Jump to content

Warbreaker questions


King Cole

Recommended Posts

23 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

I argued the "A Savant must have negative affects" side for a long time and finally succumbed to the pressure that I was wrong....and now this?

Unfortunately. Look on the bright side. You caught something that even Brandon missed for a while. 

Back to what spawned this tangent though. The heightenings are reversible simply by lowering the number of Breaths held. Savantism is a permanent change. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

I argued the "A Savant must have negative affects" side for a long time and finally succumbed to the pressure that I was wrong....and now this?

Here is the relevant clarification that Argent got. 

Quote

/u/ArgentSun: Hey, I wouldn't normally contact you directly like this, but given that you thought it important enough to reach out and let me know you might change how savants work, I figured you probably wouldn't be too upset by this message. I replied to your Facebook comment, asking if you could clarify a little bit which aspects of savantism you are thinking of keeping and/or cutting. I don't need an essay on the topic (though you know I'd love one!), just some details on what we can consider canon for theories, and what we should be careful around.
Also, thank you for the great post-signing Q&A in Chicago, it more than made up for the somewhat rushed signing, and very much left everyone giddy with excitement :)
-- Evgeni
P.S. For quick reference (including my original question): http://i.imgur.com/GKOta9A.png

/u/mistborn: Evgeni,
So here's the problem. The more I dig into savants in the later outlines, the more I feel that I'm in a dangerous area--in that I'm disobeying their original intention. (Which is that using the power so much that it permeates your soul can be dangerous, a kind of uncontrolled version of a spren bond.)
And so, I don't want to let myself just start making people savants right and left. It needs to be a specific thing. Wax is the troubling one, as I have him burning so much steel that he's well on his way, but isn't showing any side effects. If I'm going to give him savant-like abilities, he needs savant-like consequences.
That's the danger, just falling back on savanthood to do some of the things I want, so often that it undermines the actual point and purpose of them in the cosmere lore.
So if I backpetal, it will be to contain this and point myself the right way, sharply curtailing my desire to make people savants without their savanthood being an intrinsic part of their story and conflict in life. (Like it was for Spook, and is for soulcasting savants on Roshar.)
Feel free to share this.

/u/ArgentSun: Okay, so - if you do decide to go this route, I see the story implications (larger focus on consequences, less easy to get to the point where a character can be considered a savant). What I am not sure about is the potential for a mechanical change. Would a backpedal on your side cause a conflict with information you've shared with us, in or out of your books? Are you saying that it's possible that Wax won't be considered a savant (if you can't squeeze a good ramifications plot for him that doesn't contradict the apparent lack of consequences so far, for example)?

/u/mistborn: I haven't decided on anything yet. It's mostly consequences for the future--just a kind of, "be aware I'm not 100% pleased with how Wax turned out, re: savanthood and allomantic resonance."
The idea of resonance is that two powers, combined, meld kind of into one single power. This is a manifestation of the way shards combine. Wax was intended as a savant of the two melded powers. But without consequences in his plot, I'm not confident that I'll continue in the same vein for future books.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/1/2017 at 3:53 PM, FiveLate said:

I have to agree to disagree with you there.  To me Awakening seems explicitly designed to make savants. My apologies for everything not lining up quite right.


TABLE OF THE HEIGHTENINGS

Sixth 3,500 Instinctive Awakening

Tenth 50,000 Perfect Invocation


Bolds are my emphasis.  These two items in particular seem very savant like to me. The difference being active vs passive use between Scadrial and Nalthis.

I wouldn't count this for two reasons:

  1. As Calderis said: they aren't permanent. Vasher is living proof of this.
  2. It doesn't necessarily fit the way you become a Savant.
    • Reaching a Heightening can occur by getting all the Breath at once(The God King, Returned) or by adding one or two at a time(buying Breath)
    • Savants permanently expand the size of the pipe letting power flow through them, while an Awakener's pipe doesn't appear to change size in most cases because it doesn't have to.

Unless you either [A] are given enough Breath at once to force it to expand or [B] use enough Breath at once to force it to expand, you won't expand that pipe and become a Savant. Given that you gain the benefits of the Heightenings even if you get them one at a time(or else people wouldn't buy their way to the 5th Height. for agelessness), they don't seem to be viable as Savant perks. Additionally, since we don't know where that pipe threshold is, we have no idea if anyone on Nalthis could've reached it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Breath (and Awakening) seems really to be likely to developing Slivers rather than Savants.

Personally I think the God-Kings are probably Endowment's Slivers thanks to their Breath's Vault. But no actual proof here...Just strong clues.

About the Savantism regard the Breath.

I will join the "Breath doesn't cause Savantism" as the Breath seem to be parked into the Soul as Innate Investiture rather than Kinetic One. And the Savantism happen through Soul's stress caused by Kinetic Investiture affetting the Soul.

Others already pointed on the reversibility of Heightenings, so no need to repeat that point

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

tangent to the dicsussion....well done to all who have added to this discussion....this thread pretty much sums up why I love this site....pure awesome. Warbreaker is my favorite so far so unfortunate we have to wait SOOO long to dive back into this world....we have to wait for Wax/Wayne 4, then Elantris 2, then Stormlight 4...then possibly Wite Sand 2, then maybe a Warbreaker 2 novel....plus this is all between Alcatraz, Legion, Rithmatist, Apocalypse Guard and i'm sure countless others that aren't on his lists yet.....:wacko: (OK off my soapbox now....there are WAY less things to be concerned about as all of these series/books listed are amazing)

 

...but hey....my $$$ is on Brandon to publish a Warbreaker novel before we see GRRM's A Dream of Spring.... B)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As an answer to #4 the answer is yes they can. The appearance of a returned can be turned on and off which Vasher as a returned himself proved is possible. Even Siri and Vivenna who only have some returned blood can learn to do it. Thus it can be inferred that all returned full blooded and not can alter their appearances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...