Epic weakness have to be real?

[wiritospren]

As seen, in firefight an epc weakness is determined by they worst fear, si what would happen if you created the sensation of the fear rather than the fear, for example if sourcefield who was weak to saborized water, will she still lose her powers if she didnt know ir was that? Or if she see water with colorant and make believe ir was saborized water, would she had fear and lose her powers?

[HeyLookItz]

I think they would not be affected by something that was not their real weakness. The weaknesses are not caused by the fear, they are caused by the actual thing. 

Proof: If a fake weakness works, then  an Epic not knowing their weakness was affecting them would not be affected. However, Nightwielder is still affected by UV even when taken by surprise.

[Kidpen]

21 hours ago, HeyLookItz said:

I think they would not be affected by something that was not their real weakness. The weaknesses are not caused by the fear, they are caused by the actual thing. 

Proof: If a fake weakness works, then  an Epic not knowing their weakness was affecting them would not be affected. However, Nightwielder is still affected by UV even when taken by surprise.

I disagree with that proof. Nightwielder knows UV light is being used on him, even though he didn't expect it. For example, is it possible that they could have used a generic version of kool-aid and had it still work on that one epic? I think maybe. 

[HeyLookItz]

I don't think Nightwielder does know. When David finally kills him, he shines the light on Nightwielder's back, and he still solidifies.

[Quantus]

Id say in general it would have to be the "real" thing, unless their weakness was itself a psychological trait/effect. That being said, I dont know how much the literla physical characteristics are going to affect things.  I mean, "Fire" as a weakness is pretty direct, but for practical purposes Fire is just super-heated gas that is emitting light, and niether of those things individually woudl do it.  Or separately, I have to assume, so you couldnt rig up a giant electric heater and some bright lights to imitate it, but you could use some chemical that burns dimly and with low heat.  For that matter, the Weakness is effective even in the case of minions granted power, and so outside the sphere of said Epic's perception should not be a problem.

 

Dont get me wrong, I think the weaknesses are indeed a product of the Epic's psychology, but once their powers manifest it has become real and would require "real" things.  I just dont think they can stick their head in the sand and avoid it.

[Gray to]

I mean Steelheart's weakness is he can only be killed by someone who's not afraid of him, but the only person who's not afraid of him is himself. So they had to trick him into killing himself. He didn't know he was actually pulling the trigger for the explosions but he still died. So I dont think they need to know that they're being affect by their weakness

[Rossamund]

Speaking of Steelheart when he got the scar he wouldn't have being able to identify whether he was being shot at by someone afraid of him or someone unafraid of him. So it can't be a purely psychological effect.

[Embrisk]

In calamity, it covers more of how epic weaknesses work, and why that wouldn't work.

There is an epic in the first book discussed who could only be killed if it was by 5 people at once. I doubt their biggest fear was 5 people attacking them, no more, no less. Epic weaknesses don't work like that. If that was the case, it would be more obvious, and you would have dozens of epics with the same weaknesses, Heights, bugs, the dark, burning to death, violence, blood, needless, that sort of thing.