Other Ways to Collect Breath

[Trusk'our he/him]

The way we've mostly seen it done on Nalthis is to simply buy it (even the Court of Gods does this), but what other ways might you realistically see the transition of Breath?

1. Generational passing; I imagine that there are going to be elderly people who are willing to give up their Breaths to their children or grandchildren, since they soon won't need it anymore. Additionally, there could even be family lines that collect Breath over time to stockpile a small fortune, or perhaps that grants Heightenings to a few older family leaders.

As a side note, it would be interesting to see a sub-culture in T'Telir that encouraged the growth of very large families and the pooling of Breath by a certain age as a sort of rite of passage, so that the family as a whole (but especially the elders who held most of it) could prosper. Lots of interesting moral caveats attached to that one.

2. Religious/patriotic sacrifice; during a time of great need (such as wartime) you might see large groups of people being willing to donate their Breaths to a certain cause, such as with Vahr and his fellow rebels.

3. Crusading; perhaps you might see something like this in wartime, where large groups of non-combatants would be captured and forced to give up their Breath to the opposing army. Perhaps this would even be a reason to start such wars in the first place. . . 

4. Straight up torture; we also technically see this in chapter 1 of Warbreaker, so clearly its possible, though I imagine that the seedier parts of T'Telir are going have some criminals who capture regular people to torture the Breath out of them. I'm sure this is a lot easier said than done, but I find it hard to imagine this not happening at least occasionally.

What about other realistic ways we might see Breath being passed around?

[Elite01]

Those are really interesting, I especially like the first one. I have a couple but they are mostly just variations 

- a "no choice" option

It's a weird set of circumstances but imagine you were in a war where generals had all the breath. If one was gravely injured and knew they were going to die they could pass it along to any soldier nearby to prevent their army from losing a resource. This is similar to what happened to Vienna where someone knew they were dying soon and didn't want their breath to be wasted. I think it's similar to the generational breath idea but this one could be more impromptu. It also needs someone to be in the right place and the right time

-You could also do gambling which is just a variation on buying. A casino on Nalthis where you wager one breath but could get two if you win. 

-employment 

This one is also strange. I remember in the books its mentioned that there are guards in the court of gods who have enough breath to recognize what heightening others are at. Do you need a certain amount of breath to get the job or are they given to you so you can complete that job? It would be interesting if there was a treasury of some kind where you get an allotment of breaths and must return them in a certain time frame. You would need a person to hold the breaths so it could be passed to different people but it is an interesting idea. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Elite01 said:

It's a weird set of circumstances but imagine you were in a war where generals had all the breath. If one was gravely injured and knew they were going to die they could pass it along to any soldier nearby to prevent their army from losing a resource. This is similar to what happened to Vienna where someone knew they were dying soon and didn't want their breath to be wasted. I think it's similar to the generational breath idea but this one could be more impromptu. It also needs someone to be in the right place and the right time

Definitely makes sense to me. 

In fact, if you were a charismatic enough general, you could convince your army to all give up their Breaths to a few of the higher-ranking individuals, who could then train with Awakening and use them to help win fights- Vasher has memories of Awakened ropes hurling boulders, after all, which just shows a bit of the combat potential for Awakeners.

Since only higher-ranking members are supposed to hold the Breath, this would only add incentive to perform well and get promoted.

If you survive the war, you're promised your Breath back, plus maybe one or two more from fallen comrades or "looted" Breaths, assuming the army you're in has little to no moral objection to such things.

4 hours ago, Elite01 said:

-employment 

This one is also strange. I remember in the books its mentioned that there are guards in the court of gods who have enough breath to recognize what heightening others are at. Do you need a certain amount of breath to get the job or are they given to you so you can complete that job? It would be interesting if there was a treasury of some kind where you get an allotment of breaths and must return them in a certain time frame. You would need a person to hold the breaths so it could be passed to different people but it is an interesting idea. 

Yeah, I remember taking a double turn on that part as well, but I think it was actually just some of the priests who had the first Heightening working with or as the guards. But I could be wrong; it's been a while since I read the book and I don't have it on me right now to double check.

But even without this specific example, I really like the idea. Perhaps having a small group of trusted individuals learn to Awaken and perform more intense tasks with it would be worth the high investment of collecting all the necessary Breath.

For example, an Awakener could use a rope to power the crank for a piece of heavy machinery to cut wood, harvest crops, fold laundry fast, or any other sort of menial labor.

4 hours ago, Elite01 said:

Those are really interesting, I especially like the first one.

Thanks! 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:45 PM, Trusk'our said:

If you survive the war, you're promised your Breath back, plus maybe one or two more from fallen comrades or "looted" Breaths, assuming the army you're in has little to no moral objection to such things.

