Jasnah V Kaladin

[Stark]

41 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Could soulcast the box as aluminum. Shardblades cannot cut aluminum.  

I am not convinced this would win.  I'm not convinced that you can make Aluminum by soulcasting something else into it.  The only person who claims that is possible is Shallan in WoK, no else has made that claim.

 

And well:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So, I'm intrigued by aluminum, especially the fact that it can only be found by Soulcasting on Roshar. So, how was it discovered in the first place?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

...Did I say you can only get it through Soulcasting?

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

In the Shallan flashbacks, she has the pendant.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Don't take what she says at 100% truth.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

So unless we see someone more reliable claim this, or someone actually do this, I kinda want to stop assuming that it can be done.

[Pathfinder]

24 minutes ago, Stark said:

I am not convinced this would win.  I'm not convinced that you can make Aluminum by soulcasting something else into it.  The only person who claims that is possible is Shallan in WoK, no else has made that claim.

 

And well:

So unless we see someone more reliable claim this, or someone actually do this, I kinda want to stop assuming that it can be done.

I would need to do some digging, but I thought it was mentioned in the merchant scene in the Shin land about soulcasting aluminum? I interpreted what Brandon said as not believing what Shallan said about aluminum being only able to be made via soulcasting. We know you can get aluminum naturally, but it is very very difficult. Only a chemical process later made it easier to make. So it could still be rare, still be made primarily via soulcasting, but still also be able to be produced other ways. 

 

edit: actually nevermind, we do know you can soulcast things into aluminum. Just trying to soulcast aluminum into something else is incredibly hard. WoB below

 

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
So, we know that things can be Soulcast into aluminum. But can aluminum itself be Soulcast into something else?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
It resists all forms of Investiture trying to change it to things.

 

edit 2: side note, am I the only person that would kill to see jasnah summon her shardblade, and then soulcast a shield, or blade, or hammer of aluminum in her other hand and go to town in the books?

Edited February 21, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Karger]

That would be cool! I do wonder what the old radiants used for their off hand.  Any thoughts?

Edited February 21, 2019 by Karger

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

I think you misunderstood what @robardin was saying. Basically imagine you were in a form fitting leotard. Then imagine that leotard became stone. It is directly against your skin. What air are you pushing? Hope that clarified. 

It doesn't even have to be as form-fitting as a leotard, just any container that was lacking enough movement space to keep his arms trapped at his sides or in their current position.

Imagine if her target Shardbearer were simply standing erect and unsuspecting on a street corner - and she Soulcast a crystal coffin around them. There'd be no room to summon the Blade. And for a Radiant like Kaladin who could summon a live sprenblade in a smaller form, there still wouldn't be room to physically maneuver it.

[HSuperLee]

Could Jasnah kill Kaladin? Yes. Would it be clean. Nope. Her best opportunity is to soulcast him directly before he has an opportunity to breath in any stormlight. Once he does, it's probably fair to say Jasnah can't soulcast him without more than he is currently holding. From their, her best bet would be to trap him in a box of stone or metal. Jasnah likely does not know of aluminum, and thus I see it as unlikely she would be able to trap him in it. But let's say she traps him in stone. Kaladin would be able to then lash the stone upward, and then back downward enough for it to shatter. At this point, he would be low on stormlight, and it would be Jasnah's best chance to stab him with her blade and kill him. If he counters, then they are both low on stormlight and both armed, which means an extended fight is about to begin. Jasnah would then be at a disadvantage due to her lack of combat training. Assuming she has plate and Kaladin doesn't, she has a slight advantage, but Kal has beaten shardweilders before, and ones much more trained than Jasnah. In an extended fight, Jasnah is slowly beaten back until she's forced to open a perpendicularity and retreat.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

Who is Kaladin protecting when he's fighting Jasnah? Near as I can tell, Kaladin's Stormlight runs out instantly every time he tries to fight someone for reasons other than protecting. Also, who's to say Jasnah couldn't send Kal into the Cognitive realm and leave him there? He would either drown in the beads after his Stormlight ran out, or he would starve to death/dehydrate.

[Calderis]

Jasnah transitions into Shadesmar. Reaches out and touches Kaladin's flame.

Soulcast. 

Game over. 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Calderis

[CrazyRioter]

11 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Jasnah transitions into Shadesmar. Reaches out and touches Kaladin's flame.

Soulcast. 

Game over. 

That depends on how much Stormlgiht he has, versus how much Stormlight she has.

[Calderis]

18 minutes ago, CrazyRioter said:

That depends on how much Stormlgiht he has, versus how much Stormlight she has.

It does. And unless she is low enough she can't transition there in the first place, she at least escapes and he can't touch her so...

