Through The Living Grub He/Him Posted August 27, 2024 Posted August 27, 2024 We have a few examples of Immortals that I remember, Heralds, Fused, Hoid, and Thaidakar(Kelsier?) Hoid stores his memories in his Breaths, which Thaidakar wants to know about to stay sane, and the millennia that the Fused and Heralds have lived through are ripping them apart. I made a post talking about crystal structures and how they hold Light, while maybe being a bit far fetched but I don't know if we know exactly how it works. Another note is I imagine the Spirit Web as a cluster of dots connected with lines, like a crystal, and thought "Hey, what if a similar rule applies here?" Could those dots (like DNA for your soul) hold memories? Some Investiture helps hold memories, like Breaths, and Hemalurgy adds parts of souls to yours, adding those dots, making room for more memories. Side note about Breaths, I remember someone mentioning how breaths are mostly in the PR, so maybe that's why Odium could mess with Hoid's memories, because they aren't fully a part of his Spirit Web. Also, here is the aforementioned thread on Gemhearts and Polestones:
Trusk'our he/him Posted August 27, 2024 Posted August 27, 2024 1 hour ago, Xiahida said: We have a few examples of Immortals that I remember, Heralds, Fused, Hoid, and Thaidakar(Kelsier?) Hoid stores his memories in his Breaths, which Thaidakar wants to know about to stay sane, and the millennia that the Fused and Heralds have lived through are ripping them apart. I made a post talking about crystal structures and how they hold Light, while maybe being a bit far fetched but I don't know if we know exactly how it works. Another note is I imagine the Spirit Web as a cluster of dots connected with lines, like a crystal, and thought "Hey, what if a similar rule applies here?" Could those dots (like DNA for your soul) hold memories? Some Investiture helps hold memories, like Breaths, and Hemalurgy adds parts of souls to yours, adding those dots, making room for more memories. Possibly, though it's worth noting that your Spiritual Aspect doesn't generally store memories, or Hemalurgy could steal it: Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/66-firefight-atlanta-signing/#e3165 ccstat Vasher uses Awakening in a very interesting way, off-stage, to modify the memories of the girl he rescues. Can Hemalurgy do the same thing if used carefully? Brandon Sanderson *long pause* No, I don't really think that it can. Nobody has asked that before, but just looking at the way the magics work, I don't think that is something that Hemalurgy is capable of doing. However, highly Invested beings have their three Aspects more closely tied together, so they might have something like this going on. It's also worth noting that the more Invested you are, the better you can remember: Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/479-dragonsteel-mini-con-2021/#e15183 Questioner In your books, you have some pretty powerful healing magics, and we've also seen some characters sustain some pretty traumatic brain injuries. The human brain stores information as electrical connections, right? So if you blew a part of it out, you could grow it all back, but those connections wouldn't really be there. Have you considered that? Brandon Sanderson I have. This is why you will see memory... So, Cognitive Shadows maintain a person's memory. And your Cognitive aspect, your Invested self, maintains your memory in the cosmere. This is why you will also see people's memory being edited by accessing some of the Investiture. You'll see this in Warbreaker; you saw this in the end of Rhythm of War. Your Cognitive self, your Invested self, keeps a duplicate of all your memories. So this allows very significant trauma to the Physical sense; as long as the Cognitive sense is still attached to that body, those memories will be reimplanted in the Physical self, or will be accessed. And this was just necessary for me to even have things like what happened with Raoden in the beginning of Elantris, and for ghosts to exist, and things like that. It actually works pretty well, because it lets me use it to edit people's memories by accessing their Investiture. And one of the other things that's going on here is: if you have more Investiture, you can remember more, and better. But then that's dangerous, because it's a lot easier to access that Investiture. And it's a lot harder to notice when it has been edited. Hmm. This is also likely how Shardic Vessel can remember bits of knowledge held by their predecessors, such as with Todium; those memories imprint more and more on the Investiture, which in turn makes it easier to hold onto. In any case, I think it's unlikely that the Spiritweb is a good place to sequester memories, if it's possible at all.
