Draining color or Giving color?

[Triasmus]

"...and a patch of color bled from the black stone beside him. Black was a color. He’d never considered that before he’d become an Awakener."

 

Warbreaker, pg. 205, Vasher Awakening.

 

 

That line sent up warning flags for me this last time I read through Warbreaker. Black is the absence of color. If we use the same logic that Vasher used in deciding that black is a color, then we would decide that white isn't a color because there's nothing to "drain" when Awakening. But we know that white has all visible colors in the light spectrum. We can also see as we read Warbreaker that that part of physics hasn't been demolished, due to seeing the color distortion surrounding the God King.

 

I propose the idea that Awakening actually "Endows" a given object with more color (or the ability to reflect more color).

 

That falls in line with Endowment's intent. Why would Endowment take?

-Endowment gives, so lets just keep on giving.

 

Q: Bright colors are better for Awakening? It seems like there's more to drain there.

A: I could say that there's more room to give. If there's only one bright color, there's the whole rest of the spectrum to give. A muddled color like brown has less room to expand through the spectrum than a single, pure hue.

 

Q: It seems like there might be a slight issue with color draining to gray for normal awakening, but I can't think of a good phrase to express that sliver of thought.

A: Ideal Awakening (10th heightening) bring the color of a used object to white, instead of just gray.

 

Q: Where will Awakening get the energy to do stuff? it feeds off of the color.

A: I can't imagine color being that viable of an energy source.... I'd say that the energy comes solely from the Breath. The Awakener making a way for a physical object to be endowed with color makes room for the endowments in the spiritual and cognitive realms to come to pass (the same way fire needs to feed off fuel AND oxygen, the endowment needs to happen in all three realms to be viable).

Q: That thought would make one think that the object getting endowed with the spiritual and cognitive (life/breath and memory/being able to follow commands) would also be the one to be endowed in the physical, which is not so. And there are other places in this forum where people are talking about the change in color being a change in the spiritual aspect for that object. What about that?

A: Those are good points that I don't have a very good answer to.

 

 

Other issue(s) that I can think of:

Black. This theory would say that pure black is actually the best "color" to use for Awakening. If it was, then it would probably be mentioned more for being used for Awakening than this one quote. I would say that for it to be the best, it would have to be pure, and it seems like it would be very hard to get pure black, with no hints of other color.

[A Joe in the Bush]

You raise very interesting points.

 

As for the Color changing to Gray instead of White, Do you think it would change to white if Extra breaths were used to Awaken? And doesn't this mean that Pure White Objects Cannot be Awakened? They've already maxed out their Hue.

[Moogle]

White is only a combination of all the colors in an additive color system. With materials, it's a subtractive color system and black is indeed a combination of all the colors. I've always seen the color draining as Awakening taking away 'pigments' from the material. As we learn from Shardblade wounds, taking away 'Spiritual' stuff seems to leave things gray - which is what Awakening seems to do.

 

Most other magic systems seem to drain/use 'fuel' of some sort, and they don't add it back. I'm afraid that I think this theory is off the mark.

[Triasmus]

Well if we look at the magic systems:

Sel: Unless we count the energy to draw the pictures or the forms or whatever, out of the 4 systems we know, only dakhor uses non-investiture as an energy source.

Roshar: Stormlight is energy source AND investiture

Scadrial: Allomancy uses metal, hemalurgy kills people, feruchemy is end-neutral

Yolen: dust is used in the process of lightweaving, but I don't believe that it's consumed

Nalthis: up in the air according to this theory

 

I haven't read the non-published books, but I believe I heard of one that has something to do with people get more potent abilities equal to the intensity of an illness. From what I remember it sounded as if that system didn't necessarily use a specific fuel to power the abilities. I don't know if that's all canonized yet though.

 

out of the 9 given systems, my count is 6 of them don't have a specific non-investiture fuel. I included feruchemy in that count because what is stored can be tapped = no loss/no drain.

I don't really know how to count hemalurgy, since you normally have to kill people to get the spikes. If we don't count people as a fuel then I don't see what other fuel there is.

Allomancy burns metal.

Dakhor eats people.

On Roshar stormlight is used as the fuel, but I don't think I would necessarily count it, since stormlight IS the magic. That would be the same as using Breath as the fuel, which doesn't happen (besides for Returned...).

 

By my count, even if we didn't count Roshar, there would still be more than half of the other known magic systems that DON'T use a specific fuel the energize the magic.

Of the ones that do, I believe that we don't really know how Dakhor works, I already wrote all I have to say about hemalurgy, and in Allomancy the metal really just gives the investiture a pattern to flow through, and so is really only maybe half used as a fuel in the normal sense of the word. (I'm also remembering a WoB that basically said the metal wasn't actually burned in the process....... except now I'm remembering that that had to do with when Aluminum gets burned. It cuts off the spiritual connection to the metal that has already been ingested, but doesn't actually burn that metal).

