Why on Earth is...

[Frustration]

All the Shards have some connection to the idea of divinity, except Whimsy

So I must ask why is Whimsy a Shard?

[Darth_Hel]

Whether God has Whimsy is kind of a theological question, and whether Divinity is Whimsical.

[HSuperLee]

Yeah, as Darth said, it really is a theological question if you want to talk about it from a monotheistic or Abrahamic perspective, which may or may not apply to Adonalsium. But I think the more general idea connects to the "trickster god" archetype. So Loki, Coyote, Hermes, etc. That idea of a god that just kind of does whatever they want and is sometimes a hero and sometimes a villain because of it. They're something to be respected, but also avoided if possible. 

[Brgst13]

Whimsy could be a shard if God has a sense of humor.

[Raven Wilder]

If you look at all the Shards' Intents (the urge to destory, the urge to preserve, the urge to be autonomous, the urge to be merciful, etc.) they don't really add up to a complete, psychologically complex person. You'd need way more than 16 Shards to cover all the aspects that make someone who they are ... unless you divide them into 15 Shards that each embody one of their main characteristics, and then another Shard that covers a whole bunch of a minor, miscellaneous characteristics.

There may not be a Shard called Curiosity, but that doesn't mean Adonalsium couldn't be curious. Or be bored, even if there's not a Shard called Boredom. So while Honor and Ambition and Devotion and all the rest make up the bulk of who Adonalsium was, maybe that still left a bunch of other Intents, none of them prominent enough to be a Shard in its own right, but who could be pooled together into an amalgam Shard. That might result in a Shard with no clear direction, one that can switch from embodying Pride to embodying Sorrow or Humor or Delusion or Reproduction at a moment's notice. Such an erratic Shard could justifiably be called Whimsy.

[Factfinder]

In another thread I attempted to describe Whimsy as the representation of "random acts of god".  Most people on the forums seems to focus on predicting / understanding the shards by placing them in opposing pairs (like Ruin vs. Preservation) or groups of four.  And there are very good reasons for that!  Personally, however, I now suspect those thought experiments will prove to be a dead end.  I doubt anyone had predicted Whimsey from them, after all.

We could have predicted it had we focused on the various attributes of the Abrahamic god, however.  The shards seem to be the various attributes of that deity personified and exaggerated.  Here's how I think of the shards we have so far:

• Ambition, the god who drives people toward achieving what they never thought possible (the god athletes pray to before a game, or the god overseeing biblical stories such as "David and Goliath").
• Autonomy, god as a guaranteer of free will
• Cultivation, god as the gardener of Eden
• Devotion, god as a source of altruistic love and support 
• Dominion, the "jealous god" who will accept no challenge to his authority and cast humans out of Eden when they did so.
• Endowment, god as a giver of blessings and other gifts
• Honor, god as maker of covenants and upholder of moral codes
• Invention, god as the creator of existence, who literally invented the universe
• Mercy, god as a pardoner and redeemer of sins.  Possibly also an "angel of mercy" type character with a surprisingly high kill-count.
• Odium, the wrath of god now stripped of any moral context or restraint
• Preservation, the god who sends guardian angels (Faceless immortals, anyone?) and sustains reality.
• Ruin, the god who sends global floods, biblical plagues, and destroys cities in rains of fire
• Valor, god as the "lord of hosts" who commands armies of angels (or seons / spren / some other Cognitive equivalent)
• Whimsey, the aforementioned "random acts of god", the god who is unpredictable, unknowable, and can never be understood by rational analysis.

Note that I'm a life-long atheist that was raised in a christian-majority nation, and so learned biblical stories mostly through cultural osmosis.  So I'd enjoy hearing from an actual believer in any of the Abrahamic religions as to whether those descriptions seem off or objectionable.

Given the list so far, I'd expect us to see another shard that focuses on "tests of faith" in the tradition of biblical stories like Abraham and Isaac (side note: I find the "moral" lesson in that story utterly appalling but that's a discussion for another day).  Expect a name like "Adversity" or "Assessment".  I've seen "Tribulation" suggested every so often on these forums, but that word has a specific meaning and history in christian eschatology, so I suspect Sanderson would rather avoid it.

