Questioner
Is it fair to say that when one of those power sources become vacant a person, or something with--
Brandon Sanderson
Something can-- naturally will pick it up, yes.
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Is it fair to say that when one of those power sources become vacant a person, or something with--
Something can-- naturally will pick it up, yes.
How many Shards have existed on Roshar?
Three.
Does every Shard, of divinity so to speak, have a metal associated to it?
They all have at least one.
We know it has been stated that adonalsium could have been shattered into 16 different intents. We also know there is a force out there opposing adanalsium. Did it shatter into those 16 intents because it believed that was the best way to defend against this said force?
RAFO.
Will Sazed eventually go mad trying to hold two Shard's power at the same time (being pushed to two different Purposes simultaneously for millennia)? Why hasn't anyone else tried this trick before in the Cosmere?
No. Since they're so opposite they work together to create a whole. However, after a LONG time it would change him as a person.
Can a Shard just smite someone? Like, "Boom, you're dead," and they die?
So, Shards can do this, depending on where they are. For instance, Odium can't, but Endowment could.
Are the requirements for a Shard to Invest in a shardworld what causes the manifestations that we see (spren on Roshar, lerasium/atium/harmonium/'trellium' on Scadrial, and Tears of Edgli on Nalthis) or are these phenomena the by-product (or intentional action) of the Shards' Investing themselves?
Yes.
Did any Shards remain on Yolen post-Shattering? If so, how many?
RAFO!
I was wondering if there was a connection between when we meet Preservation in Secret History, and the way he is, and the Stormfather. Like, is he dead yet, in Secret History?
There is a similarity, but-- Dying for a Shard takes a long time, in a lot of cases. So, it's similar. But the Stormfather is something different, *inaudible* remnants left over after the god died.
So is he dead?
Honor is dead, yes. But, at the same time, the Stormfather is kind of his Cognitive Shadow. So-- what does "dead" mean?
Are there specific reasons why opposite Shards seem to end up in the same system?
Yeah.
So why do opposite Shards...
RAFO! *laughter*
So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?
There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.
Implying that some are actually immortal? :D
Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.
Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)
Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)
Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)
Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)
Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)
Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)
Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)
And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.
Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.
Heals from wounds, but still ages.
Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?
Yes, you are correct.
As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?
This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.
...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?
Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.
Do other Shards have [intents?] like Honor with the Heralds and [Odium] with the Unmade?
Do others have things like that?
Yeah.
Yes, there are other things like that.
Odium has, as I understand it, something like the meaning of God's divine wrath. How is wrath on its own able to cause such terrible destruction? I mean, he primarily attacked di-Shardic worlds like Sel and Roshar, so could he just have sowed discord between Shards there to an extent of them actually fighting against each other and then just *inaudible*.
That is a good theory, that he got them to fight against each other. I won't tell you whether it happened or not, but it is a very valid theory. It's fully within his capacity; that's the sort of thing that he does.
If Nightblood was to attack one [a Shard] and decided it was evil, could he destroy enough of that Shard to seriously weaken it compared to other Shards or not really?
I mean it would be such a drop in the bucket. To actually weaken the Shard. Like, there is so much out there. This would be hard to do. I won't completely nix it, but let's just say there's a lot that Nightblood would have to...
Would somebody be able to use enough Investiture or Breath to achieve Shard-- Or to become--
When they are becoming the Vessel of a Shard, this is kind of what's happening. So it's a theoretically possible thing, but it would be basically indistinguishable from just picking it up.
Sazed's obviously Harmony now, if he connected with the other Shards would he become the original Adonalsium 'cause all the intents are morphing, or would he--
There are theories that would happen, there are theories it would destroy him.
Just after the Shattering (but before they started created humans or something), did all Shards have roughly the same amount of raw power?
Yes. Good question.
If a Shard's Vessel dies and drops a body and two people step in to take up the power, what would happen?
RAFO
Will we ever see another Shard combination like Harmony?
RAFO.
Do the Shards move-- Other than Odium do the Shards move around and have we seen-- Or have Shards moved to worlds after the events that we have read about?
Do Shards other than-- Do Shards move around? The answer is yes, there are several of them. Have Shards moved around after the events you've read about? Yes, there are Shards that have moved around after that.
That have moved to the worlds we've read about?
That's a RAFO. I'm not going to tell you whether they've moved to the planets you've read about or not.
Would it require a human-type person to have possession of one of the Shards? Would it interact the same way like if a dog were to somehow take it?
Yeah, a dog would probably not be able to do it. It's not outsi-- Yeah, a dog wouldn't be able to do it.
So there probably wouldn't be some huge dog tearing up the furniture?
Probably not. No, good question, but nah.
So what about other creatures that are intelligent but not human?
