Hemalurgy: Ethics, Mechanics and Uses Going Forward

[8bitBob]

First off, I realise that there is an existing Hemalurgy thread in the Mistborn section, but I wanted to discuss certain topics without needing to worry about spoilers. Additionally, I wanted the discussion to have a more theoretical direction, rather than a philosophical one. I have a few topics to cover, so they'll be broken up into different sections.

ETHICS

Hemalurgy is often considered an "evil" magic, and not without reason. So far, we have seen it as a very destructive force that not only kills innocents, but damages their very soul. However, we have had many interesting revelations since the original trilogy both in the books and through WoB. Many of these revelations paint a more... palatable picture of Hemalurgy.

First and foremost, we have confirmation that Hemalurgy does not have to kill the person donating a spike. Relevant WoB:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Mar 16th, 2012

A "Late-Breaking" Report (Paraphrased)

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

One does not have to kill someone with Hemalurgy to charge a spike, but it rips off a large part of the soul. The person would not be the same

The reasons vary between WoB, but the meaning is clear: one does not have to die from getting spiked. It would still rip out a piece of your soul and change you as a person, but you do not have to die.

Okay, so you don't have to die, but you're still losing a piece of your soul. That sounds like a big deal, right? Well, maybe not:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Jan 5th, 2015

Firefight Signing Report - Lady Radagu (Verbatim)

LADY RADAGU

Does being the donor of a Hemalurgic spike have any implications for your afterlife? Or how about the recipient?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Um, that is actually going to depend on... Okay, yes, it has implications for the afterlife. Yes. Yes.

LADY RADAGU

Okay, so are there a bunch of Scadrian souls wandering the afterlife with holes in their personalities or memory or identity? Some with extra parts tacked on?

BRANDON SANDERSON

So, it has implications, but they're not exactly the ones that you're assuming. In the Cosmere, there is dead, and mostly dead, okay? And this has been shown several times. So, once someone dies, there is a period before they transition. Right? Sazed talks about this in Mistborn 3 and so most of the implications are before transition. Does that makes sense? Post transition, you're going to have to ask the philosophers, and the theologians, who are the ones that, that talk about the.. that. So there's an afterlife, and there's an after-afterlife. Not as many implications for the after-afterlife. Middle? Yes

So in the Before-Afterlife it certainly matters, but in the After-Afterlife? Not so much.

That's a good thing, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because we have even better news! Soul wounds can be healed from:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Aug 13th, 2014

Ask the Author: Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

KURKISTAN (GOODREADS)

Could Miles heal back his Allomancy if it was spiked out of him?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, he could not. He would no longer be an Allomancer. Also, he'd probably be dead.

KURKISTAN

I'd thought maybe he could just do some super-tapping from his existing Health in his goldminds (since he'd still have his Feruchemy)...

BRANDON SANDERSON

Oh, I see what you're asking. Using Feruchemy to heal the removed portion of soul. That's actually plausible, not so different from healing other kinds of soul-wounds. If he survived, then yes, this actually might work. (That's why I get for reading the questions so quickly.

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Oct 12th, 2015

Shadows of Self-Oak Brook, IL

KURKISTAN

If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Uhn... Okay. If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive.

KURKISTAN

Yeah, but still having Allomancy.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Still has allomancy.

KURKISTAN

And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual connection to him.

KURKISTAN

So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes... Yeah, that should still work.

So not only is it confirmed you can heal back your soul, essentially creating a new patch of soul out of Investiture, it would also give you back the power you just had spiked away. Theoretically, you could be spiked multiple times for the same power. There's some implications that you wouldn't want to do this repeatedly, but the possibility is there.

Alright, that's all well and good, but that only helps people who can heal back from a spiking. So that only means... everyone on Scadrial now. Those fancy medllions that the southerners have kindly introduced mean that everyone can heal back from being spiked by tapping an unkeyed goldmind.

What's important to take away from this is that Hemalurgy may not be nearly as bad as we have been lead to believe. You don't have to die, you don't have to lose your power, you don't have to permanently damage your soul and it won't have scary, unknown implications for the After-Afterlife. I have no doubt that certain portions of society would be against it regardless of the science, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be used.

MECHANICS

In this section, I'm not going to be covering the topics of bind points or the uses of different metals as there's just not much to go on. Ultimately, I don't think the exact details are what's truly interesting about Hemalurgy anyway, but rather the interactions it has with the other magics on Scadrial.

So, what do we know about Hemalurgy from the books? Well, you stab spikes into people and it gives them powers. So far as we know, each spike only steals one thing at a time, spiking an ability you already have makes you stronger and you can't have more than three spikes without opening yourself up to the influence of others:

Spoiler

“The trouble with Hemalurgy is in its limitations,” he said. “If you kill a man and steal his Metallic abilities, the resulting gift to you is weakened. Did you know that? What’s more, if you spike yourself too much, you become subject to Harmony’s … interference. Indeed, by the stories, you might open yourself to the interference of any idiot Soother or Rioter with enough talent.” He shook his head. “I am limited to three boons, even if we have discovered how to make someone else be weak, while we gain the benefit.”

