Why did the Mists help Vin?

[Amaror]

This bothered me for a while about the first Mistborn Novel so I am just going to ask here whether anyone knows the answer.

So we know that the Mists are of Preservation and can fuel the Allomancy of Mistborn creating more powerfull effects than Allomancy using metals, represented by Vin killing Rashek.

However I don't quite understand why the Mists would help Vin in this situation, because we also know that Rashek was acting in Preservations interest. He was using up the power of the pool of ascension every thousand years in order to keep Ruin contained in his Prison. Why would Preservation help Vin kill the one Person that's basically Preservations main supporter in his fight against Ruin. We all know what happened when Vin took the power herself.

 

[Lightning he/him]

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say: Read "Mistborn: A Secret History".  (It was written by Brandon Sanderson to fill in some of the secret reasons for things like this!)  You might want to read the "Alloy" mistborn books first.

[Amaror]

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say: Read "Mistborn: A Secret History".  (It was written by Brandon Sanderson to fill in some of the secret reasons for things like this!)  You might want to read the "Alloy" mistborn books first.

 

I did. And as far as I can remember

Rashek says he could have prevented Ruins freedom for another 1000 years before goes to the beyond. Which supports my question.

 

I read every mistborn book so far, if I overlooked something, say it.

Edit: I just reread the passage and indeed:

Preservation bemoans the Lord Rulers death saying he was the only one helping him against Ruin. 

that means there is no reason why he should have helped Vin kill Rashek.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Amaror

[Yata he/him]

Well if you read all the trilogy, I suppose I may explain the concept better:

Probably the Spoiler tag aren't needed but they can't do any harm

Some spoiler from Mistborn Trilogy and Secret History

Simply Vin was the Leras' (Preservation) "heir" from his masterplan. The mist will quite always "help" her when needed because they are programmed to be a tool for her.

 

The only reason the Mist didn't help her for the whole trilogy is because she was spiked quite all the time with an Hemalurgic Spike (that keeps the Mist away as we see with Kandra, Inquisitors and Koloss), that Spike was both a tool for Ruin to get what he wanted and a defence aganist Preservation's plan... In the Rashek VS Vin, he pushed away the Spike from her flesh and the mist can reach her.

 

The only reason because Vin didn't ascends early is because her body can't resist that power... but after She uses the power of the Well, her body was "adapted" to take all the mists... but the earring was still a block, therefore the only times she may absorb was when the Spike was removed (if you notice, also when she tried to enter in the Well the Spike made some effort to resist).

 

Anyway from the Mist PoV they worked with preprogrammated IA (rise at the sunset and vanish at the sunrise, try to snap people, find and fuel the heir), to the Mist Rashek was nothing.

If you rememeber well in Secret History, there is a part where we discovered that Fuzz (the simply but dumb shadow of himself) never used in the whole book the Mist pre-programmated for some "unknown purpose" also when he was going to Die.... Because that part of Preservation's power was reserved to a great purpose and he didn't want to go aganist his own full Intellect... He no longer rememeber the plan, but he hoped that it was brilliant enough.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Yata

[Eki]

(I haven't read SH yet)

I think Preservation chose Vin as someone who could absorb the mists to Ascend, and being able to absorb the mists to fuel Allomancy was just a side effect. Kind of. From that point of view, Preservation didn't directly help Vin kill Rashek, he only gave her the tool (long before she actually used it).

Preservation needed a new person to hold the shard, someone who could use the power to kill Ruin, right? So even if TLR stood against Ruin, Preservation still needed (or wanted) someone who could Ascend with the mists.

Edit: Yata got there before me

Edited April 4, 2016 by Eki

[Amaror]

Well if you read all the trilogy, I suppose I may explain the concept better:

Probably the Spoiler tag aren't needed but they can't do any harm

snip

 

Ah ok that heir thing makes sense.

The spoilers were meant for "Secret History"-content since that book is quite new.

But that still sort-of begs the question when and how Preservation chose Vin to be his heir. We know that he grew weaker and weaker over time and wasn't able to remember his old masterplan for a good amount of time. Yet Vin, given the livespan of Preservation of even just Rashek himself, is incredibly young.

So did he see the future and predicted that Vin was going to be born and made her his heir before she was born when he "programmed" his mists? Or did he make his masterplan and "programm" of the mists recently enough for vin to be allready be born, yet still manage to loose all his memorys in the comparably tiny amount of time that vin was alive?

[Yata he/him]

I can't give you any kind of "official answer" but if you think about, the Terris Prophecies was very ancient and they spoke of Sazed... Therefore Preservation has "saw" at least the end of the final empire. We may uses the same method to get an answer for Vin.

