Maybe Atium being an alloy is a representation of Ruin being put in check, just as Harmony holds both shards (so you could say he's an "alloy" of Preservation and Ruin) and in being so It allow himself to limit his Ruin side. So Ruin just reaching his physical body would not allow him to destroy the world, but it would allow him to set himself free, and then he could do it.
Yeah, if Preservation basically imprisoned Ruin... Then I wouldn't be surprised at all to find Ruin's god metal to also be "sealed" in a way. By turning it into what it is in the book. So he needs to reach his metal in the physical realm and release it from how it is now. Kinda like how the herald's connection can work as a seal.
I think it's helpful to think that the shards of Scadrial are always working to counteract each other, and so there is only a small amount of surplus investiture availible at any given time. The rest is pinned in conflict. On Roshar on the other hand, Honor and Cultivation are working together to control the surges and are therefore more free to invest in metals and power.
Also Singers and humans in Roshar don't innately have any of their shards investiture, while in Nalthis and Scadrial they do. Scadrian humans, differently from all other worlds except Yolen, are native to the world, made by the powers of Ruin and Preservation. Nathians are all given a Breath at birth, making them invested.
@@fireguardianxAll the humans has a little of Investiture, thats whats is their soul. The reason is because in Roshar there is so more investiture due to the three shards that invest the plane
true. on roshar, the humans have to make a contract with investiure to use it, while on Scadrial, they are born with it and just need to activate it@@fireguardianx
@@arkana9684 True, but in Scadrial, the planet and the beings there were made directly by the 2 shards. This only happened in Scadrial afaik. So Scadrial humans are more invested by both shards naturally even if they are not mistings or ferrings. The most similar case of this is breaths in Nalthis, but nalthians aren't made with breaths but given them when they are born. Meaning a child of worldhoppers in Nalthis could get a Breath, while the same in Scadrial wouldn't have the innate investiture of humans there.
IMHO Ruin is affected by the solidification of the atium because he and Preservation were equally invested in Scadrial's creation. Preservation made the decision to further invest in their created humanity to form mistings, while Ruin did not, leaving Ruin with an advantage in terms of readily available investiture. By hoarding the atium, that advantage is mitigated to the point that Preservation can prevent the planet's destruction just a little while longer than otherwise. I ultimately agree the retcon is strange, but I can sort of hand wave it away by focusing on the specific intentionality of Leras's plan
I can see that. Ultimately even with the change the end of HoA is still incredibly epic. Adding additional context won’t take away from the experience of reading it in the moment.
This is also how I understand it. In isolation a shard's power is not practically diminished by solidifying their investiture into a godmetal, but when comparing two shards who are actively opposing each other the normally negligible loss of power becomes relevant. I don't think the atium in HoA being an alloy changes the fact that some of Ruin's power was locked up in the metal and leveled the playing field just a little bit. The part I don't really understand is what exactly Ruin was planning to do with the Atium if he found it. Apparently all the Atium mistings burning it in the final battle didn't release the power and give Ruin access to it so I'm not sure what he would do otherwise.
@@yk-lm5jy I think there's a WoB saying that if Ruin could manifest there (and I dunno why he couldn't when the room was full of kandra; maybe he needed them to cart it out into the open where it wasn't surrounded by other metal?) then Ruin would have consumed it himself, which would have brought the power back to him, instead of dispersing it back into the cycle he can't affect. Maybe a better question is, if Preservation could chop off that much of Ruin, why not chop off more? Why not make the remnant power of Preservation actually stronger than Ruin?
@@macmay3042 Just based on my personal understanding, doing so would be kinda antithetical to Preservation's Intent. Leras literally can't destroy anything, even for the greater good. Making Ruin weaker would open him up to destruction, so Preservation can't do it
@@adamuffoletto7869 I mean that seems like a bit of a stretch. After all, obviously just making him on-par with Preservation opened him up to destruction, yet he was clearly able to do that. And even their first deal; they had a planet that just just spinning peacefully forever, unchanging. In theory everything Preservation would want. But, he struck a deal with Ruin that not only made something vibrant that would grow and change, but guaranteed it would all one day be destroyed. If he was able to do that, it seems inconsistent that he wouldn't be able to take an action which 'might' open something up to harm, when the action Preservation took instead still opened it up to the exact same harm.
I'm even more confused because the back half of Hero of Ages introduces Atium Mistings. That's like, one of the biggest twists of the story, that one sixteenth of Elend's army had been snapped into Seers -- so non-Mistborn CAN burn Atium anyway, it's just a really rare type of allomancy to be snapped to.
It is super weird. Those mistings weren’t Atium mistings, they were electrum mistings. Preservation just made sure that all Atium was an electrum alloy. But then it becomes really weird that most sickness was so much more intense in electrum mistings compared to all others.
@@rh7474that is what they are saying is changed. Elend tested them for their ability to burn Atium and not Electrum and realised these people might be Atium Misting not realising they might be Electrum Misting instead.
They did call them that in the book, because as SumitRana mentioned, they tested these mistings with Atium which is an electrum Atium alloy. The mistings were electrum mistings. You can pause the video at 3:44 to read Peters Ahlstrom’s (Sanderson’s head of editorial) comment about.
@@jasonioan Perhaps Preservation set it so the mistsickness would hit them harder to highlight that they were the key to burning the atium alloy he was making? It did strike for 16 days, to the hour, so the length of time it lasted was clearly unnatural.
"The only way to use Atium is through Allomancy." Well no, you can also use it feruchemically and hemalurgically. Lerasium presumably does something when used in Hemalurgy. The Metallic Arts are unique in that they hack all metals, even god-metals.
Alrighty, so since this video I’ve done more research about realmatics and I’ve got two additional thoughts about honor and his god metal. All spren are splinters. Radiant spren are splinters of honor and cultivation. I don’t think a living spren would meaningfully diminish Honors access to power because they’re cognitive beings. However, I could see deadeye spren locking power in the physical realm. Deadblades cannot grant surges and they cannot change their shape. Honor also finally died sometime after the recreance which was the first appearance of deadeye spren. Dead blades being locked in the physical realm at such a large scale may have finally pushed honor over the edge. Also, the storm and spren existed on Roshar before honor arrived and invested himself into the planet.
i’m just glad he’s willing to answer questions so often. As a community we’ve been very fortunate in the amount of events and the amount of questions he’s answered.
My 5 second theory on why burning all the atium was a crippling blow to Ruin is that because it was used in _Allomancy_ it became somehow inaccesible for Ruin. If Ruin and Preservation are opposites the way stormlight and anti-stormlight are, then they would annihilate each other when brought together. Actually I think that's how Vin killed Ruin? I may be misremembering. This whole thing would be a lot simpler if lerasium didn't have the Hemalgury property it does. It would be symmetric. Each god metal used in its own magic system gives access to the full suite of abilities, but has a weird (albeit powerful) effect when used in the other Shard's system.
WRT Atium behaving completely different to other god metals, the only other actual example of one being used for allomancy is lerasium, there's not much one can actually say about it being different from trellium or raysium or tanavastium etc because we've never seen any of those burned. Per WoB the true effect of atium is essentially the same as when you burn nalatium+duralumin, anyway.
Awesome video, and seriously amazing editing! I for one quite like the change, although I think it is indicative of one of those rare times when Brandon obviously didn't have everything planned out from the very beginning.
I totally agree. Mistborn era 1 was early enough in the cosmere that mechanics like god metals and perpendicularities hadn’t fully finished cooking. Also, thanks for commenting! I think the stuff you make is great!
High praise, and from a creator I respect so much! Make sure to watch his other recent video on the most dangerous planet in the cosmere, Generic, it was amazing to see the animations he did.
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
Hey, my name is also Jason and I've thought about making Cosmere videos, but my first idea was making a jokey chart about how many days Kaladin has spent smelling bad in Stormlight and analyzing it lol. Very well edited.
the reason (i think) that having a small fraction of his power be locked inside a physical form stopped ruin from instakilling everyone is that preservation was there to hold him back
I think you're right. Preservation was on his way out, but I forgot about the sheer amount of legwork he was doing to counter Ruin. Secret History shows this incredibly well when someone else gets the shard. It's still odd to me that ruins power being locked away in his own metal finished the amount of power he could access at once. It's always a good day to re-read secret History 😅
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
I think the best way out of the problems caused by the retcon is to say that you can alloy any god metal and regular metal to create slightly different effects when burned. It would create even more metals to play with (even if the changes to regular effects are subtle) and then you can have a true atium with its own effect as well.
