ROSHtafARian

I'm confused as to why people seem to think Endowment doesn't have some grand design like the other Shards. If anything, Endowment seems the MOST prone to meddling and manipulating people and events to his/her end goal. For centuries, Endowment has been picking specific people to Return to life, seemingly always with a specific purpose judging by what happened with Lightsong (whether or not all of the Returned have fulfilled their specific purpose as intended by Endowment is a whole other matter of course). Given that of all the Shards we've encountered thus far, Endowment seems to be the one most capable when it comes to seeing the future, I'd argue its just playing the long game better than any of the others. We don't see a specific plan in motion because its the only Shard on Nalthis so there simply weren't enough cosmere aware players or interactions in Warbreaker for us to get any clear view of what's going on with Endowment. But I really don't think Endowment started bringing people back to life because it cares all that much about the human politics of Nalthis, and whatever its doing will eventually reveal itself to have huge ramifications for the cosmere. Personally, I believe in the end game of the cosmere, Nalthis is going to be a huge player, because of all the Shards thus far, Endowment's the only one who found (or placed) itself on a world where it had no opposition. While the other Shards are all involved in pitting their power and their champions against each other and interfering in each others' plans, Endowment's off by itself on Nalthis, methodically going about its agenda with no one to get in its way.

Maybe the significance of the Lerasium isn't to make someone an Allomancer, but to introduce Preservation's Investiture into the sDNA of other worlds' populations?

Well, given the cosmere timeline it could also be that Vasher started worldhopping AFTER Warbreaker, and 17th Sharders picked up the term investiture from him then. Also, any chance Brandon was being clever with his answer, and some of the obvious worldhoppers we saw in TWOK were already native to Roshar, rather than visiting from other worlds/books? For instance, the Heralds, particularly if Damnation is on another world, they'd certainly all qualify, and we know several of them were in TWOK.

Its worth noting however that Brandon's said that whatever means Odium used to Splinter Aona and Skai was a long and difficult process as well. So if Odium were able to Splinter Harmony in a similar manner, would it Splinter into Ruin and Preservation? Or would all the Splinters just be smaller mixes of the two original Shards?

That's exactly what I've figured about Nalthis. I think it would be relatively easy for Odium to handle Endowment if this is true, which might make him/her low down his priority list. Endowment's Intent is all about bestowing gifts or having natural gifts, so if people stopped giving their Breaths away or even using them at all, for whatever reason, possibly hoarding them to create an uberpowerful elite like I suggested might have happened in Fjordell - that could probably do the trick. If you think about it, Endowment creates Splinters to make the Returned happen, but the assumption there is at some point they will use their Divine Breath to heal someone and it will return to Endowment at which point it can Return someone else without ever losing more of itself. Its suggested by the visions Returned have and the way they've been known to use their Breaths that there's some purpose to who Endowment chooses to Return and why. But regardless, if all of the current Returned just refused to ever heal anyone or expend their Divine Breath, perhaps due to Odium's influence, at some point, its seriously going to mess with Endowment's plans, and possibly his/her Intent over a long enough time. If none of the Divine Breaths ever return to Endowment, eventually it has to stop creating new Returned or else it'll end up Splintering itself into oblivion, essentially. I don't know, I think Endowment is a tricky Intent to ACT against, its more a lack of acting with it that'd be the issue. So perhaps there are variations. Unlike what I suggested with Aona and Skai, where large enough groups of magic users using Investiture against a Shards' Intent leads to fractures and eventual Splintering, perhaps with Endowment it'd be a matter of if enough people hoarded its Investiture, contrary to its Intent, eventually that would kind of build up like internal pressure, which would lead to fractures and Splintering.

