hoser he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Yes, I know that Kurkistan figured this all out and posted the solution years ago. But I still have questions, and I'm not smart enough to understand what he wrote anyway. Shallan pinched the thin charcoal pencil and drew a series of straight lines radiating from a sphere on the horizon.That sphere wasn’t quite the sun, nor was it one of the moons. 1. What was the not quite the sun, not quite the moon thing in the sky that Shallan drew? Heaven? The sun for real? She couldn’t see anything beyond them, only felt herself descending through this churning, suffocating, clattering mass. She was going to die. Leaving work unfinished, leaving her family unprotected! She would never know the answers. No. Jasnah flailed in the darkness, beads rolling across her skin, getting into her clothing, working their way into her nose as she tried to swim. It was no use. She had no buoyancy in this mess. She raised a hand before her mouth and tried to make a pocket of air to use for breathing, and managed to gasp in a small breath. But the beads rolled around her hand, forcing between her fingers. She sank, more slowly now, as through a viscous liquid. Each bead that touched her gave a faint impression of something. A door. A table. A shoe. The beads found their way into her mouth. They seemed to move on their own. They would choke her, destroy her. ... She floundered, searching desperately as her air ran out. She needed something she could use, something that would help, some way to survive! Desperate, she swept her arms wide to touch as many beads as she could. ... She opened her mouth with a groan, beads falling out to clack against the floor. Then she coughed, drawing in sweet breaths, sweat trickling down the sides of her face and collecting on her chin. 2. How can there be air in the cognitive realm? I could see that your body in the physical realm needs to breathe, but why is air not a bead in the cognitive realm? If we think about the air in the cognitive realm, do we create a cognitive realm of the first cognitive realm? Is there air in the cognitive realm's cognitive realm? 3. Physical location correspond to locations in the cognitive realm. Jasnah can grab the palace bead when she is in the palace. But the beads go flying around. In the physical realm the relative locations of the objects that correspond can't be changing similarly. Do the locations not have to correspond? Do the beads find their way back to where they're supposed to be? Are there spren janitors that put them back where they belong? But the Palace bead should encompass countless other beads to match up. When it is a little bead itself, how can it be in the corresponding location? Have some beads gotten put in remote places relative to their physical neighbors? Help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) 1,2: No idea. I can guess, but nothing comes to mind at the moment. 3. I'd guess that they tend to gravitate to their appropriate locations, but not be locked down to them in the moment to moment. So far as correspondence to physical locations goes, an interesting possibility is that the locations of the beads don't actually correspond to physical locations, but instead only to each other. So beads whose objects belong in the palace will cluster together near the palace bead, which will in turn tend to be located near the beads of nearby buildings, and those beads to city blocks, and those to... and so on. This ties up well with the way that Shadesmar is known to expand/contract based on how much stuff is going on in any location, like how space is Shadesmar-less. -- So far as the "palace bead" not incorporating all of the others, recall that cognitive aspects look to work on the level of "objects," as we saw in TES. "The palace" is a singular object in its own right which happens to physically contain several other quite distinct objects. --- As I have not actually thought/written on this before, that I can recall, what theory of mine are you referring to? Edited January 10, 2014 by Kurkistan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Rooster he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) 1. I think the Not Quite the Moon Not Quite the Sun (NQMNQS from here on out) is the collective Rosharan idea of celestial bodies. Its the stars and sun and moons condensed and purified into one Cognitive concept. Unreachable yet ever-present, It fits in the poetic nature of Shadesmar. Edited January 10, 2014 by AG Rooster 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marianmi Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 3) You have an object containing another object in the physical. In Shadesmar, you have what each object represents. So each possible combination will be another bead. So you have a bead for a chair, a bead for a room containing the chair, a bead for the building containing the room, etc. I wonder if you have something like a bead for a naked human body, beads for clothes, bead for clothed human body (I am thinking about Jasnah and the thief). When you soulcast, you don't change one bead, but all the beads connected to that state - so soulcasting "difficulty" increases exponential, not linear. 2) Maybe air is not an object? Maybe there are some "constants" in all realms - air being one of them? Or maybe it's a mental thing - she is expecting to run out of air, so she is. 1) Sun's, moon's representation is Shadesmar... given that you have no objects there, it should be ... not quite what it is in the physical. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 For 2., my guess would be that Jasnah needs to breath in Shadesmar because she thinks that she needs to breath. She perceives that she is breathing air because she expects that there is air there to breath. Think Neo and Morpheus in the Matrix when Morpheus says something to the effect of, 'Do you think that that is air that you are breathing?'. Since Shadesmar is the cognitive realm what you think should be the conditions likely affects the conditions. Consider how Jasnah begins to use the beads when she does little more than intend to use them. They form according to her will rather than her actions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoser he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Thanks for the quick response! 1... 3. I'd guess that they tend to gravitate to their appropriate locations, but not be locked down to them in the moment to moment. ... So far as the "palace bead" not incorporating all of the others, recall that cognitive aspects look to work on the level of "objects," as we saw in TES. "The palace" is a singular object in its own, which happens to physically contain several other quite distinct objects. So the palace bead is in there, as is the hallway bead. When Jasnah gives a particular bead investiture(?), it imposes it's model on the beads around, which temporarily adopt a projection of it's form. If she had grabbed the hallway bead, the palace bead might have been incorporated in a model of the hallway. I assume that all her gems are dun at the end of her adventure. As I have not actually thought/written on this before, that I can recall, what theory of mine are you referring to? No particular theory. I am just used to seeing you commenting on how your theories are vindicated. I tend to ignore the more abstract questions. This seemed like the sort of thing you might have already figured out given your understanding of Forms, spren and other things realmatic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 That sounds about right, by my thoughts. I haven't given as much thought as I should to the details of connections between "nested" objects, but the fact that you can change a wall in TES without worrying about changing the whole palace seems to indicate that kind of division/encapsulation. I think marianmi is on the right track there, though s/he might go a bit to far down the road to discreteness. Jasnah notes how all the Stormlight lamps in the hallway are dun when she gets back, so I'd imagine so as well. As to my theories: Ah. Sorry, it seems that I come across as a bit of a know-it-all . Thank you for your regard, but still I haven't tackled this particular problem as of yet. I have a vague intention to hold off on serious theorizing about WoR-related stuff until the book is out, if only to save myself from embarrassment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoser he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Thanks for the thoughtful answers! I don't know if the upvotes got recorded, as I got an error that I hadn't seen before: An error occurredThere was a problem storing your reputation vote. But you have upvotes somewhere in the cognitive realm. I think the Not Quite the Moon Not Quite the Sun (NQMNQS from here on out) is the collective Rosharan idea of celestial bodies. Its the stars and sun and moons condensed and purified into one Cognitive concept. Unreachable yet ever-present, It fits in the poetic nature of Shadesmar. Excellent! I never would have thought of that. 3) You have an object containing another object in the physical. In Shadesmar, you have what each object represents. So each possible combination will be another bead. So you have a bead for a chair, a bead for a room containing the chair, a bead for the building containing the room, etc. I wonder if you have something like a bead for a naked human body, beads for clothes, bead for clothed human body (I am thinking about Jasnah and the thief). When you soulcast, you don't change one bead, but all the beads connected to that state - so soulcasting "difficulty" increases exponential, not linear. 2) Maybe air is not an object? Maybe there are some "constants" in all realms - air being one of them? Or maybe it's a mental thing - she is expecting to run out of air, so she is. 1) Sun's, moon's representation is Shadesmar... given that you have no objects there, it should be ... not quite what it is in the physical. For 2., my guess would be that Jasnah needs to breath in Shadesmar because she thinks that she needs to breath. She perceives that she is breathing air because she expects that there is air there to breath. Think Neo and Morpheus in the Matrix when Morpheus says something to the effect of, 'Do you think that that is air that you are breathing?'. Since Shadesmar is the cognitive realm what you think should be the conditions likely affects the conditions. Consider how Jasnah begins to use the beads when she does little more than intend to use them. They form according to her will rather than her actions. So there is no air, she's not actually breathing, but she thinks she is because she thinks she has to? Did she will the palace to form or did she just empower it and it formed the only thing it knew how? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadewolf Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) I have a thought experiment. You're in a room, with a cup, and couple of other things. In shadesmar, there would be beads associated with everything that makes up the room, in the room and also the cup. Would moving the cup to another location in the room change the beads location in the shadesmar? Or would the bead update itself to account for the new location, but stay in the same spot in shadesmar. What if you moved the cup to a different room, would the bead then move. This kinda brings up surges. How do the surges relate to shadesmar? Shallan, changed the cup into blood in WoK, just by asking the bead representing the cup and providing it will stormlight. What if all the surges, worked in a similar way, all they were doing was asking the beads to change some property and this would then enforce a change in the real world. like the lashings, ask the beads of things to perceive gravity in a different way. Whatever skill Lift uses to change friction, is just having the beads change there coeffient dedicated to friction. Edited January 10, 2014 by shadewolf 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Did she will the palace to form or did she just empower it and it formed the only thing it knew how? Ah, but I think you are forgetting the bead-sword. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 The sword was already in the statue's hand, though she did make the statue move a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoser he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) That sounds about right, .. Jasnah notes how all the Stormlight lamps in the hallway are dun when she gets back, so I'd imagine so as well. As to my theories: Ah. Sorry, it seems that I come across as a bit of a know-it-all . Or that's the negative projection I leaked. I apologize. The hallway went dark when the spren projected her into Shadesmar, so I assume that the spren drained the stormlight to move her to Shadesmar. That might have implications ... Did Shallan's spren need stormlight in addition to a truth to project her to Shadesmar? Ah, but I think you are forgetting the bead-sword. Good point. She definitely willed that to move. And, double-checking, you are right in the case of the palace too. Thanks for your patience with my obtuseness. The palace itself. Frantic, Jasnah seized this sphere and forced her power into it. Her mind blurring, she gave this bead everything she had, and then commanded it to rise. I have a thought experiment. You're in a room, with a cup, and couple of other things. In shadesmar, there would be beads associated with everything that makes up the room, in the room and also the cup. Would moving the cup to another location in the room change the beads location in the shadesmar? Or would the bead update itself to account for the new location, but stay in the same spot in shadesmar. What if you moved the cup to a different room, would the bead then move. I'm at a loss myself. I was proud of my thought about spren janitors moving beads around, but it was not a serious suggestion. This kinda brings up surges. How do the surges relate to shadesmar? Shallan, changed the cup into blood in WoK, just by asking the bead representing the cup and providing it will stormlight. What if all the surges, worked in a similar way, all they were doing was asking the beads to change some property and this would then enforce a change in the real world. like the lashings, ask the beads of things to perceive gravity in a different way. Whatever skill Lift uses to change friction, is just having the beads change there coeffient dedicated to friction. Some things are spiritual, I think. Gravity might be a spiritual aspect, in which case one is changing that aspect of the object's soul. I have even less of an idea about what that means. Edited January 10, 2014 by hoser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marianmi Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 (edited) It would have been easier if we would have known what exactly, if at all, she soulcasted. I think she did not actually soulcasted, just visited shadesmar and spent some stormlight, without doing anything visible in the physical. I think you can move things around in shadesmar, and not have any real physical effect. I.e. it's just like you have an idea and it slips away for a while (a bead was moved at a distance great enough), then it comes back to you -- so the bead would move in shadesmar, but eventually come back by itself, being "attracted" to you. The beads commanded by Jasnah changed position and created stuff in shadesmar, but I guess the idea is to "tell" a bead to "become" something else, not to "stick" to another bead Hence the effects of her actions were only in Shadesmar. By spending a bit of stormlight, you can make yourself a platform of beads and not "drown". This does not have an effect in the physical, just something to help you out in Shadesmar. I think the more important question is -- where are the spren cities? In "empty" places from Shadesmar? Jasnah seems to have discussed a bit with the spren - and maybe not just with her slick guy with back sword. But for all her talk and research, I feel she is very inexperienced - she is still using the same technique learned in her first trip there... Maybe the spren have not been forthcoming AT ALL with her. I wonder if she knows how to Travel.... Edited January 10, 2014 by marianmi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 2. How can there be air in the cognitive realm? I could see that your body in the physical realm needs to breathe, but why is air not a bead in the cognitive realm? If we think about the air in the cognitive realm, do we create a cognitive realm of the first cognitive realm? Is there air in the cognitive realm's cognitive realm? How does it make sense for there to be a physical body in Shadesmar at all? Everything 'exists' simultaneously in all three realms, though most things only have a shadow in two, from my understanding. Jasnah Soulcasts people, so people must have beads in Shadesmar. Does Jasnah's bead suddenly form into her? Also, Jasnah is currently using a ton of Stormlight