u/participating

We covered it partially. There's more to it and I'm waiting 'til the books address it more directly before talking about it.

If I'm tracking things, Ati could have stayed too, right? Which means the fact he noped out without a single word, even faster than the Lord Ruler... I don't know whether to laugh or cuss him out.

Maybe it's been covered, maybe it hasn't, but what's the difference between Ruin and Vin-Preservation's mutual annihilation here, and Leras-Preservation's death, that caused Leras to die for real? Whereas Vin and presumably Ati went to the Beyond voluntarily? All the vessels that have died seem to have met different fates. Are the shadows of Aona and Skai wandering around somewhere?

Ati could have chosen to stay as a Cognitive Shadow, however, there are a couple things at play. The first is just exhaustion. Mortal minds, even expanded by a Shard, aren't really cut out to live tens of thousands of years. Especially when being influenced by a Shard's Intent. Remember that Ati was a good person when he picked up Ruin. He did terrible things as he was subsumed into the Shard's Intent and just became a passenger in a living nightmare for eons.

As a Cognitive Shadow, we was free from Ruin's Intent and more himself once again. He was just done with it all.

If he hadn't been, there is then the consideration that Sazed/Harmony was right there. I've told you in the trivia that you need divine intervention to create a Cognitive Shadow. The corollary to that is that divine power can destroy a Cognitive Shadow. So if there's a Shardic opponent around when you become a Cognitive Shadow, you either voluntarily go to the Beyond or that choice is made for you.

Do you think a Shard with the Intent Odium is gonna let any of the 3 people he killed stick around? Similarly, Ruin would have prevented Leras from creating a Cognitive Shadow. Leras's mind was barely there anyway because of all the damage Ruin had inflicted over the years.

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Oathbringer has a clear enough example.

Saving that for later, because we're about to get some concrete examples.

Vin could have also stuck around indefinitely, mind.

Right, duh. She Ascended, lol. I was just thinking of her normal Allomancer self, but yeah, Vin would have stuck around indefinitely, if she wanted. Elend would require divine intervention from Sazed though.

Let’s say hypothetically that there are many “you”s running around. If only one is attributed to the right soul, then do the other “you”s have a different soul, thus making them “not you” or do they have no soul, thus making them “you but not you”?

Are you asking in terms of the cosmere, or real-life hypothetical souls? The general argument in real life philosophy is that a clone of you wouldn't have a soul, so you are always you and the clone would die and not go to heaven or hell, just disappear into the void as a soulless abomination.

Where is Harmony’s perpendicularity?

In the broadsheet for Shadows of Self, Nicki Savage sees it out in the Southern Roughs.

At least I died full of deliciousness.

I know, right?!

just out of curiosity, do you know what Hoid would have told Vin if Kelsier hadn't prevented their meeting ? Was he there for this purpose specifically or not ? And was he already Mistborn at this point or did he keep the Lerasium bead for some time?

To the best of my knowledge, Sanderson has only handed out RAFOs when asked this. I would assume Hoid was already a Mistborn at this point, but we don't have any confirmation one way or another.

Curious how Rosharan sprens fit

Unrelated to your question, but just a comment on the differences between Cognitive Shadows and spren:

Cognitive Shadows are a thought pattern that gets pumped full of Investiture to make it permanent.

Spren are a permanent blob of Investiture that develops a thought pattern over time.

If Spanky and the Stick aren't returning for Avengers: Cosmere War, then what are we even doing?

I'm deliberately being silent on their multiversal variants, Stack and Spinky.

But, prior to the Roed, would Elantrians have the same sickly appearance if they ran out if investiture?

Nope. They just look like normal humans. We see this when Galladon visits the Purelake. He's out of Investiture there because he's far from Elantris, and he just looks like a normal human.

why the snapping is so random

Actually, better spoiler this since newbies sometimes peak in.

We learn in Tress of the Emerald Sea that you actually require an invitation to become an Elantrian. When the Reod (The Reod was the earthquake that cause the chasm to form, I think you may be talking about the Shaod, which is the tranformation itself) occurred, all of the Elantrians with the knowledge to do this went away, so the power Invested in the land is just trying to randomly fill the numbers up (Sanderson has said there's an upper limit on the number of Elantrians that can exist and I think this is governed by the amount of power the Dor is trying to leak out. Having a sizable number of Elantrians able to absorb the Dor keeps the power in check).

I don't think we know exactly how the invitation/"snapping" part of the Shaod works to make cracks in the spirit web that allows them to be pumped full of Investiture. It may be the case that nothing like snapping is actually occurring. You can absorb as many Breaths as you want without trauma. I think trauma just makes some magic infusion easier; it's not a requirement.

