NewbSombrero

I fail to see the direct relevance of that quote. Someone specifically asked if a drab could Return, and he said no. That is what I am referring to.

With regard to Divine Breath, Brandon has said that a Drab can't Return, which would suggest that the process of creating that Splinter involves some sort of transformation of the preexisting Breath. New thoughts forming on the topic at this moment: Breath is a for of Innate Investiture as termed by Brandon, which is to say, bit of a shard that are naturally present in people. Maybe when Innate Investiture is amplified enough, you get a Splinter. But I doubt the Aons are innate, so maybe it's any Investiture. You ramp any Investiture up enough with more of the Shard's power and you get a Splinter. We know that all the Investitures on Scadrial are very weak compared to those on other Shardworlds, which would explain the lack of Splinters. There just any Investitures that can cross that threshold. Thoughts?

There was somewhere that he talked about it that he mentioned it leading to the Seon going away.

I agree with you up until you get to saying Splinters would have little or no purpose because we know they can have their own intents.

Nope. They have only been mentioned.

This is true.

The purpose of this thread is to take what we know about the two definitively confirmed Splinters we have information on (Divine Breaths and Seon Aons) and from there, extrapolate that data to make predictions about other Splinters. So let's start with what we know: 1) Splinters have never been human. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=699#8 2) Splinters often have their own intent, separate from that of their shard. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=618#53 3) They are held by sentient beings. Edit: Alatar has suggested that this may be due to the Splinter linking with the being's spiritweb. 4) They can be expended for some magical effect at the cost of the holder's life. This is dependent upon the fact that BS has spoken of the ability of Seons to complete their Aons in Q&As as though even though this being seen was edited out, it is still an ability they have. 5) This is where some speculation begins. I would posit that Splinters tend to be Spiritual in nature. My strongest evidence comes from the Divine Breaths. We know for sure that Breaths are Spiritual, so this is all pretty safe. My logic for Seon Aons is a little bit more shaky, but I feel confident about it. BS says the connection between Seon and master is Spiritual. (I'm bad at finding quotes, so bear with me. It's out there.) For me, this helps to support the idea that Splinters are probably Spiritual. Now, besides all this, we know that we have met Splinters on Roshar. The two major candidates of which I am aware are spren (which seem to be the more popular option right now) and shardblades (which I personally favor and will focus on for the remainder of the post). Now, what do we know about shardblades? 1)They have "shard" in the name. It's not much, but I'm going with it. 2) They are stored in the Spiritual Realm when not in use. This ties in the Spiritual component I'm assuming right now. 3) Like Seons, no one knows how or when they were made. 4) So far as we know, there certainly seem to be a whole lot fewer than there used to be, which may suggest to me that at some point, maybe a lot of the KR gave up both their lives and their shardblades in order to protect Roshar. It could very well be that this is the Recreance, and the general populace misinterpreted it as a betrayal. Oh yeah, and just for the sake of completeness,5) we certainly haven't seen any non-sentient being wielding shards. This particular item does differentiate the shardblades from our other Splinters in that they are transferable, but now that I think about it, in theory, a Returned could probably give someone their Divine Breath. The shardblades would still be the only Splinters we know of that stick around after whatever holds them dies, but I think I've got some fair explanation there as well. Seons don't seem to be mortal, so I think really the only way for them to die may very well be to complete their Aons. As for the Divine Breath, Endowment is still alive and kicking as far as we know, so the power of the Splinter probably just returns to him/her when its host dies. Any feedback on this theory would be greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone in favor of spren being our Splinters on Roshar would like to give their reasoning, I would love to hear what you have to say on the topic.

Just brought this up on another thread, but so far as I know, we don't actually have any confirmation about spren being Splinters. I realize this is nit-picky, but I think it's important to point out when it comes to people talking about what we definitely know.

Yeah. With him still referencing it in Q&As, I'm running on the assumption that it is still a thing they can do, just not something that appears in the text actually happening.

The way he worded that though, I do think maybe they all may have counterparts, just not as directly opposite as Preservation and Ruin. That's how it reads to me anyway.

This is true. I just think it's important to stay aware of what we actually know and where we're making assumptions. And I personally am just not quite so sure about spren. Our confirmed Spliners right now are both somehow held by sentient being and able to be expended, at the cost of the holder's life, for some large magical effect. In addition, we know for sure that at least the Divine Breath is spiritual in nature (if I am accurately extrapolating from what we know about normal Breaths), which would lead me to extrapolate that the Seon Aons are as well. That and the fact that Brandon has stated that the connection with a Seon is Spiritual. To me, this points more towards shardblades than spren. Bear with me for a moment, because the connection is not obvious, and a couple important parts of it just occurred to me now, and I'm probably going to give this its own thread so that this one can move back to its original discussion if it continues on much farther. Now, what do we know about shardblades? 1)They have "shard" in the name. It's not much, but I'm going with it. 2) They are stored in the Spiritual Realm when not in use. This ties in the Spiritual component I'm assuming right now. 3) Like Seons, no one knows how they were made. 4) So far as we know, there certainly seem to be a whole lot fewer than there used to be, which may suggest to me that at some point, maybe a lot of the KR gave up both their lives and their shardblades in order to protect Roshar. It could very well be that this is the Recreance, and the general populace misinterpreted it as a betrayal. Oh yeah, and just for the sake of completeness, 5) we certainly haven't seen any non-sentient being wielding shards. This particular item does differentiate the shardblades from our other Splinters in that they are transferable, but now that I think about it, in theory, a Returned could probably give someone their Divine Breath. The shardblades would still be the only Splinters we know of that stick around after whatever holds them dies, but I think I've got some fair explanation there as well. Seons don't seem to be mortal, so I think really the only way for them to die may very well be to complete their Aons. As for the Divine Breath, Endowment is still alive and kicking as far as we know, so the power of the Splinter probably just returns to him/her when its host dies. Thoughts?

