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I am going to start this topic with the most auspicious declaration of: Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! This is my FAVOURITE  Cosmere work!

*clears throat* now on with the actual topic. Wan ShaiLu, the Forger is arrested while attempting to steal a painting in the capital of the Rose Empire, where Hoid, disguised as the Fool, ensures her capture (while stealing the Moon Sceptre himself) so as to force her to fulfill the task that would be thrust upon her as a condition for her release. Which raises the question of why Hoid would consider this important enough to require his attention? Would a change of Emperors be so great a political upheaval?

But much more interestingly, when Shai does successfully Forge a new soul for the Emperor, what exactly does the Emperor become?

Does Ashravan qualify as a Cognitive Shadow?

Or is the new Ashravan truly a new Ashravan? (which is kind of terrifying)

When the injury rendered Ashravan in a vegetative state, was it more akin to gluing something broken back up together or perhaps more like patchwork stitching? 

~Mistborn spoilers~

Spoiler

a Mistwraith or a Kandra without their spikes.

Quote

NinjaMeTimbers

How intelligent is a mistwraith? Could you raise and train mistwraiths like dogs or horses, controlling what forms they take by the bones you give them? Would you be able to train yourself a horsewraith steed by giving it only the bones of a horse?

Brandon Sanderson

This is feasible. One thing to keep in mind is that mistwraiths are people who have a blockage between the Physical and the Cognitive Realm, messing with their ability to think. Think of them as mentally-stunted people. There's enough there to train, but then you have to dig into the ethics of it...

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 27, 2012)

 

That is, was Ashravan still alive in a way in the Cognitive? Was his Identity damaged in some way?

Spoiler

like the Koloss

(see the bottom-most WoB) 

 

Did Shai just resurrect him?

~Warbreaker spoilers~

Spoiler

like the Returned?

 

or was it more like the Lifeless?

Quote

TurtletheFlsh

What would happen if you created a lifeless with more breath then is necessary? Would they be more or completely human or just a lifeless that's holding more breath?

Brandon Sanderson

Lifeless with more breath are an interesting situation. It's quite possible for the BREATH to start taking on a personality, much like a cognitive shadow, related to the individual. Whether or not it is actually them, though, is a big question. Note, this doesn't always happen. Often, dumping a lot of breath in them is like sticking it in an inanimate object with no command.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 24, 2015)

Quote

Oudeis16

If Bob the Awakener Awakened fifty straw men to dance around, then died, then Returned as FormerBob the Appropriately Named, would FormerBob be able to reclaim the Breath from the straw men in the normal fashion (once he learned the "Your Breath to Mine" Command)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He has enough of his original Identity, and the spiritual connection would remain.

sonofstannis

What if he instead were reincarnated as a lifeless? Is there a way he could reclaim it then?

Brandon Sanderson

Lifeless have someone else's investiture replacing their own. (As opposed to Returned, who are augmented.) Depends on how much of them is left, and if they can achieve sapience again, but I'd say this is unlikely.

WeiryWriter

What if the Lifeless is Awakened with their own Breath? (i.e. they gave it away right before they died and the person they gave it to then used it in the Awakening)

Brandon Sanderson

This has happened already in the world, and it does help.

-Nayrb

Did this happen "on screen"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 30, 2015)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Lightsong Sees the Lifeless and Takes Command of Them

They keep them in the dark. This is a bad idea. They don't realize it, but the Lifeless are far more aware than everyone assumes. Clod in this book is a foreshadowing of that, and there won't be much more about it in the rest of the novel. It's one of the focus points for the sequel, if I ever write it. (Which will actually have a Lifeless as a viewpoint character, if I can find a way to swing it.)

Warbreaker Annotations (March 21, 2011)

 

Did she just create a new Spiritweb or repair the original? Had the original Ashravan passed into the Beyond at this point?

