Harmony is really dumb. [Bands BoM, SoS and AoL spoilers]

[Nepene he/him]

13 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

Well @Nepene it seems we will simply agree to disagree. You make some compelling points but, alas, I remain unconvinced haha. Thanks for the discussion.

Though, as a final bit, I would like to disagree with one last item because, well, I am me and this is what I do sometimes.  

This is from the Mistborn 3 annotations:

 

You're welcome.

Note my phrasing- he's not the sort of person you want as a leader, not that he lacks leadership ability. He has the ability to control people, yes, but not necessarily the ability to predict the consequences of his actions, or understand those around him. That mission was an intellectual one, which is what he is suited for. People would follow him into hell, and he would lead people into hell blithely unaware of why the temperature had suddenly increased. For example, an alien god's ettmetal nuke hell.

[+Authweight]

I think you're overstating the nature of the danger from Harmony's position. We know that powerful forces are working to limit his knowledge. We also don't really have a super clear idea of Harmony's limits when it comes to gathering info. We know, based on the BoM epilogue, that there is a powerful force bent on destroying intelligent life on Scadrial. We only know that because we saw a private moment between two very secretive characters - it's not crazy that Harmony simply has no way of knowing what he's actually facing.

The Set by itself is definitely getting up to some bad stuff, but they're also pushing technology forward. Harmony might be deliberately pursuing a strategy of mitigating some of the worst harms of the Set while still allowing them to operate and do their thing. Harmony may also feel that conflict between Elendel and the other cities is inevitable and perhaps even desirable.

Harmony presumably knows at this point that another entity like himself is interfering with Scadrial. But he may not know the extent of that influence, and almost certainly doesn't know to what purpose his counterpart is acting. Taking a "wait and see" approach seems reasonable, since drastic action could potentially make the situation far worse or risk exposing himself in dangerous ways.

[Nepene he/him]

Indeed, powerful forces are working to limit his knowledge, there is a secret force bent on destroying intelligent life on Scadrial, the Set is pushing technology forward, Harmony may be trying to both allow them to operate and corrupt people while mitigating the worst of the damage and push technology forward.

Based on this he- should take responsibility for Lessie. He took a controlled risk to allow them to operate and mitigate their damage. It failed, and so he's reasonably responsible for the consequences, especially since he also told Lessie to be best friends with Wax. He shouldn't critique Elendel for not having the advantages of said secret society. For decades or centuries the Set have gone unexposed and have been preparing under a conflict mode while Elendel has been unaware of any conflict and hasn't been able to speed up development of technology to counter them, and hasn't had divine servants to feed them info. He should probably stop them getting game changing technology, since in the prior book one of the enemy god's servants tried to destroy the food supply and wreck the city and almost succeeded.

If nothing else, he should be worried that the other entity will try to cause chaos in his city and destroy the food supply with a large bomb. He shouldn't have allowed his counterpart to get the technology to make a large bomb. That should have been kept away from them. Lack of drastic action could mean they repeat what they did in shadows of self.

[Pathfinder]

9 hours ago, Nepene said:

Indeed, powerful forces are working to limit his knowledge, there is a secret force bent on destroying intelligent life on Scadrial, the Set is pushing technology forward, Harmony may be trying to both allow them to operate and corrupt people while mitigating the worst of the damage and push technology forward.

Based on this he- should take responsibility for Lessie. He took a controlled risk to allow them to operate and mitigate their damage. It failed, and so he's reasonably responsible for the consequences, especially since he also told Lessie to be best friends with Wax. He shouldn't critique Elendel for not having the advantages of said secret society. For decades or centuries the Set have gone unexposed and have been preparing under a conflict mode while Elendel has been unaware of any conflict and hasn't been able to speed up development of technology to counter them, and hasn't had divine servants to feed them info. He should probably stop them getting game changing technology, since in the prior book one of the enemy god's servants tried to destroy the food supply and wreck the city and almost succeeded.

If nothing else, he should be worried that the other entity will try to cause chaos in his city and destroy the food supply with a large bomb. He shouldn't have allowed his counterpart to get the technology to make a large bomb. That should have been kept away from them. Lack of drastic action could mean they repeat what they did in shadows of self.

