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So we currently know 10 shards: Devotion, Odium, Preservation, Ruin, Dominoin, Cultivation, Honor, Endowment, Autonomy, and Ambition. My theory is that every shard has an opposite. Ruin and Preservation are obvious, but some of the pairs are a little less obvious. Odium, which means an exetreme hate, would be opposites with Devotion, Autonomy, which means self governing, would be opposite with Dominion, which basically means governing over others. I am less certain about the rest, and suspect we have not met their opposites. We still have Cultivation, Honor, Endowment, and Ambition. These 4 would pair up with 4 of the undiscovered shards, and there is still an undiscovered pair. I think it is possible that the possible Survival shard would be Cultivation’s opposite because things that “just survive” don’t grow. Honor’s opposite would be something along the lines of Disgrace. Endowment would be something along the lines of taking, maybe Appropriation. Ambition would be Satisfaction. Of course, this still leaves 2 shards open to possibilities. Please let me know your thoughts or ideas for better opposites.

We seem to have some numerical trends seen across the cosmere, is there a reason for this, and how will this be incorporated in the future?

Why specifically do the shards of Adonalsium embody those particular aspects? Are they supposed to be axiomatic aspects of the universe? Of people? What makes Ambition, Honor, and Odium a shard but not something like Apathy, Deception, or Ecstasy?

If I understand the big ‘humans are voidbringers’ thing Odium created humans on Ashyn and Honor and Cultivation created the singers. But then during the subsequent Desolations (if we count the arrival of humans or maybe the moment they broke the agreement and left Shinovar as a first desolation) the Shards changed sides with Odium helping the singers and Honor and Cult aiding humans. Do we know why they decided to switch? If not, I’m curious to hear your theories. I think it’s odd for Honor to support humans since they supposedly broke the agreement and attacked the singers taking their land. That seems like an oath broken but obviously we don’t have a full story yet. On the other hand, Odium doesn’t seem to care much about anything except destroying other Shards so I don’t see why would he suddenly change his favored race unless it would help him with that or Honor changed first.

Question is in the title: If Sazed Was Killed but his shard(s) were not splintered, would they appear as two, Preservation and Ruin, or one, Harmony?

Could some shard that went to Sel just stuff the wild investiture back into the spiritual realm ?

How do Shards fight each other? What are the “rules”? How do Shards enforce these rules? Are there other Vessel agreements? This post gives my answers to these questions. Shard Rules I think the “rules” that govern Shards flow more from their essential nature than from some pact among the Vessels. Brandon says Shards are a mix of cosmere “fundamental laws” (which he also calls “primal forces”) and personality. Shard names reflect a “charged term,” a “cultural component,” for that fundamental law: “Ruin” is entropy; “Preservation” is stasis; “Honor” is bonds. IMO, “Odium” represents some cosmere force that breaks Connections – a repulsive, “odious” force. An earlier post goes into this idea in detail. Because each Shard’s fundamental law is unique to it, I believe for purposes of Shard Wars we need to focus on the fundamental law more than the Vessel personality that interprets the fundamental law. Shard Pact I do think the Vessels make some agreements before Shattering Adonalsium. Honor says the Shards must fight through a champion if their opponent so chooses. I suspect this is to avoid Vessel destruction (though that doesn’t seem to stop Odium). Endowment’s letter to Hoid says the Vessels also agree not to interfere with one another. She says each Shard should reside alone on a separate planet, presumably to avoid mixed Investitures. She excuses Odium’s murder of Aona and Skai because their Shards shared their planet. By that logic, Tanavast also deserves his fate. Endowment dismisses Odium’s murder of Uli Da as ridding the other Shards of a future problem despite the murder’s violation of the non-interference pact. Beyond these two agreements – a champion and non-interference – I’m unaware of other Vessel agreements. The multiple-Shard planets and the Shards’ non-reaction to Odium’s murders suggests no consequences for breaching the Shards’ agreements. The Odium Shard’s nature to break Connections makes Rayse’s breach of the Shard pact almost inevitable. How Shards Fight I believe Shards fight as a battle of fundamental laws/primal forces. Ruin’s Investiture decays/destroys. Preservation’s Investiture maintains the status quo. Honor makes Connections (bonds). Odium IMO breaks Connections. Even if Shards hold equal amounts of Investiture (which they no longer do), some fundamental forces may better suit Shard Wars than others. Hoid thinks Rayse “holds the most frightening and terrible of all the Shards.” The power to break Connections allows Odium to sever the Vessel from its Shard, thus killing the Vessel. By contrast, Ati slowly “strangles” Leras (says Khriss) rather than kill him at once. Ati interpreted Ruin’s entropy law as decay (a slow death). Had Preservation equal power to Ruin, the two Shards would stalemate – Preservation instantly healing whatever decay Ruin throws at him. I think some other Shard fundamental laws/primal forces are quantum physics (the physics of subatomic particles) - Endowment; fractals (the mathematics of complex patterns that are identical despite their size) - Autonomy; and transformation (mass-energy-Investiture conversion) - Cultivation. Even if you disagree with my premise, it might be fun to guess how such Shards would do in Shard Wars. Hoid as Harmony's Champion? What if Hoid is collecting the magic of multiple Shards because one will name him its champion? Harmony? Hoid knows the Shard pact terms and might be preparing to become a champion. In fighting another Shard’s champion, Hoid would have more magic at his disposal. Maybe he can defeat all other Shard champions. The climactic fight features Odium's champion against Hoid - fitting. Will the cosmere end in Hate or Harmony?

