Kelsier is Worrisome [Secret History Spoilers]

[Otto Didact he/him]

So I finished Secret History and Bands of Mourning recently and I got a super creepy vibe from post-death Kelsier. Despite the fact that he helped the Southern Scadrians, I got the sense that he may be up to no good, with some seriously inscrutiable ulterior motives. In my opinion, he had kind of a negative influence on Spook, since he encouraged Spook to help him experiment with Hemalurgy and Spook later wrote that it might be a good idea to get old or disabled Metalborn to sacrifice themselves to give their power to others. I thought that was pretty creepy for Kell.

 

Plus, the Set has been experimenting with Hemalurgy and they had to learn it somewhere. I dunno, maybe Kell is being influenced by Trell and his "coming back to the Physical Realm" hack has to do with Trellish unknown metals? Something less than savory is going on, and it has me worried. What do you think?

[Samaldin he/him]

I could not agree more with you, have an upvote.

Actually the more i read Secret history the more he seemed like a villian. The whole thing with cheating/ not accepting death and trying to find a way back to life...i´ve often read things with these tropes but it were always the villians doing it, just felt wrong to me on a fundamental level.

 

Right now i have a theory that Kelsier stored his entire being in a spike. Hemalurgy normaly rips out part of the soul, so it could be possible to rip out more or even the whole thing. Since there is no more Atium around for immortality (at least i think so) this could be the next best wayfor immortality. Find someone you trust, store your being in a spike, let someone be spiked and take over their body. After they/you grow too old find someone else you trust and let him use your spike to spike someone else and steal a new body. Since Hemalurgy degrades the power if not inside a body, the person in the spike could get more and more warped and become someone truly monstrous...

Edited April 21, 2016 by Samaldin

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

I didn't really get that feel from him, but I can kinda get where you're coming from. About the whole killing old Metalborn, IIRC, Kelsier's a sociopath, and the idea makes sense, from an emotionless point of view.

About Kell coming back with Trellish (Trellist? Trellistic?) metals, that's entirely possible. We just don't know how he did it, so it could be. It seems more likely, though, that that's something that's possible with 100% Ruinous and Scadrian Hemalurgy. Hemalurgy, at its core, deals with taking parts of one Spiritweb and transferring it to another Physical entity. I think that it's entirely possible that a combination of spikes could take an entire Spiritweb and put it into another body. That's just my personal theory, however.

Basically, I think your post has merit, Kell could be up to anything, but I just don't see Brandon writing him as a villain. Antihero, maybe, but evil motivations just don't seem like something for Kelsier.

EDIT: Samaldin, I never thought about the law of Hemalurgic Decay. You're right, that could have some potentially disastrous side effects.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Nashan'Elin

[Landis963 he/him]

I definitely got a sense of foreboding when I realized what Kelsier had been up to. Literally the first thing I posted to the BoM reaction thread was "What are you doing, Kelsier?"

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

We don't know what his spike is made of though. If it's atium then that eliminates hemalurgic decay. Personally, my theory is that the spike acts as a Scadrians version of Forgery; rewriting the spirit web to think it still has a link to the physical realm.

Which doesn't mean I agree with Kell...

Kell has diminished empathy, not no empathy. He can just turn his empathy off at will... Which is kind of terrifying when you think about how powerful he is now. Although some psychopaths lead perfectly normal, law abiding lives... But I doubt Kell would be satisfied with that.

BTW, which way do you think his shadow falls. If I ever meet Brandon I'm asking him.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Kingsdaughter613

[natc]

I didn't really get that feel from him, but I can kinda get where you're coming from. About the whole killing old Metalborn, IIRC, Kelsier's a sociopath, and the idea makes sense, from an emotionless point of view.

About Kell coming back with Trellish (Trellist? Trellistic?) metals, that's entirely possible. We just don't know how he did it, so it could be. It seems more likely, though, that that's something that's possible with 100% Ruinous and Scadrian Hemalurgy. Hemalurgy, at its core, deals with taking parts of one Spiritweb and transferring it to another Physical entity. I think that it's entirely possible that a combination of spikes could take an entire Spiritweb and put it into another body. That's just my personal theory, however.

