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Narrowing Down the Last Shards [AU]


Khyrindor

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Just now, Khyrindor said:

I remember a follow up to that question, and Brandon said that survival isn't that Shard's intent (capital I), but that it's what it's trying to do. I think something like Purity wanting to hide would be likely, or maybe the Enlightenment or Wisdom Shard realizing that hiding is the best course of action are two possibilities I see.

ah ok. That makes some sense.

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14 hours ago, ZenBossanova said:

How much can we correlate this with Allomancy and Feruchemy? Internal vs External? Pushing vs Pulling? Just how good was Preservation’s clue about 16?

 

I don't think I have this organized just right, but I wanted to apply the External/Internal and the Pushing/Pulling distinctions in both Allomancy & Feruchemy.

 

And while the Shards correlate with attributes of Deity, they also IMHO correlate with attributes necessary for Civilization.

 

I am going to use some of Extesian’s wording and organization here.

 

Cognitive

External Pushing : Honor – the obligation to do what you say you will do, to be consistent

External Pulling : Transcendence/Paradox – to be inconsistent, to change from moment to moment (Ashyn big maybe, WoB that might suggest it)

Internal Pushing : Word or Language or Communication – to seek knowledge and understanding

Internal Pulling : Knowledge or Truth – to have knowledge



Spiritual/emotional


External Pushing : Odium – to hate

 

External Pulling : Devotion – to give up yourself for others or for a cause

Internal Pushing : Transformation

 

Internal Pulling : Sight or Insight



Physical

Internal Pulling : Endowment – to give something to others

External Pulling : Hunger/Consuming – to take something from others (this is inspired by Sixth of the Sun, and a comment Hoid made to Jasnah, that may or may not be relevant)

Internal Pushing : Autonomy – to have control of yourself

External Pushing : Dominion – to have control of others



Temporal

Internal Pushing : Cultivation – to work on something other than yourself

Internal Pulling : Ambition – to work on yourself

External Pushing : Preservation – to never change, inertia

External Pulling : Ruin – to break things down, entropy

 

Yeah I like this. As with my own and with @Khyrindor's there are still parts that seem doubtful, but the pushing/pulling division makes some sense (even if a couple of examples i feel they're the wrong way - the temporal ones particularly) and I particularly like some of the terminology, consumption particularly and also transformation.

I keep wanting to work Fear (or caution) into this, for the Shard who's hiding and just coz it's such a natural one, but I'm but sure where, maybe opposite Enlightenment/Knowledge.

Edit - ah and I just saw your comment @Khyrindor, I haven't seen the WoB about the Shard that's hiding not having the intent of survival, rather than fear I'm wondering if it's Caution/Inertia - not the inertia Preservation has, to keep everything the same but not be afraid about acting to maintain stuff, but to be overly cautious about consequences, instinctively non-interventionist but not in philosophy, rather because of uncertainty or lack of commitment. 

Edited by Extesian
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4 hours ago, Khyrindor said:

@Rasarr We were thinking of Amalgamation or Synthesis as a possible opposite of Purity. Purity would involve being one and only, whereas Synthesis would be about bringing things together. I agree that their tenuous, I'm less sure about these than I am about any others.

Oh. It brings something like "Bonding" to my mind, which I think is a theme that's Honor's taken up already. 

4 minutes ago, Extesian said:

I keep wanting to work Fear (or caution) into this, for the Shard who's hiding and just coz it's such a natural one, but I'm but sure where, maybe opposite Enlightenment/Knowledge.

If we go with the idea that Shards reflect emotional states or motivations of the Vessels, Fear fits like a glove, and the pairing with Enlightment/Knowledge feels natural, especially seeing how they're not supposed to be exact opposites the way Ruin and Preservation are. I'm not sure if you could find fear in Adonalsium, though. Would a god fear?

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2 hours ago, Extesian said:

Yeah I like this. As with my own and with @Khyrindor's there are still parts that seem doubtful, but the pushing/pulling division makes some sense (even if a couple of examples i feel they're the wrong way - the temporal ones particularly) and I particularly like some of the terminology, consumption particularly and also transformation.

I keep wanting to work Fear (or caution) into this, for the Shard who's hiding and just coz it's such a natural one, but I'm but sure where, maybe opposite Enlightenment/Knowledge.

Edit - ah and I just saw your comment @Khyrindor, I haven't seen the WoB about the Shard that's hiding not having the intent of survival, rather than fear I'm wondering if it's Caution/Inertia - not the inertia Preservation has, to keep everything the same but not be afraid about acting to maintain stuff, but to be overly cautious about consequences, instinctively non-interventionist but not in philosophy, rather because of uncertainty or lack of commitment. 

