The Power of Awakening

[Edgedancer]

I don't think the exact phrasing matters a whole lot here. I believe that the Lifeless gains ownership of the Breath, even if it has a Command attached to it. I also believe items you Awaken are granted ownership in the sense that the consumed Investiture/leaked Investiture will return to the object, even if there's a link to you that allows you to take the Breath back at some point. Brandon's clear that if the Lifeless was more sentient, they could give the Breath away if they wanted.

The part with the command was more of a lead in. What I find interesting is that Breath could have a Command attached, even after the ownership changes and that Command manipulating the new owner. An idea not without predecent, thanks to the memory altering, although if my memory serves right it was at least implied to be self-Awakening.

Could these two intersect, maybe even to the level of soulforging? Would it be easier/only possible with something like Parshmen?

[Blaze1616]

A major problem with this theory comes in the form of Returned. Returned consume Breath and use it up, but it doesn't return to them - it goes poof and heads off to somewhere else. The theory doesn't predict why this should be the case. It may be like Nightblood, in that they "corrupt" the Breath they feed on and radiate it. Which begs the question: where does the Breath that radiates from Nightblood when he's unsheathed go? Back to Endowment? Why?

 

Also, this theory would predict that Surgebinding using Breaths as a power source could create 'permanent' Lashings and the like, or perhaps you'd regenerate the Breath over time. This is also a major point against it, but perhaps it is the case.

 

What if Returned simply cannot "own" Breath? Being Splinters of Endowment, perhaps all of their "property" is really Endowment's "property," and the transfer process is one week. This is just a wild stab in the dark.

 

I think we may have a divide here in how we understand the process working.

 

By my understanding, it goes like this.

 

1. Returned eats a kid's soul. The Breath is functionally gone, and now the Returned is just walking around with 1 Divine Breath and that's it.
2. Over the course of a week, he grows gradually weaker.
   • If he does not get another Breath at the end of the week, he consume his own Breath and dies.
   • If he does get another Breath at the end of the week, he immediately consumes it and we start at 1 again.

So the Returned here is never really "holding" the Breath as such for more than a moment, and he can't use it to Awaken or anything. The cost is paid upfront, and this cost is what pays for their next week of life.

 

I'd like to emphasize my "at least in some form", then. As you agree, something needs to be sustaining our Returned throughout the week. A possibility, then, is that the Breath is "converted" into some kind of Spiritual battery or the like, or perhaps "locked for editing" while they eat it, or some other mechanism. Something that allows it to continue existing while still not being discernible from the outside.

 

--

 

Are you suggesting, though, that during the course of a normal week a Returned is in fact holding 2 Breaths—1 Divine and one Soul of a Forsaken child—and gradually consuming the non-Divine one? The distinction is subtle, but if you're right than the Returned could theoretically use that 1 Breath to Awaken or the like and so immediately die from "switching to backup battery", as it were, and eating their Splinters.

 

EDIT:

 

Hmm... Maybe Vasher & Co. can avoid the weakness by supplementing waning eaten-Breath power with the normal "dividend" produced by other Breaths? If so, we'll need to establish a reason why a Returned couldn't simply get away with having some arbitrarily large number of Breaths and never needing to actually "eat" any of them as he lives off the interest. Perhaps, if this is indeed how it works, the weekly eating of the Breath is simply hard-coded into Returned, whether or nor it's necessary/beneficial?

 

Though it's speculative to say so, I doubt that Returned are about to just keel over dead from weakness in the moments before they consume their own Divine Breath: if so, then that provides evidence that the weekly Breath-eating is at least somewhat unconnected to their actual need for energy.

 

Maybe I am missing something, but is there a specific reason behind the logic that Breaths must be partially consumed to provide energy for a whole week? Why is it not possible that, after receiving the Breath and consuming it, the Returned has one week's worth of energy? 

[Kurkistan]

Maybe I am missing something, but is there a specific reason behind the logic that Breaths must be partially consumed to provide energy for a whole week? Why is it not possible that, after receiving the Breath and consuming it, the Returned has one week's worth of energy?

 

I don't necessarily have a problem with this "eat the Breath, get one week's energy" model, but I would like to examine exactly what form that "one week's energy" takes. Where is all that energy sitting in the interim? Simply saying that the Returned "has" it isn't very explanatory. Are you suggesting that the energy's incorporated directly into the Returned and then they vampire off it throughout the week?

