Borderline between vessel and Shard

[Quothe he/him]

When a person takes up the power of a Shard, they become a vessel if I`m not mistaken. In one of the Letters, it says that Ati was once a generous and kind man. He then became the vessel of Ruin. I remember reading somewhere that a vessel`s personality changes to match its Shard. So, does this mean Ruin controls Ati or do they essentially become one and the same? I get confused when Odium is mentioned separately from Rayse, the latter being the vessel of the former. Whereas Ati and Ruin are practically synonymous with each other.

[dgenio8]

As far as I understand, you can separate the Vessel and the Shard. What I mean is, the vessel is the person/entity/mind controling the power, while the Shard is the power itself. So, in the case of Odium and Rayse, the later is the human that pick up the shard. The shard is Odium. Now, Odium is just a huge pool of Investiture that also as in intent, Odium. This intent is what the power want to do but the person holding the shard (Rayse) is the one that actually controls it. With time, the pressure of the Shard Intent changes the mind(?) of the vessel and he will no longer resist doing what the Shard wants.

Spoilers for all Mistborn and Secrete History:

Spoiler

You can see this better with the Mistborn shards. Leras wanted to attack Ati/Ruin, in order to prevent him of destroying the Scandrial. However, is Shard intent, Preservation, prevent him of direct attack. We can also see that in the stabbing of Elend, it was really difficult for Leras to do that. That's why he need someone new to the power, like Vin, to be able to attack Ruin.

 

[Argent he/him]

17 minutes ago, Quothe said:

Hmm...so then this sentence from the Coppermind WIki: ( Odium intends to do this to every Shard and be the only Shard left, effectively making him unstoppable and giving him free rein in the entire cosmere. And, Odium appears to have no trouble with killing former acquaintances to progress his goals.) really refers to Rayse?

I don't think the distinction is meaningful, at least not in most contexts. It's kind of like how the title of a President and their name are interchangeable (e.g. "the President went live on TV" and "Barack Obama went live on TV"). Sure, the desire probably comes from Reyse, but it's happening at a point where Reyse and Odium are one and the same. 

[Jondesu he/him]

8 hours ago, dgenio8 said:

Yes, you are corret, as Spoolofwoold said, in Sel Rayse already had the control of the Shard Odium. The Shard itself is just power.

Are you saying that I'm overselling the concept of shard Intent? As far as I understood, the Shard is power with Intent. So a way to put it is to say that it's power that want to do a something, like destroying in the case of Ruin...

Agreed, the power wants to do something, but I view it like water wanting to run downhill, or fill a space. It's not a conscious decision, just a natural rule of how the power works. That means just like it takes a huge effort to make water run uphill (in the mechanical sense at least), it also takes a huge effort to defy the Shard's Intent, especially once the pressure has built up (like pressing against a dam, or spinning a water wheel).

[Weltall]

The way a Shard's power molds its Vessel over time can be seen very dramatically at the end of Hero of Ages. Leras had held on to Preservation for so long that he couldn't act outside the intent of his Shard. Vin however had only just picked it up so she was able to use that power for destructive ends. The annotation for the relevant chapter points out that if Vin held on to Preservation for thousands of years as Leras had, she'd have been bound by its intent as well but at that moment in time she had no such restrictions.

We also have WoB that even for a Vessel who's held on to a Shard for such a long span of time, if they were separated from that power the influence of their Shard's intent would eventually fade, though there would still be some permanent side-effects. So while a Vessel will be strongly affected by the Shard they hold, it's not a permanent overwriting of their original personality. There's probably a sliding scale of how much the Vessels are affected by their respective intents though, depending on the Shard in question (ie, what it does) and how well attuned the Vessel is to that intent in the first place. Rayse for instance is probably harder to distinguish as a discrete entity from Odium both because he and his power are supposedly a perfect match for one another and because that power (Hate) is likely to have more of an influence on the thought processes of its Vessel than something more broadly defined like Honor or Endowment.

[Jondesu he/him]

48 minutes ago, Quothe said:

Then would it be a good comparison to say that a Shard is kind of like the One Ring from LOTR?

Maybe, in some ways. The Intent of the Ring would have been to return to Sauron, I suppose. It wouldn't be a very close analogy, though, because you can take the ring off, with effort. Think if the Ring had been superglued onto Frodo's finger, I guess. Constant pressure to conform to the Shard's Intent.

[Quothe he/him]

26 minutes ago, dgenio8 said:

As far as I understand, you can separate the Vessel and the Shard. What I mean is, the vessel is the person/entity/mind controling the power, while the Shard is the power itself. So, in the case of Odium and Rayse, the later is the human that pick up the shard. The shard is Odium. Now, Odium is just a huge pool of Investiture that also as in intent, Odium. This intent is what the power want to do but the person holding the shard (Rayse) is the one that actually controls it. With time, the pressure of the Shard Intent changes the mind(?) of the vessel and he will no longer resist doing what the Shard wants.

Spoilers for all Mistborn and Secrete History:

  Hide contents

You can see this better with the Mistborn shards. Leras wanted to attack Ati/Ruin, in order to prevent him of destroying the Scandrial. However, is Shard intent, Preservation, prevent him of direct attack. We can also see that in the stabbing of Elend, it was really difficult for Leras to do that. That's why he need someone new to the power, like Vin, to be able to attack Ruin.

