Schizoposting

The reason why Dalinar didn't just leave Roshar with humanity, is because that would not defeat Odium, and he'd still remain a cosmere wide menace. It's established that within 100 years Odium would be able to conquer the entire cosmere, if nobody were to intervene. That's not to mention all the other problems that people have already pointed out.

I would recommend the Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb. It's like the Cosmere in that it's a shared world of high fantasy that contains several different series (5 in total, with 16 different books) that are more or less independent of each other but share an overarching narrative. I think that it's best read chronologically, starting with the Farseer Trilogy, which a about a royal bastard, with a despised form of magic called the "Wit", who trains to become an assassin, and must protect his kingdom against threats, both internal and external. I will note however, that the Robin Hobb's style is a lot more character focused than plot focused, so don't necessarily expect a Sanderson style climax at the end. Also, AFAIK, the whole sequence is complete, but it's not impossible that Robin Hobb may decide to add more.

No; darkeyes don't have house names. Edit: @Theory, I would recommend that you decrease the rate at which you make new topics, because it honestly it feels like you're spamming this forum—the last four new topics were all submitted by you. For something like this question, I would urge to do some research, to in the Arcanum the Coppermind, to try to find the answer, before making a whole new topic. I think that it's better to focus on the quality of one's posts, rather than their quantity.

So? The same could be said about Germany after WWI; it doesn't change the fact that renewed conflict is inevitable. I wouldn't say that they spent the entire series aiming for the contest. The only reason why Dalinar choose to do a contest of champions, is because Tanavast told him to, and as we all know, Tanavast is a moron. Socially, they're at best ~1400s level, but that's beside the point, which is that fantasy is fundamentally about our modern world, so there is no reason why it can't use modern language. A problem with the Cosmere as a whole, is that all the powerful players, that are on our heroes' sides, have to be morons, otherwise they would solve all their problems for them. If the shards were smart enough to handle Odium, then there would be no Stormlight Archive. The same goes for Hoid, who fails every single time. It's like in the Wheel of Time, where the Creator, for some inscrutable reason, refuses to deal with the Dark One, so that our protagonist—Rand—has to face him instead.

I think that it's unlikely that someone was stabbed to make them, since they contain voidlight, which implies that they were directly charged like any other gemstone. Also, Moash does not appear to get any attributes from the spikes which can be taken by stabbing a person. It's possible however, that they contain some spren, although we don't have any evidence for this.

I disagree. The reason why people would violate the contract is because the underlying cause of the conflict was not resolved. It's like World War I; the Entente defeated Germany, but the underlying causes of the conflict weren't satisfactorily resolved, so there was another world war just two decades later. Well yes, Brandon subverted expectations regarding the contest. Because, again, the contract was a stop gap solution at best. And Taravangian understood this, which is why he didn't actually care about winning. I agree that the inconsistency is a problem, but I don't necessarily see a problem with the use of modern language in itself. Well, the specific therapist line is a result of Hoid, and not because Kaladin usually talks like that. But I don't see why fantasy has to use old fashioned, formal language; the vast majority of fantasy has modern values, so I don't see why modern language would be problematic. Like, nobody complains about the fact that Utilitarianism is present in the Stromlight Archive, despite it being a modern, Enlightenment philosophy. Can you elaborate?

According to WOB they are a form of Hemalurgy: I would guess that it's possible to charge hemalurgic spikes without actually spiking someone, and Moash's spikes are an example of this.

I was more so responding to the general consensus than to you specifically. It's not for its own sake: by subverting expectations with respects to the contract, Brandon is implicitly critiquing "legalism"—the idea that the conflict between Odium and Honor can be resolved by just writing up a contract. The same goes for the contest; he is critiquing the "trolley problem", by saying that the problem is not whether or not you should pull the lever, but the poor safety standards that led to this situation in the first place. What makes it an issue? The question is why people find it so off-putting. It's such a minor detail, and yet people endlessly talk about it. So clearly there is something deeper at play. Besides, good art is, on a certain level, meant to challenge the reader. If it doesn't, then it's not doing anything interesting.

How are you determining the Z axis of the stars? The star chart is only two dimensional.

Odium is all about giving in to your emotions, while Jasnah is very rational, and suppresses her emotions when they get in the way. Taravangains willingness to save his family, even when it didn't make sense, actually makes him more aligned with Odium.

