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The nature of Adonalsium (spoilers for Mistborn and Stormlight)


scottos

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So this idea came from this thread http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3563-the-origin-of-adonalsium-the-word/?hl=adoni#entry56890 but it branches a bit so I'm starting a unique thread.

 

I think Adonalsium is not a person but a material, particularly God Metal. I realize this is highly speculative, but I think the idea is worth exploring. And I think it ties a lot of loose ends together.

 

So first let's reference the thread mentioned earlier and run with the idea that the Adona in Adonalsium means lord or god. Then let's look at the last third of the word Adonalsium, ium.

 

In the Mistborn trilogy we read of numerous materials, metals, ending with ium. To name them, there are Atium, Larasium, Chromium, Cadmium, and Malatium. Not to mention, scientifically, ium makes reference to metal. Combine the two and you have god-metal, or at least, god-material.  

 

Adonalsium, as a god material makes sense. If you were to combine all the Shards of Adonalsium together you would have the attributes of one very powerful/omnipotent tool. Also a material is easier to shatter than a being. And it's much easier to pick up and wield portions of a shattered object than those of a shattered being.

 

Let's reference the the goals of Hoid, who seems interested in uniting the Shards (see the conversation about Adonalsium with Dalinar). And let's reference the Letter in the Way of Kings epigraph. In this letter Hoid is writing to a dragon and asking for help to stop Odium. From the tone of the letter the dragon doesn't seem interested in intervening. Why would Hoid ask a dragon for help, especially a dragon who is at ends with him? Could it be that a dragon or dragons forged Adonalsium. If one can create something, they also have the knowledge to destroy it. What if a dragon, or more likely dragons, formed Adonalsium. You could even call it dragon steel. But one of these dragons feared it was too powerful and shattered it.

 

We know from a recent Q&A with Brandon that Adonalsium was shattered with intent. If the power was distributed more evenly it would prevent tyranny. So it was shattered and distributed to sixteen individuals on Yolen, who then spread out amongst the Cosmere to keep the power distributed.

 

Yet the individual power of each shard was not foreseen. Alone, the shards were unbalanced. Look at the events on Scadrial. Or even worse in the case of Odium, which, on its own, would try to destroy all other shards. This is why Hoid is writing to the dragon. He is trying to persuade the dragon to change his mind. If Hoid can unite the remaining shards of Adonalsium, Odium can be overpowered and the shards can be reunited, hopefully returning balance to the Cosmere.

 

My support for this is found in the last vision that Dalinar receives in The Way of Kings. In this last vision he is shown by god the impending doom of his planet. He is also shown stars in the sky disappearing, representing the work of Odium destroying shards throughout the Cosmere. He is told the only way to stop Odium is to "unite them." Dalinar thinks he is supposed to unite various peoples. I think what he is being told though, is that the only way to stop Odium is to unite the shards of Adonalsium. This is why Hoid asks Dalinar if he is familiar with Adonalsium. Some how Hoid knows of the visions that Dalinar has seen, and knows Adonalsium is at the heart of them. But Dalinar hasn't made the connection yet.

 

So I realize this is out there, jumps around a lot, and assumes a lot, but I did my best to tie in a bunch of ideas that are floating around concerning Adonalsium and the Cosmere. Proceed to tear this theory apart :)

Edited by scottos
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Hmmm, possibly. But remember, all the shards we know of have been intents (i.e. Ruin, Preservation, Dominion, Devotion), that is they all have a thought process behind them. Extrapolating that, Adolnasium must have some form of a guiding intellect as well. However a lot of the points you made were good, so it's possible that Adolnasium didn't have a single "guiding intellect" like Sazed guiding the power of Harmony, it just existed independently of any humans.

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Some housekeeping notes.  -ium does not refer to metals specifically but rather is a common suffix for most elements.  There are several elements (i.e., selenium, germanium, tellurium, and polonium) which are either non-metals or metalloids.  Most of the nonmetals were named well before the -ium convention was established and therefore were not named using this convention.  Most elements which do not use -ium were named before -ium was conventionally used.  Furthermore, -ium has far broader use than just elements (e.g., gymnasium, symposium, etc.).

Edited by Ookla the Occulus
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As aeromancer stated big A shoud have had some kind of intend or inteligence.