I haven't been able to find the WoB in a while, I'm not sure if it's in the database. I won't have time to search for it. Does anyone else have memory of this quote/have it handy somewhere?

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8 minutes ago, Khyrindor said:

I haven't been able to find the WoB in a while, I'm not sure if it's in the database. I won't have time to search for it. Does anyone else have memory of this quote/have it handy somewhere?

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Posted January 26, 2016 · 

I asked if the Shard that just wants to survive has something like the intent of fear. Brandon replied that that shard's intent is only tangentially related to what's going on.

That shard is well aware of what is n going on in the Cosmere, and is smart enough to try and just get away from it all

Edit: ooh beaten to it

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LOL my favorite topic. I'm in the camp that thinks that all sixteen Shards are divine attributes but do not directly fall into pairs....nor do I think that groupings are necessarily the best way to describe it either, because its rare that a personality (which is kinda what we're describing here, Adonalsium's divine personality shattered into sixteen specific attributes) can be cleanly sorted into groups.

Instead I picture the Shards as being on a spectrum, that encompasses all three Realms. Much like most things in the cosmere touch or span all three Realms in one way or another, I think all sixteen Intents have some Spiritual, Cognitive and Physical aspects to each of them....but that each Intent is described better by one of the three than the other two.

For instance, on one far end of the spectrum would be the more Physical Shards, like Preservation and Ruin. Both these Shards have cognitive and spiritual aspects to their Intent as well, but they're more strongly of the Physical than either of the other two Realms. Consider the Intent of Preservation.....its best defined or expressed through actions, through physicality. You can be spiritually devoted to the essence of what preservation means, being a person devoted to preserving life, society, any of that. You can be cognitively focused on the intellectual essence of what preservation means, whether saving one person is more important than letting one person die to save multiple people. But at the end of the day, the Intent of Preservation is most clearly expressed through action....the intent to preserve something means nothing without the actual action, your reasons for preserving something or why you choose to preserve one thing over another doesn't alter the actual end result of the actions you took.

I believe this also plays into why some Shards and their magic systems seem more rooted in the Physical Realm than others. You initially access allomancy by physically acting to preserve. The focus, the fuel, pretty much all the fundamentals of the metallic arts are rooted in the Physical Realm.

Now look at the other end of the spectrum, Shards that are more of the Spiritual than the others, even though they, like Preservation, do still touch on all three Realms and have aspects pertaining to each. Honor and Odium....both divine attributes like Preservation, but their essence is more of the spirit than of specific actions or physicality. With Honor's magic system, a person's spirit matters more than just their actions. Without special 'hacks' like wielding an Honorblade, you can't become a Surgebinder just by going through the motions.....performing specific actions doesn't cut it, its not just about the end result, its about the WHY of your actions. You only attract an honorspren by being honorable. Kaladin's reasons for doing certain things, the SPIRIT of how he wields his shardblade has an actual impact on Syl, their bond, and his ability to use magic that is of Honor - all in a way that just fundamentally isn't true of Preservation and how allomancy works and its relationship with mistings and mistborn.

And then in the middle of the spectrum, you have Shards that are primarily Cognitive, they're the in between Intents, just as the Cognitive is kind of the 'middle' Realm in between the Physical and the Spiritual. Primarily cognitive Shards have aspects to them that are strongly of the Spiritual and the Physical Realms, but their Intents are most strongly defined and expressed via how the mind interprets the juxtaposition of spiritual essence and physical action - primarily cognitive Intents are ones where why you perform specific actions sometimes matters more, but sometimes the reverse is true. Its the eye of the beholder, or more accurately, the thought process of the Vessel or the magic user, that matters most. I'd say that the Cognitive Shards are like the 'gray area' Shards, like Devotion. With a Spiritual Shard like Honor or Odium....there is no real way to act against the SPIRIT of Honor or Odium. Your access to their magic system is contingent on being true to the essence of what is 'true Honor', something immutable, the personal views and belief system of the Surgebinder can only stray away from this to a minimal extent. I don't think you can really use Odium's Investiture for something good, because Odium is pure spiritual hate, there's not a whole lot of leeway for his Intent to be interpreted in a non-destructive fashion.

But by contrast, I'd call Devotion and Dominion more strongly Cognitive Shards. We tend to view Aona and Devotion as a benevolent Shard, but Devotion is named what she is for a reason I think. While there are synonymous interpretations of devotion and love, the Intent of Devotion is not innately the same thing as the Intent of Love, which I'd call a Spiritual Intent. Devotion though, is more ideological. More intellectual. You can be devoted to negative pursuits just as easily as you can be devoted to positive ones. Unlike the spirit of divine hatred, which doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room to use that power for good (to be clear, I think there are plenty of ways to use say, anger for good or put that to productive use, but hate, not so much) - with devotion, the focus of your devotion matters as much as anything else. A person who is devoted to their country above all else is as much in tune with the Intent of Devotion as a person who is devoted to life in general....but the diehard patriot devoted to their country is going to be willing to kill or destroy in the name of their country without acting against Devotion's Intent, no matter that this puts them completely at odds with the person who is fiercely devoted to making sure all life is preserved regardless of nationality.

