The Emperor's Soul is the Soul of The Cosmere

[00:00:00]I very rarely hear that people's favorite moments of Brandon's works are the fight scenes. When I ask people what they truly love about Brandon's books, the answer is usually the climaxes, but more importantly, the emotional moments found throughout his stories. The real heart of Brandon's writing has never been about flashy fight scenes, powering up, or even witty oneliners. The real heart comes from how he writes emotion and how big events accumulate into something more human and grounded.

[00:00:26]Arguably his biggest book series is built around a magic system centered around emotional growth and how one grows as an individual. In this video, we'll be talking about The Emperor's Soul. This is not a review of the work, but rather an exploration of its themes and my overall thoughts. There will be spoilers for the book, so you have been warned.

[00:00:47]The Emperor Soul follows Shai, a master forger who can rewrite the history of objects and people's thoughts through magical stamps. After Emperor Asheran is left mentally incapacitated following an assassination attempt, Shai is given an impossible task. Recreate the Emperor's soul before the Empire falls into chaos.

[00:01:05]She is confined to a small room working against a strict timeline. She must study every detail of the Emperor's life to create a convincing replacement. As she learns more about Astravan, the task evolves beyond simple forgery and becoming an exploration of identity, art, and what truly makes someone who they are. Though the story is small in scale compared to many Cosmos stories, the novella tackles some of Brandon's most profound themes. A lot of the book deals with the themes of identity, but more importantly, the identity of how people perceive those who no longer have a voice. How a popular figure or celebrity can be interpreted through every small action they took. How one can use the identity to determine whether they were a good person. How their hopes and dreams and wishes are perceived by outside forces. These questions sit at the core of the emperor's soul. The book also explores the nature of art and how people value it. Personally, I find this to be a very interesting topic because I am a product of valuing the nature of art. My entire channel is kind of focused on evaluating and discussing a person's art through storytelling. I have devoted countless hours of my life to dissecting stories and talking about them through the works of Brandon Sanderson. The same can be said about Shai, whose struggles and overall task revolve around creating a beautiful work of art by recreating a person's very soul. We also see how art transforms and how an artist wants their art to be perceived. We see this with the painting Lily of the Spring Pond where Shai destroys the original and replaces it with a fake. The piece meant so much to the artist emotionally, but a faximile of the painting would be sufficient for people to enjoy. It begs the question, who really owns a piece of art? Is it the artist, the people, or the person who physically owns the artwork? Therefore, soul touches on those questions and more. After this book was released, this theme is actually practiced in real life. Much like how Han Shuen destroys his art in 2017, a steamroller crushed a hard drive into a pancake. It was the final wishes of fantasy author Sir Terry Patchet.

[00:03:11]That hard drive contained unfinished stories from his Discworld series.

[00:03:16]Patchet did not want his unpublished works completed and released by someone else. I remember when this happened and many discorld fans were upset because they believe those stories should have been preserved and released. But it goes back to the soul of the art. The artist or the author deserves to do whatever they want with their work. It can be shared, destroyed, cherished by a singular person. What happens after that is very much open to debate. And we see this philosophy encountered many, many times throughout the Emperor Soul talking about a singular person as if they were work of art. and what they determine is valuable. We can also see this idea reflected in Brandon's own life. In 2007, Brandon began work much like Shai did with the Emperor. He began writing the ending of The Wheel of Time after taking the series from Robert Jordan after he passed. I can't keep it out of my head that the real soul of the Emperor soul was written because Brandon Sanderson's experience writing the Wheel of Time. Brandon was once asked this very question and I think he gave a very profound response.

[00:04:20]One can definitely see where Brennan's journey riding the will of time parallel Shai's rebuilding of the Emperor. He was asked to do something many thought impossible. Finish the will of time and bring it to a definitive end. The beauty of the Emperor Soul is not found in large scale battles, the expansion of a magic system, or the death of a character. What makes the Emperor Soul truly a beautiful book is that it explores the imperfections of a person.

[00:04:45]What is a person but a collection of flaws, regrets, hopes, dreams, and growth? All this happens from a small room where the artist decides what to keep, what to discard, and what to overall improve. In the end, even Shai can't help but admire and grow as a person while exploring another person's life on such an intimate level. It is much like a parent watching their children grow from baby into an adult.

[00:05:10]Another thing about the emperor's soul is many of these themes are constantly explored throughout the cosmir on a fundamental concept within it. Intent, identity, connection. These ideas function almost like natural laws within the cosmir. Much like the existence of the three realms, the physical realm, the cognitive realm, the spiritual realm. Shai must engage with all three in order to recreate the soul, the body, and the mind of Emperor Ashravan. When people think about Brandon Sanderson's stories, they often remember the climaxes.

[00:05:40]But the reason those climaxes work is because of the emotional foundation beneath them. The Emperor's Soul strips away the battles, the armies, and the spectacle, leaving behind something much more intimate. It asks what makes a person who they are. It asks who owns art. And lastly, it asks whether an identity can truly be recreated or improved upon. And through Shai's work, Brandon reminds us that a soul is not defined by a person, but by the collection of flaws, hopes, dreams, regrets, and connection that makes us human as well as the humans of Cell. The Emperor's Soul has such a profound effect on so many people. And when you read it and dissect it, you kind of start to appreciate art on a different level, almost on an atomic level, what makes art truly beautiful. We see it time and time again within the story. We see how people are constantly talking about forgery being like this fake get out of jail quick kind of bypassing art.

[00:06:37]But forgery much like regular art or any art. It could be singing, dancing, playing music. It could be just painting little miniatures. It could be whatever you want it to be on a fundamental level. It is beautiful because you are creating something out of nothing. Much like this YouTube channel, I am creating something out of nothing. And just seeing it grow and change and just expand into something much more greater than what it originally was is another beautiful aspect of the Emperor's soul.

[00:07:06]And in conclusion, that's what defines Brandon's work is that we see these themes constantly explored. In the end of the day, we are all humans experiencing the same story. We're all taking things a little differently. And by the end of the journey, how many times have you read a Brandon Sanderson book and you finished it and you put it down and your next thought is, "What am I going to do now? What is next? I want to be a better person." I see this a lot in Stormlight. I see this a lot in Misborn. Is this feeling of change and discovery and growth? And that is the beauty of the Emperor's Soul. And this all comes from a book that is super tiny compared to other Brandon's books.

[00:07:47]Though it is tiny, the weight, the feeling, the messages, even though the book only has 31,925 words, it feels like a million words. It feels like a billion words. But the story that is told here is where it needs to be. By the end, you are changed. Much like Chai changes, much like Astroan changes, it is a book that through its heart and soul is a masterpiece. It deserves that Hugo award for many different reasons, but at the end of the day, it is a beautiful work of art that we should all should cherish, and it is the real soul of the cosmir. Thank you all so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. If you liked it, please consider liking and subscribing. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions of this work of art. I would love to hear kind of what you got out of it, what you kind of perceived from it, and have you read it recently? If you haven't, maybe consider rereading it again. taking it a little slower. Think about it. Once again, I'm Deacon and let's keep exploring the cosmir one chapter at a time. See you everyone. Bye.