Let's NOT make groups of four. Let's make four YES/NO categories

[Ixthos]

In brief, because it is late and I keep getting the urge to post these when I should be getting read to sleep, I think the Dawnshard-shard idea is a good one, that the Dawnshards defined the shards involved, but not in the sense of four shards to each Dawnshard, but rather four type of CATEGORIES, and each shard is either in one part of a category or the other.

 

Let me explain what I mean. In binary, how do you count to sixteen (technically in this case how do you count from zero to fifteen)? Well, you count in 1

• 00 = 0 0 0 0
• 01 = 0 0 0 1
• 02 = 0 0 1 0
• 03 = 0 0 1 1
• 04 = 0 1 0 0
• 05 = 0 1 0 1
• 06 = 0 1 1 0
• 07 = 0 1 1 1 
• 08 = 1 0 0 0
• 09 = 1 0 0 1
• 10 = 1 0 1 0
• 11 = 1 0 1 1
• 12 = 1 1 0 0
• 13 = 1 1 0 1
• 14 = 1 1 1 0
• 15 = 1 1 1 1

To make what is happening clear, binary is similar to counting in decimal, only the columns aren't multiples of ten, but of two. So in decimal 1032 is one thousand, no hundreds, three tens, and two ones. In binary the number 1101 is one eight, one four, zero twos, and one one, which totals 13.

 

Why am I saying this? Because I propose the idea that it wasn't as though four people stood in a circle, each took a part, and pulled, levering against one another, but rather than four people each - with "two hands", grabbed the power and pulled. CHANGE wasn't pulling against anything else, but rather grabbing half of the power with one "hand", the hand of "you will change", and the other with "you will not change". Thus HALF the shards are related to change positively, and half are related to change negatively or indifferently.

An example. Suppose there were only two halves to the power, and the change Dawnshard. Then Ruin would be the change half, and Preservation would be the don't change half.

So:

• 00 = 0 (Preservation)
• 01 = 1 (Ruin)

 

If there were four parts to the power, then we could have more components added. For example, adding Cultivation and 

• 00 = 0 0 (Preservation - don't change and don't live)
• 01 = 0 1 (Honour / Valour - don't change and DO live)
• 02 = 1 0 (Ruin - change and don't live)
• 03 = 1 1 (Cultivation - change and live)

With the first binary place for CHANGE, and the second for, and the second for LIVE. Note that these shard examples are just to highlight the core idea, each is actually "neighbours" with four, and more distant from another, and most distant from one other, which admittedly does introduce problems with Brandon saying no single shard is exactly the opposite of another aside from Ruin and Preservation, but I think that's mainly because there is a lot of fuzziness between the ideas of what is and isn't change, etc. (is a spinning wheel changing or in a constant state for example), and because Autonomy and Whimsy act as nodes where all the fuzziness can be gathered.

Thus Honour, Preservation, Dominion, etc. can be DON'T CHANGE, and Cultivation, Endowment, and Ruin can be DO CHANGE. There also could be "indifferent" shards, so that for each Dawnshard it actually only did touch half, and Odium is thus indifferent to change, but I will have to think on this more later.

 

I would like to go into this in more detail later, but in this I will say I think there are possibly: LIVE, THINK, CHANGE, and FEEL. I might update that view, but I think, by looking at each shard and seeing how they fit this, I think we might find interesting patterns. This does relate to my old idea on the original breakdown.

[i’m in the details]

You might be on to something but I don’t have the understanding to even make guesses 

[Morningtide]

I love this theory! This makes way more sense than any of the groups of 4 that I have seen. I have always thought that the Shards would be related to more that one Dawnshard in more than one way, but I've never been able to spell it out like this

[LewsTherinTelescope]

I like this idea and have tried to pursue it a few times, but I always end up running into the problem that it's just really hard for me to speculate much with it. With quadrants and the associated theories (4x4, Allomantic, plain quadrants, etc), you can make Shards into bite-sized groups of similar Shards and try and work out what exactly the similarities are, but it's (for me, anyway) a lot more difficult to do that with this method. Might give it another go soon, though.

[Scadrian Truthwatcher]

Ooh! That theory is amazing. Seriously. And we can derive potential names for the Shards and Dawnshards we don’t have names for! It makes so much sense.

[mathiau]

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I would like to go into this in more detail later, but in this I will say I think there are possibly: LIVE, THINK, CHANGE, and FEEL. I might update that view, but I think, by looking at each shard and seeing how they fit this, I think we might find interesting patterns. This does relate to my old idea on the original breakdown.

I guess LIVE would be Hoid's Dawnshard, which of these would be the one known to bind?

Quote

02 = 1 0 (Ruin - change and don't live)

Ruin is change and don't revert, not change and don't live. (that should change the fact he'd be 0 for live)

8 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I like this idea and have tried to pursue it a few times, but I always end up running into the problem that it's just really hard for me to speculate much with it. With quadrants and the associated theories (4x4, Allomantic, plain quadrants, etc), you can make Shards into bite-sized groups of similar Shards and try and work out what exactly the similarities are, but it's (for me, anyway) a lot more difficult to do that with this method. Might give it another go soon, though.

With the quandrants version we could just take each Dawnshard and look for the Shards that fit it the best, which allowed to make categories with on 3 Dawnshards. With this we'll have to look at each Shard and see which Dawnshard they fit, witch will far harder too do without the full set of Dawnshards

3 hours ago, Scadrian Truthwatcher said:

Ooh! That theory is amazing. Seriously. And we can derive potential names for the Shards and Dawnshards we don’t have names for! It makes so much sense.

