Shards vs Valar

[Zmaray]

Some food for thought for Legendarium fanboys out there! How would you compare the power level of a shard to an average Vala? Maia? Adonalsium vs Melkor?

[Oversleep]

Shards are incredibly powerful.

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Q: I recently saw on TV some info about some incredibly violent physical events in our universe, namely a collision between two black holes or a star quake on a Magnetar or Neutron Star. Is a shard holder sufficiently independent of the physical realm to be immune to even such mega-violent events, or would even one of them have a tough time shrugging it off?
 
A: Ruin and Preservation were, together, able to form a planet--so I'd say they could shrug that sort of thing off, depending on circumstances.
source

Edited June 3, 2017 by Oversleep

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah. Harmony has admittedly 2x basic Shard power, but he was able to reshape a planet's surface in, what, a couple of days? The Valar did stuff on this scale, but it seems to have taken much longer.

Much more telling, Rashek moved a planet's orbit pretty dramatically with a fraction of one Shard's power.

Melkor used up nearly all his power to corrupt and infuse the matter of Arda - which seems very analogous to a Shard Investing in a planet - but he was reduced to a shrunken remnant in the process.

So I think that the Shards individually are more powerful than the greatest Valar.

The greatest feats we see from the Maiar are Osse's raising of Numenor, Melian's magical protection of a small nation, Sauron's mind-control of vast armies even without the Ring, and Sauron's volcano-control and shrouding Gondor and Mordor (and maybe at least part of Rohan?) in black clouds. Sauron's defeat also leads to massive upheaval in Mordor, so he might have altered the geography there more than is overtly stated.

The Stormfather controls highstorms capable of crossing most of a supercontinent; I'd argue that he (and by extension probably the Nightwatcher, who seems to be an equivalent sort of being) is very roughly comparable to the greatest Maiar.

However, the Maiar seem to be enormously variable in power. The Balrogs and Istari are probably only on the level of great Rosharan monsters eg thunderclasts, powerful Surgebinders, and skilled Elantrians.

Edited June 4, 2017 by cometaryorbit
forgot Melian's magical protection

[Kingsdaughter613]

Melcor loses his power very slowly over time by continuously investing not only in Arda, but in people and his other creations. It also seems like his decision to do bad took some power as well, as his power comes from Eru and he grew weaker as he drew further from the path of Illuvatar. He's still pretty powerful at the end; just weaker than the other Vala. He did start out stronger than all of them though, so there is that.

Varda creates the Big Dipper, so I think that equals creating a planet. Note that Eru retains the ability to create sentient life (which is probably why it cost so much for Melcor to try.)

My ranking?

Eru = Adonalsium

Vala = Shards (to an extent; they aren't bound to a concept (Since Adonalsium isn't shattered) but have limits the Shards don't (no sentient life, and Eru is the ultimate source of their power.))

Maia = Spren/Splinters (This works really well actually. You have Great Spren like Sauron and Melian; Gandalf would be an example of a sentient spren; then there are a whole bunch of lesser spren that do various things.)

Ringwraiths, 'dead' elves and faded elves = Cognitive Shadows

Elves... currently have no perfect Cosmere equivalent. Though Tolkien's explanation of their ties to Arda actually fits very well into Realmatic theory.

As to who would win a fight... most individual Vala are weaker than a Shard, but they usually fight in a group. They can also call on Eru if they have to and he can definitely defeat the Shards. Most likely response? Hide in Valinor and let the Noldo weaken their enemy until said enemy can be easily defeated. Hey, it worked on Melcor!

[Oversleep]

9 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Much more telling, Rashek moved a planet's orbit pretty dramatically with a fraction of one Shard's power.

And he also moved the crust of the entire planet, flattened mountains, raised mountains et cetera (source). He also made genetic alterations in humans, created a whole new species...

[Calderis]

4 hours ago, Oversleep said:

And he also moved the crust of the entire planet, flattened mountains, raised mountains et cetera (source). He also made genetic alterations in humans, created a whole new species...

Considering the way mistwraiths and Kandra function, he didn't create a new species as much as invented a new biology. 

[Djarskublar]

A solidly powerful mistborn (or someone with a duralumin medallion) can control a horde of koloss. How comparable is that to Sauron's mind control? I only know some basics about the expanded stuff for LotR.

[cometaryorbit]

12 hours ago, Oversleep said:

And he also moved the crust of the entire planet, flattened mountains, raised mountains et cetera (source). He also made genetic alterations in humans, created a whole new species...

Yeah - I just mentioned moving the planet because that requires so much more energy than the other stuff.

4 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

A solidly powerful mistborn (or someone with a duralumin medallion) can control a horde of koloss. How comparable is that to Sauron's mind control? I only know some basics about the expanded stuff for LotR.

Probably pretty comparable, actually.

The forces Sauron was able to control were probably somewhat larger, though exact numbers aren't given. At the Battle of the Morannon Aragorn and co. had somewhat less than 6000 men, and they were outnumbered "more than ten times", so say at least 60,000 soldiers for Sauron. OTOH, it seems like only the orcs & trolls & monsters were really controlled:

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As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope

(LOTR Book 6 Chapter 4 - The Field of Cormallen)

Given that some of the human soldiers on Sauron's side were able to surrender or fight to the last, they probably weren't controlled in the same way.

Also, he actually has to pay constant attention; when he realizes the Ring is about to be destroyed:

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throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten.

(LOTR Book 6 Chapter 3 - Mount Doom)

If they become "bereft of will" just because Sauron is distracted, this doesn't seem as good as control of Koloss.

[Oversleep]

56 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah - I just mentioned moving the planet because that requires so much more energy than the other stuff.

And I mentioned all these other things as they are more complex and require much more precision than moving the planet. Not just raw power.

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Oversleep said:

And I mentioned all these other things as they are more complex and require much more precision than moving the planet. Not just raw power.

Oh, definitely... I just think it's easier to compare power than precision. Rashek's development of precision in the short time frame he held the Well's power is definitely very impressive, though. One of the HOA epigraphs says something to that effect - how he very quickly went from fumbling a planet into the wrong orbit to custom-designing bacteria and tweaking plants to survive in the new environment...