[Theory] Threnody's Evil was "just" Ruin

[Yata he/him]

As always I will begin with a short version of the Theory. Then I put the meaningfull fact and the extended version.

The theory has some spoiler from Shadow for Silence in the Forest of Hell and Mistborn Era 1.

 

Short version:

The Evil that killed everyone in Threnody's Homeland was the Shard Ruin (held by Ati).

 

Relevant point:

- Shadow for Silence novel take place between Mistborn Era 1 novels and Stormlight Archive.

- there is a WoB about the Evil to be related to Ruin

- Threnody and Scadrial have the same "star pattern" visible (the Starbelt).

- Threnody seems to have a Invested's Silver.

- Threnody is a minor Shardworld and therefore there isn't any Shard on the planet.

 

 

Extended Version:

The first point to make clear about my Theory is that I suppose that Scadrial and Threnody are in the same Solar System. We may speculate this from the "Starbelt" visible from both the Planet and the Invested Metal.

Of course Threnody is a Minor Shardworld and this meaning that any Shard that came on it had no resistence at all(it's relevant for future points).

I think that what happened on Threnody is the result of the Ruin's year-of-freedom between the Well of Ascension and his death at the end of Hero of Ages.

Ruin's intent was about destroy everything. His quest on Scadrial in the book was to find a portion of his former power to overpowered Preservation and shout down Scadrial.

It must be stressfull to him. Be on a planet and be stopped by Preservation everytime.

 

Therefore he focus his attension on Threnody a planet close enough to may extend his influence on him while he was heavy invested in Scadrial.

On Threnody he begin his destruction and the people call him the Evil.

At that time Leras was quite mindless and mechanicaly stopped all the effort of Ruin on Scadrial. But I suppose that he was not so flessible to try to stop Ruin in Threnody (Ruin was probably stopped when Leras died and Kelsier take his place).

 

But if Ruin was without Preservation, why didn't he simply destroy Threnody in a moment? 

Because He can't, he was Heavy invested on Scadrial and if he Invested his power on Threnody, Preservation may overpowered him. Therefore he put together a "calamity" that kill everyone that didn't escape from the Homeland.

The exile arrived to the Forest, found the Shades that are part of the Threnody's Natural-Investiture (not create by Ruin) and began to build a new life here.Without know that the Evil was gone.

After the Harmony's birth, he may send a help to the Threnody people and give to the Threnody's Silver an ability to Preserve aganist the Shades.

The last part may be a willing choise of Harmony or a simple mix of Threnody Natural Investiture and the Influence of Ruin&Preservation Investiture through the Metal-focus of Scadrial (also the Simple Rules seems to be relate to Entropyc's Ruin).

We know that the people comes to the Forest of Hell something like 3 generation ago because the Silence's Grandmother is among the first to arrive to the Forest. And we know that the novel take place in the 300 years between the HoA and tWotK. Therefore also the time are quite possible.

 

Well this is my theory, good reading

[Ugouka he/him]

I liked your theory as I was reading it, and the timeframes and everything do fit, so I dug around a bit and did some looking. A few quotes I found seem to sort of debunk it...maybe not entirely, as there are some liberties and unknowns when dealing with shards.

 

1)

Windrunner17: Threnody and Scadrial are both noted as having unusally bright patches of stars in their skies. Are these two planets near to one another?

BS: They are both seeing the same thing, yes. […] [These bright patches are] visible from other worlds as well. The cosmere is a relatively small place (on a galactic scale, that is.) We’ll publish the star map when that becomes relevant in a decade or so.

 

So, while yes, they are seeing the same thing, I doubt that really means they are in the same solar system. The Cosmere is in a dwarf galaxy, with everything being fairly localized. This coupled with the fact that there isn't really much interfering with being able to see the stars (Post-Ash), means that most of the planets would indeed see the star belt. I DO imagine that if they aren't in the same system, they are close, though.

 

2) From the Coppermind: "It is difficult to ascertain precisely what the Evil is and what it did. What is known for certain is that it is not a full Shard.^[2] It certainly seems to have caused widespread death and destruction.^[1] It is apparently dangerous enough to cause an entire population to abandon their original continent and flee to the Forests of Hell, a place they once considered to be realm of the damned. The possibility remains that it is a Splinter of sort, but that seems unlikely. It has something to do with the same natural magic of the cosmere and the cognitive shadows that have to do with the shades."

