Unknown Shards and Opposition in the Cosmere

[Pagerunner]

I'd like to make a case for Justice being distinct from Honor. (And probably Mercy being distinct from Honor, as well.)

 

Users of a Shard's magic do not necessarily act according to their Shard's intent. You have people on Scadrial reusing spikes (Ruin's magic, acting according to Preservation). You have Vin throughout the second and third books (Preservation's magic, killing people according to Ruin). You have Awakeners hoarding breath (doesn't sound like Endowment to me). A Shard's intent is a property of itself - how that Shard acts. Yes, in some cases there might be a necessary response in its followers (say, Dominion), but a Shard's Intent can also have nothing to do with humans (Odium, trying to kill other Shards). So, just because the Skybreakers are concerned with justice doesn't mean that Justice is a facet of Honor. What does Honor have to do with "remembering those who are forgotten"? Or the secrets that Shallan is keeping, or the way that Lightweavers were renowned as making great pieces of art? The Knights Radiant aren't all representing aspects of Honor; only Kaladin has attracted an honorspren. (Well, and Dalinar has The Actual Honorspren.)

 

What does "Honor" actually mean? The technical definitions of a Shard's name aren't always the best indication of what that Shard means. Think of Devotion, which Brandon said he used to refer to as Love. Devotion and Love are two very different things, but somehow both could have been applied to the same Shard. So, instead of going on dictionary definitions of honor, let's look at how the Shard of Honor behaves, and see what piece of God it most closely resembles. I was leaning towards Self-Sacrifice for a while, that Honor might have given himself up to protect his system, but then I remembered some of the terminology in the books. Oathpact, Oathgates, Oathbringer... there are promises. I think Honor represents the part of God that makes and keeps promises.

 

Tangent alert: Flaws of Shards

When the Radiants broke their oaths, when the Heralds tried to dissolve the Oathpact, terrible things happened. It makes me think that Honor himself is bound by his oaths, and his ability to create them. He's the promise-making part of God, to the extent that he needs oaths and vows to interact with humanity. I think we've seen these Divine Flaws, problems in a Shard that come up because it lacks the context of Adonalsium, no other Shards to balance it out.

 

So, what are the Flaws in the Shards we've seen act? Most of these have been explained by myself and others up above, but I'll include them for cohesion's sake.

• Honor: a God who keeps promises. He needs to be bound by promises to interact with mankind.
• Odium: the God of the Second Commandment. (No other gods before me.) He seeks to destroy the other parts of God.
• Ruin: the God who brings things to an end at their proper time. Seeks to end everything.
• Preservation: Immutability, the God who does not change. He tries to keep anything from changing

What about the other Shards that we haven't seen act yet? What can we guess about their Intents and Flaws? These are stretching it a little bit more, since we haven't seen that much about how these Shards actually behaved.

• Dominion: a God who ordains priests and religious organization. Taken too far, you get the Crusades. (Fjordell Empire.)
• Devotion: a God of love. Not really sure how to take this to the extreme, though... doesn't seem like too much Love would be a flaw. Unless it's something like God only wants good things for you, and she's just here to give you whatever you want.
• Autonomy: a God who grants free will. Taken to the extreme, he's the God of Thomas Jeffereson - creates the world, then ignores it.
• Endowment: a God of second chances, sending people back to life to live again. She sends bad people back, sometimes.
• Cultivation: a God who has a plan for your life. In the extreme, she might be behind one or more Illuminati-style secret societies on Roshar.

So, then, what would flaws be for hypothetical Shards?

• Justice: a God who upholds the laws. Possibly periodically visiting minor Shardworlds to dispense Justice for their crimes. (Could be responsible for whatever happened on Threnody.)
• Tribulation: a God who tests his followers. This can very easily turn into giving too much testing.
• Knowledge: a God who seeks to know everything. This could be the hide-and-survive Shard; doesn't need to do anything, just sit back and watch what's happening.

