[OB] Shards averse to interacting with people?

[Wandering Investor]

Is it just me, or do the shards seem somewhat averse to interacting with people or general public awareness? 

Endowment is only seen interacting with the returned when they first die. The general population of Nalthis appears entirely unaware of her existence. And we know from the letters that she was watching well enough to spot Hoid, so its not like she's ignoring the planet.

Autonomy is noted by Brandon to prefer to work through her avatars instead of directly.

Ruin admitted to seeing all humans as tools(maybe all shards share this view?) and only interacted with spiked individuals, or the few instances of nudging Vin and Sazed.

Preservation at least made direct contact with the terris people, as he did give them the prophecies which contained knowledge of Ruin and Preservation. And several peoples of Scadrial knew of different versions of their twin gods. But in general specific knowledge of Preservation and Ruin was not widespread, although maybe Ruin purposely inhibited it? Preservation is shown to love humanity and desire Kelsier's respect, but doesn't seem too upset that the world isn't worshiping him.

Roshar: Honor and Cultivation were at least know by the early people of Roshar. The heralds had some way of contacting Honor to ask for the privilege of becoming heralds. And the Radiants knew of both and were able to contact Honor and the SF described Honor as loving humanity. But post Honor's death, Cultivation seems to have largely shunned humanity. She does seem to be doing background stuff, but no known direct interactions. She's had 4.5 millennia to firmly entrench in people's minds that Culti/Honor good, Odium bad, and she could have cultivated humanity to be better prepared for the desolation. In her scene with Dalinar she seemed almost annoyed of having to interact with someone as lowly as a human, although this was another show of a shard requiring the respect of a person but not upset with the world not worshiping/respecting her. Maybe she's just upset with humanity because Honor died. Of course, she also might be avoiding presenting a target to Odium.

Odium I'll leave as an unknown, as we can't know what he did on Sel and Threnody, and on Roshar he appears to fear a strike from Cultivation. 

Harmony is the only shard that seems to take a semi active approach to his planet's population(the basin part anyways), at least when his twin shards allow him to. The north part of Scadrial at least knows of him in detail from the writings he left, and he occasionally sends messages via earrings. The kandra can actively speak to him, and regularly carry out his will on the planet. But even in his case, the southern hemisphere doesn't seem to interact with him directly, all of their knowledge coming from their Survivor. 

What are your thoughts? Do the shards want to be unknown? Do they just prefer to watch instead of taking action? Do they just consider humanity not worth the effort? Do most of them just not care one way or another about humanity? Some other reason?

[Calderis]

Honestly, I think they would find interaction with the limited capacity of mortal species frustrating. 

In SH we see Leras as Preservation splitting his consciousness to have a meeting with multiple individuals who die, simultaneously. Sazed seems to have continued this and considers it his most sacred duty. Imagine how that must work, split over an entire planet. 

The mental capacity needed to engage in that many interactions at once, all similar, but distinct enough to require tailored responses... And that is just a tiny fraction of you mind. 

The vast majority of humanity must be mind numbingly predictable and boring to them all. Every shard is expanded similarly. 

[Wandering Investor]

I could see that, although it does bring up the question of what the shards do for entertainment or to pass the time. But entertainment isn't the only reason for contact. Nudging the planet in a desired direction could be a reason. Harmony seems hesitant to just mention to inventors, "hey, that's neat!". Can you image the drive that would give people without actually giving them an easy path? Cultivation could have been cultivating the people of Roshar instead of letting them just fight and back stab each other. Endowment could have... I'm not sure, get people to endow other people with stuff? I'm not sure what the shards motivations are really. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the shards appear to be incredibly passive in nature.

[Weltall]

Harmony has apparently been doing just that. He 'accidentally' lets slip the idea of motion pictures to the kandra, who mention it to Wax et al, and for all we know Wayne will mention it to Sophi Tarcsel and then she'll figure out how to make it work, or at least get it started and someone else will build on her work. He also mentions other technologies to Wax. We know he's a Shard that's actively nudging development along but he's also got his opposing Intents to juggle.