That's a thing, in one of the appendices of era 2, they talk about have Lerasium alloys with other metals all have their own powers, and if you don't have powers, it makes you a misting of the metal its alloyed with. Atium and Lerasium are basically not around in era 2, so nobody really has had an opportunity to discover or test any of that yet.
As for how subtle the change in effect is, just look at "atium" vs regular electrum, that level of change is generally what you would expect. However, apparently Atium alloys are more specialised for Temporal and Mental effects and Lerasium alloys for Physical and Enhancement, so it's unclear what the result would be if you made an atium alloy of pewter for instance. Would it still give a Temporal, Mental flavour to it? Maybe it would try to push your body to a prior state, weird healing/immortality type of thing.
Surge-granting and shapeshifting being in the nature of Honor and Cultivation makes perfect sense, but it's worth noting that we do not actually know that either is a property of the metal itself - it could easily be due to being a spren, which is my theory, for instance. As for the honorblades, they're noted to be pretty close in function to open metalminds, and presumably the surges they grant are due to whatever Honor did to them when making them rather than an inherent property of the metal itself. Why else would they all be made out of the exact same material but each grant different surges?
I saw themes of missing information and incorrect information impacting how people operated so having facts surrounding Atium retconned isn't a big deal for me since it reinforces those themes.
If Atium is liquid or soluble in Ruin’s perpendicularity and that then proceeds to spill into the pits of hathsin, it could naturally form an alloy. It leads in to my theory of multiple states of god matter, light, plasma, liquid and solid (metal). If ruin’s perpendicularity was fractured, the power left to drain into caverns filled with metals, it would be a perfect way to cripple Ruin.
i had heard about there being a retcon to Atium, but hadn't actually seen what it was so this video was really helpful! i'd love to see more cosmere videos from you as someone who's started delving into it the past few months (so far i've read Mistborn Era 1 and Era 2 up to Bands of Mourning, currently reading Emperor's Soul before diving into the Lost Metal)
Thanks! I’m glad it was helpful! I plan to make more cosmere videos in the future (currently one a month because motion graphics take soooo long). The Emperors Soul is incredible and widely regarded as some of Sanderson’s best. Reading that before the Lost Metal is 100% perfect. You’re in for such a treat! Thanks for watching, and especially for commenting!
I've thought about this, too. I have a few ideas. Preservation did capture Ruin and manipulated the world after that. A perfect place in time to alter Allomancy to include Ruin's god metal. Preservation is possibly the shard best at seeing the future. He planned to bind Ruin's metal in a cache so the secret Atium mistings could use it in the final battle. His mists also were responsible for snapping those mistings at the right time. I believe Harmony said at the end of book 3 that he changed how the metals work. Ruin's investiture was never Allomancy. It's hemalurgy. It's all about destroying something to get something else. There is no reason anyone should innately be able to ingest and burn it. Unless Mistborn can ingest and burn all the god metals. No one else uses god metals by ingesting them. One reason the god metals could work differently on Scadrial is that those two shards are interwoven in a way unknown elsewhere in the cosmere. The essence of "Harmony" was used to make Feruchemists at the creation of Scadrial. As for Ruin's lack of power once freed, I have two ideas. When a god metal is made, it reduces a Shard's power (how much can be used at one time). There was potentially an enormous amount of Atium in existence compared to the amounts of the other god metals at one time. This could be why his power was limited. After all, that was Preservation's plan. How might this relate to both honor and Cultivation in their manifestations? Originally, Honor only made 10 honorblades (shardblades). This could be considered a small amount of god metal. Honor was splintered. Each of those splinters could be used to produce the known shardblades. Cultivation's capacity for power is unknown. Her metal is employed as an alloy in shardblades, but an unknown amount for each. This could be why we don't see Cultivation making overt actions. The second idea is that Ruin's power can't be used in isolation. This means that the nature of his investiture only manifests when it destroys something else. It's like a fire that needs fuel from other sources to work. This would mean that Ruin has much less power as a Shard when it can't interact with other Shards. The narrative focus of the Mistborn books mainly focused on how hemalurgy relates to Preservation's investiture. It's been said that Atium Hemalurgy can steal the investiture of any Shard. However, I find hemalurgy much more enjoyable when considering its other uses. Hemalurgy destroys a human's innate investiture and transfers it to make something else. Koloss and Kandra are made by ruining something to make something else. Hemalurgy used with trellium also creates horrorible monsters. Hemalurgy changes the very nature of a human's inate spiritweb. I believe we'll see that Ruin's investiture is primarily focused on changing humans into many other things.
Brandon has said that even normal people can potentially burn pure godmetals, but probably need a connection to the shard to do so. Not just allomancers.
Hey, thanks for going into more depth about the metals. Really interesting. Could you do a video on the other God metals that you mentioned and what they do? Also, where do we see the other God metals and their descriptions about what they do?
Harmonium and Trellium are from Era 2 of Mistborn. Honors god metal, Raysium, and what is potentially cultivations god metal are seen in the Stormlight archive.
@@jasonioan Yeah. you mentioned other metals. Corvelium I think? It would be cool if you could go into detail about the others, where they're mentioned and what we know about them.There's so much about the metals and the lore that I reckon I don't know about :) Keep up the good work though
Atium not actually being pure atium doesn't affect the physical atium locking away ruins power though, does it? Even if the atium were pure, the fact remains that, somehow, ruin being unable to access it has an impact on his power.
Celeste profile picture! NICE! I agree that the fact that Atium isn't pure doesn't change the fact that the power was locked away from him. I just think it's weird that a meaningful enough amount of his power simply being in a physical form diminished his ability to access it. Like, is Harmony less powerful because some of his power is locked away in harmonium? maybe? Thanks for commenting!
One theory I have regarding Atium’s alloy weakening Ruin is this. Shardblades are composed of a different amount of Tanavastium and Koravellium depending on the spren and order of knight. By changing the concentration of Tanavastium, the god metal that grants surges, in the shardblade, the Surges of the Knight wielding it is different. By mixing two God Metals, the different amounts of each investiture present in each Shardblade (and by extension each spren) interact to make a similar but distinct power (the surges). However, since both are God Metals, they work in tandem to make the spren/shardblade. Electrum is not a God Metal, and does not possess the Connection to a shard in such a manner as Atium. My theory is that the interaction between Atium and Electrum would be like putting a dampener on a guitar. Atium and Electrum’s interaction makes them perceive the Atium/Electrum Alloy as one individual substance (Such as a person’s body growing accustomed to a wound as mentioned in Oathbringer), and this causes a weaker Connection between the alloy and the shard Ruin. I’m not the best at theorising so this is the best I was able to do
This retcon honestly makes enough sense that, if I didn't know the context, I would have assumed it was the plan from the beginning and it was just a poor in-world understanding of what happened. Back before the retcon was announced, I was so confused that Gold+Atium was an inverted version of Gold, but Atium on its own was an inverted version of Electrum. Having Atium change Gold and Electrum in the same way just makes sense to me
This retcon did affect book events. In The Last Metal there's a mention of the atium we know being an alloy, in one of the epilogues(if I remember correctly)
I agree with your take. My issue is that, since we found about about the retcon it continues to only matter to cosmere fans since it has YET to have any impact on page. It'll be interesting if and when it does actually work into the narrative
The futuresight we see when “Atium” is burned in the book is the specific effect granted by the Atium Electrum alloy that it naturally generates as in the pits. Therefore electrum mistings and mistborn can get that effect when “Atium” is burned because they’re able to burn electrum. Pure Atium has been revealed to grant a vision of the spiritual realm when burned. If there’s ever a film or tv adaptation of mistborn, Sanderson wants to change it so anyone can burn Atium and get the futuresight. Hope this helps, and thanks for the comment!
