Emperor's Soul: Devotion's Body

[Oudeis]

I searched but haven't found anyone else who has mentioned this, so I'm gonna throw this out there, see what anyone says.

 

In short: I think that Soulstone is the physical body of Devotion.

 

Let me try to collect my scattered thoughts...

 

First, I'm gonna start by saying that I'm aware that most of what I say here is speculation. With the exception of Forgery, we know very little about ANY of the systems of Investiture on Sel.

 

I've read a quote from Mr. Sanderson saying that on Sel, there will be a system of Investiture for Devotion, one for Dominion, and that another would have come into existence as a balance between the two (much like Preservation's allomancy, Ruin's hemalurgy, and the balancing feruchemy that came up between them). I will try to find this quote and add it.

 

UPDATE: I am mistaken, all arcana on Sel are manifestations of the mixed power of Devotion and Dominion.

 

Known types of Investiture on Sel:

 

AonDor

Forgery/Soulforgery/Fleshforgery?

Bloodsealing

ChayShan

Dhakor (not sure we have an official name for that yet).

 

We know AonDor is less powerful that farther you get from Arelon. We know that the sigils that access the Dor are physical representations of the land. We know that there's a symbol that must be carved onto every soulstamp that Shai believes looks like MaiPon. We know that Dhakor bones look to Raoden to be similar to ancient Fjordell writing.

 

We know that ChayShan is powerful enough even very far from Jindo to punch through the armor of a Dhakor monk, though granted we have no way of knowing the relative power levels/skill of either combatant.

 

So. Here is my theory.

 

I think that Devotion's Investiture works differently depending on where in the world you are. I think that every known form of Investiture that requires you to form shapes that look like countries in order to draw on "the Dor" is from Devotion. So AonDor, all the Forgeries, and Bloodsealing (whether or not those two are related) are her Investiture (and yes, I know that this is unconfirmed.)

 

I think soulstone is Devotion's physical body.

 

I had thought it earlier in the book, but then I got to this line from chapter "Day Ninety-Eight"

 

Her ancestors had worshipped rocks that fell from the sky at night. The souls of broken gods, those chunks had been called. Master craftsmen would carve them to bring out the shape.

 

What if that is soulstone? I know we don't have a hard date on when Aona and Skai died, but (and I can get into this if you want) I think it was a very longtime ago. Like "Ancestors" long time. And we know that soulstone was basically made to be carved.

 

I know that we know how AonDor currently works, but someone made Elantris, and it seems that people don't turn into Elantrians if the giant Rao isn't tuned up properly. So perhaps in the past, it worked differently in a manner that required non-Elantrians to carve shapes. Dhakor also seems to be new, or else why wouldn't it have been used in the war they lost all those years ago? Perhaps an old form of that could be carved into soulstone, rather than bone.

 

Basically, we know that carvable rocks that fell from the sky a long, long time ago were considered the body of a god, and their properties make them perfect for at least one form of Investiture which has similarities to others. (I've got specific theories on ancient forms of AonDor and Dhakor and why specifically they had to adapt, but that's possibly for another day). I think that Devotion's physical body is soulstone.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Oudeis

[WeiryWriter]

Some information you might find useful about selish investitures.

 

All the magic systems on Sel are manifestations of a single magic system.  And they are all influenced by Devotion and Dominion.

 

That said there is something going on with soulstone, it might be the body of a shard, but I don't really know enough to espouse the theory at this time.

[Oudeis]

All the magic systems on Sel are manifestations of a single magic system.  And they are all influenced by Devotion and Dominion.

 

Cool. Where do we know this from?

[WeiryWriter]

Cool. Where do we know this from?

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4290-heres-some-late-stuff/

[Two McMillion]

Soulstone, IMO, is probably the same stuff as Soapstone in the real world, which is easy to carve at first but becomes hard when heated.