@therunner according to WOB: So, we have direct confirmation that it's best for a vessel to be opposed to the intent of their shard. That's wrong on two counts: Ati was philosophically aligned with Ruin before his ascension (as I already showed), and he volunteered to take up Ruin: From WAT chapter 115. She literally tried to stop the war by threatening Taravangian's family. I think that it's strongly implied that the effect of holding a shard is "logarithmic", i.e., the vessel will rapidly change at first, but this will taper off as time goes on. So those extra 2000 years probably had minimal impact on Ati (he wanted to destroy the Scadrial long before then anyway). Also, as I said previously, what's needed is someone who can resist the shard, but is at the same time smart enough placate so it doesn't leave them. Taravangian is an example of the latter. Well, now this gets into the ethics of how one should rule. Answering this isn't easy; philosophers have debated ethics for millennia. But let's presume that the goal of shardic intervention is ensuring human happiness. In this case, I think that the best way to achieve this is by focusing on the goals that I outlined. I think those issues can be resolved by a smart enough vessel who knows how to manipulate their power. E.g. in the case of Odium, once they've finished intervening on one planet, they can start intervening on other planets; if they run out of planets to intervene on, they can just make more planets. What makes you think that if the non-interventionist shards were to intervene, they'd turn into lunatics? If they were already predisposed to lunacy, then they'd would've already intervened. Also, much of that is due to vessels, not the shard (particularly in Autonomy's case). @Returned you're right that what I am proposing is a particular form of the utopian ideal of an all-powerful benevolent philosopher king. In the real world this is impossible for a myriad of reasons, but the in the Cosmere, the vast power of shards actually makes this feasible. It's true that there's a real danger of shardic intervention by a shard like Ruin, but these shards will intervene regardless of what anyone else may think. I am directing this discussion to shards that are not already intervening. I am not discussing whether or not we should live in a world dominated by shards; I am working on the presumption that the world is already dominated by shards. Well, Dalinar is not a philosopher, so it'd be strange for him to think about political decisions within the lens of philosophy; his personal thought pretty much boils down to "be honorable" and a vague fideism regarding the God-Beyond. Also, I disagree with your assertion that the books don't engage with philosophy, for instance Kaladin challenges the reader to consider not just what is ethical, but also how ethical values may affect the ethical subject holding said values; similarly, Nale is terrified of his existential freedom to make his own decisions, and instead seeks comfort in the immutability of the law. This is a series after all, where God is literally dead. The trolley problem was originally created to mock utilitarianism, so defending it as a legitimate thought experiment is rather strange; regardless, the problem with these sorts of thought experiments is precisely in their abstraction. It's much easier to think abstractly than concretely, which is why so many people here have parroted the cliche that "absolute power corrupts absolutely". In the real world, ethical decisions cannot be trivially reduced to calculating how many utils each decision provides, or whether or not it fits some abstract moral schema. That reading would be dishonest, because the specific criteria I mentioned were not the ends in themselves, but rather the means for human happiness and flourishing, which was implicit in my original post. Also, I will obviously reject your implication that shardic intervention is inherently immoral, since you have given me no reason to believe otherwise. If your position is that "it's better to be poor and free, than rich and enslaved" then I can respect that, but saying "I will not share my disagreements, because you will disagree with them" is just a cop-out.

I disagree; Wind and Truth is good actually. The contest of champions was a classic example of Brandon's subversion of expectations: it was built up as an epic battle between Odium and Honor, only for it turn out that it didn't matter at all. The same goes for the contract—that's the joke. I think that the modern prose wasn't the issue people make it out to be (I hardly even noticed it), and it makes for an interesting artistic choice. The only problem is that it results in an inconsistent style vis-à-vis the other SA books. There's this idea that bad art isn't offensive; it's boring. So, the fact that so many people were personally offended by the words "therapist" and "dating", shows that there's something artistically productive about the use of these words. Overall, the discourse around Wind and Truth reminds me of the discourse around the newest Nolan film, where everyone is complaining about "historical accuracy" despite the fact that the film hasn't even come out yet.

According to WOB: While he doesn't directly state it, his answer makes no sense without the presupposition that Wax did get Lerasium through the explosion. It would be lying to the reader the same way a fake out death is lying to the reader. I understand that you invested a lot of time and effort into this theory, and as a result you are rather attached to it, but I think that this is theory is just plain wrong and defending it just leads to ever more convoluted conspiracy theoryesque explanations.

