Inconsistent Use of Shard Powers

[BinarySecond]

At the end of WaT we see Retribution turn Wit into red mist. It has occurred to me that during Mistborn we never see Ruin act this directly against any individuals.

We see Ruin oppose Vin which leads to destruction e.g. Vin adjusts Scadrial orbit or rotation, but is opposed but Ruins power when trying to improve the situation.

Ruin is using agents consistently - Essentially any Hemalurgist - But is there a reason that Ruin cannot act directly and remove difficult people instantly. I could take this further and ask why Ruins doesn't just shatter the entire planet?

 

Am I forgetting something about the deal with Preservation?

[Hexagonal He/Him]

I think there is a mix of the deal and innate shardic powers. There is a WoB that says some shards cannot just smite people. 

Spoiler

RandyD

Can a Shard just smite someone? Like, "Boom, you're dead," and they die?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Shards can do this, depending on where they are. For instance, Odium can't, but Endowment could.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

As well, Ruin was missing some of his power(all the Atium that eventually got burned). While we don't really know if Ruin can just smite people, it seems likely that it would have left him open to attack.

[Atlas333]

I can't remember where exactly it's said but didn't Wit mention he had broken some kind of agreement that negated his defenses? By becoming Retribution it was now within his power to smite oath breakers (correct me if I'm misremembering).

[bmcclure7]

5 hours ago, BinarySecond said:

At the end of WaT we see Retribution turn Wit into red mist. It has occurred to me that during Mistborn we never see Ruin act this directly against any individuals.

We see Ruin oppose Vin which leads to destruction e.g. Vin adjusts Scadrial orbit or rotation, but is opposed but Ruins power when trying to improve the situation.

Ruin is using agents consistently - Essentially any Hemalurgist - But is there a reason that Ruin cannot act directly and remove difficult people instantly. I could take this further and ask why Ruins doesn't just shatter the entire planet?

 

Am I forgetting something about the deal with Preservation?

Ruin did not have his full power

[Ashbringer he/him]

In addition to Ruin losing part of his power in the atium - which is probably the main reason he can't just smite - it may also be tied to Intent.

Ruin is much more associated with Decay and Entropy than it is outright Destruction. Similar to how Cultivation seemingly can't just give answers to Dalinar because that would be contrary to her Intent focused on slow growth, Ruin may not be able to just annihilate someone because his Intent is more about slow-but-inevitable Decay. Granted, if he'd gotten the atium he would have destroyed the planet, but we don't know the vector for now (if it would be a bang or a slow cracking from tectonic forces, or something).

It may also be an agreement that Ruin had with Preservation. We know they had one, because they worked together to make people - wouldn't be too surprising if they agreed to limit their influence for a certain amount of time before Ruin got to ultimately destroy. Meanwhile Smitey Endowment has no such agreement because there's no other Shard on Nalthis.

[Qianweilian He/him]

Also the fact that Ati was originally kind might have something to do with it. Ati shifted Ruin to more of a "decay is inevitable" stance. Maybe if another vessel held Ruin it might be possible.

[LeondeBowa]

I think the two biggest factors against ruin just smiting someone are,

first as quianweilian said Ati sees what he does as an inevitabillity and a kindness, he would not see the need or the desire to smite someone and literally up to the moment vin lost her earstud, he was winning

Second ruin wasn't a solo shard on the planet and a large factor we have learnt from the stormlight archive is that actions as a shard can lead you to be vulnerable to other shards, ie preservation

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

I think that Odium was hesitant to just smite people, because that would leave him open to an attack from another Shard, but everyone else is too scared of him now that he has twice the power, and none of Sazed's restrictions.

[nehalem]

Considering the planet was built together by Ruin and Preservation it seems plausible there was a restriction against smiting people from the planet in place.  Preservation would pretty clearly not want Ruin to go around smiting people.

 

 

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 hour ago, Xiahida said:

I think that Odium was hesitant to just smite people, because that would leave him open to an attack from another Shard, but everyone else is too scared of him now that he has twice the power, and none of Sazed's restrictions.

I believe Odium did specifically swear an oath not to directly affect people who were not given to him, as a condition of him being present on Roshar. So yes, he was capable, just doing so would let Cultivation kill him. But that's gone now.

 

One other thing not mentioned - Hoid has specifically lost / is missing certain protections that would protect him from other things. I believe even pre-Retribution, he wasn't covered under Odium's no-influence policy, which is why he needed a specific safeguard in the Contest of Champions terms and why Taravangian could get at his Breaths. But that's also gone now, regardless.

 

2 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

Also the fact that Ati was originally kind might have something to do with it. Ati shifted Ruin to more of a "decay is inevitable" stance. Maybe if another vessel held Ruin it might be possible.

