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Brandon Sanderson / Awakening: Immoral Practice?
« on: July 14, 2010, 07:28:14 PM »
I recently finished Warbreaker and though I didn't think it was as strong as Mistborn (after reading about Allomancy, Awakening is rather ho-hum by comparison) I was struck by a philosophical notion:
Vivenna might have been prissy and naive towards the beginning of the story, but she was right about one thing: collecting the Breath of others, and by extension Awakening, is a morally bankrupt practice.
It is difficult to objectively analyze this issue because Sanderson doesn't tell us very much about the long-term effects of becoming a Drab but here are a few conclusions I was able to draw:
The consequences of losing one's Breath include, reduced life-expectancy, reduced resistance to sickness and disease, increased vulnerability to being snuck up on, increased predisposition to depression or melancholy, and general lack of joie de vive.
I belive that selling one's Breath is sort of like selling a kidney, or perhaps prostituting oneself: no, it isn't fatal but the physiological and psycological impact is life-long, far-reaching, and hard to quantify. Even if a person isn't coerced into doing so, taking advantage of anothers destitution in this way seems at best callous and at worst downright vampiric. These issues are, of course, greatly exacerbated when children are the victim.
Given all this, I see Awakeners and Gods as similar to people who buy products made from sweat shops: they might not be directly responsible in taking advantage of others but their patronage enables the practice to flourish. This makes Vivenna's descision at the end to embrace Awakening somewhat baffling.
Thoughts? Rebuttals?
Vivenna might have been prissy and naive towards the beginning of the story, but she was right about one thing: collecting the Breath of others, and by extension Awakening, is a morally bankrupt practice.
It is difficult to objectively analyze this issue because Sanderson doesn't tell us very much about the long-term effects of becoming a Drab but here are a few conclusions I was able to draw:
The consequences of losing one's Breath include, reduced life-expectancy, reduced resistance to sickness and disease, increased vulnerability to being snuck up on, increased predisposition to depression or melancholy, and general lack of joie de vive.
I belive that selling one's Breath is sort of like selling a kidney, or perhaps prostituting oneself: no, it isn't fatal but the physiological and psycological impact is life-long, far-reaching, and hard to quantify. Even if a person isn't coerced into doing so, taking advantage of anothers destitution in this way seems at best callous and at worst downright vampiric. These issues are, of course, greatly exacerbated when children are the victim.
Given all this, I see Awakeners and Gods as similar to people who buy products made from sweat shops: they might not be directly responsible in taking advantage of others but their patronage enables the practice to flourish. This makes Vivenna's descision at the end to embrace Awakening somewhat baffling.
Thoughts? Rebuttals?