I have not found a thread on this topic, to my surprise. Supposedly, every Shard is able to form a perpendicularity. Every perpendicularity has a color. From what we’ve seen, the color of perpendicularities differ from Shard to Shard. Brandon said about this: So the perpendicularities are color-coded, which means that the Shards are too, since the perpendicularities are made out of the essence of the Shards, for example the god metals (and Ruin and Preservation took on the very same colors of their perpendicularities when we saw them “on-screen”). However: So it is true, but it is 1) not really important (but that will not stop us, will it), and 2) not really specific. Let’s collect the colors of the perpendicularities we’ve seen or know enough about: Well of Ascension (Preservation) = White Pits of Hathsin (Ruin) = Black Lake near Elantris (Devotion) = Blue Lake in the Horneater Peaks (Cultivation) = Green Patji’s Eye (Autonomy) – Green The perpendicularity Dalinar opened (Honor) – it's only described as "glowing" and "brilliant". Not sure if that means golden or light blue. The gloryspren present are golden, if the perpendicularity is connected to them, it might be golden. However, on page 1136, it says Venli sees "thunder and lightning" in him just before he opens it, and lightning is usually associated with light blue. So it's not clear, could be any of them. This would be a question to ask Brandon. There are two more things of note here. First: There are two different Shards with perpendicularities that are associated with the color green – Autonomy and Cultivation. This ties into what Brandon said about the colors not being “as specific as [the questioner is] thinking”. There is a possibility that two Shards share the same color, or maybe different shades of the same color. This doesn’t particularly surprise me, as I have problems finding 16 completely distinct color tones. Second, it’s obvious that these are only 6 of the 10 Shards we know. There are 4 Shards whose Perpendicularities we haven’t seen yet: Odium, Dominion, Endowment and Ambition. As far as these are concerned, we are left with speculation. So this is what I gathered: Odium has been connected to several color tones throughout his appeareances and in the mythology surrounding him. For the longest time, I presumed his color to be red, but then Brandon confirmed: That means, things connected with Odium being red doesn’t have to mean anything except for him corruption (or co-opting) another Shard’s magic, which – given his way of approaching things – wouldn’t be a surprising thing for him to do at all. There’s also a theme of orange present, but the color I find the most convincing is violet, given this occurance of the color when Dalinar confronts Odium and gets a glimpse at the meaning of its Intent, which should be what the Shard actually *is* instead of what instruments it uses. Notice how there’s a lot of colors mentioned over the course of this one passage, but one of them is particularly striking: It goes on to describe the passion, harted and ecstasy that is associated with Odium. All of this is a description of “this” violet blackness. Dalinar only reaches the actual Intent of Odium once the flame turns violet. And, thinking about it, it would make sense for Odium to be violet, since the color is often associated with drowsiness, haziness, intoxication, which seems to summarize Odium rather well. Whether you define him as hate or passion, he’s all about intoxication. Next off, we have Dominion. So we know that Devotion is coded as blue. As for Dominion, we don’t have proof, but some indications. Like this WOB: If he is fascinated by “the blue and the red” as opposites and he sees red as the opposite of blue and Dominion as an opposite of Devotion (which is blue), then it seems logical to assume that Dominion might be red. This fits with other indicators – the heavy use of red in all things Fjordellian, especially the priests, which in the end worship Dominion. This leads me to another thing: Assuming that Dominion is red – and we have strong indications for that – then red is used in two contexts: Dominion on the one hand, the corruption of Investiture on the other hand. This is most probably not a coincidence: Corrupting foreign Investiture – dominating it – seems like a very Dominion thing to do. I don’t mean to imply that Dominion has anything to do with what Odium does when red shows up – but that the principles of Dominion’s Intent are at play. The essence of Dominion and domination are red, so Investiture dominating Investiture has the same color. Assuming that this is correct – and I’m assuming a lot now, I know – will open a whole new can of worms. Any time a given color has shown up when Investiture was at work might indicate principles of Shardic Intents. The blue lines seen by Allomancers have the color of Devotion (although there might be another Shard with the color blue), so if Devotion is all about connection, does that hint at the connection between the Allomancer and the metal? That seems like a stretch. Elantrians are known to be radiant white – a connection to the Intent of Preservation would make sense, since Elantrians, not aging anymore, are “preserved”. With all that being said, there are still two more Shards that I haven’t covered: Endowment and Ambition. With these two, any kind of speculation is completely baseless and all I could rely on at this point are vague plausabilities. My own personal baseless guesses are Endowment being a maybe violet or another blue Shard (depending on whether Honor is blue or golden, but who knows, there are enough shades of blue for three Intents) and Ambition being silver. But for the moment, I’d like the points I’ve made up till now to be food for thought. So what do you think? Does the connection make sense? Is it completely unlikely? And what uses of color in combination of Investiture could have a deeper meaning?

