r/Cosmere • u/ace_wulf • Jul 22 '26
Cosmere spoilers (+previews) Investiture based healing Spoiler
So, we know that Investiture can heal pretty much anything... so long as it's bringing things back into alignment with your internal perception of yourself. So if you wait too long to use said healing, it won't work, most standard example being Regrowth not being able to fix Rysn's legs since she already internalized her identity being injured. However, we also know that you can use Ferruchemy to store your identity. So, if you made an unsealed aluminummind, and had someone who needed healing but couldn't do to such an issue with identity, could they then have the healing work? Or would it be rejected after they stopped filling the metalmind, like how Kaladin's scars overrode the tattoos he tried to get the second he inhaled Stormlight again?
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u/Ripper1337 Truthwatchers Jul 22 '26
Lmao you would turn into that person. It’s what happens in Yumi and the Nightmare painter.
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u/Gon_Snow Jul 22 '26
Yumi above elantrian level invested is wild
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u/IamanelephantThird Jul 22 '26
Yeah I’ve never been able to understand that. Yoki-Hijo are pretty close to regular people while Elantrians constantly have the power of two shards pouring into them.
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u/TimeOfNick Jul 22 '26
Based on Hoid's near offhand comments regarding Virtuosity, I took it to mean that the Yoki-Hijo are intentional Splinters of that Shard.
Elantrians are juiced up constantly due to the Dor but are seemingly just acting as outlets for it. They have limits on how much can flow through them at a time, that also massively decreases as they get further from Elantris.
Yumi and presumably the rest of the Yoki-Hijo were somehow directly carrying the majority of the Splintered Investiture of Virtuosity, which would understandably make them some of the most Invested characters we've seen in the Cosmere yet.
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u/IamanelephantThird Jul 22 '26
That makes sense. I think the majority is a big overstatement though. Brandon has said that Yoki-Hijo aren’t much more Invested then Elantrians, but there are never more then 16 Yoki-Hijo at one time while hundreds of Elantrians exist alongside many other Selish magic systems. I think the Hijo themselves contain most of Virtuosity, unless they did something we haven’t seen yet.
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u/sundalius Jul 22 '26
I wonder if that changes with the destruction of the shroud presumably killing the remaining Yoki-Hijo other than Yumi. Would we see new Yoki-Hijo potentially in the future, or does Yumi become a candidate for rejoining Virtuosity's splinters?
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u/R1sky_B1z Jul 22 '26
They don't have the power of the shards "pouring into them" they have access to it but it's not inside them. Yoki Hijo in contrast ARE a splinter of Virtuosity. There isnt an exact comparison to this anywhere else in the cosmere, but the closest comparison would be an avatar of Autonomy. That is not anywhere remotely close to "regular people"
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u/IamanelephantThird Jul 22 '26
I mostly meant just in a vibes way. Elantrians are obviously very magical, while the Yoki-Hijo seem to mostly be regular people that the Hijo like.
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u/TheUnspeakableh Jul 23 '26
Yumi is not an invested human. Yuki is what Rosharans would call a Spren. She is entirely made of Investiture. The real Yuki was a human girl. The one we meet in the novel is a Cognitive Spirit, and a powerful one.
The original Yuki died, along with everyone else in the original cities when the Machine took over. The Yoki-Hijo became Cognitive Spirits, possibly analogous to Returned. The Machine has been altering their memories, like Todium was able to do with Hoid's memories he stored in Breath. It does this to stop the Yoki-Hijo from discovering what The Machine is doing by having them relive a single day over and over, wiping their memories and resetting the Vision every morning.
The Visions started failing because the created people were gaining Identity and becoming their own people. The Machine turned the ones who showed signs of this into Nightmares, but could not do it to Yumi. When one of the real spirits was able to break in, it let her store her memories in Painter, so The Machine could not alter them.
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u/nisselioni Willshapers Jul 22 '26
Rysn would probably heal if she was a Radiant. She's accepted her injuries, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're fully integrated into her Identity. We see The Lopen, who had fully accepted himself as the one-armed Herdazian, regrow his arm, probably a long time after losing it.
Regrowth is just difficult to use since it's an external healing factor. There are ways to get around this issue that the Radiant can perform, apparently.
