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Candidates For the Six Remaining Shards (A Simple Theory)


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There are many complicated theories about what the remaining six shards are (linking them to the 16 allomantic metals to give you one example). My focus on a much more simple idea based on the following WoB from Shadows of Self Lansing signing (Oct. 13, 2015):

Quote

Q: How do you decide what concepts become Shards?

Brandon: It took a little bit of work. I basically brainstormed a bunch of attributes of deity that most people had in their religions and see which ones will adapt well to being these concepts.

So what are the most obvious divine attributes that are currently missing? Here is my list: 

1. Justice/Judgment/Retribution. This category is on top of the list because of its ubiquity in most religions (As an aside my favorite theory is that there was a shard of Justice and it was splintered by Odium in the Threnodite System).

2. Beauty. This is my favorite on this list and I am disappointed nobody has even asked Brandon about it.

3. Wisdom. This has been the subject of a lot of speculation.

4. Mercy. This is last because it might be too close to Devotion. 

Anything else you guys can think of that should be added to the list?

Edited by Parallax
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32 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:
  • protection
  • fertlity
  • health
  • luck
  • deviousness (most pantheons have a trickster god)
  • intoxication
  • sex

Having God/Goddess of X does not make X a divine attribute, for example there are plenty of nature deities. 

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46 minutes ago, Parallax said:

Having God/Goddess of X does not make X a divine attribute, for example there are plenty of nature deities. 

Yes. Some of them had goat legs, others do not. Yet the attribute people prayed to them for was healthy livestock.

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24 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes. Some of them had goat legs, others do not. Yet the attribute people prayed to them for was healthy livestock.

Because the believed that particular deity was in charge of the health of the livestock not because healthy livestock is an aspect of God!

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7 hours ago, Parallax said:

stice/Judgment/Retribution. This category is on top of the list because of its ubiquity in most religions (As an aside my favorite theory is that there was a shar

So Honor, Oduim or some combination?

7 hours ago, Parallax said:

2. Beauty. This is my favorite on this list and I am disappointed nobody has even asked Brandon about it.

Endowment

7 hours ago, Parallax said:

3. Wisdom. This has been the subject of a lot of speculation.

Confirmed in some ways.

7 hours ago, Parallax said:

4. Mercy. This is last because it might be too close to Devotion. 

Yes.

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On 10/13/2019 at 7:04 AM, Ixthos said:

Not to toot my own horn (though see here for a great song about that), but I also recently posted on this, and am continuing to expand on it in subsequent entries to explain the structure: if you have any insights to add, I would appreciate that :-

I saw that, however your theory falls under sophisticated ones! I was trying something very simple and modest here!

@Karger I don't see how Odium can come close to Justice. Honor would be closer but still there is quite a bit of difference between them. Finally I don't see Endowment as being related to Beauty, the meaning are quite apart from each other.  

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10 hours ago, Parallax said:

@Karger I don't see how Odium can come close to Justice. Honor would be closer but still there is quite a bit of difference between them

Sorry I was thinking Honor+ a dab of Odium and a bunch of Wisdom.

10 hours ago, Parallax said:

Finally I don't see Endowment as being related to Beauty, the meaning are quite apart from each other.  

Endowment in my mind is more like grace.  She creates beauty and goodness for mortals to appreciate.  That kind of thing.

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A friend and I have brainstormed a lot on this and came up with very similar ones to those listed above.

Justice (On your list)
Wonder (kinda similar to Beauty but more divine/ less subjective)
Ingenuity (Creator/creation attribute)
Community (All connected/children of deity kind of concept)
Enlightenment (from the eastern aligned religions)
Paradox (Something from many religions, beings that are both mortal and supernatural/immortal, the duality of gods in many religions is paradoxical)
 

 

 

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On 10/18/2019 at 0:22 PM, Iridium Savant said:

A friend and I have brainstormed a lot on this and came up with very similar ones to those listed above.

Justice (On your list)
Wonder (kinda similar to Beauty but more divine/ less subjective)
Ingenuity (Creator/creation attribute)
Community (All connected/children of deity kind of concept)
Enlightenment (from the eastern aligned religions)
Paradox (Something from many religions, beings that are both mortal and supernatural/immortal, the duality of gods in many religions is paradoxical)

The thing about the Cosmere is that by virtue of having a Spiritual Realm you have objective rather than subjective notions of Justice and Beauty. But I agree that Wonder, Awe and Beauty would all be basically the same shard. 

Good call on Ingenuity there are WoBs that hint at it being a shard. 

