Warbreaker is a stand alone fantasy novel by Brandon Sanderson, who you may know as the author finishing The Wheel of Time series started by Robert Jordan. That is where I first saw Sanderson’s work, and I immediately fell in love with his writing. I started devouring his books, from his first fantasy novel, Elantris, to his Mistborn trilogy.
The reason I want to talk about Warbreaker first is simple – it’s absolutely phenomenal. He wove a wonderful tapestry of character growth, intrigue, and action all in a world with a dynamic and new magic system. It is a great read.
Warbreaker centers around the tale of two princesses: Vivenna and Siri, elder and younger respectively. Vivenna has been training since birth to eventually go to T’Telir and marry the God King, a member of the Returned, a resurrected people that died in a way that exemplifies a good trait of humanity. The sticky situation about these Returned are that they only stay alive for a week, unless they are given a Breath from another living person. Each person has a singular Breath – it is like their soul, yet it is not required to live. In T’Telir Returned are given a Breath a week, something that is anethema to the princesses.
This is the beginning plot conflict of the story. However, when Siri instead of Vivenna is sent to marry the God King things only become more convoluted and dramatic. In the God King’s palace Siri has to navigate the political underbelly of the city, mainly controlled by the other members of the King’s court and also Returned – the only member of the court is is remotely amicable to her is Lightsong, a god who questions his own divinity.
To make matters worse, a man armed with the cursed sword Nightblood, which kills everything it touches, is running around T’Telir with a vendetta and a vast amount of Breath. It is this person whom Vivenna ends up facing when she goes to T’Telir to try and save her sister. Is he a friend or an enemy to the princesses, and why is he so knowledgeable when it comes to Breath and Awakening?
The Breath and Awakening portion of the novel is the most interesting and innovative part of Sanderson’s mythos. The amount of Breath that a person has gives him or her innate abilities – at each Heightening (which is an amount of Breath) the individual gains these new powers. These powers are things such as perfect pitch, hue recognition, agelessness, and many others.
What is really interesting when it comes to Breath is that it can be used to Awaken objects. Awakened objects gain life and power, and can be used to perform simple or more complex tasks, like using a scarf to bind a person or pants to protect one’s legs allowing them to fall from great heights without harm. When a person Awakens an object Breath is passed from the person to the object, and they stay awakened until the Awakener recalls the Breath.
This magic system really caught my interest very quickly. It was quite different and more elaborate than classical magic in fantasy, and since it basically traffics in “souls” it adds a very interesting moral question to the magic. Some people view this magic as intrinsically evil, yet some see it only as means to an end.
Some other interesting moral questions that are raised have to do with the nature of the gods of T’Telir – the Returned. They are viewed as gods in their home town but, again, are viewed with disdain in some other places. Since they must continually take the Breath from others to live, are they good? Or are they something less than godly?
This book is fantastic. If you are a fan of fantasy you definitely need to read this!
Like it? Love it? Love it too much? Let me know in the comments!
Check back in next week when I go over another fantastic book by Sanderson: Elantris.