[OB] Shallan V Re-Shepnir

[Beatsmorn]

21 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Roshar is composed of the 10 fundamental forces/spren.  Syl is a windspren but with a chunk of Honor's power attached granting her sentience and special power.  Pattern is a creationspren with a chunk of Cultivation.  This Unmade seems to be a creationspren with a very large chunk of Odium's power attached to it.

Except it really isn't, 10 essences/Surges are more like cultural thing that grew because of how magic on Roshar works. 10 may be sacred for honor, but it doesn't mean all the Roshar is built around 10, and they are certainly more spren types than 10 (Aiman interlude) 

No offense though 

[Steeldancer he/him]

So something I found interesting in this battle that no ones talking about is the whole you need to understand your enemy in order to defeat them. This was reminiscent of Ender's Game for me, which is kind of cool. It used to be my favorite book. 

[kari-no-sugata]

7 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

So something I found interesting in this battle that no ones talking about is the whole you need to understand your enemy in order to defeat them. This was reminiscent of Ender's Game for me, which is kind of cool. It used to be my favorite book. 

More like an Art of War reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War#Quotations

Quote

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

 

[Leyrann]

8 minutes ago, Beatsmorn said:

Except it really isn't, 10 essences/Surges are more like cultural thing that grew because of how magic on Roshar works. 10 may be sacred for honor, but it doesn't mean all the Roshar is built around 10, and they are certainly more spren types than 10 (Aiman interlude) 

No offense though 

The Surges very much are not a cultural thing. The 10 Orders of the Knights Radiant can all use 2 Surges, and they overlap one Surge each with the 'neighboring' Orders. Additionally, there is a symmetry to the Surges: Three are Physical, three are Cognitive, three are Spiritual, and the last works through all three the Realms, and if that wasn't enough, the Surges that belong to the same Realm are next to one another if you assume the order that is logical when knowing which Surges the different Orders of the KR can use.

As for the essences, I have no idea. I'll probably go and see if I can figure that out sometime, though.

[Salkara]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

And this is why you should use Regrowth, and not Soulcasting. Soulcasting first needs to convince the Identity to be something and it then bceomes that thing, while Regrowth asks Identity what it's supposed to be and then goes ahead and fixes reality to be that way.

Not quite. Shallan just didn't understand how to Soulcast. Here's Jasnah Soulcasting from the WoR deleted scene:

Quote

Jasnah gripped the beads in her hand.

“You,” she command, “will change.”

“I am a rope,” one of them said. “I am—”

“You will change.”

The ropes shivered, transforming—one by one—into smoke in the physical realm.

She's commanding the rope to change, not convincing it to.

[Stark he/him]

9 hours ago, Unhinged said:

I see foresee this exchange in the future.

"you want to become whole"

"I AM A BOOK"

well actually it would probably be more like "I am a broken book" but that doesn't sound quite as catchy.

In all seriousness I can see the cognitive versions of those decaying pieces of book happily remembering the time when they were whole and wanting to go back to that so I don't think soulcasting would be terribly difficult.

Seems more like its time to get Shai to worldhop - please stamp these books so that they were stored in a cool dry environment, and properly cared for!

[Leyrann]

1 minute ago, Salkara said:

Not quite. Shallan just didn't understand how to Soulcast. Here's Jasnah Soulcasting from the WoR deleted scene:

She's commanding the rope to change, not convincing it to.

Okay, my wording was inexact. Basically, the Identity if what you want to change doesn't want to change, and you have to use enough Investiture to force it to change wheter it wants to or not.

[Rasha]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

And this is why you should use Regrowth, and not Soulcasting. Soulcasting first needs to convince the Identity to be something and it then bceomes that thing, while Regrowth asks Identity what it's supposed to be and then goes ahead and fixes reality to be that way.

 

After centuries decaying in the Library, the Identity of the books is probably dust, or blank pages with holes in them. Thus Regrowth may not be that useful. As for the surges, we never had any confirmation in-world or per WoB that they can be divided as your theory states it, and I would take it with a grain of salt until official confirmation.

[ScavellTane]

Soulcasting the book won't work I think. You need to soulcast it into a specific book not a generic book, which is what most of the soulcasting we've seen.

Even Regrowth would be a problem since the book would most likely have been dust much longer than it has been a book.

Edited November 1, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Leyrann]

5 minutes ago, Rasha said:

After centuries decaying in the Library, the Identity of the books is probably dust, or blank pages with holes in them. Thus Regrowth may not be that useful. As for the surges, we never had any confirmation in-world or per WoB that they can be divided as your theory states it, and I would take it with a grain of salt until official confirmation.