And like with Preservation and Allomancy, I think Devotion and Dominion being Cognitive Shards has a lot to do with the nature of Sel's magic systems....and might well have to do with Odium being able to bottle their Investiture up in the Cognitive Realm after shattering them....something that perhaps was only possible because they were already more strongly concentrated in the Cognitive Realms than the other two Realms.

So again, I don't think splitting the Shards into four groups of four or something similar is the way to go. I think mapping them as a spectrum might glean more insight. You have the Shards that are more strongly of Spirit at one end like Honor and Odium. Shards more strongly of Physical at the far end, like Ruin and Preservation. And I think most of the other Shards fall somewhere in between.....some in the middle, strongly of Cognitive more than anything else, but others that are a blend of Spirit and Cognitive and others that are on the further end of the Cognitive, mixing with the Physical.

Personally, I'd look at the Spectrum of Intents (the ones we have so far) as looking like the following:

 

ODIUM -- HONOR -- ENDOWMENT -- DEVOTION -- DOMINION -- AMBITION -- AUTONOMY -- CULTIVATION -- RUIN -- PRESERVATION

 

At the farthest Spiritual end of the Spectrum, you have God's Divine Hatred, Odium, an almost purely Spiritual Intent that can easily applied to the cognitive or the physical, but can not truly be altered by either of those things. No matter what mental gymnastics you perform, no matter what actions you take with Odium's Investiture, Hatred is still Hatred.

A little to the right of Odium is Honor because it also is a predominantly spiritual intent, there does seem to be True Honor, the distilled essence of what Honor actually is, and this seems to be a barometer that spren like Syl use in determining who appeals to them most, when it comes to forming bonds. However, I put Honor a little more towards the cognitive than Odium, because Honor is more easily diluted than Hatred is, the Cognitive and the personal views and ideologies of a magic user, an individual's view of what constitutes being honorable does have some sway.

A little further towards Cognitive is Endowment, another Spiritual Intent because the primary focus of it is the essence of bestowing, of endowing. On the surface this sounds more like a Physical thing, a specific action, but I'd argue this isn't so, because of how Shai describes the spiritual essence of things in TES. If you look at how the magic works in Warbreaker, Endowment seems to be an immutable Intent, at least so far as Awakening goes. It doesn't matter what the individual's view of endowment or gift-giving is, it doesn't matter why they give up their Breath, if they're being coerced or tortured or something. All that matters is that they endow their Breath, that they give it away 'willingly' - even if external factors are being applied to force the person to give up their Breath. This implies to me that the Intent of Endowment is one of the most spiritually pure, in the sense that there's not a lot of room to deviate from its essence. HOWEVER, Endowment has a second part to its Intent....an endowment is meant to be used, by its very nature. Its giving something with the intent or aim of that gift being used to help the recipient of the gift. And this is why I put this Intent a little more towards the Cognitive, because how the gift of Breath is used resides more in the Cognitive realm (hence the Spiritual fuel of Awakening, but the Cognitive focus of commands).

Devotion I've already described above...it has a stronger spiritual aspect than it does physical, but its largely dictated by the cognitive, what a person is devoted to, how they apply that devotion. But access to Devotion's Investiture seems to be a combination of the spiritual and the cognitive....all Elantrians are devoted to a specific thing or person or ideology, and then of course Elantrian magic is largely Cognitive in its mechanics.

Dominion is a little further to the right, because its like Devotion in a lot of ways, but a little bit more towards the Physical act of exerting dominion. Devotion is a bit more spiritual, a bit more cognitive, a bit more focused on the ephemeral or the abstract.....Dominion is still very much a Cognitive ideology, but requires a bit more Physical action than Devotion, IMO. They're close though (part of this idea of the spectrum is that while not all Shards are paired, the ones that are will be found next to each other on the spectrum....the further away two Intents get on the spectrum, the less they have in common and thus the less accurately they can be argued to reflect each other).

