Eachdraidh Info

[godsays]

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BOON LIST

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( PLAYER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME: Ryann
AGE: 25
CONTACT: plurk, aim and gmail all @ cornichaun
CURRENT CHARACTERS & LATEST AC: None!

RESERVATION LINK: http://fairyfoes.dreamwidth.org/2216.html?thread=2148520#cmt2148520

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

DOES THIS CHARACTER MEET SKELETAL BASICS? Yes!
NAME & AGE: Zane, ~20
CANON & CANON POINT: Mistborn Trilogy, just before his death at the end of book 2
CANON INFORMATION: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Zane_Venture

While that gives a decent summary of personality, it’s not a great primer on the events surrounding Zane, so I’ll add an addendum. (I’ll note that Mistborn is complicated, and depends on the intersection of a dozen main characters, all with strong motivations and intelligent ways of going about getting what they want, so picking out one thread isn’t always going to be perfectly coherent. If I leave anything unexplained, it’s because it would take really, really long to explain the full circumstances involved.)

With that in mind, this is a rough summary of the events in the second book involving Zane.

Before the events of the book begin, Zane is born to Straff Venture, the head of a noble house under the dictatorial rule of an immortal man called the Lord Ruler. Straff himself is what is called a Misting, a one of the lesser-powered users of Allomancy, explained further in the powers section. Allomancy is passed down genetically, and Straff is always planning for the future, so, extremely illegally, Straff makes sure to have as many children as possible, hoping that he can assemble a small army of essentially super powered individuals.

Zane’s mother is never described. The assumption is that he never knew her; Straff certainly wouldn’t have wanted family connections getting in the way of anything. However, since Zane is a Mistborn instead of a Misting, it makes it likely that his mother was a minor noble and not a slave, since Allomantic powers run more commonly in noble lines than skaa lines. I believe Zane’s mother was a young minor noble, seduced by Straff, probably thrown into disgrace through an unwed pregnancy. Few nobles in that situation would have wanted to keep the child.

Zane’s early life is not well-explained in the books except to note that it was difficult and violent. Zane theorizes that this might have been one of the reasons he was driven insane. (More on that in personality.) Here, I headcanon that Zane grew up in a skaa (lower-class slave) household, crowded, with several other illegitimate children. I believe that Zane was one of the oldest, as he is near the age of Elend, Straff’s actual legitimate son, and I believe that Straff would have had a legitimate child before embarking on his plan, so as not to endanger his line of succession. For the same reason, I place Zane’s age at about a year younger than Elend, making him approximately 20.

At some point, Zane would have been severely beaten to bring him to the point of death. This is a common way to force Allomantic powers to manifest, a process called Snapping. When Zane Snapped, it turned out that he was Mistborn, the most powerful kind of Allomancer. This made him the most important of those illegitimate children.

Sometime between Snapping and the events of the first book, Zane is nearly killed when a metal spike is driven through his chest. The events surrounding this are never elaborated upon. For plot reasons, the spike would have to be placed by someone under the control of the god Ruin. The most likely culprits are the Lord Ruler’s scariest servants, Inquisitors, who are universally altered in a way that would allow Ruin to control them. It would take a long time to describe Inquisitors fully, but, suffice to say, one of their major roles is hunting down and killing illegitimate children with Allomantic powers. Since Inquisitors were likely to try and hunt Zane’s brothers and sisters, and Inquisitors were also able to be controlled by Ruin, I think it’s most likely that an Inquisitor came to kill one of Zane’s half-siblings, Zane fought the Inquisitor, and that was when the spike was placed. (And, incidentally, another reason I think that Zane’s mother might have been a noble and not slave is that Zane was not killed during these events; if Zane was full blooded noble, even illegitimate, he would have been more likely to be allowed to survive.)

Eventually, in the first Mistborn book, the Lord Ruler is killed and deposed by a young Mistborn named Vin. She, and Elend Venture, the son of Straff Venture, take over the capital city and try to more or less free the long-enslaved population.

However, the city is under-resourced, and Elend and Vin are young and inexperienced. The power vacuum attracts not one, not two, but three armies to the doorstep of the city. One of those armies is commanded by Straff Venture, Elend’s father and Zane’s father.

At this time, Zane starts playing cat-and-mouse with Vin. The two of them spar, Mistborn-style, over the city at night. Zane plays on Vin’s doubts about her position and her past.

