Thoughts on how Sanderson explores ethics, costs, and the problem of evil

[AleStaar he/him]

After watching Dune Part 2 yesterday, I'm starting to realize something that Sanderson might want to explore with Mistborn's storytelling. I would like to re-explore this once I start The Stormlight Archive.

Ignoring the presence of Shard's Intent... I think Sanderson wants us to question the ethics of people who hold knowledge of the past and future. When holding the Well's power Rashek learned about atium, Ruin's blindness to metal, and saw a glimpse of Preservation's Plan. If not, a glimpse of Preservation's future possibilities. I believe those revelations were partially why he created the brutal labor camp at the Pits of Hathsin, and turned the Feruchemists into kandra who could hide the atium.

On a grander scale, it seems that Preservation's Plan required Rashek to Ascend and be a tyrant for so long. Rashek's efforts put the Plan's final phases into motion, but now my eyebrow is raised towards this reprehensible step.

Sazed was facilitating plans to make Autonomy withdraw from Scadrial. Sazed holds infinitely more knowledge of the past, present, and future than Rashek ever did. And yet, Era 2 still left me questioning the the steps he takes to make his desired outcomes come true. Was it ethical for Sazed to put Wax through his pain? Is it necessary for Sazed to lie to Kelsier? Is it necessary or ethical for Sazed to hide the creation of lerasium and atium dust? Does he have a grand plan in motion for Kelsier and the Ghostbloods?

Heck, I believe this question extends to people who want to protect the world at any cost - i.e. Kelsier (and partially) Rashek. Rashek partially wanted to protect Scadrial from Ruin, so he created the world's most stable empire through brutal methods. But I don't think he needed a caste system to protect humanity from Ruin.

An epilogue brings up the difficult question of whether or not Kelsier would engage in eugenics, Hemalurgy, or hunts for lerasium. The story brings into scrutiny why the Ghostbloods hid info from Elendel, but it doesn't villainize them. Mistborn Era 2 does not box Kelsier or Sazed into good or evil. They're morally gray figures. The story questions the costs and morals of their plans, but never answers for the characters or readers.

The story also questions the problem of evil. Ruin is not truly evil, but why does Ruin need to exist? It questions why Sazed doesn't lean towards Preservation to stop all pain and harm. Discusses why leaning towards Preservation can be awful.

I really hope Sanderson expands upon this in Era 3. And keeps them ambiguous.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

19 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

After watching Dune Part 2 yesterday, I'm starting to realize something that Sanderson might want to explore with Mistborn's storytelling. I would like to re-explore this once I start The Stormlight Archive.

Ignoring the presence of Shard's Intent... I think Sanderson wants us to question the ethics of people who hold knowledge of the past and future. When holding the Well's power Rashek learned about atium, Ruin's blindness to metal, and saw a glimpse of Preservation's Plan. If not, a glimpse of Preservation's future possibilities. I believe those revelations were partially why he created the brutal labor camp at the Pits of Hathsin, and turned the Feruchemists into kandra who could hide the atium.

On a grander scale, it seems that Preservation's Plan required Rashek to Ascend and be a tyrant for so long. Rashek's efforts put the Plan's final phases into motion, but now my eyebrow is raised towards this reprehensible step.

Sazed was facilitating plans to make Autonomy withdraw from Scadrial. Sazed holds infinitely more knowledge of the past, present, and future than Rashek ever did. And yet, Era 2 still left me questioning the the steps he takes to make his desired outcomes come true. Was it ethical for Sazed to put Wax through his pain? Is it necessary for Sazed to lie to Kelsier? Is it necessary or ethical for Sazed to hide the creation of lerasium and atium dust? Does he have a grand plan in motion for Kelsier and the Ghostbloods?

Heck, I believe this question extends to people who want to protect the world at any cost - i.e. Kelsier (and partially) Rashek. Rashek partially wanted to protect Scadrial from Ruin, so he created the world's most stable empire through brutal methods. But I don't think he needed a caste system to protect humanity from Ruin.

An epilogue brings up the difficult question of whether or not Kelsier would engage in eugenics, Hemalurgy, or hunts for lerasium. The story brings into scrutiny why the Ghostbloods hid info from Elendel, but it doesn't villainize them. Mistborn Era 2 does not box Kelsier or Sazed into good or evil. They're morally gray figures. The story questions the costs and morals of their plans, but never answers for the characters or readers.

The story also questions the problem of evil. Ruin is not truly evil, but why does Ruin need to exist? It questions why Sazed doesn't lean towards Preservation to stop all pain and harm. Discusses why leaning towards Preservation can be awful.

I really hope Sanderson expands upon this in Era 3. And keeps them ambiguous.

Spoiler

I have long maintained that the shards are all functionally very evil in how they operate. Swearing undying loyalty and allegiance to one, finding a way to hide from their visibility, killing one and stealing its power, or being totally irrelevant seem to be the only ways to not endlessly get screwed with and experimented on by one or several of them...maybe sociopathic is a better description. The best of them lies with a straight face and killed half his planet out of ignorance.

I think it's absolutely reasonable to resent the Shards for their actions and behaviors, but I don't believe that it makes good sense to question them or their ethics. They've mostly all killed the innocent, lied shamelessly, preemptively harmed future criminals with no valid basis, and used their vast investiture reserves to empower primarily themselves. From a certain point of view, Odium is actually the most moral of all of them in the sense that, by killing them, at least they can't harm anyone anymore and civilization can be free of the arbitrary and capricious intents of people given far to much power with zero capacity for accountability or oversight except for murder. I find the shards extremely understandable. They legitimately do their best, but some of them totally do not care what anyone says or thinks, some of them enjoy smashing the lives of their subjects for no reason, and some of them enjoy hunting and killing other powerful creatures purely for sport. Because, they can.

 

Edited September 18, 2024 by hwiles

[AleStaar he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

I have long maintained that the shards are all functionally very evil in how they operate. Swearing undying loyalty and allegiance to one, finding a way to hide from their visibility, killing one and stealing its power, or being totally irrelevant seem to be the only ways to not endlessly get screwed with and experimented on by one or several of them...maybe sociopathic is a better description. The best of them lies with a straight face and killed half his planet out of ignorance.

