Theory: The Principle of Intent

[Chaos he/him]

I've been to intimidated to do so until now as it is huge.

You think this is long? This is a measly 1900 words! My grandest is 7300, in talking about Hero of Ages XD

(I'm insane)

But I'm glad you liked the theory!

[ZeldaDad he/him]

I think I'll save that one for another rainy day at work.

[Chaos he/him]

I think I'll save that one for another rainy day at work.

You think a day will be long enough?

[ZeldaDad he/him]

Haha, it might not indeed. But I don't know, I don't really do anything at work so... it's possible.

[Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him]

Haha, it might not indeed. But I don't know, I don't really do anything at work so... it's possible.

I want your job.

[lordofsoup]

I don't really understand Roshar. It just doesnt seem like the type of world Cultivation would inhabit. Shinovar perhaps, but when I think of cultivation, I think stuff growing everywhere, boundless fields of green. Live stuff, not rocks. Unless rocks on Roshar are alive... kind of like coral.

[Chaos he/him]

I don't really understand Roshar. It just doesnt seem like the type of world Cultivation would inhabit. Shinovar perhaps, but when I think of cultivation, I think stuff growing everywhere, boundless fields of green. Live stuff, not rocks. Unless rocks on Roshar are alive... kind of like coral.

I agree. There's so much we don't understand.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Maybe there's a reason Odium doesn't seem to have gone after Cultivation yet. She's weakened somehow? Or maybe he already has gone after her.

[Puck he/him]

I don't really understand Roshar. It just doesnt seem like the type of world Cultivation would inhabit. Shinovar perhaps, but when I think of cultivation, I think stuff growing everywhere, boundless fields of green. Live stuff, not rocks. Unless rocks on Roshar are alive... kind of like coral.

See, I took all of the data as strong proof that Cultivation is there. Under any other circumstances, a planet whose face is regularly ravaged by storms that severe wouldn't have anything growing on the surface. Oh sure, there would be life in the oceans, but microbes at best on the land. The fact that there is such a lush and vibrant flora is evidence that there is some active Cultivator. That's just how I read things

[happyman he/him]

Actually, I agree with Puck. The world of Roshar is actually quite vibrant with an enormous variety of life. The fact that it survives, and even thrives, under such extreme conditions probably indicates that magic of some sort is keeping things alive. The fact that things thrive in water from Highstorms may actually be a part of this.

[Brucelet]

Been lurking for a while, but I thought I'd toss in a quote from Way of Kings that seems to support this theory. On page 307 (toward the end of Chapter 19) in one of Dalinar's visions, the Almighty has the line,

"Act with honor, and honor will aid you."

It seems quite reasonable that this line actually refers to capital-H Honor, in which case it's an endorsement of the Principle of Intent. The Almighty is telling Dalinar to act with honor, so that he will be able to use the powers of Honor.

[Chaos he/him]

Actually, I agree with Puck. The world of Roshar is actually quite vibrant with an enormous variety of life. The fact that it survives, and even thrives, under such extreme conditions probably indicates that magic of some sort is keeping things alive. The fact that things thrive in water from Highstorms may actually be a part of this.

I've thought about this for a while, and I now completely agree with this sentiment.

Been lurking for a while, but I thought I'd toss in a quote from Way of Kings that seems to support this theory. On page 307 (toward the end of Chapter 19) in one of Dalinar's visions, the Almighty has the line,

"Act with honor, and honor will aid you."

It seems quite reasonable that this line actually refers to capital-H Honor, in which case it's an endorsement of the Principle of Intent. The Almighty is telling Dalinar to act with honor, so that he will be able to use the powers of Honor.

Hi Brucelet! Glad you could join us in our humble abode.

I really like that quote, that's great you've found it. Seems like a clear representation of the Principle of Intent.

I like you already, haha.

[Elwynn]

First off, this is kind of long.

Second, I agree with a lot of what chaos is saying. I'm just posting this b/c everyone seems to agree/espouse, and I wanted to carry on the discussion. Just going to jump right in with my problems with this theory. I tried to build the ideas as you read down, but that didn't go as well as I'd have liked.

Devil's advocate ftw!

The Principle of Intent

You are going to love this theory. I guarantee it.

I was reading Andrew's article the other day, and that got me thinking about what makes magic work on a fundamental level in the cosmere. This will be somewhat of a rebuttal to you, Andrew, because this direction is far more fruitful. But it's much more than a rebuttal. In my opinion, this is quite a paradigm shift.

In any given Shardworld, magic is directly tied to a Shard. Everyone has pieces of Shards inside them. In Mistborn, everyone has fragments of Ruin and Preservation inside them. In Warbreaker, everyone has Breath. It's not unimaginable to think that this generalizes for any Shardworld, so I'm going to assume that always holds. In order to use Allomancy, you need to have "enough" Preservation in you. There's other stuff you need, too, like Snapping, but we'll discuss that later; it's not important anyways. The only real requirement for Allomancy is that you have enough Preservation. The rest is just book-keeping. And likewise, for Awakening, you need Breath, a fragment of Endowment.

I think you're forgetting that Ati and Leras created human life on Scadrial (Scadrial?), Leras pulling a gambit for several things, but specifically to put more preservation in us than ruin. So, yes. Everyone has pieces of ruin and preservation, but this isn't the case on Nalthis or Sel. At least...we don't know that they created life on those planets, and since there's reason to suspect mankind existed in Adonalsium's day, it couldn't hold true for every population of human-like beings. There wouldn't be pieces of the shards inside them, influencing things like ruin and preservation.

Imo, things like Breath are the influence over time that the shard's uniqueness has on a population, a warping--an evolution of thier dna from being so close to "god" powers. (In fact, I thought this was said by BS somewhere...but I can't get on the brandonothology right now. Keeps saying some script is slowing the page, and will stop running. Keeps spamming this message no matter what I choose. Anyone else having this problem?)

No real conclusion here, just don't agree with the "everyone on a shardworld has pieces of the shard in them(heavily paraphrased)." It still supports your intent theory, rather in a changing-warping-evolution kind of way from being around us so much, instead of us having pieces of the shard.

So here's a question: why is Awakening different from Allomancy? Before you go saying this is a totally obvious question, let me remind you that there are distinct differences between Awakening and Allomancy. Awakeners never need to Snap, though Allomancers do (and the Shaod is sort of similar to Snapping, too, in a way). We want to discover the fundamental rules of how magic operates, right? So the question about the difference between Awakening and Allomancy isn't so dumb.

Now that I've made the question sound important, let me completely trivialize it with the easy answer: they are different because the Shards are different. Duh. That's fairly obvious. But in fact, this is precisely the key to understanding all magic.

