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The Plot Makes No Sense


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So I was just re-reading Emperor's Soul when suddenly, a thought hit me. The entire premise of the book is that the emperor's brain was injured in an attack and healed. The twist is, he was essentially rendered a vegetable. Shai's job is to 

Spoiler

Use a forgery to re-write the emperor's personality to be normal again.

What I realized is that soulstamps just rewrite an object's history... so, why not just rewrite the emperor's history so that the arrow hit him in the shoulder, or didn't strike him stupid. Is there any real need to give him a new personality? Speaking of which, how does that work? My impression was that Shai's stamp was made to change the emperor's history to make his personality similar to his old, pre-injury one. But, why does she need to rewrite his entire history? His personality was fine up untill the brain injury, so I think it would just be easier to make the injury less severe, or hit somewhere else so the emperor's brain wasn't damaged. Did I read the entire plot wrong or does it just not make sense?

 

Edited by dragonshadowbob
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Either way, there would still be the need use an Essence Mark on the Emperor, because your suggestion still requires forgery of him. As such, there would still be the need to do all the research about him. Main reason I can think of is that people know that he was hit in the head, at least his rivals were. If he were to appear with no wound to the head and a wound to the shoulder instead, then they would know he was using an Essence Mark and it would probably be bad. This way, they don't know about the Essence Mark altogether. Need to give it a bit more thought. Good point though. 

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As @Spoolofwhool it will probably take the same effort to make the Essence mark with the "problem" of a Emperor new death if someone-something delete the Mark from him (or don't refresh it).

But indeed your is a good thought about another possible solution to the Emperor's situation

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Your point, while a good one, I think has some holes in it. 

8 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

If he were to appear with no wound to the head and a wound to the shoulder instead, then they would know he was using an Essence Mark and it would probably be bad. 

The Resealers could probably make the wound dissapear, after all, It wouldn't do to have the emperor have a massive scar on his head, so it wouldn't matter where it hit because the emperor would look the same regardless.

Also, my understanding was that Essence marks and indedeed, forgery it's self change the history of the object so that it becomes changed and altered. So, how could this be used to restore the emperor's personality? How would changing history in any way other than affecting where the arrow hit restore the emperor's personality? 

Also, while you probably would have to know a bit of the emperor's history to change where the arrow hit, I don't think that you would have to know the entire thing, you just have to know the history that you have to alter a bit. For example, when Shai changes the history of the wall so that an artist came and painted it, she didn't have to know the entire history of the wall, or even it's history at all. She just had to know that an artist could have been moved there and painted a mural.

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9 minutes ago, dragonshadowbob said:

Also, my understanding was that Essence marks and indedeed, forgery it's self change the history of the object so that it becomes changed and altered. So, how could this be used to restore the emperor's personality? How would changing history in any way other than affecting where the arrow hit restore the emperor's personality?

Forgery overwrites an object's spiritual component, and by extension its cognitive and physical components. The emperor's spiritual had been lost, so the point of the essence mark was to give him a new one which matched the original as much as possible.  

20 minutes ago, dragonshadowbob said:

Also, while you probably would have to know a bit of the emperor's history to change where the arrow hit, I don't think that you would have to know the entire thing, you just have to know the history that you have to alter a bit. For example, when Shai changes the history of the wall so that an artist came and painted it, she didn't have to know the entire history of the wall, or even it's history at all. She just had to know that an artist could have been moved there and painted a mural.

During the book it is mentioned fairly extensively that Shai needed to know an object's origin in order to create a soulstamp for it. She did have to write about the history of the wall from its construction, or a fairly accurate guess of its construction. All soulstamps needs to enumerate a close enough history of the object being stamped if the stamp is to hold. So yes, they would've needed all that research into making the essence mark regardless. And at that point, it would've probably been easier to just replicate what had been done instead of changing something significant like a wound.

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2 minutes ago, dragonshadowbob said:

Ok, but still, how would replicating what was done change the emperor's personality, he was still injured in the attack. The only way in my mind to restore his personality is to make it so that the attack didn't leave him stupid.

But actually it's the same thing....She just didn't have to change that because the body was already fine. She has already the need to recreate the whole Emperor's history.

I see no reason for her to take a life body and made him dependant of his (possible imperfect) Essence Mark. If for example the Wound's location is part of the Essence Mark and the Mark would be removed(or not refreshed in time) . You really risk the Emperor's death.