When Elend refuses an alliance with Straff, Straff orders Zane to kill Vin. Zane doesn’t, instead trying to persuade Vin to leave with him. And then - this being where Zane starts playing all sides - he sends several of his half-brother Allomancers as a squad of assassins against Vin. (Zane wins either way; if Vin wins, he can disclaim responsibility, and if Vin loses, his interests are assured through Straff.) Vin wins.

Straff freaks out about the failure, then decides it’s time for Zane to die.

Zane, on the other hand, puts another wheel of his plan into motion. He persuades Vin that the assassins came from a different army outside the walls, and uses her to go and attack the leader of that army. The two of them destroy a large part of that king’s bodyguards, before Vin stops and realizes that something is wrong. (This action allows Zane to both solidify Vin’s faith in him - by giving her information she believed to be accurate - and attack an enemy of his father’s. Again, it furthers his interests without forcing him to pick a side.)

Straff tries to kill Zane while he’s asleep, but Zane fights off the guards. He strikes down everyone between him and his father, but then, when Straff begs for his life, decides to spare him. Zane walks away from his father forever, here.

Zane goes to Vin, immediately, and tries to get her to leave the city with him. He wants to elope with her. She refuses, deciding to stay with Elend, and Zane grows furious. He tries to kill her. Given that he has her trapped, that he had subverted her closest assistant a long time ago, and that he has a metal that allows him to anticipate her movements, there’s no way she should win. But, somehow, she pulls it together and kills him.

PERSONALITY: Outwardly, when he has no reason to put on an act, Zane is calm, quiet, lethal, proud and graceful. He does not speak without need. He considers himself first and foremost a weapon. So darkness, mystery, a willingness to kill -- this is all part of his usual behavior.

Beneath the surface, he is in deep and terrible turmoil. He loves his father, the man who had him nearly beaten to death, who treats him as a tool: he wants his father's approval, is willing to go to incredible lengths to protect him and serve his interests. His affection expresses itself in twisted, strange ways: he allows his father to believe that he's constantly trying to poison him just so that he'll know Zane respects him. (And, in fact, when he tries to assassinate Zane in turn, he takes it as a mark of approval.) For him, violence is an expression of affection, and with the people he kills he's a little like a puppy depositing dead squirrels on his father's doorstep.

Living a harsh life had taught Zane to survive on his own. He had become hard, and powerful. - Zane's POV

Zane is a follower, outwardly. He does not take personal responsibility for the violence he inflicts; in his mind, he is a knife. He is a tool to be used by others, as all Mistborn are. As such, without leadership, Zane would be aimless and volatile, unstable and prone to purposeless violence.

This, however, isn't exactly what he wants. There's a burning desire, deep within him, to become more than just a weapon. He wants to be the one at the hingepoint of the world, with the fates of thousands depending on him. He wants to be the best. The general, not the general's quiet and feared bodyguard. But this option is not open to him. He is not the legitimate son and heir -- Elend is. Elend, in fact, has the life that Zane never could, and that leads to a certain amount of jealousy.

"Hate? No, I don't hate him. Why hate a man for what he is? Elend has done nothing to me, not directly. ... Sometimes, however, I do envy him. He has everything."

And brings us to the purpose of Zane's character, and the role he served in the story, which was as a foil to Elend and as a mirror of Vin herself. Where Elend represents security and affection, Zane represents danger.

"Elend is... pure. Sometimes -- when I hear him speak -- I wonder if I would have become like him, if my childhood had been different."

Zane appeals to the assassin side of Vin, the violent street-kid side, and he very nearly steals her away from Elend entirely because there's a part of her that believes she should be like him: untrusting, violent, out for himself.

“This is what we are, Vin. Why do you play their games? Why do you let them control you?”

And there's a part of her that sympathizes with his plight, too, in wanting to be more than just a weapon. He is the alternate love interest for Vin, the wrong choice, the one who is something she could have become if Kelsier hadn't interjected himself into her life.

Vin: “I belong with those who love me.”
Zane: “Love you? Tell me. Do they understand you, Vin? Can they understand you? And, can a man love something he doesn’t understand?”

Mistborn can be very, very dark characters, as they are often used as assassins. Zane revels in his own power to kill but also detests it being used by other people -- Why do we always have to be their knife? he asks Vin, in order to start to turn her against Elend. He longs for freedom but doesn't move towards it because, in a really fucked-up way, he still loves his father who has used and abused him his whole life. His father is all he knows, and so he can't leave.

Zane: "You're a toy, Vin. I don't say it to insult you. I'm one, too."

