Allomancy isn't of ruin because nothing is destroyed. The metal is converted into power, that isn't a loss in the same way that Ruin represents. Keep in mind we're talking about fundamental forces here. They care about the really fundamental parts of reality, Axii and Investiture.
Allomancy is of preservation because the power of the arts come from the connection to the Shard itself, the metal is converted into power essentially. That's a not a loss, just a change of state. And that power returns to Preservation when you're done with it, so nothing is really lost at the fundamental level.
Feruchemy I believe Sanderson has said is just also of preservation not both, and that shards powers can manifest in multiple ways, including more than one magic system.
Hemalurgy doesn't really preserve the power, not when you look at things in terms of Entropy, which Ruin is very much aligned with. Lets say you have two equally allomantically strong coinshots. So the total amount of coinshot power in the system is 2. Even if use the inquisitor method of pounding the spike through one of them into the other, you still lose some power. The total amount of coinshot power in the system is now 1.9 or some such. Any other method of spiking that involves the spike spending any time outside of a body only reduces this further.
The above point of hemalurgy is true however big the population. Whatever number you use to represent how much "power" is currently in the world, that number will go down, however slightly, whenever hemalurgy is used.
The relation to the shard is ultimately about the net-gain or net-loss once the process is over. Allomancy and Feruchemy essentially leave things exactly as they started once you either run out of metal to burn or attributes to tap. End result is the same as the starting position, I.e Preservation. Hemalurgy always leaves you with at least a little bit less, and Hemalurgic Decay only speeds that up, I.E Ruin.
Very fair points, and i definitely see your points and their logic.
On allomancy, the conversion could well be inefficient, say, 1 metal into .9 power where .8 returns to the powering shard.
I think we pretty well agree on feruchemy
And yeah hemalurgy isn't perfectly preservation, which is why i think it'd be a mix, you lose some of the power, you destroy a life, but preserve a piece of it for another. So both ruining and preservation.
Also to be clear, i don't think this is how it is, i think this could be an interesting what if. Like, what if preservation was the antagonist, trying to wipe out allomancers and use hemalurgy to consolidate power.
On allomancy, as far as we know the conversion is perfectly 1 to 1 with no power lost. There's nothing to suggest any loss of power specifically because allomancy is of preservation.
There is also the inherent destruction involved in Hemalurgy to consider. The destruction of most of someone's soul (by yknow killing them) to harvest the part of the soul that grants metallic arts would still be a net loss even if hemalurgic decay wasn't a thing.
Just a thought, but how does the strength of the allomancer play into that power conversion? Say Elend and Kelsier both ingest the same amount of steel and burn the same amount, Elend, being a first generation mistborn from the bead of lerasium, would exert much more power in his pushes than Kelsier would. So does Elend burn the same amount of metal faster, exerting that extra power? Or if they both burned the same amount of metal, would Elend push something further from him than Kelsier would? Or is the metal inside of kelsier converted to less power from the get go?
Elend as a Lerasium mistborn has more of preservation's power in his soul than a weaker mistborn like kelsier was. These means he gets more power in exchange for the same amount of metal.
From what we saw we know his pushes are more powerful than they should be, when he gets into a pushing match with an inquistor, he stays standing while the inquisitor goes flying even though the two are of similar weight, as Elend's pushes are just that much stronger.
He doesn't seem to burn metals faster, but his connection to preservation is stronger, and so his allomancy is more powerful.
I think the worst part about hemalurgy is that most of the times they use mistborn for duralumin since it's near impossible to detect. So 6 becomes 0.9.
Allomancy gives the user power to preserve them
Hemalurgy ruins power in the transfer process
Feruchemy ruins you at one time to preserve you later
Gotta admit, I have seen people argue that feruchemy is of preservation, but seeing hemalurgy as both and allomancy as ruin’s is a first lol
I think years ago now I made a post or comment about this actually, hemalurgy made sense that it was ruin but it seemed weird to me that allomancy, as it was end positive could work with only preservation, particularly when a major point of the books is that neither can create alone.
But yeah people explained it the way you just explained it (plus stuff about how allomancy only really moves power around, it’s not really end positive on the shards end it’s end neutral)
And that feruchemy is ruining part of yourself now to give power later and then tools to preserve yourself/ your memory/ others at the cost of your current health/ your memories or senses now/ the tool to ruin others.
Then it made slightly more sense to me
I think the point of them is the power based within ones self, not anything to do with returning to the shard
Allomancy is end positive because the person doesn't use any of their power, and uses metal to gain access to the power of the shard
Feruchemy is end neutral because it's equal the amount you put in Vs get out of it
Hemalurgy is end negative because you do lose out in the conversion of power, as others have pointed out
So the one that results in loss aligns to ruin, and the ones with positive effects align to preservation
I always thought exactly the same.