With her solution if the Essence mark is removed (or not refreshed in time) the Emperor would "simple" become brain-dead again, but some servant may restore him with easy

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1 hour ago, dragonshadowbob said:

Sorry if I'm being really dense, but I guess my real question is, what is Shai changing to restore the emperor's personality? What in the emperor's history is being changed?

She didn't need to change anything. It's just that his spiritual had become blank and the essence mark was to rewrite it to his original spiritual, more or less. Nonetheless, she did change it a bit, give him a bit more of a push towards revolution and improvement, but as I said, that wasn't necessary.

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I agree with the theory that they healed his body, but left nothing in his mind.  Shai is not exactly changing his history, but rather creating an entirely new personality and memory set, making it as close to the original as possible to avoid detection.  That is why she had to study so much, so she could create an exact replica.

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I have to agree with @dragonshadowbob. Forging on Sel was a re-writing of an object's (or in this case a person's) history. So for instance: her Essence Marks changed her history so that she trained with the super ninjas or grew up on the street. Why does her stamp change the Emperor's mind? She re-wrote his history to be almost exactly the same as it was, but then ignored the arrow wound? What does it matter if his history is the same if the arrow wound still cleared his mind? How does re-writing the history help this? 

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3 minutes ago, william.sexton3 said:

I have to agree with @dragonshadowbob. Forging on Sel was a re-writing of an object's (or in this case a person's) history. So for instance: her Essence Marks changed her history so that she trained with the super ninjas or grew up on the street. Why does her stamp change the Emperor's mind? She re-wrote his history to be almost exactly the same as it was, but then ignored the arrow wound? What does it matter if his history is the same if the arrow wound still cleared his mind? How does re-writing the history help this? 

Forgery rewrites an object's spiritual components, which then, by extension, changes the physical and cognitive. As a result of the arrow wound healing, the emperor's spiritual part was mostly erased. This means that any connections he had to anything was erased, so he couldn't recognize anyone, or have any likes or dislikes. Neither his physical nor cognitive were affected. What Shai's forgery did was reapply a new spiritual to him, one based off of what she knew about him. As such, the new connections applied as a result of the essence mark were very similar to the ones he had before the attack. The mark didn't really change his physical or cognitive since there was no need. Technically, I think she did create an essence mark which reset him to just before the attack. The main purpose though wasn't to change his physical or cognitive though, just his spiritual. 

Hopefully this makes sense the second time. 

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On 9/12/2016 at 7:02 PM, dragonshadowbob said:

Did I read the entire plot wrong or does it just not make sense?

from what I can tell it not that they had to reforge the  Emperor's mind as much as they wanted to change his mind so that they could change his mind and have that back door to control him they want a puppet not a real person. I could see that it wasn't the glory faction but   Arbiter Frava we know that she is the top arbiter and that she  connections with the underworld of the Imperial Seat. the way I see it is that she wants more power and try harder to get it by making the Emperor a vegetable so that the new soul made for him she would control. so she sent the assassins both to kill his wife in a way she could be bought back and make the Emperor a vegetable so they would have time to make the new soul for him.

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1 hour ago, Cealque said:

from what I can tell it not that they had to reforge the  Emperor's mind as much as they wanted to change his mind so that they could change his mind and have that back door to control him they want a puppet not a real person. I could see that it wasn't the glory faction but   Arbiter Frava we know that she is the top arbiter and that she  connections with the underworld of the Imperial Seat. the way I see it is that she wants more power and try harder to get it by making the Emperor a vegetable so that the new soul made for him she would control. so she sent the assassins both to kill his wife in a way she could be bought back and make the Emperor a vegetable so they would have time to make the new soul for him.

That's not what happened. The arbiters were just trying to take advantage of the fact that the emperor had lost his spiritual. None of them set up the entire assassination in order to gain more power at the end. This is made clear in the prologue, when the arbiters are discussing Shai's fake painting and how she could help them fix their mess [emperor having no soul]. Contextually, it seems clear that she was caught after, or right around when the assassination took place. Unless somehow Frava had complete foreknowledge that Shai was going to be caught and would agree to make the essence mark, there would've no way she could've or would've arranged the assassination. It has been made clear that none of the other imperial forgers were capable, and there is no way she would've chanced something like that, considering how rare the art of making essence marks appears to be. 

