Returned memory loss is not necessarily permanent

[trav]

We see that Vasher does not remember his former names. So the memory loss of Returned affects him as well. Or maybe a different form of memory loss?

For Lightsong parts of his former life came back to him right before he killed himself again.

Somehow Arsteel, Yesteel, VaraTreledees and Shashara remember that they were siblings.

Are they really siblings or do they just think so? Like random Returned children being raised together. Sounds highly unlikely for 2 siblings to become Returned.

 

When I was reading through the Warbreaker annotations and Brandons explanation on what would be confusing for the reader etc. I noticed that this part also makes little sense without an explanation. It is just used to blatantly that I never really questioned it before, but Denth should not remember that Shashara was his sister. Neither should Arsteel and Yesteel.

Edited September 28, 2023 by trav

[Duxredux he/him]

2 hours ago, trav said:

We see that Vasher does not remember his former names. So the memory loss of Returned affects him as well. Or maybe a different form of memory loss?

For Lightsong parts of his former life came back to him right before he killed himself again.

Somehow Arsteel, Yesteel, VaraTreledees and Shashara remember that they were siblings.

Are they really siblings or do they just think so? Like random Returned children being raised together. Sounds highly unlikely for 2 siblings to become Returned.

 

When I was reading through the Warbreaker annotations and Brandons explanation on what would be confusing for the reader etc. I noticed that this part also makes little sense without an explanation. It is just used to blatantly that I never really questioned it before, but Denth should not remember that Shashara was his sister. Neither should Arsteel and Yesteel.

Yup, that's a logical issue to question. You're not the first.

Quote

Questioner

In Warbreaker, how does Denth remember who his sister is if he was Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

That is an excellent question and it will be answered. It is a conscious decision of mine, doing that. It is something you are supposed to be wondering. In the future books I want to delve into that sort of thing a lot more. So, Read And Find Out, but it was a "That wasn't a mistake" Read And Find Out.

Steelheart release party (Sept. 24, 2013)

Slightly over a decade later, and we're still waiting to Read and Find Out, and it might be when Brandon writes Warbreaker 2, but at least a decade ago this particular question was on the list of things to be addressed in the future. I believe Warbreaker 2 will have more information on Arsteel and Yesteel, particularly with that plot hook at the end where Yesteel has devised a more potent form of ichor alcohol. Brandon has said quite a bit on plans for Warbreaker 2, so if you want to know what those are, that's already been pretty exhaustively researched in another thread (https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/147947-what-do-you-want-to-see-in-a-warbreaker-sequel/), if you're avoiding those, I'll leave it at that.

My current theory is that while Vasher doesn't remember who he is, Denth had the Royal Locks. It wouldn't take too much effort on Denth's part to look up the Royal Locks and the royal pedigree to try to figure out who he used to be. If for some reason the royal pedigree was obscured from him, presumably if Shashara was truly his sister, she would presumably also share the Royal Locks (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/117/#e1681). If two people with inherited color-changing hair indicative of the royal family meet each other, it isn't too big of a stretch to assume they're related. There of course could be more going on, but these two at least I can come up with a logical chain of events with known facts for them to figure this out. I'm far less sure on how Arsteel and Yesteel knew they were brothers, so there's still more for Brandon to reveal.

Actually, it could be something as mundane as Arsteel and Yesteel died asynchronously and told each other their relationship after each death. Basically like if Lightsong had survived, Llarimar got killed and Returned, and Lightsong decided to just throw the rules out the window and told Llarimar that they were brothers. It's probably not that mundane, but there's plenty of non-magical means to figure out who you were prior to death. If one of you happens to be a world-class duelist before death like Arsteel could have been, that may be a matter of public fame and record too.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Duxredux
clarity

[alder24]

2 hours ago, trav said:

We see that Vasher does not remember his former names. So the memory loss of Returned affects him as well. Or maybe a different form of memory loss?

For Lightsong parts of his former life came back to him right before he killed himself again.

Somehow Arsteel, Yesteel, VaraTreledees and Shashara remember that they were siblings.

Are they really siblings or do they just think so? Like random Returned children being raised together. Sounds highly unlikely for 2 siblings to become Returned.

 

When I was reading through the Warbreaker annotations and Brandons explanation on what would be confusing for the reader etc. I noticed that this part also makes little sense without an explanation. It is just used to blatantly that I never really questioned it before, but Denth should not remember that Shashara was his sister. Neither should Arsteel and Yesteel.

