Tulir Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 I was thinking while rereading WoK about Adonalsium. And I came to the conclusion that it was a bad place. If you combine all the Shards we know of now, it isn't very nice. Dominion isn't a good thing, as it generally results in someone being oppressed. Odium is an even worse thing, as I don't think hate goes very well with any perfect world. Bavadin's Shard appears to be cruel/mean/evil, do to The Letter in WoK. I am preparing to be attacked, but what does everyone else think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOM1else Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 Compassion Cultivation Preservation Endowment Honor These aren't bad things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 I think your opinion of what Andonalsium is differs from the majority of opinions. You seem to think it's a type of paradise world or something? I've always been under the impression that Andonalsium was a sort of super shard, made up of all 16 others. The best evidence for this comes from Mistborn the Hero of Ages. It speaks of a shattered presesence spanning the void, which sounds kind of like a God (capital G) to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 My own theory is that humans/Shardworlds didn't exist as we know them. I think that Adonalsium was the Power of Creation, essentially the purest, greatest form of energy in the universe. However, it existed in a completely static form- a Shard, with a single, conscious, all-encompassing entity that holds the power in the way a Shardholder does. For some reason, over time, the power began to split along the 16 lines we see (Honor, Odium, Cultivation, etc.) and the entity with it. Eventually, the discrepancy between the entity's split personalities became too great to bear, the inherent differences of intent too opposing, and Adonalsium shattered. The entities that originally held the various shards were somehow destroyed, which allowed for people like Ati and Leras to eventually take up the shards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 Well there must have been one form or another of humanity, because I'm pretty sure that Hoid and the first two books of Dragonsteel are Pre-Shattering. I think Hoid had something to do with the Shattering as well, he knows the Original Shardholders by name and apparently had some sort of rivalry thing going with Bavadin and Rayse. My personal Shattering belief is that Andonalsium was God of all the cosmere, ruler of an infinite number of worlds who could all use Lightweaving until for some Hoid related reason, Andonalsium shattered. The Shards, as lesser gods, picked worlds to rule over, except Rayse as Odium, who set up his base on whatever world is considered Damnation by the people of Roshar, and then began in his quest, Splintering Shards and taking names, with the goal of being the only Shard in the cosmere, and seeing it all filled with hatred. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 Brandon has confirmed that Hoid was present at the Shattering of Adonalsium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eerongal Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 i always figured that Adonalsium was essentially the shard-i-verse's "big bang", in that it basically created the universe as we know it (note that this doesn't mean that hoid couldn't have been around, just that things were different back then). I don't think i've ever heard anyone refer to Adonalsium being whole as a paradise, though....I do subscribe to the idea that a whole Adonalsium = God with a capital G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tulir Posted December 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 Makes more sense than my theory. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted December 30, 2011 Report Share Posted December 30, 2011 I sort of figured he was basically a super-powerful entity with the full set of human attributes, then his attributes got split up into forces when he exploded for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted December 31, 2011 Report Share Posted December 31, 2011 Ah, but do we know that Hoid is human? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted December 31, 2011 Report Share Posted December 31, 2011 I believe Adonalsium is often used in context by Brandon as "the power of creation." As such, I think Supershard is probably the best description I've found. It is - or, well, was - a conscious being with either no particular Intent or the Intent of creating the Cosmere. Maybe the term Protoshard will also apply to it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiveAM Posted December 31, 2011 Report Share Posted December 31, 2011 My own theory is that humans/Shardworlds didn't exist as we know them. I think that Adonalsium was the Power of Creation, essentially the purest, greatest form of energy in the universe. However, it existed in a completely static form- a Shard, with a single, conscious, all-encompassing entity that holds the power in the way a Shardholder does. For some reason, over time, the power began to split along the 16 lines we see (Honor, Odium, Cultivation, etc.) and the entity with it. Eventually, the discrepancy between the entity's split personalities became too great to bear, the inherent differences of intent too opposing, and Adonalsium shattered. The entities that originally held the various shards were somehow destroyed, which allowed for people like Ati and Leras to eventually take up the shards. I've always wondered about what caused Adonalsium to shatter. Your theory is really interesting, I'd never really thought about the separate Shards Intent/Entities to already exist within Adonalsium before the shattering. I feel there is a sort of balance between the Shards though and if Adonalsium did shatter because of the Intents, I think it would have been because of Odium. Something could have gone wrong with the Odium aspect of Adonalsium (i'm thinking something external) and warped the balance of it all, hence 'the Broken One'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CWSmythe Posted January 1, 2012 Report Share Posted January 1, 2012 A bit of a tangent, but what if Hoid was Adonalsium or at least the bearer of the supershard. I also wonder if the Shattering was such a violent act. Perhaps Hoid, or whoever held the power decided they shouldn't be supreme for some reason and decided to splinter the power and give it to individuals. I apologize if this has been discussed before, or disproven by someone else, it just seemed like a neat idea to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhalagirl Posted January 1, 2012 Report Share Posted January 1, 2012 A bit of a tangent, but what if Hoid was Adonalsium or at least the bearer of the supershard. I also wonder if the Shattering was such a violent act. Perhaps Hoid, or whoever held the power decided they shouldn't be supreme for some reason and decided to splinter the power and give it to individuals. I apologize if this has been discussed before, or disproven by someone else, it just seemed like a neat idea to me. That possibility occurred to me as well. I'd come up with a supportive hypothesis but my brain hasn't fully recovered from my New Year's celebrations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jacob Santos Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 The question that needs to be asked is that if Adonalsium is the power of creation and it was "complete" then who is to say that it tells from good and evil and right and wrong? What if Adonalsium created something that was destroying life and to it was the "natural" process, since it