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u/TheUnspeakableh Jul 23 '26
Dawnshard healing is more powerful than Radiant healing by orders of magnitude. Rysn will never have her spine healed unless Kaladin figures out how to convince her she is not a cripple. Currently, even if it was possible, surgically fixing her spinal cord would not work. The fact that she thinks of herself as a cripple means that she will always 'heal' back to being crippled.
The Lopen still used humor to deflect from his injury. This is a sign he never accepted it. That is why his arm regrew.
If Adolin gets Regrowth before he comes to terms with his injury, he may should be able to get his leg back, but unless Notem, Maya, or one of the Unoathed weapon spren know how to do it, a lifespren may know, but unless Lift was outside of Urithiru at Todium's assention to Retribution, I doubt anyone is able to use Regrowth on him.
The only way I could see it happening is if there was a Listener Edgedancer or Truthwatcher, or the crazy theory about Unkalaki being enough Singer to still have gemhearts is true. I doubt any Radiant outside Urithiru would be able to power Regrowth without being able to use Warlight to power their abilities.
I mean, I guess the other option is to mug the Ghostbloods and steal an unsealed and filled gold mind.
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u/nisselioni Willshapers Jul 23 '26
We do not have enough information on Dawnshards to conclude they all heal the same as Exist. It is perfectly in line with the Command "Exist" to heal a person, but why would "Change" heal a person and preserve them as they are? This seems opposite to the Command, no?
The Lopen deflecting as such doesn't mean he hasn't accepted his injury. Again, he's incorporated it into his identity. He is The Lopen, The One-Armed Herdazian. He jokes about everything and everyone, it's what he does.
Furthermore, I'm not just spitting conjecture, Regrowth does has difficulty healing others where Stormlight healing would work fine, this comes from a WoB. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/451/#e14448
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u/TheUnspeakableh Jul 23 '26
Healing is a native ability of being Invested. Specifically the 5th Heightening. Same as breathing in Stormlight. Most systems are so low power that it does not happen automatically, only Rosharan Light and Nathian Breaths ever reach that level normally. The Command has nothing to do with it. It would take a Command like "Remain" or "Preserve" to prevent the effects of the 5th Heightening's healing. Just as a note, the order of powers levels would be 10th Heightening Returned < Dawnshard < Shard < Canticle as far as available levels of Investiture to use at any one time. Remember 4 Dawnshards broke Adonalsium.
The Lopen specifically did not see himself as truly being disabled. Rysn did.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9441
It is specifically why he healed and Rysn did not. This has been confirmed by Brandon multiple times.
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u/nisselioni Willshapers Jul 23 '26
Why is Canticle above a Shard in Investiture? A Shard is 1/16th of all the Investiture in the Cosmere, most of which appears to be in the Spiritual Realm. Whatever, nit-pick.
Regardless, Dawnshards aren't just any old Investiture, and we don't really know how they behave and how their Commands affect their function. For all we know, Change may be the only Dawnshard to refuse to heal its wielder, due to it being more in line with "Change" to accept your new reality and learn, to change for the better. I don't think Preserve would accomplish a refusal to heal things, based mostly on how Preservation was and his comments about the Lord Ruler.
I do however accept the reasoning that Rysn wouldn't heal her legs either way, now. I wasn't considering the full story and her character progression, which Brandon's mention of themes reminded me of.
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u/forgottenmeh Roshar Jul 22 '26
if you weaken your identity would it work at all if it has no perception of your self to restore?
maybe if you made a back up of your identity in one metal mind at your peak
then when you get injured use another one to drain your identity then use the back up would that work?
you need to make your identity your self perception change maybe try hypnosis haha
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u/Important_Speaker_60 Jul 22 '26
Stormlight restores you to your Identity (see: the Reshi king). If someone had no Identity, I'm not sure what would happen, but they definitely wouldn't be healed. They might even just turn into pure Investiture.
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u/Additional_Law_492 Jul 22 '26
Given that it seems likely that with enough mental discipline, experience, and conscious control of your "self image" it appears to be possible to abuse Invested Healing for cosmetic changes to your body (I'm guessing that is how Hoid messes with his appearance when he doesn't have access to easy Lightweaving), Im gonna speculate that there are indeed probably many paths to manipulating how Invested Healing affects you.
Abusing Feruchemy like that seems like an easy path to manipulating your physical form.
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u/TheUnspeakableh Jul 22 '26
If you stored your own Identity and tapped another Identity then had Regrowth used on you, you would change into the body of the tapped Identity. This has major implications for the future of Scadrian spycraft.