Preservation, Ruin, & Harmony: A Mistborn Guide

In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, three divine powers—or Shards—govern the world of Scadrial: Preservation, Ruin, and Harmony. Preservation is the power of stability and creation, fueling the magic of Allomancy. Ruin is the power of entropy and decay, fueling the dark art of Hemalurgy.

These opposing powers were originally held by the gods Leras and Ati, who created Scadrial together but became locked in conflict. At the end of The Hero of Ages, Sazed took up both Shards at once, merging them into Harmony. As Harmony, he guides Scadrial by balancing progress with structure.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

• What each Shard is philosophically
• How Scadrial and humanity were created
• The three metallic arts and their origins
• The thousand-year imprisonment of Ruin
• Sazed’s transformation into Harmony
• The future threat of Discord

Who Are Preservation, Ruin, & Harmony?

The Shard of Preservation (Leras)

Preservation is one of sixteen Shards created when Adonalsium shattered on the planet Yolen. Leras, its original holder, chose this power because it matched his nature—he opposed destruction and valued maintaining what already exists.

The Shard’s intent centers on keeping things as they are. Preservation wants to prevent decay, protect life, and maintain the current state of existence.

This sounds noble, but it has a dark side. The intent doesn’t care if people are happy or suffering—it just wants to freeze everything in place.

Leras struggled to act destructively even when necessary. The Shard caused him physical pain when he tried to harm or kill, even if that harm would protect something greater. This paralysis became a major weakness during his conflict with Ruin.

Leras also had a rare ability: he could see the future. This allowed him to predict events thousands of years in advance.

He used this foresight to create complex, layered plans designed to work even after he had forgotten them.

The Shard of Ruin (Ati)

Ruin is the opposite principle: all things must end. Ati took up this Shard after the Shattering, and his personality initially tempered its destructive nature into something more philosophical.

The Shard is the very definition of entropy and change. It’s the principle that without destruction, there can be no renewal.

Ruin isn’t evil. It is the natural process that allows existence to continue by making room for what comes next.

But holding a Shard changes you. Ati started as a kind, generous person who believed nothing lasts forever.

Over thousands of years, Ruin’s intent corrupted that kindness. His philosophical acceptance of natural decay twisted into active desire for destruction. By the time of the original trilogy, Ati barely resembled who he once was.

The tragedy of Ati shows what Shards do to their holders. You don’t control the power—eventually, it controls you.

The Hybrid Shard of Harmony (Sazed)

Harmony is what happened when Sazed took up both Preservation and Ruin at once. There’s debate about whether this created a new Shard or just means holding two at the same time. Most evidence points to them merging into a new, distinct Shard.

Sazed was uniquely qualified for this role. As a Keeper, he’d spent his life storing knowledge in metalminds. When he ascended, he had access to vast religious and historical information that helped him understand what he needed to do.

Harmony’s intent focuses on free will. The Shard wants people to make their own choices, even if those choices lead to harm. Restricting choice contradicts everything Harmony stands for.

But maintaining balance between two opposing powers creates constant tension. Every action Sazed takes must weigh preservation against destruction.

This makes even simple decisions difficult, so he must often rely on agents instead of acting directly.

The Cosmic Bargain: The Story of Scadrial’s Creation

An Unlikely Partnership

After the Shattering, Leras and Ati left Yolen together. They found an empty star system with no inhabitable planets—a blank canvas for creation.

The problem? Their Shards pulled in opposite directions. Preservation wanted to create and maintain. Ruin wanted to destroy.

Working together seemed impossible because neither would be satisfied with the result.

They reached a stalemate. Both knew they could only create by cooperating, but their fundamental natures made cooperation nearly impossible. Years passed as they circled each other, two cosmic powers locked in philosophical gridlock.

The Creation of Scadrial and Humanity

Eventually, Preservation proposed a deal.

They would create a world together and fill it with conscious beings. But there was a catch—Preservation would give up part of himself to grant these beings sapience.

This sacrifice would weaken Preservation relative to Ruin. In exchange, Ruin would get to destroy everything eventually. Preservation would create, and Ruin would end it. The bargain seemed fair.

When they created humans, Preservation invested more of his power than Ruin did. This gave humans more of Preservation’s nature—consciousness, free will, the ability to choose.

But it also guaranteed the imbalance that made Ruin’s eventual victory possible.

This imbalance shaped the metallic arts. Allomancy draws from Preservation. Hemalurgy draws from Ruin. Feruchemy exists as the neutral balance between them.

Preservation’s Betrayal and Ruin’s Imprisonment

Leras had no intention of letting Ruin destroy his creation. Before Ruin could claim his prize, Preservation enacted a desperate plan.

He sacrificed his own mind to create a prison—the Well of Ascension. This perpendicularity trapped Ruin’s consciousness, preventing him from acting directly on Scadrial.

But the cost was absolute. Leras destroyed his own awareness, leaving only automated systems to maintain the barrier.

Preservation also tore away Ruin’s body—most of his power—and locked it in a cycle tied to the Spiritual Realm. This power manifested as atium in the Pits of Hathsin. Ruin couldn’t reclaim his own body while imprisoned.

The strategy worked, but it left Preservation dead. His mind dissolved quickly, leaving only his power operating on autopilot according to plans he’d already forgotten.

Before losing consciousness entirely, Leras set up contingencies. He gave the Terris people prophecies that would guide future heroes.

He programmed the mists to gradually awaken Allomantic power. He created a path to victory that would unfold over a thousand years.

The Manifestation of Power: The Three Metallic Arts

Allomancy: The Art of Preservation

Allomancy lets you burn metals to access Preservation’s power. The metal acts as a key, not a fuel source. When you burn it, you’re tapping directly into the Shard’s energy.

This makes Allomancy end-positive—you gain more than you put in. You’re not using your own strength; you’re channeling an external source. That’s why it aligns with Preservation’s creative nature.

There are sixteen base metals, which fall into four groups:

• Physical Metals: Push or pull on metals (Iron/Steel) and enhance your body (Pewter/Tin)
• Mental Metals: Soothe or riot emotions (Brass/Zinc) and hide or detect Allomancy (Copper/Bronze)
• Temporal Metals: Create speed or slow bubbles (Bendalloy/Cadmium) and see your own past or future (Gold/Electrum)
• Enhancement Metals: Wipe or strengthen Allomancy (Aluminum/Duralumin) and steal or grant attributes (Chromium/Nicrosil)

You can be a Misting (one metal) or a Mistborn (all sixteen). The power is inherited, passed through bloodlines that trace back to when Preservation first awakened it.

Hemalurgy: The Art of Ruin

Hemalurgy steals attributes using metal spikes. You drive a spike through someone’s heart in a specific location, killing them and ripping out part of their soul. Then you pierce someone else with that spike, granting them the stolen ability.

This is end-negative—there’s always loss in the transfer. The recipient gets less than what was taken. That’s Ruin’s principle of entropy and decay in action.

But the real danger isn’t the loss. Hemalurgic spikes create holes in your soul. These gaps let Shards whisper to you, influence your emotions, even control you directly if you have enough spikes.

The Lord Ruler used Hemalurgy to create:

• Steel Inquisitors (pierced with multiple spikes)
• Koloss (transformed humans with four spikes)
• Kandra (intelligent servants with two spikes)

Under Harmony, a person can bear fewer spikes. The merged Shard opposes this destructive magic more strongly than Preservation alone ever could.

Feruchemy: The Art of Balance

Feruchemy lets you store attributes in metal and retrieve them later. Store strength in pewter, and you become weaker. Tap that pewter later, and you get stronger. No gain, no loss—just displacement in time.

Different metals store different attributes:

• Gold stores health
• Pewter stores physical strength
• Copper stores memories
• Steel stores physical speed

Originally, only the Terris people had this power. Preservation gave it to them as part of his long-term strategy against Ruin.

Feruchemy is perfect balance. You can’t create something from nothing, and you can’t destroy what you’ve stored. This makes it the neutral ground between Preservation’s creation and Ruin’s destruction.

Compounding: The Interaction of Arts

When you have both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you can Compound. Fill a metalmind with an attribute, then burn it with Allomancy. The result multiplies exponentially.

The Lord Ruler used gold Compounding to achieve near-immortality. He stored youth in goldminds, then burned them to get far more youth back than he put in. This let him reverse aging indefinitely.