@Karger Once you have Odium you will definitely get something other than Justice. You might get something more if you add it to Justice (Retribution is a candidate) but I don't see how hatred divine (or passion or excessive emotion or however you wish to interpret the shard's intent) relates to Justice. 

I also read Endowment differently, she doesn't create beauty and goodness, she just "endows" people with abilities and power. 

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5 hours ago, Parallax said:

 Once you have Odium you will definitely get something other than Justice. You might get something more if you add it to Justice (Retribution is a candidate) but I don't see how hatred divine (or passion or excessive emotion or however you wish to interpret the shard's intent) relates to Justice. 

Not the entire shard.  However justice requires some of his "coldness" in my view.

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12 minutes ago, Karger said:

Not the entire shard.  However justice requires some of his "coldness" in my view.

This is how Dalinar sees Odium (Oathbringer, Ch. 57):

Quote

Then everything went white. Dalinar found himself standing on a speck of nothingness that was the entire world, looking up at an eternal, all-embracing flame. It stretched in every direction, starting as red, moving to orange, then changing to blazing white.
Then somehow, the flames seemed to burn into a deep blackness, violet and angry.
This was something so terrible that it consumed light itself. It was hot. A radiance indescribable, intense heat and black fire, colored violet at the outside.
Burning.
Overwhelming.
Power.
It was the scream of a thousand warriors on the battlefield.
It was the moment of most sensual touch and ecstasy.
It was the sorrow of loss, the joy of victory.
And it was hatred. Deep, pulsing hatred with a pressure to turn all things molten. It was the heat of a thousand suns, it was the bliss of every kiss, it was the lives of all men wrapped up in one, defined by everything they felt.

That is as far away from "coldness" as I can imagine. 

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On 10/13/2019 at 4:17 AM, Parallax said:

4. Mercy. This is last because it might be too close to Devotion. 

On second thought I don't think Mercy and Devotion have much in common. Devotion is a neutral term, everything depends on what is the object of devotion, someone could be devoted to something quite cruel for example. 

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I wouldn't be surprised if Faith and/or Hope were Shards.  I'd imagine Faith's magic system would be something to the effect of the more faith you have, the more powerful your magic.  Losing faith, or doubt, would result in loss of power. Now, what they have faith in would be dependent on the story.  

 

If we put all the Shards we know together, we get a being who feels passionately, who keeps their promises and keeps everything together, who allows things to grow but also to decay, but is himself unchanging, who has dominion over all but nothing has dominion over him, who loves and endows those he loves, and who, in some way, has ambition, depending on what that means.  We are missing some sort of intellect, be it wisdom or intelligence or creativity or something to that nature.  We are missing absolute confidence or lack of fear.  We are missing some kind of Justice, or Judgement, probably defined by whoever has the Shard.  It would be funny if Humor was one (see what I did there?)  It's why all the shards we've seen have been such sticks in the mud.  They're all missing their sense of humor.  

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On 10/17/2019 at 11:13 PM, Parallax said:

 

@Karger I don't see how Odium can come close to Justice. Honor would be closer but still there is quite a bit of difference between them. Finally I don't see Endowment as being related to Beauty, the meaning are quite apart from each other.  

Honestly I think Justice can't be a shard because too many of thwe current shards could combine to become Justice. Honor and Odium together are viable for a combination Shard known as Justice (Like Harmony). Honor and Preservation are another, Honor and Ambition being a third...

Honor is just too similar to Justice for me to believe Justice would be a separate shard.

On 10/18/2019 at 0:22 PM, Iridium Savant said:

A friend and I have brainstormed a lot on this and came up with very similar ones to those listed above.

Justice (On your list)
Wonder (kinda similar to Beauty but more divine/ less subjective)
Ingenuity (Creator/creation attribute)
Community (All connected/children of deity kind of concept)
Enlightenment (from the eastern aligned religions)
Paradox (Something from many religions, beings that are both mortal and supernatural/immortal, the duality of gods in many religions is paradoxical)
 

 

 

I don't think Wonder or (as stated above) Justice would fall into the list. Wonder seems... well i guess... not very divine, to me.

The other 4 however, those are really good. I wouldn't be surprised if you hit those nails on the head. Add Humor and Wisdom and that's the 6 I would bet on.

1 hour ago, Tglassy said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Faith and/or Hope were Shards.  I'd imagine Faith's magic system would be something to the effect of the more faith you have, the more powerful your magic.  Losing faith, or doubt, would result in loss of power. Now, what they have faith in would be dependent on the story.  

