Returning

[Block he/him]

In Warbreaker they say that the Returned come back from the dead, but how does that exactly work? We see that highly invested beings can sometimes be visited before they die, is that what is happening?

[alder24]

3 hours ago, Block said:

In Warbreaker they say that the Returned come back from the dead, but how does that exactly work? We see that highly invested beings can sometimes be visited before they die, is that what is happening?

It's hard to explain without going into general Cosmere spoilers, but in the world they don't know it yet. What we know is that the voice Lightsong heard after his death is someone who gives some people a chance to Return. This is done by investing/giving those people a powerful Divine Breath (one Breath worth 2500 Breaths), which staples their soul back to their bodies, bringing them back to life.

Warbreaker ch 57:

Quote

But above it all, he remembered standing on the other side of a brilliant, colorful wave of light, looking down at the world from the other side. And seeing everything he loved dissolve into the destruction of war. A war greater than any the world had known, a war more deadly—even—than the Manywar.
He remembered the other side. And he remembered a voice, calm and comforting, offering him an opportunity.
To Return.

 

Very slight Cosmere spoilers about the mechanic of Returning:

Spoiler

The planet where Warbreaker happens is called Nalthis, it is inhabited by the Shard of Endowment. She is the voice that Lightsong heard before his Return, she chooses who will Return, giving them opportunity and showing them the future. We don't know why she chooses those which she chooses, but she is looking for something in people before choosing them.

Returned is a Cognitive Shadow. A Cognitive Shadow is a person who died, but whose soul was invested with a lot of investiture before their soul passed to the Beyond, creating a kind of copy/fossil of their soul. Because their soul is now so invested, it isn't pulled into the Beyond, unlike any other regular soul after death. They become very invested and in the case of Returned, they are invested and stampled back to their bodies with a Divine Breath, which was given to them by Endowment, that also keeps their body alive (which is also the reason why they have to feed it with regular Breaths every week). That's how it works.

WoBs:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

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. [...] 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)

 

Spoiler

Argent

When you say that the Returned are Cognitive Shadows, are they shadows of the people they were pre-death? In other words, is Lightsong Llarimar's Cognitive Shadow stapled to his body with a Divine Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are. (The evidence in the books is Lightsong obtaining some of the memories his pre-death soul had.)

Footnote: It’s likely that “Llarimar” is supposed to be “Stennimar”
Stormlight Three Update #6 (Jan. 20, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Trae Cooper

On Nalthis is the-- We know that Endowment makes Splinters to create divine Breaths to bring Returned.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

Trae Cooper

The process with which those Returns are chosen, is that deliberate from Endowment or is there a process that was put into place to select?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. *laughter*

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Trae

On the planet of Nalthis, the Warbreaker planet, is the method with which people are chosen as Returned an autonomous system that is not governed by intelligent entity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question. *laughter* I was hoping for one of those.

DragonCon 2016 (Sept. 3, 2016)

 

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

Haverworthy

Just had a question, when a Returned consumes a Breath, is it a property of their body that does so or the Divine Breath itself? It's been contentious in the community. If it's specifically just their body and a hemalurgist were to spike a Divine Breath as indicated was possible here*, would the hemalurgist not need to consume a weekly breath?

*https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364/#e11389

Brandon Sanderson

That's a very interesting question. The thing that requires the Returned to continue gaining investiture is their nature as cognitive shadows--they are dead, and in this case, need a power source to continue persisting in the physical realm. The Divine Breath is part of this. Imagine the Divine Breath as the thing that Infuses their soul, making it persist initially, and then and sticks it to the body. So if you stole it, but you yourself were not in need of being kept alive, I would say that you wouldn't need to be fed a new breath each week to maintain the Divine Breath.

General Reddit 2020 (Oct. 4, 2020)

 

 

Edited March 8 by alder24