We can? We could attempt guesses at the 4th Dawnshard's nature with the quadrant versions but I don't see how to do it with

[Halyo_Alex]

On 4/15/2021 at 4:28 PM, Ixthos said:

02 = 1 0 (Ruin - change and don't live)

Or... Change, and don't Survive?

This actually works for Nightblood too, which has been confirmed to contain Ruin's Investiture... We don't need that slightly uncomfortable Destroy Dawnshard anymore. Because let's be real, it doesn't really fit for a couple reasons (why would one of the pieces of "creation" be "destruction" incarnate, and investiture cannot be destroyed, etc).

On 4/15/2021 at 4:28 PM, Ixthos said:

• 00 = 0 0 0 0
• 01 = 0 0 0 1
• 02 = 0 0 1 0
• 03 = 0 0 1 1
• 04 = 0 1 0 0
• 05 = 0 1 0 1
• 06 = 0 1 1 0
• 07 = 0 1 1 1 
• 08 = 1 0 0 0
• 09 = 1 0 0 1
• 10 = 1 0 1 0
• 11 = 1 0 1 1
• 12 = 1 1 0 0
• 13 = 1 1 0 1
• 14 = 1 1 1 0
• 15 = 1 1 1 1

0000... this is tricky because in this case it's a shard that just doesn't care about any of the traits from any of the dawnshards. Maybe Apathy then?

similarly for 1111 it cares about all of them.

[mathiau]

3 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Or... Change, and don't Survive?

Or whatever Hoid's Dawnshard is actually called

Ruin would probably just have a one for Change in that theory

Quote

This actually works for Nightblood too, which has been confirmed to contain Ruin's Investiture... We don't need that slightly uncomfortable Destroy Dawnshard anymore. Because let's be real, it doesn't really fit for a couple reasons (why would one of the pieces of "creation" be "destruction" incarnate, and investiture cannot be destroyed, etc).

And the fact that it'd implies the existence of a Create Dawnshard which has the exact same issues plus the fact we don't have a Dawnshard that would have a good reason to cause Hoid's meet aversion

Quote

0000... this is tricky because in this case it's a shard that just doesn't care about any of the traits from any of the dawnshards. Maybe Apathy then?

similarly for 1111 it cares about all of them.

Depending on the 4th Dawnshard I could see Autonomy being 0000

[Ixthos]

15 hours ago, mathiau said:

I guess LIVE would be Hoid's Dawnshard, which of these would be the one known to bind?

Ruin is change and don't revert, not change and don't live. (that should change the fact he'd be 0 for live)

With the quandrants version we could just take each Dawnshard and look for the Shards that fit it the best, which allowed to make categories with on 3 Dawnshards. With this we'll have to look at each Shard and see which Dawnshard they fit, witch will far harder too do without the full set of Dawnshards

We can? We could attempt guesses at the 4th Dawnshard's nature with the quadrant versions but I don't see how to do it with

Live probably would be the most likely one for Hoid to be or have been - indeed, Live or Be could explain not being able to harm things, or "unmake" them.

Ahhh, I want to get more into that later - I have been thinking on this some more and I want to make a slight revision to the theory, which I will explain at the bottom - but in general Ruin is about destructive change, that is making things not. In the revised version of the theory Ruin actually would still be associated with the Live or Be Dawnshard, but as the "selective" portion of it, that is, Ruin has an opinion on things Living, being a negative one.

Challenge ACCEPTED 

The reason I chose Live (or Be), Think, Change, and Feel, is because they tie to certain elements of my own religious views, and also as they are complimentary elements, with implications in what Brandon has said before. Change is a given, and there are at least four shards with a strong association with change (both positively and negatively - Ruin, Culitvation, Preservation, and Endowment) and Honour is in a sense "change to this point and then hold firm / bind something, so change it and then keep it in that changed state". Odium and Ruin both spoke of Passion, and Whimsy implies a degree of emotion, so Feel. Commands to Live or to Be are significant from religious stances, and compliments Change without being its opposite - you can Live and Change, but one is to start and the other is to progress. Thinking and Feeling likewise, and Invention, hypothetical Wisdom shard, Ambition, etc. are all about thinking and planning.

 

14 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Or... Change, and don't Survive?

This actually works for Nightblood too, which has been confirmed to contain Ruin's Investiture... We don't need that slightly uncomfortable Destroy Dawnshard anymore. Because let's be real, it doesn't really fit for a couple reasons (why would one of the pieces of "creation" be "destruction" incarnate, and investiture cannot be destroyed, etc).

0000... this is tricky because in this case it's a shard that just doesn't care about any of the traits from any of the dawnshards. Maybe Apathy then?

similarly for 1111 it cares about all of them.

I see what you did there 

I agree, I don't like the idea of a Destroy Dawnshard, especially as it can be subsummed into Change and Be-not or Live-not.

I actually agree with @mathiau on this, that Autonomy is the shard closest to that idea, as it doesn't care if you Live or Live-not, Think or Think-not, Change or Change-not, Feel or Feel-not. Just don't do it near them or let anyone else influence what you do.

I am refining the idea a little, but part of me thinks that ultimately that would be a shard that "cares" about all those traits - Living, Thinking, Changing, Feeling if those are the Dawnshards - but doesn't necesserily think they are all good things. Incidentally, I think this also could explain Odium's obsession with seeing itself as Passion - it is the shard that is ENTIRELY defined by the Feel Dawnshard. It doesn't care if you think, or live, or change, only that you FEEL! The part that was fully touched by Feel, but not by any of the others - the 1 or 2 or 4 or 8 values in the chart.