The kandra are actively working behind the scenes. Where can you cite conclusively that only what we have seen in the books is the full extent of what Harmony is doing and has done to combat this entity and prepare the people of Scadrial to fight it? Your premise is all he has done is send Lessie to Wax to get him to work for him. Was Harmony just twiddling his fingers during the other 250 years prior to Wax's birth? I think not. You do not know how it could be had the Set not been opposed all this time. You also do not know how long the Set has been in existence since Harmony took up the shards. 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Pathfinder

[Oversleep]

BTW, I wonder what was Sazed thinking during Catacendre. I mean, if it weren't for Kelsier, they'd all freeze to death. Why didn't Sazed reverse their adaptation to a hotter world? He knew about them, although I can't say for sure he knew that they're gonna have problems.

What is going on here?

[Radiant Returned he/him]

4 hours ago, Oversleep said:

BTW, I wonder what was Sazed thinking during Catacendre. I mean, if it weren't for Kelsier, they'd all freeze to death. Why didn't Sazed reverse their adaptation to a hotter world? He knew about them, although I can't say for sure he knew that they're gonna have problems.

What is going on here?

For a time at least, Sazed and Kelsier can talk to each other. It's possible that Sazed sent Kelsier to them. 

[Oversleep]

3 minutes ago, Radiant Returned said:

For a time at least, Sazed and Kelsier can talk to each other. It's possible that Sazed sent Kelsier to them. 

Even if he did, it was years after the Katacendre (Allik says as much). They all were freezing to death for some time.

(SH spoilers)

And we know it wasn't a case as Sazed outright refused making Kel alive again.

[Radiant Returned he/him]

SH Spoilers 

Spoiler

Yes Sazed refused to make Kelsier alive again, but once he did find a way to come back I find it hard to think Sazed totally opposed him. Kel is more like a wildcard. So it's feasible that Sazed sent him there, or at least told him of some people there he could help.

In another theory, Sazed used the old star charts to position the planet. It's possible that that area was always cold due, and only after it became more inhabitable because of what TLR did did he put people down there. So Sazed may have made a mistake not doing more for them at first when re-aligning the planet. Though now, it seems, he probably did things or put things in motion to help them. It's also possible as others have said that an outside power is keeping him from doing all he would like to. 

[Oversleep]

 

44 minutes ago, Radiant Returned said:

Yes Sazed refused to make Kelsier alive again, but once he did find a way to come back I find it hard to think Sazed totally opposed him.

Well, to qoute Marsh, "Harmony has particular views about how things must be done. I do not always agree with him. Oddly, his particular beliefs require that he allow that.". So once Kelsier was alive again, Sazed would let him be.

44 minutes ago, Radiant Returned said:

So it's feasible that Sazed sent him there, or at least told him of some people there he could help.

Kel learned about them on his own, during his Ascension.

44 minutes ago, Radiant Returned said:

It's also possible as others have said that an outside power is keeping him from doing all he would like to. 

I doubt that Trell chimed in at that time already. Nobody could've known that instead of Ruin killing Preservation there would be a double Ascension resulting in a double Shard. So everyone probably thought that there is gonna be a rogue Shard hell bent on destructing the universe... But then it turned out differently so Trell engaged.

I think we need a WoB on Sazed not doing anything with the Southerners.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Oversleep

[Yata he/him]

It's possible He used the same "trick" of Preservation.

Planning the Southern save through Kelsier for some future agenda. His bluff to Kelsier was part of that.

It's a not too likely possibility but we have to consider that.
Or maybe the Southern was hidden from his sight during the Ash-World's final moments (Metallic Vault or something like that)

[goody153]

10 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Even if he did, it was years after the Katacendre (Allik says as much). They all were freezing to death for some time.

(SH spoilers)

  Hide contents

And we know it wasn't a case as Sazed outright refused making Kel alive again.

 

Idk about that remember that Sazed is still half ruin not just preservation alone, so he probably sees death differently as necessary even if he's friends with Kelsier

.. Combining it with preservation didn't change the ruin intent it just tempered it. So the need to change and end must still be being put into action by Sazed. And Sazed is clearly not minding manipulating and guiding peoples life judging from what happened with Wax and intentionally taking Lessie away from him.

Also it could just be that when he 

Spoiler

refused Kelsier at first, Kelsier could've found a way and after Kelsier found a way Harmony just went "whatever dude do whatever you want but i frown upon it"

and there's even another thing that

Spoiler

at the end of Secret History, Spook got the a hemalurgic earrings to talk to Kelsier. There is no way that goes under Sazed's radar undetected, it's practically hemalurgy which is Ruin's specialty. And kel's a spirit harmony can practically block or overpower kel with the hemalurgic device communication

and considering that he disapproved of Marsh giving spooks autobiography to Wax but he still allowed Marsh says something about how lenient he is

He also has that motto giving all people as much choices as they could choose from which makes alot of sense as to why he's quite not helpful sometimes. Also he probably mostly preoccupied with all the other forces trying to limit his knowledge and probably also messing with him,.

