Ixthos

The master has failed more times than the apprentice has even tried. An old quote, but a true one - your enemy is fear. Skill can take time to develop, and it requires commitment :-) Keep trying!

How long have you been working on drawing people?

Also, this looks like a useful resource for drawing faces: http://rapidfireart.com/2015/12/07/how-to-draw-a-face-in-8-steps/

I actually like this theory, and I would have hopped it would be the case, but if it were then Rashek couldn't have used Preservation's power to reshape anything, as that doesn't preserve, and Mistborn wouldn't be able to use allomancy to break things. The abilities of a shard are not restricted by the shard, the only limit is that they find it harder to use the abilities for things against the intent. I think based on the first part of what Brandon said it basically is that yes, Nightblood has investiture from Ruin in the same way that everything has some - not just Scadrial, but everything was made with investiture, and so the material that was used to make Nightblood has some from every shard. Based on the second part, I also think that the command might have been able to make a connection to Ruin, but this is not in and of itself something related to Endowment.

The picture you posted looks realistically proportioned. I don't think I understand the problem - what do you think is wrong with your drawing of people? You say drawing their features is difficult - do you mean faces, and so you are comfortable with poses and proportions? The second picture looks well proportioned, so is it only the faces?

Firstly, that is a very nice bottom picture :-) Second, I notice that the legs of the dragon, the head of the dragon, the tail, the wings, all have smooth, organic curls. The legs have joins, the wings, etc. The human, however, has no structure, no knees, a square for a face. The eyes are blocks in the one, but natural in the other. Do you draw the dragons from a reference, or free hand? Do you draw the dragons with construction lines, or is this all the pencil work you do?

You seem to approach drawing a human very differently to the dragon - why do you draw knees for one and not the other? My advice is to look at the skeletal frames for a human, and start drawing stick figures in natural poses - get used to that first, and then worry about realism.

And again again

 

This is a nice theory. It does still have to account for Endowment though, which also seems five centric. Four would get around this, but does have less to it than your arguements for five :-) Still, if Preservation is sixteen, what would Ruin be?

Perhaps the number isn't from the shards, but the planet, and the shard can influence that somehow, so not nine for Braize, but ten less one because Odium interferes with it. Or all the planets normally have ten around Roshar's star, but something is wrong with Braize and that is why Odium went there.

When you say you can't draw people, do you mean that their proportions look wrong, or you are unsure of how to start? If the latter, how do you draw other life, and if the former, how did you learn to draw other life?

I've posted a separate topic on my own theories on this, and added an addendum, but I would like to ask a question with regards to intents - do you think it is possible to name an intent that would describe the shard's attitude towards its own behaviour, or what it wants for itself, that could not be mistaken for applying to others? So, Ambition, is the shard ambitious? I think so, even though Ruin doesn't want to ruin itself, or Preservation preserve itself. Odium doesn't hate itself, and so on. But Ambition, and maybe Autonomy, probably apply to both themselves and to others.

Also, tangentially related, something I realised is that, if like Hoid Bavadin was a light weaver, then taking up Autonomy would have been something that makes sense for a person with multiple personalities who could only express them as illusions - much like Shallan and her own personality problems, with Veil and Radiant. Indeed, if Shallan is a forerunner example of Bavadin - as in first being shown, someone who is used as an example of what can happen to a light weaver, no-matter the method - then Hoid's closeness and mentor relationship could be Hoid reacting to his own relationship with Bavadin, and his grudge. If Bavadin's personailities had wanted freedom, and taking up a shard let each gain its own body, then them all still being connected together and some being able to influence the behaviour of others ... a personality not being satisfied with this would be willing to go beyond the limits the others set in order to be free of them - it could even be that Trell is the personality that Hoid has a problem with - he clearly has a good relationship with some of the other personalities, or at least one, as the letter showed. And Trell being a personality that once worked with the others could be shown in the use of trell and names with trell in them - such as Mastrell - in White Sand.

