Can anyone use Allomancy?

[cobaltking360]

So I’m rereading mistborn(as one does) and it got me thinking about the time in between the two series, when Kelsier gets a new body. If I were to become a cognitive shadow could I staple my self into a mist or a body and get their abilities? Because Allomancy is genetic so I think one could get it with getting a mistborn body.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, cobaltking360 said:

I’m rereading mistborn(

Does that mean that you have already finished The Lost Metal? Or are you re-reading to prepare to read TLM?

2 hours ago, cobaltking360 said:

If I were to become a cognitive shadow could I staple my self into a mist or a body and get their abilities?

Unlikely - The Lost Metal Spoilers and WoBs:

Spoiler

Since Kelsier didn't even recover his Mistborn abilities by using Hemalurgy to connect his Shadow to a Physical Realm Body:

TLM Epilogue 4 :

Quote

 That gave him hope for himself though. Lerasium wouldn’t have worked on him, and Hemalurgy had proven ineffective on what he’d become. It held his soul and body together, but no more.

There had to be another way. He had hope.

WoB:

Quote

rxience (paraphrased)

Would a single spike be sufficient to staple a Cognitive Shadow to a mistwraith?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that could happen.

rxience (paraphrased)

Did that happen in the past?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Who are you thinking about?

rxience (paraphrased)

Kelsier of course!

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, he is somehow in the Physical Realm. And he does look like himself, doesn't he?

Berlin signing (May 14, 2019)

Quote

Questioner

Would Kelsier be able to Return to the Physical Realm in the same way that Vasher did?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Mmmm… which time? Let me parse this question. Could a Shard with a great deal of Investiture take his Cognitive Shadow and staple it to a body, or indeed recreate (which is usually what happens) an entirely new body for him? Yes, that could happen. It would need, really, the will of a Shard and the desire to do so, but that could happen.

He couldn’t do it himself, though; because you could also have been asking: “return to the Physical Realm,” pop through; ‘cause Vasher popped through a perpendicualrity to get onto Roshar, which is another way he returned to the Physical Realm. I didn’t think that’s what you were asking, but sometimes, once in a while, you’re asking multiple things at once to be tricksy.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

 

[cobaltking360]

I have read lost metal and am rereading the cosmere right now. So I may not have worded it well but what you are talking about is would they take the abilities with them, I meant to convey would a completely normal person gain the abilities of the body, which is somewhat dissimilar to a kandra taking a body because they are using their own body not the body of the skeleton they inhabit

[alder24]

40 minutes ago, cobaltking360 said:

I have read lost metal and am rereading the cosmere right now. So I may not have worded it well but what you are talking about is would they take the abilities with them, I meant to convey would a completely normal person gain the abilities of the body, which is somewhat dissimilar to a kandra taking a body because they are using their own body not the body of the skeleton they inhabit

Have you read Warbreaker? Spoilers:

Spoiler

This is the same as making a Lifeless out of Mistborn's body - this Lifeless won't be a Mistborn. The same would be with a CS stampled onto a Mistborn's body - it won't make him a Mistborn. 

Spoiler

little wilson

Can a Mistborn turned into a Lifeless still use Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

*long-ish pause* Uh, no.

little wilson

So I would assume that is the same for a Feruchemist?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah if you-- taking some-- Yeah.  No they can't.

Holiday signing (Dec. 12, 2015)

 

The Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities are part of your spiritual DNA, not your body - it's your spirit that gives you those powers. This means a person who never was a Metalborn, can't become one by taking over a Metalborn's body Kelsier style. 

Spoiler

Questioner

Your magic systems are very structured, and specific rules that dominate them. But are there any universal laws that apply to all of the magic systems in the cosmere together?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's several of them. Basically, the most important one and relevant to people who enjoy real physics is that I consider something called Investiture to be a third state of matter and energy. So, instead of e=mc^2, we have a third thing, Investiture, in there. And you can change Investiture to matter or to energy. And so, because of that, that law that you can do this, is where we see a lot of the cosmere magics living.

We also have a kind of rule that beings all exist, everything exists on three different levels. The Physical, the Spiritual, and the Cognitive. And, like we have DNA for our Physical self, we also have Mental DNA and Spiritual DNA, and all three influence one another. For instance, you couldn't test an Allomancer's blood and find the Allomancy gene, because it is in a different set of their DNA. You just have three sets. You could compose a test that could test it on the Spiritual Realm, but you're gonna have to use a different branch of physics to do that and determine who was an Allomancer. And so they all work on this kind of fundamental rules of: your Identity, your Connection, and being part of your soul, and the magics working through those things.

So there's some fundamental rules about this, about changing forms from energy to matter, and you having this Identity, Investiture, and Connection stored in your Spiritual DNA that are really relevant to everything.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)

 

Why Kelsier can't use Allomancy which is a part of his Spiritual DNA? We don't know. I suspect that is because he still doesn't have a real body. He only has a hijacked body, which likely doesn't match his Identity and probably has still Mistwraith's spirit attached to it - that thing still lives (most likely). This is more like a possession than Kelsier's real body, and it doesn't count for Kelsier's spirit.

[cobaltking360]

Thank you that’s actually really helpful. As a side Noelle does kelsiers spike grant him an ability? I thought it was iron or steel but now thinking I don’t think I needs to be cuz it was spiked into him so he was the thing that inhabited the spike

[Aredor]

I don't think we have enough information to know at this point. After SH, we've only seen Kell three times. One was through a memory, once was in Twinsoul's viewpoint, and only one chapter in 4 books was him. As I recall, we didn't focus on the spike very much, focusing on Harmony and his impending madness.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, cobaltking360 said:

Thank you that’s actually really helpful. As a side Noelle does kelsiers spike grant him an ability? I thought it was iron or steel but now thinking I don’t think I needs to be cuz it was spiked into him so he was the thing that inhabited the spike

We don't know. Certainly no Allomancy. I'm pretty sure it was said somewhere it's a steel spike but can't find it. My personal theory is that this spike grants no ability nor does it contain anything at all, rather a person performing the spiking dragged Kelsier's soul into the Mistwraith's body and it just stamples them together. The spike is empty in my opinion. But we have only speculations.

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)

 

[cobaltking360]

I didn’t know that he was in a mistwraith I thought it was just some body they found and sense he is fairly invested he over wrote it enough to get the scars but that’s really cool. Does he have abilities like that of a kandra?(shape shifting and digesting body’s?)

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, cobaltking360 said:

I didn’t know that he was in a mistwraith I thought it was just some body they found and sense he is fairly invested he over wrote it enough to get the scars but that’s really cool. Does he have abilities like that of a kandra?(shape shifting and digesting body’s?)

Doubtful, since it is implied that the Connection that allows him to do this is that the Mistwraith was given his original skeleton (last seen in HoA when TenSoon took it with him on his trek to Urteau).

He is not a Kandra, not inhabiting a Kandra, and removing his bones would probably make the body no longer suitable for hos Cognitive Shadow - so trying to behave like a Kandra would probably have some adverse side effects for him. 

[alder24]

3 hours ago, cobaltking360 said:

I didn’t know that he was in a mistwraith I thought it was just some body they found and sense he is fairly invested he over wrote it enough to get the scars but that’s really cool. Does he have abilities like that of a kandra?(shape shifting and digesting body’s?)

We suspect that's the case because of this WoB in which Brandon practically confirmed this is true:

Spoiler

rxience (paraphrased)

Would a single spike be sufficient to staple a Cognitive Shadow to a mistwraith?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that could happen.

rxience (paraphrased)

Did that happen in the past?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Who are you thinking about?

rxience (paraphrased)

Kelsier of course!

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, he is somehow in the Physical Realm. And he does look like himself, doesn't he?

Berlin signing (May 14, 2019)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

With regards to certain experiments, would it be fair to say [blank] and a certain Scadrian have similar goals? 

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitation noises* I don't know that I would say that 100%. The certain Scadrian you reference has been able to achieve the goals that he wants. Let's see if I can circumlocute this: there's a certain set of bones floating around that already has a Connection to this individual, which was useful in achieving what he wanted to do, which is not a luxury that [blank] has. 

[SA spoilers removed]

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

Kelsier isn't a Kandra (he just “possesses” a body of a Mistwraith), so I doubt he could shapeshift or eat other bones. However he is a CS so it's possible he can change his appearance a little bit based on his self-perception, just like other CS around Cosmere.