Which Shard is defying their Intent?

[hitkay]

 

I'd like to discuss this WoB. I think it's been overlooked.

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zotsandcrambles

You've mentioned that a person's personality eventually erodes and is replaced by the will of the shard they hold. Besides Harmony, are there any Shards holders that are still actively and significantly defying the intent of their shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Who exactly was this referring to? According to the full WoB there are at least two Shards who are notably defying their Intent.

At this time, Ati and Taravangian were not Vessels, so they don't count. We've seen nothing to suggest that Cultivation is defying her Intent and plenty to suggest that she's fulfilling it, and Rayse deliberately chose the Odium Shard so I think we can safely rule him out. Ambition and Honor are Splintered. The Dor has no Vessel. Given what we know of Autonomy, she is a very unlikely candidate. As Valor is responsive to Hoid's plea for help, showing that she is neither indifferent nor cowardly, she probably isn't defying her Intent either.

Note that this all implies that the Vessel is at least partially in control, unlike Ati, who had become a "puppet" to Ruin after influencing it towards entropy rather than random destruction. But I think we can be reasonably sure that the other Shards are influenced by their Vessels, as we see them make personal statements and decisions, and we see their preferences (even with Virtuosity and Valor who haven't even appeared: Virtuosity preferred to move around and Valor's Vessel passed along a message to Hoid). Ati, fairly weakwilled and handling one of the most corruptive Shards, had his personality completely (or almost completely) overridden, which does not seem to apply to anyone else. This is why I think that if one of the Shards I've mentioned was a Shard that the WoB refers to, we would have seen evidence of this, or in the case of Virtuosity and Valor wouldn't have gotten evidence against it.

So I think our only candidates are Whimsy, Invention, Mercy, Endowment, and the survival Shard and/or the Shard with an Intent related to 'wisdom', depending on whether Invention is one of them (but we know it isn't both).

• Whimsy's Vessel could be fighting in an attempt to act rationally, and could be one of the Vessels that regrets becoming a Shard.
• Invention's Vessel could be wary of the power of developing technology in the cosmere. Think nuclear missiles. Invention could be the Shard who was forced to leave their planet after it was destroyed by their own doing, which may have led to the Vessel trying to defy the Shard's Intent. This event may have been the reason why Harmony was unable to locate Invention again, or maybe Invention is moving around to try and avoid influencing a planet's advancement as much as possible.
• Mercy "troubles" Harmony and was involved in a battle with Odium and Ambition, though we don't know which side they were fighting for (but we know Odium is allied to a non-Autonomy cosmic power). This seems to imply that Mercy is either unstable or antagonistic. In either case, that could potentially be a sadistic Vessel rebelling against a merciful Intent, for better or worse. Say the Vessel wants revenge on Odium for the Threnody battle, but cannot act against him because of the Shard's Intent, which is why Harmony is troubled. Or say the Vessel is a murderous psychopath who finds that despite the godhood they yearned for, they are hindered by their Intent, so they've allied with Odium, and that's why Harmony is troubled. Or maybe the Vessel was injured by Odium, or maybe the Vessel just has a twisted concept of mercy, and that's why Harmony is troubled. We'll see, eventually.
• We haven't seen much of Endowment, and though her magic system is reminiscent of a creator granting things to the populace, Edgli rejects Hoid's plea for aid, so while she's an unlikely candidate, I don't want to rule her out completely. It may be worth noting that Edgli does not seem to regret becoming a Shard at all, and seems to condemn Hoid for rejecting his chance. However, we also know that Endowment is the Shard that Hoid would have chosen, so it's possible that if Edgli is rebelling against Endowment's Intent, then she resents Hoid for inadvertently causing her to be in that situation. But again: unlikely.
• The survival Shard's Intent is only tangentially related to its desire to survive, but as it has recently realized that this may not be its best option, it may currently be defying this Intent to do something else. We really just don't know enough about it.

Hopefully, at least two of these are somewhat accurate. If I've missed something, please let me know.

