Hoid's Soul

[Auger]

This might have been suggested before, and I know that this passage has been analysed many a time.

Hoid mentions at the end of both Way of Kings and Words of Radiance about him being "spiritually" blind, and he says that he was very clever by stating this.

In my opinion, this is also why Hoid is so unafraid of Jasnahs Shardblade at the end of Words of Radiance, and why he states that it can do him little harm, as the Shardblade cannot properly cut anything in the physical realm (the blade seems to "fuzz") until it kills the soul (severs the ties to the spiritual realm). Meaning that seeing as Hoid has no ties to the spiritual realm, a Soul killing sword can do little harm to him.

 

Thoughts?

Edited November 20, 2016 by Auger
Misspelt the frigging title. >.<

[Auger]

A very interesting WoB was just posted, which further backs this theory:

This part specifically, "match the age his spirit said he was", makes this theory even more plausible as Hoid has no ties to the spiritual realm, and therefore his age cannot revert to what his "spirit" would have said he was, meaning either Hoid cannot age, or he can choose his age.

 

Hoid and age

Q:  Now we have some idea of how Hoid changes his age?

A: I haven't said if this is a method Hoid uses or not, but it's part of the reason the Lord Ruler turned to dust when he lost his metalminds. (His body tried to match the age his spirit said he was.)

 

 

This part specifically, "match the age his spirit said he was", makes this theory even more plausible as Hoid has no ties to the spiritual realm, and therefore his age cannot revert to what his "spirit" would have said he was, meaning either Hoid cannot age, or he can choose his age.

[Spoolofwhool]

Interesting thought, except that Brandon has stated that Hoid isn't afraid of shardblades because he can heal his soul afterwards. Also, not having a spiritual wouldn't protect you from a shardblade, since it would just cut your physical like it does with non-living objects or other objects without a spiritual. In addition, a spiritual is required for someone to have the ability to use a manifestation of investiture, meaning it would draw a lot of questions into how he can do allomancy, lightweaving, and hold biochromatic breath if he didn't have a spiritual.

Quote

PINPOINT

If Hoid got beheaded, would his body grow a new head?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

PINPOINT

What if Hoid got cut by a shardblade?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Shardblade cuts the soul and what Hoid does heals the soul.

[Source]

 

[Jondesu]

I posted this idea in the WoB thread too, but this is a more appropriate place for the discussion.  I feel as though Hoid has long possessed some means of changing or rewriting his own Spiritweb (soul), perhaps almost innate.  I say almost because in the Liar of Partinel sample chapters, he doesn't seem to have anything like that, but I suspect he had it before the Shattering, or just after.  It's even been speculated that he has or is a splinter of Adolnasium, not a Shard, but containing some portion of his power, which is a possibility, though I think a bit far-fetched.

We know he acquired a means of doing that in the Mistborn series (the Lerasium bead), but my suspicion is that he either got that for an entirely different purpose, or to study it to understand how it rewrites the Spiritweb to link a person to Preservation, and perhaps even to understand his own ability better.  Obviously he'd already been able to stay alive/young for a long time prior to that, via whatever method, and I suspect he is literally able to tell his soul how old he thinks he should be, instead of the other way around.  That doesn't mean he doesn't have a soul, but he's somehow gained the ability to control it in ways no one else has been able to.

[Yata]

About the "no soul"

As other said before, Hoid has at 100% a Soul, we have multiple WoB and an implicit proof because it's a living being and in the Cosmere almost everything living and unliving has a Soul (also if I think the Alluminium has not Spiritual Aspect, or something really similar...and this cause its freaking weird proprieties)

About the "rewriting Soul"

The problem here, is that we have a WoB who said Hoid searched the Lerasium bead to become an Allomancer (this don't mean that he actually used to performe this, but just because He wanted it at the beginning).

With the Lerasium's effect (knowing the proper way) you may achieve almost everything with your spiritweb (with the exception of symbiotic magics that need a partner, but you may probably gift to yourself Surgebinding without Spren, probably) and as effect it's almost broken (to be honest I think it's how the first terrismen got their Feruchemy).

