Baseless speculation: Adonalsium was evil

[Two McMillion]

Today in wal-mart I was thinking about the shards, what we know of adonalsium and the force that opposed it.

 

We know of the following shards so far:

Cultivation

Devotion

Dominion

Endowment

Honor

Odium

Preservation

Ruin

 

One of these is not like the others, and that one is odium. Why? Because while all the other shards are morally neutral, Odium alone is morally evil.

 

Cultivation is morally neutral. You can cultivate good or evil as you please. Devotion may be good or bad, depending on what you're devoted to. Dominion is certainly morally questionable, but there are times when it can be all right. Endowment is morally neutral. Honor is a bit tricky- at first glance it may seem to be morally good. But Honor alone is no guarantee of goodness- honor makes people lawful evil as well as lawful good. Preservation can be good or bad, depending on what's preserved. Ruin is technically morally neutral but certainly inclined towards the evil side of things.

 

And then we have Odium, both something that induces hatred and is worthy of hate. Now, I certainly believe that there are things that deserve to be hated. All of those things share the quality of being moral wrongs. Odium therefore seems to me to be far more obviously evil then any of the shards are good.

 

What does this tell us about Adonalsium?

 

Well, Adonalsium obviously wasn't all good, or Ruin and Odium wouldn't exist. The leap to suggesting that Adonalsium was on the whole a negative force doesn't seem too far stretched to me. Certainly Dominion, Odium, and Ruin seem to be forces associated with evil far more than Preservation and Honor are associated with good, and the rest of the shards are neutral at best.

 

This makes me wonder if perhaps the shattering was a good thing, and the force that opposed Adonalsium (could it be the 17th shard?) is making sure it never comes back together- for the good of the cosmere.

 

What do you guys think?

[Elbereth]

Keep in mind that there are still more Shards out there, some of which may be morally good. This could all be right, except the conclusion, because there is a Kindness Shard out there somewhere.

Other than that, it's an interesting thought.

[FirstSelector]

Evil is a point of view.  Odium himself is not evil.  To ascribe morals to thoughtless collections of power is misleading, since that power requires a cognitive presence to function.  Granted, the Intent of the Shard determines the long-time behavior of its holder, but even still one can destroy or be hated without being evil.

[QuantumHarmonix]

I agree that Odium does not have to be evil. The definition has it as the "general or widespread hatred or disgust directed toward someone as a result of their actions." While it's true that hatred doesn't usually result in positive interactions, it also doesn't have to be evil. A better person could have taken up Odium and as a result became more and more disgusted by the evil actions of people. They still would probably end up a tyrant, but one that punished more acceptable actions.  

[digitalbusker]

Odium as a stand-alone Shard is basically doomed to wind up a bad guy, no matter what he/she starts out like. Odium as one-sixteenth of a whole could well be the necessary dark side that keeps the gestalt moving. And I'm going to reference "The Enemy Within"* now, because of course I am. Good Kirk was ineffective and indecisive and Evil Kirk was increasingly unhinged. Only together were they good at their job.

*: The Star Trek episode where a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into two people: one who embodies his good impulses and one who embodies his dark side.

[Aminar]

I've always felt like Adonalsium, if actually an intelligent being, is likely evil... Any complete being with that much power and lacking in deific wisdom is bound to be corrupted by their power. We've also seen far more negative attributes than positive.

Ruin, Odium, and Domination are very negative.

Devotion, Cultivation, and endowment are very Neutral...

That leaves Preservation and Honor as actual positives, and even preservation is flawed in that if all you do is preserve you're a taxidermist or a zookeeper...

[Chromium Compounder]

I don't think Odium (the Shard, not Rayse the holder) is inherently evil, though the intent of it is likely going to cause a person to do evil things.  

 

The shards each have two aspects to them, the huge power, and the intent.  The intents are all cold and emotionless.  All of them, Honor, Odium, Preservation, Ruin, Endowment, Cultivation, Devotion, and Dominion.  They're all cold and don't really care or even understand things like good and evil.  

 

Their intents are like AI.  The AI itself is neither evil nor good.  People don't measure AI for good or evil, only for effectiveness.  

 

Let's look at the example of Nightblood.  He's commanded to Destroy Evil, but he has no clue what Evil is.  And when Vasher draws Nightblood he gets caught up in Nightblood's command 'Destroy Evil'.  Vasher, who tries very hard to be a good person, and is arguably quite successful at it at the time of the story, goes on a rampage and has very little control over his own actions.  I think of holding a shard as being like having a voice constantly whispering at you to do that intent.  Even a seemingly good intent could make you go crazy eventually, causing you to lose yourself to the need to fulfill the intent.  

 

All that being said, I think people look too much at the name of the shards.  I think many of us take the names of the shards too literally, instead of thinking about what the intent truly is.

 

When Sazed first touches the shards of Preservation and Ruin the impressions he gets of them seem to me like they are the true essence of those intents.  Preservation is a force of Stability.  Ruin is a force of Change.  Both are useful.  Neither is good nor bad, but both can be used to both ends.  

