Emperor's Soul: Devotion's Body

[Oudeis he/him]

Reading what you posted... I see someone ask, "Is it A or B?" and he answers "No." ... I'm confused.

 

I couldn't see much WoB on the others, do we get a definitive answer or do you reach your own conclusions?

[Kurkistan he/him]

Regarding the WoB: Yeah, sorry, perhaps I should have expanded on that a bit. As I said: "-Note: The tone of the answer is not ambiguous as to the "yes-ness" of this Forging being easy." This is one of those times where "humans talks stup" rears it's ugly head.

If you follow the "sourcing" down the rabbit hole, you'll find a Google Doc with a link to the sound and a transcript. On that transcript by the Forgery-related quote I noted "I'd just like to note that this was in a definite "no, it would be easy for her to do it" tone, not ambiguous as this could be read. Hurrah for speech!"

You can either take my word for it or listen yourself at ~9:30 in the first link.

--

So far as the "non-PS" points go, I had thought I was making it clear that they were in large part my own argumentation/speculation; an alternative to "Nothing. Makes. Sense!!!", at the very least.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Caladcholg he/him]

So by my understanding/argument the only thing the desk cares about is the plausibility that it could have been taken care of over the years, not the plausibility that it could have been taken care of over the years and then in that state have been stored in/moved to a dank now-cell.

 

P.S. I'll note that the inciting example for our discussion was the idea of whether a Forger who'd nearly lost a limb would be able to Forge it off—temporarily—with relative ease. Context would argue towards it being hard, non-context it being easy (unless I'm misremembering the details of how the discussion went—what, you think I have time to re-read all of that?! ). And it turns out it would be relatively easy.

So the limb only cares that its a limb, and not a part of the body?  So the chair's identity can be changed, but the identy of the room doesnt affect it?  Or the palace?  That seems to be faulty somehow

[Kurkistan he/him]

That's a "no" on the limb being treated as separate from the body, so far as I can tell.

Regarding the chair's identity in relation to the palace, recall that per WoR the chair's identity is in fact just one small part of the palace's identity. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and "this is a distinct thing that can be picked up and moved as a whole without becoming other than itself" seems a pretty good place to do it.

Recall also that much of this is in context of Forging. Perhaps the desk does place some importance on its surroundings--though I myself doubt it's that important--but how Forging treats it seems fairly cut and dry to me.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Caladcholg he/him]

Q: So then that's why at one point Shallan requires ten heartbeats and now she doesn't.
A: Right, just like — it's the exact same reason why Kaladin's forehead wounds don't heal, because he views himself as need— as having those, somewhere deep inside of him, and that can't heal until that goes away. And it's the same reason why in Warbreaker, when you bring something to life your intention, rather than really what you say, is what matters. It's all about perception.

 

On the Day 12 Chapter(id site a page number, but my nook seems to be numbered differently than any other manuscript ever), Shai explains to Gaotona that she couldnt have forged just the blocks of her cell wall, because the blocks now think of themselves as part of a whole wall.  If you extrapolate that upwards the wall would think of itself as a room.  The difference is that she doesnt percieve it that way. 

 

And dont ever apologize to me if you think Im wrong, its been known to happen

 

P.S.  Its also intimidating to even try to disagree with the alumni around here.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Caladcholg

[Argent he/him]

This is all not so much about the "brick thinking it's a part of a wall" - the cognitive realm is definitely influenced by the physical, by how humans perceive things, so a big of what makes a brick a "part of a wall" is that we, the people (hurr hurr), look at the whole thing and go "this is a wall" instead of "this is a collection of bricks that forms a wall". You can't extrapolate from walls to a room because the room is a far more complex construct and while we often overlook the individuality (if you will) of each brick, I at least can't look at a wall and not see it as a single entity. Not to mention that rooms usually have other things that comprise them, not just walls - and that different brick walls are much more similar than different rooms. 