 

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

Or whatever Hoid's Dawnshard is actually called

Ruin would probably just have a one for Change in that theory

And the fact that it'd implies the existence of a Create Dawnshard which has the exact same issues plus the fact we don't have a Dawnshard that would have a good reason to cause Hoid's meet aversion

Depending on the 4th Dawnshard I could see Autonomy being 0000

Almost certainly  I would say Ruin is in Change and Feel, if only because Ruin spoke of Passion and also is far more active than Decay - Decay would be Ruin without feeling, as Ruin is active and driven. Ruin CARES.

Create I think ties to Live or Be, and to Change. One that sees both Live/Be and Change as having value. Preservation in my revised version is actually under Change's influence, but as the "selective", oppositional element - Change matters to Preservation, but as something which SHOULDN'T happen. Therefore Preservation and Ruin together, with both views on Change and Live or Be, can create.

Also, as I said above, I agree with that, Autonomy likely is the 0000 shard - and why Brandon could like it so much, its a shard that can in theory care or not care about anything.

 

 

What I would like to do later is go through each shard and my list of Live / Be, Think, Change, and Feel, and see if they are [Strongly supportive], [Weakly supportive], [Neutral], [Weakly opposed], or [Strongly opposed]. There are several ways the Dawnshards could relate - does each shard have an opinion, or do only half the shards have an opinion? The breakdown of the relation of the shards to these could help establish if the Dawnshards split them into two along the lines of [Support] and [Oppose], or [Support/Oppose] and [Neutral].

[LewsTherinTelescope]

I've never really liked the idea of Shards being associated with NOT-Dawnshards, because it just kinda doesn't make sense to me. The Dawnshards are Commands, why would giving something a Command to Change result in a Shard associated with NOT-Change? So my theories have tended towards them more being neutral on Commands they aren't associated with, instead of anti-them.

[Ixthos]

53 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I've never really liked the idea of Shards being associated with NOT-Dawnshards, because it just kinda doesn't make sense to me. The Dawnshards are Commands, why would giving something a Command to Change result in a Shard associated with NOT-Change? So my theories have tended towards them more being neutral on Commands they aren't associated with, instead of anti-them.

Because the power doesn't want EVERYTHING to change. When you tell something to change you are also simultaneously saying to everything else around it they are not to change - the Dawnshards empower someone to be selective in what they apply the power to, to choose which things should be affected and which things should not. Or to put it this way, Sazed could be considered a shard of change, because he is the harmony between what is and isn't to be changed - when Ruin and Preservation created, it was because they selectively Ruined some things and Preserved others, and in so doing changed things. Another reason is Odium - Odium is about passion and feeling, yet Odium also drained Moash's emotions, and this didn't seem to be something Odium had to fight against.

If the Dawnshards are indiscriminate in how the power is applied, there need not be a mind to say work on this, and don't work on that. Thus the Dawnshard of change must also say to one thing "change", and to another, by implication, "remain".

[mathiau]

10 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Live probably would be the most likely one for Hoid to be or have been - indeed, Live or Be could explain not being able to harm things, or "unmake" them.

It's not completely sure he couldn't Unmake Sprens, the limit of his non violence are quite unclear, even to him

Also you didn't answer my question about which of your Dawnshard would be the binding one mentioned in the poem of Ista

Quote

Challenge ACCEPTED 

By all mean, try. Worse that can happen is you fail and we can learn something from that failure

Quote

I agree, I don't like the idea of a Destroy Dawnshard, especially as it can be subsummed into Change and Be-not or Live-not.

It's not that obvious

Quote

Rysn braced herself on the bench, then bowed back.

Storms, she thought. What have I done?
What you needed to, another part of her thought. Youhave adapted. You have Remade yourself.

It was then that she grasped, in the smallest way, the nature of the Command inside her. The will of a god to remake things, to demand they be better.

The power to change.

If Change is completely Remake then even if your idea of Change+not-Live doesn't really work since Remake is by definition positive.

Quote

Almost certainly  I would say Ruin is in Change and Feel, if only because Ruin spoke of Passion and also is far more active than Decay - Decay would be Ruin without feeling, as Ruin is active and driven. Ruin CARES.

Except it's not how it works

Ruin is the 2nd principle, the the thing that make thing unable to come back to their previous state and make them continue to change until there's no where to Change to and the universe is cold and dead, pure Change cannot be Decay because all of Decay and more is already in Ruin

Ati was active and driven, Ruin is just a fact, it doesn't care anymore than inertia cares

Quote

Necarion

Do Vessels have any flexibility in expressing the intent of a Shard, particularly if the intent is open to many interpretations?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they do. So, the Vessel's mind and how they perceive is going to have a large influence on how things are expressed and I think all of them have some wiggle room. But there are some deterministic things that are also going to push them.  You know, holding Ruin, Harmony may not go down the same path that happened to Ati.

Necarion

So Sadeas would express Honor differently than Tanavast?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes he would.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

47 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I've never really liked the idea of Shards being associated with NOT-Dawnshards, because it just kinda doesn't make sense to me. The Dawnshards are Commands, why would giving something a Command to Change result in a Shard associated with NOT-Change? So my theories have tended towards them more being neutral on Commands they aren't associated with, instead of anti-them.

This becomes even worse with other interpretation of Hoid's Dawnshard, with things like Survive or Continue you basically have another Dawnshard that act as a not-Change

[LewsTherinTelescope]

50 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Because the power doesn't want EVERYTHING to change. When you tell something to change you are also simultaneously saying to everything else around it they are not to change - the Dawnshards empower someone to be selective in what they apply the power to, to choose which things should be affected and which things should not. Or to put it this way, Sazed could be considered a shard of change, because he is the harmony between what is and isn't to be changed - when Ruin and Preservation created, it was because they selectively Ruined some things and Preserved others, and in so doing changed things. Another reason is Odium - Odium is about passion and feeling, yet Odium also drained Moash's emotions, and this didn't seem to be something Odium had to fight against.

If the Dawnshards are indiscriminate in how the power is applied, there need not be a mind to say work on this, and don't work on that. Thus the Dawnshard of change must also say to one thing "change", and to another, by implication, "remain".

Then essentially every single NOT-Change Shard will be identical, because none of them can do any form of change.

[Ixthos]

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

It's not completely sure he couldn't Unmake Sprens, the limit of his non violence are quite unclear, even to him

Also you didn't answer my question about which of your Dawnshard would be the binding one mentioned in the poem of Ista

I suppose, though if my theory is right, the Live / Be Dawnshard prevents him from causing something to stop being, to cause something - or something living or formerly living, like bacon - to end. Although ... wouldn't plants count as living?

Ahhh, sorry, I missed that! I think the implication of the poem is actually that Dawnshards bind to living things, rather than bind them - that is, the Dawnshard can be TAKEN, but it doesn't RESTRICT - the "known to bind any being" part I think means known to unite with, rather than what it does to something else. If I am wrong on that, then I believe Live would be that one, as it places a constraint, in a sense, on something to have certain traits - you will Live, or you will Be, in this particular state.

 

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

By all mean, try. Worse that can happen is you fail and we can learn something from that failure

I will ignore that  but I do hope that even if this is wrong that it is still in the generally correct direction 

 

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

It's not that obvious

Quote

Rysn braced herself on the bench, then bowed back.

Storms, she thought. What have I done?
What you needed to, another part of her thought. Youhave adapted. You have Remade yourself.

It was then that she grasped, in the smallest way, the nature of the Command inside her. The will of a god to remake things, to demand they be better.

The power to change.

If Change is completely Remake then even if your idea of Change+not-Live doesn't really work since Remake is by definition positive.

I disagree - what I am saying is that, when something is destroyed, you could say it has been changed, or no longer lives or no longer exists - destroy is a subset of change; to Ruin, Cultivate, and Endow, are all forms of change. Rysn is interpreting something placed within her, her understanding could well be incomplete, just as vessels can slightly alter how the shards behave. If someone destructive took the Dawnshard, we might see a different interpretation. Also, "better" could well be subjective in this sense - Ruin certainly thought he was making things better - not that I think better is inherently subjective, only that we can't be sure Rysn is 100% understanding what the Dawnshard is. And again, to change something, sometimes it does have to be destroyed to be made better, such as Dalinar - he is better, but for a while, when his memories came back and he truly changed, he was destroyed.

 

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

Except it's not how it works

Ruin is the 2nd principle, the the thing that make thing unable to come back to their previous state and make them continue to change until there's no where to Change to and the universe is cold and dead, pure Change cannot be Decay because all of Decay and more is already in Ruin

Ati was active and driven, Ruin is just a fact, it doesn't care anymore than inertia cares

I am refering to the prototype of Ruin in one of the unpublished works, what Brandon reworked into Ruin. Either way, you can say someone HAS ruined something, and that something is decaying, and that is the more natural way of thinking of things - Ruin is an active attempt to break, and the state of being broken either intentionally or unintenionally, while Decay can only ever be from apathy or ignorance, never deliberate intent.

• Ruin spoke of passion
• Ruin wanted to speed the process up
• Ruin is okay with things coming to an end
• Those influenced by Ruin become obsessed and highly driven, emotionally invested in causing harm, such as Marsh laughing and delighting in causing harm to the Terris Keeper, Vin, Goradel. Ruin SCREAMED multiple times, which always bothered me, but makes sense as a shard that cares

All those are clearly stated in Mistborn. All shards likewise drive their possessor to cause their trait to manifest, or to act in that way. Ruin is passionate, not Ati, for Ruin twisted Ati to see what was being done as necessary and vital. Ruin doesn't want to delay. Ruin's investiture is EMOTIONAL.

 

10 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Then essentially every single NOT-Change Shard will be identical, because none of them can do any form of change.

No - because Honour, Preservation, and Dominion, the three clearly Order shards, all have clear stances on change that are distinct.

• Honour believes in an ideal state, so encourages you to change to that state, and then remain there - you are bound, first placed in the right spot and then not allowed to change - become better, then STAY better, and keep your word
• Preservation believes everything is precious and any change is a loss - freeze everything, lock everything into place, because they all matter as they are
• Dominion believes in rigid hierarchy and obedience - you stay in your place, do as you are told, command those below you and obey those above, and never step out of line - the hierarchy must be preserved.

All three have opinions on change, viewing it is something risky or dangerous, but for different reasons. This is because, if the theory is correct, because they each also have different values on Live or Be, Think, and Feel.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

8 hours ago, Ixthos said:

This is because, if the theory is correct, because they each also have different values on Live or Be, Think, and Feel.

Why should that affect how they view changing things, if they're all opposed to Change? In my opinion, it makes much more sense if they're instead neutral on Change, changing things where it's beneficial to their Commands and opposing it where it's detrimental.

[Ixthos]

14 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Why should that affect how they view changing things, if they're all opposed to Change? In my opinion, it makes much more sense if they're instead neutral on Change, changing things where it's beneficial to their Commands and opposing it where it's detrimental.

Because it is about WHAT changes. Preservation doesn't want anything to change, or things which are to stop being what they are. Honour likes a little change in behaviour until you reach the right state and then your behaviour mustn't change. Dominion doesn't want relationships to change, Dominion desires a rigid structure of command that is immutable. But Honour doesn't care about heirarchies remaining unchanged, or things staying as they are - Preservation sees heirarchies and oaths as being equally valuable - Dominion doesn't care what you SAID you would do, as long as you do what you are told.

You yourself likely value some changes and dislike others. Take a part of yourself, and it will value some types of change, and dislike or be indifferent to others. My main argument is that the neutral shards - neutral to change - like Odium don't care if you change or stay the same, only that you feel. Whimsy doesn't want you to think, but does want you to feel and to partake in change. Mercy doesn't care if you change or don't change, but values your existence. Ruin wants existence to end, and doesn't care if you think or don't think. There can be a complex web of values based entirely on whether or not the subject of the Dawnshard is one that the shard gives any thought to, and this isn't an argument that the Dawnshard of change - I probably should allcaps the Dawnshards to make it clearer when I'm talking about them - was also made by the part of the power that values change, only that CHANGE has a relationship with Preservation and Honour and Ruin and Dominion and Cultivation and Endowment and Whimsy and likely one other, but has no connection within the power to Mercy and Odium and Autonomy and possibly five others. It could even be we could think of the shards as this:

 

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

 

With the red the shards that "oppose" or have a negative relation to the Dawnshard, the green those which "support" or have a positive relation to the Dawnshard, and the middle in black those which had no relation at all, and so the two "hands" of change grabbed the top and bottom groups, but left the middle unaffected. Or it could be

 

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

 

or 

 

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

O O O O

 

 

My main point is I still would like to draw up a table and see how well the shards match the idea, and if there are eight indifferent or opposed shards, or less than eight supportive and together with the unsupportive make eight. I'm not saying you don't have a point, only that - if the theory is right - we need to see if the shards, when assigned to the proposed Dawnshards, or even just CHANGE, fit smoothly into the idea of

• eight supportive - weakly and strongly - and eight unsupporting - weakly and strongly and indifferently

or if it would make more sense to group them as

• eight associated - both positively and negatively - and eight unassociated - neutral.

 

In fact - and its late again, so please bare with me if I make some errors here - here is a brief attempt to analyse this. Grey is unsure, green is likely to be the case, red is unlikely to be the place, yellow is it could be argued either way (please review):

 

I might post an updated version later with the rest filled in and a few changed, after giving it more thought and evaluating.

[mathiau]

11 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Ahhh, sorry, I missed that! I think the implication of the poem is actually that Dawnshards bind to living things, rather than bind them - that is, the Dawnshard can be TAKEN, but it doesn't RESTRICT - the "known to bind any being" part I think means known to unite with, rather than what it does to something else. If I am wrong on that, then I believe Live would be that one, as it places a constraint, in a sense, on something to have certain traits - you will Live, or you will Be, in this particular state.

The poem says "known to bind any" not "known to bind to any"

Quote

I will ignore that  but I do hope that even if this is wrong that it is still in the generally correct direction 

That was supposed to be encouragement

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I am refering to the prototype of Ruin in one of the unpublished works, what Brandon reworked into Ruin. Either way, you can say someone HAS ruined something, and that something is decaying, and that is the more natural way of thinking of things - Ruin is an active attempt to break, and the state of being broken either intentionally or unintenionally, while Decay can only ever be from apathy or ignorance, never deliberate intent.

Why would we use unpublised non-cannon works when we have cannon?

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Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way. 

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument. 

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

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• Ruin spoke of passion

Ati spoke of passion

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• Ruin wanted to speed the process up

Ati wanted to speed the process up. And anyway that part doesn't require any feeling.

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• Ruin is okay with things coming to an end

Assuming it's not just a common point between Ati and Sazed, that is an argument against Ruin being

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• Those influenced by Ruin become obsessed and highly driven, emotionally invested in causing harm, such as Marsh laughing and delighting in causing harm to the Terris Keeper, Vin, Goradel. Ruin SCREAMED multiple times, which always bothered me, but makes sense as a shard that cares

Notice that being completely full of passion freed them of Ruin's influence

I don't see why the Vessel of a Shard that doesn't care would never scream.

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All those are clearly stated in Mistborn. All shards likewise drive their possessor to cause their trait to manifest, or to act in that way. Ruin is passionate, not Ati, for Ruin twisted Ati to see what was being done as necessary and vital. Ruin doesn't want to delay. Ruin's investiture is EMOTIONAL.

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You question? Do not question.

“I will not question.”

However, she felt a surging to the power that moved within him. The mind did not like being questioned, but the power … It liked questions. It liked arguments. It was passion.

If Odium can do thing opposite to he's intent like that I don't see why Ati couldn't be/become passionate without it directly coming from Ruin.

Note that I'm not suggesting that Ruin is against people feeling, I think it just don't care whether or not you think, feel or exists, just that you change and don't revert.

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No - because Honour, Preservation, and Dominion, the three clearly Order shards, all have clear stances on change that are distinct.

Preservation and Dominion are not Order Shards. Preservation is about Stillness, if something is both chaotic and still (like glass) it's fine with it. Dominion is about Conquest, Divide and Conquer is definitely something it's fine with.

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• Honour believes in an ideal state, so encourages you to change to that state, and then remain there - you are bound, first placed in the right spot and then not allowed

Therefore Honour is neutral to Change. Note that successful state always have mechanism that allow them to change so they don't get behind their time and get thrown into chaos.

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• Dominion believes in rigid hierarchy and obedience - you stay in your place, do as you are told, command those below you and obey those above, and never step out of line - the hierarchy must be preserved.

Dominion believes in adding more member under your rule, which is of Change.

