Are Bio-Chromatic Breaths supireor to Copperminds?

[Trusk'our Soulcaster]

You can outsource some of your memories to your breaths if you hold any. Similarly, you can store your extra memories inside a coppermind via Feruchemy.

However, breaths are pretty hard to remover from you, while your copperminds can be physically removed without too much effort. Plus, based on what we see with Hoid in RoW, it would seem that you still have your memories while they're held by breaths, while with copperminds you actually forget what is stored in them until you tap them again.

So, are breaths better than copperminds?

[StanLemon Worldbringer]

That's a good question. We don't really know how putting memories in Breaths work. It does appear that putting memories in Breaths allows you constant access of them while holding them, unfortunately the only example of this we have is Hoid who isn't the best person to go off of as he's had millennia of experience and that might be a very advanced skill.

Conversely, TLR was said to have a perfect memory himself. This might be related to the unknown effect of Compounding Copper, but it equally might have simply been a mastery of Copper Feruchemy to immediately pull any relevant information from his Copperminds so as to effectively have better memory.

There are dangers to storing memories in Breaths vs Copperminds. First off, with Breaths being the power source for Awakening, if you for whatever reason absolutely need to Awaken there is the risk of needing to use your memory Breaths to have enough Breaths for whatever Awakening you need to do. I'm guessing if you are skilled enough to put memories in Breaths, you are also skilled enough to choose which Breaths you use like Vasher can which can help mitigate it. But an on the fly Command, and a need for a difficult Awakening always leaves the possibility you will need to use those Breaths. Another danger is that if the Awakener was attacked in a way that drains Investiture, they could lose the Breaths that hold their memories. This doesn't appear to be as much a risk for Copperminds unless the attack was specifically intended for the Copperminds. When Wax was hit with an area of effect Leeching in BoM he had his Steel reserves drained, but his Ironminds were fine.

Considering all the other benefits of Breaths give you though, Breaths are probably superior. Though if Copper Compounders can duplicate memories as some theories expect, that would make Copper Compounders better for memory storage as they could keep backup stashes of memories, but that's just speculation.

[Honorless Lord Ruler]

Aside from all those factors mentioned by StanLemon, there's also the simple practical factor that you'll have to purchase Breaths, and those are going to be more expensive than a simple band of copper, iirc and there's also the ethical considerations. Purchasing Breaths means someone, multiple someones, become Drabs

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna's Thoughts on Being a Drab

A lot of what happened to Vivenna—how she saw the world and how she acted—was influenced by being a Drab. As I've said before, the Hallandren aren't right when they say losing your Breath does nothing to you. Most Drabs struggle with depression, and the fact that they're almost always sick doesn't help either.

And so, Vivenna's time on the streets was artificially made more dreary and terrible than it truly was. Being a Drab, being sick, the shock of being betrayed—these things combined to give you the person you saw in the previous two chapters. It's a way to cut a corner. I wanted Vivenna to feel like she'd been on the streets for months, but for it only to have been a few weeks.

She is able to make her hair change colors again. This is a representation of the fact that she has started to pull out of the nightmare. She's slightly in control of her world again, and the roughest time for her has passed. There's also a clue in that hair, one that Vasher mentions. Because of it, and her heritage, and something very mysterious in the past, every member of the royal line has a fraction of a divine Returned Breath in them. That makes it much easier for them to learn to Awaken than a normal person.

Warbreaker Annotations (Feb. 22, 2011)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna at the Safe House

Vivenna is right about what happens to a person when they lose their Breath. It is a part of your soul, and without one, you are more prone to depression, you get sick much more easily, and you're generally more irritable.

I included this mention here because I'm betting that most people who read the book side with Denth and assume he's right when he talks about these things. But don't be too judgmental about the Idrians—yes, they're biased, but the Hallandren are too in a lot of ways. It's not as simple as one side always being right and the other wrong. In this case, the Idrian teachings are correct, and most Hallandren are looking for justifications when they say that giving up one's Breath isn't all that damaging to them.

Warbreaker Annotations (Oct. 26, 2010)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Denth's Speed

Yes, Denth is inhumanly fast. He's a Returned, after all, and has all of the physical enhancements that come with that. Even when he's chosen not to manifest most of them, he's still got an edge, just like Vasher does.

How do they hide that they're Returned? Well, it comes down to mastery of their ability to change their appearance. They can't shape-shift entirely; they can just alter some things about their appearance. They can change their weight, their hair color, and things like that at will. Vasher doesn't do this often, but Denth has been known to use it as a disguise. The problem, after you do this once and someone realizes it, your nature becomes very suspect.

They have learned to suppress their divine Breath. This allows them to hide, but they must be careful never to give away all of their Breath. Denth has been a Drab before—he's not completely lying—but never for longer than a few days. And his divine Breath is always there, suppressed. So he doesn't know what it's like to be a true Drab, which is why in this chapter he says he doesn't think it changes you that much. He's never felt it.

Warbreaker Annotations (Oct. 26, 2010)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-One

Vivenna, Sick and Disoriented, Gets Turned Away by the Restaurant Keeper

One of the ways I decided to make Vivenna's sections here work better was by enhancing the fuzziness of her mind. By giving her this sense of numbness, I hope to indicate that something is not right with her.

It's common for someone who suddenly becomes a Drab to get sick almost immediately. For a time, her immune system was magically enhanced and warded, in a way, to keep her from becoming ill. With that removed suddenly, sickness can strike. She hasn't built up immunities to the sicknesses going around, and by becoming a Drab, her immune system suddenly works far worse than that of other people.

These things combined made her come down with something pretty nasty the very day she put away her Breath. This would have killed her, eventually, if she hadn't done something about it. She would have grown so dizzy and confused that she wouldn't have even been able to walk.

By sending men to find her, Denth saved her life.

Anyway, I feel that these scenes work much better now. We can look at Vivenna's time on the streets in the same surreal sense that she does. They happened in the past, in a strange dream state. In that way, they can seem much longer than just two chapters and a couple of weeks.

Warbreaker Annotations (Feb. 7, 2011)

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Honorless