Mistborn (SPOILERS)

[Zaela Sedai]

So thoughts predictions....etc?


I need to reread it, I thought the chars grew so much, as well as the writing from the middle of the 1st book through the 2nd.


Was I the only one surprised by Elend turning into a Mistborn?

[JSUCamel]

You need to stop smoking pot while you type. I can't read through all your mistakes!

WARNING: TONS OF SPOILERS AHEAD, IF YOU REALLY REALLY DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER


















Okay, let's roll.

I need to re-read, too, cause most of the details have flown out of my head, but.. .

Okay, thoughts:

Plot:
Vin and Elend are obviously going to attempt to stop Ruin in the next book. I don't particularly like Vin that much. She has this sort of arrogance about her -- she thinks "I'm not that great" and then five pages later gets an "I can kill you all if I felt like it" attitude. She was the first to decide that she was the Hero of the Ages(HOA) which is actually rather pretentious. It's one thing to make a connection between similar events, but quite another to go up to a scholar and go "Guess what, Saze, I'm the HOA".

Since Vin is the one who mucked up the whole thing, and Elend instills a sort of honor in her in regards to protecting those she loves (her one redeeming quality, imho), she's going to attempt to stop Ruin from destroying the world. I would be delighted to see Vin die at the end and be the true Hero of the Ages. I think that's the biggest reason why he became Mistborn at the end of Well of Ascension -- to set him up as the true Hero of the Ages. If you read the message left behind by Kwaam, the HOA grew up without Mistborn powers. He gets them later. That's more like Elend than Vin.

Incidentally, Vin's personality reminds me a lot of terez.

...

Die, Vin, die!

Just kidding. Sorta.

Moving on!

Elend:
Elend is a fascinating character. For one thing, he's now Mistborn. That begs the question of Snapping. Does one have to Snap in order to have Mistborn powers, or are they inherited and naturally occur? (compare those to learners/sparkers in WoT, respectively). Does Elend have the genetic disposition towards Mistborn powers, did he Snap, or is his newfound Mistborn powers due to the bead of metal the Mist Spirit had Vin feed him? Vin says "So now we know where Allomancers come from". That's actually kind of vague -- did she mean the Well, Ruin, the bead, the traumatic event of being sliced open by a mist wraith, or what?

In Mistborn, it is mentioned that Elend was beaten to within an inch of his life by Straff Venture. This was a common practice in noble families as they were attempting to induce Snapping in their children. This leads me to believe that Snapping is a pre-requisite to Mistborn abilities.

So did the bead cause Elend to develop Allomantic powers, or was it the traumatic event of being stabbed at the Well of Ascension by a mist-wraith? Did the bead bestow powers, or did that bead simply contain metals which allowed Elend to survive the traumatic stabbing?

At any rate, Elend became Mistborn for a reason. I believe he is the true Hero of the Ages. He fits all of the criteria, I think. It's also a nice repetition of sorts. Kwaam misidentified the HOA back when Alendi was around, and Saze misidentified Vin as the HOA in the present.

On that note, notice the similarities in names -- Alendi and Elend. I think that's a key similarity. See my notes on Alendi further down.

Steel Inquisitors
How do they get their allomantic powers? They don't seem to swallow metal. Does their power come from the spikes in various parts of their bodies? Is that traumatic enough to induce Snapping? Does that mean that Steel Inquisitors are drawn only from those who are Mistborn?

Marsh was only a Misting -- he used Bronze -- so that rules that out. When Marsh becomes a Steel Inquisitor, he can suddenly use all kinds of metals. Are these men led to the Well of Ascension and turned into Inquisitors?

At the end of Well of Ascension, Marsh attacks Sazed and keeps him busy just long enough to prevent Saze from reaching Vin to warn her. Marsh says repeatedly "I can't help it. I don't know why, but I have to stop you." This implies that he was driven by Ruin to stop Saze and allow for Ruin's release. This implication also lends support for Steel Inquisitors being created by Ruin in the Well.

I imagine that in order for Ruin to be released, there must be a sufficiently powerful Allomancer, who fits certain criteria. Vin and Alendi (and apparently Reshek) fit that criteria. What if those who don't fit the criteria are dunked into the pool (where Ruin still has power) and turned into Steel Inquisitors?

