Mind flames

[skaa]

In the Way of Kings, we first see a glimpse of Shadesmar when Shallan accidentally discovers it after giving a Cryptic (Pattern, I'm sure) a truth about herself.

 

The bed, the nightstand, her sketchpad, the walls, the ceiling--everything seemed to pop, forming into tiny, dark glass spheres. She found herself in a place with a black sky and a strange, small white sun that hung on the horizon, too far away.

 

Shallan screamed as she found herself in midair, falling backward in a shower of beads. Flames hovered nearby, dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. Like the tips of candles floating in the air and moving in the wind.

 

We see that there are bizarre floating flames in the part of Shadesmar where Shallan landed. Then, in Words of Radiance, we finally learn what those flames are supposed to be:

 

Nearby, little lights hung in the air, flames without their candles. People, she realized. Those are each a person's mind, reflected here in the Cognitive Realm. Smaller ones were scattered about her feet, dozens upon dozens, but so small she almost couldn't make them out. The minds of fish?

 

So those flames supposedly represent the minds of living things. I shall henceforth call them "Mind flames". Anyway, when I first read that, I remembered a particularly exciting scene from the Way of Kings involving Jasnah and Soulcasting:

 

"And now," Jasnah said, voice hard and grim, "the lesson." She whipped off her glove.

The sudden light was nearly blinding. Shallan raised a hand against it, stumbling back against the alley wall. There were four men around them. Not the men from the tavern entrance, but others. Men she hadn't noticed watching them. She could see the knives now, and she could also see the murder in their eyes.

...A thick-chested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised. She calmly reached her hand out--fingers splayed--and pressed it against his chest as he swung a knife. Shallan's breath caught in her throat.

Jasnah's hand sank into the man's skin, and he froze. A second later he burned.

No, he became fire. Transformed into flames in an eyeblink. Rising around Jasnah's hand, they formed the outline of a man with head thrown back and mouth open. For just a moment, the blaze of the man's death outshone Jasnah's gemstones.

...

The other three men began to curse, scrambling away, tripping over one another in their panic. One fell. Jasnah turned casually, brushing his shoulder with her fingers as he struggled to his knees. He became crystal, a figure of pure, flawless quartz--his clothing transformed along with him. The diamond in Jasnah's Soulcaster faded, but there was still plenty of Stormlight left to send rainbow sparkles through the transformed corpse.

The other two men fled in opposite directions. Jasnah took a deep breath, closing her eyes, lifting her hand above her head. Shallan held her safehand to her breast, stunned, confused. Terrified.

Stormlight shot from Jasnah's hand like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical. One struck each of the footpads and they popped, puffing into smoke. Their empty clothing dropped to the ground. With a sharp snap, the smokestone crystal on Jasnah's Soulcaster cracked, its light vanishing, leaving her with just the diamond and the ruby.

The remains of the two footpads rose into the air, small billows of greasy vapor. Jasnah opened her eyes, looking eerily calm. She tugged her glove back on--using her safehand to hold it against her stomach and sliding her freehand fingers in. Then she calmly walked back the way they had come. She left the crystal corpse kneeling with hand upraised. Frozen forever.

 

(A sidenote: Why did the second footpad's clothing get transformed along with him, while the clothing of the last two remained untouched? I have no idea.)

 

Anyway, I thought to myself: If living things were represented as flames in Shadesmar, does that mean Jasnah had to touch those Shadesmar flames in order to transform the first two footpads? That's some pretty cool imagery right there: Jasnah getting hold of the floating flame of her enemy's mind, casually ignoring the heat, and then sending Stormlight to it to turn her enemy into quartz.

 

But there's a problem with that scenario: People who die have their "Mind flames" snuffed out. Here's a scene from Word of Radiance:

 

She could feel it herself, could see it in the ship. They were being executed. Nearby, one of the floating candle flames vanished. Three of the eight captives dead, though she did not know which ones.

