Piercings of the Hero

[Oudeis]

Am I the only person who wonders who died to give Alendi the Piercings of the Hero?

[king of nowhere]

yeah, i wonder how ruin could influence things so that those piercings could get a charge. ii mean, putting in the prophecy that the hero will get some ritual piercings is quite easy, but making sure that the ppiercings had killed a person before... unless terris society was ok with human sacrifice in the first place.

[Dunkum]

Well, we have WoB that you don't necessarily need to die, the spike just needs to hit blood to steal an attribute, so it is possible there is some ritual blood-sharing/piercing ceremony.

 

another possibility would be that ruin was able to influence someone in the past to create a spike, and then create a ritual by which it would be passed down.  in this way a centuries old earring or whatever might make its way to Alendi.

 

a third, albeit highly specific an perhaps unlikely, possibility is that the Terris culture, or possibly one of the other extant cultures, could have ritual after killing someone (after a warrior's first kill perhaps) that involves melting down the weapon and making piercings from it.

 

I'm not easily coming up with something that isn't a ritual of some variety, since that would have an element of certainty, though I guess it is also possible that, with 1000 years to plan, Ruin was able to manipulate events just right, even with his limited power, but he isn't known to be good with the whole foresight thing, so that seems a bit unlikely.

[Oudeis]

By this point, Alendi has been forced to kill enemies and friends alike, send armies to conquer cities. So while Terris culture might not be down with generic human sacrifice, perhaps some specific prophecy spoke of the proper ritual for executing a rebel king, or something.

 

I tend to think ritual because we know Ruin found that a convenient way to control people.

 

If you think about it... really how did he manage all that? We know Ruin can only tell that someone has allomancy when they use it, and we know Alendi was Snapped by the Mists. So sometime after Snapping, Alendi had to someone ingest some bronze for some reason, and then burn it, all without allomancy even being a thing. Instinctively burning pewter when your body is in trouble, or tin when you're straining your ears, that I can buy, but bronze? Vin is one of the most powerful Mistborn of her era, and she barely feels her own Luck enough from the groundwater of a place with atypically high metal content to play around with it. What on earth could have happened to let Ruin know he'd found his Seeker to groom as the Hero?

 

And for that matter, he had to do it at least twice, to get at least one properly charged earring. That's even assuming that two incredibly weak Seekers were even enough to hear the Well. The plural Piercings of the Hero might imply Ruin had to find at least three Seekers.

 

 

Well, we have WoB that you don't necessarily need to die

 

This gets tossed around a lot... the actual quote makes it clear that it's never going to be as simple as "oops a splinter" nor is there any reason to assume anyone ever figured out how to steal non-fatally, and also goes on to say that even if they didn't die, they would still have suffered a grave wound to their very soul.

 

Also, Ruin had successfully gotten people to conquer and slay to follow his prophecies. Even if he could, why would he only wound when he could kill?

[Dunkum]

I'm inclined to agree about the non-fatal possibility, honestly.  I threw it out there because we do know it's possible, but it just isn't in Ruin's nature, unless there was no other way he could come up with.

 

I'm inclined toward my second suggestion, personally.  That Ruin had manipulated some culture to the point that they had some kind of ritual jewelry which had been passed down, and which Alendi then inherited through some means or other, be it conquest, treaty, or whatever.  even the creation of the jewelry could have been influenced by him, so that when he found a seeker, he did his best to get them killed and get the weapon turned into something that could be used as a spike.  Allomancy was uncommon, but it did turn up, from time to time, and over a thousand years, there may have been sufficient Seekers for him to do what he needed, especially if aforementioned culture was particularly warlike (which, under Ruin's influence, they probably would be).  then have say the tribe leader/king/etc. constantly wear/inherit the items, which keeps the charge from decaying too much over time.  finally, when Alendi goes about conquering, he becomes king, and gets the traditional piercings.

[Oudeis]

Hrm, maybe. We do know that pre-Lerasium, it took the Deepness to Snap people even into Mistings. So if it happened, the earring was kept around for a thousand years, since the Deepness had only just returned around the time of Alendi.

[Dunkum]

Hrm, maybe. We do know that pre-Lerasium, it took the Deepness to Snap people even into Mistings. So if it happened, the earring was kept around for a thousand years, since the Deepness had only just returned around the time of Alendi.

hmm, that I wasn't aware of.  it does make it a bit less plausible, though you could still have a whole tribe/nation/etc. under Ruin's influence via Hemalurgy, they'd just have to wait to find a seeker until the Well was almost full.  Do we know for sure that you would actually need to spike a Seeker in order to enhance an existing allomantic ability?  I mean, it seems to be the most likely scenario, based on how the inquisitors went about things, but I'm wondering if there couldn't possibly be some bindpoint and metal combination (other than god metals) that would let you enhance an ability without stealing that same ability.

