Honorblades and Feruchemy

[BinarySecond]

Inspired by a post on r/Cosmere - Prompted me to some of my own speculation.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to get an answer on this from currently available novels.

The meat of the thoughts:

Can a Feruchemist use an Honorblade as a metalmind? I suspect the answer could be yes given Atium can be used for Feruchemy.

 

Then a follow up question to this; If a Feruchemist bonds with an Honorblade can they fill/drain it without summoning it? 

I'm assuming that the bond is establishment of a specific Connection between the user and the weapon - If this is the case could this Connection overrule the contact requirement of a standard metalmind?

[listerfeend]

While an interesting thought, there are a couple of things that I suspect would cause some issues with using an Honorblade as a metalmind. 

First, the inherent Investiture levels of an Honorblade. Honorblades aren't just God Metal, they are highly Invested God Metal blades, and thus would likely resist being used as a metal mind. 

We also run into an issue of knowledge. We've seen and been told time and again that someone in the Cosmere could be holding something like the Bands of Mourning or an Honorblade, and have no idea that it imparts any kind of Investiture usage, and therefore not be able to use it. Where this comes in with Honorblades, and specifically Tanavastium (or the God Metal of Honor, since I don't think it's been canonized that that is what it is called). No one knows what Tanavastium would allow the storage of, or what it would do if an Allomancer burnt it. (Though I think Allomantic viability is a lot easier to test, provided you have a Mistborn lying around, it can also have pretty bad consequences for people burning random metals)

So, with testing and investigation, one might be able to find out what could be stored in Tanavastium, provided that the inherent Investiture levels in an Honorblade do not cause too many issues with Investiture resistance.

So, to sum up, I think the Inherent Investiture present in an Honorblade would likely resist any Feruchemical storage, but even if it doesn't, a Feruchemist might still have trouble using it as a Metalmind due to a lack of knowledge surrounding what could even be stored. With some investigation, it may be possible to overcome the latter, but the former, it seems to me, would be insurmountable.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

11 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

Honorblades aren't just God Metal, they are highly Invested God Metal blades, and thus would likely resist being used as a metal mind. 

God metals are already investiture turned physical. I can't wrap my head around them becoming more invested than already BEING investiture. The honorblades are not alive like spren blades which have 'extra' investiture attached spiritually that is the sprens soul. 

 

Obviously the Honorblades are not just blades made of Tanavastium as that wouldn't explain how they give different surges but I dont know that would exclude them from being used as a metalmind. Like I stated above, and Atium metalmind is literally made from investiture, so it should already be difficult to store in it, but not impossible. I dont see why an Honorblade would be any different unless Tanavast specifically restricted that with the Honorblades. 

[listerfeend]

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

and Atium metalmind is literally made from investiture, so it should already be difficult to store in it, but not impossible.

This is a wild theory on my part, but, could it be that Atium is easily used because Feruchemy is a mixture of the use of Ruin and Preservation, thus Atium is already Keyed to be used that way? This would explain a lot regarding some of our conversations off the Shard surrounding the use of God Metals for Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy.

[alder24]

7 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

Can a Feruchemist use an Honorblade as a metalmind? I suspect the answer could be yes given Atium can be used for Feruchemy.

Yes. It's not a spren, it's not alive, it's almost the same as Malwish medallions mechanically speaking, and those act as metalminds in addition to granting you powers. But you can't store in a Shardblade as it's already considered to be too full of investiture and it's alive, which interferes with Metallic Arts (and it’s an alloy of two god metals). Honorblades should work however as those aren't alive (they are self-aware, like medallions), they are Tanavastium in the purest form.

Spoiler

Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Do Honorblades bestow their abilities similar to an Identity-free nicrosilmind with other Metalborn abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, these are working on similar principles. Same principle, divergent applications by the magic system, but yeah, I would say, they come back to the same principles.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Can a Shardblade, dead or alive, become a Hemalurgic spike?

Brandon Sanderson

It's already too strongly Invested for this. It couldn't hold anymore charge.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?

