Ishar Executions

[Trusk'our he/him]

When Ishar claimed a portion of the Well of Control, it appears that he gained a status not unlike an Avatar. Wielding a small but very potent fraction of Odium's Investiture seems to have allowed him to do some crazy things, like Connecting himself into Shinovar to become its deity, supercharging his Honorbearers, and creating his own brand of human Fused.

I wonder then, if he had enough authority as a conduit for Odium's power, could he have pulled away the Connection between Odium and the Fused, killing them permanently?

 

On one hand, he is by far the lesser when compared to Rayse or Taravangian in Investiture, so a "tug of war" between their Intents would probably fizzle out.

On the other, the power wasn't entirely aligned with its true Vessel (neither Rayse nor later Taravangian), preferring someone like BAM more. This doesn't necessarily mean Ishar is more aligned than the Vessel, but it does leave precedence for the Shard preventing its Vessel from forbidding another from using it in grand ways- and Ishar himself wasn't denied the use of Odium's power when he found the Well suggesting he may have been a decent fit for it, at least enough that he could wield it for millennia.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

When Ishar claimed a portion of the Well of Control, it appears that he gained a status not unlike an Avatar. Wielding a small but very potent fraction of Odium's Investiture seems to have allowed him to do some crazy things, like Connecting himself into Shinovar to become its deity, supercharging his Honorbearers, and creating his own brand of human Fused.

I wonder then, if he had enough authority as a conduit for Odium's power, could he have pulled away the Connection between Odium and the Fused, killing them permanently?

 

On one hand, he is by far the lesser when compared to Rayse or Taravangian in Investiture, so a "tug of war" between their Intents would probably fizzle out.

On the other, the power wasn't entirely aligned with its true Vessel (neither Rayse nor later Taravangian), preferring someone like BAM more. This doesn't necessarily mean Ishar is more aligned than the Vessel, but it does leave precedence for the Shard preventing its Vessel from forbidding another from using it in grand ways- and Ishar himself wasn't denied the use of Odium's power when he found the Well suggesting he may have been a decent fit for it, at least enough that he could wield it for millennia.

I'd say it'd be difficult but not impossible for Ishar to pull that off, but it'd probably take some prep work and could only be done on a smaller personal scale, so no mass killing Fused half the continent away.

If he can almost successfully steal the Nahel Bond of the Stormfather himself from Dalinar, along with his 'Opposition' to Odium (however the hell that would have worked, was he stealing Destiny?), then pulling off stuff like opening Honor's Perpendicularity without the Stormfather, the main holder of Honor's power, being unable to feel a thing...

Yeah, I think he could absolutely pull it off. At least a few times before Odium gets wise and tries to interfere anyway, after that it'd probably be a tug of war between them, but I think Odium would come out ahead of that since he is still a full Shard, weakened grasp over it or not, and Ishar is probably more like the Lord Ruler was, using the Well to access a 'sliver' of what Odium holds the lion's share of.

[Returned he/him]

The current Vessel being a bad match for a Shard doesn't argue for another bad match being able to supplant them. Every Invested Art we've seen has been a very narrow, limited manner of interacting with Investiture in a well-specific set of ways. All of the cleverness of hacking one system versus another is impressive to Cosmere mortals, but it seems to me to be nowhere near imitating the powers of an actual Shard being wielded. What you describe sounds akin to using Connection to fundamentally invalidate an Invested magic system: no more Allomancers, despite their innate connections to Preservation; no more Breaths, despite their already existing people; no more Elantrians, despite the Reod; etc. The setup of each magic system suggests Shard-level activity, and even super-superhuman ability in a non-Shard seems to me like it would fall short of that, necessarily.

Given Ishar's apparent goals and motivations in RoW, I'd have to think that if it were plausible to do what you describe he would have done it, or at least attempted it. Maybe he did and we just didn't hear about it (get ready for a retcon on-ramp in the back five!), but even Taravangian's ascension required him to destroy the previous Vessel. And Taravangian was an almost ideal bearer for Odium while Rayse was just barely holding on. There must be more surrounding why someone as powerful and knowledgeable as Ishar never bothered to undertake such a thing when his powers seem to have so much scope. The powers themselves seem unable to reject use, given that they are the underlying principles of the Cosmere universe. "I help everyone", said Ruin.

We also don't have that much evidence that a Shard can prohibit its Vessel from doing much. We have Preservation and Leras in Secret History, but we also have Honor and Tanavast in WaT as a pretty stark counter example. Harmony could be another example but it doesn't feel to me that that is the Shards forbidding or preventing action directly. Do others agree?

[PanLin they/he]

12 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I wonder then, if he had enough authority as a conduit for Odium's power, could he have pulled away the Connection between Odium and the Fused, killing them permanently?

Spoilers for Mistborn:

Spoiler

We know that absorbing enough of the essence of a Shard is enough to just become its new Vessel:

Quote

Douglas

What about a lerasium savant? Or would that require so much lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, this is what Ascension is.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 27, 2012)

Whether Ishar could have reasonably got his hands on enough Raysium or another form of Odium's power is another question.

It also raises an interesting question: Can Ascension be a gradual process, as you start to exert more of your will over the Shard than the current vessel does, or does the 'ownership' of the Shard always suddenly snap to you once you reach a certain threshold?

Like a similar conversation we're having (which I'll avoid mentioning so I can skip the spoiler tags), Connection used like this does seem to be a two-way street; if Odium were sufficiently distracted, I reckon Ishar may well have been able to done something similar (though I agree with @JustQuestin2004's point on scale), although it seems like he was more focused on the stuff happening in Shinovar and may not have been realmatically aware enough to realise that was an option.

