When Susebron was healed, he was in a very stressful situation, maybe in that moment he felt his tongue mutilation as much more negative. And maybe, the time he spent with Ciri made him realised how much not being able to talk was a problem. Plus, we have to consider Endowment's Intent and the amount of investiture used: has Brandon said in a WoB "Everything is possible if you have enough power". Obviously, the Intent of Lighsong had a role too (the whole "Perception of the Healer vs Perception of the Healed" thing) There are many elements that must be considered. Healing is complicated in the cosmere. I think it will become more complicated with Ashyn magic system.
@@_argent lol bro I watched a bunch of your streams. you get serious and nerd out hardcore and then occasionally layer in some witty dry humor. I like your style!
Look at Siri and Vivenna, they are descendants of a returned, they have the powers of a returned except the healing part(well, maybe they have that but we don't know yet), they have no need to consume breaths, and most probably they are capable of holding the divine breath of the god King. The child of the God King does not have the need to be a returned himself.
I think the divine breath healing and Shard healing is dependant on the Intent of the healer and not the Identity of the healee (with enough oomf behind it to do what they want). In the case of edge dancers and truthwatchers I think they provide the mechanism of healing but the Identity of the recipient is the design that the healing follows. Maybe radiant healing Intent just doesn't have the power to override recipient Identity. Even their own Identity overrides their Intent as with kaladin's scars.
I would like to point out that Kelsier was made into a congnitive shadow by Preservation and was literally "preserved". So he might be a bit more of an edge case compared to the Returned, Fused, Heraldse etc. All that preservation investiture (from Leras and later holding the shard) would probably lead to him being stuck as he was and not change like the Heralds and the Fused do. He also didn't have his memories wiped like the Returned so he very likely would hold on to them much longer too. Also weird thing about the Fused and Heralds. The Fused are becoming more like Odium (the longer they live and go through the cycle) while the Heralds went and did the opposite of what Honor wanted or expected of them.
The herald were also influenced by what people on roshar thought of them, just like spren. By the way, I think that the Shard's Intent is very important in the Cognitive Shadow's creation. I doubt the Ruin could have ever created a CS. Preservation--> it makes you last longer in the Cognitive Realm, it preserves you, without really changing you Honor--> it binds things, it reinforce your bonds with this world and doesn't let you go in the Beyond. Odium--> hatred and strong emotions can bind people, they are like the classic "Angry ghost that can't go away". It makes you stay, but it corrupts you (I suppose that this is also the case of Ambition, but we don't know much of its Intent)
40:53 annotation is pretty clear. Idk what lead to so much confusion. Basic rules/principles: 1.) Babies/infants returning is super rare. 2.) Returned can have kids (who for some reason are also returned or have to be returned for them to ascend to the God King title) but the success rate is not 100% 3.) Because of previous two rules, they have limited time to make a decision on whether or not to use a (rare and newly) available returned baby or the God King's baby (who may not be available immediately). They prefer the latter but will go for the former if they have to as they did with Susebron.
I'm confused because I'm not sure how the God King's child would even Return. It seems so probabilistically unlikely that I don't know why the priests would ever have a preference to have the next God King be the previous God King's child. -Eric
@@17thShard Well the first bit Brandon has kept secret on purpose (as per the annotation). Probably coz the mechanics relate to and might spoil some other future Cosmere stuff. So I guess we'll just have to wait. As for the second part, I think it is just for the same or similar reasons why in our world the ruling elite prefer to have successors from the same bloodline (even in democracies to some extent). So I am not particularly surprised by that. It's just one less complication in terms of transfer of power and all that jazz.
