The future of Harmony/Climax of Book 5 SA

[tobar14]

The other night I got into a philosophical debate with my fiancé regarding the definition of opposites. In summation we were debating the following topic: Ruin and preservation being opposites. I made up these terms so my fiancé could understand what I was talking about (she has only read Sixth of Dusk).

Shard	Description of Action	Higher Level Description
Ruin	Entropy, intelligent decay, take away	Change
Preservation	To preserve, keep things the same	No Change
Cultivation	To grow, intelligent growth, to add	Change

 

If you focus on the “Description of Action”, then you can see that Ruin and Cultivation are opposites (from one perspective). Or you could call them compatible, but those could also mean the same thing; opposites attract y'know.

If you focus on the “Higher Level Description”, you can see that Preservation is opposite of both Ruin & Cultivation.

Regardless, that is not what this theory is about. The non-sober debate that I had sparked an idea regarding: the three shards, Harmony’s role in the Cosmere, and where this Mistborn/Stormlight Archive plotline is heading. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of how this is all going to play out, I’m merely commenting on the larger moves.

Here we go…

Something is going to happen in the final installment of the Mistborn Era 2 or 3 events that causes Sazed/Harmony to head for Roshar. (Not sure how the timelines match up so not sure if it will be after Mistborn Era 2 or 3 or somewhere in between)

• ·         Maybe Sazed can’t beat whatever enemy is attacking Scadrial and so searches how to resolve his problem with acting (finding cultivation to balance him out)

• ·         Maybe he beat the enemy attacking Scadrial, learns some info from the enemy and its possible relations to Roshar/Odium, travels to Roshar and discovers the existence of Cultivation

In any case, in this theory Harmony will end up on Roshar and play a role in the climax of the first half of the Stormlight Archive. I have a feeling that Harmony will interact with Cultivation, maybe fall in love with Cultivation, then Cultivation dies and Harmony picks up a third shard (Sad stuff often happens to Sazed). Or maybe Harmony shows up just when Odium kills Cultivation’s vessel, and conveniently picks it up (sound familiar?) Oh and probably some of the characters we like will die sadly but also badassly in this climaz.

Anyways, Harmony will pick up Cultivation and become…Ouroboros? Balance? Nature…idk. So this new shard will trounce Odium, but Odium is actually a coward and leaves Roshar to go into hiding, greatly diminished (like Sauron or Voldemort).  Boom, end of book 5.

Then maybe the second half of the Cosmere will be Odium slowly regaining power, maybe he realized he needs to pick up some more shards to challenge the New Harmony Shard so he searches for some of the more sinister ones. Maybe the New Harmony shard will figure out how get the Dor on his side and it will be like Harmony + 6 shards vs Bodium (Badass Odium) + 7 shards…or something like that

I have no evidence, didn’t do much research, I just thought it was a cool/possible idea.

TLDR;

Harmony goes to Roshar, picks up Cultivation, beats up Odium, Odium flees

[The One Who Connects]

To those coming to this topic, please do not debate the nature of opposites. It's happened in several other threads and just serves to derail them.

As for your theory.. Mistborn has a space arc so I can't say it isn't possible, but I want to debate a few points.

1. I feel like if this did happen, it would be towards Stormlight 9/10. I'm pretty sure Wax/Wayne is same timeline as SA, and Mistborn Era 2 is after SA arc 1. Come to think of it, we know Harmony leaving Scadrial/arriving on Roshar would do things, but do we know how quickly those things would happen?

2. If Harmony can't defeat Trell/whoever, I doubt Sazed would be willing to leave Scadrial knowing an enemy would control it.

3. Last year's SotS had Elantris 2 and 3 coming out around SA 4 and 5, so something is gonna pertain to those eventually.

[tobar14]

16 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

1. I feel like if this did happen, it would be towards Stormlight 9/10. I'm pretty sure Wax/Wayne is same timeline as SA, and Mistborn Era 2 is after SA arc 1. Come to think of it, we know Harmony leaving Scadrial/arriving on Roshar would do things, but do we know how quickly those things would happen?

