predicting the other Dawnshards

[cometaryorbit]

This thread is only in this forum because Virtuosity is mentioned.

We know one of the Dawnshards is Change, and another has something to do with binding.

Hoid's Dawnshard, its aftereffects preventing him from harming anyone or eating meat, is likely something like "Protect" or "Remain (the same)".

The 4 Shards under "Change" are likely:

1. Ruin - (entropy)

2. Cultivation (controlled/directed growth)

3. Whimsy (change for the sake of change/undirected change)

4. Odium (whose core intent, from RoW, I think is conflict, or conflict for conflict's sake perhaps, rather than simply hate).

 

Under "Protect/Remain" (Hoid's) would be:

5. Preservation-- stasis, remaining the same

6. Valor -- risking oneself to protect

7. Autonomy-- separation or protection from external influences

8. Mercy -- protection from punishment or the bad effects of one's actions

 

The ones associated with "Bind" would be:

9. Devotion - unity through love

10. Dominion- unity through force/compulsion/power

11. Honor- oaths/bonds

12. Perhaps Ambition, depending on what Ambition's precise intent is (is it more about increasing one's influence over others, which would fit this quadrant? Or more about self improvement, which wouldn't fit?)

 

The 3 remaining known Shards are:

13. Virtuosity (artistic creativity)

14. Endowment  (giving a part of oneself)

15. Invention (technological creativity perhaps?)

That IMO suggests that the last Dawnshard is something like "Create" or "Bestow".

--

To get very speculative, the use of the Dawnshards as weapons against Adonalsium might have involved using Change to make the unity of Adonalsium changeable/fragile; Create/Bestow to Bestow separate Intents on the parts; Bind to Bind them to sixteen Vessels, ripping Adonalsium apart; and Remain/Protect to stabilize the new Shards.

[Onironte]

How much perfection... Very good theory.

[+Child of Hodor]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:57 AM, cometaryorbit said:

This thread is only in this forum because Virtuosity is mentioned.

I love this! I made some tweaks

Quote

 

The 4 Shards under "Change" are likely:

1. Ruin - (entropy)

2. Cultivation (controlled/directed growth)

3. Whimsy (change for the sake of change/undirected change)

4. Ambition - *Shrug* it has to go somewhere. Ambition is generally about obtaining something one doesn't already have status, wealth, titles etc. Changing things in a self-centered way. 

 

Under "Protect/Remain" (Hoid's) would be:

5. Preservation-- stasis, remaining the same

6. Valor -- risking oneself to protect

7. Autonomy-- separation or protection from external influences (This fits really well when you put it that way! I always have trouble placing Autonomy.)

8. Mercy -- protection from punishment or the bad effects of one's actions. (I don't love it here, but it doesn't fit anywhere else and what you say about sparing someone makes sense.) 

 

The ones associated with "Bind" would be:

9. Devotion - unity through love

10. Dominion- unity through force/compulsion/power

11. Honor- oaths/bonds

12. Odium unite through hatred of a common enemy & other shared emotional experiences. 

Create, Bestow, Live(?), Exist(??)

13. Virtuosity (artistic creativity)

14. Endowment  (giving a part of oneself) Could go in Change since giving changes both the giver and the recipient in some way (or at least what stuff they have). I like it here because it fits with Giving or Bestowing Life. 

15. Invention (technological creativity perhaps?) 

16:  Wisdom - The Mystery Shard that wanted to hide & survive at one point. That's a wise choice. Wisdom is gained through life experience goes with living and trying new things to accumulate experiences from which one gains more Wisdom. 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Child of Hodor

[cometaryorbit]

I see Odium as being mostly about conflict, given RoW's stuff about 'the power wants disagreement/conflict even if the Vessel wants to be obeyed without question'. So I don't really see it as fitting with the Dawnshard 'known to bind'. Yes, there's that Elantris quote about hatred uniting, but even that is unity *against* an enemy, still conflict focused.

Ambition under Change works really well though...

[+Child of Hodor]

19 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I see Odium as being mostly about conflict, given RoW's stuff about 'the power wants disagreement/conflict even if the Vessel wants to be obeyed without question'. So I don't really see it as fitting with the Dawnshard 'known to bind'. Yes, there's that Elantris quote about hatred uniting, but even that is unity *against* an enemy, still conflict focused.

Ambition under Change works really well though...

Yeah, Odium as shown in SA has been about division and not adhesion. In fact his Fused cannot even use the Surge Adhesion for some reason and Odium tells them it is a false Surge (I imagine him saying this like he's calling it a fake friend  ). I think something Honor & Cultivation did in binding him to Braize made Adhesion unusable by him, but that's a whole tangent. 

