One of the new ones(RoW P2)

[Kered he/him]

Was having a discussion about this on the discord and I thought I'd post it here for a sanity check. It's pretty simple. In the epigraphs we get a couple of tidbits from Sazed about Mercy. One is that Mercy was involved in the fight between Ambition and Odium. Also that Mercy "worries" Sazed. 

I have two different takes on this, one being fairly obvious. 

One is that Mercy was simply injured during the fight and has lost some level of faculty. I picture Honor in his final days. Maybe Mercy has deteriorated since the fight and is now in a dangerous/erratic state. Enough to worry Sazed. 

The other is that since Sazed shares some of Hoid's concern about Odium, Sazed would also be worried about Mercy if Mercy proved an ally to Odium. This opens what I think would be an interesting concept. A couple times in RoW, once in the epigraphs actually, the relationship between Shard and Vessel is mentioned. What if Sazed is not only worried about Mercy because it's an ally to Odium but also because we have a Vessel that is operating in direct contrast to their Shards Intent? For the next bit I'm going to use the terms good and evil extremely loosely because I honestly don't know what other language to use lol. If we count Mercy as a "good" shard I think it would awesome to see an "evil" vessel trying to tame a "good" shard. We've already seen a sort of a parallel to this concept with Ati and Ruin. A "good" vessel trying to tame an "evil" shard. 

[seriodor]

4 minutes ago, Kered said:

Was having a discussion about this on the discord and I thought I'd post it here for a sanity check. It's pretty simple. In the epigraphs we get a couple of tidbits from Sazed about Mercy. One is that Mercy was involved in the fight between Ambition and Odium. Also that Mercy "worries" Sazed. 

I have two different takes on this, one being fairly obvious. 

One is that Mercy was simply injured during the fight and has lost some level of faculty. I picture Honor in his final days. Maybe Mercy has deteriorated since the fight and is now in a dangerous/erratic state. Enough to worry Sazed. 

The other is that since Sazed shares some of Hoid's concern about Odium, Sazed would also be worried about Mercy if Mercy proved an ally to Odium. This opens what I think would be an interesting concept. A couple times in RoW, once in the epigraphs actually, the relationship between Shard and Vessel is mentioned. What if Sazed is not only worried about Mercy because it's an ally to Odium but also because we have a Vessel that is operating in direct contrast to their Shards Intent? For the next bit I'm going to use the terms good and evil extremely loosely because I honestly don't know what other language to use lol. If we count Mercy as a "good" shard I think it would awesome to see an "evil" vessel trying to tame a "good" shard. We've already seen a sort of a parallel to this concept with Ati and Ruin. A "good" vessel trying to tame an "evil" shard. 

We know that the longer someone has been a Vessel the harder it is for someone to act against their Shards intent. From what we've seen of Odium, eventually they end up more Shard than person. Even Sazed is unable to go against the intent of Harmony and he's only been a Vessel for 300 years. Mercy has been a Vessel for like 10,000 years. 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

6 minutes ago, Kered said:

Was having a discussion about this on the discord and I thought I'd post it here for a sanity check. It's pretty simple. In the epigraphs we get a couple of tidbits from Sazed about Mercy. One is that Mercy was involved in the fight between Ambition and Odium. Also that Mercy "worries" Sazed. 

I have two different takes on this, one being fairly obvious. 

One is that Mercy was simply injured during the fight and has lost some level of faculty. I picture Honor in his final days. Maybe Mercy has deteriorated since the fight and is now in a dangerous/erratic state. Enough to worry Sazed. 

The other is that since Sazed shares some of Hoid's concern about Odium, Sazed would also be worried about Mercy if Mercy proved an ally to Odium. This opens what I think would be an interesting concept. A couple times in RoW, once in the epigraphs actually, the relationship between Shard and Vessel is mentioned. What if Sazed is not only worried about Mercy because it's an ally to Odium but also because we have a Vessel that is operating in direct contrast to their Shards Intent? For the next bit I'm going to use the terms good and evil extremely loosely because I honestly don't know what other language to use lol. If we count Mercy as a "good" shard I think it would awesome to see an "evil" vessel trying to tame a "good" shard. We've already seen a sort of a parallel to this concept with Ati and Ruin. A "good" vessel trying to tame an "evil" shard. 

