[HoA] Conclusion Questions

Was on a flight yesterday and was able to finish up Hero of Ages and I had one major confusion throughout most of the end of the book. My questions possibly are going to be addressed in later books, if so please still answer (with spoiler tags) I'm not going to be reading the next books, but I'm pretty interested in the answers.

My question essentially boils down to: How could Ruin have possibly lost? If their goal was truly to destroy it seems like they could have easily won, and very easily found their body. This is why I'd be interested in comments from those who have read later books, because I suspect the answer is something akin to "Ruin didn't know their true goal, the nature of the universe is that opposing forces are always unknowingly working towards becoming one with each other" or something to that effect.

Onto my "evidence" of why Ruin should have easily won. Normally I read only a chapter or two at a time, but these last 7 or so were all on the plane back to back, so I might be misremembering stuff.

1. If Ruin's goal was to truly destroy (the planet?, the universe?) why didn't they modify the star records in Sazed's metalminds that let him put the planet back in the correct orbit?

• Granted an all-powerful Sazed could have overcome that with time, and just found a suitable orbit even if not the correct orbit.
• Granted there are a lot of metalminds in the world and who knows what to change, but if you want to destroy, and the Lord Ruler already put the planet on an incorrect orbit why not just slightly modify all star records so that can't be fixed. Basically any change that actually helps your cause just modify all info that could undo that. I get that there is a lot of info everywhere, but Ruin was trapped for many thousands of years, this seems like a pretty easy, if time consuming, task to accomplish.
• This is sorta unrelated, but I was really expecting someone to point out the issue with Sazed "testing" religions was that obviously Ruin modified them, I think the conclusion of "you need to believe" is a much better conclusion to that arc, but how did no one point that out? But then again this is the group that didn't notice that the Lord Ruler a feruchemist many thousands years old didn't have a single metalmind, and weren't concerned about that so :shrug:

2. How could Ruin not find their body? This is my main gripe, it feels like it should have been stupidly easy to know where their body was.

• Ruin, even when trapped in the Well of Ascension is still able to pretty greatly affect the world: they can detect when the right conditions come along, near the Well filling in order to get a bronze spike into a mistborn early in their life so they have a hold over them. They are able to communicate directly and indirectly with Zane after he got a spike. They are able to greatly influence Marsh into trying to stop Sazed from stopping Vin from releasing Ruin. They are able to modify written text (not on metal) and information in metalminds and seemingly observe information spoken aloud anywhere. Ruin seems to be able to instruct all of the Inquisitors to go destroy Terris (for some reason, maybe so Vin would more quickly turn around?). All of this while trapped in the Well.
• Ruin should have been able to directly follow atium from the Pits directly to the Trustwarren: the methodology here depends on how much Ruin could "see" while in the Well. Haddek says that the atium geodes were broken open inside a metal room and the atium was removed, but it still would leave that room eventually, and Ruin would recognize the geodes were empty because they wouldn't glow, or at least wouldn't glow brightly. In fact how did the Ventures not notice there wasn't any metal in the geodes were they that incompetent? Haddek goes on to mention the atium was disguised as Ministry funds and hid the beads among coins, but Vin describes atium as having a distinctive glow compared to other metals when she is briefly a god, so that doesn't seem to be a sufficient disguise.
• It seems like the "metal room" was meant to be some type of "gotcha" but given that the atium comes in and two groups of goods come out it isn't that great.
• Lets say for whatever reason Ruin can't "watch" the atium move from the Pits to the Trustwarren. Ruin can greatly influence Inquisitors to due their bidding while they are trapped in the Well. Over many thousands of years they didn't think to have one go slightly rogue and just watch the atium, even just follow everything coming out of the "metal room" to see where each piece goes? This feels very easily achievable.
• Lets say Ruin can't "watch" the atium and doesn't want to play their hand with the Inquisitors before they get out. Over many thousands of years they didn't want to or couldn't even slightly influence any Kandra with spikes in them (granted it needs to be much more subtle due to less spikes) to talk about the Trustwarren or impersonate an Obligator or follow the atium geodes? There's a whole host of creatures that Ruin can influence over many thousands of years but they just choose not to for some reason? Even if Ruin doesn't know they have the atium it seems like slightly modifying their personalities and allegiances over many thousands of years would have been beneficial.
• Okay Ruin for whatever reason can't track the atium from the Pits outward, its lost to them. We also discover from Haddek that the high cost of hiring a Kandra is paying with atium, because their ultimate goal is to collect all the atium. How does Ruin not know that? They can hear conversations. We never actually see a contract so its unclear if that's written in metal or not, lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say it is, but there wasn't a single noble ever that said out loud "man its super weird we have to do Kandra contracts in metal, and boy do they want a lot of atium" for Ruin to hear? Even if that isn't said or for some reason Ruin can't hear it (though its pretty clear that they can hear while in the Well), after they get out why isn't step 1: "Hey Marsh, go to Keep Venture, or some other nobles keep and read aloud a contract, lets see what these Kandra were doing".
• After being released from the Well why did Ruin not find some isolated, or already vaguely traitorous (like KanPaar) Kandra and start working on them? This would also have been easier if Ruin had been slowing poisoning their beliefs over the many thousands of years they were trapped. I get not wanting to "play your hand" but understanding this army of controllable servants the Lord Ruler gave you seems pretty important.
• All metal is super bright for Ruin so why isn't step 2 after being released not "Hey Marsh, we're going on a world tour to every single bright spot"? Vin as a god mentions something about an "atium glare" which to me suggests that atium glows differently, so start with those places, but the Lord Ruler is clever and probably put it in a room plated in metal so it couldn't be directly seen, so just go to the largest collections of metal (Marsh should have easily beat them to all the storage caches, just by Ruin looking for metal collections or particularly weird shapes for metal (like a flat metal wall or a metal cylinder or w/e the Trustwarren is)) those are probably rooms, so check those out then move on. If the Lord Ruler was smart the Trustwarren would be pretty small (making the atium very tightly packed) which would put it pretty far down the list of places Marsh would check out but still. In fact maybe influence Inquisitors while your trapped to go start checking out major collections of metal and see what is going on.

I'm fairly sure I had other points as to why it should be easy for Ruin to find and collect their body, but I can't recall more atm. This collection of multiple ways for Ruin to win as well as a throwaway line in one of the chapter beginning italics from Sazed says something like "even Ruin didn't understand why they did <something>" I don't remember what that something was (I think it was why they chose Vin), but that makes me think that there is a "higher" force where opposite attract or something. So even if Ruin thinks its goal is to destroy, its blinded by a higher goal it doesn't understand.

Very interested to hear what I missed or other commentary!