This WoB indicates that death in the Cosmere is a rather complicated affair:

Spoiler
Quote

Argent

Is death in the Cosmere a two-stage process? It seems to me like (under normal circumstances) the body dies first, sending the mind fully in the Cognitive Realm; the soul, presumably, remains in the Spiritual for the entire process. I am a little unclear on what happens after that though - what is it that passes into the Beyond, just the mind? Does the soul / spiritual aspect / Spiritweb just kind of... break down in the Spiritual Realm, turn into free iInvestiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. It's a two stage process, and most of what you said is correct. The odd thing is, though, that the Spiritweb doesn't completely break down (just like your body doesn't immediately break down.) Even after a long time, there's a record of that Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm.

Oversleep

Wait wait wait. If there is a "corpse" of Spiritweb (so to speak) and actual, physical corpse is also there... Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy? Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy if you really know what you're doing and have some useful powers (manipulating Connection comes to mind)?

Could you patch the remnants of the Spiritweb and staple it to the body and end up with some zombie-zombie Lifeless? You'd still need to give it a mind but I figure Awakening is just doing that?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Stormlight Three Update #6 (Feb. 5, 2017)

 

 

~Mistborn & Warbreaker spoilers~

Brandon has made comparisons between these three situations before:

Spoiler

Phantine

Would a lifeless Koloss still be super strong?

Brandon Sanderson

You see, what is happening to create a koloss is a human soul is taken, sliced up, and sutured back together--with the spikes being the "stitches" that holds it all together. That's a problem, since the various forms of investiture don't play very well together. In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.)

This means that in investing the corpse of the koloss, you have troubles. It's going to want to snap back to the original human shape and strength. If you COULD overcome this, then yes, it would be stronger.

/r/books AMA 2015 (Aug. 11, 2015)

 

What exactly is Ashravan now? 

Edited by Dreamer
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51 minutes ago, Honorless said:

What exactly is Ashravan now? 

I would say that he is a new person who looks and a acts a lot like the original.  Lets use a sci-fi example.  If someone got a traumatic brain injury and we created an AI based on the records of how they acted would they be the original?

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Oooh, think is a juicy question.  I think when the story beings he's a mutilated but still living human being. But since he never actually died and the Forgery and/or ReSealing are not sustaining his life in any way, I dont think he'd be described as a Cognitive shadow, at best he's a modified person more like a Kolos.   The way I see it is that the Forgery used on him is basically like other Cosmere Healings (F-Gold etc) but instead of using the Platonic Ideal that exists in the Spiritual Realm, the Forger is basically writing their own counterfeit Ideal Self for the target.  It requires continuous Investiture to sustain the change because the person's Spiritweb knows what it's actually supposed to be like (just like

Spoiler

Age with Atium Compounding).

That's why it takes Investiture to sustain it, but also why it's known that constant use over a long period of time can make it more permanent, because (I theorize) the exposure to Investiture it warping the spiriweb savant style, but really just cramming it into the new but very similar shape dictating by the Stamp.

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@Quantus, I completely forgot to factor in that he had to get reStamped and keep the plate close to him at all times. I assume he also wouldn't be able to or really shouldn't try to leave the Rose Empire given the situation with the Dor & resulting region-locked magics of Sel. 

Edited by Honorless
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5 minutes ago, Honorless said:

@Quantus, I completely forgot to factor in that he had to get reStamped and keep the plate close to him at all times. I assume he also wouldn't be able to or really shouldn't try to leave the Rose Empire given the situation with the Dor & resulting region-locked magics of Sel. 

Oh, 100%.  It's a sustained effect so (with Realmic steps taken, which few if any in-world know and none of us do) the effect would end if he left the area, let alone the planet.  Though for what it's worth, I do think that normal spiritual healing (F-Gold, Regrowth, etc) would have a good chance of restoring his original self, though not the improved version.  Though I wonder if Soulcasting could be used to make the Forgery Permanent, without the Soulcaster needing to have the same conscious, detailed understanding of the process and goals the way a Forger needs.  Maybe the FOrger could make the Changes and then Soulcasting can be used to simply anchor it in place?