Clarification: I was considering Wax/Wayne as Era 2. Era 3 is the 1980's tech one, Era 4 is the future space arc. 

[tobar14]

17 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

1. I feel like if this did happen, it would be towards Stormlight 9/10. I'm pretty sure Wax/Wayne is same timeline as SA, and Mistborn Era 2 is after SA arc 1. Come to think of it, we know Harmony leaving Scadrial/arriving on Roshar would do things, but do we know how quickly those things would happen?

2. If Harmony can't defeat Trell/whoever, I doubt Sazed would be willing to leave Scadrial knowing an enemy would control it.

3. Last year's SotS had Elantris 2 and 3 coming out around SA 4 and 5, so something is gonna pertain to those eventually.

2. Yeah, there would have to be a very good reason for Sazed to leave Scadrial. My only theory was that his inability to take action due to his opposing shardic intents might drive him towards it. Or maybe he defeats trell/whoever, and then he gets more aware of the greater cosmere and discovers what is going on in Roshar and tries to help.

3. I'm wondering how the Dor will come into play. Will someone reform the shards and pick them up, or will someone figure out how to use that power without reforming it (if that is the case, I bet it would be another shard)

[The One Who Connects]

5 minutes ago, tobar14 said:

Clarification: I was considering Wax/Wayne as Era 2. Era 3 is the 1980's tech one, Era 4 is the future space arc. 

I didn't actually see the bit where you mentioned specific era's. My timeline thing had to do with "trell" being in some way related to Harmony leaving and Stormlight 5. I just figured that with 1980's Mistborn being after Stormlight 5 and the low chance of dealing with Trell altogether in the last Wax/Wayne book that your idea would have to be later on Cosmerically. My bad

[Argel]

Brandon wants SA to stand on its own, so there will be no major Cosmere crossovers. 

I can't find the source now, but the question was about his biggest concern writing Cosmere (or maybe SA) and he mentions slipping too much Cosmere into SA, because it needs to stand on it's own. He also mentioned he was not as worried about that for Mistborn.

Edit: Found it: From JordanCon:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

Quote

 

Q: As the Cosmere gets a lot bigger, what is your biggest worry going forward writing the books?

A: Going forward, my biggest worry is making sure that I do things like get the SA done as a solid, complete whole, rather than letting it become...like, too distracted about the Cosmere.  Like, I’m not worried about that for Mistborn, but I’m worried about that for Stormlight. Stormlight needs to be a self contained whole, it needs to be a self contained epic, and I have to be really careful not to - in the later books in particular - let it turn into the Avengers, something like that. So that’s my biggest worry right now, that I will let too much of that seep in. I’m being very careful.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2016 by Argel

[RYANHOME]

I've got a question how will Harmony pick up a Shard if he's not attuned to that Shard? We know the only way he was able to pick up Ruin and Preservation was being equally attuned to those Shards.

[Argel]

At his power level he may not need to be attuned.

[anarchitect]

Falls in love with Cultivation. In tune out of love... Cultivation dies and Harmony picks the shard, yet again, forever alone. Good movie. Should still sell better than Twilight

[Yata]

There are some problems with this theory:

1) W&W's book are after the SA5 therefore if this would happen, it must to happen in the second SA's arc

2) Sazed can't leave Scadrial, it's too Invested there...Is a problem Ruin had and is quite double for Sazed. Of course He may probably unmade the whole Scadrial and then reach Roshar but I am really really doubtful about this possibility.

3) I am really unsure if he would be capable of pick up Cultivation. If the Shards itself are too high as being to be bothered by something like Connections, ok...if he need to be Connected enough with Cultivation I don't think Sazed may reach this state in little time.

3a) Sazed is influenced for 300 years by Ruin and Preservation's mandate...probably this made him less compatible with Cultivation.

3b) Loving the Vessel don't made you connected with the Shard...not enough to pick up a Shard.

[What's a Seawolf?]

