Aethling Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 We already know that a shardholder has the ability to get to the other shardworlds. That has been explictly stated in the books. We already know that one person or entity can hold more than one shard. Harmony is a definate example of this. We already know that one shardholder can kill another. Again, explicitly stated in the books That leads me to come up with two main questions: 1. Why didn't the shardkiller pick up the shards once he had managed to kill the holder. That would have been a step toward reuniting the shards, and it would have increased his power significantly. 2. What is preventing Harmony from embarking on a mission to collect the vacant shards in order to battle the killer. Harmony could also team up with other active shardholders. If this has already been discussed, I am sorry for the retread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Odium didn't pick up the shards after he killed their holders because they would end up changing his personality and he doesn't want that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted March 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 It just seems that is a little bit shortsighted on his part. The increased power he just left behind seems like it could be more than worthwhile. Unless Odium is way more powerful than any of the other shards, Harmony would already be more powerful. By not taking up the shards he has killed, he has essentially set in place the basis for his own destruction. Of course, that could have been what Sanderson is trying to set up. A Harmony/Odium battle would effectively bring about the reunification of the shards anytime Harmony chose to do so. Team up Harmony and Endowment and you have someone capable of creating an army that could be resurrected as quickly as they could be killed. If Odium kills Endowment, then Harmony could pick up Endowment and Aon's shard. Four against one doesn't seem like a decent fight unless Odium also has "bad" allies, but then Ruin would have been a perfect ally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wisdom Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 Sazed is currently in balance because the Shards he holds, Preservation and Ruin, cancel each other out perfectly. Sanderson has stated this is not always true with all the others, although it seems logical that as a whole they must have resulted in perfect balance, they were after all merely aspects of one power - Adonalsium. As to picking up Shards, I think there is a problem with that. Odium doesn't pick up Shards because doing so would inevitably change his own personality. Sazed sort of has the same problem, adding a new shard would upset the balance he has - he would no longer be a free agent with his own mind but would gradually fall under the shard's influence. It also seems to me that those who have held and been changed by the Shards might not even be able to pick up others because of the change, they would suddenly have a new force inside that wouldn't fit with their current one and the one that has so dominated and moulded their psyche. It might even drive them insane. As to reuniting all Shards, I would theorise that this requires all or most of the shards to be free at one time and the receiver to be free of the influence of any Shard. Sazed fits this of course. It would also have to be over quickly, if they picked up a few and let them mould their psyche over the next few centuries they would no longer be able to take the other ones. Their is also the fact that uniting all Shards in the scenario you described above would require Sazed to betray his ally to gain their Shard - unless they gave it willingly which I'm not sure is even possible. Of course, this is all speculation. I hope I made sense in this post, I'm quote tired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triasmus Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 Odium killed off Aona and Skai a long time before Harmony came about. Odium's goal is to be the most powerful entity in the cosmere without changing who he is. Picking up any more Shards would make it so he can't meet that goal. He doesn't care, at all, to reunite the Shards. And as far as I know, there aren't any Shards waiting to be picked up because Odium Splintered the ones he killed (unless there's a so far unexplained way to un-splinter a splintered shard. I think that we don't even know if Adonalsium can be fixed, but I don't know for positive). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROSHtafARian Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 It just seems that is a little bit shortsighted on his part. The increased power he just left behind seems like it could be more than worthwhile. That's the thing though, Odium doesn't want to be all powerful, he wants to be all destructive. His goals seem more nihilistic than power-hungry, so he's fine with the power he has now, as long as it continues to get the job done - and as nobody's put a stop to him yet, he seems to be doing just fine. Plus, two of the three shards he's confirmed to have killed are Honor and Devotion. A guy whose name literally means Hate isn't going to want those Intents anywhere near his cognitive or spiritual essence, no matter how much of a power up they could bring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiken Frost Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 It just seems that is a little bit shortsighted on his part. That's the thing about hateful people. They are shortsighted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 We already know that a shardholder has the ability to get to the other shardworlds. That has been explictly stated in the books. We already know that one person or entity can hold more than one shard. Harmony is a definate example of this. We already know that one shardholder can kill another. Again, explicitly stated in the books That leads me to come up with two main questions: 1. Why didn't the shardkiller pick up the shards once he had managed to kill the holder. That would have been a step toward reuniting the shards, and it would have increased his power significantly. 