An Insight on Odium

[Pechvarry]

Because they were literally stars winking out. And it was a vision of what could come, not an absolute. So the destruction of entire solar systems honestly makes more sense than stars as metaphors for individual shards

[Shardlet he/him]

But why Sel and Scadrial's suns (in particular)?

Edited September 4, 2013 by Shardlet

[Kurkistan he/him]

Also, it could well be argued that entire vision is metaphorical, so 2 Shards == 2 Stars makes a fair amount of sense, especially given that we know Odium was responsible for Aona and Skai's deaths.

[Vortaan he/him]

Why would Honor be that concerned about other Shards being killed though? I suppose it again comes to what is Odium's end game. After all other Shards are dead, does he start killing worlds? He hasn't (so far as we're aware), done anything to destroy Sel even after killing Dominion and Devotion, so... what's he up to?

[Shardlet he/him]

I think that since Honor was dealing with Odium, that he would be very concerned about Odium having previously killed two other Shards.

 

I don't see anything to suggest that Odium cares about worlds or their inhabitants except as perhaps a means to an end.  If they get caught in the crossfire, I doubt he is going to lose any sleep.  But, I doubt he is inclined to go an smite the peons any more than if you were up against 15 opponents/rivals you would be inclined to pause and destroy an ant hill.

[lordofsoup]

 (recall Sazed holds 2 shards and Honor, Dominion, and Devotion are dead and splintered).  I

Could someone link me where Hoid holds 2 Shards plz?

[Shardlet he/him]

Could someone link me where Hoid holds 2 Shards plz?

 

Hoid doesn't hold any shards.  The part you quoted says Sazed holds two shards which are Ruin and Preservation as shown in Mistborn and AoL.  However, these two shards are joined together into a new shard which Sazed calls Harmony.  Hence 12 shards and 12 conciousnesses rather than 13 shards and 12 conciousnesses.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Shardlet

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Hoid doesn't hold any shards.  The part you quoted says Sazed holds two shards which are Ruin and Preservation as shown in Mistborn and AoL.  However, these two shards are joined together into a new shard which Sazed calls Harmony.  Hence 12 shards and 12 conciousnesses rather than 13 shards and 12 conciousnesses.

 

Eh... I would disagree with that last part.  The Harmony/Ruin/Preservation dynamic can be viewed in a number of ways (i.e. as one shard and as two shards).  In that instance I feel the two-shard view would be more accurate.  So its 13 intact shards and 12 consciousnesses.

[Shardlet he/him]

I see it different in view of the 'Sazed would drop Harmony rather than Ruin and Preservation if he died' http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3981-is-harmony-a-new-shard/?p=63123'>quote.  I know many look at it differently.  I was mostly clarifying my earlier post.  It is important to note, I think, that Harmony has more raw power than any of the other Shards since it is a combined Shard (to my way of thinking).

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

The way I see Shards goes along with the normal definition of the term, meaning a fragment. If you drop a vase, it breaks into a bunch of shards. But if you glue two shards back together, they don't become one shard. They are two shards stuck together. Similarly, if you take two Shards of Adonalsium, as Sazed has, you don't get one Shard, you get a composition.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I see it different in view of the 'Sazed would drop Harmony rather than Ruin and Preservation if he died' quote.  I know many look at it differently.  I was mostly clarifying my earlier post.  It is important to note, I think, that Harmony has more raw power than any of the other Shards since it is a combined Shard (to my way of thinking)

 

What I was trying to get across in my post was that whether you should view Harmony as one shard or two depends on the situation.  While there are certainly instances where it is useful to think of Harmony as a single shard, such as "being dropped at the death of its holder,"  Harmony is still two shards.

 

Yes Harmony does have more raw power than the other shards, according to some he is the most powerful entity in the cosmere but that is because Harmony is two shards.

 

Edit: Ninja'd by Grey Pilgrim who might like the first theory in my sig...