That's some pretty harsh restrictions. Suit appears to have his spikes piercing his heart, or at the very least they pierce his chest, and it was assumed that removing them would kill him. Pretty dangerous weakness to have these days, what with Coinshots and getting access to Duralumin medallions, or whatever other power boosting effects that may let people rip your spikes out.

There's one person we know of who did fantastic things with Hemalurgy though, and seemed to have none of the associated weakness: the Lord Ruler. He was an impossibly powerful Mistborn, able to push on the metals inside Vin's stomach while she was burning them. Even Elend, with all his Lerasium granted strength, did not perform feats anywhere close to this.

So, how did the Lord Ruler achieve this? The obvious answer is that he also ate Lerasium. WoB says that's not the case though:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Sep 24th, 2013

Interview with Brandon Sanderson - Chris King (Miyabi) (Verbatim)

CHRIS KING (MIYABI)

This is the last one here we have from Mistborn: Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads

So how did the Lord Ruler become so powerful? According to WoB, it was Hemalurgy:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Oct, 2008

Hero of Ages Q&A - TWG (Verbatim)

DARXBANE (16 OCTOBER 2008)

In an annotation from book one, it is mentioned that The Lord Ruler needed all three magic systems in order to do what he did. I always assumed that it meant his Hemalurgy enhanced his Allomancy. Did Marsh get a double power, or is the Feruchemy-Allomancy combo enough? (a sidebar to this question is whether or not stacking abilities is possible through Hemalurgy).

BRANDON SANDERSON (17 OCTOBER 2008)

He used Hemalurgy to pull off his most dramatic effects. Marsh didn't need them, but it makes things much easier

So the Lord Ruler needed all three systems, but Hemalurgy was the most dramatic. Other than his incredible Allomatic strength, I cannot think of anything else he did that was not explained by compounding or God metals.

There's a problem with this, though. So far as we know, the Lord Ruler only had two Hemalurgical spikes located in his upper arms, which doubled as his Atium Metlaminds. Even if these had granted Allomancy, they could not explain the entirety of his awesome power:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Oct, 2008

Hero of Ages Q&A - TWG (Verbatim)

DALENTHAS (15 OCTOBER 2008)

Did the Lord Ruler have any Hemalurgic spikes in him? It would seem he'd need to for Ruin to influence him, but it wasn't mentioned. Or did his bracers work as spikes?

BRANDON SANDERSON (16 OCTOBER 2008)

His arm bracers, which pierced his skin, were his spikes

The fact that he had no other spikes was actually a plot point. Remember that Marsh also thought that the Lord Ruler had been spiked like an Inquisitor, and his plan to kill him was based around this:

Spoiler

Marsh stumbled slightly, and the Lord Ruler swung a backhand much like the one that had killed Kelsier. Fortunately, Marsh recovered in time to duck. He spun around the Lord Ruler, reaching up to grab the back of the emperor’s black, robelike suit. Marsh yanked, ripping the cloth open along the back seam.

Marsh froze, his spike-eyed expression unreadable. The Lord Ruler spun, slamming his elbow into Marsh’s stomach, throwing the Inquisitor across the room. As the Lord Ruler turned, Vin could see what Marsh had seen.

Nothing. A normal, if muscular, back. Unlike the Inquisitors, the Lord Ruler didn’t have a spike driven through his spine...

...

“What did you think, child?” the Lord Ruler asked quietly. “To defeat me? Am I some common Inquisitor, my powers endowed fabrications?”

So how can someone use all three systems of magic to benefit from Hemalurgy but not be full of spikes? Well, I think I have the answer, theorized from a few WoB and based around burning spikes with Allomancy:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Jan 10th, 2011

Tor Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

MARU NUI ()

What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike?

BRANDON SANDERSON ()

Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person's that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Jul, 2009

Twitter: Brandonothology collection (Verbatim)

CZANOS

Would anything interesting happen if an Allomancer Burned a Hemalurgic spike, or a Feruchemist Tapped one?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Er, well, it’s possible. But you’d have to be burning a Hemalurgic spike that killed you and took your power... Just like you can’t gain anything by burning a metalmind unless you infused it yourself

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Oct 12th, 2015

Shadows of Self-Oak Brook, IL

QUESTION

If you burn a Hemalurgic spike, would it graft the piece of stolen soul onto your soul?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, but it would have... There are some interesting effects there

So we have some discrepancies between these WoB. In one, it says you would splice the sDNA together. In another, it says it won't graft the stolen soul on, but it would have some interesting effects. Finally, in one it says it won't have any effect when you burn it unless it also came from you. I believe these seemingly contradicting elements can finally be reconciled after learning about Identity in BoM, while also explaining why the Lord Ruler was so powerful. If you've read some of my other posts, you can probably already see where this is going.

