Would A Full Metal Still Be Able To Cause A Hemalurgic Injury?

[Trusk'our he/him]

If a Hemalurgic spike or other piece of Hemalurgically viable metal were filled with Investiture already and someone tried to fill it with another Hemalurgic charge, would the person they stabbed still have the chunk of Spiritweb removed and have a spiritual injury, or does the Spiritweb piece not leave the person being spiked if there's no room to hold it in the spike?

[Honorless he/him]

Invested objects resist foreign Investiture, an already Invested spike likely wouldn't be able to hold a Hemalurgic charge, that doesn't just mean it wouldn't be able to hold a charge, it wouldn't be able to steal it in the first place: that req Investiture too, and as mentioned before, anything that is already Invested would resist being Invested any further. So you'd "just" be stabbing people with an Invested object.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Honorless

[Dunkum he/him]

So like if you had the right metal and the right intent, would it still be able to tear a spiritweb hole even if it couldn't retain the investiture? that's an interesting question. I am honestly not sure; I can see arguments either way. you are basically separating the "tearing out a piece of spiritweb" function of hemalurgy from the "storing it in metal" piece, and I am not sure if that would work. to twist it further, I'm slightly more inclined to believe it would work if you didn't know the metal was full and this didn't have a reason to expect the stealing to fail - that is if you try to use the spike for proper hemalurgy and it just can't hold more investiture vs if you knowingly tried to subvert your own hemalurgy by using a spike that could not work.

[Duxredux he/him]

I agree with the other answers, there may be multiple ways this could go. For example, I'm still a bit surprised that Lerasium or Trellium can hold a Hemalurgic charge without conflicting issues, though apparently Godmetals can be used for Hemalurgy without the complication of Investiture saturation or conflicting Investiture. It's also a question of storage space, whether or not the Bands of Mourning were fully saturated or not, considering that they aren't as Invested as a Shardblade. Get too Invested and it will just slice through the soul like a Shardblade if you're not careful, rather than taking a Hemalurgic charge. This distinction is noteworthy I think.

Quote

Questioner

Can Shardblades, dead or alive, be used as Hemalurgic spikes? And if attempted, what would the result be?

Brandon Sanderson

Technically yes, but in practicality no.

To use something as a Hemalurgic spike, it basically just needs to be able to already have a charge of Investiture, or be able to adopt one. Technically, Shardblades are made from a god metal. You could do this. But the Blade is gonna be big and unwieldy, and the form it’s in right now, it’s going to slice the soul rather than rip pieces off. You would have to jump through a bunch of hoops that wouldn’t be worth it in order to use one.

It would basically mean that you’d have to separate the metal of the Shardblade from the concept of a Shardblade itself, is what’s going on there.

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