Shard Patterns

[The Stick]

I have seen threads speaking about the connectiona of Dawnshards and Shards to try to puzzle out various intents, but I want to take this a step further to find out who may hold the Dawnshards in addition to their intents.

We know the Change Dawnshards is in possession of Ryan.

Shards who encompass the nature of change are

Ruin- naturally changes things by breaking things down.

Cultivation- cultivates things to change and grow.

Endowment- less evidence, but gives and changes possession.

I think the last is either Invention or Ambition

Invention is obviously in the business of creation of new things, so there is evidence here. 

Ambition may change the status quo through its ambition, although this is not really supported.

 

Unity, Bonding, Oaths, Staying

This Dawnshard is evidenced by Shards with these types of Intents and in my personal belief, in Dalinar's visions telling him to unite.

Honor- his entire intent is focused around oaths and bonds.

Preservation- he wants things to remain.

Maybe Dominion- she wants to rule and keep things under her dominion.

I have no idea for the last, maybe Wisdom, if this exists.

 

Passion Dawnshards

Odium- his entire Intent is emotion.

Whimsy- his intent is also volatile and characterized by emotion

I could see Mercy being under this category.

Devotion may also be categorized here

 

The final Dawnshards may be something to do with Independence

Autonomy- quite obvious match of Intent.

Valor- exploring new waters and moving forward bravely.

Maybe Ambition

I personally think the Dawnshards Hoid and Sigzil held was the final Independence Dawnshard.

However- I could also see a Kindness group with Mercy, Devotion, and maybe Endowment.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by The Stick

[Argenti he/him]

Sp4, sp4

Spoiler

1 hour ago, The Stick said:

I have seen threads speaking about the connectiona of Dawnshards and Shards to try to puzzle out various intents, but I want to take this a step further to find out who may hold the Dawnshards in addition to their intents.

We know the Change Dawnshards is in possession of Ryan.

Shards who encompass the nature of change are

Ruin- naturally changes things by breaking things down.

Cultivation- cultivates things to change and grow.

Endowment- less evidence, but gives and changes possession.

I think the last is either Invention or Ambition

Invention is obviously in the business of creation of new things, so there is evidence here. 

Ambition may change the status quo through its ambition, although this is not really supported.

 

Unity, Bonding, Oaths, Staying

This Dawnshard is evidenced by Shards with these types of Intents and in my personal belief, in Dalinar's visions telling him to unite.

Honor- his entire intent is focused around oaths and bonds.

Preservation- he wants things to remain.

Maybe Dominion- she wants to rule and keep things under her dominion.

I have no idea for the last, maybe Wisdom, if this exists.

 

Passion Dawnshards

Odium- his entire Intent is emotion.

Whimsy- his intent is also volatile and characterized by emotion

I could see Mercy being under this category.

Devotion may also be categorized here

 

The final Dawnshards may be something to do with Independence

Autonomy- quite obvious match of Intent.

Valor- exploring new waters and moving forward bravely.

Maybe Ambition

Perhaps Virtuosity.

I personally think the Dawnshards Hoid and Sigzil held was the final Independence Dawnshard.

However- I could also see a Kindness group with Mercy, Devotion, and maybe Endowment.

 

Secret project spoilers are not allowed to be discussed here please remove them (or move this to a different area.)

Thanks!

[The Stick]

Of Course, I forgot Tress was still in Spoiler phase.

[Argenti he/him]

Just now, The Stick said:

Of Course, I forgot Tress was still in Spoiler phase.

Yup happens to us all. Other than that good theory!

[TheoreticalMagic]

Well, based on this theory of mine from one of the Secret Forums, though I think anything further I add here is free of spoilers specific to the secret projects, but just to make it explicitly clear, this does cover all fifteen named Shards:

(Buckle up, I had TIME tonight, and this got LONG)

I theorize the Dawnshards are something like Connect, Change, Exist and Move.

Connect I correlate to the Investiture/magical equivalent of gravity's place in the Unified Field Theory as one of the fundamental forces that govern our universe. Yes, even though gravity is one of the specific forces that fall under one single Shardworld's magic system (albeit while standing out among the nine other forces its supposedly 'equivalent' to. Its been noted that the surge of Adhesion was a deliberate addition by Honor rather than just a natural expression of the forces in the Rosharan and the way the various Shards' Intents interact with them and manifest magically. This could be because Honor was trying to stack the deck of his magic system by engineering a way to work in a force even more primal than the nine natural Surges, trying to grant his people access to power more directly aligned with the Dawnshards and the forces THEY govern....but in a deliberately diluted fashion or through a more restrictive lens than the Dawnshards allow access to, in order to avoid a repeat of the disaster that struck Ashyn when the Dawnshards and Surges were used recklessly there).

