[OB] Does anyone else think that the magic system of the Stormlight Archive is vastly superior to that of Mistborn?

[ICanDream]

I see so many posts stating that Mistborn has the best magic system. This is something I flat out disagree with. The magic of Stormlight has layers, Ideals and intricacies while Mistborn’s magic system is just a bad diet. I don’t dislike Mistborn - far from it - I just think that compared to Stormlight, it falls flat in all areas, including magic systems.

[Yata he/him]

Probably it's mostly matter of view.

For example I see the Metallic Arts as more interesting than Rosharan Magics. I like them both but the Rosharan ones are really loosely in the effects they have.

Adding elements doesn't imply a better product, personally I prefer to see magic works with clear elements and see them used in originally way rather than having tons of them popped up around for every circumstances.
Some  could disagree with me, others will agree with me...It's mostly matter of taste and perception ;-)

[Calderis he/him]

It depends on what you like/want from the magic system. 

I like both for different reasons. For craziness and power Stormlight is definitely superior. It's got so much to it that we don't understand and it's just ridiculously powerful. 

Mistborn is much better understood. We know, other than the limits of hemalurgy, and the functions of a few feruchemical metals, what it does and what it's capable of it has hard limits and can be manipulated in ways that are easily understood and quantified.

At least until we understand the rules and limits of surgebinding better, the Metallic Arts are the better defined magic system. And that's what a lot of people like about Brandon's magic to being with, so that's probably where you're getting that vibe from. 

Personally, I like Stormlight more as a story, but if we go just by the magic, I'd go with Mistborn. That may change once we learn more about surgebinding. 

[Sirscott13 he/him]

Surgebinding has a lot of potential mostly through the use of the access to storm light. Mistborns are as powerful as their heritage and line to that first bead of lerasium. But if you want to talk raw power, let’s discuss a knight radiant with an honor blade separate from their own power set. Now take a mistborn feruchemist. I’d argue the full born mistborn feruchemist is far more powerful than the knight radiant with an honor blade. 

However let us then assume it’s kaladin (book 3) vs Vin. At first you might argue that Kaladin is more powerful, and to an extent you would be right, but only because of his access to a Shardblade and stormlight. A mistborn like vin is very lethal but can’t do much to kaladin if he can heal right away where as a shardblade can permanately hurt a mistborn. I think that Mistborns have a greater spread of powers though that go beyond combat

[Song she/her]

I like the Mistborn magic, I love Stormlight. Mistborn is more "Oh, that is really cool"., where as S.A. managed to find the perfect blend of the system that makes sense and yet carried a huge wow factor. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Surgebinding is awesome if you want an epic, badass, super cool magic system. You go with that if you want flat out amazing stuff.

Mistborn is better for analyzing, and discussing. It is more scientific. As a lot of others have said, they speak to different groups of people.

[ICanDream]

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I do understand why people like the Mistborn magic system. I concede that the magic system is more than “a bad diet” but it seems comparable to something I would dream up, whereas the Stormlight magic is something truly out of this world. 

Then again, sometimes simple is better. You only need to look to the Powder Mage trilogy to realise that this is the case.

[Patrick Star]

This may be weird to some other people, but I hate magic systems that are dependent on bloodlines (with the exception of stuff like vampire/blood magic, since the blood IS the magic).  As such, a large part of Mistborn's magic system just never resonated with me.

What I love about Surgebinding isn't so much that the magic itself is cooler or more powerful than that of Mistborn, but how the magic system is oath-based and is tied more strongly to how the characters act, rather than who the characters are.  Basically, allomancy/feruchemy are dependent on WHO you are, while surgebinding is dependent on who you ARE, if that makes sense.

[StormingTexan he/him]

I pretty much agree with everything @Calderis said. The big difference is we really understand Mistborn magic and still have a lot to learn about Stormlight magic. I actually like the magic in Warbreaker over the both of them but I am probably in the minority there. I also somewhat agree with @Patrick Star that magic systems are better when they are not inherited. Of course with Hemalurgy and what the Southern Scadrians are doing there is still some non-inherited magic in Mistborn. I agree with the general sentiment though that magic is better when people have the ability to gin it beyond being born with it. 

[MonsterMetroid]

51 minutes ago, Sirscott13 said:

A mistborn like vin is very lethal but can’t do much to kaladin if he can heal right away where as a shardblade can permanately hurt a mistborn.

