1stBondsmith he/him Posted January 13, 2017 Posted January 13, 2017 I have been meaning to write this for a while, but recent threads made me decide to make time for this. I will try to be brief on a deep topic. Many readers misunderstand what is meant by the Intents of the Shards. Specifically, they misunderstand what an Intent is without the context of having other Intents with it. An isolated Intent can be very unpredictable and even seem to work against itself. I will give some examples, but will leave you to extrapolate and contemplate what the means for all the other Intents. Ruin's Intent has also been described by himself as progression, change, aging, entropy, and nesessary for anything to evolve. But without Cultivation, entropy is stronger than progression. Without Preservation, passing forms that are desirable do not remain, so even good changes are passing and only statistically useful. Without Honor, the changes will never be tied to an agreement or morals, so they cannot be counted on. Without Autonomy, Ruin becomes dependent on controlling others to achieve its ends. Etc. Cultivation may indeed be controlled growth, but no Ruin means seasons and withering of your project does not happen. Do you care about the feelings of your creations without the intent of Love? How do you keep your creations without Preservation? Honor without Love, Autonomy, Forgiveness, and Preservation is hard to imagine. The list goes on. A single intent ( like Odium, or divine hatred), without its opposite or other binding Intents is a radical to even itself. I think more pondering on an untempered Intent would give us a better idea of what to expect, and might keep us from simplifying our judgments to a Good Shard and an Evil Shard. 4
cometaryorbit Posted January 14, 2017 Posted January 14, 2017 Yeah. Preservation is definitely not purely Good, Ruin not purely Evil. Preservation approved of TLR's tyranny because it kept the world in stasis, though probably not his mass executions (or at least wouldn't have if he'd had his full sanity, which he didn't by the time TLR came along). I've argued elsewhere that Honor may not be blameless in Roshar's bloody Desolation cycle. An honorspren is "spirit of oaths. Of promises. And of nobility", according to Syl. Oaths followed 'blindly' can lead to all kinds of bad things, especially oaths of vengeance or oaths of loyalty sworn to a leader who turns out to be evil. Nobility can mean moral nobility/nobility of purpose, which is definitely good, or aristocracy, which may not be.
happyman he/him Posted January 17, 2017 Posted January 17, 2017 I generally agree with all of the comments about the Intents. I'd like to add, though, that I'm pretty sure the shattering and separation of the intents is not absolute, partly because of the Vessels themselves (which were once not just one thing, and therefore have probably stayed not one thing, even while their Intent came to dominate them) and partly because I believe that in some undefinable way, they're all still part of a larger whole which can never truly destroyed and which spans all of creation. After all, most of the power is still in the Spiritual Realm, and that does not know location. But yes, the intents in themselves are generally not good or evil. Preservation having too much influence resulted in the Final Empire, for instance. Essentially 1000 years of almost perfect stasis, with no ability to give up bad ideas and replace them with good ones. Ruin having too much influence, on the other hand, was far more catastrophic quickly, but the choice was between a slow death and a fast death, until Harmony balanced them out.
IAreNelson Posted January 18, 2017 Posted January 18, 2017 (edited) Something that I'd like to add is about Honor. I've seen several that imply that he is basically a good guy. They use the connotation of Honor which implies goodness. But Honor can be had amongst bad guys as well. If we wanted to break it down into a more D&D view, I see Honor as Lawful. Not good or neutral or bad but just lawful. He makes promises and keeps them. Like I imagine if he made a promise to fight against Odium or something similar, and if he has to sacrifice Cultivation to do so, that could very easily align with his Intent. Even though we would likely view that as evil. Sorry I have just continually seen Honor described as incapable of an action like that and I find that wrong. Edited January 18, 2017 by IAreNelson Missed a crucial word 1
Landis963 he/him Posted January 18, 2017 Posted January 18, 2017 42 minutes ago, IAreNelson said: Something that I'd like to add is about Honor. I've seen several that imply that he is basically a good guy. They use the connotation of Honor which implies goodness. But Honor can be had amongst bad guys as well. If we wanted to break it down into a more D&D view, I see Honor as Lawful. Not good or neutral or bad but just lawful. He makes promises and keeps them. Like I imagine if he made a promise to fight against Odium or something similar, and if he has to sacrifice Cultivation to do so, that could very easily align with his Intent. Even though we would likely view that as evil. Sorry I have just continually seen Honor described as incapable of an action like that and I find that wrong. "Honor" implies that he would be incapable of betraying an ally. Also, Honor is dead and Cultivation is not, so if he had the opportunity to sacrifice Cultivation for himself, he didn't take it.
IAreNelson Posted January 19, 2017 Posted January 19, 2017 6 hours ago, Landis963 said: "Honor" implies that he would be incapable of betraying an ally. Also, Honor is dead and Cultivation is not, so if he had the opportunity to sacrifice Cultivation for himself, he didn't take it. Honor is fulfilling an obligation or agreement. Unless he made an oath to not betray (and what constitutes betrayal is also up to interpretation) his allies, then he absolutely could should the agreement he made require it of him. As a small example, when Kaladin lost Syl, its not because he agreed to let people the kill the king, its because that agreement made him break his oath to protect the king. While I don't think Syl would have been ok with Kaladin attempting to kill the king, saying "I vow to kill the king no matter the cost!" and then letting those who are helping you do that die is honorable so long as you kill the king. The king could be a good person and it still doesn't mean you aren't honorable. You may disagree with me, but your statement implies to me that Honor is good by default and I am arguing the opposite. Also, the Honor sacrificing Cultivation was an example. I know Honor is dead and Cultivation is not (and I know there are theories Honor used Cultivation somehow to trap Odium), I don't believe he tried to use her as a sacrifice at all. I was just trying to show that Honor could be honorable and sacrifice his lover Cultivation if an oath or agreement he made required it of him.
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