I think it's absolutely reasonable to resent the Shards for their actions and behaviors, but I don't believe that it makes good sense to question them or their ethics. They've mostly all killed the innocent, lied shamelessly, preemptively harmed future criminals with no valid basis, and used their vast investiture reserves to empower primarily themselves. From a certain point of view, Odium is actually the most moral of all of them in the sense that, by killing them, at least they can't harm anyone anymore and civilization can be free of the arbitrary and capricious intents of people given far to much power with zero capacity for accountability or oversight except for murder. I find the shards extremely understandable. They legitimately do their best, but some of them totally do not care what anyone says or thinks, some of them enjoy smashing the lives of their subjects for no reason, and some of them enjoy hunting and killing other powerful creatures purely for sport. Because, they can.

I feel like this sort of conversation requires Cosmere knowledge I don’t have yet. Especially since you mentioned Odium.

I will say that when it comes to Ruin or Autonomy, you’re completely right. But it’s more complicated for Preservation and Harmony. Preservation had a complex plan to permanently defeat Ruin, and it had steps ranging from questionable (Vin and Elend sacrificing themselves) to reprehensible (getting Lord Ruler to Ascend then use lerasium to form the Final Empire). So when it comes to Preservation I certainly wouldn’t put him in the same category of “very evil” as Ruin or Autonomy.

But I would certainly call Preservation a being of questionable morality. In his plan did he truly understand the importance of Ruin, or did the plan only exist because Ruin was around?

It’s even harder to categorize Harmony. He’s facing off against a Shard much more conniving, long-term, and precognitively able than Ruin. So I think it’s necessary to have a debate about Harmony’s actions instead of categorizing him as “functionally good” or “functionally evil.” 

If I had to choose between arranging for a person to be in the position of self-sacrifice that can save the whole world, or my world’s destruction, I’m choosing the former.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

46 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

I feel like this sort of conversation requires Cosmere knowledge I don’t have yet. Especially since you mentioned Odium.

I will say that when it comes to Ruin or Autonomy, you’re completely right. But it’s more complicated for Preservation and Harmony. Preservation had a complex plan to permanently defeat Ruin, and it had steps ranging from questionable (Vin and Elend sacrificing themselves) to reprehensible (getting Lord Ruler to Ascend then use lerasium to form the Final Empire). So when it comes to Preservation I certainly wouldn’t put him in the same category of “very evil” as Ruin or Autonomy.

But I would certainly call Preservation a being of questionable morality. In his plan did he truly understand the importance of Ruin, or did the plan only exist because Ruin was around?

It’s even harder to categorize Harmony. He’s facing off against a Shard much more conniving, long-term, and precognitively able than Ruin. So I think it’s necessary to have a debate about Harmony’s actions instead of categorizing him as “functionally good” or “functionally evil.” 

If I had to choose between arranging for a person to be in the position of self-sacrifice that can save the whole world, or my world’s destruction, I’m choosing the former.

Ouch. Sorry about that, I've added a spoiler block, that's my bad.

 

Yeah, Harmony is definitely a good person in the traditional sense, he just isn't a very good God. I think the better question to explore here is: what actually would make a good Shard?

In my opinion, that's essentially what the 17th shard is: an aggregate entity which fosters goodwill, community development, knowledge sharing and documentation, and intervenes directly as little as possible in the affairs of mortals while accepting all new worldhoppers with open and loving arms. Does it harbor dark thoughts and intentions sometimes? Maybe, but good luck proving it. Definitely a million times nicer and less destructive than any of the other 16. If there is ever a last god standing in the cosmere, my money is all in on it being the 17th one, the one that doesn't exist as a single mind, but many working and playing together.

[Corgen]

52 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

If I had to choose between arranging for a person to be in the position of self-sacrifice that can save the whole world, or my world’s destruction, I’m choosing the former.

It's the same question as in the trolley problem: kill one to save five. Or, in our case — increase the chances of saving the world by using immoral actions, or hope that it can be done without them.

[AleStaar he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

Ouch. Sorry about that, I've added a spoiler block, that's my bad.

 

Yeah, Harmony is definitely a good person in the traditional sense, he just isn't a very good God. I think the better question to explore here is: what actually would make a good Shard?

In my opinion, that's essentially what the 17th shard is: an aggregate entity which fosters goodwill, community development, knowledge sharing and documentation, and intervenes directly as little as possible in the affairs of mortals while accepting all new worldhoppers with open and loving arms. Does it harbor dark thoughts and intentions sometimes? Maybe, but good luck proving it. Definitely a million times nicer and less destructive than any of the other 16. If there is ever a last god standing in the cosmere, my money is all in on it being the 17th one, the one that doesn't exist as a single mind, but many working and playing together.

To be completely fair. In our world where many people believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God there are still many people with shaky faith or evil intentions. The problem of evil is a philosophical topic for a reason.

Shards are not the three Os on a cosmere-wide scale, only on a planetary scale (more or less). And you need to remember that Harmony’s role is not to remove all pain and harm. You could even argue that’s an essential role for a god or God. Removing pain/harm is Preservation’s role, and Preservation would be horrific in that instance.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

21 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

To be completely fair. In our world where many people believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God there are still many people with shaky faith or evil intentions. The problem of evil is a philosophical topic for a reason.

Shards are not the three Os on a cosmere-wide scale, only on a planetary scale (more or less). And you need to remember that Harmony’s role is not to remove all pain and harm. You could even argue that’s an essential role for a god or God. Removing pain/harm is Preservation’s role, and Preservation would be horrific in that instance.

To be completely fair, Harmony is objectively a manipulative liar who has knowingly harmed the innocent with intent to kill and driven many of his best agents to suicide after committing global genocide...

[AleStaar he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

To be completely fair, Harmony is objectively a manipulative liar who has knowingly harmed the innocent with intent to kill and driven many of his best agents to suicide after committing global genocide...