Hello friends. I've been thinking a lot about Shards over the last month or so, especially in advent of the upcoming Q&A on Reddit. It's been a while since I've seen one of these, so I figure there's no harm in putting this out there again (especially in light of new reveals in AU). I want to think about Shards, and possibly narrow down the six remaining Shards, and I would love some input from you guys (I've been driving my family crazy with questions on their thoughts in the last couple days). Firstly, here's what we know. We know ten of the sixteen Shards of Adonalsuim. Listed in order of reveal/publicity, they are Devotion, Dominion, Preservation, Ruin, Endowment, Honor, Cultivation, Odium, Autonomy, and Ambition. We know that Odium Splintered at least four Shards. We now know all four: Ambition, Devotion, Dominion, and Honor. Odium had a 'hit-list', and Ambition was #1. There is a Shard that just wants to hide and survive, but that Shard's intent is not 'Survival'. There is a Shard that is not on a planet. (This could refer to Ambition, depending on where it was finished off.) There are two Shards that aren't on a planet, Ambition, and one other. Here's some stuff we're I'm pretty sure about/think we know. (Please let me know if any of these suppositions were confirmed) Shards are based somewhat on "divine attributes" of a god figure. Shards have an opposite pairing, but most are not clear opposites.* * There's been a lot of discussion involving this, and it's looking more and more unlikely that there are pairings of Shards. However, since it's somewhat simple to use that supposition as a format for now, if nothing else. Here's some supposition/speculation I make on the information above. If the sixteen Shards of Adonalsium were all combined, the result would be a god figure. Because of this, we can assume that there are likely no duplicates (for example, there wouldn't be a Shard of Immutability, as Preservation already fills that role). Now onto the Big List. I'm going to attempt to fill in this list of Shards and their pairings, and I will update this list with our guesses. Confirmed Shards will be in Red, guesses will be green. Confirmed pairing will be bold, highly likely will be italicized, and unsure I will leave plain. Here goes. Preservation Ruin Dominion Autonomy Odium Devotion* Endowment Ambition** Honor Absolution?*** Cultivation Tribulation Enlightenment Enigma Purity**** Synthesis? * On the Odium/Devotion pairing. I put this one up because Odium is defined by hatred and jealousy, whereas Devotion is stuff like love and service. I find it to be a likely pair, but a good argument can be made for and Honor/Odium mashup as well. ** On the Endowment/Ambition pair, I find this one a bit of a stretch, I'll admit. It comes from the thought process of Endowment being giving to others, and Ambition looking to receive. It's a tenuous connection, but I'll leave it here for the time being until we find a better candidate. *** One of the possible Shards my family came up with is Mercy (or forgiveness) EDIT: Absolution involves both of these, also, you can be absolved of burdens and Oaths. It's also a God attribute so I like it better. I'm still not too sure I like it as a whole. I like the idea that it's a possible opposite to Honor, because the way we've seen Honor act sounds like a Judgement type, dealing heavily with Oaths. Forgiveness and Mercy sometimes happens in Honorable people in SA, but I haven't seen it represented in a Shard (though there is a case to be made that Endowment or Cultivation could involve it). **** Purity seems like a likely Shard to me. We haven't seen a Shard that represents the righteousness or holiness of god, and I think there's an argument to be made that Purity could fill those shoes. There is also a planet named Purity in the Threnodite System that breaks the pattern of funeral songs like the other planets. Now, let's discuss. Please bring forward an idea of the remaining six shards. Even feel free to argue my pairings if you like. Please keep in mind these things on looking for Shard possibilities. Divine attributes separated from the virtues that give them context (as Hoid would say). Attributes that aren't shared in another Shard. Shards that wouldn't logically be higher on Odium's hit-list that Ambition. Otherwise he would have targeted them first. Edit 1: Added Tribulation, added confirmed information about Ambition and the other Shard without a home. Edit 2: Absolution instead of Mercy, added Synthesis as an opposite of Purity.

