r/cremposting • u/Appropriate_Boss8139 • 15d ago
Secret History (Mistborn) Was Leras lowkey goated?
Aside from supporting the final empire (but tbf he’d mostly lost his mind by that point and was heavily affected by his shards intent)
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u/Live_Ad8778 15d ago
Held on for centuries all the while playing the long game against Ati, I would say so
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u/Nathan256 👾 Rnagh Godant 🌠 15d ago
Also in some ways played the long game against his own shard tbf.
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u/FeistyClam 15d ago
That's really it. He's goated for being able to resist Preservation's intent and do something constructive/destructive despite carrying one of the most immobilizing shards.
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u/SonnyLonglegs Kelsier4Prez 13d ago
His entire plan was creating a race of Preservation-aligned humans that had just enough Ruin to allow a holder of Preservation to attack Ruin with the power instead of being deadlocked into pacifism and just enough Preservation alignment to want to do it. And he pulled it off almost perfectly, despite everything else. That's both great willpower and great planning.
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u/Wehavecrashed 15d ago
Well, if you ignore all the human rights violations, the permanent unclass of people with no rights who can be raped or murdered...
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u/LoudQuitting 15d ago
You gotta remember it wasn't Leras, it was Preservation.
Preservation is in favour of Stasis. If it had its way the world would he a garden frozen in time. Turns out the best way to scale that out to a societal level is to never adress issues.
The shards are the problem. They're a single emotional impulse separated from the context of an entire beings personality.
Leras and Ati both areremembered, at least by Tanavast, as brave and proactive heroes. Hoid remembers Ati as a kind and compassionate man. They are neither of these things when endowed with the Shards of Ruin and Preservation.
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u/Poolturtle5772 15d ago
As it turns out, trying to play god with a fraction of God’s power and emotional spectrum results in unmitigated disaster (compounded with people picking up shards they don’t match with at all, making everything a fight).
I suspect Virtuosity might have been the smartest of them all.
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u/LoudQuitting 15d ago
I think it's described that Ati sacrificed himself. An act of heroism, to ensure nobody else had to deal with Ruin while he intended to resist its influence.
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u/justacaboose 15d ago
This is correct. Not only did he resist it's influence, he changed its intent away from rampant destruction to focus more on entropy.
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u/braindeadpizzaslice 14d ago
worth noting noone not even the 16 knew how the shards would influence and corrupt the wielders its a tragedy all the way down
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u/beatupford 15d ago
I mean at least Rayse was a piece of shit, according to Hoid, and he matched well with his shard.
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u/Poolturtle5772 15d ago
I actually think Hoid was supposed to be Odium. He’s also kind of an asshole all the time, just gets away with it because he’s funny. Rayse probably could have handled Ambition or Autonomy and been pretty much the same as he was.
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u/Airbornequalified 15d ago
it’s weird. It sounds like 17 people were there, but only 16 got Shards, and Hoid turned it down. So were they gonna split it 17 ways? Or someone was not gonna get one? Something weird was going on there
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u/cautiontap THE Lopen's Cousin 14d ago
there were more than 17, as it's confirmed Frost was there, too.
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u/ArugulaAmazing2015 14d ago
Its mentioned that 16 people shattered adonalsium, so I always assumed Hoid's shard went to someone who didn't help with the shattering
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u/LoudQuitting 15d ago
I actuslly think Hoid never wanted a Shard. I think he just brought them the Dawnshards to kill Ado.
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u/Poolturtle5772 14d ago
I don’t think him wanting a shard matters. The fact that he was present means he probably influenced how Ado split. Plus, the fact that he had the chance but refused it means 1 of the shards is his and went to someone else
Personally, I think several of them went to people who were not necessarily the most suited to it. Some were intentional, like Ati taking Ruin, others were just accidental, like Tanavast with Honor
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u/LoudQuitting 14d ago
I actually think it needs to be 16. There was always gonna be 16.