I would be pleased at a final shard named "Discovery", god as a supporter of learning and exploration.  I'm a scientist in real life, and while most of us tend to be very secular my more faithful colleagues sometimes talk about how offended their god would be if no one ever took the time to closely study the universe he had gone to all the trouble to create.  Discovery seems to address that mindset, and would fall under the rumors of a wisdom shard as well.

[HSuperLee]

1 hour ago, Factfinder said:

In another thread I attempted to describe Whimsy as the representation of "random acts of god".  Most people on the forums seems to focus on predicting / understanding the shards by placing them in opposing pairs (like Ruin vs. Preservation) or groups of four.  And there are very good reasons for that!  Personally, however, I now suspect those thought experiments will prove to be a dead end.  I doubt anyone had predicted Whimsey from them, after all.

We could have predicted it had we focused on the various attributes of the Abrahamic god, however.  The shards seem to be the various attributes of that deity personified and exaggerated.  Here's how I think of the shards we have so far:

• Ambition, the god who drives people toward achieving what they never thought possible (the god athletes pray to before a game, or the god overseeing biblical stories such as "David and Goliath").
• Autonomy, god as a guaranteer of free will
• Cultivation, god as the gardener of Eden
• Devotion, god as a source of altruistic love and support 
• Dominion, the "jealous god" who will accept no challenge to his authority and cast humans out of Eden when they did so.
• Endowment, god as a giver of blessings and other gifts
• Honor, god as maker of covenants and upholder of moral codes
• Invention, god as the creator of existence, who literally invented the universe
• Mercy, god as a pardoner and redeemer of sins.  Possibly also an "angel of mercy" type character with a surprisingly high kill-count.
• Odium, the wrath of god now stripped of any moral context or restraint
• Preservation, the god who sends guardian angels (Faceless immortals, anyone?) and sustains reality.
• Ruin, the god who sends global floods, biblical plagues, and destroys cities in rains of fire
• Valor, god as the "lord of hosts" who commands armies of angels (or seons / spren / some other Cognitive equivalent)
• Whimsey, the aforementioned "random acts of god", the god who is unpredictable, unknowable, and can never be understood by rational analysis.

Note that I'm a life-long atheist that was raised in a christian-majority nation, and so learned biblical stories mostly through cultural osmosis.  So I'd enjoy hearing from an actual believer in any of the Abrahamic religions as to whether those descriptions seem off or objectionable.

Given the list so far, I'd expect us to see another shard that focuses on "tests of faith" in the tradition of biblical stories like Abraham and Isaac (side note: I find the "moral" lesson in that story utterly appalling but that's a discussion for another day).  Expect a name like "Adversity" or "Assessment".  I've seen "Tribulation" suggested every so often on these forums, but that word has a specific meaning and history in christian eschatology, so I suspect Sanderson would rather avoid it.

I would be pleased at a final shard named "Discovery", god as a supporter of learning and exploration.  I'm a scientist in real life, and while most of us tend to be very secular my more faithful colleagues sometimes talk about how offended their god would be if no one ever took the time to closely study the universe he had gone to all the trouble to create.  Discovery seems to address that mindset, and would fall under the rumors of a wisdom shard as well.

Actual believer of an Abrahamic religion here: Some of those descriptions feel very off to me. Especially the whole "random acts of God" thing for Whimsy. The idea (at least in protestant Christianity, which is all I can claim to represent) of God being random isn't really a thing. Some of His actions might seem random, but that's more because He has the advantage of knowing the future and thus His supposedly "random" acts are actually highly calculated to bring about specific results. And considering Adonalsium may have had dang near perfect future sight, the same likely applies as well. Generally I've leaned more towards the polytheistic reasoning behind Whimsy as a trickster god, but at looking at it more through the idea of an aspect of a near-monotheistic deity, I'd make the argument that Whimsy represents those parts of creation that seem out of place. The platypus and pineapple of creation. Things that if you asked God why He created them He would probably just respond with, "I thought it was cool idea and that people would find it cool or funny." Because yes, I do believe God has a sense of humor. Humans have one after all, so He would have had to make it.

Edited December 5, 2020 by HSuperLee

[ScadrianTank]

Whimsy is Zeus turning people into things and eating them.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Factfinder said:

 

• Whimsey, the aforementioned "random acts of god", the god who is unpredictable, unknowable, and can never be understood by rational analysis.

