Did Harmony Do His Best?

[Angsos]

Sazed could also be playing Cosmere chess with Trell, and could potentially be more heavy-handed then he wants

[mail-mi]

I like the theory that for everything Harmony Preserves, he has to Ruin something else, to keep both of his Shards pleased. So to Preserve Elendel, he had to Ruin Wax.

[Ari]

I like the theory that for everything Harmony Preserves, he has to Ruin something else, to keep both of his Shards pleased. So to Preserve Elendel, he had to Ruin Wax.

 

I imagine there's some truth to that, (in that he can probably choose to act in cases where it violates neither of his intents, or try to trade them off equally if that's actually possible) but I highly doubt Ruin would be happy causing emotional turmoil. Ruin wants death of sentient beings, their constructions, and concrete moves toward entropy.

[Honorspren25]

I think it's interesting to remember that Harmony does know what it feels like to lose the one you love.  But he was able to recover from that, and probably knows that Wax will be able to overcome as well.  

 

Also, Harmony is a new player in a vast and dangerous game.  While it seems that He is truly concerned for Wax, He also has to be responsible for the entire world and perhaps a bit for the cosmere too.  Should a god put a planet at risk to spare one man?  

 

I also wonder if Paalm and Wax might both have been spared a great deal of agony if Paalm had been obedient to Harmony in the first place.  Is this more her fault than Harmony's?  

 

Finally, is there a theory out there yet about Wax becoming Harmony's champion?  It certainly looks as though He could be grooming Wax for the part.  

 

 

[Argent]

Finally, is there a theory out there yet about Wax becoming Harmony's champion?  It certainly looks as though He could be grooming Wax for the part.  

 

I saw one. Not too developed, given how little information we have, but there is one.

[Teegs]

I don't have time to read all the responses right now, but my take on Harmony's attempts at Godhood are as follows:

 

I picture him like a new parent. He has no idea what he's doing, so he's trying his best, but unfortunately his best is going to be flawed, hypocritical, and sometimes downright naive. Sure he can see into the future, and it would appear he can see many possible outcomes of his actions/inactions, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to make the right choice. And just because he's been a "parent" for 300 or so years doesn't mean he has the wisdom to really guide Scadrial in the "perfect" way. (I would argue there is no true perfect way to guide an entire planet of people, just many different ways, some better than others.)

 

Parents make mistakes. Most parents learn with their first child, then make extremely different decisions with their second from the lessons learned with the first. Furthermore, parents are always going to be learning from their children, even when the first born is an adult. Harmony might do things a lot differently if he could wipe the planet clean and start anew.

 

We also have a couple examples of shardic power not granting good decision making. Primarily with the Lord Ruler, and secondly with Vin when she took the power of Preservation during the end of HoA. Their minds expanded to conceive the power, and some things became intuitive (like the awesome power to move an entire planet) but they still lacked the knowledge or wisdom to use the power correctly. 

 

I suspect Harmony is bumbling through this as best he can. Not sure where/when to meddle, but genuinely trying his best to make the best for his people. He's a smart guy, but book smarts don't count for common sense. I think his framework well intentioned, but you can see some of the naivety in it all. Especially during his conversation with Wax in the carriage where he freely admits he screwed up by pampering them too much. 

Edited October 12, 2015 by Teegs

[voidspren]

I am foolishly holding out hope that Harmony is trying to get Wax to Snap. Because I'm in denial, and all the other options are too painful.

[DreamEternal]

I am foolishly holding out hope that Harmony is trying to get Wax to Snap. Because I'm in denial, and all the other options are too painful.

But... Wax already snaped...

[voidspren]

But... Wax already snaped...

Sorry, I was unclear!...I was trying to think of any situation where I would be alright with what Harmony did. Causing hurt for a purpose. And since that's not what's happening, I am at a loss. 

[Youngy]

"Harmony foresaw a disaster if you were told whom you hunted.”

This was TenSion at the end of the last chapter. It was something that I brushed over initially, but the Shards he holds do give him some measure of precognition. So if TenSoon said this, Harmony probably didn't have an option.