My principle is simple: To interact with the spiritual power of the Shard inside you, it must be in accordance with the Shard's intent. (That is, the name of the Shard. Ruin. Preservation. Endowment. It is what the Shard wants to do. Look at the bottom here for that reference.) I'm going to call it the Principle of Intent, simply because that makes it sound important. Now I simply have to show you how important this principle is.

I pretty much agree, except of course for the, "...spiritual power of the Shard inside you,..."

Let's say that Breath is the Nalthis equivalent of those fragments of Ruin and Preservation on Scadrial. These latent powers of a Shard can be accessed and manipulated. With Preservation's magic, I can do lots of cool things, but one thing I can't do is move that fragment of the soul around. But, I could do such a thing if I was using the right magic system. On Nalthis, Endowment endows. It makes perfect sense that Awakening can move pieces of souls around, because that's Endowment's intent. Indeed, I can do similar things with Hemalurgy, because it is inherently destructive. Ruin ruins. Endowment endows. Preservation preserves.

This is where you start to lose me. I'm not really sure what you mean by, "...those fragments of ruin and preservation on scadrial." You mean the effects that allow them to use the metals right? But that is just an effect of Leras giving them more preservation, and the basis/existance of the 3 metallic arts.

What I mean is...Awakening doesn't require a piece of a shard at all (imo), the Divine Breath, the one you get from Returning, that is having a piece of endowment--like having preservation. Awakening would then just be the effect over time that a Shard has on a population--changing them. Bah, this isn't even making sense to me. I tried to explain it again a couple paragraphs down.

"But wait, why does Allomancy cause such rapid changes if it's from Preservation? That seems antithetical to Preservation's intent." There was a thread about this on Adonalsium.net, actually, and I couldn't come up with a proper explanation. Now I can. Watch closely, because this is fancy footwork. Think, for a moment, less about the external effects of Allomancy. Brandon's said that powers don't need to have rational explanations, just that they are bound by rules. Is there any particular reason why iron does the Physical Internal power rather than pewter? No, and that's okay.

Instead, let's consider what happens to that piece of Preservation inside you when you utilize Allomancy. Awakening moves spiritual energy, or endows it to something else. This doesn't happen with Preservation. There ought to be some reason why Preservation provides a net gain of energy with Allomancy instead of Awakening's system, and there indeed is.

Okay, let's try again. Short and sweet. Allomancy has a net gain because there's more preservation in us. Endowment does produce a net gain, but not with Awakening, only with Divine Breath's. That quality breath that catapults you through the levels all the way to the 5th heightening (I think). Awakening=no piece of Shard. Everyone has a breath, but not everyone can sense or see them. You see? It's the way they have grown and reacted to Endowment, being able to give away breaths/pieces of soul...but, first you have to compile breath's on top of each other to reach a comparative simulation of having a piece of endowment--a Divine Breath.

This is terrible...I suck at explaining thoughts, sorry.

Preservation does preserve, it just preserves the piece of Preservation inside you (and for that matter, every aspect of your body. There is no direct physical cost to Allomancy in the act of burning metals). When you think about it from a Shard level, each Shard has a focus. Ruin and Preservation share a focus in metal. This metal activates some spiritual action, I'd imagine. Lock and key. The metal is the key to all the Metallic Arts. The metal must do something with respect to Preservation, and what's it going to do? With the Principle of Intent, that fragment of Preservation inside you wants to preserve itself, its spiritual energy. It also wants to preserve yourself. So, the only place it receive energy from is some external source, in order to preserve your own energy.

Slight side note: Another issue with Allomancy and its net gain is the idea that if Preservation "designed" Allomancy--though that term is a bit misleading, as I suspect no Shard explicitly could design something like that--he's losing energy. That's not true. The Well of Ascension refills every thousand years (technically, 1024 years). Utilizing it doesn't make it go away. Burning atium also regenerates eventually in the Pits of Hathsin. Likewise, there's no reason why this Allomantic energy actually goes away. It regenerates, too.

Preservation IS losing power/energy by fueling allomancy/giving them more preservation (I often equate the two, sorry if that's confusing). Allowing that net gain, that cognitive development that makes humans special, he had to sacrifice himself to prove to ruin that he could eventually win. This goes along with response on next paragraph.

Wait a minute. I just got the most brilliant idea ever as I wrote that. Brandon said that Preservation or Ruin could, in principle, fuel any of the Metallic Arts, but he said that it expends power in ways gods are hesitant to do (I can't find the citation right now, but I think it's in the Hero of Ages spoiler thread). Why would it expend energy? Doesn't it all regenerate? No, I think not. Not exclusively. What if a Shard's power only regenerates when the Shard is doing something according to the Shard's intent? Atium is of Ruin, and so using that energy with respect to Ruining something will make it regenerate. The Well put Rashek into severe Preservation mode, making him extremely reactionary. So in a roundabout way, that again is Preservation. That kind of explains why dispersing the power broke Ruin's prison--it was an act not of Preservation, so the power wasn't conserved. Also, if this was true, it makes a heck of a lot more sense why Endowment Returns people, and why he isn't dead from doing so. The power all comes back eventually.

Hhmmmm...I like some of this. But I think you're missing something. The powers can't regenerate when ONLY used towards the intent of the shard. When Vin uses atium to escape the guards and inquisitors (first book)...I don't think she hurts or kills anyone. She preserves herself. So does that mean that bit of atium she used didn't regenerate? Likewise with Kelsier showing her how it works. I don't think the body of ruin dissipated at all after these events. So, that's the body of ruin--being used to fuel allomancy, with no destructive effects. It wouldn't regenerate under guidelines of the principle.

Instead, I think BS is referring to exactly what Leras did. Powering one of the other metallic arts expends power in unsavory ways because you must seperate it from yourself, more specifically--you have to seperate it from the shard itself. Then you can use the raw energy/power for anything. Leras snatched the body of ruin, and used it to power allomancy, effectively hiding it from him.

Ahem, that got off track. I'll build that theory in more detail, with better citations, later. Back to the Principle of Intent, with respect to the other Metallic Arts. It's been noted in the annotations that Ruin is selfish. So, fragments of its power wouldn't want to destroy itself, but it is perfectly okay with destroying other things. Hence Hemalurgy doesn't do much to yourself, and instead destroys other things. To use the analogy with Preservation, Preservation preserves spiritual energy, while Ruin destroys spiritual energy. I suspect that the greater amount of Ruin inside you, the more likely to perform Hemalurgy, however.