Can I say how ironic I find it that you're trying to rationally explain why rational explanation doesn't work.

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 12/4/2020 at 11:08 PM, HSuperLee said:

Yeah, as Darth said, it really is a theological question if you want to talk about it from a monotheistic or Abrahamic perspective, which may or may not apply to Adonalsium. But I think the more general idea connects to the "trickster god" archetype. So Loki, Coyote, Hermes, etc. That idea of a god that just kind of does whatever they want and is sometimes a hero and sometimes a villain because of it. They're something to be respected, but also avoided if possible. 

I think Hoid and Kelsier are already playing those roles in the Cosmere. Which makes sense; tricksters usually aren’t the most powerful, just the trickiest.

Whimsy for me is more about curiosity and wonder, with a child like innocence to it. It’s not tricky, nor capricious. It’s God delighting in the deeds of His children. It’s novelty. It’s the genuine delight in the beauty of the world. It’s gaiety. Its a journey without a destination. It’s imagination.

Whimsy is Adonalsium’s own Creativity.

I suspect Whimsy would be very happy wandering the Cosmere. If it is Invested, it’s world is likely one that is somewhat non-sensical, with a randomness at odds with the rest of the Cosmere, with an environment that often shifts. A very fantasy, fairy tale environment. But the people are perfectly well and happy despite this, because Whimsy LIKES people. They’re always doing interesting things.

Whimsy isn’t cruel; it’s curious. 

Some kind of changeling type magic could make sense here, where different environments or actions give you access to different powers. I could see dance and music being the primary Investiture form. I could also see Whimsy as a Shard that creates temporary Avatars and wanders among the populace giving abilities both good and bad depending on the individual’s deeds. Think the old fairy tales, where the crone in the woods turns out to be a powerful sorceress.

I think it would be very amusing if Whimsy’s world was actually a very traditional fairy tale world, with some Disneyesque elements. Including people randomly breaking into song and dance (see above) and talking animals, trees, and multiple fantasy-type species. None of the regular Cosmere rules seem to work at first (although deeper study reveals they do) because Whimsy is constantly playing with the nature of its world. A world that doesn’t seem to match with the serious nature of the rest of the Cosmere.

Basically: Whimsy’s world is the Disney world of the Cosmere. A lot of fun to visit, but afterwards you need a vacation from your vacation.

Oh, and there are no wars on Whimsy’s World. War is NOT whimsical. Whimsy is very active upon her world. Whimsy likes things to be fun and wars are not fun.

Whimsy isn’t Disney though. Whimsy is Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka. Chocolate river included.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[stormlore]

On 12/5/2020 at 9:50 AM, Factfinder said:

Given the list so far, I'd expect us to see another shard that focuses on "tests of faith" in the tradition of biblical stories like Abraham and Isaac (side note: I find the "moral" lesson in that story utterly appalling but that's a discussion for another day). 

I don't know what you feel is the moral to this account, but a lot of people get this one wrong. (Assuming you mean Abraham being tasked with sacrificing his son Isaac.)

The moral of this story follows a recurring theme, "obedience is better than sacrifice" in other words, obedience to what? Moral laws. Obeying moral law is a way to be good. Being good is better than sacrificing something.  Sacrifice is important, but it is worthless if you aren't good.

Think of a theoretical company that dumps barrels of radioactive waste into a river and kills people, but has a charity non-profit wing that feeds homeless. Does that charitable sacrifice make them good?  No.  However, if they acted morally, whether they donated to charity or not, they would still be a "good company." (Thought because they are good they probably would also be charitable.)

God never wanted wanted to take Isaac from Abraham, he wanted to show Abraham, and by extension his descendants, that being good (following moral law, the Word of God) is better than sacrifice.  Abraham understood this, and while he didn't know what was going to transpire, he told his son they would both be coming back from that mountain, because he trusted his obedience would be rewarded, and he also knew part of the moral law was to do no murder.  Abrahamic religion has never required human sacrifice.

To do with the book topic, if there is a shard like Tribulation, or Test, or Evaluation, or something, it would be interesting to see how that world worked.  Trials without meaning truly would be a terrible thing, I can see those people being pretty hardcore, though.

