Stormlight and fGold: Steelhunt Edition

[Moogle]

He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight. Just a little, a fraction of a sphere’s worth. It flowed through his veins like a wave of pressure, like winds trapped in a small enclosure.

The tattoo on his forehead melted. His body shoved out the ink, which started to drip down his face. The tattooist cursed again and grabbed her rag.

 

Anyone still willing to stick their necks out and say Stormlight is just like Allomantic pewter? Pewter wouldn't shove ink out of your body, while Feruchemical gold, which reverts you to your 'ideal' state, would.

 

Here's my old theory.

 

I don't think Stormlight is any different than Feruchemical gold, just weaker. I think you can heal severed arms or Shardblade-chopped arms, it's just that holding that much Stormlight would vaporize your body (like Vin and the mists, except you don't get to ascend to Shardhood). Szeth, for example, feels like he's going to explode at one point. It is therefore impossible to actually heal severed limbs with normal Stormlight holding.

 

Feruchemical gold, when used 'weakly', leaves scars. If you don't have much of a charge in your goldminds, you can't regenerate limbs. Stormlight would be similar.

 

Stormlight, mostly, is 'held' and isn't used directly. The healing effects and the pewterish effects are mostly just a side-effect as the Stormlight escapes your body before you can use it. This would explain why Regrowth can be used to regrow limbs, despite normal Stormlight not being able to manage it - all the Stormlight's power is devoted to just that task, while only a fraction is used towards healing while you hold it normally.

 

As something of a tangent, I suspect the reason Stormlight feels like it is surging in your veins is because it actually it is diffused in your blood. (Based on the description of wounds leaking Stormlight instead of blood, though, I suspect it's more that your blood is diffused in the Stormlight.) This is actually useful, from a healing point of view: if you get clawed, and lots of blood starts to leak out, that increases the concentration of the Stormlight at the site of the wound, and heals it faster.

 

Edit: Actually, as my theory seems mostly that Stormlight is in the blood, it seems like it would be mostly Physical, so I suppose my prediction is that you can heal severed limbs, but not Shardblade-severed limbs. I'm not very sure at all.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Moogle

[marianmi]

Where is the quote from?

 

Edit: nevermind

Edited November 7, 2013 by marianmi

[bartbug]

Stormlight is still closer to Allomantic pewter than Feruchemical gold, though. I remember there being a quote about Feruchemical gold being able to heal Shardblade cut limbs, which Stormlight cannot do.

[Moogle]

Stormlight is still closer to Allomantic pewter than Feruchemical gold, though. I remember there being a quote about Feruchemical gold being able to heal Shardblade cut limbs, which Stormlight cannot do.

 

Closer, sure, but they definitely aren't the same thing. I wonder if it's a mixture of the two, something completely different, or what. My theory is that Stormlight is a very very weak Feruchemical gold, which is why it can't heal Shardblade wounds, but I imagine we'll find out eventually.

 

It almost seems like it 'perfects' the body, or brings the body into a state that the user feels is more perfect. If you're wounded, that's suboptimal, so you get healing. You're not strong enough normally, so you get some extra strength, speed, and dexterity. I wonder if it enhances the mind as well? The way Kaladin hit someone's vitals with every thrust of his spear implied that. Someone should sit Jasnah down and get her to do research while infused with Stormlight and see if she makes any quick breakthroughs. What about enhancing the senses? It could almost be like pewter and tin wrapped into one convenient package.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

Bah humbug.

 

*Goes off to sulk, 'cause I liked Darnam's idea*

 

...

 

*Sees a new post*

 

NOT. SO. FAST!

 

Boom. Bodies reject ink in the natural world, so Allomantic pewter ought to be able to do it as well. To summarize: tattoos need relativley slow healing, which stormlight isn't allowing for.

 

And so Allomantic pewter ~= Stormlight will once more reign triumphant! 

Edited November 7, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Moogle]

Bah humbug.