My proposition is simple: similar to Identity and Metalminds, the results of burning a Hemalurgical spike are dependent on whether or not you have Identity access to it. If you share an Identity with the Investiture in the spike, or possibly if the spike was donated from an individual who had no Identity at the time, then a process similar to compounding occurs. As the Investiture is drawn from Preservation and filtered through the metal, the Hemalurgical Investiture alters the shape that the magic takes, thereby spicing the sDNA in the spike and the sDNA of the Allomancer together. For a full explanation on my theory for the mechanics of Allomancy and compounding, see my huge ranty post.

So, what effect would this have? Well, I believe we saw the results of this in the Lord Ruler. In the case of spikes which grant Metalborn abilities, splicing the sDNA results in granting, or increasing, the abilities of a Metalborn. It does not "graft" or "tack on" a piece of sDNA as has been described of spikes, but rather a full merger or "splicing" between the sDNA, impossible to separate afterwards.

If this were the case, it would explain how the Lord Ruler managed to achieve his "dramatic effects" with basically no spikes, and would indeed require all three systems of metal magic. He needed an understanding of Hemalurgy to spike his own powers out (probably controlled a Kandra or Inquisitor for this), Feruchemy to survive said spiking and heal back his ability, and Allomancy to burn the spike and add it back onto his sDNA, thereby increasing his Allomatic strength without being a "common Inquisitor" with "endowed fabrications." He could then repeat this process until he reached some unknown theoretical limit. Keep in mind, the Lord Ruler was the most knowledgeable user of the metalic arts to have ever existed (so far), so if anyone could figure this out, it would be him.

Okay, so maybe this is possible and he figured it out. Why did he use spikes for his Inquisitors then? Control, obviously. He brutally controlled the use and knowledge of Feruchemy just to prevent compounding, and this is easily more powerful. He designed all of his Hemalurgical constructs with both clear weaknesses and methods of control, and anyone granted power through this method would have neither.

This is the extent of my evidence on the subject, so it is by no means proven, but I think there's a possibility for it to be true. I didn't find anything directly contradicting it, but Brandon has been getting pretty tight lipped about this sort of thing as time goes on. If you have anything on the subject, I'd be interested in seeing it.

HEMALURGY USE GOING FORWARD

Theoretically, this could be absurdly powerful going forward. If all that is required is an unkeyed spike, rather than a spike you share an Identity with, then you could potentially turn anyone into a Mistborn via the use of medallions. Give a Metalborn a Feruchemical Gold/ Feruchemical Aluminum medallion, dump their Identity while you spike out their power and have them heal it back with the goldmind. Give the recipient an Allomancy medallion corresponding with the metal of the spike, have them burn the spike and then boom, you've got a brand new Metalborn. Rinse and repeat.

As I mentioned before, there's anecdotes that you may not want to do this repeatedly, as Soul injuries apparently scar even when healed and who knows what that does, but the ability is strong enough even without spiking people multiple times.

That being said, I don't think Hemalurgy would gain wide spread use even if this were possible, simply because it's too damnation powerful. Imagine a world of Lord Rulers. Wax gave up the Bands of Mourning because the power was too great for mortals, and this is potentially even more powerful than that. I can easily see governments suppressing and regulating the use of Hemalurgy for the same reason they regulate guns. Or, perhaps more appropriately, for the same reasons as nukes.

Still, the potential is there for this to be even more disruptive than medallions.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I consider this to be very theoretical and am by no means claiming to be convinced of its veracity. I'd love to hear what others have to say on the subject, and what they think of my interpretation.

Edited March 11, 2017 by 8bitBob

[+Extesian]

Superbly crafted theory. I'll be very curious to see if others come up with problems with it, I can't actually see any even if it depends on each supposition being correct and some of them aren't certain.

It would explain why Khriss says this

Quote

Hemalurgy is an end-negative art. Some power is lost in the practice of it. Though many through history have maligned it as an “evil” art, none of the Investitures are actually evil. At its core, Hemalurgy deals with removing abilities—or attributes— from one person and bestowing them on another. It is primarily concerned with things of the Spiritual realm, and is of the greatest interest to me. If one of these three arts is of great interest to the Cosmere, it is this one. I think there are great possibilities for its use.

Khriss is a scholar but probably quite a moral one. If she didn't think there were useful, morally-acceptable uses for it I think she would describe it differently to being of great interest and with great possibilities. (And I agree there is no inherent evil to it, based on this and numerous statements by WoB that not Shards/investiture is inherently evil).

[The One Who Connects]

20 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

He was an impossibly powerful Mistborn, able to push on the metals inside Vin's stomach while she was burning them. Even Elend, with all his Lerasium granted strength, did not perform feats anywhere close to this. So, how did the Lord Ruler achieve this? [...]

Other than his incredible Allomatic strength, I cannot think of anything else he did that was not explained by compounding or God metals.

Ignore me while I act incredibly pedantic and say that it's "Allomantic" Anyway, his incredible strength in Allomancy was already explained via two things: 1) He used the power of the Well and rebuilt himself to be very powerful in Allomancy.[In the WoB that it wasn't Lerasium]   2) Brandon has implied that there is a way to compound that increases Allomantic Strength.

