Shard of 'Apathy'?

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus my biggest issue with the quadrant model is that in that case every shard should have an opposite, and we know that's untrue. 

How so?  I never saw that sort of restriction or implication in the model.  Some are more opposed than others, though I suspect in most cases those can be laid more at the host's interpretations than the core Intent itself.  Preservation and Ruin are "opposites" only in expression, because one is about ending the physical existence of things while the other is about preventing that sort of loss, but they arguably have a lot in common too. 

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

44 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus my biggest issue with the quadrant model is that in that case every shard should have an opposite, and we know that's untrue. 

Actually, really the only potential problem I see is with Preservation, who because there are two opposing Shards of change (Ruin and Cultivation) can’t really have an opposite. All the others are still fair game though. For instance:

Devotion vs Odium

Endowment vs Avarice

Ambition vs Contentment

Dominion vs Autonomy

Honour vs Pragmatism

Prudence (Survival Shard) vs Daring

Just to name a few hypotheticals. At this point, Preservation is the only odd man out.

 

Edited September 5, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[Calderis he/him]

My issue is this. 

Quote

Shardbound [PENDING REVIEW]

Do all Shards have a direct paired opposite intent...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No, I would say no, they do not all have a directly paired opposite intent.

source

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Questioner

What Shard is the opposite of Odium in the sense of the *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

There are several that could be considered opposites--

Questioner

I mean in the assimilation sense, you’ve said that Odium doesn’t want to absorb any of the other ones but which one would want to?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, which one would want to join with him?

Questioner

Or any of them.

Brandon Sanderson

I think that if personalities had been different, Honor and Odium, there would have been a very natural pairing, not that they’re opposites but they would have attracted. [...]

source

A quadrant setup like Allomancy has a requirement of internal/external and push/pull. Which isn't even definitively true of Allomancy. It's just an in world descriptor.

If that not what was meant... 

[Quantus he/him]

@Calderis I agree that there are not going to be a direct 1-1 pairing for each Shard, no guaranteed polar opposite.  But I dont think the model requires them at all. Preservation and Ruin were about as close to direct opposites as I really expect to see, but in terms of the model they wouldnt have to be opposed; they are no more locked into any opposition than Preservation vs Dominion or Odium (as the other two Outward Oriented Decreasers).  Hell, more often than not I see the relations implying potential collaboration (or at least sympathetic outlooks); Endownment and Cultivation, for example, are both Outward Increasers but are not (by my interpretation of those intents) innately antagonistic.  Similarly Ambition and Honor are both Inward Increasers, but I could see them being either friendly or antagonistic depending on the Hosts outlook/interpretation. 

[Ripheus23]

20 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Oh Covenant was very rarely ‘insane’ in a clinical sense; to the contrary, he was brilliant. The problem was he was also extraordinarily broken and cynical as well, which lead to his early status as an extremely unlikable antihero.

But no, I never once got the impression that the Haruchai were indifferent; the complete opposite in fact. Everything they ever did was because of how much they truly did care. They just masked it with a facade of extreme stoicism and unparalleled self-control, even though they weren’t really fooling anyone.

IDK, he gets overwhelmed by lust, freaks out on the Defense Department, wanders under the influence of amanibhavam, gets dosed with venom, jacked up on Waynhim blood, personal blood-loss from slit wrists, zapped by the Elohim, etc. He might not've been "clinically" insane that often, but he was often enough in an altered state of mind that, by comparison, I don't think he was too far gone during his de-Timewardened interlude to have made note of this "Indifference" thing for no good reason.

Anyway, I know the Haruchai weren't actually indifferent or apathetic. It was the paradox of their ideal, though, that they had to try to be indifferent towards *some* things (romantic passion, for example) to be as far from indifferent as possible, towards others.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Ripheus23

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

My issue is this. 

A quadrant setup like Allomancy has a requirement of internal/external and push/pull. Which isn't even definitively true of Allomancy. It's just an in world descriptor.

If that not what was meant... 

The thing to remember though is that not all intents even have complete 1-to-1 polar opposites, at least not unless you want to take the intent and and just add a 'dis' prefix to it. I mean, sure, you could argue that Dominion and Autonomy are in some sense 'opposite' in the sense that they can't really co-exist harmoniously, but you can't say that they are literally 'opposite' in a mathematical sense. 

But it's a different story with what I'm dubbing the 'change trinity' and the 'passion trinity' if Apathy or something like it does turn out to be a Shard. If I only knew that Ruin and Preservation existed, and made the connection that they are basically regression and stasis, respectively, I would have predicted the existence of Cultivation (though probably not the name), because the set (and by extension Adonalsium) would be obviously incomplete without it. Likewise, if I only knew about Devotion and Apathy, I could easily predict that there should be one for hatred as well for the same reason.

 

But I don't necessarily know whether I could have done the same with respect to Preservation or *Apathy* (or whatever equivalent alternative you prefer) if I only knew about Ruin and Cultivation. As I think those two could probably form a complete pair without Preservation technically needing to exist to bridge that gap. However, given that Preservation does exist to bridge the two ends of that spectrum, I think it's at least plausible to predict that the same might also hold true with this as well. And I think something like Apathy or Dispassion or Objectivity or Detachment or Equity could quite plausibly serve this function. Like I said, it's not just for thematic reasons, although I certainly think that those exist.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[Ripheus23]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

[Quoting Sanderson] No, I would say no, they do not all have a directly paired opposite intent.

I wonder if we might make use of the difference between contradictory and contrary descriptions, here. 'Cause normally an English-speaker might take those two to be the same deal, as when someone says, "You're contradicting me!" to mean, "You're being a contrarian [towards me]!" But there's a subtle difference. So it could be that all Shards come in Intentional pairs/ranges but sometimes the antithesis is contradictory, other times contrary, and Sanderson's denial is just of all Intents being paired as contraries.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

That sounds like a very Brandon sleight of hand.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

On 2018-09-04 at 6:25 PM, Unlicensed Hemalurgist said:

I think the issue is that "Apathy" doesn't sound very divine. It would probably be called something like "Serenity" or "Detachment" instead, the portion of God/Adonalsium that is His/Its utter uniqueness and fundamental qualitative separation from His/Its Creation. That part of God which knows He will always "stand apart" from Creation. 

Come to think of it, this sounds an awful lot like the Shard that would be just floating around in space, not investing anywhere in particular.

'Serenity', now there's a cool name for a Shard. I only just noticed that suggestion now. I don't think it really fills the role my theory requires, but it still sounds really good. 

For the record, guys, I'm officially conceding the point about 'Apathy' not really working as a Shardic name. I still do suspect that there might be some Shard in between the two passion Shards though. 'Dispassion' or 'Objectivity' being the best candidates in my opinion, even though I think 'Objectivity' sounds really silly used as a proper noun; that's the main reason I preferred 'Apathy'.