HippyHair Posted September 26, 2019 Report Share Posted September 26, 2019 Recently I was reading Warbreaker and an interesting though occurred to me. Could Denth be a mistborn (or at least a misting)? He is said to have, and is proven to have almost superhuman speed, much faster then the Returned. He could have burned pewter to make this happen. He also may have been burning brass to get Vivenna to like him, Tonk Fa, and Jewels more than she would normally and keep her placid and unaware of what they were doing to her. If he was a full mistborn he would of likely burned zinc as well when creating 'distractions' in Hallandren, making the Idrians angrier and ready to start war with Hallandren. Denth does say that he came from far away and Vivenna deduced that he seemed not to fit in very well. I think that it may have been possible that when the 5 scholars were forming and there wasn't 5 yet they were traveling via the cognitive realm to Scadrial and picked up Denth there. They then made their way back to Nathalis, gather insane amounts of breath up past the 5th heightening and make Nightblood. Unbeknownst to the rest of the 5, Denth is a mistborn but maybe doesn't know it yet. He may have snapped after Arsteel was killed by Vasher, and then because of his life on Scadrial knows what has happened and starts experimenting and becoming better over hundreds of years. I think this may work. Let me know what you think. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RShara Posted September 26, 2019 Report Share Posted September 26, 2019 It's extremely unlikely to become Returned unless you're a native Nalthian, and likewise difficult to become an Allomancer unless you're a native Scadrian. Also, Vasher is confirmed to only have visited the PR of Nalthis and Roshar. Denth and Shashara are siblings, so they would both have had to come from Scadrial, too, which increases the unlikelyhood that they both would have Returned. Quote OrangeJedi Could a non-native be able to be Returned? Brandon Sanderson Yes, that is possible. JoyBlu So someone who was born without a Breath and came to Nalthis could possibly be Returned? Brandon Sanderson Possibly could be Returned. Yes. That's not very likely. JoyBlu So they could get a Divine Breath, even though never... Brandon Sanderson They could be given a Divine Breath, yes. Orem Signing (March 16, 2019) Quote shoeties Has Vasher ever been to a world other than Nalthis or Roshar, or was this his first time worldhopping? Brandon Sanderson Vasher has only been to Roshar and Nalthis, beyond places in Shadesmar. /r/books AMA 2015 (June 25, 2015) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted September 26, 2019 Report Share Posted September 26, 2019 (edited) You may as well start speculating on What If A Returned Got A Hemalurgic Spike for Allomancy. That's more likely than if a Scadrian Allomancer somehow got to Nalthis and was Returned by Endowment (very unlikely to happen to a non-native of Nalthis), or that Denth got his hands on a bead of lerasium to become Elend-level Mistborn (no way). (Side note: Vasher killed Arsteel relatively soon before the events of Warbreaker, not hundreds of years ago in the Manywar. I think this is in the Annotations on Brandon's website somewhere.) There is no evidence in my view that Denth was anything more (or less) than a Returned, who is indeed therefore faster/stronger than a normal human and was probably pretty quick/strong as a baseline, and was simply convincing/charming enough to manipulate a naive Vivenna by virtue of having been a guy "who everybody liked" who then turned dark over a couple of hundreds of years as a mercenary. No need for emotional Allomancy, there are people like this in real life, after all. At the same time, Allomancy could be useful to a Returned for another reason: it's end-positive in Investiture. A Returned needs to consume one Breath a week of Investiture to survive. While Vasher can subsist on Stormlight on Roshar as a substitute (not sure what the "exchange rate" of Breath to Stormlight is, for this purpose - one infused clearchip a week? A skymark? What?), carrying infused spheres off of Roshar through the CR sees them "leak away" unless in a rare "perfect gem". But a Returned that gained Allomancy could burn metal anywhere in the Cosmere to net-gain Investiture, which if it's good enough to feed Nightblood, is probably good enough to feed the demands of a Divine Breath. Sounds like that could be something the Nightwatcher would offer a Returned. "What is it you wish for, little god from another world?" "I want to be able to live without taking Breath from another person, and without having to stay on this world for its Stormlight." "I can give you the ability to sustain your spirit by ingesting metal. But you will have to face yourself each time you do so." "Face myself? Like in a mirror?" "Like looking into your own soul, what you might have been, or could have --" "Sounds great, let's do this." *spikes Vasher with A-gold* Now every week, not only does he need to procure some gold dust (not cheap), he has to see his gold shadow who hates him and he hates back. Bwa-ha-ha. "Storming spren. Like blue on green! I can't do this every week! Storm it, I'll just stay here as an ardent." Edited September 26, 2019 by robardin 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted September 26, 2019 Report Share Posted September 26, 2019 I think Denth's speed is due to a number