 

This, if you are curious, actually touches on the idea of "increasing complexity" - more complex a system is (generally), the more advanced it is. I am waving my hands a bit here, but if you take any system (a collection of things), the more constituent elements it has, the higher its potential to be more complex (e.g. a blob of neurons is less complex than a fully functional brain, because - in part - of the connections missing from the blob; the blob needs to increase in complexity to reach brain-level). And, naturally, a more complex system would have a more sophisticated cognitive aspect, and so it would be more difficult to Forge. It's also probably why there is no such thing as atomspren or electronspren on Roshar - it's too basic of an element.

[Oudeis he/him]

Yet she has no problem forging one small section of the floor to make it give way, without leaving any telltale signs of the damage this should cause to the rest of the room. And apparently you can Forge just one of your limbs perfectly fine. So "it's a discrete object which can be picked up and moved" might be a guideline but is obviously not a rule.

 

Like I say, this is why I dislike plausibility. It's a writer's crutch. When it would be too simple for her to just change a few blocks, she's magically not allowed to change a few blocks. When the writing demands that she change a few planks on the floor, there's no difficulty changing a few planks on the floor. The rules shift depending on what the story "needs". It's like reading DC comics. In this issue, Superman doesn't flinch when you punch him. In this one, he gets knocked around a bit.

[Kurkistan he/him]

@Calad

 

Maaaaaybe you might be able to get away with saying that what constitutes a whole object in Forging rests on the Forger, but I doubt it. When Shai's talks about why she has to Forge the wall as a whole, she talks about how how at first it was just a collection of stones, but then as people began to perceive it as a wall it got to the point where it couldn't be treated as just a collection of objects. It's at that point where the whole thing needs to be Forged.

 

So maybe if everyone started thinking of the wall as primarily a part of the palace it would need to be Forged as such, but as it is it seems to be perceived primarily as a wall.

 

Myself, I'd wager that objects all have a basic "this is what I'm part of at the most basic level" setting: the stones of the wall think they're part of the wall first and foremost, then secondarily (through the wall) part of the palace... while the wall thinks of itself as a wall first and foremost, then only secondarily as part of the larger building. Like how a person will perceive himself as himself first and foremost, and only secondarily as part of some larger group.

 

P.S. Fear is good.   ( )

 

@Outis

 

Alternate (and true, so far as my reading of the book goes) interpretation: She Forged the entire floor such that one patch of it had rotted through from water damage, just like she'd been hoping to Forge the entire wall such that part of it would be weak enough for her to get through it.

-I say "picked up and moved as a whole" in a somewhat misleading fashion, I suppose, as I don't meant that it needs to be practicable (or even possible, if an object is structurally dependent on some containing environment) to actually move it around. Just that it's seen as a whole; perhaps a good metric would be whether you'd expect the whole thing to be affected by a single instinctual soulcasting.

 

And nobody (except maybe Calad when he misread what I said) is claiming that you'd Forge just the one arm. So far as I know, you'd Forge yourself such that you didn't have the arm.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis he/him]

Eeeeeeeeh.... Mebbe, but I'd need to re read that scene. The water damage was first mentioned in relation to the wall, yes? And in the fight, Shai circles the bed, so it's not against the wall. So... She forged the whole floor so that damage from the wall rotted one patch of floor clean through, leaving the rest without any visible trace? Or the whole floor was damaged and 90% was fixed like new but they decided to leave one patch as a rotted hole.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Hm, looks like I forgot a level of removal for the floor damage. It was water damage that did it, but only indirectly.
 

Zu barely had time to shout as the bed broke completely away, crashing into the pit she’d opened in the floor below. The water damage to her room—the mildew she’d smelled when first entering—had been key. By reports, the wooden beams above would have rotted and the ceiling would have fallen in if they hadn’t located the leak as quickly as they had. A simple Forgery, very plausible, made it so that the floor had fallen in.

 

So in fact she Forged the floor such that it was as if the ceiling above it had collapsed due to water damage, with the falling ceiling happening to punch a hole in that particular area.