Cultivation is currently busy fighting with Odium so her methods of interacting kind of have to be subtle, but we know she's doing it. Also, assuming that she should focus on the people of Roshar is awfully humanoidist (is that a word? It should be) of you. For all we know, she's fascinated by the rest of the planet's flora and fauna and is only tangentially interested in the noisy two-legged ones insofar as they intersect with her interests and her desire to oppose Odium.

Endowment seems to have set up a really cushy gig for herself, insofar as every time anyone uses her magic system, they're carrying out her Intent for her.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Weltall

[+ElephantEarwax]

1 hour ago, Wandering Investor said:

I could see that, although it does bring up the question of what the shards do for entertainment or to pass the time. But entertainment isn't the only reason for contact. Nudging the planet in a desired direction could be a reason. Harmony seems hesitant to just mention to inventors, "hey, that's neat!". Can you image the drive that would give people without actually giving them an easy path? Cultivation could have been cultivating the people of Roshar instead of letting them just fight and back stab each other. Endowment could have... I'm not sure, get people to endow other people with stuff? I'm not sure what the shards motivations are really. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the shards appear to be incredibly passive in nature.

They obviously just listen to The Boombox. (from White Sand)

[Nathrangking]

2 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

Is it just me, or do the shards seem somewhat averse to interacting with people or general public awareness? 

Endowment is only seen interacting with the returned when they first die. The general population of Nalthis appears entirely unaware of her existence. And we know from the letters that she was watching well enough to spot Hoid, so its not like she's ignoring the planet.

Autonomy is noted by Brandon to prefer to work through her avatars instead of directly.

Ruin admitted to seeing all humans as tools(maybe all shards share this view?) and only interacted with spiked individuals, or the few instances of nudging Vin and Sazed.

Preservation at least made direct contact with the terris people, as he did give them the prophecies which contained knowledge of Ruin and Preservation. And several peoples of Scadrial knew of different versions of their twin gods. But in general specific knowledge of Preservation and Ruin was not widespread, although maybe Ruin purposely inhibited it? Preservation is shown to love humanity and desire Kelsier's respect, but doesn't seem too upset that the world isn't worshiping him.

Roshar: Honor and Cultivation were at least know by the early people of Roshar. The heralds had some way of contacting Honor to ask for the privilege of becoming heralds. And the Radiants knew of both and were able to contact Honor and the SF described Honor as loving humanity. But post Honor's death, Cultivation seems to have largely shunned humanity. She does seem to be doing background stuff, but no known direct interactions. She's had 4.5 millennia to firmly entrench in people's minds that Culti/Honor good, Odium bad, and she could have cultivated humanity to be better prepared for the desolation. In her scene with Dalinar she seemed almost annoyed of having to interact with someone as lowly as a human, although this was another show of a shard requiring the respect of a person but not upset with the world not worshiping/respecting her. Maybe she's just upset with humanity because Honor died. Of course, she also might be avoiding presenting a target to Odium.

Odium I'll leave as an unknown, as we can't know what he did on Sel and Threnody, and on Roshar he appears to fear a strike from Cultivation. 

Harmony is the only shard that seems to take a semi active approach to his planet's population(the basin part anyways), at least when his twin shards allow him to. The north part of Scadrial at least knows of him in detail from the writings he left, and he occasionally sends messages via earrings. The kandra can actively speak to him, and regularly carry out his will on the planet. But even in his case, the southern hemisphere doesn't seem to interact with him directly, all of their knowledge coming from their Survivor. 

What are your thoughts? Do the shards want to be unknown? Do they just prefer to watch instead of taking action? Do they just consider humanity not worth the effort? Do most of them just not care one way or another about humanity? Some other reason?

It is not hard for me to imagine things as @Calderis put it that they get frustrated dealing with mortals.Some shards like Autonomy can by intent be seen to purposely eschew or seek. While others like Ruin or Odium seek to destroy humanity and would not desire to be involved with them. While someone like Endowment would and does actively involve herself. Others such as Cultivation etc... are harder to get into the mind of. Though Harmony can indeed be ascribed to the conflict of the shards.

