Sazed's Strength

[Kapuchu]

Beware of spoilers, obviously.

I suppose this qualifies more as a speculation than a question, but I figured I might as well ask. 

Having finished the Mistborn Trilogy several months ago, and being very near the end of Oathbringer, I had a thought. Thinking of characters like Odium, Cultivation and Honor, as well as Preservation and Ruin, and other Shards of Adonalsium, I began to wonder as to their respective strengths. In Mistborn, Ruin and Preservation were very near, if not identical, in strength, with Vin being able to destroy both herself and Ruin (consciousnesses only, but the Power itself remained, of course) and in Oathbringer the Stormfather talks about Odium being cautious to not overextend, lest he risk Cultivation climbing out of hiding to strike at him while he's vulnerable. 

 

This made me wonder, just how strong is Odium? And Sazed, now possessing both Ruin and Preservation, just how does he compare? Being in possession of two Shards, is he effectively twice as strong as someone like Odium or Cultivation, or do you guys think that maybe the Shards are not always equal in power? 

[Dunkum he/him]

18 minutes ago, Kapuchu said:

This made me wonder, just how strong is Odium? And Sazed, now possessing both Ruin and Preservation, just how does he compare? Being in possession of two Shards, is he effectively twice as strong as someone like Odium or Cultivation, or do you guys think that maybe the Shards are not always equal in power?

We have WoBs on this.  the short version is that the shards all started out at equal strengths, though doing things like investing themselves into planets or creating life mdifies that some.  as far as Sazed, yes, he is about twice as strong as the other shards, but he has trouble acting due to the intent of his shard(s).

[Weltall]

Welcome to the Shard!

Brandon has been asked this question and to an extent the answer is 'it depends'. We know that all sixteen Shards started out equally powerful.

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2. Just after the Shattering (but before they started created humans or something), did all Shards have roughly the same amount of raw power?

Yes. Good question.

 

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But that's a tangent from your question, which is the powers are not equal. The Shards were generally equal. Some have given up more power than others.

When the Shards Invest in a world (and it can start to happen as a pure function of time, whether they want it to happen or not) that means that the power they have available for their use reduced. Prior to getting stuck in the Rosharan System, Odium avoided heavily Investing worlds so he retained more of his power. As a result, he was stronger than Shards that did heavily Invest on a one-to-one basis. Other Shards are similarly at different power levels relative to one another, based on how much power is currently tied down to a world or worlds. A Shard can leave a world they've Invested on but their power won't simply go with them. They can choose to reclaim it (which takes time) or they can abandon it, which is implied to be traumatic and results in the Shard being proportionally weakened.

On Harmony and Odium specifically, Brandon has described Harmony as being 'vastly more powerful' but Sazed has only had three hundred years of holding a Shard and has conflicting Intents that make it hard for him to act at times. By contrast Odium has thousands and thousands of years of experience, vastly more underlying knowledge even before his Ascension and has the mindset and Intent geared towards killing Shards. So, while Harmony presents a serious threat to Odium, a confrontation between the two would not be decided on raw power alone. Brandon used the example of a hypothetical Vin vs Elend fight when explaining how this works. Elend is technically stronger due to being a lerasium Mistborn but Vin is much more experienced at fighting (and has fewer qualms about fighting dirty) so she'd win. But Odium is rightly scared of Sazed/Harmony because of the power imbalance, even if the latter has handicaps in terms of actually using all of that power.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Weltall

[Kapuchu]

2 hours ago, Dunkum said:

We have WoBs on this.  the short version is that the shards all started out at equal strengths, though doing things like investing themselves into planets or creating life mdifies that some.  as far as Sazed, yes, he is about twice as strong as the other shards, but he has trouble acting due to the intent of his shard(s).

 

2 hours ago, Weltall said:

But Odium is rightly scared of Sazed/Harmony because of the power imbalance, even if the latter has handicaps in terms of actually using all of that power.

First of all, thank you both for your answers  

It makes sense that it would change, given what we're told about Preservation in Mistborn. I hadn't thought of that. Same goes for Odium's skill and Sazed's power. It might've looked like obvious things, but I'm still appreciative of the time you took to answers. It's interesting to consider what would happen if Shards from different Cosmere's met one another.

[Calderis he/him]

@Kapuchu on @Weltall's point about Sazed and Rayse, we also have this wonderful WoB.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/87/#e5854

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Questioner

Does Odium actually present a real threat to Harmony, because he-- *interrupted*

Brandon Sanderson

So Harmony is vastly more powerful than Odium.

Questioner

Yeah. 

Brandon Sanderson

Elend was vastly more powerful than Vin. Who would win in a fight?

Questioner

Vin.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, there's your answer.