Jasnah isn't going to try and fight Kaladin with her shardblade versus his spear. That would just be stupid, which she's not.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Calderis

[Quantus]

13 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Who is Kaladin protecting when he's fighting Jasnah? Near as I can tell, Kaladin's Stormlight runs out instantly every time he tries to fight someone for reasons other than protecting. Also, who's to say Jasnah couldn't send Kal into the Cognitive realm and leave him there? He would either drown in the beads after his Stormlight ran out, or he would starve to death/dehydrate.

Could easily have been Renarin, that time... 

Even if Jasnah couldnt soulcast Kaladin directly, she could still fairly easily soulcast the air around him into any number of lethal things, up to and including a giant block of Aluminum.  I think she'd still win in all but the most uneven contests; at the end of the day Soulcasting is just plain one of the single most potent powers in the entire Cosmere, as far as I can tell. 

[Pathfinder]

17 hours ago, Karger said:

That would be cool! I do wonder what the old radiants used for their off hand.  Any thoughts?

Lol, honestly I have come up with a whole "soulcaster kata" so I have countless ideas. Full Metal Alchemist provides quite a few too. Simple ones could be soulcasting a little lip/rise on the ground for your enemy to trip over. Soulcast some dust in their face. Soulcast smoke all around you, teleport away, then soulcast a giant stone above the enemy to drop crushing them. These examples are not directed at Kaladin, as flying away would handle most of them, but just saying some cool ideas I had come up with using soulcasting. Also can soulcast oil to make the enemy slip. Then there is restraining the enemy though I wlll get into that more with Robardin below

17 hours ago, robardin said:

It doesn't even have to be as form-fitting as a leotard, just any container that was lacking enough movement space to keep his arms trapped at his sides or in their current position.

Imagine if her target Shardbearer were simply standing erect and unsuspecting on a street corner - and she Soulcast a crystal coffin around them. There'd be no room to summon the Blade. And for a Radiant like Kaladin who could summon a live sprenblade in a smaller form, there still wouldn't be room to physically maneuver it.

I used the leotard idea more to illustrate how when transforming the very air to solid, you wouldn't need to allow for space, it could be so close as to be a second skin, but be a foot thick. Honestly I think a person could soulcast restraints on an enemy during combat. The only way I could see that not happening is if a person's investiture almost acts like a "field" effect, so it takes as much to soulcast cuffs directly onto a person as it does to directly soulcast a person. I do not think that is the case, but I can see the rationale. If that is not the case, then there are all sorta of ways to entrap enemies. 

16 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Could Jasnah kill Kaladin? Yes. Would it be clean. Nope. Her best opportunity is to soulcast him directly before he has an opportunity to breath in any stormlight. Once he does, it's probably fair to say Jasnah can't soulcast him without more than he is currently holding. From their, her best bet would be to trap him in a box of stone or metal. Jasnah likely does not know of aluminum, and thus I see it as unlikely she would be able to trap him in it. But let's say she traps him in stone. Kaladin would be able to then lash the stone upward, and then back downward enough for it to shatter. At this point, he would be low on stormlight, and it would be Jasnah's best chance to stab him with her blade and kill him. If he counters, then they are both low on stormlight and both armed, which means an extended fight is about to begin. Jasnah would then be at a disadvantage due to her lack of combat training. Assuming she has plate and Kaladin doesn't, she has a slight advantage, but Kal has beaten shardweilders before, and ones much more trained than Jasnah. In an extended fight, Jasnah is slowly beaten back until she's forced to open a perpendicularity and retreat.

Actually Jasnah likely does know about aluminum. It is a rare and expensive metal. She is a princess of an entire country. I think it would be a given that she has had some necklaces or rings of aluminum in her time. So her soulcasting the air around him directly into aluminum I think would be entirely plausible. 

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Could easily have been Renarin, that time... 

Even if Jasnah couldnt soulcast Kaladin directly, she could still fairly easily soulcast the air around him into any number of lethal things, up to and including a giant block of Aluminum.  I think she'd still win in all but the most uneven contests; at the end of the day Soulcasting is just plain one of the single most potent powers in the entire Cosmere, as far as I can tell. 

I just love all the potential applications and uses for soulcasting. Add teleportation on top and that is why I love the Elsecaller order  

Edited February 22, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Stark]

Thanks for the info @Pathfinder!  I am still skeptical about being able to soulcast something that then cannot be soulcast - it feels paradoxical.

 

I am probably wrong, but it nags at me.  In the WOB you present, Brandon does not confirm or deny that a given material can be soulcast into aluminum, only that aluminum cannot be soulcast into anything else.  Call me crazy, but that makes me want to put on my tinfoil hat and going into deep aluminum conspiracy theories.

 

But still, he never expressly says you can't make Aluminum via soulcasting, so yeah, it could still be possible.

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Simple ones could be soulcasting a little lip/rise on the ground for your enemy to trip over

I always thought that tripping people would be a stoneward thing like earthbenders in avatar making small alterations to the ground so that the enemy gets off balance.

