History Literature / TheLostMetal

* UndergroundCity: [[spoiler: Marasi finds one while investigating the Set's underground caverns. The people she finds living there have all been kidnapped by the Set and have been led to believe that they are the last survivors of a catastrophe involving the return of the ashmounts. They also happen to all have allomantic powers or heritage which the Set intended to use as breeding stock. This ends up being really helpful as they were able to help Marasi use up the pool of [[PureEnergy pure investiture]] powering a portal that lead to the awaiting [[AlienInvasion army of red and gold]].]]

* WrongContextMagic: The Scadrians get their first exposure to [[Literature/TheEmperorsSoul forgery]], [[Literature/{{Elantris}} AonDor]], and the aetherbound, invested arts that originate in other worlds. Moonlight makes clear that they're not ''magic'', they just work in different ways than allomancy and feruchemy.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The antagonistic mayor of Bilming is introduced with a rant about how kandra aren't even people, just puppets of Harmony, using ItIsDehumanizing. [[spoiler:Naturally he's a member of the Set.]]

* TimeStandsStill: At the climax of the story, Wayne uses [[spoiler: the power of a lerasium mistborn, plus duralumin, plus seventeen pouches of bendalloy, to create a time bubble so powerful that it lets him disarm all three of the Set's Investiture bombs before the electronic anti-tamper circuits detect that the first one is being tampered with and detonate the other two. Almost literally - this required Wayne to be moving at very near lightspeed to beat the electricity in the wires.]]

* EleventhHourSuperpower: [[spoiler:Wax and Wayne use Hemalurgic spikes taken from the bodies of Set agents to give Wax the power to use durulumin and Wayne the power to steelpush. At the end of the book, Wayne ingests lerasium to become a Mistborn to perform his HeroicSacrifice, while Harmony implies that Wax unknowingly became a Mistborn himself at the start of the book when he unknowingly created and ingested lerasium during his attempt to split harmonium.]]

* ControlFreak: [[spoiler:Autonomy]] is this one, in a case of DramaticIrony lampshaded by many of her own underlings. Despite wanting her followers to be rugged individuals, she's not afraid to pull a YouHaveFailedMe. She wants them individually and freely choose what ''she'' thinks is best. Best demonstrated with the city of Bilming. Every house is designed to be completely unique... but they all come from the plans of a single architect.

* SpringtimeForHitler: Wayne is SecretlyWealthy, but hates it, so he is giving his money to various causes he is ''sure'' will make him go broke. Unfortunately for him, every one of those ventures, from affordable housing to electricity to the potential for a local sports league, are all actually ''very good ideas'', something he doesn’t quite understand.

* GodAndSatanAreBothJerks: The entire conflict (and, retroactively, Wax's entire fight against the Set) is essentially a proxy war between Harmony and Autonomy. Autonomy plans to destroy Scadrial one way or another, threatening an AlienInvasion unless her minions adequately impress her with their own radical acts (leading to the development of a FantasticNuke). Harmony seeks to prevent Autonomy from doing so, but is so paralyzed by his conflicting Intents (as he holds the shards of both Ruin and Preservation, each power pulls against the other) that he offers little help. Even his surveillance of Scadrial has been confounded by Autonomy's agents, making him even less useful than in previous books.

* UndergroundCity: [[spoiler: Marasi finds one while investigating the Set's underground caverns. The people she finds living there have all been kidnapped by the Set and have been led to believe that they are the last survivors of a catastrophe involving the return of the ashmounts. They also happen to all have allomantic powers or heritage which the Set intended to use as breeding stock. This ends up being really helpful as they were able to help Marasi use up the pool of [[PureEnergy pure investiture]] powering a portal that lead to the awaiting [[AlienInvasion army of red and gold]]]]

* AwesomeButImpractical: It's mentioned that using Shadesmar to travel between worlds is impractical at the best of times, and it is never going to be something that truly works on a massive scale. Take into account the fact that many Shards are watching the Cognitive Realm very closely, and it is a dangerous method of getting around. [[spoiler:Kelsier]] insists that they need to find something better. A few hints scattered throughout the franchise imply that Scadrial ends up inventing a mostly normal form of space travel.

* ArcWords: "Your carriage, sir" is what Hoid says at several, increasingly more surreal occasions.

** Dumand and Getruda, two Set agents who have approximations of Wax and Wayne's powers thanks to Hemalurgy. They also try to imitate the personalities of their counterparts, which frustrates Wayne since both of them are insultingly bad at it. [[spoiler:Ironically, Wax winds up killing Wayne's doppelgänger, and vice-versa.]]

* OpponentSwitch: This is how Wax & Wayne eventually choose to deal with their [[EvilCounterpart evil counterparts]] the Set has created. [[spoiler: Wax is able to blow off the arm containing Wayne's duplicates [[HealingFactor gold-feruchemy Spike]] (something the [[DoesNotLikeGuns gun-averse Wayne could not have done]]). Wayne grapples the Wax duplicate, then pickpockets his metal vial after the duplicate pushes them both into the sky, then after the pair of them slam into the ground just [[GoodThingYouCanHeal gets up and walks away]].]]