[Oudeis]

Do we know for sure that you would actually need to spike a Seeker in order to enhance an existing allomantic ability?

 

That we know of hemalurgy, admittedly the least well-known of the Arts, yes. That said, if there's someone who could do it, it would be Ruin.

[Moogle]

That we know of hemalurgy, admittedly the least well-known of the Arts, yes. That said, if there's someone who could do it, it would be Ruin.

 

There is a WoB suggesting (to me anyways) that you don't need to spike a Seeker, necessarily:

Satsuoni ()

You said that every person on Scadrial has a bit of Preservation in them. It is possible, then, to accumulate enough Hemalurgic charge from killing normal people by, say, steel spike (at once, or in order), to make that spike grant Allomancy? Building on this, is it possible for the spike to accumulate charge while being imbedded in acceptor body, by killing people with the protruding end?

Brandon Sanderson

My, you're making the Scadrial magic systems sound a lot like the one from Nalthis.... Hm....

(source)

 

I am not saying I find this likely, only that it is a compelling possibility. I could see Alendi's piercings having obtained their charge from killing hundreds of regular Scadrians.

[Oudeis]

Hrm... I can see Alendi not feeling comfortable mentioning in his logbook that per prophecy he had a tendency to slay people by stabbing them through the heart with his ear...

 

(btw, my full geek-out is prolly best reserved for another thread, but I am still reeling from the answer you got on reddit about burn rates)

 

So I thought I had mentioned this but I see I didn't... I don't actually think the power of the charge is an issue in this specific case. We know Ruin is good at directly powering allomancy when it's granted via hemalurgic spike. I figure that's what's happening here.

 

Towards the end of the book Well of Ascension, Vin comments that she hears the thumping of the well even when she's not burning bronze. But that doesn't really make sense. It'd be like saying, my high-speed internet is so fast, I can check 17th Shard without even turning my computer on. And we've discussed the fact that after years of neglect, her earring's charge should have withered to uselessness.

 

But Ruin powering it fills in all those holes. It doesn't matter how weak the charge is; as long as Ruin is providing high octane fuel, all that matters is that she's technically using bronze allomancy powered by hemalurgy. And even if she's not currently using bronze, maybe Ruin can just make it work, anyway, hotwiring it since it's his power. That would explain why she hears it with her bronze off.

 

I personally think that you are extrapolating way, way too much from the quote you provided. His one cryptic comment is in absolutely no way justification to assume that you can stab allomancy out of any Scadrian; if that were the case, why did Ruin need to wait for a Mistborn to be born with a Seeker sibling? Wouldn't literally any noble, or even any skaa, work exactly as well? Someone asked a question and the answer was to say that the question looked like an attempt to hack one system with another. And he's explicitly said that he's years if not a decade away from giving us answers to those kind of cross cosmere questions. If anything, his answer was basically a RAFO.

 

The question suggests that you don't need to spike a Seeker, the only way the answer "suggests" the same is by saying "I will not answer that" rather than giving a flat denial. It's the philosophy of the fifth amendment, which only works if you always use it. If he gave us flat denials for every time the answer actually was no, then the times he equivocates like this would stand out, and then it would actually mean something. He's going to give us this sort of answer a thousand time, and nine hundred of them are going to be things he could say no to, just to disguise the hundred that aren't.

[Moogle]

I rather like the idea of Ruin directly powering Alendi's bronze. It makes a lot more sense than anything else suggested. Good theory. (An alternative theory just came to me: maybe Ruin was faking the pulses Alendi/Vin heard? He can implant hallucinations like Reen, maybe he could go even farther and make them feel things that don't exist. He did know where the Well was. I do think the pulses were an actual thing, but maybe Ruin faked them during the times when Alendi/Vin were not burning bronze.)

 

As to the spike thing, we have direct speculation from Harmony!Sazed that the re-used koloss spikes might have granted the koloss more humanity. Because of this, I think you can maybe at least 'top off' weak spikes. (Take a weak Seeker spike, spike another Seeker with it, and maybe you can get a stronger spike than what you got originally.) You are entirely correct that Ruin should have been killing hundreds to get Allomantic spikes if this theory were true, which is a very strong objection I should have thought of myself and basically kills the theory.

