Divine Breath Shardblades, Healing "Dead" Shardblades

[Bramble Thorn]

What I want to know is if Vasher could awaken his own Divine breath into a shardblade without dying?
 
I assume conventional thought is if Divine breath leaves the body, the Returned dies. Maybe that only happens if the Divine Breath is consumed like it is when used to give divine healing.
 
But on Roshar, you have a connection to investiture that is maintained spiritually without physical contact. Kaladin does not need to have Syl perched on her shoulder to surgebind. A bonded shardblade can be given to another and be used but still belongs to the Bondholder, and can be called back ten heartbeats later.
 
So knowing something like that is possible, could Vasher use his Divine Breath to Awaken, and still be connected to it to maintain his Heightenings and his life? Could he solidify it into a shardblade he was still bonded to with the right command?
 
Inquiring minds want to know!
 
ALSO!
 
In regards to investing a invested object, at the very least the power of Endowment can do so. When Breaths are given, not stored, or used to attempt to awaken, they always seem to transfer, even if the other side is unwilling. You may not be able to awaken a honorblade/shardblade, in a way that you could retrieve them, but if you used a  command closer to the breath giving command than a awakening one, it should work.

 
We know that there is some information stored in the breaths themselves, based on how WoB has said Divine Breath Healing works, where there is a bit of an Ideal contained in the breath itself.
 
WoB is there is something in the "dead" shardblades that was broken and needed to be repaired when the Knights Radiant caused the Recreance. I see three possible ways to repair what was broken.

 

1. Hardest. The KR had a bond with their spren, So do modern shardbearers. I think it is the same bond, just broken by the KR, and that is why is takes a gem to establish and does not grant much. Also because modern shardholders to not actually offer anything to the bond at all. I think if you could identify the type of spren in the shard, and uncover the concepts behind all five of their oaths, and live a life by those oaths, possibly including saying them out loud, this would repair the damage caused by the previous bearers breaking them.
 
Pros: no magic required.

 

Cons: Living with all the downsides of being a KR, but none of the perks for an extended period. Also without a spren on your shoulder pointing you on the correct path. Finding the ideals you need to follow is hard without an existing five oath KR of the same order.
 
2. Moderate difficulty. Giving some amount of regular breaths to a "dead" shardblade to fill the gap caused by the broken oaths, either healing the damage completely, or mitigating it enough to allow them to begin to form a mutual bond there they can benefit from their human's "human-ness" and begin to heal themselves, which spren cannot do on their own.
 
Pros: I think this is possible, and it could allow results much sooner and easier than in #1. As number one requires the equivalent of a 5 oath KR to heal the break, but this could begin healing by someone who was only capable of keeping the first oath currently.
 
Cons: While WoB has said Breaths are very versatile, and much more is possible with them than is currently known, The specific command to do this is not known and would need to be researched.
 
Breaths will also be permanently divested during research finding the command procedure, and to revive every dead blade, because you are giving them away as a effect to a living (but brain dead/thought locked) spren. They are alive enough not to be recoverable to you tried an awakening command, and are also investiture, which normally resists conflicting investiture. Which is why you have to use the properties of Endow breath to them to get around this, permanently giving them away.
 
3. Easiest Have a Returned expend their Divine Breath to instantly heal whatever damage the Recreance caused.
 
Pros: The Divine Breath is a powerful splinter of Endowment, seemingly designed for this sort of thing. Using a Divine Breath defaults to perfectly healing the recipient.

 

Cons: Only a Returned has a Divine Breath, and they are created on another world by a different shard. Choosing to do this kills the Returned. This is not actually giving away the investiture but using it so it returns to endowment, so there may be investiture vs investiture conflict. Since this is a specific specialized function of the divine breath, and is not detrimental to the recipient, I think it will work, but am not sure.

 

edited for tags.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Bramble Thorn

[name_here]

I think option 1 is probably the most reliable. As I understand how death applies to spren, they're dead because the Oaths are broken and will come back to life if the oaths are restored.

[Levian]

This makes me question.. 

 

We are pretty confident that Zahel is Vasher, and he came to Roshar so he could live off Stormlight rather than Breaths, as Stormlight is much easier to obtain. But I doubt he would give up scholarship just for the purpose of living forever on an easier to obtain source of Investiture. So can he use Stormlight to Awaken in place of Breaths?

 

If it is possible that would have absolutely insane possibilities. He could find a way to safely be out in a Highstorm and have near limitless Stormlight and possibly create another Nightblood, or something similar.  

 

 

Back on topic though. From the way he says it in WoB, it sounds like he's not planning on having Shardblade Spren come back to life, just stating the fact that it is possible. Granted, there's going to be a lot of time between the WoR and the last book so anything could happen, and he could change his mind about anything.

