Health and Hemalurgy

[Trusk'our he/him]

When a person uses Investiture to heal themselves, it typically works by aligning their physical body with their Spiritweb, filtered through their perception of self. It's even possible to repair the Spiritweb by grafting on new pieces, or to overwrite innate conditions like Renarin's poor eyesight. In fact, one could spike out a portion of their Spiritweb, then replace it with gold Feruchemy if they had enough Investiture. 

But, what if a person has something spliced into them via Hemalurgy and they try to heal it away? 

True, their Spiritweb has been altered now, but their perception does not necessarily fit with the change. 

So, say Renarin gets pinged by Mraize with a random spike in a scuffle, or Miles gets forcibly "adopted" by a group of aggressive Koloss. Could a supercharged healing overwrite the contents of the spikes themselves since they're contrary to the self-image of their bearers? 

It's entirely possible the spikes are simply pushed outside of the body, the warping is temporarily resisted until the health runs out, or maybe the foreign Spiritweb fragments are just straight up obliterated. 

But I think it would be particularly interesting if they got overwritten in the least energy consuming manner, leaving the spike bearer with subtle changes, but maybe still with some power from the spikes. Basically an add on to attributes (probably in a direct manner like the way Kandra benefit from Blessings, which wouldn't interfere so much with their perception), but stacking them in such a way that they don't necessarily corrupt what you are. 

Regardless, I doubt the cost would be particularly worth it (assuming overwriting Hemalurgic spikes' abilities with health works at all), as it would probably take a lot of health to do- but it might be a unique interaction, at least.

Edited April 14, 2025 by Trusk'our

[therunner he/him]

Well, some Inquisitors have healing, and neither of this happened.

It seemed they simply healed as if the spikes were their usual part of body. But then again, Inquisitors were Hemalurgic Constructs, not just people with spikes.

I would expect they would be pushed out, though it might depend on the perception.

But I don't think healing would let you revert any warping, as that seems to me the function of how the added attribute actually manifests (spike Pewter, you get more muscles, spike senses from dogs, you end up dog-like (Chimeras)). Removal of the warping would also remove the beneficial effect.

Kandra's Blessings are somehow special spikes + Kandra are shapeshifters with large control of their biology, so they can likely subsume any changes spikes are forcing on their body.

[alder24]

I don't think this would be even possible. Hemalurgy rewrites your spirit web, Hemalurgic spikes not only become a part of your body (body shifts to accommodate the spike), but also a part of your spirit web and your Spiritual Ideal. Hemalurgic Constructs are not even humans anymore, so the use of perception is even trickier. 

I don't think you could even use healing to push the spike out of your body. It would be like trying to cut off your arm with healing - sounds impossible to me. Even Hoid needed to get smacked in the face to remove his teeth, it seems like he couldn't just heal them out, or add a bruise to his face with healing. Perception can do a lot of things, but you're still limited by your spirit web and Hemalurgic spikes are a part of it.

OB epilogue:

Quote

Well, repeating all that in Thaylen would be monotonous. So Wit cut in front of the man in line. This finally provoked a response. The beefy man grabbed Wit and spun him around, then punched him right in the face.
Wit fell backward onto the stone ground. The line continued its shuffling motion, the occupants refusing to look at him. Cautiously, he prodded at his mouth. Yes … it seemed …
One of his teeth popped out. “Success!” he said in Thaylen, speaking with a faint lisp. “Thank you, dear man. I’m glad you appreciate my performance art, accomplished by cutting in front of you.”

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 4/14/2025 at 2:05 AM, therunner said:

Well, some Inquisitors have healing, and neither of this happened.

It seemed they simply healed as if the spikes were their usual part of body. But then again, Inquisitors were Hemalurgic Constructs, not just people with spikes.

. . .

But I don't think healing would let you revert any warping, as that seems to me the function of how the added attribute actually manifests (spike Pewter, you get more muscles, spike senses from dogs, you end up dog-like (Chimeras)). Removal of the warping would also remove the beneficial effect.

 

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't think this would be even possible. Hemalurgy rewrites your spirit web, Hemalurgic spikes not only become a part of your body (body shifts to accommodate the spike), but also a part of your spirit web and your Spiritual Ideal. Hemalurgic Constructs are not even humans anymore, so the use of perception is even trickier. 