Something of note is the very end of that annotation is the bit at the end where it says that Siri and Susebron would chill on one of the islands "as long as they lived." Susebron has to give up his 50 thousand breaths to the next God King, so how long does he have to live? Does he get to keep a few hundred? It seems very strange that the priests would give Susebron a fixed amount of time to live, considering there's no real way of predicting how long Siri will live. Do they just feed him one breath a week until Siri dies, then cut him off? What if he wants to keep going? Or is there some way in which he passes his returnedness to his child? Some way that leaves him as a normal person, free to live out a normal lifespan? I have no idea what you would have to do to the spirit web to make that work, but that seems to me the most straightforward way to guarantee that the God King's child is a returned, and not just someone with the Royal Locks.
I'm rereading Warbreaker, and the paintings themselves don't grant visions. The only visions that the returned get are in their dreams. When Lightsong sees the battle of Twilight Falls, he sees explicitly what the artist painted. The reason his priests don't see the same thing is that the shades of red used are so similar. Only someone of at least the third heightening could recognize that the paint used to depict the lifeless is just ever so slightly gray. Essentially you have two people speaking to each other in a code that only someone of the third heightening could understand. No need for any Spirit Connection
Just reminding: ordinary Scadrians have a little extra investiture vs. most "humans" in the Cosmere because they have a bit of Preservation. Similarly, Nalthians have a bit of Endowment. They might last longer in the Cognitive because of that.
I have a Vo theory: What if he (and perhaps some others after him) were a different class of Returned, who could have children? Then, Vo fathers a child, from which an entire royal dynasty is raised - and an Invested royal family at that. Returned are competing against each other, using their divine blessings to prop their children up as rulers, and have a reason to stay alive - for their heirs. And that is not what Endowment wanted. She didn't want this to happen, so, in the next occurences of Returning, she took their fertility away. The new Returned are now infertile on purpose, to weaken their political power. Another Vo theory: he endowed his divine breath to his wife. It went into her, and healed her unborn child who would've been miscarried very early on. The child lived, was born, and had royal locks.
The way I thought Argent meant the “the royal locks is passed when someone becomes ruler” and didn’t come up, but now I’m thinking might be the truth: what if the passing down happens in something that nobody knows is what’s doing it? Coronation ceremonies have a lot of tradition, what if somewhere there on the middle of all the sayings, songs, gestures etc. that happen when someone becomes king/queen of Idris there is a phrase, a command, that passes on the power?
On the topic of cosmere healing and regrowing a tongue as in Susebron's case, remember Lopen regrowing his own arm the second he got to inhale stormlight. It might be a thing where it's very hard to change your own identity to match thinking about yourself with such a body mutilation (for example, the phantom limb syndrome can extend up to 3 years in time).
Vasher theorizes that their souls are replaced with the divine Breath Investiture. Its like the Ship of Theseus, you replace piece by piece parts of the ship with new parts so is it the same ship? Even if you take out a wood plank and replace it with a more "divine" material of the exact same shape and fit it in the same place. Vasher feels like his real soul has moved on and the new Investiture has replaced it and inhabits his same body. But its not really him just investiture given life and becomes consumed by a singular purpose. Also I think needing a weekly Breath helps the Returned stay connected to the people and remember their dependence on Endowment for their new life. Otherwise they could go off and live however they wanted and not think about giving up the Breath. Basically like Vasher has figured out to do with Stormlight. I wonder if he will have a purpose being there and will end up giving someone his Breath on Roshar.
I wish Grace does more podcasts. She comes up with the wackiest stuff like Shinja’s in the shinovar episode and in this one “they go to cognitive realm and have sex there” 😄😄😄 priceless 😂👌🏽
She was going to be on another recently-ish but something went wrong. I agree though! I want her on lots more podcasts. Expect her for Dawnshard and a ton of RoW stuff! -Eric
Huh, now that was an interesting thought about Vasher getting all the bits of Honor together and giving up his divine breath to them. That wouldn't have enough juice but what if _Edgli_ did it? Can the Shard of Endowment surrender itself to restore another Shard? Would that Shard then be a composite of itself and Endowment like Harmony?