Treamayne Posted August 28, 2024 Posted August 28, 2024 (edited) 2 hours ago, Xiahida said: We have a few examples of Immortals that I remember, Heralds, Fused, Hoid, and Thaidakar(Kelsier?) Hoid stores his memories in his Breaths, which Thaidakar wants to know about to stay sane, and the millennia that the Fused and Heralds have lived through are ripping them apart. If it helps you work on your theory, Brandon has enumerated the various known (so far) methods of "immortality" in the Cosmere. WoB: Spoiler Iceblade44 So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal? Brandon Sanderson There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal. Faera Implying that some are actually immortal? Brandon Sanderson Depends on which definition of immortal you mean. Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.) Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.) Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.) Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.) Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.) Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.) Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.) And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in. Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity. Shagomir Heals from wounds, but still ages. Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold? Brandon Sanderson Yes, you are correct. Shagomir As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age? This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind. ...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old? Brandon Sanderson Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors. Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016) Hope that helps Edited August 28, 2024 by Treamayne SPAG
Through The Living Grub He/Him Posted August 28, 2024 Author Posted August 28, 2024 13 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Possibly, though it's worth noting that your Spiritual Aspect doesn't generally store memories, or Hemalurgy could steal it: It does seem you can't steal specific memories from people, so does H-Copper just let you remember things easier? 12 hours ago, Treamayne said: Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.) Did the Lord Ruler get around the insanity of Immortality by using copperminds? It seems Investiture can be used to mimic or make molds of your memories, copperminds convert memories to Investiture and back to memories when you tap them. I keep trying to find how you can use the SR, because everyone seems to remark how access to it grants advantages, but I guess we know too little
Trusk'our he/him Posted August 28, 2024 Posted August 28, 2024 8 minutes ago, Xiahida said: It does seem you can't steal specific memories from people, so does H-Copper just let you remember things easier? Yes; we see TenSoon's Blessing of Presence sharpen his memory, so we have an example of this. Hemalurgy can't directly steal from either the Physical or Cognitive Realms, but it can affect those Aspects as a byproduct of directly affecting the Spiritual Aspect. 9 minutes ago, Xiahida said: Did the Lord Ruler get around the insanity of Immortality by using copperminds? He may have reduced it, but it seems he wasn't actually totally sane by the end: Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/482-youtube-spoiler-stream-3/#e15290 EAgamezz What did The Lord Ruler do all day? He was totally bored right? What would he have done to get his hands on some Cadmium? Brandon Sanderson He was bored, but he was also—he was not mentally all completely... sane? I guess? That's a wrong way to say it. He was having trouble simply continuing to exist because of pressures and forces upon him in a cosmere sort of way. Much as the same sort of thing is happening to the Heralds and has happened to the Fused. He was not, let's say, in a stable sort of immortality like Hoid has found. Or I should say, his is unlike what Hoid has found. 18 minutes ago, Xiahida said: It seems Investiture can be used to mimic or make molds of your memories, copperminds convert memories to Investiture and back to memories when you tap them. I keep trying to find how you can use the SR, because everyone seems to remark how access to it grants advantages, but I guess we know too little I mean, it doesn't have a spacial limitation that the Physical Realm does, and it has weird temporal ramifications as well. However, it probably can't do everything, though if we're looking towards memory being held as a totally spiritual concept, there are beings in the Cosmere other than Shards that are 100% spiritual, though they're not common. Rithmatist spoilers: Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/117-boskone-54/#e1619 Ironeyes So, uh, we know that the charcoal creatures are afraid of coins. Brandon Sanderson Yes. Ironeyes So are the white chalk creatures, which I think are called Shadowblazes… Brandon Sanderson Yes. Ironeyes Are they also afraid of coins? Brandon Sanderson Are they also afraid of coins? To a much lesser extent. I can give you guys some backstory on this. What’s going on here is that the place these things come from linear structure and things like this are frightening to them, like they come from a non-linear location. Time does not move linearly where they come from. When they come into this world, structure and linear time progression, is bizarre to them. And there are some who have embraced it, and been like, “This is cool and different!” and there are others that are still terrified of it, as a representation of what is so alien from the world they came from. So that’s why we’ve got this whole clocks, and even structure, as a metaphor for something that is terrifying to them. Rithmatist started in the Cosmere. The magic shares a lot of its roots, then, in Cosmere magic worldbuilding. I split if off because I wrote the whole first book with it being in the Cosmere. I split it off, saying “No, I don’t want Earth to be in the Cosmere.” Even an alternate version of Earth. It just raises too many questions about the nature of Earth being involved in this. I want the Cosmere to be its own dwarf galaxy of which not even a dimension of Earth is involved. And when I made that decision, I broke Rithmatist off. That’s the only one I had written that didn’t belong, but it still has, so, it means that the magic is going to feel very familiar to you, uh, it’s going to feel like the magic of the Cosmere. And Cosmere magic is based around, usually, human beings making a symbiotic bond with an entity made out of the magic. This is, kind of, one of the origins of Cosmere magic, and Rithmatist has, therefore, its roots in that. I’ve done some things since I’ve split it off in the outlines to distinguish it, but it’s going to have the same roots. So you’ll notice some things like that, that are similar. Questioner Before you split The Rithmatist from the Cosmere, did the Shadowblazes come from the Cognitive realm? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Yeah, the Shadowblazes were in the Cognitive realm, they’re--you know, well, they’re more Spiritual Realm. They were Spiritual Realm, sorry. They were Spiritual realm entities that got pulled into the Physical realm. And the Spiritual realm has no time, it exists independent of time and location, all times and all places are one, and so, when something that’s from the Spiritual Realm got pulled into the Physical realm, it was like, “This is so weird!” And there are very few things in the Cosmere that exist only on the Spiritual Realm, which was a really fun thing I could do with this book, was show that. Cause most things exist on all three Realms. Um, so, yeah. So, yeah, I mean if you’ve got, if you’re a Cosmere theologian--not theologian, magic, what do you call it? They call that, I have a word for it in-world. But anyway, if you’re a realmatic theorist, you can kind of pick out how the Spiritual Realm beings were related, originally, to the Realmatic theory. 1
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