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If Ashraven's Soul did not move on the the Great Beyond then I think the OP has a valid point. I suppose a case can be made that the connections were severed and Forgery is just not able to reestablish those connections, but then what has Ashraven's soul been doing for the past three months? And can he ever get back to his body? I think it just works better/is cleaner (and less tragic) if his Soul passed on the Great Beyond and thus cannot come back.

Silence/Threnody spoiler

Spoiler

If Ashraven's Soul is just hanging around then that sounds a lot like being in hell/damned, so maybe he's a CS on Threnody..... ;)

 

Edited by Argel
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2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

That's not what happened. The arbiters were just trying to take advantage of the fact that the emperor had lost his spiritual. None of them set up the entire assassination in order to gain more power at the end. This is made clear in the prologue, when the arbiters are discussing Shai's fake painting and how she could help them fix their mess [emperor having no soul]. Contextually, it seems clear that she was caught after, or right around when the assassination took place. Unless somehow Frava had complete foreknowledge that Shai was going to be caught and would agree to make the essence mark, there would've no way she could've or would've arranged the assassination. It has been made clear that none of the other imperial forgers were capable, and there is no way she would've chanced something like that, considering how rare the art of making essence marks appears to be. 

3

Frava doesn't need a complete foreknowledge she has another forger yes they  may not have been able to do as good a job but if  she just takes advantage of the fact that they have her there. frava this tries at the end to find a way to control the Emperor they talk about it at the end of the book now if you think about it if you are trying to cut down a tree have one ax and  it's dull and then you look and find a chainsaw what would you use to cut the tree down the one that will take longer or the one the could take less time? now if we say that she did do it and not knowing that she was going to agree or not she would use here if she can now on the same note it's like if you picked up the chainsaw and it had no gas. you would go back to that dull ax that you have but it wouldn't have done any harm to try the chainsaw. and they could have had been working on the soul for some time before do it. 

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27 minutes ago, Cealque said:

the part that gets me is how an arrow to the head can disconnect the soul, there must be more to it because if would seem to me that it could and would do more to the cognitive part than the soul.  

I don't think it was the arrow to the head. It was probably the resealing which mended the wound which damaged the soul.

32 minutes ago, Cealque said:

Frava doesn't need a complete foreknowledge she has another forger yes they  may not have been able to do as good a job but if  she just takes advantage of the fact that they have her there. frava this tries at the end to find a way to control the Emperor they talk about it at the end of the book now if you think about it if you are trying to cut down a tree have one ax and  it's dull and then you look and find a chainsaw what would you use to cut the tree down the one that will take longer or the one the could take less time? now if we say that she did do it and not knowing that she was going to agree or not she would use here if she can now on the same note it's like if you picked up the chainsaw and it had no gas. you would go back to that dull ax that you have but it wouldn't have done any harm to try the chainsaw. and they could have had been working on the soul for some time before do it. 

I haven't seen anything which indicates that Frava was in on it. Nothing at all. If you could quote a passage which does, I would be grateful. The thing about your thought is that if Frava was really in on it, the risks far out-weighed the rewards, in my opinion. Consider: if the entire plan had worked, Frava would've essentially been the shadow king of the empire. However, failure would've been a massive demotion in position, essentially undoing years of work. In addition, both success and failure both carry the additional risk that the essence mark would be uncovered. If it were, then Frava would be prosecuted and the empire could possible crumble. In any case, success hinged on the fact that Frava's forger would've been able to make a usable essence mark on 3 months, which was very strongly indicated to be otherwise. Also, if Frava were actually planning the essence mark control from before the assassination, then it would've made more sense if she had arranged to have essence mark practically finished beforehand. The fact that she needed, and suggested that Shai make the entire thing implies that she didn't have anything prepared ahead of time. Once again, I don't think the second-most influential person in the empire wouldn't have that foresight. There is also one other point. Frava mentioned at the end that she had been carefully meeting with the emperor and nudging him towards removing Gaotona as an arbiter. If she were actually preparing to take control using an essence mark, why waste time in all those private meetings manipulating the emperor instead of just concentrating all efforts on the essence mark?

Anyhow, tl;dr:

Nothing in the book, as far as I could tell indicates that Frava was in on the assassination and was planning the essence mark control as a part on it. Furthermore, to believe that she was would require acknowledging that she made no proper plans for it past the assassination, and that she was fairly incapable of conducting a proper risk-rewards assessment. 

