fGold healing and hemalurgy

[dj26792]

Ok this theory is fairly simple and it concerns the nature of healing, hemalurgy and has potential consequences for Roshar and the damage done by shardblades.

 

Basic facts:

Being a hemalurgical donor is survivable

Feruchemical gold is capable of healing damage to the soul

 

 

Key Assumptions

In the case of non-fatal physical wounds when being used as a hemalurgical donor the spiritual damage would normally still be fatal, but as per WoB isn't necessarily

 

So this Theory has 2 parts:

1. Feruchemical gold could hypothetically heal the damage done to the soul by hemalurgy if the donor still had Feruchemical gold when the spike was removed (ie A twinborn having their allomantic power stolen or a full feruchemist having another power stolen)
2. This second part is less likely, but based on the fact that Feruchemical gold could repair the damage done by a shardblade and allow the ferring to regain use of their damaged limb could it also repair their spirit web of the damage done by hemalurgy and allow them to regain their stolen ability (if they had a sufficiently large store of health)

 

Thoeretically this is also a key assumption of the theory, but in my mind its a consequence so I will now state here that for this theory to work hemalurgy and shardblades have to do the same sort of spiritual damage when they cut the spiritweb (with the obvious exception that hemalurgy chops a bit off and takes it to be stapled to someone else where as the shardblade just cuts it off).

 

So I post this topic to ask firstly is this theory viable, and secondly what are the potential consequences, if it is true and how would we best verify its truth.

[Oudeis]

Hrm... is the theory viable? Sure. You sorta say something I want to express outright: This only works if we ever get it confirmed that the damage done by a Shardblade is very similar to the damage done by hemalurgic theft, which I personally find to be unlikely.

 

Because, your assumption that Feruchemical gold can heal spiritwebs is predicated on our knowledge that it can heal Shardsevered limbs, and upon the assumption that a shardsevered limb suffers from only and specifically a severed spiritweb.

 

Possible? Yes. Plausible? I personally don't think so, but maybe. If you can confirm the specific realmatic mechanics of shardsevering, you'll shore up the only gaping hole in your logic that I can see.

 

EDIT: Typo.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Darnam

[Shardlet]

I think it could heal the spiritweb (i.e., leave you happy and healthy), but I'm not sure about restoring your stolen ability.  Though, it could be a significant enough part of your identity that the Feruchemical gold could restore it.  But, on the other hand, hemalurgy may rip it from your identity.  Idk.

[Scriptorian]

Hmm...I could get behind the idea (easier to stab it in the back that way) of shardblades working similar to hemalurgy (see my shardblade surgery theory in my sig). 

 

 But, on the other hand, hemalurgy may rip it from your identity.

Wait, so what if you used Feruchemical aluminum? This probably isn't what you meant Shardlet, but it made me think of it. Does the Identity stored with aluminum have anything to do with those kind of traits? So maybe using both gold and aluminum could let you repair all of the damage done by a spike? Hmmmm....

[Shardlet]

Hmm...I could get behind the idea (easier to stab it in the back that way) of shardblades working similar to hemalurgy (see my shardblade surgery theory in my sig). 

 

Wait, so what if you used Feruchemical aluminum? This probably isn't what you meant Shardlet, but it made me think of it. Does the Identity stored with aluminum have anything to do with those kind of traits? So maybe using both gold and aluminum could let you repair all of the damage done by a spike? Hmmmm....

 

No, I wasn't speaking to Feruchemical aluminum.  I was speaking more to one's identity as frequently spoken of (particularly by Kurkistan) in Feruchemical gold threads.  As to Feruchemical aluminum, spiking should not affect any stored identity since it is not directly a part of the spikee, it's in the metalmind.  Now, if there Feruchemical aluminum is spiked from them, they would not be able to access that stored identity, I would think.

