The Lies of Thaidakar

[CognitiveShadow]

So, Kelsier the Survivor / Thaidakar / The Sovereign… three in one, all the same person, all with mythic and/or religious reputations that reference his power and abilities.

In Keslier’s epilogue, we learn that he has no powers anymore, is basically just a regular person (to the extent that he can still be a regular person) with a spike that only keeps his spirit attached to his body. Hemelurgy has not been very effective, he dreams of being able to fly with steel pushes again, etc. 

However, when Kelsier is talking to his new crew via a seon, he says he is in the ocean and steel pushing would not be a viable option for him to get there in time……….???? So is he lying to his crew and everyone else, pretending to be a full mistborn and full feruchemist etc? Who all actually knows he is powerless? Just Sazed?

[StormingTexan]

Is he lying though? He does not say for "me to Steelpush" although I agree it could be read that way. It is actually fairly ambiguous. The one thing I did think was odd is after seeing from the map that the continents are connected why do they need to go over water unless this is just done to follow the path less traveled. Even if that was the case from the map at least it looks like they could pretty easily go over land. Unless they fly on the opposite side of the planet than is portrayed on the map but that seems odd to me. 

[CognitiveShadow]

6 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

Is he lying though? He does not say for "me to Steelpush" although I agree it could be read that way. It is actually fairly ambiguous. The one thing I did think was odd is after seeing from the map that the continents are connected why do they need to go over water unless this is just done to follow the path less traveled. Even if that was the case from the map at least it looks like they could pretty easily go over land. Unless they fly on the opposite side of the planet than is portrayed on the map but that seems odd to me. 

Fair, I’m not as worried about the technicality of him “lying” vs “misleading” vs “conning” vs “hiding the truth” though. My main point is that I’m curious what he has led people to believe about his abilities. Do the ghostbloods think he is still mistborn? It seems like he lets them assume that based on the one line we see. Which is interesting. I wonder what other organizations like the sons of honor, the 17th shard, etc believe or know about his condition and abilities. 
 

TLDR: I think Kelsier is (maybe just by habit) running a con on everyone, letting the world(s) think that he is still super powerful and using that reputation as something to continue building his influence.

Regarding the map stuff, yeah I don’t know. Could be that they go a circuitous route to avoid mountains and attention or something but seems odd that there isn’t a big ocean separating all sides of the continents

[+Oltux72]

7 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

TLDR: I think Kelsier is (maybe just by habit) running a con on everyone, letting the world(s) think that he is still super powerful and using that reputation as something to continue building his influence.

How? Are none of the Ghostbloods Seekers?

[CognitiveShadow]

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

How? Are none of the Ghostbloods Seekers?

Very likely that there are, but if he’s a mistborn he could burn copper and block it anyway.

though it would be strange for them to think he is mistborn if they never see him do anything like steel pushing and stuff. Just seems weird that he mentioned that in the Seon call but then we find out he can’t do it. Unless he has a medallion he can use for that or something? But I get the vibe that the bands were created as an experiment for him to hopefully get powers back, but it didn’t work for him.

[Szeth_Pancakes]

26 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

Even if that was the case from the map at least it looks like they could pretty easily go over land. Unless they fly on the opposite side of the planet than is portrayed on the map but that seems odd to me. 

The map caused so many problems I think it’s best to just ignore it and pretend there’s still an ocean between the continents.

[StormingTexan]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Omniscient said:

The map caused so many problems I think it’s best to just ignore it and pretend there’s still an ocean between the continents.

In my head cannon it was an Island like Australia so this really threw a wrench in the works. I agree though because in this case at least it does not seem to make sense to travel over water. Even if you did it to avoid mountains logically you would travel along the coast. You have to go out of your way to travel long distances over water. It also struck me as odd that since over land is possible more people from the north would not travel to the south. I know we get an explanation for this in the books and if it is a separate island it makes since it was not discovered but did people really just kinda say yeah this is far enough after the Southern Roughs? 

Edited November 28, 2022 by StormingTexan

[Ati16]

3 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

However, when Kelsier is talking to his new crew via a seon, he says he is in the ocean and steel pushing would not be a viable option for him to get there in time……….???? So is he lying to his crew and everyone else, pretending to be a full mistborn and full feruchemist etc? Who all actually knows he is powerless? Just Sazed?

Lying to his crew doesn't seem like something Kelsier would do. He might have had some malwish pilot there who could ride him around, or he could have one of the malwish medallions that could grant him allomancy.

