Is Spook Still Alive?

[+Invocation]

Everyone treats Spook like he's dead, but given that he supposedly ruled for a century post-Catacendre, he was granted full Mistborn status by Harmony, and that he was assisting Kelsier with Hemalurgic stuff, would it be a safe bet that he is still alive? Brandon has said this, after all:

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lunarubato

Was Spook still alive when they figured out the Allomantic properties of cadmium and bendalloy and that sort of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yyyes.

lunarubato

Okay. Follow-up, did he learn how to use them and travel into the future?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughter* You will find more out about Spook's fate, how about that?

lunarubato

That'll work.

Brandon Sanderson

It has not been– There is more coming about Spook.

source

He could have, in order to assist Kell further through the time needed by spiking someone's atium Feruchemy and compounding that forever (a la TLR). I kind of hope so, I like Spook.

[Calderis he/him]

If he's still alive, I think cadmium is the more likely culprit. 

He could have spiked out someone's atium Feruchemy... But that would require both finding either a full Feruchemist or atium Ferring... Learning the proper bindpoint to steal that power... And getting a hold of atium to compound. 

[+Invocation]

28 minutes ago, Calderis said:

If he's still alive, I think cadmium is the more likely culprit. 

He could have spiked out someone's atium Feruchemy... But that would require both finding either a full Feruchemist or atium Ferring... Learning the proper bindpoint to steal that power... And getting a hold of atium to compound. 

Good point. Cadmium and duralumin would work just as well. Ising the wanting of this

Edited September 11, 2018 by Invocation

[Draginon he/him]

I sure hope Spook isn't alive. I don't particularly like him that much, his story annoyed me more than anything, but could you imagine how p*ssed the Kandra would be upon seeing him. I mean Melaan is the most chill of them and she didn't approve of his experiments at all so could you imagine what her exact opposite would react? I imagine most of the population would treat him pretty well if they knew he was alive since the general populace reveres him like a god.

[+Invocation]

18 hours ago, Draginon said:

I sure hope Spook isn't alive. I don't particularly like him that much, his story annoyed me more than anything, but could you imagine how p*ssed the Kandra would be upon seeing him. I mean Melaan is the most chill of them and she didn't approve of his experiments at all so could you imagine what her exact opposite would react? I imagine most of the population would treat him pretty well if they knew he was alive since the general populace reveres him like a god.

Seeing that juxtaposition is about half the reason I want him to be alive, tbh. Rusts, that would be funny. 

[Wreith he/him]

Nah, Spook offered his body for Kelsier to be stapled back in to

 

edit: I posted that offhandedly as a joke, and now I'm wondering...

Edited September 11, 2018 by Wreith

[Calderis he/him]

24 minutes ago, Wreith said:

Nah, Spook offered his body for Kelsier to be stapled back in to

 

edit: I posted that offhandedly as a joke, and now I'm wondering...

He didn't. 

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Questioner

In Bands of Mourning, we learned that the Sovereign, who they confused as being the Lord Ruler, came after the Catacendre. [He] was their god, was their king and god. And then Kelsier looking for a string. Is the spike somehow connecting Kelsier's soul to Spook's body.

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question. It is connecting his soul with his body, his current body, but it is not Spook's body. That's a great theory.

source

 

[Draginon he/him]

5 hours ago, Invocation said:

Seeing that juxtaposition is about half the reason I want him to be alive, tbh. Rusts, that would be funny. 

I wonder if he would be thrilled or weirded out with the populace and Kandra opinions of him

You know with Kelsier being alive because of Hemalurgy it makes you wonder just how ridiculously powerful it is. I mean Harmony couldn't use the combined power of Preservation and Ruin to bring Vin and Elend back and yet Hemalurgy brought Kelsier back to the physical realm from the cognitive realm. This method needs to be explored/explained in The Lost Metal or if not then in Era 3 or Secret History 2

[+robardin he/him]

58 minutes ago, Draginon said:

... with Kelsier being alive because of Hemalurgy it makes you wonder just how ridiculously powerful it is. I mean Harmony couldn't use the combined power of Preservation and Ruin to bring Vin and Elend back and yet Hemalurgy brought Kelsier back to the physical realm from the cognitive realm. 

He couldn't because Vin and Elend didn't want to return - they wanted to pass Beyond, as most people do. It's what Kelsier did in somehow resisting passing Beyond that's unique. Preservation noted that he was a "runner" in Secret History, so there are others who try, but apparently he was the only successful runner ever, because Preservation (or his shadow) pushed him into the Well of Ascension.

[Messydesk]

I've been wondering the same thing, I want to believe that Spook's still alive since nowhere is it stated that he is indeed dead or how he died. And if he did rule for 100 years he would be well over the average human lifespan (around 120 was mentioned somewhere in the books, right?).

Now I also started to think about Kell's body, since I too had thought for a while that he was using Spook's body. But whoever's body he's using, I wonder how his scars were visible in that memory Wax saw of him at the end of Bands of Mourning. If he was using someone else's body there shouldn't be his signature scars? And his body is long gone, TenSoon has his bones but wouldn't be able to just create him a new body out of them. Though he could've made a bald close-enough-look-a-like of Kell in hooded robes like he did earlier in the first trilogy.