So I was reading the coppermind and I noticed that it says shard vessels don't have to be human. And we know that there is a shard that "just wants to hide and survive." I know it's probably not Frost, but I don't want to totally rule that out. Does this mean, though, that one of the vessels could be another dragon?

I just finished book one of the Stormlight Archives. What shard is the Almighty? Is Odium, hate, or destruction, or something like that?

So I was thinking. Odium is described as, Gods wrath, separated from his other virtues, so does that mean there is a shard of love/ compassion, or does that mean the the combination of other shards outruled “Gods wrath” in adonalsium.

This is more a big "what if" than a theory. Maybe it has been discussed already but I was just wondering... Ati describes himself as "Change", rather than just "decay". Rayse does the same, his religion is the "Passions", and he claims that all "passions" are his. But both are known for the negative aspect of their Intents, Ruin (a kind of change) and Odium (definitively a strong emotion / passion). AFAIK the shards have their own intents, period. But I figured the holder might fine-tune it. Ati might have even tried but failed, given he has been described as a good man. But imagine what kind of story would we have had if instead of Ruin and Preservation, we got Progress and Stagnation, wit these names, the Good/Bad roles seem to be reversed! Or if Odium was Love, could even work as a villain too, Love can be pretty toxic if it devolves into jealousy. Honor might have been Stubbornness. Endowment might have been Martyrdom, always giving herself for others. Heck, Sazed names himself Harmony because he believes he controls two oposite forces, but the forces have him trapped and limit his actions, so they are not very harmonious... He could have named himself Discord, to represent this conflict, if the depressive side of him were the dominant when he took the shards... You get the Idea. As I said it's not even a theory. Ati would not have ended as he did if it were that simple as to change perspectives. But I think it's a fun "what if" exercise.

In the Silence Divine, we learned about Ashyn and their unique disease-based magic. This system I believe is concurrent with the events taking place in SA. But there's an issue with the timeline. Honor is shattered, Cultivation has her hands full and Odium has his own planet to manage and a Desolation to oversee. The assumption is that all Cosmere magic is fueled by a Shard. So who is running Ashyn's magic system and who was running it before the exodus? Odium followed humans to Roshar and has been said to be involved in the events that led to the cataclysm. Does that mean that Ashyn didn't have magic before he showed up or did he corrupt what magic was already there? Ashyn's magic wasn't always disease-based so I'd probably go with the latter. Are there Shards of Honor on Ashyn? Or pieces of Culti? There's arguments for either. But Brandon has told ua that there's only 3 shards involved in the Rosharan system so there's going to have to be more information. There's always another secret.