 

Now I want to add some of my though and speculation:
Preservation using the prophecies and the mist  manage to "correct" the events when they go outside of his masterplan.

His future sight wasn't perfect and he probably saw many scenarios. He put an effort to avoid or edit the events to get to his "ending"... Maybe some event may be go in two or three way and still reach his wanted epilogue.

Of course thinking of Future sight and quite-all mighty may be confusing but imagine to see a path and some possible obstacles, you may program your journey to avoid this obstacle or develops some counter (that maybe aren't needed).

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Also, in the end, despite his Shard's Intent, Leras seems to have had the endgame to defeat Ruin rather than just continue preserving (and he has to act against that Intent, hence the awesome masterplan).

 

He creates humanity for this purpose, rather than not commiting extra Preservation to them, which would keep an eternal deadlock, and the implication is that he understand that he understand that his plan to stop Ruin will inevitably cost his life and his Shard's independent Intent.

 

Rashek was just a stop-gap and he fulfilled the Shard's Intent perfectly but Leras himself doesn't want that, so his plot actually HAS to sacrifice Rashek so that Vin gets the opprtunity to wield the full power of Preservation against a not-entire Ruin. For that to happen, not ony does Vin surviving Rashek take priority over the job Rashek did at delaying what he himself knew was inevitable, but Ruin getting out and thinking that he was going to win is also vital to its success, so the Mists HAVE to help Vin, all due to Leras' replanned programming.

 

Also,if Ruin hadn't also singled out Vin, reactive or not, then Leras' plan would have failed (though he must have known that Ruin would try to Ruin his plan and target the one he had chosen as his heir).

 

It's a brilliant plan, possibly the greatest bit of Chess Mastery (with a bit of hoping/great future sight and luck in Kel sticking around - yeah, right, Leras "accidentally" revealed to him how to stick around...) I've seen in any medium!

[Voidus]

It's also worth noting that Rashek was spiked and had to listen to Ruin for a thousand years, it's kind of hard to know that he'd keep being a reliable partner.

[happyman he/him]

Also, in the end, despite his Shard's Intent, Leras seems to have had the endgame to defeat Ruin rather than just continue preserving (and he has to act against that Intent, hence the awesome masterplan).

 

He creates humanity for this purpose, rather than not commiting extra Preservation to them, which would keep an eternal deadlock, and the implication is that he understand that he understand that his plan to stop Ruin will inevitably cost his life and his Shard's independent Intent.

 

Rashek was just a stop-gap and he fulfilled the Shard's Intent perfectly but Leras himself doesn't want that, so his plot actually HAS to sacrifice Rashek so that Vin gets the opprtunity to wield the full power of Preservation against a not-entire Ruin. For that to happen, not ony does Vin surviving Rashek take priority over the job Rashek did at delaying what he himself knew was inevitable, but Ruin getting out and thinking that he was going to win is also vital to its success, so the Mists HAVE to help Vin, all due to Leras' replanned programming.

 

Also,if Ruin hadn't also singled out Vin, reactive or not, then Leras' plan would have failed (though he must have known that Ruin would try to Ruin his plan and target the one he had chosen as his heir).

 

It's a brilliant plan, possibly the greatest bit of Chess Mastery (with a bit of hoping/great future sight and luck in Kel sticking around - yeah, right, Leras "accidentally" revealed to him how to stick around...) I've seen in any medium!

 

It was more than accidentally revealing to Kelsier how to stick around---in the secret history, Leras had to actively help Kelsier survive.  I personally think it likely that Kelsier's actions, meshing so very well with Preservation's Mandate, is what pushed Leras over the edge into helping him.  On the other hand, Kelsier did act as a guardian of the world for a little bit, so, yeah.  Probably part of smart!Leras' original plan, which dumb!Leras stuck to, barely knowing what he was doing.

[Stormgate he/him]

The mists help Vin because they are of Preservation. The mists, until the Ascension of Vin, were mostly independent of Leras' mind. Their commands were: Snap Allomancers. Come at night.

When someone Snaps, they, at that moment, want one thing more than anything: to survive, or be preserved. This is perhaps most dramatic in Kelsier's case, but still true regardless.

The mists circle around Allomancers because they have more Preservation in them. The mists helped Vin because not only did she have that prior connection (calm down SH readers. I know.) to Preservation, but she strenghthened the bond by being in a position where she was in jeopardy and matched the Intent of the Shard. So, when Vin took in the mists, it wasn't Preservation going out of his way to help her. Rather, it was a much smaller version of what happened when she Ascended. (The second time. The first time with the Pool could probably have been done by almost anyone.)