Could a soul stamper stamp a person who's been soulcast into stone back alive?

[Apple]

If a person was soulcast into stone while alive, could a soul stamper make a stamp that makes it so that they never got soulcast, reviving them? Does the soulcast person in the cognitive realm remember being a person, and is now stone, or is the stone a new soul that has nothing to do with the person, and therefore cannot be soulcast?

[Quantus he/him]

No, you cant Forge somebody back to life after they've properly died, and getting turned to stone (or Fire, etc) via Soulcasting is lethal, the resulting stone has become an Object, along the same lines as how a shardblade phases through living things but then cuts the body once it's just meat&chiton.  The statue is easier to Awaken, though.

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Questioner

So with Soulforging, are you able to Soulforge yourself so that you die?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, can you Soulforge yourself to death? So, Soulforging that requires large state changes of Investiture and/or inputs of Investiture are very difficult. However, killing yourself is not that hard, but basically you could - so, Soulforging yourself so that you are already dead would a little bit harder, but Soulforging yourself would be, yeah.

Questioner

<background noise> and be able to check in the afterlife and then return--

Brandon Sanderson

No, because transfer of Investiture to and from the Beyond or even into the Cognitive Realm is going to require more investiture than a Forger pulls through, you can Forge yourself to death.

Questioner

So I can kill myself but I can’t come back.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That would be one of those things where you kill yourself, your soul passes to the Beyond, your body when the Forgery is broken comes back, and just dead.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 17, 2017)

 

 

 

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Questioner

So the lighteyes that get Soulcast into stone, can they be Awakened?

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* So… Yes, but their soul is gone. When they get Soulcast into stone it is only the corpse, so yes they could.

Questioner

Would it be a lifeless or a-- Would it be like Awakening something inorganic or would them once being alive help?

Brandon Sanderson

The fact that they were once alive will help. There's a Spiritual Connection that still exists on the Spiritual Realm and that is going to help. But you're not going to get the person back. The fact that it is the exact form of a person is going to be really helpful. It would be a lot easier to Awaken that than it would be to Awaken other stone.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

 

 

 

 

[alder24]

6 hours ago, Quantus said:

The Emperor never actually Died, he just received significant Brain Damage.   They didnt know how to repair it but that's thats more because their version of "Healing" isnt spiritual in nature, but Regrowth or F-Gold, etc could have fixed him just fine.  That's the difference between Forgery and Awakening forgery uses Investiture to effect a temporary modification of a Spiritweb, Awakening uses it to make an artificial Spiritweb to make an Object act as if it were alive, and thats what it would take once a person actually Dies and goes Beyond.  

Truthfully speaking, I'm not so sure of this, solely because of this WoB: 

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argel1200

Regarding Ashraven... Would it be correct to say that memories are part of the mind/CR aspect? Assuming so, was Shai forging a new CR aspect to in-effect reconnect Ashraven's Soul (SR) with his body (PR)? I was thinking this could explain how she got his mannerisms correct -- i.e. that those are timeless SR aspects, so she didn't really get those right but instead, the SR connection was re-established?

Brandon Sanderson

Regarding Ashrovan: The problem here is that I don't want to get too deep into these sorts of things, for reasons that I want aspects of the magic to remain subject to discussion for a while yet. Suffice it to say that when we talk about Returned and lifeless in Warbreaker sequels, you'll have more ammunition for understanding what happened in Emperor's Soul.

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Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 4, 2016)

Ashravan situation is related to that of Lifeless and Returned. It makes me think that just like them Ashravan died during the assassination, but Resealing was able to perfectly heal his body, to the point of bringing him back to life - however his soul already moved into the Beyond, thus he was like a Lifeless. If that was true, then Shai truely managed to create an entire soul from scratch, which is big and it would mean that you can bring a soulcasted person "back to life" - as long as you fully revive their body. 

[+hwiles He/Him]

49 minutes ago, Apple said:

If a person was soulcast into stone while alive, could a soul stamper make a stamp that makes it so that they never got soulcast, reviving them? Does the soulcast person in the cognitive realm remember being a person, and is now stone, or is the stone a new soul that has nothing to do with the person, and therefore cannot be soulcast?

@Quantus nailed it fastest once again, so I'll just expand a little. As was noted: no, the soul is passed and gone, so revival is not 'technically' possible. However...what is still (maybe) possible, albeit probably difficult, should include:

1)  Awakening the stone with Breath into a Lifeless that, deep down, still possesses surprisingly abundant remnants of the former person's knowledge, skills, abilities, and perhaps even memories/allegiances if they are awakened with very gentle commands selected to maximize freewill as far as possible.

2)  The awakened stone should be able to be Forged to think, believe, or possess knowledge, skills, abilities, and memories to some extent. It's reasonable to speculate that restoring features that were lost in death would be easier to Forge back in and should last longer or be more stable due to the presence of fossilized spiritual Connections left in the inherent makeup of the stone body.

3)  the Awakened stone creature should be able to be taught and improved iteratively if it is well maintained. It could be communicated and interacted with, shutdown, reawakened, and experimented on with new custom developed commands repeatedly. Using commands that facilitate and encourage restoration of lost functions and reinforce its former identity as an ideal state of self for it to strive towards in its service to its Awakener might conceivably work.

Lifeless =! Non-sensient

[Hmmm lies she/her]

I mean, I imagine that they could theoretically

(Emperor's Soul spoilers)

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Make an Essence Mark that could make a fake soul the same way Shai did for the emperor

 

[Quantus he/him]

On 7/1/2024 at 9:33 PM, Hmmm lies said:

I mean, I imagine that they could theoretically

(Emperor's Soul spoilers)

  Hide contents

Make an Essence Mark that could make a fake soul the same way Shai did for the emperor

 

The Emperor never actually Died, he just received significant Brain Damage.   They didnt know how to repair it but that's thats more because their version of "Healing" isnt spiritual in nature, but Regrowth or F-Gold, etc could have fixed him just fine.  That's the difference between Forgery and Awakening forgery uses Investiture to effect a temporary modification of a Spiritweb, Awakening uses it to make an artificial Spiritweb to make an Object act as if it were alive, and thats what it would take once a person actually Dies and goes Beyond.