Now, admittedly, Autonomy would not necessarily mean autonomy of one own self. But the shards name's are not their intent, just the most accurate description of the intent that shard has - after all, how would you describe an intent which applies not to others but to oneself?

@Justi Sorry to mention this again, but could you please list some examples when a character was about to die and either said some words to gain power, or became a knight? I can't think of any examples where it wasn't choreographed to happen.

I could see if going both ways - thematically, it would make sense for allomancy, increasing power, to be a combination, as you said, as that is explicitly said in the text about them needing to work together to create. And feruchemy can best be described as preserving something, and the person storing is not being ruined any more than a bottle is ruined by poring from it. But I also can see its importance with the themes of the story, allomancy being of preservation works with the mists being attracted to allomancers and repelled by hemalurgy, the power at the well having to be tied to allomancy and being of preservation, and the Terris religion being about both Ruin and Preservation. And the Lerasium, if allomancy was of both, would have to be an alloyed metal. I think it can go both ways.

@Ripheus23 Thanks :-) It is a topic that I find facinating - Maths is something which I have both a professional and personal appreciation for, though I have been up and down on maths test my whole life :-P particularly infinity paradoxes and non-euclidean geometry. And other universes too :-) The Magicians Nephew was one of my favourite books growing up!

I'd like to further elaborate on a few approaches I find helpful for thinking about the structure of possible multiversal arrangements :-) I think there are three main categories of things to think about with other dimensions, each with their own unique additions to multiverse, and each with its own possible ways of helping - and the best part is, each can work with the other if they are treated as abstract approaches, something which can be thought of one way to gain one type of insight, and another way to gain another!

The three categories are structure, travel, and life. Structure can itself be thought of - and this is something I find very helpful - with ideas from stellar mechanics, electron orbitals, and mathematical, focusing on non-euclidean geometry, higher order dimensions, and approaches to infinity. Travel can be thought of with its ties to structure, so in terms of folding, or a bubble, or a connected tunnel, or a mixture. Life can be thought of with internal life, external life, and the roles of life from other dimensions. Each approach can also help with connections between worlds, and if a world is of the same type as another or is in some form a foundation for a property of another, and vice versa.

I can elaborate on my understanding and approach on any of these you like, if you wish :-) this is something I am very fond of :-)

I am very fond of the idea of other dimensions. The original half-life, and its expansion opposing force, and to a less extent blue-shift, had a very good approach to it. The idea of using another dimension to travel, and setting up equipment there or at the departure zone to use it, and it being a bridge to others, and not the only bridge, each world with its own alien ecosystem, physics altered.

But I will also add that the wheel of time also covered an interesting extension with the fourth book and the twisted doors - the idea of other realities with physical distances changing, with inhabitants that saw reality differently, distorted geometry. The third book likewise, Verin talking about not just possibilities from quantum decisions but also starting points. 

I am not a player of dungeons and dragons, I mainly know about its ideas through webcomics, but I understand the idea of layers on top of reality. Onions, and each layer a grid. You seem to be focusing on the idea of filling in a grid - is the grid naturally filled, or are they stable points a world can be balanced and form?

 

To be as generic as possible, consider the idea of membranes and surfaces in a hyperspace of complex additional angles - the removal of the need to fill in a grid but able to have complex interplay at intersections of surfaces, both with itself and with other, possibly more complex, surfaces. That is, a complex surface in a multidimensional grid, with each axis itself a plane of other traits, like a line bent across the waves.

[Edit] In short, are you going for an onion approach with a filled in grid, or amorphous flow?

I accept this could be wrong, but I think that Trell is a part of Autonomy that has split off from the others - I think Autonomy is a council of personas that Bavadin had prior to taking up the shard, and has since added to, shaped and led by a core council of personalities. Autonomy doesn't want to take up other investiture, but Trell is stealing powers from other shards, forming a metal which works with at least one of the metallic arts, and copied or stolen Fused to form its own faceless immortals. I think it is a personality that wanted to be free from the other personalities, and so willingly warped itself by absorbing investiture from other worlds.