I thought you couldn't give a specific amount away? Vasher learned how to give away his breath without giving away his divine breath, but i dont remember any instance where someone was able to give a portion of their breath away. In the above scenario the soldiers would never get their breath back as it is now one unit in the general.

 

I suppose they could awaken something small to use a few breaths, give the rest to someone else, take the few breaths back from the object, pass those to the soldier, and then take the rest back. This seems very inefficent and probably wasteful, thoughts?

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I suppose they could awaken something small to use a few breaths, give the rest to someone else, take the few breaths back from the object, pass those to the soldier, and then take the rest back. This seems very inefficent and probably wasteful, thoughts?

It is my understanding that this is how an Awakener normally goes about giving away a single Breath, but you can also split an Awakened object into parts to divide it as well.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/200-tweettheauthor-2009/#e4415

scarplat

at the end of warbreaker you said that they split up their breaths, how if they can only do all at once?

Brandon Sanderson

I talk about this in the annotations. But Denth was lying to Vivenna at that point.

You can split up breaths. You put some in an object first.

 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/118-rfantasy-ama-2017/#e3703

LoreWard52

If you Awaken an object, then give your Breath away, can you reclaim the Breath of that object?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. (It allows for splitting up of Breaths among those who have more experience.)

 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

24 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

It is my understanding that this is how an Awakener normally goes about giving away a single Breath, but you can also split an Awakened object into parts to divide it as well.

Ah, makes sense! This gave me an idea. What if you added 1 breath to a piece of laminated paper? And maybe you could put different symbols, like I dont know, the faces of past Monarchs on them to denote higher value paper? A completely original idea, I know.

Edited April 24, 2024 by CtrlAltDepressed

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Ah, makes sense! This gave me an idea. What if you added 1 breath to a piece of laminated paper? And maybe you could put different symbols, like I dont know, the faces of past Monarchs on them to denote higher value paper? A completely original idea, I know.

Hmm, you know, I see no reason why this wouldn't work.

Perhaps this could even lead to the possibility of fractional Breaths, as you could further divide the object, though I'm not sure there would be a ton of point to this, and there likely would eventually be a point where splitting up a Breath rendered the pieces too small to understand a functional Command. 

Wood or metal coins may also work for this as they'd be more durable, but that's only for transportation. 

Also, here's the one quote I was originally looking for. You Awaken a single tiny cloth person to hold a single Breath, then recover it as you wish.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/250-warbreaker-annotations/#e7293

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Hides Her Breath in a Shawl

This has been possible from the beginning, and if Denth had truly been on her side, he would have admitted that there's a way she could get rid of her Breaths. What she would need to do is Awaken something with a one-Breath Command. There are some. They don't do much, but you can Awaken a very tiny scrap of cloth tied into the shape of a person with a very simple Command. That takes one Breath.

Next, you put the rest of your Breath into another object. Then you get that one Breath back and go hunting for a Drab to give it to. Then you take the rest of your Breath back from the object. From there, you can repeat the process if you want to. Vivenna could get rid of the Breaths one by one.

Of course, Denth didn't want that to happen. He was coveting those Breaths. What he said was intended to sound like an innocent mistake. Many people unfamiliar with Awakening would make that mistake, so if Vivenna learned the truth later, he wouldn't look suspicious.

 

[PanicPug]

Kind of related question: how are there so many Breaths and so few Drabs in the first place?

Every person is just born with a single breath, but as we see in the book/s Breaths are used for awakening and probably quite a few of those not reclaimed (if I remember correctly, you can only reclaim your own Breaths from an object), consumed by the Returned in the Court Of Gods and outside of it, or just lost when people die from natural or unusual causes... Like where do all those tons of breaths come from? There's the God King's wealth, many of the priests with heightenings, apparently not too few characters with a enough Breaths for perfect colour recognition (e.g. probably many artists and artisans) and the wealthy folk in general, but from how it sounded to me, the amount of Drabs isn't extremely high?

I might have missed something in the book or it might have been answered elsewhere, but I just remembered that when I read your previous posts regarding Breath economics.

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, PanicPug said:

Kind of related question: how are there so many Breaths and so few Drabs in the first place?

Every person is just born with a single breath, but as we see in the book/s Breaths are used for awakening and probably quite a few of those not reclaimed (if I remember correctly, you can only reclaim your own Breaths from an object), consumed by the Returned in the Court Of Gods and outside of it, or just lost when people die from natural or unusual causes... Like where do all those tons of breaths come from? There's the God King's wealth, many of the priests with heightenings, apparently not too few characters with a enough Breaths for perfect colour recognition (e.g. probably many artists and artisans) and the wealthy folk in general, but from how it sounded to me, the amount of Drabs isn't extremely high?