 

If we put all the Shards we know together, we get a being who feels passionately, who keeps their promises and keeps everything together, who allows things to grow but also to decay, but is himself unchanging, who has dominion over all but nothing has dominion over him, who loves and endows those he loves, and who, in some way, has ambition, depending on what that means.  We are missing some sort of intellect, be it wisdom or intelligence or creativity or something to that nature.  We are missing absolute confidence or lack of fear.  We are missing some kind of Justice, or Judgement, probably defined by whoever has the Shard.  It would be funny if Humor was one (see what I did there?)  It's why all the shards we've seen have been such sticks in the mud.  They're all missing their sense of humor.  

Very Good points. Faith or Hope seem like safe bets. I think Hope is more likely, I don't think the shards represent what they want from people, but rather, their own intents. Why would a primary attribute of a god be faith? Faith in themselves I suppose... but Hope just seems a more likely case.

I'd honestly be sad if Humor wasn't one of the shards.

Wisdom is practically confirmed by Brandon in a WoB. Hoid's conversation with Shallan about Wisdom was almost definitely him speaking of a shard.

I like this Ingenuity/Creativity idea a lot. I think we'll definitely see a shard of that nature. What artist can resist writing about the main attribute that aids their craft?

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At first, I thought of Expansion, the shard with the intent of enlarge and expand. Probably a bad one, seek to become bigger and stronger, and with a bigger influence throughout cosmere. But expansion was probably a subset of the intent of Ambition, that's why  Edgli (Endowment) think it's better for her to be dead

I also see Faith, Hope, Enlightenment  and other related abstractions as different spectrum of Devotion 

And order, obedience, submission and other abstractions as different spectrum of Dominion

Meanwhile, independence, individuality and self-reliance are related to Autonomy 

 

Since Wisdom (probably the shard with the intent of Knowledge, Balance and Caution) and Survival (the shard with the intent of Protection, Wariness, Hiding and Running) are pretty much confirmed, I see those shards missing:

 

- Unity: The shard with the intent of putting things together, the shard of connection and liaison. Seek for link and merge the things It sees. Probably lives inside a system with sapient beings and rules over them. This shard pretty much wants to form Aldonasium again, so I won't be surprised if the 4th age of Mistborn would be centered around this shard 

- Fantasy: The shard with the intent of forming ideas and concepts. The shard idealization, abstraction and imagination. Probably inhabits mostly only the cognitive realm, and have little interest in the physical one

Apathy: The shard with the intent of unconcern. The shard Indifference, neutrality, insensibility and lethargy. Doesn't care for the cosmere, and probably lives inside a system without any sapient beings, or at least don't manifest itself on them. 

- Freedom: The shard with the intent of having no intent (it's a paradox). The shard of free-will, instability and fickleness. This shard looks good, but it's extremely unstable, destroying things when It's tired of it. It probably have no respect for other shards agreements and is always moving from system to system. This shard is likewise to see its Vessel as an enemy, so the shard "discard" the vessel from times to times, seeking for another one. The 3rd more dangerous shard, behind Odium and Ambition. But It lacks of foresight and doesn't plan things in long run (as It is concerned only with immediate things), which makes him less dangerous

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9 hours ago, IcaroRibeiro said:

- Unity: The shard with the intent of putting things together, the shard of connection and liaison. Seek for link and merge the things It sees. Probably lives inside a system with sapient beings and rules over them. This shard pretty much wants to form Aldonasium again, so I won't be surprised if the 4th age of Mistborn would be centered around this shard 

You mean Dalinar's version of Honor?  Honor is the Shard of putting things together, connection and liaison.  He seeks to merge the things he sees.  He just interprets the intent as binding one to their promises.  And he does live in a system with sapient beings, and his magic system is all about oaths.  

 

Pretty sure Dalinar actually says "I am Unity". 

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21 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

You mean Dalinar's version of Honor?  Honor is the Shard of putting things together, connection and liaison.  He seeks to merge the things he sees.  He just interprets the intent as binding one to their promises.  And he does live in a system with sapient beings, and his magic system is all about oaths.  

 

Pretty sure Dalinar actually says "I am Unity". 

You're... right. So we need one more shard to go 

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Here is an idea ? The shards are all pieces of Adonalsium.  So what if 16 pieces are all opposites  . Ruin Preservation. , Odium. Is kind of like Hate . So thier must be a Love based Shard . There Autonomy so I’m sure that Servitude . Devotion and Dominion could be opposites . Prudence so perhaps Bravery . Honor so a Shard based on Distrust . Cultivation. Is hard because Rot is to much like Ruin. My theory Is based that everyone has good and bad in them like Adonalsium did. So aspects are good and some are not . I also can’t think of an opposite of Endowment . A Shard that takes away something ? Drain or something like that

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Ok, I'll do this again.

Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Enhancement

 

Spiritual Attributes - These have to do with bindings and authority.  At least two of these are dead. 

Honor - Binds one's self - Internal pulling

Autonomy - Freeing Self - Internal Pushing

Dominion - Bind Others - External Pulling

Unknown - Freeing Others? Salvation? - External Pushing

 

Physical Attributes - These affect the real world.  Growth, Stasis and Decay are the three we know, the fourth, I believe could be Ingenuity or Creativity.  They have said that Cultivation only cares about growth with no thought to consequences, Preservation cares only about stasis and nothing changing, and Ruin cares only about decay with no thought to the future, so maybe the fourth Shard on this list only cares about planning with no thought to actually do anything.  Creativity could also be a Mental Attribute, so it could fit down there as well, as I'm not sure whether to make it internal or external.  Of note, at least two of these are also dead.

Cultivation - Growth - External Pushing

Ruin - Decay - External Pulling

Preservation - No Change - Internal Pulling

Unknown (Maybe Ingenuity) - Creativity/Planning Change - Internal Pushing

 

Enhancement Attributes - These are all about enhancing, but we only know two.  From those, we can infer the other two.  I know a lot of people say Odium and Honor equal Judgement, but that just doesn't make sense.  That would just make Honor Passionate and Angry about binding things.  I think Judgement, or something similar, would be its own thing.  Maybe Indignation?  This would be a passionless exercise of Judgement, because it is missing its Odium.  The magic system would be based on the law, and a kind of 'tit for tat', 'quid pro quo', 'what goes around comes around' sort of thing.  Maybe a Karma type magic.  For the other, I think Humility accurately describes decreasing one's own power, and the magic system would likely have to do with denying self or not thinking of one's self.  

Endowment - Increase Other's Power - External Pushing

Ambition - Increase Own Power - Internal Pushing

Unknown - Decrease own power? Humility?  - Internal Pulling

Unknown - Decrease other's power? Punishment/Judgement? - External Pulling 

 

Mental Attributes - At least one of these is dead.  These are mental processes, with love and hate being emotion, or internal, and Wisdom being more intellectual.  Creativity could also fit here, instead of up with the Physical.  I put Humor instead because I like the concept of a Shard called Humor, with a Magic System based on bad puns.  The Cosmere's first Comedy!  

Devotion - Love - Internal Pushing

Odium - Hate - Internal Pulling ("Give me your pain!")

Unknown (Maybe Wisdom) - External Pulling?

Unknown (Humor! This is my new go to.) - External Pushing?

 

Brandon has said not every Shard has an Opposite, like Ruin and Preservation, but even Ruin and Preservation aren't opposites.  They're just diametrically opposed.  Technically, Ruin and Cultivation, or Preservation and Cultivation, are just as much opposed to each other as Ruin and Preservation.  

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30 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Brandon has said not every Shard has an Opposite, like Ruin and Preservation, but even Ruin and Preservation aren't opposites.  They're just diametrically opposed.  Technically, Ruin and Cultivation, or Preservation and Cultivation, are just as much opposed to each other as Ruin and Preservation.  

Except Brandon has said that Ruin would actually be most compatable with Cultivation, because they're both about change. Which is one of the many reasons that I've argued that Cultivation is not just "growth." 

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Ok well do this your way 

 

Spiritual : Liberation External Pushing 

Physucal : Focus : internal Pushing 

Mental : A Fear Shard ( Terror , Horror, Macarbe) External 

              Prudence internal 

              

Enhancement : Coercion or Compulsion internal 

               And lastly Debilitate

how is that ,          

             

 

 

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There is no "my way", I'm just saying that the ones we have seen seem to fit.  And if any of the shards is going to model their magic system after the Shards themselves, it'll be Preservation, who will want to keep things the same.  

 

I could very well be completely and utterly wrong.  I just find it interesting that three of the shards we know have to deal with binding, Honor, Autonomy and Dominion, but one is binding one's self, one is binding others to you, and the third is being unbound.  Then there are three known that affect the physical world: Ruin, Cultivation and Preservation.  And then there are two emotions, Odium and Devotion, both of which focus on others but one pushes and the other pulls, and two enhancement, Endowment and Ambition, which both focus on growing power (push) but one is external and the other is internal.  It just seems to click to me.  

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