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Is Harmony just bad at being a God?


hwiles

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On 2/16/2017 at 1:03 AM, Tazren said:

He can't create a perfect world, because the Ruin in him wouldn't allow it.

Neither would the Preservation in him; unchanging stasis isn't a very appealing world.  A perfect world might very well be a viable compromise between the two, if he were smart enough to figure out what would constitute a perfect world and how to bring it about without using ethically problematic means (if such is even possible).

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My only real remaining qualm with Sazed is that, on occasion, he unapologetically leads people by the nose to do his bidding without any claim to divinity. He groomed and emotionally abused Wax from a young age all the way to the end of BoM...was it for an overwhelmingly greater good? Yes. But I still think it's an abuse of power.

Sazed, by almost happenstance, obtained tremendous magical powers and abilities to sculpt the cosmere around himself. In my opinion, winning the Investiture lottery doesn't grant a man the right of dominion over his peers. If Sazed wanted to truly exemplify harmony and trust in free will, he would splinter his power and step down as God.

Trellists believe that metalborn should rule over regular humans because they possess more of Harmonys Investiture. I think this is a morally repugnant mechanism for leading a civilization, but it's not that different from how Sazed leads all of Scadrial. Sazed's pretty words and good intentions don't give him a right to Godhood.

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4 hours ago, hwiles said:

My only real remaining qualm with Sazed is that, on occasion, he unapologetically leads people by the nose to do his bidding without any claim to divinity. He groomed and emotionally abused Wax from a young age all the way to the end of BoM...was it for an overwhelmingly greater good? Yes. But I still think it's an abuse of power.

Sazed, by almost happenstance, obtained tremendous magical powers and abilities to sculpt the cosmere around himself. In my opinion, winning the Investiture lottery doesn't grant a man the right of dominion over his peers. If Sazed wanted to truly exemplify harmony and trust in free will, he would splinter his power and step down as God.

Trellists believe that metalborn should rule over regular humans because they possess more of Harmonys Investiture. I think this is a morally repugnant mechanism for leading a civilization, but it's not that different from how Sazed leads all of Scadrial. Sazed's pretty words and good intentions don't give him a right to Godhood.

The way I see it, Sazed believes that an imperfect god is better than no god, especially since he may not know how to splinter the Shards and keep anyone else from taking them up. He's definitely got some double standards going on, though.

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8 hours ago, hwiles said:

My only real remaining qualm with Sazed is that, on occasion, he unapologetically leads people by the nose to do his bidding without any claim to divinity. He groomed and emotionally abused Wax from a young age all the way to the end of BoM...was it for an overwhelmingly greater good? Yes. But I still think it's an abuse of power.

Sazed, by almost happenstance, obtained tremendous magical powers and abilities to sculpt the cosmere around himself. In my opinion, winning the Investiture lottery doesn't grant a man the right of dominion over his peers. If Sazed wanted to truly exemplify harmony and trust in free will, he would splinter his power and step down as God.

Trellists believe that metalborn should rule over regular humans because they possess more of Harmonys Investiture. I think this is a morally repugnant mechanism for leading a civilization, but it's not that different from how Sazed leads all of Scadrial. Sazed's pretty words and good intentions don't give him a right to Godhood.

I agree with everything @Jondesu wrote but I also have to add something else pertaining to Wax.

With or without Harmony's interference, Wax was always going to end up with a harrowing upbringing - remember, he was set up to be raised by his Uncle Ladrian, and we all know how that would have ended up had that followed through. And anyway, it wasn't as if Harmony was the one who planted the idea in Wax's head to pursue upholding the law as a career. Yes, he Pushed - but that push came in the form of

Spoiler

a life-saving stunt during his childhood (read: letting Wax fuel his allomancy with the mists during the fight with the half-Terris arsonist)

which invariably cemented his desire to pursue justice - which was in itself an accident since it wasn't like Harmony had a concrete idea of the outcome of that event.

