Hemalurgy, Healing, and the limits of Self-Identity

[Quantus he/him]

A question arose recently about removing Hemalurgic spikes safely, and the easiest answer I could come up with is that since Spiritual Healing can save you from being the donor of a spike it should equally be able to save you from the fallout of a spike being removed, since after the spliced spiritweb contained in the spike is ripped back off you'd basically be in the same situation. 

But that got me thinking:  We know Spiritual healing can allow allow you to make changes to your self, centering around your own personal identity, though usually it's very limited in scope, along the lines of whether you have come to accept the damage as part of you or not.  So, imagine you were spiked for long enough, and had reached the point where you had 100% accepted them as part of your Self (Im looking at you, Marsh), then had a spike removed while channeling F-Gold.  Could you grow back your own spiritweb to replace the spliced piece(s), once you reach the point where the splices piece(s) have become fundamental to your platonic ideal?  Generally I would think that you cannot self-hypnosis yourself into new abilities, but in the case where your spiritweb has years of firsthand experience being in that shape, would it be able to replicate it?

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

It’s an interesting idea. I feel like from a story point of view it needs to be impossible. If it wasn’t you would end up with an army of Fullborn by the time we reach Mistborn: A Star Wars Story. An easy justification for in world mechanics could be that it is literally a foreign object in your spirit and therefore it will always feel like an intruder. You could also argue that it carries the spiritual Identity of the individual from whom it was made and is keyed to them like a metalmind. Maybe if you keep the spike for a long enough time you could regrow it when it is pulled out, but without the Investiture.

[Calderis he/him]

I think the fact that you have piece of someone else, including their identity, shoved I to your spiritweb will prevent the necessary changes from occurring. 

There's no room for your Spiritual Aspect to grow and change to accommodate the new power because something is already there, that distinctively is not yours. 

Removing that piece should be a return to form. 

I believe that the identity within a piece of spiritweb in a spike requires the spike to remain because your Spiritual Aspect would be constantly trying to reject it due to the identity conflict. I think that conflict will prevent you being able to actually heal it after the fact. 

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

It’s an interesting idea. I feel like from a story point of view it needs to be impossible. If it wasn’t you would end up with an army of Fullborn by the time we reach Mistborn: A Star Wars Story. An easy justification for in world mechanics could be that it is literally a foreign object in your spirit and therefore it will always feel like an intruder. You could also argue that it carries the spiritual Identity of the individual from whom it was made and is keyed to them like a metalmind. Maybe if you keep the spike for a long enough time you could regrow it when it is pulled out, but without the Investiture.

I agree that is could easily be story-breaking if it became common, but the fact is there is no more atium (beyond Marsh's stash) and no atium users now that both atium and full Mistborn have passed into history, so the only people that could reasonably qualify would be either those like Marsh that managed to stick around since era 1, or somebody that Sazed chose to alter manually. 

That being said, one easy way to get around the mechanic would be to say that the person's Spiritweb would have gotten used to the Spike being there providing the needed bits, so at best it would heal right back to that boundary, but not be able to move further and actually recreate the part of Spiritweb that was stored in the Spike. 

The Identity bit is also a good point, that could do it on it's own, though if Im not mistaken the Identity in Spikes does change some, or at least the Identity in the metalminds that result from it.

 

 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

There’s probably a thread that answers this question already, but I’ll ask anyway. If a person is Hemalurgically a Ferring for a few types of metals, let’s say gold and pewter, would removing the pewter spike prevent them from accessing their goldminds which had been filled prior to the pewter spikes removal? If they are still able to tap them, it implies that Hemalurgy does not change spiritual Identity and only changes Investiture levels. At the same time Hemalurgy has a myriad of secondary effects depending on the type of spike and where it is placed. These seem to manifest in both mental and physical ways, such as the creepers that Wax an Ten Soon encounter in The Pits or the bloodthirst that the Inquisitors feel and their unnaturally long lives. I don’t know how that relates to Identity specifically, but I imagine it’s something like putting a magnet in a pile of iron filings. While it’s there it dictates the shape of the pile. I suppose the spikes could also be passively increasing the spiked individuals Connection to Ruin, which would certainly explain the homicidal tendencies.

