Spren Crossing the Realms

[Shaggai]

Moogle, a few posts back I proposed a theory that the Shardblades might be phasing between the Physical and Spiritual rather than the Physical and Cognitive. I proposed that the Shardblade are formed out the spiritual essence of the spren. Do you think there is any merit in that theory? There is not much evidence for it and we know little of the Spiritual realm. A relevant point might be that Shardblade has been described to severe the soul and it becomes fuzzy while passing through a living body. Perhaps we can make something out of that.

Can it be that shardblade acts differently on animate and inanimate objects because inanimate objects don't have a soul?

But inanimate objects do have souls on Roshar. Perhaps it's similar to the killing of specific limbs. The Blade destroys the soul of that particular section. When this happens to inanimate objects, it destroys only the soul of the specific location being cut, and therefore cuts cleanly through.

[Twenty@20 he/him]

But inanimate objects do have souls on Roshar. Perhaps it's similar to the killing of specific limbs. The Blade destroys the soul of that particular section. When this happens to inanimate objects, it destroys only the soul of the specific location being cut, and therefore cuts cleanly through.

Do you have any quote or WoB regarding inanimate objects having soul or a Spiritual realm aspect? Just asking so that I can make up my mind on the issue.

When shardblades pass through a limb then also they don't cut clean like they do when cutting inanimate objects. Kaladin's arm didn't get cut off by the blade. Only the soul of that arm was severed.

[Shaggai]

Do you have any quote or WoB regarding inanimate objects having soul or a Spiritual realm aspect? Just asking so that I can make up my mind on the issue.

When shardblades pass through a limb then also they don't cut clean like they do when cutting inanimate objects. Kaladin's arm didn't get cut off by the blade. Only the soul of that arm was severed.

Well, they have a Cognitive aspect which appears to have some Spiritual properties (most notably Identity. "I am a stick"). Inanimate objects on other Shardworlds might not have strong Spiritual aspects, but Roshar has spren which almost certainly do.

[Twenty@20 he/him]

Well, they have a Cognitive aspect which appears to have some Spiritual properties (most notably Identity. "I am a stick"). Inanimate objects on other Shardworlds might not have strong Spiritual aspects, but Roshar has spren which almost certainly do.

I decided to mine The Emperor's Soul for a quote on Spiritual Realm. This is what I got.

The Spiritual Realm contains an object's soul-its essence-as well as the ways it is connected to the things and people around it.

So inanimate objects seem to have a soul in the cosmere. Doubt cleared.

[Moogle]

Moogle, a few posts back I proposed a theory that the Shardblades might be phasing between the Physical and Spiritual rather than the Physical and Cognitive. I proposed that the Shardblade are formed out the spiritual essence of the spren. Do you think there is any merit in that theory? There is not much evidence for it and we know little of the Spiritual realm. A relevant point might be that Shardblade has been described to severe the soul and it becomes fuzzy while passing through a living body. Perhaps we can make something out of that.

Can it be that shardblade acts differently on animate and inanimate objects because inanimate objects don't have a soul?

 

Regarding Shardblade fuzzing:

Shardblades act differently on living things likely due to to the presence of Investiture, ie. their soul. Objects certainly seem to have a soul, but living things are different for some reason. To quote Syl:

“So they’re all spren,” he said. “Shardblades.”

Syl grew solemn.

“Dead spren,” Kaladin added.

“Dead,” Syl agreed. “Then they live again a little when someone summons them, syncing a heartbeat to their essence.”

“How can something be ‘a little’ alive?”

“We’re spren,” Syl said. “We’re forces. You can’t kill us completely. Just . . . sort of.”

“That’s perfectly clear.”

“It’s perfectly clear to us,” Syl said. “You’re the strange ones. Break a rock, and it’s still there . Break a spren, and she’s still there. Sort of. Break a person, and something leaves. Something changes. What’s left is just meat. You’re weird.”

 

Keep in mind that you can use Hemalurgy to spike an animal and steal its traits, but you can't use Hemalurgy to spike an object.

 

You can probably spike a plant, based on this. I'll add it to the questions list.

 

So I think it's pretty clear that Shardblades cut an object's soul in two, such that now there are two objects after a Shardblade has finished cutting. For a living thing, however, this just cut the spiritweb and damaged it. The loss of something Spiritual in the limb drains its color (in a flashback to how Nightblood consumes something's soul and leaves people it kills grey). Why it doesn't outright lop the limb off is a question I have many explanations for, but I have no way of knowing how Brandon justified it. A lot of the Cosmere's logic is fuzzy.

 

Regarding Shardblade composition:

While I hate these types of questions (since we don't understand what it means to be more in the Spiritual or whatever, so we're basically asking Brandons to explain if "spren are floo", or "Splinters are asik", which is no way to investigate a phenomneon), Splinters are composed of Cognitive and Spiritual and less Physical. WoB:

NewbSombrero ()

Are Splinters primarily Spiritual?

Brandon Sanderson

Less physical. More a blend of the other two.

