Harmony's true power?

[KelsierofHathsin]

I was rereading Mistborn era one and in the end of The Hero of Ages, when Harmony fixes the world he leaves Spook a tome. Harmony said " Spook, it read. I tried to bring them back, but apparently fixing the bodies doesn't return the souls. I will get better at this with time, I expect."  (pg. 723). So I was wondering does this mean that he can "re-alive" someone with only his power or does he have to use hemalurgy... (Kelsier?) or was Vin and Elend a one time thing?

[Calderis he/him]

Frankly, Sazed lied to comfort them. Shards can't touch the beyond. 

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Questioner

Is there a way for any of the Shards to circumvent the Cognitive Realm and resurrect somebody?

Brandon Sanderson

...So, resurrection in the cosmere is-- depends on if-- where your mind is, and the status of your body, and whether your mind and soul have kind of combined and passed on. If you get to them before that happens, then you can re-attach the soul to the body. And you see that happening in Warbreaker quite often.

Bystanders

The Returned.

Brandon Sanderson

The Returned, yeah. You just gotta get the soul before it passes on. Once it passes on nobody knows where it goes.

clyguy

Now Harmony tells Spook that Kelsier and Vin say hi. So is he able to reach into wherever they are?

Brandon Sanderson

He doesn't say that they say hi, he says--

Bystanders

They're doing well.

Brandon Sanderson

They're doing well.

clyguy

Can he see them or communicate with them at all?

Brandon Sanderson

He has interacted with them at some point.

source

Now, the next thing I have to say requires an answer first... Have you read Secret History? 

Edit: if you haven't read SH, then I mean... Read SH. If you have... 

Spoiler

He spoke to them. He offered to put them back and they chose to go Beyond. It wasn't a failure in what he did. 

There's no bringing someone back from the Beyond, even for Shards. That would completely undermine what Brandon has told us about the Beyond. 

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

After people die, in this universe, where do they go? Because, at first they appear in the <?>, and then they go somewhere else.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

One of the things that's very important to me as a writer, when I am writing stories, is when we get to these kind of fundamental questions about faith and religion and things like this, that the narrative is allowing multiple characters' viewpoints to be plausibly true, if this makes sense. For instance, I am not gonna come out and say, "Is there a capital-G God of the cosmere, is there an afterlife?" These are not questions I'm gonna answer, because in-world, they can't answer them. What they can say is, your Investiture will leave what we call a Cognitive Shadow, which is an imprint of your personality that can do certain things. And that most of those fade away, and you can see them, glimpse them, and then watch them go. But, are they going somewhere? Or are they not? Is that simply the Investiture being reclaimed, Is it more of a Buddhist thought, where your soul is getting recycled and used again? Is it nothing, you return to, you know, being... yeah, is it a different type of matter? Or is there a Beyond, is there a capital-G God? These questions are not answered. I'm never gonna answer those.

Now, the characters will try to answer them. But it's important to me that both Dalinar and Jasnah can exist in the same universe, and that the story is not saying "This one is right, and this one is wrong." The story is saying "This is how this one sees the world; this is how this one sees the world." It's very important to me from the beginning to do that, just because... Like, I hate reading a book where someone espouses my viewpoint only to get proven wrong by the entire structure of the narrative, and in that universe, that person is wrong. But I'm like, "In our universe, I don't think that I am. Just the way you constructed everything makes it so that I have to be wrong, if I were living in your universe, even if it's not a sci-fi/fantasy one." If that makes sense.

This is just kind of for respecting my characters and for the people who hold the viewpoints of my characters, in particular if they happen to be different from my own viewpoints. I feel there are certain lines I'm not gonna cross.

So, the answer is: who do you believe? Which of the philosophies in the books do you look at and say "Yeah!" Or, even better: listen to lots of different ones, and maybe these different viewpoints are all gonna have interesting points that'll things to think upon.

source

Bringing people back from those would offer proof that the Beyond is real. That's not ever going to happen. 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Calderis

[KelsierofHathsin]

Thank you for posting that but could Harmony put Kelsier back in his body with and afterthought as in "here's this spike in the eye it comes with perks" or was the spike necessary for Kelsier

[Calderis he/him]

He could have just built a body and put him back, no spike needed. 

The spike is a do it yourself method 

[Weltall]

Well, it might be more involved than just snapping a finger. Endowment needs to provide the Returned a Splinter in order to stick their Cognitive/Spiritual selves back in their Physical bodies. It might be this has more to do with the Returned being vessels to carry out her Intent (ie, by doing it that way she makes it possible for them to Endow someone with that Divine Breath later) than a limitation of Cosmere mechanics, but we don't know.

[KelsierofHathsin]

In bands of mourning Wax dies due to tunnel collapse or gunshot, can't remember, but he talks to Harmony who sends him back to his body...no spike need, so for Harmony it kind of is like snapping his fingers maybe a bit more

[Weltall]

Wax wasn't healed by Harmony though; he healed himself with the Bands. The situation is analogous to the end of Words of Radiance with a character restored to life very shortly after what would normally have been a fatal incident and but before they were 'dead dead' and would have needed some special conditions to keep from passing Beyond. Harmony may have cheated a bit with keeping Wax's connection to the Physical Realm from snapping but the actual healing was the standard Cosmere model and not the same situation as the Returned or Kelsier.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Weltall

[+Ark1002]

So yeah, I agree with everything said. Harmony's true power isn't resurrection. It's creation. Which is why I think that Scadrains are progressing so fast. They have a little bit of Ruin and Preservation investiture, but none of the others. So they are purely the powers of creation, investiture wise. And they aren't just balance because they have  a bit more preservation then ruin. So they are creation, with good intent. This was caused by Preservation and Ruin, which became Harmony. Sorry, went off on a tangent...

[RShara she/her]

The meta answer is that Brandon wrote that before he had many of the Cosmere mechanics in place. Like, before he decided that the Beyond was going to be a thing, and that he wouldn't address it directly.

Also, the Scadrians are actually progressing slowly than they should be--at least, the Basin ones--because the idyllic nature of the Basic doesn't encourage innovation.