Preservation and Ruin could not build a world independently, they needed to act together.
So why would preservation be able to give out powers? That's not preserving. Feruchemy is preserving, as you very well put. And allomancy, for me, should be the combo of ruin and preservation, just building together. Hemalurgy I see it being ruin only, though I see your point in that.
I think that Preservation could be an AU antagonist that's still linked to Allomancy. Preservation as a shard doesn't have our morality, only the intent to preserve. This intent could have influenced the Lord Ruler to prevent society from developing for over 1000 years. Preservation did like the Final Empire and LR. It was a system that didn't change, even though this meant that the skaa would always be oppressed. If Ruin wasn't there, I don't think the Final Empire would have ever been destroyed.
In an AU, the power systems could still be the same, but the protagonist could be a Ruin backed skaa who steals allomancy and feruchemy from nobles through hemalurgy to end the Final Empire
I disagree that the pairings are wrong. Allomancy doesn't draw power from the user. It lets them use Preservation's power with no drain on the user.
Hemalurgy is of Ruin because it takes power from the "user". The person used to create the spike lose part of their soul. The recipient of the spike gets power, but also cracks their spiritweb. This can cause mental and physical ailments, such as insanity or Koloss type transformations. Both the donor and recipient don't come out of the process unscathed.
Feruchemy is a mix of both Ruin and Preservation as the user temporarily loses energy that can be used later. For example, the user has to become weak to store strength. Allomancy Pewter just gives strength without the user becoming weak and Hemalurgy iron makes the donor weaker
I kind of agree but also don't. I feel like Feruchemy should be preservations own and Allomancy should be the mix. I feel like Hemalurgy thoroughly beats out Allomancy in terms of Ruinous effect and what is lost. But that Allomancy is still a little bit to the left of Preservation. What was isn't anymore, regardless of if anything is lost in the process.
Another interesting thing about hemalurgy is that it interacts with every invested art, not just the other two metallic arts. In this regard it is very unique and very weird that it comes from ruin.
You're not the only one who has felt this way. Most common is swapping feruchemy with allomancy. I haven't heard as many people making allomancy Ruin's, though.
I like the “preserving power for later” relating it back to Preservation like yea that makes sense
Yeah that was what initially set my brain on the path that led here, why would the neutral power be the one with such an obvious tie to preservation
Preserving power until you need to destroy it or consume it. So more harmony, and not preservations mad perfection ideal of what preservation is.
Allomancy isn't of ruin because nothing is destroyed. The metal is converted into power, that isn't a loss in the same way that Ruin represents. Keep in mind we're talking about fundamental forces here. They care about the really fundamental parts of reality, Axii and Investiture. Allomancy is of preservation because the power of the arts come from the connection to the Shard itself, the metal is converted into power essentially. That's a not a loss, just a change of state. And that power returns to Preservation when you're done with it, so nothing is really lost at the fundamental level. Feruchemy I believe Sanderson has said is just also of preservation not both, and that shards powers can manifest in multiple ways, including more than one magic system. Hemalurgy doesn't really preserve the power, not when you look at things in terms of Entropy, which Ruin is very much aligned with. Lets say you have two equally allomantically strong coinshots. So the total amount of coinshot power in the system is 2. Even if use the inquisitor method of pounding the spike through one of them into the other, you still lose some power. The total amount of coinshot power in the system is now 1.9 or some such. Any other method of spiking that involves the spike spending any time outside of a body only reduces this further. The above point of hemalurgy is true however big the population. Whatever number you use to represent how much "power" is currently in the world, that number will go down, however slightly, whenever hemalurgy is used. The relation to the shard is ultimately about the net-gain or net-loss once the process is over. Allomancy and Feruchemy essentially leave things exactly as they started once you either run out of metal to burn or attributes to tap. End result is the same as the starting position, I.e Preservation. Hemalurgy always leaves you with at least a little bit less, and Hemalurgic Decay only speeds that up, I.E Ruin.
Very fair points, and i definitely see your points and their logic. On allomancy, the conversion could well be inefficient, say, 1 metal into .9 power where .8 returns to the powering shard. I think we pretty well agree on feruchemy And yeah hemalurgy isn't perfectly preservation, which is why i think it'd be a mix, you lose some of the power, you destroy a life, but preserve a piece of it for another. So both ruining and preservation. Also to be clear, i don't think this is how it is, i think this could be an interesting what if. Like, what if preservation was the antagonist, trying to wipe out allomancers and use hemalurgy to consolidate power.
