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The Reason Adonalsium Was Shattered


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Okay, this is hardly a theory. There just isn't enough evidence at this point. It's not even a hypothesis, really--just an idea.

 

So, let's assume that Adonalsium worked the same way that the Shards do. That is, there was some kind of person, if not necessarily a normal human being, holding Adonalsium. We can't assume that at this stage, but let's take it for granted, for the sake of my idea.

 

It's hard to imagine why a group of people would be motivated to destroy their god, unless they were just power hungry. But it seems like a number of them were actually good people. Tanavast was apparently a cool guy, and Ati used to be a kindly fellow before he'd held Ruin for a bit.

 

Yes, it could be that some douchebags decided to kill their god, and a bunch of nice guys swept in to take up a portion of the power before the @$$hats could become omnipotent. But let's just assume that most or all of the original 16 Shardholders were working together. So what made them decide to pursue deicide?

 

What if they didn't set out to kill their god? What if he was already dead? We know that the Shards can and do function without a Holder, but they start to do weird stuff. If the entire power was without a guiding consciousness, things would probably start to get really crazy.

 

That, in essence, is my idea: the holder of Adonalsium died somehow, so some people banded together to try to fix that.

 

We know that a person can hold two Shards, thanks to Sazed, but it is entirely possible that the whole, unshattered power would be too much for any one human. The original Shardholders therefore sought a way to break the power into manageable pieces, then take up the Shards to help order the universe continue to function. Unfortunately, the individual divine attributes, now guided by discreet consciousnesses and separated from the context of being intrinsically linked to each other, just couldn't work together. That's how we got to the current state of the Cosmere.

 

Thoughts?

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Brandon's on record as saying there was a force opposing Adonalsium before it was shattered that's still out there.

 

It's reasonable speculation to say Adonalsium needs a super-human holder, it's holder died, therefore it had to be split. It might disagree with some of the implications from the Gibletish chapter where Hoid muses out loud about Adonalsium to a completely clueless Dalinar, (iirc it was Dalinar?) as that chapter in its conclusion that Adonalsium can't ever be re-united as it was before kinda supposes someone is trying to or has considered renuniting the Shards. I suppose if your speculation is correct they'd be very misguided, but the implication there is that it's actually possible to re-assemble the power, and at least some people think it's desirable. If the reason it was shattered is that no human can hold all sixteen shards and that not having the power held is bad, we would expect a couple things:

 

  • That there might be some evidence reuniting the Shards would be a Bad Thing™ on Yolen that anyone reuniting the Shards could be put off with.
  • That Frost (the recipient of The Letter in the Way of Kings epigraphs, and author of the second Letter in the Words of Radiance ones) would be far more concerned about Odium's plan to splinter all fifteen other Shards and leave their power unheld, and that Hoid would allude to the dangers of unheld Shards in his letter to Frost.

I feel like that second one is probably the kicker here that something a little different is going on, but it was good speculation with so little info! I certainly don't have any good ideas myself yet on the Shattering.

Edited by Ari
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What do you mean by that, exactly? Are you assuming that there was a Dark One (a la Wheel of Time) that was opposing Adonalsium?

We don't know what it be. Could be a Big cosmic Force (like the Dark One) or just some peoples.

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No evidence for this, but what if adonalism was a shard? Of some greater adonalism? Then he figured out this trick, shattered the mega shards and conquered the universe until after all the other mega shards were disappeared someone came, killed adonalism so adonalisms remains were all that's left, and gave 16 people the shards and never told anyone his trick. This could have been hoid, or his mentor, and so hoid try's to do this again to Odium. Maybe adonalism was origanally 16 shards, taking all the power for himself until someone killed him. Either way some food for thought

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I don't think Ym's theology applies to Adonalsium. What he's talking about, the idea that there is a divine whole, and pieces of it incarnate in order to experience itself, then return to the whole after death, is something people in real life have suggested. That's what System of Down's song, "Aerials," is about. I don't know if any major religions teach this (maybe Hinduism, sort of). If the idea does fit into the Cosmere, it's in a very meta way that probably transcends the Shards and even Adonalsium. That's what I think, anyway. There are a ton of religions in the Cosmere, and whatever any of them hints at the true nature of Adonalsium and such, it rarely does so in a direct, literal way.

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Ym knows something. Adolnasium split to experience emotions, according to him.

 

Just because there's likely to be some "truth" to what Ym believes, doesn't mean that it's literally true. It could end up like one of Sazed's religions, providing critical insight, but not actually having a factual basis like Era 2 Scadrian religions largely seem to. (Although some of them seem to have distorted that basis quite a bit :) )

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had never read the Liar of Partinel, but I finally did, and without going into much detail (because I'm not sure how much we're supposed to talk about it on the forums), I am more convinced of my "Adonalsium was dead" idea. I know that it's not canon, but still. Even assuming that every character except for Hoid is scrapped and the setting is changed in major ways, and we're left with just the broadest of strokes of plot similarities, just that barest skeleton of story still suggest that Adonalsium was dead. Or gone totally crazy. 

