Fanghur Rahl

Is there any kind of canonical threshold that distinguishes a ‘Sliver’ from someone who merely uses Investiture? Would a full Radiant technically qualify due to the huge amounts of Honor’s Investiture they regularly absorb and release?

I’m not talking about someone holding a full Shard; Slivers only ever hold/held a tiny fraction of the Shard’s full Investiture (unless the term would also apply to a full Vessel who baton passes the Shard to someone else?). That aside though, I get that ultimately Brandon is the one who gets to define canonical terms. I just think that in this particular case he did a rather silly job of it.

I don’t really see why the term ‘sliver’ couldn’t apply to them then as well. Honestly, I always thought it was kind of silly for someone who used to hold part of a Shard’s power to be called a ‘Sliver’, but inexplicably the term not to apply while they still held it. It’s a little like only calling someone an investor after they’ve already sold their shares.

As I recall, Brandon said that it’s desire to survive is only tangentially related to its true intent. Well, if a Shard has the intent of Prudence or something like it, and it knew that there was another Shard going around murdering other Shards, then avoiding Odium would certainly seem to be a prudent course of action; it can’t very well carry out its intent if its dead after all. As for Odium, I personally see Odium as possibly embodying passion, but only the negative side. I think Devotion likewise embodied passion, but only the positive side. Lust vs love, cruelty vs compassion, hate vs love, etc. Since passion can be either hate-inspired or love-inspired. Odium is hate, Devotion is/was love. Opposite sides of the same coin, just like Ruin and Cultivation.

Fascinating? More like baffling.

Ugh, my brain hurts so much right now...

Each Doctor is a unique individual, but they’re all the Doctor. That’s probably the most plausible analogy there is at this point, at least if we assume that the avatars aren’t just super-Godspren or something. Especially seeing as Brandon seems to be a fan if Hoid and the Tardis glyph are any indication.

On the other hand, Bavadin did imply to Hoid in her letter that at least one of her avatars may have chosen to take him seriously even though she herself does not.

So what do we call someone who is currently accessing a large amount of a Shard’s power then? Neither Rashek nor Vin became a full Shard in the Well, they just commanded its power, which while significant was still only a fraction of Preservation’s full power.

That’s actually a pretty good way of thinking about it. Have you been reading Brian Greene?

We basically know virtually nothing regarding the Avatars, and Brandon pretty much RAFOs every question that includes asking for details about what they are. Really all we have are theories at this point unfortunately.

I kinda think that Millie Bobby Brown could probably make a pretty good Vin, in a couple years of course since she’s currently only 14 and Vin was 16 (as of Final Empire).

A fair point. I suppose in his backstory he did get vaporized when he first ‘ascended’. Bad example on my part. But my basic point is still valid. There are plenty of examples of physical beings with nigh-omnipotent abilities in fiction. Honestly, I think the much better analogy to what I actually think regarding this is when in the final book of the original (and in my opinion the only canonical) Sword of Truth series Richard connects to the Power of Orden. That’s basically what I see as having happened to Vin and Rashek; they were effectively omnipotent while commanding the power, but they still retained their physical self throughout it; after all, if I recall correctly Elend was literally watching Vin the whole time she was in the Well. Whereas when one becomes a full Vessel, the original body might still exist in some extremely nebulous and quasi-platonic sense, but the Shardic Investiture for all intents and purposes replaces (or at the very least eclipses to the nth degree) the flesh as the Vessel’s ‘body’. I agree that there technically doesn’t necessarily need to be a separate term for these two processes, but ideally I think there should, if only purely for the sake of clarity. And ‘Transcension’ does seem to fit the latter process.

Probably in a similar sense to how each incarnation of the Doctor is a unique individual whilst all still being the Doctor.

Honestly, I think that really depends on whether the Avatars started out as ordinary humans or whether they’re a kind of Spren-like being, presumably a few levels above the Stormfather and Nightwatcher. At this point we really have no idea.