Its frustrating me to no end because I can't find the relevant quote (and I'm sure Phantom will whip it up in two seconds anyway), but I've seen a lot of people reference this idea that Hoid and Kelsier hate each other due to a question someone asked Brandon on reddit, and that isn't accurate from what I remember. I believe Brandon said something about Hoid and Kelsier WOULD hate each other, if they knew each other well. He went on to explain that Kelsier is essentially a sociopath in some ways, and if circumstances had been different he'd be a pretty bad guy....he only ended up one of the good guys because all his worst tendencies were channeled towards fighting a greater evil (ironically not unlike the Lord Ruler himself). But yeah, a lot of people have been basing ideas around Hoid and Kelsier having some kind of beef with each other, but the quote that originated that idea is being misrepresented I think, and was really just meant to convey that they have personalities and methods that would clash with each other.

Some good points, and I don't have time to respond to them all, but I wanted to say a couple things about skaa's... First off, using a Shard's Investiture against its Intent isn't simply a matter of aligning yourself against that Shard in theory. Intent can't be faked, so simply the fact that they were Honor's Knights that were using shardblades against Odium's soldiers wouldn't in and of itself hurt Odium. After all, Odium's nature is hatred, and in war, its easy for intent to get shifted. A Knight could start out fully honorable, but in the midst of battle, watching his friends and comrades being slaughtered by what he considers inhuman monsters, its easy to imagine that Knight wielding a shardblade not out of Honor like he intended, but simply because he hates the things that are slaughtering his fellow Knights and those he protects. In fact, I imagine if my theory is correct, this is exactly what Odium was thinking when he agreed to the Oathpact and created shardblades, knowing the Knights would take them up. Honor might have trusted his Knights to remain virtuous in their intent, and Odium was betting on how easy it would be for them to give into hatred of their enemies when wielding his weapons. For your second point, I think you hit the nail on the head, the ruin and preservation balanced each other out. After all, Rashek's actions did lead to a lot of ruin, but by the same token he maintained a relatively stable empire for a thousand years, society and culture were practically stagnant under his rule, never changing the status quo....which is the very definition of preservation, albeit not the most pleasant kind. Remember, every act Rashek took was in his mind about protecting the world from a far greater evil than himself, that being Ruin. Its true that a lot of his actions inadvertently led to Ruin or were manipulated by Ruin, but in the grand scheme of things, Rashek's Intent was all about preserving the world no matter the cost, and given that he controlled and directed a large portion of the world's magic and magic users, that counts for a lot. In fact, I'd even argue that its possible Rashek's actions over the last thousand years actually weakened Ruin a little as well, and helped when Vin fought him. We honestly don't know much about how Skai's magic systems worked, so I imagine after the Elantris sequel comes out we could figure this out a lot better. But I think the key there might be in how the opposite of dominion would be a kind of submission....and think how many monks regularly submitted and sacrificed themselves to empower one Fjordish magic user. Its possible Odium's influence on Sel involved manipulating how people viewed or approached Skai's magic, and it became about concentrating all of the power in a very small, select elite, and making them uber powerful...which means the vast majority of people would be 'giving up' their Investiture to empower that small elite. While technically on the surface it would look like Skai's magic system was still all about Dominion, in reality, a lot of Investiture was being expended in submission rather than acting towards Dominion themselves.