Edited August 6, 2016 by goody153

[Radiant Returned he/him]

5 hours ago, goody153 said:

considering that he disapproved of Marsh giving spooks autobiography to Wax but he still allowed Marsh says something about how lenient he is

Where was it said Sazed disapproved of this? I just finished re-reading Alloy of Law and I didn't catch that, is it in SoS (starting that re-read right now)?

[Yata he/him]

12 minutes ago, Radiant Returned said:

Where was it said Sazed disapproved of this? I just finished re-reading Alloy of Law and I didn't catch that, is it in SoS (starting that re-read right now)?

SoS or BoM I can't remember... But I remember the quote. Probably for the context was in SoS

[goody153]

2 hours ago, Radiant Returned said:

Where was it said Sazed disapproved of this? I just finished re-reading Alloy of Law and I didn't catch that, is it in SoS (starting that re-read right now)?

AoL at the end. 

 

Quote

“Stop?” Ironeyes said. “Not at all. I wish him to be informed. Harmony has particular views about
how things must be done. I do not always agree with him. Oddly, his particular beliefs require that he
allow that. Here.”

There is also another one where Harmony disapproves of Spook digging about Hemalurgy and writing about it but he still didn't stop spook from doing so . In which harmony doesn't really restrict people from doing stuff even if he doesn't like it as long as it's not like outright murderous and immoral.

[Nepene he/him]

On 05/08/2016 at 7:07 PM, Pathfinder said:

The kandra are actively working behind the scenes. Where can you cite conclusively that only what we have seen in the books is the full extent of what Harmony is doing and has done to combat this entity and prepare the people of Scadrial to fight it? Your premise is all he has done is send Lessie to Wax to get him to work for him. Was Harmony just twiddling his fingers during the other 250 years prior to Wax's birth? I think not. You do not know how it could be had the Set not been opposed all this time. You also do not know how long the Set has been in existence since Harmony took up the shards. 

There's nothing in this that I disagree with, other than your false characterization of me saying all Harmony has done is send Lessie.

Although I'll note his preparation seems wildly inadequate. He hasn't been supporting Wax and Wayne with any obvious servants other than the Kandra. His Kandra were crushed when they tried to act in Shadows of Self. The Set now have strategic magical nuclear weapons. In theory he did a lot, but in practice a group of five or six of his servants are, mostly alone, opposing a more technologically advanced army. The enemy has at least one Kandra double agent, we've not seen any double agents from his side even when it would have been super useful for them to show themselves.

It looks like if he was opposing the Set the Set won decisively.

[Djarskublar he/him]

On 8/16/2016 at 4:12 AM, Nepene said:

There's nothing in this that I disagree with, other than your false characterization of me saying all Harmony has done is send Lessie.

Although I'll note his preparation seems wildly inadequate. He hasn't been supporting Wax and Wayne with any obvious servants other than the Kandra. His Kandra were crushed when they tried to act in Shadows of Self. The Set now have strategic magical nuclear weapons. In theory he did a lot, but in practice a group of five or six of his servants are, mostly alone, opposing a more technologically advanced army. The enemy has at least one Kandra double agent, we've not seen any double agents from his side even when it would have been super useful for them to show themselves.

It looks like if he was opposing the Set the Set won decisively.

I pretty much disagree with all of your reasoning. I feel like this thread can still go places. Harmony isn't opposing the Set, really. Wax is opposing the Set, and Harmony is facilitating the conflict. Harmony is disappointed in a civilization that hasn't advanced nearly enough. You are missing a big point here. You mention their income inequality etc., but that is basically irrelevant.

Let us compare for a moment. Industrial revolution- Earth (1700-2000), and post-Catacendre Scadrial (Catacendre to BoM). Similar timeframe, similar social issues, infinitely more growth on Earth. Scadrial has magic, and they still have barely advanced 50 years worth of tech in 320. The argument that the Catacendre seriously damaged their ability to research is more or less moot. 20 years in, and they are fine, 100 and they are fully capable no matter how you swing it. They were probably stable, if low population, within a year, considering all the materials they had to work with. It's not as if they were flung to the stone age. Beyond that, with all the knowledge and clues Sazed left them, they should have been up to our level with 50 years of equivalent research, 100 at the outside.

