Dawnshard Quadrant Intention Theory

[Xelaadryth he/him]

I've read a lot of theories on grouping shards under Dawnshards but they didn't really capture the INTENT of the categories. This leads to Theory 1:

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1) The four Dawnshard Commands define a cycle of creation instructions, which each correspond with a realm (+Temporal from Allomancy).

• DESIGN - Cognitive
• CHANGE - Temporal
• EXIST - Physical
• CONNECT - Spiritual

To create something, you must first plan it, do the creation, it exists, and then it has to relate to other things. In a lot of science and philosophy, something doesn't exist until it is observed; without Connection to something else it doesn't truly exist.

I also think there is a logical pairing to shards, but Ruin and Preservation clearly belong to CHANGE and EXIST. This leads to:

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2) Opposing shard pairs come in two types; "contained" similar but opposing pairs which form the core of the Command, and "edge" pairs which cross the quadrants and are strong opposites.

DESIGN - Cognitive

• Ambition
• Virtuosity 
• Invention
• Reason

CHANGE - Temporal

• Whimsy
• Cultivation
• Endowment
• Ruin

EXIST - Physical

• Preservation
• Autonomy
• Dominion
• Mercy

CONNECT - Spiritual

• Odium
• Valor
• Honor
• Devotion

Ambition is wanting to take, Devotion is wanting to give. Odium is hatred, and the only way to "un-hate" is to forgive.

The "contained pairs" of EXIST and CONNECT could be swapped, which would kind of break down the Physical/Spiritual section, but still works decently well. You'll also notice this extra rule:

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3) Of the "contained" shard pairs, the first is always intrinsic, the second is extrinsic. Gaining the first allows you to externalize the second.

Virtuosity gives you the power to Invent, Cultivation lets you gain something which you can Endow to another, gaining more Autonomy lets you establish Dominion over others, and being Valorous demonstrates Honor to others.

While "contained" shard pairs feel additive and gain things, "edge" shard pairs are subtractive:

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4) "Edge" shard pairs are subtractive; losing the first results in the second.

When you lose your Reasoning, all you have left is your own Whimsy. When you stop Preserving things, entropy results in Ruin. When you lose your Hatred (Odium), that implies forgiveness and Mercy. When you lose your Devotion to helping others, you are left with only your own Ambition to help yourself (weakest of the examples).

And this is where it gets crazy. It always bothered me that Mercy seemed like such a random shard. If it opposed Odium, why not Love? Or if it opposed Ambition, why not Contentment? In the Cosmere, every magic requires Intent:

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5) The two "edge" shards on either side of a Command define the range of INTENTION for that Command.

For instance, CONNECT can range from utter hatred to devotion. Preservation is the intention to protect a thing's existence from external forces, Mercy is the intention to protect a thing's existence from yourself. Whimsy is the lack of directed intent since things just CHANGE like chaos/entropy, while Ruin is directed intentional CHANGE so it is no longer what it was. An Ambition is simply an unformed DESIGN, which is completed through Reason and logic.

Thus every Command quadrant is comprised of a core pair for what the Command means, and two shards that define the boundaries of Intention for how it can be wielded.

Edited 6 hours ago by Xelaadryth

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

2 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

I've read a lot of theories on grouping shards under Dawnshards but they didn't really capture the INTENT of the categories.

Gasp! @PanLin A personal attack!

I really like this theory. It's been proposed many times in slightly different ways, but I think yours especially is what Brandon intended. Simple, yet complex enough for varied interactions.

[PanLin they/he]

52 minutes ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Gasp! @PanLin A personal attack!

My Identity/Connection theory must be one of like 1000 Dawnshard theories at this point—I will do my best not to be personally offended.

 

@Xelaadryth

Just want to preface this by saying that this looks really interesting, and my notes and questions below come from a place of inquiry and wanting to discuss ideas, not from a place of trying to poopoo your ideas or anything 

Also, welcome to the Shard! A great way to start getting involved is to pop an intro post in the welcome forum.

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

I've read a lot of theories on grouping shards under Dawnshards but they didn't really capture the INTENT of the categories.

Could you expand on this, please? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, or how your theory solves this in a way that other theories don't (if you have any examples, that would be super helpful!).