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1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Oh, 100%.  It's a sustained effect so (with Realmic steps taken, which few if any in-world know and none of us do) the effect would end if he left the area, let alone the planet.  Though for what it's worth, I do think that normal spiritual healing (F-Gold, Regrowth, etc) would have a good chance of restoring his original self, though not the improved version.  Though I wonder if Soulcasting could be used to make the Forgery Permanent, without the Soulcaster needing to have the same conscious, detailed understanding of the process and goals the way a Forger needs.  Maybe the FOrger could make the Changes and then Soulcasting can be used to simply anchor it in place?

Oh yeah, we've already seen Regrowth heal brain injuries and WoB that F-Gold can do that too.

Spoiler

And Re-Growth is also capable of saving someone who's been completely crushed (Renarin), of re-attaching Cognitive Shadows to their bodies (Szeth) and apparently the Metallic Arts also allow resurrection (Kelsier)

I don't know about Soulcasting, 

Spoiler

if it's the inspiration that Lightweavers tend to bring to people that you're talking about, I think it might be something more underlying to the Spiritual nature of the Surges they have. I think Soulcasting itself is just the conversion of constituent materials of an object. While that sounds more like Spiritual Illumination + Transformation

 

Edited by Honorless
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2 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Oh yeah, we've already seen Regrowth heal brain injuries and WoB that F-Gold can do that too. I don't know about Soulcasting, 

  Hide contents

if it's the inspiration that Lightweavers tend to bring to people that you're talking about, I think it might be something more underlying to the Spiritual nature of the Surges they have. I think Soulcasting itself is just the conversion of constituent materials of an object. While that sounds more like Spiritual Illumination + Transformation

 

No, that's not at all what I was thinking, but lets come back to taht, it's interesting.  I was just theorizing that since Forgery is the best for making very subtle, comprehensive, and/or detailed changes to the Spiritweb, while Soulcasting is far more brute force but imposes a much more powerful and permanent Change, perhaps Forgery could be used first to create the new template, then a Soulcaster could come behind the Forger and convince that new template to become the Permanent state so that the Forgery no longer needs to be maintained (letting the target worldhop with the changes, etc).  The idea is that Forgery is a language detailed enough to make all those subtle tweaks, but the way it executes on the Spiritweb leave the Spiritweb straining against those changes, the same way tweaking your age on scadrial takes more and more Investiture to maintain, or else you hyper-age back to where you should be.  By contrast, with Soulcasting it's far harder to make those subtle changes because the Soulcaster has to conceive and hold all the details of those changes mentally all at once and then convince the Cognitive aspect of the target to accept them.  But if the Changes have already been put in place by Forgery, maybe the Soulcaster can come behind the Forger and just say to the Cog Aspect "Hey, this is a pretty awesome way to be, isnt it?  You really want to stay this way all the time, right?"  They dont need to personally understand or even consciously know what changes happened, they just need to provide the Target Spiritweb the energy/Investiture to lock an existing change in place.  It might take some Connection Shenanigans the way

Spoiler

Dalinar Connected to Shallan so her Illusion could depict what the Stormfather could see. 

 

Now, to what you said about Lightweavers and Soulcasting, Im interested.  What do you mean? IM very interested in any theories on that particualr Lightweaver ability.  Soulcasting is definitely not like an FMA-style Alchemy where you are rearranging atoms, if that's what you mean.  We've seen first-hand that it relys on realmic communication to the Cognitive aspect and re-defining them at that point, and we also know that does not always obey mass-conservation, for example turning corpses to statues instead onserves Volume and makes statues of the same size and shape but significantly heavier matierals.

 

 

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Okay, that makes much more sense.

