Why does Lopen's arm regrow

[Aluminum]

We've seen in the cosmere that most healing works by changing your physical self to more accuratly match your spiritual self. It has also been said that after a person has accepted a wound and learned to work around it magical healing won't work because your spiritual self would have changed. So that brings me to Lopen. In WoR we see him start to regrow his arm and it finishes in OB. But by this point hasn't Lopen accepted his missing arm? Why is he healed?

[SwordNimiForPresident]

23 minutes ago, Aluminum said:

We've seen in the cosmere that most healing works by changing your physical self to more accuratly match your spiritual self. It has also been said that after a person has accepted a wound and learned to work around it magical healing won't work because your spiritual self would have changed. So that brings me to Lopen. In WoR we see him start to regrow his arm and it finishes in OB. But by this point hasn't Lopen accepted his missing arm? Why is he healed?

I would guess that a person's "Cognitive Self" can interfere with the process of changing their Spiritual self. Perception is a big part of the Cosmere, so how a person sees them self is likely to have an impact on their Spiritual Ideal.

[+robardin]

It would seem there is a difference between external healing, like the Regrowth that Lift and Renarin can perform on others, and the "internal healing" effect of Stormlight (or of someone tapping a Feruchemical goldmind). "Internal" healing seems to be more powerful, probably because it's obviously a stronger attunement on the Spiritual level to be healing oneself instead of someone else - Stormlight can heal severed limbs both mundane (physically lopped off) and spiritual (Shardblade wound), even after so long a gap as Lopen's or Hobber's, while Renarin was not able to heal either Hobber's Shardblade derived or Rysn's traumatic paralysis because "it's been too long".

But even "internal magic healing" doesn't work if the person's self-identity includes the wound, like Kaladin's slave brands. At a deep level, he has embraced those brands as part of his identity. That was evidently never true for Lopen's missing arm... And perhaps even more surprisingly, Renarin's nearsightedness. Dalinar comments at the end of Words of Radiance how he'd noticed his son had stopped wearing glasses recently, which he'd thought was an affectation but now realized was Stormlight healing. Yet Renarin was described as wearing spectacles "as usual" pretty much the first time we read about him, in Ch. 12 of The Way of Kings.

That said, there is this WoB discussing this very topic, wherein he doesn't draw this distinction between "external" and "internal" healing magics -

Quote

Questioner

I notice that Stormlight seems to be a bit volatile in how well it heals or who it heals. Because it seems like Renarin's eyesight would have been a long term problem, kinda like Rysn's legs maybe and Lopen's arm. But Lopen's arm got healed, Rysn's legs didn't and Kaladin's scars didn't. So I didn't know if there was a reason for those things.

Brandon Sanderson

So Stormlight healing, there's a couple things that have to be considered. But in reference to what you're saying, the person's perception of themselves is a huge part of it.  The way healing works in the cosmere is, you've got the three versions of yourself. You've got your Physical version, your Cognitive version, and your Spiritual version, And a lot of Stormlight is taking your Physical version and matching it to the Spiritual version which is your ideal self.  But it has to be filtered through the lens of your mind, and things like this.

I almost always--probably should say always--am using it to reinforce some sort of character attribute. The fact that Lopen never saw himself, even though he only had one arm, as being disabled, as a big influence, versus whether Kaladin feels deserves his brands or not. Does that makes sense?  And those are two very different things that influence how the healing works. And you will see that as a metaphor and theme, if you watch what heals and what doesn't.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

But that doesn't really refute my theory, as he doesn't address if Rysn has "internalized" her paralysis the way Kaladin has his slave brands. From reading her POVs in Oathbringer, it would seem clear that she has not, so I would think it's more along the lines of how Regrowth can't heal Shardblade severed limbs like Hobber's or Bisig's (unless perhaps applied immediately), but them being able to squire up and draw in Stormlight did.

Edited June 7, 2019 by robardin

[Elegy]

 

50 minutes ago, Aluminum said:

In WoR we see him start to regrow his arm and it finishes in OB. But by this point hasn't Lopen accepted his missing arm?

He hasn't:

Quote

Questioner

So is Lopen able to regrow his arm because he didn't identify as being a one-armed Herdazian, even though he made all those jokes?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Oathbringer San Diego signing (Nov. 14, 2017)

Quote

Questioner

Lopen's arm. In Stormlight, you cannot regrow if your brain-- your soul has accepted the change?

Brandon Sanderson

Perception is very important to this, yes.

Questioner

So is he just crazy enough to believe that he still had an arm?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's more like, he never saw himself as being-- he saw himself as the person *inaudible* and not being disabled by what happened to him. It's not craziness, it's just a matter of perception. What you're running into Kaladin with his brands in particular is that he thinks he deserves them.

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

 

[+Invocation]

The guy was making "This is what my arm is doing" jokes like he could still control it, for stom's sake. He hadn't accepted that it was gone by any stretch of the imagination.

[Lidolas]

8 minutes ago, Invocation said:

The guy was making "This is what my arm is doing" jokes like he could still control it, for stom's sake. He hadn't accepted that it was gone by any stretch of the imagination.

This was going to be my point. The Lopen has never perceived himself as 'missing' an arm.  

I imagine that if Rysn hadn't been so defeated with her disability, she might have been able to be healed to.  I like to think that she'll still take the ship her Babsk gave her, go on an adventure, discover herself, become a willshaper and be healed.

[+Invocation]

6 minutes ago, Lidolas said:

I imagine that if Rysn hadn't been so defeated with her disability, she might have been able to be healed to.  I like to think that she'll still take the ship her Babsk gave her, go on an adventure, discover herself, become a willshaper and be healed.

