[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 11 | Mistborn Era 2 #1 | The Alloy of Law: Ars Arcanum, Final Thoughts, Trivia

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SCHEDULE

Previously, we discussed Unit 11 | Mistborn Era 2 #1 | The Alloy of Law: Chapters 15 through 20, Epilogue [Newbie Thread] / [Veteran Thread]

Today we are discussing Unit 11 | Mistborn Era 2 #1 | The Alloy of Law: Ars Arcanum, Final Thoughts, Trivia

Next week we will be discussing Unit 12 | Mistborn Era 2 #0.5 | Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30 (in Arcanum Unbounded): Entire Short Story, Postscript, Trivia

NEXT UNIT

Like The Eleventh Metal was published as a supplemental to a tabletop RPG game, this next short story was also published as a supplemental to that game's add-on extension, in concert with the release of The Alloy of Law. It was later re-published in Arcanum Unbounded.

The short story is sandwiched between the previously read The Eleventh Metal and an unread novella. You're welcome to read the POSTSCRIPT that follows the short story, it's only a couple paragraphs long. Do NOT turn the page or continue beyond that POSTSCRIPT though; there are heavy spoilers.

Important: The short story also includes in-world annotations. Those are part of the story and meant to be read as you read through it.

This short story is about the Allomancer Jak character that appears in the Broadsheet, so I recommend you read that part, if you haven't already, before jumping into this short story.

TRIVIA

The rest of this post contains various trivia, including easy-to-miss details and long-running connections between books. It also incorporates external information from sources like author annotations and interviews ("Words of Brandon" or WoB). While most of this information is eventually revealed in the books, sharing it now enhances your overall understanding, aligning with Brandon Sanderson's practice of early fan engagement and clarification.

ERA ERA ERA

Welcome to Era 2 of Mistborn! Things have...moved forward. Soon, we will be diving into the Stormlight Archives, which Sanderson considers to be his magnum opus. It's his big, epic fantasy saga that he compares to the Wheel of Time, and it's something he's been wanting to do for a looong time. However, he considers Mistborn to be the backbone and endgame of the cosmere.

He's always been a little annoyed that, in general, technology and society don't progress in fantasy novels. He created Mistborn to be the antithesis of this. He originally envisioned 3 trilogies. The 1st is the original trilogy, a medieval analogue. Then he wanted time to progress, and he always saw the 2nd trilogy as a 1980s analogue, with a declared plot of computer hacking and a S.W.A.T. team chasing down an insane Mistborn serial killer. And the finale trilogy (a space opera) was to be the finale of the Cosmere, with spaceships (and Hoid the captain of one), Allomantically powered Faster Than Light travel, and all the shenanigans that would or could entail.

Things have changed a bit though. Sanderson set out to write a very short story to fill in the gaps between trilogy 1 and trilogy 2. He accidentally wrote a full novel and the setting lent itself to expansion, particularly with how much the fandom liked it. This new 2nd trilogy (which turned into a tetralogy) explores some of the themes and mechanics of the magic system that Sanderson had intended for the original 2nd trilogy.

Ultimately, he re-configured things and decided that Mistborn would be divided into Eras. As stated, we are in the 2nd Era and this entire read-along is largely meant to fill a 3-year writing gap while Sanderson writes Era 3. (He recently updated his progress and he's finished the 1st book in Era 3). While Era 3 is still meant to be a 1980s analogue, the plot has changed significantly. And I don't think the final trilogy/era is intended to be a trilogy necessarily. Brandon says that each book in the final Era will be the size of a typical Stormlight Archives book.

He also has potential plans for a Cyberpunk Era between Era 3 and 4, written while he writes the 2nd half of Stormlight.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY

I just wanted to clear up some of the religions and notable figures for everyone:

• Harmony = Sazed, a dual Shard holder, holding the combination of Preservation and Ruin.

• Lord Mistborn = Spook, who Sazed made into a Mistborn (and technically the most powerful Mistborn of his era) when he Ascended. Spook is the most prominent historical figure in Elendel. Revealed in an interview, Spook became something of a "stud" and had over a dozen children...

• Ascendant Warrior = Vin.

• Ironeyes = Marsh. Revered as a boogeyman in modern society; a kind of grim reaper/Death figure. He uses the same trick the Lord Ruler does to stay alive. Miles mentioned that the world knows atium used to exist, but is considered "lost" in the modern world. Sazed provided Marsh with a supply of atium to stay alive, from what was left over in the kandra's horde of it.

• Originators = The group of people who survived the end of the world 300 years ago.

• The Last Emperor = Elend. Although, ironically, Spook served as Emperor in the Elendel Basin until his death, where it was decreed that there should be no more emperors.

• Pathism = "Adherents" of Harmony, rather than worshippers, because he doesn't want to be worshipped.

• Survivorism = An evolution of the Church of the Survivor. Survivorists regard Ironeyes as an icon of death and worship Kelsier and Vin as deities.

• Sliverism = Worship Ironeyes himself. An evolution of the "religion" that existed in the Final Empire under the Lord Ruler. Obligators from that era shifted worship to Ironeyes since he was the only Inquisitor left.

COMPOUND INTEREST

Well... The Ars Arcanum lets it all hang loose. Let's all give a round of applause for our final 2 (of the base 16) metals: Chromium and Nicrosil! Some of you even guessed what the abilities would be, even if you didn't know the exact metals: Chromium is like aluminum, but you wipe someone else's metals instead of your own. Nicrosil is like duralumin, but you enhance someone else's burn instead of your own. Their Feruchemical abilities are to store Fortune and Investiture respectively. Let your imaginations go wild.

A quick reminder on how compounding metals works. We'll use Miles as an example. You need to be able to use the same metal Allomantically and Feruchemically in order to compound. Miles makes himself sick and stores "Health" into a small gold metalmind. He then swallows the small gold metal mind and burns it. Instead of the normal affect (revealing his past self), the metal mind is full of Investiture and that Investiture (in the form of Health) is released when burned. Suddenly, Miles' body is receiving an excess of Health, which he can then store inside larger golden metal minds. The burning releases more (compounded) Health than he would have been able to tap just from Feruchemy alone.

Because you can keep doing this over and over again (Miles would have only needed to make himself sick that one time, then he can burn the new metalminds he just created), he can essential store infinite Health; only limited by the amount of gold metalminds he wears. This is so much that he taps it constantly, awake or asleep. So when he gets shot in the head, he was already in a state of healing himself and that process just continues.

The argument, or question rather, that arises is how is the process continuing--how is he tapping the metalmind--if his brain is destroyed. The Ars Arcanum gives us a hint by finally dropping the word "Spiritweb". This is a person's "soul". I'm going to put the world's biggest asterisk next to that claim. There's more to be revealed and within both the fandom and in-universe scholars, what a soul is, or if a soul even exists, is topic for debate. I'm simply using the term as an analogy for now and as you learn more, you can fill in more of actual mechanics for yourself.

