[OB] Dalinar may have resurrected Maya

[Red Ferring he/him]

When Dalinar created Honor’s perpendicularity at the battle for Thaylen city, he brought together all 3 realms. Cognitive, physical, and spiritual. 

Adolin walked through that perpendicularity with his Shardblade aka Maya. Maya is a spren who was killed by her Radiant when the Oath was broken. I’m guessing a spren death is just spiritual because she manifests physically and in the Cognitive realm too, but still considered dead. But later we see her reaching out to Adolin with small impressions and feelings. 

My guess is that when Maya passed through Honor’s perpendicularity with Adolin, a part (or all) of her was resurrected from the spiritual realm and reconnected to her and she can now think and interact again with the world. And the explanation for her limited engagement with Adolin during his fighting being that she, like other spren newcomers to the world, takes time to regain her self and mind 

Any thoughts?

Edited July 3, 2018 by Red Ferring
Typo

[Calderis he/him]

When Adolin stepped through the perpendicularity, his Blade was not summoned with him. Maya remained behind until she was summoned. 

Cosmere healing works on the principle that power flows outward from the Spiritual Realm, is filtered by the Cognitive, and manifests in the physical. In order for healing to occur, the damage done to her spiritual aspect by the broken oath of her Radiant must be restored. 

Quote

Jerich

Is the Hoed from Elantris similar to the state of [dead] Shardblades? If so is it possible to awaken a Shardblade if the bearer speaks the oaths of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

The status is... I would say not as similar as you're probably thinking, but it does have a similarity in that two bacteria causing a disease are both caused by a bacteria, so there is a similarity there.

I can imagine a sequence where a Shardblade would be reawakened, but I think it would be very difficult.

It's not the same that they're in the middle of a transition, like in Elantris.

Jerich

Oh, okay. So you have to actually... it'd be harder.

Brandon Sanderson

It'd be harder, yeah. It's not the same, they're not in the middle of a transition. They have had something ripped from them, and it's very painful and it's left them mostly mindless.

Jerich

So they have to have that something added back?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So what you've got going on: the spren gain-- the bond lets them have sentience in the physical plane, like they can think and all these things, and when that was ripped away from them-- imagine... (this is a very bad metaphor, it's the first one coming to my head though): imagine you had wetwear, you had a head-jack or something like that, and someone just ripped it out of your head. 

Jerich

*stunned/horrified*

Oh.

Brandon Sanderson

Instead of surgically operating it out. Like that's what's happened, a piece of their soul's been ripped off.

source

I think this is why we've been told that to resurrect a spren it is presumed that the original Radiant is required. Because they already have a connection to the Spren, and all they need to do is restore their oaths, as happened with Syl and Kaladin. 

Quote

Syl lived. Syl lived. He still felt euphoric about that. Shouldn’t she be dead? When he’d asked on their flight out, her response had been simple.
I was only as dead as your oaths, Kaladin.

Because of this, I think the only way to restore the Spren is with a Nahel bond. 

As she is beginning to heal, I think Adolin is achieving that, though he obviously has a good ways to go yet. 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Calderis

[CrazyRioter she/her]

You aren't the first person to suggest that the Perpendicularity was responsible for Maya showing signs of life, but I've never been convinced. It's a bridge, not a healing.  Maya's problem is not a disconnect, but that her cognitive and spiritual aspects have had a large chunck ripped out. I don't think the Perpendicularity could fix that. 

I agree with Calderis that it would take forming a Nahel bond to restore her because losing her previous bond is what put her in that state to begin with.

Brandon's been cagey on whether it's possible for somebody else besides their original bondmate to do it, but I think the implication is the answer is yes though it would be very difficult.

[Leyrann]

Let's be real, for something that's supposedly not possible or anyone other than the original Radiant Brandon sure knew pretty well how it would work out rather than the (not uncommon) "I would have to think about that" or "I doubt that will work" when someone comes with the kind of question that immediately makes him realize you're from the 17thshard.