 

The problem here is that a corpse is a non-living thing, and therefore should exist as a glass Identity bead in Shadesmar. If the Mind flame is the thing targeted when Soulcasting a living person, then that mind-flame should transform into a sphere upon that person's death, not vanish as described in that excerpt.

 

So, it seems that the Mind flame is not simply a living thing's version of a dead thing's Identity bead. I now think that each person should have both a Mind flame and an Identity bead on Shadesmar, two distinct Cognitive objects. This duality reminds me of Hesina's little lecture in the Way of Kings:

 

"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 may very well have spren living in them. Very small ones."

Tien pinched at his skin, as if trying to pry the tiny spren out.

 

I guess Hesina's "soul" terminology might refer to the Mind flame, while the "very small" spren refers to the Identity beads of each body part (or even each cell). There has to be one Identity bead that represents the whole body, though. I think that Identity bead was the thing Jasnah targeted during that fight with the footpads, not the Mind flame.

 

Even if my theory (that a person has both a Mind flame and an Identity bead on Shadesmar) is correct, I still wonder if there are Surgebinders who can affect Mind flames. Dustbringers have the Essence of Spark, but they're not known to visit Shadesmar, so I don't think they'll be able to do this.

 

Since fire is a form of light energy, I feel that Lightweavers should be able to affect Mind flames somehow. Lightweavers are also adept at changing people's minds, so that fits with the idea of manipulating a representation of a mind. Perhaps Shallan should experiment with using the Illumination Surge on one of those when she next visits Shadesmar?

 

As for Elsecallers, perhaps they can somehow access their own Mind flame in Shadesmar and do funky Elsecaller-y things with it. I'm a bit too sleepy to ponder on specific theoretical scenarios, though. How about you guys? What do you think?

Edited January 25, 2015 by skaa

[Shardlet]

What I wonder is why if the flames are the cognitive representations of a consciousness, then why/how did Jasnah eject Shallan from Shadesmar by pushing her into one of the flames. 

[Moogle]

What I wonder is why if the flames are the cognitive representations of a consciousness, then why/how did Jasnah eject Shallan from Shadesmar by pushing her into one of the flames. 

 

I always assumed Jasnah pushed Shallan back into the flame representing Shallan's body.

 

I wonder if you could possess someone with a similar method? Go into their flame in Shadesmar and maybe you can take over their body.

[skaa]

What I wonder is why if the flames are the cognitive representations of a consciousness, then why/how did Jasnah eject Shallan from Shadesmar by pushing her into one of the flames. 

 

Ah, that's a great point, Shardlet (haven't seen you in a while, BTW ). For those who've forgotten, here's the scene Shardlet referred to:

 

"Idiot girl," Jasnah said, waving. The oceanlike beads to the left split, and the raft lurched, bearing them sideways toward a few flames of light. Jasnah shoved Shallan into one of the small flames, and she fell backward off the raft.

And hit the floor of the alcove. Jasnah sat where she had been, eyes closed. A moment later, she opened them, giving Shallan an angry look.

 

 

I've almost forgotten about that, myself. Anyway, this sort of fits my last idea above that Elsecalling involves Mind flame manipulation.

 

By the way, shouldn't Shallan's flame be positioned right next to her, and following her around? It seemed like the flames in that scene just stayed put, which is weird since Jasnah travelled all across Shadesmar in Words of Radiance presumably without leaving her Mind flame behind.

[Moogle]

By the way, shouldn't Shallan's flame be positioned right next to her, and following her around? It seemed like the flames in that scene just stayed put, which is weird since Jasnah travelled all across Shadesmar in Words of Radiance presumably without leaving her Mind flame behind.

 

You're thinking of the Cognitive Realm as if it's the Physical. Space and spatial relations don't matter much in the Cognitive, which is the whole reason why Elsecalling is imprecise, or so I would guess. I think the assumption that Shallan's flame should follow her around is by no means certain.

 

I imagine you're free to "move" in the Cognitive with there being no Physical changes so long as you stay in the same general area observing the same objects.

 

Shallan is "moving" in the Cognitive Realm when Jasnah throws her into the flame, but she hasn't actually moved in the Physical, so I don't think her flame should have moved.