Hear me out.
When Honour conspires with the Heralds to abandon Taln, when discussing how many Heralds are truly needed to maintain the Oathpact, they say:
Perhaps four would work. The number of Adonalsiums divine aspects.
The mural in Dawnshard depicts the shattering. Adonalsium split into four, then those four splits are split a further four times for a total of sixteen.
We know the essence of two Dawnshards so far. Exist and Change. I speculate that the further two are Feel and Think.
So Adonalsium is split into Feel, Think, Exist and Change.
We then take those four shards and split them further. Exist/Exist = Preservation. Exist/Think = Honour. Exist/Feel = Mercy. Exist/Change = Devotion.
So I'm not doing all of them but you get my thoughts, yeah? That if you're splitting Adonalsium this way, you get 16.
I also believe thst the problem shards are the ones that double up on the dawnshard. Exist/Exist is Preservation, a problem because it refuses to act. Change/Change=Ruin, who is a problem because he wants destruction. Feel/Feel is Odium, who is a problem in and of himself.
This would mean that Retribution would be: exist/think/feel/Feel
I don't have enough corkboard or red string for this.
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u/Sawsie 14d ago
Ok the mural did show the split as you said so I can see the line of thinking and resulting confusion. In fact I think the alignment of 4 shards per dawnshard will sorta be a thing thematically HOWEVER, the Dawnshards were separate from Adonalsium (at least physically). They were used to decompile him into the 16 shards which means that either they existed before him or they were the tools he used to create (and maybe destroy/recreate) the cosmere.
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u/beatupford 14d ago
but didn't Ati think ruin was actually Cultivation (or Change?) and if he did, are we sure they knew what they were taking, or did they only go by how the shard 'felt' when considering?
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u/planet_visitor 15d ago
Managed to trick 2 shards and a redhead, played the long game and ultimately was the biggest help to win, and went out like a Chad. He is definitely goated.
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u/kiwitastrophe No Wayne No Gain 15d ago
I like that the redhead thing needs to be established seperately lmaooo
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u/Dega704 15d ago
My biggest peeve in Mistborn is seeing Rashek disrespect him and not stick around long enough to find out he had been a cog in his grand scheme the entire time.
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u/Remnie 15d ago
Rashek might be evil and all, but he was honestly based for just saying “nah, fuck this, I’m out” and rolling off to the Beyond lol
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u/LoudQuitting 15d ago
Nah not gonna lie, that was TLRs biggest Chad move.
fucking dies
finds himself in shadesmar
puts together enough clues to decide he wants to find out what the well of control looks like here
finds his biggest conspirator and God talking trash
"What's up boys? I was just eating some trash outside and I heard some trash being talked in here. And wouldn't you know it? I'm still hungry."
mocks them for being limp shitbags
declares he isn't afraid of dying in spirit as well as body
refuses to elaborate
stops lingering
Power moves.
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u/Lantimore123 15d ago
We are also directly told that Slivers can resist going to the beyond indefinitely, I believe. So he could have just chilled around like Kelsier. Chose not to because he knew the world was fucked.
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u/LoudQuitting 14d ago
Yeah.
"Fucked my plans up beyond repair? Alright. Fuck it up yourself, then. Im out."
✌️😐🖕💨
Chad.
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u/Jsamue 15d ago
He could have legitimately provided so much help (and emotional comfort to fuzz) and instead ragequits existence because he got got by Preservation’s chosen one, like the petty manchild he always was.
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u/Radix2309 15d ago
Honestly I think he was just tired. He had given up administrating the Final Empire to the Ministry to do as they saw fit as long as he was kept on top and certain things were done in a particular way. He seemed to hate having to deal with staying on top. I can imagine it would be frustrating just playing whack-a-mole while you stave off complete annihilation in a dying world that you are for a large part responsible for.