[Master Knapper]

They may also be limited, although we don't know how limited.  We know Harmony has the ability to both hear and project thoughts, at least to someone with a spike or cracked spirit web.  But didn't he say that the ability to hear thoughts came from Preservation, and the ability to project came from Ruin? 

The spikes/cracked spirit web is also key, judging from the difficulty Kelsier had communicating with humans while holding preservation.

What would be the equivalent to spikes that would allow the other shards to communicate with people?  Honor (through the Stormfather) required dreams that were at least initially tied to the storm.  Cultivation was able to talk to Dalinar, but his Spirit Web was pretty cracked at the time.

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, Master Knapper said:

We know Harmony has the ability to both hear and project thoughts, at least to someone with a spike or cracked spirit web.  But didn't he say that the ability to hear thoughts came from Preservation, and the ability to project came from Ruin? 

That's related to the powers of Ruin and Preservation creating Scadrial, I believe.

[Calderis]

11 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

That's related to the powers of Ruin and Preservation creating Scadrial, I believe.

And more specifically Scadrians. 

I seriously wonder if that limitation would applied when interacting with a species not created entirely by those two 

[goody153]

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Is it just me, or do the shards seem somewhat averse to interacting with people or general public awareness? 

They don't seem like they really care if people knew about them. Or at least the less "egosistical" ones seemed not to mind if people knew about them( somebody like Honor or Odium sounds like a classic ruler who wants recognition and acknowledgement). I mean if preservation has some level of mind-reading then maybe other shards also have. And since shards have some way of predicting the future/possible-future then they probably already have some existing prejudice about people they are observing and don't really care enough to talk to.

Also like others have pointed out that Harmony probably has a much easier time due to the specific Ruin/Preservation literally creating Scadrial out of thin air thing. But i don't see it really being difficult to send people messages for solo shards or those unopposed if not solo. 

They probably aren't just that into communicating with people.

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Ruin admitted to seeing all humans as tools(maybe all shards share this view?) and only interacted with spiked individuals, or the few instances of nudging Vin and Sazed.

Minor correction Ruin sees everybody who does his will as a tool.

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What are your thoughts? Do the shards want to be unknown? Do they just prefer to watch instead of taking action? Do they just consider humanity not worth the effort? Do most of them just not care one way or another about humanity? Some other reason?

 I think all shards are like this to some extent even the ones who loved humanity(Preservation, Honor, Harmony, Endowment). If the less morally ambigious(Harmony) is capable of doing really manipulative stuff then i believe all shards who rule a world at least to some extent has some level of apathy towards their own charges. After all none-of-them(the people they govern) are exactly permanent and in their vast perspective it's probably just that way they think even if they still care enough about their own people that they won't let them burn to the ground. 

 

I also don't think shards are against amusing themselves. I mean Sazed gets amused by Wax's responses to him. I bet he isn't against following some funny person's life and just laughing from the background. Even Leras as Preservation watches the Kelsier vs Inquisitor from era 1 as some kind of boxing match.

I can already imagine a scenario where one Scadrians wondered all his life if he should've asked some person out then he died. When the obligatory Harmony talk comes and the first thing Sazed says "You should've totally asked her out ! What were you doing ?" lol

On 7/13/2018 at 11:39 PM, Calderis said:

The vast majority of humanity must be mind numbingly predictable and boring to them all. Every shard is expanded similarly. 

They probably snickered alot behind the scenes seeing mortals doing stupid things but yeah this sounds about right. At least Harmony isn't completely bored with him having servants(kandra) and friends(marsh) to talk to none-stop.

 

I also found this kinda intriguing WoB that i really wanted to see happen.

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WeiryWriter

Something I've recently been wondering about is how responsive is Sazed to people in the Cognitive Realm flagging him down for a conversation. Let's say Khriss, during one of her trips between Scadrial and Silverlight just shouts "Yo Harmony, do you have time to chat?", how would he respond?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on this one.

source

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by goody153

[Master Knapper]

On ‎7‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 2:06 PM, Calderis said:

And more specifically Scadrians. 

I seriously wonder if that limitation would applied when interacting with a species not created entirely by those two 

If anything, communicating with a species that you helped create should be easier than a species with which you are not connected in any way. 

