Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...

OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?

Open The Fridge

Brandon Sanderson

Open The Fridge

Brandon Sanderson

it seems that The Lord Ruler still needed to store age "normally" but less. Did Miles ever have to store healing?

Yes. He did, but not in the normal way.

A coinshot able to store weight can, as you showed us with Wax push in a ridiculously powerful manner, as the weight/mass is the largest factor wich controls the push strength.

I'm wondering if the same can be done with soothing(or rioting). If you where to increase your identity, that may/should increase your emotional imprint(or whatever you might call it), would your soothings/riotings become wastly more powerful in a simular way as weight makes steelpushing more powerful?

And if it does, is this how the lord ruler improved his Soothing in such a spectacular fasion?

And now some magic mechanics questions:

1) What benefit does compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the feruchemists mind? Something else?

2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else?

3) This might have been specified in the books, I don't remember, but does Duralumin expend itself as well as the metal it's used with? If it does, I've got this theory that its effect is actually just to cause a regular flare, not a superflare, but it affects itself in a feedback loop that keeps forcing the flare higher until it runs out.

Inquisitors knowing how to Compound: some may have figured it out at some point. I got the impression it was not a technique the Lord Ruler taught them.

I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength. There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy. (Note, we have discussed this on the forums a while back. This isn't news.)

Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.

Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick.

Mistborn Questions:

ANDREW THE GREAT

What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?

The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and i'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.

If someone aluminum or duralumin burned the Feruchemically charged metals, what would happen?

Basically the same thing as above, except with aluminum. Aluminum, they would just go away.

If you make a Feruchemical storage and you burn it, can you put the excess back into a Feruchemical storage?

Yes.

The discussion of Feruchemy and Allomancy working together is one of the most complicated magical explanations I've ever done, and I hope it works. One of the fun things about my books are the magic, and it's really tough to walk the line between making magic that has technically interesting aspects without making it either a) too complicated or b) feel like I'm just making it up as I go along.

I was trying to get across here an unexpected consequence of mixing the two magics. Like how certain chemicals react oddly when mixed, or even like two computer programs running on the same computer can cause odd reactions, letting someone use Feruchemy and Allomancy together makes for some very strange mixtures of the powers. (I intend to get into this later.)

Of course, what this also does is un-deify the Lord Ruler somewhat, which is intentional. I don't want it to undermine the accomplishment the characters have made—what they did was difficult and they have achieved a great victory. However, what I'm trying to give in this book—however—is a sense of foreboding.

Remember the Lord Ruler's final words. They're important. The lack of atium will impact the second book greatly, as well the fact that Kelsier is dead. Overthrowing the Lord Ruler was tough, but it was still the easy part of this trilogy. Things get hard from here on out...

Hi Brandon! Thanks for doing this. I may have made some embarrassing sounds when I heard you were answering questions. I have a few questions:

1. You've said previously that the molecular structure of metals serve to act sort of like the Aons in AonDor. Why, then, can mists power Allomancy? Shouldn't the metals themselves be the things causing the powers? And if metals don't cause the effect, how can a non-Feruchemist burn a metalmind that has been 'unlocked' through identity tricks and get a boost of an attribute without Feruchemist sDNA?
2. If a Surgebinder went to another world with infused gems, would they still automatically be able to Surgebind, or is that an effect limited to Roshar? (I ask because you've said someone with a Seon bond who went to Roshar would gain some powers because it would be treated like a Nahel bond.)
3. Hoid uses Allomancy in one of Shallan's flashbacks. How can Hoid draw on Preservation's power on Roshar? Does it teleport? Shouldn't he only be able to burn metals on Scadrial?
4. Breath seems like it doesn’t run out like Stormlight. You Awaken something, and it lasts basically forever. But if you Lash something, the Lashing ends a short time later. Why does Stormlight run out and Breath not?

Thanks for answering!

I was trying to figure out how to answer this, and then I realized while driving to get a hair cut that you were regarding this wrong in a fundamental way. Remember, the source of power for Allomancy is EXTERNAL while the source for Feruchemy is INTERNAL. This is a fundamental difference discussed in the series.

When you burn metals, you're drawing power from another place. When you tap a metalmind, you are drawing power that the person has created--a battery developed by themselves, so to speak.

So I think that's going to answer the source of your confusion.

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The noninvested metals go before the invested ones. He said that because invested metals are harder to effect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

Necarion

[Surprised, because this dashed a favorite theory of mine] Oh okay!

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the compounding trick. Really what’s happening is you’re fueling feruchemy with the power of allomancy, but you’re filtering it through you, and then you’re storing it.

Necarion

So it’s not that you’re a more powerful mistborn when you’ve tapped [investiture]

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question.

Question

A thousand breaths doesn't seem to be that much - the God King has tens of thousands - would a piece of stone or wood or cloth or plain metal that has a thousand breaths be as Invested as Nightblood, or is there something more?

Brandon Sanderson

needs more