Tones and Harmony

[CtrlAltDepressed]

Hello!

 

I've been thinking about the Pure Tones and I have a lot of questions. 

 

So in ROW we see that using the pure tone of Honor, you get a reaction from Honor's investiture with the same holding true for Odium and Cultivation. 

 

We also see that when you combine stormlight and voidlight into warlight, that combining the tones of Honor and Odium allows you to manipulate warlight. 

 

After Harmony's ascension, there are two mists on Scadrial - one for Pres and one for Ruin. However, Harmonium is NOT an alloy of Atium and Lerasium. This seems to be a contradiction. Wouldn't we expect there to be one type of Harmony mist? 

 

Do the preservation mists still respond to the tone of preservation and vise versa for the ruin mists? I cant imagine why they wouldn't since the mists are not Harmony - they are pres / ruin. If there is a Harmony tone, I wouldnt expect that one tone to effect Preservation and Ruin investiture in the same way I wouldn't expect the rhythm of war to manipulate both voidlight and stormlight. 

 

If we take that one step further - you should be able to separate Harmonium into Lerasium and Atium using the pure tones of Preservation and Ruin. It seems like this is what the Trellium spike was doing. Using the tone of Pres/Ruin pulls the investiture towards the source, however Trellium's tone pushes away all other investiture, which is why it produced Lerasium and Atium even though Harmonium is not an alloy. 

 

We have this WOB that leaves the tone of Harmony in obscurity for the time being.

Quote

slontzeasstwink

Can more than two pure tones reach harmony? And, extending on that, does Harmony the Shard have a pure tone for itself, or is it a mix of Preservation and Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! Excellent question, sorry to dodge that one.

I think there being two mists and what we know about the tones from ROW that it is clear that Harmony does not have a pure tone. It is possible for Harmony to have a pure tone, but preservation and ruin are not resonating how we see in ROW with warlight. 

 

If Harmony had a pure tone, the tones of Preservation and Ruin should be 'gone' and all of their investiture should become Harmonys investiture. But it didnt - it stayed seperate. 

 

I know that part of this might be because the shards of Harmony are in such disagreement with each other, but im proposing that this problem is deeper. Odium and Honor are quite opposite Intents (thought not as fully), yet they can still be harmonized (hah) into a pure tone. 

 

What do you all think? Is Harmony how we expect shard combinations to go? What ive discussed above makes me think that the shards are not actually joined. Sazed is a vessel holding two shards instead of a vessel holding two harmonized shards which would function as one shard. Yes, their investiture is very tangled and would be very very hard to seperate, but I think thats just the point. The investitures are tangled, and not joined. 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

What do you all think?

Lots of discussion in this thread and this thread. At the risk of sounding foolish, I'll quote my post from there:

On 12/8/2023 at 1:17 PM, Treamayne said:

 

On 12/8/2023 at 11:45 AM, Kfish said:

Harmony is supposed to be a harmonic fusion of the two

I'm not sure that is true (discussed here and here). Harmony holds two shards - but only outside observers sometimes consider Harmony to be a single Shard (WoB below), and we don't know if Harmony was a name Sazed gave to himself, or if the survivors of the Catacendre just started calling him that and he accepted the name:

Spoiler

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

And Shardholders [Vessels] tend to take the name of the Shard they hold. So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony.

Sazed himself does continue to refer to them as separate. More importantly, he explicitly used the Intent when taking them up that they should be two separate powers, working together (HoA Ch 82):

Spoiler

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 destroying 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.

Understanding swelled within him.

 

On 10/20/2022 at 9:27 PM, Treamayne said:

The intent is formed not just from the Shards and how they combine, but also by how the Vessel views that combination. Sazed became Harmony, in part, because he viewed the combination of Ruin and Preservation as Harmony - the forces that created Scadrial

Spoiler

HoA Ch 82

Quote

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 destroying 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.

WoB

Quote

Shallan's Ward

While Sazed holds Preservation and Ruin, could his intent change from Harmony to Discord?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible

 

But I agree, the Rhythm of Harmony would probably not be like TowerLight or WarLight, a blending of the Rhythms of Ruin and Preservation - just as Harmonium isn't an alloy of Lerasium and Atium. It would likely be a separate, distinct rhythm unto itself.

The question then becomes would the Rhythm of Discord be different than the Rhythm of Harmony should the intent change or should there be a new vessel for Harmony that changed the intent.