 

In case you got lost in my double-talk and speculation, here's the core concern:

 

I'd like to emphasize my "[the Breath needs to exist] at least in some form", then. As [Moogle agrees], something needs to be sustaining our Returned throughout the week. A possibility, then, is that the Breath is "converted" into some kind of Spiritual battery or the like, or perhaps "locked for editing" while they eat it, or some other mechanism. Something that allows it to continue existing while still not being discernible from the outside.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Blaze1616]

I don't necessarily have a problem with this "eat the Breath, get one week's energy" model, but I would like to examine exactly what form that "one week's energy" takes. Where is all that energy sitting in the interim? Simply saying that the Returned "has" it isn't very explanatory. Are you suggesting that the energy's incorporated directly into the Returned and then they vampire off it throughout the week?

In case you got lost in my double-talk and speculation, here's the core concern:

 

I'd like to emphasize my "[the Breath needs to exist] at least in some form", then. As [Moogle agrees], something needs to be sustaining our Returned throughout the week. A possibility, then, is that the Breath is "converted" into some kind of Spiritual battery or the like, or perhaps "locked for editing" while they eat it, or some other mechanism. Something that allows it to continue existing while still not being discernible from the outside.

 

 

Okay, I see. I definitely do not think the energy is incorporated directly into the Returned, because the Returned is sustained for one week regardless of their activities being strenuous or not.

 

I believe, instead, that the Breath is stored in a more "raw" form of investiture. As we know from WoB, the "spark of life" is a form of investiture:

 

Q: Does Nightblood rip souls out of bodies by chance?

A: Nightblood consumes Investiture, including the spark of life.

 

We also know that Returned are very unlike their undead cousins the Lifeless. Both must die as a human before they can become what they are, but a Lifeless just follows orders, while a Returned has free will (to an extent, anyways). Perhaps the Breath that is consumed is converted to replace the "spark of life." This does not, though, explain why the "spark" fades and eventually disappears though.

[Moogle]

• Returned eats a kid's soul. The Breath is functionally gone, and now the Returned is just walking around with 1 Divine Breath and that's it.
• Over the course of a week, he grows gradually weaker.
  • If he does not get another Breath at the end of the week, he consume his own Breath and dies.
  • If he does get another Breath at the end of the week, he immediately consumes it and we start at 1 again.

So the Returned here is never really "holding" the Breath as such for more than a moment, and he can't use it to Awaken or anything. The cost is paid upfront, and this cost is what pays for their next week of life.

 

 

I've thought about this, and it still doesn't add up for me. When a Returned, well, returns, they've got a week to live. Why? Did they consume a Breath? If so, did Endowment just give them one in addition to the Divine Breath? If she/he did, why not give more than one?

 

Where is the energy sustaining them coming from? And if one Breath can sustain them, the energy gained from consuming their own Divine Breath should be immense, meaning they should be able to live for 5000 weeks after consuming it.

 

Here's the WoB you linked, since I think it's very relevant:

Skyler

If a returned gives away his/her breath they die right? So why doesn't Vasher die after he gives his to Denth?

Brandon Sanderson

They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter. And when the seventh day comes, if a Returned does not have another breath for his body to consume to keep him alive, his body will actually eat his divine breath and kill him. So they don't die immediately after they get rid of the breath, they're sort of put into a state of limbo where if they don't find more breath by the time that their feast day comes, then they will die. (Vasher did not give his Returned breath to Denth, just a number of normal breaths.)

 

This suggests that they need to have a Breath at all times - they don't consume it at the start of the week. Rather, Brandon says "They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest." If Vasher gave away his Divine Breath to Denth, Brandon seems to be implying he'd die - which we would not expect if he still had a store of energy left from consuming a Breath earlier in the week. To me, this implies a slow and steady munching throughout the week (also: it seems to me to be more intuitive and like eating actual food), though this also doesn't fit the facts, since it doesn't seem like they partially-eat their Divine Breath (if they did, we'd expect Returned a little ways outside of Hallandren to have visibly weakened auras).

