Vadia--
Speaking of
anal...
I think the convention is that the Halladrens don't speak English (that would be an even bigger coincidence than them reinventing Freud), so Brandon has helpfully translated their speech
and their slang into something that would make sense to his audience, all at no extra charge.
Rose; Matt--
I came up with a thought experiment that could, er, shed a little light on this (admittedly picayune) problem.
Suppose you took a piece of gray or white paper into a light-proof room, illuminated only with colored light (say, a red laser diode). Then, the paper would appear, in our example, red. What would happen if you tried to use it for awakening?
If you could use the paper for awakening, but it stayed red, then there's no draining of color, and you just broke the magic system.
If you could use the paper for awakening, and it turned gray, then the "drained" paper must be somehow
changing the light that hits it into white light. I think this is what Matt meant by the draining being a "matter of physics".
- In this case, the color of the paper depends on the color of light that was hitting it initially, so you wouldn't be able to use it for awakening in the dark.
- Also, white and gray objects could be used for awakening (as you just did with the gray paper), but only once.
- You could tell if something had been used for awakening before by shining a colored light on it. If the reflected light came back white or gray, then you'd know the object had been used for awakening. Otherwise, it's just an ordinary white or gray object.
If you couldn't use the paper for awakening, then the magic must somehow "know" the paper is white or gray, even though it looks red. So when things turn gray, it must represent a change in the
thing, not just the light that comes off of it. I think that's what Matt meant by a "matter of chemistry".
- In this case, you could do awakening in the dark.
- But you couldn't do awakening with a white or gray object, since there'd be no difference between an ordinary white or gray object and a drained object.
So, from this thought experiment, we can see that EITHER you can do awakening in the dark, and awakening is a matter of chemistry, and gray objects can't be used; OR you can't do awakening in the dark, and awakening is a matter of physics, and gray objects can be used. All from column A, or all from column B; no combinations. (OR, awakening is a matter of (soft-core)
magic, and not comprehensible under any set of rules, but I think Brandon's allergic to that.)
I'm leaning towards awakening being a matter of chemistry, because it makes more sense that way that vibrant colors would be more effective. (The other option has objects undergoing a huge qualitative change when they're used for draining, where light actually physically changes when it comes in contact with the object. All objects would undergo this change equally, regardless of how vibrant they previously were.)
Of course, it goes without saying that a physical or chemical
mechanism that would explain the color changes would have to be so complicated that it's not worth trying to figure it out.