Mistborn is out of balance

[Hazed harmonious]

Warning! Spoilers for mustborn era 1 and era 2. Ok, so we know that a small portion of atrium still exists in the mistborn world( carried by marsh/ iron eyes). Also, there isn’t any lerasium in the world currently. So wouldn’t that mean that there is more destruction in the world than preservation? Could anyone offer an explanation? 

[+robardin]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:30 PM, Hazed harmonious said:

Warning! Spoilers for mustborn era 1 and era 2. Ok, so we know that a small portion of atrium still exists in the mistborn world( carried by marsh/ iron eyes). Also, there isn’t any lerasium in the world currently. So wouldn’t that mean that there is more destruction in the world than preservation? Could anyone offer an explanation? 

There is wiggle room for Brandon here if he wants it: there isn't any lerasium on Scadrial as of Era 2, that people know about.

There wasn't ever that much lerasium to begin with, because Leras already "overspent" of Himself in creating Scadrial with Ruin to give humanity a touch more Preservation than of Ruin. The two Shards were exactly matched in power to begin with, and this amount of extra power was described by what we would later understand to be Harmony as "not much", but it was enough that over time, Ruin could overwhelm Him.

...and the amount of atium (+a bit of electrum....) that cycled through the Pits of Hathsin represented the chunk of Ruin that Preservation managed to splinter off while trapping Ruin in the Well, leaving the two in balance (as we see in Secret History).

In other words, the sum of the power of Ruin represented by the atium cycle (A) at the Pits should equal the "extra bit of power" Preservation gave to humanity (H), that present in the mists (M), and that formed into lerasium beads (L). So that A = H+M+L.

Technically the mists can be "pulled back" by a living Vessel of Preservation, as all the mist disappeared to go into Vin when she Ascended, so really A = H+L.

We don't know why Leras bothered to form those beads - maybe it has to do with mechanically balancing out the "bead forming" aspect of the atium cycle? - but it was not something Rashek did while Ascended, they pre-existed him and he "had to go get it".

The lore of the Final Empire is that there were "ten kings" who were the first to ally with Rashek in his drive to become The Lord Ruler who founded the ten Great Houses that Vin had to memorize as part of her training to pose as Valette ("Venture, Hasting, Elariel, Tekiel, Lekal, Erikeller, Erikell, Haught, Urbain, and Buvidas"), and were evidently given lerasium beads to do so. All noble-blooded Allomancy derives from that.

(It seems clear that originally, Rashek was intended to have become Mistborn via such a bead as well, but this was never explicitly stated in TFE, and later Brandon retconned this to Rashek being even higher in power level than Lerasium Mistborn by virtue of a direct modification of his Spiritweb while Ascended. You can infer this from Harmony's epigraph to HoA Ch. 22 where TLR is referred to one of the "ancient Allomancers" with power "unadulterated by time and breeding", with "nine" other original Allomancers instead of "ten"? But then one of the ten kings would have gotten frozen out of a bead? LOL!)

Let's assume there were ten beads consumed shortly after Rashek's Ascension, either TLR + nine kings, or consumed by ten kings who became Mistborn and founded the Great Noble Houses.

Now account for the two left in the cavern under Kredik Shaw, one taken by Hoid and one consumed by Elend at the end of TWoA.

That means that Rashek went and gathered TWELVE lerasium beads... Don't you suspect there ought to have been SIXTEEN of them? Maybe four are left to find!

And as for the imbalance of Harmony - we no longer have an atium cycle, but H is constant (?), and maybe as much of 4/16 (25%) of L. Yeah, that's still a problem.

[StormingTexan]

Well there has never been much Lerasium even in Era 1 only two beads remained and there was way more Atium which ended up being Preservations ploy all along to weaken Ruin. 

[Quantus]

Short answer is Yes, there does exist an imalance between the two shards.  In Era1 is was all tied up in the bargain between Shards, and in Era2 it's all tied up in Harmony's Balancing act.  

But as far as the details go, Atium and Lerasium alone were not balancing each other directly.  Ruin got crammed into a whole lot of Atium, while Preservation spread out into the Mist.

 

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rags

How is Harmony balanced when a part of Preservation's power is expended on human sentience? Isn't that what caused all the trouble to begin with?

Brandon Sanderson

Indeed. Hm... What could Sazed be doing with that extra power...

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

 

 

 

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Chaos (paraphrased)

Why is there such an imbalance between the amount of atium and the amount of lerasium in the world? Also, why are atium and lerasium very imbalanced in Allomantic power (Lerasium is far more useful than atium, really)?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There isn't. Leras is just spread out further. He is in the mists, in the Well, and in the lerasium. Ruin's power however is condensed strictly in atium.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

 

[Chaos]

Hi, the Introduce Yourself forum is not for book discussion. I have moved this to a more relevant forum.