Trell is not Autonomy

[Tglassy]

My theory on Shards is that they each have an internal/external pushing/pulling dichotomy going on.  I believe that Autonomy is the internal pushing version of Honor, who would be internal pulling.  Honor binds himself, Autonomy breaks his own binds.   

If my theory is correct, then External Shards have their focus on things external from themselves, and internal shards have their focus on themselves.  Ruin and Preservation were External powers, they affected others, but their intents didn't include themselves (ruin didn't want to die, and Preservation died to preserve the world).  Same with Odium.  He's an external Shard.  His focus is on the outside, as he doesn't hate himself.  He wants to force his power onto the world.  But Honor DID bind himself to his own intent, and he gave power to those who did the same, willingly.   I think Autonomy would be the same, giving power to those who's intent matched his own, but not actually doing the unbinding himself.  That could be where the Avatars come from, individuals who are basically "slivers of Autonomy", who try very hard to break their binds against whatever is trying to hold them down.  They could have enough power to be considered Ascended, like The Lord Ruler was with Preservation for a short time.  Which would be why "whole pantheons" are actually just Autonomy, as each person in the pantheon is simply another Avatar of Autonomy, using the same power.

I suppose Trell could be an Avatar of Autonomy, but then why would they just decide to up and destroy the world because technology got to far advanced?  I suppose if each Avatar had its own will, then that could be the case, but what threat does Scadrial have on them?  

Personally, I still think Trell is Odium.  We know there's a Form of Power that allows a Singer to appear to be someone else, and Forms of Power have Red Eyes.  The Set is run by Singers, or at least have some that serve them, and Odium is trying to find a way to destroy Harmony.  Odium fed off of Paalm's hatred of Harmony, granting her a spike or spikes that would allow her to go undetected by Harmony.  We know Odium likes to destroy planets, and we know he likes to dominate planets.  Unless it's a cooperative attack with an Odium/Autonomy combined effort, which would makes sense.  

[Ciridae]

I think Taldains isolationist period was before Autonomy directed her attention to other worlds. I think at the time she was focused on granting her own people autonomy, but when she started creating her first avatars on other planets she realized she would have "free" people on those planets as well. 

In that sense I agree with @Calderis that the avatars are what allow her to meddle without breaking the pact. If Bavadin swore to not interfere with other Shards that's fine. I think it's clear that the avatars are separate from Bavadin. Patji is not Bavadin. They are the same power, but not the same mind. I don't think the pact Bavadin made can apply to a being that came into existence far later.

What kind of confuses me is how powerful avatars are. If Trell is an avatar, is he bringing the pocked of investiture he was created from to the fight on Scadrial, or does he have the full power of Autonomy behind him? 

[Quantus]

Something random occurred to me while I had my head in comic book matters:  Could Trell be Discord, as in a dissociative splinter personality of Sazed, something that he's not aware of?  It's a common trope in comics for powerful characters to manifest enemies from their own subconscious, could Sazed's internal conflict have manifested in a rival cognitive aspect fighting for control?  It would explain how this new godmetal got plugged into the system when Rosharan godmetals would not on their own.  It would mean that Harmonium and Trellium are both new mixed shard godmetals, rather than Atium and Lerasium being replaced by Harmonium alone in the Investiture ecosystem. 

[Ripheus23]

20 minutes ago, Quantus said:

It would mean that Harmonium and Trellium are both new mixed shard godmetals, rather than Atium and Lerasium being replaced by Harmonium alone in the Investiture ecosystem. 

I like this idea a lot.

[Calderis]

@Quantus if that were the case, then the Set's Immortals shouldn't have red eyes.

Red is a sign of Co-opted Investiture. If it were simply a piece of Harmony, there would be no "foreign" investiture involved. 

[Quantus]

19 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus if that were the case, then the Set's Immortals shouldn't have red eyes.

Red is a sign of Co-opted Investiture. If it were simply a piece of Harmony, there would be no "foreign" investiture involved. 

Very true, unless Set's Immortals are not Scadrial Natives.  If they are in fact Svrakiss that are being powered via Harmony-as-Trell rather than the Dor, that should explain the Red Eyes. 

 

 

[Calderis]

57 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Very true, unless Set's Immortals are not Scadrial Natives.  If they are in fact Svrakiss that are being powered via Harmony-as-Trell rather than the Dor, that should explain the Red Eyes. 

