The Horror, and Wonder, of the Shards

[Ixthos]

I think it would be useful to consider, in the limited sense we have, the Shards as both positive attributes and motivations, and nightmares. The Shards as they could be portrayed as heroes, and the Shards as they could be portrayed as villains. Remember, each is but a part of a person, a single facet amplified and set as the defining trait. Like the Paperclip Maximiser, a useful tool that, left to its own devices, would sacrifice the entire universe - or any other it could access - to make more paperclips, never understanding that paperclips exist for a reason, rather than for their own sakes.

Indeed, as noted by Ruin, Preservation could just as easily have been the villain of a series with Ruin as the hero - or perhaps a slightly changed version of Ruin.

 

So, let us see each of the known Shards as a hero, and each as a villain. Assuming all to be unsplintered, and assuming a general understanding of the shard based on the name, so these could be inaccurate in the larger scale.

 

Devotion

• Positive: Let's care for others, submit to others, help others - see to the needs of those who cannot care for themselves, the orphans and beggars and the sick.
• Negative: Discard your own needs and wants, become a mere tool for others, all individuality lost, your needs unmet as you slave for others.

Dominion

• Positive: You agree, discipline, structure, and hierarchy, a society where everyone is confident in who they are and what is expected of them, would be ideal, with no conflict between anyone.
• Negative: MAKE everyone fall into line, FORCE others to be below you in the chain of command, CONFLICT UNTIL THEY KNOW THEIR PLACE!

Preservation

• Positive: Let us be at peace and be calm, let's make beauty that never fades, let's ensure fragile things are allowed to last forever, let's make sure nothing of value ever lost.
• Negative: Unchanging stasis, no life no movement on energy, a world frozen in a single moment, forever.

Ruin

• Positive: Let's breaking unjust systems, things new and wonderful made as the old gives way to the new, to the better.
• Negative: Nothing ever lasts, nothing old can have value, and everything slowly gets smaller and smaller as potential is unleashed and then rendered useless and broken. Change is inevitable, and the only right course is to speed up that change.

Odium

• Positive: Struggle against unjust restrictions, strive towards freedom, and care, feel, live!
• Negative: **** everyone else, I'm angry and you are in my way.

Cultivation

• Positive: The seeds of your potential can be shaped, cared for, made better - take what you have, and build upon it.
• Negative: Yes, I'm going to prune you. No, I don't care if you don't like it. The world needs more predators, and more thorns to survive them.

Honour

• Positive: Keep your promises, chain the dangerous forces around you and gain understanding, and put them to use.
• Negative: I don't care how you are feeling right now, a promise is a promise. What do you mean you didn't see this coming, what does that have to do with anything?

Endowment

• Positive: You have nothing, but I will give you something. You are powerless, but I will give you to tools to make something of yourself.
• Negative: You have nothing, but I will give you something. What, did you think if would be something you actually wanted?

Autonomy

• Positive: You can be free! There is nothing to hold you back, nothing to keep you from being who you want to be!
• Negative: **** you! I'M free, and I'm going to do what I want. What do you mean those are YOUR toys? They're mind now!

Ambition

• Positive: Hey, let's DO something!
• Negative: ... You are in my way. But ... you might also be useful with the right ... changes ...

Invention

• Positive: Hey! You know, I think [X] and [Y], when used together, could make [Z]. And [Z], when it's pair with [W], can lead to [V]! And [V] is useful! [V] will make your life better!
• Negative: ... Okay, so [V] turned out to be a nuke, but I've got this great idea for [Q], you see, its this type of self-replicating semi-organic structure called a virus ...

Mercy

• Positive: I don't want you to suffer, and I want to help you. Take my hand.
• Negative: I don't want you to suffer. And boy, life sure is suffering.

Valour

• Positive: Fight the good fight! Nothing of value ever comes easily.
• Negative: Hmmm ... that sure is a large number of enemy troops ... but I'm sure you can take 'em!

Whimsy

• Positive: There should be joy in life! Don't you like the unexpected, every now and then? Don't you like discovering their is more to see, to learn, to know, to be?
• Negative: Let's replace all the air on this world with laughing gas! Oh, we'll make it normal air again later ... but then I want to see what it's like when the floor really is on fire! Oh, lava? That's even better!

