Ruin and Preservation

[dawncawley]

I think that is the first post in this thread that I have agreed with any of. Please don't take that as an insult, it isn't meant as one, it is just a statement that until now I haven't found a theory that I liked, or that struck a chord with me.

What I agreed with, particularly, is that Brandon does seem to be doing threes in this series. Magic systems, etc. And, while all magic systems seem to be taking a "side", so to speak, there is some wiggle room there, I think. I think that each person, in each of those magic systems, keeps a bit of themselves that can still influence them. Did that make sense?

Anyway, the Ruin/Preservation/Balance thing is what I find intriguing and ringing the most true to me. And if I am remembering correctly, Vin at least, didn't accept the power to heal/create/preserve. She released it, gave it up. That is what the voice had been urging her to do, and nobody had gotten to her to stop her and tell her it wasn't a good voice she was hearing.  I haven't re-read yet, so I am going off the one time through memory, but I think that is how I remembered it. So, the reason why I like the three tier power play, is because it is the most honest, most likely to happen. Balance just kind of sits back and waits while Ruin and Preservation try to realize that they both must exist for Balance to exist....or something like that. It is really late for me, and this seems to be making less sense as I try to articulate it.

So, if I made some sense, or even if I totally confused you, let me know what you think.

[Comatose]

Well, I guess when you spit out as much crazy stuff as I do, chances are something's got to strike a chord  Thanks for your imput.  And I think it's too late for me as well, I think I shall retire now, I have church tomorrow!

[Chaos]

I think there's something we're missing that we can figure out from the books we have though.  So far, Brandon's been really good a subtley forshadowing things, making very important things seem very unimportant, often just mentioning them in passing once or twice and then coming back to them later.  I'm sure there another secret left to uncover that's in the already published books.

Then again, "there's always another secret."

Modification:
Ok, I've been rereading this thread again, and something jumped out at me.  A little earlier there was some talk about the well holding the power of both ruin and presercation and that the hero got to decide.  I'm not sure if this has been touchedo n, but it pretty much says this in the book.  In the passages about the prophecy I'm pretty sure it says something about the hero bringing ruin in his wake and yet bringing stability or something like that, wouldn't that be the same as finding the balance?  Oh, and I've also been thinking, if Ruin is what was trapped in the well, then why is the power that Vin and the Lord Ruler took the "power of creation."  My guess would be that the power is not of ruin or preservation, because creation is neither really, preservation is lack of change, ruin is destruction, so would that mean there is a third party?  Brandon seems to like threes.  Three created creatures, three magic systems... Oh, and have you noticed the magic systems sort of have their own affinity for ruin or preservation.  Feruchemists are very much preservation, they store and preserve knowledge, while the Inquisitors, who we know have something to do with hemalurgy, can hear the voice of ruin, does that mean allomancy has something to do with creation.  Forgive me, I'm rambling, and not spitting out anything conclusive, but what if Creation is the state of balance between ruin and preservation?  Just some food for thought.

And is it jsut me, or is ruin not the only thing that is bound, if ruin is so powerful, and there is supposed to be balance, shouldn't preservation be powerful too, however the mist spirit doesn't seem to be overly powerful, and is unable to speak, maybe ruin and preservation trapped eachother, preservation sealed ruin away with its opposite: creation, and ruin trapped Preservation in the mists, maybe the mists are just ruin's tools, and preservation is trapped wihin them, again, I'm not even sure, this is just the sound of me rambling and my head exploding

I don't know about that definition of the Well of Ascension. Brandon says in the MB1 annotation Chapter 34 Part Two that there are two forces in the world, and the Lord Ruler has only touched one of them. That has to infer that the Well either is Ruin or Preservation, not a balance of the two.

I think that is the first post in this thread that I have agreed with any of. Please don't take that as an insult, it isn't meant as one, it is just a statement that until now I haven't found a theory that I liked, or that struck a chord with me.

That's quite all right. Lord knows my kandra theory was complete ridiculousness.

On a side note, this post by Ookla seems to say that we may have Preservation all wrong:

Just to be clear, I'm not saying anything about who or what Preservation is.

