The shards

[Hoid the Former Drifter he/him]

As of now, based on the headers to the chapters in part two of RoW, i know of 14 shards: endowment, invention, whimsy, mercy, valor, devotion, dominion, ambition, honor, cultivation, odium, ruin, preservation, and autonomy. I assume harmony is writing a letter to hoid, based on the contents of theletter, and the fact that it starts with dear wanderer. three questions: who are the other two shards, is harmony the one writing, and why do his opposing powers prevent him from reaching the last two shards?

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

13 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

As of now, based on the headers to the chapters in part two of RoW, i know of 14 shards: endowment, invention, whimsy, mercy, valor, devotion, dominion, ambition, honor, cultivation, odium, ruin, preservation, and autonomy. I assume harmony is writing a letter to hoid, based on the contents of theletter, and the fact that it starts with dear wanderer. three questions: who are the other two shards, is harmony the one writing, and why do his opposing powers prevent him from reaching the last two shards?

We don't know who the other two shards are yet.

Harmony is definitely writing the letter.

I'm not exactly sure. He has a hard time doing anything and I believe the other two are actively avoiding him for some reason.

[Elsecaller_17.5 he/him]

We can assume one missing shard is the elusive survival shard.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

hello, i'm a new sharder, i and i have a thought, does each shard have an opposite shard like Ruin and Preservation, or is that unique to those 2, because if not, a shard could be Charity, to oppose Odium

[+Invocation]

36 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

We can assume one missing shard is the elusive survival shard.

I might have to disagree. Invention seems to be in a position to fill that slot, since Harmony was only able to successfully contact them once. 

15 minutes ago, Ookla the Squid said:

hello, i'm a new sharder, i and i have a thought, does each shard have an opposite shard like Ruin and Preservation, or is that unique to those 2, because if not, a shard could be Charity, to oppose Odium

Mercy could be the opposition to Odium. Seems close enough to Charity to fit. Also, as a little tidbit, Cultivation is closer to being the opposite of Preservation than Ruin was, which is kind of funny. 

[Shob the Voidbringer]

5 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Cultivation is closer to being the opposite of Preservation than Ruin was, which is kind of funny. 

fair point

[StanLemon]

1 hour ago, Invocation said:

Cultivation is closer to being the opposite of Preservation than Ruin was, which is kind of funny

I disagree on that. Cultivation seems like a good middle ground between those two. To cultivate something, you need to preserve the desirable parts and remove the undesirable.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

I don’t know why Harmony can’t reach the last two Shards, but I think it’s rather interesting that Kelsier was seemingly aware of events on Roshar before Sazed. And Kell clearly couldn’t be bother to inform Saze.

HOW is a Cognitive Shadow stuck on one planet better informed than the SHARD of said planet?! And why aren’t they talking?

[IndigoAjah he/him]

16 hours ago, Invocation said:

I might have to disagree. Invention seems to be in a position to fill that slot, since Harmony was only able to successfully contact them once. 

Mercy could be the opposition to Odium. Seems close enough to Charity to fit. Also, as a little tidbit, Cultivation is closer to being the opposite of Preservation than Ruin was, which is kind of funny. 

I'd say Charity fitted into Endowment, personally.

 

A combination of Mercy and Endowment

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I've always grouped the Shards like this in my head cannon.

 

Preservation / Ruin - Because Harmony says they're opposites, so who am I to disagree

Devotion / Odium - They're love and hate respectively. I can't think of anything more opposite.

Honor / Ambition - Honor is about serving something external like a code or other person, Ambition is about serving your own ends.

Dominion / Autonomy - When used in the sense of nations, the two words represent opposite ideas.

 

Now that we have some new names I've matched a few more in my head cannon.

Cultivation / Whimsy - Cultivation is about ordering things, like weeding a garden so that the crops can grow. Whimsy is random, cutting what ever plant you want without reason.

Endowment / Invention - Invention is about starting from ignorance and working towards knowledge. Endowment is starting with knowledge and passing it down.

 

That leaves me with two unmatched ones.

