Is/was Adonalsium a Splinter?

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

So, spren are Splinters of Honor (I think). Honor (and all Shards) are Splinters of Ol' Ado. Could Ado be a Splinter of a wooden spear shaft something Greater? Maybe...something (b/B)eyond the Cosmere?

Edited December 30, 2025 by Theory
Formatting (strikethrough).

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

19 minutes ago, Theory said:

So, spren are Splinters of Honor (I think). Honor (and all Shards) are Splinters of Ol' Ado. Could Ado be a Splinter of (begin strikethrough) a wooden spear shaft (end strikethrough) something Greater? Maybe...something (b/B)eyond the Cosmere?

This is madness! 

I don't know. I guess it could be possible, but I think if Brandon says that, then we just go into recursion and it takes away from the overall storyline, because we wonder about other Cosmeres.

Narratively, no. It would be distracting and unnecessary. Functionally, probably not, because the Cosmere was populated by Adonalsium, and a higher power probably would have already done that.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

5 minutes ago, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

Functionally, probably not, because the Cosmere was populated by Adonalsium, and a higher power probably would have already done that.

But, there could be more star clusters in the galaxy aside from the Cosmere (there are), so Ado's siblings could've made those, then Something Greater could've made that galaxy, and SG's siblings made the other galaxies, then Shallan created the universe, then we get into multiverses...

In all seriousness, yeah, you're probably right.

5 minutes ago, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

This is madness! 

Astute observation.

Edited December 30, 2025 by Theory
Added "probably"

[Qianweilian He/him]

On 12/29/2025 at 9:06 PM, Theory said:

But, there could be more star clusters in the galaxy aside from the Cosmere

Yes, there probably is, as the universe is so big that there almost assuredly is, assuming BS's universe follows the same rules. But, I sincerely doubt he will introduce or even discuss much outside of the Cosmere in any sort of Cosmere material.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

1 minute ago, Qianweilian said:

But, I sincerely doubt he will introduce or even discuss much outside of the Cosmere in any sort of Cosmere material.

Yes. He did state that a character (or Shard) had tried to leave the Cosmere, and that we will see such an occurrence on-screen at some point.

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 12/29/2025 at 8:18 PM, Theory said:

So, spren are Splinters of Honor (I think). Honor (and all Shards) are Splinters of Ol' Ado. Could Ado be a Splinter of a wooden spear shaft something Greater? Maybe...something (b/B)eyond the Cosmere?

A Splinter of the great and mighty Stick?

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

A Splinter of the great and mighty Stick?

Indeed.

[Nitpicking]

The primal Aethers claim to be older than Adonalsium. If true, that would mean that he did not create the Cosmere (or that the Aethers are part of some larger Creation that predates the Cosmere).

[Xanpheon]

But the question is what does that mean for whatever Adonalsium comes from? It makes sense if they are inherently complete, because they are a balance of all 16 shards and the intents involved. The Shards and their Vessels are unbalanced by not possessing the complete whole of what made up Adonalsium, warping them in an incredibly extreme way - but from everything we know about Adonalsium, they didn't have those issues.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

4 minutes ago, Xanpheon said:

The Shards and their Vessels are unbalanced by not possessing the complete whole of what made up Adonalsium, warping them in an incredibly extreme way - but from everything we know about Adonalsium, they didn't have those issues.

How are the Shards/Vessels warped?

[Xanpheon]

32 minutes ago, Theory said:

How are the Shards/Vessels warped?

How are they not?

Look at Ati, for example. Holding onto Ruin for thousands of years changed him irrevocably, turning him from someone that Leras described as the best among them, and incredibly kind, to someone who took great pleasure in causing unimaginable pain and suffering - causing the eruption of a volcano to burn a village alive, among other things, and drove the inquisitors into frenzies of ecstasy when committing murders. The pure concept of Ruin, no matter how Ati justified it to himself by couching in terms of entropy, changed him - warped him.

The Shards are masses of investiture imbued with a single pure Intent, and that Intent changes the users (see Tanavast, for example) when the users don't align with the Shard. In a normal being or Adonalsium, those Intents would be restrained and tempered by the existence of all of the other Intents present (if they'd even be present in the same way, as we know the 16 we have aren't the only Intents that were possible to create in the Shattering).  But when on their own, there's nothing to hold them back - and thus, they end up warped, driven singlemindedly.