SH ending

[Steel Inquisitive]

At the end of the book we see Vin and Ati pop into the cognitive realm. They were supposedly both cognitive shadows at this point. What stopped either of them from re-ascending? We saw before in the book that cognitive shadows can ascend. It doesn't make sense to me that Vin would just decide to die when she could have taken the powers of preservation back and made Elend  immortal so they could have their happy ending..... My question is, what stops a a shard from immediately re-ascending if  their shard isn't shattered?

Edited July 31, 2018 by Steel Inqusitive

[Wandering Investor]

It is difficult for Cognitive Shadows to ascend to shards at all. Kelsier only managed to do so thanks to the IRE's device. Not to mention, by the time Vin or Ati had collected their wits, Sazed already had the shards.

As for a hypothetical scenario in which Ruin was killed and his cognitive shadow was allowed the chance to take up Ruin again, I don't think it would work. Its debatable whether most cognitive shadows have souls, and even if they did they wouldn't have a physical aspect. That would make it difficult to ascend and control the shard. 

[Weltall]

Kelsier had to cheat his way into becoming a Vessel, using the Ire 'Connection orb'. For the same reason that he couldn't Ascend on his own, Vin couldn't simply grab Preservation's power again and Ati couldn't do the same with Ruin's.

Speaking hypothetically, Vin could have remained a Cognitive Shadow on account of being a Sliver but Elend was on a time limit. Even if they'd been willing at that moment to stay bound to the Cosmere and Sazed intervened, what we saw with Kelsier was that a Perpendicularity was required to serve as the necessary source of Investiture. At the time of the Catacendre, both existing ones had been disrupted and even if Harmony's Perpendicularity had formed immediately, there wasn't time to get Elend there.

And more generally, Brandon has said that all the Vessels have things they might want to forget, if they stopped being a Vessel. Combine that and how quickly both Rashek and Ati passed Beyond (when there was no external pressure to do so) and it's likely that a lot of the Vessels would choose that course even if it wasn't forced upon them.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Weltall

[MountainKing]

My problem was why was Elend almost stretching into the Beyond immediately, He a mistborn that became a mistborn by burning Lerasium, infusing himself with Perservation's investiture, and then Vin as Perservation infused him with investiture, so that he can use allomancy without metals, that should be enough investiture to at least remain in the cognitive realm for at least a few hours. Kelsier just being mistborn, by birth not Lerasium and being weaker than Elend, was able to stay in the cognitive realm for over an hour.

[CrazyRioter]

I don't think it was that long, for Kelsier though it's not clear, and that was with him resisting as hard as he could with his considerable willpower.

And Vin infusing Elend with Investiture was a temporary thing, he used it up right away.

[RShara]

21 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

My problem was why was Elend almost stretching into the Beyond immediately, He a mistborn that became a mistborn by burning Lerasium, infusing himself with Perservation's investiture, and then Vin as Perservation infused him with investiture, so that he can use allomancy without metals, that should be enough investiture to at least remain in the cognitive realm for at least a few hours. Kelsier just being mistborn, by birth not Lerasium and being weaker than Elend, was able to stay in the cognitive realm for over an hour.

I'm pretty sure Elend chose to go Beyond, just like Vin chose to go with him. They both could have stayed longer but didn't want to.

[Wandering Investor]

25 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Kelsier just being mistborn, by birth not Lerasium and being weaker than Elend, was able to stay in the cognitive realm for over an hour.

Kelsier had at most minutes before he needed the well. Elend was already in the cognitive for a few minutes by the time Vin came there.

[Calderis]

Yeah, Ati and Vin taking the Shards back up wasn't possible even if they could, because Sazed already had them. 

If they had taken them up, if that's even possible without a hack, they'd have been cut off from the physical realm portion of their power just like Kel was. 

As to Elend... The way that allomancers stick around longer isn't because if what they are, but from repeated use of the powers slowly altering their soul, essentially a lesser level of what Savantism is. Elend wasn't an allomancer for most of his life, so while he probably used the metals heavily in that year, he's not going to have the extent of use of someone who had been doing it for most of their life. Even Kelsier, with his penchant for pewter drags, a would have beat him out significantly with only a couple years under his belt. 

And what Vin granted him wasn't "the power to use Allomancy without metal" it was her directly feeding him investiture that burned in place of the metals. It was no different than if he had metals to burn. 

Edited July 31, 2018 by Calderis

[Steel Inquisitive]

Thanks all. I guess that makes sense. This question has bothered me for awhile. Nice to have an answer.