[+Oltux72]

Random chance is one of the most important forces in the world.

• Suppose polio had killed FDR
• Suppose the Spanish Flu had struck a year earlier
• Suppose Gavrilo Princip had missed
• Suppose the Tunguska meteor had hit something important

In fact even microscopic changes can lead to extreme change. Suppose Queen Victoria would have been King Victor. Hanover would have stayed British. The wars of German Unification are totally derailed. WW1 as we know it is gone. WW2 is gone. By one sperm being faster.

[earthexile]

Gods in a lot of religions can be pretty damn whimsical. And remember, like Odium and all the other Shards, this would be the divine sense of Whimsy absent any of the context or balance of the rest of Adonalsium's aspects. Whimsy that doesn't care about Preserving, or Dominating, or Cultivating. A god of absolute wacky mayhem. And we have no idea what kind of person is holding it. They could be the greatest abstract artist in the universe, creating amazing things just because. They could be a capricious Kim Jong Un tyrant, the kind of guy who'd have his favorite foreign actors kidnapped so they could be forced to make him a movie at gunpoint. They could be a misanthrope who inflicts nonsense on the befuddled masses out of boredom. Whimsy would be a troubling god to try to build a civilization around.

[Kingsdaughter613]

6 hours ago, stormlore said:

I don't know what you feel is the moral to this account, but a lot of people get this one wrong. (Assuming you mean Abraham being tasked with sacrificing his son Isaac.)

The moral of this story follows a recurring theme, "obedience is better than sacrifice" in other words, obedience to what? Moral laws. Obeying moral law is a way to be good. Being good is better than sacrificing something.  Sacrifice is important, but it is worthless if you aren't good.

Think of a theoretical company that dumps barrels of radioactive waste into a river and kills people, but has a charity non-profit wing that feeds homeless. Does that charitable sacrifice make them good?  No.  However, if they acted morally, whether they donated to charity or not, they would still be a "good company." (Thought because they are good they probably would also be charitable.)

God never wanted wanted to take Isaac from Abraham, he wanted to show Abraham, and by extension his descendants, that being good (following moral law, the Word of God) is better than sacrifice.  Abraham understood this, and while he didn't know what was going to transpire, he told his son they would both be coming back from that mountain, because he trusted his obedience would be rewarded, and he also knew part of the moral law was to do no murder.  Abrahamic religion has never required human sacrifice.

To do with the book topic, if there is a shard like Tribulation, or Test, or Evaluation, or something, it would be interesting to see how that world worked.  Trials without meaning truly would be a terrible thing, I can see those people being pretty hardcore, though.

Actually, he told Yitzchak that he [Yitzchak] would be the sacrifice. And Yitzchak’s response? They BOTH went up the mountain TOGETHER. And Yitzchak demanded Avraham tie him down, in case he flinched and ruined the sacrifice.

The point was never about a sacrifice, as you said. But it wasn’t about being good either. It was about faith.

God had told Avraham repeatedly that human sacrifice was forbidden. Avraham had taught this to his converts. Now God told him to sacrifice his son, the same son he was promised a great nation from. The point was to see if Avraham would obey, would believe, would still have faith when God seemingly went back on His word. And Avraham did. And seeing as God had to tell him TWICE to stop, because Avraham thought the first time was a trick, he definitely thought he was going to be killing his son.

But we call it Akeidas Yitzchak. Yitzchak, whose perspective we never really see. Yitzchak, whom we know so little of. Yitzchak, whom we call mighty, who bargains with God for his descendants redemption. Yitzchak who went WILLINGLY as a sacrifice.

From Avraham we learn Emunas HaShem, but Yitzchak teaches us Emunas Chachamim. In today’s world, where there are no obvious miracles, where we lack prophesy, Beis HaMikdash, and the Urim v’Tumim, Judaism survives through our faith in our sages. The lesson of the Akeida is Yitzchak’s; it is his willingness to sacrifice himself for no reason other than that his father claimed to be so commanded, that has kept the faith and the people alive. It is from Yitzchak, not Avraham, that the lesson is truly learned.

Tribulation would be an interesting Shard. I think Honor and Valor may cover some of that already though. Particularly the latter.

[Frustration]

@Kingsdaughter613 nice synopsis on Whimsy, I like that idea, pure wonder, The Joy of God.