We've spent a lot of time talking about how Investiture affects planets, people, and magic systems, but not a whole lot about how it affects the Shards performing it. And it seems to me, the key is in the root of the word, invest. When you invest in something in any form, you put a lot of yourself or your resources into it, you in various ways link its fate, and its success or failure, to your own. This matches what Brandon's said about Odium settling on Roshar. Now that he's invested himself and his magic there, he can't leave easily. Essentially, he sunk his roots into it for whatever reason and is now tied to it, and can't leave quickly or at least without leaving chunks (perhaps Splinters?) of himself behind in the process. The question becomes then, how are Shards affected by the Investiture they sink into persons or planets? We've seen them have multiple reasons for doing so, to create life on Scadrial, etc. As such, the benefits of investing in life or magic or a planet would seem to be many and varied, depending on their specific reason for investing. One thing that seems inescapable to me though, is that the moment a Shard sinks their Investiture into a planet or people, they link themselves to it, and for better or worse tie their fate (or aspects of it) to that of the planet or people. Now what exactly does that mean for nigh all powerful (within the boundaries of their Intent) Shards? Honor spoke of how they are bound by certain rules. I don't believe he spoke of specific guidelines or anything like that, I think his perception is colored by his Intent and he simply related things to something he was intimately familiar with: rules, orders, protocols, etc. I believe he was speaking simply of Shardic limitations. One such limitation obviously is what happens when a Shard Invests in a planet....they tie a piece or pieces of themselves to it and can't leave that behind easily. In addition, Shards can manipulate life, create magic, change the orbit of planets. They're enormously powerful and their Intents are broad enough that they can 'justify' using that power in any number of ways in pursuit of that Intent. But, they are limited by their Intents as well. It warps their personalities, and I believe as a result of that, they can't act against their Intent, or at least not without consequences. What I mean by this is Shards seem to be largely Spiritual. And from what we know of the Spiritual in Realmatic theory, is much like Plato's philosophies, the Spiritual in the cosmere seems to be the true nature or essence of things, the fundamental 'truth' of them, for lack of a better word. A rock has a physical form, it is perceived a certain way and perhaps perceives its relation to the rest of the world a certain way, and then it has an essence for lack of a better word, the core nature of what it means to be a rock. Similarly, Shards have a physical aspect, they have a cognitive aspect that determines how they perceive the rest of the world (colored by their Intent), and then they have their fundamental Spiritual nature, which I believe is the distilled essence of their Intent. So when a Shard invests its power in a world, they're obviously not doing so with their physical aspect, and not with their cognitive, its their spiritual power their Investing. Their essence, the core fundamental power of their Intent. When Preservation created life on Scadrial, he permeated it with his nature, the essence of what it means to preserve. But that permeation, that Investiture, was a two way street. It connected humanity to him, intrinsically, meant that they were constantly in contact with a piece of him....but also that parts of him were constantly in contact with humanity. And herein lies the catch, or danger, of Investiture for Shards, and why I believe Odium in particular avoided it for so long, and only did so reluctantly on Roshar. Shards have limitations, they are bound or restricted by their Intent. Humans have no such restriction. Even when gifted with a piece of a Shard's power, via Investiture, usually in the form of magic, this doesn't color their thoughts or actions, they're still free to wield it as they choose. The essence of a Shard's Intent is too diluted in the amounts that an individual human can access for it to drastically change their personality. Shards can manipulate them, but short of 'cheating', like Ruin spiking people to create a stronger connection to them for him to use, they can't control their every action, or how they wield that Investiture once given it. Initial access to a Shard's Investiture in a magic system seems to be by acting in sync with a Shard's Intent....ie humans access Allomancy for the first time when snapping, and acting in preservation of life.....but once a human has access to that system, they can use Allomancy to Ruin as easily as they use it to Preserve. And that's the catch. When a single human uses Investiture against a Shard's Intent, they're effectively using the Shard against itself. A Shard isn't just driven by its Intent, a Shard IS its Intent. Devotion isn't just a handy name, that