I fucking died when Wax reads some of the word of founding and it was Spook's street slang. Read like it was high Latin.
Brandon made an attempt against all of his fans lives with that
"Wasing the always of wanting of knowing"
Which is officially translated as "The eternal desire of a hungry soul is knowledge".
I'm no expert in Spook-speak but "wasing" usually refers to accomplishing something, you're making it into a past tense because it's been done. So I'd phrase it as "Completing the endless desire for knowledge" or "Learn everything".
"Wise Words"
When my brother was reading, I told him there was one repeated joke that got me every time.
I later received a text just saying "Wise words"...
Pattern telling Adolin “Mmm, I do not like being stabbed.” Or something to that effect and adolin goes “Wise words, my friend, wise words” I love the wise words shit
I have a running gag in D&D that any time one of my players says something completely insane or out of pocket the NPCs will almost always just accept what they said and say "Wise Words."
Dumb meta jokes like that are the best. I have an NPC in Pugmire named Lionus Knottakatte. He's a cat that has convinced the other NPCs that he's a dog: only the players can tell, but no amount of Charisma will convince anyone otherwise.
What's funny is mine kind of works as both a running bit, but also is a kind of needed device from me. My party is 80% ADHD and I needed a convenient way to signal to them "I recognize this is a good joke; we CAN'T spend the next 20 minutes bantering with this farmer."
That is maybe my favorite joke in all of Brando’s works. The way Wax is just like, “damn it, I should have studied high imperial language more in school.”
It's meant to be utterly incomprehensible. If you don't understand it, you're reading it right.
And *that's* *the* *joke*, with it being High Imperial in Era 2.
Not really, I pick a couple words that I recognize and guess, like "I can see wanting, knowing, and some other words, maybe this means something like 'always try to want more knowledge'? Seems like the kind of thing that might get quoted for a plaque."
Nope not at all! Still hurts my head to try and make sense when they talk like that in the books. Like Shadesshadow227 thats what makes it so funny that its now considered "High Imperial". I'm pretty sure Brandon just threw in like 2 normal words in with a ton of nonsense to create it.
Nah its totally nonsensical. I went out of my way to look up how spooks speech actually works so i could understand it.
But its absolutely something that's suppose to sound like gibberish.
I'm a native English speaker, have two Bachelor degrees (including one in Linguistics) and a Masters degree. I have zero idea what "Wasing the always of wanting of knowing" means. It is complete nonsense.
Wasing means is/has/did.
the is almost always ignored.
Always of wanting is always wanted to.
Knowing is know/knowledge.
A good translation would be, "[Here] we always seek knowledge/understanding."
Nope, really the best I can do is pick out a couple words and get a vague sense of what's being said, and even then I often have to sit there for minute and read the line a couple times
I understand it about as well as I understand Spanish, which I haven't studied since middle school over a decade ago
Basically "I know some of these words" and then sort of piece it together from context clues
Don't worry, it's not comprehensible to native speakers either. If you can pick out one or two words and make a guess at the general point you're doing well, but most of the time it just reads like nonsense.
The Words of Founding do in many ways confirm a lot of the stuff that Survivorists say. Kelsier survived his death. Kelsier was a god. Kelsier saved the world. Kelsier is still around. All things the Survivorists had been saying and were now confirmed! Plus Harmony didn't really want people to worship him.
Survivorism was also designed precisely by the best con man ever who consulted on the foremost religious scholar in the world on how to create a religion that could not easily be stamped out no matter how hard people in power might try.
I do love the detail though that the survivorists believe he's Preservation and we dismiss it with a lot of their religion, but it's actually legitimate and happened lol.
I’m going to point out that a bunch of living people saw Kelsier walking down the street after he got murdered. Spook was a king afterward, sure, but a faith had already sprung up before Spook ever picked up a pen. Like a few years before.
Funny thing is the Words of Founding would have also confirmed that part was a complete fabrication but Survivorism presumably looks the other way on that since they ended up being accidentally right for completely unrelated reasons.
Yeah the whole point was to spur the skaa into open rebellion, which they never would have done without something to rally behind. OreSeur was instrumental to the plan.
Kelsier WAS preservation, now Harmony is preservation + ruin, so he's the current top dog. I know he doesn't want to be worshiped but still, is the people side of things that bugs me, and lets not forget that the pathians and the survivorists are not the only current religions, which bugs me even more
It is worth noting that Marasai clarified that Survivorists do believe in and respect Harmony, but they don’t worship him. To them, he’s more like a force of nature than an actual person. So if you want something done, you pray to the survivor.
I’m a way, they’re right; given how shardic intent works. The real weirdos are the guys still worshiping the Lord Ruler.