Next I would put Ambition. We don't know much about Ambition, next to nothing, actually....but Ambition to me strikes me as another gray area shard, an Intent that is very much influenced by the personal views or goals of the Vessel or anyone using Ambition's Investiture. It's a bit more Physical than Devotion or Dominion, because Ambition by its very nature demands action. If someone just sits around all day, it doesn't really matter how big they dream, they're not usually going to be regarded as very ambitious, because they're not DOING anything to make those dreams happen. We also know that while Ambition was actually shattered somewhere outside of Threnody's system, the weirdness around Threnody and Cognitive Shadows and Shadesmar there has to do with Odium wounding Ambition while in that system....and much like what happened on Sel, Ambition having a largely Cognitive nature could be tied to the fallout of its wounding having largely Cognitive effects on its surroundings. I would also suggest that if my theory on a spectrum of Intents and Ambition's place on it holds true, then if Ambition did at any point have its own magic system, it was probably Cognitive fueled and focused, like the magic on Sel.

Next we have Autonomy, a little more towards the Physical. I think Autonomy is another primarily Cognitive Shard because there doesn't seem to be a distilled essence of what it means to be Autonomous in the cosmere....all Bavadin's actions (and Trell's, if related to Bavadin either as a pseudonym or a proxy of hers) seem to suggest entirely different approaches to gaining or maintaining autonomy. Sealing Taldain off from the rest of the cosmere to maintain its autonomy makes sense for that Intent....but meddling in the shaping of other cultures as Bavadin is said to do is not as in keeping with that Intent UNLESS that Intent has a lot of Cognitive leeway to make all kinds of different arguments for what it means to be autonomous and how to go about achieving it. So far, Bavadin and Autonomy seem to embody the argument of 'do the ends justify the means'....if total autonomy is only the END goal, then there's plenty of room in the meanwhile to interfere and meddle in pursuit of that end goal. In a lot of ways, the Intent of Autonomy is like the divine focus on free will....and as such, it makes sense that the Intent most like 'Free Will' would be extremely cognitive, given that the very nature of free will has spawned countless intellectual arguments throughout human history. I actually think that if my spectrum theory pans out, once all sixteen Shards are mapped out on it, we'd find Autonomy right smack in the center of it, maybe just leaning SLIGHTLY more to the Physical than the Spiritual given the seeming physical focus and nature of magic on Taldain thus far, and the fact that like action is required to preserve something in according to Preservation's Intent, action is required to act to free oneself from outside influences to act according to Autonomy's Intent. (But since external factors shackling one's autonomy are rarely as cut and dried as the physical threat one needs to act to to preserve something, there's a lot more Cognitive involved in an individual determining what is oppressing them and what they need to be free of).

Next I would put Cultivation, who despite having a close relationship with Honor and Honor's magic system, is a very Physical oriented Intent and magic. Cultivation is the physical act of building upon things, developing them further. It still has a strong Cognitive element because there's no singular action taken to cultivate things or systems or ideas. If you look at Surgebinding as a combination of Honor and Cultivation, as we know it to be, then Honor's part of it is a distilled spiritual truth at the heart of the magic that causes different spren to seek out bonds with people who act with 'true' Honor and in pursuit of 'true Justice'. Honor is the basis of the oaths the Knights Radiant take to fully cement their magic. However, Cultivation's part of Surgebinding is the physical and cognitive act of growing those bonds, deepening them, learning new oaths, taking where the magic user started and adding more magic as that magic user works to become more in tune with Honor, to grow his or her personal service to the ideals of the Knights Radiant and Honor. It fits that Cultivation and Ruin would be next to each other on the spectrum, because Brandon said once that they would complement each other well, if Ruin weren't already paired opposite Preservation, which of course is on the other side of Ruin on the spectrum.

And of course on the far Physical side of the spectrum thus are Ruin and Preservation...Preservation being the furthest right because it as an Intent is almost wholly of action free of Cognitive ideology or Spiritual purity. The act is all that matters with Preservation....action also largely defines Ruin, as he's at times been described as mindless destruction, but I put him ever so slightly more towards the Cognitive than Preservation because most of what we've seen of Ruin and his Investiture in the cosmere is conscious will shaping the entropy it causes or embodies. Allomancy, you act in self-preservation, you Snap. You drink a vial of metal flakes, you're fueled to use Allomancy. Ruin's magic requires a little more conscious intent in what you're stealing via hemalurgy, where you apply spikes, etc, and so while Ruin and Preservation are a true pairing of Intents and thus right next to each other on the spectrum, I weigh Ruin as being incrementally more of the Cognitive than Preservation is.

Now all of this is pure theory at this point, but I do think if it pans out, a number of things about the cosmere would fall into place, and it would glean a little insight into the six remaining Shards.

