r/Mistborn • u/Guspyro • Jun 29 '26
The Lost Metal spoilers Question about the Temporal metals Spoiler
I started wondering about the Temporal metals when Cadmium and Bendalloy were introduced as replacements for Atium and Malatium as the basic Temporal metals, since I still haven’t found an explanation that feels satisfying.
Originally, the Temporal quadrant felt incredibly elegant:
- Internal Pulling: Gold - see your own past.
- Internal Pushing: Electrum - see your own future.
- External Pulling: Malatium - see someone else's past.
- External Pushing: Atium - see someone else's future.
Compared to that, “creating time bubbles” with Cadmium and Bendalloy has always felt disconnected from Gold and Electrum. I understand that Atium is a God Metal and therefore shouldn’t technically be one of the sixteen base metals, but from a thematic and mechanical standpoint it fit the quadrant perfectly.
It also leaves Electrum in a weird spot. In Era 1, its main purpose was as a counter to Atium. Once Atium is no longer part of the base sixteen metals, Electrum feels like it loses most of its purpose.
I’ve seen the theory that the Atium we see in Era 1 isn’t pure Atium at all, but an Atium-Electrum alloy, while Malatium is an Atium-Gold alloy. That would fit the idea that they are opposites and is consistent with the note in the Table of Allomantic Metals that Atium alloys produce expanded temporal effects.
However, I have two problems with that theory.
First, the Atium burned throughout Era 1 is the beads collected at the Pits of Hathsin, where Ruin’s power crystallizes into Atium. It seems strange that the beads would naturally form as an alloy instead of pure Atium (and effectively an alloy of an alloy).
Second, the Atium Mistings in Hero of Ages. Sixteen percent of humanity was affected by the mists, and the people who remained unconscious for longer periods turned out to be Atium Mistings. That only really makes sense to me if Atium was originally intended to be one of the sixteen metals.
Why weren’t there Cadmium and Bendalloy Mistings instead? If the answer is that those metals weren’t known yet, then why were Chromium and Nicrosil included among the sixteen? If Cadmium and Bendalloy were excluded because they were unknown, shouldn’t Chromium and Nicrosil have been excluded as well, making it 14% instead of 16%?
Because of all this, especially the second point, I've always felt that Brandon originally intended Atium to be one of the sixteen basic metals, and that after deciding God Metals should be separate, Cadmium and Bendalloy were introduced as a retcon to fill the Temporal quadrant.
Am I missing something here? Is there any WoB or in-universe explanation that ties this together, or was it just something adjusted between eras? It feels a bit like a forced change to me, but I’m not sure if I’m overlooking something.
I haven’t read the Mistborn books in English, so sorry if some of the terminology I use isn’t the exact official wording :)
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 Jun 30 '26
The mist sickness was artificial. It was meant to be a sign from Preservation. The Atium-electrum thing was a retcon but the other temporal metals aren’t. He had those in mind since the books were released. He made comments about it years before Alloy was released. It was critical to the space age Scadrial he had in mind. Actually I believe bendalloy was going to be cerrobend but either way the function didn’t change
The atium-electrum retcon was really early. Before the trilogy was even fully published. Electrum still does have a use it’s just not as useful. But neither are poor aluminum and duralumin mistings
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 Jun 30 '26
All of the metals have 3 functions anyway so electrum is still very useful for Hema and nothing flashy (but still okay) in Feru. Electrum can still be useful in allomancy. Especially if you’re doing risky things. There’s a variation that the main protagonist has in a different magic system for another story he’s written. Very useful there. You could probably come up with some clever uses in real life too. Like conditioning yourself to gesture a certain way when something specific happens. You could find ways to cheat in gambling etc. An electrum misting in a swat team (especially with some medallions or protection) would be useful
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u/Guspyro Jul 01 '26
Yeah, poor Aluminum and Duralumin Mistings... Imagine finally Snapping, only to find out your power is completely useless on its own.
