5th ideal and Yumi

[Moiraine]

Hi! I have not seen this discussed elsewhere, but it seems to me that in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter we see what happens to a spren when their knight radiant swears the 5th ideal (because this kind of behaviour is not possible for Syl yet unless it is so in SA5).

Edited November 15, 2024 by Moiraine

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Moiraine said:

Hi! I have not seen this discussed elsewhere, but it seems to me that in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter we see what happens to a spren when their knight radiant swears the 5th ideal (because this kind of behaviour is not possible for Syl yet unless it is so in SA5).

Hello, welcome to the Shard. This topic should be in the Cosmere section because it's about two different book series. I'll ask mods to move it there.

What do you mean by this? You mean her body? Her body isn't real. Hoid made a Lightweaving for Design and attached her to it. Moreover, Hoid did suggest that giving spren an actual body ended to be a very bad idea. Yumi ch 5:

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It wasn’t an actual body—we all kind of learned our lesson on that—but rather a complicated wireframe Lightweaving with force projections attached directly to her cognitive element as it manifested in the physical realm. But as I was getting pretty good at the technical side of all this, you can pretend it functioned the same as flesh and blood.

 

If you mean how she behaves, then yes. The higher the Oath, the more sapient and intelligent spren become. We saw this happening to Syl, to Pattern and even to the Stormfather. They can probably even grow beyond who they were without the bond as the Stormfather now is capable of understanding why Radiants or Heralds abandoned their Oaths, when before he could only hate them for this. OB ch 38:

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“It is not so bad as I feared,” she [Navani] said. “The Heralds, they were honorable. Perhaps not as divine, but I may even like them more, to know they were once just normal men and women.”
THEY WERE BROKEN PEOPLE, the Stormfather said. BUT I CAN START TO FORGIVE THEM, AND THEIR SHATTERED OATHS. IT MAKES … SENSE TO ME NOW AS IT NEVER DID BEFORE. He sounded surprised.

OB ch 113:

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Regardless, I … understand now as I never did before. The ancient Radiants didn’t abandon their oaths out of pettiness. They tried to protect the world. I blame them for their weakness, their broken oaths. But I also understand. You have cursed me, human, with this capacity.

[Smye]

@alder24 - I read @Moiraine's post as less about Design and more about 

Spoiler

Yumi herself, who 'came back' with a body after her death. Though our understanding of just how alike spren and cognitive shadows really are has a lot of filling int to do.

 

Edited November 15, 2024 by Smye

[alder24]

5 hours ago, Smye said:

@alder24 - I read @Moiraine's post as less about Design and more about 

  Hide contents

Yumi herself, who 'came back' with a body after her death. Though our understanding of just how alike spren and cognitive shadows really are has a lot of filling int to do.

 

Yumi spoilers:

Spoiler

Hmm, maybe? But I'm not convinced. Design still doesn't have a body and you can't convince me that Hoid after hundreds of years still hasn't sworn the 5th Ideal. Yumi isn't just a Cognitive Shadow, she's a Nightmare too - a Shadow stripped out of identity, existing in a world with no Shardic overview, which makes them very susceptible to perception. What basically happened is that Yumi and Nikaro believed she's real and she formed herself a body out of investiture. 

But we do know from the example of a certain Scadrian that the lack of the body means no Connection to the Physical Realm. Maybe if there is a strong enough Connection to PR, a Cognitive Shadow can just manifest a body? However, spren are already doing it - a Shardblades is a physical body of a spren. So once again, I don't think they could do, but it might be possible.

Spoiler

ArgentSun

The way Painter transforms nightmares into other things is reminiscent of the way spren are affected by perception - only much more extreme. Is perception (and the way the world is set up) the only important factor here, or is Painter using Investiture too somehow?

Brandon Sanderson

What's going on here is not Painter using Investiture really. It's the fact that the nightmares have less control over them from another source. Spren have an oversight from Honor, Cultivation, and Odium, and this is kind of leaving them less at the whims of other people's perception. The nightmares do not have that. I'm not going to say they don't have it at all, but Painter is not using Investiture, but the nightmares are specifically more susceptible to what's going on. So for instance, a good way to answer this is if he went and did this for a spren he would not have the same level of power.

Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream (March 22, 2022)

 

 

[Moiraine]

Thank you for your input and sorry if I posted this in a wrong thread (I debated between the two, and I chose badly).

Spoiler

I meant about Design’s interaction with the physical world. I am rereading RoW and seeing how much difficulty Syl has with moving even light physical objects when Kal has sworn the third ideal, while Design can take care of a noodle shop and actually have a life while Hoid is a statue. Also I agree with @alder24 that it makes sense that Hoid must by then have sworn the 5th ideal. 

 

Edited November 17, 2024 by Moiraine

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

Thank you for your input and sorry if I posted this in a wrong thread (I debated between the two, and I chose badly).

  Hide contents

I meant about Design’s interaction with the physical world. I am rereading RoW and seeing how much difficulty Syl has with moving even light physical objects when Kal has sworn the third ideal, while Design can take care of a noodle shop and actually have a life while Hoid is a statue. Also I agree with @alder24 that it makes sense that Hoid must by then have sworn the 5th ideal. 

 

The difference is that Syl doesn't have a real, physical body. She was pulled into the Physical Realm by her bond with Kaladin, but she still doesn't have her own body, except for when she forms a Shardblade. Hoid made a body (not a real one) for Design so she can interact with the Physical Realm. This is not something 5th Ideal grants, this is a complex Lightweaving with the use of Connection to attach Design Cognitive aspect to it. 

[Moiraine]

Ok, I thought that simply having a body would not imply physical strength, interaction with objects and independence of action, but I guess it is supposed to be explained by “pretending it functions the same as flesh as blood”. I thought it was related to the ideals because we see that with every ideal spoken Syl gets more color, more strength, more presence in the physical world…