Welcome back to the Warbreaker reread! Last week, Lightsong learned the theology of his own religion, and Siri discovered that she’d survived the night after all. This week, Vivenna tries to figure out how to keep her skin and her ideals intact, and Siri is prepared for presentation at the Court of Gods.
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 13
Point of View: Vivenna, Siri
Setting: Lemex’s home in T’Telir; the God King’s palace
Timing: The day after Chapter 10, 11, and 12
Take a Deep Breath
Vivenna wrestles with her two major problems: what to do with all that Breath, and what to do with herself now that she has no mentor in the city. She and the mercenaries each suggest alternatives for the first problem, but each seems worse than the last; she decides to just hold on to it for a while. The second problem will take a lot more thinking.
Denth and Tonk Fah play games with Vivenna’s naiveté, leading her to the point of transferring their contract with Lemex to her. She also admits her purpose in coming to T’Telir: to rescue her sister, sneaking her out of the God King’s palace, taking her place if necessary—but it has to be done in a way that can’t be traced to Idris. She doesn’t want to start the war, after all.
They claim to have been working on projects for Lemex, but at the same time to not really know what he was up to. Vivenna, shaken by the idea that he’d been embezzling money to purchase more Breath, decides that she has to find out more. They prepare to ransack the house; Vivenna insists on supervising, but they remind her that today is the day Siri will be presented at the Court. Ordinary citizens—or foreigners—can’t just walk into the Court, of course… but it turns out that someone holding her current quantity of Breath—probably about 500—is automatically considered important enough to be admitted immediately.
Meanwhile, Siri is getting her hair and makeup done, in preparation for her formal presentation. Blond with excitement, her “Wedding Jubilation” is finally over, and she will be able to leave the palace at last. The possibility of talking with someone other than priests, scribes, and servants is going to be a relief—and she’ll finally get to see her husband in daylight. The process of choosing clothing begins, and a crazy idea occurs to her: she could try on a whole bunch of things before she has to decide! The serving women clearly are wondering why she needs to ask permission for something so obvious, but she’s never actually had the opportunity until she came to Hallandren. With a hint of guilt, quickly rationalized, she decides to enjoy the frivolity of trying on everything.
Breathtaking
Vivenna folded her arms, not moving. “I’ve been tutored all about these things, Denth. Regular people can’t just walk into the Court of Gods. If you want to watch the judgments at the Court Assembly, you either have to be favored of one of the gods, be extremely influential, or you have to draw and win the lottery.”
“True,” Denth said, leaning against the banister. “If only we knew someone with enough BioChromatic Breaths to instantly be considered important, and therefore gain entrance to the court without being questioned.”
“Ah, Denth,” Tonk Fah said. “Someone has to have at least fifty Breaths to be considered worthy! That’s a terribly high number.”
Vivenna paused. “And… how many Breaths do I have?”
“Oh, around five hundred or so,” Denth said. “At least, that’s what Lemex claimed. I’m inclined to believe him. You are, after all, making the carpet shine.”
Oh, Vivenna. So confident in your lessons and abilities, and you have no idea that they’re laughing at your ignorance all the time, playing you like a fiddle.
Local Color
The first annotation concerns something that (you may have noticed!) has been bugging me: the timing of these chapters. It’s basically and admittedly messy, due to a last-minute editorial request to set Vivenna’s chapters earlier in the sequence. So, yes, last week’s scene with Lightsong was to have taken place several days earlier; you can decide whether it matters to you, and either say they aren’t quite chronological (as per the author) or that the “few days” references should have been changed. Anyway, yes, it was off, and I feel vindicated now. So there.
The remaining annotations concern the relative movement of Vivenna and Siri in their character development, Tonk Fah’s reference to pets (meaning Clod, not the bird), and Denth’s motivations in the mind games he’s playing with Vivenna. I’m glad I didn’t read the annotations along with the book the first time through; knowing what was going on with him would really have spoiled the effect of his betrayal.
Snow White and Rose Red
Vivenna, new in town but confident in her training, continues her devolution in this chapter. Last time we saw her, she was consciously flustered by the unexpectedness of T’Telir, the mercenaries, the death of Lemex, and the unwelcome gift of a whole lot of Breath. After a night’s sleep, she has regained much of her confidence, but that really is only making her situation worse by being so misplaced. She is being cleverly manipulated by Denth to become a puppet for his real employers, all the while thinking she is the one making the decisions. Ever so carefully, she’s being shifted from action to reaction.