That's true. For now it's a mystery. I think there are three major possibilities. One is that one of them actually reached the point when they could fulfill their purpose of Return and regained their memories, but decided not to do that. The other is that they didn't Return because of natural intervention of Endowment, they tried to create Returned on their own and succeeded, and this allowed them to either keep their memories (as Endowment wasn't involved), or simply tell each other their past. This is actually possible, you can become a Cognitive Shadow by simply dying while holding enough Breaths. Eventually they got really good at reading their dreams (which are both about their future and past) and came to the conclusion that they were siblings before Returning. But for the actual answer we have to wait until Nightblood gets released, which won't happen soon.

Spoiler

Questioner

Because Zahel was especially Invested when he died, he became that other soul. [spoilers edited out]

Brandon Sanderson

Zahel is a special case. What happened with him is, on his planet, he was specifically chosen by the Shard to be Returned. That happens, you don't have to be specifically Invested for that. The god gives them that. Now, to become a Cognitive Shadow, which is what certain people in the cosmere are, you need a powerful amount, an enormous amount.

Questioner

So not the bead?

Brandon Sanderson

Not just being a Mistborn, not just... he wasn't even close to being where he needed to be, if you want to end up as a Cognitive Shadow. You need to do some special hoops. We're talking, drawing forth the power of a Shard, or being endowed with the power of a Shard, or a certain number of Breaths would do it. There is a threshold that you could get, you're gonna end up as a Cognitive Shadow.

FanX 2021 (Sept. 17, 2021)

 

[trav]

Every Returned has the "Royal Locks". Vashers hair changes from dark to light when he stops suppressing his Divine Breath. The "Royal Locks" are what remain when these cognitive shadows have a child.

@alder24 
This WOB only says how you can become a cognitive shadow. While Returned are cognitive shadows they are a special case. They hold a Divine Breath. Kelsier did not become a Returned.
Stealing a Divine Breath should be possible, although hard.


 

[Duxredux he/him]

1 minute ago, trav said:

Every Returned has the "Royal Locks". Vashers hair changes from dark to light when he stops suppressing his Divine Breath. The "Royal Locks" are what remain when these cognitive shadows have a child.

Quote

Kurkistan

Does Denth have the Royal Locks, independent of his being a Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. (Good question.)

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 18, 2013)

 

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, trav said:

@alder24 
This WOB only says how you can become a cognitive shadow. While Returned are cognitive shadows they are a special case. They hold a Divine Breath.

Yes, that's true. But It doesn't exclude the possibility that you could become a Returned "artificially". A Divine Breath is nothing more than a fossil of the soul, its copy, replaced by investiture keyed to Endowment. Breaths are investiture - holding enough Breaths in the moment of your death will simply imprint your soul on them, combining them and creating an "artificial" Divine Breath - regular Breaths and Divine Breaths are both keyed to Endowment, therefore the CS created this way will be keyed to Endowment as well, and have all characteristics of a person holding lots of Breaths, because they wouldn't be gone - they would be stuck in the body as the soul instead. Of course this is a bit speculative.

This is a Warbreaker forum only, please do not include spoilers from other books in your post without a proper warning and a spoiler box. 

20 minutes ago, trav said:

Stealing a Divine Breath should be possible, although hard.

Cosmere spoilers:

Spoiler

It would require an extensive knowledge of Hemalurgy before the events of TFE (greater than what Inquisitors had), either Atium spike or more likely Nicrosil spike (unavailable without modern tech), so I find this very, very unlikely. However, there were no signs of them having any spike, not to mention what a literal imprint of someone else's entire soul would do to your soul when stuck together with Hemalurgy. Or they would need some Bondsmithing ability, which is impossible. 

 

[trav]

43 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

 

Which would not give him any insight since as a Returned he and Shashara would both have them anyways.

[Duxredux he/him]

14 hours ago, trav said:

Which would not give him any insight since as a Returned he and Shashara would both have them anyways.

Not all Returned have the Royal Locks. Yes, Returned with specific training and effort can alter their size and appearance, but this is a separate yet related trait to the unconscious color change connected to emotion seen in a person with Royal Locks.

In order for Vasher to change his hair color he has to deliberately frame his self perception to be the black-haired scraggly miscreant we usually see him as. We don't see his hair bleed red with anger when he goes into a berserk rage when rescuing Nanrovah's daughter. We don't see Blushweaver's hair go white with terror when her throat was slit. We don't see Susebron's hair change when happy or passionate. We do see Denth's hair run a large range of colors from brown to red to yellow to white as he loses control while dying. That color change directly tied to emotional state, not self-perception, is the defining characteristic of the Royal Locks. As seen with Vivenna and Siri, that color change can be controlled so long as the individual retains control. If all Returned had the Royal Locks, I would expect to see color changes any time a Returned loses control, which I don't.

