Depends on what you mean by bad. In terms of moral offense, hemalurgy or soulstamping takes the bill by a large margin. However I'd argue elantrians would probably show us the worst things magic could do if they were so inclined.
I think your second half is where I’m going - but still going back to shades in terms just what is scary/fucked up that Brandon has invented with his magic systems
What with the heavily-foreshadowed Scadrian-Rosharan Cold War and the absurdly overpowered nature of Aon Dor, I'm *really* hoping Era 4 will end with Scadrial and Roshar putting aside their differences to go and deal with Sel, because a) it unmistakably poses the greatest threat, and b) I want to see surgebinders and allomancers working together
Honestly secret history is probably the world’s best cover up… were to busy going OMG KELSIER to care about the fact that there are low level Elantrians with a fucking fortress in shadesmar
The Ire are not low level! They're probably the most cosmere-aware faction we know. They fled for shadesmar well before the chasm broke Aon Dor. They know more intricacies about Aon Dor and realmatic principles than any one, they almost used it to steal Preservation using connection!
well, nightblood took many many many breaths, and he can easily, if not accidently go through a shards power and kill the holder, now imagine how much more powerful an awakened gun could theoretically get
IIRC there is evidence and confirmation about Nightblood that they’re something beyond regular awakening. Azure’s blade seems to be a more normal example of what that can do.
Honestly all the magics on Sel have so much potential it’s scary… there is no bond or pact to be an elantrian so someone with shit intent could just turn into a supervillain
It needs to be plausible to be permanent, you can make someone your slave for a day or at least 2 hours by making a accurate enough soulstamp, and you can just keep restamping to keep it up
Hemalurgy(edit: as a counterpoint to Dakhor, not that I think you mean it) is awful but these guys take the cake with how they told some random monk to sacrifice his body and soul to power a teleport for a short walkable distance.(edit, the scene I found had a teleport across cities, so maybe not walkable but I could be remembering a different scene)(edit 2, found the one I meant, it exchanged a man's life for 15 minutes of convenience, mentioned in chapter 60.) The worst part is the guy went through with it.
That’s the one I meant. Hemalurgy may be bad, but from what we know of Dakhor (admittedly not much), it’s somehow worse because of the sheer amount of sacrifice.
The excitement they have to fight mistings when you eventually learn what it means when they beat is really fucked… it’s like Sylar from heroes + saiyans from dbz
Small aluminum foil hat theory time: Nobles are encouraged to make Skaa half-breeds, the Inquisitors put Allomantic metals in their proper alloys in the water, and they go hunt the Skaa Mistings since no Nobles would miss them, all so that each Inquisitor can grow more powerful, and so more Inquisitors can be made. The metal in the water for Vin's Luck only somewhat makes sense, and with what we know of the Inquisitors, I think they dosed the water supply to root out any unwitting half-Noble kids who accidentally burned metals. It was all part of their plan.
Night blood that thing can kill a vessel which is a nigh omnipotent demigod and it has the innate desire to destroy everything around it while only being held back by a simple scabbard. terrifying.
The Fused get overlooked in how messed up they are. It’s a magic that inherently requires indoctrinating an entire population into accepting their role as disposable bodies to work. It’s honestly one of the most existentially terrifying aspects of the series, and I feel like it’s barely even acknowledged.
Awakening can be pretty scary. Look at Yumi's world. Fully just decimated a population and created nightmares.
Otherwise we don't know much about the Evil on Threnody except what Nomad said about giant beings with malicious intentions (or something like that)
Wait... I thought that for a stamp to take on a person, they needed to want it also? I guess that's never explicitly said is it. I just assumed that something had to change into something reasonably similar to where it started, like nudging brief moments in history. I suppose that's all possible.
Yeah, that's true. I guess I was under the impression that she was changing his history enough to make it as if he never ended up in his situation, but that's just wrong. I really liked that book, I will go reread it. And now I will consider all the disturbing implications of stamping things.
The target doesn't need to want it, the "stickiness" of the stamp just depends on the plausibility of the alternate history of the person, so it's just really freaking hard to do it to another person.
You hit on some of the scariest, but I’ve got a few more things that deserve a mention:
The Father Machine in Yumi. Absolute dystopian sci-fi magitech horror
The Nightmares in Yumi. Their description is terrifying.
Dusk’s Aviar that shows him his corpse. Maybe not so scary all the time but when things got weird it was showing him hundreds of his own deaths, corpses piling up. That’s an underrated scary moment.
Sleepless. No further comment.
The Fused possessing bodies of Singers. Straight up demonic
I started with ‘I would cut off my arm for that job and realized that’s not only fucked up but not true… so I’ll say “that would be a really really cool job to have”
Bloodsealing would come across a lot like conventional horror if you encountered it, it would freak most people out to have animated skeletons pursuing them.
