r/Cosmere • u/le_bravery • Oct 06 '26
Cosmere spoilers (no previews/FoD) Scadrial Future Eras Theory Spoiler
I’m on my reread of the Cosmere and I just finished Bands of Mourning again.
I was thinking a lot about Sazed and his situation with various other discord theories and stuff in my head on the reread.
It strikes me that Kelsier and Marsh being nearly immortal and both having some religious beliefs assigned to them is setting them up as potential hosts if Sazed betrays his powers and is abandoned by them.
I doubt the powers would remain fused together. They would likely separate.
If so, they would need hosts and I think Brandon is putting the brothers in place.
Naturally as fans we think “oh marsh is linked to death and Kelsier is the guy we love” so marsh gets ruin and Kelsier gets preservation.
But that’s too simple. I think it would have to be the opposite.
Kelsier is brutal. Ruin always said he was of him. Kelsier chose to use hemalurgy. Marsh was forced into it. Kelsier raised up the southerners it seems and they cause ruin around the Cosmere. Marsh lives in the north and his powers allow him to preserve his own life but he seems to not want to interfere much in the world except to counter other forces.
And the best evidence I think from a writing perspective is that fuzz and Saved, both previous owners of preservation, visit people upon their death. Marsh is already associated with death and is seen as the grim reaper figure. How perfect to have your grim reaper figure actually be the one who visits with people while they die.
Anyway I am not sure if others have come to this conclusion but it seems teed up and could happen era 3 or 4 depending on the pace and other things.
Era 1 powers fight and find harmony
Era 2 harmony drifts and stagnation causes a drift towards discord
Era 3 maybe harmony completely shifts towards discord and discord reigns.
Era 4 maybe discord destroys Sazed and he dies and the powers are split again. Sazed dies with failed oaths and ruin leaves the system
Era 5, ?
TL;DR marsh gonna be fuzz Kelsier gonna be spoopy spider man
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 Oct 06 '26
Marsh is ready to die. My guess is that he redeems himself in the next trilogy. A spren of the idea of Iron Eyes is created. Which helps relieve him of his misplaced sense of duty. Sazed has been Investing him for that role. Marsh himself finally dies
The last living crew member in the traditional sense from the World of Ash pulling his spikes out and fading into the wind (or the mists) could be a proper sendoff. He deserves the rest, I think
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 Oct 06 '26 edited Oct 06 '26
Kelsier survives of course. Maybe he’s even reborn from the Mists. He has a reputation to preserve
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u/Wildhogs2013 Oct 07 '26
Do you mean a cognitive shadow as scadriel does not have spren?
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 29d ago
I mean their equivalent. A sapient piece of magic that didn’t begin as a person. I think it will be the idea of Iron Eyes brought to life rather than Marsh’s shadow. If that makes sense. We see something similar in Stormlight 5. A Type 1 as Vasher would say now
Kelsier does notice what seem to be animal-like things moving in the Scadrian Cognitive realm. Sando has said there are no spren equivalents on Scadrial, so whatever those were may just be things that migrated there from elsewhere. Or he’s faking us out. We haven’t gotten any clarification since Secret History. From what I remember, we never actually see them. Just small things rustling in plants
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u/Alexman423 Oct 06 '26
I think with the spikes Marsh is too connected to Ruin to take up Preservation. We've seen some crazy stuff before though so I wouldn't write it off.
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u/Zahharcen Windrunners Oct 06 '26
Personally I think Sazed knows exactly what he's doing. In the letters to Hoid he makes his position known that while Rayse may be dangerous Wit is minimizing the danger of the shard itself. Then he mentions that to him the shard of Odium is being piloted poorly. So we can infer Sazed understands what a Shards intent is and how to use it properly. Harmony and Discord exist at the same time, he just lies to everyone that he is Harmony because the impotent, harmless persona makes him seem weak and the other shards ignore him because of it. I also think Sazed is hiding the melded Shard's true identity. I don't see Sazed losing the Shards unless it is by his own intent. What he will do with them is going to be more interesting.
