Burning Awakened objects

[Little Thunderclast]

So, if someone with both Breath and allomantic abilities was bored one day and decided to bestow some breath on a metal object (say, steel) and then shave it down and burn it, or swallow it whole somehow, what do you think would happen when they burned it? Would there be some kind of power just beyond their grasp like when Vin burned Sazed's earing? Would they just be able to take those Breaths back? And what if you did this with a Hemalurgic spike? Thoughts??

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

I’d say it would work a whole lot like Compounding, in that the Allomancer would essentially overwrite the metal, creating a ‘new’ Allomantic metal that, when burned, gives the effect of Breath, but powered by Preservation’s Investiture. So the Allomancer would probably get a very strong color aura, and maybe jump a few Heightening temporarily. The effects would vanish, of course, once the metal burned out. 

[+hwiles He/Him]

When a metalmind is burned, the result is essentially a new allomantic metal that grants the power coded to the metalmind. If a chunk of metal was awakened, my belief is that it would technically be encoded with a Command, not "Breath." The Breath is basically just the fuel for the command, like a feruchemist's attributes are a fuel for their magic. I'd speculate then that, while burning an Awakened object, you would be imbued with that object's command. This would probably be very uncomfortable and be similar to being possessed by Ruin, though it could grant odd and interesting powers. Burning a nugget of steel that was successfully Commanded to solve differential equations could presumably instill in the user a permanent or semi-permanent desire and inclination to be good at math.

[Dunkum he/him]

On 12/11/2017 at 4:01 PM, Nashan’Elin said:

I’d say it would work a whole lot like Compounding, in that the Allomancer would essentially overwrite the metal, creating a ‘new’ Allomantic metal that, when burned, gives the effect of Breath, but powered by Preservation’s Investiture. So the Allomancer would probably get a very strong color aura, and maybe jump a few Heightening temporarily. The effects would vanish, of course, once the metal burned out. 

this seems like a pretty reasonable guess, though given that an awakened object must be given a command, I wonder if the overwriting of the power migth not end up being related to the command instead somehow (not sure how that would work, necessarily, just tryign to think of other possibilities)

[GeneralHZRD he/him]

I do not know what would happen with an awakened metal, but there is a WoB on burning a Hemalurgic spike,

This is from a Tor.com Q&A with Brandon Sanderson,

Spoiler

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.