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

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1) The four Dawnshard Commands define a cycle of creation instructions, which each correspond with a realm (+Temporal from Allomancy).

• DESIGN - Cognitive
• CHANGE - Temporal
• EXIST - Physical
• CONNECT - Spiritual

I agree on mapping Dawnshards to realms, and your assignment of EXIST and CONNECT (I've been calling it MERGE, basically the same thing).

DESIGN feels off to me. How do you Command something to DESIGN? Designing is something you do yourself when interacting with the thing you're designing, not something you cause to happen in something when interacting with it.

(also, on a meta note, part of me doubts that Sanderson would use that word specifically for a Dawnshard when we already have a character called Design)

I feel like something that represents the 'thing' rather than the person giving the Commands would work better here, maybe something like REVEAL or YIELD to represent what the thing is actually doing that allows it to be understood, like the cosmic equivalent of doing some research before starting a DIY project.

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

To create something, you must first plan it, do the creation, it exists, and then it has to relate to other things.

As I understand it, using the four together is what allows for true 'creation'; CHANGE is specifically about remaking, not creating.

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

The "contained pairs" of EXIST and CONNECT could be swapped, which would kind of break down the Physical/Spiritual section, but still works decently well.

I'll avoid commenting on the specific Shard mappings for now (I'm more interested in understanding the rationale for your Dawnshard definitions first), but if some Shards can be swapped to other Dawnshards, isn't that evidence that those mappings aren't well enough defined/justified?

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

Virtuosity is the intrinsic capacity to DESIGN, invention is DESIGN externalized. Cultivation is CHANGE on yourself, Endowment is CHANGE to others. Autonomy is control of yourself, Dominion is control of others. Valor are your traits, Honor are those traits formalized.

I'm on board with this line of thinking! Though I'd argue that this framing makes Invention a stronger CHANGE candidate than a DESIGN one.

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

And this is where it gets crazy. It always bothered me that Mercy seemed like such a random shard. If it opposed Odium, why not Love? Or if it opposed Ambition, why not Contentment?

Does every Shard have to have an opposite? We know that Preservation and Ruin are the only 'true' opposing Shards, so I'm not sure that's necessarily a hole that needs filling.

That said, the act of Mercy (sacrificing your own morals or desires in order to protect or preserve someone else) seems like a great opposing force to Ambition imo. Occams's razor, and all that.

 

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

Thus every Command quadrant is comprised of a core pair for what the Command means, and two shards that define the boundaries of Intention for how it can be wielded.

3 hours ago, Xelaadryth said:

"edge" pairs which cross the quadrants and are strong opposites.

I like the idea of edge Shards defining the range of what each Dawnshard means, but wouldn't that mean that a CHANGE Shard crossing into EXIST and an EXIST Shard crossing into CHANGE would have more in common? Treating them as opposites seems antithetical to the rest of your theory.

 

A lot of your theory (and this is pretty common in other theories I've seen) seems to treat '16' as an inherently important number, which we know isn't the case. How would this theory look if there had actually been, say, 17 Shards? Or any other number?

[Xelaadryth he/him]

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

My Identity/Connection theory must be one of like 1000 Dawnshard theories at this point—I will do my best not to be personally offended.

Could you link yours btw? I dug through a bunch but I might've missed it.

Oh I found it, yeah I did look at this one but I think due to Occam's razor (simplest explanation is usually best) I didn't go too many levels deep. I took my hypothesis (four words that form a PROCESS of creation), tried to categorize the 16 shards into 4 quadrants that fall under those Commands, then and rather than try to extrapolate beyond those systems, I tried to restrict my theory with more and more rules to create order until I had a simple and closed system.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

Also, welcome to the Shard! A great way to start getting involved is to pop an intro post in the welcome forum.

Thanks, appreciate it! I'll definitely check it out, just had this theory keeping me up since last night so I had to get it down on paper haha.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

Could you expand on this, please? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, or how your theory solves this in a way that other theories don't (if you have any examples, that would be super helpful!).

