Jump to content
  • 0

Why are shards those particular aspects?


artiestroke

Question

7 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 2

That's just how Adonalsium happened to Shatter. He could have Shattered in a different way, but it turned out to be in this particular way.

Quote

Eric

If Adonalsium Shattered with intent, would he always Shatter with the same Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It is plausible that it could've gone a different way.

Eric

So it could've been different Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's plausible.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1

Out-of-world answer, Brandon picked the ones that sounded cool, would make an interesting story and interested him the most.

In-world answer, I theorize it had something to do with the vessels. If they had been different people things might have shaked out differently.

It also could have been complete randomness...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1

One more WoB to add, which just makes it explicit that the intents of the Shards were taken from Adonalsium's personality so it wasn't completely random. In other words, they had to come from some trait or idea Adonalsium possessed or embodied. If Adonalsium lacked anything we'd call apathy, no Shard of Apathy is going to come out of a hypothetical alternate Shattering no matter what factors are in play.

11 hours ago, artiestroke said:

Well that answers that, then. The out-of-world answer drives me absolutely feral though, I thought it would have been something a bit more... I guess mathematically elegant, like the sixteen metals 

That's names that were picked because he liked the sounds/what stories he could tell, not the number of Shards. Brandon canonized various aspects underpinning the Cosmere while he was writing Mistborn so the way that sixteen can be played around with mathematically also influenced how many Shards he gave himself to play with.

Oh, and from an in-universe perspective you're looking at this backwards; there are sixteen metals because there are sixteen Shards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
2 hours ago, artiestroke said:

Why specifically do the shards of Adonalsium embody those particular aspects? Are they supposed to be axiomatic aspects of the universe? Of people? What makes Ambition, Honor, and Odium a shard but not something like Apathy, Deception, or Ecstasy?

This is a question that is likely to get RAFOd until our Hoid series comes out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
4 hours ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

Out-of-world answer, Brandon picked the ones that sounded cool, would make an interesting story and interested him the most.

In-world answer, I theorize it had something to do with the vessels. If they had been different people things might have shaked out differently.

It also could have been complete randomness...

 

1 minute ago, RShara said:

That's just how Adonalsium happened to Shatter. He could have Shattered in a different way, but it turned out to be in this particular way.

 

Well that answers that, then. The out-of-world answer drives me absolutely feral though, I thought it would have been something a bit more... I guess mathematically elegant, like the sixteen metals 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
2 hours ago, Weltall said:

Oh, and from an in-universe perspective you're looking at this backwards; there are sixteen metals because there are sixteen Shards.

Oh, I meant how the 16 metals fall into a pattern of the internal/external and pushing/pulling metals that, even with a few of the metals missing you could figure out what they’d do in allomancy. I felt like what the shards represent had some kind of grander pattern to it or something? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
4 hours ago, artiestroke said:

Oh, I meant how the 16 metals fall into a pattern of the internal/external and pushing/pulling metals that, even with a few of the metals missing you could figure out what they’d do in allomancy. I felt like what the shards represent had some kind of grander pattern to it or something? 

Search around a bit and you'll find attempts here to do just that. It's slightly complicated by the fact that we know not all Shards have opposites to the extent of Preservation and Ruin and of course not knowing six of the sixteen, but it hasn't stopped people from trying. xD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...