I was actually thinking about this the other day and I'm not sure if a shardblade could hurt a mistborn if they were burning the right metals. If they were burning aluminum or perhaps even pewter the investiture in their bodies might deflect a blade not sure though.

But over all We have had much deeper access to the mistborn power set in both cosmere novels and in additional materials. This has helped us establish a ruleset to live by in mistborn. Eventually the same will be true with SA and teasing out the rules is what excites me because I know there are hints here and there of the relationships and of things to come.

For example before era 2 we knew a lot less about compounding and many feruchemical powers but many of those mysteries have been solved with enough new mysteries that it is still interesting. Now with those additional rules it becomes obvious why the LR was so powerful.

So I'm not sure If i would say one is superior to the other... they are just different and have different parts that need to to still be revealed. 

[Vortaan he/him]

26 minutes ago, MonsterMetroid said:

I was actually thinking about this the other day and I'm not sure if a shardblade could hurt a mistborn if they were burning the right metals. If they were burning aluminum or perhaps even pewter the investiture in their bodies might deflect a blade not sure though.

But over all We have had much deeper access to the mistborn power set in both cosmere novels and in additional materials. This has helped us establish a ruleset to live by in mistborn. Eventually the same will be true with SA and teasing out the rules is what excites me because I know there are hints here and there of the relationships and of things to come.

For example before era 2 we knew a lot less about compounding and many feruchemical powers but many of those mysteries have been solved with enough new mysteries that it is still interesting. Now with those additional rules it becomes obvious why the LR was so powerful.

So I'm not sure If i would say one is superior to the other... they are just different and have different parts that need to to still be revealed. 

No amount of burning is going to stop a Shardblade from cutting through a person. You'd need to be like...I don't even know. Beyond Returned levels of Invested. Maybe a twinborn could manage it, but a normal Allomancer, I find it on the far side of remote.

[Nymeros]

Absolutely....like, its not even remotely close. 

It's literally people bending to their will the fundamental forces that shaped the universe; that is the coolest idea for a manic system ever and it works!

It manages to be structured and surprising and mysterious all at once and its awesome how the scope and nature of the powers evolve as the characters and the story evolve. The fact that each Surge has a spiritual and physical component and the potential for combos and resonances just adds more depth. Even the term "Immortal Words" is awesome!

7 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Surgebinding is awesome if you want an epic, badass, super cool magic system. You go with that if you want flat out amazing stuff.

Mistborn is better for analyzing, and discussing. It is more scientific. As a lot of others have said, they speak to different groups of people.

Also that^

Edited January 10, 2018 by Nymeros

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

I personally like Stormlight the best. The visual presentation of the magic is amazing. A luminescent form of power, captured in a multi-colored assortment of gems that gets breathed in before it's utilized is one of the coolest visualizations of magc that exists in all of creative thought. The fact that KRs who are charged with stormlight glow and have wisps of stormlight that trails out of their bodies like curling smoke, and that something as mundane as an exhalation produces a puff of luminescent fog is freaking amazing.

The lashing system of the Windrunners/Skybreakers is amazing. It's the mixture of hard science/magic that Brandon does better than any other writer around. But Brandon's magic systems work best when all of the limitations are known, like they are currently known for the Metallic arts. Once more of the boundaries of Surgebinding are defined, and he can begin pushing the envelope of creative application against those known boundaries, I think it will be apparent that Surgebinding is his master work of Magic.

The metallic arts currently have the advantage of 3.5 books of additional content where these boundaries have been explored and pushed against, but I think by the time book 10 of SLA is done, surgebinding/voidbinding/the Old Magic will be the highest bar in the Cosmere for amazing magic systems.

I am very partial to the awakening magic of Warbreaker, and I think this might be my second favorite magic system after Nightblood (warbreaker 2) comes out.

Edited January 10, 2018 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine

[Andy92]

8 hours ago, Patrick Star said:

This may be weird to some other people, but I hate magic systems that are dependent on bloodlines (with the exception of stuff like vampire/blood magic, since the blood IS the magic).  As such, a large part of Mistborn's magic system just never resonated with me.