 

What does Justice actually mean? People get what they deserve. To tie this to Honor, the laws of manking would have to be a compact with their God, the ways that they would live. However, if this is a world of absolute morality, where there are inherent laws, then no Oath is needed to make these laws; they exist apart from the Shard, and Justice is just acting upon them. The Shard of Honor makes agreements with people and acts according to that; the Shard of Justice gives to people what they have brought upon themselves.

[Khyrindor]

@Pagerunner, don't want to quote because of length, but I will respond. First of all, upvote for being so well thought out, even if I don't completely agree.

 

On Wisdom, I did include that, with its possible opposite being Arrogance, which would include egotism, self-glorifying, and even ignorance.

 

On Shards not relating to their magics, that is true, but I think you misjudged the powers from from Initiation. Firstly, we need to keep in mind (which I've been forgetting too) that the Knight Radiant Orders and Spren are on a sort of "slide scale" from Honor to Cultivation. Dalinar and Kaladin are more on the Honor side of the scale, and Lift and Shallan would be on the Cultivation side of the scale. The spren only come to those who exhibit behavior and values that line up with that spren's order. What you said above, that the powers don't reflect the Shard, is true; Changing gravity at will has nothing to do with Honor, however, gaining those powers requires you to follow values, and as you said above, give oaths.

 

I would argue that Endowment only Returns individuals whom she feels are worthy in the way that they died, which is what I remember from the book. You can only (originally) use Ruin's magic if you're willing to destroy someone in the hopes of gaining what they had, and you can only Snap when you've had a trauma, which seems to me a lot like "self preservation," in that you only Snap when you really need it.

 

On Justice, I would say it really is part of Honor. Consider a god saying to his people "Do not do this or you will be punished like this." He would then have made an oath or contract with them about a certain thing. Honorable people wouldn't do the thing which they aren't supposed to, and Dishonorable people get punished when they do. However, the Order of the Skybreakers is halfway between Honor and Cultivation, so I suppose it's possible for us to get a Justice Shard. I personally don't think it's likely though, as I suspect we will be seeing a ton about Justice and Mercy in Stormlight Archive. It would be redundant to make a Shard devoted to that, when that very aspect is created by combining Honor and Cultivation.

 

On Devotion/Love, yes they are different, but in the same way that Honor and Justice are different. Brandon has very carefully chosen his Shard's names, in that they all include a few different things. Devotion can include love. If you are wholeheartedly devoted to something, there is a very good chance that you love it. 

 

Keep in mind that WoB referenced a few times on the last page, which states that some Shards don't have exact opposites as Ruin and Preservation did. I take this to mean that, when combined, not all of these pairs would perfectly cancel each other out. I think that most people agree that Dominion and Autonomy are opposites. When combined, I feel like they would make the intent of a good ruler. Something like Democracy, perhaps. Like how the God of Christianity created man, and has Dominion over them, but since He loves them, he chooses to give them Free will. So, while opposite, they don't cancel out. Devotion; which includes Love, and Odium; which includes Hate, in my mind make good opposites, but not as closely as others, which is totally okay as per WoB.

 

All that said, You had a very well thought out post, and I like the bit about Shard flaws. I hadn't thought about that before. In "The Letter" they referenced Rayse to holding "God's own divine Hatred, separated from the virtues which gave it context." If Odium were combined with all the other Shards, it could be "The hatred of _____." Nice work  

[Spire]

Odium and devotion make more sense as opposites; hatred of all that is different versus commitment to something other than yourself.

 

Also, in my opinion, Endowment and Cultivation are opposites:

• Cultivation: Assisting something to grow naturally.
• Endowment: Granting something directly, i.e. not through natural growth

 

Which would leave Honor as the odd one out, for now.

[Khyrindor]

So, I just asked Brandon on the twitter chat if Odium and Devotion were opposites, and he replied that "an argument could be made for that to be the case" or along those lines. So I sarcastically asked if that was a RAFO. I don't know. This could imply that they aren't actual opposites, which could fuel the fire for an Honor/Odium pair, or imply that my theory has merit. Thanks for your half answer, Brandon.