But no one is dying when it happens. We see Hoid just burst full of light; it's just like if someone gifted him 10,000 Breaths. It only looked a little like death was happening because during the time of the Reod, the entire process was broken.

When an Elantrian draws an Aon (correctly and in the right combination) it acts as a key to cause some pre-defined magical effect. This is the exact same way Allomancy works, Allomancy just has far fewer keys. An Allomancer burning steel is a key that causes a pre-defined magical effect. That magical effect is "metal moves away from me".

In the case of Allomancy, the actual Investiture that powers the magic comes from Preservation (and now Harmony). On Sel, the Investiture that powers the magic comes from the Dor (the combined dead/splintered Shards of Devotion and Dominion).

Sel just happens to have thousands of different keys that can trigger different effects, from Aons, to Dakhor bones, to soul stamps.

Is that what you were asking, or something else?

I feel genuinely sick to my stomach

Goooooooooooooood! No one should be roasting you here. That's the entire point of the climax of this book. People who read it and go "Hell Yeah!" are missing the point of what happened.

why would he try to assassinate Jasnah (other than seeing a noble and going "I think the f*ck not").

So...I know the reason. And I think I've even told you (plural) the reason, but... I love this as the reason, heh.

No, full timeline:

End of The Final Empire:

Lord Ruler kills Kelsier. Within the hour, Fuzz sticks Kelsier in the Well of Ascension. Later that night, Vin kills the Lord Ruler, he appears as a Cognitive Shadow, looks as the Well, now almost full, and fades away into the Beyond.

Months later, before The Well of Ascension, but after The Final Empire:

Kelsier goes a bit crazy talking to himself. Hoid reveals himself to Kelsier, they fight, he transitions into the Physical Realm.

More months later (a full year after The Final Empire), going through the entirety of The Well of Ascension:

Kelsier figures out how to ride the pulses of the Well and is able to see what's going on in the world. Vin saves Luthadel and find the Well, uses it and frees Ruin. The Well is drained.

At this point, Hoid is stuck on Scadrial. He knew it'd be dangerous to go there.

Months later, in The Hero of Ages, Hoid is still on Scadrial and Kelsier has Ascended to Preservation. Kelsier prevents Vin from talking to Hoid.

Then the world ends and Sazed Ascends. Hoid would have found his way into one of the underground caches to ride it out. Then he would have left the planet. We're not sure how, but he doesn't necessarily need a Well, it's just the easier method.

This was a bit of a special circumstance because the Stormfather intervened. I had a bit more to say, but I think it's better to RAFO on those parts.

By mere seconds! Also, maybe check out the artwork in the trivia posts for The Hero of Ages...

Curious how Rosharan sprens fit into the whole "fading into the Beyond" concept. By their own admission, they have no physical aspect. What's keeping their existence tied to the Cognitive Realm, when all Cognitive Shadows of humans would normally start fading right after death (i.e. when they lose their ties to the Physical Realm)? Is it because spren are parts of Shards, and thus already born with "expanded souls"?

This is it exactly. As I was discussing with /u/heinz57varieties, you need a divine amount of Investiture to create a Cognitive Shadow that persists. And as Syl is quick to point out, she is divine, since spren are the condensed Investiture of resident Shards.

Or do only parts of spren "fade", namely their memories, which they seem to lose whenever they are not tied up in a Nahel bond.

The books have already clarified this, but it was kind of subtle. When a spren transitions from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm, it's traumatizing. That's what suppresses their memories.

That comment was aimed at you. I wish I could delete other people's comments on my own Imgur posts, but alas :(

I think you can present the theory without calling attention to that specific connection though. Does that make sense?

Yes, the pool was completely drained and there was nothing there to guard. (With the caveat that this was part of one of the Lord Ruler's massive underground caches, so the entrance as a whole would have been guarded just to secure the cache.)

Discounting awakening, which we see Vasher do

A reminder that, while Vasher is a ghost, he's a ghost haunting a physical body.

They would need to infuse all of those Breaths into their Cognitive aspect to persist as a Cognitive Shadow though.

Just a caveat on this, the amount of Investiture required to make a Cognitive Shadow is, for lack of a better term, a divine amount. Endowment directly intervenes to create Returned. Honor created the Heralds. Preservation's accumulated power (the Well of Ascension) was required for Kelsier and Rashek. Shades are barely there Cognitive Shadows and require energy from splintered pieces of Ambition.

Someone with hundreds or even thousands of Breaths, even if they had access to them, couldn't pull it off. Maybe Susebron could do it, if he keeps all his Breaths and had Vasher's knowledge, but even then I don't think it'd be quite enough.