 

Here's my breakdown of the Shards in For-Neutral/Against for the Change Dawnshard

For: Cultivation, Ruin, Whimsy, Invention, Endowment, Dominion, Ambition, Valour

Neutral/Against: Preservation, Odium, Autonomy, Mercy, Devotion, Honour, The Shard In Hiding, The Unknown One

 

Mercy, TSIH and TUO are in the neutra/against part because I was running out of space in the For part and Valour makes more sense than Mercy there in my opinion

[LewsTherinTelescope]

6 hours ago, Ixthos said:

In fact - and its late again, so please bare with me if I make some errors here - here is a brief attempt to analyse this. Grey is unsure, green is likely to be the case, red is unlikely to be the place, yellow is it could be argued either way (please review):

I think that mostly seems reasonable, though unfortunately I only got to this when it was late for me, so I'll have to wait to take a better look at it as well

Tomorrow I'll try and draft up my own version of such a chart to discuss any differences we might have in how we put them.

Edited April 19, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope

[Ixthos]

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

The poem says "known to bind any" not "known to bind to any"

Yet there is also a comma - it says "taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any", rather than "taking the Dawnshard known to bind any", implying the "known to bind any" is not a designation of the type of Dawnshard, but an afterthought significant to how it is to be used - so while it might not mean it binds to, it also doesn't mean the other Dawnshards CAN'T bind things - indeed, perhaps this is where their idea of Surgebinding comes from, that any use of the Dawnshards counts as binding the target. As for the singular mention rather than plural, I would say it likely is because the Dawnshard had already been mentioned earlier in the poem - if someone is talking about multiple guns, and then mentions one present at a location, and then says "taking the gun, known to end threats," they likely are talking about the previously mentioned gun - and we should definitely assume there was more to this poem ahead of time.

Basically, that comma means it almost certainly isn't describing a unique property of the Dawnshard, as otherwise the comma wouldn't be there.

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

That was supposed to be encouragement

Ahhh! Thanks! 

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Why would we use unpublised non-cannon works when we have cannon?

Ati spoke of passion

Ati wanted to speed the process up. And anyway that part doesn't require any feeling.

... We aren't using cannon ... there are no weapons her- ... oh, you mean canon!  I mention Decay vs Ruin because Brandon changed his mind about what to name the enemy. My main point is that it is possible Brandon reshuffled how the shards broke down, so originally Decay would have lacked passion, but then Brandon realised that Ruin would make sense to have passion, so changed the name. It is a guess though, but used to explain the possible reason Brandon changed the name of what he was going to use. See here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/187/#e12512.

Also, your entry below doesn't invalidate the idea as I mentioned later one, that Ruin is active and passive. After all, imagine if Leras and Ati had taken up different shards - would Leras have been a calm and collected and indifferent Ruin, and Ati a passionate Preservation? Also, I mentioned that to show the idea that Ruin is both active and passive. Also, would you say then that Odium isn't passion, because Taravangian hasn't mentioned passion yet? Ahhh, but we've seen from his perspective that the power rages - just like Sazed saw when he took it up, comparing Presevation to calmness and Ruin to violent rage - Ruin is inherently a raging roiling force, Preservation is inherently calm.

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Notice that being completely full of passion freed them of Ruin's influence

I don't see why the Vessel of a Shard that doesn't care would never scream.

Yes, because Passion is about chaos - the main point is that the investiture causes a breakdown in control, because Passion is chaotic - the investiture of Ruin is emotional, and so even its wielder can't control those who are in the grips of passion. Could you imagine Leras screaming in frustration in the middle of a calm discussion? Ruin just seems in the middle of a calm discussion to rage.

Also, to all your other points, why do you think both Odium and Ruin spoke of passion?

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

If Odium can do thing opposite to he's intent like that I don't see why Ati couldn't be/become passionate without it directly coming from Ruin.

Note that I'm not suggesting that Ruin is against people feeling, I think it just don't care whether or not you think, feel or exists, just that you change and don't revert.

Fair enough, though I do still disagree. Odium was starting to fracture as he bent the shard, but Ati was described as just holding on - Ati was dominated by Ruin, a slave to Ruin and his mind controlled by Ruin, including his emotions, Rayse was trying to force Odium to keep doing what he wanted.

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Preservation and Dominion are not Order Shards. Preservation is about Stillness, if something is both chaotic and still (like glass) it's fine with it. Dominion is about Conquest, Divide and Conquer is definitely something it's fine with.

I fundamentally disagree with this view - also glass isn't chaotic, it is entirely still. Conquest is about IMPOSING Order - indeed, Mesopotamian and Biblical views on the subject of order view it as something forced upon chaos, chaos was dominated and now is the ordered world. Conquest is about bringing others under your control, and control is order, the same reason passion is chaos. Simply put anything which reduces the number of paths available for something to take, and tries to impose structure on them is order - Cultivation is unique in that she is both order and chaos, using order to increase the number of paths. Dominion wants to divide the enemy, and then put them back together again under it - chaos used to further orders ends - I wrote a post about this a while back: 

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Therefore Honour is neutral to Change. Note that successful state always have mechanism that allow them to change so they don't get behind their time and get thrown into chaos.

Yet Honour prevents you from changing your word, and it one of the reasons the Fused say Honour and Cultivation don't understand people. Either way, my point isn't that Honour is against change, only that change is something that matters to Honour - again the idea that order requires you to first subdue chaos - there must be a small amount of change, but then no more - change CAN be useful, but only a certain type in a small amount, and then no more.

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Dominion believes in adding more member under your rule, which is of Change.

Yes, but that is change to bring what is outside of your sphere of influence into your sphere of influence. If anything it still supports the idea that Dominion is a shard with an opinion on change, while Odium and Autonomy don't care about change at all.