 

P.S. Though there might be a typo (not my fault, the book's) lurking in their with the switch between the ceiling and the floor being what falls in. If it is a typo, then the meaning is ambiguous and we're either supposed to think that it was the supports below the now-holed floor that rotted away or we're supposed to think that it was the supports above it that indirectly caused the damage with their collapse. Either way it seems a fairly solidly "Forge the whole floor" situation.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis he/him]

When I re-read the book, I'll make note of that first scene (I think it was during the mural) when they first discuss the water damage; that might lend some context. For now I'm leaving that whole ambiguous situation to the side.

 

Let me make it clear that I'm sorta venting at this point. I love Mr. Sanderson's work, all of it. I'm currently reading a series, a very good one, with an absolutely preposterous and fluid system of magic, and I'm fine with that because I expect less of the author. She writes great cinematic scenes and unforgettable dialogue, and very realistic characters, and I read her for that. Forgery is still worlds beyond her magic. I just personally see it as below Mr. Sanderson's typical standards.If anyone feels like I'm just being a jerk, please let me know and I'll back out of this thread (or, y'know, try to drag it back onto its original topic). I just sorta need to get these things off my chest.

 

On that note, onto the Forger's Challenge Wall.

 

It's flat-out stated that the wall sees itself as one specific wall, that you cannot Forge just a block or two of it. It's also stated that the wall was made for the express purpose of stymying a Forger, and to that end was made with 44 different kinds of rock.

 

We're supposed to believe that anyone would find it plausible that a stonemason was given express, specific instructions to build a wall for the purpose of stymying a Forger out of "these 44 different kinds of stone" and that at no point in this process did any of the people who professionally work with stone say to anyone else, "Hey, there's been a mistake, 44 different quarries all accidentally sent us the wrong kind of stone, every single one sent us the exact kind of stone, and it's a terrible stone for making a cell out of", they just went ahead and built the cell. And then it's been sitting there, presumably for years at a minimum, with no guards or anyone commenting on the fact that this was nothing at all like the cell they had ordered built.

 

The only reason I've seen anyone give to explain how this could possibly be is that the individual blocks only care about their own personal plausibility, without context (which is... mind-boggling to me, since plausibility is all about context. The water damage comes up time and again, and that's context. Context matters... unless it gets in the way of the story). Regardless, even if we accept that each block changes independently of the others... we're now supposed to accept that a single Forgery relies upon the principle that the entire wall is one thing, not a collection of stones, while at the same time relying on the principle that each independent block is totally distinct without any context from the blocks around it.

 

And yes, I know that the Forgery is never actually performed, and it's a desperate test Shai is doing to stave off fear and depression. However, in two different situations, admittedly one of less than perfect canonicity, two different people (both at least semi-knowledgeable about Forging) are calling her out on all the flaws with her plan, and neither of them mention "also the single task you're trying to perform is simply inherently impossible." This would be like if my cousin said he was buying two horses, each taller than the other, and I tried to dissuade him by talking about how difficult it will be find a stable that matched the color of their manes, without commenting on the fact that he just told me a sentence that does not literally make any degree of sense.

 

As a reader, I look at any magic system with such fluid and inconsistent rules and think that at some point someone will be stuck with a problem they should just Forge away but don't because of some reason made up on the spot, or they'll be in some sticky situation that we, the readers, think they shouldn't be able to just Forge away, but they will because the rules will just change again.

 

As someone hoping that the entire Cosmere eventually get turned into an RPG, I cringe when I think of a Forger on my team arguing from a position of vested interest that anything should be Forgeable, able to cherry-pick specific examples (which are later contradicted in the same book) to support their position.

[Kurkistan he/him]

On that note, onto the Forger's Challenge Wall.

 

It's flat-out stated that the wall sees itself as one specific wall, that you cannot Forge just a block or two of it. It's also stated that the wall was made for the express purpose of stymying a Forger, and to that end was made with 44 different kinds of rock.

