Which Shard is the most intelligent

[ruler of the mists He/His/the survivor of the pit]

I belive its Harmony

[Qianweilian He/him]

Missing Virtuosity, Mercy, and Whimsy. Not that viable to answer until we get more information, as we see in TLM that a single shard can stand up to a dual shard.

[SpartanBrigade He/Him]

Well Reason's whole deal is presumably intelligence since that's what reason is: intelligence and wisdom. For Invention you'd also have to be fairly intelligent to create the marvels they did. I think of every Shard we've actually seen so far, Autonomy is the most intelligent as she was able to outmaneuver Harmony on Scadrial.

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 hours ago, ruler of the mists said:

I belive its Harmony

Each Shard inherently has advantages and inhibitions in certain areas. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/538-fanx-2024/

Questioner

My question is about Ruin and Preservation creating life. Is that an example of two individuals having a super team up? Or is there some co-influence, cross-influence that let them do something that would be outside of themselves?

Brandon Sanderson

Rephrase that for me. Talk around a little bit. Let me see if I'm gonna get the right answer, okay?

Questioner

Ruin ruins, and Preservation preserves. If they're creating life, well, that takes a little of everything, right? Is that an influence, like Ruin being in proximity to Preservation and vice versa? Would their co-mingling happen... and how would that influence other dual or triple Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

I get what you're saying. Each of the Shards has certain strengths and weaknesses, and they're capable of certain things and not other things. Some of them can do what was done by Ruin and Preservation on their own. Most cannot. Most combinations of two could; some would need three. So, it really kind of depends on the situation and the Shard. Each pairing and grouping of Shards will have different sort of augmentations to what they can accomplish, and things like this, because the Shards aren't all-powerful, they're just part of something that once was, if that makes sense. (That's not how math works in infinity, but it is how infinity works in the cosmere.)

Not only that, but I don't think intelligence/competence is a strictly linear concept. Taravangian is really smart in general and especially when it comes to manipulating people, but since he has little understanding of Honor he seriously risks offending a core aspect of his power.

Bavadin has several orders of magnitude more experience and has agents on a whole slew of worlds already, but the Set's hierarchy has shown itself to be less stable (competing agents backstabbing one another if they can) because of how she likes to run things, and Taldain, despite its great technological headstart, has begun to stagnate because of her enforced isolation.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/124-drogakrolowpl-interview/#e1807

DrogaKrolow

Technological progress. So Scadrial is going all the way to cyberpunk.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

But do you plan to do it anywhere else?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, with an asterisk, right? Roshar has a very different technological path but they have access to so much more Investiture in an easy to use format. Roshar is really heading toward what we call magicpunk, or things like this, magepunk, where you are using a magical power source and things like this. So their technology is going to go weird but it's going to go fast once they start figuring things out because they have easy access to Investiture resources.

Scadrial: slower for various reasons and things like that, but it's ahead.

And then there was Taldain, which was really far ahead but then froze when it got-- Offworld travel was stopped and it became isolationist.

So most everybody is kind of heading that direction but, yeah.

Plus, her Intent forces her to respect individuals who fight against her as long as they're competent and have agency (like when she retreated from Scadrial).

Sazed has three and a half centuries of experience holding multiple Shards with diametrically opposed Intents. This gives him insight into Tarabution's limits, I think, but even so Harmony is largely crippled as is- it doesn't matter if you have two cosmic forces at your fingertips if they're constantly locked in a death-roll.

Cultivation is probably in a similar boat to Autonomy, as she has great experience and her Intent seems to allow good futuresight and growth. 

So, it really depends, I think. If Sazed can fully act as Discord I think he would have a good standing as top-axehound of the Cosmere through sheer Investiture (maybe having seeds of the Metallic Arts spreading as Scadrial industrializes them and takes to the stars), but someone else is always going to have a niche that they fit in a superior way. Autonomy has more widespread influence, Retribution better combat-oriented powers and servants, Cultivation more room for behind the scenes string pulling, etc.

[LeondeBowa]

Windmill Slam Whimsy, best shard, no arguments

[alder24]

Honestly, it's hard to define what strength is for a Shard and which one is the strongest, but I'm surprised I'm the only one who voted for Retribution. Retribution is a dual Shard, so he's already twice as powerful as any other Shard except for Harmony in terms of raw investiture. Moreover, unlike Harmony, his intent isn't self-restricting, so as of now it seems he can do whatever he wants and isn't bound to a planet anymore. 90% of Roshar is now under Retribution's direct control. Retribution has also a very crafty, sneaky and extremely intelligent and ruthless Vessel, which is a huge factor here. And lastly, Odium is the most combat oriented Shard out of all 16 and Honor isn't that far behind considering how eager to fight with Odium the power itself was. Retribution only loses points because of the lack of skill and experience in controlling the Shard, but that also gives him an advantage as he's so fresh that Taravangian wasn't warped by Retribution's intent yet and has more freedom than other Shards (as Vin has shown us).

Yet, for some reason the Shard of Reason had 4 votes but Retribution none. Why? Sure, the Intent sounds smart, but besides this we know nothing more, we don't even know if the Vessel is capable of utilizing Reason to its full potential, which is very important here. I would like to hear your reasoning for choosing this Shard.  

Edit:

Oh, the title asks about the most intelligent Shard. Ok, that makes sense now. However, in this case it should all boil down to which Vessel is the most intelligent. 

Edited April 16, 2025 by alder24

[Jult]

I'm surprised at the lack of Autonomy votes. She has so many resources at her disposal. Yes, she's run into some opposition on Scadrial. But she still has plots unfolding on Sel, First of the Sun, Obrodai, and Taldain.

1. Even with her loss on Scadrial, she has access to an unknown number of Allomancers, Feruchemists, and Hemalurgists.
2. If she conquers Sel, it's hard to say what she'll be able to do with the Dor. But that's essentially the (reduced?) power of two more Shards under her belt. Not to mention the Invested Arts that the Derethi bring to the table.
3. Her goals on the First of the Sun are a bit of a mystery, but whatever she gains there (Invested parasitic worms?) will be another advantage.
4. We know almost nothing about Obrodai. Or how many other planets is she doing this on. But even if she's just there to soak up some investiture from a rogue perpendicularity, it's a benefit that the others won't have.
5. I don't have much to say about Taldain. I think it's more a last line of defense for her. It seems her goal is to fight anywhere but there because that's safer for her.

There's also her "men of gold and red". Although, we don't know enough about them to say that they aren't redundant to the list above. They might just be Derethi or something.