Immortality in the Cosmere: Choose your poison; or whatever the opposite of that is... [General Cosmere Spoilers]

[Comatose]

So a number of the Cosmere Worlds contain some form of immortality. I'm curious to see which method people think is the most interesting or would prefer to use themselves. I'm also interested in discussing the pros and cons of each.

For immortality, I'm mostly talking about agelessness/ the ability to live forever, but I've included discussions of resistance to death where it is relevant.

Here are the forms of immortality available that I could think of off the top of my head. Feel free to add more:

Cosmere-Wide - Holding a Shard

Pros:

Cons: Your personality is slowly eroded away as you are shaped by the shard's intent.

Whatever Hoid Does - don't know enough to comment.

Sel: Becoming a Hoed (Failed Shaod); Do full Elantrians die naturally, or must they go to the pool? I can't remember.

Pros: You actually cannot die, except by beheading or burning.

Cons: Constant pain, never heal, practically a zombie.

Scadrial: Compounding Atium (hereditary allomancy and feruchemy, or through hemalurgy); Becoming a kandra (Changed with shard power then spiked with hemalurgy).

Compounding Pros: Limitless youth, plus the ability to change ages at will. Especially powerful if paired with the ability to compound other metals (especially gold for limitless healing).

Compounding Cons: Limited by supply of metals or the benevolence of a Scadrian Shard; atium is supposedly only getting rarer (though Kelsier does say that the pits would take several hundred years to repair themselves, and the Wax and Wayne series is set 300 years later...). Also limited by genetics, unless you use hemalurgy, which requires a sacrifice and opening yourself up to control by Shards, or potentially by really powerful allomancers.

Kandra Pros: Ability to shapeshift, plus whatever your blessing gives you. You also are very difficult to kill.

Kandra Cons: Not really human anymore, have to digest bodies to shapeshift, and you develop a taste for 'aged' meat... Also, you need someone with a shard's power to change you in order to make this work.

Nalthis: Obtaining over 2,000 breaths and reaching the 5th Heightening; Returning and receiving a Divine Breath (Altered by power of Endowment).

Pros: Probably one of the most accessible ways of becoming immortal. It's difficult, but anyone with enough money and power could presumably acquire enough breaths. In order to maintain your immortality, you'd have to get extra breaths if you want to do any awakening, but you also get an immunity to toxins and disease, perfect life sense, perfect colour recognition, perfect pitch, and aura recognition as part of the deal. If you choose the returned/Divine Breath option you also have the ability to shape shift.

Cons: Need to deprive 2000 people of their breath in order to make this work (could get creative by taking breaths from the almost dead); if Returned, you need to consume one breath a week, and would need to die and then be brought back by Endowment.

Are there forms of immortality available to humans on Roshar? I couldn't think of any off the top of my head, but I haven't reread those books as much as the others. Are the Parshendi ageless?

EDIT: DUH! The Heralds! I knew I was forgetting something. Not sure if becoming a Herald is possible, but I guess it should be included here.

Personally, I think I would prefer the 2,000 breaths route. It seems like the easiest to maintain once you have it (unless you are friendly with a Shard or are a Shard). What do you guys think?

[thegatorgirl00]

You could be a Herald.

Pros: You get an Honorblade with cool powers.

Cons: Thousands of years of torture.

I would probably choose to be a Shardholder. I'd be fine with slowly losing my identity if I also got future sight and awesome power.

[DreamEternal]

One of the cons of using Breaths is that, according to WoB, they decay slowly with time, so you would need replacements like a much less hungry Returned without shapeshifting.

And there is an implicit age limit to atium compounding if you don't hack the system on a more advanced level, since you will need to comsume more and more power to maintain the same age as time goes.

[Moogle]

Having Breaths would make you fabulous. I'm going to have to take that option. Not quite interested in having my mind altered into some force of nature.

 

Of note, being an Elantrian is said to be one of the most stressful forms of immortality in the Cosmere.

 

Q: Something about whether Elantrians are immortal or long-lived (difficult to make out)

A: [verbatim] Elantrians have no physical limitations on their lifespan. The power will sustain them, but it's emotionally and mentally exhausting to be an elantrian, so as far as immortality goes it's actually harder to be an elantrian than other forms of immortality that exist in the cosmere"
(source)

[Titan Arum]

**Ahem, Mr. Admin Comatose, shouldn't this thread be the "Cosmere Theories" section of the site? Otherwise we're all breaking forum rules by not putting anything behind spoiler tags here in the "General Brandon Discussion" section, no?**

 

Anyway, I'd probably vote for Breath, since we know you don't need to be just on Nalthis to more or less keep yourself alive. However wealth is the limiting factor here. I better be rich too. How do I do that?

