Theory about Harmony *AofL Spoilers*

[Soother]

It could be poosible that there is some small influence on Hemalurgy due to Harmony being of both shards (I guess that would also imply some effect of ruin on allomancy) that could cause a hemalurgic spike to preserve itself

[FeatherWriter]

Yeah, my personal theory was that most of the earrings are just symbolic, but Sazed can send his kandra out to give a hemalurgic earring to the people, like Wax, whom he can see will be important in the future.

[Wispsy]

ye they leak charge but how much, vin had an earing that was a tiny spike given to her at a very young age, she was not able to keep it in all that much at all, yet it still gave her the strength to pierce copper clouds some 20 years later or so.

[CrazyRioter]

I asked Brandon at his signing in Vancouver today what metal the earring is made of, he wouldn't tell me that, but he DID confirm that it has a slight hemalurgic charge. Also, it seems that a lot of Pathians may have hemalurgic earrings, if not all of them, as they apparently melted down Inquisitor spikes to make earrings.

[Soother]

I'm guessing it's not steel

[Chaos]

I asked Brandon at his signing in Vancouver today what metal the earring is made of, he wouldn't tell me that, but he DID confirm that it has a slight hemalurgic charge. Also, it seems that a lot of Pathians may have hemalurgic earrings, if not all of them, as they apparently melted down Inquisitor spikes to make earrings.

Interesting. I really did not expect that it was actually Hemalurgic. Any other cool facts to report from the signing? (You should totally do a report on the signing. We'll give you a spiffy award!)

[CrazyRioter]

Interesting. I really did not expect that it was actually Hemalurgic. Any other cool facts to report from the signing? (You should totally do a report on the signing. We'll give you a spiffy award!)

I got my dad to record the Q&A session (which was short) I will upload it to youtube soonish. We didn't stay after I got my book signed unfortunately so I didn't have much chance to overhear anything interesting.

[Soother]

Interesting. I really did not expect that it was actually Hemalurgic. Any other cool facts to report from the signing? (You should totally do a report on the signing. We'll give you a spiffy award!)

If you reread the scenes where Wax has the earring in, he experiences odd feelings, and in the scene where he gets his Sterrions back, he directly converses with Harmony, which kinda gave it away.

[Chaos]

If you reread the scenes where Wax has the earring in, he experiences odd feelings, and in the scene where he gets his Sterrions back, he directly converses with Harmony, which kinda gave it away.

No, I knew that, but we know Hemalurgic spiking doesn't allow you to read minds, so I was thinking that Sazed wouldn't need the Hemalurgy at all to communicate. Plus, I can't imagine Sazed is too keen on killing to get the spikes in the first place.

[CrazyRioter]

No, I knew that, but we know Hemalurgic spiking doesn't allow you to read minds, so I was thinking that Sazed wouldn't need the Hemalurgy at all to communicate. Plus, I can't imagine Sazed is too keen on killing to get the spikes in the first place.

which is why he melted down old Inquisitor spikes instead, which is what Brandon wrote in my book.

[Chaos]

Well, there you go. It helps when I actually read what you posted.

[Pechvarry]

From the Annotations for HoA

So that meant koloss had to be made out of regular people, not Allomancers or Feruchemists. Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men.

Hence the decision that where the spike was placed in the receiver, and how it was used to kill a person, influenced how the power was shaped. Now a pewter spike could steal any of a number of powers, based on how it was used. And regular people could be used instead of Allomancers—however, when that happened, the receiver was twisted much more than if an Allomantically charged spike or a Feruchemically charged spike was used.

My rationale for this is that if the spike is pulling out the pure power of Preservation—part of the power of all creation—and twisting it, it would change the body of the recipient greatly. Twisting them through use of the twisted power.

So Hemalurgy continues to baffle me. We know that what can be stolen is based on metal, and we know location is important. But do we know how location is important? This Koloss-creation quote makes me feel like there are multiple ways to imbue someone with physical strength, for example. Probably, the more efficient the gain, the more it must distort the Spiritweb. So you could spike an ear and get some Seeker power, or you could spike the base of the skull and get a bit MORE Seeker power in addition to being ravenously insane.

