strmblsd he/him Posted August 2, 2024 Posted August 2, 2024 Ok I couldn't find it but I swear there was a WoB on how sazed is having trouble with both the shards but somewhere (I think in the dawnchant or something) it had a picture of one and then 4 groups of 4 which were referring to the shards of adonalsium. So in the WoB the person asked if 4 shards combined would they make a super shard and not have the same problems as sazed. If someone finds this WoB I would like to see and have discussion on it. And please correct anything I said here
alder24 Posted August 2, 2024 Posted August 2, 2024 12 minutes ago, strmblsd said: I swear there was a WoB on how sazed is having trouble with both the shard Yes, there are many WoBs about this, for example: Spoiler ericth Could Sazed take down Rayse since he has two shards? Brandon Sanderson Rayse is VERY scared of Sazed. However, given Sazed is a composite of two diametrically opposed shards, he finds it very difficult to act. Words of Radiance Los Angeles signing (March 5, 2014) Spoiler Galavantes (paraphrased) Is Harmony more powerful than other Shards? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) More powerful or more potent? Galavantes (paraphrased) Um, powerful. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Harmony is two shards in one. Galavantes (paraphrased) Could he take Odium? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) His two shards are at odds with one another. (This was interesting to me, from his name being Harmony I had assumed Ruin and Preservation merged seamlessly. Brandon seems to be implying that while Sazed can utilize the power of both shards, he can't simply add them together) A Memory of Light Raleigh Signing (Feb. 20, 2013) Spoiler Questioner You've mentioned before that Odium is scared of Harmony. Is it only because of the raw power of the two Shards? Or is he scared of what Harmony represents? (Meaning the possibility of merging two Shards.) Was he aware that this was possible? Brandon Sanderson He, on one level, was aware. But it was more of awareness of this as a possibility. It actually happening is part of what has him scared. It's the idea of the two merging Shards both being more powerful and finding a harmony. (Which Sazed is actually having way more trouble doing than Odium realizes.) Those two things really have Odium scared. Because, partially, this means he has to find a way to destroy or split Harmony without taking up a second Shard himself, because Odium knows if he takes up a second Shard, terrible things will happen. And so he doesn't want to do that. (Terrible things as he views them.) And so he's gotta find a way to split this apart, or somehow otherwise defeat. Now, the more he learns about Sazed's actual state, the less afraid he'll probably be. But that's an advantage that Sazed has right now. San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020) Spoiler Mason Wheeler Harmonium is ettmetal... Its chemicals properties are sort of analogous to cesium. It explodes in contact with water. People are made out of water. You try to spike someone, you try to swallow it, you try to wear it as jewelry, it will not end well. Why in the world would he pick something so inharmonious? Brandon Sanderson He didn't pick it. It's unstable because of the two halves of him not meshing well. Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017) 21 minutes ago, strmblsd said: somewhere (I think in the dawnchant or something) it had a picture of one and then 4 groups of 4 which were referring to the shards of adonalsium. So in the WoB the person asked if 4 shards combined would they make a super shard and not have the same problems as sazed. Here is this quote from Dawnshard ch 16: Quote Not far past these, they entered a small room. It was perhaps fifteen feet square, and Rysn’s eyes were immediately drawn to the incredible mural that dominated the far wall. It depicted a sun being shattered into pieces. [...] That mural . . . it was circular and—inlaid with golden foil—it seemed to glow with its own light. The writing on parts of it was unfamiliar to Rysn; she hadn’t seen the script during any of her travels. It wasn’t even the Dawnchant. The peculiar letters were art themselves, curling around the outside of the exploding sun—which was divided into mostly symmetrical pieces. Four of them, each in turn broken into four smaller sections. And here is the WoB: Spoiler Dairetron In Dawnshard, when Rysn's looking at the mural, it's exploding the sun into four pieces and then each of them is broken into four from there. Based on this, would it be reasonable to assume four Shards of similar Intent could be able to form like a super-Shard without the issues Sazed is encountering? For example, say Honor, Valor, Mercy, and the last maybe unknown Shard like Wisdom or something like that? Brandon Sanderson That is a correct line of theorizing. Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 (July 28, 2023) I agree, it makes sense. Ruin and Preservation are two totally opposite Shards and it's hard to combine them fully. Some other Shards, with more fitting Intents would work better together, like Ruin and Cultivation, which are both about change, or Ruin and Odium, Honor and Valor etc. Unfortunately we don't know the names of Dawnshards, we don't know how Shards were grouped, we don't even know the name of the last Shard - we have a lot of theories about it and that's all we can work with. Spoiler Autarchk If I can ask a question, I just read the Mistborn trilogy and, were Preservation and Ruin two different shards or a single one with their power split somehow? If they were two shards, does that mean a single person can hold more than one, since Harmony apparently holds both now? Brandon Sanderson They were two shards. Yes, one entity can hold more than one. Remember that holding a shard changes you, over time. Rayse knows this, and prefers to leave behind destroyed rivals as opposed to taking their power and potentially being overwhelmed by it. Nepene I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him- Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people. Brandon Sanderson Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view. That said, Ruin would have been one of the 'safer' of the sixteen for Rayse to take, if he'd been about that. Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else. General Reddit 2013 (March 14, 2013) 1
strmblsd he/him Posted August 2, 2024 Author Posted August 2, 2024 Spoiler Dairetron In Dawnshard, when Rysn's looking at the mural, it's exploding the sun into four pieces and then each of them is broken into four from there. Based on this, would it be reasonable to assume four Shards of similar Intent could be able to form like a super-Shard without the issues Sazed is encountering? For example, say Honor, Valor, Mercy, and the last maybe unknown Shard like Wisdom or something like that? Brandon Sanderson That is a correct line of theorizing. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/517/#e16197 Found the one I was thinking about
a Faceless Immortal he/him Posted August 6, 2024 Posted August 6, 2024 My interpretation of the 4-pieces is that using the four Dawnshards splits a single thing into four things, and so Adonalsium was initially split into four pieces, and then each piece was split again to make 16 total. This does seem to align with the WoB and does imply that there were at some point 4 'super shard,' and I imagine each were somewhat aligned with a Dawnshard's purpose, ie. one of those shards was probably 'Change' and would go on to encompass shards like Ruin and Cultivation, and maybe more abstractly Ambition and Invention. The group that the WoB has as Honor, Valor, Mercy and (since we know Wisdom is not a shard) Virtuosity probably was something like 'Help' or some other imperative that fits all four of them. Certainly is interesting. 1
The Stick Posted August 7, 2024 Posted August 7, 2024 So my perspective on this has always been that the 4 Dawnshards all pulled equally on Adonalsium's nature, similar to the medieval process of quartering. This it's central integrity collapsing, which made the power be drawn to the Dawnshards like magnets, into four like-minded Intents. I would then say that the Dawnshards all did the same thing to the smaller super-shards. I guess the issue is then the question is why did this process not continue to recurse. But in my mind, this allows you to say each Shard was shaped by two Dawnshards, one super shard one, then another one that ripped the super shard apart. So that would mean that there are 4 out of 16 shards that are purest to the Dawnshard's command.
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