@Helwar Actually, as I recall she said that to make art she had to have the same level of skill as the artist would have had, and that if she had been given paints she could have made it herself. She also used several stamps for the wall, with the last one completing the set. Also, as @RShara said, he now needed to have a new soul written, as otherwise it would be a body that had never been wounded, but otherwise empty, basically the same thing as the resealers ... and again, for resealers, they apparently can't just write away a wound, they have to write how the body should be.

@Justi could you list some examples of a character suddenly becoming a knight, especially suddenly becoming a knight to survive?

@Bigmikey357 just to clarify, the two weapons idea is for bonding two spren, not a single spren splitting. I like the Adolin idea though! If another spren merged with her that might also change things.

@galendo I can wait :-P voidbinding probably will become more important in the back five, I agree, but it will probably still be showing up before the end of the first five - after all, more about Renarin's abilities need to be shown before his focus book - even if he doesn't master his abilities they probably will experiment in part with them. And if things go the way I suspect, several powers will only be revealed in full near the end anyway.

On the topic of spren sharing, another thing that made me consider this was Kaladin's chapters with the voidspren. We know Kaladin didn't choose to bond Syl, she started it, but he did have to agree to progress it. We don't know if a spren can stop another from bonding their radiant, and her possessiveness over him after he left the singers - batting at the spren surrounding him - along with the way the voidspren had been treating Kaladin seemed like foreshadowing - two spren competing for a knight's loyalty, or making the knight more like themselves. Odium's spren don't seem like they will accept a knight has already bonded, it wouldn't deter them, and Honour's spren wouldn't just let go.

Now, if only Renarin ends up voidbinding, that can still work. Voidbinding might only require a single spren, that is it might be possible to access all nine levels with only a single spren, or maybe only the windrunners to stonewards would need to bind, and Dalinar will remain unaffected. But I think the idea, as @ChetLee said, of the two sides trying to influence the knight ... it would fit the motif well.

This is based more on feelings than on facts, but I think that all - or maybe some ... or at least one - of the Knights Radiant, or at least all the main characters, must either have their spren changed, or dual bind to a voidspren.

Initially, this might seem like a bad idea. After all, voidspren serve Odium, and they let Odium gain some control over someone. But we already have seen an Unmade turn against Odium, and Renarin is bonded to a changed spren, which has altered at least part of one of his surges. While access to voidbinding seems dangerous, voidbinding seems like something that needs to be further revealed, and one of the best ways to do that would be for the viewpoint characters to explore it. The Fused use the surges - knights being able to voidbind would be something outside of the expected norm.

And there is one other main point - void binding sounds like a combination of Odium and Honour. If surgebinding is of Honour and Cultivation (and I am aware that this doesn't really match the idea of the Fused having surges unless it is a hack, or simply how surges are accessed, which Fused do differently), and fabrials are of Odium and Cultivation (again an assumption), then voidbinding would be something that itself is not necessarily a power kept from the knights. If a certain young knight can voidbind, then why not let the others also. Honour has been shown to not be entirely good, and Odium not entirely bad.

 

Lastly, and this is a small part, but something I've been wondering is if the knights can have both sword and shield. If they bind two spren, then they can have a sword and shield, or bow and string, at the same time.

 

I should also note that it might be that Fabrials will eventually be used to voidbind instead of having to bond a voidspren, and half-shards could be a knight's shield ... but if Fabrials can be used for voidbinding, and Venli has trapped a voidspren inside her gemheart ... perhaps there is more than one way to gain voidbinding, assuming Fabrials can access voidbinding.

Apologies for the delay in responding!

