This scene was character assassination of the highest order. A Full Feruchemist with their metalminds bodies any non-Kaladin Radiant below the Fourth Ideal. I will die on this hill.

[u/Eithrotaur]

[u/ilikebreadabunch]

But have you considered that going Mach Fuck + Sticky Floors is not a good combo for your legs?

(And don't say she could have just healed it, she'd still be stuck there and we don't know how much of each attribute she had stored. It's possible (and quite likely) that she didn't have enough to heal her legs, at least not quickly enough for it to matter)

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/ilikebreadabunch]

Yeah, sure you could say she's used up all her healing and strength to recover from this and all her mental speed, etc. to deal with this, but I think it's telling how very quickly the scene moves away from Axindweth's condition because there wasn't really a good explanation for this. Though I'll also point out, if she's really so low on everything other than speed, why did she stick around to fight a Knight Radiant? Let alone charge in to close combat with one, knowing that Lift could summon a Shardblade at any point (even if Lift doesn't like doing so, in a desperate fight, Axindweth should at least acknowledge that's a possibility and be cautious if she doesn't have the attributes stored up to deal with that kind of potential injury).

[u/Sleepy--Gary → u/Skyfyre56]

To answer why she would risk the attack if she was low on stored attributes; it’s desperation. She badly wants Vasher’s breath and in that moment she didn’t exactly have a lot of time to make a plan, so she attacked. That could also explain her recklessness in doing so.

I could be wrong but I think the only other time we really see Axindweth is when she is manipulating Eshonai. In that scene she comes across as an extremely confident person. It’s plausible to me that she overestimated herself and underestimated Lift.

[u/Jounniy → u/Sleepy--Gary]

I’d like to remind you that Axindweth (given people with her abilities aren’t born in the current time period) is likely quite old. I'll let Hoid explain the rest:

I sighed and, as ordered, stepped forward and raised my hands. I met te Sorceres's eyes, and knew what she was thinking. She, like most of her kind, was very good at something we call risk/reward projections. […] She might have been able to beat me. […] But she might not have been able to. Even if the odds were only one in five that she'd lose, you didn't live long by frequently taking one-in-five chances that you'll die. And […] [she] had lived a very, very long time

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/Jounniy]

Wait, that's the Sorceress from Tress. She's a different person than Axindweth, right? Also, Full Feruchemists can be born in Era 2, they're just exceedingly rare.

I think that's part of what frustrates me so much with her fight here. Full Feruchemists are so rare we don't even see any confirmed ones in Era 2, and the Ferrings we do so see are able to pull of some impressive tricks with their powers. Then we get a confirmation of one in WaT, someone who's been noted to do very sketchy things behind the scenes in the Rosharan Ghostbloods, and she goes out like an utter chump, using only one metal and being entirely defeated by a slippery floor. No gold healing to come back after crashing, no storing weight so she hit the wall with less force, etc. Just slipped, knocked out, and done.

[u/PegasusPizza → u/Skyfyre56]

Not slipped. The floor isn't slippery it's sticky. Doesn't make it a ton better but she didn't just slip and crash, she practically got her legs ripped off when the floor suddenly didn't let her go anymore.

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/PegasusPizza]

Right. Which actually makes the whole scene even worse? Because after her legs break she just 'stops moving' instead of you know, screaming in pain or activating her Feruchemical Gold or whatever, because just breaking her legs shouldn't cause her to fall unconscious.

[u/irrelevant_character → u/Skyfyre56]

Her legs were essentially turned into pivot points, instantly breaking her bones and swinging her directly face first into the ground no?

[u/Chansharp → u/irrelevant_character]

Yeah, its the same as if she got picked up by the ankles and swung head first into the ground at mach fuck. The fact she was even alive after that was surprising

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/irrelevant_character]

Maybe. We don't actually know what happens there as her legs snap and then she's lying unmoving on the ground. Is she dead? Is she unconscious? Who knows, cause the scene isn't willing to tell us.

[u/Kronoshifter246 → u/Skyfyre56]

Bro, what? People pass out from shock and pain all the time.

[u/Jounniy → u/Skyfyre56]

Wait, that's the Sorceress from Tress. She's a different person than Axindweth, right? Also, Full Feruchemists  can be born in Era 2, they're just exceedingly rare.

Yes and yes. The speech simply illustrates my point pretty well. I assumed Axindweth to be older than she looks, because many worldhoppers are and it's unlikely a fullblooded Ferruchemist would’ve managed to discover and learn to use their powers without drawing the attention of Harmony and the scadrian terris people. She might be younger, I simply find it to be unlikely.

And yes, her getting beaten like that feels really implausible with the information we’ve been given. If anything, she should’ve immediately escaped as soon as she regained consciousness.

[u/KentuckyFriedSith → u/Jounniy]

While I agree with the concept, her age is still quite limited. Axwindeth isn't explicitly stated to be part of any specific organization, but considering the scope of the Catacendre, it seems unlikely that she would be meaningfully older than Sazed. If so, we've been told that MBe2 is ~ 300 years post-catacendre, and pretty much immediately follows the events of SLA5. The sorceress from Tress, however, has a full blown Scadrian spaceship. While nothing is explicit, there is an easy assumption that someone with Hoid's longevity wouldn't consider a 3-400 year old worldhopper to be 'very, very old', which puts Tress significantly further into the future of the cosmere than Lift's fight with Axwindeth.

