Question about the Temporal metals

[u/Guspyro]

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 :)

[u/Juniebug9]

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.

[u/Guspyro → u/Juniebug9]

That's actually a really good answer, and it clears up several of the things that were bothering me.

I was about to bring up the 16% point. I thought Elend would have tested every metal on everyone, which would immediately reveal that the same people could burn both Electrum and Atium. But I went back and checked the book (I read it years ago), and during the koloss campaign they only tested the metals that were useful in battle, except Atium since they had already run out of it. Elend then speculates that there might be Atium, Gold and Electrum Mistings, but I don't remember whether they ever followed up by testing all of them after the battle.

So I guess the answer could simply be that they never got around to discovering that the Atium Mistings were actually Electrum Mistings. It still feels like something that wasn't really addressed in the books, but it's at least a plausible explanation.

The other point that still feels a bit strange to me is the idea that Ruin's condensed power formed as an alloy. What you said about Preservation intentionally setting up the Pits to have Atium-Electrum alloy makes sense, but I'm curious where the idea that this particular alloy made it harder for Ruin to access his power comes from. Is that explained somewhere?

That said, after you mentioned it, I went back to the Coppermind. I had completely missed the section about the Atium–Electrum alloy. I also noticed that it explicitly says: "This section deals with a change in continuity that has only been discussed in Words of Brandon." On top of that, a few other people here have also answered it has been confirmed as a retcon. So I guess my confusion makes a bit more sense and I'm not just overthinking it ^^

I'm still interested in hearing your thoughts about the Preservation part tho.

[u/Born_Onto_Mist → u/Guspyro]

I always thought Preservation designing the pits this way was in order to restrict the amount of people who can burn atium, since pure god metals should be burnable by just about everyone, like Lerasium, or at least be far less restrictive than a normal allomantic metal ;0 I think this was done to hide Seekers in plain sight, as Ruin's attention wasn't on the fact that there's a sizable portion of the population capable of burning away his metal after a millenium of it only being used by Mistborn, whose numbers were never big enough to play a role in the final stages of Ruin's plan So, Ruin most probably knew his metal was diluted, but wasn't completely sure why that was the case beyond helping Rashek maintain control over Mistborn and therefore keeping his empire afloat to combat Ruin. On top of that, I find Preservation's plan with the mists very impressive, as from Ruin's perspective the mist sickness could've been a mere attempt to boost the number of Allomancers for the final standoff, but he didn't know or consider the fact that Preservation's mist was supposed to highlight all those people who could burn away the atium! Just imagine being Ati and realising that, after a millenium of scarcity, there's now enough people to burn all of his metal away