If they're a piece of Harmony... Then how would they have... I'm very confused now... 

[Fanghur Rahl]

I think that if anything they would have to in some sense be ‘pieces’ of Ruin that splintered off somehow prior to the majority of Ruin and Preservation fusing to become Harmony. It doesn’t make much sense to say that Splinters of Harmony are effectively waging war against Harmony. But if some piece of Ruin still exists as Ruin, then perhaps it could hold a grudge against Harmony for effectively co-opting most of the rest of its Investiture. I highly doubt that this is the case (even I now grudgingly concede that Autonomy is the most likely candidate, though I still don’t like it), but I think it’s more plausible than saying that it’s splinters of Harmony.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[Quantus]

18 minutes ago, Calderis said:

If they're a piece of Harmony... Then how would they have... I'm very confused now... 

I was thinking that if Trell is just Harmony's personal Mr Hyde and Set's Immortals are actually Svrakiss that have figured out how to operate using Harmony/Trell's Investiture instead of their native Dor, it could cause the Red Eyes.   Granted I cant say why a personality of Harmony's wouldnt be able to make their own Kandra and so not need anything from Sel.  But to chase the rabbit a bit, it might be possible to explain the redness as involving some equivalent to Identity on the Shardic level, and that a split-personality of Harmony would have to hack their way back into the metallic arts like any other shard.  

The real reason I want to chase the thought is just that we look to Autonomy almost entirely through process of elimination, so I thought there might be another option hidden in the list we were working from.  

 

34 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

I think that if anything they would have to in some sense be ‘pieces’ of Ruin that splintered off somehow prior to the majority of Ruin and Preservation fusing to become Harmony. It doesn’t make much sense to say that Splinters of Harmony are effectively waging war against Harmony. But if some piece of Ruin still exists as Ruin, then perhaps it could hold a grudge against Harmony for effectively co-opting most of the rest of its Investiture. I highly doubt that this is the case (even I now grudgingly concede that Autonomy is the most likely candidate, though I still don’t like it), but I think it’s more plausible than saying that it’s splinters of Harmony.

Im not thinking of it as Splinters of Harmony warring against him so much as Harmony being unaware that Sazed himself has become cognitively fractured in two different personalities; in other words it's more just that Harmony is warring against himself in a far more literal way than we previously suspected.  

[Fanghur Rahl]

Harmony vs Discord, both the same person. I guess that could potentially work if Brandon played the cards right. Though it rubs me the wrong way because Sazed was arguably the wisest and most self-aware character in the entire Cosmere to date. He never once tried to hide from his faults or repress any aspects of himself, and that mindset is supposedly the reason he was able to unify Ruin and Preservation into a semi-cohesive (though in my opinion still incomplete, but I’ll refrain from derailing) whole.

The idea of Sazed being mentally broken in the way you suggest would, if true, be entirely out of left-field and, if you’ll pardon the pun, not in harmony with his character.

[Tglassy]

None of the Shards are complete. They’re pieces of one being. They wouldn’t be complete unless someone held all 16 pieces. 

[Calderis]

I really think the whole red eyes thing eliminates the split self idea. 

Quote

FirstSelector [PENDING REVIEW]

Does red in cosmere signify one Shard co-opting or corrupting another Shard's magic?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

source

One Shard co-opting another's magic. 

This would be the same Shard. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

3 hours ago, Tglassy said:

None of the Shards are complete. They’re pieces of one being. They wouldn’t be complete unless someone held all 16 pieces. 

True, but in the case of Ruin, Preservation, and Cultivation, the inter-relatedness is far more striking. They’re basically three pieces of a larger ‘sub-unit’ of Adonalsium.

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

True, but in the case of Ruin, Preservation, and Cultivation, the inter-relatedness is far more striking. They’re basically three pieces of a larger ‘sub-unit’ of Adonalsium.

I fundamentally disagree.

[Fanghur Rahl]

10 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

I fundamentally disagree.

Well, I don’t see any other way of looking at what basically amounts to the Cosmere-equivalent equivalent of the Hindu Trimurti. Decay - Preservation - Growth. You can view Adonalsium in many different ways, but even Mistborn explicitly defines Ruin and Preservation in this way, and if Ruin and Preservation are, then so are Cultivation and Preservation. And by extension, Ruin and Cultivation as well. Unless you flat-out reject that Cultivation’s intent is basically ‘change to growth, refinement, and complexity’, which is pretty much exactly how she describes herself as well as the picture her actions paint.

