Theory on why Preservation and Ruin's planning abilities are so different

[Ale the Metallic Conjurer he/him]

So before I get into my theory, I want to summarize the facts we know about Ati and Leras' influence on Scadrial. Which play into my theory on why their planning abilities were so different.

• We know that a Vessel of Preservation sees future possibilities much better than a Vessel of Ruin, by orders of magnitude. We see this in the steps of Leras' Plan and Kelsier's plan to give Preservation to Vin.
• Their precognitive abilities seem to be caused by Intent. A Vessel of Ruin formulates plans that decay and break down worlds, destroy cities, or kill people. A Vessel of Preservation formulates plans that keep things the same, stagnate progress, prevent change, protect people, or stabilize things. So fundamentally speaking, a Vessel of Preservation might have a mindset that's significantly more considerate of long-term dangers than Ruin.
• Some parts of Leras' Plan depending upon Ati underestimating certain possibilities or wanting to prevent some. For example, Ati foresaw Vin's small chance of Ascending to Vessel, so he used the earring to prevent this. Ati foresaw the potential for Elend's death driving Vin to murder-sucide. Yet, he dismissed this.

 

Ati and Leras had different touchstones for their goals and influence on Scadrial.

• Ate initially agreed to the bargain to create humanity. This was only so he could eventually destroy Scadrial without Preservation's interference. He was okay with waiting forever, so long as Leras let him directly destroy Scadrial when the time was right.
• Later on, Ati only wanted to break out of his prison. And if he destroys some cities, causes some riots, or kills some rulers along the way that's even better. Ati could only speak to the minds of the spiked and insane, or alter text not written in metal. Ati didn't deliberately output his Investiture in other ways to facilitate his plans.
• Leras proposed the bargain to create humanity. He already knew he needed to formulate a complex plan to defeat Ati, and that creating Scadrian humanity needed to be the first step.
• Leras' Plan was to get people to burn away all of Ruin's body, and arrange for someone to take up the powers of both Preservation and Ruin. He didn't fully remember The Plan by the time of Secret History, but he was clearly facilitating it throughout millennia. And not just through the prophecies, Mists, Well of Ascension's users, or lerasium. For example, Leras hid hints in all the world's religions for the Hero of Ages. And clearly had a plan for Kelsier. Furthermore, Leras hears the thoughts of ALL HUMANS, can alter any text not written in metal, and fabricate text from scratch.

 

Something that really caught my attention is that Ati not only failed to foresee the intended outcome of the Terris Prophecies, but failed to foresee the true purpose of Leras wanting to create humanity. Despite Leras creating the prophecies before imprisoning Ati. Despite humanity being created long before the prophecies. Before millennia of Ati's imprisonment and Leras' mental decay made them slip deeper and deeper into their Intents.

Not only that, but Ati didn't want to create humanity. He just wanted to directly destroy worlds, or at least Scadrial. Which is weird to me. Humans are the last thing I would classify as “stable and unchanging.” Humans constantly destroy, kill, and break things to their smallest form. Even when we aim to preserve. Humans age, so we also wind down. So it seems like we’d be loved by Ruin and disliked by Preservation. But instead, it was the opposite even from the beginning.

My theory is that a Vessel's intelligence and/or planning ability influences 1) the god's approach to making plans, and 2) the god's ability to consider certain future possibilities. Ruin could've chosen to create humanity that engages in war/conquest, discovers warfare tactics, or invents devastating tech. Instead he just wanted to directly destroy Scadrial. Even later on, Ruin had the mindset of influencing humanity into directly killing rulers or cities. See his plans for the Eleventh Metal, Spook, or Penrod. I believe this was influenced by Ati being a short-term, straightforward, less cunning, and spontaneous schemer. 

Preservation could've been diametrically opposed to creating humanity, because humans are inherently beings of chaos and change. Instead he chose to create such beings for his plan. I believe this was influenced by Leras being a calm, patient, and Xanatosian planner who took many outcomes into consideration.

