Do You Lose Your Breaths If You Return?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Let's say you're holding a thousand Breaths, then you do something stupid and get ded'ed. Then Endowment flips a coin or rolls a dice or whatever and decides to rez you.

What happens to the Breaths you were holding? Do you still have it and thus won't die in a week or does it disappear?

Edited October 5, 2022 by JustQuestin2004

[Treamayne]

On 10/5/2022 at 8:35 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

What happens to the Breaths you were holding? Do you still have it and thus won't die in a week or does it disappear?

Most likely, the breaths are gone and have returned to the pool of investiture in the Spiritual Realm. I say this because we know:

• Breaths are lost upon death
• Becoming returned happens long enough after death that the body has gone cold

Warbreaker Ch 54

Spoiler

 

Llarimar stared out through the bars, staring at one of the flickering lanterns hanging from the stark stone wall. “I was a priest, even then. I worked in the palace of Kindwinds the Honest. I saw how he lied to play political games. The longer I stayed in that palace, the more my faith waned.”

He fell silent for a moment, then he looked up. “And then you died. Died rescuing my daughter. That’s the girl you see in your visions, Lightsong. The description is perfect. She was your favorite niece. Still would be, I assume. If you hadn’t…” He shook his head. “When we found you dead, I lost hope. I was going to resign my position. I knelt above your body, weeping. And then, the Colors started to glow. You lifted your head, body changing, getting larger, muscles growing stronger.

“I knew it at that moment. I knew that if a man like you were chosen to Return—a man who had died to save another—then the Iridescent Tones were real. The visions were real. And the gods were real. You gave me back my faith, Stennimar.”

 

So, Stennimar drowned, and died. The storm ended and the body washed up on shore; then was discovered. Then Returned as Lightsong.

I'm sure the process could happen faster than the example in-text; but the information we have so far shows the breaths leave as soon as you die and the process of seeing the visions and being chosen to return is unlikely to be fast enough to happen before the breaths are gone (unless Endowmnet intervenes specifically for a different result - if that is possible). 

[Immortal Platypus]

I think you still have it, but it wouldn't count for survival purposes, it would just add to the Breaths you get naturally for being a Returned. I'm not the most knowledgeable, but I think that is acurate.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

8 hours ago, ImportantQuestions said:

I think you still have it, but it wouldn't count for survival purposes, it would just add to the Breaths you get naturally for being a Returned. I'm not the most knowledgeable, but I think that is acurate.

I do think it would have been mentioned at some point in Warbreaker, so maybe there's never been someone who Returned while holding multiple Breaths, which seems unlikely. Or perhaps what you say is true and the Breaths are immediately subsumed into the Divine Breath.

I suppose that this might be answered when the Warbreaker Sequel comes out in like 2030 or something.

[Immortal Platypus]

9 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Or perhaps what you say is true and the Breaths are immediately subsumed into the Divine Breath.

Yeah, because their natural Breath is probably subsumed into the Divine Breath so it would make sense that any gifted Breaths would be.

[Immortal Platypus]

those are good reasons. I can see it either way now, thank you @Treamayne

[Quantus he/him]

If they are not in your body whey you die, you can get indeed get them back.  But I do wonder if they keep their own.  WOB confirms they keep their same soul (despite Vasher's depressive outlook), so the Window to be returned is the Window to Beyond, (which is open longer if you are more invested).  So a person with various numbers of Breaths would stick around for a while (Returning can be hours later but will vary.  There are other nations that dont trade Breath or feed Returned so they die after one week. which implies they dont keep their own or the minimum should be two weeks.

 

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Oudeis16

If Bob the Awakener Awakened fifty straw men to dance around, then died, then Returned as FormerBob the Appropriately Named, would FormerBob be able to reclaim the Breath from the straw men in the normal fashion (once he learned the "Your Breath to Mine" Command)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He has enough of his original Identity, and the spiritual connection would remain.

sonofstannis

What if he instead were reincarnated as a lifeless? Is there a way he could reclaim it then?

Brandon Sanderson

Lifeless have someone else's investiture replacing their own. (As opposed to Returned, who are augmented.) Depends on how much of them is left, and if they can achieve sapience again, but I'd say this is unlikely.

WeiryWriter

What if the Lifeless is Awakened with their own Breath? (i.e. they gave it away right before they died and the person they gave it to then used it in the Awakening)

Brandon Sanderson

This has happened already in the world, and it does help.

-Nayrb

Did this happen "on screen"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 30, 2015)

 

 

[Honorless he/him]

On 10/13/2022 at 9:33 PM, Treamayne said:

Most likely, the breaths are gone and have returned to the pool of investiture in the Spiritual Realm. I say this because we know:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Llarimar stared out through the bars, staring at one of the flickering lanterns hanging from the stark stone wall. “I was a priest, even then. I worked in the palace of Kindwinds the Honest. I saw how he lied to play political games. The longer I stayed in that palace, the more my faith waned.”

He fell silent for a moment, then he looked up. “And then you died. Died rescuing my daughter. That’s the girl you see in your visions, Lightsong. The description is perfect. She was your favorite niece. Still would be, I assume. If you hadn’t…” He shook his head. “When we found you dead, I lost hope. I was going to resign my position. I knelt above your body, weeping. And then, the Colors started to glow. You lifted your head, body changing, getting larger, muscles growing stronger.

“I knew it at that moment. I knew that if a man like you were chosen to Return—a man who had died to save another—then the Iridescent Tones were real. The visions were real. And the gods were real. You gave me back my faith, Stennimar.”

 

 

Breaths might be weirder than that

 

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Questioner

With spikes, would you be able to actually transfer Breaths, when they get to the other planets?

Brandon Sanderson

So spikes rip off pieces of the soul and so Breaths are not going to be part of the soul. You could maybe get a divine Breath but I haven't really decided on regular Breaths, they're kind of stuck there in the Physical Realm which is not a thing that spikes are dealing with. Divine Breath, potentially, because that's something that's actually melding onto your soul. But, you know, when you're using the Breaths they reach through to the Spiritual Realm so, maybe if you got it while the Breaths were kinetic, right, while you're using them, then you might be able to rip them off. I'm not a hundred percent certain on that one.

Bystander

There's still things to decide upon.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah there's still things, like I have to kind of see. My instinct says no right now. But, you know, how they interact is not something that I have-- Yeah.

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

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Stroniax

Is there a way to harvest BioChromatic Breath from a planet, if it holds any? (If a person dies, and their body turns to dusty he dust of the earth, then doesn't [Nalthis] therefore hold thousands, if not millions, of BioChromatic Breaths?)

Brandon Sanderson

Possible. It would be the same thing as harvesting the nature of Preservation or Ruin, which--on Scadrial--took the form of nuggets of metal.

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