discipleofhoid

This is what I was trying to say - It was worded poorly. I have changed the wording to reflect this better. Although I am still unsure it the Intent of Ruin requires the person to die or if it could be fulfilled just with the fact that some of the power is lost or ruined. In any case using hemalurgy does change the access intent to Ruin

I never meant to say that the Elantrians did not age extremely slowly - From what I understand they are as immortal as say the Lord Ruler was. Basically as long as they continue to use their power to preserve themselves the could live long enough that for all intents and purposes they are immortal. For some reason I though that this required active intervention on their part (using the Aon Iam to de-age themselves), but now I can't find a direct statement of that so maybe not. As for breaths being consumed - In the two cases you listed breath is not consumed but just cannot be retrieved. In the first example you listed the body of the lifeless is too close to a living human and the breath sticks to it, the breath is still there just stuck. In the second example Nightblood is sentient or almost so. You can never take breath back from a sentient creature so I would not say that Nightblood's creation consumed breath. - If the breath was gone in these two cases the lifeless would fall apart and nightblood would become a normal sword again. So the hole in my theory here is when Nightblood consumes breath when drawn and when the Returned consume it to stay alive another week. I will have to think on that and work it in. Can anyone come up with a replacement that increases your connection to Endowment? All of the other shards have something that does this so Endowment should.

Don't know why I had the 1 in 16 stuck in my head, it is 16%. And rereading it this does happen with groups of 100 as well as the large groups. Huh. In any case the part about not everyone being able to become allomancers comes from the following annotation(italics added): And you know rereading that never mind I could use that to support either way of looking at the subject.

I am still lost as to how the jump from 1/16 of the worlds population are able to become allomancers to everyone has a 1/16 chance of becoming an allomancer works. Those don't seem to be the same thing to me. Also could you explain where my analogy with the marbles was wrong? I think I worked that math out right but am unsure. In any case according to the annotations people are either born with the ability or not. 1/16 of Skaa were unsnapped allomancers. He makes the point that most these traits were buried to deeply for anything but the mists to bring them out. This is in the annotations and is cannon so I imagine the math would have to work out with that fact somehow. Brandon is usually careful about that kind of thing.

My point above is that from what I can tell Breath is the ability to use the magic. We know for a fact that they are not the focus of awakening - the foci of awakening are the commands. It is also not the fuel - that is color. I don't think that the Stormlight/Breath analogy works. Stormlight is consumed when performing magic. Breath is not. A greater amount of stormlight does not grant you additional abilities. A greater amount of breath does. As I stated above having more Breath seems to increase your connection to Endowment. That spiritual connection is exactly what hemalurgy steals. That is not cannon though so I could be wrong about it. Can anyone come up with an alternate explanation of why your abilities increase when you gain more Breaths? And Soother yes Galladons father was a elantrian and he died. So you are correct.

I don't think I explained well. I think the Royal line abilities should be treated the same as a Returned's breath. It is not so much that they are an exception as that the returned's breath is different than normal breath. As for awakening with the spike I am not sure how that would work hemalurgacly(is that a word?). And yes there is an easier way to not age (AKA the Lord Ruler/Marsh)

The coin flip scenario doesn't really match this situation. In the coin flip each coin has a 50% chance of being either heads or tails. In this situation each person is or isn't able to perform allomancy -- no chance involved at the individual level. At the world wide level 16% of people can perform allomancy. So the closer you get to the worldwide population the better match you should see. A better example is is you have a bag of 32 marbles 2 of which are red and you pull 8 randomly. If you then pull 1 from those 8 red probabilities might you see? well either 1/4, 1/8 or 0 depending on how many reds you pulled the first time. If you repeat the experiment with a pulling 16 randomly the first time from the second set you would then have a 1/16,1/8, or 0 chance of the final marble being red. If you just pull 1 marble from the 32 then the chance is 1/16. Note that this is the probobility of the second pull the overall probability does not change. So as your sample size gets closer to the original group size your probability gets closer to the overall group probability as well. Now that I look that over I am not sure I did the probability right. It has been a few years since my discrete mathematics course. But I still think the point is valid. If I slaughtered the math let me know. Edited to remove bad math

The reason the royal line is an exception is that from what I understand the Royal lines connection to Endowment is different then the connection provided by a breath. Basically there are two types of connections to Endowment - Normal breath and Returned breath. They work differently and while they provide some of the same bonuses they are innately different. No matter how many breaths you have you cannot change your appearance. The Royal/Returned connection allows you to do that though. In the Misting/Mistborn case the connections are the same the Mistborn just has more of them at once. Also note that you can not transfer a Mistborn's entire connection to Preservation with 1 spike(unless atium allows this). You have to transfer each group of metals separately. Standard Nalthis Breath though does not have different types - It is just about the strength of your connection. Thus all of the standard Breath should be able to be stored in an hemalurgic spike. Size of the spike might matter though. Having though about it yes I think you could steal a royal line connection to Endowment - However it would be a separate transaction - requiring a separate bind point - from stealing their breaths. The same would be true of stealing a returned's large breath vs their normal breaths.

