Hi all, I am somewhat of new here and not that well versed in cosmeric knowledge. I have read most of Sanderson's books, but mostly before becoming cosmere aware. However I was recently re-reading Way of Kings and something stood out which got me thinking about the way the term "shard" is used. So I'm going to throw this out here, bear with me if it is a bit disjointed.
So far I have identified three uses of the term that may or may not be related:
Obviously we have the Shards of Adonalsium; I don't have much more to say about them.
Then on Roshar we have the somewhat mysterious Dawnshards. I don't think we know much about them either.
Finally, also on Roshar, we have shardblades and shardplate and the shardbearers who carry them.
It would be possible to construct an argument wherein all these three refer to the same thing, but I find it unlikely. In particular I find it unlikely that the shard in shardbearers refers to the Shards of Adonalsium. Shardbearers, while relatively rare are common knowledge while the Shards of Adonalsium are not. It is possible that it is a linguistic artifact of a time when cosmerology was a thing, but this is not the sort of thing we see on any other shardworld. People tend not to call their dieties "shards".
What then does the shard in shardbearer refer to? I do not know, but I found the quote at the beginning of chapter 2 "Honor is Dead" interesting:
