I just don’t find a good reason for them to canonically exist
It’s like how Aurem was retconned from the lore doc because it didn’t need an in-lore explanation for existing as it was just a premium currency
Hectate shards don’t need an in-lore explanation either
A lot of people don’t understand a good chunk of the changes to the lore doc are for future parts of the story, and will fit better later.
The reason so much of the lore seems completely unrelated nowadays is because it’s meant to explain something we haven’t seen yet, and therefore don’t understand why it exists
Finding a piece of a Goddess of magic and utilizing it to get better magic or obtaining multiple to unlock even better magic makes plenty of sense even when you take away the context of the game so to be honest I don’t really find this to be an issue. I can see how a few people might see it that way, but I don’t think it’s enough to warrant making it not canon
While there’s always gonna be exceptions cause you either don’t won’t to extremely limit player freedom or something just won’t work otherwise, it’s typically preferable to keep things consistent between the game and lore. It makes things a lot less confusing for players who are trying to understand the story and world. It’s especially important here when it comes to how the power system even works. It’s bad enough as is with awakenings, or at least how they function in game, being not canon. The less false info in the game where the truth is found in some source outside it the less confusing it’s gonna be for anyone who’s trying to get the story from the game, which is the primary medium in which the story is being told.
Figure this might be a bit more of an agreeable reason for you since it affects the story outside of connecting the game to the lore. Cursebeard’s motive to attack Olympus has always been that he thought Prometheus was holding back the true power of magic from humanity. The problem was prior to hecate shards this was basically entirely a guess. A guess that he just happened to get really really lucky on and turn out to be totally right. With Hecate shards he now has an actual reason to suspect that Prometheus was holding back the true power of magic from humanity. If humans were able to mutate their magic from the get go without the shards then there’s not really much cause for Cursebeard to assume that wasn’t part of Prometheus’ gift of magic to humanity. This isn’t to say Cursebeard couldn’t have guessed right or even been given evidence in some other form, but the shards give probably one of the most logical reasons for him to think the way he did which makes things a lot more understandable.
You might not think this is necessary or even really all that great, but I kinda wanted to say this anyways. I think this is just cool. Makes good use of a character in greek mythology who was all about the magic stuff and for obvious reasons fits the setting of the AU really well. Its just nice to see her in lore as well as an actually tangible part of her in game that plays a pretty big part in all magic classes’ progression. This is definitely the most opiniated argument, so if that’s all you think of it then just ignore it that’s totally fair, but I figured if I talked about it it’d be possible you could see it somewhat of the same way.
I can understand how the shards can be immersion breaking. I’m not sure if that’s an issue for most people, but even if it is I think for the reasons above the pros outweigh the cons here.