Aluminum

[Saodar]

We know from a WoB that allomantically burning aluminum would heal you from the withering caused by Shades. Could burning Aluminum also heal you from a shardblade wound? Obviously not a life-ending one, but if my arm was killed by a shardblade could I burn aluminum to restore it?

[Ashertliden]

I seriously doubt this, as with a shardblade wound, the soul of the person themselves is severed. The only effect of burning Aluminum is to eliminate internal investiture, so doing so to eliminate a shardblade wound would be entirely useless. Heres the WoB about the shade: 

Spoiler

Kurkistan

If you're on Threnody and you get Withered by a shade, are you better off burning Allomantic aluminum, or tapping Feruchemical gold?

*laughter*

[clarification on the question]

Brandon Sanderson

They would both work pretty well. I would say if you burned aluminum, that would kind of have the effect that you are wanting it to have, which is the effect-- negating and sucking out, so it's probably safer. But the gold would work, too.

Kurkistan

So would it be fair to describe withering as a kind of cancerous Forging-

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Kurkistan

That just kind of slowly takes over your soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

source

 

[Jace21]

This is probably possible, but not as easily as you might think.

I believe we have WoBs that imply it is possible for Aluminum to physically destroy metal in your body. So if you found a way to hack the system and make Sprenmetal Allomantically viable then the Aluminum would probably destroy it.

The main problem, other than the hack, would be burning it while it was "in your body" before it severed the soul of that body part. Not actually sure if that is possible.

[HSuperLee]

It might work if you're burning as you get hit. What I find more likely is that it would just cancel the blade's super soul cutting. You'd still be getting hit by a giant and very sharp sword, it just wouldn't kill you any more than a normal sword would. Maybe. I kind of doubt it though.

[Calderis]

I think it would be possible to burn of some of the shardblade with aluminum... But aluminum has a burnrate and consumption rate just like chromium... And like chromium invested metal should be harder to burn. A shardblade is a lot of highly invested metal. I don't think consuming the blade would be possible before it does damage. 

As to healing... I'm going to say no. I don't even think it would "heal" withering. It would work very very well at removing the Investiture of the shade and preventing the damage it would do, and probably even reverse that damage if it hasn't reach the point of permanence yet. 

If the withering had reached the point that silver can't reverse the effects though, I don't see how aluminum would help. That's not what aluminum does. 

Edit: and holy crap this is Stormlight. This should be in Cosmere. 

Edited December 14, 2018 by Calderis

[Arith Matic]

 if you could even to begin with, if you burned duralumin with aluminum (which is only possible anymore through hemalurgy), couldn't you theoretically create a burst that could be strong enough?  If you had a nicrosil misting on hand couldn't you theoretically double boost your aluminum burn.

[Calderis]

34 minutes ago, Arith Matic said:

 if you could even to begin with, if you burned duralumin with aluminum (which is only possible anymore through hemalurgy), couldn't you theoretically create a burst that could be strong enough?  If you had a nicrosil misting on hand couldn't you theoretically double boost your aluminum burn.

The main problem is that aluminum also burns itself away. Duralumin bursting would still. Require a ridiculous amount if ingested aluminum itself. 

[Arith Matic]

besides that, would it theoretically possible with another metal if the user had an unlimited supply?

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Arith Matic said:

besides that, would it theoretically possible with another metal if the user had an unlimited supply?

Possible sure. .. But I think it would be completely impractical. 

[Arith Matic]

Okay.