That moment with Hoid

[CtrlAltDepressed]

Hello all. 

 

Following the release of chapters 14 / 15 yesterday, I was thinking about it more and one piece stands out to me, which of course is Hoid going bonkers with all his magics while figuring out that Odium has tricked him.

 

Passage in question:

"Then the sand burst alight with a mother-of-pearl iridescence and hovered above the table. Wit’s silky nightclothes began to writhe and contort as if alive. His motions became increasingly frantic, fearspren bubbling up through the ground around them. "

 

Particularly the part about his clothes contorting as if alive. Clearly this is awakening, however, from ROW we know that Hoid has around 200 breaths since he loses his perfect pitch. Enough to store some memories in, but not a crazy amount as some of us suspected. He is awakening his clothes with mental commands here, which should require the 10th heightening. Tens of thousands more breaths than he has. 

 

I seem to remember a WOB that if an awakener was really really knowledgeable, they would be able to perform mental commands with less than 50,000 breaths - but I cant find it. The coppermind article does not mention this so I think I made it up. 

 

When we see Hoid awaken in OB (might have been ROW), he speaks a command to the doll he gives the girl. Seems weird he would do that if he could awaken without commands. 

 

We also see Vasher whisper to the sheets when he 'fights' Kaladin. Vasher is the most knowledgeable awakener we know about. If he doesnt know how to do this, I would doubt Hoid does. 

 

Was this some sort of Yolish proto-awakening shenanigans?

 

What do we think is going on here? 

[listerfeend]

25 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

What do we think is going on here? 

One possibility: Hoid only had a couple hundred Breaths on him at that time, but has a much bigger stash that he went back to?
Another is this tidbit from the copper mind
 

Quote

The effects of various Heightenings can be replicated through merely being highly Invested, such as by holding a Dawnshard

Could very well be the case that Perfect Pitch is not one of the "various Heightenings" that can be replicated by merely being highly Invested, but Mental Commands are? That would explain neatly why he lost Perfect Pitch, but was able to Awaken without words. 

As for why he would Awaken the doll with a spoken Command when he could do it Mentally... Hoid is a showman for sure. It could be as simple as him putting on a show for the little girl, and the whispering Commands was for her benefit, and nothing more...
 

Edited September 24, 2024 by listerfeend

[Master Silver]

Also, it is worth noting that perhaps Hoid keeps lots of breaths somewhere else. So maybe he only has 200 or so on him at a time. Breath is very expensive but he probably has a cave filled with gold or something. Also, is it possible to use the investiture from a different magic system to fuel biochromatic commands?

[listerfeend]

6 minutes ago, Master Silver said:

Also, is it possible to use the investiture from a different magic system to fuel biochromatic commands?

Theoretically, it's possible to fuel almost every magic system with any other Investiture. Brandon has said as much, but is very coy about the mechanics that would need to be involved. However, if there is anyone in the Cosmere who would know how to do it, it's Hoid. Khriss has more knowledge of Investiture and its uses than even Hoid, but I suspect that Hoid definitely would know. 

[alder24]

59 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Particularly the part about his clothes contorting as if alive. Clearly this is awakening, however, from ROW we know that Hoid has around 200 breaths since he loses his perfect pitch. Enough to store some memories in, but not a crazy amount as some of us suspected. He is awakening his clothes with mental commands here, which should require the 10th heightening. Tens of thousands more breaths than he has. 

I think his clothes were already Awakened to protect him or something like that and now, sensing his distress, they are trying to do something about it. He most definitely doesn't have the 10th Heightening, we've seen him Awaken verbally in OB epilogue. Also in this epilogue he willingly gave up some of his Breaths forever, so he probably has to have more Breaths hidden in some Awakened object, just in case he wants to do something like that.

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I seem to remember a WOB that if an awakener was really really knowledgeable, they would be able to perform mental commands with less than 50,000 breaths - but I cant find it. The coppermind article does not mention this so I think I made it up. 

I've never seen such WoB before.

 

20 minutes ago, Master Silver said:

Also, is it possible to use the investiture from a different magic system to fuel biochromatic commands?

13 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

Theoretically, it's possible to fuel almost every magic system with any other Investiture. Brandon has said as much, but is very coy about the mechanics that would need to be involved. However, if there is anyone in the Cosmere who would know how to do it, it's Hoid. Khriss has more knowledge of Investiture and its uses than even Hoid, but I suspect that Hoid definitely would know. 