I feel like you’re taking Harmony’s actions out of proportion.

You’re going to need to define the parameters of “harmed the innocent,” “global genocide,” and “driven many of his best agents to suicide.”

I have ideas on what you mean. But even then, it feels like you’re trying too hard to paint Harmony as an evil manipulator. 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

28 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

I feel like you’re taking Harmony’s actions out of proportion.

You’re going to need to define the parameters of “harmed the innocent,” “global genocide,” and “driven many of his best agents to suicide.”

I have ideas on what you mean. But even then, it feels like you’re trying too hard to paint Harmony as an evil manipulator. 

I'm not. By the definition of the words, Harmony killed innocent people on purpose, committed genocide against southern scadrians, and deliberately manipulated and ruined the lives of his declared swords and shields. It's in the books.

I have no hesitation in declaring that Sazed was a good man in a traditional sense of the word. A paragon of understanding, faith, fidelity, intercultural and cross-language communication and Harmonization, and justice in the truest sense of the word. The best and kindest and most well intentioned Shard by my opinion.

And also a totally incompetent God. i...feel like that should be self evident. If it isn't, then I agree to disagree.

[AleStaar he/him]

51 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I'm not. By the definition of the words, Harmony killed innocent people on purpose, committed genocide against southern scadrians, and deliberately manipulated and ruined the lives of his declared swords and shields. It's in the books.

I have no hesitation in declaring that Sazed was a good man in a traditional sense of the word. A paragon of understanding, faith, fidelity, intercultural and cross-language communication and Harmonization, and justice in the truest sense of the word. The best and kindest and most well intentioned Shard by my opinion.

And also a totally incompetent God. i...feel like that should be self evident. If it isn't, then I agree to disagree.

So I’m gonna make a list of what I assume your points

1. At any rate, he definitely knew about the Southerners. BUT it’s unconfirmed if Harmony intentionally left them or caused the Ice Death. Remember that the Catacendre is in line with Harmony’s Intent - Preserve life and the world, Ruin the old cities/societies and break some of the world. I’m not sure if the Ice Death would have some Ruin, considering there would be no Ashmounts to Ruin.

2. Remember that Harmony left harmonium and a perpendicularity to the Southerners. Then there’s the possibility he sent or nudged Kelsier to help them.

3. You really need to define who are the “innocent people.” Southern Scadrians, unconfirmed circumstances and he helped them anyways? Paalm… yeah he messed up there. But when she became insane, he saw in most future possibilities that Wax wouldn’t be willing to kill her. 

4. He manipulated his swords and shields. But he didn’t ruin their lives. He trusted Wax to bounce back from his pain and be the Sword who could lead Wayne to the Set’s bomb. He cultivated Wayne to be the hero to stop the bomb. Cultivated Marasi into being the socially conscious, trusting Governor of Elendel. 

 

You aren’t wrong to hate Harmony’s decisions. However, demanding that he solve everyone’s problems and put no one through pain ignores Era 2’s philosophical themes. It also ignores the fact he is NOT Preservation, but he’s also NOT Ruin. I don’t want to get into real world religious debate, but God in our world can be very questionable. Why should we assume Sazed to be any better?

Edited September 19, 2024 by Ale the Metallic Conjurer

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

8 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

...

You aren’t wrong to hate Harmony’s decisions. However, demanding that he solve everyone’s problems and put no one through pain ignores Era 2’s philosophical themes. It also ignores the fact he is NOT Preservation, but he’s also NOT Ruin. I don’t want to get into real world religious debate, but God in our world can be very questionable. Why should we assume Sazed to be any better?

Please do not assume my intent or pretend to put words in my mouth. I do not hate Harmony's decisions, I cannot. Like I said, he's the best of the best of the shards. However...he's still only a man with an insane amount of Investiture and only a couple rules that he must obey. That makes him flawed at his very core as a deity, like a diamond with hollow void or crack in its center.

 

Let's focus on Harmony's one most unforgivable transgression: he absolutely ruined the lives of every Sounthern-Scadrian and killed most of them, period full stop. Would they have died eventually no matter what he did? Of course! But he made their lives a frozen hell when he had the power to uplift and protect them...was there any malice in his actions? Almost certainly no. Was there the total ignorance of a billionaire exploiting resources to forcibly change things he doesn't understand and inadvertently triggering an uncontrollable genocide and subsequent civil war? Yeah...that's basically exactly what happened, yes.

 

From a philosophical perspective: Can a man trigger a genocide by accident and still be a good man? I would argue, "yes," on the basis that no one person can reasonably be expected to have the infinite futuresight required in order to predict all of the cascade consequences of their actions. Can the living embodiment of a God trigger a genocide on accident and still be a good God? No...it would mean that he/she/they is still only human. The most powerful, compassionate, and far-reaching human to ever live perhaps, but not a true God.

What do I believe the solution is? Better guarding against the Shards forcibly executing such ham-fisted and ghoulishly inept non-negotiable changes to other people's environments. Stepping down as Harmony would only leave scadrial crippled and weakened at this point, but that in no way means that Harmony's actions have not been partially selfish...he knows the Investiture keeps him alive when he should otherwise be dead, and he seems to draw legitimate peace, comfort, and satisfaction from being treated as a divine entity, which is sort of a peculiar reward considering how many people he brutally murdered in his incompetence and flailing when he first ascended and had to act while rushed after being given total unchecked power in a suddenly Godless world. The worst part is, there is no real solution, Harmony himself appears to recognize and be fully capable of articulating more or less this same philosophical decomposition himself, and what he has done is basically the best compromise that's possible without causing even greater harm now than he did during the first hour of his ascension. That's the rub though, playing God always causes men to die or kill others horribly. It's why humans throughout time and across every culture have always fixated and idealized about what a perfect and fair being would be and how it could be created and allowed to rule and protect people from the unjust actions of eachother.

How does one create a persistent and inexhaustible deus ex machina in, of, and for their world? Well...that's the ultimate question by my view.

