Richard Kopelow Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 As I understand the spirit web, it is like spiritual circuitry, powers and other aspects get coded into the "circuitry". When you use Hemalurgy, you rip out the chunk of someone's spirit web the controls the attribute you are stealing and then you staple it into the recipient's spirit web. When the "circuit" is spiked into the appropriate place for that aspect, the "wiring" works as intended and the power is transferred. When it is put somewhere else it makes weird connections and does weird thing. i.e. Koloss don't just have the strength of 5 men, they have blue skin that doesn't grow despite the fact their body never stops. Spook's book also said that you can make just about anything by changing the spirit. Now Shardblades cut the spirit. While Hemalurgy works additively to change the spirit, I wonder if one could use a Shardblade to make modifications of a subtractive nature in more complicated ways than just paralysis. Something like cut away at the shoulder(Hemalurgic bond point for pewter Allomancy) of a natural Thug and destroy the part of their spirit that lets them burn pewter. Or forcibly break someone's bond to a Shardblade while leaving them alive. It may even be possible to create Hemalurgy style monsters like Bleeder's creepy things by cutting away bits of the spirit. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gizmosowner Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 Interesting but then there would be some accounts of people turning into monsters on the battle field after being cut in a certain area. Although that might just be because the shard bearers had no intention on making hemalurgicish creations. Or it could be that to make hemalurgicalish creations you must add to the spirit web instead of subtract from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Staccato Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 Okay so here's what I think. Theoretically shardblades can in fact do stuff like hemalurgy but to practice it is nigh impossible. Although the body in itself houses the spirit web, who can say that the spirit web itself inside a person actually resembles the body? One can argue that to an extent it does resemble it (hemalurgy being proof that it does have parallels) but I don't think that the spirit web itself strictly adheres to a form and shape in a human being that resembles any one of the bodily systems. I point this out because while hemalurgic constructs suffer from deformities because of changes and damages to the spirit web, the idea that we can somehow approximate changes like these by haphazardly chopping bits and pieces of our spirit web with a shardblade - or even with precision - is difficult because it relies on the idea that the entire spirit web resembles the body. So long story short I think its possible to let's say take apart a Thugs ability to burn pewter by damaging the spirit web, but I don't think that simply ramming a shardblade through any part of the body can cause such a specific removal of the spirit web. Even if hemalurgy dictates via bind points that it can remove allomantic and feurchemical powers, who is to say that a shardblade will accomplish the same thing if stabbed through a bind point? The idea is there and it works but the difference is just that. A hemalurgic spike is inherently surgical. Trying to use a shardblade for purposes close to hemalurgy is like, well, using a samurai sword on an operation. A scalpel and a katana can cut away a cyst, but no on in their right mind is ever going to use a katana for those purposes. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelheart Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 The problem is that Shardblades only cut on the Physical and Cognitive Realms - not the Spiritual (we know this because we have a WoB that says that, adding that Nightblood cuts on all 3). In order to affect someone's Spirit Web, you need to work on a spiritual level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Steelheart said: The problem is that Shardblades only cut on the Physical and Cognitive Realms - not the Spiritual (we know this because we have a WoB that says that, adding that Nightblood cuts on all 3). In order to affect someone's Spirit Web, you need to work on a spiritual level. Sprenblades cut on the physical and spiritual, not the cognitive. This is repeatedly stated in Stormlight Archives and confirmed by WoBs talking about healing your soul after being cut by one. In general, I don't think general spiritual damages can replicate what hemalurgy does; hemalurgy is a manifestation of investiture with the intent of causing specific and precise changes in the spiritual, and I don't think simply cutting will does that. Furthermore, based on what we've seen, sprenblades and Honorblades seem to only destroy the parts of spiritual associated with the physical parts, which is different than how hemalurgic bindpoints work. I doubt they'll be able to access the deeper sections of the spiritweb to destroy those sections. Edited March 10, 2017 by Spoolofwhool 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelheart Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 Just now, Spoolofwhool said: Sprenblades cut on the physical and spiritual, not the cognitive. This is repeatedly stated in Stormlight Archives and confirmed by WoBs talking about healing your soul after being cut by one. 1) How are you everywhere? Dude - you're awesome 2) You're right. It's late, and I got Spiritual and Cognitive mixed up. Makes way more sense now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 3 minutes ago, Steelheart said: 1) How are you everywhere? Dude - you're awesome 2) You're right. It's late, and I got Spiritual and Cognitive mixed up. Makes way more sense now 1) I'm controlling a bunch of koloss and they do all my forum posting for me. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZenBossanova Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 I have really wondered if that is essentially what the Old Magic does. It takes a bit of someone's spirit web, and reuses it into what it is that the person asks for. For instance, the part of Dalinar's spirit web where he remembered his wife, was reused for whatever his boon was. The accompanying curse isn't vicious. It is just a consequence of what the magic is doing. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) 29 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said: I have really wondered if that is essentially what the Old Magic does. It takes a bit of someone's spirit web, and reuses it into what it is that the person asks for. For instance, the part of Dalinar's spirit web where he remembered his wife, was reused for whatever his boon was. The accompanying curse isn't vicious. It is just a consequence of what the magic is doing. That's an interesting thought I'd never considered. I wonder how that would play into the fact that all of the curses seem to be neurological in nature (and what the hell is Lift's curse)? Would a spiritual deficit create a neurological symptom? Is neurology inherently Cognitive? Is it physically tied to the brain Ala reality? The old magic is insanely interesting and I want to know more. Edited March 10, 2017 by Calderis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 The Old Magic does seem to have a heavy emphasis on the Cognitive Realm, with Lift's boon (or curse, or both), Mr T's seesawing intelligence and compassion, the one man who ended up seeing the world upside-down for the rest of his life, Dalinar's lost memories and inability to hear his wife's name... and yeah, really want to know more about it. Given that Oathbringer is Dalinar's flashback novel, our odds are looking pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlueShifting Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 I really like this line of thinking. However there is a major issue that I can see. In order to avoid cutting into the person's physical body, which would permanently disfigure or kill the person, you would need to somehow cut them in the Spiritual Realm. Now I have been thinking about the possibilities of visiting the Spiritual Realm. I mean it is only logical to think that if you can walk into the Cognitive Realm, that the Spiritual Realm must also be traversal. However once you got there, how on earth would you do anything? I mean the Physical Realm is three dimensional, and the Cognitive Realm is effectively Two Dimensional. The Spirit realm is Effectively One Dimensional (All people are connected there, and that's why spiritual abilities are not restricted to physical location unless something happened to the Spiritual Nature of their powers. aka Sel) So if you were to be there, you would be toughing the souls of everyone at once, and heaven forbid you then bring a shard blade out! Probably just me randomly ranting, but it's interesting to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Kopelow Posted March 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 4 hours ago, TheBlueShifting said: In order to avoid cutting into the person's physical body, which would permanently disfigure or kill the person, you would need to somehow cut them in the Spiritual Realm. Shardblades don't cut living flesh, the first pass is just the spirit so I don't think you would need to actually travel to the Spiritual Realm. As others have said this idea assumes a one-to-one mapping of the spirit to the body and there might not be one, there might though. Radiants would be able to make Shardscalpels and a sliver might be able to find out enough about the spirit in their time as a god to make meaningful use out of it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) This also assumes that Rosharian humans are built upon the same spiritual framework as people from Scadrial. In Scadrial, it's the shoulder spike that gives pewter power. For all we know, it could be the foot on Rosharian humans. If the spiritual framework is different enough, cutting them might not work at all. We already know that if a Shardblade cuts your wrist, you can't move your hand. This could be it's only effect on Rosharians. If a person from Scadrial was cut by a Shardblade it might be different. Edited March 10, 2017 by Figberts 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeakoftheDeval Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 In my opinion the main thing here is lack of intent. Its been said that you can use hemalurgy anywhere in the cosmere so i think you would still be using ruins investiture in the same way as normal hemalurgy. The thing is though that the only people we have seen who have really experimented much with hemalurgy have been rashek and bleeder. Who knows about bleeder but rashek was a sliver and it was his invested nature that gave him knowledge. On roshar maybe you could have someone sucking in massive amounts of stormlight so they know how (somehow stopping the evaporation). Hell maybe thats something we'll see a bondsmith doing idk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlueShifting Posted March 11, 2017 Report Share Posted March 11, 2017 On 3/10/2017 at 6:13 AM, RichardKopelow said: Shardblades don't cut living flesh, the first pass is just the spirit so I don't think you would need to actually travel to the Spiritual Realm. It doesn't cut living flesh, but it does sever it's connection spiritually which arguably has the same effect unless you have access to regrowth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djarskublar Posted March 12, 2017 Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 You can use a Shardblade as a Hemalurgic spike, it just doesn't let the power stick to it because of how Invested the Blade is. Because of that, I would say that this is semi-plausible. If you are using a living Blade and just stab a really thin version of your Blade in the right spot, I could see it working. It would basically be the same as Hemalurgy, though, you just don't end up with a charged piece of metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkness Posted March 12, 2017 Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 17 hours ago, Djarskublar said: You can use a Shardblade as a Hemalurgic spike, it just doesn't let the power stick to it because of how Invested the Blade is. Because of that, I would say that this is semi-plausible. If you are using a living Blade and just stab a really thin version of your Blade in the right spot, I could see it working. It would basically be the same as Hemalurgy, though, you just don't end up with a charged piece of metal. Great, now I have ShardAcupunctureNeedles stuck in my head (no pun intended). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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