 

The fact that Shallan perceives the Cognitive as a place much like the Physical seems like a trap to me. It likely operates on fundamentally different rules.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Moogle

[skaa]

@Moogle: It's one thing to say that spatial relations don't matter much on Shadesmar, and it's another to imagine what that actually means. Remember that Jasnah transported her whole body into Shadesmar after her "death" scene (i.e. no more body in the Physical Realm). Suppose she landed on a particular location on Obsidian Shadesmar land, wherein she finds her Mind flame floating a certain short apparent distance X from her. Suppose she then travels across Shadesmar, perhaps crossing glass bead "waters", to the highspren city an apparent big distance Y from her initial location. Would she still find her flame floating a short distance away? Did it follow her?

Maybe I'll get what you're saying after I get some sleep. Good night!

Edited May 15, 2014 by skaa

[Moogle]

Suppose she landed on a particular location on Obsidian Shadesmar land, wherein she finds her Mind flame floating a certain short apparent distance X from her. Suppose she then travels across Shadesmar, perhaps crossing glass bead "waters", to the highspren city an apparent big distance Y from her initial location. Would she still find her flame floating a short distance away? Did it follow her?

 

I would imagine she doesn't have a mind flame anymore when she goes there physically. And, in the case where she doesn't go there physically, I would imagine you can't actually 'travel' very far from your mind flame, because that would necessitate moving Physically and you're not moving, you're just using different senses from your body and focusing less on the Physical ones.

[PorridgeBrick]

I agree with Moogle here. What Shallan does is just unhook her Cognitive Aspect from her physical and spiritual (represented by the flame) aspects. So she can certainly die there– if your Cognitive dies, you're dead too– but she's not physically there. Her body and mind flame are left behind. She's just a bead moving around, a Cognitive aspect like the rest of them, except she views herself as a person and so sees herself in the Cognitive as a person still. Elsecallers have the surge of Realmatic Transition however, and can actually put a physical aspect into the Cognitive (how does that even work? Could they do the opposite– take abstract ideas and bring them into physical reality? Can they go into the Spiritual?)

On another note, I wonder if these mind flames are the "living lights" Syl describes?

[Fifth of Daybreak]

I definitely like the differences that you distinguished between the body's representation, and that of the mind. Especially when it comes to this tidbit:

 

 

 

 

Since fire is a form of light energy, I feel that Lightweavers should be able to affect it somehow. Lightweavers are also adept at changing people's minds, so that fits with the idea of manipulating Mind flames. Perhaps Shallan should experiment with using the Illumination Surge on one of those when she next visits Shadesmar?

 

As for Elsecallers, perhaps they can somehow access their own Mind flame in Shadesmar and do funky Surgebindings with it. I'm a bit too sleepy to ponder on specific theoretical scenarios, though. How about you guys? What do you think?

 

 

This being their 'spiritual sustenance' that's mentioned in the epigraphs, this makes a ton of sense to me. I feel like Shallan would be more adept at emotional soulcasting, and less skillful at physical soulcasting. During the Lahn interlud, Pai mentions people "recasting their souls" which really seems to suggest that there's more to soulcasting beyond just turning things into other things. With the theory your postulating, Shallan does manipulate the 'mind flames' whereas Jasnah only manipulate the beads. 

[Elementalist]

What I'm wondering is how this fits in with how Lift's spren "grew crystals from the minds of our world." I have crazy image in my head of him Flame of Tar Valoning a load of mind flames. In greater seriousness, though, everything we've seen so far in Shadesmar seems to represent something else. What, then, do the crystals represent, and how do they grow from the mind flames?

[Fifth of Daybreak]

Crystals could be powerful ideas. Concepts that people think about enough to have a presence in the cognitive realm, but not personified, so they wouldn't be spren.

[Shardlet]

Hmm.  If the flames are a representation of consciousnesses or minds, then they would be cognitive aspects, would they not?  A spiritual aspect would be representative of the soul rather than the mind.

