Hemalurgic Bind Point Thoughts

[Duxredux he/him]

Here's my starting point:

Quote

Chaos2651

Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.

Brandon Sanderson

That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.

What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.

Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A (July 8, 2009)

A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor.

One objection to this was that the bind point for harvesting does not necessarily match the bind point for the recipient. I've recently been thinking about that and have a few thoughts.

This mental model might be totally off, but I assume the anatomy of a Spiritweb to be similar to a physical body. Different parts of the Spiritweb correspond to different functions of the soul. When you rip out a chunk of soul and graft it onto another Spiritweb, assuming the recipient was healthy, then by nature you almost always would need to place the graft somewhere that still gives it access to components to let it function, but not disrupt the existing soul (as much).

For example, think about how complicated it would be to say, graft an ear onto your leg and get it to actually function. Highly complicated rerouting of the nervous system would have to be done, and there would still be a slight delay in transmitting sound to your brain compared to the other ears. That third ear would also have issues based on the cochlea and inner ear fluid that would be disturbed whenever you moved your leg. There's also whatever background sound your leg makes, creating all of these issues compared to their natural isolated position on the head. You however would gain a third point to triangulation sound, and it seems as if this would allow for potentially greater ability to spatially place sound.

I'm guessing it's not exactly like this, since adding Invesiture is raw power and the three Realms are based on the Platonic idea, in that there is such a thing as "strength" or "weight" that can be separated from an individual somehow and still allow that person to function relatively normally, as seen in Feruchemy.

However IRL it is possible to graft toes as replacement fingers onto a hand and get them to function much more like a hand then you might expect.

In essence the thought is that Hemalurgy in most cases has to place the spike in the recipient in a location that allows the Spiritweb to gain access to the charge, but generally can't be in the natural location from the donor because it will disrupt the existing soul. Think trying to graft an ear - over an ear. Or a hand onto the wrist when a hand is already there. No one would do that because you wreck the existing power in the process. As the spike has to be placed in a suboptimal location where it likely doesn't have any support from the surrounding Spiritweb like it would in the natural place, this in addition to any decay from the spike being outside of a body is a possibility for why Hemalurgic spikes never give as much power as the donor had. They aren't as efficient as a natural ability could be. This also illustrates just how necessarily accurate Hemalurgy must be to get the desired effect - it has to perform the exact and precise change to the Spiritual Ideal to get the right result.

The followup thought is that perhaps if somehow someone had damage to the soul, a Hemalurgic spike charged correctly and placed back into the damaged spot that it may function at a closer to normal level. Say someone got A-Pewter and while carrying a F-Gold Medallion got their ability spiked out and survived. The idea is if they later got an  A-Pewter spike back (maybe even their own spike) and put it right into where the ability was spiked out that the ability would be usable and that it's possible the level of power accessible would be closer to the norm. Think an amputee getting a limb graft versus someone who decided they wanted an arm growing out of their forehead. One is properly placed and supported by the rest of the body, the other is not. There may be adjustments the Thug has to make if the spike came from another person, just like how there may be adjustments from IRL organ donations, but I think this is plausible. As Scadrial gets more technologically advanced and Hemalugy can become more surgical in nature, I think we might see details like this.

Thoughts?

[Trusk'our he/him]

9 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Here's my starting point:

A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor.

One objection to this was that the bind point for harvesting does not necessarily match the bind point for the recipient. I've recently been thinking about that and have a few thoughts.

This mental model might be totally off, but I assume the anatomy of a Spiritweb to be similar to a physical body. Different parts of the Spiritweb correspond to different functions of the soul. When you rip out a chunk of soul and graft it onto another Spiritweb, assuming the recipient was healthy, then by nature you almost always would need to place the graft somewhere that still gives it access to components to let it function, but not disrupt the existing soul (as much).

For example, think about how complicated it would be to say, graft an ear onto your leg and get it to actually function. Highly complicated rerouting of the nervous system would have to be done, and there would still be a slight delay in transmitting sound to your brain compared to the other ears. That third ear would also have issues based on the cochlea and inner ear fluid that would be disturbed whenever you moved your leg. There's also whatever background sound your leg makes, creating all of these issues compared to their natural isolated position on the head. You however would gain a third point to triangulation sound, and it seems as if this would allow for potentially greater ability to spatially place sound.

I'm guessing it's not exactly like this, since adding Invesiture is raw power and the three Realms are based on the Platonic idea, in that there is such a thing as "strength" or "weight" that can be separated from an individual somehow and still allow that person to function relatively normally, as seen in Feruchemy.

However IRL it is possible to graft toes as replacement fingers onto a hand and get them to function much more like a hand then you might expect.

