[OB] How Vasher could fake his own death (also: Rashek's Head In A Jar?)

[+robardin he/him]

[Note: References to events from Warbreaker, Oathbringer, Alloy of Law, Bands of Mourning]

In Vasher, we have a person from Nalthis who (a) is being hunted down, and (b) is a worldhopper on Roshar.

On Roshar, there is Stormlight (an internal effect) and the Surge of Regrowth (an external one).

We've seen Kaladin and Shallan use Stormlight to heal serious, even fatal injuries so quickly they use it tactically: Kaladin uses multiple Lashings to kick Shardplate so hard that it cracks, breaking his bones, but heals in time to land on his feet, and Shallan literally walks away (for shock effect) with an arrow through her head that stays there for so long she healed around it (and had to re-injure herself to remove it).

In this, it is very similar to Gold Feruchemy, where Bloodmakers with access to a large enough goldmind can make tactical use of fatal self-harm, as with Miles exploding dynamite in his own hand, or Wayne implementing "Rotten Tomato", with the destroyed body parts regenerating.

We've seen that Stormlight can regenerate missing body parts, even after many years, as seen with Lopen's arm.

In his monologuing to Vin, we hear from The Lord Ruler that he'd used his massive goldminds (derived from Compounding) to survive beheadings - which means he literally grew a new head. Multiple times. (I like to think that he kept at least one of them in a pickle jar for the shock value, it fits right in with his show-off nature.)

And we've seen that Lifeless are Awakened corpses, needing only one Breath for their Command, but that Vasher could also Awaken little straw men, too. So there's probably no requirement for a Lifeless to all be the body of one person - it could be an assemblage of body parts that are just as much "in the shape of a human" as a single corpse would be. I mean, why waste body parts if you have the body of a solider missing a leg, just get a leg from another corpse and fit it together? It might take an extra Breath or five, but it seems like it should work?

So, if Regrowth can do pretty much the same thing to another person as Stormlight could do for a Radiant, and if Regrowth also matches F-Gold in most respects in terms of what it can do, all Vasher (Zahel) has to do now is:

1. Find a corpse whose torso could pass for his own
2. Brace himself and cut off his extremities in turn, with Renarin or Lift on hand to instantly regenerate them as they come off
3. Stitch his limbs and head onto the torso
4. Worldhop back to Nalthis (possibly having to pickle the Frankenvasher for the trip)
5. Get enough Breath to Awaken the Frankenvasher as a Lifeless

Result: "Look, Vasher's as dead as the Lifeless Clod/Arsteel, because here's a Lifeless Blockhead/Vasher!"

In theory you could do this just with Vasher's head, but that might be too obvious. Unless the Lifeless Awakening would work better with fewer combined parts, he'd have more work to find a body with the right height and coloration beyond a torso that could pass.

Edited May 23, 2018 by robardin

[RShara she/her]

Can I have some of your firemoss? Seems like it's pretty good stuff there.

[Ishar]

Um... first of, I don’t think that radiants can heal other people’s long term or very serious injuries, or at least Renarin and Lift can’t (there is a radiant in Edgedancer who can). Secondly, how do you know that the Lord Rule regrew a Head instead of a Body?

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, Ishar said:

Um... first of, I don’t think that radiants can heal other people’s long term or very serious injuries, or at least Renarin and Lift can’t (there is a radiant in Edgedancer who can). Secondly, how do you know that the Lord Rule regrew a Head instead of a Body?

Lift was the eponymous POV character of Edgedancer, and Nalan brought Szeth back from the newly dead state with a Regrowth fabrial at the end of WoR. And Nalan says that the Shin use the two Honorblades that grant the Surge of Regrowth to revive the newly dead all the time.

As for Rashek recovering from a decapitation... That's an interesting question. Add that to the Questions For Brandon list, eh!

Edited May 23, 2018 by robardin

[Calderis he/him]

All Cosmere healing always heals the larger portion of the body. Decapitation results in a new head. 

Quote

Soronir

About Miles from Alloy of Law and his regenerative powers. If he was bisected down the middle and the halves were separated immediately before the healing process could begin, would the two halves each regrow into a whole Miles?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. In all of the Cosmere's Shard-based magics, the greater portion of a bisected body regrows the lesser portion. If it were done EXACTLY halfway, the soul wold jump to one or the other randomly and that would regrow.

Amusingly, this first came up in 1999, six years before I got published. (I see someone else already mentioned the situation where I had to consider it.)

source

 

[Ishar]

2 hours ago, robardin said:

Lift was the eponymous POV character of Edgedancer, and Nalan brought Szeth back from the newly dead state with a Regrowth fabrial at the end of WoR. And Nalan says that the Shin use the two Honorblades that grant the Surge of Regrowth to revive the newly dead all the time.

As for Rashek recovering from a decapitation... That's an interesting question. Add that to the Questions For Brandon list, eh!

I wasn’t talking about Lift. Neither Lift nor Renarin can heal other people’s long term injuries, as evidenced by that one person in OB whose name I can’t remember with broken legs. There was a radiant in Edgedancer that was not Lift who could.

[Calderis he/him]

13 minutes ago, Ishar said:

I wasn’t talking about Lift. Neither Lift nor Renarin can heal other people’s long term injuries, as evidenced by that one person in OB whose name I can’t remember with broken legs. There was a radiant in Edgedancer that was not Lift who could.

The rule of perception still applies. Stump cannot heal anything that the others couldn't. Either it is injury that the person views as a part of themselves, and cannot be healed, like Rysn's legs, or Kaladin's brand, or it is something that was not accepted, despite the passage of time, like Lopen arm, or Renarin's vision.