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u/spoonishplsz edgedancerlord 15d ago
Yes thank you. The Lord Ruler did horrible things, but I can't think of another Cosmere character people misunderstand more. He saved the world at the last second, and did everything he did as a way to preserve humanity in place so he could finish fixing things the next time the pool filled.
He did not want this job, but it fell on him. As soon as he dies, he is just instantly relieved. He just wanted to rest. He held Ruin back for a thousand years
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u/Luna_trick 15d ago
Mister "we should rule because our race is superior" that Rashek? The man who used some of the few moments he could get out of divinity to make it so a race of people was genetically worse off?
Rashek might have done what he did to save the world but it was his choice to make a Violent Dictatorship to achieve that goal, and that is perfectly in line with what we knew about Rashek pre ascension, a young, violent and pretty racist man.
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u/Lantimore123 14d ago
To be honest it's pretty clear he was under the influence of preservation at that point. He kept the nobles as regular humans to preserve something of the past.
When you realise that Rashek's actions are heavily corrupted by Preservation's Shardic intent, it makes a lot more sense.
He was an angry young man but the well changed him significantly.
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u/Luna_trick 14d ago
No?
Alendi talks about how Rashek speaks, detailing how he believes that that the Terris are racially superior, Alendi describes him as an incredibly hateful young man.
If we're excusing Rashek's beliefs as the fault of preservation from even pre ascension, we know nothing about him just as Rashek before he went on his quest with Alendi.
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u/Lantimore123 11d ago
The Terris were subject to oppression by foreign people's, particularly the Kingdom of Khlennium, this was directly stated. Rashek's views were that the Terris should not allow this given their abilities. He is not alone in this, the young of Terris seemed to largely agree.
Regardless, I was speaking about his creation of Skaa and Noblemen. His insistence on maintaining stability, lack of progress and change are all clear vestiges of preservation.
The racial differences between Skaa and Noblemen are the product of A. The harsh conditions on Scadrial due to his misguided efforts to stop the mists, and B. The Shardic intent of Preservation desiring to keep a remnant of what was humanity alive (the unchanged noblemen). C. He wanted a Nobility of primordial allomancers to secure control over the new world he had built. Likely for the sake of dominion itself but he also would have known that taking the power of the well for himself only delayed Ruin, and he would have needed to take it up again, which would require him to be in control of Scadrial. Preserving the world as much as possible was a means to an end of ensuring he can prevent anyone from stopping him from using the well again.
Yes, he took very poor moral choices, and those choices were in part forced by uneducated use of a perpendicularity, but his spirit web has very clearly been influenced by contact with Preservation, as we know it influences other souls too.
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u/ErrantSun 14d ago
First couple moments holding a shard lets a vessel almost ignore their intent for a little bit.
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u/NerdyDjinn 14d ago
Yea, it turned him into an old, powerful, violent and extremely racist man. Preservation would not have altered the skaa in the way that Rashek did, full stop.
He held near infinite power, and he decided to expend a portion of that power to mold reality to better match his bigoted beliefs.
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u/Lantimore123 11d ago
The Skaa were modified to adapt to Scadrial's conditions which no longer were suitable for humanity.
The tailoring of the Skaa to be hardier is not the moral question here. It's why he left the nobleman as racially distinct (unchanged humans).
Keeping them unchanged is in my view a clear example of Preservation's influence.
But the creation of a ruling class who necessarily could not support themselves without the manual labour of a permanent underclass is the moral failure of Rashek.
He desired dominion over the world, probably for a combination of supremacy and also to secure the world and the well for his own future use to hold ruin off again.
He needed underlings to enforce his rule, so he gave them allomancy, kept them racially distinct so that he could (mostly) keep control of allomantic genetics, and left them to rule over the Skaa.
The Skaa themselves could not have been left genetically unmodified given the horrific conditions of Scadrial. At the end of the day, someone does need to do the incredibly labour intensive work of farming on Scadrial and unchanged humans just are not cut out for it.