I love all things in any way related to Cosmere Avengers, so I'm all aboard.

If I remember correctly, didn't Brandon say he needed to write the Elantris sequel(s) before Mistborn Era 3 (modern tech) came out?

To me that implies some sort of shardic crossover/interference between the two worlds.

There's a lot of ways to do that.  Maybe Harmony helps do something to the Dor to reform the ruined shards there into one?

Another thought as I write this is that Brandon's comment simply means Sel and its inhabitants will be playing a role in Era 3.  And since Era 2 Mistborn seems to be full steam ahead with interference from other shards/worlds, why not something as simple as this?

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that before Harmony hops to Roshar he may need to handle/do something with Sel and its ruined shards first.

Could be what causes Harmony to have to head to Roshar.

Personally I don't see Harmony picking up any more shards, only because we had that happen as the climax of one series already, and I can't see Brandon reusing it.  I think Harmony will have a major role to play in Cosmere-Avengers, I'm just not sure what it is.  (Maybe even dying?  His death being the one that really sells the new big bad as a major, cosmere wide threat.)

[Spoolofwhool]

I find the idea that Harmony would leave Scadrial and go anywhere else in the Cosmere extremely unlikely. The main reason is because he's invested into Scadrial. We know from Brandon that Odium didn't invest into a world intentionally so that he wouldn't get tied to one. This indicates that either a shard cannot leave a world/system they are invested into, or if they do leave, they become separated from a significant portion of their power so would be extremely weak. This means that for Harmony to leave and actually remain useful, he would need take back his investiture, potentially destroying Scadrial, definitely removing the metallic arts from play. This would mean that Mistborn Era 3/4 wouldn't be able to happen. 

Moving on there is also the issue of why Harmony would want to leave. You bring up points, but they don't seem that amazing. It seems to be that Harmony has a fairly strong "non-interference" going on with Scadrial. Even when the people of the Basin were lagging behind in Harmony's timeline for technology, he didn't do anything about it. As such, I don't see why he wouldn't extend that "non-interference" to the whole of Cosmere. 

Overall, not only do I not think that Harmony would leave Scadrial, even if he could without undoing the metallic arts, I agree that even if he did, he wouldn't go to Roshar since we know that place is going to be a lot more Cosmere-removed. In general, I don't think we're going to see a lot of shards moving between worlds, other than whoever Trell is and maybe Odium.

[tobar14]

2 hours ago, Yata said:

There are some problems with this theory:

1) W&W's book are after the SA5 therefore if this would happen, it must to happen in the second SA's arc

Dang! I forgot that Wax and Wayne are after SA5. Well that settles that haha.

I just really really think that Ruin Cultivation and Preservation belong together.

[Spoolofwhool]

35 minutes ago, tobar14 said:

Dang! I forgot that Wax and Wayne are after SA5. Well that settles that haha.

I just really really think that Ruin Cultivation and Preservation belong together.

We might see their shardholders together. I'm going to amend my previous statement of "little shard movement" to "little shard movement until after SA 10" 

Yes it would be cool to see them together, and we probably will. I imagine Brandon has some master end-point to Cosmere.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Argel]

DragonSteel is supposed to be the "origin" story, so most likely Mistborn Era 4 or possibly Elantris. Though so far Elantris has been a single novel, and is well known for that -- not sure fans will want him to go too epic with the series. Mistborn on the other hand has been advertised at three eras for a long time and then he slipped a new era in with the W&W books, so now four eras. It's ambitious in its own way and we've already seen a lot of Cosmere stuff going on there. It really feels like the setting Brandon likes to play in the most (out of the Cosmere).

[Jondesu]

15 hours ago, Argel said:

DragonSteel is supposed to be the "origin" story, so most likely Mistborn Era 4 or possibly Elantris. Though so far Elantris has been a single novel, and is well known for that -- not sure fans will want him to go too epic with the series. Mistborn on the other hand has been advertised at three eras for a long time and then he slipped a new era in with the W&W books, so now four eras. It's ambitious in its own way and we've already seen a lot of Cosmere stuff going on there. It really feels like the setting Brandon likes to play in the most (out of the Cosmere).