The thing to keep in mind is that Sazed never Combined his shards. He does not hold 1 shard with the intent of Harmony, he holds two separate shards Ruin and Preservation and is trying to do so Harmoniously. The other important note is that GodMetals are derived from teh Vessel, not the Shard. E. .g :

• ATIum not Ruinium
• LERASium not Preservatium
• TANAVASTium not Honorium

So, Harmonium is named after the Vessel Harmony, not a "Shard" Harmony (and because both Brandon and Saze hated Sazedium):

Spoiler

WeiryWriter

Just an fyi but you have confirmed the existence of harmonium before. (And this is probably a RAFO, but is there a reason you didn't follow the convention of the other "god metals" and call it something like sazedium? "Harmonium" just seems out of place.)

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed didn't like the sound of Sazedium.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 6, 2015)

This is why it is unstable, because Sazed's balance is unstable and because he never (by subconcious Intent - ref above quote where he took up the shards) actually made one Shard out of two pieces. In theory, if he had instead thought "Oh, these belong together. Merged they become <new Shard name>" he might not be having the difficulties he is now, because he would be a Vessel to a Single (larger) Shard with a single Intent - rather than a Vessel to two Shards with opposing Intents that he tries to balance. 

I would guess there cannot be one "mist" until/unless the powers are properly combined - because the Mist is a manaifestation of the Shard, not the Vessel. We won;t know about Rhythm and Pure Tones until we get confirmation if those change when the Vessel changes. If they are based on the Shard, then it should still be Preservation's and Ruin's Pure Tones and Rhythms. If the Vessel can change a Shard's Tone and Rhythm, then I expect there would be a Harmony Tone and Rhythm.

Edited April 17 by Treamayne
Clarity/SPAG

[CtrlAltDepressed]

31 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

But I agree, the Rhythm of Harmony would probably not be like TowerLight or WarLight, a blending of the Rhythms of Ruin and Preservation - just as Harmonium isn't an alloy of Lerasium and Atium. It would likely be a separate, distinct rhythm unto itself.

Warlight is a combination of the Rhythms of Odium and Honor but is still its own separate pure tone. Raboniel tells us that the Rhythm of War is a pure tone, so I have to disagree on this point. I understood it that the resonating frequencies of Odiums tone and Honors tone creates / exposes a new pure tone. 

 

If the Rhythm of War was simply a combination of the two other rhythms, then the Rhythm of War should manipulate both stormlight and voidlight - and to my knowledge it does not. 

 

What my post was getting at is there is an inconsistency here with Harmony. The properties of Harmonium make it seems like the shards are joined together as one since it is not an alloy. However, the separation of the mists is proof that Harmony is as you said "Vessel to two Shards with opposing Intents that he tries to balance"

 

Navani could have found the Rhythm of War without using the other tones. It would have been extremely difficult but once it is discovered, Raboniel remarks something along the lines of 'i never heard it before but that rhythm was always here' showing that it is not a product of Odium / Honors tone, those tones just helped reveal it. 

 

Edited April 17 by CtrlAltDepressed

[Treamayne]

14 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Raboniel tells us that the Rhythm of War is a pure tone

Do you have a reference for this, I cannot find it. All I can find is (RoW Ch 76):

Spoiler

The two of them looked at each other, then fell silent. Carefully, they removed their hands to reveal a diamond glowing a vibrant black-blue. An impossible color.

Raboniel trembled as she picked the gemstone out of its place, then held it up, humming a reverential rhythm. “They did not annihilate one another, as I assumed. Indeed, as part of me hoped. You were right, Navani. Remarkably, I have been proven wrong.” She turned the gemstone in her fingers. “I can name this rhythm: the Rhythm of War. Odium and Honor mixed together. I had not known it before today, but I recognize its name; I know this as surely as I know my own. Each rhythm carries with it an understanding of its meaning.”

The sphere they had created was different from Szeth’s—blue instead of violet, and lacking the strange distortion. Navani couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to her that was what Raboniel had been seeking.

So, it is a Rhythm (like the Rhythm of Peace (used for telling time)) but not a Pure Tone. So, I beleive Harmony would have a Rhythm, but not a Pure Tone since it is still separated into the Pure Tones of Preservation and Ruin. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

I believe I inferred it from this passage.

ROW CH 76

Quote

"Does Towerlight have a tone?" Navani asked.