 

We're supposed to believe that anyone would find it plausible that a stonemason was given express, specific instructions to build a wall for the purpose of stymying a Forger out of "these 44 different kinds of stone" and that at no point in this process did any of the people who professionally work with stone say to anyone else, "Hey, there's been a mistake, 44 different quarries all accidentally sent us the wrong kind of stone, every single one sent us the exact kind of stone, and it's a terrible stone for making a cell out of", they just went ahead and built the cell. And then it's been sitting there, presumably for years at a minimum, with no guards or anyone commenting on the fact that this was nothing at all like the cell they had ordered built.

You just keep using the same examples as I did on the other thread, don't you?

 

But where I see them as reason to believe that Forgery works in a very specific way, here it seems you see them as reason to believe that Forgery doesn't work in any particular way at all.

 

So the conclusion I draw from this situation is that everything is decided on a much less teleological level than you talk about. The wall does not consider whether it's fulfilling its purpose (containing Forgers) or the desires of its creators. It's simply there, and knows that it's various component parts came from certain locations through certain processes. So if you can convince it that stone 32 could have come from a mile or two to the East of where it actually came from, then you've got your Forgery. The line, so far as I can see it, is that you can argue that a stone wall was made of different types of stone, but not that it was made out of pudding. That a chain was made poorly or with poor materials, but not with soap.

 

I'll note as well that, lack of historical research aside, this is acknowledged in-book as an incredibly difficult Forgery. Telos aside, I can't imagine it's that easy to Forge a wall made of 42 distinct components into being made of 42 differently-sourced components. 

 

And if you want to get into the realm of "it's been sitting there for years with no one noticing", look no farther then stamps used to rot doors or beds. The wall sitting there like that is not the only "implausible" Forgery we see (as you've said yourself, the state of Shai's room when she's done with it is pretty "implausible" itself). So I would conclude from that that Forgeries simply don't factor the "would someone have noticed this at some point?" question into their calculations of "plausibility".

 

The only reason I've seen anyone give to explain how this could possibly be is that the individual blocks only care about their own personal plausibility, without context (which is... mind-boggling to me, since plausibility is all about context. The water damage comes up time and again, and that's context. Context matters... unless it gets in the way of the story). Regardless, even if we accept that each block changes independently of the others... we're now supposed to accept that a single Forgery relies upon the principle that the entire wall is one thing, not a collection of stones, while at the same time relying on the principle that each independent block is totally distinct without any context from the blocks around it.

Well now you have an alternative reason to work with, or at least a more nuanced version of it. I wouldn't say that the individual blocks only care about themselves, though, so much as perhaps the wall cares about the plausibility of its various blocks being different.

 

I think you may be placing the wrong kind of importance on the water damage. Perhaps some re-reading is in order, but my understanding was that the water damage has all and only been used as an explaining factor in causing something to "happen" in the past. "The water damage in the past made a big-huge hole in the floor". Nothing much more nuanced than that kind of thing. It's not like it's used to say "and then no one noticed the whole because they were driven away by the smell of mildew". In fact, I can't recall a Forgery that needed this "maintenance" (term from the old thread) built into it, that had this need to explain how people didn't notice/correct something over the course of time when an object would have been altered if its past was different.

 

I also don't find that much absurdity in this "the wall is one thing, but each block has an independent context" paradigm. I'm not so sure if it's  how it works, but I see no problem just now with the idea of the wall as a singular entity having memory/concern for the source of its component parts.

 

As a reader, I look at any magic system with such fluid and inconsistent rules [...]

 

To reiterate, I think you're jumping the gun a bit here; you seem to be approaching this from the angle of "Forgery has fluid and inconsistent rules, and here's the examples..." where I'd prefer to give Brandon the benefit of the doubt and try to interpret how the system as we see it must behave in order for it to be consistent.

[Oudeis he/him]

We're sorta going about this backwards. I'm pointing out inconsistencies, and you keep responding. I had perhaps been led astray by Mr. Sanderson's use of the term plausible, leading me to believe it meant what the word actually means in real life. Rather than give me reasons why my examples don't betray the premise, why don't we start from the other way around. Why don't you just tell me, as though you were talking to someone who had never read the book, the rules of Forgery from the ground up.

