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How to get your body back [SH, BoM spoilers]


Pattern

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The Sovereign in the Bands of Mourning looks a lot like Kelsier's old body with scars on is hands and arms (from climbing and escaping the Pits of Hathsin). Theory is (as far as I know widely accepted) that the Sovereign is Kelsier - after the events of SH somehow having obtained a new body - which was his next goal at the end of SH.

So, how did he get his body back?

My theory: Kelsier and Spook manipulated a Kandra to once more use Kelsier's bones to impersonate Kelsier. Then he somehow (exploiting the Kandra's blessings) took over that body, killing the Kandra in the process. The result would be Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow attached to a Kandra copy of Kelsier's body. We could call it Kelsier's reincarnation.

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6 hours ago, Pattern said:

The Sovereign in the Bands of Mourning looks a lot like Kelsier's old body with scars on is hands and arms (from climbing and escaping the Pits of Hathsin). Theory is (as far as I know widely accepted) that the Sovereign is Kelsier - after the events of SH somehow having obtained a new body - which was his next goal at the end of SH.

So, how did he get his body back?

My theory: Kelsier and Spook manipulated a Kandra to once more use Kelsier's bones to impersonate Kelsier. Then he somehow (exploiting the Kandra's blessings) took over that body, killing the Kandra in the process. The result would be Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow attached to a Kandra copy of Kelsier's body. We could call it Kelsier's reincarnation.

I've heard that before, the problem is that Kandra can't use the Metallic arts and Kelsier is now a Fullborn

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About the Metallic Arts, you can't really say that. We know somehow it's possible, even if we don't know how. Just think about Bleeder. A Kandra that used the Metallic arts.

I think also a common theory is, that they somehow linked Kelsier's "spirit" via Hemalurgy to a new body (remember the one spike in his eye. We don't know it's function).
Whatever kind of body that was (kandra or human) could have "healed" to look like Kelsier, as his mind thinks this is how he's supposed to look, just as Kaladin's scar.

 

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Alternatively, if they had any body, and gave Kel a new "string" to the physical and gave him the use of F-gold, the nature of healing in the Cosmere should filter through Kelsier's Cognitive aspect and reshape that body to match how he views himself. 

So I'm of the opinion that, rather than kill a living being, they just used a corpse. 

Edit: and the morning meeting got me ninja'd. Stupid work. 

Edited by Calderis
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I am really not sure whether cosmere healing would encompass shapeshifting. Perception of yourself is a very important aspect of healing, but morphing a body to your own seems a bit over the top. It's definitely a cleaner possibility than abusing the poor Kandra.

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22 minutes ago, Pattern said:

I am really not sure whether cosmere healing would encompass shapeshifting. Perception of yourself is a very important aspect of healing, but morphing a body to your own seems a bit over the top. It's definitely a cleaner possibility than abusing the poor Kandra.

I don't see  body being reshaped to fit the Spiritual and Cognitive aspects of the person wearing it being any different than the ridiculous level of regrowth we see from miles. 

It wouldn't be "shapeshifting," it would be healing the body to match the other aspects and could not be reverted or changed after. 

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My favorite theory is that Spook used a perpendicularity to travel to the Cognitive Realm with a hemalurgic spike, then spiked Kelsier with something (Feruchemic Connection?) to allow Kelsier to reestablish his Connection to the Physical Realm, and then he was simply able to use a perpendicularity to travel back to the Physical Realm.

This would allow him to get around the problem of making or stealing a new body.  Recall, Kelsier specifically mentions and takes note of the fact that Nazh and Hoid were able to physically touch him in the Cognitive Realm, as if he were as real and solid as they were.

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@Calderis You're right, comparing to what Miles does with compounding and the thing that even losing your head is no issue with advanced cosmere healing, healing a new body to match your spiritual aspect really looks easy.

@hwiles Can you spike a Cognitive Shadow? Oh wait, I think there is a WoB about spiking Spren. I'll try to find it and come back hopefully soon.

