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what happened to the emperor's soul?


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not talking about the book, but the real thing.

The emperor got wounded, was left in semi vegetative state. then a stamp was made to fix him. I wonder what happened to his actual soul, congitively and spiritually. Did the emepror die, his soul going to beyond, and the stamp animated the body with investiture? Or maybe the emperor died and the stamp created a new soul for him, so that in the beyond there will be two emperors in the end? or perhaps the soul of the emperor was still with the body, and the stamp repaired the damage to it?

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I believe the Emperor's original Soul made its way to the Beyond as every other Soul.

I honestly don't know if the actual Emperor will develop a new Soul from his own. I see this as possible (indeed it's very likely) but I assume he will never know and keep overlay it with the Forgery.

By the way, this triggers an old doubt of mine. Has a corpse a Soul of his own once the "living soul" went away ?

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Stamps rewrite the history of an object.
It's not so much that she healed an injury as she made it so the injury never happened.

The Emperorrer wasn't dead, but as you say, vegetative. His soul was still there because he was still technically alive.

The goal wasn't to create a new soul. It was to as accurately as possible copy the information of his existing soul, so the stamp would "take" with the minor revision that was being made.

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I agree with @Wreith that the Soul never actually left the physical form or if it did it was recalled by the healers PRIOR to going beyond (think Sezth and Nale just on a smaller less impressive scale). I would suspect a stamp could animate a corpse similar to the BloodSealer but nothing in the book implies Shai's power could recall a soul or reanimate the dead in such a way that it could act without orders.

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22 hours ago, Wreith said:

The Emperorrer wasn't dead, but as you say, vegetative. His soul was still there because he was still technically alive.

I wonder about that. Would brain-dead (or in persistent vegetative state) person's soul be barred from going Beyond in Cosmere? How much of a brain function must you retain before you are realmatically dead?

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21 minutes ago, Irregular said:

I wonder about that. Would brain-dead (or in persistent vegetative state) person's soul be barred from going Beyond in Cosmere? How much of a brain function must you retain before you are realmatically dead?

I thought them keeping him alive was explicitly stated. They just couldn't (wouldn't?) attempt a soulforging to heal his mind. Even if not, I feel it's heavily implied, as what I would expect to see at the end would be something akin to a lifeless with complex commands which isn't what we appear to get.

Also, I think I should specify, I continued using the word "soul", but I don't actually think this is a spiritual process. I believe it's cognitive, changing the Identity of a thing. like Rosharan soulcasting but more strict.

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33 minutes ago, Wreith said:

I thought them keeping him alive was explicitly stated. They just couldn't (wouldn't?) attempt a soulforging to heal his mind.

I'm not necessarily arguing about this specific case, though what they consider alive might be very different to what we consider alive today. There are people who were clinically dead for considerable time that were then revived, how would it work in Cosmere? When does the soul get released to go Beyond?

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1 hour ago, Irregular said:

I'm not necessarily arguing about this specific case, though what they consider alive might be very different to what we consider alive today. There are people who were clinically dead for considerable time that were then revived, how would it work in Cosmere? When does the soul get released to go Beyond?

that's the crux of the issue.

Also, when a person's brain is damaged, what happens to their cognitive self.

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8 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

that's the crux of the issue.

Also, when a person's brain is damaged, what happens to their cognitive self.

If the Emperor was repaired after the Realmatic Death, the body was just a living object and no more the the Emperor. a new Cognitive and Soul will be born in him.

From what it was described in the book, the Emperor was actually killed and the resealers simply fixed his body, but his mind and soul were already released from their physical ties.

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In the Cosmere, I'd guess the brain isn't actually the storehouse for all of that information and personality and experience, it's the soul.  Somehow, the brain interfaces with the soul and if that gets damaged then the information can't cross.  So the soul is undamaged but the linkage from who you are to your physical self is damaged.  The soul can't leave as you're not dead, and being dead is what severs the connection.

