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Is Kelsier the leader of the Ghostbloods? Is Spook Thaidikar?

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine
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Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

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There have been numerous threads about Kelsier being the leader of the ghostbloods, all with some pretty compelling evidence, and they all run into the same wall. WoB's have repeatedly stated that Kelsier is too connected to Scadrial to leave the Scadrian system. All that good speculation goes up in a puff of WoBery, or does it?

First, I think @Calderis's incredibly well thought out post about Physical life after death gives us part of the necessary mechanic, but requires a little bit of unpacking (link to the recent thread with the link to Cal's theory spoilered below).

Spoiler

I think that one of the main objections to Cal's theory, namely that Kelsier getting a Physical body from spiking out another individual's connection to the Physical Realm seems to break the conservation of mass/energy/investiture, can be easily solved, and further that this solution to this PR body problem has some very interesting possible implications.

When an individual transitions to the Cognitive Realm their physical body (i.e. the matter that makes up their body with a given mass) is converted into an equivalent amount of investiture of the form that exists in the Cognitive Realm. If you think of the incredible complexity of a human body, a truly composite universe unto itself, made up of 30 to 40 trillion cells and home to some 300 to 400 trillion symbiotic microbes, the sheer difficulty of this transition to and from the CR becomes truly mind boggling. But that's where the magic comes in, right? Investiture knows what to do in this conversion process, namely because of sentient intent. Because the magic of the investiture is handling the specifics of the actual conversion, the only thing that is needed is an equivalent amount of Investiture for the conversion process. Say investiture is measured in units of adonalsiums, you would have to figure out how many adonalsiums is equivalent to a reasonable facsimile of Kelsier's body, and figure out how to steal and store that hemalurgically.

We know from Oversleep's "We do not concern ourselves with common uses" WoB that investiture can be stolen by a hemalurgic spike (even the Investiture of a spren, smalll quote spoiled below), so it seems highly plausible that the Investiture that makes up a physical body once it's in the CR could be stolen and stored in a spike.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you could steal the Investiture of a spren. Any Investiture can be used in a spike if you know what you’re doing. It’s actually not that hard to use one on a spren.

We know from Hoid's corpse boat "Spanky" in MB:SH that non-living body's can transition to the Cognitive Realm, we know from Nazh's real knife and from the silver chain in Celebrant that real world objects can be brought into the CR (the spike), and further we know that Kelsier and Spook had a century to experiment with Hemalurgy. We also know from an Argent WoB that the Spirit Web of a deceased person doesn't completely break down, and that there's a record of the deceased person's spirit web in the Spiritual Realm for a long time, making it more plausible that the stolen and stored physical body of the deceased could be stapled onto another entity with hemalurgy.

Kelsier, it seems to me, is selfish but not intentionally evil. The idea that he would take a living person into the CR and spike out their connection to the Physical Realm and the Investiture that is their Physical Form, and leave them a misty wraith doomed to wander the Scadrian Cognitive Realm as essentially a bodyless idea for all eternity doesn't really fit, just like I don't think all Kelsier would need to do is steal an individual's connection to the Physical Realm (I don't think the background investiture idea works because Brandon has explicitly said that the physical body is converted into investiture, not that investiture coalesced into the transitioning body (like a teleporter in star trek, the composite matter is beamed from the ship to the surface, not collected from the matter on the surface of the planet teleported too, nothing comes from nothing)).

The long preamble done, here's the shiny theoretical bauble dangling from the long speculative chain. I am speculating that when Spook was nearing the end of his Emperor or Governor days (either bored or dying), he took a composite hemalurgic spike and a corpse with the same relative mass as Kelsier on a trip to the hills where Harmony's shardpool is located and transitioned to the cognitive realm. After Spook and the corpse were converted into Investiture and were in the Cognitive Realm, Kelsier spiked out Spook's connection to the Physical Realm (but not the investiture of his actual physical form) and he spiked out the investiture of the physical form of the recently deceased corpse. Further, to have a deathless cognitive agent capable of exploring the Universe he probably spiked out Spook's connection to Scadrial if this is in fact a separate attribute (it's also likely that the connection to Scadrial comes with the connection to the Physical Realm).

This would leave us with Kelsier, enhanced with a greater connection to Scadrial (this might have some benefit) and the extra investiture of a true physical form. When he transitions to the Physical Realm this extra investiture, like Cal explained in his post, would be used to form Kelsier's spiritual ideal body, replete with Hathsin scars. How he got his fullborn powers is probably less rosey of a story, but he's a you can't break eggs without making an omelette kind of guy. That would also leave Kelseire with a biddable and dependable Cognitive Shadow agent, Spook, able to explore and report on the wider happenings of the Cosmere. With his connection to Scadrial spiked out, Spook could venture wherever he wanted and it seems to me that with the clue dropped by Hoid to Kelsier about the destruction of a whole mercantile system that Kelsier would want his new agent to investigate the other subastral economies for a start.

