Telcontar Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 WoK spoilers here. still, if you haven't read the book this will probably be hard to understand. I've read in another thread about the similarity of Gavilar's mysterious dark sphere and the beads in Shadesmar. For further study I got the quotes from the book. Gavilar's sphere is described as being a "small crystalline sphere. [...] Though it was completely dark, it seemed to glow somehow. With a light that was black" When Shallan falls into the ocean of beads, those are described as "tiny, dark glass spheres". And there are very much of them. Sadly this doesn't tell us something about whether Shallans beads seemed to glow or not. But then, she didn't really pay attention to them but was more struggling to survive. However, what really made me thinking (and what made me not post it there) was that entitiy that spoke to her. There was a voice which seemed to speak to her. And it seemed to come from a bead she hold in her hand. I haven't read anything about that voice yet, hope I didn't miss it. Let's begin with the important quotes: "You want me to change? A warm voice said in her mind, distinct and different from the cold whisper, she had heard earlier. It was deep and hollow and conveyed a sense of great age." The whisper she had heard earlier was most probably the linehead-spren (aka truthspren). So the voice speaking wasn't the spren. "[mysterious voice] I've been as I am for a great long time. [...] I sleep so much. I will change. Give me what you have. [shallan] I don't know what you mean. Please help me [mysterious voice] I will change She felt suddenly cold, as if the warmth were being drawn from her. She screamed as the bead in her fingers flared to sudden warmth.". So, who spoke? The voice seemed to come from the bead. I had the impression that there was a conscient being trapped in the bead. And it wanted very much to get out (to change, as it says) because it had been trappend in the sphere for a very long time. The voice tells Shallan that it has been as it is for a great long time. So it had been something before, probably not trapped in the bead. How do you get something (whatever it is) or the mind of something in a small sphere? Shadesmar is the cognitive realm (coppermind wiki, suppose the author got that right). So getting someone's conscienciousness to the cognitive realm seems logical to me. One could also speak of the mind or the soul being transferred. My theory (which is hardly anything but pure speculation) is, that the people's souls get to Shadesmar when killed by a Shardblade. The dark smoke rising from their eyes being the soul put in a sphere. OK, there are probably billions of spheres. If all parts of Shadesmar which are represented as ocean on the map are in fact oceans of spheres, the sheer number of spheres would make appear my theory as ridiculous. But if Shadesmar is the cognitive realm which can be accessed from everywhere in the physical realm (every shardworld) there can be other ways to get souls to Shadesmar. I'm thinking about Nightblood. I read somewhere in this forum that there was a connection between the smoke Nightblood leaks and the smoke from the eyes of people who got shardbladed. Also Shardblades don't have to send only the minds of humans to Shadesmar. If it also sends the minds of Parshendi, chasmfiends, thunderclasts, Midnight Essence there... With so many Desolations, we would get to a big number of souls/minds/consciousnesses. And that for a "great long time". Also that theory is kind of creepy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoser Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 Interesting thoughts. I just assumed that in the cognitive realm, everything had cognition. So the consciousness of the glass could speak to Shallan. Either that or there is a spren in everything and you can talk to the spren in Shadesmar. I struggle with the idea of shardbladed souls getting put in things because I lack the imagination to solve the issues of what happens before shardblades are created and why don't some objects get multiple souls crammed into them. If Jasnah is soulcasting things by talking to them and bribing them with stormlight, then she wouldn't be able to change objects that hadn't had souls crammed into them or she'd have to bribe multiple souls sometimes, if I understand the theory correctly. These issues are solvable, but I struggle with the implications. Great connection, and now I am wondering about what shardblades really do. I just assumed that the smoke and death of the body was a side effect of the blades severing the connection to the spiritual realm. An interesting implication is what happens in the cognitive realm at the moment of being shardbladed. Shallan doesn't seem aware of any voices from her body when in Shadesmar. Her body is an object, though. If she were shardbladed while talking to Jasnah in Shadesmar, would a different voice suddenly come from her body? What would it's cognitive story be? Creepy doesn't begin to describe it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vortaan Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 It seems like Soulcasting would require multiple souls to be bribed then... for example, to Soulcast a chair, you'd probably have to bribe each individual part, unless the chair was carved from one tree... and then what about anything else carved from that tree? Does chopping it into three parts create three bodies for souls? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dros Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 Creepy. Does that mean she was swimming around a bunch of dead people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 we've talked about what she talks to when she soulcasts before and the general consensus is that everything in the cosmere has a cognitive aspect and she spoke with the cognitive aspect of the goblet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 It seems like Soulcasting would require multiple souls to be bribed then... for example, to Soulcast a chair, you'd probably have to bribe each individual part, unless the chair was carved from one tree... and then what about anything else carved from that tree? Does chopping it into three parts create three bodies for souls? Here's the current understanding of Spren in layman's terms. “I think it must be,” Tien said.