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19 minutes ago, Yata said:

If the Emperor was repaired after the Realmatic Death, the body was just a living object and no more the the Emperor. a new Cognitive and Soul will be born in him.

From what it was described in the book, the Emperor was actually killed and the resealers simply fixed his body, but his mind and soul were already released from their physical ties.

I agree on the first part. you restart a dead brain, it gets a new soul. Not sure, however, if the emperor counted as "dead". His brain was still working enough to perform the basic functions. does that count as "dead"? while in the real world I'd certainly argue for yes, because the whole personality and mental capacity got destroied beyond repair, in the cosmere it is possible that the information stored in the brain could also have a backup in one of the other realms. I say in case of (mild) brain damage there are two scenarios:

1) the cognitive and spiritual self is damaged as much as the spiritual

2) the cognitive self is not damaged, but it cannot interface with the physical self anymore.

Notice that in case 2) regrowing the brain would not restore the capacity for the cognitive self to use it: a brain can think and remember because of all the neural connections formed by thinking, and a newly grown one would lack those.

So if the case is 2), and the emperor was not dead, it is possible he retained his old soul. Otherwise... what? the body doesn't have a soul (except the soul of the corpse, his spren we may say) but the stamp tricks it into thinking it has one?

 

15 minutes ago, Mulk said:

In the Cosmere, I'd guess the brain isn't actually the storehouse for all of that information and personality and experience, it's the soul.  Somehow, the brain interfaces with the soul and if that gets damaged then the information can't cross.  So the soul is undamaged but the linkage from who you are to your physical self is damaged.  The soul can't leave as you're not dead, and being dead is what severs the connection.

If I get it right, the brain is the storehouse of the information and personality, but the cognitive self also is. We have a WOB that a sufficiently advancced computer would develop a realmatic soul; so it means that the information contained in the computer is actually in the hard disk, but the cognitive aspect of it would also have all the information.

 

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I think Yata is correct, and that the emperor's soul went to the great beyond.  At the beginning of the story, the emperor is essentially a Lifeless.  A soulless corpse, animated by investiture.  The wonder of what Shai did was to create a new soul; one that matched the old soul enough to fool everyone, including the emperor's corpse.  If it wasn't close enough, the corpse would have rejected it, and the forgery wouldn't have stuck.

If the soul was just disconnected or blocked, like Wrieth suggests, then Shai's task would have been different.  She would have been asked to reattach or reconnect (find) the soul, not copy it.

As far as what happens when the emperor dies, I think that depends on how well the soul sticks.  If he has to re-stamp himself until the day he dies, then I think the soul will just fade away like the stamps on Gaotana's arm.  If the soul becomes "realmatic" enough to no longer require the stamp, then the forged soul could probably hold together enough to pass to the great beyond, where there will be two of them.

This would put Shai's accomplishment up on par with, if not greater than, the creation of Nightblood.

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The emporor died and was completely physically healed. If he hadn't gone beyond, he should have recovered completely. The lack of a "soul" is realmatically accurate to what should happen if the body were made to live after the Cognitive aspect had abandoned it. 

The physical and spiritual aspects of a person both leave a corpse in the Cosmere, whereas the Cognitive passes on completely. The remnant if the emporor's spiritual aspect explains the need for accuracy in order for the stamp to take. 

I'm with @Yata.

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The way I interpreted events was that the emperor never died, his mind wasn't functional but his physical body was still alive. So his tie to the physical realm was still there and his soul was still attached to it, but his presence in the cognitive realm was the issue. And that is what was fixed. Although Shae is constantly talking about fixing his soul, that wasn't really what she was fixing. One could argue that Shae is indeed manipulating the soul, but that the results of that manipulation affect the emperor in the cognitive realm. Either way, it wasn't his soul that was damaged, it was his mind. So, he will pass to the Great Beyond when the forgery dies most likely, barring some sort of cognitive shadow business.  

