Sazed

Sazed
by Ben McSweeney
Abilities	Feruchemist, Shard of Harmony
Titles	Hero of Ages, Master Vaht, First Holy Witness, Chief Ambassador of the New Empire, Harmony
Profession	Keeper, Steward
Groups	Kelsier's crew, Venture army
Nationality	Terris
Homeworld	Scadrial
Universe	Cosmere

By the Forgotten Gods!

This page has extensive spoilers for all of the Mistborn books and short stories, particularly the ending of The Hero of Ages.

“The religions in my portfolio weren't useless after all. None of them were. They weren't all true. But they all had truth. ”

—Sazed

Sazed is a Terrisman steward from Scadrial. He is part of Kelsier's crew. He is a Keeper, considered something of a rebel by the others of his kind. He is the current Vessel of the Shard of Harmony.

Appearance and Personality

by Morgana0anagroM

“People are valuable, Mistress Vin, and so—therefore—are their beliefs. ”

—Sazed

For more images, see /Gallery.

Tall and long-limbed, Sazed has the build of a scholar. His arms and legs are a bit to long for his body, a medical condition caused by his being castrated as a boy. He has a shaven head, his earlobes had been stretched out, and the ears themselves contain studs that run around their perimeter. He wears the lavish, colorful robes of a Terris steward—the garments were made of embroidered, overlapping V shapes, alternating among the three colors of his master’s house. He is soft spoken with a higher pitch and almost with a melodic accent.

When feeling confident, Sazed is the person who—without raising his voice, without seeming to make demands—can control a group and get the information he desires. He's always claimed that he's no leader, but he's actually a fantastic one when he puts his mind to it. His calm sense of purpose puts people at ease, and makes them do as he requests.

Sazed is kindly, peaceful and respectful but with a smart tongue, which is unusual for a steward. A Keeper; he has many earrings, bracelets and bands that act as his Feruchemical metalminds. However for a time after the death of the Lord Ruler, he had to stop wearing much of the jewelry to avoid tempting the bandits.

As a Keeper, he was necessarily secretive, for the Lord Ruler had hunted them practically since the Day of Ascension itself.

He believed in all religions, embracing their contradictions, but respecting what he considered the truth behind them all. This changed after the loss of Tindwyl, where he lost all his faith and decided to read each religion in detail and discard them if there was any contradiction. This left him hopeless. Again, this changed after his last battle in Urteau where with the help of Spook, he found his way back to faith. This found peace stayed with him until he became Harmony.

He enjoys researching and working on texts or engineering. When he does it, order and structure was found throughout his space. As a Terris man, he has specific speech patterns. You can also recognize the same type of sentence construction by Tindwyl, Kwaan, Lord Ruler and Alendi.

Attributes and Abilities

“… When the Steel Ministry no longer holds sway—men will wish to return to the beliefs of their fathers. On that day they will look to the Keepers, and on that day we shall return to mankind his forgotten truths. ”

—Sazed

A Terrisman Keeper, Sazed is a Feruchemist. This grants him the ability to store certain physical attributes inside bits of metal. He holds mostly the information of old and current religions. He counted five hundred and sixty-two different religions: their prayers, their beliefs, their mythologies.

For more information on his Portfolio of Religions, see here.

Religious rites were not the only things that Keepers stored in their uncanny memories; his metalminds contains vast wealth of information on culture, philosophy, and science. With this Sazed has the knowledge to be skilled at several other things, like healing.

Sazed stores many other abilities in his metals to be part of the rebellion, from strength to speed or better vision.

After fighting several times with this powers, he actually became a very good warrior.

History

Sazed grew up as a Terrisman and became a Keeper due to his Feruchemist abilities. He had listened to another Keeper recite his entire collection of histories, facts, and stories. Sazed had memorized each sentence, then shoved those memories into the coppermind for later retrieval. Sazed remembered very little of the actual experience—but he could draw forth any of the books or essays he wished, placing them back into his mind, gaining the ability to recollect them as crisply as when he’d first memorized them. He just had to have the bracers on. He wasn’t content with feigned subservience and wanted to get in involved in the rebellion, even if the other keeper said that was madness. He became a rebellious Terrisman, though he was docile for a normal person, he wanted to be part of change to make the world better.

The Skaa Rebellion

For more information, see skaa rebellion.

The only Terrisman to actively support the skaa rebellion. His main task was to gather information and is used as messenger several times.

