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So, I've been reading up on Intent and commands and have been trying to make sense of what they are, and what exactly the difference is between then. and I've come up with a bit of a theory. basically, commands are molds for investiture, and intents are more subtle ways of affecting of investiture interacts with the world, after it has been molded by a command. my basic premise is that for investiture to do anything it must be first molded by a command. investiture, on it's own (without a command) cannot do anything. I don't mean just for awakenings, but for ALL forms of magic, from allomancy to surgebinding. the intent can then modify how that investiture is used exactly. in a very loose analogy, you could think of commands as being a sort of hardware, and that intents are sort of software. where the software is far easier to modify than the hardware, and the software helps dictate how the hardware works. I also believe that commands do not require a sapience/sentience/intelligence, but intents do. i feel like this is best illustrated with a few examples. ROSHAR consider soulcasting. (according to my theory) all soulcasting involves a single command. but the various types of soulcasting are just manifestations of different intents. so soulcasting a material to metal or smoke both involve the same command, but with different intents. now consider soulcaster fabrials, all soulcaster fabrials have the same command, and the reason different gemstones perform different kinds of soulcasting is due to the intents of the spren inside the gemstone. that's why soulcasters that use fabrials cannot soulcast things into whatever material they require, because the humans wielding the soulcasters do not directly manipulate investiture, so they cannot will their intent into the investiture. or consider lashings, I would say that windrunners (and all other orders) each have 2 commands at their disposal, one related to each power they have. so windrunners have a command for gravitation and one for adhesion. so when Kaladin lashes himself, the lashing itself is a command, but the direction he lashes to is dependent on his intent. SCADRIAL allomancy is quite interesting, because I believe that none of it uses intent in any form consider iron, when ingested allows people to pull metal towards them. and that's it. because no misting is ever directly manipulating investiture, they are not able to control it according to their intents, so they can only use the commands associated with a metal, giving them far less flexibility. in hemalurgy, there is some aspect of intent in terms of actually taking the powers. you dont really choose what powers you get, that's all based on the hemalurgic command associated with the metal. so intent only affects whether or not you are actually taking a power or just stabbing someone. whereas the command is what effects what power/attribute is stolen. NALTHIS the way commands work in Nalthis is that to simply create a command requires visualization. and the more complex the command the more complicated the visualization. now i think there is a visualization involved in both the command and the intent. and the same command given with different intents will do different things, but the command is far more important than the intent. like say the command "fetch keys", depending on the intent given it will fetch keys it will perhaps fetch keys in different ways, but to an extent. if you say, want to awaken an object to get on a ship to a different continent, infiltrate a bank, get the keys to their vault and then swim all the way back to you, that's gonna take a lot more than just intent

This is obviously purely philosophical, but I was just wondering, if not for her relationship with Honor, would Cultivation have been drawn to Scadrial either instead of or in addition to Preservation? People often say that Preservation and Ruin were both drawn to Scadrial because of their opposing intents, kind of like two poles of a magnet. But strictly speaking Ruin and Preservation are NOT opposites. Ruin is essentially regression and Preservation is essentially stasis. The true opposite of Ruin is actually Cultivation, at least if we assume that her overall intent is growth/progression, which appears to be the case from what little we’ve seen of her. Preservation is effectively smack in between Ruin and Cultivation in terms of intent. And indeed, I would think that if someone were to simultaneously hold the Shards of Ruin and Cultivation, the result very well might effectively be a second more powerful Shard of Preservation, since the net effect of their two intents would cancel each other out. Anyone have any thoughts?

So Harmony is made up of two opposing Shards. As of MB era 2 Harmony is still mostly Sazed, as far as I understand, but over the years his shard's Intent is going to remake him into... something. I see four options as to what that something might be: 1. Ruin and Preservation Intents together pretty much cover all potential actions Harmony might take, so they cancel each other out. Future!Harmony stays Sazed inside and can do whatever he likes. (Pros: Adonalsium was all those conflicting proto-Intents at once. Cons: seems like too much of a narrative free lunch). 2. Pretty much all potential actions fall under either "conflicts with Ruin's Intent" or "conflicts with Preservation's Intent". Harmony ends up not really being able to do anything. He spends future eras basically sitting around on his thumbs. (Unlikely; sounds like a waste of the character). 3. Harmony can only take individual actions that are equal-parts Ruinous and... what's the word? Preservative? Preservation-y? Not technically as limiting as #2 (but still feels like a waste). 4. Harmony's actions have to average out being Ruinous and Preservation-y. So if he wants to, say, save a major city from a tornado, he can do so, but he'll have to cause an equal amount of destruction (either at once or cumulatively) somehow somewhere on Scadrial. (I find this one the most likely, if only because it seems like the scenario Sanderson can do the most with). What do you think? (sorry if I've used the wrong words or spelling; I don't have time to edit this properly)

I was just thinking, do we think that because Honor and Cultivation were lovers that they influenced how each of them ultimately came to express their respective Intents? Because from what we've seen of each of them individually, it does seem that they each express at least a minimal degree of the others' Intent as well, with Honor trying to groom (i.e. 'Cultivate') the Rosharans to be more honorable and grow as a people, and Cultivation through the Nightwatcher seeming to tailor her boons/curses to the individual and at least in the case of Dalinar actively cultivating him into a much more honorable man over time. Is this just a coincidence, or is there some kind of direct causal influence occurring between the two of them as far as this is concerned? Because as far as we know, nothing similar to this occurred in the case of Ruin and Preservation or Dominion and Devotion, though admittedly in the case of the latter we simply lack any sufficient information to say one way or the other.

So, I was talking with a friend, and she was saying that she thinks Adonalsium has to have a Cognitive Shadow somewhere in the Cosmere. She was convinced by a WOB were Brandon RAFO'd the question of "Does Adonalsium have a Cognitive Shadow in the Cosmere." My first response was doubt. To me it just didn't seem like something that would happen. She asked me why, and I mentioned that Cognitive Shadows were imprints of people's investiture that were left behind, really as an excuse out of an explanation. Looking through the WOB's on this topic, that is just the common in-world theory, and that cognitive shadows are super complicated. Either way, when I told my friend that she said that something with as much investiture as Adonalsium must have left behind a Cognitive Shadow, saying "Where did all that investiture go then?" to which I responded "What do you think the Shards are?" and then I realized... The Shards. What if the Shards are in fact Cognitive Shadows left behind by Adonalsium, or at least the Intents are. According to the Coppermind, a Nahel bond between a Cognitive Shadow and a person is possible, and what if the Vessels are bonding in some strange, or maybe simple, who knows, way with the Cognitive Shadows of Adonalsium. Please let me know your thoughts.

So far, through WoB and the books released, Brandon has given us the names of 9 Shards. I know there's been lots of speculation over time, but one of the things I've noticed lately is a sort of fixation (understandably, considering the books we've gotten lately) on Harmony and Autonomy. One thing that I think has slipped under the radar during all the Trell debate is that the revelation of Autonomy now gives us 2/3 of known Shards that have opposite Intents. Ruin/Preservation Odium/Honor Autonomy/Dominion Endowment Cultivation Devotion Of course, we also have the unknown Intent of the Shard that just wants to survive. What this brings me to is an attempt at guessing some of the other unknown Shards. The fact that six of the nine known Shards have opposition does lend credence to the idea that all of them do, and I will be operating under that assumption while I proceed with rampant speculation. So, starting with Endowment and Devotion. Both of these have connotations of selflessness, but one in an emotional/spiritual sense and the other in a physical sense. Taking that to its logical conclusion, my best guess is opposing Shards of emotional and physical themes. Endowment against Greed or, perhaps a bit of a stretch, Nepotism Devotion against Narcissism/Lust Lastly among the known Shards we have Cultivation. This is an interesting one, since it does have some similarities to the idea of Preservation, in that Ruin would be a similar opposition. The most logical would be something like Disease or Decay. And that leaves us with the realm of pure speculation. We know we have a "survival" Shard, but that its Intent isn't necessarily directly related to surviving. The place my mind immediately jumps is simpler: Fear, or perhaps Cowardice. That would directly line up against some type of Courage Intent. The last two are, admittedly, pure guesses. Going off what we know of Shards' Intents, that being that they're personality traits, my best bet is something along the lines of Ambition and Indecision. So the sixteen Shards, in theory, would be: Ruin | Preservation Dominion | Autonomy Odium | Honor Endowment | Greed Devotion | Narcissism Cultivation | Decay Fear | Courage Ambition | Indecision How wildly off do you think I am?

I wonder if in the end, in order to stop Odium, the Stormfather and Nightwatcher are going to have to sacrifice themselves to force their Intents onto Rayse. We know that if a Shardholder dies, the power itself will eventually gain sentience. If a Shard is Splintered, those Splinters can also gain sentience. So just killing/Splintering Odium wouldn't be very useful, unless having hundreds of little pieces of Hatred running around is a good thing But if the Stormfater and the Nightwatcher, joined their powers in with what Rayse already has, then his Hatred would be tempered with Honor and Cultivation (which implies protecting/growing). In the Chapter 71 Epigraph, we have this: So if he is reunited with some of those virtues, it stands to reason he might then become a reasonable Shardholder, who would no longer run rampant across the cosmere. Thoughts?