Okay, I'm starting to feel like a big nitpicker. I love you chaos, been reading your theories since twg hemalurgy thread right after WoA came out. I hope I'm not coming off as an a-hole.

But...I kind of disagree. Not with the overall statement, but parts.

Hemalurgy does A LOT to the person. I'd say it destroys the person more than it does anything else. It destroys the minds AND bodies of people spiked in extremely drastic ways. The more spikes, the more destruction of the self.

Oh, and you can't have "more ruin," so to say, than others until you've already been spiked. Unless you're talking about the mentally unstable, as those kinds of people could be argued to produce far more destruction than anything else.

So why does Feruchemy work? Well, it's perfect balance. I can't utilize the power of either Ruin or Preservation here. They are balanced. I can't use either power up now. Were I to use or "access" the Shard's powers, they'd cancel each other out, so to speak. Nothing happens on the spiritual side of things (Okay, that's probably not true. It's just no spiritual energy is changed. I'm sure on some Realmatic level, both Ruin and Preservation act equally) So what happens if not doing something with spiritual energy? I draw from myself. This fits the Principle of Intent just fine.

My problem with this, in relation to the principle overall, is it's very similar to Awakening, which is not the principle of Endowment. And as far as we know, has no opposing shard to balance/cancel it out if anyone tries to access it. But, like feruchemy, there is no spiritual energy destroyed in awakening objects, though it could be lost under certain circumstances. But for Awakening alone, not returning, there is no spiritual energy transfer. Also, you still have more preservation than ruin in humans on scadrial, and feruchemy developing similarly. That's not very organized, how about this:

Feruchemy would have developed on scadrial even if they didn't have ruin and preservation inside them, similar to awakening happening over time on Nalthis. It's the side effect of the shards, the interaction over time. This is why, even though they have more preservation than ruin, feruchemy developed among the population far more prominently and potently than even allomancy. Because it is a balance of the two, and the people already have both aspects of the shards on scardial as a piece of them. This becomes additive of the influence of the shards on that world upon the humans. It simply quickens feruchemical development among the people of scadrial.

You may be wondering why there'd be such a principle at all. Sazed could do all sorts of things when he held both powers. The difference here is that the body acts as a conduit--and not a very good one--for the power. Only once Vin's body vanished did the power become more expansive. I suspect this effect is due to the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms. When a Shard's power is in a physical form, it does one specific thing (lerasium, atium). The Physical Realm seems to have a restricting effect. Thus, for humans, they access the power in their Shards in a more restrictive manner simply by being human. That's why the Principle of Intent appears to hold. Of course, even as a full Shardholder, the same principle applies eventually. The Shardholder's mind would be shaped to the Shard's intent over the centuries. Furthermore, Brandon said that Preservation or Ruin could, in principle fuel any of Metallic Arts, but he said that that expends power in ways gods are hesitant to do. Presumably, this is because while a Shard is a part of the power of creation and can do lots of amazing things, the Shard can more easily do things in line with its intent. Or, if I was right about the conservation thing, it's that a Shard knows the power will come back eventually. A Shardholder's consciousness apparently "feeds" off the spiritual power of the Shard, so if that power is all gone, that person dies.

Imo, only strengthens my argument that Leras did what BS was referring to with the "expending power in hesitant ways." We know that shardholders have to do what is in line with the shards name/intent from Ati reference in WoK, so when Leras wanted to change that, he did. He went against the intent of his shard, but it cost a shardholder, a god, his life.

Doesn't really mean much to the magic system part of the priciple of intent.

Maybe you're not buying my principle. Don't believe me? Well, no theory is good unless it has some predictive power, so let's do some theorizing on other magics. I'd like to work with Elantris, but I don't know either Aona or Skai's Shard name, so it's going to be challenging to know just what they do. But Stormlight Archive is the perfect testing ground for a theory. We know all the Rosharian Shard's names, and there's a bunch of magic systems that don't exactly make sense.

I began pondering what exactly would Honor--the Almighty's Shard--do. Knowing the answer to this would give an intuitive understanding to the mechanism of his magic. But Honor is hard to pin down. Ruin ruins... Honor honors stuff. That's, uh, super helpful.

But you know what's really honorable? Oaths. Promises. Bonds. Oathpact. Surgebinder. Peter said on TWG that a Surge is what people on Roshar call a force (I'd assume things like gravity). Surge, plus a bond with a spren? Surgebinders. Congratulations, you are now a magic user. Honor's power comes from oaths and bonds. Perhaps it creates a spiritual bond of sorts. That's what Honor does.

There was also the question of what happened to Kaladin at the end of Way of Kings. He spoke the Second Ideal of the Knights Radiant, then he burst with power. Seems to me that this near unequivocal evidence that Honor uses these oaths in a specifc, magical way.

Can't argue much there. We just know so little about WoK right now.

Then there's good old Szeth. How is he a Surgebinder if he doesn't have a spren? I'm not totally sure, but perhaps his strong oaths as a Truthless provides the sufficient bond for Honor's magic to work. Maybe there does exist a spren. Either way, those oaths are intricately tied with Szeth's Radiant powers. So, I'm calling it right now: if Szeth breaks his oaths, he will lose his powers.

Okay, going off topic a little, I just get really intrigued with anything relating to Szeth. I've been working through a pet theory that involves Szeth's problems stemming from his culture and oaths. Long story short it involves his second set of radiant powers being the same sort that Shallan has exhibited. Though through his oaths and life in general, he has no secrets, no truths to tell. Thus, he's truthless. He can't access those spren. Positioning of the glyphs, and his lack of spren is destroying anything I've worked up on it so far. But I will post if I can ever squeeze something credible out of it.

I read a little bit of Way of Kings today, and I had forgotten that Jasnah said that two orders of the Knights Radiant have natural Soulcasting abilities. Now, recall that in the 17th Shard interview with Brandon, he said that there are ten powers (it seems to be ten Surges is the technical term), and you make an order of the Knights Radiant by picking from two of those Surges. I never realized before, but that must mean Soulcasting is a type of Surgebinding. That's kind of a scary implication. We've seen, what, Windrunners and Soulcasters, and there are ten more powers? Plenty more magic systems to go around, clearly.

Ahh, one of my main reasons for believing shards affect people, on that world, naturally over time. As opposed to pieces always being inside people and forcing their magic system according to name/intent. I don't think it likely ten different pieces of ten different shards are randomly paired up inside the people of roshar. I just can't wait till we know more.

But a more detailed analysis of Stormlight Archive magics is for another day, I think. Other theories for other days.

That's about it. Man am I chatty today.

Great job chaos, so much easier to criticize than create. I think several things you mention will be of vital importance in the future.

