The cultures of the new world

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth he/him]

Hi 17 sharders.

Since I have read AoL and SoS I thought about the new society that established after harmonies accession. There are a few things that bug me a little.

1.the terris people:

after reading the scene with grandmother v in the village, I was confused that the terris people are so hostile towards everyone else and promoting almost the same ideals that made rashek kill alendi.

They of all people should know that race doesent define goodness.

They were suppressed bz one of their own for 1000 years.

It seems so odd to me that the people that determined their lives towards restoring and preserving foreign cultures are now so uncooperative.

2. Surviverist nobels and the existence of nobility:

I just don't understand the skaa. While the world was about to drown in ashes they fought against nobility with the resources they could get.

But after they find themselves in a world restored just as their idole kelsier promised and a world where the nobles had no material advantage anymore theu decide to just obey them again??

An then theres nobles that believe in the survivor who had to be convinced bu vin to at least not just kill them all.

Overall it seems strange to me how little the society of the new world has changed despite the access to the words of founding.

Now I would like to know how zou feel about those points.

Do you think the new society is fitting its world?

What did you expect to come after the final accession?

(Sorry for the bad English)

[Stormgate he/him]

People don't like change, by and large. Elend gave the people a democratic monarchy, and about a year later were willing to give it up at the drop of a hat. There are individuals who crave change, and those individuals are rarely those who are influential enough to make those changes happen. In the rare cases (like Kelsier) that they are, they have to work very hard for lasting change, which is only possible over decades of work.

[natc]

Unlike with Rashek and Alendi, racism is arguably well-grounded in this era. If anything Rashek became living justification. Strong Terris blood means strong feruchemical blood, and strong noble/skaa blood means strong allomantic blood.

You can see the results in Wax already. Fullborn like Rashek will probably never happen, but in the absence of mistborn, twinborn are the most powerful existences in Elendel. I'd argue even with mistborn around twinborn can still be contenders for relatively large threats.

And then there are the rare few born as compounders. Miles was really only the tip of the iceberg; he might be unkillable, but at least his powers can't kill you in retaliation, and Allomantic gold is pretty unthreatening. But an iron compounder who can basically pull anything and outweigh anything? Or a steel one, all the lethality of a coinshot while being basically untouchable. Just one can easily collapse part of civilization if left unchecked. How would one actually hurt a guy who is in infinite bullet time? He can probably dodge every bullet you shoot at him, go grab a broadsheet from the stand two blocks away to read later, then come back and kill you while you were still reacting to your missed shots.

[king of nowhere]

1) The terris also are the only people with any sense of cultural identity, and that can easily turn into xenophoby. Especially since they have always been a close society, since they had to protect themselves during the final empire.

As for the fact  that they were oppressed by one of their own, that hardly matters. In a xenophobic culture, when "one of us" does something bad, then he's just an isolated case, he was a bad alloy, and anyway he probably had some good reasons for it; while when "one of them" does something bad, it's because they are not like us, they are savages, they cannot be trusted.

Also, people who are persecuted are the most likely to also oppress others when they are in charge. A big example? America was largely populated by people fleeing from religious persecutions and governmental tiranny; and look at how they treated natives, blacks and mexicans...

 

2) Yeah, most people don't want change. they may resent those who are in charge, but they often just want to take their role. Other times they just don't know what to do when the tyrants is defeated. Everybody knows that in ancient rome slaves occasionally made rebellions. Less known is that when those slaves conquered lands and formed governments of their own, they didn't outlaw slavery. they simply took other people as slaves. most of them weren't opposed to slavery, they merely wanted someone else to be the slave.

Italy also have a long history of making revolutions that change little; when the fascist regime was defeated, mussolini and his main henchmen were killed or jailed, but most people in the public administration kept their place. After all, you need someone who knows how to run a nation. And in the nineties, when the "clean hands" and "tangentopolis" corruption scandals wiped out all the main political parties of the time, the old politicians (except those few who could actually be convicted, but they were a scant minority) simply made new parties and kept being in charge. The most notable exceptions was a guy who got elected in a landslide by denouncing the corruption of the other parties and promising to reform italy. His name was berlusconi, I'm sure you heard of him.

 

So, it's a bit dishearening, but fairly realistic actually.

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth he/him]

I can understand all your points.

And I would have expected this outcome if the events in WoA and HoA wouldn't have taken place at it was just society living on after the defeat of the lord ruler.

But that a complete reset of the world with spook and ham would change so little disappoints me. At least I would have expected new groups of interest to form here.

Seems like proof that scadrians are indeed of preservation.

That's why im looking forward to see more of the roughs.(are there nobles in the roughs).

And I hope we see how the koloss live now, and what will happen to them when scadrial gets more and more modern.

And especially the southern continent.

[Stormgate he/him]

If Wax is any indicator, there is a mild chance of nobles in the Roughs. Mild.

[Angsos]

Spook as the lord mistborn probably did try change and it probably worked for him but charismatic leaders die. Look at all the historical empires that fell apart as soon as Alexander the Great, Charlamagne, etc. died. Spooks vision probably died with him, especially his enemies didn't have a duralimin-fueled thug or anything else to deal with and Sazed's heavy preservation hand probably didn't help.

[DeadFencer]

Here's a theory: maybe the alloy-era nobles aren't actually the old nobles. Like was said, there's no reason for the skaa to keep following them after the Catacendre. Obviously those in the old crew could become nobles, but there's no house hammondar. Maybe they reduced the old nobles to normal status, then took their old names to keep some of the old world in the new. We know noble houses have seats in the Senate. Maybe those seats were given to those new nobles who took the names of the old.

[natc]

Well Tekiel already existed, as did presumably Ladrian as Breeze was pure blooded (noble spouse too). Beldre was raised in nobility too IIRC, though presumably if Spook's children didn't take new names immediately to start their own houses they'd probably take their father's . . . whatever Lestibournes came up with.

I'm sure starting new houses is possible too, but as I understand it everyone in nobility right now still has noble blood. With how big of a deal in progressiveness Aradel was they most definitely have kept track.

[king of nowhere]

It doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. After all, ruling a community, even a small one, require making sure that there is someone doing the stuff that needs doing, and keeping everyone pointed in the same direction, and those tasks are not trivial, they require experience. They require someone who was trained for it. And the only people who had some training to govern, in the final empire, were the nobles. Kelsier's crew was not up to the task; they knew how to bomb the trains, not how to make them run on time.

So I assume, when spook was made a leader by virtue of the people being with him, he asked for the help of somebody who actually knew how to make the trains run on time, and the only people with that skill were the nobles. We have seen from books 2 and 3 that many nobles were actually decent people, so I assume spook would have disqualified those with a clear record of cruelty or dishonesty but would have given the others positions of power in the administration.

After that, even if the new society is formally a meritocracy, without a solid education system the only person who can teach you a job is your father, and that guaranteed that the nobles remained the only people qualified to rule. And that can explain how the old nobility could remain at the top of society.

[natc]

To be fair, people good at dismantling the system would make good consultants for advice.

Definitely not for running the place though, indeed.