Edit:

Actually, the inciting incident for Warbreaker is the contract that required Idris to send a daughter to be married to the God-King because the Royal Locks are the mark of legitimacy of the Idrian claim on the throne of Hallendren. Susebron, God-King of Hallendren and no other Returned in the Court of Gods had the Royal Locks to make a more legitimate claim on the throne.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Duxredux
added thought

[The Sibling she/her]

I always thought that the two sibling pairs were just raised together, like they Returned and then lived together long enough that their relationships were similar to sibling relationships.

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth he/him]

Okay. But I don't really understand why it would be so hard for them to find out they were siblings.

Do we know that all of them were raised in the cult of the returned? Or that they were given over to them immediately? I mean. even if me and my brother both died at the same time and returned without our memories. The fact that we are brothers would be one of the first things to come up.

We would presumably be in the precence of people who knew us. Or at least be contacted by our family. The few people we would have met and interacted with in the first few moments of our new lives would overlap significantly. And besides. We look alike.

And maybe someone just told them. The cult of the returned the five sholars knew does not seem to function like the court of gods. The retruned we see are not scolars or anything. They are basically just displayfigures.

So why do we assume that it was forbidden to tell them who they were?

[alder24]

36 minutes ago, Shaukan-son-Hasweth said:

Okay. But I don't really understand why it would be so hard for them to find out they were siblings.

Do we know that all of them were raised in the cult of the returned? Or that they were given over to them immediately? I mean. even if me and my brother both died at the same time and returned without our memories. The fact that we are brothers would be one of the first things to come up.

We would presumably be in the precence of people who knew us. Or at least be contacted by our family. The few people we would have met and interacted with in the first few moments of our new lives would overlap significantly. And besides. We look alike.

And maybe someone just told them. The cult of the returned the five sholars knew does not seem to function like the court of gods. The retruned we see are not scolars or anything. They are basically just displayfigures.

So why do we assume that it was forbidden to tell them who they were?

We don't know most of that. Different cultures have different approaches, for example Returned in Idris just spend a week with their family, but in Hallandren they’ve already practiced the Cult of Returned, which was more or less the same as we see during Warbreakers - Vasher was taken care by them, given name and Breaths, and treated like a god, but nobody said anything about his past. We don't know the origins of other Five Scholars, they might have come from different lands with different traditions, that's true. But if they came from Hallandren, then they wouldn’t know who they were before their Return.

But I think the bigger problem is that there were 2 sets of siblings that both Returned more or less in the same timeframe - and that's statistically unlikely to happen. Why?

[Duxredux he/him]

On 10/19/2023 at 7:37 AM, alder24 said:

But I think the bigger problem is that there were 2 sets of siblings that both Returned more or less in the same timeframe - and that's statistically unlikely to happen. Why?

Perhaps they were working on the same project or something similarly significant that would allow Endowment to raise them as Returned? It seems statistically unlikely, but to me it seems similar to how the majority of Brandon's writing group ended up getting careers in the writing industry and many of them now work at Dragonsteel. They broke out as writers together and encouraged each other to succeed. In the case of the Returned, it's not that being associated with each other (being in the writing group) makes them more likely to Return, it's that the heroic or noble deeds that they performed in life (becoming accomplished authors and editors by supporting each other) made them more likely to Return.

For example if both Arsteel and Yesteel were in the military, spurred each other to greater accomplishments and died heroically in the same battle, then it may not be surprising that they both Returned.

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Perhaps they were working on the same project or something similarly significant that would allow Endowment to raise them as Returned? It seems statistically unlikely, but to me it seems similar to how the majority of Brandon's writing group ended up getting careers in the writing industry and many of them now work at Dragonsteel. They broke out as writers together and encouraged each other to succeed. In the case of the Returned, it's not that being associated with each other (being in the writing group) makes them more likely to Return, it's that the heroic or noble deeds that they performed in life (becoming accomplished authors and editors by supporting each other) made them more likely to Return.

For example if both Arsteel and Yesteel were in the military, spurred each other to greater accomplishments and died heroically in the same battle, then it may not be surprising that they both Returned.

What heroic or noble deeds did a baby born dead do to deserve a Return? Brandon said that Endowment is a bit erratic when it comes to Returned. It's also a human interpretation of reasons for Returned to return, not the real reason - we don't know why Endowment chooses people to Return. For me this is not convincing. 