 

However, being a Kandra is a close second, because the ability to be anybody while living forever...is tempting. You can choose a new life every generation and really experience the world you live on. Granted, the whole being susceptible to manipulation by outsiders (be they Shards or strong emotional allomancers) is probably why I don't choose the Kandra route. 

[Comatose]

**Ahem, Mr. Admin Comatose, shouldn't this thread be the "Cosmere Theories" section of the site? Otherwise we're all breaking forum rules by not putting anything behind spoiler tags here in the "General Brandon Discussion" section, no?**

 

Anyway, I'd probably vote for Breath, since we know you don't need to be just on Nalthis to more or less keep yourself alive. However wealth is the limiting factor here. I better be rich too. How do I do that?

 

However, being a Kandra is a close second, because the ability to be anybody while living forever...is tempting. You can choose a new life every generation and really experience the world you live on. Granted, the whole being susceptible to manipulation by outsiders (be they Shards or strong emotional allomancers) is probably why I don't choose the Kandra route. 

I wasn't sure where I wanted to put it (and I did include spoiler tags in the topic title).  On one hand, we are talking about different facets of the Cosmere, but on the other, it felt more like a discussion of opinions than a theory, so I thought it might fit better here.  A survey of similar topics in both boards did not help me make a decision.  In the end, I figured "Which Immortality do you like best" is similar in structure to the recent "Who do you think the best swordsperson is" discussion and decided to leave it here.  

 

If others feel the same way, I'm happy to move it though.  

 

The kandra option does have its attractions, but I'm not sure how I feel about the change in diet, the dependence on Hemalurgy, and the inability to have children.  

 

Having Breaths would make you fabulous. I'm going to have to take that option. Not quite interested in having my mind altered into some force of nature.

 

Of note, being an Elantrian is said to be one of the most stressful forms of immortality in the Cosmere.

 

Nice quote!  The wiki (and my memory) said their lives were just significantly prolonged, rather than truly indefinite, but maybe that is just because of how difficult it is for them to continue living indefinitely.  Being a full Elantrian includes a lot more perks, which could make it a more desirable option, though the mental taxation does seem to be a significant con.  Also relevant is the change in color.  It sounds cool on the page, but I'm not sure if I could pull off the silver skin and white hair look.  

[baby]

Well, WARBREAKER SPOILER - Vasher can use storm light on Roshar instead of breaths, and that's even easier. So I'd choose to be a Returned on Roshar.

[Three1415]

Hmmm, wait a minute. Just realized something--in Words of Radiance, Wit/Hoid is tuning his guitar-thing before playing to the imprisoned Kaladin, and mutters, "Now, perfect pitch makes this all so much easier than it once was..." 

 

That could imply he has achieved the 5th Heightening, or is himself Returned (or, according to my personal interpretation, he has Hemalurgically Spiked a bunch of people, probably including a Returned, and has just combined their powers). That would definitely explain the whole "immortality" thing he has...

 

As for me, the whole "Returned on Roshar" thing is obviously the easiest, but being full Elantrian would be fairly cool as well (same with being a kandra).

[Landis963]

Hmmm, wait a minute. Just realized something--in Words of Radiance, Wit/Hoid is tuning his guitar-thing before playing to the imprisoned Kaladin, and mutters, "Now, perfect pitch makes this all so much easier than it once was..." 

 

That could imply he has achieved the 5th Heightening, or is himself Returned (or, according to my personal interpretation, he has Hemalurgically Spiked a bunch of people, probably including a Returned, and has just combined their powers). That would definitely explain the whole "immortality" thing he has...

 

As for me, the whole "Returned on Roshar" thing is obviously the easiest, but being full Elantrian would be fairly cool as well (same with being a kandra).

 

1) Perfect Pitch only requires the Second Heightening.  It's the color-sense and the more flashy powers which require the truly obscene amounts of Breath.  Also, to Return requires a Nalthian heritage (much like Scadrians and Selish, the soul isn't shaped right for worldhoppers to get those powers normally.)

2) Hoid was immortal long before the events of Warbreaker.  

3) By Word of Brandon, Hoid has never used Hemalurgy to augment himself.  (And frankly, it's too much soul damage for too little gain, especially with the alternative he ended up using.)  

 

I'd go with the compounding method myself.  Disguise, extended lifespan and the ability to retire whenever you want?  Yes please.  

