Ari

Unity is the theme of three religions on Sycla. It's not actually related to the intent of the two splintered shards, as far as we know, but it is confusing because the two splinter sects of Shu-Keseg do roughly align with each of the Shards' intents. I always took this as the unconscious influence that the shards have had on Selish society, rather than an indication that the shards necessarily have any affinity with Shu-Keseg itself. It also helps to remember that these religions were probably themed this way to provide us with hints to the intents of the splintered Shards, once we found out what Shards were in Mistborn, as that's how we guessed and confirmed via WoB that Sel played host to Devotion and Dominion. (even with the word Dominion appearing in the text, it was a while before we confirmed it as the intent for Skai) Now, if you're saying that some of the splintered power has mixed together, that's entirely possible. But if nobody holds any of that power, it's no longer a Shard as we understand that term. A Shard is a mix of magical power in a certain form with a (possibly human) mind attached to it to direct the power. We don't even know if it's possible to re-assemble a Splintered Shard at this point, so the idea of it happening naturally and being picked up by a new Shard holder seems pretty unlikely without Brandon putting Chekov's gun on the table for this idea by talking about how it might be done.

That makes perfect sense, have an upvote.

HoA Spoiler: On the original topic, I'm very firmly in the "Odium is smarter than Ruin" camp. I think much of this has to do with his intent as well- Ruin is a rather simple process, focused on the present, and saw every action as entropic, but didn't have much foresight for preservation's real plans. I agree it's likely that Odium is trapped as part of a deal that he saw as an opening to kill Honour. (I imagine Honour offered the deal knowing he would die as it was the best chance to contain or kill Odium, and probably thought of his own sacrifice as a necessary step after watching what Odium did to Aona and Skai) I expect that deal necessitated the Oathpact between Honour and the Heralds, and is why Odium gets to torture the Heralds, and is what has Odium trapped on Braize, and is why Odium has invested his power so heavily in Roshar- the deal was probably that Odium accepts magical constraints on him that won't go away until he "wins" his desolations, and Honour does something that opens himself up to splintering.

Harmony is unlikely to leave Scadrial due to how heavily invested he is there and the fact that it's his home and he wants to help it. Harmony has no splinters of his own power, although may be producing Atium to keep his two Shards in balance. A few hundred splinters from each shard, if Devotion and Dominion reformed into a shard, would tie up a lot more of its power than that Atium. That's all I'm saying. Oh, and if Devotion and Dominion have merged, Odium certainly doesn't know about it, as he thinks that Harmony is the scariest thing around, and two merged shards would have him quaking in his boots. Finally, if Devotion and Dominion merge, I really don't think Unity is an appropriate name for them. I would hazard a guess at Servitude, as Devotion implies serving others, and Dominion implies accepting the service of others.

I may have read a little lightly in that scene, but all I remember about it was Shallan seeing Jasnah's body and being super upset. I don't remember any mysterious disappearance. I'll have to check.

On the constellations front, I found the following trawling the most recent AMA: source So we have WoB that constellations are irrelevant to Aons. edit: On Domi and Jaddeth, it's quite clear that Domi refers to ritual worship of Aona/Devotion, and Jaddeth refers to Skai/Dominion. There's hints of this all around Elantris, from Hrathen referring to Seons as "the enemy's magic", and I believe they even use the word Devotion when referring to them, and the fact that the Dominion counterpart is explicitly named after Skai. ("Skaze")

The only real reason they've used ten on Scadrial before was that they used to think there were ten allomantic metals. Interesting that the number 10 has become tied in with Pathism. ps: via Imgflip Meme Maker

Yeah, I'm fine with it being used in a nearby scene in the same book, if it's not used more than say, once every second book. It was the combination of that and Jasnah, where we had no active hints she was alive, that did it.

The Knights Radiant were about more than protection. They were about ideals, and inspiration. What message does it send to people if the inspiring force for your entire religion doesn't just up and vanish, but in fact, goes away specifically because they chose to betray those ideals? That they abandon their weapons to looters, thieves, and murderers? That they give away their ability to heal, to protect? It undermines the whole faith of Vorinism- those who were pretty devout would be incensed. Those who aren't would still have lost the protection, trade, healing, and the practical aspect of the Right Of Travel due to the oathgates being inaccessible. When a group that you rely on goes away, hatred is a more than understandable reaction, especially for a group as integral to a society as the Knights Radiant were to the Vorin nations.