Edited September 19, 2024 by hwiles

[alder24]

12 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

2. Remember that Harmony left harmonium and a perpendicularity to the Southerners.

There is no evidence that Sazed directly "left" Harmonium and his perpendicularity in the south. Physical manifestations of investiture are leakage from the Spiritual Realm into the Physical Realm - something that can just happen on its own, with no action taken by the Shard. A perpendicularity will appear in any place where there is enough investiture - that was the case for Ruin's perpendicularities under the Pits. They appeared there on their own because there was a lot of Atium in the area, which created a region where all three Realms could be pierced. The Shard can control where his perpendicularity appears, but he doesn't have to - it will appear anyway. There isn't any evidence to suggest that Sazed deliberately gave his perpendicularity and Harmonium to the Malwish - it might have just appeared there naturally without Sazed intervention. 

Spoiler

BlackYeti

Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the Physical Realm? About the different states of matter. What determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I've been reading the bits very carefully, and I haven't noticed much in terms of temperature difference.

Brandon Sanderson

The idea for me working on this was that they transcend-- They permeate everything, right? They permeate all life on all the Realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it's kind of like they make-- they appear there in the various states but-- When you say that you've got the gas, you've got the liquid, you've got the solid: but you've also got inside of you, and inside of that plant, and like-- they're everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it's just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distills, just like water. There's some water in the air, there's some that freezes: that's temperature. But it's not always temperature whether it's in the air, or whether it's falling. Imagine a Spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what's happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that's what you'll get.

Manchester signing (Aug. 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Backslash330

Are Shards limited to one per perpendicularity? Can a non-Splintered Shard control where and how their perpendicularity manifests?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, but yes on the second.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 20, 2018)

 

3 hours ago, hwiles said:

Let's focus on Harmony's one most unforgivable transgression: he absolutely ruined the lives of every Sounthern-Scadrian and killed most of them, period full stop.

You need to provide some evidence that Sazed knew about people living on the southern pole and that he was aware how his transformation of Scadrial would affect them. There is no such evidence. It's possible he did, but the situation on the northern pole was so drastic that just the sunrise alone would have killed everyone remaining there. He needed to act to save them and for that he needed to fix Rashek's problems. He might not have enough time to realize that there are other people living on Scadrial and how his actions would affect them. 

Yes, Sazed saving the north accidentally doomed the south, but we have nothing that would suggest he knew about it during the Catacendre - and we had his PoV in HoA. We saw his thoughts when he Ascended, at no point did he realize there were people on the southern pole. Once he might have realized this, the damage was already done. Calling it a genocide is too much, by UN definition a genocide must be a deliberate act with the intention to destroy a specific group of people (source). 

3 hours ago, hwiles said:

he seems to draw legitimate peace, comfort, and satisfaction from being treated as a divine entity

Where did that come from? I don't see this at all in Sazed. Even the Path doctrine clearly states to "not waste time on worshiping Harmony."

 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

... 

Yes, Sazed saving the north accidentally doomed the south, but we have nothing that would suggest he knew about it during the Catacendre - and we had his PoV in HoA. We saw his thoughts when he Ascended, at no point did he realize there were people on the southern pole. Once he might have realized this, the damage was already done. Calling it a genocide is too much, by UN definition a genocide must be a deliberate act with the intention to destroy a specific group of people (source). 

Where did that come from? I don't see this at all in Sazed. Even the Path doctrine clearly states to "not waste time on worshiping Harmony."

 

Yeah...okay, I may be abusing the terminology too far on this one, fair point, I appreciate the correction. No, Sazed could not have known about the southern scadrians during the first moment of his ascent. I do still find it shocking that he seems to have spent so much meticulous effort on the basin prior to realizing how many people he had doomed, but...a mistake and incompetence are not the same thing. I retract my vile complaint; Harmony is the best Shard thus far. And they're all flawed by design (small d). Which does technically give us all something to talk about.

[AleStaar he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

There is no evidence that Sazed directly "left" Harmonium and his perpendicularity in the south. Physical manifestations of investiture are leakage from the Spiritual Realm into the Physical Realm - something that can just happen on its own, with no action taken by the Shard. A perpendicularity will appear in any place where there is enough investiture - that was the case for Ruin's perpendicularities under the Pits. They appeared there on their own because there was a lot of Atium in the area, which created a region where all three Realms could be pierced. The Shard can control where his perpendicularity appears, but he doesn't have to - it will appear anyway. There isn't any evidence to suggest that Sazed deliberately gave his perpendicularity and Harmonium to the Malwish - it might have just appeared there naturally without Sazed intervention. 

I think this all connects back to how Scadrian Shards all manifested God Metal. And so, the circumstances of how perpendicularities were able to appear.

Ruin - Did not deliberately leave any amount of atium before his imprisonment. Heck, it’s a continuity snarl of whether his perpendicularity appeared near his “prison” and was moved by Rashek, or was always in the Pits of Hathsin. Not to mention the interconnected snarl of… where would Ruin’s perpendicularity have been before his imprisonment?

Preservation - His perpendicularity is definitely an instance of it appearing due to Investiture leakage. But not because of God Metal. Compared to his manipulation of Ruin’s body or the South’s supply of harmonium, Preservation left very little lerasium at the Well of Ascension. 

Harmony - Now that you mention this, I do think his perpendicularity was leakage. But his God Metal was a deliberate creation. There’s so much harmonium compared to the lerasium beads. So much that it fuels all airships, skimmers, primer cubes, and bombs.

[Duxredux he/him]

On 9/19/2024 at 9:22 AM, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Harmony - Now that you mention this, I do think his perpendicularity was leakage. But his God Metal was a deliberate creation. There’s so much harmonium compared to the lerasium beads. So much that it fuels all airships, skimmers, primer cubes, and bombs.

I actually came to the exact opposite conclusion that the throughput of Godmetal was intentional for Ruin and Preservation but less so for Harmony. Consider that Preservation bound the Shards' naturally accumulating Investiture into two distinct cycles in order to imprison and weaken Ruin. Atium was locked into a cycle alloyed with electrum, siphoned off and stored away in the Trustwarren. Preservation's power slowly accumulated in the Well of Ascension to imprison Ruin - power sufficient to move planets that I assume was rarely if ever diverted to form metal.

