Theory- Adonalism was convinced to kill himself

[Neturo he/him]

I have come to believe that Adonalism was somehow convinced to kill himself.

We know that the Dawnshards we used to unto/kill Adonalism and we also know that the use of the Dawnshards in such a way would require "the breath of understanding of a diety"

Certain things are strongly implied:

• The larger in scope the deed you try to do with a Dawnshard the greater the breath of understanding needed the bring the proper intent.
• The undoing of Adonalism required all four Dawnshards.

I also believe that while the Dawnshards were held by Adonalism there were together as a part of him. He would have been the only one powerful even to use it. While he held it, it was one thing which we can call the Dawn

Adonalism was put in a situation where he had to use the Dawn (combined dawnshards) to pull the dawnshards apart

Doing so killed Adonalism  splitting his power and expending the power of the dawn 

[Autobrecciation]

Quote

From the Iri coppermind article https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iri#Religion :

The Iriali worship a god they call "The One". According to this belief, the One knew everything but had experienced nothing. And so the One became Many in order to experience all things. As each experience is different, it brings completeness to the One. Eventually, all will be gathered back in when the sum of land is attained and they will once again become One. Every person is a different mind of a single being experiencing different lives. As Many, they need ignorance. Each fragment of the One’s mind has its own body with different passions and inclinations. They exist in variety to experience all kinds of thought. That means some people must know and others must not. Just like some people must be rich and others poor.

So I think we have a situation like this. We know that Harmony holds two shards that oppose each other for the most part, and that he talks about how if he acts too much to favor one side bad things happen. Adonalsium would be this on an infinite level. All this power, but unable to use the power in any way to affect change without push-back, overrule, bad things happening. So I think the shattering was this plan to allow the separation of powers which would let the power be used without the interference of the other shards. I also think Ado knew ("Resignation? Confidence? Understanding?") that the power needed to be separated as a way to experience the universe they created.

So I agree that it was a suicide, in that there is no way a godlike being with infinite power wouldn't know that their power was going to be ripped apart and distributed. And that they were unable to stop it, because using the power in any direction would be opposed by the opposite of their own personality. This also explains why the Shards are supposed to separate out (Pact of non-interference, but I believe Frost (or some other letter writer) implied that even 2 shards that got along with each other were breaking the rules by settling in the same system together.

[Loialty loailty loailty he/him]

@Neturo @Autobrecciation

so I have been thinking about this since I finished dawnshard and have been listening to the podcast/reading forums. 
 

I like the idea that Adonalsium knew and possibly even facilitated the shattering  

my question is, Is someone attempting to put Adonalsium back together?

I say think it’s possible to do for a few reasons arguably everything in the cosmere is a part of or shaped by Addy in some way. But also I believe it makes sense that his *cognitive shadow?* is still lingering in the Cosmere. If kelsier can hang on for hundreds of years and preservation something close to a thousand I find it plausible that Addy could do it for and indefinite period of time. Now I don’t really know but I’m just wondering why else Hoid needs to collect every magic system when he is already immortal and presumably has been just about everywhere there is to be in the cosmere including being present at the death of god. I’m sure I’m missing a lot especially since I’m just getting into WOBs but it’s a thought .

 

 

[IndigoAjah he/him]

On 15/11/2020 at 1:21 AM, Autobrecciation said:

So I think we have a situation like this. We know that Harmony holds two shards that oppose each other for the most part, and that he talks about how if he acts too much to favor one side bad things happen. Adonalsium would be this on an infinite level. All this power, but unable to use the power in any way to affect change without push-back, overrule, bad things happening. So I think the shattering was this plan to allow the separation of powers which would let the power be used without the interference of the other shards. I also think Ado knew ("Resignation? Confidence? Understanding?") that the power needed to be separated as a way to experience the universe they created.

