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Unknown Shards


Ishar

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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.

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First, the most recent WoB that says not all shards have direct opposites. 

Quote

Shardbound [PENDING REVIEW]

Do all Shards have a direct paired opposite intent...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No, I would say no, they do not all have a directly paired opposite intent.

source

And then the one about Autonomy 

Quote

Nashan'Elin (paraphrased)

Could Honor and Autonomy be considered opposites, like, Autonomy freeing from Honor's oaths?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, you could definitely think of it that way. Those two are more likely to be opposed than some others.

source

Note the "you could definitely think of it that way." 

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6 hours ago, Ishar said:

I think it is possible that the possible Survival shard would be Cultivation’s opposite because things that “just survive” don’t grow.

Brandon has said that the fact that one shard ‘just wants to hide and survive’ is only tangentially related to that shard’s intent. It isn’t the Shard of Survival. We don’t know anything about that shard’s intent to speculate on how it could relate to the others. 

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3 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

I believe the unknown Shards are Wisdom, Unity, Creation, Evolution, Ingenuity and Curiosity, of which Wisdom, Unity and Ingenuity have been hinted at either in a book or in WoB.

How would Evolution be different from Cultivation? These seem to be twin intents. Same with Creation and Ingenuity. 

Unity because of what Dalinar said? He's bonded to a large splinter of Honor, so I don't see how it could be a new Shard. He could maybe change the intent as he collects enough pieces to reassemble Honor but it would still leave us a Shard short of 16.

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If a shard called Unity were to exist it is more likely that it would be a combination of shards like Harmony. Wisdom is not likely to be a shard. If by hinted at you mean when Hoid talks about how he and wisdom aren’t on good terms (I can’t remember the exact quote and I don’t want to find it) he refers to wisdom with a lower case w, which he would not do if wisdom was in fact a shard. 

Edited by Ishar
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The problem with Unity being an original Shard of Adonalsium is basically that it wouldn´t have anything to do with SA if that was the case. I firmly believe that the only Shards we will deal with directly in that series is Honor, Odium and Cultivation. We have proof by WoB on the fact that they are the only Shards on Roshar. If Unity was a Shard, it would have been killed by Odium, since he says something along the lines of "we killed you." And if that was the case, Unity would not have been killed on Roshar, or even in the Rosharan system, based off the fact that Odium, Cultivation and Honor were the only Shards to actively spend their time there. So, recap:

1. If Unity existed, it would have been killed by Odium. 

2. Unity would have died somewhere else than in the Rosharan System.

The second point makes it unlikely that Dalinar has suddenly picked up the Shard of Unity, or that is at least how I see it. From where would he get it? The only possibility I could see is that he plucked it from the Spiritual Realm, since time and place doesn´t matter there, but if he had done that, we would have seen him manifest more Shard-like abilities. We have seen people pick up Shards, and Dalinars experience doesn´t really match that. 

So, in short, I doubt that Unity is a Shard. 

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2 hours ago, Naurock said:

How would Evolution be different from Cultivation? These seem to be twin intents. Same with Creation and Ingenuity. 

Unity because of what Dalinar said? He's bonded to a large splinter of Honor, so I don't see how it could be a new Shard. He could maybe change the intent as he collects enough pieces to reassemble Honor but it would still leave us a Shard short of 16.

The difference between those Shards indeed isn't huge, but they are not the same either. Cultivation is about change (no matter what it means), while Evolution is about improving life. Creation is about creating sapient, or at least sentient, life, while Ingenuity is about improving one's self and surroundings.

As for Unity, that's the name I'm least confident with, an alternative might probably be Identity. Also see my reply to our resident Toaster.

1 hour ago, Ishar said:

If a shard called Unity were to exist it is more likely that it would be a combination of shards like Harmony. Wisdom is not likely to be a shard. If by hinted at you mean when Hoid talks about how he and wisdom aren’t on good terms (I can’t remember the exact quote and I don’t want to find it) he refers to wisdom with a lower case w, which he would not do if wisdom was in fact a shard. 

