Hemalurgy + awakening

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

Looking at this WoB:

Spoiler

vandar10

Could someone with enough Breaths use part of them to heal himself without the help of a Returned?? Could the God King have healed himself without Lightsong with enough knowledge?

Brandon Sanderson

The nature of the Warbreaker magic is tied to the shard of Endowment, which is about giving. There are, therefore, things you cannot do for yourself.

[...]

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

Awakening is all about giving. Giving from yourself to someone or something else. 

Hemalurgy is all about splicing foreign sDNA into your own. 

Do you think it is possible to transfer the breaths from one portion of that spiritweb to the other and vice versa? Could an awakener awaken themself or that new part of "not themselves"? 

Could we see some sort of Lord Voldemont and the horcruxes sort of magic? Where each spike and each piece of a hemalugist's spirit web could be holding onto breaths to enhance or awaken or revive the others?

 

[alder24]

44 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Looking at this WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

vandar10

Could someone with enough Breaths use part of them to heal himself without the help of a Returned?? Could the God King have healed himself without Lightsong with enough knowledge?

Brandon Sanderson

The nature of the Warbreaker magic is tied to the shard of Endowment, which is about giving. There are, therefore, things you cannot do for yourself.

[...]

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

Awakening is all about giving. Giving from yourself to someone or something else. 

Hemalurgy is all about splicing foreign sDNA into your own. 

Do you think it is possible to transfer the breaths from one portion of that spiritweb to the other and vice versa? Could an awakener awaken themself or that new part of "not themselves"? 

Could we see some sort of Lord Voldemont and the horcruxes sort of magic? Where each spike and each piece of a hemalugist's spirit web could be holding onto breaths to enhance or awaken or revive the others?

A spike contains a piece of soul with a different identity than yours and your Breaths, but it is tricked to think it's part of yours, so maybe? That's not really different from suppression of a Divine Breath, if there would be no identity conflict. If there is, you might be able to give it to those pieces of spirit webs in spikes, but can't retrieve those Breaths, as they would have different identity, align with that spirit web, and this would act like transferring Breaths to someone else. No Voldemort stuff. I don't really understand what you mean but those Breaths in spikes won't revive anyone.

Spoiler

Mark

It was said throughout the book that you cannot just give some of your breath, but must give all of it. Perhaps I'm simply forgetting part of the book where this changes, but wouldn't Vasher have to give his Returned breath along with his others?

Brandon Sanderson

The "You must give up all of your Breath, not some" line was mostly perpetuated by Denth, who is saying it to Vivenna to stop her from giving away her Breath to all the people she passes. It is a lie. Now, it's a lie that's commonly accepted by a lot of people. But it's still a lie—as we find out midway through the book, you can stick some of your Breath in an object and bring it to life, and then recover that Breath. So it's very easy to give some of your Breath to someone if you know the logical steps to take. Invest most of it into an object, give what you have to someone else, then pull back what you Invested. So it's flat-out proven in the novel that what Denth is telling her is wrong. Now, he could dance around that lie by pretending to be the ignorant mercenary—he's just perpetuating a falsehood that many people believe. But it is a lie. In fact, a lot of the things people believe about BioChromatic Breath isn't true.

One of the things I was trying with this book was to take a few steps back from MISTBORN, where so much was understood. I feel that the approach I took in MISTBORN is right for that book, and yet people have so much superstition regarding all sorts of science. I worry sometimes that there isn't enough superstition in my books, regarding magic as science. What people believed and what people knew and what people understood was so varied and confused throughout most of history, that I worry that I lack realism in that. Vasher brings up at several points in the book that they don't know a whole lot and that people perpetuate a lot of myths and stories and lies.