Siri, on the other hand, was never confidently active before. She was always the one who reacted to restrictions, generally if unconsciously controlled by her desire to not do what was expected of her. She’s been learning to control her emotions, for one thing. Now in these last couple of days, she’s begun to consider what she actually wants and needs to do, rather than being controlled either by fearful acquiescence to, or stubborn rebellion against, the expectations placed on her. She doesn’t see it yet, but it’s starting. She’s becoming active on her own behalf and that of her people.
As I Live and Breathe
We learn something new about Breath in this chapter! Unfortunately for the first-time reader as well as Vivenna, much of what we learn is wrong. Her idea of giving away one Breath at a time to the first 500 Drabs she can find would actually probably work, if she practiced and got good enough at it to manage that much control. Since that wouldn’t suit Denth’s purpose, he informs her that it’s impossible: if she gives any she’ll have to give it all. Tonk Fah suggests putting it in an object, which Denth promptly extends to Awakening—anathema to a devout follower of Austre. Since we’ve already watched Vasher divide his breath several times, both for Awakening and for simple storage, we (should) know neither of these things are true, but Vivenna certainly doesn’t. With the only options being to become a Drab herself, use it for Awakening, or keep it, she is left to make the least unpalatable choice. Losing her soul is certainly not a valid option, and Awakening monstrosities using the souls of others just as bad—so she keeps it.
Oh, one thing is almost true—Denth says she probably has around 500 or so Breaths, according to Lemex’s claim. Given that she notes her strange new sense of color, “like perfect pitch for the eyes,” she has at least the third Heightening, or 600 Breaths.
In Living Color
The unreliable narrator, while not obvious on a first read, comes to the forefront in Denth’s lies to Vivenna: lies primarily about Breath, but also about Lemex and his own knowledge of Lemex’s activities. He feeds her a clever mix of truth and falsehood—enough truth that can be readily confirmed, mixed with false statements which cannot be so readily disproven—so that she is groomed to accept his self-deprecatory manner as essentially truthful. In this case, his lies about how Breath can be used are directed to keeping Lemex’s entire stock intact, with a view to eventually maneuvering Vivenna into giving it all to him. In the annotations, we see that he expects to have to torture it out of her, but until her other usefulness is done, he’ll try other means to manipulate her into trusting him.
Exhale
Vivenna is so vulnerable to the likable, persuasive villain it’s not even funny. Denth doesn’t try to be too likable, or too persuasive, but through his shifting between odd humor and (a pretense of) serious honesty, she starts to feel like she can read him. Big mistake, of course…
And so… she reaches the end of this chapter thinking that she’s making decisions and moving forward. In reality, she’s doing everything Denth wants. She’s “maintaining his contract”—which leaves her in his power just as much as Lemex ever was. She’s keeping her Breath stock intact, ready for him to extort from her when he wishes. She even prepares to go off to Court to see Siri, giving him ample opportunity to arrange any and all of Lemex’s records and property in ways that will convince her to do the things he wants, thinking she’s serving her people but really only being used as a puppet.
Oh, Vivenna. At least Siri is having fun frivoling with her wardrobe, finally!
That’s it for the blog—now it’s time for the comments! Join us again next week, when we will cover Chapter 14, in which Lightsong, Blushweaver, Siri, Vivenna, Parlin, and the God King all attend the Court Assembly.
Alice Arneson is a SAHM, blogger, beta reader, and literature fan. Please forgive any apparent neglect of the discussion in the upcoming weeks; the onset of the Oathbringer beta read has distracted her, and will likely be occupying a great deal of her attention for the next month or two.
For all his lies Denth’s point about mercenaries still rings true to me. It’s just that Vivenna isn’t actually his client
Not defending Vivienne but denth has had hundreds of years to practice. So it’s not surprising that she got sucked in.
Around this time I find myself questioning what Vivenna’s tutors spent all those years teaching her about Hallandren. Sure, negotiation and such were involved but you’d think they would have taught her the names of influential priests or merchants loyal to Idris that she could turn to if Lemex didn’t work out. Not that it would have helped much once Denth got his hands on her as he’s way too experienced to let her get away. But the thought that the one and only person she could contact in the city being Lemex is just a bit of a stretch. Maybe it goes into how different the actuality of the city was vs the Idrian expectation of it is.
