Do I Still Think Harmony Is Messed Up?

[Stormgate he/him]

Something that should be noted is that even though Sazed has power beyond any that we have encountered in any other character at any given time, he doesn't know everything. He can guess fairly well, but not know.

Also, throughout the three books we've seen Wax deal with Lessie's death in multiple ways. In AoL he pushed it down, in SoS he kept pushing it down until it exploded at the end, and in BoM we see him truly get over Lessie by finding someone who can soften the pain. I would wager to say that Wax's story arc is nearly done. He doesn't have a whole lot of glaring shortcomings that need fixing. Other characters, however, have their own problems to work out. Steris' mostly being useless, Wayne trying to figure out where to go after letting Ranette go, and Marasi trying to figure out exactly who she is and what part of Scadrial she belongs in. Although, if Wax has a child, then everything's going to be crazy after that.

[NovaSeeker he/him]

Wax's story arch may be nearing it's end... but Harmony's may not be.

 

Who knows, his ability to "make the tough calls" as I posit, may be a plot point in either of the next two trilogies.

 

Or maybe Harmony becomes even more distant as time goes on and stops proving his existence to people.... *shrug*

Edited February 9, 2016 by NovaSeeker

[Pathfinder]

Weeell, I think it's a bit different. I've been able to support my claim about Harmony's falsehood with precedent and at least some modicum of logic. We can disagree on whether that logic is correct, but there are facts that can be drawn on to support it.

 

I am sorry but I take issue with the way you state this, and it is rather dismissive. The way this sounds to me is "well what I say is based on fact, and I used logic, while yours is flawed but although we can disagree on the logic, my facts are still facts". By your own statement you gave only one example of when Sazed lied, and when I responded, you jumped to preservation, when i responded to that you jumped to Ruin and when I responded to that, you jumped back to the original arguement. You have no concrete facts that Sazed lied about Lessie, just your own opinion. I cannot definitively prove Harmony was telling the truth and you cannot definitively prove he lied. We can disagree in our opinions, but (at least how I read it) don't imply to me that I am disregarding facts when this is just your interpretation. You are choosing to ignore the testimony of TenSoon, who we have no reason to disbelieve, and are assuming he thinks Lessie was never controlled simply because Harmony told him so. I am hoping I am misreading your statement because to be honest I got a bit offended. I think it would be best at this point for me to step back from this conversation and leave it as we agree to disagree. 

[NovaSeeker he/him]

Apologies, I did not mean to sound dismissive. Let me explain myself better. I'm using facts that have happened (Sazed lying, Preservation lying) to support an argument. I'm not claiming my argument IS fact.

 

I'm fully aware that I can't prove that Harmony lied about shoving Lessie into the way of the bullet. All I can do is make a case that it is plausible, given the facts we know.

 

What I meant here is that you're supposition that Ati's personality was arrogant to begin with was pure conjecture with no basis in what's been written. It's based on not trusting the only source we have, and my response to that is "If you're not going to trust the only source we have, then you can't make any suppositions on the topic because then it can be anything." If Hoid's letter is suspect, then Ati's original personality can be ANYTHING and no useful argument can be drawn from it. (Example: "Well we can't trust Hoid's assement of Ati just being kind and generous. He was probably a serial killer all along. Serial killers are sometimes good at faking being charming, so he probably just fooled Hoid.")

 

Also, I apologize if I've avoided and jumped around specific points you've tried to make. I was attempting to avoid spoilers for Secret History. Now that it's the 9th, I can include them in a spoiler.

 

Secret History spoiler

I have proof that the being Harmony can and will lie when it suits his purposes.

 

Harmony lies straight to Kelsier's face about there being a way to return him to physical form. Did he have a good reason? Probably. So he lied for a good reason. Precedent.

Edited February 9, 2016 by NovaSeeker

[Landis963 he/him]

Secret History spoilers:

Secret History spoiler

 

I have proof that the being Harmony can and will lie when it suits his purposes.

 

You also have proof that Harmony is terrible at it.

