Savantism Effects on Hemalurgic Spikes

[Trusk'our he/him]

We have an old WoB stating that you cannot steal Savantism from someone via Hemalurgy (WoB).

However, we have a far newer WoB that states if Mraize were to steal part of Hoid's Spiritweb via Hemalurgy that it would have altered effects (WoB).

Do you think this means that while you may not be able to transfer Savantism itself, that the powers or attributes taken from a Savant would be altered in some way?

Perhaps you could get a slightly greater benefit from an A-pewter Savant's Allomancy, just not to the same extent as the Savant themselves.

Or perhaps if you stole strength via Hemalurgic iron it would be weaker in that Savant due to their Spiritweb's altered state.

[NameIess]

42 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

We have an old WoB stating that you cannot steal Savantism from someone via Hemalurgy (WoB).

However, we have a far newer WoB that states if Mraize were to steal part of Hoid's Spiritweb via Hemalurgy that it would have altered effects (WoB).

Do you think this means that while you may not be able to transfer Savantism itself, that the powers or attributes taken from a Savant would be altered in some way?

Perhaps you could get a slightly greater benefit from an A-pewter Savant's Allomancy, just not to the same extent as the Savant themselves.

Or perhaps if you stole strength via Hemalurgic iron it would be weaker in that Savant due to their Spiritweb's altered state.

I don't know if that WoB is referring to stealing savantism. It seems far more likely that it is referring to stealing abilities Hoid got from being a Dawnshard, being a Yolish Lightweaver, being a Radiant etc. He's picked up a lot of powers over time, and Hemalurgy should be able to steal just about any of them.

[Duxredux he/him]

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

We have an old WoB stating that you cannot steal Savantism from someone via Hemalurgy (WoB).

However, we have a far newer WoB that states if Mraize were to steal part of Hoid's Spiritweb via Hemalurgy that it would have altered effects (WoB).

Do you think this means that while you may not be able to transfer Savantism itself, that the powers or attributes taken from a Savant would be altered in some way?

Perhaps you could get a slightly greater benefit from an A-pewter Savant's Allomancy, just not to the same extent as the Savant themselves.

Or perhaps if you stole strength via Hemalurgic iron it would be weaker in that Savant due to their Spiritweb's altered state.

Well... we have to figure why Savantism is off the table for Hemalurgy in the first place to answer this question, though I agree with @Nameless' take on the WoB. Here's my hypothesis: it's related to why Atium can steal any power but only a single one despite basically being the Godmetal of Hemalurgy. Hemalurgy is destructive by nature, and likely cannot retain an entire soul, and that the fragment of soul harvested by Hemalurgy is transformed by the process in preparation to bestow the attribute on the recipient. Savantism by it's very nature is a systemic transformation of the soul by external power and likely covers a broader range than can be harvested by any single spike.

Let's use Spook as an example as a well known viewpoint Savant. The idea here is that with a single spike you can't steal everything that encompasses being a Savant with a spike. If you were to steal Spooks A-Tin with a steel spike, that can only steal the attributes related to his Physical Allomantic powers. You could probably harvest Spook's dulled senses with a tin spike, but the real question is if a Tineye were to be granted Spook's senses if they would also gain his senses' sensitivity to A-Tin or if that's assigned to a different metal. From this standpoint, and with what was known at the time, saying that Savantism is something that cannot be stolen seems perfectly valid - and as far as was understood nonlethal Hemalurgy or stealing multiple attributes from the same body wasn't something anyone knew how to do..

For kicks, let's add in an additional layer and look at the old Miles spike factory question. Let's say that you have way too much money, gold, and not enough scruples. You capture Miles, strap him down, and then force feed him bar after bar of gold and then use every viable metal to harvest every known attribute out of him. With your pile of spikes, can you recreate Miles complete with his Savantism? You have his Identity, his Connections, his memories, his powers, and maybe even his destiny. Add in that linchpin spikes can coordinate the effect between the spikes, assuming you can get around Harmony's unconscious alterations of Hemalurgy in spike count limits. A few possibilities: yes, it works assuming you have the knowledge and can get around Harmony's restrictions. Alternately, there's too much interference with the recipient's Spiritweb, or the nature of the Hemalurgic spikes doesn't allow for that level of finesse in coordinating the changes to the soul even with a linchpin. Given that Atium can only harvest a single power at a time, it seems plausible that the more delicate components of the Spiritweb that are altered and changed from Savantism that create some of the more significant changes aren't retained when a spike hammered through the soul is transformed and prepared to enhance another body.

 

So... I think it's plausible that you could steal attributes altered by Savantism, but that you would need extremely unusual circumstances to get anywhere close to stealing everything that makes someone a Savant. I don't think the non-lethal general harvesting that the Set was experimenting with would cut it.

Edited February 16 by Duxredux
finished incomplete thoughts.

[HSuperLee he/him]

The way I'm thinking about it is that the soul has various "organs" and one such organ is the allomancy organ. Now, that's definitely an oversimplification, or you wouldn't need different metals to steal different powers, but it helps us consider things. Savantism is when you have had enough investiture flowing through your soul that it leaks out of the power organ and begins to transform other parts of the soul. A spike is very specific, in that it steals a defined portion of the soul. A spike can't steal savantism, because, by definition, that savantism has leaked out to other parts of the soul that wouldn't be targeted by the spike.

Hoid is weird because his whole soul is suffused not only with the influence of a Dawnshard, but also by all the powers he's collected, and probably even his age. I think spiking Hoid would actually be a really difficult process as his soul may not even be shaped like a normal human soul anymore. Its possible that however you try to spike him, you'll get something wildly different than you'd expect.

