How much of Sazid is left?

[Firehead13]

So Harmony has been around for what, 300 years now? How much of the Sazid that we know from the original trilogy do you think still exists in there? His whole thing with Wax in Shadows of Self was rough, real rough, and I would like to believe that the Sazid before the shards would have at least given Wax a heads up as to what was coming. I understand that he has the entire world to look after (and hell if I ain't just burning up inside to know what's going on at the south pole), but it seems like it would have been a good idea to let Wax know that there was another god prowling around.

[natc]

. . . that there was another god prowling around seems to be news to Harmony just as much as it was for everyone else.

[Hood he/him]

Harmony is not Sazed as whole. In Shadows of Self, it is indirectly implied that Ruin still influences him. So, you've got Sazed who earlier was Lawful Good, now become Lawful Neutral. That's my opinion. I think this is because, Sazed as simple Terrisman wouldn't have done what he did to Wax, because he himself suffered in Mistborn book 2.

 

Regarding another God. No doubt Harmony is very powerful, because the Cosmere is so big, and full of crafty characters, it is quite reasonable assumption that the new God is a recent "news" to Harmony too.

[Blightsong he/him]

Harmony is not Sazed as whole. In Shadows of Self, it is indirectly implied that Ruin still influences him. So, you've got Sazed who earlier was Lawful Good, now become Lawful Neutral. That's my opinion. I think this is because, Sazed as simple Terrisman wouldn't have done what he did to Wax, because he himself suffered in Mistborn book 2.

 

Regarding another God. No doubt Harmony is very powerful, because the Cosmere is so big, and full of crafty characters, it is quite reasonable assumption that the new God is a recent "news" to Harmony too.

In the original trilogy Sazed was a rebel and a member of a group trying to rob, and eventually overthrew, and empire. On top of that he was doing it against the wishes of the orginazation he was apart of in almost direct violation of their policy to not get involved in these kinds of things. He was definitely chaotic good.

I think he is the same now. Think of what happened from his point of view and with his knowledge. He can see the future and knows what will happen in reaction to what he does, but not perfectly. He probably saw that if Wax didn't return to Elendel, the Set would have done some pretty bad things and he simply weighed the pain Wax would feel when having to kill his spouse and love of his life against the pain of kidnapped women, murdered people, and who knows what else.

When Paalm went rouge, he probably didn't want Wax to have to go through that again, but it is pretty certain that his future sight on Paalm disrupted by the spike. He didn't give Wax a heads up on what was going to happen because he probably didn't know what would happen. Even if he did, maybe telling Wax Paalm was Lessie would have caused countless more deaths because Wax wouldn't be willing to do what needed to be done against better judgement.

Despite my argument, we honestly don't know Sazed's intentions and should probably restrain from jumping to any conclusions before we learn more about his plans before we judge him.

[natc]

That, and I don't see how Ruin influence can just change good to neutral like that. There's nothing evil about Ruin until you straight up try to end everything. Preservation isn't even all that much better of an alternative, he just wasn't trying to kill anyone meanwhile and is too weak to truly enforce utter stagnation, which would be his inevitable end-goal.

If anything Sazed kinda went from Chaotic Good (he is THE meddler from the race that makes an effort to never meddle in things. "His name shall be discord, and they shall love him for it") to Neutral Good, or at least as good as a human will ever get. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for the goodness part on account of his previous motivations as a mortal. But he literally overthrew an empire while the Synod begged him to stop. He's obedient and docile relative to skaa and nobles, but he's probably the least lawful Terrisman alive.

[Kaymyth she/her]

When Paalm went rouge, he probably didn't want Wax to have to go through that again, but it is pretty certain that his future sight on Paalm disrupted by the spike.

 

Actually, it's pretty explicitly stated that he could see the potential futures here, and that he saw a potential disaster if Wax was told about who Paalm was.  He could see a bunch of potential futures, and picked the choices that had the greatest chance of not going to heck in a handbasket.  He was stuck between a choice of telling Wax and watching everything fall apart, or not telling Wax - this saved the day, but also wound up breaking Wax's heart all over again.

