Cognitive Shadow
| Cognitive Shadow | |
|---|---|
| Related to | Splinter |
| Type | Magical Entity |
| Universe | Cosmere |
“And if you let a man die with too Invested a soul—or Invest him right as he’s dying—he’ll leave behind a shadow you can nail back onto a body. ”
Cognitive Shadow is a term used to refer to a spirit that has not yet moved into the afterlife.[2] While the manifestations of this kind of entity can vary depending on the world it occurs on, Cognitive Shadows can occur on any planet in the cosmere. Vasher refers to them as a Type Two Invested entity.[1]
Mechanics[edit]
Cognitive Shadows can be created by a variety of processes. Some of them are created when a person has sufficient attachment to something in the Physical Realm. When a Vessel that has held onto a Shard for a long time dies it becomes a Cognitive Shadow that can continue to act.[3] Depending on how they are made, Cognitive Shadows are sometimes bound to the planetary system they were made on, and are unable to leave it either through the Physical or Cognitive Realm.[4][5][6] It is possible to overcome this issue.[7]
The Cognitive aspect of a recently deceased person can become a Cognitive Shadow by finding a source of Investiture to anchor themselves to the Cognitive Realm before passing on to the Beyond. The Investiture replaces the parts of the soul that connects it to the Three Realms, providing an anchor for it in the Cognitive Realm.[8][1][9] Some Vessels can prepare a Cognitive Shadow at or just prior to their death or Splintering, allowing a portion of their power to continue to function with a small amount of direction; the Stormfather is an example of this.[10]
It is theoretically possible for a Cognitive Shadow to form a Nahel bond with a human.[11] They are not able to burn God Metals.[12] They may be able to create objects from nothing, if they view it as an extension of themselves and are Connected to them.[13][14]
Cognitive Shadows look different in the Cognitive Realm, where how they became a Cognitive Shadow will influence how they look.[15] Shards could create a physical body for Cognitive Shadows.[16]
Destruction[edit]
A Cognitive Shadow can be permanently killed by the use of a raysium dagger touching a gem of anti-Light of the type of Investiture associated with the Cognitive Shadow.[17][18] For instance, a raysium dagger with an anti-Voidlight gem can permanently kill a Fused,[18] and a Herald can presumably be similarly killed with anti-Stormlight. Cognitive Shadows will turn into sunhearts when exposed to the sun on Canticle.[19][20]
Additionally, Cognitive Shadows can be killed by negating their Connection to all three Realms, a process which destroys the anchor against the pull of the Beyond.[21] The experience is described as having your soul ripped apart.[22]
A Cognitive Shadow can also willingly choose to pass into the Beyond.[8]
Cognitive Influence[edit]
Cognitive Shadows are influenced by how people view them over time, although this takes centuries due to their own strong sense of self.[23] But Cognitive Shadows with less sense of self, or less controlled by another source, are more easily malleable by Cognitive influence.[24][25] Cognitive Shadows that are normally invisible to people in the Physical Realm can still be seen and heard by people who exist partly in the Cognitive Realm.[26]
Examples[edit]
Roshar[edit]
When the singers turned to Odium for help in fighting off the humans, he responded by infusing some of them with his power, which turned them into Cognitive Shadows.[27] They reside on Braize, but return to Roshar during every Desolation. Since they lost their bodies long ago, they must possess the bodies of living singers; in doing so they destroy the mind of the possessed body.[28] This cycle of rebirth strains the minds of the Fused and, eventually, they go crazy.[27]Their status as Cognitive Shadows grants them access to the Surges.[29] Odium could remove the Investiture that maintains a Fused, which would send that Fused to the Beyond.[30]
When the Heralds of The Almighty took up the Oathpact, they gained a direct connection to Honor. This connection transformed them into Cognitive Shadows.[31] Each time they return to Roshar, a new body is created for them.[32] Unlike the Returned, they do not need to consume Investiture to remain in their bodies.[33]
Prior to Odium's splintering of Honor, the Stormfather was just the spren of the highstorm and one of the three Bondsmith spren. After Honor's death, the Cognitive Shadow of its Vessel, Tanavast, merged with the Stormfather, though it does not appear that the Stormfather has Tanavast's memories.[34]
Scadrial[edit]
“Look at you Kelsier! You haven't form or shape. You're not alive, you're an idea. A memory of a man holding the power will never be as potent as a real one with ties to all three Realms.”