"Two tones" Raboniel said, opening her eyes and setting down the Stormlight sphere. "But they aren't simply the tones of Cultivation and Honor. They are .... different, changed so that they are in harmony with one another."

I see what you mean about Towerlight and therefore Warlight not being a pure tone because it is two tones. It isn't just the tones of the two shards though, and this has me wondering if someone took up Cultivation and Honor in the same manner Sazed did, would they produce a the Towerlight godmetal equivalent to Harmonium? Seems Harmonium is not a new god metal at all technically (spiritually?) - its a spiritual meshing of Lerasium and Atium and that spiritual meshing creates physical changes.

 

Doesn't this also mean that you could extract Lerasium and Atium from Harmonium using the electrical current Wax shows and the pure tones of Preservation and Ruin?

 

Why do the Lerasium and Atium in Harmonium annihilate each other in such a violent reaction when Navani's experiments show Stormlight and Voidlight not blowing up on contact? It required the anti-tone for that. This must be a spiritual intertwining in a similar manner as Harmony right? Is this implying there is something anti-tone related happening to Harmony? That doesn't seem right.

 

We haven't seen Harmony's perpendicularity, doesn't this mean that it would be as violent as Harmonium?

 

I think im missing details this is not adding up for me.

Edited April 17 by CtrlAltDepressed

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

1. Seems Harmonium is not a new god metal at all technically (spiritually?) - its a spiritual meshing of Lerasium and Atium and that spiritual meshing creates physical changes.
2. Doesn't this also mean that you could extract Lerasium and Atium from Harmonium using the electrical current Wax shows and the pure tones of Preservation and Ruin?
3. Why do the Lerasium and Atium in Harmonium annihilate each other in such a violent reaction when Navani's experiments show Stormlight and Voidlight not blowing up on contact? 
4. We haven't seen Harmony's perpendicularity, doesn't this mean that it would be as violent as Harmonium?

1. That is not what I was saying (only you can verify if that is what you believe) - what I am saying is that "godmetals" appear to be based on the Vessel - not the Shard.
   • Or, at least not just the Shard - It seems to be the Shard's power and Intent as filtered through the Vessel; hence Vessel-based naming
   • Which implies that Raysium will no longer be the Godmetal of Odium, because Taravangium will replace it (who knows if they will be similar or not) and TOdium is not quite like ROdium was
2.  Wax could not do that with the electric current alone - it always failed. . . until he brought Trellium into the Equation
3. It was not the Lerasium and Atium that cause the explosion, it was Trellium and Harmonium. Trace amounts of Lerasium and Atium were discovered in the residue left behind after the explosion. 
4. We have not seen it because it is in the Southern Continent, but it might not be as Violent because it would be in liquid state and Shardic Investiture only becomes metallic when manifesting as a Solid in the Physical Realm (Where most perpendicularities are "pooled" investiture piercing all three realms)

Hope that helps

[CtrlAltDepressed]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Wax could not do that with the electric current alone - it always failed. . . until he brought Trellium into the Equation

I did not mean just the electric current alone. I did not explain it well at all but I meant that if you passed an electric current through the harmonium and then sang the pure tones of preservation / ruin could you separate out the Lerasium and Atium similar to how Navani is able to move the lights around with the tones. The electric current makes the harmonium more like Lerasium and Atium on either side which kind of has to be spiritual mumbo jumbo since it isn't an alloy, which has led me to think there might be other ways to separate it other than a Trellium / Harmonium explosion.

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

That is not what I was saying (only you can verify if that is what you believe) - what I am saying is that "godmetals" appear to be based on the Vessel - not the Shard.

• Or, at least not just the Shard - It seems to be the Shard's power and Intent as filtered through the Vessel; hence Vessel-based naming

 

I think our misalignment here is that I think the pure tone of a shard is independent of the vessel that holds it. Leras and Tanavast have been dead for a very long time but the pure tone of Honor or Preservation have not changed. When Vin / Kelsier / Lord Ruler / Sazed ascended I would think it would be mentioned if the tone had changed.

13 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It was not the Lerasium and Atium that cause the explosion, it was Trellium and Harmonium. Trace amounts of Lerasium and Atium were discovered in the residue left behind after the explosion. 

