Slivers

[Meg]

Regarding the following quote I'm worried. Please bear with me for my befuddlement, the possibility that this question was brought up before (I didn't find anything), and the possibility that BS yet clarified my problem (I didn't find anything). 

 

 

zas678
Also, would the Elantrians and the Lerasium-mistings be considered Slivers? Or is just the Lord Ruler and Vin Slivers (Via the Well)? Or do you need more power to be considered a Sliver?

Brandon Sanderson (Goodreads)

Elantrians are not slivers. Mistborn trilogy spoiler warnings follow! The Lord Ruler was indeed a Sliver. So was Vin. For the rest, I would say probably not.

What defines an actual Sliver of Adonalsium is not as clear-cut as you might think. It's a term that in-universe people who study this have applied to various existences and states. Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in them. There's a certain threshold where these scholars would call you a Sliver of Adonalsium. But I would say that any regular Misting is probably not a Sliver. A full Lerasium Mistborn is getting closer, but people who have held one of the powers are what would probably be termed a Sliver by the definitions. If you hold all the power that makes you a Shard, but the Lord Ruler held a little bit of it and then let it go. From then on they referred to that change in him—the residue, what was left—as a Sliver. When he held it he became the Shard for a short time, and Vin was a Shard for a short time. After Vin gave up the power, what Kelsier is at the end of the trilogy—that's a Sliver of Adonalsium.

 

source  (emphasizes mine)

 

That reads to me as if there are only "Slivers of Adonalsium," but there would be no Slivers of one of the sixteen Shards of Adonalsium. 

 

At the moment I understand Splinters and Slivers as kind of a "pair" of description. But with the above quote I likely think that that "pair" should be Slivers and Shards. 

 

 

edit: If I'd be right we'd have to adjust the coppermind article about Slivers. 

Edited August 3, 2013 by Meg

[Windrunner]

I don't see a problem personally. Sliver of Adonalsium seems like a general term for a Sliver of any of the Shards. We use the phrase "Sliver of Adonalsium" in the article itself. We do make references to one person or another being a Sliver of Preservation, but that's just useful in delineating which Shard that person was a Sliver of.