Shard IS Devotion, its everything it means to be devotion. When a human takes a piece of Preservation and uses it in pursuit of Ruin, its not just a simple action without consequences. Its a tiny alteration in the fundamental essence of what Preservation is. When you use Allomancy to Ruin something, you're using the essence of Preservation to do so. You're saying to the Spiritual, 'I know what Preservation usually means, it means acting to protect or maintain life...but just this one time, it also means destroying this thing over here.' And so, in the smallest, tiniest of ways, an Allomancer acting in pursuit of Ruin weakens Preservation, it makes the core nature of Preservation contradict itself, diluting the strength of its true Intent. Maybe it even creates a tiny little fracture in the Shard that is Preservation. Now, one human acting against a Shard's Intent, even a hundred humans acting against it - that's still far too little to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. But get enough humans wielding Investiture against a Shard's Intent for long enough, in extreme enough ways? That could actually hurt a Shard, in one of the only ways a Shard can be hurt. Weakening its fundamental nature, turning its own power against itself. Perhaps, this is even how a Shard can be Splintered. I have no idea if this is what happened on Sel, but potentially, if Odium could have gotten enough magic wielders to wield the magic Devotion and Dominion were Invested in against their Intents, the contradiction of physical and cognitive act against spiritual purpose on a grand scale over a large enough time could potentially have created fractures in the Shards that eventually Splintered them. Brandon did say Splintering was a long and difficult process. After all, the Shards would be unlikely to just sit there and not try and stop Odium from turning their own power against them like this....but Investiture once given is not easily taken away, by all accounts, and so simply yanking their power away from the humans wasn't an option. And one way or another, Odium won. This, I believe, is the nature of the Oathpact on Roshar, and why Odium finally Invested himself in a planet. I believe that for whatever reason, Honor and Cultivation were more difficult to attack in this way than Devotion and Dominion were. Perhaps they were more evenly matched in their influence among humans, or humans were more committed to their Shards' Intents. Perhaps Honor and Cultivation had learned from Aona and Skai's mistakes and were better prepared. But for whatever reason, Odium's initial efforts weren't cutting it. I think Honor proposed the Oathpact. Its more his style, it fits his paradigm. In his communications with Dalinar, everything he said about Shards was couched in terms of rules, and choosing champions, etc. The Oathpact is written in the language of Honor, I think Odium views the Shards and the worlds according to his own Intent, and thus would never have conceived of a similar idea. But whoever came up with it, I believe the Oathpact was proposed between Honor and Odium, a challenge of Intents, winner take all. Conditions of the Oathpact forced Odium to finally Invest himself in a world and magic in counterpoint to Honor's Investiture in his Heralds and Knights. Ritualistic combat was created in the form of a recurring battle, the Desolations, Odium's Voidbringers (and Unmade most likely) versus Honor's Knight Radiants and Heralds. Another condition of the Oathpact was that between Desolations, the Heralds would be taken to a prison of Odium's choosing, Damnation, and tortured, in an effort to get them to betray their Oaths - to act against Honor's Intent. To my mind, Odium agreed to the Oathpact only because he was sure he could get humanity to betray Honor, given enough time. Honor agreed to the Oathpact because he was confident in humanity, and perhaps even believed he could get mankind (and the Voidbringers) to use Odium's power against him. Others have speculated that the Shardblades are tools of Odium....if they are, Honor might have allowed his Knights to use them in an effort to use Odium's Investiture in pursuit of Honor. However, as we saw, all but one of the Heralds DID betray Honor's Intent, and forsake their Oaths. And ultimately, for whatever reason, the Knights Radiant abandoned their Oaths as well, and I believe that was the final straw, and what ultimately Splintered Honor. But Odium was still Invested in Roshar, one Herald still was true to his Oath, and I think Cultivation proved to be more of a wildcard than Odium anticipated. Perhaps she's stayed behind the scenes, Cultivating Honor in mankind and keeping Honor's Intent 'alive' enough to keep his essence from dissipating as much as Devotion and Dominion's seems to, or alternately, perhaps she's working to turn Odium's Voidbringers against him, still hoping to Splinter Odium. The trick of it is Odium may have succeeded in Splintering Honor, but merely by getting Odium to Invest in Roshar at all, Honor won a decisive victory that still gives humanity (and Cultivation) a fighting chance.