Valor - Seems like the opposite of valor should be Cowardice (probably a good candidate for Shard in hiding).

Mercy - I'm guessing Justice, Vengeance or Cruelty.

 

This is all my take on it of course (except for Harmony) so do with it what you will. The justifications work pretty well in my mind though.

The new revelation of anti-Investiture makes me wonder if any of these Shards are actually opposites in a literal sense (if Preservation and Ruin were truly opposites wouldn't they annihilate each other?), rather its more about the ideas they represent being opposites.

Edited December 17, 2020 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

40 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The new revelation of anti-Investiture makes me wonder if any of these Shards are actually opposites in a literal sense

If they were, then they would have annihilated themselves when they were all united as Adonalsium.

[Awakened Cremling he/him]

20 hours ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

why do his opposing powers prevent him from reaching the last two shards?

My take was that since he is holding two opposing shards their equal but opposite pulls stalemate each other so he finds it hard to make a decision to do anything. I find it ironic that he is referred to as Harmony as his current state seems to be more Stasis. If he learned to take parts of each half and get them to work together then he would be Harmony.

 

edit: Just realized I misread your question. My answer was about why he finds it hard to take major actions in general which Harmony mentions in a different section of the letter. To answer your questions, I don't think his two powers prevent him from reaching the other two shards as much as they don't wish to be found so are using their powers to be hard to find/reach.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Awakened Cremling
added context

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

35 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

If they were, then they would have annihilated themselves when they were all united as Adonalsium.

I would compare that to the Big Bang (at least as I understand it, which is not at all very deep).

Maybe Adonalsium represents a "plank era" in the timeline of Investiture. Maybe Investiture was so "dense" that it had no "flavors" or "charges" AKA intent. Only after the power was separated, reducing its "density", could it enter the "baryonic era" of Investiture where more distinct and varied types emerged.

 

[+Invocation]

On 12/16/2020 at 4:14 PM, StanLemon said:

I disagree on that. Cultivation seems like a good middle ground between those two. To cultivate something, you need to preserve the desirable parts and remove the undesirable.

I'm just echoing Brandon, though now that I think about it, that answer may have been referencing the Vessel's interpretations of each Shard, since Leras-as-Preservation just wanted everything to stay the same, so naturally any amount of Cultivation would have been opposite his desires.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

12 hours ago, Invocation said:

Leras-as-Preservation just wanted everything to stay the same, so naturally any amount of Cultivation would have been opposite his desires.

Hmm, now why might that ring a bell on Roshar... 

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Personally I really dislike the idea of the Shards having perfect exact opposites. But I accept it's a possibility

If it's true then we get:

Ruin - Preservation

Autonomy - Dominion

Whimsy - Ambition

Mercy - Honor (I really think these two do clash - rules Vs empathy)

Devotion - Odium

Valor - Survival Shard IMO  (Prudence) 

Invention - another unknown shard, one I think will be Honesty or something similar 

Cultivation - Endowment (gifts Vs growth, nurture vs nature

But I don't think they stack up perfectly, and I'd rather they didn't. 

The idea that there are groups is another one with legs, though I don't think the groups are linked to Dawnshards, as the Allomatic Metals exist in groups, but I'm the similarities might be less "these Shards are all similar intents) and more "the way of thinking about their intents is a similar angle"

 

So Outcome grouping might be Ruin, Preservation, Autonomy, Dominion. All act towards a specific, if broad, outcome. (Consequentialism)

Drive might be Odium, Devotion, Whimsy, Ambition. All driven by an underlying reason behind every action, whether it's emotional, instinctive, or a desire. Could be called Instinct too. (Existentialism of sorts)

Journey - Honor, Mercy, Cultivation, Endowment. All about the way you achieve things. (Deontological)

Ideals/Virtue - Valor, Prudence, Invention, Honesty. All about the type of person you try to be. (Virtue/value ethics)

 

If my random musings are right, then some of Harmony's problems make more sense: he has to act towards outcome and balancing opposite outcomes is impossible. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by IndigoAjah