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Harmony is Just a Name


KChan

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What a lot of people tend to forget is that the Cosmere is rule-based. It is not a fluid magic system, where "ifs" and "maybes" rule the world and its magic, in which the rules might evolve over time. The Cosmere is more like the natural world, with the addition of magic: just as gravity will always be gravity, no matter how hard we try to argue that it's so involved with velocity that the two concepts will someday merge, so will the rules of the Cosmere remain constant.

Adonalsium was split into sixteen Shards. There's obviously a reason for that; Brandon himself has told us that the number 16 has immense significance in the Cosmere. That said, there is also absolutely no precedent for things to be permanently joined together, only fractured. First came the shattering of Adonalsium into 16 Shards, and then the Splintering of at least two of those Shards at the metaphorical hands of Odium. We don't even know if any of these things can even be put back together. For all we know, Adonalsium might be like a work of glass in that once broken, it might not be possible to put it back together - only to continue breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces.

Or maybe Adonalsium can be restored. But judging by my own observations of how the Cosmere works, I'm guessing that won't even begin to happen until all the Shards are brought back together. You can't put a puzzle together without all the pieces, after all.

Harmony is the name Sazed has chosen to go by to his followers. That is it. They could call him Sazed or Saze or "Hey You" if he really wanted them to, and it wouldn't change a thing about how the magic works.

There is, in my opinion, overwhelming evidence for this. The aforementioned precedent is one piece of the puzzle, while the existence of two different types of mist is another. But what makes it most clear, in my mind, is the end of Hero of Ages.

From Hero of Ages, bolded emphasis mine:

    The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate. They could touch without distroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.

Furthermore, let's have a look at Sazed's character. He has taken up the power of a god, yet his religion explicitly forbids people from worshiping him. Yet he is no longer merely Sazed, a Keeper of Terris. He is something more. Something most of us here on 17th Shard would call a Shardholder. He has taken upon himself the powers and responsibilities of a god, and surely people would begin calling him such - unless, of course, he took on a new name for himself. One that embodies his new identity as the keeper of balance between two diametrically opposed forces:

Harmony.

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I generally support this theory. The continued existence of the separate magic systems and the different types of mists suggest that Sazed holds two shards, with the Shards still being distinct. He still needs a name, and neither shard really fits the single consciousness that is controlling both, so he had to pick something.

On a more "personal" note, I would say that in practical terms, Sazed is a god. He may not want worship (haven't read Alloy of Law sample chapters), but there are few definitions of the term god which don't apply. (Note that the definition of God in most of Christianity, modern and historic, is one of the ones that does not apply. I know that. Even by Mormon standards, Sazed isn't God. But the term has a lot more meanings than that, especially in Fantasy.)

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I would agree with you about that: Sazed is, for all practical purposes, a god. He even acknowledges that he's taken up the power of one when he first takes hold of the Shards, and I believe he's referred to as a god in Alloy of Law. I do think, however, that it fits his character perfectly that he wouldn't want people to address him as such, or worship him as such, and choosing a name like Harmony and taking a more personal, informal approach to his religion are both excellent ways to accomplish that.

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Lol! Well, we still have Shardholders being referred to by name - Bavadin, Ati, Leras, etc. - but yeah, maybe he also wanted something that fit a little better into the Cosmere's naming scheme. After all, when people refer to both the Shard itself and its holder as a unit, they typically use the Shard's name. That's kind of hard for Sazed to do, having two, unless he makes up something that encompasses both.

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I definitely agree with this. I don't think he has literally merged the two shards together. He simply is the only person we have seen so far to hold two shards at once, and he probably realized "Sazed" is a pretty rust name for a God in the Cosmere.

I very nearly did a spit-take from this.

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But I do thing a little bit that Harmony is a little more than a name. I think that over centuries and centuries, eventually Sazed would have his mind changed so that it is Harmony more, even though his power isn't. Does that make sense? So (to use the lego analogy), although the red brick and the blue birck are still separate, Sazed's mind is slowly turning purple.

Unless Ruin and Preservation are so perfectly opposed that it doesn't do anything. But I doubt that.

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But I do thing a little bit that Harmony is a little more than a name. I think that over centuries and centuries, eventually Sazed would have his mind changed so that it is Harmony more, even though his power isn't. Does that make sense? So (to use the lego analogy), although the red brick and the blue birck are still separate, Sazed's mind is slowly turning purple.