[Kurkistan]

"Harmony foresaw a disaster if you were told whom you hunted.”

This was TenSion at the end of the last chapter. It was something that I brushed over initially, but the Shards he holds do give him some measure of precognition. So if TenSoon said this, Harmony probably didn't have an option.

 

Ooh, nice catch. (and this is why I really need to sit down and do a non-breakneck-speed reread).

[ArchonTremaine]

Actually thinking about this, it becomes murkier for me, Harmony's best option? Maybe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he did the best he could for the people involved, only that he did what was best for Him.  To clarify, maybe he sees that if he did something different he butterflies an event in a hundred years that diminishes Him, or has people turn away from Him..or some other result in the future that is not great for Harmony.  Then you get the question of the morality of that....

Edited October 15, 2015 by ArchonTremaine

[natc]

"Best for Him?" Nothing in this incident that he was aware of could so much as come close to endangering whatever self-interest he might have. He's the godlike being that literally asks whatever people might want to follow him to not worship him in any way. Everything he's done in SoS was to prevent a slaughter. Because there's no way allowing everyone to be manipulated by someone into killing each other actually increases the degree of free will being exercised more than having them all be more or less alive would.

[Baine]

Ooh, nice catch. (and this is why I really need to sit down and do a non-breakneck-speed reread).

 

Same. I literally read the book in 4 hours, so I probably missed a few details.

That being said, I still love being a speed-reader!

[king of nowhere]

"Harmony foresaw a disaster if you were told whom you hunted.”

This was TenSion at the end of the last chapter. It was something that I brushed over initially, but the Shards he holds do give him some measure of precognition. So if TenSoon said this, Harmony probably didn't have an option.

precognition just seems an easy way out. i find it hard to believe that wax would have taken the revelation any worse than he ended up taking it in the book. if nothing else, it was an incredible risk: assume that lessie dropped that line about "mr cravat" before wax shot her, rather than after. result: wax is locked with shock. lessie has an easy time incapacitating him and finishing her plan. i assume that whatever would keep harmony from locating her would also keep his premonition from seeing the details of what she may or may not have done.

Maybe harmony is right, maybe wax would have refused to cooperate in hunting his ex-wife. I still have a very hard time seeing that; it goes against everything we know about him that he would stand aside when innocents are threatened. But even accepting that, it only reinforces my point, which is that harmony should have revealed that lessie was a kandra way before the events of the book. trying to subtly manipulate people is a foolish risk when kindly asking would get them to act exactly as you want anyway.

 

Actually thinking about this, it becomes murkier for me, Harmony's best option? Maybe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he did the best he could for the people involved, only that he did what was best for Him.  To clarify, maybe he sees that if he did something different he butterflies an event in a hundred years that diminishes Him, or has people turn away from Him..or some other result in the future that is not great for Harmony.  Then you get the question of the morality of that....

We are talking about a universe where there is an incarnation of hatred going around trying to kill gods and hurt their followers; and there can be some shard we haven't heard about that is almost as bad. What is good for harmony is what is good for scadrial, for the simple reason that what is not good for harmony would lead to scadrial being destroyed by the voidbringers or whatever local equivalent there can be.

From that point of view, I fully accept that harmony has the right to play with the lives of men to protect the planet. He is like a general sending his soldiers to battle. my criticism stems solely from a "he could have done it better" argument. This general fought a battle with a strategy that cost him many soldiers and could have easily failed if the enemy had acted slightly different; he could have adopted a different battle strategy that would have resulted in less casualties on his side and less chances of failure.

[Teegs]

For everyone hating on Harmony, I pose this one question:

 

If Preservation had told you his grand master plan before its implementation, do you think you would have gone along with it?

[DreamEternal]

For everyone hating on Harmony, I pose this one question:

If Preservation had told you his grand master plan before its implementation, do you think you would have gone along with it?

If he managed to fully explain every step involved and the exact mechanics of his future sight, probably yes. I for one wouldn't like to be the guy who let the world die in a thousand years.

