msh Kelsier's Weakness

[Shatter He/Him]

If someone ripped Kelsier's steel spike that is in his eye out, would that turn him back into a cognitive shadow? Would there be any other effects other than the Ghostbloods suddenly losing their leader. Also, how large does the spike have to be to hold his cognitive shadow to his physical body? Any other interesting things about that spike?

[AleStaar he/him]

Kelsier is still a Cognitive Shadow. The spike keeps him stapled to his body, but he is still a mostly a Cognitive being lacking ties to the Physical Realm. We don't even know what metal the spike is made of. I presume if the spike was ripped out, he would return back to the Cognitive Realm. In Hemalurgy, the spike's size doesn't matter as much as the type of metal or positioning. Though I could be wrong, considering the Set's experiment.

Edited February 19, 2025 by Ale the Metallic Conjurer

[Shatter He/Him]

17 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Kelsier is still a Cognitive Shadow. The spike keeps him stapled to his body, but he is still a mostly a Cognitive being lacking ties to the Physical Realm. We don't even know what metal the spike is made of. I presume if the spike was ripped out, he would return back to the Cognitive Realm. In Hemalurgy, the spike's size doesn't matter as much as the type of metal or positioning. Though I could be wrong, considering the Set's experiment.

The Coppermind states that the spike is steel. I believe that is mentioned in the second arc of Mistborn. Also, wouldn't a smaller spike not be able to hold as much Investiture as a larger spike. Investiture does take up space, and it is interchangeable with energy and matter, as per Khriss's Second Law of Investiture. 

[Duxredux he/him]

So a couple things of interesting things to chip in to this conversation.

First, the size of the metal and the Investiture storage does not scale like you might expect. The relationship is not linear, it's kind of like there are size classes for the storage.

Spoiler

Questioner

I was wondering if the size of a piece of metal determines the amount of Feruchemical charge that can be stored in it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So how does that scale, like, in terms of the volume or mass of the metal or...

Brandon Sanderson

It-- So I've talked about this before, I'm trying to remember exactly what I've told people-- It does not scale as logically as you think it does. How about that? It's more like certain thresholds. You can have a-- You can store a Hemalurgic or Feruchemical charge even in very small pieces of metal, but larger pieces of metal will let you get more.

Questioner

So it's kind of like there are different classes of sizes?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, kind of like that.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

Second, it's worth noting that Hemalurgy has two distinct process that can be used together or separately. The first is harvesting a portion of a Spiritweb using a spike. The second is implanting an Invested spike into a recipient, hotwiring it into their Spiritweb. For example, if you take any Invested spike and stick it into a Kandra, it will still function as a Hemalurgic spike, piercing into the Spiritual Realm presumably bridging their Cognitive block.

Spoiler

Questioner

Could [REDACTED] theoretically be turned into a Hemalurgic spike?

Brandon Sanderson

The problem with that is that [REDACTED] is already invested, so it depends on your version of ' Hemalurgic spikes'. Piercing someone's body with Invested metal can have weird effects all through the Cosmere, but ripping off a piece of a person's soul using an un-Invested spike to Invest it and create one is different... we're talking about two different things, right. So there's the.... so what is a Hemalurgic spike? For instance if you've got a spike that's Invested and you stick it into a Kandra on Scadrial it will still work as an Invested Hemalurgic spike. Making a new Invested spike by ripping off a person's soul, that's a different process and a little more difficult to accomplish and requires some specialized knowledge.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)

Next question, @The Shattered Cosmere could I get a citation for where it says Kelsier's spike is made out of steel? The only place I can find that is on the Hemalurgy table for the right orbit and as far as I can tell it's conflating the location of the spike with the material. I looked up the the cited chapter (TLM 40), and I can't find a specified material for the spike mentioned anywhere. Because of that, I'm still not sure on the material of the spike, nor if it even is Invested by the usual Hemalurgic process. The implanting of the spike, so long as it is Invested, should still anchor Kelsier's soul to the new body, but the question of he's tacked on like a sheet of paper to a piece of cardboard or if the spike itself holds the entirety of his Cognitive Shadow still seems uncertain. I wouldn't put it past Kelsier to put in a fail safe so that if the rest of his body gets obliterated but the spike survives, just drop it onto another Mistwraith and he's back at it. That said, Cosmere spoilers

Spoiler

This one seems less likely considering we've seen some Cognitive Shadows put in containers and ended up degrading. I'm not going to rule it out though, since we've seen other entities trapped in remarkably small containers with apparently little downsides other than being stuck. Kelsier having been Preserved by Preservation may have a longer shelf life than most.

I think it's pretty much pure speculation though, if the spike were removed if the Cognitive Shadow would just pop off and be able to run away, if he would still be anchored to the spike, or what. I'm guessing that even if the spike were removed he could still regain a borrowed body via Hemalurgy, that it wouldn't kill him outright, but no idea on any other complications.