Unless Ruin and Preservation are so perfectly opposed that it doesn't do anything. But I doubt that.

This is a really good analogy. It does seem likely that something like that would happen to Sazed's consciousness, even if the two powers stay separate. It means making a distinction between the consciousness holding the powers and the powers themselves, but since that's been pretty thoroughly established already, I have no problem with this.

Are there any responses to this? I feel that zas' point is correct: Even if the powers stay separate in some metaphysical way, the consciousness attached to them will gain a purpose that is a combination (or compromise) of the two, and thus deserve a new name. Doesn't make it the 17th shard, though, or anything like that. There are still two shards.

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I feel there's a kind of atom/molecule effect going on here. Ruin and Preservation are "atoms" - individual Shards with distinct properties, while Harmony is a "molecule" - using the two Shards together has different properties than accessing them separately does. I don't think that Sazed can use the two Shards separately. If he doesn't use them in concert, they would destroy each other.

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I feel there's a kind of atom/molecule effect going on here. Ruin and Preservation are "atoms" - individual Shards with distinct properties, while Harmony is a "molecule" - using the two Shards together has different properties than accessing them separately does. I don't think that Sazed can use the two Shards separately. If he doesn't use them in concert, they would destroy each other.

I have a problem with this-Ruin and Preservation are not so much like atoms as they are matter and anti-matter.

They cannot merge/combine under normal circumstances.

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I have a problem with this-Ruin and Preservation are not so much like atoms as they are matter and anti-matter.

They cannot merge/combine under normal circumstances.

Hm. Define "Normal Circumstances". Also note that Sazed observed that they belonged together. Given that statement, I would much rather call Scadrial's plight with the two separate as "Abnormal Circumstances". Combine this with the fact that Sazed actually does use the two together, and we see that the annihilation and anti-matter analogy isn't perfect.

The two forces oppose each other by default, but they don't actually destroy each other. They may press up against each other so hard that they have essentially no effect, but neither one actually goes anywhere. They're more like what electrons and protons would be if they were the same mass. And in a case like that, the addition of a third particle could change the entire dynamics entirely, all without changing the fundamental nature of the smaller pieces.

Edit: Extra thought: There's the old saying that something is more than the sum of it's parts. As a physicist, I can say with 100% certainty that this is absolutely true. At the lowest level in our universe, combining some of the dullest mechanics you can find (single particles) and making them interact results in behavior that springs from absolutely nowhere---it can be attributed to no part, but only to the interaction between them. There is extra mass, extra energy, and so much richness, it's hard to express how quickly it can happen. Thus saying that Sazed only holds two Shards may be 100% true---but the resulting system, including the effect on his consciousness and the balance, may well legitimately be considered a new entity in it's own right. Even if that means there are only, really, 16 shards.

Edited by happyman
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While I like this theory I find it hard to believe that Harmony is JUST a name, even if the Ruin Shard and the Preservation Shard are still seperate and distinct, the fact that he holds them both is going to have significant importance in the long run, Shardholders don't start out completely as one with their Shards intent, over time that intent forces it self on the holder. The fact that Sazed hold two shards of such seperate intent means that the intent forced upon him is going to change the very fundemental aspects of his personality. I haven't yet read the AoL sample chapters but I'd be willing to bet that the reason he picked to be called Harmony is because that is the intent that he felt being forced upon him. In conclusion, I believe that Ruin and Preservation are still two seperate shards, but that it doesn't really matter in the long run because the two intents impressed on one person will force them to work together and in Harmony therefore I'd be willing to say Harmony is much more than just a name.

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I'm kinda with Someoneelse on this- the two shards bonding with one person is a very different ballgame to them being bonded to seperate people, and it doesn't make sense in the same way to refer to them as Ruin and Preservation. Even though they're both much more powerful than Sazed himself, the influence they have on him collectively will either balance out, or actually have a cohesive and combined effect that's different from either shard. In either case, the name Harmony is not "just" a name, but neither is it a new merged shard- Ruin and Preservation haven't been recombined into a larger shard of Adonalsium, they're still seperate- but they're working in concert at the moment.

edit: It's possible that Ruin will have a larger influence than Preservation, depending on whether the part of Preservation's power that Leras invested in creating people still influences the holder of Preservation or not. If that's the case, Sazed might not remain very harmonious after a very long time of being influenced by both shards- but that certainly doesn't seem to be an issue as of the Alloy of Law.

Edited by Ari
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