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How could Vasher survive without Breath?


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He is a Returned, yet he walked around as a Drab on several occasions, near the end he used the "my breath to yours" command on Denth, so there is no possibility he was merely "masking" his Breath or something - he certainly managed to live without one. How is it possible? The Returned are supposed to die the moment they release their Breath and it went that way with Lightsong, who used the exact same command.

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I think that the intent when you speak the command is also important. Or he found a way to lock some of his breath to him, so it won't leave him while using this command. He's one of the most skilled Awekeners, he has to know some tricks that we don't know about :)

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I think that the intent when you speak the command is also important. Or he found a way to lock some of his breath to him, so it won't leave him while using this command. He's one of the most skilled Awekeners, he has to know some tricks that we don't know about :)

That, and we really shouldn't trust anything Denth tells us, even about awakening :P

Meanwhile, Vasher isn't the type to spill secrets, so. . .

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  • 2 months later...

Interestingly, I found the following WoB while browsing old Q&As (emphasis mine):

 

Q: A question that's been on my mind for a while. If Returned can't have children, how are Siri and Vivenna descended from one?

A: Excellent question. One I have to RAFO. When I was writing Warbreaker, I was planning on two books. I seeded two questions to be answered in the next book. One was the origin of the royal family. The second was how Vasher was able to survive while hiding his divine Breath. I will answer these questions. Eventually. (It has to do with restoring Breath and life to the child while still in the womb.).
 
I don't think I've seen that last bit come up anywhere, though I admit I don't fully understand what Brandon means here. That while the Returned can't have children, if somebody Returns while pregnant the yet-unborn children end up inheriting some of the Divine Breath?
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Perhaps Returned have stillborn children, but if a Divine Breath is used, it revives the baby to life? So, maybe Vo came back, impregnated his wife, but knew in a vision that the baby would not survive, but that he could fix it by giving it his Breath, so he did so, died, and the child was born as the first with the Royal Locks, a fragment of Divine Breath?

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Maybe he means Returned can have children as normal, but since the child is (part) Returned it consumes it's own Breath 1 week after it gains it's (Divine?) Breath and promptly dies or becomes a Drab?

 

Edit: Sniped by Oudeis *shakes fist*

Edited by LabRat
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...Except that their children become like Vivenna, with the Royal Locks and a permanent tiny fragment of Divine Breath, and no need to consume a Breath a week. Unless you're saying you think the in utero Divine Breath cures them, and isn't just eaten once, but causes the other effect?

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Perhaps Returned have stillborn children, but if a Divine Breath is used, it revives the baby to life? So, maybe Vo came back, impregnated his wife, but knew in a vision that the baby would not survive, but that he could fix it by giving it his Breath, so he did so, died, and the child was born as the first with the Royal Locks, a fragment of Divine Breath?

 

I don't think it works like this. Nothing I've seen suggests that healing via Divine Breath imparts a fraction of that Breath on the recipient. You could maybe make the argument that a Returned healing his or her own child would be a special case because the Breath will stick better due to the family connection, but I won't buy that. 

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I know; I certainly wasn't implying that this happens under normal circumstances. I meant that in this specific case, a Returned and a human are simply too different to bear a child, but that the resulting creature is one Divine Breath away from viability. It's not 'family connections', it's the fact that the child is already part Returned. I actually don't think it HAS to be the father (or mother) who gives his/her Divine Breath to the child; I think any Divine Breath will do. I think Vo did it because there were no other Returned, and that starting the line was his Command.

 

Alternatively, and this hadn't occured to me until just now: Maybe the hybrids are that way simply by virtue of their sDNA; if they could be born live, they would manifest the Locks and the tiny spark of Divine Breath. However, they won't survive, because they die in utero. In which case, the Divine Breath 'heals' them enough to bring them to term, and then their manifestation of the Locks is simply what they'd've had under any circumstance.

