Savants and Shards

[LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian]

So, we know that the reason Vessels are slowly corrupted is the Intent of their Shard, slowly forcing its way through their soul and warping them. This sounds an awful lot like what’s happening to savants, the amount of Investiture, and therefore Intent, passing through them warping their very soul.

 

As we see throughout the books the savants in different systems are warped to a different degree. My theory is this is because some Shard’s Intent would be closer to typical human Intent, making the Intent forcing its way through the human less incompatible, and that is why different humans are affected in such different degrees.

 

If this is true, could it be that if their original Intent matched that of the Intent of the Shard their other traits would not be affected, meaning that for example Sazed will remain the same as throughout his life he was more or less striving for harmony?

 

I know this is flimsy, so @Calderis and @RShara, unsheath your WoBs, and prepare to cut this theory through all three realms.

[The One Who Connects]

I don't have WoBs for you(surprisingly), but I do like the first comparison to Savants.

I'm pretty sure the "matching the intent causes less pressure" idea is a pretty popular one around here, but the idea that it's because some intents are more "human" qualities is new. Not sure I agree, but props for originality.

[RShara]

I don't know.  The way savantism works/worked/will work is that the investiture warps your soul, and through it, the physical body.  It enhances the effect, but damages your body (soul?) at the same time.

Shards, I think, are beyond savantism or anything related to it.  The investiture definitely changes their soul, but their physical body is sorta distributed and they don't really take harm from it.

Best example is Spook.  Flaring tin all the time caused him to be able to see, hear, etc, incredibly well while flaring.  But without it, he could barely function, and all his senses were numbed.  I don't think that's really related to what changes when you're holding as much investiture as a Shard.

 

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So here's the problem. The more I dig into savants in the later outlines, the more I feel that I'm in a dangerous area--in that I'm disobeying their original intention. (Which is that using the power so much that it permeates your soul can be dangerous, a kind of uncontrolled version of a spren bond.)

And so, I don't want to let myself just start making people savants right and left. It needs to be a specific thing. Wax is the troubling one, as I have him burning so much steel that he's well on his way, but isn't showing any side effects. If I'm going to give him savant-like abilities, he needs savant-like consequences.

That's the danger, just falling back on savanthood to do some of the things I want, so often that it undermines the actual point and purpose of them in the cosmere lore.

So if I backpedal, it will be to contain this and point myself the right way, sharply curtailing my desire to make people savants without their savanthood being an intrinsic part of their story and conflict in life. (Like it was for Spook, and is for soulcasting savants on Roshar.)

Feel free to share this.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/309-miscellaneous-2016/#e8115

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by RShara

[Calderis]

Yeah, also not really able to go at this with WoBs. I think anything even approaching this keel of knowledge concerning the Shards/Vessels is a guaranteed RAFO.

I'm with @RShara here. I definitely think that there is an effect on the Spiritual Aspect of the vessel. If they were to set down their burden and return to being human/dragon/sho del, they would not be who they were as their soul will have been fully replaced by the investiture of the shard that they held... But I think what came back would be mostly them still.

With Savants, you have warping of parts of the spiritweb due to overuse of the power. So in that respect I think that Savantism is more in lines with the alterations you see to the soul that occur through hemalurgy. 

With a Shard, the entirety of the soul of the vessel is subsumed and replaced by the investiture of the Shard... But I think that the intent is less warping the spiritual than it is applying massive steady pressure to the Cognitive aspect.

A Shard needs a mind to guide its power, whether that is through a Vessel, or by developing a mind of its own. With a Vessel, you have a foreign mind wielding the power, and over time I think it's that mind that is forced to comply with the intent as they believe it to be, while the spiritweb is held apart in a kind of stasis, much the same as occurs with their bodies. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Calderis

[KalaDANG]

On the line of how being more in line with the Shard's intent may put less pressure on the vessel making them unchanged, I think that's definitely a thing. We know from the letters between Frost and Hoid that Ati was a good and generous man before taking up Ruin, and it was clear to see what happened to him. (Paraphrased)  So we know that the opposite is true, that if your will and intent are different from the shardic intent, it slowly changes and molds you to reflect it's intent. And then Hoid says-

"Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals I had ever met. He holds the most frightening and terrible of all the Shards." -First letter, Words of Radiance - Hoid

In part of Frost's response, he says-

"I suspect that he is more a force than an individual now, despite your insistence to the contrary. That force is contained, and an equilibrium reached." - Second Letter, Words of Radiance - Frost

Obviously, as Brandon has said, "Hoid has beef with Rayse". Rayse was obviously a horrible person before he even took up one of the most evil and dangerous shards, and he tries to convince Frost that Odium is too large of a threat to be ignored. From what Frost says, he obviously doesn't believe Hoid, and it can be inferred that Hoid believes and has tried to convince Frost that the destruction that Odium is causing, and his evil are not simply due to him being corrupted by his shard, but he may actually remain unchanged due to him already being aligned with the shardic intent before he became the vessel of Odium. Hoid thinks that Rayse does indeed still exist as an individual, and that Rayse is actually pushing his power to do even MORE evil and to more hateful things. 

