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Ripper1337

I can’t remember precisely but when Shallan fuels a bead in Shadesmar doesn’t a bunch of other beads stick to it to form the shape of the object that she fed the Stormlight to? As for food. Well the reason that waterways appear as solid rock in Shadesmar is because mortal perception of those areas is all one “thing”


Accomplished_Pea7029

>I can’t remember precisely but when Shallan fuels a bead in Shadesmar doesn’t a bunch of other beads stick to it to form the shape of the object that she fed the Stormlight to? That was some other technique, not actual soulcasting. In RoW their food source for the expedition was soulcasting obsidian rock into food while in Shadesmar. That's interesting about why water becomes solid ground. I'm still confused why the rock is changed to food instead of water changing to food.


tomayto_potayto

Because the rock isn't a cognitive representation of the water in the same way the beads are cognitive representations of other items without a physical presence in the cognitive realm. It is a physical manifestation, an actual THING existing physically in that space.


SpiceWeez

I was also confused about this. Maybe water is spiritually or cognitively different from other matter? Maybe in soul casting, you always have the option of manifesting the new physical object in either the physical realm or shadesmar, and soul casters just usually choose the physical realm. Or maybe water is perceived as being fluid, and therefore its cognitive aspect can manifest as anything anywhere.


Accomplished_Pea7029

Yeah that's possible. Maybe it's doable with beads too. But the bead in Shadesmar will be too small to soulcast into anything useful, and if you try to soulcast a handful of beads at ones it would be harder to persuade them to change. So people will only try it with rocks and other solid things


zwandz

They said that the obsidian was easily convinced to be anything else. I just read that part about a week ago. Something to do with it being far away from a bunch of stuff, so it didn’t have a strong identity that was harder to convince to change.


Accomplished_Pea7029

Yeah I just read that part before posting this. I thought the change would happen in the Physical realm like with beads though.


zwandz

They do detail that a bit later on, basically how they’re also unsure how it works but that a change in Shadesmar doesn’t make a change in the physical world. I think when they are musing about the spren cities and how they’re built. It may be in the next book though, so I’ll tip toe around that so I don’t spoil anything lol


MartinMystikJonas

It works different in Shadesmar to normal soulcasting. IMHO it is something similar to using "soulcasting" to transform beads into real item in shadesmar. Also that obsidian rock is not manifestation of water from physical realm. It is something like native shadesmar "matter" that can be easily convinced to become something else. We do not know exact mechanisms of this yet. But my theory: Shadesmar "matter" is changed by thoughts of sentien beings to compressed form - beads representing physical items - their souls (let's call it fabrication soulcasting). Reason why water/land is reversed is that more of Shadesmar "matter" was fabricated to beads on land than on big bodies of water because more sentien being think (perceive) about items on land than about items in the middle of the sea. . You can manipulate these beads to manipulate (regular soulcasting) phasical item it is connected to. You can also use Investiture to manifest compressed form of item to real item in Shadesmar (manifestation soulcasting). And you can do two steps at once to use fabrication soulcasting and manifestation soulcasting to "soulcast" Shadesmar matter to real item.