 

I like to think that, if anything, I first went into this book giving Mr. Sanderson the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the system would be to the high standards I've come to expect from him, rather than from the perspective of deliberately trying to find flaws with the system. I still think that the underlying concept, of something being "believeable" or not, is an inherently flawed system for reasons I've stated before, beyond which I think the system as we see it constantly breaks its own amorphous rules.

 

In short, I very, very much hope that in future books, we learn that everything everyone thinks they know about Forgery proves to be completely wrong and that it actually adheres to some entirely new system of principles, much like how people thought the Inquisitors were just an odd way to do allomancy and we've since learned they're actually hemalurgic constructs.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Ooklalhoo'Elin

[Kurkistan he/him]

I wouldn't say that I'm trying to find things which are wrong. It could as easily be said you're trying to find ways to justify it.

Yes, of course. I am trying (and succeeding, I'd say, but here we disagree) to find ways to justify it. I walk in assuming it makes sense on a fundamental level and then building theories as to how it goes about doing so based on that foundation. If these theories are impossible to construct or back-breakingly convoluted then perhaps I will simply throw up my hands and admit defeat, but otherwise I'll assume there's some consistent set of rules that governs Forgery, just as has been the case with all of Brandon's other magics.

 

Correct me if I'm mistaken. As far as I can tell, every time I point out an inconsistency, your answer is typically (though not always) that it simply doesn't have to be plausible by that metric. Or that one. Or that, or that, or that one. By which metric of plausibility, then, must a thing be accurate? I had perhaps been led astray by Mr. Sanderson's use of the term plausible, leading me to believe it meant what the word actually means in real life. Rather than give me reason after reason why my expectations are too high, why don't we start from the other way around. Why don't you just tell me, as though you were talking to someone who had never read the book, the rules of Forgery from the ground up.

 

The definition of plausible is "seeming reasonable or probable". Our issue here is what exactly is making this judgement and what it is judging based upon, which is the question I've been attempting to address.

 

At this point I must simply direct you towards the rather extensive body of thought I've already written on the topic, rather than attempting to rehash it all here. Like it or not this thread is probably at least somewhat accurate as to what judges plausibility. As to the scale on which it's judged I'll simply redirect you to the discussion Thought and I had awhile back.

 

EDIT: Clarified that what the judging is based upon is at question as well.

 

EDIT 2: Aaand you ninja-edited large sections of your post. That gets awkward.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis he/him]

EDIT 2: Aaand you ninja-edited large sections of your post. That gets awkward.

 

Yes, sorry. I wrote it, then re-read it, then posted it, then re-read it again and I finally realized I was being needlessly confrontational, so I tried to remove the aggressive parts and leave the meat of my argument. Sorry.

 

In my defense, I finished my last edit six minutes after I first posted. You're fast.

 

In my constant attempts to understand why we keep talking around each other, I've come up with a new theory in my head as to what, exactly, you are saying that I'm missing. Please tell me if this is an accurate reflection of what you're saying or not.

 

It seems to me that you're saying, "The fundamentals and principles of Forgery have not yet been explained to us. Whatever the system is, it will make sense, and we've seen a hint or two as to what lies beneath the surface, but we simply have to admit that we have no idea, and trust that whatever is eventually revealed will be a good system, like most of the others Mr. Sanderson has written."

 

If so... I could get my head around that idea. As I implied, it would require that we basically accept that what Shai and Gaotana tell us is mostly mistaken.

 

What I am saying, which I don't seem to be adequately expressing, is that... when I say I think you're just justifying (and frankly I don't have your confidence that you've done it well), I can't tell if you think I accept that you've got a solid premise which just needs a little bit of work around the edges. As near as I can see, there isn't a premise. The central idea of "I can make it so that any plausible thing happens" not only fails to make sense as a concept, but is frequently contradicted by various examples from the book. It's so full of holes that however you spackle it, you're basically defending a premise made of spackle by this point.

