tebwolf359 Posted June 13, 2023 Posted June 13, 2023 So far we have seen: - one being to many shards (shattering) - one vessel to another (Taravingian) - two shards to one vessel (Harmony) what are future possibilities? would it be possible to have a single shard be taken up by multiple vessels and still remain a single shard? (as in two people both take up Honor, become one being yet still two separate vessel intents and personalities, as in inverse of Sazed balancing two shardic intents) 2
alder24 Posted June 13, 2023 Posted June 13, 2023 58 minutes ago, tebwolf359 said: So far we have seen: - one being to many shards (shattering) - one vessel to another (Taravingian) - two shards to one vessel (Harmony) what are future possibilities? would it be possible to have a single shard be taken up by multiple vessels and still remain a single shard? (as in two people both take up Honor, become one being yet still two separate vessel intents and personalities, as in inverse of Sazed balancing two shardic intents) Welcome to the Shard. What Taravangian and Sazed did is called Ascension. A person Ascends to a Shard and becomes its new Vessel. There is also Splintering - a Shrad splintered into many small pieces - this can happen intentionally by that Shard without any harm to that Shard - that's how spren are made (spren are Splinters) - or invasively by another Shard, which results in death of the Shard and its Vessel - what happened to Ambition, Devotion, Dominion and Honor. A single Shard can be also split into two or more smaller living Shards with similar intents to the original one, then each of those smaller Shards would be independent from each other and can have their own Vessel. Spoiler Isaac Betzold Could a Shard be split into smaller Intents, like if Honor were alive and then was split into maybe Integrity and Bravery? Brandon Sanderson This is possible. Very plausible. You ask some weird things sometimes, this one is not that weird, this is very plausible. YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022) A Shard can also create their Avatar, which is like a massive, semi-autonomous Splinter connected to a Shard: Spoiler Questioner So Bavadin's avatars, right; Autonomy's avatars. Brandon Sanderson One of Bavadin's avatars. Questioner Of those avatars, are some or all of them actual Splinters of Autonomy? Brandon Sanderson The terminology gets kind of sticky here. In Cosmere terms, some would say that counts as Splinters, some would say not. The avatars aren't necessarily aware but Bavadin always is. A lot of people in Cosmere would call that a Splinter. Questioner My follow up to that would be, is it possible for a person to Ascend and become a Vessel of one of those Splinters? Brandon Sanderson That is plausible. Yes. It could happen. It would be tough because they will have personalities of their own and so something would need to happen... but yeah. Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019) Spoiler Alex M What's the difference between avatar and Splinter? Brandon Sanderson These are all very weird terms that I'm just using. *mistakenly answering for Sliver* A Sliver is a person who has held the power of a Shard, and then let go of it. A briefly held time, holding the infinite power of a Shard, but no longer does. So what does that do? That changes your soul, and leaves markers on it. It's a real physiological thing. An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do. Brandon Sanderson *realizes that he answered for Sliver earlier, and clarifies* A Splinter is a piece of a Shard that is fully autonomous, where an avatar is not. So something that is Splintered does not consider itself - and would not be considered by the definitions - an actual piece of it [the Shard], and has free will. So once it has free will, and/or could develop free will (because some of the Splinters haven't gotten there yet), but is fully cut off from the direct control and self-identity of the Shard, then it is called a Splinter. YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021) There is also what happened to Devotion and Dominion - they were Splintered and killed, and then Odium pushed their investiture into the Cognitive Realm and forced them to merge together into Dor. This was done to prevent them from gainig sentience and to prevent somebody from picking up those Shards and Ascending. But investiture left alone can develop sentience, and this is happening now, slower however because they're in CR. It's possible for a Shard to change its intent under Vessel infuence - this is what Rayse tried to do with Passion, but mostly failed. This can be done - to some limited degree - we see it happening with Harmony. Spoiler delvin Is it possible that Honor's Shard is named Honor, because this is how the man who hold The Shard inerpreted it but not it's real name? In that case could The Shard change the name to something else that would better fit with personality of the new holder? As an example, could Honor become Unity if Dalinar were the holder? Brandon Sanderson The name Honor is bigger than Tanavast, though it's not impossible for shards to be interpreted differently by those who hold them, and perhaps other names be applied. General Reddit 2020 (Dec. 1, 2020) 1 hour ago, tebwolf359 said: would it be possible to have a single shard be taken up by multiple vessels and still remain a single shard? (as in two people both take up Honor, become one being yet still two separate vessel intents and personalities, as in inverse of Sazed balancing two shardic intents) No, that's impossible. When Vin was Ascending, Preservation wanted to be separated from Kelsier but had to be given up by Kel voluntarily. Vin wouldn't be able to Ascend if Kelsier didn't give up Preservation. A Shard can create his Avatars which are separate, with a lot of power, but connected - Autonomy is doing that. This is kind of what you're proposing. But Avatars aren't Shard, they don't have that level of control like Shard's Vessel has, and are dependent on that Vessel's will.
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