@hwiles Can't find anything on theoryland, nothing on reddit either, until now (stubled over spiked radiant (RAFO) and spiked sentient robot (logistics problematic). I have to go offline now, perhaps I will continue later, if nobody else came up with something.

I am reall looking forward to the new WoB feature...looking for something specific still is a mess, especially because theoryland has geographically restricted access...

Edited by Pattern
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9 minutes ago, Pattern said:

@Calderis You're right, comparing to what Miles does with compounding and the thing that even losing your head is no issue with advanced cosmere healing, healing a new body to match your spiritual aspect really looks easy.

@hwiles Can you spike a Cognitive Shadow? Oh wait, I think there is a WoB about spiking Spren. I'll try to find it and come back hopefully soon.

Kelsier could touch and be touched by Nazh, so I would posit that he could stab and be stabbed by anyone (which of course would allow him to be spiked).

The underlying realmatic explanation for this would be that he believe he could be spiked, so he could be spiked; IE; he doesn't think of himself as dead at the spiritual level, so he isn't.  If you know of a specific WoB relating to spiking entities in the CR that are sapient while lacking Connection to the PR that would be extremely enlightening, please tag me if you find it.  Thanks!

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@hwiles: Browsing the forums for fun I stubled over, spoiler tags for size

Spoiler

 

On 30.5.2017 at 10:58 AM, Oversleep said:

Here's the WoB that my quote was taken from, if anyone is curious:

Quote

Q: Can spren be pierced by hemalurgic spikes? Will it give some effect?

A: Yes. A spren can be pierced by invested metal…

Q: Could it be spiked?

A: Could a spike be used to give abilities to spren? That’s not going to work really well.

Q: Could you steal from a spren?

A: Yes you could steal the investiture of a spren. Any investiture can be used in a spike if you know what you’re doing. It’s actually not that hard to use one on a spren.

Q: Because I thought you said hemalurgy needs moving blood.

A: It needs, uh, yeah…there are places where spren have more physical form, more tangible form.

Q: The Cognitive Realm?

A: Yeah if you go to the Cognitive Realm on Roshar the spren act differently.

Q: So you could spike in the cognitive realm?

A: Yeah I’ll leave a RAFO with you on that. That’s your fifth one. So there are ways to get any investiture into hemalurgy if you know what you’re doing. But yeah this is not something that would be a common use for hemalurgy. Let’s just say that.

Q: We do not concern ourselves with common uses.

A: Yeah I know you don’t. But yeah hemalurgy, when you’re spiking into somebody you…you’ll see when we get around to it.

 

 

So being able to be spiked has less to do with believe than with the "substanceness" of cognitive beings in the Cognitive Realm. But it's possible.
And a real mess I didn't find that WoB on my own, I am sure I have read this before.

Especially the last line reads for me now "...when you're spiking into somebody you want to attach a body to..."

Edited by Pattern
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On 7/13/2017 at 11:16 PM, hwiles said:

Kelsier could touch and be touched by Nazh, so I would posit that he could stab and be stabbed by anyone (which of course would allow him to be spiked).

I think the problem your going to run into here is that Kelsier is basically a "human spren" according to Brandon. And according to the WoB that @Pattern just posted, spiking a spren to steal something isn't a problem but giving them something is. 

Nazh and Hoid could touch him because they were physically in the Cognitive Realm. They could interact with him in the same way they could interact with everything else. They, unlike him, have a physical body. When they enter the Physical Realm, they just return to their normal state. 

When Kelsier attempts to leave as he is, he'd be trying to step through the barrier between the physical and Cognitive without any physical anchor.

SA spoilers 

Spoiler

When the Spren do this aided by the Nahel bond they become stupid and they still can't touch anything physically without extreme effort. 

For Kel, doing it under his own power, I think, would be extremely traumatic, assuming it could even be done. 

I don't know how this can actually work. If they have to bring a body into the Cognitive Realm and try and spike them together, or what... But I am really really curious, because forming a new connection to the physical just seems crazy. 

