Mistborn: The Alloy of Law

That was pretty good. I liked how all of the stuff that happened in Era 1 is now all history and mythology. None of the changes or anything are ever explained more than they have too, allowing for the readers to fill in the gaps themself. For example there is a mention of the Ascendant Warrior and the Last Emporer, which I’m pretty sure are Vin and Elend. It is kind of crazy to read about these characters only referred to by their “mythological” titles while we, as the readers, have read about their stories and know just how human they were.

Spoiler warning for Mistborn: The Hero of Ages

History

As I said, most of the things that happened in the previous books are mentioned casuallyy here. For example the main city is called Elendel, obviously referring to the Last Emporer, Elend. There is also talk of the Survivor, but we obviously know that this is Kelsier because his plan was to create the religion. There is also mention of the Hero of Ages, which would be Sazed. And Harmony is also mentioned in the context of God. Therefore I think it is safe to assume that Harmony is Sazed. Furthermore the Lord Mistborn is mentioned a few times as the person who set everything up and it is still unclear who exactly he is, but I think that it is most likely Spook as Sazed (or Harmony) made Spook a Mistborn at the end of The Hero of Ages.

What is also interesting is that there seem to be multiple religions that sprouted. Obviously there’s the Church of the Survivor, but there is also a mention of Pathians. It is unclear what the religions really stand for as, again, the book elaborates little more than it needs to on most aspects.

Technology

The time where the story takes place is right around the Industrial Age, or the beginning of it. Electricity is becoming a common household thing. For example in the book electric lamps are installed after Waxillium moves in. There are also guns. Most of these are metal but it is made clear that an Allomancer most likely can’t react fast enough to completely deflect a bullet. Wax puts up a “Steel Bubble” where he pushes all metal just a little bit to make it harder to hit him, but if a shot was dead-on it wouldn’t help him. All this advancement has happened because the Lord Ruler is gone and he made sure that there were little technological advancements as he disliked it. In The Hero of Ages in the Words of Founding (as it is called in Alloy of Law) Sazed mentions how the Lord Ruler frowned upon the use of gunpowder, so it wasn’t used.

Allomancy

Allomancy is the same as it was before the Final Ascension (when Sazed ascended to become Harmony). There is not much change except for that there is no Atium to be found. Also one important thing is that there are apparently no more Mistborn. I wonder why this is, as even after a thousand years under the Lord Ruler’s reign, there were still Mistborn. Weaker than the very first Mistborn, yes, but they could still burn all metals. Maybe Sazed made Spook a Mistborn but he couldn’t pass it on genetically? It is weird because everyone with a little noble blood in them could Snap and become a Mistborn. There are reasons but it is unclear to me what they are. Two more metals have also been discovered, Chromium and Bendalloy. Chromium allows the user to create a bubble in which time moves slower than it does outside. Bendalloy is the reverse and has much more uses, it creates a smaller bubble in which time moves faster. Shooting out of a Bendalloy bubble is not effective sadly, as the bullet will change it’s trajectory upon leaving the bubble. However, using Bendalloy Wayne and Wax often have quick conversations to discuss strategy.

Feruchemy

Feruchemy is way more present, after some inbreeding between the Terris people and others none or very few Feruchemists that can store things in every kind of metalmind remain. Instead, there are now people that can only use one type of metalmind. For example, Wax can store his weight in an ironmind. With all this inbreeding now there are people that are a Misting and can store something in a metalmind. Wax is also a Coinshot. Wayne can store health in his goldminds and he can also throw up a Bendalloy bubble as described above. When someone is both a Misting and a Feruchemist of the same metal they can start Compounding. This is what the Lord Ruler did to stay young and healthy and strong. The main antagonist, Miles, is both a Gold Misting and can store health in gold. When he stores health in gold and then burns it he gets a tenfold return. Using this he is practically immortal as long as he has his goldminds. He gets shot and stabbed and blown up multiple times and just shrugs it off. He is not immortal to age however so he’ll live an incredibly long life but he will eventually die of elderdom. Or he gets captured, stripped of his goldminds and executed.

Atium Compounder

I would now like to speculate on Compounding some other metals as I think it’ll be fun. Let’s look at atium, maybe the most powerful metal. A Feruchemist could store youth in it. If a Compounder could get his hands on a steady supply of atium (Harmony know how) he could stay young forever. He could also burn the atium for a great advantage in many situations. This person would be incredibly powerful and dangerous not because of their raw strength, but because of their meticilous planning and insight.

Steel Compounder

Steel is a lot easier to get your hands on and is a very powerful Feruchemical as well as Allomantic metal. It can store speed and can be used to Push metal. Both are very good seperately but Compounding it would be insane as one could just be in an almost perpetual state of incredible speed. There would be very few people who would be able to stand their ground against someone who could strike them 20 times before you could even react. Not to mention the added ability of Pushing metals as weapons.

Gold Compounder

As I said, Miles Compounds gold and he is insanely OP because of it. Unkillable, able to heal from any injury. He survived basically everything and his only fear is getting captured, because then he is in actual danger. If the choice comes between diving off of a cliff or getting captured, then diving off is probably better. It is also mentioned that Miles doesn’t feel any pain anymore after all the times he got blown up, shot, stabbed and everything in between. I was wondering about that as I think it would hurt but after enough time it seems the body gets used to it.

Pewter Compounder

Storing strength and then gaining a tenfold return plus the ability to burn pewter? That is not a fight many could even dream of winning. It would just be a hulking brute and if they became a Savant they would have little fatigue and could heal faster. The Compounder would literally just be a walking, talking tank. They could destroy so much with ease and stop a moving train. There is also the mention of koloss-blooded people who don’t stop growing but seem to be more intelligent and aware than koloss in the first book. If a koloss-blooded person where to be born that is also a Pewterarm and a pewter Feruchemist there is nothing they couldn’t do with brute force.

Other Compounders

Some would be useless to Compound, like copper. Bronze with wakefullness could be pretty useful, brass with warmth is less so but still has uses. Zinc is very useful, I would say, as being able to constantly think faster would help with a lot of things. Duralumin is also useful because the Compounder could make a lot of connections very quickly. Any others have little to moderate amount of uses, like not having to breathe or eat or having very good senses (better than a Tineye, wait that’s incredibly useful) or the Compounder could be very heavy.

Hemalurgy

As I mentioned above, there are people who are koloss-blooded, if they have Hemalurgic spikes however, I don’t know. Hemalurgy is used very little in this time as there is only one living Inquisitor that is mentioned in the book. That Inquisitor is called Ironeyes or Death. If there is an Inquisitor it is most likely Marsh. I would have no clue what he has being doing for the past 300 years but I suppose it is something important.

Kandra are not mentioned at all, so it could very well be possible that they simple ceased to exist after they all removed their Blessings and became mistwraiths again. But maybe they will make a return in a later book.

Final Thoughts

As you might have noticed, I like to theorize about all kinds of things. And these books leave me enough to theorize about. Furthermore, and I cannot stress this enough, HOW DO THE PLOTTWISTS ALWAYS SURPRISE ME?? Every single time something grand is revealed I’m like OMG I could’ve and should’ve know. Again, an amazing book and I just can’t wait to read more I’m absolutely obsessed.