What Exactly Happens to Splintered Shards?

[Andy92]

I have a question about how Splintering effects a Shard. So far I've read all of the major Mistborn books plus Secret History, both of the Stormlight books, and Elantris. I know Devotion and Dominion were Splintered on Sel, and Honor was Splintered on Roshar. I have some questions about what exactly this does to the Shard itself. On Sel, Devotion and Dominion became Invested in the planet and this is what is now known as the Dor (to my understanding). On Roshar, Honor was Splintered, but he's still able to talk to people like Dalinar through visions of some sort. 

I know Shards have Vessles like Rayse for Odium, Ati for Ruin, Sazed for Harmony, etc, so part of my question is what happens to these Vessles when a Shard is Splintered? Does the holder of the Shard die? The Stormfather can still speak in Stormlight Archives, so does this mean the Splintering of the Shard just weakenes (or disperses) its power, and the holder is still alive? Or maybe it can be different depending on each situation? 

I'm rambling a bit now so I'll try to summarize this into my three main questions.

1) Does Splintering a Shard completely destroy it, or does it just fragment the Shard's power (similar to what happened to Adonolsium)? 

2) Does the Splintering of a Shard kill the Shard's holder? 

3) Is it possible for a Splintered Shard to be reformed (or is that currently unknown)? 

[rock soup]

1. You cant destroy power in the cosmere. In the Q&A's Brandon said that Rayse destroyed the Shards on Sel by putting all the power into the cognitive realm. This is what makes worldhopping dangerous on Sel. Thats why Kelsier had to hold the power of Preservation for Vin after Leras died. All hes said is bad things happen when the power of the shard doesnt have a vessel to contain it.

2. Usually yes Im guessing. Im just speculating here but in all cases when the power is splintered the vessel is dead. Although I have a theory that Cultivation is Splintered yet alive but thats another issue.

3. Currently unknown. Im guessing that maybe another Vessel could gather the wild power together but seems outside the reach of the average joe. So if Harmony visited Sel he might be able to pull all the parts of Dominion and Devotion back into order. But since all the Shards we've seen seem to be tied to their planet of choice this is doubtful.

 

Thats my take anyway so dont take it as canon. A lot of this is still speculation at this point.

[Andy92]

Thanks for the answers. That helps clear a few things up. I've mainly been confused as to whether or not Splintered = permanently destroyed, but it seems to be that Splintering mainly causes the power to be stuck somewhere without a Vessel to contain it. 

[Yata]

This is a simple concept in my mind but I have problems to clearly explain, I will try:

A Shard is a being of power (a lot of it), it may be spread in many places/beings/objects but every bit of his power is still part of the Shard, because the Shard's power is mostly Spiritual and the Spiritual ream doesn't care of space and distance.

A Shard may create Splinter of his power also when the Shard is whole (example in Roshar, Braize and Nalthis). For example there were Spren made by H&C's Investiture also before Honor's murder...at that time all the Spren were still part of Honor also if they were quite self-aware part of him. I think you may see it as cells in a living organism...the cell may performe their task/duty but they are still part of a "greater being".

Now, when a Shard is Splintered instead, you "kill" the "greater being", all the cells are still there but they are no more part of the whole. Of course the analogy stops here, because for a biological life...the cells die. While the Investiture can't be created or destroyed.

The outcome of this is a lot of "piece" of Investiture, the Investiture for his own nature develops Sentience without a Mind who guide it. So this "pieces" began to become actual self-aware being as you see with Spren, Seon and Skaze (technically the right name is "splinters" but I don't know if you can call it "Splinter" before they develops a mind).

Odium is aware of the risk of leaving a Shard whole and untouched without a Vessel. The Shard may performe some kind of weird things. It may develop a mind of his own, it may began to search a new Vessel and He may auto-Splinter itself. To avoid the first two possibilities, He locks the defeated Shards into the Cognitive Realm were they are pressed and this offer to them no chance of developing a mind or find a new Vessel.

A Splintered Shard could be repaired (by a WoB) but we don't know how this may be performed.

So this was an huge introduction (sorry), but your questions:

5 hours ago, Andy92 said:

1) Does Splintering a Shard completely destroy it, or does it just fragment the Shard's power (similar to what happened to Adonolsium)? 

As I said before, Investiture can't be created or destroyed. It could only change status. This mean that after a Splintering of a Shard, you have yet the same amount of power, but not more part of a single Spiritual being. Like you said it's mostly the same thing happened with Adonalsium (but without knowing what Adonalsium was...it's hard to say more

5 hours ago, Andy92 said:

2) Does the Splintering of a Shard kill the Shard's holder? 

