Hemalurgical Research Thread

[Thought]

Hemalurgy is the most complex of the Metallic Arts, which makes discussing it in a crazy, obsessive-compulsive fashion difficult. At no point in the books is it clearly defined, so there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge about it. To confound this, however, what information we do know is scattered throughout the primary texts (mainly Hero of Ages), and even then somewhat faintly. Sometimes an important line of text is nestled in a large chapter that, other than it, doesn't talk about hemalurgy at all.

The purpose of this thread, then, is to create a repository of our clues about hemalurgy, with a focus on the books. Currently, I'll post information based on book, chapter, and I'll note if it is in the chapter bumps or not (I use an ebook version, so page numbers are highly inaccurate). I'll also include a brief summary of what the section says (I'm avoiding making everything direct quotes because that is getting into questionable copyright territory). Suffice it to say, there will be potential spoilers.

As a warning, chances are, people normally remember a lot of this information. This isn't so much to reveal new information as it is to gather and document what we have, so it is easier to reference it.

If anyone wants to help, feel free to post a section and I'll be happy to add it to the master list. Of course, theories based on this information are welcome.

And now, the LIST:

Well of Ascension

Ch36: Zane has a spike in his chest. The head is against his sternum and the point comes out between his shoulder blades. This location is "where his heart thumped." He has a hard time thinking about the spike and isn't sure when he got it.

Hero of Ages

Prologue: Marsh prepares to drive a brass spike through a Keeper and into an Inquisitor.

Ch 5: Vin and Elend examine the inquisitor that they killed. They find “...the standard spikes--three pounded between the ribs on each side of the chest...” as well as an irregular one that would have “gone right through its heart.” The irregular one is pewter, per: “That makes ten spikes. Two through the eyes and one through the shoulders: all steel. Six through the ribs: two steel, four bronze. Now this, a pewter one.”

Ch 6: Marsh notes that he has new spikes, some driven between his ribs, others “driven down through the chest.”

Ch 16: Spook gets stabbed by a steel sword through the heart of a thug into his “chest.”

Ch 26: Spook inspects his wound and sees that the metal is in his shoulder.

Ch34: Marsh kills a Smoker with a bronze spike through the heart. Notes that traveling with it outside a person would in turn grant the recipient of the spike far less power than if it had been driven directly in. He also notes that allomancy suffers from a higher rate of decay in hemalurgical spikes than other attributes.

Ch35: The bump states that hemalurgy must have an incredibly high cost. Sazed reveals that he knows quite a bit about it.

Ch36: The bump claims that the type of metal used in hemalurgy is important, as is the positioning of a spike. Sazed notes that steel can take physical allomantic powers, but which of the four is granted to the user depends on its placement.

Ch36: Sazed (in the bump) notes that other metals steal feruchemy and that all original Inquisitors had a pewter healing spike. However, because of hemalurgical decay, they don't “do it as quickly” as a feruchemist.

Ch37: Sazed (bump) says that hemalurgic decay wasn’t as noticeable in mistborn Inquisitors, since all the allomantic spikes enhanced their powers that they already have.

Ch37: Sazed (bump) also notes that most inquisitors were made from mistings, and that seekers were favored.

Ch37: Human pulls four small spikes out of a dead Koloss

Ch 38: Sazed (Bump) states that in addition to stealing allomantic and feruchemical abilities, hemalurgy can also steal the power of preservation that resides in a normal person’s soul (the power that gives them sentience).

Ch38: Sazed (bump) explains the Kandra blessings: Blesing of Potency gives innate strength similar to pewter, Blessing of Presence grants similar mental capacity, Blessing of Awareness grants ability to sense well, and Blessing of Stability grants emotional Fortitude

Ch 38: Sazed (still in the bump) notes that Preservation’s body fuels allomancy.

Ch 39: TenSoon takes the Blessing of Potentcy in through his shoulders and has them pierce specific organs, which then give him power. (more than doubled the power and endurance of each muscle). States he is "one of" the most powerful kandra alive.

