Kurkistan Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) *MISTBORN SPOILERS AHOY*So there have been some discussions as to why Sazed can't un-eunuch himself with Health. We know that severe bodily trauma isn't world-ending because Miles grows back from chomping on a stick of dynamite and Wayne grows back his fingers at least once. So what is "health?" Is it the state of health that the person is in when they store? Then why is Miles getting older and what does Compounding do?I think that TES has given us an answer. The application of Feruchemical Health is dependent upon the Cognitive aspect of the Feruchemist (or, more accurately, his body's Cognitive aspect). So Sazed's body see's itself as lacking in certain reproductive areas, Wayne sees himself as having a whole hand (as opposed to the normal course of healing just resulting in a quick creation of new skin over the stumps), and Miles sees himself as not chunky salsa.Miles gets older, then, because his Cognitive aspect adapts to age and sees it as the new normal regardless of how much Health his body has coursing through it. Health, rather than being a "state of health" or anything so complicated, is essentially just raw power whose use is dictated by the Cognitive aspect. That way, Compounding can just pour on a little extra power rather than having to interact oddly with any other aspects of what makes up "Health."I'm not going to give much analysis here because I think it's self-evident after reading TES. I'm sure other people have proposed something similar, but now we know that this is almost certainly how Health works. Edited April 16, 2013 by Kurkistan 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlashWrogan Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 Makes sense to me. It is a much more elegant answer than any of the alternatives. My thinking about the cognitive aspects of objects stemming from TES went more in the direction of time bubbles, but I already mentioned that on the TES forum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted October 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 I totally agree that Cognitive aspects also affect time bubblage. This is just another effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 This is the best theory so far on the subject. Good work. So....could I train a young bloodawesome to think he's immortal and invincible, and through the power of the mind make it so? I see potential for trilogies 2 and 3 here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 This is the best theory so far on the subject. Good work. So....could I train a young bloodawesome to think he's immortal and invincible, and through the power of the mind make it so? I see potential for trilogies 2 and 3 here... For that matter, could you brainwash a bloodmaker into thinking he's supposed to be three hundred feet tall with a million arms and he just scabs over as his body frantically burns healing to make himself "whole". ... or you know. Extremis from the Iron Man comics. Same idea. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlashWrogan Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 For that matter, could you brainwash a bloodmaker into thinking he's supposed to be three hundred feet tall with a million arms and he just scabs over as his body frantically burns healing to make himself "whole". ... or you know. Extremis from the Iron Man comics. Same idea. I think you would have to brainwash the cognitive aspect of his body . . . . This might be a little more challenging than brainwashing his mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 I think you would have to brainwash the cognitive aspect of his body . . . . This might be a little more challenging than brainwashing his mind. You'd have to be very convincing, true. There's probably some connection between the mind and body's aspect or there would be know way of knowing if castration would take when it came to the feruchemist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aradel Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 That's pretty close to Sel magic, But the hardest part is makin it plausible enough that it would go with it. If you push too hard you might break it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyman Posted October 22, 2012 Report Share Posted October 22, 2012 (edited) There are definitely limits on how hard you can push the cognitive and spiritual aspects, given the physical ones. Otherwise, the limits in Forging would make no sense. I suspect that similar limits would exist for the use of Health or time bubbles. As a side note, given Forging's unique powers, I don't think we should be surprised it's the first magic system to explicitly define the realms in published canon. (Clearly Way of Kings references them as well, but we haven't gotten to a philosophical discussion of what folks on Roshar understand yet.) It is such a scholarly art, with history and, for lack of better terms, natural philosophy at its core. That was probably one of the most engaging parts of the magic system in the book. Edited October 22, 2012 by happyman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted November 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2012 (edited) Update: This is definitely how it works. Writing Excuses on TES, 11:05:"In a lot of my magic systems dealing with the Cosmere, I work into healing as healing back to the form of yourself; that you know yourself as, as the world knows you as."P.S. Listening to the whole thing, its amusing to see the authors dip their toes into Realmatics.EDIT: He then goes on to talk about how this means that Healing won't deal with chronic problems, like Shai's bad eyes, and implies that Shaizan's stamp incorporates an eye-fixing stamp, I think. Brandon also uses the example of someone with a bad heart, where they would need to stamp themselves daily to keep their heart healthy, but would never be able to simply Forge themselves into not needing a stamp. EDIT 3: To be clear, since I seem to be linking to this thing like a madman lately, this is essentially 100% confirmation of healing as based on a person's Cognitive aspect, based on Shai's description of the Realms. The Cognitive is "how an object is viewed and how it views itself." EDIT 2 (much much later. 10/9/2013) Found a transcript of the whole thing, just copying the relevant portion in. I do it here because I tend to link to this post for "proof", as I don't think it's in the interview database yet. [Mary] That's Shai's glasses. She's a master forger, and resealers can fix things. Why is she nearsighted?[brandon] Yeah. I... In a lot of my magic systems, dealing with the Cosmere I work into healing as a... Healing you back to the form of yourself that you know yourself as, and the world knows yourself as. Which allows me to put some limitations on healing, to keep us from having all societies have perfect people with... Because that's a...[Mary] Right.[brandon] Different type of story than I want to tell. So basically, healing, once you're wounded, can heal you back to where you were, but it can't fix something chronic like that. It's just a limitation I put on it.[Mary] And yet, when she is using her five seals to change herself, she... Her...[brandon] She does. That one does not have bad eyesight, and she takes her glasses off. I actually thought about that as I built it. Why doesn't she? This is just my own reasoning, why I build my magic systems the way I do. She could build one that would fix her eyes. She would have to stamp herself with it every day, because it's a different stamp. That is basically the same as wearing glasses. You have a daily sort of chronic thing. In this magic system, you could have something that...Someone's got a chronically bad heart, you could get them one that they'd stamp themselves with every day that would keep their heart. You'd probably want to do that, if you had a chronically bad heart.[Howard] And could afford a good forger.[brandon] And could afford a good forger.[Howard] See, the thought I had...[brandon] But at the end of the day, glasses. I wear glasses. I could go get Lasix. I could afford it in a heartbeat, I know it's not that dangerous. I don't mind glasses. I always wear my glasses. The thought of you could go to this inconvenience to no longer wear glasses... I come back to, the glasses are less of an inconvenience to me. So I guess that's what it is.[Howard] See, my... And this is the readerly interpretation here. The fact that she was at her potentially weakest and most vulnerable as a forger, I saw it as a programming issue. If you forge yourself in order to be a better forger, you run into recursion problems. The forgeries you produce are themselves tainted in some way.[brandon] Interesting.[Howard] I know that wasn't part of the magic system, but I looked at it and said, "No. Of course. You want to be yourself when you create these things. Otherwise they're flawed."[Mary] I also wondered if it was that she did not want to tell lies about herself when she was herself, but wasn't sure if that was...[brandon] Well, that's a great theme we can pretend that I decided to use...[Mary] [laughter][brandon] But that's not what I did. Edited October 29, 2013 by Kurkistan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aether Posted November 29, 2013 Report Share Posted November 29, 2013 Wow. NIce work, Kurkistan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted November 29, 2013 Report Share Posted November 29, 2013 Figures that he'd use the phrase "in a lot", which is just a weak enough phrasing that it doesn't confirm if Stormlight is acting like Feruchemical gold or not. Nice quote regardless. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted November 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2013 Thanks. It's only taken a year for my constant linking back to this thread to pay off with a necro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyman Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 Thanks. It's only taken a year for my constant linking back to this thread to pay off with a necro. Since the thread never really viewed itself as dead, despite the lack of postings, I would say that it's not real necromancy, just extremely late healing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 (edited) WoR Spoilers: Just like Lopen's arm. Edited March 9, 2014 by Kurkistan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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