[Zas678 he/him]

One quick thing- one reason we believe there were humans before Adonalsium is because- the shards used to be people. They have physical characteristics that are distinct, and Hoid remembers Ati being a nice person before he was a shard. Also, they all had to have something to base their own humans off of.

[Chaos he/him]

Holy crap! Dissenting viewpoints! Excellent, I’ve been waiting for this.

I’d like to first say, welcome to the 17th Shard theory club. I’m glad someone is giving me some crap. If I come off as a little harsh, it’s because I’m tired. I don’t think I was harsh in this post, but uh, if so, I’m warning you now!

Really, thank you for critiquing me. Critique keeps us all honest.

I’m going to go through your comments, though I don’t talk about a couple because I don’t have anything to say about them.

I think you're forgetting that Ati and Leras created human life on Scadrial (Scadrial?), Leras pulling a gambit for several things, but specifically to put more preservation in us than ruin. So, yes. Everyone has pieces of ruin and preservation, but this isn't the case on Nalthis or Sel. At least...we don't know that they created life on those planets, and since there's reason to suspect mankind existed in Adonalsium's day, it couldn't hold true for every population of human-like beings. There wouldn't be pieces of the shards inside them, influencing things like ruin and preservation.

Imo, things like Breath are the influence over time that the shard's uniqueness has on a population, a warping--an evolution of thier dna from being so close to "god" powers. (In fact, I thought this was said by BS somewhere...but I can't get on the brandonothology right now. Keeps saying some script is slowing the page, and will stop running. Keeps spamming this message no matter what I choose. Anyone else having this problem?)

No real conclusion here, just don't agree with the "everyone on a shardworld has pieces of the shard in them(heavily paraphrased)." It still supports your intent theory, rather in a changing-warping-evolution kind of way from being around us so much, instead of us having pieces of the shard.

Okay, granted, we don’t know that Endowment or the Selian Shards created life. This is a valid argument, and brings up an interesting question.

But, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they did. If their worlds’ respective Shards did not create life, that would imply one of two things: 1. a different Shard(s) created life there, 2. life existed there, pre-Shattering. I don’t think those cases are likely. In the first case, Brandon would’ve mentioned that we’ve seen the influence of over Shards on those planets, and I believe we’ve successfully deciphered Brandon’s cryptic words about four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation.

I guess it’s possible for there to have existed life on those planets previously, but there’s no evidence supporting this theory.

If it makes you feel better, maybe Endowment could just “endow” things with life? Therefore, it would be perfectly possible for Endowment to create.

I think our disagreement on this fundamental idea influences most of your arguments, so I’m just going to leave it here, rather than beat it with a dead horse. Like I said, this is a very interesting question to be asking.

This is where you start to lose me. I'm not really sure what you mean by, "...those fragments of ruin and preservation on scadrial." You mean the effects that allow them to use the metals right? But that is just an effect of Leras giving them more preservation, and the basis/existance of the 3 metallic arts.

What I mean is...Awakening doesn't require a piece of a shard at all (imo), the Divine Breath, the one you get from Returning, that is having a piece of endowment--like having preservation. Awakening would then just be the effect over time that a Shard has on a population--changing them. Bah, this isn't even making sense to me. I tried to explain it again a couple paragraphs down.

What I mean by the fragments of Ruin and Preservation is just the spiritual aspects that those Shards gave to things. Some people have lots of Preservation in them, some people have less so, but they exist and they are real. It’s a power separate from the Metallic Arts. Just because you aren’t an Allomancer doesn’t mean you don’t have some amount of Preservation in you (wow, that was a lot of negatives).

I said “fragment of Preservation” because people don’t hold all of Preservation Just a part of it.

Awakening doesn’t require a piece of a Shard? I will have to vehemently disagree with that. Breath are required for Awakening, and we only see Breath in relation to things with Endowment. I hardly think it’s a stretch to say Breath are of Endowment. Meaning they are a “piece” of Endowment. Does that make sense?

Magic relates to a Shard. We don’t see people on Scadrial Awakening, because it requires Endowment to work in the first place.

Regardless of whether Breaths come from an ambient process of Endowment influencing the people, that still means you needed Endowment’s power to get the Breath in the first place. Therefore, Breath are of Endowment.

Certainly the Divine Breath are of Endowment, too, but from a different effect.

Splitting this next one into two parts.

Okay, let's try again. Short and sweet. Allomancy has a net gain because there's more preservation in us.

I don’t understand this statement.

Endowment does produce a net gain, but not with Awakening, only with Divine Breath's. That quality breath that catapults you through the levels all the way to the 5th heightening (I think). Awakening=no piece of Shard. Everyone has a breath, but not everyone can sense or see them. You see? It's the way they have grown and reacted to Endowment, being able to give away breaths/pieces of soul...but, first you have to compile breath's on top of each other to reach a comparative simulation of having a piece of endowment--a Divine Breath.

Well, from a stupidly easy standpoint, to that cloth you just Awakened, it “gained” energy. But I see your point. You’re just moving energy around that already existed. I could phrase that better for sure.

I don’t think we should say that the Divine Breath inherently created a net gain. It’s not really the magic system’s fault, it’s a function of Endowment.

As for the bold part, I don’t understand what you are saying well enough to discuss it But that’s okay, it’s not like we’re going anywhere.

Preservation IS losing power/energy by fueling allomancy/giving them more preservation (I often equate the two, sorry if that's confusing). Allowing that net gain, that cognitive development that makes humans special, he had to sacrifice himself to prove to ruin that he could eventually win. This goes along with response on next paragraph.

I’d need to see some evidence that Preservation did, in fact, weaken himself due to his fueling of Allomancy. I’m reading the epigraphs to see if there was an explicit mention of this.

Okay, finished reading the epigraphs, and there is no mention--explicit or implied--that Allomancy contributed to Preservation being weaker than Ruin. There’s precious little on the subject.

That tiny bit seemed inconsequential, compared with their total vast sums of power. However, over aeons, this tiny flaw would allow Ruin to overcome Preservation, thereby bringing an end to the world.

The prison Preservation created for Ruin was not created out of Preservation's power, though it was of Preservation. Rather, Preservation sacrificed his consciousness—one could say his mind—to fabricate that prison. He left a shadow of himself, but Ruin, once escaped, began to suffocate and isolate this small remnant vestige of his rival. I wonder if Ruin ever thought it strange that Preservation had cut himself off from his own power, relinquishing it and leaving it in the world, to be gathered and used by men.

Just a few quotes for you

Hemalurgy does A LOT to the person. I'd say it destroys the person more than it does anything else. It destroys the minds AND bodies of people spiked in extremely drastic ways. The more spikes, the more destruction of the self.

