Theory: Ati Created Scadrial to Purposefully Bind His Power

[Subvisual Haze]

In a WoK epilogue we get told that Ati, the holder of Ruin's shard, was a kind and generous person before his shard presumably bent him to its entropy-loving will.  That got me thinking, why would a kind and generous person take up the shard that loves destruction?  Assuming he didn't just get stuck being the last person to pick his shard from the Adonalasium-corpse raffle, I can only assume it was because Ati wished to limit the destruction that the Ruin shard was very capable of inflicting all across the Cosmere.

Now Ati (hopefully) would have had an inkling that as time passed his ability to keep his personality intact and steer Ruin towards less catastrophic ends would be greatly impaired.  So he had to build a prison...for himself.

I think we have a WOB that Odium does not like to settle in a system, rather he prefers to keep moving.  When a shard is in one place for too long, I suspect the shard begins to invest its power into the planet itself, effectively limiting the freely available power that a shard-bearer has at their disposal.  The shard's magic-energy act like deep roots in a planet, if the holder of the shard tries to exit the system they're invested in, they will do so reduced as they'll leave a lot of their shard's power behind.  So having an idea of how Odium would prefer to operate to maximize his power, Ati decided to do the exact opposite with his shard.  Although the most Ruin-y thing to do would be to jump around the galaxy kicking over the various sandcastles that the other shards had made, Ati instead made a pact with the bearer of shard perfectly opposite to his own to create an entire planet.  This not only bound up most of Ruin's power within the planet itself (he likely had to spend a huge amount of his power to create a planet instead of just settling there), and kept him stuck in one place, but also locked him in with a shard that would by sheer reflex oppose any of his attempts to cause widespread destruction.  It's no surprise that Ruin was so angry and frustrated by the time the events in The Mistborn Trilogy occurred, his power being imprisoned and his will being constantly opposed was the system working exactly as intended.

Scadrial and everything on it were Ati and Leras' mutually constructed prison to keep Ruin from spreading destruction all across the cosmere.

[Savanorn]

Hmmm. Maybe. 

Something important so far as I can concerned is that Ati sees ruin as part of creation. It is probably significant that despite all he could have or may have done, he chose to create something (albeit with a mind to destroy it later). I think this is what remains of Ati influencing the shardic intent.

[Argent]

I like it. Only time will tell how true it is, but I would prefer it to be so. Furthermore, you could extend your idea by throwing Preservation in the mix - a power to keep Ruin's in check, in balance.

Edited October 10, 2016 by Argent

[Yata]

I actually think that Leras created Scadrial to fit his Masterplan (with a Physical Focus who may be removed from Ati's power an hardly recovered)....Ati-Ruin seems to see what happened to himself as a Preservation's betrayal.

[Exalted]

There's also one of Hoid's letters, where he states that Ati was a good man (or something like that). Or was that in the WoK epilogue that sparked this discussion?

[Eki]

12 hours ago, miner3203 said:

There's also one of Hoid's letters, where he states that Ati was a good man (or something like that). Or was that in the WoK epilogue that sparked this discussion?

No, they did indeed mean one of the epigraphs, not the epilogue.

We've only seen one letter from Hoid though. The other letter is addressed TO him.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Eki