 

I am not quite ready to dismiss the theory entirely however. At least, I think a weaker version of the theory may be true, albeit still quite unlikely. (As noted, I never found it likely anyways, merely compelling.) It may simply be a matter of scale: only 1/1000 Scadrians may be Mistings of the metal you want (and super super weak Mistings at that), so you'll have to spike, say, a hundred thousand skaa to get enough of a Hemalurgic charge to make someone a Misting, and you can't spike that many people before the spike decays too much.

 

Here's a question: can one spike hold two Hemalurgic charges, like a metalmind can hold charges from two Feruchemists?

 

Because sDNA is at least partially similar to regular DNA, we might be able to theorize that you can get one gene from one skaa, then another gene from another skaa (if you're lucky), and finally when you hit the thousands you can grant some weak Allomancy. But then, we know so little of sDNA that I cannot put this forward as anything other than unsupported speculation.

 

And as to reading too much into it... very possibly. However, Brandon does have a phrase he uses when he doesn't want to answer a question: RAFO. He didn't use it here. So i think I am slightly more inclined to extrapolate it from you, though I do agree it's a pretty big jump and overwhelmingly unlikely to be true.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Moogle

[ParadoxicalZen]

Question: Were the Piercings of the Hero confirmed as actually ear piercings? Could they have been something like a lip/nose ring or perhaps dermal piercings (or maybe Alendi was a huge fan of body modding and got metal spikes implanted) Or something similar to TLR's arm bands?  

 

Personally I'm a fan of the Ritual Killing/Sacrifice method (although it would help if we actually knew the rate of Haemalurgic Decay) Do we even know if Haemalurgy was known of pre-FE (maybe as a hushed, Dark Alley, hand-gesture-to-ward-against-evil kinda thing)?

[Oudeis]

That I know of, we do not know that the Piercings were earrings. I said it earlier just for the very silly mental image, not because I know it was there. (I happen to believe they were in his ears but that's just head!canon.) In the book series, that I know of, we've seen three different spike placements that would work to grant allomantic bronze; Vin has her earring, Quellion had it in his arm, and Inquisitors got it between two ribs. Any of those three, or any of the potentially many, many other bindpoints (I believe Marsh says there are somewhere between 200 and 300 on the human body) could have been used.

 

I wonder when Quellion got spiked, and I wonder if he could feel the Well... Though, the spike was his first allomantic bronze, yes? Do we know if he was independently a Seeker first?

 

As for, was hemalurgy known back then? I would assume no, not explicitly. Obviously it was part of their ritual if there were Piercings of the Hero, but they probably didn't know what they were doing, any more than Alendi realized he was an allomancer, since he didn't know allomancy existed.

 

Moogle: I think academically we're on the same page. From what we know, this WoB included, there's no more cause to believe the theory than to believe that one of the alloys of atium will cause wings to sprout from your back and let you fly. That said, we also don't know enough to say that it isn't true. I'm gonna sit here being skeptical, but I'm the last person to tell anyone not to believe something they want to. It's what gets us all excited to read these books, and that's only ever a good thing.

 

There is exactly one flaw I can see in my model of Ruin powering Vin and Alendi: OreSuer's Blessing. Outside of bodies for over a year, it should have withered away to nothing, yet was still incredibly potent. Unless Ruin was directly powering that, we still have one extant example of hemalurgic spikes seeming to circumvent the Law of Hemalurgic Decay. I know the theory that decay is simply so slow that a year doesn't deplete them very long, and still reject it for the same reason that we know seconds matter, days matter, so a year has to matter.

[Dunkum]

As far as using the same spike to steal from multiple people, I wonder if that is even possible.  for starters, it would get harder and harder to add to it as it became more invested, since invested objects resist further investiture.  beyond that, hemalurgy is described as taking a fragment of someones sDNA, essentially a part of their soul, and stapling it to the recipient.  not sure if that sort of action would work with multiple fragments from multiple people.  thats all guesswork of course.

 

for the piercings of the hero, I assume that they had to be something beyond simple ear piercings.  that could mean the object used to pierce was itself considered special (per my suggestion above) or it could mean that the piercings are somewhere other than just the ear lobe.

 

on my question of enhancing allomancy without spiking another seeker, the thought I had in mind was that you could maybe use a spike to steal a little bit of someone's connection to Preservation, and that this could act as a generic allomancy enhancement (e.g. similar to my understanding of why Elend is stronger than Vin).  it seems like this isn't the sort of thing Ruin would actually want to do, but I thought it worth asking from a purely academic standpoint.

[ParadoxicalZen]

Weren't the blessings two spikes combined/paired or am i just remembering wrongly (again)? If i'm not and that is the case, perhaps that could offer some resistance to decay (don't ask how, but blessings are different from normal spikes). It is interesting where the first/second/third/etc.etc. get the spikes to make new generations (or was that covered in book?)

