kalamitous_emoashions he/him Posted October 17, 2024 Posted October 17, 2024 Hi All, Back from a bit of a hiatus, and on a re-read I have noticed an interesting passage in Way of Kings. I apologize if this has been noted before, but I couldn't see anything in the search bar. It won't let me attach a picture, but in the 2024 UK published edition of Way of Kings (I gave my original to a friend who moved to Australia...) there is the following interaction between Syl and Kaladin on page 287: Kal: 'I hadn't expected there to be so much discord among the camps here. I thought it would all be one King's army, unified' Syl: 'People are discord' Kal: 'What does that mean?' Syl: 'You all act differently and think differently. nothing else is like that - animals of one species act alike, and all spren of each type are, in a sense, virtually the same individual. There's harmony in that. But not in you - it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is suppose to, except for humans. Maybe that's why you so often want to kill each other. I find it very difficult to believe the use of the words discord and harmony in such close proximity are a co-incidence. I will admit that my life has got in the way of Cosmere theorizing in the past few years, and I am now an old man. So I am looking for help here. But what I read this as given: Shallan's Ward While Sazed holds Preservation and Ruin, could his intent change from Harmony to Discord? Brandon Sanderson It is possible Is that the more Sazed cling to his human nature, the more likelihood we have of him changing to Discord is. Human nature is antithesis to Harmony, and given the uniquely human experiences Sazed went through, I find it tough to believe we won't see the shard of Discord come to fruition in later books. Please - theorize away, and give me your best thoughts. 4
The Sovereign Posted October 17, 2024 Posted October 17, 2024 33 minutes ago, kalamitous_emoashions said: Human nature is antithesis to Harmony, and given the uniquely human experiences Sazed went through, I find it tough to believe we won't see the shard of Discord come to fruition in later books. While the Vessel will have some effect on the Power I think it is fairly negligible in the context of changing the Intent. The Power changing the Vessel is far more likely. Regarding the Harmony/Discord duality, there are a couple of things to consider; First, Preservation and Ruin are essentially opposite powers which by their nature are difficult to keep in Harmony. Second, while Sazed is the whole of both Preservation and Ruin his Ascension did not change that a chunk of Preservation's power is in the people of Scardrial. In practice this makes Ruin stronger than Preservation. This imbalance is what will most likely will tip the scale into Discord. A couple of relevent WOBs: Quote Questioner Is there a significance between Harmony and Discord being musical terms? And would they be considered different Investiture tones? Brandon Sanderson Yes and no. So what's going on here is that... it is significant, I chose those two terms very specifically. Not gonna tell you a lot about Discord or things like that, but the idea is that idea of Harmony is in... the sounds are in harmony, they are working together. In Discord they are not. I wouldn't call them Investiture tones, more the way the two tones are responding to each other. JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021) Quote rags How is Harmony balanced when a part of Preservation's power is expended on human sentience? Isn't that what caused all the trouble to begin with? Brandon Sanderson Indeed. Hm... What could Sazed be doing with that extra power... 17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012) 1
Returned he/him Posted October 17, 2024 Posted October 17, 2024 I like the angle! It does seem that humanity and holding a Shard simply don't work together very well. I don't think that the juxtaposition of harmony and discord is the strong part of the evidence (they're antonyms, and Syl is specifically drawing a contrast), but the distinction between humans and everything else seems important. The Shards seem like they would exist whether or not humans do, but Shard-Vessel friction seems like one of the main drivers of imbalance in a lot of the books with Vessels we've seen up close.
kalamitous_emoashions he/him Posted October 17, 2024 Author Posted October 17, 2024 @The Sovereign quick thought based on your second WOB in regards to what Sazed could be doing with the extra power from ruin. Harmonium could be considered an alloy of Atium and Lerasium - but alloys don't have to be 50/50. Do we think, given the reactive and destructive nature of Harmonium, that his god metal is, for instance, 90% ruin and 10% preservation? That could explain the utilization of the extra power. 1
Dofurion Posted October 17, 2024 Posted October 17, 2024 1 hour ago, kalamitous_emoashions said: Harmonium could be considered an alloy of Atium and Lerasium A quick note, Ettmetal is not an alloy but an element in itself. 3
The Sovereign Posted October 18, 2024 Posted October 18, 2024 15 hours ago, kalamitous_emoashions said: @The Sovereign quick thought based on your second WOB in regards to what Sazed could be doing with the extra power from ruin. Harmonium could be considered an alloy of Atium and Lerasium - but alloys don't have to be 50/50. Do we think, given the reactive and destructive nature of Harmonium, that his god metal is, for instance, 90% ruin and 10% preservation? That could explain the utilization of the extra power. In concept this a good idea, but I do not think it works this way in practice. As @Dofurion correctly stated, Harmonium is not an Alloy, it is a "naturally" occurring element of its own. Another thing to consider; Sazed does not make it consciously, it is just a biproduct of his Power in the physical realm. The instability is very likely just a physical representation of the opposed dual nature of his power rather than an actual imbalance. 2
Vandero Posted October 18, 2024 Posted October 18, 2024 To remain Harmony the Vessel would have to give up affecting reality in meaningful ways. Sazed actively struggles against that. So instead of toning down each other the two component Shards will be able to act through Discord, being able to act, but the other half putting a twist in every action.
Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him Posted October 25, 2024 Posted October 25, 2024 On 10/18/2024 at 8:09 AM, Vandero said: To remain Harmony the Vessel would have to give up affecting reality in meaningful ways. Sazed actively struggles against that. So instead of toning down each other the two component Shards will be able to act through Discord, being able to act, but the other half putting a twist in every action. I disagree with that personally based on WoB and my own thoughts He is Harmony as long as the two Shards are working together. Ruining to Preserve, Perserving to Ruin. He risks Discord if they get out of harmony, or that he starts to try and Preserve more than Ruin, etc I think.
Returned he/him Posted October 25, 2024 Posted October 25, 2024 On 10/17/2024 at 2:11 PM, The Sovereign said: While the Vessel will have some effect on the Power I think it is fairly negligible in the context of changing the Intent. The Power changing the Vessel is far more likely. How do you consider Ati's effect on Ruin in this model? It was stated pretty clearly in a WoB (I think I recall this, at least) that Ati's influence caused Ruin to be more like entropy than wanton destruction. Ruin's influence on Ati is undeniable, but would you consider the channeling of the epistemological concept of ruin into entropy to be a negligible effect? Obviously we'd have to assume quite a bit about what other expressions might be possible to answer this, but I'm curious about your thoughts. As for the rest of the ideas expressed upthread, I'm already on record as thinking that by era 2 Sazed has already failed in causing his combined Shard to be "Harmony" as he wished at the end of era 1. The name has stuck around but is no longer an appropriate description and hasn't been for a long time. I won't subject everyone to a rehash of the rationale here, but the general idea is that Shards' influence on the worlds they inhabit is profound and pervasive, that Sazed's need to act through agents on Scadrial both represents and exacerbates his inability to be harmonious, and that changes in Sazed himself (as we see them, at least) strongly suggest that he is both failing in his ambitions towards harmony and that he is aware of those failures. The middle point is pretty relevant to this thread topic. If it is true that Harmony requires agents more than other Shards due to his dual nature making direct action difficult (as opposed to Shards like Rayse-as-Odium, who simply preferred working through agents to risking damage to himself), could the fractiousness of those agents have some direct influence on the nature of the Shard Harmony itself? 2
alder24 Posted October 26, 2024 Posted October 26, 2024 16 hours ago, Returned said: How do you consider Ati's effect on Ruin in this model? It was stated pretty clearly in a WoB (I think I recall this, at least) that Ati's influence caused Ruin to be more like entropy than wanton destruction WoB: Spoiler Alvaro Lopez Why Odium is stronger and worst evil than Ruin? Brandon Sanderson One reason is that Ruin had a person in control of it who, for many years, fought against the impulse to destroy--and in the end, channeled it toward entropy and decay, necessary elements of the universe. Odium represents something else entirely. General Twitter 2018 (June 6, 2018) And yes, the Vessel does have a non-negligible influence over their Shard’s intent and it's interpretation: Spoiler Necarion Do Vessels have any flexibility in expressing the intent of a Shard, particularly if the intent is open to many interpretations? Brandon Sanderson Yes they do. So, the Vessel's mind and how they perceive is going to have a large influence on how things are expressed and I think all of them have some wiggle room. But there are some deterministic things that are also going to push them. You know, holding Ruin, Harmony may not go down the same path that happened to Ati. Necarion So Sadeas would express Honor differently than Tanavast? Brandon Sanderson Yes he would. Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016) Spoiler [...] yulerule Is there any connection with the thought that it's not Hatred? Because in Oathbringer, he says he's Passion? Brandon Sanderson He would claim that he's Passion and not Odium. But that is part of why I chose it. Hatred felt too on-the-nose, because there is quite arguably that step toward just being all Passion, and that's what he claims that he is. yulerule His own perception of himself, can perception, in the cosmere, can that influence? Brandon Sanderson Yes, it can influence. yulerule So the Shard's Intent can-- Brandon Sanderson Can be influenced by their perception and the holder's, yes. JordanCon 2018 (April 20, 2018) 2
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