Ch 40: Sazed (bump again) states Koloss spikes similar to Kandra Blessing of Potentcy (four spikes, each with a soul), made them increasingly non-human, which is cost of hemalurgy.

Ch 40: Elend and co discuss how inquisitors are made: no one knows, but rumors are that a whole group of allomancers were combined into one, which indicates why the Inquisition was so eager to hunt down Skaa mistings. Elend notes “you kill eight mistings” to transfer their power.

Ch 41: Bump-Sazed says that hemalurgy changes a person based on three factors: what powers are granted, where the spike is placed, and how many someone has (an inquisitor’s heart is in a different place, and their brain is reshaped). Koloss are are physically very changed, but Kandra are almost untouched (though their minds start functioning).

Ch42: Bump-Sazed notes that killing more people with the same spike can increase its power,but that there is only so much of a charge that it can hold. But he wonders if repeated use could make the Koloss more human.

Ch42: Marsh states that size of the spike wasn’t entirely important for Ruin: a small one could still work, but it depended on how long one wanted to leave it outside of a body. Marsh used a small one that had lost most of its energy because he didn’t want to give Penrod power.

Ch 42: There are 200-300 bind points across a human body

Ch 42: For Marsh, an eye spike was the first one pounded in.

Ch 42: Spikes have to touch blood at first.

Ch42: Marsh confirmed as having speed feruchemy spikes

Ch 42: Marsh drives a spike into Penrod’s heart (smoker spike).

Ch 43: Bump-Sazed stresses that knowing where to place spikes is important.

Ch 44: Bump-Sazed again notes the importance of spike placement, claiming that a spike in one place will create a “near-mindless beast” while in “another place, a spike will create a crafty yet homicial Inquisitor."

Ch 44: Bump-Sazed also claims that without the instinctual knowledge Rashek gained from the Well, he could have never been able to succeed.

Ch 44: The bump also establishes that Inquisitor torture chambers were labs for trying to develop new constructs (never succeeded).

Ch 44: Elend concludes that since Yomen can burn atium, he must be a mistborn.

Ch 45: Bump-Sazed notes that a misting with a spike of the same power would be nearly twice as powerful. This is how “many inquisitors could pierce copperclouds.”

Ch49: In the bump, Sazed reveals that spiked individuals couldn’t use Preservation’s well.

Ch 58: The Citizen is revealed to have a bronze spike in his upper arm. He's a seeker.

Ch 79: KanPaar is revealed to have his spikes in his shoulders.

Interviews

Josh's Interview, May 2010

Q: Can Hemalurgy be used to steal magic attributes from any Shardworld?

A: Hemalurgy has larger ramifications then just Scadrial. That's about all he'd say.

Tweets

July 2009 Twitter question:

Czanos: Would anything interesting happen if an Allomancer Burned a Hemalurgic spike, or a Feruchemist Tapped one?

Sanderson: Er, well, it’s possible. But you’d have to be burning a Hemalurgic spike that killed you and took your power... Just like you can’t gain anything by burning a metalmind unless you infused it yourself.

Question and Answers

January 2011 Tor Q&A:

Q: What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike?

A: Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person’s that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences.

October 2009 Barnes and Noble

Q: Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.

A: That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.

What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.

Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.

Time Waster's Guild and other Forums

Reddit 2.0, September 2011

insertcleverphrase: I know from reading your blog and various other comments that many of your books are in the same cosmos/universe, specifically Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, and Way of Kings. I also am pretty sure that one day you'd like to do a series that ties all the different series/books together into one super-series. So my question is, would the various magic systems work on different worlds? For example, would a Mistborn be able to use his/her abilities in the world Way of Kings is located on?

Brandon: It depends on the magic system. They are all related to a kind of "Spiritual DNA" that one gets from their heritage on a specific planet. However, there are ways around that. (Hemalurgy, for example, 'staples' a piece of someone else's soul to your own, and creates a work around to give you access to magic you shouldn't have.) Some of the magics are more regionally tied than others. (In Elantris, you have to access the Dor, which is very regionally influenced.)

