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[Theory]Reason why Odium can Splinter other Shards


Temerius

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Hi guys, i've got two theories (not mutually exclusive) for why Odium can Splinter other Shards.

1.Odium is more powerful than the other Shards.

While i've constantly seen references to Adonalsium shattering into sixteen pieces, i don't think i've ever heard mention ofthose pieces being equal in size. Maybe when the Vessels were taking the power Rayse took a bigger chunk of Mr A's corpse. This would enable him to overpower other Shards and kill them whilst still having enough power to survive.

 

2.Odium's Intent causes the Splintering

Odium means extreme hatred and dislike, and also the state of being hated. Hate also causes people to turn away from one another, to divide. What if this applies on a Shardic level as well?

What if Odium can infect a Shard with hatred? Self hatred to be exact. Similar to a virus turning a body's immune system against itself, what if it does the same to the Shard, which causes it to

fracture and essentially self-splinter. It would also make sense why we haven't seen other Shards do this. For example, Dominion and Devotion, while seemingly different are in the end both about unity. They couldn't Splinter others even if they tried. The same goes for Preservation, Honor and probably Cultivation. This gives Odium a major advantage. Ruin may be able to do it but remember that he was imprisoned by Preservation for millenia and couldn't find enough opportunity to practise. Also, while Rayse was a nasty fellow even before becoming Odium and thus naturally inclined to find a way to kill the others, Ati was supposedly a pretty nice guy. It wouldn't be in his nature to practise this.

 

That's it guys, could be on to something or it could be a load of crem:P

Thanks anyway, interested to hear what you think.

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6 minutes ago, Patricksinger said:

I honestly think that their power is based on how close the vessel is to the intent. It would explain why odium is stronger than ruin 

Actually there is a WoB, I don't remember where, that says since Odium isn't Invested anywhere, he has more readily available power than the others.

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3 hours ago, Temerius said:

i don't think I've ever heard mention of those pieces being equal in size.

here

Quote
Just after the Shattering (but before they started created humans or something), did all Shards have roughly the same amount of raw power?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Good question.

3 hours ago, Temerius said:

For example, Dominion and Devotion, while seemingly different are in the end both about unity. They couldn't Splinter others even if they tried. The same goes for Preservation, Honor and probably Cultivation. This gives Odium a major advantage. Ruin may be able to do it but remember that he was imprisoned by Preservation for millennia and couldn't find enough opportunity to practice.

Cultivation could have splintered a shard without breaking her Intent. To cultivate is "to prepare and use something for a purpose."(usually gardening, but..) If a weed (Odium) needs to be gotten rid of to allow her plants (humanity) to grow, then it could be done. There's the issue with available power to do so that Jedal brought up, but that is a different point.

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Neat, there goes Theory 1 out the window, although it is true in the sense that Odium is/was uninvested.

10 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Cultivation could have splintered a shard without breaking her Intent. To cultivate is "to prepare and use something for a purpose."(usually gardening, but..) If a weed (Odium) needs to be gotten rid of to allow her plants (humanity) to grow, then it could be done. There's the issue with available power to do so that Jedal brought up, but that is a different point.

As for 2, Cultivation may be able to Splinter, but i have a feeling Odium may be better at it. Culti's Splintering abilities are more of a circumstantial thing, ie if there is a weed somewhere, remove it. Odium's on the other hand are his main thing, assuming that Splintering depends on the ability to divide. Which hatred does. This also makes me think that if Ruin were somehow free and whole, he would be the best at Splintering.

 

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11 hours ago, Patricksinger said:

I honestly think that their power is based on how close the vessel is to the intent. It would explain why odium is stronger than ruin 

I disagree, the Vessel is twisted by the Intent threfore also a bad Vessel would become a great/perfect Vessel for the Shard after some amount of time. After 10k years all the original Vessels are probably perfect Vessels for their Shards regardless of their original personality

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8 hours ago, Temerius said:

As for 2, Cultivation may be able to Splinter, but i have a feeling Odium may be better at it.