 

@skaa: It is nice to know my absence was noticed.  I've been fairly busy so I haven't invested much time since WOR.  Now I have a daunting backlog of material to read through.

[Patrick Star]

I think that Syl kind of answers this question in WoR.

 

She tells Kaladin how if you break a rock, it's still a rock (sort of).  Kill a spren, still a spren (sort of).  Kill a person, and all you have is meat.

 

I think that's why there's nothing left over.  Could be wrong.

[Seloun]

Alternatively, the small flames really are gateways between the Cognitive and the Physical. Sentience might be described as a transference of information from the Physical to the Cognitive, so humans or sentients appear to be energy radiators in the Cognitive. This doesn't fully explain what the small flame Jasnah pushes Shallan into, however (unless it's a naturally occurring one - which seems like a heck of a coincidence - or perhaps physically shifting into the Cognitive 'tears' a gate).

I'm not really sure I agree with this theory, more of a devil's advocate/alternative hypothesis to explore.

[skaa]

I would imagine she doesn't have a mind flame anymore when she goes there physically. And, in the case where she doesn't go there physically, I would imagine you can't actually 'travel' very far from your mind flame, because that would necessitate moving Physically and you're not moving, you're just using different senses from your body and focusing less on the Physical ones.

 

Alright, that's much clearer. I suppose I could indeed imagine a Mind flame following a person's actual physical location. Good theory.

 

 

I think that Syl kind of answers this question in WoR.

 

She tells Kaladin how if you break a rock, it's still a rock (sort of).  Kill a spren, still a spren (sort of).  Kill a person, and all you have is meat.

 

I think that's why there's nothing left over.  Could be wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure there's an Identity bead in Shadesmar representing the quartz figure that was once a Kharbranthian footpad who tried to attack Jasnah. His Mind flame vanished when he died, but that bead was left over.

 

Also, when a Vorin lighteyes dies, an ardent would traditionally Soulcast him into a statue. How would you Soulcast a corpse if there's nothing left over in Shadesmar to represent it?

 

I think what Syl means is that living things are more than just material objects arranged a certain way; they have a certain "spark" (the spark of life) that sets them apart from non-living things. When you kill, you could say that you're just rearranging matter and nothing is really lost ("The meat is still meat," you might say), but in fact something *is* lost, because you've extinguished a flame, and the spark is now gone.

Edited May 15, 2014 by skaa

[Pechvarry]

I think it important to remember that Shallan really isn't "Shadesmar-observant" yet.  Because there's less sense of location and distance, it's very possible the flame did become a bead, and she just didn't see where the bead "spawned".  Now that it's an object and not a consciousness, it abides by different rules and it should be in a different spot.  It's incredibly likely that it takes someone who has developed a sense of these things to keep track of what the flame turned into -- and where it went.

 

It also seems to me like different orders either perceive shadesmar differently or perceive different parts of it.  I'm assuming Elsecallers see the full picture while Lightweavers and <other Transportation order> see it but don't fully grasp it, while other orders have a more limited view.  This whole paragraph hinges on the idea that what Kaladin saw in the chasms before his first true bout of flying was a glimpse of Shadesmar.

[skaa]

I think it important to remember that Shallan really isn't "Shadesmar-observant" yet.  Because there's less sense of location and distance, it's very possible the flame did become a bead, and she just didn't see where the bead "spawned".

 

Yes, it's always possible that important details related to a particular scene were hidden from the reader, but I don't see why that should stop us from speculating things based on the given text alone. Unless Brandon left clues, the hidden things will stay hidden until he reveals them. In the mean time, we might as well use the clues that are there (e.g. Hesina's lecture on spren, which suggests that Mind flames exist separately from the Identity beads of living things).

 

Rest assured that I'll keep a look out for evidence of flame-to-bead transformations in future books.

Edited May 15, 2014 by skaa

[18th Shard]

I always assumed Jasnah pushed Shallan back into the flame representing Shallan's body.

 

I wonder if you could possess someone with a similar method? Go into their flame in Shadesmar and maybe you can take over their body.

I thought of "Taln" when I read this.