So I agree that it was a suicide, in that there is no way a godlike being with infinite power wouldn't know that their power was going to be ripped apart and distributed. And that they were unable to stop it, because using the power in any direction would be opposed by the opposite of their own personality. This also explains why the Shards are supposed to separate out (Pact of non-interference, but I believe Frost (or some other letter writer) implied that even 2 shards that got along with each other were breaking the rules by settling in the same system together.

Given the theology behind Sanderson's work, I could see this. That's one argument for why "God died for our sons" in Christian Theology, it being the only true way to experience empathy, something beyond mere knowledge.

 

 

 

It's also the crux behind my favourite ever series so I'm keen for it. 

[Truthwatcher Artifabrian he/him]

We know that Adonalsium could have shattered into completely different shards. When he existed, the shards were completely whole and acted as one, larger shard. When Harmony put Ruin and Preservation together, it created a different scenario from Adonalsium, where the shards were still separate shards held by the same person.

 While Adonalsium may or may not have been part of his own death, it was not because he couldn’t do anything; he could do anything.

[Mulk he/him]

I don't think Adonalsium suffered the same restrictions Sazed does.  If it had been the same, he/she/it/they'd not have been able to create as widely and wildly as we can infer happened.

I've thought about it a fair bit over the last few years, and I rather doubt we'll ever get an Adonalsium point of view to explain the thoughts behind why the severing was allowed, but I don't think there can be any doubt it was allowed. Maybe we'll get a few audible words during the actual encounter, but I don't expect we'll get more than that.

[Autobrecciation]

10 hours ago, Mulk said:

I don't think Adonalsium suffered the same restrictions Sazed does.  If it had been the same, he/she/it/they'd not have been able to create as widely and wildly as we can infer happened.

I think they could create and urge things into motion, but were powerless to directly interfere with anything especially if it was at odds with any of his metashards intents. Could not save a single life because Ruin was pushing against his need to preserve. Could not prune a civilization so that it could thrive (ALA Cultivation) because Preservation stopped him. This feels again, like it clues into the meta theme of the cosmere - reflecting on the question of what good is a God is that is omnipotent, omniscient, but will not interfere to save a child from coyotes. In Adonalsium's case, they aren't just the god of people, but the coyotes, and of nature as well.

Quote

I've thought about it a fair bit over the last few years, and I rather doubt we'll ever get an Adonalsium point of view to explain the thoughts behind why the severing was allowed, but I don't think there can be any doubt it was allowed. Maybe we'll get a few audible words during the actual encounter, but I don't expect we'll get more than that.

Has BS mentioned anything about ever showing this on screen? I hope we do see something, I agree it's not likely we will get POV from Ado.

[Eternal Khol he/him]

On 11/29/2020 at 2:50 PM, Truthwatcher Artifabrian said:

When Harmony put Ruin and Preservation together, it created a different scenario from Adonalsium, where the shards were still separate shards held by the same person.

Exactly.

And to extend this a little further.

How i see it, is if all Sixteen were combined back into one, it wouldnt recreate Adonalsium.

Whatever was done to Adonalsium, would still be in effect. More was done than simply divinding his power into 16 pieces and simply recombining those pieces wont undo what was done.

Like, the shattering was a side effect of what was done to Ado, not the main thing done to him.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Could Be Fire]

 

 

 

On 11/14/2020 at 5:03 PM, Neturo said:

He would have been the only one powerful even to use it.

We know that the Shattering involved a very disparate group of people with widely varying motivations not all of whom took up shards. It was very much a group effort, so one person is no even in the same universe as being as strong as Ado but a group of people? 

With DS revealing more about the dawnshards, I figured you had four people holding them working in concert to shatter Ado along with a bunch of other powerful magic users. 

On 11/18/2020 at 5:48 AM, Loialty loailty loailty said:

my question is, Is someone attempting to put Adonalsium back together?

 

I think so. But my favorite cosmere end game theory is a complete shattering of Adonalsium's power so it just becomes part of the ecosystem of the universe as opposed to being held by a few powerful shards. 