 

11 hours ago, mathiau said:

Here's my breakdown of the Shards in For-Neutral/Against for the Change Dawnshard

For: Cultivation, Ruin, Whimsy, Invention, Endowment, Dominion, Ambition, Valour

Neutral/Against: Preservation, Odium, Autonomy, Mercy, Devotion, Honour, The Shard In Hiding, The Unknown One

 

Mercy, TSIH and TUO are in the neutra/against part because I was running out of space in the For part and Valour makes more sense than Mercy there in my opinion

That definitely seems like a viable breakdown  I want to look into that more and analyse your reasoning on that, but that will have to wait until later, and some do seem a little iffy, but I do like your approach and agree with a lot of it 

 

7 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I think that mostly seems reasonable, though unfortunately I only got to this when it was late for me, so I'll have to wait to take a better look at it as well

Tomorrow I'll try and draft up my own version of such a chart to discuss any differences we might have in how we put them.

Fair enough   I do apologise also for not completing that list, but I just wanted to go to bed. I think I probably should have listed them in a more comprehensible way.

I look forwards to that, though I'll have to wait until later in the week to check - I'll also redo my breakdown, and you and @mathiau and I can compare our analysis. Until then, I hope you and @mathiau and everyone else reading this has a good one!

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

Also, would you say then that Odium isn't passion, because Taravangian hasn't mentioned passion yet?

(I mean, he actually has, so it's a moot point :P)

My main holdups with Ruin being inherently passionate instead of just Ati:

• Sazed seeing it less as an angry force of destruction and more a necessary force of change (heck, Sazed still doesn't even like Ruin, even if he views it as important)
• The main emotion in the description of Ruin's Intent is seemingly more just Ati mad about being betrayed and locked up for thousands of years:

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  Decay. Not blackness, for blackness was too complete, too whole to represent this thing he sensed in the Beyond. It was a vast force that would gleefully take something as simple as darkness, then rip it apart.

  This force was time infinite. It was the winds that weathered, the storms that broke, the timeless waves running slowly, slowly, slowly to a stop as the sun and the planet cooled to nothing.

  It was the ultimate end and destiny of all things. And it was angry.

• The fact that emotion weakens Ruin's hold on things, when you would expect it to strengthen it if it were a very emotional Shard

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

Fair enough   I do apologise also for not completing that list, but I just wanted to go to bed. I think I probably should have listed them in a more comprehensible way.

Yeah, fair

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

I look forwards to that, though I'll have to wait until later in the week to check - I'll also redo my breakdown, and you and mathiau and I can compare our analysis. Until then, I hope you and mathiau and everyone else reading this has a good one!

You too!

Edited April 19, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope

[mathiau]

On 19/04/2021 at 1:20 PM, Ixthos said:

Yet there is also a comma - it says "taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any", rather than "taking the Dawnshard known to bind any", implying the "known to bind any" is not a designation of the type of Dawnshard, but an afterthought significant to how it is to be used - so while it might not mean it binds to, it also doesn't mean the other Dawnshards CAN'T bind things - indeed, perhaps this is where their idea of Surgebinding comes from, that any use of the Dawnshards counts as binding the target. As for the singular mention rather than plural, I would say it likely is because the Dawnshard had already been mentioned earlier in the poem - if someone is talking about multiple guns, and then mentions one present at a location, and then says "taking the gun, known to end threats," they likely are talking about the previously mentioned gun - and we should definitely assume there was more to this poem ahead of time.

Basically, that comma means it almost certainly isn't describing a unique property of the Dawnshard, as otherwise the comma wouldn't be there.

I don't see why that formulation can't mean "Taknig the Dawnshard (the one known to bind any...)"

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it also doesn't mean the other Dawnshards CAN'T bind things

It implies that that Dawnshard can bind things more easily than Change does, but yes the other two could bind things to

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... We aren't using cannon ... there are no weapons her- ... oh, you mean canon! 

Ok, did you really missunderstand my words or are you acting like a bad Wit?

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I mention Decay vs Ruin because Brandon changed his mind about what to name the enemy. My main point is that it is possible Brandon reshuffled how the shards broke down, so originally Decay would have lacked passion, but then Brandon realised that Ruin would make sense to have passion, so changed the name. It is a guess though, but used to explain the possible reason Brandon changed the name of what he was going to use. See here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/187/#e12512.

Interesting

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Also, your entry below doesn't invalidate the idea as I mentioned later one, that Ruin is active and passive. inherently calm.

Your right, Ruin is does want to speed a the process, by how much is up to the Vessel though

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After all, imagine if Leras and Ati had taken up different shards - would Leras have been a calm and collected and indifferent Ruin, and Ati a passionate Preservation?

Maybe? In my opinion a compassionate Ruin isn't impossible (compassionate in a twisted "you will suffer no more, little one" way, but still) so a calm Ruin with a "Even if I didn't do a thing I'd win" mindset seems possible to me

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Also, I mentioned that to show the idea that Ruin is both active and passive.

I had misunderstood it

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Also, would you say then that Odium isn't passion, because Taravangian hasn't mentioned passion yet? Ahhh, but we've seen from his perspective that the power rages - just like Sazed saw when he took it up, comparing Presevation to calmness and Ruin to violent rage - Ruin is inherently a raging roiling force, Preservation is

How does me saying Ati speaking to passion doesn't mean Ruin is about passion imply I think Taravangian not mentioning passion implies he's not about passion? If anything I'm saying the opposite.

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Ahhh, but we've seen from his perspective that the power rages

Was this supposed to be insulting or was it accidental?

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Yes, because Passion is about chaos - the main point is that the investiture causes a breakdown in control, because Passion is chaotic - the investiture of Ruin is emotional, and so even its wielder can't control those who are in the grips of passion. Could you imagine Leras screaming in frustration in the middle of a calm discussion? Ruin just seems in the middle of a calm discussion to rage.

Also, to all your other points, why do you think both Odium and Ruin spoke of passion?

