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Healing through investiture


SovietAmerica

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So, as far as I understand magical healing in the Cosmere, everyone has a spirit web, which is how they truly view themselves/see themselves, possibly to an extent they themselves don’t even realize. When they are wounded, when investiture is applied their physical body is brought back to the spirit web and how it viewed itself. If someone has a wound for too long, the spirit web incorporates this wound into itself, seeing it as part of its personal truth/body. This is why Those who can perform regrowth can’t do it to anyone who’s been injured for too long, ie someone who’s lost a limb months ago cannot have it regrown. Yet those who swear radiant oaths (The Lopen and Gaz specifically) have their disabilities (missing arm and missing eye respectively) healed, even though it has been (presumably) years since the injury occurred. What is different about radiant spirit webs and/or invested people’s spirit webs compared to “normal” people’s spirit webs that allow this?

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I believe Its part because Radiant healing is more powerful than when Regrowth is used on someone.

A larger part is Perception. Lopen never saw himelf as being disabled while Rysn did, so Lopen's arm Regrew while Rysn's paraplegia didnt.

Its the same thing with Kaladin's brand scars. He saw that as part of himself so they never healed with stormlight, but after he healed and no longer saw himself as a slave his scars went away.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9441

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6 hours ago, SovietAmerica said:

When they are wounded, when investiture is applied their physical body is brought back to the spirit web and how it viewed itself. If someone has a wound for too long, the spirit web incorporates this wound into itself, seeing it as part of its personal truth/body.

This is not entirely accurate. The Spiritweb is not just a spiritual realm copy of the person - it is the network of connections and investiture which make up a person's spiritual component (a web, you might say); of which the Ideal Self is only one node. The Ideal Self does not change based on wounds (or any other factor), rather healing uses investiture to try to make the Physical self as close as possible to the Ideal Self as seen through the lens of a person's Cognitive Identity.

I can;t find where I read the analogy (and will update if I do) but I recall BS describing it as (paraphrased) "if the SR is the Sun and the PR is the ground, the Investiture is the light and the CR is the atmosphere it passes through to get there." It's not a direct analogy (because investiture does not have to physically pass through the CR when entering the PR) but it expresses the component that all uses of Investiture are "filtered" by CR components.

The ability to heal a wound has nothing to do with time (nor even being wounded*) and is only restricted if the aspect being healed (or not) is seen as part of yourself by your Congitive Identity. Kaladin still considered his brands as part of his identity and Rysn had already begun to consider herself paraplegic - so their respective "injuries" did not heal. However, The Lopen never considered himself disabled (and still pictured himself with both arms in his thoughts and dreams) and the Reshi King always considered himself a man even long before becoming Radiant - so Lopen regrew his arm and the King started healing transgender.

Hope that helps

 

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5 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

I believe Its part because Radiant healing is more powerful than when Regrowth is used on someone.

A larger part is Perception. Lopen never saw himelf as being disabled while Rysn did, so Lopen's arm Regrew while Rysn's paraplegia didnt.

Its the same thing with Kaladin's brand scars. He saw that as part of himself so they never healed with stormlight, but after he healed and no longer saw himself as a slave his scars went away.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9441

Sorry if I'm missing something, but why would Rysn be healed in the first place? I thought she wasn't a Radiant at all and so wouldn't have access to Stormlight healing. 

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25 minutes ago, Will of D said:

Sorry if I'm missing something, but why would Rysn be healed in the first place? I thought she wasn't a Radiant at all and so wouldn't have access to Stormlight healing. 

Rysn isnt a Radiant but has had Regrowth applied to her before and Perception still applies to that so she never healed

 

41 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I can;t find where I read the analogy (and will update if I do) but I recall BS describing it as (paraphrased) "if the SR is the Sun and the PR is the ground, the Investiture is the light and the CR is the atmosphere it passes through to get there."

Im pretty sure that mightve been Leras in Secret History

Edit: it was Leras. The quote is:

"Men—all things, truly—are like a ray of light. The floor is the Physical Realm, where that light pools. The sun is the Spiritual Realm, where it begins. This Realm, the Cognitive Realm, is the space between where that beam stretches.”

Edited by Eternal Khol
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This is a limitation of Regrowth specifically.  In Radiant Healing (Radiant, Squire, and Honorblades) as well as Gold feruchemy, the only perception involved is the person's own Self, nice and direct and Internal.  But in Regrowth, it's weaker and also the target is External so both the Radiant and their Spren's Perceptions are likely to get in the mix.

 

 

Quote

 

Questioner

A character in The Stormlight Archive who eventually was able to heal of a wound. An old wound, and normally healing old wounds, with Regrowth, can't be healed.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a limitation of healing someone else, versus healing yourself. Healing someone else is a weaker method, at least as it's understood by the Radiants currently. Figuring out how to make Regrowth fix older wounds is more difficult. When you are highly Invested in such a way that you have a spren bond, then you are able to kind of rewrite your Spiritual self to better match your Cognitive self. Basically, what your soul is better comes to match your perception of your soul and who you are, and who you want to be becomes more important. And because of that, the Radiant bond is able to heal things and even change physiology that normal Regrowth wouldn't be capable of doing.

Tor Instagram Livestream (Nov. 25, 2020)

 

 

 

 

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On 10/17/2022 at 8:19 AM, Eternal Khol said:

Rysn isnt a Radiant but has had Regrowth applied to her before and Perception still applies to that so she never healed

Good point!

On 10/17/2022 at 11:03 AM, Quantus said:

This is a limitation of Regrowth specifically.  In Radiant Healing (Radiant, Squire, and Honorblades) as well as Gold feruchemy, the only perception involved is the person's own Self, nice and direct and Internal.  But in Regrowth, it's weaker and also the target is External so both the Radiant and their Spren's Perceptions are likely to get in the mix.

When combined with what Quantus said, I definitely get now why Rysn wasn't able to be healed. Thanks folks!

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