Rampant speculation about Trell

[Lightning he/him]

Okay, so I'm not convinced that Trell is Autonomy.  My theory is that Trell is Rust, a being who was created by Ruin (hence the common phrase "Rust and Ruin").  Here are some ideas to back this up:

 

• Trell has great knowledge and skill with hemalurgy.
• The Trellic spikes seem to be "rusted".
• Brandon said that the new shardic influence is well-known.  That makes sense if the influence is from Ruin!

Thoughts?  Up-votes?  Spiked cookies?

[Khyrindor he/him]

I remember a quote recently that said something along the lines of "Pay attention to 'Rust and Ruin'" but I can't find it on the database. You might be on to something

[Voidus]

Well Ruins metal is known and I don't think there's any way Harmony wouldn't be able to tell if there was a spare bit of Ruin going around causing havok. 

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I originally thought this was a possibility (and sort of still do) but there's too many unknowns flying around for me to fully jump aboard. 

 

I could jump on the thought that Rust (or perhaps Discord) was a partially melded bit of Ruin and Preservation (this would also suit a well-known/loved cognitive individual) but was more Ruin than Preservation but we still don't quite know what directing a Shard's power, even if temporarily, actually does i.e is Kelsier technically a bit more invested with/marked as more Preservation. It is possible he also gained knowledge of Hemalurgy this way. 

 

As i said, there's way too many ifs/buts/possiblies for any of the Trell candidates and any evidence can easily be used to support any of them but I do like your idea ^^

[King's Twit he/him]

I know in my heart that Trell/Rust is Kelsier, it's just a gut feeling that won't go away until its either proven true or Bavadin finally makes an appearance to crush it.

 

I think that (on top of other pieces of evidence that I won't get into here) it just fits too well into the "trust" theme that was central to the original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the Wax and Wayne Era as well (Wax trusted Miles to protect the roughs, Wax trusted Harmony during the Bleeder hunt). I think that 'trust being broken' is a central idea to this quadrilogy, and that would fit well with the extra piece of Ruin's power being given by Harmony to Kelsier because Sazed trusted him, only to have that trust betrayed when Kelsier begins to use the power to undermine and attack Harmony.

 

I think that if the power of Rust was severed completely from Ruin, basically turned into a minor Shard which was bestowed on Kelsier, then the power of Ruin may not recognize the condensed power of Rust (the trellium spike). The only piece of evidence we have that Harmony should be able to recognize anything of Scadrial, Ruin, or Preservation (unless there is a WoB about this) comes from Harmony himself, and from his first few moments of godhood when he created the Words of Founding. He said himself that his mind was still in the process of expanding at the time, so I do not think that we should trust the Words of Founding as an infallible source for information, especially for information about how Shards work.

 

But that's just my two cents. Hopefully we'll find out in a few days who Trell really is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be something saved for The Lost Metal (unless it's the end-of-the-book big reveal/cliffhanger like "I AM FREE").

Edited January 22, 2016 by King's Twit

[PallonianFire he/him]

Definitely an intriguing idea here. But the conversation between Wax and Sazed points to Trell/the new Shardic force being extraplanetary, what with the red haze coming at Scadrial and being held back by Sazed.

[StormyAngel he/him]

Also, Kelsier is all about surviving, and killing off every person on the planet (like the red-eyes said was the goal at the end) is too contradictory to that. It would fly in the face of everything he's done before, and for pretty much no reason

[Ari he/him]

Okay, so I'm not convinced that Trell is Autonomy.  My theory is that Trell is Rust, a being who was created by Ruin (hence the common phrase "Rust and Ruin").  Here are some ideas to back this up:

 

• Trell has great knowledge and skill with hemalurgy.
• The Trellic spikes seem to be "rusted".
• Brandon said that the new shardic influence is well-known.  That makes sense if the influence is from Ruin!

Thoughts?  Up-votes?  Spiked cookies?

 

The red-eyed individual we see at the end of Bands would seem to suggest that Trell is definitely from another world.

 

I've revised my opinion from Shadows slightly, and now I'm leaning in the direction that Trell is actually a name for an alliance between Autonomy and Odium, using Odium's voidbringers and Bavadinium spikes on Scadrial, but we may see some more of what's going on in The Lost Metal.

[Landis963 he/him]

Secret History spoilers:

Well, we do see a group of rogue Elantrians calling themselves the "Ire" (Aonic for "time"). That old theory that "Trellium" is actually soulstone might have gotten a shot in the arm. Although that doesn't explain the red thing that's distracting Harmony.