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I thought more of stealing all of the spren/cognitive shadow by spiking it (that is Kelsier), move the spike to the Physical Realm and stab the body in the eye (one eye of the Sovereign has been spiked and gives steel vision). Moving the body to the CR also would work (we see Hoid do this).

Edit: @Calderis: In answer to your next post: That remains the question. How big a part of a soul is stolen by a hemalurgic spike? Perhaps a part of the "soul" is enough to establish a connection to the body.

I believe the amount of Investiture equivalent of a soul can still be considered "low Investiture". Spiking leaves the victim behind in a bad condition (usually quite dead), if he survives in a much worse condition than a drab. So I guess a rather large - or essential - part of the soul is spiked out anyway. We really need conversion factors for different types of Investiture and Souls.

Khriss somewhere asks the question whether a cognitive shadow is a persons' soul and leaves the answer to theologists and philosophers. I am with her there and think for practical purposes it doesn't really matter, since the cognitive shadow essentially is Investiture imprinted by the soul. You don't have to split a part of the spiritweb if you can steal the entire entity (that is the spren or cognitive shadow). Stays the question whether a spike can contain enough Investiture to absorb a whole cognitive shadow. Obviously I cannot answer this question, though I read "Yes you could steal the investiture of a spren." as all of it.

And being quick about using the spike is out of the question. Except you have a container filled with blood to store the spike in.

Edited by Pattern
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12 minutes ago, Pattern said:

I thought more of stealing all of the spren/cognitive shadow by spiking it (that is Kelsier), move the spike to the Physical Realm and stab the body in the eye (one eye of the Sovereign has been spiked and gives steel vision). Moving the body to the CR also would work (we see Hoid do this).

Is it possible to contain the entirety of a Cognitive Shadow in a spike though? Everything I've found shows that Hemalurgy is a relatively low investiture system. Hemalurgy also targets the soul, so if you spike something in the Cognitive, do you absorb the Cognitive aspect, or does it still tear up the Spiritual aspect while wounding the aspect receiving the spike? 

Even if that is a possibility, you'd better get the spike into the body to receive it as fast as possible due to the law of Hemalurgic Decay. 

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On 7/14/2017 at 3:53 AM, Toaster Retribution said:

I actually raised the idea of hijacking a kandra in another thread months ago. One of the things people said then was that Harmony would have problems with it.

My theory is he used a non-sapient Mistwraith, not an actual Kandra. The spike would then act as a Blessing, bypassing the Cognitive blockage mistwraiths have - except that it would get Kelsier's consciousness, not a new consciousness.

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4 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

My theory is he used a non-sapient Mistwraith, not an actual Kandra. The spike would then act as a Blessing, bypassing the Cognitive blockage mistwraiths have - except that it would get Kelsier's consciousness, not a new consciousness.

The issue here is that all Mistwraiths are in essence, unborn Kandra. Their Aspects may not have been integrated to create a Sapient creature, but every one has the potential. 

Using the body of a mistwraith, to the Kandra, would be little different than someone human justifying using some technological means to transfer their consciousness to an unborn child. 

Your still destroying a living being to use it's body, you've just chosen to eradicate the person before anyone could know who they are. 

(not trying to bring up the emotionally charged political and ethical debates that this implies from the real world. I'm just trying to draw a parallel between the two) 

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On 7/16/2017 at 0:10 AM, Calderis said:

I think the problem your going to run into here is that Kelsier is basically a "human spren" according to Brandon. And according to the WoB that @Pattern just posted, spiking a spren to steal something isn't a problem but giving them something is. 

Nazh and Hoid could touch him because they were physically in the Cognitive Realm. They could interact with him in the same way they could interact with everything else. They, unlike him, have a physical body. When they enter the Physical Realm, they just return to their normal state. 

When Kelsier attempts to leave as he is, he'd be trying to step through the barrier between the physical and Cognitive without any physical anchor.

SA spoilers 

  Reveal hidden contents

When the Spren do this aided by the Nahel bond they become stupid and they still can't touch anything physically without extreme effort. 

