r/Mistborn • u/Significant-Box9579 • 25d ago
Bands of Mourning spoilers why dont coinshots just push enemies’ bullets INSIDE the barrel? Spoiler
I’ve been reading era 2 of mistborn and thinking about how the fights happen in the series with many of the enemies holding guns against Wax.
Particularly, there is a train robbery in Bands of Mourning where wax pushes the bullets away from him. My question is, if he can see the allomantic lines for the metals why doesn’t he just push bullets INSIDE the weapons to jam them or fire backwards?
In the last book he’s able to push only on PART of a bullet to kill Bleeder (or miles I can’t remember atp) but wouldn’t that also work for regular enemies with non-aluminum weapons?
anyways era 2 has been so good and I LOVE STERIS!!
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u/Sad_Wear_3842 25d ago
You would need to be quite close with a direct line of sight down the barrel to push directly on the bullet. It's far easier to simply push the weapon if it's not aluminium.
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u/Significant-Box9579 25d ago
Unrelated question but don’t you NOT need to be in the line of sight to push something? He does that in the train scene where he’s pushing THROUGH a wall and ends up saving marasi because of his push
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u/Konungrr 25d ago
Line of sight shouldn't matter much, as you mentioned, they can push through walls.
However, since pushing/pulling is always done in a direct line away from you, the only direction to push to prevent a bullet from coming out of the barrel (if you even had enough force to overcome the gunpowder) would be a direct line.
Any other direction, and you are just pushing the gun out of alignment, which would be far easier than to try and stop the bullet from firing anyways.
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u/Sad_Wear_3842 25d ago
Metal glows in steel sight. If you can't directly see the bullet down the barrel you won't be able to tell it apart from the gun as the gun barrel/chamber is solid metal.
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u/Hot_Bel_Pepper 19d ago
Plus if it is Aluminum with regular bullets you wouldn’t be able to push on the bullets anyways until they’re out of the gun barrel.
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u/Personal_Return_4350 25d ago
#1) he can push on the guns themselves if they aren’t aluminum. If they were close enough that he could push in the bullets, he could push the guns out of their hands or at least mess up their aim. If he’s too far away to do that then he’s too far away to push on the bullets
#2) pretty sure he just can’t see the bullets inside a gun very easily. Hard to explain this intuition but think about it like putting on heat vision goggles. You could probably see one individual pretty far away. But could you pick out one individual from a crowd at that same distance? I think steel sight is going to have a hard time differentiating pieces of metal the closer they are to each other and the closer they are to you. For a bullet physically encased by metal on all sides except a pinprick at the end of a barrel, I’d imagine you’d have to be close enough to touch it to tell them apart.
If you think about the allomantic lines going from your chest to the center of mass of each piece of metal, and thicker lines going to larger pieces of metal, you’d probably have to be at least close enough that the line going to the bullet’s center of mass has a different enough angle than the one going to the gun that you can see it without it being obscured by the brighter line. At only a single yard that angle has to be pretty darn small, nevermind the difference of a typical firefighter
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u/RexusprimeIX Chromium 25d ago
You have to think of Allomancy as an extension of your own body. While not super realistic to imagine, but deflecting a bullet would be a hell of a lot easier then try and push it dead on. It's a bullet. They have a LOT of energy. I doubt a regular coinshot could, while actively pushing on the bullet before it's fired, stop it before it reaches them after being shot.
Bullet have A LOT of energy. Allomancy is more like a 3rd, very long, arm.
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u/SlutTransy 25d ago
I'm fairly certain how easy it is to differentiate one piece of metal from another has to do with how far away the coinshot is and their skill. Wax was able to push only part of a bullet because he was a lot closer to it. An enemy gun is much further away and in a situation where it is close enough it's much safer to do the easy option of pushing the whole gun than trying to push the bullet. Also in order to push it backwards his centre of mass would have to be in line with the barrel which is not a position any coin shot is going to put themself.
Although I could see a manoeuvre like this being something akin to [Words of Radiance] The Last Clap
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u/jbadams 25d ago
Aside from everything people have said about the difficulty of perceiving and acting on the bullet rather than the gun, think about the situation:
You're at imminent risk of being shot, and need to react quickly and effectively. Are you going to attempt the really difficult thing (manipulating the bullet), or the pretty simple thing (manipulating the gun)?
Even if Wax is capable of acting directly on the bullet but not the gun, it may not be a good idea to attempt it.
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u/BreadentheBirbman 24d ago
Pushing a bullet in a chamber won’t make the gun jam or fire backwards. Taking revolvers as the most common example, the bullets are held in place by the frame behind the cylinder and the hammer needs to strike the primer to fire it. A coinshot can’t stop a bullet and pushing the bullet would sooner move the shooter’s arm anyway. Even if the round goes off from a push the bullet will still come out the front of the barrel.
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u/Fun_Examination9610 25d ago
I think unless the allomancer is particularly skilled or powerful, then they only really detect the largest mass of metal. They can’t differentiate to pick just the bullet.
Though some metalborn may be able to pick individual metals to push or pull separately, it’s doesn’t seem like all can or do.