Elend could have delayed a lot longer (Hero of Ages Spoilers)

[AirsickAviar he/him]

He went out against a force all spread out because he wanted a glorious charge or something, lol. The atium is super valuable, allowing men to be practically untouched until it runs out. They had four entrances. 300 men with it... It seems to me the thing to do is to have squads of 20 or even 40 depending on entrance size to fight. This allows squads to move back when tired to rest and a fresh squad to move up. They had to come to them, plus huge bodies would end up creating even narrower confines soon enough. If they ever became too much a nuisance, another squad could be assigned to pull bodies past a certain point down the caverns.

 

It seems to me 300 atium burners would be able to do this for a very long time, probably days before it ran out. Instead elend just rushes out forcing them all to burn it all at a quicker, less efficient pace. Heh

Edited August 1, 2023 by AirsickAviar

[NameIess]

4 minutes ago, AirsickAviar said:

He went out against a force all spread out because he wanted a glorious charge or something, lol. The atium is super valuable, allowing men to be practically untouched until it runs out. They had four entrances. 300 men with it... It seems to me the thing to do is to have squads of 20 or even 40 depending on entrance size to fight. This allows squads to move back when tired to rest and a fresh squad to move up. They had to come to them, plus huge bodies would end up creating even narrower confines soon enough. If they ever became too much a nuisance, another squad could be assigned to pull bodies past a certain point down the caverns.

 

It seems to me 300 atium burners would be able to do this for a very long time, probably days before it ran out. Instead elend just rushes out forcing them all to burn it all at a quicker, less efficient pace. Heh

The point was never to survive. With how many Koloss there were, it wasn't possible to survive. The point was to burn the Atium away before Ruin could get to it or figure out what was happening, and for that a charge worked best.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Nameless*

[AirsickAviar he/him]

Just now, Nameless* said:

The point was never to survive. With how many Koloss there were, it wasn't possible to survive. The point was to burn the Atium away before Ruin could get to it or figure out what was happening, and for that a charge worked best.

Even if the point is for a valiant last stand in which you burn off the atium, you do it best this way. You probably kill more along the way of the atium being depleted, and it gives time, maybe no help comes, etc. But to a dying last stand group, they'd all say they would love to fight through another day I bet.

[Treamayne]

6 minutes ago, AirsickAviar said:

It seems to me 300 atium burners would be able to do this for a very long time, probably days before it ran out. Instead elend just rushes out forcing them all to burn it all at a quicker, less efficient pace. Heh

1 minute ago, Nameless* said:

The point was never to survive. With how many Koloss there were, it wasn't possible to survive. The point was to burn the Atium away before Ruin could get to it or figure out what was happening, and for that a charge worked best.

It's as Nameless said, but also consider that Vin had already absorbed the Mists so (even without her tampering with the planets rotation) they could not have survived the heat to make the fight last for days. Then portions of Atium would not have been burned and Ruin would likely have "won."

 

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, AirsickAviar said:

He went out against a force all spread out because he wanted a glorious charge or something, lol. The atium is super valuable, allowing men to be practically untouched until it runs out. They had four entrances. 300 men with it... It seems to me the thing to do is to have squads of 20 or even 40 depending on entrance size to fight. This allows squads to move back when tired to rest and a fresh squad to move up. They had to come to them, plus huge bodies would end up creating even narrower confines soon enough. If they ever became too much a nuisance, another squad could be assigned to pull bodies past a certain point down the caverns.

 

It seems to me 300 atium burners would be able to do this for a very long time, probably days before it ran out. Instead elend just rushes out forcing them all to burn it all at a quicker, less efficient pace. Heh

Some Seers were killed before their Atium ran out. They charged ahead to distract Ruin and because that's multiple layers of defense - giving people inside more time to hide and in case they needed to retreat to entrance (which they did to resupply their Atium). It wasn't even about glory, Koloss were already proven to be stunned by a charge made by humans in the very first chapters of HoA. Attacking the Koloss army was to kill as many of them as possible, before they started to react and fight back. That was a tactic already proven to work. That's what Eland knew. They needed to burn all Atium as fast as possible for Ruin to not realize what's going on. That was their main goal.

[AirsickAviar he/him]

51 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It's as Nameless said, but also consider that Vin had already absorbed the Mists so (even without her tampering with the planets rotation) they could not have survived the heat to make the fight last for days. Then portions of Atium would not have been burned and Ruin would likely have "won."