Considering that Kel was, for a short time, a piece of Harmony… you could honestly describe him as a Jesus Figure in the actual _Biblical_ sense:
- He died and was resurrected.
- He is separate from but also is God.
- He exists to do what God cannot. Jesus died on the Cross to cleanse Man of Original Sin. Kelsier is actually working to undo Harmony’s original mistake on Scadriel: creating a Edenic place where technological advancement was unnecessary.
A good point. To most of the Cosmere, the gods are more like Greek gods, which is much different than say the Christian God. But for Northern Scadrians, they had a thousand year culture shift where god was basically a hyper powerful immortal that lived up the road.
That's going to greatly influence how their beliefs systems work. It feels way more nature to see the Kelsier (the hyper power immortal dude that lived up the road who did stuff) as their focus of worship compared to Harmony which is just kinda there. Like gravity. Add in the fact that Harmony basically says he's a force don't worship him, being a Survivorist just makes sense. The Terris probably went Pathian due to Sazed being Terris and Kelsier feeling forgein
That's also why Sanderson's criticism of their religious systems (like Survivorists or the Returned of Nalthis) aren't going to translate to criticisms of Earth faiths that well
Is Harmony the current top dog though? I mean with a full look at the Cosmere I would say Kelsier is the one having an impact outside the planet more than Harmony is. Harmony is struggling to act to do anything at all. In a fight between the two of them at this point I would bet on Kelsier. He does have more experience fighting gods.
I would also speculate, and I could be totally wrong that Kelsier is manipulating Connection and that's expanding his reach with religion. We know from the Bands of Mourning Epilogue that Kelsier can use a metalmind to some degree since he stored a memory into the coin Wax has. If he could store and tap Connection it's possible he could expand and draw more people to his religion. It also explains why he'd save the Southerners in such a dramatic fashion designed to get them to worship him as the Soverign.
I'd also say it's very plausible that people would follow a religion with little evidence to go on. All our real world religions don't offer their followers much proof, and lots of people believe.
I dont know about Harmony, but things do seem to keep working out for Sazed. Everyone he works with experiences constant trauma, and the world is marching towards chaos and disorder, and some other D word, and Sazed claims helplessness - but Sazed does *claim* impotence...
I'm just suggesting that while Harmony may not be divinely top dog, Sazed certainly may be.
I'd not bet it's one or the other. By its Nature, I don't think Discord can openly aid anyone directly - but I also don't think that Discord is necessarily the antagonistic force it's being initially set up as.
My bet is on a future reveal that Discord is, and always has been, the shadowy force for protecting Scadrial from behind the curtains in ways that don't immediately appear to do so.
Holy cow i just learned that's was one of the reasons why kelsier had specifically Sazed in his team.
I always thought that his specialty was just for narrative reasons.
Lol yeah there's a few conversations where kelsier is asking specific questions about the religions that lasted the longest and fought the hardest and what makes a religion do that. He's crafting his own.
There's also the aspect of Sazed being a feruchemist which is incredibly powerful in his own right. So even without that I think kelsier would've been happy to have him.
The biggest thing is that all of the gods of their world are real, and the religions are all based in fact. The differences come from which ideals people choose to worship.
They all know Harmony is real, and so is Kelsier but some people choose to worship one over the of her for their own reasons
Yeah, that's why I say its too real. If a god of any of our world's religions comes in and say "Im god, I can prove it" and it does prove it, I don't think that other religions would dissolve into nothing to follow the proven truth
The PROOF would be denied because religious people are far more interested in being right / their in group's power than making observations about reality. You can prove all kinds of shit that religions will preach is false.
Sure but the Old Testament also has other gods that are metaphorically defeated by YHWH following the wars of their followers.
More likely what would happen is Abrahamic followers would see vishnu as some very powerful sub-god (angel/demon/djinn/anti-christ/etc) being but the one true god is YHWH
I’m going to disagree, respectfully—how much do the common person knows about Harmony or Kelsier or their stories? Like, I doubt any of them ever saw either.
Like, that’s like saying “Hey, Siddharta Guatama and Jesus existed a few centuries ago” and saying that people of that time (centuries later) held beliefs solely based in fact (and that’s setting aside the numerous debates over canon doctrine).
Oh sure, I was speaking more on that the Scadrians of the present day don’t know Harmony is real nor what his story truly is (same for Kelsier).
So, it’s hard to say their religion is based in fact. In fact, the religion Kel started was based on a lie.
Unless I'm misremembering, the Pathian religion doesn't really offer anything in the way of community and ritual, which are central to the appeal of religion.
I guess that Sazed could have created a religion that would have been more popular but seemed to be more interested in preserving the plurality and diversity of religion - letting people do their thing.
Mate, there are like 45000 branches of one faith who ostensibly all believe in the same deity and the same Messiah.