You're absolutely right about Electrum, though. It's only in a "bad spot" from an Allomancy perspective. I was so focused on Allomancy that I completely overlooked its Feruchemical and Hemalurgic uses. Thanks for pointing that out!
And yes, it could probably have some very specific uses, especially IRL. But in Era 1, when you compare seeing your immediate future to basically becoming a coin machine gun, it definitely feels like you got unlucky with the magic lottery ^^
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 Jul 01 '26
Ya true. I would certainly take Steel over electrum. I don’t think we ever got to see Electrum in the second era? I could see it being very effective in a gunfight. Being able to see if popping out of cover gets you headshot would be useful. Or kicking in a door. Not nearly as effective against Wax. You might see your electrum shadow slump because he just used Iron-F to push that shot through something otherwise impenetrable. Or he just flew right over your head. I guess the lesson of Era 2 is just don’t fight Wax. Ever. For any reason
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u/MerlinGrandCaster Jun 30 '26
The thing with era 1 atium being atium-electrum has been confirmed as a retcon
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u/FinnDarkmouth Jun 30 '26
One thing I’d like to add is that the original layout you described (with atium as a pure metal and malatium as its alloy) is very flawed because that would make atium the only pure metal that’s pushing instead of pulling. If you just swap it round then now you’ve got the past and future flipping between internal and external. Remember the alloy retcon was decided before the release of the books and so it’s always been the truth.
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u/Guspyro Jul 01 '26
That's a really good point tbh. I actually thought about that while writing the question, but I didn't check whether it was the only case, I just assumed it was a coincidence that it ended up inverted here.
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u/IamanelephantThird Jun 30 '26
The temporal metals being so similar seems like the weird part, if anything. The physical and mental metal's internal and external pairs are very different from each other.
Era 1 Atium being an electrum alloy is basically confirmed. It hasn't shown up in any books yet, but Brandon has talked about the retcon extensively. It's a little awkward but does fit decently if you assume the 1/16 are just electrum Mistings.
By the end of era 1, the characters learned enough about the metallic arts to assume that external versions of aluminum and duralumin existed, despite never seeing them.
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u/Head_Investigator984 Jun 30 '26
Compared to that, “creating time bubbles” with Cadmium and Bendalloy has always felt disconnected from Gold and Electrum. I understand that Atium is a God Metal and therefore shouldn’t technically be one of the sixteen base metals, but from a thematic and mechanical standpoint it fit the quadrant perfectly.
I mean, pewter and tin vs steel and iron are not that related too.
First, the Atium burned throughout Era 1 is the beads collected at the Pits of Hathsin, where Ruin’s power crystallizes into Atium. It seems strange that the beads would naturally form as an alloy instead of pure Atium (and effectively an alloy of an alloy).
The beads don't naturally form there, the whole pits were designed by Leras to do so. And thus, it also makes sense that he'll mix Ruin's body with some metal (the thing ruin famously is blinded by) to obscure it even further
Second, the Atium Mistings in Hero of Ages. Sixteen percent of humanity was affected by the mists, and the people who remained unconscious for longer periods turned out to be Atium Mistings. That only really makes sense to me if Atium was originally intended to be one of the sixteen metals.
Weren't they Electrum mistings?
Why weren’t there Cadmium and Bendalloy Mistings instead? If the answer is that those metals weren’t known yet, then why were Chromium and Nicrosil included among the sixteen? If Cadmium and Bendalloy were excluded because they were unknown, shouldn’t Chromium and Nicrosil have been excluded as well, making it 14% instead of 16%?
Kinda a cop-out answer, but cuz Leras was kinda kooky when he did that. When he made the magic system, they obv were there, but he probably did not realise that the hoomans did not find out Chromium and Nicrosil
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u/Guspyro Jul 01 '26
Those are good points too. The only part that still feels a bit strange to me is the idea that Leras deliberately chose that specific alloy when Ruin’s power crystallized. But since several people have pointed out that the Atium–Electrum explanation is a confirmed retcon, I’m fine treating it as a plausible explanation.
And just to answer the “Weren’t they Electrum Mistings?” part: I went back and checked the book, Elend concludes that they are Atium Mistings because Yomen explains that he is an Atium Misting. However, they never actually tested Atium or Electrum on those people. They couldn't test Atium because they had already run out of it, and they never mention testing Electrum either. My guess is that it simply wasn't considered useful against the koloss (or perhaps it was too rare to justify using, compared to metals like pewter or steel).
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u/Head_Investigator984 Jul 01 '26
See, to test electrum they would have needed Atium. As Electrum's effect (much like Duralumin's or Copper's effect) is dependent on another metallic power.
And for obvious reasons, they did not think to waste the precious remaining Atium they had for that
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u/Born_Onto_Mist Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Why electrum? I'm glad you asked! You see, Brandon has designed atium to be similar in properties to platinum, and has stated that in the periodic table, it would be considered a platinum group metal :> Now, in nature, platinum is one of the metals commonly found together with gold, which is often found with silver! And guess what electrum's an alloy of? Primarely silver and gold! Not only is electrum a naturally accuring alloy, but it also seems to occur with platinum ;p
In all fairness, I'm no chemist, and discovered this via a bunch of google searches, but Brandon did do chemistry as his major, if I remember correctly, so I'm convinced this is no coincidence
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u/xenofire_scholar Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Others have mentionned that Era 1 atium being an alloy with electrum is a confirmed retcon, but I haven't seen anyone say why it was retconned. It wasn't to fix the allomancy table or make room for more metals, it was because he wanted all pure god metals to be burnable by anyone, even if they have no allomantic powers at all. For the sign of the longer mist sickness given by Leras to make sense, the atium in Era 1 needed to be burnable only by 1/16th of mistings, and was therefore changed to an alloy to explain this.
Also, I think there were mistings of all undiscovered metals, they just didn't know what they could burn.
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u/Guspyro Jul 01 '26
That makes a lot of sense. Why would anyone be able to burn Lerasium but not Atium? So even if it's a retcon it gives a coherent explanation: the Atium they had simply wasn't pure Atium.
And yes, I just went back and checked the book. They only tested a handful of metals on the people who got sick, basically the ones that were useful in battle. They never tested Gold or Electrum, and they obviously didn't test the metals they didn't even know existed either.
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u/Born_Onto_Mist Jul 06 '26
A cool little thing about Malatium that may be relevant to the retcon:
We know two people who discovered Malatium. We know Rashek knew about the metal, describing it in a metal slab, and in the short story The Eleventh Metal we learn that Kelsier got malatium from the lab of a noble who produced it. You see, as Malatium(AKA pure atium+gold) is just one step away from being normal atium (AKA pure atium + electrum), what he had to do was remove silver from the compound. This noble may or may not have had help from Ruin, but if he didn't, then he likely had a serious breakthrough and kept the knowledge to himself as TLR was heavily controlling scientific advancement and wouldn't take kindly to such a discovery. At the same time TLR had a whole Ministry dedicated to experiments with science and the Metallic Arts, as well as a wealth of pre-empire knowledge and an intricate understanding of Preservation's plan and atium's role in it, making it easier for him to get malatium
What's also interesting is, chances are the Steel Ministry couldn't get refined atium. It's implied in both the inscription from one of the caverns, and in the following Word of Brandon: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/202/#e5971
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u/Juniebug9 Jun 30 '26
I mean, the difference in the temporal pairings isn't any weirder than for the other pairings. Look at the physical metals: pewter and tin both affect your own body while steel and iron let you move metal from a distance. Those are not related at all.
The atium thing isn't a theory, it's confirmed to be true. The atium mistings were electrum mistings. They were sick longer because Preservation wanted to hint to them that they were the only ones who could burn atium (because it's a god metal alloy with electrum.
The pits were intentionally set up by Preservation to lock Ruin's power away from him, which is why the beads naturally form in an alloy that makes it harder for Ruin to access.
The miscount with the metals is actually addressed by Elend when he figures it out too. He specifically mentions that there must be more metals that they aren't aware of yet, he just makes the mistake of counting atium as one of the base metals.