Point being, the Dawnshard 'Connect,' the one that can bind any creature, Voidish or mortal, much like the Surge of Adhesion can create gravitational bonds holding things so firmly together they can't be separated....would be the Dawnshard that embodies the cosmere's primal force governing....Purpose. Meaning. Gravity. All the things that across every Realm - Physical, Cognitive and Spiritual - make actions and symbols and events MATTER, have lasting significance or build towards greater purposes or outcomes rather than just existing as singular blips in time and space that never connect - or bind themselves - to any other moments in time and space, which would mean nothing ever matters, causes never lead to effects, everything is aimless, directionless, purposeless...it exists just to exist in and of itself rather than as individual pieces of a greater whole....threads of a tapestry comprising the entirety of the cosmere....and with each thread's BINDING to the other threads and the overall tapestry itself...being the only things that allow those threads to stay together long and surely enough to form a greater picture, to add up to something bigger than themselves, a whole that surpasses the sum of its individual parts.

Change would be the Dawnshard that serves as the magical/Investiture equivalent to the physical force of electromagnetism. Electromagnetism governs the charging of particles and the interactions between positive and negative charges, all of which is fundamental to the changing states of matter. In a similar vein, the Change Dawnshard governs and instigates the very essence of fluidity within the cosmere's various Realms, everything that keeps things from growing static and stagnant, ensuring that the cosmere's various pieces and forces don't become locked and mired into a single framework whose very existence would act as an endpoint to creation, claiming it had reached a 'final, ultimate form' from which there would be no further alterations, no new interactions between pieces would ever occur without Change, no new shapes or forms would ever be discovered by those various pieces....Change and its derivative forces and Shards are what keeps the tapestry that shows the shape and story of the cosmere from being 'complete' and just freezing in place, never again showing anything other than what the tapestry already displays in this moment.

Connect makes things that happen matter, makes things have weight, makes interactions have meaning, makes causes link up to effects, actions beget consequences. Change is the energy of those interactions, the forces that make those ever-changing, ever-shifting interactions happen again and again, always in slightly new and different ways before sparking yet another new change in yet another interaction or shift in state or status.

Then Exist would be the Dawnshard that correlates to the strong nuclear force in the Unified Field Theory, the cosmere magical equivalent to that physical force that unlike gravitation and electromagnetism doesn't ACTIVELY act upon particles or other forces in...but rather is a more passive force that defines the natural state and interactions between particles when not being actively acted upon. Its the force that defines and explains what we're looking at when we simply observe how different bits of creation exist in relation to each other at any given moment.....it contextualizes other forces, interactions and how all the pieces of creation fit together. It exists to say.....things exist. Even when not actively being acted upon or at rest or while being uncatalyzed potential energy that has yet to have the match struck that will spark its potential and use it in an actual energetic interaction that sparks change or binds a cause to a correlating effect...this is the force that's defined by simply being evidence or proof of the fact that all these individual pieces of creation and its myriad energies EXIST regardless of the why or the how, even in the absence of gravity or bindings that build and combine those pieces into greater wholes and before and after each individual change that turns what exists in any single moment into something new in the next moment.

If Connect is the Dawnshard of Matter and Change is the Dawnshard of Energy, then Exist is the Dawnshard of Space, the basic bedrock of the cosmere upon which everything else is built....the fundamental, foundational stuff that needs to simply exist for no other reason than for all of creation to have something to be built UPON. Exist is the Dawnshard that creates a frame for that tapestry that shows the shape and story of the cosmere....the border and expanse of everything within that border that says everything contained within this frame IS the cosmere, it is what exists. The Exist Dawnshard and its linked Shards and the forces it governs are that which provide context so that the picture and story of the cosmere, everything the tapestry is comprised of....can exist within a singular frame, be viewed AS that larger whole....so that you can look at it and group everything within it together and say oh I see, all of this is meant to be viewed as one giant image, all of this is connected. THIS is the cosmere. This is everything that EXISTS, because this Dawnshard and its forces ensure that it does, by mandate of the Creative Urge, due to a Primal Command that said....EXIST, so that things could CONNECT and bind and build when CHANGE sparked new interactions, forced shifts in phase state, and so on and so on.

Which brings us to the last Dawnshard, the correlating cosmere magical equivalent to the weak nuclear force in the Unified Field Theory. The outlier, for all that the strong and weak nuclear forces are often erroneously assumed to be direct opposites or inversions of each other, and fits into what Brandon's said about how one of the Dawnshards is distinct from the other three. This is the Move Dawnshard, the Dawnshard of Time to the other three Dawnshards of Space, Matter and Energy. Space, everything that exists, and Connect and Change, all the little pieces of Matter within that Space and all the Energy used to create constant changes and fluidity, forever shaping all that Matter across all of Space into new configurations and shapes and combinations.