 

So yes, my view is that when Lightsong gets his weekly Breath, he could Awaken with it until the end of the week. I grant that it is not so clear, though, and I am not terribly confident in this assertion.

 

As an idea: perhaps the Divine Breaths are 'unsticking', like Brandon says regular Breaths will do when used to Awaken objects. The DB slowly comes looser and looser from your body, until on the seventh day it finally uncouples from you and then you die. Breath is consumed regularly in order to provide extra glue. (Seems obviously false in that the WoB says they'd 'eat' it, though.)

 

Honestly, I'd like to fit Returned in with Nightblood. Another WoB:

Jeremy_Carroll

How could Vasher become Drab, since he would have to give up his Big Breath to do so?

Brandon Sanderson

The Divine Breath can be hid. Essentially, you have to view yourself NOT as a god at all, using a very specific bit of mental gymnastics. As a Returned, your body changes based on how you see yourself. (This, by the way, is an indication that Lightsong was more pleased with himself than he ever let on.)

You don't lose your Divine Breath, but it does go into hiding, making you look like a normal person. But you're still Returned, and are consuming a Breath at one a week. If you give away your other Breaths, you retain this hidden one, but your body will still consume its own spirit if left to do so. So you still need a Breath a week to survive, and will die the week you don't get one.

(source)

 

He says "your body will still consume its own spirit if left to do so", which fits in well with how Nightblood operates.

 

Perhaps the reason Returned die after they consume their Divine Breath (since I think they should be able to theoretically survive if they give that away - Lightsong might have only died in healing the God King because he used up all his color/drained his entire soul) is because they then have no buffer to eat and immediately begin consuming their own spirit after, and their spirit is made up of barely any Investiture and all and then they go poof.

 

Interesting question for Brandon: what would the corpse of a Returned who died because he ran out of Breath look like? I suspect it would be completely gray if they do in fact consume their own spirits.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

I think I'll disagree with you on the idea that Returned could even theoretically survive without their Divine Breath.

 

Recall that a Divine Breath is not just a super-powered Breath: it's a Splinter of Endowment, and so just as much Cognitive as it is Spiritual—here I rest on my assumption/theory that normal Breath are primarily if not entirely Spiritual. And Returned aren't just people with a lot of Breath and self-image issues. I'm with Vasher that they are BioChromatic Entities in their own right: no longer properly human and not going to become anything like human anytime soon. Beyond that the Divine Breath is obviously doing many many things besides provide the Fifth Heightening—as seen with body-morphing and the like—and so can't be so casually replaced with an equivalent amount of energy.

 

So I would argue that the cause of death when Returned run out of Breath to eat  (and so eat their own) is exactly the same as when they give away their Divine Breath: They have lost the thing that makes them tick, what differentiates Vasher from a corpse. So a Vasher who gives away his Divine Breath won't die because he runs out of energy, but simply because he no longer has his Divine Breath.

[Moogle]

Beyond that the Divine Breath is obviously doing many many things besides provide the Fifth Heightening—as seen with body-morphing and the like—and so can't be so casually replaced with an equivalent amount of energy.

 

The Royal Locks are heavily implied to be a lesser ability of the Returned's morphing abilities, and I feel quite confident saying that Vivenna doesn't have a Divine Breath.

 

I'm heavily inclined to believe that their morphing is simply due to their being more heavily in the Cognitive (SA implies this, anyways), which may or may not be due to their Splinter.

 

I find it not unlikely that each Returned is a Cognitive Shadow temporarily pulled more heavily into the Physical, which could explain why they would be closer to the Cognitive. Lightsong's perspective implies that a Returned is in fact the dead person, and Cognitive Shadows are not Splinters nor do they require Splinters to function. Perhaps the Divine Breath is what allows them to function in the Physical, but I am not 100% convinced the Divine Breath is necessary for them to live. I concede it is a likely possibility, however.

 

I also note that Vasher and Denth retained their superspeed while suppressing their Divine Breath. They don't retain the benefits of the Heightenings while doing this, so if the Divine Breath is responsible for their other abilities, then you'd think they'd lose the superspeed too. So, I don't think the Divine Breath is what is giving them this particular ability.