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

@Kingsdaughter613 nice synopsis on Whimsy, I like that idea, pure wonder, The Joy of God.

Joyous Creativity, exactly. I think it would be a fun world to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there, lol!

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

15 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I suspect Whimsy would be very happy wandering the Cosmere. If it is Invested, it’s world is likely one that is somewhat non-sensical, with a randomness at odds with the rest of the Cosmere, with an environment that often shifts. A very fantasy, fairy tale environment. But the people are perfectly well and happy despite this, because Whimsy LIKES people. They’re always doing interesting things.

 

I agree, I think whimsey leads well to a fairy tale environment and I think Brandon also would want a world for some complete fantasy nonsense (affectionate) that wouldn't make sense on other worlds

[Kingsdaughter613]

39 minutes ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

I agree, I think whimsey leads well to a fairy tale environment and I think Brandon also would want a world for some complete fantasy nonsense (affectionate) that wouldn't make sense on other worlds

I just love the idea of there being a true fairytale land in the Cosmere. I’m thinking it could work for early to mid teenage readers. Think the Ella Enchanted age audience.

It would be a series that could be given to another author, as it wouldn’t be mainline Cosmere. Brandon has spoken of doing that with Aether, but I think it could work well with this Shard too.

A fun way to do it would be to have the story take place from the perspective of a Cosmere researcher, who is trying to figure out how the magic systems of Whimsy’s World (which I am now naming Gaiety) fit into the rest of the Cosmere. 

If I could design the world, it would be as follows:

Gaiety revolves around the numbers seven and 3. Days are 21 hours long, and months are 21 days long. The year has fourteen months. There are seven planets in the system: Joy, Dream, Gaiety, Glory, Mischief, Novelty, and Wonder. Gaiety is planet number 3, of course.

The planet is made up of Archipelagos, with the largest land masses being about the size of Australia. There is something about the planets atmosphere that causes the sun rays to refract, so that light on Gaiety changes hue throughout the day. It rarely storms on Gaiety, with rain usually being sun showers. It is literally a Sunshine and Rainbows world.

Whimsy either created Gaiety’s people, or she altered them significantly. This is the world where you find fantasy creatures. Elves, trolls, goblins, pixies, halflings, etc. There are also sylphs, naiads, dryads, etc.

‘Humans’ in this world are not baseline humans, and don’t quite resemble regular humans. Most ‘humans’ here have darker skin with golden markings. As in literally metallic gold markings. Some ‘humans’ have fair skin with indigo patterns. There is also a group with copper skin and silver constellations.

Most magic (which is actually called that here) is done through learning complex songs and dances. The dances are always circular, and it later turns out that mandalas are actually a big part of how Investiture is channeled, which is why potions work. They’re stirred in circular patterns.

And this is as much as I can think of for now. Feel free to add!

[Gears]

I would have to disagree with the fairytale line of thought. We consider fairytales whimsical and fanciful because they don't exist. Whimsy is, at its heart, avoiding boredom. It is discontent in its purest form. It is disturbing the status quo. If something is constant, it will get boring. How long does it take you to get bored with your toys? Hours? Days? Years? Now think of how long time is to a Shard. Whimsy is an entity that will change everything between heartbeats. The idyllic fairytale may come into being at one point, but it will be changed when Whimsy gets bored. Whimsy is innocent and naive, but that does not preclude it from being terrible. Everything is fun and games until Whimsy wonders what humans would look like inside out.

[trav]

Adonalsium is THE god. the rest are Shards of this true god.
Whimsy is a required part of Adonalsium or else he would not be able to act. thats my assumption.
if all other parts are in balance (like Harmony) there must be 1 part (Sazed) that tips the scales towards a decision.

I seriously don't see the other parts as more devine than Whimsy.
whats devine about Honor?

Edited December 11, 2020 by trav

[Kingsdaughter613]

7 minutes ago, Gears said:

I would have to disagree with the fairytale line of thought. We consider fairytales whimsical and fanciful because they don't exist. Whimsy is, at its heart, avoiding boredom. It is discontent in its purest form. It is disturbing the status quo. If something is constant, it will get boring. How long does it take you to get bored with your toys? Hours? Days? Years? Now think of how long time is to a Shard. Whimsy is an entity that will change everything between heartbeats. The idyllic fairytale may come into being at one point, but it will be changed when Whimsy gets bored. Whimsy is innocent and naive, but that does not preclude it from being terrible. Everything is fun and games until Whimsy wonders what humans would look like inside out.