“Or it has a spren. Do spren live in rocks?” “Spren live in everything,” Hesina replied. “They can’t live in everything,” Kal said, dropping a peel into the pail athis feet. He glanced out the window, watching the road that led from the townto the citylord’s mansion. “They do,” Hesina said. “Spren appear when something changes--when fear appears, or when it begins to rain. They are the heart of change, and therefore the heart of all things.” “This longroot,” Kal said, holding it up skeptically. “Has a spren.” “And if you slice it up?” “Each bit has a spren. Only smaller.” Kal frowned, looking over the long tuber. They grew in cracks in the stone where water collected. They tasted faintly of minerals, but were easy to grow. His family needed food that didn’t cost much, these days. “So we eat spren,” Kal said flatly. “No,”she said, “we eat the roots.” “When we have to,” Tien added with a grimace. “And the spren?” Kal pressed. “They are freed. To return to wherever it is that spren live.” “Do I have a spren?” Tien said, looking down at his chest. “You have a soul, dear. You’re a person. But the pieces of your body very well may have spren living in them. Very small ones.” I've always assumed that the tiny spheres we see in Shadesmar are the cognitive aspects of the objects around them, which the Rosharians interpret as spren. Here's what Brandon has to say about objects in Shadesmar: ZAS678 What is the X in Aon Mea? Is it one of the Shard-pools? BRANDON SANDERSON Afraid not. Aon Mea references the expanded region within which the "Elantris Effect" will create Elantrians. The X is fertile valley with a high density of life, a place with a lot of cognitive activity. (Cognitive as defined by Realmatic Theory includes the 'thoughts' of all things that exist, not just human beings. The more complex the life form, the stronger its presence on the Cognitive Realm.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScorpioMind Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 Could the sea of black spheres be a Shardpool or the mind of a Shardholder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScorpioMind Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 Could the sea of black spheres be a Shardpool or the mind of a Shardholder? Seeing As Shadesmar Encompasses the Entire cosmere I doubt Brandon world make it so Shallan could soulcast something in another ShardWorld From Roshar, so I doubt that these spheres are individual minds…unless Shadesmar is geographically different across the cosmere, dependant on which shards interact and constrains the minds of that ShardWorld to that form of Shadesmar. If I'm correct, which I'm not, then you mind, in black sphere form, will remain in its original Shadesmar…Yess I'm off topic, I think, fortunately I'm done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 Posted February 13, 2012 Report Share Posted February 13, 2012 My theory? The sphere that Shallan talks to is the Cognitive aspect of the Goblet that is Soulcast. So she goes into Shadesmar, "talks" with the goblet, gives it some Stormlight, than it changes. I would believe that this would be pretty similar across the landscape. You want me to change? a warm voice said in her mind, distinct and different from the cold whisper she had heard earlier. It was deep and hollow and conveyed a sense of great age. It seemed to come from her hand, and she realized she was grasping something there. One of the beads. The movement of the ocean of glass threatened to tow her down; she kicked frantically, somehow managing to stayafloat. I’ve been as I am for a greatlong time, the warm voice said. I sleep so much. I will change. Give me what you have. “I don’t know what you mean! Please, help me!” I will change. She felt suddenly cold, as if the warmth were being drawn from her. She screamed as the bead in her fingers flared to sudden warmth. She dropped it just as a shift in the ocean swelltowed her under, beads rolling over one another with a soft clatter. She fell back and hit her bed, backin her room. Beside her, the goblet on her nightstand melted, the glassbecoming red liquid, dropping the three spheres inside of it to the top of thenightstand. The red liquid poured over the sides of the nightstand, splashing to the floor. Shallan pulled back, horrified. The goblet had been changed into blood. From the Barnes and Nobles Q&A Each of the 'Shardworlds' I've written in (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Way of Kings) exists with the same cosmology. All things exist on three realms—the spiritual, the cognitive, and the physical. What's going on here is an interaction between the three realms. I don't want to bore you with my made up philosophy, but I do have a cohesive metaphysical reasoning for how my worlds and magic works. And there is a single plane of existence—called Shadesmar, the Cognitive Realm—which connects them all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheese Ninja Posted February 14, 2012 Report Share Posted February 14, 2012 I've never been a very big fan of Muse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Holes_and_Revelations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikomis Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I've never been a very big fan of Muse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Holes_and_Revelations I actually love that song. And it's taken me quite a lot of effort to resist posting about it until now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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