 

We knew it was close, but all I can see is this passage from time:

Quote

"On top of that, there was the sun and its destructive heat, the death of the world's crops, the tainting of water and land with several feet of ash . . . Even the lava flows, which she had stopped, were beginning again, her plugging of the ashmounts having provided only a temporary solution. A bad one, even. Now that the mountains couldn't erupt, great cracks were appearing in the land, and the magma, the earth's burning blood, was boiling out"

 

The next reference to it was after vin died, "it happened very quickly after that", I'm assuming because any restrictive force just stopped at that point.  We know it wouldn't have been long, and perhaps it might not have been days longer, but either way it's still not the sound thing to do. Elend didn't know he had to burn it all right there in that charge. The koloss are only stunned at first when they are in their natural frenzy, similar to how in that state they build it up by fights among themselves. But not in the command of another mind, elend already previously proved he didn't need that build up, and could just order an instant attack. And ruin was better at it.  As for ruin losing this way it was still only an outside force with nothing to lose who did ruin in, having little to do with anything other than elend dying and having nothing left. Which still might have happened anyway.

Edited August 1, 2023 by AirsickAviar

[Treamayne]

53 minutes ago, AirsickAviar said:

We knew it was close, but all I can see is this passage from time: (HoA Ch 81)

Spoiler

"On top of that, there was the sun and its destructive heat, the death of the world's crops, the tainting of water and land with several feet of ash . . . Even the lava flows, which she had stopped, were beginning again, her plugging of the ashmounts having provided only a temporary solution. A bad one, even. Now that the mountains couldn't erupt, great cracks were appearing in the land, and the magma, the earth's burning blood, was boiling out"

 

Right, but you need to go back further than that even:

Spoiler

HoA Ch 74:

Quote

“The mists are gone,” Yomen said.

Elend nodded. “Both day and night.”

“The skaa fled inside when the mists vanished. Some still refuse to leave their homes. For centuries, they feared being out at night because of the mists. Now the mists disappear, and they find it so unnatural that they hide again.”

Elend turned away, looking back out. The mists were gone, but the ash still fell. And it fell hard. The corpses that had fallen during the night hours were nearly buried.

“Has the sun always been this hot?” Yomen asked, wiping his brow.

Elend frowned, noticing for the first time that it did seem hot. It was still early morning, yet it already felt like noon.

Something is still wrong, he thought. Very wrong. Worse, even. The ash choked the air, blowing in the breeze, coating everything. And the heat . . . shouldn’t it have been getting colder as more ash flew into the air, blocking the sunlight?

HoA Ch 76:

Quote

Then, she reached into the sky and wiped the smoke and darkness from the atmosphere—like a maid wiping soot from a dirty window. She did all of this in a matter of instants; not more than five minutes would have passed on the world below.

Immediately, the land began to burn.

The sun was amazingly powerful—she hadn’t realized how much the ash and smoke had done to shield the land. She cried out, spinning the world quickly so that the sun moved to its other side. Darkness fell. And, as soon as she did that, tempests began to swoop across the landscape. Weather patterns were disrupted by the motion, and in the sea a sudden wave appeared, enormously large. It rolled toward the coast, threatening to wipe away several cities.

Vin cried out again, reaching to stop the wave. And something blocked her.

She heard laughter. She turned in the air, looking to where Ruin sat like a shifting, undulating thundercloud.

Vin, Vin . . . he said. Do you realize how like the Lord Ruler you are? When he first took the power, he tried to solve everything. All of man’s ills.

She saw it. She wasn’t omniscient—she couldn’t see the entirety of the past. However, she could see the history of the power she held. She could see when Rashek had taken it, and she could see him, frustrated, trying to pull the planet into a proper orbit. Yet, he pulled it too far, leaving the world cold and freezing. He pushed it back again, but his power was too vast—too terrible—for him to control properly at that time. So, he again left the world too hot. All life would have perished.

He opened the ashmounts, clogging the atmosphere, turning the sun red. And, in doing so, he saved the planet—but doomed it as well.

HoA Ch 77:

Quote

Where was Vin?

He jumped from building to building. He kicked up ash with each leap. Things were happening. The ash was slowly trickling away—in fact, it had mostly stopped falling. That was good, but he remembered well a short time ago when the sun had suddenly blazed with an amazing intensity. Those few moments had burned him so that his face still hurt.

Then, the sun had . . . dropped. It had fallen below the horizon in less than a second, the ground lurching beneath Elend’s feet.

HoA Ch 80:

Quote

“There are four large caverns,” Sazed said. “And four entrances that I know of.”

Elend turned to Demoux. He was already giving orders to his soldiers. We have to get the people down here before the sun rises, Elend thought, remembering the heat. 

 

So just the mists disappearing caused a massive change - then when Vin wiped the ash from the sky daylight became deadly. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Treamayne

[Veledsier]

I feel like Elend knew, and we see this in his speech, that knew they were going to die. And they were kinda in a position that forced them to act whenever they could.

 

But that's also the opinion of someone who thinks Elend could do you no wrong