[vineyarddawg]

That, and I don't see how Ruin influence can just change good to neutral like that. There's nothing evil about Ruin until you straight up try to end everything. Preservation isn't even all that much better of an alternative, he just wasn't trying to kill anyone meanwhile and is too weak to truly enforce utter stagnation, which would be his inevitable end-goal.

If anything Sazed kinda went from Chaotic Good (he is THE meddler from the race that makes an effort to never meddle in things. "His name shall be discord, and they shall love him for it") to Neutral Good, or at least as good as a human will ever get. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for the goodness part on account of his previous motivations as a mortal. But he literally overthrew an empire while the Synod begged him to stop. He's obedient and docile relative to skaa and nobles, but he's probably the least lawful Terrisman alive.

 

Well, we know that the intent of a shard will eventually bend the holder to its intent, no matter what kind of person the holder originally was. And Sazed holds not just one shard, but two.  And those two shards have intents that seem to be about as opposite as one can get. In addition, the original Ruin and Preservation (Ati and Leras) only managed to coexist on the same planet by achieving a kind of long-term detente.  Add that all up with the fact that Sazed chose "Harmony" as his god-name when he acquired both shards, and it seems to me that the primary driving factor in Sazed's motivations at this point is to keep the two shards "in balance." 

 

To me, that probably means that he can't do anything "too good" or "too bad" to his world.  Any actions his old "chaotic good" self might want to take might be fine with the intent of Preservation, but it would run contrary to the intent of Ruin, so he'd be stalemated into inaction. As a result, Sazed can only "nudge" things in one direction or the other.

 

Maybe it could be said that with regards to the intents of the shards, they have to maintain "true neutral" to remain in harmony.  But Sazed, as a person, would still be "chaotic good."  When you combine the two... well, it's hard to say at this point.  The shards would tend to make Sazed drift towards "true neutral," but he'd probably never actually get there (or, at least, not for a very, very long time). Would that still make him "chaotic good," or does that make him more "chaotic neutral" or "neutral good?"  I don't think any of those labels apply, to be honest.  He's kind of in the middle of all of them at the moment.

[natc]

Why would true neutral be needed to maintain harmony between the two? Neither of his intents have any direct parallel to good and evil. Preservation isn't remotely good, if anything the technological stagnation Rashek created essentially aligned with a will to preserve the status quo. Ruin is a natural phenomenon, just a directly detrimental one, but we all know how necessary it is for things to actually die at some point.

Ruin resists existence, which is generally dangerous, but all things come to an end. Preservation won't try to kill anyone, sure, but it also just stops things from dying outright, stops all change and potential for progress. Look at Sazed's regrets about making Elendel too fertile. If it was Cultivation instead of Ruin living on Scadrial they'd still block each other to some degree, and we'd all have stood on the other side of the conflict.

I'm just frustrated at people trying to say that putting the two together would impact the good/evil axis more than or even equal to the law/chaos one. Either shard dominating a world unhindered would basically only result in multiple ways to be utterly screwed.

[Ari he/him]

So Harmony has been around for what, 300 years now? How much of the Sazid that we know from the original trilogy do you think still exists in there? His whole thing with Wax in Shadows of Self was rough, real rough, and I would like to believe that the Sazid before the shards would have at least given Wax a heads up as to what was coming. I understand that he has the entire world to look after (and hell if I ain't just burning up inside to know what's going on at the south pole), but it seems like it would have been a good idea to let Wax know that there was another god prowling around.

 

It's probably been long enough that Sazed has been affected by holding Preservation and Ruin.

 

That said, I suspect he'll be doing something with Ruin's excess power (Atium, anyone?) so that their influence on him is in balance, as he will likely not want to be pulled too far towards Ruin given his evident philosophy that both Intents are important. I expect a lot of the Sazed we know still exists at this stage, and that he'll be in a better state than most Shards would be after the same amount of time due to holding two Shards with quite neatly opposed intents shielding him from some of the influence.

 

The book is quite clear that Sazed had no idea that Lessie was an agent of "Trell."

Edited October 27, 2015 by Ari

[Stormgate he/him]

Roughly quoting SoS, "The personality your speaking to agrees, but since I am in between two opposing forces, I cannot act on those desires,"

It is not a direct quote, I got it out of my mind, which is extremely fallable, as it is not made of copper.

