Could Odium and Honor recombine

[jshurmer]

I've been out of the cosmere since Stormlight 4 first came out. Forgive me if this has already been discussed or anything.

I suspect the ultimate plan of the Cosmere is to reunite Adonalsium. Ruin and Preservation were united by Sazed in Harmony.

Perhaps Honor and Odium will unite as well.

If they do, who would hold the new thing, and what would it be.

"Devotion" makes sense to me. Perhaps by Szeth.

Edited December 4, 2024 by jshurmer

[Quantus he/him]

Theoretically yes.  Harmony sets the precedent that a single person can hold multiple Shards and WOB says that doing so has mingled them to the point that they would not separate without effort.  Rayse never wanted to do that because he didnt want to deal with the added internal personality Pressures that would come from holding several, but that was just a personal Choice rather than an actual Limit.

That being said, the Rhythm of War certainly implies that an Odium + Honor combination would not be a particularly passive or docile combination (at least compared to "Harmony").  

[Dunkum he/him]

2 additions to what Quantus already said:

1. Devotion already exists. or did exist and was killed - it was the shard held by Aona on Sel. So the combined shard would not be that. the combined Rhythm of Odium and Honor was the Rhythm of War, as was already noted, so the shard would presumably be something related to that.

2. Honor has been splintered, so to merge it with Odium would require gathering up the pieces. not impossible for a shard, presumably, but not as simple as Ruin and Preservation either.

[jshurmer]

Ah interesting. Thanks for the thoughts. I'm rereading Rhythm of War right now, so all these details will hopefully come back to me.

Perhaps Devotion was killed by being split into Odium and Honor

I wonder what the union of Honor and Odium is if not Devotion. Justice? 

[scientificmotif]

3 hours ago, jshurmer said:

I've been out of the cosmere since Stormlight 4 first came out. Forgive me if this has already been discussed or anything.

I suspect the ultimate plan of the Cosmere is to reunite Adonalsium. Ruin and Preservation were united by Sazed in Harmony.

Perhaps Honor and Odium will unite as well.

If they do, who would hold the new thing, and what would it be.

"Devotion" makes sense to me. Perhaps by Szeth.

Devotion already exists as a shard... and is now 1/2 of the Dor. Devotion doesn't really have any Odium in it, and is only tangentially related to Honor.

 I feel like for a real combo (Not a pseudo combo like Harmony, going to explain that a bit more later in the post) the resulting shard would be named something like Retribution, Retaliation, or Vengeance. I feel like Judgement and Justice don't have enough of the connotations behind wrath behind Odium to work well. I looked down the "war" route, but didn't find anything there. English doesn't really have a word for "honorable war." "Crusade" or "Crusader" just don't sound right. Considering my three options, I choose to drop Retaliation as not having enough oomph behind it in terms of rage or anger. Finally, between Vengeance and Retribution, I feel like either could work, but I'm going after some consideration with Vengeance. Vengeance has more Odium to it, and Retribution has more Honor to it, but I feel like the words already lean too much towards Honor as it is, and it just kind of sounds better for me. A Shard's name doesn't have to be all of what a Shard represents and its Intent, but it should represent its Shard as well as possible with what words English has. So while I'd suggest Vengeance or Retribution, if it was my job I'd name it Vengeance. (I'm assuming when you say "what would it be", you mean "what would it be named.")

And who would combine the Shards anyways? Odium wouldn't...

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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

Odium combining with another shard would mean that Odium as a Shard would cease to exist. Because Rayse has held the shard for countless millennia, he's just blatantly unable to act against its Intent in such a big way like that Like how Nomad held the Dawnshard for some amount of time, and as a result has trouble acting against its Intent. And how Preservation couldn't attack Ruin.) So even though he in theory could combine with Shards, he wouldn't. Note that Rayse isn't fully aligned with the Shard, (Maybe since he was well aligned with Odium in the first place, somehow he isn't completely warped to the Shard's Intent like Ati was) and he sees himself as "Passion" and that kind of stuff. (Yet Odium is shown to pretty much purely compel Tarvanigan to hate hate destroy destroy destroy) So in theory Rayse should have been able to act against Odium's Intent in some kind of way.

Rodium (And any Vessel+Shard combo except maybe long-term Vessels of Honor) can break deals, though. I can't the WoB (Or odium's dialogue about the matter), but breaking deals makes Shards weaker against other Shards, and there's another WoB I can't find about how Preservation is weak against other Shards too because he broke a deal with Ruin, and "how that will never be a problem ever everything's fine Harmony is fine" (Paraphrased). Basically, Odium won't break deals because it would give him problems with Splintering other Shards. I just wanted to clarify that acting against a Shard's Intent is not the same as breaking deals, and how Rayse can do one but not the other. 

