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In the Mistborn series, we've seen the Shard entities known as Preservation and Ruin, they are Shards, wielded by Leras and Ati respectively. My question is, do we know from in-universe information, if two (or more) Shards or Shardwielders have ever fought so openly in any of the other books?

I know that we've had Dominion and Devotion in Elantris, and Honour, Odium and Cultivation in the Stormlight Archives.

I don't believe that we've ever had such outright war between any of the other Shards or Shardwielders, am I not remembering something?

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  • There was plenty of conflicts and we saw a vessel of a shard die "on screen" again. BTW What happened to Ambition in the past is said to be pretty nasty, but we dunno the details.
    – Mithoron
    Commented Aug 29, 2023 at 1:12

1 Answer 1

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There hasn't been an direct on-screen conflict between two Shard holders yet; the closest we came was the conflict between Preservation and Ruin, as you pointed out, and that's not really the same thing. (In that case, the two shards happened to be in direct opposition to each other's nature, so it was natural that they'd conflict.)

However, we find out in the Stormlight Archives novels that Rayse (Odium) has been world-hopping to the various Shard worlds and killing off their Shard holders. The chapter intros from Part 2 of The Way of Kings make up a letter between two people who are clearly Cosmere-aware. Whoever is writing the letter (we assume it was Hoid) explicitly claims that Odium murdered Skai (Dominion) and Aona (Devotion) on Sel, the world of Elantris, and splintered their Shards. We also know from Dalinar's visions that Rayse is the one who murdered Tanavast (Honor) on Roshar, the world of the Stormlight Archives.

The chapter headers from Part 4 of Words of Radience form a response letter, from a currently-unknown person, which claims that Tanavast's sacrifice has somehow trapped Rayse on Roshar. It's basically implied that this is the only reason he hasn't killed anyone else since Tanavast.

While the death's of Skai and Aona sound more like assassinations, the fight between Rayse and Tanavast was clearly a war -- the war that makes up the history of Roshar, which we see bits and pieces of in The Way of Kings opening scene and Danlinar's various flashback visions. (A war that Tanavast, obviously, lost.)

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  • I'm gonna post a follow up question that I will link here as a comment to the OP. I remember quite precisely what slivers are, but I don't quite understand what splinters are. Hopefully you'll be able to help me out there too!
    – Stormie
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 22:01
  • Yes, I know the answer to that one :)
    – KutuluMike
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 22:43
  • scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/96447/…
    – Stormie
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 22:47

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