Compounding works because Allomancy adds external power to what you’ve stored. You’re using Preservation’s infinite energy to multiply your finite Feruchemical stores.

The Thousand-Year Saga: The Story of Ruin’s Escape

The Lord Ruler’s Ascension and The Deepness

When Rashek killed Alendi and took the Well’s power, he used it instead of just maintaining the prison. He remade the world according to his vision.

He moved Scadrial closer to its sun, shifted continents, and created mountains. He altered human biology so people could survive the ashfall his changes created.

He gave himself extraordinary power by making himself both a Mistborn and a Feruchemist.

But his changes left gaps in Preservation’s automated systems. Ruin exploited those gaps.

The mists were meant to gently awaken Allomantic potential over generations. Ruin twisted them into a weapon called the Deepness.

Instead of gradual awakening, the corrupted mists killed millions during certain years.

The Deepness became legendary—a power of evil that the Lord Ruler had supposedly defeated. In reality, it was Ruin’s influence leaking through the weakened prison, turning Preservation’s tool against itself.

The Corrupted Prophecies

Ruin couldn’t act directly while imprisoned, but he could influence certain things. He could communicate with people, especially those who were mentally unstable or pierced with Hemalurgic spikes.

More importantly, he could alter any text not written in metal. This let him corrupt the Terris Prophecies that Preservation had created as a guide for future heroes.

Ruin rewrote them to lead the Hero of Ages to release the power at the Well instead of using it. He couldn’t completely overturn Preservation’s encoding—seeds of truth remained—but he twisted the meaning enough to create deception.

A thousand years before the trilogy, a man named Alendi seemed to be the prophesied hero. But a Terrisman named Kwaan realized the prophecies had been corrupted.

He sent his nephew Rashek to stop Alendi before he could release Ruin.

Rashek succeeded, becoming the Lord Ruler instead. This prevented Ruin’s escape but perpetuated the imprisonment for another millennium.

The Well of Ascension and Ruin’s Freedom

The Well filled with power every 1,024 years. Someone had to take up that power to maintain the prison. If they released it instead of using it, Ruin would break free.

Ruin manipulated events to bring Vin to the Well. She was a skaa girl with Allomantic power, shaped by circumstances into someone who would make the choice Ruin needed.

When Vin took up Preservation’s power, she felt overwhelmed by the Shard’s consciousness. Kelsier—who had become a Cognitive Shadow—tried to warn her, but she didn’t understand.

Believing she was sacrificing herself to save Elend, Vin released the power. The prison shattered. Ruin broke free.

The Final Ascension of the Hero of Ages

With Ruin free, the world began ending. But Vin realized her mistake and took up Preservation’s remaining power as a weapon. She burned every bit of atium—Ruin’s sequestered body—fatally wounding him.

In the final confrontation, Vin and Ruin destroyed each other. Both Shards lost their Vessels.

Sazed saw the mists emanating from their bodies and understood the Terris Prophecies at last. He was the Hero of Ages—the one who could take up both Shards at the same time.

When he accepted both powers, they merged into Harmony. Sazed used his stored knowledge as a Keeper to understand what needed to be done.

He moved Scadrial back to its proper orbit, restored extinct species, and rebuilt the world into something closer to what it had been before the Lord Ruler’s changes.

The Final Ascension saved Scadrial, but at massive cost. Two people died to end the cycle of imprisonment and escape. And the new Shard they created carries its own dangers.

The Nature of Harmony

Sazed’s Ascension and the Remaking of Scadrial

When Sazed took up both Shards, he had advantages previous Vessels lacked. As a Keeper trained to store vast knowledge in copperminds, he had access to religious texts, historical records, and scientific information that helped him understand what the world needed.

He reversed the Lord Ruler’s worst changes:

• Moved the planet back to its original position
• Restored normal human physiology
• Brought back extinct plants and animals
• Reformed continents and geography

But he couldn’t—and didn’t want to—make everything exactly as it was before. Some changes had value. Some adaptations humanity made deserved to continue.

The transformation took significant effort and time. Even with godlike power, remaking an entire planet required careful thought and precision.

The Challenges of a Hybrid Intent

Harmony faces a problem no other Shard has: his two halves want opposite things. Preservation seeks to maintain. Ruin seeks to change. Every action requires balancing these competing drives.