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 2/15/2024 at 4:43 PM, NameIess said:

I don't know if that WoB is referring to stealing savantism. It seems far more likely that it is referring to stealing abilities Hoid got from being a Dawnshard, being a Yolish Lightweaver, being a Radiant etc. He's picked up a lot of powers over time, and Hemalurgy should be able to steal just about any of them.

That could be the case, but the way it was worded lead me to believe that Brandon was referring to Hoid's lingering Dawnshard effects on his Spiritweb.

On 2/15/2024 at 7:26 PM, Duxredux said:

Well... we have to figure why Savantism is off the table for Hemalurgy in the first place to answer this question, though I agree with @Nameless' take on the WoB. Here's my hypothesis: it's related to why Atium can steal any power but only a single one despite basically being the Godmetal of Hemalurgy. Hemalurgy is destructive by nature, and likely cannot retain an entire soul, and that the fragment of soul harvested by Hemalurgy is transformed by the process in preparation to bestow the attribute on the recipient. Savantism by it's very nature is a systemic transformation of the soul by external power and likely covers a broader range than can be harvested by any single spike.

Let's use Spook as an example as a well known viewpoint Savant. The idea here is that with a single spike you can't steal everything that encompasses being a Savant with a spike. If you were to steal Spooks A-Tin with a steel spike, that can only steal the attributes related to his Physical Allomantic powers. You could probably harvest Spook's dulled senses with a tin spike, but the real question is if a Tineye were to be granted Spook's senses if they would also gain his senses' sensitivity to A-Tin or if that's assigned to a different metal. From this standpoint, and with what was known at the time, saying that Savantism is something that cannot be stolen seems perfectly valid - and as far as was understood nonlethal Hemalurgy or stealing multiple attributes from the same body wasn't something anyone knew how to do..

For kicks, let's add in an additional layer and look at the old Miles spike factory question. Let's say that you have way too much money, gold, and not enough scruples. You capture Miles, strap him down, and then force feed him bar after bar of gold and then use every viable metal to harvest every known attribute out of him. With your pile of spikes, can you recreate Miles complete with his Savantism? You have his Identity, his Connections, his memories, his powers, and maybe even his destiny. Add in that linchpin spikes can coordinate the effect between the spikes, assuming you can get around Harmony's unconscious alterations of Hemalurgy in spike count limits. A few possibilities: yes, it works assuming you have the knowledge and can get around Harmony's restrictions. Alternately, there's too much interference with the recipient's Spiritweb, or the nature of the Hemalurgic spikes doesn't allow for that level of finesse in coordinating the changes to the soul even with a linchpin. Given that Atium can only harvest a single power at a time, it seems plausible that the more delicate components of the Spiritweb that are altered and changed from Savantism that create some of the more significant changes aren't retained when a spike hammered through the soul is transformed and prepared to enhance another body.

 

So... I think it's plausible that you could steal attributes altered by Savantism, but that you would need extremely unusual circumstances to get anywhere close to stealing everything that makes someone a Savant. I don't think the non-lethal general harvesting that the Set was experimenting with would cut it.

I disagree with the idea that you cannot fill a Hemalurgic spike with an entire functioning Spiritweb. I think that you could do it, but that it would be highly impractical and would likely require multiple hacks to make function (such as Awakening or finding other ways to stick extra Investiture to the spike), but I see no reason it couldn't be feasible with some dedicated work and knowledge.

For our purposes of our discussion though, I think you have a point; Savantism seems to be a convergent property of the entire Spiritweb, and as such it would probably be unlikely that you could realistically steal Savantism effects via Hemalurgy.

On 2/15/2024 at 8:50 PM, HSuperLee said:

The way I'm thinking about it is that the soul has various "organs" and one such organ is the allomancy organ. Now, that's definitely an oversimplification, or you wouldn't need different metals to steal different powers, but it helps us consider things. Savantism is when you have had enough investiture flowing through your soul that it leaks out of the power organ and begins to transform other parts of the soul. A spike is very specific, in that it steals a defined portion of the soul. A spike can't steal savantism, because, by definition, that savantism has leaked out to other parts of the soul that wouldn't be targeted by the spike.

That's certainly possible. 

On 2/15/2024 at 8:50 PM, HSuperLee said:

Hoid is weird because his whole soul is suffused not only with the influence of a Dawnshard, but also by all the powers he's collected, and probably even his age. I think spiking Hoid would actually be a really difficult process as his soul may not even be shaped like a normal human soul anymore. Its possible that however you try to spike him, you'll get something wildly different than you'd expect.

Perhaps, though if his powers still function normally I'd say they should be in about the same "location" as a normal Invested individual's. If his warped Spiritweb does significantly affect those powers and attributes however, there's a good chance you're correct in the difficulty one would have in properly spiking Hoid.

[Quantus he/him]

Fwiwi:  Hoid is "not exactly 100% human anymore" and his spiritweb is  "Weirder than a Savant".

 

 

Quote

 

Questioner

Is Hoid an avatar from Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Good question. He is independent.

Questioner

He's human, but he's more than human? He's changed from all the places he's been?

Brandon Sanderson

Even before that he's not exactly one hundred percent human anymore. But he's his own agent. He's not an avatar of somebody.

Oathbringer San Diego signing (Nov. 14, 2017)

 

 

 

Quote

 

Blightsong

Would Hoid's spirit web seem more similar to that of a savant or a regular human?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, neither one, but it would be weirder than a savant.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)