Are Shards Physical Entities? (REALLY BIG MISTBORN SPOILERS)

[Steel he/him]

Shardholders hold shards, hence the name. But do they actually, physically, hold a shard? In Mistborn

when Sazed becomes Harmony, he

 

he drew them [the powers] into him

 but does that mean that the power was inside of him? As in, it is incorporeal, and simply enters the body of the holder?

 

Another question, where do Shardholders "hang out" when they become Shardholders? I imagined them, like, hovering above, being awesome, but that probably isn't true.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Steel

[Edgedancer he/him]

Q. Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the physical realm? About the different states of matter, what determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I’ve read the relevant sections carefully, haven’t noticed much about temperature difference.

A. The idea for me working on this is that they transcend, they permeate everything. They permeate all life on all the realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it’s kind of like they appear there in the various states. When you say that you’ve got the gas, you’ve got the liquid, you’ve got the solid: but you’ve also got inside of you, inside of that plant, like they’re everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it’s just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distils, just like water. There’s some water in the air, there’s some that freezes: that’s temperature. But it’s not always temperature whether it’s in the air, or whether it’s falling. Imagine a spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what’s happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that’s what you get.

Q. Because you’ve talked about alloying the god metals, I was wondering whether you would be able to melt them down as you would with normal metals.

A. If you could distil the god metal: you could distil it out of the mist, that’s theoretically possible.

(source)

So I guess one could say they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Well Shards are effectively big blobs of Investiture, right?  So I would think they would sort of transcend the Three Realms.

 

Edit: It's also probably important to remember that Brandon doesn't really like the term "Shardholder", as far as he is concerned when someone takes up a Shard the /become/ the Shard.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Ookla the Ensconced

[Oudeis he/him]

My impression from the Hero of Ages's experience and explanation is that the power exists, and your mind arises to take control of it. It's less like you take up the Shard and more like you take over the Shard, putting your mind into its "body", which consists of energy matrices capable of taking in frightening quantities of data at prodigious rates and of performing feats unknowable to humans.

[Moogle]

Apparently your body just sort of "blends".
 

Q. Does Sazed's biological body still exist somewhere? If so, does that body still possess Feruchemical abilities?
A: Yes, it does exist, though kind of...blended-in, so to speak, as happened with the others when they ascended. Yes, it still has his abilities, though they are kind of moot now.
(source)

[Edgedancer he/him]

Apparently your body just sort of "blends".

 

Now I want to know if he could store the Investure of his Shards (together with their Intend) with Feruchemy.