Spikes through eyes

[Oversleep]

Why did Inquisitors have spikes driven through their eyes in the first place?

I mean, there are so many bindpoints that those spikes could surely be inserted somewhere else, so what's the point in depraving them of one of the most basic senses? Did TLR made this deliberately so they'd have another weak point?

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Great question! I do not know the answer for sure (only the Lord Ruler and Brandon know for sure haha) but a couple of thoughts came to mind.

1: Steel/Iron sight - Inquisitors would probably be superior at pushing/pulling because they have to interact with Steel/Iron sight all of the time. They would be more familiar with strong/weak anchors, detecting/deciphering moving lines etc. Also, it would make it much harder for people to hide themselves/stuff from an Inquisitor because they could see through stone/wood walls and most non-metal obstacles. 

2: Intimidation - if seeing a man/woman with spikes through their eyes does not intimidate you then you are clearly insane haha

3: Weakness(?) - a possible (extra) weakness to exploit?

4: Hemalurgy - we know that bind points and such can cause various changes in the human/creature spiked; perhaps spiking the eyes produced some other, theoretically desirable, effect?

That is what I thought of after reading your question. I really like the question and am looking forward to other responses!

[Yata he/him]

@CaptainRyan is right.

I have just one thing to add.

An Inquisitor isn't just a guy with a lot of Spikes... He is an Hemalurgic Construct, probably there isn't a great flexibility if you want to create an Hemalurgyc Construct.

For example there are probably a lot of places where you may gift Human Strenght with Hemalurgy. But you need to put the 4 Strenght Spikes in specific Bind-Points to create a Koloss.

[Oversleep]

1 hour ago, Yata said:

@CaptainRyan is right.

I have just one thing to add.

An Inquisitor isn't just a guy with a lot of Spikes... He is an Hemalurgic Construct, probably there isn't a great flexibility if you want to create an Hemalurgyc Construct.

For example there are probably a lot of places where you may gift Human Strenght with Hemalurgy. But you need to put the 4 Strenght Spikes in specific Bind-Points to create a Koloss.

I'm not sure about that - I am under impression that Feruchemical and Allomantical spikes can go pretty much anywhere, as they don't twist the recipient as much as human attributes spikes.

And even if there is some restriction, I have hard time believing that the eyes were the last free bindpoints.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Oversleep

[Argel he/him]

Maybe the eyes give them more sensitivity so they can see metal much better?

[Thunder_93]

Don't really sure about it, but probably it's a little similar like when the spike is out of the body / out of blood at creating it:
The longer it's not inside the new body, the weaker it gets.

Probably it's the same with the positions? The closer at a specific bindpoint, the stronger and more efficient it gets, and probably the eyes are exactly the binding point. So, you could possibly place them through, let's say, the shoulder, but through the eye the gained power is way stronger 

[Yata he/him]

46 minutes ago, Thunder_93 said:

Don't really sure about it, but probably it's a little similar like when the spike is out of the body / out of blood at creating it:
The longer it's not inside the new body, the weaker it gets.

Probably it's the same with the positions? The closer at a specific bindpoint, the stronger and more efficient it gets, and probably the eyes are exactly the binding point. So, you could possibly place them through, let's say, the shoulder, but through the eye the gained power is way stronger 

No thunder, the Bindpoints are really small and you have to pierce them to steal or gift parts of Soul. There isn't any "close enough".

@Oversleep honestly you may have right. But I think you need to "trasform someone to an Inquisitor" (with an unknown number of Spikes in the right places) to give him the ability to sustain a lot of Spikes without completely break you or your mind or probably your soul.

I know that Human Attributes twisted the user more, but I don't think that 4 Human Strenght Spikes may be more twisting than 30 Powers Spikes (for example Marsh). And remember that we don't know if to create an Inquisitor you need only Power Spikes or also some Human Spikes (this may be a good question to mister sanderson).

The main part to me is what I said in my previous post, an Inquisitor isn't just a guy with a lot of power spikes he has some peculiar features (long rest time for example) and some "core Spikes" that if removed will revert an Inquisitor to a Human (if I don't remember wrong, they are the eyes Spikes and the Spine Spike) because they work like a circuits (and the result is the Inquisitor's death)... It's like removing a Blessing to a Kandra or the Spikes to a Koloss, they are no more Hemalurgyc Construct.

