So, Kandra Blessings Are Constructive In Their Nature?

[Trusk'our]

I (very) recently made a post that talked about how I thought Kandra Blessings were made by blanking Identity.

But when I was making that post, it got me thinking about Kandra Blessings more and how they function for a Kandra, so here are a few musings and ideas I came to that didn't fit into the original post.

If I'm correct, a Kandra's memories are actually stored inside their Blessings, which would explain why a Kandra's memories fade if their spikes are lost for a period of time; the Invesiture that the memories were encoded in is lost, so the memories are too. This would also help explain why Kandra can have memories that span over hundreds of years, as a normal brain just isn't capable of holding more than a few hundred years worth of memories, and mistwraiths aren't naturally immortal, the Coppermind Wiki says that they naturally live up to fifty years, so they probably don't have a specially designed cognitive system that would allow them to hold over a thousand years worth of memories, but if their spikes can magically hold memories, it would help explain how they don't have this issue.

 I wonder if this means that a Kandra Blessing actually gains an extra charge of Investiture over time as a Kandra gains new memories that are converted into Investiture to be held in the spikes, even if it doesn't enhance the original attribute held by the spike and only works to hold memories, similar to a Coppermind. If a Kandra's memories are held within their spikes, then Hemalurgy might be an even better alternative to Feruchemy or Awakening in terms of memory storage, as a Kandra can (probably) still access their memories as if they were still inside their brain and not stored in a separate place.

I also think that even if a Kandra's spikes did have a blanked Identity at some point, it seems that they gain a new Identity, that of the Kandra, which would explain why a Kandra can't take in another Kandra's spikes without pain unless they already have a stable personality; the new Identity of the spikes is incongruent with that of the other Kandra.

All in all, it seems like a Kandra has a much deeper connection to their spikes than other Hemalurgic constructs, almost as if they were an extension of the Kandra themselves rather than some foreign piece of power stapled on haphazardly (which to me supports my blank Identity theory).

Anyway, this post feels kind of like I'm just rambling, but I wasn't really sure of a better way to share all of my thoughts on this topic.

[offer]

I don`t think the memories are stored in the spikes.

According to this WoB they are not:

 

Quote

zas678

TenSoon wonders, and I wonder too- How can kandra think and be sentient without brains? Doesn't the body need a physical coordinator to relay between the Physical and Cognitive realm? Or do the spikes do a good enough job with that?

Brandon Sanderson

I imagine kandra having a non-centralized nervous system, with brain power spread through their bodies. Well, non-centralized is probably the wrong way to say it. They have lobes of thought and memory attached to muscles here and there, and don't have a single 'brain.' They certainly have brain-like material, though.

/r/Fantasy_Bookclub Alloy of Law Q&A (Jan. 17, 2012)

 

[Trusk'our]

10 minutes ago, offer said:

I don`t think the memories are stored in the spikes.

According to this WoB they are not:

I was thinking more like memories are constantly transferred to and from the spikes, but the non-centralized nervous system is used to process and create new memories. This quote doesn't seem to disprove that to me, but it is possible that I am wrong.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Trusk'our

[Lightspine]

This has me thinking: do we know any instances where Kandra have changed their blessings? I know TenSoon obtained the Blessing of Potency from OreSeur, but I can't remember if he ever swapped out his Blessing of Presence for those, or simply had both blessings at once. However, I'm pretty sure that Bleeder must have completely switched her original spikes out at some point, since she is using an unknown metal now and only one spike at a time. If your theory were true, wouldn't switching Blessings make them forget all the memories held in those spikes?

[Trusk'our]

42 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

This has me thinking: do we know any instances where Kandra have changed their blessings? I know TenSoon obtained the Blessing of Potency from OreSeur, but I can't remember if he ever swapped out his Blessing of Presence for those, or simply had both blessings at once. However, I'm pretty sure that Bleeder must have completely switched her original spikes out at some point, since she is using an unknown metal now and only one spike at a time. If your theory were true, wouldn't switching Blessings make them forget all the memories held in those spikes?