Either way Odium I agree that Odium primarily only inspires unity as a secondary reaction, it is not really the intent.  

The 4th Change Shard is tough. Only Endowment is directly the act of changing something like Cultivation it describes an act of change although a more indirect change. Ambition and Odium are emotional / cognitive motivations that can drive change, but aren't necessarily about change. 

I do like Ambition and Endowment together in the Create, Bestow category. These Shards are the personality traits of a creator god. One has to have a lot of Ambition to create all these solar systems and lifeforms and Endowment relating to the gift of life fits well. 

[offer]

I realy like that Devotion + Dominion are in the bind/unite dawnshard since in Elantris we see thata in the planet they occupy the religions she-dereth and shu-korath are both about unity, one from love and one from control.

[+JesterLavorre]

I was about to make a post similar to this, before I saw it already existed!

My original layout for the Dawnshards, before reading this thread, was this:

Spoiler

Change:

• Cultivation (positive change)
• Ruin (negative change)
• Preservation (lack of change)
• Endowment (changing others)

Unite/Bind:

• Honor (bound to an oath/concept)
• Dominion (binding others to you)
• Devotion (binding yourself to others)
• Whimsy (lack of binds/commitments, could be swapped for Autonomy)

Live/Think/Feel: (The Dawnshard I think Hoid would have held)

• Unknown Wisdom shard (internal contemplation)
• Invention (external contemplation)
• Odium (your own emotions)
• Mercy (empathy for others' emotions)

Desire/Choose/Identity:

• Autonomy (freedom to choose)
• Ambition (making your choices a reality/desire to make a choice)
• Valor (determination and perseverance through adversity)
• Virtuosity (not sure, Could be swapped with Invention or Wisdom)

I like and dislike some of both layouts. Making my list, I went more in the direction of "laws of investiture", inspired by how the likely Unite/Bind Dawnshard lines up with connection being important. The two other investiture laws I came up with for the other Dawnshards were the fact that Investiture when left alone seeks sentience (the "life" Dawnshard), and something along the lines of identity and/or shardic intent. That one I'm less sure about, but there being two Dawnshards tied to sentience and life does line up with how almost exactly half the shards' intents are tied closely to human attributes. I also quite like the duality of Wisdom and Invention and of Odium and Mercy. Like I said, that Dawnshard I like a lot more than Desire/Choose, which is more just me not knowing what to do with the remaining shards and looking for uniting themes in them.

Also, with my layout, I decided to put the shard that was the absence/opposite of the Dawnshard in that Dawnshard. So Preservation is in Change, and Whimsy is in Bind. Essentially, the idea is that Change doesn't only make things change, it controls all aspects of change, including stopping change. Same goes for Unite being able to break bonds as well as make them.

As for your layout, I like it quite a bit. I don't love Odium in change. To me, Whimsy or Endowment fit much better. I do like Ambition in change, as Hodor mentioned. I like the idea of Ambition being in Unite as well, as a sort of "I swear I will reach this goal". Though, to me that sounds maybe a little too close to Valor.

I will say, I have never really liked the idea of a Survive or Stasis Dawnshard. It seems too close to the intent of Preservation for me, and from a writerly perspective doesn't seem especially interesting to delve into. Something like Protect I personally like better, but I don't see protection as one of the four powers of creation that were used to make (everything in?) the Cosmere. I think Live fills a similar role, and I like it better as a force of creation. To me it just doesn't make a ton of sense to have "not changing" be a full quarter of the power that was used to create the Cosmere, but that's pure unsupported opinion.

Lastly, I didn't realize until you pointed it out the synergy between the three "creation" shards, which is the most convincing point I have seen in the idea of a Creation Dawnshard. It does rub me the wrong way a bit that Investiture shouldn't be able to be created or destroyed, but phrasing it along the lines of creativity or the creation of ideas or more ephemeral concepts makes me like it a lot more.

[Yumiya]

Hmm, I think change and create could be the same. Investiture is neither created or destroyed, so "creating" is just changing investiture from one form to the other:

Change/Create:

• Cultivation
• Invention
• Virtuosity
• Endowment

Control:

• Ruin
• Dominion 
• Autonomy
• Honor

Feel: 

• Odium
• Devotion
• Whimsy
• Mercy 

Protect:

• Preservation
• Survival/Prudence
• Valor
• Ambition

The problem with all of our guesses is that they don't really consider which of the Dawnshards is the one different from the others. Why do the shards have to fall under a Dawnshard? Do we know that they even related like that, other than 4*4 = 16? I feel like we are overlooking something.