 

If it is pigments of a color that are used in the process of Awakening, I imagine there would have to be a detailed reason of why the pigments are used (in the same vein of how the metal is used in allomancy), and I have no idea at all how that could be explained. Right now I'm trying to wonder if it could be explained in kind of the same way as the metals, but I can't reason that out. It couldn't have to do with the "pattern" of a specific color, otherwise I believe we would have been told something about how certain types of Awakenings are better with specific colors, but there's nothing of the sort given to us.

[king of nowhere]

If we consider the colors as additive, than black is lack of color and white is sum of all colors.

 

If we see from the point of view of the material absorptivity and reflectivity, then white is lack of color (no absorption, all reflected) and black is all colors (all absorbed).

 

But I'd suppose for the purpose of awakening the cognitive principle would matter. so black sees itself as a color and white does not.

[Quiver]

If we consider the colors as additive, than black is lack of color and white is sum of all colors.

 

If we see from the point of view of the material absorptivity and reflectivity, then white is lack of color (no absorption, all reflected) and black is all colors (all absorbed).

 

But I'd suppose for the purpose of awakening the cognitive principle would matter. so black sees itself as a color and white does not.

 

You know, considering how important intent is, that sounds like it could lend itself to an interesting double-think kind of situation for Awakeners to justify that black/white discrepancy.

 

(And I would have thought that "White" would see itself as a color, but that makes me think; are cognitive principles standards throughout the cosmere? Do all colors, everywhere, see themselves as that thing? Or could White see itself as a color on Nalthis (which has lots of colors and uses white cloth) and not have a cognitive aspect on a different planet?)

[Triasmus]

Would any color anywhere even have a cognitive aspect? I'd imagine that an object might have part of it's identity an idea that it is a specific color (like stick having the idea that it's brown) but I don't see the colors themselves having a cognitive aspect.

[Blaze1616]

(And I would have thought that "White" would see itself as a color, but that makes me think; are cognitive principles standards throughout the cosmere? Do all colors, everywhere, see themselves as that thing? Or could White see itself as a color on Nalthis (which has lots of colors and uses white cloth) and not have a cognitive aspect on a different planet?)

 

Why would a color on one planet not see itself as the same as on another planet? Given that the physical realm is all one connected "object," wouldn't all instances of the color white think itself to be the same thing? Just like all tables thinking that they are, indeed, just a table (unless convinced otherwise, of course). I suppose it would change from object to object, as convincing one table that it is not a table does not suddenly change all tables.

 

That then begs the question as to whether or not colors are included as having such an opinion. When Shallan casts on the ship in WoR, the ship does not identify itself as a brown ship, or a wooden ship, but rather just a ship. As such, I would imagine a white substance would qualify itself as the substance that it is, but not as being white. I'm not certain though, as Shallan was not attempting to get the ship to change color, for the ship may have claimed to be a color had that been what she was trying to change.

 

I guess I just don't see any reason why various white objects would define their colors differently, assuming they were indeed the same shade of that color.

 

Edit:

Would any color anywhere even have a cognitive aspect? I'd imagine that an object might have part of it's identity an idea that it is a specific color (like stick having the idea that it's brown) but I don't see the colors themselves having a cognitive aspect.

 

Gah, you beat me to it.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Blaze1616

[Oudeis]

Idle curiousity... I wonder if you can Soulcast impossible things. Could you soulcast something into something that is oak wood on a molecular level, but is nevertheless a vivid orange?

[Blaze1616]

Idle curiousity... I wonder if you can Soulcast impossible things. Could you soulcast something into something that is oak wood on a molecular level, but is nevertheless a vivid orange?

 

That goes back to the previously posed question of whether or not a color has a cognitive aspect to it. I would think you could soulcast an object and convince it that it's color identity were different, and as a result the oak wood, as you suggested, could indeed be orange. 

 

Another question, then: If one were to soulcast a leaf, and turn it blue, would it die? The green coloration is due to the chloroplasts within the plant cells, allowing for photosynthesis. Would altering the color remove the chloroplasts and kill the plant, change the color of the chloroplasts, or would the leaf not change color?

[king of nowhere]

since realmathics draws deeply into greek philosophy, I would keep the paralllel and think the cognitive identity of stuff is made of aristothelian substance and accidents. a table sees itself as a table (the substance) and then it has various "accidents" that are other qualities it has but are not stictly relatd to being a table (being brown, being wooden, having a scratch...). color would be an accident, and possibly modifiable without altering the rest of the cognitive identity. possibly that's what lightweaving does.

 

How all this interact with the physical realm is a big mess. Although I'd wager that if you soulcast/lightweave/whatever an object to change its color, the change would be investiture-fueled, and not reflected in changes to the molecular level. but then, drained objects... maybe they lose some part of innate investiture? the change there is certainly permament, while an investiturre-fueled change is normally temporary.