The end answer is this: With in-depth knowledge of how the magics work, and their connection, one could probably get them all to work on other planets. It may take effort for some of them.

HoA thread on TWG, October 2008

Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 03:29:21 PM

Another question, Brandon. Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadrial?

Sanderson

Okay, back to answering spoilers. (Or, in the case of this post, half-answering them.)

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. To use Hemalurgy, one must first have someone with these right spiritual and genetic codse, then take the power from them. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Thought

[Triasmus]

Ch 44: Elend concludes that since Yomen can burn atium, he must be a mistborn.

That doesn't have anything to do with hemalurgy. Yomen's an atium misting.

[Commander Spoonface]

This is a good idea- but we need to include facts about Hemalurgy from interviews and whatnot.

So, according to Brandon, Hemalurgy works a lot like this:

When a spike is driven into someone, it take some of their Spiritweb with it. When the spike is then placed in another person, it sort of staples that portion of the first person's Spiritweb onto them, which changes the second persons Spiritweb, sort of fooling it into thinking they're an allomancer or a feruchemist or whatever.

[Thought]

Thanks, Spoonface! Though, do you know in what interview or blurb that information can be found? I glanced through the brandonothology and didn't find it, but that was just a really quick search.

That doesn't have anything to do with hemalurgy. Yomen's an atium misting.

Doesn't it, though? Elend talks about how 8 mistings were apparently used to create an inquisitor, yet when he says that, he didn't know that atium mistings exist. This quote puts that one in context. 9-spike inquisitors make more sense when one doesn't know that atium (and presumably gold) mistings exist.

[Eric]

Maybe it should go in a separate "But I Thought...!" section that clarifies inaccuracies we see from the character's viewpoints.

[Thor]

I agree with Commander Spoonface: a lot of the information we have on Hemalurgy has been dragged out of Brandon in interviews. The only real information that HoA (and a small amount in WoA and TFE) gives is the basics. Anything deeper requires interview material.

Stuff to add (a lot of quotes are spoiled for length ):

You can Feruchemically store and tap a Hemalurgic spike without any problems (Marsh uses one of his spikes as a Steelmind in HoA, iirc, with no noticeable side effects) but Allomantically burning a Hemalurgic spike causes...issues.

Interviews contain slightly different answers (stolen from the Brandonothology site):

July 2009 Twitter question:

Czanos: Would anything interesting happen if an Allomancer Burned a Hemalurgic spike, or a Feruchemist Tapped one?

Er, well, it’s possible. But you’d have to be burning a Hemalurgic spike that killed you and took your power... Just like you can’t gain anything by burning a metalmind unless you infused it yourself.

January 2011 Tor Q&A:

What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike?

Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person’s that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences.

A slightly Realmatic description of Hemalurgy (October 2009 Barnes and Noble):

Q: Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.

A: That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.

What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.

Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.

The actual "stapling" quote (Reddit 2.0, September 2011):

insertcleverphrase: I know from reading your blog and various other comments that many of your books are in the same cosmos/universe, specifically Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, and Way of Kings. I also am pretty sure that one day you'd like to do a series that ties all the different series/books together into one super-series. So my question is, would the various magic systems work on different worlds? For example, would a Mistborn be able to use his/her abilities in the world Way of Kings is located on?

Brandon: It depends on the magic system. They are all related to a kind of "Spiritual DNA" that one gets from their heritage on a specific planet. However, there are ways around that. (Hemalurgy, for example, 'staples' a piece of someone else's soul to your own, and creates a work around to give you access to magic you shouldn't have.) Some of the magics are more regionally tied than others. (In Elantris, you have to access the Dor, which is very regionally influenced.)

The end answer is this: With in-depth knowledge of how the magics work, and their connection, one could probably get them all to work on other planets. It may take effort for some of them.

