Returned and end negative investure

[Gasper]

I think that I have found a new, end negative investure manifestation: The Returned. My reasoning is this: The Returned have to have a breath a week or they die after consuming their divine breath. Unless they get more than one breath per week or buy a bunch of breaths, they cannot use their breaths for awakening. Also the breaths are used up/decay once in the Returned, similar to hemalurgic decay. I think that this is a end negative system because you end up with less investure than you started with. Any thoughts?

[Weltall]

BioChroma is end-neutral. The Breaths that are consumed (or rather the Investiture they represent) still go back to Endowment just as they would when a person with Breath dies.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Weltall

[+ILuvHats]

Quote

Herald (paraphrased)
Have we seen any of the system or the world that has end-negative magic system other than Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes there is one more end-negative magic system and you have seen minor hints of it.

Huh.  Never saw this quote so I thought I should share.  Anyways, since we’ve seen more than minor hints about awakening, it’s just more evidence that it isn’t end-negative.  Or at least that’s my excuse for posting this quote.  Does anybody know if there have been any forum discussions about what this other end-negative magic system could be?

[RShara]

9 minutes ago, Weltall said:

BioChroma is end-neutral. The Breaths that are consumed (or rather the Investiture they represent) still go back to Endowment just as they would when a person with Breath dies.

Well, but Returned aren't Awakening, exactly. But I do agree that the Returned are end-neutral, because they get power (life) out of that Breath for the week. But the Breath is lost when the Returned consumes it, unlike in Awakening, where the Breaths are retrieved. I mean, hemalurgy is end-negative because power is lost when the spike isn't in a person, and that power returns to Preservation (or whoever) too.

[Gasper]

Right, because the power cannot be retrieved once it is used up by the returned, that is why I think they are end negative. It is similar to how the power is lost in Hemalurgy. The way that investure thermodynamics seems to work is that the investure returns to the shard from which it originates. It is the amount of power the effect releases to the non-shard user of the magic that determines if it is end positive, neutral, or negative. No matter what, the power always returns to the shard eventually. Normal Bio-chroma is end neutral, because with an awakened object, the power you put in is the power you get out. But with a Returned, you get less power out than you put in. 

[Oversleep]

I would say no.

Classificaiton of "end-variable" refers to magic system (and it's a bit Scadrian-centric classification at that). If you argue that it's end negative because Breath is consumed... well, then Surgebinding is also end-negative because Stormlight is consumed. Or perhaps Returned are end-positive, like Surgebinding, because they get Investiture from external source.

That line of thinking is flawed because this classification can only be applied to magic systems.

[Spoolofwhool]

40 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I would say no.

Classificaiton of "end-variable" refers to magic system (and it's a bit Scadrian-centric classification at that). If you argue that it's end negative because Breath is consumed... well, then Surgebinding is also end-negative because Stormlight is consumed. Or perhaps Returned are end-positive, like Surgebinding, because they get Investiture from external source.

That line of thinking is flawed because this classification can only be applied to magic systems.

It also really seems to exist only to highlight the differences between the Metallic Arts, not really as a general model for describing systems.

[Wandering Investor]

I'd say that Returned consuming a breath is end neutral. One breath is always worth one weak. Hemalurgy is noted for losing power over time, you can't get as much as you put in. Since breath doesn't seem to lose a charge over time, I wouldn't classify it as end negative, since the gain is roughly the same. There are some instances of sick or elderly people having weaker breaths, and certain indiciduals have stronger breaths, but the difference doesn't seem enough to be classified as losing power.

And as others noted, positive, neutral, and negative appear to have been designed with Scadrial in mind, and may not translate over to others perfectly.

[RShara]

5 hours ago, Gasper said:

Right, because the power cannot be retrieved once it is used up by the returned, that is why I think they are end negative. It is similar to how the power is lost in Hemalurgy. The way that investure thermodynamics seems to work is that the investure returns to the shard from which it originates. It is the amount of power the effect releases to the non-shard user of the magic that determines if it is end positive, neutral, or negative. No matter what, the power always returns to the shard eventually. Normal Bio-chroma is end neutral, because with an awakened object, the power you put in is the power you get out. But with a Returned, you get less power out than you put in. 

Right, but the power is doing work (keeping the Returned alive). It's not just being lost, like in Hemalurgy. As Oversleep says, stormlight is also consumed and used up, but Surgebinding isn't end-negative. I think that it's the "being lost" part that determines the end-negative classification, rather than the consuming part.

And yeah, the terminology doesn't transfer well. Because in Hemalurgy, the only truly end-negative that we know of, it's the actual ability to use investiture that's being lost, not the investiture itself. A Returned consuming Breath doesn't cause any loss in anyone's ability to use Breath.

[Oversleep]

8 hours ago, RShara said:

it's the actual ability to use investiture that's being lost, not the investiture itself

Well... it's also Investiture. What are souls made up of? And charged spikes are Invested.

[Journey Before Pancakes]

12 hours ago, RShara said:

Right, but the power is doing work (keeping the Returned alive). It's not just being lost, like in Hemalurgy. As Oversleep says, stormlight is also consumed and used up, but Surgebinding isn't end-negative. I think that it's the "being lost" part that determines the end-negative classification, rather than the consuming part.

And yeah, the terminology doesn't transfer well. Because in Hemalurgy, the only truly end-negative that we know of, it's the actual ability to use investiture that's being lost, not the investiture itself. A Returned consuming Breath doesn't cause any loss in anyone's ability to use Breath.

But a returned is causing the investiture in the form of breath (which is usually pretty well conserved) to be used up in a way it isn't from normal use.

To an extent, it _does_ cause a net loss in the ability to use breath; because if a non-returned had been given those breaths instead, the breath would stay "in circulation" so to speak.

Most breath-related processes are reversible, but returned use of breath isn't. (This also happens when they give away the breath, it can heal; but then no more divine breath)

I don't really know if it would count as "end negative", but there is definitely some investiture being spent in a way that doesn't seem to actually manifest itself in a useable form.  

[Wandering Investor]

16 minutes ago, Journey Before Pancakes said:

But a returned is causing the investiture in the form of breath (which is usually pretty well conserved) to be used up in a way it isn't from normal use.

To an extent, it _does_ cause a net loss in the ability to use breath; because if a non-returned had been given those breaths instead, the breath would stay "in circulation" so to speak.

Most breath-related processes are reversible, but returned use of breath isn't. (This also happens when they give away the breath, it can heal; but then no more divine breath)

I don't really know if it would count as "end negative", but there is definitely some investiture being spent in a way that doesn't seem to actually manifest itself in a useable form.  

Hemalurgy is negative because of the loss of power/lack of efficiency in a closed system, not necessarily the loss of investiture. Using a spike on someone will take the full power, but put that spike into someone else and they will not have the full power, they'll have a weaker one. There's an actual loss in power occurring, you get less than what you put in. 

In Returned, there is a consumption of investiture from an external source, the breath, which then does work, similar to Allomancy but with a smaller pool of external power. There's no way to compare whether the consumption of the breath is less efficient than other uses of breath. You'd have to determine that one week of life is less efficient that the original amount of power that was applied, and I'm not sure that's possible. 

 

It might also be important to note that it is possible the original idea of end-negative no longer applies. This requires a bit of stretching and reading between the lines, but earlier WoB's seem to indicate the investiture could be lost permanently. Like, what nightblood consumed was gone forever, or power lost in hemalurgic spikes was gone forever. Later WoB's indicate that the consumed power finds its way back to the original shardic source eventually. This would change the idea of end-negative from loss of power to loss of efficiency.