Is there a new shard in town?

[Lidolas]

 

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So, the sixteen Shards. Is it possible that there are more than sixteen, yet they do not know of them?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

This would be possible but I'll just go ahead and tell you no there aren't. That'll stop a lot of theorizing, though it is possible that Shards have been divided and things like this. And so you can call two subsets... But it's kind of like there are twelve tribes of Israel. They became twelve other tribes of Israel. There were still twelve because two were the sons of one. Yeah, stuff like that.

Footnote: Brandon was referring to Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph. The land of Israel was divided among twelve tribes that were slightly different from the original twelve, as Joseph's was replaced by those of his sons and Levi's was not a landed tribe.
source 

 

I was thinking about the way Brandon qualified his answer to this question with the reference to the changing 12 tribes of Israel.  So I started looking at other WoB regarding Harmony and found this

 

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Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

source

 

Does this mean that somehow there is a 'new' shard, now that Ruin and Preservation are combined into one shard, Harmony, now?  

Edit:  I'm really bad at writing my thoughts out and I end up leaving a lot out.  My thought was there were 16 original shards.  Two, R & P, got merged into one, Harmony, making the total 15.  However, because of the 12 tribes quote, I was wondering if another shard was created in or after that to bring the total back up to 16.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Lidolas
Clarification

[BooksBeforeDeath]

I believe that there is technically a new shard, but that there are also 2 less shards, as Ruin and Preservation are no longer shards. There are, however, effects left from both Ruin (Helmagury) and Preservation (Allomancy).

Tell me if I'm misinterpreting your question, and I'll respond ASAP.

[Ashertliden]

1 hour ago, Books_Before_Death said:

I believe that there is technically a new shard, but that there are also 2 less shards, as Ruin and Preservation are no longer shards. There are, however, effects left from both Ruin (Helmagury) and Preservation (Allomancy).

Tell me if I'm misinterpreting your question, and I'll respond ASAP.

I think he meant that since two shards were combined into one (Harmony), is another shard created to fit the number 16?

 

[Lidolas]

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Indefatigable said:

I think he meant that since two shards were combined into one (Harmony), is another shard created to fit the number 16?

 

Yes.  That was what I was trying to ask.  Thank you

[BooksBeforeDeath]

Oh, ok. Thanks for the clear up.

I'm thinking Brandon was saying: There could be more Shards, but there aren't, (as in the number hasn't gone up, because, in reality, the number has gone down. He never said the number hasn't changed, just that it hasn't gone up).

[Calderis]

I don't even think the number has really changed.

Yes, Sazed would drop Harmony. The Shards are joined. But the intents still exist separately, and in opposition, which is the reason for Sazed's near paralysis.

The WoB in the OP says that they would take effort to pull apart... But that means you could still pull them apart. And the chances of breaking Harmony into anything other than Preservation and Ruin is minimal. 

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CosmereQuestioner

Like Adonalsium, could Harmony split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation with the right intent.

You once stated that it is plausible that with a different intent Adonalsium could have shattered into a DIFFERENT 16 shards. You have also said that Harmony is one shard (or could be viewed this way.) My question: Could Harmony split/be split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation (yet still complementing/opposite) with the right intent of the splitter?  And if not is this because Harmony is still too invested in Scadrial as Ruin/Preservation?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost anything is possible... but it is very, very unlikely that Harmony would split except back to Ruin/Preservation.

source

It really comes down to how you choose to view it. Harmony could be counted either way. 

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Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

You've said that Splintering a Shard is essentially the same thing as the Shattering of Adonalsium, repeated on a smaller scale.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

And a while ago, someone asked you if Splintering was permanent or reversible, and you said that it can be reversed.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

And Shardholders [Vessels] tend to take the name of the Shard they hold. So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony.

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little wilson

Are Ruin and Preservation separate in Sazed or are they fully combined together like can he give one of them, or does he have to give both.

Brandon Sanderson

They are not fully combined. I mean that's not the way this works. He could pull off a piece of one even and make-- stuff like that. That's totally, totally viable. I mean it's basically what happened with the spren. The spren existed before even Honor was destroyed and things like that.

little wilson

So, did the-- my gosh, on Sel-- the Aons-- not the Aons-- the seons did they exist before the Splintering?

Brandon Sanderson

They did not. That's a good question. But they are not the majority of the power. They're just little pieces, they are like the sparks when something gets destroyed. The sparks are not the majority but they are the sparks that were thrown off, if that makes sense?

source

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by Calderis

[Lightblood]

I could honestly see another shard being added. In the letter to hoid from bavadin talking about Obradai (the second letter in oathbringer) It talks about instilling the "new shard" with a hatred of Hoid. That being said it is likely that Obrodai is an avatar offshoot of Autonomy but by giving the psuedo-shard a planet it might be able to grow to a comparable power through investing in the land. That being said I do not think that a truly "new shard" will appear. Adonlasium was split into 16 parts and the combining of two of those shards isn't going to magically force another massive amount of divine investure to just appear with a brand new intent. Energy cannot be created or destroyed and from what we've seen there is nothing to dissprove this theory in the cosmere. There is still two shards power there so there is no need for a new shard. The power split into 16 parts. There is still 16 parts just one vessel holds two of them.

[Quantus]

53 minutes ago, Lightblood said:

I could honestly see another shard being added. In the letter to hoid from bavadin talking about Obradai (the second letter in oathbringer) It talks about instilling the "new shard" with a hatred of Hoid. That being said it is likely that Obrodai is an avatar offshoot of Autonomy but by giving the psuedo-shard a planet it might be able to grow to a comparable power through investing in the land. That being said I do not think that a truly "new shard" will appear. Adonlasium was split into 16 parts and the combining of two of those shards isn't going to magically force another massive amount of divine investure to just appear with a brand new intent. Energy cannot be created or destroyed and from what we've seen there is nothing to disprove this theory in the cosmere. There is still two shards power there so there is no need for a new shard. The power split into 16 parts. There is still 16 parts just one vessel holds two of them.

That's the critical part, I think.  We have the example in Harmony of two shards intermingling, but even in the intermingled state the element of Opposing Forces has not gone away (most directly exemplified in the volatile nature of Harmonium). On the other end of the spectrum we have Autonomy that by all indications is splitting up and/r sharing the shard among multiple vessels/Avatars, and I suspect that doing it that way allows more of the total shard to be utilized than is possible for any single Vessel, by sharing/distributing the Cognitive load. 

To create a literal 17th shard, I think it would require a massive act of Destruction, as in destroying one or more entire star systems, or something else representing an equal amount of Adonalsium's Investiture that had been committed to some physical Creation pre-shattering.  And even that assumes that things Created by Adonalsium were not then reassigned to a shard the way the rest of the Investiture was, which is an assumption Im not yet willing to commit to. It might also stand to reason that what I described would not work because the act of Destruction itself would assign the "freed up" investiture to Ruin.