Clues in signed things

[Chaos]

Hey dudes, I have some interesting factoids for you. So, I always make sure to order a signed book from Sam Weller's (now Weller's Bookworks) and ask some sort of ridiculous cosmere question. I strongly believe I've posted what was signed in my Alloy of Law copy, but I honestly can't find it (though it was referenced in one of the first Shardcasts: ). So, I guess I'm posting that too, again.

In Alloy, I asked: "Give us the name of a Shard's intent we have not seen before."

Answer: "There is one who just wants to hide and survive.

In Emperor's Soul, I asked: "Is the reason why it is hard to get to Shadesmar on Sel because Devotion and Dominion being Splintered?"

Answer: "That is part of it (a little)."

Then, hidden later in the book: "Has to do with the name of that expanse."

Discuss.

[Pechvarry]

I wonder if the placement of that quote was on purpose. I believe Shai is about to start explaining Realmatic Theory to Gaotona, there.

[Windrunner]

He also just happens to have copy 111 and that's page 111, so it could be a coincidence.

[Nepene]

The one who just wants to hide may be the silence of the divine shard. It is silent and divine. I vaguely remembered he said it was a disease based magic, so it may have an Intent like pain or sacrifice. Both very 'man is god' attributes, what with Jesus doing all that. SoD shard may have hid after Odium came and an aspect of it called the Nightwatcher may be all that remains. Unlike most godly magics it is localized in one being as SoD left.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=692#11

Expanse of the broken skies. It is mentioned that rock souls of the gods fell in TES. Perhaps the Expanse of the Broken Skies is Sel. The gods broke up and that did something to travel.

http://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Shadesmar_%28TWoK%29.jpg

[Chaos]

He also just happens to have copy 111 and that's page 111, so it could be a coincidence.

Ding ding ding. It's gotta just be because of the number.

The one who just wants to hide may be the silence of the divine shard. It is silent and divine. I vaguely remembered he said it was a disease based magic, so it may have an Intent like pain or sacrifice. Both very 'man is god' attributes, what with Jesus doing all that. SoD shard may have hid after Odium came and an aspect of it called the Nightwatcher may be all that remains. Unlike most godly magics it is localized in one being as SoD left.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=692#11

I suppose, but the planet of Silence Divine is in the same system as Roshar. Given Odium's... interest in Roshar, I would think that the Shard would want to get as far from Odium as possible.

[Nepene]

I suppose, but the planet of Silence Divine is in the same system as Roshar. Given Odium's... interest in Roshar, I would think that the Shard would want to get as far from Odium as possible.

Odium can probably will himself anywhere in the universe as Brandon has said Harmony could, being in a different solar system is not a great defense against him.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Nepene

[Windrunner]

Shards don't know anything about each other. Sazed couldn't figure anything out about the other Shards. So Odium could go wherever he wanted, but he doesn't know where the other Shards are necessarily. Farther away is better. And if you're in the same system as Odium, I wouldn't exactly call that "hiding".

I don't believe that the Nightwatcher is the result of a Shard apart from Honor, Cultivation, or Odium.

[Chaos]

Odium can probably will himself anywhere in the universe as Brandon has said Harmony could, being in a different solar system is not a great defense against him.

That may be true (though Windy's point is a good counter to that). But still, wouldn't you feel better going to some random, uninhabited world in the middle of nowhere that Odium's never been to, rather than practically adjacent to him? At this juncture that'd be like... one of the last places I'd choose to be, if I were that Shard.

[Nepene]

Shards don't know anything about each other. Sazed couldn't figure anything out about the other Shards. So Odium could go wherever he wanted, but he doesn't know where the other Shards are necessarily. Farther away is better. And if you're in the same system as Odium, I wouldn't exactly call that "hiding".

I don't believe that the Nightwatcher is the result of a Shard apart from Honor, Cultivation, or Odium.

Even now, I can barely grasp the scope of all this. The events surrounding the end of the world seem even larger than the Final Empire and the people within it. I sense

shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void.

I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: Adonasium. Who, or what, it was, I do not yet know.

He does not say at any point that he couldn't figure anything out about the other shards. He has said he doesn't know what Adonalsium was. He implies he can sense other shards on other worlds, which is rather bad for any Shard trying to hide.