I can accept that, I was just making a case for others to be able to do it. It didn't seem right that only "the bad guy" can do some super powerful thing that nobody's survived so far. Just felt out of place i guess

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8 hours ago, Yata said:

I disagree, the Vessel is twisted by the Intent threfore also a bad Vessel would become a great/perfect Vessel for the Shard after some amount of time. After 10k years all the original Vessels are probably perfect Vessels for their Shards regardless of their original personality

I dunno, something twisted and forced to fit a particular mold will never be as strong and effective as one that was made to fit it from the beginning.  I can't imagine that Ati was really a perfect host for Ruin even after all those years. He could have possibly been far more devastating and destructive if he'd been a more destructive and spiteful person originally, which I believe may be why he took Ruin, and why he then paired up with Preservation before he was twisted too much, to limit Ruin's destructive power and channel it into something positive.

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I think both are true in part.

Ati even at the end had relics of who he was IMO... he doesn't seem malicious when he talks to Vin despite his totally destructive goals and actions. Rather he seems to pity Vin for opposing the 'obvious right way for things to be'. But for the people in the way of the Shard the practical difference may be meaningless.

OTOH I'd imagine that a really "integrated" Shard/Vessel pairing like Odium/Rayse might have more 'free will'. That could make them less predictable even though both can commit 100% of their power to their purpose.

That could explain why Odium is "the most dangerous" despite his inherent initial power being the same as Ruin's. Or it could just be that flat out creating a planet took so much more Investiture than the normal way of Investing, so Ruin and Preservation are much diminished by the time of the books. (That could explain why Harmony seems to be exerting significant effort to keep that "Red Wave" away, and can't just use double power to blast the interfering Shard back to their own world.)

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6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

That could explain why Harmony seems to be exerting significant effort to keep that "Red Wave" away, and can't just use double power to blast the interfering Shard back to their own world.

Given that "harmony" is how Sazed interprets his shardic dual-intent, i think that has a larger affect on his inaction, but I don't know how much power you need to make a planet, so you may still be right anyway.

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The Vessel's views also shape the Intent, even as the Intent shapes the Vessel's views, so it's best to assume that the original Vessels are all in sync with their shards.

Brandon has stated that post-shattering, the Shards were all equal in power. Also, Shard's abilities are influenced by their Intent. Cultivation is better at seeing into the future because her goals are long term. Honor is more focused on the here and now. Same thing with Preservation and Ruin. Odium is good at shattering because his hatred wants to destroy. Also, Odium doesn't like to Invest, so Odium's ability to shatter is both influenced by his being stronger (not investing) and his Intent (hatred leading to wanting to destroy).

On the Red Wave, while not sure, I would guess that Harmony's inaction is due to two things. The first and primary is his duality leads to wanting to find an equilibrium, aka harmony. Since he has the power of two normal shards, the Red Wave cannot breach his system, and he is content to leave as is. The other reason being he doesn't know how. He's a lot younger than the other Shards and has never experienced Shardic conflict. I'm given the impression that even creating a planet not a huge drain on a Shard's grand power. In one vs one, it would make a large difference, Harmony's duel shard status would make him significantly more powerful than any single shard. Thus, he could push back the Red Wave to the source, but he's either content to leave the system in equilibrium or doesn't know how to combat the Red Wave fully.

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38 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

The Vessel's views also shape the Intent, even as the Intent shapes the Vessel's views, so it's best to assume that the original Vessels are all in sync with their shards.

Here it's hard to say, because we don't know how the Shattering happened. The Shards were pure at the beginning and the Intent cames like a taint with their first Vessels ? Or Adonalsium splits his power into 16 Intents and simply the best of the 16 Vessels took the more compatible shard?