In essence the thought is that Hemalurgy in most cases has to place the spike in the recipient in a location that allows the Spiritweb to gain access to the charge, but generally can't be in the natural location from the donor because it will disrupt the existing soul. Think trying to graft an ear - over an ear. Or a hand onto the wrist when a hand is already there. No one would do that because you wreck the existing power in the process. As the spike has to be placed in a suboptimal location where it likely doesn't have any support from the surrounding Spiritweb like it would in the natural place, this in addition to any decay from the spike being outside of a body is a possibility for why Hemalurgic spikes never give as much power as the donor had. They aren't as efficient as a natural ability could be. This also illustrates just how necessarily accurate Hemalurgy must be to get the desired effect - it has to perform the exact and precise change to the Spiritual Ideal to get the right result.

The followup thought is that perhaps if somehow someone had damage to the soul, a Hemalurgic spike charged correctly and placed back into the damaged spot that it may function at a closer to normal level. Say someone got A-Pewter and while carrying a F-Gold Medallion got their ability spiked out and survived. The idea is if they later got an  A-Pewter spike back (maybe even their own spike) and put it right into where the ability was spiked out that the ability would be usable and that it's possible the level of power accessible would be closer to the norm. Think an amputee getting a limb graft versus someone who decided they wanted an arm growing out of their forehead. One is properly placed and supported by the rest of the body, the other is not. There may be adjustments the Thug has to make if the spike came from another person, just like how there may be adjustments from IRL organ donations, but I think this is plausible. As Scadrial gets more technologically advanced and Hemalugy can become more surgical in nature, I think we might see details like this.

Thoughts?

Interesting ideas!

So, let me clarify; you're saying that due to the nature of the Realms, the Bindpoints that show up on parts of the donor's body will be necessary for the recipient- basically, you spike out A-pewter from a Misting and graft it onto another person, but it has to be grafted onto the same (or at least similar enough) Bindpoint?

I think that makes sense; we've seen that some spiritual concepts, such as distance when determining Connection, do matter when in the physical Realm. I could see the same concept applying to Hemalurgic Bindpoints, with physical locations on the body corresponding to spiritual aspects.

9 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Here's my starting point:

A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor.

I had a similar idea recently where you would take a donor, spike out their Investiture (not attributes, Innate Investiture, such as in TLM), but leave the spike in the donor. The spike allows them to hold onto most of their Investiture until they die of natural causes and the spike can be harvested later so that others can benefit from it (Another, Better Way to Use Hemalurgy?).

I do want to mention though, I don't know that a F-gold medallion can allow someone to repair damage done by Hemalurgy.

SA spoilers:

Spoiler

They seem to be comparable to Honorblades; they don't tie as strongly to someone's Spiritweb, so they can be removed more easily (you can just remove the medallion from yourself) but they also don't touch your Spiritual Aspect as much. As such, I don't know that damage caused to the Spiritweb can be healed via medallion- either Hemalurgically granted F-gold, Lerasium granted F-gold, or naturally occurring F-gold would be necessary.

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/116/#e4788

Brandon Sanderson

A full-blown Radiant can heal almost anything (cut from a Shardblade included) because of the way the magic works--their soul is literally bonded to Investiture, and it suffuses them in such a way that even the soul is very resilient to damage.

Honorblades are what you'd consider a "prototype" for what eventually happened with Shardblades. An Honorblade can be used by anyone, without need for oaths, which makes them very dangerous--but since the bond isn't as deep, they are far less efficient. They use more Stormlight, for example, and can't heal to the extent that a Radiant can.

So the difference is not in the device that did the damage, but in the method using to heal. Over the course of the first two book, the reader should be able to subtly pick out differences from what Szeth says is possible (in more than just healing) and what Kaladin experiences.

 

In any case, I liked reading about this hypothesis. Good job!

[Voidmaker he/him]

10 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Here's my starting point:

A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor.

I feel like if this happened, this would just cause damage and not have any other effect. My understanding is that the Spike is stabbing in, and 'grabbing hold' of the Spiritweb when you first stab it in. Then, when you remove the Spike, the Spiritweb is forced to tear due to Ruin's Investiture grabbing the Spiritweb directly, and physical separation of the Spiritweb and the Spike means SOMETHING has to tear. If the Spike is stabbed in and LEFT in, then I feel like maybe thier Spiritweb would be punctured, but otherwise unchanged. Unless you mean something else that I'm not seeing.

10 hours ago, Duxredux said:

One objection to this was that the bind point for harvesting does not necessarily match the bind point for the recipient. I've recently been thinking about that and have a few thoughts.

