Double Hemalurgy?

[Trusk'our]

If someone were to use two different spikes to steal two separate powers from someone else, and the spikes were to strike at exactly the same moment, would both spikes be filled, but be at half power? Or would it turn out like the hypothetical situation where Vin cleaves Kaladin into two perfect halves, and the Investiture only chooses one half to heal, rather than both?

[Weltall]

Brandon has said that you can't steal multiple powers from the same person, or at least nobody knows how to do it. He's also said that nobody knows how to non-fatally steal anything via hemalurgy (and they'd be worse than a drab due to soul damage) barring the edge case of stealing from a gold compounder who could theoretically repair the soul damage and be used as a hemalurgic donor multiple times.

13 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

and the part that the body reforms from can be very counter intuitive.

Per Brandon, the rule is that the larger part of the body regrows the rest and if you happened to be split into perfectly equal pieces it would be random which one the soul claims dibs on and regrows from. Presumably Shardplate functions differently because it's not composed of a single spiritweb, though having more of the original armor to work with does give an advantage if there are competing attempts.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Weltall

[Ixthos]

I think the only spot that allows you to remove powers is the heart, which means the two spikes would likely have to be attached to each other in some way. If they are for separate powers they possibly would take both powers at the same time, as the reason you normally can only take one power from someone is because the process usually kills the person - there are quotes about hypothetically repeatedly spiking the power of healing from a twinborn gold compounder. If they are for the same power then they likely would only gain half that power each, much like how a spike, when split, divides up the stolen power between them with some loss - in this case there probably wouldn't be any loss besides the usual depletion between the spike entering their body and then entering someone else's.

The Lord Rulers described a similar situation where he claimed to have been beheaded once (and there are hints from a non-canon novel that a decapitated head will regrow the body, rather than the body regrowing a head [Edit:] Correction thanks to @Honorless, it was actually the body that regrew the head). For Shadeplate any portion of it can be coaxed into regrowing the entire plate, and if two people are competing it will only settle on one, the other competing attempt to regrow the plate being overcome - you seemingly can't get something to replicate via healing in the Cosmere. If Vin did cut Kaladin in half (thanks to the power of time travel ) then either the side Kaladin felt was where he was more centred, or the larger half, would probably be restored, while the other half wouldn't.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Ixthos
Corrected mistake on which part in the non-canon novel regrew the head

[Duxredux]

I think that it depends on what portion of the soul you're trying to harvest. If the two portions of the soul are distinct enough, then you could probably fill both spikes normally, but if there is overlap you may just not get enough of the soul to power either ability you're trying to steal by dividing it down the line. Or... maybe it would work anyway. I have no idea if the analogy works, but comparing Hemalurgy to organ transplants, if you divide a liver in half and donate it two people they can each get a small functioning liver, but you can't do the same for kidneys and corneas (as far as I know). 

I could see it depending on how the Spiritweb works and I could see the organ transplant analogy working if the possibilities change based on the target attributes. For example, I could see physical strength and memories being distinct enough to steal separately, but maybe destiny and Connection are too related to separate. Maybe memory can be easily divided, but it's a coin toss for what memories you get in each spike. I could see trying to divide an Allomantic ability in half resulting in neither spike being able to grant power. I think any of these options could make sense.

[Honorless]

On 5/21/2022 at 8:52 PM, Ixthos said:

 

(and there are hints from a non-canon novel that a decapitated head will regrow the body, rather than the body regrowing a head). 

Just the opposite actually, iirc! Hoid (who else, lol?) was surprised that his body regrew a head rather than his head regrowing a new body

 

If it's two separate powers, I think you can steal them at more or less normal power.

Seran had a... system where the victim was placed above the recipient so the spikes went through the victim's body and into the recipient's. That seems to me like a system to facilitate stealing multiple attributes from the same victim. Edit: nope, it was for efficiency, to reduce Hemalurgic Decay (here's a WoB explaining that:

Quote

LadyLameness

The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood?

Brandon Sanderson

It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat.

LadyLameness

You can put the stake in the steak!

Brandon Sanderson

You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross.

LadyLameness

Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Honorless

[Ixthos]

18 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Just the opposite actually, iirc! Hoid (who else, lol?) was surprised that his body regrew a head rather than his head regrowing a new body

Woops, thanks for the correction! Either way, yeah, when someone heals in the Cosmere they don't duplicate, and the part that the body reforms from can be very counter intuitive.

[Ixthos]

33 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Brandon has said that you can't steal multiple powers from the same person, or at least nobody knows how to do it. He's also said that nobody knows how to non-fatally steal anything via hemalurgy (and they'd be worse than a drab due to soul damage) barring the edge case of stealing from a gold compounder who could theoretically repair the soul damage and be used as a hemalurgic donor multiple times.

Per Brandon, the rule is that the larger part of the body regrows the rest and if you happened to be split into perfectly equal pieces it would be random which one the soul claims dibs on and regrows from. Presumably Shardplate functions differently because it's not composed of a single spiritweb, though having more of the original armor to work with does give an advantage if there are competing attempts.

My point about it being counterintuitive is that - in the real world - if your body grew a new head you would expect the resulting person to be entirely new, none of the same memories or personality, etc. - you would expect a form of healing that preserved the person to use the head, where those traits are stored. In the Cosmere we know why those traits can be translated to a head grown from the body, but it still is an unexpected statement, especially considering that the body likely wouldn't loose mass to make the new head, the mass produces via the healing method, so using the larger mass, despite it being more "you" in terms of volume rather than intuitive function (which is why we think of storing heads rather than headless bodies if you can't freeze an entire body for cryostasis) wouldn't necesserily be necessery for Cosmere healing, even though it is.