Preservation and Ruin

[kelsi]

Why didnt Preservation get his mind power back after vin released it at her ascension? Why did he have to still die?

Who controlled or protected the atium before TLR's ascension?

[Eki]

Presumably Preservation destroyed his mind permanently to make the prison. It wasn't that he was concentrating on keeping it going, he had literally used it up to create it in the first place.

Who controlled the atium, if anyone did, I don't know. But Ruin probably didn't have enough physical presence to make use of his knowledge about it at that point. Ruin's shardpool (what would later become the Pits of Hathsin) was in the Terris mountains; Alendi mentions it (without knowing what it is) in his journal. So if anyone was protecting the atium, they would likely be of the Terris people.

[Ari he/him]

Think of it this way: If I removed part of my brain to annihilate with some antimatter, then used that reaction to charge a battery, I wouldn't get my brain back just because the battery was later depleted. Even if someone "gives away" (ie. wastes) the energy, it's just going to react with the nearest thing that it can, rather than undo the previous reaction. Hence why it freed Ruin.

Preservation permanently damaged his cognitive aspect in order to turn it into investiture to trap Ruin. Even if you were an expert at healing that sort of magical damage, you'd have a really hard time getting anything significantly back from healing him.

[Isaiah Zayth he/him]

On 7/17/2016 at 3:41 AM, Ari said:

Think of it this way: If I removed part of my brain to annihilate with some antimatter, then used that reaction to charge a battery, I wouldn't get my brain back just because the battery was later depleted. Even if someone "gives away" (ie. wastes) the energy, it's just going to react with the nearest thing that it can, rather than undo the previous reaction. Hence why it freed Ruin.

Preservation permanently damaged his cognitive aspect in order to turn it into investiture to trap Ruin. Even if you were an expert at healing that sort of magical damage, you'd have a really hard time getting anything significantly back from healing him.

First of all, your first paragraph makes a lot of sense and I agree wholeheartedly!

However, I would like to object to the use of the word "permanently" in the second paragraph. If Preservation permanently damaged any portion of himself, he would have had to destroy energy to do so; I think there is a WOB that states energy cannot be created or destroyed in the Cosmere. I think it's more like Leras reassigned a large portion of Perservation's cognitive substance to act as Ruin's jailer, knowing that he (Leras) would never be able to regain that portion, but gambling that whoever held Preservation after his death would regain the lost cognitive portion. Thus, when Vin eventually holds Preservation, though she is inexperienced and stunned by her quickly expanding mind, she has access to the entirety of Preservation's power and her strike against Ati succeeds. If part of Preservation was missing, I doubt her final attack would have turned out as it did. 

Last point: If permanent damage had been done, would not Harmony be made up of more Ruin than Preservation? It is my understanding that Sazed holds both shards equally, each conflicting, complementing, and intertwining with the other in perfect balance.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Isaiah Zayth said:

First of all, your first paragraph makes a lot of sense and I agree wholeheartedly!

However, I would like to object to the use of the word "permanently" in the second paragraph. If Preservation permanently damaged any portion of himself, he would have had to destroy energy to do so; I think there is a WOB that states energy cannot be created or destroyed in the Cosmere. I think it's more like Leras reassigned a large portion of Perservation's cognitive substance to act as Ruin's jailer, knowing that he (Leras) would never be able to regain that portion, but gambling that whoever held Preservation after his death would regain the lost cognitive portion. Thus, when Vin eventually holds Preservation, though she is inexperienced and stunned by her quickly expanding mind, she has access to the entirety of Preservation's power and her strike against Ati succeeds. If part of Preservation was missing, I doubt her final attack would have turned out as it did. 

Last point: If permanent damage had been done, would not Harmony be made up of more Ruin than Preservation? It is my understanding that Sazed holds both shards equally, each conflicting, complementing, and intertwining with the other in perfect balance.

 

Actually, Preservation did destroy a part of himself permanently, or more accurately, Leras, his vessel did. Leras sacrificed the greater portion of his cognitive to imprison Ruin. Shards don't actually have their cognitive, they're just large pools of spiritual energy which require a host to provide cognitive. I agree though that Leras did separate a portion of Preservation's power entirely, the portion that became the Well of Ascension, essentially a closed system from the rest of Preservation. When Vin released the power of the WoA it rejoined the rest of Preservation, terminating the prison around Ruin's cognitive.

Also, while the power used to create the WoA was returned to Preservation afterwards, Harmony is still more Ruin than Preservation since Preservation still has a bit more of itself invested into humans than Ruin.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

1 hour ago, Isaiah Zayth said:

First of all, your first paragraph makes a lot of sense and I agree wholeheartedly!

However, I would like to object to the use of the word "permanently" in the second paragraph. If Preservation permanently damaged any portion of himself, he would have had to destroy energy to do so; I think there is a WOB that states energy cannot be created or destroyed in the Cosmere. I think it's more like Leras reassigned a large portion of Perservation's cognitive substance to act as Ruin's jailer, knowing that he (Leras) would never be able to regain that portion, but gambling that whoever held Preservation after his death would regain the lost cognitive portion. Thus, when Vin eventually holds Preservation, though she is inexperienced and stunned by her quickly expanding mind, she has access to the entirety of Preservation's power and her strike against Ati succeeds. If part of Preservation was missing, I doubt her final attack would have turned out as it did. 

Last point: If permanent damage had been done, would not Harmony be made up of more Ruin than Preservation? It is my understanding that Sazed holds both shards equally, each conflicting, complementing, and intertwining with the other in perfect balance.

Couple of points:

1| Ruin was missing a part of his power: the Atium. That is why Ruin was so desperately seeking out the Atium; without it, he was weakened. That is also why Vin, as Preservation, could take on Ruin directly (see point #2).

2| Harmony is actually comprised of more Ruin than Preservation because Preservation added a small part of his power to each human. There is a WoB that coyly mentions that Harmony is doing something with that imbalance; i.e. Harmony is diverting a portion of Ruin's power in some way so that he remains in balance; otherwise, as per our best guess, Harmony would overbalance towards Ruin's Intent.

I believe the two points I wrote are correct but, if I am wrong, please forgive me.

[Ari he/him]

So, M:SH spoilers FYI, (and a little bit of Stormlight Archive) but for everyone who's not ready to read them, suffice it to say I disagree with your quibble about my wording, which was rather deliberate.

Conservation of energy doesn't get you around brain damage or its magical equivalent. (hence why I picked the example of using antimatter on a brain- physical reaction, "destroys" matter, but turns it into energy- you could theoretically later recover the energy and make it into brain-meat, but you'd need to have had an unrealistic amount of information, equipment and expertise to be able to actually heal someone that way) Preservation did the equivalent of brain damage to himself in using part of the cognitive aspect of his Vessel to trap Ruin. You seem to have misinterpretted that as saying some of the Shard was permanently damaged, which isn't true. Perhaps I should say Leras was permanently damaged as opposed to Preservation, but by that point, Leras is Preservation's mind and personality, so it's kinda splitting hairs to talk about one or the other anyway. Preservation draws a clear distinction that he didn't use his body/magic to trap Ruin in HoA, he used his mind, which technically means that what he damaged was the Vessel part of Preservation, not the Shard part.

Normal Cosmere characters can sometimes get around brain damage to some extent if they have healing abilities because Brandon lets them have a spiritual backup of their bodies and minds that some of the powers can heal to. If Leras' ghost, the closest thing he would have to a "backup," could have been used to re-assemble his mind and hold the Shard, he would have done so while Ruin was trapped, to mitigate his efforts at manipulating prophecy. Essentially at the level the Shards are playing at, any "damage" to a Shard involves locking away and/or hiding some power that they should have access to, (what Preservation did to Ruin) or whatever the equivalent of brain damage should be called for Vessels. (what Preservation sacrificed of himself) We actually have an example of a Vessel's ghost holding part of their power in Way of Kings, and it's not exactly an ideal situation. (not least because it's obvious that the power Splintered before the Stormfather got his hands on it) Besides, something about what Preservation did meant he didn't particularly get the same moment as a full Cognitive Shadow that Ati did, which suggests to me he probably gave up his shot at the afterlife for his plan.

It's possible Preservation would have been able to recover the power he used to trap Ruin and with some assistance and re-assimilate it, but there's no evidence he wouldn't still be confused and essentially brain-damaged like we see him in M:SH, and we don't see him okay when he comes back as a cognitive shadow iirc. But all the info we have suggests Leras went into his plan knowing he was dooming himself to be mentally damaged for an entire era, and eventually die.

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, Ari said:

It's possible Preservation would have been able to recover the power he used to trap Ruin and with some assistance and re-assimilate it, but there's no evidence he wouldn't still be confused and essentially brain-damaged like we see him in M:SH, and we don't see him okay when he comes back as a cognitive shadow iirc. But all the info we have suggests Leras went into his plan knowing he was dooming himself to be mentally damaged for an entire era, and eventually die.

That is essentially it, as has been stated. Leras crippled himself intentionally as a stop-gap. He lacked the power or ability to kill Ruin, or more accurately Ati, so just weakened Ruin and bought time for someone untainted by Preservation's intent to appear and take the power and use it against Ruin.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

19 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

 

2| Harmony is actually comprised of more Ruin than Preservation because Preservation added a small part of his power to each human. There is a WoB that coyly mentions that Harmony is doing something with that imbalance; i.e. Harmony is diverting a portion of Ruin's power in some way so that he remains in balance; otherwise, as per our best guess, Harmony would overbalance towards Ruin's Intent.

I hadn't seen that WoB, but it makes a lot of sense. It also makes me wonder though if it would be theoretically possible for a Vessel to divert or give away enough of its power to keep their Shard's Intent from overwhelming or significantly altering their personality or mind.

For instance, could there be a Shard who deliberately creates enough Splinters or invests enough of itself in its world/magic system that their personality remains as it was when they first took up the Shard? 

[Spoolofwhool]

20 minutes ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

I hadn't seen that WoB, but it makes a lot of sense. It also makes me wonder though if it would be theoretically possible for a Vessel to divert or give away enough of its power to keep their Shard's Intent from overwhelming or significantly altering their personality or mind.

For instance, could there be a Shard who deliberately creates enough Splinters or invests enough of itself in its world/magic system that their personality remains as it was when they first took up the Shard? 

While I agree that there's merit to splitting off pieces of your shard's power in order to lessen the affects of the shard's intent on you, I don't think it's possible to separate the power enough to completely nullify the intent while still maintaining noticeable presence as shard. Even the power of the Well of Ascension, as limited as it was to the greater power of Preservation, was enough to affect Rashek's use of the power when fixing Scadrial.

[Yata he/him]

11 hours ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

For instance, could there be a Shard who deliberately creates enough Splinters or invests enough of itself in its world/magic system that their personality remains as it was when they first took up the Shard? 

Any amount of Investiture over time will change you.

Harmony's trick work only because he has two different Push and want to keep the balance between them.

For example if Endowment (the more likely who spread his own power) Splinter a tons of Divine Breath from himself. The remain power would still pushes him as before.

[Ari he/him]

On 11/08/2016 at 6:40 PM, Yata said:

Any amount of Investiture over time will change you.

Harmony's trick work only because he has two different Push and want to keep the balance between them.

For example if Endowment (the more likely who spread his own power) Splinter a tons of Divine Breath from himself. The remain power would still pushes him as before.

Herself. Edgli is female.