Hoid doesn't know how to Awaken with Stormlight. If he can't do that with Stormlight, I doubt he knows how to do that with other types of investiture.

Spoiler

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

 

[listerfeend]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Hoid doesn't know how to Awaken with Stormlight. If he can't do that with Stormlight, I doubt he knows how to do that with other types of investiture.

  Hide contents

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

I'm noticing that that quote definitely leaves out whether or not Hoid knows some other magical or mechanical means of powering Awakening... I basically default to Hoid can do pretty much anything that has been said to be possible, whether or not we have the exact mechanics, unless specifically stated otherwise lol. He may not know how to turn Stormlight into Breaths, but I feel 95% certain he probably knows how to turn some other form of Investiture into it, or has some other magical or mechanical means of doing so. Or we'll just find out he has a dragon's wealth of Breath stored in something completely random that we don't know about.

 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I think his clothes were already Awakened to protect him or something like that and now, sensing his distress, they are trying to do something about it. He most definitely doesn't have the 10th Heightening, we've seen him Awaken verbally in OB epilogue. Also in this epilogue he willingly gave up some of his Breaths forever, so he probably has to have more Breaths hidden in some Awakened object, just in case he wants to do something like that.

That would be a very interesting Command. Something that would trigger from essentially mental or emotional distress and still react as though it were a physical threat? He didn't say anything, nothing attacked him or anything like that, so we are still saying that the Awakened objects are reading his mind/emotional state, which feels like it's the same thing as a Mental Command. Based on the fact that he seemed to be subconsciously using Allomancy as well, based on the fact that he was pulling on all the metal around him without really seeming to have an actual goal in mind...I'm still pretty convinced this was a reflexive Mental Command Awakening. I'm not positive on that, but that's how it feels to me. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

I'm still pretty convinced this was a reflexive Mental Command Awakening. I'm not positive on that, but that's how it feels to me.

 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

I think his clothes were already Awakened to protect him or something like that and now, sensing his distress, they are trying to do something about it.

I think this is the most likely scenario, but I agree with @listerfeend that it doesn't feel exactly right. 

 

Part of what makes it not feel right is that Hoid

a) should not need awakened clothes to protect himself

b) wont the dawnshard effects stop this? it seems pretty impossible that he could awaken his clothes to 'protect' without hurting the attacker. 

     b2) or is this a potential workaround to his restrictions? if he awakens a rope to 'grab things' and it strangles someone, technically he did not cause that harm, nor did he command it to do that harm. it interpreted his command to harm someone.

 

Edited September 24, 2024 by CtrlAltDepressed

[alder24]

57 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

I'm noticing that that quote definitely leaves out whether or not Hoid knows some other magical or mechanical means of powering Awakening...

Yeah, that's true, but if he can't do it with the easiest way, it's very unlikely he would be able to do it with other ways. The same applies to any other type of investiture, it would be equally as difficult to convert Preservation's investiture into Breaths, as to convert Stormlight into Breaths.

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

so we are still saying that the Awakened objects are reading his mind/emotional state, which feels like it's the same thing as a Mental Command.

That's not comparable at all. The Command was already issued during the Awakening, reacting to an emotional state is like reacting to a finger tapping - Vasher Awakened a rope that reacted to his taps differently. It's probably not that hard to do and you still can't Command it mentally.

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

Based on the fact that he seemed to be subconsciously using Allomancy as well

I think that too. He was in a state of pure panic, for the first time in who knows how long, so his subconscious or his body intent to survive took over, trying to defend him against a thread that wasn't there. 

 

5 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

a) should not need awakened clothes to protect himself

Why not? That seems like a very smart thing to do when you're a number 1 target on Roshar currently (with your protections against Odium lacking). Immortal or not, a spike could steal a loooot from him.

6 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

b) wont the dawnshard effects stop this? it seems pretty impossible that he could awaken his clothes to 'protect' without hurting the attacker. 

I don't think so, I don't remember TSM well now. Constraining without hurting wouldn't count. It's not like he's attacking them. And I don't think it would prevent him from Awakening, even if he were to be paralyzed when his clothes tie somebody up. 

10 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

     b2) or is this a potential workaround to his restrictions? if he awakens a rope to 'grab things' and it strangles someone, technically he did not cause that harm, nor did he command it to do that harm. it interpreted his command to harm someone.