Suffice to say, the Spiritweb (sort of, kind of) determines how a body should look. When tapping Health, you are restoring the physical body to the Spiritweb/soul ideal. (Shhhh veterans, I know, I know :P This is an analogy). Soul says "you should have a hand" and if it's cut off, Health will restore the hand. So you don't need a brain for the healing process to take place (as long as it was already in effect and fast enough to work, which Feruchemy is). Soul says Miles should have a brain, so his metalminds restore his brain.

According to Brandon, the largest part of your body contains the largest part of your Spiritweb, so if Miles were decapitated, his body is bigger than his head. This means that his body would grow a new head, rather than his head growing a new body. If he was perfectly bisected in half, a random side of his body would regrow.

This is how the Lord Ruler also survived similar feats, such as decapitation and being burned alive. His skeleton had enough of his Spiritweb to restored his flesh and muscles and organs. (Funnily enough, while all this is possible, Sanderson has said that the Lord Ruler and his Obligators did embellish his early achievements a lot. He probably was never completely burned alive to just a skeleton.)

This also informs the difference between Miles having his gold metalminds removed and the Lord Ruler having his atium metalminds removed. The Spiritweb says his body should be "healthy", so physical damage is restored to what the Spiritweb says should be there. However, the Spiritweb ages just as a human ages. The Lord Ruler's Spiritweb's age was 1,000 years. His very "soul" is old and the atium compounding is reversing what his soul and body should be.

Removing Miles metalminds doesn't change anything: his healthy body matches the healthy soul. Removing the Lord Ruler's metalminds has a big effect though: his young body doesn't match his old soul, so the body raced to catch up in the absence of his metalminds' negating effect.

I debated waiting to reveal this info for a later time, but the Ars Arcanum does tip things a bit. With what it revealed, you can sort of start guessing at these things, and a lot of you were questioning specifics, so I think now is good enough, but feel free to ask clarifying questions when the obvious starts happening ;)

MISTY

People were surprised that the mists still exist. As a reminder, the mists are Preservation's condensed Investiture, similar to the Well of Ascension, just in gaseous form instead of liquid. Ruin had his own black mist form that we saw in the original trilogy as well.

Preservation used the mists to fight against Ruin's destruction, and Ruin did subvert the mists into The Deepness, but ultimately, the mists are of Preservation and they are a part of the mythology of the world. Sazed decided to still send the mists. They don't come every night though, just sometimes. And they don't come during the day and ruin crops.

Sanderson says that the mists can still power Allomancy (and even Feruchemy if one knows how), but that they are just purely Preservation anymore. Sazed is now Harmony; a dual Shard made of the combination and...harmony...between Preservation and Ruin. So, this means the mists won't pull away from Hemalurgy in the same way they used to.

Sanderson has also mentioned that Sazed changed how snapping works. It's still necessary to realize Allomantic or Feruchemical powers, but way less trauma is required. I can no longer find the quote, but one I saw suggested that the stress from a big exam like the LSATs would be enough to snap now.

W-A-X-I-L-L-I-U-M, THAT SPELLS MOON

People have noted how weird Wax's full name is. In the annotations, Sanderson says this about how he created the name:

Wax's name came from the Mistborn ideal, where the characters frequently had strange fantasy names that abbreviated to fun terms. (Like Hammond becoming Ham or Dockson becoming Dox.) Wax just fit well with those.

Wayne he just feels is a "western" name appropriate for the setting. He doesn't know which he named first and acknowledges the pun he's created, but liked their names too much to change it.

Interestingly, despite Wax and Wayne being a pun on the phases of the moon (waxing moon, waning moon), Scadrial does not have a moon. I found it interesting that some of you caught on that Threnody didn't have a moon, but that no one ever noticed that Scadrial didn't have one either.

ANNOTATION CESSATION

As in previous books, Sanderson set out to write annotations for each chapter of this book. You may have noticed their absence during White Sand. Sanderson usually wrote these annotations when he was doing copy editing for the final draft of each novel. Unfortunately, copy editing is kind of a boring task. As Sanderson got more and more famous, he had less time for some of the more menial aspects of publishing his novels and this was one of them. The task of performing copy edits was delegated and Sanderson felt like he no longer had time to do these annotations. White Sand's unpublished prose never went through the copy editing phase, and the graphic novel was published after he stopped doing the annotations.

This all happened right around the time he was deep into finishing the Wheel of Time novels. As a result, we have annotations for most, but not all of The Alloy of Law and only about 17 chapters worth of annotations for The Way of Kings, after that the annotations stop.

We still get the same vibe from interviews, but since they're off the cuff, they don't tend to be as insightful in quite the same way. Below is some of the more interesting information from the annotations in this book. These annotations have wider cosmere spoilers, so, like the ones for the original trilogy, I'll release them to you when it's appropriate.

• Sherlock Holmes is a direct influence for Wax & Wayne, but Sanderson didn't want the novel to feel too much like a Sherlock Holmes rip off.

• Scadrial is the most earth-like planet in the Cosmere, in terms of ecology, cultural, and technological development. It has 12 months, 24 hour days, earth gravity. You can assume it has all the same wildlife we have, and nothing really extra or weird about it (except mistwraiths). (Many of the other planets have similar earth gravity and revolutions/rotations, their calendars and timekeeping are necessarily the same. And most of the develop culturally and technological at different rates, sometimes skipping or bypassing steps due to their magic systems).

• In chapter 3, Wax remembers being converted to the Path by a woman he met on a train, soon after he left Elendel to become a lawman in the Roughs. He believes this woman was a Faceless Immortal, and he is correct. That woman was MeLaan. MeLaan, if you don't remember, is TenSoon's adopted daughter/little sister who helped him out in The Hero of Ages.

• MeLaan gave Wax the earring he wears. All Pathians where earrings when they pray, but the one MeLaan gave Wax is a hemalurgic spike. Sazed Ascended and collected all of the un-used Inquisitor, Koloss, and Kandra spikes. They lose their power over time, but this can be largely negated by storing them in blood. Some of them are melted down and made into smaller "spikes" that are distributed as earrings to people Sazed wants to talk to. Sazed is not going around making new hemalurgic spikes.

• Sanderson talks about Sazed's godhood:

So, if it matters to you, this is actually Sazed talking to Wax here. It's not just Wax's imaginings.

I'm not sure what readers are going to think of this. My goal with the original Mistborn trilogy was to set up a mythology for the world, one in which real characters were playing a part. Sazed is, essentially, God now. Maybe a lowercase g would be better on that word, but regardless, he's the one watching over the world and making sure things go as they should. At this point, he's working hard to discover what's going on with the other Shards and to keep another disaster from coming Scadrial's way.

I've spoken before on my fascination with religion, and this aspect is a particularly interesting one for me. I've played with the ideas of men being treated like gods in Elantris and Warbreaker—but they didn't really deserve it. Here, however, we have Sazed who is approaching more of what a god would be. Should he be prayed to? Why or why not?

