Most dangerous Shard?

[Trusk'our he/him]

We know that every Shard has unique abilities. Honor can bind even other Shards, Autonomy seems to be capable of booting other Shards off claimed worlds and creating Perpendicularities more easily (probably from making largely autonomous Avatars), etc.

I think, perhaps, that Ruin might have the most dangerous potential of any Shard. Not only is it driven to change things, it has an undeniable destructive edge regardless of who holds it.

Furthermore, I believe we've seen evidence of Ruin's Intent not just corrupting Investiture, but actually converting it over to itself fully (Hemalurgy granting Connection to Ruin despite stealing fragments of other Investiture and Nightblood bearing Ruinous colored Investiture despite taking from many sources).

I think it's just possible that one of Ruin's unique Shardic abilities is to completely destroy and overwrite another Shard's Investiture, which would grant it the potential to be the most dangerous Shard, I'm thinking.

There's definitely the question of whether Ruin would be controlled well enough to actually kill another Vessel and devour their Shard, but I think if it did happen the Cosmere might just be doomed as Ruin kept eating up other Shards and growing with each one.

[CMac716]

The investiture that leaks from Nightblood isn't Ruin flavor, its more like a bunch of different investiture got thrown in a blender. Rather than red of corrupted investiture, black is mangled beyond recognition. The Nightmares in Yumi are an example of this. Same with Shades on Threnody.

 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/535/#e16587

  

But as for powers, if i had to guess, the surge of division is probably the closest related to him, much like bondsmithing seems to be the surge of Honor. Division lit an entire world on fire after all. The way is described when Szeth uses it seems to be me typing things apart on a molecular level. 

Diss the Chris

In Yumi, the outer edge of Kilahito and the Nightmares are being described as being completely nonreflective, and they drip with a black liquid that smokes. The same description has been given to the Midnight Essence and to Nightblood. Are these linked, and indicative of some kind of warped Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They are significantly linked. (There you are; we’ll use “significantly” in that regard.)

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/526/#e16416

 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

9 hours ago, CMac716 said:

The investiture that leaks from Nightblood isn't Ruin flavor, its more like a bunch of different investiture got thrown in a blender. Rather than red of corrupted investiture, black is mangled beyond recognition. The Nightmares in Yumi are an example of this. Same with Shades on Threnody.

Nightblood holds some of Ruin's Investiture, most likely due to its Intent altering what it got from Endowment and other sources, I'm thinking.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360-legion-release-party/#e10902

Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

I would be willing to guess that any sufficiently "mangled" Investiture could count as Ruin's though, given it's Intent and the unique ability the Shard might have according to my proposal. 

[SomePog]

I think the most terrifying shard will be Whimsy, we haven't seen them yet so we cant say for certain but with Odium and Ruin as terrible as they are they have their bindings, Odium can be reasoned with (We see this in both Rayse and Tarv) And Ruin can be tricked, especially due to Ruin being a rather simplistic nature for a shard, Yes both can destroy you in the blink of an eye, but they can be predicted for, Whimsy can't. Whimsy by nature is unpredictable, Imaging laying out an intricate trap for Whimsy only for them to show up, laugh and then do something brand new that you couldn't have planned for, Whimsy could one day shower you in gold then the next turn you into a potted plant. If we go by the idea of each shard having a transcendent power over other shards, I could see Whimsy's being similar to Takaba from JJK, the ability to ignore contracts and restrictions from other shards as long as Whismy finds it funny.

 

[LeondeBowa]

So I think the actual answer is the one paying the most attention to you at that moment.

These things are all Godzilla, it doesn't matter if it's a nice Godzilla, your city is still getting destroyed.

[coolsnow7]

I think that to answer this question, you should be asking: who did the other Shards perceive as the most dangerous? And Odium not only goes after Ambition first, but keeps casually presuming that others agree that Ambition was going to need to be dealt with somehow. I’m pretty confident that the answer is Ambition somehow, and we’ll find out eventually the specifics.