@@jasonioan there is a line in The heroes of ages that the power of atium doesn't get permanatly used and will come back eventually...and kelsier did say atium might come back in 300 years...
The problem is that the shard of Ruin as it was in era 1 no longer exists. Although, Harmony doesn't seem to being doing to well at the end of Era 2, so maybe...
Yeah ever since I heard about the retcon it confused me. The only reason I heard was that he wanted god metals to be burned by anyone, but I think a much easier way of resolving this issue would be to say that anyone could burn Lerasium because as established Preservation put some of himself into every Scadrian.
But the problem there is that in secret history we see “the drifter” Ingest and burn Lerasium, and presumably he’s not from scadrial and thus not invested by preservation
I didn't hear Brandon say that any Misting could burn Atium, that would be interesting, could he be referring to pure Atium and not alloy Atium? It also raises a question if Atium has Alloys could other god metals have alloys too? This question I have considered before because Atium already had an Alloy in Mistborn. I wonder if Lerasium alloys could make specific Mistings instead of full Mistborns? Another question, when Wax split Harmonium into Lerasium and Atium, was the Atium he made the pure Atium or the Alloy? Would Marsh be able to use it the same way as it being pure? I imagine that the reason that Ruin didn't want to destroy Scadrial before he got his body is that he wanted to be as powerful as possible. I bet his plan was to go after the entire Cosmere after destroying Scadrial. And since he couldn't differentiate Atium from other metals he needed the help of the local population to find it. Also if he wanted to attack the Cosmere next he wouldn't want to be weak when facing another shard and die. So that motivation makes sense to me. Look at Preservation, because he gave a bit of himself to humanity he became scared Ruin would be able to defeat him, so he gave up his body(I think this is the term used in the books) to lock Ruin away. Also speaking of Preservation, what is the likely hood that 16, the bald guy at Everlasting Integrity, is the Cognitive Shadow of Leras? A few clues 1. We see Preservation die and see Leras' body fall into the ash in Hero of Ages. 2. Sazed sees Ati's body also fall into the ash at the end of Hero of Ages. 3. Kelsier Punches Ati's Cognitive shadow before he moves on to the after life in Secret History 1-3.a Because of the above 3, we don't see Leras Cognitive shadow move on but Brandon made a point to show Ati's shadow moving on. He could have had Kelsier witness Leras passing as well but he didn't. 4. We know that beings with enough investiture at death can choose to stay if they wish, also Leras was imbued with Preservation he could have felt the need to preserve for longer. 5. The Honor Spren call him 16 because he comes out every 16 days. 16 is Preservation's number. I have felt this as being a strong possibility sense I read Rhythm of War. What do you think?
As for, why does atium diminish Ruin when Honorblades (and Shardblades) don't diminish Honor, the answer is... well, basically, because it does. Cuz you're kinda comparing apples and oranges. On a few levels. First, Honor is currently dead. The Stormfather is the last big piece of him but he's not around anymore, unlike Ruin. So yeah, it kinda is diminishing Honor, but at least it's being wielded in a cause he'd support. Which is... just odd, I guess. Like if I have 2 nerf rifles and I give one to someone on my team who has none, I've diminished my own resources, but it's still being used towards my team's victory. But the bigger reason to get to the heart of the question is, because this is a very different scenario. Honor chose to make the Honorblades, the way Edgli chooses to Return people, and presumably they 'gift' the power in a way that they still have access to it. Ruin didn't set up the atium. Preservation chopped that power off of him and made it into the pits/geodes/beads. Like, sure, one ultimate effect looks somewhat similar to honorblades, in that, they both end up with an item made of a Godmetal that gives people power. But the actual critical difference was in, how was the power Splintered. Now, we don't know a lot about Shards and their power and what they can do, but it seems that Honor chose to create the Honorblades in a way that he kept access to the power, and Preservation separated the power he put into the atium in a way that expressly denied it to Ruin, the way Preservation's power in the people of Scadrial is denied to him. Also, this broadly applies to Shardblades, too, though those aren't purely Honor's Investiture, they're various mixes with Cultivation, as well. And who knows, for Glys, prolly some Odium.
I just figured Atium burning was a byproduct of all Shards stemming from the same source. After all, allomancers can burn the Dor. This wouldn't be the only instance of this nature. Autonomy can hemalurgically interact with people and type 1 invested entities like honorspren can charge Taldain's dayside sand.
I assumed the alloy was made by the lord ruler, as he made the Pits of Hathsin when he held preservation, as he wanted the ferochemical effect to not age. He could've had that knowledge the same way he had knowledge about hemalurgy. Unless it was Perervation's plan to have the lord ruler be immortal, as well as planning for the electrum mistings to burn it
I really like this! Could you make a video going into the different god metals and explaining them a bit more? Something I’ve never understood pretty well and I think this was part of it
That could be a fun video. I do worry that we haven’t seen enough of them and what they can all do to make a compelling video, but I’ll put this idea on my list.
One caveat: I think Brandon said Atium is supposed to be burnt by "anyone" and you said Mistings. But as a godmetal, it truly is supposed to be burnt by anyone, as we saw with Lerasium which was burnt by a non-Allomancer character to gain Mistborn powers. Great video btw, I didn't know that Sha dbllades could change shape and size because of Koravellium's properties (it makes sense though).
Thanks for the comment! The shardblades have been confirmed to be an alloy of honor and cultivations god metal, but it hasn’t been confirmed that cultivations metal is what allows them to change their shape. It does make sense though. Here’s where I got the info for only allomancers being able to burn Atium in the adaptations. wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e13821
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
I don't hate the retcon, but like you, I find it offputting. It's not something I can describe and I don't mind it so much I wouldn't still enjoy re-reading Mistborn, but I think I would've preferred Brandon owning the mistake and later justifying it as "Atium doesn't really do that but since you're using Preservation's magic system the usage Mistborns can give it is limited" or something.
If all the Atium in era 1 was and electrum-atium alloy, and that alloy was used by elend's army of seers, and seers are now not atium misting but electrum mistings, that means that when you make and alloy of atium and electrum that changes the property of electrum to act on other people, the same way malatium, a gold atium alloy, makes you see other peoples past, doesn't that mean that an alloy of atium and a metal changes the propety of the metal used so it behavies like for example, an external metal like we see with the electrum, an internal metal behaving like an external one making you see others future insted of yours. TLDR: My theory is that and alloy of atium and an internal metal makes it so the original effect plays like and external metal effect and viceversa.
That's a cool theory! Basically, I think atium strengthens a person's connection to the spiritual realm, so I could see that strengthened connection behaving in a way similar to how you described!
I think the difference with Atium being physical making Ruin weaker when it doesn't do that to Honor is because Honor and Preservation made Scadrial, together. Whereas, Honor, Preservation, and Odium, they all just showed up on Roshar, long after Adonalsium had created it. It makes sense to me that Shards would be weakened by making a planet whereas Adonalsium as a whole wouldn't. Plus, I give a lot of leeway for Preservation having made trap after trap after trap to further weaken Ruin. Clearly, it weakened Preservation to create and then Invest all humans. So, imo, Preservation was just taking an equivalent amount of Ruins investiture somehow in an attempt to even the playing field once again.
All this really means is that Seers are Oracles, and that Demoux isn't a completely useless Allomancer. Could you imagine how much that would suck? To be an Allomancer that can only use a metal that pretty much doesn't exist anymore?
I think you answer your own question. If all the Atium is also alloyed with another metal, that could taint it, making it inaccessible to Ati. This even fits with Ati's inability to see things written in metal.
I’d love to watch your video, but I haven’t yet finished Mistborn Era 1 and don’t know if I’ll get spoiled. Would be awesome if you included a way to tell how much you’re gonna spoil. I’ll return when I’ve read Era 1!
Yes he is. I was talking about before the recreance when there were thousands of radiants and honor was alive. It doesn't really matter now because as you mention, he is dead.