[CognitiveShadow]

13 minutes ago, Ati16 said:

Lying to his crew doesn't seem like something Kelsier would do. He might have had some malwish pilot there who could ride him around, or he could have one of the malwish medallions that could grant him allomancy.

Those are valid alternatives… but I would say that lying to his crew isn’t off brand. He had a whole secret plot that he didn’t fill his crew in on in era 1. They even confronted him on it and he just avoided or led them to think he was just being self-aggrandizing or something. But he was instead building up a religion around himself. And then he did it again as the sovereign… might not be too crazy to think he is building himself up as Thaidakar now as well

[King-A-Train]

It is presumably a mixture of factors. Secret History shows he is a good con artist, tricking the Ire with no powers. 

But the Bands of Mourning indicate that he has access to powers, presumably not his powers, but Spook? Or other allomancers, and feruchemists using their powers to help him. 
 

Those closest to him may know that he isn’t a Mistborn anymore, but something is keeping his influence over the ghostbloods. 

[Returned]

It could be as simple as maintaining as much intrigue and mystery as he can. Kelsier is a theatrical person, and uses those theatrics (as well as others' perceptions of him) very effectively.

But more broadly I don't think that Kelsier particularly needs those powers. He's certainly more dangerous as a Mistborn than as a normal person, all else being equal, but he was also incredibly successful and effective long before he Snapped. Most of his biggest successes weren't due to his Allomancy alone. He's (more or less) immortal as a cognitive shadow, pinned into a body or otherwise, which seems useful.

Kelsier has always been very capable and effective, particularly when running an organization. As a leader in the Ghostbloods he has tons of resources from across the Cosmere available to him, including rare and valuable ones. He has a lot of valuable information about things going on in places of note, and has good intelligence on people and groups that are important from local scale to galactic. He has highly capable people working under him to carry out his designs, some of them skilled and effective magic users from many different magic systems.

Even though he's not Mistborn any more, perhaps permanently, I don't think it's accurate to say that Kelsier is powerless. I think that he's more influential, effective, and dangerous than he's ever been-- he just can't burn metals.

[Ati16]

4 minutes ago, King-A-Train said:

It is presumably a mixture of factors. Secret History shows he is a good con artist, tricking the Ire with no powers. 

I wouldn't say no powers, he had the powers of a cognitive shadow(walking through solid walls, etc), which helped him a lot with tricking the Ire.

10 minutes ago, King-A-Train said:

But the Bands of Mourning indicate that he has access to powers, presumably not his powers, but Spook? Or other allomancers, and feruchemists using their powers to help him.

I agree with the idea that other metalborn and Spook helped him create the Bands of Mourning

12 minutes ago, King-A-Train said:

Those closest to him may know that he isn’t a Mistborn anymore, but something is keeping his influence over the ghostbloods. 

Probably the same thing that kept his influence over his original crew, an organization that is based on trust and honesty.

[+Oltux72]

3 minutes ago, Ati16 said:

I agree with the idea that other metalborn and Spook helped him create the Bands of Mourning

But then who created the coin with the memories Waxillium acquired? That just makes no sense.

[King-A-Train]

Just now, Ati16 said:

Probably the same thing that kept his influence over his original crew, an organization that is based on trust and honesty.

True. The man has personality coming out of his ears. 

He might have some sociopathic tendencies, but he is loyal and charismatic. 

[CognitiveShadow]

Just now, Oltux72 said:

But then who created the coin with the memories Waxillium acquired? That just makes no sense.

Kelsier still could have been the one to deliver the bands to the southern scadrials. It seems most likely to me that Harmonys hands were tied and he couldn’t do anything to help them, so marsh and Kelsier stepped in to help out. Kelsier of course would use his typical flair with the delivery of the amulets and knowledge and rule them for a time to help get them set up 

[+Oltux72]

Just now, CognitiveShadow said:

Kelsier still could have been the one to deliver the bands to the southern scadrials. It seems most likely to me that Harmonys hands were tied and he couldn’t do anything to help them, so marsh and Kelsier stepped in to help out. Kelsier of course would use his typical flair with the delivery of the amulets and knowledge and rule them for a time to help get them set up 

But then why did he give the Bands away? The coin is basically a medaillion. Why could he use that but not te Bands?