In the first case, we have probably 16 perfect Vessels from the beginning, in the second one...The Vessels may be not so fitting with the shards.

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As shown by Kelsier, if the original vessels didn't have a large enough connection, they wouldn't have been able to ascend (unless the weapon forced the ascension). Either way, after a time they would have molded, example: Ati (although Ati's condition may have been influenced by frustration). 

 

Either way, the abilities of the Shard are still influenced by the Shard's Intent. And to a second extent, the skill/ability of the Vessel to manipulate the shard, which can change over time.. Shattering is probably available to any Shard that knows how and can find a reason for it in line with their Intent.

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On 1/15/2017 at 4:56 PM, Patricksinger said:

 

I honestly think that their power is based on how close the vessel is to the intent. It would explain why odium is stronger than ruin 

 

If I remember correctly, all the shards seem to identify themselves based on intent, and not the name of their vessel.  This would suggest that the shard molds the vessel to fit the intent of the shard, as the shard has enough influence to chage what the vessel takes for a name.

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On 19/01/2017 at 0:38 PM, Wandering Investor said:

As shown by Kelsier, if the original vessels didn't have a large enough connection, they wouldn't have been able to ascend (unless the weapon forced the ascension). 

Kelsier and the Ire aren't a very good example about people needing a connection to a shard to ascend it since it seems to me more like their issue was that they already had a connection to another shard and it was interfering. I don't think lack of connection can affect your ability to take up a shard too much, but connection to another shard can be a lot more preventative.

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9 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

Kelsier was an alomancer, which means that he was connected to preservation.  Wouldn't that make it easier for him to ascend?

I could be wrong, but I remember it being observed by Leras that he wouldn't be able to take up Preservation because he was also connected to Ruin through the Well of Ascension, because of how he connected to it. So while being connected to the Well would've been a huge help, the hindrance of his connection to Ruin held him too far back. Probsbly related back to the general principle that different types of investiture interfere.

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26 minutes ago, The Voiceless One said:

I thought that being an alomancer was part of a person's spirit web, which would mean that kelsier had always been tied to preservation, while the time spent connected to ruin was temporary.  Wouldn't that mean that kelsier's connection to preservation would be stronger?

I think there must be another form of Connection at work when it comes to ascending.  I mean, Lerasium works by rewriting your spiritweb to create a (stronger?) connection to Preservation, which is why it makes you a Mistborn.  Therefore, Mistborn are definitely Connected to Preservation, but everything in-text says that Kelsier was too Connected to Ruin, and I get the impression it's not because of his time in the well as much as his time spent killing and destroying (in the name of a greater good, some of it, but certainly Ruinous and not Preserving).

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Yeah, the connecting to the Well so that he could persist created a permanent connection to the world and the power both Ruin and Preservation had invested into him, but his actions were also very ruinous. I believe it was said that he was essentially an agent of Ruin for a large portion of his time. Killing TLR was part of it, but other setups, like with his allomancy teacher and the 11th metal, were all setup by Ruin.

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5 hours ago, The Voiceless One said:

Kelsier was an Allomancer, which means that he was connected to preservation.  Wouldn't that make it easier for him to ascend?

His main problem was the fact that he was dead. A cognitive shadow has no body, and thus has no connection to the Physical Realm. That cuts out a large portion of Kelsier's ability to be "connected" to anything. Ruin even taunts him about this.

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This might be totally wrong, but didn't Secret History say that Ruin did not know how to Shatter Preservation, or else he would have? That suggests that Odium is not the only one who can shatter Shards, just the only one who has the motivation and know-how to.

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In Secret History it wasn´t explicily said that Ruin didn´t know how to splinter a Shard, but Khriss wondered if it was because he doesn´t know how or if he lacks the strength (personally i would gues the later). Also now that i think about it they were talking there about the killing of a Shardholder rather than the Splintering of the Shard itself. Ruin nearly managed to splinter Preservation after Leras had died so he does know how.

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