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« on: July 16, 2010, 10:10:00 PM »
First, a couple of points of order:
Vivenna caught some kind of disease within days of becoming a Drab even though she had been in Hallandren for months. This suggests to me that the toll on the body's immune system is fairly significant once your Breath is lost. Exactly how significant the loss to life-expectancy is, however, is unclear.
Also, Sanderson did make it clear that giving up Breath was an all-or-nothing affair. You can't dole out individual Breaths from your stockpile to others.
Given that, it does make Vivenna's unique situation a bit more sympathetic: the Breath was thrust on her without her consent and the only way she could rid herself of it is to become a Drab herself. However, using Awakening in the heat of battle to save one's life (or her sister's life) is one thing; embracing the Awakener lifestyle once the danger is past is something else altogether. I thought she might perhaps dedicate her significantly longer life-span to helping the needy or perhaps sell the wealth of Breath and use the funds to set up a trust that people could turn to as an alternative to selling their Breath.
As far as giving up your Breath on your deathbed to help the next generation, I don't see anything morally wrong with that. Creating a kind of family heirloom of the Breath passed from grandparent to grandchild for generations so that each new generation leads a healthier life than the last sounds like a good idea.
The real issue is when perfectly healthy people or children are coerced, brainwashed (through religion?), or bribed into giving up their Breath. Breath has to come from somewhere, and people who are financially stable are unlikely to give up an unknown number of years off of their lifespan (not to mention put up with more sick days and melancholy to boot) for a quick score. That means the most likely candidates are those who are destitute. Ergo, anyone who willingly buys Breath is profiting from the misery of others, which covers the majority of Awakeners.
Finally, as far as a family or community pooling their collective Breath into one person; that might make sense if the community were threatened by a discrete, immediate, existential threat that an Awakener might be able to deal with. Otherwise, what's the point? What could an Awakener accomplish for the community that would be worth dozens of people dying sooner, being weaker of constitution, and taking less joy from life?