Now it is still possibil that it was some kind of item or material that simply influeced its owner similar to how the shards are doing now, with the difference that Adonalsium didn´t have just one intend but more of an complete personality that possesed whoever owned it, so I suppose it´s a possibility that woud both be awsome and explain the name "Dragon Steel."

 


 

 
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What I want to know is why Splinters of a Shard seems to be able to develop sentience but the Shards themselves does not.

It woud make most sense if the Splinter evolves its sentience independently from the fact that it is a Splinter and that the "amount" of shard in most cases is to low to overtake the personality with its intend.

 

So the better question woud be why the Shard themself don´t have an personality afterall they are spirituall beings and a persons personality seems like an spiritually atribute.

 

The most logical reason I coud think of woud be that Adonalsiums personality has that much strenght that even when splintert into shards still can´t be rewritten into a new personallity for the shard and lingers on as an intend, kind of an mental corpse.

Or they lack some kind of phisical or cognitive atribute needed to develop a sentience that they lost when Adonalsium shattert.

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It woud make most sense if the Splinter evolves its sentience independently from the fact that it is a Splinter and that the "amount" of shard in most cases is to low to overtake the personality with its intend.

I am not sure what you mean by this. From what I've understood, Splinters achieve sentience directly from the fact that they incorporate high amounts of Investiture. Now, that isn't to say that this would be the case also for a full-blown shard amount of Investiture - which does not seem to be the case - but I am curious as to why this is.

 

So the better question woud be why the Shard themself don´t have an personality afterall they are spirituall beings and a persons personality seems like an spiritually atribute.

You're basically asking the same question as I just did. Just substitute "personality" with "sentience".

 

The most logical reason I coud think of woud be that Adonalsiums personality has that much strenght that even when splintert into shards still can´t be rewritten into a new personallity for the shard and lingers on as an intend, kind of an mental corpse.

Or they lack some kind of phisical or cognitive atribute needed to develop a sentience that they lost when Adonalsium shattert.

Now you're talkin'! But you only end up addressing the conundrum from the other end. If Shards can't develop personality because they lost something essential when Adonalsium was shattered, why can Splinters do so?

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Hmmm, possibly. But remember, all the shards we know of have been intents (i.e. Ruin, Preservation, Dominion, Devotion), that is they all have a thought process behind them. Extrapolating that, Adolnasium must have some form of a guiding intellect as well. However a lot of the points you made were good, so it's possible that Adolnasium didn't have a single "guiding intellect" like Sazed guiding the power of Harmony, it just existed independently of any humans.

 

Thanks Aeromancer, that is an excellent point. When you mentioned this it made me wonder if Adonalsium could work in a similar manner as Night Blood, though on a much much more grand scale. I also recall a recent WoB where he was asked which Shard would Hoid be most tempted by, and he stated Endowment.

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I am not sure what you mean by this. From what I've understood, Splinters achieve sentience directly from the fact that they incorporate high amounts of Investiture. Now, that isn't to say that this would be the case also for a full-blown shard amount of Investiture - which does not seem to be the case - but I am curious as to why this is.

 

You're basically asking the same question as I just did. Just substitute "personality" with "sentience".

 

Now you're talkin'! But you only end up addressing the conundrum from the other end. If Shards can't develop personality because they lost something essential when Adonalsium was shattered, why can Splinters do so?

Perhaps, where Shards are tools that need a mind, splinters are "woven" to have sentience - the same way a statuette carved out of a tiny piece of a huge block of marble is more visually interesting and complex than the marble block. It may also be that all the splinters encountered so far have taken human cognitive aspects, giving them intelligence. They, after all, have to control much less power than a shard, perhaps they can simply take on aspects to achieve sentience instead of requiring the mind and soul of an entire person

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What I want to know is why Splinters of a Shard seems to be able to develop sentience while the Shards themselves do not.

 

At the risk of becoming a broken record (I've mentioned the theory before), I've always thought that the Splinters developing sentience was a defense mechanism. The voluntary-Splinters don't have it. Divine Breaths seem quite content to just be attached to someone.