[Scriptorian]

No, I wasn't speaking to Feruchemical aluminum.  I was speaking more to one's identity as frequently spoken of (particularly by Kurkistan) in Feruchemical gold threads.  As to Feruchemical aluminum, spiking should not affect any stored identity since it is not directly a part of the spikee, it's in the metalmind.  Now, if there Feruchemical aluminum is spiked from them, they would not be able to access that stored identity, I would think.

So I guess the question is a) does aluminum store the same "identity" that gold uses and does hemalurgy "break" this identity? If the answers to the above are both true, then I think it would mean that gold can't restore a stolen attribute, but that aluminum could fix your "identity", and then you could use gold to get the attribute back. Unless, of course, Feruchemical aluminum was the attribute stolen. Then you're out luck. (So use Feruchemical chromium ?  )

 

edit: a smiley face appeared randomly in the middle of my post...

Edited December 17, 2013 by Serendipity

[Oudeis]

Wait, so what if you used Feruchemical aluminum? This probably isn't what you meant Shardlet, but it made me think of it. Does the Identity stored with aluminum have anything to do with those kind of traits?

 

mmmm... only if we learn that you can "store" your ability to use a specific trait, meaning that while "stored" you wouldn't have access to it, I would think.

[dj26792]

Yeah, the healing the ability back was something that I didn't really think would work, I would assume the form of hemalurgy would include the fact that once it was used you couldn't just heal your power back, but at the same time Brandon keeps on saying Feruchemical gold and other cosmere healing heals injuries and non-chronic illnesses and I wondered, does hemalurgy inflict a traumatic injury on your spirit web that Feruchemical gold could heal, or does it count as chronic...

 

I'm inclined to think its chronic for balancing reasons but I really can't think of a realmatic reason so I asked the question.

 

My understanding of Feruchemical aluminium is that if hemalurgy does damage your identity accessing a stored aluminium identity should allow you to use Feruchemical gold to heal it, but I'm a little shaky on how Feruchemical aluminium works.

[Guest Alaxel]

I'm wondering if Feruchemical gold would even perceive the damage done by a spiking as damage at all? My Metallic Arts lore is a little...rusty...but I was under the impression that the physical aspect of Hemalurgy is, though brutal and messy, surgically precise. It stands to reason that the spiritual aspect of it is, as well. So these metaphors of Hemalurgy "ripping" traits away, while colorful, seem to me to be a little misleading. Anyway, to continue on with my point, there is almost certainly bound to be Cognitive ramifications that would reflect such drastic Physical and Spiritual changes in a person. I propose that either:

1) Hemalurgy very precisely removes a portion of someone's Spiritweb and does not just leave a gaping hole behind it, but instead completely rewires the Spiritweb to what it would look like if the person had never been in possession of the removed portion. Think of it like donating an organ. Once it's gone, no amount of healing is going to bring it back.

Or

2) I'm wrong about the Spiritual precision of Hemalurgy and it does leave a spiritual wound behind. If that's the case, then I propose that Hemalurgy will also affect changes to the spikee's Cognitive Identity, causing their new Spiritweb to be what they perceive as normal for them.

Again, yes. Hemalurgy does massive amounts of damage to a person being spiked. I don't dispute that. I do, however, suggest that it is very, very surgical in its precision and that Feruchemical gold would not be able to heal the wounds it leaves due to an altered Spiritweb and/or Cognitive Identity.

Edit: Spelling.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Alaxel

[Vortaan]

Wait. If this is a thing, how did all the Keepers die? I mean... you wouldn't need a ton of Keepers to take a lot of Feruchemical traits, you could just get one and steal everything but health, give him a goldmind, then lather rinse repeat.

[dj26792]

Well you can only steal one trait at a time and it would take huge amounts of health to heal just the physical damage, the spiritual damage would take even more, and even if you can recover your traits with Feruchemical gold the amounts of health required would be even more enourmous than just patching up the spirit web without rebuilding it completely.

 

Alaxel my guess is that 2 is the most correct we know hemalurgy is traumatic, Brandon always describes it as brutal, and fundamentally evil (in his world view), if it was just nice and neat and did a surgical patch up as you ripped the spike out it wouldn't be that bad, I agree that its a clean cut, but more in the sense of a meat cleaver making a clean cut than a surgeon with a scalpel.

