Trusk'our he/him Posted November 10, 2023 Posted November 10, 2023 (edited) Divine Breaths are large chunks of Investiture that grant multiple beneficial qualities to their bearers; they get augmented speed and strength, they can alter their appearance in limited ways, they can have visions of the future as they dream, and of course, they get the benefits of the Heightenings. Hemalurgically spiking such attributes abilities via the Investiture from a Returned is tempting, but there is a lot of Investiture contained within a Divine Breath. There's a good chance that a single spike simply cannot contain that much Investiture within it without some kind of modification (which we don't know for certain whether can be done right now). So instead of wasting that extra Investiture, could a Hemalurgist with the right Command deliberately excise only a fraction of the Breath and repeat the process multiple times to give multiple people some of the benefits of a Divine Breath? After all, the those with the Royal Locks have fragments of Divine Breaths they could benefit from if they allowed themselves to; Spoiler Warbreaker Annotations - Arcanum (coppermind.net) Brandon Sanderson Vasher Explains Some Things, but Leaves Some Things Hidden I'm worried about leaving Vivenna's two questions unanswered. One is pretty obvious—how Vasher can hide how he looks—but the other is unintuitive. I wish I could explain better in the book, as I said above, but I decided in the end to just leave it hanging. It's a bit of a violation of Sanderson's First Law, but not a big one. The reason I feel I can get away with it is because Vasher didn't use his nature as a Returned to solve any problems. It is more a flavoring for his character than it is important to him getting out of danger or fixing things. He could have done everything he needed to in this book without being Returned. So I feel it's okay not to explain why he can be Returned and not die when he gives away his Breaths. Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can't change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice. And yes, the scraggly miscreant is how Vasher sees himself. Not noble and Returned, which is part of how he suppresses his divine Breath. Events in the second book may change that. Edited November 10, 2023 by Trusk'our Needed to clarify that I did not mean to take the attributes from a Returned, but that I meant to take the Investiture that would then impart boosts to one's attributes.
Treamayne Posted November 10, 2023 Posted November 10, 2023 3 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Divine Breaths are large chunks of Investiture that grant multiple beneficial qualities to their bearers; they get augmented speed and strength, they can alter their appearance in limited ways, the can have visions of the future as they dream, and of course, they get the benefits of the Heightenings. Hemalurgically spiking such attributes from a Returned is tempting, but there is a lot of Investiture contained within a Divine Breath. There's a good chance that a single spike simply cannot contain that much Investiture within it without some kind of modification (which we don't know for certain whether can be done right now). So instead of wasting that extra Investiture, could a Hemalurgist with the right Command deliberately excise only a fraction of the Breath and repeat the process multiple times to give multiple people some of the benefits of a Divine Breath? After all, the those with the Royal Locks have fragments of Divine Breaths they could benefit from if they allowed themselves to; This idea seems to imply a fundamental misunderstanding of Divine Breath and Investiture. I do not think any of those traits would be hemalurgically viable - because they are not "granted" by the Divine breath, so much as side effects of having that high an amount of investiture. All the Divine breath "grants" is anchoring the "soul" of the Cognitive Shadow to their PR body, and being expended to grant a one-time miracle of healing (see below). Rysn and Riino (SA) show that Heightening effects are due to quantity of investiture, not specifically breaths (Divine or otherwise). SP3 and 4 spoilers: Spoiler Yumi shows that altering a physical form is also about holding enough investiture that the body changes to accomodate the Cognitive Aspect Nomad shows that increased physical traits (speed, strength, etc) are also about how much investiture is being held, rather than the source of that investiture. So, yes, Vivenna shows that a fragment of Divine Breath is still enough to allow some changes to the body with Intent and Practice, so a Spike (assuming the fragment would be large enough) might allow similar changes - but Vivenna also shows that the fragment is not enough to grant the other side effects of holding a large quantity of investiture. Possibly the SR dream glimpses are tied to the DIvine Breath, but it seems more likely they are "flashbacks" to the vision granted by Endowment when she offers the Cognitive Shadow a chance to Return, rather than a function of the Divine Breath itself. However, the interpretation of the Paintings is much more likely to be "granted" by the Divine Breath-likely due to some form of Connection. From the annotations: Spoiler Quote Brandon Sanderson Chapter Twelve Lightsong Hears Petitions The concept of petitions—and the gods being able to heal someone one time—grew out of my desire to have something about them that was miraculous. Something obvious, something more than just an ability to make vague prophecies. Their Breath auras are amazing, true, but an Awakener with a lot of Breath can replicate that. I took