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1 minute ago, Harrycrapper said:

The way I interpreted events was that the emperor never died, his mind wasn't functional but his physical body was still alive. So his tie to the physical realm was still there and his soul was still attached to it, but his presence in the cognitive realm was the issue. And that is what was fixed. Although Shae is constantly talking about fixing his soul, that wasn't really what she was fixing. One could argue that Shae is indeed manipulating the soul, but that the results of that manipulation affect the emperor in the cognitive realm. Either way, it wasn't his soul that was damaged, it was his mind. So, he will pass to the Great Beyond when the forgery dies most likely, barring some sort of cognitive shadow business.  

Actually, Forging is more about the spiritual component than the cognitive, though I don't understand why exactly.

However, an important thing is that there still needs to be a spiritual aspect of something to be forged, and this aspect needs to remember. As I understand it, if somebody is dead, their spiritual aspect (soul) is reduced to comparatively little, while the main part departs to the beyond. And this little can't really remember it's former total self. Therefore, the emperor needed to be alive to be forged (it would not have worked on his deas body)

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8 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

The way I interpreted events was that the emperor never died, his mind wasn't functional but his physical body was still alive. So his tie to the physical realm was still there and his soul was still attached to it, but his presence in the cognitive realm was the issue. And that is what was fixed. Although Shae is constantly talking about fixing his soul, that wasn't really what she was fixing. One could argue that Shae is indeed manipulating the soul, but that the results of that manipulation affect the emperor in the cognitive realm. Either way, it wasn't his soul that was damaged, it was his mind. So, he will pass to the Great Beyond when the forgery dies most likely, barring some sort of cognitive shadow business.  

There are far too few WoBs on Emperor's Soul lol
I think some of these questions need to be asked.

I read through it twice in the past couple of days and I'm questioning my own existence.

I wonder if it's possible to pull someone back from the Beyond?
I really feel that what Shai does is cognitive, because so far that's where we've seen Identity, which is what she's changing.
But Gaotona, while pondering towards the end, HEAVILY implies that the actual soul was gone.

I'm wondering if maybe reestablishing a cognitive connection can pull the soul back. Though I feel like I've seen WoB that says the Beyond is IT, no coming back. I can't find it.

 

EDIT:  or, OR
Maybe something about the combination of Shard Investure trapped in the cognitive realm means that all cognitive shadows last much longer. Maybe even 100 days, giving validity to the in world tradition of mourning that we see.

SecretHistory:

Spoiler

The reason we're given for Kelsier sticking around is exposure to concentrated Shard energy in the Well. Perhaps it's Everywhere in the CR around Sel

 

Edited by Wreith
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3 hours ago, Wreith said:

I wonder if it's possible to pull someone back from the Beyond?

No. Not even the Shards can reach the Beyond. All of the information we've been given in book or from Brandon points to the Beyond being permanent. 

3 hours ago, Wreith said:

I really feel that what Shai does is cognitive, because so far that's where we've seen Identity, which is what she's changing.

Identity and Connection are two things we know for sure are spiritual. 

3 hours ago, Wreith said:

But Gaotona, while pondering towards the end, HEAVILY implies that the actual soul was gone.

I'm wondering if maybe reestablishing a cognitive connection can pull the soul back. Though I feel like I've seen WoB that says the Beyond is IT, no coming back. I can't find it.

One of the biggest issues here is that Brandon seems to use the word soul pretty loosely. We hear the word "spiritual" and think soul, and this is reinforced when we talk about hemalurgy stealing parts of the soul, and soulstamps. 

But brandon has also referred to someone peeking into the Cognitive Realm as extending themselves there in a kind of "soul bubble" and a Cognitive Shadow occurs when a person's "soul" has been suffused and/or replaced by investiture from a Shard. We know this has to do with the Cognitive aspect. Hence the name Cognitive Shadow. 

Combined with the Cognitive being pulled to the Beyond, and the spiritual leaving behind a corpse, and what we think of as the "soul" appears to be more in line with the Cognitive Aspect than the spiritual. 

If the Emporor needed a new Cognitive Aspect, that implies that the original was gone, which is why I think he went beyond. 

