Stormlight. Breath. Interesting.

[Glaring at the Survivor]

My theory is that Stormlight and Breath are related, and more so than the other magic systems. Stormlight increases physical abilities, while Breath increases the sense of sight. If someone happened to to be a Surgebinder, and had 500 Breaths, they would be so much stronger and faster, and have such better sight, that they would become superhuman.

Stormlight and Breath also both give you an aura, although the aura of Stormlight is much different that that of which we would imagine, as it is more of a colored smoke rising from the body. The Breath is like a sibling of Stormlight, which dwells inside of a person and is secured, unable to come out unless the owner willingly gives it away.

Proof for or against?

[Voidus]

For:

Both seem to be more like power sources in their own right as they can power numerous abilities.

Both do not need to be 'used' to grant physical effects.

Against:

Stormlight runs out, Breaths do not.

The glow from stormlight, is the actual stormlight leaving your body, not a physical effect producing an aura.

I would say that they are related but still different in a number of aspects. Like two metals in the same quadrant would be the best analogy I could give.

[Cones For Eyes]

Hmmm, not so sure on this one myself. My main issue is that stormlight seems to be the fuel of Rosharian magics while's breath seems to be the gateway (as opposed to colour which I feel is the fuel) for Nalthian magics though I am aware that that is still a matter of some debate...

[Voidus]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Colour actually, that definitely seems like more of a power source than the Breaths do, perhaps Breaths are more analogous to spren, which unlock the ability.

[Windrunner]

I don't think the color acts as a fuel. That would imply that when an item is Awakened it would have to continue sucking color out of the world to keep the Awakening going. Breaths are spiritual in nature, and every other Investiture is powered by something spiritual (The Dor, Stormlight, Preservation, etc). Think about it like Allomancy. The metal isn't being broken down into pure energy (That would actually be a huge waste of power.). The power is being drawn through the metal, it's acting as a doorway. Now, it's not perfectly analogous, but it seems more likely to me that for whatever reason, color is what allows a Breath to be transferred to a non-living object.

[Straff Venture]

I'd say they are both a fuel in their own right. If we said it in terms of a car, the breath would be the engine and colour the battery. We know that returned require a breath a week, as they use whatever type of energy is in the breath to stay alive for seven days, not needing food or any other type of sustenance. Much in the way a car needs fuel in its engine to keep running. Now on the other hand, awakeners suck a bit of colour out of their surroundings to transfer their breath to another place. I would compare this to the way a car needs a battery to kickstart itself, but the battery is generally not used when the car is running. The only discrepancy I can see with this is that normal awakened objects do not feed off breath.

Thoughts?

[Cones For Eyes]

I don't think the color acts as a fuel. That would imply that when an item is Awakened it would have to continue sucking color out of the world to keep the Awakening going. Breaths are spiritual in nature, and every other Investiture is powered by something spiritual (The Dor, Stormlight, Preservation, etc). Think about it like Allomancy. The metal isn't being broken down into pure energy (That would actually be a huge waste of power.). The power is being drawn through the metal, it's acting as a doorway. Now, it's not perfectly analogous, but it seems more likely to me that for whatever reason, color is what allows a Breath to be transferred to a non-living object.

Weird how we interpreted allomancy differently

The way I see it is like this. Allomancy/Awakening requires metal/breath to act as a gateway to the relevent fuel i.e. the well of power that allomancers feel/colour. Without the metal/breath, you can't access the well of power/colour.

Now that I think about it, it's not perfect as you have pointed out that with allomancy, the metal is used up but in awakening it's the colour that's used up.

....I dunno.....*head desk*

[Kurkistan]

I'd say they are both a fuel in their own right. If we said it in terms of a car, the breath would be the engine and colour the battery. We know that returned require a breath a week, as they use whatever type of energy is in the breath to stay alive for seven days, not needing food or any other type of sustenance. Much in the way a car needs fuel in its engine to keep running. Now on the other hand, awakeners suck a bit of colour out of their surroundings to transfer their breath to another place. I would compare this to the way a car needs a battery to kickstart itself, but the battery is generally not used when the car is running. The only discrepancy I can see with this is that normal awakened objects do not feed off breath.

Thoughts?

Yeah, normal Awakening not destroying Breath is a big discrepancy.

Weird how we interpreted allomancy differently

The way I see it is like this. Allomancy/Awakening requires metal/breath to act as a gateway to the relevent fuel i.e. the well of power that allomancers feel/colour. Without the metal/breath, you can't access the well of power/colour.