Hmmm. If they did switch out their original spikes for new ones, then yes, they would likely lose all of their memories. 

So my theory may not be correct. However, I wonder if Bleeder maybe didn't do that? Maybe she alloyed her Blessings with Trellium to get a new effect, but the new spikes would still retain most of her original memories, personality, and Identity, but grant new abilities?

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

So my theory may not be correct. However, I wonder if Bleeder maybe didn't do that? Maybe she alloyed her Blessings with Trellium to get a new effect, but the new spikes would still retain most of her original memories, personality, and Identity, but grant new abilities?

Now, this quote is about feruchemy, so there's a number of things that could be different when dealing with kandra blessings, admitedly. But it's very possible this doesn't actually work the way you want it to either.

Quote

Rogaen

What would happen if a Feruchemist fills, for example, a tin metalmind then mixes it to make a pewter metalmind? Does the stored attribute change? Is the Investiture gone when you melt the metal? What if he just makes it into a tin metalmind again?

Brandon Sanderson

If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted down.)

 

[Duxredux]

I had a similar thought a while back actually, that Kandra memories were stored in the piece of the soul within their spikes, but I was running into the same issues that are being brought up here. In BoM Ch. 19, when MeLaan and Marasi are breaking into the Set's fort built around the fallen Southern airship, MeLaan tells Marasi that a Kandra's cognitive system is spread throughout their body but that MeLaan was storing her memories in a solid metal compartment in her thigh, as people aim for the head. This tells us a few things, but might raise more questions:

• Kandra are aware of where their memories are stored physically
• Bullets hitting the memory storage is problematic or annoying enough that MeLaan deliberately placed her memories in a reinforced container away from common kill targets
• Despite all of these safeguards, having her spikes removed still left MeLaan as a Mistwraith with no memory, other than the feeling that her state as a Mistwraith was horribly wrong.
• Unless MeLaan was lying about the metal compartment in her thigh, her spikes were not her memory storage, as Telsin removed the two spikes easily enough with some messy work with a knife. 
• MeLaan's memories still degraded while her spikes were out.

So... for some reason the loss of spikes makes it so that a Kandra can no longer access their memories, despite them physically stored in a known location.

Here's a list of things I think we know about Kandra memory:

• ReLuur lost a spike and was no longer fully sane, but still seemed to retain most memory of what had happened to him.
• MeLaan was still worried that there would be losses from ReLuur missing one of his spikes, so even a single spike removed will cause memories to decay.
• The Kandra thought it was worth temporarily giving ReLuur one of TenSoon's spikes, but ReLuur spat it out shortly after (notably, ReLuur's spike was made of Pewter, TenSoon's made of Iron and Copper). Either the issue was of incorrect pairing to create a Blessing, wrong spike, both, or something I haven't thought of.
• The Blessing of Presence with Copper spikes gives Kandra exceptionally sharp memory, though this too will degrade when spikes are removed.
• Memories seem to degrade from the most recently recorded memories first when spikes are removed (TenSoon's story for Wax, MeLaan at the end of BoM)

I'm going to pass over Bleeder, because so much about Bleeder doesn't make sense to me or seem to match what happens to other Kandra. I'm making a thread with where that train of thought went, as it went far beyond this topic.

Basically, there has to be some sort of Cognitive or Spiritual reason why a Kandra can't access their memories without Hemalurgic spikes, even though there is a physical component to memory storage. My crackpot idea right now is that the spikes give them access to a component of their Cognitive or Spiritual Identity, and that while the spike is removed, either their Identity or their Connection to their Identity degrades as the spike loses its Hemalurgic charge. They can't access those memories because it's not physically tied to their Identity, it's Spiritually tied through Hemalurgy, and as their Identity degrades the memory becomes inaccessible, starting with short term, recent events that have not been incorporated into their Identity.