I was rereading the sample chapters of Liar of Partinel recently, and all the talk of dead gods really jumped out of me. Granted, anything unpublished isn't canon, but it made me think.... We constantly refer to Adonalsium as the power of Creation, but really, all quotes from Brandon just equate Adonalsium's power with the power of Creation. He's never alluded to Adonalsium being Creation or the source of that power itself. So what I'm wondering is....we know Adonalsium had opposition in some form. What if he/it also had peers? Could Adonalsium have been just one of many gods, and somehow the others died until it was all that was left? With whatever killed the other gods being its opposing force?

Hmm, true. I actually agree about Splinters having Intents as well. However, there could still be a workaround, depending on a couple factors. One being how much control a Shard has when creating a Splinter....ie, perhaps the Shard could chisel off a Splinter with an Intent close enough to its original personality that personality alteration would be minimal (like the difference between Odium altering the already nasty Rayse's personality versus Ruin altering the kind and decent Ati). Alternatively, it would depend on whether all Splinters are an equal mix of Cognitive and Spiritual, and where Intent falls in that spectrum. I personally believe that a Shard's Intent largely rests in its Spiritual aspect, and so if true, and a Shard could split off a Splinter that was predominantly Cognitive (to contain most of its personality) and much less Spiritual, thus minimizing the presence of its Intent....then perhaps it could work. And again, that's just one possibility for protecting the Shardholder's original personality. The important part here isn't the HOW the Shardholder accomplishes it, as I don't believe we know enough about Realmatics and Splinters yet to speculate too much there, but rather whether there's some way to hang on to that original personality at all.

@Isomere As to your second point, Lightsong does eventually remember his previous life...his dream about the ship is a memory, so whether or not its the original soul, the Splinter definitely seems to be piggybacking off the Returned's pre-death consciousness. As to your first point, that's something I've thought about as well, especially in conjunction with what I mentioned about Nightblood and his sheath in my first post. The Shard/Shardholder bond doesn't seem to work as a symbiosis in the same way a human/spren or human/Seon bond does, but I do wonder if perhaps one or two Shards found a way around the personality warping properties of a Shard. Sazed's mind is relatively protected against significant alterations due to Ruin and Preservation's Intents keeping each other in check in that regard, and we know he's a special case, obviously. But we also know Shards have been known to manipulate their own cognitive aspects in certain deliberate ways, such as when Preservation imprisoned Ruin. So what if one or two Shards, perhaps being aware of how their Intent was warping their original personality or having a future vision of themselves via Shardic foresight....what if one or two found a way to wall off or protect their original personas from their Intent-influenced personas? For instance, is it at all feasible that one might have split off a large Splinter containing a large, intact portion of their Cognitive mind, back before their Intent had much time to influence it? And millennia later, that Shardholder is as Intent-influenced as any other Shard, BUT there's a Splinter containing a copy of their original personality running around manipulating events at the same time?

Hmm, well if all Splinters do have a degree of innate cognition, most likely fragments of the parent Shard's Cognitive Aspect, that would explain Syl's comment that 'all spren are essentially the same entity', or however she phrased it. Each Splinter's 'personality' then would be a piece of the same mind, essentially, though that mind seemingly is so fragmented it might as well be different personalities. However, its still interesting that there's such a disparity in terms of Cognitive Aspect between Splinters like spren or Seons (again, just using Seons as shorthand for the true nature of those Splinters) and Splinters like the Divine Breaths, which show no innate Cognitive aspect of their own. Perhaps the difference is because Divine Breaths are so far the only example we have of Splinters of a living, intact Shard? One that retains its full Cognitive aspect unfragmented? If Splinters of a living Shard demonstrate no innate Cognition because their parent Shard's mind is intact, (perhaps those Splinters are predominantly Spiritual), that could explain a lot of distinctions. It could even explain distinctions between spren, as we know some spren are of Honor and some are of Cultivation, and Cultivation is still alive. Perhaps Splinters of Honor are spren with a piece of Honor's Cognitive aspect, that is enhanced by the symbiotic bond with a human, while Splinters of Cultivation are seemingly mindless spren like those that are found in fabrials?

Interesting points Isomere, but as to your last point, how then would you explain the Divine Breaths and the Returned? There's no separate sentience between the Breaths and the Returned, its one mind. They seem to be an example of a Splinter merged with a soul much in the same way as you describe the Shard merging with the Shardholder.