(source)

 

Honorspren are Splinters, so likely all the Nahel spren are as well.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Thank you Twenty@20 for the quotes. Take an upvote.
 

Regarding the idea of things not existing in the Three Realms, it seems readily apparent that most things do. The boat in the Physical has a presence in the Cognitive as a bead, and likely has something in the Spiritual. Humans have a spiritweb (Spiritual), physical body, and a mind (Cognitive).
 
However, this doesn't mean things can't be "concentrated" in one or more Realms relative to the others. There's plenty of WoBs discussing whether things are "primarily" of the Spiritual/Cognitive/whatever.
 
Speculation:
 
Spren, it seems, are Cognitive entities and so exist primarily in the Cognitive. But, when they form a human, they can focus themselves more in the Physical at the expense of their presence in the Cognitive. They use the human to 'pull' themselves to the Physical, and at the same time the human gets pulled more towards the Cognitive (explaining Jasnah/Shallan, and also Kaladin's brief view of Shadesmar).
 
(Sidenote: Interestingly, this suggests there's some sort of "conservation of Realms", such that to bring something from the Physical to the Cognitive, you have to bring something from the Cognitive to the Physical. But there's plenty of evidence against this. The sort of exchange of Realms between humans and spren remains interesting, however. Perhaps this exchange of Realms only happens when things from different Realms bond each other.)
 
This explains Pattern's appearance in Shadesmar:
It was Pattern . He stood tall and willowy, but slightly indistinct, translucent. The complex pattern of his head, with its sharp lines and impossible geometries, seemed to have no eyes. He stood with hands behind his back, wearing a robe that seemed too stiff to be cloth.
 
He is "slightly indistinct, translucent", likely because he's shifted more to the Physical at the cost of his presence in the Cognitive.

 
 Perhaps the Realm interactions are bond specific. The Nahel bond, then, might follow a Conservation of Realms theory, while the bond between a Selish individual and their Seon, whatever it is called, might not. It is interesting that such a "law" would not be constant, though, if it exists, as we know Brandon enjoys employing science in his systems.
 

As a Radiant bonds more tightly to their spren with each Ideal, the spren is drawn more and more into the Physical. This is probably why Syl, after Kaladin speaks the First Ideal, actually feels like she has a Physical presence when she sits on his shoulder in WoR but didn't before.
 
This also explains Syl's ability to find things quickly: she's still able to see into the Cognitive, and can quickly search out special plants and the like by looking quickly through the beads.
 
Tying this up with Shardblades, when a Radiant says enough Ideals, their spren is drawn powerfully enough into the Physical that it can manifest entirely Physically. At this point, when the Radiant breaks their vows, the spren remains as a Shardblade forever, though if a Radiant breaks their bond before, the spren is instead vaulted back to Shadesmar.
 
I don't think calling this "projecting" is quite the right word, but it definitely seems to be on the right track.

I think this is a good theory. Given that the Nahel bond strengthens as more Oaths are stated, it would follow that the spren is being pulled more to the Physical Realm with each Oath. This also explains why Syl did not permanently die after Kaladin broke his oaths prior to saying his third Oath. I think you're on to something Moogle...
 
This then begs the question, though, of why all dead spren are Shardblades specifically. There must have been some form of specialization within the Knights Radiant. I could understand a lack of archers, given how incredibly powerful they all were, but there are now Shardspears, or more importantly no Shardshields. Perhaps the spren must exert extra effort to take a form other than the blade, and as such, upon death, they revert to their default form.
 

Tying this up with Shardblades, I don't know if a Shardblade when it is turned to mist is shifted more to the Cognitive. I think it's a fair guess to say that it is. What this means is that a Shardbearer wielding a dead spren must elevate the spren more to the Physical - if a law of conservation of Realms exists, this means that anyone who bonds a Shardblade is giving up their Cognitive presence to lift their dead spren Shardblade more to the Cognitive, turning them to mist, and bringing themselves more fully into the Physical. I'm not sure what effects this has on a human, but it seems a decent guess based on Sadeas that this makes you less self-aware and more animalistic. Sadeas went right off the deep end the instant he bonded Dalinar's Shardblade.
 
But perhaps there is no such law. Perhaps there's a point where there's feedback when you shift Realms such that you are 'trapped' when you go too far into one. Balancing between the Three Realms would be very unstable in such a case, because there'd be a propensity to want to shift you to one Realm more fully. This would explain why dead spren don't return to the Cognitive and instead stay as swords, though I think it makes more sense that they instead permanently took something from their dead bondees that gave them more of a Physical presence.

I think that this "coincidence" of a relationship so similar to one of the real world's scientific laws is too much of a coincidence to not have some grain of truth, given Brandon's habit of being very science conscious. The relationship might be more convoluted than we're thinking, though. The Rosharan-spren relationship, on the surface, seems to purely be an exchange between the Cognitive and Physical Realms, but it might include some Spiritual trade-off as well. As the Spiritual Realm seems invisible in the regular workings of the Cosmere, we have yet to see how the Nahel bond "messes with" the Spiritual Realm.