Harmony is right. He made it so easy for people to farm, and with no actual war to shift economic growth, they had no reason to research. They had enough tech to be able to have canneries. That means full machinery, potentially with steam power. The land is fertile enough that a small percentage of the population can farm, another small part can be politicians, a large chunk as workers, and then another fair chunk as researchers. The researcher chunk is apparently not present, though. I can definitively say that Harmony is right. NoScads suck. My vote is on screwing Elendel and letting the SoScads win any conflict.

On the point of him not bothering with Trell and its agents... really? He is still new to the game. I think events in SoS and BoM sufficiently explained that what happened with Bleeder was not something he could really personally do something about within his moral bounds. The Set is a group of people whom he doesn't agree with, but as with Marsh, he isn't going to stop them from making choices. Ditto for any agents of Trell, unless they aren't human. Instead, he informs human (Wax) agents of the situation and lets them decide to do something about it. He is stopping the red mist, and that is definitely enough divine intervention to satisfy me.

Does that make sense? I can never tell if I have sufficiently explained myself... It's also late, which is an automatic quality hit.

[Savanorn he/him]

I am kind of surprised how . . . Ineffective? Sazed is. Maybe it is the shards intent clashing in him. I mean...what does Harmony want?

 

But, like, Preservation was great at predicting the future and presumably Harmony ought to be good at that too. 

I guess there's a lot of things I am presuming come with the Shards. Maybe Harmony needs to know the shard to predict it. Maybe he needs to test his poweer to know it and his nature disallows this.  Maybe he is like a fullborn with no knowledge and I am standing on the sidelines saying "how do copperclouds even stop you. This would never happen to the Lord Ruler." 

[Landis963 he/him]

On 9/12/2016 at 9:45 PM, Savanorn said:

I am kind of surprised how . . . Ineffective? Sazed is. Maybe it is the shards intent clashing in him. I mean...what does Harmony want?

 

But, like, Preservation was great at predicting the future and presumably Harmony ought to be good at that too. 

I guess there's a lot of things I am presuming come with the Shards. Maybe Harmony needs to know the shard to predict it. Maybe he needs to test his poweer to know it and his nature disallows this.  Maybe he is like a fullborn with no knowledge and I am standing on the sidelines saying "how do copperclouds even stop you. This would never happen to the Lord Ruler." 

Preservation is good at predicting the future, Ruin is abysmal.  It depends on how it balances out.  In addition, if certain theories are correct:

SLA spoilers:

Spoiler

If Vorinism is to be believed, predicting the future is of the Voidbringers, and therefore of Odium.  Which means Harmony (if the evidence does indeed fit together this way) is facing a Shard with a known proficiency in future-sight with a (potentially) nerfed future-sight of his own.  It's the "atium vs. electrum" problem, writ large.  

Regardless, Harmony's cluelessness about the cosmere at large means he's basically entirely in the dark about who this interloper even is and what he's doing (so for all his raw power, he doesn't know when and where to exercise it, with any mistake having disastrous repercussions).  He can see consequences, sure, but the fracturing nature of timelines means that all he can glean is "You don't want this guy touching your planet with a 10-lightyear pole."  Hence the barrier he shows Wax.  

[Jazzy Kandra she/her]

On 8/6/2016 at 1:45 PM, goody153 said:

AoL at the end. 

There is also another one where Harmony disapproves of Spook digging about Hemalurgy and writing about it but he still didn't stop spook from doing so . In which harmony doesn't really restrict people from doing stuff even if he doesn't like it as long as it's not like outright murderous and immoral.

It's from SoS:

Quote

Regardless, I know you have been reading young Lestibournes’s book. I am not pleased that he made it, but I could not forbid him. I will trust that Marsh was wise in giving it to you.

~133, SoS (Wax talking to Harmony in the carriage)

I rather like this quote, actually. Harmony obviously didn't like what Spook had done, but could not forbid him. Probably because it was against his Intent to take away Spook's power to chose. Wax, to Harmony, is key piece he uses to allow most others to make their own choices, as Harmony has a tendency to play chess with certain key pieces much like his predecessors had done.

I agree that Harmony seems a bit...naive. And I believe that it's more naivety than stupidity, as well as the effects that his Intent plays in how much he can actually act. Harmony meaning balance probably means that he can take only subtler actions to influence events, especially three-hundred-forty-some years after picking up the Shards. His Intent blinds him to issues just as much as his personality might, his Intent also ties his hands:

Quote

 

My hands are tied, and I am bounded.

