Too Much Honor

[Trusk'our he/him]

In WaT, Honor comments that the Heralds were wearing thin not only because of age, but because they held to much of his power.

Quote

AND TO MY HORROR, I BEGAN TO SEE A FRIGHTENING NUMBER OF FUTURES WHERE THE HERALDS STOPPED FIGHTING. I HADN’T. . . I HADN’T NOTICED WHAT IMMORTALITY WAS DOING TO THEM. NOT JUST IMMORTALITY- THERE WAS MORE. MY POWER. THEY COULD NOT HOLD SO MUCH OF MY POWER.

. . .

THE AILMENT STRIKING THE HERALDS WAS IN PART MY DOING. I HAD SHARED TOO MUCH OF MYSELF WITH THEM, AND I WAS . . . SLOWLY. . . LOSING MYSELF.

WaT, pg. 1,116

I was under the impression that more Investiture was a good thing for beings. More Bio-Chromatic Breaths, higher Heightening. More Preservation, better Allomancy. Even holding a Shard and letting it go seems to have only benefits, leaving you a Sliver.

Is it because they'd become corrupted by Honor's Intent?

Or, is it because Tanavast's "losing of himself" hurt the Heralds like how Ishar's drawing in of Odium’s Perpendicularity did later through the Oathpact?

Any ideas on this? I found it rather confusing. 

[Treamayne]

On 3/6/2025 at 8:19 PM, Trusk'our said:

Any ideas on this?

Well, we do have this Mistborn WoB:

Spoiler

Edited fror Length and Relevance

Brandon Sanderson

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

This implies that above a certain threshold, if you don't have enough to Ascend as a Vessel (Shard Vessel or Avatar Vessel), then the investiture will just kill you. Being a flavor fo Cognitive Shadow probably increased the damage from holding too large a Sliver of Honor without the protections that are gained as a Vessel. Ilkely extensive spiritweb damage at the least, and probably with Cognitive Identity damage as well.

On 3/6/2025 at 8:19 PM, Trusk'our said:

seems to have only benefits, leaving you a Sliver.

Nomad would disagree that Sliver = Good/Beneficial.

Edited March 17, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Sophrosyne he/him]

24 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Is it because they'd become corrupted by Honor's Intent?

My gut tells me this is more to do with intents and Tanavast's loss of control over his shard then with anything else. but I struggle putting to words WHY Tanavast's lack of filtering would be the issue you'd think being infused with pure "I will do what I said I would" would reinforce the Heralds not weaken them right?

28 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I was under the impression that more Investiture was a good thing for beings

More Investure makes you more powerful and healthier but isn't strictly better as it also algins you more and more with the power's intent, See Nomad, his torment and the racking guilt of not being able to defend himself and others. or Yumi and the torture being a yoki-hijo caused her.

[Ashbringer he/him]

4 hours ago, Sophrosyne said:

My gut tells me this is more to do with intents and Tanavast's loss of control over his shard then with anything else. but I struggle putting to words WHY Tanavast's lack of filtering would be the issue you'd think being infused with pure "I will do what I said I would" would reinforce the Heralds not weaken them right?

Tanavast himself was struggling with the proper filtering of his Intent, I wouldn't be surprised if the Heralds were too.

But I also think "losing myself" could be meaning two different things. It could be a reference to Tanavast starting to lose his grip on Honor, in the sense he's failing to keep with its Intents or keep a handle on the lessening power; but it could also be a reference to Tanavast beginning to be lost into Honor, in the sense that was exhibited earlier in that chapter where he was thinking more like Honor in the binary "I am right" sense.

 

4 hours ago, Treamayne said:

This implies that above a certain threshold, if you don't have enough to Ascend as a Vessel (Shard Vessel or Avatar Vessel), this the investiture will just kill you.

Since the example given was the entire power of Preservation, I'm not entirely sure that threshold is below the threshold where the killed individual wouldn't become a de facto Avatar. (Or in other words, the Heralds may be just de facto Avatars.)

Although I do wonder if it's a reason the Heralds don't use their enhancements often - they're too Invested, and when they start to let it out they can't stop it easily, and have to keep using it until it destroys their physical body. Would explain how Taln kept dying when he's the strongest fighter in the cosmere.

[Lord Ruler Sylphrena He/Him]

17 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

In WaT, Honor comments that the Heralds were wearing thin not only because of age, but because they held to much of his power.

I was under the impression that more Investiture was a good thing for beings. More Bio-Chromatic Breaths, higher Heightening. More Preservation, better Allomancy. Even holding a Shard and letting it go seems to have only benefits, leaving you a Sliver.