the idea of being able to die in order to heal from an idea discarded from Elantris. If you look at the deleted scenes (Caution: Spoilers for the ending of Elantris), you can read about how there was originally a subplot to the story where the Seons (the floating balls of light) could expend the Aon at their center and create a miraculous event one time. However, doing so would kill them. I eventually ended up not using this plot structure in the final draft, and so I cut all references to this ability from the book. I felt that it was too contrived in that novel. I've always thought it was interesting conceptually, however, so I developed it into this book as an aspect of Returned that makes them different. They can create one miracle—and in this world, that one miracle has to be a healing. They can expend their divine Breath to heal someone. Warbreaker Annotations (Sept. 9, 2010) Quote Jared Is the artist that painted those paintings Hoid? Brandon Sanderson Hoid did not make the paintings. The goal of those paintings—and this is spoilery, by the way—the paintings are actually what the text implies that they are. They are abstract paintings which Lightsong, having a touch of the divine, is able to see and read into things that aren't necessarily there. Beyond that, art is a magical thing in the world of WARBREAKER. When an artist creates a work of art, part of the artist's soul ends up in the artwork. Someone who has many breaths and who's Returned like Lightsong has the inherent ability to see into the art and perceive that. So Lightsong can interpret correctly an abstract piece, based on what the artist is trying to convey, in a way that a normal person couldn't. Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010) 2
alder24 Posted November 10, 2023 Posted November 10, 2023 6 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Divine Breaths are large chunks of Investiture that grant multiple beneficial qualities to their bearers; they get augmented speed and strength, they can alter their appearance in limited ways, the can have visions of the future as they dream, and of course, they get the benefits of the Heightenings. Hemalurgically spiking such attributes from a Returned is tempting, but there is a lot of Investiture contained within a Divine Breath. There's a good chance that a single spike simply cannot contain that much Investiture within it without some kind of modification (which we don't know for certain whether can be done right now). So instead of wasting that extra Investiture, could a Hemalurgist with the right Command deliberately excise only a fraction of the Breath and repeat the process multiple times to give multiple people some of the benefits of a Divine Breath? After all, the those with the Royal Locks have fragments of Divine Breaths they could benefit from if they allowed themselves to; Reveal hidden contents Warbreaker Annotations - Arcanum (coppermind.net) Brandon Sanderson Vasher Explains Some Things, but Leaves Some Things Hidden I'm worried about leaving Vivenna's two questions unanswered. One is pretty obvious—how Vasher can hide how he looks—but the other is unintuitive. I wish I could explain better in the book, as I said above, but I decided in the end to just leave it hanging. It's a bit of a violation of Sanderson's First Law, but not a big one. The reason I feel I can get away with it is because Vasher didn't use his nature as a Returned to solve any problems. It is more a flavoring for his character than it is important to him getting out of danger or fixing things. He could have done everything he needed to in this book without being Returned. So I feel it's okay not to explain why he can be Returned and not die when he gives away his Breaths. Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can't change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice. And yes, the scraggly miscreant is how Vasher sees himself. Not noble and Returned, which is part of how he suppresses his divine Breath. Events in the second book may change that. I agree with @Treamayne - Divine Breaths don't grant anything, all of those things are just the side effects of massive concentration of investiture in the physical host, you can't steal those effects. However we know from WoBs you can steal a Divine Breath. The way WoBs talk about it seem to imply you can just steal it with a single spike. A Divine Breath is part of the Returned soul - not his whole soul, it isn't the fossil of his soul, but just a part of it. The way I understand it is that a Divine Breath is just a nail of investiture that Connects Returned to PR, which conjoins his soul with his body and holds them together, keeps them alive. With that in mind I think it would be extremely difficult to steal parts of Divine Breath several times while keeping Returned alive. His soul might simply disconnect from his Physical body the moment his Divine Breath loses some amount of investiture, slip into the Beyond, or he simply might die due to spiritual damages, not to mention physical ones. You might not be able to achieve what you want. However if you steal just a piece of it, or its entirety, the effects you might get would be something similar to what Vivenna has, maybe some low-Breath effects (increased Life Sense, color recognition etc) depending on how large is the stolen piece of Divine Breath. The neat part about stealing a Divine Breath is that you don't need to feed it with investiture. This aspect of Divine Breath is tied to the nature of Cognitive Shadows and keeping them alive. If you're alive, the Divine Breath won't consume investiture from you. I've just found this WoB and now I think