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7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I'm trying to find a WoB to give a more concrete answer, but it's mostly to do with Feruchemy. 

The Spiritual quadrant of metals covers Identity, Connection, Fortune, and investiture. 

Quote

BRANDON SANDERSON

Well, it depends on how you're defining spren. In the books, they don't make a distinction, but there are several varieties. At the basic level, everything has an identity—a soul, you might say, but more than that. This is based on how it is viewed, and how long it has been viewed that way. Feces would have this, but wouldn't have a very strong cognitive identity because of its transitional nature.

Other types of spren, the type that characters see and interact with, are cognitive ideals or concepts which have taken on literal personification over time. These are usually related to forces or emotions, and don't relate to this particular topic.

And that's far more than I ever expected to say on this...

everything I see is still somewhat ambiguous.
 

And I know there are WoB that the classifications on Scadrial may not bee entirely accurate

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16 minutes ago, Wreith said:

everything I see is still somewhat ambiguous.
 

And I know there are WoB that the classifications on Scadrial may not bee entirely accurate

I'm failing at find something more definitive than this, and maybe I'm trying to oversimplify it. But there this one. 

Quote

Lucadaw

If someone used Hemalurgy to take someones Feruchemical abilities would they be able to use that persons personal metalminds? Mmost relevantly perhaps to take that persons knowledge from their copperminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Lucadaw

If someone stored their identity in an aluminium metalmind, then had there powers and metalminds stolen via hemalurgy, then the person who took the powers used the aluminium metalmind to draw out the first persons identity would it permanently overwrite their personality with the original persons ? ( would kind of be a long winded way of stealing someone elses body and becoming immortal )

Brandon Sanderson

All Identity questions are a RAFO until I deal with it more in the books. (Sorry.)

WeiryWriter (in response to the first answer)

If the spike granting Feruchemy were to be reforged/split into two distinct spikes which are then implanted into two different people, could those two people "share" a metalmind (as in actually be able to tap something the other stored and vice versa?).

Brandon Sanderson

It's complicated, but no.

There would be too much of the other person mixed in. Both could use the metalminds of the person the Feruchemy was stolen from, but when they made their own, their own Identity would "muddy" the creation.

Hemalurgy steals the raw investiture of the spiritweb. But if you steal someone's Feruchemy with hemalurgy, you'll have gained enough of their identity to use their metalminds. 

As for you WoB, I actually don't think that "Cognitive identity" is quite the same thing. That WoB was from this Reddit post. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/1bflq6/dreamworks_has_acquired_the_film_rights_for_the/c96jiix/

Brandon wrote that himself, and used identity with a lower case I. The attributes that we've seen, such as Identity and Connection are capitalized. This may have been a simple typing error, but I believe he was speaking more of the way in which an inanimate object will develop an identity in the Cognitive Realm like we see with stick and the Wind's Pleasure. 

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Connection and Identity are Spiritual Attributes.

But Identity is not what the people usually think as the usual meaning of the word (the Sum of your Memories and personality), instead the Cosmere's Identity is Just a Mark/tag that allow the Investiture to work with other Investiture without interference.

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On 10/26/2017 at 0:47 PM, Harrycrapper said:

The way I interpreted events was that the emperor never died, his mind wasn't functional but his physical body was still alive. So his tie to the physical realm was still there and his soul was still attached to it, but his presence in the cognitive realm was the issue. 

I agree with this general assessment.

This is how I interpret the events leading up the the book:

The Emperor and Empress are attacked by assassins, who are caught in the act. She is either killed in the attack or wounded too much to save. He has a serious head wound and is dying (Abraham Linclon was shot in the head, but didn't die until the next morning). The surgeons (Resealers or Flesh Forgers) are called to heal him. They remove the arrow, seal his skull, and repair the damage. The Emperor lives through the procedure, but has severe memory loss and is barely functional.