[Quantus he/him]

7 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

There’s probably a thread that answers this question already, but I’ll ask anyway. If a person is Hemalurgically a Ferring for a few types of metals, let’s say gold and pewter, would removing the pewter spike prevent them from accessing their goldminds which had been filled prior to the pewter spikes removal? If they are still able to tap them, it implies that Hemalurgy does not change spiritual Identity and only changes Investiture levels. At the same time Hemalurgy has a myriad of secondary effects depending on the type of spike and where it is placed. These seem to manifest in both mental and physical ways, such as the creepers that Wax an Ten Soon encounter in The Pits or the bloodthirst that the Inquisitors feel and their unnaturally long lives. I don’t know how that relates to Identity specifically, but I imagine it’s something like putting a magnet in a pile of iron filings. While it’s there it dictates the shape of the pile. I suppose the spikes could also be passively increasing the spiked individuals Connection to Ruin, which would certainly explain the homicidal tendencies.

No, as far as I know the spikes are Independent of each other (aside from the Inquisitor's central spike which is needed to retain coherence if you have too many).  Two inquisitors that received the same ability from the same person (by splitting the charged spike) can both use the original donors metalminds but not each other's.  The spike itself doesnt change the recipient's identity, at least not immediately, Im more looking long-term personal changes to the self-image from the actual use.

 

13 hours ago, Calderis said:

I think the fact that you have piece of someone else, including their identity, shoved I to your spiritweb will prevent the necessary changes from occurring. 

There's no room for your Spiritual Aspect to grow and change to accommodate the new power because something is already there, that distinctively is not yours. 

Removing that piece should be a return to form. 

I believe that the identity within a piece of spiritweb in a spike requires the spike to remain because your Spiritual Aspect would be constantly trying to reject it due to the identity conflict. I think that conflict will prevent you being able to actually heal it after the fact. 

Quick clarification: the conflict would prevent you from healing at all if a spike was removed, or from regenerating the foreign bits of Web? I would  think you could heal enough to survive (same as a donor), even if it set you back to mundane status. Barring some Ruin-specific scarring that prevents it I suppose. 

 

I think the root of the idea is more about the limits of your Cognitive Self, both its overwrite capabilities and it's capacity to adapt.  Can you get so adjusted to being Invested, to having the Connection to a shard and flow of investiture and tangible abilities, and that given enough time the persons self-definition would have entirely forgotten what it was to be without those abilities, to the point where it would try to replicate the spliced pieces it had spent multiple lifetimes connected to and using. 

Take another example:  if you'd had a spiked ability that you had used enough to become a Savant, then had the spiked removed while being Healed...What would come out the other side?  Would the savant's actual spiritweb have been warped by the use enough to keep some of the ability?  Would it be able to extend itself and replicate the lost foreign pieces functionality? Would they just be left as a poor wretch with some sort of permanent Investiture withdrawal?  On the one had I'd think it should be easier for the web to replicate a more neutral feruchemical ability than replicate the actual Preservation Conduit (ie what Lerasium grants), even though Feruchemical Savants are supposed to be in the plan to appear (though Im still unclear if that is a Watsonian/Realmic thing or a Doylistic story-plan statement).

Or how about this: What happens if you spike a Baby, so they've never developed an Identity without the spike?  Hell, can you spike somebody that is still growing, or will some of the Bind points shift with major growth changes like puberty?

 

 

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Quick clarification: the conflict would prevent you from healing at all if a spike was removed, or from regenerating the foreign bits of Web? I would  think you could heal enough to survive (same as a donor), even if it set you back to mundane status. Barring some Ruin-specific scarring that prevents it I suppose. 

Fair point. I meant the foreign bits. 

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

I think the root of the idea is more about the limits of your Cognitive Self, both its overwrite capabilities and it's capacity to adapt.

Here's the deal as I see it. It's far far more to do with the ability to overwrite than it is to adapt. I know in healing that the Cognitive Aspect has been described as a filter, but per Wire's gender WoB, I don't really feel that fits. I thi k healind is prevented by the Cognitive actually changing the Spiritual. 

When a spike is removed, there isn't any piece of spiritweb there to heal, and your at the point of trying to shape back a portion that was never yours in the first place. If you can do that, what's to stop someone from just believing hard enough that they have a power? 

[Quantus he/him]

43 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Fair point. I meant the foreign bits. 

