Mistborn | The Lord Ruler Wasn't Evil?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
- Upon my first read through of Mistborn Era 1, I never really questioned the initial impression I got from the Lord Ruler. He was the big baddie. The evil emperor that the heroes must defeat to save the world. And at first it absolutely seemed that’s what was happening.
But if you’ve finished the trilogy, you probably know there were a lot more logical reasons behind his actions than what was at first apparent...
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So... I can see where you're coming from, but at the same time, this is laboring under the assumption that what he did wasn't worse than just letting the entire planet go extinct from Ruin. He likely managed to kill more people over the span of a thousand years than Ruin could have done by wiping out the planet all at once.
He created a race who's only job is to work, get raped, be murdered, reproduce, and sometimes, if you just so happened to be raped and lose a roll of the genetic dice, your child would be killed too.
Or. If there was a rebellion, even a rebellion you WEREN'T involved in, from people you never met and don't even know, you, your husband/wife, and even kids would be murdered simply to make an example.
Creating a species of human with cognitive thought and a severe degree of desperate self-preservation, ones who would feel the unreal suffering that comes with being sexually assaulted by your master for committing the crime of being born conventionally beautiful... And state-mandating that they have to die before they give birth... That's more evil than any amount of collateral damage that Ruin could ever possibly do.
Ruin, as far as I know, likely wouldn't have tied you up, tortured you, stuck a spike through you, then used you to empower his monsters with brute-forced allomancy.
Statistically, by 'preserving' humanity, he possibly wiped out the population of earth - circa first ascension - over a hundred times across the duration of his time spent as The Lord Ruler.
I don't want to generously call it 'surviving' for a millennia if you are a Skaa who's only job is to POSSIBLY make it to maybe 20 or 30 years old in constant servitude. I refuse to call it 'living' if you are pulled into your Lord's tent at the age of 14 or possibly even lower, then killed days or weeks later so you don't give birth.
If we could go into the beyond, I'd like to understand what the Skaa people would have thought about being 'preserved'. I highly doubt they were grateful for The Lord Ruler's generous kindness of ensuring that they'd live and die never knowing the taste of freedom. The Lord Ruler assumed the mantle of Ruin and tormented billions over billions of people.
If I were to make a video, I'd make one explaining how TLR is Ruin on steroids.
Wow that's a pretty good point. Thanks for the comment!
I would put it more in the perspective that, over time, he simply became more and more invested in 'preserving the world'. To the point where every action he took in 'saving' the world contributed towards a sunk cost fallacy that drove him off the sanity track and (to him) justified committing further atrocities in the name of his overall goal.
He began with good intentions but the more he took questionable actions to preserve people the more he had to keep doing it, otherwise what would've been the point of all the previous moral sacrifices he had made?
Have you read the second and third books? It explains why The Lord Ruler became who he is during the events of The Final Empire.
@@TaariqSiddik An explanation doesn’t come remotely close to a justification, especially in the case of the Lord Ruler
There were some things that he did that made sense only in hindsight, and I wish some more of them had been mentioned. In Well of Ascension, it's stated that while the skaa tenements were miserable, they were also cheap and easy to heat. I can see how the bureaucratic religion of the Steel Ministry would actually be quite effective at administration, turning "paper pushing" into a religious duty and thus incentivising efficiency. The other arm of the Ministry would also, unfortunately, have its uses too, as rogue or untraceable Allomancers (Soothers and Rioters especially) would have an easy time starting rebellions. On paper, many components of the FE had value.
I agree with another commenter who said that the Lord Ruler reflected more of the dark side of Preservation. SPOILER WARNING. You could also make the point that the Lord Ruler was more of an inverse mirror to Sazed, in that Sazed became Harmony while the Lord Ruler was Discord.
On a side note, it's always important to remember that our heroes came from some of the worst possible experiences one could have in the Final Empire. Life was pretty shit for the skaa no doubt about it, but it had to at least be tolerable to have lasted as long as it did.
I always saw the Lord Ruler as an embodiment of the darker side of preservations power. He kept things stable and constant for a thousand years but through his aversion to change within his empire he stifled all the goodnes from it. He was so focused on preserving humanity he forgot to preserve morality.
Very good point!
None of the Shards have much moral status taken purely on Intent. After all, the Shards are pieces of God's power. Even hatred has a place in divinity, among virtues to give it context.
@@joshuafischer684 not the shards, but the vessels may have morals, the same way the have a personality. The problem is that, with time, the intent of the shard is too strong for the vessel (Hoyt is scared of Odium not only because of Odium intent but because Rayse was a bad person to start with, Ati was good, but the Ruin's intent was stronger at the end)
mm that last sentence is perfect man
Book 2 makes it pretty clear that he was the one keeping ruin at bay and I think it just wore away at him over time
Pretty much
There's a line in Final Empire in one of Elend's books that says the plantation system only came around in the 5th century as the most stable structure for society. Perhaps before then things weren't quite so bad.