Edited September 6, 2013 by WeiryWriter

[Arondell]

As far as I can tell Harmony has its own intent independent of Ruin and Preservation.   From what we have seen it appears to function as a single shard including what happens if the bearer dies.   In almost any way that matters it no longer appears to be two shards.  The only apparent exception being the level of power involved.

[Vortaan he/him]

As far as I can tell Harmony has its own intent independent of Ruin and Preservation.   From what we have seen it appears to function as a single shard including what happens if the bearer dies.   In almost any way that matters it no longer appears to be two shards.  The only apparent exception being the level of power involved.

 

I don't know about that. Ruin and Preservation are still Intents that Harmony has to deal with. I think if he went too far one direction or another, he wouldn't be able to maintain both Shards without serious reprecussions.

[Arondell]

I don't know about that. Ruin and Preservation are still Intents that Harmony has to deal with. I think if he went too far one direction or another, he wouldn't be able to maintain both Shards without serious reprecussions.

Not really.  Like the shards themselves the two intents have been combined into something new.  From what was revealed in Alloy of Law the new intent is about balance.  Which is I guess another way of saying Harmony.  Something neither Ruin or Preservation had any particular interest in.

 

I guess I feel that saying Harmony is two shards is like saying Adonalsium is sixteen shards or that a shard is a bunch of splinters.  True in a way but they are still their own thing.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I disagree slightly about a characterization of "Harmony" as equivalent to balance.

[Arondell]

I disagree slightly about a characterization of "Harmony" as equivalent to balance.

I can't disagree.  Most of the shards though seem like they can have multiple aspects.  Harmony is not simply about balance but I still feel that balance is a part of its makeup.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I personally feel that it is hard to dispute that Harmony is two shards because Ruin and Preservation still exist as distinct entities.

 

Scadrians still have innate investiture from Ruin and Preservation not "Harmony."

 

During Alloy there are two kinds of shard-mist, one for each shard.

 

They can still be split apart and have their powers un-mingled.

 

Being two shards is part of why "balance" is a big thing to Harmony, he has to be sure to not use to much of one and not the other, otherwise the imbalance could cause problems.  I don't know if "balance" would be Harmony's Intent because I'm not sure it has an intrinsic Intent or whether Sazed just made it up.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Seconded.

A less direct piece of evidence is that we don't have new magic systems. I would imagine that if Ruin and Preservation had become one inseparable power with its own intent, the magic systems would have changed as Allomancy would not be able to be fueled from Hemalurgy. Harmony is not the intent of Sazed's powers. It is how he likes to think of the combination of powers he now holds.

[Morsk he/him]

I just think of Harmony as a yin-yang symbol. It's not divided clearly down the middle, but there's definitely division into two opposites, and also a little mixing. Sometimes it's viewed as two separate things, sometimes as one thing. There's no easy way to break it in half. There's more to it than balance, but what the "more" is is difficult to understand, and even more difficult describe -- a religious mystery. Sazed understands it because he holds it, but can anyone else?

[Kurkistan he/him]

That's an interesting way of putting it.

 

As for whether anyone but Sazed can understand the "religious mystery": Brandon obviously does, so yes, someone else can understand it.

[Morsk he/him]

Kurkistan, on 08 Sept 2013 - 12:53, said:

That's an interesting way of putting it.

As for whether anyone but Sazed can understand the "religious mystery": Brandon obviously does, so yes, someone else can understand it.

Unless he likes the mystery as-is and doesn't want to make a decision on it. It's not that different from technobabble and hand-waving. Sometimes the author doesn't know the answer either, but still has to describe it in sufficient detail for the story.

[Shardlet he/him]

For Scadrian investiture to be changed from a bit of Ruin and a bit of Preservation, Harmony would have had to withdraw that investiture and give a new investiture.  The same goes for the magic systems.  Simply the presence of a different Shard does not a new magic system make.  Again, Harmony would have had to given a new investiture for a new magic system to occur.  Clearly that has not happened since we still have the three metallic arts which we know and love. 

 

As for the mists, in the trilogy there was only one mist.  The closest we saw to another mist (that I can recall) is the smoke form of Ruin that Vin and Elend saw at the well.  As to the two mists in AoL, both of these mists were obviously emitted by Harmony since Vin burned up all the old mists in her transformation.  However we do not know (or really have any evidence) that one mist was produced using just Ruin and another with just Preservation.  Although it seems that at least one of the mists acts and functions similar to the trilogy mist, we don't really know its nature or purpose.  I personally suspect that a combination of the two mists is part of the new snapping mechanism set up by Harmony, but that is purely speculative.

 

Your rationale about the splitability of Harmony into Ruin and Preservation is a bit of a nonstarter for me.  Brandon has said that it would take a lot of effort to split them.  Saying that because they can be separated into discrete shards therefore they are separate shards is a bit like saying that Adonalsium isn't a single construction because it could be split into unmingled Ruin, Preservation, Endowment, etc.  It sounds the same to me.  Would it be easier to split Harmony into Ruin and Preservation than Adonalsium into the 16 shards?  Sure.  But it would also be easier to split purple play-doh into blue and red play-doh than to split brown into 5 different colors (perhaps not the best analogy, but I think it illustrates the point).

 

As far as balance goes, we obviously don't have enough information yet to understand Harmony's intent.  But, Harmony's desire for balance could be readily attributed in ways other than balancing Ruin and Preservation.  Consider, Sazed has held Ruin and Preservation for about 300 years now.  While it is hard to say how that specific span of time applies to the strength of a shard's intent over it's holder, to my way of thinking that is not terribly long.  Add to this, Sazed has a rather strong self-will.  He comes off meek, but he rather firmly goes against what pretty much everyone else tells him he should be doing.  I think this means that Sazed's intent is presently dominant over Harmony's.

 

To me the obvious alternative interpretation of Harmony's desire for balanced action is that he now essentially occupies the position of a god yet he does not consider himself to be such.  He could manifest himself in more deliberate and apparent ways in order to bring people to his side, as it were.  However, he allows people to develop their own beliefs and make their choices accordingly.  He desires to work towards his goals (whatever they may be) while avoiding exerting too strong an influence over other people and their choices.  Even with Wax (a Pathian) he is very careful to not give him too much direct intervention and assistance even though Wax seeks it directly.  If he manifests too strongly he basically raising a flag saying that this camp over here has my favor.  This, in effect, offers a compulsion of sorts to people to choose a certain way.  Sazed was never keen on compelling people to make a choice any certain way.  Under this understanding, balance refers to theological balance.

 

Now, I am not saying that anybody's theories or ideas are wrong or off-base.  My point is that there are more than one plausible and reasonable interpretations to the information we have so far.  I don't know which is right.  To my way of thinking, the above makes the most sense.  But, that is just my opinion.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

For Scadrian investiture to be changed from a bit of Ruin and a bit of Preservation, Harmony would have had to withdraw that investiture and give a new investiture.  The same goes for the magic systems.  Simply the presence of a different Shard does not a new magic system make.  Again, Harmony would have had to given a new investiture for a new magic system to occur.  Clearly that has not happened since we still have the three metallic arts which we know and love.

I'm sorry but this just seems wrong to me. By that reasoning Harmony is not invested in Scadrial.

 

As for the mists, in the trilogy there was only one mist.  The closest we saw to another mist (that I can recall) is the smoke form of Ruin that Vin and Elend saw at the well.  As to the two mists in AoL, both of these mists were obviously emitted by Harmony since Vin burned up all the old mists in her transformation.  However we do not know (or really have any evidence) that one mist was produced using just Ruin and another with just Preservation.  Although it seems that at least one of the mists acts and functions similar to the trilogy mist, we don't really know its nature or purpose.  I personally suspect that a combination of the two mists is part of the new snapping mechanism set up by Harmony, but that is purely speculative.

If Harmony was "one shard" however why would it have two kinds of mists? Logically it makes sense that one is of Preservation and the other is of Ruin.  I'm also not 100% convinced there was only one kind of mist during the FE.  Ruin did corrupt some of the mist, causing it to stay during the day and such, whether that constitutes ruin!mist as opposed to preservation!mist, I'm not sure.

 

Your rationale about the splitability of Harmony into Ruin and Preservation is a bit of a nonstarter for me.  Brandon has said that it would take a lot of effort to split them.  Saying that because they can be separated into discrete shards therefore they are separate shards is a bit like saying that Adonalsium isn't a single construction because it could be split into unmingled Ruin, Preservation, Endowment, etc.  It sounds the same to me.  Would it be easier to split Harmony into Ruin and Preservation than Adonalsium into the 16 shards?  Sure.  But it would also be easier to split purple play-doh into blue and red play-doh than to split brown into 5 different colors (perhaps not the best analogy, but I think it illustrates the point).

The way I see it those are two very different things. It is my opinion the shards and their intents did not exist pre-Shattering but were instead a product of the Shattering. You couldn't "unmingle" Adonalsium because there was nothing to unmingle; it was uniform in its power.  Harmony however is not uniform in its power so it can be unmingled.

 

Also the unmingling process is remarkably dissimilar to shattering/splintering.  We know that if Harmony was splintered it would not result in Ruin and Preservation, but rather smaller pieces.  The Shattering of Adonalsium would be comparable to the latter, not the former.  The unmingling process is like cutting a piece with a saw, shattering/splintering is like taking a hammer to the glass.  They just aren't comparable processes.

 

As far as balance goes, we obviously don't have enough information yet to understand Harmony's intent.  But, Harmony's desire for balance could be readily attributed in ways other than balancing Ruin and Preservation.  Consider, Sazed has held Ruin and Preservation for about 300 years now.  While it is hard to say how that specific span of time applies to the strength of a shard's intent over it's holder, to my way of thinking that is not terribly long.  Add to this, Sazed has a rather strong self-will.  He comes off meek, but he rather firmly goes against what pretty much everyone else tells him he should be doing.  I think this means that Sazed's intent is presently dominant over Harmony's.

 

To me the obvious alternative interpretation of Harmony's desire for balanced action is that he now essentially occupies the position of a god yet he does not consider himself to be such.  He could manifest himself in more deliberate and apparent ways in order to bring people to his side, as it were.  However, he allows people to develop their own beliefs and make their choices accordingly.  He desires to work towards his goals (whatever they may be) while avoiding exerting too strong an influence over other people and their choices.  Even with Wax (a Pathian) he is very careful to not give him too much direct intervention and assistance even though Wax seeks it directly.  If he manifests too strongly he basically raising a flag saying that this camp over here has my favor.  This, in effect, offers a compulsion of sorts to people to choose a certain way.  Sazed was never keen on compelling people to make a choice any certain way.  Under this understanding, balance refers to theological balance.

 

Part of why Sazed hasn't been changed very much is because the intents of Preservation and Ruin essentially cancel themselves out. (cancelling out is actually a bad metaphor, opposing gravitational tides is better).  I think part of the out-of-book reasoning for the name "Harmony" comes from an eastern belief that being able to hold two opposing forces is harmony.  (here's where Brandon talk about that).

 

Now, I am not saying that anybody's theories or ideas are wrong or off-base.  My point is that there are more than one plausible and reasonable interpretations to the information we have so far.  I don't know which is right.  To my way of thinking, the above makes the most sense.  But, that is just my opinion.

 

The problem is that Brandon has said the "Is Harmony one shards or two" is a very subjective question.  I personally feel it is two but that it should be treated as one in certain instances.

