The Lord ruler smart ?

[Blue-phoenix186]

I’m currently re-reading mistborn for the second time and I was wondering what’s up with the Lord ruler like sometimes he makes smart decisions like the vaults or how he kept Atium from ruin but then other times he makes really bad and dumb decisions like the final empire in general  it literally says it in that book that Ellen has that it should be better than it is and for a  another example he made it so the skaa what have a bigger population than the nobles which in my opinion basically made it inevitable that they would rise up and actually win you could make the excuse that ruin was influencing him and I feel like that does make sense for later in his rule but I also feel like that doesn’t excuse the bad decisions he made earlier in his rule idk does this make sense to you guys? 

[+Oltux72]

5 minutes ago, Blue-phoenix186 said:

I feel like that does make sense for later in his rule but I also feel like that doesn’t excuse the bad decisions he made earlier in his rule idk does this make sense to you guys? 

• He determined much of his rule during a few minutes in the Well of Ascension, during which he at first had to fix the Deepness and deal with fundamental relevations about the nature of the universe
• During later times he had the advantage of enormous experience and zinc compounding

[alder24]

The simplest explanation is the best - he didn't care. He had almost god-like powers from being Fullborn, he could deal with any army or uprising himself if needed. He had the army of koloss at his disposal. The only thing that mattered to him is that everyone is submissive to him.
Moreover he was Terrisaman, jealous of what other countries had, and how they were superior to Terris. So he took that away out of spite, changed them to be biologically inferior, and only a few selected ones became the first great houses. He wanted to have full control, in his mind, the best way to achieve this is by creating a slave society.

He wasn't a god, he was just a jealous shepherd that accidentally touched the power of god.

[Frustration]

He also had zero experience in governing up to when he started the Final Empire, the increadible thing was that he was able to wing it so effectively.

[Treamayne]

The Lord Ruler was also psychologically and emotionally tortured by Ruin during the course of his 1000 yr empire - and more than a few of his decisions were manipulated by Ruin to be "bad."

It is mentioned in the Fadrex Plate in the storage cavern, by Sazed in the Epigraphs and final letter to Spook, and also discussed in WoBs:

Spoiler

 

Anusien

Why did Lord Ruler not destroy the logbook knowing what trouble Ruin could cause with it?

Brandon Sanderson

A few reasons. First, Ruin had his fingers in the LR’s soul by then already. Subtle things are easier to influence.

He played off the LR’s natural nostalgia and desire to hold onto something so important to his past.

 

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah, he makes very smart and very stupid decisions. By the time of the book he's pretty unstable. Immortality is weighing on him, and Ruin's influence is also messing with him.

He was like 20 at the beginning and full of anger and envy (he hated Khlennium "with the passion of envious youth"). He then got godlike power and an expanded mind, temporarily ... but still his own motives. He made some really bad decisions in those moments with the Well that he was stuck with for the next thousand years (messing up the planet's orbit when the mist killings would have gone away in any case; the noble/skaa split; the whole Feruchemy mess).

I don't think the greater skaa population made a successful revolution inevitable, though. That really took Ruin influencing Kelsier and Preservation backing Vin. Without the clue given by the eleventh metal + Vin's ability to burn the mists the skaa rebellion would have failed: TLR would have killed them all and basically had Luthadel rebuilt.

(The skaa/noble split was still a really stupid move, though.)

[Returned]

On 1/11/2023 at 6:23 AM, alder24 said:

The simplest explanation is the best - he didn't care. He had almost god-like powers from being Fullborn, he could deal with any army or uprising himself if needed. He had the army of koloss at his disposal.

I also think that this was it. His actual capabilities don't matter very much when he can compound-- with enough zinc he can intuit information in a flash without any real forethought. In a pinch, he'd be able to duplicate the results of the smartest people ever toiling for their entire lives over figuring out some issue or other. And even if he didn't bother and his plans failed, he was a deific, unstoppable killing machine. He almost certainly had the option of accessing unlimited Fortune, if he cared to, with the knowledge of physical science we know he gained during his brief ascension. At his leisure he could be both lucky and good.

To the extent that he had an ongoing goal it was resisting Ruin, and he did so brilliantly: his preparations were vital in opposing him and preserving people through the final cataclysms. He deceived a god, one who had millenia of experience and far greater access to all of the powers that Rashek did, sufficiently to lead to that god's downfall even though Ruin was able to arrange his demise.

His rule started by letting him express his rage unfettered at the same time his ability to impose his desires on the world expanded radically. By the end it seems like he was very apathetic, not caring much about anything at all (outside of resisting Ruin) and so not really bothering to do much. He didn't care about the quality or nature of his empire, save that he be in charge of it and be able to use it to oppose Ruin. He didn't care if the skaa rebelled, because the nobles and his armies could generally crush them (they always had before!). He didn't care if the nobles thinned themselves out with internecine conflict. He didn't care if life was easy or hard, pleasant or brutal, or anything else. I don't think he was a good ruler, by any definition of "good" I would use, but his empire was how he wanted it to be and accomplished the things he wanted it to accomplish.