What of Harmonium? The Well of Ascension was opened, no longer to accumulate power to resist Ruin. Kelsier had destroyed the Pits of Hathsin and Sazed wanted to ensure that no one would again be forced to crawl through crevasses seeking Atium geodes. Freed from Leras's machinations, I assume Harmony's new perpendicularity would have the combined throughput of the Pits of Hathsin and the Well of Ascension.

Perhaps too bold a hypothesis, to claim that during all of the known pre-Catacendre history, Investiture had been forced into abnormal cycles and had simply been been restored to a more natural state, but it makes sense. That said, the Perpendicularity placement in Southern Scadrial seems unlikely to be incidental as Sazed records his respect in Rashek's clever decision to move the Well of Ascension.

 

As for the original topic... I'll ask a few questions and maybe pull out a few scenarios as I wonder if some of the problems and challenges of everyday life are not made any less complex with the mind and power of a Shard. I agree, Sanderson is great at bringing up some of these questions of morality without necessarily giving a straight answer.

In Harmony calling Wax from the Roughs to Elendel or going back to the retired Sword who has never failed him when others proved insufficient, I see every supervisor faced with an imbalance of demands and available human resources. I think it is not so different from the working parent with no money for a babysitter hesitating to ask the eldest to once again put off spending time with friends to babysit younger siblings. Not so different from when I called in sick and my boss asked me if I was able to cover my shift anyway because there was no one else available to run a branch. It's an odd thought to think that a Shard could run into resource constraints, but when it's people trusted to do the job well, it makes sense to me. Do you use and burn up the people who do the job well or risk sending someone you believe is woefully inadequate for the position (see VenDell trying to fill MeLaan's shoes in TLM)? 

I've seen a lot of people say that Sazed messed up with Paalm and I ask: what would have been the right way to handle Paalm? Paalm is set up to be the sympathetic sacrifice and Wax's resulting hatred is understandable, but as a parent I find myself trying on Harmony's shoes and wondering what I would have done, and I'm not convinced Paalm left him any good options. We see Paalm flee Harmony's control to seek Autonomy to become... a mass murderer and I wonder if Sazed knew more about Paalm's history as TLR's agent then is ever revealed to us. In the relationship between Harmony and Paalm I see the dilemma of every parent, friend, leader, sibling, family member, associate, etc. watching someone else intending to do something likely to mess up lives, their own and possibly others. A quote from Howard Taylor's Schlock Mercenary, "A vast and perilous gulf lies between knowing how people will act, and getting them to act differently." The parent stopping the child from running into the road, talking to the teenager hanging out with friends doing hard drugs, or the adult taking out loans for risky investments. Sometimes you can let the person make the choice and take the consequences, but sometimes the consequences are incredibly far reaching. It's like Vin trying to follow Kelsier into Kredik Shaw. Full Cosmere Spoilers:

Spoiler

Or:

Adolin watching Dalinar make an alliance with Sadeas.

Huck trying to sabotage Tress's mission claiming that it was for her good.

Tress overriding Salay's counsel to risk herself in the Midnight Sea.

 

The best example I have of how difficult this decision could be is... What if they are Moash making Moash decisions?

What should Kaladin have done in WoR? What if your best friend is Moash? What if you are Moash and Kaladin is trying to talk you out of hanging with your new friends?

[coolsnow7]

On 9/17/2024 at 7:47 PM, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

After watching Dune Part 2 yesterday, I'm starting to realize something that Sanderson might want to explore with Mistborn's storytelling. I would like to re-explore this once I start The Stormlight Archive.

Ignoring the presence of Shard's Intent... I think Sanderson wants us to question the ethics of people who hold knowledge of the past and future. When holding the Well's power Rashek learned about atium, Ruin's blindness to metal, and saw a glimpse of Preservation's Plan. If not, a glimpse of Preservation's future possibilities. I believe those revelations were partially why he created the brutal labor camp at the Pits of Hathsin, and turned the Feruchemists into kandra who could hide the atium.

On a grander scale, it seems that Preservation's Plan required Rashek to Ascend and be a tyrant for so long. Rashek's efforts put the Plan's final phases into motion, but now my eyebrow is raised towards this reprehensible step.

Sazed was facilitating plans to make Autonomy withdraw from Scadrial. Sazed holds infinitely more knowledge of the past, present, and future than Rashek ever did. And yet, Era 2 still left me questioning the the steps he takes to make his desired outcomes come true. Was it ethical for Sazed to put Wax through his pain? Is it necessary for Sazed to lie to Kelsier? Is it necessary or ethical for Sazed to hide the creation of lerasium and atium dust? Does he have a grand plan in motion for Kelsier and the Ghostbloods?

Heck, I believe this question extends to people who want to protect the world at any cost - i.e. Kelsier (and partially) Rashek. Rashek partially wanted to protect Scadrial from Ruin, so he created the world's most stable empire through brutal methods. But I don't think he needed a caste system to protect humanity from Ruin.

An epilogue brings up the difficult question of whether or not Kelsier would engage in eugenics, Hemalurgy, or hunts for lerasium. The story brings into scrutiny why the Ghostbloods hid info from Elendel, but it doesn't villainize them. Mistborn Era 2 does not box Kelsier or Sazed into good or evil. They're morally gray figures. The story questions the costs and morals of their plans, but never answers for the characters or readers.

The story also questions the problem of evil. Ruin is not truly evil, but why does Ruin need to exist? It questions why Sazed doesn't lean towards Preservation to stop all pain and harm. Discusses why leaning towards Preservation can be awful.

I really hope Sanderson expands upon this in Era 3. And keeps them ambiguous.

Short answer (Stormlight spoilers)

Spoiler

is that we’ve gotten confirmation in Stormlight that these issues is squarely where the series’ are going.