There is an additional factor in Zane's personality that isn't the result of his upbringing. During a fight, in the past, Zane was speared with a steel spike through his heart. This wasn't an ordinary spike -- it's a Hemalurgic spike. This means that the spike was imbued with Allomantic power, and the act of touching it to Zane's bloodstream meant that he picked up Allomantic power from it. (This will be covered in the powers section.) It also means that he is able to hear and be influenced by the voice of Ruin, an adversary-type god in the Mistborn universe. Most of the time, this voice manifests itself as constant pushes to kill.

"Kill him," God whispered as Zane passed another guard. The voice spoke every time he saw a person -- it was Zane's quiet, constant companion. He understood that he was insane. It hadn't really been all that hard to determine, all things considered. Normal people did not hear voices. Zane did. - Zane's POV

Ruin's main goal is to drive Zane insane and make him cling to Vin, for plot reasons that are fairly elaborate and I won't go into here.

Zane interprets this as the voice of god, and since that’s clearly impossible, he absolutely and completely believes that he's insane. In actuality, he’s hearing a real voice, but he’s so convinced that it’s a delusion that he excuses some of his own behavior on the grounds of insanity, refusing to look closer at his motives.

Self-harm content warning. In the books, this compulsion leads him to cut himself -- dagger-slices on his arms both to help him ignore the voice and to unsettle his father. (Personally, I believe that these slices are also a compulsion by Ruin, in order to make Zane more like Kelsier -- a man who had scars on his arms, and a man who was very important to Vin, thus making Zane more important to Vin.)

In the end, Zane chooses to walk away from his father, and all that his father represents. In doing so, he chooses Vin. He chooses the independence of Mistborn, and he chooses to be the master of himself and all of the violence that he knows. But Vin catches on to his game. She realizes how he’s been playing all sides, leading her into a trap. She rejects him. And when he tries to kill her, corners her such that she shouldn’t be able to beat him, she wins. And Zane dies. The moment before his death, he learns: he was never free, and he was never insane. The voice was real. And it had been shaping him all along.

"You know why I thought you'd save me?" he tried to whisper to her, though he somehow knew that his lips weren't properly forming the words. "The voice. You were the first person I ever met that it didn't tell me to kill. The only person."
- Zane's last words

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING: Definitely Unseelie. There’s a part of Zane, admittedly, that favors order, and a part of him that strives for control and discipline. He admires his father, particularly, for his ability to get things done, no matter what violence is done in the process.

But, deeper than that, Zane is someone driven by passions. He hates it when others have power over him, and when he has a choice, when he is acting on his own, it’s almost always as a kind of chaotic neutral, playing all sides against each other until he makes up his mind which one he wants to stick to. He always has contingency plans.

Any concept of honor is also shaky. He doesn’t see any benefit in protecting the weak. In his mind, Mistborn are set apart from everyone else because of their powers. It is injustice, in his mind, for those who are weaker to control those who are stronger. That’s one of the reasons he constantly seeks freedom.

But even as he seeks freedom for chaos, it’s passion that holds him back from it. It’s his strong emotions about his father and his fear of stepping out into the unknown. The values of the Unseelie drive Zane both ways - away from his father and back to his father.

"Why?" God asked. "Why won't you kill him?"
Zane looked down at his feet. Because he's my father, he thought, finally admitting his weakness. Other men did what they had to. They were stronger than Zane. - Zane's POV

ABILITIES: I apologize in advance for the length of this section. I promise it's not because the powers are ridiculous but more because their specific effects, properties and uses are extremely elaborately established in the book series.

Zane is a Mistborn, which means that he has the ability to ingest certain metals and burn them to gain certain powers. This subset of powers is called Allomancy. Allomancers can either be a Misting, who can burn one type of metal and release exactly one type of power, or a Mistborn, who can access them all.

Notes:
- Allomancy is subject to physical laws -- every action yields an opposite reaction, gravity/physics/acceleration still apply.
- Effects from Allomantic metals are very predictable, consistent and bring with them their own inbuilt weaknesses.
- If an Allomancer has no metals, they cannot wield any of their powers.

A breakdown of metals follows.
PHYSICAL METALS
Iron (external, pulling): Iron allows the wielder to pull metal directly towards them. Pulling is done from the center of one's weight, and it acts as an actual pull would. That means if an Allomancer pulls on a metal heavier than their own weight, they will be unable to move the metal and will be pulled towards it instead of it being pulled towards them.
Steel (external, pushing): Similar to iron, but steel pushes metal away where iron pulls it. A combination of Steelpushes and Ironpulls can be used to jump around in a combination of flying and barely controlled falling.