That’s where I said the environment constantly shifts. And there are multiple species, because Whimsy thinks it’s interesting. It’s not a happy, perfect fantasy. It’s a true fairytale world, where all those sorts of stories exist in some form. And it can be as dark and horrifying as some of those tales are. (Let’s just forget that the Queen in Disney and Grimms Snow White is a cannibal, or that Disney has Frollo sing a song about committing rape, because obviously Disney is all fun and games, right?)

But the thing about Whimsy is that it’s wonder. It’s creativity. It’s joy. The nature of the Shard does not lend itself to turning people inside out. It lends itself to ‘let’s give people wings, because who doesn’t want to fly?’

Whimsy is fanciful, not capricious. It’s thoughtless, not heartless. It may not be kind, but it’s certainly not cruel. Whimsy is the embodiment of innocent childhood wonder, and that’s what its world will reflect.

To people from the rest of the Cosmere, Gaiety is a fun place to visit. There’s Investiture in everything, the world is unpredictable in fun and interesting ways, and Whimsy welcomes visitors.

For the people living there, well... They have to worry about traps, about monsters, about haunted forests. They have to deal with capricious magic users. They have to worry about their rivals, and have to be careful about what they do because Whimsy does NOT like war. Politics on this planet gets NASTY, because they can’t war so they find other ways to destroy their enemies.

Oh, and forget not knowing tomorrow’s weather - you don’t know tomorrow’s environment! Oh, look. It’s Winter in Summer. Well there go the crops... Ah, the snow has melted... and now I have a gemstone mine and a colony of confused dwarves from the fifth island. And half my neighborhood is somewhere else. Hey, at least those annoying elves are gone! And my kid can now talk to plants...

Furthermore, Whimsy does not like technology, as it makes things too organized. Whimsy likes road trips, not airplanes. Whimsy does NOT like rules, and technology works on laws. So the planet is in enforced Medieval stasis. (The people have gotten really good at mechanical technology, as everything past a certain point doesn’t work.) Clocks never run correctly either, except for the days they do. EVERYTHING is always changing.

For Cosmere visitors it’s a lot of fun to visit. The people living there are actually living there, and they don’t enjoy it nearly as much. A good number do see Whimsy as capricious, though it isn’t.

[Rorzikel]

I wonder if the setting of the Dark One was this originally and Whimsy was their shard. Fits the Narnia vibes, though it would be rather dark for Whimsy.

[stormlore]

13 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Actually, he told Yitzchak that he [Yitzchak] would be the sacrifice. And Yitzchak’s response? They BOTH went up the mountain TOGETHER. And Yitzchak demanded Avraham tie him down, in case he flinched and ruined the sacrifice.

The point was never about a sacrifice, as you said. But it wasn’t about being good either. It was about faith.

God had told Avraham repeatedly that human sacrifice was forbidden. Avraham had taught this to his converts. Now God told him to sacrifice his son, the same son he was promised a great nation from. The point was to see if Avraham would obey, would believe, would still have faith when God seemingly went back on His word. And Avraham did. And seeing as God had to tell him TWICE to stop, because Avraham thought the first time was a trick, he definitely thought he was going to be killing his son.

But we call it Akeidas Yitzchak. Yitzchak, whose perspective we never really see. Yitzchak, whom we know so little of. Yitzchak, whom we call mighty, who bargains with God for his descendants redemption. Yitzchak who went WILLINGLY as a sacrifice.

From Avraham we learn Emunas HaShem, but Yitzchak teaches us Emunas Chachamim. In today’s world, where there are no obvious miracles, where we lack prophesy, Beis HaMikdash, and the Urim v’Tumim, Judaism survives through our faith in our sages. The lesson of the Akeida is Yitzchak’s; it is his willingness to sacrifice himself for no reason other than that his father claimed to be so commanded, that has kept the faith and the people alive. It is from Yitzchak, not Avraham, that the lesson is truly learned.

