Awakeners and colored lights

[Helwar]

There are two questions that have been nagging me lately...

First and foremost, I am a very dedicated fan of sanderson's work but I don't lurk too much in these forums, so something like this might be common knowledge, but my Search Surge isn't strong enough to find an answer, so I decided to ask. Please excuse me if there are already answers to this.

 

When an Awakener (the guys with powers on Nalthis, Warbreaker novel) uses his Breaths to animate something, he/she gives them to the object, and in turn this object gains pseudo-life and is suddenly capable of moving by itself. That implies that it should be USING the breaths to power this movements, it needs energy to move. But it's not the case. When the awakener ends the effect, recovers all the breaths used, intact. So... there is a surplus of energy in the world. This definitively doesn't follow the laws of thermodynamics and it makes me wonder: Is there something I don't get? Yeah, color is used as a catalyst... Like Allomancers use metals, I guess. But still...

 

And the second question: If I had a stage light with some color filters pointing at the floor just at the feet of an Awakener... could he/she use the color that the light is granting to the floor to Awaken things, and thus Awaken continuously, as long as he/she still has Breaths?

[Spoolofwhool]

Over a long period of time, an awakened object will eventually run out of breaths.

[Landis963]

Re: Thermodynamics:  Sometimes Conservation of Investiture works with Conservation of Energy in weird ways, the behavior of Awakened objects being a prime example.  

Re: Stage light colors: I suspect not, if only because if it worked that way, white clothing would be super-powerful for Awakeners (as white sunlight would contain all the colors available for Awakening).  Funnily enough, what you describe is how drafting (from Brent Weeks' Lightbringer) works, where it's the light that enters a drafter's eyes that determines what and how much luxin they can use.  

[Andy92]

1. Do they always cover 100% of the Breaths used to Awaken objects? I thought they only got all the Breaths back if they recalled them fairly quickly. I know Vasher was looking for more Breath at the beginning of the book, so I assumed it could be lost over time after transferring it back and forth between objects.

2. It might just dull the color of the filter itself, turning the light colorless because the filter itself becomes colorless. 

Edited April 25, 2017 by Andy92

[The One Who Connects]

40 minutes ago, Helwar said:

So... there is a surplus of energy in the world.

Breaths are described as having a general "health" to them. This combined with what Spool says about them winding down after a long time gives me an idea of how it works.

They will run down eventually, and the system probably drains from Breaths evenly to keep the general health stable. Since most awakenings take several breath to do, the small drain would be split among many breaths, making it seem lesser overall. You'd notice 1 breath at 95%, but 10 breaths at 99.5%? 20 at 99 and three quarters percent?