We might already be seeing a similar dichotomy between Ati and Sazed. When Sazed wrote the Words of Founding, he acknowledged that when humans create something they always destroy something. I think part of this was due to Sazed being a very contemplative, calm, reasonable, and humble person who takes all differing mindsets into consideration.

Edited September 11 by Ale the Metallic Conjurer

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Something that really caught my attention is that Ati not only failed to foresee the intended outcome of the Terris Prophecies, but failed to foresee the true purpose of Leras wanting to create humanity. Despite Leras creating the prophecies before imprisoning Ati. Despite humanity being created long before the prophecies. Before millennia of Ati's imprisonment and Leras' mental decay made them slip deeper and deeper into their Intents.

Adding to this, Ruin didn't predict to be imprisoned at all. He didn't predict that Leras would use his own mind to imprison him, but might have anticipated Leras would want to use his power to attack him. This is probably because neither of them knew what effect using the mind to forge a prison would have on them. The knowledge of a Vessel is a limiting factor for their future sight.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-Five

Elend Sees the Mist Spirit

Elend really does have a lot of faith in Vin, even if he doesn't worship her. He ascribes an almost supernatural power to her. And, I can kind of see why he would. In these books, Vin's almost less of a character and more a force. Like Ruin and Preservation, in a way.

Regardless, this chapter is about Elend giving up—then finding his hope again. I bring the mist spirit back here for a final appearance, but I wanted to be careful not to have it give too much information to Elend. Not because I don't want the information itself to get out, but because the mist spirit hasn't been a presence in this book, and so I haven't foreshadowed it enough. Therefore, if it simply showed up and gave a bunch of answers, I think that would feel cheap to the reader.

The mist spirit is, as the next epigraph explains, the remnants of Preservation's mind. I don't delve into it too much in this book, even the epigraphs, but Preservation's consciousness is indeed separate from his power. However, his consciousness itself has a limited power. And that is what he used to bind Ruin.

That did not weaken his power, which still protects the world. Instead, it cost him his mind, leaving behind only a faint shadow—like the mists' memory of Preservation, far removed from what he had once been.

That consciousness attached to Preservation—like the one attached to Ruin—is a part of Adonalsium, which will eventually be explained. Suffice it to say that in a pinch, Preservation could draw upon the power of his own mind and use it to imprison Ruin. This was why he was able to pull of the trick, as Ruin wasn't expecting it. He might have anticipated an attack using Preservation's power, but not his mind—not knowing what burning his own mind would do.

That is why Preservation's cage captured Ruin's own mind, but not his power.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Jan. 19, 2010)

 

13 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

My theory is that a Vessel's intelligence and/or planning ability influences 1) the god's approach to making plans, and 2) the god's ability to consider certain future possibilities.

That's 100% true.

13 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Ruin could've chosen to create humanity that engages in war/conquest, discovers warfare tactics, or invents devastating tech. Instead he just wanted to directly destroy Scadrial.

Actually, Ati would be unable to support such an idea because of the intent he chose to represent. Ruin embodies the idea of entropy - the unstoppable decay and death of the universe. Creating humanity so they could be locked in the state of perpetual warfare is against Ruin's intent, it's in fact more of a Preservation thing as that's just a status quo. Ruin had to push for the eventual destruction of Scadrial because his very intent drives for the end of everything. So while humans are excellent agents of Ruin, unless there is an end to all of this, Ruin’s intent would never be satisfied. 

Spoiler

Alvaro Lopez

Why Odium is stronger and worst evil than Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

One reason is that Ruin had a person in control of it who, for many years, fought against the impulse to destroy--and in the end, channeled it toward entropy and decay, necessary elements of the universe. Odium represents something else entirely.

General Twitter 2018 (June 6, 2018)

 

13 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Even later on, Ruin had the mindset of influencing humanity into directly killing rulers or cities. See his plans for the Eleventh Metal, Spook, or Penrod. I believe this was influenced by Ati being a short-term, straightforward, less cunning, and spontaneous schemer. 

It was the opposite. Instead of killing rulers like Penrod or Quellion, he chose to spike them so they could cause more destruction in the long run. 

 

Overall it's an excellent analysis.