I'm sorry, but this is like hearing people who deny the moon landing coming up with ad hoc excuses to explain away inconsistencies. If Sazed was willing to directly intervene enough to make Wayne a mistborn, then he could have trivially stopped the ship. From a Doylist perspective, I don't think that Brandon would lie to the reader in this way.

If this is the case, then how did Wayne become a mistborn?

A common trend among this forum, is for discussions to devolve into long responses on a point-by-point basis, that leads to wrangling over minor or irrelevant details. So, instead of continuing this trend, I will take a step back and consider the state of the discussion as a whole. There seems to be three main points of contention over direct shardic intervention: the problems posed by shardic intent, the effectiveness of shardic governance, and the possible ethical issues raised by shards intervening in mortal affairs. I will consider these points one at a time. In the case of shardic intent, there are two separate viewpoints: @Frustration and @therunner think that shardic intent completely overrides all other priorities, so, even if a veritable saint were to pick up even a seemingly innocuous shard like Invention, given enough time, they would turn into a madman who would commit any atrocity to accelerate technological progress. I disagree with this viewpoint—I think that while shardic intent may strongly affect the vessels priorities, it doesn't completely overide their values; so, in the aforementioned case, the vessel may start to feel very strongly about innovation, but there would still be some limits to how far they are willing to go to promote it. Now, it's very hard to tell which viewpoint is correct, because we see very little of the shards in the Cosmere, so it's hard to determine exactly how much they have been warped by their intent. Therefore, any analysis should be based on the few examples that we do have; namely, the shards Ruin, Preservation, Honor Cultivation, and Odium. In the cases of Ruin and Preservation, it does seem like the first view is correct, since both ended up as monomaniacs who promoted their shardic intent at all costs. But the Rosharan shards complicate the picture. All three of them have conflicted with the intents of their shards: Tanavast, was rejected for straying too far from the intent of Honor; Cultivation opposed war, even though her shard supports it; and Odium was disliked by his power for being trapped in the Rosharan system. None of this should be possible according to the first viewpoint, since the vessels should have been so warped by their intent that they would have never disagreed with the shard. There are a few possible explanations for this discrepancy; one is that Brandon has simply been inconsistent in the way he has written the shards over the past 20 years; another is that Ati may have been an especially poor vessel, which led him to being subsumed by his shard; finally, it's possible that shards with more extreme intents, cause a more extreme change in the vessels ethical values, because the two are more opposed, compared to shards with tamer intents. Whichever of these views is correct will strongly determine the viability of direct shardic intervention. As for the question of governance, my vision is that the shard will intervene with the express purposes of creating a competent, benevolent, world government that would ensure peace, security, and the necessary social incentives to promote economic growth, and address social issues. The end goal would be to create a self-running government (presumably a democracy), with the shard intervening only when absolutely necessary to preserve the features outlined above. Now, how feasible is this for a shard to achieve? Given the vast powers and capabilities of a shard, which include the power to create and destroy planets, engineer life on a genetic level, and to see millennia into the future, it's hard to see why they wouldn't be able to achieve this, unless if there is some issue with shardic intent. I have suggested that the shard should create a civic religion to do this, but it's not strictly necessary. Finally, let's consider the ethics of shardic intervention. The only possible ethical drawback that I can think of to shardic intervention as such is that it would take away people's self-determination. Now how concerning this is depends on how much you value self-determination: is it a means to an end, or an end in itself? In the case of the former, then it's not an issue so long as the shard's intervention accomplishes ethical goals, such as leading to the overall happiness of the mortals on the receiving end of this intervention. If, however, self-determination is an end in itself, then there are two possibles: either the moral harm caused by limiting self-determination can be overcome if the limitation otherwise produces favorable outcomes, like general prosperity; alternatively, self-determination is non-negotiable, and shardic intervention is unconditionally immoral, regardless of how much good it may bring. I think that for most people, self-determination is not the ultimate moral good, so for them, shardic intervention is morally acceptable so long as the end result is one that is morally good. Overall, I think that shardic intervention, when done right, is preferable to no shardic intervention; shardic intent should not provide any major issues for the majority of shards, but it's possible that I will be proven wrong, and that every single shard is a complete lunatic. Ethically, I don't see any problems, again, so long as it's done right.

