Welcome back to the Warbreaker reread! Last week, Vivenna learned some very difficult recent history, while Siri learned unexpected ancient history. This week, Vivenna confronts hard truths, badly.
This reread will contain spoilers for all of Warbreaker and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. This is particularly likely to include Words of Radiance, due to certain crossover characters. The index for this reread can be found here. Click on through to join the discussion.
Chapter 33
Point of View: Vivenna
Setting: The mercenaries’ safehouse and headquarters
Timing: Later in the same day as Chapter 31
Take a Deep Breath
Vivenna watches Jewels work to repair Clod as they wait in the safe house for things to calm down, and reflects on her reactions to her recent fright—not a flattering evaluation, all in all. Jewels mutters to Clod as she works, clearly annoyed at the damage he sustained while protecting Vivenna.
Denth enters the room and sits beside Vivenna, offering encouragement despite her perceived failure during the raid, but she startles him by asking him to teach her Awakening. Suddenly, she pours out all her anger at Hallandren and admits that coming to T’Telir was to regain some purpose in her life after Siri was sent in her place. Reluctant to explain further to Denth, she turns the subject back to the work Jewels is doing on Clod, and learns more about the Lifeless—this one in particular, and the construct in general, going all the way back to the Manywar.
The conversation turns again to Awakening, and Denth gives her a few casual instructions about how it works, which she vows to start practicing. As he prepares to leave, she thanks him for being more than just a good employee: he’s a good man, she says. He denies the charge, but before she can say more, Tonk Fah returns; with Jewels finished working on Clod, they all return to headquarters.
Parlin rushes to meet them, checking on Jewels before Vivenna. Irritated at his priorities, she challenges him and discovers to her shock that he isn’t and never has been in love with her. Overwhelmed by another unexpected revelation on this crazy day, she retires to her room and bolts the door, but one more shock awaits her: Vasher is on her balcony, and Awakens her drapes to strangle her into unconsciousness.
Breathtaking
“Should you be saying things like that?” Vivenna asked, noticing halfheartedly that her hair was turning red again. “Aren’t you engaged to me?”
He frowned. “You were engaged to the God King, Vivenna.”
“But you know what our fathers wanted,” she said, hands on hips.
“I did,” Parlin said. “But, well, when we left Idris, I figured we were both going to get disinherited. There’s really no reason to keep up the charade.”
Charade?
“I mean, let’s be honest, Vivenna,” he said, smiling. “You really haven’t ever been that nice to me. I know you think I’m stupid; I guess you’re probably right. But if you really cared, I figured that you wouldn’t make me feel stupid, too. Jewels grumbles at me, but she laughs at my jokes sometimes. You’ve never done that.”
“But…” Vivenna said, finding herself at a slight loss for words. “But why did you follow me down to Hallandren?”
He blinked. “Well, for Siri, of course. Isn’t that why we came? To rescue her?” He smiled fondly, then shrugged. “Good night, Vivenna.” He trailed down the steps, calling to Jewels to see if she was hurt.
Well, ouch. And well-deserved, too. I’m not sure whether to pity her cluelessness, or snarl at her thoughtlessness. Both, probably, but I find the thoughtlessness less excusable. Ah, well. They’re both going to have other concerns soon enough.
Local Color
The first of the annotations is a fairly extended elaboration on Denth’s explanation about the Lifeless. You should probably read it. The second annotation is about Vivenna’s acknowledgement of her reasons for coming to T’Telir, which we’ll talk about a bit more below. The third is a brief backstory on Sanderson’s development of Awakening as a magic system, and how it came to be part of Warbreaker. The final note concerns the sudden acceleration of Vivenna’s plot; it’s been a little slow up to this point, but with Vasher kidnapping her, the pace picks up a tad.
Snow White and Rose Red
Our girl Vivenna is starting to seriously come from together. Last week (or this morning, depending on how you look at it), in her panic over the Lifeless she lost control of all the things she held dear: modesty meant nothing when she needed to run; hair color meant nothing when trying to survive; blasphemy meant nothing if Awakening a rope could save her life. In the face of all this failure, she’s ready to throw away all her beliefs—since apparently she didn’t really believe them – for the sole purpose of destroying Hallandren.
While I disagree with her conclusion, it’s understandable. The will to survive is so instinctive that only training and practice—not mere intellectual loathing—can give a person the strength to resist using whatever tools come to hand when in danger. Of course, sometimes lack of training with that tool means that the desire is inadequate to the execution, as Vivenna learned to her chagrin. (Let me take this opportunity to highly recommend a good pepper-spray training seminar—one with a practical scenario included. Ask me why, sometime.)