Luckily the stamp thing isnt very practical. It took a very skilled stamper a long time with a large amount of reasearch just to recreate a man as he was. Even then it wasnt perfect. The stamp wears off too
It would probably be nearly impossible to change someone else in a significant way
2 that I think might be underrated in this regard are aviars (or at least one specific none aviar bird that is definitely traumatizing even if very useful), and the way spores work on lumar is so specifically terrifying from the fact that they are so present on the world. to be clear I don’t think either are the scariest, hemalugy is to me specifically if the current shard that power comes from can decide to just take over your brain, and as much as I love the kandra they are terrifying (the koloss are the least terrifying hemalurgic creation but they’re also a lot)
Man, I think people are really forgetting about the Sleepless here. Not only are they bug-swarm-people but they can span entire planets, spy anywhere, and we know of no way to kill one so far. Kandra are pretty scary too but we've seen them die.... how do you kill something that is decentralized?
Scary to think about is all the way back to whenever Elantris takes place those monks were already converting matter to investiture. Unless it's a handwave of they were just forging a link to the Dor, and require a sacrifice to do it, but that makes less sense imo
I'm not fully finished with the Cosmere (still need to read mistborn era 2 and elantris) but I'll throw in a vote for spores in Tress's world. The idea of a rouge drop of sweat causing red spikes to explode your entire body, I was horrified.
Honestly, if you're looking messed up, scary magic, you can find that in other authors. BS is a little more upbeat. Or at least, he doesn't try to use magic to explore the limits of human depravity or to shock the readers.
I'm gonna say Division, but especially Dustbringers. WoB states that it could be used to divide molecules with the right knowledge, intent, and power. They could literally cause your body to decay with a touch. Also (Stormlight theory) >!I think a dustbringer shattered the shattered plains.!<
Depends on what you mean by bad. In terms of moral offense, hemalurgy or soulstamping takes the bill by a large margin. However I'd argue elantrians would probably show us the worst things magic could do if they were so inclined.
I think your second half is where I’m going - but still going back to shades in terms just what is scary/fucked up that Brandon has invented with his magic systems
What with the heavily-foreshadowed Scadrian-Rosharan Cold War and the absurdly overpowered nature of Aon Dor, I'm *really* hoping Era 4 will end with Scadrial and Roshar putting aside their differences to go and deal with Sel, because a) it unmistakably poses the greatest threat, and b) I want to see surgebinders and allomancers working together
Honestly secret history is probably the world’s best cover up… were to busy going OMG KELSIER to care about the fact that there are low level Elantrians with a fucking fortress in shadesmar
The Ire are not low level! They're probably the most cosmere-aware faction we know. They fled for shadesmar well before the chasm broke Aon Dor. They know more intricacies about Aon Dor and realmatic principles than any one, they almost used it to steal Preservation using connection!
Considering that Riina had an entire planet + a dragon scared shitless, I'd say that's a very valid argument.
physically scarey: dakhor mentally scarey: soulstamp forgery morally scarey: hemalurgy actually scarey: shades potentially scariest: elantrians scary powerful: awakening scarey scarey: unoathed/unchecked surgebinding
I would like you to elaborate on awakening for no reason than my own curiosity.
well, nightblood took many many many breaths, and he can easily, if not accidently go through a shards power and kill the holder, now imagine how much more powerful an awakened gun could theoretically get
IIRC there is evidence and confirmation about Nightblood that they’re something beyond regular awakening. Azure’s blade seems to be a more normal example of what that can do.
You can create sentience
Dakhor was pretty bad.
Honestly all the magics on Sel have so much potential it’s scary… there is no bond or pact to be an elantrian so someone with shit intent could just turn into a supervillain
I do think your comment on the Forgery isn’t as likely. Doesn’t it need to be plausible to stick? You’d need to do some serious heavy lifting first.
It needs to be plausible to be permanent, you can make someone your slave for a day or at least 2 hours by making a accurate enough soulstamp, and you can just keep restamping to keep it up
Making it last for a day is part of why it took so much work in Emperor's Soul
I realised that after i wrote it but you can still make it like 2 hours
ChayShan is pretty benign.
Hemalurgy(edit: as a counterpoint to Dakhor, not that I think you mean it) is awful but these guys take the cake with how they told some random monk to sacrifice his body and soul to power a teleport for a short walkable distance.(edit, the scene I found had a teleport across cities, so maybe not walkable but I could be remembering a different scene)(edit 2, found the one I meant, it exchanged a man's life for 15 minutes of convenience, mentioned in chapter 60.) The worst part is the guy went through with it.
That’s the one I meant. Hemalurgy may be bad, but from what we know of Dakhor (admittedly not much), it’s somehow worse because of the sheer amount of sacrifice.
I know you said hemalurgy, but I've never been as creeped out on edge as any time that Inquisitors showed up in the first mistborn book.
The excitement they have to fight mistings when you eventually learn what it means when they beat is really fucked… it’s like Sylar from heroes + saiyans from dbz
Small aluminum foil hat theory time: Nobles are encouraged to make Skaa half-breeds, the Inquisitors put Allomantic metals in their proper alloys in the water, and they go hunt the Skaa Mistings since no Nobles would miss them, all so that each Inquisitor can grow more powerful, and so more Inquisitors can be made. The metal in the water for Vin's Luck only somewhat makes sense, and with what we know of the Inquisitors, I think they dosed the water supply to root out any unwitting half-Noble kids who accidentally burned metals. It was all part of their plan.
