How exaggeratedly important are the leaders of the set?

[king of nowhere]

Consider the late edwarn ladrian. Head of a major house, owner of a significant fraction of elendel, certainly one of the most influential people in the world (at least while he still was officially the head of his house, and he was already with the set by then). According to what he said in AoL, he has 20 allomancer just as a bodyguard. one would expect him to be at the top of the organization. and yet, in BoM we learn two things:

1) the heads of the set are called series;

2) Telsin is a sequence, and she outranks edwarn.

So, we learn there are not one, but at least two tiers of people more important than lord ladrian himself. Possibly more. Which begs the question, if the head of a major house is but of mid-high rank, who are the bosses? how absurdly high is their expected social standing? the majors of the outer cities are sequences, and the series are harmony and kelsier themselves? Or is this going to be a milkman conspiracy, with the boss being a beggar and all those powerful people somehow defers to him?

I started this whole thread because I was reminded of a joke where the pope decides to swap places with his car driver, and the police stops them, and they tell that they stopped a guy who was so important, but so important, that the pope was his driver. And I realized how fitting it is to the set's hierarchy.

[VirtuousTraveller he/him]

I don't know that the Set is entirely based on Scadrial - it may not matter that they hold social status at all.  In fact, it could be that "Series" are worldhoppers or recipients of gifts/talents/orders/powers from other-worldly powers that give them authority.

[JUQ he/him]

(Minor WoK spoilers, as well as M:SH and minor Elantris spoilers.)

Spoiler

They could ofc be the 17th Shard, because they are Frost's 'friends', and I doubt that Frost would be too keen about a friend of his going up against not one, but TWO Shards, not to mention Shards that are doing more good than harm to the Cosmere. There is also the Ire, which appears to be made up of Elantrians, but we don't know enough about their motives.

 

[vividox]

Man, I really need to get to my re-read of the Wax and Wayne books. It definitely makes sense that the Set would be bigger than Scadrial, but I'd never really put that together until reading this.

[king of nowhere]

well, the set was if nothing else influenced by another shard, so it would make sense that some of the higher guys are worldhoppers. but how many of those are there? even more stringent, how many worldhoppers are woring for someone allied with odium? i got the impression that there should be a few dozens between series and sequences, can't all be worldhoppers.

[Savanorn he/him]

The simplest answer to this is probably that there isn't necessarily a real world hierarchy that corresponds to rank in the set. 

For example, Edwarn ranked higher than Wax's sister in the real world but in the set she out ranked him. 

This aside, it would seem to me that the higher levels would likely be Trellish in origin.

[nervousnerd he/him]

Yeah, it may be more about power (or perceived power). Some people have been with them longer and are more powerful and some people prove their uses and are given more power.

I have wondered if the Set was just the Scadrial based arm of a larger group of which the worldhoppers and faceless immortals were involved. They seemed to be being used more than actually being an important part of the group. I suppose we will see depending on the Telsin storyline in the next book.

[Jazzy Kandra she/her]

On 10/10/2016 at 3:39 AM, nervousnerd said:

Yeah, it may be more about power (or perceived power). Some people have been with them longer and are more powerful and some people prove their uses and are given more power.

I have wondered if the Set was just the Scadrial based arm of a larger group of which the worldhoppers and faceless immortals were involved. They seemed to be being used more than actually being an important part of the group. I suppose we will see depending on the Telsin storyline in the next book.

I...really doubt the Set's faceless immortals are kandra, instead, they're just kandra-like, such as rather hard to kill and cause their hosts to live longer lives.  So, while perhaps immortal, they are not (for the most part, other than Bleeder) real kandra. I think these are people 'possessed' by spren or something else that gives them red-eyes (like the things from Sel, I can't recall what they're called at the moment). Anyway, red-eyes are almost always linked to Odium (like Thunderclast and Voidspren), so it's likely that these creatures are linked to him as well.

My bet is that someone pissed him off directly, somehow...

Anyways, the Series seem like a group of political reformers and anarchists, so, being noble is not a requirement. But I would bet most of them are well-educated, at least in matters of technology and the way which the local manifestations of Investiture works as a science. That kind of knowledge doesn't require them to be worldhoppers, but they probably are cosmere-aware enough to know quite a bit more about the cosmere and Investiture than your average Scadrian.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Kandra-in-disguise

[Oversleep]

I think that Set used trellium spikes to turn mistwraiths into their own kandra. Of course, I'm not sure whether there are any mistwraiths left... Anyone knows a WoB about it?

Before somebody asks the obvious question: yes, Harmony could glimpse Paalm with one trellium spike and another mundane spike allowed him to control her. However, Harmony knew there is a rogue kandra to look for - he can't look for something he doesn't know about. And they would have trellium spikes and IIRC trellium side-effect in Hemalurgy allows to hide. If combined with Blessing of Presence they probably could not be controlled at all.

