Difference between revisions of "Miles Dagouter"

Miles is not a kind or gentle man. He is full of scowls,{{book ref|mb4|prologue}} a grumpy man who would rather shoot a suspect than actually take the time to determine his guilt or innocence.{{book ref|mb4|1}} Despite his character flaws, True Madil is kept clean of any wrongdoings by Miles, so his methods, though they may be harsh, are effective. Miles never brings back a criminal alive though, he kills each and every man that he hunts down.{{book ref|mb4|18}} Miles is not afraid of change, due in part to his nature as an Augur.{{book ref|mb4|15}} Early on in his life, Miles hated all who broke the law. His punishments were harsh and he was merciless, particularly towards those that once followed the law, but turned their back on it. The severity of Miles' punishments were due to his feelings of helplessness. He did not believe that he could really make a difference in the amount of crime in the Roughs.

 

 

After many years in the Roughs, an enduring hatred for the city of Elendel and its leaders grew within Miles.{{book ref|mb4|15}} Early in life, this did not bother him as much. However, as time went on, Miles became more and more disillusioned by his role and the things he saw every day as a lawman. He began to believe the City had betrayed him{{book ref|mb4|8}} and slowly grew bitter at the injustices he felt that he faced. He has come to believe that there is nothing truly sacred about the law, it is merely a tool of the wealthy to maintain their power and influence.{{book ref|mb4|15}} He hates that he used to allow others to make rules for him. Miles will occasionally burn gold so that he can view the lawman he used to be and the criminal he is now. Although he finds it disturbing how much the two hate one another, he believes that this practice is good for him. Miles thinks this allows him to combine something of what he was and something of what he is into a new alloy of himself.

Miles is a complex man, but his personality is dominated by one desire, vengeance on Elendel.{{book ref|mb4|15}} Miles' real issue is a rage that he sometimes has difficulty controlling. Typically, Miles has a careful crafty mind with a flair for the dramatic that can be easily seen in the Vanishers.{{book ref|mb4|11}} He can methodically pursue a goal without letting it cloud his vision. The one exception is when Miles loses control of his temper, as is often seen with Waxillium or when he thinks too much about the the behavior of the wealthy.{{book ref|mb4|15}}

 

 

Even while working outside the law, Miles still sees himself as a lawman in many ways. Miles still acts like a lawman rather than a criminal, hunting down those who try to interfere with his plans, rather than going to ground.{{book ref|mb4|12}} He believes that he serves the spirit of the law, if not the letter, and that he can now mete out real justice.{{book ref|mb4|13}} He believes that the true criminals are the lords and ladies of Elendel, and to ever create lasting change in reducing crime in the Roughs, he has to destroy the place that crime comes from, which he believes to be the City. Miles thinks that a man can only help the poor or serve the nobility, but not both.{{book ref|mb4|11}} He also feels that the elite do nothing to actually help the poor and needy in the Roughs and in the City.{{book ref|mb4|19}} His desire to overthrow the establishment and destroy the City is not only to help the poor, he takes some small satisfaction in the idea of seeing the corrupt nobles punished for their uselessness.{{book ref|mb4|15}} Even with his new convictions, Miles still often questions himself and his decisions, as he has all his life. Despite this uncertainty, Miles displays an imperious and confident attitude.{{book ref|mb4|6}}

 

Miles began to design the concept of the Vanishers, an idea that he developed as time went on. Miles wanted the robberies to be fantastic and confusing, to befuddle any and all who investigated as to how the crimes were taking place. He designed a barge called the [[Machine]] that had a crane capable of lifting train cars.{{book ref|mb4|17}} The core of his robberies were all the same. Miles and his men would create a disturbance to stop the train nearby a canal and while the train's engineers were distracted, Miles' barge would pick up the target train car off of the tracks and replace it with an identical but empty train car. The Vanishers would retreat and the car would proceed onward, none the wiser.