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hmmm. I always assumed that Returned were just infertile. It's interesting to think they they actually produce still borns. I wonder what their cells are like? Their DNA must be super intense, being able to change shape and all. I wonder if their telomerase is active. Do we know how fertile they are? Is it like a every time occurrence or just once in a while?

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Their cells probably look human normally. Investiture causes impossible biology to exist pretty often, anyway, and they are basically dead people awakened by a shard. Like deluxe edition Lifeless.

The definition of "species" gets kind of vague with things like Returned, Listeners, and koloss around. You'd think they'd be way different biologically but it somehow works regardless.

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Yeah... if I had to guess, I would suggest that Returned DNA is actually normal, but that the spiritual effects of their powerful Divine Breath overwrites the purely physical effects of their DNA. Just one man's opinion.

 

Spoilers for Mistborn, SA

natc: I actually did ask in the AMA if kandra were mammals, and his reply was that since taxonomy exists to trace living things back to common ancestors, and kandra had been created all at once, they were of course entirely outside known taxonomy. Koloss, apparently, being humans modified by changes to their spiritweb, seem to be a mere mutation, rather than a separate species.

 

Listeners are interesting. Since it seems they are literally a race alien to Yolish humankind, yet we know they've cross-bred, they're not just a different species, they're as far outside taxonomy as kandra should be. I have a personal theory. It's implied in Words of Radiance that after the final desolation, listeners were being hunted and killed for the fact that they were, basically, Voidbringers (I'm still not positive that Voidform listeners = Voidbringers, but the fact remains they were in Odium's pocket). I should re-read the book, I suppose, but I believe it's mentioned that Eshonai and her group fled to the Shattered Plains specifically to avoid humanity, long long ago.

 

The Horneater mountains are not terribly far from the Nightwatcher's Valley. What if a group of them fled there, en masse, to ask for the Boon of survival? What if her answer was that of Shmendrick the Magician; if you cannot survive as listeners, don't be listeners? What if she changed them, made them basically... human? Close enough to interbreed, until now, millenia later, they're fully integrated with originally-human stock?

 

Just random speculation.

Edited by Oudeis
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Really fascinating indeed :)

 

But about the topic and the Returned's child. There is any evidence aganist the "The Returned aren't sterile but as beins with "cognitive-alterable"'s biology, they became sterile because they think that they are sterile" ?

 

Vo the first Returned didn't had any "outside's influence" and he generated a child. The Returned of the Court of the God are indoctrinated by the "Returneds are sterile" idea. And the Returneds outside live just a week and probably know about the "Returneds are sterile" fact.

Edited by Yata
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

He is a Returned, yet he walked around as a Drab on several occasions, near the end he used the "my breath to yours" command on Denth, so there is no possibility he was merely "masking" his Breath or something - he certainly managed to live without one. How is it possible? The Returned are supposed to die the moment they release their Breath and it went that way with Lightsong, who used the exact same command.

Plot armour? 

 

Nah, I'm kidding, but I don't have a clue. I guess we have to read and find out.

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Returned - or at least Vasher, being experienced - can suppress their Divine Breath. It's still there, and they will still eat it if it's their only Breath, but it's not being expressed. So when Vasher gave his Breaths to Denth, he used another trick he knew, splitting his Breaths, and giving up only the regular ones he had acquired. 

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Yeah, Brandon mentions in the annotations that it is possible to only give a portion of your breaths away. Denth was lying when he told Vivenna it had to be all or nothing.

Well about Denth lie (and of course is the poor way to divide your Breath).

Someone may put some breath in an object, give the other Breath and then take again the breath from the object.

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I wonder if Denth wasn't even actually lying, but just didn't know.  That's always been my impression.

 

jW

I

 

I wonder if Denth wasn't even actually lying, but just didn't know.  That's always been my impression.

 

jW

It's unlikely that he didn't know it. He was one of the five Scholars and also if He didn't know "how", He surely know that it's possible to do.

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I wonder if Denth wasn't even actually lying, but just didn't know.  That's always been my impression.

 

jW

 

I can't find it ATM, but I'm pretty sure the Annotations state that Denth is just outright lying.

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