Reversing Unmaking and Fused Restoration

[Duxredux he/him]

Raboniel proved that it is possible to forcibly overwrite the Light suffusing the soul of spren, namely the Sibling. She was able to infuse the Sibling with Voidlight in likely that would have resulted in Unmaking the Sibling. After Navani becomes Bondsmith, she uses the tone of Anti-Voidlight to flush the Sibling's system while pumping in Towerlight, reversing the Unmaking process.

So... why not use one or both of these techniques to change a Fused? A spren? An Unmade, like BAM? Leshwi talks about how her soul has been owned by Odium for too long, but is this completely irreversible? In essence, is it possible to perform an version of Unmaking but for Honor or Cultivation? Now they never figured this out before but then they didn't have Navani, her research on anti-tones, or Raboniel's demonstration on what could be done to a spren. Would a Fused converted to Honor function like a lite Herald?

Another angle of exploration if this is possible. You have the old rhythms heard by the Listeners contrasted by Odium's tones. If reversing Unmaking is possible, what would Honor's version of the Thrill look like? The other Unmade?

Thoughts? This could make for a lot of material for the back half.

[alder24]

23 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Raboniel proved that it is possible to forcibly overwrite the Light suffusing the soul of spren, namely the Sibling. She was able to infuse the Sibling with Voidlight in likely that would have resulted in Unmaking the Sibling. After Navani becomes Bondsmith, she uses the tone of Anti-Voidlight to flush the Sibling's system while pumping in Towerlight, reversing the Unmaking process.

So... why not use one or both of these techniques to change a Fused? A spren? An Unmade, like BAM? Leshwi talks about how her soul has been owned by Odium for too long, but is this completely irreversible? In essence, is it possible to perform an version of Unmaking but for Honor or Cultivation? Now they never figured this out before but then they didn't have Navani, her research on anti-tones, or Raboniel's demonstration on what could be done to a spren. Would a Fused converted to Honor function like a lite Herald?

Another angle of exploration if this is possible. You have the old rhythms heard by the Listeners contrasted by Odium's tones. If reversing Unmaking is possible, what would Honor's version of the Thrill look like? The other Unmade?

Thoughts? This could make for a lot of material for the back half.

Unmaking kills a spren. Remaking (?) would still kill an Unmade. 

Unmaking seems to be different from creating CS. During the proces of creating a CS, a soul is flushed with investiture which replaces a soul and a cognitive aspect of a person, leaving a kind of fossil behind. Some argue that the original soul still went to the Beyond and died, leaving a copy behind. But this CS is feeding on the power of the Shard (for stronger CS - RoW ch 15 or 16 with Vasher explaining things), and they are sustained by a Connection to PR or SR (RoW ch 92 epigraph). 

I don't think Unmaking is the same process that creates CS. Unmaking is more similar to Command Breaking. Unmaking seems like twisting and corrupting a soul until it no longer is the same, thus that entity is killed. Creating a CS just "copy" a soul with a lot of investiture. Therefore I don't think you can Remake a CS - this would simply kill them either entirely, with their soul slipping into the Beyond leaving nothing behind (just like what happened with Jez), or twisting their soul until it no longer is that person, replacing Connections that sustain them with new ones.

But an Unmade can definitely be Remade, which would still kill them, but a new entity would be born. This can be interesting for non-sapient Unmades (like Thrill - affecting people's loyalty if it would still function in the same way after Remaking with Honor's investiture), but I wouldn't do that to someone like Sja-Anat, who is her own person, in rebellion against Odium.

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how similar are the processes of Command-Breaking a Lifeless and Unmaking?

[...]

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

1. 7 they are similar

[...]

FanX 2022 (Sept. 22, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

I think there's a flaw in my understanding of Cognitive Shadows. I assume that... they would have more visibility into the Cognitive Realm, like a Herald would be able to see spren more easily, that kind of thing. Is that incorrect?

Brandon Sanderson

That is incorrect. A Cognitive Shadow simply means a copy of the Cognitive side made by a deep amount of Investiture. And everybody has a Cognitive side. Basically it's a fake soul. Or, fake is the wrong term. Fake is the wrong term. Even in-world they don't know if it's really them or not. It is Investiture has replaced the Investiture that is fleeing from them as they die, or enhancing it in some way to keep it around. So some Cognitive Shadows trapped on the Cognitive Realm are going to be-- have a lot of Cognitive-- I mean, they're there, right? But some Cognitive Shadows inhabiting a body in the same way that your mind inhabits your body, the way the cosmere works... So a Herald is going to feel like they are alive just like-- but their soul has been somehow transformed. It's not really transformed, it's been reproduced or copied by an injection of Investiture...

And I'll say for the purpose of the recordings, I haven't canonized any of that terminology that I just used about Cognitive Shadows. I'm just talking about it, I'm not necessarily saying that this is how you are supposed to refer to it. You can refer to it however you want. I've often used the metaphor of how fossils get made. When a fossil is made there is a pattern and it is slowly replaced with another substance that is stronger and more endurant, and has the shape of it, but is it still the bone? When you have a fossil bone is it the dinosaur bone? In most cases no, but yes. It's the ship of Theseus sort of thing again. Is this the bone or is it not? Is this the soul? Is this the person or is it not? That's the same sort of thing is happening with Cognitive Shadows. And it's happening on all three Realms to an extent, though of course the body is not. The body stays. It's happening on two Realms. It's happening Spiritually, mostly Cognitively.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)