(That quote is on page two)

[Eudaimoniac]

Just discovered this board again, and can see i will ave to reread WoA soon, to be able to bring anything new to you master-minders

I would say though:

There has been talk of the kendra being of Preservation and humans being of Ruin. This leads me to believe that both Ruin and Preservation has to be sentient entities. We know now where Ruin has been for the last centuries, and that it is now free. We don't know that about Preservation. We have no mention of is as an entity. As something where you can point at it and say "There's Preservation" as we could with Ruin in the Well-room. Knowing a bit about Brandon lets me believe that there must be a Preservation somewhere. Why has it not shown itself ? When we think of the direct intervention Ruin has made on the world, and the powers it could wield from it's prison, why did Preservation not act as directly ? It must have been strong enough to imprison Ruin in the first place (if it was Preservation doing it) so where did all that power go ? Did it go into making the prison, for then the power is released now that the prison is no more there...

I am a novice in this, and have only read MB1 and 2 once, when they came out, so this is from age-old memory

[Comatose]

I don't know about that definition of the Well of Ascension. Brandon says in the MB1 annotation Chapter 34 Part Two that there are two forces in the world, and the Lord Ruler has only touched one of them. That has to infer that the Well either is Ruin or Preservation, not a balance of the two.

Well the maybe my second theory is right, the power of creation is just a force, not a being, that Preservation used to imprison ruin, and once the power was gone, there was nothing holding ruin back, like I said before, that rant was rally just the sound of my head exploding, I'm not really sure if I came up with anything conclusive.
Or maybe Preservation isn't the mist spirit, but is imprisoned in something that changes, since change is the opposite of preservation, Preservation might have been imprisoned in a human, which is, of ruin.  Ruin inprisoned in the power of creation, preservation imprisoned in a chaotic creature of change: a person, perhaps one of the characters has presrvatino inside them.  This theory is pretty wild, once again, I'm just spitting stuff off the top of my head, however, my guess, If this would be true might bet the obvious agent: Vin, or perhaps Sazed.
Oh, by the way, I preordered my copy of HoA on Amazon today

[AvalonDreamer]

I don't know how explored the concept is, but wasn't it mentioned that the koloss are a creation of ruin? What if when you take the power from the Well, whatever is done has to have a counteraction as well, in order to keep ruin and preservation in check (in that case, giving us the kandra).  If that's the case, maybe when he created Allomancy, Hemalurgy came into existence as well. I've been tossing the idea around in my head for a bit and it seems to make sense.

Feel free to rip it to shreds, though. Nothing I like more than to be proven wrong. ^^

[darxbane]

Your overall theory makes sense, but the Hemallurgy example is most likely wrong.  Alendi, the original hero of ages, had what was called the "piercings of the hero".  He was able to feel the well pulsing, just like Vin could.  Since Vin began to repel the mists as she was heading towards the well, her earring has Hemallurgy properties.  This most likely means that Alendi also had Hemallurgy piercings, pre-Lord Ruler.

[Comatose]

We don't know for sure that the earrings were hemalurgic, I kind of regret mentioning that point, but they certainly could be.  Perhaps hemalurgy existed in another form before the lord ruler's ascension.  I don't think it says the koloss are of ruin, just that humans are and that they will use the koloss as their pawns to destroy eachother.  I'm also now, like chaos questioning the mist spirit-preservation theory, however, i keep thinking if the mist spirit isn't preservation who or what is he/she/it?  Someone opposed to freeing ruin for sure.  Maybe Ruin and Preservation are stored in the well, and the mist spirit is a spirit of balance, or creation that put them there, it does say that the mists are both stability and chaos, right?  Also, about that annotation saying there are only two beings, maybe Creation or Balance or whatever isn't a separate entity, but a combination of the two.  That would ruin my other theory about the mist spirit thought.  I don't think preservation would chose the msits to manifest itself in though, I think it would chose something that is solely of presrvation, which possibly lead me back to my other theory (boy I like contradiciting myself) that Ruin imprisoned Preservation in the changing mist, just as Preservation imprisoned Ruin in the power of creation, they used eachother's opposites to trap eachother.  But that still doesn't work quite, because the mitss are still of preservation and ruin, but I guess creation isn't really of either.  They used neutral forces to trap eachother, sorry if I confused, you, this was just my thinking on screen, I'll restate my prevailling hypothesis:

I think that there are two neutral forces that Ruin and Preservation can both manipulate: the mists which is of both of them, and the power of creation which is of niether really.  I think that Ruin and Preservation trapped eachother- Ruin trapping Presrevation in the ever-changing mists, and Preservation trapping ruin within the power of creation that is in the well of ascension.

Thoughts??