[EdroGrimshell]

Red is commonly associated with Odium, especially red eyes as shown with the Parshendi entering their Storm Form. It's a common theme that makes me think that Odium is involved, rather than Autonomy or another shard or portion of a shard, like Rust.

Edited January 29, 2016 by EdroGrimshell

[Ari he/him]

Red is commonly associated with Odium, especially red eyes as shown with the Parshendi entering their Storm Form. It's a common theme that makes me think that Odium is involved, rather than Autonomy or another shard or portion of a shard, like Rust.

 

Yeah, I think it's pretty undeniable that Voidbringers are involved with Trell now. (That doesn't necessarily mean that Trell is Odium, but it probably does mean that at the least, it's someone a Voidbringer could reasonably assist, perhaps an ally of Odium... )

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

There is a WoB from one of the SoS signings about Red appearing before or during as a precursor to bad things

[Charononus]

I'm still 100% convinced that Trell is Odium.  It just fits better imo with the works I've read.

[KnightGradient]

The red-eyed individual we see at the end of Bands would seem to suggest that Trell is definitely from another world.

 

I've revised my opinion from Shadows slightly, and now I'm leaning in the direction that Trell is actually a name for an alliance between Autonomy and Odium, using Odium's voidbringers and Bavadinium spikes on Scadrial, but we may see some more of what's going on in The Lost Metal.

I don't think that's likely, if only because Autonomy wouldn't fancy the idea of working with someone. Having somebody work with him is directly against his Intent. Just putting my 2 cents in.

[Rickster]

Crazy idea

Trell = Kelsier

He's held the power of Preservation but was always more of ruin and hasld ascended. He's been spiked and had potentially grown more influenced by Ruin's power over the centuries. He's always tried to do the right thing but not necessarily the right way which seems to fit with how the Set operates. Trell was a religion Saze proposed to Kelsier that he thought would really fit him.

[Viridian she/her]

Crazy idea

Trell = Kelsier

He's held the power of Preservation but was always more of ruin and hasld ascended. He's been spiked and had potentially grown more influenced by Ruin's power over the centuries. He's always tried to do the right thing but not necessarily the right way which seems to fit with how the Set operates. Trell was a religion Saze proposed to Kelsier that he thought would really fit him.

I've been thinking about how the religion was described by Sazed: based on two brothers, one jealous of the other, one rules the day and the other the night. One brother has only one eye.

Also, when Bloody Tan talks about Trell in AoL, he mentions in the same breath that he's met both Death and the Survivor.

Not sure how to fit all the pieces together, but Kelsier is certainly part of it, even if just by coincidence. Maybe he arbitrarily remembered Trelagism from Sazed and used it to gain influence in the south, and later it all spiraled out of his control.

There's also the WoB that "who Trell is and what happened is a matter of some interest in the cosmere and amusement to me" (that was from last month's Orem signing).

[Eldritch he/him]

Personally, even if it is a shard, I don't think that Trell is going to be Odium.  For starters, pretty sure there's a WoB that Odium is supposed to be quite scared of Harmony, with the whole holding two shards thing.  Also I agree with the idea that if it were another shard, it's origins would be more obvious to Harmony, whereas his uncertainty would suggest it's something else.  Has there ever been WoB about any other individuals with a level of power similar to that of a shard? Other than the sixteen obviously.

[Charononus]

Personally, even if it is a shard, I don't think that Trell is going to be Odium.  For starters, pretty sure there's a WoB that Odium is supposed to be quite scared of Harmony, with the whole holding two shards thing.  Also I agree with the idea that if it were another shard, it's origins would be more obvious to Harmony, whereas his uncertainty would suggest it's something else.  Has there ever been WoB about any other individuals with a level of power similar to that of a shard? Other than the sixteen obviously.

See I don't agree with the it's not Odium because he's scared reasoning.  He might not want a direct confrontation,  as that would be kind of foolish.  But what we're seeing isn't a direct confrontation.  It's a death of a thousand cuts from pawns and feints.  Odium to accomplish his plans needs to confront Sazed regardless of his fear.   

On a goofy note,  don't forget the words of Master Yoda,  "Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering."

 

Odium is hatred.

 

[emailanimal he/him]

Let us not forget that Sazed holds Ruin and possesses Ruin's knowledge. If Ruin ever created this "Rust", Sazed would know.  We have two books worth of evidence that Sazed is clueless. To me this rules out any "Rust is a part of Ruin" theory.  