[happyman he/him]

"The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts" is the only sensible thing I can think so say here.  This is true all the way from atomic particles to the human race.  Shards of Adonalsium is another case where this would seem only logical.

Basically, what I see here are people asking whether there are "Ruin" atoms and "Preservation" atoms, and if so, how are they combined?  Or did the combination produce "Harmony" atoms, which are made of one ruin atom and one preservation atom?  Answering that requires an extremely reductionistic understanding of the powers, which I don't think we have at the needed level.

[Shardlet he/him]

I'm sorry but this just seems wrong to me. By that reasoning Harmony is not invested in Scadrial.

 

There is part of Harmony invested in Scadrial since Ruin and Preservation were both invested in Scadrial and Harmony has clearly not withdrawn that investiture.  However, there is no indication that I have seen that Harmony has made an additional investiture since the joining of Ruin and Preservation.

 

 

If Harmony was "one shard" however why would it have two kinds of mists? Logically it makes sense that one is of Preservation and the other is of Ruin.  I'm also not 100% convinced there was only one kind of mist during the FE.  Ruin did corrupt some of the mist, causing it to stay during the day and such, whether that constitutes ruin!mist as opposed to preservation!mist, I'm not sure.

 

IIRC, the change in the mist in the trilogy was not a corrucption by Ruin, but rather a default state for the mists to increase snapping.  Everyone that died went through the snapping process, but didn't survive.  Those that did survive had allomantic abilities.  Hence, most nobility were not affected by the changed mist because most of the allomancers among the noibility had already been discovered because of their beatings and other methods of intentional snapping.  I don't recall any evidence that Ruin corrupted the mist at all.

 

 

The way I see it those are two very different things. It is my opinion the shards and their intents did not exist pre-Shattering but were instead a product of the Shattering. You couldn't "unmingle" Adonalsium because there was nothing to unmingle; it was uniform in its power.  Harmony however is not uniform in its power so it can be unmingled.

 

They are two different things.  But, obviously the shards and their constituent intents must necessarily have been a part of Adonalsium.  Otherwise, how could Adonalsium split thus?  The power of all the shard is the same power.  That power however is filtered through the governing intent of the shard, the intent and personality of the holder of the shard, and the spiritual, cognitive, and physical environment (i.e., the planet) where the power is used.  For Adonalsium, the filter is different since it comprises a full range of intents.  Point being, if at shattering Adonalsium could be unmingled along the lines it was, it likely could have been done so intentional.

 

 

Also the unmingling process is remarkably dissimilar to shattering/splintering.  We know that if Harmony was splintered it would not result in Ruin and Preservation, but rather smaller pieces.  The Shattering of Adonalsium would be comparable to the latter, not the former.  The unmingling process is like cutting a piece with a saw, shattering/splintering is like taking a hammer to the glass.  They just aren't comparable processes.

 

 

Since we don't know what the process of shattering/splintering is and we also don't know what the process of unmingling is, I think this is a very premature argument.  Which was part of my point in my response.  I think we should avoid rejecting ideas outright based upon speculation with a limited evidenciary basis.  I have no problem with you disagreeing with me.  In the end, you may very well be right.  But I have qualms with such assured statements with little or no evidence to back them up.

 

 

Part of why Sazed hasn't been changed very much is because the intents of Preservation and Ruin essentially cancel themselves out. (cancelling out is actually a bad metaphor, opposing gravitational tides is better).  I think part of the out-of-book reasoning for the name "Harmony" comes from an eastern belief that being able to hold two opposing forces is harmony.  (here's where Brandon talk about that).

 

 

I agree.  I neglected this important aspect of Harmony's condition.  But, I also don't think that this speaks against anything I submitted (nor does it speak against anything you have offered either).

 

 

The problem is that Brandon has said the "Is Harmony one shards or two" is a very subjective question.  I personally feel it is two but that it should be treated as one in certain instances.

 

 Exactly.  This is precisely why I think that there is plenty of room for disagreement and discussion on this topic.