Basically, I think your post has merit, Kell could be up to anything, but I just don't see Brandon writing him as a villain. Antihero, maybe, but evil motivations just don't seem like something for Kelsier.

EDIT: Samaldin, I never thought about the law of Hemalurgic Decay. You're right, that could have some potentially disastrous side effects.

I actually kind of doubt he's involved with Trell despite everything. If he was wouldn't the Set have known where the "Bands" were from the beginning instead of being fooled twice?

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

I actually kind of doubt he's involved with Trell despite everything. If he was wouldn't the Set have known where the "Bands" were from the beginning instead of being fooled twice?

I'm agreeing with you, he seems like the kind of person who would try to protect his homeworld from outside influences, not help them.

[Otto Didact he/him]

I actually kind of doubt he's involved with Trell despite everything. If he was wouldn't the Set have known where the "Bands" were from the beginning instead of being fooled twice?

 

Fair point. I do think that (as with everything), Kelsier has his own motives. It's interesting to me how now that he's not a viewpoint character, he's a lot less relatable than he was during the Mistborn trilogy. I never really liked or trusted him in Era 1, but at least I knew what he was working toward and that he genuinely cared about the crew. Now all bets are off. I wonder what Harmony thinks about his old friend's activities.

[Yata he/him]

I don't think Kel uses another Body because we saw his Pits' Scar. I find hard to believe He scarred his new Body to keep his distinctive mark.

 

At the moment I immagine he manage to "replace" his Connection to the Physical Realm and after that He simply worldhopped in the Physical, like any other worldhopper

[Samaldin he/him]

Since healing works by recreating how a person sees itself it could be a possible sideeffect of stealing bodies that they change to fit his cognitive self.

[Edgedancer he/him]

On another note on the worrysome Kelsier scale, there is a reason the Sovereign was first assumed to be TLR, both saved the people they then ruled as godemperor and Kelsier even set up Allomancers as a divine caste, which is chillingly reminiscent of nobles back in the final empire. He was certainly not as bad from what we know (which isn't that much actually) but the similarities are there.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Edgedancer

[natc]

TLR was also an angry, discriminatory man as a mortal. For very different reasons on the surface, but hatred that deep usually has a more emotionally damaging underlying cause. I suspect something as painful as what happened to Kelsier and Mare may have happened because of Khlennium that sparked that worldview in the first place . . .

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

[AerionBFII he/him]

 

Me: Why is going into the Spiritual realm like Kelsier did damaging, as Leras seemed to suggest.

 

Brandon: The thing is, Leras didn't know that Kelsier had a broken brain, that is how Kelsier wasn't damaged by doing what he did. You can break your brain by doing that though, worse than how broken Kelsier is.

Was it just me or did anybody else have a really ominous feeling reading about Kelsier in this book?

His desire to survive instead of passing on with Mare seemed really strange and out of character.

It had me thinking he has brain damage or something. It was somehow similar to the Heralds twisted by their beliefs. Kelsier with his drive to survive seemed particularly unhealthy... 

[natc]

So basically he was already insane and broken enough that the things that normally break people fail to worsen it at all?

That sounds rather dangerous.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

The problem is that we don't know how much of that was Kell and how much was the Southern Scadrians. At least part of it felt like a misunderstanding about Ruin and Preservation and how allomancy works. Then they need the compounders to survive, so of course they end up on a pedestal. And there are VERY few metalborn to begin with there. They is a good chance they worshipped them even before he arrived. People with special powers that no one an explain? Obviously divine!

Kelsier came out of nowhere to save them. He was 'imune' to the 'cold'. The South Scadrians lore gave me a very paganistic vibe; I doubt he had to do much to convince them he was a god. Odds are he wouldn't have had to do a thing actually... In fact he could have insisted he wasn't and they would probably have STILL worshipped him!

The one thing I think he may have done was make his name taboo. This would explain the 'titles to metalborn' somewhat. It's also a good precaution. Kell is worshipped in the North and South, but he's viewed very differently by both. This is one way to avoid negative knee jerk reactions by the North. His Southern statues even have his scars covered...

As it is, the Church of the Survivor's reaction will be interesting once they learn the truth. MAJOR theological upheaval on the horizon. Like a Civil War wasn't bad enough...

[Landis963 he/him]

Technically speaking, Kelsier's actions are perfectly in line with Survivorist doctrine. The problem is that Survivorist doctrine assumes that their savior would return to save them, and not to save anyone else.

Which of course makes the subversion all too obvious in retrospect.

[Otto Didact he/him]

Well, one thing is certain—I'm going to be on tenterhooks until all of the cosmere drama plays out. I can't wait to see Kelsier go up against Hoid and have both of their motives finally revealed. I hope Saze mentions something about Kelsier in The Lost Metal so that we get some sort of clue.

[Pagerunner he/him]

Here's something from an interview that I found relevant to this conversation:

 

Q: What character of yours would be a great addition to Game of Thrones?

 

A: Ha! I don't know if I hate any of my characters enough to do that to them! What interesting questions you have! I think Kelsier from Mistborn would probably fit in the best. Not a lot of people pick up on this, but Kelsier is actually a psychopath. He likes to kill people. He takes pleasure and joy in it. He only lets this side of himself out once in a while, but there are points in the book where he takes down a nobleman, and he's just gleeful about the ability and the chance to do it.

 

In the Mistborn world, he's a hero because the people Kelsier is killing are oppressors. Part of the fun of writing him was the idea that in another story, if things had gone differently, he'd be the villain. But in this story, Kelsier is the hero, and it's because he's able to channel his being a psychopath into a noble cause, but still, there's a danger behind Kelsier's eyes that might let him survive in Westeros better than a lot of my other characters.

[Vissy]

I just wonder when we'll start seeing Kelsier in other Cosmere books than Mistborn. I mean, he's a worldhopper nowadays. 

 

Maybe we already have. Someone, ask this from Brandon the next time he does a Q&A... have we already seen Kelsier in other books than Mistborn?

[Otto Didact he/him]

Technically, I don't think we have proof that he's a worldhopper yet, even though it looks like he's headed that way. All of his appearances so far have been on Scadrial still.

[Jondesu he/him]

Technically, I don't think we have proof that he's a worldhopper yet, even though it looks like he's headed that way. All of his appearances so far have been on Scadrial still.

I think he may have left Scadrial "air-space" in SH, though he didn't make it to a different world. That's pretty close, but yeah, haven't seen him actually on another world yet, but he knows one of the ways to do it. I wonder how easily he could get back to the Cognitive, though, since the first time he ended up there he died to do it (albeit not planned).

jW

[Stormgate he/him]

I propose that we call the area of the Cognitive Realm claimed by a planet the planet's "mind-space"

[Erinzard]

KELL = TRELL!!!! You heard it first here folks... Just kidding guys, I joke. But I agree that there is something ominous feeling about Kelsier's devotion to surviving. I've read in other theories that there is "excess" power of Ruin laying around and that maybe some of it is tied to Kelsier. I thought Harmony in Bands of Mourning says that death severs existing connections between the physical and spiritual realms, so I'm not sure why he'd be more tied to Ruin even in death because of his actions in the physical realm. But I can see how during his life Ruin could have manipulated Kelsier's desire to survive as a way to bring ruin and death to others. A "kill anyone trying to oppress me or who I suspect MIGHT try to oppress me in the future" type attitude could serve Ruin's intent pretty well. 

 

Edit: I think I found the spot I was talking about. BoM p. 392 (Hardcover) Harmony says, "Your body, mind, and soul have separated." Maybe this is what I was thinking about when I thought of Kel no longer being tied to Ruin but now that I read it it doesn't seem quite so conclusive. 

Edited April 28, 2016 by Erinzard

[Blightsong he/him]

I'm just going to throw this out there, part of being a psychopath is having a very strong survival instinct. They tend to do anything it takes to survive in life threatening situations. It also fits in the whole 'Survivor' persona of his.

[Vissy]

And because of his mad survivability, I bet he'll end up doing major storming business in the Cosmere. He still needs to get back at Hoid, after all.

 

I wouldn't put it past him to just waltz in on Wit having a discussion with somebody and then decking him in the face.