 

#1 makes the most sense. While I don't doubt the possibilities of Breath - Diving Breath especially - we know that in the physical realm Spren are only "alive" because of the bond to a human. If they could have sentience while being physically on Roshar without a bond I have a feeling that they would never even bother bonding with somebody. I'm pretty sure what the Spren gets out of the bond is sentience, and the KR gets Surgebinding abilities. So if they were awakened using Breath, they would have no incentive to bond again and risk getting "killed".

[Bramble Thorn]

I think option 1 is probably the most reliable. As I understand how death applies to spren, they're dead because the Oaths are broken and will come back to life if the oaths are restored.

Yeah, "easy" never meant it was a sure thing, and that #1 is the longest path does not mean it isn't the best method in the long run. I have hopes for Alodin pulling it off, if he is carrying a Dustbringers Blade. In numbers 2 & 3 you are basically trying to take a shortcut by using a separate magic system. Not that that is wrong, I love system compounding, but it takes more investiture.

 

#1 makes the most sense. While I don't doubt the possibilities of Breath - Diving Breath especially - we know that in the physical realm Spren are only "alive" because of the bond to a human. If they could have sentience while being physically on Roshar without a bond I have a feeling that they would never even bother bonding with somebody. I'm pretty sure what the Spren gets out of the bond is sentience, and the KR gets Surgebinding abilities. So if they were awakened using Breath, they would have no incentive to bond again and risk getting "killed".

Breaths can have cognitive awareness without the Nahel bond (example, nightblood). Also the Stormfather (who has much more investiture then a regular spren) seems to be fully conscious on the Physical without needing a bonded human to swear oaths. so you might be able to make a spren sentient in the physical by default. But that is not the point.

Ideally, you would have a bond to the "dead" spren in place (using the modern method of bonding with a gem mount) before you healed it, so when revived it would be sentient. For example if you had a broken honorspren bladebonded and revived it, it would be like Kaladin and Syl before any oaths were sworn. But the human in the bond would need to advance to bond or it would eventually dissipate, and the spren would be mindless in the physical, and go off seeking someone suitable to bond with.

Likewise, using Divine Breath on a unbonded shardblade would unlock the spren from eternally screaming blade form. If this happened on the physical realm, it would be nonsentient (because it was unbonded) and go off seeking for someone to bond.

This is ok. The point of this thought experiment was not to change the way the bond worked. The point was to make the screaming stop.

 

...

 

Sooooo, no one has any thoughts about a Returned using a Divine Breath without dying? I am sad now.

[Levian]

It's been quite a while since I've read Warbreaker...

 

If I remember correctly, we were told if they use their Divine Breath they die right? And as far as I know none of the Returned were ever given more than the one breath a week they needed to live. I don't know if there's WoB anywhere about this, but I'm curious if maybe having enough Breath to bring them to the 5th heightening could act as a substitute for their Divine Breath, while still consuming one Breath a week. So if the 5th heightening was exactly 2000 Breaths (I know it's an estimation), if they had 2001 Breaths and two weeks went by without them obtaining a new Breath they would die, no longer having the 5th heightening.

 

I know it's a lot of assumptions but really the only thing we know about the Returned is that they can change their appearance, they have a Divine Breath, and they consume one Breath a week. The only reason I'm going through this much speculation is because it is the only way I could see a Returned surviving without their Divine Breath.

 

But even for all that, we're told and shown that the instant they give up their Divine Breath they die. It doesn't happen on the day they consume the one Breath a week, it happens instantly. So I'm assuming that for it to work on Roshar, they would need to be holding Stormlight constantly, before and after giving up their Divine Breath. I doubt it is possible holding Stormlight perfectly though. The only things we've seen holding it are gems and Surgebinders, and both lose Stormlight after a certain period of time. Although, we do have something from Szeth saying that Voidbringers can hold Stormlight perfectly, but I wouldn't consider Szeth a knowledgeable source on these matters.

[happyman]

If I remember correctly, we were told if they use their Divine Breath they die right? And as far as I know none of the Returned were ever given more than the one breath a week they needed to live. I don't know if there's WoB anywhere about this, but I'm curious if maybe having enough Breath to bring them to the 5th heightening could act as a substitute for their Divine Breath, while still consuming one Breath a week. So if the 5th heightening was exactly 2000 Breaths (I know it's an estimation), if they had 2001 Breaths and two weeks went by without them obtaining a new Breath they would die, no longer having the 5th heightening.

 

Quick correction to this:  Both the God-king and Vasher (and maybe Denth as well) have breaths beyond their divine one, the God-king to absurd levels.  However, we never see them try the staying-alive-without-divine-breath trick.

[Levian]

Quick correction to this:  Both the God-king and Vasher (and maybe Denth as well) have breaths beyond their divine one, the God-king to absurd levels.  However, we never see them try the staying-alive-without-divine-breath trick.