Again I did not explain well at all but I was referencing the Harmonium / water reaction. In that reaction the water is the catalyst for the Lerasium and Atium destroying each other. They react with the water to corrode into Harmonium hydroxide. Something that corrodes in the air and has an extremely violent reaction in water does not seem like a true God Metal. I'm proposing that it is a spiritual intermingling of Lerasium and Atium. Yes the god metal is filtered through the vessel, but clearly that is not an issue here because we already know of a method to extract Lerasium and Atium from Harmonium. Which is more than likely due to Sazed's personal knowledge of both vessels, but that doesn't really matter here. If it was a new God metal you should not be able to extract the previous vessels god metal from it.

Coppermind:

Due to the merging of Ruin and Preservation's intents into Harmony, harmonium's Spiritual aspect is in opposition with itself, leading to effects on the metal's Physical aspect, which makes it extremely reactive.^[6][7] It reacts violently with water, similar to alkali metals. After reacting with water, residual harmonium hydroxide is left behind, though the substance's properties are unknown.^[8] The Southern Scadrians use harmonium to create powerful bombs,^[9] which the Set have been trying to replicate with limited success.^[10] Harmonium corrodes and can react strongly in contact with the air; in order to prevent this, it is stored within oil

24 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Shardic Investiture only becomes metallic when manifesting as a Solid in the Physical Realm

So where is the new Harmonium coming from?

Coppermind:

Storing too much harmonium in one place supposedly can lead to the production of a perpendicularity

 

I had imagined this perpendicularity as being created by a massive vein of Harmonium, which is where the malwish have been extracting it.

[Treamayne]

12 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

12 hours ago, Treamayne said:

That is not what I was saying (only you can verify if that is what you believe) - what I am saying is that "godmetals" appear to be based on the Vessel - not the Shard.

• Or, at least not just the Shard - It seems to be the Shard's power and Intent as filtered through the Vessel; hence Vessel-based naming

I think our misalignment here is that I think the pure tone of a shard is independent of the vessel that holds it. Leras and Tanavast have been dead for a very long time but the pure tone of Honor or Preservation have not changed. When Vin / Kelsier / Lord Ruler / Sazed ascended I would think it would be mentioned if the tone had changed.

Please re-read what I wrote, then read what you wrote. I'm confused how you got "pure tone" out of "Godmetal."

I agree that the Pure Tones of a Shard are Shardic in Nature. 

12 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I did not explain it well at all but I meant that if you passed an electric current through the harmonium and then sang the pure tones of preservation / ruin could you separate out the Lerasium and Atium similar to how Navani is able to move the lights around with the tones.

Doubtful - because Harmonium, Atium and Lerasium are Metals (Solid Physical Realm Investiture) - Navani was able to influence Lights (Gaseous Investiture - possibly not wholly PR based). Maybe the Rhythms of Preservation and Ruin could influence their respective "Mists" but we already saw that Raysium was not influenced by Anti-Voidlight (it conducted it just fine, despite being the Anti-Tone to the Investiture upon which Raysium is based). Likewise, in theory, the Rhythm of Endowment should be able to affect BioChromatic Breath. 

Edited April 18 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

15 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Doesn't this also mean that you could extract Lerasium and Atium from Harmonium using the electrical current Wax shows and the pure tones of Preservation and Ruin?

Possible but that might be too weak. Harmonium is attuned to the rhythm of Harmony (most likely, but Rhythm is not a pure tone), but it's a solid matter, it's much harder to influence. Raysium was unfazed by the anti-tone of Odium. Trellium is what pushes axi of Harmonium apart, it's splits them like during a nuclear fission - there is no annihilation here, there is no anti-investiture, it's because axi (atoms) of Harmonium are split in half due to the force Trellium exerts on it, which releases tremendous amount of energy. The same mechanism as in nuclear fission that powers our nuclear reactors or bombs. Singing tones might be too weak to generate force sufficient enough to split axi of physical, solid Harmonium.

Harmonium is NOT made out of Atium and Lerasium, it's not an alloy, Harmonium meshes Ruin and Preservation's investiture together "in harmony," but those don't fit well together, which creates a chemically unstable element. Harmonium is still its own, new god metal, it's a single element.

Just like Harmony IS a full Shard, which at the same time is two Shards combined. I do agree with Treamayne, Sazed didn't combine both Shards well, he keeps them separate, but working together, which creates all his problems. However Harmony is still a full Shard. If Sazed were to drop Harmony, he would drop only one Shard, not Ruin and Preservation. He is Harmony and Ruin and Preservation make him up.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said ettmetal is chemically reactive, not nuclear.