Sazed naturally leans toward Preservation—his mortal personality favored protecting and maintaining knowledge. But his role as Harmony requires true balance, not favoring one side.

This creates paralysis. Even simple interventions require careful consideration of how they affect the equilibrium between creation and destruction.

Acting too much like Preservation means stagnation. Acting too much like Ruin means unnecessary loss.

The conflicting intent makes direct action difficult. That’s why Harmony relies on agents—people who can act on his behalf without putting him in the middle of his two natures.

Harmony’s Influence and Agents

Harmony influences the world through several key channels:

• The Mists: The mists now appear in two forms—lighter mists of Preservation and darker mists of Ruin. Where these mists are present, Harmony can observe and influence events more directly.
• The Kandra: These shapeshifting servants act as his primary physical agents. They can take any form and work toward Harmony’s goals while maintaining independence.
• Chosen Individuals: Harmony communicates directly with certain people, like Waxillium Ladrian, through visions or a special earring.

But Harmony’s influence has limits. He’s blind to anything surrounded by metal or written in metal—a restriction inherited from both Preservation and Ruin. This makes him work around obstacles rather than simply overwhelming them with power.

He can hear any living Scadrian’s thoughts but can’t speak to them easily. Full two-way communication requires both Shards working together, which is exactly what makes it possible under Harmony.

The Future of Scadrial

The Prophecy of Discord

A troubling verse in the Terris Prophecies hints that Harmony might transform: “His name shall be Discord, yet they shall love him for it.”

Discord would be the two Shards fighting within a single Vessel rather than working together. Instead of balance, there would be internal war—Preservation and Ruin each trying to dominate.

Evidence points to this already happening. By year 348 after Catacendre, witnesses report seeing a dark shadow behind Harmony—what Kelsier calls “a representation of his other self.”

Kelsier believes Ruin was always more powerful. If Discord emerges, Ruin would likely dominate the conflict. This could have catastrophic consequences for Scadrial and the wider Cosmere.

Telsin Ladrian, an avatar of Autonomy, seems convinced the transformation is inevitable. She believes Harmony pushed Waxillium to become his “sword” because Harmony knew he would soon become Discord and need agents who could act when he no longer could.

The God Metals: Atium, Lerasium, and Harmonium

Each Shard has a physical form called a god metal:

Atium is Ruin’s body. When burned by an Allomancer, it lets you see a few seconds into the future. When used as a Hemalurgic spike, it can steal any power. Most atium was destroyed during the Final Ascension, though some remains.

Lerasium is Preservation’s body. Burning it transforms anyone into a Mistborn, even if they had no Allomantic heritage. The Lord Ruler hoarded the limited supply, using it to create the first noble Mistborn bloodlines.

Harmonium (also called ettmetal) is Harmony’s body. Its spiritual aspect opposes itself—Preservation and Ruin fighting even in metallic form. This makes it extremely reactive, especially with water. It explodes violently when the opposing powers are triggered.

These metals demonstrate how Shard intent manifests physically. Even in solid form, the fundamental nature of each Shard shapes how the metal behaves.

Broader Cosmere Implications and Outside Threats

Harmony’s existence has implications beyond Scadrial. Other Shards view this merger differently:

Odium feared Harmony because two Shards working together might become more powerful than either alone. This fear drove some of Odium’s conflicts with other Shards—he wanted to prevent similar alliances.

Autonomy presents a new threat through Trell and the Set organization. Autonomy values independence and individual choice, which theoretically aligns with Harmony’s philosophy. But in practice, it opposes Harmony’s ability to take unified action.

The tension between Harmony and Autonomy is a different kind of conflict than the one between Preservation and Ruin. It’s not about creation versus destruction, but about how much influence divine powers should have over mortal choices.

As the Cosmere expands and Shards interact more directly, Harmony’s example serves dual purposes. It shows that opposing powers can achieve balance and work toward mutual benefit.

But it also warns that this balance requires immense sacrifice and might not be sustainable.

The future of Scadrial depends on whether Sazed can maintain the equilibrium he inherited, or whether Discord is not a failure but a necessary evolution—a different form of balance that might again transform the world and the fundamental nature of power itself.