He wasn't breaking an oath; on the contrary he swore to capture Mishram. Honor abandoned him not for the act of betrayal itself, but because of the impact it had on Roshar: From chapter 124. That's just not true: From Mistborn Secret History part 1 chapter 2. So, why didn't change Tanavast the same way? Again, Tanavast was resisting Honor all the time. The power wanted a direct clash, but Tanavast repeatedly refused to directly fight Odium. Even after millenia of holding a shard he has able to resist its will so much that it rejected him. Only Ruin and Preservation are completely unworkable; Odium, and Whimsy, if controlled by a strong enough vessel, can be made to work; Dominion, Valor, Ambition, Honor, and Cultivation present minor issues; while Autonomy, Mercy, Invention, Virtuosity, Reason, and Devotion have no issues whatsoever. The shard will give people self-determination within limits: for instance, it won't allow people to commit genocide, but it will allow people to choose a slightly different allocation of resources. It only took Mohhamed a few decades to conquer Arabia, with shardic powers, taking over an entire planet in a short time frame is trivial. It doesn't matter if some lunatic thinks that people should be serfs to a feudal lord, in modern society they're completely impotent. They would do it the same way any other government does it. I don't understand your objection. Is it? They're stuck in a premodern society, whilst Taldian is already in the 20th century with limited shardic intervention. If she directly fights back, Nalathis will be destroyed, even if she had the advantage. You're cherry picking the worst example of shardic conflict—most shard worlds are not like this. It depends on the decision: a relatively minor mistake may serve as a learning opportunity, whilst if they decide to commit genocide, then shardic intervention is necessary.

No, the shard left him because he was a terrible person who betrayed Mishram. And still, you're missing the point that Ati would have never been able to have the self-awareness to realize that he was a problem. Besides, WAT shows that the shards can learn and grow, so it's not a given that they would remain focused on a very abstract conception of their intent. All three of the Rosharan shards resisted their intent for millennia. A good a vessel is one that is strong enough to resist the intent of the shard, whilst savvy enough to satisfy it enough so that the shard doesn't leave them. Tanavast had the first quality but lacked the second; Taravangian has the second, but it remains to be seen if he has the first. For the majority of the shards, the intent can be satisfied without it being much of a problem, e.g. Virtuosity can promote art, while going against it once in a while to punish an artistic serial killer. That was the problem actually: he was too closely aligned to the shard's intent. Leras and Ati should have switched places. Megalomania is defined as "a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence", so I don't see what that has to do with unrestrained passion. It depends on one's interpretation of honor; we have seen no indication that Honor's rule was some brutally authoritarian dictatorship in the WAT flashbacks. And most shard's intents would not lead to any major issues. They would give the people self-governance so that they wouldn't have to micromanage everything. The idea is that the shard will start a monotheist religion with them at the center. This will make it so that people follow them out of conviction, not repression. I choose the divine right of kings as a random example; the fact that some crackpot may still believe that feudalism is good, doesn't change the fact that it's wildly unpopular. Besides, none of the examples you choose, really believe in the divine right of kings; they may believe in something that you may think is similar, but they don't believe in it as it's commonly understood. No, the shard will take over the entire planet all at once. Ambition did not directly intervene in mortal affairs as far as we know, and yet Odium attacked her anyways. And what makes you think that Endowment being non-interventionist will spare her planet from being conquered by Retribution, if he gets the chance? Tell that to all the shard free worlds that (Emberdark spoilers) were conquered by the Scadrians. That's why the shard would create a government that would be capable of self-governance without shardic oversight. It doesn't have to be a democracy, but it has to be competent and benevolent. Everyone (except for the odd Nietzschean) thinks that they are a good person; Sadeas genuinely believed that he was saving Alethkar; the same goes for Dilaf, Straff, Rayse, etc. Do think that they all had good intentions? If that's the case, then you've made the phrase all but meaningless.