[DrakeMarshall]

As far as I can see, the two most likely shards that have come up that are pure speculation are a shard of tribulation and a trickster shard. Both of these have clearly defined and possibly cosmic intents.

 

That being said, judging by Sanderson's response I am guessing that while some shards can be counterparts to each other, there is no rule that says that they have to be, or that all shards are paired. If one could make a decent case that they are counterparts, this implies that the idea of shard counterparts is really just a construct, not some law of adolnasium.

[Khyrindor]

As far as I can see, the two most likely shards that have come up that are pure speculation are a shard of tribulation and a trickster shard. Both of these have clearly defined and possibly cosmic intents.

 

That being said, judging by Sanderson's response I am guessing that while some shards can be counterparts to each other, there is no rule that says that they have to be, or that all shards are paired. If one could make a decent case that they are counterparts, this implies that the idea of shard counterparts is really just a construct, not some law of adolnasium.

 

This WoB would seem to contradict that:

 

CHAOS

Are Shards all paired? Does Endowment have a counterpart?

BRANDON SANDERSON

RAFO. Also, yes and no. Not all Shards have perfect counterparts like Ruin and Preservation.

QUESTION

Why were Ruin and Preservation linked together?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Because they're such perfect opposites. Basically it's just an opposites attract thing.

[emailanimal]

 

Tangent alert: Flaws of Shards

 

 I think you got Dominion and Endowment somewhat skewed.

 

 Dominion: a god of Control. Proscribes very specific rules by which his followers must live, and very specific punishments for disobeying them.  (starting religious cults is secondary - it is more of a "how this is done" thing).

 

 Endowment: a god(dess) of Gifting. She bestows upon every sentient being (every human) a Divine Gift, that enhances their life sense. This is her primary function. 

 

 I also don't think Cultivation is "having a plan for your life" (this is actually more of a Dominion).

 

 Cultivation: a god(dess) of creating conditions for life to flourish.  There is some level of control and design in the name "Cultivation", but I do not think it is as much a plan for life, as it is "let's see how you do under these circumstances".

[emailanimal]

So, I just asked Brandon on the twitter chat if Odium and Devotion were opposites, and he replied that "an argument could be made for that to be the case" or along those lines. So I sarcastically asked if that was a RAFO. I don't know. This could imply that they aren't actual opposites, which could fuel the fire for an Honor/Odium pair, or imply that my theory has merit. Thanks for your half answer, Brandon.

 

 This actually lends good support to my prior observation that a true opposite of Odium would've been the Shard holding "god's divine Love". Now, one way to interpret Brandon's response is:

 

 1. the Shard of Love does not exist

 2. Devotion *is* a close Intent to Love, the closest there is among the 16.

 3. Therefore, while these two are not direct opposites such as Ruin and Preservation, Devotion is the closest real opposite to Odium, there is among the Shards.

 

 I am going to stick with this theory until RAFOs or WoBs prove me wrong.

[DrakeMarshall]

This WoB would seem to contradict that:

 

Actually that is what I based my claim off of. Sounds like Sanderson is saying that while many shards do have oppositions, there is no formal rule that says they have to.

[Justice]

Hey all, first post, this type of topic is what got me out of lurker status.

 

I've personally been on the side of Justice as a combo of Honor and Odium for a while, though much of this topic has me reconsidering. Honor reflects upholding and maintaining values and agreements, and Odium reflects the incurring of the divine wrath of the enforcer of the agreement or originator of the value. These are not opposites. Instead they are intertwined in the idea of Justice.

 

That being said, Justice is not really a divine notion. It is a part of society. A society can be described as a contract between people, and a civilized society could be one where the basis of that contract is acting with honor. Break the contract and punishment is incurred. This is justice, but it lacks any form of divine wrath for breaking a promise. It should be impartial. It is simply the means by which a society can be maintained. This has all been said before, and I'm starting to agree with this position.

 

A shard that has not been mentioned here but that could encompass others mentioned is the idea of Grace. Grace is core to principles of christianity and includes notions of forgiveness, mercy, and love. It would be the true antithesis of divine wrath. The closest to grace in the known pantheon would probably be Endowment, in the form of bestowing blessings. This is only a small part of the idea of divine grace however.

 

Interested to hear your thoughts.

[DrakeMarshall]

It is certainly true that this could be a shard of adolnasium. Grace is absolutely regarded as a divine attribute.
Not sure how a shard of grace would act apart from the context of the others... Would be interesting I bet. Probably one of the nicer shards to meet.

[Khyrindor]

Actually that is what I based my claim off of. Sounds like Sanderson is saying that while many shards do have oppositions, there is no formal rule that says they have to.

 

I suppose that we agree then. Although I think Shard pairs are still mostly opposing, they won't cancel each other out as perfectly as Ruin and Preservation.

 

Hey all, first post, this type of topic is what got me out of lurker status.

 

I've personally been on the side of Justice as a combo of Honor and Odium for a while, though much of this topic has me reconsidering. Honor reflects upholding and maintaining values and agreements, and Odium reflects the incurring of the divine wrath of the enforcer of the agreement or originator of the value. These are not opposites. Instead they are intertwined in the idea of Justice.

 

That being said, Justice is not really a divine notion. It is a part of society. A society can be described as a contract between people, and a civilized society could be one where the basis of that contract is acting with honor. Break the contract and punishment is incurred. This is justice, but it lacks any form of divine wrath for breaking a promise. It should be impartial. It is simply the means by which a society can be maintained. This has all been said before, and I'm starting to agree with this position.

 

A shard that has not been mentioned here but that could encompass others mentioned is the idea of Grace. Grace is core to principles of christianity and includes notions of forgiveness, mercy, and love. It would be the true antithesis of divine wrath. The closest to grace in the known pantheon would probably be Endowment, in the form of bestowing blessings. This is only a small part of the idea of divine grace however.

 

Interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Welcome to the Shard, Justice, and have your first upvote! I thought of Grace too, but for some reason I dismissed it. If Devotion isn't the Shard opposing Odium, then Grace could be the one. 

[emailanimal]

Welcome to the Shard, Justice, and have your first upvote! I thought of Grace too, but for some reason I dismissed it. If Devotion isn't the Shard opposing Odium, then Grace could be the one. 

 

I suspect that just as Love is probably out of the question, so is Grace. Too close to Devotion.

 

Effectively, portions of Devotion and possibly Endowment would've formed Grace in an alternate Cosemere, where different 16 people we Shattering Adonalsium.

[Guy Srinivasan]

Meta: there are 16 Shards. Brandon planned things for a while before writing. He likes systems. I think some shards originally had different names (Odium = Hate, Devotion = Love)?

 

It's very likely he began with 8 pairs of near-opposites, and those morphed into the Intents we see today. Likely they started with simpler names. Like Love/Hate.

 

Meta: we see lots of cosmeric terms in the descriptions of Aons, including some Shards, some Surges, etc. Likely there are some unknown Intents in there.

 

So let's look!

 

Omi - Love - "Aon Omi would ... [make] actively maintaining a sense of hatred difficult."

Eshe - Gift, Endowment - maybe Gift was Endowment's original name

Mai - Honor

 

Other likely intents from the Aon meanings:

Punishment, Retribution

Justice

Mercy

Order (was this Preservation?)

Wisdom

Grace

Hope

Protection

Solemnity

Death

[emailanimal]

Meta: there are 16 Shards. Brandon planned things for a while before writing. He likes systems. I think some shards originally had different names (Odium = Hate, Devotion = Love)?

 

 

  But also meta: there are 16 individuals who took the Shards. The way Adonalsium split along the Intents was guided by the personalities and desires of those 16 individuals. Each took from Adonalsium what they consciously  or unconsciously wanted subject to constraints set forth by other 15 individuals.

 

So, are you certain that the 16 individuals were paired initially into eight  <Intent> - <Opposite Intent> pairs?  This is very difficult to pull off IRL, and would look highly artificially.

 

All of the Aon aspects you are listing are good candidates for possible Shards under alternative splits. For example Order+Protection is very close to Preservation. 

Edited February 3, 2016 by emailanimal

[PallonianFire]

I should mention that the reason I paired up Odium and Honor was due to their active intents (lowercase i) that we've seen. Honor loves bonds and binding people together, and Odium is all about breaking things (Shards).

[Guy Srinivasan]

The way Adonalsium split along the Intents was guided by the personalities and desires of those 16 individuals. Each took from Adonalsium what they consciously  or unconsciously wanted subject to constraints set forth by other 15 individuals.

 

Oh! I didn't know this. Did I misread WoB somewhere? I thought we just knew Adonalsium could have been split differently, not anything about why it split the way it did.

[emailanimal]

Oh! I didn't know this. Did I misread WoB somewhere? I thought we just knew Adonalsium could have been split differently, not anything about why it split the way it did.

 

Ok, so I should clarify that a bit.  Bands of Mourning introduced the notion of Connection. This notion is then expanded upon in the Secret History. Essentially, the idea is that in order to take a specific Shard, one must have Connection to it.

 

I believe, and this is NOT that big of a stretch, that the same was the case at the Shattering. The 16 individuals each had to have a Connection to a specific Intent of Adonalsium to take up a Shard.  We do not know what was the exact process of taking up Shards of Adonalsium once the Adonalsium Holder was dead. It could have been "16 people do it at the same  time", or "16 people do it one after another, with each next person getting a Shard from the leftovers from previous rounds".

 

 I think the former - 16 people simultaneously performing the taking of the power of God exercise is more likely. At that moment, the power needed to be split into 16 pieces. Think of 16 magnets attracting different aspects of the power. How this split happened appears to have been dependent largely on who these people were - their Souls.   Different people would've attracted the aspects of Adonalsium in  different combinations.  Different number of people would've meant the same.  To me that process - based on how Brandon phrased it in WoB, and based on what we know of Connection appears to be very volatile (with respect to who is taking the power). 

[Paragrin]

I had a thought. Cultivation vs. Perfection.

[KidWayne]

Keeping in mind that all shards are supposed to be the fractured attributes of a "capital-G" God...

 

---

I firmly think that the opposite of Endowment (i.e. giving away) would have to be one of these:

• Accumulation        • Restraint
• Condemnation      • Revocation
• Forfeiture              • Sacrifice
• Refusal                 • Separation
• Rejection              • Withdrawal
• Resignation

The opposite of Cultivation (i.e. thoughtful work intended to produce a desired result; also care, concern, attention, and culture/refinement) or would have to be one of these:

• Abandonment           • Lethargy
• Apathy                      • Neglect
• Deprecation              • Passivity
• Forgetfulness            • Punishment (I like this one!)
• Indifference               • Rejection
• Corruption [Ruin] (WoB pairs these two)

---

There are 16 shards and we know how Brandon likes to group the number 16 into four groups of four. The best I can come up with is this:

   A. CREATOR
        • Includes Preservation and Ruin
        • May include Endowment and/or Cultivation
        • Potential unknown shard(s):
            ○ Corruption/Destruction
            ○ Abandonment/Neglect
   B. ULTIMATE AUTHORITY (KING OF KINGS)
        • Includes Autonomy & Dominion
        • May include Honor
        • Potential unknown shard(s):
            ○ Wisdom/Knowledge
            ○ Condemnation/Punishment
            ○ Perfection
   C. MERCIFUL FATHER
        • Includes Devotion
        • May include Honor, Cultivation, and/or Endowment
        • Potential unknown shard(s): ???
   D. DIVINE JUDGE / AVENGER OF EVIL
        • Includes Odium
        • May include Autonomy (an independent Judiciary is important after all)
        • Potential unknown shard(s):
            ○ Justice
            ○ Vengeance
            ○ Tribulation
            ○ Wisdom/Knowledge
            ○ Condemnation/Punishment

[Irkutsk]

But also meta: there are 16 individuals who took the Shards. The way Adonalsium split along the Intents was guided by the personalities and desires of those 16 individuals. Each took from Adonalsium what they consciously or unconsciously wanted subject to constraints set forth by other 15 individuals.

So, are you certain that the 16 individuals were paired initially into eight <Intent> - <Opposite Intent> pairs? This is very difficult to pull off IRL, and would look highly artificially.

All of the Aon aspects you are listing are good candidates for possible Shards under alternative splits. For example Order+Protection is very close to Preservation.

The letter says that "Ati (Ruin's holder) was once a kind and generous man," at least before he held Ruin, so Shardic Intents weren't entirely guided by the desires of their original holders. However, we also have WoB that not all shards are paired into exactly opposite intents like Ruin and preservation. I think it must be some mixture of Adolnasium's personality traits as well as those of humans in general, the intents of the holders, and/or some kind of "Cosmic balance." It's hard to make a judgement without more info

I almost feel that we are reading too deeply into this, and that Shardic Intents might not follow any kind of structure or reason at all. Time will tell.

[emailanimal]

The letter says that "Ati (Ruin's holder) was once a kind and generous man," at least before he held Ruin, so Shardic Intents weren't entirely guided by the desires of their original holders. However, we also have WoB that not all shards are paired into exactly opposite intents like Ruin and preservation. I think it must be some mixture of Adolnasium's personality traits as well as those of humans in general, the intents of the holders, and/or some kind of "Cosmic balance." It's hard to make a judgement without more info

I almost feel that we are reading too deeply into this, and that Shardic Intents might not follow any kind of structure or reason at all. Time will tell.

 

 

This is not necessarily my own theory, but someone else on the site expressed an idea that Ati was a bit of a revolutionary. This is not such a bad idea.

 

 

Kelsier could not take up Preservation without the magical McGuffin orb he had to steal, but he could take Ruin any time. Whether the words "kind and generous" are applicable to him is a separate question, but arguments can be made that throughout book 1 he demonstrated both kindness and generousity towards others.

 

 

Even beyond that there may be a large number of reasons why a kind and generous person may be able to take up Ruin. A self-destructive person can be kind and generous to others, but cutting veins in the privacy of own bathroom.  A kind and generous person may want to take up a Shard responsible for desctruction, because what they want to destroy is an evil thing.

 

Hoid's words simply specify what kind of man Ati was, NOT what his motives were.

[ZenBossanova]

First time posting here,

 

I thought I remembered a WoB about Ashyn having a shard of Self-contradiction, when talking about The Silence Divine. I was unable to find it, but I did find this. 

 

If a Shard ruled Talents (Alcatraz), what would the Shard be? Betrayal, or inner self-contradiction, people contradicting themselves in some way.

 

That is not proof of such a shard, but it is highly suggestive. 

 

Then there is that something Hoid said, about spending a year being digested. I don't know about any shard that could correspond to. Perhaps, there is a shard of Consumption, or Hunger? 

 

I do like the idea of Honor+Odium = Justice

That would be a great end to the Stormlight Archive. 

[sh3nahz]

i was reading this thread and was thinking in most religion in our world there is an aspect of god being all knowing,wise, benevolent, having forsight (seeing back and fourth in time),In eastern religions the idea is slighlty differnt butto the same affect that we seek the path of moksha,nirvana,joining ourself to the greater power through spirital enlightenment, ascendancy and apotheosis. therefore i think omnipotence would be a good candidate for a intent