happyman

He's saying "What if Roshar had three 'indigenous' Shards who were then displaced or dispersed by Odium?" This is a perfectly fair question. I've asked it myself, and the answers we've received have not satisfied me that this isn't what happened. We know Odium has come in from the outside and destroyed indigenous Shards before (e.g. Elantris). We don't discuss it simply because the evidence outside this quote is non-existent, and I doubt Brandon will let that slip one way or the other before the time comes.

Depends on why they failed. They could just be casualties in the larger battle between Shards. If they were doing the "right" thing, then Honor likely just got outmaneuvered by Odium, possibly posthumously. Either that, or neither shard was active, and they just didn't understand what was needed.

That first paragraph makes sense. After all, the Shard is Endowment, which means the ability to give. Giving part of yourself seems like a very natural extension of that function. On the other hand, Shard's are big. I mean, very big. Preservation gave a bit of himself to every human on the planet to make them sentient, and it still left him and Ruin almost perfectly balanced. The imbalance would eventually allow Ruin to destroy the world, but I get the feeling that the time-scale involved is very long, with billions of humans being created in the meantime. I see no reason why Endowment couldn't give of himself to every person on Nalthis, and still produce returned, and still be powerful enough to do whatever it is Shard's do after creating humanity.

Add me to the people that think that Aona and Skai died ages before the Reod. It seems to me that in Shardworlds with active Shards, the people tend to know who they are. For example, the Terris knew about Preservation and Ruin while both were active, the epithet "Three gods!" appears in one of Dalinar's visions of the past, which tallies with what we know about the active shards there, some knowledge of the Almighty persisted even through to the time of WoK, all the people in Warbreaker world (forget the name) seem to know something about Endowment, even as they call it different names, etc.

I wonder. The fact that Syl knew something was off about Hoid suggests that it may be possible for somebody with enough of a Shard in them to recognize that Hoid is different, somehow. Edit: By this, I'm talking about the scene in TWoK where Hoid talks to Kaladin, and Syl notices that something is off. The fact that Vin also noticed that something is off in MB3 might be connected.

This would make sense. If Stormlight is an aspect of Honor, it could fuel magic. Maybe Odium doesn't have a choice about fueling Honor's magic system if it also means keeping Honor's power splintered, or something.

Hmmm. These are all good points. We know Brandon isn't radically against a theocracy as long as it functions well, so this is entirely possible.

I believe that for Windrunning, the inhalation itself is the focus. That's why Kaladin "breathes in" Stormlight. Also, as for Odium, I believe that he is not completely present on Roshar. That is, his influence is there, but only a part, not the real McCoy. It's possible he is bound, like Ruin was, but I doubt it; facing a god unleashed is far more worthy of this kind of epic saga, and having him accidentally released would just be pointless and repetitive, not to mention unlikely given how much power he apparently has.

Not a clue. Without a detailed theory, things like this are hard to manage.

Actually, that's the reason real science is so hard. None of the intended effects are easy to achieve without balancing a lot of unintended side effects. Probably the only "real" difference between our magic system (i.e. science) and fantasy magic is that the effects of magic are more useful in their raw form.

Possible, although why the Highstorms would then fuel Honor's magic is beyond me. Since Storms are sources of Stormlight, I think something more complicated is going on. Although you're right that that is probably a reference to the Almighty. What interests me more is the fact that this epigraph means that at one point, the humans on Roshar knew the names of their gods...

Yes, this is all true. If you slow time down in a bubble, normal light would become microwaves or radio waves, which would interact in odd ways with the allomancer. Going the other way, you could give yourself an x-ray just by standing outside! Kinda cool. Not how the magic system should really work, though, I say.

Andrew, Thank you for your civility. I really am enjoying the discussion, and I appreciate your thoughts, even when I don't agree with them. If I have any more thoughts, I'll add them to your thread on the subject. (Actually, I have, although I need to put some more thought into it.) Agreed, especially since the speaker is apparently part of the Highstorm. Things with that kind of power don't usually need to worry about prejudice from puny mortals; only from other comparable powers. (E.g. the ancient Greeks thought it was a terrible idea for any normal human to mess with the female goddesses, but they viewed the gods as dominating the goddesses the same way men dominate women.) Since the Nightwatcher is apparently considered female, I'd suspect Kaladin wouldn't dismiss a female diety (or whatever) out of hand. Especially since half the Heralds were female. Also, there are apparently rules binding the Shards. We don't know what they are, but I'm not at all certain they can imitate absolutely anybody. The Almighty wasn't able to make most of his messages consistent or responsive to Dalinar, for instance.

