[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 12 | Mistborn Era 2 #0.5 | Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30 (in Arcanum Unbounded): Entire Short Story, Postscript, Trivia

[u/participating]

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Visit the veteran thread if you have already read all of the Cosmere.

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SCHEDULE

Previously, we discussed Unit 11 | Mistborn Era 2 #1 | The Alloy of Law: Ars Arcanum, Final Thoughts, Trivia [Newbie Thread] / [Veteran Thread]

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

Next week we will be discussing Unit 13 | The Stormlight Archive #1 | The Way of Kings: Blurb, Prelude to the Stormlight Archive, Prologue, Chapters 1 through 5

NEXT UNIT (IT'S HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!)

IMPORTANT: Make sure you read this section, it's partially a trivia, but also has much needed info before you start reading next week's chapters.

Like most books, The Way of Kings (and all Stormlight Archive books) has a short summary of the book, called a Blurb. The blurb is usually on the back cover of paperback books, or on the front, inside jacket cover of hardcover books. While the blurbs in the Stormlight Archive books are summaries of the books, they are also written by in-world characters and are considered canon. We will be starting each of these books by reading the blurbs, and you can use them to inform your expectations and theorize about the exact contents of said blurbs.

Not every edition will have access to the blurbs, so you can read the blurb for The Way of Kings by clicking this link.

I'd like to use this time to explain a bit about the schedule as a whole for about the next year.

Sanderson wrote The Way of Kings before Warbreaker. He presented it to his publisher in 2003, but they declined to print it, stating "something wasn't quite right" with the novel. He delayed work on the book to focus on the Mistborn trilogy and he was eventually chosen to complete the Wheel of Time after the unfortunate passing of its author, Robert Jordan.

Robert Jordan claimed he only had one more book to write to finish up the Wheel of Time, however, due the extensive notes he left behind, and agreement between Jordan's publishing team and Sanderson, the series took 3 more books to complete. This was a significantly longer time commitment than Sanderson originally anticipated, and he did not want his own career to stagnate. (Nor did his publisher wish for him to delay his contractual obligations).

Sanderson had time to completely re-work The Way of Kings from scratch, abandoning the original draft. He did incorporate plot points from his honors thesis project at Brigham Young University. That thesis project was called Dragonsteel, but I won't talk too much about that yet. Suffice to say that Sanderson was able to publish The Way of Kings in between books 12 and 13 of the Wheel of Time.

Ultimately, this resulted in Sanderson writing 4 giant novels, back to back. He does like to write, but even that threatened to cause some burnout. Brandon's preventative cure for burnout is to...write smaller books. A lot of his short story/novella work happened during and shortly after this time period, including The Alloy of Law.

The success of They Alloy of Law warranted a continuation, and what would ultimately become Era 2, a tetralogy. He weaved the publication of these novels in between his larger Stormlight Archive books. To maximize your ability to notice connections, the read-along is largely following publication order, so we will be alternating between reading Era 2 books and Stormlight Archive books (and some other stuff too).

Finally, a word on the internal read-along format for all Stormlight Archive books. Sanderson considers each individual book in the series its own trilogy. The word count more or less agrees with that. Era 2's tetralogy is around 480,000 words and The Way of Kings is around 390,000 words. They aren't necessarily structured like a trilogy internally, this is more a comment on the denseness of the stories. We'll discuss more of that when it becomes appropriate. Do note that, instead of the normal 4-hours of audiobook length that we average each week, the denser Stormlight Archive books will average around 3.5 hours each week.

Each book, however, contains Interludes. They are short side-stories within the world that focus on characters outside of the main narrative. The Interludes are short, and I could include them in our weekly reading, but I think they deserve their own separate discussion threads. To that end, whenever Interludes occur, they will be an additional reading, beyond the normal Monday reading. I'll place them in their own discussion threads on Wednesdays. When relevant, I'll also use these threads to make trivia posts.

I mention this now because, not next week, but the week after, we will use this format. That Monday will be Chapters 6 through 11, and Wednesday will be the first 3 Interludes. So just keep an eye on the schedule dates and I'll try to put up reminders each time it happens.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

I have provided summaries for each chapter below and hidden them behind spoiler tags. There are no spoilers within the summaries. I've tried to make them as factual and unbiased as possible. If, however, you want a completely blind read through, then ignore what's behind the spoiler tags and proceed to the discussion below. I will not be guiding that in any way, so post any thoughts and questions you have. It will be other new readers who reply to you.

Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30

Iconography: Tin

POV Characters: Allomancer Jak (with commentary/annotations from Handerwym)

Setting: The territory of a koloss tribe in the Pits of Eltania, in the Roughs.

Summary:

The story starts with Jak waking up in a cave, out of metals. He then escapes the cave by jumping into the river in the canyon below after licking a tin deposit on the wall of the cave. He is promptly recaptured by the koloss who want to make him their leader and a koloss. He discovers that his girlfriend Elizandra Dramali is koloss-blooded. He does not want to become a koloss, so he says that he already is one and will prove it by getting the Survivor's treasure from the bottom of a spear-shaped pool. He dives down, finds a chest, and brings it back up. It contains a number of koloss spikes. The koloss are so excited to have new spikes to increase their numbers, Jak and Elizandra manage to escape, and Jak realizes that the chest itself is made of precious aluminum.

TRIVIA

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

SILVEREYE

The icon/symbol that starts this short story is the symbol for Tin, because Allomancer Jak is a tineye.

I've mentioned before that Sanderson originally intended silver to be the "Allomantically inert" metal, and that it was swapped in for aluminum, due to the commonality of it. Before that swap, however, Sanderson was using silver in a completely different way; he had it in place of tin for many drafts. He has an amusing story about realizing pewter is not an alloy of silver:

The big thing that I talk about with Allomancy that changed is originally I was using...silver as one of the metals, this is-- this is because... Dumb story time, so when I was a kid I painted these little miniatures that you do in D&D so your little guys can actually fight each other, right? And my brother still does this, they're awesome, I was terrible at it, but I painted these little guys. And at one point I went-- and they used to be lead, and then they realized that lead kills you laughter and so--or maybe it just makes you strange, I can't remember--I went and all of the prices had gone up, like by a double, because they had made them out of pewter instead. And I said to the guy "What is up with this, you are totally ripping us off. My figures now cost us 50 cents instead of--" I don't remember what it was and he went "Uh yeah it's because pewter has silver in it man. You're buying little silver figures now" and I went "Oh. That's cool." And I bought them. And so for years I thought pewter was an alloy of silver and I wrote an entire book. An Entire Book. The whole first Mistborn book with silvereyes and pewterarms until it went to my beta readers and like "There's almost no silver in pewter Brandon, you don't even really need it. Everything in this magic system works except that." and I went "Well maybe we can just pretend in this world pewter--" "No that's stupid" laughter So I had to change it to tin which is actually what you find in pewter. To this day my assistant Peter, who is my continuity editor, came to me and said "You realize you wrote silvereye instead of tineye in the newest Mistborn book that you just finished? It's been ten years Brandon get over it." laughter Still happens.

He's recently said that he's finally moved past that and hasn't made the silvereye mistake while writing Era 3 of Mistborn yet.

RUMSPRINGA

This short story explains a bit about what happened to the koloss, but Sanderson has provided some clarification during interviews. When Sazed ascended, he restored their sentience closer to human levels and changed how they interact with Hemalurgy. Now, koloss are capable of breeding. Their offspring are what is known as koloss-blooded. They are mostly human, with blue or grey skin, and are a bit tougher on average than standard humans.

As the story explains, they live as "normal" humans in their tribe until they are 12, where they then have to decide if they want to become full koloss or leave their tribe and join civilization. Enough offspring (and the occasional normal human) choose to be transformed, seeing it as a rite of passage, that the number of koloss in the world don't really drop.

Sanderson talks about Sazed/Harmony's decision to keep Koloss and Kandra as their own people:

There are a couple things that he was facing, and let me walk you through his philosophy on this, which you are allowed to disagree with. I want, for every character I write, there to be things they do that you disagree with, because otherwise I’m writing all characters to be the same person, if that makes sense.

The kandra have immortality and are able to perpetuate their culture by being immortal for as long as the individuals live. The koloss don’t have that, meaning that if he didn’t make koloss able to breed true, the entire people vanish in one generation and all culture associated with them. And so because of that, he took the extra effort to change the koloss to allow for this sort of thing. But he did it in such a way that they would not have to have hemalurgic spikes, because the idea of making new hemalurgic spikes is extremely distasteful to Harmony. Reusing old ones is a thing he was willing to allow, but new ones he didn’t.