I think it just muddies the water. It makes sense to me to have Lerasium be the only metal that non-allomancers can burn, which then gives access to allomancy. You'd have to rewrite a large portion of the entire first mistborn trilogy for the retcon to make sense. There's no way that some teenage mistings didn't try burning atium at some point just to see if they could. The idea that people just presume only mistborn can use the most devastating metal in battle without ever testing it out beforehand just isn't believable. And once you establish that ALL mistings can use atium, then many of the scenes change. Kelsier would no longer have free reign against coinshots and pewterarms - now they're all potentially armed with atium. Also, the idea that Ruin, and only Ruin, pools his investiture as a naturally occuring alloy rather than his pure god metal doesn't make much sense at all. It was already weird that it manifested in geodes rather than a pool like other shards. And this doesn't even account for the implications on The Lost Metal. I think it's just a little too late for this kind of retcon. The cat is out of the bag, you can't just publish an "oopsie, forget everything we told you in the older books" addendum.
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
Brandon cleaning up stuff for the adaptation to look good and coherent is a pretty great move! We do need to understand that Mistborn was published in 2008 (and written even before that) and it is 2024 now and there are a lot of Cosmere lore nerds running around and screaming "RAFO IS NOT ENOUGH!". So retcons are ok in this case. since we didn't understand Atiun and Lorasium when reading the books for the rest time anyway. (Great video wtb, thanks)
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the video! And I agree with what you said. I mostly think that this change is necessary because when the book was written, concepts like God metals and perpendicularities weren’t fully fleshed out. And that's ok! RAFOS are great because they're almost a promise of cool new stories to come.
For the how could Preservation hack the system, well he and ruin made the world. P already canonically put a bit more of his essence into humanity than ruin. Allow that to extend a tiny bit to other things and he could easily make around beads form through an electron base. It need not be a very large amount of electrum to make an alloy. As for making atium mistings, his magic he can do it. He can make it so mistings can burn just a single alloy. After all the new mist made mistings we’re not following normal rules of birth. They do not have to be natural electrum mistings. I also like how it now harmonises better with the other metallic arts. Feruchemical atium use gives age by letting you store your life. It is the most ruinous type of feruchemy to you. Now it is normal electrum burning, but filtered through ruins lens. You can imagine the other atium alloys would be similar in scope. It also suggests many mistings exist who can burn an atium alloy but never get the chance
Despite how we all talk about it, I don't think this technically qualifies as a retcon since it doesn't actually change anything we've seen before. If Brandon has instead come out and said "I was going to put this in era 2 and never found a good place for it, but the Atium we see in era 1 is actually an Atium-Electrum alloy" this wouldn't be nearly so big a topic of conversation
Agreed, it is technically a retcon for, like, WoB, but it doesn't actually change anything in-universe. It wasn't a retcon when people learned that they were mistaken in thinking there were only 10 metals.
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
Having so many more books in the future is awesome! I don't have a problem with the retcon and this video was just to explain what it is. I hope you enjoyed the video and thanks for the comment.
I think you might have muddied the waters more. The retcon makes sense. Your weird explanation added a bit Brandon didn't ever say, and it got a bit wrong.
So, this would make sense given the nature of God metals. But in the WoB when he talks about the potential changes to allomancy in an adaptation he says that all allomancers can use it.
@@jasonioan Fair, I think he might have said elsewhere that anyone can burn a godmetal... lemme see if I can find it. No, I can't. I can find a WoB where someone mentions that Brandon has said "everyone can burn godmetals" but not the actual source. But yeah, I think you made the right choice saying it like you did here in the video. Do you have a discord or something? I would love to discuss lore with you.
I think the Atium being locked away in beads basically meant the amount of investiture ruin could access directly in the physical realm was severely restricted. That being said it has never made complete sense to me even before the retcon lol
Pure Atium, just like any other god metals, should be usable for anyone in the cosmere. The retcon of allomantic Atium being an alloy makes sense as to why only mistborn/Atium listings can burn it. It also makes sense that Leras fucked with Ruin. He built a prison. There's also evidence in the eligraphs that ruin's perpendicularity wasn't always like the Pits. It used to be a dark pool (similar to the Well of Ascension) and Rashek changed it into the Pits of Hathsin to create the Atium beads and stash them away from Ruin.
When did this happen? I was under the impression that the lighteyes were put in leadership positions because they resembled the eyes of knights radiant, and it just stuck. Not that they were truly superior in any practical way
Yeah, he's never said the light eyes are actually superior. It is a little awkward that it stopped being a focal point in later books, but he's mentioned he wants to find someone (other than Kaladin) to express those grievances and drive societal change again. Maybe Lift!
You have it reversed mate. The whole "light eyes" scenario is deliberately shown to be a cultural mistep. There is absolutely nothing special about having light eyes at all but it's held up on a pedestal because having "bright", glowing eyes just happened to be a single trait of a historically special community that had zero correlation to the individuals biology.
@rodneyericjohnson I mean that's not at all how it's portrayed. Hoid has a throwaway line about there being a reason but that's not Brandon advocating for "racism is good." If you actually read the books, you'll see that the overwhelming opinion of people in the story is that racism is bad. And that the "best" of the Lighteyes in the book are the ones who are most willing to accept that maybe they aren't divinely superior. What really happened was, the people who stole the Shardblades used them to take over the country, and then their descendants learned how to bond the Blades and got light eyes. So, lighteyes rule by conquest and enforce racism to justify it. I don't think any part of that condones racism, but feel free to explain your position.
@@macmay3042 My problem is the story makes out that it was a good thing that the light eyes stayed in control, not great but things would have been much worse if they hadn't. Like it was for the dark eye own good, actually. We hear similar things in real life.
I’d love to watch your video, but I haven’t yet finished Mistborn Era 1 and don’t know if I’ll get spoiled. Would be awesome if you included a way to tell how much you’re gonna spoil. I’ll return when I’ve read Era 1!
Maybe Atium being an alloy is a representation of Ruin being put in check, just as Harmony holds both shards (so you could say he's an "alloy" of Preservation and Ruin) and in being so It allow himself to limit his Ruin side. So Ruin just reaching his physical body would not allow him to destroy the world, but it would allow him to set himself free, and then he could do it.
Yeah, if Preservation basically imprisoned Ruin... Then I wouldn't be surprised at all to find Ruin's god metal to also be "sealed" in a way. By turning it into what it is in the book.
So he needs to reach his metal in the physical realm and release it from how it is now.
Kinda like how the herald's connection can work as a seal.
I think it's helpful to think that the shards of Scadrial are always working to counteract each other, and so there is only a small amount of surplus investiture availible at any given time. The rest is pinned in conflict. On Roshar on the other hand, Honor and Cultivation are working together to control the surges and are therefore more free to invest in metals and power.
Also Singers and humans in Roshar don't innately have any of their shards investiture, while in Nalthis and Scadrial they do. Scadrian humans, differently from all other worlds except Yolen, are native to the world, made by the powers of Ruin and Preservation. Nathians are all given a Breath at birth, making them invested.
@@fireguardianxAll the humans has a little of Investiture, thats whats is their soul.
The reason is because in Roshar there is so more investiture due to the three shards that invest the plane
true. on roshar, the humans have to make a contract with investiure to use it, while on Scadrial, they are born with it and just need to activate it@@fireguardianx
This is a good retcon. I like it.
@@arkana9684 True, but in Scadrial, the planet and the beings there were made directly by the 2 shards. This only happened in Scadrial afaik. So Scadrial humans are more invested by both shards naturally even if they are not mistings or ferrings.
The most similar case of this is breaths in Nalthis, but nalthians aren't made with breaths but given them when they are born. Meaning a child of worldhoppers in Nalthis could get a Breath, while the same in Scadrial wouldn't have the innate investiture of humans there.
IMHO Ruin is affected by the solidification of the atium because he and Preservation were equally invested in Scadrial's creation. Preservation made the decision to further invest in their created humanity to form mistings, while Ruin did not, leaving Ruin with an advantage in terms of readily available investiture. By hoarding the atium, that advantage is mitigated to the point that Preservation can prevent the planet's destruction just a little while longer than otherwise.