No, I think if he suffocates someone with Awakening, he would be locked. He probably have to Awaken in a smart way to prevent objects from doing any harm.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

4 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

What do we think is going on here? 

It could be something akin to Tension or indeed Tension. That could be due to

• Hoid is bearing Taln's Honorblade
• This is a part of Valour's magic system
• Microkinesis (He is Yolish after all)

4 hours ago, listerfeend said:

As for why he would Awaken the doll with a spoken Command when he could do it Mentally... Hoid is a showman for sure. It could be as simple as him putting on a show for the little girl, and the whispering Commands was for her benefit, and nothing more...
 

It would have to be in his native language. A language that must be nearly extinct by now, given how old he is. It would be gibberish to any human Rosharan.

[Smye]

4 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

What do we think is going on here?

I suspect (Dragonsteel Spoiler)

Spoiler

microkinesis

is involved.

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

Microkinesis (He is Yolish after all)

Twinning!

[NameIess]

I could see it being an effect of Hoid’s holding a Dawnshard, giving him greater mastery over Investiture.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

By the way, while we are at it, the sand floated.

Does this confirm that Hoid is a Sandmaster?

[CtrlAltDepressed]

58 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

By the way, while we are at it, the sand floated.

Does this confirm that Hoid is a Sandmaster?

ah jeez, i hadn't even thought about that. this might be a hint brandon added for when white sand prose is released

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

No, I think if he suffocates someone with Awakening, he would be locked. He probably have to Awaken in a smart way to prevent objects from doing any harm.

I think I agree with you on this, however I would be very interested to know the limits of this. Purely hypothetical, but lets say Hoid awakened Nightblood. Would he be locked up everytime Nightblood destroys? Or would Nightblood be considered sentient enough that he would be a separate entity?

If so, where is that line? 

 

To my understanding, all awakening is giving real life. Even a piece of cloth awakened with 1 breath is actually alive. It isn't imitating life, it is alive. Lifeless breaths cannot be reclaimed, indicating that there is a new identity involved - which is not true of the cloth. If Hoid awakens a lifeless, could that lifeless cause harm? I know that Hoid could not command it to cause harm, but he could grant the control to someone who isnt restricted, or give it a vague command that ends up hurting someone. For instance, 'bring me 10 gold coins' could lead the lifeless to beat and rob someone of their coins.

 

Im kind of getting sidetracked here, but now that im thinking about it, where are the other limits? Can Hoid (after tress) simply not draw aons that could potentially hurt someone? If he was going to push on someones belt buckle, and that push would move the buckle through the wall, killing someone behind the wall, would he be able to do the push and then be frozen? Or would the Dawnshard know that the action he is performing would result in harm and prevent the push at all? 

 

I know we probably dont have answers for this but it got me thinking. 

Edited September 24, 2024 by CtrlAltDepressed

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

By the way, while we are at it, the sand floated.

Does this confirm that Hoid is a Sandmaster?

Looks like this. I wonder if he used an alloy of Lerasium and Bavadinium for this:

Spoiler

Stormlightning

If Hoid was to get his hands on "bavadinium", could he alloy it with lerasium and get sand mastery?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 6, 2018)

 

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I think I agree with you on this, however I would be very interested to know the limits of this. Purely hypothetical, but lets say Hoid awakened Nightblood. Would he be locked up everytime Nightblood destroys? Or would Nightblood be considered sentient enough that he would be a separate entity?

If so, where is that line? 

He probably won't be even able to Awaken another Nightblood in the first place - it's a weapon made with an intent to destroy. A cloak that protects can be made without an intent to kill or harm, but Nightblood not. 

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

To my understanding, all awakening is giving real life. Even a piece of cloth awakened with 1 breath is actually alive. It isn't imitating life, it is alive.

Yes to some degree. 

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If Hoid awakens a lifeless, could that lifeless cause harm?

I think yes, but Hoid won't be able to Command it to do that. But others can.

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

or give it a vague command that ends up hurting someone. For instance, 'bring me 10 gold coins' could lead the lifeless to beat and rob someone of their coins.

In this case intent would matter. Hoid can't Command Lifeless to "bring him coins" while having in mind hurting others. Intent will define how those Lifeless will act. 

Spoiler

Chaos

In Dawnshard we learned that Intent and Command are two different things, whereas in Warbreaker Vasher is clearly conflating these two into just saying it's the Command. What's the difference between Intent and Command?

