discuss Limits of Resistance to Emotional Allomancy

[Duxredux he/him]

Here's some background information to setup the context for my question.

In the context of taking control of Hemalurgic Constructs, emotional Allomancy is additive. There's a threshold where a single Mistborn burning Duralumin can Soothe a Koloss and take control of it, or a group of Soothers can jointly Soothe the Koloss to get the same effect.

Strong enough Soothing or Rioting could be considered sufficient trauma to cause an Allomancer to Snap.

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Oversleep

Is it possible to Soothe/Riot so hard that the person Snaps due to extreme emotions caused by emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

I hadn't considered, but yes, that should work.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 21, 2016)

Ruin's control of Koloss and Inquisitors operates on the same principle as emotional Allomancy. If a stronger force Soothes or Riots a group of Hemalurgists competitively then the stronger one gets control of the Hemalurgists.

It's worth noting that Set Hemalurgist determined that the number of spikes they could use to grant powers without opening themselves to Harmony's influence was 3, unless they had a Trellium spike where we saw at least 4.

 

With that information as back drop, for a normal Scadrian what are the limits of their resistance to Emotional Allomancy? Worded differently, if you had one person in a room and added progressively more Soothers Pushing on their emotions, if necessary adding in Nicrobursts to enhance the Soothers, would you ever be able to break and control a regular person the same way Hemalurgists are controlled? If not, what would happen to the person placed under that much pressure? What if the person was insane from a standpoint that they could hear a CS talking to them?

Alternate question, when fighting the Set, would it have been possible for a group of powerful Soothers to lower the threshold of the Hemalurgist's resistance and allow Harmony to gain control of them?

Thoughts? Imagine if a Scadrian Soothing parlor decided to become terrorists with the help of a Nicroburst, what could they accomplish?

[Ravenclawjedi42]

4 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Here's some background information to setup the context for my question.

In the context of taking control of Hemalurgic Constructs, emotional Allomancy is additive. There's a threshold where a single Mistborn burning Duralumin can Soothe a Koloss and take control of it, or a group of Soothers can jointly Soothe the Koloss to get the same effect.

Strong enough Soothing or Rioting could be considered sufficient trauma to cause an Allomancer to Snap.

Ruin's control of Koloss and Inquisitors operates on the same principle as emotional Allomancy. If a stronger force Soothes or Riots a group of Hemalurgists competitively then the stronger one gets control of the Hemalurgists.

It's worth noting that Set Hemalurgist determined that the number of spikes they could use to grant powers without opening themselves to Harmony's influence was 3, unless they had a Trellium spike where we saw at least 4.

 

With that information as back drop, for a normal Scadrian what are the limits of their resistance to Emotional Allomancy? Worded differently, if you had one person in a room and added progressively more Soothers Pushing on their emotions, if necessary adding in Nicrobursts to enhance the Soothers, would you ever be able to break and control a regular person the same way Hemalurgists are controlled? If not, what would happen to the person placed under that much pressure? What if the person was insane from a standpoint that they could hear a CS talking to them?

Alternate question, when fighting the Set, would it have been possible for a group of powerful Soothers to lower the threshold of the Hemalurgist's resistance and allow Harmony to gain control of them?

Thoughts? Imagine if a Scadrian Soothing parlor decided to become terrorists with the help of a Nicroburst, what could they accomplish?

I highly doubt this, personally, as it very much seemed to me that control via Emotional Allomancy was a byproduct of Hemalurgy, and could only happen with Hemalugic spikes, not to normal people.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

With that information as back drop, for a normal Scadrian what are the limits of their resistance to Emotional Allomancy? Worded differently, if you had one person in a room and added progressively more Soothers Pushing on their emotions, if necessary adding in Nicrobursts to enhance the Soothers, would you ever be able to break and control a regular person the same way Hemalurgists are controlled? If not, what would happen to the person placed under that much pressure? What if the person was insane from a standpoint that they could hear a CS talking to them?

