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Let's gather what we know of the powers and limitations of the shards, shall we?


Kykeon

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A Shardholder can create life, but for some reason we haven't yet seen any sentient non-humans that where originally created by the planet's deity.

Gaining a shard gives one a type of omnipresence, and an awareness of the holder's star-system, but at least new holders can't focus on absolutely everything at the same time.

Holding a shard (or two) does not grant one ultimate wisdom in regards to the best use of one's powers, as seen when Sazed needed to absorb the knowledge from his copperminds in order to bring the planet [Scadrial, right?] into an optimal orbit.

What else have you gathered?

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A Shardholder can create life, but for some reason we haven't yet seen any sentient non-humans that where originally created by the planet's deity.

That's not entirely correct. One Shardholder may not be enough to create life by themselves. Remember in Mistborn, Preservation couldn't create life without Ruin's hep.

Although there is the possibility that there are some Shards that would be able to do it without the assistance of another, but I felt that it should be stated that at least in Scadrial's case, it took two.

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Yea, but those were the most unbalanced shards we've seen so far.

Even hate can be a motivation for invention.

The desire to keep the Universe in stasis [read: preserve it] is poison to new ideas or experiments.

Edited by Kykeon
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IIRC, the shards twist their users over time to conform to their ideals. I.E. ruin and preservation, Ati and Leras weren't embodiments of those ideals until after they took up the shards. Again, that's if i remember correctly (i could be mistaken)

Also, obviously, someone isn't limited to only one shard, as evidence by sazed.

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Turns out that I might be wrong with what I originally said. I was reading a tidbit online that said that Preservation alone created life, but that doesn't explain his agreement with Ruin that he would eventually get to destroy all life.

If I remember between getting off work and running to rehearsal, I'm going to skim through Hero of Ages to see how exactly it's worded so that I can confirm or deny my original claim.

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It happened like this

-Laras: I'm bored.

-Ati: I'm not; shut your face.

-silence-

-Laras: You're the embodiment of destruction, right?

-Ati: I won't get--Yes, I am, what about it?

-Laras: I want to see living things again, Ati, I want to see more than this wretched piece of rock.

-Ati: Very poetic.

And?

-Laras: What good is a destroyer without anything to destroy?

Help me, and I promise you that one day I will one day let you return it all to dust.

...and the rest is history.

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Turns out that I might be wrong with what I originally said. I was reading a tidbit online that said that Preservation alone created life, but that doesn't explain his agreement with Ruin that he would eventually get to destroy all life.

If I remember between getting off work and running to rehearsal, I'm going to skim through Hero of Ages to see how exactly it's worded so that I can confirm or deny my original claim.

I believe it was, that Preservation could create life, but not sentience.

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The agreement to allow Ruin to eventually destroy everything also did not take place until after they created humans. There was no such agreement when they were creating balanced life.

You positive about that one?  I could swear the deal was that they would create, and Ruin could one day destroy it all.  Preservation broke the deal by sacrificing part of himself to trap Ruin.

I'm almost positive that creating sentience was something Preservation did in the hope that humans would one day be able to destroy Ruin.

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The agreement to allow Ruin to eventually destroy everything also did not take place until after they created humans. There was no such agreement when they were creating balanced life.

You positive about that one?  I could swear the deal was that they would create, and Ruin could one day destroy it all.  Preservation broke the deal by sacrificing part of himself to trap Ruin.

I'm almost positive that creating sentience was something Preservation did in the hope that humans would one day be able to destroy Ruin.

That's how I understood it as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh, we know that a god of the cosmere can voluntarily split off a part of their power to give mortals magical abilities (See the Returned or the Honour spren)

Well, we don't know if the honorspren are a voluntary thing, but it's probable that the Heralds are the result of such a thing.

Well, but think about those two facts: There were honourspren before the Almighty died.

There were honourspren before that the formation of the Knight's radient.