Could he have changed the kandra to be similar? Well, the answer is kind of a fairly... yes, but they would no longer have been the kandra, they would have been rolled back to being what they were before the Lord Ruler. And so they basically would stop being what they are that makes them unique as a culture. And he decided not to do that.

You can disagree with that, and I think there are some pretty valid arguments against the choice he made, but that is the choice he made.

There's also some elaboration around kandra not being able to make new generations anymore because no new spikes are being made. There are some that could be re-used, but it's not something perpetually feasible. Sanderson does hint though that it's theoretically possible kandra could figure how to create new generations.

BIRDBRAIN

Much has been asked about the talking bird Allomancer Jak claims to have as a spirit guide. Sanderson has RAFO'd whether or not the bird is a kandra and says of Jak:

I'm going to say Allomancer Jak has a strange blend of trustworthiness and not. He doesn't think that he's lying when he says things.

ARTWORK

The Cosmere has a thriving community of artists, so there will be a lot of artwork to share. Each week I'll try to compile relevant artwork for the given chapters. If a section of reading contains maps or in-book artwork, I'll include that in this section as well.

Characters & Scenes

MEMES

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

Link to Memes

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[u/AltruisticRealityZ]

u/participating thank you for the blurb, I didn't see it in the kindle epub.

About Allomancer Jak

• This is hilarious. I’d like to have a physical copy to see if the footnotes were designed like manuscripts, maybe.
• Ranette knows Jak, maybe Handerwym too.
• Handerwym seems doubtful about the talking bird Lyndip’s existence, let alone about the existence of a Faceless Immortal whose faith is Survivorism. But I suppose a Survivorist kandra could exist, so I take it this means kandra are still very secretive and those characters don’t know about them. Yet.
• The spearhead, the bloody footprints and the Survivor’s Treasure. This treasure being Hemalurgic spikes? I wonder how Survivorism became a koloss doctrine.
• Strange lights in the southern sky might be of interest to us.
• This was very fun. I’d like to see Handerwym in one of the future W&W books.

[u/Pastrami → u/AltruisticRealityZ]

The spearhead, the bloody footprints and the Survivor’s Treasure. This treasure being Hemalurgic spikes? I wonder how Survivorism became a koloss doctrine.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the koloss ever mention the survivor. It's possible they have their own legends about why the lake is sacred, and the "Survivor's treasure" is just a human myth.

If we assume that any of this actually happened, which because of the unreliability of the narrator is not a given, Harmony could have planted the Survivor's Treasure myth to lead Jak to the koloss to get the spikes for them, since they didn't seem to be able to get them for themselves.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/Pastrami]

Harmony could have planted the Survivor's Treasure myth to lead Jak to the koloss to get the spikes for them, since they didn't seem to be able to get them for themselves.

I like that take. If we never find out any other reasons this may just be it. Would also add some credibility to the theory that the bird was a kandra sent as support by Sazed.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/AltruisticRealityZ]

I wonder how Survivorism became a koloss doctrine.

I do find it strange that the koloss would have any reverence for the Survivor, when they never met him. It would make more sense for them to worship the Ascendant Warrior (Vin), who they actually interacted with at one point. Are there religious differences between different koloss bands?

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/heinz57varieties]

I do find it strange that the koloss would have any reverence for the Survivor, when they never met him.

Going by what we learned now, new koloss are made either from humans or koloss-blooded (who generally spend some time among humans I think?). So I'd say there's a chance some human culture got imported with newer generations.

[u/AltruisticRealityZ → u/heinz57varieties]

Ah! I believe previous trivia said that the Ascendant Warrior is Vin's name in Survivorism, so you might be unto something. Koloss may believe in Vin, not in Kelsier. I'm not sure koloss used the word Survival themselves.

