[Rhythm of War + Secret History] Spren Assassination?
Its been a while since I read RoW so I may be wrong on some of this, but this thought came up when reading another post.
RoW - All & Mistborn Secret History
Do we know what happens when a godmetal is taken into the cognitive realm?
We know that lower spren have a presence in both the physical and cognitive realm - do bonded spren have a visible presence in the cognitive realm when they are in the physical? In M:SH people show up as lights in the cognitive realm.
if you can take one of those god metal (or inverted god metal) assassin blades into the cognitive realm, could you kill A) spren B) people using them?
vasher/vivenna went through the cog realm with their awakened blades.
wonder if there'd be a similar behaviour there.
i've wondered this too. is it more like shard blades manifesting from nothing in the physical? or more like dead-eyes in the cog realm? i think we've also seen people as lights in ob, when the group is traveling toward thaylen city? another interesting thought along these lines is that deadeyes don't seem to change location in the cognitive realm when summoned. they will wander toward their physical self, but you can just imprison them (like in lasting integrity) to stop that. i assume they wouldn't bother imprisoning them if they'd just blip out every summon.
would absolutely believe that A is true, based on the raysium dagger in row.
For point 2: I always got the impression that they did blip out when summoned. There's hundreds of them out there, but they've had thousands of years. And while we view it as imprisoned, they say they're keeping them safe (and from hurting themselves possibly I think, but I may be misremembering that bit). So they're stopping them from wandering around by keeping them locked up, but it's not trying to keep them all there forever. They just feel honor bound to take care of them. That's their ultimate goal, not to round them up.
On top of that, I'm not sure, like Syl when she's just being her little blue self hanging out with Kaladin is also in Shadesmar at the same time. I don't think it's like with lower spren where we're getting a peek at them on the other side. I think they're all the way over. Otherwise, in Oathbringer we probably would have seen Timbre, Ivory, and maybe Wyndle and Glys just hanging out on the cognitive side around Theylan City when Kaladin and the gang showed up. But it hasn't been verified, so who knows? Sanderson is pretty good at coming up with good reasons for stuff in retrospect.
For 3 I was more thinking - if people/spren have a presence in the cognitive realm while in the physical - would one of those daggers, tuned to counter the default investiture of the person kill them (in the physical realm) from the cognitive realm?
fair point on the deadeyes though - they can be fully in both realms at the same time? - i assume if you killed them, someone’s shardblade would go poof
I don't have good answers, so I'll speculate with a bit of possibly relevant information. I hope someone asks Brandon about these, as it's really interesting.
I'm not sure, but considering that Shardblades are made of godmetal and cannot go to the Cognitive, other godmetals may be the same. Some speculation here suggests that Honorblades could travel normally to Shadesmar, which would be more applicable.
Again for Shardblades, the deadeyes disappears when the Blade is summoned, so I think the spren would not have any visible Cognitive presence. That might only apply when they become a Shardblade, though. On the other hand, other fabrials, such as Soulcasters, the Sibling, and Oathgates, are still visible in Shadesmar despite having a Physical presence, so that could be wrong.
I'm guessing you can kill spren with it, but I could be wrong. You could definitely kill humans, but that's just because it's a knife, not because of the anti-Investiture.
On the other hand, other fabrials, such as Soulcasters, the Sibling, and Oathgates, are still visible in Shadesmar despite having a Physical presence
It's also possible that their functionality requires them existing with a foot in both worlds, so to speak. They're not dead spren nor typical living spren. They're willfully imprisoned in some special way. Like, the Oathgate spren are the Oathgates, and seem like they're more responsive, but we know it's the same process as the Soulcasters and they're basically inert. Sanderson has said they're something like Shardblades, but he doesn't say they're just like Shardblades. They do act differently and affect things differently. Presumably they just work differently.
For 3 I was more thinking - if people/spren have a presence in the cognitive realm while in the physical - would one of those daggers, tuned to counter the default investiture of the person kill them (in the physical realm) from the cognitive realm?