We may not have WoB, but we do have theories that allow for the division that I mentioned as well as a working mechanism for the Surges acting the way they do. Though, this I'll admit, the part of that that I posted here on the forums is slightly outdated and does not yet divide the Surges into the groups, but it does use the mechanisms that, according to the theory, would divide them into three equal groups. On top of that, we do know for certain that Feruchemy and Allomancy can be divided into these groups, so it is not a stretch to assume that the Surges also work this way.

And lastly, theories aren't about getting confirmed. They're about being able to explain everything we know. As long as they can do that, they can be considered valid, as soon as a counterexample is given, they can be considered incorrect.

EDIT: Oh, and we actually do have a WoB that confirms that healing requires power in all Three Realms.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Leyrann

[Salkara]

5 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

Okay, my wording was inexact. Basically, the Identity if what you want to change doesn't want to change, and you have to use enough Investiture to force it to change wheter it wants to or not.

It basically comes down to whether or not the books retain memories from when they weren't decayed. If so, I see no reason why Transformation couldn't be used to fix them. I don't mean a Soulcasting could do this. It would require a KR who has access to Shadesmar to find each book's memory. I think Shallan will work well with this.

The more I think about Progression being used, the more I dislike the idea, and I think I've settled on one main point of discontent: as of yet, I don't think we've seen Progression used on something without being cable of living. We've seen Growth used on seeds and Regrowth used on injuries and Gawx's dead or dying body. We haven't seen it used to change non-living matter to a previous state. Maybe it could be used to "heal" paper so that it's a plant again or the ink to a functioning organ from some animal. However, if Progression can reverse decay in matter which could never be alive, we have to ask how else it could be used. Could it also "heal" dents in armor? What about houses that collapsed during the Everstorm? What if Odium destroys a city with an earthquake? Could a band of Truthwatchers and Edgedancers go fix it in a couple hours?

How much would you like Renarin's book if he had to stop every other paragraph to "heal" some odd trinket, like Dalinar's painrial or Rock's razor. There needs to be a line between what can and cannot be healed with Progression, or it could very easily become overpowered, boring, or, even worse, both.

For me, a logical litmus test would be, "Could the target be or have been alive?" Seeds can be a living plant, so they can Grow. Injuries to living people can Regrow. Dead bodies, if acted upon fast enough, could have been alive with the proper medical attention, so they can Regrow. Books, however awesome they may be, were never alive and thus shouldn't be a target for Progression in my mind.

[Subvisual Haze]

50 minutes ago, Beatsmorn said:

Except it really isn't, 10 essences/Surges are more like cultural thing that grew because of how magic on Roshar works. 10 may be sacred for honor, but it doesn't mean all the Roshar is built around 10, and they are certainly more spren types than 10 (Aiman interlude) 

No offense though 

10 surges, 10 essences, 10 voidbindings, 10 gemstones, 10 outer gas giants in the Roshar system.

There are plenty of cultural things that you could list as derivative to the above, but 10 is the fundamental number of Roshar and its magics.

10 is to Roshar as 16 is to Scadrial, just "baked into" the fundamental magical structure of the world.

[ScavellTane]

1 minute ago, Subvisual Haze said:

10 surges, 10 essences, 10 voidbindings, 10 gemstones, 10 outer gas giants in the Roshar system.

There are plenty of cultural things that you could list as derivative to the above, but 10 is the fundamental number of Roshar and its magics.

10 is to Roshar as 16 is to Scadrial, just "baked into" the fundamental magical structure of the world.

The thing is, Scadrial itself was created by Preservation/Ruin, Roshar was not created by Honor/Cultivation.

Edited November 1, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Rasha]

26 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

We may not have WoB, but we do have theories that allow for the division that I mentioned as well as a working mechanism for the Surges acting the way they do. Though, this I'll admit, the part of that that I posted here on the forums is slightly outdated and does not yet divide the Surges into the groups, but it does use the mechanisms that, according to the theory, would divide them into three equal groups. On top of that, we do know for certain that Feruchemy and Allomancy can be divided into these groups, so it is not a stretch to assume that the Surges also work this way.

And lastly, theories aren't about getting confirmed. They're about being able to explain everything we know. As long as they can do that, they can be considered valid, as soon as a counterexample is given, they can be considered incorrect.

