Shardcast: Rhythm of War Part Two Epigraphs (Part Two Spoilers Only)

Not to disagree with a god like Harmony, but I think having multiple Shards gives one access to more investiture in the physical and cognitive realms at any given moment and can make a vessel more powerful all other things being equal.

Shards have infinite investiture only because on a long enough timeline it eventually recycles back to the spiritual realm and then flows out to the other two realms. But Shards rely heavily on what’s in the physical and cognitive realms which is finite in the short term. 

The reason Sazed holds Ruin now is because the Atium mistings burned all that Atium up. Ruin lost access to it until it recycles which takes time. Ruin couldn’t just pull as much investiture as he wanted out of the spiritual realm, this lack of available investiture weakened him and he couldn’t finish off Preservation because of it. 

Also, Preservation putting more of himself into humans than Ruin made Preservation weaker than Ruin. Because he can’t pull infinite investiture from the Spiritual realm at will.

We basically have the broad outline of the future cosmere books:

1. Individual shards are dangerous. This point will be driven home by Odium escaping his prison. We have already seen a similar situation with Ruin and like Ruin the ultimate solution will be combining Odium with another shard.

2. Going back to Adonalsium is not an option. We will learn about this in Dragonsteel, which among other things will explain why the shattering had to happen.

3. There will be a new synthesis of shards. In order to avoid the dangers of individual shards with destabilizing intents while not repeating the issues with Adonalsium there needs to be a new kind of combining shards, this will happen in Mistborn Era 4. 

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.

9:33: "The rest of the letter was completely irrelevant after that drop."

Are you sure? Everyone talks about all the shards, but... OH WOW THE FORESHADOWING! Brandon really pulled a fast one on us here, distracting everyone with shard names but then quietly, subtly doing something no Letter has ever done before: throwing in something that turns out to be incredibly relevant to the book itself!

Yeah, re: Valor, perhaps, he may have been frustrated at Valor's decision to wait, because they interpreted their Intent as: “Discretion is the better part of valor.” (i.e., caution is better than being rashly courageous). Firmness doesn't mean rashness. But Hoid would have interpreted this differently.

I am surprised no one talked about "Mercy Kill". To a lot of people Mercy is a form of death or ending pain. What if Mercy goes around smothering people with pillows? 

The Threnody planets also have names that are puritanical like the term Mercy (Elegy, Purity, and Threnody) so to me it seems like Mercy was likely invested there at some point. 

Argent says Invention=Cybertron confirmed lol.

I recently reread Mistborn Era 2. About Harmony's Sword.

On 11/22/2020 at 1:22 PM, teknopathetic said:

I am surprised no one talked about "Mercy Kill". To a lot of people Mercy is a form of death or ending pain. What if Mercy goes around smothering people with pillows? 

The Threnody planets also have names that are puritanical like the term Mercy (Elegy, Purity, and Threnody) so to me it seems like Mercy was likely invested there at some point. 

SO SORRY to come at you 1 year later but I finally listened to this episode today. (Just finished it. 3 minutes ago.)

And yes! Mercy killing! That play on words was on my mind the whole time!