8 years later

[Rorzikel]

@king of nowhere's post has an answer, and it is a new soul after the original went to the Beyond.

Quote

not talking about the book, but the real thing.

The emperor got wounded, was left in semi vegetative state. then a stamp was made to fix him. I wonder what happened to his actual soul, congitively and spiritually. Did the emepror die, his soul going to beyond, and the stamp animated the body with investiture? Or maybe the emperor died and the stamp created a new soul for him, so that in the beyond there will be two emperors in the end? or perhaps the soul of the emperor was still with the body, and the stamp repaired the damage to it?

Questioner

At the very end [of the Emperor’s Soul], the Ashravan construct, the simulacrum that’s been made, is convincing. Is it a real boy?

Brandon Sanderson

So, by cosmere terms, what has happened here is that it is a new individual who has the memories that Shai has put into his head. She has actually constructed something that is using some of the matter and stuff behind (it can access some of the matter). Is it a real boy? It is a construct that has enough Investiture to be self-aware. So it is a person, I would say yes.

Is it a real boy? Is Syl a real girl? If you say yes to Syl being a real girl, then yes, it’s a real boy. It’s definitely a person, does that make sense? But is it actually him? No. Not by basically anyone’s definitions. If you go to the religious definitions, they’re gonna be like, “No, that soul passed on.” If you go to the arcanist definitions, they’re gonna be like, “This isn’t quite a Cognitive Shadow, but it’s something analogous to it.” You’ve taken some Investiture that’s become self-aware and can access the memories, ‘cause it’s got… It can actually access memories that she didn’t put in there, because it has access to the brain, that was still functional. But see, it gets a little sticky here. She basically made them a better version, but it also has autonomy. It is a person.

Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 (Dec. 5, 2025)