In the Mistborn series, Preservation is the god of preserving life and stability in the world. He is the opposing force to Ruin, the god of destruction.
Preservation vs. Ruin
It is said that Preservation and Ruin struck a bargain to create the world of the Mistborn novels. They agreed that Ruin would help Preservation create all life, and in return, Preservation promised Ruin he could destroy that life eventually (3.532).
However, Preservation reneged on his promise and refused to let Ruin destroy the world. Although he couldn’t destroy Ruin himself, he could contain him.
“A force like that couldn’t have destroyed his enemy, because he would represent the opposite of destruction. But imprisonment, that would be within his powers” (3.532).
And so, Preservation contained Ruin by giving away most of his consciousness to imprison him and take away Ruin’s body, which was discovered to be Atium itself. This reduced Preservation to a wisp of himself, and he becomes the Mist Spirit.
Preservation’s Tools
The Mists
Under Preservation’s direction, the mists would go out at night and seek out potential Allomancers, then attack them to Snap them to awaken their power. This was an attempt to help protect the world from Ruin. However, many misinterpreted the Mists as being a dark and dangerous force because of these attacks, and this lead to the concept of the Deepness being created.
Allomancy
Preservation fuels Allomancy, the practice of consuming and burning metals. The metal itself is not the source of the power, however. It only acts as a key, unlocking access to Preservation’s power, which can be used differently depending on which metal is burned.
Lerasium
Lerasium is the body of Preservation, just like Atium is the body of Ruin. When a person ingests Lerasium, they are transformed into a Mistborn allomancer, with more power than any normal Misting.
Nuggets of this metal are found all around the Well of Ascension, and it is how Elend becomes Mistborn at the end of the second novel.
Preservation & Vin
Vin was special to Preservation, specifically chosen by the god for a more important purpose. Sazed summarizes this quite well at the very end of the series.
“Preservation chose her from a very young age, as I have mentioned. I believe that he was grooming her to take his power. Yet the mind of Preservation was quite weak at that point, reduced to only a fragment that we knew as the mist spirit.
What made him choose this child? Was it because she was a Mistborn? Was it because she had Snapped so early in life, coming to her powers as she suffered the pains of the unusually difficult labor her mother went through to bear her?
Vin was unusually talented and strong with Allomancy, even from the beginning. I believe that she must have drawn some of the mist into her when she was still a child, in those brief times when she wasn’t wearing the earring. Preservation had mostly gotten her to stop wearing it by the time Kelsier recruited her, though she put it back in for a moment before joining the crew. Then she’d left it there at Kelsier’s suggestion.
No one else could draw upon the mists. I have determined this. Why were they open to Vin and not others? I suspect that she couldn’t have taken them all in until after she’d touched the power at the Well of Ascension. It was always meant, I believe, to be something of an attuning force. Something that, once touched, would adjust a person’s body to be able to accept the mists.
Yet she did make use of a small crumb of Preservation’s power when she defeated the Lord Ruler, more than a year before she began hearing the thumping of the power’s return to the Well.
There is much more to this mystery. Perhaps I will tease it out eventually, as my mind grows more and more accustomed to its expanded nature. Perhaps I will determine why I was able to take the powers myself. For now, I wish to make a simple acknowledgment of the woman who held the power right before me.
Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy” (3.746).
