To which extent does your ability to return depend on the state of your physical body?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Does it need to be at least roughly intact? Can you return if your demise involved an industrial meat grinder? What about sitting on a hydrogen bomb as it went off?

[Duxredux he/him]

You're talking about a process that a Shard is personally involved in and possible limits to that Shard's abilities. That's a probably RAFO right there. At least with organ loss we have this WoB:

Spoiler

Phantine

If a heroic guy was also an organ donor, what happens to his original organs when he Returns?

Will the recipient's heart grow three sizes that day?

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. Not a question I'd anticipated, but the body is healed when made Returned, so anything missing would be regrown. So everything is fine.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Sept. 27, 2016)

 

2 logical range caps I can think of.

1. Low end, the state of the body requires the body to be in a state healable by a Returned using their divine breath to heal another in a similar circumstance. In essence, the idea is that when Endowment sends down the Returned in their new state as Cognitive Shadow she goes with the most direct and cost-efficient route of using the transferal of the Divine Breath itself as the method to heal the body. Whatever the cutoff point is for a Returned healing an injury may be the same for Endowment causing someone to Return, with the additional qualifier that the body will be warped to fit the Returned Ideal complete with 5th Heightening health as seen with Lightsong's revival. I could be wrong, but if the body is in a circumstance where it is likely to die immediately (i.e. still in an industrial meat grinder), then that may impose further complications on the decision process. There's an element of volition on the parts of both the Returned and Endowment that may have them choose not to have someone Return even if it would technically be possible and very temporary.

   Quote

   Questioner

   Given Sanderson's Laws about limitations...

   Brandon Sanderson

   Yes.

   Questioner

   What would you say are any spiritual, cognitive, and or physical limitations to a Returned's healing ability?

   Brandon Sanderson

   That they can do it once.

   Questioner

   That they can do it once, and that's it?

   Brandon Sanderson

   Yeah, right? The Returned get one heal and then they die. That's a pretty big limitation. Like you have to choose really well. However, what they can heal is bounded by cosmere limitations on healing, but it is a supercharged version.

   Questioner

   Okay. Could you define more cosmere limitations on healing?

   Brandon Sanderson

   Cosmere limitations on healing can be affected by your own perception.

   Questioner

   Okay. Cognitive stuff.

   Brandon Sanderson

   Cognitive stuff. And so there's a part of that, and... But that's really-- cognitive interferes. And if your spirit is gone? Right? Cosmere healing, you know, if your spirit is passed on you just get a dead body even though you've healed it.

   Questioner

   So potentially Vasher, having a much greater cosmere knowledge than others could potentially have a much greater usage of that healing than regular--

   Brandon Sanderson

   Well the healing-- What I mean by that is yourself. You impose limits. So the person being healed can impose some limits on the healing working. It doesn't happen as often as I'm making it sound. But, you know-- why Kaladin's scars have not healed, right? So Kaladin being hit by a Returned would still not heal his scars. He's got a major hangup about those scars.

   Footnote: The questioner seems to have been asking about cosmere healing in general for Returned, but Brandon focused on their ability to give up their Divine Breath to heal somebody else.
   Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

    

2. Upper end, we know that when a Vessel Ascends the body is vaporized. Somewhere that body is left as information within the Shard that allows it to reform and spit the body back out though no volition of the Vessel when the Vessel dies as seen with Leras, Vin, Ati, and Rayse (which honestly seems weird to me and worth exploring on a different thread). That said this doesn't happen with Kelsier who did not have a body pre-Ascension and did not get one back when descending. It seems totally plausible that there is sufficient information remaining either in the Spiritual aspect prior to passing to the Beyond or the Cognitive Shadow for Endowment to just build a new body and she almost certainly can meet the power requirements. Notably Heralds can recreate their bodies even after complete dismemberment, so if this is a restriction on Shards, then it implies that there's something special about the Heralds' circumstance as setup by Honor and Cultivation see https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360/#e10880.

Not much more to say, since I answered with two more unknown ranges, what can a Returned heal and what can a Shard heal. I think it's quite possible that if Endowment wanted to she could recreate a body using a template taken from the Spiritual aspect of the deceased, but I don't know if she would be bothered to if she doesn't have to. I will note that we have a WoB that gives at least one way to interfere with the Returning process:

Quote

ReaderAt2046

What would happen if, right after someone died, they were made into a Lifeless, and then Endowment tried to Return that person?

Brandon Sanderson

Oooh...now that's a spicy one. Endowment's gift of a superpowered Breath would come down, strike the Lifeless, and all kinds of craziness would occur. You'd end up with a drab god, which would be hilarious.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Duxredux
added thought