 

*Goes off to sulk, 'cause I liked Darnam's idea*

 

...

 

*Sees a new post*

 

NOT. SO. FAST!

 

Boom. Bodies reject ink in the natural world, so Allomantic pewter ought to be able to do it as well. To summarize: tattoos need relativley slow healing, which stormlight isn't allowing for.

 

And so Allomantic pewter ~= Stormlight will once more reign triumphant! 

 

YOU HAVE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD: Unsourced Claims Begone!

 

Ink rejection is really rare and not a natural process for the majority of people as far as I can tell! Wikipedia certainly has nothing on it, and 'ink rejection' googling brings up quite a lot of yahoo answers, and no medical journals. It seems that some people have allergic reactions, and that this causes the body to push out some inks. This seems to happen moderately commonly only in the case of red ink, and Bridge 4 had black ink. Also, if the body were healing at an extremely accelerated rate, it would trap the ink (as the skin closes before it can push out the ink). The point of tattoos is that you inject ink below the skin so that it isn't pushed out as skin naturally grows and falls out.

 

I demand the theory take a huge hit to its chances simply because the probability of Kaladin being allergic to ink is extremely low!

 

Edit: FURTHERMORE, you are proposing that Thugs could not be obligators! That is something that should have been brought up in Mistborn when the tattoos on obligators were mentioned! I am using lots of exclamation marks! I don't know how to stop!

Edited November 7, 2013 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

YOU HAVE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD: Unsourced Claims Begone!

 

Ink rejection is really rare and not a natural process for the majority of people as far as I can tell! Wikipedia certainly has nothing on it, and 'ink rejection' googling brings up quite a lot of yahoo answers, and no medical journals. It seems that some people have allergic reactions, and that this causes the body to push out some inks. This seems to happen moderately commonly only in the case of red ink, and Bridge 4 had black ink. Also, if the body were healing at an extremely accelerated rate, it would trap the ink (as the skin closes before it can push out the ink). The point of tattoos is that you inject ink below the skin so that it isn't pushed out as skin naturally grows and falls out.

 

I demand the theory take a huge hit to its chances simply because the probability of Kaladin being allergic to ink is extremely low!

 

NOOOOO!

 

*Slumps to desk as if struck by blow, despite it only being holograms words*

 

But no! HEART OF THE SHARDS, GUIDE ME!

 

*Draws...*

 

Deddinty of Ink, I summon thee!

 

*Sends PM, waits*

 

---

 

While we're waiting: I think we'd all be fine with Pewter doing some technically abnormal things in how fast it heals people. Like how, if I recall correctly, it reduces scarring.

 

So, in both cases, it's not just like you hit fast-forward on the normal healing process and watch as the normal process of healing that would happen in a month happens in an hour: instead, you make the healing process itself faster and therefore just better, to some extent.

 

EDIT: Worked on my phrasing that second paragraph.

 

Edit: FURTHERMORE, you are proposing that Thugs could not be obligators! That is something that should have been brought up in Mistborn when the tattoos on obligators were mentioned! I am using lots of exclamation marks! I don't know how to stop!

 

No one's saying that stormlight isn't miles beyond Allomantic pewter in how well it does, only that it's a difference of degree rather than kind.

 

Also, for all we know, Thugs and Mistborn are actually specifically warned not to burn Allomantic pewter for awhile after they get their tattoos: it's never come up.