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In the Liar of Partinel, we're presented with humanity on the edge of collapse.  What if, like the OP is saying, Adonalsium is an uncontrolled force (whether or not it once had a consciousness controlling it) and 16 people went to go take that power to save humanity?  That accounts for the opposing force; in this case, the opposing force itself didn't shatter Adonalsium, but was definitely the reason it was shattered.  The threat humanity is facing isn't well described in Liar of Partinel (it's explored a bit more, though still not explained well, in Dragonsteel) but that might be the "big bad" that Brandon has mentioned.  

Edited by dklee10
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Well, here's what my idea depends on: 

 

-Adonalsium had a holder (like a Shardholder, except it's the Wholeholder)

-Things are terrible because that holder is dead.

 

The opposing force, what/whoever it is, probably contributed to Adonalsium's death, but it doesn't have to have anything much to do with the threat humanity faces, necessarily. Just the consciousness-less power going haywire could be the whole of it. So the Shattering, in my idea, happened because that power required a consciousness for things to get back on track, and for whatever reason, shattering the power was the only solution they had to get consciousnesses in there.

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The most obvious reasons for the Shards and the Shardholders to me seems like maybe either Adonalsium was killed or shattered by whatever force opposed him, or Adonalsium was never sentient and the Shards are just pieces of it given conscious intent.

 

Anyways, the initial Shardholders knew about the the force that opposed Adonalsium, and that is most likely reason they took up the Shards in the first place. Regardless of whether Adonalsium was a sentient being killed by the Force, or some sort of unconscious energy that the Yolenians decided to utilize as a tool for this cause.

 

I'd also not put it out of the realm of possibility that maybe the Yolenians somehow shattered Adonalsium themselves in order to utilize its power, essentially breaking it into more manageable pieces so that the Shardholders could use its power.

 

The way things currently are likely don't have much if anything to do with the Opposing Force, at least not directly. My running theory is that it's basically just a result of the Shardholders succumbing to their natures and eventually going off to do their own thing. Being a nigh-omnipotent godlike being  (even one of the "nicer" ones like Honor or Preservation) would probably be unbearable if you were constantly in the presence of a bunch other beings of equal power, it'd really *cramp* your style so to speak. Which is probably what caused them to end up going off to do their own thing (seeding human life, destroying human life, going around shattering the other shards etc.).

 

In this case I'd assume that the Yolenians didn't realize that the Shardholders would eventually lose themselves to the Shards, knew about it but thought they could resist it, or knew about it and assumed it was worth the risk (most likely, I think).

 

Another potential option is that Adonalsium *was* sentient, and intentionally shattered itself to make it's power more difficult to acquire/unify. In this case it's possible that the Shardholders going to separate corners of the Cosmere was part of the plan, keeping the power of Adonalsium separated. The opposing force might not have been trying to destroy Adonalsium, but take it. But, because the Shardholders eventually ended up losing themselves to their Shardic natures, things didn't really stick to a plan and we ended up with the mess we have now.

Edited by rabidhexley
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ah, finally, a place to share my epiphany from the other day. While waiting for the train to work, this sudden thought of the cause of the Shattering hit me. I apologize for the length this will undoubtedly end up being, but first, some slight backstory:

 

At the Shadows of Self midnight release and book signing, I asked Brandon about the magic system on Yolen, seen in Dragonsteel, and its relation to other magic systems in the cosmere. His response was "You have to remember that Dragonsteel is pre-Shattering." I have a completely different reason for asking that question, but his answer intrigued me. What's more, he started to say why it HAD to be pre-Shattering, but then stopped himself.

 

Without too much discussion on the "forbidden zone" of unpublished works, I think it's safe to say that it has to be pre-Shattering because the "opposing force" is likely the same threat that Hoid knows is coming, though he doesn't know who/what it is or what it will do, despite actively trying to fight it.

 

Even then, Frost had a "non-intervention" policy, not wanting to get involved in major events. In The Second Letter he says "My path has been chosen very deliberately." He chooses to not interfere, and tries very hard to persuade Hoid to join him. However, immediately before that, in the same Letter, he says, "Is not the destruction we have wrought enough? The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain." He goes on to talk about Rayse, and the danger he poses, and how they are "as infants", and don't know what they're doing.

 

Based on the Letter alone, it's seems to me that Hoid and Frost either indirectly or even DIRECTLY caused the Shattering. Considering Frost's policy pre-Shattering, and his vehement adherence to it post-Shattering, I think Hoid probably convinced him to set it aside for a brief period of time and take up the fight against the "opposing force". However, that led to pain, destruction, and worlds bearing "the touch and design of Adonalsium". Thus Frost goes back to his non-intervention policy, and even goes as far as to send the 17th Shard after Hoid to stop him from mucking things up further.

 

We do know that the Shattering was a deliberate choice, possibly to stop the "opposing force" from getting Adonalsium, and I think it might have been caused by those two. But they didn't realize what effects such a decision would cause.

 

As to whether or not Adonalsium was held by someone that died, causing it shatter, or the nature of it before those events, I can't say.

Edited by the.fulgid
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See, I don't think that the Shattering was caused by the death of Adonalsium's holder. I think Adonalsium was already dead, and that's why (s)he/it was shattered. Obviously, we have so little information right now that I'm willing to reverse this position at the drop of a hat, but...

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