Brandon Sanderson

Intent encompasses more understanding. Command is specifically narrow. A lot of times, these things are gonna be conflated, because they basically can be. Like, if Vasher creates an awakened thing and says "go get me those keys." The Intent is: "I need the keys to get outta here. I want to be free." The Command is: "Go fetch keys." Those are two different things, but they are working toward the same goal. It is important in cosmere terms that the Intent is understood, even if sometimes the words that can speak 'em are clunky and smaller in scale by nature than the Intent.

Let's say the Intent of a Shard encompasses more than the word that the Shard is described by. It's a similar thing that the Intent of a Command is often vaster than the actual words spoken. And the magic can grasp the Intent, not just the Command, depending on the magic system and how good you are at it, and things like that. The words are there to focus Intent. How about that?

Chaos

Bringing the old word "focus" back into it. Let's talk about body focuses; what's going on there? (That's a joke.)

Brandon Sanderson

I'll throw you a kernel on that one in the fifth book if you watch for it. That old Rosharan philosophy will actually be relevant for a small thing happening in the fifth book.

Shardcast Interview (Jan. 23, 2021)

 

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Im kind of getting sidetracked here, but now that im thinking about it, where are the other limits? Can Hoid (after tress) simply not draw aons that could potentially hurt someone?

I think he can draw them only if he's absolutely certain they won't hurt anybody. I wanted to say that they might be considered as weapons and Hoid can't even hold any weapon, but then I remembered that Hoid has a sword all the time on Roshar and once he even drew it and gave it to Jasnah, so he certainly can draw those Aons. And this also gives us an insight where the limits are - he can give a weapon to someone else to harm others, does it also apply to Awakening - I don’t know. 

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If he was going to push on someones belt buckle, and that push would move the buckle through the wall, killing someone behind the wall, would he be able to do the push and then be frozen?

He would if he doesn't know that it will hurt somebody, once it hurts he would be frozen. If he knew, I doubt he would be able to push. 

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Looks like this. I wonder if he used an alloy of Lerasium and Bavadinium for this:

 

Part 1 of Stormlight takes place before Wax and Wayne, so we would be assuming that Hoid knew about Autonomy being present enough on Scadrial to form a metal before it was revealed in the books. Not too big a stretch considering how knowledgeable he is, but I feel like he would have told Sazed seeing as he an Bavadin have an animosity. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

This leaves the other side of the question. What does Hoid not have? What could he have and what have we not seen? More to the point, why did Hoid not use a speed bubble? If he is a feruchemist, surely that was the point where he should have tapped zinc. Did he? Where is Valour's magic or Invention's or Mercy's?

[alder24]

12 hours ago, Display-Names-Are-Stupid said:

Part 1 of Stormlight takes place before Wax and Wayne, so we would be assuming that Hoid knew about Autonomy being present enough on Scadrial to form a metal before it was revealed in the books. Not too big a stretch considering how knowledgeable he is, but I feel like he would have told Sazed seeing as he an Bavadin have an animosity. 

Bavadinium can exist on every planet Autonomy is invested enough and probably does exist on Taldain - her home world. God metals aren't limited to Scadrial, they can exist on every planet sufficiently invested by Shards - all Shardblades and Shardplates are made out of god metals of Honor and Cultivation. 

 

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This leaves the other side of the question. What does Hoid not have? What could he have and what have we not seen? More to the point, why did Hoid not use a speed bubble? If he is a feruchemist, surely that was the point where he should have tapped zinc. Did he? Where is Valour's magic or Invention's or Mercy's?

He has a lot of different abilities, but he's not a Feruchemist - he tried to become one in WoA but failed. Just because he has certain abilities doesn't mean he has to use them. He has some metalminds and spikes in his collection, Brandon even wanted him to use a spike in SA but he didn't need to. He can't fight anyway so many of those powers aren't that useful to him. He's mostly focused on storytelling and for that he needs Lightweaving the most (and Fortune and Connection for everything else).

But look at this from a different perspective. In the last few hundred years Hoid was able to obtain 3 new invested arts - Allomancy, Surgebinding and AonDor (and potentially Sand Mastery as well). Sounds a lot, doesn't it? But he's lived for more than 10,000 years, he had all this time to gather all magics there are in Cosmere, yet 3 most flashy and powerful of them weren't in his possession until very recently. That means that you shouldn't expect Hoid to have all invested arts already, you shouldn't expect him to have Valor, Mercy or Invention's powers if he just recently gained Surgebinding and relative to SA and current events, he still have to wait several hundreds years to become an Elantrian - a power which was used in Cosmere almost since the Shattering, before Devotion and Dominion were Splintered. If he couldn’t get those earlier, why would he have other powers?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

17 minutes ago, alder24 said:

He has a lot of different abilities, but he's not a Feruchemist - he tried to become one in WoA but failed. Just because he has certain abilities doesn't mean he has to use them.