 

This comes from the somewhat crackpot theory that splintering a Shard is done by forcing contradictions in its Intent. A mind can interpret the Intent in non-contradictory ways, but a mindless Shard can do nothing if, say, Odium 'blocks off' the Shard-holder (Tanavast) from his Shard and then creates situations where you have to kill innocents to protect other innocents or things like that. The mindless Shard is broken apart by the stress into Splinters that can deal with the contradiction by being smaller parts of the whole Intent. A part of Honor might become Truth, for example.

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At the risk of becoming a broken record (I've mentioned the theory before), I've always thought that the Splinters developing sentience was a defense mechanism. The voluntary-Splinters don't have it. Divine Breaths seem quite content to just be attached to someone.

 

This comes from the somewhat crackpot theory that splintering a Shard is done by forcing contradictions in its Intent. A mind can interpret the Intent in non-contradictory ways, but a mindless Shard can do nothing if, say, Odium 'blocks off' the Shard-holder (Tanavast) from his Shard and then creates situations where you have to kill innocents to protect other innocents or things like that. The mindless Shard is broken apart by the stress into Splinters that can deal with the contradiction by being smaller parts of the whole Intent. A part of Honor might become Truth, for example.

O_o. A bit crackpot, maybe, but really interesting! Still, I think we need to somehow trick Brandon into answering some of this to know for sure, though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We actually have no evidence that splinters are sentient, or even have any kind of cognitive function (beyond that of other non-living things in the cosmere).

 

The confirmed splinters we have (as far as I know) are:

  1. The Divine Breath (in the Returned)
  2. The Aons (in Seons)

 

Other things suspected of having splinter involvement are Skaze, and Spren (I may be somewhat behind on this one)

 

In all these cases the cognitive identity is separate from the splinter.

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I seem to remember a WoB where he says that "Splinters are what some people in the Cosmere call small, detached pieces of a Shard that have attained sentience on their own", or something to that effect. I have unfortunately not been able to relocate this. It should be noted though, that even if I remember the quote more or less correctly, he phrased it as how someone in universe would define the term Splinter, so it doesn't really give us any good indication of its true nature.

.

Anyway, I think you are on to something, for in the case of both Seons and the Returned, the Splinter seems to be distinct the sentience it is a part of. They might be what which permits something inanimate to gain sentience, but is not sentient in-and-of itself:

Viper

Are the Aons at the heart of Seons SPLINTERS of Aona?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
<source>

.

Honourspren, on the other hand, are sentient and are also a Splinter in-and-of themselves:

Argent
Are Honorspren Splinters, or do they hold Splinters?


Brandon Sanderson
Honorspren would be termed Splinters.
<source>

It should however be noted that Sylphrena only had nominal sentience (if she could have been called sentient at all) and acted more  like a Windspren - which doesn't seem to be sentient at all - before she bonded with Kaladin. And the stronger this bond became, the more intelligent she seemed to grow - all the while regaining lost memories.

.

From this body of evidence, it seems that Splinters needs to latch on to something else in order to either grant sentience or gain it for themselves.

Edited by Aether
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Here is the quote you are referring to Aether:

 

 

Wetlander: Please explain what you will about shards and splintering and slivers.

 

A: An event happened long ago which destroyed something called Adonalsium into 16 pieces.  And 16 people took up that power.

 

Q: People?

 

A: I call all intelligent species people.   If someone takes up the power and lets go of it, it has the effect much like a balloon that’s been stretched and then the air is let out.  I call that a sliver; based off of TLR calling himself the Sliver of Infinity.  TLR is someone who held the power and then released it.  And so, current slivers are TLR, Kelsier, and there may be others around who at one point held the power and let go of it.  A splinter is a term used by certain people in the cosmere for power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no…no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness.

 

Wetlander: So is that like the mists and the Well?  Are they…

 

A: They are not, because they have not attained self-awareness.  But, the Seons are self-aware.  So, any piece, for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there.  Those were already splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own.  So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense?  You have seen other splinters.

 

It also should be noted that spren, as cognitive entities, have very limited self-awareness in the physical realm unless bonded with an entity having a strong presence in the physical realm.  So while Syl appeared to lack self-awreness in the beginning of her journey with Kaladin, she was nevertheless self-aware and even intellingent.  She was simply unable to access that part of her until the bond was established.

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Thank you. I spent about 45 minutes looking for that quote. I see now that searching for "sentience" instead of "self-awareness" might have somewhat hampered the search.