Vasher has learned to suppress his Returned Breath. When it's suppressed, it's as if it doesn't exist to him. He's Invested it into a place within himself, much like you can Invest your Breaths into a shirt, and when he gives away the rest of his Breaths, he doesn't give that one away. He could split off others of his Breaths if he wanted to—he's learned to do that, so that he could give a few Breaths and not all. It's just a matter of practicing as long as he has. But even people who aren't as practiced as him do it all the time when they Invest an object with not all of their Breath but just enough to bring it to life

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

36 minutes ago, alder24 said:

A spike contains a piece of soul with a different identity than yours and your Breaths, but it is tricked to think it's part of yours, so maybe? That's not really different from suppression of a Divine Breath, if there would be no identity conflict. If there is, you might be able to give it to those pieces of spirit webs in spikes, but can't retrieve those Breaths, as they would have different identity, align with that spirit web, and this would act like transferring Breaths to someone else. No Voldemort stuff. I don't really understand what you mean but those Breaths in spikes won't revive anyone.

  Hide contents

Mark

It was said throughout the book that you cannot just give some of your breath, but must give all of it. Perhaps I'm simply forgetting part of the book where this changes, but wouldn't Vasher have to give his Returned breath along with his others?

Brandon Sanderson

The "You must give up all of your Breath, not some" line was mostly perpetuated by Denth, who is saying it to Vivenna to stop her from giving away her Breath to all the people she passes. It is a lie. Now, it's a lie that's commonly accepted by a lot of people. But it's still a lie—as we find out midway through the book, you can stick some of your Breath in an object and bring it to life, and then recover that Breath. So it's very easy to give some of your Breath to someone if you know the logical steps to take. Invest most of it into an object, give what you have to someone else, then pull back what you Invested. So it's flat-out proven in the novel that what Denth is telling her is wrong. Now, he could dance around that lie by pretending to be the ignorant mercenary—he's just perpetuating a falsehood that many people believe. But it is a lie. In fact, a lot of the things people believe about BioChromatic Breath isn't true.

One of the things I was trying with this book was to take a few steps back from MISTBORN, where so much was understood. I feel that the approach I took in MISTBORN is right for that book, and yet people have so much superstition regarding all sorts of science. I worry sometimes that there isn't enough superstition in my books, regarding magic as science. What people believed and what people knew and what people understood was so varied and confused throughout most of history, that I worry that I lack realism in that. Vasher brings up at several points in the book that they don't know a whole lot and that people perpetuate a lot of myths and stories and lies.

Vasher has learned to suppress his Returned Breath. When it's suppressed, it's as if it doesn't exist to him. He's Invested it into a place within himself, much like you can Invest your Breaths into a shirt, and when he gives away the rest of his Breaths, he doesn't give that one away. He could split off others of his Breaths if he wanted to—he's learned to do that, so that he could give a few Breaths and not all. It's just a matter of practicing as long as he has. But even people who aren't as practiced as him do it all the time when they Invest an object with not all of their Breath but just enough to bring it to life

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

I guess I was thinking one portion of you may die off but the others are still there.  But if I think of the spirit web as a single person's sDNA it seems more like when one part dies the whole dies. 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I guess I was thinking one portion of you may die off but the others are still there.  But if I think of the spirit web as a single person's sDNA it seems more like when one part dies the whole dies. 

That's not how Breaths works. Breaths aren't "you".

[Trusk'our]

22 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Looking at this WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

vandar10

Could someone with enough Breaths use part of them to heal himself without the help of a Returned?? Could the God King have healed himself without Lightsong with enough knowledge?

Brandon Sanderson

The nature of the Warbreaker magic is tied to the shard of Endowment, which is about giving. There are, therefore, things you cannot do for yourself.

[...]

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

Awakening is all about giving. Giving from yourself to someone or something else. 

Hemalurgy is all about splicing foreign sDNA into your own. Do you think it is possible to transfer the breaths from one portion of that spiritweb to the other and vice versa? Could an awakener awaken themself or that new part of "not themselves"? 

You mean, could the Awakener transfer their Breaths to their Spikes? Yes, almost certainly, though doing so would Key the Breaths to the Identity of the Spikes, preventing the Awakener from retrieving them.