For instance....I don't think we'll find out six of the remaining Shards are more 'purely Spiritual' than say, Odium, or more Physical than Preservation....I think they anchor the spectrum pretty well and any remaining Intents are going to fall somewhere in between, even if there's another Spiritual Shard that's right next to Odium thanks to having a pure essence of what its Intent means. We know that the Shard that just wants to survive has an Intent that's only tangentially related to its desire to stay out of things happening elsewhere in the cosmere....that to me suggests that this is a Cognitive Shard somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, one whose Intent gives it a lot more flexibility and leeway in interpreting it than Odium or Ruin have, as an example.

I think the cluster of four Shards or so in the very center of the Spectrum are going to end up being Shards whose Vessels are unaltered by their Intent far more than many others....because their Intent is so Cognitive based that their personal perception of what it means matters a lot more than with most Shards.  This certainly seems to be true of Bavadin thus far, from everything Brandon's said about her.

So, the Shard that just wants to survive seems to motivated more by personal choice or agenda than Intent just by Brandon's choice or wording (ie Brandon specifying that first, one Shard just wants to hide and survive but second, that this want is not specifically in service to their Intent)....it having more freedom to act based on personal wants suggests to me that it is has a great deal of leeway in how its Intent is interpreted....which again, suggests that its very near to Autonomy on the spectrum. That's why personally, I think that it has a possibility of pairing with Ambition, also close to that center of the spectrum, and that's why I think this Shard is Caution. If Ambition is the divine urge to act, then Caution is the divine urge to wait and let things develop, divine patience if you will.

I do think we'll see at least one or two more Shards that fall strongly in the Cognitive/Physical area than anything we have so far. Something that I'd place more towards the Physical than Autonomy, but not as far as Cultivation. Like for instance, Invention or Inspiration. Cognitive inspired, but requiring Physical creation.

I also think we'll see another Shard or two that's somewhere around Endowment, maybe between it and Devotion. A mostly Spiritual Shard but with a stronger Cognitive influence than Endowment has....Judgment, the Intent of Divine Condemnation perhaps.

I do think there's a strong possibility for another pure Spiritual essence Shard, something like Enlightenment or Mercy, that relies on the idea of a 'true' essence of being merciful.

I also like the possibility of another strongly physical shard, such as Revolution, the Intent of change through action.

Caution, Invention, Revolution, Judgment, Enlightenment, Mercy - those are my favorite six picks for the last remaining Shards.  

 

 

 

 

Edited by ROSHtaFARian2.0
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7 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

Caution, Invention, Revolution, Judgment, Enlightenment, Mercy - those are my favorite six picks for the last remaining Shards.  

That was a great analysis of another way to classify the Shards, and I think it's good insight, though I wouldn't want us to rely too much on any one specific model, since Brandon probably has a more complex concept already in mind (I'm thinking less of a spectrum or grid, and more like a tesseract :P).  It's really helpful to get those new perspectives to help us narrow down (or expand) the possibilities for new Shards.

I do have to note, though, that neither Caution nor Revolution would be considered Godly Attributes by any of the religions I'm familiar with.  God has no need to be cautious since he's all-knowing (granted, Adolnasium wasn't all-knowing, as far as we can tell, but it's still an unlikely attribute for a God), and Revolution would in fact be what killed him, but again wouldn't be something a God would do, even just as an aspect of himself.  We need to keep that guiding idea foremost in this process, I think, since that's one thing Brandon has made very clear: the Shards are aspects of Adolnasium's personality and power, separated from the others that gave them context, but part of the whole.

The others I like, except I would suspect that Judgement would be Honor or Honor plus another Shard, rather than a distinct Shard, but that could be viewed a few ways, so it's certainly possible. 

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(for some reason mobile isn't letting me delete this random text box even if I reload or change pages. I apologize to whoever is quoted.)

@Jondesu we know because of The Rithmatist and talk of its sequel that Brandon is a big fan of the Aztec culture and any sun God is by it's basic nature revolutionary. 

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3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Jondesu we know because of The Rithmatist and talk of its sequel that Brandon is a big fan of the Aztec culture and any sun God is by it's basic nature revolutionary. 

Hmm, I'm not familiar with those religious beliefs, so that's interesting to know.  That does put that one back on the table potentially, though in the context of Adolnasium and the information we have, I still don't feel like it quite fits.

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Yeah. I'll admit that I don't think it fits and was just playing devil's advocate. 

We now have confirmation that the word Adonalsium is based on the Hebrew Adonai and I think that means we can reasonably assume that Adonalsium is based on the Judeo-Christian God. Any "divine attributes" derived from the shattering would this be attributes similar to attributes of that God. 

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@ROSHtaFARian2.0 That was a great interpretation and i would generally agree with you, but i would disagree on some points (all but one of them rather small). If i understood correctly you propose that a Shard is more closley tied to one Plane that the others and Adonalsium in sum would be equally tied to all three Planes. But wouldn´t the creation of Harmony disproove that? Ruin and Preservation are extremly Physical like you said, but Harmony strikes me as extremly Spiritual. Since Harmony is essentially a balance and true perpetual balance is a single state i would argue it´s even more purely Spiritual than Odium since you can hate in more ways than one.

