What would happen if you burn Shardblades?

[Complexityspren]

As shadbaldes are made of metal (God Metal, actually), I assume that they can be burned by an allomancer. Does anyone know what this would do?

Edited May 19, 2017 by Complexityspren

[+Extesian he/him]

35 minutes ago, Complexityspren said:

As shadbaldes are made of metal (God Metal, actually), I assume that they can be burned by an allomancer. Does anyone know what this would do?

Shardblades count as a metal but they're so invested they're almost impossible to burn. 

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OUTIS

Will Allomancy affect Shardblades?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It cannot affect Shardblades. Well, cannot is a strong term. Things with innate Investiture are much more difficult to affect by any of the magics at all. Which is why it's very hard for Szeth to bind people or lash people wearing Shardplate to the ceiling. In the same way Allomancy wouldn't be able to push on it without some help. Duralumin with a strong Push would probably do it.

OUTIS

I was just wondering if it was actually metal.

BRANDON SANDERSON

It is metalish--it's metal enough for Allomancy to work on it.

We don't know what it would do though. 

[Complexityspren]

 

4 minutes ago, Extesian said:

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OUTIS

Will Allomancy affect Shardblades?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It cannot affect Shardblades. Well, cannot is a strong term. Things with innate Investiture are much more difficult to affect by any of the magics at all. Which is why it's very hard for Szeth to bind people or lash people wearing Shardplate to the ceiling. In the same way Allomancy wouldn't be able to push on it without some help. Duralumin with a strong Push would probably do it.

OUTIS

I was just wondering if it was actually metal.

BRANDON SANDERSON

It is metalish--it's metal enough for Allomancy to work on it.

That explains how physical allomancy would affect shardblades, but does not refer to burning them. If these items are made of god metal, and both atium and lerasium could be burned, would that not predicate "tanavastium" being allomanticaly active (or are the other metals only active because of the direct investiture of Ruin and Preservation in Scadrial)?

Edited May 19, 2017 by Complexityspren

[Calderis he/him]

9 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Shardblades count as a metal but they're so invested they're almost impossible to burn. 

We don't know what it would do though. 

That quote says they would be near impossible to effect with Allomancy. It doesn't address the issue of a Mistborn consuming and attempting to burn a peice.

While it being a God metal seems to imply there should be some effect, I don't think it's possible to find out, even if more Mistborn come about. In order to Ave a peice to burn, you'd need to break a chunk off of a Shardblades, and I'm not even sure that possible.

The nature of Shardblades seems that if you managed to achieve enough force to break them, they would return to mist, making a small enough peice to burn only achievable from a living spren, which seems cause some entirely different problems. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Calderis

[The One Who Connects he/him]

As similar questions in this vein got answered with: "you're assuming Nightblood is not Allomantically inert"

I am somewhat sure that he has also given this answer in regards to Shardblades, but I cannot find it at this moment.

I can, however, find 4 separate references that consider Nightblood as a Shardblade (1, 2, 3, 4), so the "may not be viable" should still hold up for a Shardblade.

[+Extesian he/him]

Sorry i was a bit lazy with me answer. 

It's pretty well established that burning a heavily invested metal is hard. I'm actually surprised I can find a specific WoB on burning a Shardblade but there is this. 

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QUESTION

If an Allomancer ate a Forged metal, what happens?

BRANDON SANDERSON

There is going to be some Investiture in that Forged metal, but it's not going to be keyed the right way, so it'd be like eating a metalmind... If you're asking if the metal was Forged into a different type of metal, the Forgery will take and it will believe and... that's going to get really weird. I have not considered that. That's a “let me think about it.” [Pause] My instincts say that it's going to work like the metal it's become long enough to burn for a few minutes, and then that's going to break the Forgery, and it's going to snap out of it and become the other metal. That’s my instinct, but I’ll have to think about it further. (on second thoughts) It's going to be really hard to burn a metal that's Invested like that. The magics don't mix real well.

KURKISTAN

Eh, you can burn metalminds.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, you can, but it’s from the same “magic set”, right? So...

So the point is even if a Shardblade is burnable metal, because it's heavily invested from a different Shard, or magic set, it's extremely difficult to burn.

[BrightVoid he/him]

I think your first problem is classifying the blades as Godmetal, while we know from the books they are the physical form of spren.  While they are invested and metalish they are not the direct essence of Tanavast.

[Calderis he/him]

14 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Sorry i was a bit lazy with me answer. 

It's pretty well established that burning a heavily invested metal is hard. I'm actually surprised I can find a specific WoB on burning a Shardblade but there is this. 

So the point is even if a Shardblade is burnable metal, because it's heavily invested from a different Shard, or magic set, it's extremely difficult to burn.

Thanks @Extesian, I had not seen that one before. While I still think that Shardblades are not realistically going to be able to be ingested in the first place, that quote is still significant to me for a lot of reasons.

The example in the quote itself shows how a seemingly straightforward hack is going to be very difficult to manage. 

The existence of compounding has made hacking the magic appear ad if all you need to do is find the right key to unlock one system for another. This quote shows explicitly that a straightforward hack is only possible between systems involving the same Shards. 

There has to be some level of actual investiture conversion in most cases, or the hack won't take. I suppose it's not really that surprising, but it does add a layer of complexity that puts interworld magic hacks beyond the realmatics we've been allowed to see so far.

Edit: @BrightVoid Spren being splinters of Honor and/or Cultivation actually does imply that them manifesting physically as a metal should be a God Metal of one or the other, or an alloy of the two. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Calderis

[The One Who Connects he/him]

14 minutes ago, BrightVoid said:

I think your first problem is classifying the blades as Godmetal, while we know from the books they are the physical form of spren.  While they are invested and metalish they are not the direct essence of Tanavast.

To directly quote Weltall when they imparted this knowledge unto me:

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Brandon has confirmed that Shardblades are a godmetal. Whether they're 'Tanavastium', whether some are Cultivation's godmetal or whether they're an alloy of both we don't know.

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Question: Are Shardblades made out of Atium?

Brandon: Shardblades are not but it is the same thing but from a different planet...  It’s made out of the god’s body.

Edited April 18 by Weltall

 

[Ryan Diggory he/him]

I do not think that you would be able to allomantically burn it, nor fire burn it