Tears of Edgli and the role of color in Awakening

[Ripheus23]

I'm not saying I have a grasp on how color is relevant to Awakening and why Stormlight can fuel Awakening like Breath can, and so on. But if the Tears of Edgli are the atium of Endowment, so to speak, and used for dyes that result in vibrantly colored things, then would drawing on things colored by those dyes result in more powerful Awakening, maybe? Or, what happens when someone uses the color-intensifying/shifting powers of Breath (like Susebron at the climax of WB) but while standing in a field of the Tears of Edgli? Might this be relevant to Nightblood, both in general and regarding his specific coloring, somehow? (Like, to make a sword like Nightblood specifically, you have to draw on a black dye made from the Tears, say, or dip the sword in the dye, or whatever?)

 

EDIT: Like, maybe there were some Tears that had Ruin's Investiture admixed with them (his Investiture "grew into them" like when it would form the atium geodes), and these were used (accidentally or mistakenly or whatever) in relation to the creation of Nightblood.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Ripheus23

[Quantus]

There are several datapoints to look at, but so far the actual mechanisms at play have been RAFO'd until he writes the sequel.  We know Color has some realmic component that is at play.  It' the reason if a person with Perfect Invocation bleeds an object white it cannot then be used by a normal awakener to go grey back and forth indefinitely.  It has something to do with the eye color change on Roshar, and probably something implications on why the rosharan gems that are essentially the same from a chemical standpoint have wildly different effects from a magic standpoint.  We know that different colors dont matter in Awakening, but mostly just because Awakening already had a lot of restrictions and he didnt want to add more

Also worth noting that, as of now at least, you cannot Awaken with stormlight, all it can do is keep a Returned alive instead of feeding it the weekly Breaths.  Vasher has not figured out how to use stormlight to awaken, though he has tried.  WOB says that the easiest way would actually be to turn stormight into breaths, then use those to awaken, which is something that not even Hoid knows how to do.  

 

 

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xnkvbo

If an Awakener with Perfect Invocation turns something white, can they or another Awakener then use the white thing back to gray, back to white.

Brandon Sanderson

I actually thought about this. My answer ended up being a no.

xnkvbo

Can you give a little explanation why?

Brandon Sanderson

I will delve into it more as I delve into the nature of color and why it's relevant to multiple magics in the cosmere. So it's a RAFO.

Skyward San Francisco signing (Nov. 8, 2018)

 

 

 

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zas678

If an Awakener went to Roshar and bled color from a gem, would this gem still hold Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If an Awakener bled-- No it would-- Oh wait yes it would because a colorless gem could still hold Stormlight. It just would not have--

zas678

Would not have the properties of the original color.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the color is integral to what's going on because molecularly some of these gems are the same except for the different coloring. The coloring is kind of what--

zas678

What defines what magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It has to with fabrials and some of the effects, and that relates directly to the spren and what spren-- anyway.

Holiday signing (Dec. 12, 2015)

 

 

 

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Questioner

With Soulcasting, we know what can be Soulcast based on the color of the gem. Does-- When Awakening, say you have emerald, green, Pulp. If you were Awakening straw or some other form of plant matter, if you used a source of green for the color, would it be, say, more efficient than using red?

Brandon Sanderson

So I haven't built that into the magic system yet. Part of me feels like I should have. But I did not. I want color to be relevant to each of the cosmere magics. It's kind of an essential part of it, and it's part of where we stray more into the magical sense. Like, in my books we treat magic scientifically but they're still magic. And it was a thing when I was building Stormlight, I'm like, "So the difference between these two gemstones is a matter of a slight impurity and chemically they are 99% the same thing. Am I actually going to have them do different things or not?" And my judgement call was yes, because I want color to be relevant in the cosmere.  But by that point, when I was really getting that magic system to work, I had already written Warbreaker. And I had known that I wanted color to start being a big part. I'd already written Mistborn where I worked in color in different ways

But I didn't work that into the Warbreaker magic. I felt like it already had enough restrictions. I would say my worry about the Warbreaker magic is the color feels tacked on. Like, the magic could work without it, narratively, so why is it there? And that's the question I asked myself while I was building; that's the question I continue to ask myself when I continue to work on-- for that magic system, to make sure it works for me. But my instincts say adding restrictions like that, particularly when they weren't covered in the first book, feels like the wrong way to go. It'd be like retconning the magic. It's something I considered.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

 

 

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Questioner (paraphrased)

Do specific colors have an impact on Awakening in Warbreaker?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not usually, you just need a certain amount to Awaken. But there can be more due to various reasons connected to the cosmere. It is connected to the significance of eye color on Roshar.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

 

 

 

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Kurkistan

Do Breaths inherently possess the ability to interpret and carry out commands, or does the Awakener need to impart that decision making ability on Awakened objects?

If the Awakener does need to impart the decision-making ability, then does Awakening consist of an Awakener copying a portion of his/her Cognitive aspect (as determined by his/her visualization and verbal Command) onto the Cognitive aspect of the object being Awakened, with Breath then providing the "juice" for the object to actually follow its Command: powering both physical motion and "cogitation" based upon the copied Cognitive aspect?

If so, is that copying what drains color?

Brandon Sanderson

You're very close here.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

 

 

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ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to Awaken things.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

 

 

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Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

 

 

 

 

[Ripheus23]

I guess not the color of the dye, then. But maybe still a dye made from the Tears, or even just a direct draw from the Tears themselves? After all, there was a threat of it being easy to make Awakened swords or what, of the design proliferating, and having it be the Tears that make up the gap in something powerful that's widely accessible would be a nice move, I think.

Or, the Coppermind article says the explanation is that the Tears grow in a region local for Endowment's perpendicularity. If the energy is seeping into the flowers, could it be seeping into the minerals that the flowers feed on to grow? Is it possible that there could have been traces of atium in the soil (due to some exotic Scadrial-Nalthis channel?) that the Tears metabolized? Or even that there was just generally Ruined(!) steel there, say.