 

@Calderis, as @Scion of the Mists has noted, there doesn't seem to be a clear distinction between a Cognitive shadow and a splinter. My main issue is that I can accept if Brandon says there is something different in the structure of a cognitive shadow that makes them distinct, but there doesn't seem to be any, and so any issue with a spren taking up a shard should apply to a cognitive shadow. If there is some membrane a cognitive shadow has that a spren lacks, something to prevent the soul of the vessel from dissolving into the shard and being lost ... 

I do agree with you that - assuming spren can't take up a shard without loosing their distinctive nature - then the mind of the spren would become a seed for a new mind in the shard, in much the same way that if Odium took up another shard, or part of another, it would change, becoming something different, though still with the same memories and, depending on the composition of the new combined shard, a similar personality. But then again, a human taking up a shard is also changed, and it could be argued Ati was no-longer the same person he was after taking up Ruin, though it took some time, so why would it not take time with a spren?

If we continue to talk about splinters, and take @Scion of the Mists's suggestion to instead speak about splinters, then that adds a new dimension to the discussion of Knights, or anyone bonded to a splinter. What would happen, for example, to a Selite bonded to a Seon if they took up a shard? Or a Herald or someone else bonded to an Honourblade? Or a Returned? Would the splinter attached to them remain distinct after taking it up? Could they manifest it physically again, or would it merge with them and become a single whole?

Apologies for the delay in responding!

 

@Spoolofwhool Actually, I think I will in the context of this discussion bite the bullet and accept that any hemalurgist, assuming the spike being removed would kill them, counts as undead, in much the same way as the headless horseman example would count - after all, if someone has a sword through their chest, and the only reason they aren't dead is because the magic in the sword is keeping them alive, and removing the sword would then kill them, that would be a form of undead. And if Returned and Heralds count as undead (and @Draginon, thank you for reminding about the Elantrians! Yes, they also were described as undead by Brandon, and their hearts not beating, nor any requirements of a living person, and no longer healing, thus no longer cellular growth) which themselves do not initially appear to be undead - after all, no-one knew Vasher was a Returned, they thought he was a regular human, and Heralds likewise are unknown to be Heralds - then Penrod and Zane should also be considered undead. Vin and the Kandra can survive without the spikes, and possibly the Koloss wouldn't count, but you do have a good point about their mass not being able to sustain them if the spikes were removed. I wouldn't count them as undead personally, but we both agree they aren't :-)

@Yata I wouldn't include the Monks though, as they gain abilities from death, that is valid, but the magic itself doesn't seem to sustain them, and they probably would survive without the Dor. My main reason for including Inquisitors isn't because they kill and mutilate their soul, but because the spikes would themselves have killed them if they weren't hemalurgy-based, and removing those spikes does kill them - again, I'm thinking of a headless horseman, and Marsh being the Scadrian version of the grim reaper.

@Stormlightning that's a good argument, but for now it isn't entirely clear if the Set's Faceless Immortals are unique to Trell, and as you said, they seem to have a history outside of Scadrial. The implication I've been getting is that Trell has coopted the power of other shards, that Trell is combining several systems together, and either stole, recruited, or otherwise mimicked at least some or perhaps all of the Fused with its Immortals. It could be an entirely unique form, but then it also could be an existing example, or another itteration of cognitive shadows. There definitely is more going on with how cognitive shadows work, but I do agree it is a mistake on my part to directly assume they are the same as Fused without further evidence. There should perhaps be a general category for universal Cosmere cognitive shadows.

As for shardblades, again, that is another example I should have added - they probably count as the same as Returned, or pre-fixed Elantris Elantrians, as Brandon has compared the two.

@Scion of the Mists The thing is though that Fused are both cognitive shadows and spren, and are mistaken for spren on Roshar. Indeed, Rosharan terminology calls anything made of investiture a spren, including shards. A spren is made of investiture with a mind, as you said a splinter, while a shadow is a mind that is imprinted on investiture, a splinter shaped into a mind. Brandon has compared it to fossilisation, the process where a bone becomes stone, the original matter gone but the shape preserved. Unless I mistook what happened to him, Kelsier effectively turned into a splinter, not passing on because his cognitive aspect had been replaced by investiture. 

