Active Users:1140 Time:22/11/2024 03:21:47 PM
Re: IMO, that stuff all affects physical or metaphysical aspects, but not the soul itself. - Edit 1

Before modification by Dunstan at 02/03/2019 09:49:04 AM


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Ishamael tried ripping out Rand's soul in the heart of stone at the end of TDR. It only failed when Rand grasped Callandor and started pulling on the OP through it.
Eh, that's an untutored farmboy's opinion. Maybe he was actually pulling out his mind/consciousness/whatever goes to T'A'R and his lifeforce was coming with it, which would have the side effect of removing his soul from his body, as death does.
Hell, Moiraine knew multiple weaves to deal with the power of Shadar Logoth, which is soul based.
It's a type of energy that interacts with the world. That's not soul related.
And of course, the connection to the OP is connected to the soul, meaning that Nynaeve(and everyone else that knows the weave) delved the soul of everyone whose connection to the OP she healed... Also, shields to block the OP go on the soul... And Warder bonds likely do as well.
We don't know that it's connected through the soul. We know that the ability to channel is essential to a person beyond their physical qualities. That does not mean the connection to the Power is not physical. Channeling having physical effects on the channler in fact proves there IS a physical connection to the Power.
Hell, there is also whatever the hell that weave Rand used on the reflections that came out of the mirrors actually did.

No evidence at all that it has anything to do with a soul. It would be an alien consciousness taking over Rand's body or place in the world if they won, but it was a physical struggle, not anything to do with a soul.
Anyway, there.. a LOT of soul interaction going on with the OP... One of the five powers is called "spirit" for a reason.
They never actually call it Soul, though. They call Air Wind, but spirit is always Spirit, because it deals with non-tangible things, like Tel'Aran'Rhiod, or psychic phenomena, like the warder bond. That doesn't mean they can do anything to that essense of a person, that lives on after their death and returns to the world in a new body. In my head cannon, Tel'Aran'Rhiod is just another level of physical existence, in which the Heroes have bodies and a dreamer manifests a body to go there. Getting stabbed in T'A'R does not affect your soul, it affects your physical body, through the link between the two.
Honestly, it isn't that the OP "can't" rip someones soul out. It's just that, much like time stop weaves(yeah, another thing that the OP CAN do. It's what the Keeping weave is, and Sammael used a none lethal version of it once) it's just that... Well, while it might "sound" cool, it's just not practical.

If you want someone held in place, you can simply tie them up with Air. If you want someone dead... There are thousands of ways to do it, and exactly WHAT are you supposed to "do" with their soul?

That's my point. You can't do anything with it. Souls are utterly beyond the world or human action.
Even the Forsaken, hell, even the Dark One 99.9% of the time, doesn't really CARE if your average person's soul passes on. Meanwhile, your average non-Darkfriend would... kind of see it as an EXTREMELY evil act, and one just DONE for the lolz at that.

Perhaps if the ways and hows of Shadar Logoth's brand of magic were wide spread or commonly known, there would be more of a market for just going around ripping peoples souls out, but... They aren't, and there isn't.

I don't think ripping souls out is quite what they say it is. For the idea of a soul to mean anything, it has to be above and beyond human interaction. I would say that in addition to the soul, there is a non-corporeal aspect of existence, which can manifest in the physical world in someways and interact with the physical, but is still just a construct, a kind of housing for the soul. This non-corporeal form would be what interacts through telepathy, it's what makes ghosts, it's what hangs around in the World of Dreams or what gets pulled into a Dreamwalker's constructed reality. It's what Machin Shin or Shadar Logoth attacks. It's what Ishamael & Asmodean tried to pull out of Rand. In a wolf, it's what gets eaten by Darkhounds, it's what gets taken by a Draghkar in a human. It's the underlying energy matrix that powers the body and makes it a person. In the Ogier who came out of the Ways, I would say that non-corporeal thing was gone or heavily muted, and left his soul unable to connect with his body. The soul is still there, because the body is still alive, but that non-corporeal layer is how the soul interacts with the body, and when that is all messed up, you die and your soul moves on along the Wheel the same as if it was your flesh and blood that was too badly messed up to continue biological functions.

Yeah, this could be all bullshit, but its how I reconcile my own belief in metaphysical existence with fiction which features ghosts and psychic phenomena and the use of souls. When you sell your soul to a demonic entity, you can't actually do that, so what you are actually giving up is a higher level of existence, that will almost certainly result in your damnation when THAT level ends and you go on to your eternal reward, but for it to mean anything, the only thing that effect THAT end is your own actions and mentality, your ability to align yourself in tune with a higher state of being, to sing along with the music of Iluvatar, for an example. If whether you go to heaven or hell is affected by the actions of a third party, heaven and hell don't mean anything. So they are pit stops along the way, for that spirit-body, that intermediate level beyond the physical, but which in genre fiction, really manifests and interacts with the physical.


Honestly, I've never really understood the compulsion some people have with meshing IRL belief with fictional universes.

I mean, I love delving into the metaphysics of settings I love. It's like looking at the inner workings of a clock, and can really help the setting come alive in my imagination, but... Well, it's fictional.

However good a setting is, what in the world does how some writer setup their fictional world to work have to do with IRL?

To me, that line of thinking has always just kind of came off as if some devout atheist had problems even conceptualizing the mere "existence" of religion. Like... They spend hours just staring at the outside of churches, honestly never quite managing to comprehend exactly what such a building could possibly be used for.

Anyway... What your describing... Well, it IS a soul. A different part of one, perhaps, but your basically having to do back flips and tie yourself into knots just to avoid labeling it as such.

WoT is a setting where souls are perfectly "intractable"... Hell, one interesting little bit of trivia, is that in WoT, you don't even need any magic power to detect a soul. The lack of one is simply something one can feel with a touch, as Verin did with that Ogier in TGH... Which is also how we know that it is indeed the soul that goes to TAR, as when Perrin wakes up after having went too deeply into TAR in WH ch.5, Berelain tells him: "[Annoura] said you almost felt like someone who had lost his soul, cold no matter how many blankets were piled on you. I felt it, as well, when I touched you.".

Also of note regarding Perrin and souls, is the fact that having the remnants of Hoppers soul inside of him is how Perrin can cross into TAR physically at will. Some of said remnants also seeming to of been placed into Perrin's hammer to grant it it's abilities.

And really... I'm not really sure what your issue with "human interaction" is, given that the entire setting basically revolves around people tapping directly into the power of God... Hell, enough of the OP is flat out capable of destroying the likes of the Creator and Dark One.... You'd think the likes of them would rank a little higher on the invisibility meter then the human soul.

Particularly given that the effect that having either the Light or the Shadow removed from a person has on their eyes, would kind of imply that everyone's soul is MADE of a small part of the Creator and Dark One... Hell, my head canon/meshing of what little we're told for the WoT afterlife is that those parts simply return to sender between lives. Heaven and hell thus less being a "judgment" cast on them(which doesn't really fit with the Creator being so pro "do as you will" anyway), so much as simply the balance of good and evil in their soul deciding how much of their soul ends up with which until it is time to be born again.


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