Narrowing Down the Last Shards [AU]

[ZenBossanova]

4 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Ashyn does not have a Shard. The magic there is something you interact with, more Realmatic effects (silly science), not a formalized magic system.

But did it have a shard in the distant past? 

[AeonaRin]

46 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Ashyn does not have a Shard. The magic there is something you interact with, more Realmatic effects (silly science), not a formalized magic system.

"Currently". There could have been one in the past. 

If there was, my money's on Cultivation though. Either her or it's of Adonalsium - parallel to Rosharan Old magic. 

But that's an offtop 

[Pagerunner]

42 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

But did it have a shard in the distant past? 

Quote

Q: Did Ashyn ever have a Shard, or is its magic a natural manifestation akin to Threnody or First of the Sun?

 

A: RAFO on Ashyn, as--being in the same system as Roshar--there are going to be some spoilers relating to Stormlight in anything I say here.

Source. So, we've been RAFOd on that particular question, with the implication that one of the three Shards in Roshar may be responsible for its magic. Odium can influence other planets in the Rosharan system, and even though he has been on Braize, Brandon has referred to him as the third Shard on Roshar, which I infer as referring to the entire Rosharan system. Also, what we know of the disease magic indicates that it is a magic you interact with, which would follow that it is a world without a Shard.

So, I cannot state definitively that Ashyn has never had a Shard and that its magic is not due to a fourth Shard. (I can't check the AU Rosharan essay right now, but it's possible that is more definitive in saying there are three Shards in the system.) The wiggle room is there in the WoBs. But I feel I can make a strong case against it.

[AeonaRin]

10 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

 (I can't check the AU Rosharan essay right now, but it's possible that is more definitive in saying there are three Shards in the system.) 

I checked it. There's no specification on number, but I think 

Quote

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns!

Is enough evidence. 

But there were spren before shattering, so there might be some forces that come directly from Adonalsium. 

Now, my theory is that Ashyn is Tranquiline Halls. There was a cataclysm, it's history spoils Stormlight Archive, the magic resembles boon/curse system - and that is also why I think it might be of Cultivation. The only thing is, Nightwatcher might have been not of Cultivation originally, like the Rider of Storms was not originally of Honor. In that case, Ashyn is of Adonalsium too. 

[CaptainRyan]

4 hours ago, strumienpola said:

Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns!

Unless we interpreted it as three shards (Honor, Cultivation, and the one on Ashyn) ruled but now Odium reigns. Not that I endorse this interpretation but the meaning is possibly there, eh?

[AeonaRin]

42 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

Unless we interpreted it as three shards (Honor, Cultivation, and the one on Ashyn) ruled but now Odium reigns. Not that I endorse this interpretation but the meaning is possibly there, eh?

It's not

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1048#17

Quote

OUTIS

The line about three of sixteen reigned and now the Broken One rules. Did Odium follow three other shards to Roshar, or is he the third Shard?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Odium is the third Shard on Roshar.

 

[CaptainRyan]

24 minutes ago, strumienpola said:

Odium is the third Shard on Roshar

Tricky. Roshar refers to both the system (meaning there are only 3 shards in the system) and also to the planet (meaning there could be other shards in the system). 

[+Extesian]

1 hour ago, CaptainRyan said:

Tricky. Roshar refers to both the system (meaning there are only 3 shards in the system) and also to the planet (meaning there could be other shards in the system). 

This isn't impossible, Brandon is tricksy like that. Though here are a bunch of WoBs about three Shards on Roshar. None of them disprove that possibility but together they add up to a fair bit.

Quote

CHAOS

How many Shards have existed on Roshar?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Three

Quote

ZAS

So the number of Shards that have been on Roshar is three, correct?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Correct.

Quote

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hm, is the number of epic-level spren related to the number of Bondsmiths you have? Well, I’ve said there’s a maximum of three. And there are three Shardsinvolved in Roshar. I’m not gonna tell you if that’s a coincidence or not. Sorry. 

But none of them use the word 'system'. Perhaps someone with good reddit searching can find more.

