High prince of geeks Posted June 22, 2014 Report Share Posted June 22, 2014 I have a simple question about breaths. Besides Divine breaths do the breaths an awakener stay separate? I always got the feeling that breaths where like filling a bowl. Some breaths are more powerful so they fill the bowl more, but once there in there basically the same breath. When you awaken you poor the breaths out of the bowl till the object is full. Anyways just a weird thought, please discuss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted June 24, 2014 Report Share Posted June 24, 2014 I think you're probably more correct here than we probably think, because mostly we follow the Ars Arcanum which lists it by breath count. The concept of Breath count comes because each person starts with 1 breath, so as people started to give or sell breaths, they would count how many individual breaths had been accumulated into a single person and start associating that with the different Heightenings. It is a very human thing to try and make correlations like that. We know however that each Breath has a different strength, as Vasher says at the end of Warbreaker, it's more the quality of the Breath rather than the quantity. Some breaths are stronger and therefore get you further into a Heightening than other breaths. It kind of makes sense that all Breaths being Investiture of Endowment, when held by one person, would sort of meld together as they are the same type of Investiture. This plays into the false premise that people have that you have to give away all our breaths and not only some of them too. A "Divine Breath" is a single Breath, a splinter of Endowment. In theory this shouldn't be much different than regular breaths. They are all investiture of Endowment. Its not like Kaladin, or another KR, after sucking in Stormlight stores it in discreet parts based on the gem from which it was siphoned. I don't know why Endowment's investiture as Breaths would work differently than Stormlight in that respect. The only niggling question hanging in my mind though is the Return's need to consume "one breath per week". How does the Returned body know what constitutes "one breath" if they're aggregating into a single store? It could be that they need to consume a certain minimum level of investiture to sustain their connection/body and that any breath no matter how weak fulfills this requirement. Then anything over that minimum threshold would be consumed as well... but that still requires the consuming mechanism to be able to tell discreet Breaths from each other. Do Breaths/Investiture have "metadata"? Something that may play into this is the fact that the smoke emitted by Nightblood is per WoB, "corrupted Breaths". So it seems that Nightblood when active in his powers is consuming breaths, perhaps in a similar manner to the Returned body? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted June 24, 2014 Report Share Posted June 24, 2014 This is what i suspect, as well, except for one discrepency i cannot explain. The first heightening grants perfect aura recognition, and Viv notes that two priests each possess exactly 50 Breaths. (I will try to post chapter/page number/quote when i get to a desktop, it is when she first attends the Court of Gods.) If it were the case that you need only 45 'strong' Breaths to equal 55 'weak' Breaths, with how easy that is to deduce, wouldnt everyone know it by now? The basic idea still seems to have a lot of merit, so hopefully there is a way to explain this one discrepancy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High prince of geeks Posted June 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2014 It could be that people who have reached the first heightening have learn ,maybe incorrectly, that so much breath is actually 50 different breaths. Kind of like somebody who was raised being told that blue was called red. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted June 25, 2014 Report Share Posted June 25, 2014 It could be that people who have reached the first heightening have learn ,maybe incorrectly, that so much breath is actually 50 different breaths. Kind of like somebody who was raised being told that blue was called red. But surely when a commodity is so important, relatively rare and expensive, people keep track? "Hey, I just purchased 35 Breaths from you, but it's only registering as 33." In large trends, the strong/weak Breaths would prolly even out to the point of not being noticed, but in many specific instances it would be quite noticeable. Not to mention, the idea that a Breath can be "strong" or "weak" is clearly well-known, as the Heightened doctor proclaims Siri to have a strong Breath, and Vivenna notices almost immediately upon reaching the first Heightening that some Breaths are stronger than others. If such a fact were clearly so utterly obvious, when exactly did the false conventional wisdom begin that all Breaths were totally equal? If it's so ostensibly not the case, who exactly started that rumor, for what purpose, and how did they trick an entire population into believing it so thoroughly despite obvious and constant reminders that it's false? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis Posted July 1, 2014 Report Share Posted July 1, 2014 The first heightening grants perfect aura recognition, and Viv notes that two priests each possess exactly 50 Breaths. Sorry to both double-post and necro, but I have new information. I'm re-reading now and I'm at chapter 43. Vasher, who is at the fourth Heightening at least, looks at Vivenna and guesses "You're prolly at the Third Heightening, maybe more." ... Shouldn't he know? Isn't that what perfect aura recognition means? And I don't really buy that he COULD tell, he just doesn't care. He's a scholar of BioChroma. This fact is most of how history remembers him. How could he possibly not care to get at least accurate down to the Heightening, even if not to the exact Breath? This is a discrepancy, it disturbs me and I do not like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardmancer Posted July 1, 2014 Report Share Posted July 1, 2014 This is an intresting thoery.. it seems there are actually mabny contradictory points here.. Since I would assume counting simply to 50 breaths and achieving the 1st hieghtening would be very easy to calculate.. people wouldnt normally be mistaken with how many they have, it seems they keep tract something that important very carefully. However when referring to awkening in particular it could be like a "bare minimun" kinda thing.. .Where everyone has the 1st heighting at 50 breaths- but some peoples are more adept than others- They all gain a stronger lifesense and color recogntion- but one's is stronger than another.. Than For tone recognition and so on.. As well I believe this for awakening objects two people both need atleast 10 breaths to awaken this paper man. Both given same command with same image clear and understanding in there mind. But perhaps stronger breaths will produce a quicker or better result. Just a thought Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glassesgeekn07 Posted March 17, 2016 Report Share Posted March 17, 2016 What is the perk for each heighting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nashan’Elin Posted March 17, 2016 Report Share Posted March 17, 2016 What is the perk for each heighting? It's in the Ars Arcanum for Warbreaker. You can even find it on here http://brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-ars-arcanum/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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