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10 minutes ago, Samaldin said:

@ROSHtaFARian2.0 That was a great interpretation and i would generally agree with you, but i would disagree on some points (all but one of them rather small). If i understood correctly you propose that a Shard is more closley tied to one Plane that the others and Adonalsium in sum would be equally tied to all three Planes. But wouldn´t the creation of Harmony disproove that? Ruin and Preservation are extremly Physical like you said, but Harmony strikes me as extremly Spiritual. Since Harmony is essentially a balance and true perpetual balance is a single state i would argue it´s even more purely Spiritual than Odium since you can hate in more ways than one.

I would think that all depends on how you define Harmony.  In the case of the Shard combining Ruin+Preservation, I would argue that would still be very physical in nature; the harmony between decay/entropy, and preservation.  Remember, just because Sazed calls the Shard Harmony, it doesn't suddenly have a new Intent unconnected to its parts.  It's merely the sum of both, which does give something a little bit new, but not changing the Intents of the original Shards, merely melding them.

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I do have to note, though, that neither Caution nor Revolution would be considered Godly Attributes by any of the religions I'm familiar with.  God has no need to be cautious since he's all-knowing (granted, Adolnasium wasn't all-knowing, as far as we can tell, but it's still an unlikely attribute for a God), and Revolution would in fact be what killed him, but again wouldn't be something a God would do, even just as an aspect of himself.  We need to keep that guiding idea foremost in this process, I think, since that's one thing Brandon has made very clear: the Shards are aspects of Adolnasium's personality and power, separated from the others that gave them context, but part of the whole.

I agree with you in theory, but I would caution (heh) against us limiting ourselves by trying to view Adonalsium as a god of any of the religions we're familiar with. I believe Brandon's expressed on multiple occasions that while he is influenced by various religions including his own, he did not set out to mimic any of them with his cosmere mythology. And yes, I long suspected Adonalsium was an homage to the Hebrew Adonai even before it was confirmed.....but that could just as easily be an homage or an Easter egg as an indication of how we're meant to view Adonalsium.

The fact is, we really have no idea yet what kind of god Adonalsium was. He's referred to as the power of creation at various points, but does that mean he actually created everything in the cosmere pre-Shattering, or simply that he possessed the power of creation? He predated the Shards, but did anything predate him? Zeus and the Christian God are both gods, but of very different sorts and capabilities, and we really don't know what Adonalsium was like, either as an individual or as a force. And as such, while I do think that looking for divine attributes is a way to contemplate remaining shards....what those divine attributes are depends on how you view this particular divinity.

I would agree with your points regarding Caution if it weren't for the existence of Ambition. I feel like some of the Shards, like Ambition, are not necessarily Intents we would inherently view as being aspects of a divine personality....and perhaps its simply that they're the words that best describe the Intent Brandon is trying to indicate. For instance, by your same logic regarding Caution.....an all powerful God is unlikely to be described as Ambitious, because the most common perception of ambition is 'a desire and determination to achieve success'. What need does an all powerful God have of a strong drive to succeed when his success is inevitable due to his omnipotence? However, ambition can also be defined as 'a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring drive and hard work.' That I believe is where we find the divine attribute of Ambition within Adonalsium....Ambition is the Intent to accomplish, no matter the effort required. An adherence towards a goal and the will to actualize that goal and see it done. (Hence Cognitive but requiring a strong Physical influence).

Similarly, my argument with Caution is that most commonly, the instinct is to link caution to fear....we think of it as something born of fear, which as you pointed out, is something an all powerful divinity is unlikely to have. However, caution is also defined as 'care taken to avoid danger or mistakes.' As such, like I suggested earlier, I would say that Caution could be viewed as another way to describe the attribute of divine patience, of knowing when NOT to act. Any creation inevitably requires at some point a step back to evaluate what one has created, view how it is turning out before deciding whether to proceed with the creation, start over, or just leave it alone. This is what I believe Caution is. Consider, we still don't know why Adonalsium was shattered. Obviously, there are many possible reasons. For all we know, the original Vessels viewed Adonalsium as an enemy or a threat. That seems more likely than people like Tanavast and Ati plotting to steal his power for the sake of their own empowerment. However, another possibility is that Yolen faced a terrible threat, and the original Vessels didn't think that Adonalsium was doing enough or anything to stop it. That they plotted to kill him and take his power for themselves so that they could act with the power of creation for the betterment of all. My point with this tangent is that there are many scenarios in which even an all powerful god CHOOSES not to act or to intervene, preferring to see how humanity handles it for themselves, like a parent standing back to let their child accomplish something for themselves. Its this Intent to not act, but rather to wait and see what happens, that I argue could be called the divine attribute of Caution.