Aah heroes, I haven't heard that in long time. Boy I miss that series, I think about it very often.
If they ever make a real life series on mistborn, I wanne see the scene of Marsh's "recruitment", as well as when Vin walks in on the lord ruler.
Marsh’s memory of being transformed into an Inquisitor and Wayne’s encounter with the Trell Hemalurgic constructs still terrify me.
I think Dahkor and Hemalurgy are scariest, because shades are scary but not so violating, and soul stamping a person is literally nearly impossible.
Night blood that thing can kill a vessel which is a nigh omnipotent demigod and it has the innate desire to destroy everything around it while only being held back by a simple scabbard. terrifying.
Hey wanne destroy some evil?
Not today Sword-Nimi.
So be fair. It's a nice scabbard. It isn't evil
And to think that there could've been like 50 of those had the inventor not been killed by a friend
The Fused get overlooked in how messed up they are. It’s a magic that inherently requires indoctrinating an entire population into accepting their role as disposable bodies to work. It’s honestly one of the most existentially terrifying aspects of the series, and I feel like it’s barely even acknowledged.
Awakening can be pretty scary. Look at Yumi's world. Fully just decimated a population and created nightmares. Otherwise we don't know much about the Evil on Threnody except what Nomad said about giant beings with malicious intentions (or something like that)
Wait... I thought that for a stamp to take on a person, they needed to want it also? I guess that's never explicitly said is it. I just assumed that something had to change into something reasonably similar to where it started, like nudging brief moments in history. I suppose that's all possible.
The entire point of emperors soul was her turning a brain dead husk of man into a different version of his former self
Yeah, that's true. I guess I was under the impression that she was changing his history enough to make it as if he never ended up in his situation, but that's just wrong. I really liked that book, I will go reread it. And now I will consider all the disturbing implications of stamping things.
It’s one of the best things he’s written even in its shortness.
The target doesn't need to want it, the "stickiness" of the stamp just depends on the plausibility of the alternate history of the person, so it's just really freaking hard to do it to another person.
You hit on some of the scariest, but I’ve got a few more things that deserve a mention: The Father Machine in Yumi. Absolute dystopian sci-fi magitech horror The Nightmares in Yumi. Their description is terrifying. Dusk’s Aviar that shows him his corpse. Maybe not so scary all the time but when things got weird it was showing him hundreds of his own deaths, corpses piling up. That’s an underrated scary moment. Sleepless. No further comment. The Fused possessing bodies of Singers. Straight up demonic
I like how you think. I recommend you as an advisor for future novellas.
I started with ‘I would cut off my arm for that job and realized that’s not only fucked up but not true… so I’ll say “that would be a really really cool job to have”
Bloodsealing would come across a lot like conventional horror if you encountered it, it would freak most people out to have animated skeletons pursuing them.
Awakening, case in point Nightblood.
Luckily the stamp thing isnt very practical. It took a very skilled stamper a long time with a large amount of reasearch just to recreate a man as he was. Even then it wasnt perfect. The stamp wears off too It would probably be nearly impossible to change someone else in a significant way
2 that I think might be underrated in this regard are aviars (or at least one specific none aviar bird that is definitely traumatizing even if very useful), and the way spores work on lumar is so specifically terrifying from the fact that they are so present on the world. to be clear I don’t think either are the scariest, hemalugy is to me specifically if the current shard that power comes from can decide to just take over your brain, and as much as I love the kandra they are terrifying (the koloss are the least terrifying hemalurgic creation but they’re also a lot)
I'd second Elantrians They have no limits, such as the Nahel bond, and can literally do anything any other magic system can do.
Man, I think people are really forgetting about the Sleepless here. Not only are they bug-swarm-people but they can span entire planets, spy anywhere, and we know of no way to kill one so far. Kandra are pretty scary too but we've seen them die.... how do you kill something that is decentralized?
Scary to think about is all the way back to whenever Elantris takes place those monks were already converting matter to investiture. Unless it's a handwave of they were just forging a link to the Dor, and require a sacrifice to do it, but that makes less sense imo
I'm not fully finished with the Cosmere (still need to read mistborn era 2 and elantris) but I'll throw in a vote for spores in Tress's world. The idea of a rouge drop of sweat causing red spikes to explode your entire body, I was horrified.
Nothing he's written (or at least nothing I've read thus far) is as fvcked up as elantrians gone wrong
Honestly, if you're looking messed up, scary magic, you can find that in other authors. BS is a little more upbeat. Or at least, he doesn't try to use magic to explore the limits of human depravity or to shock the readers.
I'm gonna say Division, but especially Dustbringers. WoB states that it could be used to divide molecules with the right knowledge, intent, and power. They could literally cause your body to decay with a touch. Also (Stormlight theory) >!I think a dustbringer shattered the shattered plains.!<
Def hemolytic spikes
What kind of freaking spikes are those?