 

I don't think it would change the persons identity directly though, the reason I think it might not be able to heal the person lost ability is that the hemalurgy will have stolen the persons investiture and that would require outside input (from preservation or other shard, depending on what was stolen) to get back.  AND/OR the 'form' of someone who has been hemalurgically violated in some fashion prevents it because someone who has been damaged like that no longer has their power and that over rides the persons identity as someone who does.  Although I'd like to ask Kurkistans opinion on that just because I'm bit hazy on how the forms would work both generally and in this specific case.

 

Basically this theory was a random idea and I don't feel qualified to defend it too strongly, even though I'm pretty sure I'm right

[Guest Alaxel]

Alaxel my guess is that 2 is the most correct we know hemalurgy is traumatic, Brandon always describes it as brutal, and fundamentally evil (in his world view), if it was just nice and neat and did a surgical patch up as you ripped the spike out it wouldn't be that bad, I agree that its a clean cut, but more in the sense of a meat cleaver making a clean cut than a surgeon with a scalpel.

I don't think I'm doing the best job articulating what I mean. Sticking with the surgery theme, I'm thinking that having a part of your Spiritweb stolen doesn't necessarily kill you in the same way that having your legs amputated won't kill you. Having your legs cut off by, say, stepping on a land mine will probably kill you - but it's the loss of blood that causes your major organs to fail that actually kills you; not the whole having-no-legs thing. Similarly, I don't think Hemalurgy cuts a chunk out of your Spiritweb and leaves a wound to be healed. I think it surgically removes a piece then stitches your Spiritweb back together as if you never had whatever was stolen to begin with.This is in regards purely to stealing the part of your Spiritweb that allows you to access magic, which I think we can safely assume is an 'extra' feature and not essential to living as evidenced by the countless Cosmere people who don't have magic. So while Hemalurgically stealing someone's ability to, say, burn iron won't kill them, Feruchemical gold healing also won't restore that ability because their spiritweb isn't technically wounded - the part of them that could burn iron is gone and their web was rewired in such a way as to resemble what it would look like if they were never able to burn iron.

Surgically, this would be beyond simply amputating someone's legs, it would be surgically modifying their body to a state identical to one where they had been born without legs.

As for Hemalurgy killing people via lethal damage to their Spiritweb, I think this happens primarily when essential, nonmagical traits are stolen.

And I think most people die from the physical wounds of Hemalurgy.

Anyway, I think we should get Kurk to weigh in here as we both seem to respect his opinion. I'll perform the summoning ritual.

[Oudeis]

I'm wondering if Feruchemical gold would even perceive the damage done by a spiking as damage at all? My Metallic Arts lore is a little...rusty...but I was under the impression that the physical aspect of Hemalurgy is, though brutal and messy, surgically precise. It stands to reason that the spiritual aspect of it is, as well. So these metaphors of Hemalurgy "ripping" traits away, while colorful, seem to me to be a little misleading.

 

Precise? Sure. Surgical? ... I suspect you would have quite a time trying to find a real surgeon who could ever refer to the process of literally pounding a metal spike into someone's chest with a mallet as "surgical" in literally any possible capacity of the word.

 

Which isn't to say that I think you're fundamentally wrong, just in every specific instance of it that we've seen to date. I actually very much like your surgery analogy, and I'm about to explain why.

 

You seem to be likening hemalurgy to modern surgery, while I think it would be more accurate to describe it in terms of the entire history of surgery. Once upon a time, not actually all that long ago, surgery was, "get the poor man drunk, stick this wooden peg between his teeth, literally saw off his leg, then dip the whole thing in tar. NEXT." And before that it was even more barbaric. I put to you that this is what hemalurgy as we've seen it is like; a brutal system that deals far, far more damage than it technically needs to, both in body and soul.