The problem is, they never explain their plans, good and bad shards alike. Why can't they be direct for once, instead of going on with their "mysterious ways"?

EDIT: But I don't hate Harmony. Only distrust him.

Edited October 16, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[king of nowhere]

For everyone hating on Harmony, I pose this one question:

 

If Preservation had told you his grand master plan before its implementation, do you think you would have gone along with it?

yes.

I am not a man of faith, and I would tend to see harmony as a being with supernatural power and expanded knowledge, but not as a god or anything holy or mystic; I would not consider him the ultimate moral autority, I would not believe he has a right to do what he wants, and I would not pray to him, any more than I would pray to superman.

But I always trusted people who are smarter or more experienced than I am. Unless I have reasons to believe they have bad intentions, of course.

So, given that what harmony has done so far gives me zero reasons to doubt his good intentions, if harmony asked me something not too unreasonable, I'd trust him and do it.

On the other hand, if harmony tried to subtly manipulating me into doing something, I'd suspect he'd have bad intentions, because hey, why hide your goal from me otherwise? In that case, I'd resist him.

 

At your job, your boss will tell you to do stuff, and you do it because he's your boss. Your boss does not hire people to pretend they're your friends and try to get you interested in your project. It's less effective.

 

P.S. And I don't hate harmony.

Edited October 16, 2015 by king of nowhere

[ArchonTremaine]

1)precognition just seems an easy way out. i find it hard to believe that wax would have taken the revelation any worse than he ended up taking it in the book. if nothing else, it was an incredible risk: assume that lessie dropped that line about "mr cravat" before wax shot her, rather than after. result: wax is locked with shock. lessie has an easy time incapacitating him and finishing her plan. i assume that whatever would keep harmony from locating her would also keep his premonition from seeing the details of what she may or may not have done.

Maybe harmony is right, maybe wax would have refused to cooperate in hunting his ex-wife. I still have a very hard time seeing that; it goes against everything we know about him that he would stand aside when innocents are threatened. But even accepting that, it only reinforces my point, which is that harmony should have revealed that lessie was a kandra way before the events of the book. trying to subtly manipulate people is a foolish risk when kindly asking would get them to act exactly as you want anyway.

 

2)We are talking about a universe where there is an incarnation of hatred going around trying to kill gods and hurt their followers; and there can be some shard we haven't heard about that is almost as bad. What is good for harmony is what is good for scadrial, for the simple reason that what is not good for harmony would lead to scadrial being destroyed by the voidbringers or whatever local equivalent there can be.

From that point of view, I fully accept that harmony has the right to play with the lives of men to protect the planet. He is like a general sending his soldiers to battle. my criticism stems solely from a "he could have done it better" argument. This general fought a battle with a strategy that cost him many soldiers and could have easily failed if the enemy had acted slightly different; he could have adopted a different battle strategy that would have resulted in less casualties on his side and less chances of failure.

 

 

1) My main issue is the destruction of free will (apart from a suicide switch developed to work regardless of that free will being crushed) that Harmony performs on Lessie, and his apparent constant mental harassment of her, which had a large part to play in driving her mad, if it was as constant and unending as she claims

 

2)Soldiers volunteer, and know they are soldiers, Harmony's agents do not, (not all of them) huge difference.

[king of nowhere]

1) My main issue is the destruction of free will (apart from a suicide switch developed to work regardless of that free will being crushed) that Harmony performs on Lessie, and his apparent constant mental harassment of her, which had a large part to play in driving her mad, if it was as constant and unending as she claims

we don't know that. as far as we know, harmony never took direct control of lessie before the end (and in the end it was a matter of stopping an assassin, so it was justified). I don't remember the relevant pplaces, but I think lassie decidedto disobey and harmony let her go, since he could obviously have taken control of her back then. may or may not be accurate. anyway, the argument further reinforces my point that asking nicely > manipulating and bullying.

 

2)Soldiers volunteer, and know they are soldiers, Harmony's agents do not, (not all of them) huge difference.