Ruin never spoke and Odium spoke once

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Take me, the power pled, speaking not in words, but in emotion. You are perfect. I am yours.

Not very passionate I'd say

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the investiture of Ruin is emotional, and so even its wielder can't control those who are in the grips of passion.

Repeating the same sentence over and over won't make me believe it

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Ruin just seems in the middle of a calm discussion to rage.

Once again, Ati did that. For this discussion  conflating Vessel and Shard is really not something we can do.

Also erratic behavior is of Change not of Feel

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Fair enough, though I do still disagree. Odium was starting to fracture as he bent the shard, but Ati was described as just holding on - Ati was dominated by Ruin, a slave to Ruin and his mind controlled by Ruin, including his emotions, Rayse was trying to force Odium to keep doing what he wanted.

If Ruin didn't care about emotions would he still dominate Ati's emotions? I think there's circular reasoning here

Less relevant but Shards can't mindcontrol their vessel since they don't have a mind

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I fundamentally disagree with this view - also glass isn't chaotic, it is entirely still.

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if something is both chaotic and still (like glass)

Did you just answer "it can't be A since it's B" to someone saying "That thing is both A and B"?

Glass is an amorphous solid, which is still since it's solid but the position of the atoms are still quite random

Compare to the crystaline version

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Conquest is about IMPOSING Order

Conquest is about imposing your rule, if your rule is chaotic it's still a conquest.

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Conquest is about bringing others under your control, and control is order, the same reason passion is chaos.

Controlling people by being the strongest is control but not order

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Simply put anything which reduces the number of paths available for something to take, and tries to impose structure on them is order

I disagree with the first part, Chaos reduce the number of paths to take to since you'll be constantly colliding with other people's chaos and will have to step back.

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- Cultivation is unique in that she is both order and chaos, using order to increase the number of paths.

She's not unique, Devoltion, Mercy and Valour agree, possibly Invention too (if they'd accept mad scientists) and Autonomy (o"rder is okay as long as I consider myself free")

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Dominion wants to divide the enemy, and then put them back together again under it - chaos used to further orders ends - I wrote a post about this a while back: 

The writing on this picture is annoyingly small and you obviously change your mind since you wrote it since Cultivation is in the Chaos part so I'm not reading that

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Yet Honour prevents you from changing your word

Only right before he died

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and it one of the reasons the Fused say Honour and Cultivation don't understand people.

They also say that Honour created gravity and Odium understand people

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That definitely seems like a viable breakdown  I want to look into that more and analyse your reasoning on that, but that will have to wait until later, and some do seem a little iffy, but I do like your approach and agree with a lot of it 

Thanks

Honestly almost all the Shards in the "like Change" category seems obvious to me so I don't really see which one are a little iffy

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I look forwards to that, though I'll have to wait until later in the week to check - I'll also redo my breakdown, and you and @mathiau and I can compare our analysis. Until then, I hope you and @mathiau and everyone else reading this has a good one!

Have a nice week

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 4/17/2021 at 7:14 AM, Ixthos said:

Almost certainly  I would say Ruin is in Change and Feel, if only because Ruin spoke of Passion and also is far more active than Decay - Decay would be Ruin without feeling, as Ruin is active and driven. Ruin CARES.

A relevant WoB:

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Questioner

I  never understood why Vin couldn't hold the Ruin Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

I could see a world where Vin maybe could have done it. But the trajectory she was on was opposed to it. Vin could have understood and become it. But what are the things that are keeping her? Vin, I don't think accepts, number one, that decay has to happen. She's experienced it a lot. But there's that piece inside her that doesn't want that to happen, doesn't want things to change, does not want people to leave her. I think that would be--if you read through, that's the soul, sort of, center event is, "Don't leave me, don't go away, don't change." And this is diametrically opposed to Ruin. People focus on the fact that she's good at killing and she is. But that heart, that soul...Ruin is more about things changing and decaying, than even about destroying.

Questioner

And I guess that's the reason why she can hold Preservation very easily?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

 

On 4/19/2021 at 6:20 AM, Ixthos said:

I look forwards to that, though I'll have to wait until later in the week to check - I'll also redo my breakdown, and you and @mathiau and I can compare our analysis.

I've got my variant on the likelihood of how Shards relate to Change done, I think, but didn't have time to get to any other potential Dawnshards, and didn't look over my Change chart as thoroughly as I'd like to. Here's my current version, but it's greatly subject to, well, change, as I flesh things out with the other ones. Dark green means likely (imo), light green means maybe, light red means I don't think so, and dark red means I really doubt it.

Shard	Strong For	Weak For	Neutral	Weak Against	Strong Against	Reasoning
Devotion						Supports watching change and growth but also lasting interpersonal connection
Dominion						Will change when necessary to dominate, but also will make the new structure last
Ruin						Does this need elaboration?
Preservation						Does this need elaboration?
Endowment						Sort of focused on change, but also heavily on others doing as they choose
Honor						SL has that drive to act thing, but also likes oaths being kept rather than changing
Cultivation						Does this need elaboration?
Odium						Force of passion and dynamism and fleeting but powerful moments
Autonomy						Will support both change and not-change depending on if it suits the goal, but goal leans not
Ambition						Force of change and growth and achievement
Invention						Definitely change-y
Whimsy						Change without regard for much else
Mercy						Will support both change and not-change depending on if it suits the goal, but goal leans not
Valor						Feels very drive-to-accomplish-y
[Wisdom]						Depends heavily on exact name, but "Wisdom" to me has a more go-with-the-flow vibe
[?]

I've tried to provide explanations, but they're pretty brief and on-the-spot. Will likely edit those a lot when I do a more polished version.