Edited December 4, 2015 by Landis963

[Stormgate]

Though it might break the rules, if a Nicrosil Compounder goes to Nalthis and obtains a Breath, they could simply store the Breath in a metalmind and burn the metalmind, getting lots of Breaths in one go. From there, it's all uphill.

I know we don't know much about Nicrosil Ferrings. But come on, the chart clearly states you can store Investiture. And what are Breaths?

[DSC01]

The 17th Shard seems to have access to some kind of life-prolonging juju, if not outright immortality. In The Way of Kings, the three worldhoppers are pretty dang old. Galladon, being Elatrian, is no surprise, but Demoux should be a couple of hundred years old by then, and Baon is even older (though it is unclear by how much).

Edited December 4, 2015 by DSC01

[HalfShard]

I think having a massive number of breaths is best. Certainly better than being a Returned, because they take up a breath each day, and if you find yourself somewhere where Investiture (like Stormlight or Breaths) is unobtainable, you'd sooner or later run out of breath.

Also, Comatose, Atium compounding has a limit. Even if you use duralumin as well, you'll eventually use up so much use to stay young that you won't have any left to compound. You'll live an awfully long time, but when Vin killed the Lord Ruler, Sazed said that the Lord Ruler would have died soon anyway due to this, and he's probably right.

Edited December 4, 2015 by HalfShard

[Comatose]

The 17th Shard seems to have access to some kind of life-prolonging juju, if not outright immortality. In The Way of Kings, the three worldhoppers are pretty dang old. Galladon, being Elatrian, is no surprise, but Demoux should be a couple of hundred years old by then, and Baon is even older (though it is unclear by how much).

I wonder though, are they using a method we haven't seen yet, or are they (and perhaps Hoid?) using a method of achieving immortality that we've already seen in the books.

I think it's most likely some sort of combination of the systems (like using stormlight to maintain the fifth heightening) or something. Are there any clues in the interludes that might give away what the Sharders are using to prolong their lives?

The other possibility is that they are not prolonging their lives, and whatever method they have used to travel between worlds does something screwy with time.

[DSC01]

I wonder though, are they using a method we haven't seen yet, or are they (and perhaps Hoid?) using a method of achieving immortality that we've already seen in the books.

I think it's most likely some sort of combination of the systems (like using stormlight to maintain the fifth heightening) or something. Are there any clues in the interludes that might give away what the Sharders are using to prolong their lives?

The other possibility is that they are not prolonging their lives, and whatever method they have used to travel between worlds does something screwy with time.

I can't think of any clues from anywhere in any of the books. None of the known methods of achieving immortality seem to make sense for the 17th Shard. I suspect Feruchemy, though. I don't think that Hoid's Feruchemy is identical to the Scadrian variety (in the same way that his Lightweaving is different from what Radiants do on Roshar). Feruchemy seems to be a strictly genetic thing on Scadrial, not an ability one can acquire, except with hemallurgy. I'm thinking that the Shard has a way to give its members the Yolish variety of Feruchemy, and it is the same method that Hoid used.

I guess time being messed with is a possibility, too, but that seems a little off to me. The three in TWoK all lived in different eras, originally. How are they all synced up now? I know that there are a bunch of scenarios one could work out for how they all ended up together, using time dilation alone (e.g. making what seems like an instantaneous leap through Shadesmar actually drops you off on the other side years later, meaning that after a number of hops, everyone's timeline gets weird). Hmm. Maybe that actually is it.

[Oversleep]

Though it might break the rules, if a Nicrosil Compounder goes to Nalthis and obtains a Breath, they could simply store the Breath in a metalmind and burn the metalmind, getting lots of Breaths in one go. From there, it's all uphill.

I know we don't know much about Nicrosil Ferrings. But come on, the chart clearly states you can store Investiture. And what are Breaths?

When I first heard of Nicrosil Compounders, I immediately pictured some breathing in Stormlight, compounding, and again and again... Some kind of recharge station for Radiants. Like there is some huge battle and Nicrosil Compounders are sitting by medical tents to provide endless supply for those fighting.

But your idea is even better, since Breath is so rare in comparision to Stormlight.

[Stormgate]

When I first heard of Nicrosil Compounders, I immediately pictured some breathing in Stormlight, compounding, and again and again... Some kind of recharge station for Radiants. Like there is some huge battle and Nicrosil Compounders are sitting by medical tents to provide endless supply for those fighting.

But your idea is even better, since Breath is so rare in comparision to Stormlight.

Um... You've posted the exact same thing three times now. Everything all right? Did you sleep in or something?