Another way of looking at this Feruchemically is, what happens if a Hemalurgist gains a Feruchemical ability, stores an attribute for a while, then removes the spike and lets it degrade before attempting to access their metalminds? Can they still access the entirety of the storage, or would portions of the metalmind start to become inaccessible as the Identity and Feruchemical power within the spike degrades?

Edited June 25, 2022 by Duxredux
Tweaks for clarity

[Trusk'our]

6 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I had a similar thought a while back actually, that Kandra memories were stored in the piece of the soul within their spikes, but I was running into the same issues that are being brought up here. In BoM Ch. 19, when MeLaan and Marasi are breaking into the Set's fort built around the fallen Southern airship, MeLaan tells Marasi that a Kandra's cognitive system is spread throughout their body but that MeLaan was storing her memories in a solid metal compartment in her thigh, as people aim for the head. This tells us a few things, but might raise more questions:

• Kandra are aware of where their memories are stored physically
• Bullets hitting the memory storage is problematic or annoying enough that MeLaan deliberately placed her memories in a reinforced container away from common kill targets
• Despite all of these safeguards, having her spikes removed still left MeLaan as a Mistwraith with no memory, other than the feeling that her state as a Mistwraith was horribly wrong.
• Unless MeLaan was lying about the metal compartment in her thigh, her spikes were not her memory storage, as Telsin removed the two spikes easily enough with some messy work with a knife. 
• MeLaan's memories still degraded while her spikes were out.

So... for some reason the loss of spikes makes it so that a Kandra can no longer access their memories, despite them physically stored in a known location.

Here's a list of things I think we know about Kandra memory:

• ReLuur lost a spike and was no longer fully sane, but still seemed to retain most memory of what had happened to him.
• MeLaan was still worried that there would be losses from ReLuur missing one of his spikes, so even a single spike removed will cause memories to decay.
• The Kandra thought it was worth temporarily giving ReLuur one of TenSoon's spikes, but ReLuur spat it out shortly after (notably, ReLuur's spike was made of Pewter, TenSoon's made of Iron and Copper). Either the issue was of incorrect pairing to create a Blessing, wrong spike, both, or something I haven't thought of.
• The Blessing of Presence with Copper spikes gives Kandra exceptionally sharp memory, though this too will degrade when spikes are removed.
• Memories seem to degrade from the most recently recorded memories first when spikes are removed (TenSoon's story for Wax, MeLaan at the end of BoM)

Okay, yeah, you make some pretty good points here. 

So Kandra memories are almost certainly not stored in their spikes. Huh. I still wonder whether Kandra Blessings will continue to grow in Spiritual complexity over time, as they are tied closely to a Kandra and their Identity.

[cometaryorbit]

Mistwraiths were created from humans by TLR and given a Cognitive blockage, which the Blessing spikes fix. They were intentionally built using the Well to be "incomplete" without the spikes. The spikes turn it into a kandra, which is a Hemalurgic construct - in a sense a separate species from mistwraiths, as koloss and Inquisitors are separate from humans.

While it's hard to tell since they're shapeshifters - way less obvious than the human->koloss transition - kandra are presumably biologically different from mistwraiths; they live over a thousand years vs. 50 years for mistwraiths.

I think that the memory storage itself is in Physical, biological brain matter (though dispersed through the body rather than in a single brain human-style); it's more that when the spikes are removed the kandra turns back into a mistwraith, which isn't sapient, and the memories degrade as part of that transformation. Kandra brain matter probably isn't identical to mistwraith brain matter.

[Trusk'our]

20 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Mistwraiths were created from humans by TLR and given a Cognitive blockage, which the Blessing spikes fix. They were intentionally built using the Well to be "incomplete" without the spikes. The spikes turn it into a kandra, which is a Hemalurgic construct - in a sense a separate species from mistwraiths, as koloss and Inquisitors are separate from humans.