16 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

There's one person we know of who did fantastic things with Hemalurgy though, and seemed to have none of the associated weakness: the Lord Ruler. [...] In the case of spikes which grant Metalborn abilities, splicing the sDNA results in granting, or increasing, the abilities of a Metalborn. It does not "graft" or "tack on" a piece of sDNA as has been described of spikes, but rather a full merger or "splicing" between the sDNA, impossible to separate afterwards.

Conveniently, two more things. 1) For all his knowledge, he could not figure out how to make anything beyond Koloss, Kandra and Inquisitors during his thousand year reign. I feel like he would have learned more of how Hemalurgy functioned naturally before somehow figuring out how to hack the system.    2) If he could do this, why use physical Hemalurgic Spikes on himself? The soul interference from piercing skin plus the high amount of F-Atium power in his bracers should've been enough for them to not get Steel/Iron lines.

---

Closing Thoughts:

• Your sDNA gene splicing could count as compounding to boost Allomancy, since Brandon only says "compound" without specific mentions of Feruchemy or Hemalurgy.
• He would definitely not share this secret with Inquisitors, for the purpose of control, which means that either he controlled a Kandra or performed the spiking himself. (despite the risks, I wouldn't put it past him to keep his secrets completely secret)
• I still wonder about what power his Bracers granted that he couldn't do in your method.
• Bit of semantics, but at what point does something cross the line and stop being considered "done via Hemalurgy?" If his dramatic effects were due to hyper-strong Allomancy, then it seems like they are pulled off by Allomancy, regardless of if he used Hemalurgy to become that strong. "Pulled of by Hemalurgy" seems like it would imply some side effect of Spike-granted power that cannot be done via natural means (Lerasium beads would've made him strong, so what's different about using the spike way?)

[Calderis]

This is... Wow.

I'm going to say that I like it. Can't really "agree" as there's just so much we don't know, but I like it.

This kind of, HemaFeruAllo compounding could actually explain why TLRs Hemalurgic creations were so limited. The inherent knowledge imbued by the power of the well faded quickly, and as quick as he was reshaping the world, himself and learning how to do this to increase beyond the natural threshold may have left him with very little time to come up with more beyond his army, spies, and enforcers.

I will wait for info to confirm/conflict, and in the meantime I'll tentatively hold to this idea. 

Well done. 

[The One Who Connects]

Just now, Spoolofwhool said:

He gained the knowledge to make those three because Ruin told him how.

Another sign that the Coppermind needs lots of updates on the road to Oathbringer. I couldn't find that at all, so I ignored the thought until I could check in the books.

I don't think this completely rules out him knowing about what burning a H-Spike would do however, as burning a spike is technically Allomancy, which he would learn about from holding the power of the Well. It's a stretch, but Brandon gave us way too much wiggle room when he said that "he[TLR] knew a lot of things that nobody knows."

[Spoolofwhool]

51 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Another sign that the Coppermind needs lots of updates on the road to Oathbringer. I couldn't find that at all, so I ignored the thought until I could check in the books.

I don't think this completely rules out him knowing about what burning a H-Spike would do however, as burning a spike is technically Allomancy, which he would learn about from holding the power of the Well. It's a stretch, but Brandon gave us way too much wiggle room when he said that "he[TLR] knew a lot of things that nobody knows."

Yeah, it doesn't. Honestly, I'm not actually certain about that being confirmed. I feel like I saw it said from a confirmed source, but I can't find it so I hid the post.

[Djarskublar]

I really like this idea. It is something I have had niggling the back of my head for a while, but I haven't put to words. You did so quite succinctly and accurately. Have an orange arrow.

I'm with @The One Who Connects, though. TLR made himself really powerful with the Well, not with your hack. I still think your hack would work, though. It will likely have strange side effects, as Brandon implied, and you could probably use this method to gain basically any power that you can spike into a burnable, non-aluminum spike. The other interesting thing has to do with some of my theoretical ideas with Awakening intelligent objects, and this could be extremely helpful in crafting ridiculously powerful artifacts via Awakening/Hemalurgy. This is really getting the gears turning, man.

And he didn't have to do this method himself, as a final thought. He could use some schmuck in his government to spike him, and then kill the poor fool afterwards. Dead men tell no tales, after all. He certainly wouldn't have a problem with doing so from a moral perspective.

[8bitBob]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Anyway, his incredible strength in Allomancy was already explained via two things: 1) He used the power of the Well and rebuilt himself to be very powerful in Allomancy.[In the WoB that it wasn't Lerasium] 

Interesting. I had not considered this interpretation. I worked under the assumption that he simply made himself an Allomancer and then built off of that, but it is possible that he just made himself super strong from the get go. Similarly, I am aware of that compounding the effects of Allomancy is possible, and it could be that he simply knew this trick and that's the reason. This begs the question though, if he's using one of these to boost his Allomancy, what is he using Hemalurgy for that could be considered "the most dramatic"? We know he was using it in a big way for something that we saw.