it's very desirable to steal Divine Breaths, as that would be the easiest method of acquiring the permanent immortality (and on top of that you can have lots of Breaths for Awakening without worrying that you use too much of it and lose immortality and age rapidly). Spoiler 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) Spoiler Questioner Could one, using a Hemalurgic spike, acquire a Divine Breath from one of the Returned? Brandon Sanderson ...This should be possible. The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson (Oct. 25, 2018) Spoiler Haverworthy Just had a question, when a Returned consumes a Breath, is it a property of their body that does so or the Divine Breath itself? It's been contentious in the community. If it's specifically just their body and a hemalurgist were to spike a Divine Breath as indicated was possible here*, would the hemalurgist not need to consume a weekly breath? *https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364/#e11389 Brandon Sanderson That's a very interesting question. The thing that requires the Returned to continue gaining investiture is their nature as cognitive shadows--they are dead, and in this case, need a power source to continue persisting in the physical realm. The Divine Breath is part of this. Imagine the Divine Breath as the thing that Infuses their soul, making it persist initially, and then and sticks it to the body. So if you stole it, but you yourself were not in need of being kept alive, I would say that you wouldn't need to be fed a new breath each week to maintain the Divine Breath. General Reddit 2020 (Oct. 4, 2020) 2
Trusk'our he/him Posted November 10, 2023 Author Posted November 10, 2023 (edited) @Treamayne and @alder24, you guys make some interesting points. Also, @Treamayne I want to clarify, I meant that you would be dividing the Investiture of a Divine Breath to split its effects amongst multiple people, not actual Hemalurgically viable attributes (I can see, looking back, that was a dumb way for me to convey that information. I should have said "Investiture" not "attributes", even if they are sometimes used by Brandon interchangeably, as we on the Shard don't use them interchangeably. I will endeavor to be clearer in the future.) One thing I had previously assumed was that a Divine Breath specifically that allowed the Returned to have superhuman speed and strength, but it from you guys it would seem that this is merely a function of being highly Invested. Would an Elantiran's extra speed and strength be tied to this as well, do you think? Also, does this mean that if you got enough Investiture via H-nicrosil through some other means that you could replicate these physical enhancements and appearance altering without ever needing to meddle with Nalthis or its Investiture? Edited November 10, 2023 by Trusk'our
alder24 Posted November 10, 2023 Posted November 10, 2023 39 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: One thing I had previously assumed was that a Divine Breath specifically that allowed the Returned to have superhuman speed and strength, but it from you guys it would seem that this is merely a function of being highly Invested. Would an Elantiran's extra speed and strength be tied to this as well, do you think? If they have that then yes, I don't remember Elantris well. 39 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: Also, does this mean that if you got enough Investiture via H-nicrosil through some other means that you could replicate these physical enhancements and appearance altering without ever needing to meddle with Nalthis or its Investiture? Possibly. I think it's likely that investiture keyed to different entities grant slightly different effects, thus you won't get precisely the same things as what Heightenings give, but something different but similar. However I would say that stuff like physical enhancements are generally granted by all types of investiture, thus Hemalurgy can grant you that. Although Breaths on their own doesn't seem to make you stronger and faster - Vivenne had at least 600 Breaths and wasn't noticeably stronger or faster, Vahr had 1000, not to mention Susebron who with at least 50000 Breaths was still held and dragged by a few people and despite trying, he could break free - there are some limitation to those things, you won't get infinitely strong, nor noticeably stronger with low levels of investiture.
Trusk'our he/him Posted November 10, 2023 Author Posted November 10, 2023 1 hour ago, alder24 said: If they have that then yes, I don't remember Elantris well. It's mentioned in the Elantris prologue. 1 hour ago, alder24 said: Possibly. I think it's likely that investiture keyed to different entities grant slightly different effects, thus you won't get precisely the same things as what Heightenings give, but something different but similar. However I would say that stuff like physical enhancements are generally granted by all types of investiture, thus Hemalurgy can grant you that. Although Breaths on their own doesn't seem to make you stronger and faster - Vivenne had at least 600 Breaths and wasn't noticeably stronger or faster, Vahr had 1000, not to mention Susebron who with at least 50000 Breaths was still held and dragged by a few people and despite trying, he could break free - there are some limitation to those things, you won't get infinitely strong, nor noticeably stronger with low levels of investiture. Perhaps because Bio-Chromatic Breaths are primarily PR based instead of SR based? Maybe they have a harder time seeping into your attributes to boost them because of this?
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