odium Odium renewed

[unrudh]

The books say that Odium was hurt in his past battles with shards.

Does that mean Odium is now renewed/reborn since there is now a "new" one?

[LordTheodore]

On 12/18/2020 at 3:47 AM, unrudh said:

The books say that Odium was hurt in his past battles with shards.

Does that mean Odium is now renewed/reborn since there is now a "new" one?

Odium was not hurt in its past battles; Rayse was hurt. Since Taravangian has not fought battles with other shards, it stands to reason he would not be damaged in the same way Rayse was.

[Brgst13]

2 hours ago, LordTheodore said:

Odium was not hurt in its past battles; Rayse was hurt. Since Taravangian has not fought battles with other shards, it stands to reason he would not be damaged in the same way Rayse was.

What is your source for this?  I always took this to mean that the Shard itself was damaged, where a chunk of power might have been ripped off.

[LordTheodore]

18 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

What is your source for this?  I always took this to mean that the Shard itself was damaged, where a chunk of power might have been ripped off.

My understanding is that the Shards themselves cannot be harmed as they are essentially infinite investiture. So when the books state that Odium was hurt in its past battles; I believe it is referring to Odium's vessel Rayse and not the shard itself. Since Vessels are commonly referred to by the name of the Shard they hold.

Edited December 23, 2020 by LordTheodore

[mathiau he/him]

2 hours ago, LordTheodore said:

My understanding is that the Shards themselves cannot be harmed as they are essentially infinite investiture. So when the books state that Odium was hurt in its past battles; I believe it is referring to Odium's vessel Rayse and not the shard itself. Since Vessels are commonly referred to by the name of the Shard they hold.

Shards can be hurt, it's called splintering, and they can be hurt while still having a holder since it happened to Ambition on Threnody

[LordTheodore]

44 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Shards can be hurt, it's called splintering, and they can be hurt while still having a holder since it happened to Ambition on Threnody

Splintering a shard doesn't hurt it. It just splinters it. Investiture cannot be harmed; it can only change forms.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, LordTheodore said:

Splintering a shard doesn't hurt it. It just splinters it. Investiture cannot be harmed; it can only change forms.

Shards are not the same thing as investiture, and they can be harmed, the Shard of Honor no longer exists it's prices do, but it doesn't.

[LordTheodore]

11 hours ago, Frustration said:

Shards are not the same thing as investiture, and they can be harmed, the Shard of Honor no longer exists it's prices do, but it doesn't.

My understanding is that a Shard is all investiture with specific intent. I also understand that Honor has been splintered and its vessel killed, but I fail to see how this harms the shard itself, Honor is infinite and investiture with Honor's intent persists throughout the cosmere. Moreover, if pieces of Honor still exist then by definition that shard itself still exists; since all investiture is associated with one of the sixteen Shards. 

[Brgst13]

11 minutes ago, LordTheodore said:

My understanding is that a Shard is all investiture with specific intent. I also understand that Honor has been splintered and its vessel killed, but I fail to see how this harms the shard itself, Honor is infinite and investiture with Honor's intent persists throughout the cosmere. Moreover, if pieces of Honor still exist then by definition that shard itself still exists; since all investiture is associated with one of the sixteen Shards. 

I have to philosophically disagree with you here.  If I shatter a glass, the pieces all still exist, but I would say the glass does not.  While it could be put back together, it would not be the same glass; something has to fill the gaps between the pieces.  

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

A Vessel is just that, a Vessel.  I look at like this. Say I have a glass of water. That glass gets cracked but holds together,  weakened.  Then someone takes a hammer and shatters that glass. Is the water harmed? No. But if I wanted to drink that water I'd need a new glass to hold it for me. By that logic we can infer a couple things. Regarding Honor,  the original glass was broken but the water fell into a bunch of little cups. If one were able to gather up all those little water droplets and pour them into a new cup then Honor would live again,  only with a different cup. Regarding Odium,  the glass was already weakened,  it got shattered, only someone was there to collect the water before it touched the floor. 

[Brgst13]

18 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

A Vessel is just that, a Vessel.  I look at like this. Say I have a glass of water. That glass gets cracked but holds together,  weakened.  Then someone takes a hammer and shatters that glass. Is the water harmed? No. But if I wanted to drink that water I'd need a new glass to hold it for me. By that logic we can infer a couple things. Regarding Honor,  the original glass was broken but the water fell into a bunch of little cups. If one were able to gather up all those little water droplets and pour them into a new cup then Honor would live again,  only with a different cup. Regarding Odium,  the glass was already weakened,  it got shattered, only someone was there to collect the water before it touched the floor. 

I would counter with the epigraph from RoW, chapter 26:

Quote

"The deaths of both Devotion and Dominion trouble me greatly, as I had not realized this immense power we held was something that could be broken in such a way. On my world, the power always gathered and sought a new Vessel."

Harmony draws a clear distinction between what happened on Scadrial when 

Spoiler

Ruin and Preservation died, Vin took up Preservation from Kelsier, died, and Sazed took up both Shards

and what happened when Odium destroyed Dominion and Devotion.  Given that Harmony has the knowledge of two Shards, it seems that he sees a clear difference in the two.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Simple that. Odium shattered the glass,  gathered up the water before some other glass could hold it, and poured it into the carpet that is the Cognitive Realm.  Now the carpet is always wet and nobody can hold the drink. You still get water if you step in the right place but you don't get to put it in a container. 

[Frustration]

5 hours ago, LordTheodore said:

My understanding is that a Shard is all investiture with specific intent. I also understand that Honor has been splintered and its vessel killed, but I fail to see how this harms the shard itself, Honor is infinite and investiture with Honor's intent persists throughout the cosmere. Moreover, if pieces of Honor still exist then by definition that shard itself still exists; since all investiture is associated with one of the sixteen Shards. 

The shard if broken, it can't take a vessel anymore, that seems pretty harmed to me.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

The shard if broken, it can't take a vessel anymore, that seems pretty harmed to me.

Something has been altered about the power's ability to accept a Vessel, that much is for sure.

But it's not like Honor being Splintered caused Surgebinding to cease functioning.

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Something has been altered about the power's ability to accept a Vessel, that much is for sure.

But it's not like Honor being Splintered caused Surgebinding to cease functioning.

It changed it in several ways that we know of, and several more will certainly appear. And Surgebinding isn't even pure Honor.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

And yet nothing fundamentally changed about the powers of Devotion and Dominion,  only the ability to access that power. To stretch the analogy,  nothing is wrong with the water in the pipes but the faucet is broken. An argument can be made that the power's inclination to search for a Vessel to contain it is in fact a part of that power. In that sense they are broken.  But I posit that if someone were somehow able to restore that connection,  or if the powers themselves gained sentience,  then they'd work just as they did before Aona and Skai died. Honestly I think Ambition is the more troubling case,  though it may be less so once we have more detailed information.