Which Shard would you want?

[Ninth of the Night]

23 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

Invention I also liked, but I rejected it because being pushed to invent at all costs I don't feel is great.

You may have pinpointed the reason why Invention could be problematic for the cosmere. If an artist is inspired to create something, they'll put heart and soul into making something great that everyone can love and benefit from. If however they are forced to keep chasing that initial success, or keep inventing without proper motivation, the end results get progressively (or instantly in some cases) worse and ultimately benefits no one in the end.

This happens way too often in real life, so I'd be surprised if this isn't the main drawback of holding the Shard of Invention.

[Moirne she/her]

Whimsy for me - basically giving in to impulsive but enjoyable behavior as a job, and not at the top of anyone’s hit list.

[Duneye]

Definitely Invention for me. I love seeing technological change over time and getting be actively shape technology would be fascinating to me. I think Reason would actually be a double-edged blade. It could force terrible actions if they're seen as the most "logical" option, like murdering the entire population of a city for rebelling in order to prevent any further rebellions. Seeing how Honor has interpreted its Intent so narrowly, I don't trust Reason to be a very "good" shard.

As for a Shard I wouldn't want to hold, Preservation would be hell for me. I've got ADHD so being forced to try and keep everything the same forever... it would kill me pretty quick.

I think it's kinda funny how Reason and Invention are the most picked. what a bunch of nerds we are lol

[Qianweilian He/him]

16 hours ago, Duneye said:

what a bunch of nerds we are lol

You're literally on a forum dedicated to creating fan theories about fantasy books and we're all discussing which fictional god people would choose to become

[Entr0pic He/him]

I choose reason because I believe i can be reasonable, and i think i may be able to mold the shard into something that isn’t emotionless.

i don’t think I’d make a good devotion, as i don’t warm up to people easily at all.

[Qianweilian He/him]

3 minutes ago, Entr0pic said:

i don’t think I’d make a good devotion, as i don’t warm up to people easily at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by you wouldn't be a good devotion? Merriam-Webster says a definition of the word devotion is "the act of dedicating something to a cause, enterprise, or activity." I am not a people person, but I think I'd do rather well devoting myself to a cause.

[Entr0pic He/him]

4 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

I'm not sure what you mean by you wouldn't be a good devotion? Merriam-Webster says a definition of the word devotion is "the act of dedicating something to a cause, enterprise, or activity." I am not a people person, but I think I'd do rather well devoting myself to a cause.

That’s the thing. The shards intent is partly based off the vessel interpretation of that intent. Assuming i never knew what the technical definition of devotion was, and continue assuming that it was only devotion to a person, then it might mold the shard to that intent, which i would be bad at.

also I’m just bad at committing in general.

[Qianweilian He/him]

22 minutes ago, Entr0pic said:

also I’m just bad at committing in general.

I am too, I kind of just want to be more devoted.

[Entr0pic He/him]

1 minute ago, Qianweilian said:

I am too, I kind of just want to be more devoted.

You and me both, you and me both.

[Master Silver]

I feel like Ambition would end up getting me killed. Honor would be fine as long as you get the Shard to understand the true sense of the word.

[Duneye]

On 2/28/2025 at 8:31 AM, Qianweilian said:

You're literally on a forum dedicated to creating fan theories about fantasy books and we're all discussing which fictional god people would choose to become

Just joking around man, I'm as much a nerd as anyone else on here

[OoklaApologist She/her]

On 2/27/2025 at 3:12 PM, Duneye said:

what a bunch of nerds we are lol

Sir, this is the 17th Shard

[BinarySecond]

I reckon I do actually do some good with Ruin. Sometimes you need a little strife to move things along.

 

Edit: I would apply a significant amount of Entropy in the area immediately surrounding Moash.

Edited March 4, 2025 by BinarySecond
It's a good idea

[Entr0pic He/him]

On 3/4/2025 at 1:12 AM, BinarySecond said:

I reckon I do actually do some good with Ruin. Sometimes you need a little strife to move things along.

 

Edit: I would apply a significant amount of Entropy in the area immediately surrounding Moash.

Please, do. We would all clap.

[Hexagonal He/Him]

I picked Whimsy myself, as Brandon has said it is most dangerous to one's self worth and decorum. I think it could be really fun to just be full silly.

Spoiler

Questioner

Is Whimsy the most dangerous Shard? Is he essentially, like, a Shard cat?

Brandon Sanderson

Whimsy is the most dangerous Shard to your sense of decorum and self-worth.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

[Ripheus23]

I'd choose Odium because I think where Ati went wrong was at least inasmuch as kindness and destruction are not opposites per se, like destroying a virus to heal someone for example, so between that and another weakness I think he had, I wonder if he would've done better to hold Odium for the sake of defying that Intent instead. So, if I intended to be a kind man of my own, I would be willing to take up Odium to fight it, hopefully to better effect (than happened with Ati and Ruin).

I think that Honor supercharged the pact Ati made with Leras, and then Ati's having broken the earlier ur-agreement against Shardic pairs was translated into a horrible and subtle crack in his Spiritweb, which diminished his ability to resist Ruin the Shard within him as such.

EDIT: I also voted against holding Honor. My reasoning:

• I think it would have been better if every Vessel had intended to fight the Intent of the Shard they took up. This might've matched better with the deep reason for dismantling Adonalsium, which I'm starting to think was something like "because Ado wasn't fighting Its precipitates of the later Shardic Intents." Basically, Honor as a Shard, "just like that," is as "evil" as all the other Shards are in their own way. Yes, Honor also has the potential to truly grow and learn, and I might be minded to be the one to teach Honor its own "true nature." But I think the symmetry of its "mindset" and mine would be too strong, and not like an inverse vs. the default but something more constructively reciprocal, so rather than Honor being molded by my Spiritweb, my Spiritweb would be too much molded by Honor and I would fall prey to the Shard while it was still in its "evil" or "unregenerate" form/estate.