And finally, Time....the Primal Command that says Make Things Go, that looked at all the other fundamental ingredients of creation and how they fit together and were intended to work in concert with each other in order for creation to BE and to define how it all combines into that tapestry showing the story of the cosmere, the whole that's greater than the sum of its parts....and essentially acted as the pushing of a divine start button. Everything else, the other three Dawnshards and all the smaller Shards of Adonalsium that they were used to shatter God into...they all make up the engine of creation. You can't remove one of them or the forces or ingredients they govern and embody....without the engine as a whole falling apart or failing to work properly. They all need each other to do what they're intended to do. The outlier Dawnshard, the Move Dawnshard....that exists separate from the engine, because something had to turn that engine on. Once the engine had finished being assembled, once all the other ingredients of creation had been put in place and were ready to come together to BE creation....there was something else, one last Divine Command, to acknowledge that creation was ready to be created, and now it was time to press go....so that the creator, or those holding the powers of creation, could then step back and watch things MOVE. See creation actualized, the Grand Design at work.

Which gives us the tapestry of the cosmere, fit within its frame of space, the borders of everything that the creator or those wielding its power commanded to EXIST, the shape and story that tapestry displays being woven of individual threads of matter, all the stuff that's bound together in order to ensure that each thread ends up having meaning beyond itself, is part of something bigger than just one single thread, none of it floating alone and disconnected in a void, all of the individual pieces of creation that the creator or its surrogates or substitutes gave the Command to CONNECT, to matter, to bind itself to more matter and bigger pictures....and with those images displayed upon the tapestry of creation being scenes of energy at work, their story constantly shifting, evolving, growing bigger and the tapestry's billions of connected threads combining and recombining into an endless array of new shapes, forms and combinations as the ways those threads combine constantly CHANGE. 

MOVE, Time, is the lever that needs to be pulled, the button that needs to be pushed, for the tapestry of creation, everything it is and everything it COULD be, to tell an actual story. To have momentum, to move forward, to CONNECT and CHANGE things that EXIST in a never-ending march forward that never stops, because the Primal Command, the divine mandate that comprises Time and its correlating Shards and forces....it didn't set a time limit, it didn't say MOVE and then stop, it just said MOVE.....and once everything was set in motion, nothing further needed to be said in order for creation to progress eternally onward, continuing the weaving of that tapestry without end, it growing and changing and the story it tells getting bigger and more intricate the more Time passes, the more things Move.

And thus, all that said....these are the Shard Patterns that form in my estimation.

The Shards that fall under the grouping of CONNECT, that correspond to that Dawnshard and together comprise equivalent forces to that initial, Prime creative demand that things matter and that everything that matters stick together, combine into bigger things:

CONNECT

Honor - this Shard embodies actions bound to consequences, intentions bound to actual deeds. Oaths connecting individuals to ideals in ways that only matter if that individual gives actual weight to their perception of Honor and how it binds their actions, narrows their focus, governs the hows and whys of connecting thought to action, cause to effect. Honor connects Knight to spren, connects oath to ideal, connects promises to the consequences of breaking those promises.

Dominion - this Shard embodies the connections that bind all the people within a land, all the places under one ruler's thumb, into a singular mass that someone can claim as their dominion. To have dominion over certain skillsets, mastery of various arts or magics, means to not just be connected to every move that comprises a martial art, but to know how each of those moves connects to the others - only then can one take full advantage of all the potential that exists within that martial art, all the ways you can change from one stance to another by having complete dominion over every possible combination of moves and stances that make up that martial art. A leader is connected to everything in his dominion and has command of the ways individuals under his dominion can connect with each other, with their land, with a common, unifying cause. Dominions can spread and expand by subjugating new lands and people who upon conquest become connected to everything that already falls under a certain dominion, and whomever holds the reins of that dominion and everything it contains. And the only way to wrestle out from under someone's dominion, to break free of their control, is to sever what binds you to that person....and often whatever connections you have to everything else still under their dominion.