 

I don't see Obligators as going either way, really. If Allomantic pewter would push out ink, then Obligator's have tattoos and are told not to burn for a bit after getting them. If Allomantic pewter doesn't push out ink, then Obligators have tattoos. Result: Obligators have tattoos.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni]

Ahem. From wiki:

 

Tattooing involves the placement of pigment into the skin's dermis, the layer of dermal tissue underlying the epidermis. After initial injection, pigment is dispersed throughout a homogenized damaged layer down through the epidermis and upper dermis, in both of which the presence of foreign material activates the immune system's phagocytes to engulf the pigment particles. As healing proceeds, the damaged epidermis flakes away (eliminating surface pigment) while deeper in the skin granulation tissue forms, which is later converted to connective tissue by collagen growth. This mends the upper dermis, where pigment remains trapped within fibroblasts, ultimately concentrating in a layer just below the dermis/epidermis boundary. Its presence there is stable, but in the long term (decades) the pigment tends to migrate deeper into the dermis, accounting for the degraded detail of old tattoos.

 

As far as I can tell, that would mean that tattoos are a form of colored scars. Also note that the process includes initial rejection, formation of granulation tissue, etc. If your skin simply healed (and I assume it would heal faster in the deeper dermis layer, where more living cells are) the ink would simply be pushed through the still-existing holes, without any scar tissue forming.

 

Now to address the issue of Allomantic pewter: It is true that Allomantic pewter speed up healing, but it can be noticed that an effect is relatively minor. At most, as far as i can tell, it produces maybe 5x increase in natural healing. That should be slow enough for scar tissue to start forming, even if you'd heal in a day (of constant burning) instead of a week.

It takes several days for even a simple scratch to completely heal, so Feruchemical gold healing accelerates the process (if that is how it works) many thousands times.

As far as I can tell, Stormlight is somewhere in between these. It accelerates healing much greater than Allomantic pewter, but provides less toughening (as far as I can tell), so you are easier to damage. Also you can draw in more of it.

As for the mechanism, I am not sure, but I think (as was mentioned before) that Shardblade damages the delivery mechanism for Stormlight, so it cannot reach the wound site (in Spiritual), and so cannot fix it. But we don't know enough of Shardblade wounds (most people encountering shardblade ended up dead) to speculate.

Edit:

 

While we're waiting: I think we'd all be fine with Pewter doing some technically abnormal things in how fast it heals people. Like how, if I recall correctly, it reduces scarring.

Well, scarring is more of the stopgap measure of the body, IIRC, so if you heal faster you get less of it.. errr, that is not quite right, but anyway, wiki says:

 

If a wound becomes covered with epithelial tissue within two weeks, minimal collagen will be deposited and no scar will form.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Satsuoni

[Kurkistan]

Thanks for the facts.

 

Edit:

Well, scarring is more of the stopgap measure of the body, IIRC, so if you heal faster you get less of it.. errr, that is not quite right, but anyway, wiki says:

 

Thank you. That's what I was trying to get at, though I phrased myself rather atrociously.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Kurkistan

[deddinty]

Heh, I didn't expect my minor comment to be so called out.  I've just heard about ink rejection before, I would never have claimed it's a common occurrence, compared to something like ink allergies. Ask any tattoo artist and they'd tell you ink rejection happens, but it's usually the result of people making very unintelligent decisions about getting tons and tons of ink within a short amount of time, which obviously isn't what's going on in Kaladin's case.  I did make my point that it's more likely the skin is just healing too quickly and pushing the ink out.

 

I personally think stormlight is between the two as well. I doubt it could regrow a limb as Kaladin uses it (Lift is another matter...), and I don't feel we know enough to speculate about shardblade damaged bodies whether it would heal one way or the other.  It certainly seems like it's more towards accelerating what the body can do (Allomantic pewter), rather than returning it to an ideal state (Feruchemical gold) as we've seen it work so far for Kaladin.  But it does seem to be more powerful than regular Allomantic pewter, and more like Vin on mists Pewter. I'm not as comfortable arguing in Mistborn terms though, as I've only made it through once. It's not my favorite...don't kill me. 
 

Edited November 7, 2013 by deddinty

[bartbug]

I'm sorry, I couldn't read the small text. But Mistborn is my favorite series ever. Prepare to die. But just in terms of redundancy, I think that Lift's powers would be more similar to Feruchemical gold than Stormlight, and that alone bars (in my mind) the possibility of Stormlight being like Feruchemical gold. I mean, that kind of takes out any of the awesomeness of Growth as a surge.