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

If he can almost successfully steal the Nahel Bond of the Stormfather himself from Dalinar, along with his 'Opposition' to Odium (however the hell that would have worked, was he stealing Destiny?), then pulling off stuff like opening Honor's Perpendicularity without the Stormfather, the main holder of Honor's power, being unable to feel a thing...

Was that definitely Honor's Perpendicularity? We know the Oathpact was weakening and starting to allow for some funky shenanigans, especially with Bondsmiths, so maybe Ishar was more directly manipulating Connection like he did on Ashyn before becoming a Herald, which actually gives more credence to the idea that he might have been strong enough and well-versed enough with Connection to exert some control over the Fused Singers.

9 hours ago, Returned said:

What you describe sounds akin to using Connection to fundamentally invalidate an Invested magic system: no more Allomancers, despite their innate connections to Preservation; no more Breaths, despite their already existing people; no more Elantrians, despite the Reod; etc. The setup of each magic system suggests Shard-level activity, and even super-superhuman ability in a non-Shard seems to me like it would fall short of that, necessarily.

So I don't think these are quite analogous. Odium directly sustains the Fused and actively determines how they access Investiture. From the wiki, and a WoB:

Spoiler

Vasher suspects that they gain their Investiture through their Connection to Odium.^[39] Odium can limit the ability for a Fused to use their Surge.^[40]

Spoiler

Striker_EZ

Why didn't Odium take the Investiture away from the Fused that rebelled against him at the end of Rhythm of War? At the end of Oathbringer, Odium tells one Fused that questioned him that he could take "that which gave [the Fused] life." So why didn't he do that to Leshwi and the others?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually an excellent question. Odium, in his previous incarnation-- we'll see how he acts now-- part of the driving force of Odium is this kind of belief, mistaken or otherwise, that Odium represents all emotion, and strength of emotion, and basically the Passions in lore. Rebelling against him in the way that they did is actually in line with Odium's personal directives. The Vessel may not like it, in fact the power may not like it, but at the same time, there's a part of both of them that acknowledges, this is what they set in motion, and this is an appropriate use of the agency of the agents they chose. And so, unilaterally destroying those who turn against him is actually not an Odium thing. It's more an Honor thing than it would be an Odium thing. It's just not in line with how Odium acts or thinks, even though it's possible and there's threats and... That's not saying Odium wouldn't do it. But acting like Honor is not something Odium would necessarily want to do.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

These imply that the Fused got their abilities directly and actively from Odium, who could have decided to sever that at any point.

As for your examples:

• Allomancers contain a piece of Preservation in their Spiritweb
• Endowment gave her Investiture to the people of Nalthis freely, no strings attached
• The Dor passively imbues the people of Sel with its power

In all those cases, someone else exerting some influence over the Shard wouldn't affect current users of their Invested Arts as the stuff that allows those Arts has already happened and doesn't require upkeep (I could actually be convinced otherwise on the Dor).

This example wouldn't be invalidating a whole magic system, it would just be interrupting/rewriting an active Connection, which we know Ishar is well versed in from stuff like his attempt to steal the Stormfather's Nahel Bond with Dalinar.

9 hours ago, Returned said:

There must be more surrounding why someone as powerful and knowledgeable as Ishar never bothered to undertake such a thing when his powers seem to have so much scope.

I mean, he was pretty certifiably insane.

9 hours ago, Returned said:

We also don't have that much evidence that a Shard can prohibit its Vessel from doing much. We have Preservation and Leras in Secret History, but we also have Honor and Tanavast in WaT as a pretty stark counter example. Harmony could be another example but it doesn't feel to me that that is the Shards forbidding or preventing action directly. Do others agree?

I do! I think there's a fine line, and the Shard can influence its vessel a hell of a lot and can just up and leave, but ultimately, from what we've seen, the Shard carries power and Intent, but the vessel is in control.

I think the 'prohibition' that we saw from Preservation was essentially the same resistance and uneasiness we've seen with Tanavast/Honor, Dalinar/Stormfather, and Taravangium/Odium. The power just didn't want to do that sort of thing, especially in opposition to Ruin. Someone with enough force of will could probably force it anyway, but that would risk the Shard either leaving the vessel (like Honor did to Tanavast) or just splintering from the stress and opposed will (similar to broken Radiant bonds turning spren into deadeyes). In Preservation's case, a person like that probably wouldn't be able to take up Preservation's power to start with anyway.

Spoilers for Secret History:

Spoiler

Kelsier was only able to ascend to Preservation because of that fancy orb he got from the Ire. He couldn't have done it without that, and even with it, he was only able to hold the Shard long enough to give it to Vin.

My point is that Shards probably can't outright prohibit their vessel from doing anything, but the need for a Connection to result in Ascension probably soft-filters out most people that would try to do something in direct opposition to that Shard.

Edited March 3 by PanLin

[Frustration]

I don't think Ishar needs Odium juice at all to do this. Simply removing the Connection to Odium would be more than enough to kill the Fused. This is something any unchained Bondsmith should be able to do.

9 hours ago, Returned said:

We also don't have that much evidence that a Shard can prohibit its Vessel from doing much. We have Preservation and Leras in Secret History, but we also have Honor and Tanavast in WaT as a pretty stark counter example. Harmony could be another example but it doesn't feel to me that that is the Shards forbidding or preventing action directly. Do others agree?

I would agree with PanLin that we do.

Rayse, Taravangian, Ati, Leras, Tanavast, were all pretty bound by their Intent. Fighting too hard against it will either get your personality overwritten like what happened to Ati, or the Shard will leave you like it left Tanavast.