While it's hard to tell since they're shapeshifters - way less obvious than the human->koloss transition - kandra are presumably biologically different from mistwraiths; they live over a thousand years vs. 50 years for mistwraiths.

I think that the memory storage itself is in Physical, biological brain matter (though dispersed through the body rather than in a single brain human-style); it's more that when the spikes are removed the kandra turns back into a mistwraith, which isn't sapient, and the memories degrade as part of that transformation. Kandra brain matter probably isn't identical to mistwraith brain matter.

I could see that making sense. It would explain the memory loss of a Kandra who has lost their spikes, and also could explain why they can live so long.

[Duxredux]

On 6/26/2022 at 1:50 PM, cometaryorbit said:

Mistwraiths were created from humans by TLR and given a Cognitive blockage, which the Blessing spikes fix. They were intentionally built using the Well to be "incomplete" without the spikes. The spikes turn it into a kandra, which is a Hemalurgic construct - in a sense a separate species from mistwraiths, as koloss and Inquisitors are separate from humans.

While it's hard to tell since they're shapeshifters - way less obvious than the human->koloss transition - kandra are presumably biologically different from mistwraiths; they live over a thousand years vs. 50 years for mistwraiths.

I think that the memory storage itself is in Physical, biological brain matter (though dispersed through the body rather than in a single brain human-style); it's more that when the spikes are removed the kandra turns back into a mistwraith, which isn't sapient, and the memories degrade as part of that transformation. Kandra brain matter probably isn't identical to mistwraith brain matter.

That's a clever note that Kandra are as distinct from Mistwraiths as Koloss are from humans. This could provide an explanation, but then why do more recent memories degrade first? Is it possible for the reverted Mistwraith to accidentally convert that useless brain mass into muscle for locomotion and just completely wipe the slate? Shapeshifters are tricky, and that seems like a worry regardless if they are keeping memory on brain-like tissue.

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

This could provide an explanation, but then why do more recent memories degrade first?

Maybe something to do with short term vs long term memory? They work differently in humans, maybe kandra/mistwraiths have an analogue: as different as they are biologically, the First Generation kept their minds from being human, so it probably works similarly.

[+Oltux72]

On 24.6.2022 at 9:00 PM, Trusk'our said:

All in all, it seems like a Kandra has a much deeper connection to their spikes than other Hemalurgic constructs, almost as if they were an extension of the Kandra themselves rather than some foreign piece of power stapled on haphazardly (which to me supports my blank Identity theory).

Anyway, this post feels kind of like I'm just rambling, but I wasn't really sure of a better way to share all of my thoughts on this topic.

The way Paalm made and changed her blessings pretty much disproves that. She was without blessing for a short time during a change and did not lose her memories when switching to completely new single blessings.

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The way Paalm made and changed her blessings pretty much disproves that. She was without blessing for a short time during a change and did not lose her memories when switching to completely new single blessings.

Hmm, good point. Paalm was crazy, and perhaps that wasn't good for her psychologically, but being able to switch spikes like that and retain as much as she did does show that the spikes can't be *that* core to the kandra mind.

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

She was in a position in which she spent minimal time without a spike, so degradation would be minimal.

[+Oltux72]

13 hours ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

She was in a position in which she spent minimal time without a spike, so degradation would be minimal.

True, if the memories are inside her body or her spiritweb or some combination thereof.
False, if her memories are inside her spikes.

She went in a sequence of single original spike to no spike at all to a completely new spike. There is no time memories could have transferred from the old spike to the new spike, because she never bore them together.

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

I figure that the spikes grant access to the memories, but did not store them.

[cometaryorbit]

Yes exactly.  The Paalm case disproves kandra memories being in the spikes.

The spikes remove a blockage between Physical and Cognitive allowing the kandra to think properly (likely altering the brain too - kandra probably aren't biologically identical to mistwraiths given their vastly longer lifespan- but that's unconfirmed).