The Charred and Inquisitors

[Lesser spren]

There are a few similarities I've noticed regarding the Charred and inquisitors. Both are previously human individuals that are given superhuman abilities by being pierced by invested material. Further more it appears that both have their souls disrupted by this process enabling them to be controlled by some outside influence. I would Like to hear some of your thoughts on this on the similarities and differences you see and what it might mean for the Cosmere as a whole.

 

Edited May 22 by Lesser spren

[Argenti he/him]

On 5/19/2024 at 8:06 PM, Lesser spren said:

There are a few similarities I've noticed regarding the Charred and inquisitors. Both are previously human individuals that are given superhuman abilities by being pierced by invested material. Further more it appears that both have their souls disrupted by this process enabling them to be controlled by some outside influence. 

I would Like to hear some of your thoughts on this on the similarities and differences you see and what it might mean for the Cosmere as a whole.

Cosmere spoilers are not allowed here, which is part of why this forum section is rarely used.  

[Lesser spren]

40 minutes ago, Argenti said:

Cosmere spoilers are not allowed here, which is part of why this forum section is rarely used.  

What parts of the Sunlit Man are we allowed to talk about?

[Argent he/him]

Just now, Lesser spren said:

What parts of the Sunlit Man are we allowed to talk about?

Sunlit Man is fine - but Inquisitors are not Sunlit Man stuff, which is why this fits better in the Cosmere forum, where I am going to move this. If you are not fully caught up on the Cosmere and would like this moved back to the Sunlit Man, you can ask for that by reporting the topic - but then we'll ask that any non-Sunlit Man content be spoiler-tagged. 

[Lesser spren]

1 minute ago, Argent said:

Sunlit Man is fine - but Inquisitors are not Sunlit Man stuff, which is why this fits better in the Cosmere forum, where I am going to move this. If you are not fully caught up on the Cosmere and would like this moved back to the Sunlit Man, you can ask for that by reporting the topic - but then we'll ask that any non-Sunlit Man content be spoiler-tagged. 

Thank you for moving it, sorry for the confusion

[Argenti he/him]

But on a different note, there are some clear parallels. They're both invested warriors created by taking the power of others. Both Spikes and Emberhearts result in dramatic physical changes, and both Spiritwebs are shredded, with "inroads" for shards and others to use. 
 

But Charred's identities are burned away, and the Inquisitors are not. Thats the big difference, Inquisitors are recognizable, to themselves and to others, while the charred are not. (Mentally, I mean) 

[+hwiles]

In my head, the biggest differences between the two are the amount and type of investiture being used to affect the transformation. Hemalurgic spikes appear to contain relatively small amounts of investiture on their own and the investiture that they do possess does not seem to be easily convertible or reusable for any purpose other than conferring the specific power or ability that they stole when being created (used as a murder weapon).

In contrast, sunhearts appear to be VERY densely invested with investiture that is only very loosely region-locked and, as was demonstrated, relatively easy to convert into a generic form that is almost as easy to use as true liquid Investiture such as that which exists at Perpendicularities.

What we don't have data on unfortunately is whether the Charred experience similar life-extending abilities as (some) Inquisitors. Im having trouble finding it but, if memory serves, there's an old WoB from about 2010 alluding to at least one Inquisitor living surviving over 200 years without the use of atium feruchemy (edit: i might have this paragraph wrong), and another that outright states that most of them had some amount of life-extension by simple virtue of how altered they were from normal humans. That said...I would posit that Charred should be very nearly biologically immortal once created on the basis that most of their internal organs are replaced with raw Investiture (they do apparently still need to breathe despite having no heart or lungs... but this might simply be a self-limitation imposed by their own perception in my opinion). With most of their critical organs completely removed from the equation, and (nearly) raw investiture supplying their body with energy (wait...do Charred even need to eat or sleep!?) I would expect an 80 year old Charred to behave the same as a 20 year old Charred the same as a 400 year old Charred.

It's probably also worth bearing in mind that the Charred were invented by highly advanced spacefaring scadrians who almost certainly possess advanced hemalurgic knowledge, so the similarities with inquisitors are very likely intentional and organically arrived at based on the knowledge they brought with them to the planet before experimenting on the local population.

One last note: the nature of the cinderhearts appears to be such that they confer some element of collective consciousness between the Charred. Very little is explained in book about this phenomena, but an empathetic link bordering on telepathy seems to exist between them all in general, with Sunlit ones being able to exploit this further to issue mental commands to them, a power only previously observed to be possible by awakeners of the 10th heightening (granted, the mental commands granted by the 10th heightening affect only objects, not living beings. Still though...)