Unless somehow there is a "membrane" or sheath that isolates the investiture that makes up the mind of a cognitive shadow or human from a shard that a spren or other splinter lacks, how does a cognitive shadow, made of investiture in the shape of a mind, differ from a spren? When Kelsier merged with Preservation, what kept him from merging to the shard, especially considering that the investiture that he was made from was mainly Preservation to begin with - after all, how much of his original cognitive component remained?

@Yata True, I think that due to how the Cosmere has been written it could be argued that there are no undead, but for the constructs types of undead all that is needed for something to be undead is for something that has died to now be animated, and for - as you noted - the ghost types it is someone who died physically but their mind remains in another world that touches the world of the living. Shards still have living bodies, so it could be argued they are still alive, but Kelsier having died, his body reduced to bones, he definitely fits the criteria of ghost, as he still hangs around. Ultimately, if the Cosmere has undead or just complex constructs that are based on formally living bodies or persisting minds depends entirely on how undead is defined.

I didn't include Koloss because - unless I am mistaken - they can't be killed by removing the spikes that made them, while a steel inquisitor dies without the spikes that made them, and if the spikes weren't hemalurgic they themselves would have killed them - much like a headless horseman is considered undead because how can it survive without a head?

Something I've been wondering about is taking up a shard if someone already has some differences from the standard understanding of taking up a shard. The normal way it has been shown is someone with one body, one mind or soul, and one spirit, taking it up, and so expanding their mind, loosing their body - theoretically it being stored much like a shard blade - and their spirit binding into the shard. They then can sense all three realms, affect them, and control the power of the shard as though it were their own body.

 

But what if there are these four conditions, three of which I think are very very similar ...

 

Spren

The first scenario is that of a spren taking up a shard. Spren, or splinters in general, lake a physical body, but some, such as cognitive shadows, can regain their physical form, or like Nightblood, be bound into one. Theoretically, there is no distinction between a spren and a cognitive shadow, and a Returned is similar to a normal human. If a Returned could take up a shard, then so could any other cognitive shadow - assuming, of course, that a Return could. Of course, in Secret History, it was shown that, under the right circumstances, a cognitive shadow could take up a shard without a physical body, though in a reduced state. So, I think that a spren would likewise be capable of doing so, even lacking a physical body. However, I remember reading that Brandon has said that its complicated with spren taking up shards, having said before that he isn't ready to talk about it, or that the question isn't well said. With that in mind, I think that one should also consider that Brandon has said that if they did, they would combine into a larger shard, and has said shards can gain their own minds if left by themselves. I don't see how a spren, with its own mind, is any different from a person with their own spirit made of investiture taking up a shard. If there are any differences, then how is Kelsier any different? That might be revealed.

 

Knights

Knights are bound, a spren becoming a part of their spirits. If a Knight took up a shard, I think the spren would also gain access to the shard, the two sharing it, or the spren as a subordinate to the knight, but still able to act independently. The spren lakes a physical body, but is part of the knight. Shardblades require the bond to the knight, and so might not be considered bodies, but together the spren, as part of the knight, would be connected to the shard, and have access to it. It might also be, however, that their minds would merge, and so the spren would become a part of the person with the shard, and might only be a separate being again after the shard is released, if it is.

 

Several

This is an expansion of the knights idea, but now with several people involved. I think that each person, assuming they don't fight one another when trying to take up the shard, and also not fighting one another when using the shards, would be in complete control of the shard, while sharing that control, able to act independently of the others, and able to work with them, possibly leave the planet and the others, and possibly be able to give that control away while the others continue to retain their power. If my theory about how Stormlight will end is correct, then ten spren and the ten people they are bonded to will take up Honour and a mixture of Cultivation or Odium, and so resolve the damage left to their system, much like a counter to Harmony - instead of one person with two, it will be ten or twenty people taking up one, or one and a half, maybe more.