2. What is preventing Harmony from embarking on a mission to collect the vacant shards in order to battle the killer. Harmony could also team up with other active shardholders. It could be that Odium's method of killing and Splintering Shards is the only way he can effectively kill Shards without killing himself. It need not be like the way Vin destroyed Ruin, which required both of them dying. We don't know enough about the actual method that Odium kills to be for certain. Since the Shards Odium killed are Splintered (though, I suppose we don't know for certain that Honor is Splintered), it would challenging for Harmony to ever pick up all those Splinters--not to mention that it could be impossible to actually reform a totally Splintered Shard back into its original state. The Seons and Skaze are the remains of Devotion and Dominion, so Harmony would need to go to Sel and destroy all the Seons and Skaze to ever pick up their power. I can't see Sazed ever doing such a thing. It isn't like there are a bunch of empty Shards around. That kind of power will always have some Cognitive being attached to it (for example, Kelsier held Preservation a bit until Vin could take the power more fully). There may also be incentive for Harmony to never leave Scadrial long enough to pick up those Splinters, or make deals with other Shards. If he did, Scadrial's peoples are suddenly in a very real danger to Odium. Odium could go to Scadrial--defenseless without Harmony--and in the aftermath Harmony realizes, "Oh crap, there's a very real possibility that I'd die from this if I returned." But Odium would torture and destroy the Scadrialese so much that Harmony feels an obligation to stop Odium's onslaught. In the process, however, Odium has his Splintering trick up his sleeve, and because Odium is more experienced, much more vicious, and would be waiting for Harmony's return, Odium kills Harmony with ease. Better, perhaps, for Harmony to stay and defend Scadrial and deter Odium as long as possible until Harmony comes up with adequate preparations. I don't know; I completely made this up just now. But you gotta admit, Harmony would not like to see his people die, and so could feel obligated to stay there just on that basis alone. As for why Odium didn't pick up those Shards, well, other people got to me first. I mean, he's a vindictive person, and a Shard based around hatred seems very well matched to him. I'm sure he was at first very enticed with the idea of being more powerful, but decided against it. I mean, there are always those types of people who are faced with the choice of "You can change, and maybe it'd be awesome," but a lot of times, they would rather not change. Their essence, the way that they live is too precious for them to ever give up. So, given Odium doesn't seem like the type who'd ever change for the greater good, it makes much more sense that he'd want to stay himself--at least, his Odium-tinted self--and just break all the other Shards. In doing so, he is assured that he the most powerful being in the cosmere. He doesn't need all of Adonalsium if he is already effectively God. If you're a particularly horrible person, this makes total sense. Why would I need to hold all that power, when I am practically guaranteed that this way, I can do everything I ever wanted to do and retain my outlook on life? There's no reason for Odium to want all the power of creation. Plus, there's plenty of evidence that a Shard's power regenerates over time (the Well of Ascension, atium). In a practical sense, this means that in a situation where Odium is the only Shard left, he never runs out of his power. Forever god, in his own way, to the entire cosmere. Sazed is currently in balance because the Shards he holds, Preservation and Ruin, cancel each other out perfectly. Sanderson has stated this is not always true with all the others, although it seems logical that as a whole they must have resulted in perfect balance, they were after all merely aspects of one power - Adonalsium. As to picking up Shards, I think there is a problem with that. Odium doesn't pick up Shards because doing so would inevitably change his own personality. Sazed sort of has the same problem, adding a new shard would upset the balance he has - he would no longer be a free agent with his own mind but would gradually fall under the shard's influence. It also seems to me that those who have held and been changed by the Shards might not even be able to pick up others because of the change, they would suddenly have a new force inside that wouldn't fit with their current one and the one that has so dominated and moulded their psyche. It might even drive them insane. This isn't entirely accurate, about Sazed being immune to the effects of a Shard's intent. If you look in this (very late) report, Sazed is affected. Not as much, yes, but he is influenced. It's like