So Harmony is made up of two opposing Shards. As of MB era 2 Harmony is still mostly Sazed, as far as I understand, but over the years his shard's Intent is going to remake him into... something. I see four options as to what that something might be: 1. Ruin and Preservation Intents together pretty much cover all potential actions Harmony might take, so they cancel each other out. Future!Harmony stays Sazed inside and can do whatever he likes. (Pros: Adonalsium was all those conflicting proto-Intents at once. Cons: seems like too much of a narrative free lunch). 2. Pretty much all potential actions fall under either "conflicts with Ruin's Intent" or "conflicts with Preservation's Intent". Harmony ends up not really being able to do anything. He spends future eras basically sitting around on his thumbs. (Unlikely; sounds like a waste of the character). 3. Harmony can only take individual actions that are equal-parts Ruinous and... what's the word? Preservative? Preservation-y? Not technically as limiting as #2 (but still feels like a waste). 4. Harmony's actions have to average out being Ruinous and Preservation-y. So if he wants to, say, save a major city from a tornado, he can do so, but he'll have to cause an equal amount of destruction (either at once or cumulatively) somehow somewhere on Scadrial. (I find this one the most likely, if only because it seems like the scenario Sanderson can do the most with). What do you think? (sorry if I've used the wrong words or spelling; I don't have time to edit this properly)

What is the worst possible match of a vessel and shard that you could think of assuming that the person connects with the shard no problem and takes it up ? Like worst in a sense that it causes the most weirdness, chaos and just absolute despair for people. Only from the existing pool of characters in Cosmere. I'll mention the most obvious of them all. Kelsier(before meeting Vin) as Ambition.

I was wandering (and forgive me if anyone ever asked this) if Voidspren can manifest as Shardblades?

I was thinking about the way Brandon qualified his answer to this question with the reference to the changing 12 tribes of Israel. So I started looking at other WoB regarding Harmony and found this Does this mean that somehow there is a 'new' shard, now that Ruin and Preservation are combined into one shard, Harmony, now? Edit: I'm really bad at writing my thoughts out and I end up leaving a lot out. My thought was there were 16 original shards. Two, R & P, got merged into one, Harmony, making the total 15. However, because of the 12 tribes quote, I was wondering if another shard was created in or after that to bring the total back up to 16.

In this post, I use “nature,” to describe Vessel-independent Shard behavior and “expression” to describe Vessel-influenced Shard behavior. @Jofwu first suggested this distinction and nomenclature. IMO, “intent” and “mandate” muddle this distinction, since their meaning varies with usage. Summary Brandon says each Shard combines personality with a “primal force.” Consensus agrees Vessel personality determines Shard expression: how the Vessels choose to direct their Shards’ Investiture. IMO, a Shard’s “primal force” defines its immutable nature. This primal force Connects the Vessel to its Shard. I believe magic system mechanics show us each Shard’s primal force Connection. Theory Spiritual Realm Investiture is the same for all Shards. Shards differ only in how they access this Investiture and how they grant it to mortals: “The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do,” and “The means of getting powers…are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.” Brandon tells us Connection is not Investiture: “Connection is, like, the equivalent of a quantum connection in our world, so it's more like a force than something comprised of something.” If Spiritual Realm Investiture is the same for all Shards, then Shards differ only in their Connection to their Vessel. I believe each Shard’s primal force IS this unique Connection. Magic users draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm through their Shard’s primal force Connection. Magic systems IMO supply the best evidence of each Shard’s primal force Connection. Here are Brandon’s three examples from the WoB I quote in full below. Ruin – Primal Force Connection: Entropy. “Ruin is a charged term for” entropy. Ruin’s magic system gives Investiture to mortals through an act of entropy – spiking. Any Ruin Vessel IMO would deliver its Investiture via entropy. Personality: “Kind and generous” Ati chose decay to express entropy. He was the best Ruin possible. Another Vessel might have chosen cataclysm. Preservation - Primal Force Connection: Stasis. “Preservation is a charged term for stasis.” Any Preservation Vessel IMO would deliver Investiture to mortals through metal’s static molecular structure. Personality: Leras created the Terris Prophecies and imprisoned Ruin. Other Vessels might have acted differently. Honor - Primal Force Connection: Connects People. “Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by.” I think any Honor Vessel would deliver Investiture to mortals through a person-to-person Connection like the Nahel bond. Personality: Tanavast’s Honor chose oaths to create binding rules. Another Vessel (Dalinar’s Unity?) might favor other means to bind people. Tanavast’s personality gives “this sense that [‘honor’] is noble,” though “there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other [primal force] direction.” I speculate about other Shards’ primal forces in other posts, but these are the only three Shard natures Brandon confirms. I believe, for example, Odium gives his Investiture through broken “people” Connections. When mortals eschew emotional pain (“I’m not to blame”), they isolate themselves from others. The resulting void lets hate in. Mechanically, Odium’s Investiture flows through the cracks in the soul left by the broken Connections. Breaking people Connections seems to be Odium’s nature, its primal force. A different Vessel than Rayse, who chose this repulsive force for his Shard, might break people Connections in a way that doesn’t generate violent passion. Shards eventually compel Vessels to conform to their Shard’s nature. Vessels succumb IMO because they draw all their power through their primal force Connection. Entropy made Ati more destructive. Stasis made Leras unable to harm Elend. The compulsion to Connect with others made Tanavast rely on bare oaths devoid of meaning. Analysis Two WoBs give guidance on Shard natures and Vessel expressions. Theorists have picked over the first the past year. The second WoB asks if Connection or “intent” attracts a Shard to its Vessel. I think at minimum this WoB says Shards reflect both personality and primal force. From his examples, I believe Brandon refers to Vessel personalities plus primal force. Here’s the second WoB about Connection and “intent”: This WoB distinguishes between “general intent/mindset” and Connection. I read “general intent/mindset” to mean Vessel temperament. Brandon says temperament alignment is unnecessary, though it makes ascension “easier.” Instead, the Vessels needed to “create Connection” to assume their Shards: “there was a lot going on with” Connection creation at the Shattering. Brandon’s answer shows personality is not part of Shard nature. Otherwise, temperament alignment would be necessary. Based on the first WoB, I believe the Vessels created a separate primal force Connection to each Shard. Sixteen different means to draw Investiture enabled the Vessels to divide Adonalsium’s power into sixteen equal parts. The “Adonalsium Personality Trait” Theory of Shard Natures @Calderis proposes the alternative “Adonalsium Personality Trait” theory of Shard origin. Because Shards are both personality and primal force, I don’t think it matters which origin theory is correct. The two quoted WoBs are mushy enough to allow either interpretation. But I know Cal will mention his theory if I don’t, so I summarize and respond to it in this Spoiler. Conclusion I think each Vessel Connects to its Shard by a different primal force. I believe that primal force Connection defines their Shard’s nature. Shards deliver their Investiture to magic users by the same primal force Connection. That mechanic appears immutable. Everything else IMO is the Vessel’s expression of its Shard’s nature, until nature ultimately overcomes expression.

