u/Manoletes2025

I have the theory that Sazed has been Discord since the begining and not that he is changing due to powers not being balanced. Sazed is a scholar and knows all the Terris prophecies, so following some narrative and realmatics narratives it makes sense that he's being Discord and that Harmony is merely a facade (or self-delusion) to buy time.

1. Terris prophecies do not mention a "future change"
   • the exact extract says "his name shall be Discord, yet they shall love him for it" It doesn't say: "first he will be Harmony and then he will turn into Discord". it states that his fundamental identity is Discord.
   • due to his peaceful personality, he chose to call himself "Harmony". However, the reality of the Shards (the fact that Ruin had more free power than Preservation) dictated that the combined entity was born unbalanced from the very first second.
2. The Southern Scadrians - abandonment and sowing the seed of discord
   • Sazed placed the northern population in the Elendel Basin when recreating the planet, while leaving the southern people in a freezing wasteland where they would have died if Kelsies hadn't intervened.
   • If the shard intention was truly Harmony (perfect balance), he would have been forced to distribute resources and geography equitable to all his people.
   • By creating such an extreme asymmetry, Sazed did not create Harmony but engineered the perfect geopolitical condition for future global war. He planted the seeds of discord. The conflict of era 2 and the future world war in era 3 are not accidents but consequences of his initial architecture.
3. Calling himself Harmony as strategy to understand his power.
   • He needed time time after taking control of two opposing forces that had already destroyed Leras and Ati's minds over millenial.
   • Forcing a facade of harmony served as a mental containment shell.
   • While the world worshiped him as a peaceful god ("they loved him for it"), he used those 300 years to study the interaction of metals, hemalurgy, cognitive realm and movement of other shards (like Autonomy)
4. The Shadow
   • Sazed's shadow no longer matches his silhouette. It is not that he is transforming now but the facade of Harmony is finally wearing thin.
   • The shard's true nature (Discord) is breaking to the surface because external pressure from the Cosmere no longer allows him to remain static.
5. Autonomy's invasion
   • Autonomy might have calculated that the only way for Scadrial to survive the armies of Retaliation is for Sazed to fully embrace his identity as Discord.
   • As per her own explanation, she put the planet to the test. But by resisting and forcing Sazed to split the harmonium (revealing the atium and lerasium), she enabled Scadrial to make the technological and military jump necessary for Era 3. Basically, she gave Sazed the slap in the face he needed for his true identity to emerge and to provide a counterweight to Retaliation.

Not sure if this theory is already being discussed around or if anyone has a different idea. But that's the idea, to make discussion and see what happens when books are released. Leave me your comments...