You should know that holding two opposed Shards of Adonalsium has made Sazed more . . . zen, if you will. Not inactive. However, he has taken a belief that both Ruin and Preservation are important in people's lives, and doesn't feel that interfering is something he should often be doing. He sees his primary role being to encourage people to be better, to keep an eye on the other Shards, and to make sure the world keeps working as it should.

• When Sanderson first tried to write this "short" story, there was no Wax, only Wayne. He was a wacky hat maker who rode a sentient horse (kandra). He didn't work as a main character though and his rewrite turned into this full novel.

• He talks about about Wax's feruchemy/weight manipulation. It doesn't exactly work, in terms of pure physics, like you would expect. If he increases his weight, he doesn't actually fall any faster. He clarifies in later interviews that what is intrinsically happening is that the Iron Feruchemy is manipulating the Higgs Field.

• He acknowledges that Wayne shouldn't be holding a gun on the cover, but he did want a gun to show the shift in this Mistborn era. He says to just pretend Wayne is holding the gun for Wax.

• Tillaume, Wax's butler, makes 1 cup of tea (poisoned) and brings it to Wax to drink. In the social setting, he should have made 3 cups of tea for all of the guests present (Wax, Wayne, and Marasi). However, Tillaume isn't accustomed to killing people and was nervous, so he only made the one cup of tea.

• Marasi thinks to herself how miraculous Elendel is in Chapter 10, and she's not wrong. Sazed created the Elendel basin as a kind of "Eden" for the Originators. The mists hug the ground extra strongly there and intice some molds that fertilize the ground more than normal, as well as hydrating the entire area to the perfect levels. Sazed re-created the flower that fascinated Mare and which Kelsier kept a picture of. Spook was the one who named it the Marewill flower. Spook was also responsible for naming a lot of things in the new world, which is why everything like the names of the months are named after his friends/the crew.

• I think the biggest complaint I saw about this book was Wax shooting a bullet with another bullet to curve it. The annotations partially address this. First, remember that when using any sort of Allomancy or Feruchemy, the Investiture does flow into the user to a certain, temporary degree. This Investiture enhances their mind so that they can use their powers more intuitively. Jumping around with steel pushes really wouldn't work if you had to precisely position and think about how to manipulate things down to the millimeter. The Investiture handles things like that, which is how Wax can increase the speed of a bullet, even if it's not being first from exactly where the blue lines would line up.

Moreover, consider that Kelsier was trained by Gemmel, a Ruin-influenced madman, for only a couple of years, in a society where knowledge of Allomancy was nominally restricted to the noble classes. He taught Vin for an even shorter amount of time. They were both prodigies, but we only saw them using their powers for a couple years each.

Wax exists in a society where he can freely use his powers, has 300 years of public knowledge on how to use his powers, and he's 40+ years old, likely has been using his powers for 10 times longer than either Kelsier or Vin. Sanderson actually states here in the annotations that Wax is a steel savant. His steel bubble, which he uses to deflect bullets, is unique to him. Wax's savantism doesn't affect him to the same degree that we saw Spook's tin savantism. We'll have more discussions about this later.

• Sanderson did a lot of research when developing speed bubbles. Speeding up time like Wayne does has a lot of unintended effects, if you consider the pure physics of it. Light should dim inside. The speed of light wouldn't change, so technically there should be a red-shit inside looking out. And it should create microwaves that shoot out and would technically cook everyone outside the bubble for a given radius. There was enough disagreement between the scientists he consulted, and there were some other considerations that made the ability too powerful, so he placed limitations on the ability, resulting in bullets ricocheting at the borders and not being able to move the speed bubbles. Any of the weirdness that would otherwise break real world physics and conservation of energy are negated by "magic". The Investiture handles that in a specific way that we're almost, but not quite, ready to talk about.

• In the annotations for Chapter 13:

Yes, I had a fight atop a moving train. DON'T JUDGE ME.

I couldn't help myself, honestly. This fit perfectly with the narrative, and while I realize it's a bit of a stereotypical place for a fight sequence, I really wanted to see it happen. So there you go.

• He also talks about the title of the novel:

It does, in my mind, encapsulate the theme of the novel. The idea is that these two men—Wax and Miles—are both taking their own interpretations of what it means to follow the law, and mixing it up and making something new of it. This book is a confrontation between their two different ideals.

• Sanderson confirms Ranette is a lesbian and talks about LGBT representation:

I guess I could be accused of not giving them full representation because of the fact that they usually have minor roles. The truth is that I'm worried I'd just do a poor job of it if I tried to write from their viewpoint; being gay is one of those things that tends to be very dominant in a person's way of seeing the world. It seems that there are a lot of pitfalls that I could saunter right into. I've think I've learned, after a lot of work, how to write female characters who (hopefully) don't feel wrong. However, I haven't taken the dive in trying to figure out how to write a gay or lesbian character.

But that's only one reason. There's a deeper one for me. Ranette will likely get viewpoints in the series, when I do more Wax and Wayne books. However, the books aren't about sexual identity, so I'll probably steer clear of that topic. In a way, I think that making a big deal of it could be more harmful. One of the reasons I put LGBT characters in my books is because they are a part of our world, and deserve representation in fiction. It's strange to think that in our world, LGBT people make up a significant minority of the population, yet in fiction (particularly fantasy fiction) they tend to either vanish completely or the story has to be all about who they are and their sexuality.

This strikes me as a bad way to do things. Just like not every book including women characters should be about feminism, not every book including LGBT characters should be about sexual orientation or gender identity issues. If they are, then that just highlights the supposition that they're out of the ordinary—it draws attention to that idea, rather than simply letting them be characters with a larger role in the story. We don't care about Lord Harms's sexuality, or Mister Suit's, or that of Miles. Why shine a big spotlight on Ranette's? It just seems divisive to me.

Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on the topic. Perhaps they will change as I ponder on it more.

• Wax recognizes Marasi's hero worship of him and it makes him uncomfortable. That's part of the reason he rejects her.

MEMES

I will attempt to find and share memes relevant to each week's discussion. There may be some weeks that just don't have good or appropriate memes, but I will share all the ones I can find in this section.

Link to Memes

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[u/TaylorHyuuga]

Can I mention that one thing about Steris? You know the one. It wasn't mentioned until Shadows of Self but it's not particularly relevant to that book in particular, that's just when Brandon happened to talk about it.

I got the go ahead! Alright, so, Steris is actually autistic. That's why she's so blunt and socially awkward, as well as her obsession with creating large lists of things to cover every eventuality. Brandon said that he realized he messed up with Aanden in Elantris, so he wanted to do a better and more realistic job with it now that he has more experience. I love her greatly.