 

This doesn't necessarily mean it can't be Devotion's body, though- Sanderson has said that Atium is made up of atoms like ordinary metal is, but wrapped up in spiritual stuff that makes it special. I suppose this makes it possible that Atium, were it to be brought to our world, would be recognized as an ordinary elemental metal from the periodic table. In the same way, Soulstone might still be ordinary Soapstone, but with spiritual stuff in it.

 

A bigger issue is that unlike Lerasium and Atium, Soulstone is apparently not named after a person.

[Darkarma]

Well as far as we've been told forging doesn't require any special materials whatsoever, anything from ordinary wood to crystal works. Soulstone as mentioned could be something we have in the real world but give the quality and usefulness has been given a name befitting of the magic system that makes use of it.

 

That said we haven't really seen any materials with special properties in Sel other than the shardpool I believe.

[Oudeis]

Well as far as we've been told forging doesn't require any special materials whatsoever,

 

Right, and feruchemy, hemallurgy, and allomancy can be done with just normal steel. Just like forgery can be done on a bar of soap if you need to. But they're all done better if you use atium or lerasium, the god-metals. Apart from the lerasium jumpstart needed to spark off Mistborns (and there were still mistings, even before anyone ever burned lerasium) the god-metals improve the Metallic Arts but are not required. I suggest to you that many of the systems of investiture on Sel are improved with the addition of soulstone, but do not require it.

[Kurkistan]

I find such a suggestion to be unwarranted. Shai's POV is quite clear on the point that Forgery works with any substance, but soulstone is just the best to work with. Any speculation which assumes that our main POV character is wrong needs a pretty strong case to back it up.

 

Also, here's some more info on the rocks from the sky.

Source:

Windrunner:
2) Shai refers to an Unknown God, is this at all related to the rocks that fell from the sky that Shai's ancestors carved?

Brandon:
2) For her people, there is a relationship. But watch for mentions of the God Beyond in the books. There is more here.

 

Brandon's answer here suggests that the "relationship" is ephemeral at best, and certainly not to Devotion.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis]

I find such a suggestion to be unwarranted. Shai's POV is quite clear on the point that Forgery works with any substance, but soulstone is just he best to work with.

 

All right... I thought I was clear on this point in the OP, and I've expressly said it since, so I'm going to say it again here. I am completely aware that soulstone is NOT required for Forgery. I never said it was and I did say it wasn't.

 

Atium isn't required for hemallurgy, though it helps a great deal. Yes, I know you can't be mistborn without lerasium, but even before anyone had lerasium there were still mistings, so lerasium is helpful for allomancy, but not required.

 

Soulstone. Not required for Forgery. Still very helpful. Pattern matched.

 

As for your quote, I know it's tenuous. Like I said, this isn't proof, but it's an idea. I also do not see anything he said that makes it "certainly not Devotion." The Alethi refer to Honor as "the Almighty". All Mr. Sanderson said was, "there's a connection between her people and a God Beyond that includes the stones from the sky." If "God Beyond" is her people's word for Devotion, which isn't a stretch, the connection is there.

 

Again, I'm not saying this is totally proven true. But I haven't heard anyone say anything that makes it impossible, or even unlikely.

[Kurkistan]

All right... I thought I was clear on this point in the OP, and I've expressly said it since, so I'm going to say it again here. I am completely aware that soulstone is NOT required for Forgery. I never said it was and I did say it wasn't.

 

Atium isn't required for hemallurgy, though it helps a great deal. Yes, I know you can't be mistborn without lerasium, but even before anyone had lerasium there were still mistings, so lerasium is helpful for allomancy, but not required.

 

Soulstone. Not required for Forgery. Still very helpful. Pattern matched.

 

Sorry, I'm still not getting this. I don't even really buy soulstone being "helpful" for Forgery in the sense that you're using. The end result of using soulstone isn't even the "best" one available:

 

TES, Day Three:

Soulstone was almost as soft as chalk, but did not chip when scraped. You could carve it with high precision, and then set it with a flame and a mark on the top, which would harden it to a strength closer to quartz. The only way to get a better stamp was to carve one from crystal itself, which was incredibly difficult.