The royal line has a little bit of a Returned connection in them -- This has to do with the progenitor of the royal line who returned and then had a child. I would say that they are the exception and not the rule. Could you steal that part of them? I'm not sure, but it is a different case from the standard person on Nalthis.

From the annotations: I would take this to mean that 1/16th of people have the potential for allomancy - the examples I have seen where it was exactly 1/16 of the people taken our in the mist that became sick dealt with large groups of people. The larger the sample group the closer the statistic will be to the correct value. I would say that these were large enough sample groups that the sample matched the correct value. As for the 1/16th thing when Preservation set his plan up he replaced two of the less accessible temporal metals in the scheme. I can't find the quote on that right at the moment but it is in the annotations or Brandonotholagy.

If I have the realmatics figured out correctly you would be transferring the breaths not just the ability to use them. To simplify the way I have it worked out, Hemalurgy transfers the spiritual connection to a given shard to the spike which can then be added to anyone else. With most of Brandon's magic systems that is just the ability to access the magic. With Awakening it is different because with Awakening it appears that your connection to the shard increases as you gain breath. That means that breath is not something that you just use to perform the magic but breath is the access to the magic. That is why I think that a spike would transfer the actual breaths. As a side note if I am correct you would not need to be from Nalthis to receive a breath from someone else by the normal route. However only those from Nalthis would have an innate breath.

I would say that drabs have a weaker presence in the spiritual realm which might be a clue as to how to do this. What we need to do though isn't necessarily to weaken their presence in a realm, but to weaken the interaction between the three realms.

I am preparing a theory on using hemalurgy without killing the person but it will take me a few days. The basics of the theory have to do with weakening the bond between the three elements of a person - spiritual, cognitive and physical. I think these are normally to strong to just rip off a piece of someones Spiritweb, death weakens the bonds naturally which is why you normally have to kill someone to use hemalurgy. If you could weaken those bonds without killing the person though... Like I said the theory isn't fully developed yet I will post it when it is.

One thing to keep in mind here is that breath is not analogous to a mistborn's metal. The metal is consumed when using the powers. Breath is not. What is consumed is color. If what I said above about how awakening would work is correct, then breath is simply a portion of the Spirit web giving you a stronger connection to Endowment - much like a Mistborn's stronger connection to Preservation. If that is the case then the reason that the heightenings work is because with more breath your Spiritweb has a stronger connection to Endowment. It would follow then that just like a Mistborn's stronger connection to Preservation can be transferred by a hemalurgic spike a 3rd or 4th heightening Awakeners entire connection to Endowment could be transferred by a hemalurgic spike. So when you spike them you will not get their color but I think you could with the right bindpoint and metal transfer all of the breaths a person has.

Awakening is going to have interesting interactions with hemalurgy. I am still working out how I think that would work. But it seems to me that while hemalurgy has to do with an external force transferring parts of a Spiritweb. Awakening from what I can tell has to do with the endowment, or intentional and willing transfer of parts of your own Spiritweb to another person or thing. If this is the case then hemalurgy should be able to transfer breath - not just the ability to use breath. To clarify my point a little, everyone on Nalthis has an Investiture: this investiture includes the innate ability to transfer their investiture to another person. That investiture is Breath - thus by this theory it would be transferable by hemalurgy.

There are 6 of the higher metals that we do not know what they do in Hemalurgy. There are 16 Atium alloys that we don't know anything about their Hemalurgic properties. There are 16 Lerasium alloys that we know nothing about. And we do not know what a Lerasium spike does either. Considering the power of Atium in Allomancy I would expect that Larasium would be fairly potent in hemalurgy. I would say that over all we have only seen the smallest sliver of what is possible with hemalurgy. *edited for grammar

In Way of Kings Dalinar was not very committed to his path of action. He questioned himself alot. If the suspicions that he will fall into the resolute/builder order are correct he would not have qualified until the very end of WofK. I suspect this is why we have not seen his spren yet.

So I was looking through the reddit interview and found this quote I think this pretty much confirms that Hemalurgy can pull from any magic system. Can anyone find an objection to this? If not, I guess this isn't a theory but a fact.

I think that the biggest thing to remember here is that Sazed is not by any means omnipotent. Nor is he the Almighty (that's a character from WOK - He is only a god not God if that makes any sense. He holds massive amounts of power, more than any one else on Scadrial, but still has limits. I would not expect Sazed to be any more or less prominent then preservation and ruin were in HoA for some books and in other books he might only be as prominent as they were in The Final Empire. I don't think it really matters as we are guaranteed a good story either way.