There's some stuff about this in the Mistborn annotations (I think The Alloy of Law ones) where Brandon talks about making Mistborn hereditary because he wanted to play around with the idea of "super-human races" similar to how cultures like Hitler's Germany viewed themselves. The spark for it was mainly asking, "how would people act if there actually was concrete evidence that some bloodlines had super powers that others didn't?" And it's obviously a flawed way of thinking one culture/race/nationality is better than another, so he used the hereditary magic system to explore the struggles of that concept especially seen in dictatorships.

None of this was to argue against your point by the way, just thought I'd chime in with some other insight on it. 

[Wandering Investor]

I feel like all of the metallic arts should be included in the comparison. Allomancy and Furechemy combined would destroy any radiant due to compounding and pulling directly from Preservation instead of whatever stormlight is around. Include Heruchemy and you have your complexity. That said, I think both magic systems are great, precisely because of the different feel that each one has. 

[Leyrann]

9 hours ago, Andy92 said:

There's some stuff about this in the Mistborn annotations (I think The Alloy of Law ones) where Brandon talks about making Mistborn hereditary because he wanted to play around with the idea of "super-human races" similar to how cultures like Hitler's Germany viewed themselves. The spark for it was mainly asking, "how would people act if there actually was concrete evidence that some bloodlines had super powers that others didn't?" And it's obviously a flawed way of thinking one culture/race/nationality is better than another, so he used the hereditary magic system to explore the struggles of that concept especially seen in dictatorships.

None of this was to argue against your point by the way, just thought I'd chime in with some other insight on it. 

Well... I guess that's something we might get to see in MB3 then, considering the Set seems to currently be breeding such a master race...

(I doubt it's gonna fit into MB4, as that's gonna be the Cosmere finale)

[Zalocx he/him]

On 1/9/2018 at 6:22 PM, Vortaan said:

No amount of burning is going to stop a Shardblade from cutting through a person. You'd need to be like...I don't even know. Beyond Returned levels of Invested. Maybe a twinborn could manage it, but a normal Allomancer, I find it on the far side of remote.

I agree. Remember that Shardblades have no problem cutting through Void binding Fused or Thunderclasts, beings that are WAAY more invested than any Metalborn burning or tapping anything. In fact I'd argue even the argument that Kandra or Inquisitors can get an edge if they deflect the Blade off their spikes is flawed. Shardplate basically exists to be magical power armor and even it cracks and shatters after 3-4 solid blows by a Blade, and a spike is not designed to be a defensive impliment. Best case scenario is that hitting a spike deflects the blade once, but even that would utterly ruin (no pun intended) the spike in question with goodness knows how much damage, possibly similar to how players cracks before breaking. To the point where the poor Kandra or Inquisitor would probably wish they were dead if that spike happened to be one of the critical ones. 

[Michael Portz he/him]

I agree with those of you, who point out that we are not even close to getting the whole picture of what surgebinding can do. 

Alas -or ... not- I am quite sure, that before we actually do get the whole picture, hemalurgy will play an important role on Roshar, so we wont ever get an unspoiled picture 

[Calderis he/him]

23 minutes ago, Michael Portz said:

I agree with those of you, who point out that we are not even close to getting the whole picture of what surgebinding can do. 

Alas -or ... not- I am quite sure, that before we actually do get the whole picture, hemalurgy will play an important role on Roshar, so we wont ever get an unspoiled picture 

Except SA is focused on Roshar and it's magic, and with Warbreaker as an unrequired prequel. 

We've seen hints of Awakening (and Hoid using it once). Hemalurgy may be hinted at in the same way that Allomancy has been, but I doubt it will ever have a major role in SA. 

[Blazenella he/him]

23 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

I feel like all of the metallic arts should be included in the comparison. Allomancy and Furechemy combined would destroy any radiant due to compounding and pulling directly from Preservation instead of whatever stormlight is around. Include Heruchemy and you have your complexity. That said, I think both magic systems are great, precisely because of the different feel that each one has. 

Ahem...

I believe that a Fullborn vs. a KR would be a great fight, and I agree a Fullborn would win against what we've seen now.

But not against a 5th Ideal Radiant.

We've seen some HUGE boosts of power from the ideals, Dalinar now being able to summon a perpendicularity at Oath 3 (Grantedhe is a special case), and Kaladin possibly controlling wind

As for the direct connection to Preservation (Harmony now), Stormlight is quite literally power derived from Honor's perpendicularity riding around in an enormous storm, it's not some random power.

Also...