[MountainKing]

I still think that the perpendicularity still helped, because she still needs investiture to fill the holes

[Red Ferring he/him]

9 hours ago, MountainKing said:

I still think that the perpendicularity still helped, because she still needs investiture to fill the holes

I agree. Even if it wasn’t the magic cure to her being dead. And Brandon explaining that something was ripped out of her when the oath was broken, where did that piece go? My thinking is that piece of her is being filled in from the spiritual realm as the spiritual realm was brought together with the others at the perpendicularity. When normally that realm is not really accessible. Which would leave a spren dead normally. And I’d consider what Dalinar did in unifying the realms to be very difficult and rare, which Brandon says it would take, even though he didn’t specify how exactly

Edited July 4, 2018 by Red Ferring

[CrazyRioter she/her]

She did defend Adolin from the Fused in Shadesmar, before the Perpendicularity was opened.

[Calderis he/him]

Investiture needs a mind to guide it. Perpendicularities provide investiture in spades, but it doesn't have any direction. Because of this, perpendicularities don't heal. If they did, Adolin's gut wound wouldn't have needed Renarin. 

You can have all the investiture in the world and if it's just present it won't do anything. Just having the Perp there did nothing but fill gems, because they trap it by their nature. Everything else that happened was directed to happen. 

In order for Maya to heal, something has to cause that healing to occur. The Perp could power that, but it won't do it on its own. 

[vikorr]

I'm with Red Ferring. Brandon said it would be extremely difficult...and what Dalinar did, has not only never been done before / without precedent, but was enormous. That surely qualifies as extremely difficult.

And while sentience was ripped from deadeyes, it was ripped from them because their sentience was tied to their spiritual aspect. Tearing out is essentially severing - so the loss of sentience is a result of a severing from the spiritual realm. Dalinar reunited the cognitive, physical, and spiritual realms in Maya's location. And as we see with the stormlight renewal, only proximity was needed, in order to be affected by that reuniting.

In other words, there is no reason to think that Maya hasn't been affected by what Dalinar did. There may still be a question on how much she was affected - ie. if it was enough to restore her?

In terms of the Nahel Bond: - Adolin has throughout the series showed he felt a bond with Maya (talking to her before duels, being respectful etc). And I recall Maya as a deadeye, showing a bond (small but there) with Adolin, and that bond increased towards the end, with signs of some sentience when she defended Adolin. It may be a weak bond, but that does not rule out its value, as even the Nahel Bond is weak near the beginning, and near the beginning the spren can just be starting to gain sentience in the physical realm. The spren has to choose their KR. It does appear that Maya has chosen Adolin (when she defended him)

In other words, the conditions may have been met for Maya's ressurection. 

Then again, maybe not. It's really guesswork at the moment.

Edited July 4, 2018 by vikorr

[MountainKing]

2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Investiture needs a mind to guide it. Perpendicularities provide investiture in spades, but it doesn't have any direction. Because of this, perpendicularities don't heal. If they did, Adolin's gut wound wouldn't have needed Renarin. 

You can have all the investiture in the world and if it's just present it won't do anything. Just having the Perp there did nothing but fill gems, because they trap it by their nature. Everything else that happened was directed to happen. 

In order for Maya to heal, something has to cause that healing to occur. The Perp could power that, but it won't do it on its own. 

I'm not saying that the perpendicularity healed Maya but that is provided her with ambient investiture, and now that investiture can be used to heal her.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

Nobody was directing it in a way that would do that. It was just sitting there til the Surgebinders picked it up and used it to do other stuff.

[b4dave he/him]

2 hours ago, CrazyRioter said:

Nobody was directing it in a way that would do that. It was just sitting there til the Surgebinders picked it up and used it to do other stuff.

So by this logic anyone who snaps, or is broken enough to have Investiture flow into them to fill the gaps in their spirit web, making them mistborn, or a knight radiant, had this Investiture funneled into them by direct intent of the Shard?

[Calderis he/him]

6 minutes ago, b4dave said:

So by this logic anyone who snaps, or is broken enough to have Investiture flow into them to fill the gaps in their spirit web, making them mistborn, or a knight radiant, had this Investiture funneled into them by direct intent of the Shard?

That is in no way the same thing. The spiritweb of an individual is what they are. The trauma, and emotional repercussions of that trauma create a reaction within themselves that causes the event. 

There is a large difference between free investiture, and the spiritweb of a living being. Every action, every feeling, everything about a person is constant changes withing the investiture of that person. They are quite literally the living embodiment of what's lacking from the undirected investiture addressed in the perpendicularity. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Calderis

[Red Ferring he/him]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

Investiture needs a mind to guide it. Perpendicularities provide investiture in spades, but it doesn't have any direction. Because of this, perpendicularities don't heal. If they did, Adolin's gut wound wouldn't have needed Renarin. 