My theory  the following

- only honourspren can archive sentience

-Honourspren used to be sentient through their bond to the almighty.

-After the almighty died, they remained sentient through the bond to their human partner.

-After the Knights radiant deserted, they gave up the bonds to their spren, dooming them to mindlessness.

-All other spren are remains of the almighty AFTER his conciousness was destroyed.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A Shardholder can create life, but for some reason we haven't yet seen any sentient non-humans that where originally created by the planet's deity.

I have a feeling the Stormlight Archive is going to prove (if it already hasn't proven) this wrong. Even putting spren and the Shades to one side, Rhyshadium seem to be sentient.

"He'll eat it tonight," Dalinar said, patting the Ryshadium's neck again. "He only eats it when he feels he deserves it, son."  - tWoK p. 240

Feeling that one is deserving of something is the kind of second-level cognition around which the very idea of sentience is based. Combine this with the idea of Rhyshadium choosing their rider, and you've either got a persistent, misleading anthropomorphizing on Brandon's part or you've got a sentient non-human.

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Nah I don't think so. I think that there are many people who would say the same thing about their horses, dogs, cats, pet rhinocerous, etc.

Now watch. Brandon's going to come and have the horse start talking. Just to spite me.

EDIT-

There are non-human lives that we've seen. There are Koloss and Kandra. True, they are based off of humans, but they aren't humans. 

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Nah I don't think so. I think that there are many people who would say the same thing about their horses, dogs, cats, pet rhinocerous, etc.

Now watch. Brandon's going to come and have the horse start talking. Just to spite me.

EDIT-

There are non-human lives that we've seen. There are Koloss and Kandra. True, they are based off of humans, but they aren't humans. 

I would have to agree with the Koloss and Kandra part.  They were based off of humans, and seem to have some kind of connection with them, but they certainly aren't human any more.  That Sazed turned the Koloss into a real separate species, and that the Lord Ruler created mistwraiths, seem to suggest that Shard's can create non-human sentient life.

There does seem to be some sort of limit on creation of sentience, though.  Preservation had to give of himself to make it.  It seems like it may be harder than creating other things.  I haven't got the foggiest clue why.

Also, we should add the Parshendi into this mix.  They seem like humans in some ways, but I would classify them as Humanoid, rather than human.  They are certainly sentient, and something out there most likely created them, but who or what is rather a mystery.  It may be Odium, but I would certainly not commit myself to that in any circumstances.

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Well most humans don't randomly grow armour, so I'd say it's a safe bet to classify the Parshendi as humanoid rather than human. In fact, Kaladin actually mentions that the Parshendi anatomy is vastly different from that of people when he's cutting off said armour.

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Mistwraiths are not sentient.

Kandra and Kolloss are not creations, just twisted modifications of the real deal, made possible through the influence of an entity bent on destruction. ;D

Parshendi follow the humanoid pattern, with a lot of modifactions to be sure, but they follow it.

-They have yet to show any abbility to read or influence minds under normal conditions.

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Mistwraiths are not sentient.

Fair point.

Kandra and Kolloss are not creations, just twisted modifications of the real deal, made possible through the influence of an entity bent on destruction. ;D

The kandra become sentient by having part of a human soul stuck in them, so that's fair.  Their derivation from humans is also relevant then.  However, the Koloss (as a new species, post-Sazed-ascension) may have been derived from humanity, but they have become so different that they are certainly an artificially-created sentient species "now".

However, their connection to humanity does make one wonder why they had to start from a human template to get a lease on life.  There does seem to be some sort of limitation involved.

Parshendi follow the humanoid pattern, with a lot of modifactions to be sure, but they follow it.

-They have yet to show any abbility to read or influence minds under normal conditions.

Um, what?  Even the "normal" parshmen are apparently sentient (sapient?).  They may be considered a bit dim, but they understand speech and are capable of complex tasks.  Somebody created them, and they are very clearly non-human.  They may have been derived from humans at some point, but that's not a given.

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