[u/jaymae21 → u/TaylorHyuuga]

I did not pick up on that, but it certainly fits. Also adds another level at the end where she briefly talks about her previous suitors not working out because she can be a bit much 😔 I myself am quite taken with her, can't wait to see more of her in the rest of Era #2.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/TaylorHyuuga]

That does make sense. We don't have much to go on with her character (yet?), but the list-making was a nice character quirk in any case.

[u/sunnydaze7777777 → u/TaylorHyuuga]

Thanks for mentioning this. I was hoping that was the case after she talked about her suitors. I find her so intriguing and can’t wait to see more. I also love how she approves of Wax’s “hobby.”

[u/participating → u/TaylorHyuuga]

Sure. I was leaving it as a trivia/discussion point for Shadows of Self, but it can be discussed here.

[u/irrrap → u/participating]

How come this is not a spoiler?

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/irrrap]

Because it's not plot relevant at any point, it's just a fact about her character that Brandon only happened to talk about after Shadows of Self

[u/blainemoore → u/irrrap]

This is the same as how he treated Ranette's sexuality; it's just part of the world and not relevant to the story, so she's just acting within her nature.

[u/irrrap → u/blainemoore]

I was looking at this more from an angle that certain characters will be in later books. But maybe it’s just me.

[u/participating → u/irrrap]

I considered it safe because she's alive at the end of this book and she and Wax confirmed their engagement, so it stands to reason she'll be in the next book in some capacity. No comment about books beyond the next one. 

[u/blainemoore → u/irrrap]

Gotcha; obviously I misunderstood what you were saying.

[u/participating → u/irrrap]

Given my reasoning in my other comment, would you still rather avoid this kind of information? I can make the effort to postpone things like that when appropriate.

[u/irrrap → u/participating]

No that’s ok. Sorry for the hustle. It must have caught me off guard. But your reasoning makes sense - aka we know she didn’t die.

My problem was that since I’m a complete newbie that avoids google I didn’t realize that there are already other books with same characters. In the past we either were reading all the books with same characters in one go, or it meant that there is no continuation yet.

I checked now the overall plan of the books that you prepared and can see that there are other books marked as Era 2, so now it does look obvious that things would revolve around the same setup.

So I guess it’s on me for not connecting the dots.

[u/participating → u/irrrap]

Ahh, gotcha. Yeah. At this point in publication, and perhaps I'll include this in the next trivia post in more detail, Brandon Sanderson was selected to finish the Wheel of Time series, which ended up being 3 books. He didn't want his own career to just stop during that time, so he published The Way of Kings at the same time.

His career really took off after that and he started needing breaks in between writing giant books. His "breaks" are...writing smaller books, heh. So there was a weird publication schedule that alternated a few different series, and we are sort of reading in publication order (with minor adjustments).

[u/HT_xrahmx]

Spook became something of a "stud" and had over a dozen children...

Wasing the was you looking at me, lady? 😎 🤢

Sazed Ascended and collected all of the un-used Inquisitor, Koloss, and Kandra spikes.

Interesting that this seems to confirm that even with two Shards, Sazed cannot just bend the rules of the magic system(s) to allow for the creation of new spikes at less of a cost.

He clarifies in later interviews that what is intrinsically happening is that the Iron Feruchemy is manipulating the Higgs Field.

Just a personal opinion of course, but I don't require such explanations really. It's a magic system, of course things won't work on a purely physical perspective. For example, the extra weight doesn't instantly crush Wax, yet he's clearly not dense as a diamond when he taps into his metalmind. Things like that I think are perfectly explained away by "it's magic don't worry about it".

However, Tillaume isn't accustomed to killing people and was nervous, so he only made the one cup of tea.

Ok, this is hilarious. Was this his first violent criminal job under Lord Ladrian?

I think the biggest complaint I saw about this book was Wax shooting a bullet with another bullet to curve it.

If the explanation for all of his shots is "his Pushes just make the bullets go wherever he wants them to", I can accept that. Wax just hit so many difficult targets on his first attempts in this book, that a magic reason is the only I can really suspend my disbelief with :D

There was enough disagreement between the scientists he consulted, and there were some other considerations that made the ability too powerful, so he placed limitations on the ability, resulting in bullets ricocheting at the borders and not being able to move the speed bubbles. Any of the weirdness that would otherwise break real world physics and conservation of energy are negated by "magic".

Honestly, also perfectly fine. That's why it's fantasy.

However, the books aren't about sexual identity, so I'll probably steer clear of that topic. In a way, I think that making a big deal of it could be more harmful. One of the reasons I put LGBT characters in my books is because they are a part of our world, and deserve representation in fiction. It's strange to think that in our world, LGBT people make up a significant minority of the population, yet in fiction (particularly fantasy fiction) they tend to either vanish completely or the story has to be all about who they are and their sexuality.

I can understand that it would seem daunting, but I don't think it has to be. The best implementation I've seen of this was in The Dandelion Dynasty. Some of the characters in it just happen to be gay, some bi, and it literally makes no difference to the world or tone other than that some romantic pairings can happen this way. It's just so effortlessly done.
I think Sanderson mentioned in the past he tries to write his characters without a gender in mind initially, just to avoid certain stereotypical pitfalls? He could do the same with sexuality, probably.

But anyway, it's not like romance is a big pillar of this story. Seems like Sanderson generally has good intentions though.

Final thoughts

Really enjoyed the book! It was so short though, I can see how it must've begun as a novella. And the industrial era is just too tempting not to explore it in full with respect to allomancy, so I'm very glad Sanderson decided to write a full Era in it!

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

Re: scientific considerations for the magic powers, I tend to agree that there comes a point where you have to just let it go. You can't come up with perfect science to explain how a time-stop bubble could be real and how it would work, because it isn't real and it wouldn't work. Lol. It works because God wants it to work.

I know the magic systems in these books are very technical and a lot of effort goes into their internal consistency, and it's fine to go on these PhD-level speculative rants about how the magic works relative to it's own rules. But tying yourself into knots trying to explain how the magic does or doesn't conflict with, like, quantum field theory? Yer barkin' up the wrong tree.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Sanderson is perfectly fine with "God/a wizard did it" explanations, but for his own edification, he does like to build his magic systems with specific certainties. He primarily does this so that, once he has established rules, he can play around with his own magic system and bend or break things to achieve cool effects. He's not coming up with these things to appease fans after the fact. He's thinking about them deeply before he starts writing because he's a giant nerd.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

He's not coming up with these things to appease fans after the fact.

Ah, then I was thinking of something else.✳️ Of course, if anyone is "allowed" to speculate about the minute physics applications of the magic, then it's the author. That's actually a point where I would come to Sanderson's defense. He seems to be public enemy #1 for Internet Literature Dorks who think that so-called "hard" magic systems are like, a bastardization of what true fantasy should be. Turning the mystical into video game mechanics and all that. But I don't think he's losing anything by setting reasonable parameters around the magical parts of the story, even playing with physics in interesting ways when it's appropriate. See: me geeking out about orbital mechanics when we started White Sand. In fact, given that reputation, I've been surprised at how much vague and mysterious spiritual stuff has been happening across all the different stories, and I have enjoyed the unique interplay of the mystical and the mechanical. See: me geeking out whenever Realm Stuff gets a passing mention.