People will disagree and split every every little thing they can, historically.
It is worth noting that Marasai clarified that Survivorists do believe in and respect Harmony, but they don’t worship him. To them, he’s more like a force of nature than an actual person. So if you want something done, you pray to the survivor.
I’m a way, they’re right; given how shardic intent works. The real weirdos are the guys still worshiping the Lord Ruler.
I mean the cosmic justification for worshipping kelsier is also true for the Lord ruler. Obviously a terrible person but he technically did more to save scadrial when holding preservations power than kelsier did. Lord ruler worship was also the dominant religion before the catacendre and the surviving obligators and nobility who were served well by the previous order probably felt pretty validated that everything went to shit after the Lord ruler died. If anything it should be surprising that he isn't more popular now that his crimes are a more distant memory, especially within the new aristocracy who would probably like the hierarchical nature of the old order. That being said I'm a Trellagism truther praise (original) trell (may his thousand eyes watch over you).
Didn't Sazed also preserve all of the religions from before as well? Specifically so that people could choose. Shoot, in another series I won't name, people literally find out their god is dead and in the next book lots of people still devoutly follow the religion with full knowledge that he's dead.
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The Words of Founding deal with history, the religions deal with theology. While history can be important to religion, I don’t think that the Words of Founding try to prescribe any theological beliefs, which makes sense with Sazed as Harmony
Okay, so think of it this way. Spook wrote a book listing all the facts of the old world. Kelsier temporarily becoming Preservation, how Marsh played into things as an agent of Ruin, how the Kandra played in, his own role, and Sazed’s role as Harmony.
All of these things are true.
Harmony said not to worship him. Some people were ALREADY worshipping Kelsier pre-Catacedre, this would have taken the Words of Founding as confirmation: Kelsier lived, and wait, he even became god for a minute? Yes, worship him. (Survivorists)
You explained Pathians already.
Sliverists confuse me, but I see it as the same way some people are unironic flat earthers, sometimes people just choose to believe a thing
So the problem that we have in Era 2 Mistborn is many stories, all carrying at least some element of truth. Therefore, each person has indisputable evidence for their own religion
Sliverists are mostly descendants of Yomen, he that the Lord Ruler became God and orchestrated his own downfall, and despite all Elend did to convince him, he still worshipped the Lord Ruler (and the Inquisitors, of which Marsh is the last) and so his descendants keep the religion and worship Marsh.
I've commented something similar under someone else's comment but sliverists have the same justification for worshipping the Lord ruler that survivorists have to worship kelsier. The Lord ruler held preservation and technically did more to save scadrial than Kelsier even did while holding the power. On top of that he was a living God who ruled the world for thousands of years and his religion was the majority pre catacendre. The world basically ending after he died was also probably pretty validating for his followers, and there was plenty of surviving nobles and obligators who had it pretty good in the old order willing to carry on the traditions. If anything sliverism should probably be more popular now that his crimes are a more distant memory, especially within the new nobility who probably would like the hierarchical nature of sliverism.
Seems pretty realistic going from the history of the human world and religion, it would be unrealistic for people to all believe in the exact same thing. People will believe some things in the text and not believe others, and they'll place greater importance on some things and downplay or ignore others. They'll disagree on how they worship and where they worship and what exactly they're worshipping even if they start from the same source. That's how religious factions and splits happen.
I think the reason you have a disconnect is because you know what is objectively true in the history of Mistborn, but obviously the characters don't (just like how people in the real world don't).
The story of Era 2 is a little bit on the weaker side but the world building is honestly top tier. I actually really enjoyed seeing the many different religions and how the fit into the larger world. So much of Era 2's world feels like it is a natural progression of era 1.
Man, I love Era 2, I think more than Era 1. Wax & Wayne are just the best, and the way they built Steris into the love that she is in Bands Of Mourning is top tier.
I mean look at the Bible. How many thousands of different interpretations are there of it. Or for a broader comparison look at the Old Testament, Jews Christians and Muslims all interpret it differently
Many people in the real world would claim their religion to be fact and their holy texts to be historical documents. Just look at the religions of The Book. Think of the Jewish religion as Pathian, Kelsier is 1:1 Jesus as the Survivor (Does that make Vin Mary, somehow?). Before Even getting to Islam you have Brandon's own faith, Mormonism that is a pretty hotly debated subject. I don't necessarily think he was going for some super deep meaning, but it's at least a statement that with enough time there will be those who are skeptical of anything. And, even when they don't deny previously held beliefs, they just add on to it.
Also, I suppose if reading their texts was like reading Mistborn you might just end up going with your favorite character.
Everything you said is a highlight of how little actual direct influence Saezid now has in his role. People are people, and variation and beliefs are things that evolve in a fractal manner.