Cultivation likely powers Fabrials. Honor likely powers Surgebinding. Odium likely powers the ten levels of Voidbringing. Ars Arcanum had this to say about Old Magic.

"Perhaps the Old Magic fits into those, though I am beginning to suspect that it is something entirely different."

That very curious comment from the Ars Arcanum makes me wonder if it is powered by a fourth shard. The curses don't seem hateful, many are quite benign.

Edit. Where would I hide? Somewhere without any other shards, or any major shardic influence. I wouldn't hope to evade Odium, just try to go somewhere irrelevant. My main concern would be to not interact with any other Shards and hope whatever treaty or agreement I had with Odium lasted. I imagine teleporting to another world would be a galaxyshattering event and would notify everyone where I was.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Nepene

[Kurkistan]

Cultivation likely powers Fabrials. Honor likely powers Surgebinding. Odium likely powers the ten levels of Voidbringing. Ars Arcanum had this to say about Old Magic.

Fabrials rely on spren and stormlight to function. Spren are all some combination of Honor and Cultivation and stormlight seems to power just about everything, so I doubt you can say that fabrials are simply of Cultivation and then just ignore the possibility of other Cultivation-aspected magics.

[Voidus]

Surgebinding relies on spren and stormlight too, seems reasonable that all 30 systems of magic use them, like metal on Scadrial.

[StormAtlas]

That may be true (though Windy's point is a good counter to that). But still, wouldn't you feel better going to some random, uninhabited world in the middle of nowhere that Odium's never been to, rather than practically adjacent to him? At this juncture that'd be like... one of the last places I'd choose to be, if I were that Shard.

lets say Odium couldn't sense the location of other shards, wouldn't the best place to hide be right under his nose and in plane sight?

I mean if I where a shard the first thing I might was to get as far away as possible and that could work, but if I was odium looking for another shard I would assume he'd come to that same decision and so I'd start looking far away.

That is assuming they cant feel where each other are

[Asperity]

I forgot you could buy personalized books. I just ordered an Alloy hardcover and asked for any info about the Southern Scadralians.

If I don't get a huge bold 'RAFO' across the cover, I'll post it whenever it comes in.

[Senor Feesh]

I think we may be missing something important here. Brandon said there's a shard who "just wants to hide and survive."

If a Shard JUST wants to do one thing, and only one thing, wouldn't that thing be its Intent? Has Brandon given us a clue as to the name of another Shard?

I'm not sure I can come up with anything right now that would work, best I can do is Tenacity (but that doesn't really infer hiding); anyone have any ideas?

[Kurkistan]

^I'd been thinking "Cowardice."

[Voidus]

Cowardice sounds good, although it could be something like Solitude, or Survival, since it could just be that the holders interpretation of their intent is that they have to hide.

[Kurkistan]

Yeah, those would work too. Although Solitude doesn't capture the "dear Adonalsium, I want to live!" aura very well.

Perhaps Self-Preservation?

Edited December 13, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Nepene]

All of the shards so far have had an intent that is very obviously divine. God is honorable, god wants to cultivate the world, god hates sin, god loves (or is devoted to) people, god requires obedience from his people and dominates, and from Hindu influences, god ruins and preserves the world. I doubt the newest intent would be something non divine like cowardice or survival or solitude. None of those are classically divine attributes. God is too powerful to fear things and be a coward, god is normally quite social.

Perhaps Endurance? A shard that can endure all evils and give its people the strength to endure evils.

Edit. A variant of what Kurkistan said. A shard that desired to preserve itself and give people the strength to survive.

http://bible.cc/romans/15-5.htm

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another.

In a complete godlike being this would be matched with Devotion to do good, but in the shards it is incomplete and so it simply desires to endure- to avoid danger and survive. It could even be called something like strength.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Nepene

[Kurkistan]

All of the shards so far have had an intent that is very obviously divine. God is honorable, god wants to cultivate the world, god hates sin, god loves (or is devoted to) people, god requires obedience from his people and dominates, and from Hindu influences, god ruins and preserves the world. I doubt the newest intent would be something non divine like cowardice or survival or solitude. None of those are classically divine attributes. God is too powerful to fear things and be a coward, god is normally quite social.