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Ixthos
Formatting issue, don't put U in square brackets

[Honorless]

Yeah, Preservation would've been completely fine with a completely stagnant and unmoving world (was already halfway there with Rashek's Final Empire from what we see of him in Secret History)

For Endowment, I'll word it as "Give, give, give, keep giving till you have nothing left"

[Leuthie]

Somewhere it's mentioned that Odium is god's divine hatred without the other Intents to give it context. This sounds terrifying. I've always thought that ANY of the Intents without the others to give context is just as terrifying. I believe that's the whole point.

[Bejarden]

As Aristotle sayed “Any extreme should be avoided go to the Golden Meen” ( obviously paraphrased)

[Waffles]

Autonomy, the Eric Cartman of shards.

Edit: Phrased like that its not hard to see why other shards may hate it.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Waffles

[RedBlue]

6 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Like the Paperclip Maximiser, a useful tool that, left to its own devices, would sacrifice the entire universe - or any other it could access - to make more paperclips, never understanding that paperclips exist for a reason, rather than for their own sakes.

This is a great comparison I hadn’t thought of. Any being with a singular, unchanging, uncompromising Intent will run into the Paperclip Maximiser problem. 

6 hours ago, Honorless said:

For Endowment, I'll word it as "Give, give, give, keep giving till you have nothing left"

Or, “Huh? Why shouldn’t I give a chainsaw to this shady looking guy? Oh, he’s ripping everything up? Well, that’s what chainsaws are for!”

[AirsickAviar]

Anything that ends up leading me back to Shakespeare should be burned. Or praised, I still haven't found agreement with myself yet.

Quote

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,
sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,
Orlando. What do you say, sister?

As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1

It encapsulates the spirit of this message I think.

[Ixthos]

On 3/23/2021 at 5:29 PM, Honorless said:

Yeah, Preservation would've been completely fine with a completely stagnant and unmoving world (was already halfway there with Rashek's Final Empire from what we see of him in Secret History)

For Endowment, I'll word it as "Give, give, give, keep giving till you have nothing left"

That also works, though possibly closer to Devotion - though there is a lot of overlap between Shards. To my mind, Endowment is a very close to Cultivation, though Cultivation is about taking what is already there and building on it, and Endowment is about giving something that isn't originally present. In a sense, Endowment can give gifts, but those gifts might not be what someone wants - case in point, how Vasher won the duel.

 

On 3/23/2021 at 6:18 PM, Leuthie said:

Somewhere it's mentioned that Odium is god's divine hatred without the other Intents to give it context. This sounds terrifying. I've always thought that ANY of the Intents without the others to give context is just as terrifying. I believe that's the whole point.

Indeed! I agree, that might well be the whole point of the series, that each part by itself is dangerous, and only together is their balance, though the balance also depends on the person. Some are certainly more obviously dangerous than others, and impact the vessel more quickly, but in the end all of them could cause someone to lose sight of the reason for the Shard's intent.

 

On 3/23/2021 at 6:21 PM, Bejardin1250 said:

As Aristotle sayed “Any extreme should be avoided go to the Golden Meen” ( obviously paraphrased)

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" :-P

 

On 3/23/2021 at 6:44 PM, Waffles said:

Autonomy, the Eric Cartman of shards.

Edit: Phrased like that its not hard to see why other shards may hate it.

I don't watch South Park, but it just goes to show pop culture osmosis works in that I get that reference :-P

 

On 3/23/2021 at 11:54 PM, RedBlue said:

This is a great comparison I hadn’t thought of. Any being with a singular, unchanging, uncompromising Intent will run into the Paperclip Maximiser problem. 

Or, “Huh? Why shouldn’t I give a chainsaw to this shady looking guy? Oh, he’s ripping everything up? Well, that’s what chainsaws are for!”

Thanks :-)

That's a great way of viewing it too, that the Shard can forget that a gift to one person could be harmful to another.

 

On 3/24/2021 at 8:47 AM, AirsickAviar said:

Anything that ends up leading me back to Shakespeare should be burned. Or praised, I still haven't found agreement with myself yet.

As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1

It encapsulates the spirit of this message I think.

Indeed! As Strongbad put it: "too much of a good thing, can be awesome! But too much of an awesome thing can be bad."

[Frustration]

5 hours ago, Ixthos said:

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" :-P

"I will do what I must."

