How does Collecting a Shard Affect the personality of the Bearer?

[Darth Woodrack]

I find it illogical that Odium was filled with deep hatred for every single one of the shard bearers when the became gods, but he does several thousand years later, but Sazed has Harmony and doesn't seem to have changed while Ruin wanted to destroy everything. I can see how he would help them defeat the original god, but Odium doesn't make since. Sazed spoke to Wax like he was limited by his shards, bur he was still very much Sazed. Does it just Work slowly or does it model to the original bearer?

Edited July 9, 2018 by DarthWoodrack

[Wandering Investor]

No, Odium has thus far avoided investing himself as much as possible and a planet would require a lot of investing. He is currently invested on the planet Braize, although it is unknown if this was on purpose or not. And Braize already existed before he arrived. So far as I know, only Preservation and Ruin have gone so far as to create a new planet, every other known shard settled on an existing one. As for his magic system, we don't know what it would look like yet.

Edited July 6, 2018 by Wandering Investor

[Darth Woodrack]

Sorry, Just Changed topic. I didn't realize  that You had already replied. Thanks.

[RShara]

Odium, from the beginning, wanted to be the most powerful, but didn't want other Shardic natures to influence his own. So he's been Splintering Shards for a long time. Devotion, Dominion, and Ambition were Splintered by him pretty early on, before he got trapped on Roshar. Rayse was always dangerous and crafty. He and his Shard are a good match for each other.

At had been holding Ruin about as long as Rayse. But Ati was a nice person, and possibly took up Ruin in order to try and limit the Ruinous nature of the Shard. Sadly, that backfired and he was influenced by Ruin instead.

Sazed is different in that he has two opposing Shards. So the two intents cause him to have trouble acting. And it has already begun to influence him, even though it's only been a few hundred years, as opposed to thousands. But it does take time, depending on the willpower and perception of the Vessel.

Edited July 6, 2018 by RShara

[Ashspren]

In addition to what @RShara said, Ruin and Preservation kind of balance each other out.

@DarthWoodrack, your initial question has to do with the intent of the Shards. Each Shard has an intent— Ruin is to ruin, Preservation to preserve, etc. The intent of each Shard “warps” their Vessel (a person who holds a Shard) to better match that intent. Though Ati was, at first, a nice guy, Ruin’s intent started to influence him to act differently.

[Weltall]

FYI, Brandon has indeed confirmed that Ati was deliberately trying to channel his Shard's Intent towards a less destructive end while Rayse/Odium is different.

In general, we know that how much the Shard affects the personality of the Vessel is a case-by-case situation. Whether a Vessel's personality will be overridden or merely influenced is dependant on the Vessel, Rayse and Odium are a good match for each other and this is part of why Odium doesn't try to take the power of any other Shard, and one reason Sazed is somewhat less influenced by his (conflicting) Intents is his own personality and there are other Shards that are similarly less affected by the pressures of their Intent than others.

[Wander89]

I compare the holding of a Shard to when Bilbo gets the Ring in Lord of the Rings. They slowly turn into possessive, evil beings who only wish to hold more power. The personality traits slowly disappear and their reasoning behind holding the shard will diminish until all they wish to do is cause Ruin/Preservation/whichever Shard they hold.

It's not an absolutely fool-proof idea for what happens when someone holds a Shard but it's kinda what I think happens.

[Toaster Retribution]

17 minutes ago, Wander89 said:

They slowly turn into possessive, evil beings

I wouldn’t call them evil really. More that they only have one intent, and one focus. They don’t really have the capacity of being evil, in most cases. You could argue that Odium is evil I guess, but I wouldn’t call the others evil. 

[Wander89]

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I wouldn’t call them evil really. More that they only have one intent, and one focus. They don’t really have the capacity of being evil, in most cases. You could argue that Odium is evil I guess, but I wouldn’t call the others evil. 

Yeah I suppose those were the wrong words but I agree that they have only one focus. 

[Fezzik]

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/186-general-reddit-2013/#e4130

None of the 16 are technically evil.

[Darth Woodrack]

6 hours ago, John203 said:

None of the 16 are technically evil.

Well technically, since evil is a matter of perspective people are only evil if they themselves think that they are evil along with everyone else.

 

8 hours ago, Wander89 said:

I compare the holding of a Shard to when Bilbo gets the Ring in Lord of the Rings. They slowly turn into possessive, evil beings who only wish to hold more power. The personality traits slowly disappear and their reasoning behind holding the shard will diminish until all they wish to do is cause Ruin/Preservation/whichever Shard they hold.