The longer answer makes it sound like Harmonium isn't a Lerasium/Atium alloy, but a whole new metal. He described it as "super-cesium," and that its volatility was based on electrons, not on protons or neutrons.

"It is not unstable, it is reactive. So it's like a "super-cesium". It reacts so violently..."

Footnote: Unspecified question by Pagerunner.
Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Ironeyes

So harmonium, we have a working theory that the reason it's so volatile is because some of the subatomic particles are associated with Ruin and some of them are [of?] Preservation. Is that true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's basically what's going on is that it's creating a very unstable metal. Now, it is in the nature of the Cosmere not a compound but an element. But, you could call it a subatomic particle sure. It's very volatile because it is in nature spiritually in contrast with itself. And so though it is a single element rather than a compound, the spiritual nature is not happy as it is, and you can set up in the physical realm, through reactivity things that would just rip it apart and really your energy is not, your energy in that is actually pulling from the Spiritual realm, and so that's why it can be so much more explosive than even the chemistry would account for.

Ironeyes

So it's not that the subatomic particles are invested, it's that they have a spiritual identity which causes them to...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Ironeyes

So then it's not creating an oxide because after the spiritual energy goes away from the explosion then it's a different metal, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, and...

Ironeyes

So you can't find harmonium oxide in the water afterwards.

Brandon Sanderson

Right right right right. Because it's not, it's, yeah. But you might be able to find something else, which is really relevant to the Cosmere. And to Scadrial.

Ironeyes

So the core elements, the core particles, having extra repulsion causes them to have a nuclear potential.

Brandon Sanderson

I would not call it nuclear because it's not the same exact thing. But there is a Cosmere equivalent. To - I mean, you could do nuclear power just the same in the Cosmere, but since we have a third kind of state of matter, right? Matter, energy, Investiture. You have a third axis that, you know, you can release energy from matter, you can release investiture from matter, and things like that. So it's similar, but following its own rules that I have a little more - that are controlled by me, right, that are built on this idea. So once you add *inaudible*, matter now can exist in this third state, you get all sorts of weird things, which one of the things that happens is, you can get an energy release in sort of the same way. A reaction, I'm not going to call it a nuclear reaction, but of the same vein.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 19, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Mason Wheeler

Harmonium is ettmetal... Its chemicals properties are sort of analogous to cesium. It explodes in contact with water. People are made out of water. You try to spike someone, you try to swallow it, you try to wear it as jewelry, it will not end well. Why in the world would he pick something so inharmonious?

Brandon Sanderson

He didn't pick it. It's unstable because of the two halves of him not meshing well.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 23, 2013)

 

12 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Again I did not explain well at all but I was referencing the Harmonium / water reaction. In that reaction the water is the catalyst for the Lerasium and Atium destroying each other

There is no Atium or Lerasium in Harmonium, Harmonium is one element, it's not an alloy, it's not a compound, it's one Axion. Nothing destroys each other, water is just reacting with axi of Harmonium, like water reacts with cesium. It’s a purely chemical reaction, there is no anti-investiture here, no annihilation, Ruin’s investiture isn’t anti-investiture to Preservation’s investiture. 

12 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Something that corrodes in the air and has an extremely violent reaction in water does not seem like a true God Metal.

It is. Just like metals in our universe have different properties, can be reactive, corrosive or radioactive, the same applies to Cosmere, god metals can take many forms, But as by the WoB above, the reactive nature of Harmonium is because of two polar opposite investitures not meshing well together. The physical properties of Harmonium reflect its spiritual nature. 

12 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If it was a new God metal you should not be able to extract the previous vessels god metal from it.

What I think is happening is that during Harmonium-Trellium reaction Trellium pushes on both investitures of Ruin and Preservation and separates them apart, forcing them into a pure, singular state, which manifests as pure god metal of one Shard.

This goes back to Sazed interpretation of Harmony - both Shards work together, but are still separate. If he were to fully combine them, I think there would be only one investiture present, no meshing or separation, just one investiture. Just like it's possible to split Honor into two smaller Shards, but Honor is not made out of two smaller Shards, Honor is just Honor, one Shard, one force, the smallest division that currently exists. Harmony is not like that, he's two Shards merged in one Shard, but they are still separate. 