 

Oh, I am not criticizing any of the theorycrafting, as I am aware most people (me included) are on the 17th shard to have fun building theories and discussing things. As for the theory, I think I read it somewhere, but I don't think I have the Realmatic Knowledge to judge if it is sound or not. I was just saying that building theories based on a previous theory is shaky at best. That doesn't mean that I judge it strictly forbidden, it was just a reminder that a theory built on fact is more sound that a theory built upon a previous non verified theory. But please, continue to have fun and build theory, it is why we are all around here

[Leyrann]

12 minutes ago, Salkara said:

It basically comes down to whether or not the books retain memories from when they weren't decayed. If so, I see no reason why Transformation couldn't be used to fix them. I don't mean a Soulcasting could do this. It would require a KR who has access to Shadesmar to find each book's memory. I think Shallan will work well with this.

The more I think about Progression being used, the more I dislike the idea, and I think I've settled on one main point of discontent: as of yet, I don't think we've seen Progression used on something without being cable of living. We've seen Growth used on seeds and Regrowth used on injuries and Gawx's dead or dying body. We haven't seen it used to change non-living matter to a previous state. Maybe it could be used to "heal" paper so that it's a plant again or the ink to a functioning organ from some animal. However, if Progression can reverse decay in matter which could never be alive, we have to ask how else it could be used. Could it also "heal" dents in armor? What about houses that collapsed during the Everstorm? What if Odium destroys a city with an earthquake? Could a band of Truthwatchers and Edgedancers go fix it in a couple hours?

How much would you like Renarin's book if he had to stop every other paragraph to "heal" some odd trinket, like Dalinar's painrial or Rock's razor. There needs to be a line between what can and cannot be healed with Progression, or it could very easily become overpowered, boring, or, even worse, both.

For me, a logical litmus test would be, "Could the target be or have been alive?" Seeds can be a living plant, so they can Grow. Injuries to living people can Regrow. Dead bodies, if acted upon fast enough, could have been alive with the proper medical attention, so they can Regrow. Books, however awesome they may be, were never alive and thus shouldn't be a target for Progression in my mind.

According to this WoB, healing is the Spiritual saying "be like this" (note: I cut out the "I want to", as Progression seems to actually be a special kind of the 'standard' Stormlight healing that can also be used on other Identities, instead of only on oneself), and then the Cognitive saying "okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit". Now, there are two important parts here. First, everything in the Cosmere has a self-awareness. That is why every bead in the Cognitive Realm can think stuff (even though it is often very basic). Second, the question is how much of what the books were is retained over time in their Identity, as Identity tends to slowly change depending on what is happening to things in the Physical or Spiritual Realms, even though consciousness counters that by trying to retain it's Identity. If the books still have intact Identity, then Progression can use that Identity to return them to their prior state.

As for what you mentioned with Renarin constantly having to fix minor things, remember that doing stuff like this still requires Stormlight, and I could see it requiring wakefulness (as Feruchemy calls it), though I'm not certain about that. So even if you can theoratically fix everything, that doesn't mean that it's in any way practical.

I don't know wheter or not the books can be restored, but I do think that we should be looking at Progression, and not at Transformation, as Transformation is about changing something into what the user wants it to be, and you can't "want it to be" an old book with things you don't know explained in it.

EDIT:

8 minutes ago, ScavellTane said:

The thing is, Scadrial itself was created by Preservation/Ruin, Roshar was not created by Honor/Cultivation.

No, it wasn't. Doesn't mean the 10 Surges aren't confirmed by the powers of the Knights Radiant. Doesn't mean the 10 Voidbindings aren't confirmed by WoB. Doesn't mean the 10 gemstones aren't confirmed by the Ars Arcanum as well as what is daily being used. Doesn't mean the 10 outer Gas Giants aren't confirmed by WoB.

And yes, I left out essences, but that's only because I don't know anything about essences myself. I suppose you could say they are also confirmed by the Ars Arcanum, but theoratically there would be a bit more wiggle room as they're much more abstract. Having said that, though, with all the other 10s being known to not be cultural, it's not much of a stretch to assume that last one that is always classified with the other ones isn't cultural either. And I wouldn't be surprised of some research would put the essences into "not possibly cultural" either.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Leyrann

[Salkara]

20 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

According to this WoB, healing is the Spiritual saying "be like this" (note: I cut out the "I want to", as Progression seems to actually be a special kind of the 'standard' Stormlight healing that can also be used on other Identities, instead of only on oneself), and then the Cognitive saying "okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit". Now, there are two important parts here. First, everything in the Cosmere has a self-awareness. That is why every bead in the Cognitive Realm can think stuff (even though it is often very basic). Second, the question is how much of what the books were is retained over time in their Identity, as Identity tends to slowly change depending on what is happening to things in the Physical or Spiritual Realms, even though consciousness counters that by trying to retain it's Identity. If the books still have intact Identity, then Progression can use that Identity to return them to their prior state.

