Roshar's 3rd Shard = Silence Divine Shard

[Morsk]

This idea came from seeing names like Balance and Sacrifice suggested both for the Nightwatcher, and for the Silence Divine Shard. (I like the name Sacrifice more than Balance.) We know almost nothing about either of them, but they do feel similar. Also, the Silence Divine planet is in the same solar system as Roshar.

So I think this Shard fled Roshar to the other planet, and the Nightwatcher is a splinter it left behind.

Also, the price paid by the Oathpact is pretty terrible. It may involve the power of Sacrifice, not just Honor, or maybe not Honor at all. Honor's principle seems to be that you not do horrible things in the name of good, and asking the Heralds to submit to torture is pretty nasty.

One thing I can't work in, is that if there's any fleeing of Shards from one planet to another, shouldn't they be fleeing to Roshar? That's what the myth of the Tranquiline Halls suggests. I don't know what to do with that.

edit: I just learned Eri had basically the same theory a few months before I wrote this. It's nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks up crazy stuff like this!

Edited July 19, 2012 by Morsk

[Chaos]

I don't have really anything to add except that I love this. This is a very realistic possibility.

[Windrunner]

I agree with you for sure about the Third Shard, it mirrors the belief I've had for a while now because of the fact that Nightwatcher didn't seem to fit with the other Shards we thought were on Roshar. There is one problem though that I haven't been able to answer successfully for myself. It says that Odium killed Honor. Honor's splinters (spren) are all over Roshar so presumably Roshar was where Honor was Splintered. That implies that Odium was there to Splinter him. But then that creates a conflict with another fact. We know that over the history of Roshar there have been three Shards there. But if Honor is there, and so is Cultivation (Brandon has confirmed this) and then this new Sacrifice or whatever we call it then Odium could never have been on Roshar. So it begs the question, how exactly did Honor die if Odium wasn't there to kill him? Did Odium get someone else to do it? The only possibility that I've been able to come up with seems unlikely to me. I've wondered if Honor was bound by his intent to Splinter himself once the Oathpact was broken. Odium would still be indirectly responsible there. But I kind of don't like that idea so I hope others have better ones.

The other reason I like the idea that the Nightwatcher is the remnant of a Shard that left Roshar is that it explains the name, "the Old Magic". The people of Roshar can still remember distantly when it was used, but now that the Shard has left, it cannot power the magic any longer, so the magic has vanished as well. What I want to know is, what is the Nightwatcher? Is it power gaining sentience like the Seons or does someone hold a large Splinter, like the Returned. If it is a person, who was it, and how did they get it? The third Shard theory also explains fairly well why Roshar's system is the only one to have two Shardworlds. The Shard fled Roshar but it didn't go far.

About the fleeing of people, I tend to believe that people fled to Roshar first from Honor's world (Tranquiline Halls). Where this Sacrifice went after that doesn't necessarily have to be reflected in Roshar's mythology.

[blackmagic3]

I always assumed that the three shards on Roshar were odium, honor and cultivation.

[Vikter]

Just a quick observation, before the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact there were no Spren (splinters) after there. Perhaps it is was not Odium that killed Honor, but the shattering of the ten most important Oaths that Honor had ever bound humans to? Well, nine I suppose Taln still held true though not of his own volition, he had no choice as the only one who died. Anyone with more experiance in Theroycrafting want to have a crack at this?

[Dros]

I always assumed that the three shards on Roshar were odium, honor and cultivation.

Brandon has said Odium is not native to Roshar and many instances in the book refer to the fact that "Odium is coming", not he's coming back.

Thinking about how a Shard kills another Shard probably shouldn't be thought of in the physical sense as how a man kills another man, or how Greek gods battled with the Titans. After all, they have no physical bodies and their "essence" if you will is not really understood and maybe it's impossible for humans to understand it (anyone who has read HP Lovecraft might have an idea of what I mean). It's quite possible a Shard must be killed in the Cognitive or Spiritual realm. Odium, whatever he might be as we could understand it, may not have had to come directly to Roshar physically to kill Honor.

When Honor said he should have known Odium would come for him, maybe there was long running fued between the two completely separate from Roshar's struggles against the Voidbringers.

I like the thought of Sacrifice being the third Shard who has fled. It really would help explain "the Old Magic" thing.