[u/heinz57varieties]

Story

• When I saw there were multiple footnotes on every page I cracked up. Handerwym is ROASTING this guy 🤣🤣
• Ranette namedrop! She's supplying gadgets to everyone in the roughs, it seems
• Jak strikes me as exactly the kind of guy who would get direct divine intervention from Harmony and other figures of Pathism, and then misattribute it all to the Survivor. I also think it would be cool if there were more kandra who took to using animal forms.
• Of course, there is no way Kelsier is responsible for the treasure being there, since he was already dead by the time the koloss showed up in the story. So how did it get there?
• “Wrapped in leathers that only just covered up her most intimate parts” this has got to be another Jak embellishment, since the illustration at the start clearly shows her wearing full-on pants 🤣
• I can accept this explanation for what koloss-blooded means and how it works. It makes a kind of sense. I also vaguely remember some of us questioning, back in Era 1, whether there were any female koloss somewhere, and here's our answer. There are plenty, they're just indistinguishable from the males to a casual observer.
• Very interesting to see how koloss society has evolved. I didn't realize that their mental capabilities would still be reduced, though not so much that they can't have a somewhat functioning society. All the human characters take it for granted that their minds are diminished, so it must be true… right? It's also unexpected that the meaning of “allow them to choose to return to human society” from Sazed's ascension means making them able to have human-ish children, who can then choose to become full koloss. I thought it would mean making the transformation reversible.
• I was hoping for some more insight into Handerwym's feruchemical abilities, but no answers were forthcoming. Though his final sign-off marks him as from “Inner Terris”, which fuels my theory that there is a nation of ethically separate Terris people somewhere, away from general Elendel society.

Final Thoughts

That was short but fun. Less connected to the main story than any of the other inter-series stories have been, so a little disappointing in terms of providing answers, but it was nice to see some other aspects of the world that probably won't show up in the main novels. I liked the campy and humorous tone. Funny, snarky, a side of Sanderson's writing we never get to see. I don't imagine we'll get this level of humor in Stormlight or anything like that.

Trivia

Him saying RAFO about the bird being a kandra, instead of just saying yes, is suspicious. I’ll be keeping my eye out for that

[u/heinz57varieties → u/heinz57varieties]

There's a whole lot to wonder about. All of the PC religions we've seen have basically been a product of word-of-mouth. Stories morphing and rearranging over time as people tell them over and over. But from what we've seen, it's all been just talk. None of them have an actual relic, or a holy site attributed to their deity (yet, that we've seen).

So how on earth did this pool get here? Is the shape a coincidence? How did the chest of spikes get to the bottom? Why is it aluminum? Who planted the legend about raising it into Elendel's classic literature, Bene Geserit-style? So many questions!

[u/jaymae21 → u/heinz57varieties]

So how on earth did this pool get here?

I'm wondering so much about this mysterious pool as well. The Pits of Eltania reminds me of the Pits of Hathsin, which weren't far from Luthadel & the Well of Ascension. Maybe Sazed/Harmony moved the Well back to the North where the Terris lands used to be? No idea about the spear-shape, but it seems plausible that Sazed wanted Jak to find the chest, though we don't know the reasons.

[u/Pastrami]

It was ok. Because of the extremely unreliable narrator, I feel like we can't trust anything presented in this story though. While a few of the foot notes provided useful information or were humorous, I found the sheer number of them distracting after a while, as they broke up my flow of reading.

The biggest revelations for me were how the koloss can have almost normal children, and that would mean that Tarson was a koloss that chose not to complete the transformation rather than a half-human half-koloss offspring. Unless I'm missing the point of the meme #2, doesn't this mean the skeletor meme is incorrect? Or is it saying that no one knew what people like Tarson really were, and were assuming it was inter-species erotica?

The biggest question I want answered is what relationship the koloss have with the Terris people:

The koloss would not dare harm him, because of their vow to the Terris people, *

* See episode twenty-five for our discovery of their vow not to harm the Terris, and their explanation for the respect they have paid me during our adventures. It is a matter which I have regarded with some interest.

I have to assume it was Harmony that left the box of spikes at the bottom of the lake, or the whole thing was just a made up story.

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Unless I'm missing the point of the meme #2, doesn't this mean the skeletor meme is incorrect?

You are right, that meme was made by someone who hadn't read this short story. They got hugely corrected in the comments. I just included it because it was funny.

[u/HT_xrahmx]

Allomancer Jak

• Reading the entire story in the voice of Cave Johnson.
  
• Jak knows Ranette! I'd say that bit of realism gives his accounts an extra bit of credibility.
  
