Vivenna's Shardblade

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

So we see that Vivenna's blade drains color.  It hit me this morning that creating lifeless utilizes the color from the corpse.  

Does Vivenna's blade leave corpses behind that are impossible to turn into lifeless due to having no color to feed on?

[alder24]

22 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So we see that Vivenna's blade drains color.  It hit me this morning that creating lifeless utilizes the color from the corpse.  

Does Vivenna's blade leave corpses behind that are impossible to turn into lifeless due to having no color to feed on?

I don't think so, because a Shardblade killed corpse can be turned into a Lifeless. Shardblades also severs a soul turning cut off limb gray. And Vasher made a gray squirrel into a Lifeless.

Spoiler

Darth Vizious

Could you make a Lifeless out of someone killed with a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardblades sever the soul from the body, but Awakening makes a "fake" soul for a body, so how the soul left doesn't matter.

General Twitter 2015 (Nov. 1, 2015)

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

I don't think so, because a Shardblade killed corpse can be turned into a Lifeless. Shardblades also severs a soul turning cut off limb gray. And Vasher made a gray squirrel into a Lifeless.

  Hide contents

Darth Vizious

Could you make a Lifeless out of someone killed with a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardblades sever the soul from the body, but Awakening makes a "fake" soul for a body, so how the soul left doesn't matter.

General Twitter 2015 (Nov. 1, 2015)

 

I was thinking more in terms of how her shardblade might work. We know color is more than just color. I feel like her blade draining color is different that a withered up dead arm. 

I am not saying it couldn't be the case.  I am just thinking color is a key theme and WoBs have been offered up to suggest that it is not just important to awakeners either. 

I also think there is a large difference between a gray squirrel having its color drained and trying to drain color from something that has already been drained of color.

That said I now think I may remember instances of lifeless being too broken and being fed more breath again?  Perhaps not but if that is the case then it would disprove a potential theory of Vivenna's blade ruining bodies from being able to be turned into lifeless. 

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

I think her Blade's just been Commanded to consume Color to keep it from becoming Nightblood 2.0, and if it's absorbing color that way, the corpses should be unAwakenable. If they're turning gray because of a regular Shardblade severing-the-soul thing, it should still work, theoretically.

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I feel like her blade draining color is different that a withered up dead arm. 

It's the same. Awakening changes something in the soul of the object used as a color fuel. That's what the Vivenna's blade is doing. Shardblades do the same, severing the soul. There is a clear connection between those two.

Spoiler

tallakahath

So, on Nalthis, in the Warbreaker universe, when the color's pulled out of something, is that a physical or chemical change or is that a perceptual change?

Brandon Sanderson

It is actually a physical change, but the spirit of the thing is changing, and it's filtering through to the Physical Realm.

tallakahath

So, if I do that on a carrot, I can break beta carotin? If I do that on a piece of metal, I can reduce it and charge my battery that way?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially, yeah! Yeah, that would work, you're changing it's Spiritual nature.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

 

Spoiler

theleadingman

Objects used for awakening turn gray. A limb cut with a shardblade turns gray. You mentioned earlier in this thread that the color of gemstones on Roshar is important. Is there a connection between these?

Brandon Sanderson

Between those two things? Yes.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 3, 2015)

 

9 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

That said I now think I may remember instances of lifeless being too broken and being fed more breath again?  Perhaps not but if that is the case then it would disprove a potential theory of Vivenna's blade ruining bodies from being able to be turned into lifeless. 

Yes, you can put more Breaths into a Lifeless body when it's too broken. It will fix them.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Three

Vivenna and the Mercenaries Wait in the Safe House after the Lifeless Attack on the Slumlords

Why does Jewels bother sewing up Clod? Why fix Lifeless at all? Denth's answer is a fairly good one, but it could use some more explanation.

You see, when one makes a Lifeless, the reason the Breath stays and won't come back is because the body of a recently deceased person is too "sticky" for Breaths. One Breath attaches to it, and because the body so clearly remembers being alive, it can use that Breath to power it. (Assuming you have the right Commands and can picture them correctly in your head when you make the Lifeless.)

However, the more the Lifeless is damaged, the less like the shape of a living person it is, and the more difficult it is for the Breath to keep that body going. Powering a body with only one Breath is hard—it requires the body to work mostly on its own. When you power a cloak or something like that, the Breaths need to provide a lot of energy, since there's no real muscles to use or skeletal structure to rely on.

So the more wounded a Lifeless becomes, the less well its Breath can keep it going. Eventually you'll need to stick a second Breath into it, then a third, all the way up until that Lifeless is nothing more than a bunch of bones you've Awakened. At that point, you might as well be using sticks or cloth.

Warbreaker Annotations (Dec. 9, 2010)

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It's the same. Awakening changes something in the soul of the object used as a color fuel. That's what the Vivenna's blade is doing. Shardblades do the same, severing the soul. There is a clear connection between those two.

  Hide contents

tallakahath

So, on Nalthis, in the Warbreaker universe, when the color's pulled out of something, is that a physical or chemical change or is that a perceptual change?

Brandon Sanderson

It is actually a physical change, but the spirit of the thing is changing, and it's filtering through to the Physical Realm.

tallakahath

So, if I do that on a carrot, I can break beta carotin? If I do that on a piece of metal, I can reduce it and charge my battery that way?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially, yeah! Yeah, that would work, you're changing it's Spiritual nature.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

 

  Hide contents

theleadingman

Objects used for awakening turn gray. A limb cut with a shardblade turns gray. You mentioned earlier in this thread that the color of gemstones on Roshar is important. Is there a connection between these?

Brandon Sanderson

Between those two things? Yes.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 3, 2015)

 

Yes, you can put more Breaths into a Lifeless body when it's too broken. It will fix them.

  Hide contents

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Three

Vivenna and the Mercenaries Wait in the Safe House after the Lifeless Attack on the Slumlords

Why does Jewels bother sewing up Clod? Why fix Lifeless at all? Denth's answer is a fairly good one, but it could use some more explanation.

You see, when one makes a Lifeless, the reason the Breath stays and won't come back is because the body of a recently deceased person is too "sticky" for Breaths. One Breath attaches to it, and because the body so clearly remembers being alive, it can use that Breath to power it. (Assuming you have the right Commands and can picture them correctly in your head when you make the Lifeless.)

However, the more the Lifeless is damaged, the less like the shape of a living person it is, and the more difficult it is for the Breath to keep that body going. Powering a body with only one Breath is hard—it requires the body to work mostly on its own. When you power a cloak or something like that, the Breaths need to provide a lot of energy, since there's no real muscles to use or skeletal structure to rely on.

So the more wounded a Lifeless becomes, the less well its Breath can keep it going. Eventually you'll need to stick a second Breath into it, then a third, all the way up until that Lifeless is nothing more than a bunch of bones you've Awakened. At that point, you might as well be using sticks or cloth.

Warbreaker Annotations (Dec. 9, 2010)

 

Thank you for this.  Very interesting. Regardless of color a body that was killed via her shardblade would probably produce some of the best lifeless due to being fully intact and having no real trauma to overcome with the breath.