Oh, and you can't have "more ruin," so to say, than others until you've already been spiked. Unless you're talking about the mentally unstable, as those kinds of people could be argued to produce far more destruction than anything else.

But Hemalurgy doesn’t do anything to the person who performed the spiking. That’s what I was referring to.

My problem with this, in relation to the principle overall, is it's very similar to Awakening, which is not the principle of Endowment. And as far as we know, has no opposing shard to balance/cancel it out if anyone tries to access it. But, like feruchemy, there is no spiritual energy destroyed in awakening objects, though it could be lost under certain circumstances. But for Awakening alone, not returning, there is no spiritual energy transfer. Also, you still have more preservation than ruin in humans on scadrial, and feruchemy developing similarly. That's not very organized, how about this:

Feruchemy would have developed on scadrial even if they didn't have ruin and preservation inside them, similar to awakening happening over time on Nalthis. It's the side effect of the shards, the interaction over time. This is why, even though they have more preservation than ruin, feruchemy developed among the population far more prominently and potently than even allomancy. Because it is a balance of the two, and the people already have both aspects of the shards on scardial as a piece of them. This becomes additive of the influence of the shards on that world upon the humans. It simply quickens feruchemical development among the people of scadrial.

Whoa, there are a lot of claims here. Let me try and dissect some.

Firstly, not all Shards need another Shard to balance or cancel it out. Also, I don’t understand what you mean with “My problem with this, in relation to the principle overall, is it's very similar to Awakening, which is not the principle of Endowment.” (Maybe Awakening just works because it follows this Principle )

As for more Preservation than Ruin in people, yeah, the Feruchemy explanation doesn’t quite hold. If this was how it worked, you couldn’t be both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, when obviously you can. You’ve got me. This is a flaw I’ve identified a bit ago, and I don’t know how to reconcile it.

I disagree about the evolution of abilities, so I’ll have that later stuff alone. However, Feruchemy didn’t evolve over time; in fact, it was the oldest of the Metallic Arts. Or, at least the oldest of them.

Ahh, one of my main reasons for believing shards affect people, on that world, naturally over time. As opposed to pieces always being inside people and forcing their magic system according to name/intent. I don't think it likely ten different pieces of ten different shards are randomly paired up inside the people of roshar. I just can't wait till we know more.

Well, I think you misunderstand a little. The Principle applies to how the magic operates, as in, the inner mechanics of it. We shouldn’t use it to predict individual powers of Allomancy or Feruchemy, because we can’t. I consider the ten aspects of Surgebinding to be like Allomancy in that regard. So, there wouldn’t need to be ten different pieces of ten different Shards, because, naturally, there are not ten Shards on Roshar.

[Zas678 he/him]

Awakening doesn’t require a piece of a Shard? I will have to vehemently disagree with that. Breath are required for Awakening, and we only see Breath in relation to things with Endowment. I hardly think it’s a stretch to say Breath are of Endowment. Meaning they are a “piece” of Endowment. Does that make sense?

Magic relates to a Shard. We don’t see people on Scadrial Awakening, because it requires Endowment to work in the first place.

Regardless of whether Breaths come from an ambient process of Endowment influencing the people, that still means you needed Endowment’s power to get the Breath in the first place. Therefore, Breath are of Endowment.

Certainly the Divine Breath are of Endowment, too, but from a different effect.

See, I side with Elwynn on this one. I think that Breaths, rather than being a part of Endowment, are a result of Endowment's interaction with the planet. A side effect, you might say.I believe that Endowment (probably) created them, but that the Breaths come from the people themselves. After all, it seems like the normal everyday people have no extra capacity in regards to color or music or other Breath blessings.

No, I think the reason why the Principle allows for Breaths is that it allows the people to Endow themselves on others. Does that make sense?

So Endowment isn't giving them the Breaths. He's given them the ability to give their own Breaths. And that ability could be something extra that he gave. But I bet it just happens because of how each person is spiritually close to Endowment.

You know how in MB, Lerasium doesn't really make Mistborn? Instead it brings people closer to Preservation, and that association gives them the ability to become Mistborn. The snappings merely take that bit of inherent Preservation and "fan it" to make mistings.

I believe that every person in Nalthis (WB world) has that basic connection to Endowment, and that that basic connection is enough to be able to Endow your own Breath upon others.

I do, however, believe that Endowment is giving something of herself when she gives Divine Breaths to make returned. (Why female? It feels right. And Austere is female)

[Chaos he/him]

Interesting way to think about it, Zas. I'm not sure I go for it yet, but it's given me something to toss around in my mind.

[Elwynn]

Alright, turned this into an explanation of views more than anything. Tried to make it build to the end, again though...don't think I'm very good at it.

Holy crap! Dissenting viewpoints! Excellent, I’ve been waiting for this.

I’d like to first say, welcome to the 17th Shard theory club. I’m glad someone is giving me some crap. If I come off as a little harsh, it’s because I’m tired. I don’t think I was harsh in this post, but uh, if so, I’m warning you now!

Really, thank you for critiquing me. Critique keeps us all honest.

I’m going to go through your comments, though I don’t talk about a couple because I don’t have anything to say about them.

Okay, granted, we don’t know that Endowment or the Selian Shards created life. This is a valid argument, and brings up an interesting question.

But, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they did. If their worlds’ respective Shards did not create life, that would imply one of two things: 1. a different Shard(s) created life there, 2. life existed there, pre-Shattering. I don’t think those cases are likely. In the first case, Brandon would’ve mentioned that we’ve seen the influence of over Shards on those planets, and I believe we’ve successfully deciphered Brandon’s cryptic words about four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation.

I guess it’s possible for there to have existed life on those planets previously, but there’s no evidence supporting this theory.

Fair enough, both are possible, just not enough info. Building here, so more a little ways down.

If it makes you feel better, maybe Endowment could just “endow” things with life? Therefore, it would be perfectly possible for Endowment to create.

No! Flawless logic! My...only...weakness...BAH!

I think our disagreement on this fundamental idea influences most of your arguments, so I’m just going to leave it here, rather than beat it with a dead horse. Like I said, this is a very interesting question to be asking.

I think this about hits the nail on the head when it comes to that section.

What I mean by the fragments of Ruin and Preservation is just the spiritual aspects that those Shards gave to things. Some people have lots of Preservation in them, some people have less so, but they exist and they are real. It’s a power separate from the Metallic Arts. Just because you aren’t an Allomancer doesn’t mean you don’t have some amount of Preservation in you (wow, that was a lot of negatives).