[GeoMantrix]

I suggest that each of the four dawshards has a cardinal shard and then 3 that relate in some way to the other dawnshards.  Like the relationships of the 5 elements, where fire is generative parent to metal and consuming parent to wood, or however that goes.  I'll think about it.  

So my theory is that big letter is the intent and little letter is the predicate.  A prominent example would be "destroy for the sake of preserving" which we see both in Windrunners and the Hero of Ages.  

A. Change  B. Save  C.  Divide  D.  Unite

A.a. Whimsy: change for the sake of change
A.b. Innovation: change for the sake of saving
A.c. Ruin: change for the sake of dividing
A.d. Dominion: change for the sake of uniting

B.a. Cultivation: saving for the sake of changing
B.b. Preservation: saving for the sake of saving
B.c. Valor: Saving for the sake of dividing. 
B.d. Devotion: saving for the sake of Uniting

C.a. Autonomy: dividing for the sake of changing
C.b. Ambition: dividing for the sake of saving
C.c. Odium: dividing for the sake of dividing
C.d. "boundaries" :dividing for the sake of uniting

D.a. Endowment: uniting for the sake of changing
D.b. Honor: uniting for the sake of saving
D.c. ??: uniting for the sake of dividing
D.d. ??: uniting for the sake of uniting

I'm more for realmatic theory, but have a lot of interest in this.  I was kind of puzzled by how aggressive Autonomy was in TLM. 

Spoiler

I thought Trell might turn out to be something Shai would worship.  

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by GeoMantrix

[GeoMantrix]

I made a matrix of this idea.  When I jotted down the shards, I felt like Odium and Mercy seemed most like they were missing something, at least in a listing of godlike attributes.

But that gets into a whole thing about defining love (beyond devotion). 

I'm still messing with it.  Well, I can't figure out how to display it.

I did find that there turned out to be a high association between a putative Unite dawnshard and the shards that have already "died" (Honor, dominion, devotion).

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by GeoMantrix
the linked image was giant

[cometaryorbit]

On 12/25/2022 at 5:21 AM, GeoMantrix said:

I suggest that each of the four dawshards has a cardinal shard and then 3 that relate in some way to the other dawnshards.  Like the relationships of the 5 elements, where fire is generative parent to metal and consuming parent to wood, or however that goes.  I'll think about it.  

So my theory is that big letter is the intent and little letter is the predicate.  A prominent example would be "destroy for the sake of preserving" which we see both in Windrunners and the Hero of Ages.  

A. Change  B. Save  C.  Divide  D.  Unite

A.a. Whimsy: change for the sake of change
A.b. Innovation: change for the sake of saving
A.c. Ruin: change for the sake of dividing
A.d. Dominion: change for the sake of uniting

B.a. Cultivation: saving for the sake of changing
B.b. Preservation: saving for the sake of saving
B.c. Valor: Saving for the sake of dividing. 
B.d. Devotion: saving for the sake of Uniting

C.a. Autonomy: dividing for the sake of changing
C.b. Ambition: dividing for the sake of saving
C.c. Odium: dividing for the sake of dividing
C.d. "boundaries" :dividing for the sake of uniting

D.a. Endowment: uniting for the sake of changing
D.b. Honor: uniting for the sake of saving
D.c. ??: uniting for the sake of dividing
D.d. ??: uniting for the sake of uniting

I'm more for realmatic theory, but have a lot of interest in this.  I was kind of puzzled by how aggressive Autonomy was in TLM. 

  Hide contents

I thought Trell might turn out to be something Shai would worship.  

 

Hmm. In general I tend to think the Dawnshard mural implies each Shard derives from only one Dawnshard. But I do like this, because your "boundaries" Shard IMO fits well with the idea that the last Shard is something like Wisdom or Prudence - "boundaries" might be Discernment, which is quite similar to Prudence.

I would move a couple Shards around though.

I'd flip Odium and Autonomy - Odium's whole Passion thing implies change, whereas (TLM)

Spoiler

the survival of the fittest thing Autonomy seems to be pushing in TLM seems more like dividing/dividing or dividing/saving

and the concept of Autonomy seems to be the closest to "pure Separation" anyway.

I'd also put Devotion and Dominion under the uniting primary heading.

My own model requires that the last Shard be a Create/Bestow one, which doesn't fit very well. The only Wisdom concept I can see for that is Inspiration (in the sense of divine inspiration - Bestowing wisdom/knowledge/truth/revelation on mortals) which isn't much like Prudence.

Edited January 10, 2023 by cometaryorbit