I think that a lot of the "damage" may have been caused by the healing process. Unlike most other magic systems, the magic on Sel is trapped in the Cognitive realm and has to be channeled in very specific ways. It is mentioned multiple times in Elantris how careful healers need to be. As an added layer of difficulty, it appears that "magic" in the Empire is much more limited than in Elantris. Elantrians are capable of opening a direct connection to the Dor by tracing their hands in the air. The Resealers couldn't just open a pathway to the Dor and let it do the work. They have to tell it exactly what to do through stamps. I assume that their training is similar to Shai's; just as she is actually capable of painting or sculpting the art she Forges, they need to know how to the body works and how to heal the damage. Assuming that the Resealers healed him perfectly; he may be in the best physical shape in his life, but completely brain dead. 

Spoilers for everything Cosmere:

Spoiler

The closest approximation to the Emperor's mental state I can think of is a Returned. In this case the person has actually died, presumably met up with Endowment, and given the opportunity to return. They have also lost their memories, but have been left with a bit more awareness (how to walk and talk). The biggest difference is that they have physically died and are reanimated by their Divine breath; the memory loss seems to the price of coming back. When they are ready to fulfill this purpose, their memory comes back. This is similar to the Spren that transition from the Cognitive to the Physical realm. They also lose their memory, except the Spren require a bond to a Radiant to regain their minds.

The only person (people) we have seen die and come back without damage is Wax (and maybe Kelsier). In Wax's case he was given the Bands of Morning to power the healing and given the power to restore his Connection by Harmony. Vin and Elend were offered a similar opportunity to return, but didn't take it. What exactly happen with Kelsier isn't known yet, but we can assume that Sazed didn't help him return to the Physical realm.  

They key point from both of these examples is that a Shard's power is required to return a person to life. People on Sel don't have a Shard to do this for them, so reconnecting a soul to a body may be impossible for them.

Most of the other healing we see is also more Spiritually powered than what we see on Sel. A Radiant or Gold Ferring use magic (stormlight or stored health) to heal themselves; as long as the power lasts they cannot be killed. There's a WoB that Hoid also heals at a Spiritual level; so he could theoretically survive the complete destruction of his Physical form.

Unlike these people however, the Emperor and his healers are not Invested and don't have this level of connection between the Realms.

The best example I can think of for this is Stick. Stick may be the stickiest stick in the Cosmere, but if Shallan had lit a real fire he would have burned. He may have been able to resist Soulcasting, but a real fire would have changed him into something else. Similarly, Kelsier lost objects from his pack when they were moved or changed in the Physical realm. If the Emporer had died he wouldn't be human anymore (I am a human. Am I a human? I Am a human) he'd be a body.          

 

     

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  • 2 weeks later...

I disagree with this part (spoilers for Warbreaker):

On ‎10‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 11:21 AM, kmosiman said:
Spoiler

The closest approximation to the Emperor's mental state I can think of is a Returned. In this case the person has actually died, presumably met up with Endowment, and given the opportunity to return. They have also lost their memories, but have been left with a bit more awareness (how to walk and talk). The biggest difference is that they have physically died and are reanimated by their Divine breath; the memory loss seems to the price of coming back. When they are ready to fulfill this purpose, their memory comes back. This is similar to the Spren that transition from the Cognitive to the Physical realm. They also lose their memory, except the Spren require a bond to a Radiant to regain their minds.

 

Spoiler

 

I see the Emperor's state to be much closer to a Lifeless.  In Warbreaker, the Returned have all of there previous skills and talents, and their personality is intact, they just lack specific memories.  The Emperor cannot do anything except follow simple instructions (i.e. eat).  He cannot even control basic bodily functions.  There is no sign that he is self aware.  This is exactly how a Lifeless is described. 

In my opinion, this is because his soul went to the great beyond, and all that is left is a living corpse.  Shia's work was not about reconnecting or repairing anything.  Her studies and tests all show that she was creating a new identity and personality (and soul) that was close enough to the emperors that the body would not reject it.

This makes me wonder what Shai could do with Clod.  Clod has more of his skills, and maybe more identity and personality than the typical lifeless. 

 

 

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