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Inquisitor Sight


killersquirrel59

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I can't believe I never asked this before, but what is the deal with the Inquisitor sight? They see the world in Allomantic lines like those gained from Steel and Iron, but FAR more detailed. This could make sense for those Inquisitors who are Coinshots, Lurchers or Mistborn before being spiked, since the Hemalurgic spikes for Steel and Iron would grant them power beyond the normal maximum for those metals and could explain the new ability. However what about the others like Marsh? How the hell does he see?

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I'm pretty sure all Inquisitors get double steel, but on top of that Hemalurgy itself produces some physical transformations, Inquisitors brains are rearranged so the spikes don't pierce them for instance, the Inquisitor sight is likely an extension of that.

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They don't get double steel. It's noted that the standard Inquisitor is made with 11 spikes. Assume that 10 are the 10 known Allomantic abilities, and the final one is Feruchemical gold to allow for Health Compounding. 

They're not the ten known abilities, and they don't all have Feruchemical gold, they would almost never have Allomantic gold either, TLR didn't want them compounding.

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Healing ability was seen before the fall of the Lord Ruler. The Inquisitor fighting Vin was seen to heal unnaturally fast. Vin notes that it was too fast to be explained by Pewter. This could only be Feruchemical gold. I suppose they don't necessarily have Allomantic gold and could just be storing Health as a normal Feruchemist, but it would make sense that TLR would let them compound Health. His great fears of compounding weren't of Gold, they were of things like Atium for the immortality trick.

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Healing ability was seen before the fall of the Lord Ruler. The Inquisitor fighting Vin was seen to heal unnaturally fast. Vin notes that it was too fast to be explained by Pewter. This could only be Feruchemical gold.

 

It definitely was Feruchemical gold and that was one of the spikes almost all Inquisitors had but sometimes they didn't have a feruchemist available and one has had to go without, during the events of the trilogy all of the Inquistors do have it IIRC.

TLR feared anyone finding out about how compounding works at all, as if it were they would almost certainly discover his weakness. Even if all they knew about was gold compounding they'd know to just take away his bracers and then try to kill him. Some Inquisitors worked it out on their own but he never told any of them.

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BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

Inquisitors knowing how to Compound: some may have figured it out at some point. I got the impression it was not a technique the Lord Ruler taught them.

 

 

No direct quote I'm afraid but Chaos paraphrased it.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1011 

I'd definitely recommend going through theorylands databases of interviews, there's tons of little things like this in there, although it does take quite a while to work through all of it :P

Edited by Voidus
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Thanks. Guess I was wrong and we have to chalk up the Inquisitors' sight to the strange Alchemy of Hemalurgy. It's either that or we accept that it is some master level combination of Steel and Iron that a Mistborn could theoretically learn to do that breaks normal rules. There are some examples of such feats, like Kelsier's ability to push/pull on parts of objects letting him make things spin in the air.

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Source:

By the way, you probably remember form book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone’s bodies and in the objects around them.

 
The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody–at least, nobody the heroes know–is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.
 
And he chose not to share it.
Edited by Kurkistan
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  • 3 years later...

Couldn't find an answer elsewhere, so this topic seems the best place for my question:

Is Inquisitor-vision always on? Or does an Inquisitor have to be burning steel or iron in order to see? 

I'm thinking it's always on, as a special Hemalurgic side-effect of being spiked through the eye with a spike granting Allomantic Iron or Steel.  'Cause otherwise they would have to carry around a LOT of steel/iron shavings just to be able to see.  Also, in Hero of Ages, there's a scene with Marsh where he's just been sitting there for a long time, long enough that he's practically buried in ash, but he can still see with his Inquisitor-sight -- I doubt that Ruin had him gather up a stockpile of steel/iron shavings so that Marsh could enjoy the view. 

I mean, there's the Well of Ascension annotation for chapter 12:

Quote

By the way, you probably remember from book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone's bodies and in the objects around them.

The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody–at least, nobody the heroes know–is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.

And he chose not to share it.

So regular Allomancers can see in this way, and of course they would have to burn iron or steel to do it.  However, judging by the "figured it out" part of the above quote, it requires a lot of skill and experience before it becomes possible.  Marsh can see this way from the get-go, without any prior experience with steel or iron.  Obviously Inquisitor-vision is a special case. Based on the scenes with Inquisitors and Marsh's viewpoints in the novels, and

Spoiler

Kelsier's scene at the end of Bands of Mourning


I think it's reasonable to assume that the Hemalurgist doesn't have to actively burn iron/steel just to see.  To Push or Pull on metals, yes they would have to burn, but not for basic sight.

What do you think? Is there a WoB I'm missing, here? Maybe they just use tin to get around if they run out of iron/steel? Or they spend so much of the day resting/sleeping that they don't have to carry around mounds of iron/steel shavings?

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On 8/24/2014 at 10:54 AM, killersquirrel59 said:

Well that's pretty conclusive there. Anyone with steel or iron could learn it.

It's probably like that blind guy IRL who "figured out" how to use echolocation by making little click noises with his mouth, like a human bat...

Anyone is physically equipped to do the same, but would not be motivated to do so (it requires remapping one's cerebral cortex with extensive training)

 

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11 minutes ago, Rawrbert said:

I wonder what an Inquisitor would see on Roshar, since most of the ground is stone/crem, and what the mineral/metal content of said stone/crem would be...

Here’s a relevant WoB: (sorry I can’t seem to figure out how to insert it all pretty-looking like everyone else)

Questioner[PENDING REVIEW]

Has stormwater tasted metallic always?

Brandon Sanderson[PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Questioner[PENDING REVIEW]

Even pre-Shattering?

Brandon Sanderson[PENDING REVIEW]

Even pre-Shattering it would get a metallic taste, that's the crem. So. That is an indication of Investiture and things. But it was there-- it was in place first, before.

source

This seems to imply that crem has at least some metal in it, and therefore Inquisitors would be able to see it. 

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