Spoiler

Enfeathered

Assuming that the events of the first Mistborn book took place on Nalthis instead, and especially considering the circumstances of Kelsier's passing and the events afterwards, would he have Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a very interesting question. Endowment can be somewhat...erratic. I don't know, honestly. I'd have to think about it.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 6, 2015)

 

[Duxredux he/him]

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

What heroic or noble deeds did a baby born dead do to deserve a Return? Brandon said that Endowment is a bit erratic when it comes to Returned. It's also a human interpretation of reasons for Returned to return, not the real reason - we don't know why Endowment chooses people to Return. For me this is not convincing.

Weeeelll, there's the issue then. You're using statistics to judge the decisions of a being known to be erratic. If you're not looking at what the people have done previously, then look at the future-sight side and just assume that the Five Scholars were Returned to become the Five Scholars. The answer is going to be some combination of past data, future sight, and whatever Edgli feels like doing that day. Take your pick what you want to focus on.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Duxredux

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Weeeelll, there's the issue then. You're using statistics to judge the decisions of a being known to be erratic.

That's why I asked "why" as there is a being controlling Returning and she had some reasons to make both pairs of siblings into Returned. Statistically it doesn't make sense. So why did she choose them or why did they become Returned? Them being just noble and heroic before their death doesn't work for me - those people started Manywar, are responsible for countless deaths and creation of effective and terrifying weapons. Where is their nobility or heroism in those actions? On the other hand they all were scientists as Returned, and that's where I'm searching connections.

4 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

then look at the future-sight side and just assume that the Five Scholars were Returned to become the Five Scholars.

Not really because Vasher had no opportunity to accomplish what he Returned for:

Spoiler

Vetterlinj

Has Vasher accomplished what he Returned to do? If he has not, has he had the opportunity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, + not really.

RoW Release Party (Nov. 17, 2020)

Also Endowment is looking for certain things when choosing, but those aren't specific tasks for them to fulfill in the future, she isn't good at being consistent with it, and possibly isn't human. So why did she choose two pairs of siblings? Why unpredictable and inconsistent Shard chose 4 of them together to Return?

Spoiler

Trae

Previously, you've revealed that the mechanism that determines the Returned on Nalthis is a decision of a sapient entity... Is the determination by which the entity that selects the recipient of a Divine Breath to come back as a Returned predicated on that recipient fulfilling some purpose in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

...Basically they are asking... "Why does the entity that picks who Returns, why did they pick who they did?" And, your question kind of implies there's, like, specific tasks to fulfill. I'm gonna say, there aren't specifics, but there are certain things this entity is looking for--

Trae

In the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There are certain things that they are looking for. Now, sometimes-- let's just say this entity is not necessarily the most consistent of entities in the cosmere when it comes to making decisions like this. But there are certain things they are looking for.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Trae Cooper

In the past we deeply discussed the mechanism with which Breaths are decided to be doled out or endowed on Nalthis. And you said that there is an intellect that is doling them out, but that their intentions or that their goals are difficult to predict or nonstandard. And my question is: are they nonstandard because the base Vessel behind them does not have, at its core, a standard human psychology? 

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! Good question. Excellent question. RAFO, I like the way you're theorizing. I have said before, that there are multiple nonhuman Vessels in the Cosmere. So, your theorizing perhaps is going to bear fruit. 

Did someone say "chulls"? No, it's not the chulls. There are no chulls that are holding Shards in the Cosmere. 

Footnote: The questioner is referring to this WoB.
JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

 

[Duxredux he/him]

@alder24, try this. You're the CEO of a massive global company with a reach into nearly every aspect in life. The applicants to your company all have the prerequisite of being dead. You as the CEO are the only one who can do any of the hiring process. How do you decide who to hire and which application to reject? Presumably sometimes you hire someone just because you need the position filled and they were the only one qualified to do it. Sometimes you need people to work together on a team and by the very nature of you hiring them they'll end up associated with one another. Maybe someone reaaaally wanted to go and say bye to their family briefly. Maybe there's a special project you want someone to work on and you need a very specific skill set (and maybe you pull some strings so people end up dead and you can hire them, who knows). Maybe someone wants the job for a company benefit (i.e. heal their sister) and are willing to do some work for you in a temporary capacity. Sometimes you hire someone and then they quit and walk away (Vasher), but you don't mind because they still did the work you needed them to while they were in your company.

This could be totally inaccurate when viewed through the eyes of a Shard and there could be deeper Realmatic workings at play, but this also may not be a bad representation of what the kind of decisions Edgli is currently making. It could be anything from needing a turnover for the God King and the setup for the God Kings to regain control of Hallendren in the hands of Susebron. It could be that Edgli engineered the Manywar to inspire the creation of Nightblood but intended Vasher to stop the war so that Nightblood wouldn't take out the entire continent. There's a lot of possible reasons, but I don't know how far we can go without simply trying to guess at the overarching motives of a Shard with future sight.