I am curious if this is actually the case - I think it is, personally, but I wonder if that's how the Shards end up working. (Or on a similar note - if Ati and Rayse had taken each other's Shards at the Shattering, would they actually have ended up with Passion and Destruction instead of Odium and Ruin.)

I think we'll see soon, with Little Honor, how much it's capable of change.

[Qianweilian He/him]

37 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

he wasn't covered under Odium's no-influence policy

Now I'm imagining some Odium insurance agent denying a claim

[Lord Spirit he/him]

Also, Dalinar freed Retribution from their agreement, so Taravangien technically has no restrictions on his power, so he can smite anyone not protected by a shard. slight asterisk of Honor still wants him to be honorable and follow the contract. But aside from Azir and Urithiru, he has free reign, so he could hypothecially smite Szeth if he wanted.

[alder24]

On 3/5/2025 at 12:46 PM, BinarySecond said:

At the end of WaT we see Retribution turn Wit into red mist. It has occurred to me that during Mistborn we never see Ruin act this directly against any individuals.

We see Ruin oppose Vin which leads to destruction e.g. Vin adjusts Scadrial orbit or rotation, but is opposed but Ruins power when trying to improve the situation.

Ruin is using agents consistently - Essentially any Hemalurgist - But is there a reason that Ruin cannot act directly and remove difficult people instantly. I could take this further and ask why Ruins doesn't just shatter the entire planet?

 

Am I forgetting something about the deal with Preservation?

Preservation and Ruin created Scadrial together so this probably would include some kind of rule against smiting people directly. However, Preservation had broken that deal by imprisoning Ruin, so he was free to do whatever he wanted.

Except he couldn't do anything at all, because at all times he was constantly opposed by the Preservation's power, which made him as impotent as Preservation was. Both of them were more or less equal in power and both of them used all of their power to oppose each other. That's the reason why Ruin couldn't kill anybody on Scadrial or destroy the planet directly - Preservation was stopping him at all times. If he tried to do something like this, this would imbalance him, expose him and give an edge to Preservation.

If he were to reclaim his Atium and with it his lost power, he would have been able to just Thanos-snap Scadrial out of existence. If he were to Splinter Preservation before Kelsier Ascended, he might have been able to do it as well.

In the case of Hoid, he has made agreements with Shards, which protect him from being harmed directly, but he has to not be seen and not act against them. He broke that agreement on Roshar, which allowed Retribution to smite him into vapor. On Scadrial he didn't seem to do much against Ruin, it seems he was there mostly for his own interest (becoming a Mistborn and a Feruchemist) and he didn't interact with Vin since Ruin release. I think his actions were subtle enough not to count as breaking their agreement and thus he would still be fully protected from Ruin's wrath. This makes me think what would happen if Ruin were to destroy Scadrial, would Hoid suddenly find himself floating in the middle of the vacuum of space where Scadrial used to be?

HoA ch 47 epigraphs:

Quote

I should stop here and clarify something. We speak of Ruin being "freed" from his prison. But that is misleading. Releasing the power at the Well tipped the aforementioned balance back toward Ruin, but he was still too weak to destroy the world in the blink of an eye as he yearned to do. This weakness was caused by part of Ruin's power—his very body—having been taken and hidden from him.

Which was why Ruin became so obsessed with finding the hidden part of his self.

 

Spoiler

Kyrroti

Shards can't break oaths, and new Vessels have to follow previous Shards' deals. Ruin and Preservation made a deal. Does Harmony have to follow that deal?

Brandon Sanderson

The Ruin and Preservation deal is considered fulfilled. There's a lot of things going on in here. The way that oaths work, perception is still important. And Shards can break deals, it gives others a way to get at them. Odium could break his deal, but if he did, that's very dangerous to those who would seek to have advantage against him. I think fulfilled is the wrong term, the deal between Ruin and Preservation is broken, and no longer in force because it was broken. This does leave Ruin with more advantage in this situation, but they're the same individual, so I'm sure that's just fine! No problems at all! Everybody's doing just great.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Zas

So what's up with the regeneration issue? With Shards? Because they only have so much power they can access at a certain time, but yet they still have more energy. So how does that work? Is it just they have so much power they can use at any given time?

Brandon Sanderson

What are you talking about? Like which shards?

Zas

Ruin and Preservation. Since we know the most about them.

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin and Preservation were a specific instance, because almost all their energy was thrown into resisting each other. Keep that in mind. Even after Preservation was only a shadow, basically all of it was "Let's keep Ruin from destroying the world." So they were polar opposites. Set in balance. But slightly unbalanced in a couple of ways, that eventually, that slight imbalance... They are a special case, because of that.

Zas

So then why are they hesitant to directly fuel Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Why are they hesitant to? What do you mean by directly fuel Allomancy?