 

So, once again, soulstone seems to be merely a useful tool, not "helpful" in any magical sense like Atium is for Hemalurgy.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Argent]

Without endorsing anything, because I rushed through ES and didn't pay much attention to the Realmatics and Shard lore, I think the first of the idea is similar to how every person in Scadrial has a little bit of Preservation in themselves; maybe not enough to use Allomancy, but enough to have the option to, under the right conditions (Snapping, lerasium, a-wizard-did-it). Similarly, every person in Sel - or at least some of them - has the potential to use Aona's Investiture, but soulstones give the ability to breach the gap, so to speak, regardless of their native affinity (or lack of thereof).

[Darkarma]

In the case of pretty much every book each of them always had something that was distinctly magically imbued with the essence of the shard while everything else was pretty much passively imbued by happenstance. Soulstone in my opnion would be more the latter rather than the former.

 

Similarly, every person in Sel - or at least some of them - has the potential to use Aona's Investiture, but soulstones give the ability to breach the gap, so to speak, regardless of their native affinity (or lack of thereof).

 

It still limited by a person's ability craft/write it only lends itself to forging like copic markers lend themselves to a manga artist doing those snazzy color pages that are so rare. It merely lets them work at their full potential. Other than that there isn't really anything special about soulstone that Brandon has hinted to us. If you give it to someone who doesn't know the first thing about forging they aren't going to  be able to turn a burnt out book into a dictionary again. Pretty much all forms of investiture elsewhere do pass things on to the user even if they can't wield it. A breath or number of them enhance a person's very nature. Same with stormlight or burning pewter. Even on Sel, having access to magic does grant some sort of benefit if you can't weild the magics.

 

Forging though is a bit different, mostly because anyone can do it. Dunno the leap that soulstone has some sort of natural investiture like the Tears of Edgli (which make dyes more potent) or the Godmetals seems off. Mainly because there has been no hint that soulstone makes forgeries stick better or do something that enhances forgery aside from giving a person a better suited medium for carving. If we were talking a substance that makes even a bad/unbelievable forgery stick when it normally wouldn't, that would be different.

 

Or at least what would give it credence is if Soulstone were the best possible material in all categories, and in general is considered gamebreaking. But as it is crystal is a better medium even the difficulty is harder. In end though I see this as Soulstone being a Three Bears situation. Papa crystal is too hard, mama wood is too chippy and little soulstone is just right. And because is good for forging especially reusable forging such as soulmarking the human body, its especially ideal, which is why its named soulstone rather than soapstone.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Darkarma

[Oudeis]

Pretty much all forms of investiture elsewhere do pass things on to the user even if they can't wield it. A breath or number of them enhance a person's very nature. Same with stormlight or burning pewter. Even on Sel, having access to magic does grant some sort of benefit if you can't weild the magics.

 

Breath, stormlight, and pewter aren't bodies of shards; they are tools of the craft. It's not analogous to soulstone, it'd be analogous to... I dunno. Having already been Forged, I suppose. Burning pewter is like when Shai used the Mark to turn herself into Shaizan.

 

At the start of Mistborn, no one realized how special or importan atium was. Most people considered it the 'best' metal but it wasn't perfect for every circumstance. It couldn't let you hear a conversation in the other room or calm down someone, or just pick up a rock that fell on your ally. It had economic power but that was mostly due to the Lord Ruler's edicts. It wasn't until the third book that we realized exactly how important atium is to Ruin and the cosmere as a whole. Just because, right now, Mr. Sanderson hasn't yet told us "soulstone breaks all these crazy rules" doesn't mean it doesn't. Kelsier knew a ton about atium, and he still assumed it was nothing more interesting than gold's pair.

 

Let me say this again. This is a theory. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is proven fact. I do think there's compelling evidence that this is a seed Mr. Sanderson has planted. I am absolutely open to anyone showing me evidence that this is clearly not true (and I know you did present some, I still think I have answered for those), but I am not going to listen to anyone saying "well it hasn't been flat-out expressed in the books yet so it's wrong."

