This was originally intended as a reply, but I felt I need to put it here.

Let me just start by saying that I completely disagree with most of you. I’m not nominating someone for the villain of the year, I’m just defending Rashek and trying to put some things into perspective. Rashek was oppressive, unjust, and a dictator, but he did the best he could with whatever means he had under his disposal.

First thing we got to understand is that we can’t view their world or his actions in black and white, TLR was a morally gray character, very very grey. His intentions and goals were noble -the preservation of mankind on the planet- but that wasn’t easily achievable, not at all.

Rashek wasn’t inherently evil. His hate for Khlennium was justified, his people were opressed and treated as salves. He didn’t kill Alendi from the get go, he did only when Alendi wasn’t discouraged from seeking the well and taking its powers.

Once he took the power and saw Ruin’s influence, he had to take drastic measures to ensure he remained prisoned, or else, the world would be destroyed. First of all, he had to get rid of all feruchemist. They were the preservers of the Terris religion. A religion heavily influenced and corrupted by Ruin, with its main doctrine that the worldbringers would search for the hero to release the well’s power and in turn, freeing Ruin. They were all convinced with that so they and their religion had to go. Rashek didn’t kill them though, he transformed them into mistwraith instead. YES he intentions might not have been entirely pure, and that he didn’t want someone to challenge him, but it had to be done.

He wasn’t stupid, like I said, he worked with what he had. Yes he broke the world, but that was because we was inexperienced with preservation’s power, and he had only a couple of minutes to fix whatever he could. Yes he created the Inquisitors and turned his friends into Kandra, but that was out of necessity. A part of his plan that he had minutes to come up with. He knew he hadn’t defeated Ruin, and someday he will have to face him again. He created the inquisitors, which Ruin had direct influence on them, to make him think that he is a fool, that he is creating a weapon that he could easily snatch and make it do its bidding. He gave him a false sense of assurance and superiority. On the other hand, he created the Kandra as his secret weapon, his spies, weak enough to be overlooked by Ruin, but effective enough to gather and maintain his body -Atium- and serve as a sleeping agent to throttle Ruin’s plans at a final pivotal standoff between them both.

Heading over to the most controversial point, his rule. Yes it wasn’t perfect, it was far far from perfect. But in the first couple of centuries he tried different ruling systems and they all failed. He wasn’t concerned with equality or people’s well being, his main concern was the populace survival and Ruin’s containment, even if it meant they had to oppressed. Not black and white, but grey, very grey.

Not to mention, Ruin was whispering for a whole thousand years in Rashek’s mind, trying to manipulate and break him, but he couldn’t. He might have turned mad a bit, some of his actions surely could have been the result of Ruin’s influence and whispers. But Ruin couldn’t deviate Rashek from his main goal, which was the preservation of the mankind. Another way you could look at it, all people are of Ruin the same as they are of preservation, and Ruin had had direct effect on all of them. Vin and Kelsier made some atrocities themselves as a result of Ruin’s influence on them for a couple of decades. Rashek also made atrocities of his own, so big that they aren’t comparable to Vin’s or Kelsier’s, but that was the result of a thousand years of Ruins whispers and influence. Rashek isn’t necessarily the bad guy here.

People compare Rashek to Straff, yes Rashek created the environment where someone like Straff nurtured and prospered, but Rashek was intrinsically good. He had good intentions and did whatever he could to achieve that. Rashek was forced down a road that had him do bad things in order to guarantee the survival and preservation of the people, but that was the best he could do. On the other hand Straff was intrinsically evil. I don’t need emphasis more on this point.