Mercy is trying to Eurhanize the Cosmere. Life is hard, so better if everyone is dead, right? Alternatively, Mercy is trying to do something like Miranda, from Firefly. Because keeping people totally relaxed and helpless and peaceful is merciful.

[Kered he/him]

1 minute ago, seriodor said:

We know that the longer someone has been a Vessel the harder it is for someone to act against their Shards intent. From what we've seen of Odium, eventually they end up more Shard than person. Even Sazed is unable to go against the intent of Harmony and he's only been a Vessel for 300 years. Mercy has been a Vessel for like 10,000 years. 

This isn't entirely correct. 
 

End of RoW spoilers 

Spoiler

We see with Rayse's last interaction with Dalinar and Sja-anat's observation that Rayse is weakened because he's not allowed to fully enact Odiums "true" intent. An observation Old Man T makes as well, that Rayse doing this made him essentially weaker in terms of overall operations. So you can rub against a Shards Intent. It's just that it will make you "weaker". There's enough of wiggle room in the definitions of the word Mercy that you can for sure turn Mercy to nefarious purposes. Maybe that is why Sazed is worried. To use Sazed's one word, a vessel "crafty" and smart enough to shape the direction of a Shards "natural" intent into something else would certainly be formidable. It's the literal definition of a Vessel domininating a Shard's power and not the other way around. Something I might add that Sazed has not been able to do. 

 

[seriodor]

22 minutes ago, Kered said:

This isn't entirely correct. 
 

End of RoW spoilers 

  Hide contents

We see with Rayse's last interaction with Dalinar and Sja-anat's observation that Rayse is weakened because he's not allowed to fully enact Odiums "true" intent. An observation Old Man T makes as well, that Rayse doing this made him essentially weaker in terms of overall operations. So you can rub against a Shards Intent. It's just that it will make you "weaker". There's enough of wiggle room in the definitions of the word Mercy that you can for sure turn Mercy to nefarious purposes. Maybe that is why Sazed is worried. To use Sazed's one word, a vessel "crafty" and smart enough to shape the direction of a Shards "natural" intent into something else would certainly be formidable. It's the literal definition of a Vessel domininating a Shard's power and not the other way around. Something I might add that Sazed has not been able to do. 

 

I don't think you have to wiggle to turn Mercy nefarious. Is it merciful to smother a future conqueror as a baby to prevent the bloodshed? Is it merciful to kill a wounded animal instead of letting it suffer? If you have the foresight and perspective of a god, then any violent act can be considered Mercy.

Edited November 24, 2020 by seriodor
spelling

[Kered he/him]

11 minutes ago, seriodor said:

I don't think you have to wiggle to turn Mercy nefarious. Is it merciful to smother a future conqueror as a baby to prevent the bloodshed? Is it merciful to kill a wounded animal instead of letting it suffer? If you have the foresight and perspective of a god, then any violent act can be considered Mercy.

Don't get me wrong, it would by no means be easy. But I think it's definitely possible, you can turn most everything nefarious with the proper context. Wouldn't be a logic fallacy to do so either. 

Merriam-Webster definitions of Mercy. 

compassion or forbearance (see FORBEARANCE sense 1) shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power

at the mercy of

: wholly in the power of : with no way to protect oneself against

 

What if giving Mercy to one is damaging for another? In the cosmere scale, what if giving mercy to one planet is disastrous to the entire cosmere? Assisting Odium to kill Ambition because Mercy viewed it as a mercy to Odium, it had mercy on not letting him die from Ambition(vice versa if Mercy helped Ambition). But it for sure wasn't a mercy to Ambition. 