I ultimately agree the retcon is strange, but I can sort of hand wave it away by focusing on the specific intentionality of Leras's plan
I can see that. Ultimately even with the change the end of HoA is still incredibly epic. Adding additional context won’t take away from the experience of reading it in the moment.
This is also how I understand it. In isolation a shard's power is not practically diminished by solidifying their investiture into a godmetal, but when comparing two shards who are actively opposing each other the normally negligible loss of power becomes relevant. I don't think the atium in HoA being an alloy changes the fact that some of Ruin's power was locked up in the metal and leveled the playing field just a little bit.
The part I don't really understand is what exactly Ruin was planning to do with the Atium if he found it. Apparently all the Atium mistings burning it in the final battle didn't release the power and give Ruin access to it so I'm not sure what he would do otherwise.
@@yk-lm5jy I think there's a WoB saying that if Ruin could manifest there (and I dunno why he couldn't when the room was full of kandra; maybe he needed them to cart it out into the open where it wasn't surrounded by other metal?) then Ruin would have consumed it himself, which would have brought the power back to him, instead of dispersing it back into the cycle he can't affect.
Maybe a better question is, if Preservation could chop off that much of Ruin, why not chop off more? Why not make the remnant power of Preservation actually stronger than Ruin?
@@macmay3042 Just based on my personal understanding, doing so would be kinda antithetical to Preservation's Intent. Leras literally can't destroy anything, even for the greater good. Making Ruin weaker would open him up to destruction, so Preservation can't do it
@@adamuffoletto7869 I mean that seems like a bit of a stretch. After all, obviously just making him on-par with Preservation opened him up to destruction, yet he was clearly able to do that. And even their first deal; they had a planet that just just spinning peacefully forever, unchanging. In theory everything Preservation would want. But, he struck a deal with Ruin that not only made something vibrant that would grow and change, but guaranteed it would all one day be destroyed. If he was able to do that, it seems inconsistent that he wouldn't be able to take an action which 'might' open something up to harm, when the action Preservation took instead still opened it up to the exact same harm.
I'm even more confused because the back half of Hero of Ages introduces Atium Mistings. That's like, one of the biggest twists of the story, that one sixteenth of Elend's army had been snapped into Seers -- so non-Mistborn CAN burn Atium anyway, it's just a really rare type of allomancy to be snapped to.
It is super weird. Those mistings weren’t Atium mistings, they were electrum mistings. Preservation just made sure that all Atium was an electrum alloy. But then it becomes really weird that most sickness was so much more intense in electrum mistings compared to all others.
@@jasonioanDidn't they call them Atium Mistings though?
@@rh7474that is what they are saying is changed. Elend tested them for their ability to burn Atium and not Electrum and realised these people might be Atium Misting not realising they might be Electrum Misting instead.
They did call them that in the book, because as SumitRana mentioned, they tested these mistings with Atium which is an electrum Atium alloy. The mistings were electrum mistings. You can pause the video at 3:44 to read Peters Ahlstrom’s (Sanderson’s head of editorial) comment about.
@@jasonioan Perhaps Preservation set it so the mistsickness would hit them harder to highlight that they were the key to burning the atium alloy he was making? It did strike for 16 days, to the hour, so the length of time it lasted was clearly unnatural.
"The only way to use Atium is through Allomancy." Well no, you can also use it feruchemically and hemalurgically. Lerasium presumably does something when used in Hemalurgy. The Metallic Arts are unique in that they hack all metals, even god-metals.
Bold of you to assume Tanavast wasn't affected by diffusing his power into the Radients and the Storms. He did Die after all.
Alrighty, so since this video I’ve done more research about realmatics and I’ve got two additional thoughts about honor and his god metal.
All spren are splinters. Radiant spren are splinters of honor and cultivation. I don’t think a living spren would meaningfully diminish Honors access to power because they’re cognitive beings. However, I could see deadeye spren locking power in the physical realm.
Deadblades cannot grant surges and they cannot change their shape. Honor also finally died sometime after the recreance which was the first appearance of deadeye spren. Dead blades being locked in the physical realm at such a large scale may have finally pushed honor over the edge.
Also, the storm and spren existed on Roshar before honor arrived and invested himself into the planet.
I love that Sanderson is just out here answering questions about the cosmere like its his thesis topic in a masters
i’m just glad he’s willing to answer questions so often. As a community we’ve been very fortunate in the amount of events and the amount of questions he’s answered.
My 5 second theory on why burning all the atium was a crippling blow to Ruin is that because it was used in _Allomancy_ it became somehow inaccesible for Ruin. If Ruin and Preservation are opposites the way stormlight and anti-stormlight are, then they would annihilate each other when brought together. Actually I think that's how Vin killed Ruin? I may be misremembering.
This whole thing would be a lot simpler if lerasium didn't have the Hemalgury property it does. It would be symmetric. Each god metal used in its own magic system gives access to the full suite of abilities, but has a weird (albeit powerful) effect when used in the other Shard's system.
WRT Atium behaving completely different to other god metals, the only other actual example of one being used for allomancy is lerasium, there's not much one can actually say about it being different from trellium or raysium or tanavastium etc because we've never seen any of those burned. Per WoB the true effect of atium is essentially the same as when you burn nalatium+duralumin, anyway.
Awesome video, and seriously amazing editing! I for one quite like the change, although I think it is indicative of one of those rare times when Brandon obviously didn't have everything planned out from the very beginning.
I totally agree. Mistborn era 1 was early enough in the cosmere that mechanics like god metals and perpendicularities hadn’t fully finished cooking.
Also, thanks for commenting! I think the stuff you make is great!
High praise, and from a creator I respect so much! Make sure to watch his other recent video on the most dangerous planet in the cosmere, Generic, it was amazing to see the animations he did.
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
Hey, my name is also Jason and I've thought about making Cosmere videos, but my first idea was making a jokey chart about how many days Kaladin has spent smelling bad in Stormlight and analyzing it lol. Very well edited.
Go for it! That would be quite the goofy satirical video! And thanks, fellow Jason.
I’d watch that
Id watch that
Do itt
the reason (i think) that having a small fraction of his power be locked inside a physical form stopped ruin from instakilling everyone is that preservation was there to hold him back
I think you're right. Preservation was on his way out, but I forgot about the sheer amount of legwork he was doing to counter Ruin. Secret History shows this incredibly well when someone else gets the shard. It's still odd to me that ruins power being locked away in his own metal finished the amount of power he could access at once.
It's always a good day to re-read secret History 😅
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
2 videos in and you’re already one of my favorite cosmere TH-camrs
I think the best way out of the problems caused by the retcon is to say that you can alloy any god metal and regular metal to create slightly different effects when burned. It would create even more metals to play with (even if the changes to regular effects are subtle) and then you can have a true atium with its own effect as well.
That's a thing, in one of the appendices of era 2, they talk about have Lerasium alloys with other metals all have their own powers, and if you don't have powers, it makes you a misting of the metal its alloyed with. Atium and Lerasium are basically not around in era 2, so nobody really has had an opportunity to discover or test any of that yet.
This is just already canon and shows up in the original series. That's exactly what the eleventh metal is.
As for how subtle the change in effect is, just look at "atium" vs regular electrum, that level of change is generally what you would expect. However, apparently Atium alloys are more specialised for Temporal and Mental effects and Lerasium alloys for Physical and Enhancement, so it's unclear what the result would be if you made an atium alloy of pewter for instance. Would it still give a Temporal, Mental flavour to it? Maybe it would try to push your body to a prior state, weird healing/immortality type of thing.
what happens if you burn shardplate? or a blade 10 orders of knight 10 different alloys......
@@brodiesmith4419 There is presumably 16 allomantic and Feruchemical powers for the god-metals, most of which have not been discovered yet.
Surge-granting and shapeshifting being in the nature of Honor and Cultivation makes perfect sense, but it's worth noting that we do not actually know that either is a property of the metal itself - it could easily be due to being a spren, which is my theory, for instance. As for the honorblades, they're noted to be pretty close in function to open metalminds, and presumably the surges they grant are due to whatever Honor did to them when making them rather than an inherent property of the metal itself. Why else would they all be made out of the exact same material but each grant different surges?