Zas

You mention in the Hero of Ages Q&A that they can directly fuel Allomancy, like Vin does with Elend, but it requires expending their energy in a way they are hesitant to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Because it imbalances them more. Does that make sense? Like, if you are putting your energy here, rather than fighting the other force, you give them an edge somewhere else by trying to gain an edge here. And you have to make sure that's really worth it. Imagine a chess game. Is it worth sacrificing my pawn here to expose myself over here?

Orem signing (Sept. 22, 2012)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Memory is tied to some level or portion of Spiritual Identity, or else Feruchemists would not be able to store it. So, Hoid lost memories at the end of Rhythm of War in his exchange with Odium. Would that mean part of his soul was stolen and then absorbed into Odium, and if so, what is stopping Odium from doing that with all of his enemies?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, what Odium split off is stuff that Hoid is storing in excess Investiture. (Basically, it was Breaths, in Hoid’s case.) And this sort of thing, where this extra memory… One of the reasons that Hoid is able to function better than, perhaps, some other very long-lived individuals is: he has found out how to keep some of this Identity in, shall we say, SD cards made of Investiture. Imagine that sort of thing. So what Odium was stealing from Hoid was straight out of an SD card. Which means that it’s not nearly as deeply ripping into someone’s soul, and it is also not nearly as noticeable.

But the other thing is: Hoid is directly in violation of certain agreements that have been made, which therefore exposes him to… He is lacking protections. As you’ll notice in the end of Book Three, where he’s like, “I need to be careful, because I am in violation.”

And so, there’s a couple things going on here. Number one, much more easy to access those memories. Number two, Hoid’s in direct violation and under no protections of any sorts of agreements and things like this.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

[Ashbringer he/him]

There is something I realized recently, in another way Ruin acts dissimilarly to the Rosharan Shards.

There’s a comment in the Hero of Ages Epigraphs that Ruin knew how to build one thing up to knock down two things later. Or in other words, un-Ruin something to Ruin more things in the future.

Does that clash with what we see in WaT? Honor puts himself in a position where he has conflicting oaths and it breaks him, Rayse started to lose himself in bending the power of Odium, and while Cultivation doesn’t seem to have those problems she very rarely seems to try and run counter to her intent to grow more later.

Or is this just possible because Ati’s will was basically entirely consumed by the Intent of Ruin, while the Rosharan Shards keep trying to run adjacent and bend the Shard’s Intent to theirs?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

He turns only Wit into red mist. He does not reduce Urithiru to hot plasma. That strongly suggests that his power is limited to Wit and arose only after the encounter he restrained himself to messing with Wit's Breaths in.

Hence it looks like Wit by giving himself a role in the agreement removed the protection normal people have from himself. Renouncing his oaths Dalinar in turn removed the protection the contract gave Wit.

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

Wasn’t this answered when Vin took Preservation? Like - she did something, and Ruin countered it directly. I always assumed it was the same vice versa.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Wasn’t this answered when Vin took Preservation? Like - she did something, and Ruin countered it directly. I always assumed it was the same vice versa.

Then why did he not annihilate all of Urithiru?

[Hexagonal He/Him]

17 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Then why did he not annihilate all of Urithiru?

This likely would have left him open to a) losing Honor(which he just got) and b) taken a lot more power. Urithiru is a giant shardcity made up of a bunch of manifested spren, so the new oathpact and retribution having Honor likely stopped that. As well, it is a lot of investiture(yes, Hoid/Wit is heavily invested, but probably not as much as all of Urithiru) that would likely have been a much more difficult and strenuous task. Retribution was on a sort of time crunch with all eyes being on him now.

[QuantumAce]

4 hours ago, Hexagonal said:

21 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Then why did he not annihilate all of Urithiru?

This likely would have left him open to a) losing Honor(which he just got) and b) taken a lot more power. Urithiru is a giant shardcity made up of a bunch of manifested spren, so the new oathpact and retribution having Honor likely stopped that. As well, it is a lot of investiture(yes, Hoid/Wit is heavily invested, but probably not as much as all of Urithiru) that would likely have been a much more difficult and strenuous task. Retribution was on a sort of time crunch with all eyes being on him now.

The new oathpact/spren protection may be part of it, but the Sibling and Navani also threw up that last minute protection as Retribution was working through his rampage. It locked Navani in a room full of crystal and surrounded the tower with a "dome of light as solid as the crystal". 

[alder24]

On 4/2/2025 at 9:04 PM, Oltux72 said:

Then why did he not annihilate all of Urithiru?

Because Honor was forcing him to respect the contract he made with Dalinar. Urithiru wasn't a part of the deal, the deal said after the contest the borders will be frozen, which means he had to leave Urithiru alone otherwise he would have lost Honor (and Honor might have opposed his action with its power stopping him, just like Ruin and Vin did to each other). This is also the reason why Taravangian had to leave Azir and Listeners alone - they fought successfully for their freedom and Honor forced him to respect that.