I thought long and hard about what to title this topic, but really, this about sums it up. Those things are weird, dudes. It occurred to me recently how little we know about how Splinters work, compared to Shards, and so I started this topic as a place to ask the relevant questions. For instance, we know Shards have a Spiritual, Cognitive and Physical aspect, and their Cognitive Aspect comes from the Shardholder, largely. Splinters however, don't seem to bleed across all three Realms in similar fashion. The Divine Breaths that Endowment gifts to the Returned don't have a Physical aspect, for instance, unless I'm missing something. However, Splinters do all seem to have a Cognitive aspect, or at least be paired with one. The Divine Breaths are paired with the consciousness of those they Return. Spren (at least the ones that are Splintered) seem to develop their own Cognitive Aspect via a bond with a human. Seons have a Cognitive Aspect (and of course, its the Aons at the heart of the Seons that are the actual Splinter) - but where the frack does their Cognition come from? Likewise, do all Splinters share in the Intent of the Shard they're Splintered from, or do they have their own Intent, that's a derivative of said parent Shard? We've speculated along these lines when it comes to Spren.....honorspren could comprise the largest Splinters of Honor, perhaps, while Truthspren could be another mini-Intent, and so on. Of particular interest to me is Nightblood. I don't believe its ever conclusively been stated whether he can be considered a Splinter or not, though perhaps I missed something, please correct me if I'm wrong. An argument can be made both for an against it. But Nightblood certainly can be said to have his own Intent ('Destroy Evil'), and even more significantly, it influences its bearer in a way similar to how Shards influence their holders over time. Without the protection of its sheath, its likely that over a long enough period of time Nightblood could warp its wielder's personality to match its 'Intent.' What makes this interesting to me is the idea that if Splinters DO have their own Intent, or a version of such, would they over time influence the Cognitive Aspect that's bound to them? For instance, over a sufficient period, would Syl make Kaladin 'more like Honor'? If the Divine Breaths have their own mini-Intents, do they over time change the personality of a Returned? We've seen suggestions of the older Returned changing in their attitudes or views, or at least seen them contrasted as different and having different priorities to the younger Returned. Is this simply a product of age, or are they subtly changing to reflect different aspects of Endowment's personality? I have lots of questions, but no answers, fellow 17th Sharders. What say you?

This remains one of my favorite topics, because what's more fun than totally baseless speculation, right? Woohoo! Anyway, thought of some more possible culprits. Pretty much the only thing we have to go on for sure is that all Shards have an Intent or purpose that drives them, and eventually reshapes their holder's personality into a reflection of said intent or purpose. Similarly, we also know that all magic systems are accessed or 'keyed' by acting with, making use of, or somehow matching that Intent. Ie Surgebinding requires acting with honor, allomancy is triggered by preserving one's own life, awakening requires an endowment of breath, the Shaod seems to take those with extreme devotion to be Elantrians, etc. With all that in mind, I propose: Invention: The production (of something useful) for the first time through the use of the imagination or of ingenious thinking and experimentation Such a Shard might be in a similar grouping as Cultivation, with an Intent to take whatever resources available and use them to create something new or useful. I could see a technology based magic system that required creating something or recombining things into new configurations in order to access it. Inspiration: a : a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation b : the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions c : the act of influencing or suggesting opinions Such a Shard might be in a grouping with either Devotion or Endowment, with an Intent to trigger or motivate people to act, change, or create, etc. I could see a magic system that was most accessible to artists, politicians, war leaders, people who were most likely to have an influential effect on other people. Revolution: a : a sudden, radical, or complete change b : a fundamental change in political organization; especially :the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed c : activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation d : a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm <the Copernicanrevolution> e : a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> Such a Shard might be grouped with Dominion, but also possibly with Cultivation. It could even be complementary with Preservation, in the same way Brandon described Cultivation as Ruin's complement. With an Intent to act as a catalyst for change, to keep things from becoming stagnant, or to challenge the status quo. I could see a magic system that required someone to change their personal paradigms, or how they looked at something. The equivalent of an Allomancer 'snapping' on Revolution's world might be when something happens to cause them to look at the world or their society in an entirely different way, a way that motivates them to act as an agent of change.