I've seen a lot of quadrants include Commands like FEEL, THINK, UNITE, DESTROY, etc but while you can categorize the shards into them, they don't explain why dawnshards are Commands of creation. If it was "giving life" then more of these make sense, but as an engineer, when I want to create something, I have to think about what it'll be first before I start making it, which led me down the path of something like IMAGINE, UNDERSTAND, DESIGN, PLAN, SHAPE, or FORM. Same if you're an author creating an epic fantasy universe; it has a bit more intention than simply "THINK" or "FEEL" as part of the process of creation. Originally I had the Command INTEND, MOTIVATE (like hate/love/ambition/whimsy) first, but moved away from it since it caused other problems.

Later on when I thought of what it means to exist, I remembered that even after coming into being, until a relationship is drawn to something else, such as being observed, some philosophies don't consider it to exist at all. This goes into quantum physics a bit but it's basically like Schrodinger's cat, things must be observed before they exist in a certain form. An example is that a plant is not green; the plant is simply a thing that happens to reflect green light, so a human would see it as green. But if the "you" doesn't exist, no one is there to observe it as green, so therefore it is not green; it simply reflects some human-visible waveforms of light. A different creature might not have the cones to see green light or might not be able to perceive light at all, or maybe can perceive bands of light humans can't, so they would say it's something else. Anyway, this means you must have CONNECTION (which feels a little less opinionated than BIND or UNITE) before something is fully created. Might be what Sanderson meant when he said one of the dawnshards is different from the rest?

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

DESIGN feels off to me. How do you Command something to DESIGN? Designing is something you do yourself when interacting with the thing you're designing, not something you cause to happen in something when interacting with it.

(also, on a meta note, part of me doubts that Sanderson would use that word specifically for a Dawnshard when we already have a character called Design)

I feel like something that represents the 'thing' rather than the person giving the Commands would work better here, maybe something like REVEAL or YIELD to represent what the thing is actually doing that allows it to be understood, like the cosmic equivalent of doing some research before starting a DIY project.

You can design completely in your mind, without ever putting pencil to paper. With the alternate names of IMAGINE, UNDERSTAND, DESIGN, PLAN, SHAPE, or FORM, you can imagine a Nightmare Painter visualizing something before drawing it, or essentially conceptualizing something mentally without physically creating it yet. For instance in writing this theory, first I had to have the Ambition to figure it out, the Virtuosity (or artistic capability/creativite talent) to synthesize and come up with the ideas, Invention to make the mechanical systems work, and then Reason to logically explain it. However, none of those systems resulted in a physical object, it was still all Cognitive.

I 100% agree with you that DESIGN is probably not the exact word so as not to conflict with the character, so maybe PLAN would fit better if we don't move any shards around. Originally I had Whimsy up there and called it IMAGINE but it messed up some of the pairings.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

As I understand it, using the four together is what allows for true 'creation'; CHANGE is specifically about remaking, not creating.

That's actually what I felt was weird, it shouldn't be four words that simply add up to creation, there should be some kind of order or a cycle to them, which is what led me to come up with my own quadrants that would form such a cycle. Also I would consider "creating" one of the steps of "remaking", not the other way around. Remaking would be some cycle of "destroy" and "create".

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

I'll avoid commenting on the specific Shard mappings for now (I'm more interested in understanding the rationale for your Dawnshard definitions first), but if some Shards can be swapped to other Dawnshards, isn't that evidence that those mappings aren't well enough defined/justified?

This is a common problem in all quadrant systems; the quadrant part isn't the important part though, it's everything else. The "contained pairs" and the antonym "edge pairs" across edges are more novel(even if those are also in the wrong spots), but most importantly it's the "edge" shards defining the limits of Intent for the Command that is the real breakthrough since it feels like it adds guardrails to a cyclical process.

 

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

Does every Shard have to have an opposite? We know that Preservation and Ruin are the only 'true' opposing Shards, so I'm not sure that's necessarily a hole that needs filling.

I think since the plan for the 16 shards was most likely created around the same time as Mistborn, it's very likely that there are opposing pairs. Also with pairs like Autonomy and Dominion, it seems likely that there are other pairs. And it's more likely that every shard is paired, than the chances of special exceptions, similar to how if metals have a push and pull it'd be weird to have exceptions to the rule. God metals obviously were an exception there but they were on top of an existing system.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

That said, the act of Mercy (sacrificing your own morals or desires in order to protect or preserve someone else) seems like a great opposing force to Ambition imo. Occams's razor, and all that.