A thing to keep in mind is the other known examples where Spren died, they were already to the point in their bond where they could manifest as Shards. Syl and Kaladin were not at this point when Kaladin "killed" her, thus expecting her to die and leave behind a blade doesn't seem accurate. The recreance left behind shards because the Spren were manifest as shards when they died. I'm pretty firmly in the "Syl was dead or near dead" camp, and the only reason it was relatively easy to revive her is that Kaladin was still around to swear the next oath. God beyond knows what would have happened to her if Kaladin had sworn all his oaths already! edit: I really like the phrasing of the bond being that Syl becomes a Spren of Kaladin's honour. That's a really elegant way to put it.

Based on some of the Aons we can conclude other things, as there are markers for a nearby forest on the Aon for Wood, and Aon Mea marks the area in which people can be taken by the Shaod, and Aon Rao matches a constellation. (that last one could be a coincidence and the constellation could be named after the Aon, rather than the other way around) That said, we'd really need a few more Aons and a more accurate map to conclude anything particularly useful, I'd say. It is however illuminating to how Aons work that the Aon for wood literally points to a forest.

Or we could assume that someone other than Sadeas is actually permanently dead. If Helaran is alive, I really hope it's because he wasn't the person Kaladin killed in that battle, and that he faked his own death. I hope that Fabrial gets extremely limited use, as we skirted a bit close to death-being-meaningless in Words of Radiance for my liking.

And this is why I am done with this discussion: You're wildly speculating based on what could be true about Hoid with little attention to what we've actually got available in the text. (which is largely his interactions with a few people, and a couple of shallow viewpoint scenes with little introspection) Sure, Hoid could have the ability to summon unicorns and cause people to spontaneously dance with his incredible control over investiture, but until we actually have some hint suggesting those things, or some precedent that either is actually possible, there's little point to that kind of speculation.

If Unity exists or comes to exist, (I'm not convinced at all yet) it would not necessarily be significantly more powerful than Harmony, (arguably it would be less powerful) as it would be heavily Splintered with the Seons, and the Skaze, whatever they look like.

That's a good point, he's probably gained some sort of investiture, although that doesn't necessarily mean he uses it for worldhopping.

Nice catch, I actually went back through interviews for that one too, but clearly not far enough back!

Keep in mind events in Nightblood could have left Vivenna as one of the Returned as well, for all we know.

I'm pretty sure Brandon is using definition (2), as he's referred to Nazh as a worldhopper iirc, and unless he's somehow been granted powers of his own, he's just along for the ride, as he comes from Threnody.

Remember, functional Aons are a mix of signifiers (eg, distance to travel, type of damage to heal, etc...) and geographic features. Some of the Aons will need signifiers in order to function at all, so the form of the Aon with the minimum amount of functional signifiers could be the one people have memorised.

Ah, yeah, as someone with an anxiety disorder, that's nothing like anxiety.

Hehe, well, that's what happens when you take a while to figure out the second oath.

The same way Preservation/Leras trapped Ruin in the first place: They can attack or sacrifice the mind of their shardholder. Ruin and Preservation were perfectly matched. Part of this is likely due to them being such a neatly opposed pair. I expect, however, it probably also means that any Shard trying to attack a forewarned enemy Shard would be at risk of a similar situation of mutal annihilation. That Odium has managed this at least three times says something very scary about him. Maybe he has a way to ambush other Shards and kill their minds, maybe he actually convinced the Shards somehow to let him kill them, or lured them out of their power. I suspect it would be some combination of the two- he ambushed Devotion and Dominion somehow, and Honour he manouvred into a position where his Intent would require him to sacrifice his power or mind to oppose Odium.

Wait, I didn't notice Raoden having anxiety, I have to re-read that now. That said, yeah, I totally agree that it's nice to see people with mental illnesses popping up in fantasy now as more than a victimhood trope.

So, keeping up with new memes, here's one of Kaladin after WoR:

Aside from the previous objection to this that Hoid is functionally immortal as well and not a Shard, I'd like to raise another: Do you really need to write a letter to a Shard? Wouldn't it be able to find out what you want to say without you writing it using a manner similar to Scadrial's piercings? Frost is a Dragon. He (he?) doesn't need to be a shard as well until and unless we have some positive evidence for that.