 

What I wouldn't give for the second book... which is looking farther and farther away all the time.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

The Royal Locks are heavily implied to be a lesser ability of the Returned's morphing abilities, and I feel quite confident saying that Vivenna doesn't have a Divine Breath.

 

*Whistles casually*

Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can’t change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice.

 

The Royal family is descended from a Returned, after all.

 

EDIT: *Sees edit about superspeed*

 

That same Annotation I just linked to seems like it might answer that as well, as Vivienne can manifest various of the abilities of a divine Breath without needing to get all glowy.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Moogle]

Very interesting. I'd never seen that before. How does that work, then? A Returned has a child, and it spontaneously duplicates his Divine Breath? Or does he lose some of his to give to his child? Why is it that only those in line for the throne gain the Royal Locks, then, if it just copies over the fragment of your Divine Breath to your children? If she can change her age, is she immortal? Why does she not require a constant influx of Breath like a Returned?

 

This is very odd.

[Kurkistan]

I was trying to find it, but I'm fairly sure I've seen a WoB saying something about the Returned "endowing" (exact word) some of its Breath to the child; I may just be misremembering the second WoB I linked to, though. So the Returned gives over a fragment of its Splinter, which is then passed down through the Royal line: myself, I'd guess that the divine Breath is moreso anchored to some conceptual "Idrian Royal line"--manifesting in some of them but never truly belonging to them--rather than in the royals proper.

So far as not needing a constant influx of Breath goes, I think we already have a fairly natural explanation in that Returned are not properly human: they don't even eat for Austre's sake! So the need for new Breath seems to be a matter of their bodies rather than their divine Breaths--or if it is their divine Breath it's only because they're in Returned that the Breaths act that way.

[Windrunner]

I've thought about this, and it still doesn't add up for me. When a Returned, well, returns, they've got a week to live. Why? Did they consume a Breath? If so, did Endowment just give them one in addition to the Divine Breath? If she/he did, why not give more than one?

 

Where is the energy sustaining them coming from? And if one Breath can sustain them, the energy gained from consuming their own Divine Breath should be immense, meaning they should be able to live for 5000 weeks after consuming it.

 

This suggests that they need to have a Breath at all times - they don't consume it at the start of the week. Rather, Brandon says "They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest." If Vasher gave away his Divine Breath to Denth, Brandon seems to be implying he'd die - which we would not expect if he still had a store of energy left from consuming a Breath earlier in the week. To me, this implies a slow and steady munching throughout the week (also: it seems to me to be more intuitive and like eating actual food), though this also doesn't fit the facts, since it doesn't seem like they partially-eat their Divine Breath (if they did, we'd expect Returned a little ways outside of Hallandren to have visibly weakened auras).

 

So yes, my view is that when Lightsong gets his weekly Breath, he could Awaken with it until the end of the week. I grant that it is not so clear, though, and I am not terribly confident in this assertion.

 

I think that this is fairly strong evidence that the Returned consuming a Breath for the week is an instantaneous process rather than a weeklong slow feeding. I suppose it might be possible to argue around it, but I think it would be a bit of a stretch.

Just a little note here. Returned live for eight days without a Breath, though the week is seven days long in this world. Why? Well, I figured that they'd need an extra day as leeway. On day seven, they start to grow weak and sluggish. If they don't consume a Breath, their body will consume their own on the eighth day of their life, and they'll die again.

[Moogle]

I think that this is fairly strong evidence that the Returned consuming a Breath for the week is an instantaneous process rather than a weeklong slow feeding. I suppose it might be possible to argue around it, but I think it would be a bit of a stretch.

 

That does seem like strong evidence, but it doesn't explain why Returned get the eight days in the first place. Did Endowment give them a Breath to consume at the start of their return? In this regard, a slow feeding on the Divine Breath for eight days followed by death would make more sense to me.

 

Also a notable thing: their body prioritizes eating regular Breath over their Divine Breath such that it'll eat the regular Breath on day seven and the Divine Breath on day eight? What? Why?