 

So then, why is the force of Stability called Preservation and the force of Change called Ruin.  Each one on its own and left unchecked will lead to that.  Too much Stability becomes a state of complete constancy.  The closest thing to that IRL would be having things Preserved in a deep freeze.  Too much Change leads to complete entropy.  Everything gets Ruined.  Harmony of course has both forces.  Two opposing forces, keeping each other in check.  Hence the name Harmony.

 

I think this is why the shards have the names they do.  Each is a force of some kind, and left unchecked it will lead to a result, which is what the shard is named.  The force however is like fire.  Fire is neither good nor bad.  It is useful.

 

So, that leads to the question of what kind of force are the other shards.  I'm not positive on all of them, but for Odium I think it's a force of  Discernment.  It helps people to categorize things, see what things are similar to each other, etc.  Left unchecked this leads to a whole lot of Us vs Them, but that doesn't make the force behind it bad.  Discernment is useful.  It's only when it goes to far does it become a problem.

[Darkarma]

I think the problem with Odium may be its Holder. We have Hoid's own word that the man who holds it was never a nice person unlike Ati. The main problem is that Ati personality didn't align with Ruin's agenda so as a result he was crushed under the intent of Ruin. Odium might very well just be hatred or general antagonism IE gave Andonasium the will to oppose which when combined with Ruin made it a force capable of standing against other deities.

 

However the current holder of Odium isn't a nice person who could very well be very similar to the shard before they became bound to each other... close enough where his intent was enough to bend the shard to his own means while still fulfilling its intent. Ati failed with Ruin because he stood against the flood. Rayse was described as "among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals I had ever met", if Hoid's opinion is correct then a cunning loathsome individual could be instead of standing and conquering Odium, is rather riding and directing the flood instead.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Darkarma

[WeiryWriter]

I agree with a lot of what is being said, Adolnasium was probably not good or evil it just *was*.  I also don't think we can use the intents of the shards to gauge Adolnasium, as best as I can tell the intents are an artifact of the Shattering and did not affect Adolnasium like they do the Shards.  (I don't know how popular that interpretation but since there is WoB that Adolnasium could have Shattered differently its hard for me to see it being different)

[Dros]

It seems all the Shards are driven to assist life in their own ways. Even Ruin gave his defense of destruction in the name of creating viable, long lasting life. I imagine even Odium has his own defense of why his Intent is critical in sustaining thriving life. We have an example of what combining two opposing Shards can create--a state of Harmony, but not perfection. I would think the power of Creation, that is Andonasium, requires all of the Intents we see in the 16 Shards to create viable, longer lasting life and really wouldn't be considered good or evil, just like Weiry said. It's interesting that the holders of Shards realized that most times at least two of their Intents were required to create thriving lifeforms on their respective worlds. The problems on each world seems to be the Intents of the Shards, when separated, are TOO strongly represented to create a lasting balance.

It's also apparent (If Yolen's "problem" was in fact happening when Andonasium was still intact) that even Andonasium, with all the Intents intact, was unable to create a perfect equilibrium, as well.

 

A bigger question might be who decided all of these Intents needed to be meshed together to create a catalyst (Andonasium) for viable and balanced life in the Cosmere?

 

Edit: edited for Yolen spoiler, not much of one though, just being safe especially if I'm wrong

Edited February 15, 2014 by Dros

[Swimmingly]

Maybe there were some time shenanigans?

[+Aletus]

As far as baseless speculations go, 3/4 of me wants to be completely on board with this theory. Evil isn't the best word, but malignant maybe?

[AerionBFII]

I think it was more balance or neutral

[Shardlet]

I agree with Weiry that you can't judge Adonalsium effectively by the constituent shards it shattered into.  For one thing, we only have half of that picture (we only know 8 of the 16).  On top of which, I refer back to the WoB that FirstSelector referenced, if Odium is bad and the way he is because of the combination of selfish Rayse and the shard Odium, to make any reasonable judgement about Adonalsium we would have to know 1) if Adonalsium had a guiding intelligence (i.e., a holder), and 2) what was the nature of that guiding intelligence if it was present.

 

Personally, I don't buy into the adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Certainly the likelihood of abuse of power is higher if there is nothing to check that power.  But, I think that most abuses of power come because in many cases, those who seek power are those who it would be better if they did not attain it.  There have been plenty of benevolent monarchs who came to power without seeking power and were just fine as monarchs.  We don't often remember them because in many cases, nothing of significant historical import happened while they were in power.  They ran their respective countries and ran them well enough that there were no notable problems or wars.  It is the bad ones who abuse their power that we remember.  And we remember them because they abused their power.

[lordofsoup]

If I had to choose a word to describe Adonalsium it would existence.  I dont even know if there was sentience behind it.  It could easily have just been like a massive tree.

[Swimmingly]

If I had to choose a word to describe Adonalsium it would existence. I dont even know if there was sentience behind it. It could easily have just been like a massive tree.

Yggdrasil kind of thing?