views all of its creations the same and neutral in its view? It is impossible to know if Liar drafts is what will become the final product. However, what it appears to be leading up to is a series of events that leads to the shattering. A shattering that by all accounts would appear to be a total and complete accident. The characters might not even know what they were doing at the time. Hoid might have been at the shattering, but he might also not know anything of what happened. To him, the people he knew and worked with suddenly disappeared and some later he seen that the cosmere had more points for visiting. He might well be piecing together the events many years after it happened or at least keeping tabs on the characters that happened upon Adonalsium. If anything, it appears that Adonalsium is completely foreign to the world, something that might have crashed onto the planet. It would not be the first book to do so and it could completely be a cycle of the series that once all of the pieces have been splintered or destroyed they are formed anew and travel to a completely new location. Regardless, it appears that we'll have the ending before the beginning. If you view the cosmere books as a single continuous story (which it does appear to be), we are only viewing the middle long after the first part explaining everything was skipped over. Important details are missing and I look forward to one day reading (or listening as the case will probably be) the story of Hoid and the Shattering of Adonalsium. It might even be possible to view more from future books of Stormlight Archive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Posted January 3, 2012 Report Share Posted January 3, 2012 A bit of a tangent, but what if Hoid was Adonalsium or at least the bearer of the supershard. I also wonder if the Shattering was such a violent act. Perhaps Hoid, or whoever held the power decided they shouldn't be supreme for some reason and decided to splinter the power and give it to individuals. I apologize if this has been discussed before, or disproven by someone else, it just seemed like a neat idea to me. I'm certain it has been thought of by others long before I posted a small hypothesis on it in a different thread that goes (very shallowly) into some ramifications that stem from Hoid and Adonalsium's relationship. No matter what, it is an interesting idea to consider, though I don't think that "supershard" is the correct terminology to use when describing Adonalsium, as that would suggest that Adonalsium Shattered off of another something, which leads us down a path that invokes the problems that arise with humankind's inability to truly comprehend anything that possesses no beginning or end/infinity(ies) or Mormon theology... (Unless we find out that Adonalsium is, in fact, a Shattered piece of another, larger something. Dun Dun Dun!!!! Then we HAVE to approach those problems. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!) Whatever Adonalsium is, calling it by its name is probably the best idea, to not introduce even MORE vocabulary to the Cosmere. Brandon gives us enough as it is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScorpioMind Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 I always assumed the Shards were based off of aethers in the way that they seem to have a separate mind/will from a holder and the simple fact that you can exchange them…but also there maybe a hint at Lightweaving how Shards are able to create Like Hoid can except on a higher level Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KChan Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 (edited) I always assumed the Shards were based off of aethers in the way that they seem to have a separate mind/will from a holder and the simple fact that you can exchange them Shards do, in fact, affect their holders - and very strongly, at that. Take, for example, the letter writer's comment about what kind of person Ati (Ruin) used to be. EDIT: For clarification, a holder's will can be different from their Shard's intent, but the longer one holds a Shard, the more that person is shaped by it. Sazed, as the holder of two perfectly opposed Shards, is the only known exception. Edited February 11, 2012 by KChan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain.Kaulu Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 Dominion isn't a good thing, as it generally results in someone being oppressed. This is a modern connotation of the word Dominion. In the past, it was a much more positive meaning. I'm not convinced Skai was an evil shard, even if his Dakhor followers point in that direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KChan Posted February 11, 2012 Report Share Posted February 11, 2012 Even Ruin wasn't inherently evil. Yeah, he did a lot of crappy stuff, but ruin in and of itself isn't a bad thing. As is pointed out in the Mistborn series, without endings, things would get really messy really quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted February 12, 2012 Report Share Posted February 12, 2012 I always assumed the Shards were based off of aethers in the way that they seem to have a separate mind/will from a holder and the simple fact that you can exchange them…but also there maybe a hint at Lightweaving how Shards are able to create Like Hoid can except on a higher level If I may ask, what are aethers? I know that one of Brandon's unpublished books is Aether of Night, is it related to that possibly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gela Posted February 14, 2012 Report Share Posted February 14, 2012 It seems to me that Odium is the only "evil" shard, everything else can be evil. None of the shards come across as completely good, though. Endowment is closest, but even that doesn't seem to fit the bill. So whatever Odium's opposite is (I don't think it's Honor), that's probably the pure good one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dyring Posted February 14, 2012 Report Share Posted February 14, 2012 Also, alot of people in this world, Earth, believe in a God. And this isnt exately a paradise everywhere either... So Adonalsium being God (the almighty kind as opposed to the just verymighty shards), would not necceserily mean paradise anyway. Oh, and we´we met Hoid prior to the shattering, in the prologue to a book thats posted on this site somewhere. thats suposed to be canon right, since its posted here? or? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gela Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) Also, alot of people in this world, Earth, believe in a God. And this isnt exately a paradise everywhere either... So Adonalsium being God (the almighty kind as opposed to the just verymighty shards), would not necceserily mean paradise anyway. Oh, and we´we met Hoid prior to the shattering, in the prologue to a book thats posted on this site somewhere. thats suposed to be canon right, since its posted here? or? The book you're referring to is Liar of Partinel, I believe, and is not canon, as it has not yet been published. However, Word of Brandon states that Hoid was there at the shattering. Canonically, we actually can't be certain he wasn't born the moment of shattering, but it's highly likely he was there before. Edited February 15, 2012 by Gela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Hoid as the holder of the original supershard would explain some of his actions. He does seem to be keeping tabs on the shardholders or there aftermaths. If there was actually a holder of the supershard, he would likely have the ability to master all of the magic systems, thus lending them unification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts