Conjoined hemalurgy

[Wits instant noodles he/him]

So the question is if I you took a spike and stabbed it through two people at the same time what would happen 

[alder24]

33 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

So the question is if I you took a spike and stabbed it through two people at the same time what would happen 

Depending on your intent. Inquisitors were doing that, they were placing a donor on top of the recipient and pushing a spike through both of them with the intent to steal from the first one and place it into the second one. But you can't really reuse spikes - you can't really steal from multiple people (well you can per TLM but it's problematic), mainly because identities of stolen parts will collide with each other. You can't grant two persons the same spike because it can be only inserted into one spirit web.

Spoiler

yulerule

Can you reuse a spike?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Uh, yes, technically, but not as easily as that question makes it sound.

yulerule

Can you re-use it if it's for the same exact thing or for a different thing? Will that change?

Brandon Sanderson

Spikes are going to get keyed by Identity--

yulerule

So you can't already spike that person. But if you spike and don't kill them can you spike the same person again?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah and if you can somehow strip the identity of the person or the spike-- So yes you can use them again but it comes into a sort of-- Like, you can't just take that spike and spike somebody else.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

 

If you ask about using a spike on Siamese twins then I have no idea how it would work. They should have separate spirit webs, their perception of themselves might affect Hemalurgy a lot, but their spirit webs should "overlap" over their whole body, maybe excluding visibly separate parts like heads (depending on how conjoined they're). And the intent of the Hemalurgist would be very important - if he wants to steal from a twin A, not from a twin B, and they have only separate heads, they I think he would be successful in stealing only from a twin A. But if their hearts are also separate they the Hemalurgist also needs to choose the correct heart. It's interesting but we have no information from Brandon. The only WoB about Siamese twins is this one:

Spoiler

DrogaKrolow

We have this one bizarre question, that actually was really, really weird but we have to know it.

There was a question about Siamese twins. If they were born gold Feruchemists, and they they were split apart, would they like, form together again?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhhnn... It depends on how they view themselves

DrogaKrolow

That's the answer to every question like that!

Brandon Sanderson

Right! But that's the whole point of the cosmere is that-- Spiritual Realm is filtered through the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm, right? And this lens is going to filter how things work. Perception is really important in the cosmere. That's where most of these things come from, and so-- Yeah that is the answer to everything. But that's the point of the answer to everything, is that there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules when it comes to a lot of these things, with Identity and whatnot is going be filtered through perception.

DrogaKrolow

So it is technically possible for them, if they are seeing each other as one.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

So we can--

Brandon Sanderson

Now the big hard question is, what if one of them views them as one and one of them doesn't?

DrogaKrolow

Oh.

Brandon Sanderson

Aaaaoooohhh! Then it depends on who's using the magic.

DrogaKrolow

What if both of them are?

Brandon Sanderson

Both of them what? Are gold? If both of them are healing and one doesn't want to and one does, magic's gonna cancel each other out and nothing will happen.

DrogaKrolow

Ok.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. Yeah I made your question harder and weirder.

DrogaKrolow

Well it was a very logical answer to a very unlogical question.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've had to answer a lot of these. My feeling is that if I can make the fundamental magic principles work then you can answer those questions rationally but really what you would have to do is-- Even I'm not the expert on these things. Like I'm the ultimate word in some ways but in another ways the answer would be "I don't know, let's have a thought experiment and if it ever comes up, try it out and see what happens". But yeah, there you go. There is my best answer to you.

DrogaKrolow.pl interview (March 17, 2017)

 

[Wits instant noodles he/him]

33 minutes ago, alder24 said:

the first one and place it into the second one.

i was asking more with like 3 people if you took a spike stole it from the first and put it through the next two. I didn't know if the 3rd guy would just die or what i didn't know if we knew at all.

[KelsierFortnite he/him]

17 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

i was asking more with like 3 people if you took a spike stole it from the first and put it through the next two. I didn't know if the 3rd guy would just die or what i didn't know if we knew at all.

So, is the 2nd or 3rd person receiving the spike in this scenario?

[Wits instant noodles he/him]

thats what im asking let me try stating it again i have a charged spike and is stab it through two people and leave it in both people what happens.

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

thats what im asking let me try stating it again i have a charged spike and is stab it through two people and leave it in both people what happens.

What's your intent? Do you want to charge it again? Do you want to grant powers to person b or c? To both? What's your intent? Per previous WoB you can't reuse it to steal powers from someone else. But you can take a spike from someone and give it to someone else - inquisitors were doing that.

But if you stab 2 people at once and leave the spike while it's through both of them intent will matter. You can't grant powers to both of them simultaneously, so if you want that then either the spike won't work at all, or it will work to only one person. If you want to give powers only to one of them and the spike is in the correct binding point, it should work for that person and that person only. If you miss the binding point it won't work. The fact that it pierces the second person should not matter if the right intent was used when Hemalurgy was performed, but it would be very painful, possibly deadly to fix that and place the spike more comfortably. Your intent will determine the outcome of this action. That's my opinion.

[+robardin he/him]

20 hours ago, Wits instant noodles said:

So the question is if I you took a spike and stabbed it through two people at the same time what would happen 

I ran it through a simulation and this is what happened. I suspect it's pretty accurate.