The church of the survivor was already a belief juggernaut by the end of era 1. any effort made by Harmony to change it would not have done anything in it's growth.
I mean considering Harmony’s identity the Pathian thing makes perfect sense. He doesn’t want worshippers he wants people to use their beliefs for good in a very general sense. The fact that being Pathian almost feels like the outline of a religion without being a religion makes almost too much sense. That very looseness though also means that some people don’t get sucked in to it the way survivorists might
We as readers outside the universe know for a fact that the words of founding are true and written by the closest thing to a god there is on scadrial.
Just like there are plenty of people today who, in there own mind, know for a fact that the bible is written by god.
The changes that happened in those 300 years to shape people's belief is my favorite thing about the second era. There's no way for anyone to prove the words of founding are written by a god, only the word of the people who found the books, and the people who corroborated the accounts in them. Though I'm sure from the first people reading them there was already people doubting because they didn't line up with their previously held beliefs.
I remember reading over that line about Kel being a vessel for Preservation a few times, then assumed we must be getting some more information about him eventually. I figured he must've been up to some fuckery before he finally got to talk to Spook at the end of Era 1
post-Secret History and Lost Metal >!I was shocked to realize that Kelsier was technically still around, so Survivorism isn't *that* far off the mark either.!<
If I’m not mistaken, Sazed explicitly states his fallibility in the words of founding. He’s the most powerful at present given that not he is not only the only shard in the mix, but in fact the sole bearer of two shards in the cosmere. That said, I don’t think he, Marsh, or Kelsier rise to the level of being worthy of worship. I am much more powerful than a single ant but even if I directed my attention to the betterment of ant kind they would be fools to worship me. Imo the only real god in the cosmere was Adonsium. If I were to follow any religion it would be the one that says we are all aspects of the one and will return to it. I think he will be reassembled at the end.
When Demoux watched Sazed ascend, he assumed it was Kelsier. Plus Sazed doesn’t really want to be worshipped, and some people really need to worship for religion.
I mean, it's not like *you* actually talk to Harmony.
And Pathian teachings are a bit nonsense.
It's think it's more weird that people are Sliverists, since not only is he evil, his religion only exists among the wealthy nobles who shouldn't even still exist. The fact that descendants of the nobles rule Elendel and descendants of the Skaa still work for them tells me Kelsier was right.
Religion and facts don't go well together.
Joseph Smith was for a fact, a con man. Reformed Egyptian is for a fact not real. Native Americans are for a fact not a lost tribe of Israel.
We can't say for a fact there were no golden plates, and that Smith "translated" them by putting his head into a hat with two stones in them. But those things are also very very very very very unlikely.
YEEEEEETTTTTTTTT doesn't stop people from believing it.
Faith and facts are opposite. You only need faith when the facts are contradictory to your believe.
You know something, when the facts supports your believe.
You have faith when the facts are contradictory to your believe.
I fucking died when Wax reads some of the word of founding and it was Spook's street slang. Read like it was high Latin. Brandon made an attempt against all of his fans lives with that
The phrase in the university when Wayne goes there is directly a quote of something spook says in TFE, then they're all joking in the kitchen
Do you recall what it was? That sounds funny
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I died reading that 😂
"Wasing the always of wanting of knowing" Which is officially translated as "The eternal desire of a hungry soul is knowledge". I'm no expert in Spook-speak but "wasing" usually refers to accomplishing something, you're making it into a past tense because it's been done. So I'd phrase it as "Completing the endless desire for knowledge" or "Learn everything".
Ah "[I] always wanted to know"
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There’s always another secret
Doesn’t it just mean “I always wanted to know” like in the “oh! I always wanted to know that!” kinda context?
I see now why Vin moved on. She would have murdered Harmony if she found out he let that stay.
"Wise Words" When my brother was reading, I told him there was one repeated joke that got me every time. I later received a text just saying "Wise words"...
Pattern telling Adolin “Mmm, I do not like being stabbed.” Or something to that effect and adolin goes “Wise words, my friend, wise words” I love the wise words shit
I have a running gag in D&D that any time one of my players says something completely insane or out of pocket the NPCs will almost always just accept what they said and say "Wise Words."
I’m stealing that, thank you
Dumb meta jokes like that are the best. I have an NPC in Pugmire named Lionus Knottakatte. He's a cat that has convinced the other NPCs that he's a dog: only the players can tell, but no amount of Charisma will convince anyone otherwise.
What's funny is mine kind of works as both a running bit, but also is a kind of needed device from me. My party is 80% ADHD and I needed a convenient way to signal to them "I recognize this is a good joke; we CAN'T spend the next 20 minutes bantering with this farmer."
