Remember your Pewter Bullets

[Pechvarry]

The definitive bloodmaker "hazekiller" rounds.  Miles back from the dead again? Load your pewter bullets and aim for the heart.  I suggest firing several times.  In fact, a shotgun with pewter pellets may not be a bad idea, if you're close enough for it to blow through.

 

Universal theft points are great.

[name_here]

Eh. There are a bunch of unknowns with Hemalurgy.

 

For one, it seems unlikely it's quite as simple as blindly stabbing people with random bits of metal, because people get stabbed in various locations with metal a lot, so there'd be a giant quantity of randomly charged spikes about. Secondly, while we know it's possible to steal powers from people without killing them, it is not entirely clear how and all observed theft was fatal so you might need an additional step for a nonfatal theft, which would be necessary for this to work.

[Pechvarry]

Secondly, while we know it's possible to steal powers from people without killing them, it is not entirely clear how and all observed theft was fatal so you might need an additional step for a nonfatal theft, which would be necessary for this to work.

 

Um.  At risk of sounding far too snarky, what part of shooting someone in the heart would need to be nonfatal?  I guess I'm not understanding where you're going with this.

 

I'm not sure if you need to intend to make a spike for it to happen or if crazy happenstance can result in it (No, Spook's sword tip doesn't count.  We have Ruin providing Intent).  That's for other threads -- we have several discussing that very problem.  

 

At the end of the day, if you know pewter can steal Feruchemical gold, you can fire pewter bullets and hope to hit a theft point.  As with Marsh spiking the random smoker to carry all the way to Penrod, we don't need a donor to steal.  Enough pewter bits through the heart, and suddenly the bloodmaker should realize he can't heal anymore oh crap I'm dead.

[Shardlet he/him]

For this idea, Miles being killed in the process is a definite plus.  The object is to kill the bloodmaker.  The point of the pewter bullets (through the heart) is to rip his bloodmaking ability from him so that he would no longer be able to heal himself.

[name_here]

If shooting a bloodmaker in the heart were fatal, there would be no need to steal his powers in order to kill him by shooting him in the heart.

[Shardlet he/him]

Perhaps, but again, that is not the idea here.  The pewter bullets are intended to act as hemalurgic spikes and passing through the heart of the bloodmaker would charge the spikes and remove that bloodmaker's allomantic and feruchemical ability to heal.  This would then result in the death of the bloodmaker due the gunshot wound. In contrast, a bloodmaker being shot with a lead bullet would not result in the bloodmaker's death since he could then heal.

[Kadrok she/her]

Perhaps, but again, that is not the idea here.  The pewter bullets are intended to act as hemalurgic spikes and passing through the heart of the bloodmaker would charge the spikes and remove that bloodmaker's allomantic and feruchemical ability to heal.  This would then result in the death of the bloodmaker due the gunshot wound. In contrast, a bloodmaker being shot with a lead bullet would not result in the bloodmaker's death since he could then heal.

I think name_here's point is that we don't know enough about how the "non-lethal" spiking works. We know it is possible to steal abilities without killing* but we don't know the mechanics of the situation. For all we know it might be really obscure, and require a whole bunch of other factors we don't know about.

 

If ordinarily someone needs to die for the soul tearing to work, barring x hypothetical factors, then I don't see how the Bloodmaker will lose their ability. Does that make sense? I mean, don't get me wrong it's a cool idea, I just think (and apparently name_here does as well) that we need to know more about how someone could survive being on the wrong end of Hemalurgy, before treating it like it could happen easily.

 

 

*(that is, killing by Hemalurgy... in the scenario you describe, the Bloodmaker dies, certainly, but not due to his soul being torn up. Rather, he dies due to the sudden absence of the ability letting him survive being shot in the heart, if that distinction makes sense)

Edited October 9, 2013 by Kadrok

[Pechvarry]

/>If shooting a bloodmaker in the heart were fatal, there would be no need to steal his powers in order to kill him by shooting him in the heart.

We seem to be disagreeing on causality. I don't see the chicken/egg scenario you portray.

If you can steal Feruchemical gold (you can. Proof: inquisitors), you either kill them outright or leave them unable to heal. Even if they heal enough to live before the bullet exits the body, the very next bullet (regardless of composition!) Will finish the job.

[Shardlet he/him]

Yeah, the point is not to leave the bloodmaker alive.  The point is to kill him.  I don't know if I am not understanding you or you are not understanding me.  Shoot a bloodmaker through the heart with ordinary bullets, he heals and lives.  Shoot him through the heart with pewter bullets, he loses the ability to heal (because the pewter bullet spikes out his ability) and he dies from the bullet wound.

 

I suspect that the physical wound is almost certainly the cause of death for a hemalurgy donor rather than damage to their sDNA or spirit web.  It is tough to survive a spiking through the heart. 

[name_here]

Essentially, we believe you've got the order backwards; the power is stolen after the victim dies.