If any of what I said is feasible, then Sazed wouldn't be creating zombie-followers just by giving them a spike or 2.

[CrazyRioter]

Remember that the "human attribute" spikes screw the recipient up a ton more then allomantic or feruchemical spikes, with the latter, it was mostly just Ruin screwing around with them that drove people crazy, unless you have a ton of them like the Inquisitors Sazed isn't going to screw around with his followers' minds like that so they aren't going to end up going nuts, especially since they don't wear the earrings all the time.

[Thor]

Remember that the "human attribute" spikes screw the recipient up a ton more then allomantic or feruchemical spikes, with the latter, it was mostly just Ruin screwing around with them that drove people crazy, unless you have a ton of them like the Inquisitors Sazed isn't going to screw around with his followers' minds like that so they aren't going to end up going nuts, especially since they don't wear the earrings all the time.

Even large quantities of Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes don't change you mentally: Look at Marsh at the end of AoL: he seems to be much like his old self again. The spikes haven't changed him as a person, just physically (though there could be some DEEP mental, emotional and spiritual scaring.) I think the notion that Inquisitor's are bloodthirsty sadists comes from three factors: Ruin influencing them (by whispering in their minds, and later controlling them outright), lots of physical and mental anguish from the spikes and the lack of restrictions caused by becoming virtually invincible without any consequences for your actions. (The Inquisitors are outside of the law, so they can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't upset TLR, who doesn't seem to care much.) And people who the Inquisitors choose to continue their species probably aren't the nicest folks who have ever lived.

[Aradel]

If Harmony uses melted-down Inquisitor spikes, they must have hit terminal drain after tree-hundred odd years and being divided up. I think hemalurgic spikes always contain a bit of power, but at terminal it's not enough to grant much of a benefit.

The power of Ruin might be able to extend the life of a spike. Vin couldn't wear hers 24/7 growing up, and it still gave her an edge over copperclouds. Though some of that may have been superior Allomantic ability. Sazed guessed at the end of HoA that she'd been absorbing bits and pieces of preservation's mist all her life.

[NinjaMeTimbers]

Even large quantities of Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes don't change you mentally: Look at Marsh at the end of AoL: he seems to be much like his old self again. The spikes haven't changed him as a person, just physically (though there could be some DEEP mental, emotional and spiritual scaring.) I think the notion that Inquisitor's are bloodthirsty sadists comes from three factors: Ruin influencing them (by whispering in their minds, and later controlling them outright), lots of physical and mental anguish from the spikes and the lack of restrictions caused by becoming virtually invincible without any consequences for your actions. (The Inquisitors are outside of the law, so they can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't upset TLR, who doesn't seem to care much.) And people who the Inquisitors choose to continue their species probably aren't the nicest folks who have ever lived.

There's also the Inquisitor bloodlust that they get into, part of the reason Marsh was able to break free from ruin long enough to pull Vin's earring out.

[Aradel]

There's also the Inquisitor bloodlust that they get into, part of the reason Marsh was able to break free from ruin long enough to pull Vin's earring out.

Do you have a reference for that? I must have missed that somewhere.

[NinjaMeTimbers]

Do you have a reference for that? I must have missed that somewhere.

Chapter 72, page 637 at least of my book: "He didn't think. He didn't give Ruin time to react. Amid the thrill of killing the Hero of Ages, Ruin's control was weaker than it had ever been. Summoning all the will he had remaining, Marsh reached out.

And ripped the earring from Vin's ear."

The page before mentions Marsh being "fully in the throes of a blood frenzy." A few other times in the book, it mentions Ruin having less control when the Inquisitor/Koloss is in a blood frenzy, and it mentions Inquisitor Blood frenzy somewhere else too I'm pretty sure, can't remember where. I just finished the book again a week or two ago.