 

Besides, TenSoon would not take kindly to learning Harmony had assumed direct control in that situation, nor, really, would anyone else in his inner circle.  And there's no better liar in Harmony's inner circle than TenSoon, so trying to prevaricate wouldn't fly either, and would probably make it worse.  And even leaving aside the events of SoS, Lessie knew what it meant when Wax wouldn't read that note from Elendel, knew that he needed to go back home sometime.  And said nothing.  When she saw the letter - nothing.  When she was taken hostage by Bloody Tan - nothing.  After her death by gunshot - nothing. Until she waltzed into Elendel years later and tried to set the world on fire. So unless Harmony had taken direct control of her that morning, and didn't let up until she lost her Blessing (which by the way is severely out-of-character for Sazed, even after 300 years of Intent-juggling) she is complicit in everything she accuses Harmony of perpetrating.  

 

EDIT: You do have a point about Ati and the Letter, though.  If he was such a "kind and generous man," why exactly did he pick up Ruin, of all Shards?  

Edited February 11, 2016 by Landis963

[NovaSeeker he/him]

He's since had 340 years of life experience, and the Ruin part of him was a pretty good liar.

 

My understanding of events is that Lessie, even if she knew what the letter was about, didn't say anything because she knew her husband well enough to know he'd ignore it (which he was going to, if I recall his internal monologue correctly). Because Lessie wanted Wax to stay in the Roughs, because Wax was happy there, and she wanted him to be happy.

 

I assume you're saying that Pathfinder has a point about the letter. My point was that the letter is literally the only information we have about Ati's pre-Ruin personality, so if we are to draw any conclusions about what he was like pre-shard, it would have to trust this information, or otherwise be pure conjecture.

 

Your question "if he was so kind and generous, why Ruin?" can have a million different answers if we don't accept that Ati was kind and generous. He could be a secret serial killer, he could be power hungry, he could have secretly been The Devil. We don't know anything.

 

But if we do accept that Ati really was "kind and generous", then we can make an informed hypothesis. Perhaps he thought that, being the kind and generous person he was, he could hold the power of destruction responsibly and fight its influence. Which makes his corruption tragic.

 

Unlike Rayse who embraced Odium whole-hog and was seeking that power, as mentioned in the same letter.

Edited February 11, 2016 by NovaSeeker

[Landis963 he/him]

He's since had 340 years of life experience, and the Ruin part of him was a pretty good liar.

 

My understanding of events is that Lessie, even if she knew what the letter was about, didn't say anything because she knew her husband well enough to know he'd ignore it (which he was going to, if I recall his internal monologue correctly). Because Lessie wanted Wax to stay in the Roughs, because Wax was happy there, and she wanted him to be happy.

 

I assume you're saying that Pathfinder has a point about the letter. My point was that the letter is literally the only information we have about Ati's pre-Ruin personality, so if we are to draw any conclusions about what he was like pre-shard, it would have to trust this information, or otherwise be pure conjecture.

 

Your question "if he was so kind and generous, why Ruin?" can have a million different answers if we don't accept that Ati was kind and generous. He could be a secret serial killer, he could be power hungry, he could have secretly been The Devil. We don't know anything.

 

But if we do accept that Ati really was "kind and generous", then we can make an informed hypothesis. Perhaps he thought that, being the kind and generous person he was, he could hold the power of destruction responsibly and fight its influence. Which makes his corruption tragic.

 

Unlike Rayse who embraced Odium whole-hog and was seeking that power, as mentioned in the same letter.

 

The kandra had an escape-hatch suicide method that Harmony couldn't touch (otherwise Paalm wouldn't have been able to die on that rooftop in SoS).  It was their answer to the Resolution of the First Contract, which as we saw was not 100% foolproof against, well, tampering.  If Harmony had clamped down when you're suggesting he did, Paalm would have used that escape hatch long before Trell got hold of her.  

 

Actually, maybe Ati was like the Doctor or several anime heroes I could name: Kind to everyone and everything, but leaving the broken remains of injustices behind him and not looking back.  That'd be the best way (IMO) to reconcile the fact that Ati was kind and generous, but also was a perfect fit for Ruin.  Assuming that the letter writer wasn't lying, which I agree does leave Ati's pre-Shattering character... rather open to interpretation.