cagey in response. So it's worth preserving here.
- If that's the case then that means that a Voidspren named Moelach is metaphysically nearby, though we haven't heard Death Rattles from anyone else yet. And that, in turn, would imply that the Shard interfering with Scardriel is Odium (who else)?
- Word of God indicates that this is a part of the "complimentary opposites" nature of these two powers, actually. Preservation could read minds, but had a very hard time communicating with them (remember how Vin had to struggle to get even a simple message to Elend?). Ruin was essentially the opposite, having no real ability to read minds but being very powerful at communicating with and influencing them. Harmony, having access to both powers, could do both.
- Jossed by Word of Brandon, Investiture interferes with Soulcasting and Atium and Lerasium are heavily Invested, so they can't be transmuted or created by Soulcasting. Doesn't mean Atium can't eventually return of course.
- the preview reading for Shadows of Self strongly implies this is the case.
- Why just women, then?
- Plausibly, to throw people off from their true intentions.
- Breeding more Mistings to make into Steel Inquisitors. Because my brain comes up with things like this: you can do it with just a seeker with a seeker hemalurgic spike (or any other allomancer) if they're sociopathic enough to go along with it. When a child with an allomantic bloodline is born, feed them samples of all metals and hurt them badly enough to make them snap. They will start instinctively burning metal, so you now know what ability they have to steal. Smokers can be detected either with a double-seeker made through hemalurgy (though this is risky since Harmony will be urging them to have an attack of conscience) or through having another burning allomancer who you watch for when you stop being able to sense them.
- That makes alot of sense, except that I would think Harmony would have noticed her getting an extra spike. Unless that was when the other shard began shrouding her from Harmony, at any rate.
- Somewhat confirmed in Bands of Mourning: Harmony is actively warding off a hostile shard in the physical realm, but we have no indication what he is doing in the Cognitive.
- As of Mistborn Secret History: Scadrial's Cognitive Realm has always been misty.
- Seems plausible. That drawing, presumably from the witness' description, did bear an uncanny resemblance to the descriptions of the Parshendi...
- Alternatively, it was one of the Hunters from the southern lands using a shardpool to worldhop.
- It's someone from the South.
- Partially Jossed. As mentioned below, Brandon has let slip that "ettmetal" is sazedium.
- Jossed: Brandon let slip at an interview that it's Sazedium.
- It's actually a natural consequence of Feruchemy genes being diluted in the population through outbreeding.
- Never mind. He went to fetch train tickets. Although it is possible...
- Robots.
- Alien invaders.
- Mafia. Not like the Set, but cigar-chomping gangsters.
- The occult. Someone uses their Allomancy/Feruchemy and disguises it as witchcraft using trickery. Or a Worldhopper making their magic look like witchcraft that looks like Metalborn powers on closer inspection.
- Ghosts, demons, vampires, etc. Might not be real, but it sure looks like it.
- It worships the Lord Ruler, and Ironeyes is subordinate to him as a prophet. Both are worshiped, but Ironeyes isn't quite a god, the same way the Survivor isn't quite one either.
- It was born from skaa worship of the Lord Ruler in addition to Steel Minstry doctrine. Final Empire says that skaa usually leave religion to the Obligators, but that changes after TLR's death. The same way that Kelsier's death founded the Church of the Survivor, TLR's death kicked off a resurgence of faith among the skaa. Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages show skaa who still believe in TLR, even though he was a tyrant. Some tell Marsh that they'll worship again if TLR would return. Without Obligators, the skaa formed their own religious sects, and they eventually folded together with the Steel Ministry to form Sliverism.
- They treat TLR as a god of prosperity and stability. Since TLR 'abandoning' them led to famine and chaos, TLR represent the opposite.
- Alternately, they worship Vin as TLR's heir.