Proposal on determinism, spiritual stuff and destiny[Discuss]

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Let me start with three basic facts about Fortune

• Hoid is at an statistically improbable number of places where important stuff happens and given his speed and timing he must have know weeks, likelier months in advance
• Wyrn sent Fjorn to assasinate Hrathen weeks in advance given travel times, yet he did not know Hrathen would turn traitor
• Odium asks Taravangian whether he had access to Futuresight or Fortune

And a few facts about Futuresight

• if it is more than a few seconds it always shows a plethora of options
• the future is mutable

And one report about Hemalurgy

• it is speculated that Hemalurgy can steal destiny

At first sight this looks contradictory. So how does time work in the Cosmere? To cut it short it seems to operate a lot like in Dr. Who. There are fixed points in time, which will have importance without predetermined outcome, but the rest is mutable. So I would propose:

1. Futuresight shows you the mutable part of time
2. Your relation to the fixed points is Destiny and it is what can be stolen with Hemalurgy
3. The ability to sense those fixed points is what is called Fortune

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

Some inevitabilities might be death. I suspect Fortune works to an extent in a way that is opposite to Murphy's law in the show Milo Murphy's Law, skewing probabilities so that it is more likely something good for you would happen, with a touch of Felix Felisis thrown in for guidance(luck potion from Harry potter).

[Olmund]

I see "Destiny" a bit like gravity in our universe -- when a large proportion of possible futures involve a specific outcome for a specific object, that object can be drawn towards that outcome and other less likely outcomes become even less likely and are naturally culled. However, Fortune is a force tied more to subconscious intent -- it can act in opposition or cooperation with Destiny, and it draws someone toward the outcome which aligns with their desires/goals/intent. Thus, when a feruchemist (or Hoid) stores Fortune, I expect that they will become more susceptible to their Destiny (and/or they will be pushed away from outcomes which align with their intent). When they tap Fortune, less likely outcomes that align with their desires/intent become more likely, and more likely outcomes which align with their intent become nearly certain.

My guess is that Destiny and Fortune are tied to the spiritual realm, and they can affect both the object/individual in question (i.e., their conscious decisions and subconscious acts) as well as the actions of individuals/objects outside of them -- though people/objects that they share a strong spiritual connection with (or "capital C" Connection) would likely be more affected. When Destiny is stolen via Hemalurgy, the spiritual connection between an individual and their most likely outcomes is torn out of them, meaning they are no longer attracted to those outcomes (and they are probably dead), and afterward someone who receives that hemalurgical spike gains that attraction towards those outcomes.

As an aside, I think it might actually be difficult to spike someone with a strong Destiny -- I think in the Cosmere novels we see examples of Destiny actually protecting someone from getting spiked, e.g., (Hero of Ages spoilers):

Spoiler

Yomen in Hero of Ages -- Ruin says he tried to spike him many times and failed. Of course, we might also chalk that up to something like Hoid manipulating Fortune to counteract Ati -- he was in the area, after all. 

To the TC's point about "fixed points in time" when important things happen, if we extend the gravity metaphor even further, we could suppose that something like that could exist. There could even be completely predestined outcomes in the Cosmere -- say, if a critical mass of possible futures all included a single outcome, then it would create a singularity which would completely preclude other possible outcomes from occurring.

More Mistborn spoilers:

Spoiler

I have a feeling that Vin's (and Wax's, among other Cosmere protagonists') birth may be an example of this; she was crucial to the plans of both of her nearest Shards (I assume all Shards have a lot of Fortune to throw around), so perhaps that was enough to ensure that she was born.

...and if their are singularities/black holes, perhaps there are supernovas as well -- where there are so many radically different possible outcomes (due to chaotic/cataclysmic events usually brought on by a clash of Shards) that Destiny becomes weak. That could partially explain why Shards make so many incorrect predictions -- though that could be explained solely by the involvement of shards with opposing intents (like a Mistborn burning Atium looking at another Mistborn's Atium shadows).

Edited March 25, 2022 by Olmund