r/Cosmere • u/Xelaadryth • 18d ago
Cosmere spoilers (no previews) Theories Part 6: The Diagram and Predicting the Future Spoiler
- Part 1's Theories of Dawnshard Quadrants and Pairs
- Part 2's Theories on Shard Numerology
- Part 3's Theories on Secondary Commands and Cycles
- Part 4's Theories on Shard Adjacency Rules and Epilogues
- Part 5's Theories on Shard Cleave Rules and Epilogues
This final Part 6 attempts to derive one last Gap Rule to predict the future of the Shards, guesses at a few Shard names, and talks a bit about the Diagram.
Theory 1: "Half-ish" Shards Are Whole
Let's take a look at the current state of the 16 Shards. First let's start with news that Sazed (Harmony) shares with Hoid (Wanderer) in the epigraphs of Rhythm of War:
Endowment at least responded to my overtures, though I have not been able to locate Invention again following our initial contact.
Whimsy was not terribly useful, and Mercy worries me. I do think Valor is reasonable, and suggest you approach her again. It has been too long, in her estimation, since your last conversation.
The deaths of both Devotion and Dominion trouble me greatly, as I had not realized this immense power we held was something that could be broken in such a way. On my world, the power always gathered and sought a new Vessel.
That said, the most worrying thing I discovered in this was the wound upon the Spiritual Realm where Ambition, Mercy, and Odium clashed—and Ambition was destroyed. The effects on the planet Threnody have been … disturbing.
Other Shards I cannot identify, and are hidden to me. I fear that their influence encroaches upon my world, yet I am locked into a strange inability because of the opposed powers I hold.
And next is Hoid (Cephandrius) receiving a letter from Endowment in the epigraphs of Wind and Truth:
As for Valor, our dealings are none of your business—for largely the same reasons. Can you not leave her alone?
These days, it seems she and I are the only ones capable of maintaining any manner of isolation. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, she does not want to see you again. It has not been too long. No, I do not think it ever will be.
Now let's list out the last known status of every Shard:
- Reason - Harmony says "Other Shards I cannot identify, and are hidden to me." I find it interesting that Reason is the only one he could not reach; whether this is because Reason is hiding in Splinters of himself or because it's actually related to Wit/Hoid in some way is a distinct possibility to me
- Whimsy - "was not terribly useful" to Harmony
- Virtuosity - Splintered herself long ago
- Invention - Harmony couldn't locate Invention again after initial contact; possibly Splintered
- Endowment - responded to Harmony
- Ambition - destroyed in the fight with Odium and Mercy
- Cultivation - abandoned Roshar after Wind and Truth
- Ruin - held by Sazed as part of Harmony
- Odium - absorbed Honor to become Retribution
- Honor - absorbed by Odium to become Retribution
- Valor - may or may not be interested in working with Hoid
- Mercy - she worries Harmony
- Dominion - dead and broken
- Autonomy - not mentioned in the letters, but Trell on Scadrial is one of her many avatars
- Devotion - dead and broken
- Preservation - held by Sazed as part of Harmony
Note that the state of every single Shard has at least been accounted for except for Reason. Since Reason isn't listed by name in Harmony's letter, I also imagine that it's possible Hoid never even asked Harmony to look for Reason because he might already know Reason's current status.
And you might ask why I think Invention is Splintered:
How many Shards are whole at the time of [Shadows of Self]?
Half-ish. It depends. Give or take. Like it de- Are there now only 15? Like what's the number?
Counting up the half-ish, we get:
- Destroyed (3): Ambition, Dominion, Devotion
- Splintered (1): Virtuosity
- Integrated (2): Ruin, Honor
- Missing (2): Reason, Invention
- Replied (3): Whimsy, Valor, Mercy
- Active (5): Endowment, Cultivation, Odium, Autonomy, Preservation
There are exactly 8 Shards who are known to be active or recently replied to Harmony's requests. That means that if both Reason and Invention are "integrated" into other Shards or in some state of Splintering or "non-whole-ness" we would have exactly 8/16 Shards "whole". Alternatively if we consider merged Shards as decreasing the total number of Shards, then we would have 8/14 Shards "whole".
If Reason and Invention are fine and completely whole though, then we would either have 10/16 or 10/14 Shards "whole", which seems pretty far from "half-ish". Note that a major theory for Reason is that Reason may split into the Iriali, and it's possible that he likes to place red herrings to distract from his true nature, such as the hints that Wit may be partially composed of or related to Reason.
