Azdiur

Rysn's internal thoughts after receiving Change definitely imply it's "take what is and Remake it into something better" which is absolutely what I'd consider Invention, though I'm not 100% certain we should assume that's inhernet/canonical to the Dawnshard itself (we know Sigzil's relationship with what Exist permits can shift depending on his own personal viewpoint. That seems to be a major theme of the past few Stormlights, actually, in the whole "X doesn't work that way!" and then Dalinar reaches into the spirtual realm and makes things work that way, etc. In fact, I guess that's my overall concern with trying too hard to force the shards under the Commands, since at least as far as we understand it Intent can dramatically alter what a given Command will achieve (sigh, time to slot in another Warbreaker reread, isn't it?).

Yeah, I'm hesitant to put too much effort in when there's clearly info we don't know, but it's definitely fun to theorize. Though, I will note that this time I picked up on a Vasher quote in RoW that seems pertinent: "That's the trouble with science. It's never done. Always upending itself. Ruining perfect systems for the little inconvenience of them being wrong." Clearly this is foreshadowing Navani's investigation later in RoW, but given her sections in the chapter openings in WaT, I suspect there's Another Layer at work, and I for one would actually be kinda impressed if it ends up being that "Perfect 16" isn't quite as perfect as everyone in the world assumes...

I think there's going to have to be some second level of "alignment" to get distinctions within each "bucket." I agree with the general groupings posited above (Personally I'm calling them: Exist, Change, Bind, Proceed). One obvious option would be if each Shard has a "primary" and then in each bucket one would be "pure" and the other 3 would each pair with one of the other Commands. I've started trying to organize it by this but haven't come up with groupings I'm fully satisfied with. Preservation as "Exist Proceed" (or "Proceed Exist") and Ruin as "Change Bind" makes an interesting complement, though: Preservation has the goal and the sustenance, but needs the raw power of Change that Ruin provides. Hemalurgy also makes sense as a Connection-oriented power, at least to me. My other completely half-baked aluminum-hat theory comes because I noticed some of them feel like they're *three* of the Commands (Cultivation is definitely Exist and Proceed, but it feels like Change belongs in there too. If we look at the combinatorics, there are exactly 16 ways to combine 4 items if order doesn't matter: 4 singletons 6 doubles 4 triples 1 All 4 1 None If we take the theory that The Shattering was from using all 4 Pure Commands on Adonalsium itself, then I could see "fractures into all possible combinations" as a reasonable response? I haven't found a layout of the Shards I'm happy with, but am definitely poking around some. One thing I'm toying with is whether or not having Proceed somehow maps to futuresight? I'm not super satisfied with this model, but I at least want to kick the tires some now that we have all the names, bearing in mind that there's definitely a layer of human interpretation at work....