I am afraid it does mean just that. Parts of what he did there were a test. Neither the Sandmastery nor the thing with the clothing, nor the shapeshifting had a defensive value. If you are running a self-test then indeed you need to use everything or at least one thing from each set.

 

23 minutes ago, alder24 said:

He can't fight anyway so many of those powers aren't that useful to him. He's mostly focused on storytelling and for that he needs Lightweaving the most (and Fortune and Connection for everything else).

Yet he went for Allomancy before Surgebinding.

 

32 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But look at this from a different perspective. In the last few hundred years Hoid was able to obtain 3 new invested arts - Allomancy, Surgebinding and AonDor (and potentially Sand Mastery as well). Sounds a lot, doesn't it? But he's lived for more than 10,000 years, he had all this time to gather all magics there are in Cosmere, yet 3 most flashy and powerful of them weren't in his possession until very recently. That means that you shouldn't expect Hoid to have all invested arts already, you shouldn't expect him to have Valor, Mercy or Invention's powers if he just recently gained Surgebinding and relative to SA and current events, he still have to wait several hundreds years to become an Elantrian - a power which was used in Cosmere almost since the Shattering, before Devotion and Dominion were Splintered. If he couldn’t get those earlier, why would he have other powers?

It looks to me like he went for Surgebinding and Allomancy (and Feruchemy) only when the respective Shards were dead or very much distracted.
Yet he seems to be on excellent terms with Valour.

[listerfeend]

Ok, I'm a little late with responses for this, but I have thoughts.
 

18 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

     b2) or is this a potential workaround to his restrictions? if he awakens a rope to 'grab things' and it strangles someone, technically he did not cause that harm, nor did he command it to do that harm. it interpreted his command to harm someone.

So, my recollection of how exactly the Torment affected NoSiLion is a little hazy, but I seem to recall that he would lock up not when he hurt someone but exactly at the moment he knew he was going to hurt someone. He was able to maneuver his own body into positions that would block/trip or otherwise "harm" someone and it was at the moment he knew it would that he'd lock up. So it seems to me, as in all things, Intent (knowledge and intention) to do a thing that "may" cause "harm" to someone is the limiter for the Torment, at least in Sig's case. And since we have no information on how it works with Hoid other than "what is happening to Sigzil is on a level beyond what happened to Hoid," this is the best indicator of what we can expect with Hoid's own affliction from the Dawnshard.

My thoughts on this are that any Awakening Command given by Hoid would have in its Intent his own restrictions against causing physical harm. 

 

16 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Purely hypothetical, but lets say Hoid awakened Nightblood. Would he be locked up everytime Nightblood destroys? Or would Nightblood be considered sentient enough that he would be a separate entity?

If the Awakening were done by Hoid in this purely hypothetical situation, and everything else about it was exactly the same: Same Command, same "complex visualization", same breaths, same ambiguous "help" from Endowment; I think one of two things would happen.
 

• It wouldn't work at all
• OR It would work, but Nightblood as we know it would be completely different, molded by the inherent Intent to cause no harm. 

I like the latter option more, because it's more interesting. "Destroy" does typically imply causing harm, however, I don't think that Hoid would be restricted from, say, slicing a rock into smaller pieces. That is also "destroying" something. So there is a way to interpret "Destroy Evil" that doesn't involve actively causing physical harm to living things. I'm not creative enough to come up with examples at the moment, but I suspect, if it went this way, everything would be different.
 

15 hours ago, alder24 said:

If Hoid awakens a lifeless, could that lifeless cause harm?

Same thing, either Hoid would be unable to awaken a Lifeless with the same one breath Command/Intent as everyone else, he'd have to use a more complex Command/Intent that would safeguard it against causing harm to living things, OR Hoid could use the same one breath Command/Intent, but bundled into that, his own perception of the Intent would prevent it from causing harm. So even if he were to give someone else the command code to give that lifeless orders, the Lifeless would have written into its own sDNA Hoid's own restrictions.