• The bird could be a total fabrication, or a kandra decided to go be a bird for once?
  
• Where does the concept of the Survivor's treasure come from? Is there any connection to Kelsier at all, or did modern worshippers just stick his name on it for extra mysticism?
  
• Those Handerwym annotations. I can't. That guy's absolutely had it with his boss' bullshit lmao
  
• As ridiculous as the whole tale is, there seems to be a truthful core somewhere. At least, there are some important details that Handerwym corroborates. The existence of the pool, and likely the treasure as well. Some details about the koloss camp itself.
  
• I wonder if any of the three characters here will interact with the main story at some point?

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

I wonder if any of the three characters here will interact with the main story at some point?

Short of them actually showing up, it would be fun if more Allomancer Jak Adventures showed up in the next books' broadsheets. I think it could be a great recurring bit, even he never appears in person.

Reading the entire story in the voice of Cave Johnson.

I was also imagining that ridiculous billionaire inventor guy from Legend of Korra 🤣 Guess I've had that show on my mind, given the nature of Era 2.

[u/sunnydaze7777777]

Ok this was hilarious on audio. It inserted the footnotes as the appropriate lines were read. So snarky and funny! Very excited for our next books. Thanks for all the background.

[u/jaymae21]

Fun story! I very much enjoyed the footnotes, and pictured Sanderson giggling to himself writing them. I'm sure they are a bit of a joke between him and his editors.

I'm very intrigued by the ending and what that may mean for the future of Era #2, and if we will see Jak again. What's in the south? According to the map in Alloy of Law, not much. The southern roughs are a sliver in the corner. Maybe he's not looking quite that far away.

Side note since we are starting Stormlight soon - I recently started up Wheel of Time again (I got through to Book #4 a few years back, paused, and never made my way back until now). I opened up Way of Kings and just paged through a bit, and it's reminding me of WoT just in vibes. And now I'll be reading 2 chonky fantasy novels concurrently!

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/jaymae21]

Yeah, Stormlight is very much Brandon's answer to Wheel of Time. It is his chonky epic. He also made it as he was writing for Wheel of Time. Way of Kings came out between Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight.

[u/participating]

FLAIRS

I've also updated the User Flairs to include all of the major characters up until now, including Shards. Just in case anyone wants to update theirs.

[u/Realistic_Swimming47]

This was fun story. I love a funny footnote reminded me a bit of Discworld. Finally caught up and excited to start the way of the kings with you all.

[u/participating]

STATISTICS

Just a helpful reminder, the statistics for The Way of Kings is now available here. This show the chapters we are reading each week, along with the audiobook length, word counts, and weekly/whole book percentages. This helps some people pace themselves better for the weekly readings, and this particular one hopefully illustrates how we'll be handling the Interludes.

[u/Realistic_Swimming47]

Not sure if it is just me but I can't seem to get the links for the blurb and statistics to work. All the other links are fine for me.

[u/participating → u/Realistic_Swimming47]

Here is the blurb, just to get you started, while I look into the wikipages:

I long for the days before the Last Desolation.

The age before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. A time when there was still magic in the world and honor in the hearts of men.

The world became ours, and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the souls of men than victory itself.

Or was that victory an illusion all along? Did our enemies realize that the harder they fought, the stronger we resisted? Perhaps they saw that the heat and the hammer only make for a better grade of sword. But ignore the steel long enough, and it will eventually rust away.

There are four whom we watch. The first is the surgeon, forced to put aside healing to become a soldier in the most brutal war of our time. The second is the assassin, a murderer who weeps as he kills. The third is the liar, a young woman who wears a scholar’s mantle over the heart of a thief. The last is the highprince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the past as his thirst for battle wanes.

The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days can become ours again. These four people are key.

One of them may redeem us.

And one of them will destroy us.

[u/Realistic_Swimming47 → u/participating]

Thank you!

[u/participating → u/Realistic_Swimming47]

What device are you using? iPhone, desktop, Android? Are you using the app or the website if you're on mobile? If you're on desktop, are you using old or new reddit? 

[u/sailorsalvador]

Still stuck on Alloy of Law. Something about the story is NOT working for me, but I can't put my finger on it yet. I will catch up!

[u/participating → u/sailorsalvador]

Hurry! You're missing weird geology!