While not explicitly stated, it is assumed that Hemalurgy can be used to steal magic from other shardworlds. The Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum points towards this, and then we have the following question and reply from Josh's Interview, May 2010:

27. Can Hemalurgy be used to steal magic attributes from any Shardworld?

ANSWER: Hemalurgy has larger ramifications then just Scadrial. That's about all he'd say.

And another question (from the HoA thread on TWG, October 2008):

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 03:29:21 PM

Another question, Brandon. Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadrial?

Okay, back to answering spoilers. (Or, in the case of this post, half-answering them.)

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. To use Hemalurgy, one must first have someone with these right spiritual and genetic codse, then take the power from them. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

Further speculation by members of this forum seems to seal the deal. (Look at any of the topics on Hemalurgy in the Cosmere section and this will probably be referenced.)

Other implied/guessed at ideas:

Human Attribute spikes warp the host (physically and mentally) greater than the Allomantic/Feruchemical spikes. (Koloss/Kandra vs Inquisitors)

Inquisitors are basically the same person, mentally, minus the trauma of being spiked. See Marsh when not being controlled/influenced by Ruin and Kar's PoV section during the ending of TFE. Exposition:

Marsh seems to be his old self (with some psychological damage) and Kar doesn't appear to be overly broken. In fact, I think that the Inquisitors' bloodthirst has more of a societal/personal component than a Hemalurgical one. I would hazard a guess that most beings who were turned into Inquisitors weren't paragons of human kindness before they were changed. Combine that with practically no legal (SIs are basically above the law), physical (Mistborn powers, Feruchemical healing and an insane reputation), or ethical (SI are TLR greatest servants on Scadrial, if he says so, it must be ok!) restrictions and I can see how they could become as crazy as they were.

However, Kandra and Koloss are radically different from the original being. Kandra gain sapience while Koloss lose most of their higher level of reasoning (before the Koloss started to reuse the spikes they were probably even more bestial). Physically, Inquisitors change slightly (to accommodate the spikes), Koloss change quite substantially (I am still lost as to where the original Koloss skin comes from, as new Koloss have old skin spiked onto them, per HoA), and Kandra don't really change physically, they just have a driving force for changing their shape, due to sapience.

Known bind points [bind Point Location (Metal, Power, Example)]: (Please mention any other known sites!)

1. Earlobe (Bronze, Bronze Allomanty, Vin)
   
2. Eye Sockets (Steel, Unknown but presumably Iron/Steel Allomancy, Inquisitors)
   
3. Upper Arm (Bronze, Bronze Allomancy, Quellion)
   
4. Shoulder (Steel, Pewter Allomancy, Spook)
   
5. Upper Back, between shoulder blades (Steel in HoA [Possibly different in TFE], Unknown, Inquisitors) [Linchpin spike]
   
6. Between Ribs (Steel/Bronze, Unknown but presumably the base 8 Allomantic powers, Inquisitors)
   
7. Chest, possibly heart (Elend isn't a doctor, so his speculation here is suspect) (Pewter, Feruchemical Speed, Inquisitor beginning of HoA)
   
8. Chest (Unknown, Unknown, Inquisitors at the end of HoA [specifically Marsh])
   
9. Chest (Steel, Allomantic Steel, Zane) [Can't remember the exact location for his spike and I don't have WoA with me atm...]
   
10. Shoulder (Varies, Human Attributes, Kandra Blessings) [Note that all canon Blessings have been located in what equates to a shoulder on the Kandra.]
    

I may have some more to add on later. I will go take a look through some of the older threads for Hemalurgy speculation...

[Thought]

That was great, thanks Thor! I think I integrated it all into the List.

I totally agree that interviews and the sort are important, I had just been focusing on the books since the Brandonothology nicely enough is already online. But yes, this information needed to be added sooner or later, so sooner works splendidly.

