uchoo786
So it is said that the Lord Ruler created the nobility out of the people who supported him in his rise to power, making them taller, stronger etc.
But how does that make sense? Wasn’t his rise to power after he ascended and used up the power at the Well of Ascension, so how exactly did he change human physiology after the fact?
Unless I’ve gotten it wrong and I’m misunderstanding what happened, this timeline doesn’t fit.
Brandon Sanderson
There are a lot of myths about things the Lord Ruler did that aren't accurate. Most of what is said about the skaa and nobility by characters should be taken with a grain of salt.
uchoo786
Ah gotcha, thanks for the reply! I guess I gave it more weight because Sazed speaks about the difference as fact in the HoA epigraphs.
Thanks for the clarification!
Brandon Sanderson
The LR did distribute beads to some people, essentially creating major noble families with access to Allomancy. So there is truth behind what people are saying. They have just taken it too far.
Phantine
Just to clarify, this is the Sazed thing he's talking about
The Balance. Is it real? We've almost forgotten this little bit of lore. Skaa used to talk about it, before the Collapse. Philosophers discussed it a great deal in the third and fourth centuries, but by Kelsier's time, it was mostly a forgotten topic. But it was real. There was a physiological difference between skaa and nobility. When the Lord Ruler altered mankind to make them more capable of dealing with ash, he changed other things as well. Some groups of people—the noblemen—were created to be less fertile, but taller, stronger, and more intelligent. Others—the skaa—were made to be shorter, hardier, and to have many children. The changes were slight, however, and after a thousand years of interbreeding, the differences had largely been erased.
Brandon Sanderson
Sorry, I don't think I read the topic closely enough. The issue here is that OP is, I believe, conflating the people the LR changed and the ones he gave beads to. The changes are real, but not nearly as important as people in world theorized about over the years. (At least when one talks about northern continent people.) What Sazed says here, however, is factual. (Though he doesn't know the LR's intentions, only what he did.)
uchoo786
To clarify, I meant to ask how did he decide who to make nobles and who to make skaa? From what I remember he made his supporters the nobility, which would imply that he made the changes in the balance after he had already used up the power. Right? Or am I misunderstanding and the nobility have nothing to do with who his supporters were?
Brandon Sanderson
He didn't have supporters at that point, not really. He did have people he liked, and groups of people he wanted to advantage--and other goals as well. But he was mostly a guy from the backwaters who didn't know a ton about world politics.
The people he liked later on were the ones he made Allomancers, and they became the most important noble houses. It's possible I didn't make this very clear in the text, though. It was a bit tricky to decide what I wanted to make clear and what I didn't.
