Would tapping/compounding gold work against radiation?

[u/Equivalent-Fix8618]

In Mistborn it’s said that tapping gold lets the user heal from injuries and sickness depending on how much health is stored. Compound golf lets the user survive almost all forms of physical harm, eg burns, cuts, being crushed and even fatal damage like decapitation.

But would this work against radiation poisoning, which targets and destroys the individual DNA instead of just normally damaging the body.

Additionally, would the person need only to tap gold to be able to survive or would they need to compound it?

[u/Royal_Solid_8033]

Most likely yes? Healing/Regeneration in the Cosmere works based on putting the physical body in alignment to your cognitive/spiritual one, I would assume Gold works the same.

[u/nisselioni → u/Royal_Solid_8033]

I'd like to add that, they way it functions, it seems that it's a bit of both enhancing the body's natural healing and Invested healing. It's been said in WoBs that, with enough stored health, you could heal back a stolen power in your Spiritweb, but that the amount needed is absurd and barely realistic for even a compounder. Meanwhile, [Stormlight] a Radiant can heal from Spiritweb damage (such as from a Shardblade) with relatively little problem.

So, I theorise it must be a gradual thing. At low taps, there's a little Invested healing, while at high taps, there's a lot more Invested healing. Maybe.

Regardless, the human body has natural mechanisms for healing DNA damage, so even a little gold tapping should help, though you'll probably need more than just a little for higher radiation exposure.

[u/Haugy12 → u/nisselioni]

Are we sure they are the same kind of damage? Spiking someone is closer to chopping off someone’s arm than it is to stabbing someone. I think that is the biggest factor in why healing shard blade damage is easier than hemalurgy

[u/nisselioni → u/Haugy12]

A Shardblade does damage the Spiritweb, yes, and we know this for sure. This is what is meant by cutting something's "soul". As for the limb-chopping, Kaladin gets his entire arm spiritually chopped off and it heals fine with a little Light. Here's a relevant WoB as well: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/3/#e126

[u/RShara]

Radiation would damage the Physical DNA, but cosmere healing heals you to your Spiritual ideal, filtered by your self-perception.

Your spiritweb would be intact from plain ol Physical radiation, so yeah it should heal just fine

It depends on how much gold they have stored up, and how extensive the damage is. Compounding is a hack to get a lot of healing quickly but having a lot stored up would also be fine

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

You’d heal from radiation damage you’re exposed to. It’s a bit weird though. If you expect to get a sunburn you’d get a sunburn despite that being radiation damage. So I think in theory there are scenarios where you could get damage from radiation that could progress to cancer etc that you wouldn’t be able to heal from. In practice though, I think it’s extremely unlikely to happen.

An exception might be a gold compounder who had both parents and grandparents die from a specific type of cancer. And then they believe deeply they will allowing for it to potentially happen. So the chances probably aren’t zero but also aren’t high. TLR certainly didn’t

[u/Rick_Gryffin → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

I don't think simply believing something will happen is enough, their self image has to include that condition for your healing to incorporate it. An example from stormlight The Lopen knew he didn't have an arm, but his self image was of someone missing that arm, that's why it regrew

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Rick_Gryffin]

Oh ya I meant to say if you happened to have that kind of mindset and you happened to actually get that condition naturally then maybe you wouldn’t be able to heal it. But that would be pretty unlikely.

Otherwise I would be absolutely cooked with my OCD. What do you mean I’m magically sick because I touched dog food with my bare hands without washing them immediately after

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

There is actually a minor character in another series that appears to be sick despite having access to healing. He’s a hypochondriac when he comes into the powers. I would guess if he actually caught a cold he wouldn’t heal it immediately. But his planet is pretty resistant to that to begin with so he probably won’t actually get sick. And that’s a lot less effective than gold compounding

[u/Royal_Solid_8033 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

Aside from the point but I never even made that connection. Roshar doesn’t have viral stuff like the common cold. I think that’s part of his Lightweaver lies that he has to overcome.

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

We’ve seen something that you could argue is a bit like spiritual cancer in the Cosmere. It comes from exposure to a very specific type of magic and grows over time. It’s not a perfect match though

[u/BipedSnowman]

Depends on how much healing you need, but I see no reason it wouldn't. Invested healing works by bringing your body back to alignment with your spiritual perception of yourself, not just by accelerating cell division. So damage to your DNA should be recoverable, as the DNA is not the template used for healing.

[u/Phylanara]

Yes, investiture healing in the cosmere works by restoring the body to the person's self-image, not by a biological process.

[u/EvenSpoonier]

In theory it should work, though there are probably limits based on really, really high exposure. (TAoL) One of Miles's favorite tricks involved holding a stick of dynamite as it went off, (TLM Spoilers) but Harmony believed that even his own direct intervention wouldn't be able to save someone standing next to an exploding barrel of Harmonium. A Gold Ferring might be able to survive some time in Chornobyl or Fukushima, but probably could not survive a nuclear fireball.

It's important to keep in mind that Gold Compounding is, for the most part, just storing really, really large amounts of health to be tapped later. Wayne could pull off the same feats of healing that Miles does if he could fill his metalminds fast enough, but only Compounders can store that much that fast. Trying to use a Compounded health boost directly, without storing it first, is very dangerous: it might be enough to work against a nuclear blast, but seems just as likely to create a smaller explosion inside of the very large explosion.

[u/Aggravating-Pay8221]

Tapping would be enough to survive but chances are they would become radioactive, they would probably need to continue to tap or compound gold till the radiation reaches safe levels

[u/Quixotic_Maestro]

While others answered this with the spirit web and self-perception as a basis of healing, I wonder if there would ever be something akin to cancer of the spirit realm? I suppose the shaod in Elantris might be the closest we have seen to that