Actually, it was my endeavor to figure out binding points that led me to eventually try to track down hemalurgical information, so I absolutely love your list. One confirmed other instance is:

11. Chest (Bronze, BronzeAllomancy/Smoker, Penrod)

We we assume that Ruin has to have a properly placed hemalurgic spike in order to communicate with the person, then we know two other locations:

12: Earlobe (unknown, unknown, Alendi)

12: Upper arm (Atium, unknown, Rashek) in the form of bracelets

As for Zane, that was supposed to be his heart as well, although I think we get this from Vin's POV.

[Thor]

That was great, thanks Thor! I think I integrated it all into the List.

I totally agree that interviews and the sort are important, I had just been focusing on the books since the Brandonothology nicely enough is already online. But yes, this information needed to be added sooner or later, so sooner works splendidly.

Actually, it was my endeavor to figure out binding points that led me to eventually try to track down hemalurgical information, so I absolutely love your list. One confirmed other instance is:

11. Chest (Bronze, BronzeAllomancy/Smoker, Penrod)

We we assume that Ruin has to have a properly placed hemalurgic spike in order to communicate with the person, then we know two other locations:

12: Earlobe (unknown, unknown, Alendi)

12: Upper arm (Atium, unknown, Rashek) in the form of bracelets

As for Zane, that was supposed to be his heart as well, although I think we get this from Vin's POV.

Ah good! I had forgotten about Alendi, Rashek and Penrod (I was even reading the passage with Penrod getting spiked and missed it...)

Edit: I think it has been said that Alendi's spike was a Bronze one, like Vin's, so he could sense the Well.

Also, one other very important thing I missed from the AoL release Q&A:

ZAS678: Does the person being pierced in order to charge a Hemalurgic spike have to die?

BRANDON SANDERSON: Not necessarily. A spike does require you to rip pieces of a soul from the victim, but that does not mean they must die. They would be a very different person afterwords though.

Moar!!

Hemalurgic spikes leak the invested (to use Realmatic terminology) power over time. The exact rate of loss is unknown (though it may be related to the physical size of the spike) and it is also unknown if there is a minimum amount of power that can still be held in a spike (Consider a Pewter spike, with Feruchemical Gold attached, left outside of a host for 100 years. Would the spike still give the Feruchemical power?)

If one cuts a Hemalurgic spike in two, each part of the spike has half of the power. Likewise, a Hemalurgic spike can be cut into many different pieces, each containing a very small amount of power. (The Pathian earrings in AoL are sliced up Inquisitor spikes.) I don't remember the exact location of the Pathian earrings' quote but I believe it is mentioned in one of the interview threads. The first part is from the Tor Q&A in January 2011:

MARU NUI: What happens when you break a Hemalurgic spike or metalmind? What happens to that power?

BRANDON SANDERSON: Hemalurgic power can be split among multiple spikes and reforged, but remember that the longer a spike is outside of a person, the more the power is going to decay. Things like splitting it will decay it even further. Metalminds can also be broken and still be accessed.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Thor

[Triasmus]

When Penrod got the spike through his heart, there was something that implied to me that if the spike is hemalurgically charged it will reorganize the area it's pushed into so that it'll be fine there, no matter if it's placed in a correct spot to give a power. and since it's in there, ruin will have a way through your spiritual defenses.

I think that thinking partly came from Marsh(?) saying that ruin didn't care if it gave a power, he just wanted a way in.

[Windrunner]

I tend to think that a spike has to hit a bind point in order to function correctly. Ruin controlled Marsh to make sure that the spike hit the right spot, so he couldn't have just stuck it in anywhere. If it misses the point I don't think it would have done anything other then kill him. In my opinion, the spike seems to be grafted onto the Spiritweb, in order to make that connection. If it misses the Spiritweb, Preservation's power probably wouldn't be able to keep you alive, and Ruin wouldn't have a path into your Spiritweb.

Unless you were saying that he just put it into a non-Allomantic bind point? In which case I think that could be probable.

[Triasmus]

aren't there a couple hundred bind points? You could probably stick a spike pretty much anywhere and hit a bind point. The question is does that spot actually do anything with the spike that you just put there?.

