Sympathetic towards....the Lord Ruler?*Spoilers*

[Comatose]

If this is getting into a discussion on the origins of hemalurgy and allomancy I suggest we move our conversation to the hemalurgy and origins of allomncy threads respectively.  See you there.

[Comatose]

Ok ,I just thought of something.  What if the lord ruler is trapping Ruin by keeping the world in a "preserved state."  That would mean Ruin and Preservation's power is affected by the state of the world.  By keeping everything the same, and "preserving" the world, he's weakening Ruin, and thus he had to do the things he did, to keep things from getting chaotic, because as soon as things got out of hand, like at the end of book 1 , chaos would ensue, and Ruin would gain power.  Perhaps that is what he "did," for the world

[Reaves]

im sorry but i have trouble feeling sorry for a dictator/mass murderer. He kinda sums up his feelings for the skaa in this statement

how many more of you must i kill?

I guess what this comes down to is, do the ends justify the means? Is it alright for someone to subjugate and enslave an entire race as long as he also is supposedly protecting the world? Is it ok to stick huge metal spikes in someone and using unspeakable blood sacrifices tear them from all they have ever known? Is it fine to cull your entire race by carefully controlling their breeding and killing any who may be a threat to your power?

[Comatose]

I'm not saying he was a good guy or anything, if yo uread the rest of the topic, you'll see it's more about the cahracter of the lord ruler, and his motivation: is he enslaving people JUST because he's a power hungry lunatic, or is there something more.  We're not discussing his morality, more his reasons for doing things.

[Vintage]

I agree with Comatose. In no way are we saying that TLR was a loving ruler. He was a tyrant and as such, you can forget about the loving part. What we are truly discussing is, as Marsh, as Vin's Mom, as Zane, was the Lord Ruler a victim of ruin ? Was it ruin who pushed him to kill ? Maybe he did not have Zane's strength to fight the urgency of the killing just like Vin's mom to kill her own daughter and choosing Vin as a princess. This is not the act of a loving mother but can I judge a woman's action if she is driven insane by an outer force ? Can we do the same with TLR ?

[Reaves]

ok, yeah i see what u r saying now. However, if it was Ruin he was keeping in the well, i dont think it was using him very effectively. He basically kept it from escaping from another 1000 years.

[Vintage]

Exactly ! So he was, in a way, saving the world but at a dear cost, wouldn't you say ? If that is what is happening, of course. We'll really know for sure only with MB3.

Your original quote, actually could point to the fact that he wasn't doing it totally by simple free will.

"How many more of you must I kill"

Doesn't "must" indicate an obligation of some sort ?

[Comatose]

What I was trying to say is that he had to enlave the world, to keep it from becoming chaotic, in order to STOP Ruin, not because Ruin was influencing him.  I think that because the Lord Ruler kept the whole world stable, and kept chaos at bay, Ruin's power significantly weakened, and Preservation's would have strengthened.  That's why he said must, according to him, he msut kill these rebels in order to keep the peace and keep Ruin at bay.   This would explain why Ruin was still able to influence a few select hemalurgist: Zane and Vin's mom,. while the lord ruler was in power.  No matter how powerful the lord ruler was, he couldn't quash all the chaos of the land, unless he killed every human on the planet (remember the humans are of ruin comment?).  So he did the best he could, making a single, unified empire of man, so there would be no more chaotic war, and ruling these poeple with an iron fist, to ensure order, thus preventing Ruin from inlfuencing all but a select few.

[SarahG]

I like your theory, Comatose.  As with all theories, I'm suspending full credence until we have more authority behind it.  But I do like the causation reversal of having the state of the world affect the relative power of Ruin and Preservation, rather than vice versa.  A lot of things make more sense this way, notably it gives TLR at least some rational purpose for his tyranny.

On the other hand, how does the millennial cycle of the well work with this theory?

[Comatose]

That is a hole.  And one we don't know much about.  All we know is the well gains power and is ready for the taking every thousande years.  I find it hard to believe that the Lord Ruler's reign lasted almost exactly one thousand yearsto be a coincidence.  There must be a tie there.  Who knows what it is?

[JCHancey]

This was my revelation
TLR was systematically killing off all the feruchemists, which could have been a VERY good thing, reason being that the making of an Inquisitor requires at least one feruchemist, and now with Ruin having total control over the Inquisitors they can capture and make as many new Inquisitors as they want. So TLR was controlling the amount of feruchemists so he could control the amount of Inquisitors.

[Miyabi]

This was my revelation
TLR was systematically killing off all the feruchemists, which could have been a VERY good thing, reason being that the making of an Inquisitor requires at least one feruchemist, and now with Ruin having total control over the Inquisitors they can capture and make as many new Inquisitors as they want. So TLR was controlling the amount of feruchemists so he could control the amount of Inquisitors.

The more I go over things and reread stuff and skim over annotations and stuff, the more I begin to think that TLR was actually trying to do what was best, he just . . . didn't do it in the best manner.

[JCHancey]

my thoughts exactly

[Reaves]

well he did successfully keep Ruin chained in the Well for over a thousand years, but if you are saying his motivations for doing so were basically good i don't think so. It seemed to me that Kwaan simply found him a ready-made tool to assassinate Alendi. He already hated the man and would not find it hard to take the power in the Well for himself.

[Czanos]

Well, the way I see it, before the Ascension, Ruin was free, much like he is after Vin frees him. Yet he still cannot act unchecked against the world, as Preservation is also freed. Then, at the Well of Ascension, Rashek used the power to imprison Ruin and tap into the power of Preservation. He created the Kandra and Koloss, at least one of which believes itself to be "from" preservation. He then proceeds to do what he can with Allomancy, Hemalurgy, and Feruchemy to insure that he is the only one who will ever be able to access the Well of Ascension, ensuring that Ruin stays trapped forever.

It also ties in to the theory that the state of the world affects which power has the most influence at the moment, if you look at it the right way. (Or it could just be coincidence/another factor that made the Lord Ruler preserve so much in the world.) He was trying to preserve society, and weaken Ruin's influence to less than nothing. He culled out the Keepers because he saw the potential dangers of mixing Feruchemy with Allomancy and/or Hemalurgy, and I assume he used one of his many abilities to override Ruin's control over the Inquisitors. (Or he just didn't know.) He could rule them with an iron fist, control their numbers, and (if he used something like his impressive soothing to ensure control,) limit the power of Ruin by keeping most of his agents close to him.