Question/theory about larkins

[Winds Alight]

I'm not sure whether I got it right, so I decided to drop this here. I haven't found a similar thread, but should one already exist, I'm sorry.

Obviously, the fact that Rysn's larkin Chiri-Chiri doesn't only feast of Stormlight, but is also capable of sucking in "Voidlight" is going to be important.

Question: Does this actually kill the Fused by taking their power, or does it merely kill the host and the Fused will still be reborn?
I personally would like the first, because it'd be very handy, but I'm not really sure I can believe that.

Thoughts on that?

[Naurock]

I have no evidence to support my thoughts, but I will go ahead and speculate. I would say it's possible to "kill" the Fused via Larkin but difficult. Spren are pure Investiture, and Fused are souls infused with extra Investiture to become immortal, kinda like someone we know from Scadrial.

But I would guess the gemstone would have to be shattered and the Fused spren released to be eaten. I'm sure it would be hard to separate the soul and Investiture at this point.

[Calderis]

The Fused are a soul. If Larkin can eat them. Directly, then I'm not sure why they can't just suck the life out of people or animals either. 

So far, we've only seen them feed on investiture in usable forms. Until Chirri-Chirri starts dropping corpses, I'm operating on the assumption that that's not what they normally do. 

So for now at least, she'll end their ability to use powers, but leave their body alone. 

[Blessed peace]

Aren't the Fused cognitive shadows?

Thier existence is bound to investiture, right? So...

[NoiseSpren]

But the investiture there is not accesible like stormlight. Absolutely not.

[Quantus]

A Possibility, though maybe not a great one, is that a Larkin might be able to eat the Fused at the moment of death, when they are freed from their singer host and are about to get whisked off to find another body.  In most instances Kinetic Investiture is easier to affect/manipulate, and while that's not normally a limitation on their diet (since they can drain gems directly)it might open up some additional options. 

 

This makes me really curious as to the various Spren cultures' views on Larkin: if they can Eat Spren directly (and that's more or less what we're talking about with the Fused), they'd be the bane of all Spren, to the point where I could see some types wanting to exterminate them all for "public safety"

[HSuperLee]

18 minutes ago, Quantus said:

A Possibility, though maybe not a great one, is that a Larkin might be able to eat the Fused at the moment of death, when they are freed from their singer host and are about to get whisked off to find another body.  In most instances Kinetic Investiture is easier to affect/manipulate, and while that's not normally a limitation on their diet (since they can drain gems directly)it might open up some additional options. 

 

This makes me really curious as to the various Spren cultures' views on Larkin: if they can Eat Spren directly (and that's more or less what we're talking about with the Fused), they'd be the bane of all Spren, to the point where I could see some types wanting to exterminate them all for "public safety"

Assuming kinetic investiture works like kinetic energy, then stormlight stored within gems is still kinetic investiture. It's just rather limited in where it can move, causing it to bounce around and create "heat." I highly doubt a larkin could consume non kinetic investiture. Unfortunately, fused would not count as kinetic investiture, as the Investiture attached to their soul would likely count as being innate. (This conversation is reminding me why I hate the physics definition of energy, but that's a tangent.) If there was a way to convert the Investiture sustaining the fused into kinetic investiture, the larkins could eat it, but just the conversion would probably kill a fused anyway. As with Calderis said, if larkins could consume innate investiture, they'd probably predatory rather than consuming stormlight, as they'd be able to eat the "souls" of everything. They'd also be a lot bigger, closer to tradtional dragons in size, due to a supluss of food.

 

In summary, just because investiture is obviously mobile does not make it kinetic investiture, and just because investiture is not obviously mobile does not make it non kinetic. My bet is larkins can only eat kinetic investiture. Fused would not be made of kinetic investiture.

[Calderis]

@Quantus This is one of those places that I feel. A third classification, passive, needs to be added to Investiture. 

We typically refer to "kinetic Investiture" as Investiture that is be actively used... But Brandon refers to innate Investiture as only that which is intrinsically part of something living. 

Investiture stored in a metalminds, and stormlight in a gem. Don't fit with the way we use Kinetic... But they don't fit with the way that Brandon uses Innate. 

I don't think that Larkin can access Innate Investiture. 

[MountainKing]

I think a larkin could eat part of a fuse, while it's transferring from the physical to the cognitive post death.

[StrikerEZ]

31 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

I think a larkin could eat part of a fuse, while it's transferring from the physical to the cognitive post death.

Like others have said, I don’t think that’s really possible. In my opinion, what makes it possible for Larkin to eat Investiture like stormlight or voidlight in the first place is because it is not keyed to any specific Identity. The Investiture that sustains the Fused is almost definitely keyed to them by now, much in the same way that the Investiture that sustains the Heralds or other Cognitive Shadows we know about. I don’t think it would be possible for a Larkin to eat the Investiture that sustains the Fused, much like it is probably impossible for them to eat the Investiture that makes up humans in the Cosmere.

[MountainKing]

In Edgedancer a Larkin eats investiture keyed to Lift

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[Quantus]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus This is one of those places that I feel. A third classification, passive, needs to be added to Investiture. 

We typically refer to "kinetic Investiture" as Investiture that is be actively used... But Brandon refers to innate Investiture as only that which is intrinsically part of something living. 

Investiture stored in a metalminds, and stormlight in a gem. Don't fit with the way we use Kinetic... But they don't fit with the way that Brandon uses Innate. 

I don't think that Larkin can access Innate Investiture. 

I could definitely get behind that, there is definitely a large gap between the actively moving Investiture and the sort of Innate investiture that comes with basic Life, Sentience, and/or existence.  I also concur that larkin cant "eat" that sort of Innate investiture, like what constitutes the average person's Spiritweb. 

With regards to Passive Investiture, I do think one critical part of the Larkin's feeding ability may be that the Investiture has to be resident in the Physical Realm, such as with charged gems, metalminds, Breaths, etc, but that (unlike Nightblood or even a shardblade) they dont have their own transRealmic capabilities.  That would put the average Spiritweb and/or Cognitive Shadow out of their reach, though a fully manifest spren might be in trouble.

 

Regarding Identity, Given that a Larkin can feed off the Investiture in shardplate, I dont think keyed Identity is much of a barrier to them.

[Kramerfarve]

1 hour ago, MountainKing said:

 

In Edgedancer a Larkin eats investiture keyed to Lift

 

Not quite. For investiture to be “keyed” to someone, it must be part of the investiture that literally makes them who they are, or it was funneled through their spiritweb directly into a metal mind. The Larkin merely ate the investiture that Lift was temporarily holding at that time.

[Calderis]

48 minutes ago, Kramerfarve said:

Not quite. For investiture to be “keyed” to someone, it must be part of the investiture that literally makes them who they are, or it was funneled through their spiritweb directly into a metal mind. The Larkin merely ate the investiture that Lift was temporarily holding at that time.

If it's in you, it should be keyed to you. It wouldn't be able to heal you if it weren't automatically interacting with multiple aspects. 

[MountainKing]

I think when a Fused goes from Physical to Cognitive some of there investiture becomes more loose.

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