 

The robberies began with a fraudulent shipment of aluminum, disguised as wool, belonging to [[House Tekiel]]. However, as the robberies continued, Miles' visions of the Vanishers began to take shape. For the first robbery, a downed tree brought the train to a halt. Later, to increase mystery, Miles would set up a hand-crank car with a false front, which would appear to be an oncoming train. When the panicked engineers stopped their train to investigate, the phantom train, as well as their cargo, would already be gone. The Set then began asking Miles to take women on the train cars hostage. These women were specific, always of certain bloodlines connected back to [[Spook]], the Lord Mistborn. Miles and his men also stole jewelry from the passengers to further fund themselves. However, the nobility of Elendel grew more cautious and stopped traveling by railway.{{book ref|mb4|4}} In order to continue kidnapping the women the Set required, the Vanishers had to expand the scope of their raids. After several robberies, they hit the [[Coolerim Playhouse]], robbing the nobility and kidnapping Lady [[Armal]].{{book ref|mb4|2}}

 

After the robbery at the Coolerim Playhouse, Miles chose the [[Yomen-Ostlin wedding dinner]], attended by High Lord [[Waxillium Ladrian]] and [[Wayne]], as his next target.{{book ref|mb4|5}} He personally took part in the robbery, wearing a knit mask over his face to hide his identity. During the robbery he ranted about the injustices of the City and the mistreatment of the Roughs. When Lord [[Peterus]] protested the robbery and challenged Miles, he hit Peterus, cutting his head. Miles ordered the valuables of the partygoers seized and attempted to have his men take Lady [[Steris Harms]] and Lady [[Marasi Colms]] as hostages to be turned over to Edwarn Ladrian. This action enraged Peterus once again, who called Miles a coward and demanded to be taken as a hostage himself in their place. Losing his temper, Miles shot Peterus in the head to silence him, and told the Vanishers that they were allowed to have some fun with the guests now.

 

As the Vanishers set up the new hideout, Miles met with Edwarn Ladrian to discuss his failure at the wedding dinner.{{book ref|mb4|11}} Edwarn rebuked Miles for losing his temper during the raid and questioned his actions regarding Waxillium. Edwarn wondered if Miles and Wax have some sort of grudge or if Miles is unable to kill Wax. Miles assured Ladrian that he was quite capable of taking care of Waxillium and agreed to kill him later that same day. Edwarn also revealed to Miles that the Set have made preparations to steal a final shipment of aluminum from the [[Breaknaught]], the new unrobbable freight car belonging to [[House Tekiel]].

 

 

Miles confronted Wax as Wax returned from investigating the scene of one of the Vanishers's train robberies with Wayne and Marasi.{{book ref|mb4|13}} Miles waited for Wax to leave his train car, and then jammed the locks on the car, trapping Wayne and Marasi before attacking Waxillium. Wax had already come to the conclusion that Miles was the leader of the Vanishers and was expecting an attack. Miles followed Waxillium to the roof of the train, where he has fled to get civilians out of the line of fire. They engaged in a gunfight, but Miles was disarmed when Wax shot his guns out of his hands. Miles spoke to Wax and attempted to explain the reason he has turned his back on the city, but Wax saw him as a simple traitor. Miles managed to get close and throw Wax off of the train, but Wax caught himself with a Steelpush and returned to the train. Miles was surprised by Waxillium and was Pushed off the train by Wax and left behind outside of Elendel.

=== Capture and Execution ===

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The Vanishers' theft of the Breaknaught went smoothly and without incident, although Miles deduced that Wax had hidden himself in the train car itself.{{book ref|mb4|17}} The Breaknaught was carried back to the Ironspine in Elendel on the Machine, Miles' barge with a crane. Miles brought the train car to the subterranean foundry, where he used the electric lift's engines and winch to pull off the door of the Breaknaught. When the door was ripped off, Miles found that Wax had attached dynamite to the inside of the door, which he detonated in an attempt to slow Miles and kill his men. Miles and his men began to fire on Wax but were interrupted when Wayne and Marasi blew open the doors in the ceiling of the foundry leading the the lift, opening the lair to the outside. Miles and his men did their best to kill Wax and Wayne while Marasi fired down on them from above.