I don't think you're on the right track here with claims that all the Shards mirror divine attributes. It seems more like they mirror aspects of the human psyche--or even that they are just cool concepts and/or emotions/urges. You might argue that a divine being possess only the positive parts of these attributes, but it really doesn't seem necessary, and might result in unwanted theory-pretzels.

If you note, you've just had to bend over backwards to justify Odium as a "divine" trait. Odium is:

1. General or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone.

2. Disgrace over something hated or shameful; opprobrium.

(It's actually both definitions, as Millenium found out)

It's not righteous fury, or disappointment, or passion. It's a particularly bad strain of hatred. If you want to, you can insist that a perfect god would only keep the hatred part, and then only when justified, but there you go discarding most of the meaning of the Intent. You can say that all the Shards together result in perfection, balancing ala Harmony (though apparently not perfect enough to not explode back in the good old days), but you can't discard the possibility of isolated Shards having non-divine Intents.

Perhaps Endurance? A shard that can endure all evils and give its people the strength to endure evils.

Edit. A variant of what Kurkistan said. A shard that desired to preserve itself and give people the strength to survive.

http://bible.cc/romans/15-5.htm

...

In a complete godlike being this would be matched with Devotion to do good, but in the shards it is incomplete and so it simply desires to endure- to avoid danger and survive. It could even be called something like strength.

So you're saying that "strength" is, in fact, "the urge to avoid danger and survive"? In this case, you're embracing the "unity brings strength" argument, but casting your "every Intent is obviously divine" argument by the wayside. And so we come back to the validity of "negative" descriptions of this Shard's Intent.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Nepene]

I don't think you're on the right track here with claims that all the Shards mirror divine attributes. It seems more like they mirror aspects of the human psyche--or even that they are just cool concepts and/or emotions/urges. You might argue that a divine being possess only the positive parts of these attributes, but it really doesn't seem necessary, and might result in unwanted theory-pretzels.

If you note, you've just had to bend over backwards to justify Odium as a "divine" trait. Odium is:

1. General or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone.

2. Disgrace over something hated or shameful; opprobrium.

(It's actually both definitions, as Millenium found out)

It's not righteous fury, or disappointment, or passion. It's a particularly bad strain of hatred. If you want to, you can insist that a perfect god would only keep the hatred part, and then only when justified, but there you go discarding most of the meaning of the Intent. You can say that all the Shards together result in perfection, balancing ala Harmony (though apparently not perfect enough to not explode back in the good old days), but you can't discard the possibility of isolated Shards having non-divine Intents.

We don't hugely need a massively pretzel of a theory. The shards are isolated emotions interpreted by humans. They can be a bit unbalanced and weird. My theory is simply that every emotion is one which is very important religiously and one which is repeatedly mentioned as an aspect of god in religions in which brandon is interested.

Odium is hate, according to what Brandon was asked. As I note below hate is a major theme of the god of the bible. His people are hated and he hates various sins. Righterous fury, disappointment and passion are not required, god is directly said to hate.

http://www.openbible.info/topics/hate

I doubt Brandon would have any issue with making hate a divine attribute, given his theological background. I don't have to bend over backwards to justify it as a divine attribute, it is a very obvious and well known divine attribute. A fun one for Brandon too. He gets to play with the whole god is wrath trope.

As you said with Preservation and Ruin, the shards work better when combined. Odium on its own is not a very good intent. Brandon said that the reason Odium didn't absorb other shards was because he didn't want to taint his intent- he would presumably be less hateful.

It could be that there are non godly intents, but we haven't seen any yet. Hate is a very godly intent. Being hated is a very godly intent. I can't prove there are no non godly intents, but something radically non godly like cowardice would be a very weird intent for a shard, given what we have seen of their intents so far. Half of them are major and famous divine attributes

So you're saying that "strength" is, in fact, "the urge to avoid danger and survive"? In this case, you're embracing the "unity brings strength" argument, but casting your "every Intent is obviously divine" argument by the wayside. And so we come back to the validity of "negative" descriptions of this Shard's Intent.

I don't see how saying strength is unity throws my every intent is obviously divine argument by the wayside. Could you explain your point?

Edited for clarity.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Nepene

[Kurkistan]

<snip>

I don't see how saying strength is unity throws my every intent is obviously divine argument by the wayside. Could you explain your point?