 

I think that hemalurgy has the potential to be performed properly, with neater incisions that take only and exactly what they have to, and follows up with spiritual sutures that hardly leave a scar. I see no reason to assume that this is the default setting. I think right now, there's no aftercare whatsoever. We have seen not a single case (unless you'd like to hear my theory about Fedik) of a person surviving this "surgery", and I frankly wouldn't be surprised if that weren't only due to physical damage; I suspect that much like victims have a spike stabbed through their chest and the wound is never tended to, their souls are shredded and there's no neat little tie-ing up of the loose ends when they're done. If the physical wound were non-fatal, I honestly suspect the spiritual one would "bleed out" unless someone did do something to address the wound; it doesn't take a very large wound on a human to bleed out, get an infection, or do any of a number of other nasty things if at least basic first-aid isn't applied; why should the spiritweb be any different?

 

But your basic point remains very sound. I think that with greater understanding and knowledge, what you suggest is very possible. A skilled practitioner of hemalurgy could potentially use a precision spike (a scalpel rather than a bonesaw), insert it precisely, perform whatever necessary secondary action it turns out to be in order to "suture" the spiritweb, and a person could be left without whatever ability they just lost, possibly weak and very damaged like someone in our world right after an actual surgery, but ultimately alive and perhaps even able to heal a bit and find a way to a new normal.

 

My only point of contention at this point is, you seem to feel that this is all the default setting, whereas I believe that, like real-life medical science, it's a process we'll have to work our way towards.

[dj26792]

Precise? Sure. Surgical? ... I suspect you would have quite a time trying to find a real surgeon who could ever refer to the process of literally pounding a metal spike into someone's chest with a mallet as "surgical" in literally any possible capacity of the word.

 

I think alaxel means the spiritual damage only, certainly I would argue for the spiritual damage only being in anyway a clean cut, I wouldn't argue for it stitching up the wound on the way out however, so I clearly disagree with alaxel in some ways.

 

 

 

In reply to the rest of both of your comment:

While certainly the physical side of hemalurgy could be neatened up quite easily, I really don't see the spiritual side being tidied up without the addition of outside magic to heal the spiritual damage, which I still claim exists.  Ruin is all about Ruining things, and we know that shards have some control over the form of their magic systems, it makes a lot of sense to me that Ruins magic system would be ruinous, we already know it is ruinous in that it results in a net investiture loss, and that it damages the recipient, it makes sense to me that it would also damage the donor.

 

I think that you could minimise the damage by starting healing magic while the spike was in there and keeping it up as it is removed, but I think ultimately that being a donor hemalurgically has a minimum amount of spiritual damage that can't be avoided, you can only be so precise with a meat cleaver, which seems to me at least what hemalurgy is most like, you can take someones heart out undamaged with a meat cleaver (I assume, I've honestly never felt the need to try), but the rest of the persons chest will be a mess.

 

All that said, we really have no way to tell beyond asking, unless there is WoB I haven't heard about I think that on this point at least we can't really have much of a useful debate, we have 3 valid points of view and no real evidence either way, its not a matter of interpreting from limited information, I don't know of any about the spiritual damage inflicted by spiking.

 

Edit: I forgot to add: to the Ultimate Question List and also the events/stalking forum.

Edited December 18, 2013 by dj26792

[Shardlet]

Here is the best quote we have on this issue:

 

 

 

Q: Hemalurgically stealing an attribute from someone is usually fatal to the donor.  Is that because of the damage to their spiritweb or from the physical damage from the spiking itself?

 

A: Umm, I would say both.

[entropicscholar]

I think it could heal the spiritweb (i.e., leave you happy and healthy), but I'm not sure about restoring your stolen ability.  Though, it could be a significant enough part of your identity that the Feruchemical gold could restore it.  But, on the other hand, hemalurgy may rip it from your identity.  Idk.

 

 

Hmm...I could get behind the idea (easier to stab it in the back that way) of shardblades working similar to hemalurgy (see my shardblade surgery theory in my sig). 