 

The order of operations under normal circumstances is believed to be as follows:

1. The subject is spiked through the heart

2. The subject dies

3. The power is stolen

 

Thus, the expected outcome of shooting Miles in the heart is that he does not die, and therefore his power is not stolen, so he is not prevented from using his power to not die.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Essentially, we believe you've got the order backwards; the power is stolen after the victim dies.

 

The order of operations under normal circumstances is believed to be as follows:

1. The subject is spiked through the heart

2. The subject dies

3. The power is stolen

 

Thus, the expected outcome of shooting Miles in the heart is that he does not die, and therefore his power is not stolen, so he is not prevented from using his power to not die.

 

Not so, it is possible for the donor to survive being spiked, ergo the power is stolen when they are spiked not after they die.

[name_here]

Yes, but while we know that is possible we are also told it is difficult and have never seen it happen, so it is unclear what conditions are necessary.

[Shardlet he/him]

The donor usually dies because being spiked through the heart is typically fatal.  It could conceivably done without killing the donor by carefully using a strong very slender needle-spike.  Others have theorized that the heart is a universal theft-point whereas there are attribute-specific theft-points elsewhere.  If that is correct, then conceivably the donor could survive spiking through one of the othe points.  Personally, I think the heart is the only game in town and that is why is is so unlikely for the donor to survive. 

 

But, now that you have clarified that you think the donor must die before an attribute can be stolen, your comments are much more clear.  How did you determine that particular order, name?  I think that it is a possible interpretation of the quote.  But, I don't think that it is the most likely one.  Especially in view of Weiry's last point.  Seems clear that death of the donor is not required for making a spike.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Shardlet

[Pechvarry]

Essentially, we believe you've got the order backwards; the power is stolen after the victim dies.

The order of operations under normal circumstances is believed to be as follows:

1. The subject is spiked through the heart

2. The subject dies

3. The power is stolen

Thus, the expected outcome of shooting Miles in the heart is that he does not die, and therefore his power is not stolen, so he is not prevented from using his power to not die.

The problem I have with this is how hard it thus becomes to steal Feruchemical gold in general. It's certainly possible inquisitors had to remove goldminds before spiking a keeper for their pewter spikes, but it just doesn't feel consistent with how easy it is to steal everything else.

As I also believe the death part is from the hole in the heart, I just don't think your interpretation "feels" right.

However, it's definitely a valid interpretation and quite out of the box.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Pechvarry

[Kadrok she/her]

The problem I have with this is how hard it thus becomes to steal Feruchemical gold in general. It's certainly possible inquisitors had to remove goldminds before spiking a keeper for their pewter spikes, but it just doesn't feel consistent with how easy it is to steal everything else.

Harder than stealing from a Feruchemist who is tapping Strength and ripping your face off while you're busy trying to spike him? (And I'm not sure I'd call any spiking "easy").

 

I wouldn't call it that out of the box, it seems intuitive to me, and I imagine to name_here as well (though I can't read his mind). To be honest, your interpretation doesn't "feel" right to me in much the same way that I imagine ours doesn't "feel" right to you... I don't think tearing off pieces of someone's spirit web should be as simple as shooting them in the heart if they have the ability to survive such a shot (obviously a kill shot would be fair game); it makes the spirit web seem far too fragile. I am inclined to believe that death is required in some way to tear the spirit web, which is why I am inclined to believe that someone surviving spiking is a strange phenomenon relying on extenuating circumstances which we simply don't know about yet, and not something that merely requires a bit of skill and pewter bullets.

 

BRAINWAVE! I wonder what would happen if a Nalthian was killed to make a Hemalurgic spike (carrying, say, emotional fortitude or whatever) and then returned.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Kadrok

[Shardlet he/him]

I think this is a good idea Pech.  I just noticed that up until now I failed to upvote you for it.

[Shardlet he/him]

I just went digging for the spike and survive quote that we have been discussing.  We have been remembering it incorrectly it appears (unless there is a similar but different quote out there).  Here it is:

 

Quote

zas678

Does the person being pierced in order to charge a Hemalurgic spike have to die?

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily. A spike does require you to rip pieces of a soul from the victim, but that does not mean they must die. They would be a very different person afterwords though.

 

I think this should add a bit of clearer flavor top the discussion.

[Shardlet he/him]

At the Seattle signing I asked Brandon about the pewter bullets scenario.  Namely, using pewter bullets to shoot and kill a bloodmaker by shooting him through the heart thereby removing his bloodmaking ability.  Brandon said that it was technicaly possible but it would be difficult with bullets.  I'll review the recording to make sure, but he at least implied that the difficulty was due to the smalll size of the bullets. 

 

So, bow before Pech and present him with many upvotes for developing such a clever idea.

 

In answer to another question, Brandon indicated that both the physical wound and the damage to the spiritweb are responsible for the generally fatal nature of being a hemalurgic donor.

[Pechvarry]

You are awesome.

[Shardlet he/him]

The rub is that you would have to be intending to spike him with your bullets.  Intent is very key in hemalurgy which you will see when I post my Q&A's with Brandon from Seattle.