Gallant's and Szeth's Afterimages

[Elithanathile10]

In Chapter 22 of RoW (p. 325), Adolin observes Gallant leaving behind an afterimage.

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They started walking towards the ramp, but Adolin paused, cocking his head. When Gallant moved, he trailed a faint shadow of light. It was almost imperceptible. When the horse shook his head from side to side, there was a distinct impression of an afterimage the shape of the head, but glowing.

This passage is shortly after the delegation to the honorspren enters Shadesmar. This tickled my brain to the point where I decided to do a little digging into Szeth's afterimage, which is remarkably similar. To quote the wiki (I unfortunately do not have the relevant passages on hand),

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Following [Szeth's] death and subsequent revival, his soul was improperly attached to his body, leaving him with a ghostly white afterimage that can be seen by anyone with sufficient Investiture, such as Lift or the Skybreakers.

It's pretty clear to me that Szeth's afterimage is his Cognitive Shadow which is the result of his death and that "improper reattachment" by Nin/Nale/Nalan. I'm going to go out on a limb here and surmise that this detail about Gallant is

1. a characteristic of all Ryshadium, and

2. while not necessarily a Chekov's Gun by Brandon, something that is relevant to the nature of Roshar and/or Cognitive Shadows in general. I don't think it would be like Brandon to have a detail like this be purely flavor.

I have a number of ideas concerning the ramifications on the lore that this has. I don't expect it will blow anything wide open, I just think it's interesting.

Firstly, I'm fairly certain that these afterimages are connected, if not the same thing. What I think we're seeing here is Gallant's Cognitive Shadow (Ryshadium do have CSs as per this WoB).

The implication here is that any sufficiently sentient life-form has a CS (not much of a stretch). I would posit that we would see a similar afterimage in Shadesmar (the manifestation of the Cognitive Realm on Roshar) from bonded Aviar. However, since we do not have any mention of such afterimages from humans or even Radiants (who have a symbiotic spren bond as do Ryshadium) this comes with a few reservations. It could be that my first premise is false and that Gallant has suffered some trauma that has harmed his "soul" and/or spren bond in some manner. I'd like to encourage someone trying to get a WoB about if we would see the CS of a non-sentient life-form with a symbiotic sprend bond such as a chasmfiend or skyeel in Shadesmar or even to confirm/reject my first premise.

Another detail of note is the differences between the afterimages of Szeth and Gallant. Adolin is not heavily Invested, at least not enough to see Szeth's CS. However, he can see Gallant's CS without issue. He has not become more invested, so the only conclusion I can see is that CSs are more visible in the Cognitive Realm. While I don't have any evidence to back this up (perhaps someone who has Secret History could scrounge for such details about Kelsier), intuitively this seems reasonable. I'm also curious if Lift could see Gallant's CS in the physical realm.

What are your thoughts? Am I making too much out of a random detail? Is this just a one-off? Am I wasting my time on a minor detail? Let me know what you think and any crazy thories you come up with!

[LewsTherinTelescope]

I feel like it's probably just spren, since Ryshadium have spren bonds but presumably don't have a gemheart to put them in like most Rosharan life.

[Elithanathile10]

2 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I feel like it's probably just spren, since Ryshadium have spren bonds but presumably don't have a gemheart to put them in like most Rosharan life.

I'm leaning towards that explanation as well, but it begs the question: Why don't we see the Cognitive Shadows of the Radiants? I don't really have an explanation that fits.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Elithanathile10
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[LewsTherinTelescope]

Just now, Elithanathile10 said:

I'm leaning towards that explanation as well, but it begs the question: Why don't we see the Cognitive Shadows of the Radiants?

Probably Gallant's spren is actually inside him, just not in a gemheart? Not sure, tbh.

[Criggleworth]

4 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Probably Gallant's spren is actually inside him, just not in a gemheart? Not sure, tbh.

That's my thought as well. I thought there was a WoB about Rhysadium having like proto-gemhearts.

I'd be very curious to see a singer in Shadesmar. I wonder if they would have a similar effect from the spren inside their gemhearts.

[Lightdancer]

7 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I feel like it's probably just spren, since Ryshadium have spren bonds but presumably don't have a gemheart to put them in like most Rosharan life.

I assumed this as well. My reasoning for why Adolin could see an afterimage was that, since all spren seen to have larger cognitive aspects (gloryspren have the whole bird-body, angerspren are really weird frog-things), the afterimage was just the rest of Gallant's spren.

I think @Elithanathile10 's theory has merit, though. CS are often described as "spren" (by Rosharans, who don't really have other terms, but the connection stands). I was surprised that coming to the Cognitive Realm didn't have a debilitating effect on Gallant. I'm not sure why I expected something to go wrong, but it was still interesting. Follow-up question: if Szeth went to the Cognitive Realm, what would happen? (Maybe we could ask Brandon on his SA stream?)

[i’m in the details]

On 12/11/2020 at 4:56 PM, Criggleworth said:

That's my thought as well. I thought there was a WoB about Rhysadium having like proto-gemhearts.

I'd be very curious to see a singer in Shadesmar. I wonder if they would have a similar effect from the spren inside their gemhearts.

We have seen fused in the cognitive realm and I don’t believe any of the main cast noticed any afterimages, despite being highly invested. And the soul of the fused resides within the gem heart of the body of whomever they take over. I think it likely that gallant and szeth have an effect different from fused/singers. Also, doesn’t lift have an afterimage in dalinars vision, or am I misremembering?