 

If you could, please, I'm serious when I ask this. Pretend I've never read the book and you're explaining the magic system to me. (See? I even said magic system instead of arcana. Olive branch.) Tell me what the premise is, how the magic works and what its limits are. What fundamentals and principles does it adhere to.

 

Or, if you truly do not understand why I'm asking you to do this, don't bother, because if you don't understand what I'm asking, then your answer isn't going to be the answer that convinces me you're right.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Oudeis

[Kurkistan he/him]

Yes, sorry. I wrote it, then re-read it, then posted it, then re-read it again and I finally realized I was being needlessly confrontational, so I tried to remove the aggressive parts and leave the meat of my argument. Sorry.

 

In my defense, I finished my last edit six minutes after I first posted. You're fast.

 

In my constant attempts to understand why we keep talking around each other, I've come up with a new theory in my head as to what, exactly, you are saying that I'm missing. Please tell me if this is an accurate reflection of what you're saying or not.

 

It seems to me that you're saying, "The fundamentals and principles of Forgery have not yet been explained to us. Whatever the system is, it will make sense, and we've seen a hint or two as to what lies beneath the surface, but we simply have to admit that we have no idea, and trust that whatever is eventually revealed will be a good system, like most of the others Mr. Sanderson has written."

 

If so... I could get my head around that idea. As I implied, it would require that we basically accept that what Shai and Gerond (is that his name?) tell us is mostly mistaken.

 

What I am saying, which I don't seem to be adequately expressing, is that... when I say I think you're just justifying (and frankly I don't have your confidence that you've done it well), I can't tell if you think I accept that you've got a solid premise which just needs a little bit of work around the edges. As near as I can see, there isn't a premise. The central idea of "I can make it so that any plausible thing happens" not only fails to make sense as a concept, but is frequently contradicted by various examples from the book. It's so full of holes that however you spackle it, you're basically defending a premise made of spackle by this point.

 

If you could, please, I'm serious when I ask this. Pretend I've never read the book and you're explaining the magic system to me. (See? I even said magic system instead of arcana. Olive branch.) Tell me what the premise is, how the magic works and what its limits are. What fundamentals and principles does it adhere to.

 

Or, if you truly do not understand why I'm asking you to do this, don't bother, because if you don't understand what I'm asking, then your answer isn't going to be the answer that convinces me you're right.

To clarify, I am fairly confident in the "we know (or can reasonably extrapolate) most of it, just not the fringes" stance. No common ground there, then.

 

The premise at its most basic so far as I see it is "I can make it so that any object becomes, in and of itself, as it would be if its past had been different." It then expands into nuances of application and effect, but that's the core. I don't really see any problem with that as a concept, or any contradiction in-text.

 

Beyond that... honestly I don't know what new I can say. I suppose I could make an attempt to compress everything down as you ask, but so far as I can tell I've said all I need to say just about as completely as I can say it, either on this thread or on one of the others I linked to. There's not much point in just rehashing it.

 

And so another argument ends with a confused whimper.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Oudeis he/him]

Necro'ing this thread, AND dragging it back to it's OP, ignoring pages and pages of going off-topic.

 

Citing this specific post, although several others I've noticed in the AMA obliquely bring up the point I'm referencing.

 

Not all forgeries require the same levels of energy. To do something implausible, or to mimic another arcana, or to grant sentience, requires "more power" than most forgers have access to. If more power were simply a matter of adding modifiers like AonDor or more intricate carving, that wouldn't be something they don't have access to, it's just a skill they haven't learned yet. I don't know how to use a lathe, but it wouldn't be accurate to say I "don't have access to" the ability to lathe, it's just something I could but haven't yet learned.

 

So. What could possibly make one Forgery "more powerful" than another? The material. Everyone jumping on what they referred to as the "hate-train" all said that since it's not flat-out told to us that Soulstone provides something, we must assume it's not. Here, we have an example of what Soulstone might provide. Perhaps a stamp carved in Soulstone has the ability to channel more Dor. Maybe this is why all of her implausible Forgeries, like the mural Gaotana himself insists should never have worked, do; she's using raw power to break the rules, the way a heroine did in another book.