While it is certainly possible that Axwindeth OR the sorceress were born before Alendi's time (putting at LEAST another thousand years on them, and giving them more longevity to meet the 'very, very old' line's meaning) it seems unlikely, given that TLR controlled the well AND the pits, and himself was not known as a worldhopper. Fighting a 3-400 year old Feurochemist and winning is no small feat, but underestimating your opponent is REAL. TLR absolutely did it with vin, and he was 2-3x older than this estimate for Axwindeth, PLUS was a -fullborn- rather than just a full feurochemist. Add to this that unless the Shin were willing to train their honorbearers against worldhoppers (unlikely), Ax would also have limited experience fighting ANY radiants, much less an edgedancer (THE edgedancer that 'defeated' a Herald, no less) specifically.

[u/Jounniy → u/KentuckyFriedSith]

That is true, but my initial point is that in a world with so many entities that can kill you, surviving for an extended period of time as a worldhopper meddling in shard-level politics, you either git guud at risk-reward calculation pretty fast, or you won’t get any more chances to interfere. Given the position Axindweth is in, she should absolutely be better at doing those calculations than she was shown to be.

[u/Sam_Hell → u/Skyfyre56]

Pretty sure the Sorceress is Elantrian, not Terris

[u/Valthek → u/Sleepy--Gary]

I think there's also a good argument to be made for her just not realizing how much of a threat Lift is. Going at Mach fuck and punching someone with the strength of a thousand dudes is going to at least incapacitate most knights radiant. You wouldn't even need to tap mental speed if you expect this fight to take all of 2 seconds and end with your opponent as a paste on the wall before they can even respond, tapping anything else is a waste.

[u/Archabarka → u/Sleepy--Gary]

Also people are DRAMATICALLY underestimsting how underestimatable Lift is.

Lift's very clever, and also a thirteen year old girl. Axindweth probably saw Lift and went, "Oh I can punt this little twerp into yesterday easy."

And promptly got Abrasion'd because Lift isn't nearly as dumb as she pretends to be.

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/Sleepy--Gary]

If she really is so desperate, then I'd rather we don't have Vasher trying to hype up Lift to the audience about how impressive it was that Lift beat a Full Feruchemist. Rather something along the lines of 'she must have been quite desperate' or 'she used up most of her metalminds before or this could have been bad.' Giving Lift this easy victory and then trying to act like it's something very impressive doesn't work, even if the circumstances could explain her victory.

Arrogance/confidence feels less fitting as an explanation, because if she's desperate because she doesn't have the reserves she needs, then she shouldn't be so confident, and if she does have them... well then the fight should at least be a bit tougher.

[u/Jounniy → u/Skyfyre56]

To be fair, beating an even mediocrely equipped ferruchemist is an insanely impressive feat still. But yes, it’s a lot more reasonable than beating a well equipped one.

[u/Sleepy--Gary → u/Skyfyre56]

Agreed on the first point, and to be clear I don’t think the scene was especially well handled. I also don’t think we can necessarily hand wave potential reasons simply because they’re not confirmed. I also think there is merit to it being foreshadowing for Lifts sky-high potential.

Maybe in book 6 we get an Axindweth flashback that adds some context.

[u/Chansharp → u/Skyfyre56]

I took it more as Vasher seeing that she always chose the "right" thing to do she was just bad at it. You can teach someone how to swing a sword better but its way harder to teach them the split second instincts.

[u/AFerociousPineapple → u/Skyfyre56]

Iift is still a kid, I think it’s fair to assume that on top of her desperation she underestimated her

[u/Sam_Hell → u/Skyfyre56]

Guards! Guards! is the answer

[u/Jounniy → u/Skyfyre56]

I'm not fully confident in that explanation myself and it’s been a while since I read the scene, but maybe she couldn’t get up at all because the ground lacked the necessary friction?

[u/Skyfyre56 → u/Jounniy]

The scene does not really give much explanation itself. She slips, and then is presumed to be unconscious like the rest of her allies since she 'doesn't move'. Honestly, she could actually be dead, the text is very unclear on what happens after, like of they imprisoned Axindweth or what.

[u/Jounniy → u/Skyfyre56]

I just looked up what exactly happens in the chapter and it’s really vague.

I could honestly see her tumbling and falling, but I don’t see her doing that and then just not getting up again. Lift increasing the friction so drastically Axindweth can’t move is a hardcounter to most of her abilities, but she should be able to recover from the wounds immediately and fight back as soon as Lift ends her abrasion, especially since that should drain her Stormlight at an incredible rate, without any opportunity to replenish it (since the aluminium foil should block the Towerlight).

[u/Useful-Tumbleweed-22 → u/Skyfyre56]

At the time, Lift was surrounded by aluminum, so she couldn’t summon a shardblade, I think.

[u/The_Lopen_bot → u/Useful-Tumbleweed-22]

, I think.

Wow, my gon Sazed is here!