 

Ooh...I had always just assumed that the Shards were sentient in and of itself. Instead, it`s only capable of following its intent. In the case of Odium it can only feel hatred and it wants to be the only Shard left, so it plans on destroying the others. But it can`t do anything without a vessel right? That`s where Rayse comes in. Meaning that when Odium destroyed the Shards in Sel, he already had Rayse as a vessel. Am I understanding that correctly? Anyway thanks for the clarification.  

[Spoolofwhool]

8 minutes ago, Quothe said:

Ooh...I had always just assumed that the Shards were sentient in and of itself. Instead, it`s only capable of following its intent. In the case of Odium it can only feel hatred and it wants to be the only Shard left, so it plans on destroying the others. But it can`t do anything without a vessel right? That`s where Rayse comes in. Meaning that when Odium destroyed the Shards in Sel, he already had Rayse as a vessel. Am I understanding that correctly? Anyway thanks for the clarification.  

Actually, I think Odium is just about hatred, The desire to destroy everything else and be the strongest is from Rayse, amplified by the feelings of hatred of Odium's intent. I think in general you're overselling the concept of the intent of the shard. The shard itself doesn't want anything. It's just power. However, this power changes the way holders of it think subtly, and continuously increasing the changes the longer the power is held. Ati didn't pick up Ruin and immediately want to break everything. At the beginning he was his normal self, capable of using the power how he desired. Over time, the intent changed him, so by the time he and Preservation decided to create Scadrial, he was unable to create by himself, because he had become someone who wanted to see everything break down.

And yes, Rayse held Odium on Sel. Shards are just power. Without a directing mind, they can't maintain themselves very well, and uncontrolled shard power is dangerous.

[dgenio8]

23 minutes ago, Quothe said:

Ooh...I had always just assumed that the Shards were sentient in and of itself. Instead, it`s only capable of following its intent. In the case of Odium it can only feel hatred and it wants to be the only Shard left, so it plans on destroying the others. But it can`t do anything without a vessel right? That`s where Rayse comes in. Meaning that when Odium destroyed the Shards in Sel, he already had Rayse as a vessel. Am I understanding that correctly? Anyway thanks for the clarification.  

Yes, you are corret, as Spoolofwoold said, in Sel Rayse already had the control of the Shard Odium. The Shard itself is just power.

5 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Actually, I think Odium is just about hatred, The desire to destroy everything else and be the strongest is from Rayse, amplified by the feelings of hatred of Odium's intent. I think in general you're overselling the concept of the intent of the shard. The shard itself doesn't want anything. It's just power. However, this power changes the way holders of it think subtly, and continuously increasing the changes the longer the power is held. Ati didn't pick up Ruin and immediately want to break everything. At the beginning he was his normal self, capable of using the power how he desired. Over time, the intent changed him, so by the time he and Preservation decided to create Scadrial, he was unable to create by himself, because he had become someone who wanted to see everything break down.

And yes, Rayse held Odium on Sel. Shards are just power. Without a directing mind, they can't maintain themselves very well, and uncontrolled shard power is dangerous.

Are you saying that I'm overselling the concept of shard Intent? As far as I understood, the Shard is power with Intent. So a way to put it is to say that it's power that want to do a something, like destroying in the case of Ruin...

[Quothe he/him]

7 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Actually, I think Odium is just about hatred, The desire to destroy everything else and be the strongest is from Rayse, amplified by the feelings of hatred of Odium's intent. I think in general you're overselling the concept of the intent of the shard. The shard itself doesn't want anything. It's just power. However, this power changes the way holders of it think subtly, and continuously increasing the changes the longer the power is held. Ati didn't pick up Ruin and immediately want to break everything. At the beginning he was his normal self, capable of using the power how he desired. Over time, the intent changed him, so by the time he and Preservation decided to create Scadrial, he was unable to create by himself, because he had become someone who wanted to see everything break down.

And yes, Rayse held Odium on Sel. Shards are just power. Without a directing mind, they can't maintain themselves very well, and uncontrolled shard power is dangerous.

Hmm...so then this sentence from the Coppermind WIki: ( Odium intends to do this to every Shard and be the only Shard left, effectively making him unstoppable and giving him free rein in the entire cosmere. And, Odium appears to have no trouble with killing former acquaintances to progress his goals.) really refers to Rayse?

[Spoolofwhool]

36 minutes ago, dgenio8 said:

Are you saying that I'm overselling the concept of shard Intent? As far as I understood, the Shard is power with Intent. So a way to put it is to say that it's power that want to do a something, like destroying in the case of Ruin...

No, I didn't say you were. I said it to the person I was quoting.

[Bromo_Sapien]

I generally think of the Shards as a "class" and the vessels as the "player". Players start off raw and can make their way through the early stages using whatever weapons/spells they want. However, as the game progresses, the importance of their class grows, meaning some weapons/spells become more powerful and some that were great early become obsolete since they don't work well with the class. Same thing goes with the Vessels and Shards. The Vessels started off with their own personalities (e.g. Ati was a good and kind man) but as the cosmere progressed, the importance of their Shard grew. So much like a wizard will forgo physical weapons in favor of spellcasting (in most games), so to did someone like Ati become more destructive because of the shard Ruin. 

[Quothe he/him]

Then would it be a good comparison to say that a Shard is kind of like the One Ring from LOTR?

[Oversleep]

On 9.11.2016 at 1:31 AM, Quothe said:

Then would it be a good comparison to say that a Shard is kind of like the One Ring from LOTR?

Yes, probably. I hesitate to use the word "definitely" as I am not Brandon Sanderson

Edited November 15, 2016 by Oversleep