For Kel, doing it under his own power, I think, would be extremely traumatic, assuming it could even be done. 

I don't know how this can actually work. If they have to bring a body into the Cognitive Realm and try and spike them together, or what... But I am really really curious, because forming a new connection to the physical just seems crazy. 

To be fair, (SA spoilers):

Spoiler

Spren can become shardblades, which are very much solid.  They even have significant mass.

I think the kandra/mistwraith hijacking ideas could work, but they seem overly complicated to me.  Kelsier doesn't necessarily need to create a whole new body and install his mind/Investiture into it.  He already has a body in the Cognitive Realm; he thinks, he feels, he can get beaten up by Hoid, ect.  If he can reestablish his Connection to the Physical Realm, he should be able to just walk through a perpendicularity and take his current body with him.

I'll preface this by saying it's my own speculation, and it's not ironclad.  I recognize and respect that there is legitimate room for argument and skepticism, but hear me out:

The fact that Kelsier could be punched in the face implies to me that he could be stabbed.  The fact that he can be stabbed implies to me that, on some level, hemalurgy can work on him if a spike is brought to the Cognitive Realm.  Kelsier explains that he can't write with his hair or blood to keep notes while imprisoned in the Well of Ascension because they don't exist in a permanent sense once he removes them, IE: once removed from his body, they gradually fade away like when he tries pulling threads off his shirt, but they do exist in a permanent sense while inside of him.  Cognitive Realm Kelsier having blood and being able to be physically interacted with makes me think he can be spiked.  He has a soul, blood, and, thanks to Preservation's intervention, a permanent unaging body.  But his Connection to the Physical Realm was severed on death (his Connection to the Cognitive Realm would've been severed too if Preservation hadn't helped him).  This is why he can't use a perpendicularity, he can't leverage himself across the threshold without a line of Connection to the Realm attached to his soul.  He's like a man trying to lift himself up by pulling on his own feet; what he needs is a rope anchored to the other side of the gap, and the matter of transitioning becomes trivially easy.

A pet theory of mine I've been working on is that Marsh may have given Kelsier one of his own eye spikes (then replaced it with one from a dead inquisitor later).  The linchpin spike in Marsh's spine establishes the Connection between his other spikes that keeps his spiritweb from unraveling due to the strain imposed by hemalurgy; if Marsh went to the Cognitive Realm, ripped out one of his eye spikes, then stabbed Kelsier in the eye with it, the Connection between the linchpin spike and the eye spike may remain active, especially if Marsh had used it as a metalmind (thereby storing some of his own Investiture in it and keying it to his Identity, thus make a permanent Connection).  This would allow Kelsier to piggyback off of Marsh's Connection to the Physical Realm and ride a perpendicularity back home because the exchange would have resulted in Kelsier's spiritweb being stapled with an active Connection to the Physical Realm.  It's a hack you see; the spike only gives Kelsier Connection to the Physical Realm because Marsh is Connected to the Physical Realm, Marsh's soul is Connected to the soul-fragment contained in Kelsier's spike via feruchemical storage and probably his linchpin spike, and the soul-fragment in Kelsier's spike is firmly stapled to Kelsier's soul.

The only real problem I see with this explanation still is that my understanding of Realmatics implies that Kelsier would die if Marsh died unless he found a new source of Connection.  However, this could be circumvented through compounding Connection.  The only thing I absolutely cannot reconcile is how Kelsier has access to all of the feruchemic metals when it seems like 1) he probably has less than 4 spikes because Harmony doesn't let people have more than that, and more conclusively, 2) he doesn't appear to have any arm spikes:

Argument for why Kelsier shouldn't be able to have received 16 feruchemic powers through hemalurgy without visible spikes in his arms, which the flashbacks seem to indicate that he doesn't have, spoilered for length and because it's sort of a sidebar:

Spoiler

My understanding from Ben McSweeney's artwork is that Marsh had at most 12 spikes set between his ribs (one between each of the 7 top ribs that connect to the sternum on each side), 2 in the eyes, one in the neck, one in the sternum, one in the bellybutton, one in the heart, and 2 in each arm, for 22 total.  If Kelsier has all 15 spikes in his torso, then he has to have a 16th in his neck keeping all of his spikes bound together in addition to his 1 eye spike.  Assuming that the linchpin spike that holds the user's soul together doesn't confer a feruchemic/allomantic power (it actually might, I really don't know, I just feel like it shouldn't do two separate things) and one of his spikes gives allomantic steel to allow him the necessary power to achieve steel sight like an inquisitor (Wax mentions that when he experiences the Kelsier's memory, he sees the world both in steel sight and in regular sight) that would mean that Kelsier should only have access to at most, 15 feruchemic metals.  It also would mean that Kelsier would have to have hunted and killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 10ish feruchemists/ferrings since the inquisitors in the FE didn't have all 16 metals...which...Harmony probably wouldn't have been okay with.

This argument assumes Marsh had as many spikes as was practical in his torso before he started getting them in the arms.  It makes sense to me that Marsh wouldn't want arm spikes if he could've fit more in his chest/back from a mobility perspective, but this is just an assumption, maybe he didn't care or those powers have to be installed in the arm, we don't technically know...Further, it remains possible Kelsier has found a way to get multiple powers from a single spike.

It seems to me that his feruchemy is most likely coming from a source other than hemalurgy, so there's almost certainly some stuff going on that we simply can't account for with current information.  However, I feel like even with our current understanding, we can explain how he was able to return to the Physical Realm.

Thoughts?

Edited by hwiles
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I'll leave the meat of your theory for those who are better suited to discussing it(as it is not my area of expertise)

2 minutes ago, hwiles said:
Spoiler

My understanding from Ben McSweeney's artwork is that Marsh had at most 12 spikes set between his ribs (one between each of the 7 top ribs that connect to the sternum on each side), 2 in the eyes, one in the neck, one in the sternum, one in the bellybutton, one in the heart, and 2 in each arm, for 22 total.

Spoiler

 

I like your thinking. I'll be honest and say that I had one through his right pectoral, to mirror the heart spike(because Ben said that in Hemalurgy, symmetry is preferred) and I pegged the two you had in his arms as in his shoulders(mostly because of Kandra Spikes going there)

Wait, you've only got 20... oh, 2 in each arm. That makes more sense.

But yea, 2 in the eyes, 1 between shoulder blades(linchpin isn't the neck), 12 in the chest, 1 in the sternum, 1 in the heart, and 5 up for a little debate.

 

Do you think they'd have a spike at the top and the bottom of the sternum? I just feel a belly button spike would be too.. flimsy since there aren't bones to rest on/go through.

Come to think of it, why is this in spoiler tags? I know it isn't absolutely relevant, but it's not spoiler territory.... Oh, spoilered for length.(I guess reading comprehension really wasn't my strong suit.

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@The One Who Connects I don't think McSweeney's placement of the spikes is technically canonized.  I believe that years back someone walked it by Sanderson and got some kind of tentative approval, but to the best of my knowledge Sanderson has not officially endorsed it.  I think the placement of the spike in the bellybutton was explained as an aesthetic choice by the artist actually.  That whole part of my argument is something of a sidebar, I was about to delete it but I felt too invested from having already written it out...

Hopefully it doesn't undermine the rest of the post too badly...:wacko:

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4 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Hopefully it doesn't undermine the rest of the post too badly...:wacko:

It wont. As you say, it's a sidebar to the discussion.

4 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I don't think McSweeney's placement of the spikes is technically canonized.

He didn't really canonize much placement, technical or otherwise. He ran the spike types by Brandon, and we went from there. With exception to the comment about gold/atium placement, what he says was more or less canon already.