[Chaos]

Just discovered this board again, and can see i will ave to reread WoA soon, to be able to bring anything new to you master-minders

I would say though:

There has been talk of the kendra being of Preservation and humans being of Ruin. This leads me to believe that both Ruin and Preservation has to be sentient entities. We know now where Ruin has been for the last centuries, and that it is now free. We don't know that about Preservation. We have no mention of is as an entity. As something where you can point at it and say "There's Preservation" as we could with Ruin in the Well-room. Knowing a bit about Brandon lets me believe that there must be a Preservation somewhere. Why has it not shown itself ? When we think of the direct intervention Ruin has made on the world, and the powers it could wield from it's prison, why did Preservation not act as directly ? It must have been strong enough to imprison Ruin in the first place (if it was Preservation doing it) so where did all that power go ? Did it go into making the prison, for then the power is released now that the prison is no more there...

I am a novice in this, and have only read MB1 and 2 once, when they came out, so this is from age-old memory

We don't exactly know what Preservation is, sadly. Though, I agree with you somewhat on the idea that they are sentient. We know Ruin is very clever in his manipulation of the Terris Prophecies, which would lead me to believe it is sentient. However, it uses Zane fairly indiscriminately in killing people (or at least trying to get him to), so that gives credence that while it is clever, it is still much more like a force of nature. Ruin is what it is, so it wants to create ruin and destruction in the world, because that's what it does (this is a subtle reference a logbook mentioning of the Deepness. Alendi says that the Deepness will destroy the world because that is just "what it does".)

I don't know how explored the concept is, but wasn't it mentioned that the koloss are a creation of ruin? What if when you take the power from the Well, whatever is done has to have a counteraction as well, in order to keep ruin and preservation in check (in that case, giving us the kandra).  If that's the case, maybe when he created Allomancy, Hemalurgy came into existence as well. I've been tossing the idea around in my head for a bit and it seems to make sense.

Feel free to rip it to shreds, though. Nothing I like more than to be proven wrong. ^^

Hmmm, Brandon certainly likes the Newtonian sort of magic in Mistborn. Every action has a reaction sort of thing. Your theory, then, doesn't seem too unreasonable.

However, I must still say that Brandon said (in an annotation) the Lord Ruler has only touched one of the two forces. So, the Well must only be one of the forces, because obviously, that was what the Lord Ruler touched.

[Comatose]

Maybe it means that the lord ruler only touched one of two forces in a set, who knows, maybe there are other sets.  Just playing the devil's advocate, food for thought, eh?

[Comatose]

I think Alendi can here the voice of both ruin and preservation. In one excerpt, he says he can sense the "mind" of the deepness, that wants to destroy everything, that sounds similar to Zane's God, so I'm thinking he can here Ruin.  I nthe excerpt before the Epilogue, however, Alendi says that

"there must be something directing my path.  Something is watching; something cares.  These peaceful whispers tell me a truth I very much want to believe.  If I fail, another shall come to finish my work."

[Chaos]

I think Alendi can here the voice of both ruin and preservation. In one excerpt, he says he can sense the "mind" of the deepness, that wants to destroy everything, that sounds similar to Zane's God, so I'm thinking he can here Ruin.  I nthe excerpt before the Epilogue, however, Alendi says that

"there must be something directing my path.  Something is watching; something cares.  These peaceful whispers tell me a truth I very much want to believe.  If I fail, another shall come to finish my work."

They are both Ruin, I think, but two sides of Ruin. One element is the Deepness itself, which is more true to form of Ruin and his natural tendency to destroy things. This gives Alendi something to fight against.

The second part is the manipulative part. It is soothing because it is required to be soothing in order to get the Hero to free Ruin at the Well. For example, when Vin enters the Well itself, a soothing voice tells her to destroy the Deepness. Of course, we know that as Ruin, because it wants to free itself.

Likewise, the soothing voice is just a way to keep Alendi fighting the Deepness until the end result: Ruin is freed. Both voices are pure constructions of Ruin.

[Comatose]

But ruin doesn't want him to fail, and so far when ruin talks in people minds he hasn't been manipulative, at least not in that way, only in how he changes reality and when Vin meets him directly.  The whispers are telling Alendi that it's ok to fail because someone will finish his work, I think Ruin would wnat to make sure he succeeded so he could be free.

[Chaos]

But the voice didn't tell him explicitly that "If I fail, another shall come to finish my work". That is Alendi's analysis of the feeling of the peaceful voice, not necessarily what it actually said. However, the whispers say:

These peaceful whispers tell me a truth I very much want to believe.

In Kwaan's words at the end of MB2, he says men would die in the belief of prophecies. The voice wants Alendi to believe, then, that the prophecies will stop the Deepness. Alendi's analysis that another will finish his work is just a natural extension of that belief.

[Comatose]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then , because I definately think it's preservation.