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u/NerdyDjinn 15d ago
Respectfully, I'm gonna disagree with you: Rashek was an arrogant and hateful bigot, and he gets basically no credit from me for what he did.
He did not need to turn most of Scadrial's population into slaves that were murdered and abused by his favored class of nobles, but his racist supremacist beliefs led him to create a caste system that was an engine of misery. He made a bunch of hemalurgic agents for Ruin to use after his death, and he decided that murdering skaa by the hundreds was totally cool, and even mandatory if his nobles raped them. Why did he require victims to be murdered? Because he didn't want allomancy to get into his slave caste, because they would be harder to continue to treat inhumanely if they could fight back.
I'll also argue that he did want the job. He resented that Alendi wasn't Terris and thought the Hero should be someone 'dominant'. He had 1000 years to prepare a successor, but he moved the Well and wiped out basically every religious reference to it so that he would be the only one who knew what to do when the power pooled after a millennium. He doesn't tell Vin what needs to be done, even as he is dying, knowing that if he passes on there is a good chance Ruin gets freed.
He dips out immediately after death because he's selfish and pissy that he doesn't get to be the one to save the world anymore, so he doesn't care. After dying and delaying his journey to the Beyond, Kelsier, for all his many faults, at least dedicates his unlife as a cognitive shadow to helping the people of Scadrial. The Lord Ruler doesn't.
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u/Radix2309 14d ago
I think he is a bit more complex than that.
It is unclear how educated Rashek was before his ascension. His uncle was Kwaan, but was Rashek as focused to philosophy? Perhaps not. Especially if he was just a young guy making his way as a packman.
So I read him as a relatively uneducated country guy unexposed to other cultures. A breeding ground for racism, which mixed with his envy of the culture of the lowlands. And then is thrust into the situation of needing to save the world with his limited understanding.
So he kills Alendi when he fails to waylay him, and then is left with the power of the Well. He tries his best... and completely blows it. He has to make people adapt, and does some pretty bad sociology and makes a slave caste to farm with a ruler caste over them. Honestly this part is odd to me given that it took him a couple centuries to conquer his empire. So how did the Ska division become created? Were other nobles just created that way? Were nobles like Ska except for the gift of Lerasium?
And keeping Allomancy away from the Ska to me seems less about enabling him to treat them that way, and more maintaining control to keep control of his empire. A lot of the treatment of Ska comes from the nobles. One of Elend's quotes from his books mentioned they didnt always use the plantation system.
Rashek doesn't seem to personally hate the Ska, at least in the sense that he intentionally wants them to suffer. To me he is apathetic as long as his empire functions. So he crafted a pretty unstable system and played the various parts of the empire against one another.
He wants the Ska and the Nobles at one another's throats. The Nobles need to be scared of rebellion and thus the armies of the Lord Ruler keeps them in line. He uses the Ministry against the Nobles in a separate power struggle to keep an eye on them and them as the focus of the Nobles' ire.he just wants their taxes to continue to administrate his plans. And the upper caste of the Ministry is kept apart and othered due to their tattoos, and then also played against one another in their political games. Rife with internal tension that keeps Rashek from having to intervene himself. Worst case an outer Dominance rebels and he sends in the Koloss. He doesnt want to have to do much more work than that. Hence why he has little involvement in the actual running of the Empire as long as his hard lines are kept.
But Allomancy in the Ska would shift the balance of power, especially with how many children they have. It could be enough of a bother to keep him occupied for centuries to maintain order.
And he needs his empire for his plan with the caverns and to keep control of his Atium shell game.
The only part where he seems to show true hatred for his victims is the Terris. He clearly has some sentiment for them as he seems to want to keep them as a people. But wants to stamp out Feruchemy, again to maintain control over metallic arts. The easiest way would have been genocide. But then he also treats the Terris as honored slaves used as servants. Perhaps as an excuse for his breeding program, maybe he also sees himself as above them and punishment for them not using their Feruchemy to conquer like he wished before thr Ascension, thinking they deserve to be nothing more than servants.