Long answer is that this analysis, while raising good questions, is mostly an exercise in assuming its own conclusion. “Sazed didn’t need to put Wax through that pain” well, what if he did? What if Sazed thinks he did? What if Sazed thinks there’s a 95% chance that he didn’t, but a 5% chance that not doing so will yield the destruction of Scadrial? All of these are entirely viable possibilities given what we know right now. Baldly asserting that Sazed or even Rashek did or didn’t need to do X to accomplish their goals requires evidence that we simply do not have.

Edited October 6, 2024 by coolsnow7

[AleStaar he/him]

1 hour ago, coolsnow7 said:

Long answer is that this analysis, while raising good questions, is mostly an exercise in assuming its own conclusion. “Sazed didn’t need to put Wax through that pain” well, what if he did? What if Sazed thinks he did? What if Sazed thinks there’s a 95% chance that he didn’t, but a 5% chance that not doing so will yield the destruction of Scadrial? All of these are entirely viable possibilities given what we know right now. Baldly asserting that Sazed or even Rashek did or didn’t need to do X to accomplish their goals requires evidence that we simply do not have.

I think you misinterpreted this post. I'm not concluding "Sazed didn't need to put Wax through that pain."

That's the conclusion I see from most people. I'm going against it because, as you said, Sazed saw that not doing so would yield the conquest or destruction of Scadrial. A viable possibility given what Wax and Wayne accomplished in the last two books.

But despite that, I'm still going to question the ethics and morality of Sazed or even Rashek's actions. I won't jump to conclusions, but I will ask questions. Though I admit with Rashek, it's only because his actions were vital pieces of Preservation's Plan. And because we lack true insight into Rashek's mind.

[Returned he/him]

Since you stated you were interested in the questioning itself, OP, I'll challenge you and others a bit more broadly to define "good" and "evil" in the Cosmere contexts (or more generally). Please feel free to address any, all, or none of the below, as they interest you (or do not). I'm interested in discussion more than conclusions here. I intend to lean way back in this thread, so I hope that no one chooses not to participate because I've popped in.

Many people, and a lot of the posters I see here, tend to implicitly assume or ultimately converge on a consequentialist framework: they consider whether or not the outcome is "good" by whatever definition they're using, and if so they ask if that good end was "worth" individual events along the way. This stance presupposes that actions can be bad in themselves but still be good ones to take, and the ultimate evaluation of those actions is whether or not the good outcome actually occurred. "The end justifies the means" is, when evaluating the "goodness" of those means, self-justifying and self-rejecting: if you don't get the ends, then those bad means cannot have been good, but if you do get the ends, then they are retroactively transformed into good actions.

1. Do you agree with the general consequentialist framework for evaluating actions as ethical or moral? Why or why not?
2. If you do agree, how does uncertainty play into your evaluation? Someone upthread presented Sazed's treatment of Wax as (potentially) a gamble: 95% likelihood that it was unnecessary, 5% that it was necessary and catastrophic to avoid. If one cannot guarantee an outcome, can one be ethical/moral in taking actions which they consider terrible unless the outcome is achieved?
3. If you do agree with (1), and the uncertainty of (2) is removed (say, future-sight is known to be reliable for a Shard), and there are multiple possibilities for actions that will lead to a good outcome (so there are costless choices between options which lead to the same end), can we assess one possible action as better than another? If so, why? If the outcome is decisive in rendering the actions "good", what makes one choice more ethical or moral than another when that outcome equally blankets both in "goodness"?

Future-sight is a poorly defined item in the Cosmere. It exists, and works, but to an unclear degree. We don't know, for example, if Leras knew his plan would work because of the future-sight, if he hoped it would work but couldn't know because the future is deterministic but future-sight itself is unclear (we know Ati was not great at it), or if the future is unwritten and so future-sight gives information which is unreliable to an unknowable degree (there is some in-text evidence to suggest this, but we can't distinguish between that and future-sight itself being imperfect).

1. How well can Shards determine the quality of their own future-sight? Can they assess how reliable it is (for them, if not in general)? How sure do they need to be about the future for choosing a "bad" action that will be justified by a "good" outcome? Can they be sure at all? People tend to approve of Leras because (I believe) we know his plans worked, and a lot of that is credited to future-sight. They denigrate Harmony because his plans are still unfolding, and so can't yet be justified by an outcome, but wouldn't the more internally consistent decision be to hold judgement of him in abeyance, since we still haven't seen the ends?
2. Bonus question: since we don't know how far, exactly, future-sight can go, should we be attributing at least some of the "badness" in Harmony's actions to Leras, as Harmony's ascension was part of Leras' plan? We tend to talk about it as the culmination of Leras' planning, but on what are we basing that assertion?

We also have to consider how we are deciding whether an outcome is good or bad. People have already discussed comparisons of different outcomes (10 dead people vs. 100, 10 people from group A suffering vs. 10 people from group B suffering, etc.). But more interesting angles have come up in this thread.

1. Can an outcome be the best available option without being good? I have found that people, in general, desperately resist this idea. If you have a few choices, all of them abhorrent, but one less so than the others, people often seem to upgrade that choice to being actively good. How do you feel about this? Is the best available (or, perhaps, the least bad) option (however we define that) always, perhaps by definition, good?
2. Should a person be ashamed to choose a bad-but-best-available option, because they did a bad thing by acting on that option? Or comfortable because other options were worse? If the latter, can a person be morally comfortable no matter which option they choose, as long as it's not the worst one? Is inaction morally acceptable, particularly in the face of a menu of only bad options?
3. How much responsibility do we assign to people to know all of the options available in order to choose an acceptable one, whether or not it's the best? Does Harmony have more responsibility, and less leeway for error, due to his expanded knowledge and abilities than Wax does? Does Harmony have less responsibility, and more leeway for error, than Leras did, because Harmony has had so much less time to gain experience with Preservation? Does adding Ruin to Preservation make Harmony the most ethically accountable actor in the Cosmere because he has more Shard-ness than anyone else?
4. Do we feel comfortable that we know enough about what is possible for a Shard to do that we can imagine what their set of options even contains? Are they so different from mortals that we lack the capacity to place their behaviors into any context we can understand? Do mortal conventions and ideas about ethics and morality apply to beings so far beyond our own capacity to know and do things, and which exist in such a fundamentally different way?