I very rarely comment on TH-cam, but “m’ladium” was exquisite
I saw themes of missing information and incorrect information impacting how people operated so having facts surrounding Atium retconned isn't a big deal for me since it reinforces those themes.
Babe wake up! New cosmere lore just dropped!
If Atium is liquid or soluble in Ruin’s perpendicularity and that then proceeds to spill into the pits of hathsin, it could naturally form an alloy. It leads in to my theory of multiple states of god matter, light, plasma, liquid and solid (metal). If ruin’s perpendicularity was fractured, the power left to drain into caverns filled with metals, it would be a perfect way to cripple Ruin.
i had heard about there being a retcon to Atium, but hadn't actually seen what it was so this video was really helpful! i'd love to see more cosmere videos from you as someone who's started delving into it the past few months (so far i've read Mistborn Era 1 and Era 2 up to Bands of Mourning, currently reading Emperor's Soul before diving into the Lost Metal)
Thanks! I’m glad it was helpful! I plan to make more cosmere videos in the future (currently one a month because motion graphics take soooo long).
The Emperors Soul is incredible and widely regarded as some of Sanderson’s best. Reading that before the Lost Metal is 100% perfect. You’re in for such a treat!
Thanks for watching, and especially for commenting!
Incredibly well done, your editing prowess never ceases to amaze me.
Well, well well, If it isn’t the fantasy man himself. Thanks!
I've thought about this, too. I have a few ideas.
Preservation did capture Ruin and manipulated the world after that. A perfect place in time to alter Allomancy to include Ruin's god metal.
Preservation is possibly the shard best at seeing the future. He planned to bind Ruin's metal in a cache so the secret Atium mistings could use it in the final battle. His mists also were responsible for snapping those mistings at the right time.
I believe Harmony said at the end of book 3 that he changed how the metals work.
Ruin's investiture was never Allomancy. It's hemalurgy. It's all about destroying something to get something else.
There is no reason anyone should innately be able to ingest and burn it. Unless Mistborn can ingest and burn all the god metals. No one else uses god metals by ingesting them.
One reason the god metals could work differently on Scadrial is that those two shards are interwoven in a way unknown elsewhere in the cosmere. The essence of "Harmony" was used to make Feruchemists at the creation of Scadrial.
As for Ruin's lack of power once freed, I have two ideas.
When a god metal is made, it reduces a Shard's power (how much can be used at one time). There was potentially an enormous amount of Atium in existence compared to the amounts of the other god metals at one time. This could be why his power was limited. After all, that was Preservation's plan.
How might this relate to both honor and Cultivation in their manifestations? Originally, Honor only made 10 honorblades (shardblades). This could be considered a small amount of god metal. Honor was splintered. Each of those splinters could be used to produce the known shardblades. Cultivation's capacity for power is unknown. Her metal is employed as an alloy in shardblades, but an unknown amount for each. This could be why we don't see Cultivation making overt actions.
The second idea is that Ruin's power can't be used in isolation. This means that the nature of his investiture only manifests when it destroys something else. It's like a fire that needs fuel from other sources to work. This would mean that Ruin has much less power as a Shard when it can't interact with other Shards.
The narrative focus of the Mistborn books mainly focused on how hemalurgy relates to Preservation's investiture. It's been said that Atium Hemalurgy can steal the investiture of any Shard. However, I find hemalurgy much more enjoyable when considering its other uses.
Hemalurgy destroys a human's innate investiture and transfers it to make something else. Koloss and Kandra are made by ruining something to make something else. Hemalurgy used with trellium also creates horrorible monsters.
Hemalurgy changes the very nature of a human's inate spiritweb. I believe we'll see that Ruin's investiture is primarily focused on changing humans into many other things.
Really well edited and put together. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, will do!
Brandon has said that even normal people can potentially burn pure godmetals, but probably need a connection to the shard to do so. Not just allomancers.
Hey, thanks for going into more depth about the metals.
Really interesting. Could you do a video on the other God metals that you mentioned and what they do?
Also, where do we see the other God metals and their descriptions about what they do?
Harmonium and Trellium are from Era 2 of Mistborn.
Honors god metal, Raysium, and what is potentially cultivations god metal are seen in the Stormlight archive.
@@jasonioan Yeah. you mentioned other metals. Corvelium I think?
It would be cool if you could go into detail about the others, where they're mentioned and what we know about them.There's so much about the metals and the lore that I reckon I don't know about :)
Keep up the good work though
Great video Jason! Never heard this explained with so much clarity before, appreciate the structure of this!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Atium not actually being pure atium doesn't affect the physical atium locking away ruins power though, does it? Even if the atium were pure, the fact remains that, somehow, ruin being unable to access it has an impact on his power.
Celeste profile picture! NICE! I agree that the fact that Atium isn't pure doesn't change the fact that the power was locked away from him. I just think it's weird that a meaningful enough amount of his power simply being in a physical form diminished his ability to access it. Like, is Harmony less powerful because some of his power is locked away in harmonium? maybe? Thanks for commenting!
One theory I have regarding Atium’s alloy weakening Ruin is this. Shardblades are composed of a different amount of Tanavastium and Koravellium depending on the spren and order of knight. By changing the concentration of Tanavastium, the god metal that grants surges, in the shardblade, the Surges of the Knight wielding it is different. By mixing two God Metals, the different amounts of each investiture present in each Shardblade (and by extension each spren) interact to make a similar but distinct power (the surges). However, since both are God Metals, they work in tandem to make the spren/shardblade. Electrum is not a God Metal, and does not possess the Connection to a shard in such a manner as Atium. My theory is that the interaction between Atium and Electrum would be like putting a dampener on a guitar. Atium and Electrum’s interaction makes them perceive the Atium/Electrum Alloy as one individual substance (Such as a person’s body growing accustomed to a wound as mentioned in Oathbringer), and this causes a weaker Connection between the alloy and the shard Ruin. I’m not the best at theorising so this is the best I was able to do
This retcon honestly makes enough sense that, if I didn't know the context, I would have assumed it was the plan from the beginning and it was just a poor in-world understanding of what happened. Back before the retcon was announced, I was so confused that Gold+Atium was an inverted version of Gold, but Atium on its own was an inverted version of Electrum. Having Atium change Gold and Electrum in the same way just makes sense to me
This retcon did affect book events. In The Last Metal there's a mention of the atium we know being an alloy, in one of the epilogues(if I remember correctly)
I agree with your take. My issue is that, since we found about about the retcon it continues to only matter to cosmere fans since it has YET to have any impact on page. It'll be interesting if and when it does actually work into the narrative
Wait, no, not everyone could use Atiums future effects, thats the electrum aspect... right?
The futuresight we see when “Atium” is burned in the book is the specific effect granted by the Atium Electrum alloy that it naturally generates as in the pits. Therefore electrum mistings and mistborn can get that effect when “Atium” is burned because they’re able to burn electrum. Pure Atium has been revealed to grant a vision of the spiritual realm when burned.
If there’s ever a film or tv adaptation of mistborn, Sanderson wants to change it so anyone can burn Atium and get the futuresight.
Hope this helps, and thanks for the comment!
i think of it as mostly Ruin with a tiny bit of Preservation that was used to force open a half perpendicularity condensing Ruin against his will
That’s a cool idea!
Great video! But I think the retcon happened because Brandon might be setting something up for Era 3 of Mistborn. Who knows?
Will we finally get to see some pure Atium shenanigans? Find out next time on Mistborn… in like 5 years.
@@jasonioan there is a line in The heroes of ages that the power of atium doesn't get permanatly used and will come back eventually...and kelsier did say atium might come back in 300 years...
The problem is that the shard of Ruin as it was in era 1 no longer exists. Although, Harmony doesn't seem to being doing to well at the end of Era 2, so maybe...
@@jasonioan there is some friction between harmony and the Surivivor now so i can see harmony keeping some secrets
This is less of a retcon and more the fact that the character didn't know that atium was a god metal at first
Nah, it's 100% a retcon. B-money has admitted this on several occasions.
It's a retcon he had to make because he made a mistake in the power system
@@enotsnavdier6867 This retcon makes less sense than the previous status-quo of Atium behaving slightly unique compared to other god-metals.