Do shards have opposites, like preservation and ruin, or do some not. And if they do, are Odium and Honour opposites?

Sorry for the title, but I have a few misc. questions, and don't want to create a full topic for each one. If shardblades/honorblades cut the soul, and can kill spren, as seen in Oathbringer, why can't they perma-kill Fused, whereas Nightblood can? On Roshar's Cognitive Realm, we see soul-flames winking out on death, while on Scadrial, they hang around about while Preservation/Harmony talks to them. Is the reason for the Scadrial delay is because Preservation is reclaiming the extra investiture from the temporary cognitive shadow before they pass on? Does the fanbase have any solid theories about how Preservation imprisoned Ruin? I know Kelsier had a theory before it was shot down in Secret History. I guess Leras might have sacrificed his mind to cut off Ati's mind from the bulk of his power, and created Atium to leach Ruin's future-sight, but is there anything concrete? Has there been any indication if the Shards can be held collectively by multiple people, say 10? If so, would this increase the access to the infinite power over that held by one person?

there are 10 known shards out of 16, if you think about it you can separate them into 4 different groups. Honor, Devotion, Ambition, Odium. these are all states of mentality. Cultivation, Preservation, Ruin. these are how something might change through time. Autonomy, Domination. these are states of governance or rule. as for Endowment it seems that she is the only one of this group so far.

So, Nightblood is basically a super op sword that we have never seen defeated and according to the Nightwatcher "can never be defeated". We also know he is fairly similar to a shardblade in the way he acts, but far more powerful. So my question is, would a regular shardblade be able to block a strike from Nightblood? Would shardplate be able to block it the way it blocks regular shardblades? Would Nightblood just consume the blade and plate (i.e. consume the investiture of the shards)? Would this result in, when Nightblood strikes a shardblade, just kill the spren that acts as your blade and so stop you from being a radiant any longer? What can this thing do? Thanks in advance for your insights.

So I am in the camp that Odium is not Passion and is hatred or some related term. Assuming that is true I think that based on the known shards a logical choice for one of the unknown shards is Love or Kindness. I don't think any of the other shards can encompass these ideals. These seem like traits that would be a part of a larger being. Opinions? I feel like Love is the stronger option but likely under a different name.