[KidWayne he/him]

Roughly quoting SoS, "The personality your speaking to agrees, but since I am in between two opposing forces, I cannot act on those desires,"

It is not a direct quote, I got it out of my mind, which is extremely fallable, as it is not made of copper.

To add some clarity to this argument and to augment what Stormgate said, here is Sazed speaking to Wax:

I hold both Ruin and Preservation, Harmony said. The danger in carrying these opposed powers is that I can see both sides -- the need for life, the need for death. I am balance. And, to an extent, I am neutrality.

"But Bleeder used to be one of Your own, and now she's acting against You."

She used to be of Preservation. She has moved to being of Ruin. Both are needed.

"Murderers are needed," Wax said flatly.

Yes. No. The potential for murderers is needed. Waxillium, I -- the personality you speak to -- agree with your indignation. But the powers that I am, the essence of my self, cannot allow me to take sides.

Bold text was emphasized by me.

One more relevant tid bit, we have this WoB:

Reddit AMA 2013 Interview - Apr 15th, 2013

#174 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.)

Edited November 8, 2015 by KidWayne

[KidWayne he/him]

I think that the argument over whether or not Sazed is being influenced is settled in the quote from the book above. He is being affected by the intent of his shards.

I think it's a mistake to frame the question of "how is he being affected?" in terms of good or evil, though. The balancing effect on Sazed is causing him to be neutral in regard to saving and or taking life. Since the subject of morality (i.e. good & evil) has a lot to say over the taking of life (e.g. when it's justified, when it is good, and when it is evil), Sazed's neutrality is going to tie his hands in certain situations when he (that is his "personality") might want to take action. In Shadows of Self, we see Sazed working around the limitations of his neutral intent by choosing agents of Ruin (Wax) & Preservation (the kandra) to ultimately serve the will (or at least the goals) of his personality. Over time, I'm convinced that we will see Sazed slowly lose his ability to work around his neutral intent. I think that will mean less meddling in the affairs of men both directly and indirectly.

The big question remaining in my mind is how does he react when threatened by an outside entity like Trell (whoever that is) or Odium? The only example of neutrality in real life is Switzerland in the World Wars. Here are some interesting facts from history:

• In World War I, Switzerland wanted to remain neutral.
• However, since Switzerland shared borders with two countries allied with the Central Powers and two other countries of the Allies, neutrality proved difficult.
• So, Switzerland maintained armies on its borders and even got involved in a few skirmishes before it became clear that the Allies and the Central Powers would respect Swiss neutrality.
• The number of Swiss troops deployed began to drop only after it was established that everyone involved in the war would refrain from shooting at them.
• In World War II - as a defense against invasion by Germany - Switzerland made a big show of military power. It set up fortifications and mobilized its entire military in only three days. They basically got lucky; the initial show of strength was enough to discourage the Germans.
• Later on, the Germans developed detailed invasion plans against Switzerland. Again, Switzerland got lucky; the Germans never acted on their plans and Switzerland was never attacked.

So Switzerland - the only real-world depiction of neutrality I can think of - doesn't seem like a good parallel to Sazed. It doesn't seem like Trell is going to respect Sazed's neutrality. So what's an entity devoted to balance to do when threatened?

• Fight back; attempt overpower the attacker and enforce balance?
• Get in touch with his inner-Terrisman, submit to the attacker, and try to preserve balance as best he can?
• Attempt to live in harmony with even the most antagonistic/obnoxious divinities?

Really, of all of these options, fighting back seems the least likely and the least in line with Sazed's harmonious intent (even if fighting back is the option I would prefer and the one that I believe Sazed's personality would prefer (based on his actions in bringing down the Final Empire)).

P.S. Sorry about the double post. Each post was so different & lengthy I thought it was best to break them up.

Edited November 8, 2015 by KidWayne

[Wolven he/him]

I think there is still a good sized chunk of Harmony that is still very much Sazed.  The conversation he has with Wax shows that, in my opinion.  

 

He has the influence of both Preservation and Ruin, and no doubt they have changed him, but not so much as he would have if he only had the influence of one or the other.  They don't cancel each other out by any means, but I think they would balance each other, leaving his personality for the most part intact.