shards Does a shard have to have an intent to "be" a shard?

[Darkeye Venev]

Shards all have corresponding intents, correct? But, does that nessecarily mean that they have to have one? Well, first of all we know that intent does help bind things. In the coppermind, underneath Honor: Intent, it states

"Honor seeks to uphold oaths and agreements, and to bind things together. The Fused consider him to be the god of the natural laws of the universe.^[6]"

This suggests that yes, the investiture of a shard does need intent to keep it together.

[Frustration]

Intent is a natural part of a shard, like magnetism, or charge for a particle. It isn't needed to keep the shard together so much as an inherent characteristic. 

[Werewolff Studios]

15 minutes ago, Darkeye Venev said:

Shards all have corresponding intents, correct? But, does that nessecarily mean that they have to have one? Well, first of all we know that intent does help bind things. In the coppermind, underneath Honor: Intent, it states

"Honor seeks to uphold oaths and agreements, and to bind things together. The Fused consider him to be the god of the natural laws of the universe.^[6]"

This suggests that yes, the investiture of a shard does need intent to keep it together.

I think you've nailed it here! Raw Investiture, without Intent or Identity, is more of a general power source (eg, the Dor). For that Investiture to be useful, it needs to have an Intent and a Command, like all magic in the cosmere. For the Shards, the Intent is defined by the portion of Adonalsium that makes up the Shard and the Command by the Vessel within. 

[offer]

On 7.12.2022 at 2:03 AM, Darkeye Venev said:

Shards all have corresponding intents, correct? But, does that nessecarily mean that they have to have one? Well, first of all we know that intent does help bind things. In the coppermind, underneath Honor: Intent, it states

"Honor seeks to uphold oaths and agreements, and to bind things together. The Fused consider him to be the god of the natural laws of the universe.^[6]"

This suggests that yes, the investiture of a shard does need intent to keep it together.

Only the intent of honor is about binding stuff. Another shards` intents are not about it.

As @Ookla the Frustrated. said the intent is not binding the investiture toghether but is an charasteristic of it - if you take a little piece of a shard it still has the same (or similar) intent.

[Brgst13]

On 12/6/2022 at 7:15 PM, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Intent is a natural part of a shard, like magnetism, or charge for a particle. It isn't needed to keep the shard together so much as an inherent characteristic. 

Exactly.  Intent is a result of the "spin" of Investitrons (my term for the Investiture particle) just as magnetism is the result of electron spin.

[Mistchemist16]

Perhaps but not necessarily. Avatars seems to operate on the same principles as Shards

Pod

The combination of a Shard and its Vessel leads to sapient mind with access to a virtually infinite pool of Investiture. Are avatars the product of a similar combination of a mind and a pool of Investiture, only on a smaller scale, with less power?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that is an accurate representation of what an avatar is. It’s not the only way, but it is an accurate... some avatars are that. I would say that’s the standard. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

That being said, it may be that a full fledged Shard needs an Intent to operate on that level. But here’s a thought. What if the Shards are only so overpowering in Intent because they spilt the more complex traits of Adonalsium and there’s simply never been any magic strong enough to cleanse that Intent? If that’s the case, there’s no reason that you can’t effectively have avatars on a Shard level scale, especially if that’s what Adonalsium was. It just hasn’t been done.