Dawnshard makes Harmony quite intriguing

[inactive]

Dawnshard establishes this idea that the shards may come in groups of four. I was reading all the threads about what these groups may be, and there are very few where Preservation and Ruin were grouped together, especially if you put Ruin under the 'Change' command group. And I guess that makes sense, given that their intents seem opposite.

That brings up the interesting point of how Harmony fits into this. There is a strong possibility that Harmony is going to span across the 'command' groups and brings up questions of whether Harmony needs to be shattered for Adonalsium to be reforged. It is also interesting that splitting Harmony may not give back Preservation and Ruin any way.

Thoughts?

[+robardin]

13 hours ago, inactive said:

Dawnshard establishes this idea that the shards may come in groups of four. I was reading all the threads about what these groups may be, and there are very few where Preservation and Ruin were grouped together, especially if you put Ruin under the 'Change' command group. And I guess that makes sense, given that their intents seem opposite.

That brings up the interesting point of how Harmony fits into this. There is a strong possibility that Harmony is going to span across the 'command' groups and brings up questions of whether Harmony needs to be shattered for Adonalsium to be reforged. It is also interesting that splitting Harmony may not give back Preservation and Ruin any way.

Thoughts?

I would not assume that "reforging Adonalsium" is the long term end of the Cosmere story arc. For starters - it's kind of too obvious, isn't it? I mean the execution of it would be the thing, of course, but given how much time Brandon spends upending primary fantasy tropes, it'd be surprising for his life's masterwork spanning decades of writing across multiple series to end up being "you must repair that which was broken to restore balance to the universe" or something.

As for Harmony, that is a single Shard now - if Sazed dropped it, it wouldn't revert to Preservation and Ruin:

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Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 23, 2013)

And yes, P&R are still the natural "splitting" of it that were to happen, though it would be possible with a lot of effort to make it come out differently:

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CosmereQuestioner

Like Adonalsium, could Harmony split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation with the right intent.

You once stated that it is plausible that with a different intent Adonalsium could have shattered into a DIFFERENT 16 shards. You have also said that Harmony is one shard (or could be viewed this way.) My question: Could Harmony split/be split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation (yet still complementing/opposite) with the right intent of the splitter?  And if not is this because Harmony is still too invested in Scadrial as Ruin/Preservation?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost anything is possible... but it is very, very unlikely that Harmony would split except back to Ruin/Preservation.

General Signed Books 2017 (March 7, 2017)