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“Vin, Vin. Why can’t you see? This isn’t about good or evil. Morality doesn’t even enter into it. Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men—only the things they want are different.”
“This work I do, it’s about passion, Vin. It’s about dynamic events; it’s about change! That is why you and your Elend are so important to me. People with passion are people who will destroy—for a man’s passion is not true until he proves how much he’s willing to sacrifice for it. Will he kill? Will he go to war? Will he break and discard that which he has, all in the name of what he needs?”
It was much easier for Ruin to get a hold on people who were passionate and impulsive than it was for him to hold on to people who were logical and prone to working through their actions in their minds.
“You are offered proof only once you believe, but if you believe, you can find proof in anything. It is a logical conundrum.”
From the Well of Ascension, of course, a voice whispered in her head. It’s the same power, after all. Solid in the metal you fed to Elend. Liquid in the pool you burned. And vapor in the air, confined to night. Hiding you. Protecting you. Giving you power!
For every Push, there is a Pull. Throw something up, and it will come back down. Opposition. For Ruin, there is Preservation. Time immemorial! Eternity! And each time I push, YOU push back. Even when dead, you stopped me, for we are forces. I can do nothing! And you can do nothing! Balance! The curse of our existence.
He didn’t give up part of himself, making himself weaker, simply so that he could create intelligent life! He knew he needed something of both Preservation and of Ruin. Something that could both protect and destroy. Something that could destroy to protect. He gave up his power at the Well, and into the mists, giving it to us so that we could take it. He always intended this to happen. You think this was your plan? It was his. His all along.
Every religion had clues in it, for the faiths of men contained the hopes, loves, wishes, and lives of the people who had believed them.
