Dragon's aging

[Doomsday565]

I was re reading isle of emberdark and realized that something didn't make sense from what's been implied about investecher is that if you have enough you won't age(im not 100% sure of this but remember seeing WOB on other form post that made this seem to be the case) which brings up the question how the hell can dragons age as they are by far some of the most highly invested beings in the cosmere probably only less invested then the shards themselves. So how come they aren't ageless and though they live a remarkably long 20,000 year that's far from truly ageless. And it's implied that they die of old age around 20,000 years old.

The only thing I can think to explain this is that beings like the returned and any one at the 5th hightning aren't actually ageless and whould die if they managed to live 20,000 years 

I guess 20,000 years could also be the point when dragons get so old they essentially decide to stop living though I feel like this doesn't make much sense.

[Trusk'our he/him]

9 minutes ago, Doomsday565 said:

I was re reading isle of emberdark and realized that something didn't make sense from what's been implied about investecher is that if you have enough you won't age(im not 100% sure of this but remember seeing WOB on other form post that made this seem to be the case) which brings up the question how the hell can dragons age as they are by far some of the most highly invested beings in the cosmere probably only less invested then the shards themselves. So how come they aren't ageless and though they live a remarkably long 20,000 year that's far from truly ageless. And it's implied that they die of old age around 20,000 years old.

The only thing I can think to explain this is that beings like the returned and any one at the 5th hightning aren't actually ageless and whould die if they managed to live 20,000 years 

I guess 20,000 years could also be the point when dragons get so old they essentially decide to stop living though I feel like this doesn't make much sense.

If I were to guess, it's one of two reasons:

1. Perhaps dragons are deliberately designed to age and die, and such a process is deeply ingrained in their Spiritweb, much like with humans. However, since they're naturally so Invested, it could be that there is no "extra" Investiture sufficient to override this natural death- their own handwritten fate is too powerful for whatever extra free-floating Investiture they may draw from the SR to truly change. 

2. More interesting to me, I think the type of Investiture you hold determines what passive changes it makes to oneself. Endowment's Investiture may make you ageless with relatively little effort, but something like Ruin's- or, perhaps a dragon's- may not do so well.

[Treamayne]

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5 hours ago, Doomsday565 said:

I was re reading isle of emberdark and realized that something didn't make sense from what's been implied about investiture is that if you have enough you won't age (I'm not 100% sure of this but remember seeing WOB on other form post that made this seem to be the case) which brings up the question how the hell can dragons age as they are by far some of the most highly invested beings in the cosmere probably only less invested then the shards themselves. So how come they aren't ageless and though they live a remarkably long 20,000 year that's far from truly ageless. And it's implied that they die of old age around 20,000 years old.

The only thing I can think to explain this is that beings like the returned and any one at the 5th hightning aren't actually ageless and whould die if they managed to live 20,000 years 

I guess 20,000 years could also be the point when dragons get so old they essentially decide to stop living though I feel like this doesn't make much sense.

Yes, Dragons are "'Ageless" and, as @Trusk'our said, most forms of investiture (but not all) insufficient quantity will convey this benefit (Breaths and Dor are the two we know) and there are othe rmethods of Agelessness and/or Immortality (see WoB). The thing to keep in mind is that, while the body may not continue to age, the Soul still does age, and the accumultated weight of Memories can have some very bad effects. (Stormlight Archive: that is one factor in the madness of the Heralds)

Because they are shapeshifters, when a Dragon in human form appears old-aged; it is because they want to appear old (e. g. Foil did not appear old in IED). It is implied that should Dragons live long enough, they choose to go to the Spirit Shores (where dead dragons rest) - not because their bodies have fialed due to age. However we won't get confirmation of that until Dragonsteel (or a WoB - but Brandon RAFOs those questions). 

 

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

Anything you can tell us about Frost?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you want to know about Frost?

Questioner

Everything.

Brandon Sanderson

Then no. I'm not going to tell you everything about Frost. He's still alive.

Questioner

He's immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. He can be killed, he's just functionally immortal, he doesn't age.

Questioner

Has he always been able to take the form of that-- *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He was born as one.

Questioner

Born as one.

Brandon Sanderson

It is a race.

Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

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.

<snip>

Edited for length and Relevance

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

Stormlight Archive Spoilers:

Spoiler

Questioner

Memory is tied to some level or portion of Spiritual Identity, or else Feruchemists would not be able to store it. So, Hoid lost memories at the end of Rhythm of War in his exchange with Odium. Would that mean part of his soul was stolen and then absorbed into Odium, and if so, what is stopping Odium from doing that with all of his enemies?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, what Odium split off is stuff that Hoid is storing in excess Investiture. (Basically, it was Breaths, in Hoid’s case.) And this sort of thing, where this extra memory… One of the reasons that Hoid is able to function better than, perhaps, some other very long-lived individuals is: he has found out how to keep some of this Identity in, shall we say, SD cards made of Investiture. Imagine that sort of thing. So what Odium was stealing from Hoid was straight out of an SD card. Which means that it’s not nearly as deeply ripping into someone’s soul, and it is also not nearly as noticeable.

But the other thing is: Hoid is directly in violation of certain agreements that have been made, which therefore exposes him to… He is lacking protections. As you’ll notice in the end of Book Three, where he’s like, “I need to be careful, because I am in violation.”

And so, there’s a couple things going on here. Number one, much more easy to access those memories. Number two, Hoid’s in direct violation and under no protections of any sorts of agreements and things like this.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

Hope that helps