If there had never been anything said on the subject of burning spikes, then I too would have assumed it to be something else, but we know that burning a spike has some sort of effect.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Conveniently, two more things. 1) For all his knowledge, he could not figure out how to make anything beyond Koloss, Kandra and Inquisitors during his thousand year reign. I feel like he would have learned more of how Hemalurgy functioned naturally before somehow figuring out how to hack the system.

I'd argue that "hacks" or "tricks" like compounding are actually really simple, comparatively. Spiking someone requires you to know exactly where to place it and is likely even more complicated to make constructs, whereas this just requires you to try burning a spike sometime and messing with Identity. Realmatics is said to be central to the old Terris religion, so it's possible that Rashek actually knew something about Identity to begin with and the knowledge was surpressed afterwards. Naturally occurring Aluminum is rare, but not unheard of, after all.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

2) If he could do this, why use physical Hemalurgic Spikes on himself? The soul interference from piercing skin plus the high amount of F-Atium power in his bracers should've been enough for them to not get Steel/Iron lines

This is indeed something that bothers me. What was he spiking himself with? Why did he want to? It could be that he just wanted even more insurance that his Atium Metalminds couldn't be Pushed or Pulled, seeing as he almost instantly died of old age after losing them and that's kind of a big deal, but who knows.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

 

• He would definitely not share this secret with Inquisitors, for the purpose of control, which means that either he controlled a Kandra or performed the spiking himself. (despite the risks, I wouldn't put it past him to keep his secrets completely secret)
• Bit of semantics, but at what point does something cross the line and stop being considered "done via Hemalurgy?" If his dramatic effects were due to hyper-strong Allomancy, then it seems like they are pulled off by Allomancy, regardless of if he used Hemalurgy to become that strong. "Pulled of by Hemalurgy" seems like it would imply some side effect of Spike-granted power that cannot be done via natural means (Lerasium beads would've made him strong, so what's different about using the spike way?)

I mean, this is the Lord Ruler we're talking about. Even if he used a puppeted construct to do this, he definitely killed them afterwards just to be sure. Probably doesn't really matter what he used in the end.

On whether or not it's still Hemalurgy, I think it is. I can pull off "dramatic effect" on my car by boosting it with Nitro (shoo, car enthusiasts, you don't need to bother telling me this is wrong lol) and just because the effect is just going really fast and it still runs on gasoline doesn't mean that it wasn't pulled off with Nitro. This is the worst metaphor I have ever told and this is what I get for responding in a car.

 

I'm heading off to a family dinner now, so I probably won't be able to respond for the rest of the night. Glad to see the responses so far.

[The One Who Connects]

13 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

And he didn't have to do this method himself, as a final thought. He could use some schmuck in his government to spike him, and then kill the poor fool afterwards. Dead men tell no tales, after all. He certainly wouldn't have a problem with doing so from a moral perspective.

His morals were never in question, but Ruin-like control over spiked individuals goes a lot further towards precise spike placements than coercing someone via words. Especially if he wants to spike himself and live. But as 8bitBob said, he'd probably kill them regardless of who it was, so it's a moot point.

13 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

Similarly, I am aware of that compounding the effects of Allomancy is possible, and it could be that he simply knew this trick and that's the reason. This begs the question though, if he's using one of these to boost his Allomancy, what is he using Hemalurgy for that could be considered "the most dramatic"? We know he was using it in a big way for something that we saw.  [..]

I'd argue that "hacks" or "tricks" like compounding are actually really simple, comparatively. Spiking someone requires you to know exactly where to place it, whereas this just requires you to try burning a spike sometime and messing with Identity. Realmatics is said to be central to the old Terris religion, so it's possible that Rashek actually knew something about Identity to begin with and the knowledge was suppressed afterwards.

This is indeed something that bothers me. What was he spiking himself with? Why did he want to? It could be that he just wanted even more insurance that his Atium Metalminds couldn't be Pushed or Pulled, seeing as he almost instantly died of old age after losing them and that's kind of a big deal, but who knows. [..]

On whether or not it's still Hemalurgy, I think it is. I can pull off "dramatic effect" on my car by boosting it with Nitro (shoo, car enthusiasts, you don't need to bother telling me this is wrong lol) and just because the effect is just going really fast and it still runs on gasoline doesn't mean that it wasn't pulled off with Nitro. This is the worst metaphor I have ever told and this is what I get for responding in a car.

I later realized that your trick could be the compounding Allomancy he did, so fair enough.

While simple to do, the difficulty to hacks is figuring out how to do them. Which is why I doubted he would have learned that in his glimpse of Hemalurgy. They usually require a leap in logic, making connections most people wouldn't. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the Realmatic aspect of the Terris giving him the edge to make those leaps though.

Technically, he was still alive because while his age was extremely high, he was in quite good health all things considered. Would he have lived very long afterword? Probably not, but he did survive losing his F-Atium.