I just can't agree with that. It's not seperate from the metallic arts, it is the metallic arts. Everyone on scadrial had, let's say, a 3:2 compostion of preservation:ruin. So, I agree with your last sentence, but the inverse is more important to discussion of metallic arts: the only people with more preservation in them are allomancers/possible allomancers (mistings/mistborn who haven't snapped). More a little ways down with ch.54 epigraph.

I said “fragment of Preservation” because people don’t hold all of Preservation Just a part of it.

Awakening doesn’t require a piece of a Shard? I will have to vehemently disagree with that. Breath are required for Awakening, and we only see Breath in relation to things with Endowment. I hardly think it’s a stretch to say Breath are of Endowment. Meaning they are a “piece” of Endowment. Does that make sense?

Magic relates to a Shard. We don’t see people on Scadrial Awakening, because it requires Endowment to work in the first place.

Regardless of whether Breaths come from an ambient process of Endowment influencing the people, that still means you needed Endowment’s power to get the Breath in the first place. Therefore, Breath are of Endowment.

Certainly the Divine Breath are of Endowment, too, but from a different effect.

Zas explained this a little better than I. I don't disagree that breaths are an effect Endowment, I'm saying I don't think it involves a direct "piece" of Endowment.

Let's say Ati and Leras never went to Scadrial, but human life exists there for whatever reasons anyway. If Endowment were to then take up residence on Scadrial, the people there would eventually develop an awareness of their breath and the ability to endow it upon other things.

I think it's much more of a "side effect" like zas says, than any deliberate interaction with Endowment. A Returned however, has interacted with Endowment directly and received a "piece" of that shards power. Hence the overwhelming quality of that Divine Breath, as opposed to the single "ordinary" breath every person is born with before they ever interact with Endowment.

This is one of the only distinct differences within BS's magic systems that I think clashes with principle of intent. The other being Ruin from previous post.

Splitting this next one into two parts.

I don’t understand this statement.

Ya, sorry. I was trying to continue my thought process from the post above it, to make it more concise and organized. Massive fail there huh? And wow, I just realized that I wrote "...more preservation in us..." How's that for being a little too obsessed with BS's worlds. A little more at bottom.

Well, from a stupidly easy standpoint, to that cloth you just Awakened, it “gained” energy. But I see your point. You’re just moving energy around that already existed. I could phrase that better for sure.

I don’t think we should say that the Divine Breath inherently created a net gain. It’s not really the magic system’s fault, it’s a function of Endowment.

But it does create a net gain, right? And within the magic system specifically. You get a new power, along with a stacked version of powers from "normal" breaths. I'm realizing something now, and I'll do my best to address it at the bottom of post.

As for the bold part, I don’t understand what you are saying well enough to discuss it But that’s okay, it’s not like we’re going anywhere.

Ya, that was a $@%-poor attempt at explaining where I think Awakening comes from, as opposed to being a direct piece from Endowment.

I don't think the instant Endowment showed up on Nalthis, people became aware of their breaths (and yes, I stick to endowment NOT creating life on Nalthis. This is based on the very short history of BioChroma. eg: still very new, even Vasher doesn't understand everything, but most importantly because they have a known and recorded history before breaths and returned started showing up, as opposed to feruchemy and what we know now of allomancy. I would never argue about Sel, I think you're probably right that Aona and Skai created life there).

I think it took time for that awareness to come about, and once it did, people realized you had to add hundreds of "normal" breaths to equal one Divine. This screams net gain to me, which translates further as Awakening lacking that something extra, that piece of Endowment. Further extrapolation leads me to the conclusion that Awakening can then only be a "side effect (zas)"/an evolution from being so near a shard. At bottom.

I’d need to see some evidence that Preservation did, in fact, weaken himself due to his fueling of Allomancy. I’m reading the epigraphs to see if there was an explicit mention of this.

Okay, finished reading the epigraphs, and there is no mention--explicit or implied--that Allomancy contributed to Preservation being weaker than Ruin. There’s precious little on the subject.

Which is weird, cause you quoted a part I was talking about. Ch. 54 epigraph. I think we're lost in translation.

To me: fueling allomancy=putting preservation into humans (please tell me if you don't agree with that), because...well, that's what it does. Further evidenced by Lerasium attuning humans, even more, to preservation. That piece he gave up as "proof ruin could win in the end" ended up being mankind's link to allomancy.

But Hemalurgy doesn’t do anything to the person who performed the spiking. That’s what I was referring to.

Ahhh, gotcha. Completely misread what you meant there.

Whoa, there are a lot of claims here. Let me try and dissect some.

Firstly, not all Shards need another Shard to balance or cancel it out. Also, I don’t understand what you mean with “My problem with this, in relation to the principle overall, is it's very similar to Awakening, which is not the principle of Endowment.” (Maybe Awakening just works because it follows this Principle )

I understand that shards don't need a balancer. What I mean with the problems with similarities refers to the "no net gain or loss in using the magic." Which refers to both feruchemy and awakening. My problem is that the principle uses the balance between ruin and preservation for the canceling effect in feruchemy, which works perfectly, until you try to account for the "balance" of energy in awakening. It has nothing to cancel out effects, and no net gain doesn't stick with the PoI (principle of intent) that is evidenced by Endowment. ie the potent quality of a Divine Breath.

As for more Preservation than Ruin in people, yeah, the Feruchemy explanation doesn’t quite hold. If this was how it worked, you couldn’t be both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, when obviously you can. You’ve got me. This is a flaw I’ve identified a bit ago, and I don’t know how to reconcile it.

I disagree about the evolution of abilities, so I’ll have that later stuff alone. However, Feruchemy didn’t evolve over time; in fact, it was the oldest of the Metallic Arts. Or, at least the oldest of them.

Right, errrr...I think feruchemy evolved over time (as a "side effect"), similar to awakening, but to me the fact that it's the oldest, most potent of the metallic arts is the evidence. At bottom of post.

Well, I think you misunderstand a little. The Principle applies to how the magic operates, as in, the inner mechanics of it. We shouldn’t use it to predict individual powers of Allomancy or Feruchemy, because we can’t. I consider the ten aspects of Surgebinding to be like Allomancy in that regard. So, there wouldn’t need to be ten different pieces of ten different Shards, because, naturally, there are not ten Shards on Roshar.

Okay, I just reread that, and...I did misunderstand, a lot. lol Sorry, that whole post was just me being stupid and not reading carefully enough.

So, I went back and put "at bottom" on nearly every post, let's get to it.