Also "to be at ones mercy" could obviously be turned nefarious in meaning but I have no idea one how that concept would play into the overall Intent of the Shard as the saying is a decision to be made "What will I do with you while I have you at my mercy" and not a attribute like the actual word Mercy. But it would truly terrifying if Mercy's entire Intent could be defined as "having people/things at their mercy". Even if it wasn't the entire Intent, just a piece, it would still be scary tbh.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Kered

[+JesterLavorre she/they]

The theory I think is most likely (though it is by no means original or unique to me) is that Mercy would try and save Odium, and possibly has done so before. We know Odium is wounded, what if Mercy stopped Ambition from killing Odium, allowing Odium to kill ambition as a side effect? Mercy could be the kind of shard that will try and stop killing on either side, and that is not necessarily good for a shard coalition that is trying to shatter another shard.

I think all the other theories here are more interesting, though, so I hope I’m wrong. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 24.11.2020 at 5:15 AM, seriodor said:

I don't think you have to wiggle to turn Mercy nefarious. Is it merciful to smother a future conqueror as a baby to prevent the bloodshed?

Even more so if you kill the Shard that likes and encourages conquerors.

On 24.11.2020 at 5:15 AM, seriodor said:

Is it merciful to kill a wounded animal instead of letting it suffer? If you have the foresight and perspective of a god, then any violent act can be considered Mercy.

And Honor has inspired the Skybreakers. Why Mercy may have a problem with Honor is obvious.

[DiePie]

On 11/23/2020 at 10:53 PM, Kered said:

This isn't entirely correct. 
 

End of RoW spoilers 

  Reveal hidden contents

We see with Rayse's last interaction with Dalinar and Sja-anat's observation that Rayse is weakened because he's not allowed to fully enact Odiums "true" intent. An observation Old Man T makes as well, that Rayse doing this made him essentially weaker in terms of overall operations. So you can rub against a Shards Intent. It's just that it will make you "weaker". There's enough of wiggle room in the definitions of the word Mercy that you can for sure turn Mercy to nefarious purposes. Maybe that is why Sazed is worried. To use Sazed's one word, a vessel "crafty" and smart enough to shape the direction of a Shards "natural" intent into something else would certainly be formidable. It's the literal definition of a Vessel domininating a Shard's power and not the other way around. Something I might add that Sazed has not been able to do. 

 

I took the "weaker" part as that Rayse had inhibited the Odium shard by making deals, and thus had effectively weakened the shard by restricting its power. So far it seems the main way vessels can defy the intent of their shard is by being recently ascended, with your autonomy (lowercase a autonomy) to make those decisions decreasing over time as you hold a shard.

[Honorless he/him]

We don't know which side Mercy fought on but either way it sounded like they joined the conflict after Ambition fled Threnody. So either Ambition fled to them or they were in cahoots with Odium to blindside Ambition.

That also reminds me of these WoBs:

Quote

Questioner

Has anyone, Shard or otherwise, tried to leave the Cosmere and will we see that on screen?

Brandon Sanderson

So far... yes, and I think yes, it's likely.

Footnote: Followup: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e13558
Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Quote

Gallumbazos

I've been wondering if we were going to leave the cosmere star cluster and see how things are beyond that, guess it's confirmed.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Brandon Sanderson

"Tried to" is operative here.

General Reddit 2019 (Dec. 11, 2019)

I had thought Ambition tried to flee the entire Cosmere...

[seriodor]

4 minutes ago, Honorless said:

We don't know which side Mercy fought on but either way it sounded like they joined the conflict after Ambition fled Threnody. So either Ambition fled to them or they were in cahoots with Odium to blindside Ambition.

That also reminds me of these WoBs:

I had thought Ambition tried to flee the entire Cosmere...

Yeah that seems like something Ambition would do. I'll go start my own Cosmere, better than the old one.

[ftl]

Huh. And I wonder if it failed for the same reason that really invested entites can't leave their Shards' planet. But on a bigger scale - nothing tied to Adonalsium's investiture can leave the Cosmere star cluster.

[Honorless he/him]

This topic's ideas are also interesting:

 

There's also another possibility regarding how it all went down:

What if Ambition was attacking/attacked Mercy and that left her open to Odium's attack?