Sazed is Kelsier´s steward appointed to serve Lord Renoux and later Vin who he prepared to play the part of a noble woman. He helped her memorize the names of powerful families, practice dinners, gone over conversational etiquette, memorized gossip and later dancing among other things. He accompanied Vin to Luthadel balls, at the start of them he stayed as close as possible giving advice and support, but later moved to the steward’s dinner to gain intelligence He would later report all details including the people who asked Vin to dance.

Sazed found Vin missing after she followed Keliser to Kredik Shaw, he managed to get there just in time to retrieve her, though severely wounded, and took also book they found there.

After that event, he spent most of his time translating the book, which turned out to be Alendi’s journal but at the time he believed it was from the Lord Ruler itself. He spent long hours in the library, poring over its pages with an uncharacteristically excited air.

Sazed was fascinated with the information from the journal, mostly on information from his people (Terris) and from how the land looked (green). He and Vin also tried having her use some of his stored powers by burning his metals, but found the feeling was similar to what it feels to recover information from the metal of a different Feruchemy owner. This was the key to understand the immortality of the Lord Ruler.

After Kelsier’s death, he continued to believe in the cause and explained to Vin and the crew that his death might have been just part of his plan. With this he inspires Vin to go to the highly secured chamber of the palace complex. True to his vow of protecting Vin, he followed her. When she was captured and imprisoned, he left himself get weak, captured and beaten. He was placed in a very bad shape at the cell next to her. He however used his metals to grow strong and open the cells, he almost got her out but his strength ended. Elend came with some of his men to save them. With that support, Vin was able to find the cloak they had taken from her and inside her vials. They defeated the guards and Sazed took Elend out into safety so Vin could go and fight the Lord Ruler.

After seeing to his safety, Sazed came back for Vin. She had beaten the Lord Ruler but had not fully killed him. They were all present when he explained that by killing him they had doomed themselves and then Vin finally killed him with a spear.

He figured out that the Lord Ruler was both a Feruchemist and Allomancer. And understood how the Lord Ruler kept himself young and powerful. This also explained the breeding program and his hate of the Terris and Keepers. He had the fear of someone that could have his same powers.

The Siege of Luthadel

For more information, see Siege of Luthadel.

by Kit Buss

A portrait of Sazed

After the Lord Ruler's death, Sazed left Luthadel in order to fulfill his duty as a Keeper and spread the knowledge of the time before the Lord Ruler to the people of the Final Empire. Sazed carried the complete knowledge of the Terris people, but his specialty was religion, especially those from before the Final Empire. He went south, the direction where Kelsier thought the eleventh metal stories came from, he was frustrated not have information on it.

He saw the land was full of chaos, death, hatred, and disorder now that the Lord Ruler’s no longer patrolled those places. Sazed was disappointed to understand that the people were hoping for him to come back and didn’t understand or care enough to learn a new religion, thus he decided to teach them more practical things. After the year passed and the dispassion of the people and the rejection form his kind continued, Sazed’ started to question the results of the rebellion. He also came across mysterious deaths somehow related to the mists.

He was then found by Marsh, who led him to the Conventical of Seran where the Inquisitors had left after slaughtering all servants. He found spikes and started to ask question on how Inquisitors were “created”. He also found the last words of Kwaan inscribed on a metal plate where he confessed to have found and later betrayed Alendi looking to avoid him from completing his quest. Sazed copied the information by marking it with charcoal and decided to go back north to pass the information.

On his way back he found a village where the people had died inside their homes from starvation and dehydration. One surviving man explained the people did not go out scared of the mists that came during the day. They found that from the people that did go into the mists, some people fled, but some had died. Sazed got the person to a safe place and left him there hoping he could manage and left in a hurry to Luthadel, understanding that the wrongness in the world was more than bandits and chaos.

Before arriving to Luthadel Sazed also encounter Jastes Lekal with over two thousand Koloss army. Sazed stood his ground and managed to talk his way out of the camp taking a message to Elend. His former friend wanted the Atium and was ready to use his army to get it.

When Sazed finally reached Luthadel he found the city had been sieged by two other armies (one from Cett and the other was Straffs) so the Koloss army he brought added to the complexity of the situation. He also let them know of the midsts, however, this news was not fully believed.

He spent much of his time translating and studying the writings of Kwaan, comparing it to his previous knowledge and the writings in Alendi’s journal. He also supported Elend on his research to find lawful ways to keep his throne. Sazed also took the time to care of the despaired people with no resources as well as wounded, sick and starving. They were at the warehouse, where Breeze used his soothing to help Tindwyl feel the need to listen and support Sazed with his studies, and they probably fell in love. Both being Keepers, their research was deep and passionate with access to much more information than anyone could have had. They found the inconsistency of Kwaans actions towards Alendi.