Here's the deal as I see it. It's far far more to do with the ability to overwrite than it is to adapt. I know in healing that the Cognitive Aspect has been described as a filter, but per Wire's gender WoB, I don't really feel that fits. I thi k healind is prevented by the Cognitive actually changing the Spiritual.

When a spike is removed, there isn't any piece of spiritweb there to heal, and your at the point of trying to shape back a portion that was never yours in the first place. If you can do that, what's to stop someone from just believing hard enough that they have a power? 

Theoretically:  First hand experience, and Time.  It wouldnt be about just believing you have power, it would be about actually having and using the power so much for so long that your Platonic Identity had fully incorporated the ability into its core definition. 

 

To be clear, even I think this would be an extreme long-shot, Im really just trying to poke at the boundary to see where it is and why.  More likely, if you were as committed as this to a self-identity that it was a core part of your Self-Image and had been incorporated into your Platonic Ideal, removing it would be More damaging than usual and more difficult to heal, rather than making it easier.   For that matter, if it /did/ work, I kinda think you'd have to literally regrow a metal spike as part of the physical realm rewrite, given that the spike was an integral aspect of how your spiritweb had learned it.  And for that to work, theoretically it should equally work with long-term use of things like a Medallion, and as @SwordNimiForPresident pointed out that is a hell of a literary can of worms. 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I actually think it would be plausible to regrow the spikes. If you had them for a long time then they would have become part of how you see yourself. Since healing seems to be centered on the spirit rather than biology it seems like remaking a non invested chunk of metal should be a piece of cake. Soulcasters do it all the time.

Edited December 20, 2018 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Calderis he/him]

Eh, I don't care how long it's been a part of you. To regrow the spike would be to regrow the Hemalurgic charge, including the mismatched Identity, and that's just not happening. 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I wonder how this topic would relate to a non invested body decoration. For an example, what happens if you cut off a bridgemans tattoo? Does he regrow clean skin, or does the tat come back as well?

Edited December 20, 2018 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Quantus he/him]

19 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I wonder how this topic would relate to a non invested body decoration. For an example, what happens if you cut off a bridgemans tattoo? Does he regrow clean skin, or does the tat come back as well?

That one at least is easy: Kaladin regrows his Slave brands.

 

21 hours ago, Calderis said:

Eh, I don't care how long it's been a part of you. To regrow the spike would be to regrow the Hemalurgic charge, including the mismatched Identity, and that's just not happening. 

I dont think the charge would be an issue in the pure Energy Balance sense, you'd already be flooding the spiritweb with an outside Investiture that is trying to change itself to fit you (and Id assume this would take a pretty extreme amount of gold or stormlight), that should provide the needed energy for a Charge.  The Identity barrier would still be a big issue, I dont have any way around that unless you'd prepared the original Spikes specifically for this, using a medallion to blank the Donor's identity during the harvest.  Buuuuut, just chasing the idea, if that were the case and Identity were removed from the equation entirely, do you think that would bring it closer to possible?

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

10 hours ago, Quantus said:

That one at least is easy: Kaladin regrows his Slave brands.

His brands are scar tissue. My question was whether or not someone could regrow something non biological like the ink in a tattoo.

[Quantus he/him]

13 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

His brands are scar tissue. My question was whether or not someone could regrow something non biological like the ink in a tattoo.

Oooh, sorry, I see where you are going with that now. Good Question.  That could go either way in terms of a test case, Tattoo Dies are/were historically organic dyes as often as not, but also there might be a cognitive threshold where it's more or less "metabolized" in the sense of being taken in and made part of you like any food, vitamins, minerals, etc. might be.  I think to have a chance it would still need to be part of your identity like the brands, given that tattoos are basically dyes stored in scar tissue, so if the scars where healed away the dyes would be released back into their system. 

Now that you mention it, have tattoos been culturally present on ANY shardworld?  I cant recall anyone doing it, unless there was an offhand mention with one of the many Rosharan cultures Im forgetting?  There's a lot of polynesian influence that would have made sense, and I would have expected the Nalthians to try.  I bet the Tears of Edgli could make some awesome (invested?) Tattoos.  Blast it, now I want to see an Ire Elantrian with Edgli-Tear Aon Tattoos...

[Calderis he/him]

Off the top of my head the o ly tattoo I can think of is from Alethkar itself. 

The "Oldbloods" have blue tattoos on their faces. Teleb was one of them.