I understand you don't believe the evolution/side effect development of feruchemy/awakening (most PoI espousers probably don't). Problem for me, and with PoI, is it's the only conclusion I've been able to arrive at. This is mainly b/c of the problem with feruchemy, which you've identified and say you haven't got a solution for yet; but the evolution aspect is the solution. It's the only thing that works for everything, even feruchemy's strange development.

It's like this:

Ati and Leras never created life on Scadrial. They found it fully occupied and took up residence. Feruchemy would still develop as a side effect of them being there, together on Scadrial. Just not as quickly or potently as it did in the books.

Thing is, they did create life. So you've got the side effect, already causing feruchemy to develop in humans there, but they're also made up of near equal parts of ruin and preservation. Causing an additive effect that springs feruchemical development way ahead of allomancy.

There is no other reason I can think of for why feruchemy would develop so much more prevalently than allomancy. It shouldn't outpace it, b/c they have more preservation--and indeed allomancers were always around, just not potently enough for anyone to notice.

Now, funny thing is...all that can still be argued in favor of PoI. But if ruin and preservation cause an effect simply by being there, ones that conflict with each other--causing the equal energy transfer--then each shard must have an individual effect on mankind by simply inhabiting that planet. Which leads us to awakening, that doesn't hold up to PoI simply because of the equal energy transfer, not the intent of endowment. Evidenced by the quality of a Divine Breath. Hell, you don't even have to use the DB. They're sent back from the dead, that's a net gain no matter what.

Well that's it. Do I need to write up a theory or anything and post? Been working on my "Odium/Bavadin holds Honor" and "Szeth the soulcaster" and I'm at dead ends. I think everyone can get my meaning from posts and summary, just never sure. I've always been bad at explaining thoughts.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Elwynn

[Chaos he/him]

I just can't agree with that. It's not seperate from the metallic arts, it is the metallic arts. Everyone on scadrial had, let's say, a 3:2 compostion of preservation:ruin. So, I agree with your last sentence, but the inverse is more important to discussion of metallic arts: the only people with more preservation in them are allomancers/possible allomancers (mistings/mistborn who haven't snapped). More a little ways down with ch.54 epigraph.

I think you misunderstood me; I meant that some people have more Preservation than others, and that some people have less Preservation than that, but they still have more Preservation than Ruin. Sorry, that wasn't entirely clear from my statement. My bad.

Zas explained this a little better than I. I don't disagree that breaths are an effect Endowment, I'm saying I don't think it involves a direct "piece" of Endowment.

Let's say Ati and Leras never went to Scadrial, but human life exists there for whatever reasons anyway. If Endowment were to then take up residence on Scadrial, the people there would eventually develop an awareness of their breath and the ability to endow it upon other things.

I think it's much more of a "side effect" like zas says, than any deliberate interaction with Endowment. A Returned however, has interacted with Endowment directly and received a "piece" of that shards power. Hence the overwhelming quality of that Divine Breath, as opposed to the single "ordinary" breath every person is born with before they ever interact with Endowment.

This is one of the only distinct differences within BS's magic systems that I think clashes with principle of intent. The other being Ruin from previous post.

Ahhh, I think the problem is that we lack good terminology. Those Divine Breaths are Splinters, which I believe you're referring to as a "piece" of a Shard's power. And on that note, I completely agree; Breath aren't Splinters. But they are certainly of Endowment. We're pretty much in agreement on that.

However, I think we're not understanding each other with the Returned as net gain sort of thing. (Though, even if it is net gain, you are still endowing power to people; it just came directly from the Shard. I see no contradiction)

Brandon said that Ruin or Preservation can fuel any of the Metallic Arts, even Feruchemy. So what I'm suggesting is that Divine Breath aren't a function of people and their own Breath. We both agree that Endowment is giving the Divine Breath to them, right? Well, that's similar to how Ruin or Preservation can fuel the Arts. Just because they could fuel Feruchemy doesn't mean that Feruchemy inherently has "net gain" to it. The Shard sort of messed it up by directly fueling the magics.

So, Endowment grants Splinters to the Returned, and they sort of break the normal rules of Breath and Awakening. But you could still use that Breath to Awaken, if you really wanted to. So, the Divine Breath fit easily into the Principle of Intent that way.

At some point we're just going to argue about semantics endlessly, but perhaps it would be more useful to discuss why the Divine Breath requires eating other Breaths to work.

I still don't think it matters whether it's net gain or net loss. They are Splinters, not normal Breath, and therefore are quite different from normal rules of Awakening. It's all Endowment's fault there.

Which is weird, cause you quoted a part I was talking about. Ch. 54 epigraph. I think we're lost in translation.

To me: fueling allomancy=putting preservation into humans (please tell me if you don't agree with that), because...well, that's what it does. Further evidenced by Lerasium attuning humans, even more, to preservation. That piece he gave up as "proof ruin could win in the end" ended up being mankind's link to allomancy.

Yeah, we're definitely not being clear about this here. Let me think for a moment and try to explain. I think our problem is lack of clarity in the mechanism. So, here goes.

Metals are a conduit to accessing Preservation's body; that's how Allomancy works. In order to burn metals, you must have enough Preservation in you. But, the amount of Preservation in you (that amount which makes her an Allomancer) isn't the stuff that is used up when you utilize Allomancy, it comes from Preservation's energy instead. That is to say, Preservation itself, not the bits of Preservation inside someone. Naturally, if I was an Allomancer and burning metals actually took away the Preservation inside of me, I should get weaker at Allomancy. But it doesn't.

So when Vin is fueling Elend's Allomancy, she is emphatically not adding Preservation to himself. She is letting him use that divine fuel immediately, without the intermediary of burning metals.

This is really getting nitty-gritty with terminology, and kind of dumb, but I think it's important to be clear about this. If more Preservation was added to me when Preservation fuels my Allomancy, well, then as you said about lerasium, I'd actually get more Preservation in me, and I'd be a more effective Allomancer.

But, we don't see that that is the case. When Vin burned the mists in Book One, she didn't get noticeably better at Allomancy. Therefore, the Preservation inside of her--that amount which let her use Allomancy--was essentially the same. What the mists did wasn't adding Preservation, they replaced the conduit for the power of Preservation, thus removing the need for metals. So it didn't really add to a person's Preservation.

Fueling Allomancy doesn't add Preservation to the person, it lets the person use that Preservation for Allomancy.

I don't think the instant Endowment showed up on Nalthis, people became aware of their breaths (and yes, I stick to endowment NOT creating life on Nalthis. This is based on the very short history of BioChroma. eg: still very new, even Vasher doesn't understand everything, but most importantly because they have a known and recorded history before breaths and returned started showing up, as opposed to feruchemy and what we know now of allomancy. I would never argue about Sel, I think you're probably right that Aona and Skai created life there).