Spoiler

Isaac Betzold

Could a Shard be split into smaller Intents, like if Honor were alive and then was split into maybe Integrity and Bravery?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible. Very plausible. You ask some weird things sometimes, this one is not that weird, this is very plausible.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Going back to your first post:

19 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

After Harmony's ascension, there are two mists on Scadrial - one for Pres and one for Ruin. However, Harmonium is NOT an alloy of Atium and Lerasium. This seems to be a contradiction. Wouldn't we expect there to be one type of Harmony mist? 

Nope. Because Harmony is keeping both Shards separate in him, he can chose to send only half of him out in the word as Mists. But as you've noticed, there are two kind of Mists now, Ruin's Mists and Preservation's Mists - this wasn't happening before, sure there was Ruin's Mists at the Well, but not on the scale of Preservation's Mists. Harmony is sending them both because he has to in order to keep both Shards balanced. He probably could have combine them together as Harmony's mists, but chose not to. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventeen

The Mists Form

In writing this book, I had to nail down a few worldbuilding issues I'd been contemplating even before the first trilogy ended. What would happen to the mists, for instance, once Sazed took over and became Harmony?

The mists, obviously, are a big part of the series. It didn't make sense—either narratively or worldbuilding-wise—to lose them completely. However, they'd been created as an effect of Preservation trying to use his essence to fight against Ruin's destruction of the world. So . . . wouldn't they go away?

I decided that Sazed would still send them. They're part of the nature of the world now. To acknowledge what had happened, they wouldn't come every night any longer. But they would come. They were changed in that they are no longer simply the raw power of Preservation; they're now a part of Harmony—so they no longer pull away from Hemalurgy in the same way as they used to. They still have the odd effect of being able to power Allomancy. (And Feruchemy as well—if one knows how to do it.)

The mists are, in part, the raw power of creation. And when one is favored of Harmony, the mists have a greater effect than they might otherwise have. We'll see more of this later.

The Alloy of Law Annotations (Nov. 30, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Chaos

Do all three Metallic Arts still exist after the events of the book? Are Allomancy and Hemalurgy slightly degenerated now that Ruin and Preservation are dead, or does Allomancy still draw upon Preservation's power (just held with Sazed now)?

Brandon Sanderson

Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did. However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were. (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things. There will also be two kinds of mists.) Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings."

Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power. It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

19 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Do the preservation mists still respond to the tone of preservation and vise versa for the ruin mists? I cant imagine why they wouldn't since the mists are not Harmony - they are pres / ruin. If there is a Harmony tone, I wouldnt expect that one tone to effect Preservation and Ruin investiture in the same way I wouldn't expect the rhythm of war to manipulate both voidlight and stormlight. 

Yes, Mists react to the tones of their Shards. We've seen Mists swirl around Allomancers just like in Era 1 (Allomantic pulses are related to pure tone of Preservation), but they are not repulsed by Hemalurgists anymore. Well, they used to not be repulsed, in TLM they were pushed back by Wax's spike in ch 69. This was probably because of Discord.

19 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If we take that one step further - you should be able to separate Harmonium into Lerasium and Atium using the pure tones of Preservation and Ruin. It seems like this is what the Trellium spike was doing. Using the tone of Pres/Ruin pulls the investiture towards the source, however Trellium's tone pushes away all other investiture, which is why it produced Lerasium and Atium even though Harmonium is not an alloy. 

I think that's possible but this might be very hard to do with solid investiture, as I've talked about at the beginning. It won't be as easy as just singing the pure tones to separate them. You might be forced to start with singing a harmonized version and then breaking the harmony into pure tones of Ruin and Preservation - that might work on gaseous form of investiture, but I doubt it would work as easily on solids. 

20 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

What do you all think? Is Harmony how we expect shard combinations to go? What ive discussed above makes me think that the shards are not actually joined. Sazed is a vessel holding two shards instead of a vessel holding two harmonized shards which would function as one shard. Yes, their investiture is very tangled and would be very very hard to seperate, but I think thats just the point. The investitures are tangled, and not joined. 

Agreed. As long as Sazed is holding two separate Shards in one Shard, he will struggle. He needs to be one Shard, he needs to merge them more than they are right now. Ruin and Preservation need to be gone. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

23 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Trellium is what pushes axi of Harmonium apart, it's splits them like during a nuclear fission - there is no annihilation here, there is no anti-investiture, it's because axi (atoms) of Harmonium are split in half due to the force Trellium exerts on it, which releases tremendous amount of energy. The same mechanism as in nuclear fission that powers our nuclear reactors or bombs. Singing tones might be too weak to generate force sufficient enough to split axi of physical, solid Harmonium.