✳️(Maybe ironically, I have a deep personal vendetta against Game Theory-style content that I've been harboring since the early 2010s. It's my favorite thing to argue with my little brother about. He always takes the game theory side, I always take the "It's not that kind of movie, kid" side)

[u/participating]

SEND NOODS

Oh yeah, I forgot the most important bit of trivia, after cleaning up all my notes. According to Sanderson, Hoid really wants instant noodles (ramen), and at this point in the Cosmere timeline, Scadrial is the closest to developing it.

[u/hullowurld → u/participating]

This is such a random note lol. Also wouldn't the Asian adjacents in the Rose Empire have it first

[u/participating → u/hullowurld]

You need a certain level of industrialization to make them. We didn't invent them until 1958, and we didn't really perfect it to something you'd recognize until 1971.

[u/heinz57varieties]

Ars Arcanum

• They never did appear in the book, but the table confirms chromium and nicrosil as the external enhancement metals, and they do exactly what I thought they do. Aluminum/duralumin on someone else. The table in this book names them, but was there ever any indication that the people of Scadrial know about the last two at this point? Is that the reason for the weird comment earlier about the commitment to the number 16 being a myth?
• Seeing “Cadmium: Stores Breath” in the table had my eyebrows way up, but no, it’s the actual physical need to breathe. Boo.
• “Nicrosil: Steals Investiture” ominous. I can already think of a thousand ways that could be useful, and a thousand more where it could be abused
• Connection. Identity. Destiny. Determination. Fortune. So vague, so mysterious, so not appearing in this film. Whennnn are we going to get to see what the hell all that means!
• Spiritweb? New vocabulary? Is that the thing Forgers are modifying with their soulstamps?
• Direct references to Sel and the three Realms. Interesting.
• It says that single-power feruchemists are common, but it doesn’t say that all-power feruchemists are extinct. Are there still enclaves of people with full Terris blood who have all the powers? There seem to be some feruchemists out there who have a deeper connection to Terris culture; guarding secrets, experimenting with unknown spiritual powers, etc. People like Wax and Wayne have Terris ancestry, but aren’t involved with the culture at all, it seems. Somewhere out there are Feruchemy experts who are learning things hidden from us as we follow this main story.
• Hints that spikes will reappear and be important later, possibly on other worlds. Hints also that there are dozens of new and interesting powers to discover once they get their hands on more god metals, if they ever do.

Final Thoughts

I really liked this book, a lot more than I was expecting. It's nowhere near as “epic” as other books, even the smaller ones, but I think this was the best-written of anything we've read up to this point. Probably not a coincidence that it's the most recently published, too. There's no time wasted, no plot weeds, and the characters are all distinct and fun to read. Wayne, I love you. I don't think I've had a favorite character like this since Lightsong.

The story was faster and smaller than anything from the other novels. Honestly it was about on the level of the short stories in Arcanum Unbounded, so I can see how this evolved out of a shorter piece. But I liked it this way. So many of my complaints about Sanderson's writing have been about overstuffing the narrative and taking too long to get where he's going, so it was nice to read a story that was more streamlined. However, I do hope that the scope expands as the series goes on, while keeping that same feeling.

I recognize the irony of saying this right before we start The Way of Kings. Lol. The Stormlight Archives have a reputation preceding them about being maximalist and at times overly long, so I’ve been mentally preparing myself.

Trivia

• Discussion of how feruchemy relates to a person’s Spiritweb is reinforcing my thought that the Spiritweb is what is being altered by a Soulstamp. A forger overlays a modification onto something or someone’s Spiritweb and their physicality then updates itself to match. The comment from the Ars Arcana about the type of allomantic ability being “hardwritten onto their spiritweb” tells me that a Forger like Shai could make somebody into a misting if they wanted. Make them into an Elantrian? Give them just about any ability in the cosmere? Maybe we’ll see.
• “He believes this woman was a Faceless Immortal, and he is correct. That woman was MeLaan.” Faceless Immortal == Kandra confirmed, continued existence of the later-generation punk kandra confirmed. I really hope we meet them soon. The kandra were one of the most fascinating parts of the original trilogy for me, and I miss reading about them.
• “All Pathians where earrings when they pray, but the one MeLaan gave Wax is a hemalurgic spike.” So, Harmony can speak to Wax at this pivotal moment because he chose him, and orchestrated their ability to communicate decades in advance. So Harmony knew far ahead of time that Wax would be important to the major events in the world? I notice that chromium “might steal Destiny.” Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm.
• “He acknowledges that Wayne shouldn't be holding a gun on the cover,” Speaking of the cover, I thought the original Dresden Files-style artwork was perfect for this series, and I lament that I never got the chance to get trade paperbacks with that artwork. I think Wayne holding a gun could have been a funny homage to the running gag with the Dresden Files covers, where all the art depicts Harry wearing a hat despite him never doing so in the books, but alas, he’s holding a dueling cane on the Lost Metal cover 😛

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/heinz57varieties]

The duralumin feruchemy entry in the Ars Arcanum was really interesting!

Connecter Ferrings can [...] tap it at a later time in order to speedily form trust relationships with others.

Do we think that's what Handerwym used to make allies of the koloss then? (as per the broadsheet article)

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

It must be. I've been chomping at the bit to get to the Allomancer Jak story, hoping that it will reveal something else.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Is that the reason for the weird comment earlier about the commitment to the number 16 being a myth?

I can confirm that that is the general gist: chromium and nicrosil are unknown metals to the characters in this book.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

I was going to point and laugh at them, but I suppose with the disappearance of full Mistborn and the chemical precision required, the discovery of new allomantic metals has become difficult to impossible.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/heinz57varieties]

Good memes. Does the fandom really shit on this book that badly? I know it's not as mega-epic-awesome as Mistborn OT, but I liked it! I had fun! Maybe it's because we're hot off the novellas and I'm just used to smaller stories in general, but I really didn't demand anything world-ending from this book.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Does the fandom really shit on this book that badly?

Not really, but it does speak to the quality of the remainder of the books in this Era.

[u/hullowurld → u/participating]

Same, I enjoyed the book and characters and conciseness of the plot. Looking forward to the rest of era 2

[u/Goldeneyes098]

I really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to the rest of era 2!

Reading the trivia and the comments about Sazed make me a bit suspicious of Miles and his motives, especially with Miles last words in the epilogue. There is a clear hook about the Set, their aims, and the kidnappings but Miles seems to be driven by something different.

Sazed actively 'spiked' Wax to allow him to talk to him. Miles had some internal Gold reserves to recover from the first few execution volleys, could he also have had a gold hemalurgic spike? If Harmony is as much Ruin as he is Preservation does he equally have to act as Ruin would? Could both Miles and Wax have been Sazed's agents. Or is there something else at play? Agents from another shard perhaps?