We know that Frost, due to his policy and oath of nonintervention, does not leave his planet, so it would make sense that he is simply behind the times, and doesn't understand the Cosmere as well as Hoid, who has been having firsthand experience all over the Cosmere since the shattering. There have only been two people who have been confirmed to be even close to his cosmere knowledge. Only Khriss has been confirmed as being more informed.

QUESTION

Is Hoid the most knowledgeable about what's going on in the cosmere?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, Khriss is the most aware by a long shot. Nazh knows a lot as well. Hoid might know more than Nazh but he is pretty in the know as well so it's close.

 

So knowing that Hoid is so informed, I'm thinking that the odds of Frost being right about Rayse losing his identity as he has been molded to better emulate the intent of the Shard are pretty slim to none. So I think that the theory that original intent being aligned with the Shardic intent is pretty solid. It even seems incredibly similar to when Shai in The Emperor's Soul gets Gaotona so she can practice the stamps on him to see if they would work on the Emperor, because they were so close and he knows him so well. I realize that this isn't exactly the same, but it seems like the same principle to me. It's interesting.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by KalaDANG
Added who wrote what with the quotes from the letters.

[Weltall]

On 3/12/2018 at 6:54 PM, Calderis said:

I definitely think that there is an effect on the Spiritual Aspect of the vessel. If they were to set down their burden and return to being human/dragon/sho del, they would not be who they were as their soul will have been fully replaced by the investiture of the shard that they held... But I think what came back would be mostly them still.

We have a WoB that more or less states this.

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Argent (paraphrased)

If Ati had somehow managed to give up Ruin and returned to being a regular person, would his mind have gradually reverted from its corruption by Ruin's intent, or would he always be determined to destroy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Over time Ruin's influence would fade, but Ati would remain a Sliver, so there would be some permanent effects.

source

 

29 minutes ago, KalaDANG said:

We know that Frost, due to his policy and oath of nonintervention, does not leave his planet, so it would make sense that he is simply behind the times, and doesn't understand the Cosmere as well as Hoid, who has been having firsthand experience all over the Cosmere since the shattering.

Depends. If you assume that the unpublished snippet The Traveler that Brandon recently read is canon or mostly canon then it's clear that Frost does have relatively current knowledge of the goings-on in the Cosmere. He knew about the deaths of Leras and Ati before Hoid told him, and their conversation seems to have happened almost immediately after the events of Hero of Ages, given that Hoid was still wearing his clothes from Scadrial and had ash in his hair. Which of course raises the question of how Hoid got offworld so quickly, since both existing Perpendicularities should have been disrupted and Harmony's new one probably didn't form that quickly. But it's entirely possible we're not meant to take the entire thing as canonical so that may be a non-issue.

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There have only been two people who have been confirmed to be even close to his cosmere knowledge. Only Khriss has been confirmed as being more informed.

We should probably distinguish between having a knowledge of the mechanics of the Cosmere (which Khriss excels at) and understanding the big 'Why' questions of the Cosmere where she admits a relative lack of knoweldge, contra Hoid who was there. For example, in the AU essay on Scadrial she refers her reader to specialists in pre-Shattering history for knowledge about the Vessels (while Hoid could tell you stories of all of them personally, at least one of which involves alcohol) and at least as of the timeline of Secret History she knew very little about Yolen other than that it existed, or what exactly Adonalsium was and why the Vessels killed him.

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So knowing that Hoid is so informed, I'm thinking that the odds of Frost being right about Rayse losing his identity as he has been molded to better emulate the intent of the Shard are pretty slim to none. So I think that the theory that original intent being aligned with the Shardic intent is pretty solid. It even seems incredibly similar to when Shai in The Emperor's Soul gets Gaotona so she can practice the stamps on him to see if they would work on the Emperor, because they were so close and he knows him so well. I realize that this isn't exactly the same, but it seems like the same principle to me. It's interesting.

Yeah, we also have Harmony as an example of a Vessel who is doing a better job than some in resisting being warped by his Intents due to his own personality and philosophical stance, and we have a WoB that there are others as well. Given that Sazed is a good fit for his conflicting Intents and Rayse is per Hoid a good fit for his single Intent, there's plenty of validity to the idea that some Vessels are better at maintaining their identity because they were already aligned with the Intent they came to hold, whether this was by accident or design. Brandon has of course RAFO'd that sort of question.

Edited June 18, 2018 by Weltall