Retribution unaligned form?

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

We know from the Hero of Ages prophecy and from WoBs that Harmony, a Vessal with two shards, has two alignments: Harmony and Discord, based on whether the 2 shards were alighted or against each other. Do you guys think that in SA arc 2, the seed of doubt Dalinar planted in Honor’s mind might cause Retribution to turn into a discordant dishardic entity?

[SpartanBrigade He/Him]

That will probably be the key to defeating him later. We got some small hints that they may have trouble aligning down the road. @Treamayneactualy made a great thread about this to.

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

I think that seeing it as a discordance might be extending the framework that was layed out by the example of Sazed and Harmony too far. Consider: Is the Dor in concordance or discordance? It's not really clear. I think it might be better to use a different framework from Scadrial: Push vs Pull.

With Harmony, Ruin and Preservation are pulling each other towards one another, restraining both from taking much deliberate action.

The Dor would be in a Push configuration. The manifestation of the Dor in the CR is emitting energy and the two Shards are seemingly trying to disentangle; Fjorden is trying to make the whole world follow the pattern of Dominion while Elantrians are showing up away from Sel.

I see Retribution as in a Push and Pull configuration right now, but the stability of this is probably not great. Odium is in a Push state, Taravagian is no longer drawing in the feelings of his followers. Meanwhile Honor is binding his actions and making his past deeds harder to get away from. I could imagine that a Pulling Odium in this would enable something like Redemption, where the combined dishard is really useless because all it is trying to do is soak up to negative psychic energies from people seeking to escape bindings while giving form to new relationships to replace that bondage; here I am using old meaning of redemption, which is "to return from enslavement" and not the more common one of "to restore to good moral standing". The two meanings are entwined due to particularities around Christian metaphors around the meaning of original sin.

[Jult]

So, I always viewed Harmony as 'incomplete'. Sazed is actively trying to keep Ruin and Preservation from combining even though the Shards seem naturally attracted to each other (in the way that magnets are naturally attracted to each other - not the Intents of the Shards). If Sazed was not actively resisting, I think he would have become Discord immediately. In other words, Discord, to me, seems to be the 'true' form of this dishardic combination.

Taravangian didn't do the same thing. He did not resist. He allowed the Shards to combine. Which might mean that Retribution is already the 'true' form of this combination. Although both Odium and Honor have some pretty big splinters of themselves all over the place. So, maybe Retribution is bit unbalanced (i.e. it may be made up of more Odium than Honor; especially considering the chunk of Honor that split off right before the merge). 

If that's the case, I could see Odium begin to dominate Taravangian's decisions; which would probably lead to him breaking some oaths and fully destabilizing. I think a more odious form of Retribution would be something like 'Condemnation'. Or perhaps 'Damnation', since that word has more symbolic value on Roshar.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 5/12/2025 at 10:01 PM, ParaTulip said:

The Dor would be in a Push configuration. The manifestation of the Dor in the CR is emitting energy and the two Shards are seemingly trying to disentangle; Fjorden is trying to make the whole world follow the pattern of Dominion while Elantrians are showing up away from Sel.

Maybe not super related but the parent religion of the two Dominion/Devotion based religions in Sel had a core tenet focused on Unity. I think there could be a larger story tied to their destruction at the hands of Odium (potentially a merger of their shards into one Unity before he destroyed them or something?), and that could be why he says "we killed you" when Dalinar says he is Unity...