Seon & Cognitive Realm

[Myuken]

Seons are the closest things to Spren off-Roshar and knowing that Sprens look differently in Shadesmar this caused those kind of questions :

 

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Questioner

What's a seon look like in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Good question.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

 

 

 

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kalamitous_emoashions

Obviously, we know that spren look different in the Cognitive Realm, as opposed to in the Physical. Seons, from Elantris. Do they look different?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

 

However Ala looked as a Seon on Elantris while in Shadesmar. Why ?

The simplest explanation would be that those WoB are no longer true but I find this unlikely.

We do have a precedent for Spren appearing in their cognitive form in the Physical Realm, I suppose then that the contrary is possible and we've seen Seon in their physical form in the Cognitive Realm and their cognitive form is still a mystery.

Shallan didn't do anything particular when going into Shadesmar so either Ala has been modified to stay in physical form when transferring to the Cognitive Realm, and this might be a clue to the "How to get bound being out of their system?" question, or the box is responsible for keeping Ala in physical form. I tried to identify the metal but we have no infos on it except that it's smooth. However Shallan do remember seeing a similar box in her childhood so it could be important.

So what do you think of Ala's being in physical form ? Any other possibilities I missed ?

 

[Chinkoln]

There is one problem with all your speculations. You are saying that Seons are a spren, but they are not a spren. Seons are splinters of Devotions power, which are similar to honorspren, but not the same. 
I think the best way to compare them would be to say - Seons are a fraction of the power, while honorspren use a fraction of the power - which means they function differently and have different rules. 

[Elegy]

1 hour ago, Chinkoln said:

There is one problem with all your speculations. You are saying that Seons are a spren, but they are not a spren. Seons are splinters of Devotions power, which are similar to honorspren, but not the same. 
I think the best way to compare them would be to say - Seons are a fraction of the power, while honorspren use a fraction of the power - which means they function differently and have different rules. 

I don't think there's a significant difference. Brandon refers to them as spren:

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Questioner

Why do spren appear on Roshar and nowhere else?

Brandon Sanderson

They do, but they're in different shapes. Seons are the same thing that spren are, for instance. So there are places where you will see them, it just is going to depend on how the worldbuilding is built and how the magic is channeled and things like that. 

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

So, that sounds like Rosharans would call them Devotionspren.

[gremlin303]

13 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

There is one problem with all your speculations. You are saying that Seons are a spren, but they are not a spren. Seons are splinters of Devotions power, which are similar to honorspren, but not the same. 
I think the best way to compare them would be to say - Seons are a fraction of the power, while honorspren use a fraction of the power - which means they function differently and have different rules. 

Rosharan spren are splinters of the shards there

[Knight Oblivion]

Honestly, I'm surprised Ala and other Seons around Roshar aren't a bigger deal to the Ghostbloods. They would seem to be the same thing they're seemingly looking for, a way to get bound investiture off-world.

 

Maybe the process that has unbound Ala and other Seons forces their physical realm form to be their only form. Also, now I'm curious if Shallan or someone will accidentally bond Ala.

[gremlin303]

3 hours ago, Knight Oblivion said:

Honestly, I'm surprised Ala and other Seons around Roshar aren't a bigger deal to the Ghostbloods. They would seem to be the same thing they're seemingly looking for, a way to get bound investiture off-world

While this may be a small part of their plans, I do not believe this goal is actually as much of a big deal to the Ghostbloods as Mraize makes it seem. I think they have much more ambitious aims than just moving investiture about.

3 hours ago, Knight Oblivion said:

Also, now I'm curious if Shallan or someone will accidentally bond Ala.

Ooo this is an interesting idea. What would happen if someone bonded a seon?

[Knight Oblivion]

58 minutes ago, gremlin303 said:

While this may be a small part of their plans, I do not believe this goal is actually as much of a big deal to the Ghostbloods as Mraize makes it seem. I think they have much more ambitious aims than just moving investiture about.

Ooo this is an interesting idea. What would happen if someone bonded a seon?

The Ghostbloods definitely have more ambitious aims, at least some of which likely involve having cognitive shadows become unbound from their planet of origin. I would assume, due to the similarities between spren/seons and cognitive shadows, that unbound seons would therefore be an important thing to study in that regard.

 

As per what would happen, there have been some WoBs that imply that a seon bond would potentially provide powers like a Nahel bond. Though such powers would be different. How different is anybody's guess.

[Lightdancer]

23 minutes ago, Knight Oblivion said:

As per what would happen, there have been some WoBs that imply that a seon bond would potentially provide powers like a Nahel bond. Though such powers would be different. How different is anybody's guess.

Okay, now I have to theorize.

I don't think that we could enumerate all or even most of the Seon-bond powers- at the very least, not without knowing a lot more about Selian shards. (I haven't read the Emperor's Soul, by the way.) However, I think we might be able to pin one or two based on the pattern Brandon is establishing with Adhesion. Adhesion is the surge "closest to Honor"; and while I don't think this is cannon, Progression seems awfully Cultivation-y. So I would guess that a Seon-bond would provide a power close to either Dominion or Devotion, or both.

I think the easiest way to pin a surge like this would be to examine the Spiritual application of it. After all, sticking one-armed Herdazians to walls doesn't exactly scream "Honor", but Adhesion as used by Dalinar is clearly Honor-related.

We haven't seen many Spiritually-applied surges besides Adhesion, so it might be difficult to extrapolate a Devotion- or Dominion-based surge. However, here's a swing at it. The D-surge (I know, it's a terrible name) might enable you to spiritually Dominate someone or something. The other option would be spiritually Devoting yourself to someone/something, which doesn't seem useful (maybe they're Devoting themselves to you?).

I'm not sure what the physical application of this would be. Maybe you can convince animals/objects/spren to obey you?

Sorry for derailing this thread. This is fascinating to me, and you could take a million angles in theorizing on this (are there different kinds of Seons? How many surges might they grant? Would their powers look similar to the magic systems on Sel?). Anyways.

[Dancer]

4 hours ago, Lightdancer said:

Okay, now I have to theorize.

I don't think that we could enumerate all or even most of the Seon-bond powers- at the very least, not without knowing a lot more about Selian shards. (I haven't read the Emperor's Soul, by the way.) However, I think we might be able to pin one or two based on the pattern Brandon is establishing with Adhesion. Adhesion is the surge "closest to Honor"; and while I don't think this is cannon, Progression seems awfully Cultivation-y. So I would guess that a Seon-bond would provide a power close to either Dominion or Devotion, or both.

I think the easiest way to pin a surge like this would be to examine the Spiritual application of it. After all, sticking one-armed Herdazians to walls doesn't exactly scream "Honor", but Adhesion as used by Dalinar is clearly Honor-related.

We haven't seen many Spiritually-applied surges besides Adhesion, so it might be difficult to extrapolate a Devotion- or Dominion-based surge. However, here's a swing at it. The D-surge (I know, it's a terrible name) might enable you to spiritually Dominate someone or something. The other option would be spiritually Devoting yourself to someone/something, which doesn't seem useful (maybe they're Devoting themselves to you?).

I'm not sure what the physical application of this would be. Maybe you can convince animals/objects/spren to obey you?

Sorry for derailing this thread. This is fascinating to me, and you could take a million angles in theorizing on this (are there different kinds of Seons? How many surges might they grant? Would their powers look similar to the magic systems on Sel?). Anyways.

The surge would probably relate to what Aon makes up the Seon. If the Seon had and Aon for fire then you would most likely get the surge of Division, if it was light then you would get Illumination etc... The difference being that you could only use fire or light and not anything else. No sound waves for Illumination and no molecular bond breaking for Division. 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Dancer

[GoWibble]

I am disagreeing with some things in this thread:

Humans look normal when they go into the Cognitive Realm, while they appear as flames in Shadesmar. If Seons are transferred in the same way, shouldn't they have a possibility of looking the same as they do in the Physical realm?

This has some problems when you think about Splinters in Shadesmar: Spren look different when they are transferred over to the CR, and Seons are accepted as Splinters of Devotion. This is where the box could come in. 

Ishar was seen bringing spren from the CR to the physical realm, so the same should could be possible, and it seems like it happened, to do the reverse. I think that the Seons are somehow transferred over to the CR, which is why Ala didn't look different

 

[Part of the One]

4 hours ago, GoWibble said:

I am disagreeing with some things in this thread:

Humans look normal when they go into the Cognitive Realm, while they appear as flames in Shadesmar. If Seons are transferred in the same way, shouldn't they have a possibility of looking the same as they do in the Physical realm?

This has some problems when you think about Splinters in Shadesmar: Spren look different when they are transferred over to the CR, and Seons are accepted as Splinters of Devotion. This is where the box could come in. 

Ishar was seen bringing spren from the CR to the physical realm, so the same should could be possible, and it seems like it happened, to do the reverse. I think that the Seons are somehow transferred over to the CR, which is why Ala didn't look different

 

I have a couple of thoughts on this. Firstly, humans look different when they are physically in the CR, vs when they can be seen from there but are still in the physical realm. So this means a couple possibilities:

-Spren aren't physically transported to the CR when their radiants go there, but are merely seen in their cognitive aspect once the radiants cross over.

Or

-Spren do look different when they cross over because their cognitive entities, and this is how they perceive themselves. However, something about the box blocks the cognitive aspect of the seon, and so it remains in physical form when being transported over to the CR.

I tend to think this second one is closer to the truth, which potentially means that the metal in the box somehow blocks connection. If the Ghostbloods knew what this was made of, it might be exactly what they need to transport a cognitive shadow offworld. Though it's possible that severing that connection could have similar issues to trapping a Herald in a gemstone and they would just kind of dissipate in transport.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Part of the One
Punctuation

[Kitch]

I think the main difference is that Seons exist in the physical realm while Spren exist in the cognitive, but pieces leak out into the physical. Since Seons have an actual physical presence, that is brought into the CR like a human. 