It's Hemalurgy not Heruchemy

Edited January 11, 2018 by Blazenella

[Michael Portz he/him]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Except SA is focused on Roshar and it's magic, and with Warbreaker as an unrequired prequel. 

You might be right for the next one or two books, aka the first half of SA, but with the amount of worldhopping going on in SA many magic systems will be openly seen. SA in its outlined form will be the main cosmeric opus. Imho that actually means, that there will be a confluence of shards and magic systems. And Hemalurgy is the one magic system which can actually enhance one magic system by mixing it with another one, i.e. thus make it more powerful.

Sidenote: Of course on the surface nobody needs to have read Warbreaker, but knowing what Nightblood can do does influence ones view of what is actually going on and what dangers are lurking.

[Wandering Investor]

7 minutes ago, Blazenella said:

Ahem...

I believe that a Fullborn vs. a KR would be a great fight, and I agree a Fullborn would win against what we've seen now.

But not against a 5th Ideal Radiant.

We've seen some HUGE boosts of power from the ideals, Dalinar now being able to summon a perpendicularity at Oath 3 (Grantedhe is a special case), and Kaladin possibly controlling wind

As for the direct connection to Preservation (Harmony now), Stormlight is quite literally power derived from Honor's perpendicularity riding around in an enormous storm, it's not some random power.

Also...

It's Hemalurgy not Heruchemy

A fullborn would be capable of moving faster than then KR could even see, and could keep it up basically forever. That's pretty hard to fight against. There's also some mention, I think from Peter I'll have to track that WoB down, that KR can only heal so much and a fully crushed head might overwhelm their healing, which a Fullborn is capable of.

Additionally, I was referring to how the stormlight is separate from the source. It does originate from Honor, but its separated after being released from the storm. Once its gone, you have to wait for another Hightstorm. Allomancy on the other hand is at all times powered directly by Preservation.

[Calderis he/him]

A Fullborn would stomp a Radiant. Hands down. 

A Fullborn can only be countered by another Fullborn, or a Shard.

@Michael Portz the gap between 5 and 6 is 10 to 15 years. I don't think worldhopping is going to dramatically increase beyond what we've seen in that time span. The level of interconnection should remain just as subtle as it is now. 

Edited January 11, 2018 by Calderis

[Blazenella he/him]

25 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

A fullborn would be capable of moving faster than then KR could even see, and could keep it up basically forever. That's pretty hard to fight against. There's also some mention, I think from Peter I'll have to track that WoB down, that KR can only heal so much and a fully crushed head might overwhelm their healing, which a Fullborn is capable of.

Additionally, I was referring to how the stormlight is separate from the source. It does originate from Honor, but its separated after being released from the storm. Once its gone, you have to wait for another Hightstorm. Allomancy on the other hand is at all times powered directly by Preservation.

With regards to the healing, there's Regrowth. We saw Renarin get CRUSHED by a Thunderclast, and brush it off like nothing happened. There's also Radiant shardplate, which we don't know the exact details about, but any attacks from a Fullborn would damage the plate but probably break the blade they were using. Shardplate is also heavily invested, so they couldn't really be affected by some of their attacks. There is also things like Soulcasting which can WRECK even Invested beings. Just look at Jasnah fighting the Fused, it's ridiculous. A Windrunner with enough Stormlight can just wait in the sky, and they can also CREATE GOD damnation VACCUMS to suffocate the Fullborn. A Willshaper/Stoneward could melt the floor and trap the Fullborn.

It would be a close fight, and would depend on the Order as well as the persons personal skill.

If you think I'm wrong, then think I'm wrong. I agree in most circumstances a Fullborn would win, but if a Radiant knew what to expect they might stand a chance.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Blazenella

[Calderis he/him]

@Blazenella

Ok. Here we go. Mistborn spoilers. 

Spoiler

Steel compounding means moving fast enough to not be seen, so plate is pointless as you can just walk up and stab through the eyeslit. 

Breath is a compoundable attribute. And even without it, compounded gold would heal any damage done to loss of oxygen. 

Both the plate and blade can be pushed, there's just investiture resistance, and with nicrosil compounding, a Fullborn could increase the strength of their steel Allomancy to make it a non issue.

With strength, speed, and healing, all a Fullborn has to do is get close, break the plate, and use Chromium Allomancy to leech the Radiant of investiture. Then no healing, and dead. All while their gold keeps them from being harmed. 

It's not a contest.