 

If you're not convinced of the consequentialist framework then we have to deal with determining how to identify actions as good or bad in some other way. We can probably dispense with divine provenance: the Shards themselves are what they are and the Vessels that hold them started as regular people (probably as flawed as anyone else), and the Vessels themselves are subject to change through the Shards' influence. Plus, the Shards are often at cross-purposes with each other. So it's probably not going to be the case that we define things as good because (a) god wills it to be so. But then what? Consequentialist tendencies aside, people generally, and here as well, seem to me to often make the decision based on affinity for the actor and "gut feeling".

For example, I'd wager that many people imagine Kelsier's treatment at the Pits to be bad, because he was a good guy (despite being a career thief and longtime bigot). Sure, he did some bad stuff, but he did it to bad people, so he's still good. But when Kelsier directed that Camon be mutilated and abandoned to beg on the streets for survival it was good, because Camon was a bad guy since he exploited and hurt Vin, who was a good person. So Camon's suffering and ultimate slaughter were good, or at least acceptable and appropriate, while Kelsier's suffering and death sentence were bad and unacceptable. This, despite both Kelsier and Camon being treated to torturous physical violence at the hands of someone they couldn't hope to resist.

1. Is this sort of flexibility with violence ethically permissible? Is violence OK, or even desirable, based on the identities of the person inflicting it and the person receiving it? 
2. Whose evaluation of the goodness or badness of a person counts? Is there room for differences in perspective? If Kelsier is generally viewed as heroic, and Camon villainous, is that enough in itself to answer these questions?
3. Is there a possibility of making a decision on this, but making an error? If so, how does that change what we demand a person inflicting violence do to make an ethical choice? A good example of this is Vin's assault on Cett's position in Luthadel in Well of Ascension. She was deliberately misled into targeting the wrong person to produce exactly that outcome, but was what she did good because she sincerely thought she was attacking the right person? Would the attack have been ethical if it had been against the true perpetrator? Was it OK because Cett was a bad person, even though Vin was mistaken about the specifics? Was it bad because she chose the wrong person to trust, which allowed her to be misled? Was Vin responsible for any "badness" in her actions because she certainly might have been wrong, but felt that she wasn't, even though she was mistaken?
4. For a being like a Shardholder, do they get any slack, in ethical evaluations, for the constant pressure of the Shard(s) upon their minds? Do we think about this differently for mortals who experience similar effects, like Rashek or Vin dealing with Ruin?

Ethics of violence and evil are tricky, obviously. I think that we have to make allowances for the fact that this forum is for enthusiasts of a set of fantasy action novels, where combat and lethal struggle are common and we have a nearly omniscient perspective on the events and most relevant character moments within the stories. This causes broad ethical assessments to be easier to make, or at least move towards: there is only so much detail to characters, far less than for real people, and many (though not all) groups and individuals are tidily sorted into heroes and villains. But I am nonetheless struck by how common it seems that people's effective stance is that violence is morally awesome, perhaps even the ideal moral tool, as long as it's directed at the "right" people. And I rarely see much reflection or hesitation in deciding that characters are deserving of that violence. People seem generally to think that physical and emotional suffering Wax experienced at Harmony's hands was bad because he himself was good, but whatever Telsyn experienced from Autonomy was appropriate and good because she herself was bad. Many people appear to accept that they might make an error in those judgements, but that doesn't seem to suggest to them that they should exhibit any restraint.

I really like Kelsier as a vehicle for thinking about these last items especially. He's very complex and well-drawn, and we see enough of him to give some good context to most, if not all, of these questions.

Edited October 11, 2024 by Returned

[OoklaApologist She/her]

This begs a major question. With Shards being constrained to their Intents, can they be completely good? There's an argument to be made that Harmony had to destroy southern Scadrial, his ruinous aspect demanded it. 

On 10/11/2024 at 2:46 PM, Returned said:

Can an outcome be the best available option without being good? I have found that people, in general, desperately resist this idea. If you have a few choices, all of them abhorrent, but one less so than the others, people often seem to upgrade that choice to being actively good. How do you feel about this? Is the best available (or, perhaps, the least bad) option (however we define that) always, perhaps by definition, good

In a lot of ways, Shards, even when being held by good vessels, are constrained, not to the best option, but to that which is the best that they can do. This is a bit of a problem, especially when the option actively does evil

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 10/23/2024 at 3:47 PM, KelsierApologist said:

This begs a major question. With Shards being constrained to their Intents, can they be completely good? There's an argument to be made that Harmony had to destroy southern Scadrial, his ruinous aspect demanded it. 

In a lot of ways, Shards, even when being held by good vessels, are constrained, not to the best option, but to that which is the best that they can do. This is a bit of a problem, especially when the option actively does evil

One point I want to hit on here is that the concept of a "best available option," is fundamentally merely a constraint of time and innovation. All that to say that: yes, in a vacuum, isolated from outside interference, attack, or awareness of the actions/Intents of others Shards, I would opine that each and every Shard could/would ultimately act in a way that was, if not exactly benevolent or just, would be widely perceived as "good" in a general sense of the word. There would, of course, be inhabitants contributing information-pollution to their internal spaces who blamed them unfairly/irrationally as a matter of emotional projection, but...this can't be helped...

Quote

...

In a lot of ways, Shards, even when being held by good vessels, are constrained, not to the best option, but to that which is the best that they can do.

...

Now this...this is just absolutely and totally true...

[Light In the Darkness]

These questions have been core themes of a lot of the Cosmere generally. One of the most impactful things in these books, I think, is the concept of what happens when a human acquires God-like status, or becomes a god. The different perspective, the accountability we feel drawn to hold them too, is a major purpose of the books, I think. Not necessarily the massive philosophic questions in their entirety, mind you, but I think Sanderson does want people to wonder about the topic and see the echoes in reality.