I am still not convinced that soulcasting enemies is a good idea in a protracted fight I think making a fortification or slight alteration to the battlefield like creating a bunch of smoke would be better.

[HSuperLee]

I will say, it is probably far more difficult, if not impossible to soulcast around a moving target. Now, let me anticipate a response to that. Yes, Jashnah has soulcast people that were running away from her. That is not the same as soulcasting around a moving target. The target themself is just a single "identity" to spoulcast, while the air around them is constantly new air to try and pursuade, and the faster they're moving the harder it would be. I will definitely agree though that soulcasting may he one of the most deadly and powerful magics in the Cosmere. Doubly so if it can in fact create aluminum.

[Karger]

That is a good point that I did not consider if Kaladin is moving can Jasnah figure out what air he is in and make sure to soulcast that instead of something else?

[Pathfinder]

57 minutes ago, Stark said:

Thanks for the info @Pathfinder!  I am still skeptical about being able to soulcast something that then cannot be soulcast - it feels paradoxical.

 

I am probably wrong, but it nags at me.  In the WOB you present, Brandon does not confirm or deny that a given material can be soulcast into aluminum, only that aluminum cannot be soulcast into anything else.  Call me crazy, but that makes me want to put on my tinfoil hat and going into deep aluminum conspiracy theories.

 

But still, he never expressly says you can't make Aluminum via soulcasting, so yeah, it could still be possible.

No problemo. Everything about aluminum is weird.

mistborn spoiler

Spoiler

If it is so completely investiture null, then why can it be burned in allomancy? True it destroys other metals/investiture, but the metal acts as a gateway in allomancy so in order to burn it, investiture has to be able to flow through it.

Aluminum by itself is not invested, so it would not be like trying to soulcast a godmetal. So I do not see any reason why you cannot soulcast something into aluminum. The problem is then soulcasting the aluminum into a different material. 

I see what you are getting at, but the person flat out states that we know you can soulcast things into aluminum and Brandon does not correct that person. That seems like a pretty big oversight to me if that person was in error and Brandon said nothing, but admittedly that is my own interpretation. 

34 minutes ago, Karger said:

I always thought that tripping people would be a stoneward thing like earthbenders in avatar making small alterations to the ground so that the enemy gets off balance.

I am still not convinced that soulcasting enemies is a good idea in a protracted fight I think making a fortification or slight alteration to the battlefield like creating a bunch of smoke would be better.

Oh it most definitely could be a stoneward thing and even a willshaper thing, by turning the ground into quicksand like which is what Amaram did to Kaladin. I was just saying how a elsecaller could do something similar. 

I respect your opinion. I do feel however given we know elsecallers are capable of incredible dexterity with their soulcasting (Shallan commented on how Jasnah used the soulcaster to inscribe words on paper by soulcasting parts of the paper to smoke or flame, leaving the script on it) that they could do even more than that. 

33 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I will say, it is probably far more difficult, if not impossible to soulcast around a moving target. Now, let me anticipate a response to that. Yes, Jashnah has soulcast people that were running away from her. That is not the same as soulcasting around a moving target. The target themself is just a single "identity" to spoulcast, while the air around them is constantly new air to try and pursuade, and the faster they're moving the harder it would be. I will definitely agree though that soulcasting may he one of the most deadly and powerful magics in the Cosmere. Doubly so if it can in fact create aluminum.

According to Jasnah the difficulty in soulcasting air is because it is used to seeing itself as fully "one" or indefinable. That is why mundane soulcasters prefer rocks that have broken off by themselves and have had time to see themselves as separate stones because they are easier to soulcast. So it wouldn't be so much "new air", as convincing a chunk of air that it is "separate". I would liken it to taking a cookie cutter and placing it in the middle of a cake. You get the form you want by deciding "this" portion is one section of air. Jasnah was able to do so while running, making steps form as she ran up them.  

30 minutes ago, Karger said:

That is a good point that I did not consider if Kaladin is moving can Jasnah figure out what air he is in and make sure to soulcast that instead of something else?

Replied to this above. 

 

edit: this is mute anyway, because Jasnah is able to soulcast air fast enough to 1. run up it and 2. soulcast a sheet of oil right in front of a fused flying in to attack her. If the movement of the fused would have disrupted the air too much for her to soulcast, then she should not have been able to soulcast the oil close enough to the fused that it could not dodge out of the way of the sheet and be covered in it. Also she wasn't even looking at the fused at the time, so direct sight is not needed. 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Karger]

27 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

According to Jasnah the difficulty in soulcasting air is because it is used to seeing itself as fully "one" or indefinable. That is why mundane soulcasters prefer rocks that have broken off by themselves and have had time to see themselves as separate stones because they are easier to soulcast. So it wouldn't be so much "new air", as convincing a chunk of air that it is "separate". I would liken it to taking a cookie cutter and placing it in the middle of a cake. You get the form you want by deciding "this" portion is one section of air. Jasnah was able to do so while running, making steps form as she ran up them.  