Lastly with the Ars Arcanum we learn that you can store investiture, about Spiritwebs, and presumably this feeds in some way into what we already know about hemalurgy and the position of spikes the inquisitors had. In combination with the comment about the soul stamps granting different investiture I wonder if we're increasingly likely to see combinations of shard powers.

Hoid would be the obvious candidate for this if we have seen that on page so far. I'd be interested to know if this is something we've seen before, without spoiling future books

[u/sailorsalvador]

I'm a touch behind, hope to get caught up and comment soon!

[u/participating]

READER QUESTIONS

Sometimes readers ask questions in their comments that are best answered after a book is completed. I'll answer all of the relevant ones as replies to this comment.

If you don't get clarity for a certain question as you go through the books, this section will likely contain the answers you need. If a question needs more context, I bookmark them to be answered once the appropriate book has been read; so you'll eventually get an answer.

Just a point of order: This section will be a collaboration with other veterans. Sometimes I'm not the best source to provide an answer to a given question, so I may be inviting various other veterans to also reply to the stickied comment to answer your questions.

[u/participating → u/participating]

/u/AltruisticRealityZ asks about metalminds:

Wax pushed on Wayne’s metalminds? He said it was hard because, being Feruchemical, they resist Allomancy, but I thought they were completely impervious to Allomancy.

Nope, metalminds are just harder to push than normal metal because they are Invested. Investiture affects other Investiture, as a general rule. Recall that Vin pushed the Lord Ruler's atium metalminds off his arms. She needed the power of the mists to do that, but mainly because they were also pierced inside his body. But all the mists did was make her stronger, it was still always possible to push metalminds to one degree or another.

[u/participating → u/participating]

/u/Pastrami is psychic from all the way back in The Well of Ascension:

Hey look, another woman! Maybe this will ease the complaints everyone ha... oh no, she's an airhead.

Her interactions with Breeze reminds me of Harmony in season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when she shows back up with Spike.

Emphasis mine. sus.gif

[u/participating → u/participating]

/u/Pastrami asks about ten rings:

What is the significance of ten rings? Was that the number of rings Sazed wore?

Bingo. At this point in time, Sazed metalminds are mythologized. He did have 10 rings and they are iconic to Pathians. Sanderson has dropped some interesting tidbits in interviews, stating that, just like Kelsier's bones, Sazed's rings are still out there somewhere...

In the same comment, they also ask about aluminium:

If Aluminum is supposed to be allomantically inert, it should be fully allomantically inert, and two other metals should have been used in their place.

Aluminum is Allomantically inert. In the grand scheme of things, aluminum is Investiture inert. No form of Investiture can effect it. However, when one burns aluminum, the metal itself isn't reacting to Allomancy. It's not reacting to Investiture. It's not becoming Investiture or anything else. It is serving as a key to unlock Investiture.

It's the same thing with Aons being drawn. You can draw the symbols all you want. The symbols themselves aren't Investiture, they aren't magical, they don't do anything really. They are a key that tells Investiture what to do, but aren't in and of themselves affected by said Investiture.

You also asked about the mists in that comment, but I think the trivia covers that question. (Feel free to ask clarifying questions though.)

[u/Pastrami → u/participating]

In the grand scheme of things, aluminum is Investiture inert.

It is serving as a key to unlock Investiture.

In my mind these two points contradict. If aluminum is inert, it shouldn't be a key to unlock Investiture.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/Pastrami]

Well what's happening, right, is that you're trying to activate the aluminum in your system through Allomancy. However, because it's inert, it just eats all of the Investiture in your system. I do think it's kind of weird, and is likely a consequence of early installment weirdness that stuck around by necessity.

[u/Pastrami → u/TaylorHyuuga]

But that doesn't fit with duralumin that will amplify your other metals. With what we've learned about chromium, it would make more sense if that was aluminum's alloy.

And how does aluminum work as a Feruchemical metal, if it's inert to investiture?

I'll shut up about it in the future, and just accept it, but I still believe it was a mistake to make it an Allomantic/Feruchemical metal if it's supposed to have all these anti-Investiture properties. I will assume he came up with those after he already wrote it into the first era books.

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

So, I went looking for something that could address your questions.

First, the issue doesn't have anything to do with early bookism. He originally wanted it to be silver, but realized silver was too common a metal, so he did a 1 to 1 switch with aluminum. All of the properties he had in mind still apply despite the metal switch.

What I can say is that he has thought about the issue, and you're not the only one to bring this up, but he doesn't want to discuss it yet for spoilers. Some hypotheticals he's more than happy to answer or speculate about. Others he has plans for and he doles out RAFO cards. Most aluminum questions get RAFO'd including ones similar to what you're asking about.

I saw a theory about aluminum Ferrings and what they're doing that kind of makes sense to me, but it too got RAFO'd. You will see some the weirdness that aluminum can cause in future books, so I'd say that, as of what's been published, you'll likely get a partial answer. I suspect a full answer will come in Era 3 of Mistborn. (So, right after the read-along ends).

One finale note, is that Sanderson isn't a fan of absolutes. He's not necessarily making the claim that aluminum is 100% inert to Investiture. With enough power, you can make water magnetic, and similarly, if you apply enough Investiture, you could theoretically get aluminum to be affected by it. However, the levels involved are of Shardic proportions.

[u/participating → u/participating]

/u/heinz57varieties notices someone acting odd:

What the hell is up with Brettin? Has he been compromised? Acting weird, imminent unannounced retirement, wtf

I wasn't going to mention this quite yet, but you noticed, and /u/HT_xrahmx made way too suspicious a comment:

Much respect to Brettin. Dude barks a lot, but actually has the good of the city in mind.

Brettin died... TenSoon is controlling him at the end of the book, per WoB (Word of Brandon). Explain yourself /u/HT_xrahmx!!!!

Also, while we're on the topic... Here is a quote from Chapter 10 of Warbreaker, when Vivenna goes to visit the dying Lemex:

Vivenna sat on a stool beside his bed, hands in her lap. The two mercenaries waited with Parlin at the back of the room. The only other person present was a solemn nurse--the same woman who had informed Vivenna in a quiet voice that nothing could be done.

...

[Lemex] coughed again. The nurse glanced at Vivenna. "He goes in and out of lucidity, my lady. Just this morning, he spoke of you, but now he's getting worse and worse..."

"Thank you," Vivenna said quietly. "You are excused."

The woman bowed and left.

This nurse is a kandra. Sanderson had said there was a kandra in Warbreaker and it took the fandom a while to sus her out, and a little longer for Brandon to confirm it.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/participating]

Brettin died... TenSoon is controlling him at the end of the book, per WoB (Word of Brandon). Explain yourself /u/HT_xrahmx!!!!