Very interesting, I wasn't even aware of this befor ethis video
Yeah ever since I heard about the retcon it confused me. The only reason I heard was that he wanted god metals to be burned by anyone, but I think a much easier way of resolving this issue would be to say that anyone could burn Lerasium because as established Preservation put some of himself into every Scadrian.
But the problem there is that in secret history we see “the drifter” Ingest and burn Lerasium, and presumably he’s not from scadrial and thus not invested by preservation
@@steps-on-legos9080 hmm that's a good point. I think you could come up with something with him altering his own Connection? But yeah
@@akqa8186 we do know he's bound to the rules of the investiture, seeing what he had to do become an Elantrian in Tress
You are a genius that should consult Brandon Sanderson during any live-action adaptations.
I didn't hear Brandon say that any Misting could burn Atium, that would be interesting, could he be referring to pure Atium and not alloy Atium? It also raises a question if Atium has Alloys could other god metals have alloys too? This question I have considered before because Atium already had an Alloy in Mistborn. I wonder if Lerasium alloys could make specific Mistings instead of full Mistborns? Another question, when Wax split Harmonium into Lerasium and Atium, was the Atium he made the pure Atium or the Alloy? Would Marsh be able to use it the same way as it being pure?
I imagine that the reason that Ruin didn't want to destroy Scadrial before he got his body is that he wanted to be as powerful as possible. I bet his plan was to go after the entire Cosmere after destroying Scadrial. And since he couldn't differentiate Atium from other metals he needed the help of the local population to find it. Also if he wanted to attack the Cosmere next he wouldn't want to be weak when facing another shard and die. So that motivation makes sense to me. Look at Preservation, because he gave a bit of himself to humanity he became scared Ruin would be able to defeat him, so he gave up his body(I think this is the term used in the books) to lock Ruin away.
Also speaking of Preservation, what is the likely hood that 16, the bald guy at Everlasting Integrity, is the Cognitive Shadow of Leras? A few clues
1. We see Preservation die and see Leras' body fall into the ash in Hero of Ages.
2. Sazed sees Ati's body also fall into the ash at the end of Hero of Ages.
3. Kelsier Punches Ati's Cognitive shadow before he moves on to the after life in Secret History
1-3.a Because of the above 3, we don't see Leras Cognitive shadow move on but Brandon made a point to show Ati's shadow moving on. He could have had Kelsier witness Leras passing as well but he didn't.
4. We know that beings with enough investiture at death can choose to stay if they wish, also Leras was imbued with Preservation he could have felt the need to preserve for longer.
5. The Honor Spren call him 16 because he comes out every 16 days. 16 is Preservation's number.
I have felt this as being a strong possibility sense I read Rhythm of War. What do you think?
As for, why does atium diminish Ruin when Honorblades (and Shardblades) don't diminish Honor, the answer is... well, basically, because it does. Cuz you're kinda comparing apples and oranges. On a few levels.
First, Honor is currently dead. The Stormfather is the last big piece of him but he's not around anymore, unlike Ruin. So yeah, it kinda is diminishing Honor, but at least it's being wielded in a cause he'd support. Which is... just odd, I guess. Like if I have 2 nerf rifles and I give one to someone on my team who has none, I've diminished my own resources, but it's still being used towards my team's victory.
But the bigger reason to get to the heart of the question is, because this is a very different scenario. Honor chose to make the Honorblades, the way Edgli chooses to Return people, and presumably they 'gift' the power in a way that they still have access to it. Ruin didn't set up the atium. Preservation chopped that power off of him and made it into the pits/geodes/beads. Like, sure, one ultimate effect looks somewhat similar to honorblades, in that, they both end up with an item made of a Godmetal that gives people power. But the actual critical difference was in, how was the power Splintered. Now, we don't know a lot about Shards and their power and what they can do, but it seems that Honor chose to create the Honorblades in a way that he kept access to the power, and Preservation separated the power he put into the atium in a way that expressly denied it to Ruin, the way Preservation's power in the people of Scadrial is denied to him.
Also, this broadly applies to Shardblades, too, though those aren't purely Honor's Investiture, they're various mixes with Cultivation, as well. And who knows, for Glys, prolly some Odium.
I just figured Atium burning was a byproduct of all Shards stemming from the same source.
After all, allomancers can burn the Dor.
This wouldn't be the only instance of this nature.
Autonomy can hemalurgically interact with people and type 1 invested entities like honorspren can charge Taldain's dayside sand.
2:05 was the exact moment I liked this video lmao
I assumed the alloy was made by the lord ruler, as he made the Pits of Hathsin when he held preservation, as he wanted the ferochemical effect to not age. He could've had that knowledge the same way he had knowledge about hemalurgy.
Unless it was Perervation's plan to have the lord ruler be immortal, as well as planning for the electrum mistings to burn it
I really like this! Could you make a video going into the different god metals and explaining them a bit more? Something I’ve never understood pretty well and I think this was part of it
That could be a fun video. I do worry that we haven’t seen enough of them and what they can all do to make a compelling video, but I’ll put this idea on my list.
cant wait to see kelsier consuming a shardblade
“Om nom nom! So crunchy!”
-Kelsier probably
Don't forget that the Eleventh Metal was thought to be on the list by the end of the 3rd book.
One caveat:
I think Brandon said Atium is supposed to be burnt by "anyone" and you said Mistings.
But as a godmetal, it truly is supposed to be burnt by anyone, as we saw with Lerasium which was burnt by a non-Allomancer character to gain Mistborn powers.
Great video btw, I didn't know that Sha dbllades could change shape and size because of Koravellium's properties (it makes sense though).
Thanks for the comment! The shardblades have been confirmed to be an alloy of honor and cultivations god metal, but it hasn’t been confirmed that cultivations metal is what allows them to change their shape. It does make sense though. Here’s where I got the info for only allomancers being able to burn Atium in the adaptations. wob.coppermind.net/events/406/#e13821
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
I don't hate the retcon, but like you, I find it offputting. It's not something I can describe and I don't mind it so much I wouldn't still enjoy re-reading Mistborn, but I think I would've preferred Brandon owning the mistake and later justifying it as "Atium doesn't really do that but since you're using Preservation's magic system the usage Mistborns can give it is limited" or something.
For such a small channel your presentation is really clean and professional! You're already one of my favorite cosmere discussion channels!
Wow, thank you!
If all the Atium in era 1 was and electrum-atium alloy, and that alloy was used by elend's army of seers, and seers are now not atium misting but electrum mistings, that means that when you make and alloy of atium and electrum that changes the property of electrum to act on other people, the same way malatium, a gold atium alloy, makes you see other peoples past, doesn't that mean that an alloy of atium and a metal changes the propety of the metal used so it behavies like for example, an external metal like we see with the electrum, an internal metal behaving like an external one making you see others future insted of yours.
TLDR: My theory is that and alloy of atium and an internal metal makes it so the original effect plays like and external metal effect and viceversa.
That's a cool theory! Basically, I think atium strengthens a person's connection to the spiritual realm, so I could see that strengthened connection behaving in a way similar to how you described!
I think the difference with Atium being physical making Ruin weaker when it doesn't do that to Honor is because Honor and Preservation made Scadrial, together. Whereas, Honor, Preservation, and Odium, they all just showed up on Roshar, long after Adonalsium had created it. It makes sense to me that Shards would be weakened by making a planet whereas Adonalsium as a whole wouldn't. Plus, I give a lot of leeway for Preservation having made trap after trap after trap to further weaken Ruin. Clearly, it weakened Preservation to create and then Invest all humans. So, imo, Preservation was just taking an equivalent amount of Ruins investiture somehow in an attempt to even the playing field once again.
Thanks for sharing!
You bet!
Thanks mate, great video
Glad you enjoyed it.
All this really means is that Seers are Oracles, and that Demoux isn't a completely useless Allomancer.
Could you imagine how much that would suck? To be an Allomancer that can only use a metal that pretty much doesn't exist anymore?
I think you answer your own question. If all the Atium is also alloyed with another metal, that could taint it, making it inaccessible to Ati. This even fits with Ati's inability to see things written in metal.