If Hoid as a way to change at will his Spirit Web, the Lerasium will be useless (my eyes bleed as I wrote it, my beloved Lerasium) so we must think in the pattern that he probably twisted his Soul with the Magics he gathered (we know that his Soul is very different from an Human's one) but He can't change it at will...He would also be a counter intuitive with his Soul-healing proprieties. His Soul probably will try to "heal" to its  previous state.

[Jondesu]

33 minutes ago, Yata said:

If Hoid as a way to change at will his Spirit Web, the Lerasium will be useless (my eyes bleed as I wrote it, my beloved Lerasium) so we must think in the pattern that he probably twisted his Soul with the Magics he gathered (we know that his Soul is very different from an Human's one) but He can't change it at will...He would also be a counter intuitive with his Soul-healing proprieties. His Soul probably will try to "heal" to its  previous state.

Keep in mind that the ability to rewrite his Spiritweb doesn't mean the knowledge to rewrite it the way he wants it to be.  I suspect that Hoid has the ability, at least to a degree (perhaps limited to specific changes), but doesn't know how to change it to achieve specific results beyond a few he's already learned (changing his age, for instance).  The Spiritweb is sort of like a complex program, in my mind, and finding the correct "lines of code" would be particularly tough without actually understanding the code, or being able to see it, for that matter.  The Lerasium gave him a window into that world, so to speak, as well as an example of the code needed to rewrite his Spiritweb to become an Allomancer, which would give him insight as to how it would be possible to rewrite his connections and Spiritweb for other purposes.

I think we all have a tendency to assume Hoid has infinite knowledge and ability, based on his near-prescience and the way he keeps doing and saying things that are really insightful or well planned, but we need to keep in mind he still has much to learn.  He said himself that this doesn't work as well as he'd like (referring to his ability to know where to go and when, it seems, but I suspect the same idea would apply to much of his work and life).  He's very smart and very motivated, but he can only get what he wants by researching and learning. :-)

[Yata]

This night I had an idea but I need some little extra information about how I got to this conclusion:

We know that every Breath carries with itself a shade of deity and places the owner a step a bit closer to the godhood. This manifest itself in every passive benefit of the Heightenings, in this bonuses there is the Infinite lifespan.

Now I took this concept and I reverted it. Instead of coming closer to a target (in this case, from Human to god), I considerate someone who go farther from his own origin (from Human to .....something else, not necessary an improvement) and in the end it's quite the same thing, just the semantic changes.

My point is: The Soul knows how old are you, matches your age with your species (probably through everyone's Connection to "Humanity" or the "Perfect Human") and in the end force you to aging and die with the Human's criteria.

But what would happen if someone goes Spiritually far from Humanity? I talk about beings like a Highest Heightening People, Inquisitor, Mistwrath-Kandra and Hoid. It's possible that their Souls simply know their actual ages but they are less bound to the "humanity check" than a fully human is. I want to remember that almost all this beings have an altered lifespan (yes also an Inquisitor lives longer than a Human being).

It's possible that my insomnia made me come to a wonderful idea for once.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Yata

[kenod]

4 hours ago, Yata said:

This night I had an idea but I need some little extra informations about how I get to this conclusion:

We know that every Breath carries with itself a shade of deity and places the owner a step a bit closer to the godhood. This manifest itself in every passive benefit of the Heighenings, in this bonuses there is the Infinite lifespan.

Now I took this concept and I reverted it. Instead of coming closer to a targer (in this case, from Human to god), I considerate someone who go farther from his own origin (from Human to .....something else, not necessary an improvement) and in the end it's quite the same thing, just the semantic changes.

My point is: The Soul knows how old are you, matches your age with your species (probably through everyone's Connection to "Humanity" or the "Perfect Human") and in the end force you to aging and die with the Human's criteria.

But what would happen if someone goes Spiritually far from Humanity ? I talk about beings like a Highest Heighening People, Inquisitor, Mistwrath-Kandra and Hoid. It's possible that their Souls simply know their actual ages but they are less bound to the "humanity check" than a fully human is. I want to remember that almost all this being have an alterate livespan (yes also an Inquisitor lives longer than an Human being).

It's possible that my insonnia made me come to a wonderful idea for once.

My idea was that immortality could be achieved by using a variation on the Connection trick used by the people in So-Scandrial, but instead of changing in their Spiritweb where they were born, they change when they were born. I think that this was what Brandon Sanderson was hinting at when he said that TLR aged so quickly because his Spiritweb tried to push his age to the age recorded there. In reverse, this should mean that if the age recorded in the Spiritweb was changed, to 20 years for example, the Spiritweb should push for the physical to change as well.