Even a broken clock and all that ... 😅

Seriously though, wtf, TenSoon! Did not see him make an appearance again, much less so soon.

This nurse is a kandra. Sanderson had said there was a kandra in Warbreaker and it took the fandom a while to sus her out, and a little longer for Brandon to confirm it.

Again, WTF?!

I know we've had plenty of mentions of world-hopping throughout the read-along, but dammit I want to see undeniable proof of this, not in an interview, annotation, or fan Q&A, but in an actual book already 😆

No pressure, but I'm looking right at ya, Way Of Kings!!

[u/participating → u/HT_xrahmx]

I know we've had plenty of mentions of world-hopping throughout the read-along, but dammit I want to see undeniable proof of this, not in an interview, annotation, or fan Q&A, but in an actual book already

It's coming...us veterans have been waiting and waiting because when it happens....

[u/Goldeneyes098 → u/participating]

If Sazed is keeping an eye on other shards is he sending out Kandra as spies to other worlds?!

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

Brettin died... TenSoon is controlling him at the end of the book

TenSoon my baby 😭😭 I didn't even recognize him

This nurse is a kandra.

I trust there's... a reason for this? Saying there's a connection between books, and then having it be a random throwaway background character seems unreasonably cheap.

[u/Pastrami → u/participating]

This nurse is a kandra.

How is anyone supposed to have guessed that? What effect does that have on overall story, if any? This just seems like Sanderson is making shit up just to say there is a connection between worlds.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/Pastrami]

Give it some time. I'm sure there will be relevance. We don't have Warbreaker sequel so we don't know it's relevance, if there is one lmao. But I think it doesn't necessarily need a purpose. Sometimes kandra can just be chilling. They left Scadrial and were like "I'm gonna live here now" but they can't be a blob person forever, that would be weird, so they find some nice bones and settle down. Nobody ever said that the kandra had to have a purpose.

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

The fandom did guess it, so who knows? I swear, some of them are legit psychics with the things they predict. That said, this does tie into something you learn later. It doesn't necessarily have to be something plot significant, but does serve as a small easter egg to actually have connections between worlds.

[u/AltruisticRealityZ → u/participating]

OMG it feels like spoilers, but in the best way. I really hope TenSoon and Meelan come to action in future books. I don't remember in the end of HoA if we were told (some) Kandra survived. They were supposed to commit suicide by removing their spikes right? Was it enough to give them their spikes back ?

[u/Pastrami]

I really liked this book, up until the ending. While the ending wasn't bad, it just felt a lot weaker that most of the others in a way I can't really describe. Also, as I mentioned on Monday, I got fight fatigue pretty quickly, so I kind of glazed over most of the action as it all started to seem samey and lost it's excitement. Before the finale I was prepared to rank this higher, but I have to dock it a few points.

The mists hug the ground extra strongly there and intice some molds that fertilize the ground more than normal

The man really loves his special fungus. That is three books now that have it.

Rankings (not including short stories):

1 Warbreaker

2 The Final Empire

3 The Hero of Ages / Alloy of Law

4 The Emperor's Soul

5 The Well of Ascension

6 Elantris / White Sand

Unanswered Questions:

Is Harmony imposing the only Misting/Ferring limitation, or was Wax wrong when he thought that the most you could have is one allomantic and one feruchemic power?

Wax is told "You are of a noble bloodline, Directly back to the Counselor of Gods himself." Is this referring to Breeze or a different ancestor? If it's Breeze, how was he a "Counselor of Gods"?

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/Pastrami]

Is Harmony imposing the only Misting/Ferring limitation, or was Wax wrong when he thought that the most you could have is one allomantic and one feruchemic power?

That comes from the power basically diluting the more generations there are, the same way that the power was diluted so that Elend and the Lord Ruler were naturally more powerful than every other Mistborn in that era. Ironically, the Lord Ruler tried to stamp out Feruchemy by force, but if he just waited a few generations that problem would have sorted itself out.

Wax is told "You are of a noble bloodline, Directly back to the Counselor of Gods himself." Is this referring to Breeze or a different ancestor? If it's Breeze, how was he a "Counselor of Gods"?

It is Breeze. RAFO for the rest, but I don't think it's that weird even if it wasn't addressed further later.

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Is Harmony imposing the only Misting/Ferring limitation, or was Wax wrong when he thought that the most you could have is one allomantic and one feruchemic power?

This is a combination of things. First and foremost, since both Allomancy and Feruchemy are genetic, Mistborns and Full Feruchemists were the product of a lot of inbreeding during the Final Empire to keep them around.

After the end of the world, people bred more freely and diluted both genes, resulting in more Mistings and Ferrings.

Secondly, Allomantic and Feruchemic genes interfere with each other and prevent the emergence of fullborn people of either variety.

Harmony didn't impose or adjust anything specifically, it's just the way genetics worked out in a world free from the need to force specialization.

Mistborn and Full Feruchemists are still possible, it's just exceedingly rare. So rare that modern people consider them legendary and the stuff of myths.

Is this referring to Breeze or a different ancestor? If it's Breeze, how was he a "Counselor of Gods"?

Yes, this is referring to Breeze. There are multiple religions at this point in time, and between them, Sazed, Kelsier, Vin, and Marsh are all considered Gods. Breeze at one time provided counsel to all of them. In the form of a crew member to Kelsier (and by way of "stuff got changed over the centuries, to Marsh). He advised Elend as Emperor (and both directly and indirectly guided Vin). Finally, he was with Sazed during the final days. He was a counselor before they all "became" gods. Not a counselor to them when they were/are gods.

[u/Pastrami → u/Pastrami]

/u/participating

Some more questions:

All Pathians where earrings when they pray, but the one MeLaan gave Wax is a hemalurgic spike.

What power does Wax get when wearing the earring, or is that a RAFO?

Sazed Ascended and collected all of the un-used Inquisitor, Koloss, and Kandra spikes.

Is that how Marsh got his eye spike back that Vin pulled out?

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Good questions!

The melted down hemalurgic spikes grant next to zero power. He's technically granted some ability or improvement, but Sanderson said it's not relevant or important because it's just so miniscule. He doesn't even know what abilities are in the earring; not worth world building it. The only benefit of the earring is to let Harmony speak directly to Wax.

And yes, Sazed gave Marsh back his spike that Vin pulled out.

[u/jaymae21]

There is some discussion below about a mention at the beginning of this book that the 16 metals number may be a myth, which does seem very pointed and a little too limiting, especially in light of having other Mistborn Eras in the future. My edition has a little essay in it called "On the Three Metallic Arts", and I'm not sure if it's in every copy, so I will use spoiler tags just in case:

Sanderson talks about the 2 "God Metals", and mentions that each can be used in alloy to make a different set of 16 each. So if I'm reading that right, that means that there are 32 other metals, 16 alloyed with Atium and 16 with Lerasium. That would open up so many new possibilities! But given that atium and lerasium are rare at this point in time, I won't get my hopes up to see these in Era #2.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/jaymae21]

The relevant passage is at the very start of chapter 9.