What could be really interesting to me is if you Awakened a Spike with the Command for the Breaths to copy and augment the previously existing power inside the spike, then implant the spike into yourself. It could be a way to supercharge the power contained, converting your Breaths to Allomantic (or any) power.

22 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Could we see some sort of Lord Voldemont and the horcruxes sort of magic? Where each spike and each piece of a hemalugist's spirit web could be holding onto breaths to enhance or awaken or revive the others?

So, use other spikes to Connect to parts of you so as to keep you alive as a Cognitive Shadow even it you're killed? Maybe, though I think it would be pretty hard to do- you'd need a lot of Connection to make the effects last.

Might be cool to see if you could more strongly interact with and influence someone else who took up those spikes after you died due to the Connection though- you could be a ghost leading an underground organization that does your every whim. . . oh, wait, that slot's already been filled.

[therunner]

26 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

What could be really interesting to me is if you Awakened a Spike with the Command for the Breaths to copy and augment the previously existing power inside the spike, then implant the spike into yourself. It could be a way to supercharge the power contained, converting your Breaths to Allomantic (or any) power.

That probably would not work, broadly speaking any Invested Item is basically Awakened item. Per WoBs Awakening Spikes would be really hard

Spoiler

clyguy

Could you Awaken a Hemalurgic spike and put it in somebody, and would that have crazy effects?

Brandon Sanderson

That would have crazy effects. And it would be very hard.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

Spoiler

Lhyonnaes (paraphrased)

Alright, thanks. Last question for me tonight - so, when a Hemalurgic spike steals something, then it's storing Investiture in it, yeah? So could you - could you do something with that Investiture? Like... say I'm on Nalthis, and just theoretically, I use a Hemalurgic spike to steal a lot of Breath - can I use that Investiture to Awaken something? Could I Awaken the spike?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That... you'd need a lot of Investiture to Awaken a spike.

Lhyonnaes (paraphrased)

Because it's already charged up with something else?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing (Dec. 1, 2016)

Investiture resists Investiture and all that.

[Trusk'our]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

That probably would not work, broadly speaking any Invested Item is basically Awakened item. Per WoBs Awakening Spikes would be really hard

Investiture resists Investiture and all that.

Oh, I didn't say it would be easy, just that it could potentially work- you need to be the ninth Heightening (20,000 Breaths) just to Awaken uninvested non-organic materials. You'd definitely need more to Awaken a spike, though if I'm being honest I don't know that you'd need that many more Breaths compared to what the ninth Heightening already requires (Hemalurgic spikes are generally on the lower end of the Invested spectrum, after all); a few hundred to a few thousand extra wouldn't be much when compared to all the ones you'd have collected before.

Though just getting the ninth Heightening would prove to be far beyond what the average person could ever hope to achieve, so I'd say it's still not exactly easy, just possible for organizations with lots of time, money, and the will to do so (I'm looking at you, Ghostbloods).

Also, just want to mention that other Invested objects aren't always "Awakened"- they are Invested, but not usually to the same degree and they don't necessarily have a true Command or a strong sense of self as most Awakened objects do.

Edited September 15 by Trusk'our

[therunner]

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Oh, I didn't say it would be easy, just that it could potentially work- you need to be the ninth Heightening (20,000 Breaths) just to Awaken uninvested non-organic materials. You'd definitely need more to Awaken a spike, though if I'm being honest I don't know that you'd need that many more Breaths compared to what the ninth Heightening already requires (Hemalurgic spikes are generally on the lower end of the Invested spectrum, after all); a few hundred to a few thousand extra wouldn't be much when compared to all the ones you'd have collected before.

Though just getting the ninth Heightening would prove to be far beyond what the average person could ever hope to achieve, so I'd say it's still not exactly easy, just possible for organizations with lots of time, money, and the will to do so (I'm looking at you, Ghostbloods).

Well yeah, Ninth heightening is something that what one, two person achieved (discounting God Kings who inherit the same pile), so it is far outside of realm of regular occurrences.

And so far we have never seen anyone even try to Awaken something Invested, so the difficulty can be larger than it might seem.

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Also, just want to mention that other Invested objects aren't always "Awakened"- they are Invested, but not usually to the same degree and they don't necessarily have a true Command or a strong sense of self as most Awakened objects do.

True, if Awakened = Invested + has spiritweb to do stuff on its own, then the only Invested non Awakened items are Hemalurgic spikes, Metalminds, gems with Stormlight, and some stuff from Nalthis.

Fabrials, Shardblades/Plates, Medallions, Honorblades would all count as Awakened.

Though now that I think about it, there is additional obstacle to Breath augmenting spike, the Investiture in spike has different Identity so that would probably prohibit the different Identity of Breaths to take advatange of it.

[Trusk'our]

5 hours ago, therunner said:

And so far we have never seen anyone even try to Awaken something Invested, so the difficulty can be larger than it might seem.

True, plus, I suppose that even Allomancers have a difficult time affecting metal inside a relatively non-Invested person, so maybe even a low-level Invested item like a regular Hemalurgic spike would prove somewhat more stubborn a target for Awakening than I originally thought. I hope we see this in a book at some point so that we can know for certain!

5 hours ago, therunner said:

True, if Awakened = Invested + has spiritweb to do stuff on its own, then the only Invested non Awakened items are Hemalurgic spikes, Metalminds, gems with Stormlight, and some stuff from Nalthis.

Fabrials, Shardblades/Plates, Medallions, Honorblades would all count as Awakened.

That could be the case. I guess it would depend on whether Awakening would be considered a more universal term, such as how there are multiple versions of Lightweaving throughout the Cosmere, or whether it would be something more specific, such as Steelpushing.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Though now that I think about it, there is additional obstacle to Breath augmenting spike, the Investiture in spike has different Identity so that would probably prohibit the different Identity of Breaths to take advatange of it.

I'm not sure that would be a huge problem; first of all, you can give Breaths to anyone, even without their consent (which ironically makes it the opposite of Hemalurgy in that regard), so giving the Breaths wouldn't be a problem. 

Additionally, I don't think that the Command would strictly be trying to change what's already in the spike, it would be copying and adding to the power already there. Though admittedly we have no real proof for the second point, so take it with a sizable grain of salt.

I suppose if Identity became a serious problem you could Blank the spikes (F-aluminum when the donor was being spiked) to make this no longer an issue.

[therunner]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

True, plus, I suppose that even Allomancers have a difficult time affecting metal inside a relatively non-Invested person, so maybe even a low-level Invested item like a regular Hemalurgic spike would prove somewhat more stubborn a target for Awakening than I originally thought. I hope we see this in a book at some point so that we can know for certain!

Indeed, the interactions will be interesting to see.
And will settle a lot of discussions

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

That could be the case. I guess it would depend on whether Awakening would be considered a more universal term, such as how there are multiple versions of Lightweaving throughout the Cosmere, or whether it would be something more specific, such as Steelpushing.

I think it is, Yumi spoilers:

Spoiler

The Father Machine was specifically called Awakened in narration. And it was done using just Komashi arts, not Nalthisian.

So I think Awakening will be general term for creation of Invested Item that possess measure of self-awareness/artifical spiritweb.

By that reckoning, fabrial creation would technically be Awakening, though it is slightly outside of the terminology as the spiritweb is not artificial in this case.

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I'm not sure that would be a huge problem; first of all, you can give Breaths to anyone, even without their consent (which ironically makes it the opposite of Hemalurgy in that regard), so giving the Breaths wouldn't be a problem.

Yeah, but you cannot give Breath to inanimate object, only store Breath.
Giving changes 'Identity key' of the Breath but storing does not. Even Awakening does not change the Identity key of Breath, not unless you create sentient entity (like Lifeless).

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Additionally, I don't think that the Command would strictly be trying to change what's already in the spike, it would be copying and adding to the power already there. Though admittedly we have no real proof for the second point, so take it with a sizable grain of salt.

Yeah, that is the part I have primary problem with.