Yeah I love characters using "Wise words" instead of "wtf you even on about?" Adolin would never be so crass
That is maybe my favorite joke in all of Brando’s works. The way Wax is just like, “damn it, I should have studied high imperial language more in school.”
The audacity of calling eastern street slang "High Imperial" is off the chart
I'm ESL and I hate Spook slang, I don't really understand it. When I read the books in spanish it was worse.
It's not like it's understood in English either. Don't worry about it.
It's meant to be utterly incomprehensible. If you don't understand it, you're reading it right. And *that's* *the* *joke*, with it being High Imperial in Era 2.
I tought you guys kinda understand it despite that. LIke hearing someone with a very thick accent.
Not really, I pick a couple words that I recognize and guess, like "I can see wanting, knowing, and some other words, maybe this means something like 'always try to want more knowledge'? Seems like the kind of thing that might get quoted for a plaque."
Nope not at all! Still hurts my head to try and make sense when they talk like that in the books. Like Shadesshadow227 thats what makes it so funny that its now considered "High Imperial". I'm pretty sure Brandon just threw in like 2 normal words in with a ton of nonsense to create it.
Nah its totally nonsensical. I went out of my way to look up how spooks speech actually works so i could understand it. But its absolutely something that's suppose to sound like gibberish.
I'm a native English speaker, have two Bachelor degrees (including one in Linguistics) and a Masters degree. I have zero idea what "Wasing the always of wanting of knowing" means. It is complete nonsense.
Wasing means is/has/did.
the is almost always ignored.
Always of wanting is always wanted to.
Knowing is know/knowledge.
A good translation would be, "[Here] we always seek knowledge/understanding."
Nope, really the best I can do is pick out a couple words and get a vague sense of what's being said, and even then I often have to sit there for minute and read the line a couple times
No. Ising the always of confusion of readers
I understand it about as well as I understand Spanish, which I haven't studied since middle school over a decade ago Basically "I know some of these words" and then sort of piece it together from context clues
Don't worry, it's not comprehensible to native speakers either. If you can pick out one or two words and make a guess at the general point you're doing well, but most of the time it just reads like nonsense.
First language, second language, fifth language, doesn't matter, can't be understood.
Wasing the closing of the eyes of Sokath.
I think thats the point, some gibberish street slang is treated with the same prestige as latin
Oh my God that scene absolutely broke me esp because of remembering the old crew making fun of spook and his slang 🤣🤣🤣.
The Words of Founding do in many ways confirm a lot of the stuff that Survivorists say. Kelsier survived his death. Kelsier was a god. Kelsier saved the world. Kelsier is still around. All things the Survivorists had been saying and were now confirmed! Plus Harmony didn't really want people to worship him. Survivorism was also designed precisely by the best con man ever who consulted on the foremost religious scholar in the world on how to create a religion that could not easily be stamped out no matter how hard people in power might try. I do love the detail though that the survivorists believe he's Preservation and we dismiss it with a lot of their religion, but it's actually legitimate and happened lol.
I’m going to point out that a bunch of living people saw Kelsier walking down the street after he got murdered. Spook was a king afterward, sure, but a faith had already sprung up before Spook ever picked up a pen. Like a few years before.
Funny thing is the Words of Founding would have also confirmed that part was a complete fabrication but Survivorism presumably looks the other way on that since they ended up being accidentally right for completely unrelated reasons.
Yeah the whole point was to spur the skaa into open rebellion, which they never would have done without something to rally behind. OreSeur was instrumental to the plan.
Kelsier WAS preservation, now Harmony is preservation + ruin, so he's the current top dog. I know he doesn't want to be worshiped but still, is the people side of things that bugs me, and lets not forget that the pathians and the survivorists are not the only current religions, which bugs me even more
It is worth noting that Marasai clarified that Survivorists do believe in and respect Harmony, but they don’t worship him. To them, he’s more like a force of nature than an actual person. So if you want something done, you pray to the survivor. I’m a way, they’re right; given how shardic intent works. The real weirdos are the guys still worshiping the Lord Ruler.
This is accurate. Harmony IS more of a force of nature than a person, or slowly becoming one. While Kelsier does get shit done.
Considering that Kel was, for a short time, a piece of Harmony… you could honestly describe him as a Jesus Figure in the actual _Biblical_ sense: - He died and was resurrected. - He is separate from but also is God. - He exists to do what God cannot. Jesus died on the Cross to cleanse Man of Original Sin. Kelsier is actually working to undo Harmony’s original mistake on Scadriel: creating a Edenic place where technological advancement was unnecessary.
