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Do you think the book that Harmony left behind at the end of HoA mentions Kelsier's stint as Preservation? Because that would make doctrinal arguments between Pathists and Survivorists pretty funny. "Yes, we actually also believe he was a god... of a sort.. briefly."

Can Allomancy be used in the Cognitive Realm? In Secret History, Kelsier cannot use Allomancy while in the Cognitive Realm. I realize this could also be due to him not having any connection with the Physical Realm as a Cognitive Shadow but he also noted that "the souls of metal and men are the same", both glowing when viewed from the Cognitive Realm. I simply took it to mean that Allomancy doesn't work in the Cognitive but now I'm not so sure. After all, metal can be brought to the Cognitive Realm, but can they be burned while in the Cognitive Realm? Same question about Feruchemy. Can one store or tap an attribute in the Cognitive Realm? I think yes... With Hemalurgy, I want to ask who fuels it? I mean Hemalurgy is Ruin's magic, I think Ruin only fuels the theft and grafting of the stolen attributes, and that he does not provide the Investiture to fuel any stolen Investiture art, that either the original Shard still provides the necessary Investiture or that it goes through Ruin somehow, who corrupts the Investiture then passes it to the Hemalurgist. Preservation used Ruin's Investiture in the form of Atium to fuel Allomancy, but how did it also work with Feruchemy, which is of both Ruin and Preservation? I understood the concept of Atium as just a source of Investiture within Preservation's system of Allomancy but what about Hemalurgy? Trell is doing the reverse with Trellium in Ruin's system, now Harmony's system, of Hemalurgy. Shouldn't Harmony be able to sense something? The use of Hemalurgy isn't instantaneous, it's a two step process: first you have to spike someone's attributes, then you have to spike yourself. I would say Harmony should be able to sense both, even if all he's providing the Investiture for is the theft and the grafting. Plus, at the end of 'Bands of Mourning', he told Wax that "[Harmony] always take the time to have this walk". Yet he missed the spiked souls? Don't tell me that the Set managed to keep the spiked ones alive after doing that!

Ok , hey , I'm a new guy . Joined today actually. Hum, please move this to the proper section if I post this into a wrong forum or something. And I confess that it's probably wrong since there are WoBs directly contradicting my theories about the hemalurgic metals. (Can someone send me those if u have them ? ) Still I thought it made an interesting theory .So here's my theory : So I was looking through the wiki and found that the 4 blessings were listed as hemalurgic iron , tin , zinc and copper. But I disagree. the mistwraiths were created from full feruchemists , so I think they needed a part of a feruchemist's spiritweb to work on a Kandra. So I think the reason there were so few Kandra in each generation was because u needed hemalurgic spikes made by killing feruchemists. Therefore the four blessings would be : A). The blessing of strength was H-Pewter, which steals feruchemical physical powers. B). The blessing of awareness was H-Brass, which steals feruchemical cognitive powers . C). The blessing of presence was H-gold , which steals feruchemical hybrid powers D). The blessing of stability was H-aluminium , which steals all powers. Points in favor of my theory : 1). Hemalurgic copper , iron , zinc and tin steal human charecteristics. Normal humans. Not metalborn. Tlr didn't really care much about skaa and used them to make spikes indiscriminately for creating koloss. Why then limit the number of Kandra per generation to a hundred ? More Kandra meant more loyal subjects and spies and better atium Management and conservation. 2). Feruchemists on the other hand were rare , rarer than allomancers. Hence it would make sense why so few spikes were available to the kandra. 3).If the Kandra were rebellious , wouldn't they just steal spikes from like the treasury or from the koloss or by killing or mercykilling humans ,( I mean hey there were lots of impoverished or crippled skaa who would have been almost dead due to starvation , the mistsnapping , war , gang violence or tlr's general tyranny , who could euthanized as an act of Mercy during era 1 . And even during era 2 ) and make more Kandra ? I mean , that seems like a serious lapse in security by tlr. 4). Why are Kandra with the blessing of stability so rare ? I mean , zinc spikes should be as common as iron. Wouldn't it make more sense if this blessing was due to aluminum , a rare metal which might have been experimentally used a few times and then abandoned , due to lack of the resource. 5). I think , that aluminum is perhaps the most stable and inert of all the metals. Something that is immune to all ( ?? ) forms of investiture. Wouldn't it make sense that this would grant the blessing of stability which supposedly makes a Kandra less susceptible to external control. 6). Marasi notes that Ru Luur's spike was probably pewter. 7). In many ways it seems Kandra are superior to humans . They are usually peaceful , great at defense , functionally immortal , can change morphology to suit thier professions ( Spoiler for WoR ) Indeed , if it weren't for the mind control. ( spoiler for oathbringer ) It seems callous of Rashek to ignore this possiblity. With allomancy becoming weaker with every generation , knowledge of mind control and duralumin being suppressed and tlr himself running out of both sanity and his atium compounding efficiency , it might have been possible for Kandra to rise in rebellion. Even assassinate tlr and the Inquisitors themselves. Especially , if Paalm revealed how easy it was to infiltrate the ranks of the Inquisitors. Marsh did the same thing too remember. Several of the younger generations clamored for change and the kandra themselves hated being sequestered in some dank caves. Points against my theory : 1). Perhaps tlr was afraid of Kandra overrunning humans . Or didn't wanna overcrowd them in the pits and hence limited the number of new ones per generation . 2). Even if the Kandra were rebellious , it should have been easy for tlr , the Inquisitors , mistborn or soother mobs to get them under control. But then again , perhaps they might have removed one spike in order to remain immune to mind control , but it would have been harrowing for the kandra. 3). There seems to be WoBs stating that it was the normal power stealing H-spikes , ie, zinc ,tin,etc ,that were the blessings. This is , if true ,actually the most damning piece of evidence against my theory. 4). Then there's the possibility that the kandra were never a security risk. I mean even 3 centuries after the catacendre , most Kandra are peaceful and Van Dell just simply hates violence. It seems only the third generation and a few like MeLaan are the exceptions. They might actually hate themselves for being hemalurgic creations, but still if all one needs is a iron spike , then couldn't they mercykill some humans and create young ones or scrounge some from s dead or dying koloss ? Potential possiblities if my theory is true : 1). Sazed is afraid of the kandra. Hence he has had the mistwraiths eradicated , resusticated into humans or atleast removed from thier sentient brethren. Whether the kandra like this or not is impossible to foresee. 2). On one hand , the kandra seem to be peaceful creatures who willingly choose suicide even tho they are immortal. 3). On the other hand , the kandra have had centuries of practice acting and hiding thier true feelings. Then there was the dream / religious prophecy Ten Soon told Vin about Kandra ruling Scadrial once all the humans were dead. Paalm's anger at Sazed might have been atleast partially due to Sazed's oppression of the kandra. In some ways , Sazed's treatment of the kandra is worse than tlr's. 4). Perhaps some Kandra are truly loyal to Sazed , but as we saw in HoA , not all Kandra have the same view. So perhaps it's possible that some factions among the kandra including the world Hoppers?? are planning to oust him and gain control of Scadrial. Perhaps that's how Paalm first came in contact with Trell . Perhaps the ' faceless immortals ' Trell has , according to Edwarn ladrian are actually Kandra world Hoppers who defected to Trell or odium or whoever else , in order to gain greater autonomy for the kandra . 5). Finally we see Paalm using metalborn abilities and a statement saying that she had infiltrated Inquisitors. I really doubt you can infiltrate the ministry of Inquisition without displaying metalborn abilities. So is Sazed lying ? Tlr had reason to contain such knowledge from the kandra but does Sazed have similar reasons ? Also perhaps the spike which grants metalborn abilities might be aluminium . I mean if H-aluminum steals all powers then could it be possible that as a blessing it could grant all powers or well one power each. Perhaps this is also the reason the kandra themselves are oblivious of this knowledge since aluminum is super rare and aluminum spikes even more so. Yep , no proof for this. Just tinfoil. And Wax's observation of Paalm's spike seems to refute this reasoning. But then again Wax was like totally depressed at the time and wasn't able to run tests on it and the kandra removed it soon enough. Maybe Paalm just mixed in something else in the spike to change it's colouring , in order to fool ppl.

Being as Feruchemy is said to be of both Ruin and Preservation, could it be really Harmony's magic system. Since he is both Shards. And the temporal issue, namely Sazed Ascended thousands of years after Feruchemy came into existence, can be answered by saying "everything is one in the Spiritual Realm" since all of the Shardic stuff happens up there....

Question is in the title: If Sazed Was Killed but his shard(s) were not splintered, would they appear as two, Preservation and Ruin, or one, Harmony?

Is Trell a piece of Adonalsium? Or is he a splinter of one of the gods that Odium has killed? I am really confused about this. Oh and is the person in Whitesand related named Trell. Trell is the being who is fighting Harmony currently if you aren't familiar with who he is. The fact that Miles worships him and that he has Faceless Immortals means he has some power right?

We know that Of course Ruin is Sazed now who isn't hellbent on killing everything or making anybody who he can influence kill stuff as well but again nobody has more spikes than Marsh has in the entire Cosmere. This sounds like a huge implication that he did use hemalurgy or at least utilized already existing spikes for himself. He doesn't seem homicidal and Sazed doesn't count Marsh when he said "the last time he had good conversation was with Kel-(this was around SoS)" when Marsh and Sazed basically has the most direct line communication ever considering the amount of spikes Marsh has. Why not mention Marsh as well ? Even after the fall of TLR and before Ruin was released. Sazed did mention to making an effort to communicate with Marsh since he was alienating the crew. So how sane do you think Marsh actually is ? Cause the spikes has to have an effect on him.

So Harmony is made up of two opposing Shards. As of MB era 2 Harmony is still mostly Sazed, as far as I understand, but over the years his shard's Intent is going to remake him into... something. I see four options as to what that something might be: 1. Ruin and Preservation Intents together pretty much cover all potential actions Harmony might take, so they cancel each other out. Future!Harmony stays Sazed inside and can do whatever he likes. (Pros: Adonalsium was all those conflicting proto-Intents at once. Cons: seems like too much of a narrative free lunch). 2. Pretty much all potential actions fall under either "conflicts with Ruin's Intent" or "conflicts with Preservation's Intent". Harmony ends up not really being able to do anything. He spends future eras basically sitting around on his thumbs. (Unlikely; sounds like a waste of the character). 3. Harmony can only take individual actions that are equal-parts Ruinous and... what's the word? Preservative? Preservation-y? Not technically as limiting as #2 (but still feels like a waste). 4. Harmony's actions have to average out being Ruinous and Preservation-y. So if he wants to, say, save a major city from a tornado, he can do so, but he'll have to cause an equal amount of destruction (either at once or cumulatively) somehow somewhere on Scadrial. (I find this one the most likely, if only because it seems like the scenario Sanderson can do the most with). What do you think? (sorry if I've used the wrong words or spelling; I don't have time to edit this properly)

I have been thinking about Hemalurgy and hemalurgic decay. I think that it does not decay in a linear way but in a logarithmic way, similar to radioactive half-life. That is why Wax's earring does not give him any powers, but still has enough charge to let Harmony talk to him. It would, in a strictly literal sense, give him something, but not enough to have a measurable effect on his powers or his resonance. In theory, the spikes would hold a small charge almost indefinitely, but at the same time not causing the huge amount of damage that a fully charged spike would cause.

I was thinking about the way Brandon qualified his answer to this question with the reference to the changing 12 tribes of Israel. So I started looking at other WoB regarding Harmony and found this Does this mean that somehow there is a 'new' shard, now that Ruin and Preservation are combined into one shard, Harmony, now? Edit: I'm really bad at writing my thoughts out and I end up leaving a lot out. My thought was there were 16 original shards. Two, R & P, got merged into one, Harmony, making the total 15. However, because of the 12 tribes quote, I was wondering if another shard was created in or after that to bring the total back up to 16.

Sorry if there is already a post saying what i say here. I the end of 'the bands of mourning' (chapter 28) there is a section where wax is dead and is talking to harmony. and there harmony shows him (in the cognitive realm) that the planet is engulfed by red mist, and imply that he is under attack from the outside. Furthermore, in the epilog it is said by the set's faceless immortal "recent advances made civilization here too dangerous... So we have decided to remove life on this sphere... You will be allowed to serve in another realm". Does anyone need any further proof that someone who does not belong on Scadrial is muddying things up? I personally think this is odium's work. and part, and i emphasize part, of the reason harmony is open to hoid's own letter but cannot help him. Also the oblivious way the facelees immortal is behaving is very close to the disregard of the fused of their own lives.

So, when Sazed revived Spook he fixed up his savantism and made him a mistborn. Do we know whether Spook was made as a regular mistborn, or was he more like Elend and a lerasium strength mistborn since he got his power directly from harmony? Thanks in advance for your input.

This is perhaps an insignificant matter, but why do we call it Harmonium? None of the other shards who have metals have their metal named after the shard (that I know if) but instead of the holder of the shard. i.e: Ati = Atium Leras = Lerasium Trell = Trellium So surely it would follow that rather than being called Harmonium it is called Sazium, or something similar, instead. Has Brandon said anything on this? Do we know it's called Harmonium for sure? If so, I'm annoyed at the inconsistency.

The other night I got into a philosophical debate with my fiancé regarding the definition of opposites. In summation we were debating the following topic: Ruin and preservation being opposites. I made up these terms so my fiancé could understand what I was talking about (she has only read Sixth of Dusk). Shard Description of Action Higher Level Description Ruin Entropy, intelligent decay, take away Change Preservation To preserve, keep things the same No Change Cultivation To grow, intelligent growth, to add Change If you focus on the “Description of Action”, then you can see that Ruin and Cultivation are opposites (from one perspective). Or you could call them compatible, but those could also mean the same thing; opposites attract y'know. If you focus on the “Higher Level Description”, you can see that Preservation is opposite of both Ruin & Cultivation. Regardless, that is not what this theory is about. The non-sober debate that I had sparked an idea regarding: the three shards, Harmony’s role in the Cosmere, and where this Mistborn/Stormlight Archive plotline is heading. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of how this is all going to play out, I’m merely commenting on the larger moves. Here we go… Something is going to happen in the final installment of the Mistborn Era 2 or 3 events that causes Sazed/Harmony to head for Roshar. (Not sure how the timelines match up so not sure if it will be after Mistborn Era 2 or 3 or somewhere in between) · Maybe Sazed can’t beat whatever enemy is attacking Scadrial and so searches how to resolve his problem with acting (finding cultivation to balance him out) · Maybe he beat the enemy attacking Scadrial, learns some info from the enemy and its possible relations to Roshar/Odium, travels to Roshar and discovers the existence of Cultivation In any case, in this theory Harmony will end up on Roshar and play a role in the climax of the first half of the Stormlight Archive. I have a feeling that Harmony will interact with Cultivation, maybe fall in love with Cultivation, then Cultivation dies and Harmony picks up a third shard (Sad stuff often happens to Sazed). Or maybe Harmony shows up just when Odium kills Cultivation’s vessel, and conveniently picks it up (sound familiar?) Oh and probably some of the characters we like will die sadly but also badassly in this climaz. Anyways, Harmony will pick up Cultivation and become…Ouroboros? Balance? Nature…idk. So this new shard will trounce Odium, but Odium is actually a coward and leaves Roshar to go into hiding, greatly diminished (like Sauron or Voldemort). Boom, end of book 5. Then maybe the second half of the Cosmere will be Odium slowly regaining power, maybe he realized he needs to pick up some more shards to challenge the New Harmony Shard so he searches for some of the more sinister ones. Maybe the New Harmony shard will figure out how get the Dor on his side and it will be like Harmony + 6 shards vs Bodium (Badass Odium) + 7 shards…or something like that I have no evidence, didn’t do much research, I just thought it was a cool/possible idea. TLDR; Harmony goes to Roshar, picks up Cultivation, beats up Odium, Odium flees

So i ran into this interesting WoB. Tho Cultivation wasn't mentioned here so maybe he is only more worried about Harmony simply because he is a Shard compared to both Hoid/Dalinar. Still interesting nonetheless that he is more worried of Harmony who is so far away who probably doesn't even have plans involving him(or maybe he does with Hoid's letter and he has Kandra's spying on that place) than the actual people causing him problems upfront. Or is it about overconfidence but he isn't that confident enough against Harmony (cause he is a relatively unknown vessel who just randomly joined the game) ? Personally while i do subscribe on the theory that Autonomy may likely be the big bad. It is interesting to find WoB that push the hype of a possible confrontation between the two bigs of Cosmere. Thoughts ?

I was browsing another thread and realized that by the time era 4 rolls around sazed will be pretty corrupted, and at the time he already struggles to balance his shards. Maybe he becomes the final villain, championing scadrial’s progress at the cost of the other planets and forcing the forming of an interplanetary coalition to defend the universe from the scadrians? Thoughts?

Alright, I had a crazy thought and need some validation or contradiction, either will work. Let's start with the facts I'm basing this off of: 1. Hoid has difficulty hurting others. (There's probably a better WoB but this will do for the time being) 2. Harmony has difficulty acting, due to the two opposing intents warring inside him. 3. This is speculation: Adolnasium was under no such intent constraint. We have no way of knowing this definitively, but it's fair to speculate that this was the case because Roshar was created by Adolnasium and a limit on his actions suggests that it would have been impossible to create Roshar otherwise. Theory: Hoid's inability to harm others comes from being overly invested by a shard. We don't know which one, but it could be any number of them. So, he is (in addition, probably, to his overarching goals) travelling around the cosmere searching for various forms of investiture in order to re-gain invested balance.

Theoretically could Harmony split his power in half, both halves with equal parts Preservation and Ruin, and assuming he found someone who fit the power, could he give them half? Effectively creating two piecemeal regular sized shards with the same intent? What could be the outcomes? I wonder if the two Harmonies would end up being symbiotic somehow. Acting together, peacefully, and cooperatively, but always in opposite ways.

It seem very odd that Harmony helps the people in the Basin rebuild and doesn't help the people survive in the South. He changed Spook to a Mistborn so he is capable of changing people on a limited scale but perhaps he could not do so much to an entire group of people due to his Shardic intent. Any Ideas.

We know that Sazed looks down upon the usage of his very own Hemalurgy but apart from the usage of existing hemalurgic spikes with supervision(Kandra or Harmony's approval) but judging from the way things are going that Hemalurgy is going to play an important role in Cosmere. What do you would be ethical usage of hemalurgy in which Harmony allows in Scadrial or his servants ? Or is the medallions gonna make hemalurgy irrelevant in Scadrial(which harmony might likely planned for this) ? Of course apart from Sazed's own application of hemalurgy for his plans(regardless if it is ethical or not .. he is basically god he'll do whatever he wants.)

Just finished up The Hero of Ages for an unknown number of re-reads. It's no coincidence that Mistborn's second era takes place 300 years after Kelsier destroyed the Pits of Hathsin, right. Not 200 years, or 500 years. We were told it would be 300 years before Atium could be harvested again. Ruin couldn't annihilate Scadrial because he was missing his body/power/Atium. He was incomplete. Powered but not powerful. Vin's body absorbed all the mist from the skies, so Sazed absorbed a full and complete shard. When Sazed absorbed the dark smoke from Ati's body, he only absorbed an impotent shard, a half-shard perhaps, incomplete. Powered, not even close as powerful as Vin's shard. Harmony still needs the power that Ati/Ruin never got. Harmony is currently under attack from Odium? Or some other shard wanting to remove all life from the sphere. (The Set) Perhaps it's Hoid doing his Adonalsium Round-up Tour, kidding. So, I presume that Harmony moved the Hathsin shardpool/perpendicularity to some crazy hidden underground/underwater inaccessible place waiting for the well/pool/hot tub to fill up again. Marsh is likely guarding it. Harmony likely changed the form of the power from happy lil' god candies to another form, perhaps a cozy hot tub that Harmony could dip his toes in. Thus making him complete, at last. Once he is two completely powerful shards he will toss Odium away from his system for good. Until era three and a cast of all new characters. Thoughts?

I was inspired by another topic, so what would happen if an animal (such as a beaver) took up a shard? Would it become intelligent and human-like? Or would it stay chaotic, such as a giant cat playing with the world like it was yarn. Maybe it would be dependant on the shard? Like Harmony would give enlightenment, Odium would cause the animal to stay instinctual? Just wondering about people's theories.

I'm gonna say from the very beginning is that my take on this is more on that the HoA being a Discord rather than Harmony. Sorry if the title might not fit the post. Can't think of other title atm. Also not sure how the spoiler policy of OB on Cosmere Theory forum works so better be sure than sorry. Should've been a simply prophecy text that is relevant only to Mistborn Trilogy context that i'm not so sure anymore since it could mean extremely interesting narrative direction for the future of Mistborn franchise and Cosmere in general. Also the very obvious capitalization of the word and the hero of ages prophecy being weirdly word by word accurate(like the "on his arms" or the gender neuter thing) and i don't think Ruin changed the text that much. This kind of theorycrafting also inspired me more after reading Oathbringer where if i assume Rayse wasn't lying would mean that he's actually truly the Shard of Passion but people chose to call him Odium. And i don't think Rayse is lying considering that when he let him experience his infinity like other shards have before(Sazed to Wax during era2) and i don't think shards will lie about their intent to the utmost extent(considering that's what they're endorsing/implementing in the first place) as you would assume especially regarding themselves which Dalinar experienced emotions of all ranges. Even supporting that he might actually be a shard of passion or at least a synonym as his general policy for his army/people has been about passion and his minions claiming interest with Moash due to his "strong passion". So far apart from the manipulations of Ruin of the prophecy of the Hero of Ages. It hasn't lied to us and for some reason i doubt this was either shards doing. Another is that from Era2 Sazed has been stating being tied between the conflict of two shards and still insisting on balancing them. Could it be that him trying to please both masters is what causing his inactivity in the first place and the less he is about balancing the better he is at freedom from both shards. Also kinda makes sense with him being a young vessel which might've occured to other shards who fought their nature at the start. That Oathbringer event may imply that our Hero of Ages might not actually be the intent he says or could eventually change into what it was meant to be. Which brings me to these thoughts about Sazed's actual intent as the wielder of Preservation and Ruin (could've already been theorized by others as well and some i read from other post about discord/harmony) which might be more plausible/possible/would you support ? Harmony is Harmony and i'm wearing too much tinfoil hat i should stop. Sazed ascended as Harmony but is slowly being molded/evolved into Discord. Sazed thinks he's Harmony but he's actually Discord from the very beginning Sazed does not actually care if he's Discord but chose to name himself Harmony maybe for some reason The prophecy is averted abit which is why we have Harmony instead of Discord(not all future sight happening accurately ?) Could it be that his name, intent and being finally becoming Discord is just a matter of acceptance just like his role as the Hero of Ages, or about his acceptance of change/death is a natural thing to connect with Ruin. Could it be ? Questions Does it mean that the reason why Sazed is actually more limited than he should be has more to do with him trying insist he's Harmony(the balance between shards) rather than him being actually discord (the differences between the shards) ? If Sazed remains Harmony till the endgame cosmere does that mean he becomes more active or actually just gets worse and becoming more and more inactive ? What about him becoming discord ? Did we actually misunderstand Harmony and overtime he actually gains more freedom rather than being tied ? That Harmony could actually just do just about anything just like how incredibly flexible autonomy and endowment seems to be ? If assuming him becoming Discord is actually right and gives him freedom. Doesn't that make him incredibly dangerous and finally a big player of cosmere ? Since he's more interactive i assume Thoughts ? Supporting statements? Disagreements ? Theories ? Further Elaborations ? Anything resembling to thoughts about the matter ? Anything is welcome !(so excited about this topic after OB events sinking in and plenty of reading former discussion threads about this here or on reddit)

With the revelation that Odium could be seen as Passion, and the older theory that Odium+Honor would be Justice... Honor focuses on creating bonds, and Odium possibly being Passion, could their joining create... Love?