“Who ties God’s hands?”

I tied them myself. Wax frowned. I hold both Ruin and Preservation, Harmony said. The danger in carrying these opposed powers is that I can see both sides— the need for life, the need for death. I am balance. And, to an extent, I am neutrality.

(A little later he adds this:)

Yes. No. The potential for murderers is needed. Waxillium, I— the personality you speak to— agree with your indignation. But the powers that I am, the essence of my self, cannot allow me to take sides.

 

~134, SoS (More Wax and Sazed)

So, I think your problem is, some of you guys want a much more active Shard. But his Intent will not allow it. The actions he took at the beginning of his Vesselship were that of a very earlt Vessel, with more ability to resist that Intent and make the Shard do things it would normally not want to. Plus, he was "balancing the scales" by stopping the apocalypse which Ruin had began, so, his actions (Preserving the world) arguably fit with his Intent anyway...

 

On 8/5/2016 at 2:29 PM, Oversleep said:

BTW, I wonder what was Sazed thinking during Catacendre. I mean, if it weren't for Kelsier, they'd all freeze to death. Why didn't Sazed reverse their adaptation to a hotter world? He knew about them, although I can't say for sure he knew that they're gonna have problems.

What is going on here?

On 8/5/2016 at 7:09 PM, Radiant Returned said:

For a time at least, Sazed and Kelsier can talk to each other. It's possible that Sazed sent Kelsier to them. 

I wonder if after doing so much Preserving with the Basin, if Ruin demanded some kind of payback. Being Harmony, one explanation is that, somehow, the Shard felt that by restoring the North, it could not let itself help the south. It's a bit of a "yin-yang" effect (using the term loosely), and Sazed, despite that he doubtlessly wanted to help the Southerners, was strangled by the effects of his Intent.

Being god isn't all sunshine, rainbows, and bursts of power, I guess.

(Spoilers for SH)

Spoiler

Anyway, so, I imagine that the basic jest of what happened isn't that Sazed didn't want to help, but that Sazed could not help directly. He needed to send someone is his stead to hopefully fix the issue. That someone, obviously, was Kelsier, using presummably a combination of Spikes?, Feruchemy, and Allomancy to fix the problem. We don't know how, exactly, Kelsier convinced Sazed to send him, but I think it does make sense that he would be the one to go. Everyone else was rebuilding society, and Kelsier, despite needing to use Hemalurgy to get back (something Sazed didn't like) is, for all intents and purposes, supposedly still one of Sazed's closest friends at this point. I doubt that once Kelsier got to the physical realm again, there was much convincing that needed to be done.

I believe as well that saving the Southerners (helping Sazed overcome his problem created by Shardic Intent) was part of whatever deal they struct. First, Kelsier probably needed Sazed's help in the end to get back to the Physical Realm, because he had learned through his and Spook's experiments with Hemalurgy that despite all their efforts, he just couldn't get back in without divine help. So, when Sazed presumably told him about the problems in the South caused by his Intent (a conversation filled with too much snark and sarcasm on Kelsier's part, no doubt he asked how god could be so powerless), he took advantage of it. Like in other situations like this one, Kelsier probably believed that he was not just helping himself get back, but also helping his good friend and the Southerners out of a jam. So, his motivations were complicated (because Kelsier breathes complication, not air), genuinely selfish as much as they were selfless.

 

On 8/5/2016 at 7:15 PM, Oversleep said:

Even if he did, it was years after the Katacendre (Allik says as much). They all were freezing to death for some time.

I think that any solution that Sovereign used probably was...researched. I don't believe he got the idea from Scadrial, as it's been stated to be some kind of "hack" of the system (there's a WoB for this somewhere), which, even though it seems probable that the Excisors only use native Investiture, I think that the techniques he used were based on ideas/practices that he learned from other worlds. The Excisors are a Investiture using technology of some sort, the first time we saw that was on Roshar with the fabrials, so, I suggest that it is a Scadrian-type fabrial using some weird combination of the Scadrian powers. Presumably, learning how to do all that took time though...(ten years, I guess).

I also think that he had to spend some time learning to use his other set of powers and combining them too. So much to do, at least he wouldn't be a bored-sier (which is bad for everyone).

Edited October 1, 2016 by Kandra-in-disguise