That's possible.
Can a Shard just--like, say someone is using their magic system--can they stop the power from them being able to use it?
No, that's a bit like stopping the laws of physics. So, while they can circumvent laws of physics and things like that, but if you wanted to stop someone from using magic, smiting them would be the efficient way of making that happen, if you are capable of it in the system.
I wanted to know why in The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, all the gods were named after human traits?
So this is... all the books are connected. So a long time ago, the premise is, a being... god named Adonalsium was split into 16 pieces, and so the various "aspects" of god, and those aspects are now the gods of all of these things. So there were two in the Elantris world, there's one in the Warbreaker world. Mostly Mistborn and Stormlight is where you'll find out about them.
Preservation, and... I remember Hatred [Odium] in Stormlight.
Yep, Preservation and Ruin. And on Sel, it was Dominion and Devotion, or Love and Conquest were the two.
So all of them are connected?
Yep.
Shards and Shard intents: Holding a Shard is a contest of willpower against the Shard that, over time, is very hard to resist.
Shards affect you over time, but your mind will not leave a permanent effect on the Shard. A holder's [Vessel's] personality, however, does get to filter the Shard's intent, so to speak. However, if that holder [Vessel] no longer held that Shard, the Shard will not continue to be filtered by that person.
Do the Shards know each others' weaknesses? Like the metal blindness or anything?
They are not aware of every specific, but they know generalities.
So they know that they do have weaknesses.
Yeah.
So would Odium have taken advantage of Honor's weakness to Splinter him?
You could say that, yeah.
Austre: Is also also- is that Endowment? You referenced him as male, but Endowment's female. So I'm dying to know.
No, Austre is not. So who do you think Austre is?
Since it's not Endowment I personally think it's a Returned from long ago.
That's a very good conclusion.
Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard.
Could a Shard be split into smaller Intents, like if Honor were alive and then was split into maybe Integrity and Bravery?
This is possible. Very plausible. You ask some weird things sometimes, this one is not that weird, this is very plausible.
The letters in [Oathbringer]. Are they all three from Shards?
...Yes.
Is the first one, is that one we know? Is that one we've seen yet?
They are all ones you have seen.
They are all ones we have seen.
Yes. Or at least you know.
Have seen or know of.
Yeah.
Are Shard Vessels able to have children?
Yes they are.
Even Sazed, with his body being a eunuch?
Yes, though technically all of Scadrial are the children of Preservation and Ruin.
Did Ambition ever have a Shardworld of their own?
[Repeats question] Meaning, did Ambition ever settle on a planet? I’ll RAFO that too.
In the Mistborn trilogy, the base 16 Allomantic metals separate into different groups like the Enhancement metals, etc. Given that there are 16 Shards, do they also separate into different groupings as well? For instance, are Shards like Honor and Devotion part of one 'grouping', with Shards like Cultivation and Endowment part of another?
Good question.
...
RAFO
Vin Asks Ruin about Preservation
After this scene, perhaps you can see why I wanted so badly to spend some time with Vin and Ruin talking while she was imprisoned. I felt this was important enough that I was willing to stretch plausibility a tad to make it possible. (The spoiler in the chapter 54 annotation explains what I mean by that.)
The discussion of morality here is an important one, as I wanted Ruin and Preservation to represent forces, not moral poles. This is vital for various reasons in the underlying cosmology. If they represented poles, then that implied there could only be two like them. But, as they represent opposites, that leaves more room.
Preservation did betray Ruin. This brings us onto the shaky ground of the morality of lying to achieve a greater good. If as much were at stake as is here—the end of an entire world—then perhaps you'd betray someone too. (I love fantasy. Where else can you talk about the end of the world as a consequence of a betrayal and have it be literal?)
Ruin's consciousness—separate from his power—isn't a particularly nice being. But you can't much blame him, as there's very little that is left of the mind that once was. The force of Ruin has pretty well molded the mind to fit with the force's intent.
Was Leras bonded to a being in the Cognitive Realm?
You mean like a Nahel bond?
Yes, or a similar mechanism.
Well, you have to remember that Shards interact with the realms in a different way, so...
Well, I more mean before Leras became a Vessel.
Anything before then is RAFO.
If there is only one Shard on [Taldain], are there other Shards in the solar system?
Ahhh. Now that's a clever question. The answer is "no". One for that solar system. And there's also, um-- we'll stop there.
There's also what?
There are other places with only one. It's not uncommon for there to be only one. I've gone to the planets with multiples intentionally because the conflict there is very long. And the ones on the planets without multiples: like for instance in Warbreaker the conflict is not about cosmere-centric things. And you'll see that very commonly on the planets you go to. There's the same sort of things on Elantris. And so when you see me going-- even though there are two there, they're dead. And so, when you see me--
The reason I ask is that there have been intimations that in Stormlight Archive a Shard may be on the moon just from things that people have--
[...]