[Leyrann]

1 minute ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Well, I don’t see any other way of looking at what basically amounts to the Cosmere-equivalent equivalent of the Hindu Trimurti. Decay - Preservation - Growth. You can view Adonalsium in many different ways, but even Mistborn explicitly defines Ruin and Preservation in this way, and if Ruin and Preservation are, then so are Cultivation and Preservation. And by extension, Ruin and Cultivation as well. Unless you flat-out reject that Cultivation’s intent is basically ‘change to growth, refinement, and complexity’, which is pretty much exactly how she describes herself as well as the picture her actions paint.

I consider Ruin and Preservation to be hard opposites (the strongest opposites in the entire roster), while I consider Cultivation to be a different force that, like Ruin, also aims for change (and is therefore opposed to Preservation) but, contrary to Ruin, aims for changes of a specific kind (in this case, directed growth) rather than any change. I'm not familiar with Hinduism, but I don't see why these three Shards - or any Shards - should have direct equivalents in the real world.

On top of that, the Cosmere - and in particular the Shards - are 16-centric, so if one were to make groups, groups of 4 would make much more sense than groups of 3.

I also want to point out that "Decay" is arguably just Ati's interpretation of Ruin's Intent; wanton destruction instead of natural decay could also have been an interpretation.

[Fanghur Rahl]

Wanton destruction WAS how Ati interpreted Ruin, regardless of what he said to the contrary. Otherwise he would have been content to wait a few billion years for the star to go nova. At any rate, my point is that Ruin is basically about breaking things down, making things more disordered, unrefined, etc. while I view Cultivation as being about selectively building things up, refining things, and increasing complexity.

Stripped from any subjective interpretations of Vessels, I can’t see how Ruin and Cultivation could be anything other than directly polarized forces of change. And as for your point of divisions of four, we already have at least one other case of groups of Shards that clearly form a larger sub-unit, namely that of Devotion (which Brandon identifies as love) and Odium (hatred), and if I’m right, a third one embodying Objectivity or Dispassion, but I won’t get into that here. So I don’t really see how your point here can be correct in light of what we see in the books, and attempts to shoehorn it into the Shards always seems extremely contrived in my opinion (no offence intended, it’s just my honest opinion). 

[Leyrann]

4 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Wanton destruction WAS how Ati interpreted Ruin, regardless of what he said to the contrary.

So I can't find the WoB (I spent a good ten minutes looking for it), but Brandon has said somewhere that Ati's vision of Ruin was "one of the better versions of Ruin possible".

24 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

At any rate, my point is that Ruin is basically about breaking things down, making things more disordered, unrefined, etc.

Agreed. That is, in my view, what change without a purpose is.

24 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

while I view Cultivation as being about selectively building things up, refining things, and increasing complexity.

Again, agreed. I don't think that makes them opposite, however, as they are both about change, it's just that Cultivation only changes certain things.

25 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

And as for your point of divisions of four

Note that I don't necessarily agree with this. I just think that, if we can order the Shards, it will be in groups of two, four or eight. Otherwise it's just going to become too arbitrary. It's like having sixteen metals with three groups of 3, then a group of 5 and then two unconnected to anything; something like that. Just doesn't make sense.

26 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

we already have at least one other case of groups of Shards that clearly form a larger sub-unit, namely that of Devotion (which Brandon identifies as love) and Odium (hatred), and if I’m right, a third one embodying Objectivity or Dispassion

Also something I doubt, again see that theory I linked for what I believe to be true.

27 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

So I don’t really see how your point here can be correct in light of what we see in the books, and attempts to shoehorn it into the Shards always seems extremely contrived in my opinion (no offence intended, it’s just my honest opinion). 

I'm not trying to make a point at the moment, mostly just arguing against the Preservation-Ruin-Cultivation trio you mentioned. What's the point you thought I wanted to make?

[Fanghur Rahl]

@Leyrann

“So I can't find the WoB (I spent a good ten minutes looking for it), but Brandon has said somewhere that Ati's vision of Ruin was "one of the better versions of Ruin possible".”