On 10/11/2024 at 1:46 PM, Returned said:

• Can an outcome be the best available option without being good? I have found that people, in general, desperately resist this idea. If you have a few choices, all of them abhorrent, but one less so than the others, people often seem to upgrade that choice to being actively good. How do you feel about this? Is the best available (or, perhaps, the least bad) option (however we define that) always, perhaps by definition, good?
• Should a person be ashamed to choose a bad-but-best-available option, because they did a bad thing by acting on that option? Or comfortable because other options were worse? If the latter, can a person be morally comfortable no matter which option they choose, as long as it's not the worst one? Is inaction morally acceptable, particularly in the face of a menu of only bad options?

Please forgive me if I don't articulate this as well as I mean; also "you" refers to a general arbitrary person, not anyone in particular here.

I think these questions are particularly interesting and relevant. I think an outcome can be the best available option without being good, and in that case, the good choice would be the evil act, but the evil act doesn't become good. I think if you are forced into such a situation, you shouldn't be ashamed of the choice, but maybe of the action itself to the extent of it encouraging you to repair the wrong done. I think shame, to the extent that it serves good, would be understandable and justified if a person's previous choices created the situation where they are. They shouldn't take comfort that other options were worse, but that they did the best they can do; I don't think a good person should be comfortable with whatever they choose as long as it wasn't the worst option, in such a situation, especially since that would extend to those where a good one is possible. I think this kind of situation rarely happens IRL; most of the time, there is in fact a good option, but realizing that, at least for me, takes a religious perspective that we are excluding at the moment. Finally, I think inaction should always be considered one of the possible actions, and should be evaluated in that way; inaction that does no evil in the face of options that only do evil, when judged by whatever scale determines evil and good, must by definition be the best available option.

In terms of the consequential framework, I often disagree with it, but IRL I have a religious perspective that allows that rather easily. In-universe, that question is left open-ended, and I think the fact that our feelings about the morality of different things is manipulated slightly by the lens we see the story through is part of the beauty of good story telling, and shows that a character is well-written. I think Sanderson does that really well. I still, of course, disagree with that framework in many instances, but the axis with which to judge actions is more difficult to discern in-universe. We could really only do it by agreeing on value priorities, which would be hard in a thread/forum like this. For example, if we start with "Life is good" and "stagnation is bad," then, by applying knowledge of our world and in-universe, we most likely are forced to admit "death is necessary, and therefore not evil." We probably would want to add "Murder is bad" to our list, but then we must define murder precisely. If we say "Murder is premeditated killing," then we have a host of problems including war, and we might end up with "Wars ought not to be conducted through killing," which is great until we meet someone who disagrees, generally someone who starts wars. Here we get to the balancing of where does "Life is good" start outweighing "Murder is bad"? Or do we need to redefine Murder to include some sense of there being occasional justification for it, meaning it is sometimes good? We could also throw out "stagnation is bad" and assert "death is unnecessary and evil," therefore "killing is bad" and "imprisonment, slavery, and deprivation of freedom are good if the alternative for them was death, because they prolong life," which is controversial at best. So I think perspective and error are possible on this, but I can see why most people would also feel confident in passing such judgments - they rely on a scale based on information from Real Life (TM) that isn't available in the books. So I think answers to question 1 and 2 of the last four are going to be very subjective here.

Personally, with my own perspective, I think sometimes violence is necessary and in those instances, it ends up working for the good of those killed (controversial, I know, but semi-religiously based, so no other explanations there). I think that the evaluation that counts is all of them; such actions would need judgment based on factors we don't know, and so should be left up to someone with those facts. But the situation perceived by each person and the reasoning involved should both contribute to that judgment, IMO. So in the meantime, for those of us trying to make a judgment that can be useful in our own lives based on a fictional story I guess, even if its only use would be these forums, our perceptions and sympathies may very well determine if an action was "right" based on how well it aligns with our idea of right conduct in the situation, which will be heavily influenced by what the story explains. IIRC the seen with Vin includes her going a bit crazy with the violence and regretting it a bit afterward. I think she knew that she probably shouldn't do it beforehand, or at least that she was missing better info, and regrets having done it after, amplified by the lack of her originally assumed justification. Therefore, not only an evil act but an evil choice, if we believe that violence without better justification than she has at the end, is evil - premeditated, to an extent, even, and she is responsible for the evil in her decision. But it's been a bit since I read the first trilogy, so I might be wrong.

For the last question in that post, I think Shards definitely do deserve some slack - we generally give it to Ruin-controlled Marsh, for example, and though the Shards don't have so much deliberate pressure as a vessel enforcing their will on a construct, a vessel is exposed to much more general pressure from them, increasingly strong over time. So I think they deserve more slack than we, as theorizers, sometimes give them.

SA spoilers:

Spoiler

I especially believe this given what we know about the vessels from Hoids letters and their responses in the SA epigraphs. Ati was a good person before picking up Ruin, and that might be why he agreed to "play nice" with Leras and make Scadrial, with increasing desire to destroy. So I think Ati loses some of his identity and stake in this; he didn't want to become what Ruin eventually was, from what we know, so we can pin a lot of that on the Shardic power itself, rather than a moral individual. The only individual to implicate had no power to resist by then.

The inverse happens with Odium; we know he was already not the best person when he took up the Shard of Adonalsiums unadulterated hatred and passion. As a result, we hold a moral individual much more responsible for the actions of Odium - Rayse, the vessel - because though he was probably as powerless against his shard as Ati became or as Harmony is becoming, it seems like to an extent he deliberately accelerated the process, meaning that he chose the actions of his Shard later when he chose what he did at first. So while Ati seems to have taken Ruin intending "I can do good with this power, and most of the others can't/won't," therefore not really choosing his Shard's actions in the end but attempting to temper them, as futile as that would be (he didn't know the futility at the time, nor do most who take up the Shards), Rayse seemed to deliberately take Odium to do what he is doing, which most of us would call evil, thereby becoming culpable for the Shard's later actions - he chose them, initially.

I hope that this has contributed meaningfully!