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5 hours ago, Cealque said:

the part that gets me is how an arrow to the head can disconnect the soul, there must be more to it because if would seem to me that it could and would do more to the cognitive part than the soul.  

I think it's exactly like I said -- his Soul went on to the Great Beyond. Basically, the Resealers were brought in too late to prevent it. 

Stormlight Archive Spoiler:

Spoiler

WoR (p. 1062). Kindle Edition. Emphasis added:

Quote

Nale: “I waited until you crashed to the ground,” the man said, “until you were broken and mangled, your soul cut through,dead for certain. Then, I restored you.” 

Szeth: “Impossible.”

Nale: “Not if it is done before the brain dies. Like a drowned man restored to life with the proper ministrations, you could be restored with the right Surgebinding. If I had waited seconds longer, of course, it would have been too late.

There's no one in TES that comes close to being a Herald like Nale that could time the resurrection correctly. And with an unexpected assassination that also killed his wife -- i.e. another person who's health they needed to check -- why is it so hard to believe the Resealer's just didn't get there in time? Based on what Nale says in WoR, the Resealer's would probably have to be in the next room over or closer to even get to Ashraven in time -- if not then we know there's a long hallway to the chambers, so that practically guarantees they could not get there in time. And if they were near to the king they would have been assassinated as well.

tl;dr for the spoiler is the Resealers were practically  guaranteed to not get to the king in time. And even if they did, it may not have worked (emphasis added):

Quote

Resealer to Shai: “Resealing repairs a body and makes it anew. That, however, is much like rebinding a book with fresh paper following a fire. Yes, it may look exactly the same, and it may be whole all the way through. The words, though . . . the words are gone. We have given the emperor a new brain. It is merely empty.”

 

I  agree there is zero evidence Frava was in on the assassination. There is not even any motive -- Ashraven was about to get rid of Gaotona. Something that Shai was not aware of so was not added to the forged Ashraven, which was a huge setback for Frava. Yes, Frava has ambitions about controlling Ashraven, but that's after the assassination, and is to be expected of someone that likes to scheme like she does. 

The whole reason they resort to Forgery is because they will be completely out of power if Ashraven is no longer the Emperor. Those are insane risks, and they resort to Forgery out of desperation. All indications are that what Shai did was considered impossible, and she was the first to pull it off. 

Quote

You are going to replace the emperor’s soul with . . .” She took a deep breath. “With a Forgery.” They’re crazy, Shai thought. Forging one’s own soul was difficult enough, and you didn’t have to rebuild it from the ground up. The arbiters had no idea what they were asking.

and

Quote

The Forgery of the soul, that was what they considered an abomination. Which meant Shai really was their only choice. No one in their own government would be capable of this. She probably wasn’t either.

“Can you do it?” Gaotona asked.

I have no idea, Shai thought. “Yes,” she said.

and 

Quote

“Three months?” Shai said. “I’m planning for this to take at least two years.”

If you think Frava was in on the assassination you need to re-read the story.

As a side note, a crossbow bolt killed the emperor, not an arrow.

Edited by Argel
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23 minutes ago, Cealque said:

ok, I get the crossbow bolt killed him and his soul left his body and is gone  why then repair his body. I am sure that the Resealer could have told them before he did it the it would not work so why do it?

I don't think they would've given up without trying it, even if they thought it wasn't going to work. This is the Emperor; they're going to try everything they can to save him.

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17 minutes ago, Cealque said:

ok, I get the crossbow bolt killed him and his soul left his body and is gone  why then repair his body. I am sure that the Resealer could have told them before he did it the it would not work so why do it?

They were desperate and willing to try anything with the hopes that it would work. If the emperor became confirmed dead and another faction took controlled of the empire, then they would lose their positions. Also, my opinion was more of that fact that they didn't quite know that the emperor wouldn't have his soul until after they resealed him.

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Plus if he's still "alive" they have the 3 month mourning period for his wife (who they clearly did not save -- draw your own conclusions). The whole book is about what can be accomplished when desperate enough. Edit: There is probably also no viable scenario for them (arbiters) to stay in power that does not involve Ashraven still breathing. If he was really dead and they pretended otherwise the ruse would be up in three months.

Edited by Argel
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