The Table Model of Dawnshards

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

Ruin isn't evil but it is a negative, and you can Invent things for evil.

You can Invent things for evil, and Ruin is negative.

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Cultivation makes more of what is, a net positive.

If that was true, then Cultivation and Ruin would not mesh well. Unfortunately, this WoB says otherwise:

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Autarchk

If I can ask a question, I just read the Mistborn trilogy and, were Preservation and Ruin two different shards or a single one with their power split somehow? If they were two shards, does that mean a single person can hold more than one, since Harmony apparently holds both now?

Brandon Sanderson

They were two shards.

Yes, one entity can hold more than one. Remember that holding a shard changes you, over time. Rayse knows this, and prefers to leave behind destroyed rivals as opposed to taking their power and potentially being overwhelmed by it.

Nepene

I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him- Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people.

Brandon Sanderson

Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view.

That said, Ruin would have been one of the 'safer' of the sixteen for Rayse to take, if he'd been about that. Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else.

General Reddit 2013 (March 14, 2013)

 

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

If that was true, then Cultivation and Ruin would not mesh well. Unfortunately, this WoB says otherwise:

Not really, it just requires a different prescpective.

Living things die, which gives birth to new life. Death serves life which in turn serves death. Fungi break down dead matter, which enables plants to build them back up. Stars die and launch peices of themselves out into the universe, which allows new stars and planets to form.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

Not really, it just requires a different prescpective.

Living things die, which gives birth to new life. Death serves life which in turn serves death. Fungi break down dead matter, which enables plants to build them back up. Stars die and launch peices of themselves out into the universe, which allows new stars and planets to form.

Yeah, Ruin would hate that. He wants total entropy, no new stars. He wants the universe to burn itself out, with no usable energy remaining.

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

Yeah, Ruin would hate that. He wants total entropy, no new stars. He wants the universe to burn itself out, with no usable energy remaining.

And Cultivation wants to build it back up.

Yin and Yang.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

And Cultivation wants to build it back up.

Yin and Yang.

Ruin would kill Cultivation. He didn't like Preservation stopping him from destroying things, so why would he like Cultivation building things? Anyways, Cultivation isn't about making new things. She changes what exists. 

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

Ruin would kill Cultivation. He didn't like Preservation stopping him from destroying things, so why would he like Cultivation building things? Anyways, Cultivation isn't about making new things. She changes what exists. 

Why would Odium like Honor restricting it?

The two shards would work well together if not for their vessels, and yet Odium hates being bound or restricted, which is what Honor is all about.

And yet they would make a natural pair

Spoiler

Questioner

What Shard is the opposite of Odium in the sense of the *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

There are several that could be considered opposites--

Questioner

I mean in the assimilation sense, you’ve said that Odium doesn’t want to absorb any of the other ones but which one would want to?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, which one would want to join with him?

Questioner

Or any of them.

Brandon Sanderson

I think that if personalities had been different, Honor and Odium, there would have been a very natural pairing, not that they’re opposites but they would have attracted. [...]

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

 

[NameIess]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Why would Odium like Honor restricting it?

The two shards would work well together if not for their vessels, and yet Odium hates being bound or restricted, which is what Honor is all about.

And yet they would make a natural pair

Brandon said that Cultivation and Ruin would be compatible with each other.

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

Brandon said that Cultivation and Ruin would be compatible with each other.

And?

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

And?

Compatible means not opposite. 

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

Compatible means not opposite. 

Opposites attract.

Death and Life are opposites.

Action and inaction are opposites

Law and Crime are opposites

But they cannot exist without the other.

Without life nothing can die, inaction is defined as not preforming an action, Crime cannot be commited if there isn't a law.

Cultivation grows things, Ruin kills them which allows Cultivation to grow them again. A ballance.

How else can you describe Cultivation than making more of what is?

Add Preservation to moderate them, and Whimsy to cause them to act on everything. And what can you call that other than Change?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

23 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Ruin would kill Cultivation. He didn't like Preservation stopping him from destroying things, so why would he like Cultivation building things? Anyways, Cultivation isn't about making new things. She changes what exists. 

Life increases entropy if you take the universe as a whole. Life lessens entropy locally at the cost of a global increase. Life, if you will, is ultimately selfish.

[NameIess]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Opposites attract.

Death and Life are opposites.

Action and inaction are opposites

Law and Crime are opposites

But they cannot exist without the other.

Without life nothing can die, inaction is defined as not preforming an action, Crime cannot be commited if there isn't a law.

Cultivation grows things, Ruin kills them which allows Cultivation to grow them again. A ballance.

How else can you describe Cultivation than making more of what is?

Add Preservation to moderate them, and Whimsy to cause them to act on everything. And what can you call that other than Change?

Cultivation grows things, but doesn't make new things. Cultivating something is controlling the way it grows, not creating new things. Creating new things is called "creation". Ruin doesn't care about the circle of life, he cares about the ending. If Ruin and Creation were merged, it would create a balance. But as it is, Ruin and Creation would conflict with each other. Ruin wants everything to be dead. Otherwise he would have been content to watch the people of Scadrial live normal lives that ended in death, focusing his efforts on TLR and other seemingly immortal beings.