[CrazyRioter]

there are between 200-300 bind points on a human body, according to Marsh's internal monologue.

And yeah, I think you have to hit a proper bind point for the spike you are using in order for it to have any effect at all. You can't just stick it in any old bind point even if you just want to connect the sucker to Ruin

[Windrunner]

Exactly! That is my thinking as well CrazyRioter. If the spike isn't attached to the spiritual energy in your body, it's nothing different then any other piece of metal.

Oh and actually Zane's spike goes through his sternum, the point just sticks out of his back, like the ends of Inquisitor spikes go out the back of their heads. Here's the original quote.

He didn't like the way that cloaks rubbed against the small point of the spike that stuck out of his back just between the shoulder blades. The head was against his sternum, and couldn't be seen beneath clothing.

Hope that helps!

[Thought]

Thanks, Windrunner. I added that section to The List. Nicely enough, this seems to confirm that Zane's spike does indeed go through his heart (two paragraphs up from where you quotes he notes that the area is "where his heart thumped.")

Regarding spikes, I also agree that they have to be put very precisely in binding points to do any good. After all, it is hard for Ruin to get spikes into people: if any old point would do, then it should have been much easier. Probably if Penrod's spike was a quarter inch off it wouldn't have worked (or would have been a different bind point).

Given that Penrod and Zane were spiked in the same location and Ruin seemed to influence them much more easily than he did Vin or Spook, perhaps specific bind points also control how much influence Ruin has. Or maybe our plucky heroes were just stronger willed.

[CrazyRioter]

Zane was also mentally unstable to begin with (which is how Ruin got the spike in him in the first place), so that doesn't help his resistance.

[Triasmus]

I'm pretty sure the annotations said that Zane became mentally unstable because ruin was talking to him, but he wasn't at first.

[Commander Spoonface]

Zane was also mentally unstable to begin with (which is how Ruin got the spike in him in the first place), so that doesn't help his resistance.

Well of Acension (Paperback) Page 595:

"The most amusing part of this all? You're not insane. You never were."

[Windrunner]

Eh, he was a little insane to begin with. Ruin got him to spike himself after all. I think he was referring to the voice of God not meaning he was insane.

KAIMIPONO (16 OCTOBER 2008)

Did Zane get spiked intentionally? Did someone else (Straff?) know about hemalurgy?

BRANDON SANDERSON (17 OCTOBER 2008)

Zane spiked himself. It was...a very twisted and messy process. Note that Ruin tries to get Spook to do something similar. It's much easier for him to work with someone to get them to spike themselves than it is to arrange the exact circumstances where someone gets spiked.

Source

I think there's another quote where Brandon comes right out and says that Zane's mad. I'll try to find it if I can.

[Triasmus]

Reading this is what made me decide that Zane wasn't insane in the first place.

Zane’s “You were supposed to save me” is something that I really don’t expect to make sense. Despite what God says at the end, Zane is a little bit insane. He’s gone too long listening to the voice, thinking himself mad, and doing things like slaughtering his way to the top of Cett’s keep. He’s not stable anymore.

-annotation chapter 47

Edited April 17, 2012 by Lantern13

[Windrunner]

Hmm, I think that's the one I was thinking about. I still believe that Zane had to have been a little crazy to begin with in order for Ruin to be able to influence him.

[CrazyRioter]

There's a difference between "mentally unstable" and outright insane.

[Windrunner]

Well as far as I can tell, Brandon has never referred to those being affected by Ruin as something other then crazy or insane. I also can find no mention of him ever using the words "mentally unstable" in the Database, as well as in HoA or its annotations. Do you have a reference that I've missed where Brandon suggests otherwise? This is what HoA says when it talks about Ruin's affect on the insane, emphasis mine.

To achieve such things, he apparently began with people who already had a tenuous grip on reality. Their insanity made them more open to his touch, and he could use them to spike more stable people.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Windrunner