 

Also, how do you know that soulstone doesn't break the laws of plausibility? The mural in Shai's room, the emperor's Soul itself, we get told over and over how implausible they are, and yet they take. Wood may be more plentiful and crystal may technically be easier to carve. But it's been hinted, though never said, that all the Forgeries Shai makes, the ones that should never have worked, do work. With soulstone. I know they have other, in-story reasons. Go ahead and tell me Mr. Sanderson has never told us something in-story that later proved to be nothing more than "what the characters erroneously believe."

[11thorderknight]

Sorry, I'm gonna have to jump on the hate train here. The way soulstone is described, it's clearly a tool of convenience, and its convenience is dictated by the technological constraints of the setting. If there were Forgers on Earth, they'd probably be carving seals out of tungsten carbide blocks using argon lasers and diamond-tip burrs. You could just as easily argue that Aona's body is in squid ink, because that's what Shai uses to stamp things.

 

On a completely unrelated note, did anyone else catch the reference to "the un-Forgeable metal"? One that happens to be relatively rare and hard to purify, and very soft, with a low melting point? Aluminum, anyone?

Edited October 21, 2013 by 11thorderknight

[Shardlet]

Since it is at least suggested that the soulstone fell from the sky, I have no problem with the idea that the soulstone was prepared by Devotion/Dominion.  Its properties are so well suited for forging that is seems a bit uncanny.  But, I would expect that this would be in the form of investiture from, rather than body of.

[red032]

Remember that Aona and Skai were killed by Odium and their shardpool splintered.

That would chance something on the magic system os Sel, wouln't it?

[Vortaan]

Remember that Aona and Skai were killed by Odium and their shardpool splintered.

That would chance something on the magic system os Sel, wouln't it?

 

It probably resulted in the geographical system of Investiture on Sel, which is pretty odd for a Shardworld. We don't see Investiture acting differently depending on location anywhere else in the Cosmere (yet). As for the soulstone being the body of a Shard... sorry, also have to agree with the hate train, simply because soulstone doesn't seem all that special. If it worked more effectively than anything else for Forging, yeah, ok... but it doesn't bestow any special powers, and it doesn't seem to be any more efficient at taking a seal than any other material. It just lasts longer so you don't have to recarve it as often.

[Kobold King]

It probably resulted in the geographical system of Investiture on Sel, which is pretty odd for a Shardworld. We don't see Investiture acting differently depending on location anywhere else in the Cosmere (yet). As for the soulstone being the body of a Shard... sorry, also have to agree with the hate train, simply because soulstone doesn't seem all that special. If it worked more effectively than anything else for Forging, yeah, ok... but it doesn't bestow any special powers, and it doesn't seem to be any more efficient at taking a seal than any other material. It just lasts longer so you don't have to recarve it as often.

 

It's been a while since I read The Emperor's Soul, so I may be forgetting pertinent details here. But is it possible that soulstone comes from a different land, and it's much more powerful when used in its original region?

[Vortaan]

It's been a while since I read The Emperor's Soul, so I may be forgetting pertinent details here. But is it possible that soulstone comes from a different land, and it's much more powerful when used in its original region?

 

I think the trap people fall into is that because Ruin and Preservation manifested their physical aspects in something tangible like beads of metal, other Shards would have to as well. I wonder, though, if that's really the case. On Sel, I think it's very possible that the land itself is infused with the Physical aspects of the Shards, hence the super strong ties to geography. If that's the case, it's probably so diffuse that there's no real power to be had, unlike the very concentrated atium and lerasium beads.

[High prince of geeks]

Jadeth, or dominion, is said to be trapped in stone, maybe soulstone is dominions body and hes stuck there like ruin was in mistborn. 

[Caladcholg]

Also, how do you know that soulstone doesn't break the laws of plausibility? The mural in Shai's room, the emperor's Soul itself, we get told over and over how implausible they are, and yet they take. Wood may be more plentiful and crystal may technically be easier to carve. But it's been hinted, though never said, that all the Forgeries Shai makes, the ones that should never have worked, do work. With soulstone. I know they have other, in-story reasons. Go ahead and tell me Mr. Sanderson has never told us something in-story that later proved to be nothing more than "what the characters erroneously believe."

