Possible techniques used by Unishards to read minds.

[Pinpoint he/him]

A Unishard is a name I came up with to describe a single piece of Adonalsium. Harmony isn't a Unishard since he is a combination of two Shards. haha

 

So there has been some confusion about how Harmony can read minds. This was already cleared up. (Thanks Kurk!)

 

Holding both shards gave him abilities neither shard had alone. each shard had a piece of the ability to effect the cognotive realm. put them together and booya you have mind-reading ability

 

But the other Shards don't seem to directly have that ability so I was thinking that maybe they read minds through reading faces. They might simply not even try to read minds, but I think it would be cool if Shards used this technique.

 

Hoid was able to do it pretty well before he died and he didn't live for thousands of years. Even Midius could tell their emotions based on the faces. Shards have a lot longer to practice. It's possible that he could tell exactly what a person is thinking based off of the face.

http://coppermind.net/wiki/Electronic_works#The_Liar_of_Partinel

Here is a quote from the Liar of Partinel sample chapters.

Now, he looked at the faces. 

     He wasn’t as practiced as his master had been.  Midius couldn’t read expressions as easily, and couldn’t decide the thoughts of a man by the look in his eyes.  Yet, he could sense the feeling of desperation about the shoppers.  The edge of worry, and of fear. 

 

 

 

Thoughts?

Edited December 16, 2013 by Pinpoint

[Shardbearer he/him]

It's been confirmed byWoB that Preservation could read minds and Ruin could talk right into people's heads, so Harmony can do both.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=723#13

 

 

So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.

In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.

So I guess this leads to three questions:

1. How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?

2. Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgicly charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?

3. Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?

Brandon Sanderson ()

How this all works dates back to the original design of the Magic system.

I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complimentary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.

Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.

Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.

Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault—if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)

Harmony is both, the two complimentary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.

Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)

[Pinpoint he/him]

I think you read the post before I modified it. I found the info confirming how Harmony can read minds. So I turned it into a post inviting ideas as to how other Shards figure out what people are thinking. This technique is a useful one and I don't see why a Shard wouldn't want to learn how to do it.

 

However the modification creates a problem. Now the post extends past the Mistborn series and encompasses Cosmere material. It should probably be moved to the Cosmere section

[Shardbearer he/him]

Looks like you did your edit two minutes after my post, so yeah, we would have been typing at the same time probably.