 

I find it interesting what you say about their presence in the Physical Realm. Theoretically, a Splinter could then attain independent self-awareness (sentience), but only in the Cognitive Realm? Wyndle seem to have been fine on his own in the Cognitive Realm, but is apparently dependent upon his bond with Lift in the Physical one. But then again, we're not sure if Wyndle qualifies as a full Splinter or not.

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Theoretically, a Splinter could then attain independent self-awareness (sentience), but only in the Cognitive Realm? Wyndle seem to have been fine on his own in the Cognitive Realm, but is apparently dependent upon his bond with Lift in the Physical one. But then again, we're not sure if Wyndle qualifies as a full Splinter or not.

 

Maybe, but I would only be inclined initially to pin these features on the spren.  Though there does seem to be some kind of a block that is in place for Seons who's bondee was taken by the Shaod.  There seems to be a necessary connection there as well.  

 

And I don't know why Wyndle wouldn't qualify as a splinter when Syl does.

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I agree that the quote only directly affirms honorspren.  But, the fact that Wyndle and Syl are both surgebinding-granting bonding spren is pretty conclusive in establishing Wyndle as a splinter as well, to my way of thinking.

To mine as well, but better not to make assumptions without saying so.

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Ok that all makes a lot of sense while also forcing me to completely rethink an awful lot.

 

I know before we got honourspren as confirmed splinters the theory was that splinters were not independent cognitive identities and required a bond with something from the physical realm, but it appears that they can be independent but still require a bond to be active in the physical realm...? (that isn't a question, I know that, but it should be.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

What I want to know is why Splinters of a Shard seems to be able to develop sentience while the Shards themselves do not.

This is the question I am most interested in myself. Brandon has said that there was some force/group opposing Adonalsium. I think Adonalsium was actually sentient independent of any human consciousness. The force/ group objected to an essentially non human entity ruling over them. So in an attempt to "democratise" the ruling power, they splintered Adonalsium, forced each of the Shard to have an intent and made it essential for each Shard to have a human consciousness. But the splinters were created later or were not subject to this group's efforts and so do not need a human consciousness

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I suspect that Splinters having sentience is related to Nightblood and bondable spren. That is to say, Nightblood could be seen as a Splinter, even It's made of a few thousand Breaths, which are just a sort of Investiture. It's got its own intent (destroy evil), and that was apparently enough to give it sentience. Similarly, bondable spren are little chunks of Honor and Cultivation (sometimes a mixture) with a fairly limited 'intent' of their own, like honor, and they're sentient.

 

So, I think that when a Shard is Splintered, it results in the creation of Splinters who each have a fairly limited Intent (probably related to the Shard). Some of Honor's Splinters might be Truth, or Protection. If this intent is sufficiently narrow, it gains sentience.

 

This doesn't answer why, but it does establish a fairly firm relationship between non-human sentients where we can look for more clues. I'm a fan of the theory that Shards are splintered by causing them to go against their own Intents, and this suggests to me that Splinters gaining sentience is something of a defense mechanism. Still not a why, but interesting.

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I have also taken note of the curios fact that most of the splinters seem to have to be tied to a separate conscience to develop one on their own. Syl mentions having a mind as fleeting as a normal Windspren before she bonded Kaladin and slowly regained her sentience and personality. Seons also bonds humans, and the Divine Breaths seem to fuse with the dying conscience of their host to let them come back to life. It seems plausible that splinters do not gain sentience on their own, but can when linked to a someone else.

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I have also taken note of the curios fact that most of the splinters seem to have to be tied to a separate conscience to develop one on their own. Syl mentions having a mind as fleeting as a normal Windspren before she bonded Kaladin and slowly regained her sentience and personality. Seons also bonds humans, and the Divine Breaths seem to fuse with the dying conscience of their host to let them come back to life. It seems plausible that splinters do not gain sentience on their own, but can when linked to a someone else.

If this is so, the Shards should have gained consciousness as a result of being held by humans for thousands of years.....

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If this is so, the Shards should have gained consciousness as a result of being held by humans for thousands of years.....

Not necessarily. The raw power of investiture might behave differently on the scale of a full Shard. It should also be noted that, while they do not develop their own sentience, they do heavily influence their holder - even to the point of completely overwriting his or hers original personality. Just look at Ati and how Ruin changed him..

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