[Moogle]

I'm sorry, I couldn't read the small text. But Mistborn is my favorite series ever. Prepare to die. But just in terms of redundancy, I think that Lift's powers would be more similar to Feruchemical gold than Stormlight, and that alone bars (in my mind) the possibility of Stormlight being like Feruchemical gold. I mean, that kind of takes out any of the awesomeness of Growth as a surge.

 

I'm not sure of that. I mean, Growth can be used on other people for a start, and Stormlight heals much more weakly than Growth. As well, Growth can make plants grow so there's probably a ton more uses.

[Gloom]

Yeah well, how are you going to explain it when Kaladins brands are healed by his own Stormlight?

[Moogle]

Yeah well, how are you going to explain it when Kaladins brands are healed by his own Stormlight?

 

Feruchemical gold doesn't heal scars when they become a part of how you see yourself. Sazed was always a eunuch, for example. Kaladin's scars are here to stay, I'd say.

 

Unless in a nice character development moment he abandons his view of himself as a wretch utterly? It'd be nice and thematic for his scars to heal immediately after that.

[Gloom]

I know, crazy right?

 

So I know none of you will agree with me, but I think that because of Honors influence, Stormlight puts pressure on the physical to improve, to perfect, to make better. I also think that the more Stormlight a Windrunner holds, the more pressure it puts on the cognitive aspect to improve, to perfect, to make better. Because of this I believe that a time will come that Kaladin will reach an ideal, and his scars will disappear. That the physical and emotional scars of the past will fade and become memory. This would be impossible with Preservation because Preservation is about preserving what is. I believe Honor is about becoming the ideal, about becoming the best person you can be, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

[Shardlet]

As to the ink rejection in the story, I don't think we have much information about the way stormlight healing takes place.  Does the healing happen top down, bottom up or equal across the board?  If top down, then ink rejection would be unlikely since the skin at the surface would heal first thus effectively trapping the ink.  If across the board equally, then also unlikely since it seems like everything would heal around the ink.  But, if it is bottom up, then ink rejection seems more likely since the deepest part of the injury heals first.  This would effectively move the ink upward out of the damaged tissue as it heals.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Shardlet

[Gloom]

As to the ink rejection in the story, I don't think we have much information about the way stormlight healing takes place.  Does the healing happen top down, bottom up or equal across the board?  If top down, then ink rejection would be unlikely since the skin at the surface would heal first thus effectively trapping the ink.  If across the board equally, then also unlikely since it seems like everything would heal around the ink.  But, if it is bottom up, then ink rejection seems more likely since the deepest part of the injury heals first.  This would effectively move the ink upward out of the damaged tissue as it heals.

 

Healing from the inside out seems the most logical in any event. Healing from the inside out is more likely to force foreign objects out of the body during the healing process and be more efficient since it wouldn't require the body to absorb as many foreign bodies that were left behind. Additionally, it would help keep a fighter alive as it would target organ, bone and muscle damage before handling damage that is more superficial in nature. I don't believe that Stormlight would have any problems either creating or forcing the body to produce blood that was lost as blood is one of the ten essences.

[Moogle]

I suspect it's everything at once, but is fastest wherever blood is, since Stormlight basically replaces your blood. You get cut, blood (or rather, Stormlight) comes from the wound, and then that is healed first because it has the greatest concentration of Stormlight. And, bonus, whenever Stormlight is leaking from the body, you know there's a serious wound to heal. This also heals your major organs first!

 

As for the ink... it's not actually damaging the tissue. The only thing being damaged is the skin the needle punctures. What does happen is that the ink triggers an immune response, hence the swelling. The ink is caught up by the white blood cells and then they stay around that area and you have a nice tattoo. I see no reason why this would force the ink out, hence why it seems more like Feruchemical gold and trying to revert you to your 'ideal' state.