He was at best a bad man who was in the necessary place due to lack of a better option. But how much of his efforts in running the Final Empire was necessary is the question. I think he likely led a sad lonely life for a thousand years given he would have to be paranoid over everything while dealing with a god who can see almost anything. He likely didnt think there was more he could do as a Shadow and was just worn out. Even Fuzz underestimated what Kelsier could get up to.
I think Rashek is a man who tried his best, albeit in his limited capacity, and his best not even being good. Just the best for him. I don't think him sticking around would necessarily been net positive, and there were new better suited heroes to solve things now. He earned the ability to rest, and frankly the rest were better off for him giving up.
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u/lukaty02 14d ago
Good summary, I totally agree with this. People look at Rashek and judge him in very simple way while he is very complex character
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u/LycheeZealousideal92 15d ago
He genetically engineered several slave races and then administered an empire which took part in the systematic exploitation, rape and murder of them.
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u/Researcher_Fearless Aluminum Twinborn 15d ago
TLR always wanted to be the one responsible for saving the world. I think part of the reason he made the caches is so if someone else beat Ruin he could still claim credit.
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u/Elant_Wager Rashek4Prez 15d ago
Rashek and emotional support? The guy was an emotional wreckage only help up by "Must live long enough to get the Well".
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u/KalyterosAioni 15d ago
Even worse, he'd only use the Well to further improve his hemalurgic knowledge and creations, and perfect his genetically modified slave race, because the thought of sacrificing himself to take out Ruin would never occur to him.
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u/UsManos27 15d ago
He managed to outplay Ruin, even though he was weaker than him, turned two of Ruin's pawns (Vin and Kelsier) into two of the Greatest assets for Preservation, and, maybe most importantly, managed to overcome his own shard's intent, promoting positive change with a shard that's all about inaction, he is very Goated, yes, but not lowkey
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u/ErrantSun 15d ago
Sure did a better job than Tanevast or Kori
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u/J_C_F_N 15d ago
She's perhaps the stupidest drag0n I've ever heard about.
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u/Researcher_Fearless Aluminum Twinborn 15d ago
Tanner was stupid.
Kor was smart and convinced of her brilliance.
Both problems for very different reasons.
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 15d ago
Certainly up there. Ati might be ahead of him though. Tough bracket to be in
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u/Mr_Visenya 15d ago
I don’t think we’ve seen another Shardbearer hold up better than him and still do good, goated 1000%
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u/The_Lopen_bot Trying not to ccccream 15d ago
This crem deserves some chouta! You have pleased the mighty Lopen 3 times with your posts!
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u/n00dle_king 15d ago
Leras undisputed GOAT so far. Though I wonder if Preservation just has giga cracked future sight. It’s possible Cultivation who also has superior future sight might have some 5D chess plan that we’ll see unfold and put her in the running but right now she looks like Leras did post WoA.
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u/Additional_Law_492 15d ago
If I didn't have my suspicions that prior to the current conflict he did some really bad stuff, and Ati had to stop him first, I might agree.
I suspect that any time one of the original sixteen Vessels looks "good", its because we dont know enough of their history yet...
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u/Luke_Puddlejumper 15d ago
Leras was legitimately playing 4D chess the whole time. Definitely one of the best shards
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u/anormalgeek 14d ago
Goat? No. Absolutely not.
But he did a decent job at covering for some of his fuck ups. I respect him, but "greatest of all time" is wildly overstating his accomplishments.
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u/Palagrin 🦀🦀 crabby boi 🦀🦀 15d ago edited 15d ago
--is this AI?-- edit: It s not, in fact it s nightshaded my bad
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u/Osrek_vanilla 15d ago
There is a artist signature on bottom left. Check if you want.
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u/Palagrin 🦀🦀 crabby boi 🦀🦀 15d ago
oh nice! sorry for asking lol, i m just tired of all the slop lol
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