[nervousnerd he/him]

8 hours ago, Oversleep said:

I think that Set used trellium spikes to turn mistwraiths into their own kandra. Of course, I'm not sure whether there are any mistwraiths left... Anyone knows a WoB about it?

Before somebody asks the obvious question: yes, Harmony could glimpse Paalm with one trellium spike and another mundane spike allowed him to control her. However, Harmony knew there is a rogue kandra to look for - he can't look for something he doesn't know about. And they would have trellium spikes and IIRC trellium side-effect in Hemalurgy allows to hide. If combined with Blessing of Presence they probably could not be controlled at all.

I just thought of that when I read the post above you. I think it is possible because as the kandra generations showed, you can raise them in different ways to ensure certain traits like loyalty develop. I purposely used the term faceless immortals before though because that is what Edwarn called them and I do not really believe that they are kandra.

I do not believe mistwraiths were specifically seen or said to still exist in the AoL Era (opposite not said either). I think it is mentioned that the kandra population is decreasing but I think that was because of spike availability more than anything.

[Jazzy Kandra she/her]

On 10/20/2016 at 11:51 PM, nervousnerd said:

I just thought of that when I read the post above you. I think it is possible because as the kandra generations showed, you can raise them in different ways to ensure certain traits like loyalty develop. I purposely used the term faceless immortals before though because that is what Edwarn called them and I do not really believe that they are kandra.

I do not believe mistwraiths were specifically seen or said to still exist in the AoL Era (opposite not said either). I think it is mentioned that the kandra population is decreasing but I think that was because of spike availability more than anything.

Actually, now that @Oversleep's mentioned it, I believe that he's right.

In the first five chapters of BoM, VenDell and MeLaan talk about how kandra reproduction works. It is never directly stated that there are more mistwraiths, but it is indeed implied:

Quote

“You are misunderstanding the nature of these spikes,” VenDell all but sputtered. “First, we do not have kandra Blessings ‘lying around.’ The earrings you mention are crafted from old Inquisitor spikes, and have barely any potency to them. One might have been good enough for Lord Waxillium’s little stunt six months ago, but they would hardly be enough to restore a kandra.”

"Yeah,” MeLaan said. “If that worked, we’d have already used all those spikes to make new children. We can’t; a kandra Blessing must be created very specifically.”

~BoM, 37-38, kindle edition

So, yes, I'll throw in the towel on this one. I hadn't thought about what might happen if the Set were using Trellium spikes to create/raise evil kandra. BUT, it's a lot more plausible that this is the answer, since getting spren/skaze from their worlds would be a pain in the chull and would, probably, require a lot more skill than the Set has (and the right materials) to do so. It also fits with my pet-theory that while Trell is Odium, Odium isn't necessarily involved directly because he's "chained" to the Rosharan star system like Ruin was chained to Scadrian, still. All his actions are still indirect at this point, someone or something else (perhaps one of Odium's bigger spren or some old Scadrian) with plenty of knowledge about the way Hemalurgy works but not enough know-how to make the medallions themselves, is directing the show. ;D

I'm not sure what's more troubling: the fact that the Set figured out how to make evil-kandra, or that they would corrupt innocent mistwraiths into such terrible beasts...

Edited October 22, 2016 by Kandra-in-disguise

[nervousnerd he/him]

But see, we don't know that the Set created them. They seem to be the ones in charge on Scadrial and if the Set created them then why would they allow that (these are seemingly the most power hungry people on the planet). 

I suppose if the Set did create them, they could still be in charge if they have a more direct connection to a Shard like Odium as the Kandra have to Harmony though.

[king of nowhere]

that raises a question, though: was the set a group created by external forces to subvert scadrial, or it was a scadrial-native group that was subverted by "trell" for its goals? The first would be more straightforward, but it seems to me the emphasis on trell was increased in the later books, which would point more towards another shard taking control of a group that was already there.

In the first case, the leaders of the group have always been worldhoppers or non-humans, while in the second the original leaders wouldhave been powerful scadrians who gradually lost their power to the new forces. maybe some of them were even swapped with trell-kandras?

Edited October 23, 2016 by king of nowhere

[nervousnerd he/him]

That is kind of what I meant earlier. It seems more like the Set believes they are working towards taking over Scadrial and their faceless immortals don't care about Scadrial at all outside of its use to them.

Quote

Recent advances have made civilization here too dangerous.

I think the Set is solely the Scadrial based part of a larger group. They may not even be actually part of that group but instead its puppet that is being thrown away since it is no longer useful.

I'm still not sure of the Trell involvement and if the group doesn't really care about Scadrial, I do wonder why a Shard would risk going against a more powerful Shard like Harmony.

[king of nowhere]

23 hours ago, nervousnerd said:

 I do wonder why a Shard would risk going against a more powerful Shard like Harmony.

exactly because it is more powerful. odium is trying to get rid of sazed before he learns to use his powers fully.

[nervousnerd he/him]

I suppose I didn't think of it like that.