As the old saying goes: "the path to hell is paved with good intentions"
Considering what just a small taint of Ruin managed to make Quellion and Spook do.... I'd say that Rashek over here wasn't.... thinking straight when he was the final emperor. Like Spook said, even a small bit of metal can corrupt a man.
I think he was both a cold blooded murderer and a hero. He used his power to benefit his friends and to enslave his enemies, but he saved humanity (as a single entity) from Ruin for a thousand years. That's what makes him such a complex and interesting character
It feels like everyone forgets that the vast majority of his empire lived in utter destitution as slaves. Doesn't seem like a particularly heroic way of treating the skaa.
I love the way he's written, but I would expect him to supress allomancy before forsaking the Terris that he loved so much. I often wonder what Rashek would have done if he had gotten the power again tho
Allomancy wasn't the same threat that Feruchemy was. Even if a Feruchemist wasn't an Allomancer, stored attributes like strength and speed would pose an immense threat to even the Inquisitors.
What if he was trying to find where the plant was meant to be, and he got so close. He clearly didn't want the plant to be covered in ash.
He wasn’t evil. Just slowly driven mad by Ruin over time.
Hmmm I'm not sure if he was driven mad actually. Certainly it didn't help his sanity, but all his actions are too calculated for me to consider him mad
@@RavensRants maybe Mad is the wrong word. Maybe “unhinged” would be better. The LR was still in charge of his facilities. The caverns were proof of that.
@@DavidMedic447 I think unhinged works better yeah :)
I think his last words were so different because he was finally free from Ruins touch.
It would actually be really cool if we got a book about him, his full story.
I feel like if Brandon wanted to make Lord Ruler more sympathetic, he should've made the Uncle the Lord Ruler and explained (either through Flashbacks or Ruin explaining) that Ruin drove him mad and made him a tyrant.
It is heavily implied that he was driven mad by Ruin. He had hemalurgic spikes after all. From the hero of ages epilogue: "He suffered much beneath Ruin's hand, but he was a good man, who ultimately had honorable intentions." -Sazed
There’s certainly layers to the character that I appreciate. But the ends do not justify the means. There’s plenty of real world examples of men doing things for the “greater good” and leaving a bloodbath in their wake. A good act does not make up for an evil act. Rashek may have thought he was doing the right thing, but his actions were still by definition evil.
Instant subscription and bell. I’m waiting for your deep dives in Mistborn Era 2 and The Stormlight Archive. Keep up the good work my man.
Thanks for the support! And don't worry, SLA deep dives are around the corner ;)
Actively allowing an upper class to literally be able to rape civilians and the kill them, no matter the supernatural context, isn't never going to be anything but Evil.
Rashek may have started with good objectives, but he lost his way from the very start, turning into a straight up villain soon enough.
The way he describes himself and hoards power thinking he is the only one allowed to not only "save humanity" but rule over it while denying knowledge is beyond villainous. And that's something he did from the very start. He decided through his actions that the world should be dictated by his actions, he took away other people choices that already were made before his journey started
Rashek was just another angry fool who thought he knew best, but eventually became a hypocrite to everything he believed in. Causing so many problems that he didn't know how to fix. And then held Scadriel back in the dark ages for almost a thousand years. Drove his own people to the brink of extinction. Meanwhile surrounding himself with people that could easily be controlled by Ruin. Any "Good" he hope to achieved would have only made things worse.
Ends don't justify the means #Snape
One thing I always liked about Rashek was how good his depiction had been made. Until the inquisitors and rashek started dying I, who had no spoilers about anything on the series, genuinely believed that rashek was a God. I genuinely though that the inquisitors were immortal and this was largely due to how they were presented. Even mistborn, the strongest people alive, the guys able to singlehandedly kill groups of people alone, stood no chance against an inquisitor. Atium or not, you didn't fight an inquisitor, that was madness. The best they could hope for was running away. And that was only for the servants of the lord ruler, as the man himself was on an even higher plane of existence. Other villains such as Ruin, Sadeas, The bleeder were good, but Rashek still stands as the best villain I've ever seen in all of media. The later character development we got out of him just made an already amazing villain even better.
The video sounded like the Lord Ruler created religion basing him as God because he just wanted it. Actually he had to do it. If ge let any religion to exist, then Ruin would alter the religious text over time and make someone to risk their life to release Ruin again. By enforcing him as God, he can controlled what faith and believe people have. Also he had to destroy keepers so that nobody would know what happened and turns against him to release the power again.
