Just for Fun: Shard Speculation & MtG's Color Pie

[bacontime]

I looked at the "canonical" MtG colors of the Shards, and tried to fill in the gaps while keeping the color-pie balanced and symmetrical. I propose that one of the unknown shards is Mystery.

Obviously, I don't think that Sanderson actually designed the Cosmere with a symmetrical color-pie in mind, but hey, check out the results: 

Looks pretty neat.

1. The Canonical Shard Colors:

Quote

LordSkybreaker: What [M:tG] colors are the known shards?
Brandon Sanderson: Ruin: Black. Odium: Red. Honor: White. Preservation: White. Cultivation: Green. Devotion: Green/red. Dominion: Black/White. Autonomy: It's complicated.
SoupOrMan692: What about Endowment and Ambition?
Brandon Sanderson: Ambition is mono-black, and endowment is probably mono-green. Some of the blue shards are ones we haven't seen as much from yet.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

This imposes some constraints:

Spoiler

• Because Autonomy is "Complicated", we're left with 15 Shards to match to the color pie, which is fortunately a multiple of 5.
• There are already two each of Mono-White, Mono-Green, and Mono-Black Shards, so to keep things balanced, we need another Mono-Red Shard, and Two  Mono-Blue Shards
• And to balance Dominion and Devotion, we need three more dual-colored Shards.
  • (The pairings of UB, UR, and WG are what I ended up using. But there are four sets of color combos that could keep things balanced: {UB,UR,WG}, {UB,UG,WR}, {WU,UR,BG}, {WU,UG,BR})
  • Eagle Eyed readers may have noticed that the order of the colors in the image up above isn't quite standard, but our cycle of pairs obviously can't be purely allied or purely enemy.
• Of course, if you bring in color triplets and whatnot, you have more options, but things get too messy.

 

2. The New Rhythm of War Shards:

In Rhythm of War, we learn of the Shards Invention, Mercy, Valor, and Whimsy.

• Whimsy is Blue/Red. It just feels right. 
• Mercy has shades of White, Green, and maybe Black. We're told that "Mercy worries [Harmony]", which makes me think of mercy killings. And hey, there actually is a MtG card called "Mercy Killing". It's White/Green, so let's go with that.  
• Valor feels White and/or Red. Valor means Courage and Boldness. It's about taking action, which is very Red-mana. And it's about heroic self-sacrifice, which is very White-mana.
  • Ideally, I'd assign Valor to White/Red, but it's not possible to have White/Red Valor and Blue/Red Whimsy without unbalancing things, and I feel more strongly about the Whimsy Connection.
  • It can't be Mono-White because I already have Mercy taking up the empty White slot. So Valor is Mono-Red.
• Finally, we have Invention, which is firmly within Blue's slice of the color pie. The act of invention can be all sorts of colors depending on what that invention is being used for. But Invention for it's own sake? That's Mono-Blue.

 

3. The Two Unknown Shards:

Based on the Choices above, we need a Blue/Black Shard, and one more Mono-Blue Shard to complete the set. 

• Blue/Black is the color pair of Cautious Scheming, Shrewdness, and Ruthless Rationality. Sanderson has mentioned that there is a shard which "just wants to hide and survive", and Blue/Black seems like an excellent fit for that pattern of behavior.
  • There is a popular fan-theory-shard that this 'Survival Shard' has an intent that is something like Prudence, which seems to fit Blue/Black well.
  • Another fitting Intent for this shard might be Perfection.
• Mono-Blue can be taken many different ways. It's the color of formalized learning and systematic perfection. It's the color of illusions and trickery. And it's the color of the cold dark depths of the sea.
  • Remember that the shards of Adonalsium are fragments of the divine. And the incomprehensibility of the divine to mortal minds is an important part of many people's faith. A Shard of Mystery thus seems like a good Mono-Blue option, representing the ineffability of God, but separated from the virtues which make it worth pursuing understanding nonetheless.
  • One of the shards, which explicitly isn't the Survival Shard, isn't on a planet. Whimsy seems like it could fit that description, flitting about from place to place. But a Mono-Blue Mystery Shard also could have thematic ties to the dark depths of space.
  • Such a Shard might also be called Transcendence.

 

4. Bonus Material

Here, I relax the constraints to allow some of the canonically mono-color Shards to be dual-colored. That way, I can match up one Shard with each mono-color and with each color-pair:

Spoiler

Changes made:

• Cultivation: Green → Black/Green. Sacrifices. Power at a cost. Lives in a spooky haunted place. And just aesthetically speaking, it's a good fit. 
• Ruin: Black → Red/Black. Gleeful, creative destruction. And again, it works on an aesthetic level: flaming red hair and pools of blood. 
• Preservation: White → Blue/White. This is the color of stasis; of perfect, inflexible law.

This relaxes things so that:

• Valor: Red → White/Red. As originally intended.

But this also means that one of the two Mono-Blue shards must become Green/Blue:

• Mystery: Blue → Green/Blue. Refer to the MtG character Kruphix for what a Blue/Green god of Mystery might look like.

 

And here are some templates if you want to make an MtG Shard diagram yourself:

Spoiler

Completely Blank Template:

Template with only the canon Shard colors:

Here's what the template looks like filled in with my speculation:

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by bacontime

[Weltall]

Oooh, very nicely done there!

I feel like Autonomy is 'complicated' because her avatars are still considered part of the Shard and are how Bavadin prefers to interact with people, but they can be different things depending on what Bavadin wanted when she created them. With entire pantheons consisting of avatars, Autonomy probably has at least some representation in every possible color combination; The way Autonomy's response to Hoid in the Oathbringer epigraph suggests the avatars all over the map when it comes to their outlooks.

And I like the placement of Valor as mono-Red, as the one Shard we know about other than Harmony who seems like she might be willing to take a stand against Odium, the confirmed mono-Red.