Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Didn't think of it like that. Is that Word of God, or a theory? Either way, it makes sense.

That still doesn't confirm ordinary Shardblades cut the soul, though.

It's my analysis comparing Shardblade behavior and Nightblood. Cutting the soul is implied, but not empirically confirmed so far, but the nerve damage and physical damage we've seen all make sense with the proposed framework.

The problem with your theory is that inanimated objects, which get cut in the physical realm by shardblades, also have a cognitiv aspect, otherwise soulcasting would only work on living things.

If a normal shardblade somehow got as invested as Nightblood is, then i guess it would also cut in all three (remember Nightblood doesn´t just have two or three times the investiture of shardblades but about 100 times (or more) point 8)

edited 5th Jul '16 12:56:10 AM by Samaldin

Maybe it attacks the cognitive aspect by inducing nerve damage?

Damage to the nerves doesn´t damage the cognitive aspect. Nerves are part of the physical realm. A sharddead limb works similar like a nerve dead on (as in it doesn´t work anymore) but from an anatomical standpoint nothing changed. Also doesn´t a sharddead limb become kind of grey? (I don´t have to books right now so i can´t look it up)

Now im wondering what would happen if you cut through an already sharddead limb. Would it be cut or would nothing happen or something completly different?

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a living thing's cognitive aspect is somehow "stronger" than an inanimate object's, so a shardblade has to cut that first with a living thing, but can cut both physical and cognitive realms simultaneously with inanimate objects. The fact that a shard-killed extremity can be physically cut by a shardblade even if the person (and thus the limb) is still physically alive would seem to support that idea.

Do you have a source for cutting of shard-killed limbs? They question occurred to me, but if there is already a Word of brandon for it i would be thrilled

In regard to a stronger cognitive aspect of living beings over inanimated objects i would disagree. Actually i would argue that a living being (or at least an inteligent one) would have a weaker cognitiv aspect, since they are more willing to change (stick wasn´t willing to change at all, while the ship which seemed to have formed some kind of emotional bond with the sailors was more willing). The spiritual aspect on the other hand could be what makes the difference between living and inanimated

When they're fighting the chasmfiend to protect the king during the hunt-gone-wrong, they cut off several of its limbs by cutting them twice — first to paralyze them, then to physically remove them.

As far as cognitive realm, "strength" isn't the same thing as "flexibility". I'd actually argue the opposite. The stick's cognitive self was nothing but "I am a stick" because there's nothing else there. The ship had a cognitive aspect that included wanting to be a good ship — which usually meant "not sinking", but Shallan was able to convince it that its crew was better off if it sank, so it changed itself to better serve its crew (by sinking). "I am a stick" is a basic, weak cognitive aspect. "I want to be a good ship" is a more complex, stronger one. A living mind is a stronger one still, and a sapient being (whether human, spren, shard, or whatever) would be as strong as you can get.

Of course, Jasnah was still able to soulcast people, so it's not an absolute barrier. But I still see a shardblade cutting the cognitive realm first, then the physical realm in the second pass if necessary.

I figured Sharblades cut through the spiritual realm, not the cognitive one. They're described as cutting people's souls, afterall.

I Guess i have to do a reread soon... a bit embarrassing to forget that.

The soulcutting is said from the viewpoint of someone without knowledge of realmantic theory, so we have to take it with agrain of salt.

It could very well be true that it cuts in the spiritual realm as well. Problem is that we know jack-all about the spiritual realm. The physical realm is pretty obvious, the cognitive we at least have some idea, but the spiritual we know basically nothing about except the name.

The mostt info on the spiritual realm we get is in Secret Histories, where it seems to have its own Eco system, everyone can use hammer space, and it seems closer in appearance to the physical realm than Shadesmar.

No, that was Scadrial's Cognitive Realm. It looks a bit different from Shadesmar, but is functionally identical.

