Jump to content

Hemalurgy and Communication


fyodor

Recommended Posts

I kept thinking that Wax's assumption that he was talking to Bleeder might be wrong. The ability to speak into others minds has always been a Shard thing. I don't remember Paalm ever saying anything in person that confirmed that she was the one speaking in Wax's mind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I kept thinking that Wax's assumption that he was talking to Bleeder might be wrong. The ability to speak into others minds has always been a Shard thing. I don't remember Paalm ever saying anything in person that confirmed that she was the one speaking in Wax's mind.

 

That would be an interesting thing to confirm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Somebody somewhere confirmed that other Shards can also communicate with spiked people. We don't have much more than that, but it's apparently not as clear as Ruin's casual chats - perhaps it's closer to a beefed up emotional Allomancy than actual communication. 

 

I think you'd need a hybrid power to express such complex concepts and communicate signifiers through emotions, but that doesn't mean it wasn't building on emotional allomancy in doing so, so that's definitely an alternative. The fact, however, that Wax found it practically indistinguishable from Harmony talking to him says to me that some sort of Shardic involvement is the most direct explanation, as we'd have to go inventing a new magical effect to explain it otherwise.

 

That said, DSC has a perfectly acceptable point that it could be direct communication from whoever Trell is, possibly relayed somehow through Bleeder, or possibly just with enough background information about Paalm to know the right things to say. I'd say that explanation is probably even simpler than my initial one and ought to be the favoured theory for the moment. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I kept thinking that Wax's assumption that he was talking to Bleeder might be wrong. The ability to speak into others minds has always been a Shard thing. I don't remember Paalm ever saying anything in person that confirmed that she was the one speaking in Wax's mind.

I was actually fixing to post a theory on this, but as I've been listening to Paalm's mental communication, there is too much of it that's personal. She starts calling him "Wax," for instance, and refers to his background in the Roughs. While this isn't solid evidence by itself, the communication, both mental and audible, continues to get more and more personal through the scene where Bleeder is going after the governor in his mansion. I'm listening to the audio book now (after having read the e-book first), but I'm going to have to read through that part again to be sure. It's hard to be certain about things when listening as opposed to reading, at least for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, say it's trellium - how is it stealing Feruchemy/Allomancy? Powers are stolen by one type of metal, with the exception of atium (which makes sense as it is pure Ruin for Ruin's system). Does this new metal do that too? Seems like it should steal something else...

 

We know Kandra can use Allomancy/Feruchemy with the regular metals through WoB. (Though that WoB mentions the process is only known to Harmony, I think we can safely discount that part...)

 

I'm not sold on the interpretation that trellium steals Allomancy/Feruchemy.

I haven't read the book yet, so I'm acting on considerable ignorance here, especially context, but...

 

Why not simply stealing Investiture itself?  A more generic steal of power, rather than certain specifics as with a bronze spike magnifying bronze Allomancy, for example.  In other words, if Nicrosil Feruchemy can store Investiture, there could easily be a hypothetical Hemalurgic spike that can steal Investiture, which (correct me if I'm wrong) could hypothetically bestow the ability in general (less spikes overall, if not necessarily bestowing a lot of strength in the stolen magic).  It would also fit into Autonomy (the definition of the word) as it would increase self-reliance to have such a spike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't read the book yet, so I'm acting on considerable ignorance here, especially context, but...

 

Why not simply stealing Investiture itself?  A more generic steal of power, rather than certain specifics as with a bronze spike magnifying bronze Allomancy, for example.  In other words, if Nicrosil Feruchemy can store Investiture, there could easily be a hypothetical Hemalurgic spike that can steal Investiture, which (correct me if I'm wrong) could hypothetically bestow the ability in general (less spikes overall, if not necessarily bestowing a lot of strength in the stolen magic).  It would also fit into Autonomy (the definition of the word) as it would increase self-reliance to have such a spike.

 

How is stealing Investiture in any way distinct from atium stealing everything? Your soul is made of Investiture, and atium can steal anything, so atium steals Investiture. I'm not really sure how you're differentiating the two things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is stealing Investiture in any way distinct from atium stealing everything? Your soul is made of Investiture, and atium can steal anything, so atium steals Investiture. I'm not really sure how you're differentiating the two things.

Bleh, I forgot that bit about atium.  I was thinking it stole only a specific subset rather than be a wild card too.  (All of my Mistborn series books are still in moving boxes, so I don't have the exact quotes on hand that are related to what I was trying to say.)  At the time I wrote that post, though, my line of thinking was spiritual DNA versus the building blocks of it ("spiritual cytosine" et al, if that makes sense).  One is more ... primal? than the other.  Stealing the capability for using the power versus stealing the power itself, much like how people siphon off electricity or your unprotected wireless internet and can use each as normal, but at the end of the day the owner can still use it if at a potentially reduced capability or capacity.  Does that make sense, or am I just fumbling around it some more? :)  It's not a huge distinction; I'm trying to prod at the subtlety and not doing very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it possible for Paalm to have a Feruchemical spike for storing Identity? A wild guess given we don't know the mechanics of that metal (name is escaping me at the moment) but can be hard to look for someone when the person doesn't exist technically, although Saze could probably detect an object invested with something like that (again, wild guess)

Edited by ParadoxSpren
Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the Chicago signing:

 

Argent: Was Harmony unable to find [bleeder] because the spike was made of this metal?

A: Yeah. The spike was what prevented him from being able to find her. 
Q: It wasn't an ability granted by the spike.
A: No. 
Q: It was just the material.
A: Yeah.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me it doesn't imply that at all.

 

The most logical explanation is that "it was just the material".  Some innate property of the unknown godmetal prevented Harmony from locating Paalm, and this would have been true even if he was familiar with the godmetal in question.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Point 1 - When Wax first hears Bleeder's voice the governor is talking with Steris. Doesn't this mean that he/she is having a mental conversation at the same time as a normal one without missing a beat? Either that is incredible mental discipline or the voice is coming from whichever Shard is interfering, not Bleeder herself.

 

Point 2 - There seems to be a fair bit of discussion about how sane Bleeder is (or isn't) and using it as evidence for her having one normal and one whateverium spike. I'll just point out that sanity is more than just the ability to make clever plans and follow them out, horribly murdering people and nailing them to walls could easily be evidence of insanity even if there is some logical chain of thought behind the act. Sanity is not cleverness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been reading through this thread, thinking about a little tidbit that could have some effect, and I was happy to see it fit with the WoB.

 

We know that "static" Investiture resists interference by "foreign" Investiture (for example, Wax being able to tell Spikes and Metalminds by the difficulty to push them). Could this not be the reason that the spike interferes with Harmony's searching? I mean, we obviously don't know the details of this, but it seems fairly intuitive to me that this would be the case. To be totally clear, I'm suggesting that the unverified Shard's God Metal would contain Investiture that would make it difficult for Harmony to find. Then again, do we see this with Preservation and Ruin? Is Vin able to see the Atium when she ascends, or are they already burning it? Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...