I actually wouldn't much like her being healed, but rather her coming to accept that she's not as limited as she thinks she is. Feels like a better arc to me, honestly. But that's off topic for this thread.

[+robardin]

4 hours ago, Invocation said:

I actually wouldn't much like her being healed, but rather her coming to accept that she's not as limited as she thinks she is. Feels like a better arc to me, honestly. But that's off topic for this thread.

This is true, a nod to the truly (IRL) disabled people out there that disability, even when it is the loss of function formerly possessed, is not inability.

However, I think Renarin's inability to heal Rysn's legs does not mean it's in the "Kaladin's slave brands won't go away" context of one's self-identity defining the target model, but more the context of "Renarin couldn't heal Hobber's legs that were healed once Hobber could draw upon Stormlight himself" - something to do with a window of time for external Regrowth to be effective on another person.

For all we know, a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer of the Fifth Ideal while "overcharged" with Stormlight could in fact do those things, just not Lift and Renarin, who are of the Third Ideal, on an ordinary supply of spheres.

[Dunkum]

14 minutes ago, robardin said:

This is true, a nod to the truly (IRL) disabled people out there that disability, even when it is the loss of function formerly possessed, is not inability.

However, I think Renarin's inability to heal Rysn's legs does not mean it's in the "Kaladin's slave brands won't go away" context of one's self-identity defining the target model, but more the context of "Renarin couldn't heal Hobber's legs that were healed once Hobber could draw upon Stormlight himself" - something to do with a window of time for external Regrowth to be effective on another person.

For all we know, a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer of the Fifth Ideal while "overcharged" with Stormlight could in fact do those things, just not Lift and Renarin, who are of the Third Ideal, on an ordinary supply of spheres.

Also, for Renarin, who often lacks confidence in his own abilities, his own perception of what he can or can't heal is probably at least as much of a limiting factor as anything else.  If he thinks he can heal something, and the subject thinks it can be healed, then it will heal, provided he has fuel enough for it.  but if he doesn't think a shardblade wound can be healed, or doesn't think he could possibly be good enough to do it, then in all likelihood he won't be able to.  after all, we've seen a fabrial heal Szeth after having a shardblade go through his neck - which would normally be extremely fatal - the capabilites of the regrowth surge itself are definitely not the issue for Renarin's failure to heal certain things.

[Firebolt-101]

Let me make sure I got this right: stormlight being drawn in by a person is able to heal them so drastically because it's trying to match the person's cognitive self to the spiritual self?? So Kaladin couldn't heal his brands because he had internalized them to the point that his spiritual self also possessed the brands, and therefore the stormlight wouldn't see them as something to heal, whereas when he was struck in the arm by Szeth's honorblade he was able to heal his arm because he hadn't thought of it as a part of himself? Or do I have this confused?

If not, then to me it would make sense that there would be a difference in healing- with both an individual radiant healing and an edgedancer and truthwatcher healing others. Unless that radiant- let's say Renarin when talking about how Rsyn's legs couldn't be healed- could understand that person's spiritual self and see that there is a noticeable difference between that self and their cognitive self, it's understandable that their stormlight wouldn't be effective in healing them. The time restriction would make sense as a recent wound- such as a someone being stabbed out of nowhere- wouldn't have the same effect on their spiritual self as someone being injured or chronically ill for a majority of their life- their spiritual self would ultimately come to reflect that. I suppose it comes down to how much the person accepts their injury as a part of themselves, which is why a person taking in stormlight is a much more effective way of healing.

[John Flamesinger]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

This is true, a nod to the truly (IRL) disabled people out there that disability, even when it is the loss of function formerly possessed, is not inability.

However, I think Renarin's inability to heal Rysn's legs does not mean it's in the "Kaladin's slave brands won't go away" context of one's self-identity defining the target model, but more the context of "Renarin couldn't heal Hobber's legs that were healed once Hobber could draw upon Stormlight himself" - something to do with a window of time for external Regrowth to be effective on another person.

For all we know, a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer of the Fifth Ideal while "overcharged" with Stormlight could in fact do those things, just not Lift and Renarin, who are of the Third Ideal, on an ordinary supply of spheres.

I agree. I believe it is mentioned several times in OB that Renarin can only heal people for a certain amount of time after the injury. However, I do need to point out that there has not been a time where Lift uses Stormlight from a sphere. She does her weird thing of turning food into viable Investiture. 

 

Then again, that could just be Lift being Lift.

[+Invocation]

5 minutes ago, John Flamesinger said:

Then again, that could just be Lift being Lift.

That's just Lift. That's one of her Nightwatcher things, metabolizing digestive material and stored bodily energy deposits into Stormlight. Doesn't mean she couldn't be theoretically overcharged, though.

Take some extra doing, sure, but I think they could figure out a way.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Invocation

[Impact]

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:09 AM, Aluminum said:

We've seen in the cosmere that most healing works by changing your physical self to more accuratly match your spiritual self. It has also been said that after a person has accepted a wound and learned to work around it magical healing won't work because your spiritual self would have changed. So that brings me to Lopen. In WoR we see him start to regrow his arm and it finishes in OB. But by this point hasn't Lopen accepted his missing arm? Why is he healed?

To add on to people saying that Lopen clearly didn't accept that it was gone, he actively tried to make it regrow once he realized he could take in stormlight.  He had his family gather spheres for him to pull the light from, realizing that it could happen.  Not only did he not accept that the arm was gone, when he realized there was a chance to fix it, he jumped at it.  

 

In contrast, Kaladin, for example, had internalized his brands as a part of him so much that he couldn't let them heal.  He viewed them as marks of failure that he can't get over, as shown in both WoR and OB.  His body rejected the tattoos because he didn't view them as a part of him, and because having them erased his failures the same way healing the brands would have, and he couldn't mentally accept those failures.