I don't agree with the one ring analogy. Look at preservation. He didn't want more power, but the second part appears accurate.

[Bigmikey357]

It's give and take. The power and Intent of the Shards lie in the Spiritual Realm, this Intent is filtered in the Cognitive Realm by the expanded mind of the Vessel to be expressed in the Physical. The Shardcasters believe that describing the Intent of any Shard in one word is sort of an exercise in futility (and I agree). To me that means the Vessel and his/her core personality has much to do with how Shardic Intent is expressed. Take Harmony for example. Preservation/Ruin are polar opposites. If Kelsier would have taken up both Shards instead of Sazed the resulting Intent would be expressed as Discord instead of Harmony. But as Shardic Intent is influenced by that Shard's Vessel, that Vessel's personality is altered in such a way as to line up with their Shard's Intent. And with an infinite time frame to work with all Vessels eventually become a personification of that Shard. So initially there's give and take but the longer a Vessel holds a Shard the more that Vessel is overwhelmed. 

For another example, take Rayse and Odium. Had Odium been held by a more pleasant natured person, Odium gets expressed differently, at least initially. There would be a struggle. Like Ati and Ruin. If Rayse picked Ruin he would have been much more destructive than Ati was. Rayse and Odium seem to make a good pairing for there is little conflict between Rayse's core personality and Odium's Intent. That means Rayse is closer to being the same as he was at the Shattering than Ati was at the end. The more conflict between a Vessel's core personality and the Intent of the Shard, the faster the Vessel's core personality erodes. In the end, the Shard wins always, yet it's still colored by the mind of the Vessel. Incidentally, it's why Rayse would rather shatter other Shards instead of taking up their power. He likes himself, his shard is compatible, and he knows that were he to pick up another Shard it would alter who he is. If the Shard he picked up was one that clashes with his core personality it would change him faster and interfere with his plans to be the only Shard standing. But even if he took up a Shard complimentary to Hatred he still would no longer be the Rayse from the Shattering of Adonolasium. And it is likely the more shards of Adonolasium one holds, the faster the core personality of the Vessel is eroded. Sazed is already experiencing Intent Conflict issues a mere 300-ish years after he picked up Pres/Ruin. And this is someone who is actually compatible to the Shardic Intent of what he holds.

[Scion of the Mists]

On 7/7/2018 at 3:50 PM, DarthWoodrack said:

On 7/7/2018 at 8:31 AM, Wander89 said:

I compare the holding of a Shard to when Bilbo gets the Ring in Lord of the Rings. They slowly turn into possessive, evil beings who only wish to hold more power. The personality traits slowly disappear and their reasoning behind holding the shard will diminish until all they wish to do is cause Ruin/Preservation/whichever Shard they hold.

I don't agree with the one ring analogy. Look at preservation. He didn't want more power, but the second part appears accurate.

I think what Wander meant was that over time they are influenced more and more by their Shard's Intent.  So holding Odium/Ruin would make you more "evil" over time, but holding other Shards would change you in different ways.  

 

On 7/6/2018 at 5:41 PM, DarthWoodrack said:

but Sazed has Harmony and doesn't seem to have changed while Ruin wanted to destroy everything

Ruin and Harmony are basically perfectly opposed and balance each other out, so their Intents wouldn't change Sazed very much.  In addition, it takes time for the Intents to change the Vessel.  

[Wander89]

7 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I think what Wander meant was that over time they are influenced more and more by their Shard's Intent.  So holding Odium/Ruin would make you more "evil" over time, but holding other Shards would change you in different ways.  

Yeah, I didn't really explain myself properly but the slow taking over of the holder is what I meant.

[goody153]

On 7/7/2018 at 5:41 AM, DarthWoodrack said:

I find it illogical that Odium was filled with deep hatred for every single one of the shard bearers when the became gods, but he does several thousand years later,

Odium isn't just about hate why he's killing the other shards. It's simply a matter of a person trying to climb to absolute power through eliminating his competition. Odium is killing other shards and finding excuses to kill other shard.

It's just greed for power. Not really about intent just more about the person being power-crazed.

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but Sazed has Harmony and doesn't seem to have changed while Ruin wanted to destroy everything.

Ati and Sazed are quite different apparently. Ati was channeling the intent into less destructive paths(so that implies that Ati doesn't actually accept Ruin or the concept itself disturbs him) meanwhile the reason why Sazed completely matched with Ruin as he did with Preservation. Was all the prepping work in order for him to have a mindset that he sees change and death as a natural thing. Change and death is the nature of Ruin so he doesn't actually see Ruin as a bad thing.

