[SoS] Blood Coating

[Edgedancer]

Shadows of Self revealed that coating a hemalurgic spike in blood prevents hemalurgic decay (or at least weakens it) and I can see why it was explained in the book. Without this means to preserve her spikes Bleeder would have been a lot less vertasile. Now, this next bit may sound obvious but if you stab someone through the heart, then the spike will be coated in blood. Meaning that a newly made spike should always have a protection against the decay. Yet in the Final Empire Inquisitors would hurry to get the spike into the new hoast immediately to the point of making some special stabbing tables.

So what? Were they just hurrying more than was required given the coating or is the coating inefficient, in which case Bleeder's spikes, especially the alomantic iron one, should have weakened quite a bit.

[KidWayne]

Yeah, I think that a lot of new rules that come out later in a series like, "coating a hemalurgic spike in blood prevents hemalurgic decay..." are literary devices used by authors as a means of expediency more than they are intended to be consistent with the way the magic system worked when the author originally conceived it.

Wheel of Time spoiler:

I mean look at Robert Jordan's first depiction of Rand channeling the One Power. It was completely inconsistent with the way he made it work in the rest of the series.

In this case, Brandon can make up a new rule like this and explain it away as, "Well, Bleeder's coat-the-spike-in-blood trick did preserve a great deal of the hemalurgic charge, but it was less effective than the Steel Ministry's method of driving the spike through the victim and into the recipient directly." Less effective is still pretty good in this case.

Not that I'm saying either Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson are bad authors or that their work is tainted by poor planning. Sometimes story tellers have to tweak and bend their own rules in order to accommodate the really good ideas that come to them as the story progresses or to make the story less predictable. This tends to happen more often with stand-alone stories that leave the door open for sequels. The author feels the need to end the story in book one, but wants to leave door cracked. That is certainly what happened with Mistborn.

Edited November 9, 2015 by KidWayne

[Moogle]

Yeah, I think that a lot of new rules that come out later in a series like, "coating a hemalurgic spike in blood prevents hemalurgic decay..." are literary devices used by authors as a means of expediency more than they are intended to be consistent with the way the magic system worked when the author originally conceived it.

 

We've known its possible to slow down/stop Hemalurgic decay via WoB for years. I'm trying (and failing) to hunt down the right WoB, but I do not believe this is an example of something Brandon just made up for SoS.

 

Not to disagree entirely with your point - Brandon's included things and made up explanations for them later before, like Shardpools, but I don't believe he's outright retconned or created new rules for old things in the same way that Jordan did (like the staff thing in the first book).

 

He likes internal consistency more than a lot of authors, and has done things like lay seeds for using Allomancy with FTL travel, planning for things decades in the future.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Moogle

[Edgedancer]

As for retconned magic from Sanderson it does happen but mostly outside the book. If I remember right he recalibrated how Feruchemy works after switching Warmth and Determination in the table of WoA by accident, didn't Intent Steelpushes to have friction but retconned it after having written scenes that only make sense if they have friction and changed the way Bendalloy bubbels work after Peter pointed out that red-shift implies everyone in them would be microwaved.

[killersquirrel59]

This can also be explained by Harmony subtly changing how Hemalurgy works. We know that he did to some degree, and this is what I assumed was meant by it.

[Sarge]

It could be that the Inquisitors were just being sadistic. A large part of their control over the empire came from fear and terror. Even the rumors of the "messy" way they were created would enhance their evil persona...

[killersquirrel59]

No, even if the Inquisitors were so affected by Ruin that their sadism was taking over, making them want to just waste the power, letting spikes drain, The Lord Ruler would never let them. He is the one who taught them Hemalurgy, and from everything we know of his style of rule, he is a deeply pragmatic and practical man (well...God/King/Emperor). He was not evil for evil's sake. He was interested in Hemalurgy for its practical benefit, and lamented the difficulty of making more Inquisitors to Kelsier before he killed him. If he knew about the blood coating, he would have insisted they use it to keep their numbers, not only up, but constantly growing, since spikes could be re-used indefinitely with no decay.

 

Furthermore, I can't imagine that Rashek wouldn't have figured this secret out through all his experimentation with Hemalurgy. A spike is going to be coated in blood as it exits the victim. I just can't see him not figuring out that simply not cleaning it makes it decay slower/not at all. Therefore, I can only conclude that this was not a thing in Hemalurgy before Harmony's Final Ascension, and that he changed the way Hemalurgy works.

[DeadFencer]

I interpreted it as fully coated in blood- like in a container. If that's correct, the exposure to air as the spike went through the person would have diluted it somewhat. Also, remember Hemalurgy requires some power to be used in transferring the ability to a new person. A hemalurgic metalborn can't be as strong as a non hemalurgic one.

[killersquirrel59]

I interpreted it as fully coated in blood- like in a container. If that's correct, the exposure to air as the spike went through the person would have diluted it somewhat. Also, remember Hemalurgy requires some power to be used in transferring the ability to a new person. A hemalurgic metalborn can't be as strong as a non hemalurgic one.

Do you have a quote to back that up? I remember in HoA them talking about the purpose of direct spiking being that no power was lost.

[Charononus]

Also I assumed that when the blood dried the decay protection was lost, so quickly using the spike seems best still.

[natc]

The very notion that an end-negative system can be executed losslessly already sounds really counterintuitive.

[DeadFencer]

I remembered something. It's not the exposure to air tha weakens Hemalurgy, it's the magic's end-negative nature. The Ars Arcanum mentions Hemalurgy as end-negative, so the direct spiking is the way to get the maximum amount of power (which is still slightly less than it originally was- presumably because some power is spent to transfer the power). Sticking the spike in a handy container of blood keeps it at its maximum power level, but the normal amount of power that is used in taking it out of someone and putting it in someone else is still lost.