Lirin/Dawnshard

[Unholy Truth]

This one is pretty far out there but I just wanted to see if anyone has seen evidence or hints to anything weird into Lirin's past. Hoid has interest in Kaladin's life (whether his interests are genuine or selfish) and it would explain his extreme level of pacifism. Most likely a rabbit hole but would love to hear some thoughts

[Quantus he/him]

Not really. If he's a Dawnshard, he hasnt been one (or the right one) long enough to develop the same inhibitions as Hoid, since he is capable of physical harm.  His stance is a relatively common one for both Doctors and the downtroden (both by caste and enemy occupation).

Most of the focus on kaladin's lineage that Ive seen has been on the hints that his mother was part of one of the noble houses. 

[Quantus he/him]

3 hours ago, Unholy Truth said:

How would you describe our current understanding of a Dawnshard?

Fair warning that I cant do it well because I havent gotten around to reading The Sunlit Man, and Im given to understand it included a lot of juicy Dawnshard content. So I can explain my reasoning but just understand I am missing a big chunk of the data.  

A Dawnshard, like a Shard, is both the power and the title of the one holding it.  There are 4 of them, per WOB one of them is different from the rest (but we dont know how), Hoid used to be one and it's the reason he cannot so much as consider eating meat or causing physical harm to himself or others without becoming incapacitated (so for example he had to get somebody else to knock his tooth out for him).  He can cause Cognitive harm, and can punch a ghost in shadesmar (to his surprise). He has no particular philosophic problem with causing Harm (or letting others do it for him), it's a limit imposed on him by the Dawnshard.  The Limit is relative to his perception, so he could be tricked into eating meat, and could probably rationalize lab-grown meat slurry.  The Dawnshard Mural strongly implied the four can be categorized with the Shards into 4 quadrants similar to the Metallic Arts Charts.  WOB (and spoilers from TSM I've seen) say it's called a Torment and that it takes being a Dawnshard for a long time to develop (sounds like a form of Savantism to me).  

For Lirin, WOB confirms he's A) Kaladin's biological Father, b) Not A Worldhopper, and c) philosophically a Pacifist to the extent that he'd let more people die to keep it from being his Fault than act to kill one and save Many (in the context of the Trolley Problem.  

https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=&date_from=&date_to=2024-02-21&speaker=&tags=lirin&ordering=rank

 

Edited February 21, 2024 by Quantus
Awful spelling...

[Unholy Truth]

How would you describe our current understanding of a Dawnshard?

[Unholy Truth]

Thank you, Sunlit man is one I haven't gotten around to yet either, but this will definitely be the push I was looking for. Small follow up, So the Dawnshard (at least the one Hoid was in possession of) prevents one from causing harm in the physical realm (Still not sure on how harm is defined) but they could they still have malicious intentions?

 

Edited February 21, 2024 by Unholy Truth

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Unholy Truth said:

This one is pretty far out there but I just wanted to see if anyone has seen evidence or hints to anything weird into Lirin's past. Hoid has interest in Kaladin's life (whether his interests are genuine or selfish) and it would explain his extreme level of pacifism. Most likely a rabbit hole but would love to hear some thoughts

I see no indications of Lirin being a Dawnshard. Being a Dawnshard is visible - you have an aura of enhanced colors around you, something that isn't there with Lirin. Lirin is capable of harm, can be hurt, has eyesight problems (he's wearing glasses) which would be healed if he was a Dawnshard and is affected by alcohol, which he shouldn't be if he was a Dawnshard - he would be too invested. 

Lirin is just an empathetic doctor with strong morals.

Spoiler

tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

17 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

Thank you, Sunlit man is one I haven't gotten around to yet either, but this will definitely be the push I was looking for. Small follow up, So the Dawnshard (at least the one Hoid was in possession of) prevents one from causing harm in the physical realm (Still not sure on how harm is defined) but they could they still have malicious intentions?

It prevents causing harm to the soul and the body. If you punch someone who's dead in his Cognitive form in the Cognitive Realm, then you're not harming them, because it's their mind that imagines pain which shouldn't be there because they are dead.

Dawnshard can have malicious intentions, they seem to not change the minds of their holder. 

[Unholy Truth]

I understand why he was able to do what he did with Kelsier. But if someone had Odium's investiture (Splinter or the Shard) while also being a Dawnshard, they would still have this internal hatred (probably a better way to define that) but just incapable of acting upon it specifically in the physical realm? I realize a lot of this is coming in later books, I'm just trying to figure out how I feel about Hoid.

[alder24]

42 minutes ago, Unholy Truth said:

But if someone had Odium's investiture (Splinter or the Shard) while also being a Dawnshard, they would still have this internal hatred (probably a better way to define that) but just incapable of acting upon it specifically in the physical realm?

It depends. You mean acting as hurting? A Splinter can have its intent different from the Shard's intent they came from. If a person, a human, was using investiture of Odium, it wouldn't change the way they act, it wouldn’t change their mind. A Fused would still behave like a Fused do, even with a Dawnshard.  If a Vessel of a Shard had a Dawnshard, they would be bound by the Shard first and foremost. It really depends on the circumstances. Would they be unable to cause harm with Hoid's Dawnshard? Well, perception matters a bit. Some might find a way, a Shard would definitely be able to find a way to do something that would mess things up.

For all we know, Dawnshard doesn't affect the personality of its holder (unlike Shards). Dawnshards (people holding a Dawnshard are called a Dawnshard - Rysn is a Dawnshard now) are capable of acting on their own, free will. As we know right now only Hoid's Dawnshard prevents from causing harm, we don't know if others do that as well, or something different - we know Hoid's Dawnshard is probably the different one. 

Hoid would be unable to hurt a LIVING person in the Cognitive Realm as well. Have you read Mistborn Secret History? The place where they are hurting others doesn't matter, it matters if they are alive or dead and if Hoid is just beating the Cognitive manifestation of a dead person, which should not feel any pain, because it doesn't have a body anymore. 

WoB:

Spoiler

Josh

Do Splinters have their own Intent, in addition to the Shards'?

Brandon Sanderson

Splinters often have their own intent.

West Jordan signing (Aug. 4, 2011)

 

Spoiler

Curtis

Could you write something about Dawnshards that we don't/won't know?

Brandon

One Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

Words of Radiance release party (March 3, 2014)

 

Spoiler

/u/ph4mp573r

[Hoid] was beheaded in Dragonsteel Prime and the Dawnshard is what regrew his head. He makes a crack about always thinking his head would have grown a new body, not vice versa, as he stares at his own severed head.

/u/sambadaemon

Slightly related: If the Dawnshard let Hoid regrow his entire head, will it eventually give Rysn back the use of her legs?

Peter Ahlstrom

The different dawnshards have different powers.

Information subject to change when it appears in canon.

General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

[Unholy Truth]

Yes, I've read secret history so I do understand the distinction you're making between and living and dead cognitive shadow and how that influences what you can do it after being a Dawnshard. I also understand that the vessel influences the shard so we can expect Taravagian's version of odium to be slightly different than Raise but as time passes, he becomes more aligned with the shard's nature. The reason I used Odium as example is because the nature of that shard and I would assume a few others (Ruin for example) seem to be at odds with at least with 1 of the Dawnshards. But yeah, just holding odium's investiture wouldn't change your identity or influence your intent but being the vessel would as I understand it.