Edited November 5, 2022 by Greywatch
deleted secret projects spoilers

[teknopathetic he/him]

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zotsandcrambles

You've mentioned that a person's personality eventually erodes and is replaced by the will of the shard they hold. Besides Harmony, are there any Shards holders that are still actively and significantly defying the intent of their shard?

This could potentially just refer to Odium, unfortunately. This WOB is from 2015, but Oathbringer came out in 2017. I am not sure if we knew about "Passion" and the struggles going on there with Odium and Rayse in 2015. 

If I were to pick a shard fighting their intent, I would say Autonomy. Something very very strange seems to be going on there. Autonomy seems to be meddling with other shards, taking over investiture, being an isolationist on its own world, and in general not letting other shards e very autonomous. It kind of feels like that shard is bending a bit strangely in how it is being actualized, IMO

Edited November 4, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, teknopathetic said:

This could potentially just refer to Odium, unfortunately. This WOB is from 2015, but Oathbringer came out in 2017. I am not sure if we knew about "Passion" and the struggles going on there with Odium and Rayse in 2015. 

If I were to pick a shard fighting their intent, I would say Autonomy. Something very very strange seems to be going on there. Autonomy seems to be meddling with other shards, taking over investiture, being an isolationist on its own world, and in general not letting other shards e very autonomous. It kind of feels like that shard is bending a bit strangely in how it is being actualized, IMO

Autonomy, and Avatars, might have more discretion and diversity with their interpretation of the Intent. Some are Isolationists, others see themselves as Freedom Fighters.

[Returned he/him]

3 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

This could potentially just refer to Odium, unfortunately. This WOB is from 2015, but Oathbringer came out in 2017. I am not sure if we knew about "Passion" and the struggles going on there with Odium and Rayse in 2015. 

If I were to pick a shard fighting their intent, I would say Autonomy. Something very very strange seems to be going on there. Autonomy seems to be meddling with other shards, taking over investiture, being an isolationist on its own world, and in general not letting other shards e very autonomous. It kind of feels like that shard is bending a bit strangely in how it is being actualized, IMO

I've always thought that, to maximize Autonomy's own autonomy, she'd have to disrupt other Shards' abilities to coerce or influence her in any way or their capacity to counteract decisions she'd made. Even if she wants (or is driven to) promote autonomy all around it seems like her own would be paramount if there were ever a conflict between hers and someone else's. She could also just be an anti-schemer in general. If a Shard has a plan that involves people doing what it wants, Autonomy might be characteristically driven to "free" those people from the Shard's desire for them to do what it wants rather than what they want. (Obvious connections to Mistborn era 2, with a shelf life of up to 11 days until Lost Metal's release!)

It's really hard to figure out Intent mismatches between Shards and Vessels. It seems like there are inflections that Shards might permit and some that they'll resist, and it's not clear where the dividing line is. I think that Rayse was a good match for Odium (per WoB), but that when he's onscreen in Rhythm I think he's struggling against Odium in an effort to accomplish some specific things that the Shard doesn't care about.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Returned

[Mr. Misting he/him]

The are only four shards I currently think are rebelling or in some way are opposed to their intent. I'm mostly just reiterating things people have said from how I see it.

Harmony because of how he views that as equal destruction and preservation and that is just a very hard balance to keep. We see how he can take limited actions due to his intent and I would assume that he strains to overreach his intent to affect things.

Odium is the other obvious one. I think he is generally in line with the intent but his desire for dominance and control seems to be out of line with the intent occasionally.

Whimsy's vessel, has in all likelihood, degraded to a puppet as Ati did. I can't image anyone who could actually follow Whimsy's intent well. You could make no rational decisions and it is beyond my imagination to think of someone who could do this. 

And Autonomy because Autonomy is weird. I can't decide what exactly I think Autonomy's intent is but it probably is being defying it somehow. She is doing so much odd stuff, I would assume something eventually would be against the intent.