Devotion - This Shard embodies the bond that signifies a desire or willingness to connect yourself to a focus to whom you'd give your loyalty, your time, your energy, possibly the entirety of everything you have to offer someone. It is not love, it is not an inherent potential for compassion or hope....as Adonalsium could have shattered in many different ways, in another universe perhaps there might be Shards of Love or Hope or Compassion, but this is not those. Unlike Odium, which can exist directionless and without target, Devotion requires a recipient. It includes all manner of positive attributes one might have to offer a single person or focus upon a singular pursuit or higher calling....to devote oneself to another person may often include giving them your loyalty, to devote oneself to the belief all knowledge exists to be shared might display an absence of greed or selfishness. Devotion can take many forms, change over time or even shift from one recipient to a different one, but its very nature requires connection. It is not the mere existence of positive traits like selflessness or charity or loyalty...it is the desire to focus all those traits, everything one has to offer, upon a single connection. A singular focus you willingly bind yourself to BEFORE making them the recipient of all you can devote to them. But it must be TO them. A passing of focus, energies and resources along one single connection, one binding thread....and if someone decides at some point there's a worthier recipient of their devotion, they can and often do shift where they direct their focus, but in order for that to happen, a new connection must be formed. Love can exist without aim. Compassion does not need to be channeled towards a specific person. But Devotion requires connection. One can not devote themselves to another or to a study or a cause without being willing to bind themselves to the subject of that devotion.

Preservation - This Shard embodies the desire to connect a person, place or thing to a singular state of being. To look at what is and attempt to anchor it in that moment of time. To bind all the elements of a single picture so tightly together that they defy changing, they refuse to move, and they don't exist simply to exist....they exist to stay in THIS specific shape or configuration, THIS specific combination of connections, for as long as possible. This Shard's Intent is ultimately futile, or perhaps its more accurately labeled self-defeating.....its the Shard of Adonalsium that comprises whatever part of him was willing to act against his own grand design, all the other parts of him that were interested in keeping creation changing, moving, progressing onward. The Shard of him that was content to let things be stagnant, who upon creating something he felt particularly connected to or saw as perfect just as it was now....would rather freeze that thing in a single moment than explore what it could change into or let it advance towards the endpoint he'd initially envisioned for it. This Shard is the willingness or desire to defend and preserve the lives of others.....but as they are now, with a lack of interest, or even dismissal, of what changes death might bring...for an individual, for those affected by an individual's passing, for the shape of a nation or advancement of a society in the wake of existing connections being severed by death, but allowing for - even REQUIRING - all those connected to the deceased to form new connections and change their relationships accordingly. This Shard is the urge to cling to the shape of what is, at the expense of everything else it could be, in defiance of the Prime Command that things - that creation - always, ALWAYS move forward. It tries to make the story stop...and that's why its efforts to preserve specific connections, to bind things to one particular moment in time....will always have an endpoint, an entropy all its own. The urge to preserve, to connect oneself so tightly to what is, to refuse to accept that everything that exists must change, must move....its always doomed to fail, a clock on its best efforts. Because there's a clock on everything. Ruin will always win. Preservation is the Shard of Adonalsium that digs in its heels and fights against the inevitable anyway....because every day that Ruin is staved off just a little bit longer, is still a day longer Preservation has with the connections that exist right now, the shape those connections make and all the lives woven into this single still frame of the cosmere's tapestry.

The Shards that fall under the grouping of CHANGE, that correspond to that Dawnshard and together comprise equivalent forces to that initial, Prime creative demand that energy be used to take all that matter and constantly connect it in new and different ways so that the shape of everything and the picture it forms is never static, forever changing:

CHANGE

Endowment - This Shard embodies the introduction of a new element into a picture that changes as a result of its addition. Whether its gifted freely or in response to a request, the essence of this Shard is that something is given, and the very bestowal of that gift changes things for its recipient. It might be hoarded, changing someone who previously had nothing into someone with resources to spare, it can be regifted, changing hands to someone else, it can be used up, changed from its initial shape or composition into one more useful to the person this gifted was endowed to....but from the moment there was an endowment, some kind of change happened. Being endowed with additional vitality by external energies or divine power can change a sick person into a healthier one, additional strength changes someone weak into someone stronger, wealth changes social status; an endowment of life force can change the inanimate into something alive, a gift of immortality can change a man into a god, and regifting a Divine Breath, bequeathing it to someone else can change their life and heal them even as it changes a god back into a man. Endowments can change the very state of a person's mortality and size of their reach, shape of their impact...but there is always change.

Valor - This Shard embodies the very concept of bravery in the face of danger, regardless of fear....something that by its very nature demands actions be taken in order that it exist. A Shard of Courage or Bravery might be able to exist simply as the potential to act in spite of fear or danger, the inherent want to do so....but Valor is something different. An Intent whose existence must be framed in the context of changes made specifically TO defy an approaching danger or feelings of fear. Valor is not valor when separated from ACTS of Valor. The action undertaken, the change made from a person going from a position of fear or caution to a position of actual defiance or resistance....that is what defines Valor as something that can be described by deeds rather than a formless potential to maybe be brave in the face of one's fear. It requires no specific direction, nor movement from where one's first faced with danger to a different point before summoning the courage to act anyway....a person can go from acting with caution to acting with valor without so much as shifting their feet. Still, a change WILL happen, MUST happen, upon the decision to ACT upon the impulse or desire to be brave....only once energy has been expended, actions have been taken, a new shape has formed from the current situation and the positioning of the players involved....only then can context definitively frame whether or not the deeds performed and changes made....were evidence of Valor.