I'm reading your argument as everything has the ability to heal. My argument is that only some things have the ability to heal. We've only seen plant matter Grow, so I'll limit my previous assertion even further: only sapient beings can be the target of Regrowth. I would not cut out the "I want to" from that WoB since it seems particularly important to me. In my mind, anything without enough sapience to express a desire would be incapable of healing because they would not be able to express how they want to be. Humans, listeners, dragons, and koloss are all examples of potential Regrowth targets. Books, chairs, houses, and fences are examples of targets which cannot Regrow (until I'm disproven by text or WoB).

27 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

As for what you mentioned with Renarin constantly having to fix minor things, remember that doing stuff like this still requires Stormlight, and I could see it requiring wakefulness (as Feruchemy calls it), though I'm not certain about that. So even if you can theoratically fix everything, that doesn't mean that it's in any way practical..

Still, it will be a very boring book if all Renarin does is fix things, sleep, and wait around for highstorms so he can fix more things.

33 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

I don't know wheter or not the books can be restored, but I do think that we should be looking at Progression, and not at Transformation, as Transformation is about changing something into what the user wants it to be, and you can't "want it to be" an old book with things you don't know explained in it.

A Soulcaster, using a fabrial, may not be familiar enough with Shadesmar to see what the book remembers being. On the other hand, Jasnah, an Elsecaller, should be able to see the book's memory in the CR. If she knows what it was, then I don't see why she couldn't Transform it to be that again.

[Marethyu316]

49 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

 

And yes, I left out essences, but that's only because I don't know anything about essences myself. I suppose you could say they are also confirmed by the Ars Arcanum, but theoratically there would be a bit more wiggle room as they're much more abstract. Having said that, though, with all the other 10s being known to not be cultural, it's not much of a stretch to assume that last one that is always classified with the other ones isn't cultural either. And I wouldn't be surprised of some research would put the essences into "not possibly cultural" either.

I realize you are reacting against the notion it is only cultural, but I think saying not cultural might be a bit of an overstatement. There is a connection between culture, as in what people believe about reality, and the cognitive realm, especially on Roshar. I agree that there seems to be a pretty consistent repetition of the number 10, but that doesn't exclude the importance of the cultural beliefs or that those beliefs had a least a partial impact on establishing those 10s. 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Marethyu316

[Leyrann]

4 minutes ago, Salkara said:

I'm reading your argument as everything has the ability to heal. My argument is that only some things have the ability to heal. We've only seen plant matter Grow, so I'll limit my previous assertion even further: only sapient beings can be the target of Regrowth. I would not cut out the "I want to" from that WoB since it seems particularly important to me. In my mind, anything without enough sapience to express a desire would be incapable of healing because they would not be able to express how they want to be. Humans, listeners, dragons, and koloss are all examples of potential Regrowth targets. Books, chairs, houses, and fences are examples of targets which cannot Regrow (until I'm disproven by text or WoB).

That is an argument I could get behind. Indeed, I could see the healing be related to the Spiritual aspect of someone/something wanting it to be the case, then being filtered through the Identity and then the Surgebinder only providing the Investiture itself, rather than actually initiating the healing. Maybe I'll delay the Surgebinding application of my theory until after Oathbringer because I think that by the end of Oathbringer (or even the end of the first part) we'll have confirmation over what can and what cannot be healed, so we know which is correct.

13 minutes ago, Salkara said:

A Soulcaster, using a fabrial, may not be familiar enough with Shadesmar to see what the book remembers being. On the other hand, Jasnah, an Elsecaller, should be able to see the book's memory in the CR. If she knows what it was, then I don't see why she couldn't Transform it to be that again.

I do not think memory is anything but an aspect of Identity, however. As the Feruchemical chart also shows, memory is a Cognitive ability, while things like Connection, Identity and Investiture (and Fortune but don't ask me how I should interpret that) are Spiritual in nature. Basically, I feel like "memory" is simply on a lower level, and is therefore too detailed to access, also because, while both Surges accessed by an Elsecaller heavily involve the Cognitive Realm, that doesn't mean you can simply 'read' anything in the Cognitive Realm, I would argue.

