Lifeless Thoughts

[dbulick]

Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I didn't it on a search.  I was rereading Warbreaker and the annotations and had a couple of thoughts on lifeless.  I will start with the gross one, Brandon notes that Jewels is still in love with Clod(Artsteel) and occasionally still sleeps with him.  Not sure we need to get into the mechanics of that, but that it was interesting and incredibly disturbing.

Secondly, it is hinted at strongly, and confirmed in the annotations that lifeless retain some semblance of themselves.  Brandon also says he wants to do a POV lifeless character in the next book.  This made me think a few things, first is the innate investiture of Nalthis with each person having a Breath enough to keep people around in the spiritual realm for a long time to allow some of their soul to be brought back into their body after death?  If you awaken their body immediately after their death, would they retain more of who they are?  Is the reason that a lifeless does not regain full cognitive ability is because they see themselves as being dead and believe dead things aren't whole?

Lastly, if Breath innately isn't enough to keep people in the spiritual realm for a long enough time to bring them back into their body, and they have already passed to the great beyond, is awakening able to rip them back from there?  If that is what is happening, that would be the only magic system we have seen that can affect a soul once it has passed to the great beyond.

Random musings, but I am guessing that people stay in the spiritual realm longer on Nalthis, and the quicker you awaken their body the more they retain.  It would be interesting to see if there is a way to bring back more of their humanity through unlocking their spirit web further, or something a long those lines.

[Scion of the Mists]

Nice theory about the higher Investiture level of Nalthians potentially giving them extra time before passing on.  

I'm not sure about that being the mechanic behind Lifeless retaining some of their past life.  It can't be very common for people to Awaken Lifeless right after they've died.  We've seen in Mistborn: Secret History that normal people pass pretty quickly.  

[Weltall]

5 hours ago, dbulick said:

This made me think a few things, first is the innate investiture of Nalthis with each person having a Breath enough to keep people around in the spiritual realm for a long time to allow some of their soul to be brought back into their body after death?

I do agree that a Nalthian with Breath would remain in the Cognitive Realm longer before passing Beyond but I don't think it's going to be for very long. Normal Scadrians (who have innate Investiture from Preservation and Ruin) sometimes only hang around for seconds before they go and even a mistborn doesn't get more than a few minutes. I think Breath makes a difference because we know Drabs can't Return and I suspect the reason is that Endowment doesn't have enough time to speak to them, show them a vision of the future and make them the offer before they go Beyond.  But Breaths are kind of weird in that they're more Physical than Spiritual (they can't be stolen with hemalurgy for example) so I don't think having a lot of them will make a whole lot of difference to how much time you can spend before passing Beyond. They remain with the body though, which is why the amount of Breath that Arsteel had made a difference when his corpse was Awakened.

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Lastly, if Breath innately isn't enough to keep people in the spiritual realm for a long enough time to bring them back into their body, and they have already passed to the great beyond, is awakening able to rip them back from there?

Flat no. Nothing comes back from the Beyond, even the Shards don't understand it and Brandon is deliberately not canonizing anything about it, leaving it to in-world philosophers and theologians and to us the readers to decide for ourselves.

FYI, when people die they appear in the Cognitive Realm, not the Spiritual. There is a sort of 'echo' that remains in the Spiritual Realm which has to do with that realm being timeless and involving all the Connection past, present and future, but what stays there isn't the self, which goes Beyond.

[dbulick]

I read a couple WOB that seem to indicate that a sort of framework of their soul remains in the spiritual realm after death.  Like you said that is kind of an echo of that person.  It seems that is what would be used to still give that lifeless a sense of the person they used to be.  Depending on how rapidly that framework decays, and based on another WOB what breaths(potentially their own original) would give them more of a sense of themselves.

It would be interesting to see what a best case scenario(made immediately after death with their own breath) lifeless would look like.

[dbulick]

25 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Flat no. Nothing comes back from the Beyond, even the Shards don't understand it and Brandon is deliberately not canonizing anything about it, leaving it to in-world philosophers and theologians and to us the readers to decide for ourselves.

FYI, when people die they appear in the Cognitive Realm, not the Spiritual. There is a sort of 'echo' that remains in the Spiritual Realm which has to do with that realm being timeless and involving all the Connection past, present and future, but what stays there isn't the self, which goes Beyond.

You are right, I got mixed up on which of the realms they appear in after death.

Edit: Bleh sorry, was supposed to edit that into the previous post.

Edited January 31, 2019 by dbulick

[Wandering Investor]

While I don't really have any evidence backing it up, while reading I imagined that once the lifeless' body started working again, the new soul(breath) started up the brain, and the memories contained within. This would create a new cognitive aspect with memories from the original owner, but connected to a new spiritual aspect.