Yeah, I think he's said he's planning two sequels to Elantris (not sure on the source or if that's correct, but we know at least one), but I wonder if it won't end up being almost entirely detached from the characters and events in Elantris, and instead be set in a future Elantris and Arelon and be another basically standalone story.

Also, @What's a Seawolf?, I think he was simply saying he wanted to focus on that before going back to Mistborn 3, rather than needing the books to be released in that order due to Cosmere knowledge, but you can never be sure with Brandon.

jW

[Yata]

16 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Yeah, I think he's said he's planning two sequels to Elantris (not sure on the source or if that's correct, but we know at least one), but I wonder if it won't end up being almost entirely detached from the characters and events in Elantris, and instead be set in a future Elantris and Arelon and be another basically standalone story.

Elantris 2 will be set 10-20 years in the future with the Serene's cousins as main characters... It's the reason Brandon spent so much time with Kin's family (probably outside the Arelon region)

Edited August 31, 2016 by Yata

[Jofwu]

I think you're hitting a bit on the difference between "opposite" and "contrary". There was an interesting diagram in Red Mars concerning something similar... (a "semiotic square" is apparently the term)

Cultivation (growth) and Ruin (decay) are opposites. In the context of the books, I would argue that Preservation is contrary to Ruin. Preservation is "anti-decay". Preservation is the double-negative of Cultivation. Preservation and Cultivation are generally complimentary... Though it would be interesting to present a situation where Preservation disagrees with Cultivation, because some conservative action must be taken for the sake of preserving which does not allow for growth.

In this sense, opposites can really coexist. You can find a balance of Cultivation and Ruin. You just get this mutual push and pull. Something very Wheel of Time like. Heck, they might even get along really well because they give one another infinite work to do. But Preservation and Ruin cannot coexist. If one is working on some point then the other cannot be working there. They don't need, or want, one another at all. (despite, I think?, some things Sazed says)

I'm not sure what the contrary version of Cultivation would be (anti-growth). Something that doesn't care about decay, but doesn't want growth? Suppression perhaps? I'd be surprised if this is an intent though, because I have a hard time seeing how such a concept would be part of "the powers of creation". But then again... Holy crap... How crazy would it be if the 16 shards essentially made up 4 of these semiotic squares? Theory time...

[Jondesu]

@jofwu, I have to disagree on Preservation and Cultivation being complimentary. There's a line (from Ruin, IIRC) in one of the Mistborn books that if Preservation had his way, nothing would ever change at all. In that way, Preservation and Cultivation are also contrary to each other, perhaps as much as Ruin and Preservation (but probably with far less disastrous consequences than we saw on Scadrial).

Other than that, well put!

jW

[Darkness]

Not sure if I would believe this myself, but with all the talk of Harmony wandering over to Greater Roshar for whatever reason, I thought it might be more of a twist to have Odium actually finish off Cultivation in the SA arc. He could shatter her too, and then withdraw all of his investiture from Roshar and move on to whatever comes next for him. It could even be  that Odium finishes whatever he's doing on Roshar, and then hops over to Scadrial, thus preserving SA as a more-or-less standalone (except that the 'bad' guy wins). I could definitely see Brandon making his massive 10 book epic fantasy end with "and Odium reigned, everything got destroyed, Roshar was left with heaps of magical, decentralized God-dust from the bits of Honor and Cultivation left over. Then Odium left...".

Edited September 1, 2016 by Darkness
Edit for puncuation

[Argel]

12 hours ago, Darkness said:

I could definitely see Brandon making his massive 10 book epic fantasy end with "and Odium reigned, everything got destroyed, Roshar was left with heaps of magical, decentralized God-dust from the bits of Honor and Cultivation left over. Then Odium left...".

I can't. Readers will be expecting a better ending than that. Maybe at the end of SA5, but not at the end of SA10. If they drive Odium away, that would be different.