The limitation is in the person being healed, not the one doing the healing. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Calderis

[+robardin he/him]

9 hours ago, Ishar said:

I wasn’t talking about Lift. Neither Lift nor Renarin can heal other people’s long term injuries, as evidenced by that one person in OB whose name I can’t remember with broken legs. There was a radiant in Edgedancer that was not Lift who could.

Ah, you mean "Stump" who was a Truthwatcher giving out pancakes to children, that Lift saved from Nale.

As for Hobber's legs - I was going to raise that as a separate question on the Oathbringer Spoilers board - why couldn't Renarin heal Hobber's grayed-out legs (from Szeth's attack on Dalinar in the hallway in Words of Radiance)? I think he just hadn't gotten around to trying it yet, for whatever reason? Seems odd since they're both in Bridge Four... I was trying to piece together a timeline of "who did Renarin heal and when", like when did he start realizing he could heal other people (and not just himself).

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

2 hours ago, robardin said:

why couldn't Renarin heal Hobber's grayed-out legs

This should be because Hobber sees himself as someone who can´t walk, and therefore, he can´t be healed from it. Healing matches the Spiritual self of a person, and your spiritual self is formed out of your perception of who you are. 

 

[+robardin he/him]

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

This should be because Hobber sees himself as someone who can´t walk, and therefore, he can´t be healed from it. Healing matches the Spiritual self of a person, and your spiritual self is formed out of your perception of who you are. 

But that's not true, because as soon as he was able to draw in Stormlight as a squire to Kaladin, he healed his legs (Chapter 37 of Oathbringer). Meanwhile Renarin was routinely healing members of Bridge Four way earlier, like after the fight against the Midnight Mother in the "pillar room" of Urithiru.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

20 minutes ago, robardin said:

But that's not true, because as soon as he was able to draw in Stormlight as a squire to Kaladin, he healed his legs (Chapter 37 of Oathbringer). Meanwhile Renarin was routinely healing members of Bridge Four way earlier, like after the fight against the Midnight Mother in the "pillar room" of Urithiru.

Huh. Well, I forgot that Hobber healed his legs. The two explanations I can come up with are either that Hobbers perception of himself changed, or that Renarin wasn´t good enough at healing at that time. 

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

But that's not true, because as soon as he was able to draw in Stormlight as a squire to Kaladin, he healed his legs (Chapter 37 of Oathbringer). Meanwhile Renarin was routinely healing members of Bridge Four way earlier, like after the fight against the Midnight Mother in the "pillar room" of Urithiru.

I don't think Renarin had healed anyone prior to healing Adolin's wrist. Not sure why he didn't try between those two points, but the whole view of Adolin's spiritual aspect, in my opinion, is due to complete inexperience and pumping way too much Stormlight into the healing. 

[RShara she/her]

Healing matches your physical self to your Spiritual self, filtered through the Cognitive. So his perception of himself when Renarin tried to heal him was that he couldn't be healed. And I think that external healing is always going to be weaker than internal healing. The Shardblade actually severed the soul of Hobber's legs from the rest of him, and I think that's always going to be more difficult to heal.

When Hobber turned into a Squire, he knew from Lopen and Kaladin that the stormlight could patch his legs back in his soul, so they were able to heal.

It's also possible that with an external healing source, the Cognitive aspect of both people affect the healing, rather than just the recipient. And Renarin still doubts himself a lot, so he just might not have been able to manage it.

[+robardin he/him]

57 minutes ago, RShara said:

It's also possible that with an external healing source, the Cognitive aspect of both people affect the healing, rather than just the recipient. And Renarin still doubts himself a lot, so he just might not have been able to manage it.

Oooh. I like that. I was thinking "Maybe Renarin just didn't think it was possible", but this is even better.

[Ishar]

Hobber is not the only example of Renarin being unable to heal an old injury. Rysn in Oathbringer mentioned how Renarin had tried to heal her legs but had not succeeded.

[Fatikis he/him]

y tho?
Seems like there is a near infinite number of better ways to fake your death.

[+robardin he/him]

16 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

y tho?
Seems like there is a near infinite number of better ways to fake your death.

If you could literally make a lookalike Lifeless of yourself, wouldn't you?

And I really wanted to share that image of TLR taunting someone, "Whaddya want, my head on a platter? Here, have one. I gots plenty. HAHAHA I CANNOT BE KILLED, I AM GOD!"

[Fatikis he/him]

38 minutes ago, robardin said:

If you could literally make a lookalike Lifeless of yourself, wouldn't you?

By cutting my own head off? Definitely not. Not any more useful than a normal lifeless. Maybe actually less useful.

Quote

And I really wanted to share that image of TLR taunting someone, "Whaddya want, my head on a platter? Here, have one. I gots plenty. HAHAHA I CANNOT BE KILLED, I AM GOD!"

In general putting others heads on platters works as a better deterrent than putting your own.

[+robardin he/him]

8 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

By cutting my own head off? Definitely not. Not any more useful than a normal lifeless. Maybe actually less useful.

In general putting others heads on platters works as a better deterrent than putting your own.

Remember, this is Rashek. He likes showing off how invulnerable he is by walking around with a couple of spears stuck through him, before killing someone else with the spear meant to injure him. It's part boredom, part arrogance, part rubbing-your-face-in-it.

[+Brassweaver he/him]

Guys... we just discovered the plot twist from Stormlight 8!

[Barbarian AL he/him]

If Rashek's got his head in a jar, then he is my new favourite character because that is storming BAD!