This is also my reasoning with Revolution (though I feel less strongly about this Shard's potentiality than I do Caution). The thing about Revolution is that our default perception of the word goes hand in hand with violence, the violent overthrow of a government or a regime, something which as you said, doesn't seem a likely attribute for a god who is himself the power of creation. However, once again, that is not all that Revolution means. It also describes a 'sudden, complete and marked change in something' or 'a radical change in society and the social structure'. Essentially, it is the Intent of Dramatic Change. It keeps the status quo from becoming stagnant. It is the divine attribute that would keep a creator god from being content with one singular creation that lasted unchanging for all eternity.....and instead would drive him to periodically shake things up so that new potential could emerge.

Revolution could alternately be described as Reinvention, but I passed on that because I felt that one Shard was likely to be called either Inspiration or Invention, the Intent of creating, revising or originating. Revolution could also be described as Transformation, true, but I think its extremely unlikely that any of the remaining six Shards share a name with a subset of another Shard's magic system, like Surgebinding. With Transformation, Illumination and Progress being Surges, I highly doubt we'll end up with any Shards who share those same names...similar to how I don't think there's a Shard of Justice, given that one aspect of Honor's Intent and Investiture seems dedicated to Justice already. 

 

Edit: Regarding Harmony, I admit I have not worked him into my theory fully yet. However, currently I'm of the mindset that its probably a mistake to view Harmony as being simply the combination of Preservation and Ruin, rather than a wholly new thing created of two different Intents. What I mean is, Brandon's spoken about how Harmony is now its own, coherent Intent. Ruin and Preservation are both part of him, but he's not simply half Ruin and half Preservation, you can't split it apart that cleanly. So I don't think combining two strongly Physical Shards inherently makes one supercharged Physical Shard.....I think it creates something wholly new. We know that Adonalsium could have shattered along different lines, resulted in different Intents. The Spectrum of Intents I've created here is based on the INITIAL Shattering....we don't know yet why each Vessel got a specific Intent or how much the personality of the original Vessels influenced what Shard they got or perhaps even what Shards emerged from the Shattering. The confluence of events that resulted in sixteen Vessels each walking away with a different Intent is I think, a large part of why Adonalsium shattered into these specific sixteen Intents. Harmony however....is born of an entirely different confluence of events. Unrelated to the Shattering. So I wonder if the answer to this question is Harmony CAN'T be mapped on the Spectrum of Intents that resulted from the Shattering....that his creation puts him on an entirely new spectrum or in a wholly different order.

Like I mean....if Sazed were at the Shattering instead of Ati and Leras, would Adonalsium have Shattered into fifteen Intents, one of them Harmony? I don't necessarily think so. Because I think that just like Adonalsium could have Shattered into different Intents, the combination of Ruin and Preservation could have resulted in a different Intent than Harmony if someone other than Sazed had been capable of taking them both up instead. I think Harmony is the result of Ruin & Preservation because those were the only Intents available to take up. If Sazed had been there at the Shattering, fifteen Vessels instead of sixteen....I think ALL the Intents would be different, not just the other fourteen Intents remaining the same and Harmony in place of Ruin and Preservation's original Shards.

So my point is, Harmony isn't supposed to fit on the Spectrum of Intents, because Harmony literally didn't exist when the Shards originally split along these lines. I don't think any super-Shards that are formed by combining two or more of the remaining Shards can be retroactively shoehorned into a spot on this original spectrum....because the existence of these combined Shards or the Vessels of combined shards like Sazed were literally not a factor in whatever caused Adonalsium's initial split into sixteen Intents 

Edited by ROSHtaFARian2.0
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I love your thinking and analysis @ROSHtaFARian2.0. I agree with you about Caution and that it can absolutely be a 'godly' intent, just as Odium and Ambition can seem like strange fits to what we think of as godly. I'm less sure of Revolution due to it's similarity with Ruin but I see your point that Ruin is the physical version (and doesn't need to be sudden dramatic change, it's more like the original Decay) while Revolution can be more sudden and cognitive.

I think it's a great framework for a theory and filling in some of the gaps. 

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13 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

He's referred to as the power of creation at various points, but does that mean he actually created everything in the cosmere pre-Shattering, or simply that he possessed the power of creation?

Roshar was specifically grown by Adonalsium, and was not the only world made that way.  Adonalsium's intent was to create sentience. So he quite literally was a force of creation. Whether or not he made everything, we don't know.

13 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

I feel like some of the Shards, like Ambition, are not necessarily Intents we would inherently view as being aspects of a divine personality...

