Awakening Mechanics

[Moogle]

I don't know how obvious this is, but I realized I should probably get this one down so I can refer to it in the future.

 

To be clear, this theory/model is definitely not original and has come from plenty of sources, most notably Kurkistan's model:

Kurkistan
BioChroma:

Do Breaths inherently possess the ability to interpret and carry out commands, or does the Awakener need to impart that decision making ability on Awakened objects?

If the Awakener does need to impart the decision-making ability, then does Awakening consist of an Awakener copying a portion of his/her Cognitive aspect (as determined by his/her visualization and verbal Command) onto the Cognitive aspect of the object being Awakened, with Breath then providing the "juice" for the object to actually follow its Command: powering both physical motion and "cogitation" based upon the copied Cognitive aspect?

-If so, is that copying what drains color?

Brandon Sanderson
You're very close here.
(source)

 

No Soul, No Color

When Nightblood drains someone's soul, it leaves them colorless - or if you're saved before Nightblood kills you, as in the case of the one guy in Warbreaker, with a grey arm.

 

Where else have we seen this? Roshar, where Shardblades - which sever the soul - leave the affected limbs grey and lifeless.

 

In the Cosmere, there's a clear link between soul and color. No soul and your color goes away.

 

Indeed, in the ultimate example of this, we see Lightsong give his Divine Breath away. His Divine Breath is melded to his soul, and so losing his entire soul causes him to lose all of his color and turn grey.

 

Going the Other Way

In Awakening, you drain color. You're taking away the souls of things. What's happening there? What could we be doing with that soul?

 

In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul.

 

Something can't come from nothing. And since we're taking color (well, soul), and we know we're creating a counterfeit soul, the link seems pretty clear: Awakening drains color because you need to give the thing you're creating a soul. You do this by taking bits of the souls of animate objects, thus indirectly draining their color.

 

Well, that's great and all, but a soul can't do anything on its own. Just because you give a straw doll a soul won't let it move! This seems to be where Breath comes in: Breath is what allows the soul to affect things externally

 

But this isn't enough on its own. Sure, the thing will have the power to move and it will have the motivation to move (soul), but it won't know how to move. Thus the need for a Command. You need to carefully visualize what you want the object to do, in essence teaching the counterfeit soul you made how to act. In Awakening, will is the "nozzle" which takes Investiture and produces an effect.

 

Thus we get a picture of Awakening in all three Realms: Physical (Breath), Cognitive (Command), Spiritual (soul from soul, proxied by color).

 

 

See also: Kurkistan's Motivation, Execution, Consequence.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Moogle

[Kurkistan he/him]

My thanks for the reference. Today I'd probably talk about the Command-giving as more of a purposeful sending of "intent" rather than copying, given our more recent understanding of how the Cognitive/magic is all intenty.

Also this WoB on the relationship between shard-severing and lifeless may be useful.

Source:

PRNCRNY

What connection is there between Lifeless and Shard-severed limbs?

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

They are similar, but different. With Lifeless it's due to the soul being drained away, shrinking to nearly nothing. With Shard-severed limbs, that portion of the soul is sheared clean away.

[skaa he/him]

Nice! This looks like a pretty solid Realmatic analysis of Awakening, Moogle.

 

@Kurk: I think we all understand the part that Intent plays in Investiture even if we use other words for it like "will" or phrases like "copying a portion of a Cognitive aspect", but I agree that using "Intent" is good for consistency.

 

My only question now is this: what are other implications of an object (say, a ball) being colorless/not having a soul/having its soul "shrink to nearly nothing", aside from it being useless for color-draining? Would Shallan be able to converse with the ball in Shadesmar? Could it be Soulcast at all? Forged? And what happens if you paint the ball's surface? I suppose the paint itself could be used for color-draining, but would the ball be Spiritually affected by the paint at all? Are the dyes made from Tears of Edgli capable of re-growing the souls of color-drained objects? Is that why they are preferred in Awakening?

 

Well, okay, so that's more than one question.

[Yata he/him]

Nice! This looks like a pretty solid Realmatic analysis of Awakening, Moogle.

 

@Kurk: I think we all understand the part that Intent plays in Investiture even if we use other words for it like "will" or phrases like "copying a portion of a Cognitive aspect", but I agree that using "Intent" is good for consistency.

 

My only question now is this: what are other implications of an object (say, a ball) being colorless/not having a soul/having its soul "shrink to nearly nothing", aside from it being useless for color-draining? Would Shallan be able to converse with the ball in Shadesmar? Could it be Soulcast at all? Forged? And what happens if you paint the ball's surface? I suppose the paint itself could be used for color-draining, but would the ball be Spiritually affected by the paint at all? Are the dyes made from Tears of Edgli capable of re-growing the souls of color-drained objects? Is that why they are preferred in Awakening?

 

Well, okay, so that's more than one question.

Probably the "soul-relate" Magic Systems don't work with the colorless-item.

For example you may Soulcast it (because works on Cognitive) but you may not use Forgery on it (because it hasn't a Soul to edit).

 

As far as I understand a colorless-item will be some kind of pseudo-allumin (if it's true that the Allumin's oddly is because "the Allumin has no soul")