This doesn't really conflict with your theory, but it does create a different possible technique for achieving immortality. Even more interesting is that because you are dealing with the Spiritweb, I think that it should be possible to use Hemalurgy in such a way as to steal someone's connection to a time and place of birth and use that to make yourself young again, and if you're moving to a different country you can use it to speak the local language. This even makes it a form of immortality that anybody in the Cosmere can achieve, as long as they don't have high moral standards.

[Djarskublar]

1 hour ago, kenod said:

My idea was that immortality could be achieved by using a variation on the Connection trick used by the people in So-Scandrial, but instead of changing in their Spiritweb where they were born, they change when they were born. I think that this was what Brandon Sanderson was hinting at when he said that TLR aged so quickly because his Spiritweb tried to push his age to the age recorded there. In reverse, this should mean that if the age recorded in the Spiritweb was changed, to 20 years for example, the Spiritweb should push for the physical to change as well.

This doesn't really conflict with your theory, but it does create a different possible technique for achieving immortality. Even more interesting is that because you are dealing with the Spiritweb, I think that it should be possible to use Hemalurgy in such a way as to steal someone's connection to a time and place of birth and use that to make yourself young again, and if you're moving to a different country you can use it to speak the local language. This even makes it a form of immortality that anybody in the Cosmere can achieve, as long as they don't have high moral standards.

Hemalurgy to make yourself young again... You can't even use that on old people, they need to be young. Sounds extremely vampiric. @kenod casts magic jar. Random 20 year old fails their saving throw... This is totally what I'm picturing here. It may even be possible to steal youth via Hemalurgy.

[Spoolofwhool]

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Hemalurgy to make yourself young again... You can't even use that on old people, they need to be young. Sounds extremely vampiric. @kenod casts magic jar. Random 20 year old fails their saving throw... This is totally what I'm picturing here. It may even be possible to steal youth via Hemalurgy.

Probably. Age is a feruchemical attribute, which indicates it is a part of the spiritweb which can be accessed. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if it can be stolen with hemalurgy, with atium at least, and probably at least another metal. I wonder whether it would somehow add life to yours, or maybe overwrites what the spiritual thinks your age is. Both would require continuously gathering age to keep going, but the latter would probably be easier since you wouldn't need to keep spiking yourself, you would just need to empty the charge of a spike and swap your current one. Personally, I think the latter is more likely too.

[Yata]

On 22/11/2016 at 3:17 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

Probably. Age is a feruchemical attribute, which indicates it is a part of the spiritweb which can be accessed. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if it can be stolen with hemalurgy, with atium at least, and probably at least another metal. I wonder whether it would somehow add life to yours, or maybe overwrites what the spiritual thinks your age is. Both would require continuously gathering age to keep going, but the latter would probably be easier since you wouldn't need to keep spiking yourself, you would just need to empty the charge of a spike and swap your current one. Personally, I think the latter is more likely too.

 

I don't think "Age" may be a Feruchemical attribute...after all, we have already Youth. And much more, "Age" is simply the difference between a birthtime to now, it does not exist as an actual concept.

If you may steal it, you will probably be able to steal it with some metal who may steal Connection.

As a counter-idea (but you will have really mad to try), if you spike out from yourself the Connection to your birth time (hoping to survive)...will you be an immortal drab?

PS: After my reply I notice, we moved from Hoid's Soul to the Immortality in the Cosmere, maybe it's better to create a new topic (moving the more interesting ideas)

Edited January 27, 2017 by Yata

[Spoolofwhool]

4 hours ago, Yata said:

I don't think "Age" may be a Feruchemical attribute...after all we have already Youth. And much more, "Age" is simply the difference between a birthtime to now, it not exist as an actual concept.

If you may steal it, you will probably be able to steal it with some metal who may steal Connection.

As a counter-idea (but you will have really mad to try), if you spike out from yourself the Connection to your birthtime (hoping to survive)...will you be an immortal drab ?