* OpponentSwitch: This is how Wax & Wayne eventually choose to deal with their [[EvilCounterpart evil counterparts]] the Set has created. [spoiler: Wax is able to blow off the arm containing Wayne's duplicates [[Healing factor gold-feruchemy Spike]] (something the [[DoesNotLikeGuns gun-averse Wayne could not have done]]). Wayne grapples the Wax duplicate, then pickpockets his metal vial after the duplicate pushes them both into the sky, then after the pair of them slam into the ground just [[GoodThingYouCanHeal gets up and walks away]].]

* HiddendDisdainReveal: Telsin finally gets angry enough to tell Wax that she's hated him for decades, seeing him as a judgemental, HolierThanThou weakling.

* Stealth Pun: Wax is able to use a Steelpush [[spoiler: enhanced by duralumin]] to propel himself directly from the top of the skyscraper "the Shaw" to a Pewternaut. That's right; he flew from Shaw-to-ship.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: [[spoiler:Kelsier and Sazed by the end of the novel. They're not on opposing sides, but relations between them are nonetheless strained as Era Two ends.]]
* TimeSkip: About five to six years after ''The Bands Of Mourning''. Wax and Steris have had two kids in some not-quite BabiesEverAfter; communication lines between the Southern Continent and the Basin are open and tourism is stated to be a thing; and technology has advanced, with electric trains, early 20th century battleships, and [[spoiler: early ([[FantasticNuke fantastic]])nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles being developed.]]

* TimeSkip: About five to six years after ''The Bands Of Mourning''. Wax and Steris have had two kids in some not-quite BabiesEverAfter; communication lines between the Southern Continent and the Basin are open and tourism is stated to be a thing; and technology has advanced, with electric trains, early 20th century battleships, and [[spoiler: early nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles being developed.]]

* DeathIsGray: [[spoiler:When Telsin suffers a DeathByDePower as Autonomy rejects her as an avatar, her body turns grey for unknown reasons.]]

* EleventhHourSuperpower: [[spoiler:Wax and Wayne use Hemalurgic spikes taken from the bodies of Set agents to give Wax the power to use durulumin and Wayne the power to steelpush. At the end of the book, Wayne ingests lerasium to become a Mistborn to perform his HeroicSacrifice, while Harmony implies that Wax unknowingly became a Mistborn himself at the start of the book when he unknowingly created and ingested lerasium during his attempt to split harmonium.]]

* TimeSkip: About five to six years after ''The Bands Of Mourning''. Wax and Steris have had two kids in some not-quite BabiesEverAfter, communication lines between the Southern Continent and the Basin are open and tourism is stated to be a thing, and TechnologyMarchesOn has occurred, with electric trains, early 20th century battleships, and [[spoiler: early nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles being developed.]]

'''Wayne:''' [[spoiler:These ones ain’t into it. Those other ones, the ones who came down first? They wanted us dead. They wanted to prove themselves. They wanted the fight. These poor sods? These are the last defense. And they ''ain’t into it.'']]

* CodeName: The Ghostbloods use codenames for everything. Marasi's first contact is "Moonlight" (which confuses her because she doesn't know what a moon is), there's also "Twin Soul" (though he tells her his real name freely), and "Codenames Are Stupid" (she generally just goes by "Codenames").

* DimensionalTraveler: Marasi meets a few Ghostbloods who are from off world.

* GodzillaThreshold: Moonlight/Shai has a stamp that would make her [[spoiler:an Elantrian (and a big jug of liquid Investiture to power the Aons)]], but she is extremely reluctant to use it because she can't be sure that any part of her true memories would survive the change [[spoiler:(since in order to become an Elantrian she would have had to have been born in a completely different civilization on an entirely different continent). When cornered by the Set, she uses the soulstamp... and sure enough, she has no memory of ever having been Moonlight the Ghostblood]].

* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: Zigzagged. There's a passing reference to Elendel building rigid airships full of helium or hydrogen. But they're considered inferior copies of Malwish airships, which are made of wood and kept aloft with Allomancy.

* UndergroundCity: [[spoiler: Marasi finds one while investigating the Set's underground caverns. The people she finds living there have all been kidnapped by the Set and have been led to believe that they are the last survivors of a catastrophe involving the return of the ashmounts. They also happen to all have allomantic powers or heritage which the Set intended to use as breeding stock. This ends up being really helpful as they were able to help Marasi use up the pool of [[PureEnergy pure investiture]] powering a portal that lead to the awaiting [[AlienInvasion army of red and gold]]]]

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: [=MeLaan=] tells Wayne that, even in her immortal lifetime, sex with him was the best she had ever had. [[spoiler: Unfortunately she is saying this to take some of the sting off as she breaks up with him.]]

** [[spoiler:Working with Autonomy at all, really. It's unclear when and why the Set originally started working with her, but by now the Set is just desperately scrambling to prove that they can rule the world before Autonomy sends in her armies to destroy it instead. Telsin, in particular, dies unceremoniously when Autonomy withdraws her power and Telsin's enhanced body can no longer sustain itself]].