The creation of Lerasium and Atium through Trellium must be a spiritual aspect of this reaction with the separation of axi representing the physical reaction. These are two distinct things here I think. Which is why only trace amounts were produced. 

23 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Just like Harmony IS a full Shard, which at the same time is two Shards combined. I do agree with Treamayne, Sazed didn't combine both Shards well, he keeps them separate, but working together, which creates all his problems. However Harmony is still a full Shard. If Sazed were to drop Harmony, he would drop only one Shard, not Ruin and Preservation. He is Harmony and Ruin and Preservation make him up.

Dropping one Shard does not mean he would drop the Shard 'Harmony'. He would drop Ruin and Preservation in one package. We call the entanglement of Preservation and Ruin Harmony but Harmony is not a new Shard. You are contradicting yourself in the first sentence so this really seems like a 'so the story can happen' kind of thing. 

 

30 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Harmony is not like that, he's two Shards merged in one Shard, but they are still separate. 

30 minutes ago, alder24 said:

He needs to be one Shard, he needs to merge them more than they are right now. Ruin and Preservation need to be gone. 

The two above quotes seem to contradict each other. Either Ruin / Preservation exists or they don't - they currently do so Harmony cannot be a new shard. There is not a new Intent here. There are two opposite Intents that are (trying to be) harmonious.

 

The Honor is not two smaller shards example is perfect for this actually. Im going to use Odium because its easier for me to get two smaller intents from that.

 

Odium could be Passion and Wrath (as an example) however the Shard Odium is not currently made of two intents. It is one intent - Odium. To my knowledge Odium could not choose to only put forth the Passion part of his Investiture or just the Wrath part, as Harmony is doing with Preservation and Ruin. Passion and Wrath do not exist because they are aspects of Odium just like you say Preservation and Ruin need to be gone. 

 

This is a direct contradiction. Either Harmony is fully combined and is actually a new Shard - meaning he can no longer send Pres / Ruin separately - or he is not and Harmonium is not actually a new God metal. It is a spiritual intertwining - but not combination - of Preservation and Ruin.

 

I just really don't see how you can have a grey area on wether this is a new shard or not. Obviously Ruin and Preservation are intertwined but what I have been getting at is that this must be distinctly different from them actually being Combined into a new shard. 

 

I was trying to use what we know about the Tones to figure out more things about Harmony's nature. The fact that you can use the previous tones to manipulate Harmony's investiture is part of the proof to me that Harmony is NOT a new Shard and Harmonium is NOT a new God metal. 

 

Harmony is very akin to the Dor. The intertwining of two Shards Intents creates a new thing, but that doesn't mean that the Dor is a new separate Intent that is the true combination of Devotion and Dominion. It is a spiritual averaging it seems like. There are still separately seons of devotion and skaze of dominion. 

[alder24]

5 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

The creation of Lerasium and Atium through Trellium must be a spiritual aspect of this reaction with the separation of axi representing the physical reaction. These are two distinct things here I think. Which is why only trace amounts were produced. 

Kind of. Trellium pushes investiture away, but investiture is in all three realms at the same time, so this doesn't really matter, as it is happening in every realm. One Axon is made out of both Ruin and Preservation's investiture, Trellium makes them split apart, splitting the Axon in two. Matter and investiture are both transformed into energy, that's the explosion, some trace amounts of investiture manifest as solid Lerasium or Atium. 

Spoiler

Chaos

Is atium Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it--

Chaos

Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle.

Brandon Sanderson

Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness.

The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. Nightblood will too, and some of these things that were built even after the cosmere was coming together.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

5 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Dropping one Shard does not mean he would drop the Shard 'Harmony'. He would drop Ruin and Preservation in one package. We call the entanglement of Preservation and Ruin Harmony but Harmony is not a new Shard. You are contradicting yourself in the first sentence so this really seems like a 'so the story can happen' kind of thing. 

Harmony is a new Shard, but at the same time is made out of two Shards. Both sentences are correct and not contradictory, even if it is hard to understand. You can say he's two Shards or that he's one Shard, both ways of looking at this are correct.

Spoiler

[...]

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony.

A Memory of Light Seattle Signing (Feb. 12, 2013)

 

5 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

This is a direct contradiction. Either Harmony is fully combined and is actually a new Shard - meaning he can no longer send Pres / Ruin separately - or he is not and Harmonium is not actually a new God metal. It is a spiritual intertwining - but not combination - of Preservation and Ruin.