 

Im not going to disagree with this, because I find it quite plausible.  Though to offer another thought, I also think it may have taken because Shai believes that it should.  As WoB has stated, perception has a lot to do with how magic works.  Like the belief that it takes 10 heartbeats for a shardblade to appear, even though we see evidence to the contrary.  So with the justification of her own logic in her mind, the Forgery actually does take.

[Oudeis]

By that reasoning, shouldn't the best forgers be idiots, or the insane, or people frighteningly good at self-delusion? Wouldn't some nitwit who thinks glass can burn be able to forge a functioning torch made out of glass?

 

This has ever been my issue with Forgery. Plausibility is a preposterous metric, inherently subjective and impossible to measure. It strikes me as below the standard of most of Mr. Sanderson's work.

 

And how on earth are any of these things plausible, by anyone's standard? The Grands deliberately and specifically put her in one of the worst rooms, with some of the worst furniture. I could understand it being plausible that they'd overlook a nice table, or if the chair wasn't as splintery as they had ordered. But by the time it's the nicest room in the palace, the Grands would have specifically ordered that she be put somewhere else. This isn't chance, or random happenstance, or a bizarre series of coincidences. The people in charge made a conscious decision, and if the window was beautiful and the wall was glorious and the bed was luxurious, there is a 0% chance they would have decided to put her in that room. It is literally the limit of how implausible something can be.

[Pathfinder]

It has been awhile since I read Emperor's Soul, so any references if faulty, I apologize in advance and this is just throwing some thoughts/ideas out there. Vin has been shown to be naturally an especially skilled allomancer, I do not see any reason why Shai, who has been stated as the best forger around, could not just be naturally an especially good forger for a reason we as of yet have not seen why. So that could be why she is able to make stuff stick that shouldn't. Just like how Vin could push better than she should when compared to Kelsier, and learned how to use her metals faster than anyone else. There is in my opinion, an artistic or imaginative state of mind in a way required to produce these stamps. You find out the history of the object, and attempt to plausibly come up with instances in your mind of ways based on the history things COULD have gone differently. The more plausible the new "story", the better the stamp keeps right? So maybe her greater than normal skill could be attributed to not only to the intricate designs of her stamps, but the frame of mind she can easily hold. Not saying "she believes it, so it happens", just she can wrap her head around possibilities better than most. This post may just be a waste of space, but just writing some thoughts that popped in my head. 

[Oudeis]

That makes far more objective sense than her benefiting from her own credibility.

 

I still try to pretend that one day we'll find out that forgery is based on an underlying principle far more objective and sense-making than 'plausibility,' but I fully confess that it's a pipedream.

[Kurkistan]

RE: Who decides plausibility

 

Sorry, Caladcholg, but we have fairly good reason to believe that "plausibility" is decided on a much larger scale than the individual. Myself I'd guess at least at the level of local populations, if not entire nations, or wolds, or the cosmere at large.

 

RE: Implausibility of Shai's room being so nice and associated worries

 

Couldn't agree more that something smells off with that if you're using a large enough scope to define "plausibility." In point of fact, Thought and I had one of our old-fashioned slug-fests over the issue of what "scale" plausibility was decided at awhile back; I used that example as an argument for why we ought to conclude that plausibility is evaluated only on the very very narrow level of the object, not in its broader circumstances.

 

So by my understanding/argument the only thing the desk cares about is the plausibility that it could have been taken care of over the years, not the plausibility that it could have been taken care of over the years and then in that state have been stored in/moved to a dank now-cell.

 

P.S. I'll note that the inciting example for our discussion was the idea of whether a Forger who'd nearly lost a limb would be able to Forge it off—temporarily—with relative ease. Context would argue towards it being hard, non-context it being easy (unless I'm misremembering the details of how the discussion went—what, you think I have time to re-read all of that?! ). And it turns out it would be relatively easy.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Kurkistan