...Could Kell be connected to a kandra's body? But then again, how would TenSoon have gotten himself to the other side of the sea. He would've had to eat an orca or shark or something else big enough for him to be able to fit all the necessary parts into the body. A regular sized fish would've been troublesome (VenDell told Wayne that transforming into smaller animals is problematic when he was asked about becoming a bunny). 

[Draginon he/him]

@Messydesk Well we've never really seen a case of possession being used in the Cosmere (Shard manipulation not counting here) but if we use context from other books we can explain the scars. Usually when someone heals or has the ability to look like their ideal there are some things that stay (Kaladin's brands not healing, Vasher seeing himself as a scruffy looking man) so whatever method was used it probably transferred the scars onto the new body because the scars became part of his identity. But I'm also wondering this: did he use the body of a grown man or a newly born body? After all he didn't appear to the Southerns until about 30 years after the Ice Death (if I'm remembering the dates right) which would be the right amount of time for his soul/spirit/shade to attach to a babies body and grow up.

[Scion of the Mists]

10 hours ago, Draginon said:

I wonder if he would be thrilled or weirded out with the populace and Kandra opinions of him

You know with Kelsier being alive because of Hemalurgy it makes you wonder just how ridiculously powerful it is. I mean Harmony couldn't use the combined power of Preservation and Ruin to bring Vin and Elend back and yet Hemalurgy brought Kelsier back to the physical realm from the cognitive realm. This method needs to be explored/explained in The Lost Metal or if not then in Era 3 or Secret History 2

Bringing someone back from The Beyond and bringing someone from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm are completely different.  Brandon has talked about how The Beyond is his perma-death and that he's not going to answer one way or another whether there's actually an afterlife or not.  Stapling a Cognitive Shadow back to a body is something that multiple Shards have done (Endowment, Honor, Odium), and I'm certain that Harmony could do as well.  

 

2 hours ago, Messydesk said:

Now I also started to think about Kell's body, since I too had thought for a while that he was using Spook's body. But whoever's body he's using, I wonder how his scars were visible in that memory Wax saw of him at the end of Bands of Mourning. If he was using someone else's body there shouldn't be his signature scars?

Healing in the Cosmere has a strong Spiritual aspect to in, in that the magic will return you to the state you view as your natural state.  This is why Kaladin's slave brands don't go away - because it's a part of his Identity.  

[Messydesk]

I'll put my response to inside spoiler tag since it's some Stormlight stuff in a Mistborn thread. 

Spoiler

2 hours ago, Draginon said:

@Messydesk Well we've never really seen a case of possession being used in the Cosmere (Shard manipulation not counting here) but if we use context from other books we can explain the scars. Usually when someone heals or has the ability to look like their ideal there are some things that stay (Kaladin's brands not healing, Vasher seeing himself as a scruffy looking man) so whatever method was used it probably transferred the scars onto the new body because the scars became part of his identity. But I'm also wondering this: did he use the body of a grown man or a newly born body? After all he didn't appear to the Southerns until about 30 years after the Ice Death (if I'm remembering the dates right) which would be the right amount of time for his soul/spirit/shade to attach to a babies body and grow up.

This is an interesting point and I think the time does line up pretty nicely.

2 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Healing in the Cosmere has a strong Spiritual aspect to in, in that the magic will return you to the state you view as your natural state.  This is why Kaladin's slave brands don't go away - because it's a part of his Identity.  

I don't know if it can be classified as "healing" to bring back Kell's body (there isn't much to heal when only the bones are left), but I need to read the full Stormlight Archive trilogy to understand better what you're saying here. After I do that I'll get back to this!   (I'm on page 680something in The Way of Kings so it'll be a while till I get through the whole trilogy, but I'm enjoying every moment of it!)

[Draginon he/him]

2 hours ago, Messydesk said:

This is an interesting point and I think the time does line up pretty nicely.

And when you think about it what seems more likely: Spook spiking a random guy just so Kelsier can have a body or spiking a baby, maybe one of his own children, maybe a stillborn which wouldn't even have a soul to inhabit the body? I mean even with him doing his experiments with Hemalurgy I doubt he would use anyone but himself for that unless he's more mad scientist than we all thought.

[Calderis he/him]

My only question concerning Kel is if his features are the same. His body would be altered by any healing to look the way that he does, but... 

Stormlight spoilers.

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The Fused retain their marbling patterns across bodies, but their physical features change. 

If the body is his, the physical features should match. If not, it would have his scars, but the features would be different. 

Personally, I think it's his body in truth... Just not the original one. 

 

[Slimy_Slider]

I like to think that his scars and new body is most similar to what we see in the Heralds. A new, physical body which contains an immortal cognitive shadow and keeps the same appearance (with cognitive blocks notwithstanding). Except created out of Hemalurgy instead of whatever the Oathpact is.