I just really don't see how you can have a grey area on wether this is a new shard or not. Obviously Ruin and Preservation are intertwined but what I have been getting at is that this must be distinctly different from them actually being Combined into a new shard. 

I was trying to use what we know about the Tones to figure out more things about Harmony's nature. The fact that you can use the previous tones to manipulate Harmony's investiture is part of the proof to me that Harmony is NOT a new Shard and Harmonium is NOT a new God metal. 

Harmony is very akin to the Dor. The intertwining of two Shards Intents creates a new thing, but that doesn't mean that the Dor is a new separate Intent that is the true combination of Devotion and Dominion. It is a spiritual averaging it seems like. There are still separately seons of devotion and skaze of dominion. 

I get what you're saying and I do agree partially - Harmony is not merged properly. He should be one power, one intent, one investiture, but he's two held by one. But Harmony can be treated as one Shard with two powers, he has his own intent focused on balancing Ruin and Preservation. Harmonium is a new god metal, it's not an alloy of Atium and Lerasium. It seems contradictory, but it isn't - this is the problem with Harmony.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I get what you're saying and I do agree partially - Harmony is not merged properly. He should be one power, one intent, one investiture, but he's two held by one. But Harmony can be treated as one Shard with two powers, he has his own intent focused on balancing Ruin and Preservation. Harmonium is a new god metal, it's not an alloy of Atium and Lerasium. It seems contradictory, but it isn't - this is the problem with Harmony.

So if im understanding you correctly you are saying that the contradiction does exist, but Harmony exists that way anyways, which is why hes having such a bad time?

 

I think that just made it click. He should not work this way but he does and that is the issue. 

 

I think we are in agreement that if preservation and ruin were properly joined that the resulting god metal would not produce lerasium and atium in a trellium reaction, would not be inherently unstable, there would not be two mists and Harmony would have a pure tone. 

 

My disconnect was that I assumed this Harmony situation was an issue specifically because of the opposing Intents, and while it partially is, its really Sazed's failure to combine them properly that has caused the contradiction. As in, this is not the way that a shard combination is supposed to go. Before this I was under the assumption that this was standard as most of the Intents will conflict with each other and cause similar issues.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

 Before this I was under the assumption that this was standard as most of the Intents will conflict with each other and cause similar issues.

Unlikely, Sanderson has said there are some shards with complimentary Intents that would be much easier to merge/work together. WoB:

Spoiler

Autarchk

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.

General Reddit 2013 (March 14, 2013)

 

[alder24]

14 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

So if im understanding you correctly you are saying that the contradiction does exist, but Harmony exists that way anyways, which is why hes having such a bad time?

Yes.

14 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I think we are in agreement that if preservation and ruin were properly joined that the resulting god metal would not produce lerasium and atium in a trellium reaction, would not be inherently unstable, there would not be two mists and Harmony would have a pure tone. 

Yes, because there would be no Preservation or Ruin anymore.

14 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

My disconnect was that I assumed this Harmony situation was an issue specifically because of the opposing Intents, and while it partially is, its really Sazed's failure to combine them properly that has caused the contradiction. As in, this is not the way that a shard combination is supposed to go. Before this I was under the assumption that this was standard as most of the Intents will conflict with each other and cause similar issues.

There are some pairs of Shards that are just hard to combine and would push against their Vessel like what Sazed is experiencing, but others would be easier to combine. 

Spoiler

Argent

Can any two Shards be joined together, like "Preservation and Ruin", or does it depend on their Intents?

Brandon Sanderson

Any can be joined, theoretically, but boy, some of the pairings would have an odd resulting pressure on the one holding them. And similar intents make for an easier time melding.

/r/books AMA 2015 (March 12, 2015)

Ultimately we have only Sazed as an example of merged Shards and this is just my understanding of what's going on. But the fact that before the Shattering there were no Shards, there was just Adonalsium and all investiture was of Adonalsium points into this conclusion that Sazed should be fully united one Shard, with one power. No Ruin and Preservation should exist if he were able to properly merge those Shards. They are particularly difficult to merge, they are the most polarized Shards there are right now, so it's not truly his fault that he can't fully combine them. He was faced with an impossible task and managed to do something that was never done before. But in my opinion he is only halfway there.