I had Mercy opposing Ambition for awhile but it didn't feel quite as accurate; for instance I would pick Mercy + Vengeance/Vindication, or Ambition + Contentment/Satisfaction/Peace. I felt like the only way Mercy would be in here at all is if it was to fill other very specific purposes, such as opposing Odium yet fitting within EXIST.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

I like the idea of edge Shards defining the range of what each Dawnshard means, but wouldn't that mean that a CHANGE Shard crossing into EXIST and an EXIST Shard crossing into CHANGE would have more in common? Treating them as opposites seems antithetical to the rest of your theory.

The "edge" shards themselves don't cross into the other Commands, their hard oppoosites do. The purpose of the "edge" shards is to demarcate the boundary of their current Command, in this theory. For your example, Ruin defines one of the extremes of CHANGE, whereas Preservation defines one of the extremes of EXIST, despite being opposites that are adjacent to each other.

6 hours ago, PanLin said:

A lot of your theory (and this is pretty common in other theories I've seen) seems to treat '16' as an inherently important number, which we know isn't the case. How would this theory look if there had actually been, say, 17 Shards? Or any other number?

In Dawnshard the mural depicts a shattering into 4 and then to 16. Plus since it was around the same time as Mistborn, I'd suspect that 16 is the true number of shards we can calculate via a system like this; if there are shards outside the system similar to the 3 god metals, I imagine they'd be something like "Void" or "Chaos" which would not be categorizable in a system. Here's the excerpt when Rysn finds the Dawnshard:

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That mural...it was circular...seemed to glow with its own light...The peculiar letters were art themselves, curling around the outside of the exploding sun - which was divided into mostly symmetrical pieces. Four of them, each in turn broken down into four smaller sections.

Thinking more on the "contained shard pairs", not only are they intrinsic/extrinsic, but the intrinsic shard also allows you to perform the extrinsic one, making them additive. Virtuosity gives you the power to Invent, Cultivation lets you gain something which you can Endow to another, gaining more Autonomy lets you establish Dominion over others, and being Valorous demonstrates Honor to others.Virtuosity gives you the power to Invent, Cultivation gives you the of something lets you Endow it to another, gaining more Autonomy lets you establish Dominion over others, and being Valorous demonstrates Honor to others.

On the other hand, the "edge shard pairs" are subtractive in nature. When you lose your Reasoning, all you have left is your own Whimsy. When you stop Ruining things, they are left Preserved. When you lose your Mercy for others, you're only left with your own Hatred (Odium). When you lose your Devotion to helping others, you are left with only your own Ambition to help yourself.

I updated my main post with this new "additive/subtractive" idea!

Edited 7 hours ago by Xelaadryth

[Xelaadryth he/him]

I was thinking about the intrinsic and extrinsic, then realized there's kinda two extrinsic, one positive one negative, for each. Here's a proposal that drops the pairs to fit the Commands better where we replace DESIGN with IMAGINE:

• I have the potential to imagine - whimsy
• I imagine myself - virtuosity
• I imagine others positive - invention
• I imagine others negative - odium
• I have the potential to change - ambition
• I change myself - cultivation
• I change others positive - endowment
• I change others negative - ruin
• I have the potential to exist - reason
• I exist myself - autonomy
• I exist others positive - preservation 
• I exist others negative - mercy
• I have the potential to connect - valor
• I connect myself - honor
• I connect others positive - devotion
• I connect others negative - dominion

And another where we think of creation as a single flow with input and output, where shards are steps in an 16 step instruction set:

IMAGINE - Cognitive

1. Whimsy
2. Virtuosity
3. Invention
4. Reason

CHANGE - Temporal

1. Ambition
2. Endowment
3. Cultivation
4. Ruin

CONNECT - Spiritual

1. Odium
2. Valor
3. Honor
4. Devotion

EXIST - Physical

1. Mercy
2. Autonomy
3. Dominion
4. Preservation

To create something, we need to IMAGINE it, CHANGE it from something else, and CONNECT with it before it finally EXISTs.

Edited 3 hours ago by Xelaadryth