 

In my opinion, the *original* Trell religion appears to have originated from Taldain. Don't want to go off on spoiling White Sand, but the structure of the world (Dayside and Darkside) should by now not be a spoiler.  There is a somewhat more spoilery observation about the Darksiders that correlates with "they are good at math and can build maps of the sky" piece of knowledge we get from the original trilogy. 

 

As for the current Trell - I feel like the name has been coopted by something. There is no evidence of the "good brother night, bad brother sun", mapmaking, etc... in any of the Trell references in Wax and Wayne books. The only thing that may look similar is the desire for advanced technology.   

[Lerson]

I have a fairly lengthy theory about how Odium shatters Shards, and this ties into Autonomy being Trell. So rather than typing it all out, I'll just throw in my 'quick' two cents here. Firstly, we have WoB that Odium is terrified of Sazed. I think there's more to this than people immediately give credence to- we know that Odium splintered Devotion and Dominion, right? Given that they were both on Sel, he can apparently take on two Shards at once, so why is Harmony so scary? Especially given that Sazed apparently finds it difficult to act due to his opposing Shards. This, I think, suggests that it's not the raw power of the Shards that Odium finds scary.

 

Rather, my theory is that in some way the intent of a Shard can be 'imposed' upon another in some fashion, and if the intents are not congruent it forces one of the Shards (I'd guess the more-invested one?) to splinter. So Devotion is obviously incompatible with the sheer loathing of Odium, and from what we understand of Dominion and Dominion's relationship with Devotion I suspect that Dominion was expressed in a benevolent way that was also incompatible with Odium.

 

This ties into Odium, Autonomy and Trell because Odium very likely can't really do anything to Sazed. Sazed is Harmony, a balance between destruction and preservation, and impressing hatred into that would be fine, I imagine, as the destructive part would just take on a less pragmatic viewpoint and simply turn into hate. It'd still be balanced.

 

This is where Autonomy comes in. Why is Odium working with another Shard, anyways? He wants to be the strongest shard, right? Well, I suspect that working with Autonomy is his first step in defeating Harmony- after all, what better way to deal with the Shard that's two Shards than to send the Shard whose intent directly involves working independently at him?

Edited January 31, 2016 by Lerson

[Ari he/him]

Yeah Rust is a non-starter for obvious reasons. Sazed has explicitly said he does not understand the god metal located or the attack he's under. That rules out anything related to Ruin or Preservation. for sure, and suggests that if it is a Shard, they've done some innovating since Ati or Leras last spied on them. (Which would have been some time ago, as Leras was mostly brain-dead by the end of M:FE, and Ati was imprisoned until the end of M:WoA, and then rather focused on ending Scadrial)

 

I don't think that's likely, if only because Autonomy wouldn't fancy the idea of working with someone. Having somebody work with him is directly against his Intent. Just putting my 2 cents in.

 

Autonomy is not wanting to be controlled by someone else, and to be capable of independence. It doesn't prevent free association or choosing to take assistance, otherwise everyone on Taldain would be isolated from each other lest they interfere with each other's plans. I think if you don't see Odium working together with Autonomy, there's the interesting coincidence of him Splintering Skai as well as Devotion when he visited Sel to explain, when they seem to be the chief opposition to each of those Shards. It's entirely possible they each see each other as transitory allies, with similar goals for now, that will come into conflict once Autonomy sees all of the oppressive Shards eliminated.

 

Personally, even if it is a shard, I don't think that Trell is going to be Odium.  For starters, pretty sure there's a WoB that Odium is supposed to be quite scared of Harmony, with the whole holding two shards thing.  Also I agree with the idea that if it were another shard, it's origins would be more obvious to Harmony, whereas his uncertainty would suggest it's something else.  Has there ever been WoB about any other individuals with a level of power similar to that of a shard? Other than the sixteen obviously.

 

Odium is scared of Harmony. But he also seems to have been doing pretty well at eliminating his potential competitors. I'd think being scared of Harmony would bump him up the list of targets dramatically, and Odium would at the least want to keep him distracted.

[Pathfinder]

I know in my heart that Trell/Rust is Kelsier, it's just a gut feeling that won't go away until its either proven true or Bavadin finally makes an appearance to crush it.

 

I think that (on top of other pieces of evidence that I won't get into here) it just fits too well into the "trust" theme that was central to the original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the Wax and Wayne Era as well (Wax trusted Miles to protect the roughs, Wax trusted Harmony during the Bleeder hunt). I think that 'trust being broken' is a central idea to this quadrilogy, and that would fit well with the extra piece of Ruin's power being given by Harmony to Kelsier because Sazed trusted him, only to have that trust betrayed when Kelsier begins to use the power to undermine and attack Harmony.