Now that I think about it, it's not perfect as you have pointed out that with allomancy, the metal is used up but in awakening it's the colour that's used up.

....I dunno.....*head desk*

Remember, as Windrunner said, that color is only used at the moment of Awakening (or Cognitive transferance, under my model). That Lifeless squirrel will keep squirreling around until it falls to dust, all without requiring additional Breath or color.

I think that Breaths are simply a power source in their own right. They may technically get their power from elsewhere, but I think that they are essentially Spiritual manifestations which are fundamentally a source of energy, not just keys to the door. Returned and Nightblood might just be greedy about it, destroying a Breath now to get all of the energy it has instead of taking what the Breath gives, like emptying a bank account to buy a yacht instead of living off the interest.

We also know from the Q&A that Awakening and Surgebinding "share some defining fundamentals," by the way.

[Millennium]

Almost every magic system we've seen in the Cosmere to date taps into a greater power: usually a Shard. The exception is Feruchemy, which taps your own power rather than that of a Shard.

But in all cases to date, even Feruchemy, it's not something that can be done on its own: some intermediary is needed to reach the source. These things can be put into three categories: Fuels (things that are replaced by the power), Gateways (things the power flows through), and Vehicles (things the power is carried in). The simplest contrast can be seen in the Scadrian magic systems, all of which use a Physical intermediary (metal) but use it differently. Allomancy uses Fuels: you burn metals to access power. Feruchemy uses Gateways: the power flows into, and out of, metals. Hemalurgy uses Vehicles: the power is carried in spikes, and while a person can access that power, if you pull the spike the power goes with it.

The big weakness here is that many of the other magics become harder to classify. Depending on which you emphasize, for example, BioChroma could have either a Spiritual Vehicle (Breath) or a Cognitive Fuel (color). Most of the magics of Sel, or at least the continent containing Elantris, use Cognitive Gateways (Aons, ChayShan patterns, Dhakor bones, etc), but Dhakor could also be said to require Spiritual Fuel for its more spectacular effects. Is it possible that some forms of magic just require multiple intermediaries?

And then there are the ten magics of Roshar. Stormlight is obviously a Fuel, but of what kind (Physical, Spiritual, or Cognitive)? Some spren, like Honorspren and the symbolheads, could be called Gateways, but what of the things they demand of their users? How do Shardblades and Shardplate fit into this at all? And then there's the fact that the system I've set up here only allows for nine combinations: what does this mean for the tenth magic?

There's also numerology to consider. Powers of two are said to be very important to the Cosmere in general, but if this theory (Physical/Spiritual/Cognitive, Fuel/Gateway/Vehicle) holds, then it works in powers of three, not two. Those two numbers don't have any common powers. Why don't they match? Should there in fact be four, with the fourth either unrevealed or taken away? Or is four the "false" number, reflecting something added in? Would the mismatches reflect meddling on someone's part?

To make things even more complicated, Allomancy and Feruchemy each seem to have a theme of "three plus one" instead of truly four. Allomancy has Physical/Mental/Temporal powers, followed by Enhancement: a "meta-thing" which works on the other things, rather than being something on its own. Feruchemy has Physical/Spiritual/Cognitive powers, followed by Hybrid: another sort of "meta-thing" that combines the other things. We don't know enough about Hemalurgy to know if there's a similar "three plus one" thing going on here, but it's not yet out of the realm of possibility. Might this also be a clue to something?

Could the 2-3-4 thing even somehow be related to the concepts of fain and trune from Liar of Partinel? If fainlife -exotic, poisonous to trunelife, and contagious- were to essentially be trunelife with some metaphysical "thing" added (or possibly taken away), might that reflect some sort of meddling with that world which grew to infect the whole cosmere? Could something like this perhaps even be behind the Shattering of Adonalsium?

Anyway, I feel kind of like the Time Cube guy here, seeing patterns where perhaps I shouldn't, or at least missing something very important. Maybe I'm just rambling. It felt like I should get the notes down, though.

[Straff Venture]

Kurk, on chat we theorised that the reason no breath was spent in awakened objects was because they weren't sentient like returned or nightblood, and so the expense in breath had something to do with the cognitive aspect of the manifestation.

[Kurkistan]

Kurk, on chat we theorised that the reason no breath was spent in awakened objects was because they weren't sentient like returned or nightblood, and so the expense in breath had something to do with the cognitive aspect of the manifestation.

