Adonalsium and God Beyond Speculation

[Sharp of Wit and Blade he/him]

From what I understand of the Cosmere, there are (or were) two Gods involved in it. One of them resided INSIDE the Cosmere (Adonalsium), whom I will call the Eminent God (EG). Eminent becaue It(?) would be present throughout the Cosmere, but not outside of it. That would be the God Beyond, or the Transcendent God (TG). Transcendent becasue It transcends the limitations of time. Now, it seems as if the TG was the one who created the Cosmere, all of its physical laws, time, and perhaps the EG. The EG is the one that created what is INSIDE the universe, and is bound by the laws that the TG created. This means that the EG is not actually a four- or fifth- dimensional being, but rather is bound by the same perception of time as all other sentient life is. This is an important distinction that must exist, because as we all know, the EG is dead.

This is rather fascinating in its own right, to consider how to kill a god. But I digress. The EG was killed or died somehow and was shattered into the components of its power. The components seem to come in pairs that are diametrically opposite each other (Preservation and Ruin come to mind). However, we can infer based off of what has been stated in numerous books and Sanderson's own numerology patterns, that there were 16 main shards of power, and a seventeenth of lesser power. This could suggest that perhaps one or more of the main shards is missing a piece of its power. Following that assumption, it could be that perhaps Odium is the Shard that is missing part of itself. I remember reading a theory that stated that since Odium is hatred, and Rayse its holder, then Rayse would also hate himself. Perhaps this missing piece of his, if the seventeenth shard has part of his power in it, it could be preventing that reflexive hatred of self. It might be far-fetched, but it could be the case.

[Elbereth she/her]

Well, we don't know that Adonalsium was a god. I actually like to imagine that Adonalsium was just a regular human, who became pure soul or something and was shattered. I don't know. It's not a very well-formed thought yet.

We also know absolutely nothing about the God Beyond, except that he's probably Cosmere-significant. He might be beyond the univers, or just beyond the stars or planets or some such thing.

We know for a fact that there were only 16 Shards. However, some of the shards are missing pieces of their power, because they have invested those pieces in things like spren (in the case of Honor) and humans (in Preservation's case).

[Yata he/him]

Yeah when Adonalsium shattered, 16 Shards come to existence. All the Shards was at the same level of Power/Investiture. There was probably all equals unless to their Intent. At the moment the Shards have different level of Power because they Invested Something.

 

About the Intent and Holder. Every Shard take with it an Intent, but the Intent is quite an "abstract concept", when a Holder pick up a Shard the Intent is interpretate by the Holder. Therefore the Ati's Ruin wil be different by an "Rayse's Ruin".

Ati was a very kind guy and probably see the Ruin as a Entropic Decay without any malice. This was the Ruin that we know through Mistborn. But if Rayse was the Holder of Ruin. We probably saw another interpretation of the Intent of Ruin and a Shard-Shardholder Entity totaly different.

[Sharp of Wit and Blade he/him]

Those are both excellent points. However, it can be assumed that Adonalsium has some God-like characteristics. First, as proof, in WoK, during I believe Part 3, where Hoid's letter is in the epigraphs, he says something along the lines of "He [Rayse/Odium] bears the weight of God's divine hatred without any of the virtues that tempered it". This shows that, according to Hoid at least, Adonalsium was a God-like being. Besides, this thread is my personal interpretation of the origins of the Cosmere. It makes sense (at least for the patterns that Sanderson likes to follow) for there to be 2 Gods in his universe, either diametrically opposed, which doesn't seem to fit here, or one subordinate to the other in some way.

I hadn't taken into consideration the fact that the Holder's intent actually can affect how their Shards' powers work. However, I think that that doesn't completely invalidate my speculation, as there is definitely something very wrong with Odium. He seems to be imbalanced in terms of power. Perhaps the Parshendi, the people most closely associated with him, are not actually his creations? Because of that, he doesn't have that gradual weakening of power like we saw happen to Leras (Preservation). This is all just conjecture for me though.

[Yata he/him]

Well Odium to me is not "strange". He probably Invested very little part of his power.

Using your own example, Ruin and Preservation are probably the "weakest" Shard to the fact that they Invested a lot of his powers to create every lifeform of Scadrial (and probably the whole Scadrial as a planet). Sure this give them the allpower on the planet but about "raw power" they was more weak (probably) than other Shard.

 

If Odium keep his power to himself, he may overpower by "brute force" any other Shard that invested their power in a Shardworld.

 

About the Listener (I find difficoult to write Parshedi all the time). they are in a peculiar situation. They are quite a "Drab creature" that need to bond with a Spren to became something "whole". Any Shard may use their Spren like Backdoor to controll a Listener after their bonding.

The only similar case to this, is on Scadrial. Ruin and Preservation have tiny backdoor to the people's mind. And with a little help (Hemalurgy) this backdoor is improved to the point of Comunication and Mind Controll.