Theory: Adonalsium cannot be put back together again

[Argent he/him]

And not just cuz I've got a thing for Syl and I'm against whatever makes her do that rage-face-hissing-thing.

 

Dude, back off my girlfriend now!

[Shardlet he/him]

Right. Hoid isn't a Shard:

 

edit: I forgot or didn't realize that we have a more distinct answer from BS on that:

 

Of course, it must be pointed out that neither of those quotes preclude Hoid from having held (note past tense) a shard.  He may be a sliver.  It almost seems that brandon's wording in both quotes to be specific only to the present tense.

[Ari he/him]

The idea is not that you would not be able to recognize hot without having experienced cold, but that much of the things that we perceive are relative and contrast provides increased understanding and clarity.  As to love and hate, I really don't consider them to be opposites.  I think ambivalence or absence of feeling towards someone or something is a more accurate opposite to either.

 

If you want to get really into the physics of it, there isn't such a thing as cold, there's only absense or scarcity of heat, which we colloquially call "cold". In this case there is no "opposing force", but all the same, we have developed a concept of an opposing force because that is how our brains understand continuums. Likewise, there doesn't need to be an opposite of Endowment for us to understand that shard- we can simply contrast what Endowment does to what other shards do.

 

Contrast is all we need, we don't need some idealised opposite of something in order to understand it. (Really, there's a better argument to be made that opposing shards are useful in certain types of narratives than that they provide for better contrast. Preservation and ruin's conflict was interesting and Ruin's victory in it helped lend power to Ruin as an antagonist for Vin. Preservation didn't really add anything to our understanding of Ruin)

[Araris Valerian he/him]

In HOA Sazed was talking about how Ruin and Preservation were part of Adonalsium, and he was confused about Ati and Leras because he felt that the powers originally existed independent of a personality. Perhaps Adonalsium never existed as a person and thus if a single person obtained all 16 shards then Adonalsium would not be created. I don't feel like Hoid would trust anyone with quite that much power, especially with shards like ruin and odium involved.

[Rade]

I think that something that nobody has looked at yet is missing: if the Shardic Lens theory is correct, why wouldn't it be a single sheet of glass all with the same...well...going back to the stained glass metaphor for back of a better term "color". Even if the powers existed independently, but they were balanced out by each other creating a sort of clear glass color as the Shardic Lens, it seems like a good part of their intent comes from the people who are holding them. Yes, Ruin seems bad at first. But without death, destruction, etc., the new wouldn't come as easily. For example, some types of trees rely on fires to make their seeds grow. BUT, if a personality got affixed to it that wanted to Ruin other's lives/whatnot, then it would be worse because the glass would be colored the intent of the person who wanted to use it specifically to HURT people, not to help. Another example would be if instead of Sazed picking up the powers of Ruin and Preservation, what would happen if they had fallen out of the sky next to...say...Spook. He would have had good intent, but he wouldn't have had the knowledge that Sazed had to know what the world would be like, and instead of trying to stay out of how the world works after fixing it, he might interfere with it quite a lot. (Just using Spook as an example, I don't know what he would do precisely, but...*shrugs* first character I could think of off of the top of my head.)

[Dros]

I believe Shardic Intent would have the greater impact on a holder than vice versa. For example, Hoid states Ati was a good man until he picked up Ruin. However, I would agree that Hoid believes Odium is more dangerous with Rayse as the holder.

[Oudeis he/him]

I believe Shardic Intent would have the greater impact on a holder than vice versa. For example, Hoid states Ati was a good man until he picked up Ruin. However, I would agree that Hoid believes Odium is more dangerous with Rayse as the holder.

Meh. I took it as, Rayse was a jerk on his own. Rayse-with-power would have been bad enough. He won't even try to resist the all-corrupting power of Odium.

I disagree with the general nerfing of how bad Ruin was. Sure, life needs a measure of destruction to change and grow. But Ruin wasn't a dose of negative energy that understood its place in the grand scheme of life. He wanted there to be nothing but Ruin. He rejoiced in terror and lusted after pain.

Saying the Shard Ruin isn't bad just because entropy is a part of life is like saying that eight glasses of water a day is good for you, thus so is drowning. Ruin was taken to psychotic extremes, and that made him bad.

Yes, I understand the point some people are making, which is that in a wholly theoretical way, when viewed as an abstract, as an intellectual exercise, you could see instances of destruction being useful. In the concrete instance of the book, Ruin wasn't an abstract concept, he was a sadistic personality who exulted in suffering. He was bad.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Meh. I took it as, Rayse was a jerk on his own. Rayse-with-power would have been bad enough. He won't even try to resist the all-corrupting power of Odium.

I disagree with the general nerfing of how bad Ruin was. Sure, life needs a measure of destruction to change and grow. But Ruin wasn't a dose of negative energy that understood its place in the grand scheme of life. He wanted there to be nothing but Ruin. He rejoiced in terror and lusted after pain.