Okay, so he manipulated circumstances in his life to pull him closer to his objectives - the spiked earring, Bleeder, leading him back to Elendel. I, for one, cannot blame Harmony in doing so. Every action of his must fall inside set parameters and to do away with them is to handicap himself. Isn't that why Tensoon once said that he served as Harmony's Preservation and that Wax was his Ruin?

Harmony needed enforcers who were capable of enforcing his personal convictions while not being constrained by the same parameters he himself was held to, while at the same time he needed people who were capable of acting on their own behest and be able to do things with utmost flexibility. And people like that do not come easy. He was lucky with TenSoon but he had to mould Wax body and soul to fit the description.

Was it wrong? OF COURSE. I perfectly empathize with Wax's outrage and indignation on this matter - but when you really need a tool, you'll end up finding it in anything remotely capable of accomplishing what you need to accomplish, and you end up using it regardless of what that tool is. And in this case, the tools are people, sad to say.

But if you're a god you have to settle for either of two things: absolutely no interference (which Sazed will never approve of), or interference here and there bordering on infringing upon other people's wishes. And also, I have long believed that if it was in Sazed's power to step down, he would have done so by now. The fact that he hasn't means that he can't - or that he thinks what he's doing is justified.

Not right or good. Justified. Anything Sazed does and will do in his current situation will always come across as an abuse of power - he might as well do good by it.

Edited by Mr. Staccato
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I do not mind to hijack the post, by I felt this could really fit in this discussion. My theory is that this discussion, whether or not someone is doing well as a God, is one of the key arguments in the Cosmere designed by Brandon. As an author, he is very good at given the reader a controversial situation in which there is no obvious correct answer an make un powder in what would we do and what is correct...

Now, some Cosmere musing , spoilers for Cosmere related events (specially Way of Kings)

Spoiler

I also think that this was part of Adonalsium plan. The accepted theory (I think) is that Adonalsium predicted the shattering and accepted it/plan for it. The reason might have been to fight some evil (I read somewhere about Fein life, but I never read The Liar of Partinel), but I believed he planned for something else. I wanted to show mortals that being a god is not easy. That power itself do not solve all problems and they shouldn't be so eager to get it. Yes, Sazed case is worse because of the conflicting intents, but if we look at the other Shardwolds, do you think the Shardholders are doing the best they could for their people? In every one of this places people suffer and people abused people. Heck, I think this might even apply to magic!! One would think that a society with magic, where to work of many could be replaced by some magic usage would be a better society, where people live better... I really feel that Brandon, and by extension Adonalsium, are trying to show us that power is not the key to happiness

 

Edited by dgenio8
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13 hours ago, hwiles said:

If Sazed wanted to truly exemplify harmony and trust in free will, he would splinter his power and step down as God.

 

And leave Scadrial ripe for another Shard to take over?

That's not even considering the question of what splintering that power would do to the world that it created.

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1 hour ago, Yitzi2 said:

 

And leave Scadrial ripe for another Shard to take over?

That's not even considering the question of what splintering that power would do to the world that it created.

I was going to say that.

Face it, once you have power, you can't escape using it. Not using the power, or giving away the power, is a way of using the power.

Using the power will have consequences, and you will be responsible. Even not using the power has consequences, and you are responsible for what happens as a result of you not using the power.

There is absolutely NOTHING sazed could do that would not be controversial. If there was somebody more qualified than himself, then sazed would be right in giving the power to that somebody, but even before the ascension, sazed was probably the single most qualified person on scadrial to deal with those topics.

No, all those things about not doing anything or splintering the shard are not easy ways out. They are merely ways to avoid responsibility. They would not make the world a better place, they would merely let sazed sit aside and watch the world go down the drain while saying "hey, it was not my fault".

So, doing the best he can with the power is actually the right option for sazed.

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@hwiles maybe you should put -Major Mistborn Era 1 Spoilers- in the title... If I was reading Era one for the first time I would be really pissed off to see your title. Its the biggest spoiler ever in bold letters. Just saying...