[Halyo_Alex]

12 hours ago, Frustration said:

"I will do what I must."

Of course, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" is an absolute statement...

[mathiau]

15 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Of course, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" is an absolute statement...

I think that was Ixthos's joke

[Halyo_Alex]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

I think that was Ixthos's joke

My point was that Obi-Wan saying that becomes suspicious when you realize it

[apepi]

I think you are missing a shard

I see shards(and albeit cognitive shadows) as forces of nature. You can't really control them, maybe you could try, but eventually they will do what they do.

Now you might try to direct their power some way, but it will still be used somewhere.

Also I imagine after Whimsy settled down and invested a planet the first thing they did was go get ice cream in another system or something leaving that system for like 100 years without any magic.

[Ixthos]

16 hours ago, mathiau said:

I think that was Ixthos's joke

Yup :-) for all their flaws there are a lot of very clever and subtle elements to the Prequels, and the hypocrisy of the Jedi order is one of them.

 

15 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

My point was that Obi-Wan saying that becomes suspicious when you realize it

Yup - see above :-P

 

9 hours ago, apepi said:

I think you are missing a shard

I see shards(and albeit cognitive shadows) as forces of nature. You can't really control them, maybe you could try, but eventually they will do what they do.

Now you might try to direct their power some way, but it will still be used somewhere.

Also I imagine after Whimsy settled down and invested a planet the first thing they did was go get ice cream in another system or something leaving that system for like 100 years without any magic.

Harmony? Hmmm ... well, I think there are at least two ways Harmony could be dangerous and two ways positive:

• Positive one: Let us achieve balance, an equal measure of all things, that what must pass can pass and what has value can stay
• Positive two: I will ruin those who seek to ruin, and preserve those who seek to preverse
• Negative one: Hmmm ... yes, that institution should fall and that institution should remain. What? No, I didn't stutter, that orphanage has to go and that loan shark can stay
• Negative two: I will preserve you! I mean, ruin! No, wait! Preserve! Ruin! Preserve! .... Oh, you're gone now? Well ... Hey, you! I will Pres-!

 

The shards are both forces of nature and concepts that seek minds to direct them. The problem is they can't remain one for long without seeking to become the other, and to change the mind that directs them over time. That is the tragedy of the shards.

 

Agreed on Whimsy! :-) Maybe Whimsy is the shard that doesn't want to settle down? Or, perhaps - probably - it is the kite-based system shard,.

[mathiau]

12 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Negative two: I will preserve you! I mean, ruin! No, wait! Preserve! Ruin! Preserve! .... Oh, you're gone now? Well ... Hey, you! I will Pres-!

That's Discord, not Harmony

Honestly in the negatives I'd put the "god of inaction" issue he's currently having

[Ixthos]

Just now, mathiau said:

That's Discord, not Harmony

Honestly in the negatives I'd put the "god of inaction" issue he's currently having

Well, "they would call him Discord, and they would love him for it," was one of the prophesies, or something along those lines :-P (though I have noted a distinct lack of chocolate rain ....)

That would be another good negative, though in many ways that is more a neutral stance - in effect, the only difference between Harmony being present and inactive and Harmony not being there at all is that if Harmony is absent there isn't any allomancy or feruchemy.

[RedBlue]

I would argue that Harmony is in a unique situation that isn’t directly comparable to the other Shards. 

Firstly, having two separate Intents that pull in different directions is a very different beast from one singular Intent that overrides all other considerations. Maybe two more compatible Shards could merge their Intents and become like a regular Shard but with twice the power, but Harmony is dealing with two distinct Intents, neither of which takes precedent over the other. 

Secondly, Sazed is very new as a Vessel (by Shard timescales). If Sazed had been around as Harmony for ten thousand years, things might be different. We don’t know, because it’s a new thing that hasn’t been done before. 

[Ixthos]

@RedBlue there probably will be some later parts of the Cosmere either indicating that the process of forming Harmony was either a good thing - in bringing the shards together again - or a bad thing - the conflict of intents. I imagine those who wanted the shards scattered likely weren't looking forwards to the pieces recombining, yet I think it is necessary for a true balance to be achieved without the shards likely becoming the very thing they opposed - they each had their own reasons for splitting the power, and I imagine at least a few of them did so because they felt the power's goals were detrimental to their own survival.