Perhaps, but if so, it was still clearly wanton destruction, just not as extreme as it potentially could have been. But it sure as hell wasn't in any meaningful sense merely entropy; indeed, Ruin’s actions were about as far from natural entropy as it’s possible to get.

 

“Again, agreed. I don't think that makes them opposite, however, as they are both about change, it's just that Cultivation only changes certain things.”

 

Yes, both are change, but in polar opposite net directions. That’s my point. And for all we know, Cultivation’s ‘roots’ ARE behind the scenes in everything on Roshar, or else her Vessel just interprets it more liberally. But again, without a Vessel, I see Ruin and Cultivation as opposite forces of change, while Preservation is basically the force opposing ALL change.

 

“What's the point you thought I wanted to make?”

 

Weren’t you referencing the theory of intents that basically subdivides the 16 into four groups of four? If not then I apologize, as that was the theory I made my point against.

 

At any rate, we don’t really seem to disagree that much, just in how we personally view the Shards in question. But I really do think that the way I view these three is the most logical way of looking at it: it makes absolutely no sense that a God could have the intents of destruction/decay and preservation but NOT some kind of growth/progression. 

 

[Leyrann]

6 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Weren’t you referencing the theory of intents that basically subdivides the 16 into four groups of four? If not then I apologize, as that was the theory I made my point against.

I was arguing that if the Shards can be grouped into subgroups, then it'll be in groups of two, four or eight, simply because those are the logical groups when you have 16 Shards. Juts like the metals in allomancy are in four groups of four, and in feruchemy they are in two groups of four and one group of eight.

7 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

it makes absolutely no sense that a God could have the intents of destruction/decay and preservation but NOT some kind of growth/progression. 

Oh, I'm not saying that. I just don't think that those three make some kind of basic trio or something.

[Fanghur Rahl]

Well, if you don’t want to view it in that way, that’s fine, just as long as we’re in basic agreement as to the basic underlining point, even if you want to reject that Brandon intentionally set the trio up like that. I just find that the easiest way to think about how they stand in relation to one-another, especially in light of Sazed effectively fusing two of the three into one.

[Calderis]

I'm with Leyrann here. I don't think that Cultivation is an opposite equivalent of Ruin. 

I think that the things she does visibly make that assumption seem correct, but I think she's "Cultivation" in a much broader sense. 

Ruin is focus of decay, destruction, etc. 

I think Cultivation is willing to go in the opposite direction, but is as much focused on Cognitive "growth" as anything Physical. Cultivation of plans. Personal growth of people which has no actual physical "growth" involved. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Calderis

[Quantus]

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

I really think the whole red eyes thing eliminates the split self idea. 

One Shard co-opting another's magic. 

This would be the same Shard. 

No, I entirely get that Red Eyes indicates one shard Co-opting another, and that it is very much a cosmere-wide effect.  This can be explained in two ways that I can think of (if and only if certain assumptions prove correct):

1) if you are correct and the Set's Faceless Immortals are not Kandra at all but are instead Svrakiss, then logically their eyes should be glowing Red because they are using Harmony/Discord Investiture to fuel their own Dor-based Selish abilities; it's still one shard hacking another system, just in the opposite direction of what the location implied.

2) If the Red effect has more to do with the Host and/or Cognitive aspect than any fundamental differences in the shards Investiture, it would imply that the Red Effect is a shardic-level equivalent to Identity, and thus a dramatic enough Cognitive Fracture might be enough to cause the Red effect.

 

To be clear, while I think #1 is just a logical extension of the Svrakiss=Set's Immortals theory and as likely (or not) as that parent theory, #2 is an extreme stretch, and more of a logical rabbit hole paved with assumptions. If you'd expect Copper ferring Dissociative Personality Disorder to have a qualitative differences in Identity and issues tapping each personalities metalminds, it would go a long way to supporting this.  If there was any evidence that the Red effect was impacted at all by a change of Shardic Vessel, it would also go a long way. 

 

13 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

The idea of Sazed being mentally broken in the way you suggest would, if true, be entirely out of left-field and, if you’ll pardon the pun, not in harmony with his character.

Well, to be fair we are barely half-way through Mistborn, so by the time it takes center stage it would likely have gotten a lot more build-up and foreshadowing.