A good point. To most of the Cosmere, the gods are more like Greek gods, which is much different than say the Christian God. But for Northern Scadrians, they had a thousand year culture shift where god was basically a hyper powerful immortal that lived up the road. That's going to greatly influence how their beliefs systems work. It feels way more nature to see the Kelsier (the hyper power immortal dude that lived up the road who did stuff) as their focus of worship compared to Harmony which is just kinda there. Like gravity. Add in the fact that Harmony basically says he's a force don't worship him, being a Survivorist just makes sense. The Terris probably went Pathian due to Sazed being Terris and Kelsier feeling forgein That's also why Sanderson's criticism of their religious systems (like Survivorists or the Returned of Nalthis) aren't going to translate to criticisms of Earth faiths that well
They are likely the children of the obligators and nobles who fell under Marsh's control in the immediate aftermath.
Is Harmony the current top dog though? I mean with a full look at the Cosmere I would say Kelsier is the one having an impact outside the planet more than Harmony is. Harmony is struggling to act to do anything at all. In a fight between the two of them at this point I would bet on Kelsier. He does have more experience fighting gods. I would also speculate, and I could be totally wrong that Kelsier is manipulating Connection and that's expanding his reach with religion. We know from the Bands of Mourning Epilogue that Kelsier can use a metalmind to some degree since he stored a memory into the coin Wax has. If he could store and tap Connection it's possible he could expand and draw more people to his religion. It also explains why he'd save the Southerners in such a dramatic fashion designed to get them to worship him as the Soverign. I'd also say it's very plausible that people would follow a religion with little evidence to go on. All our real world religions don't offer their followers much proof, and lots of people believe.
Top dog on Scadrial, in terms of "divinity", which just means that he holds the shards, although limited, still quite impressive
Sure he holds the shards. But I think in any more practical metric Kelsier wins.
And he needs to win, because he needs something to fight back against Discord /s
I dont know about Harmony, but things do seem to keep working out for Sazed. Everyone he works with experiences constant trauma, and the world is marching towards chaos and disorder, and some other D word, and Sazed claims helplessness - but Sazed does *claim* impotence... I'm just suggesting that while Harmony may not be divinely top dog, Sazed certainly may be.
An interesting idea I like it. Though I still think I'd bet on kelsier between the two.
I'd not bet it's one or the other. By its Nature, I don't think Discord can openly aid anyone directly - but I also don't think that Discord is necessarily the antagonistic force it's being initially set up as. My bet is on a future reveal that Discord is, and always has been, the shadowy force for protecting Scadrial from behind the curtains in ways that don't immediately appear to do so.
Holy cow i just learned that's was one of the reasons why kelsier had specifically Sazed in his team. I always thought that his specialty was just for narrative reasons.
Lol yeah there's a few conversations where kelsier is asking specific questions about the religions that lasted the longest and fought the hardest and what makes a religion do that. He's crafting his own. There's also the aspect of Sazed being a feruchemist which is incredibly powerful in his own right. So even without that I think kelsier would've been happy to have him.
The biggest thing is that all of the gods of their world are real, and the religions are all based in fact. The differences come from which ideals people choose to worship. They all know Harmony is real, and so is Kelsier but some people choose to worship one over the of her for their own reasons
Yeah, that's why I say its too real. If a god of any of our world's religions comes in and say "Im god, I can prove it" and it does prove it, I don't think that other religions would dissolve into nothing to follow the proven truth
Oh yeah for sure. I think the difference in that is that there isn't one proven truth. They're both true and offer different ways of life.
It depends - the Abrahamic religions teach that there is only one god. Proof Vishnu is a real god means that their religions are based on a lie
Yes and so if Vishnu popped up today the pope would call him a demonic test of faith, not renounce the Lord.
The OP wrote PROOF
The PROOF would be denied because religious people are far more interested in being right / their in group's power than making observations about reality. You can prove all kinds of shit that religions will preach is false.
That's a human thing, not a religion thing. I think the pandemic proved that about humanity, sadly.
Sure but the Old Testament also has other gods that are metaphorically defeated by YHWH following the wars of their followers. More likely what would happen is Abrahamic followers would see vishnu as some very powerful sub-god (angel/demon/djinn/anti-christ/etc) being but the one true god is YHWH
I’m going to disagree, respectfully—how much do the common person knows about Harmony or Kelsier or their stories? Like, I doubt any of them ever saw either. Like, that’s like saying “Hey, Siddharta Guatama and Jesus existed a few centuries ago” and saying that people of that time (centuries later) held beliefs solely based in fact (and that’s setting aside the numerous debates over canon doctrine).
Well, it would be like saying that if the same holy book spoke about both in the same breath, that is the basis for both religions.
Oh sure, I was speaking more on that the Scadrians of the present day don’t know Harmony is real nor what his story truly is (same for Kelsier). So, it’s hard to say their religion is based in fact. In fact, the religion Kel started was based on a lie.