Interesting thought, but I don't think so. Nightblood is perfectly fine being sentient and reading minds and whatnot the vast majority of the time: he only eats Breath when he's being super-sword.

[Straff Venture]

Interesting thought, but I don't think so. Nightblood is perfectly fine being sentient and reading minds and whatnot the vast majority of the time: he only eats Breath when he's being super-sword.

Yeah, but then a sword only needs energy when its being swung (normally this would come from the arm of the bearer, but because nightblood is powerful it uses the energy very quickly). Returned are always living, and as in the same way humans always need food to get energy/glucose, returned are always slowly eating away at the breath.

[Kurkistan]

Yeah, but then a sword only needs energy when its being swung (normally this would come from the arm of the bearer, but because nightblood is powerful it uses the energy very quickly). Returned are always living, and as in the same way humans always need food to get energy/glucose, returned are always slowly eating away at the breath.

That could well be the case, I agree, and was basically what I was getting at. But sentience has very little to do with either of those activities.

[Straff Venture]

That could well be the case, I agree, and was basically what I was getting at. But sentience has very little to do with either of those activities.

What are you thinking it is, Kurk?

[Kurkistan]

What are you thinking it is, Kurk?

I think that Breaths are simply a power source in their own right. They may technically get their power from elsewhere, but I think that they are essentially Spiritual manifestations which are fundamentally a source of energy, not just keys to the door. Returned and Nightblood might just be greedy about it, destroying a Breath now to get all of the energy it has instead of taking what the Breath gives, like emptying a bank account to buy a yacht instead of living off the interest.

To clarify, Breaths only output a fraction of their total power at any given time, but that fraction is the amount that they can naturally regenerate/reuse. Nightblood and Returned, then, simply use more of a Breath's power than it can regenerate, destroying the Breath in the process.

[Straff Venture]

To clarify, Breaths only output a fraction of their total power at any given time, but that fraction is the amount that they can naturally regenerate/reuse. Nightblood and Returned, then, simply use more of a Breath's power than it can regenerate, destroying the Breath in the process.

Interesting. I've always thought of shards functioning in a similar way: only so much can be used at once, but nothing is really lost forever.

Oh yeah, on a completely different subject, I noticed a really minor connection that is probably just a coincidence, but might be an 'easter egg' on Brandon's behalf. Slaves in the pits of hathsin have to find an atium bead at least once a week to survive. This is eerily similar to the state of the returned, swapping atium for breath. Kelsier's 'surviving' could also be compared to 'returning'. Maybe this even conveys the message that the returned are just as doomed as the slaves, always eventually dying for the people of T'Telir.

[Kurkistan]

Interesting. I've always thought of shards functioning in a similar way: only so much can be used at once, but nothing is really lost forever.

Oh yeah, on a completely different subject, I noticed a really minor connection that is probably just a coincidence, but might be an 'easter egg' on Brandon's behalf. Slaves in the pits of hathsin have to find an atium bead at least once a week to survive. This is eerily similar to the state of the returned, swapping atium for breath. Kelsier's 'surviving' could also be compared to 'returning'. Maybe this even conveys the message that the returned are just as doomed as the slaves, always eventually dying for the people of T'Telir.

That's where my interpretation came from, actually.

That's an interesting connection, but I agree that it's probably just coincidence. (Just wait and see that it's totally not a coincidence now that I've said it is ).

[Straff Venture]

That's where my interpretation came from, actually.

That's an interesting connection, but I agree that it's probably just coincidence. (Just wait and see that it's totally not a coincidence now that I've said it is ).

Kurk, you've been on the forums a long time, do you know if you or someone else has already made a theory about this (biochroma stuff, not hathsin stuff). I wouldn't mind making a theory about it myself.

[Kurkistan]

Kurk, you've been on the forums a long time, do you know if you or someone else has already made a theory about this (biochroma stuff, not hathsin stuff). I wouldn't mind making a theory about it myself.

I'm really not that old of a hand here. You'd be better off PM'ing Chaos or KChan or someone else who's been here since the dawn of time. I haven't heard anything like that to my knowledge, though. People don't really talk about Warebreaker much.

[Straff Venture]

I'm really not that old of a hand here. You'd be better off PM'ing Chaos or KChan or someone else who's been here since the dawn of time. I haven't heard anything like that to my knowledge, though. People don't really talk about Warebreaker much.

Will do, thanks