3 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Life increases entropy if you take the universe as a whole. Life lessens entropy locally at the cost of a global increase. Life, if you will, is ultimately selfish.

Yes, but Ruin can increase entropy faster.

[Frustration he/him]

3 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Cultivation grows things, but doesn't make new things. Cultivating something is controlling the way it grows, not creating new things. Creating new things is called "creation". Ruin doesn't care about the circle of life, he cares about the ending. If Ruin and Creation were merged, it would create a balance. But as it is, Ruin and Creation would conflict with each other. Ruin wants everything to be dead. Otherwise he would have been content to watch the people of Scadrial live normal lives that ended in death, focusing his efforts on TLR and other seemingly immortal beings.

Cultivation is by nature creating new things. When humans domesticated plants and animals they created new species.

Brandon would call the creation of spren as them being "Cultivated"

Spoiler

Questioner

Do the spren that we know of as the Cryptics exist before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, good question! No. Cryptics would be one of the forms of spren that were a later creation. Creation is the wrong term, but yeah. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Later development? Evolution?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the sapient spren are later developments. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Are they evolved from the earlier spren?

Brandon

Evolution doesn't work the same way on the spren, right? The spren were created more than evolved, I would say.

Billy Todd, Moderator

Maybe cultivated?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, cultivated. *laughter*

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

[Morningtide she/her]

This makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with the basic idea of all of the Dawnshards and I like the ideas on the other side as well. I would switch Valor and Devotion, but other than that, I agree with the organization. 

[Frustration he/him]

4 minutes ago, Morningtide said:

This makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with the basic idea of all of the Dawnshards and I like the ideas on the other side as well. I would switch Valor and Devotion, but other than that, I agree with the organization. 

Thank you.

The suggestion makes a lot of sense, however a line in Elantris speaks of Devotion in relationship to unity so I feel that Devotion has to go there.

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"... hatred can unify men, far more quickly and far more powerfully than devotion ever could." -Elantris

However I will concede that it could be pointing to Devotion not being of unity, but I'll leave it for now.

If you find anything else please let me know.

[NameIess]

10 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Cultivation is by nature creating new things. When humans domesticated plants and animals they created new species.

Brandon would call the creation of spren as them being "Cultivated"

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

Do the spren that we know of as the Cryptics exist before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, good question! No. Cryptics would be one of the forms of spren that were a later creation. Creation is the wrong term, but yeah. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Later development? Evolution?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the sapient spren are later developments. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Are they evolved from the earlier spren?

Brandon

Evolution doesn't work the same way on the spren, right? The spren were created more than evolved, I would say.

Billy Todd, Moderator

Maybe cultivated?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, cultivated. *laughter*

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

Spren are created from pieces of Honor and Cultivation that are lying free of themselves. And Brandon's first thought wasn't that they were Cultivated.

I'm kinda skeptical of the entire Dawnshard table theory in the first place to be honest, and you seem unwilling to change your mind about any part of your diagram, so I'm going to leave this argument here.

[Frustration he/him]

24 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Spren are created from pieces of Honor and Cultivation that are lying free of themselves. And Brandon's first thought wasn't that they were Cultivated.

I'm kinda skeptical of the entire Dawnshard table theory in the first place to be honest, and you seem unwilling to change your mind about any part of your diagram, so I'm going to leave this argument here.

I am willing to change it.

However before I do I will need evidence in support of the change.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

I am willing to change it.

However before I do I will need evidence in support of the change.

So would you still put Preservation in the change slot?

[Frustration he/him]

4 minutes ago, Nameless said:

So would you still put Preservation in the change slot?

If evidence to the contrary is found I would move it.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Frustration

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

ambition and autonomy need to be switched.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

If evidence to the contrary is found I would move it.

It's literally no change:

Quote

 

Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way. 

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument. 

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

Preservation is the exact opposite of the change Dawnshard's intent, so it makes no sense for it to be associated with that Dawnshard.

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

ambition and autonomy need to be switched.

Would you explain your thoughts on that?

[Morningtide she/her]

2 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

ambition and autonomy need to be switched.

Actually, yes. I like that. Autonomy is basically having control over your choices, and Ambition fits in both. 

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Would you explain your thoughts on that?

what Morningtide said.

Just now, Morningtide said:

Actually, yes. I like that. Autonomy is basically having control over your choices, and Ambition fits in both. 

YES!

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

It's literally no change:

Preservation is the exact opposite of the change Dawnshard's intent, so it makes no sense for it to be associated with that Dawnshard.

I would still see that as supporting change, as Preservation can't exist without change.

However let's assume you are correct and Preservation is not Change. What Dawnshard would it be in, or at least what would the other three shards be?

3 minutes ago, Morningtide said:

Actually, yes. I like that. Autonomy is basically having control over your choices, and Ambition fits in both. 

2 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

what Morningtide said.

YES!

You both make good points, I'd say that Autonomy is the natural state of choice, being free of all restrictions, but I think I'll make it so they can both apply.

Like this

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		Change		Unite		Give		Choose
Natural		Cultivation		Honor		Endowment		Autonomy/Ambition?
Passion		Ruin		Odium		Mercy		Valor
Control		Preservation		Dominion		Invention		Ambition/Autonomy?
Beauty		Whimsy		Devotion		Virtuosity		Appraisal?