Savantism's Nature (4th hypothesis)

[Trusk'our he/him]

I've come up with some proposals for the mechanics behind the nature of Savantism in the past. I have another proposal that I think has some merit, and if true could really change how Savantism is viewed and how it can be utilized. 

My latest hypothesis is that when a person uses an Invested Art, the Investiture must flow through their soul- their Spiritweb- in order to pick up on the user's Intent and echo it.

However, if the Spiritweb becomes too strained, cracks will form, as is normal. However, with Investiture flowing through the structure, it can now seep into those cracks, binding to the Spiritweb and forming a kind of growth. A callous on the spiritual aspect.

This unnatural growth of Investiture on the Spiritweb I think could be like Nomad's Dawnsliverism- Investiture that enhances in the right places, but restricts in others (could also be compared to a Koloss's spikes- it isn't purely beneficial, as the additional Investiture recontextualizes much of the rest of the Spiritweb, which can have negative effects elsewhere, such as a Tineye Savant having very dull senses when not burning tin).

 

If it is a growth of Investiture on the Spiritweb (instead of Connections being rewritten, Identity/Rhythms being altered, or just a deeper "bonding" of the practitioner's power), then it should be spikable, similar to Nomad being able to siphon off his. It also means you should be able to use Savants as a way of generating Investiture that can charge Hemalurgic spikes, maybe even lead to new kind of constructs or generate Innate Investiture that can be spiked without needing to permanently damage the donor.

Now, I want to address the biggest contending piece of evidence: the WoB that says Savantism just isn't transferrable via Hemalurgy.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/77-shadows-of-self-lansing-signing/#e6816

CealdishOrbLender

Can being an Allomantic Savant be transferred through Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

A Savant cannot be, good question. No one's asked me that before.

I will freely admit that this does put a damper on this idea of mine, but I do think it's possible Brandon will have changed his mind about how Savantism may work now that ten years have past and that he's written the Sunlit man (with a Savant-like thing going on there, at least to my own perspective).

I'll also say while I like this idea, this being the 4th hypothesis of mine on the topic is definitely making me more open minded to it just being wrong or only being partially true.

[Treamayne]

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I will freely admit that this does put a damper on this idea of mine, but I do think it's possible Brandon will have changed his mind about how Savantism may work now that ten years have past and that he's written the Sunlit man (with a Savant-like thing going on there, at least to my own perspective).

I think the WoB sounds more like "If you spike Savant Tin - the spike receiver does not gain Savant Tin" not "You cannot spike the investiture that created the Savant nature."

[NeverTrustAesSedai He/Him]

I think you could probably spike the Investiture out of them, but it wouldn't have any 'cracks' to fit into in the Spiritweb of whoever you spiked it into, so it wouldn't work.

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

On 10/26/2025 at 12:15 AM, Trusk'our said:

If it is a growth of Investiture on the Spiritweb (instead of Connections being rewritten, Identity/Rhythms being altered, or just a deeper "bonding" of the practitioner's power), then it should be spikable, similar to Nomad being able to siphon off his. It also means you should be able to use Savants as a way of generating Investiture that can charge Hemalurgic spikes, maybe even lead to new kind of constructs or generate Innate Investiture that can be spiked without needing to permanently damage the donor.

Now, I want to address the biggest contending piece of evidence: the WoB that says Savantism just isn't transferrable via Hemalurgy.

I don't see how it being a growth of investiture on the spiritweb would be countered by the fact that savantism can't be transferred hemalurgically. The theory feels pretty sound even with that fact.

I imagine the scenario like this: There's a specific point in the spiritweb in which that allomantic ability is stored. That part is made to withstand the flow of investiture from using allomancy. However, the rest of your spiritweb isn't, and extended channeling of investiture through your spiritweb will cause lots of stress on it, causing it to develop micro-fractures that the investiture builds up in (I imagine it to be like plaque building up in an artery over time). In this case, the savantism isn't "stored" in the place of your spiritweb where the allomantic ability is, it is in fact almost everywhere BUT there. So when you spike out the allomancy from someone, you are removing the one portion of their spiritweb that isn't affected by the savantism.

In this case, I suppose if you were to spike an allomancer for a non-allomantic attribute (like physical strength or senses, for example), it would take some of the contaminated spiritweb with it. But I think that contaminated part would be small enough compared to your own spiritweb that it wouldn't really be noticeable (since the savantism would be the result of almost the entirety of someone's spiritweb being contaminated in this way).

Edited October 27, 2025 by DracoAdamantus
Formatting, spelling, quote added