Quote

He kept his long hair in a braid and had a blue tattoo on his cheek, marking him as an Oldblood.

 

[Jace21 he/him]

3 hours ago, Quantus said:

I would have expected the Nalthians to try.  I bet the Tears of Edgli could make some awesome (invested?) Tattoos.  Blast it, now I want to see an Ire Elantrian with Edgli-Tear Aon Tattoos...

Aon tattoos could be awesome, so long as they don't need to be flat.

Tatoos on Nalthis probably wont be practical, if you're an awakener you would drain the color from your own tattoo.

[Quantus he/him]

Was rereading Stormlight over the holidays, turns out all of Bridge Four got glyph tattoos on their foreheads to hide the slave brands.  Kaladin's wouldnt take, the ink got pushed out to reveal the brands again.  On the flip side, Shen/Rlain got the tattoo as well and it persisted to his new warrior form, for what that's worth.  Teft has one, and most of the squires of Bridge Four did as well, and I think those were sticking around even after they started channeling stormlight (just started the Oathbringer reread, so Ill let you know if I find any more evidence).

 

As far as the original topic, Ive been giving it a lot of thought.  I still think that (at some level) it has to be possible purely due to the interplay of a person's three realmic aspects. That being said, I there are likely several limitations that add up to it being impossible for anyone short of Sliver and/or Vessel levels, which is already basically cheating. 

1)Identity in the spike is going to be a major barrier, as is it's purpose in the Cosmere, though with the proper preparation that can be mostly removed from the equation.

2) There are fundamental limits to what aspects you can Change in your spiritweb, such as Age, which was something even the Lord Ruler couldnt just Wish away, and he'd already made direct, brute force alterations to his own spiritweb to become a Fullborn.  Thus there are quantitative limitations that cannot be ignored.

3) Realmic Healing such as F-Gold and Regrowth are a process where Investiture is added to allow the Spiritual Aspect to assert itself over the Physical, which might well be working against you regardless of self-image.  Soulcasting would have much better chance as it is instead a process that allows the Cognitive Aspect to rule. Though it's a brute force method so you'd need an intimate understanding of the spiritweb that most mortals would not be able to get.  Maybe advanced Heightenings could get you there (since they offer innate understanding and Breaths/Awakening are very Spiritweb focused), otherwise we'd be talking Slivers at least, and maybe Bondsmiths if they are much more awesome than we've seen so far.

4) At the end of the day, the concept is that you're Self-Image would have been so adjusted to and defined by the presence of the Spiked Spiritweb that they'd become part of the Spiritual Healing Template.  But the spiritweb in them will have always resided in the Physical Realm, so best case you'd be talking about using Healing to regenerate/recreate the charged Spike itself in the Physical Realm (as opposed to just absorbing it into your web as Id previously theorized) which is definitely going to run up against limits on affecting Invested objects.  

 

 

Sooooo,  New Question:  Can you use Spikes and F-Gold to steal traits from yourself to multiply them?  As in, you Spike your own natural Allomancy or perhaps Mental traits, heal the web, then re-implant that charged into yourself to increase your total capacity?  And would that be easier to adopt into your personal Self in this regard, or would it still have the same issues of being a Charged Object that is located in the Physical Realm?

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I can’t see Brandon writing something like that in. Stuff like that effectively removes the limits that make the story possible. Otherwise you have a bunch of quasi-Shard level people running around doing what ever they want. There’s only room for one of those and the spots already taken.

[Quantus he/him]

So, Im going to have to retract most of what Ive said in this whole thread.  It was all based on the belief that it was settled fact that F-gold (and by extension regrowth) could regenerate whole, functional pieces of the Spiritweb (such that a Spike Donor could be fully restored), but @Weltall pointed out that the WOB's I thought confirmed directly that do not actually go that far ()lots of RAFO'), and at least one says you could survive with healing but would left be severely spiritually damaged, worse than a Drab.  That moves the bar on the limits of Cosmere healing back quite a bit, to the point where the rest of the idea unravels.  Healing can repair Spiritual damage such as a Shardblade cut, but it's the difference between us being able to reattach a severed finger vs regrow one like a lizard.  

 

New thought along the similar lines (since I still want to explore the limits of Cosmere Healing):  If you poured enough Regrowth into a Drab, could they naturally convert that into Endowment Investiture and Regrow a new Breath?