—Ruin on Kelsier's Ascension[35]
After his death, Kelsier found the Well of Ascension in the Cognitive Realm and, with Leras' help, merged with it. As a result, he became infused with Preservation's power and became a Cognitive Shadow, though, since the Well was created as a prison, he was unable to leave.[8] After Vin released Ruin from the Well he was able to travel the Scadrian Cognitive Realm and influence the Physical Realm, though he was unable to actually leave the Cognitve Realm because his "ties to the Physical Realm [had] been severed" by his death.[36] With the help of a device made by the Ire, he was able to hold the Shard of Preservation after Leras died, though, according to Ruin, he made for a weaker Vessel than a normal person.[35] Some time after the Catacendre, Kelsier found a way to recreate his physical body using Hemalurgy and return to the Physical Realm.[37] Upon death, he lost his ability to use Allomancy and has not recovered it despite regaining a body.[12]
Nalthis[edit]
When Endowment Returns someone after death, she uses a Divine Breath to "staple" the Cognitive Shadow of the deceased person back to that person's body.[38] This process results in the Returned losing any memories of their prior life. Returned must consume one Breath every eight days to fuel their Divine Breath.[39] Vasher states that he is a Type Two Invested Entity because he died while “drenched in power” and left behind a “fossil of a soul”.[1]
If a Lifeless were created with extra Breath, that Breath might start to take on a "personality" like a Cognitive Shadow would have.[40]
Threnody[edit]
Shades are a unique kind of Cognitive Shadow found on Threnody that are able to interact with the Physical Realm. They are drawn by anyone moving quickly at night, lighting a fire, or drawing blood and their touch withers a person, which usually results in death.[41] Any person[41] or animal[42] killed by a Shade becomes a Shade. It is unknown how the first Shades were created, though, when Nazh first meets Kelsier, he is shocked that Kelsier managed to become a Cognitive Shadow and says it is "an important rite ... with requirements and traditions."[43] Shades are repelled and can be harmed by silver, though it is unknown whether this applies to other kinds of Cognitive Shadows as well.[44] They also are not as self-aware as normal Cognitive Shadows.[45] If some other Cognitive Shadow traveled to Threnody, he or she would not become a Shade,[46] and if a Shade managed to leave Threnody, it would not be destroyed.[47] Differences between Shades and normal Cognitive Shadows are a result of the nature of the Investiture on Threnody and the lack of a Shard.[48]
Komashi[edit]
Nightmares are former inhabitants of the kingdom of Torio, who are kept in servitude under the father machine. They were killed by the father machine, which absorbed their souls and destroyed their bodies. During the night, the control of the machine over them loosens, and they wander the planet looking for humans for cognitive activity to feed off of. Following the destruction of the father machine and dissolution of the shroud, they dissolved into Investiture and vanished.[49]
They are defended against by painters, who are able to force them into more harmless shapes, forcing them to dissolve away into black mist.[24]
The Yoki-hijo reformed after being killed by the father machine due to how heavily Invested they were. The father machine subsequently trapped them in simulations of their former life, constantly erasing their memory, and having them repeat a simulation of the same day ad infinitum.[50][51]
- Body Swapping
Hijo are able to form a Spiritual Connection between two individuals and have them swap bodies with each other.[52][51][49] Those linked will swap bodies every day, where one is in control of the other's body while the other is a Cognitive Shadow.[53][54] This Connection can be forcibly severed, causing the two to no longer swap bodies.[52]
Trivia[edit]
- The mist spirit that Vin sees during The Well of Ascension is not a Cognitive Shadow. Depending on the scene, it was an actual manifestation of Preservation[55] or Ruin's imitation of that manifestation.[56]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ a b c d Rhythm of War chapter 15#
- ↑ Steelheart release party
— Arcanum - 2013-09-24# - ↑ Orem signing 2014
— Arcanum - 2014-12-06# - ↑ Rhythm of War chapter 82#
- ↑ Calamity Seattle signing
— Arcanum - 2016-02-17# - ↑ Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023
— Arcanum - 2023-07-28# - ↑ Legion Release Party
— Arcanum - 2018-09-19# - ↑ a b c Mistborn: Secret History part 1 chapter 1#
- ↑ Worldbuilders AMA
— Arcanum - 2015-12-04# - ↑ Oathbringer Houston signing
— Arcanum - 2017-11-18# - ↑ OdysseyCon 2016
— Arcanum - 2016-04-08# - ↑ a b The Lost Metal epilogue 4#
- ↑ Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 29#
- ↑ Brandon's Bookclub - Yumi
— Arcanum - 2023-09-29# - ↑ YouTube Livestream 23
— Arcanum - 2020-12-17# - ↑ Dragonsteel 2022
— Arcanum - 2022-11-14# - ↑ Rhythm of War chapter 102#
- ↑ a b Rhythm of War chapter 97#
- ↑ The Sunlit Man chapter 13#
- ↑ Brandon's Bookclub - Sunlit Man
— Arcanum - 2023-11-10# - ↑ Rhythm of War chapter 92 epigraph#
- ↑ Rhythm of War chapter 116#
- ↑ Dragonsteel 2022
— Arcanum - 2022-11-14# - ↑ a b Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 3#
- ↑ Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream
— Arcanum - 2022-03-22# - ↑ Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 17#
- ↑ a b Oathbringer chapter 38#
- ↑ Oathbringer interlude I-6#
- ↑ Skype Q&A
— Arcanum - 2018-10-08# - ↑ Oathbringer chapter 118#
- ↑ Orem signing
— Arcanum - 2017-12-21# - ↑ Skyward Chicago signing
— Arcanum - 2018-11-16# - ↑ Read For Pixels 2018
— Arcanum - 2018-09-01# - ↑ Shadows of Self San Francisco signing
— Arcanum - 2015-10-09# - ↑ a b Mistborn: Secret History part 6 chapter 4#
- ↑ Mistborn: Secret History part 2 chapter 1#
- ↑ The Bands of Mourning epilogue#
- ↑ Stormlight Three Update #6
— Arcanum - 2017-01-20# - ↑ Warbreaker Annotations
— Arcanum - 2010-09-16# - ↑ /r/books AMA 2015
— Arcanum - 2015-06-24# - ↑ a b Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell#
- ↑ Calamity Philadelphia signing
— Arcanum - 2016-02-20# - ↑ Mistborn: Secret History part 3 chapter 2#
- ↑ Legion Release Party
— Arcanum - 2018-09-19# - ↑ General Signed Books 2016
— Arcanum - 2016-07-31# - ↑ Calamity Philadelphia signing
— Arcanum - 2016-02-20# - ↑ Oathbringer Portland signing
— Arcanum - 2017-11-16# - ↑ Words of Radiance San Francisco signing
— Arcanum - 2014-03-06# - ↑ a b Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 40#
- ↑ Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 38#
- ↑ a b Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 39#
- ↑ a b Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 34#
- ↑ Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 8#
- ↑ Yumi and the Nightmare Painter chapter 11#
- ↑ /r/books AMA 2015
— Arcanum - 2015-03-12# - ↑ Mistborn: Secret History part 2 chapter 2#