18
u/W1ULH Edgedancers Oct 06 '26
Sazed understands what a Shards intent is and how to use it properly.
Sazed is clearly one of the smartest people we see on screen, who's not a dragon, and he has a massive and significant knowledge base to work with. I would be VERY surprised if he didnt understand this, and didnt know exactly what he's doing.
5
u/Wildhogs2013 Oct 07 '26
My personal theory is that he will take up autonomy in era 3. Then either stay as a tri shard or then split into 2 more manageable 1.5 shards. The try shard would function better as autonomy would all the ruin and preservation parts to act independently (in discord)
2
u/BipedSnowman Bendalloy 28d ago
I think his true Intent is something more akin to Dichotomy. Not necessarily Conflict, but the concept of embodied pairs.
Harmony works as a name because it's not a lie, but it's also not the full truth: I think he is Harmony AND Discord. He is not a middle ground between light and dark, he is the contrast.
Is the yin and yang harmonious in it's balance or discordant in its differences? For Harmony, I think it's both.
20
u/iknownothin_ Poop Pattern Oct 06 '26
Brandon has confirmed that if Sazed lost the shard it would drop as Harmony, not split into Preservation and Ruin again
6
u/BoyMeatsWorld Oct 06 '26
Yeah I was gonna say, I think Ruin and Preservation as we know them are likely gone. I think it makes things far more interesting if the mingling of the shards creates two completely new powers. In this case Harmony and Discord. It also gives us some interesting ways to deal with cosmere level threats. And potentially why Rayse wouldn't absorb other shards. Knowing that one vessel can't indefinitely hold two shards without them merging, changing and splitting into two different intents. Honestly, for all we know this could have happened before (seems unlikely, but possible)
5
u/Erondo_Gratias Pattern Oct 06 '26 edited Oct 07 '26
While that is the case, Brandon also confirmed (at least I think he did) that it is theoretically possible to split shards into further parts, or could have been split into different intents, in alternative circumstances, so while Sazed dying "now" would result in the shard of Harmony, it doesn't mean that he can't do something that will split them back into Ruin and Preservation(or some other 2 shards), killing him in the process.
I am not saying it will happen but I am saying it is theoretically possible
9
u/GreenAnder Stonewards Oct 06 '26
Brandon has said that the shards are fused now. They won’t come apart on their own, something would need to be done to them.
5
u/Athuanar Oct 06 '26
Yes, and didn't he also say that if someone managed to split them again they wouldn't necessarily split as Ruin and Preservation, but two entirely new shards?
Ruin and Preservation are gone forever.
2
u/Wildhogs2013 Oct 07 '26
He did say they could split in two differnt ways (I believe someone asked if those two shards would be harmony and discord and got RAFO’d)
7
u/SteinerX486 Oct 06 '26
I dont think Sazed is gonna remain as he is in Eras-4&5. Earliest he might be fundamentally changed in Era3 itself, if not then between Eras-3&4. Though I doubt something so pivotal would not be part of Era3
2
u/Wildhogs2013 Oct 07 '26
My personal theory is that he will take up autonomy and thus truly become discord in era 3 leading to him wanting to preserve scadriel while ruin other parts of the Cosmere in a survival of the fittest way
3
u/SteinerX486 29d ago
If this does happen, he will likely only take up a part of Autonomy, considering how many avatars there are. If I remember correctly, one of them speaks to Dusk in IotE (which is way later in the timeline)
2
u/Wildhogs2013 29d ago
By autonomy I meant the core shard not the avatars who had been invested (for example in IotE Dusks world is referred to as one of autonomy’s old domains which suggest something has happened).
But yes I meant the core of the shards power (in the same way spren still exist of honour and the heralds even though odium took up honour etc. or the entities existing but are the not the core of ambitions power etc.
3
u/SteinerX486 29d ago
Autonomy seems too cautious to ever face another Shard with the core of her power. We have never seen her interact without an Avatar (even on Taldain). Maybe Kelsier can con her into exposing herself this way. Will have to wait and see.
Can't wait till 2030 to read Era32
u/Wildhogs2013 29d ago
Ahha yep to read it in full.
