“I could make the very dust of the earth obey my command.”

[Nightstar The Bright]

This is said by Lemex in chapter 10:

 

Breath, Princess,” he said. “I inherited it from my predecessor, and I’ve bought more. A lot more . . .”

God of Colors . . . Vivenna thought with a sick feeling in her stomach.

“I know it was wrong,” Lemex whispered. “But . . . I felt so powerful. I could make the very dust of the earth obey my command. It was for the good of Idris!

I have just one question, what? Make the dust obey his command?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

He's feverish and drugged and probably a complete novice at Awakening. I'd take his words with a couple pounds of salt.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

This is said by Lemex in chapter 10:

Quote

 

Breath, Princess,” he said. “I inherited it from my predecessor, and I’ve bought more. A lot more . . .”

God of Colors . . . Vivenna thought with a sick feeling in her stomach.

“I know it was wrong,” Lemex whispered. “But . . . I felt so powerful. I could make the very dust of the earth obey my command. It was for the good of Idris!

 

I have just one question, what? Make the dust obey his command?

Exaggeration to emphasize what so many Breaths made him feel, plus poison, drugs and pre-death state of his mind.

While technically you might be able to Awaken dust, the one which came from human skin, fabric, wooden furniture etc, it would do nothing at all. It can't move, it can't act, it doesn't have any solid, consolidated form. For this reason it might be impossible to Awaken as you can't find any command or visualization that would fit to dust. Not to mention what does it mean to Awaken dust - are you Awakening an area of dust or each individual dust grain separately? It doesn't make much sense, because every grain is independent from each other, not connected, interchangeable. Dust is more like water in this case and water is practically impossible to Awaken.

Spoiler

Questioner

My friends would like to know if you can Awaken liquids?

Brandon Sanderson

This is almost impossible.

Questioner

Almost impossible?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost impossible, but not fully impossible, but basically impossible. Particularly if you're talking about just a liquid, not in a container, anything like that. Technically, you can kind of Awaken a dead animal, which will have some liquid in it and stuff. But if you just want to Awaken like--

Questioner

A bowl of water?

Brandon Sanderson

A bowl of water, almost impossible.

Prague Signing (Oct. 26, 2019)

A dust from human skin might act very well as a focus for Awakening, similar to human hair, but it's much harder to make it stick to your Awaken object. You can weave the hair in between fabrics, you can even make a full voodoo doll out of human hair, but with dust you can't do anything like that. A dust particle is too tiny for you to include it as a focus in most cases. 

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Exaggeration to emphasize what so many Breaths made him feel, plus poison, drugs and pre-death state of his mind.

While technically you might be able to Awaken dust, the one which came from human skin, fabric, wooden furniture etc, it would do nothing at all. It can't move, it can't act, it doesn't have any solid, consolidated form. For this reason it might be impossible to Awaken as you can't find any command or visualization that would fit to dust. Not to mention what does it mean to Awaken dust - are you Awakening an area of dust or each individual dust grain separately? It doesn't make much sense, because every grain is independent from each other, not connected, interchangeable. Dust is more like water in this case and water is practically impossible to Awaken.

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Questioner

My friends would like to know if you can Awaken liquids?

Brandon Sanderson

This is almost impossible.

Questioner

Almost impossible?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost impossible, but not fully impossible, but basically impossible. Particularly if you're talking about just a liquid, not in a container, anything like that. Technically, you can kind of Awaken a dead animal, which will have some liquid in it and stuff. But if you just want to Awaken like--

Questioner

A bowl of water?

Brandon Sanderson

A bowl of water, almost impossible.

Prague Signing (Oct. 26, 2019)

A dust from human skin might act very well as a focus for Awakening, similar to human hair, but it's much harder to make it stick to your Awaken object. You can weave the hair in between fabrics, you can even make a full voodoo doll out of human hair, but with dust you can't do anything like that. A dust particle is too tiny for you to include it as a focus in most cases. 

Any sort of organic binder (egg, animal glue, even the person's own feces) could be added to turn it into a moldable clay, and I think that's on par with including cloth to give a voodoo doll it's shape.  That likely also has the benefit of making a single cognitive object instead of a pile of tiny separate things (same issue as with Soulcasting a single big rock vs a pile of gravel).