Yeah, Kelsier in Secret History (does that need to be spoiled? well, being safe) is a Cognitive Shadow, which appears to be both the Spiritual and Cognitive aspects of him minus the Physical. And he apparently solves that last hurdle via Hemalurgy sometime in the timeskip between Mistborn series.

Huh, that's weird. Why are the cognitive realms so different between Roshar and Scadrial? Is it the soulcasting causing Shadesmar to be more compartmentalized instead of organic, the way Roshar's is?

It's just differences between the collective consciousness of the worlds. Mist is an omnipresent part of life on Scadrial, so the minds of non-living things appear as little bundles of mist. Spheres contain power in a very literal fashion on Roshar, so their non-living minds appear as spheres. Everything else is the same, including the inverted land and sea. Oh, and Roshar has more Investiture just hanging around, so that makes it easier for the Physical to affect the Cognitive.

Also note that the biggest difference (that Kelsier doesn't fall through the sea of mists) is because he's a cognitive shadow, and thus doesn't have to worry about things being physically impossible. A cognitive shadow on Roshar would be able to stand on the sea of spheres, and when Hoid physically came over to Scadrial's Cognitive Realm, he needed a raft to stand on the sea of mist.

Huh, I don't remember that last bit.

If land and sea are inverted in the Cognitive Realm, what do you get at the ice caps?

Fire, if only to piss of the next poor ghostly sucker trying to walk on it.

Words of Radiance chapter 88 reread is up. Apparently it skipped a week because the writer is on vacation.

On my first read, I assumed that Lady Davar was connected to Nale's Skybreakers, since that's the only group we know of that's explicitly trying to kill Surgebinders. Not sure if that makes sense.

Interesting to note the connection to Jasnah and Gavilar. It's harder to tell when Kaladin first started bonding, because he's been doing it at a low level his entire life. Can anyone remember where the incident with the quarterstaff sits on the timeline?

I think if any Herald would have control over the spren, it would be Nale. There's probably some law that he can use to summon a highspren and get them to bond with a potential Skybreaker. Though it's a good point that if Szeth is going to become a Skybreaker and get a Shardblade, why does he need Nightblood? Maybe Nale just knows that it's a potent weapon and someone has to wield it, so Szeth is the best choice.

I'm not sure about this one. The first and third seem too minor to work as Truths. But, I suppose they're important to her, and that's what matters. Plus, Sanderson implied that she swore most if not all of her Oaths as a child, so maybe it was a bit easier the second time around.

I think Szeth was recruited for his experience with using Shardblade-like weapons to fight and, more importantly, fighting without using them a lot. Nightblood, even in Roshar's energy-rich environment, is still Stormbringer on fastforward. He's been given to one of the few people who can use a shardblade but DON'T see it as the hammer to be used on every nail.

Oooo! Good point.

I wonder if Nightblood was given to Szeth for a specific purpose. Maybe Nalan wants someone or something killed that a Shardblade won't suffice for.

My thinking is that Nightblood is a spren, and Nale knows it will bond with Szeth because Nightblood will lend its power to anyone who a) picks it up, b) doesn't meet Nightblood's criteria for "evil", and c) has Investiture to feed it with.

As for why Szeth was chosen, I'm tempted to think it really was for the reason Nale said: Szeth displayed absolutely fanatical devotion to the law in keeping up this whole Truthless thing, and that's clearly something Nale cares deeply about.

Sanderson has described Nightblood as a "sort of robot spren." At least one of the people involved in his creation had seen a Shardblade and wanted to replicate it with BioChroma, but didn't really know what they were doing.

My guess is that Nightblood won't grant Szeth any Surges, and he'll need a highspren to be a real Skybreaker. But we know very little about how magic systems interact between worlds.

That's what I figured as well. And I think the rereader person is barking up the wrong tree, that it's not a matter of Nale being able to make people Skybreakers as him identifying that Szeth is very, very Skybreaker and the lawspren or whatever will love him.