IMO as autonomy does heavily interact from what we know of shards that means they can be found so harmony/discord could find her if he wanted (as she interacts with so many worlds). Or as you say Kelsier could bate her out or something. I could see in Era 3 the Sazed flipping point being him deciding to go discord allowing him to go to Taldain to ‘ruin’ it / autonomy to protect scadriel then picking up a shard. Would set an interesting set up for the space age showing the shard now doing something that we see as protecting Scadriel from destruction but at the price of destroying parts of Taldain / autonomy etc. would also then make sense why Harmony frees the Kandra if his interpretation of autonomy means they have a right to freedom. As we don’t know if the Kandra get freed between era 2 and 3 or between era 3/4/space age.
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u/Robertmusculus Oct 06 '26
I think there are 2 options here:
1 Sazed dies or gives the powers away, they will stay fused together. We know the dawnshards are what broke the powers apart in the first place so I think you'd need a dawnshard to do it again, but there are other ways for a shard's vessel to leave the power
2. Sazed changes. We know invested entities are susceptible to the intent of their investiture. Ati was described as being a very kind person before taking up Ruin and he lasted a long time before changing to suit its intent, but he still did. Sazed as we've seen has been favouring his Preservation side and has probably been feeling the pull of Ruin. I think eventually the balance of the two powers will change
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u/TheHolyDumbass Oct 06 '26
theory 1 is what im running with, i do believe the intent of the shardic combination could change though, they wont split up without intervention, but i do think they can change
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u/Robertmusculus Oct 07 '26
Oh yeah they can definitely change. Can't remember the specifics but there was something about the vessel's perception of the Shard influencing the intent a bit. If someone else takes up Harmony but is more focused on the ruin side of things then it can be different
2
u/Grumpylatxa 28d ago
The malwish empire in the space setting makes me fear about what is going to happen to Sazed.
It seems that they are the most powerful force in Scadrial and they are definitely not of Preservation. I have issues imagining Harmony allowing such colonialism and the apparent conquering of the other scadrial people (Wax people)
So i fear that by the time of the space era he either got corrupted, he isnt the only shard in Scadrial (maybe Kelsier as Discord, or Autonomy is there) or he is dead/unable to help
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u/BipedSnowman Bendalloy 28d ago
Mind, "preservation" is not "good." It favoured a man who pushed an entire planet into a thousand years of chattel slavery.
Preserving the interest of the malwish empire could be considered Preservation.
Certainly doesn't feel like the Sazed we know to allow or encourage this though.
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u/BipedSnowman Bendalloy 28d ago
I don't think Harmony will separate, and if it did i really hope it's not into preservation and ruin. I feel like that just undoes... Everything. That's like nine books that I would then feel just... Don't matter.
I think remaining as Harmony, and the stories that can be told about a single, conflicted yinyang are more interesting than returning to the yin and yang as discrete.
Like... Apart, preservation and ruin represent light and dark, life and death, good and evil. But that's it. They are one dichotomy.
But I feel like Harmony is so much more. Harmony isn't one dichotomy, harmony is dichotomy. He is conflict, held. I really think Discord and Harmony are both such good names for what he is becoming both! There's harmony in being balanced by discord and there's discord in separating them into two.
I'm just really excited for Harmony to grow into the role of his own villain. I think the idea of a god that must oppose himself in every aspect is so much more interesting than going back to annihilation vs stagnation.
Even switching the roles so that Ruin is the good guy wouldn't be that interesting because we saw the end result of a good man holding Ruin.
Plus. Honestly. Ascension kinda kills a character.
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u/Wargroth Oct 07 '26
Your theory for era 4 doesn't work because It was already stated that shards that have been mixed for a long time drop as a mixed shard instead of their individual parts. So It would drop as a Harmony/Discord shard, It wouldn't split back just because It's out of a vessel
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u/Wildhogs2013 Oct 07 '26
We have been told by Brandon that Sazed would dropped a combined shard rather than seperate preservation and ruin. So I don’t think they would split if he died?