The Comprehensive Hemalurgy Thread

[Reaves]

I thought we debunked the "Mist Burning," theory as while, but I guess not . 

Its kinda hard to debunk a theory when Sanderson says in text that Vin burned the mists. I think the theory you are referring to is that when someone pushes away the mists they are being burned. That one was rejected.

[Comatose]

Ah I see, sorry about that little misunderstanding there. Glad we got that sorted out.

[Chaos]

Agreed but for one point on semantics. Inquisitors use Allomancy. They see via Allomantic lines as shown in MB3 Prologue. However, this does not necessarily mean that they have Allomancy. Just that they have access to it's abilities. Inquisitors' Allomantic abilities could stem from the Hemalurgic rituals. (Or Hemalurgy itself.) This would mean that they might not be able to do things like burn the mists. Just a thought

I believe Andrew convinced me this was not so. Hemalurgy is its own magic system: it does not grant the power of Allomancy. That's like saying if you burned the supposed 16th metal, it would give you Feruchemy--except that "burning" metals has nothing to do with Feruchemy, which uses the metals as storage devices.

I find it doubtful that Hemalurgy would give you the power of another magic system, because Hemalurgy appears to follow a different model than simple power-stealing. I like the theory that Hemalurgy uses the metals as sort of "lightning-rods" for the body's energy. It "burns" the body's energy through the metals, whereas Allomancy burns metals... through the body. It seems to me that Inquisitors could just get Allomancy from the 15th metal (the one Elend ate).

That's my theory, and I'm going to stick to it until I have a reason not to. Of course, even as I'm writing this post, I am seeing some very clear flaws in this... It's probably best to not listen to me too much.

[Andrew the Great]

What he said

[Chaos]

Okay, as I'm searching for a particular piece of information, I found this tidbit:

Whew! I've got a lot to say here. First off, Vin's earring. It's a little morbid the way she wears it around, since it was her mother's. The same mother that killed Vin's sister and tried to kill Vin, before Reen rescued her. But, we'll get to more of that later.

Brandon often says "we'll get to more of that later" when it's something that will come up in Book Three. Since we believe the earring to be Hemalurgically Imbued, I thought I'd post that here.

[Andrew the Great]

Hurray for thread necromancy!!!! Seriously, though, this thread has needed to be bumped to the front for quite some time.

[Chaos]

I know. It turned out that annotations gave me a perfect excuse for it.

I'm almost done reading them (I started reading the MB1 annotations right after Part Two ended, because I'm having one of my friends read Mistborn for the first time and he said the army dies in Part Three. That's how I could search for it so quickly. Also, my friend loves Mistborn ), I'm on chapter 38 part-two which is the final battle, so to speak.

Even though we know this already, here's a nice little annotation to show that we aren't insane:

You were probably expecting Marsh's return--at least, you probably were when you read the chapter where he 'died.' Making Inquisitors via Hemalurgy requires killing other people (see book three for an explanation of the process) so there's a lot of mess involved.

Just to show that sacrifices are indeed integral for it.

EDIT: Furthermore, in the same annotation:

By the way, the mists getting pushed away from Vin and Kar here is a clue of some sorts. Inquisitors push away the mists, rather than attracting them, when they use their powers. I'll explain this in book three too.

He says "powers", not "Allomancy". Interesting...

[Andrew the Great]

That's because it's not allomancy. Though it's interesting that he doesn't just say hemalurgy.

I suppose it's possible that the inquisitors are constantly using hemalurgy (probably keeps them alive somehow) and therefore they would always push away the mists, even when using allomancy. Though they're also using allomancy to see constantly. Hmmmmm.... I'm not really sure what to think about that.

[Chaos]

Scroll up a bit! It's my theory that Inquisitors are burning Hemalurgically imbued metals (that is, metals which have had a sacrifice to make them... Hemalurgicalful) with Allomancy, and they get the boosted power from the hybrid powers, somewhat similar to how the Lord Ruler used Allomancy with Feruchemy.

Man, I miss this thread, with the wonderful new words we can come up with that have "Hemalurgy" as the base. "Hemalurgicalful". Classic.

[Andrew the Great]

That theory makes many much sense to me. It would definitely explain it. So basically, I agree.

[Reaves]

By the way, the mists getting pushed away from Vin and Kar here is a clue of some sorts. Inquisitors push away the mists, rather than attracting them, when they use their powers. I'll explain this in book three too.

btw just wanted to let you all know I haven't quite given up on my "mist-burning = pushing away the mists theory"  

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Tsk tsk. Give it up, Reaves!

[Andrew the Great]

Hmmmm... So does that mean that it's wrong or it's right?

No seriously, give it up. Then if you're right you get bragging rights, and if you're wrong, we don't.

[Chaos]

Tis true.

By the way, Andrew, get on MSN. We must discuss our Hemalurgy theories

EDIT: This needed to be here a long time ago.

Oh! Now I get it. Burning a metal that was hemalurgically imbued via a sacrificed. For the sake of consistency, let's just call that variety of metal an "Infused" metal (so we don't get it confused with metalminds [the reserves of Feruchemy], which was what I thought Comatose was talking about. Silly me.).

That... could explain a lot. It could explain how Hemalurgy seems so similar to Allomancy, because in fact, whenever someone uses Hemalurgy (like an Inquisitor), it could really be that they are burning an imbued metal. Much like how the Lord Ruler fused Feruchemy and Allomancy--which gave him a colossally expanded repetoire of abilities--Hemalurgy plus Allomancy could be what we've been seeing all this time! It's always appeared like Inquisitors had a form of enhanced Allomancy... and wouldn't that be exactly what burning an imbued metal would do?

For this theory to work, Inquisitors would need to be Allomancers (and Allomancers who were not formed by some bizarre Hemalurgical ritual that we don't know about yet) separately from Hemalurgists. The sacrifices imbue the metal, which the Inquisitors then can burn.

The interesting part of this idea is that while it shows how Inquisitors use Allomancy in an enhanced way, it doesn't really show the basic properties of Hemalurgy, which is the thing we are having the most trouble with discovered at the moment. It makes a ton of sense!

And this theory should absolutely be talked about in the Hemalurgy thread.

[darxbane]

Chaos, I agree with part of your theory, but what powers does Hemallurgy give you?  TLR's comments that Inquisitors are fabricated powers leads me to believe that it can be taken away if the metals are removed.  This is different from Allomancy, where once you have it, you have it for life.  I believe that the Sacrifice allows the metals to work in reverse, where the body's energy is drained to produce the metal's effects, instead of burning the metal.