[CaptainRyan]

10 minutes ago, Extesian said:

This isn't impossible, Brandon is tricksy like that. Though here are a bunch of WoBs about three Shards on Roshar. None of them disprove that possibility but together they add up to a fair bit.

To clarify, I am merely playing devil's advocate. While I would not be overly surprised if a fourth shard was lurking in the Rosharan system somewhere (Brandon being Brandon afterall), I am more on the side of only three exist in the system.

[+Extesian]

Just now, CaptainRyan said:

To clarify, I am merely playing devil's advocate. While I would not be overly surprised if a fourth shard was lurking in the Rosharan system somewhere (Brandon being Brandon afterall), I am more on the side of only three exist in the system.

Oh yes it wasn't a criticism of your approach, playing devil's advocate is the only way to get to the bottom of these. I agree with you that it's possible based on the wording of those WoBs but I also agree that it's probably not the case

[CaptainRyan]

2 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

Odium is the third Shard on Roshar

Going back to this quote notice how Brandon says on Roshar and not in Roshar. The former seems to imply the planet whereas the latter would imply the system. That definitely leaves open the small possibility that Brandon is leaving himself space to add another shard to the system.

 

3 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Oh yes it wasn't a criticism of your approach, playing devil's advocate is the only way to get to the bottom of these.

Thanks for being understanding.  

[Calderis]

My only nitpick of Odium being the third shard on Roshar referring to the planet and not the system is that Odium isn't on the planet. He's on Braize. That kind of points towards that quote referring to the the system despite the word on. 

[ZenBossanova]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

My only nitpick of Odium being the third shard on Roshar referring to the planet and not the system is that Odium isn't on the planet. He's on Braize. That kind of points towards that quote referring to the the system despite the word on. 

Fair enough, but we know that he was on Roshar enough to affect the Parshendi. 

[Borio Singaldi]

This is just a thought I had, but since not all of the Shards have to have perfect opposites and such, I decided to theorize along the lines of godly attributes. What if we looked for Intents related to characteristics of God rather than just trying to find opposites for those we know of?

On 4/15/2017 at 3:12 PM, strumienpola said:

1.       I believe that Shards are godly traits, as they exist as a part of a godly creature.

I'm not the only one to bring it up, and I agree with the line of thinking. So what I'm thinking is that there could very likely be a Shard named Faith. I know that at first it might seem too similar to Devotion, but remember that we have seen Shards with (somewhat) similar Intents before. Faith is a godly attribute that I'm pretty sure someone like Adonalsium would have if it was pretty much God. I believe that this Faith Shard could easily be the one on a yet-to-be-revealed Shardworld that we'll see in one of Brandon Sanderson's upcoming books. (My crazy theory is that is might be his Dark One novel, but that is just total speculation without any grounding.)

 

And on the topic of godly attributes, I definitely agree with the possibility of a Shard with the Intent of Birth/Creation.

On 3/17/2017 at 0:48 AM, Mr. Staccato said:

See, Ruin is destruction and change, Preservation is protection or prolonging something, Cultivation is essentially changing something for the better without destruction - so that leaves the simple act of creation.

I mean, if Adonalsium was pretty much the God of the cosmere, and if God created all things, wouldn't there be a Shard with the Intent of Creation or something with a similar name? It makes me wonder: who knows what a Shard with that singular Intent would be up to and where would it be? And what book or series could have to do with that?

 

Also, I agree with Awareness being a good possibility for a Shard Intent. I think that if there is such a thing, then Awareness is the yet-unnamed Survival Shard.

On 3/17/2017 at 7:53 AM, What's a Seawolf? said:

I REALLY like the idea of an Awareness shard.  If the shard that wants to survive is not actually some form of survival, I think Awareness would be a good fit.

We know that the Survival Shard isn't named Survival, and we know that it's actions are only tangentially related to its Intent. We also know that it's hiding because of Odium, perhaps because it's very aware of events in the Cosmere, even more so than any other Shard, which is why those other Shards never anticipated or survived being attacked by Odium, but this Shard has escaped it. Awareness would fit its Intent very well.

[Oversleep]

7 hours ago, Firerust the Terris Gyorn said:

This is just a thought I had, but since not all of the Shards have to have perfect opposites and such, I decided to theorize along the lines of godly attributes. What if we looked for Intents related to characteristics of God rather than just trying to find opposites for those we know of?