I suspect that human breaths are, in some sense, from Endowment. Get enough Endowment in you, and you too can create life, of a sort. Get a Divine breath (e.g. a full splinter, rather than just a taste) in you, and you become qualitatively more powerful. The idea that each magic system is caused by the interaction between a Shard and Realmatic theory seems almost certain; that each magic user is a Splinter seems less likely. What I'm interested in is the claim that having a touch of preservation is what gave humans free will. Does all free will have to come from a Shard in the Cosmere?

If they were corrupted, they were corrupted before the Knights Radiant gave them up, because Dalinar sees people killing with them immediately after the whatever-you-want-to-call-it, when the Knights give up their blades. (It's a really odd vision. The KR don't act like real humans. Something is up.) Of course, some people speculate that they gave them up because they were corrupted, which is entirely possible.

Which theory are you agreeing to, exactly? Personally I like the idea that Odium hates everything, and thus considers it of no worth. Thus he may block others from stopping him, but he won't actively use their help.

For the sake of clarity, I suggest you not talk about it that way. It's not how anybody else uses the term, and from the actual evidence quoted, there's no evidence for it. If Returned can see into the future because they have part of a Shard in them, the fact that normal Awakeners cannot is a good argument against all magic users being Splinters. In fact, in Warbreaker, anybody can, in principle, become an Awakener, although for practical reasons it tends to happen mostly to the wealthy or powerful. Does this make all the humans created by Endowment Splinters? That dilutes the term far too much, methinks. You've got your work cut out convincing anybody else, so if that isn't the topic, don't use the terminology!

Which would mean that holding the shards 'poisons' the holder until they lose what individuality they possessed. This thread is really interesting, though some of the things should probably be put on the wiki. Are you all ok with me copying your theories/ideas? Joe I don't mind, but I suspect that the people maintaining the Wiki would prefer to have well-sourced theories rather than this speculation. I do have evidence, mind. Brandon made some important comments on the state of Ruin's mind in his annotations for MB3. He basically said that very little was left of Ati's personality except what applied to the power he was holding. If this applies to all Shardholders, then whether they're "good" or "evil" depends much more on context than anything else. But you can copy over whatever you like. I don't have time to look up the appropriate sources, myself.

Which makes all of them (including the "good" shards like the Almighty or Preservation) mentally ill to a certain degree, as well as unbalanced in the way they can use their power since they are all only ONE part of a formerly whole entity. I think this is a very valid point. It reflects deep realities in the Cosmere, methinks. For instance, I would be very hesitant to call "Preservation" good. Under the Lord Ruler, we see very little good, but simply enormous volumes of preservation. Preservation was just "better than Ruin, from humanities point of view" because he was stopping the immediate end of the world. Sazed is almost certainly better than both, individually.

, I think there is a word for "Leader" which says nothing about eye color, but there is no word for "Lord" that does not also imply eye color.

I'm thinking that Sazed's thoughts were more of a lingering realization of the nature of Adonalsium, and the shattering thereof. They feel like they should be the same Shard because they are both part of something greater that was once split. Sazed didn't say they were part of the same Shard. He said they the powers "belonged together," and adds that maybe someday he'll find out why they split. This sounds like he was feeling an echo of Adonalsium when he took the powers. Given that he knows the name, this seems extremely likely.

The only difficulty is that Odium, as far as we can tell, has not picked up the powers of any other shards. It makes the most sense, our of what we know, to say that he has splintered other powers, but never claimed them himself. It's probably not possible for other reasons. After all, we don't know why Sazed was capable of taking both Ruin and Preservation.

As far as we can tell, eye color determines social status. I know it sounds weird, but Brandon manages to make the point (through Hoid, I believe) that this is hardly the weirdest way of choosing leaders that humans have come up with.

We really don't have enough evidence to do anything more than throw out badly-founded guesses. So far we only know for sure about a single type of Spren binding to a person for a single order of Radiants. This might be the rule. It could be that multiple types of Spren can bind with a person to make the same order of Radiant. It could be that the same type of Spren could bind with different people and make different orders of Radiants in doing so. It could be both of those at once, which would mean that any system to the binding of Spren to make radiants is loose at best. I'm inclined to believe that there's at least some relation between the type of Spren and the nature of a person's ability to manipulate Stormlight, (otherwise why would it matter that different spren can be bonded? It could just be for flavour I suppose but it seems a waste if so) but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Spren you bond with determines the order of Radiant you are, even though I'm inclined to believe that's where Brandon is going with this. Minor correction: I'm pretty sure that Shallan bonded with the Truthspren. It's strongly implied at the end that the more true the statements are that she tells them, the stronger the bond. It seems to be a very different type of bond from the one Kaladin experiences, but given the radically different type of spren the bonds are with (Honorspren vs. Truthspren), this probably isn't a surprise.

Honor, Ruin, and Preservation are separate shards, on separate worlds, confirmed by Brandon.