 

Wait, so what if you used Feruchemical aluminum? This probably isn't what you meant Shardlet, but it made me think of it. Does the Identity stored with aluminum have anything to do with those kind of traits? So maybe using both gold and aluminum could let you repair all of the damage done by a spike? Hmmmm....

This was my immediate thought as well.

as others have pointed out, it would require ALOT for the person to make it.

I would list 3 things right off:

1. the spike used to steal their traits must be used in a semi-nonlethal way.

All current examples have shown Hemelurgic donor's to die. This is partly because Ruin wanted them to die. Because of Brandon's statements about Hemelurgy being based primarily on intent, I would guess that for the donor to live, the person holding the spike must not be specifically be trying to kill them (either they want the donor to live, or they don't care.)

2. The Ferrochemist must know the correct thing to do in order to survive, and do it very quickly.

3. must have sufficient stores of BOTH Feruchemical gold and Feruchemical aluminum. (My guess is that this would require at least a years worth of Identity. I'm not really comfortable guessing at how much health.)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's also the chance that the wound may heal entirely, but they never get their power back.

just like if you lost an arm, it may heal over again, but you still don't have an arm.

Edited December 18, 2013 by entropicscholar

[dj26792]

But we know that if you have sufficient gold, when your arm is cut off you can just grow a new one, thats part of where this theory came from.

 

I am absolutely positive that Feruchemical gold could allow someone to minimise the trauma of hemalurgy, and heal from the damage done.

 

I am considerably less confident that they could recover their powers with only Feruchemical gold, but maintain that it is a possibility, although more likely that the use of Feruchemical aluminium is required.  However I don't actually think all that much Feruchemical aluminium would be required, I think lots of Feruchemical gold would be required, and it would probably in practice require a gold compounder to get enough, but Feruchemical aluminium I think you would only need a few days storage because you would only need to keep it up for a short time, so storing at 40% for a week could easily get you 200% for 10 minutes, which is all I think you would need.

[Oudeis]

All current examples have shown Hemelurgic donor's to die.

 

...Unless you believe my theory about Fedik.

[Kurkistan]

Sorry for mondo-wall-posting all these quotes. The only way I can wrap my head around this much discussion and/or my substantive thoughts on it is to write down my replies as I go. If I skipped anyone it was because I didn't have a comment to make on their post, and if I repeated myself it was because I'm too lazy to go around consolidating general arguments from multiple posts.
 

No, I wasn't speaking to Feruchemical aluminum.  I was speaking more to one's identity as frequently spoken of (particularly by Kurkistan) in Feruchemical gold threads.  As to Feruchemical aluminum, spiking should not affect any stored identity since it is not directly a part of the spikee, it's in the metalmind.  Now, if there Feruchemical aluminum is spiked from them, they would not be able to access that stored identity, I would think.

 
Feruchemical aluminum likely stores some Spiritual sense of identity, I think, something that may well be spikeable. I agree with you (and myself), though, that Feruchemical gold is based on Cognitive shenanigans, so shouldn't be directly harmed by hemalurgy.
 
Although I myself have historically toyed with the idea that hemalurgy could rip off parts of your Cognitive aspect, I'm leaning against it at the moment, so that would leave Feruchemical gold's healing process relatively safe from hemalurgy.
 

So I guess the question is a) does aluminum store the same "identity" that gold uses and does hemalurgy "break" this identity? If the answers to the above are both true, then I think it would mean that gold can't restore a stolen attribute, but that aluminum could fix your "identity", and then you could use gold to get the attribute back. Unless, of course, Feruchemical aluminum was the attribute stolen. Then you're out luck. (So use Feruchemical chromium ?  )
 
edit: a smiley face appeared randomly in the middle of my post...

 
a) No, I don't think so. We know that Feruchemical gold is based on Cognitive stuff while Feruchemical aluminum is a "spiritual" metal in realmatically broken-down feruchemy.

