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If hemalurgy = ripping and grafting bits of soul, can you spike a hemalurgically gained ability?


robardin

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Can you use hemalurgy to steal something that was itself hemalurgically stolen?

Of course, generally and practically speaking, it'd be easier just to steal the spike itself. Like the spike for A-pewter that Spook had been using for a while in Urteau, then removed and cast aside: someone could have picked that up and jabbed it into the right spot in their shoulder to gain A-pewter at a slightly reduced level of potency (for as long as it had been outside of blood). So if you wanted A-pewter and knew where to put the spike and knew Spook was carrying one, you could also have targeted him for a spike heist while he was asleep instead of killing yourself a Pewterarm, which could prove more challenging... Or waiting to run up quick and retrieve it when Spook ditched it.

But let's say someone were to hemalurgically kill Spook with a spike through the heart while he was carrying that spike. Would that hemalurgist have a choice of stealing either his A-tin or "his" A-pewter, as that ability was "stapled" onto his soul, and you were in the act of tearing it apart with hemalurgy?

If not - if it would only work to steal what was "original" to a soul, as distinct from any "added on bits" of soul via hemalurgy, as the bit was actually resident in the "staple" - what does that imply then for a kandra, whose sapience, consciousness, and identity are derived from spikes made from two other people?

I mean, recall in Mistborn: Secret History when Kelsier talks to an obligator who had been turned into a koloss. He was human again in the CR, implying the "added on" bits had fallen away upon his death. Well then, what happens to a kandra when they die and go to the Cognitive Realm?

(And doesn't Harmony say to Wax that he spoke to Paalm after she killed herself, and that she said to look after him (Wax)? I guess the "elevation" of the mistwraith to sapience builds on the "soul" of the mistwraith.)

Oh, and one more thought -- could you take four Inquisitors and make a Inkolossitor? Or four koloss and make a kokolossloss?

Edited by robardin
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I think this should be possible. I like the idea. We know that if you were to "write over" your own soul with a Stamp to say you were an Allomancer, someone could steal that using hemalurgy.

Quote

Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

I think that this might also apply to stealing powers from stolen powers, but as you know, hemalurgy is end-negative. You would lose much more of the original power if the power was spiked twice.

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On 5/20/2020 at 5:15 PM, robardin said:

I mean, recall in Mistborn: Secret History when Kelsier talks to an obligator who had been turned into a koloss. He was human again in the CR, implying the "added on" bits had fallen away upon his death. Well then, what happens to a kandra when they die and go to the Cognitive Realm?

(And doesn't Harmony say to Wax that he spoke to Paalm after she killed herself, and that she said to look after him (Wax)? I guess the "elevation" of the mistwraith to sapience builds on the "soul" of the mistwraith.)

I think this phenomena has more to do with the person's cognitive aspect. For the dead koloss, the spiked on bits didn't just fall off. They just still perceived themselves as human, so in the Cognitive realm, they appeared as a human. The Kandra started as mistwraiths, so they started with a soul; the spikes just augmented it. So they might retain some of their cognicience in the cognitive realm, even if the spikes did fall off. since their perceptions are allowed by the spike though, they might just be left as a mistwraith in the cognitive realm.

A bit from brandon about how spikes affect the cognitive realm stay after someone dies.

 

Quote

 

Questioner (on behalf of Yata)

When someone is spiked, and dies, does that affect the time they spend in the Cognitive?

Brandon Sanderson

If they are spiked, yes because if you are extra Invested, which spiking technically does, if you have a spike stapling a bit of someone else's soul to yours--

Questioner

The other way. Someone spikes through you and you die--

Brandon Sanderson

Ohhhhh, oh okay, no, that might make you go faster.

Questioner

Is that why Harmony doesn’t know who's spiking people? Or--

Brandon Sanderson

Hmm. Yeah. Okay. I had not considered that. But yeah, sure. *laughter* Suuureee. You added to the canon. I mean, the actual answer was, when you're spiking somebody, you're ripping of the soul, so kind of, there's not enough left to talk. I mean, you're ripping off enough of the soul, so it's a bad thing. It's a very bad thing. So you go "Who killed you?" and it's just somebody who is essentially-- But yes, they would go faster too.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

 
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7 hours ago, Light In the Darkness said:

I think this phenomena has more to do with the person's cognitive aspect. For the dead koloss, the spiked on bits didn't just fall off. They just still perceived themselves as human, so in the Cognitive realm, they appeared as a human. The Kandra started as mistwraiths, so they started with a soul; the spikes just augmented it. So they might retain some of their cognicience in the cognitive realm, even if the spikes did fall off. since their perceptions are allowed by the spike though, they might just be left as a mistwraith in the cognitive realm.

Tthis is a good point. When Paalm had her stopover in the CR and encountered Harmony after dying, we don't know what she "looked like" cognitively. It's not impossible that she looked like Lessie, as the "cognitive" form of herself she strongly identified with at the time of her passing (the identity she assumed that loved Wax). But that was always just a physical form - her real, inner identity was probably essentially that of a mistwraith (when it comes to what her form "looked like" to herself), given how quickly and frequently she adopted other physical forms.

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