Mercy - This Shard embodies the context whose framing of specific changes one makes to someone or something else's state of being...determines the presence of Mercy. Like Valor, Mercy can not exist devoid of context, simply on its own merits and needing no specific connections or any at all. One might possess an innate desire or primal urge to be merciful, to see that others do not suffer....but Mercy is a thing of deeds, not of possibilities. If no change occurs for the being that one's desire for mercy is aimed at....Mercy did not exist in the shape of that moment, in the way those threads of the tapestry were all bound together. Someone can beg for mercy, someone can ask for mercy on someone else's behalf, someone can wish that mercy might be taken on someone they pity....but these are nothing more than expressions of empathy or petitions for clemency if the desire to see that mercy is granted....is not actionably accompanied by a change in the situation that made someone need mercy in the first place. A person that exists in a situation where an enemy holds overwhelming power over them, where they're in danger or afraid or in actual pain - they exist in a situation and position where its reasonable to beg that mercy be shown. But that in and of itself is Supplication, is Desperation, is maybe even Hope for the potential that such a change to their situation might happen, that they might somehow find themselves in a better situation than they're in as of this moment. Similarly, a person with power over another, or in a position to grant aid that would change the stakes or intensity of a situation someone is currently suffering in....the desire to make changes that better the other's situation is Compassion, existing simply because it exists. The potential to intercede on someone's behalf, or stay your hand and spare someone from consequences or torment....that might be Empathy or even something akin to Pity....either of which could be said to exist whether you act on those impulses or not. Mercy is fulfilled actions, not just the potential for them. Like Valor, it requires acts to be the context it needs to BE Mercy. Only once a change has been made to the situation an imperiled person finds themselves in....has Mercy been present in the image that part of the tapestry shows. Unlike the Shards grouped under the Move Dawnshard, that require a destination or a journey to frame a change from one state of being or shape to another, Mercy, like Valor, requires no more than a single moment to exist. But within that moment, a change MUST happen.

The Shards that fall under the grouping of EXIST, that correspond to that Dawnshard and together comprise equivalent forces to that initial, Prime creative demand that matter and energy, everything that connects and all the ways that can change, exist simply TO exist, not because of how they connect to other pieces of creation or the ways they can and do change:

EXIST

Odium - This Shard embodies directionless hatred, intense emotion that needs no context to exist, with the very fact that there existed in God enough Odium to even BE a Shard of him being proof in and of itself that Odium simply exists to exist, regardless of want or attempts to will it away. It can be channeled in various ways, connected to reasons for it being aimed in a certain direction or changed into new forms, interpreted as righteous vengeance or passion devoid of empathy, but no matter what it connects to or how the shape or appearance of it changes, how it moves people or even gods to act or how time moves its focus from one target to another....it exists. The potential for it lies within every person, every interaction, every change to a status quo or move to a new setting.

Virtuosity - This Shard embodies great skill devoid of context. The specific state of being that is having or possessing prodigious skill - be it in terms of artistic expression or any other possible form of expertise. It IS expertise...but expertise as something that simply exists, not explicitly as the end result of a long journey acquiring or cultivating such expertise. It is the natural, inborn talents of the prodigy and the end result of decades devoted to honing one's craft. It is not the how of obtaining mastery of a skill, it is not the connections required to build lesser talent into something greater over time, with plentiful practice. It is not the changing of someone without notable skill into a paragon of their chosen field. It is just....talent. Skill. Expertise. The potential for greatness, inert until its actionably utilized to change something into art that connects with larger and wide audiences over time. Its not the how of great skill being put to use, its not the ways in which people, places or things are changed by one's utilization of virtuosity....it is the still, eternally patient, unformed clay that is everything that skill and expertise can be used to accomplish, all the ways it can change hearts and minds or connect people to new ideas, sentiments or views they never considered or encountered before a virtuoso moved them with what they used that skill and expertise to create. It exists within someone simply to exist, not requiring that it be put to use in order for it to count or its existence to matter, to validate or justify the having of such skill. Whether one possessing such skill or expertise ever puts it to use or never uses it to move or connect or change anything at all....either way, it still exists regardless.

