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So this is my theory in the dragon steel chapters brandon has made available, yolen is most of the time referred to as “the continent of yolen” now we go on to mistborn secret history , ati, before he dies utters the word vax, now presumably, the last place ati was before taking up the shard of ruin was yolen, or should I say vax (I will explain this later) in warbreaker, hoid refers to his homeland as a “place we’re to lands meet and gods have died” furthermore, there is a saying on yolen that goes “may two worlds become one to you” and Brandon has SPECIFICALLY stated that this is NOT in reference to any realms so my theory is that vax isn’t a planet, but another landmass or continent on yolen

At the end of RoW, Taravangian ascends to Odium and inherits quite a few memories and information from Rayse. Well, I don't know if it's Brandon's favoritism towards TOdium, but I don't understand why Taravangian inherits so much information, but Kelsier, Vin and Sazed don't inherit any information from each other's pre-Preservation vessel (Kelsier from Leras, Vin from Kelsier and Sazed from Vin). And the same case of Sazed with Ati. Maybe Kelsier doesn't inherit any information from Leras because the latter was slowly dying, but Vin should have inherited Kelsier's short-time memories as Preservation as well as Taravangian from Odium, and Sazed should have inherited Vin's memories and Ati when ascending, but it was not like that and it gives me a feeling of unevenness between the shards, despite the fact that Odium is somewhat hurt by his battles in the Cosmere, but Preservation and Ruin are intact despite the deaths of their original vessels.

Okay so considering the fact that Sazed picked up two shards at his Ascension, does that make him the most powerful being in the cosmere? Or would that title depend on which shards were combined? For example, the opposite nature of Ruin and Preservation make changes hard for Sazed. If someone, say Rayse, were to have shattered Preservation and picked up Ruin, would that be a more powerful combo? Regardless, would Sazed be able to contend with Rayse given he is Harmony (Ruin AND Preservation) and Rayse is only Odium?

warning: I've put what I can in spoiler tags, but there's unavoidable Dawnshard theorizing. enter at your own risk. I've been trying to figure out what changing text has to do with the power of Ruin, specifically. I'm mean, it's a great plot twist, it's just that it's been bugging me that it's not particularly Ruinous. And that only thing that comes to mind is that Ruin = Change and Preservation = Stasis. Which would imply one of two things: 1. Ruin can change words because change is his shtick. Or rather [Dawnshard spoilers] Which would imply that insert-your-grouping-here can do the same thing-- my money's on Cultivation, Invention, and Ambition, personally. But in any case, there's other gods that can cause typos in your forum posts. 2. Preservation can't change words because stasis is his shtick. So everyone but Preservation can mess with your books, or maybe everyone but [Dawnshard] Again, that leaves a lot of Shards that can forge a check. So do you think my logic is sound here? And if so, why have we never seen this dirty but incredibly useful trick elsewhere? Did it use to be there and then it got... removed?

Okay, I just need to see if I'm the only one who had this thought or knows why I have this thought. For some reason, during my reading of Mistborn Era 1, in my head, I started seeing Atium as orange rather than silver. This ended up carrying to when I thought of Ruin, orange was always in the back of my mind. And the odd thing is, I think I saw Atium is silver at first, then something changed that image in my head and I don't know what or why. Am I the only one? Has anyone else fallen to this or something similar, or is it just me?

Okay, when I read Mistborn: Secret History and that scene where Kelsier punches Ati in the face, my immediate reaction was, "That's a dick move. You don't know what he's like." It was made clear that Ati was corrupted by the Intent of the Shard of Ruin to make him do all those things when he was a Vessel. So when he dies, is he back to normal? Was he back to the nice guy he was before, and does he remember everything he did, why he did it, and what sort of mental trauma can that do to a person? Also, he was ascended, so he could have stayed yet went into the Beyond. Why? Why not say anything to the people you terrorized? There are so many questions that the scene gives me about Ati. And did something similar happen to other Shards, like Honor and Autonomy, or does splintering them do something different? Why don't Shards stay and try to come back to the physical realm more? Or just stay in the cognitive realm and give advice? I have so many questions!

