kimni Posted February 7, 2017 Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 This is just a tiny little detail that has bothered me since I first read Warbreaker, but I stumbled over a question on Awakening (or specifically, colour): We know that Awakening drains colour to grey, and that grey does not count as colour for Awakening. But at the same time, black does count as a colour. Do we know anything about where the cut off is, so to speak, between black and grey, or how that would be determined? Where does "dark grey" become "black", or the other way around? It can't be perfect black (absorbing 100% of all light), since that is pretty much impossible to achieve, and someone in Warbreaker (I think Vasher?) does use black stone as colour, so it is definitely something that's possible. It's probably not very important, but I thought I'd ask if anyone else has any thoughts on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemalurgic Headshot Posted February 7, 2017 Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 I think a lot of the color dealings in Warbreaker are related to pigments. Pigments are additive color, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to black. On the other hand, light color is subtractive, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to white. Grey is weird, so that's why it is the middle default point. The greyest grey of all greys would be the grey of no color. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blightsong Posted February 7, 2017 Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 The magic in Warbreaker has a lot to do with the Cognitive realm, so I suspect that it drains to grey because people think of grey as something that is drained out. If someone perceives a black as black enough to awaken, they can probably awaken with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Extesian Posted February 8, 2017 Report Share Posted February 8, 2017 2 hours ago, Hemalurgic_Headshot said: I think a lot of the color dealings in Warbreaker are related to pigments. Pigments are additive color, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to black. On the other hand, light color is subtractive, meaning the more you add, the closer you get to white. Grey is weird, so that's why it is the middle default point. The greyest grey of all greys would be the grey of no color. I think this is right. Something that looks white has no pigment because the white light (light that contains all colors) is being fully reflected, none of out is absorbed. Perfect invocation drains an object to white rather than just grey. Awakening feeds off pigment so the grey is just because not most of every color is drained. Perfect awakening simply drains all of every color. Something that looks black has every color pigment already in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimni Posted February 8, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2017 I hadn't considered the Cognitive part... I guess that makes sense. I do understand pigments and additive and subtractive colour systems. My question wasn't about that. I know that black has all colours, I was just wondering why Awakening treats black and grey differently, since grey also has all colours in it, it just reflects more light than black. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cometaryorbit Posted February 10, 2017 Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 Well, each Breath gives you a bit better perception of colors until you hit Perfect Color Recognition, each Breath gives you a trace more longevity and health until you hit Perfect Health and immortality, etc. So I'd imagine that if a 7th Heightening Awakener and a 2nd Heightening Awakener each awakened an identical object from an identical color source, the 7th Heightening one would end up with a paler gray - closer to white. If that's true, then probably you can get something out of any gray darker than the one you would produce by Awakening. OTOH, the better the color source the less Breath you need, so trying to use (in hex color terms) #999999 gray when your used-up color sources are #888888 would probably take thousands of Breaths for even the most basic things. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimni Posted February 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 I really like that idea. I hope we'll get more details to work on when Nightblood comes out to see if it is true. Thanks for all the replies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yata Posted February 11, 2017 Report Share Posted February 11, 2017 On 10/2/2017 at 4:38 AM, cometaryorbit said: So I'd imagine that if a 7th Heightening Awakener and a 2nd Heightening Awakener each awakened an identical object from an identical color source, the 7th Heightening one would end up with a paler gray - closer to white. I am not so sure, but your idea has merit, but there is no mention of something like that in the whole book. Vivenna with his improved Color Recognition didn't mention something different between "her gray" and "vasher's gray"...neither in the gray of the many Lifeless she saw in the city. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted February 14, 2017 Report Share Posted February 14, 2017 When any of the God-Kings uses Breath, it turns things white. So I don't think it necessarily has to be gray. I just think that the closer it gets to white, the harder it is to awaken with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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