being between two incredibly powerful gravitational forces. Like, for example, imagine a binary star system. Let's assume the two stars have the exact same mass. Sure, you can find that one place, in the exact midpoint between the stars, where you are in perfect equilibrium. But that doesn't mean you have total freedom--you still always feel those stars' effects, because you have to remain in that exact position. In fact, I remember that we asked Brandon what effect the Shards would have on Sazed, and he said, essentially, "Read Alloy and you'll find out." And certainly, Sazed was shaped to be more in line with the idea of Harmony. Sure, it's still a pretty Sazed thing for him to do, but 1. As a holder of a Shard, you do get some ability to interpret a Shard's intent, and 2. The Shards aren't having zero effect on Sazed, like we had thought would happen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 ts been a while since I've read hero, but I wonder if preservation picked sazed becuase the balance of the two shards would be best suited to his personality? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aradel Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 I'm pretty sure that preservation was really (and I mean really) good at seeing the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 Pure speculation, but it seems like it would be difficult to hold multiple Shards. Based on what Chaos said, it stands to reason that every time you picked up an additional Shard, you'd (metaphorically) start being pulled from another direction. You'd be ripped apart after a while. Also, a sort of related note. I'm seeing potential for confusion here, but as I understand, "harmony" is not an aspect of a Shard, it's just a name for Sazed. Sazed is the shard, with aspects of Ruin and Preservation. Right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 Yep. Harmony isn't a real Shard- it's just a title for the person who holds both the Shard of Ruin and the Shard of Preservation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 23, 2012 Report Share Posted March 23, 2012 Yep. Harmony isn't a real Shard- it's just a title for the person who holds both the Shard of Ruin and the Shard of Preservation. but being complete opposites, it seems likely to me that harmony would have its own separate personality in tune with keeping the shards balanced. not killing someone [ruin] without healing another [preservation], etc. and thats why sazed doesnt get directly involved [rather using agents like ironeyes or wax], to preserve the balance of the shards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted March 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 You could also look at it like the more shards Harmony picks up, the easier it would be for him. We already see some of this in his holding Ruin and Preservation. The shard act directly against each other to make a virtually neutral, but with enormous powers. Adding Devotion would increase his powers even more, and it would be a three-way battle between the shards. Since Dominion is on the same world, he can pick that up as well. The issue has been raised about the splintered shards. That is a good point, but I do not believe that it would be very hard for one shardholder to reform the splintered shards. The big side-effect is that it stands a chance to drastically change the magic systems We already know that Ruin and Preservation are direct opposites. Sanderson has set the ground for Devotion and Dominion to be very close to direct opposites as well. Just look at the two major religions in Elantris. In many ways, I see them as functional opposites of each other while still holding the same core idea. Harmony picking up those two would give him two sets of shards acting as almost direct opposites. The tidal pulls on Sazed's personality would be basically neutralized by the two sets acting against each other. Unless Odium is powerful enough to fight 4 shards in one entity, it wouldn't be much of a contest. Of course, this is all speculation and it does rely upon splinters being able to be remade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROSHtafARian Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Hmm, I don't think Devotion and Dominion are quite comparable to Ruin and Preservation. They're opposing Intents, yes, but...Ruin and Preservation are polar opposites. Devotion and Dominion are more complementary opposites. Like say you mapped out these various intents and you have a neutral starting Point A. Ruin and Preservation are diametrically opposed...you'd have to go in completely opposite directions to get to them, extreme ends of the same spectrum. Whereas Devotion and Dominion are both branching off points from the same root intent - let's call it say, Sovereignty, or Leadership - rule, or commanding loyalty/obedience through different channels, love and fear, respectively. Which is to say, now that I think about it, if Devotion and Dominion weren't splintered and one Shardholder were to combine them into a single supershard a la Harmony....it'd probably actually be easier than what Sazed deals with. Rather than being pulled apart by opposite gravitational tides, they'd make for more of a singular intent through dual avenues. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Like say you mapped out these various intents and you have a neutral starting Point A. Ruin and Preservation are diametrically opposed...you'd have to go in completely opposite directions to get to them, extreme ends of the same spectrum. Whereas Devotion and Dominion are both branching off points from the same root intent - let's call it say, Sovereignty, or Leadership - rule, or commanding loyalty/obedience through different channels, love and fear, respectively. This made me think of my freshman Art class in high school. Like on a color wheel. Ruin and Preservation are opposed, like say, blue and orange. Whereas Devotion and Dominion are more like green and yellow. This thought has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it amuses me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 personally I don't think the shards would neutralise in a way that doesnt change the personality of the holder. to me it seems that each combination of shards would require a different personality to deal with. a combo of preservation and ruin would require a personality that supports the balance of creation and destruction. it would see life and death as natural processsess and not seek to interfere directly unless that balance was upset. a combination of honour and ruin would probably require a personality that deals out destruction in a structured way. maybe making challenges to give victems a chance to escape. so maybe two sacrifices would be forced to fight to the death, but the winner would be alive. assuming that the personality of the holder does influence the shard a bit I guess that some things could happen. the closer the personality of the holder is to the shard [or combination of shards], the more control they'd have over it. the reason behind this is that the more different they are the more changes are required, and if the personalities are completely different than there'd be nothing left of the original personality; while if they are similar, less changes would be needed and the original personalities are more or less intact. A completely changed personality would be completely based off of the shard, while a partially changed personallity will still have some aspects of humanity. an example would be that while harmony is supposed to be neutral. sazed still is a kind and caring person and is able to interfere while keeping the balance. If sazed originally was an unstable psychopath who only cared about destruction, when he got the shards his personality would have had to have been changed completely to stop him using the balance between preservation and ruin to only cause destruction. if sazed was originally inclined to keep the balance then his personality would only need to be changed in small parts and some of the original personality would be left, and as long as that personality wasn't too diferent to the shards' intent it would be able to interfere. I assume this is why ruin only cared about the destruction of the world while odium seems to have more control over his plans. ruin seemed to be more like a computer program, able to calculate plans, but unable to do anything else but what he is programmed to do. Preservation seemed to have a lot more personality. he supported the balance between preservtion and ruin be throwing them into sazed. with this theory ti suggests that preservations original personality would have believed that the best way to limit the destruction would be a balance, while ruins original kind and caring personality would have been completely destroyed by ruin. if the letter is right that would mean that odiums original personality was similar to the shards and would make him much more dangerous. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiken Frost Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 personally I don't think the shards would neutralise in a way that doesnt change the personality of the holder. to me it seems that each combination of shards would require a different personality to deal with. a combo of preservation and ruin would require a personality that supports the balance of creation and destruction. it would see life and death as natural processsess and not seek to interfere directly unless that balance was upset. a combination of honour and ruin would probably require a personality that deals out destruction in a structured way. maybe making challenges to give victems a chance to escape. so maybe two sacrifices would be forced to fight to the death, but the winner would be alive. assuming that the personality of the holder does influence the shard a bit I guess that some things could happen. the closer the personality of the holder is to the shard [or combination of shards], the more control they'd have over it. the reason behind this is that the more different they are the more changes are required, and if the personalities are completely different than there'd be nothing left of the original personality; while if they are similar, less changes would be needed and the original personalities are more or less intact. A completely changed personality would be completely based off of the shard, while a partially changed personallity will still have some aspects of humanity. an example would be that while harmony is supposed to be neutral. sazed still is a kind and caring person and is able to interfere while keeping the balance. If sazed originally was an unstable psychopath who only cared about destruction, when he got the shards his personality would have had to have been changed completely to stop him using the balance between preservation and ruin to only cause destruction. if sazed was originally inclined to keep the balance then his personality would only need to be changed in small parts and some of the