Edited March 8, 2025 by Ripheus23

[Qianweilian He/him]

10 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

I think that Honor supercharged the pact Ati made with Leras

Was it a pact like that, or was it like a mutual understanding where they both knew Ruin would be stronger some day? 

10 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

Ati's having broken the earlier ur-agreement

Again, do we know if this is an oath they made after becoming shards or just an informal agreement before any of them ascended? 

10 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

I think it would have been better if every Vessel had intended to fight the Intent of the Shard they took up.

Yes, but are the Vessel is the polar opposite of the shard, the Vessel might get broken down, which could be worse that a Vessel who is similar but a little different, or more likely, just get rejected.

[Elegy he/him]

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

Again, do we know if this is an oath they made after becoming shards or just an informal agreement before any of them ascended? 

WOB canon is that they had an agreement, not an oath:

Quote

Nameless36

All the Shards basically agreed not to settle on the same planet. Six of them - that we know of - immediately, basically broke that.

Brandon Sanderson

So... they did not make an oath to it. There was a suggestion made... and perhaps the people who made the suggestion did not understand that, if you want the Shards to do something, you need an actual oath. And they did not get one.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

 

[Lord Spirit he/him]

For shards I would want, I went with Invention, although I think virtuosity or Cultivation could be good as well. They would allow you to do things that aren’t going to lead to death and destruction. 
 

I think that reason is maybe the most dangerous shard, no honor, no emotion, just pure logic. Based on other series, being reasonable isn’t really that great. At best, you stay away from trouble (Ravenclaw) and do very little of relevance, and at worst it create the trouble for self gain (Erudite) It’s essentially like a very smart AI with magic powers and no conscious. Taravangien could probably pick up this shard pretty easily if he killed the current vessel. 

[Ripheus23]

3 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

Was it a pact like that, or was it like a mutual understanding where they both knew Ruin would be stronger some day? 

Again, do we know if this is an oath they made after becoming shards or just an informal agreement before any of them ascended? 

Yes, but are the Vessel is the polar opposite of the shard, the Vessel might get broken down, which could be worse that a Vessel who is similar but a little different, or more likely, just get rejected.

1. The back cover of HoA says, IIRC, that Ruin "was promised the right" to destroy the world.
2. Conventionalism about promissory obligations has it that all promises/oaths/etc.* are established on the basis of practical agreement theory. EDIT: I think the ur-agreement was not automatically Physically/Cognitively charged by Honor, or even Honor's precursor component inside Adonalsium's nature, but I think as a Spiritual matter, it left a specific opening for later violation of the Scadrian pact to become compounded in terms of its detriment to Ati's Spiritual integrity. Like, he participated in two broken agreements, and this fact Spiritually corrupted him in some special way (even though the secondary violation wasn't his fault).
3. Then the whole plan was seriously flawed and Adonalsium should not have been Shattered, the Vessels did something infinitely evil in killing their god, the production of the Shards was an evil act, so the existence of the Shards is itself an evil to be vanquished, maybe.

*EDIT 2: my working theory about the different words "promise," "oath," "vow," "pledge," etc. is that, waiving some being synonyms, we can define their distinctiveness in terms of political or (better) aretaic "rank":

1. A promise simpliciter is a promise made to a political or moral equal.
2. An oath is a promise made to someone of higher rank.
3. A pledge is a promise made to someone of lower rank.
4. A vow is a promise made to someone of incommensurable/incomparable rank.
5. &c. (and none of the above is absolutely fixed as far as mere word usage goes; the main thing is just to assign the distinctions in terms of some different words, but if you feel like, it's fine to say that e.g. a vow is made to someone of equal rank, etc.).

Edited March 8, 2025 by Ripheus23

[Ookla she/her]

Here's my issue: ALL the Shards are a problem on their own, because they have no balance of Intents. Any one of the Shards, taken too far (which is the Shard's nature to do), is going to be an issue. Plus, all the single Shards we've seen most and gotten to understand best, the original Vessels either died, withered away in a constant tug-of-war with another Shard, or went insane before the Shard Splintered. It's not a great track record. If I had to choose a shard, I'd probably go with Endowment because, from what we've seen, she hasn't gone completely insane or been forced to do awful things by her Shardic Intent, but I also know I don't have a lot of information on Endowment's story and who she was before and after the Shard, so it's still risky. Even Endowment, taken too far, is going to be a big issue.

But, honestly, if I could have all the power I wanted in the Cosmere, I'd pick up ten thousand Breaths on Nalthis, a bead of Lerasium on Scadrial, and my Edgedancer/Truthwatcher spren (depending on which got to me first; I flip-flop between the two orders whenever I take the quiz) on Roshar, and return home content with all my favorite Cosmere powers. Dealing with Shards is way above my paygrade!

[Qianweilian He/him]

On 3/8/2025 at 9:18 AM, Lord Spirit said:

being reasonable isn’t really that great

Being reasonable is great, it's just reasoning at the expense of everything else that's the problem. The shard probably has the same problem.

On 3/8/2025 at 9:18 AM, Lord Spirit said:

At best, you stay away from trouble (Ravenclaw) and do very little of relevance, and at worst it create the trouble for self gain (Erudite)

Reason and knowledge are different things. Also, neither of your examples are because of reason and reasoning.