 

Yeah, the healing the ability back was something that I didn't really think would work, I would assume the form of hemalurgy would include the fact that once it was used you couldn't just heal your power back, but at the same time Brandon keeps on saying Feruchemical gold and other cosmere healing heals injuries and non-chronic illnesses and I wondered, does hemalurgy inflict a traumatic injury on your spirit web that Feruchemical gold could heal, or does it count as chronic...
 
I'm inclined to think its chronic for balancing reasons but I really can't think of a realmatic reason so I asked the question.
 
My understanding of Feruchemical aluminium is that if hemalurgy does damage your identity accessing a stored aluminium identity should allow you to use Feruchemical gold to heal it, but I'm a little shaky on how Feruchemical aluminium works.

 
Brandon's talk of "chronic" suggests that he's more about "having had for awhile" rather than "really really devastating" (think Miles growing back a face/body), though I read you as being on board with that.
 
As for Feruchemical aluminum: I doubt it, see my response to Serendipity.

 

I'm wondering if Feruchemical gold would even perceive the damage done by a spiking as damage at all? My Metallic Arts lore is a little...rusty...but I was under the impression that the physical aspect of Hemalurgy is, though brutal and messy, surgically precise. It stands to reason that the spiritual aspect of it is, as well. So these metaphors of Hemalurgy "ripping" traits away, while colorful, seem to me to be a little misleading. Anyway, to continue on with my point, there is almost certainly bound to be Cognitive ramifications that would reflect such drastic Physical and Spiritual changes in a person. I propose that either:

1) Hemalurgy very precisely removes a portion of someone's Spiritweb and does not just leave a gaping hole behind it, but instead completely rewires the Spiritweb to what it would look like if the person had never been in possession of the removed portion. Think of it like donating an organ. Once it's gone, no amount of healing is going to bring it back.

Or

2) I'm wrong about the Spiritual precision of Hemalurgy and it does leave a spiritual wound behind. If that's the case, then I propose that Hemalurgy will also affect changes to the spikee's Cognitive Identity, causing their new Spiritweb to be what they perceive as normal for them.

Again, yes. Hemalurgy does massive amounts of damage to a person being spiked. I don't dispute that. I do, however, suggest that it is very, very surgical in its precision and that Feruchemical gold would not be able to heal the wounds it leaves due to an altered Spiritweb and/or Cognitive Identity.

Edit: Spelling.

 
As to your fist option, I don't quite think so. The metaphor doesn't work out under reflection: it's like saying that if you cut someone's hand off really carefully, then stitch up the stump nice and neat, they won't feel like they should really not be missing a hand. If, under an alternate reading of your point, you meant quite literally that the spike actively re-writes stuff as it goes, I think that's giving hemalurgy too much credit/nuance in its thefting.

 

[...]
 
I don't think it would change the persons identity directly though, the reason I think it might not be able to heal the person lost ability is that the hemalurgy will have stolen the persons investiture and that would require outside input (from preservation or other shard, depending on what was stolen) to get back.  AND/OR the 'form' of someone who has been hemalurgically violated in some fashion prevents it because someone who has been damaged like that no longer has their power and that over rides the persons identity as someone who does.  Although I'd like to ask Kurkistans opinion on that just because I'm bit hazy on how the forms would work both generally and in this specific case.
 
Basically this theory was a random idea and I don't feel qualified to defend it too strongly, even though I'm pretty sure I'm right

 
FORMS!!! *froths*
 
I don't think that's the right tack, as most of my formic theorizing has them being a fair bit more passive than that, not going around saying "ha! You got spiked!" and then immediately applying some massive and novel set of restrictions on people.
 
...
 
Actually, maybe. Small maybe. Hmm. I'm still inclined to think no, but this might require reflection.
 