 

 

Miles again attempted to reason with Wax, claiming that their powers were divine and gave both men the right to rule, but Wax paid his words no attention.{{book ref|mb4|18}} Miles badly injured Wax by surprising him with a stick of dynamite, but due to aid from Harmony, Waxillium and his allies managed to rescue Steris and kill all of Miles men, including Push, Pull, and Miles' most loyal Vanisher, Tarson.{{book ref|mb4|19}} Wax quietly ordered Wayne to go get the constables while he and Marasi confronted Miles by himself. Miles fought Wax in a one-on-one fistfight, not realizing that Marasi, a Pulser, was burning [[cadmium]] and hours were passing by them outside the bubble. Wax and Marasi managed to keep Miles distracted long enough for Wayne to return at dawn with a small army of constables to overwhelm Miles with sheer numbers and arrest him.

As Miles can both create Feruchemical reserves in goldminds, and burn gold, he is capable of Compounding.{{book ref|mb4|11}} A powerful technique, this allows him to essentially create a new metal, burning his metalminds which instead of showing gold's usual visions, power his Feruchemical healing directly via Preservation and the powers of creation.{{wob ref|4702}}{{wob ref|6072}} This allows Miles to sustain truly horrifying wounds and be healed to full strength nearly instantaneously.{{book ref|mb4|13}} Miles is not continuously burning his goldminds though. Rather, he spends some time burning them for a massive amount of health, and then stores a huge amount of health in his metalminds, which he wears as spikes that pierce his body all over. As they are inside of Miles, they are incapable of being Pushed or Pulled on by most Allomancers. This gives Miles access to a constant supply of nearly limitless health.{{book ref|mb4|11}}

 

 

Due to the large amount of health available to Miles at all times, he can overcome many of the limits of the average Bloodmaker. Most obviously, normal Bloodmakers are limited in how many wounds or how large a wound they can heal. If their Feruchemical storages are not enough, they have to wait for a wound to heal naturally, or if the wound is severe enough, they simply die. Miles does not have to worry about conserving his Feruchemical storages, because his goldminds are more or less infinite. As a result, Miles is constantly drawing on his goldminds, even when there is no real wound to heal. This impacts him in several ways, both minor and major. Miles has not been sick in years; he never has to deal with sore muscles or headaches or feelings of tiredness.{{book ref|mb4|15}} Even when there is nothing for the gold to heal, Miles can still feel a faint sense of extra energy from the health he is drawing. By drawing even more additional health, Miles can eliminate his need to breathe, as he is constantly healing the damage done to his cells from hypoxia.{{book ref|mb4|17}} It should be noted that this is not the same thing as [[cadmium]] [[Feruchemy]]. Gasper Ferrings have the ability to store breath in a cadmiummind.{{book ref|mb4|part=ars}} They store oxygen and then withdraw it later so they do not have to breathe. Miles cannot do that. His gold Feruchemy continually heals the damage done to his cells dying of oxygen starvation rather than provides them with oxygen. However, the power of gold is not limitless. It cannot allow Miles to stop his heartbeat{{book ref|mb4|17}} or reverse the process of aging{{book ref|mb4|11}} like the [[Lord Ruler]] managed with his atium Compounding.{{book ref|mb1|epilogue}} Additionally, after suffering the pain of thousands of wounds that should have killed him, Miles has also grown completely invulnerable to pain.{{book ref|mb4|13}} It is little but a distant memory to him.{{book ref|mb4|17}} It also potentially has an impact on Miles' stamina, allowing him to run longer and farther than a normal man, although this is uncertain.{{book ref|mb4|13}}

 

== Development ==

 

This is also another place where Brandon wants to explore themes of how men act when they are given the powers of gods.{{bws ref|/annotation-the-alloy-of-law-chapter-eighteen/|Alloy of Law Annotation Chapter 18|date=November 30, 2015}} This is a theme that he has touched on with the [[Lord Ruler]], [[Kelsier]], [[Zane]], and [[Spook]]. In real life, there is no evidence for superior bloodlines, but on Scadrial Allomancy and Feruchemy are inherited traits, lending credence to the idea that some men are better than others. Miles, due to his invincibility, has come to think of himself as divine. Brandon one day wants to tackle this theme directly.