when she first goes to Shadesmar, so it's not like she's in danger of suffocating in the real world. Why suffocate in Shadesmar? Geranid asks a similar question, when she asks if anyone's ever eaten in Shadesmar. A possible answer is more along the lines that suffocation is just how Jasnah interprets what's happening. She doesn't have her actual physical body there (in whatever sense that her body doesn't exist in all three realms until she asks the spren to go to Shadesmar) - that much is shown whenever Shallan sees her Soulcast. This is at odds with how Shallan felt like she was still choking on beads when Jasnah returned her to the Physical on her second trip there with a dun sphere, though I suppose Shallan was never actually out of breath (and neither was Jasnah). Another possible clue is the spren. They came from the Cognitive, and we see Jasnah's spren look and act exactly the same in Shadesmar as it does in the Physical. Syl, too, is not bound by physical laws. Perhaps the laws that bind your main form continue to bind you if you project yourself into another Realm. Of course, the instant Jasnah begins to Soulcast, she, too, is not bound by physical laws - her hand sinks directly into the wall, which probably happens because she's halfway between the Cognitive and Physical and the rules of how you interact with the world start to change . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colby Jack he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 When I read Janash's explanation, the first thing that came to mind was a warped version of Imaginationland. Anyone care to bet who'll be the next Butters? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 When I read Janash's explanation, the first thing that came to mind was a warped version of Imaginationland. Anyone care to bet who'll be the next Butters? Heyyyy that totally fits in with my wild speculation on her using the Nexus of Imagination. Interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chlehrma Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I thought the not quite sun might have been the Shadesmar reflection of the Source, the place from which the high storms originate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arook he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Jasnah's had sinking in remindes me of how a soul stamp sinks in. I think when a person affects the cognitive aspect of some thing that the physical aspects are more fluid for a short time. Soulcasting has a lot of parallels to forging. Forging gets harder them more you try and change like why she couldn't just change the whole wall to mud. That's why individual rocks are easier to use to make food instead of just turning a hill into ham. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 An astute observation on the "sinking" phenomenon, Arook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I'm not so sure it's that the physical aspects of the Soulcasted object become temporarily fluid, it's that you cease to obey the rules of the Physical Realm and are touching the object's soul/Cognitive part directly. You sort of phase shift temporarily between the realms, perhaps? I wonder if you could use this to walk through walls? Jasnah sees her own hand sink into the wall before she ends up in Shadesmar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bremen Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I wonder if you could use this to walk through walls? Jasnah sees her own hand sink into the wall before she ends up in Shadesmar. We know you can use Shadesmar to travel between planets (just don't visit Sel as the Brandon constantly reminds us), walking through walls seems easy by comparison. Although an observer may not actually see you walk through the wall but rather your body jump from one side to the other as it updates to a new position as influenced by the cognitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arook he/him Posted January 10, 2014 Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Fluid may not be the best word to describe the action admittedly. As for passing through walls I don't know. I do wonder if you could get stuck in the wall if you ran out of storm light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnshard Posted January 12, 2014 Report Share Posted January 12, 2014 I actually think that the large sun/moon/thing was actually the planet in the Rosharan solar system. I think its name was Silence. The reason I think this is because the more concentrated thought is the greater Shadesmar is. The light is coming from thousands and thousands of people's thoughts emanating from another planet, creating the light source. Also this is not a strong theory more of a small possibility. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bremen Posted January 12, 2014 Report Share Posted January 12, 2014 That would make a lot of sense actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly he/him Posted January 12, 2014 Report Share Posted January 12, 2014 Though that seems odd, considering that you can presumably get to other systems by walking over the surface of Shadesmar... Though the topology of the place may be a little screwy, given that it's a different dimension, sort of. Maybe the "sun's" position in the sky is directly proportional to your distance from the points that its arc intersects the surface of Rosharian Shadesmar, so that if you go to those points, the topology just twists and sends you walking in a new direction, through the emptyness towards the new planet - these could be the Nexuses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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