Anyway… the corollary to Vivenna’s religious failures is the revelation—not least, to herself—of just how much, and why, she hates Hallandren. As the larger, stronger nation, always a threat to her homeland, she blames this kingdom for stealing her childhood: by forcing her father into a treaty which promised her as the God King’s bride, her entire life was spent preparing for that task. Worse yet, because of this kingdom whose insatiable urge to devour Idris made the treaty too dangerous to fulfill as planned, Dedelin ultimately couldn’t bring himself to send Vivenna to either be killed or become a hostage. For that, too, she hates Hallandren: their aggressiveness caused her father to send Siri in her place, so that not only is her little sister in danger, she herself is proven to have sacrificed her entire life (all 22 years of it, mind you…) for nothing.
While I can understand her attitude, I can’t help noticing that she heaps all the blame on Hallandren for forcing the situation, accepting none of the blame for her father, her kingdom, or herself. Hallandren certainly appears to have been the aggressor, but it seems to me that she should face the fact that her father himself created the treaty when she was barely a baby. Not that anger at her father would help in this situation, though, so there’s that.
The other thing I can’t help noticing is that in her unbridled hatred, she overlooks the fact that her resources are no different than they ever were, with the minor exception that she’s willing to become an Awakener. She still represents the smaller, weaker nation, and her only assets in T’Telir are a little band of mercenaries and their contacts—mostly among the criminal element. How, exactly, is this going to suddenly be able to “destroy the Hallandren,” pray tell?
(From the rereader’s perspective, this is especially painful because for one thing, she’s totally playing into Denth’s hands; for another, both Hallandren and Idris are being manipulated by other forces, so her hatred is misguided anyway. Sigh.)
So after baring her soul to Denth, she’s forced to realize that Parlin isn’t in love with her, and he really did come to T’Telir for the reasons she only pretended. And then Vasher shows up. Plot twist!
As I Live and Breathe
We’ve picked up some bits and pieces about Awakening from watching Vasher, mostly. Courtesy of Denth, we now get some of the mechanics explained:
“Well,” Denth said, “there are a lot of Commands. If you want to bring a rope to life—like that one you tried to use back in the alleyway—a good Command is ‘hold things.’ Speak it with a clear voice, willing your Breath to act. If you do it right, the rope will grab whatever is closest. ‘Protect me’ is another good one, though it can be interpreted in fairly strange ways if you don’t imagine exactly what you want.”
“Imagine?” Vivenna asked.
He nodded. “You have to form the Command in your head, not just speak it. The Breath you give up, it’s part of your life. Your soul, you Idrians would say. When you Awaken something, it becomes part of you. If you’re good—and practiced—the things you Awaken will do what you expect of them. They’re part of you. They understand, just like your hands understand what you want them to do.”
He also points out that since she holds a lot of Breath and is fairly clever, she should be able to pick it up quickly. He even admits that what he just told her is common knowledge, so he can continue his self-deprecating persona. It’s worth noting that he doesn’t say anything about specifically giving her Breath to an object, though perhaps that’s instinctive; he also doesn’t tell her how to recover her Breath, once given. I’m not sure if that’s an oversight (and if so, whether on Denth’s part or Sanderson’s) or deliberate, but… there it is.
Theory time: Does the effect Denth mentions, that when you Awaken something it becomes part of you, have to do with the way Endowment works? I’m not quite sure how to say what I’m trying to say here, but… off the top of my head, I can’t recall any other magic system in the Cosmere where the stuff you work with is part of your soul. Lightweaving, maybe, sort of? And Feruchemy is (or was) inextricably tied to Identity, so that’s closer. But I think this is the only one where you give (endow?) an object a piece of your soul, and that object—while still an external object—becomes an extension of yourself. (Correct me in the comments!)
Clashing Colors
While there’s nothing overt about other cultures in this chapter, the subject matter keeps forcing me to recall the meddling and manipulation going on, that we haven’t learned about yet. While Vivenna blames Hallandren for everything, most of the Hallandren decision-makers are being manipulated by those who would be delighted to see Hallandren and Idris destroy each other to the last man. I keep not getting deeply into it, because the time just doesn’t seem right, but it looms over everything.