[basement_boi he/him]

On 12/2/2020 at 7:09 PM, Autobrecciation said:

I think they could create and urge things into motion, but were powerless to directly interfere with anything especially if it was at odds with any of his metashards intents. Could not save a single life because Ruin was pushing against his need to preserve. Could not prune a civilization so that it could thrive (ALA Cultivation) because Preservation stopped him. This feels again, like it clues into the meta theme of the cosmere - reflecting on the question of what good is a God is that is omnipotent, omniscient, but will not interfere to save a child from coyotes. In Adonalsium's case, they aren't just the god of people, but the coyotes, and of nature as well.

Well, I think that the Shards all represent different pieces of humanity's emotions. Frost says this in Words of Radiance.

Quote

"He bears the weight of God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become."

So it sounds like Adonalsium had all of the emotions and feelings of humans. When he split, powers he used in certain emotions were assigned to those emotions.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:03 PM, Neturo said:

and we also know that the use of the Dawnshards in such a way would require "the breath of understanding of a diety"

I definitely do not agree there. We know creating the Dawnshards would require this understanding, but I don't think using a pre-existing one would.

In fact, I think this is likely their greatest weakness: they can be used to do incredible things, but at a certain point, anyone below Adonalsium simply doesn't have the capacity to understand the full ramifications of their actions (even Shards suffer from this, but they at least have an expanded mind with their power to learn and grow in skill very quickly). For example (not something I actually believe happened), let's say one wanted to add oaths to spren bonds. Oops, most Rosharan life depends on those, you just wiped them all out because you messed with the nature of bonds in the Cosmere rather than more specifically focusing on truespren, because you didn't understand yet what all bonds are involved in! Or in this case, you decide to kill God but don't realize that you're going to give rise to sixteen deities completely overwhelmed by their Intents, twisted from who they once were and fighting and wreaking havoc and generally making life a living hell for a significant amount of people.

[IAmTheStick]

On 11/18/2020 at 6:48 AM, Loialty loailty loailty said:

@Neturo @Autobrecciation

so I have been thinking about this since I finished dawnshard and have been listening to the podcast/reading forums. 
 

I like the idea that Adonalsium knew and possibly even facilitated the shattering  

my question is, Is someone attempting to put Adonalsium back together?

I say think it’s possible to do for a few reasons arguably everything in the cosmere is a part of or shaped by Addy in some way. But also I believe it makes sense that his *cognitive shadow?* is still lingering in the Cosmere. If kelsier can hang on for hundreds of years and preservation something close to a thousand I find it plausible that Addy could do it for and indefinite period of time. Now I don’t really know but I’m just wondering why else Hoid needs to collect every magic system when he is already immortal and presumably has been just about everywhere there is to be in the cosmere including being present at the death of god. I’m sure I’m missing a lot especially since I’m just getting into WOBs but it’s a thought .

 

 

That's what I've been thinking for a long time. To me it seems Hoid is trying to use every type of investiture so he can have some sort of connection to each shard.

[Forms of mind]

Adalnasium is a title a being more of an idea than a physical thing. when all shards come together we get adalnasium.

[Forms of mind]

Adalnalsium does not need vesel because it is complete. Shards need vesel because they are not whole piece of adalnasium. Infinite without infinite.

[Bejarden he/him]

1 hour ago, Forms of mind said:

Adalnalsium does not need vesel because it is complete. Shards need vesel because they are not whole piece of adalnasium. Infinite without infinite.

Is this a theory or confirmed?

Also no double posting simply edit your last post.

[Frustration he/him]

12 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Is this a theory or confirmed?

It is not confirmed

[Forms of mind]

it is theory.

[Parzival]

On 11/14/2020 at 5:03 PM, Neturo said:

We know that the Dawnshards we used to unto/kill Adonalism and we also know that the use of the Dawnshards in such a way would require "the breath of understanding of a diety"

The dawnshards grant "the breath of understanding of a deity" to any who hold them so that a mortal is able to completely understand their power and use it to its fullest extent. You don't need the understanding to use one.