Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

That's about how I see it, too. Though I'm not quite sure how physically traveling to the Cognitive Realm fits into all this.

Travelling between realms depends a lot on the Cosmere's metaphysics, which we haven't really seen all that much about. We know a fair bit about individual magic systems, but not nearly as much about the general rules that are common across all worlds and all systems.

Near as I can tell, just as spren are primarily cognitive beings that can exist in the physical realm, some people (who are primarily physical beings) can travel to and exist in the cognitive realm, as well. So far we've only really seen short jaunts, but IIRC at some point it's implied that Jasnah has spend a significant period of time (like, months) in Shadesmar (Roshar's cognitive realm).

Where things get weird is that talking about travelling to and from the cognitive realm isn't really accurate, since things exist in all three realms at once. Things in the Cosmere have a physical, cognitive, and spiritual aspect, so it's not like people don't exist in the cognitive realm unless they travel there somehow. I'm not entirely certain if people who travel to the cognitive realm actually literally move their physical aspect into the cognitive realm (which would be really weird, from a metaphysical point of view), or if they somehow switch their "essence" (for lack of a better word) from being primarily physical to being primarily cognitive.

What I'm wondering is if going to the Cognitive Realm means their physical body disappears, transfered completely to a cognitive form, or if it's more like they're swapping places with their cognitive self.

Like, normally Jasnah has a bipedal body in the Physical Realm, while in the Cognitive Realm she's one of those little black beads. So when she goes to Shadesmar, does her physical body vanish, and her cognitive body transforms from a black bead to a bipedal form? Or does her physical body go to Shadesmar, while back in Roshar a tiny black bead appears where she was just standing?

In the deleted scene of Jasnah during the boat attack, she says that normally just her mind goes to Shadesmar. This time, her spren finally pulled her over all the way. We also saw that the body normally stays behind during Soulcasting, when Shallan Soulcast in front of Jasnah.

So I guess that would be just "refocusing your mind" or whatever. Kaladin briefly saw Shadesmar the first time he used Gravitation consciously. But as for physically entering the Cognitive Realm... I don't know how to define it. Maybe your Physical presence just becomes super weak, to the point that it's completely undetectable?

Well, as far as described only Elsecallers have the ability to fully and totally go over.

Willshapers should too, since they also have Transportation.

Still, some orders seem to have a specialty. I wouldn't be surprised if Truthwatchers were worse than Lightweavers with Illumination, or at least using it for illusion. Or Skybreakers and flight, and so on.

Words of Radiance epilogue reread is up. That's it, we're done. She's probably gonna do a Warbreaker reread in September, though, so there's that.

Same here. How many people actually realized she wasn't dead? Be honest.

A lot of people complained about pulling the Death Is Cheap card. If it's a set up for something like described here, I think those complaints will go away.

I am overly amused at the idea of a Radiant using their Shardblade for mundane tasks like that. But Kaladin used Syl to spot reeds and Shallan uses Pattern to open locks, so maybe it's just an extension of that.

I'm guessing she's been a full Radiant since shortly before Shallan met her. Soulcasting the bandits strikes me as a high-level trick that a fledgling Elsecaller wouldn't be able to manage.

I think we all know by now that Word of God is that Hoid uses Feruchemy to know when and where important events are. My theory is that it's chromium, storing fortune. It's the only one that even slightly fits, and a lot of people have been thinking manipulating luck would be a gamebreaker. Well, if all it can do is tell you when important things are happening, it's pretty cool, but not the "infinite loop of good things happening with no downside" people were worried about.

Regarding where Jasnah got food and supplies: she's a Soulcaster. She can just make them out of almost anything.

I tend to check the Ars Arcannum as I read. So as a result I figured it out by looking at the different Surges and knowing Jasnah was a different order to Shallan.

Looking forward to the Warbreaker one. I've been meaning to give it a reread myself. So I'll likely do mine just before that one starts.