[Oversleep]

10 hours ago, Yata said:

The main part to me is what I said in my previous post, an Inquisitor isn't just a guy with a lot of power spikes he has some peculiar features (long rest time for example) and some "core Spikes" that if removed will revert an Inquisitor to a Human (if I don't remember wrong, they are the eyes Spikes and the Spine Spike) because they work like a circuits (and the result is the Inquisitor's death)... It's like removing a Blessing to a Kandra or the Spikes to a Koloss, they are no more Hemalurgyc Construct.

I'd attribute that to them having so many spikes - their souls become unstable, hence the need for linchpin spike which holds it together. That's why removal of the back spike was lethal.

Apart from that, removal of some spikes is lethal and some are not; Brandon compared it to being shot at different body parts. Removal of the spikes in the head reverts the transformation which made the brain wrap around the spikes; I suspect that removal of the spike through heart would also be lethal.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Well, mostly I think it was for kind of a foreboding reason. Seeing a guy with a spike in his arm is much less intimidating than seeing a guy with his eyes poked out with footlong spikes.

[Oversleep]

19 hours ago, Assassin in Burgundy said:

Well, mostly I think it was for kind of a foreboding reason. Seeing a guy with a spike in his arm is much less intimidating than seeing a guy with his eyes poked out with footlong spikes.

But is a little more intimidation worth sacrificing one of the most basic senses? I think not. With normal eyes they cannot be blinded by throwing metal dust at them. Also, normal sight has a greater range than steelsight.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

14 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

But is a little more intimidation worth sacrificing one of the most basic senses? I think not. With normal eyes they cannot be blinded by throwing metal dust at them. Also, normal sight has a greater range than steelsight.

Normal eyes, as I mentioned in my first post, also cannot see through walls/obstacles. Someone running from a regular soldier could hide in some kind of bolt hole but an Inquisitor would see right through that. Also, while Steelsight does have the disadvantage of metal dust not many people would know that and regular eyes have a ton of ways to be blinded, no?

I think Steelsight is a superior sense for what Inquisitors are designed for. It, like anything, has drawbacks but Inquisitors are highly specialized resources and I think the tradeoffs work for them.

[Oversleep]

2 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

Normal eyes, as I mentioned in my first post, also cannot see through walls/obstacles. Someone running from a regular soldier could hide in some kind of bolt hole but an Inquisitor would see right through that. Also, while Steelsight does have the disadvantage of metal dust not many people would know that and regular eyes have a ton of ways to be blinded, no?

I think Steelsight is a superior sense for what Inquisitors are designed for. It, like anything, has drawbacks but Inquisitors are highly specialized resources and I think the tradeoffs work for them.

But leaving normal eyes does not remove the advantage of steelsight. They could use both sights and draw from advantages of both, while many of the disadvantages are cancelled. They could switch between them. Flashbomb? Close eyes, navigate by steelsight. Metal dust? Use normal eyes.

I could imagine that Inquisitors would be forced to wear a blindfold for a year, non-stop to develop a similarly powerful steelsight.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

10 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

But leaving normal eyes does not remove the advantage of steelsight. They could use both sights and draw from advantages of both, while many of the disadvantages are cancelled. They could switch between them. Flashbomb? Close eyes, navigate by steelsight. Metal dust? Use normal eyes.

I could imagine that Inquisitors would be forced to wear a blindfold for a year, non-stop to develop a similarly powerful steelsight.

Ah, that is a clever plan. Perhaps there is some enhancement to Steelsight granted by the eye spikes?

[Argel he/him]

If the only way you can see is Steelsight, you will obviously get better at it faster and maybe just be better at it period than if it's a tool you take out from time to time. Along those lines, there is a lot of metal to look at, at least in urban areas. So if they have to use it all the time, they will get much better are discerning things, how to fight using it (i.e. it's gotta be really disconcerting at first), etc. It also makes it harder to infiltrate the organization.

Speaking of tools, that's what the Inquisitors were to the TLR. If he thought they were more effective that way....

But with all of that said, we probably shouldn't rule out the badass/coolness factor either. Brandon may have come up with an explanation after the fact. Or maybe he's still working on it....

 

[Magestar he/him]

Just a note...  In BoM, we DO see a guy with a spike in only one eye.  But he can also see through the other eye.  I have always thought that that would be really cool, and have a whole host of advantages.  The best of both worlds, if you will.  I think it would look sort of like when a computer overlays a camera with a targeting system.   The only problem I could think of is that your head would be a bit lopsided. 

[Argel he/him]

Maybe TLR considered that to be too good.

[Ari he/him]

On 20/07/2016 at 9:48 AM, Argel said:

Maybe the eyes give them more sensitivity so they can see metal much better?

That was always my assumption, that the reason Marsh is Ironeyes is because the sensitivity of inquisitor metal vision is about putting Iron or Steel allomantic spikes into the eyes. If you're creating various specialised hemalurgic minions, it makes sense to have one type that has extraordinary metal vision, especially if that's your "police force" for rogue allomancers.

It might be that you need to spike both eyes to get the incredibly detailed allomantic vision that Inquisitors have, wheras spiking one eye simply gives you above average Iron/Steelsight.

[Three1415]

Yeah, I imagine Inquisitor Steelsight is incredibly precise compared to a normal Allomancer's (indeed, I believe Marsh mentions this at some point in WoA), probably due in large part to the eye spikes. As Ari said, this would be optimal for hunting down Allomancers, which is what the Inquisitors were designed for in the first place, so it makes sense that they'd have them. 

[Yata he/him]

I am still not convinced about the "Spikes the eyes to get a better Steelsight"... I may see how remove the main sense to an Inquisitor push him to develop better Steelsight (is something similar to what happened in real world with blind people). But I don't think you need to spike the eyes to obtain this effect. you may "simply" blind an Inquisitor in other way to get the same effect.

In few world I say that a blind coinshoot will be probably skilled as an Inquisitor (well if they have the same Allomantic steel power). Not something builded within Hemalurgy uses.

Of course this doesn't mean that an Inquisitor may be spiked in other bindpoint (to trasform it in an Inquisitor) but only that their Skilled Steelsight is not so obviusly connected with their Spikes placement.

[RenegadeShroom]

I think that something to keep in mind is that not all Inquisitors started out as Mistborn, like Marsh. They needed iron/steel Allomancy to do their jobs, plus the various other metals. It just so happens that the Hemalurgic bindpoints for iron and steel Allomancy are, presumably, the eyes, and they effectively replace normal sight, so they can afford to lose them. As far as we know, there's no other bindpoints for those two metals, so they had to put them in the eyes to even give many Inquisitors the abilities.

[Yata he/him]

5 hours ago, InsurrectionistFungus said:

I think that something to keep in mind is that not all Inquisitors started out as Mistborn, like Marsh. They needed iron/steel Allomancy to do their jobs, plus the various other metals. It just so happens that the Hemalurgic bindpoints for iron and steel Allomancy are, presumably, the eyes, and they effectively replace normal sight, so they can afford to lose them. As far as we know, there's no other bindpoints for those two metals, so they had to put them in the eyes to even give many Inquisitors the abilities.

At least a viable bindpoint for Steel is in the Heart (as Zane showed us) much more.... Some Inquisitors have double Spikes for the same metal (to stack power) and if only the eyes are bindpoint for Steel-Iron they can't do this.

[Oversleep]

16 hours ago, InsurrectionistFungus said:

I think that something to keep in mind is that not all Inquisitors started out as Mistborn, like Marsh.

Marsh wasn't a Mistborn, Marsh was a Seeker.

And what @Yata said. 

Quote

The points which can be used for Hemalurgy are known as "Bind points" and there are between 200 and 300 in the human body which can be pierced depending on the effect needed. ~coppermind

Since Inquisitors are commonly known as being able to Push/Pull metals stronger than average Mistborn, it is reasonable they have at least 2 spikes for each (but to account for Hemalurgic decay I'd use three, but YMMV). I don't see how there can be only... what, four bindpoints for Allomantic steel and Allomantic iron? two on body and two eyes? That just doesn't make sense.

[RenegadeShroom]

Yeah, I know Marsh wasn't a Mistborn; unclear wording on my part: Like Marsh, many Inquisitors were not Mistborn to begin with.

[Spoolofwhool]

The spikes through the eyes might be necessary as part of the greater interactions with the other spikes. While normally there are multiple points which could be used to bestow steel or iron allomancy, when considering the specific hemalurgic construct desired, an inquisitor, only the eyes become acceptable bindpoints.

I don't think it has to do with increased metalsight unless the brain cannot handle the increased visual input.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I thought there was a passage in book where, when wax is using the bands so much, he begins to see steel/iron lines in everything, much the way the CR showed mists everywhere. Or was it the underlying Investiture, I can't remember :/. I think eye spikes though help enhance your cognitive vision, like with the sovereign having one eye in the cognitive and the other in the physical

[RYANHOME he/him]

These spikes not only pierced the ocular cavity but also both hemispheres and frontal lobe of the brain then exited the skull. I'm thinking they act as a antenna from the TLR/RUIN  and the enhanced steelsight dosent hurt.....well maybe it does.

Edited August 9, 2016 by RYANHOME