Hoid and Combining Shards (SPOILERS)

[Spotblur]

HUGE SPOILERS FOR IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP ON THE COSMERE

(Apologies if I mess up the format. This is my first discussion post)

 

Adonalsium was the combined power of all of the Shards. If one took a piece of each of the Shards and combined the pieces, could it make a Shard that was basically a mini Adonalsium? There could be many advantages to this, such as not being consumed by the power (Preservation was driven to Preserve at all costs, Ruin turned Ati into a monster, Honor became obsessed with the word rather than spirit of oaths) and being able to tap into multiple magic systems.

We've seen that Hoid is collecting magic from all across the Cosmere. The bead of Lerasium is a large chunk of Preservation, a Shardblade is a piece of Honor, Breaths are pieces of Endowment, and Hoid's ability to sense where he's needed might be linked to Fortune. Perhaps his goal is related to this theory?

[Zapata]

1 minute ago, Spotblur said:

HUGE SPOILERS FOR IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP ON THE COSMERE

(Apologies if I mess up the format. This is my first discussion post)

 

Adonalsium was the combined power of all of the Shards. If one took a piece of each of the Shards and combined the pieces, could it make a Shard that was basically a mini Adonalsium? There could be many advantages to this, such as not being consumed by the power (Preservation was driven to Preserve at all costs, Ruin turned Ati into a monster, Honor became obsessed with the word rather than spirit of oaths) and being able to tap into multiple magic systems.

We've seen that Hoid is collecting magic from all across the Cosmere. The bead of Lerasium is a large chunk of Preservation, a Shardblade is a piece of Honor, Breaths are pieces of Endowment, and Hoid's ability to sense where he's needed might be linked to Fortune. Perhaps his goal is related to this theory?

Hi! welcome to the Shard! let's see here. What Hoid's doing, he's just collecting powers. He's becoming an ordinary magic user in many systems. What you say could be possible, but that would require the magic user to have a special amount of power, such as God King amount of breaths, Lord Ruler Allomancy (he gave it to himself using the Well, not Lerasium), or Dalinar-as-Bondsmith level power. we don't know where his Fortune powers come from. So, essentially it requires Sliver or near-Sliver level power.

[RShara]

1 hour ago, Bearer of Agonies said:

Hi! welcome to the Shard! let's see here. What Hoid's doing, he's just collecting powers. He's becoming an ordinary magic user in many systems. What you say could be possible, but that would require the magic user to have a special amount of power, such as God King amount of breaths, Lord Ruler Allomancy (he gave it to himself using the Well, not Lerasium), or Dalinar-as-Bondsmith level power. we don't know where his Fortune powers come from. So, essentially it requires Sliver or near-Sliver level power.

I agree. He's taking up such little bits that it's not going to come close to even TLR with the Well, let alone a Shard, and incredibly removed from Adonalsium. I think he just wants access to as much as he can because he thinks it'll be useful, not as an end in itself.

[Kramerfarve]

22 hours ago, Spotblur said:

Adonalsium was the combined power of all of the Shards. If one took a piece of each of the Shards and combined the pieces, could it make a Shard that was basically a mini Adonalsium? There could be many advantages to this, such as not being consumed by the power (Preservation was driven to Preserve at all costs, Ruin turned Ati into a monster, Honor became obsessed with the word rather than spirit of oaths) and being able to tap into multiple magic systems.

On this bit, we’re still not sure having more intents makes it any easier on a vessel. As we can see with a certain combined shard, he is finding difficulties in making any decisions whatsoever per the third oathbringer letter. He does keep his personality mostly intact, but it hasn’t been very long that he has held the two shards, and at what cost to his freedom to act?

[Spotblur]

Hm, that's a good point. I assumed that since these are sixteen pieces of a single whole, having all of the pieces would provide a better balance than two opposing pieces would. However, working off an assumption without evidence isn't a good idea. I wonder if there's a WOB somewhere out there that can shed some light on this question.

EDIT: Apologies for double posting. I was trying to figure out how to use the quote box. Shouldn't happen again.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Spotblur

[Spotblur]

5 hours ago, Kramerfarve said:

On this bit, we’re still not sure having more intents makes it any easier on a vessel. As we can see with a certain combined shard, he is finding difficulties in making any decisions whatsoever per the third oathbringer letter. He does keep his personality mostly intact, but it hasn’t been very long that he has held the two shards, and at what cost to his freedom to act?

Hm, that's a good point. I assumed that since these are sixteen pieces of a single whole, having all of the pieces would provide a better balance than two opposing pieces would. However, working off an assumption without evidence isn't a good idea. I wonder if there's a WOB somewhere out there that can shed some light on this question.

