Vessel and Shard Relationship [Discuss]

[Karger he/him]

This is the first book to fully explore this phenomena.  What does it mean to be a shard, or a vessel?  How does changing the vessel matter?  I have come to some conclusions and would like to hear yours.

Firstly investiture wants to be alive.  To be effective it has to be directed by a being with some kind of intelligence.  Abstract concepts are not particularly effective at accomplishing anything.

Secondly having power shapes the vessel.  I think the best comparison is addiction although it is obviously not perfect.  The power wants what it wants the same way the altered brain chemistry of chemical addiction can put you at odds with what you might otherwise see as your own interests or the interests of others.  The longer this goes on the worse it gets.  I think this is best shown by the power Odium forcing Rayse to make concessions to Dalinar.  Rayse is trying to white knuckle it but he just can't hold on. 

Thirdly the Vessel helps the power express itself.  This is the most complex thing I want to cover so bear with me.  Imagine a hypothetical shard of hunting.  This shard wants to ID targets and attack them.  If given to a human it would probably spend time encouraging such behavior in a way we predict.  Find your target and attack them.  However what if it were given to a member of a sedentary herbivorous species?  Such a being would have no concept of what hunting was.  At least initially it would interpret the shard in a dramatically different way.  Instead the shard rather then hunting others would become a shard of trapping dangers.  Of course the amount of investiture expands the vessel's understanding.  This means that the shard would figure out what hunting was and would have a constant urge to align more in that direction.  This however will take time.

Why Cultivation replaced Rayse is an interesting question.  In this way I think we have an answer.  Rayse was a conqueror.  He wanted everything to go his own way.  Taravangian is not like that.  In addition to being more prepared to act much more indirectly and cautiously he sees his own actions as essentially evil.  He punishes the wicked so that the good might live in peace.  He is not for anything he is against the unacceptable. 

[Guest Parallax]

This is what I wrote when the shardcast on Part 2 epigraphs came out:

Quote

A shard left alone will become conscious at which point it no longer needs a vessel. So initially the shard lacks a cognitive aspect which the vessel provides. However the primacy of the spiritual over the cognitive means in case of a conflict the shard will overcome its vessel in due time. 

We have an example of this dynamic on a smaller scale: Nightblood wants to DESTROY EVIL! but doesn't have the cognitive capacity to carry out its command so it relies on its wielder. As Nightblood starts to think for itself we see it clash with a wielder who has a very different conception of what destroying evil entails resulting in them going their separate ways.

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Parallax

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

We do actually see this explored in Secret History.

[Karger he/him]

On 12/10/2020 at 11:30 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

We do actually see this explored in Secret History.

A little bit yeah I think it is explored more here.

[knightedbishop he/him]

This idea is common in fantasy stories- the more powerful you become, the more your ability to act is constrained. It’s why a lot of stories see powerful beings nudging mortal champions to realize their goals. Jim Butcher has been using this same idea with “mantles of power” and that over time, the bearer of the mantle is remade more and more conform to the mantle. A new bearer has the most freedom to act, since the mantle hasn’t had time to reshape them. 
 

The more you act in tune with the shard’s intent, the freer you are to act. How you interpret the shard’s intent gives you liberty to act. There’s likely some co-shaping happening as the vessel shapes the power through their interpretation and the shard shapes the vessel based on its base intent. 
 

Did Cultivation intentionally want Rayse replaced so the Shard of Odium would have a new vessel with more freedom to act? Did she think he’d be a better fit, or easier to manipulate given his newness? I don’t know! 
 

We know Sazed is running into problems with his shard, but that was baked in to his ascension, given he picked up two shards with intents that had been interpreted to oppose each other for a long time. He achieved Harmony, but at the same time his interpretation of that harmony seems to be severing limiting him.