In time of peace, some nations only take volunteers as soldiers. In war, every nation uses conscription. those nations who didn't lost the  wars and changed their law afterwards.

still, i concede the point about soldiers at least being informed of what they do and what they are up against. which further reinforces my point of asking nicely.

[Edgedancer]

Okay, so I just finished the book and will take some more time to process before I properly making something resembling a judgement, which even then will be imperfect given we don't have the full picture but there's one thing I'd like to wonder a loud.
Is it just me or does Harmony refuse to take responsibility for when one of his moves turns out to be a mistake?

For example the case with MeLaan not playing witness. I agree with the core thought of leaving the justice system intact but this isn't just them asking "Hey could you help us with this random case?" but "Hey, because of your agent that went crazy and replaced our govenor after you handled her badly we don't know if this evidence is real or fake. Could you maybe clear that up?" The whole mess they wanted his help with in the case wouldn't have happened if not for his involvment, so unless he plans to do things that could lead to evidence being altered more often this would be a very singluar event serving as clean up for something he already got directly involved in.

Something similair happened with the Wax Lessie mess. The bodyguard he placed in a very obvious and direct spot instead of having her use her shapeshifting power to keep in the background and only step in and help if Wax was in absolute peril turned out to form a relationship with someone she's directly interacting with on a daily basis. Rust and Ruin I didn't see that coming, guess we'll just have to let things play out in the most emotionally painful ways for both of them instead of trying to fix the situation. They'll manage.

 

Again, we don't have the full picture but this does come close to a pattern.

[Teegs]

I'm still going to play devil's advocate here for the sake of conversation. J

 

I get the vibe that people are disapproving of Harmony, a God who manipulated a couple people to avoid the destruction of the work of the people he loved when he was a man, and saved when he became a God. 

 

But everyone seems fine with Preservation, a God who teamed up with the God of destruction and entropy itself. Preservation, who in part created magic systems with powers of destruction, required persons to be brought to near death to access his magic, and is responsible for the manipulation and deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Preservation, whose plan it was to bring humanity (and the rest of the planet for that matter) to the brink of extinction, all hinging on a few select people to make the right decisions and save the day.

 

I don’t buy it. I’ll be the first one to admit that Sazed isn’t the most experienced of Gods. But he’s a far cry from the murderers Preservation and Ruin were by the ends of their reigns. I’ll give him some more leeway.

 

But maybe that’s not the right argument to make. Maybe this is an issue that is beyond the scope of normal human perceptions. These are Gods after all. They’re not completely omniscient but they do have precognitions and can see (or maybe calculate) multiple futures at once. Preservation's plan was absolutely brilliant (Most epic ending ever!), but it was also over the scope of thousands of years. He knew going into this that he’d have to crack a few eggs to make breakfast, and there’s no telling how many people he unfairly manipulated over the course of his existence to make sure that the entire species continued. If we knew how dirty his hands were going to get before we signed approval of his plan, I suspect people would be very skeptical of it. I also suspect that Harmony’s plans could very well be on the scope of Gods. Saze has some interesting things to balance, but because of that balance he might be able to retain some of his own humanity. I trust he’s going to try to avoid unnecessary wrongs, but the unfortunate part of humanity is that you can never please everyone.

[Edgedancer]

I'm still going to play devil's advocate here for the sake of conversation. J

 

I get the vibe that people are disapproving of Harmony, a God who manipulated a couple people to avoid the destruction of the work of the people he loved when he was a man, and saved when he became a God. 

 

But everyone seems fine with Preservation, a God who teamed up with the God of destruction and entropy itself. Preservation, who in part created magic systems with powers of destruction, required persons to be brought to near death to access his magic, and is responsible for the manipulation and deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Preservation, whose plan it was to bring humanity (and the rest of the planet for that matter) to the brink of extinction, all hinging on a few select people to make the right decisions and save the day.

 

I don’t buy it. I’ll be the first one to admit that Sazed isn’t the most experienced of Gods. But he’s a far cry from the murderers Preservation and Ruin were by the ends of their reigns. I’ll give him some more leeway.

