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New Shard Confirmed-ish through 2020 WOB - Anguish?


teknopathetic

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Anguish: severe mental or physical pain or suffering; be extremely distressed about something.

The distress aspect might be tied up with Odium (Passion), but the suffering is available. Pure agony does not seem like it would have much of an intent, however, and thus I am left confused as to how a magic system powered by Anguish would work. This is a perfectly sound theory.

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I think the magic system melds with the planet, so Anguish would be mixed with some other expression. Anguish would be divine regret, sorrow, and despair, and that must be a hell of a shard to hold eternally...

edit: spelling 

Edited by teknopathetic
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The way he phrased his response is very interesting. "I can't confirm yet." Makes me recall how he does have all 16 planned out, but reserves the right to change his mind if he comes up with a cool new Shard.

I think that means it can't be involved with any of the books we've seen so far, then. My mind went to the Iriali; when I think "divine Anguish," I think of some verses in the Bible: the famous shortest verse "Jesus wept," and verses about how he's suffered in every way we do. Stuff tired to incarnation, to experience, which then reminded me of The One. But if they are indeed tied to one of our six unknown Shards, could Brandon up and change it? Has what we've seen from the Iriali locked their Shard in, as far as continuity?

Although, it could be like the Aethers, which are canon and at least one has appeared on screen, but their backstory isn't locked in and could be rewritten since it hasn't been explicitly mentioned. But that's a similar argument people use for Vax being the Aether's home planet (which I think that would be too invasive a retcon based on the Elantris Ars Arcanum to change what magic system belongs to Vax). But maybe there's enough wiggle room to come up with another Shard that fits The One.

The next thing that came to mind is another Shard I've proposed before, Tribulation. Anguish that is necessary because it makes you stronger. The struggle each butterfly must go through to escape its cocoon and fill it's wings with... blood, I think?

My interpretations of divine attributes will always be based on Judeo-Christian concepts; but what if this Shard is drawn from something more Eastern? Someone else will have to fill in there; how else do people see anguish and pain from a religious or philosophical perspective?

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Anguish reminds me of the Iriali religion as well. We know that they see pain as something the universe needs to experience in order to become whole. It is a religion that sees anguish as not necessarily good, but most definitely necessary.

A religion like that, from a people that have been chased out and migrated so many times, sounds to me like Anguish.

Edited by teknopathetic
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Anguish to me seems to be too arresting in its effect to be a driving force, but something that implies a sense of perservance and struggle to persist which can nonetheless color all perceptions  would work. I think Grief would be an awesome shard.

We know that Hoid has lost someone dear to him, perhaps the shard of Grief was the one that he turned down.

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23 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

We know that Hoid has lost someone dear to him, perhaps the shard of Grief was the one that he turned down.

Now Grief, while the word itself doesn't sound too Shard-y, sounds like a very good interpretation of a Shard. There's no greater grief than one of a God forced to watch as their beloved creations suffer and die.

I personally like the words Affliction or Adversity, though I see some issues with both.

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I can see two possible scenarios here:

A. It might be a quality shared among some but not all Shards, possibly one opposed to Passion. The plans to defeat/contain Passion-aligned Shards (Odium, Ruin) we've seen so far seem to cause anguish of truly massive proportions (the Oathpact, mists snapping people)

B. If we're talking a Shard, it might represent Adonalsium's Empathy, warped into Anguish by the lack of ability to let go (Ruin) and give up pain (Odium), similarly to how divine wrath became Odium

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Like Matrims Dice said, Threnody jumps to my mind also just based on how twisted the world is, although the previous shard of that system was ambition, so I don't know if any other has taken up residence. 

Definition for threnody is pretty cool though, "A threnody is a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person."

anguish after losing a loved one kinda fits

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It's interesting that even with Odium's characterization of anger, he seems to be all about pain. Odium could be anguish externalized, especially as he tries to get others to give up their pain. Maybe he never accepted that his shard was pain, and so instead he chose hatred. Would parallel nicely with Moash's storyline as well.

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9 hours ago, WatcherofTruths said:

It's interesting that even with Odium's characterization of anger, he seems to be all about pain. Odium could be anguish externalized, especially as he tries to get others to give up their pain. Maybe he never accepted that his shard was pain, and so instead he chose hatred. Would parallel nicely with Moash's storyline as well.