[desi_sparta]

Isn't there a recent wob in which Brandon described the encounter between Hoid and Frost the Dragon? Iirc, Hoid said his goal was to make whole again that was lost? 

So here's my theory:

The reason Adonalsium was shattered in the first place was because a group of people decided that a) either too much power concentrated into a single vessel is not a good idea or 'b) the power could be used more effectively if it were shattered without the conflicting intent of each shard not rendering the vessel basically incapable of taking any action. We have already seen that holding two diametrically opposite shards makes the shareholder very restricted in the decisions he can take. So, what happens to a vessel who is holding 16 shards? What if even though all Shards are not pairwise diametrically opposite to each other, but the vector sum of all 16 shards is 0, if that makes any sense.  This would also play into the original shardholders' decision to not mingle with each other and Bavadin's annoyance at the shardholders' unwillingness to follow through on this decision. 

By imbibing the magic system of all 16 shards, what Wit is essentially trying to do is provide a proof of concept that all 16 powers can reside in a single vessel without the vessel relinquishing his autonomous decision making power as long as the contribution of each shard is relatively small? Which means that the original Adonalsium could have been shattered in a different way. Instead of shattering into 16 seperate intents with each Shard holder having 100% of its  intent, Adonalsium could have been broken into 16 seperate shards, but each shard having access to only 1/16th access to each intent's power? Here's how to current and proposed format will look like

Current

Adonalsium = 256 power points

With each intent getting 16 power points

Honor's power points  = 1/16 of Adonalsium = 16 power points

Harmony's power points = 2/16 of Adonalsium = 32 power points

And so on for each shard

Proposed

Wit = 1/16 of Adonalsium = 16 power points but by combining 1 power point of each intent (1 for Honor + 1 for Ruin + 1 for Preservation ....) 

So basically, there will be 16 mini Adonalsiums with all of the intents instead of 16 (now 15) individual intent shards. 

 

Wit himself said in the aforementioned encounter that the old rules don't apply anymore so Frost doesn't know what is and isn't possible. And he's just trying to find a different way of making Adonalsium while again but bypassing the incapacitating restrictions of mingling of different shards.

[RShara]

2 hours ago, desi_sparta said:

Isn't there a recent wob in which Brandon described the encounter between Hoid and Frost the Dragon? Iirc, Hoid said his goal was to make whole again that was lost? 

So here's my theory:

The reason Adonalsium was shattered in the first place was because a group of people decided that a) either too much power concentrated into a single vessel is not a good idea or 'b) the power could be used more effectively if it were shattered without the conflicting intent of each shard not rendering the vessel basically incapable of taking any action. We have already seen that holding two diametrically opposite shards makes the shareholder very restricted in the decisions he can take. So, what happens to a vessel who is holding 16 shards? What if even though all Shards are not pairwise diametrically opposite to each other, but the vector sum of all 16 shards is 0, if that makes any sense.  This would also play into the original shardholders' decision to not mingle with each other and Bavadin's annoyance at the shardholders' unwillingness to follow through on this decision. 

By imbibing the magic system of all 16 shards, what Wit is essentially trying to do is provide a proof of concept that all 16 powers can reside in a single vessel without the vessel relinquishing his autonomous decision making power as long as the contribution of each shard is relatively small? Which means that the original Adonalsium could have been shattered in a different way. Instead of shattering into 16 seperate intents with each Shard holder having 100% of its  intent, Adonalsium could have been broken into 16 seperate shards, but each shard having access to only 1/16th access to each intent's power? Here's how to current and proposed format will look like

Current

Adonalsium = 256 power points

With each intent getting 16 power points

Honor's power points  = 1/16 of Adonalsium = 16 power points

Harmony's power points = 2/16 of Adonalsium = 32 power points

And so on for each shard

Proposed

Wit = 1/16 of Adonalsium = 16 power points but by combining 1 power point of each intent (1 for Honor + 1 for Ruin + 1 for Preservation ....) 

So basically, there will be 16 mini Adonalsiums with all of the intents instead of 16 (now 15) individual intent shards. 

 

Wit himself said in the aforementioned encounter that the old rules don't apply anymore so Frost doesn't know what is and isn't possible. And he's just trying to find a different way of making Adonalsium while again but bypassing the incapacitating restrictions of mingling of different shards.

That's the Traveler excerpt. And I think it heavily implies he wants to bring someone back from the Beyond, and was willing to help Shatter Adonalsium in order to change the rules enough for him to do that.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332/#e9518