Personal Opinion: I see no reason for a god not to have Ambition. A lazy god gets nothing done(just ask Lightsong:P) and Adonalsium got lots of things done. I'd have used the word "Drive" but the average reader will likely understand Ambition better than Drive, so I agree that it is likely the best describing word Brandon could use. Actually, given his intent was "to create sentience" that could be partially shaped into his drive, his want, his ambition to create.

I like caution as a counterpart to ambition: (drive to act/reason not to act)


Not entirely arguing your interpretation of Revolution, but the google search definitions I found are slightly different that the ones you posted.

Quote

1. a forcible overthrow of a govern....(this was the violent kind, which we are ignoring for your interpretation)
1c. a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people's ideas about it. (syn: Dramatic Change, Innovation)
2. an instance of revolving.
(syn: Turning, Circling)

I always saw revolution in the circular way, where the wheel keeps turning, so to speak. Examples being things like the Water/Carbon cycle, always repeating, never stopping. It still fits within some of your idea, depending on the perspective.

Quoth you:

13 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

"It keeps the status quo from becoming stagnant. It is the divine attribute that would keep a creator god from being content with one singular creation that lasted unchanging for all eternity.....and instead would drive him to periodically shake things up so that new potential could emerge."

I agree with this statement, but: The revolution of the water cycle shakes up the status quo, as water doesn't just sit in a pond for eternity. But it also makes it's own status quo if you look at the cycle from far enough away. Revolution would be a Shard of Change, but also of Cycles/Patterns, things that are not static.


Edit: Well, just realized I may have made an argument for Shards being in sets of 4.

Quote

Preservation: Maintain (Static, Unchanging)                      Cultivation: Development, Refinement (Construction)
 

Ruin: Reduce, Decay (Destruction)                                   Revolution: Cycle, Change (Active, Changing)

 

Edited by The One Who Connects
realization
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On March 3, 2017 at 2:35 AM, ZenBossanova said:

Internal Pushing : Word or Language or Communication – to seek knowledge and understanding

Internal Pulling : Knowledge or Truth – to have knowledge

I do not believe there is a Shard based entirely on having knowledge. While it is a traditional godly attribute, I think realmatics covers it to some extent for all shards. All shards can see in the spiritual realm, and all shards have some amount of future sight. I'd suggest replacing them with the following (some of @ROSHtafARian's choices)

Internal pushing : Invention -- the desire to discover new things. Alternative names could be Exploration or Curiousity. 

Internal pulling : Caution -- to think carefully about knowledge before acting. Alternative names could be Wisdom or Forethought. 

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I think that Autonomy is the shard that is hiding and waiting things out, mainly because it is the only shard we have seen that is a sun, and not invested in a planet. Autonomy would be the only shard that wouldn't get caught up with the other shards shenanigans. 

Also side note if the whole Feurichmical and Allomantic charts to are used to keep the shards organized, what does it mean for the metals beyond this chart like harmonium or the lost metal in the new mist born book.

Side Side note does anyone think that there is a shard being used in mistborn secret history, the Elantrians are harvesting the power but from where? I think they mention greed but I will have to look up the exact quote.

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They're probably drawing power from the Dor (or depending on the timeframe, maybe a restored Devotion?) rather than some new Shard. The only mention they make of anything that could be interpreted otherwise is a discussion of Fortune, which we already know is a Feruchemical attribute that can be stored and tapped and that it has analogues in other magic systems, as Brandon has confirmed that Hoid's ability to know where he needs to be uses the same underlying mechanism as the Feruchemy.

And I doubt very much that Autonomy is the 'hiding' Shard since we know for a fact that Bavadin has an isolationist policy on her own world but actively meddles with things on other planets, which is pretty much the opposite of keeping her head down. And there's the the various implications that can be pretty convincingly woven together to support the argument that Bavadin and Rayse are working together (Era 2 Scadrial) and have possibly done so in the past (prehistoric Sel).

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1 hour ago, CosmereAvair said:

Autonomy would be the only shard that wouldn't get caught up with the other shards shenanigans.

This line of logic makes sense, but we know that Autonomy seems to do nothing but get involved in other planets business from Khriss's notes on Taldain in AU.

1 hour ago, CosmereAvair said:

Also side note if the whole Feruchemical and Allomantic charts to are used to keep the shards organized, what does it mean for the metals beyond this chart like harmonium or the lost metal in the new mist born book.

Harmonium is a god metal, so it doesn't count within the block of 16. It'd just be off to the side with Atium/Lerasium. This "lost" Metal is up for debate, but since it shouldn't be one of the base sixteen, it should be over with Atium and the others.

Edited by The One Who Connects
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