Since Sazed currently holds Ruin, Hemalurgy is of him now. Since he also holds Preservation, calling the combination Harmony, he also has an entirely new godmetal that we saw in BoM. Duscovered by the Southern Scadrians, who call it Ettmetal and use it to power their ships, create powerful bombs as well as Allomantic grenades. This metal is explosive on contact with water, Brandon compared it with Cesium. As we saw with the Inquisitors, Hemalurgic constructs can survive wounds inflicted by the spike and in fact, alter the receiver's biology so that they can survive being impaled. The Inquisitors' brains itself was reshaped to allow the spikes to pass through, as well as, it seems their skeletal structure and muscular structure as well as possibly a few internal organs and their circulatory system. So couldn't their body do something to accommodate a Harmonium spike? It doesn't solve the problem of the spike degrading or getting damaged or exploding while it's still... passing through the donor, but I'm hoping you all could provide some theories for that end. Now, assuming success of such a venture, what power(s) do(es) Harmonium steal? Feruchemy can sidestep the godmetal's reaction with water, provided the Feruchemist takes a few precautions like covering up their metalmind so as to not expose it to water. So what would a Harmonium metalmind store?

So, at the end of HoA, Vin Ascends to face Ruin and kills Ati (Ruin's Vessel), dying in the process. Now, when Vin "threw her power" against Ruin they "collided and repelled each other", which resulted in the death of both Vessels. Notably, we know that neither Preservation nor Ruin were Splintered during this process, as Sazed Ascended shortly thereafter. That being said, what (cosmerologically speaking) happened when Vin "threw herself" against Ati? How can you kill a Vessel without Splintering them? Are all Shards opposed in such a way that mere "physical contact" damages their Vessels?

Are all the shards pairs? We know that Ruin and Preservation are an opposing pair. Are all 16 shards this way? For example, perhaps Autonomy and Dominion are opposites, as Dominion seeks to destroy what autonomy others have, and autonomy seeks to be free of any dominion over it. In the same fashion, Devotion may have been Odium’s opposing pair, which would make his attack on her make all the more sense. If the theory is true, it would help us guess the other shards, for example, maybe a Contentment shard as Ambition’s pair, or Opposition as Cultivation’s. It would be interesting to know what dishards could be made if more pairs melded, like Harmony.

This is obviously purely philosophical, but I was just wondering, if not for her relationship with Honor, would Cultivation have been drawn to Scadrial either instead of or in addition to Preservation? People often say that Preservation and Ruin were both drawn to Scadrial because of their opposing intents, kind of like two poles of a magnet. But strictly speaking Ruin and Preservation are NOT opposites. Ruin is essentially regression and Preservation is essentially stasis. The true opposite of Ruin is actually Cultivation, at least if we assume that her overall intent is growth/progression, which appears to be the case from what little we’ve seen of her. Preservation is effectively smack in between Ruin and Cultivation in terms of intent. And indeed, I would think that if someone were to simultaneously hold the Shards of Ruin and Cultivation, the result very well might effectively be a second more powerful Shard of Preservation, since the net effect of their two intents would cancel each other out. Anyone have any thoughts?

So we've been told that Feruchemy is of both Preservation and Ruin. Allomancy preserves the Allomancer, allowing them to burn metals which act as keys to Preservation's power Hemalurgy allows one to steal attributes. Ruin's Investiture steals part of the Spiritweb from the... donor, keyed to both the metal used and specific bindpoints and grafts it on to the recipient's soul, while ensuring that the spikes being driven through their body itself doesn't end up killing the recipient. Feruchemy allows one to store an attribute and tap or access it later. It is end-neutral, the Feruchemist doesn't gain or lose their attributes, making it of Preservation. In order to tap the attribute later, the attribute being stored deteriorates, making it of Ruin. My question is: how can it also be of Ruin? Doesn't giving his own Investiture go against his Intent?