I had that thought the first time I realized it was Vasher on Roshar. I doubt it'll happen (as the Sharders did), but it seemed like something Brandon would have to avert. More likely would be healing The Sibling.
Austre is also one letter away from austere which can mean to be plain and unadorned. Given how Idrians are and their view on ostentation and colour I always just figured it was word play to further convey this idea. Though looking at it now I guess it could have deeper meaning and be wordplay hinting at a being that is in opposition to Endowment and their theme of colour. Oh, on the topic of Returned having kids. Perhaps it has something to do with self-awakening. Like when Vasher taught the little girl to erase her memories with a Command. That Command didn't use up her breath just caused a weird flicker I believe? So it could be a Command thing without it using up their divine breath?
Essentially, what Evgeni is saying is that if an Elantrian doctor have a patient with cancer, he would need the help of a psychologist in order to convince the self cognitive side of the patient to not see himself as an individual with cancer and then work through out the spirit side of the body, helping the investiture into entering the person´s body?
My example wasn't great, but kind of? The patient's would need to see the illness as something external, as a disease. I'll come up with a better example in the future :D
My thoughts on the healing aspect of Divine Breaths and Shards healing Spook: - Normal Comere healing takes you back to what your Spirit Web says - Divine Breaths and Shards healing can alter the Spirit Web and therefore the patient's perception of themselves. Perhaps Divine Breaths or perhaps even a very powerful (read, highly invested) version of Regrowth could make this change to the Spirit Web.
22:00 - Perhaps the more shardic investment you inherit, the more "C" Connection you develop to that shard bringing you closer to divinity. Essentially, the more shardic investment you have, the more spirit tendrils you create between your spirit web and the shard.
We know from Stormlight 3 that healing near, nearly after and after death all have different side effects on the body. The impression BoM give is that Wax’s healing happened too early for him to become a shadow. Szeth is closer to that, because Nale is a huge asshole and decided to wait until the last possible second when his soul was basically already out of the body to heal him. Besides, Harmony didn’t even really do anything for Wax, the power that brought him back was from the Bands, not him. It might just not be in his power to do it. His Intents are Ruin and Preservation, neither gives a lot of room for “I’ll give you more power.” It might just be that Endowment is actually incapable of NOT giving people she returns extra power
The fact that the look of a Returned is determined by their perception of themselves might also be a reason why Returned can't have children: The priests of the court tell them that they can't, so that's what they believe, and their bodies reflect that. The god king is different, because he gets told that he can (and needs to) produce offspring.
I thought that the returned did not have the memories were last because of intent. The cognitive shadows have memory because they want a body. While the returned are put in a body with a mission with no intention by the person
I think the reason why the cognitive Shadows can't have kids it's because IDENTITY, and a espiritual thing. The way to overcame this can be something like the thing with the bands of morning. (Sorry, English is not my native language)
1:04:55. Or it could be her Shard Intent playing out. Like she wants to promote the idea of "endowment". So the way the Breaths can be given away and the Returned needing Breaths to be given to them to stay alive longer and such could just play into that.
WAIT, i thought the priests are intentionally making the society think that the new god king is the child of the old one, and that the reality is that they took a random infant to take the mantel of god king.
As we said in the annotations that we read in the episode, they actually prefer the new God King to be the child of the previous. They do not always switch with the Returned child. That's Plan B, not Plan A, and we mostly were like "how the hell does Plan A work": wob.coppermind.net/events/250-warbreaker-annotations/#e7344 -Eric
Well we are assuming the vessel of endowments motivations are pretty much just merged to the shard of endowments motivation because she has been a vessel for so long correct?
One thing I wanted to mention, you guys are assuming two things. The first is that Endowment cares about the events that lead to the outcomes. She may not care how a thing occurs provided it does. For example, she may not have exactly foreseen the creation of Nightblood specifically. She only cared that a weapon was developed and made its way to Roshar. The second being that the events the people in world consider major events were the outcomes Endowment cared about and not simply side-effects.