I did say it was arguing semantics. As long as you can see it in a way that works, then the theory can work.

[Djarskublar]

5 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

His morals were never in question, but Ruin-like control over spiked individuals goes a lot further towards precise spike placements than coercing someone via words. Especially if he wants to spike himself and live. But as 8bitBob said, he'd probably kill them regardless of who it was, so it's a moot point.

I was just putting this out there since nobody else had made it explicit yet. Agreed that it is a moot point, he wouldn't have any trouble physically spiking himself, one way or another.

6 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

While simple to do, the difficulty to hacks is figuring out how to do them. Which is why I doubted he would have learned that in his glimpse of Hemalurgy. They usually require a leap in logic, making connections most people wouldn't. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the Realmatic aspect of the Terris giving him the edge to make those leaps though.

He did have at least 20-50 years to figure things out right after he took the power, even if he didn't have the power of the Well any more, he still knew more and could have probably figured things out just like we have, only he gets to actually experiment to test his ideas rather than asking Brandon. We figured his out in, what? A decade or so, also what of the distractions other book's magic provide? He could have figured it out easily, he got compounding, after all.. With gold feruchemy, it would even be fairly safe. IDEA GET! Clinical trials where if it turns out to be bad for you, gold medallions fix the problem. Who needs ethics boards anyway?

[Calderis]

So I've been thinking about this pretty heavily since the thread started and am liking it more and more. Let me go on a bit of a rant of my own thoughts here. 

So, I imagine that TLR did empower himself during his brief ascendant period. I don't think that negates this theory. See, he'd be able to manipulate himself pretty heavily, but he'd still be limited by the nature of the power he was using. So he does all he can that way and his wonderfully powerful ascendant phase ends. 

Next, he does take on this method and is able to further empower himself because he's now using a combination of the powers of Ruin and preservation. He spikes out an attribute, and using F. Gold heals the spiritual damage. Now, per the WoB's posted in this thread burning a spike would normally have some weird side effects. I think TLR would have avoided a lot of these. See, burning a Hemalurgic spike would normally have side effects because your splicing a portion of someone elses soul into your own, and that's bound to create some conflicts. In this instance though, there's no conflict because he's basically reinforcing his spirit web with a copy of itself.

So he would have been able to push himself as far as the Well could take, and then strengthen that by this method to levels that would be literally impossible without Hemalurgy, fitting well with the WoB's about his most impressive feats.

[Djarskublar]

I dunno... I kinda doubt mere Hemalurgy could enhance him more than the Well.

And beyond that, I imagine there would still be side effects, just not quite as drastic. Normally I would expect some dissociative identity stuff to happen, but in this case, it might just Connect him more with Ruin, among other smaller psychological effects.

Edit: could the fantastic feats he mentions just be the kandra/koloss/inquisitors? Those are pretty amazing, and done with Hemalurgy. I don't remember the context well enough. Was it in relation to his mass soothings?

Edited March 12, 2017 by Djarskublar

[8bitBob]

Aaand I'm back.

On 3/11/2017 at 5:57 PM, The One Who Connects said:

While simple to do, the difficulty to hacks is figuring out how to do them. Which is why I doubted he would have learned that in his glimpse of Hemalurgy. They usually require a leap in logic, making connections most people wouldn't.

While this could be true, it's not exactly a huge leap in logic. Even if he gained no knowledge of this from Ascending, he still had a clear example from compounding that you can do weird stuff by burning Invested metals. All he'd need to do is eat a spike, sense the Investiture inside like he does with Metalminds and go from there. I mean, we knew way less about the metalic arts than the Lord Ruler at the time, and yet readers almost immediately asked "What would happen if you burned a spike?" after reading the first book.

For his experiments to have any success, he'd need to have some knowledge of Identity, but I now realise that it's almost guaranteed that he did. Even if there wasn't pre existing info on the subject, The Lord Ruler clearly had access to and knowledge of aluminum. It would take a supremely dull or incurious mind to not wonder about the Feruchemical properties of a new metal used for Allomancy when all metals have had a purpose for both so far.

On 3/11/2017 at 5:57 PM, The One Who Connects said:

Technically, he was still alive because while his age was extremely high, he was in quite good health all things considered. Would he have lived very long afterword? Probably not, but he did survive losing his F-Atium.

From reading the passage, later comments in the books and WoB, it's assumed that he was about to die of old age after losing his Atium Metalminds and that stabbing him in the heart probably wasn't even needed. The reason for this is that while tapping Atium makes him younger, he's still 1000 years old. What happened after losing the Metalminds is the same as what happens when Sazed stops tapping Pewter and begins to deflate. In this case though, it's deadly because he's not reverting to a weak scholar, but an impossibly old man who should have died long ago.

Interestingly, this is also why he needed to compound more Atium as time went on, because it takes far more tapping to turn a 1000 year old into a 30 year old than it does to turn a 50 year old into one.

On 3/12/2017 at 0:18 AM, Djarskublar said:

I dunno... I kinda doubt mere Hemalurgy could enhance him more than the Well.