 

I think that if the power of Rust was severed completely from Ruin, basically turned into a minor Shard which was bestowed on Kelsier, then the power of Ruin may not recognize the condensed power of Rust (the trellium spike). The only piece of evidence we have that Harmony should be able to recognize anything of Scadrial, Ruin, or Preservation (unless there is a WoB about this) comes from Harmony himself, and from his first few moments of godhood when he created the Words of Founding. He said himself that his mind was still in the process of expanding at the time, so I do not think that we should trust the Words of Founding as an infallible source for information, especially for information about how Shards work.

 

But that's just my two cents. Hopefully we'll find out in a few days who Trell really is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be something saved for The Lost Metal (unless it's the end-of-the-book big reveal/cliffhanger like "I AM FREE").

 

 

Crazy idea

Trell = Kelsier

He's held the power of Preservation but was always more of ruin and hasld ascended. He's been spiked and had potentially grown more influenced by Ruin's power over the centuries. He's always tried to do the right thing but not necessarily the right way which seems to fit with how the Set operates. Trell was a religion Saze proposed to Kelsier that he thought would really fit him.

Marsh said that Wax is "doing my brothers work". Wax does everything possible to stop the Set, and makes trouble for the red eyed immortals. Can't see Wax doing Kelsier's bidding if he is dismantling everything the Set is trying to accomplish. Also I am of the opinion that the Sovereign is Kelsier. If that is so, then why would the Set have to go through all that trouble to find the bands? Or go through all that trouble to get the technology from the Southerners? Kelsier saved the southerners, so if the Set works for Kelsier, then they should have all the technology the Southerners have. 

[Ari he/him]

Marsh said that Wax is "doing my brothers work". Wax does everything possible to stop the Set, and makes trouble for the red eyed immortals. Can't see Wax doing Kelsier's bidding if he is dismantling everything the Set is trying to accomplish. Also I am of the opinion that the Sovereign is Kelsier. If that is so, then why would the Set have to go through all that trouble to find the bands? Or go through all that trouble to get the technology from the Southerners? Kelsier saved the southerners, so if the Set works for Kelsier, then they should have all the technology the Southerners have. 

 

At the very least, whoever the Sovereign is, they've been heavily influenced by Kelsier (or by Spook who was influenced by Kelsier) and wanted to evoke his image. I would not automatically assume they actually are Kelsier.

 

Given the timeframe that they'd need to be in Southern Scadrial, Marsh is actually a really good candidate to go and help them. He had lost one of his eye spikes in HoA, and could have found out the relevant Feruchemical trick from Harmony, who would want to square the circle of repairing the damage to the planet, while not harming the Southerners.

 

[Pathfinder]

At the very least, whoever the Sovereign is, they've been heavily influenced by Kelsier (or by Spook who was influenced by Kelsier) and wanted to evoke his image. I would not automatically assume they actually are Kelsier.

 

Given the timeframe that they'd need to be in Southern Scadrial, Marsh is actually a really good candidate to go and help them. He had lost one of his eye spikes in HoA, and could have found out the relevant Feruchemical trick from Harmony, who would want to square the circle of repairing the damage to the planet, while not harming the Southerners.

 

Marsh did get his eye spike back so he has two spikes. Marsh also does not have the tell tale scars on his arms. 

[King's Twit he/him]

Marsh said that Wax is "doing my brothers work". Wax does everything possible to stop the Set, and makes trouble for the red eyed immortals. Can't see Wax doing Kelsier's bidding if he is dismantling everything the Set is trying to accomplish. Also I am of the opinion that the Sovereign is Kelsier. If that is so, then why would the Set have to go through all that trouble to find the bands? Or go through all that trouble to get the technology from the Southerners? Kelsier saved the southerners, so if the Set works for Kelsier, then they should have all the technology the Southerners have. 

 

I made that post before Bands came out, and after reading that and Secret History I am now (unfortunately) fairly sure that Kelsier is not Trell. That being said, your Marsh quote is interesting, and the only counter that I can think of is a "Darth Vader killed Anakin" sort of thing where Marsh no longer considers the being that Kelsier has become to be his brother, and remembers Kelsier as he was when he was alive.

 

I still believe that Kelsier could be Rust, the Vessel for the extra piece of Ruin's power, and is helping Odium or Autonomy or whoever Trell is in their battle with Harmony.