[CognitiveShadow]

2 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

But then why did he give the Bands away? The coin is basically a medaillion. Why could he use that but not te Bands?

I imagine he tried to set them up "protected" so that once he figured out how to make it work for him he could go get them and use them. There were probably a good amount of people involved in their creation and it was that or kill all of the people who knew too much. But Kel isn't one for killing people who aren't at least in his own mind somewhat deserving of it. So instead he used a classic misdirection where he could just slide on by and grab them when ready while everyone else focused on the stuff inside the temple.

As for the coin, I wonder if that memory was somehow stolen by Hoid somehow? It's definitely a big question mark as to how Hoid got his hands on that. It would be a weird memory for Kelsier to put into a coin if he could do that... I feel like Hoid did something special to capture that one.

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

I imagine he tried to set them up "protected" so that once he figured out how to make it work for him he could go get them and use them. There were probably a good amount of people involved in their creation and it was that or kill all of the people who knew too much.

And all of them just let him carry the bands off to an unknown location? Or did they know and Kelsier trusted them?

9 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

But Kel isn't one for killing people who aren't at least in his own mind somewhat deserving of it. So instead he used a classic misdirection where he could just slide on by and grab them when ready while everyone else focused on the stuff inside the temple.

Accepting that for being true at one time, it still does not explain why je let the bands just wait there for decades after the watchmen had died.

9 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

As for the coin, I wonder if that memory was somehow stolen by Hoid somehow? It's definitely a big question mark as to how Hoid got his hands on that. It would be a weird memory for Kelsier to put into a coin if he could do that... I feel like Hoid did something special to capture that one.

So Hoid, who can harm no one, actually went there and ripped a memory out of somebody's brain? And has learned how to make medaillions? And these medaillions look like many of the kind recently recovered in an archeological dig?

[Ati16]

4 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So Hoid, who can harm no one, actually went there and ripped a memory out of somebody's brain? And has learned how to make medaillions? And these medaillions look like many of the kind recently recovered in an archeological dig?

Hoid can't physically harm anyone but that doesn't mean he can't get around that rule when thechnically he's not really harming anyone, for example in Secret History, his fight with Kelsier. Also in WoA he went to Terris to figure out feruchemy so he might have figured out how to make those medallions.

[CognitiveShadow]

I called it! Spoiler stream - Brandon just confirmed that the Ghostbloods do in fact still believe that he is an allomancer. Very interesting confirmation right there.

[lacrossedeamon]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Shadow said:

Spoiler stream

Goddammit these don't get advertised well enough.

[RedBlue]

Interesting that Kelsier is talking a big game about not keeping secrets from his ‘family’ while deliberately misleading them about something fairly important. 

Presumably, Marsh and Sazed are the only ones who know. (Though maybe Hoid and some of the Silverlight people know enough about how Investiture works that they could figure it out.)

Will be interesting to see if this causes a rift in the Ghostbloods when this info comes to light. I would be pretty ticked off to find out I’d been lied to after the promises Kelsier makes during recruitment. And if he tried to argue that he didn’t lie, he just let people make assumptions, I would not be impressed. 

[Ati16]

This might be another reason Kelsier needs the Lerasium quickly. The Ghostbloods will probably find out pretty soon that Kelsier is lying. They might suspect him already and they aren't going to be happy with him when they find out. Kelsier probably should have been honest from the beginning, but the fact that he has access to a power that nobody else has now probably helped a lot with recruitment, but he can't go up to them now and tell them that he actually isn't a mistborn. However if he could find lerasium he could just go and do some allomancy in front of them and nobody would suspect anything.

[KaladinWorldsinger]

So ghostbloods have been actually interacting with him in the flesh spike... And don't realise he is powerless?

They are pretty dumb

[CognitiveShadow]

21 minutes ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

So ghostbloods have been actually interacting with him in the flesh spike... And don't realise he is powerless?

They are pretty dumb

I think it is more impressive that Kelsier has been able to pull it off. It’s basically another con that he is running to gain and maintain power, and to get others to help work towards his goals of finally obtaining allomantic abilities again and finding a way to be free of his attachment to Scadrial.

We have to remember that he is a master con artist and has had hundreds of years to continue perfecting his skills in that area.

Also- this definitely helps his hesitancy to act make more sense. If he was a full mistborn I feel like he could have stepped in much earlier to defend Scadrial. So he has instead had to convince the Ghostbloods that their way is to sit back and observe and only take small actions here and there etc