What if a Kandra Became an Awakener?

[Raven Wilder]

One of the rules of Awakening is that the more an object looks like a living being, the easier it is to Awaken. But suppose a kandra acquired some Breaths and became an Awakener. What would it mean for an object to "look like a kandra"?

[Dancer]

It would depend on how the Kandra sees itself. Most Kandra see themselves as humanoid. This is why they call a humanoid skeletal structure a "true body".   

[Quantus he/him]

Under normal circumstances I think the original owner of the Breath would be the determining factor, which would be whatever native Nalthian lost their breath.  I could see that being over-ridden if the Kandra had a particularly strong attachment to a non-humanoid form (dog, horse, dragon etc) it might override the original Identity of what a living being looks like.  But especially with a shapeshifter race, I'd generally expect them to have less firm attachment to a given form. 

Hmm, chasing the idea:  it would actually probably depends on a couple things that I can see.  If it's just mental image, Id say the kandra would have more flexibility than most.  If, on the other hand, it has to do with some resonance to the breath itself (the whole organic, voodoo doll efficiency mechanic) then the originator (the naltian native) might have imprinted the form when it was created (ir gestation, Im assuming).  

But it really gets interesting if you start to consider what happens if Nalthis gets a non-humanoid population that is sapient enough to be born with Breaths, like a kandra, dragon, maybe a Ryshadium (as the only non-shapeshifter of this quick list).  

[Weltall]

We know that sometimes it's not just the user's perceptions but the perceptions of the entire thinking population that matters. Brandon talks about this in relation to Rithmatist's chalklings which started out as a Cosmere work and the mechanics carried over. It's likely that Awakening's notion of what constitutes 'lifelike' is largely shaped by human perceptions since they're the ones performing most of it.

In this case it doesn't make too much difference since kandra think of themselves as generally humanoid. Most sapient species that could use Awakening would probably have the same general sets of perceptions and it shouldn't matter much for the magic; singers are humanoid, while not canonized the Sho Del are humanoid in the Dragonsteel Prime excerpts we see, dragons can assume human form... but I think if you had enough of a non-humanoid population that had Breath, over a long enough period of time, things might shift a bit.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Ookla the Crimson King

[Karger he/him]

I have a WoB that I hope is not a dream one that states that parshendi who awaken would use crab dolls rather then human ones.  A kandra might actually be able to shift forms to awaken more efficiently.