You can have all the investiture in the world and if it's just present it won't do anything. Just having the Perp there did nothing but fill gems, because they trap it by their nature. Everything else that happened was directed to happen. 

In order for Maya to heal, something has to cause that healing to occur. The Perp could power that, but it won't do it on its own. 

I think this line of thinking makes sense when it’s humans involved and they’re using investiture for healing abilities. But Maya is investiture herself. Who’s to say the rules are a little different for her healing. As her death isn’t a human death and her wounds aren’t physical, I don’t think the laws governing conventional Cosmere healing apply in the same way. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this sudden collision of realms right next to her was enough to reunite those torn pieces with her broken cognitive self. And give her back the ability to form bonds. 

 

Then again, I can totally see the healing coming from a fledgling Nahel bond with Adolin. Maybe it’s restoring her slowly as Adolin makes more of an honorable man out of himself. And maybe that was helped too by their very close proximity to each other in the cognitive realm where she’s more of herself, albeit her dead spren self. 

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Red Ferring said:

think this line of thinking makes sense when it’s humans involved and they’re using investiture for healing abilities. But Maya is investiture herself. Who’s to say the rules are a little different for her healing. As her death isn’t a human death and her wounds aren’t physical, I don’t think the laws governing conventional Cosmere healing apply in the same way. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this sudden collision of realms right next to her was enough to reunite those torn pieces with her broken cognitive self. And give her back the ability to form bonds. 

The rules across the Cosmere are remarkably consistent. If anything, I find this to be an impediment more than anything else. Investiture resists investiture. It is harder to lash something invested, harder to effect with allomancy, harder to soulcast. A being composed of investiture is goon to be insanely hard to effect directly, just like a Shardblade or plate can't be effected by a power.

Additionally, we've seen physical wounds healed easily, and we've seen Spiritual wounds healed a few times. We have never once seen a Cognitive impairment healed. 

1 hour ago, Red Ferring said:

Then again, I can totally see the healing coming from a fledgling Nahel bond with Adolin. Maybe it’s restoring her slowly as Adolin makes more of an honorable man out of himself. And maybe that was helped too by their very close proximity to each other in the cognitive realm where she’s more of herself, albeit her dead spren self. 

I think the Shadesmar sequence was a major part of it. I think the reason that an existing Radiant can simply restore their oaths and the Spren is restored, is because they have a bond existing and that is a connection with the Spren. 

Adolin has a false bond through the gemstone... But Maya's Cognitive Aspect has not been able to interact with the Physical Realm, there's not enough of her left. But by going to Shadesmar, interacting with her, overcoming his initial shock and still feeling like she is someone to be treated as a friend... Someone deserving of his respect and thanks. I think because of all of that an actual can build atop the gem bond. I don't think it's a coincidence that she saves him before the perpendicularity, showing initiative to protect him.

I don't think it's over. I think Adolin will essentially have to reach the point of a third oath Edgedancer without the guidance of a fully alive Spren. The point at which he could pull her into the Physical with her mind, just like a Radiant. Until that point, I think she's going to make progress, but he won't have a true bond with surges whenever he wants and access to Stormlight. 

I think Adolin and Maya have a long road ahead of them. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Calderis

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

I think it's both. Adolin had a pre exiting gem bond with Mayalaren. He treats her and thinks of her in a similar fashion as our protagonists with living blades and has done so for years. That interaction begins an incomplete healing. Then the journey through Shadesmar happens and he is able to directly interact with Maya. Seeing her as she really is really brings home to Adolin that she's more than just a blade but a sentient entity who is currently stripped of most cognitive functions. That strengthens their bond and it's what allows her to defend him before the Perpendiculary opens. During the Dalinar MOA, the 3 Realms converge, giving Maya enough wattage to zero in on the pre existing bond and make herself heard. It's faint because she still isn't fully awake, but due to Adolin's treatment of her and his growing awareness of who and what she truly is, they are able to communicate in a limited fashion. The Perpendiculary acts as a signal boost; I do not expect him to be able to communicate with her under normal circumstances; more still needs to happen. I do expect him to be able to summon Maya without having to wait ten heartbeats like the rest of the dead blades. I believe something that helps the bond is that he already acts in a way that's compatible to the KR order she belongs to. Now that the Spren are returning, he likely would draw a Cultivation Spren already had he not possessed Maya. Now though, I'm of the assumption that both Maya and Adolin would reject intervention by another Spren. I agree with Calderis; one of the prerequisites for a full Awakening by Maya is for Adolin to progress to 3rd Oath status without guidance. Maybe Lyft can help.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I absolutely believe that what is happening with them wouldn't be possible if he didn't fit in with the Ideals of the Edgedancers.