Edited May 24 by hwiles

[Argenti he/him]

55 minutes ago, hwiles said:

(they do apparently still need to breathe despite having no heart or lungs... but this might simply be a self-limitation imposed by their own perception in my opinion).

Fire needs a constant stream of oxygen! Thats probably why they need to breath. 

 

[+hwiles]

1 minute ago, Argenti said:

Fire needs a constant stream of oxygen! Thats probably why they need to breath. 

 

I like my theory better, but who knows?

I think it would be worth testing for the scadrians to see whether or not, after giving a Charred a rigorous education on biology and human physiology, they still needed to breathe. They might also lose the ability to speak afterwards though, so...it could definitely backfire. lol

[Argenti he/him]

I wonder what happens if you awaken one's corpse....

[+hwiles]

9 minutes ago, Argenti said:

I wonder what happens if you awaken one's corpse....

I see two possibilities:

1) when Charred die, their cinderhearts stay invested. In this case, upon awakening one's corpse you would have a Lifeless with all the powers of a Charred. They could presumably be filled with Ichor and awakened with a single Breath and be functionally identical to a normal Charred.

Alternatively...

2) When Charred die, their cinderheart is drained in the process, possibly due to trying to heal or sustain them against lethal injury and inevitably running itself out of Investiture. In this case, you would have a regular human corpse with a gaping chest wound and most of their critical organs burned away. They could presumably be sewn up and awakened like a regular corpse but would possess no cool Charred powers as the source of said powers is fully depleted.

Implanting a cinderheart into a Lifeless who wasn't a Charred previously may or may not do anything. If it worked at all it would probably just result in a Charred who has some weird quirks. Probably best to just use a living body...

[bmcclure7]

21 hours ago, hwiles said:

I see two possibilities:

1) when Charred die, their cinderhearts stay invested. In this case, upon awakening one's corpse you would have a Lifeless with all the powers of a Charred. They could presumably be filled with Ichor and awakened with a single Breath and be functionally identical to a normal Charred.

Alternatively...

2) When Charred die, their cinderheart is drained in the process, possibly due to trying to heal or sustain them against lethal injury and inevitably running itself out of Investiture. In this case, you would have a regular human corpse with a gaping chest wound and most of their critical organs burned away. They could presumably be sewn up and awakened like a regular corpse but would possess no cool Charred powers as the source of said powers is fully depleted.

Implanting a cinderheart into a Lifeless who wasn't a Charred previously may or may not do anything. If it worked at all it would probably just result in a Charred who has some weird quirks. Probably best to just use a living body...

Cinder hearts are full of investiture, so if you did manage to awaken one I think it’s char would be more closer to a shadow then a lifeless. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 5/23/2024 at 7:17 AM, hwiles said:

What we don't have data on unfortunately is whether the Charred experience similar life-extending abilities as (some) Inquisitors. Im having trouble finding it but, if memory serves, there's an old WoB from about 2010 alluding to at least one Inquisitor living surviving over 200 years without the use of atium feruchemy, and another that outright states that most of them had some amount of life-extension by simple virtue of how altered they were from normal humans.

I'm not sure if an Inquisitor could survive 200 years without access to Atium Compounding or another direct hack. This WoB says that on average their lifespan is slightly extended, but I doubt that constitutes over a full century. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/247-ancient-17s-qa/#e5532

Chaos (paraphrased)

How long is the lifespan of an Inquisitor?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It depends on the powers they're given. Some burn up quickly, and others are extended. In general though they do tend to have slightly longer lives. Since Marsh has the missing bag of atium he's going to be around for a while.

Fun fact I found while searching for this though; going out in the Mists would also extend your life, even if it's only miniscule. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360-legion-release-party/#e10900

OrangeJedi

So if the skaa on Scadrial had gone out in the mists more often, would they have had a longer lifespan?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitant* The skaa lifespans are more related to their status in life than genetic predisposition. Going in the mists probably would not have changed that.

OrangeJedi

I didn't think of it that way, I thought of it more from a, "Oh, people on Roshar have a longer lifespan because of Investiture." Because the mists are Invested.

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitant* Technically yes, but I think it's going to be pretty miniscule. Technically yes.

 

[+hwiles]

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I'm not sure if an Inquisitor could survive 200 years without access to Atium Compounding or another direct hack. This WoB says that on average their lifespan is slightly extended, but I doubt that constitutes over a full century. 

...

Yeah...I'm inclined to agree now, I've tried searching again and I'm not turning anything up that has an official stamp on it. It might be buried in the annotations or i could well be misremembering an non-official source...