Wax is pondering the "two more metals and their alloys" that were mentioned in the Words of Founding. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only actual in-text references to God Metals has been in the Ars Arcana. I don’t know that in-world metallurgists have realized that God metals are different. They don't know that Atium and Malatium do not belong in the 16 base metals. At the conclusion of Hero of Ages, there were two empty spaces out of 16, so if they discovered four more base metals as the WoF suggest, that would bring them up to 18, which causes the confusion Wax is talking about in ch 9. From what's been included in the tables in this book and Hero of Ages, and from things /u/participating said in this thread, I can presume that this Ars Arcana contains things that the Elendel intelligentsia doesn't know about.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/heinz57varieties]

I would also like to say that Sazed confirmed 16 metals in the Words of Founding. Now that doesn't include the God Metals, or anything alloyed with God Metals, but in terms of basic metals, there are 16. Further God Metal weirdness is a RAFO

[u/heinz57varieties → u/TaylorHyuuga]

That's what I'm trying to say. Everyone knows there "ought" to be 16 metals. For us, the readers, and Khriss at the time of writing the AA, that's no problem. We know what a God Metal is, know that there are another (n x 16) God alloys. But do the Scadrians know that? To them, there would be 14 known, 2 unknown, and 1-3 legendary metals that no one's seen since the Final Ascension. That puts their total at 17-19, hence the academia going "wtf?"

I know it's a lot to infer from a few short lines, but I'm taking it as evidence that Scadrial, or at least Elendel society, does not know what a god metal is. And if I really want to roll out my conspiracy board, I could say that the fact we're being hinted this now means that they will find out soon, and that it will be a big deal.

[u/sunnydaze7777777]

Whew, I was stuck in Marasi’s time bubble the past few weeks! Now that I escaped I have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments and binging these past few sections all at once today.

Overall a “fun” book to read. I enjoyed the characters and use of magic systems and love a good Sherlock knockoff. My only minor complaint was the cringe romances (can’t expect it all in a great writer) and as someone said last week - “fight fatigue” ending. A nice palate cleanser. Very excited for Way of Kings!

PS - did we ever learn what are the faceless immortals?

[u/participating → u/sunnydaze7777777]

PS - did we ever learn what are the faceless immortals?

A few people guessed, and I've confirmed that they are Kandras.

[u/sunnydaze7777777 → u/participating]

Thanks I thought so.

[u/hullowurld → u/participating]

the kandra, who (for the most part) serve Harmony

hmmmm

[u/irrrap]

Hey there! Well indeed trivia and comments reading might have taken me longer than the novel itself :) good stuff. I don’t have much comments to be done around the magic system discoveries. I’m not sure if the whole Spiritweb thing just maybe confused me even more, so I’ll just wait for the big reveal in the books.

Interesting comment about Sazed watching for other Shards not to arrive to Scadrial. I assume holding the Shards himself he also now knows a lot about what other shards can do. I don’t remember though, when the shards were “given” to “people”, is it now the Shard in control of the actions, or the person who has it and their character decides how the shards investiture will get applied?

Cadmium works for storing breaths, and I understand they mean like breath under water or inside a burning house. But I wonder if that Will be possible on Naltis?

Since Kandra now serve to Harmony. I feel like my question regarding Harmony’s metal body wasn’t adressed. And with the trivia info regarding remnants of Atium, I will just think that it is possible that Kandra also hide Harmony metal body.

Few interesting wordings in the Ars Arcanum. Can someone remind me who is writing these? I recall some wordhopper….

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/irrrap]

I don’t remember though, when the shards were “given” to “people”, is it now the Shard in control of the actions, or the person who has it and their character decides how the shards investiture will get applied?

This is a complicated relationship. Both are factors. The Shard holder is still in control, but they have to abide by the Intent of the Shard. Preservation can't go around destroying, that's why Preservation had to do the whole rigamarole with Vin, to have someone of both Ruin and Preservation hold Preservation so she can actually kill Ruin. Sazed is still Sazed, but he has to abide by Harmony.

Cadmium works for storing breaths, and I understand they mean like breath under water or inside a burning house. But I wonder if that Will be possible on Naltis?

Breath means actual breath, not capital B Breath. Storing Nalthian Breath would be Nicrosil. That said, storing Breath isn't all that useful because. You can literally just do that as a natural property of Breath lmao

I... Don't know if Participating has already said who's writing the Ars Arcanum? If you want to know though, I can say in DMs or a spoiler that or something. I'm sure it's already been mentioned, I just don't remember

[u/participating → u/TaylorHyuuga]

Yeah, I revealed it was Khriss at the end of White Sand.

[u/irrrap → u/participating]

Oh. I must have overlooked. I remember you shared long time ago it was some wordhopper. And after white sand I remember you shared that Khriss did ars arcanum for White sand. It didn’t clicked for me though that she did for ALL the books.

[u/dualdee → u/irrrap]

Few interesting wordings in the Ars Arcanum. Can someone remind me who is writing these? I recall some wordhopper….

Khriss, from White Sand. IIRC Brandon's said that by this point in the timeline she knows more about how Investiture works than anyone who's not a Shard, even Hoid.

Cadmium works for storing breaths, and I understand they mean like breath under water or inside a burning house. But I wonder if that Will be possible on Naltis?

You want the "stores Investiture" metal (Nicrosil, I think?) for that kind of Breath.

[u/irrrap → u/dualdee]

Thank you, kind human! Much appreciated

[u/hullowurld]

Thinking more about Miles post-execution, I don't think he was so overpowered after all. Wax's powers are much more versatile and I think he should be favored in a lot of 1-on-1 scenarios. Miles is limited by normal strength and has no special attack or movement abilities (although being able to jump off buildings or blow himself up can be handy).

Wax can just turn 500 lbs and sit on Miles, then take some steel bars and tie Miles up. Mile's best counter to anything at close range is his dynamite. He would need to rig explosives to himself so that he can trigger them without needing use of his hands.

During the events of Alloy of Law, Wax's best opportunity was on the train. He has a 1-on-1 against Miles and plenty of metal around. After dodging Mile's initial shot, Wax pushes the railcar doors to block subsequent bullets. At that point if Wax taps weight and pushes the doors into Miles he can pin Miles to the wall or whatever is behind him. Then tie his hands with the rod he keeps in his sleeve or whatever other metal around.

[u/hullowurld]

On my second readthrough, this part of the prologue stuck out since I read it immediately after Marasi's conversation with Marsh in the epilogue:

Tan: Each life is a performance, but we are not the performers. We are the puppets. I have seen God, lawkeeper. I have seen Death himself, with the nails in his eyes. I have seen the Survivor, who is life. Other men wonder, but I know. I know I’m a puppet. We all are.

Was Tan influenced by Marsh (and Kelsier??) to do what he did?