Autonomy - This Shard embodies everything it means to exist solely on your own merits, to be devoid of context....having and requiring no connections which give specific shape or meaning to your existence, nothing to define your allegiances or priorities or restrict them to one finite expression. It is life, agency, identity independent of any external influences, of connections its reliant on to exist in its current shape and form, of loyalties or obligations that demand it change from whatever it wants to be in any given moment, into a new or different shape and form of someone else's choosing. It is who or what a person is from the first moment of existence, before any connections are formed to condense it into a finite shape, anything binds it to a limited range of motion, anything exerts control or applies energy to steer it in a specific direction, attempts to say that only by doing this thing or declaring this allegiance or devoting oneself to this cause, will one's existence have meaning. It is the freedom to take nothing but a shape of your own choosing, and to only change yourself on your terms. It is the inherent potential to choose any path, any connection, any shape, any direction....because it is the very embodiment of what it means to have sole ownership of what your shapeless potential might become.

Whimsy - This Shard embodies caprice, flights of fancy that require no context beyond the fact that one's whimsy can exist devoid of context. It is whatever was fanciful about Adonalsium, whatever impulses he had to act without thought or to create without specific aims or thought-out plans and intentions in mind. It is, however, the mere existence of these impulses, requiring no actual follow-through on whimsical thoughts, no attempt to make changes or deviate from a path or specific goal at the prompting of some capricious desire. Whimsy is the formless potential for the absurd that exists within all beings as something they could act upon, regardless of if they actually do. The possibilities for changes that might be made or connections that might be formed not in an attempt to advance someone towards some specific destination, but rather for no specific reason at all. It is the concept of action without thought, of moving or changing without care of consequences, of changing the shape of what is or the manner in which things are done, just to see what might result. It is the stray thought at the end of a long, arduous endeavor that whispers 'what if I now just undid all my hard work for no reason other than indulging in the delight of doing the unexpected.' The capacity to be motivated by the most basic of desires or instincts or impulses, the potential joy that can be found in the complete absence of plans and obligations and goals, existing simply TO exist and to explore...what happens if I do this, for absolutely no reason other than....I want to. There is no change that can be made to an act of whimsy to make it more whimsical....it is simply whimsical by its base nature, by the sole reason for making that change happen or exist. There is no journey that can make someone whimsical beyond whatever whims they already inherently possess....at most, a person can be motivated to change in such ways as to ACT on their whims more frequently. The capacity to have those whims exist....simply exists without prompting, catalyst, or the deliberate cultivation of such a characteristic. Whimsy exists simply to be random and absurd....and because the potential for randomness and absurdity lurks under the surface of every aspect of creation....there is a part of creation and its creator that is inherently whimsical...just because. 

The Shards that fall under the grouping of MOVE, that correspond to that Dawnshard and together comprise equivalent forces to that initial, Prime creative demand that creation have both direction and momentum. That everything that exists and connects and changes...once set in motion....never stop doing that. That the initial image at the moment of creation not be the entirety of creation, that the image actually be a story told by one image after another, a story that can only take shape once one moment turns into two and continues on to a third and will continue as long as things continue to move:

MOVE

Ruin - This Shard embodies the march of entropy, the natural progression of decay that begins from the moment of something's creation....even the cosmere itself. From the moment life begins, that life starts on an inevitable journey towards death. From the word go, a fire is doomed to eventually sputter out once all its oxygen is exhausted and there's nothing left to burn. Everything in creation moves, but entropy always moves with it, matching it step for step....and those steps always move in one direction, and one direction only. Creation creeps towards entropy. Ruin advances with age. Every single thread in creation has an endpoint past which there is no more thread, and ruin is the force that pushes a thing further and further down the length of their thread until its endpoint is eventually met. And ruin, like creation....never marches backwards.

Cultivation - This Shard embodies the shepherding of something forward along a specific path of one's choosing. It might take something that exists and build specific connections with a particular aim or end goal in mind, and that those connections will be used to advance something towards, it might dictate what shapes an idea or society or a person's life might take, but it is always and inherently a journey over time. Something that does not and can not exist within a single moment, and that only the passage of time and the progression towards a deliberate goal can give shape and meaning to. It always has an aim, an intended destination. It might deviate from that initial goal, its path to that destination might end up taking a different shape than initially envisioned, but it always has a direction, it is always done with purpose, and that direction always faces forward, that purpose is always to build to something greater than what already exists or came before. One's efforts to cultivate a thing in a particular way might not work out as intended, might not ending up succeeding at all, but even the deliberate cultivation of weaknesses in one's enemy is still a deliberate march towards a specific intended shape: one where the enemy reaches a point where they've changed in ways that open up exploitable flaws that didn't previously exist. You can not cultivate in a backwards direction, you can not use the Intent to cultivate to move something backwards upon its timeline of existence and regress it to a previous state. Even if you somehow manage to reach that previous state, you did not get there by way of cultivation. It is only ever additive, never reductive, though those carefully cultivated additions don't have to be shaped with positive aims and changes in mind....just new ones, ones that take existing matter and connections and bonds and change it all into shapes and configurations closer to the one the cultivator envisions for it in their mind. Cultivation is inherently active and requires momentum....without a specific start point and end point, it has no context. Something or some person might have changed over the course of time, formed new connections and let go of old ones, but those changes do not and can not have meaning specifically bound to an intention or effort to cultivate something in a specific way....without the journey of cultivating something being bound to a specific start point before changes are made.

