Mason Wheeler Posted July 1, 2023 Report Share Posted July 1, 2023 The book mentions repeatedly that this occurred near where the shard Virtuosity "splintered herself," and mentions "pieces of a dead god" just to make it clear. Does it seem a little bit on the nose to anyone else that the Cosmere had a literal Goddess of Artists, who committed suicide? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ftl Posted July 2, 2023 Report Share Posted July 2, 2023 Hah, interesting catch! Wonder if we'll learn more about the details of how or why that happened. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firesong she/her Posted July 3, 2023 Report Share Posted July 3, 2023 On 7/1/2023 at 2:10 PM, Mason Wheeler said: The book mentions repeatedly that this occurred near where the shard Virtuosity "splintered herself," and mentions "pieces of a dead god" just to make it clear. Does it seem a little bit on the nose to anyone else that the Cosmere had a literal Goddess of Artists, who committed suicide? I mean, he does want to tell her story some day, so he has plans there. Might just be Dragonsteel, but he didn't say that and kept it vague. Quote Jose Flores Will [Yumi and the Nightmare Painter] give us most of Virtuosity's story or will it come in a future book? Brandon Sanderson It will come in a future book. So, it might be that he does have a lot planned about her, which I feel he does given that Virtuosity is weird in how she is the only known Vessel to have Shattered her own Shard. Maybe it was suicide due to a growing weltschmerz and depression, maybe it was some weird way to protect herself, we don't really have any clue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalinar_Kholin Posted July 3, 2023 Report Share Posted July 3, 2023 Does 'splintered herself' have to mean she killed herself? I think there should be ways to kill her while still retaining that meaning. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedBlue she/her Posted July 3, 2023 Report Share Posted July 3, 2023 Virtuosity splintering herself is a tantalising detail that doesn’t give us that much information to work with. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few different things it could mean. The Vessel decided to Splinter her Shard for big picture reasons The Vessel was having a bad time and this was her way out Splintering is in the nature of the Shard, and the Vessel was just along for the ride Also worth noting that it’s not confirmed that the Vessel died in the process. She could have survived and now she’s hanging out somewhere as a Sliver, for all we know. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Silverlight Posted July 3, 2023 Report Share Posted July 3, 2023 11 hours ago, Firesong said: ....Virtuosity is weird in how she is the only known Vessel to have Shattered her own Shard. Maybe it was suicide due to a growing weltschmerz and depression, maybe it was some weird way to protect herself, we don't really have any clue. She also might have Splintered herself to prevent her Shard from being seized by another. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sovereign Posted July 3, 2023 Report Share Posted July 3, 2023 @Mason Wheeler Could you please change the subject line of this thread? When viewed from a computer the subject shows on the main page of the forum and is a major spoiler... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firesong she/her Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 On 7/3/2023 at 1:03 PM, The Sovereign said: @Mason Wheeler Could you please change the subject line of this thread? When viewed from a computer the subject shows on the main page of the forum and is a major spoiler... It isn't that big of a spoiler, it is literally mentioned in the first chapter. And this is the spoiler section. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sovereign Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 12 hours ago, Firesong said: It isn't that big of a spoiler, it is literally mentioned in the first chapter. And this is the spoiler section. The issue is if you are on the forum's main page you can see it if it was the last topic in the section to be posted in... As I screencapped, you don't need to be in the spoiler section to see it. I haven't read secret project 3 yet, I now know the Virtuosity has been splintered. I was trying to prevent that for others. And yes, knowing a Shard has been splintered is a major spoiler... Edited July 5, 2023 by The Sovereign 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mason Wheeler Posted July 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 Just to clarify, did we even know that Virtuosity was the name of a Shard before this book? It's not listed in the Big List Of Shard Names in the Rhythm of War letter, and the Coppermind article doesn't mention any references to this Shard outside this book. And in the book, we find out Virtuosity is dead right up front, in the first chapter, in the very first mention of her. When that's the very first thing we ever learn about the Shard, it seems to me that that can't really be considered a spoiler any more than the knowledge that Marley was dead to begin with. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 The request to rename this thread was a valid one. We've long had a policy of avoiding overt spoilers in topic names, especially for brand new books. In this case, someone who hasn't read the book doesn't know if Virtuosity's Splintering is a background detail dropped on the readers with no relevance, or a key plot element of the book. I've renamed the thread to soften it, though I am not 100% happy with its current name either. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sovereign Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said: Just to clarify, did we even know that Virtuosity was the name of a Shard before this book? It's not listed in the Big List Of Shard Names in the Rhythm of War letter, and the Coppermind article doesn't mention any references to this Shard outside this book. We had known of it via a couple of WOBs from March 2022: Quote Eric-d-Culver Can you confirm: is Virtuosity one of the original sixteen Shards? If not, what Shards make it up? Brandon Sanderson Ah, this is an excellent question. Yes, Virtuosity is one of the original sixteen. That's a good question; they are getting wise to my tricks. Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream (March 22, 2022) Edited July 5, 2023 by The Sovereign 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firesong she/her Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 6 hours ago, The Sovereign said: We had known of it via a couple of WOBs from March 2022: Well, that was actually in response to questions over a preview of the book. So, not really. It was still only revealed in this book. I do wonder if: (RoW Spoilers) Spoiler The lack of mention of Virtuosity in the Shard List in RoW could note at Virtuosity already being Shattered at that point. Either that, or she would have been useless for what they were contacting Vessels for. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mason Wheeler Posted July 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 3 minutes ago, Firesong said: I do wonder if: (RoW Spoilers) Hide contents The lack of mention of Virtuosity in the Shard List in RoW could note at Virtuosity already being Shattered at that point. Possibly, but the fact that that Letter does mention Spoiler Devotion, Dominion, and Ambition, and the fact that they were destroyed in the past would seem to provide evidence against this idea. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firesong she/her Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 5 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said: Possibly, but the fact that that Letter does mention Hide contents Devotion, Dominion, and Ambition, and the fact that they were destroyed in the past would seem to provide evidence against this idea. Spoiler I agree tbh, given I personally think the Machine was normal Nalthian Awakening, which would really only have a chance to spread later in the timeline. And Virtuosity is implied to have Shattered around the point of its activation. So, it all likely happened after all of the current series. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mason Wheeler Posted July 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 1 minute ago, Firesong said: Hide contents Virtuosity is implied to have Shattered around the point of its activation. I must have missed that part. Can you elaborate? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firesong she/her Posted July 5, 2023 Report Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said: I must have missed that part. Can you elaborate? Quote I watched it rain the blood of a dying god. I crawled through tar that took the faces of the people I had loved. It took them. Their blood became black ink. Chapter 5 - Page 37 But, it could also be seen as long before, as it would have already needed Hijo to exist, given it was made as a response to them. And Hijo are Splinters of Virtuosity. But at the same time, Splinters can be made willingly without one a full-on Splintering. Quote “Painter,” Design continued, “I’ll try to think of something I can do, but this world of yours? It’s strange. The strangest I’ve visited—and I’ve been to Threnody. You have nightmares that come alive? Creeping out of a miasma of raw Investiture? That’s the kind of stuff you get on a planet when a god has been killed. Chapter 17 - Page 177 This describes the Nightmares as related to Virtuosity splintering, instead of just being due to the father machine. Another idea of it happening around activation is very much just a theory. That Virtuosity might have felt the Hijo and the people of the world to in some way be an artistic creation of herself. And seeing them twisted and mutilated in such a way might have led her to a depression which ended in her Splintering. Edited July 5, 2023 by Firesong 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Config2 Posted July 27, 2023 Report Share Posted July 27, 2023 Definitely some cosmere spoilers Spoiler Shards can give up their shard without dying according to WOB. I don't think we know if a shard can splinter themselves without killing themselves. We do know they can "sliver" themselves to create things like Spren, honorblades, or similar without significant self injury. I don't think Virtuosity was committing suicide. While the tortured artist trope exists, I think this is different: Yumi's society is highly self sacrificing. While that could be a revisionist interpretation of a suicide, I think it's more likely that Virtuosity splintered herself for a reason beyond their own troubles. It could have been a consequence of an act to protect the world, or it could have been something else. Personally, without much support, I think they splintered themselves to provide the massive quantities of raw investiture required for "a planet when a god has been killed" stuff to happen. Seems like a very unique and powerful version of patronage of the arts to me. What better way to allow for art than to give a bunch of artists the fabric of the universe to play with? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 1, 2023 Report Share Posted August 1, 2023 (edited) On 7/3/2023 at 1:39 AM, RedBlue said: The Vessel decided to Splinter her Shard for big picture reasons The Vessel was having a bad time and this was her way out I really like this two options. I don't really think that ViV (Virtuosity Vessel) actually killed herself. Suicide could end up being a theme he chooses to explore but through a vessel intentionally destroying the shard. I don't have any hard evidence that she didn't but it just doesn't feel like it based on what Hoid said at the beginning. Edited August 1, 2023 by WandererNearby clarity with the acronym 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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