What's Shards' intent?

[Argenti]

I'm working on a theory and am struggling with putting some intents into words. Heres Cultivation's for the mood "Grow and Change To Become Something Greater". Can y'all help me with Honor, Endowment, and the RoW Shards?

[alder24]

14 minutes ago, Argenti said:

I'm working on a theory and am struggling with putting some intents into words. Heres Cultivation's for the mood "Grow and Change To Become Something Greater". Can y'all help me with Honor, Endowment, and the RoW Shards?

Their names are their intents. Cultivation's intent is Cultivation, Honor's intent is Honor, Endowment's intent is Endowment etc. That's it.

But what it means in practice? For Cultivation it's about growing and changing, not matter if it's for good or evil, it's just about growth. For Honor it's about oaths, not matter if good oaths, or bad, just to keep them (that's what Odium and Stormfather said). Endowment is about giving with no strings attached (WoB was about it). Odium is about hatred, but also is redefined as Passion, which is about emotions (by Venli's world mostly bad ones, no loving, caring etc). Shards like Mercy, Ambition, Invention, Valor or Whimsy work similarly, these names are their intents, but in practise we don't really know anything more about them than their Intents (except for Ambition, which is dead and Splintered).

Now I see, intents into words. Ok, I get it. So it's about what in the second paragraph. And have some WoBs about it:

Spoiler

Badger1289

If Investiture can’t be moved beyond a certain point away from its world/solar system, how in the Cosmere did three Awakeners end up on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture from different systems acts in different ways. Certain people have managed, for example, to get some kinds of Investiture to leave their home world through the use of a kind of magical pipeline. Breaths attach to the identity of the individual, and are fully given away--freely, which removes some of this Connection. It's a nature of Endowment that the gift is given without strings attached, so to speak. But while it's a renewable resource, it's a difficult one.

Roshar is extra "sticky" so to speak with Investiture. It's part of the nature of Honor, Cultivation, and oaths. So getting it off is a problem, though collecting it is not.

Echono

Wouldn't consuming it also be a problem? You need a direct or secondary Bond to take in Stormlight Investiture. It's not like metals or Breaths that anyone could absorb. Although a certain grouchy ardent might have found a way...

Brandon Sanderson

You are right in that Stormlight is more being seen as a power source, since certain systems in the cosmere can work on a variety of different kinds. Not just anyone could make use of it, at least not unless it is refined.

Rhythm of War Preview Q&As (Oct. 8, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Nouf

What does it mean that Kaladin is close to Honor, and how did that factor into him staying conscious while every other Windrunner in the tower didn't?

Brandon Sanderson

The nuts and bolts answer is, Kaladin basically was in a place where he could say the next oath, and should have said the next oath, and indeed knew the next oath, and it was on his tongue, and he refused to. So basically he was as close to being the next level of Knights Radiant as a person could humanly get, because everyone considered him ready except himself. He even knew that he was ready, but by saying it, it would require him to give up something that was precious to him, which is his feeling guilty. A precious part of his identity as he saw it. And he would have to relinquish that. That's the bulk of it.

The other bulk of it is, the level to which Kaladin tries to protect, the level to which Kaladin exemplifies the Ideals of the Windrunners, and indeed of the way that Honor would have all Knights Radiant act, is so over the top, in alignment with the way Honor would like it to be, that it could even be considered unhealthy. Remember, Honor didn't always encourage healthy relationships with things like the power, particularly later in his existence. So either way, Kaladin is just kind of extra aligned with that intent, if that makes any sense.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

It was mentioned that there are 16 gods in your Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on your definition of god.

Questioner

Shards. Are the ten orders of the Knight Radiants related to specific gods? Because Honor, child of Honor-Kaladin

Brandon Sanderson

So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.

Questioner

I was wondering how much-

Brandon Sanderson

But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.

Questioner

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

Questioner

Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Autarchk

If I can ask a question, I just read the Mistborn trilogy and, were Preservation and Ruin two different shards or a single one with their power split somehow? If they were two shards, does that mean a single person can hold more than one, since Harmony apparently holds both now?

Brandon Sanderson

They were two shards.

Yes, one entity can hold more than one. Remember that holding a shard changes you, over time. Rayse knows this, and prefers to leave behind destroyed rivals as opposed to taking their power and potentially being overwhelmed by it.

Nepene

I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him- Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people.

Brandon Sanderson

Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view.

That said, Ruin would have been one of the 'safer' of the sixteen for Rayse to take, if he'd been about that. Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else.

General Reddit 2013 (March 14, 2013)

 

Spoiler

m4ge

If a Splintered Shard is somehow reformed, is it possible to change the word that expresses its Intent?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but that's a very implausible thing depending on how... so, you're getting into some weird Cosmere stuff here. Most of the ways that these different Shards could manifest could be described differently. Odium is trying very hard to describe his Shard as something different, and there's an argument there. But it depends on if you're like actually changing it or if you just want to call it something different. You could just call Odium Hatred and it's not going to change anything, but if you wanted to change Odium to mean Passion like Odium thinks that it means, then that's more difficult.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Striker_EZ

Why didn't Odium take the Investiture away from the Fused that rebelled against him at the end of Rhythm of War? At the end of Oathbringer, Odium tells one Fused that questioned him that he could take "that which gave [the Fused] life." So why didn't he do that to Leshwi and the others?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually an excellent question. Odium, in his previous incarnation-- we'll see how he acts now-- part of the driving force of Odium is this kind of belief, mistaken or otherwise, that Odium represents all emotion, and strength of emotion, and basically the Passions in lore. Rebelling against him in the way that they did is actually in line with Odium's personal directives. The Vessel may not like it, in fact the power may not like it, but at the same time, there's a part of both of them that acknowledges, this is what they set in motion, and this is an appropriate use of the agency of the agents they chose. And so, unilaterally destroying those who turn against him is actually not an Odium thing. It's more an Honor thing than it would be an Odium thing. It's just not in line with how Odium acts or thinks, even though it's possible and there's threats and... That's not saying Odium wouldn't do it. But acting like Honor is not something Odium would necessarily want to do.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

[Argenti]

15 hours ago, alder24 said:

Their names are their intents. Cultivation's intent is Cultivation, Honor's intent is Honor, Endowment's intent is Endowment etc. That's it.

