Awakened hair?

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

The title says it all. Hair is dead, organic, uninvested material, so shouldn’t you be able to awaken it?

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

Yep, as long as it's not still on the person and they don't still view it as part of themselves. 

[Treamayne]

27 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

The title says it all. Hair is dead, organic, uninvested material, so shouldn’t you be able to awaken it?

Well, you would have an Identity problem, for one. For somebody to awaken their Hair - they wouldhave to believe their har was not a part of them. At the time of Warbreaker, they may not even consider Hair to be dead (it "grows" after all). That said, we have one WoB on a related idea. 

Spoiler

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Could an Awakened toupee be commanded to act like real hair?

Brandon Sanderson

...Totally! Absolutely, yes!

Questioner

Would it be convincing?

Brandon Sanderson

Would it be convincing? Yeah, I think that it would be. It depends.

Questioner

It depends on the number of Breaths?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it depends on factors, but I totally think that could be very convincing. Yes, yes, yes.

Questioner

Could it also be given enough Breath to Command "Protect me?"

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it could. That would be really weird. But yes.

Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017)

And if you really want writhing hair, may I suggest the Iron Druid Chronicles?

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Butt eet kan bee dun

Also @ThatOneWorldhopper, what does it matter if the hair is still attached, as long as the awakener sees it as separate?

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

4 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Also @ThatOneWorldhopper, what does it matter if the hair is still attached, as long as the awakener sees it as separate?

Generally it's really hard for them to convince their subconscious that it's its own entity, then you would meet an organic/inorganic problem.

[+robardin he/him]

I think there ought to be a question of how exactly one would Awaken "hair", assuming you aren't talking about a single strand of it; the term "hair" describes kind of an indefinite mass of unconnected strands pushed or heaped together. And in order to stay Awakened, it would require staying in one piece, right?

Like the little straw figure that Vasher Awakens in his prison cell at the very beginning of Warbreaker. He had to tie it together with some threads from his cloak, to hold a form. I don't think he could just Awaken a loose pile of straw very effectively.

And so, if someone had whomped that little straw guy into pieces, I would think that it would be the end of it, right? It wouldn't pull itself back together? At least, not with the relatively small amount of Breath he put into it.

A toupee is a different case, as that's hair woven into a mat, so to speak, and it's the mat that would give the hair definition and cohesion.

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Counterpoint: the threads in a cloak aren't actually attached, they're held together by the weave and not any adhesive. still, it would be easy enough to just tie a ponytail. The hair would also, by definition, be in the shape of hair, so being hacked apart wouldn't affect it in the same way as ripping the straw figure would; ripping apart the figure makes it no longer shaped like a body part of the awakener.

On 5/26/2025 at 10:49 AM, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

Generally it's really hard for them to convince their subconscious that it's its own entity, then you would meet an organic/inorganic problem.

Difficult, but not impossible, like soulcasting air, which Jasnah can do easily.

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

Counterpoint: the threads in a cloak aren't actually attached, they're held together by the weave and not any adhesive. still, it would be easy enough to just tie a ponytail. The hair would also, by definition, be in the shape of hair, so being hacked apart wouldn't affect it in the same way as ripping the straw figure would; ripping apart the figure makes it no longer shaped like a body part of the awakener.

Difficult, but not impossible, like soulcasting air, which Jasnah can do easily.

Well, Jasnah could soulcast air... When the entirety of Thaylen City was supercharged with Investiture by Dalinar opening a Perpendicularity while reaching the Third Ideal of the Bondsmiths, making the "three realms close". Not at all sure if she could so easily and casually do that under normal circumstances!

It was kind of a special situation, though I suppose that does mean a Herald with a Heraldblade and directly accessing Investiture from Honor could have had the same power level (which is to say, Battar).

I think such limitations of "boundaries of form" for Awakening or Soulcasting can be overcome to a large degree with the right (extremely focused and practiced) Intent and sufficient Investiture (Breath). When we see Vasher working the little straw man at the start of Warbreaker, it is partly serving to introduce us to the mechanics and principles of Awakening, but also showing how efficient he had to be given that he had only fifty Breaths and couldn't afford to use too much.

I mean, water or some other liquid would be the ultimate in an amorphous target for Awakening, right? And we have this WoB:

Quote

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)

"Almost" impossible... Because you would need so much Investiture that it'd practically be on the level of a Shard creating some kind of spren out of water, is how I read it.

[Duxredux he/him]

For starters, hair absolutely counts as something that either was alive or used to be alive. The prologue of Warbreaker starts with Vasher using his hair to facilitate Awakening his cloak and a straw figure. Notably just sprinkling a chunk of his hair over the hood of his cloak without any effort to weave the hair into the material was enough to let him complete the Awakening.

I assume any fabric made of wool also can be readily Awakened. If you save your hair and make it into clothing, it probably will be more efficient to Awaken than an equivalent item not made from the Awakener's own body.

Since this is Q&A section, I'll also reference other systems. We learn from Allomancy that anything that pierces the body or is enclosed by it (holding a coin in the mouth) becomes substantially more resistant to manipulation by Invested Arts. I assume growing out of the head or body also counts. This is deeper than mere perception, as we see Wax attempting to Push on bullets embedded in Miles and they abruptly become viable anchors directly after he healed and his body pushed the bullets out. I doubt Wax's perception of the event had any significant impact on his Push. I assume a person would not be able to Awaken a part of their body that is still attached to them.

As for the debate of Awakening hair as a contiguous mass versus the individual hairs, a piece of a person does not count as 100% in the shape of life. When Vivenna asks Vasher about Awakening skeletons, he says it's tricky and often not worth it as you need to position each bone in the proper location. A lot of work for something that will cost a fair amount of Breaths. Hair almost certainly will face the same restrictions. Sure, in the same way that Vivenna can Awaken a single thread to pick a lock, a single strand of hair can be Awakened and given a Command, it just might not be able to do much or move in concert with a pile of cut hair.

Separated versus contiguous is also relevant for the visualization of the Command. Vasher's sets of Awakened outfits that fought as if they were him still continued to fight after being cut apart - just very poorly. Getting cut did not deactivate the Awakening and Vasher was able to recover the Breaths from the fallen clothing - but the point is that the initial Command is what is followed. I assume any secondary Commands for after becoming discontiguous would make the Awakening orders of magnitude harder to visualize.

Edited May 29, 2025 by Duxredux