Lashing Argument

[Deldraedair]

Hey guys! Jonathan here!

This is my first post to the 17th shard and it was brought about by a subject of discussion/argument between my brothers and I. Everyone in my family are die-hard fans of the Cosmere, the Stormlight Archive in particular, and an idea struck my brother a little while ago. He was reading in the Ars Arcanum at the end of Words of Radiance and came across the part talking about how gravitational lashings worked. He read (I paraphrase): "Advanced uses of this lashing would allow a Windrunner to make him or herself lighter by binding a portion of his or her mass upward." He thought, and still thinks, that a Windrunner could cut a person in half by binding one half of a person's body one way and another half the opposite way, splitting them in two. He thought this by assuming that when it said: "...bind a portion of his or her MASS..." that it meant the literal flesh of a person's body, and that one could single out half of a person with a lashing. I objected to this (me and my older brother who sided with me), trying to explain to him that when the Ars Arcanum used the word 'mass', that it was talking about the more complicated meaning involving weight. I explained to him Einsteins theory of relativity, explaining how gravity works with a pillow. The earth (and the spiritual bond to it that lashings interfere with) is like a large weight in the middle of the pillow, and lashings are like putting a very heavy weight away from the central weight (the earth), overcoming the earths gravitational bond and drawing a marble (the thing a Windrunner is lashing) away from it. I asked him if he could split a marble by placing it on a pillow and pressing down on the pillow on either side of it. He could not, obviously, however he still thought he was correct. I continued to explain that lashings (and therefore gravity, which is all the lashings effect) are all about weight and that an object, in order to be split by two lashings, would need to have two separate weights, while remaining one whole being. This is of course impossible, yet my brother still doesn't understand. I know this is an abstract topic and perhaps somewhat irrelevant, but it has been the subject of many a lengthy argument. My brother and I would both like a second opinion on the matter. Please respond and let me know what you think. Could lashings split someone in half with two lashings on either side? Thanks! 

[ArborealEtymologist]

Edit: Welcome!  I'm new too but I liked your question!  There's some thing about cookies but I will let more experienced folk address that issue.

To my mind, it can't be the way your brother is thinking.  Put it like this: We know that you should be able to make yourself lighter by using this technique.  But if it referred specifically to making a fraction of your body lighter, then you'd end up with, say, a weightless torso and a fully heavy set of legs.  imagine the problems that would present to walking around.  You'd get some very odd ragdoll effects.  Even if you were able to spread the effect across your entire body, your tissue and blood would have a hard time dealing with such an insane environment.

That said... would I mind too much if a windrunner managed to tear something in half with lashings... no, i would not

Edited March 17, 2017 by ArborealEtymologist
Forgot to welcome the new person!

[Farnsworth]

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