Edited for clarity.

It's all about interpretation of the attribute, isn't it? You can twist odium into being a godly attribute, so long as it's properly guided and tempered, if you want to. I can twist Greed into being a godly attibute (god wanting "his" people to love him, wanting to "possess" love and faith, etc.). I can turn Lust into a "godly" attribute. I can turn Heresy into a godly attribute. We could probably turn Blashphemy into a divine attribute if we tried hard enough.

The problem is, once you start doing that, you can't really say that anything isn't theoretically divine, and so the "divinity" of a possible Intent is useless metric for its likelihood.

--

As for "strength is unity", I was referring more so to your argument that a "just want to hide and survive" Intent is still divine because it becomes devine when paired with Devotion:

In a complete godlike being this would be matched with Devotion to do good, but in the shards it is incomplete and so it simply desires to endure- to avoid danger and survive. It could even be called something like strength.

"Strength through unity," then, was actually a reference to the Shards being stronger/more balanced/more divine if they are united. I see now that I was unclear, since you'd just posited Strength as an Intent, while I was talking about a more metaphorical "strength." Sorry about that.

I basically meant to say that Cowardice could very easily be such an "incomplete" attribute. You can say that it's divine in that Cowardice is part of some larger set of attributes that, together, make up divinity, but, once again, that leaves the divinity of any single posited Intent as a worthless metric for judging it's likelihood.

Does that clear things up?

Edited December 15, 2012 by Kurkistan

[lDanielHolm]

The Cosmere deities have far more in common with the divinities from, say, Norse mythology, than they do with the Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-knowing God--they have flaws, they are mortal, and so on and so forth. I see no reason why each Intent needs to be somehow "divine". If someone held Adonalsium prior to the Shattering, they may have been closer to the Christian ideal, but to be honest, I rather doubt it. I don't think we can use Brandon's personal beliefs as evidence--he goes very much out of his way not to let it overshadow his stories, for which I respect him a great deal.

We've seen Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, Honor, Cultivation, Ruin, Preservation, and Odium so far. That's eight out of sixteen--just half, really. While there is a pattern, I think it is too vague to really rule out anything as a Shard's Intent.

I think we're focusing a bit too much on the second part of the hint (that it wants to survive). It wants to hide as well.

Panic, maybe?

Edited December 16, 2012 by lDanielHolm

[Kurkistan]

The Cosmere deities have far more in common with the divinities from, say, Norse mythology, than they do with the Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-knowing God--they have flaws, they are mortal, and so on and so forth. I see no reason why each Intent needs to be somehow "divine". If someone held Adonalsium prior to the Shattering, they may have been closer to the Christian ideal, but to be honest, I rather doubt it. I don't think we can use Brandon's personal beliefs as evidence--he goes very much out of his way not to let it overshadow his stories, for which I respect him a great deal.

I think we're focusing a bit too much on the second part of the hint (that it wants to survive). It wants to hide as well.

Panic, maybe?

Yeah, that too.

Good point. Besides Brandon's own aversion to letting his beliefs overshadow his work, I think that more "rough" pantheons provide more interesting stories either way. Even if Brandon were a secret adherent of Odin, I'd be perfectly fine with him writing based on them, since there's a lot of interesting conflict going on in that kind of mythology. Because of that, I think that Brandon, as a writer, is more likely to draw any religiously-based inspiration from those kinds of mythologies.

Panic sounds a bit too active, though, not really implying a willingness to hole up somewhere and hide properly.

Also, I just thought of Pain and Panic from Hercules. Good moment.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Nepene]

It's all about interpretation of the attribute, isn't it? You can twist odium into being a godly attribute, so long as it's properly guided and tempered, if you want to. I can twist Greed into being a godly attibute (god wanting "his" people to love him, wanting to "possess" love and faith, etc.). I can turn Lust into a "godly" attribute. I can turn Heresy into a godly attribute. We could probably turn Blashphemy into a divine attribute if we tried hard enough.

The problem is, once you start doing that, you can't really say that anything isn't theoretically divine, and so the "divinity" of a possible Intent is useless metric for its likelihood.