Quote

At the height of his power, just before Harmony, he had 22 spikes (8 Steel, 2 Pewter, 8 Bronze, 2 Gold, 1 Aluminum and 1 Atium). I'm 99% sure that the four steel go two in the eyes, one at the top of the spine, and one through the heart. As to the bronze, gold and atium, I'd put the singles into his torso along the center line, and the four bronze into his ribs (2 each side). Symmetry is more attractive.

12 in the ribs comes entirely from us. We knew Steel/Bronze Spikes can go between the ribs, and Marsh got an extra 4 of each. The logical assumption was to put them there because there's so much room.

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On 7/17/2017 at 10:27 AM, Calderis said:

The issue here is that all Mistwraiths are in essence, unborn Kandra. Their Aspects may not have been integrated to create a Sapient creature, but every one has the potential.

It's entirely possible. I don't think we know enough about the nature of Hemalurgically-unaltered mistwraiths to be sure. Cognitive aspects and Hemalurgy are weird - dead Koloss show up as normal humans in the Cognitive Realm in SH. So mistwraiths might have a human-type Cognitive aspect and afterlife.

I think of Mistwraiths as a separate non-sapient species rather than as the young of a sapient species, since adult Mistwraiths reproduce Mistwraith offspring*, with Kandra being sort of an artificial 'magical hack', but who knows. Mistwraiths are definitely at least human-derived, so there are potentially more ethical issues than with a natural animal.

I don't think Kelsier thinks of them as human, though. Maybe he learned their true nature when he held Preservation - he certainly could have, since Sazed could see what prior users of the power had done, and Rashek made mistwraiths with the power of Preservation at the Well - but he had a lot of other things to think about then, and I doubt he'd retain the full expanded mind of a Shard after he handed it over.

On 7/17/2017 at 5:32 PM, hwiles said:

He already has a body in the Cognitive Realm; he thinks, he feels, he can get beaten up by Hoid, ect.  If he can reestablish his Connection to the Physical Realm, he should be able to just walk through a perpendicularity and take his current body with him.

Would his Cognitive body manifest as a human body in the Physical, though? Spren are apparently a lot different on the two sides, and they need a Nahel bond to stay conscious in the Physical. He might become something like a Threnodite Shade (though probably non-contagious).

 

*HOA Ch. 80 Part 2 Annotation - "Remember, all of the kandra save for the First Generation were born first as mistwraiths. That race of creatures breeds true, and has only a fifty-year lifespan. They die off, but birth new members."

Edited by cometaryorbit
added source for Mistwraith life cycle
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On 7/13/2017 at 7:01 PM, hwiles said:

My favorite theory is that Spook used a perpendicularity to travel to the Cognitive Realm with a hemalurgic spike, then spiked Kelsier with something (Feruchemic Connection?) to allow Kelsier to reestablish his Connection to the Physical Realm, and then he was simply able to use a perpendicularity to travel back to the Physical Realm.

This would allow him to get around the problem of making or stealing a new body.  Recall, Kelsier specifically mentions and takes note of the fact that Nazh and Hoid were able to physically touch him in the Cognitive Realm, as if he were as real and solid as they were.

This has been my working theory since I first read Secret History. Have an upvote!

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19 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

...................

Would his Cognitive body manifest as a human body in the Physical, though? Spren are apparently a lot different on the two sides, and they need a Nahel bond to stay conscious in the Physical. He might become something like a Threnodite Shade (though probably non-contagious).

..................

He probably wouldn't be able to manifest a physical body in the Physical Realm even if he was able to transition back after death; at least, under normal circumstances.

However, Kelsier's circumstances are not normal.  He was touched and preserved by the power of Preservation, thereby solidifying him in the Cognitive Realm.  He was imbued with Investiture from a source external to himself to, as Preservation put it, "expand his soul," to allow him to resist the pull of The Beyond.  In the Cosmere, matter, energy, and Investiture are all technically the same thing, just in different forms, therefore, I posit that the Investiture Preservation conferred onto Kelsier to allow him to manifest solidly in the Cognitive Realm was molded by Kelsier's soul into a new body and would therefore allow him to manifest physically in the Physical Realm.