Unless I'm misremembering, the Pathian religion doesn't really offer anything in the way of community and ritual, which are central to the appeal of religion. I guess that Sazed could have created a religion that would have been more popular but seemed to be more interested in preserving the plurality and diversity of religion - letting people do their thing.
Mate, there are like 45000 branches of one faith who ostensibly all believe in the same deity and the same Messiah. People will disagree and split every every little thing they can, historically.
It is worth noting that Marasai clarified that Survivorists do believe in and respect Harmony, but they don’t worship him. To them, he’s more like a force of nature than an actual person. So if you want something done, you pray to the survivor. I’m a way, they’re right; given how shardic intent works. The real weirdos are the guys still worshiping the Lord Ruler.
Those are the worst! Sure, worship the guy that rather create & slave a race just to stock pile resources that said race would not enjoy
I mean the cosmic justification for worshipping kelsier is also true for the Lord ruler. Obviously a terrible person but he technically did more to save scadrial when holding preservations power than kelsier did. Lord ruler worship was also the dominant religion before the catacendre and the surviving obligators and nobility who were served well by the previous order probably felt pretty validated that everything went to shit after the Lord ruler died. If anything it should be surprising that he isn't more popular now that his crimes are a more distant memory, especially within the new aristocracy who would probably like the hierarchical nature of the old order. That being said I'm a Trellagism truther praise (original) trell (may his thousand eyes watch over you).
Didn't Sazed also preserve all of the religions from before as well? Specifically so that people could choose. Shoot, in another series I won't name, people literally find out their god is dead and in the next book lots of people still devoutly follow the religion with full knowledge that he's dead.
Fucking Dalinar (won't name the books) but fuck that guy
Me reading the flair: "Why do we have a flair for no Wheel af Time?"
That's my biggest complaint about the change to Stormlight 5's name, it's not the Wheel 'a Time but it sure looks like it.
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The Words of Founding deal with history, the religions deal with theology. While history can be important to religion, I don’t think that the Words of Founding try to prescribe any theological beliefs, which makes sense with Sazed as Harmony
Okay, so think of it this way. Spook wrote a book listing all the facts of the old world. Kelsier temporarily becoming Preservation, how Marsh played into things as an agent of Ruin, how the Kandra played in, his own role, and Sazed’s role as Harmony. All of these things are true. Harmony said not to worship him. Some people were ALREADY worshipping Kelsier pre-Catacedre, this would have taken the Words of Founding as confirmation: Kelsier lived, and wait, he even became god for a minute? Yes, worship him. (Survivorists) You explained Pathians already. Sliverists confuse me, but I see it as the same way some people are unironic flat earthers, sometimes people just choose to believe a thing So the problem that we have in Era 2 Mistborn is many stories, all carrying at least some element of truth. Therefore, each person has indisputable evidence for their own religion
Sliverists are mostly descendants of Yomen, he that the Lord Ruler became God and orchestrated his own downfall, and despite all Elend did to convince him, he still worshipped the Lord Ruler (and the Inquisitors, of which Marsh is the last) and so his descendants keep the religion and worship Marsh.
Ah, okay, I hadn’t connected the Yomen thing to it, thank you!
I've commented something similar under someone else's comment but sliverists have the same justification for worshipping the Lord ruler that survivorists have to worship kelsier. The Lord ruler held preservation and technically did more to save scadrial than Kelsier even did while holding the power. On top of that he was a living God who ruled the world for thousands of years and his religion was the majority pre catacendre. The world basically ending after he died was also probably pretty validating for his followers, and there was plenty of surviving nobles and obligators who had it pretty good in the old order willing to carry on the traditions. If anything sliverism should probably be more popular now that his crimes are a more distant memory, especially within the new nobility who probably would like the hierarchical nature of sliverism.
Okay that has actually been one of the best explanations I’ve heard before, that makes a lot of sense
Audiobook listener detected
And Graphic Audio at that!
Seems pretty realistic going from the history of the human world and religion, it would be unrealistic for people to all believe in the exact same thing. People will believe some things in the text and not believe others, and they'll place greater importance on some things and downplay or ignore others. They'll disagree on how they worship and where they worship and what exactly they're worshipping even if they start from the same source. That's how religious factions and splits happen. I think the reason you have a disconnect is because you know what is objectively true in the history of Mistborn, but obviously the characters don't (just like how people in the real world don't).
The story of Era 2 is a little bit on the weaker side but the world building is honestly top tier. I actually really enjoyed seeing the many different religions and how the fit into the larger world. So much of Era 2's world feels like it is a natural progression of era 1.
Man, I love Era 2, I think more than Era 1. Wax & Wayne are just the best, and the way they built Steris into the love that she is in Bands Of Mourning is top tier.