There have been *inaudible* that that may be the case, so I had to ask.
You guys are awesome, thank you so much.
Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? If so, what would happen?
Yes, a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium can give up their power if they wish.
As for what would happen...well, there are some variables in there. Kind of like the variables in what happens to a bucket of water if you dump it out. Depends on where it falls, how strong the wind is, what the air is like.
Power dropped like this, if left alone, could end up Splintering and turning into something like spren/seons. It could become something more like the Stormfather--a large, self-aware entity. It could become something like the Dor or many of the Unmade--something proto-aware, but not truly an individual. There are other possibilities as well, depending on lots of factors. (Are sapient beings involved? what is being done with the power--is it concentrated in the Spiritual Realm as normal, or is it being pushed somewhere else?)
Could-- would Odium ever work with another Shard? Maybe not pick up another one--
If he were in charge. Yes, this is within the realm of possibility of what Odium would do. In fact, that may have happened at various points *sly smile*.
Did the shattering [Splintering] of Honor happen in the Cognitive Realm, and Ruin in the Physical? *Brandon laughs* The reason I'm wondering is, are spren the expression of the shattering in the Cognitive Realm while Ruin's physical being is an expression of the shattering in the Physical?
This is an interesting theory that I don't want to completely shoot down, but it is not heading in absolutely correct directions. The shattering of a shard is an event that transcends all three Realms.
When Honor speaks of his inability to see the future, he likens it to a shattering window. Is this related to the fact that in the not-too-distant future, he himself will be splintered? Or is it more a matter of Intent; e.g., Cultivation (and Preservation?) is geared toward future development, whereas Honor is geared toward current behavior.
This is not related to his impending Splintering, it is a matter of differing Intents.
With the god-Shards, is it possible to put-- for someone to put one down without dying?
Yes, it is.
Atium and lerasium are their own special ways of Investiture, of using it. Do the other Shards have those, that even within their magic systems are unique just to that one Shard?
Yes.
Can you tell me anything about any of that?
You might see some of them some day? I think, I know you've seen at least one, but people don't know what it is? One person's asked me a question about it, so somebody's figured it out but, yeah, there are things like that in other worlds. Kind of, distilled essence of Shard, yeah.
How many different non-human immortals are there on Roshar?
Wow, very specific. Most of the Aimians count. They're both small races, but there are enough of them that there are dozens of each that count as immortal, and they're non-human. The two living Shards, I would say count as non-human immortals, and most spren count as non-human immortals. So there's a ton.
One of the reasons I've not been firm on what the names of the sixteen Shards are is because I want that flexibility to be able to say "no, this is what the cosmere needs, is a persona like this to have a Shard, and the Shard doing this." By the time Rhythm of War comes out, I think we will have canonized all sixteen or very close to all sixteen. But I wanted to take my time doing that.
Could you tell me something about Cosmere, that we don't know?
Oooh boy, that is so hard, people ask this all the time and I keep running out of things... Was there anything I haven't added recently... There are Shards whose Shardpools are not on a planet they currently inhabit. At least one.
Can any person absorb a Shard? Or do they have to be somewhat "magical"? (Like Vin and SazeD)
One does not have to be somewhat magical, so to speak, but it does help.
Are all the red-eyed characters influenced by the same Shard?
No. Good question! I was waiting for someone to ask that. You will come to learn what red means in the Cosmere. There is a meaning for red in the Cosmere.
Two questions about the mechanics--well, actually, a bunch of questions--would a Shard's magic change if they moved to a different world?
That's a RAFO.
How is it that Nightblood, who is merely a near-sentient awakened object, was able to read minds, something a Shard like Ruin was unable to do?
It requires bonding (with the person whose mind is to be read) to read minds.
How many Shards have been Splintered, besides the four we know?
You're gonna make me canonize this? I can't canonize this. There's a couple that I'm just kind of...
Odium, Endowment, Devotion...
Okay, Odium has not been Splintered. Endowment and Devotion have been Splintered... Endowment hasn't been Splintered, sorry. Dominion and Devotion have been Splintered. I've confirmed that one other has been Splintered. And then Honor has been Splintered. Those are your four that I've canonized. The other one is, I don't know if I've mentioned who exactly it is, but it's not one that you've seen on one of the planets...
Yeah, I'm not gonna canonize it, exactly how many there are. Because there are things going on in the cosmere that I wanna settle down and decide on once I get to it, exactly what. And Splintering can be a vague term sometimes, too... So that's a RAFO.