 

This shows us it isn't Ruin. It could indeed be a splinter of Ruin, but I have a hunch Sanderson was trying to show off some native magic. He seems to be really interested in showing us some non-shard magic, and I'm guessing this is him showing us that non-shard magic can actually get pretty beefy.

 

I like your theory, but I'm not sure it's plausible unless some WoB's change. Also, I'd like to see that WoB you were talking about if you're able to find it again. I'm terrible at finding them.

[Moogle]

I don't agree that Ruin would spend power on this. The thing with Ruin and Preservation was that any power imbalance would cause one Shard to win eventually. I don't see a reason for Ruin to get ahead of himself and kill people on Threnody before he wins on Scadrial.

 

Speaking of, I don't think killing that many people is possible with a single Splinter. Syl isn't particularly dangerous, nor is any single Returned, and while the Unmade seem very powerful I also don't think one of them alone could ruin this "Homeland". The power requirements just seem too big for Ruin to have done it.

[Ugouka he/him]

While I agree with most of what Moogle is saying, I'd just like to point out that a splinter could be that destructive. It just needs to be given enough juice. Keep in mind the 16 are splinters themselves. As Syl said, she is just a tiny, tiny piece of a god. But yeah. Ruin doing it is pretty much out of the question. Even with a mindless Preservation, I'm sure the power would just passively stop Ruin from doing anything crazy like that. It would be entertaining, just not likely.

[Yata he/him]

My point was about the Fact that a Mindless Preservation didn't anything other than Stop any attemp from Ruin to destroy Scadrial. And therefore I suppose that when Leras died Ruin had to stop because the new holder (Kelsier) may act in a more flexible way.

[Topaz]

I liked your theory as I was reading it, and the timeframes and everything do fit, so I dug around a bit and did some looking. A few quotes I found seem to sort of debunk it...maybe not entirely, as there are some liberties and unknowns when dealing with shards.

 

1)

Windrunner17: [These bright patches are] visible from other worlds as well. The cosmere is a relatively small place (on a galactic scale, that is.) We’ll publish the star map when that becomes relevant in a decade or so.

 .

I like the theory. The timeline lines up, but I chose to quote this, not because it hurts the theory, but because I can't wait "a decade or so"

[Yata he/him]

This morning I was thinking about the "not full shard" and it may be that Ruin had simply send something/someone to Homeland. Some Hemalurgyc's contruct, maybe Koloss. or a cuple of lesser Inquisitor. A single agent may build a little army with the Hemalurgy if he is power enough to don't risk to be killed by the popolation.

[echaozh he/him]

Speaking of a same solar system, I think the world in the sixth of dusk may be in the same solar system as Scadrial, as the Coppermind says it happens "Just prior to the era of the forthcoming sci-fi Mistborn trilogy". The Scadrielians will start from their own system with their space travel right?

[Haelbarde he/him]

Now, I don't know how this fits with timing and the such like, but could it have happened post-Era 1? As in, we know Sazed is channelling the excess Ruin Investiture somewhere. Could it be Threnody?

[VirtuousTraveller he/him]

Now, I don't know how this fits with timing and the such like, but could it have happened post-Era 1? As in, we know Sazed is channelling the excess Ruin Investiture somewhere. Could it be Threnody?

 

This idea I like.  There's a thread on here somewhere about "Rust" (of the Era 2 curse, "Rust and Ruin!") being the piece of Ruin that Sazed had to remove from Harmony to be able to balance out (as Preservation exists in all humans, making the two shards unbalanced).  The idea of Rust (similar idea to Corruption) would fit with what sounds like happened to Threnody, and I can imagine Sazed sending it there to keep it's influence away being (in his eyes) a decent choice for the preservation of Scadrial.

 

We know there's a connection between Scadrial and Threnody, as they appear close to one another in the Cognitive Realm, not just in physical space.

 

I look forward to seeing the outcome of this great "Rust" mystery!

[Yata he/him]

When I wrote this theory some books didn't exist yet.

 

Now there is a great problem to this theory.

Spoiler from Mistborn Secret History:

In SH we saw Nazh and he already knows of Shade. This mean that the people has already run away from Homeland to the Forest of Hell.

Of course this happen before Sazed took the powers becoming Harmony.

The same problem come with my previous main idea... the time isn't right for Ruin to be the cause of The Evil.

[Yata he/him]

The Theory is officially dead...We have the official confirmation of different solar systems for Scadrial and Therenody

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Yata