Look at the methods that we've seen that we've seen the shards use:
1)  Endowment can apparently only communicate with a dead person.  She gives them the information that they need, then sends them back as a returned.  Really sounds like a convoluted method to get the changes you want to make, unless that is the only way she can do it.
2)  Honor, through Stormfather, can only communicate with Dalinar and Kaladin through dream/visions during a highstorm, at least until Dalinar binds with him.  Again, it is a shard (or part of a shard) that is very motivated to communicate.
3)  Kelsier, when holding Preservation, is very motivated to communicate with Vin.  He can only do it by dealing with half-mad individuals, or Spook, after he was more than half dead.
4)  Ruin is very motivated to whisper to Vin, and can only do it when she has her earing in.
5)  Sazed is also motivated when searching for Bleeder, but can only communicate with the Kandra or Wax (when his earing is in).
6) Odium is very motivated to seed discord, but only seems to be active with things like the Thrill, which he manages through intermediaries: the unmade.  He is later able to hijack the Stormfather's visions, but again it's indirect.  The only direct interaction is with Dalinar during the big battle, and there is obviously a lot we don't know going on there.
7) The only other somewhat unlimited interaction is Dalinar with Cultivation, during the OB flashback.  Even that one was at a very unusual location (Nightweaver's locale) which may be associated with Cultivation's shard pool. 

Too me, it really looks like it is difficult for a Shard to communicate directly, even when they want to. 

[Wandering Investor]

2) Honor was dead at the time, he was noted to communicate directly to his radiants.

3/4/6) are all being opposed by another shard

1/5/7 are where it gets interesting. Is endowment capable of communicating with only those in the cognitive realm, or does she simply choose not too. She was able to respond to Hoid's letter, indicating she can communicate with the cosmere postal service. Is Harmony incapable of forcing his thoughts onto people, does the shard of preservation prevent this, or does he simply choose not to. Is Cultivation limited to where her avatar appears, is she refraining from giving a target to Odium, does she just not want to show herself? Cultivation really interest me as she is appearing to a noninvested person in the physical realm, which seems to indicate that she could do so to any person at any time, and its entirely by choice that she doesn't interact.

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Master Knapper said:

1)  Endowment can apparently only communicate with a dead person.  She gives them the information that they need, then sends them back as a returned.  Really sounds like a convoluted method to get the changes you want to make, unless that is the only way she can do it.

As mentioned, this may just be a matter of personal preference. She was able to communicate with Hoid via letter, which requires some means of conveying her exact words to a messenger. Probably in a manner similar to how Sazed created the Words of Founding and left a copy for Spook to discover. We know Edgli firmly believes that the Shards should stay out of each others' way so it's not unlikely that she also thinks she shouldn't be interfering too overtly in everyday life on Nalthis.

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2)  Honor, through Stormfather, can only communicate with Dalinar and Kaladin through dream/visions during a highstorm, at least until Dalinar binds with him.  Again, it is a shard (or part of a shard) that is very motivated to communicate.

Honor used to have ten Heralds who could speak to him and relay messages and we know that he could similarly communicate directly with the Knights Radiant of old without needing to use highstorm visions as an intermediary. The latter method was only necessary once Honor was splintered and his chosen agent for passing his message along was the Stormfather who's only 'present' during the highstorms.

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3)  Kelsier, when holding Preservation, is very motivated to communicate with Vin.  He can only do it by dealing with half-mad individuals, or Spook, after he was more than half dead.

4)  Ruin is very motivated to whisper to Vin, and can only do it when she has her earing in.

Ruin and Preservation may be more restricted in how they can act due to the manner of Scadrial's creation as discussed above. Ruin's ability to alter the written word makes it clear that he had other ways of communicating, Leras was dying throughout the events of the books and Kelsier had to deal with not only Ruin's attempts to stymie him but the fact that he was cut adrift from the Physical Realm which made it even harder to do anything.

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5)  Sazed is also motivated when searching for Bleeder, but can only communicate with the Kandra or Wax (when his earing is in).