In Living Color
Denth is mostly maintaining his “jovial mercenary” role, but there are hints… The first-time reader might be starting to get a bit edgy about him by now (or perhaps not), and the rereader can’t help seeing details that are out of place when you know who he is. There are a couple of allusions to the five Scholars—first, their discovery of the ichor-alcohol which would keep Lifeless going; second, the discovery of some new Commands. Denth claims not to know which one was responsible for this second one, but I’m betting he actually means the Commands that Vasher used to create the D’Denir, and even more, the Command that Awakened Nightblood. In both cases, he knows exactly who discovered them—and in the latter, his sister was, shall we say, intimately involved? So, major evasion up in here.
The really telling moment, even for a first read, should be this:
She shook her head. “It’s more than that. You’re a good man, Denth.”
He met her eyes, and she could see something in them. An emotion she couldn’t describe. Again, she thought of the mask he wore—the persona of the laughing, joking mercenary. That man seemed just a front, when she looked into those eyes, and saw so much more.
“A good man,” he said, turning away. “Sometimes, I wish that were still true, Princess. I haven’t been a good man for some years now.”
Well, in that he for once speaks truth.
Don’t Hold Your Breath (Give it to me!)
For all that he does almost nothing, this chapter swirls around the Lifeless Clod. Vivenna finds that she has developed an odd pity and even a sort of affection for him. Jewels grumbles at him but is dedicated and meticulous as she works on his repairs. Denth, while pretending that he knows nothing of who Clod used to be, nonetheless admits that he was very skillful in life. And as Vivenna recalls a moment of humanity on Clod’s face when he was defending her, she has to face the fact that Clod is, in a sense, much more than an undead monstrosity… or at least he once was, and may even now be something more than she assumed.
Also, howl of the sun. Just… keep that one in mind, eh? Might come in handy!
Exhale
A few last thoughts on Parlin. One of those “safe assumptions” of Vivenna’s recent years was that Parlin was in love with her, even though she was promised to Susebron. The exchange quoted above is further evidence that she was focused so tightly on her own role (and her own noble self-sacrifice) that she never bothered to understand those around her. I found his last sentiments very poignant this time, for reasons we’ll get into next week (I hope); Parlin actually did come to rescue Siri, because he’s fond of her, like a little sister. ::sniffle::
Along the lines of “keep that one in mind”—here’s another. Vivenna and Parlin talk briefly on the stairs here; no one else hears their conversation, so no one knows that it was purely personal. This will Matter in a couple of chapters.
That’s it, folks. Now it’s time for the comments! Join us again next week, when we will cover chapter 34, in which Lightsong muses, Siri muses, Blushweaver insults, and Bluefingers misleads; and if we make it to 35, Vivenna… struggles.
Alice Arneson is a SAHM, blogger, beta reader, and literature fan. She would like to point out that the Oathbringer draft 4 & 5 progress bar is up to 62% – so Sanderson is working hard on the middle of Part 3, on a guess. Draft 6, incorporating final feedback from the editor, is anticipated by late June, give or take a couple of weeks.
So when you start dumping breaths into damaged Lifeless, are the extra ones still unrecoverable? Is there a point when the breaths stop sticking and can be called back like with an ordinary object?
This quote above from Brandon explains so much about the Way of Kings.
Welcome to the moment you draw in a breath before everything breaks apart.
I wish I can remember if Denth was ringing my alarm bells at this point or not. I think, if so, it was a mild sense of off. Not a full blown sense of “No!”
@1: I don’t think so. Maybe if you started with a pile of bones you then wanted to animate. But creating a true Lifeless takes a breath you can’t get back. So any extra you poor in remains gone.
I’m sure someone on the 17th Shard has the answer.
Re: magic being an extension of soul…
The closest I can think of is the magic of Sel. (Devotion and Dominion.) Specifically, the stamping magic from The Emperor’s Soul.
(Speaking of Sel, I endlessly find it interesting that the “good” god of the planet is Domi, which is presumably Dominion, not Devotion. A neat transposition on Sanderson’s part. I wonder if Jaddeth is a corruption of Devotion somehow, linguistically?)
I’ve found Vivenna so self involved and myopic she has been very hard to like, or even empathize with. Her failure with the Awakening of the rope, and Parlin stating his true feelings, was a much needed rude awakening.
I haven’t read ahead, so I don’t know what Vasher is up to, but I’m glad something is happening!!