Edited November 20, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

@Windy

Well that Annotation neatly torpedoes any attempt to draw a distinction between Vasher & co. and low-Breath Returned: so there is in fact no gradual drop-off of strength.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Moogle]

A thought that solves my issues: perhaps you do slowly feed on your Divine Breath over the week, as it slowly serves to power you and give you enhanced speed and whatnot. The difference might be that you can temporarily feed on a Breath instead of your Divine Breath to power your abilities, which gives your Divine Breath a "break" to restore itself (as per the idea that the Divine Breath has been endowed upon you and is yours, and thus like Preservation's Investiture returns to him after powering Allomancy, your Divine Breath slowly restores itself). The Breath lasts something 1/2000 of the time the Divine Breath (possibly far less if under a dividends model), which would mean a Breath lasts for 5 minutes before being utterly consumed and gone. You only start "running out" of your Divine Breath on your seventh day, which is when you start feeling weak.

 

(If we go on a dividends model, you'd probably eat your DB at a rate just slightly greater than the interest it provides. You thus seem to be nearly at full strength all week until closer to the end when there's a steeper dropoff.)

 

My main issue with this was that a Returned's aura should be altered (and perhaps there'd be a loss of Heightenings), but the Annotations say Vivenna could glow "like a Returned" despite only having a fragment of a Divine Breath, so that suggests luminosity is not directly correlated with the amount of Investiture you have, which in turn suggests that the Heightenings wouldn't be noticeably affected either. Lightsong is too busy feeling dizzy to remark that maybe he's no longer ageless anyways. (And again, Vivenna could be ageless even though she has only a small fragment of a DB.)

Edited November 20, 2014 by Moogle
Apparently the 5th Heightening is neither 5000 or 1000, but 2000 Breaths.

[Tempus]

I've always held an assumption similar to that, Moggle. It makes no sense for a Breath to be arbitrarily consumed periodically. There must be a reasoning of sorts. The conclusion which I came to is that there must be a threshold of some kind, and that the effect in question accumulates until it passes the threshold. This can be thought of in two ways:

 

1. A Breath is slowly consumed until it reaches a threshold, and then is rapidly consumed. This could be any particular curve, such as your dividends example, or an exponential function like pH.

 

2. A Breath is discrete, however there is a threshold for the consumption that builds up. Once whatever force that is exerting pressure on the Breath passes a threshold, the Breath rapidly collapses. This could be viewed as similar to a physics model - exerting force on a material until it snaps, adding pressure to a canister until it explodes, or alpha decay until the half-life of a substance is reached. Adding a new Breath could be seen as venting the pressure, or stabilizing the substance.

 

 

The first scenario is slightly more likely, given that symptoms are noticed prior to a Breath consumed (or an individual passing).

[gjustice99]

Hrm. While I of course don't dispute the WoB, I have to admit, it perplexes me. You get something out of it without putting anything like the same thing in. Losing a few scraps of color hardly seems equal to the amount of energy you can get out of an Awakening. It's like saying the metal lost is equal to the power achieved by allomancy. We obviously know that it's end-neutral, but it doesn't look end-neutral. Where, then, does the power come from, if not Endowment?

I believe that what happens to fuel awakening seems to be the spiritual connection of the color that is "drained" in the creation of an awakened object. It sort of connects with wounds from shardblades.

 

Stormlight Archive Spoiler 

When a limb is cut by a shardblade then what actually happens is that that limb's connection is severed in the spiritual realm, which also drains the color from said limb.

 

Something very similar seems to happen when someone awakens an object, which may be the fuel for awakening. I believe that the connections of the object that is drained of color has been severed in its connection to the spiritual realm. So, that color's spiritual connection may be the fuel for BioChroma rather than breaths. I think the purpose of breaths in awakening is simply to give life to the object, not actually to fuel the awakening itself.

Edited November 21, 2014 by gjustice99

[Kurkistan]

I believe that what happens to fuel awakening seems to be the spiritual connection of the color that is "drained" in the creation of an awakened object. It sort of connects with wounds from shardblades.

 

Stormlight Archive Spoiler 

When a limb is cut by a shardblade then what actually happens is that that limb's connection is severed in the spiritual realm, which also drains the color from said limb.

 

Something very similar seems to happen when someone awakens an object, which may be the fuel for awakening. I believe that the connections of the object that is drained of color has been severed in its connection to the spiritual realm. So, that color's spiritual connection may be the fuel for BioChroma rather than breaths. I think the purpose of breaths in awakening is simply to give life to the object, not actually to fuel the awakening itself.