Ambition - This Shard embodies the desire to advance oneself in some way, but always with a destination in mind. Ambition - whatever the end result of it - has a direction and requires momentum.....it is not a state of being, content to exist as unformed potential without definitive shape or bonds, it requires no specific connections and unlike Devotion can comprise multiple or generic focuses that fall under the umbrella of one's overall ambitions, and it exists regardless of how acting on one's ambitions changes them....it has no specific end shape in mind, only a forward-facing direction. A desire to use existing connections and build new ones, initiate changes to one's life or act as an agent of change in pursuit of reaching a further-off point in the future of one's timeline, where they might acquire the skills or positions or expertise or gains that they set their sights on initially. It is an intention that demands action, it has no interest in standing still or being content with one's current shape, connections or positioning. There must inherently be something in the distance or future that one desires to acquire or see a particular goal actualized....with an equally inherent understanding that these things will not simply come to you where you are, and that action must be taken, momentum applied to your personal journey in order to reach a specific target, goal or destination. How you apply your connections, what they are and who they're with has no bearing on Ambition itself, existing merely as factors that can be utilized in pursuit of one's ambitions, just as there is never a singular change that must be initiated in order to move one from a current existence of potential that has yet to be fully realized to the destination in which such potential is at least somewhat more firmly fleshed out and actualized....but changes must happen in pursuit of one's ambitions, because without change to your current shape, connections and existence, there can be no movement towards the fulfillment of those ambitions. And again, ambition, by the very nature of the Shard and the Intent it embodies...demands movement, forward momentum, actionable attempts to reach one's goals....or else those goals aren't actually ambitions so much as just idle wishes or wants. Ambition can not exist without an accompanying drive and a hunger to propel oneself forward, TOWARDS a specific goal.

Invention - This Shard embodies the divine urge to create with an intended destination or goal for one's creation, the intention of making changes to something so that it might do a specific thing, progress to a new state and form where it possesses a capacity to do something it couldn't previously in its prior form or separate pieces. Invention is not simply the potential everything holds to be used as part of something that can do something completely new....it requires a fully realized form, something that has a specific shape, is made of separate parts connected in specific ways. Invention is not simply the connections that hold pieces of a tool together and make those individual pieces - once combined as a new, singular object - an invention that is distinct from whatever its individual components might be without those connections....the invention itself must have a purpose, be defined not just by its components' connections but also by what the invention is FOR, what it does, how it makes changes or forms connections as a function of purpose innate to its design. And Invention is not just changes made to something or multiple things that turn matter into something new....it can't be defined solely by the fact that Change has happened. A rock that's hammered into a new shape by hitting it with a larger rock is not proof of Invention just because that rock has been changed. But a rock that has been connected to a piece of wood, changed from a solitary object into a part of a weapon or a tool intended for digging....THAT is proof of Invention. A product of Invention. Invention is the move from things as they exist to a new shape, changes made and new connections formed....all in deliberate pursuit of an end goal, the realization of something someone wanted to make for a specific reason or purpose...into something someone DID make. Invention is forward facing, much like Cultivation. It is inseparable from progress, only additive, never reductive. Invention can create things that can change people and whole societies in ways that set them back, regress them, sever connections....but these are examples of end results of how inventions can be used. Invention itself can't be less than the components that comprise it were before they were combined to make something new. It can't be the inverse of its own realized potential. It can only be realized via its advancement from a start point, an initial concept or idea for a thing, to an end point, the realization of that concept, a finished design. It can not exist simply to exist, its changes can not be made just to say changes were made....the finished invention must exist for a reason, with a purpose. It must be the result of changes made, connections created...in ways that make it more than what it was before. That let it do things that couldn't previously be done without it. It must have its own timeline of creation, and exist at a part of that timeline that is to at least some degree further forward than it was at the start of its creation process. Invention is not invention unless there was a destination and a journey. It requires forward momentum and the passage of time. There must be a start point to the process of Inventing something, and an inventor must tell his design, his tools, his process to MOVE...for Invention to occur.