 

Thanks for clarifying. I was thinking "None of the returned besides the God King" but forgot to type it, and completely forgot about Vasher! 

 

Yea pretty much everything I said is 100% speculation as nobody has given up their Divine Breath and had 2000+ breaths that we have seen. We know that there is a lot unknown about that magic system by the people in that world, and it's not surprising that any Returned would want to even test if that is possible. If it is possible, awesome! If not, oops, I'm dead. 

[Bramble Thorn]

Yeah, the only giving exactly one breath a week is not a Returned thing, it is a Hallathran Church thing, presumably to keep their "Gods" under effective house arrest, as well as keeping them from becoming awakeners. Returned in other cultures may have more access to Breath. Or die in a week, whatever.

The Iridescent Tones predating them did not do that, And that is when the 5 scholars are from, and how they got enough breaths to study them. They have enough breaths to go out and look for more breaths.

We have WoB that Awakenings can we used to Awaken, But we never saw it happen that I know of, and the default use of a Divine Breath actually consumes the breath (the recipient does not get a 2,000x Divine Breath) for healing.
Which is why I an hoping it can be used, not consumed, in a survivable way.

[Levian]

Well being a Breath it seems possible that it can be invested into something like a regular breath, though we wouldn't know if it would count as one Breath or the equivalent of 2000 Breaths, or be it's own unique thing, or even whether or not it could be used to Awaken something or if it would just be stored in the object.

 

I still think it's likely that they would die after investing their Divine Breath unless they found some insane workaround (in the spirit of Compounding), possibly obtaining immortality through another route. Like I suggested earlier, obtaining 2000 breaths may do it, and who knows if it is the Divine Breath that causes a Returned to consume Breaths over time, or something else instilled in a Returned even if they found another path through immortality. If it is the Divine Breath that consumes regular ones, maybe they could overcome that limitation by simply getting rid of the Divine Breath while already having another direct access to immortality.

[name_here]

My theory is that Returned consume one Breath per week and die if they have no Breath. So they die if they don't get a new Breath every week because they consume their Divine Breath, which is 2000 times more powerful than a regular one but cannot be broken into smaller portions. Then again, apparently all the ones we see still have their Divine Breath, even if they've hidden it so they don't get the Fifth Heightening, so it might be necessary to keep it.

[Mistdork]

This makes me question.. 

 

We are pretty confident that Zahel is Vasher, and he came to Roshar so he could live off Stormlight rather than Breaths, as Stormlight is much easier to obtain. But I doubt he would give up scholarship just for the purpose of living forever on an easier to obtain source of Investiture. So can he use Stormlight to Awaken in place of Breaths?

 

If it is possible that would have absolutely insane possibilities. He could find a way to safely be out in a Highstorm and have near limitless Stormlight and possibly create another Nightblood, or something similar.  

 

Pfft. Perhaps while he's on Roshar he's studying its Investiture in a general sense while searching for his sword and figuring this out. Scholars don't stop being scholars just because they can't use the local Investiture system...

 

I think that some combination of one and two could be another possibility. The thing is that you're not the original Radiant and so the Nahel bond wasn't originally yours, so fixing the bond (replacing the Ideals with a life that reflects the spren's mini-intent and by swearing the oaths) might not be enough. So, perhaps they would have to say the Ideals but also (for example) say the Command while conceiving the Nahel bond as healed and using X number of Breaths to do so. This would probably take some considerable knowledge of the Cognitive Realm, though...

 

It might also be possible to use something like Regrowth on the bond or some other Investiture that could be used for healing or making something be conceived as fixed...Maybe.

 

Also, do we know if the gems in the blades are linked with specific blade types (for the dead-spren blades)? Is this possible? Perhaps if this is true, they could figure out which blade goes with which order...that would make things easier, at least.

[Argent]

My theory is that Returned consume one Breath per week and die if they have no Breath. So they die if they don't get a new Breath every week because they consume their Divine Breath, which is 2000 times more powerful than a regular one but cannot be broken into smaller portions. Then again, apparently all the ones we see still have their Divine Breath, even if they've hidden it so they don't get the Fifth Heightening, so it might be necessary to keep it.

 

I am not sure I would call this a theory - it's pretty much the exact explanation given in the book itself.

[Psymon]

Here's a thought that I just had after reading the discussion and putting it together with a theory that I had. Say Kaladin, or someone with an Honor blade, took one of the "dead" shardblades with them into a highstorm, where they would have unlimited stormlight, could they then invest enough stormlight into the sword to bring that spren back to life to then seek out someone to bond to, thus eventually creating a new KR? If so, this seems like a way to "quickly" help increase the number of Knights to fight the Voidbringers. Maybe this would help the Stormfather be willing to let more of his children bond with humans in the first place,

[Psymon]

 

Also, do we know if the gems in the blades are linked with specific blade types (for the dead-spren blades)? Is this possible? Perhaps if this is true, they could figure out which blade goes with which order...that would make things easier, at least.