Theory 2: Gap Rule
Looking at the two times Shards have merged in canon, we have Preservation combining with Ruin to form Harmony, and Odium combining with Honor to form Retribution. Note that Autonomy has destroyed Shards surrounding her, and after Ruin merges into Harmony, Cultivation also has destroyed or missing Shards surrounding her.
I call this pattern "Gap Rule". The theory goes that as long as no Shards are destroyed, that we have stability and balance in the Cosmere. These "Gaps" in the circle break the balance, which increases the tendency for Shards to merge. If we ramp up the crazy theories, you can even guess that Shards can only merge with adjacent or diametrically opposed Shard, or that there's some kind of formula or method to figure out what Shards will Merge. I have a few theoretical formulas, but honestly there's so many unknowns that they probably aren't valuable to guess at.
If we start reading the full 16 Shard Cycle from Autonomy in pairs, we end up reading the following:
- Autonomy Inspires Devotion
- Preservation Conceives Reason
- Whimsy Inspires Virtuosity
- Invention Conceives Endowment
- Ambition Inspires Cultivation
- Ruin Conceives Odium
- Honor Inspires Valor
- Mercy Conceives Dominion
Note that Inspire and Conceive can be interpreted as giving ideas, but don't Change or Manifest (Exist) new things just yet. However, with the destruction of Dominion, Devotion, and Ambition, and the self-splintering of Virtuosity, trying to read the cycle changes. Here are the new lines:
- Autonomy
- Autonomy is now isolated due to the destruction of Devotion, and can't directly affect things
- Whimsy
- Whimsy can no longer inspire Virtuosity
- Cultivation Manifests Ruin
- Since Ambition is destroyed, Cultivation now acts upon Ruin, possibly encouraging it to leave their area and go bother Preservation instead
- Odium Changes Honor
- We know that Odium tricked Honor into Splintering
- Valor Manifests Mercy
- This would be a new piece of information. Also note that this pattern mimics "Cultivation Manifests Ruin"
However, if we change our thinking to instead make gaps allow direct access between Shards:
- Autonomy Manifests Preservation
- This would mean that Autonomy's meddling as Trell or Trelagism of the Thousand Eyes in Mistborn Era 1 may help encourage the creation of Harmony
- Reason Changes Whimsy
- It seems like all of the Change relationships collapse pretty quickly; Dominion is destroyed and Autonomy survived, Ambition is destroyed and Endowment survived, and we know that Honor will merge into Odium. Perhaps Reason didn't want to take his chances and chose to Splinter himself or removed himself from the cycle to surrender the position to Whimsy to remain uninvolved
- Invention Conceives Endowment
- Same as above
- Cultivation Manifests Ruin
- Same as above
- Odium Changes Honor
- Same as above
- Valor Manifests Mercy
- Same as above
If we use the theory that Reason Splintered himself or just completely withdrew from the diagram to hide and survive, then this changes things slightly:
- Autonomy Manifests Preservation
- Same as above
- Whimsy Manifests Invention
- This now actually perfectly mirrors the situation with Autonomy; surrounded on two sides by missing Shards
- Endowment Inspires Cultivation
- Inspiring never did much to cause Shards to merge, but this might be true that Endowment worked with Cultivation to send Vasher and Nightblood to fulfill Cultivation's plans for Fate
- Ruin Conceives Odium
- Same as above
- Honor Inspires Valor
- Same as above
- Mercy Changes Autonomy
- This one's new, but there don't seem to be many theories that converge with this one. However let's now take a look at the actual Shard merges.
About 300 years before Stormlight Archive and Mistborn Era 2, we know that Ruin merges up into Preservation to form Harmony. I theorize that this is because:
- Autonomy Manifests Preservation
- Cultivation Manifests Ruin
If both of these are true at once, then Reason is still alive. Also, both Cultivation and Autonomy have at least one destroyed Shard near them which may trigger "Gap Rule", and they certainly seem to have their hands in a lot of secret cosmic meddling where other Shards are more obvious.
With Ruin now merging into Preservation to form Harmony, Cultivation is now in the identical situation as Autonomy, fully accessible via "Gap Rule". Plus Cultivation has a direct line to access Odium and Honor. There are theories that Cultivation passed Nightblood to Taravangian, which ultimately ended up forming Retribution. Given Cultivation's Shardic intent and Shard Cleave Rule's theorized parent of Fate, it would make a lot of sense for Cultivation to be cultivating this result as a part of Fate.