When he was sure that Luthadel would fall to the enemy armies and koloss, he pulled together the old crew except for Elend, Vin and Spook, , there they decided that the latter would be tricked into leaving the city before battle along with Twyndle and Allrianne.

Just before the Battle of Luthadel and under Dockson’s command, he moved to defend the Steel Gate, which was the farthest the koloss were likely to reach and should send messengers to Keep Venture in case of attack. Twyndle decided to stay and declared her love to Sazed just before battle. However as battle drew closer, his confidence flew from him, he asked to be removed from the command chain. He spotted skaa going into the city and went to them, asking to hide again. They were calling him Holy First Witness and looked up to him. Uncomfortable he kept asking them to hide but pulled in some courage and used his feruchemy to fight a koloss, giving the order to fight. They did. His gate was the last one to fall, he fought with his men bravely, very few survived. His gate fell around the time Vin came back so he moved back to the northern gate hoping koloss would have left by then. He found Breeze and moved the people to carry the wounded. He later went to see Vin recover the city and beat Straff’s army, she asked him to secure the city and get supplies, then left. At that moment, he decided she was the Hero of Ages. Tindwyl died in battle letting Sazed to mourn her and his faith shook. He stopped believing and entered a time of despair. In his mourning he decided to continue looking into the contradictions of the information on the well and its power, until he was attacked by Marsh. Marsh was about to kill Sazed, but my mistake sent him his metalminds which gave him the power to battle him until rescued by Ham.

Completely torn from the last events, Sazed left Luthadel and went to the Conventical. There he realized the words of what he read had been changed and understood that only words in metal could be trusted. The last of his faith left him.

The New Empire

Sazed was named Chief Ambassador of the New Empire and was sent to Kind Lekal’s palace to negotiate and sign the treaty with Elend Venture, they succeeded.

A year had passed since he lost Tindwyl and it not only hurt but he had not been able to recover his faith. He stopped wearing his copperminds and decided to study one religion at a time trying to find truth in them, but he added “Religion not true” every time he found any contradiction.

He is appointed to lead the team to control Urteau. He accepted reluctantly as he didn’t feel strong in his faith and understanding of the world. On his way he separated from the group to visit his people who now lived in the Pits of Hathsin. There he was received as noble, with people calling him Lord or even Majesty.

His short stay was enough to understand the mists did not affect the Terris people, and making sure important information was kept in metal. He also gave suggestions on sanitation, food, and others. The people asked him to stay and lead them, but Sazed didn’t consider himself worthy.

Urteau and last battles

Breeze and Sazed along with around 200 people reached Urteau to bring their rebellion down and find the cache to continue feeding their population. His first conversation with Quellion who ruled the city under the name “The Citizen” did receive them but made sure they understood Elend and his rule was not welcomed. They left his building but stayed in the city where they found Spook. He took them to their refugee which was the “Ministry Canton of Inquisition” where the “cache” was hidden, along with the water from the canals.

During his time in this city, he took time to talk to the people and find ways to bring it to good terms with Elend. It was in one of the bars he discovered they believed in a “survivor of the flames”. During an execution, the new hero appeared and they recognized him as Spook. To avoid him getting beaten, Sazed and the others organized a riot and helped him escape. After a long time Spook finally came back to their place. He cared so much for the city and acted so confident that Sazed decided to follow him as opposed to leading. His depression had taken him to not care anymore so he believed it was the best choice. His task would be to reverse-engineer the engine that would flood the canals again.

He enjoyed this task and got deep into the research of the engine, and continued to support Spook, who he grew to respect more even if he knew he was hiding something about his abilities.

Sazed finished the engineering to flood again the canals, they had everything ready, but the riots got out of hand and the city started to burn. The captive Beldre shoot coins to her guards to get out, therefore there was no one to flood the city. Sazed, Beldre and Spook went back it finding the building in fire, he gave up but Spook went into the flames and with his last energy pushed the mechanism and saved the city. With Spook deeply wounded and the city saved, Sazed turned to finish his religion review and despaired as he finished the last one without the answers he was looking for. Meeting with TenSoon who called him “the announcer” got them talking into the realization that the first generation of Kandra were Rasheks Terris companions and that his religion was not really lost. Sazed accompanied him to their homeland to speak to them. He talked all the way to meeting with the first generation. There he learned all about Ruin and Preservation, their creation of the world and the betrayal. Finally he understood the atium was Ruin’s body and it was all there at the Pits in the Kandra’s homeland.

