Kelsier's current status

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

There have been a lot of theories since BoM on what, how and when Kelsier's current status is. I am curious what people in the shard  think of the topic right now and which theories have more weight at this point.

This is also in case any WoBs or plausible theories came up which I missed, so please tell me if I left out important options .

Edited July 11, 2018 by WhiteLeeopard
Just realized this is my 900th post, reasonable as Kelsier is my favorite character ever :D

[Vissy]

There was a theory floated around by @Yata and @Calderis about how Kelsier got his body back, and I find it really convincing as well. It's really simple - when worldhoppers enter the Cognitive physically, essentially the only difference between them and a Cognitive Shadow is that the latter lack a Connection to the Physical Realm. Kelsier hemalurgically stole somebody's Connection to the Physical Realm, stamped himself with it and then simply stepped out of the nearest Perpendicularity. So he's got his own body, just not the original one.

As for where Kelsier currently is, I doubt he's worldhopping. Leaving Scadrial is tough for people like him, especially if Sazed doesn't want him to leave. Personally, I think he's in North Scadrial plotting something big. Hence why Hoid gave Wax that coin with Kelsier's memories.

Here's the theory:

 

Edited July 11, 2018 by Vissy

[+robardin he/him]

39 minutes ago, Vissy said:

There was a theory floated around by @Yata and @Calderis about how Kelsier got his body back, and I find it really convincing as well. It's really simple - when worldhoppers enter the Cognitive physically, essentially the only difference between them and a Cognitive Shadow is that the latter lack a Connection to the Physical Realm. Kelsier hemalurgically stole somebody's Connection to the Physical Realm, stamped himself with it and then simply stepped out of the nearest Perpendicularity. So he's got his own body, just not the original one.

As for where Kelsier currently is, I doubt he's worldhopping. Leaving Scadrial is tough for people like him, especially if Sazed doesn't want him to leave. Personally, I think he's in North Scadrial plotting something big. Hence why Hoid gave Wax that coin with Kelsier's memories.

I really like that mechanism for re-embodiment - it greatly simplifies how any Cognitive Shadow could become fully physical. I guess that lines up with "hemalurgy in his own body", though technically it would be "hemalurgy done in the CR that results in him getting his own body when he steps into the Physical Realm".

Somewhere in those threads I posited that Kelsier wouldn't have to kill someone to steal Connection, that perhaps a kandra Blessing spike would suffice (since one of the things they do for a mistwraith is to form Connection as part of making them fully sentient), and they would have an "extra" set of those from OreSeur. TenSoon would have pulled them out along with his original set as part of the Resolution.

I have also posted elsewhere my guess that Kelsier is not a Fullborn nor hemalurgically enhanced for Feruchemy, but that he's re-embodied as a Mistborn (as he was in life, and as his Spiritweb would dictate) and used the Bands to access Feruchemy, refilling it with Compounding. After all, the key bit to making the Bands seems to be F-nicrosil and F-aluminum, so he just needs to teach a Full Feruchemist about those new metals and have him create a set of F-Bands with 16 F-abilities and associated unsealed/unkeyed metalminds in it, then he could then tap and add in the Allomantic abilities. (Who that Feruchemist could be or could have been would be the big question.)

But I hadn't ever thought about his "expansion" from having held Preservation as a Cognitive Shadow making his Allomancy stronger as a result, once physically embodied again, probably to a Lord Ruler like level (who had Allomancy not through lerasium but "direct Spiritweb twiddling"). And it would explain the power in the Bands. That's really cool. I'll get on board with that.

However, I find it hard to picture him physically anywhere on Scadrial. Similar to Marsh, his physical form is too recognizable to pass for someone else, unless they discovered some Metallic form of Lightweaving. I'm already wondering where Marsh is sequestering himself that he flew off to in Alloy of Law after giving Spook's book to Marasi... And by WoB they're not in cahoots, at least not as of MB Era 2. So I chose "worldhopping" though that's not really what I think he's up to - I think he's mostly operating in the CR (Shadesmar).

Edited July 11, 2018 by robardin

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

19 hours ago, Vissy said:

There was a theory floated around by @Yata and @Calderis about how Kelsier got his body back, and I find it really convincing as well. It's really simple - when worldhoppers enter the Cognitive physically, essentially the only difference between them and a Cognitive Shadow is that the latter lack a Connection to the Physical Realm. Kelsier hemalurgically stole somebody's Connection to the Physical Realm, stamped himself with it and then simply stepped out of the nearest Perpendicularity. So he's got his own body, just not the original one.

As for where Kelsier currently is, I doubt he's worldhopping. Leaving Scadrial is tough for people like him, especially if Sazed doesn't want him to leave. Personally, I think he's in North Scadrial plotting something big. Hence why Hoid gave Wax that coin with Kelsier's memories.

Here's the theory:

 

Thats currently my favorite theory, but honestly, I have changed my mind 4 times on this topic already . 

Do we have any in-text, or WoBs shedding light on Sliver powers? Since most people die soon after dropping a Shard its a topic where I feel we have too little info.

Kelsier's location is something else I am quite curious about, but don't have any firm ideas of where he could be. I'm somehow hesitant to think North Scadrial, as while I am sure he has a lot of covert unknown influence there, I'm not sure that he could prevent himself from getting a very hands on and rather visible (if not him then his group). At the moment I'm thinking he is offworld, mainly because even though Sazed is his friend Kelsier would be loath to having anyone capable of controlling him even if Sazed wouldn't normally do that, and the chances that he normally has more than 1 spike are high. I know distance is not always relevant, but I think the further he goes from Scadrial the less able Sazed/Harmony would be able to take control of him through his spikes. So regardless of the difficulty of Worldhopping for him if Kelsier put his mind to it I'm sure he could figure it out after 300 years. 

19 hours ago, robardin said:

So I chose "worldhopping" though that's not really what I think he's up to - I think he's mostly operating in the CR (Shadesmar).

I hadn't thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense. It would be so ironic and so Kelsier to spend all that energy into escaping the CR and returning to the PR just to make his power base on the CR once he suceeds. Much like spending so much energy and hatred on overthrowing the Lord Ruler just to pretend to be the Lord Ruler .