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Was Ruin responsible for the mist killings?


Teegs

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I'm fairly sure Sazed would have noted that it was an old person both mistdeaths he saw in WoA, but he didn't. THis leads me to believe the mist were killing perfectly healthy adults as well. And I'm not saying Ruin can make the mist attack people. No, the numbers would stay at 16%, just the deat rate within the 16 would increase.

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Yes, but using your own quote against you :) they "teamed up". There was consent from Preservation to create sentient life. Even though Preservation at this point wasn't much more than a vegetable, wasn't Kelsier holding it temporarily or something?

Anywho, my point being I don't think Ruin could forcibly take Preservation's power and strengthen or weaken it's power to Snap people. He could just add his mist to it, or at the very least do something to make the mist thicker and stay during the day.

Ahh, but there was already consent from Preservation to traumatize people in the Mists. Ruin could have easily gone "Sweet! Thanks for the opening!" and started zapping people as the Mists tried to snap them. If they died, woo! If not, oh well, they were still scared poopless of the Mists that were supposed to be their big clue to everything. Note that I'm not saying he commandeered any amount of Preservation's power, just lent some of his own. We already know he could do something to make the Mists last longer and become thicker. It's entirely reasonable to believe he could enhance the trauma as well, even just by inflicting his own simultaneously, but we don't have any clear indication as to whether he did.

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That was sort of my initial point, emphasized by preservation's response in WoA when Sazed asks if he killed the people dying of the mist sickness. (Though they had to know the full extent of the mist sickness yet, as these were the first deaths anyone in the crew was privy to.)Sazed asked, "did you do this?" And preservation frantically shook his head no.

But upon finishing HoA I chalk it up to being more along the lines of some people are gonna survive snapping, and some people aren't. Period.

Edited by Teegs
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It seems like if Ruin was working to kill people before they Snapped, more of Elend's army would have died. It also always seemed to me that Sazed didn't do any kind of autopsy on the corpses he found, so he actually has no idea what killed them. Maybe some of the "healthy" people weren't really, all that much. At the very least, since most of those who came down with mistsickness were skaa, they likely suffered from malnutrition in their early years which could have led to all kinds of problems later in their life.

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It seems like if Ruin was working to kill people before they Snapped, more of Elend's army would have died. It also always seemed to me that Sazed didn't do any kind of autopsy on the corpses he found, so he actually has no idea what killed them. Maybe some of the "healthy" people weren't really, all that much. At the very least, since most of those who came down with mistsickness were skaa, they likely suffered from malnutrition in their early years which could have led to all kinds of problems later in their life.

He would have been blocked enough by Preservation that if he tried to kill anybody extra it would have been ineffective. But since the mists were already pushing people to the brink of death, anybody in the 16 percent the mists picked would be open for a tiny nudge on Ruin's part to push them over the edge and into death's doorway.

Edited by Observer
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Idk... you're responses DO make sense, but I just never thought of Ruin and what he was trying to do as a "bad thing", more of a "necessary evil" kind of thing.

Things have to be broken down and destroyed for change to occur. So to me, it doesn't seem like Ruin was intentionally going after those being Snapped. Maybe it was just a side effect from him adding his mojo in w/ Preservation's mojo, idk...

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Ruin isn't evil, but he's very much behind on his timetable for destroying Scadrial, and any little corner-cutting that he can manage in the meantime to help him get back on track is that much less he needs to do later. It's not that he's targeting them for any particular reason, it's just that they're easy targets because they're Snapping.

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Idk... you're responses DO make sense, but I just never thought of Ruin and what he was trying to do as a "bad thing", more of a "necessary evil" kind of thing.

Things have to be broken down and destroyed for change to occur. So to me, it doesn't seem like Ruin was intentionally going after those being Snapped. Maybe it was just a side effect from him adding his mojo in w/ Preservation's mojo, idk...

You are right, of course. Ruin isn't evil, not at all. However, he is a force of nature that has to destroy. It would go against the very nature of Ruin not to at the very least try to get the weak and vulnerable snapped people to die. As Alendi's logbook puts it, It's not done out of malice or hatred, it's done because that is what he does.

