Other Shards vs. Odium

[+Ookla the Leafy]

How many shards do you think it would take to kill Odium? He’s splintered so many shards (or been involved in splintering so many) that I’m wondering if he has bits of power from them? Would Harmony be able to defeat him? Autonomy perhaps? I know he is weakened to an extent because he’s stuck on Braise, but has he become, like, a super shard?

[Knight of Iron]

I will say that I do not think he has bits of power from each Shard he has killed, as the nature of their Investiture combined with him would change his Intent, even slightly, and Odium more than anything does not want that to happen. This is why Odium's plan to be the most powerful Shard is to just splinter all the other Shards. As the only whole and complete Shard left, Odium would be the most powerful being in the cosmere.

Brandon has said that he wouldn't attack another Shard unless he believed he had an edge over them, and since we don't know much about the actual Splintering process, we can't really place why Odium had an edge in the battles that he chose and why he always wins.

[+Bzhydack]

Odium splintered now 4 shards (Devotion, Dominion, Ambition, Honor). He didnt take parts of theirs power, because he wants to maintain whole and unchainged, so he dont want to be influenced by others Intent. He is stronger than others because he didnt Invest into any world and creation first - now he invest on Braize of course, but still tries to invest as little as possible.

We know that Shards are hold back by their Intent - for example, Devotion probably cant fight at all, like Preservation.

And yes, Harmony is stronger than Odium in terms of raw power, but he is the youngest vessel, so he is the leas experienced one, also has two countering Intents, so Odium can kill him. But Odium is afraid of Harmony.

[Aspiring Writer]

7 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Odium splintered now 4 shards (Devotion, Dominion, Ambition, Honor). He didnt take parts of theirs power, because he wants to maintain whole and unchainged, so he dont want to be influenced by others Intent. He is stronger than others because he didnt Invest into any world and creation first - now he invest on Braize of course, but still tries to invest as little as possible.

We know that Shards are hold back by their Intent - for example, Devotion probably cant fight at all, like Preservation.

And yes, Harmony is stronger than Odium in terms of raw power, but he is the youngest vessel, so he is the leas experienced one, also has two countering Intents, so Odium can kill him. But Odium is afraid of Harmony.

I don't think Devotion's intent would've stopped her from fighting, but even if it did, These were the first two Shards that he killed, so they may have still not been completely affected, like with Vin. At least, I hope so.

And yeah, Harmony, while have twice as much power-ish doesn't seem to be in a place to use it, and Odium/ whoever he sent to block Harmony makes it clear he doesn't want Harmony to get used to his power, which makes me Question whether or not Odium is aware of Harmony's conflicting intents and how it blocks him from acting.

[Chinkoln]

Common theory is that Odium didn’t kill Devotion and Dominion, he pitted them against each other so they fought each other, then he finished the job when they were both weak or when one was the weak and the other was dead.

I don’t know much about Ambition so I can’t offer an opinion(I haven’t read Shadows for Silence).

I believe that in a fight against Honor he would have been evenly matched, but Honor looked into the future. He saw the stalemate and decided that he would sacrifice himself. You can imagine it like this. Odium and Honor are in a tug of war, where the loser dies. They are 100% equal in all aspects. Honor knows this, so he dives across the line and trips Odium. Odium technically won, but now he is stumbling and weakened. This gives another being, or beings, a chance to stumble. Honor tripped Odium by trapping him. 
Harmony could defeat Odium in my opinion. Yes, he has two shards that oppose each other but they are only opposing when used for different goals. When they share a purpose they can create, destroy, or preserve, all with the power of two shards instead of one.

There is a WoB out there that says that no Shard has inherently more power, it is simply the purpose of power that is different.

[+Ookla the Leafy]

This is a great explanation, thanks I appreciate it! The fact that Odium is afraid of Harmony is something I didn’t know

[+Bzhydack]

9 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

There is a WoB out there that says that no Shard has inherently more power, it is simply the purpose of power that is different.

This WoB states that all Shards were equal IN THE BEGININNG.

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Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)
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Shardbound

Does each Shard have the same quantity or quality of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes. They were equal proportions originally, how about that.

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Questioner

Just in the cosmere alone, are there any--Do you believe there are any specific magic systems that are stronger than the others, or have an advantage? Or do they kind of even out?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, do-- Yeah. Do any of the magics have advantages or stronger-- Definitely some are stronger than others. Definitely. There is no attempt made on my part to power balance between magic systems and things. Power balancing is for RPGs where it's very important, it's not for storytelling.

A lot of people like to ask the "Who would win, X or Y?" sort of thing, and I don't get into a lot of that, I usually say, "Well, what's the situation?" I'm not big on the-- I will, if people clash, or if different powers clash, I will write the situation, but it's so conditional. So I have a hard time with these cage match things that people really like to do and things like that, because they're fun, but as an author I'm like, "I can come up with a dozen situations where either one of them wins or someone else does". Right? That's what you do, in writing. You say, what is the context of this?

But that's a tangent from your question, which is the powers are not equal. The Shards were generally equal. Some have given up more power than others.

 

[Chinkoln]

Yes, for example

Hero of Ages Spoiler

Spoiler

Preservation was extremely weak because of how he and Ruin created humans. Preservation put a tiny bit more of himself into humans, and over time that took its toll. Preservation was weak and Ruin killed him. At the beginning they were equal, but because of the expenditure of power Ruin became more powerful.