Yes but this is like cake cutting trying to get the piece with the cherry on top when the cherry is moving.  Yes Jasnah has shown remarkable precision with her abilities but the paper was not moving we have no idea how accurate she is or if she is fast enough.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Karger

[Pathfinder]

28 minutes ago, Karger said:

Yes but this is like cake cutting trying to get the piece with the cherry on top when the cherry is moving.  Yes Jasnah has shown remarkable precision with her abilities but the paper was not moving we have no idea how accurate she is or if she is fast enough.

The fused was flying right at her, and she soulcasted a sheet of oil right in front of it without looking. The thugs were running away from her in opposite directions and she soulcasted them both at the same time. First one could be claimed to be thanks to Dalinar putting the realms together, but not the second. 

Side thought, if somehow Jasnah got stuck on stone that Kaladin had put adhesion on, could she just teleport away? I assume she could just soulcast it away, and I assume she could teleport away, but I am curious on other people's thoughts. 

edit: also consider in the scene with the thugs, the first one swings a knife at her. In the span of time of her touching him, while the knife is going at her, he is changed to fire before it gets anywhere near stabbing her. How long would you say it would take for a person standing in front of anything to bring a knife to bear? 2 seconds? 5?

Edited February 22, 2019 by Pathfinder

[SwordNimiForPresident]

1 hour ago, Stark said:

Call me crazy, but that makes me want to put on my tinfoil hat and going into deep aluminum conspiracy theories.

Might want to make that aluminum foil

[Karger]

40 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

The fused was flying right at her, and she soulcasted a sheet of oil right in front of it without looking.

Kaladin notes that the fused have trouble changing direction which implies that they move in straight lines so all Jasnah would have to do would be to would be to cut directly in front of where the used was going to be a much less difficult task.  We see Shallahn summon a wall that does pretty much the same thing.

44 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

The thugs were running away from her in opposite directions and she soulcasted them both at the same time. First one could be claimed to be thanks to Dalinar putting the realms together, but not the second. 

The thugs both are discreet objects in Shadesmar pretty easy to pick out.  What we are trying to see is if Jasnah can nail down the space in an area well enough for her to soulcast the air around Kaladin who we have seen can change directions on a dime.

 

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

Also she wasn't even looking at the fused at the time, so direct sight is not needed. 

She was not pinpointing the Fused she was seeing the direction the fused were coming from by looking into shadesmar and seeing the spren run from them and their voidlight and just conjuring up the wall of oil once she juged their speed and direction.  It was impressive timing but not any great feat of accuracy more of a precision thing again.

[Karger]

17 hours ago, Calderis said:

Jasnah transitions into Shadesmar. Reaches out and touches Kaladin's flame.

Kaladin as has been noted is incredibly resilient and highly invested so he would be basically impossible to soulcast.  Also trying that kind of move would leave Jasnah stranded for quite some time in shadesmar potentially in the ocean.

[Calderis]

9 minutes ago, Karger said:

Kaladin as has been noted is incredibly resilient and highly invested so he would be basically impossible to soulcast.  Also trying that kind of move would leave Jasnah stranded for quite some time in shadesmar potentially in the ocean.

We have no idea the difficulty involved in Soulcasting a person, let alone someone infused. Kaladin would be no more resilient than anyone else unless he were holding stormlight, and we've seen her soulcast people before. 

As to her being stranded... She survived it before 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Calderis

[Karger]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

We have no idea the difficulty involved in Soulcasting a person, let alone someone infused. Kaladin would be no more resilient than anyone else unless he were holding stormlight, and we've seen her soulcast people before. 

As to her being stranded... She survived it before 

Jasnah mentions that the thrill filled soldiers were much easier to soulcast then normal which implies that yes the mentality of the individual does matter.

Last time she appeared on land not in what would probably be the ocean.

Finally why would Kaladin not have stormlight he always make sure to.  A radiant without stormlight is not like a soldier being without a weapon something that Kaladin makes sure never to be.

[Calderis]

You misunderstand. Unless he is actually holding it, it doesn't mean anything. All she needs to do is transition and wait. 

And yes she transitioned into what was land in Shadesmar when she went over, but she came back in a place where she would have been in the sea of beads. So I don't see that as an issue. 

[Karger]

We don't know what was on the other side when she came back (maybe she hired a ship) and I think that Kaladin would by reflex suck in stormlight once he sensed someone touching his soul.  You also ignored my other assertion that the mind of the individual matters.  Shallah's lightweaving doesn't stick to Kaladin long term even if he wants it to regardless of weather he uses stormlight.