[Voidus]

Also, Comatose, Atium compounding has a limit. Even if you use duralumin as well, you'll eventually use up so much use to stay young that you won't have any left to compound. You'll live an awfully long time, but when Vin killed the Lord Ruler, Sazed said that the Lord Ruler would have died soon anyway due to this, and he's probably right.

On Atium compounding having a limit while technically true I doubt that TLR was anywhere close to it, he's gone what should be hours at the least without needing to swallow any and recharge, he could stay alive for a few thousand more years no problems if he had the Atium for it.

[Oversleep]

Um... You've posted the exact same thing three times now. Everything all right? Did you sleep in or something?

You may say I overslept... *ba dum tss*

I wrote it and posted it, but switched to another tab without closing this one. Some time later I returned to it and thought I haven't posted it. The third time may be similar, or maybe I clicked 'post' two times, I am not sure.

As for immortality (or extreme longevity), compounding atium sounds good, since near-unlimited youth and allomantic atium is awesome, period.

5th heightening sounds good, but only the normal way, being Returned is bad, since you have your mind wiped, have to die first and consuming Breaths would be a pain in the chull, unless worldhopping to Roshar. And Roshar has this thing with Apocalypse going on and there is no Stormlight on Weeping.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Oversleep

[iBambam]

Is being Hoid an option? Because I pick Hoid. Witnessing the shattering, influencing/witnessing every major cosmere event, interacting with all the awesome characters in every story. What could be better?! Plus, as far as we know, he's immortal, or close to it!

Edited December 4, 2015 by iBambam

[Stormgate]

Downside of being Hoid: You're hunted wherever you go, have no one who's close to you, sixteen of your friends are basically deity and don't get in touch anymore, with the exception of one who was the bad one when he hadn't taken the piece of Adonalsium that had the intent of never ending hatred. Also, with the exception of Rayse and whatever Endowment's name is, all the ones we've seen are dead or died a long time ago. Leras and Ati died. But, on the upside, you have magic powers from almost every one of your friends' homes you've visited.

Wow. When put that way, it's no wonder why Hoid is never serious for more than about five or ten minutes. It's the only thing keeping him from succumbing to the loss, the loneliness, and the seeming futility of whatever he's trying to do.

[iBambam]

It is Hoid's humor, his "wit" if you will, that makes him my favorite character! He's the reason I began to read more of Brandon's books and hope I discovered and learned about this amazing project called the cosmere.

So even with Hoid's pain and loss, I'd still want to be Hoid.

[natc]

His earlier appearances chronologically also seem to be much less wisecracking than the Wit persona, tbh.

He's Wolverine without a main character role to distract him from the rusting suckage that is his immortality, basically.

Edited December 5, 2015 by natc

[Moogle]

Though it might break the rules, if a Nicrosil Compounder goes to Nalthis and obtains a Breath, they could simply store the Breath in a metalmind and burn the metalmind, getting lots of Breaths in one go. From there, it's all uphill.

I know we don't know much about Nicrosil Ferrings. But come on, the chart clearly states you can store Investiture. And what are Breaths?

 

This doesn't seem like it should work to me.

 

Compounding works by hooking up the power hose of Allomancy to a metalmind so you alter what comes out.

 

Preservation's Investiture isn't Breaths, or Stormlight, or Dor. It's the mist. So if you burn a nicrosilmind, you should get mist out.

 

 

If what you were saying worked, what would happen is you would get mist input and get Breath output. The clear implication there is that you would be able to convert Shardic Investiture to other Shardic Investiture. Which means that Odium should be picking up the Shards of those he kills and then converting them into more Odious Investiture. Instead, by WoB he fears doing that because they would change his Intent.

 

Because Odium doesn't do this, it implies heavily that you can't convert Investiture from one Shard into another.

 

There's a bunch of other examples, here - Ruin should have turned himself into another Shard for example, since Ati probably didn't want to be an engine of universe-spanning destruction.

[DSC01]

But Investiture is Investiture. Once you've hacked it, you should be able to mess around with the system. the only real difference between Investiture on Nalthis and Investiture elsewhere is that it conforms itself to units--Breaths. If you can hack Feruchemy to store a Breath, compounding it with Allomancy shouldn't be a problem. In the same way that Allomancy converts itself to the Feruchemical store because the sDNA has been overwritten, so to speak, the Investiture pulled from Preservation should be able to "understand" the Breath units and shape itself accordingly.

[Stormgate]

I want to point out that you can burn atium, Ruin's Investiture, using Allomancy, Preservation's magic system.