[fyodor]

I always understood that some of the limitations had to do with Preservation and Ruin balancing/countering each other. Ruin was limited to Hemalurgic spike communication in part because Preservation was blocking and he needed the slight edge he had with Spiked people to communicate. There are some scenes near the end of HoA when Vin is just barely able to get past Ruin to reach Elend and similarly Ruin is able to just barely get past Vin to reach an Inquisitor. But without a countering force, Sazed could probably do more than either.

[Kurkistan]

I always understood that some of the limitations had to do with Preservation and Ruin balancing/countering each other. Ruin was limited to Hemalurgic spike communication in part because Preservation was blocking and he needed the slight edge he had with Spiked people to communicate. There are some scenes near the end of HoA when Vin is just barely able to get past Ruin to reach Elend and similarly Ruin is able to just barely get past Vin to reach an Inquisitor. But without a countering force, Sazed could probably do more than either.

That sounds fairly plausible.

[pmj812]

Here's a small theory about Harmony - it's been brought up several times that, because humans are slightly more of Preservation than of Ruin, that the Ruin shard will over time have a stronger effect on Sazed.

The theory is, Sazed made the Koloss into a race that breeds true so that there would be a balance - the new Koloss are slightly more of Ruin, thus there are equal bits of both shards in the souls of creatures, leaving Harmony's power balanced.

[FeatherWriter]

I have a feeling that Wax's spike is probably either charged from a coinshot or a weight gainer (I don't know the Ferring names off the top of my head) so he wouldn't really notice a new power when he put it in.

[lauren.e135]

The page before mentions Marsh being "fully in the throes of a blood frenzy." A few other times in the book, it mentions Ruin having less control when the Inquisitor/Koloss is in a blood frenzy, and it mentions Inquisitor Blood frenzy somewhere else too I'm pretty sure, can't remember where. I just finished the book again a week or two ago.

Yeah, Brandon states that Ruin has less control over people/creatures when experiencing extreme emotions:

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

[lauren.e135]

Even large quantities of Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes don't change you mentally: Look at Marsh at the end of AoL: he seems to be much like his old self again. The spikes haven't changed him as a person, just physically (though there could be some DEEP mental, emotional and spiritual scaring.) I think the notion that Inquisitor's are bloodthirsty sadists comes from three factors: Ruin influencing them (by whispering in their minds, and later controlling them outright), lots of physical and mental anguish from the spikes and the lack of restrictions caused by becoming virtually invincible without any consequences for your actions. (The Inquisitors are outside of the law, so they can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't upset TLR, who doesn't seem to care much.) And people who the Inquisitors choose to continue their species probably aren't the nicest folks who have ever lived.

That was my understanding. Ruin's influence made them love destruction. And if you look at the annotation quote from Pechvarry it seems as though hemalurgy will steal one of two things: allomantic power or the pure power of Preservation. If it steals allomancy it wont twist a person as much, but if there is no allomancy to steal, then it steals the aspect of Preservation in someone and twists them.

If you look at inquisitors, their spikes stole only/mostly allomantic powers and therefore did not effect them as much. Marsh was able to resist most of Ruin's influence at the very beginning, if I recall--it was near the end that he changed. Also, remember, Marsh was still himself (for the most part mentally), but because of the large amount of spikes in him Ruin was able to control his body against his will.

Now look at koloss. The spikes in them where much smaller and fewer in number, but they lost most of their humanity when created/spiked. This was because the spikes were not used to steal allomantic abilities and thus stole pieces of Preservation's power that is in everyone.

[CrazyRioter]

I have a feeling that Wax's spike is probably either charged from a coinshot or a weight gainer (I don't know the Ferring names off the top of my head) so he wouldn't really notice a new power when he put it in.

I'm gonna suggest it was charged from a coinshot, as the Inquistors weren't using many feruchemical spikes til the very end so it's more likely to have been steel.

Which may be part of the reason he managed to explode an entire building.