 

Regarding compatibility (emphasis added):

Quote

AUTARCHK (MARCH 2013)

If I can ask a question, I just read the Mistborn trilogy and, were Preservation and Ruin two different shards or a single one with their power split somehow? If they were two shards, does that mean a single person can hold more than one, since Harmony apparently holds both now?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They were two shards.

Yes, one entity can hold more than one. Remember that holding a shard changes you, over time. Rayse knows this, and prefers to leave behind destroyed rivals as opposed to taking their power and potentially being overwhelmed by it.

NEPENE

I have a question, if you are willing. Would Ruin be more compatible with Rayse, would he pick up that shard had he visited Scadrial and shattered him? All the shards we have seen that he has shattered seem rather different in intent than him—Honor, Cultivation, Love, Dominion. But Ruin seems more in line with Odium. Rayse has ruined the days of quite a few people.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Technically, Ruin would be most compatible with Cultivation. Ruin's 'theme' so to speak is that all things must age and pass. An embodiment of entropy. That power, separated from the whole and being held by a person who did not have the willpower to resist its transformation of him, led to something very dangerous. But it was not evil. None of the sixteen technically are, though you may have read that Hoid has specific beef with Rayse. Whether you think of Odium as evil depends upon how much you agree with Hoid's particular view.

That said, Ruin would have been one of the 'safer' of the sixteen for Rayse to take, if he'd been about that. Odium is by its nature selfish, however, and the combination of it and Rayse makes for an entity that fears an additional power would destroy it and make it into something else.

 

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Argel

[Ciridae]

12 hours ago, Darkness said:

Not sure if I would believe this myself, but with all the talk of Harmony wandering over to Greater Roshar for whatever reason, I thought it might be more of a twist to have Odium actually finish off Cultivation in the SA arc. He could shatter her too, and then withdraw all of his investiture from Roshar and move on to whatever comes next for him. It could even be  that Odium finishes whatever he's doing on Roshar, and then hops over to Scadrial, thus preserving SA as a more-or-less standalone (except that the 'bad' guy wins). I could definitely see Brandon making his massive 10 book epic fantasy end with "and Odium reigned, everything got destroyed, Roshar was left with heaps of magical, decentralized God-dust from the bits of Honor and Cultivation left over. Then Odium left...".

I agree. I feel like SA 5 will end with Odium being freed from Greater Roshar and goes off to fight the greatest threat to him, i. e. Harmony. Maybe with some help, who knows? 

It fits timeline-wise as well, since Trell/Red-Fog arrives on Scadrial just after SA 5.

[Cartographer7]

1 hour ago, Ciridae said:

I agree. I feel like SA 5 will end with Odium being freed from Greater Roshar and goes off to fight the greatest threat to him, i. e. Harmony. Maybe with some help, who knows? 

It fits timeline-wise as well, since Trell/Red-Fog arrives on Scadrial just after SA 5.

Did you not read what Argel posted?

 

On 8/30/2016 at 10:10 AM, Argel said:

Brandon wants SA to stand on its own, so there will be no major Cosmere crossovers. 

I can't find the source now, but the question was about his biggest concern writing Cosmere (or maybe SA) and he mentions slipping too much Cosmere into SA, because it needs to stand on it's own. He also mentioned he was not as worried about that for Mistborn.

Edit: Found it: From JordanCon:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J43km7wrrZnOuM2WJe2DpBsk_C0E6yLJ8bDxqfen-P4/view

 

Note: it's the last question in the document.

 

[Nightblade]

I scanned this topic so Sorry if I am repeating what someone already said. Odium seems to splinter every Shard he has killed so no one can take up the power. So he would probably splinter Cultivation, so Harmony wouldn't be able to reclaim Cultivations Shard.

[Toaster Retribution]

I hope Sazed does not pick up another shard. The only instance in which I would like him to become even more powerful, is if he becomes some kind of new Adonalsium at the end of the whole Cosmere story.