I was hoping that there would be more to Clod, and I suppose there still could be, just not in this book. There were several moments where Viv sees the humanity in him. I kept thinking at this time that he’d, er, awaken a bit by the end of the novel.
“It’s worth noting that he doesn’t say anything about specifically giving her Breath to an object, though perhaps that’s instinctive; he also doesn’t tell her how to recover her Breath, once given. I’m not sure if that’s an oversight (and if so, whether on Denth’s part or Sanderson’s) or deliberate, but… there it is.”
It’s deliberate by Denth, I think. IIRC, this is in one of the annotations–Denth tried to convince Viv earlier to pass on her entire store of Breaths to him, or keep it, rather than distributing one-by-one to commoners, by portraying it as an all-or-nothing deal. But if she knew more of the mechanics of Awakening she might have figured out she could parcel them out by storing some in objects then recalling.
@1 and @3
I think that’s a great question. It would be cool to get an official answer sometime. On a related note: can anyone with the commands add breath to a damaged lifeless or only the original awakener who made it?
This scene exemplifies why I so dislike Vivenna. It’s true that she gets more likable later, but I have trouble empathizing with her, after her character’s set up thus far.
So what exactly has Vivenna been so dilligently learning for 22 years? IIRC the _only_ plot segment where she successfully applies something that she was taught is coming up. Before and after – pretty much crickets. She comes across as rather dim, sadly.
And I never understood why she felt that her life would have been wasted if she became her father’s heir. There still would have been military for her brother and whatever education she received was apparently aimed at making her a model Idrian, instead of teaching her anything whatsoever that might have been useful in a foreign country.
And, could she really not have cared about Siri that much or was she basically self-flagellating at that point? I mean, sure, part of her motivation was the feeling of being superflous, but she also was very worried for her little sister in her PoV throughout.
However, all other considerations pale compared to the mystery of the following question – how could the 2 pairs of Scholars possibly know that they were siblings?! Don’t they lose their memories upon Return and only regain them shortly before death and only if they are fulfilling the task that kept them back in the world in the first place? And isn’t it beyond odd that 2 pairs of siblings would Return in a relatively short period of time?
If Returned can live a long time the deaths and Returns of the siblings don’t have to happen close together.
I’m too nearsighted to see someone’s eyes as more than faint blurs unless their face is within a few inches of mine. Thus I don’t understand this business (in almost every story ever) about someone’s eyes revealing hidden emotions or personality traits. Eyelid position and eye movement could convey basic emotions like fear or tiredness, but subtler stuff? How does that work?
So I can’t fathom what Vivenna could have seen in Denth’s eyes here. Not saying it’s unrealistic — this is clearly A Thing — but impossible for me to envision.
My guess is that there was no taboo against telling Returned about their former lives during the five scholars time (Siri, IIRC, believed Returned had been granted extra days for their families and loved ones to say goodbye, so she wouldn’t see a problem in telling a Returned all about their family).
I would also guess the Hallandrens decided that, if the gods are returned without memories of their former lives, then the gods aren’t supposed to know about their former lives.
@12 – That’s a common…trope?…in fiction. I read all the time how someone saw something on someone’s face. I, myself, have never read such depth into facial movements and I doubt people can so casually see deep emotions/true feelings in someone’s eyes or face. At least, not as deeply as characters do in fiction.
The clue-by-four approacheth. To herald its arrival, we have the puncturing of yet more of Vivenna’s illusions about this undertaking – namely, that she completely forgot about Siri the moment she met Denth. And Parlin, sad as his next scene will be, at least gets a strong scene of his own here calling this out. (Made all the sweeter for those whose patience for Vivenna’s hand-wringing sanctimony was rapidly waning)
@Alice
“Lightweaving, maybe, sort of?” How about the surge of Transformation? A surgebinder gets to visit Shadesmar during the process (of Soulcasting). There’s a bit of an implied connection to the Spiritual Realm…but does it count?
ETA – Does a surgebinder create a short-lived Perpendicularity when they Soulcast? If yes, then I’m leaning toward the soul being involved, if not exactly the same way as with your endowment theory.
noblehunter @1
It seems as if the breath is slowly consumed by the Lifeless.
Braid_Tug @2
I didn’t trust Denth from the moment he told Vivenna that he and Tonk Fah were there to kill her. I don’t think I sorted out what he was up to until the reveal, though.
I’ll agree with Ellyne @13 about the sibling Scholars – at that time and place, there was no prohibition against telling Returned who they were, so they probably did know.