Can you soulcast the stuff IN Shadesmar?

I was going to ask that same question. I'm guessing the answer is yes, since Soulcasting requires entering Shadesmar more than any other Surge we've seen. But what would that look like? And would she be able to access the stuff she Soulcast, or would it all be stuck in the Physical Realm?

Maybe she can use some combination of Soulcasting and Elsecalling to grab a sphere for an object and bring it over physically into Shadesmar, like she herself is. Because as far as I can tell, the only other way would be for her to try and eat the spheres of food and hope that feeds her.

I like the "bringing objects to Shadesmar using Elsecalling" idea.

the Oathbringer prologue is out.

Flashback!Eshonai's interest in exploration and known tendency to wander off from what she's supposed to be doing sound like what we've heard about Willshapers.

edited 22nd Aug '17 12:53:33 AM by rikalous

One wonder how it happened. To date, the most reliable way, besides insanity, we have of hearing voices in the Cosmere is Hemalurgy, and I don't think we're dealing with that.

Well I'm intrigued. I'm a tiny bit disappointed we didn't get as much of the party as we got with Jasnah last time, but the stuff we did get is juicy indeed.

Also someone's been feeding Gavilar information I think. Or he somehow found it on his own? Either way I really do think someone prompted his initial idea.

What intrigues me is the implication, mistaken or otherwise, that you can basically TRAP A SHARD with a big enough crystal. Given what we know about spren, it's, on the surface, an Up To Eleven but logical conclusion. And makes sense given the Pits of Hathsin.

Copy pasting from the main thread, because I forgot about this one.

Eshonai's perspective at Gavilar's assassination. Gavilar was definitely getting visions, but he twisted them with his religious extremism. Nice choice, Stormfather. And the Parshendi might have been led to Szeth by Odium or one of his servants. That seems odd. Wouldn't he have preferred that Gavilar kick off the Desolation as soon as possible? Unless he was able to see the future enough to know that giving Szeth to the Parshendi would eventually put him in the hands of the Diagram, who would use him to destabilize the world.

That's for humans. Listeners are something different; they exist partly in the Cognitive Realm, they sing to universal songs, and were created (or heavily modified, at least) by a God of Evil. I think they can easily hear anything that chooses to whisper to them from Shadesmar.

Well, he's obviously getting the visions from the Stormfather. That was implied—or even stated outright, I can't recall—last book, and his "unite them" confirms it. As for the rest, I have to assume that the Sons of Honor existed before he started getting his visions, and they were the ones who were like "Obviously God is telling you to get millions of people killed."

Just to make sure: do you think Gavilar was revering to a shard/Odium when he said it´s possible to capture a God? I think he was rather refering to one of the Unmade

edited 22nd Aug '17 7:54:40 AM by Samaldin

I suspect Gavilar was vastly underestimating what he was planning to trap.

It might be an option for a Shards power, without a holder, but a full blown Shardholder? I see that going badly fast.

edited 22nd Aug '17 9:41:12 AM by 3of4

I'm with Samaldin; it seems Gavilar was talking about the Unmade, not Odium himself. He implies here that the black orb already had one of the Parshendi gods, so he's not talking completely out of his ass. Is this the same one he gave Szeth?

And that's probably History's Worst Pokeball

Kaladin: the original book soundtrack from The Black Piper - Soon to be Kickstarted

edited 22nd Aug '17 12:40:31 PM by 3of4

Well that was interesting. Biggest insight we've gotten as to Gavilar's motivations so far. He truly does know a lot more than he should by all reasoning. Do you guys think the listeners' gods are the Unmade? Splinters of Odium? Also, I wonder if Eshonai's sister was a Voidbringer even back then. A couple details give room for doubt there.

I also can't stop picturing Eshonai as Bubbles.

Someone remind me what the hell an Unmade is? Sanderson's stuff is great and always makes sense while I'm reading it, but in conversations like this I always seem to get lost almost immediately.