I don't think I'm doing the best job articulating what I mean. Sticking with the surgery theme, I'm thinking that having a part of your Spiritweb stolen doesn't necessarily kill you in the same way that having your legs amputated won't kill you. Having your legs cut off by, say, stepping on a land mine will probably kill you - but it's the loss of blood that causes your major organs to fail that actually kills you; not the whole having-no-legs thing. Similarly, I don't think Hemalurgy cuts a chunk out of your Spiritweb and leaves a wound to be healed. I think it surgically removes a piece then stitches your Spiritweb back together as if you never had whatever was stolen to begin with.This is in regards purely to stealing the part of your Spiritweb that allows you to access magic, which I think we can safely assume is an 'extra' feature and not essential to living as evidenced by the countless Cosmere people who don't have magic. So while Hemalurgically stealing someone's ability to, say, burn iron won't kill them, Feruchemical gold healing also won't restore that ability because their spiritweb isn't technically wounded - the part of them that could burn iron is gone and their web was rewired in such a way as to resemble what it would look like if they were never able to burn iron.

Surgically, this would be beyond simply amputating someone's legs, it would be surgically modifying their body to a state identical to one where they had been born without legs.

As for Hemalurgy killing people via lethal damage to their Spiritweb, I think this happens primarily when essential, nonmagical traits are stolen.

And I think most people die from the physical wounds of Hemalurgy.

Anyway, I think we should get Kurk to weigh in here as we both seem to respect his opinion. I'll perform the summoning ritual.

 
Consider me summoned. While I appreciate being kowtowed to as a God King of Realmatics, I would like to emphasize the fact that much of this is just my opinion and intuitions, as this is a rather unclear area as of now. Please feel more than free to call me out if I start getting to "asserty" without the evidence to back me up, as that is a pitfall I am very eager to avoid going forward.
 
I've already stated my opinion on this particular model, but I suppose I'll expand a bit: I think that if you got Miles down on a table and cut off his hand, then did something (non-Cognitive affecting) to make it so that the stump healed over like he'd never had a hand, he'd still be able to grow his hand back.
 
This particular opinion of mine is not one of my stronger ones, however. It's an open question whether or not Cognitively-based healing like Feruchemical gold can revert "proper" healing, partially because the issue is muddied by us not knowing how long/easy it is for a body to adapt to a new, less-whole Cognitive aspect.
 

...Unless you believe my theory about Fedik.

 
It helps to link to such theories when you reference them, as some (including me) may not have read them.
 
----
 
On the general topic of "neat" hemalurgy: I'm inclined to think that you could conceivably be a bit more subtle in what you take from people's souls. It's still gonna be nasty, but I see no problem with a more "refined" hemalurgy causing less overall spiritual damage.
 
----
 
As to the question as a whole:
 
Myself, I've been carrying around the suspicion that shardblade wounds may be of a different kind from those inflicted by hemaluryg, the "cut" versus the "tear out and set on fire". A difference between cutting someone's hand for the shardblade and cutting it off for hemalurgy, then.
 
More fully, I think it possible that shardblades don't actually do substantial damage to the body of the soul when they "kill" a limb, but rather sever some part of the soul's connection to the sufferer's bodypart. So the "arm" part of the soul is still there and intact to a large extent, but has been cut off from its proper interactions with the rest of the person. Healing it, then, is simply a matter of bridging the gap rather than growing whole new parts of the soul out of nothing.
 
In this view, hemalurgy goes around ripping pieces off wholesale, and so is a different kind of injury to recover from. Under this model, Feruchemical gold healing to the soul is "limited" in the same way that normal healing to the body is: some things you can recover from, some things you can't.
 
That's just me (and Sats), though.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Elementalist]

Considering the nature of Feruchemy, if you wanted to heal Spiritual wounds you would probably have to store up Spiritual health. Gold, in my opinion, couldn't do that because it stores Physical health. Similarly, to repair Cognitive wounds you would have to use Feruchemical aluminum (gradually storing identity beforehand and tapping it to heal the Cognitive damage). I'm not sure which metal would store Spiritual health, but it's not Feruchemical gold.

[Oudeis]

It helps to link to such theories when you reference them, as some (including me) may not have read them.