[Blaze1616]

since realmathics draws deeply into greek philosophy, I would keep the paralllel and think the cognitive identity of stuff is made of aristothelian substance and accidents. a table sees itself as a table (the substance) and then it has various "accidents" that are other qualities it has but are not stictly relatd to being a table (being brown, being wooden, having a scratch...). color would be an accident, and possibly modifiable without altering the rest of the cognitive identity. possibly that's what lightweaving does.

How all this interact with the physical realm is a big mess. Although I'd wager that if you soulcast/lightweave/whatever an object to change its color, the change would be investiture-fueled, and not reflected in changes to the molecular level. but then, drained objects... maybe they lose some part of innate investiture? the change there is certainly permament, while an investiturre-fueled change is normally temporary.

That actually makes sense. Stamping on Sel worked that way. Assuming that to be true then, as it would work similarly to another Cosmere magic system, if one were to alter an object's color, then awaken it, which color would the awakening rely on? Changing an object from brown to vibrant red, would awakening make use of the brown, or the red? I suppose it would depend on the cognitive identity, so the vibrant red would be used, assuming soulcasting was used for the color change. That's a powerful combination if a soulcaster teamed up with an awakener.

So then what would happen if the color were altered due to Stamping, a temporary effect? I presume Stamping is not based around altering an object's cognitive identity, but is rather more like lightweaving. That does not explain, though, why Stamping alters the history of the object, as that points to an alteration of the cognitive identity...

Edited October 31, 2014 by Blaze1616

[Cam]

I wonder, on Scadrial, during the original trilogy, Elend's white suit is actually light grey (I think it's in the Hero of Ages annotations). But as far as Scadrians were concerned at the time, it was a brilliant white. They had never seen something that light before.

Would this perception do anything to an awakener on Scadrial?

Perception is after all very important to Investiture, and especially awakening.

[Blaze1616]

I wonder, on Scadrial, during the original trilogy, Elend's white suit is actually light grey (I think it's in the Hero of Ages annotations). But as far as Scadrians were concerned at the time, it was a brilliant white. They had never seen something that light before.

Would this perception do anything to an awakener on Scadrial?

Perception is after all very important to Investiture, and especially awakening.

 

As far as awakening goes, though, it is the perception of the Awakener that is important. As a result, were a Nalthian to hop to Scadrial, they would know the difference. In addition, the color aspect of Awakening is not left up to perception or intent. It had pretty rigid rules, such as the fact that a red cup was a specific purity of red. An Awakener who has not reached the Heightening to see perfect hues might think the cup pure, but that didn't make the cup fuel the Awakening as if it were perfect when it wasn't. The Intent and perception for Awakening came into play with the Command.

[IAmTheBeard]

Slight spoilers, I guess, for various Cosmere works.

 

Remember that metal doesn't actually fuel allomancy on Scadrial. It acts more like a catalyst (English definition, not scientific). In fact, it's more of a focus. However, it does get consumed in the process. Similarly, the Aon acts as a focus for the Dor. The motion of drawing does not fuel the resulting effect. Yet the Aon still gets consumed. Surgebinding (or Stormlight itself; it's somewhat unclear) consumes heat, thus producing frost, though the heat clearly isn't powering the reaction. On Nalthis, color is consumed even though it definitely doesn't fuel the Awakening. Investiture is what fuels all the systems. However, each one does include a cost, which is consumed in the act. The only one which doesn't is Feruchemy, because what is powering the effect is actually what is consumed (or diminished).

 

So, from this perspective, we shouldn't be looking for how color can power Awakening. Also, it's pretty clear that Cosmere systems don't add something to the environment. They universally drain something when used. This is intricately connected to Brandon's cost and weakness philosophy of power. 

 

Also, from a physics teacher's point of view, talking about black being the absence of color is silly. Light by itself, even white light, isn't indicative of a color. The phenomenon of color is caused by light interacting with objects. Black objects interact with light by absorbing color. If you're looking for something mystical to be happening, think of Awakening as absorbing an object's spiritual connection to light, or its capacity to absorb color. 

As some others have pointed out, it's about additive versus subtractive color. Light's color (as perceived by our eyes) is additive. But the color of objects, which is what are drained by Awakening, is determined subtractively. So a black object has more color than a white one.

 

From a thermodynamics point of view, a black object is a much better source of energy than a white one. It more readily gives up its energy. The same is true for any colored object versus a less colored object. White objects are the hardest to draw energy from. Where I live, people use silver cups for hot and cold drinks. It's obvious to a lot of people that the shiny surface keeps heat in, but it's less obvious that it also keeps heat out, preventing their cold drink from warming up. Put another way, black is more willing to give up energy than colored objects, which are in turn more willing to give up energy than white or reflective objects. That at least makes some sense in terms of Brandon's systems usually consuming something as a cost. But I don't think that is as pertinent as the spiritual connection thing.

 

Oh, and if the Tears of Edgli are as Cosmere connected as we think they are, then that could point to another significant thing that is being drawn out. But, without a doubt, color is not being created.

Edited February 9, 2015 by IAmTheBeard