 

SO. Just to recap:

CONNECT Dawnshard

Honor, Dominion, Devotion and Preservation

CHANGE Dawnshard

Endowment, Valor, Mercy

EXIST Dawnshard

Odium, Virtuosity, Autonomy, Whimsy

MOVE Dawnshard

Ruin, Cultivation, Ambition, Invention

Which would leave the last remaining Shard as the fourth and final Shard grouped under the CHANGE Dawnshard.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by TheoreticalMagic

[Gildedorca]

Copying over from another post on this topic. 

I think your theory is headed in the right direction- if we go back to the allomantic metals, there's physical, temporal, mental, and spiritual grouping of metals which could be the suggestion from Preservation about the exisitence of four Dawnshards, similar to how the 16 is a reference to the 16 Shards. I'm not certain if there is good evidence that the Dawnshards correspond to each grouping of metals or strictly the spiritual components.

 

What you've argued leads me to think that instead of the "plus Investiture" it's actually four spiritual properties- Intent, Fortune, Connection, and Identity with each related to one Dawnshard (and potentially a group of the allomantic metals). I say that because a key component of magic in the Cosmere is Intent, similar to Fortune or Connection. Each would correspond to a fundamental aspect of the Cosmere (time,  space, etc).

 

In other words (drawing on the terms in the Allomantic chart and attributes of the Nahel bond):

 

Dawnshard 1 [PROTECT]- Connection, Physical; related to the "UNITE" that we hear from Dalinar, binding People/not harming others. Protecting, leading etc. Held at one point by Hoid and Sigzil.

Dawnshard 2 [CHANGE]- Fortune, Temporal; related to transformation, growth, and healing. Held by Rysn.

Dawnshard 3 [unk.]- Intent, Mental; related to learning, experience, determination, bravery, and creativity. Perhaps THINK/ EXPLORE/ UNDERSTAND?

Dawnshard 4 [unk.]- Identity, Spiritual; related to self-determination, autonomy, honesty, and emotions. Perhaps FEEL/ BELIEVE/ ABIDE?

And I assume that no Dawnshard would contain two "opposite" Shards. So we would have:

 

Dawnshard 1 [PROTECT]- Connection, Physical; related to the "UNITE" that we hear from Dalinar. Held by Hoid and Sigzil.

Preservation- Wants to keep everything the same, has wanted all be frozen in time, unable to act lest they harm one another. Likely Protect/Protect.

Dominion- probably was related to amassing and maintaining control over others. Likely Protect/Change.

Honor- said to uphold oaths and agreements, and to bind things together. Likely Protect/ DS3.

Mercy- unknown. Likely Protect/ DS4. 

Dawnshard 2 [CHANGE]- Fortune, Temporal; related to transformation, growth and decay. Held by Rysn.

Ruin- the manifestation of entropy. Likely Change/Change.

Endowment- related to bestowing gifts or talents upon others. Likely Change/DS3.

Whimsy- unknown. Likely Change/DS4.

Cultivation- to grow things and people, and prune them if need be, to shape them in a desired form. Likely Change/Protect.

Dawnshard 3 [unk.]- Intent, Mental; related to learning, experience, determination, bravery, and creativity

Virtuosity- concerns artistic intent, and artistic talent, and artistic appreciation. Shattered themself to experience more. Likely DS3/DS3.

Ambition- related to seeking to change/improve oneself. Likely DS3/DS4.

Valour- the bravery of God/ willingness to sacrifice themself. Mental fortitude. Likely DS3/Protect

Invention- unknown. Likely DS3/Change.

Dawnshard 4 [unk.]- Identity, Spiritual; related to self-determination, autonomy, honesty, and emotions.

Autonomy- driven to divide, go their own way. Rewards those who are bold, who survive against the odds. Likely DS4/DS4.

Devotion- has been stated to be God's love. Likely DS4/Protect.

Odium- said to be the vengeful anger of God, self-described as passion. Likely DS4/Change.

Prudence- wants to be left alone and away from the coming conflicts. Knowledge of when to act. Likely DS4/DS3. 

Though I'm not convinced with the groupings- some of the pairings didn't match the Dawnshard, so I had to take some liberties. It's unclear what constitutes a true opposite other than Ruin/Preservation and Virtuosity/ Autonomy pairings.

 

Parings between Shards influenced by the same two Dawnshards, which could be an argument for Shards with aligned intents, not opposites.

 

Dominion - Cultivation

Honor - Valour

Mercy - Devotion

Endowment - Invention

Whimsy - Odium

Ambition - Prudence