This is hard to answer, in the on screen cases the Vessels always died, but the answer is "the Vessel may survive the Splintering of his Shard" (there is a WoB about), of course in the case of an Odium's murder...I imagine Odium will simply crush the powerless Sliver once the Shard is gone.

4 hours ago, rock soup said:

3. Currently unknown. Im guessing that maybe another Vessel could gather the wild power together but seems outside the reach of the average joe. So if Harmony visited Sel he might be able to pull all the parts of Dominion and Devotion back into order. But since all the Shards we've seen seem to be tied to their planet of choice this is doubtful.

The Splintering is reversible but it's hard to do and we don't actually know how to performe it.

Probably a Shard could do it, BUT it's dangerous....mixing Intents isn't something so easily to balance and a Shard knows it very well. Notice that mostly Shards could be stopped by their own Intent in performing this kind of repair.

On a last note, a Shard may disinvest and move from planet to planet...but there are some conseguences in doing it.

@rock soup Cultivation is alive and whole as a Shard, She may create Splinter of his power but this splinters are still part of her (like the old Radiants' Spren were part of both H&C when H&C were both whole) and this didn't diminish her power....This is the reason Odium could not simply crush Roshar. Cultivation opposes him

[Andy92]

Thanks, @Yata! That clears up my understanding of it. Appreciate you taking the time to type all of that out. 

[The One Who Connects]

18 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I know Shards have Vessles like Rayse for Odium, Ati for Ruin, Sazed for Harmony, etc, so part of my question is what happens to these Vessles when a Shard is Splintered? Does the holder of the Shard die? The Stormfather can still speak in Stormlight Archives, so does this mean the Splintering of the Shard just weakenes (or disperses) its power, and the holder is still alive? Or maybe it can be different depending on each situation? 

I'm rambling a bit now so I'll try to summarize this into my three main questions.

1) Does Splintering a Shard completely destroy it, or does it just fragment the Shard's power (similar to what happened to Adonolsium)? 

2) Does the Splintering of a Shard kill the Shard's holder? 

3) Is it possible for a Splintered Shard to be reformed (or is that currently unknown)? 

If you are familiar with the concept of a cognitive shadow, then this should almost make sense. The Stormfather was basically Honor's Godspren, and when Honor Died, his Cognitive Shadow merged with the Stormfather Spren (somehow) I think this is what allowed the Stormfather to survive the Recreance.

1)Splintering is basically Shattering Lite. The Shard just gets reduced into smaller pieces. ie: Spren, Seons. The Dor is a special case in that it got jammed into a small space and was kinda melded back together, so it's in a lot bigger pieces than Seons and Spren

2) As Yata said, it's a debate. Some people think killing the Vessel lets him splinter the Shard, others think Splintering the Shard kills the vessel, etc..

3) Brandon has said yes. That was his entire verbatim answer. We don't know how, we don't know if any of the characters know how, how long it takes, etc... All we know is that Brandon said it can be done.

[Andy92]

Yeah that makes sense. I've been wondering how the power of Splintered Shards could still be used by characters in the book, so I understand that better now. I guess it's possible we could see a character take up the power of a Splintered Shard one of these days...could be interesting. 

[Yata]

12 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

2) As Yata said, it's a debate. Some people think killing the Vessel lets him splinter the Shard, others think Splintering the Shard kills the vessel, etc..

I think we have no more this doubt.

Brandon said a Vessel may survive the Splintering of his Shard, therefore the Splintering of a Shard cause mostly the Vessel's death. Not the opposite. This mean Odium's attack is in some way focused to "hit the Shard" not the Vessel (if such sentence has sense).

Notice, a Shard whole but unheld may auto-Splinter itself...but it's a side effect of a Power without control not the way the Splintering works (at least with Odium's technique)

[AerionBFII]

HOSER

Did Tanavast survive Honor's splintering?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Tanavast is dead. Good question. However, that is as of the start of The Way of Kings.

HOSER

So he could have survived the Splintering...

BRANDON SANDERSON

He could have survived the Splintering.

HOSER

...as a mortal...

BRANDON SANDERSON

Well, he could have survived for a time, but then he could not have then...

HOSER

...passed away in his sleep...

BRANDON SANDERSON

Right.

I found this if it helps any.

[Andy92]

Yeah that is interesting, thanks! So apparently it is possible for a Vessel to survive when its Shard is Splintered. 

I've been reading through some older threads on here and the wiki pages about how Shards/Splintering work. It's starting to come together for me lol.