Is it because they'd become corrupted by Honor's Intent?

Or, is it because Tanavast's "losing of himself" hurt the Heralds like how Ishar's drawing in of Odium’s Perpendicularity did later through the Oathpact?

Any ideas on this? I found it rather confusing. 

I'm assuming that Honor's intent was warping their personality and some other things. Things like Allomancy and a Nahel Bond work by filling cracks in your spirit web. I'm imagining that being heralds for so long was essentially turning them into mega savants. There was too much investiture in their spiritweb to be contained within the normal cracks. Keep in mind at this point they also had a direct connection to Honor giving them infinite investiture, that would be similar to drawing on Preservations mists 24-7 which is extremely damaging as mentioned above. Them having pure investiture bodies probably would have given them a higher tolerance but after thousands of years I'm assuming their spiritweb was literally being broken apart as new cracks were being forced open to better contain their power.

The TLR was able to use the Well to make him a extra powerful Mistborn and he didn't have any issues so I'm assuming you can modify your spirit web to allow more room for investiture without having it take over other important parts. Tanavast is shown to be kind of a dummy though so he probably didn't consider the consequences of what he was doing till it was too late.

I'm wondering if the heralds still have this issue in the current setting as it appears in Shinovar it was only Oduim's investiture and their own PTSD that was corrupting them. It's possible that Oduim's and Honor's power had the same effect of warping their personality and now that Oduim's connection to them is broken and they don't have infinite investiture from Honor anymore they will be fine but I guess we just have to wait for book 6.

In summary too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Hopefully one of the Shards realizes this one day.

Edited March 7, 2025 by Lord Ruler Sylphrena

[Nitpicking]

On 3/6/2025 at 8:40 PM, Treamayne said:

Nomad would disagree that Sliver = Good/Beneficial.

Is Nomad a Sliver? I thought that was reserved for someone who had Ascended to a Shard, which to the best of my knowledge, he didn't.

If he's a Sliver, so is Hoid, yes?

[Treamayne]

6 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Is Nomad a Sliver? I thought that was reserved for someone who had Ascended to a Shard, which to the best of my knowledge, he didn't.

If he's a Sliver, so is Hoid, yes?

Based on WoB:

Spoiler

Edited for Length and Relevance

Phantine

Would that make Hoid a "Dawnsliver", or is there some other fancypants terms for it?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on a variety of things, Phantine. But I'd be okay with that terminology. It's basically accurate.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

[Letryx13]

On 3/6/2025 at 8:19 PM, Trusk'our said:

In WaT, Honor comments that the Heralds were wearing thin not only because of age, but because they held to much of his power.

I was under the impression that more Investiture was a good thing for beings. More Bio-Chromatic Breaths, higher Heightening. More Preservation, better Allomancy. Even holding a Shard and letting it go seems to have only benefits, leaving you a Sliver.

Is it because they'd become corrupted by Honor's Intent?

Or, is it because Tanavast's "losing of himself" hurt the Heralds like how Ishar's drawing in of Odium’s Perpendicularity did later through the Oathpact?

Any ideas on this? I found it rather confusing. 

I remember in Oathbringer that Jasnah commented about how during the battle of Thaylen field she was holding more stormlight than she ever had before. She said something about how the human body wasn't meant to hold that much. It might be something similar.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Re-grabbing this because of a realization made in another thread:

There’s been a couple of WoBs that it’s possible for a Shard to seperate, under the right conditions - instead of doing what Harmony and Retribution have done, have a single Shard Splinter into multiple distinct pieces.

I wonder if that’s what was happening here. Each Herald gained a piece of Honor’s power, maybe in line with their Virtues or maybe not. But enough that they maybe became Avatars, or micro-Vessels of a very significant Splinters of Honor, but without the true Ascendance to use it properly. Meanwhile Honor had accidentally given away pieces of his Intent that he hadn’t meant to, such as the parts Tanavast was most strongly Connected to or simply the parts that cared.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 3/7/2025 at 2:19 AM, Trusk'our said:

Is it because they'd become corrupted by Honor's Intent?

Or, is it because Tanavast's "losing of himself" hurt the Heralds like how Ishar's drawing in of Odium’s Perpendicularity did later through the Oathpact?

Any ideas on this? I found it rather confusing. 

Seen from a certain angle the Heralds are doing something fundamentally dishonorable. They are helping people given a refuge steal the land of the very people who gave them refuge.