My problem is this, Ruin defeats himself. All he had to do was ignore his body and wait another week for the ash to drown the world and he would have won. But he wanted his body first and it cost him.
Not intrinsically evil, but a man who was willing to make the hard choices that had to be made. Incredibly brutal pragmatism, but the fact that he developed things like the supply caches with food, material, and knowledge show that he took seriously the possibility he would fail, and made provision towards the care of the people in that case.
In the end, he was a hard man faced with a series of impossible choices, and in the face of those choices, he made the best ones he could. To do anything less was to consign the whole planet, and maybe the Cosmere itself to decay and ruin. Secret History makes it pretty clear that Ati/Ruin was not going to be content with just the one planet, the ERI would have been next.
I see Rashek as a man who said "Damm the consequences." He had a greater goal, and was quite good in reaching it. The costs just didnt mean anything to him. He did what he thought had to and all else, he just didnt care about.
The way Michael Kramer narrated the lord rulers voice makes it very hard for me to picture the LR as anything BUT completely evil.
He was like Severus Snape, undoubtedly ruthless, though mysterious and does what seems malicious at first for a greater good
He took up the power for a good reason, stopping ruin, but abused it, becoming the lord ruler
How someone so handsome can be bad?
Did you just completely forgot or just completely omit how Rashek was led by an extreme nationalistic views and hate towards Alendi's people in the first place and by this discovery of prophecy being a lie only in second place? And, did the same to the crimes against his own people and his new world of subjects? And, did the same to his deteriorating state of mind and reasons for it? I kinda hoped for a deeper dive into Lord Ruler's history that'll take Preservation and his plan and view on the Lord Ruler into account as well.
I'm interested now what's your view on Jasnah's philosophy lesson, seems like you both were leaning towards idea of intent being the deciding factor when you wrote this video. It'll be interesting to see if anything had changed now and if so how. Maybe your more recent videos will give me answers. Thank you for your work on this video.
I think, that Rashek as a Character did really hit some nerves, that are very present today. His ideas and arguments resemble very much the Bezos' and Musks of this world, who love to talk about long-termism and their great projects but completely ignore the ethics around it.
I always loved in, that Elend in the end succeeds, because he is able to keep his human side despite its "ineffectiveness"
Funny story: in the old extended universe of star wars Palpatine wanted to unify the galaxy so that it could oppose the coming intergalactic invasion by the Vhong.
what i don't understand is, why he could never "take the power" again and change things like a vessel... wasn't that what he was doing anyway? taking the power repeatedly to suppress Ruin?
I'm pretty sure the power only returns to the well every thousand or so years. The time that Vin takes it in the well of ascension is the first time since the final empire was created. The Lord Ruler had planned to take that power and probably make some changes to the world.
Haven't watched the vid yet but I have to disagree , he did genocide, that's sort of a point of no return on the morality front
No, you're wrong. He was pure evil. He didn't kill Alendi because it was the way to save the world; he did it because he was a racist murderer.
The only reason he ever saved the world is, the world is where he keeps his stuff. He doesn't care if other people die, so long as he gets to be in charge.
He established a national policy of, rape but only if you murder. He's a horrible person.
The fact that he assumed no one could possibly save the world but him, isn't kindness or generosity. It's just pure arrogance. The fact that he didn't want Ruin to kill him, himself, doesn't make him a perfect angel. It just makes him an arrogant moron. I mean, look at what happened... he wasn't just wrong about everything, he ended up playing directly into Ruin's hands. Your entire argument is that everything he did, he had to do, in order to save humanity... and then he failed. So why are you excusing a thousand years of atrocity because it saved humanity... when it didn't?
I think he's sorta like taravangian.
but Tara is more evil innately.
He was evil ..
why spend so much time in just saying that this dude was an uneducated idiot at the wrong time and just followed orders without having a plan on how to deal with the consequences (:
he was a dumb guy who happened to be ordered to sneak around the even more stupid Great Hero of Legends and had to do what he did because his uncle order it... the rest is just going with the flow
well he kept himself in power for a thousand years, so he can't have been THAT stupid
Should do a video yomen the reasonable and understand/kid hearted Obligator
I have to disagree his actions including making a slave race were evil
yeah, had he found a way to not to that, i would've given him a pass
So , practically the God Emperor of Mistborn ,, who created monsters for battle . aka Space marines , so on 😁😁😁😁😁😁
Why he left the ska suffer like slave? Definitely evil
The attitude that ends justify the means. That is a definition of evil.
no, it's not the definition of evil.
These arguments defending fascism isn't a great look lol
This is a fictional fantasy book and it’s a attempt to take the perspective of the Lord Ruler to see how the character works, you’re a jackass for no reason lol
💜💜
This title is a spoiler