[Dunkum]

Weren't the blessings two spikes combined/paired or am i just remembering wrongly (again)? If i'm not and that is the case, perhaps that could offer some resistance to decay (don't ask how, but blessings are different from normal spikes). It is interesting where the first/second/third/etc.etc. get the spikes to make new generations (or was that covered in book?)

the kandra each had a pair of spikes, but that shouldn't matter outside of a body, where hemalurgic decay takes effect.   unless you are suggesting the spikes aresomehoe bonded to each other even then, but I don't think we've seen anythign to suggest you can do that.

 

I'd have to double check, but I think they mention in the book that TLR would give them a new batch when they needed them.

[ParadoxicalZen]

the kandra each had a pair of spikes, but that shouldn't matter outside of a body, where hemalurgic decay takes effect.   unless you are suggesting the spikes aresomehoe bonded to each other even then, but I don't think we've seen anythign to suggest you can do that.

 

I'd have to double check, but I think they mention in the book that TLR would give them a new batch when they needed them.

Well, even though norm spikes and blessings are both Haemalurgical in nature, yet given how they differ, it could offer some (very little but still) explanation. Do we have confirmation that Haemalurgic Decay is total, meaning do spikes decay until there is no charge left or is it more like radioactive half-life where it'll keep decaying until it stabilises?

Edited July 14, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[Oudeis]

blessings are different from normal spikes

 

I'm gonna repeat Dunkum's question... I don't know that they actually do function differently. Two iron spikes placed in a mistwraith make it supernaturally strong, the way two iron spikes placed in a human would. Just because we see them used in pairs and given a special name doesn't mean they're actually fundamentally different.

 

 

Do we have confirmation that Haemalurgic Decay is total

 

We do not have confirmation that it is total. However, we know that with allomantic imbues, which are noted to decay faster, they lose measurable power in seconds, and are significantly reduced after days. We don't have hard numbers but I for one would find it odd in the extreme if an imbue for physical might could sit outside of a body for a full year without seeming to lose any potency.

[ParadoxicalZen]

I'm gonna repeat Dunkum's question... I don't know that they actually do function differently. Two iron spikes placed in a mistwraith make it supernaturally strong, the way two iron spikes placed in a human would. Just because we see them used in pairs and given a special name doesn't mean they're actually fundamentally different.

 

 

 

We do not have confirmation that it is total. However, we know that with allomantic imbues, which are noted to decay faster, they lose measurable power in seconds, and are significantly reduced after days. We don't have hard numbers but I for one would find it odd in the extreme if an imbue for physical might could sit outside of a body for a full year without seeming to lose any potency.

True it doesn't, but I just found it an odd scenario. It could just simply be, that when stealing human attributes that the Law of Decay may just affect them differently (or at least at a slower rate)

[natc]

You keep insisting that blessings differ from normal spikes?

If anything the most absurd decay we should've seen is Vin's bronze, yet it is still strong enough to pierce copperclouds after all that.

Edited July 15, 2015 by natc

[ParadoxicalZen]

You keep insisting that blessings differ from normal spikes?

If anything the most absurd decay we should've seen is Vin's bronze, yet it is still strong enough to pierce copperclouds after all that.

Not insisting, just stating that i found it an odd scenario but i'm with you on Vin's earring. Granted, she was oddly strong allomancer anyway but it still is weird

 

EDIT: Found this WoB about the Piercing's purpose

 

 

Interview: Oct, 2008

Hero of Ages Q&A - TWG (Verbatim)

VegasDev (16 October 2008)

Alendi's "Piercings of the Hero"?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

This is part of the manipulation Ruin did during the classical era on Scadrial, before the coming of the Lord Ruler. Piercings, and Hemalurgy, were part of the world before the coming of Allomancy in its modern form. Then, they were seen as a means of communicating with deity—which, indeed, they were. Ruin manipulated this to make sure any Hero of Ages who came would be under his influence. The reference is included mostly to indicate that yes, Alendi was under Ruin's influence. He ignored Rashek, though. (At least, right up to the moment when everything went 'wrong' for Ruin, when Rashek killed his chosen Hero of Ages.)

 

Emphasis mine. I'm definitely leaning towards ritual sacrifice now, perhaps even a willing one, especially if a religious sect or something similar managed to acquire/interpret the corrupted prophecies. Makes me wonder if there was some sort of tome/tablet of Haemalurgical practices/methods during this era, which would explain as how they knew what to do. 

Edited July 19, 2015 by ParadoxSpren