*Have fun beta reading while we sit around ticking off days on the calendar until November gets here. And no spoilers!
Ah, poor, stupid, Princess Vivenna. As someone who refused to trust a character whose opening line was “I’m here to kill you.” I never trusted Denth. I didn’t realize the depths to which Tonk would sink until I saw the basement (Lord of Colors, that basement, *shiver*), but I knew straightaway that their double act was blinding Vivenna to the danger she was in.
Also the fact that she’s still clinging to her misconceptions for dear life (e.g. Why wouldn’t Austre reward Vivenna for giving up her Breaths like Denth describes? Drawing attention to herself is clearly not on her mind) makes her chapters, as I’ve mentioned, exercises in frustration.
I think this part is one of the reasons why many readers do not like Vivienne. I might be entirely wrong though. I kind of feel bad for her here but not enough to to like her
I think the not liking vivienne is the sense of self importance she places on herself – her she has to go save her sister as she was the only one who could Marry the God King and her sister is hoplessly out of depth (in her mind). She doesn’t trust her father or her fathers love. Now she is also doing this out of love for her sister but that only helps so much.
One thing – yes we have seen breath divided but have we seen any divide it in giving it to another person? It may very well be true that breath can not be divided when giving it to another person – what you say is my breath to you not part of my breath to you. I don’t know. I don’t see any reason that it could be dividable in one place and not dividable in another.
@6: Well, Vasher supposedly isn’t able to hold back breath when he tricks Denth, so that would indicate that he cannot divide them. But on the other hand, he doesn’t give up his divine breath at that point, so apparently some smattering of control seems possible in that regard.
If nothing else, Vasher showed us it’s possible to put a specific amount of Breath into an object while retaining the rest, right? So you should be able to put all but one into the object, and give that one to a person. Then you go pull Breath back out of the object, rinse, and repeat.
Also, yes, I agree. Much of the reason people dislike Vivenna is her initial sense of self-importance, and first impressions … last.
I absolutely love the idea of being ” blonde with excitement”.
I must be in the minority since I don’t dislike Vivienna. I feel sorry for her. During my first reading I liked Denth and felt the betrayal as strongly as she did. You can never have the innocence of the first read again.
@8: Yes, that would certainly work (with sufficient practice).
Mind if I ask what anyone thinks about my post?
Doesn’t Vasher give a breath to a child later on in the book?
I actually still like Denth despite his lying. He’s doing it for pretty logical reasons, and it’s not exactly his fault that he’s being employed by someone else. Also, he doesn’t have any particular reason to like Vivenna at this point. Sure, he has other motivations going on too, but I like complicated characters with multiple motivations that aren’t necessarily doing the right thing!
From what I’ve seen of mercenaries in Warbreaker and other books, however, I’m starting to wonder why people hire mercenaries at all. It seems like they’re bound to get bought off from under you and then betray you. And there’s no real way to prevent it! This, however, is probably one of those things that shows up more in books than real life.
Denth’s line of “Do you think a surgeon has this problem? Do people worry that the moment they’re done paying him, he’ll laugh maniacally and cut off their toes?” prompted me to think of Kaladin, which gave me a laugh.
@1, 11 BenW – I feel exactly the same way. I love everything that Denth says about being a mercenary.
@8 Wetlandernw – I guess it would technically be possible to do that, but it would probably take a lot of fiddling to leave you with exactly one Breath. IIRC, there isn’t a way to just put a specific number of Breaths in one object, outside of knowing how many Breaths it takes to Awaken something and then using that.
Also, how exactly are you going to tell the difference between having one Breath and two? Would it really be that different of an experience? Do you need someone with enough Breaths to tell this sort of thing standing there and telling you how many Breaths you have left?
theinsolublelurnip @13 – It should be possible, if incredibly frustrating. It would take practice and control.
The point is, though, that Denth totally lied about it, telling her that she had to treat the whole thing as a lump – give it all away at once (and become a Drab), put it all in an object (implied and become a Drab), or keep it all. Even without precise control, she should be able to practice enough to dole out relatively small amounts – but now she thinks that’s impossible. Denth does NOT want her doing anything with it but being a storage unit until he decides he wants it.
What vasher does at the end is he had to use enough breaths to be able to stun the person receiving it. Plus I don’t think he wanted to give the surprise away by lowering the amount of breaths he had before he went for the kill.