I don't think you could even use healing to push the spike out of your body. It would be like trying to cut off your arm with healing - sounds impossible to me. Even Hoid needed to get smacked in the face to remove his teeth, it seems like he couldn't just heal them out, or add a bruise to his face with healing. Perception can do a lot of things, but you're still limited by your spirit web and Hemalurgic spikes are a part of it.

Those are fair points.

Hemalurgy overwrites the Spiritweb into something new, so the ideal self is now something different from what you were before. 

However, the Cognitive Aspect still dictates a lot of stuff. It can even change anatomy that people were born with, like poor eyesight and epilepsy (Renarin), bodily deformities (Godeke), and even fully change biological sex (Ral-na).

If it's possible to overwrite the spikes with health I don't think it would be easy. Probably on the same level as Kaladin regrowing his arm's functionality after being cut by Szeth, probably even harder because you're trying to change a pre-existing Investiture than just grafting on a new piece.

So, what if in the proposed scenarios Renarin was juiced up by Dalinar's open Perpendicularity, or Miles was boosted by a Set Nicroburst? As I understand it, the more you're Invested (which I think extra health coded Investiture will help with), the more what you want to be comes into play than what's pre-determined.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/451-tor-instagram-livestream/#e14448

Questioner

A character in The Stormlight Archive who eventually was able to heal of a wound. An old wound, and normally healing old wounds, with Regrowth, can't be healed.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a limitation of healing someone else, versus healing yourself. Healing someone else is a weaker method, at least as it's understood by the Radiants currently. Figuring out how to make Regrowth fix older wounds is more difficult. When you are highly Invested in such a way that you have a spren bond, then you are able to kind of rewrite your Spiritual self to better match your Cognitive self. Basically, what your soul is better comes to match your perception of your soul and who you are, and who you want to be becomes more important. And because of that, the Radiant bond is able to heal things and even change physiology that normal Regrowth wouldn't be capable of doing.

 

[therunner he/him]

9 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

However, the Cognitive Aspect still dictates a lot of stuff. It can even change anatomy that people were born with, like poor eyesight and epilepsy (Renarin), bodily deformities (Godeke), and even fully change biological sex (Ral-na).

It less dictates, and more filters.

Renarin never saw himself as inherently ill, he saw those things as 'external' to who he is, so they got healed.
Same with Godeke.

Ral-na could be that the spiritweb is their 'true' gender so to speak, so healing just works as usual, but I'd rather not go into too much speculation on that.

Rysn on the other hand internalized it, and so cannot be healed (at least so far) with Investiture.

But human couldn't heal themselves to have wings, no matter how much they thought about that.

9 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

If it's possible to overwrite the spikes with health I don't think it would be easy. Probably on the same level as Kaladin regrowing his arm's functionality after being cut by Szeth, probably even harder because you're trying to change a pre-existing Investiture than just grafting on a new piece.

Kaladin regrowing his arm after being cut is rather basic application of healing, it is literally just straight up damage.

You are trying to use healing to overwrite different Investiture with something else, that you want to mold according to your Intent. I think that is far beyond the scope of healing, and more into the realm of Awakening (programmable Investiture).

9 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

So, what if in the proposed scenarios Renarin was juiced up by Dalinar's open Perpendicularity, or Miles was boosted by a Set Nicroburst? As I understand it, the more you're Invested (which I think extra health coded Investiture will help with), the more what you want to be comes into play than what's pre-determined.

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/451-tor-instagram-livestream/#e14448

Questioner

A character in The Stormlight Archive who eventually was able to heal of a wound. An old wound, and normally healing old wounds, with Regrowth, can't be healed.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a limitation of healing someone else, versus healing yourself. Healing someone else is a weaker method, at least as it's understood by the Radiants currently. Figuring out how to make Regrowth fix older wounds is more difficult. When you are highly Invested in such a way that you have a spren bond, then you are able to kind of rewrite your Spiritual self to better match your Cognitive self. Basically, what your soul is better comes to match your perception of your soul and who you are, and who you want to be becomes more important. And because of that, the Radiant bond is able to heal things and even change physiology that normal Regrowth wouldn't be capable of doing.

 

The WoB is not about what you want coming into play, it is about how you fundamentally see yourself.

E.g. Kaladin and his scars, so long as on some level he was himself as someone who is danger to others, he couldn't hide them or remove them, because they were who he is.

So wanting some change is insufficient, it has to be something you have fully internalized about yourself.

[KazKayed]

Strange never really thought about it that much.