original personality would be left, and as long as that personality wasn't too diferent to the shards' intent it would be able to interfere. I assume this is why ruin only cared about the destruction of the world while odium seems to have more control over his plans. ruin seemed to be more like a computer program, able to calculate plans, but unable to do anything else but what he is programmed to do. Preservation seemed to have a lot more personality. he supported the balance between preservtion and ruin be throwing them into sazed. with this theory ti suggests that preservations original personality would have believed that the best way to limit the destruction would be a balance, while ruins original kind and caring personality would have been completely destroyed by ruin. if the letter is right that would mean that odiums original personality was similar to the shards and would make him much more dangerous. Uhm... I like this. I still think that Sazed could take Dominion and Devotion without changing his personality, though. And Roshtafarian: I call the combination of those two shards Unity. I feels right to me and it's why I think Sazed could handle them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 No, Saz hasn't got an ounce of Dominion in him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 sazed does have a lot of devotion in him. devotion doesnt seem antagonistic to preservation. But I wonder what effect it would have on ruin. It would definately destroy the harmony aspect. I wonder if the combo would allow sazed to interfere a lot more directly by preserving those he cares about and ruining threats to them [puns intended]. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 But that would shift the balance, wouldn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 I assume that shifting the balance would change the overall purpose. if the purpose of a ruin, preservation combo is keeping the balance between them, adding devotion to the mix would probably forge a new purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted March 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Well, it looks like Odium has already killed his direct opposite in Devotion. From dictionary.com Odium intense hatred or dislike, especially toward a person or thing regarded as contemptible, despicable, or repugnant. its direct opposite is Love. Devotion is a synonym for love. I think we are all looking at Dominion as a relatively negative shard because of its use in Elantris, but Dominion need not have a negative connotation. It just means control or power. That should not make a ripple for Harmony. It might even help balance the equation. Love and control are not direct opposites, but they should minimize each other's effects. Honor and Dominion would actually make a good good reinforcing pair. Right to power tempered by honesty and fairness. Someone with a negative view could turn Dominion bad, but someone with a positive view could just as well use it for good. Harmony should have no problem picking up either Devotion or Dominion after he reforms the splinters. He could probably get help reforming from Endowment or Cultivation if needed. Ruin and Preservation are the only two that are completely direct opposites. Devotion and Dominion are not direct opposites, but I can see them offsetting each other enought for Sazed to have very little additional effect. Honor mixed with Devotion, Preservation, and Dominion would reinforce reinforce each other. Ruin would temper the protective tendencies of Devotion and Preservation enough to allow a life cycle to exist and would allow destruction when needed. Cultivation and Endowment would still exist unless Odium or another shard managed to kill them as well. If that did happen, it would further open the way for Harmony to become a supershardholder. With just Harmony and the vacated shards, you would have 5:1 in an Odium showdown. With Cultivation and Endowment, it would be 7:1. After the fight one Harmony would hold 8. at that point, the unknown shards would come into play. Someone would have to kill or pickup all 8 of them just to have a parity with Harmony. At that point, if anyone even makes a move toward collecting the remaining shards, Harmony should not have any problem changing their mind about those actions. Will any of this actually happen? Well, we have 9 more SLA, 6+ more Mistborn, 2? more Elantris, and 1 more Warbreaker to find out. So, roughly another 20 to 30 years before everything plays out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROSHtafARian Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 That's the thing though...Brandon's very specific about his word choices, and I can't imagine him choosing Devotion for a Shard if what he really meant was Love. Just like you argue that Dominion doesn't inherently have to be bad, Devotion doesn't inherently have to be good. History's full of people who were devoted to horrific believes or causes. If Odium DOES have a polar opposite like the Ruin-Preservation pair, I don't think its Devotion, because well, you asked what you'd get if you paired Devotion with Ruin? You'd probably get something like Odium....a devotion/commitment to destruction, a love of chaos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 The very first time I looked up the definition for odium, what I got was "a state/feeling of dishonor." I assumed Honor was his counterpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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