Ok so we know Ruin was able to talk to rashek , eventually driving him insane. But how exactly ? An obvious explaination would be hemalurgy. But I doubt tlr was that stupid. He knew exactly what hemalurgy could lead to. So could it be he was slightly insane . I mean when he first ascended he did a lot of mistakes resulting in probably millions of death. Not to mention he had to turn his entire feruchemist brethren including his friends and family into mush. Then I guess he had a rough couple of centuries. What with all the rebellions and the unsuccessful attempts at his life and the successful ones at his lovers and children. ( I heard he had atleast one kid named Lutha, after whom luthadel was named ) I guess it would drive anyone bonkers. But my favourite theory is that it was the atium bracers . Not only did he burn atium but also had the bracers piercing his skin and while they weren't hemalurgically charged , they were Ruin's physical essence. So I guess him having to rely on atium compounding 24*7 meant he had a direct connection to Ruin all the time ? Or could it be that ruin hated him and concentrated his efforts on him enough to speak him even without any holes in his spiritweb ? Or is it a combination of all these factors , except hemalurgy , that's just stupid. Then there's the fact that rashek ascended and unlike Vin he allowed the power of preservation to channel through him. That should have made him atleast a bit immune to ruin , right ? Do we have any WoBs on this ?

So when hoid meets kelsier in the well of Ascension , he kinda implies he was behind tlr's fall and refers to kelsier as a tool or something . So did hoid want to release Ruin so that Ruin could have battled odium. Hoid does say to dalinar that he would be willing to watch roshar burn , with tears yes but with no regret if it meant odium would fall . Wouldn't the same case apply for Scadrial ? It would explain what hoid was doing staying on Scadrial knowing ruin would destroy the planet, instead of hopping back into the cognitive realm and leaving Scadrial behind after pocketing the Lerasium. Hoid can live through a lot of things but I doubt he could live through the destruction of a world. Unless of course he had already made a deal with ruin , he would free ruin and in return ruin had to do him a favor , a destructive one ofcourse. So could it be true or did he someother reason to stay ? If so what was the reason ? Was it just hoids Spidey sense going wrong or did he think he could simply ingest the Lerasium and compound to survive the destruction of the planet and the vacuum of space ? Did he have enough metals to do that ? Wait but if preservation were to be splintered would allomancy and compounding work ? Wait did hoid intend to do harm to Vin ? Like I know he can't hurt anyone but maybe he could have given Vin false info so that she would invade fadrex and ruin would get his atium ? Also how did he manage to beat up kelsier so bad in the cognitive realm. I thought he had some sort of cognitive impedence regarding violence but he beat up kel in the CR so.... Oh is it that he couldn't actually harm kel , like he could beat him but apart from feeling pain kel wouldn't he harmed . Sorry I'm going all over the place now. My main question is was he behind tlr's fall ? Holy storm , Maybe mare was a female herald sent to manipulate Kel by hoid. She wasn't a tineye , she had a Spren or something . I mean it's a long shot but maybe the way he uses fortune helped him form a nebulous plan that worked with ruin's cooperation ?

How did ruin and preservation create Scadrial , we know the planet was not already there and we know they created all of the life there , my question is how did they do that ? Did they simply use space dust that was already present or did they convert their investiture directly into matter ??? I'm just confused

So I keep hearing people say Kelsier is a cognitive shadow. I am mildly familiar with this term; I've heard it in reference to Hoid and Vivenna. But if he isn't totally dead, then what was that conversation with Spook about in HoA? The wiki says that it was Ruin playing as Kelsier, which makes sense because he was so insistent about revenge, but I never actually heard that from a person who's read the books. Can someone give clarity?

Hi guys, I was just thinking about this upon rereading parts of Hero of Ages for a paper I'm writing, but how would Ruin have gotten the atium? Like, was it only his ignorance of where it was that kept it from just taking it into himself once he was freed, and once he found out where it was, was it just Vin's power as Preservation preventing him from doing anything active reflexively that did it? If so, what was the point of the Kolos even attacking for it. The world would have ended anyway, it would just have taken a few months for people to starve, if Vin hadn't killed ruin and Sazed had taken up both powers. Would the Kolos or Kandra under ruin's control taking control of Atium actually have done anything more as long as Vin was preservation? Were the pits protected from Ruin somehow that as long at the atium was in them, Ruin couldn't just like, absorb it into himself? What's going on here?

How long does it take to shatter a shard the way odium does compared to the slow strangulation used by ruin against preservation ? Why is the shatter method perceived as being so quick if honor had time to create the stormfather and rant and rave about the knights radiant destroying the world with their surgebinding.

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?

Hi! Just joined because I have a question. I remember reading a line by Ruin about the morality of shards and saying that Preservation would keep the world in stasis so people wouldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, I can’t find it in my copy of Hero of Ages. I don’t think I’m misremembering because I’ve seen other people make reference to it but to the best of my efforts I can’t find it.

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.