Clearly Vo, the first Returned, was told who he was & who his family was. During that week he lived, his wife got pregnant and the Idrian royal bloodline descended from them. So it’s highly probable that when the various Scholars Returned, (or at least the sibling ones) someone told them who they were. My personal theory is that in both cases, one sibling died and Returned, to be welcomed back to life by the remaining sibling; at some later point (as birgit suggested @11) the second sibling died and Returned, and they continued to work together.
It’s even possible that they were all scholars together before they died – maybe all five of them worked together in their first life, and then came back together as Returned. It’s a nice theory, anyway, although Vasher insists he doesn’t know his original name and doesn’t remember any of his first life. I would note that “not remembering” isn’t the same as “not knowing” – he could have been told all about it but is splitting hairs because he doesn’t actually remember it. But… if he really doesn’t know what his name was, it may be that he doesn’t know anything about his original self at all. And he does say that when he came back, the Cult of the Returned found him and kept him alive… so maybe he’s the only one of the Five who doesn’t know his own backstory.
@@.-@: I can think of one instance of people (FSVO) on another world animating human-like beings by putting part of their souls into them: Scadrial, where Ruin and Preservation explicitly created the local human-ish species by jointly embedding (endowing?) parts of themselves into each.
@6, pattheaniac: BKS has said that the sequel is where we get more of Clod.
As for slowness: I felt that way, too, especially the Vivenna but also the Lightsong segments. Just the Siri parts with maybe 50 pages each of these two would have been better for me as reader. I believe in the annotations (or one of his podcasts?) BKS mentions that most readers pick their favorite of the three leads as the “real” protagonist and treat all the rest as interruptions in the part of the story they care about. That’s certainly true of me.
@12, AeronaGreenjoy: I am very nearsighted (20/400) but my glasses correct me to 20/20. I can definitely pick up emotion from people’s expressions, including the muscles around the eyes. However, in this specific case, keep in mind that Vivenna has hundreds of Breaths and is (without necessarily always thinking about it) more perceptive than any un-enhanced human.
@@.-@ I believe Domi is Latin for Love
@19 Google says “domi” is translated from Latin to English as “at home”, which would make it the root for both “domicile” (the place you live) and “dominion” (the place that belongs to you).
@20 all i know is that domi actually refers to devotion by word of Brandon. the rest was a guess on my part
FWIW, Sanderson’s middle initial is W. Just sayin’.
@12: I agree with @18. I have good vision, except for reading….now. I can certainly detect emotion from people’s eyes….the movements, dilation, wateriness, the muscle movements of the lids and surrounding areas. I think they are truly the window to the soul. So, not a trope?
I’ve told enough bad jokes that I thought were hilarious, yet only elicited rage from others, to know exactly what that unspoken emotion looks like in the eyes of someone else. No, it’s definitely something that can be done when the person you’re talking to feels deeply about a specific thing, and whatever his faults, Denth clearly feels deeply that he has turned into a terrible person. He’s not wrong.
I understand all the frustration & annoyance towards Vivenna, but she still reads as sympathetic to me. She’s lost in the moment, and absolutely drifting, which to me explains her vacillation on what exactly she’s doing. She has gone from having a Important Purpose to feeling Useless, and is desperately grasping at straws for something to hold onto to give her life the type of meaning she once had. It’s pitiful, and she’s clearly not well adjusted in any sense, but she’s trying. And, eventually, she begins to learn – and that, to me, is a beautiful thing.
Oh, good. Confirmation of how much nonverbal communication and information — deliberate and unintended — I can’t perceive. Or convey very well, due to very thick gla5sses and eyes that uncontrollably move atound nonstop. *headdesk*
Sorry about the initials. There’s someone I deal with elsewhere online who signs his posts “BKS” and it just came out that way. Also as an older comics fan, BWS is Barry Windsor-Smith to me.
just posting so that this will be in the list of my conversations.
@Alice
The magic system that comes to mind when you mention giving a piece of your soul is Hemalurgy. I don’t know how specific you mean when you day “give” though, since Awakening is clearly intentional. On the other hand Hemalurgy rips a piece of the first person’s soul out and allows the spike to steal their power. Hemalurgy doesn’t really allow a person to freely give their power. I’m not totally sure what the spirit web that Khrissala wrotes about is, but i assume it’s like the vascular system in that it’s a network for the flow of investiture in the body, which complicates the idea of the soul a bit more.