But now Rodium is Todium, and Tarvanigan hasn't held the shard for any significant amount of time at all, so in theory he could take up Honor. In practice, he can't. Think there was either a WoB or something in the book about how the power needs to be "convinced" to be taken up? Ascension isn't fully understood, so it's a bit unclear what it would involve. Especially putting together Honor. However...

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ParadoxSpren

If someone did, like what Dalinar did at the end of [Oathbringer], go on Sel, and they Ascended to take up the Dor, would they be stronger or weaker than Sazed?

Brandon Sanderson

If someone were able to take up the entire Dor, would they be stronger or weaker than Sazed? I would say equivalent.

ParadoxSpren

Aren't they all Shattered? Aren't they all Splintered, both of them?

Brandon Sanderson

The thing about it is, taking up the power-- taking up the power would-- So, I'll leave it at this. I would say equivalent. Everything still considered.

 

#harmony #the dor

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Overlord Jebus

Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

Overlord Jebus

Are they aware of that Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things.

Overlord Jebus

So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm.

So it's like, "taking up the power" might reassemble Splinters? Maybe? In order to help my understanding of Ascension, I'd have to reread Vin's and Sazed's ascensions from Kelsier's POV, and also Kelsier's ascension. It seems like you need to be Connected to some degree to take up Shards, but obviously circumstances matter, and again we don't fully understand. Like how Ruin and Preservation's power manifested in the PR after their Vessels died, but when Leras died (Indicated in the same way, his body drops into the PR where his mind was focused) no such power manifested. And Vin had to be Super-Duper Connected and the mists "chose her" and stuff, and Kelsier had to use the Connection hack sphere, and Sazed was just like "Yoink!" And how the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm instead of the Spiritual prevents is from becoming sentient, and how Rayse technically could have merged with the Shards he Splintered while being essentially completely aligned with Odium (Where Sazed had about equal Connections to Preservation and Ruin), etc, etc.

So I suppose it's possible that Todium would want to combine with Honor to get more power so he could "save them all", or to help resist Odium's Intent, or a combination of the two and/or another motivation. However, there's no evidence to say whether Todium does want to, and whether he can at all, and if he would succeed if the aforementioned conditions are true. And even less evidence that he'd be forced to do so. 

Obviously, there's other possibilities of the combination of the two Shards, like someone reassembling and taking up Honor and then taking up Odium somehow, or both Honor and Odium dying and someone taking up both at once, and more, but there's just too many possibilities to consider. 

As a final note, there wouldn't be just one possible Shard combination.

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Kiiyashi

If Rashek had been in a position to claim Preservation and Ruin simultaneously, as Sazed did, would he have been able to to Ascend to Harmony, another combination of the two Shards, or just one?

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rcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)
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Questioner

So I've got sort of a Shard-related question. So, the entity that Harmony is, all the other Shards that we've had named so far, are any of them combinations, or are they all--

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, good question. The only one I would count as a combination is the Dor, right? But it isn't even a full Shard. So everything else, single holder only when we talk about it okay? That's an excellent question. Or they've been Splintered completely.

 

#dor #shards

Brandon doesn't even count Harmony as a combined shard. It's simply an entity that consists of two Shards that are tangled enough to stay in one piece. So different combinations can result from whether the Shards are really actually combined or simply shoved in one Vessel.

(Side note, I theorize that the entity that consists of two Shards known as Harmony has been Discord all along. The combination of Preservation, Ruin, and Sazed  is what is known as "Harmony'. Think about it like the distinction between Todium and Odium. When Sazed is no longer able to wrangle Ruin and Preservation and act (and people notice and therefore change the name), the Shards+Vessel combo will become known as Discord. The Shard combo was always Discord. Sazed just gets affected by the Shard combo's Intent.)

Tldr:
1.. Who would be the Vessel?

Vessel: No way to know who would hold it, it depends, pretty much anyone in the Cosmere could take up the shard given the right circumstances.

2. Nature of the shard:

Its nature depends on whether it gets actually, fully combined, or whether they just get shoved in one Vessel, left there for a few hundred years, and get tangled enough to be counted as one entity.

3. Naming: Retribution or Vengeance (I lean heavily towards Vengeance).

Edited December 4, 2024 by scientificmotif
Oops, posted too early!