Well, it's not impossible since we don't really understand how the Well works. It could be that you can only expand a soul so much to increase its power. Like, imagine this as strength. With the Well, maybe you're making the muscles in your arms stronger, and you can only make them so big before they become unwieldy. With Hemalurgy, it's like adding on another pair of arms to your torso to help lift stuff. Both make you stronger, but in different ways.

Basically, it could be that the Well gives you Better Soul, whereas Hemalurgy gives you More Soul, and they're not mutually exclusive. Just a thought.

On 3/12/2017 at 0:18 AM, Djarskublar said:

Could the fantastic feats he mentions just be the kandra/koloss/inquisitors? Those are pretty amazing, and done with Hemalurgy.

I don't remember the context either, but this is possible. I'll try to find the passage today.

Edited March 13, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Yata]

3 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

Well, it's not impossible since we don't really understand how the Well works. It could be that you can only expand a soul so much to increase its power. Like, imagine this as strength. With the Well, maybe you're making the muscles in your arms stronger, and you can only make them so big before they become unwieldy. With Hemalurgy, it's like adding on another pair of arms to your torso to help lift stuff. Both make you stronger, but in different ways.

Basically, it could be that the Well gives you Better Soul, whereas Hemalurgy gives you More Soul, and they're not mutually exclusive. Just a thought.

Actually what Rashek did is rewrite his Soul (in the end the same effect of A-lerasium) and there is no limit to that...Or at least there are the limits but they Will be the same of Hemalurgy's usage(or lesser because Hemalurgy is less precise than someone who could letterally manipulate the soul without the limitation of the magic system.

So if Rashek choose to have an X Allomantic Strenght It was because He could not reach X+1

Much more After his Death there weren't find Spikes in him (I think someone would notice them).

PS: you could probably create "natural" Koloss, Inquisitors or other Hemalurgy's constructs with enough Soul editing Skill. Hemalurgy is a copy-paste of Soul. Rewrite a Soul can't be more limitated than that.

[8bitBob]

8 minutes ago, Yata said:

Actually what Rashek did is rewrite his Soul

The example still works under this thinking. It could be that there's only so much rewriting you can do on a Soul, so he did as much as he could with the Well on that front. Then, as a mortal, he used Hemalurgy and effectively gave himself More Soul than the average person has to increase his power.

I'm not saying this is exactly how it works or conclusively proves it, but rather that saying "He used the Well" is not an automatic way to disprove the theory.

15 minutes ago, Yata said:

Much more After his Death there weren't find Spikes in him (I think someone would notice them).

I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I agree he had no other spikes. I'm theorizing that he had burned them with Allomancy to splice them into his DNA.

 

[Djarskublar]

8 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

The example still works under this thinking. It could be that there's only so much rewriting you can do on a Soul, so he did as much as he could with the Well on that front. Then, as a mortal, he used Hemalurgy and effectively gave himself More Soul than the average person has to increase his power.

While this does sound good, it doesn't make sense once you think about the quantity of power involved. Hemalurgy uses very little power, it just rips up souls, whereas the Well has a significant portion of the power of a Shard at its disposal. Your statement, devoid of that consideration, makes sense, but once you add in the power factor, I can't justify it. There are differences in power consumption between systems, and sometimes they are pretty significant. For example, Aons use a lot more Investiture than Forgeries do, but sometimes the results of Forging are more impressive even though it only uses maybe a tenth or a hundredth of the power (pure guesswork here, but not unreasonable). The difference with the example of Hemalurgy vs the Well is that the Well is so many orders of magnitude larger, that that consideration can't compensate anymore. Even if it isn't used efficiently, eventually sheer power overtakes precise efficient usage. And beyond that, using the Well isn't exactly inefficient, it just leaks really fast like Stormlight.

[Calderis]

The use of hemalurgy in this instance in addition to the well has nothing to do with the relatively small amount of investiture hemalurgy uses. it's all about the way it functions

Using the power of the well, TLR would have rebuilt his spirit web to the extent of the ability that a soul could be augmented within the limit of a single soul. Then, using hemalurgy, a portion of that soul is ripped away and regrown, back to its original state through F. Gold. Then that section of the soul, a relatively small amount of investiture, is used to reinforce the existing, regrown portion with a copy of itself, thereby enhancing the soul beyond its limit through essentially adding extra investiture into the spirit web.

I think the nature of hemalurgy itself, makes it the only method we have seen thus far that would allow someone to enhance themselves beyond the limits of a single spirit web.

Hemalurgy is by no means stronger than the Well, but it's mechanics allow it to do things that a straightforward alteration of the soul could not.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Calderis
typos

[Djarskublar]

A well put point, but I see no reason why the Well would be unable to increase the 'size' of your soul. My best guess would be that you can only make and occasionally sever Connections in your soul (since that is all a soul really is anyway). This means that any alteration of the soul would be done by adding/removing Connections. Burning Lerasium increases your Connection to Preservation, so using the Well's power to make yourself into a ridiculously strong mistborn would essentially be done by adding a bunch of Connection to Preservation. Hence, using the Well for this would increase the size of your soul... sort of. Size isn't really a thing in the Spiritual Realm, after all.

[Calderis]

Time and location (3rd and 4th dimension) may not account for much. but there has to be some non-euclidean means of measurement. A vessel for a shard, and a vanilla mortal may have originally had relatively the same structure, but are obviously different in the spiritual realm. A sliver, having touched that power, is still altered after the power leaves.

TLR, a sliver who knowingly altered himself while touching that power, had the means to see those limits, and the ability to understand them in ways that we can't. I find it both plausible that he was able to foresee a way to alter himself further, and impossible to verify with the information we have available (I really hate how often I feel the later).

[+Extesian]

I found this WoB from 2013 that may be relevant.

Quote

CHRIS KING (MIYABI)

This is the last one here we have from Mistborn: Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads

I know it's about allomancy and the lerasium beads but I'm focusing on the word "in all of this". That sounds like he got all of his abilities from the Well not from things he did with investiture after his ascension. It's by no means decisive and I feel less skeptical than some that one couldn't use hemalurgy in this way to do useful things post-ascension, but I do lean towards it all being from direct access to Preservation's essence in liquid form.

[Djarskublar]

I think the theory that you could burn your own spikes to buff your power is totally plausible, and most likely correct. On the other hand, I don't think it could enhance you further than the Well could. Just clarifying my stance here.

[+Extesian]

I agree with you on both these points @Djarskublar (and should assure you I wasn't having a go at you or misunderstanding your points). I don't think TLR could have maximized his awesomeness while using the Well with the plan to then boost it further. The Well provided everything he needed. I think it's possible he did what he had time to do while using the Well (which, as we know from Vin, is short and you are not omniscient) and then afterwards used the knowledge he gained to boost himself more than he was able to at first because he had way more time to dwell on it all. 

But yeah I still think this probably isn't the case, even if it is possible.

[8bitBob]

8 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

A well put point, but I see no reason why the Well would be unable to increase the 'size' of your soul.

@Calderis is picking up what I'm putting down here and basically said everything I would have, but I have one more thing to add: it's confirmed that both Preservation and Ruin cannot create life by themselves. It's entirely plausible that the power of the Well cannot simply create more Soul because of this limitation. Similarly, by itself, Hemalurgy can only destroy and move around portions of Souls, and it's possible that only through combining the powers that they're able to create more Soul than they started with.

Again, not saying this confirms it, but the power of Preservation does have limitations, even if we don't really understand them.

8 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

My best guess would be that you can only make and occasionally sever Connections in your soul (since that is all a soul really is anyway). This means that any alteration of the soul would be done by adding/removing Connections.

I have ... issues, with a lot said here. Is this a theory, or a WoB?

7 hours ago, Extesian said:

I found this WoB from 2013 that may be relevant.

Yep, that one is in the OP. When writing the theory, I had collected all of the evidence and read them together repeatedly. Because of this, it made perfect sense to me that they were all connected, but others have pointed out your very valid interpretation.

Personally, I feel Brandon is intentionally being slippery here, as he is known to be at times. Note that, despite being asked about using the Bead and the Well directly, he only confirms that the Bead wasn't used, not that the Well made him so powerful.

It's hard to say what he meant for sure, but from context, "In all of this" could still be referring to post Ascension shenanigans. Consuming a Bead likely would have been done after he was finished with the Well (had more pressing things to do at that time than eat some metal, which he could do later) yet he still mentions it "in all of this." There's also that slippery factor cropping up here again, because he doesn't just say "with his time in the Well," or any such variation to make it clear that it was done at that time.

Edited March 14, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Jondesu]

On 3/14/2017 at 9:38 AM, 8bitBob said:

@Calderis is picking up what I'm putting down here and basically said everything I would have, but I have one more thing to add: it's confirmed that both Preservation and Ruin cannot create life by themselves. It's entirely plausible that the power of the Well cannot simply create more Soul because of this limitation. Similarly, by itself, Hemalurgy can only destroy and move around portions of Souls, and it's possible that only through combining the powers that they're able to create more Soul than they started with.

Again, not saying this confirms it, but the power of Preservation does have limitations, even if we don't really understand them.

I have to take issue with this.  Preservation couldn't create, but clearly Preservation's power can do many things he couldn't directly, as evidenced by TLR, Kelsier, Vin, Wax, etc, who are all able to destroy and do all manner of non-Preservation things with Preservation's power (through Allomancy).  Pushing the planet around and changing microorganisms is certainly not Preserving either, so we know that the power of the Well can be used without requiring one to follow Preservation's Intent.

[Yata]

Leras was attuned to Preservation enough to have not the flexibility every Well's users had.

Preservation still stops them from making something explicity aganist It's Intent(destroy Kwaan) but they have a lot of freedom compared to Leras and probably Ascendant Vin too.