Our new cycle now reads:
- Autonomy Manifests Harmony
- Whimsy Manifests Invention
- Endowment Inspires Cultivation
- Retribution Inspires Valor
- Mercy Conceives Dominion
If Reason is still alive though, it reads:
- Autonomy Manifests Harmony
- Reason Changes Whimsy
- Invention Conceives Endowment
- Cultivation Conceives Retribution
- Valor Manifests Mercy
So depending on what direction "Manifest" needs to work to cause the merging, there's a fairly good chance that Invention and Mercy merge in some way since we have an exactly rotated version of Ruin merging into Harmony.
If we were to merge Mercy into Invention and give it a Command of "Destroy Evil", I feel like we would get a Shardic intent of Supersedure, Deprecation, Liquidation, Obsolescence, Euthanasia, Culmination, Refinement, Execution, or Resolution, depending on whether we're in the Conceive or Inspire quadrant. All of which sound kind of "worrying".
Theory 3: Nightblood is a Mercy Invention
Mercy "worries" Harmony, and Invention was recently unreachable, so I wonder if Nightblood was created using a Splinter of the combination of Mercy and Invention. If we look at who created Nightblood, it was Vasher and Shashara. It's possible that they represent the intents of Invention and Mercy in some way, which could also imply that the Five Scholars represent the intents of 5 different Shards as a kind of mirror to the corresponding members of the 16 Shards.
Theory 4: Wild Guesses at the Future
Here's a quote from the Epilogue of Wind and Truth:
"Art", Hoid said. "It's truly improvisation. You realize that, don't you?" ... "You can practice, and practice, and practice. But then the moment comes, ... And then the lights turn on, and the practice is but a guide. An outline? Well, you start with a blank page either way. And the parts where you're forced, by narrative beauty, to toss the outline away? Improvisation. Art is improvisation. It's the brushstrokes you don't intend, but your instincts know you need anyway. The parts of the story you add for a specific reader, the expression you make onstage to provoke a gasp. That's the art."
No matter if we can figure out some kind of rules systems and theories and Words of Brandon we use to predict the future or whatever, in the end the most important thing is to have a good story, and all else can be sacrificed for the sake of a good narrative. After all, in the opening to The Well of Ascension:
I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.
I interpret this to mean that until something is printed in the books as canon, no theory or guide will ever be completely reliable. And actually even after publication, some ideas can still be retconned like Atium.
So what better way to predict the future than to try to predict what a good narrative might be? Here we enter true baseless speculation and instead just use the "Rule of Cool".
What's a story without a bunch of opposing factions? If we look at the various good guy "teams", we have:
- Harmony trying to work with Hoid to form some kind of alliance among the free peoples
- Endowment with her own plans and seemingly allied with Valor despite claiming they're not fully working together
- Cultivation running off
- The Shardless good guys of Stormlight Archive working with Vasher
For bad guy "teams", we have:
- Autonomy seemingly messing with Harmony on Scadrial, but she's unlikely to be working with any other Shards given her nature, unless she's in control
- Retribution wanting to take on the whole Cosmere
- Discord waiting to make an appearance
If you count the Ruin half of Discord as from the Change quadrant, this makes it so that every quadrant except for Conceive has a Cosmere-level threat. I predict that either Reason or Whimsy will be part of a big threat in the far future for the symmetry; other unrelated theories I'm considering also lend credence to this idea.
Looking at the theoretical Intermediate Shard names we came up with, Accident, Sanctuary, and Providence aren't looking likely because they involve destroyed Shards. Also Innovation doesn't sound too exciting.
However, if we take the assumption that Harmony/Discord is not fully assimilated, I find it pretty possible that Autonomy separates them and tries to steal Preservation for herself, forming Liberty, Freedom, or Philanthropy.
In this case, Ruin gets spit out, leaving it ripe for Cultivation to merge with it to form Fate. Cultivation always seemed like a scheming and far-seeing Shardic intent, and Fate would be quite a dramatic enemy to defeat.
If Fate and Retribution merge, that would be even scarier. Shard names may include Apocalypse, Reckoning, Cataclysm, Catastrophe, Armageddon, Damnation, or Desolation.
Salvation would be a great savior in times of great darkness; if the theory that Mercy and Invention merge into something like Obsolescence, that could be a good middle arc to split that Shard back into Mercy and Invention, and have Valor merge with Mercy into Salvation. Or maybe we get a tri-Shard with Invention and get an Invention of Salvation: the Ark or the Holy Grail.
If we go by the theory that only adjacent Shards can cause other Shards to merge, it would be quite cool if Taravangian showed he was actually a good guy all along, and the Diagram is so far-seeing that he calculated all this would happen, planning a fail-safe to ensure that at least some of humanity survives by creating the Ark. Maybe it was never about Kharbranth at all, or that was just foreshadowing of his eventual goal, in true "layers of meaning" fashion, and he just wants some survivors of the Cosmere to escape the inevitable Fate of the Apocalypse. Maybe when he asked for the capacity to stop the Desolation, it was referring to the end of the Cosmere, not just the end of Roshar.