Their prophecy also said that at the end they will have to kill themselves, by taking out their spikes and becoming mistwraiths, they called it “the resolution”. Because of this, KanPaar a second generation Kandra decided to betray them and take control, taking Sazed and the first generations as prisoners. TenSoon and MeLaan freed Sazed but they all had to fight their way through. They found the first generation again and helped them regenerate. They turned against Sazed forced by Ruins spikes and almost killed him, but Haddek from the first generation called for the “Resolution” and they became mistwraiths again. Sazed fully recovered his faith and believed Vin was the Hero of Ages.

He was found by Elend and Demoux. Sazed, a full believer and confident now in Vin as the Hero of Ages offered faith to continue fighting. He also showed them the atium the kandra had cared for, and they burned it for their last fight.

The Final Ascension

“I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages ”

—Sazed’s first words as Harmony in the book left after the final Ascension

Vin defeated Ati; both died and Sazed was the one to find her lifeless body. After a moment of despair, he understood, he was the Hero of Ages. “The Hero would be rejected of his people, Sazed thought. Yet, he would save them. Not a warrior, though he would fight. Not born a king, but would become one anyway.” He took the power of both, Ruin and Preservation. He used all his knowledge of religion and other information to re-craft the world, mostly how it used to be, but with some changes. He became a God; Harmony.

After the Final Ascension, the new world was created by Sazed. He also left for Spook to find, the complete but lifeless bodies of Vin and Elend along with the book where he explains how it all happened.

Relationships

Kelsier

“A very good man, Mistress. One of the best I’ve known. ”

—Sazed to Vin answering if Keliser was a good man

Sazed served Kelsier but did it willingly. He got to know Kelsier well and they had several religious and philosophical conversations. They tend to talk often of different religions, which Kelsier sometimes use to keep his spirits up.

Even after Kelsier’s death Sazed believed in him and decided to record his stories. It is implied he knew of his plan to die to become an inspiration to finish with the Lord Ruler.

From the cognitive realm, Kelsier followed the events and was there with Sazed when he took the power. They were united thereafter.

Vin

Sazed was appointed to coach Vin to play the part of Valette Renoux a noblewoman. He saw that her hair, makeup, and dressing were appropriate. During that time, he also offered information on religions to see if Vin would find one interesting. He accompanied her to the balls guiding her as much as possible, he also recovered and cared for her after she was severely wounded in Kredik Shaw. He did so again after she saved Elend from assassins but ended badly wounded.

Sazed did discourage Vin to meet with Elend, he believed he followed her to annoy her family. Though later, he agreed of being wrong and believed him a good man. Sazed ended up marrying them just before the fight for Luthadel.

At the siege of Luthadel, they again joined, this time to discuss the “Deepness” and the research of the Hero of Ages. They believed to be the equivalent of their era.

After Sazed lost Tindwyl and his faith, Vin was one of the few that noticed and was concerned about his his mental health.

Elend

Sazed did not trust Elend in the beginning. Though later, he agreed of being wrong and believed him a good man. He supported Elend with the law creation and was very vocal on his being a good man, good king and doing the right thing..

Sazed married him to Vin just before the fight for Luthadel.

Spook

Spook and Sazed became closer during their time at Urteau. As Sazed became more depressed, Spook took over the leadership of the crew. Sazed, even though he suspected he was getting mistborn powers like burning pewter, grew to respect him more and more. Spooked asked Sazed’s support with religion during the time he thought he could hear Kelsier Sazed on the other hand was inspired by Spook to find his faith back.

Tindwyl

“You…you’re strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm. ”

—Tindwyl to Sazed on why she loves him

Sazed asked Tindwyl, a Terris member of the Synod, to go to Luthadel to train Elend on being a King. She thought of him as the soul of what it means to be Terris (calm, humble, careful and respectful), however didn’t like him defying their leaders. She didn’t believe in him at first and wanted him to continue with teaching to fulfill his keeper’s duty. One day on the warehouse, she was soothed by Breeze into supporting Sazed with his work,.this brought them closer and they talked to each other with fondness and eventually fell in love..

Trivia

• He was sometimes referred as “Vaht”, apparently, the proper title for a Terrisman steward.
• Each Keeper carries several bracers like this, filled with knowledge—songs, stories, prayers, histories, and languages.
• Sazed's character was inspired by “The Mummy”. At the moment when the oily little thief character gets confronted by the mummy, and pulls out a whole pile of holy symbols. He goes through each one, praying to each god, looking for one that would help him. He was also inspired by a Buddhist monk Brandon met in Korea.
• All of the epigraphs in The Hero of Ages use Sazed's distinct language style.

Notes

This article is still missing information. Please help The Coppermind by expanding it.