Questioner

Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Spoiler

NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

7 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

Then a follow up question to this; If a Feruchemist bonds with an Honorblade can they fill/drain it without summoning it? 

In my opinion you don't even have to bond it to use it as a metalmind (because it's the purest form of a god metal), but it has to be in the physical form. You have to summon it, you have to touch the metal.

Of course, to even use a god metal in Feruchemy, you have to first figure out what it does. Sazed was unable to figure out what Malatium does Feruchemically. It's not as easy as saying "I'm gonna store something in that piece of metal." You need to know what it does, what to expect, what will happen to you - that's the Intent.

Spoiler

Phantine.

I'm not going to ask what malatium does in feruchemy, but it'd be neat to know if Sazed had a chance to experiment with the little bar of it Kelsier found. Did he get around to trying it offscreen during the first trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but he didn't get far.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 20, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 3, 2015)

 

6 hours ago, listerfeend said:

This is a wild theory on my part, but, could it be that Atium is easily used because Feruchemy is a mixture of the use of Ruin and Preservation, thus Atium is already Keyed to be used that way? This would explain a lot regarding some of our conversations off the Shard surrounding the use of God Metals for Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy.

Every god metal have properties in all three Metallic Arts:

Spoiler

Czanos

Does every metal have a Feruchemical and Hemalurgic property? If not, are there metals which have Feruchemical or Hemalurgic properties which do not have Allomantic ones?

Brandon Sanderson

Every metal has a Feruchemical, an Allomantic, and a Hemalurgic property. The godly metals each also do something else. There are several interesting Feruchemical powers yet to be discovered and revealed in the next series. Feruchemy is less widely understood because there were so few practitioners in the modern era, and a lot of the time they were too afraid of capture to really study and use their powers.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

[BinarySecond]

Thank you all, and specifically Alder24 for the very detailed response; I wouldn't have found those WoBs in my searching but they definitely provide strong evidence regarding Honorblades as Metalminds.

 

 

[+hwiles]

19 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

...

Then a follow up question to this; If a Feruchemist bonds with an Honorblade can they fill/drain it without summoning it? 

I'm assuming that the bond is establishment of a specific Connection between the user and the weapon - If this is the case could this Connection overrule the contact requirement of a standard metalmind?

Honestly, I could see this being a logically derived resonance function of overlapping the magic systems involved.

Recall: a fully maxed out awakener can issue commands essentially telepathically and remotely, and the surge of transformation can operate remotely when supercharged by knowledge, intent, and raw power. It stands to reason that feruchemist should be able to store and draw charge remotely if they can overcome the power gap between themselves and their target.

Honestly, I'm imagining this relationship as being a simple extrapolation of semiconductor physics.

Best guess? A fully ascended Radiant who is also in possession of an Honorblade who also happens to be a full feruchemist should be able to store and draw from any metallic object that is personally bound to them on a Spiritual Realm level if they truly know what they're doing. That's pretty darn scary if you ask me...

[therunner]

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yes. It's not a spren, it's not alive, it's almost the same as Malwish medallions mechanically speaking, and those act as metalminds in addition to granting you powers.

I'd dispute that.

Medallions are composed of multiple parts, of which only the nicrosil is special (as it grants you powers you don't have), and as far as I know, using Medallion you cannot modify the Nicrosil component.
The rest of Medallion is simply just a piece of relevant metal, into which you store.

As such, since Honorblades are self-aware (so I think they are alive enough for Cosmere), you would be unable to store in them.

[listerfeend]

I'm actually pulling from something that @Treamayne said in another thread that I was just reading, which made me think of this question from a couple days ago...

Treamayne basically said that the Honorblades were created as Splinters of Honor, not just chunks of God Metal, with an amount of sapience that has yet to be determined. I think, based on this idea as well as what @therunner said
 

Quote

since Honorblades are self-aware (so I think they are alive enough for Cosmere), you would be unable to store in them.

This would make it pretty much impossible to use Honorblades as a metalmind, IMO