Saying the Shard Ruin isn't bad just because entropy is a part of life is like saying that eight glasses of water a day is good for you, thus so is drowning. Ruin was taken to psychotic extremes, and that made him bad.

Yes, I understand the point some people are making, which is that in a wholly theoretical way, when viewed as an abstract, as an intellectual exercise, you could see instances of destruction being useful. In the concrete instance of the book, Ruin wasn't an abstract concept, he was a sadistic personality who exulted in suffering. He was bad.

 

What do you mean by "general nerfing of how bad Ruin was" because I haven't really seen it? Ruin isn't bad, unopposed Ruin is; in the same way that unopposed Preservation would be.  It might be a subtle distinction but it's a very important one.

[Dros]

I think you're speaking in terms of consequences, Weiry. In your argument, the consequences of an opposed Ruin is not a terrible thing, but the consequences of an unopposed Ruin are bad. By that very argument you are ceding that Ruin's Intent is a terrible thing if left to its own whims.

 

By "nerfing," my thought of what he meant is a lot of folks seem to think Ati's consciousness was aware that some destruction is good to bring about change and growth and that he controlled the Intent of Ruin to that end. I think that's false. I think the Intent totally takes over the person and the Shard does not care about the grand scheme of things, i.e. Ruin's Intent is to ruin, so without a conscious, the Shard would ruin wherever it was and whatever was near. With a conscious director, no matter if Ati was a good man or bad man, the Shard wants to ruin still. Ati just comes up with a coherent strategy to do so. His will to do good, or to help the Cosmere evolve was lost. His will was only about carrying out the Intent of the Shard.

[Oudeis he/him]

What do you mean by "general nerfing of how bad Ruin was" because I haven't really seen it? Ruin isn't bad, unopposed Ruin is; in the same way that unopposed Preservation would be.  It might be a subtle distinction but it's a very important one.

 

 

I think you're speaking in terms of consequences, Weiry. In your argument, the consequences of an opposed Ruin is not a terrible thing, but the consequences of an unopposed Ruin are bad. By that very argument you are ceding that Ruin's Intent is a terrible thing if left to its own whims.

 

By "nerfing," my thought of what he meant is a lot of folks seem to think Ati's consciousness was aware that some destruction is good to bring about change and growth and that he controlled the Intent of Ruin to that end. I think that's false. I think the Intent totally takes over the person and the Shard does not care about the grand scheme of things, i.e. Ruin's Intent is to ruin, so without a conscious, the Shard would ruin wherever it was and whatever was near. With a conscious director, no matter if Ati was a good man or bad man, the Shard wants to ruin still. Ati just comes up with a coherent strategy to do so. His will to do good, or to help the Cosmere evolve was lost. His will was only about carrying out the Intent of the Shard.

 

Yes, exactly this. Weiry, Ruin, on his own, is unopposed Ruin. At no point does he express, "My job is to destroy some things to allow for greater growth." What he wants, what he tries to bring about and almost succeeds, is unopposed Ruin. Yes, he failed, but that doesn't make him good, just incompetent. His desire, his Intent, his plan, was to be unopposed Ruin. Not a part of the whole. He wanted "the whole" destroyed.

 

The Ruin-that-is-a-part-of-Harmony is fundamentally different, because Sazed does use it as an agent of change. This is an example of balanced Ruin. When Ati wielded Ruin, it wasn't balanced, it didn't want to be balanced. Whether you can justify the fact that Ati himself was once nice and has been perverted by the Intent is irrelevant; the perversion did happen, and however it happened, we found ourselves at a place where Ati was an evil, evil man who wanted to destroy unopposed. You just expressly said yourself: Unopposed Ruin is bad. With Ati guiding it, Ruin became all-but-unopposed and was actively working to squash the very last opposition.

 

If a man tries to shoot a woman in the head, but the gun jams and he only hits her in the arm, and after some surgery and months of rehab she's almost fully recovered, does that mean the man's not a criminal? Is he not a bad guy because his attempted murder failed? Would he be a worse man if his plan had worked? Is he not considered bad because he's opposed by the cops who stop men like him, making him just one part of the system that keeps people safe?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I think that there is a difference between "bad" and "evil".  Ruin might have been "bad" but he was by no means "evil".  He acts according to a different morality scale.  To him "ruining" is "good".  He isn't trying to destroy Scadrial becasue he is malevolent but because it is in his nature. We wouldn't say a predator was evil for killing its prey because they don't operate on our morality scale.

 

If the discussion on "Is Ruin Evil?" is to continue I would prefer for it to be moved to another thread because it is off topic for this thread.

[Oudeis he/him]

What "discussion"? Your argument is clearly, "there is no absolute moral scale, and literally everyone feels that what they do is justified. From the point of view of the murderer, the murder was right,". Since I obviously can't convince you that a moral scale does exist, there's nothing to discuss. You can tell me I'm wrong and I can tell you you're wrong from can to can't, and nothing will change.