You just proved my point: Tanavast was capable of self-reflection and resisting Honor's intent, while Ati was not. Also, I don't see why "passion" would turn someone into a megalomaniac. You're projecting your modern Christian values on to the past. Before Emperor Julian, Roman paganism was not a codified religion but was instead a loose collection of beliefs. And even if the king or whoever refused to worship the shard, then they could just stage a coup, or worst come to worst, they could start a religious rebellion. Basically no one today believes in the divine right of Kings, so that idea, at least, has been eradicated. Besides, you don't have to remove all prejudice all at once, you can gradually influence society to the point where it no longer exists. My point is that a shardic government, like all governments, would really on violence if its authority is challenged. Looking for some select example is missing the point. In that case, the shard would also support a gradual transition to democracy. It depends on how much institutional momentum the disasters have. If they don't have a lot, then the shard could do some behind the scenes manipulation to prevent that from happening. If the government is hell bent on committing seppuku, then the shard would have to take direct control. If you are going to take direct control of one country, you might as well take control of all the others. Inter-shardic clashes already happen without direct shardic intervention, so I'm not sure what the point is. 1. They can control society through religion, by having everyone worship them. Worst come to worst, they can use their powers to punish those who disobey them. 2. Presumably their goal is providing the best possible life for their subjects 3. They can create the necessary social structures to promote development, prevent war, reduce crime, etc. 4. The shard ought to prioritize the general interest of their subjects 5. Not unless if you consider the right to self-determination to be of utmost importance, but even then, the shard could gradually introduce democracy Now, these are certainly up for debate and interpretation, but I think that regardless of what you think should be prioritized, having a shard in charge would be more effective than having no shard, or minimal influence from said shard. I'll take a look if/when I find the time. In practice, basically every political leader is a consequentialist one way or another. Even "good" leaders sent scores of their own troops to dies in war and invariably caused at least some level of civilian casualties. I assume that the same goes for the shards. Is your argument that the SA is not explicitly philosophical literature like Thus Spoke Zarathustra or one of Plato's dialogues? In that case I agree, but I think that it's for the best; Brandon is not a philosopher, and any attempt at being one would lead to poor output. I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. By "neoliberalism" I am referring to stuff like globalization, the Third Way or the Washington Consensus. And whatever you may think of him, Trump really has reshaped global trade on a fundamental level (even Biden adopted many of his policies vis-à-vis China). I'd like to clarify—I never claimed that common sense should be the foundation of ethics. I (rather opportunistically) chose it to avoid having a debate on what exactly it means for a shard to be morally good. As for the part about moral intuition, I was referring to this, since it is a relatively common in analytic philosophy, which does mean that for many philosophers, common sense ought to be the basis of ethics (although I disagree with them). Assuming that you're talking about something like the trolley problem, then that isn't really relevant since it's an abstract question that is disconnected from reality. Even, if for instance, there's a tradeoff between air pollution and economic growth, then the shard would resolve the dilemma the same way any other person would: by making an ethical judgement using the information at hand and their ethical values. Since there is no easy answer to this question, the shard would face the same difficulties as anyone else in answering this question, which again, would heavily depend on the concrete situation. Well now it depends on how exactly the shard is organizing society: is it laissez-faire capitalist, dirigiste, communist, anarchist or something in between? How you answer depends on your politics, which is why I've kept this vague, since I don't want a political debate here. A shard would have many advantages over a hyper competent benevolent administration; they would be immortal, have future sight, be able to absorb far more information, they could use magic to intervene, etc. Well, you can reject any and all axioms, but most people don't do this, because they're not radical sceptics. I think that most people, except for perhaps egoists, would accept the major premise. It seems like your main argument is extraneous to shardic intervention as such and instead depends on them doing a bad job intervening (and it's not a given that shards will necessarily fail). You also don't elaborate on what "conditions of mortals' lives' goodness which may inherently conflict with maximal Shardic intervention", refers to specifically, so I can't respond to an argument that you didn't make. @Theory, you presented your arguments in a very disjointed and incoherent way, so it's difficult to respond. I'll say this though, when Sazed says, "hardship breeds innovation", he's just plain wrong; the logic of capital necessitates its continuous accumulation; in other words, capitalism cannot exist without economic growth. So regardless of how easy life was for the northerners, they would still see large scale economic development as a result of capitalism. I disagree actually; all technological progress is good. But that's neither here nor there. So, do you think that Taravangian also has good intentions? He does genuinely want to "save them all".