@Fanghur Rahl I think the reason why I just cant get behind your Set of Three theory ultimately boils down to the fact that three has no symmetry in Sixteen and I find that...aesthetically displeasing, I suppose.  If there is one set of three Id expect want them to all fall into similar triumvirates.  It's why I tend to default to various sets of 2 or 4.

 

[+Child of Hodor]

@Calderisis correct that the Shards like Cultivation apply their intent to more than the physical. I would argue Ruin did this as well, destroying people's sanity by talking in their heads and making them think they are insane like with Zane. Ruin damaged Vin's character and personality by talking in her head as her brother telling her she can't ever trust anyone over and over again. Reinforcing the terrible lessons of her childhood and helping sabotage any potentially positive relationships. Hemalurgy, which he covertly taught TLR during his Ascension, damages the spiritweb. Ruin also perverted the sacred texts of religions causing Sazed to lose his faith. Ruin was causing physical, cognitive and spiritual decline.  

 

24 minutes ago, Quantus said:

@Fanghur Rahl I think the reason why I just cant get behind your Set of Three theory ultimately boils down to the fact that three has no symmetry in Sixteen and I find that...aesthetically displeasing, I suppose.  If there is one set of three Id expect want them to all fall into similar triumvirates.  It's why I tend to default to various sets of 2 or 4.

Yeah, these Shards are part of a set of 4. I look at it as part of the life cycle of all things: Things come into existence, they grow, they plateau, they decline and end.This can be applied to tangible and intangible things, our bodies, our religions and our Cosmere theories can go through all these phases of the life cycle. Relationships too. 

We've got three of the four represented in the known shards. We're missing birth, Ingenuity could be this. Brandon cheekily mentioned Ingenuity in a Bulgaria signing and has been coy about it since then, but Ingenuity or a synonym would fill out this grouping of 4 shards. All the shards can create things if it is in service of their larger purpose, but a Shard like Ingenuity would represent a desire for novelty, newness, originality that would fill that Birth slot quite nicely.  

Quote

Synonyms for ingenuity

Synonyms

cleverness, creativeness, creativity, imagination,imaginativeness, ingeniousness, innovativeness, invention,inventiveness, originality

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ingenuity

 

Quote

Sofia signing (March 28, 2017)
#1 

Questioner

If you were entrusted with a Shard of Adonalsium, which Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Ummm... Heh heh heh... maybe Ingenuity. 

Sources: Sofia, Bulgaria - Public Q&A

General Twitter 2017 (Jan. 1, 2017)
#2

David J. Foster

It sounds like [Brandon] identified a new shard, Ingenuity, in an interview in Bulgaria. Can you verify this?

Peter Ahlstrom

That is news to me! Maybe [Isaac] can ask him.

Isaac Stewart

I asked [Brandon]. He said readers can interpret his words how they want.

 

MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018)
#3 

Chaos [PENDING REVIEW]

Is Ingenuity a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Umm...maybe. *smiles slyly*

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Fanghur Rahl]

@Calderis, that could be completely true and yet it wouldn’t imply in any way that her intent doesn’t also include physical growth, refinement and transformation as well. I mean, the fact she makes her nexus of power a heavily wooded area and that Cultivationspren take the form of growing plants would tend to imply that it does. Plus, Ruin clearly included cognitive decay as well, considering that pretty much everyone in connection with him slowly (or not so slowly) lost their minds (the Lord Ruler, Inquisitors, spiked people in general, Koloss, even the Kandra to a lesser extent). 

I agree that Cultivation includes cognitive growth as well, but at present there’s no reason to assume it doesn’t also include physical growth. She even outright says to Dalinar “I control all things that can be grown, nurtured.” So I’m not entirely sure what point you’re trying to make here, because I completely agree with you that Cultivation’s intent includes more than just physical growth (though I disagree that Ruin’s doesn’t as well), and I never claimed otherwise. Or if I did then I certainly never intended to.

 

And @Quantus, I understand your point, and I actually agree with you that it isn’t very aesthetically pleasing, but I think it’s even more aesthetically displeasing for God to have the intents of regression and stasis but not progression. It may have been better for Brandon to have just had Shards of Preservation and ‘Change’, but ultimately he instead divided ‘Change’ into two opposing Shards, or at least that’s certainly what it appears.

 

But I’ll say one thing, if Brandon ever does a book signing in Toronto, this is definitely something I would ask him about, because I really do think this is something that needs clarification.