BioChromatic Breath is Weird - Theory

[HSuperLee he/him]

Disclaimer, I'm very new to the forum, and don't know how to do any of the formatting like spoilers or quotes, if I do anything wrong, I'll try to fix it as soon as I am able. On to the theory!

So thanks to joining the forum recently, I finally got an answer to a long time question about breath and feruchemy: 

Quote

BlackYeti

Suppose you had a full Feruchemist, who got enough breath to reach the fifth Heightening. What would happen if he started storing in atium?

Brandon Sanderson

Hehe-- I'm going to RAFO that one.

source

 

That got me thinking, the fact the question was RAFOed would indicate that the answer isn't what we'd first think. Basically, if a fifth heightened (or whatever the term would be) tried to fill a atium mind, they wouldn't have infinite age to fill it with. Yet, they're functionally immortal. So, what if, rather than breath extending a life by somehow giving the holder more "age" it instead either gives their body the ability to repair the cellular damage that comes from aging (ex. restoring telomere length) or allows the body to copy cells more perfectly, finally reaching a point at fifth heightening where the cells simply don't make mistakes during replication (I say simply).

Then I realized how weird this is when you compare it to other forms of investiture, where healing is based on a person's spirit. I believe there's a WoB that states that the Lord Ruler's spirit was aware of how old he was supposed to be, which is why he reverted to it when his atiumminds were removed. Yet, breath seems to ignore the condition of the spirit, and instead restores the body to its "ideal condition."

If this theory is correct, it has some weird implications. In the case of a fifth heightened trying to fill atium, they would be forcibly aging themselves faster than the breath could restore their cells, and thus would still age. But conversely, if one managed to either compound atium or get their hands on unkeyed atium, they could reduce their age, and then the breathe would maintain their cells in that condition. In this way, breath could almost be a "cure" for the dependence a compounder has after they've compounded for a while. I don't know how else this theory could impact investiture, or if someone else already thought of it, but I'd like to know what y'all think. 

 

Edited September 18, 2018 by HSuperLee

[Calderis he/him]

This kind of thinking is precisely why I chose this question to ask when @hoiditthroughthegrapevine offered to let me ask a question in one of his signed books... The answer was neither as definitive as I hoped, or the answer I expected.

Quote

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

If a person held enough breath to attain the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?

Brandon Sanderson (written)

I think they would rapidly age.

But I'm not ready to say 100%.

source

At this point, I have no idea what to think about how the 5th functions. 

[StanLemon]

Welcome to the forum. I like your idea on the 5th Heightening and it mixes well with my own thoughts on Breath and Heightenings. Breath is often described as being 'strong' in younger healthier people and that had me thinking that they, as discrete packages of Investiture that don't seem to dissipate when used as evidence by them still existing after they are used to give 'life' to Awakened objects, enhance the Ideal image of who holds them. It seems to me that Breath very slowly burns through it's Investiture and thus why it can last as long as it does in that form even when used. Because of that, I believe that when someone holds more Breath a small trickle of the Investiture is funneled into the holder's Spiritweb and then to their Cognitive and Physical aspects and when you have a lot of Breaths you gain enough trickles that it empowers their whole being to give them the various Heightenings.

 

Edit: Not the most eloquently I've presented an idea on here.

Edited September 18, 2018 by StanLemon

[HSuperLee he/him]

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

This kind of thinking is precisely why I chose this question to ask when @hoiditthroughthegrapevine offered to let me ask a question in one of his signed books... The answer was neither as definitive as I hoped, or the answer I expected.

At this point, I have no idea what to think about how the 5th functions. 

Huh. I have to be honest, I am also very confused now. It seems like breath would have to be constantly using up investiture in order to be constantly adding age to keep someone young. We know that over time the Lord Ruler's Atium consumption had to increase as he had more and more age "debt" built up in his spirit, so you'd think the same would be true with breath.

I don't know, I guess Sanderson has probably considered all this and it all will make sense eventually. But until then, I'll be here trying to figure out Cosmere immortality.

 

Edit: I'm actually really glad about the name I gave this thread now. It turns out it's really fitting.

Edited September 19, 2018 by HSuperLee

[Yata he/him]

11 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Huh. I have to be honest, I am also very confused now. It seems like breath would have to be constantly using up investiture in order to be constantly adding age to keep someone young. We know that over time the Lord Ruler's Atium consumption had to increase as he had more and more age "debt" built up in his spirit, so you'd think the same would be true with breath.

I don't know, I guess Sanderson has probably considered all this and it all will make sense eventually. But until then, I'll be here trying to figure out Cosmere immortality.

 

Edit: I'm actually really glad about the name I gave this thread now. It turns out it's really fitting.

The "push investiture to resist aging" isn't the only way Immortality/longevity could be obtained. For example, you could change your spirit-web to make your birth move along the timeline. In this way, you are always young because your soul doesn't fight to restore to your rightful age. Sure this would need Investiture too, but a constant expenditure instead of an incremental one (like the Rashek's case).

There is also an hypotesis I proposed years ago, that Breath pushes you far from humanity and from the humanity standard. Your soul at that point tries more loosely to follow the "age-check". This reaches a limit with the fifth Heighening, where your Soul doesn't even try to check the compliance to "humanity standards"

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

I think at this point it’s really difficult to say one way or another. Of all the magic systems Brandon has invented, BioChroma is in my opinion by far the least well-defined (and in my opinion hardly even coherent) of the lot. So until Brandon goes more into depth about it, I don’t think we can draw any confident conclusions regarding it whatsoever.

[tmnsquirtle]

15 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

I think at this point it’s really difficult to say one way or another. Of all the magic systems Brandon has invented, BioChroma is in my opinion by far the least well-defined (and in my opinion hardly even coherent) of the lot. So until Brandon goes more into depth about it, I don’t think we can draw any confident conclusions regarding it whatsoever.

Here's hoping he gets around to answering those questions in Nightblood! (And gets around to writing it soon! )