--

As for "strength is unity", I was referring more so to your argument that a "just want to hide and survive" Intent is still divine because it becomes devine when paired with Devotion:

"Strength through unity," then, was actually a reference to the Shards being stronger/more balanced/more divine if they are united. I see now that I was unclear, since you'd just posited Strength as an Intent, while I was talking about a more metaphorical "strength." Sorry about that.

I basically meant to say that Cowardice could very easily be such an "incomplete" attribute. You can say that it's divine in that Cowardice is part of some larger set of attributes that, together, make up divinity, but, once again, that leaves the divinity of any single posited Intent as a worthless metric for judging it's likelihood.

Does that clear things up?

I would agree that twisting incomplete attributes to make them divine would be questionable. I was not doing that. Hate is a major and important aspect of the god of the bible, and his hate of sin is repeatedly mentioned. It was an important part of Jesus' ministry too, that you may be hated by your family and friends if you followed him. I doubt you could find such direct quotes for greed or cowardice or lust. With half of the sample seen so far being divine I'm not going to bet on the next one being human weakness.

Ah I see. I wasn't saying that cowardice or some such attribute was part of a larger set of attributes that would make up a divine intent. The desire to hide and survive is an entirely rational desire to have and isn't necessarily born of fear. In this example someone who wanted to protect their people could, without any non divine fear, not want to involve them in a bitter war of destruction and pain even if they doubted they would lose.

I could imagine some sort of intent like Peace too for that. What better way to ensure peace than hiding away? Being isolationist. Is it really cowardice to avoid unnecessary war? Though the human side of the shard may also be a coward. The intent would be twisted to serve his fears and needs.

The Cosmere deities have far more in common with the divinities from, say, Norse mythology, than they do with the Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-knowing God--they have flaws, they are mortal, and so on and so forth. I see no reason why each Intent needs to be somehow "divine". If someone held Adonalsium prior to the Shattering, they may have been closer to the Christian ideal, but to be honest, I rather doubt it. I don't think we can use Brandon's personal beliefs as evidence--he goes very much out of his way not to let it overshadow his stories, for which I respect him a great deal.

The Cosmere deities are far, far more powerful than the Norse deities. They are functionally all powerful and all knowing except to what is limited by their intent. They are not mortal to anything bar another shard, something which the people of Scadrial depressingly realize when they find Lord Ruler's final cache and he has no magical weapon to defeat the gods. They're not very Norse like. They're pretty divine.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/18/elantris-Chapter-11

http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation/398/Warbreaker-Chapter-Twenty-One

His beliefs do tend to intersect with his books, as he notes above, just very subtly.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/faq/section/1/Questions-About-Brandon

In both of my current books—Elantris and Mistborn—religion plays a big part, often on the side of the antagonists. This isn't because I hate religion, but because it worries me. The use of something good for evil purposes is one of the most frightening things I can imagine. I also, sometimes, worry what would happen to me if I were to let fanaticism overrule good judgement. In a way, some of these characters are warnings to myself.

His beliefs don't overshadow his work, but my suggested theme, that good religious attributes are used for evil, is a shadow across his works.

I doubt even Adonalsium will be the Christian ideal. He'll probably just be some interesting combination of eastern and western religions twisted according to whatever human holds him.

[lDanielHolm]

The Cosmere deities are far, far more powerful than the Norse deities. They are functionally all powerful and all knowing except to what is limited by their intent. They are not mortal to anything bar another shard, something which the people of Scadrial depressingly realize when they find Lord Ruler's final cache and he has no magical weapon to defeat the gods. They're not very Norse like. They're pretty divine.

I'm sorry, but I cannot emphasize enough of a "What are you talking about?" here.

Intent does not shape their power, only how they will use it. Vin takes up Preservation and uses it to destroy Ati because she has not been influenced enough by the Intent of Preservation to be prevented from doing so. She even theorizes that this was Leras' plan all along.

They are not all-powerful. Extremely powerful, yes. Omnipotent? Emphatically not!

If they were all-powerful, there could be no conflict involving a Shard.

They are very much like Norse mythology, or even Greek mythology, which is also very similar. The Norse deities were powerful, but they were not omnipotent--very specifically not omnipotent. Shards are likely more powerful than they were, but they are still similar in their limitations.

One of Brandon's tenets in writing (at least as I understand it) is that limitations is what makes things interesting.