Okay, I really like this explanation to how BioChroma is so new. I just would like to point that out. XD Awesome.

My problem is that the principle uses the balance between ruin and preservation for the canceling effect in feruchemy, which works perfectly, until you try to account for the "balance" of energy in awakening. It has nothing to cancel out effects, and no net gain doesn't stick with the PoI (principle of intent) that is evidenced by Endowment. ie the potent quality of a Divine Breath.

So, you say that the "net gain" is a fundamental effect of Endowment, as evidenced by the act of gaining Divine Breath. I... guess? But as I said above, the gaining of Divine Breath is an active effect on Endowment's part, not a standard function of the magic system. More akin to super fuel than anything else.

Plus, I think it's important to not take the Principle to refer to anything other than the magic systems. It does not inherently predict how the Shard's can decide to use stuff. Nowhere in the Principle could I have ever predicted that Preservation can use his essence as a super fuel. The Principle relates to how humans use magic, and why the magic operates the way it does.

Could we agree that the Divine Breaths are given by an act of Endowment? (Well, you sort of said the same thing, so I'm assuming you'd agree on that point ) Well, if it is given by a direct of Endowment, then it is not a function of Awakening.

Awakening is what happens once Endowment is done, and Awakening is what the Principle would refer to. Specifically, that Awakening operates in line with Endowment's Intent, in that it endows energy to other things. That's all I'm really saying here. (In fact, I think Awakening is the clearest example of the Principle in action)

So, to sum up, I don't think the "net gain" of giving Splinters to Returned invalidates the Principle on any level. Endowment can plenty of things that Awakening can't, just as Vin's power to stop a tsunami or move a planet has absolutely nothing to do with the mechanics of Allomancy.

I should probably state the Principle more precisely... So really, this is my fault, since I'm not being entirely clear either.

But if ruin and preservation cause an effect simply by being there, ones that conflict with each other--causing the equal energy transfer--then each shard must have an individual effect on mankind by simply inhabiting that planet. Which leads us to awakening, that doesn't hold up to PoI simply because of the equal energy transfer, not the intent of endowment. Evidenced by the quality of a Divine Breath. Hell, you don't even have to use the DB. They're sent back from the dead, that's a net gain no matter what.

I believe I've already covered how I don't believe there is any inconsistency here.

Do I need to write up a theory or anything and post? Been working on my "Odium/Bavadin holds Honor" and "Szeth the soulcaster" and I'm at dead ends. I think everyone can get my meaning from posts and summary, just never sure. I've always been bad at explaining thoughts.

Of course you need to post theories!

...You do know that Odium/Rayse and Bavadin are separate people, right? Just making sure

[Chaos he/him]

I'm double posting because this is a fun little factoid.

Nightblood pretty obviously obeys the Principle of Intent. He is to destroy evil, and hey! That's what he focuses on. Sounds Principle of Intent-y to me.

[Zas678 he/him]

And he Endows that will upon others. I mean look at what happens to anyone who touches him (well except for a few). His mind is very contagious.

[Chaos he/him]

And he Endows that will upon others. I mean look at what happens to anyone who touches him (well except for a few). His mind is very contagious.

Excellent point; I didn't even think of it like that. That's brilliant.

[Relaz]

Nice Theory! I think you almost got it...almost.

There seems to be one major hiccup in your theory, and you described it quite succinctly in th following quotes.

Chaos, on 25 April 2011 - 11:08 PM, said:

As for more Preservation than Ruin in people, yeah, the Feruchemy explanation doesn’t quite hold. If this was how it worked, you couldn’t be both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, when obviously you can. You’ve got me. This is a flaw I’ve identified a bit ago, and I don’t know how to reconcile it.

I disagree about the evolution of abilities, so I’ll have that later stuff alone. However, Feruchemy didn’t evolve over time; in fact, it was the oldest of the Metallic Arts. Or, at least the oldest of them.

I understand that shards don't need a balancer. What I mean with the problems with similarities refers to the "no net gain or loss in using the magic." Which refers to both feruchemy and awakening. My problem is that the principle uses the balance between ruin and preservation for the canceling effect in feruchemy, which works perfectly, until you try to account for the "balance" of energy in awakening. It has nothing to cancel out effects, and no net gain doesn't stick with the PoI (principle of intent) that is evidenced by Endowment. ie the potent quality of a Divine Breath.

Right, errrr...I think feruchemy evolved over time (as a "side effect"), similar to awakening, but to me the fact that it's the oldest, most potent of the metallic arts is the evidence. At bottom of post.

Both of you guys seem to be grasping around the edges of the true explaination of why feruchemy, and alomancy can be used by the same person. Why awakening doesn't need a balancer. I'm going to explain why I think these things happen using a quote i got off a Q&A session that Barnes and Noble had with Brandon Sanderson. Brandon basically says the following:

These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

Based off this information, being able to uses Feruchemy and Allomancy is dependent on genetics and Spirtual conectivity with the holder of the Shards. This suggests that both of you were sort of right in terms of evolution (genetics) and Intent (Spiritual Connection). As for why Feruchemy developed before Aloomancy, human beings (in the context of the book) were supposed to be designed with equal parts of Ruin and Preservation in them, and most people gravitated towards having that balance in the Spiritual Realm. Then when Preservation gave up his mind to cage Ruin he left the rest of himself in the world to be picked up by man. So along comes Rashek who gains whats left of Preservation. Now you have a man that is heavily influenced by Preservation, and Ruin caged enough that Rashek is able to find those people that are genetically capable of connecting with Preservation and establishing a connection with them on the Spiritual Plane.

[Kuri Shardweaver he/him]

Definitely espousing the Principle of Intent, but reading through this triggered a slight light bulb I felt like sharing.

On Szeth, everyone seems to feel that he's a Surgebinder without a Spren, and that it is his own strong grip on his oaths giving him his power. I'm not buying that.

There seems to be one consistently overlooked part of Szeth that I think I just picked up on.

His stone. It's said enough, paraphrased anyways, that he has to do whatever the owner of his stone tells him to do, barring the few stipulations.

I think the stone is his spren, and he gains his power by Honoring the oath to serve the one who holds his spren/stone. We've seen enough sprens at this point to know they vary WILDLY from type to type, and have some form of connection to the perceptions of those they're attached to, so what's to say a people who so strongly follow beliefs wouldn't spawn spren who were just as resolute and immovable ("solid as a rock")?

[Zas678 he/him]

Or maybe the Honorspren is bound inside of the rock, like a fabrial. Or his blade. He says in the prologue that "my blade is cursed enough".

(For information of fabrials, look here.)