Kelsier's problem is that the Connection between his soul and the Physical Realm was completely severed before Preservation preserved him.  This prevented him from using the well of ascension to return to the Physical Realm, and also made it difficult for him to affect things in the PR after he took up the power of Preservation.  He lacked a "body" in the sense that his "body" didn't exist in, or have any ties to, the PR.

TLDR;

Preservation gave Kelsier a body; it's what allowed him to resist the pull of The Beyond.  What he didn't do was repair Kelsier's severed Connection to the Physical Realm, and therein lies Kelsier's real problem.

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15 minutes ago, hwiles said:

TLDR;

Preservation gave Kelsier a body; it's what allowed him to resist the pull of The Beyond.  What he didn't do was repair Kelsier's severed Connection to the Physical Realm, and therein lies Kelsier's real problem.

This I do disagree with. 

A Cognitive Shadow, once made should remain a Cognitive Shadow indefinitely.

If what you're saying is true, then I see two possibilities, both of which I disagree with. 

Option 1: the pull of the Beyond has stopped because of this Cognitive body and so, upon resuming his connection to the Physical Realm, if his new body dies, he would again be severed, lose his new body, and be pulled to the beyond. 

Option 2: option 1, but the new body is incapable of death and/or damage directly effects the Kel's Cognitive aspect. 

I think he needs a new body, that due to his new status as a Cognitive Shadow, will not age, but can die. Of course, if that body dies... He's still a Cognitive Shadow, so he can do it again. 

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2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

This I do disagree with. 

A Cognitive Shadow, once made should remain a Cognitive Shadow indefinitely.

If what you're saying is true, then I see two possibilities, both of which I disagree with. 

Option 1: the pull of the Beyond has stopped because of this Cognitive body and so, upon resuming his connection to the Physical Realm, if his new body dies, he would again be severed, lose his new body, and be pulled to the beyond. 

Option 2: option 1, but the new body is incapable of death and/or damage directly effects the Kel's Cognitive aspect. 

I think he needs a new body, that due to his new status as a Cognitive Shadow, will not age, but can die. Of course, if that body dies... He's still a Cognitive Shadow, so he can do it again. 

Shades can be killed and Leras was killed; Cognitive Shadows aren't immortal.  They appear to be immune to aging, but sufficient force can still rip them apart.

After Ruin nearly beats Kelsier to death, Kelsier again begins to feel the pull of The Beyond; his expanded soul (and status as a Cognitive Shadow) allows him to resist the pull once again, but only because Ruin had, by that time, lost interest and stopped pummeling him.  Once his existence was once again primarily in the Physical Realm, he should once again have become subject to the laws of that realm, which are loosely based on real-world physics and sciences.  IE: no walking through walls anymore, no using willpower to resist sleep endlessly, requiring food to supply energy, and no resisting death through simple willpower.

My interpretation is that if Kelsier dies again in the Physical Realm (or in any realm actually), he ought to transition between the realms, gradually losing his Connection to each one, and like before, be confronted with a steadily growing pull from The Beyond that he should eventually be unable to resist.  This could theoretically be stopped again by a Shard, and, theoretically, he ought to be able to repeat whatever trick he pulled last time to revive himself.  As a sliver, he might be able to remain in the Cognitive Realm indefinitely if he suffered another death in the Physical Realm, but, separated from his physical body (which is technically made of Investiture like all matter), he would be greatly weakened.  At that point, I believe he would need to literally build or steal a new body for himself in order to return to the Physical Realm (in addition to, once again, reestablishing his Connection).

So I guess I agree with your Option 1, with the additional caveat that he might not be pulled into the beyond after death, but he also still wouldn't be able to just use a perpendicularity or simple Connection manipulation to return to the PR; the process of returning would be much more complicated if he died again, requiring intervention by a Shard, or possibly stealing/building himself a whole new body.  Option 2 sounds like it would have some silly implications, so I think we can toss that one out.

Does that sound slightly more reasonable?

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