Question about a Shard's intent

[xxcyv he/him]

I recently finished WaT and have been thinking about Retribution's intent as a mix of Honor and Odium.

In Coppermind it is described as

Quote

Retribution is an Intent about upholding oaths and destroying those who break them or believe that they are not of utmost importance. The Shard cares little about the heart of the oaths kept, and more if the exact definitions were followed. 

Odium was all about feelings, so why is the heart of the oath irrelevant to Retribution?

(Mistborn era 1 spoiler)

Spoiler

I would have expected something similar as to Harmony where both Shards play an equal role in the new god but with Retribution it feels to me like he is more like a more drastic or "evil" version of Honor.

(Side note in case it is important: I haven't read The Lost Metal, Yumi or Emberdark yet)

Edited August 8, 2025 by xxcyv

[SourCandyLime He/Him]

Well, Odium is not just “emotion”

 

often odium is described as pure hatred, suffering, and pain. Rarely does odium feel joy with people, only their suffering.

i am personally thinking of it like this.

harmony is more preservation than ruin post assension.

retribution is more honor than odium by appearance.

 

the scales are bound to flip as the shards work through a new balance. I believe that retribution has a coin flip counterpart who will be named redemption. One who remembers the purpose of Oaths, not just the oath.

 

either that or the hatred odium is has collided with honor in a terrible way forever, though the way it ended honor being sentient, that’s bound to change.

[xxcyv he/him]

5 minutes ago, SourCandyLime said:

retribution is more honor than odium by appearance.

I thought about this as well but shouldn't it be the other way around? During Retribution's ascension a part of Honor split from it and flew away. So naturally Retribution should be more Odium than Honor which makes his Intent even more confusing to me.

(On the same note, without wanting to sideline the original question: Isn't Harmony more Ruin than Preservation because some of Preservation's power was put into every human on Scadrial? Of course Sazed could have changed that but I am not aware of it) 

[SourCandyLime He/Him]

Infinity - 5 is still infinity

 

Infinity - infinity/10 is still infinity.

the power the shards hold each is 1/16 of infinity. The way the shards combine is the mixing of intents. No longer 2 shards, but 2 ideas in one power

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

@xxcyv Just a heads up, topic titles shouldn't contain major spoilers (as stated in the Forum Policies), since the title is shown to everyone on the home page of the forums under new topics. I've gone ahead and changed the title for you.

[ChillPenguin]

2 hours ago, SourCandyLime said:

Infinity - 5 is still infinity

 

Infinity - infinity/10 is still infinity.

the power the shards hold each is 1/16 of infinity. The way the shards combine is the mixing of intents. No longer 2 shards, but 2 ideas in one power

You are right and yet two things:

1. We know some infinities are bigger than others. All whole numbers are infinite but then the set of all rational numbers must be twice as big, although that is also infinite.

2. It’s not just the potential in the spiritual realm but also the investiture that the vessel can use. In the spiritual realm, the amount of Honor and Odium are the same (same size infinity), but some of the investiture of Honor split off and is already in the Heralds  Unless Odium did something similar, the available investiture to Taravangian would be Honor Infinity < Odium Infinity.

Brandon has made comments about other cosmere things related to this but I won’t mention them here.

Odium may be able to drive Retribution’s intent but that doesn’t mean that Honor will be happy about it  At least now, it seems that will be his biggest weakness.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2025 by ChillPenguin

[Jult]

We do know that a Vessel's interpretation of the Intent does matter to some degree. Here's a relevant WoB about this (it contains spoilers for Mistborn Era 1).

Spoiler

Quote

Necarion

Do Vessels have any flexibility in expressing the intent of a Shard, particularly if the intent is open to many interpretations?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they do. So, the Vessel's mind and how they perceive is going to have a large influence on how things are expressed and I think all of them have some wiggle room. But there are some deterministic things that are also going to push them.  You know, holding Ruin, Harmony may not go down the same path that happened to Ati.

Necarion

So Sadeas would express Honor differently than Tanavast?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes he would.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

So, Taravangian's personal interpretation of Honor may be skewing it to this heartless Intent.

Something I've seen questioned before is whether or not Taravangian's Boon/Bane from Cultivation is still in effect. If it is still in effect, then Retribution may be logical today, but he could be very emotional tomorrow. Which could have very interesting implications as to whether or not Taravangian will even be able to hold onto the Shards for very long.

[xxcyv he/him]

@#1 Taln Fan Oh sorry, I wasn't aware of that. I only checked the general spoiler timelines for books before posting. Thank you for pointing it out!

 

(Mistborn era 1 spoiler)

Spoiler

17 hours ago, SourCandyLime said:

The way the shards combine is the mixing of intents. No longer 2 shards, but 2 ideas in one power

Interesting, I always viewed it as two powers working in parallel as opposed to them merging into one because Harmony referred to his powers as opposites that block each other. That and the point @Jult mentioned about Taravangian's interpretation influencing the outcome of the Intents gave me good input to think about.

 

11 hours ago, Jult said:

Something I've seen questioned before is whether or not Taravangian's Boon/Bane from Cultivation is still in effect. If it is still in effect, then Retribution may be logical today, but he could be very emotional tomorrow. Which could have very interesting implications as to whether or not Taravangian will even be able to hold onto the Shards for very long.

That could lead to some interesting scenarios, I would love to see that happen.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

13 hours ago, Jult said:

Something I've seen questioned before is whether or not Taravangian's Boon/Bane from Cultivation is still in effect. If it is still in effect, then Retribution may be logical today, but he could be very emotional tomorrow. Which could have very interesting implications as to whether or not Taravangian will even be able to hold onto the Shards for very long.

Taravnagian's Boon/Curse may have changed the way he perceived his use of the Shard as a Vessel, as during his interludes he viewed Odium as two parts, one completely logical, and the other completely emotional. I don't think we've ever seen any other Vessel have this perspective, with dividing a Shard's Intent from just Odium into what I assume is 'Logical Hatred' and 'Passionate Hatred'.

So, I don't think his Boon/Curse is still in effect, or maybe it just can't effect him now, but it has been a huge part of his life for years, he literally made a daily test for how intelligent he was on a particular day. And if perspective matters enough to Shardic Intents, even subconcious ones, then its very possible that Tarangian's view of himself as switching between two men, one smart and one emotional, has effected his ability to use Odium.

But Honor is different now, its self-aware, it has more of it's own Identity, so Taravangian's own perspective might matter a bit less, at least when it come to Odium.

Here's a crazy theory, there's a WOB that states that a Shard's Intent can be divided, an example being dividing Honor into 'Bravery' and 'Integrity'.

So maybe, when Honor does likely split from Retribution, learning that the meaning of an Oath matters more than just the Oath itself, this might cause a part of Odium to splinter off as well, with part of Odium, the 'Logical Hatred' staying with Taravangian, but the part that is 'Passionate Hatred', instead splits off with Honor as well, which would also go on to gain its own self-awareness as well and truly become a god known as 'Passion', with Rayse's constant self-reinforcement/delusion finally coming to fruition, long after his own death.