Yeah, yesterday I read up a little about God's attributes. So far I've been trying to match it with the Shards we know:

• Devotion - God's love and dedication
• Dominion - God rules. God's authority.
• Autonomy - God's sovereign (there is a whole concept of God being autonomous)
• Preservation - God doesn't change (although it can be applied to also God keeping things the same)
• Ruin - God destroys
• Cultivation - God improves, perfects, advances
• Odium - God hates
• Honor - God upholds, God is true to His word
• Endowment - God gives
• Ambition - so far this has been the hardest. God acts? Without ambition you would do nothing...

I think we could chalk up Creation to Endowment & Cultivation & Preservation & Ruin. Now, I think there should be God's divine Wrath somewhere but I'm not sure whether Odium would contain it or not. I lean towards Wrath being separate as you don't have to hate to feel wrath.
Since Threnody theory I'm thinking about Shard of Sorrow but I'm not sure it fits.

Anyway, a strong possibility is Grace/Forgiveness. God forgives. And I don't think Devotion would contain that.

What else? Wisdom. God is wise and wisdom is something you'd definitely want God to have. Patience... I feel it would be closely related to Wisdom.

God also tests people, gives life challenges. Demand? Something like that.

I ruled out Judgement - I feel it's a combination of Shards, Honor would be a part of that.

[Andy92]

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

I ruled out Judgement - I feel it's a combination of Shards, Honor would be a part of that.

What about Justice? That trait is tied to Honor, but it isn't exactly the same. But when you mentioned Grace/Forgiveness it made me think of a Mercy Shard, and you hear the terms justice and mercy used pretty frequency when describing God's attributes.

[WhiteLeeopard]

I'm a bit late to this discussion but will nevertheless add this.I feel that I should point out about the shard that just wants to survive that WoB also said that the shard's actual purpose has little to do with what is going on there, as I often see that it is tempting to try to extrapolate that shard's attribute from its behaviour, yet in this case this might be a road which does not bear fruits. 

Edited April 20, 2017 by WhiteLeeopard

[The One Who Connects]

As for a Shard of Creation, it's unlikely. Adonalsium's Intent was "to create life" and we have WoB that all of the Shards have a secondary Intent to create.

That said, other Godly Attributes are still a good starting point.

[Khyrindor]

6 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Yeah, yesterday I read up a little about God's attributes. So far I've been trying to match it with the Shards we know:

• Devotion - God's love and dedication
• Dominion - God rules. God's authority.
• Autonomy - God's sovereign (there is a whole concept of God being autonomous)
• Preservation - God doesn't change (although it can be applied to also God keeping things the same)
• Ruin - God destroys
• Cultivation - God improves, perfects, advances
• Odium - God hates
• Honor - God upholds, God is true to His word
• Endowment - God gives
• Ambition - so far this has been the hardest. God acts? Without ambition you would do nothing...

I think we could chalk up Creation to Endowment & Cultivation & Preservation & Ruin. Now, I think there should be God's divine Wrath somewhere but I'm not sure whether Odium would contain it or not. I lean towards Wrath being separate as you don't have to hate to feel wrath.
Since Threnody theory I'm thinking about Shard of Sorrow but I'm not sure it fits.

Anyway, a strong possibility is Grace/Forgiveness. God forgives. And I don't think Devotion would contain that.

What else? Wisdom. God is wise and wisdom is something you'd definitely want God to have. Patience... I feel it would be closely related to Wisdom.

God also tests people, gives life challenges. Demand? Something like that.

I ruled out Judgement - I feel it's a combination of Shards, Honor would be a part of that.

Having gone down this road myself and coming to the same conclusions, I'd like to add some thought to this.

-God's Mystery is commonly talked about, and I think it could be a very strong candidate for a group or pair with Enlightenment/Wisdom/Discernment (though I have it listed as Enigma on my list).