Fair enough. By ‘sliver’ I simply meant a person who accesses a significant fraction of a Shard’s Investiture. If that’s not what a sliver is, then at least that’s what I was referring to. Also, that simply does not follow. Doctor Manhattan and the ‘Sleeping God’ from the Night’s Dawn trilogy are purely (or at least mostly) physical beings (if you consider a naked singularity to be physical anyway) and yet they could do those things without breaking a sweat too. The way I always saw it was that Rashek and Vin simply ‘connected’ to the portion of Preservation’s Investiture and effectively willed it to do what they wanted, but they never had the Investiture literally replace their physical body to effectively become their body. Now sure accessing that power certainly changed them and temporarily expanded their minds, but they ultimately still retained their physical forms. That’s what I see the major difference between true Shards and whatever the appropriate term for the kind of thing Vin and Rashek briefly became as being: the latter merely command the Investiture, while the former effectively become the Investiture. That’s what I mean by ‘post-physical’ in this context; I don’t know any better term for a person transcending physical existence to become a metaphysical being than that.

I mean, technically I guess you could say that becoming a full Shard and becoming a Sliver are the same process. But only in the same sense that a mega-tsunami and a beach swell are both just ‘waves’. Then again, there’s a reason that we have a specific term for the former... The other important distinction is that Slivers (at least that we’ve seen so far) never cease to be physical beings, whereas a Shard is a post-physical being that transcends all three realms. So they’re categorically different things.

I know, but the point is that Brandon uses that term both for when Vin just commanded the Well’s power briefly AND when she absorbed the full Investiture of Preservation and became a full Shard. And Odium even used the term just for when Dalinar opened Honor’s Perpendicularity, and he was probably at least a dozen orders of magnitude less powerful even than Vin or Rashek while they were connected to the Well, much less the power of a full Shard. This may just be semantics, but still, there is clearly an important distinction to be made here, and as it currently stands this is not being done in the terminology Brandon is utilizing.

Totally agree, transcension would be way better a term. More accurate too since the Shards, unlike slivers, in some sense transcend all three realms.

Honestly, I think there really should be a different term for those two situations. Becoming a sliver and becoming a full Shard are clearly not nearly synonymous, but for some reason they’re both referred to as ‘Ascension’.

‘Prudence’. That sounds way better I think. Although considering that Adonalsium, a genuine God, allowed itself to be shattered, I have to conclude that self-preservation was not a high priority for it. @Calderis has a pretty interesting take on this issue. Agreed 100%. I’m unashamedly keen for Harmony to somehow pick up Cultivation as well and effectively complete himself; I think ‘Potency’ would be an extremely fitting name for what he would become if he did. BTW, as I understand it, Brandon has confirmed that ‘Devotion’ is essentially being used synonymously with ‘Love’. So it isn’t Doninion and Autonomy that she forms a subgroup with, but rather Odium and whichever mystery Shard (if any) is in between the two. Personally I’m fond of ‘Apathy’, but ‘Objectivity’ or ‘Dispassion’ have kind of grown on me too.

You know, it just occurred to me that with the possible exception of the first, Kaladin’s father actively lived by literally every one of the canonical and highly plausible Windrunner oaths, including the one you just said. I wonder if there’s any significance to that.

Maybe not all of them, but at least two sets clearly do belong to smaller subsets within the larger whole. Namely that of what I dub the ‘Change Trinity’, that is Ruin, Preservation and Cultivation, and also Devotion and Odium, and if I’m correct a third unknown Shard that is in between them, be it Apathy, Objectivity, Dispassion, etc.

Dude, you do realize I was just joking, right? No, I do not actually believe that Honor's Perpendicularity is inside of an ascended marine greatshell. lol.

My personal favourites are: Apathy/Dispassion/Detachment/Objectivity Prudence (i.e. the survival Shard) Jealousy (I think there has to be at least one more ‘evil’ Shard. Aptitude And should Harmony somehow acquire Cultivation, ‘Potency’ (could also work as a stand-alone Shard I suppose).