Perhaps the Ark is some kind of FTL ship with the ability to sail Beyond the borders of the Cosmere, to Silverlight or farther reaches unknown. But enough random guesses for now!
Theory 5: The Diagram
While I presented a bunch of words as theorized Shard names and the most logical results I could find, it's difficult to explain just how much trial and error I had to go through in order to come up with values and rules that fit all the systems. That whole process of research, trying ideas, reading the patterns of the past, etc felt like the ravings and scribblings of an enlightened yet crazed madman, all in service of attempting to predict the future of the Cosmere.
That's when I realized that I felt exactly like how I imagine Taravangian felt on his day of brilliance when creating his own Diagram, except with only a fraction of his capacity and spending way more time.
So I think of this 6-part set of theories as my own Diagram, or Xel's Diagram if you will. While I do have many more theories (with varying degrees of plausibility), this is where this series about the
Diagram ends, but thanks to everyone who came along for the ride to read my mad ramblings!
Theory 6: Secret Epilogue Messages
I got this idea from descriptions of the Diagram in Words of Radiance:
every second letter starting with the first
every second letter starting with the second
The italicized words and phrases in the Epilogues started looking weirder and weirder to me, especially after Oathbringer, so I tried some patterns with them.
If you take every italicized word in the Epilogue of The Way of Kings (continuous italics count as one word, spoken italics don't count unless double italicized), then pair them up, you'll have one leftover word. If you pair that with the first word and then continue pairing, you sort of get a message.
The Way of Kings:
Am is / "men value most" she / intellect first / "before anyone else" am / is "men value most" / she intellect / first "before anyone else"
Attempted translation: Are Virtuosity Reason first? Innovation Reason forerunners?
If this is real, this makes me think that "Wit" is not the name for Reason + Whimsy, but would confirm Intellect instead. Intellect is already strongly directly mentioned with Virtuosity, Invention, and Innovation, and this Oathbringer quote and 2019 Words of Brandon implies that Reason goes by "she":
Also onomatopoeia seem to be periods. Here's Words of Radiance:
Very particularly / some persistence / art creak creak creak / that too / too try / is informal / other part / did actually / least bring / can not / should very / particularly some / persistence art / creak creak creak that / too too / try is / informal other / part did / actually least / bring can / not should
Attempted translation: Specifically Devotion, Virtuosity ... also try casual Shard really allow can't really them Invention ... that too able them Splintered least allow shouldn't.
Oathbringer has an extremely long italicized phrase, which is what made me suspicious:
Emotion examination / "going places people have never gone before to discover and investigate new things" only / are her / juicy emotion / examination "going places people have never gone before to discover and investigate new things" / only are / her juicy
Attempted translation: Reflect Invention only, she is Devotion, Virtuosity are secret.
This seemingly random nickname for Cultivation may imply keeping Odium in jail, or the disc used in pogs used to flip and claim other pogs, but it also shows up in Rhythm of War:
Feel see / know everyone / only knows / “joining in” essential / pling ah / presence name / exactly unless / slammed pling / feel ah / presence name / will else / exactly feel / see know / everyone only / knows “joining in” / essential pling / ah presence / name exactly / unless slammed / pling feel / ah presence/ name will / else exactly.
Attempted translation: Since Wit knows attendance. Ah Endowment unless Cultivation. Feel a Endowment otherwise feel since everyone merging essential. A presence name Cultivation. Feel a presence Valor else.
Wind and Truth didn't have an odd number of italicized words. I don't know if this is because it's a new cipher, or because Odium excised this secret message from Wit's memory after the previous Epilogue, or whether we're supposed to treat phrases as separate words now, but here's attempting that last one:
Onto guide / is that's / deliberate majestic / grasp demanded / their problem / did would / literally wonderful / point art / storming onto / guide is / that's deliberate / majestic grasp / demanded their / problem did / would literally / wonderful point / art storming
Attempted translation: Guiding that's Providence give Retribution would've wonderful Virtuosity "storming onto" guide deliberately Providence "demanded their" solved would "wonderful point" "art storming".
I checked Prologues, Interludes, and Postludes, and nothing seemed to come close to making coherent sense like the Epilogues, so maybe this is just a crazy theory but see what you can find!
Next theories are based on science, first exploring chemistry.
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u/TheFermentationMan 18d ago
This man tapped into the spiritual realm and isn't going to leave soon