@Returned, I was intentionally vague with respect to the actual content of the shardic utopia, because I didn't want to derail this topic, with a political discussion on what is the optimal form of social organization. I am more interested in shardic rule as such. No, I haven't. Is it? Clearly, she must have some purpose for her interventions, and the WAT flash backs show that she has a highly antagonistic relationship with Rayse. Furthermore, while Honor wasn't very successful, he still did a better job of resisting Odium than Cultivation. Also, Cultivation could have intervened in a smarter way than Tanavast. I don't understand what you're trying to say here: Brandon references various real-world philosophies, such as utilitarianism or existentialism over the course of the SA. Certainly, he does it in a very pop-culture way, but it's still there. It's true that "neoliberalism" is experiencing a crisis of hegemony in the west, but "Trumpism" doesn't constitute a moral alternative—it signifies a repudiation of norms and morals. In most places supporting genocide is very much still politically incorrect, and people typically justify it through denial. Also, from my understanding, "analytic philosophy" focuses heavily on "moral intuition". Well, I don't think that you can reduce the value of disparate "moral goods" down to a single value. The idea of "objectively" determining which action will net you the most utils is best kept to the econ textbooks. I don't think that society is an unknowable black box; racism has real social causes, and by altering society you can get rid of the factors that cause racism. Now the best way to do this, is a sociological question, not a philosophical one. In the case of wealth inequality, you can just increase taxes, for instance. I would like to make myself clear here; I do not support dictatorship in the real world. But in the Cosmere, where not all men are made equal, the rule of a benevolent shard is naturally the best possible outcome, because their vast power and knowledge allow them to affect society on a level no human dictator could ever hope to achieve. Naturally, they can make mistakes, but their ability to do good far outweighs whatever harm they may cause, unless if there is some major drawback to direct intervention. I don't get what you mean here, presumably Nozick is opposed to direct shardic rule, because of property rights or whatever. Fictional characters are not ethical subjects; they are a reflection of real-world ethical sensibilities. Insofar as we consider their ethical dilemmas, we are only considering our own ethics in a roundabout manner. Suppose we adopt the following formulation: shards ought to help mortals live better lives; direct shardic intervention is effective at improving the lives of mortals; therefore, shards ought to directly intervene to help mortals. If you're opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you'll either have to reject the major, or the minor premise. I don't think that that's really possible; any author is going to be influenced by their concrete circumstances, which makes coming up with something ex nihilo impossible. The Knight's Radiant are a pastiche of the medieval idea of chivalrous knights, so it's natural that they adopt many of their sensibilities.

He created the Final Empire from the very beginning; just because he had some regrets and did some good in the end does not mean that he was well meaning. This is a man who killed his own uncle for power and committed a genocide against feruchemists. In fact, his crimes are far, far, worse than Taravangain's crimes, and yet the latter is universal considered immoral, despite his intentions being far purer than Rashek's.

I think part of the problem is that Brandon has been inconsistent in how he portrays shards: Tanavast and Rayse were barely affected by the intents of their shards, while Ati was entirely subsumed. Furthermore, Ati became far more arrogant and narcissistic by holding Ruin, something that shouldn't have been caused by the intent of the shard. So, I think the simplest explanation is that Ati just lost his mind. Leras was also affected, but to a lesser extent, because recognized the importance of Ruin balancing out Preservation (he also lost his mind at the end, so his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt). Suppose that you are some random king or feudal lord, and a shard appears before you, preforms a miracle or two, claims to be a god, and demands to be worshipped: what would you do? Yes, but my point is that governments reform culture all the time, and often they are successful. People today are far less racist than they were in the past, so I don't understand your point about impossibility of getting rid of racism. Suppose that California declares its independence tomorrow and refuses to obey the dictates of the U.S. federal government. What do you think will happen? Two things: one, there are plenty of authoritarian governments that were replaced with functioning democratic ones, e.g. in South Korea or Brazil; two, the history of the French, Haitian, and Russian revolutions cannot simply be reduced to people being unable to govern themselves. The intervention takes the form of whatever the situation necessitates. With giving a concrete situation, it's impossible to be any more specific. To prevent inter-state wars. Come on man, you can't be seriously comparing the consequences of two shards clashing with the direct rule of a single shard. Presumably, her moral viewpoint involves defeating Odium, which she has done a terrible job of doing. No one who isn't a professional ideologue actually has a coherent ethical or political philosophy; if you ask some random person of the street, they will contradict themselves a million different times. We can always adopt a postmodern moral relativism and say that all different ethical viewpoints are equally valid, but that negates the point of the discussion. Obviously, if you are ethically opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you're not going to intervene if you're a shard. But this is very unsatisfying, unless if you can justify it with some more fundamental principle. I am referring to liberal-humanist common sense, e.g. "kids starving in Africa is bad". If you have an alternate ethical framework, then I welcome you to share it. It's true that one can strive to achieve any arbitrary goal, but this is a moot point since ethics are socially determined. Now, in the Cosmere everyone has some sort of (post)modern world view, but that's because the Cosmere, as a work of art, is responding to the specific post-modern conditions under which it was made. So, there is no point in considering random possible ethical viewpoints. These objections don't really get to the core of the issue: any possible action by definition has unintended consequences, and many shards already heavily invest in worlds. Sure, that's why he enslaved the Skaa. No, the God-Kings are returned, and therefore immortal. They may commit suicide relatively often, but it doesn't negate this fact. Funnily enough, Taravangian, is actually somewhat of a revolutionary:

Well, yes, she does intervene, but she is opposed to the idea of directly ruling. But, if I am understanding you correctly, you said that shardic intervention is effective at advancing an arbitrary moral viewpoint. If that's the case, why isn't she advancing her particular moral viewpoints? It is a contradiction in the Cosmere, that on one hand direct shardic intervention ought to be incredibly effective, and yet, no one (except for Taravangian) does it. It's said in the books that by limiting free will, peoples moral or cultural development is retarded (even this, is not self-evident to me), but this seems to be a rather small cost to pay for the very significant benefits of shardic intervention. Now, maybe, it's as you say, and the Cosmere is too shallow, and/or Brandon is just wrong, but at the very least we should be able to discuss the costs/benefits this approach in a hypothetical manner. It's certainly possible that Cultivation is simply morally opposed to direct intervention, although that would be pretty tautological. But a broader problem is that her indirect intervention has been very ineffective, and even counterproductive; she had 2000+ years to prepare Roshar for the true desolation, and Odium still won a crushing victory. I understand that on a certain level, we can't have Cultivation solve all the hero's problems for them, but this makes her look pretty moronic. (In fact, basically every shard in the SA, except for Taravangian, is a moron; the Sunmaker's gambit only worked because the other shards were too stupid to take Odium seriously.) Unless she has some deep moral qualms against direct intervention, or unless she's just brain rotted by her shard's intent, it's hard to see why she didn't intervene more to avert the worst outcome. Well, this a question about your given ethical commitments, and what you value. On a certain level, you can't really "disprove" opposing ethical views (so long as they're logically consistent) due to the is–ought problem. But this outside the scope of this thread, which is more so about the efficacy of shardic intervention, rather than the morality of it. I am presuming that the shardic intervention is for a morally good purpose, as is understood by the moral standards of our society today. Ok, so now the issue is that shardic intent can warp the personality of the vessel. This is not as big of an issue as it seems: Tanavast was able to resist Honor's intent for many thousands of years, without going insane. Unless if you're named Ati, shardic intent really isn't the problem people think it is.

Both Susebron and Raoden are immortal—unless they decide to commit suicide for whatever reason—and they are portrayed positively. The dragons are also immortal, and at least some of them (like Frost) are also portrayed positively. I don't see why the fact that someone is immortal means that will inevitably become evil if given a position of power. Determinism means that a given cause must necessarily lead to a given effect, e.g. an increase in the greenhouse effect will lead to global warming, all else equal. Compatibilism just means that you can have free will while your actions are determined by external and internal causes. So, hypothetically, there could exist a world where everyone freely chooses to do good, due to the correct sequence of cause and effect. Well then, the theory is flawed, because it fails to account for said corruption.

Rashek was never well meaning, so I have no clue why you keep bringing him up. There are plenty of dictators in the Cosmere that are portrayed positively, such as Elend, Dalinar, Susebron, Raoden, and so forth. Now, maybe you could argue that that is unrealistic, but at least in the Cosmere, benevolent dictators do exist. Free will is fully compatible with determinism. If it works in theory then it works in practice; if it doesn't work in practice, then the theory is wrong. Then why does Cultivation disagree? Does she not believe that she is morally good? If she does, then, according to your logic, why isn't she directly intervening? But again, the being doesn't have to perfect—they just have to be better than the alternative. Given, again, how bad the historical alternative is (in our world at least, it has involved billions of deaths from war, famine, and disease, with the constant threat of human extinction), the bar isn't exactly very high. There's no democracy here: the shard either decides that it's in charge, or it does not. If they choose to take power, nobody can stop them (except for other shards). The question is from the perspective of the shards: if you consider yourself morally good, why shouldn't you directly intervene in mortal affairs?