But what it means in practice? For Cultivation it's about growing and changing, not matter if it's for good or evil, it's just about growth. For Honor it's about oaths, not matter if good oaths, or bad, just to keep them (that's what Odium and Stormfather said). Endowment is about giving with no strings attached (WoB was about it). Odium is about hatred, but also is redefined as Passion, which is about emotions (by Venli's world mostly bad ones, no loving, caring etc). Shards like Mercy, Ambition, Invention, Valor or Whimsy work similarly, these names are their intents, but in practise we don't really know anything more about them than their Intents (except for Ambition, which is dead and Splintered).

Now I see, intents into words. Ok, I get it. So it's about what in the second paragraph. And have some WoBs about it:

So lets say Endowment is "Give Them Power Freely", Odium is "Let The Hate Flow Through You" "Let Passion Sear The World"  , I'm still struggling with wording Honor's intent "Bind The World"?

Edited April 30, 2023 by Argenti

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, Argenti said:

So lets say Endowment is "Give Them Power Freely", Odium is "Let The Hate Flow Through You" "Let Passion Sear The World"  , I'm still struggling with wording Honor's intent

Bind them with Oaths? I have no idea what you want to achieve with this.

[Argenti]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Bind them with Oaths? I have no idea what you want to achieve with this.

I'm try to put them into a command kinda? Honestly I'm not even sure, it'll makes sense later.

 

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Argenti said:

So lets say Endowment is "Give Them Power Freely", Odium is "Let The Hate Flow Through You" "Let Passion Sear The World"  , I'm still struggling with wording Honor's intent "Bind The World"?

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Bind them with Oaths? I have no idea what you want to achieve with this.

I get the feeling that @Argenti is trying to distill one application of the Shard's Intent; however, Shard's intent affects all aspects of how they interact with Spiritual, Cognitive and Physical Realms. Examples (Endowment):

Spoiler

Quote

 

Endowment is about "giving" and that is reflected in:

• Awakening is expressed by endowing breath on inanimate objects to bring them to life
  • Breath transfer also changes the Identity of breath that is "Endowed" to another sapient being ("My Breath to yours" command)
• Breath itself is an innate investiture reflection of Endowment
• Lifeless retain breath that has been endowed to them with Intent and Command because they are so close to life that the Identity changes just as it does above
• Edgli  Endows the worthy dead with glimpses of Fortune to let them choose to become returned.
  • The Divine Breath Endows the same benefits of the Fifth heightening to the returned
  • The Divine Breath can be endowed upon another to Heal them
• Breath is the easiest Investiture to take off-world because it is "endowed" to the individual and therefore Connected to them, not the Nalthian system
• People with the third heighteneing may unwittingly channel Fortune that has been endowed to them through their art
  • In the Court of the Gods in Hallendren this is expressed in the Returned "seeing" the glimpses of fortune in the poem and art offerings
  • These glimpses of Fortune are not limited to Nalthis, since it was a Nalthian painting from Hallandren that Kaladin found in Celebrant warning him of the Unmade affecting Dalinar.

So, in any action/interaction Edgli would have to act in accordance with her Shard's intent. You can find this kind of influence in almost every Cosmere story. Preservation expressed in how Kelsier Survives (multiple times), in how the Hero of Ages myth lasts millenia, in how the Final Empire survived 1000 yrs, etc.

Devotion expressed in how people showing devotion to <something> are chosen by the Shaod, and in how the  Seons behave; Dominion expressed in how access to the Dor is based on geographic Identity, and how the Skaze behave. Honor expressed in how Oaths function for Radiants, in how the bonds of the Honorpact functioned and linger because of Taln's honoring of his oath; Cultivation expressed in how she meddled with "three specific people" to both affect the course of the final desolation and engineer Rayse's downfall, as well as how the "old magic" functions with both a "loss" (curse) and "growth" (boon) similar to how plant life is cultivated through both guided growth and deaheading.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Treamayne
Stupid interface

[Nogo]

I have done this with the Shards on my own quite a bit... just thinking and debating with myself what the actual full meaning / intent of each shard is.  The ones we know, we can handle pretty well based on the name and their actions.  What I have also been doing is looking up their definition online (nerdy, I know) and then also using a thesaurus to look at their synonyms and antonyms.  Sanderson has a specific idea for each Shard... and has given us clues with the name but also a lot of leeway with how the Shard actually interacts.

Recently I have been trying to group Shards together in push/pull and physical/mental/temporal/enhancement groupings like the metals on Scandrial.  In doing so all I have really accomplished is coming up with guesses for the missing two Shards.  I'll share for kicks and giggles.   The first, as has been theorized already online, I'm guessing is Prudence (push/pull with Valor in my little chart).  Some people have said wisdom, but I like the Prudence better. The other I came up with winds up being the push/pull of Cultivation which made me guess at some variation of Ignorance or Neglect.

Seriously though, when I'm deep in thought about these things, the thesaurus really helps me expand on the nuances of the words more than the actual definition.