I might have missed something in the book or it might have been answered elsewhere, but I just remembered that when I read your previous posts regarding Breath economics.

Well, we've seen Nalthis from the PoV of Siri (who stayed the entire duration of the book in the palace), Vivenna (who notices that Jewels is a drab only several chapters after they've met for the first time) and Lightsong, who stays in the palace, just like Siri. Plus some chapters of Vasher who doesn't really care.

It simply isn't that noticeable with your eyes alone, you need to have lots of Breaths to feel it with your Life Sense, like when Vivenna didn't feel Jewels, which made her realize she's a drab. I bet Vivenna met many drab people when she was drab herself, but she simply couldn't have felt that and seen any difference with her eyes alone. That's why I would expect most drabs would be - among poor people, who were forced to sell their Breaths to live. 

God King's wealth is the Peacegiver's treasure, 50,000 Breaths accumulated by Vasher during the Manywar, passed down between God Kings. There are a bit more Breaths there then what Vasher had, as every God King gets 2 or 3 Breaths per week. But the vast majority of those Breaths are from people that have been dead for 300 years. 

Vasher's 2000 Breaths came from Vahr, who collected them from many Pahn-Kahl people who worked on plantations with him, outside of the city. T'Telir is just one city among others, the biggest but still small compared to the entire population of a country - Siri passed through several cities on her way to the capital. People can just go to T'Telir, sell their Breaths and go back to their hometown, or Awakeners with Breaths can move into T'Telir, like Vahr did (kind of, he lost the rebellion and was moved there by force).

Not to mention that some Breaths can be passed down just like the the Peacegiver's treasure, or just like Vivenna got her Breaths - fathers can give their Breaths to their sons, who later give them to their sons, priests can give their Breaths to their successor etc. Many of those Breaths might have been hundreds of years old - we don't really know, we can only speculate.

Overall it's either because our PoV characters weren't in places where they could have been able to meet any drabs, weren't observant enough to spot many drabs around them, didn't pay enough attention so those drabs weren't mentioned, lastly there is entire world outside of T’Telir.

But you're right, drabs don't appear very often in the book, there are 14 mentions of the word "drab" in Warbreaker and the economy of Breaths isn't explored that much. We can only speculate what's going on, those are my speculations.

[Karmir]

On 3/11/2024 at 5:39 PM, Elite01 said:

Those are really interesting, I especially like the first one. I have a couple but they are mostly just variations 

- a "no choice" option

It's a weird set of circumstances but imagine you were in a war where generals had all the breath. If one was gravely injured and knew they were going to die they could pass it along to any soldier nearby to prevent their army from losing a resource. This is similar to what happened to Vienna where someone knew they were dying soon and didn't want their breath to be wasted. I think it's similar to the generational breath idea but this one could be more impromptu. It also needs someone to be in the right place and the right time

-You could also do gambling which is just a variation on buying. A casino on Nalthis where you wager one breath but could get two if you win. Or there is a casino site like https://betibet.live/ where you can gamble from the comfort of your own home. 

-employment 

This one is also strange. I remember in the books its mentioned that there are guards in the court of gods who have enough breath to recognize what heightening others are at. Do you need a certain amount of breath to get the job or are they given to you so you can complete that job? It would be interesting if there was a treasury of some kind where you get an allotment of breaths and must return them in a certain time frame. You would need a person to hold the breaths so it could be passed to different people but it is an interesting idea. 

These are some fantastic ideas! Each one adds a unique layer of intrigue and depth to the concept of Breath and its use in a world like Nalthis.

Edited March 19, 2025 by Karmir

[dezaS Hᴇ/Hɪᴍ]

Hospital option: If Nalthis gets a modern-age healthcare system an ICU doctor might be the profession to have to get Breaths-you are around a lot of people who are dying and know they are almost certainly dying and know that the doctors around them are doing all they can to keep them from dying: if they are coherent, they might just give their Breath to the doctor? (it's an idea)

Or..

what if at hospitals in ICUs or at hospice clinics (dealing with the terminally ill) they have very trusted Awakeners on staff that carry out the dying patients' last will of who to give their Breath to (they would get training to find practically anyone on Nalthis and give them a specific amount of Breath)?

Or even a banknote system-people deposit Breath in Awakened bank accounts so that they can be preserved and the banks loan it out for interest in an economy-the banks/treasury can even issue notes for fractional Breaths making a viable, backed currency system instead of gold? 

This has some flaws of course: if everyone (or most people) deposited a Breath upon adulthood the inflation rate would be dependant on the birth rate 18 years prior and Breaths might lose value rapidly (I'm not an economist so I don't know how or if this would actually work)

Edited March 14, 2025 by dezaS