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Harmony and a certain someone (Mistborn 1-7 spoilers)


Hulaine

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Hi guys, 

First things first, this is my first post, but after browsing these forums for god knows how long I finally caught something in the books that prompted me to make that first leap and start a new topic of discussion. I can only imagine, with my luck, it has been discussed before, but I did try and check so I hope that is not the case. 

So there was a quote in Bands of Mourning where VenDell is talking to Marasi and the group about the Bands of Mourning (13% through on the Kindle version of the 3rd Wax & Wayne book), where he says:  

Quote

"There are four individuals," VenDell said, "who, to our knowledge, have held the power of Ascension. Rashek, the survivor, the Ascendant Warrior and Lord Harmony himself."

 While we know Harmony knows Kelsier is at least alive in the cognitive realm, because of their interactions at the end of Secret History, this little line makes it fairly clear that the Kandra must also know about Kelsier's condition, because he only touched the power of Ascension after his "death". It went completely over my head first reading, so I can't blame Marasie and Wax for not picking up on it and questioning how/when Kelsier touched the power - of course, Harmony could have included Kelsiers' role post-death in the Words of Founding, but I find it unlikely given Waxs' shocked response at the end of BoM. 

This got me thinking, if the Kandra and Harmony both know of Kelsier and his exploits, how closely are they working together? A lot of this is going to be a RAFO situation, but I thought it might be fun to speculate on the relationship between Sazed and Kelsier. I would like to say that its fairly obvious at this point that Kel and Sazed are working together to try and work out what's going on in the areas under Trell's watch, hopefully leading into some bad-chull era crossover crew with Wax, Wayne, Spook, Marsh (who by the way must be an even stronger version of the Lord Ruler at this point), Kelsier, etc., but I might be jumping the gun a bit (see below). If it ends up that they are working closely together (I mean why else would Kelsier be running around a desert 300 years after dying..?), I'm really curious about is whether Kelsier is fully physical again and if so, has Harmony given him back his Mistborn capabilities? Who's 'in charge' as well? I mean, Kelsier was the crew leader, but now Harmony is literally god; either way, Brandon Sanderson will have a lot of fun with that... 

The real curve ball, though, is a quote from Shadows of Self: 

Quote

Wait, Wax thought. Did I just get sarcastic with god himself? 

Yes, you did, Harmony said. It is well. Few act that way towards me anymore, even among the Kandra. It feels good to me. Like older times. Since Kelsier... well, I haven't had much of that.

That could make it sound like he's not working or talking with Kelsier at all since Kelsier's off on his hunt for a physical body, which I think is unlikely, or him and Kelsier are out of touch (i.e. "since Kelsier left to do 'X'...) for a while for whatever reason. If he's left a while ago to do something that doesn't involve/allow keeping in touch with Harmony (i.e. a spy type thing), what could Kelsier be up to? Infiltrating Trell society? Trying to spark another revolution or something?

Tiny bit jumbled and disorganised, but I got the main two quotes and a few of my thoughts down, just about! Thoughts?

PS: When writing a post, I obviously don't want spoilers in the title, but how do I make it so that anyone who clicks on it knows that the books contain spoilers from 'X' book, without writing it in the title? Should I just simply be adding a tag for (in this case) Mistborn Era 2 spoilers?

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I'm not sure of this right now but I think that Kelsier's survival of death and his Ascension is actually part of the doctrine of Survivorism.

Also, Mistborn #7 is "Lost Metal" and it's not released. If you are refering to Secret History, I believe it has no official number assigned.

Edited by Oversleep
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Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Feb 27th, 2016

PALADIN BREWER

Have Kelsier and Marsh communicated in any way post-Hero of Ages?

BRANDON SANDERSON

"I don't want to answer this right now, there will be other short stories that will go over this."
Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Jan 26th, 2016

MAILLIW73

I also asked if Kelsier has talked to Marsh since Sazed's Ascension.

BRANDON SANDERSON

I got a RAFO for that one, but Brandon said that this will be specifically addressed in the future, so it's not just a RAFO in case, it will be answered.
Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Feb 17th, 2016

QUESTION

Okay, so when Kelsier is in the-- Which Realm is he in?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He’s in the Cognitive Realm.