That's not possible. Ruin wasn't able to control non-spiked people, and required at least 2 spikes to take control (but Kandra resisted a lot, so more are needed to take full control - 4), so it's simply not possible for Mistings/Mistborns to take control over non-spiked individuals.

Hemalurgic control works because spikes cause holes in a soul, allowing someone, like Rioters or Ruin, to enter. A normal person has no such holes in their soul. Snapping causes some damage to the soul, but this is filled with connection to Preservation if successful, if not the damage wouldn't be wide enough for anyone to enter. However Ruin was able to control or influence crazy people, like Vin's mother - this is a possible candidate for control without spike. Normal Scadrial just isn't damaged enough, and emotional Allomancy won't crack to such a degree to create sufficient holes in the soul - at best you would just snap that person.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Resolution

TenSoon and the other kandra resist Ruin and are able to pull the spikes from their shoulders. There are a couple of reasons why they can do this.

The power that Allomancers have to take control of them is the same power Ruin has. That control is exerted in the form of mental pressure through emotional Allomancy. As can be seen from Marsh's viewpoint, it is more than simply forcing the body to act as Ruin wishes. The extreme pressure on emotions changes the very way the mind thinks, tricking it into doing exactly what Ruin wants. The flaw in Hemalurgists leaves them open to this kind of manipulation.

Kandra, who only have two spikes, are far more difficult to control than koloss or Inquisitors. Vin is able to control TenSoon with ease in book two, but that's partially because he wanted her to do so. He would have been able to resist her. If she'd continued to push, she could have broken him, but it would have taken time.

Even Ruin's pressure wasn't enough to take control immediately. The kandra had a few moments during which they could overcome him and maintain their free will. Beyond that, they were in a cavern surrounded by metal ore in the walls, making it very difficult for Ruin to see what was going on and interfering with his ability to control them.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (May 13, 2010)

 

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Alternate question, when fighting the Set, would it have been possible for a group of powerful Soothers to lower the threshold of the Hemalurgist's resistance and allow Harmony to gain control of them?

That's an interesting question. Trellium spike will still keep them hidden from Harmony, so I doubt they could fall under his control. Telsin was hit by Harmony but she didn't fell to him. I don't think a group of Soothers would be able to push harder than Harmony - they wouldn't help him.  I think Trellium spike would mess things up even with Hemalurgic control, as it repels Harmony's investiture and might provide them with greater resistance against Hemalurgic control and emotional Allomancy in general.

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Hemalurgic control works because spikes cause holes in a soul, allowing someone, like Rioters or Ruin, to enter. A normal person has no such holes in their soul. Snapping causes some damage to the soul, but this is filled with connection to Preservation if successful, if not the damage wouldn't be wide enough for anyone to enter. However Ruin was able to control or influence crazy people, like Vin's mother - this is a possible candidate for control without spike.

I wonder if you non-lethally spiked out a person's Innate Investiture if the damage would be sufficient to let Ruin in, or if more would need to be done. Perhaps if you did that and they had one or more spikes embedded in them? Or, maybe if you were a malevolent Hemalurgist that knew what they were doing they could use a specialized Command to do extra damage to the donor's Spiritweb deliberately to make them susceptible to being controlled?

Evil, but maybe a villain would do it to get an army?

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's an interesting question. Trellium spike will still keep them hidden from Harmony, so I doubt they could fall under his control. Telsin was hit by Harmony but she didn't fell to him. I don't think a group of Soothers would be able to push harder than Harmony - they wouldn't help him.  I think Trellium spike would mess things up even with Hemalurgic control, as it repels Harmony's investiture and might provide them with greater resistance against Hemalurgic control and emotional Allomancy in general.

Did a whole theory on this awhile back (Another look at Trellium Hemalurgy's mechanics).

The main gist of it was that you could probably block any outside influence aside from Autonomy herself from getting inside your Spiritweb with Trellium Hemalurgy, so even very powerful emotional Allomancers probably wouldn't be able to do it. But we don't really know for certain.