PS: After my reply I notice, we moved from Hoid's Soul to the Immortality in the Cosmere, maybe it's better to create a new topic (moving the more interesting ideas)

I meant youth, yes. I forgot the actual term they used for atium feruchemy.

[natc]

The actual term is Age actually if memory serves. Which is the exact opposite of what it stores (it functionally stores youthfulness as has been observed) . . . funny thing, atium.

[Oversleep]

@Yata, not all Inquisitors have longer lifespan. Some had got shorter.

[Yata]

On 26/11/2016 at 6:27 PM, Oversleep said:

@Yata, not all Inquisitors have longer lifespan. Some had got shorter.

I don't remember but you may have right....I want to point how their lifespan change for being not more fully human

Edited January 27, 2017 by Yata

[theRoyalDingus]

But Hoid doesn't have hemalurgic spikes, does he? (he might and I just don't know)

[Fezzik]

And no, he doesn't want to open himself to that kind of influence.

...and calderis actually provides a source, instead of just spouting facts that he got from someone somewhere..

Edited October 10, 2017 by john203

[Calderis]

40 minutes ago, Krypton Savant said:

But Hoid doesn't have hemalurgic spikes, does he? (he might and I just don't know)

No he doesn't. 

Quote

Ruro272 (paraphrased)

Does Hoid have a Hemalurgically charged Nicrosil spike?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's... unlikely. Hoid would not want to open himself to the influence of Shards so using Hemalurgy on himself is unlikely. Although Hemalurgy is the easiest way to get other powers, he'd more likely do things the hard way.

 

[ForcesOfNoodles]

Odd that Preservation said that Lerasium, when consumed, invested a human and granted them Allomancy. You'd think that he'd say something about the Spiritweb instead. That could explain why Hoid needed Lerasium. Or are those two concepts the same thing?

Edited October 10, 2017 by ForcesOfNoodles

[The Invested Beard]

4 minutes ago, ForcesOfNoodles said:

Odd that Preservation said that Lerasium, when consumed, invested a human and granted them Allomancy. You'd think that he's say something about the Spiritweb instead. Or are those two the same thing?

Well granting Allomancy effectively rewrites your spiritweb so yeah pretty much the same thing.

Edited October 10, 2017 by The Invested Beard

[theRoyalDingus]

How does he expect to collect all the powers? Lerasium was easy enough, but  trying to become an Elantrian? How would he convince a spren to bond with him? How could he harness the power of Odium? Without Hemalurgy, it's gonna be really hard to get all the powers.

[Shqueeves]

37 minutes ago, Krypton Savant said:

How does he expect to collect all the powers? Lerasium was easy enough, but  trying to become an Elantrian? How would he convince a spren to bond with him? How could he harness the power of Odium? Without Hemalurgy, it's gonna be really hard to get all the powers.

I'm pretty sure that he tried and failed to become an Elantian (I'm pretty sure that there's a WoB about it, but I am absolutely terrible at finding them. @Calderis, a little help?)

For surgebinding, he could either steal an honorblade or live by the ideals. Either one will work. 

Afaik, Odium's magic is voidbinding, and I'm not sure how he would be able to do that. 

[Calderis]

59 minutes ago, Shqueeves said:

I'm pretty sure that he tried and failed to become an Elantian (I'm pretty sure that there's a WoB about it, but I am absolutely terrible at finding them. @Calderis, a little help?)

For surgebinding, he could either steal an honorblade or live by the ideals. Either one will work. 

Afaik, Odium's magic is voidbinding, and I'm not sure how he would be able to do that. 

It's not a WoB. It's an additional scene in the 10th anniversary edition of Elantris. 

[+ILuvHats]

30 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It's not a WoB. It's an additional scene in the 10th anniversary edition of Elantris. 

Do you need to buy the 10th anniversary edition to read the scene or is there a version online?  I checked Sanderson's website but didn't see it there.

[Calderis]

41 minutes ago, ILuvHats said:

Do you need to buy the 10th anniversary edition to read the scene or is there a version online?  I checked Sanderson's website but didn't see it there.

I feel like it's been posted here before. Gimme a few and I'll see if I can find it.

@ILuvHats I'm sure it's been posted before, but it may have been deleted, as all I can find now are people saying they aren't comfortable with posting it in its entirety, and that may actually be against the rules.

Sorry. 

Edited October 12, 2017 by Calderis