The Lord Ruler (or Alendi's Failure)
The flip side of Ruin is Preservation. You could argue that the Lord Ruler was acting in the interests of Preservation. The problem with the Lord Ruler's situation is that he took Preservation to an extreme. The status quo could never change, so dystopian philosophies were applied to society in order to prevent change. Instead of preserving, this brought about deterioration. I argue that this isn't Ruin, but an extreme preservation. Kind of like freezer burn.

I wonder exactly what it is that made Kwaam change his mind about Alendi. I wonder if Kwaam realized that Ruin existed in the Well, and that Alendi might choose to keep the power for himself and release Ruin. I'm not entirely sure.

I think that Alendi was sort of like LTT. LTT, of course, was the Dragon, but ultimately he failed. Rand is essentially the next incarnation of LTT. What if Elend is essentially the next incarnation of Alendi? What if Elend can learn from Alendi's mistakes much in the same way Rand might learn from LTT's mistakes, and therefore, succeed where their predecessor had failed?

Interesting possibility, you have to admit.

Allomancy and Feruchemy:
I think Allomancy is one of the coolest ideas for a magic system yet. I like the class divisions, the rules, and the fight scenes. They're just very well done and very well thought out.

So what can we discuss here? Let's list the metals and their corresponding alloys first.

copper (hide Allomancy) --> bronze (reveal Allomancy)
iron (push metal) --> steel (pulls metal)
tin (increase senses) --> pewter (increase physical abilities)
brass (sooths emotions) --> zinc (riots emotions)
atium (see into others' future) --> malatium (see into other people's past)
gold (see into your own past) --> electrum (see into your own future).
aluminum (uses up all metals) --> dalarium or daluminum or whatever it is (superflare other metals)


...well, i forgot where I was going with that. Moving on.

The New Government:
Elend is king again, and this time he's actually legitimate this time. However, he's got Penrod, Cett and Lord Janarle (Straff Venture's general) to deal with. Cett is itching to go off to the Northern Dominance to get his kingdom back and who knows what Janarle is up to. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. Cheers.

[Zaela Sedai]

It was only two typos:p And what's sad is that I'm not smokin anything lol.

I really like Vin, I think she just really wants to fix everything. I do not think she is the HoA, it's way to easy, but who knows maybe she is. I do like the idea of Elend being the HoA, but I really want to see how he reacts to being Mistborn. Obviously Vin is going to have to be his teacher.

As for the snapping, I'm not so sure that when the first Allomancers (I assume the only ones to eat those beads) swallowed the beads that they would have had to snap. It seems kind of assinine that it wouldn't be an immediate change. However I understand where the question comes from because everyone else has to snap in order for them to come to power. I'm going to guess that the bead equals immediate power, and I assume that the bead=Mistborn never Misting. How genetics is brought in to it I have no idea, but this is fantasy, lol. Now does anyone think that they might make more Mistborns or not? There are more beads, correct?

I have no idea about the Steel Inquisitors. I tend to believe that they are something more like the Feurchemists (sp) not Allomancers, even though it seems they all start out as Mistings.The spikes have to have something to do with the powers, they can't just be there to look scary.

[Davian93]

I kinda saw the Elend snapping thing coming...It didn't make sense for Val to actually be with a Normie...and its inconsistent with most fantasy writing anyway.

As for hte writing and characters...they definitely show a massive progression from Book 1 to Book 2. You can see that BS is still growing as a writer in these books. Book 2 felt a little rushed to me and there is good reason. Apparently Tor asked BS to cut the length and basically imposed an artificial ceiling on the length of the book. He did a really good job on it though and I was happy with the overall product. Honestly up to around 300 pages in I was very disappointed in it (I felt like BS was just having fun playing in his world) I'm sure we've all dreamt up fantasy worlds and sketched out our own novels and I always fell into that trap myself. I would get so caught up in a little side story for the characters and ignore the main plot and it felt like BS did a little bit of that as well. Again, overall it was a solid book and I'm happy I bought it.