QUESTION

Is he seeing people from other worlds or is he--

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, he meets some people who are traveling but Cognitive Realm is location dependent. He is on the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and the people he runs into there-- until he kind of travels off into space, which is where he finds the fortress.

QUESTION

So even though he’s tied to Scadrial could he go to the Cognitive Realm of other worlds?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He would have trouble getting to another planet, being a Cognitive shadow like he was.

QUESTION

So is there some particular thing that somebody would need to have to be able to move between the realms?

BRANDON SANDERSON

A body is helpful.

QUESTION

That does make sense.
Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Oct 9th, 2015

QUESTION

You mentioned that Kelsier is still around meddling, are you planning on having him meddle in a little more overt manner any time soon?

BRANDON SANDERSON

That’s a RAFO. A big, big RAFO.
Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Apr 24th, 2016

QUESTION

[I wrote “Has Kelsier ever physically been on Sel?” in my book, to which he wrote:

BRANDON SANDERSON

RAFO!

Here are a few relevant WoB that suggest there is more going on. There was another quote about Kelsier that I don't see in the official list. But it appears he has been busy. 

Perhaps he became aware of the Set (the bad guys in Bands of Mourning) in the Cognitive Realm, and decided that for everyone to survive, he had to act, and that meant he had to travel. 

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The Church of the Survivor naturally has as part of its doctrine that Kelsier is still around but it's more an article of faith than actual knowledge. Given that Brandon told us in WoBs prior to Bands of Mourning (and we could deduce it from the events of The Hero of Ages itself) that Kelsier had been looking after the power of Preservation before Vin took it up, it's likely the church preaches that as well. There might even be something in the text to that effect. I'm pretty certain that they don't actually know that Kelsier survived after passing the power to Vin or that he's still around (and with a new body) in the present era.

1 hour ago, Hulaine said:

PS: When writing a post, I obviously don't want spoilers in the title, but how do I make it so that anyone who clicks on it knows that the books contain spoilers from 'X' book, without writing it in the title? Should I just simply be adding a tag for (in this case) Mistborn Era 2 spoilers?

Generally speaking, the rules require spoiler tags for material in a series-specific board that involves content from another series (say, if you're discussing material from Elantris as part of a topic in the Mistborn boards) as well as for works that have their own separate spoiler boards; this because the top-level view doesn't distinguish so you want to warn people who haven't read the latest work from clicking 'most recent topic' and getting surprised. Anything beyond that is pretty much up to your own feelings.

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the post--mortem ascension of kelsier is included in the words of founding. There was a discussion between marasi and melaan when the former was stating that kelsier survived death and ascended, to which melaan was surprised, because she never bothered to read the words of founding. So yes, northern scadrians know that kelsier is around as a cognitive shadow. of course they don't call him a cognitive shadow, and they are hazy as to what he can or cannot actually do, and they certainly ignore his exploits in the southern continent... but the general idea that something of kelsier survived and is still around is pretty much gospel.

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The best way I can interpret it is that member of Survivorism believed Kelsier was still alive in some way simply based on faith. Whether or not the events in Secret History actually happened, Kelsier being alive in some form or fashion was going to be a fundamental component of Survivorism. Wax's vision was "proof" that it was actually true. 

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This WoB is very suggestive

Spoiler

FirstSelector: So if I’m a Surgebinder and I have my own Cognitive entity with me, can I go off-world with that and [have] everything continue to work in exactly the same way? Because we’ve seen Cognitive entities that--
Brandon: So...taking a Cognitive entity off-world is hard. So, Surgebinding, if you can find out how to make it happen, remember, the Investiture is keyed to Connection. This is why Kelsier is--Oh, sorry, spoilers! When a certain somebody [laughter] getting off Scadrial, because he basically was a spren by that point so…[laughter] So, yeah Surgebinding would work off planet, but you’d have to get the spren off first. It’s hard to do. Well, Cosmere-wide it’s not hard hard...You could learn how.

 

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It occurs to me, where did Kelsier get that body. That was originally his, right? 

It could have been some random criminal, or perhaps, it was Elend's body, since Harmony fixed his and Vin's in the end of Hero of Ages. In a lot of ways, it makes more sense to start with a body, and staple yourself to it, instead of starting over from scratch. 

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