Honor however hated Hoid, so even though he might have been under protection of Dalinar's contract (it's still unclear to me), Honor wanted to kill him just like Odium did and that's why Taravangian could attack Hoid, but not Urithiru.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

5 hours ago, alder24 said:

Because Honor was forcing him to respect the contract he made with Dalinar. Urithiru wasn't a part of the deal, the deal said after the contest the borders will be frozen, which means he had to leave Urithiru alone otherwise he would have lost Honor (and Honor might have opposed his action with its power stopping him, just like Ruin and Vin did to each other). This is also the reason why Taravangian had to leave Azir and Listeners alone - they fought successfully for their freedom and Honor forced him to respect that.

Then Navani would not have had to errect the barrier protecting Urithiru. Now, we may assume that she did so by mistake, but still why could Retribution attempt to annihilate all Spren and kill the Stormfather without Honor balking at that?

[Ashbringer he/him]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Then Navani would not have had to errect the barrier protecting Urithiru. Now, we may assume that she did so by mistake, but still why could Retribution attempt to annihilate all Spren and kill the Stormfather without Honor balking at that?

Retribution didn’t kill the Stormfather. Odium did. Taravangian took up Honor afterwards.

As for why Honor permitted itself to join after - the Stormfather agreed with Dalinar essentially betraying Honor, and Honor and Tanavast-Stormfather were already on tenuous ground. And both Shards clearly want some level of power - Honor seemingly has no problem with Retribution drawing out the Light from Roshar, and seemingly had no problem with Retribution attempting to draw the spren until the Oathpact blocked it.

 

The barrier might also be there for more mundane threats - Retribution has decided to uphold his end of the bargain, but the Fused may decide otherwise. I’m not sure a barrier of glass and energy would stop Retribution himself if he had a mind and ability to flatten Urithiru.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 4/7/2025 at 3:11 AM, Ashbringer said:

 And both Shards clearly want some level of power - Honor seemingly has no problem with Retribution drawing out the Light from Roshar, and seemingly had no problem with Retribution attempting to draw the spren until the Oathpact blocked it.

So he could not attack Urithiru because of a promise to harm nobody, but he could kill the Spren of all Knights Radiant? This is very hard to bring into agreement.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

he could not attack Urithiru because of a promise to harm nobody, but he could kill the Spren of all Knights Radiant? This is very hard to bring into agreement.

I think the matter of having rights over investiture that composes the Spren is different?

Rosharan Humans aren't especially made of Honor anymore than they are any other shard outside the nahel bond, so reclaiming their constitutent matter and stuff is somehow less in the rights of Honor than doing the same to the, explicitly made of Honor and Cultivation investiture, Spren.

This really turns on a logic where parents own their children and then their childrens' children down forever. Not a fan of this kind of thinking, but it fits with Honor operating on a lot of bad patterns.

[Trusk'our he/him]

48 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Rosharan Humans aren't especially made of Honor anymore than they are any other shard outside the nahel bond, so reclaiming their constitutent matter and stuff is somehow less in the rights of Honor than doing the same to the, explicitly made of Honor and Cultivation investiture, Spren.

Rosharans should have a bit of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium innately. 

We know that being born on a Shardworld brings extra, innate Investiture associated with the Shard(s) in residence. Though Roshar is not confirmed to grant some of all three of its resident Shards' Investiture to its people, I find this most likely as it is confirmed that they do possess innate Investiture. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2-jordancon-2016/#e182

Questioner

In the last panel we talked a lot about people from different planets using magic systems on other planets, one of the things I've been thinking about, we've been thinking about, talking about Breath, and people being born with Breath, is that something specific to Nalthis or do, technically, other people on other planets have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question and that is a Nalthian thing. Now, everyone in the cosmere to an extent has Investiture, the Nalthian Breath is part what everyone has and then a little extra, plus the ability to share it around. So a person who gives up their Breath on Nalthis is actually going below what a normal person has. But a normal person on Nalthis has more than somebody-- So if you were for instance to pick a world like Sixth of the Dusk, where there's not a Shard in residence, and you compared them to a Nalthian, Nalthian has an Investiture advantage over them. When they've given up their Breath, they have an Investiture disadvantage.

Bystander

So we're not Drabs?

Brandon Sanderson

So we're not Drabs. That's exactly it. We're not Drabs.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/224-words-of-radiance-san-francisco-signing/#e6881

Questioner

On all the cosmere worlds, it seem as if-- do all the humans have what you call innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see...

*thinks*

I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.

Questioner

Because when they don't have Breath anymore, they would get Drabs, and those don't have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They don't have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them. And they do have it on Roshar.

Questioner

Which Shard is that?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to read and find out. *gives card*

So yes, I don't think you've seen any worlds where they don't.