discuss Kelsier and Essence Marks

[Duxredux he/him]

Quote

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

Clearly Kelsier knows about Essence Marks and that they can grant powers that the individual was not born with. We also know that Moonlight has been experimenting with general use stamps. Is this one of the core reasons that Kelsier recruited Moonlight to see if Essence Marks could be a method of democratizing powers? If so, then there's a question on if Kelsier has commissioned a Mistborn Essence Mark and if so, why we haven't seen him use it?

Has a Mistborn Essence Mark

If Kelsier does have an Essence Mark that can change him into a Mistborn which seems like it should be more plausible than Moonlight becoming an Elantrian, then why he doesn't use it that much? Most likely answer I can think of is that it takes a shot of unkeyed Dor and that the transformation is either temporary or still has issues to work out. During the ramp to the climax of TLM, Kelsier implies that he's too far out to Steelpush to get back in time - and if he genuinely can't make it back in time, then it's not worth the expenditure of Dor. There's resource constraints that make Essence Marks impractical to offer as a solution for Scadrian democratization of power and may partially explain why he's trying so hard to get his own source of portable Investiture. If the transformation is temporary, then it also totally explains why he asks Harmony if he can ever be a Mistborn again while still implying that he can Steelpush. 

Doesn't have a Mistborn Essence Mark

If this is the case then there's a few options I can think of:

1. Something about Kelsier's nature as a Cognitive Shadow stapled via Hemalurgy on a Kandra (or so has been heavily implied and we assume) interferes with the Essence Mark and it doesn't take. Perhaps it can't overwrite his death and his time as a Shard that warped his Cognitive Shadow. This seems quite possible, even with a shot of Dor to brute-force it, though I'm guessing at the Realmatics.
2. He hasn't told his crew that he isn't a Mistborn - though since a lot of them aren't native and would have to be told the significance, that seems weird. 
3. He hasn't been willing to divulge enough of his personal history to Moonlight for her to make a workable Essence Mark. This seems possible, but I'm not sure if it's enough of a deterrent for him to not have access to Mistborn, Feruchemist, or Fullborn abilities.
4. It's a work in process and Moonlight has been recruited recently enough that she hasn't been able to carve one for him yet.
5. Moonlight is unwilling to hand someone else that much power under whatever current agreement she has as a member of the Ghostbloods.

Nonetheless, if we see Kelsier show up and start flying around with Steel and Duralumin, it doesn't necessarily mean that he cracked Lerasium. Thoughts?

Edited October 12, 2023 by Duxredux
added thought

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Has a Mistborn Essence Mark

If Kelsier does have an Essence Mark that can change him into a Mistborn which seems like it should be more plausible than Moonlight becoming an Elantrian, then why he doesn't use it that much? Most likely answer I can think of is that it takes a shot of unkeyed Dor and that the transformation is either temporary or still has issues to work out. During the ramp to the climax of TLM, Kelsier implies that he's too far out to Steelpush to get back in time - and if he genuinely can't make it back in time, then it's not worth the expenditure of Dor. There's resource constraints that make Essence Marks impractical to offer as a solution for Scadrian democratization of power and may partially explain why he's trying so hard to get his own source of portable Investiture. If the transformation is temporary, then it also totally explains why he asks Harmony if he can ever be a Mistborn again while still implying that he can Steelpush. 

That's very interesting. Yes, I agree with this, making an essence mark for him might be a way to make him a Mistborn again. If he has it it's certainly a temporary transformation, until the Dor runs out. 

But I don't think this is his priority right now - he has hope of being a Mistborn once more, but his priority is to democratize Metallic Arts.

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Something about Kelsier's nature as a Cognitive Shadow stapled via Hemalurgy on a Kandra (or so has been heavily implied and we assume) interferes with the Essence Mark and it doesn't take. Perhaps it can't overwrite his death and his time as a Shard that warped his Cognitive Shadow. This seems quite possible, even with a shot of Dor to brute-force it, though I'm guessing at the Realmatics.

Him being a Sliver might be just too much for an essence mark to mess with. Also very likely that there is a misalignment in his body identity and soul and his real soul and identity - this might cause too many problems with creating an essence mark. His whole state and his method of acquiring the body would definitely cause lots of troubles.

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

• He hasn't told his crew that he isn't a Mistborn - though since a lot of them aren't native and would have to be told the significance, that seems weird. 

WoB: 

Spoiler

Sethcran

When Kelsier said in The Lost Metal that he couldn't Steelpush over water, do the Ghostbloods think that Kelsier has his Allomantic powers, and is he lying to them about it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they think he has Allomantic powers still.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

[Quantus he/him]

40 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's very interesting. Yes, I agree with this, making an essence mark for him might be a way to make him a Mistborn again. If he has it it's certainly a temporary transformation, until the Dor runs out. 

But I don't think this is his priority right now - he has hope of being a Mistborn once more, but his priority is to democratize Metallic Arts.

Him being a Sliver might be just too much for an essence mark to mess with. Also very likely that there is a misalignment in his body identity and soul and his real soul and identity - this might cause too many problems with creating an essence mark. His whole state and his method of acquiring the body would definitely cause lots of troubles.

 

I think this might be the issue.  Stamps are temporary Investiture that gets anchored to the Physical Aspect of the target, and the effect breaks if that Pphysical stamp is disrupted.  You may not be able to Forge his history down any path that didnt result in him needing/getting the replacement Body.