 

When spren are brought into the CR from the PR, they exhibit their physical presence, which is how they look in the CR

 

What we should be asking is what does a spren who has been brought into, and is in, the PR look like from the CR.  That will tell us what Seons look like from the CR when currently in the PR. I don't think the box had anything to do with what it looked like in the CR, it probably had more to do with getting it off world and confining it.

 

As far as why this doesn't happen more often, the effort probably isn't worth the gain in large quantities. Which is why....

Sixth of Dusk and released sequel chapter spoilers

Spoiler

There is a huge interest in the aviators and conflict between Roshar and Scadrial. This is investiture and ability granting without dealing with breaking a connection.  Basically free spren/Seons.

 

[Clovermite]

On 1/3/2021 at 2:05 PM, Kitch said:

I think the main difference is that Seons exist in the physical realm while Spren exist in the cognitive, but pieces leak out into the physical. Since Seons have an actual physical presence, that is brought into the CR like a human. 

 

When spren are brought into the CR from the PR, they exhibit their physical presence, which is how they look in the CR

 

What we should be asking is what does a spren who has been brought into, and is in, the PR look like from the CR. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

There is a huge interest in the aviators and conflict between Roshar and Scadrial. This is investiture and ability granting without dealing with breaking a connection.  Basically free spren/Seons.

I think we've already seen this when Shallan entered the coginitive realm on her first time soul casting the goblet into blood. They look the same as how we've always seen them in the CR

[GoWibble]

On 1/5/2021 at 6:36 PM, Clovermite said:

I think we've already seen this when Shallan entered the coginitive realm on her first time soul casting the goblet into blood. They look the same as how we've always seen them in the CR

@Kitch, are you referring to the Ishar experiments, or a spren that is bonded and is now in the Physical Realm?

[Honorless]

Seons probably don't naturally fully inhabit the Cognitive Realm of Sel, given it's home to the Dor. (Many spren prefer to be in the Physical Realm over on Roshar as well, so a Cognitive Being doing that isn't too unusual). Maybe the Seon was Physically in Shadesmar? Maybe Seons manifest in the Cognitive differently when they're submerged in the Physical? 

[Stormgate]

Hear me out, this is a literal tinfoil hat theory. What if the box was made of aluminum? We've seen aluminum do lots of wierd things, doing this doesn't seem that far-fetched to me. 

[Chinkoln]

Just made a realization that explains why Seons look the same in the cognitive and spiritual realm. It is connected to the specific nature of the deaths of Devotion and Dominion. Normally a Shard dies and someone can pick it up. If it is splintered there are more steps, but it could be fixed. When Odium killed them he pushed the majority of their power into the cognitive realm. I think this allows the Seons to stay in one form in between the physical and cognitive realms. I don’t know the exact Realmatic causes, but I think it MUST be related to the unique circumstances of death.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Chinkoln
Autocorrect

[ScadrianTank]

On 09.01.2021 at 8:56 PM, Stormgate said:

Hear me out, this is a literal tinfoil hat theory. What if the box was made of aluminum? We've seen aluminum do lots of wierd things, doing this doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

Seon may be cut off from the outside world, like a room lined with aluminum stopped spanreeds from working in Oathbringer.

[Proletariat]

Well, generally existing spren-like beings are from the cognitive realm and either stapled to what is basically a corpse, or able to mostly manifest due to bonding with a physical being though neither seems to involve directly crossing into physical. It seems like it would be the same for seons otherwise they'd collapse in on themselves like Ishar's spren experiments. The only other precedent we have for these beings is that they generally cannot leave their system of origin - which seons definitely have departed from on two occasions.

But IMO the stuff about looking different doesn't yet seem to be a pattern that we can suggest the seons stand out for breaking. In fact if they chose to the Honorspren could shapeshift to functionally look identical between realms, much as seons do. 

[Clovermite]

On 1/9/2021 at 7:54 AM, GoWibble said:

@Kitch, are you referring to the Ishar experiments, or a spren that is bonded and is now in the Physical Realm?

I was referring to a spren that is bonded and is now in the physical realm.

Sorry for the late response, I haven't been checking my email for notifications, and haven't been regularly checking the site.

Rereading your original post, I see that I misunderstood what you were saying, or I wasn't thinking straight.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Something to note: we see seon bonds in Elantris. Sarene is bonded to Ashe and Raoden to Ien (which is why Ien is affected by Raoden being taken by the Shaod). We have no idea what the bonds do, though.

[Aspiring Writer]

What was the box made of? Because what if it was made of aluminum?

[kalamitous_emoashions]

Oh cool - that was one of my questions (about Seon's looking different in the Cog Realm) at the Oathbringer signing years ago - I have to say I definitely didn't expect to see one popping up in RoW so soon!