Awakening Clarification

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

This is a question about the mechanics of Awakening. The way I understand it, an Awakener gives their Breath away, Investing an object and making it do certain actions via Commands. My question is when an Awakener does this, are they Commanding the object itself or are they commanding the Breath within the object?

If it's the second one, I think this could have some interesting implications/applications. 

[Calderis he/him]

Good question.

I'm not sure exactly, but I lean towards them commanding the object, and the investiture of the Breath gives the object the ability to fulfill the command.

There are two reasons why I feel this way. 

1. If you command a rope to do something and it is damaged it will still try to fulfill the command, but if it is damaged enough to no longer see itself as a rope in the Cognitive Realm the command no longer functions. 

2. The closer a object is to human form, the less breath is needed to make a command function. If the command was given directly to the Breath, the form of the object shouldn't matter, only the command. 

[Oversleep]

It's worth pointing out that Lifeless (Awakened corpses) have brains and thus can take in new Commands. This implies the object is animated by Breaths and that animated object is Commanded and not Breaths themselves.

[Farnsworth]

Or it could be that you are still commanding the breath within them, and the breath has some power over the mind of the lifeless.

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

I was unsure if it was object or Breath based, since when you command lifeless it seems to make sense that you are commanding the object. Mostly I was thinking that if it was Breath based, you could potentially give your Breath advanced commands such as Vasher's rope, only like "invest what I hold when I twitch my finger".

[Farnsworth]

I'm pretty sure it's the object since that command has never been used even by Vashar, who is quite skilled.