Harmony and Odium

[Retrac he/him]

Ok I know this is probably a silly question, but why does Odium fear Harmony?

[Weltall]

Because as a dual Shard, Harmony is stronger than Odium and thus is theoretically powerful enough to represent a serious threat to him even if he's less skilled and doesn't have a killer's mindset.

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Questioner

Is Harmony stronger than Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Harmony has two shards. So by raw power he is stronger than Odium. Odium is much more warrior-minded and killing-minded, so I don't know if Harmony could actually beat him. But Odium is scared of Harmony.

Waygate Foundation Write-a-thon (Jan. 17, 2014)

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xolsiion

I'm a big fan of Harmony.

zatanamag

Probably will never happen but I'd love to see him put the smackdown on Odium.

chx_

Paging [Brandon]... what do you think of this theory ? Is this your plan? Or are we asking about something which is decade(s) away?

Brandon Sanderson

I find theories like this very interesting, but yes, you're right. This is talking about things very far away. I've said, however, that Odium is wary of Harmony.

zotsandscrambles

It seems like Odium has been attacking shards that share a world for some reason (dom and dev hon and cult). Maybe his exploit against dual sharded worlds would work less well against a dual-wielding shardholder?

Brandon Sanderson

I won't say yes or no to that, but you can imagine that what happened on Scadrial is something he would have preferred never occur.

zotsandscrambles

I'm surprised it didn't occur to anyone to grab two shards to begin with? Pairing Odium with Devotion seems like a good idea.

Did this not occur for a specific reason, or just an oversight on the part of the folks involved?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

General Reddit 2016 (Sept. 2, 2016)

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WindRunner88 (paraphrased)

At the present who is Odium more afraid of? Harmony, Dalinar or Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Harmony. Odium is extremely confident that he can out-smart Hoid

BookCon 2018 (June 1, 2018)

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Weltall

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

Harmony is twice as powerful.

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Questioner

Is Harmony stronger than Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Harmony has two shards. So by raw power he is stronger than Odium. Odium is much more warrior-minded and killing-minded, so I don't know if Harmony could actually beat him. But Odium is scared of Harmony.

Odium would probably still win a fight though.

[Retrac he/him]

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Questioner

Is Harmony stronger than Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Harmony has two shards. So by raw power he is stronger than Odium. Odium is much more warrior-minded and killing-minded, so I don't know if Harmony could actually beat him. But Odium is scared of Harmony.

Waygate Foundation Write-a-thon (Jan. 17, 2014)

But Brandon has said that Odium might be able to beat Harmony. And it seems kinda outside of Harmony's purpose to fight Odium.

[NameIess]

41 minutes ago, Retrac said:

But Brandon has said that Odium might be able to beat Harmony. And it seems kinda outside of Harmony's purpose to fight Odium.

Odium could probably beat Harmony with Sazed as a vessel, but if Harmony died:

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Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

What would happen if one of the original sixteen picked up Harmony? Now they have not only a vast amount more power than Odium, but the experience differential is much less lopsided. They could potentially kill Odium.

[Karger he/him]

7 hours ago, Nameless said:

What would happen if one of the original sixteen picked up Harmony? Now they have not only a vast amount more power than Odium, but the experience differential is much less lopsided. They could potentially kill Odium.

Harmony's intent is equilibrium.  Actually killing Odium would be difficult but stopping him from taking offensive action would be fairly simple and unlike Honor Saze probably has the power to make it stick.

[NameIess]

2 minutes ago, Karger said:

Harmony's intent is equilibrium.  Actually killing Odium would be difficult but stopping him from taking offensive action would be fairly simple and unlike Honor Saze probably has the power to make it stick.

Harmony's intent isn't equilibrium, it is ruin and preservation. There is a slight difference. For example, A more experienced vessel could see killing Odium as Ruining something to cause the Preservation of other things.

[Karger he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

Harmony's intent isn't equilibrium, it is ruin and preservation. There is a slight difference. For example, A more experienced vessel could see killing Odium as Ruining something to cause the Preservation of other things.

Saze does not hold both shards.  Only the one shard of Harmony.  Equilibrium is the natraul course whereby by pure entropy(ruin) a balance or stasis(preservation) is maintained. 

[NameIess]

Just now, Karger said:

Saze does not hold both shards.  Only the one shard of Harmony.  Equilibrium is the natraul course whereby by pure entropy(ruin) a balance or stasis(preservation) is maintained. 

His intent is still Preservation+Ruin. If he was fully one shard, with both intents fully combined, he would not have the pulling that he experiences. Action either way is difficult for him, but he still has Wax, his Ruin, and the Kandra, his Preservation. Even if you couldn't do that, a new, experienced vessel could still potentially kill Odium before the intents affected him too much.

[Karger he/him]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

If he was fully one shard, with both intents fully combined, he would not have the pulling that he experiences.

That is really a matter of opinion.  The pulling experience could also be the fact that equilibrium requires maintaining two opposite forces in equal proportion like gravity and expansion in our universe. 

3 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Wax, his Ruin, and the Kandra, his Preservation

Major simplification there. Wax Preserves public order while the Kandra regularly ignore it to do what is necessary.  As a side note I always enjoyed that while Wax is a man and therefor changes he is an agent for the status quo while the kandra are a race of immortals they are a driving institution for research and progress. 

5 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Even if you couldn't do that, a new, experienced vessel could still potentially kill Odium before the intents affected him too much.

A new experienced vessel with the right life experiences behind them can do more or less anything with any shard(Like Vin and Ati).  It would not need to be Saze in particular. 

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Karger said:

A new experienced vessel with the right life experiences behind them can do more or less anything with any shard(Like Vin and Ati).  It would not need to be Saze in particular. 

I'm saying Saze dies, and an experienced shardholder picks Hamony up, then uses it to kill Odium before the intent overcomes them.

[Karger he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

I'm saying Saze dies, and an experienced shardholder picks Hamony up, then uses it to kill Odium before the intent overcomes them.

That seems rather harsh.  I like Saze.  He could just drop the shard for a moment or imprison Odium permanently.

[NameIess]

Just now, Karger said:

That seems rather harsh.  I like Saze.  He could just drop the shard for a moment or imprison Odium permanently.

I don't think imprisoning Odium forever would be any easier for Sazed than killing him. He can't act easily, and imprisoning Odium means stopping him from Ruining things to preserve himself and others, so it would conflict with equilibrium.

[Karger he/him]

Just now, Nameless said:

I don't think imprisoning Odium forever would be any easier for Sazed than killing him. He can't act easily, and imprisoning Odium means stopping him from Ruining things to preserve himself and others, so it would conflict with equilibrium.

Saze is the equal and opposite reaction.  Imprisonment seems super easy for him as his intent naturally counteracts everything.

[NameIess]

Just now, Karger said:

Saze is the equal and opposite reaction.  Imprisonment seems super easy for him as his intent naturally counteracts everything.

Sazed has trouble with little things like bleeder, why would imprisoning Odium be any easier?

[Retrac he/him]

Ok another question. So if Sazed's role switched to discord. 

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Shallan's Ward

While Sazed holds Preservation and Ruin, could his intent change from Harmony to Discord?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

Would he be better fitted to kill Udium?

[ftl]

Unclear. Honestly, the thing that makes it more likely for him to stand up to Odium is just practice - he needs to keep trying to push the boundaries and figure out what he is and isn't able to do, and how.