~Stormlight spoilers~

Spoiler

The Surges always looked like highly charged shortcuts to me. Like Honor thought these are what they would need to face Odium's onslaught. Then the spren discovered how the Surges worked and started granting them to humans. Though how & why the spren grant those particular abilities is also an interesting question to consider. The idea is that the Surges channel Investiture towards particular complicated effects like binding two things together, which manifests on the Physical as manipulation of pressure and vacuum, or crafting illusions, which manifest from fine manipulation of waveforms. These are the foundations upon which the main effects of the Surges were built on, the code, through which one can get to the more fundamental aspects of these effects. There are also Spiritual effects: Kaladin's leadership ability seems, not supernatural perhaps, but just a bit more than mundane, as does Shallan's ability to uplift people or try to change themselves for the better. I'm not saying these are like Resonances (like strength of squires or mnemonic abilities), just that these also seem a bit beyond having an affinity for art or ability to discern who's guilty, which might come from the Order's duties or the general disposition of the members that their spren would be attracted towards. This is something that has been commented on in-world. Probably less of a magical effect and more due to the existence of the Platonic Realm(s?) of Spiritual and Cognitive

But let's not derail the thread

You can DM me if you want to talk more about this, @Quantus :)

Edited by Honorless
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Well idk , i think there's way too little information to say anything. 

But I think it is the emperor , only a bit brainwashed.

I don't think  his soul passed onto the beyond . I think when they healed him his soul remained but was marooned. 

What Shai did was tweak his cognition a bit before leading the soul home. 

I think she didn't brainwash him. Not exactly. Ppl change everyday. Sometimes these changes are cumulative , accruing over years or these changes are sudden. For example a near death experience often leads to ppl making major lifestyle changes or atleast changes in how they view life and thier philosophies.

Shai herself states she couldn't just change him into whatever she wants , otherwise the forgery would never take. 

She also ponders if after a time , the soul could reestablish it's connection and not require the stamps at all. ( I don't remember correctly , but I think she says that ).

I think ashraven was really dead, they quickly healed him , but like szeth they couldn't heal him quickly enough and his soul got seperated .

What Shai did was use her stamps to basically create a highway for the soul , filled with familiar comforting things to soothe it , back to its mind and body .

I think it is the emperor with regrowth. He's as alive and authentic as szeth or kelsier , only his  resurrection method is very different. 

Also I don't know what caused his soul to be marooned , I mean szeth got resurrected completely with a little time delay , but then again organic resealing and regrowth are very different , not to mention nalan is way older , experienced and practiced , compared to the resealers of the rose empire who have only a few decades of practice in a mostly shunned art. It was only after the heritage faction came to power that resealing was accepted in mainstream culture .

Hmm yes , I guess that's why they couldn't staple his soul back. 

Even in szeth's case , we see that his soul trails behind his mind and body. 

I think when they healed ashraven they saved his mind , body and soul. Only they were seperated and the soul couldn't find it's way back. 

Shai created a pathway for it and after a while I think the soul will know the path well enough to not need the signs. Ie, ashravan can function without the soulstamp.

On the whole i think it's a better deal than what szeth got.

His soul was stapled immediately but he has to live with that wierd disparity forever , 

Ashraven wasn't healed immediately but he can make a complete recovery .

Slow but steady wins the race.

As for his personality changes. Well , idk maybe he would have done it anyway , near death experiences galvanize a lot of ppl into action. 

I think that's what made shai's cognitive manipulation stick in the first place. 

So on the whole , i think it is ashraven himself , he's not lifeless , he's not a construct , he's not a cognitive shadow.

I don't know why hoid did what he did . That sounds like a d#@k move , knowing that he would be abandoning to be likely executed and it's not as if he has visions of the future granted to him by Endowment. 

Maybe it really was collateral damage , hoid can make mistakes after all. 

Or maybe he was forced to abandon her ,maybe a skaze or bloodsealer was hunting him. 

Idk. I guess we have to Rafo .

So yeah that's my theory

 

 

 

 

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Does Ashravan qualify as a Cognitive Shadow?

Or is the new Ashravan truly a new Ashravan? (which is kind of terrifying)

Very interesting question @Honorless !! 