Also half of his intent is still preservation. So it helps and he's not even trying to fight either intent.

He sees both as necessary, both survival and death of things. So the big catch is that he will think that some things have to stay and some things have to pass. So he's not longer just about death only or the state of neverchanging. 

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I can see how he would help them defeat the original god, but Odium doesn't make since. Sazed spoke to Wax like he was limited by his shards, bur he was still very much Sazed. Does it just Work slowly or does it model to the original bearer?

I think Ruin's influence is already on Sazed even on the Hero of Ages epigraphs where he was already rationalizing the intent even when Ati held it. And he already says "the potential for murder" is necessary around SoS. He is even already influenced by Preservation's intent as he is saying the same things in SoS that Vin had experience during her time as Preservation(the pain that she felt when people passed).

Also apparently is tailor-fit for the task of holding opposed intent shards which is why he can operate with his personality intact. Similar to Odium matching really well with the intent of his shard. Like both person must not be able to tell whether it was their intent or their own personality who made an action because of how on the same page they are with their intents.

On a side note it must be really weird for Sazed to contemplate upon things he learned by being the holder of both Preservation and Ruin. Since he could see the actions done(basically a log of history of how the power was used) from the shards he held, he'd see how the previous vessels of both shards plotted/fought against each other for eons. It must be like watching a match in the perspective of the two teams when he's also a player on both sides of the team lol

[Rhapsody]

3 hours ago, goody153 said:

On a side note it must be really weird for Sazed to contemplate upon things he learned by being the holder of both Preservation and Ruin. Since he could see the actions done(basically a log of history of how the power was used) from the shards he held, he'd see how the previous vessels of both shards plotted/fought against each other for eons. It must be like watching a match in the perspective of the two teams when he's also a player on both sides of the team lol

That is hilarious to think about. But I think it matches perfectly with Sazed. In Era 1 he was always the character that was trying to see both sides of a conflict, rationalizing the actions of the opposing party. Imagining him sitting on both sides of an athletic conflict, rooting for both sides with equal vigor, just fits.

 

Also I agree with what @goody153said. His intents are a perfect match for his personality, which makes it difficult to see how he is influenced by them. But think about this: In TFE Sazed was the only Keeper to decide to DO something as opposed to hiding amd waiting. Even while seeing both sides he choose one side over the other, acting on this choice. In Era 2 he is far less active, not only because he complains about his opposing powers but also in the rest of his dialogue. He is always rationalizing the actions of the opposing party but instead of choosing he just stops there. The only action he seems to take is deciding with whom to share his thoughts (in this case Wax), which manipulates that person to act (but Sazed is not influencing them directly). 

I hope my ramblings are somehow understandable

[Darth Woodrack]

11 hours ago, Rhapsody said:

I hope my ramblings are somehow understandable

They very well were. I agree that Sazed seems much more subdued, but he talked like he wanted to take sides, but he couldn't.

[Rhapsody]

yes that is what I mean. And because of that he needs to manipulate wax in order to get anything done

[Darth Woodrack]

He is also sending Kandra to fight with him so he is kind of choosing a side.

[+Sorana]

11 hours ago, DarthWoodrack said:

He is also sending Kandra to fight with him so he is kind of choosing a side.

Kind of, but we have to keep in mind that Sazed has changed between era1 and era2 as @Rhapsody pointed out. So his decision to act and "help" doesn't necessary mean he is helping. What I want to say, is that I think he follows his own  Agenda, and that involved sending the kandra, but maybe next time he'll act against our hero, as that fits his agenda better.

His personality definitly changed a bit and I expect it to continue changing between era2 and era3.

 

Additional to the shard's influence on your personality we shouldn't discount the effect power and a greater viewpoint can have. Imo not as strong as a shard, but definitly existing.

[Rhapsody]

16 hours ago, DarthWoodrack said:

He is also sending Kandra to fight with him so he is kind of choosing a side.

yes exactly he is sending kandra. not acting himself. it is essentially the same as with Wax, manipulating someone to do something. and kandra are easier to influence because of their blessings and most revere him as god.

I also never said he doesn't choose a side. His shard is influencing him it hasn't overridden his personality though that may still happen in the future.

What I mean is that you can see the changes in his personality between era1 and era 2. It is not like with Ati that his shards intent is taking over, but you can see the influence Harmony the shard has on Sazed personality.

On that note as @Soranapointed out: could you imagine the Sazed from Era 1 doing what Harmony does in SoS? Hurting a good person like Wax by killing his wife in front of his eyes (and by his hand) only to further his own goals? And that is just one of the more blatant examples of how Sazed has changed.