[Argent]

I don't know about the blood being the carrier for Stormlight... I thought that was the case too, but it doesn't explain very well the glowing eyes or the clouds of Stormlight Kaladin exhales. 

[deddinty]

I always associated the stormlight with the idea of qi (chi or ki), especially as the literal translation is "breath".

[Ethrien]

I don't know about the blood being the carrier for Stormlight... I thought that was the case too, but it doesn't explain very well the glowing eyes or the clouds of Stormlight Kaladin exhales. 

The breath part makes a fair amount of sense, blood is infused with oxygen, and emptied of carbon dioxide as it passes through the lungs. If instead of oxygen your blood is being infused with stormlight to power your muscles, then your also not undergoing the chemical reactions that use the oxygen and produce the carbon, meaning you wouldn't need to breath.

 

A quick trip to Wikipedia tells me eye color is decided in your stroma by two major factors, Melanin and blood vessels. Melanin is the pigment used in the human iris and is what gives us brown eyes, all other eye colors are decided by a lack of melanin. In people with less pigment in their eyes, Rayleigh* scattering (which is why the sky is blue) in their hemoglobin and blood vessels, becomes more important. People with blue eyes have very little melanin, people with green and hazel eyes have slightly more.

 

Therefore having stormlight moving through the blood vessel in your iris could certainly explain a change in color. Though the radiant in Dalinar's vision is described as having unnaturally white but not glowing eyes, so it seems likely that using it does change the eye over time. I would suggest that stormlight slowly destroys pigment but that would just result in blue eyes thanks to scattering, so probably time to just sit back and leave the magic eyes be.

 

*Also Tyndall and Mie scattering but to less effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_%28anatomy%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color

Edited November 8, 2013 by Ethrien

[dionysus]

The fact that Kaladin is branded with "dangerous" is just too perfect for Brandon to take those brands away. When Kaladin becomes an earthshaking full Windrunner it is going to be his signature feature known by all his enemies. The sight of a spear carrying person branded with "dangerous" is going to make his lesser enemies soil themselves on the battlefield.

[Argent]

I agree with the eyes part, it's what I didn't mention then. Magic eyes are an unexplained side effect of magic I am willing to leave unexplained pretty much everywhere. Blood, however...

Let's your blood does carry Stormlight. If it powers you instead of oxygen, then why would you deposit it in the lungs to be exhaled? Carbon dioxide, which we can tentatively refer to as "used-up oxygen," gets dumped the because it's handful to our bodies and because of how diffusion works for gases. The direct reason is the latter though: oxygen enters the body, just as carbon dioxide leaves it, because the lungs are porous enough to allow for the gases to move towards and equilibrium. Stormlight doesn't move like that though. It moves not based on concentration, but shape of the container (i.e. its free form gravitates towards certain containers, Namely gemhearts). So there is no physical reason for Stormlight to be exhaled if it travels by blood - if this were the case, the only way to leave it would be through the blood and pores of the body.

All this being said, blood does have a special significance in the cosmere. It's easy to dismiss all my science with just a little handwavium.

[askthepaperclip]

Wow, just want to interject and say that this is a particularly nerdy thread, even for 17thShard...congrats everyone! :-D

Now for an actual comment: I don't quite understand what we are talking about here...is there some reason why healing mechanisms need to work the same way across shard worlds? Or is this a just for giggles "who would win in a fight" sort of discussion? For my money, I think trying to draw too many connections between stormlight and the metallic arts is a fool's errand. Of course, I suppose so is all our wild theorizing, which is why we are here! :-P

[Argent]

No, healing doesn't have to be the same, but the laws of magic do. Mostly, we are bouncing ideas, trying to figure out how things work by looking at as many examples as we can get, putting the pieces of the puzzle back together. Only we've got about three pieces, none of them are corners, and the puzzle is not even created yet