16 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Can Hoid (after tress) simply not draw aons that could potentially hurt someone?

I'm sure he can draw them, but only if he is reasonably convinced (to his own standards) that no one will by directly harmed by his drawing of those Aons. I'm not sure where the line stops with these restrictions, however. Does secondary harm count? Like, if Hoid were to draw an Aon that blew up a piece of a wall, sending debris flying. There is a chance that debris could land on someone and hurt them that way. Hoid would know that, he's been around long enough and understands enough of physics and Investiture and everything else, that he'd have to know that is a possibility. So...would he be able to blow up the wall? Or would he have to blow up the wall in such a way that he was certain there would be no collateral damage?

[Storyspren]

There is only one other person we have seen shapeshift like that and only one time. Vasher in Warbreaker.

I therefore give you a brand new cherry flavored conspiracy. Move over Stormfaker, make room for:

WITFAKER!

Vasher is pretending to be Wit.

Further proof is that scene where Wit gets the guy to punch him in order to knock out his teeth. Why not just transform? Bam. Witfaker.

 

[+robardin he/him]

My impression on reading that scene for the first time is that Hoid was going through all his caches of Investiture -- i.e., exercising all Cosmere magic forms involving Investiture that he had on him -- to kind of do a "reconciliation and systems check" scan, once he realized his Breaths-as-memory-store had been tampered with, checking for any further inconsistencies.

And part of that operation involved temporarily rebooting whatever magic he's using to modify his appearance to be more Alethi (notably, his height).

After all, at least some of you should be old enough to remember doing this if your Windows installation started going funny, back in the day:

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

My impression on reading that scene for the first time is that Hoid was going through all his caches of Investiture -- i.e., exercising all Cosmere magic forms involving Investiture that he had on him -- to kind of do a "reconciliation and systems check" scan, once he realized his Breaths-as-memory-store had been tampered with, checking for any further inconsistencies.

And part of that operation involved temporarily rebooting whatever magic he's using to modify his appearance to be more Alethi (notably, his height).

After all, at least some of you should be old enough to remember doing this if your Windows installation started going funny, back in the day:

YES! This was exactly what I thought too. It seemed like everything we saw was part of a very complex process that he was intimately familiar with. He was going through his stored investiture, testing his various magical abilities, and apparently even measuring everything out to calculate how many minutes of memories were missing and which ones they were. 

It reminded me of Nomad in Sunlit Man having Aux check his investiture levels - how many BEU's etc. This seemed like Hoid's own version of that.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

23 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

YES! This was exactly what I thought too. It seemed like everything we saw was part of a very complex process that he was intimately familiar with. He was going through his stored investiture, testing his various magical abilities, and apparently even measuring everything out to calculate how many minutes of memories were missing and which ones they were.

Exactly, but that has consequences

• he has to check all abilities (or at least a subset of abilities for each system)
• there is no point in checking a preawakened object
• there is also very little point in powering magic systems with alien fuels. He needs normal operations checked.

We can also make some speculations. As this is a preplanned procedure, he will want to be able to run it under dangerous circumstances, as dangers are most likely to do damage he needs to test for. So I would assume that the tests are run under a copper cloud. That was what impacted the fabrials. He does not want to shine like a beacon while he's testing himself.

Hence if we did not see a system during that scene either

• Hoid does not have it
• The test is invisible
• A test would require specialized equipment or resources (I doubt he'd lug around a human skeleton to test his bloodsealing.)

Not that I am saying that it is likely that Hoid is a bloodsealer. In fact he did not demonstrate anything Selish.

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

He doesn't get the AonDor until Tress, which I believe is set during the Cosmere space age? So that's get another few hundred years into the future. And it was a few hundred years between becoming a Mistborn and getting Surgebinding. 

Was Yumi before or after Tress, does someone know? 

[Crustin]

On 9/24/2024 at 8:06 AM, Master Silver said:

Also, it is worth noting that perhaps Hoid keeps lots of breaths somewhere else. So maybe he only has 200 or so on him at a time. Breath is very expensive but he probably has a cave filled with gold or something. Also, is it possible to use the investiture from a different magic system to fuel biochromatic commands?

The breaths are in the flute he gave to Kaladin as a backup/safekeeping! And maybe in his other instruments. Maybe some worldsingers, such as Sigzil, know where his Cognitive Realm base is and that's where all his other instruments with breaths are hidden.