We only saw Wisdom as the start of a sentence. That's why there's speculation.

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

The problem with Unity being an original Shard of Adonalsium is basically that it wouldn´t have anything to do with SA if that was the case. I firmly believe that the only Shards we will deal with directly in that series is Honor, Odium and Cultivation. We have proof by WoB on the fact that they are the only Shards on Roshar.

I am aware of this, but something feels off about this all. We're three books in, and we supposedly know most of the stuff that's happening already. There's some question marks about the Recreance, the war's only just begun, etc, but we know there's three Shards, and we have reason to assume Dalinar is on the path to taking up Honor (though I doubt anyone would be surprised if Brandon subverted that in one way or another). Cosmerically, it looks like there's no big surprises coming anymore. And I just don't believe that. So I think that a fourth Shard will, at some point, get involved. Could be something else as well, but considering I ended up with a Shard for which Unity would, if nothing more, at least be an acceptable Intent, that's what I'm thinking right now is the most likely.

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

If Unity was a Shard, it would have been killed by Odium, since he says something along the lines of "we killed you." And if that was the case, Unity would not have been killed on Roshar, or even in the Rosharan system, based off the fact that Odium, Cultivation and Honor were the only Shards to actively spend their time there. So, recap:

1. If Unity existed, it would have been killed by Odium. 

2. Unity would have died somewhere else than in the Rosharan System.

This is also what I argued in my theory. I believe the "Unity" Shard (or maybe "Identity", I'm mostly gravitating towards Unity because that way it fits with aforementioned suspicions) is, basically, the essence of Adonalsium. It's basically the core of Adonalsium, stripped of everything else. This is also where Odium's "we killed you" comes from; it's plural because he thinks of the Shattering.

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

The second point makes it unlikely that Dalinar has suddenly picked up the Shard of Unity, or that is at least how I see it. From where would he get it? The only possibility I could see is that he plucked it from the Spiritual Realm, since time and place doesn´t matter there, but if he had done that, we would have seen him manifest more Shard-like abilities. We have seen people pick up Shards, and Dalinars experience doesn´t really match that. 

I doubt he Ascended more than Rashek did.

--

Anyways, the bottom-up explanation (starting from the basics and working up towards the Intents, rather than guessing and discussing Intents) is in that link, which is also in my signature (Fundamental Surges Part 2: Pattern of the Shards).

Edited by Leyrann
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13 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

This is also what I aruged in my theory. I believe the "Unity" Shard (or maybe "Identity", I'm mostly gravitating towards Unity because that way it fits with aforementioned suspicions) is, basically, the essence of Adonalsium. It's basically the core of Adonalsium, stripped of everything else. This is also where Odium's "we killed you" comes from; it's plural because he thinks of the Shattering.

This feels farfetched to me. Adonalsium shattered into sixteen different pieces, and we have a WoB that says taht the pieces wouldn´t necessarily be the same if Adonalsium had been shattered by other people than the sixteen who did it. If Unity is the core of Adonalsium, stripped bare (which is a cool concept) it would most likely be a Shard, no matter who the shatterer (probably not a legit word) was. 

Also, Unity as a word means being together. It would be a wierd name for something that is stripped bare entirely.

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3 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

This feels farfetched to me. Adonalsium shattered into sixteen different pieces, and we have a WoB that says taht the pieces wouldn´t necessarily be the same if Adonalsium had been shattered by other people than the sixteen who did it. If Unity is the core of Adonalsium, stripped bare (which is a cool concept) it would most likely be a Shard, no matter who the shatterer (probably not a legit word) was. 

Also, Unity as a word means being together. It would be a wierd name for something that is stripped bare entirely.

I would say that, just because not all pieces are the same, doesn't mean none are the same. Having said that, it's the Shard of which I am least content with the name (and if it isn't Unity that also means the Shard has no relationship to Roshar/Dalinar that we know of).

As for Unity meaning "being together", I would argue that this is actually a fine Intent for a Shard, as it would have the goal of bringing together, even though it might be only a small part of a whole in itself.