-Mercy/Grace/Forgiveness is something I would hesitantly put under Absolution. Absolution is used a lot as a Godly action in the Bible. Absolution of sin (forgiveness of sin, or God's Grace). In modern times you'd see the theme of Absolution in a court scene being absolved of Judgement (so, Mercy). I could also see it as an Absolution of oaths or obligation (which makes it a good candidate for an opposite of Honor, Vengeance, and even Odium, so we could easily put it in a group there). I could see it being called simply "Forgiveness" though, as it's more of an attribute than "Absolution" which is more of a direct action.

-Patience is a really good one that I thought of recently as well. I find it a lot more likely than a Shard of Indifference, though that may be due to my view of God. Taking an example from the Bible, the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years before God decided to act, but that didn't mean he was indifferent to their suffering. He merely had a purpose for it (in this case, the purpose was for them to have grown to a population in the millions, enough for a nation to be born out of it). Patience would exemplify this attribute much better, showing the idea that God has a perfect time for everything. It also makes a perfect opposite to Ambition. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. Another possible title for the Intent of Patience could be Perseverance. 

-I'd group Wrath into Odium, personally. Odium acts on wrath.

-People have put "God testing people" into Tribulation or Trial before. I personally don't like those words for an Intent, but I could see there being a Shard about that idea.

 

[Oversleep]

23 minutes ago, Khyrindor said:

-I'd group Wrath into Odium, personally. Odium acts on wrath.

Despite what Star Wars is telling us, anger does not necessarily lead to hate. Those are two separate concepts. Related, but not the same. There is righteous fury but there is no righteous hate, for example.

Personally I think hate is something much more long-lived and devastating than wrath.

[Khyrindor]

8 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Despite what Star Wars is telling us, anger does not necessarily lead to hate. Those are two separate concepts. Related, but not the same. There is righteous fury but there is no righteous hate, for example.

Personally I think hate is something much more long-lived and devastating than wrath.

What about the hatred of wrongdoing? I would define wrath as hateful anger. 

[+Extesian]

5 hours ago, Khyrindor said:

What about the hatred of wrongdoing? I would define wrath as hateful anger. 

I feel like wrath is anger, aimed at something or someone (or many somethings or someones) and directed towards action. You can sit around and just feel angry, that's not wrath. You can feel very angry at a specific thing but without a desire to do something I don't feel it's wrath. Wrath is directed anger at specific behavior. Or something similar

Either way I think Odium has that covered.

Edit to avoid double posting

This

Quote

I chanced upon this on tumblr that contained a segment of an interview Brandon did in Bulgaria last month and during one of the questions, the interviewer asked " If you are entrusted with a shard of Adonalsium, which shard?" and Brandon replied "maybe Ingenuity"

 

Great find (though of questionable WoB status) by @Sherwin94 and good for additional thinking here.

Here's the thread. I can't give it enough upvotes.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by Extesian

[The One Who Connects]

Re: Semantics

Anger - a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility

Hatred - intense dislike or ill will

Wrath - extreme anger

 

Sure, Odium probably covers most of Wrath, but Divine Wrath is usually against those who "deserve it" in some way, at least in the various stories and myths that I remember. I'd actually put Wrath as an Honor/Odium pairing where Odium is the more dominant aspect, while Justice is the Odium/Honor pair where Honor is in charge.

[+ILuvHats]

I'm really bad at thinking up names for shards.  Out of the examples other people suggested, though, Wisdom seems the most likely to be the driving force for a shard.  I don't think any of the currently shards really address this attribute, and looking at the Bible, Quran, etc this characteristic is highly emphasized.  I whole-heartedly expect one of the future shards to be a spin off of this idea.

[KnightofLight]

On 3/1/2017 at 2:02 PM, The Flash said:

I've always enjoyed the idea of love being a shard. All the intents seem to be a driving human force, and what driving force is greater than love? That and some sort of scholarly intent that might be helping out silver light in some way

I totally agree. It seems Love should definitely be a shard of a God figure. If the opposite theory is considered then it would have to be the antithesis of odium. It will be interesting to see what the last 6 shards are. And also (reading the past posts) I don't think devotion can include love. Devotion is a result of some form of love but it can also involve a lot of other attributes like passion and persistence 

Edited May 7, 2017 by KnightofLight