Also, if Connection to a particular shardworld was necessary to transition to that shardworld's PR, then Spook could likewise find an agent that would be willing to have their Physical Realm connection spiked out to become a wandering Worldhopper. Since the investiture for Spook's physical body was never spiked out, with the new PR connection spike he could transition to the Physical Realm on the new Shardworld. And if he ever wanted to leave a particular cosmere planet, he could remove his Physical Realm connection spike (we know this is something he could do because he removed his pewter spike).

But just to extend this to it's most tinfoil hat extreme, Spook could in fact be Thaidikar, and either there's no spike necessary for Connection to Roshar or the spike for the Physical Realm connection could be hidden anywhere...It's possibly worth paying attention to details about Thaidikar on a reread to see if there are any mistborn like powers that are hinted at or if there's any mention of metal on his person, like an earing...

 

TL:DR
Kelsier spiked a chicken, and now he can lay eggs, but because of his fullborn powers (specifically his ability to regulate his body heat with F-Brass) he can lay soft boiled eggs. Man, that's serious power.

Spook got a tan, but just on the upper part of one of his legs, so now everyone can see he's Thaidakar, I mean they can see his Thigh Darker.

*Edited: Tried to change Kelsier to Spoiler and Spook to Spoiler in the title but the old Spoilery title still showed up in the most recent threads list. Will consider this next time, nice catch John203

Edited by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
Edited to try to remove spoilers in title while this is still one of the most recent threads, didn't work so I edited back
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Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

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Way to go @RShara , always so quick with the "Facts". (Just kidding, I appreciate all your work sinking theories that deserve to be sunk).

13 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

(I'm a fan of the "Thaidikar is Sebarial" theory)

That's my personal favorite too, I thought this was interesting enough to mention it, and the fact that Lestibournes' name "Spook", given to him by Kelsier, literally can mean ghost or an operative of an Intelligence Agency seems like a pretty blatant (probably too blatant) tie-in to the ghostbloods (this was mentioned in @Toaster Retribution thread about Spook being a Ghostblood, the link to that thread is spoilered below).

Spoiler

Still interesting to think about, what if Kelsier after 10 years of experimenting with Hemalurgy with Spook, did figure out how to spike out Spook's physical realm connection (but not his actual physical form), and then, say they got another Scadrian who was on his deathbed to allow them to steal his PR connection and spike Spook with this. Then Spook would have a spike that probably would contain his connection to the Scadrian subastral, which he could remove and explore the Universe and report back to Kelsier. And this would give Spook and Kelsier 90 years to work out the details of organization before Spook starts world hopping himself in earnest,, and the intelligence to figure out where the ghostbloods need a major secondary center of operations, namely Roshar.

Also interesting to think about, if you could, say, remove your connection to the physical realm, would you still be subject to the decay associated with aging? Is that purely a physical process? Is this the route that some worldhoppers use to attain a seeming immortality? How did Demoux do it, he should have had enough connection to Scadrial (he was an atium misting) to make the travel through the CR difficult if not impossible, right?

This is all so completely speculative, that really it's best to think of this all as a fun little thought experiment, like your on an island of pure speculation, far from the realm of plausibility, but it's a fun place to spend some time lost in thought in none the less.

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Fezzik

Fezzik

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3 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

How did Demoux do it, he should have had enough connection to Scadrial (he was an atium misting) to make the travel through the CR difficult if not impossible, right?

I don't believe this should hold him up. The reason Kelsier couldn't leave was because his being was suffused with preservation's investiture. A KR could theoretically travel off-world, but the spren would find it very difficult. Given that Heralds also cannot travel out of the system, but Vasher totally can, I would say having a strong physical presence would be all that is required.

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RShara

RShara

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3 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

One thing that speaks for Kelsier being a Ghostblood/the boss is the fact that Iyatil is originally from Scadrial. She has since moved away, but I wouldnt be surprised if she keeps in touch with her native planet. After all, she holds on to the culture quite tightly. 

Iyatil was born in Silverlight. Her heritage is Scadrian, but Brandon compares it to how his heritage is partially Dutch.

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Toaster Retribution

Toaster Retribution

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1 hour ago, RShara said:

Iyatil was born in Silverlight. Her heritage is Scadrian, but Brandon compares it to how his heritage is partially Dutch.

Yes, but she might still want to visit Scadrial, because of that heritage. It is not unlikely to assume Iyatil has been poking around there a bit. 

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