Does Ashravan qualify as a Cognitive Shadow?

Or is the new Ashravan truly a new Ashravan? (which is kind of terrifying)

I don’t really think that he can qualify as a cognitive shadow because he did not really die, it was more like he was in a comma

Yes I think he truly is a new Ashravan and it is scary!! I agree :D

Mistborn spoilers 

Spoiler

I like the resemblance to kandra too. In that case, the seal acts as a spike and grants him blessing of sentience

 

On 1/6/2020 at 0:18 AM, Honorless said:

Did she just create a new Spiritweb or repair the original? Had the original Ashravan passed into the Beyond at this point?

 

I think that she created a new spirit web and superimposed it on his original spirit web. But does this superimposition heals the original web too. I think it does but the two combine together to form a third and new spiritweb. It holds because Shai made the new spiritweb as close to the original spiritweb as it was possible for Shai to make. 
No I don’t think Ashravan passed into the beyond because he was more like in a comma. The damage he had was more similar to being brain dead so, I think it was the cognitive aspect which was affected more! 
 

 

On 1/6/2020 at 1:12 AM, Ookla the Prolific said:

I would say that he is a new person who looks and a acts a lot like the original.  Lets use a sci-fi example.  If someone got a traumatic brain injury and we created an AI based on the records of how they acted would they be the original?

An AI was the first thing that had come to my mind too. It is like his body is the hardware and the seal runs the program created by Shai daily into the hardware. Essentially the new emperor is a robot who has been given the collective memories of Ashravan and he is going to try his best to act as close to real Ashravan as possible but he is not going to be the same a because he is not the real person, he is someone new !
 

Edited by The traveller
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/6/2020 at 8:21 AM, Honorless said:

@Quantus, I completely forgot to factor in that he had to get reStamped and keep the plate close to him at all times. I assume he also wouldn't be able to or really shouldn't try to leave the Rose Empire given the situation with the Dor & resulting region-locked magics of Sel. 

The theory is that he has to be re-stamped, personally I don't think he needed to, the stamp was just the augmenter that restored him to his previous state.

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1 hour ago, Booknerd said:

The theory is that he has to be re-stamped, personally I don't think he needed to, the stamp was just the augmenter that restored him to his previous state.

When Shai soulstamps herself, she has to be restamped every day, I don't see why this would be any different.

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On 1/8/2020 at 8:27 AM, The traveller said:

So true! Can this new Ashravan even die? He is basically immortal now? Any bodily harm can be healed by them and mentally he is also AI

Cosmere healing doesn't affect age, which is a part of the Spiritweb that always 'knows' how old you are or should be. Someone with unlimited healing ability could be perfectly healthy but eventually drop dead when they hit the time they should have died. There's a long WoB here that goes into immortality in the Cosmere and how healing power by itself doesn't affect your aging. There are various ways to trick the soul but they don't apply here, as the entire point of the soulstamp actually enforces some of the mechanics that the soul uses to know your true age. WoB here (warning, Mistborn Era 1 spoilers).

So yeah, Ashravan's not immortal.

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Not ringing in either way. Just posting a WoB that I thought would be relevant to this discussion

 

Questioner

So, Shai and forgers. She forges the emperor’s soul, then she got to track by practicing on [Gaotona], and it kind of held for a minute since he was close to the emperor, and that means it was right. So it was basically trial and error.

Brandon Sanderson

It was.

Questioner

So even if she have a lot more time and a lot less information, she could’ve guessed?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially, there’s a certain distance trial and error will take you; in a reasonable amount of time, there’s a certain distance that can take you.

Questioner

And in an unreasonable amount of time?

Brandon Sanderson

Unreasonable, yes. You can just trial and error your way through a lot of things.

Questioner

And by seeing it held on him for 24 hours of time, that means she got really close.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

And when she was forging herself, she was basically forging lies.