 

While the connection between Awakening's color-draining and Shardblade wounds has been noted, this concept of yours simply flies in the face of the very WoB that tells us Awakening is end-neutral. To quote it again:

 

Source:

Q [30:33]: Is Awakening and BioChroma an end-neutral system?

A: Yes. You don't lose Breath in the process of Awakening.

 

End-neutral/positive/negative is all decided by how the energy is gained, and here's Brandon telling us Awakening is end-neutral because Breath aren't lost in the process. How exactly are you going about interpreting this any other way?

 

EDIT: Mistborn/WoR spoilers

On top of that we have Vasher being able to substitute Stormlight for Breath, Brandon himself giving the example of fueling Allomancy with Breath...

Edited November 21, 2014 by Kurkistan

[gjustice99]

 

While the connection between Awakening's color-draining and Shardblade wounds has been noted, this concept of yours simply flies in the face of the very WoB that tells us Awakening is end-neutral. To quote it again:

 

Source:

 

End-neutral/positive/negative is all decided by how the energy is gained, and here's Brandon telling us Awakening is end-neutral because Breath aren't lost in the process. How exactly are you going about interpreting this any other way?

 

EDIT: Mistborn/WoR spoilers

On top of that we have Vasher being able to substitute Stormlight for Breath, Brandon himself giving the example of fueling Allomancy with Breath...

 

I completely realize that the theory I proposed goes against a WoB, but on the other hand, I can see no other real reason for color to be drained from objects during the awakening process.

[Kurkistan]

My apologies for misinterpreting, then: I read your post as you proposing a true alternative model that you thought possible rather than idle musings.

 

--

 

If you're dissatisfied with the loss of color, there are numerous theories floating around, and even if all of them are wrong I'm sure some reasonable explanation exists. Myself I've suggested that the color pays for the initial Command itself, while the Breath covers the cost of the follow-through—which suggestion was part of a model of Awakening that Brandon found "very close" to how it actually works.

[Moogle]

Update on this, thanks to a new WoB from Prncnry!
 

PrncRny
Why is Breath not consumed in Awakening, unlike most all other uses of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson (Paraphrased)
Not all investitures are "used up." Must like energy, it isn't typically created or destroyed, just changes for. With Breath, in what it's used for, it is just more easily and readily recovered than in other forms

Footnote
According to PrncRny the answer was a bit beyond his understanding of the cosmere, he may have not gotten the specifics but he tried to give the jist of the answer.
(source)

 

This is pretty much in line with what I was theorizing. You 'recover' your spent Breath, so it seems like it's not running out even though it's being used.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Ookla the Infinite

[Kurkistan]

By my reading this actually seems to draw us a bit more (though not all the way) back towards the "dividends" model  than just a simple matter of ownership. So the nature of the Breath/BioChroma itself is also geared towards this reuse.

[Mistdork]

Alright, time to creep out of the grave like a Lifeless army in a horror film...The future of Nalthian Cinema, you know they would be able to make some excellent movies in the distant future just with the freaky things Awakeners and Lifeless can do...;D

 

What I want to address though, is the "draining" of color (and sounding like Captain Obvious to boot). It always seemed odd to me, anyways, that when the color of an object is "drained" this draining is graying. This is only from a cosmetic prospective. In color theory, a white object (or a duller, gray object) is, in fact, reflecting more colors than before (instead of reflecting bright red, it reflects all the colors of the spectrum). Black is the absence of color (that is, no colors are being reflected back, instead a truly black object absorbs all colors), if color was really being "drained" so to speak, the effects of Awakening would look quite different. After Susebron regains his tongue and performs Awakening at the end of the book, when the color is "drained" from those objects, they turn white due. If he were "draining" color when he Awakened everything in the palace, this shouldn't have been the result, but it was because Awakening causes a physical (and probably) chemical change in the physical realm to fuel it's power (to change the colors an object physical reflects is not the same as painting over it or even dying it, though, it is like bleaching it, but still somewhat different). It could be the energy produced by this change that provides the power for Awakening (or moving Breath from one object to another). Thus, color isn't fueling it directly, the physical change (and probably the cognitive change) fuels it.