Additionally, if our memories aren't perfect, then why would we assume a book's memory is perfect and cannot degrade over time?

Anyways, I find this a hard question. I would say that Jasnah cannot access memories, but that's more of a gut feeling and I don't have anything solid to back it up.

[Wandering Investor]

Regrowth likely wouldn't work. Cosmere healing is based on Identity, and it has been long enough that the books will likely see themselves as broken books. Identity can change over the course of months, so thousands of years almost certainly are enough to completely change the book's identity. Plus, regrowth has only been shown on people, which begs the question of whether it would work on books at all, whether recently destroyed or not.

[Marethyu316]

23 minutes ago, Salkara said:

I'm reading your argument as everything has the ability to heal. My argument is that only some things have the ability to heal. We've only seen plant matter Grow, so I'll limit my previous assertion even further: only sapient beings can be the target of Regrowth. I would not cut out the "I want to" from that WoB since it seems particularly important to me. In my mind, anything without enough sapience to express a desire would be incapable of healing because they would not be able to express how they want to be. Humans, listeners, dragons, and koloss are all examples of potential Regrowth targets. Books, chairs, houses, and fences are examples of targets which cannot Regrow (until I'm disproven by text or WoB).

Emperor's Soul spoiler

Spoiler

Wouldn't soul stamping be similar to regrowth? If you can rewrite the history of objects like vases and tables, it seems reasonable to assume you could Regrow them on Roshar. Doesn't mean you can, but it seems to at least suggest it. It seems to me that the bigger issue is how long they've been like this.

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Marethyu316

[ScavellTane]

You would need to know the identity of the book though. How can you do that if you've never read it? You just know its a book not the books contents.

Edited November 1, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Leyrann]

1 minute ago, ScavellTane said:

You would need to know the identity of the book though. How can you do that if you've never read it? You just know its a book not the books contents.

You don't. The book needs to. There's a reason we're writing Identity with a capital, and that's not because it's something subjective.

Either way, @Wandering Investor makes a good point that their Identity these days is likely "broken books", rather than "books with this text".

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

6 minutes ago, Marethyu316 said:

Emperor's Soul spoiler

  Hide contents

Wouldn't soul stamping be similar to regrowth? If you can rewrite the history of objects like vases and tables, it seems reasonable to assume you could Regrow them on Roshar. Doesn't mean you can, but it seems to at least suggest it.

 

I don't think so, in the one, in the instance you supply, the magic is rewriting the history of the object in order to change the present. Regrowth is accessing forces in the present to enact changes.

[Salkara]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

I do not think memory is anything but an aspect of Identity, however. As the Feruchemical chart also shows, memory is a Cognitive ability, while things like Connection, Identity and Investiture (and Fortune but don't ask me how I should interpret that) are Spiritual in nature. Basically, I feel like "memory" is simply on a lower level, and is therefore too detailed to access, also because, while both Surges accessed by an Elsecaller heavily involve the Cognitive Realm, that doesn't mean you can simply 'read' anything in the Cognitive Realm, I would argue.

Additionally, if our memories aren't perfect, then why would we assume a book's memory is perfect and cannot degrade over time?

Anyways, I find this a hard question. I would say that Jasnah cannot access memories, but that's more of a gut feeling and I don't have anything solid to back it up.

It makes sense to me that "memory" is part of the CR. Memory and congnition go hand in hand in my mind, but yes, a lot of this is based on our gut feelings and unfounded extrapolations.

Take your perfection of memory example. My gut tells me at least some of the books will remember what they were very well. It makes sense to me thematically. Also, we have Syl's statement that there are fundamental differences between humans and other things (if you break a rock, it's still a rock; if you break a human; it's something else). That's the foundation for my belief that a broken book will remember what it was much better than a human remembers what s/he did exactly one year ago. Is it a good, solid foundation? No.

Doesn't change that I'll believe it until proven otherwise though .

[Yata he/him]

23 hours ago, ScavellTane said:

Soulcasting the book won't work I think. You need to soulcast it into a specific book not a generic book, which is what most of the soulcasting we've seen.

Even Regrowth would be a problem since the book would most likely have been dust much longer than it has been a book.

As nobody saw it as dust, the books' cognitive will stil themself as books and probably they could be regrowth's target to be restored....Maybe some books will be beyond recovery but I think most of them will return to their former glory (by the way, between those books, could be the in-world Oathbringer)