Could multiple people hold a Shard at once? [Discuss]

[Cocoa he/him]

This is rooted somewhat is Stormlight Archive speculation about the Honor shard potentially being un-splintered and taken up by Kaladin or Dalinar (who are bonded to Syl and the Stormfather respectively, both of whom I think could also be suitable vessels for Honor), but I want to ask it as a broader question. We know a single vessel can potentially hold multiple shards thanks to Sazed, but do you think two or more people can serve side by side as vessels of a single shard, provided they are both sufficiently connected to it? If so, what happens if they try to use the shard's power in conflicting ways? Does the answer change if the two have closely linked spiritwebs, such as in the case of a surgebinder and their bonded spren? If it is possible and two people took up the same shard, would the pressure of the shard's Intent bring their Identities closer together or even merge the two into a single entity given enough time?

Edited January 16, 2022 by Cocoa

[Eternal Khol he/him]

Id say thats pretty much what an Avatar is. Maybe not as directly tied together/linked as you're examples, but it should still count.

in fact, Brandon has said that its plausible that someone could Ascend using the splinter/power that is the Avatar(you would have to get rid of the Avatar's preexisting personality though)

Edited January 16, 2022 by Eternal Khol

[Anomander Rake he/him]

Off the cuff I'd assume a Surgebinder and Spren could hold a shard together?  Or maybe rather someone could be hold both a shard and nahel bond at the same time?  IDK, I just think it'd suck to have a spren get the boot if their bondmate ascends.

[Mjhutchinson]

3 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

Off the cuff I'd assume a Surgebinder and Spren could hold a shard together?  Or maybe rather someone could be hold both a shard and nahel bond at the same time?  IDK, I just think it'd suck to have a spren get the boot if their bondmate ascends.

I can't for the life of me find it, but there's a WoB about exactly this, I read it just the other day.

Someone asked if a knight radiant and their spren could hold a shard together, and it was RAFO'ed

[Anomander Rake he/him]

1 hour ago, Mjhutchinson said:

I can't for the life of me find it, but there's a WoB about exactly this, I read it just the other day.

Someone asked if a knight radiant and their spren could hold a shard together, and it was RAFO'ed

Yup!  You're right.

Quote

Questioner

What would happen to a spren if someone with a Nahel bond Ascended?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a good question, and it is also a RAFO.

Tor Instagram Livestream (Nov. 25, 2020)

 

[Cocoa he/him]

2 hours ago, Mjhutchinson said:

I can't for the life of me find it, but there's a WoB about exactly this, I read it just the other day.

Someone asked if a knight radiant and their spren could hold a shard together, and it was RAFO'ed

Ah, wonderful, seems I'm not the only person wanting to know about that specific interaction then. And the fact that it was RAFO'd (and called a good question) has my hopes up that we'll see something neat relating to that.

[Frustration]

I would say no, as that's kind of like asking if multiple people can bond the same spren.

And while you can, it just can't be at the same time

[apepi]

I would argue, that is it somewhat possible, and we kind of have seen(or will) see it.

Like, we have seen Dalinar able to be able to make deals for the rest of Honor, because he holds the most Honor investiture. But like, With Navani becoming a Bondsmith she is also going to have a lot of Honor in her(although not as much as Dalinar).

So like it is possible for a shard to have two two large splinters of the same power and have them bonded to someone. Whether you count this as being a vessel well, idk, but it is kind of like an....acting vessel I guess.

[cometaryorbit]

Based on very little, I'd say not as true Vessels, but something similar could probably happen.

Endowment is a living (non-Splintered) Shard, but she has Splinters (Divine Breath) held by the Returned. Before Honor's death, he had Splinters (honorspren) bonded to Knights Radiant. And there's a WoB that Splinters of a living Shard are still part of that Shard.

So if a Shard voluntarily made really huge Splinters, adding up to most of the Shard's total Investiture, and those were held or bonded by other people, maybe you could have a situation where there were multiple near equal powered holders, and all that power is still part of "the same Shard" in some sense.

(I'd imagine there's a minimum threshold of Investiture for the original Vessel to stay Vessel-style immortal, but if you can be a Vessel of an Avatar, then it's probably a fairly small fraction of the whole Shard.)

Perhaps there would be a way to do Connection things to reconnect the parts of Honor without "absorbing" the Honorspren, since they had individual minds/personalities even when they were still part of a living Honor.

 

[CryoZenith he/him]

25 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

(I'd imagine there's a minimum threshold of Investiture for the original Vessel to stay Vessel-style immortal, but if you can be a Vessel of an Avatar, then it's probably a fairly small fraction of the whole Shard.)

The minimum threshold for how Invested you have to be to stay immortal is 2000 breaths. That's a decently high amount of investiture, don't get me wrong, but it's not gigantic, on the Avatar scale. (A counterargument you could make here is that maybe Endowment-type investiture is better at anti-aging properties than other types of investiture, but I doubt it's over an entire order of magnitude better.)

[cometaryorbit]

1 minute ago, CryoZenith said:

The minimum threshold for how Invested you have to be to stay immortal is 2000 breaths. That's a decently high amount of investiture, don't get me wrong, but it's not gigantic, on the Avatar scale. (A counterargument you could make here is that maybe Endowment-type investiture is better at anti-aging properties than other types of investiture, but I doubt it's over an entire order of magnitude better.)

Well, by "Vessel-style immortal" I meant the 'body kind of merges into Investiture' thing we see when people Ascend to a full Shard, not agelessness.

Fifth Heightening people presumably still have regular biological needs (food, water, air etc.). Returned don't need to eat, I think, but they need more Investiture- a Breath a week. So I don't think 2000 Breaths is enough for no-further-input immortality.