 

You said it yourself; unopposed ruin is bad. Ati wanted unopposed ruin. He's bad. A predator can't be called "bad" because it doesn't have the capacity to make decisions; it's a beast. Shards do have the ability to make decisions. Leras risked ultimate ruin in the cause of progress, both of which were in direct defiance of his own Intent. Obviously, defying your Intent is difficult, but possible. Ati couldn't, or didn't. Shards aren't mindless beasts.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Well Brandon has this to say:

 

 

In creating Ruin as a villain, I wanted to shy away from making a force that was purely evil. I don’t believe that Ruin is evil, personally. I believe that he’s actually justified in what he’s trying to do.

 

That doesn’t mean the characters should just sit back and let him destroy the world. However, he is a force given sentience—or, rather, sentience that has attached itself to a force. Regardless, that force drives him and dominates him. And destruction is a natural part of life.

 

(source)

 

I agree with Brandon on this.  (I apologize for not bringing this up earlier, I had forgotten about it and just re-discovered it).

 

Now again, I would prefer for this discussion to be continued in another thread.  This thread has gotten fairly off-topic of late and I would prefer it to get back on-topic.

[Oudeis he/him]

Okay, you want to get back on topic. You've had your last say, now I'll say one last thing, and then let's be done with it.

 

You asked what I meant by "the general nerfing of Ruin as a villain," and this is it. I realize it's part of the book, because the author has decreed it so. I like the book as a whole, but one part I don't like is the idea of making Ruin "not that bad." I can see how villains need to be relatable and have multiple dimensions and how sometimes someone like Taravagin (not even gonna pretend I know how to spell that) makes for a good villain who believes his evil to be necessary. I don't know what's so wrong about the occasional bad guy being just plain evil. Unabashed, unashamed, full-on "I take what I want because I can" evil. From the book Ruin seems to be this refreshingly honest villain, but instead we now know he's just another wishy-washy, emo, "misunderstood" brat. It lessens him from a literary perspective, in my opinion.

 

For an example of exactly what I'm talking about, a villain who has no illusions, who accepts her own evil nature and embraces it without reservation, please listen to this clip from the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid.

 

She doesn't need to justify anything to herself. She doesn't need to find a way to pretend that she's doing something "good." She is what she is, and she owns it.

 

We've got plenty of villains throughout the cosmere who are misunderstood, or conflicted, or doing the best they can, or who consider their actions despicable but necessary, and they are done quite well in very interesting, relatable ways. Ruin makes a terrible example of that kind of bad guy. What we see of him via Vin and Marsh makes him seem so much more visceral, so emotional, so much a part of his own wanton destruction. It brings him joy and he finds it beautiful. He would have been an absolutely perfect unapologetic villain, and instead he's been watered down, in the apparent cause of not admitting that anyone can really be just plain evil.

 

As a character, Ruin would have been far more interesting and enjoyable as a true villain, rather than just another conflicted soul.

[taveren he/him]

do you guys think there needs to be an order in which adonalsuim needs to be reformed in. like 2 shards that would just reject being fused together and would need to be added to a greater whole.

 

also i agree with the idea that the holder has an impact on the shard just to a lesser extent so reforging them would end up with them having all be slightly changed over thousands of years. if the shard has its own cognitive aspect and that aspect effects its holder anything sentient has its own cognitive aspect itself and should effect the shard also. granted its magnitudes weaker then the shard  but we are talking over very long periods of time.

 

i wonder if it could be put back together and they were close together when it happened why not one of the people there tried to put it back together. they had to have been taken up by different people intentional or we would see more combined shards as the first few of them made a scramble for more shards

 

although we don't know if the shards were close at the time but we know hoid was there and knew everyone that now holds a shard before hand plus once a shard was picked up distance wouldn't  matter he could just dash around yolen and grab the rest

 

wow i rambled on more then i had intended

Edited March 2, 2014 by taveren

[Stormgate he/him]

May I suggest another analogy, one that may branch off in another direction? Suppose Adonalsium was more like white light, and the Shattering acted as a prism, separating the powers and intents into different colors. Though Hoid's comment about Adonalsium may be referencing this theory, and it may be correct, we still don't know exactly why Hoid is traveling through the Cosmere and what his goals are. He may be trying to reform Adonalsium, he may be trying to simply get all the Shards back into a cohesive whole, whether it becomes Adonalsium or, to quote Hoid, Gibletish. We simply don't know.

I'm not saying this theory is wrong, or that any other theory is correct. I'm simply pointing out that there is still so much we don't know.

Curse the RAFO.

[Ari he/him]

Did this need to be bumped from 2014?

[natc]

It's actually a bump of a 2014 post that was itself a bump of 2013.