of factors that don't have to be allomancy or feruchemy. He IS a Returned. They are powered by a Splinter of Endowment, so it could be that they are Endowed with more than just standard Breath things. Like the Herald Taln catches a dart in mid-air...because whatever Honor did to the Heralds to create them makes them incredibly fast. At least Taln. No reason that the Returned aren't also like that to a degree by nature of their Splinter I think it probably also/mainly has to do with Identity. Denth believes he's superhumanly fast because...whatever. Centuries of training, his Divine Breath, whatever. But because it is part of his identity, and we see that their Returned Bodies are governed in large part by what they believe... he IS superhumanly fast. I also have a pet theory that Endowment's Divine Breath Splinters perfect what is already there in someone like Stormlight does. Kaladin is already a master of the spear, and that is only further enhanced by his Stormlight, not Stormlight making him a master. Similarly, Denth might have already been a very fast/quick reacting person before he Returned. The Divine Breath maybe just perfecting that along with being super invested and having an Identity of speed. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aon Tia Posted September 27, 2019 Report Share Posted September 27, 2019 23 hours ago, HippyHair said: Recently I was reading Warbreaker and an interesting though occurred to me. Could Denth be a mistborn (or at least a misting)? He is said to have, and is proven to have almost superhuman speed, much faster then the Returned. He could have burned pewter to make this happen. i think this could be because he is a returned and has probably been trained in the arts for hundreds of years. Arsteel was also very close to how Denth fights. So, that would suggest that Arsteel was also allomancer? not likely. Besides like said by others, Quote 23 hours ago, RShara said: It's extremely unlikely to become Returned unless you're a native Nalthian, and likewise difficult to become an Allomancer unless you're a native Scadrian seems too convoluted to me. Quote On 9/26/2019 at 11:17 AM, HippyHair said: He also may have been burning brass to get Vivenna to like him, Tonk Fa, and Jewels more than she would normally and keep her placid and unaware of what they were doing to her. If he was a full mistborn he would of likely burned zinc as well when creating 'distractions' in Hallandren, making the Idrians angrier and ready to start war with Hallandren. This idea of yours seems to have some merit to me. I also thought during a recent rereading of Warbreaker that it is totally weird that when Vivenna gets kidnapped by Vasher, she immediately starts thinking Quote - Why hadn’t she fled back to Idris long ago? She’d been deeply unsettled when Denth had killed the ruffians in the restaurant. She’d known then that she was dealing with people and situations that were truly dangerous. - Why had she been determined to get herself involved in this people’s politics and schemes? In a eralier chapter, she suddenly got very aggravated also. She starts talking about i want to destroy this city, these people, yada yada. i am not quoting that here. So i do think that something weird is happening here. it may not be emotional allomancy but could there be some way by using breaths/awakening through which emotions can be manipulated? There could be other magic systems that allow this to happen.. We also dont know that what type of scholarly research Denth was involved in.. I also found it weird that Denth mentions that he has lived as a drab before... if he is a returned, that would kill him. so may be he is lying. But how is he surviving without extra breaths? Vivenna does not sense any extra breaths from him.. is he also hiding them from Vivenna like Vasher can? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dancer Posted September 27, 2019 Report Share Posted September 27, 2019 3 hours ago, The traveller said: I also found it weird that Denth mentions that he has lived as a drab before... if he is a returned, that would kill him. so may be he is lying. But how is he surviving without extra breaths? Vivenna does not sense any extra breaths from him.. is he also hiding them from Vivenna like Vasher can? A returned can live as a drab so long as they consume a breath on their feeding day. All they have to do is suppress their divine breath like what Vasher and Denth do. If Denth had any breaths in his cloths or stored somewhere else then all he has to do is draw from that every seven days and to everyone else he will seem like a normal drab. This is probably how he was able to hide his nature from Vivenna. He suppressed his Divine breath making him a drab and kept one normal breath to look like a regular Nalthian, then on the seventh day he consumed a breath from his stores (or bought a new one). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RShara Posted September 27, 2019 Report Share Posted September 27, 2019 10 hours ago, The traveller said: Quote On 9/26/2019 at 0:13 AM, RShara said: It's extremely unlikely to become Returned unless you're a native Nalthian, and likewise difficult to become an Allomancer unless you're a native Scadrian seems too convoluted to me. That's the point? Either way you look at it, one of them is extremely unlikely. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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