Even if Breath can copy what is in Spike (which I doubt), it cannot add to the power, since the Identity is different.
At best you would have spike that contains two independent attributes/powers, even if those are technically the same. How that would work I have no idea.

But it is possible that would not be possible, since spikes can become full. And if the spike is full, than no more Investiture can fitted in, or at least no more Hemalurgic investiture can be fitted in.

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I suppose if Identity became a serious problem you could Blank the spikes (F-aluminum when the donor was being spiked) to make this no longer an issue.

Yep, that would be most likely necessary workaround at minimum.

[Trusk'our]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Indeed, the interactions will be interesting to see.
And will settle a lot of discussions

Yup. But then how would we have such interesting debates?

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I think it is, Yumi spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Father Machine was specifically called Awakened in narration. And it was done using just Komashi arts, not Nalthisian.

So I think Awakening will be general term for creation of Invested Item that possess measure of self-awareness/artifical spiritweb.

By that reckoning, fabrial creation would technically be Awakening, though it is slightly outside of the terminology as the spiritweb is not artificial in this case.

Sadly, I have not received my copy of Yumi yet from the kick starter (and I have had a few things spoiled for me already- don't worry, this itself isn't one of them). But I respect you enough to take your word on the matter.

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Yeah, but you cannot give Breath to inanimate object, only store Breath.
Giving changes 'Identity key' of the Breath but storing does not. Even Awakening does not change the Identity key of Breath, not unless you create sentient entity (like Lifeless).

I find myself disagreeing with this idea; a big part of Bio-Chromatic Breath is that it can Rekey itself to anybody's Identity- that's a fundamental part of it being of Endowment- and I see no reason why it wouldn't work for a Hemalurgic spike that had its own Identity.

I understand that this is a purely hypothetical scenario at this point though, so further debate on this topic without more evidence would prove fruitless (unfortunately).

6 hours ago, therunner said:

At best you would have spike that contains two independent attributes/powers, even if those are technically the same. How that would work I have no idea.

If it turns out that the Identity of the Breaths cannot shift over to that of the spike's, you most likely would have the bearer of the spike only being able to access one of the powers at once, possibly with control randomly shifting from one power to the other- it sounds like something along these lines was what happened with the experimental Set spikes.

Or, maybe neither would work and you'd have wasted one-thousand perfectly good Breaths 

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Yep, that would be most likely necessary workaround at minimum.

Seems that Identity manipulation is key to lots of Investiture shenanigans.

Actually, I found a quote that says a big part of the reason Investiture resists Investiture is because of conflicting Identity, which answers a whole lot of questions of mine:

Quote

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181/#e3830

Argent

We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.

Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases. Sticking more power into something like a Feruchemical storage or a hyper-invested object like Plate is increasingly hard. The other part is that Investiture tends to interfere with other Investiture, unless there's a familiar resonance. (This is part of what philosophers call Identity.) Slapping your hand through a sand master's stream of sand will cause interference, and make them start to drop. It's not that the sand is supporting them, it's that the investiture holding them up gets scrambled for a moment because of your own investiture.

Investiture pushed toward someone inside a hyper-invested (supersaturated) system like a person in Shardplate is going to get hard push-back.

This is similar to the reason that it's harder to Push on invested coins. Depends on how invested they are, in that case. It's generally not as hard as doing something like Lashing a person in plate. (This is more about the interference than the saturation of investiture.) But the two principles are what I use to guide the physics in these areas.

quietandproud

Can we take that as a hint that the Investiture in the Plates and the Investiture that the Surge of [Adhesion] uses come from different Shards? Or do they interfere because they "belong" to different spren?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, I should have realized this one would bring out the follow up questions. Let's leave it at what I posted for now. This is a deep, deep rabbit hole, and I do need to try to get some more writing done tonight. So...RAFO. (Sorry.)

This really does mean that Blanking the Identity of a Hemalurgic spike would make it significantly easier to Awaken. Honestly, it means a lot more too, but I'll save that for its own thread.