EDIT: To my previous statements, the epigraphs of HoA explicitly state that Preservation could not destroy, even to protect. This raises questions about the nature of Ruin and his limits, as he seemed perfectly fine with preserving to destroy.

Edited by Observer
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You are right, of course. Ruin isn't evil, not at all. However, he is a force of nature that has to destroy. It would go against the very nature of Ruin not to at the very least try to get the weak and vulnerable snapped people to die. As Alendi's logbook puts it, It's not done out of malice or hatred, it's done because that is what he does.

EDIT: To my previous statements, the epigraphs of HoA explicitly state that Preservation could not destroy, even to protect. This raises questions about the nature of Ruin and his limits, as he seemed perfectly fine with preserving to destroy.

Mentioned before, Ruin never Preserved anything. All Hemalurgy Ruins at least one life to empower another, and the power you receive is less than was taken. It's an end-negative art that ALWAYS Ruins.

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Mentioned before, Ruin never Preserved anything. All Hemalurgy Ruins at least one life to empower another, and the power you receive is less than was taken. It's an end-negative art that ALWAYS Ruins.

He preserved Spook's life in the burning mansion in order to ruin later. The epigraphs state he could build to destroy, which is similar. As I type this I realize the invalidity of my own argument, but I'll post it anyways in case somebody takes something from it somehow.

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He preserved Spook's life in the burning mansion in order to ruin later. The epigraphs state he could build to destroy, which is similar. As I type this I realize the invalidity of my own argument, but I'll post it anyways in case somebody takes something from it somehow.

I don't think that building is the same as Preserving. In fact, it explicitly isn't.

As for saving Spook---he had to kill a Thug in order for the scene to work out! It came out net-negative in terms of power or ability to preserve the city. (If the Thug could have been directed correctly, he could have preserved the city in its time of need.)

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He preserved Spook's life in the burning mansion in order to ruin later. The epigraphs state he could build to destroy, which is similar. As I type this I realize the invalidity of my own argument, but I'll post it anyways in case somebody takes something from it somehow.

And Ruin didn't save Spook, Spook did. He just talked Spook through it. There was no expenditure of Ruin's power beyond what was needed to talk to Spook.

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And Ruin didn't save Spook, Spook did. He just talked Spook through it. There was no expenditure of Ruin's power beyond what was needed to talk to Spook.

There. Bam. All my questions answered. So long as they don't use their power against their intent, they're fine.

So, that's why Preservation could talk a plan into motion that involved Ruining people and Shards, he simply didn't use any of his power to do it.

I love it.

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  • 1 month later...

If atium mistings were sick longer which metals made people ill for what amount of time? Which is the least 'potent'?

Personally I think atium mistings were sick for longer simply because they are drawing on a god metal, and one that is specifically against the Intent of Preservation. You probably need to have serious trauma for the Preservation inside you to decide drawing on the power of Ruin is a good thing. I imagine every other Allomantic metal had people sick for relatively the same amount of time, dependent upon health of the person, as no one mentions varying lengths of recovery except for Demoux and the mistfallen.

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Personally I think atium mistings were sick for longer simply because they are drawing on a god metal, and one that is specifically against the Intent of Preservation. You probably need to have serious trauma for the Preservation inside you to decide drawing on the power of Ruin is a good thing. I imagine every other Allomantic metal had people sick for relatively the same amount of time, dependent upon health of the person, as no one mentions varying lengths of recovery except for Demoux and the mistfallen.

I have another theory:

My theory is that the atium mistings were sick longer so that they would be sent back to Luthadel and then get side-tracked into the Pits of Hathsin, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that the Hero of Ages would come and bring with him (sorta; Sazed supplied said army with Atium) an army of Allomancers to the Kandra homeland, who would then fight and save the Kandra and the world.

Preservation was playing the long game, no question.

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Actually, every other metal took exactly the same amount of time to recover from. It was brought up as a sign of the supernatural nature of the event. I think it was 16 hours for regular mistings and 16 days for Atium mistings, or something like that.

Edited by name_here
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