Brandon Sanderson

She was forging lies, but she knew how to make them really plausible for herself. Plausibility is a really big part of it. Can you convince the soul to not just of yourself...

Questioner

The decisions that she could have made?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. That they were realistic, that they were there, that she could have made these, that everything lines up in the past. It’s a little like programming.

Questioner

So that’s why she could add a little bit to the emperor’s soul because that’s also plausible?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Could she have changed him more if she knew more about him?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. She created a fake soul and put it in him, there are possibilities beyond what she did.

Questioner

So she could’ve gotten a bit wrong if her trial and error made it plausible instead of what happened?

Brandon Sanderson

Now, at least in her perspective, what she did was create a fake soul and put it in him. What I haven’t answered is did she just take the soul that was lingering on the body and fill in the gaps? Or did she legitimately craft a new soul? That I’ll leave to the cosmere philosophers to talk about.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 17, 2017)
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2 hours ago, Booknerd said:

The theory is that he has to be re-stamped, personally I don't think he needed to, the stamp was just the augmenter that restored him to his previous state.

She did expressly state that he has to be reStamped, for her own last Soul Forgery set for a normal life too, she stated she would have to get reStamped. She created the plausible lie that the reStamping was for a flesh Forgery/Resealing

 

Oh thanks @Pathfinder! That WoB actually does say "create"!

Oh wait I didn't read the whole thing

Edited by Honorless
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3 hours ago, Llstml said:

When Shai soulstamps herself, she has to be restamped every day, I don't see why this would be any different.

 

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

She did expressly state that he has to be reStamped, for her own last Soul Forgery set for a normal life too, she stated she would have to get reStamped. She created the plausible lie that the reStamping was for a flesh Forgery/Resealing

 

yes to both of you but it was meant to be a stamp of him, how he was precised, wouldn't he want to be himself, I think that that makes the difference, the stamp is now only relevant for the changes, if he no longer stamps himself, then he will lose the added portions and instead become who he was before the attack. At least that's what I was saying my opinion was.

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5 hours ago, Booknerd said:

yes to both of you but it was meant to be a stamp of him, how he was precised, wouldn't he want to be himself, I think that that makes the difference, the stamp is now only relevant for the changes, if he no longer stamps himself, then he will lose the added portions and instead become who he was before the attack. At least that's what I was saying my opinion was.

That is what would've happened to Shai, for Ashravan, the result would have been different

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3 hours ago, Honorless said:

That is what would've happened to Shai, for Ashravan, the result would have been different

Yes, but the stamp is supposed to make Ashravan himself, not someone similar, like restoring lifeless with their own breath, it's easier and smother that way, and in my mind permanent.

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28 minutes ago, Booknerd said:

Yes, but the stamp is supposed to make Ashravan himself, not someone similar, like restoring lifeless with their own breath, it's easier and smoother that way, and in my mind permanent.

But it's not permanent according to the novella itself, Shai specifically tells Gaotona that he would need to be reStamped and would need to keep the Stamped plate close. And it makes sense that way. The magic is called 'Forgery' after all. 

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34 minutes ago, Honorless said:

But it's not permanent according to the novella itself, Shai specifically tells Gaotona that he would need to be reStamped and would need to keep the Stamped plate close. And it makes sense that way. The magic is called 'Forgery' after all. 

It also says that stamping someone to be themselves has never been done don't be too quick to rule out the possibility.

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11 hours ago, Karger said:

We already knew that didn't we?

Sorry I missed your comment on the first read-through!

I meant that we know that Shai created something: whether it was an entirely new soul, patchwork for the frayed old one, something to reConnect his body with his Spiritweb, or myriad of other possibilities is what I actually meant by that

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21 hours ago, Honorless said:

I meant that we know that Shai created something: whether it was an entirely new soul, patchwork for the frayed old one, something to reConnect his body with his Spiritweb, or myriad of other possibilities is what I actually meant by that

The language they use in the book seems to make it clear(at least to me).  "You will replace his soul with..."

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