Here's the link to Fedik, in case you want to read it. I've stopped linking to theories since that usually just results in people countering my evidence with "I don't feel that way so I'm going to tell you you're wrong" until someone like Mr. Sanderson's personal assistant shows up to tell me I'm prolly right, and then mysteriously people stop talking... funny, that....

[Scriptorian]

Considering the nature of Feruchemy, if you wanted to heal Spiritual wounds you would probably have to store up Spiritual health. Gold, in my opinion, couldn't do that because it stores Physical health. Similarly, to repair Cognitive wounds you would have to use Feruchemical aluminum (gradually storing identity beforehand and tapping it to heal the Cognitive damage). I'm not sure which metal would store Spiritual health, but it's not Feruchemical gold.

I've actually used to think this as well, except that Gold is a "hybrid" metal, so theoretically it stores health for all three realms. If you think about it, this is the only way it makes sense that gold can heal a shardblade wound. Though I agree that aluminum is probably required if your trying to restore powers stolen by hemalurgy.

[Kurkistan]

@Darnam

 

I might be biased here, but I just tend to link to everything . The way I see it, "I feel" responses are part of the risk of posting a theory in the first place, so linking to it is just an extension of that risk.

 

And I don't mind "I feel" responses, that much, since they can often be indicators of deeper intuitions/thoughts.

 

I feel that your Fedik theory has potential, btw.

 

 

Considering the nature of Feruchemy, if you wanted to heal Spiritual wounds you would probably have to store up Spiritual health. Gold, in my opinion, couldn't do that because it stores Physical health. Similarly, to repair Cognitive wounds you would have to use Feruchemical aluminum (gradually storing identity beforehand and tapping it to heal the Cognitive damage). I'm not sure which metal would store Spiritual health, but it's not Feruchemical gold.

 

Well we do know that normal Feruchemical gold can heal at least some kinds of Spiritual damage, so...

 

@Serendipity

 

I've expressed my thoughts on the "hybridness" of Feruchemical gold before.

[Oudeis]

And I don't mind "I feel" responses, that much, since they can often be indicators of deeper intuitions/thoughts.

 

I suppose they can be indicators of depth, but I find more often than not they're indicators of "I don't agree with you, but I can't prove it, so I'm just going to tell you that this is my feeling, so now if you disagree with me you're the jerk who hurt my feelings." When someone says, "I feel this is wrong," the first time, I'll accept it as intuition, but when I reply with, "Okay, but here's all this evidence from the text, can you provide me with anything concrete to back your feelings up?" and then they reply with "I support my feelings with even stronger feelings," I start to despair, as clearly no real communication is going to be harmed in the making of this debate.

 

I appreciate your support of my Fedik idea. I have to remember to go back; I made the point that the Dark Mist Spirit might not have needed metal as he could fuel hemalurgy with his own body the way the Mists can fuel allomancy... from my recent re-read, twice in Well of Ascension the White Mist Spirit is proven to be somewhat solid; in a tent, Vin attacks it with a knife and she is parried as if by something solid, something metal, and at the Well itself, it stabs Elend, not with any piece of metal it found, but with its own hand/substance/what-have-you. I need to go back and update with this theory.

 

With my RAFO, I had despaired of ever learning more, since in annotations Mr. Sanderson has said that he doesn't want to go back to a sequel, but we know the next book at least considered the title "Shadows of Self," and in Hero of Ages the First Generation refers to the Mist Spirit as Preservation's "shadow of self" so it's possible mist spirits will appear in this upcoming book, in which case maybe I will, in fact, learn more.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Darnam

[Elementalist]

I've actually used to think this as well, except that Gold is a "hybrid" metal, so theoretically it stores health for all three realms. If you think about it, this is the only way it makes sense that gold can heal a shardblade wound. Though I agree that aluminum is probably required if your trying to restore powers stolen by hemalurgy.

Has that been confirmed? I've never noticed any decrease in Cognitive or Spiritual wellness when someone is storing health in Gold. Of course, this might just be disguised in the overall feeling of crappyness that comes with using Gold.