Tribulation would be an interesting Shard. I think Honor and Valor may cover some of that already though. Particularly the latter.

I enjoyed reading that, you seems very well versed in the Hebrew on this.  I don't think our points are that far off, there is certainly a lot to unpack, I was doing a couple of logical jumps there, using some of the new testament writers such as Paul's -his faith was counted for righteousness, and the Hebrews writer's point that Abraham considered that God could simply raise Isaac up again.

On the topic, I think Sacrifice could be an interesting idea for a shard as well.  A magic system where giving up aspects of self could lead to power? 

[Kingsdaughter613]

39 minutes ago, stormlore said:

I enjoyed reading that, you seems very well versed in the Hebrew on this.  I don't think our points are that far off, there is certainly a lot to unpack, I was doing a couple of logical jumps there, using some of the new testament writers such as Paul's -his faith was counted for righteousness, and the Hebrews writer's point that Abraham considered that God could simply raise Isaac up again.

On the topic, I think Sacrifice could be an interesting idea for a shard as well.  A magic system where giving up aspects of self could lead to power? 

I think Sacrifice makes more sense as a magic system than a Shard. God is everything, so the concept of sacrifice doesn’t really work?

I don’t really know anything about the New Testament, sorry.

Of course I know the Hebrew; I learned the Torah in Hebrew. With multiple commentaries. And then there’s the ever-growing, written down, Oral Tradition. I also learned some Navi and Kesuvim.

To me what you’re saying Paul said doesn’t really add up. If Avraham expected God to return Yitzchak, then where is the test? The Akeida only makes sense as a test if he didn’t know - and did it anyway, despite it going against everything he believed, because HaShem commanded him to do so. The test wasn’t ‘will you sacrifice your son’, so much as ‘if I command you to do something that I have repeatedly told you is wrong, will you still have faith and believe and obey despite the seeming hypocrisy?”

I think a lot of people get that test wrong. Bereishis is really hard to understand in general though. The Avos and Imahos experienced the world on a completely different level than we do.

[dionysus]

On 12/4/2020 at 11:10 PM, Raven Wilder said:

If you look at all the Shards' Intents (the urge to destory, the urge to preserve, the urge to be autonomous, the urge to be merciful, etc.) they don't really add up to a complete, psychologically complex person. You'd need way more than 16 Shards to cover all the aspects that make someone who they are ... unless you divide them into 15 Shards that each embody one of their main characteristics, and then another Shard that covers a whole bunch of a minor, miscellaneous characteristics.

There may not be a Shard called Curiosity, but that doesn't mean Adonalsium couldn't be curious. Or be bored, even if there's not a Shard called Boredom. So while Honor and Ambition and Devotion and all the rest make up the bulk of who Adonalsium was, maybe that still left a bunch of other Intents, none of them prominent enough to be a Shard in its own right, but who could be pooled together into an amalgam Shard. That might result in a Shard with no clear direction, one that can switch from embodying Pride to embodying Sorrow or Humor or Delusion or Reproduction at a moment's notice. Such an erratic Shard could justifiably be called Whimsy.

I think the shard names are the dominant intent but it doesnt mean that is the sum total of everything they are. To use your example, perhaps all the shards have a bit of curiosity in them, but not enough for it to be a dominant intent in them. Or maybe Ambition and Invention have a bunch of curiosity in them, but Preservation and Honor have none.

What I am saying is I don't think you need to shove all these abstract concepts that are left over from the other Shards into whimsy. Instead it is more like a bunch of concepts that are connected to each other come together to form a Shardic intent. I see it as Adonalsium could have been shattered in an infinite number of ways, with an infinite number of outcomes in shardic intent. We could have had a Curiosity shard, but then that would preclude Invention because Invention needs curiosity as a component.

My primary proof of this is Odium, Devotion, and Mercy. Odium is basically emotion and passion but with the scales tipped towards hatred and little if no weighting towards love or mercy. Just like it is kind of innacurate to call Odium Odium, it would also be inaccurate to call him Emotion because he clearly favors certain emotions. He has got lust, and jealousy, hatred, laughter, etc. etc. Why doesn't he seem to have more positive emotions? Because those emotions are in Devotion and Mercy and not part of his shard.

Edited December 11, 2020 by dionysus