Do we really know that spren are Splinters though? I keep seeing people drop this as if it's certain, but I haven't seen any WoB to indicate this. If we do have confirmation, I would love to know this, but if we don't, we should probably be a bit more careful about our assumptions that we put into our theories, because, if proven wrong, some of these assumptions could lead to a lot of theorizing being thrown out the window very quickly. Just a thing I worry about.

I'm really bad at finding quotes, so bear with me. Brandon has said that there were no Seons before Odium visited Sel. This suggests a few things: 1) Seons are the product of Odium splintering Devotion. (He has also stated that the Aons at their centers are specifically Splinters of Devotion, thus my exclusion of Dominion here.) 2) Since Seons have been around for so long that they are even thought of by near immortals as things that have just always been around essentially, it's been quite some time since Odium's visit. 3) Based on that, (as well as some more WoB if I remember correctly) the Reod had nothing to do with Odium or the creation of Seons or the end thereof. If anyone is better at finding quotes than I am, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much. That is exactly what I was thinking of.

Yeah. AonDor was not at all relevant to what I was talking about.

WoB says Aimians aren't human in a quote that I know I saw but can't find again. Someone asked about non-human sentient races in the cosmere, and along with koloss, kandra, and Parshendi, he listed Aimians.

I'm not quite sure I follow what you're saying here.

I would see where you're coming from were it not pretty explicit that Hrathen needs to keep it on the down low because anything remotely tied to Elantris is taboo, and only the higher ups are aware of the use of Seons for communication among the Derethi higher ups.

They've got both. The Skaze certainly seem to be more in charge based on what Brandon has said though. But if you remember, Hrathen did use a Seon to communicate with the Wyrn.

I'm not really looking at either Shu-Dereth or Dominion as being in the bad guy camp. My logic on that dichotomy is based on the comment in the book about Shu-Korath being based on unity through love (Devotion) and Shu-Dereth being based on unity through order (Dominion). As for Derethi use of Seons, that is very clearly contrary to letter of the law as they are directly tied to some very non Derethi stuff. As for your interpretations of the two religions and their connections, I think you run into some issues when you look at how they are described in the text. The Shu-Dereth chain of command is definitely more driven by you obeying the orders of the person above you and them having control over you than it is about you being devoted to them. Shu-Korath is more driven by personal devotion to Domi. I hope that makes sense, Yados.

There are some in text issues with this, but I can't find direct quotes as I don't have my book right now. At least as far as the Elantrians who wrote the books in the library were aware, it is only Elantrians who are able to draw Aons that can be used for AonDor. Then, if they draw Aons in some medium, them magical aspect of them will stick around, even if erased by someone non-Elantrian.

That can't be quite right because that would make Seons and Returned themselves Splinters, and not what they hold (Divine Breath, Super Aons). I think the line of thinking in this thread is interesting, but there are definitely some assumptions in the OP, particularly regarding spren. WoB says we'll learn more about spren in WoR, so we should be able to evaluate a lot of this at that point.

I had not even thought about the possibility of Hoid being Keseg, but that is a very interesting thought. The plot thickens.

I realize this is pretty pointless and probably totally doesn't matter to anything, but I was thinking today about things, and I got an interesting idea. What if Aona and Skai were something resembling romantically involved, if such a thing is possible for Shards. I think if it would work for any Shards we know of so far, it would make sense with the Intents of Dominion and Devotion, even if it wouldn't form anything resembling a healthy relationship in typical terms, but where she is all about Devotion and he is all about Dominion, it would actually be able to advance both of their Intents. Wow, that was weird and convoluted, but I'm not so great and disentangling my own prose into more elegant verbiage, so take from that what you will. Although, it does sort of tie in somewhat to a thought about Shu-Keseg and its offshoots. What if in its original form, Shu-Keseg was based on worship of both Devotion and Dominion and a pair? Then, Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath each broke off to worship Dominion and Devotion respectively? To me at least, this line seems to explain pretty well the difference of doctrinal focus of the two churches. Anyway, that's just my thoughts regarding things on Sel. What do you guys think? EDIT: Spelling.

Being kind of nit-picky here, but the mists are definitely not under the Splinter umbrella given that Brandon has said that we haven't seen any Splinters in Mistborn.