 

But maybe that’s not the right argument to make. Maybe this is an issue that is beyond the scope of normal human perceptions. These are Gods after all. They’re not completely omniscient but they do have precognitions and can see (or maybe calculate) multiple futures at once. Preservation's plan was absolutely brilliant (Most epic ending ever!), but it was also over the scope of thousands of years. He knew going into this that he’d have to crack a few eggs to make breakfast, and there’s no telling how many people he unfairly manipulated over the course of his existence to make sure that the entire species continued. If we knew how dirty his hands were going to get before we signed approval of his plan, I suspect people would be very skeptical of it. I also suspect that Harmony’s plans could very well be on the scope of Gods. Saze has some interesting things to balance, but because of that balance he might be able to retain some of his own humanity. I trust he’s going to try to avoid unnecessary wrongs, but the unfortunate part of humanity is that you can never please everyone.

Okay, so this has fairly little to do with Sazed but good old Leras does get extra points on accord of not exactly being able to be honest with the first books protagonists and just tell them what's going on, given that he 1)couldn't do the speak directly into someone's mind trick and 2)effectively had already commited suicide to ensure humanity's survival.

 

Actually, given the prophecies about the hero of Ages, it seems fair to assume that he did talk to people.

[king of nowhere]

I'm still going to play devil's advocate here for the sake of conversation. J

 

I get the vibe that people are disapproving of Harmony, a God who manipulated a couple people to avoid the destruction of the work of the people he loved when he was a man, and saved when he became a God. 

 

But everyone seems fine with Preservation, a God who teamed up with the God of destruction and entropy itself. Preservation, who in part created magic systems with powers of destruction, required persons to be brought to near death to access his magic, and is responsible for the manipulation and deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Preservation, whose plan it was to bring humanity (and the rest of the planet for that matter) to the brink of extinction, all hinging on a few select people to make the right decisions and save the day.

 

that's actually a good point.

However, there are key differences here. we may think of diifferent ways harmony could have achieved the same result with less collateral damage. i have no idea how preservation could have defeated ruin in any other way. By the way, preservation's plan did not account for the near destruction of humanity; that only happened because vin didn't figure out her earring until it was almost too late.

I'd be glad to bash leras if if turns out that he could have defeated ruin more effortlessly and with less casualties.

Also, preservation wanted to preserve the human race, and acted accordingly. harmony wants to give people free will, but he manipulates both the world and individuals with kandras, emotional tugging, and likely causing a few coincidences like wax's brother dieing of sickness to ensure wax would become the headof the house.

[Teegs]

that's actually a good point.

However, there are key differences here. we may think of diifferent ways harmony could have achieved the same result with less collateral damage. i have no idea how preservation could have defeated ruin in any other way. By the way, preservation's plan did not account for the near destruction of humanity; that only happened because vin didn't figure out her earring until it was almost too late.

I'd be glad to bash leras if if turns out that he could have defeated ruin more effortlessly and with less casualties.

Also, preservation wanted to preserve the human race, and acted accordingly. harmony wants to give people free will, but he manipulates both the world and individuals with kandras, emotional tugging, and likely causing a few coincidences like wax's brother dieing of sickness to ensure wax would become the headof the house.

 

Ah, but see I’d argue that if we can’t (or aren’t) going to find ways that Preservation could have had less collateral damage, then who are we to nitpick Harmony? That’s where my second argument came into play. It boarders along the line of “MAGIC” but I do believe that Gods are going to have privileges and perspective that humans don’t, or won’t be able to understand.

 

Preservation made choices and plans that would affect the shifting of power over a thousand years in the future (Vin’s earring anyone?), kind of butterfly effect esque. Who is to say that Harmony’s manipulation of Wax and Paang wasn’t similarly necessary? Just that we can’t see the reason because its trickle down won’t take place for quite some time? Also don’t forget, a thousand years for a God is probably a blink of an eye. It seems that Saze is still trying to find balance between humanity and Godhood.