Tin (internal, pulling): Tin enhances the senses: feeling, sight, touch, smell, taste. It enhances ALL senses -- an Allomancer can't simply enhance sight, so if they want to see far away, they have to sharpen hearing, feeling taste, everything. Loud noises and bright lights are very painful when burning tin, and can stun or disable a Mistborn with tin burning. (A note: Tin burns very slowly, so very small amounts of tin can be used to enhance the senses for a very long period of time.)
Pewter (internal, pushing): Pewter enhances physical abilities. It's often thought of as just enhancing strength, but really it's all physical abilities across the board, including speed, balance, and agility (mostly to allow the body to handle the increased strength). The body may also endure more in terms of wounds. Burning pewter for a long period of time to counteract fatigue can have deeply negative effects -- it's like the worst caffeine crash ever once you run out of pewter, and the physical shock involved can kill.

MENTAL METALS
Zinc (external, pulling): Zinc allows the user to inflame or 'riot' the emotions of those nearby. It enhances emotions in others, but cannot create them. Allomantic touches on the emotions may be detected and shrugged off by someone who knows what to look for. Additionally, an Allomancer cannot sense the emotions of others or feel the effects of emotional Allomancy, so they are essentially working blind.
Brass (external, pushing): Brass allows the user to suppress, or 'soothe' the emotions of others. It works similarly to zinc but reduces emotions instead of enhancing them.

Copper (internal, pulling): Copper may be used to hide the use of Allomancy from Allomancers burning bronze. The dead zone that copper creates is called a 'coppercloud'. Burning copper also makes someone immune to emotional Allomancy (brass and zinc) from others.
Bronze (internal, pushing): Bronze allows the wielder to 'hear' Allomancy being used nearby. With practice, the wielder may distinguish between the type and strength of the Allomantic power being used.

Further metals that he may use include:
Aluminum: Eliminates all metal reserves in an Allomancer's stomach, leaving them powerless. If someone wants to disable Zane, he can be forced to burn aluminum and eliminate his metal reserves.
Atium: This allows the wielder to see a few seconds into the future and react supernaturally fast in a fight. Atium burns excruciatingly fast and is very expensive.
Gold: Allows the wielder to see an illusion of themselves, as they would be if they had made different choices. Basically a vision into an AU. This metal isn't well understood.
Duralumin: An alloy of aluminum. Lets the wielder burn any other metals they have on in a brief, intense flash.

There are other metals that Mistborn are generally unaware of. I don't see any reason Zane would know of them and try to use them, but for the sake of thoroughness, those include cadium and bendalloy, both of which manipulate time in a bubble around the wielder. Electrum, an alloy of gold, allows the wielder to see a few seconds into their own future. Chromium and nicrosil are metals that allow an Allomancer wielding them to affect the metals inside another Allomancer.

Finally: Zane also has a Hemalurgic spike. This is a literal spike that was driven through his chest in the past (causing his internal anatomy to re-arrange so he survived; his heart is actually pierced by the spike and beats around it).
- Cause: if a proper Hemalurgic spike is used to kill someone with powers, it absorbs those powers. Zane’s is a steel spike presumably used to kill an Allomancer with Steelpushing abilities.
- Result: Zane has an extra measure of steel Allomantic ability, which gives him an additional boost in Pushing on metals. It means that he can do incredible things like rotate in midair above a coin, or aim metal extremely precisely during a push. He may also handle more than his own weight in this area, due to the strange Hemalurgic effects.

INVENTORY: A Mistcloak (mostly-standard cloak on top, bottom becomes interweaved strips of cloth that all move separately, serving to obscure a Mistborn’s profile); several vials of Allomantic metals, including a few beads of atium; 3 glass daggers; a pouch of coins.

( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )

NETWORK SAMPLE:

[ He asks, because it plagues on his mind. The answers he had from Vin were not satisfactory, and in the Final Empire, there were no others who could understand the dilemma. Who could answer the question.

Perhaps there are some here. ]

Great men need knives. It is taking that makes them great men, and taking is best done at the point of a blade. They are not supposed to acknowledge the tools they use. A knife does not expect to be thanked.

But I wonder what makes the knife stay and be wielded. Where is it that this loyalty comes from?

[ The key question: ]

Is it insanity?

LOG SAMPLE: http://fairynuff.dreamwidth.org/17692.html?thread=14472988#cmt14472988