Great work!
Thanks!
your channel is dynamite brotha gr8 vid
Thank you!
Hi in which book does kelsier get that new metal? I dont rember it from the mistborn books. I read the vin ones and Wax ones
I’d love to watch your video, but I haven’t yet finished Mistborn Era 1 and don’t know if I’ll get spoiled. Would be awesome if you included a way to tell how much you’re gonna spoil. I’ll return when I’ve read Era 1!
The only rhing i can think of is the atium is his vessel body. Without a full vessel he couldnt draw his full power?
But Honor is dead in Stormlight so that can play apart
Yes he is. I was talking about before the recreance when there were thousands of radiants and honor was alive. It doesn't really matter now because as you mention, he is dead.
cool video, time to re-read Stormlight soon before 5!
Didn't said god also coopt another magic system in the stormlight archive?
Cool thoughts. Subbed.
Welcome aboard! Happy to have you here!
I think it just muddies the water. It makes sense to me to have Lerasium be the only metal that non-allomancers can burn, which then gives access to allomancy.
You'd have to rewrite a large portion of the entire first mistborn trilogy for the retcon to make sense. There's no way that some teenage mistings didn't try burning atium at some point just to see if they could. The idea that people just presume only mistborn can use the most devastating metal in battle without ever testing it out beforehand just isn't believable.
And once you establish that ALL mistings can use atium, then many of the scenes change. Kelsier would no longer have free reign against coinshots and pewterarms - now they're all potentially armed with atium.
Also, the idea that Ruin, and only Ruin, pools his investiture as a naturally occuring alloy rather than his pure god metal doesn't make much sense at all. It was already weird that it manifested in geodes rather than a pool like other shards. And this doesn't even account for the implications on The Lost Metal.
I think it's just a little too late for this kind of retcon. The cat is out of the bag, you can't just publish an "oopsie, forget everything we told you in the older books" addendum.
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
Brandon cleaning up stuff for the adaptation to look good and coherent is a pretty great move! We do need to understand that Mistborn was published in 2008 (and written even before that) and it is 2024 now and there are a lot of Cosmere lore nerds running around and screaming "RAFO IS NOT ENOUGH!". So retcons are ok in this case. since we didn't understand Atiun and Lorasium when reading the books for the rest time anyway. (Great video wtb, thanks)
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the video! And I agree with what you said. I mostly think that this change is necessary because when the book was written, concepts like God metals and perpendicularities weren’t fully fleshed out. And that's ok! RAFOS are great because they're almost a promise of cool new stories to come.
For the how could Preservation hack the system, well he and ruin made the world. P already canonically put a bit more of his essence into humanity than ruin. Allow that to extend a tiny bit to other things and he could easily make around beads form through an electron base. It need not be a very large amount of electrum to make an alloy.
As for making atium mistings, his magic he can do it. He can make it so mistings can burn just a single alloy. After all the new mist made mistings we’re not following normal rules of birth. They do not have to be natural electrum mistings.
I also like how it now harmonises better with the other metallic arts. Feruchemical atium use gives age by letting you store your life. It is the most ruinous type of feruchemy to you. Now it is normal electrum burning, but filtered through ruins lens. You can imagine the other atium alloys would be similar in scope.
It also suggests many mistings exist who can burn an atium alloy but never get the chance
Despite how we all talk about it, I don't think this technically qualifies as a retcon since it doesn't actually change anything we've seen before. If Brandon has instead come out and said "I was going to put this in era 2 and never found a good place for it, but the Atium we see in era 1 is actually an Atium-Electrum alloy" this wouldn't be nearly so big a topic of conversation
Agreed, it is technically a retcon for, like, WoB, but it doesn't actually change anything in-universe. It wasn't a retcon when people learned that they were mistaken in thinking there were only 10 metals.
I actually really like this, as it's kinda like the development and discovery of real science
The retcon is canon and appears in The Lost Metal Ars Arcanum
This is an awkward and idiotic retcon. Electrum itself is an alloy, so that would make gold have three versions instead of two. It is far simpler to have Atium be a pure god-metal that has slightly unique properties. Why would a geological formation create small beads of 3 metals (gold, silver, atium) that are in perfect combination for a specific human use? Atium mistings were already confirmed in book 3 and were the PRIMARY deciding factor in the resolution of the plot.
“It is really weird, I don’t know why it was made like that” dude there’s so many books left, relax
Having so many more books in the future is awesome! I don't have a problem with the retcon and this video was just to explain what it is. I hope you enjoyed the video and thanks for the comment.
I think you might have muddied the waters more. The retcon makes sense.
Your weird explanation added a bit Brandon didn't ever say, and it got a bit wrong.
I think Brandon has said that the idea is, everyone can burn all godmetals, not just all allomancers.
So, this would make sense given the nature of God metals. But in the WoB when he talks about the potential changes to allomancy in an adaptation he says that all allomancers can use it.
@@jasonioan Fair, I think he might have said elsewhere that anyone can burn a godmetal... lemme see if I can find it. No, I can't. I can find a WoB where someone mentions that Brandon has said "everyone can burn godmetals" but not the actual source. But yeah, I think you made the right choice saying it like you did here in the video.
Do you have a discord or something? I would love to discuss lore with you.
I do have discord. You can find me in the 17th shard discord server if you’d like. I go by Jasonioan in there as well
@@jasonioan I'm not on the 17th Shard discord, but i sent you a friend request from bronzeborn.
dumb. whole point of the ending was that they burned his body away
I think the Atium being locked away in beads basically meant the amount of investiture ruin could access directly in the physical realm was severely restricted. That being said it has never made complete sense to me even before the retcon lol
Pure Atium, just like any other god metals, should be usable for anyone in the cosmere. The retcon of allomantic Atium being an alloy makes sense as to why only mistborn/Atium listings can burn it. It also makes sense that Leras fucked with Ruin. He built a prison. There's also evidence in the eligraphs that ruin's perpendicularity wasn't always like the Pits. It used to be a dark pool (similar to the Well of Ascension) and Rashek changed it into the Pits of Hathsin to create the Atium beads and stash them away from Ruin.
Don't really care to think about it honestly.
maybe he figured out more about the universe as the books went on. or maybe its a mystery
I’m sure there was an element of that in the change as well.
who cares?
Evidently, seven thousand people
sanderson fans
I think the biggest retcon was going from "racism and slavery is bad" to "the bright eyes are genetically superior, actually. "
When did this happen? I was under the impression that the lighteyes were put in leadership positions because they resembled the eyes of knights radiant, and it just stuck. Not that they were truly superior in any practical way
Yeah, he's never said the light eyes are actually superior. It is a little awkward that it stopped being a focal point in later books, but he's mentioned he wants to find someone (other than Kaladin) to express those grievances and drive societal change again. Maybe Lift!
You have it reversed mate. The whole "light eyes" scenario is deliberately shown to be a cultural mistep. There is absolutely nothing special about having light eyes at all but it's held up on a pedestal because having "bright", glowing eyes just happened to be a single trait of a historically special community that had zero correlation to the individuals biology.
@rodneyericjohnson I mean that's not at all how it's portrayed. Hoid has a throwaway line about there being a reason but that's not Brandon advocating for "racism is good." If you actually read the books, you'll see that the overwhelming opinion of people in the story is that racism is bad. And that the "best" of the Lighteyes in the book are the ones who are most willing to accept that maybe they aren't divinely superior.
What really happened was, the people who stole the Shardblades used them to take over the country, and then their descendants learned how to bond the Blades and got light eyes. So, lighteyes rule by conquest and enforce racism to justify it. I don't think any part of that condones racism, but feel free to explain your position.
@@macmay3042 My problem is the story makes out that it was a good thing that the light eyes stayed in control, not great but things would have been much worse if they hadn't. Like it was for the dark eye own good, actually. We hear similar things in real life.
I’d love to watch your video, but I haven’t yet finished Mistborn Era 1 and don’t know if I’ll get spoiled. Would be awesome if you included a way to tell how much you’re gonna spoil. I’ll return when I’ve read Era 1!