If this is Sazed then he is associated with the Seventeenth Shard. From Q/A May 2010

While the word could mean something completely different in the cosmere, I think a good place to start figuring out what investiture is would be looking at the definition in modern english. From Dictonary.com: Several of these definitions use the word invest so I also pulled a definition for that(Same source) Comparing these definitions with the way the word is being used I would say that the word is being used in two different ways. 1. When we speak of investiture as a noun as in this example: The definition would be a combination of definitions 5 of investiture and definition 5 of invest: Something that furnishes or endows with a power. 2. When we speak of investing as a verb as in this example: The definition would be a combination of definitions 1 of investiture and definition 5 of invest: The act of furnishing or endowing with a power. Does anyone know of examples where these definitions break? Am I insane for taking this approach? What do you think about these definitions? Let me know.

It focuses to much on Sel in my opinion to be Hoid. I would suspect a member of the 17th Shard originally from Sel.

This theory draws heavily on the Ars Arcanum from the Alloy of Law. For now I am putting those parts of this theory in spoiler boxs to avoid grumpy Brandonites. I will remove the spoiler box after the book is released. * Spoiler Boxes have been removed. Theory Statement: Hemalurgy can transfer any Investiture - Explanation of Investiture Investiture is the term that the AofL Ars Arcanum is using for a magic system or power. There may be more to it but that is how it is being used in this theory. Reasoning behind theory: 1. In all cases Investiture is genetic You must be from the right planet/area of the planet to access the Investiture. Only those with Arelon blood can become Elantrians Only people from Nathis can give away breath etc. Only those with noble blood become Allomancers. 2. All of the Investitures we have seen but two(Aons, Feruchemy) demonstrably require you to act in line with the intent of the shard to gain initial access to the Investiture. Allomancers -snap when they are Preserving something(usually their own life). Feruchemists -we don’t know anything about the snapping/activation process. Elantrians -while not confirmed it is suspected that they must be Devoted to something. Awakeners must be Endowed with the power by others. Surgebinders must demonstrate sub-attributes of Honor to attract a spren. 3. Hemalurgy does not require a person to have fulfilled the intent requirement of the Investiture they are gaining to gain access to an investiture. This is replaced with the Intent of Ruin. An Inquisitor never has to act to preserve something to snap. The power just works. 4.Hemalurgy does not require a person to have fulfilled the genetic requirement to gain access to an investiture. Those born without Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities can gain it with a spike. 5.The author in the Ars Arcanum does not seem to separate the metallic arts from other Investiture as much as we seem to. 6. Investiture is a Spiritual Attribute. There is a Feruchemical power that can store Investiture. This Feruchemical power is noted as an Investiture affecting the Spiritual in the Ars Arcanum. Speaking of allomancy the essay in the AofL Ars Arcanum says 7.Hemalurgy takes a part of a persons Spiritweb and transfers it to another person. From the Ars Archanum in AofL Given the points above this should allow any Investiture to be moved from one person of any genetic background to another of any other genetic background. The focus requirements would still apply however. You would need to know the Aons to use elantrian type powers, or the commands to awaken etc. *Edited for clarity

I don't think the hereditary nature of the Spiritweb is that important in this case. Having thought about it I think that Hemalurgy could transfer any Investiture. This is based on a series of assumptions and observations. 1.The author in the Ars Arcanum does not seem to separate the metallic arts from other Investiture as much as we seem to. 2. Investiture is referred to as a Spiritual Attribute in the Ars Arcanum. 3. The Feruchemical power that can store Investiture. Not metallic arts powers but Investiture. 4. In all cases Investiture is genetic(you must be from the right planet/area of the planet to access the Investiture) 5. All of the Investitures require you to do something in line with the intent of the shard to gain access to the Investiture. 6. Hemalurgy does not require a person to have fulfilled the intent requirement to gain access to an investiture. 7.Hemalurgy does not require a person to have fulfilled the genetic requirement to gain access to an investiture. Thus I would conclude that Hemalurgy could transfer any Investiture. Now that I have that on paper I really like that thought. I think I will post this as a theory separately. The only flaw I can see is if Hemalurgy has a genetic requirement.

But this deals specifically with spiritual DNA or as it is called else where in the essay the "Spiritweb". The essay states, talking about allomancy: This means that the Spiritual DNA is different for each different type of allomancer. So when a spike is used it literally grabs that part of the Spiritweb and holds it in the spike. So Hemalurgy then deals with adding to or taking away from someone's Spiritweb. Assuming that the Investiture information is in the same area of the Spiritweb or depending on how it works in the same format, Hemalurgy could steal any power not just the metallic arts. Until we have more information about how other investitures are coded though this would just be speculation. edited to clarify.