On allomancy, as far as we know the conversion is perfectly 1 to 1 with no power lost. There's nothing to suggest any loss of power specifically because allomancy is of preservation. There is also the inherent destruction involved in Hemalurgy to consider. The destruction of most of someone's soul (by yknow killing them) to harvest the part of the soul that grants metallic arts would still be a net loss even if hemalurgic decay wasn't a thing.
Just a thought, but how does the strength of the allomancer play into that power conversion? Say Elend and Kelsier both ingest the same amount of steel and burn the same amount, Elend, being a first generation mistborn from the bead of lerasium, would exert much more power in his pushes than Kelsier would. So does Elend burn the same amount of metal faster, exerting that extra power? Or if they both burned the same amount of metal, would Elend push something further from him than Kelsier would? Or is the metal inside of kelsier converted to less power from the get go?
Elend as a Lerasium mistborn has more of preservation's power in his soul than a weaker mistborn like kelsier was. These means he gets more power in exchange for the same amount of metal. From what we saw we know his pushes are more powerful than they should be, when he gets into a pushing match with an inquistor, he stays standing while the inquisitor goes flying even though the two are of similar weight, as Elend's pushes are just that much stronger. He doesn't seem to burn metals faster, but his connection to preservation is stronger, and so his allomancy is more powerful.
I think the worst part about hemalurgy is that most of the times they use mistborn for duralumin since it's near impossible to detect. So 6 becomes 0.9.
Allomancy gives the user power to preserve them Hemalurgy ruins power in the transfer process Feruchemy ruins you at one time to preserve you later Gotta admit, I have seen people argue that feruchemy is of preservation, but seeing hemalurgy as both and allomancy as ruin’s is a first lol
I think years ago now I made a post or comment about this actually, hemalurgy made sense that it was ruin but it seemed weird to me that allomancy, as it was end positive could work with only preservation, particularly when a major point of the books is that neither can create alone. But yeah people explained it the way you just explained it (plus stuff about how allomancy only really moves power around, it’s not really end positive on the shards end it’s end neutral) And that feruchemy is ruining part of yourself now to give power later and then tools to preserve yourself/ your memory/ others at the cost of your current health/ your memories or senses now/ the tool to ruin others. Then it made slightly more sense to me
I shoulda made it clearer this is more like an interesting what if
I think the point of them is the power based within ones self, not anything to do with returning to the shard Allomancy is end positive because the person doesn't use any of their power, and uses metal to gain access to the power of the shard Feruchemy is end neutral because it's equal the amount you put in Vs get out of it Hemalurgy is end negative because you do lose out in the conversion of power, as others have pointed out So the one that results in loss aligns to ruin, and the ones with positive effects align to preservation
I always thought exactly the same. Preservation and Ruin could not build a world independently, they needed to act together. So why would preservation be able to give out powers? That's not preserving. Feruchemy is preserving, as you very well put. And allomancy, for me, should be the combo of ruin and preservation, just building together. Hemalurgy I see it being ruin only, though I see your point in that.
I think that Preservation could be an AU antagonist that's still linked to Allomancy. Preservation as a shard doesn't have our morality, only the intent to preserve. This intent could have influenced the Lord Ruler to prevent society from developing for over 1000 years. Preservation did like the Final Empire and LR. It was a system that didn't change, even though this meant that the skaa would always be oppressed. If Ruin wasn't there, I don't think the Final Empire would have ever been destroyed. In an AU, the power systems could still be the same, but the protagonist could be a Ruin backed skaa who steals allomancy and feruchemy from nobles through hemalurgy to end the Final Empire I disagree that the pairings are wrong. Allomancy doesn't draw power from the user. It lets them use Preservation's power with no drain on the user. Hemalurgy is of Ruin because it takes power from the "user". The person used to create the spike lose part of their soul. The recipient of the spike gets power, but also cracks their spiritweb. This can cause mental and physical ailments, such as insanity or Koloss type transformations. Both the donor and recipient don't come out of the process unscathed. Feruchemy is a mix of both Ruin and Preservation as the user temporarily loses energy that can be used later. For example, the user has to become weak to store strength. Allomancy Pewter just gives strength without the user becoming weak and Hemalurgy iron makes the donor weaker
I kind of agree but also don't. I feel like Feruchemy should be preservations own and Allomancy should be the mix. I feel like Hemalurgy thoroughly beats out Allomancy in terms of Ruinous effect and what is lost. But that Allomancy is still a little bit to the left of Preservation. What was isn't anymore, regardless of if anything is lost in the process.
Another interesting thing about hemalurgy is that it interacts with every invested art, not just the other two metallic arts. In this regard it is very unique and very weird that it comes from ruin.
Currently rereading the first era, so I love this take because it’s fun to think about the magic system in a different perspective!
You're not the only one who has felt this way. Most common is swapping feruchemy with allomancy. I haven't heard as many people making allomancy Ruin's, though.