It is definitely interesting rereading this knowing what is actually going on – but I can’t dislike Vivenna too much. I can’t say I would have done any better in her position. Plus as a young adult, I was probably similarly confident/obnoxious about my knowledge of how the world worked ;) I think her journey is an interesting one.
Is there a European version of the book that calls her Vivienne? People keep calling her that in the comments, but it’s Vivenna.
I think it would be pretty fiddly to separate out one Breath at a time, but if you could do it and wanted to hand them out to Drabs, I think you’d want to invest a number of small objects with one Breath each and then store the rest in something else ahead of time. Then go out and retrieve one at a time to transfer it to the recipient.
Reiko @@@@@ 17 – Ever heard of autocorrect? LOL
@@@@@ 13 and 14 – When it comes to whether it is possible to parse out Breaths one at a time vs a lot at a time, or just enough to leave you with one, I think there are at least two factors involved. The first of course, is Intent, as you have to know what you want to do; this will take time and practice to get perfect, but Vasher is certainly someone who would have enough practice for something like that, and as we all know, Denth is a lying sack of something-or-other. The next factor, related to the first, is whether you are Awakening an object, or simply just transferring your Breath. I feel like there is more control allowed when just transferring your Breath to an inanimate object vs Awakening it, just as there is a difference between Awakening an object that resembles a human vs any old object. There’s probably more factors that I’m missing/forgetting, but I think that these two points are the basics.
Speaking of the girls’ names, it must have been amusing to Mr. Sanderson when Apple named their personal assistant after his heroine, a couple of years after Warbreaker came out.
@1: I liked Denth’s mercenary comments. My only experience with mercenaries have been literary ones, but the jokes seemed to play well with the overall culture I’ve seen in the better books that use them. And jokes made by the military guys I do know personally, but none of them are mercenaries.
The contrast between Siri being so happy with all the colors and Vivenna’s disgust is so sharp. It also made me think that Vivenna never tried to understand her sister. Yes, young Siri would be overwhelmed. But Vivenna never even seemed to take a minute to think – “Wow, Siri loves color. Maybe she thinks it’s pretty.”
And like the comment @3, I’m left wondering what her tutors taught her. Deportment and politics are good. Yet if you know you are being shipped to another culture, shouldn’t Culture appreciation 101 be on the menu at some point during a lifetime of learning? Especially the part where the Queen Has No Power? At least, not in this court.
Re: the timing: Am I weird for being so jaded about timing in books that I never assume things are happening “in order” unless explicitly told so? I mean, my head will arrange them in a way like “these are happening somewhat close together” when I am not given an explicit reference (while still holding open the idea that I could be wrong). But when I am given a reference, such as the Lightbringer chapter, I would have said “oh, so those were out of order” and not thought anything of it.
Like, it’d be one thing if Lightbringer said “1 day ago I met Vivienne, and today the festival ended” while Vivienne said “I met Lightbringer 2 days ago and today festival ended” — in which case you have two things that cannot possibly be true. That’s an error. But having two chapters occur “out of order”? Pfah, big deal.
It just seems that the whole “not occurring synchronously like you thought” twist has been a little overused lately, which is why I don’t typically assume it must be chronological, or even happening in a near timeline.
#22 after reading so much Robert Jordan I gave up on trying to keep track of time synchronization. I now read and put everything grouped into what happened around major events.
@22 – I think it comes from beta reading. Little details like mentions of timing are my job when I’m doing that; if they aren’t right, it creates problems later. So now I get obsessive about it when I read in detail like this.
I like Vivenna. She’s definitely conceited, naive and biased, and she’s certainly unaware of it, but the fact that when her little sister is in danger, the first thing she does is to try to save her is noble enough – and something I myself might be inclined to do. The fact that Siri is not as helpless and lost as she believes she must be, or the fact that she herself is not nearly as prepared to survive in this new world as she believes shouldn’t be held against her – she WANTS TO HELP HER SISTER!
Yes, she’s slow to question her own prejudices, but I think that’s a far more common trait among people than any of us would like to believe. Confirmation and other biases are difficult to overcome, and I daresay each of us on this thread would be hard-pressed to quickly overcome our own, if put into a similar situation. And she is a Princess – she’s likely been told how wonderful, amazing, smart, and perfect she is since she was born. I can’t blame her for being slow to accept that she’s not quite what she’s been led to believe.
She gets there in the end, at least to an extent. I hope that in the end, I’m as capable of change as she proved to be.