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@Felt Title updated to be friendlier to new readers casually browsing the forums.  I can't remember offhand what the current spoiler policy is for era 1.  If you feel like the title still violates the spirit of the rules I can take another crack at it, thanks!

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@king of nowhere As I see it, giving up the power is only "a way of avoiding responsibility" if you subscribe to the belief that Harmony has a moral imperative to use the power for the benefit of Scadrians at large.  This argument has some real merit, particularly if you consider the fact that Harmony can, in some capacity, literally see and pick between complex alternative futures and has, as far as we know, a good track record of moral behavior.

The water gets murky however when you consider that Sazed makes mistakes, can't (at least for the time being :ph34r:) be held accountable by his subjects, and his ability to predict the future is not perfect.

The argument we've built in this thread is somewhat similar to that discussed by Hoid and Frost in The Letter (for any not familiar with The Letter, it is composed of a set of epigraphs in WoR).  Critique of the arguments set in spoiler tag because there could be some minor spoilers for those who haven't read Stormlight Archive.

Spoiler

My interpretation of Frost's argument basically boils down to:

Following the Shattering, the Cosmere's Shards and other immensely powerful beings lack the divine mandate required to give them the moral, ethical, or spiritual authority to impose their will on the Cosmere's inhabitants.  Frost argues that, because of this, any intervention in the Cosmere's development by these immensely powerful beings is therefore immoral and to be abhorred.  He sees good and evil as relative, meaning that a Shard "acting for the greater good of their world" is basically a nonsensical concept, as the Shard (just like every other being in the Cosmere) is fundamentally unequipped to make an absolute judgement call about good, bad, right, and wrong.  This argument's main weakness is that it fails to address moderately invested people and objects in the Cosmere.  IE: it claims that a people like Hoid or The Lord Ruler are wrong to use their power to influence or command less invested lifeforms, but it fails to establish an Investiture level below which a being can rule/intervene in society and also be in good moral/ethical standing.  (For example, most mistings aren't powerful enough to dominate society by themselves, but they are still exceptionally powerful.  Frost doesn't seem to have an answer regarding how these beings should act.)

My interpretation of Hoid's argument is that:

The Cosmere's Shards and other immensely powerful beings possess a natural moral imperative to 1) exercise their free-will, and 2) Hold each other accountable in the event that one of them appears to objectively be doing more harm than good to the Cosmere's inhabitants at large.  Hoid seems to maintain that good and evil, while typically relative concepts, can sometimes be demonstrated to a great enough extreme to become, in some capacity, absolutes.  For example, Odium's Shard killings spread so much strife and chaos that he can objectively be declared "evil" and should therefore be stopped or, if necessary, killed.

While there's certainly no right answer, I think it's interesting that, as I see it, more people on this thread seem to instinctively favor Hoid's argument.  In the context of the Cosmere I'm personally inclined to lean towards Frost's way of thinking while simultaneously recognizing that it wouldn't make for a good story if too many characters in the Cosmere supported it.

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2 hours ago, hwiles said:

@king of nowhere As I see it, giving up the power is only "a way of avoiding responsibility" if you subscribe to the belief that Harmony has a moral imperative to use the power for the benefit of Scadrians at large.  This argument has some real merit, particularly if you consider the fact that Harmony can, in some capacity, literally see and pick between complex alternative futures and has, as far as we know, a good track record of moral behavior.

Actually, that's covered in my argument as a specific case. If by acting blindly you do more damage than good, then not using the power really is the best you can do with it. But the moral reasoning is not "it is not right for me to use the power, I must give it up"; it is rather "using the power does more harm than good, so I should refrain from using it - or rather, I should use it only if I'm really, really sure". Heck, considering the lord ruler's track record, I think it is safe to conclude that he should not attempt to do anything with it on a large scale. sazed, though, did more good than ill with it; the ill he did were mostly unintended consequences of other greater goods, or failed ploys. As long as he keeps a positive score, he should keep going. Especially knowing that another shard is attacking scadrial, so sazed quitting would result in game over for everyone

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