I don't think that the gem is specific to the sword or type of spren. Remember the scene after Adolin wins one of his duels he crushes the gem to prevent the original bearer from reforming the bond. I don't think he would have done this if it prevented anyone from ever bonding the blade again.

Also, Adolin says that the gems were added as decorations sometime after the recreance(did I spell that right?) thus enabling the blades to be bonded. This is some of the basis that I use for my theory as I would assume that the gems contained storm light and the spen "fed" off of this giving them back a little of what they had lost when the oaths were broken.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Psymon

[BaarZel]

I was literally sketching out my thoughts on this topic/ related breath-stormlight thoughts.

 

Here's what im really curious about: we know that Vasher Breath-dumps pretty frequently as is often without breath. We also know he dumped his Breaths into Denth and Arsteel before he killed them. And we have him saying "I don't have any Breath remaining," he said quietly. "It was very hard to locate you." (warbreaker e-book)

 

So Vasher has 0 Breaths and no benefits that we normally attribute to the Divine Breath...But he is certainly still alive....

 

So what's the deal. I assume that he has some internal deadline by which he needs to have a Breath for consumption. But it would also seem that He has lost his Divine Breath somewhere in the past. Do we know anything about this? I haven't done a full readthru in a while so I may be forgetting something.

[Dalenthas]

Vasher knows some way to suppress his Divine Breath, hence why he doesn't look Returned. While its suppressed, he's effectively a normal person, and if he gives away all his non-Divine Breaths, he's effectively a drab. While a Drab he could unsuppress his Divine Breath, but then he'd look like a Returned (on the plus side, he'd get the Fifth Heightening that comes from being returned).

This is all in Warbreaker, though it's not spelled out quite so concisely.

[BaarZel]

Vasher knows some way to suppress his Divine Breath, hence why he doesn't look Returned. While its suppressed, he's effectively a normal person, and if he gives away all his non-Divine Breaths, he's effectively a drab. While a Drab he could unsuppress his Divine Breath, but then he'd look like a Returned (on the plus side, he'd get the Fifth Heightening that comes from being returned). This is all in Warbreaker, though it's not spelled out quite so concisely.

That isn't quite what he says, He says he can keep from looking returned they same way that the returned gods can look they way they think they should be perceived. It doesn't really explain why he can't access the abilities of his divine breath.

[Bramble Thorn]

I don't think that the gem is specific to the sword or type of spren. Remember the scene after Adolin wins one of his duels he crushes the gem to prevent the original bearer from reforming the bond. I don't think he would have done this if it prevented anyone from ever bonding the blade again.

Also, Adolin says that the gems were added as decorations sometime after the recreance(did I spell that right?) thus enabling the blades to be bonded. This is some of the basis that I use for my theory as I would assume that the gems contained storm light and the spen "fed" off of this giving them back a little of what they had lost when the oaths were broken.

 

He is not talking about one specific gem per shardblade, but the ten types of Stormlight storing gems. As in, if you have a shardblade that has a gem mount, and it can only be bonded if a sapphire is placed there, it probably is a Windrunner/Honorspren blade.

 

Which is possible. we only got a brief snipped about how dead shardblades needed gems, not a comprehensive briefing. It could need a specific gem of a type the color the its shardbearers eyes would turn, or any gem might work. Remember this was in response to finding the proper oaths a bearer would need to follow to hopefully revive the blade.

 

Because following a honorsprens oaths while holding a highsprens blade might not help much at all.

[Psymon]

OK, given that we only get a couple of sentences on the matter of the gems added to the blades, what about the theory that, if given enough stormlight, does anyone think that the "dead" spren could be revived?

[happyman]

OK, given that we only get a couple of sentences on the matter of the gems added to the blades, what about the theory that, if given enough stormlight, does anyone think that the "dead" spren could be revived?

 

I honestly don't think so.

 

It seems to me that Brandon is really playing up the idea that Spren are living ideas.  They were killed because the Radiants broke their oaths!  In a very real sense, the Spren were the oaths that the Radiants broke.  To come fully alive again, I suspect that they need their core idea to be revived, e.g. somebody needs to keep the oaths associated with them.

 

This makes the ability to bond them as most Shardbearers do rather odd, I guess, but in the Cosmere, ideas have a certain amount of ontological inertia; hence the realms.

[Levian]

@ the OP, this may interest you if you haven't seen it yet. A WoB from http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2383-qa-with-brandon-sanderson/page-7#entry42472

 

 

Is it hypothetically possible to Awaken an object using a Divine Breath?

Yes.

 

 

 

 

This adds some possibility to this theory. Do we know for sure if Vasher has been able to suppress his Divine Breath (I keep typing Diving Breath, storms!) or is this speculation? If not, this is a definite possibility.