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7 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Cultivation is about change (no matter what it means), while Evolution is about improving life.

Disagree. Cultivation's change is ultimately positive, just willing to make sacrifices that result in a greater good. Willing to burn away portions of the field that will fertilize the soil for those that remain. A combo of Cultivation and Ruin would probably be more general Change.

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9 hours ago, 8giraffe8 said:

Disagree. Cultivation's change is ultimately positive, just willing to make sacrifices that result in a greater good. Willing to burn away portions of the field that will fertilize the soil for those that remain. A combo of Cultivation and Ruin would probably be more general Change.

What would back that up though? In fact, I'm pretty sure that we've seen somewhere that "Cultivation is about change, good or bad".

would say though, that the Vessel may focus on the positive, but I haven't seen any evidence that the Shard would be focused on growth being positive from it's own nature.

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4 hours ago, Leyrann said:

What would back that up though? In fact, I'm pretty sure that we've seen somewhere that "Cultivation is about change, good or bad".

would say though, that the Vessel may focus on the positive, but I haven't seen any evidence that the Shard would be focused on growth being positive from it's own nature.

The very meaning of the word Cultivation implies desired change. It could be a negative change, but only if it was something planned. On the whole, I think it would tend towards positive change but that would depend on perspective. Most cultivation is about improvement of conditions. 

Edited by Calderis
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11 hours ago, Leyrann said:

What would back that up though? In fact, I'm pretty sure that we've seen somewhere that "Cultivation is about change, good or bad".

would say though, that the Vessel may focus on the positive, but I haven't seen any evidence that the Shard would be focused on growth being positive from it's own nature.

The very definition of cultivate is to "foster the growth" of something, not the destruction of it. We also have WoB that "Cultivation is about growing". https://wob.coppermind.net/events/189/#e4034

Also, "Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation", (implied) because their intents complement each other. Ruin's about entropy, deterioration, so logically Cultivation is ultimately about improvement. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/186/#e4130

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You can look in my sig for some very in-depth discussions of Shardic Intents. 

Something that came up (quite a lot, actually) was opposition to my initial thoughts of "Opposites". Given what we see in Mistborn it is easy to see why we would assume Shards are paired in opposites, but I think it's becoming increasingly evident that that is simply not the case. As some others have given WoB evidence above, Brandon has outright stated that Shards aren't necessarily paired.

One common theory that I espouse is that there are four groups of four Shards each (a little like the metal groupings in Mistborn). Each grouping would have Shards with contrasting Intents that make up one of four parts of Adonalsium's godhood. The theory that Adonalsium was a God (capital G) isn't confirmed, but there is enough evidence for there to talk about (both in the books and out), though I suspect it's one of those things that won't be confirmed by Brandon, as it makes for interesting in-universe debates later in the cosmere narrative.

 

My personal list of possible Shards is this:

Group A: Creation

Preservation, Ruin, Cultivation, Chaos/Neutrality/Abeyance

Group B: Authority/Personality

Dominion, Autonomy, Devotion, Charisma/Leadership/Magnetism

Group C: Action

Endowment, Ambition, Honor, Retribution/Justice/Trial

Group D: Divinity

Odium, Enlightenment/Wisdom/Ingenuity, Enigma/Mystery/Paradox, Purity/Holiness/Chastity

 

Keep in mind this was mostly thought up before Oathbringer. Let me know what you think, and take a look through what I had to say on the threads in my sig. ;)

 

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I actually considered that the shards might be in groups of 4 like the metals, although I disagree with your groupings. Here are my thoughts:

 

Creation:

Ruin, Preservation, Endowment, Cultivation.

 

Personality:

Honor, Ambition

Remaining we probably have something like Greed and maybe something involving Humbleness

 

Consciousness:

Autonomy, Dominion.

Remaining we probably have Sentience and maybe Knowledge/Wisdom

 

Emotion:

Devotion, Odium

This gives adonalsium hatred and love. Missing is likely something like Jealousy and Serenity.