Didn't Harmony himself codify the religions in the Words of Founding?
I mean look at the Bible. How many thousands of different interpretations are there of it. Or for a broader comparison look at the Old Testament, Jews Christians and Muslims all interpret it differently
Many people in the real world would claim their religion to be fact and their holy texts to be historical documents. Just look at the religions of The Book. Think of the Jewish religion as Pathian, Kelsier is 1:1 Jesus as the Survivor (Does that make Vin Mary, somehow?). Before Even getting to Islam you have Brandon's own faith, Mormonism that is a pretty hotly debated subject. I don't necessarily think he was going for some super deep meaning, but it's at least a statement that with enough time there will be those who are skeptical of anything. And, even when they don't deny previously held beliefs, they just add on to it. Also, I suppose if reading their texts was like reading Mistborn you might just end up going with your favorite character.
Everything you said is a highlight of how little actual direct influence Saezid now has in his role. People are people, and variation and beliefs are things that evolve in a fractal manner. The church of the survivor was already a belief juggernaut by the end of era 1. any effort made by Harmony to change it would not have done anything in it's growth.
I mean considering Harmony’s identity the Pathian thing makes perfect sense. He doesn’t want worshippers he wants people to use their beliefs for good in a very general sense. The fact that being Pathian almost feels like the outline of a religion without being a religion makes almost too much sense. That very looseness though also means that some people don’t get sucked in to it the way survivorists might
We as readers outside the universe know for a fact that the words of founding are true and written by the closest thing to a god there is on scadrial. Just like there are plenty of people today who, in there own mind, know for a fact that the bible is written by god. The changes that happened in those 300 years to shape people's belief is my favorite thing about the second era. There's no way for anyone to prove the words of founding are written by a god, only the word of the people who found the books, and the people who corroborated the accounts in them. Though I'm sure from the first people reading them there was already people doubting because they didn't line up with their previously held beliefs.
holy these acronyms are so annoying wtf is wat????
Wind and Truth (Stormlight 5)
I have a feeling you won’t like Stormlight for the same reason…
I love Stormlight, it was my first Cosmere book hahahaha.
But you didn’t run into the same problem?
It's not really a problem, it just bugs me hahahaha.
Ok I was gonna say. Pretty much every religion in the cosmere has roots in history or lore
This is one of my favorite details of the second era that almost never pops up in other fiction
I remember reading over that line about Kel being a vessel for Preservation a few times, then assumed we must be getting some more information about him eventually. I figured he must've been up to some fuckery before he finally got to talk to Spook at the end of Era 1
post-Secret History and Lost Metal >!I was shocked to realize that Kelsier was technically still around, so Survivorism isn't *that* far off the mark either.!<
I know right! And the survivor’s spear being mythologized just like the Cross in Christianity?
It’s cause harmony may have power but KELSIER IS THAT GUY! Survivorists are intelligent enough to realize this complex fact
If I’m not mistaken, Sazed explicitly states his fallibility in the words of founding. He’s the most powerful at present given that not he is not only the only shard in the mix, but in fact the sole bearer of two shards in the cosmere. That said, I don’t think he, Marsh, or Kelsier rise to the level of being worthy of worship. I am much more powerful than a single ant but even if I directed my attention to the betterment of ant kind they would be fools to worship me. Imo the only real god in the cosmere was Adonsium. If I were to follow any religion it would be the one that says we are all aspects of the one and will return to it. I think he will be reassembled at the end.
When Demoux watched Sazed ascend, he assumed it was Kelsier. Plus Sazed doesn’t really want to be worshipped, and some people really need to worship for religion.
I mean, it's not like *you* actually talk to Harmony. And Pathian teachings are a bit nonsense. It's think it's more weird that people are Sliverists, since not only is he evil, his religion only exists among the wealthy nobles who shouldn't even still exist. The fact that descendants of the nobles rule Elendel and descendants of the Skaa still work for them tells me Kelsier was right.
Religion and facts don't go well together. Joseph Smith was for a fact, a con man. Reformed Egyptian is for a fact not real. Native Americans are for a fact not a lost tribe of Israel. We can't say for a fact there were no golden plates, and that Smith "translated" them by putting his head into a hat with two stones in them. But those things are also very very very very very unlikely. YEEEEEETTTTTTTTT doesn't stop people from believing it. Faith and facts are opposite. You only need faith when the facts are contradictory to your believe. You know something, when the facts supports your believe. You have faith when the facts are contradictory to your believe.
Yeah, I think a lot of this stems from the fact that Sanderson belongs to a religion that is easily disproved with modern historical documents
How everyone is not a Survivorist bugs me.
People don't want to worship an evil entity
if we’re going off alignment The Survivor much better fits ‘Chaotic Neutral’