Could you heal a breath back?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Cosmere healing such as Stormlight and Feruchemical Gold are said to heal the soul, Biochromatic Breaths are an innate part of a Nalthian's soul, there are WOBs that say you can heal back a power taken from Hemalurgy if you had enough Investiture.

My question is this: Could a Nalthian who really regretted giving away their Beath and hated being a Drab gained access to either an Unsealed Goldmind with a ton of Health stored up or became a Surgebinder, could they heal their Breath back?

Edited December 15, 2022 by JustQuestin2004

[Quantus he/him]

I've long thought Yes, though I tend to think it would require Ignorance of what a Breath is and what the Healing is doing, to preserve the Intent of it all.  So long as they think the terrible feeling when they become a Drab is a Sickness that needs to be healed, I think it would work.  But if they ever start thinking of the Breath as something Separate from themselves I fear it wouldnt work anymore.

But we dont know for sure, and it's a plot-relevant in-world Mystery so it will probably be a while before we get any confirmation.  

[alder24]

There is this nice big WoB, that has links to other WoBs, about spiking Miles and taking his A-gold, and then Miles would still be able to heal and regain his allomancy - you referring to this, so I put it below.  think with Breaths it would work similar. Breaths are connected to soul, even if Nalthian loses them, they are tuned to his Identity. If Nalthian views himself with Breath being part of him, than I believe he could heal it back, like Miles after being spiked.

Spoiler

HazelCharm47

Let's say we have a hypothetical situation with Miles Hundredlives. In this scenario, he is wearing a gold metalmind filled to the brim with stored healing power. He is then spiked with a cadmium spike and loses his gold allomancy.

Now, if I recall from various WoBs, he would be able to heal using the gold metalmind and regain his gold allomancy. I could be misremembering and he cannot heal it, but I believe he would be able to since it is part of his Identity.

However, one question I have never seen the answer to is this: what happens to the ability in the spike? Is the allomantic ability still contained in the spike, leading to a duplicate? Or is the spike's ability lost? Or maybe I have this whole thing wrong and Miles could never have regained the ability in the first place.

If the ability duplicates (which I doubt), that could lead to some crazy things. Also, this applies to any Twinborn with gold Feruchemy, I just thought Miles was a good example I guess

Brandon Sanderson

I'd like to see the exact WoB's here to make sure I'm being consistent, as I don't know that I confirmed you could regain lost powers--only that you could heal from hemalurgic soul damage. Most likely, what you'd end up with is a person who has been healed and can remove the spike from their body without damage, and without needing it to hold their soul together--but who has lost the ability in the spike.

Regardless, though, what you want here (the mass production of spikes charged and even blanked) is possible with the right levels of investiture. It's an energy, like things in our world. The difficulty is finding out how to 1) get enough investiture and 2) key it to the right people and/or magic.

Hope that's a little more clear.

That said, a lot of times people just ask me if something is possible--and a lot of things are possible, but just very difficult. And with the right boost of investiture, in the right circumstances, it WOULD be possible to regrow lost (to spikes) powers. It's just highly unlikely.

I'm not sure if the questions people are asking me are ones I've qualified, or not, in these instances. Also, this is all something I'm playing with still behind the scenes as we enter the modern age of Mistborn.

HazelCharm47

As requested, here are the WoBs I believe are related. They might be obsolete, however. And I assume things will get changed a lot before Era 4, but hey, it's fun to ask anyways

WoB #1:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9434

This one states that as long as Miles still has his Identity, he would be able to use his Feruchemical metalminds after being spiked and would be able to heal.

WoB #2:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/102/#e983

This one says that Miles would be able to heal his soul using Feruchemical healing and regain his gold Allomancy (assuming he survives the spiking). I think this is the most essential one!

WoB #3:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6335

This one is only somewhat related - implies that the Feruchemical and Allomantic powers are spiritually part of him.

WoB #4:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/7/#e6435

Also tangentially related - damage to the soul from Hemalurgy can be healed (Although this might just be a Hoid thing). I guess the question could be expanded to include non-Feruchemical healing as a way to repair the soul after being spiked.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I don't think any of those are specifically inaccurate. I just didn't quite understand what people were trying to get out of me. A lot of times, I don't know quite what people are trying to get out of me. I can see now they're trying to figure out.

I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory.

If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. That could theoretically be healed with application of more investiture, depending on things like how he views himself, and if you could get the right type of investiture.

General Reddit 2020 (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

[trav]

These WoB answers would be cooler if they referred to his Feruchemy being removed instead of his Allomancy.

Anyways, according to that it should be possible to heal ANY damage to the Spiritweb and therefor abilities. Given enough Investiture and depending on how the person views themselve. In this case the person would need to view the Breath as a part of themselve. If you willingly gave your Breath away I doubt this can work. Once you do that your conscious decision will always override imo. That Breath is no longer a part of you. If it were stolen somehow I can see it working. Your Spirit would consider it still a part of you, no matter where it currently is (or if its destroyed).

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, trav said:

If you willingly gave your Breath away I doubt this can work.

I think this is the key. Breath is Connected to your Spiritweb and Identity, but isn't part of your Spiritweb. In the example given, Miles might heal A-Gold because the ability to use A-Gold is part of his Spiritweb, so that "hole" may be healed. Once you endow your breath to somebody/something sentient, the Identity keyed to the breath changes; it's no longer Connected to your Spiritweb, but there is also no gaping hole in the Spiritweb to be healed.

WoB:

 

Spoiler

 

Djarskublar

Is the reason people can recall breaths from objects but not Lifeless or sentient awakened objects because they no longer have the same Identity as the Awakener?

Brandon Sanderson

You are on the right track.

 

That may change in the case of Hemalurgy stealing Breath, since that would leave a hole to be healed. . .

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 12/15/2022 at 4:14 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

Cosmere healing such as Stormlight and Feruchemical Gold are said to heal the soul, Biochromatic Breaths are an innate part of a Nalthian's soul, there are WOBs that say you can heal back a power taken from Hemalurgy if you had enough Investiture.

My question is this: Could a Nalthian who really regretted giving away their Beath and hated being a Drab gained access to either an Unsealed Goldmind with a ton of Health stored up or became a Surgebinder, could they heal their Breath back?

I think that you could probably heal back a Biochromatic Breath taken via Hemalurgy, but only if it was the Breath you were born with, as that seems to be closer to being a part of you, and it even carries pieces of you even when given to someone else. Breaths gained and lost that came from someone else probably can't be healed back, since they are centered more in the physical Realm and never really were a part of your Spiritweb.

I also think that if you gave up your Innate Breath using Nalthis's normal system instead of it being stolen, you may be out of luck, as there isn't a lot of damage to be healed, the Breath was just cleanly removed.