What Can the Shards Do?

[M'Hael]

So there has been word going around about various elements of different worlds in the Cosmere intermixing, like Vasher being in WoR. So this made me wonder, by any chance does Honor, or for that matter, any other Shard have their own version of the Iridescent Tones where splinters of Shards are formed by resurrecting the person? If so, it would explain why Talenel is back from the dead (sort of). Another question that hit is if they do, would Vin be involved later because she isn't technically dead, as she threw her own conscious along with Ruin's into "the abyss"?

[Observer]

Shards hold massive amount of Investure, allowing them to do practically anything in the Physical Realm. When things move over into the Cognitive and Spiritual though, things get trickier. Harmony can't bring back the dead, despite being both Ruin and Preservation combined. However, Endowment can easily stick splinters into people and bring them back. Intent seems to have a lot to do with it, but experience is also a major factor. Honor appears to have heavily Invested the Heralds, to the point that they regenerate upon death, almost as if they were simply Splinters themselves. 

 

Basically, I'm saying no. Not every Shard has a policy like Endowment does, either from lack of experience, lack of Intent-allowance, or both. It's likely similar to what the Heralds are doing, but that's as far as I can take it. Vin and Ati are both as dead as they come, and Harmony isn't quite sure how to revive them, or if it's even possible anymore.

[Arook]

No I think the Return are unique to endowment's intent.

 

As for what Vin did I thought she kill via feedback herself and Ati. I think that sazed even says at some point that he talked to Vin and Elend 

 

 

 

Observer beat me with a much nicer post one up to you.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Arook

[Moogle]

I think that the Heralds are Honor's version of the Returned. They seem to get some of the same advantages, like superhuman quickness/strength. There is also the returning from death thing.

 

I think it should be possible for Shards to revive anyone like Endowment. Harmony simply lacked the experience necessary at the time, and he was always someone who preferred to not act - something which has been enhanced by his Shard's competing Intents.

 

What may be a problem is reviving people who have been dead for a long time. With time, all the Cognitive workery that makes the body and the soul be the same unit comes apart, or so was implied by Nalan.

[Aether]

It should be said that it is by no means clear that Endowment actually is bringing people back from the dead. It has been suggested that he/she is merely sticking splinters into their corpses, making a new lifeform rather than reviving the old one.

[M'Hael]

It should be said that it is by no means clear that Endowment actually is bringing people back from the dead. It has been suggested that he/she is merely sticking splinters into their corpses, making a new lifeform rather than reviving the old one.

What I meant was can all Shards do the same process of creating new living splinters as you said.

[RShara]

If they're willing to give up some of their power, I think it would be possible.  There were spren around before Honor splintered, and Cultivation (probably) isn't splintered, so they've done that. 

[Tempus]

Those Divine Breath splinters and their relationship to the Returned has been bugging me. They don't quite act like anything else that should be similar, like many other things on Nalthis.

 

It does seem that shards are able to deliberately splinter themselves. Preservation imbued parts of himself into people for sentience. Harmony has apparently done something with some parts of Ruin to balance things out. Endowment makes returned. Spren are confirmed to have been made of Honor, and almost certainly of Cultivation. I'm not sure if we know when Seons started getting made - they could be before the shattering of Devotion.

[WeiryWriter]

 I'm not sure if we know when Seons started getting made - they could be before the shattering of Devotion.

 

Seons did not exist prior to the Splintering of Devotion.  There were no seons when Odium visited Sel.