I think there is also some possibility that Endowment just decided Returned shouldn't be able to have kids, or that the population decided the Royal line was special and public perception was that Returned couldn't have kids.
As for the returned having kids thing, what if one of the scholars just decided to spread the lie that returned can't have kids. And since the new returned aren't aware they can have kids... they can't. Kind of like how Vivenna couldn't change anything except her hair until Vasher told her she could probably change more about herself.
Basically Elantris Warbreaker and Mistborn series 2 book 4 will in some way answer an inkling of all these questions. But Brandon won't write/release these books because spoiling SLA So we will know in 18+ years
Why you think Denth had the royal locks? My interpretation is that his hair changes because he's a returned and can manipulate his body just like Vasher. Vasher can make his hair and body change. So why does Denth changing hair color means he has the royal locks?
@@17thShard Thanks... There's so many WOBs it's impossible to know them all. That's so weird. Another point I thought later, is that maybe the priests told Shashara and Denth they were brother and sister, and only that, after they returned, maybe because they saw this as significant in some way.
To your last point - You guys sort of established that when you die you can only become a cognitive shadow if you were significantly invested. So it makes sense that drabs couldn't become returned. They gave up the bit of themselves that was invested. As far as people from other worlds - they wouldn't be invested with Endowment's breaths, so they wouldn't be able to return. But their children, born on Nalthis, would get a breath, so would be invested enough to return. The interesting point is what if someone from another planet was invested by a different shard? Could Endowment return them? I think not. I don't believe we see any cognitive shadows in the Cosmere that were brought back by the power of a different shard than they were invested with when they died probably? Maybe some wibbly wobbly logic with Fused, because of the swapping of Shards. Also I don't see why a Shard couldn't invest someone as they die, and then cognitive shadow them?
Kelsier was kind of like that, Preservation says (and he later on realizes) that he spent his whole life closer to and even being indirectly controlled by Ruin, but both events that allowed him to “live” on were Preservation power. But then again, he was on a fkton of Allomancy juice when he died so maybe at that point he was more Preservation than Ruin?
If the self healing is based on you image of yourself how did loppens healing work? He talks about himself as one armed so much I don’t see how he wouldn’t see himself as one armed. Is there an explanation for this.
In fact, i think he´s just messing around. He really sees himself as a regular person, not being less than any other man or woman. ( I think it´s pretty explicit in the books, or maybe i´m just better at understanding people, no offense :D )
Post RoW this kind of breaks though, because of Dabid. With Venli’s mother you could make a case that she didn’t see herself as the person with a degenerative disease, but Dabid definitely sees himself as not the same as everyone else, and yet him and the Sibiling fully believed their bond would “fix him.” I think Radiant bonds are capable of this sort of healing that goes beyond what the “healee” thinks of themselves because that is sort of the point of the bond. The spren specifically hunt people who are somehow broken, and by bonding them they try to fix that. The real weird thing is why Lopen got an arm, why Dabid would get healed, but why Kaladin is still depressed, Shallan still has DID and Teft was still an addict. It may even be that what the bonding can heal is actually dependent on the recipient seeing that part of themselves as broken. Kaladin only starts thinking of his depression as something that is specifically wrong with him much later, while Dabid already thought of his mental issues as a problem before bonding a spren, so maybe Dabid would heal but Kal didn’t?
A little morbid Evgeni? That's like, max morbidity. Regardless, interesting podcast, especially in the wake of last week's RoW chapter. Edit: Wait, it's pronounced "Ow-streh"? I always pronounced it "Ah-ster".
I think their point is more that, mechanically, they _can_ eat food. Eric’s point was more that, other than living on until they’re not given a breath and die, there is nothing biologically different between them and a regular human. They breathe, they bleed, they eat and drink, urinate and defecate… so there’s no real reason to extrapolate that exclusively their semen and ovules work different, when all other bodily functions work the way they did before