Sazed has his opposing Intents and a general belief in free will that are also tying his hands. As I mentioned, he can create books out of thin air (and pen his own letter to Hoid) so he's got other ways to communicate if he needs to.

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There's more going on here, of course. Pay attention to the name he mentions: Trell. This is one of the gods from the ancient religions Sazed talked about. You might think that the spikes in Miles will let Sazed influence him directly, and they would—except that Sazed has taken a complete "free will is needed" perspective on life. He won't let himself take control of people directly unless they've "given themselves" to him, as most of the kandra have at this point. Even then, he usually only nudges. source

 

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6) Odium is very motivated to seed discord, but only seems to be active with things like the Thrill, which he manages through intermediaries: the unmade.  He is later able to hijack the Stormfather's visions, but again it's indirect.  The only direct interaction is with Dalinar during the big battle, and there is obviously a lot we don't know going on there.

He also interacts directly with his entire army at Thaylen City and before that he communicates directly with Venli. He and Cultivation are both likely somewhat circumspect because they're fighting each other and don't want to give the other any opportunities for a free potshot.

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7) The only other somewhat unlimited interaction is Dalinar with Cultivation, during the OB flashback.  Even that one was at a very unusual location (Nightweaver's locale) which may be associated with Cultivation's shard pool. 

Her Perpendicularity is in the Horneater Peaks, about a quarter of a continent away. She too is constrained a bit by the whole 'busy fighting another Shard' thing but like Honor it seems that she was more communicative in the past and certainly was better known when Urithiru was constructed.

To round out the discussion of known Shards, Devotion and Dominion were splintered long ago and we don't know how they may have interacted with the people of Sel, ditto Ambition. Autonomy creates avatars to increase her influence and can communicate through them. Given that Bavadin has created entire pantheons, she's clearly not adverse to interacting with people and like Endowment and Harmony we see her responding back directly to Hoid.

[Master Knapper]

Weltall, I think you are making my point.  I am saying that the Shards cannot directly speak to a normal, healthy individual in the physical realm.  They need some way to create a link first.  You describe a number of those links:  Honor's Heralds and links (through a spren) to the KR, Ruin's Spikes, Kelsier picking people with a severely cracked spirit web, Odium's control of the army at Thaylen City was managed through the Unmade that Dalinar captured at the end of the battle, Autonomy's avatars (which are separate from her, otherwise she would not need to train her newest one with an intense dislike {or was it distrust, can't remember} of Hoid) are another.  We don't know what method Bavadin has used, but I expect it was through some intermediary, link, or avatar.

Dalinar talking to Cultivation is the only occasion I can think of that comes close to direct conversation.  However it does occur in nightweaver's location, which is found in a different place by each person who finds it, and is with Dalinar when he is wracked with guilt, loss, and pain, probably resulting in some cracks in his spirit web. 

Finally, I don't think we can use Hoid's letters as evidence of this type of communication.  Hoid is hardly a normal individual.  He spends a great deal of time in the cognitive realm, and probably has access to the spiritual realm, and we have no information how the letters are sent or received, but it is very unlikely that it happens in the physical realm.

[goody153]

Probably worth noting that Odium directly talked to  Taravingian who he has no link of(unlike his fused or the singers who took in his spren)

[Weltall]

Brandon has said that a Shard can manifest a body and directly interact with the Physical Realm if they want to. Thus, they could communicate directly if they chose to.

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Argent [PENDING REVIEW]

Can Shards manifest a physical body that can actually interact with the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

If they wanted to, yes.

source

 

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Finally, I don't think we can use Hoid's letters as evidence of this type of communication.  Hoid is hardly a normal individual.  He spends a great deal of time in the cognitive realm, and probably has access to the spiritual realm, and we have no information how the letters are sent or received, but it is very unlikely that it happens in the physical realm.

There are actual people delivering these letters.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Weltall

[Solant]

Not to mention that the lives of ordinary people relative to the near immortal span of a shard vessel would seem so insignificant that they probably find little need to communicate with them. The most notable exceptions being Leras when people go beyond, and Sazed who is still relatively new and able to relate to his people (and not completely consumed by his shards intents).