 

Multiple personality disorder

Fiction often portrays multiple personality disorder differently to how it often manifests, and confuses it with schizophrenia. This is not to evaluate how fiction portrays it differently, but rather to consider it from the perspective that it usually is shown, that of several minds in one body. I think this would be very similar to the several people example given, and I think it might also be what happened with Bavadin, Autonomy being the shard taken by someone with multiple minds that wanted to have their own autonomy, and so took the shard that would let them be able to act independently, but also able to co-operate. I think that Bavadin's mind had several female personas, assuming Bavadin is male, and that the avatars are a mixture of those original personalities, and new ones that they formed, possibly formed according to specific criteria. This could also explain why Brandon likes Autonomy so much, as it lets a single shard be antagonist and protagonist, the different avatars fighting amongst themselves, and also governed by a council of the stronger and theoretically more temperate.

The Cosmere has several types of undead. Attempting to list those shown so far, and including a few redundancies, those so far shown are:

• Sel
  • Skeletals - the name is descriptive, they are necromantic skeletons, completely controlled by the bloodseals - they are, in effect, constructs that serve a function, rather than mindful creatures.
  • Svrakiss - ghosts able to possess humans, though not yet shown to be actual beings on the planet yet, rather hinted at, and maybe the same as the Fused.
• Scadrial
  • Steel inquisitors. Though not what one would typically think of as undead, they are animated by hemalurgy, with the removal of certain spikes killing them - spikes which themselves would be the cause of death if they hadn't rearranged the organs. They are like vampires, being associated with blood, stakes, and stealing the soul.
  • Kelsier. A unique example, as cognitive shadows wouldn't normally hang around in Scadrial without a regular way of forming.
• Roshar
  • Fused - like Svrakiss, they are ghosts able to possess the bodies of Singers, and possibly also humans, though the extent of their control of humans is not fully known. They might also be the so-called "Faceless Immortals" of the Set, counters to the Kandra, with their faceless nature and immortality being rather by stealing bodies rather than mimicking them.
  • Heralds - I wouldn't have put them on this list where it not for the fact that, like Returned and Kelsier, and Fused, they are cognitive shadows, and Returned, their closest analogue, are considered undead.
• Threnody
  • Shades - ghosts that haunt the forest. Difficult to directly place in terms of their minds, they are halfway between the two different types of undead, being neither controlled like constructs, or with their own full will like fused. They aren't fully material, but can touch physical objects. Unlike other cognitive shadows, they are not implied to be able to possess others.
• Nalthis
  • Lifeless - like Skeletals, they are necromantic constructs. If Skeletals are skeletons, then Lifeless are zombies, though it is possible to make a lifeless from nothing more than bones, and unlike skeletals, they are implied to be capable of more thought than their nature indicates, and might possibly be able to make their own choices
  • Returned - though I wouldn't consider them as such, they are considered similar to lifeless, and in some parts of Nalthis they are seen as vampires, needing to take from others in order to live.

 

Part of the reason for listing this is to consider other types of undead that might show up in other Cosmere novels, or might be present on the worlds already mentioned. There are two broad categories for two axes, being the intelligent / construct axis, and the physical / cognitive axis. Physically intelligent undead include Returned, Heralds, and Steel Inquisitors, with the first and third being very similar to vampires; Physical construct undead include Skeletals and Lifeless, with lifeless possibly straddling the line between construct and intelligent. Cognitive intelligent undead include bodiless Fused, Svrakiss, and Kelsier, basically all cognitive shadows, and all possibly able to make the jump back to physical bodies; Cognitive construct undead don't seem to fit on this list, though Shades might, while they also might fit on the centre of the axes, being both cognitive but able to affect the physical, not under anyone's control but also limited in what they can choose to do, with a few exceptions ...

 

So, can anyone else think of any other possible types of undead that might show up? A magic system that could let someone take control of cognitive shadows, or staple a cognitive shadow to a physical construct?