Honor and Dawnshards

[Knight of Iron]

So, in Honor’s last days he seemed like he believed that humanity was on track for the Dawnshards to destroy all of Roshar just like they did Ashyn. He promised it would happen, which is weird to me that discovering and using Dawnshards would be part of the natural progression of Surgebinders, unless that’s not what he’s implying. In which case, why does he think this will happen, especially considering the following:

In Honors last vision to Dalinar, he seemed opposite to this. He lamented the loss of the Dawnshards and said that humanity was doomed without them.

which is it? Are they essential to our survival or bringers of our destruction? I thought to bring this up again now we know a little more about Dawnshards. And did he not know there was one in Aimia?

[Ashbringer]

They are devices* of near-limitless capabilities. Ones that, used properly, could stop Odium - or destroy the entirety of Roshar. It just depends whether the user can handle the power correctly and/or responsibly. That’s how I see it.

Although judging by the fact there’s only four Dawnshards in existence, I doubt using them is a “natural” part of Surgebinder’s progression. Perhaps it is for Bondsmiths?

[Knight of Iron]

20 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Although judging by the fact there’s only four Dawnshards in existence, I doubt using them is a “natural” part of Surgebinder’s progression. Perhaps it is for Bondsmiths?

Yeah, I don't know. Honor made it sound like it was inevitable, but also lamented their loss.

[Aleph-Naught]

On 11/8/2020 at 10:27 AM, Ashbringer said:

They are devices* of near-limitless capabilities. Ones that, used properly, could stop Odium - or destroy the entirety of Roshar. It just depends whether the user can handle the power correctly and/or responsibly. That’s how I see it.

Although judging by the fact there’s only four Dawnshards in existence...

From my understanding, there is no firm number on how many dawnshards there are, though Nikli seems to think there are four of them this could be his understanding of how many there were before the shattering:

Quote

RShara

So are there Four Dawnshards that each split into four more Dawnshards? Or just four? Are there 16 Shards and 16 Dawnshards?

Brandon Sanderson

This is intentionally vague, I'm afraid. (Sorry.)

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

So we probably shouldn't have the crux of any hypothesis be that there are only four dawnshards.

Rysn's dawnshard, "change", intrigues me a lot though: we know that the dawnshards were used in the shattering somehow, and they involve "primal" commands; if they could be used to shatter Adonalsium, they must have some power over shards of Adonalsium. So I'm wondering if the "change" dawnshard could be used to manipulate a shard's intent--not singularly, like change Odium to some other intent entirely, but bend it in some way to where Odium could actually resemble what he claims to be, i.e. Passion. Could Rysn's dawnshard also be used by Dalinar to take up the remnants of Honor's shard and "change" it into something else? Or could it be used to take up the remnants of Honor and be combined with Odium or Cultivation if either of the vessels are killed?

Edited November 9, 2020 by Aleph-Naught