The fact that part of that is caring about her specifically is just the icing on the cake.

[MountainKing]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

The rules across the Cosmere are remarkably consistent. If anything, I find this to be an impediment more than anything else. Investiture resists investiture. It is harder to lash something invested, harder to effect with allomancy, harder to soulcast. A being composed of investiture is goon to be insanely hard to effect directly, just like a Shardblade or plate can't be effected by a power.

Additionally, we've seen physical wounds healed easily, and we've seen Spiritual wounds healed a few times. We have never once seen a Cognitive impairment healed. 

I think the Shadesmar sequence was a major part of it. I think the reason that an existing Radiant can simply restore their oaths and the Spren is restored, is because they have a bond existing and that is a connection with the Spren. 

Adolin has a false bond through the gemstone... But Maya's Cognitive Aspect has not been able to interact with the Physical Realm, there's not enough of her left. But by going to Shadesmar, interacting with her, overcoming his initial shock and still feeling like she is someone to be treated as a friend... Someone deserving of his respect and thanks. I think because of all of that an actual can build atop the gem bond. I don't think it's a coincidence that she saves him before the perpendicularity, showing initiative to protect him.

I don't think it's over. I think Adolin will essentially have to reach the point of a third oath Edgedancer without the guidance of a fully alive Spren. The point at which he could pull her into the Physical with her mind, just like a Radiant. Until that point, I think she's going to make progress, but he won't have a true bond with surges whenever he wants and access to Stormlight. 

I think Adolin and Maya have a long road ahead of them. 

I just want to point out that deadeye spren have a spiritual wound, it's similar to what happen to the Parshmen.

[Calderis he/him]

Just now, MountainKing said:

I just want to point out that deadeye spren have a spiritual wound, it's similar to what happen to the Parshmen.

Yes, and they were healed by a phenomenon designed to do so. Directed investiture. 

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Undirected investiture is like the Highstorms of Roshar. They have some benefits; Rosharan people generally live longer and are more resistant to disease, but it doesn't really do anything unless wielded by a sapient mind ir 2 in Roshar's case. Maya couldn't have been healed by the Perpendiculary alone. The Perpendiculary only provides an environment conducive to healing; the healing itself must be at least partially directed. A connection with the spiritual realm may give a character clues on the method but that character must implement it.

[Red Ferring he/him]

12 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

I do expect him to be able to summon Maya without having to wait ten heartbeats like the rest of the dead blades.

This. I think this happened already. In the scene when Adolin was waiting for Maya when fighting the thunderclast. He counted off the heartbeats and in-story he only got to 7 before she emerged. Now whether that was just how Brandon wrote it, that the full 10 beats lapsed and it just wasn’t mentioned or whether it really only was 7 beats before she came, I’m not 100% sure.

But I’d wager it was only 7 and Adolin didn’t notice because of the chaos around him. So maybe that’s part of Maya regaining herself and utilizing whatever form of bond she shares with Adolin, beyond the gem bond

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I think it's definitely implied it was only 7 heartbeats and I don't think Brandon would imply that by accident. He's very particular about his rules.

[Calderis he/him]

It literally counts every heartbeat. It was only 7,and there's no way that Adolin isn't aware. It's been explicitly stated that they can't not hear the heartbeats when summoning. The count was in the narration because Adolin heard them. 

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

And I think 7 heartbeats is a sign that Maya is awakening. Adolin probably won't be able to hear her outside a Perpendiculary until and unless he goes Edgedancer, but I believe her healing has progressed enough to where he can summon her early.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I wouldn't expect him to be able to summon her early all the time, not yet. She only did that when he was desperate. The other times he summoned her in that battle it was normal.