This mental model might be totally off, but I assume the anatomy of a Spiritweb to be similar to a physical body. Different parts of the Spiritweb correspond to different functions of the soul. When you rip out a chunk of soul and graft it onto another Spiritweb, assuming the recipient was healthy, then by nature you almost always would need to place the graft somewhere that still gives it access to components to let it function, but not disrupt the existing soul (as much).
For example, think about how complicated it would be to say, graft an ear onto your leg and get it to actually function. Highly complicated rerouting of the nervous system would have to be done, and there would still be a slight delay in transmitting sound to your brain compared to the other ears. That third ear would also have issues based on the cochlea and inner ear fluid that would be disturbed whenever you moved your leg. There's also whatever background sound your leg makes, creating all of these issues compared to their natural isolated position on the head. You however would gain a third point to triangulation sound, and it seems as if this would allow for potentially greater ability to spatially place sound.

I feel like this could work, but not for the reason you're speculating. It's close, but here's my idea: Hemalurgy requires blood flow in order to charge a spike. This correlates to the heart, where the Inquisitors Spiked directly anyway- which in my opinion is the 'center' of the Spiritweb, allowing for the Spike to be charged. The reason I think this is because of Shardblades. When Shardblades are cut through limbs, there is not a random chance to lose an Allomantic or Feruchemical ability- it doesn't even kill them. Fatal Shardblade wounds are only when the Shardblade passes through the spine or the skull, thereby severing the connection of the Spiritweb's 'Core' to the Cognitive (brain) and from there the Physical. I suspect a Shardblade wound to the heart would also kill if landed right, but it'd probably sever the spine anyways.

10 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I'm guessing it's not exactly like this, since adding Invesiture is raw power and the three Realms are based on the Platonic idea, in that there is such a thing as "strength" or "weight" that can be separated from an individual somehow and still allow that person to function relatively normally, as seen in Feruchemy.

However IRL it is possible to graft toes as replacement fingers onto a hand and get them to function much more like a hand then you might expect.

In essence the thought is that Hemalurgy in most cases has to place the spike in the recipient in a location that allows the Spiritweb to gain access to the charge, but generally can't be in the natural location from the donor because it will disrupt the existing soul. Think trying to graft an ear - over an ear. Or a hand onto the wrist when a hand is already there. No one would do that because you wreck the existing power in the process. As the spike has to be placed in a suboptimal location where it likely doesn't have any support from the surrounding Spiritweb like it would in the natural place, this in addition to any decay from the spike being outside of a body is a possibility for why Hemalurgic spikes never give as much power as the donor had. They aren't as efficient as a natural ability could be. This also illustrates just how necessarily accurate Hemalurgy must be to get the desired effect - it has to perform the exact and precise change to the Spiritual Ideal to get the right result.

Strength and Weight would probably get converted into Investiture when stored, and are re-converted back into their original form when taken out, so it's probably also relating to the 'Core' of the Spiritweb as I've said.  The 'outer circle' of the Spiritweb are connected to the limbs and body, and the 'inner circle' is the Core- it draws in the strength and weight from the limbs and converts it into Investiture, I assume. My guess isn't any better than yours, but it makes a lot of sense out of what we have.

Makes sense for different reasons. Attaching a 'Core Spiritweb' piece onto an 'Outer Spiritweb' isn't going to have the most optimal results. I like how this made me think of the 'different levels of Spiritweb'. I haven't researched enough Spiritual Aspects to make much sense of any of this yet.

10 hours ago, Duxredux said:

The followup thought is that perhaps if somehow someone had damage to the soul, a Hemalurgic spike charged correctly and placed back into the damaged spot that it may function at a closer to normal level. Say someone got A-Pewter and while carrying a F-Gold Medallion got their ability spiked out and survived. The idea is if they later got an  A-Pewter spike back (maybe even their own spike) and put it right into where the ability was spiked out that the ability would be usable and that it's possible the level of power accessible would be closer to the norm. Think an amputee getting a limb graft versus someone who decided they wanted an arm growing out of their forehead. One is properly placed and supported by the rest of the body, the other is not. There may be adjustments the Thug has to make if the spike came from another person, just like how there may be adjustments from IRL organ donations, but I think this is plausible. As Scadrial gets more technologically advanced and Hemalugy can become more surgical in nature, I think we might see details like this.

Maybe you could even 'heal' a hole in the Spiritweb from a Spiked individual by replacing it with an entirely different power. Won't seal it up 100%, but if you splice out a piece of an Inner Spiritweb and then splice in a piece of a different Inner Spiritweb, would it allow for almost full healing? I also wonder if the effects are different for non-magic based things, like an Iron Spike tearing out strength. Would that sabotage the Outer Spiritweb instead? Or does it still draw from the Inner Spiritweb, forcing it to convert the Outer Spiritweb's Strength into Investiture for a Spike to steal, then the Spike converts it back using Ruin's Investiture when placed inside a different person? 

I'd like to hear thoughts too. This whole 'theory' on Inner/Outer Spiritweb was thought up on a whim, and I'd like to see some evidence against it. Seems a bit too good to be true. Supporting evidence does help too, though- overall, more comments the better.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Voidwatcher
minor correction