 

Personally, I love this system because it's related to how colors work, but that probably puts me in the minority of readers. It just isn't as cool as burning metal. Invested metal, but there's still a reaction taking place in the Allomancer's stomach (one that we don't completely understand... Do they have special enzymes or invested-cellular structures that burn this metal? What exactly is going on there?), and while its end-positive nature, this chemical/investiture reaction has to take place. It's not exactly the same in nature because they have to continuously burn said metal, but it's somewhat similar...(and now I want to take a part an Allomancer stomach to better understand how burning metals works...it's for SCIENCE!) This kind of change might not be needed for all Investiture (as no more examples come to mind, or if they exist, it's like spiking someone in the back and stealing her power...only a good idea if you belong in the back alley and/or want to figure out the economics of Hemalurgy)...

 

To kind of address everything else: I find Kuristan's dividend/investment model really interesting, though, I personally see it as closer to a slow or minute decay of Investiture over time. I think it's a possibility that Returned are...kind of like corpses Awakened by Endowment with Cognitive Shadows tacked on (so I agree with Moogle, I think it was Moogle anyways). If the 'unsticking' or decay is relatively low (so minute it's not even noticeable until day-seven except if you have Susubron-level power...) and since we never get to see a Returned getting refused in-book from a non-Returned's perspective, we can't say what their aura look like to someone else. Lightsong (the one example we get) probably wouldn't have been aware of this subtle change, and if it's subtle enough throughout the week that only the most powerful Awakener could notice it, than the regular person wouldn't and couldn't tell anyways. Considering that it's only one Breath that's require to get a Divine Breath re-stuck, the decay should be difficult to notice in the first place since one Breath really isn't much and that's all a Returned needs to "eat" to recover their strength...

 

However, I think it's possible that whatever is happening, it might be that Breath becomes part of the Divine Breath (instead of being an individual unit) when the Return "devours" it. Thus, the Divine Breath gets slightly larger and that single Breath doesn't just disappear (but a Breath is so minuscule that an increase in size of the Divine Breath wouldn't be noticeable except if you have thousands of Breaths). By the end of the week, it's gone (or rather, the Divine Breath gets smaller again and can't quite hold on to its human form/corpse or stick as well), and the Returned needs to eat again to refuse again. Though, I don't think this addresses the energy issue...

[Moogle]

What I want to address though, is the "draining" of color (and sounding like Captain Obvious to boot). It always seemed odd to me, anyways, that when the color of an object is "drained" this draining is graying. This is only from a cosmetic prospective. In color theory, a white object (or a duller, gray object) is, in fact, reflecting more colors than before (instead of reflecting bright red, it reflects all the colors of the spectrum). Black is the absence of color (that is, no colors are being reflected back, instead a truly black object absorbs all colors), if color was really being "drained" so to speak, the effects of Awakening would look quite different.

 

I forget who originally said it, but this is explained by Awakening draining "pigment" rather than color directly. Subtractive color systems (like when you mix paint, as opposed to additive color systems like mixing beams of light) mean that black has got quite a lot of pigment. Things that live in dark caves tend to become white and pale because they don't need pigments. Once I heard this, Awakening became much more intuitive to me. Your "soul" sort of counts as pigment in the Cosmere, it seems, as shown by Shardblade wounds.

 

However, I think it's possible that whatever is happening, it might be that Breath becomes part of the Divine Breath (instead of being an individual unit) when the Return "devours" it. Thus, the Divine Breath gets slightly larger and that single Breath doesn't just disappear (but a Breath is so minuscule that an increase in size of the Divine Breath wouldn't be noticeable except if you have thousands of Breaths). By the end of the week, it's gone (or rather, the Divine Breath gets smaller again and can't quite hold on to its human form/corpse or stick as well), and the Returned needs to eat again to refuse again. Though, I don't think this addresses the energy issue...

 

I guess this sort of makes sense, but the main issue there is that this doesn't explain why the Returned dies if their Divine Breath became 1999/2000x as powerful. You'd think the Divine Breath would have to be almost wholly consumed for them to die, and if that were the case, one Breath isn't going to restore it.

 

Still, it's an interesting idea. The one thing this thread has done is make me think a lot.

 

(I agree with you on Awakening being awesome. The color auras are fabulous.)

Edited December 3, 2014 by Ookla the Infinite