From how he speaks I'd say Odium Is more akin to catharsis.

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On 6/14/2020 at 6:48 PM, Holy Kayak said:

Like Matrims Dice said, Threnody jumps to my mind also just based on how twisted the world is, although the previous shard of that system was ambition, so I don't know if any other has taken up residence. 

Definition for threnody is pretty cool though, "A threnody is a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person."

anguish after losing a loved one kinda fits

The other two planets in that system, monody and elegy are also funereal songs.

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I always assumed the names were for the death of Ambition, and perhaps the curse laid upon the system after whatever happened happened. My gut was that Ambition ripped free of the planet too quickly, and this had consequences (also in combination with her mortal wound and eventual death). 

Or, my other theory, is that Ambition is ambitious and made a plan to one day resurrect (leaving magic about that could help that apotheosis occur once again). We have a WOB saying if Ambition were a Magic the Gathering person, she would be mono-black (resurrection and necromancy magic). I have my suspicions that the ShoDell will return. 

Edited by teknopathetic
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On 6/14/2020 at 7:48 PM, Holy Kayak said:

anguish after losing a loved one kinda fits

Perhaps this new Shard (possibly some form of Empathy as @KandraAllomancer suggested) had some sort of relationship or affection for Ambition's Vessel before the Shattering of Adonalsium? And after learning of Ambition's death/splintering, their Intent shifted slightly to become something closer to Anguish. 

-It was said in Arcanum Unbounded that Ambition was ultimately splintered outside of the Threnodite System. Perhaps she was trying to flee to where this new Shard was, where she believed they would be able to help her. However, the new Shard was unable to save her from Odium (maybe something to do with their Shard that makes it very difficult to harm others, similar to Hoid's inability to physically harm others or Preservation's general inability to destroy or damage), and she was killed as they watched. Odium then flees, as he doesn't want to get hurt by the other Shard, which is now a very real possibility considering the emotional upheaval being experienced by the Shard.

Another possibility is that the original Intent was something relating to the faith that others will be good or do the right thing (like the idea that the Christain god always maintains the hope that humanity is worth saving and that they will return to him). This Intent, separated from the other Intents, is quite naive, and maintains the hope that the other Shards will do a better job, and that everyone can get along in peace and harmony. When Odium killed Devotion and Dominion, this Shard was saddened, but tried to believe that Odium hadn't done it for malicious reasons, and that it was to enforce the pact that the Shards had made in the past. However, once Odium killed Ambition, despite her not breaking the pact, the Shard could no longer tell itself that this hope was true. This caused the Vessel to lose hope (similar to how Sazed begins to despair as he goes through the religions he studied and finds flaws in each one), and slowly shifted their Intent to something along the lines of Anguish. 

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I've been scrolling through synonyms, and I think the fave I've come up with so far is divine "Lamentation".  It feels shard-ish to me, and I like that a lot of the shards have 'ion' endings.  

Also, my headcanon for the vessel of this shard is absolutely Blue Diamond from Stephen Universe.  The way the voice actress delivers the line "You cannot fathom how much I've mourned, what thousands of years of grief have done to me" always kills me.  

(spoilers if you haven't watched the show).

Spoiler

 

 

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On 6/19/2020 at 5:03 PM, Comatose said:

I've been scrolling through synonyms, and I think the fave I've come up with so far is divine "Lamentation".  It feels shard-ish to me, and I like that a lot of the shards have 'ion' endings. 

While lamentation is a noun, it is usually used to describe a verb. People say "acts of lamentation" or "He lamented". It is closer to things like "cry" and "wail" than something like Sorrow or Misery. 

 

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On 6/21/2020 at 1:43 PM, teknopathetic said:

While lamentation is a noun, it is usually used to describe a verb. People say "acts of lamentation" or "He lamented". It is closer to things like "cry" and "wail" than something like Sorrow or Misery. 

Many shards are nouns used to describe verbs though?  Preservation is "to preserve", Ruin is "to ruin", Cultivation is "to cultivate", Endowment is "to endow".  I know this isn't a universal pattern, but enough of them fall into that category that I do not see the fact that the noun is describing a verb to be exclusionary.  

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