I feel like it had something to do with the concept that even extremely old inquisitors should (theoretically) still be extremely able and powerful and, therefore, difficult to kill or remove and, given the duration of the empire's existence, inquisitors in general should obey a mortality curve and plateau more closely resembling that of lobsters (looks like a natural log function on a graph) than of humans (looks like a bell curve on a graph), ergo, they must have had at least a few who were punching into the two to three century realm of longevity or else they would have been getting murdered or been dying and getting replaced often enough that the general population would have enough stories of them dying for them to have not reasonably been mythological in the average person's eyes...

It's dangerous to combine too much science with fantasy, so...probably chalk this one up to being just a fan-led math problem that makes the narrative merge with real life mythology better, but isn't actually based on verified storyteller intent if nothing pops up. My bad.

Edited May 24 by hwiles

[Trusk'our he/him]

9 hours ago, hwiles said:

I feel like it had something to do with the concept that even extremely old inquisitors should (theoretically) still be extremely able and powerful and, therefore, difficult to kill or remove and, given the duration of the empire's existence, inquisitors in general should obey a mortality curve and plateau more closely resembling that of lobsters (looks like a natural log function on a graph) than of humans (looks like a bell curve on a graph), ergo, they must have had at least a few who were punching into the two to three century realm of longevity or else they would have been getting murdered or been dying and getting replaced often enough that the general population would have enough stories of them dying for them to have not reasonably been mythological in the average person's eyes...

I mean, it could just be that they aren't seen as often as we currently think, or perhaps they are generally just grouped into a homogenous "Steel Inquisitor" category where nobody can tell them apart (all 6'6" bald people with face tattoos and eye spikes dressed in black robes look similar, no?)

Plus, the Steel Inquisitors would have wanted very much to spread rumors of their "invincibility", which helps their reputation for agelessness. 

9 hours ago, hwiles said:

It's dangerous to combine too much science with fantasy,

Aww, that's the most fun part though 

[alder24]

14 hours ago, hwiles said:

Yeah...I'm inclined to agree now, I've tried searching again and I'm not turning anything up that has an official stamp on it. It might be buried in the annotations or i could well be misremembering an non-official source...

I feel like it had something to do with the concept that even extremely old inquisitors should (theoretically) still be extremely able and powerful and, therefore, difficult to kill or remove and, given the duration of the empire's existence, inquisitors in general should obey a mortality curve and plateau more closely resembling that of lobsters (looks like a natural log function on a graph) than of humans (looks like a bell curve on a graph), ergo, they must have had at least a few who were punching into the two to three century realm of longevity or else they would have been getting murdered or been dying and getting replaced often enough that the general population would have enough stories of them dying for them to have not reasonably been mythological in the average person's eyes...

It's dangerous to combine too much science with fantasy, so...probably chalk this one up to being just a fan-led math problem that makes the narrative merge with real life mythology better, but isn't actually based on verified storyteller intent if nothing pops up. My bad.

Inquisitors should NOT be able to live 200 years because even a Mistborn can't live that long. Inquisitors steal only a fraction of a full Mistborn power and it's investiture that extends your lifespan. The more invested you are, the longer you live, as seen with BioChromatic Heightenings, that's a rule that applies to every form of investiture. Every spike invests inquisitors but those spikes also suffer a Hemalurgic decay. A typical inquisitor has only 9-11 spikes and each of them decayed giving them less power than what a natural Metalborn can access. So Inquisitors don't have a full set of 16 powers and every power they have gives them less investiture than a normal Metalborn have. Inquisitors would be living a shorter life compared to a Mistborn, but both would be living longer than a normal Scadrian or a Misting/Ferring. But that's only for Seekers who were made into Inquisitors. A full Mistborn made into an Inquisitor would live longer than a natural Mistborn because he's invested not only with his 16 natural powers, but also with additional 9-11 powers stolen from others. Still, I doubt they could live up to 200 years (I can't find anything mentioning 200 years, but I think you confused Inquisitor's lifespan with some inquisitors reusing old spikes).

We only know that Spook was living for more than 116 years (or so iirc) as he resigned when he was around 100 years old. But Spook, unlike inquisitors and Metalborns from Era 1, had access to A-cadmium which he could have used to further extend his life by skipping through time. 

However, unlike natural Metalborn, inquisitors break their own soul and mind, being under extreme pressure from the nature of Hemalurgy. This might cause the varying lifespan of inquisitors. Some more resilient would be able to withstand that pressure, some less fortunate would break under it, suffer mental instability which cracks their soul even more and cause more damage to them, causing them to die earlier despite their invested nature. That's what I think Brandon meant by "Some burn up quickly, and others are extended."

And lastly Inquisitors aren't human anymore - they are a Hemalurgic construct. Who knows how that affects their lifespan.