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Ishar said:

I actually considered that the shards might be in groups of 4 like the metals, although I disagree with your groupings. Here are my thoughts:

 

Creation:

Ruin, Preservation, Endowment, Cultivation.

 

Personality:

Honor, Ambition

Remaining we probably have something like Greed and maybe something involving Humbleness

 

Consciousness:

Autonomy, Dominion.

Remaining we probably have Sentience and maybe Knowledge/Wisdom

 

Emotion:

Devotion, Odium

This gives adonalsium hatred and love. Missing is likely something like Jealousy and Serenity.

 

Your guess is as good as mine. I like the idea of Serenity as a Shard. I had a whole bunch of reasoning in the other threads that I don’t really want to re-type out here.

What do you think of the Adonalsium as God theory?

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15 minutes ago, Ishar said:

Wasn’t it kinda known that Adonalsium was God? I am confused by what you mean by that.

I mean the idea that Adonalsium was, for all Intents (huehue) and purposes, a divine being. Thus, the Shards that comprise it would be those that we would typically expect in a god figure a la the Hebrew God Adonai (for which Adonalsium may have been named). 

Some of the reasons it is a popular theory are that Hoid and Frost seemed to accept Adonalsium as God as referenced in their letters, and what I mentioned above with the name. But Brandon also won't outright confirm if Adonalsium is that, just it was seen as that in the past. 

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Oh. I feel like there are a lot of hints that Adonalsium was not in fact the most powerful being in the universe. I have a feeling that the real god will be something more along the lines of, to quote hoid, “in the hearts of men”

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7 hours ago, 8giraffe8 said:

The very definition of cultivate is to "foster the growth" of something, not the destruction of it. We also have WoB that "Cultivation is about growing". https://wob.coppermind.net/events/189/#e4034

Also, "Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation", (implied) because their intents complement each other. Ruin's about entropy, deterioration, so logically Cultivation is ultimately about improvement. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/186/#e4130

You're right, I was describing Cultivation wrong. It's "growth, good or bad". She doesn't care what grows, as long as it does. As Intent, at least, the Vessel might try to direct it if possible.

6 hours ago, Khyrindor said:

You can look in my sig for some very in-depth discussions of Shardic Intents. 

Something that came up (quite a lot, actually) was opposition to my initial thoughts of "Opposites". Given what we see in Mistborn it is easy to see why we would assume Shards are paired in opposites, but I think it's becoming increasingly evident that that is simply not the case. As some others have given WoB evidence above, Brandon has outright stated that Shards aren't necessarily paired.

One common theory that I espouse is that there are four groups of four Shards each (a little like the metal groupings in Mistborn). Each grouping would have Shards with contrasting Intents that make up one of four parts of Adonalsium's godhood. The theory that Adonalsium was a God (capital G) isn't confirmed, but there is enough evidence for there to talk about (both in the books and out), though I suspect it's one of those things that won't be confirmed by Brandon, as it makes for interesting in-universe debates later in the cosmere narrative.

 

My personal list of possible Shards is this:

Group A: Creation

Preservation, Ruin, Cultivation, Chaos/Neutrality/Abeyance

Group B: Authority/Personality

Dominion, Autonomy, Devotion, Charisma/Leadership/Magnetism

Group C: Action

Endowment, Ambition, Honor, Retribution/Justice/Trial

Group D: Divinity

Odium, Enlightenment/Wisdom/Ingenuity, Enigma/Mystery/Paradox, Purity/Holiness/Chastity

 

Keep in mind this was mostly thought up before Oathbringer. Let me know what you think, and take a look through what I had to say on the threads in my sig. ;)

 

My dislike for this (even though I know there's a good deal of discussion behind it) is that the list has been formed by naming possible Shards and discussing what feels most logical. There's no reasoning why these would be the Shards beyond "they sound like divine attributes", while this WoB implies that there is a pattern to them (though I really want a clearer WoB on that one!). (something along the lines of "Was Adonalsium Shattered in a non-arbitrary pattern?")

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